Lexis (words) or grammar: which is most important
1. Sally Speaks Spanish (supra-segmentals ppt)
2. Consider this paragraph:
At the end of the course you should be able to analyse written and spoken texts in terms of their discourse structure and show how writers and speakers create meanings through their choice of lexis (words), and grammar (how they put the words together), and how readers and listeners process those meanings. In addition, you should be able to use a corpus for answering questions about language use, and build your own corpus.
If we take out all the content words, like this ….
At the of the you should be to and in of their and how and through their of, and (how they put the), and how and those. In addition, you should be to a for about, and your own.
it has no meaning at all.
But if we take out the grammatical words and just leave the content words, …
end course able analyse written spoken texts terms discourse structure show writers speakers create meanings choice lexis (words) grammar, words together readers listeners process meanings. able use corpus answering questions language use build corpus
we can get at least a rough idea of what it’s about.
So many linguists now claim that lexical knowledge is much more important than grammatical knowledge in understanding (and learning) a language.
Some key vocabulary:
collocations: two lexical words (not grammatical words) which occur next to each other
can be separated by an article (a, an, the) ; phrasal verbs count as single lexical items
mobile phone ; get the train ; have a meal ; <fill in> a form
lexical chunks : meaningful phrases, groups of words that often go together (can include grammatical words as well as lexical words)
as I was saying ; not only … but also ; in point of fact
lexical bundles : words which often go together but do not have much meaning in themselves
there was a : and then <I > said ; of the ; in a ;