The 8th ASIA TEFL INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE
Teaching English as a Global Language: Creating and Sharing the
Asian Framework of Practice
Hanoi, Socialist Republic of Viet Nam, 6-8 August 2010
Idiomatic competence across languages:
Implications for EFL and EAP classrooms
James McLellan
Te Whare Wānanga o Waikato / The University of Waikato
mclellan@waikato.ac.nz
13 April, 2015
José F. Lacaba (1997), in a discussion on
standards in Philippine English among
newspaper and book publishers:
“The problem is that we don’t even get the clichés
right. A lot of Filipinos, for instance, say “bark at
the wrong tree” instead of “bark up the wrong
tree”. Or we say “birds of the same feather”
instead of “birds of a feather”. So are these
Filipino expressions acceptable in Philippine
English? Or should we use the standard
American or British clichés? Or should we find a
way of not using clichés at all?” (p. 161).
© THE UNIVERSITY OF WAIKATO • TE WHARE WANANGA O WAIKATO
13 April, 2015
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Outline of presentation
1.
Idioms, idiomatic competence and idiomaticity
(unilateral, creative?)
2.
Background: ELF, ALFE, EI(A)L & other acronyms
3.
Presence or absence of idiomatic expressions:
findings from small corpora of ASEAN / SEAMEO
speeches, New Zealand speeches, and academic
articles
4.
Discussion: idioms, SEA Englishes and ALFE;
implications for teaching EFL, EAP
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13 April, 2015
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Idiomatic competence
can be applied to all four of Canale & Swain’s (1980)
categories of communicative competence:
• Grammatical
• Strategic
• Sociolinguistic
• Discoursal
and idioms can be placed on a scale of ‘transparency’:
more
transparent
less
transparent
Idioms
Variously defined:
• Chunks
• Multi-word units (mwus)
• Formulaic expressions
OED definition of idiomaticity (cited by Prodromou,
2008) :
“A peculiarity of phraseology approved by usage
and often having a signification other than its
grammatical or logical one.” (p. 49)
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13 April, 2015
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Unilateral idiomaticity
Seidlhofer (2002),
e.g. “What’s your bottom line?”
Creative idiomaticity
Prodromou (2008),
e.g. “It’s raining kittens and puppies” (p. 226)
“drinking like a horse” (pp. 231-2)
Who is ‘allowed’ to do this?
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13 April, 2015
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Premise: Idioms are frequent in some
genres / registers
e.g. news media texts
Selangor speaker in the soup
PETALING JAYA: Selangor Speaker Teng Chang Khim’s
tweet over the sacking of Klang DAP municipal councillor
Tee Boon Hock has landed him in hot water. ….
http://thestar.com.my/news/nation/, August 2, 2010
NZ Dominion Post sports story example
(News media texts are often used in EFL
classrooms, e.g. for reading comprehension)
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13 April, 2015
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ALFE and other acronyms
ALFE: Asian / ASEAN Lingua Franca English
ELF: English as a Lingua Franca
EIL:
English as an International Language
EIAL: English as an International Auxiliary Language
(Smith, L.E., 1983)
SUEs: Successful users of English (avoiding the
NS/NNS distinction; Prodromou, 2008)
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13 April, 2015
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Research question I
What happens in terms of the use of
idiomatic language in ALFE contexts?
i.e. Do figurative idiomatic expressions
derive
from SEA national cultures,
from USA / UK / AUS / NZ cultures,
…
or are they not used?
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13 April, 2015
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Research question II
Whose idioms are (should be???) used in
academic writing (EAP)?
Subsidiary questions:
Should idioms be explicitly taught?
If so, how? Which ones? At what level?
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Some academic research article titles in Applied
Linguistics (incl. idioms, intertextuality)
“Lexical thickets and electronic gateways: making text
accessible by novice writers” (Milton, 1999)
“Is it a wood, or are they trees?” (Johnson, 2002)
“Final frontiers in Applied Linguistics” (Crystal, 2003)
“The agonism and the ecstacy: conflict and argument in
Applied Linguistics” (Badger, 2004)
“The devil in the kaleidoscope: can Europe speak with a
single voice in many languages?” (Tosi, 2006)
“Bumping into creative idiomaticity” (Prodromou, 2007a)
“Kettles of fish: or, does unilateral idiomaticity exist?”
(Prodromou, 2007c).
“EIL / ELF: cup half-full or half-empty?” (Maley, 2008)
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13 April, 2015
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In EAP and in writing coursebooks,
traditionally, students are advised to avoid
clichéd idiomatic expressions –
e.g. ‘Every coin has two sides’)
These are seen as stylistically inappropriate in
the academic domain.
(e.g. Rountree, K., 1991)
(or else, the issue is avoided altogether)
Gregg (1986),
commenting on Mohan and Lo (1985)
“[My Chinese students] did not share our
disparagement of traditional formulaic language
– the essential furniture of the learned person’s
writing to them, the abhorred cliché to us.”
(p. 357)
Gairns & Redman, 1986, p. 36
“Certain native speakers might ‘get the ball
rolling’, but few foreign learners could carry off
this idiom without sounding faintly ridiculous”.
=> idiomatic language is for ‘us’, not for ‘them’
(But a Malaysian academic used this phrase at
the start of her presentation at the recent LSP
conference in Kuala Lumpur)
Malay > English, English> Malay
Malaysia
‘katak dibawah tempurung’ >
‘frog under the coconut shell’
‘musuh dalam selimut’
>
‘enemy in the blanket’
‘pengangkat bola’
>
‘ball carrier’
>
‘disenaraihitamkan’
+
‘blacklisted’
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13 April, 2015
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South East Asian Englishes
Tendency to modify syntactically or lexically
restricted idiomatic expressions, as noted by Tongue
(1979, pp. 88-89):
the donkey’s work
in hot soup
stop pulling my legs
neck-to-neck
up to my nose in work
+
“We will make them eat back their words”
(Malaysian Prime Minister, main news bulletin, TV1, 1 Nov. 2009)
= creative, reclaiming ownership of English
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13 April, 2015
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‘Unilateral idiomaticity’ examples (I)
(may cause intelligibility problems?)
Expressions used by senior academic staff of a New
Zealand University in presentations to a visiting Malaysian
delegation:
“We will put our skates on…”
“(This university) punches well above its
weight” (x2, different presenters, also used in uni. marketing)
“Australians were green-eyed…”
“Go the gamut”
“Tarred by the same brush”
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13 April, 2015
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‘Unilateral idiomaticity’ examples (II)
Canadian PhD supervisor to Malaysian PhD
student:
“I can’t read your draft chapter right now, I’m
snowed under with work”
“Bob each way”:
used by (British) presenter at 14th English in SE
Asia conference, Manila
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13 April, 2015
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Method
• Corpus of ≤ 30 transcripts of speeches, collected from
websites, 33,000 words, delivered by heads of
government, senior ASEAN and SEAMEO officials
• Searched (mostly manually) for examples of figurative
expressions
• Frequency and distribution checked
• Compared with reference corpus of speeches from New
Zealand business meetings, representing an intranational, ‘inner-circle’ variety of English,
• Then with a third (smaller, 23,000-word) corpus of NZ
speeches addressed to Southeast Asian audiences
• Then with a corpus of EILJ & Asian EFLJ articles
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ALFE speeches corpus findings:
Total = 121 tokens
Ratio
1: 270 words
Most frequent lemmas, phrases:
12 in 6 speeches : Seamless
5 in 4
: Tap / untapped
5 in 4
: Leverage(d) (v.)
5 in 2
: Bottom line
4 in 3
: Forge (v.)
4 in 3
: Fast track
3 in 3
: Harness (v.)
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13 April, 2015
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Concordance for ‘seamless’, ALFE corpus
•
technology, human resource and a "seamless" market should be a driving
• strong hindrances to the creation of the seamless production base, and single
•
can play a pivotal role and provide a seamless link for transportation
•
between countries, resulting in a seamless movement of goods from
• to provide Sun with a comprehensive, seamless global logistics solution
•
logistics companies to facilitate the seamless distribution of their goods and
•
the case for the seamless ASEAN market that
•
up various bases into a seamless market
•
positioning of the region as a seamless market and
• be best summed up in two key words, 'seamless' and 'value'. The region will be
•
and 'value', The region will be 'seamless' when borders between
•
formalities, barriers to a seamless flow of goods
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13 April, 2015
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Others (2 or 3 occurrences), e.g.
• to chart roadmaps
• up the technology ladder
• the indispensible “glue” binding these countries
• movers and shakers
• open-arms welcome
• reaping these dividends
• ASEAN to thrive as a hub for Asia
• ASEAN is a concert of Southeast Asian nations
• multipronged approaches towards integration
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13 April, 2015
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Reference corpus 1: New Zealand English
• Corpus of the same size (c. 33,000 words)
• NZ business and political speeches
• Intra-, not international
• Phase 5 in Schneider’s (2003) model
• Total = 157 tokens
• Ratio of 1: 216 words
• Greater frequency of extended figurative use
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NZ Corpus findings: Total = 157 tokens
Ratio
1: 216 words
Most frequent lemmas, phrases:
8 in 1 speech
: Bottom line
5 in 4 speeches: Tap / untapped
5 in 3
:
The big(ger) picture
2 in 2
:
Hard-nosed
2 in 2
:
Over-arching
2 in 1
:
Canary in the coalmine
2 in 1
:
(fly-by-night) cowboys
2 in 1
:
Number 8 wire
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+ more frequent extended idioms in speeches
in the NZ intranational corpus
e.g.
• We don’t want to be that inn keeper who will take
advantage of an over-booked town to charge exorbitant
rates.
• The question is when do you fix the roof? When the sun
is shining or when it’s raining? Well when the sun’s
shining we go to the beach.
• The opposing team has been much like a synchronised
swimming team – polished in delivery but the nose peg
masks a slightly tainted smell.
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13 April, 2015
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Reference corpus 2: New Zealand speeches at
ASEAN gatherings
• Smaller corpus (11 speeches, 23,116 words)
• Total = 189 tokens
• Ratio of 1: 122 words = highest of the 3 corpora
• Fewer examples of extended idioms than in the
NZ intranational corpus
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13 April, 2015
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NZ>ASEAN Corpus findings: Total = 189
tokens
Most frequent lemmas, phrases:
6 in 1 speech : Glass ceiling
4 in 2 speeches : Weather the storm
3 in 2 speeches : Forge
3 in 1 speech : First past the post
2 in 2 speeches : Tap(ped)
2 in 2 speeches : Level playing field
2 in 2 speeches : Span(ning)
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13 April, 2015
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ALFE Academic writing corpus
EIL Journal & Asian EFL Journal articles, 2010
98,000 words, 19 articles, by SUEs
Total:
177 tokens
Ratio:
1: 554 = much lower than other corpora
Mostly in introductions, discussion, conclusions
sections; 1 in title (“2 sides of a coin”)
Fewer found in lit. review, methods, presentation
of findings sections
Examples from academic articles
11 in 2 articles:
Washback (effect)
2 in 2 articles:
cultivate (writing strategies)
3 in 1 article (extended): The king is (really) naked
2 in 1 article (extended): A skeleton in the cupboard
Others (x1 only)
Cognitive bottleneck
…weeded out social factors
When theoretical saturation was achieved
To liberate English from native speakers is still a long
and winding road
Limitations (‘hedges’)
• Critiques of the whole notion of ELF / ALFE as a distinct
variety of English (e.g. Prodromou, 2007b, 2008; Maley,
2009):
• Are ELF / ALFE just researchers’ artifacts or constructs?
• Further research needed
- into intelligibility and transparency of the idioms used
in ALFE contexts
- into aspects of accommodation and negotiation for
meaning in choices made by speakers (or their
speechwriters)
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Discussion / Conclusions - I
Relatively few idiomatic expressions in ALFE
corpus, compared to the intranational NZE
corpus, but the highest frequency is in the
NZ>SEA speeches.
The academic articles have by far the lowest ratio
of idioms.
None are culture-specific in the ALFE corpus
Most are internationally intelligible, although some
may be problematic
Many are ‘clichés’, and/or ‘management speak’
In the context of formal speeches, as in
academic discourse, the over-use of idiomatic
expressions may not be appropriate
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13 April, 2015
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Discussion / Conclusions - II
So, is the restricted use of idiomatic expressions
a feature of ALFE? …..
Are ALFE, ELF and Academic English all
interrelated in terms of their avoidance of
idiomatic expressions? Idiom-free zones?
Ongoing research into phonological and syntactic
features of ALFE and ELF needs to be
supplemented by study of lexical and discoursal
patterns in ALFE and Academic English texts.
Is idiomatic competence just ‘sour grapes’?
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Discussion / Conclusions - III
• “ALFE” similar to ‘Academic English’?
• Grant, 2007, p. 181, citing Liu, 2003:
“Even low-frequency figuratives could be
important…so teaching students the skills to
interpret the figurative… will help them become
more independent learners”
+ Idiom teaching materials need to be “based on
frequency and range of occurrence in authentic
language”
Or are we b______ u_ the _____ ____?.....
(Grant & Bauer, 2004)
.
Thank you
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