Chunks of Language

Chunks of language are "prefabricated" language which is used in appropriate situations. This notion came from studies which observed that children "pass through a stage in which they use a large number of unanalyzed chunk of language in certain predictable social contexts."

Comments:

• they are used as raw material for later segmentation and analysis in developing the rules of syntax;

• some scholar put language chunks at the very center of acquisition and claim that the strategy of acquiring formulaic speech is central to the learning language.

Nattinger, James and DeCarrico, Jeanette. Lexical Phrases and Language Teaching. Oxford University Press, 1992

Coady, James and Huckin, Thomas. Second Language Vocabulary Acquisition: a rationale for pedagogy. Cambridge University Press, 1997

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