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Describing spoken English From research to classroom materials

Ronald Carter

University of Nottingham

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Textbook Dialogue

Fergus: What did you do last weekend ? Eliot: I went shopping. Fergus: Who did you go shopping with? Eliot: I went shopping with my friend Fergus: What did you buy? Eliot : I bought some clothes 

 

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Real EnglishHi JimAlright?What did you get up to last weekend?I went to Leeds actually.Oh yeahUmm. Just for an overnight. Stayed with friendsUh huhAnd, er, just sat around and chatted and ate.Nice.We went to see the football.Really. Good was it?Definitely. 3-1. Yeah. So, what about yourself?I was in Brighton.Right.

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Top 40 most frequent words: 5m written

1 THE 2 TO 3 AND 4 OF 5 A 6 IN 7 WAS 8 IT 9 I 10 HE 11 THAT 12 SHE 13 FOR 14 ON 15 HER 16 YOU 17 IS 18 WITH 19 HIS 20 HAD

21 AS 22 AT 23 BUT 24 BE 25 HAVE 26 FROM 27 NOT 28 THEY 29 BY 30 THIS 31 ARE 32 WERE 33 ALL 34 HIM 35 UP 36 AN 37 SAID 38 THERE 39 ONE 40 BEEN

Top 40 most frequent words: 5m spoken 1 THE 2 I 3 AND 4 YOU 5 IT 6 TO 7 A 8 YEAH 9 THAT 10 OF 11 IN 12 WAS 13 IT'S 14 KNOW 15 MM 16 IS 17 ER 18 BUT 19 SO 20 THEY

21 ON 22 OH 23 WE 24 HAVE 25 NO 26 LAUGHS 27 WELL 28 LIKE 29 WHAT 30 DO 31 RIGHT 32 JUST 33 HE 34 FOR 35 ERM 36 BE 37 THIS 38 ALL 39 THERE 40 GOT

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From Words to Collocations to Chunks Single words Collocations (lean meat; *strong

car) Idioms and phrases (having forty

winks) Formulaic language (Have a nice

day) Formulaic language: how fixed is

fixed?

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1 YOU KNOW 28,013

2 I MEAN 17,158

3 I THINK 14,086

4 IN THE 13,887

5 IT WAS 12,608

6 I DON'T 11,975

7 OF THE 11,048

8 AND I 9,722

9 SORT OF 9,586

10 DO YOU 9,164

11 I WAS 8,174

12 ON THE 8,136

13 AND THEN 7,733

14 TO BE 7,165

15 IF YOU 6,709

16 DON'T KNOW 6,614

17 TO THE 6,157

18 AT THE 6,029

19 HAVE TO 5,914

20 YOU CAN 5,828

Top 20 2-word chunks (spoken)

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Top 5 6-word chunks (spoken)

1 DO YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN

236

2 AT THE END OF THE DAY 222

3 AND ALL THE REST OF IT 64

4 AND ALL THAT SORT OF THING

41

5 I DON'T KNOW WHAT IT IS 38

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Seven and beyond?

Chunks bigger than six or seven words are rare – the magic number 7

Bigger chunks are ‘learned texts’, e.g. quotations, proverbs, etc.

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0

200

400

600

800

1000

1200

occs

in 5

m w

ds s

poke

n

Words v. Chunks

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Two Main Types of Chunk

prefaces I don’t know if …

I was going to say…

integrated items

as a matter of fact

sort of

or something like that

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Functions of Chunksdiscourse marking

you knowI meanand thenbut I meando you know what I meanat the end of the dayif you see what I mean

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Politeness

prefaces

do you thinkdo you want (me) (to)I don’t know if/whetherwhat do you thinkI was going to ask you

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Hedging, boostingand vagueness

I thinksort of/kind ofa bit (of a)/a couple ofI don’t know/I don’t thinkto be honest with youas a matter of factand stuff like that(and) all this sort of thingor something like that

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Some Linguistic Features of Conversation Ellipsis – [‘Are you] going out?’ Discourse markers- Well, I’m not sure about

that’ Vague language –‘sort of./kind of..’ etc Backchannel -‘Mmm’ ‘Yeah’ etc Simple conjunctions-mainly ‘and’, ‘but’ Hesitation –‘Err’ , ‘Umm’ Repetition – Í went to, went to England’ Non-sequiturs or slips–‘I went to, I’m going to

Leeds Word clusters

Heads –‘My brother, he lives in London’ Tails – ‘He lives in London, my brother’

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Teaching Implications:Linguistic and Social Perspectives: Whose Reality? Use vague language to describe difficult things to other e.g.

Japanese food Take words out of model conversation (add ellipsis) ,

memorise and practice Backchannels can be taught as part of active listening- give

Ss language on strips to make them use it during speaking practice

Compare ‘tidied up’ conversation with a real recording on the same topic. Give Ss tapescript and ask them to underline differences Ss add a feature of natural conversation to a tidied up textbook dialogue

Ask ss to translate a piece of natural spoken discourse, then translate it back into English from L1, then notice the differences between their final translation and the original.

Intercultural Learning: Personal Narratives, Learner Diaries etc: the impossibility of talk

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Conclusions

Chunks show how conversation is primarily about the speaker and listener

Chunks are part of our vocabulary and grammar

Using chunks contributes to fluency