摘要
一、口语语法研究的基本单位
口语中经常出现与规范语法中的主句或从句概念不相符的语言单位,象词组、成分残缺不全的分句、无所依附的从句等,语言学家对这些现象不应熟视无睹.
In recent papers and books, we have reported some of the findings of our research into the grammatical characteristics of the five-million word CANCODE spoken corpus (Carter and McCarthy 1995; 1997; McCarthy and Carter 1995; 1997; Carter, Hughes and McCarthy 1998; McCarthy 1998; Hughes and McCarthy 1998). Although these works have tended to focus on specific aspects of spoken grammars, a common thread unites them: the belief that spoken grammars have uniquely special qualities that distinguish them from written ones, wherever we look in our corpus, at whatever level of grammatical category. In our work, too, we have expressed the view that language pedagogy that claims to support the teaching and learning of speaking skills does itself a disservice if it ignores what we know about the spoken language. Whatever else may be the result of imaginative methodologies for eliciting spoken language in the second-language classroom, there can be little hope for a natural spoken output on the part of language learners if the input is stubbornly rooted in models that owe their origin and shape to the written language. It is therefore, we believe, timely to consider some of the insights a spoken corpus can offer, and to attempt to relate them more globally to the overall problem of designing a pedagogical spoken grammar. We shall do this in the form of ten principles which might inform any spoken grammar project, and, which we feel, give us a distinct purchase on this relatively recent area of pedagogical interest. ①Each of the ten principles will be exemplified with extracts from the CANCODE spoken corpus. CANCODE stands for 'Cambridge and Nottingham Corpus of Discourse in English' ; the corpus was established at the Department of English Studies, University of Nottingham, UK, and is funded by Cambridge University Press, with whom the sole copyright resides. The corpus consists of five million words of transcribed conversations. The corpus tape-recordings were made in a variety of settings including private homes, shops, offices and other public places, and educational institutions (though in non-formal settings) across the islands of Britain and Ireland, with a wide demographic spread.
出处
《国外外语教学》
2001年第2期1-7,12,共8页
Foreign Language Teaching
