Spoken Grammar for Chinese Learners.docVIP

Spoken Grammar for Chinese Learners 　　【Abstract】 Currently， the concept of spoken grammar has been mentioned among Chinese teachers. However， teachers in China still have a vague idea of spoken grammar. Therefore this dissertation examines what spoken grammar is and argues that native speakers’ model of spoken grammar needs to be highlighted in the classroom teaching. 　　【Key words】 spoken grammar written grammar China 　　1. Introduction 　　Since the arrival of corpus-based grammars， especially Cambridge Grammar of English （Carter and McCarthy， 2006） and Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English （Biber et al.1999）， explicit information of native speakers’ spoken grammar has been explored in more detail and depth. It is a generally recognized concept among Chinese teachers that the difference between spoken grammar and written grammar would be best mentioned in the course of classroom teaching （Timmis， 2005）. McCarthy and Carter （2001， p.57） suggest “language pedagogy that claims to support the teaching and learning of speaking skills does itself a disservice if it ignores what we know about the spoken language”. However， the question may be asked by Chinese teachers what spoken grammar is and whether a model of spoken grammar is suitable for Chinese learners？ 　　2. Features of spoken grammar 　　The collection of the descriptions of spoken grammar has been occurring for a long time in the UK and now features of spoken grammar are well described in corpus such as Cambridge International Corpus. However， most Chinese teachers have no idea what spoken grammar is exactly or what the differences are between spoken and written grammar. Therefore a brief mention will be made here of the features of spoken grammar. 　　?Ellipsis 　　Unlike scripted speech， in real life conversation native speakers sometimes omit some elements of a structure， for example： subject， auxiliaries， etc. These eliminations will not interfere with the meaning because it is clear enough from t