Learning and Teaching the Phraseology of English

1. Learning and Teaching the Phraseology of English 2005-08/LTG/SS/ENGL2

2. Project objectives • Enhance teachers’ and students’ critical awareness of the nature and role of phraseology in language. • Design an innovative computer-mediated and corpus-driven learning and teaching methodology that facilitates the study of phraseology in English texts. • Design and implement innovative learning and teaching activities that highlight key elements in the understanding and production of phraseology in English texts and which can be replicated in the most relevant and appropriate applied language studies and English proficiency subjects. • Enhance students’ critical and creative thinking through the understanding, analysis, comparison and application of phraseology that is specific to individual text types.

3. Deliverables (1) • Computed-mediated and corpus-driven learning and teaching methodology, with a built-in tutorial package, relevant to and appropriate for a range of applied English language subjects, English proficiency subjects, and ESP subjects. • A set of replicable learning and teaching activities and materials, aimed at language subject areas which would each emphasise discipline-specific aspects of English phraseology, e.g. pragmatics. • A set of replicable learning and teaching activities aimed at ESP, and which can serve as a template for other ESP subjects taught by ENGL.

4. Deliverables (2) • Design of English Phraseology Software Program: ConcGram • Online ConcGram version http://langbank.engl.polyu.edu.hk/RCPCE/ • ConcGram was used to search different corpora, including RCPCE-Profession-specific corpora: Hong Kong Financial Services Corpus, Hong Kong Engineering Corpus, and Hong Kong Corpus of Spoken English in the preparation of learning and teaching materials and examples, discussion tasks, seminar worksheets, and assignments.

5. Deliverables (3) • ConcGram-generated materials, etc. used at BA and MA levels: • ENGL303 Corpus-driven Language Learning • ENGL561 Practical Communication Strategies I • ENGL560 Analysis of Contemporary English I (50% lexical studies) • ENGL510 Analysis of Contemporary English III (discourse and pragmatics) • ConcGram used by PhD students: • Analysis of hotel website texts • Analysis of pragmatic speech acts in a corpus

6. Deliverables (4) • Conference papers • Greaves, C. and Warren, M. (2007). Uncovering the extent of the idiom principle. International Conference on Corpus Linguistics. University of Birmingham, UK, 27-30 July, 2007. • Greaves, C. and Warren, M. (2007). A corpus-driven approach to learning and teaching the communicative role of discourse intonation. Third International Symposium on Teaching English at Tertiary Level, Hong Kong, 9-10 June 2007. • Knowledge transfer seminars, workshop and consultancy • ICAC • Hong Kong Professional Teachers’ Union • Official Languages Officers • Hong Kong Institute of Surveyors, Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors Hong Kong, Land Surveying and Geo-informatics Department • The Association of Chartered Certified Accounts • Hong Kong Federation of Insurance Brokers

7. BA and MA teaching and learning: materials, tasks and assignments • Concepts: defining phraseology, n-grams and skipgrams, concgrams (meaning-shift units, collocational frameworks, and organisational frameworks), aboutness, aboutgrams, etc. • Use of the ConcGram software program to search for and generate phraseological patterns and profiles in different corpora, and search results used in learning and teaching materials, tasks, and assignments

8. Phraseology The phraseological tendency in language, or what Sinclair (1987) terms ‘the idiom principle’, refers to the way words are co-selected by speakers and writers. To fully describe the meaning and use of language, we need to be able to identify and describe the word co-selections which are evident in linguistic patterns.

9. n-grams and skipgrams • Searches for n-grams (aka ‘clusters’ or ‘bundles’) find contiguous words, e.g. ‘a lot of people’, but not the same patternin instances such as ‘a lot of different people’. • As a result, instances of word association may be overlooked and those which typically occur in non- contiguous sequences (i.e. AB, A*B) risk going undiscovered. • Skipgrams (Wilks, 2005) are non-contiguous word co- occurences In other words, they include constituency variation (AB, A * B) of up to three intervening words – e.g. ‘a lot ofdifferent kinds ofpeople’

10. Concgrams • “a ‘concgram’ is all of the permutations of constituency variation and positional variation generated by the association of two or more words” (Cheng, Greaves and Warren, 2006: 414). • A concgram includes all instances when one or more words are found between the co-occurring words (i.e. constituency variation), andif the co-occurring words are in different positions relative to one another(i.e. positional variation). • The co-occurring words comprising a particular concgram may be the source of a number of configurations. • Lists of concgrams are generated fully automatically using the program ConcGram written by Chris Greaves.

11. Three types of concgrams • meaning-shift units (Sinclair, 2007) • collocational frameworks (Renouf and Sinclair, 1991) • organisational frameworks

12. Meaning-shift unit (MSU) • An MSU equates to Sinclair’s (1996) ‘lexical item’ and is composed of five categories of co-selection: • obligatory invariant core • obligatorysemantic prosody • optionalsemantic preference • optional patterns ofcollocation, and • optional patterns of colligation

13. Illustrating components of an MSU (a two-word concgram): ‘play/role’ • Core: play, role • Collocation: ‘important’ (23), ‘significant’ (15), ‘major’ (8), ‘leading/lead’ (8), ‘central’ (8), ‘key’ (7), ‘crucial’ (6), ‘vital’ (5 ) • Colligation: modifier, determiner, preposition • Semanticpreference: business/economic activities, organisational/societal relationships • Semanticprosody: to participate and/or contribute in a weighty/meaningful manner (shown in the consistent choice of modifier)

14. Concordance of a two-word concgram (MSU) ‘expenditure/increase’ 1 next five years. We also estimate that operating expenditure will increase moderately, at a rate commensurate 2 in the Consolidated Account for 2008-09. Public expenditure as a proportion of GDP will increase from 15.9 3 two and a half times the present population. The expenditure on the Old Age Allowance will increase 4 Since the planning of these projects takes time, expenditure on infrastructure is unlikely to increase 5 health care system were to remain unchanged, expenditure on public health care services would increase 6 and social development. We will increaseexpenditure on social services and welfare and return part of 7 lead to a decrease in revenue and an increase in expenditure in 2008-09. I have also earmarked $50 billion to 8 it is expected that the increase in overall expenditure on health care services will, on average, be two 9 is revenue by $33.5 billion and increase operating expenditure by $41.5 billion in 2008-09. The latter figure 10 measure will increase government expenditure on CSSA payments when inflation rises. 145 11 be sustainable. If we increase recurrent public expenditure or reduce recurrent public revenue, we must be 12 Government cannot increase public health care expenditure indefinitely, we hope that supplementary 13 we will increase the share of public health care expenditure to 17 per cent of government recurrent

15. Collocational frameworks (1) • Collocational frameworks are comprised of grammatical words which frame lexical collocates (e.g. the President of the United States). • Many associated words which recur in a corpus and are sometimes listed as individual ‘clusters’ are produced by speakers and writers within a collocational framework. • Currently, the fundamental role of collocational frameworks is largely ignored by both researchers and language teachers in favour of their resulting products.

16. Collocational frameworks (2) For example, Carter and McCarthy (2006) list the following 4-word clusters: the end of the the side of the the edge of the the middle of the the back of the the top of the the bottom of the but they do not describe the 3-word collocational framework common to them all – ‘the * of the’.

17. An example of a collocational framework ‘the ... of’ a reasonable degree of control over the supply of money. We shall return to this method than possibility of movement for the number of people you anticipate. When possible consumption, and for many the equity of this method of taxation may well be number of applications has kept up, the amount of work that we are engaged in has er ampaign. Amongst Labour identifiers, the effect of reading a right-wing paper on their cases, one should not underestimate the impact of this new illustration ofthe Court's be over when he broke down badly in the spring of 1988. He was promptly retired but indeed form and process figured in the titles of a number of books concerned with

18. Organisational frameworks • Comprised of conjunctions/connectives and/or discourse markers which combine to organise part(s) of the discourse. • Five of the top ten (next slide) are no surprise (or/whether, either/or, and/both, also/but and neither/nor). They are known as ‘correlative conjunctions’. • The rest (plus others that do not make it into the top ten) are identified by searching for concgrams.

19. Top ten 2-word organisational frameworks or/whether either/or because/so and/both also/but actually/what if/then I mean/you know I think/that neither/nor BNC (5 million)

20. Concordances of an organisational framework ‘because/so’ assume that it's constant it will be Q over two because that takes you half way up so the holding cost small pixels the colour doesn't change any but because the size is become smaller so the resolution didn't get any nasal pharyngeal aspirate anymore because the nurses refuse to do it so we in- instead we both by nominative and nominative case (.) er because this is the accusative (.) so this is ruled out appropriate for the items that you're looking at because they won't all be the same so we can attempt try that question I think it's highly complementary because China is such a big country so we'll be doing three classroom settings (.) in that paper be- because it's it is a group project [so I I I'm B: also to the department and the university okay because like me just a small potato here so I cannot ... to Admiralty that often so that's okay with me because I don't have to see it that often erm but my whenever you can do it so reciprocity isn't rare because it's Asian but blue is m- is a more western types of situations so we deal with these things because there's a very good chance that you'll be caught River Delta cities so you're welcome to join us because I hope you would find it useful to you in terms the tourist group so he goes as fast as he can because the dolphins are like chasing the boat [(.) and (.) research before so um some friends helped me because they study PhD in research so they helped me and for the target (.) so er it's quite unsuccessful because erm most of the customer are are student and they citizen's budget so they didn't get into Todd's because they thought the prices were expensive (.) P_ R_

21. Determining aboutness • Concgrams are the raw data needed to reveal the phraseological profile of a text, or corpus, i.e. all of the meaningful associations of words. • From the phraseological profile of a text, or corpus, it is possible to arrive at its aboutness through the identification of ‘aboutgrams’.

22. Phraseological profile Concgrams are a useful source of raw data to reveal the co-selections made by the speakers and writers represented in a text or corpus. They can be used to determine keyness and aboutness in the ways that single word frequencies are currently used. They are a potential starting point for quantifying the extent of phraseology in a corpus and hence determining the phraseological profile of the language contained within it.

23. An example of a learning and teaching activity: students discuss and compare concgram lists provided by the teacher • Data • Engineering text (4,810 words) – a research article on ‘Seismic Response Reduction of Tall Buildings’ • A Hong Kong corpus of Engineering English (1 m words) • BNC (100 m words) • Procedure For each of 1, 2 and 3 above, a list of the ten most frequent lexical words, and a list of the ten most frequent lexically-rich two word phrases are compiled. (following 3 slides) • In-class discussion tasks • Compare the most frequent lexical words and phrases found in the engineering research article with those in the Hong Kong Engineering Corpus and the BNC. • Discuss the findings.

24. Text-specific lexical words: most frequent lexical words in an engineering research article text

25. Text-specific aboutgrams: aboutgrams in the engineering research article

26. Engineering-specific aboutgrams

27. Example of a BA seminar task • ENGL303 Corpus-driven Language Learning: Worksheet 8 Concgrams • Learning outcomes • To understand the WSConcGram function in WordSmith* and use it to search for concgrams in a corpus, and • To analyse the concordance of a concgram, using Sinclair’s (1996, 2004) model of five categories of co-selection: the obligatory core word or words and semantic prosody, and the optional collocation, colligation and semantic preference. * ConcGram (Cheng, Greaves and Warren, 2006) is acknowledged by Mike Scott.

28. Example of an MA assignment (1) • MAEP Lexical Studies • ASSIGNMENT TWO: Concgramming for lexical items 1. Study the concgram concordance lines below (slide 30). Starting with each centred (node) word, describe as fully as possible the five categories of co-selection that make up a ‘lexical item’ (Sinclair, 2004). (70%) • Discuss the claim that an understanding of phraseology is the key to understanding ‘lexical items’ as units of meaning. Use your analysis of one of the following sets of concgram concordance lines in your discussion. (30%) Suggested length: 1,200 words

29. Example of an MA assignment (2) play/role 1 The advisers Professional advisers play an essential role in the management buy-out 2 1. What is market research, and why does it play an important role in the marketing function? 3 last-mentioned - marketing research agencies - play a significant role in the whole area of 4 M Ps can help in coordinating this. They could play an outstanding role in, in giving the information 5 who will discuss how the private sector can play a more prominent role in local and urban 6 person in his organization has a major role to play in pleasing the customer and they know it, and 7 The financial controller has a key role to play in facilitating this learning process by 8 Select Committees will have an important role to play in further developing the presentation of these 9 sections like the British, have a vital role to play. The annual budget for 1990 was GBP11 million, 10 resource does have a significant role to play in helping corporations to achieve viable provide/service 1 the civil servant takes pride in the quality of serviceprovided. Similarly, if the official is expected 2 I believe in particular, the best possible service we can provide. <u who=PS1UV> We're going down 3 have absolutely no affect on the quality of the service that we provide to our client, but they form 4 f efficiency and quality, in fact we provide a service that's second to none. We shouldn't have to 5 weak and can only gain strength by providing a service superior to that of his competitors. 6 we can make a profit and we can provide a good service to the clients, a good level of cover. When it 7 a management company will provide an invaluable service in day to day maintenance. The accommodation 8more efficiently and provide an even better service to the customer; seizing initiatives to secure 9 you and your team are providing a first-class service to them? If not, why not? Convene your team and 10 investment. We provide a highly professional service, backed by many years' experience, specialising concern(s)/express 1 VACANT PUBLIC LAND There has been increasing concernexpressed in recent years over the amount of 2 Mercia area of the Trust already has expressedconcern about the effect of any airport expansion on all 3 o get a letter that expresses interest in them, concern about them and opens the door for further contact 4 SECTION 1. INTRODUCTION The problem that concerns us now can be expressed as follows. A tribunal 5 o business behind closed doors. And much of the concerns that we've been able to express about the Health 6 "self-determination". They spoke about the "concerns and worries" President Gorbachev had expressed at 7 Department of the Environment er expressing our concerns er er erm way in which er [unclear] 8 m households via 2,800 milk rounds, expressedconcern at proposals to abolish the Milk Marketing Board. 9 which promote waterlogging and salinisation. Concern is also being expressed about the proposed 10 business behind closed doors. And much of the concerns that we've been able to express about the Health

30. References Carter, R. and McCarthy, M. (2006). Cambridge Grammar of English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Cheng, W., Greaves, C. and Warren, M. (2006). From n-gram to skipgram to concgram. International Journal of Corpus Linguistics 11(4): 411-433. Renouf, A.J. and Sinclair, J.McH. (1991) Collocational Frameworks in English, in Ajimer and Altenberg (eds) English Corpus Linguistics, pp 128-43. Sinclair, J. McH. (1987). Collocation: A Progress Report, in R. Steele and T. Threadgold (eds) Language Topics: Essays in Honour of Michael Halliday, pp. 319-331. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Sinclair, J. McH. (1996). The search for units of meaning. Textus 9/1: 75-106. Sinclair, J. McH. (2007). Collocation Reviewed. (manuscript), Tuscan Word Centre, Italy. Wilks, Y. (2005). REVEAL: the notion of anomalous texts in a very large corpus. Tuscan Word Centre International Workshop. Certosa di Pontignano, Tuscany, Italy, 30 June – 3 July 2005.