Unit 1: What is vocabulary? Vocabulary Teaching Unit 1: What is vocabulary?

Various definitions and distinctions Words Lexemes Morphemes (bound / free) ‘Chunks’ Grammatical items / lexical items

‘Chunks’ lexical phrases, fomulaic utterances, prefabricated expressions, lexical chunks, phrases, memorized sequences etc. Fixed expressions: hyphenated: swimming-pool, well-known, space-ship, take-away, easy-going or not: in any case, by the way, black and white, strictly speaking, ladies and gentlemen, (be careful) ………………………………………. may be of sentence or clause length: call it a day, How are you? What’s your name? Take care ………………………..……………………… Sub-sets of these are proverbs: All’s well that ends well, Silence is golden, Time is money

‘Chunks’ continued Semi-fixed expressions: …as far as (I) (know) , what’s ... favourite ..., for s.o.’s own good, for ...’s sake……………………………………………… Sub-sets of these are phrasal verbs: run over , come across, look up, get off …………………………………………… c) Idioms may be either fixed: let’s call it a day, a pain in the neck or semi-fixed::: (put [one’s] foot in it, ……………………

‘Chunks’ continued d) Collocations are ‘loose’ chunks: words which tend to go together, may be combinations of various parts of speech: verb + noun: …………………………………………… adjective + noun: …………………………………………… verb + adverb: …………………………………………… Be aware of overlap in meaning between collocation / chunk / idiom.

‘Chunks’ continued d) Collocations are ‘loose’ chunks: words which tend to go together, may be combinations of various parts of speech: verb or adjective + preposition: accuse of, angry with, …………………………………………… verb + noun: to tell + the truth, to make + a mistake, make a bed, take a decision adjective + noun: tall building vs. high mountain …………………………………………… verb + adverb: work + hard, sleep + soundly ……………………………………………

Be aware of… …overlapping definitions: chunks (usually: whole expressions remembered as a single unit) collocations (usually: tendencies of words to co-occur) idioms (usually: figurative) But the borderline between them is ‘fuzzy’, and they are often used by writers interchangeably

Task What items (words/chunks/collocations) can you identify in the following text? Seventy-eight-year-old Emily Morrison lives alone. She doesn’t go out much, so Emily was very pleased when a smartly-dressed young man appeared at her door offering a shopping service. His hair was short and tidy, and he wore a nicely-ironed white shirt and smart black trousers. He promised that her shopping would be in her house within an hour so she gave him her shopping list and credit card details. Her shopping was indeed delivered within an hour. However, when she received her credit card statement at the end of the month, Emily found an $800 charge for clothes purchased in a fashionable Los Angeles boutique that she knew nothing about. She had been deceived by the well-dressed young man.

We found that about 1/5 of the text could be assigned to ‘chunks’. But textbooks teach predominantly single words!