Is language like cooking?

Have you ever wondered how the human mind pick up a language? Or why learning to speak a language take much less time than learning to properly read and write? Indeed, research shows that though ESL students take an average of five to ten years before they can read and write at par with native-speaking peers, they only need about two years to develop adequate speaking and listening skills. The same thing is true, also, for children learning their first language. Observe pre-school children, for example. Most of them still have absolutely no idea what the word "grammar" even means, and yet many can and do talk in properly constructed sentences. How? You guessed it. By memorization and imitation, of course. This is the basic of what linguists call the "lexical approach" to learning.

Lexicology is the branch of linguistics that studies words and everything about words, including their nature, meaning, elements, groups, and relationships with each other. (The name originated from the Greek "lexicos," meaning "of words.") Lexis is at the heart of lexicology and the lexical approach to language. Lexis "describes the storage of language" in our brains as "prefabricated patterns that can be recalled and sorted into meaningful speech and writing." In other words, the words combination of our vocabulary. Unlike grammar, lexis defines "probable" instead of "possible language use."

Tom Hayton, in his article "Why language is like cooking," reiterates this difference to argue lexis' superior importance to grammar in learning languages. Since "most sentences have been uttered before" and much of language is like Maggi noodle, he claims, it is much easier to memorize and use "phrases as ready-made linguistic chunks" than to analyze and recompose a common phrase every time you use it, as it is much faster to simply pull packaged noodle off the shelf and cook it than to make the noodle from scratch every time you want them. In fact, this IS what people do, he states: the mastery of grammar is not as essential to learning a language as many believe or claim it to be.

The lexical approach holds similar claims: (1) lexis is the basis of language, and (2) "the key principle of a lexical approach is that 'language consists of grammaticalized lexis, not lexicalized grammar.'" This emphasizes the importance of memorized word combinations in our brains, and has important implications not only to the learning, but also the teaching of a new language. Believers of the lexical approach indeed argue that lexis "should be a "central organizing principle" in any syllabus.

I myself believe in the necessity of polished grammar for fluency in a language, but I agree with Hayton that if communication is the goal, the lexical approach is much more effective than the grammatical approach in teaching language. I myself learned English by memorizing the common word phrases I hear during conversation, and imitating both their pronunciation and context of usage. (Up until today, whenever anyone asks me how I learned English, I jokingly answer: "I talked a lot.") I also read a lot of translated manga--Japanese comics--the first year, and this helped me see a lot of these common phrases in context and on paper to better remember them. Once I had the conversational basis, I could much more easily communicate with teachers and friends to learn advanced vocabulary and grammar structure. In this way, the lexical approach is not only a better beginners' approach, but also a great basis for the grammatical approach. Allowing us to communicate with each other and with the world, it provides each of us with the basics to experiment with and build our own unique brand of language from.

Thanks for reading, and have a great 3rd week of college =D


Other links I used beside the article:

• Student with limited English skills pose special challenges for testing
• Wikipedia - Lexis and Lexicology
• Lexical approach