Lexical Phrases in Current Taiwanese Junior High School English Textbooks
By
Yen-Ju Lai
A dissertation submitted to the School of Humanities of
the University of Birmingham for the degree of
Master of Arts
in
Teaching English as a Foreign or Second Language
(TEFL/TESL)
Centre for English Language Studies The University of Birmingham September 2006
i Abstract
Lexical phrases, words that tend to be grouped or collocated together, may contribute to fluent and rapid language production. Some empirical corpus studies also suggest that lexical phrases make up a considerable part of native speakers’ discourse (see e.g. Erman and Warren, 2000). This dissertation investigates the lexical phrases, especially fixed expressions and phrasal verbs, presented in English textbooks currently used in junior high schools in Taiwan.
The aims are to check whether textbook designers give due importance to lexical phrases in textbooks, to examine how commonly textbook usages and senses also occur in natural language discourse, and to scrutinize how well textbook phrases reflect the way that people use language.
The results of this study suggest that more than half of the lexical phrases in the textbooks are rarely used in real spoken and written communication. The frequencies of many phrases are much higher in the textbooks than in natural corpora. In contrast, the forms of the separable phrasal verbs used in the textbooks are of the same frequency as the natural language corpus. Overall, the findings of this study suggest that textbook authors should draw on corpus data as a natural language resource, and in this way ensure that textbook language more fully reflects real human language communication.
i Dedication
To my mother, whose continuing support and encouragement
have made my dream come true.
To my supervisor, Terry Shortall, whose inspiration and assistance
have made this work become a reality.
ii Acknowledgements
I would like to express my immense gratitude to my supervisor for his patience, guidance, and great assistance. I am also deeply grateful to my family, especially my mother and my sister, for their continuing support and encouragement during this program. Finally, I would like to offer my heartfelt thanks to all my classmates and friends here, for the emotional support when I felt frustrated and depressed. Without these people, I would never have been able to complete this work.
iii Contents
1 Introduction 1
1.1 Background 1
1.2 Aims and Purposes 1
1.3 Organization 2
2 Lexical Phrases 3
2.1 Defining Lexical Phrases 3
2.2 Lexical Phrases in Discourse 6
2.3 Lexical Phrases in Acquisition Studies 8
2.4 Previous Research on Lexical Phrases 9
3 Textbook Language and Corpus Language 12
3.1 The Nature of Textbook Language 12
3.2 The Nature of Corpus Language 13
3.3 Differences between Spoken and Written English 14
4 Materials and Methods 16
4.1 Junior High School Textbooks in Taiwan 16
4.2 Choosing Sources and Corpus Design 17
4.3 Identification of Lexical Phrases 18
4.4 Procedures of Data Collection 20
5 Results and Analyses 23
5.1 Fixed Expressions and Phrasal Verbs from Vocabulary Boxes 23
5.1.1 Fixed Expressions from the Boxes 23
I 5.1.2 Phrasal Verbs from the Boxes 26
5.2 The Most Frequent Lexical Phrases Picked from Cluster Lists 32
6 Conclusion 37
6.1 Summary of the Findings 37
6.2 Implications for Textbook Writing 38
6.3 Limitations and Suggestions for Further Research 39
6.4 Concluding Remarks 39
Appendices 41
A Multi-word Items from Vocabulary Boxes in the Textbooks 41
B Top 50 Items Extracted from the Lists of Word Clusters 44
C Textbook Usage/sense of Phrasal Verbs Per Million Words
in Usspok and Usbooks 49
References 51
Tables
2.1 Moon’s (1998) Classification of Lexical Phrases 4
2.2 Willis’ (2003) Classification of Lexical Phrases 5
5.1 The Frequencies of Fixed Expressions 23
5.2 The Frequencies of Phrasal Verbs 27
5.3 The Frequencies of Separable Verb Phrases 31
5.4 The Most Frequent Lexical Phrases from Cluster Lists 33
II 1 INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background
Materials and methods are important issues in the field of second or foreign language teaching. There is a lot of research on teaching methods and there are also many studies of how to design materials. Yet little research on materials is carried out on corpus-based language. In Taiwan, the most common materials for English teaching in schools are textbooks. In 2001, the Taiwanese Ministry of Education published guidelines for junior high school textbooks. To date, there are six series of English textbooks approved by the Ministry and available for junior high school teachers to adopt and use. Though all these series of textbooks are based on the guidelines and are approved by the Ministry, it remains to be seen whether the language in these textbooks reflects the language of natural communication among native English speakers or not. Therefore, a study of textbook language in the approved textbooks is an imperative. Also, it can be truly beneficial for language teachers and textbook designers if this study of textbook language can be carried out by comparing with lager-scale natural corpus, which may offer some valuable perceptions or insights into the appropriateness of the language in the textbooks.
1.2 Aims and Purposes
Lexical phrases, words that are usually grouped or collocated together, are believed to take a very important part of naturally occurring discourse, and it is noted that lexical phrases are the basic elements of fluent language production. For this reason, the purposes or aims of this study are to compare the frequencies of the lexical phrases introduced in the textbooks against natural authentic corpora, so as to investigate the textbook senses and the usages of the phrases, and then examine how
1 well they reflect the language people use in real world communication. It is anticipated that the importance of lexical phrases is acknowledged by the textbooks and that the phrases chosen for students to learn are selected on the basis that they are useful for daily communication and occur frequently in authentic English discourse.
1.3 Organization
This introduction has already outlined the aims and purposes of this study. It is also offering a skeleton of the study. Chapter 2 reviews the literature concerning lexical phrases, corpus language, textbook language, and spoken and written English.
Chapter 3 describes the English education in Taiwan and the innovations in English textbooks for junior high schools. Chapter 4 presents the materials and methods for this study, including data collection, corpus design, identification of lexical phrases, and reasons for the corpora chosen for comparison. After that, chapter 5 reveals the results and the findings of the study, and there are also discussions about the results and findings. Finally, in the conclusion, there are a summary of the findings, some implications for English teaching in Taiwan, limitations of the study and some suggestions for further studies.
2 2 LEXICAL PHRASES
2.1 Defining Lexical Phrase
Lexical phrases can be roughly defined as “sequences of word forms that commonly go together in natural discourse” (Biber et al., 1999: 990). A lexical phrase is “a sequence, continuous or discontinuous, of words or other elements, which is, or appears to be, prefabricated: that is, stored and retrieved whole from memory at the time of use, rather than being subject to generation or analysis by the language grammar” (Wray, 2002: 9).
Different researchers use different terms, such as ‘multiword sequences/items/units’, ‘lexical bundles/units/chunks’, ‘sentence stems’,
‘prefabricated routines and patterns’, ‘formulae’, ‘formulaic sequences/language’, and
‘prefabricated language/patterns/expressions’ or ‘prefabs’ (see for example Nattinger and DeCarrico 1992, Weinert 1995, Hunston 2002, Wray 2002, Willis 2003, and
Biber et al. 2004), and they also have different perspectives on terms. For example,
Wray uses the term ‘formulaic sequences’ because “the word formulaic carries with it some associations of ‘unity’ and of ‘custom’ and ‘habit’, while sequence indicates that there is more than one discernible internal unit, of whatever kind” (2002: 9). And for Nattinger and DeCarrico (1992), ‘lexical phrase’ is used because they want to emphasize the relation between formulaic language and their functions and meanings, as noted by Schmitt and Carter (2004: 4). In the present study, I will follow
Nattinger and DeCarrico’s idea of ‘lexical phrases’ because it is a more embracing term, as it includes collocations, phrasal verbs, binomials, idioms, compound words, and fixed and semi-fixed expressions.
3 There is still disagreement as to “what precisely constitutes a lexical phrase or lexical category”, and “there is certain to be some lexical overlap” between lexical phrases, collocation, and so on (Koprowski, 2005: 323). To take ‘collocation’ as an example, the term may also include fixed patterns (like ‘for example’)and variable frames(like ‘as far as … concerned’) where variation is possible in the frames but not in the fixed patterns; or it may only refer to the fact that certain words tend to co-occur together in predictable ways, like ‘rancid butter’, and this kind of collocation is not regarded by some as a lexical phrase (Nattinger and DeCarrico,
1992: 36). It is also difficult to set lexical phrases clearly into a specific category; as
Moon (1998: 19) puts it, “there is no generally agreed set of categories, as well as no generally agreed set of terms. Moreover, no clear classifications are possible, although sets of tests may be applied to distinguish major groupings”. For example,
Moon (1998: 19-23) has three categories as shown in Table 2.1.
Table 2.1: Moon’s (1998) classification of lexical phrases
Category Definition Subtype and example anomalous phrases which are 1. ill-formed collocations collocations “syntagmatically or e.g. by and large, stay up
paradigmatically aberrant” 2. cranberry collocations
e.g. to and fro, short shrift
3. defective collocations
e.g. at least, beg the question
4. phraseological collocations:
e.g. on show, to a … extent formulae phrases that “are specialized 1. simple formulae
4 pragmatically”, “generally e.g. alive and well, not exactly
compositional semantically”, 2. sayings (including quotations,
and “generally conform to catchphrases, and truisms)
lexicogrammatical conventions e.g. an eye for an eye
3. proverbs
e.g. enough is enough
4. similes
e.g. as good as gold
metaphors “non-compositional” phrases 1. transparent metaphors
because of their semantics, e.g. alarm bells ring
including pure idioms 2. semi-transparent metaphors
e.g. grasp the nettle
3. opaque metaphors
e.g. red herring
Willis (2003: 144-5) identifies four types of lexical phrases: polywords, frames,
sentences and sentence stems, and patterns, as the table below shows.
Table 2.2: Willis’ (2003) classification of lexical phrases
Category Definition Example polywords the same strings of words occurs according to, so to speak, in
again and again without variation my view frames discontinuous strings with gaps to are whatever … are necessary,
be filled by a whole range of are not … but
words depending on the context
5 Sentences and phrases which constitute a whole How do you do? sentence stems sentence, or “are simply sentences How are you?
which occurs regularly in given Would you like…?
contexts” patterns discontinuous phrases noun denoting conflict,
systematically related to resolution, and relationships
identifiable sets of words (war, agreement, love…) +
between
In spite of these various terms and classifications, lexical phrases appear to be the
center and focus of many studies under different headings. In this study, the focus is
to investigate the frequency and representativeness of all chunks listed in the
vocabulary section in the textbooks (which I loosely categorize as lexical phrases)
and to see how these phrases are used in the textbooks and in large-scale corpora.
2.2 Lexical Phrases in Discourse
‘The idiom principle proposed by Sinclair (1991: 110) illustrates that “a language
user has available to him or her a large number of semi-preconstructed phrases that
constitute single choices”, which accounts for “the restraints that are not captured by
the open-choice (‘slot’ and ‘filler’) model”. The open-choice principle indicates that
texts can be conceived as “a series of slots” to be filled with any grammatical word
(Sinclair, 1991: 109). For example, at the point I like is completed, at the slot
following like, “virtually any word can occur”, as long as the word satisfies
grammatical restraints. The boy, apples, swimming, and many other choices are all
possible for the slot. Similarly, when as a matter of is completed, there is a wide
range of choice for the word following of as long as it is grammatically correct,
6 according to the open-choice principle. But fact stands out immediately to many people because as a matter of fact has become a fixed combination in their lexicon, so fact becomes a single choice for this slot. The idiom principle indicates the very existence of prefabricated language in texts.
From lexical theory and various empirical corpus studies, it has been suggested that lexical phrases or prefabricated items construct a large proportion of native speakers’ spoken and written discourse (Schmitt and Carter, 2004:1). As Biber et al state,
[t]here is evidence that some multi-word combinations are stored in our mental lexicons
as single units. Thus a view of language comprehension and production that posits a
purely analytical process, with all units built up from (or broken down to) their
component parts, appears inaccurate. Rather, native speakers use both
structurally-composed units and multi-word combinations functioning as prefabricated
units.
Biber et al, 2003: 71
Idioms are best examples to prove this statement. The meaning of kick the bucket can not be decoded by analyzing its components. The lexical phrase is preconstructed and is retrieved as a single unit from the user’s mental lexicon.
According to Erman and Warren’s (2000) study, the expressions based on the principle of idiom constitute 58.6% of the spoken English discourse that they analyzed and 52.3% of the written discourse. Using different criteria and procedures, with different definition and classification, Foster’s (2001) research shows that 32.3
7 % of the discourse she analyzed is made up of lexical phrases. Therefore, “[g]iven that lexical bundles are extremely common multi-word combinations, used widely across the texts within a register, it stands to reason that they serve fundamentally important discourse functions” (Biber et al, 2003: 73). For this reason, understanding and being able to use these preconstructed phrases seems to be the key for foreign or second language learners wanting to comprehend and produce
‘native-like’ language. It will be interesting to examine whether the textbook designers are aware of the importance of lexical phrases or not by looking at the proportion of these phrases in the textbook discourse.
2.3 Lexical Phrases in Acquisition Studies
One common pattern in language acquisition is that learners pass through a stage in
which they use a large number of unanalyzed chunks of language in certain predictable
contexts. They use, in other words, a great deal of ‘prefabricated’ language.
Nattinger and DeCarrico, 1992: xv
Nattinger and DeCarrico (1992: xv) also point out that “[m]ore recent research puts this formulaic speech at the very center of language acquisition and sees it as basic to the creative rule-forming processes.” It is thus reasonable to believe that before language acquirers can apply syntactic rules to process language, they may start with preconstructed or prefabricated chunks as a means to economize effort. For example, first language learners may learn ‘how are you’ as an unvarying phrase first and then analyze it later when they learn the syntactic rules to construct a wh-question.
8 Lexical phrases “function as basic building blocks of discourse” (Biber et al,
2004: 371). “The only way we can produce language rapidly and fluently is by building up routines and relying on ‘ready-made elements and chunks’ (Willis, 2003:
44). As Willis argues (2003: 44), “having a stock of fixed phrases” enables learner to produce, recognize, and process familiar forms of speech. Learners don’t have to analyze the forms and re-construct them again and again according to grammatical rules. They can retrieve the familiar forms as a whole. And this implies that lexical phrases may be ideal for English teaching, as they give learners access to native-like usage; in this sense, lexical phrases have high “pedagogic value”
(Koprowski, 2005: 322).
However, Koprowski (2005: 322-223) argues that “it is worth asking whether
[coursebook] designers are exercising sufficient care in specifying the most useful ones” and “while the learning of lexical chunks may be a good thing, it is conceivable that students are not being exposed to the most useful ones”. Therefore, it might be meaningful and beneficial to see whether the lexical phrases listed in the textbooks appear frequently in authentic discourse and in this way determine the appropriateness and utility of these phrases.
2.4 Previous Research on Lexical Phrases
There have been some studies and research on lexical bundles or lexical phrases across different genres in the past decade. For example, Marco (2000) focused on the collocational frameworks in medical research papers. She defined collocational frameworks as “discontinuous sequences of words” (2000: 64). She pointed out
“the usefulness of corpus-based analysis to discover the linguistic patterns selected and favoured by a specific genre” (2000: 63). The result of her study showed that
9 some collocational frameworks only occurred in medical papers, for example, ‘start’ in the pattern ‘the start of’, and it also suggested that certain frameworks were
“recurrently chosen” in medical discourse, like ‘the…of’ in the construction of nominalizations (Marco, 2000: 76). Similarly, Cortes (2004) did a research on
“lexical bundles in published and student disciplinary writing” in two fields, history and biology. She investigated the most frequent four-word lexical phrases used by published authors and university students at three different levels in the disciplines of history and biology and compared their uses of the lexical phrases. In her study,
Cortes found that “students rarely used the target bundles in their writing”, and if they did use certain phrases or bundles, “their use did not correspond to the uses of bundles employed by professional authors” (2004: 397).
Biber et al. (2004) did a related study on lexical phrases. They focused on lexical phrases in university teaching and textbooks. Their paper investigated “the use of multi-word sequences in two important university registers: classroom teaching and textbooks” (Biber et al., 2004: 371). They took a “frequency-driven approach to the identification of lexical bundles” and compared the phrases used “in classroom teaching and textbooks with those found in their previous research on conversation and academic prose” (ibid.)), based on a corpus which includes texts from university classroom teaching and textbooks. Their paper showed that “classroom teaching mixed ‘oral’ and ‘literate’ characteristics in the use of lexical bundles”, with an
“extensive use of stance lexical bundles and discourse organizing bundles”, like ‘I don’t know if’ and ‘if you look at’. The study also indicated that classroom teaching used about four times as many lexical phrases as textbooks.
10 Later in 2005, Koprowski presented a study more closely related to the aims and focus of this dissertation. Koprowski investigated “the usefulness of lexical phrases in contemporary coursebooks” (2005: 322). Koprowski’s study is a very good model or example in examining the usefulness of lexical phrases taught in textbooks.
According to Koprowski (2005: 322), “while (coursebook) designers have been enthusiastic about adding chunks to the syllabus, the process of selecting items has been highly subjective and conducted without reference to corpus data”. Thus, it is a good idea to investigate the usefulness of lexical phrases in textbooks by using a large-scale corpus as a firm basis. Koprowski selected three contemporary coursebooks and then examined and inventoried the lexical syllabus of each coursebook by lexical phrase types: collocation, phrasal verbs, binomials, idioms, compound nouns, and fixed and semi-fixed expressions (2005: 322-323). He used
‘frequency’ and ‘range’ as the criteria for usefulness. ‘Frequency’ refers to how often the lexical phrase occurs in corpus and ‘range’ refers to the number of text types that the lexical phrase can be found. The result of his study indicated that “nearly a quarter of the multi-word lexical items specified may be of limited pedagogic value to learners” (2005: 322).
11 3 TEXTBOOK LANGUAGE AND CORPUS LANGUAGE
3.1 The Nature of Textbook Language
The language of most textbooks might be generally viewed as the intuitive creation of the designers, though it cannot be denied that more and more textbook editors and designers are aware of the importance of authentic language and try to exploit resources from real world communication while authoring and editing textbooks. “The issue of ‘authenticity’ has been somewhat controversial”
(McDonough and Shaw, 2003: 40), but it is still believed that exposing learners to real usage of the language may enhance and accelerate comprehension and proficiency (Little, 1997: 225). English textbooks for junior high schools in Taiwan
(JHST) aim at developing learners’ basic communicative competence (including all four language skills), cultivating learners’ interest and skills of learning the language, and familiarizing learners with cultural differences, according to guidelines issued by the Ministry of Education in 2001. The guidelines may relate to Riggenbach’s
(1999: 7) notion of communicative competence, which consists of linguistic competence (accuracy), sociolinguistic competence (social appropriateness), discourse competence (cohesion and coherence), and strategic competence
(consecutive communication). All refer to the ability to communicate successfully in real life.
The approach adopted to edit the JHST textbooks is ‘the communicative approach’ and the focus is to enable learners to communicate with others in different situations or settings in daily life. So, the ‘functional-notional syllabus’ combined with language structure focus is used in these textbooks to achieve these aims of communicative competence. And it seems that the main theme of the
12 communicative approach is to “give students the confidence and ability to communicate successfully in English” (McDonough and Shaw, 2003: 42) in real life.
However, there is no indication that authentic English discourse has been included in these textbooks. So, it is justifiable to believe that the language of the JSHT textbooks may be artificial production based on the designers’ or editors’ intuitions.
3.2 The Nature of Corpus Language
Corpus linguistics, as Hunston and Francis (2000: 15) describe, is “a way of investigating language by observing large of naturally-occurring, electronically-stored discourse, using software which selects, sorts, matches, counts, and calculates”.
Thus, a corpus can be said to be “a large, systematic collection of [authentic] texts stored on computer” (Biber et al., 1999: 24). More specifically, a corpus is a large collection of written texts and/or transcribed speech in electronic form (Kennedy,
1998: 1). Granger (2003: 538) suggests that “the diversification of corpora has given linguists a firm basis for comparing language varieties distinguished in terms of the medium (spoken vs. written), the field (general vs. specialized), and geographical status (World Englishes)”. Corpus has become a very important resource or tool for investigating and studying any aspects of language as corpora are comparatively large, “authentic”, “systematically organized”, “not selected on linguistic grounds”, and “not annotated in terms of existing theories” (Hunston and Francis, 2000: 15)
Leech (1997: 3) notes that “a corpus is, of itself, a rich resource of authentic data containing structures, patterns and predictable features that are waiting to be
‘unlocked’ by the human intelligence”. Different types of corpora are designed for various particular purposes (Hunston, 2002: 14), and
13 [t]he decisions made in assembling a corpus, or the choice of what type of corpus to
access if one is going to be just a user, depend on what is the use to which the corpus is
going to be put.
Tognini-Bonelli, 2001: 6
The Bank of English (BoE) is the biggest corpus to date, with about 450 million words in 20 different British and American native-speaker subcorpora. The variety of registers, the immensity of the data, the representativeness of the texts, and the continuous updating of the corpus make it a good choice for general analysis. Here in this study, two subcorpora of BoE, ‘usspok’ and ‘usbooks’, will be used to examine the lexical phrases appearing in ‘dialogue’ and ‘reading’ sections of the textbooks, for the nature of the language in these two corpora are closer to the language in the textbooks.
3.3 Differences between Spoken and Written English
Any native speaker of English or learner of English may agree that spoken and written language are different. As indicated by Brown and Yule (1983: 14), “[f]or the majority of the population, even of a ‘literate’ country, spoken language will have very much less in common with the written language”, though it is also true that there are “the speech of those whose language is highly influenced by written forms” and the writing of those whose language is influenced by speech forms. Brown and Yule
(1983: 15-7) reveal several key characteristics of spoken language that are rather different from written language, for example, simplified sentence structure, many prefabricated ‘fillers’, and repetitions. Willis (2003: 191-6) also points out similar characteristics of spoken language, such as
14 1. spoken language appears to be untidy,
2. spoken language omits words and phrases,
3. spoken language is additive,
4. spoken language is often repetitive,
5. conversation is interactive,
6. exchanges are formulaic,
7. some speech acts are governed by typical routines
At the same time, Willis proposes some pedagogic suggestions for teaching the spoken language, like “building up formulaic exchanges” and “establishing typical routines” (2003: 207-8). The importance of lexical phrases or prefabricated language in spoken discourse can be seen clearly from above. There are also many studies of academic register showing that lexical phrases functioning as discourse markers occur frequently in writing discourse, for example, Cortes’ (2004) study of lexical bundles in published and student disciplinary writing. Though spoken
English and written English might be different in many ways, they do have one thing in common: they both are constructed from lexis.
15 4 MATERIALS AND METHODS
4.1 Junior High School Textbooks in Taiwan
The use of the present English textbooks in JHST were four years ago. Before these textbooks, only the series of books issued by the Ministry of Education was used in schools. The Ministry of Education has been issuing English textbooks for junior high schools since 1968. The focus and the syllabus of these versions of textbooks were based on the trend of teaching methodologies at the time, such as audio-lingualism, direct method, and communicative approach. In 2001, the
Ministry of Education publicized guidelines for junior high school textbooks and opened up publishing of textbooks to all publishers. So, many publishers started to design their own series of textbooks from 2001, based on these guidelines. In autumn in 2002, some of the newly published textbooks were approved by the
Ministry and used in schools. At present, there are six series of textbooks approved or authorized by the Ministry of Education for JHST. All the textbooks have a notional-functional syllabus with main topics and key language focus in each lesson.
Theoretically, teachers can discuss and decide together which series of textbooks they want to use.
As mentioned above in chapter three, the guidelines reveal the aims of the
English curriculum for JHST, which are to develop learners’ basic communicative competence (including the four language skills), to cultivate learners’ interest and skills of learning the language, and to familiarize learners with cultural differences.
The guidelines also itemize the language competence that learners should achieve, such as being able to understand daily conversation and simple stories, being able to express themselves about their needs, feelings, and wishes, being able to read articles
16 of various topics and forms, being able to write simple cards, letters, and paragraphs, and so on. The guidelines also suggest what topics and language functions can be taught, like family, school, festivals, greetings, requests, asking for directions, and so forth. It is clear that the main objective is to enhance learners’ communicative competence, equipping them with the ability to communicate with others in various settings in the real world.
4.2 Choosing Sources and Corpus Design
The texts from the dialogs and the readings in each lesson in three series of textbooks were incorporated into a corpus and then processed and accessed in
Wordsmith Tools (Version 3.0). Hunston (2002: 25) indicates that four aspects of corpus design should be considered: size, content, representativeness, and permanence. In terms of content and representativeness, these three series of textbooks are used by many junior high schools in Taiwan. One publisher claims that their textbooks are used in sixty percent of the junior high schools. One series of textbooks is similar to the previous versions issued by the government before so it is said to be favored by many experienced teachers. The other series is published by an international company, which is believed to use more authentic language. Each publisher has a series of six books for three grades in JHST. So, there are eighteen books in total for the analysis. The size of the corpus is around 35,600 words in total, 16,800 in the subcorpora of the dialog texts, and 18,800 in the subcorpora of the reading texts respectively. As for permanence, these textbooks are rather new, so it is believed that they won’t be replaced by other textbooks soon, though updated versions may be introduced in order to conform to future changes in teaching guidelines issued by the government.
17 The two subcorpora ‘usspok’ (American spoken language) and ‘usbooks’
(American written language) of the Bank of English were chosen for comparison because the dialog texts can be classified as spoken discourse and the reading texts can be seen as written discourse. The textbooks used in JHST are all based on
American English. This can be confirmed by examining the spellings and pronunciations in the textbooks. Therefore, the language in the textbooks should be closer to that in ‘usspok’ and ‘usbooks’ rather than ‘brspok’ (British spoken language) and ‘brbooks’ (British written language). ‘Usspok’ contains 2,023,482 words and
‘usbooks’ comprises 32,437,160 words. The US written corpus is much bigger than the spoken corpus, so the results of frequency will be shown with occurrences per million words, in order to make the comparison clearer.
4.3 Identification of Lexical Phrases
One way of identifying the lexical phrases in the texts was to investigate the vocabulary boxes under or beside all texts and then noted down all the multi-word items. It took some time, but it was the simplest and the most direct way.
Meanwhile, the multi-word items in the boxes could provide some clues to the point of view that the textbook designers or editors hold about lexical phrases. A list of these multi-word items was made, and these items were assigned into several groups, including collocations, phrasal verbs, binomials, idioms, compound words, and fixed and semi-fixed expressions (see Appendix A). Subjectivity is inevitable because the criteria of classifications and definitions are never unified.
Due to the consideration of time, it may be impossible to investigate and analyze the frequencies and usages of all lexical phrases listed in the vocabulary boxes and then compare them with those in ‘usspok’ and ‘usbooks’. Thus, to make the study
18 manageable, it is more reasonable to limit the target phrases to a certain number.
Compound nouns were eliminated because their occurrences may mainly depend on the topics and they are usually learned like one-word nouns. There is only one binomial found in the textbook corpus, so it was disregarded. Quantifiers, adverbials, expressives, and daily greetings were also excluded because there may be not much meaning to deal with them. As a result, only phrasal verbs and some fixed expressions, 72 in total, were checked for frequencies and usages. And only those phrases with higher frequencies, with outstanding differences, or with interesting phenomena, were analyzed in depth. The results found from these lexical phrases are believed to show, to some extent, what other lexical phrases perform in the textbooks and in real world communication.
The other way to do the phrase identification was to process the textbook corpus in Wordsmith Tools and to produce the lists of word clusters. Then lexical phrases could be picked from these clusters. Five lists of word clusters from the textbook corpus were produced, including the lists of 2-word clusters, 3-word cluster, 4-word clusters, 5-word clusters, and 6-word clusters. The list of 7-word clusters or 8-word clusters was not made because it was assumed to be not very useful for the study because there might not be any lexical phrases that contain more than seven words.
Again, it was not manageable to identify all the lexical phrases by separating all the lexical phrases from the clusters because most of the lists were too long, for example, 4320 clusters on 2-word list and 2010 on 3-word list, with too many non-phrase clusters, like ‘in the’ or ‘this is my’. However, the lists enable us to examine the most frequent lexical phrases by comparing and contrasting each list.
And, it is believed that the observations made by investigating the frequencies and
19 usages of the most frequent phrases could apply to other lexical phrases in the textbooks as well. Therefore, the top fifty clusters on each list (see Appendix B) were examined and the occurring lexical phrases were noted down and checked for frequencies and usages. This list could also drop a hint of what types of lexical phrases are more frequent in the textbooks.
4.4 Procedures of Data Collection
The lexical phrases picked from the cluster list were checked for frequencies in the textbook corpus, usspok corpus, and usbooks corpus. So, each phrase is shown with its number of occurrence per million in the dialog texts, in the reading texts, usspok, and usbooks. The reason for presenting the frequency with the occurrence per million is because it is clearer to see the difference and similarity. If presenting the frequency with percentage (%), the number will be too small to recognize and compare. For example, the occurrence of the phrasal verb give up (the lexical phrases mentioned in the context would be shown underlined and italicized) is once in the dialog texts, if presented with percentage, it would be 0.006%. On the other hand, if showing just the actual occurrence in the texts, they can not be compared at all. So, to make the data more meaningful and easier to read, occurrence per million words is used. It is done by multiplying the occurrence in the dialog texts by 59.5 and that in the reading texts by 53.2. The 72 lexical phrases picked from the vocabulary boxes were done in the same way. All of items are basically presented as follows:
Lexical In Dialog In Reading Usspok Usbooks Phrase Per m. Per m. Per m. Per m. have fun 238 319.2 3 6.7
20 On checking the frequency of each phrase, items with more than one sense or meaning were dealt with separately, based on the sense or meaning specified in the textbook corpus. That is to say, if two senses of a phrase are used in the textbooks, then the occurrence and percentage of these two senses are checked. A small problem about the corpus tools used in this study is that they can not locate the frequency of each sense of an item separately. For example, by keying in put on, the frequency of this item with all senses was presented, including the meanings of to wear and to gain. There is no problem to count manually the instances of each sense in the textbook corpus because it is relatively small. But as for usspok and usbooks, it would sometimes take incredible time and effort to sift through every concordance line. To solve this problem, sampling was done instead. That is, if the number of occurrences is far more than one hundred, then one hundred concordance lines were picked up randomly and then examined. And the sense or usage adopted in the textbook corpus was noted and shown in ratio, as presented below. The node or searching word or words are shown in bold. Sometimes, the context of the phrase will be included to show the sense or meaning used in the textbooks.
Ratio of Ratio of In In Usbook Usspok textbook textbook Lexical Phrase Dialog Reading s Per m. sense to sense to Per m. Per m. Per m. all senses all senses check the book out 119 0 3 1/6 179 1/179
Verb inflection was taken into consideration as well. To get accurate frequency count of ‘get up’, ‘gets up’, ‘got up’, ‘getting up’, and ‘gotten up’ need to be included.
It would be unfair to just check the frequency of ‘get up’. As for separable phrasal
21 verbs, like ‘put on’ and ‘pick up’, both forms were checked to see if they were used in the textbooks. If they are, then both forms are checked in ‘usspok’ and ‘usbooks’ as well. Singular and plural forms of nouns were dealt with in the same way, and so were the definite and indefinite articles. And a maximum of 2 intervening words were allowed while checking the frequencies in ‘usspok’ and ‘usbooks’ because there would be a risk of getting unwanted data if requesting more than 3 intervening words, like the concordances show below:
how much slope there really is. Check quickly and stay out of the way of ERIC. My teacher suggested that I check the pamphlet put out by ETS to get told him that he had been able to check on had turned out to be true. The caller hung up. Three calls. I checked the date, purely out of curiosity:
22 5 RESULTS AND ANALYSES
5.1 Fixed Expressions and Phrasal Verbs from Vocabulary Boxes
5.1.1 Fixed Expressions from the Boxes
The number of occurrences of the fixed expressions appearing in the vocabulary boxes can be seen in table 5.1. Among the 19 fixed expressions, only 3 occur in both the dialog texts and the reading texts in the textbooks. That is to say, 16 occur either in dialogs or in reading texts. Among these 16 there are 14 phrases occurring only in the dialogs but not in the readings. Thus, 2 occur only in the reading texts but not in the dialog texts. Amongst the 14 phrases occurring only in the dialog texts, 10 occur in usspok, but all of them occur in usbooks. One of the 2 phrases occurring only in readings, from then on, occurs in both usspok and usbooks, and the other, way of life, occurs only in the corpus of written language, usbooks. This corresponds to how these 2 phrases perform in the textbooks. The 3 expressions occurring in both dialog texts and reading texts can all be found in both usspok and usbooks.
Table 5.1 The Frequencies of Fixed Expressions
Ratio of Ratio of In textbook textbook Fixed In Dialog Usspok Usbooks Reading usage to usage to Expressions Per m. Per m. Per m. Per m. all all usages usages Anything else? 119 0 96.9 78/196 23.6 49/756 Are you kidding? 119 0 0.5 1/1 1.8 51/60 Forget it! 59.5 0 2 4/4 8.8 141/285 from then on 0 53.2 0.5 1/1 3.9 38/38 from time to time 59.5 0 35.1 71/71 14 454/454 have a good time 297.5 319.2 2.5 5/5 4.7 152/152
23 have fun 238 319.2 3 6/6 6.7 217/217 Hold on! 59.5 0 6.4 10/13 12.5 81/406 Long time no see. 59.5 0 0 0/0 0.2 5/5 My hands are full. 59.5 0 0 0/0 1 0/1 Never mind. 178.5 0 4.5 9/9 6.2 89/201 Nice to meet you. 1190 0 0 0/0 0.5 17/17 Sounds good. 357 0 3.5 1/7 1.9 36/61 Sounds great. 238 106.4 0.5 1/1 0.6 6/18 Take care. 119 0 16.8 0/34 28.4 14/922 Take it easy. 59.5 0 0 0/1 3.3 107/107 That's right. 297.5 0 89 160/180 12.5 362/404 way of life 0 53.2 0 0/1 11.3 367/367 You're welcome. 416.5 0 4 8/8 1.6 51/51 Note: Per m. = Per million words
From this table, it can be seen that some of these fixed expressions do perform differently in the textbooks than in the real world language corpus. There are 14 fixed expressions that cannot be found in the reading texts of the textbooks, but only in the dialog texts. However, all of them can be found in usbooks. This might signify that people do use these phrases in written English, but it was noted that these phrases (such as forget it and never mind) all sound rather colloquial. Therefore, to clarify the reasons that the phrases sounding colloquial occur in the written corpus, all the concordance lines of never mind in usbooks were examined. It is found that the occurrences in the corpus are all in quotation marks or in imperative sentences which narrators use to request the readers to do something, like those examples presented below:
Odd, I seem to pick up a tree. Never mind. Did he see something that says, and begins to get up.
Never mind," he says. She settles back him with a funereal air. `Never mind, lord," he whispered, handing I did it because I had to. But never mind, I did so."
Boss Murphy a in life that isn't - but never mind, I thought. I'll walk
24 It shows that these phrases may truly be used more often in spoken language than in written language. And the textbooks might be designed to offer a clear distinction between spoken and written language for pedagogic convenience, which may be why these phrases are not to be found in the reading texts. On the other hand, the two phrases, from then on and way of life, which do not occur in the dialog texts, have little or no occurrences in usspok as well. This implies that the two phrases are probably not very common in spoken texts and they are used more often in written texts. It may also imply that in authentic circumstances, spoken language could commonly be put into written forms, but the reverse does not usually apply for written language: people may note or write down what is said, but they do not usually talk in the style of written forms.
Among the 14 expressions only found in the dialog texts, 4 can not be found in usspok, which are long time no see, my hands are full, nice to meet you, and take it easy. The conceivable explanations are either that they are really rare and people just do not say them or that the usspok corpus is too small. To verify this, the frequencies in the whole Bank of English were checked. Long time no see occurs 32 times in nine sub-corpora and the frequencies are all below 0.2 per million words.
Nice to meet you occurs 95 times in eleven sub-corpora with the frequencies below
0.8 per million words. It might imply that the textbook designers and language teachers tend to give learners polite but neutral forms that can be used in any social environment, but do not give them informal, slangy expressions like how’s it going or how ya doing. Take it easy occur 470 times in 17 sub-corpora with frequencies below 3.3 per million words. This suggests that these three phrases are truly rarely used in authentic texts rather than that the usspok corpus is too small. A very peculiar phrase here is my hands are full, which is quite exceptional, because it does
25 not occur in usspok and it occurs only once in usbooks but not the same usage as in the textbooks. In the textbooks, this phrase has a metaphoric sense, meaning I am busy, but in usbooks, it is used literally, my hands are full of the scent. That is to say, the phrase of the exemplified sense can not be found at all in the American corpora used here. This suggests that this phrase may not be very common in natural
American English discourse at all.
Overall, 16 of these 19 fixed expressions occur less than 5 times per million words on average in usspok corpus when they have the same meaning as the usages found in the textbooks, and 15 of them occur less than five times per million words in usbooks. This implies that the choices of fixed expressions the textbook designers might be based on their own intuition or ideas about usefulness. They probably presume that these fixed expressions are very frequent in daily life and that they are useful for students to learn, but their choices do not necessarily represent what people actually use in real world.
5.1.2 Phrasal Verbs from the Boxes
Table 5.2 shows the frequencies of the 53 phrasal verbs taken from the vocabulary boxes in the textbooks. Different senses or usages of the same phrase are treated as different items here. 19 of the phrases occur both in the dialog texts and in the reading texts in the textbooks. 15 occur only in the dialog texts, and 19 occur only in the reading texts. Among the 19 verb phrases occurring both in the dialog and reading texts, the textbook senses of 2 phrases (blow out and put on) do not occur in the natural spoken language corpus, usspok. All 53 phrasal verbs have occurrences in the written corpus, usbooks, with the same meaning as the textbook senses. Also, these phrasal verbs can all be found in usspok, but 13 of them, such as
26 fall down, cheer up, cut up, and put out, do not appear with the same meaning as in the textbooks. Calculating from table 5.2, it can be seen that the frequencies of 36 items with only the textbook sense are lower than five per million words in usspok
(see Appendix C). There are 27 items occurring less than 5 times per million words in usbooks, and 26 out of 27 occur less than 5 times per million words in usspok as well. In other words, half of the phrasal verbs in this table have less than 5 occurrences per million words both in the American spoken language and in
American written language.
Table 5.2 The Frequencies of Phrasal Verbs
Ratio of Ratio of In In textbook textbook Usspok Usbooks Phrasal Verbs Dialog Reading usage to usage to Per m. Per m. Per m. Per m. all all usages usages believe in 0 53.2 25.2 44/51 42 97/100 blow out the candles 59.5 53.2 0.5 0/1 3.8 36/124 care about 119 106.4 15.8 32/32 22.3 723/723 carry around 59.5 0 1 2/2 1.4 46/46 check the book out 119 0 3 1/6 5.5 1/179 cheer sb. up 119 0 0 0/1 1 33/33 come up to sb. 0 53.2 3.5 4/7 6.4 40/100 come with chips 119 0 15.3 0/31 21.5 13/100 cool down 59.5 0 0.5 1/1 2.1 60/69 cut down the trees 0 106.4 2.5 0/5 7.9 14/100 cut down on 0 53.2 1 2/2 2.4 78/78 cut up the fruit 0 53.2 0.5 0/1 2.4 36/78 fall down 0 159.6 2 0/4 6 194/194 my bookcases fall over 59.5 0 0.5 0/1 4.2 34/135 feed on 0 53.2 0 0/1 3.6 117/117 figure it out 0 53.2 17.8 36/36 7.8 253/253 get close to 59.5 53.2 4 8/8 2.4 77/77 get off the train 59.5 0 10.9 3/22 17.3 12/100
27 get on the bus 59.5 159.6 45.5 4/92 21.7 10/100 get ready for 59.5 106.4 4.4 9/9 2.4 79/79 get up (from the bed) 238 425.6 17.8 8/35 47.8 23/100 give up 59.5 159.6 27.2 55/55 56.9 1846/1846 go out 535.5 319.2 86.5 175/175 72.9 2365/2365 hang out 59.5 53.2 4.4 9/9 8.8 285/285 hang up the car keys 0 53.2 3.5 7/7 17.4 2/98 hurry up 0 53.2 0 0/0 2.7 89/89 laugh at 119 0 2.5 5/5 15.1 490/490 listen to 357 585.2 46 93/93 90.1 2922/2922 look after 0 53.2 0.5 0/1 9.6 312/312 look at 952 904.4 1098.1 94/100 303.5 95/100 look for 238 266 133.9 271/271 105.4 3419/3419 look up the words 59.5 106.4 4 4/8 58.7 9/100 pick up my workbook 59.5 53.2 54.4 5/100 92.8 22/100 pick it (the garbage) up 0 53.2 10.4 4/21 25.8 14/100 put on my coat 59.5 266 54.9 0/111 37.9 40/100 put this (a ring) on 59.5 0 104.3 0/211 66.1 7/100 put out the fire 59.5 0 50.9 0/103 10.2 8/100 put stockings out 0 53.2 19.8 1/40 10.2 12/100 run out of the house 0 106.4 8.9 0/18 10.1 14/100 show up 0 53.2 36.1 73/73 25.8 837/837 sit down 59.5 0 41 83/83 60.5 1963/1963 stand up 59.5 0 17.8 36/36 37.5 1216/1216 take away sth. 0 106.4 16.8 34/34 12.6 410/410 take off shirts/shoes 0 106.4 11.9 3/24 27.8 40/100 try it (skirt) on 59.5 0 12.4 25/25 3.2 105/105 turn around 59.5 0 12.8 26/26 14.7 477/477 turn sth. into sth. 0 53.2 8.4 17/17 28.3 917/917 turn off 59.5 53.2 2 4/4 14.1 457/457 turn on 59.5 106.4 4.9 10/10 28.5 923/923 wake up 59.5 319.2 6.9 14/14 26.1 848/848 wake her up 0 106.4 2.5 5/5 3.8 123/123 walk by 59.5 0 0.5 1/1 4.2 137/137 watch out for danger 59.5 106.4 0.5 1/1 3.3 108/108 Note: sb. = somebody sth. = something
28 The possible reason why some phrases occur only in the dialog texts and some only in the reading texts has been discussed above. For pedagogic convenience, the textbook designers or editors might want to draw a clear line between spoken language and written language. 13 phrases out of 19 which cannot be found in the dialog texts have low (under 3.5 per million words) or even null frequencies in usspok; the exceptions are believe in, figure out, look after, show up, take away, and turn into. It suggests that these 13 phrases are not common in spoken English, while the exceptional 6 are. Moreover, 8 phrases out of 15 which cannot be found in the reading texts have low frequencies (all under 4.2 per million words) in usbooks, except come with, laugh at, put * on, put out, sit down, stand up, and turn around.
This means that the phrases listed above that perform differently in the textbooks than in the written corpus are more common in written English. These facts reveal that while some phrases with null or low frequencies in the textbooks are actually rare in natural texts, others may be rather common. This suggests that choice of phrases by textbook designers is random at best.
There are 26 items in both textbook corpora that have less than 5 occurrences in the natural language corpora. This implies that half of the phrasal verbs in the textbooks are not used that commonly in authentic texts. 3 phrases, including cheer
* up, feed on, and hurry up, have null frequencies in usspok, and all of them occur rarely in usbooks as well, with the highest frequency at 3.6 per million words. On checking the whole Bank of English for these 3 verb phrases, these 3 phrases occur in at least 18 out of 20 sub-corpora and the frequencies in each sub-corpus vary. The highest frequency of cheer * up is 5.5 per million words in the sub-corpus ‘sunnow’, feed on has the highest frequency as 20.0 per million words in the science text corpus, and the highest of hurry up is 3.3 per million words in ‘brbooks’. It indicates that
29 cheer * up and hurry up are not very common phrases in natural language use, and feed on is more commonly used in science and academic texts.
Some textbook senses or usages of certain phrases have null frequency in usspok as well, though the phrasal verbs can definitely be found in usspok with different meanings or usages. These textbook senses and usages also occur relatively rarely in usbooks. For example, one of the textbook senses of put out is “to make a fire etc stop burning” (Longman, 1995: 1153). However, this sense is not found in 103 occurrences of the phrase in usspok, and it occurs only 8 times out of 100 in usbooks.
The most frequent sense of this phrase in usspok is “to produce information etc for people to read or listen to” (Longman, 1995: 1153), as the concordance lines shows below:
Department of Education has put out a statement of work and be able to do. You can put out a list of standards. be setting up stations and put out schedules in the next us know?
This sense of put out occurs 65 times out of 103 in usspok, and in usbooks it occurs
22 times out of 100. One of the other frequently used senses in usbooks is to stretch out, occurring 12 times out of 100 and usually collocating with hands or arms (e.g. put out both hands). Another similar sense to the one in the textbooks is “to make a light stop working by pressing or turning a button” (Longman, 1995: 1153), occurring 9 times out of 100 in the natural corpora (e.g. put on the light). The concordance lines examined in usspok and usbooks reveal that the textbook sense of
30 this phrasal verb is not the one people use in spoken language, but is somewhat more common in written language, The other usage of put out in the textbooks is a separable phrasal verb meaning to put something outside to be seen or taken away, for example, to put stockings out for Santa Claus. This usage is rather rare in the natural corpora as well, occurring once out of 40 instances in usspok and 12 times out of 100 in usbooks. The more frequent sense of this phrase when separated is still
“to produce information etc for people to read” (Longman, 1995: 1153).
In terms of separable verb phrases, each of the 4 phrases, pick up, put out, wake up, and put on, has two forms in the textbook corpus, one separated and the other non-separated. 3 pairs of the phrasal verbs occur in both forms with the same sense, like pick up my book and pick it (the garbage) up. The other pair also occurs in both forms, but with different senses, e.g. put out the fire and put stockings out. From the frequencies of these pairs, it is obvious that pick up is more common than pick * up, put out is more common than put * out, and wake up than wake * up. In contrast, put on is less common than put * on. This proves that one of the two forms of the same phrase may be more common than the other, although there is no apparent reason why either form should predominate. To further investigate this phenomenon, other separable verb phrases which have only one form in the textbooks were checked to get the frequency of the other usage. Table 5.3 below attempts to show which of these is the most common in the natural corpora.
Table 5.3 The Frequencies of Separable Verb Phrases The Other Textbook Usspok Usbooks Usspok Usbooks form of the form Per m. Per m. Per m. Per m. Phrase blow out 0.5 3.8 blow * out 0.5 2.3
31 check * out 3 5.5 check out 7.9 10.7 cheer * up 0 2 cheer up 0 1 cool down 0.5 2.1 cool * down 0 0.4 cut down 2.5 7.9 cut * down 0.5 1.7 cut up 0.5 2.4 cut * up 0 1 figure * out 17.8 7.8 figure out 101.8 36.4 give up 27.2 56.9 give * up 5.4 8.1 hang up 3.5 17.4 hang * up 0 1 look up 4 58.7 look * up 3 5.2 take away 16.8 12.6 take * away 9.4 12.4 take off 11.9 27.8 take * off 13.2 20.6 try * on 12.4 3.2 try on 1.5 2.8 turn off 2 14.1 turn * off 0.5 5.4 turn on 4.9 28.5 turn * on 4 18.9
Table 5.3 looks at frequency of form rather than meaning. 10 of the 15 textbook items listed at Table 5.3 are more common in real language than their separated/non-separated forms, aside from figure out, suggesting that textbook author intuitions are a reasonable reflection of real language. In other words, the textbooks are generally introducing the more common forms of these separable verb phrases rather than the less common ones.
5.2 The Most Frequent Lexical Phrases Picked from Cluster Lists
From the lists of word clusters (see adjoining appendices), it can be seen that most of the frequent clusters in the textbook corpus are structural phrases rather than lexical phrases, like on the, do you have, and are you going to, though some structural clusters do contain lexical phrases. On examining the top twenty frequent clusters in each list, it can be found that only one is lexical on the list of 2-word clusters, only three on the 3-word list, five are lexical phrases and one contains a lexical phrase on the 4-word list, one is lexical and three contain lexical phrases on the 5-word list, and
32 seven contain lexical phrases on the 6-word list. Also, the lexical phrases found from these top twenty clusters in each list are similar ones; that is to say, the lexical phrases occur in the top twenty clusters on 3-word list keep reoccurring on 4-word,
5-word, and 6-word list. These most frequent lexical phrases picked from the cluster lists are presented in Table 5.4 below.
Table 5.4 The Most Frequent Lexical Phrases from Cluster Lists In dialog In Reading Usspok Usbooks Lexical Phrases Per m. Per m. Per m. Per m. Collocation fall in love 59.5 266 0 15.8 go on the/a picnic 119 0 0 0.4 go to school 119 319.2 3 6.8 Compound junior high school 119 266 4 2 living room 119 159.6 0.5 38.1 Dragon Boat Festival 0 266 4 2 Fixed Expression a lot 1249.5 638.4 906.9 175.6 by the way 595 53.2 59.3 15.8 Can I help you? 297.5 0 0 1.1 get together 0 425.6 23.7 9.3 Glad to meet you. 238 0 0 0.3 have a good time 297.5 319.2 2.5 4.7 How about you? 892.5 159.6 0 1.9 How do you do? 357 0 2.5 1.2 Nice to meet you. 1190 0 0 0.5 Nice to see you. 238 0 0.5 0.4 Phrasal Verb look at 952 904.4 1098.1 303.5 take care of 238 319.2 28.2 43.7 Semi-fixed Expression a lot of 773.5 1649.2 691.9 108.7 all over 59.5 266 20.3 63.4 be born 178.5 372.4 2.5 63.4
33 do one’s homework 416.5 319.2 2 2.1 have to 2320.5 1595 1772.7 809.2 Would you like⋯? 476 106.4 18.8 9.7
The lexical phrases picked from the top twenty items of the cluster lists total twenty-four. Five categories of lexical phrases, including collocations, compounds, fixed expressions, phrasal verbs, and semi-fixed expressions, occur in this table, but not idioms or binomials. 3 of the phrases are collocations, 3 are compounds, 10 are fixed expressions, 2 are phrasal verbs, and 6 are semi-fixed expressions. Fixed expressions are the most frequent type of lexical phrases here, and semi-fixed expressions are the second most frequent. These two categories together constitute more than half of the most frequent lexical phrases of the textbooks. And 2 phrases in this table have been discussed above in section 5.1, nice to meet you and look at.
The phrases identified from the cluster analysis, shown in Table 5.4, are more dispersive and diverse than just phrasal verbs and fixed expression.
Among these 24 phrases, Dragon Boat Festival and get together only occur in the reading texts of the textbooks and are specific to the text topic. They do not occur in the dialog texts. And there are 6 phrases occurring only in the dialogs but not in the readings, including go on the/a picnic, can I help you, glad to meet you, how do you do, nice to meet you, and nice to see you. 16 of the phrases occur both in the dialogs and in the readings. And all these 24 phrases can be found in usbooks, the written language corpus, but 6 can not be found in usspok, the spoken language corpus, which are fall in love, go on the/a picnic, can I help you, glad to meet you, how about you, and nice to meet you.
34 In table 5.4, the 3 collocations and the 3 compound words perform quite differently in the textbooks than in the authentic texts. Generally, the frequencies of these 6 phrases in the textbooks are much higher than in the corpora. This might be because the phrases are related to students’ activities and school events, so they are used more often in the textbooks. 2 of the collocations don’t occur in usspok and the frequency of go on the/a picnic in usbooks is really low as well. And this phrase doesn’t occur in the reading texts of the textbooks, either. The frequency of living room in usspok is quite low, too. Dragon Boat Festival doesn’t occur in the dialog texts of the textbooks. To check whether these 6 phrases are really rare in real life conversations and written discourse, the occurrences in the whole Bank of English were checked as was done with the fixed expressions in section 5.1. To take go on the/a picnic as an example, it occurs only 41 times in 14 of 20 sub-corpora and the highest frequency is 0.4 per million words in usbooks. Therefore, it is reasonable to presume that these 6 phrases are not very commonly used in authentic situations.
Among the 10 fixed expressions in table 5.4, all of them occur in usbooks, but 4 phrases can not be found in usspok, including can I help you, glad to meet you, how about you, and nice to meet you. The reason why nice to meet you does not occur in usspok is discussed above in section 5.1. The same reason may apply to the other 3 phrases here as well. They are simply rarely used in the natural spoken language.
And again, most of these phrases perform rather differently in the textbook corpus than in the natural language corpus. The number of occurrences of these expressions in the textbooks is much higher than the number in the American spoken and written corpora, except the phrase a lot. It explains that the textbook designers may truly use these fixed expressions much more often in the textbooks than people do in daily life. One possible reason for this is to familiarize the students with these
35 expressions. So, the same phrases and expressions keep occurring again and again in the texts of the textbooks. The other possible reason is that the designers do think that theses phrases are commonly used and are useful for students in real world communication.
There are only 2 phrasal verbs in this table, look at and take care of. Their frequencies in the textbooks and in the natural language corpora are rather high if compared with many other lexical phrases in table 5.4, especially look at. It means that these 2 two phrases might be appropriate for students to learn because they are used quite commonly in everyday communication. From the last part of this table, the semi-fixed expressions, it can be seen that a lot of and have to are very frequent in the textbook corpus and in the natural language corpora. This implies that these 2 phrases are very useful and have high pedagogic values, like the 3 phrasal verbs mentioned above, and the textbook designers recognize this fact as well. Other semi-fixed expressions are probably overused in the textbooks because the frequencies of the phrases in usspok and usbooks are much lower, for example, do one’s homework. This is possibly because it relates to students’ daily lives closely.
It occurs in the textbooks several hundred times per million words, but it occurs only about twice per million words in natural language.
36 6 CONCLUSION
6.1 Summary of the Findings
From the number of multi-word items picked from the vocabulary boxes in the textbooks, it can be known that the textbook designers are aware of the importance of lexical phrases. However, most of the lexical phrases introduced in the textbooks are not very common in naturally occurring discourse. Table 5.1 and 5.2 show that more than 75% of the fixed expressions occur less than 5 times per million words in the corpora and more than 50% of the phrasal verbs are in the same situation. Some textbook senses of certain phrases are not the most frequently used ones in authentic texts, either. It implies that the choices and senses of lexical phrases might be based on the textbook designers’ intuition. Besides, the frequencies of many phrases in the textbooks are much higher than the frequencies in usspok and usbooks. The reason may be that these phrases are related to students’ daily life, so the textbook designers need to include them in the textbooks and keep repeating them in the texts.
From Table, 5.3, it can be seen that the forms of the separable phrasal verbs used in the textbooks are, in 66% of instances, of the same frequency as natural language, and therefore of considerable utility for students. Also, it is obvious in this study that there is a rather clear line between the spoken and written language taught in the textbooks because there are many null frequencies of some of the phrases examined.
Some phrases that are more common in natural written discourse than in spoken discourse are not found in the dialog texts , perhaps because textbook writers are unaware of real world frequency, or because they are driven by their intuitions or pedagogic concerns. Also, the findings imply that spoken language can be put into written forms easily and become a part of written language in authentic texts, but on the contrary, people do not usually talk or speak in written forms.
37 6.2 Implications for Textbook Writing
Given that the lexical phrases introduced in the textbooks may not be as common as in naturally occurring discourse, textbook authors should arguably search for variants that are more commonly used, and these can be readily located via corpus methods. As noted, the most common types of lexical phrases in the textbooks are fixed and semi-fixed expressions, but most of them are not very frequent in the corpora. Therefore, textbook authors may be able to identify more useful and frequent fixed and semi-fixed expressions for students so they can develop more spontaneous, natural, and fluent speaking and writing. Also, authors could identify more frequent lexical phrases, especially phrasal verbs, for verbs are essential to sentences and phrasal verbs are usually quite complicated and difficult with many senses and different usages. Many senses of the phrasal verbs introduced in the textbooks are not the most common ones which people use in the real world. Hence, while teaching phrasal verbs, it could be important to introduce the most common sense and usage rather than what is listed in the textbooks.
Structural clusters are more common and frequent than lexical phrases. For this reason, it might be beneficial to include systematic teachings of frequent structural clusters as well as the teaching of lexical phrases. Structural clusters such as do you have, do you like, are you going to, and what are you going to, may help to improve the ability of producing and receiving language fluently and rapidly.
Lexical phrases and structural word clusters can work with each other to express meaning quickly. Therefore, lexis teaching and pattern teaching may be done in conjunction, and are still important and worth paying attention to in classrooms.
38 6.3 Limitations and Suggestions for Further Research
Due to time restrictions, the target textbooks and lexical phrases are limited to a certain number to make the study manageable. There are 6 series of textbooks ready to be used in junior high schools in Taiwan at the moment, but only 3 series of current textbooks were checked in this study. Among these 3 series, only 94 phrases were examined. Furthermore, the choices of the lexical phrases to be studied in this study were perhaps based on subjective judgments. For this reason, the results and the findings may not show a complete picture of how all lexical phrases are treated in all published textbooks, though it is hope that the results and the findings of this study can show how other phrases perform in textbooks to some extent.
Further or future research perhaps could include more textbooks and then examine every lexical phrase occurring in the texts, in order to avoid subjective choices of items and restricted numerical data. Also, to solve the problem of magnification of differences by multiplying small numerals, presenting the statistic significance of each phrase in each text instead of the raw frequency may work well.
It is also suggested that each series of textbooks can serve as a sub-corpora of a whole textbook corpus, and then comparisons between different series can be made by getting data from each sub-corpus. The results and the findings then can offer the publishers some suggestions to improve the books and they can also give English teachers some perspectives on the problems of using intuition-driven textbooks
6.4 Concluding Remarks
This study has dealt with the lexical phrases in current English textbooks for junior high schools in Taiwan. Lexical phrases are believed to “function as basic building blocks of discourse” (Biber et al, 2004: 371), and this indicates that lexical
39 phrases can be very important for second or foreign language learners who expect to produce fluent English spontaneously. This study recognizes the importance of lexical phrases and suggests that phrases introduced in textbooks should be based on real world frequency counts, while at the same time taking into account utility and pedagogic requirements. The low frequencies of many phrases studied here seem to imply that there are much more useful lexical phrases which can be included in the textbooks. Though there are some limitations to this study, it is still hoped that these findings can be insightful for language teachers and textbook designers in Taiwan.
40 Appendix A
Multi-word Items from Vocabulary Boxes in the Textbooks
Collocation Compound blow a kiss to take a chance 3-day tour ice cream break into pieces take a look action movie instant noodles catch a cold take a nap air conditioner junior high school catch fire take a shower animal sign key pal come true take a trip beef jerky lion dance do a good job take medicine black-faced lunar month do housework take notes spoonbill lunch box do the shopping take photos building block martial art get home talk on the phone cell phone movie theater get hurt throw a party Christmas carol night market get into trouble wash the dishes Christmas dinner on-line game get lost class leader orange juice get married class reunion pay phone go fishing comic book plum rains go hiking computer game police officer go home convenience store pop song go on a picnic couch potato record shop go shopping cram school red envelope go to bed department store rice cake go to school dining table rice dumpling have dinner discussion group running shoes keep shape dragon boat school festival lift weight elementary school senior high school lose weight fast food speech contest make a plan fast food restaurant sports field make a wish fire fighter spring break surf the Internet fitting room summer vacation surf the net food chain table tennis take a bath garage sale video game greeting card web page guide dog wild dream hot dog three-point shot human nature
41 Multi-word Items from Vocabulary Boxes in the Textbooks – cont.
Fixed Expression a few for you My hands are Sounds great. a little Forget it! full. Take care. a lot from then on Never mind. Take it esay. above all from time to time next time take place after all Good luck! Nice to meet you. That's right. all right Good morning. no answer the other day Anything else? had better no wonder the same Are you Happy birthday. Not at all. to be honest kidding? have a good time Not me. to go at home have fun Not really. too bad at least have to Nothing special. way of life at the corner Hold on! of all ages What a long semester! at the last How about you? on a diet What a small world! minute How do you do? on fire What do you say? best of all How nice! on foot What's the matter? by bicycle How was she on sale What's up? by bus doing? on the corner What's wrong? by chance I don't know. on the other hand You have the wrong by the way I have to go now. on the way number. Come on in! I hope not. on time you name it Come on! in a short time on TV You're welcome. day after day in fact once in a while Excuse me! in the past one another fall in love in the same way out of work Idiom fall out of love in time over the Internet give someone a big hand first of all It's all right. over there have something to do with for a while Just a moment. right away pull one's leg for example last night right here for fun little by little right now for here Long time no see. Say cheese. for sure make use of Sounds good.
42 Multi-word Items from Vocabulary Boxes in the Textbooks – cont.
Phrasal Verb Semi-fixed Expression believe in keep away a lot of How about⋯? blow out laugh at a number of How come⋯? care about listen to a pack of How much⋯? carry around look after a⋯ of How old⋯? check out look at across from hundred of⋯ cheer up look for all over in front of⋯ come up to look up along with in need of⋯ come up with name after as for in one's thirties come with pick up as⋯as⋯ in order to⋯ cool down put on at a ⋯ price It's time for⋯? cut down put out back to⋯ leave⋯ alone cut down on run out be able to Let me⋯ cut up run out of be afraid of Let's⋯ eat out say to be born light one's fire fall down show up be crazy about make up one's mind fall over sit down be famous for more than⋯ feed on stand up be fillied with next to figure out take away be full of not only⋯but get close to take off be gone also⋯ get off try on be good at not⋯at all get on turn around be made from of one's own get ready for turn off be rich in on one's mother's get up turn on both⋯and⋯ side give up turn into Could you⋯? set on'e mind to⋯ go out wake up do one's best so⋯that⋯ go up to walk by do one's homework stop⋯from⋯ hang out watch out do one's part take care of hang up watch out for do one's shopping take one's eye off⋯ hurry up write down either⋯or⋯ too⋯to⋯ fall in love with up to⋯ far from used to⋯ from⋯to⋯ What about⋯? have ⋯in common with all one's heart help oneself to⋯ would like to⋯ Would you⋯?
43 Appendix B
Top 50 Items Extracted from the Lists of Word Clusters
Two-word Cluster List N Word Freq. N Word Freq. 1 IN THE 196 26 I HAVE 44 2 DO YOU 129 27 LOT OF 44 3 ON THE 98 28 HAVE TO 41 4 ARE YOU 81 29 THERE ARE 41 5 A LOT 77 30 TO GO 40 6 I DON9T 69 31 YOU LIKE 40 7 TO THE 66 32 AND I 39 8 AT THE 65 33 DID YOU 38 9 OF THE 64 34 T KNOW 38 10 S A 64 35 WENT TO 38 11 THEY ARE 60 36 A GOOD 37 12 GOING TO 59 37 WAS A 37 13 THIS IS 58 38 AND THE 35 14 HAVE A 57 39 IS MY 35 15 IT IS 56 40 WE CAN 35 16 IT WAS 56 41 MANY PEOPLE 34 17 WANT TO 55 42 EVERY DAY 33 18 LIKE TO 52 43 T HAVE 33 19 I LIKE 51 44 TO BE 33 20 GO TO 48 45 TO DO 33 21 YOU CAN 48 46 IS IT 32 22 IS A 47 47 S MY 32 23 BUT I 45 48 DON9T KNOW 31 24 I WAS 45 49 THANK YOU 31 25 YOU HAVE 45 50 THE SAME 31
44 Top 50 Items Extracted from the Lists of Word Clusters – cont.
Three-word Cluster List N Word Freq. N Word Freq. 1 A LOT OF 44 26 I DON’T HAVE 12 2 I DON’T KNOW 28 27 IS GOING TO 12 3 DO YOU HAVE 25 28 A GOOD TIME 11 4 DO YOU LIKE 25 29 BY THE WAY 11 5 TO MEET YOU 24 30 IN THE HOSPITAL 11 6 WHAT DO YOU 23 31 LOOK AT THE 11 7 THIS IS MY 22 32 ON THE INTERNET 11 8 NICE TO MEET 20 33 ONE OF THE 11 9 DO YOU WANT 19 34 SOME OF THEM 11 10 YOU WANT TO 19 35 WANT TO GO 11 11 GO TO THE 18 36 WE HAVE TO 11 12 HOW ABOUT YOU 18 37 DID YOU DO 10 13 WHAT ARE YOU 18 38 HAVE A GOOD 10 14 ARE YOU GOING 15 39 TAKE CARE OF 10 15 I LIKE TO 15 40 TO BE A 10 16 I WANT TO 15 41 WOULD YOU LIKE 10 17 I WENT TO 15 42 YOU GOING TO 10 18 TO GO TO 15 43 I HAVE A 9 19 YOU LIKE TO 15 44 I HAVE TO 9 20 MY NAME IS 14 45 IN THE FUTURE 9 21 YOU HAVE A 14 46 IN THE MORNING 9 22 HOW DO YOU 13 47 IN THE USA 9 23 I’M GOING TO 13 48 S ON THE 9 24 M GOING TO 13 49 T HAVE A 9 25 THERE ARE MANY 13 50 WE DON’T HAVE 9
45 Top 50 Items Extracted from the Lists of Word Clusters – cont.
Four-word Cluster List Freq Freq N Word . N Word . 1 NICE TO MEET YOU 20 26 A LOT OF FUN 4 2 DO YOU WANT TO 13 27 A LOT OF TIME 4 3 ARE YOU GOING TO 10 28 ALL OVER THE WORLD 4 4 WOULD YOU LIKE TO 9 29 BUT I DON9T KNOW 4 5 DO YOU HAVE A 7 30 GLAD TO MEET YOU 4 6 HAVE A GOOD TIME 7 31 HAD A GOOD TIME 4 7 TO TAKE CARE OF 7 32 HOW DID YOU DO 4 8 WHAT ARE YOU DOING 7 33 I DON’T THINK SO 4 9 DO YOU LIKE TO 6 34 I LIKE TO PLAY 4 10 HOW DO YOU DO 6 35 I WANT TO GO 4 11 YOU GOING TO DO 6 36 I WILL TRY TO 4 12 YOU WANT TO GO 6 37 NICE TO SEE YOU 4 13 ATE A LOT OF 5 38 ON THE FIRST DAY 4 14 BORN IN THE YEAR 5 39 S A GOOD IDEA 4 15 CAN I HELP YOU 5 40 T GO TO THE 4 16 I DON’T HAVE A 5 THE DRAGON BOAT 17 IN THE LIVING ROOM 5 41 FESTIVAL 4 18 IN THE YEAR OF 5 42 THERE ARE MANY KINDS 4 19 S DAY IS ON 5 43 THEY ARE GOING TO 4 20 WHAT ARE YOU GOING 5 44 TO GO TO THE 4 21 WHAT DID YOU DO 5 45 WHAT DO YOU THINK 4 22 WHAT DO YOU USUALLY 5 46 WHAT DO YOU WANT 4 WHERE ARE YOU 47 WHAT SHOULD I DO 4 23 GOING 5 48 WHAT TIME IS IT 4 24 YOU HAVE A GOOD 5 49 WHICH DO YOU LIKE 4 25 A JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL 4 50 YOU LIKE TO DO 4
46 Top 50 Items Extracted from the Lists of Word Clusters – cont.
Five-word Cluster List
N Word Freq. N Word Freq. 1 ARE YOU GOING TO DO 6 26 AND DON’T FORGET TO BRING 2 2 BORN IN THE YEAR OF 5 27 AND HAD TO TAKE CARE 2 3 WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO 5 AND LIT FIRECRACKERS TO 4 YOU HAVE A GOOD TIME 4 28 SCARE 2 A JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL 29 AND TURN RIGHT AT THE 2 5 STUDENT 3 30 ARE TOMATOES A FRUIT OR 2 6 DID YOU HAVE A GOOD 3 BE A GREAT BASKETBALL 7 DO YOU LIKE TO DO 3 31 PLAYER 2 8 DO YOU WANT TO BE 3 BECOME FOOD FOR OTHER 9 DO YOU WANT TO GO 3 32 ANIMALS 2 10 HAD TO TAKE CARE OF 3 33 BUT JACK IS GOING TO 2 11 HAVE YOU EVER BEEN TO 3 34 CAN’T GO ON THE PICNIC 2 12 IN THE YEAR OF THE 3 35 CARE OF HER BABY DAUGHTER 2 13 ON THE FIRST DAY OF 3 CELEBRATE THE DRAGON BOAT 14 SPEND A LOT OF TIME 3 36 FESTIVAL 2 15 THERE ARE MANY KINDS OF 3 37 CHINESE NEW YEAR IS ON 2 16 WAS BORN IN THE YEAR 3 CHRISTMAS IS ON DECEMBER 17 WHAT DO YOU LIKE TO 3 38 THE 2 18 WHAT DO YOU USUALLY DO 3 COSTUMES AND LIT 19 WHAT DO YOU WANT TO 3 39 FIRECRACKERS TO 2 20 A FRUIT OR A VEGETABLE 2 40 DAY OF JIE ZHITUI9S DEATH 2 21 A LOT OF FAST FOOD 2 41 DIDN’T HAVE A GOOD TIME 2 22 A SNACK IN THE KITCHEN 2 DIFFERENT CLASSROOMS FOR 23 A TIME FOR FAMILIES TO 2 42 DIFFERENT SUBJECTS 2 24 ALSO ATE A LOT OF 2 43 DO PEOPLE FALL IN LOVE 2 ALSO TALKED ABOUT MANY 44 DO YOU HAVE THE TIME 2 25 THINGS 2 45 DO YOU HAVE TIME ON 2 46 DO YOU USUALLY DO AFTER 2 47 DO YOU WANT TO DO 2 48 DO YOU WANT TO LEARN 2 49 DO YOU WANT TO PLAY 2 50 DOING HIS HOMEWORK IN HIS 2
47 Top 50 Items Extracted from the Lists of Word Clusters – cont.
Six-word Cluster List
N Word Freq. N Word Freq.
1 WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO 5 26 IT WENT TO A SMALL TOWN 2
2 BORN IN THE YEAR OF THE 3 27 IT’S A TIME FOR FAMILIES TO 2
3 DID YOU HAVE A GOOD TIME 3 28 IT’S ON THE CORNER OF PARK 2
4 WAS BORN IN THE YEAR OF 3 29 JACK IS GOING TO SCHOOL = 2
5 WHAT DO YOU LIKE TO DO 3 LION COSTUMES AND LIT
6 A TIME FOR FAMILIES TO GET 2 30 FIRECRACKERS TO 2
7 AND HAD TO TAKE CARE OF 2 31 MEET ME AT THE PINE ROAD 2
8 ARE TOMATOES A FRUIT OR A 2 32 NEW YEAR IS ON THE FIRST 2
9 BUT JACK IS GOING TO SCHOOL 2 ON LION COSTUMES AND LIT
CARE OF HER BABY DAUGHTER 33 FIRECRACKERS 2
10 ALONE 2 34 ON THE FIRST DAY OF THE 2
CELEBRATE THE DRAGON BOAT PEOPLE CELEBRATE THE DRAGON BOAT
11 FESTIVAL ON 2 35 FESTIVAL 2
COSTUMES AND LIT 36 PUT ON LION COSTUMES AND LIT 2
12 FIRECRACKERS TO SCARE 2 37 S A TIME FOR FAMILIES TO 2
DO YOU USUALLY DO AFTER 38 S ON THE CORNER OF PARK 2
13 SCHOOL 2 39 SHE ALSO TALKED ABOUT MANY THINGS 2
14 DO YOU WANT TO GO TO 2 40 SHOW THEIR LOVE FOR THEIR MOTHERS 2
DOING HIS HOMEWORK IN HIS 41 TAKE CARE OF HER BABY DAUGHTER 2
15 BEDROOM 2 42 TAKE THE NUMBER 8 BUS TO 2
GET TOGETHER WITH THEIR THANKSGIVING IS ON THE FOURTH
16 FAMILY AND 2 43 THURSDAY 2
GO TO DIFFERENT CLASSROOMS 44 THE DAY OF JIE ZHITUI’S DEATH 2
17 FOR DIFFERENT 2 45 THE FIRST DAY OF THE YEAR 2
GOING TO SCHOOL = TENNIS 46 THE MAN IN GRAY PANTS IS 2
18 SCHOOL 2 THREE HUNDRED AND NINETY-NINE
19 HAD TO TAKE CARE OF HER 2 47 DOLLARS 2
20 I CAN’T GO ON THE PICNIC 2 48 TIME FOR FAMILIES TO GET TOGETHER 2
21 I DIDN’T HAVE A GOOD TIME 2 49 TO BE A GREAT BASKETBALL PLAYER 2
22 I WAS BORN IN THE YEAR 2 TO DIFFERENT CLASSROOMS FOR
23 IN THE YEAR OF THE HORSE 2 50 DIFFERENT SUBJECTS 2
24 IS GOING TO SCHOOL = TENNIS 2
25 IS ON THE FIRST DAY OF 2
48 Appendix C
Textbook Usage/sense of Phrasal Verbs Per Million Words in Usspok and Usbooks
Ratio of Tbook Ratio of Tbook textbook usage textbook usage Phrasal Verbs Usspok Usbooks usage to per m. usage to per m. Per m. Per m. all in all in usages usspok usages usbooks believe in 25.2 44/51 21.74 42 97/100 40.74 blow out the candles 0.5 0/1 0 3.8 36/124 1.10 care about 15.8 32/32 15.8 22.3 723/723 22.3 carry around 1 2/2 1 1.4 46/46 1.4 check the book out 3 1/6 0.5 5.5 1/179 0.03 cheer sb. up 0 0/1 0 1 33/33 1 come up to sb. 3.5 4/7 2 6.4 40/100 2.56 come with chips 15.3 0/31 0 21.5 13/100 2.8 cool down 0.5 1/1 0.5 2.1 60/69 1.83 cut down the trees 2.5 0/5 0 7.9 14/100 1.11 cut down on 1 2/2 1 2.4 78/78 2.4 cut up the fruit 0.5 0/1 0 2.4 36/78 1.11 fall down 2 0/4 0 6 194/194 6 my bookcases fall over 0.5 0/1 0 4.2 34/135 1.06 feed on 0 0/1 0 3.6 117/117 3.6 figure it out 17.8 36/36 17.8 7.8 253/253 7.8 get close to 4 8/8 4 2.4 77/77 2.4 get off the train 10.9 3/22 1.36 17.3 12/100 2.08 get on the bus 45.5 4/92 1.98 21.7 10/100 2.17 get ready for 4.4 9/9 4.4 2.4 79/79 2.4 get up (from the bed) 17.8 8/35 4.07 47.8 23/100 11 give up 27.2 55/55 27.2 56.9 1846/1846 56.9 go out 86.5 175/175 86.5 72.9 2365/2365 72.9 hang out 4.4 9/9 4.4 8.8 285/285 8.8 hang up the car keys 3.5 7/7 3.5 17.4 2/98 1.42 hurry up 0 0/0 0 2.7 89/89 2.7 laugh at 2.5 5/5 2.5 15.1 490/490 15.1 listen to 46 93/93 46 90.1 2922/2922 90.1
49 look after 0.5 0/1 0 9.6 312/312 9.6 look at 1098.1 94/100 1032.12 303.5 95/100 288.33 look for 133.9 271/271 133.9 105.4 3419/3419 105.4 look up the words 4 4/8 2 58.7 9/100 5.28 pick up my workbook 54.4 5/100 2.72 92.8 22/100 20.41 pick it (the garbage) up 10.4 4/21 1.98 25.8 14/100 3.61 put on my coat 54.9 0/111 0 37.9 40/100 15.16 put this (a ring) on 104.3 0/211 0 66.1 7/100 4.62 put out the fire 50.9 0/103 0 10.2 8/100 0.82 put stockings out 19.8 1/40 0.5 10.2 12/100 1.22 run out of the house 8.9 0/18 0 10.1 14/100 1.41 show up 36.1 73/73 36.1 25.8 837/837 25.8 sit down 41 83/83 41 60.5 1963/1963 60.5 stand up 17.8 36/36 17.8 37.5 1216/1216 37.5 take away sth. 16.8 34/34 16.8 12.6 410/410 12.6 take off shirts/shoes 11.9 3/24 1.49 27.8 40/100 11.12 try it (skirt) on 12.4 25/25 12.4 3.2 105/105 3.2 turn around 12.8 26/26 12. 14.7 477/477 14.7 turn sth. into sth. 8.4 17/17 8.4 28.3 917/917 28.3 turn off 2 4/4 2 14.1 457/457 14.1 turn on 4.9 10/10 4.9 28.5 923/923 28.5 wake up 6.9 14/14 6.9 26.1 848/848 26.1 wake her up 2.5 5/5 2.5 3.8 123/123 3.8 walk by 0.5 1/1 0.5 4.2 137/137 4.2 watch out for danger 0.5 1/1 0.5 3.3 108/108 3.3
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53