下文选自上海外语教育出版社引进出版的经典英语教学法著作《词汇：描述、习得与教学》，导读、注释：武太白
导读
前面两篇关于词汇的选读文章（《需要学会多少英语单词，才能在学习中应付裕如？--英语教学法原著选读67》《算词汇量，怎样才算一个词？有没有高频词汇列表？专有名词算不算词汇量？（英语教学法原著选读68）》）出来后，许多朋友表示，我们就是需要这样的内容！感谢你们，亲爱的朋友！我会继续按照你们的需要，跟大家一起读下去的。
今天给朋友们选的是一篇有点难度的综述，选自上述图书的第二篇论文“Written and Spoken Vocabulary”，是其最后的结论部分（Conclusion），就是这么长长的一段——是的，就这一段。700多个词一段，这在正式的学术文章中并不鲜见，但要想读懂，实在是不容易。看着也觉得头皮发麻呢！但是，这一关不过，想读更多的原著又谈何容易。今天我就特地没有给翻译（明天会发，请关注），让朋友们练习练习这种困难的原文阅读。
这一篇的大意是这样的：随着英语口语资料获取、保管、分析技术的日益发展，对英语口语词汇特点的研究也逐渐步入快车道。这样的研究会逐步确立口语词汇在教学中的中心地位，并突出其极端重要性。对于教师如何获取口语词汇列表，作者也提出了解决方案，尽管并不完美。对于全球范围内推行口语词汇教学，作者指出既有价格和可行性方面的不足，也可能导致“语言帝国主义”——那些源自西方核心国家的语料库难以避免会对世界其他地区的国家重新形成一种语言上的绝对优势，因为在大部分地区口语语料及词汇表获取并不现实，只能借用并不合用于当地的语料库。这且不提，口语词汇研究的一大贡献是，它使原本在我们眼中只是令人生畏的一大串必须记住的词汇成了进行有效口语交际的资源库，从这种意义上讲，口语词汇研究可以说是对英语教学进行改天换地也不为过。
最后，为持续改进本系列文章的质量，今天我又推出一项新的措施：在下面这段长长的文字的后面，我贴了一个分段详细注释版，虽仍然没有译文，但理解上要容易得多。你们先读一读这一大段，然后再去那几个小段，感觉会好一些的。
怎样，多提宝贵意见吧！
Spoken language has become more important in language teaching oyer the last two decades, with the emphasis on language for communication, and whilst written language will always remain a fundamental source of input for language learning in most formal contexts around the world, there is no doubt that spoken input (in the form of films and TV, as well as new electronic modes of communication where spoken styles intrude on the written medium, such as e-mail) is becoming more globally available and central. It is difficult to say just how much spoken language native speakers are typically exposed to daily in relation to written exposure; Simpson (1988) estimates that a native speaker of English may be exposed to the somewhat fantastic figure of a million words per day of spoken and written combined, though no objective evidence seems to be available. But undoubtedly, for most people, the spoken language is the main source of exposure to language, and is thus the main engine for language change and dynamism. It is our contention that language teaching should reflect this primacy of the spoken. This chapter has argued for the investigation of spoken and written vocabulary in terms of their differences. It has also advocated a combination of corpus-based and qualitative analysis of data, and has particularly underlined the special nature of vocabulary use in informal, face-to-face spoken interaction. Since not much is yet in place in the form of teaching materials or reference materials or other pedagogicial resources reflecting authentic spoken vocabulary, the interested language teacher needs to become his/her own researcher, and the question often arises as to how teachers can access relevant facts about the spoken vocabulary if they are working in situations where collecting large amounts of real data is unrealistic. One solution (though limited in what it can tell us, as much of the discussion in the latter part of this chapter underlines) is the use of publicly available computer-generated word lists from sources such as the British National Corpus. Computer word lists for the spoken language can be used alongside conventional word lists (e.g. those listed in a school or examination syllabus) as a checking mechanism or to compare with computer-generated word lists for written language. However, there are problems both of the lack of affordability and practicability of using available corpora in most teaching situations round the world, and in the danger of linguistic imperialism that lies in imposing alien dialectal models of the target language. Until such time as local corpora based on the desired variety of L2 can be gathered, such impracticalities and dangers will remain. What is more, the qualitative analyses in this chapter have illustrated crucial aspects af the lexical characteristics of everyday spoken language, and although we have argued against over-generalisation from one-off analyses, it is true that one does not need much data to see the same features constantly recurring. The premise that lexical items used resourcefully by interactants in contexts create discourse helps us to locate and explain spoken vocabulary features in terms of the kinds of constraints which differentiate conversational language from composed, single-authored written text. The differences are significant with respect to the kinds of vocabulary items that become important to teach. The emphasis shifts away from the purely content words, and embraces items such as discourse markers and vague terms, and the lexicon is seen as dynamic, with abstract concepts such as synonymy and antonymy gaining a real sense of usefulness (see McCarthy, 1984, for further discussion). Word lists for teaching also need to take into account the pervasiveness of multi-word units in spoken interaction, and also need to recognise the possible different meanings or shades of meaning encountered in the spoken usage of common words. The lexical load may not necessarily be greater in spoken language programs, but it will certainly have different priorities and emphases. The implications do not end at teaching materials but are also relevant for dictionaries, which often do not reflect the true importance of spoken items such as markers (for a discussion see Altenberg, 1990). Above all, we have suggested, spoken language offers us a coign of vantage from which to view vocabulary as a communicative resource, rather than as a lifeless and forbidding list of items that just have to be learned. Finally, if what we learn about language by looking at vocabulary in the spoken mode forces us to reassess how we extract vocabulary for teaching and learning from written texts, then the prospects for improved vocabulary teaching can only be good.
------------------------
以下内容，斜体为从句，加粗为谓语，红色为主语，下划线为连接词，中括号[ ]为方便理解可略过的部分。
Spoken language has become more important in language teaching oyer the last two decades (ten years), with the emphasis on language for communication, and whilst (while) written language will always remain a fundamental (basic and very important) source of input for language learning in most formal contexts around the world, there is no doubt that spoken input (in the form of films and TV, as well as new electronic modes of communication where spoken styles intrude on the written medium, such as e-mail) is becoming more globally available and central.
It is difficult to say just how much spoken language native speakers are typically exposed to daily in relation to written exposure; Simpson (1988) estimates that a native speaker of English may be exposed to [the somewhat fantastic figure of] a million words per day of spoken and written combined, though no objective evidence seems to be available (there). But undoubtedly, for most people, the spoken language is the main source of exposure to language, and is thus the main engine for language change and dynamism. It is our contention argument) that language teaching should reflect this primacy (top importance) of the spoken.
This chapter has argued for (supported) the investigation of spoken and written vocabulary in terms of (from the point of view of) their differences. It has also advocated (supported) a combination of corpus-based and qualitative (looking at overall quality rather than exact quantity) analysis of data, and has particularly underlined (pointed out the importance of) the special nature of vocabulary use in informal, face-to-face spoken interaction. Since not much is yet in place (ready) in the form of teaching materials or reference materials or other pedagogicial resources (tools for teaching) reflecting authentic spoken vocabulary, the interested language teacher needs to become his/her own researcher (research for themselves), and the question often arises as to how teachers can access relevant facts about the spoken vocabulary if they are working in situations where collecting large amounts of real data is unrealistic.
One solution (though limited in what it can tell us, as much of the discussion in the latter part of this chapter underlines) is the use of publicly available computer-generated word lists from sources such as the British National Corpus. Computer word lists for the spoken language can be used alongside conventional word lists (e.g. those listed in a school or examination syllabus) as a checking mechanism or to compare with computer-generated word lists for written language.
However, there are problems both of the lack of affordability and practicability of using available corpora in most teaching situations round the world, and in the danger （注意此处in the danger与前面of the lack并列，由both... and...连接） of linguistic imperialism that lies in imposing alien dialectal models of the target language (danger lies in ...). Until such time as local corpora based on the desired variety of L2 can be gathered, such impracticalities and dangers will remain. What is more, the qualitative analyses in this chapter have illustrated crucial aspects af the lexical characteristics of everyday spoken language, and although we have argued against over-generalisation from one-off analyses, it is true that one does not need much data to see the same features constantly recurring.
The premise that lexical items used resourcefully by interactants in contexts create discourse helps us to locate and explain spoken vocabulary features in terms of the kinds of constraints which differentiate conversational language from composed, single-authored written text. The differences are significant with respect to the kinds of vocabulary items that become important to teach. The emphasis shifts away from the purely content words, and embraces items such as discourse markers and vague terms, and the lexicon is seen as dynamic, with abstract concepts such as synonymy and antonymy gaining a real sense of usefulness (see McCarthy, 1984, for further discussion).
Word lists for teaching also need to take into account the pervasiveness (being everywhere) of multi-word units in spoken interaction, and also need to recognise the possible different meanings or shades of meaning encountered in the spoken usage of common words. The lexical load may not necessarily be greater in spoken language programs, but it will certainly have different priorities (levels of importance) and emphases. The implications do not end at teaching materials but are also relevant (meaningful) for dictionaries, which often do not reflect the true importance of spoken items such as markers (for a discussion see Altenberg, 1990).
Above all, we have suggested, spoken language offers us a coign of vantage (good high point) from which to view vocabulary as a communicative resource, rather than as a lifeless and forbidding list of items that just have to be learned. Finally, if what we learn about language by looking at vocabulary in the spoken mode forces us to reassess how we extract vocabulary for teaching and learning from written texts, then the prospects for improved vocabulary teaching can only be good.
------------------------
欢迎添加武太白个人微信1601918196，就英语教学法愚英语学习作进一步探讨。
联系客服
