13/11/06
1
Teaching Spoken
English: Words,
Chunks and Grammar
Ronald Carter
University of Nottingham
13/11/06
2
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
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?
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)
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
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.
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
w
wh
at
I m
ea
n
fun
an
d t
hin
gs
lik
e t
ha
t
ho
we
ve
r
Words v. Chunks
13/11/06
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
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
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
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
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