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Chapter Two Literature Review

2.1 Introduction of the Lexical Approach
The basic concept on which this approach rests is the idea that animportant part of learning a language consists of being able to understand and producelexical phrases as chunks. Students are thought to be able to perceive patterns oflanguage (grammar) as well as have meaningful set uses of words at their disposalwhen they are taught in this way. In the lexical approach, instruction focuses on fixedexpressions that occur frequently in dialogues, which Lewis claims make up a largerpart of discourse than unique phrases and sentences.He described the Lexical Approach as follows, “The Lexical Approach can besummarized in a few words: language consists not of traditional grammar andvocabulary but often of multi-word prefabricated chunks. Teachers using the LexicalApproach will, instead of analyzing language whenever possible, but more inclined todirect learners’ attention to chunks which are as large as possible.”Lewis (2002a:vii) devoted that language consists of grammaticalised lexis, notlexicalized grammar. It stresses that lexical chunks should be introduced and focusedin language teaching and learning. Theoretically, the Lexical Approach has positivesuggestions to make about the nature and role of lexis, different attitudes to text, andstrategies for “chunking” language (dividing it into its component ‘bits’, which arenot the traditional vocabulary and structure which teachers and students assume).(Lewis，2002a：ix) Nattinger and DeCarrico (2000: 1) also pointed out that currentresearch in computational studies of texts and in language acquisition, converges in away that reveals the lexical phrase as an ideal unit which can be adopted for languageteaching.
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2.2 Previous Studies on the Lexical Approach
The mastery of English lexical chunks can be helpful to English learners. TheLexical Approach proposed by Lewis was the theoretical foundation of lexical chunkteaching. So the studies on the Lexical Approach become more and more in China andabroad recently. Since 1990s, there were researchers abroad who began to study the LexicalApproach. The term “chunking” was first put forward by American psychologistsMiller and Selfridge in 1950. Becker (1975) raised the concept of “prefabricatedphrases”. Bolinger (1975) pointed out that language communication is foundedmostly on the short or long lexical components. Language users mostly use a greatdeal of lexical chunks which are stored in the memory system. Lewis (1993) was thefirst one who raised the concept of “lexical chunks”. Nattinger and DeCarrico (2000:1) thought that current research in computational studies of texts and in languageacquisition, converges in a way that reveals the lexical phrase as an ideal unit whichcan be exploited for language teaching.One of the earliest leading proponents of this approach was H. G. Widdowson. InWiddowson (1979: 5), he states that ‘there is a good deal of argument in favour ofextending the concept of competence to cover the ability to use language tocommunicative effect’.
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Chapter Three Theoretical Framework ........ 19
3.1 Lexical Chunks .....19
3.2 Information Processing Theory.....28
3.3 Functions of Lexical Chunks in Listen本论文由英语论文网提供整理，提供论文代写，英语论文代写，代写论文，代写英语论文，代写留学生论文，代写英文论文，留学生论文代写相关核心关键词搜索。