Teaching Spoken English

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13/11/06

1

Teaching Spoken

English: Words,

Chunks and Grammar

Ronald Carter

University of Nottingham

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13/11/06

2

 

Top 40 most frequent words: 5m written 

 

THE 

TO 

AND 

OF 

IN 

WAS 

IT 

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 

 

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Top 40 most frequent words: 5m spoken 

 

THE 

AND 

YOU 

IT 

TO 

YEAH 

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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13/11/06

4

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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13/11/06

5

9,164

DO YOU

10

9,586

SORT OF

9

9,722

AND I

8

11,048

OF THE

7

11,975

I DON'T

6

12,608

IT WAS

5

13,887

IN THE

4

14,086

I THINK

3

17,158

I MEAN

2

28,013

YOU KNOW

1

5,828

YOU CAN

20

5,914

HAVE TO

19

6,029

AT THE

18

6,157

TO THE

17

6,614

DON'T KNOW

16

6,709

IF YOU

15

7,165

TO BE

14

7,733

AND THEN

13

8,136

ON THE

12

8,174

I WAS

11

Top 20 2-word chunks

(spoken)

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13/11/06

6

Top 5 6-word chunks

(spoken)

38

I DON'T KNOW WHAT IT IS

5

41

AND ALL THAT SORT OF 

THING

4

64

AND ALL THE REST OF IT

3

222

AT THE END OF THE DAY

2

236

DO YOU KNOW WHAT I 

MEAN

1

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13/11/06

7

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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13/11/06

8

0

200

400

600

800

1000

1200

oc

cs

 in

 5

m

 w

ds

 s

po

ke

n

a c

ou

ple

 of

 

at 

the

 m

om

en

t

sm

all

all

 th

e t

im

e

ea

rly

 

yo

u k

no

wh

at 

I m

ea

n

fun

an

d t

hin

gs

 lik

e t

ha

t

ho

we

ve

r

Words v. Chunks

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9

Two Main Types of

Chunk

as a matter of fact
sort of
or something like 

that

integrated 
items

I don’t know if …
I was going to say…

prefaces

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13/11/06

10

Functions of Chunks

discourse marking

you know

I mean

and then

but I mean

do you know what I mean

at the end of the day

if you see what I mean

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13/11/06

11

Politeness

prefaces

do you think
do you want (me) (to)
I don’t know if/whether
what do you think
I was going to ask you

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13/11/06

12

Hedging, boosting

and vagueness

I think
sort of/kind of
a bit (of a)/a couple of
I don’t know/I don’t think
to be honest with you
as a matter of fact
and stuff like that
(and) all this sort of thing
or something like that

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13/11/06

13

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


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