Dear Chris, comrades and colleagues,
As those of you who work in the field of literacy and pedagogy surely
know, the Lexical Approach
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lexical_approach> in teaching foreign
languages is all the rage these days, with a string of successful
coursebooks (including /Outcomes, Innovations, /and /Perspectives/) to
its credit. As popular as it may be, my initial worry was that it's
being actively promoted by people with virtually no background in
linguistics or language aquisition (sorry for the 'aquisition' but you
surely get the idea!). Now, a foundational book for LA's proponents is
Michael Lewis's /The Lexical Approach: The State of ELT and a Way
Forward /(1993, published at the author's own publishing house). The
book opens with 'Principles and implications of the Lexical Approach'
(pp. vi–vii) – and it is this part that I find particularly troublesome
and prone to criticism. If my doubts are confirmed and the foundation is
rotten, then it's bad news for the superstructure (i.e. the rest of the
book). Below is the list of language-related principles that look wrong
or at least objectionable to me (the list is not exhaustive, but other
principles seem to be more syllabus-related). I'm trying to look at them
through the lens of SFL, but since SFL is 'the most elaborate (and
subtle) theory of language, /as a**unified phenomenon/, so far devised'
(as Chris nicely put it here
<https://thoughts-that-cross-my-mind.blogspot.com/p/why-is-this-blog.html>),
I think it can serve as a reliable tool for measuring the merits and
shortcomings of LA:
*Principle**
* *Comment**
*
1. Language consists of grammaticalised lexis, not lexicalised grammar.
'Very misleading indeed': L is a multi-dimensional socio-semiotic
system, with dimensions organised on different ordering principles with
distinctive ranks; bluntly saying that L consists of lexis is simplistic
and completely insensitive to the phenomenon in question. Which is more,
#1 seems to contradict the principle of 'lexis as delicate grammar'.
2. The grammar/vocabulary dichotomy is invalid; much language consists
of multi-word 'chunks'. The first part seems consistent with SFL ('We
have stressed the unity of lexis and grammar, as two poles of a single
cline, or continuum' [Halliday & Matthiessen 2014: 64]), while the
second part runs into the same problem as outlined above. Plus, the
status of chunks ('pre-fabricated formulaic items' [Lewis 1993: 121]) is
unclear within the system, maybe because the author is unconcerned with
designing any coherent system at all...
3. Language is recognised as a personal resource, not an abstract
idealisation. Again, a mixed bag. We all agree that language is a
resource for making meaning, but it' a _socio_-semiotic system, and
therefore calling it a 'personal resource' is not a good idea at all.
4. The central metaphor of language is holistic – an organism; not
atomistic – a machine. At first sight, this seems consistent with
Halliday & Matthiessen 2014: 54: “In this chapter, we have outlined the
contours of language in general – what we might call the ‘architecture’
of human language, using a common metaphor for the organization of a
system, although a term such as ‘anatomy’ would arguably be more
appropriate since language is an evolved system rather than a designed one”.
However, this seems to contradict Halliday & Webster 2014: 13: “By way
of an analogy, we might think of a network of options as a piece of
circuitry. The grammar as a whole would then correspond to some complex
mecchanism made up of a number of interconnected 'blocks' of wiring.
Within each block the connections are extremely dense, whereas the
interconnections between blocks are relatively straightforward”.
5. Grammar as a structure is subordinate to lexis. As above:
lexicgogrammatical continuum, so misleading. Besides, 'grammar =
structure' is not functional thinking. Besides, how does it fit with #2
(no grammar/vocab dichotomy)?
6. Grammar as a receptive skill... Hard to hit a moving target: in #5,
grammar = structure, which turns into a skill... I find it strange and
inconsistent.
7. Sub-sentential and supra-sentential grammatical ideas are given
greater emphasis, at the expense of earlier concentration on sentence
grammar and the verb phrase. Colourful grammatical ideas are emphasised
sub-sententially, all right... But how can one work with
'supra-sentential ideas' without understanding their building blocks at
a lower level? And if 'sub-sentential ideas' are given greater
prominence, too, why is it that the 'verb phrase' is shifted out of sight?
I'm also attaching a scan of the relevant pages with all the 'principles'.
I hope some of it makes sense and will be delighted to hear from you.
Yours very truly,
Rob Dmytro Poremskyi
Attachment:
Lewis_The Lexical Approach_pp. vi–vii.jpg
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