The clineof idiomaticity
As a lexicographerI'm sometimes
Natural
lungqage
learnlng
Julie Moore considers hat is;mpl;edby the term
'a natural command of
how learner'sdictionaries English'? I recenlly heard
a Swissstudent being
can help studentsdevelop interiewed on a BBC newsprogrme
about the expansio! of the EU- He
a more natural command relefted to 'th lihe vhen the Eurcpeon
Unia, is getting into shdpe- I snjled ds
of English. an image popped iDto my miDd of
Eu.ope sweaiingit out in the gym.
tying to losea few poundslI then
immediately lelt guilty for making fun
or someonewhosecommandof Enelish
was really very good and who was brave
enough ro be inieniewed h a loreign
So whereexactlydid this studelt fall
down and what ellect did il haveon his
listener?Perhapshe had co used two
idiomaiic expressions.ger raro Jrape and
rare J}ape, or perhapshe $as jur!
struggling lo find an appropriate verb
1odescribesomethingbeconinga new
shape.Altematllell, he may have
intendedto useEerdg firo Jldpu.albeit
somewhalatypically, lo mean 'preparing
and Eettingoryanisedfor an event'.
Such nisrnalches and near missesdo
noi alwaysmatter if the general
mniry is clear, but they .@ lead to a
speakerpulting acrossthe wrong
impressionor evenbeingcompletely
misunderstood. A nalural command of
Enslish inplies not only a good grasp
ol gramar and an adequate
vocabulary,but also an understanding
of how to put the ldguag togethr in
a way that will sound typical dd
fmilia. to the listeler.
r m.etproresdoFLco- ' ere ss reecHtrue
asked1l) sellle a djspule aboul whether
a particularcodbinationof wordsis in
fact a phrase or atr idiom, a collocation
or a colloquial expression.My usurl
response is to sbng and sayit docsnl
really matter. It is perhapsmore lseful
to think of word combinationsas a
clinefrom rhe rotaily fiee reed
ndhlcdrlhook to the rotally fixed or
idiam ti. not seethe Noatlfor the
t/e.r. The secondphraschcrc is not
ody fixed nr fom, but also has nolhing
whateverto do rvithwoodsor trees.In
betweenthesetwo extremes, we tind a
whole ratrse of expressionswhich are
nethe. totally predictableno. rotally
opaqueas to meaning.
9t 9t 9l 9l 9t 9t 9 l
tohlly Trltllt
lres lired/
idi0nalic
lO weak collocations:wordswh ch
are often used together in a
seerning y ire way and a only
signncantwhenviewedalongside
apparently slmiarcomblnalons
whichdon'i iii iogetherqute so
naturaly.Youcoulddescribea
peon as big, laee, snall, tall,
sho|t, fal or thin, but noi nomaly
as ,itle (exceptfor a ch id), w?e,
naftov high ot low.
la strons cotlocations:wods which
areusediogeiherso irequeniyin
a particuar contxtthat ihey have
becomefixedand other
aliernativesseemunlikely:cross
the taad, heavyrcin, blissfu y
O set structuresand lormula:
Thenorc ... thenare/less...
(Thenarc | tied to help hin, the
norc stubbon he becane.)
O Fixed phnsest by the way,in the
lg vadableidiomaticexpressions:
costlspend/bewofth a (snal|
tanune, with (all duelthe greatest)
G) Mehphorical expressions:
feel out ot yout depth. (aeue/talk)
untilyouTe blue in the face
O Opaque idiotnst kick the bucket,
paint the town rcd
1/ol.riordl . I3su.36Janua,y2oo5. 29
 A naturalmodel
Natural It follows that extremeidiomalic
languaeis nor a useful nodel for

lffis'*'I
leamers ro copy.Whar ledft need is
a forn of Eng1tuhtlat is like native
English, but without i}le cultwal
baggage.li is the languagat the less
fixed, more predictableend oI the cline
on pase 29 which forrN the basisol
nuch of the lmsuage used by the
Mmy leamers enjoy leaming about
averagenative speater This huge range
idioms, but are hesitant about using
of transpreDt @llocations, fixed and
them for fear of getting them wrong or
semi red phraseswhich are nore
of sounding funny. This fear is not
neutral in style, will fit quite easily
totally unfounded, as Stuart Redman
aionsside the leamer's current tanguage.
and Ruth Gairns point outj someof the
A command of this ranse ol linguistic
nore opaque,higbly idiomatic phrases, conl,blii rlon! as nske an effat to do
deviceswill allow the exam candidate,
$ch as at the end af m! tether ot get sanething atd pasea prcblem,ttirho,n
for example,to develop a nalural,
lour k icke in a twt zrc \ery ditrrc.lt baiting an eyelid, but would not think ro
interesting style. which will impressthe
to integrale into leamer inferldguge use them in their own speechor writing.
examiner,or enablethe learner studying
aDdjust etd up soundins parti@ldly
in an English{peaking coutry to make
unratuial. Such opaque idioms and Raising awareness
a good impressiotrwith tleir English-
expressionsare. howev! ctually quite Many counebooks and vocabrilary
speakingfriends Even betweennon-
ilfrequent in the langageol the practice books contain noles, study
native speakers,appropriare choicesin
averageDativespeaker.We sometjnes sectionsand pnctice exercisesfocllled
terms of collocations can be vital in
perceivethem as being more comnon specificaly on hishlishtins collocations
providins a comon framework witbin
becausewhen they ar? used,they stand and everydayphmses.Suchactilities cm
which both speakerdd [stener wi]l
out and are notied. Researchhas be key itr raising awarenessol mtura.l
know what to expect.The Greek leamer,
shorn that evenlhe scriptwriters of English dd iD introducing concepts
for example,who asks someoneto ope,
popular soap operaslall into ihe trap such as collocation. They are, howeve!
lne /igrl (a direct translation fron the
of includins far nore idioms in their rather restricted in terms of the range of
creek) may be understood by his
dialogue than is typical of nomal lansuageihey can exempliry.To really
classmates,but misht re@ivepuzzled
conversationbecausethey feel that it expa.d their active knowledse of
looks froro speakersof orher Lls.
givestheir chara.ters a more authentic collocalions and usetul phrases,ihe
By uppeFintermediat level, leameis
appeal to lhe audience. leamer rcxt needs1odevelop the ski11s
will already recoerise and uderstand
In general.highly idiomanc to accessrefernce rcsourcessuch as
nany of thesephrases.Combinations
expressionsare often very culinre- leamert dictionaries, which contain a
su.h as take shapeot cost a fartune utlll
boud and are usedlarsely, esp@ially wealth of information. enabling them to
causefew problems in rerms of
by professionalwnteis, such as explore lmguage for rhemselvesand to
journalists, comediansa.d novelists,.ts comprehension,especiallywhen 'laDgugerich'.
becone more
encounteredin context. The challenge
a way of esrablishinga relarionship with
for maDyleamers, as we will seebelow,
their audiencebasedon a shared Dictionaries f or learners
tu to nove theseuselul lexical chunks
backsround and culture. This is There persistsan idea ihal diclionaries
from their passive10 their active
fftqently a national, or evenregional are simply lbere to 8]ve the meaningsol
vocabnlary.In their researchinto the
culture: TV showsdo no! alwayscros unknown words. Whai lemers ofien
ldguage that leamers actually nse,
rhe Admtic Ocea wilhout getting at miss out on when they opt Ior the
Redlrm md Gaims noted that nan)
leastpafly losi in hanslation. quick, easyanslatiotr offered by a
upperinteme.liate learne tetuledto
bilingual diciionary, thougb is all the
"plar safe Nith lanstuge and rclied on
additional information about 3 word
lanlr sinple stnctutes and lerit Nhich which is therc to be exploited in a sood
yewed then fton expressinsmore
nonolingual leame/s dictionuy. In
conplex ide6 an.l usingEreatersubtlet),.
addition to information about meaning,
spellhg, Fonuncjation. srmar and
Naturalcombinations usase,monolinguallea.ner's
A key problem for many learnersis that dictionaries also presenta range of
they don't recognisethe lower dd mid phrasesand exanples which show the
ranses of lxed and semi-fixed most conrmon collocations, phrasesnd
'new patterns which a word is usedin.
co ocations and expressionsas
vocabulary' at all, becausethey are A leamer searchinsfor an ppmpriate
'easy'wordswhich way,for exanple, to dscribea loi of rain,
oftenmadeup of
'ktrow'. They might read couldnake a'safe'guessand choosea
they already
throueh a rext containing such comon adjective 'biglsttory rcin

3(, . |sue 36Jn@ry2oo5. ENcusH TEAcHINGp/offfirra1 t w.etproreslonsl.coh .

 both of which would sound awk$ard dd
unnatural. Opting for a slightly more
colourfu] lraDslation from their mother
longue mighr also lead to somNhat odd
results: a French ledner, for exuplq
lnight comerp wlth *beatihgldiluvi
ruin or *to tdin tu big dn?slia waveslin
trrrcnrr A quick look in any of the
major lrner\ dictionaries, tlough,
shows h. a t ),Ip ouringI t ot ential tuin d
rain h.llheatjily, elthet ^s bolded
colocalions or in examples.Looking in a
more specialisedcollocations dictionary
lLrethe O\for.l CollacdtionsDi.tionary),
we conn fwthet add dtivi g ruin, poul
||ith lain, rain bea6lkrheslpellpot;
dow ^nd nin inces m tb l non-st opolidly.
Many learner's dictionaries also now
;nclude special boxesa! the enrries lor
common words showing a range of
collocalions. And leame searchingfor
more than simple collocations coxld also
try more speciiiseddiciionarieq such as
the La gnan LanguageAcrraldl, which
gives ranse of vocabulatl', including
collocations. phrasesand idioms,
associaledwith a particular conept, or
the SMART thesauns facility otr the
Canbri.lgeAbMced INaner's CD-ROM
,r,iorar] which suggeslsa raDgeof
words dd plrases relatedin meaningto a
serch word (/atu thmws up suchphrases
as a rloMpout ^ be tipping n down).
Overcoming reluctance
Leamers! especiallyat lower lwels, are
often reluctant to use monoliryual
dictionaries beause they think they will
be difficult to understand. Chssrcom
activities caD help then becone nore
conrlortable with using dictionaries on
. Introdue lowerlevel leners to
inienediate, o. evenelementary Ievel
dictiondies frst so that they do nor feel
overloadedby too much information.
. Poinl oul that the definitioDs de
wntten in a very sinple style (usins a
restricted rang of vocabulary) which
is really very easy!o understand.
. Compde the reatment of pdticular
words in a bilinsual and monolinsual
dictionary to show leameN the
direrent types of information
Referencing skills
Leamers won't nake full use of their
dictionaries, howeve! unlesstney kno\t
how to usethem and are motivated ro do
so. RefereDcingskilh ate a vital parr of
t w.6tprotersiont.@m.
Ieamer taining and leaching dicrionary
skills should not be a ore-ofl lessono!
activity. but an ongoing prcess of
workjng togther with students as and
when vocablary issuesdop up.
. Use dictionaries toCetherwirh
studentsin class!gliding them
through lhe fornat and e ditrercnr
lypesof informalionava;lable.
. Sendstudentsto their dicrionaries io
solve vocabuiary queries(rarher thd
providins quick easyfixes yoursell) to
encourageleamer independence.
. Introduc new dicrionaries advdced
level, colocations dictiondies, etc
gadually, focusing o! their specil
features.Make use of introdxctory
pagesand study sectionsro help
studenls find out whatt available.
. DMde a classinto grcps and gt
eachgmup to investigatea different
dictionary reporring back to the rest
of the classwitl a review,either
orally or in wdtins.
Dictionries f or production
It is also important that learnersdon't
seedictionaries o.ly in lems of
decoding lansua8e.but as useful for
ploduclion as well. As we haveseen,
many upper-intermediareleame will
ndersland many common phrasesand
collmtions, so they wont borber ro look
them up; yet they don't acruatly 'know'
them well enough !o use them actively
. ChalleDceleamers'beliefs about what
they know by getting ttrem to wrire
their own dictionary entries for
ielatively common words and then
compare then with the informatior
included in an actual dictionary.
. Extend fmiliar brainstorming
activilies io iDcludedicliomries cet
rNo_ts.l -EAc+Nc p/Jtrriord1
leamersto look up ky words;n a
gtventopic areaard list possibieuseful
phrasesand collocatesin prepdation
for a pieceof wrirten work.
. Get leame into the habit of including
a box of someof thesekey collocarions
and phrasesat the start of eachpiece
of written work, to rcler back to while
t-heywrite and for future refererce.
. Make sure yo cive positive feedback
to leameN who then usethe
combinatiois they havefound corectly.
A i S *
By naking leame nore awareof the
way in which the wods of the lansuage
are put together and the ellet that these
combinations haveon comunication,
and by further reachiDgthem ihe
referenceskills they need to explore the
words and expressionsihey might wanr
to use for themselves,we can hope to
encouragetlem 1l)move awayfmm
their safe.but rather awkward leamer
language.We an equip them with rhe
skills to searchfor appropriare
collocalions dd phraseswhich will best
expiesswhat they want to say,in a siyle
which is interestiDgdd conveysa seffe
of their own peonality and feelings,
but is, at the sme timg natual, rypical
and clea conprhensible to native
speakersand other non-native speake
aiike.GE
Redman, Sand Gaims,F Nat /
English UppeH nternediate Teach's
EookOUP2003
Learnerb Dicrionari*:
Onod AdvancedLemefs Actionary
Anb dge AdvancedLeaner's
Longnan Dictiqary of Contenp@ry
Macmil EngllshDbtionary
COBUILDA.tuancedLwefs English
Specialised rssources:
Oxford CaIIacatians Dbtio naty
Longnan Language Activatar
. ksue 36Janu.ry 2oo5. 3l