Noticing and learning lexical

bundles

Haidee ThomsonMuroran Institute of Technology

Sponsor: JALT HokkaidoSun 23 Nov, JALT2014, Rm 201A

Language is formulaic – not original

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The idiom principle

‘a language user has available to him or her a large number of semi-preconstructed phrases that constitute single choices…’ (Sinclair, 1991: 110)

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Speaking naturally is speaking idiomatically, using frequent and familiar word sequences (Ellis, 2001, p. 45)

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• Use of formulaic language linked to fluency (Boers et al.,

2006; Pawley and Syder, 1983)

• Formulaic language is stored and processed holistically (Jiang and Nekrasova, 2007; Wray, 2002)

• Faster processing

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Each of…

The way in which…

Assume that…

Depend on…

The case of…

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How do we learn formulaic language?

Native speakers get hours upon hours of input

- From family, community, school etc.

Second language learners receive limited input

- Not enough for incidental learning

• How can teachers expedite the learning process?

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Without intervention

• Rely on word-combination knowledge from L1 (see Laufer and Waldman, 2011)

• Unnatural collocations = strain communication(see Millar, 2011)

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Possible interventions

• Textbook exercises – best to keep the collocation together (Boers,

Demecheleer, Coxhead, & Webb, 2013)

• Translate and notice L1 & L2 differences (Laufer & Girsai, 2008)

• Rote-memorisation (Myles, Hooper, & Mitchell, 1998; Yu, 2009)

• Encourage noticing (underline the formulaic sequence) (c.f. Boers et al., 2006;

Lewis, 1993)

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Lexical bundles

• Most common type of formulaic language (Biber and Conrad, 1999)

• Functional – express stance, discourse organization and framing (Biber &

Barbieri, 2007, p. 265)

• Occur 10-40 times per million words in sub-corpora of a single register

as a result of

by the end of

• Transparent meaning (not idioms)

• Often appear incomplete 11

Schematic linguistic representation

• Incomplete

this is the…

• becomes complete

this is (determiner + noun)(Liu, 2012, p. 27)

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Research questions

• Can learners produce more lexical bundles after they have been noticed with schematic linguistic representation?

• Compared to previous methods, is this an effective way of noticing and learning lexical bundles?

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Participants

• 3 intact classes at a private university in Japan

• Share Japanese as L1

• Completed high school and 1st year English classes

• Second year mixed proficiency classes

• N=65 14

Methodology

Pre-test

• 15 lexical bundles (reduced to 9 target LBs, unknown)

Treatment (reading text)

1) Notice lexical bundles (underlining only) (N=26)

2) Notice lexical bundles (underlining + schematic labels) (N=15)

3) Answer meaning focused questions (N=24)

Immediate post-test

Delayed post-test (2 weeks later)15

Pre-test example

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Japanese Context example

1 やらなければいけないことがい

くらか残っています。

______ ____ _______ things that

need to be done.

Treatment texts

Two short narrative texts (100 words)

• High frequency words (90%)

• Topic 1: My cat

• Topic 2: My brother

List of lexical bundles to be found, underlined and/or labeled

Bare noticing - The way in which she tricks

NSLR - The way in which (det + N) + VP

MFI – no list 17

Scoring method

• 33 words spread over 9 lexical bundles of various lengths

(3-8 words)

• 1 point per word

• 0.5 incremental learning evidence

-Right word but wrong order

-Incorrect article in correct order

-Incomplete word e.g. develop (ment)

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0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

Bare noticing NSLR MFI

Mea

n

Treatment

Mean scores of immediate and delayed post-tests by treatment

Immediate

Delayed

d = .70†

d = .84

*

* p < .05 (sig)† p < .10

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Interpretation

• Noticing with schematic linguistic representation is more effective than bare noticing (immediate post-test)

Why?

Bare noticing - Find and underline as a result of her trickiness

NSLR - Find, underline and label as a result of (determiner + noun)

• NSLR required more attention/evaluation

• Involvement load table on next slide

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Involvement load for vocabulary (Hulstijn & Laufer, 2001)

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Condition NeedExtrinsic=1Intrinsic=2

Search(for meaning)

Evaluation (of appropriate use)

InvolvementIndex(total)

Bare-noticing Moderate 1 Absence 0 Absence 0 1

NSLR Moderate 1 Absence 0 Moderate 1 2

MFI (non-LB area of text) Absence 0 Absence 0 Absence 0 0

MFI (LB area of text) Moderate 1 Moderate 1 Moderate 1 3

Formulaic language shows similar learning patterns to vocab (Alali & Schmitt, 2012)

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Once is not enough

• Noticing with schematic linguistic representation was more effective than bare noticing (immediate post-test)

• But difference disappeared over time (2 week delayed post-test)

- Rehearsal is necessary for long term memory creation

- Productive use

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Lessons for the classroom

Noticing lexical bundles appears to also be effective for uptake

Ask learners to underline lexical bundles in texts

Ask learners to underline and label lexical bundles in texts

Involvement load for vocabulary learning (Hulstijn and Laufer, 2001)

Helps to describe involvement in lexical bundle learning

Check for presence of need, search and evaluation

in lexical bundle learning tasks24

THANK YOU

Questions, comments, suggestions?

haidee.thomson@mmm.muroran-it.ac.jphaideethomson.comslideshare.net

JALT Hokkaido

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