Dear Dmytro:
Anything involving language teaching, whether at primary, secondary or
tertiary level - as many other people on this list are much better
qualified than me to talk about - always seems to be such an ideological
minefield that we "naive linguists" need to be very careful how we
intervene in that fraught arena. I myself have cleverly managed to keep
well away from English teaching for most of my career, but similar
issues have consistently arisen in my on-off relationship with Chinese
teaching, so I empathise with your puzzlement and frustration.
Having said that, language teaching, like any kind of pedagogy, has its own
needs and pressures, and I think it would be misguided for linguists as
linguists to claim that any one theoretical approach should take precedence
in the classroom: practice, I think, should always be eclectic - "use
whatever works" - although I have problems with eclecticism in description
and theory.
Although I'm not familiar with the Lexical Approach that you've helpfully
summarised for us, to me it bears all the hallmarks of that kind of
theoretical/methodological "exclusivity", where someone "discovers" the one
"answer" to all our problems, and then proceeds to "plug" it
enthusiastically and immoderately, without acknowledging any of the
drawbacks that are obvious to an outsider, at least some of which stem from
that very exclusivity, and that will eventually cause it to be thrown over
in favour of some new "solution" to all our problems.
I'm not sure what we as linguists can do about this, except to continue to
quietly insist that our theories and descriptions should maintain that
elusive balance between rigour and consistency on the one hand and
flexibility and openness on the other.
best to all
Ed
On Fri, Feb 11, 2022 at 2:21 PM Dmytro Poremskyi <dmytro.poremskyi@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
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
