The structural theory - 5th post

It seems that in the wake of last weeks results, its a good idea discuss the issue of language structure.

We will need a bit of context here, so please bear with me. As previously mentioned in the first post, language can be divided into skills and systems. Each of these has within 4 separate categories.

Language skills are easy – listening, speaking, reading, writing.

Language systems need more of an introduction:

1. Lexis: defined as vocabulary. Included are all the words of the language, in isolation, that is without a situation/ context.
2. Grammar: all the typical sentence structures of the language are contained here. Including the combination of them. An example is perhaps the present perfect tense “I've been to London” and a combination could be the second conditional “If I could live anywhere in the world, I'd choose Atlantis”. Interesting to note that this grammar is not derived from studying the language but rather it is the grammar of the most highly regarded language of the time (Latin) which was forced upon this young language.
3. Phonology: the study of phonetics, not only word pronunciation but also sentence stress, intonation and linking sounds (when two words go together there is usually an change of sound i.e. 'Half past seven' becomes 'haf pas seven' and 'half past eight' becomes 'haf pas tate')
4. Discourse: is defined very strangely indeed. Basically, it is real life language or situational language. Defined in a dictionary as: either communication of thought by words; a formal discussion of a subject in speech or writing, as a dissertation, treatise, sermon, etc.; or in linguistics . any unit of connected speech or writing longer than a sentence. (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/discourse) and for more reference (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discourse)

Now, imagine an infant. Out one day with its mother, mom says 'look at the doggie!'. (of course remember the earlier posts saying 'parentese' is later modified to become normal vocabulary). Later the mother draws attention by using the same phrase but changing the object, i.e. 'look at the balloon'. The infant begins imprinting the structure passively into its mind by focussing on mom.

Infants don't learn grammar, nor do they acquire vocabulary by means of being presented with endless lists of words. This natural process happens by means of learning ,through context, certain spoken structures from an authentic language source (mom).

Sounds a little like discourse? Except perhaps the second definition, but give me chance... (*)

By means of collocations (words/ groups of words naturally occurring together) we can analyse any context and put it into memory, much like an infant, but more efficient as the collocation analysis and mnemonics make it a far more streamlined process.

Analysis of Discourse – the collocation division.

1 – lexical collocations

any information word (verb, noun, adjective, adverb) and its naturally occurring compatriots. Such as ' to have a coffee' learners will learn 1 phrase which has many inferred rules of grammar within i.e. to + verb (have), article (a) + noun (coffee). Other collocations in this category include noun + noun; verb + adverb; adjective + noun; adverb + adjective; and any other pairing of these. Usually they have a very strong and clear meaning.

2 – grammatical collocations

Basically a sentence frame. A normal organisation of ideas. The ideas can change but the organisation does not. Such as 'I've never seen a dog before.' We can therefore assume the sentence frame is ' (subject) has never (verb) a (noun) before'. Once we have this, we can fill it with other information words. 'He's never eaten a steak before'. These two collocations (grammatical and lexical) are the two biggest fish in the pond.

3 – situational collocations

These are linguistics items (words/ phrases) which are typically strongly connected with specific situations. Such as the word 'shot' being connected to 1 – guns; 2 – vaccinations; 3 – alcohol; 4 – films and photography; 5 - a chance. Or perhaps the expression 'I beg your pardon' being connected with either 1 – actually being sorry, or the more common situation 2 – when you're annoyed and wish to communicate that you're upset, but in a civilised manner.

4 – cultural collocations

Collocations specific to a culture/ area. That's easy. Such as 'top of the morning to you' but perhaps it should be written more as it is said 'top o the mornin ta ya'. Very typical of us to collocate it with the Irish. Thanks television provided stereotypes. But say to a South African 'its not inside, it's oooonnnnnn......'. The final word ,'top', provides you with a famous catch phrase for a coffee creamer.

5 – prepositional collocations

Much more specific for English, an language with so much importance placed on them. Learners always seem to have a hard time with these. I.e., in ___(?)__ of . What word would you insert? If you were a leader, you would be in charge of other people. You dedicate something in memory of a person. Get the idea? Perhaps its too easy, but it represents the flexibility of the system. For a different language (say Spanish) we can have another set of collocations here.

This type of system is just one suggestion to help create a starting point for any language learner. It also leaves space for a language item to be more than one type. 'To be in charge of a business' shows the aforementioned prepositional collocation, but it now acts as a multi-layered verb collocated with the noun 'business' making it a lexical collocation. All roads lead to Rome.

This system of contextual learning from an authentic source is how we all learnt our mother tongue. The two elements which make it a more adult venture are the mnemonics and the collocations. Nobody learns grammar to be able to function in their mother tongue (perhaps in school, but do you really want to argue that the child/teenager was not proficient in their language before this time?)

No dictionaries to learn meaning, no grammar, no school. Just yourself with authentic contexts.

(*) speaking of authentic contexts, do you see how we can apply the analysis of collocations to the second definition of discourse (a formal discussion of a subject in speech or writing, as a dissertation, treatise, sermon, etc.) and it becomes evident that the only thing which differentiates these contexts from everyday contexts are the specialisation of the collocations. Easy, eh? :D