1. 18/05/20151 Describing spoken English From research to classroom materials Ronald Carter University of Nottingham

2. 18/05/20152 Textbook Dialogue Fergus: What did you do last weekend ? Eliot: I went shopping. Fergus: Who did you go shopping with? Eliot: I went shopping with my friend Fergus: What did you buy? Eliot : I bought some clothes

3. 18/05/20153 Real English Hi Jim Alright? What did you get up to last weekend? I went to Leeds actually. Oh yeah Umm. Just for an overnight. Stayed with friends Uh huh And, er, just sat around and chatted and ate. Nice. We went to see the football. Really. Good was it? Definitely. 3-1. Yeah. So, what about yourself? I was in Brighton. Right.

4. 18/05/20154

6. 6 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?

7. 18/05/20157 1 YOU KNOW28,013 2 I MEAN17,158 3 I THINK14,086 4 IN THE13,887 5 IT WAS12,608 6 I DON'T11,975 7 OF THE11,048 8 AND I9,722 9 SORT OF9,586 10 DO YOU9,164 11I WAS8,174 12ON THE8,136 13AND THEN7,733 14TO BE7,165 15IF YOU6,709 16DON'T KNOW6,614 17TO THE6,157 18AT THE6,029 19HAVE TO5,914 20YOU CAN5,828 Top 20 2-word chunks (spoken)

8. 18/05/20158 Top 5 6-word chunks (spoken) 1 DO YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN 236 2 AT THE END OF THE DAY 222 3 AND ALL THE REST OF IT 64 4 AND ALL THAT SORT OF THING 41 5 I DON'T KNOW WHAT IT IS 38

9. 18/05/20159 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.

10. 18/05/201510 Words v. Chunks

11. 18/05/201511 Two Main Types of Chunk prefaces I don’t know if … I was going to say… integrated items as a matter of fact sort of or something like that

12. 18/05/201512 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. 18/05/201513 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

14. 18/05/201514 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

15. 18/05/201515 Some Linguistic Features of Conversation  Ellipsis – [‘Are you] going out?’  Discourse markers- Well, I’m not sure about that’  Vague language –‘sort of./kind of..’ etc  Backchannel -‘Mmm’ ‘Yeah’ etc  Simple conjunctions-mainly ‘and’, ‘but’  Hesitation –‘Err’, ‘Umm’  Repetition – Í went to, went to England’  Non-sequiturs or slips–‘I went to, I’m going to Leeds  Word clusters Heads –‘My brother, he lives in London’  Tails – ‘He lives in London, my brother’

16. 18/05/201516 Teaching Implications:Linguistic and Social Perspectives: Whose Reality?  Use vague language to describe difficult things to other e.g. Japanese food  Take words out of model conversation (add ellipsis), memorise and practice  Backchannels can be taught as part of active listening- give Ss language on strips to make them use it during speaking practice  Compare ‘tidied up’ conversation with a real recording on the same topic. Give Ss tapescript and ask them to underline differences Ss add a feature of natural conversation to a tidied up textbook dialogue  Ask ss to translate a piece of natural spoken discourse, then translate it back into English from L1, then notice the differences between their final translation and the original. Intercultural Learning: Personal Narratives, Learner Diaries etc: the impossibility of talk

17. 18/05/201517 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