Beyond syntactic constructions: How to approach their lexico-grammatical aspects
(2022) PREDICAR in Network: Variation, methodology and teaching — Location: Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) [held online] (18.April.2022)
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- Linguistic phenomena such as causative constructions or passive constructions in English have traditionally been described as purely syntactic phenomena. Yet, as corpus data reveal, lexico-grammatical aspects have an important role to play in their use. This presentation will rely on L1 and L2 corpus data to show how the lexis-grammar interface can be better integrated into descriptive and applied linguistic studies centered around such constructions. The focus will be on methodological issues, including the use of strategies which make it possible to retrieve more peripheral instances of a construction (e.g. pseudo-passives with an adjectival form like ‘BE interested’) and the application of techniques that seek to uncover the phraseological patterns of constructions (e.g. collostructional analysis). It will be demonstrated that constructions can be described more accurately if their lexico-grammatical aspects are taken into account. This is especially true for comparisons of L1 and L2 varieties; for example, native writers prefer verbs such as seem or appear in the [X MAKE Y Vinf] causative construction, whereas EFL learners prefer be and become. Adopting a more applied perspective, it will also be claimed that the lexis-grammar interface should be emphasized more when teaching these constructions, so as to favor the production of more idiomatic language. The pedagogical method of ‘data-driven learning’ will serve to illustrate how corpus data can be used in the classroom to help students notice the lexico-grammatical features of constructions.
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Gilquin, G. (2022). Beyond syntactic constructions: How to approach their lexico-grammatical aspects. PREDICAR in Network: Variation, methodology and teaching, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) [held online]. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/101636