Lexis and the language learner: What is lexical error?

Isolating what might be specifically lexical in errors of language production is no easy task. Much depends on exactly what is understood by knowing a word (see Richards, 1976, and Section 7.19 for a list of more specific categories). Particularly in the early stages of learning a language, errors may result from a mismatch in morphophonemic correspondence (the fit between sound and written form), from inserting the word in the wrong grammatical slot or failing to locate grammatical

Words and patterns 73 dependencies, from inaccurate first-language transfer (often leading to specific semantic errors), and from intralingual confusion, that is, as a result of failing to distinguish appropriately between and among lexical items in the target language. Related errors occur in first-language as well as second-language learning but they are likely to be more acute in the second language. Martin (1984) argues that in the case of advanced second-language learners, who do not have the luxury of exposure to words over a long period of time and in a rich variety of contexts, the errors are most likely to be interlingual. Examining the nature of such lexical errors can be instructive for description of lexical structure and organization; as far as applied linguistic work is concerned, it can help to clarify and suggest teaching procedures which relate to what knowing a word involves.

Martin’s research leads her to conclude that advanced students regularly set up false equivalences between items and that the practice of glossing new words in terms of synonyms can be a primary factor in establishing errors in second-language production. Martin isolates four main types of dissonance between a lexical item and its appropriate use:

stylistic, syntactic, collocational and semantic.

Stylistic dissonances occur when lexical items at one level of formality are selected and used in a context demanding another level of formality;

for example, ‘dunk the pieces of chicken in the beaten egg mixture’; ‘a committee was appointed by the government to examine specific grouses’; ‘where is her abode?’ In such instances more information is needed about the usage of such words than that they are synonyms of place, complaint and home.

Syntactic errors can occur, according to Martin, if no warnings are supplied in textbooks against using the synonym in the syntactic patterns which belong to the item being glossed or defined. Thus, if persist were to be presented as a synonym of continue then there would be no check on learners producing errors such as *He persisted to shout. Unaware that, in the case of the ‘synonyms’ yield/concede, only concede is able to take a that-clause, there would be no constraint on a student producing

*She yielded that I was right. Particularly elusive too are the transitivity relations contracted by synonymic change verbs. Glossing elapse, for example, by reference to pass without reference to the fact that elapsed is used intransitively (while pass can be both transitive and intransitive) would not prevent the generation of *We elapsed a nice couple of hours in the park. These errors are essentially colligational (see Martin, 1984 for a host of further examples, as well as Section 3.5).

Collocational mismatches are frequent in the language production of second-language learners since learners never encounter a word or

74 Words and patterns

combinations of words with sufficient frequency to demarcate its range or narrow the item down to its more fixed partnerships. Particular difficulties result from collocations which are relatively opaque semantically (e.g. a heavy drinker) or which are restricted to particular fields of discourse (e.g. ‘light pastry’; ‘slick gear-change’). Thus, explaining amicable as a synonym of friendly does not explain why amicable divorce is collocationally acceptable but *friendly divorce is not, nor why fat paycheque cannot be substituted by *obese paycheque without producing comic results. Adjective-noun collocations are notoriously slippery⁷ but the extension of collocational partnerships over other syntactic chunks can produce similarly infelicitous combinations.

Martin does not, however, discuss mistakes with idioms.

Martin’s final category is semantic, and she admits this to be the most complex of all the four main types. There are several subtle and delicate distinctions among words of similar meaning and semantic analysis can help with some necessary demarcations; for example, work on selection restrictions using fundamental binary oppositions such as state-event, animate-inanimate, abstract-concrete (see Section 3.3). Thus, *I injured my car in the accident can be explained quite straightforwardly by pointing out that injure requires a direct object which is animate unlike damage which only takes an inanimate object and would be the correct selection here. Martin also cites the instructive example of a list of items from what could be a thesaurus entry under a general superordinate correct. The items include rectify, reform, remedy, emend, redress and she points to the lexical error in: *I must rectify my younger brother all the time. Here the more general superordinate verb would have sufficed but the word rectify applies to abstract properties (such as abuses, errors, etc.) which are deemed inherently bad. Similar errors can be generated using all the hyponyms in this list as if they were interchangeable (e.g.

you can remedy but not redress a situation). And, above all, the example illustrates some problems inherent in directing foreign-language learners to thesaurus entries (see also Section 9.5 and, for criticism of lexicographic glossing procedures using synonyms, see Jain 1979; 1981).

It also illustrates once again the difficulties in deciding where selection restrictions end and collocational probabilities begin.

We should note, finally, that errors of more than one type can con-verge. For example:

*We alighted off the bus.

is a syntactic error derived from matching the phrasal verb with a synonym such as get off but it is also inappropriate stylistically as alight

Words and patterns 75 is a particularly formal register. An interesting study of an overlap of

‘syntactic, semantic and pragmatic’ factors is given in McKay (1980b) in a study of synonyms listed under a superordinate inform. These include: announce, communicate, declare, disclose, discuss, expose, express, mention, refer, report and state. Examples given by McKay include discussion of semantic and collocational differences between express (which takes objects involving emotion or opinions, together with a human subject), announce (which is more likely to have as its object a significant event) and mention (which is pragmatically a verb with both less strength and formality than its semantic partners).

This section has concentrated on a limited range of examples of lexical errors in language production. The extent to which the same factors affect language comprehension has not been examined but we cannot assume that they will be the same. Another interesting factor to investigate would be the storage in memory of such items, especially the collocational and stylistic/pragmatic dimensions to word meaning, and particularly whether items are stored singly or as whole composite units. It is clear, however, that knowing a word involves a complex of factors and that learning words should, as far as possible, take account of syntactic, semantic, stylistic and collocational dimensions if the types of dissonance catalogued here are to be avoided.

We have not, however, so far accounted for the nature of the ‘lexical’

errors in the following examples:

(1) *He tried to swim across the lake. Consequently, it was very cold and he had to give up.

(2) *He ran very fast and failed to win the race.

(3) *She passed the exam. This move pleased her parents.

(4) *He broke a cup, plate and saucer. By these means people thought he was clumsy.

The main point here is that once again grammatical as well as lexical units are involved but that beyond-the-sentence relations are generated by the italicized errors. It is interesting that errors of this type do not figure in Martin’s categories though it can be argued that both syntactic and semantic criteria are relevant. In fact, the area of the part played by lexical items in the cohesion and coherence of a text is one which has been receiving increased attention from linguists interested in lexicology and discourse analysis. The basic assumption is that, however important it is to account for and understand lexical patterning at the level of the clause, ways with words depend just as crucially on the patterns created

76 Words and patterns

by lexical items in the wider context of naturally occurring discourses.

The next chapter is devoted to this area.

3.11 Conclusion

In this chapter we have looked at words in varying degrees of combination and this has once again raised the theoretical problem of adequately defining a word. The patterns into which words enter are, in fact, of both theoretical and applied interest. Although idioms have been relatively widely analysed by linguists, the importance of a wide range of fixed expressions and, in particular, their potential relevance for language teaching is now beginning to be examined in greater detail. It has also been noted in this chapter that errors in vocabulary use by non-native speakers of English can also be more systematically accounted for if we are aware of the kinds of patterns and interrelations which words contract with one another. We should note, however, that it is once again the patterns created by the more frequent, core words in the lexicon—words such as round, have, take, run—which are the most problematic to describe as well as to teach and to codify lexicographically.

One main conclusion can be drawn from this chapter: it is commonly assumed that using words entails a creative deployment of the resources of the language, particularly in the selection of items from our lexical store; but many lexical items are either themselves patterns or form part of patterns which are quite fixed and stable and which are used rou-tinely in relatively predictable situations. Meanings can, of course, be uniquely generated but stability is a pervasive feature of normal vocabulary use and it is clear that there are numerous communicative contexts in which language can be used formulaically. As is the case with core and non-core words, however, it is no easy task to draw a dividing line between expressions which are fixed and those which are open to more ‘creative’ formulation. As a result, it is necessary to talk in terms of clines of fixity.

This chapter has tried to suggest classifications and categories for different lexical patterns which may provide a basis for further exploration. Although it is corpus-based computational analysis of such patterns, particularly in the important area of collocation, which holds out most promise for future categorization, Chapters 6 and 7 in this book discuss the role of fixed expressions in lexicographic work and language teaching. In those chapters much of the discussion assumes the general conclusions about lexical patterning reached here.

Words and patterns 77 Notes

1 The example of soft water which also collocates in such relationships as ‘the softness of the refreshing spring-water’/‘water-softener’/‘the ministry have softened the water’ demonstrates that within collocational ranges we are dealing with roots rather than words (see Sections 1.4 and 1.5). A collocation is a composite structural element in its own right: roots are zero collocations and we should study the contract between a root and its other lexico-grammatical relations. Collocations cut not only across word class boundaries such as noun and verb, but also across such sentence parts as ‘subject’ and

‘predicate’, as well as across sentence boundaries. For example, Use the water from the stream beyond the main farm buildings. Its softness will be particularly beneficial. It is clear that, to capture collocational relationships in a text, decisions concerning the span will be crucial.

2 Subsequently, both Halliday and Sinclair have modified their position regarding lexis as a linguistic level. Halliday (1978) refers to lexico-grammar as a ‘stratum’ where lexical and grammatical structures which realize the output from the semantic component of a text are mapped onto one another.

Hal-liday’s three strata which make up the linguistic system are: lexico-grammar, semantics and phonology. See also Section 4.8 for a review of work by Hasan on the interaction of lexis and grammar in the formation of textual cohesion and Section 6.6.1 for Sinclair’s collocational and colligational descriptions for word entries in the COBUILD dictionary.

3 Cowie and Mackin (1975, p. viii) define an idiom as ‘a combination of two or more words which function as a unit of meaning’. Exceptions to the rule here would be ‘units’ such as ‘He’s a livewire’ or ‘It’s blackmail’ though it could be argued that formally more than one ‘word’ is involved in each case.

We should also note here that certain single lexical items do not have meaning in contemporary English except in some fixed combination; for example, kith in kith and kin; spick in spick and span; aback in to be taken aback and jiffy in in a jiffy. Cowie and Mackin (1975) and Cowie et al. (1983) would also want to describe idiomaticity as a feature cutting across all fixed expressions rather than have idioms as a separate category included within and subsumed by an overall framework of fixed expressions. And this is the policy adopted in ODCIE (1975). In this study the term ‘idiom’ is reserved for lexical patterns which are specifically characterized by semantic opacity.

4 ‘Conventionalized forms make communication more orderly because they are regulatory in nature. They organize reactions and facilitate choices, thus reducing the complexity of communicative exchanges. They are group identi-fying…serving as instruments for establishing rapport, reinforcing awareness of group membership…and defining social relations and the relative status of the different communicators’ (Yorio, 1930, p. 438). We should also note that these categories and classifications emerge from distinct linguistic traditions and for different explanatory needs; for example, those listed here include the domains of language acquisition, conversational discourse analysis, ethnomethodology as well as lexicology. But these different traditions have also learned from each other.

5 For a useful survey of relevant issues and with acknowledgement of East European work in the field see Weinreich (1980).

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6 For example, chance collocates quite fixedly with take but take allows synonymic substitutions which do not greatly alter an overall meaning. Thus, take a risk/gamble/chance.

7 Benson (1985, p.63) argues that such combinations are of considerable importance to compilers of general use dictionaries and follows Apresyan et al. (1969) in marking ‘expression of the highest degree’ in this combination as especially important for the learner, for example, reckless abandon; chronic alcoholic, rank amateur, burning ambition.