1. Comment on the idea of the quote:

“There is no boundary between lexis and grammar: lexis and grammar are interdependent.” Stubbs, M. (1996). Text and Corpus Analysis. Oxford: Blackwell, p. 36

2. How is the language corpus data used for collocation studies?

3. Why can grammar be described as based on collocation principle?

4. What’s the link between routinising grammar structures and expectations in perceiving oral / written speech?

5. Comment on the idea of the quote:

“What we think of as grammar is the product of the accumulation of all the lexical primings of an individual’s lifetime.” Hoey, M. (2005) Lexical Priming. London: Routledge, pp.160-161.

7. Grammar as an emergent phenomenon (00:48:03 – 00:55:27)

Vocabulary:

• Emergence – (букв. «возникновение», «появление нового») «системный эффект», в теории систем — наличие у какой-либо системы особых свойств, не присущих её подсистемам и блокам, а также сумме элементов, не связанных особыми системообразующими связями; несводимость свойств системы к сумме свойств её компонентов

• emergent phenomenon – term borrowed from sciences studying natural systems

• a shoal of fish

• “sedimentary rock” metaphor

• to become grammatised

• futurity

Points to discuss:

1. Comment on the idea of the quote:

“Language is not fixed, but is rather a dynamic system. Language evolves and changes... [it] grows and organises itself from the bottom up in an organic way, as do other complex systems.” Larsen-Freeman, D. 2006. The emergence of complexity, fluency, and accuracy in the oral and written production of five Chinese learners of English. Applied Linguistics, 27/4, 558-589.

2. How do the quotes below help to understand the grounds for metaphoric representation of grammar as a sedimentary structure?

a ) “We say things that have been said before. Our speech is a vast collection of hand-me-downs that reaches back in time to the beginnings of language”. Hopper, P.J. 1998. Emergent language. In Tomasello, M. (ed.) The New Psychology of Language: Cognitive and Functional Approaches to Language Structure. Mahwah, NJ.: Lawrence Erlbaum. 155-175.

b) “Grammar is seen as … the set of sedimented conventions that have been routinized out of the more frequently occurring ways of saying things…” (Hopper, op. cit)

3. Comment on the idea of the quote:

“Language is the way it is because of the way it has been used.” Larsen-Freeman, D., and Cameron, L. (2008). Complex Systems and Applied Linguistics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 115.

Conclusions (00:55:28 – 01:01:05)

Vocabulary:

corpus linguistics

psycholinguistics

a chunk = “a portion of information”

to misconstrue (a pattern) – to get the meaning of a pattern in the wrong way

Points to discuss:

1. What the function of the “pattern recognition device” that the speaker claims the human brain

contains? How does it work?

2. Is grammar a prerequisite or a by-product of communication?

Wallace Stevens

Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird

I

Among twenty snowy mountains,

The only moving thing

Was the eye of the blackbird.

II

I was of three minds,

Like a tree

In which there are three blackbirds.

III

The blackbird whirled in the autumn winds.

It was a small part of the pantomime.

IV

A man and a woman

Are one.

A man and a woman and a blackbird

Are one.

V

I do not know which to prefer,

The beauty of inflections

Or the beauty of innuendoes,

The blackbird whistling

Or just after.

VI

Icicles filled the long window

With barbaric glass.

The shadow of the blackbird

Crossed it to and fro.

The mood

Traced in the shadow

An indecipherable cause.

VII

О thin men of Haddam,

Why do you imagine golden birds?

Do you not see how the blackbird

Walks around the feet

Of the women about you:

VIII

I know noble accents

And lucid, inescapable rhythms;

But I know, too,

That the blackbird is involved

In what I know.

IX

When the blackbird flew out of sight,

It marked the edge

Of one of many circles.

X

At the sight of blackbirds

Flying in a green light,

Even the bawds of euphony

Would cry out sharply.

XI

He rode over Connectkut

In a glass coach.

Once, a fear pierced him,

In that he mistook

The shadow of his equipage

For blackbirds.

XII

The river is moving.

The blackbird must be flying.

XIII

It was evening all afternoon.

It was snowing

And it was going to snow.

The blackbird sat

In the cedar-lirnbs.