Linear Unit Grammar

Integrating speech and writing

John McH. Sinclair | Tuscan Word Centre

Anna Mauranen | University of Helsinki

Hardbound – Available

ISBN 9789027222985 | EUR 95.00 | USD 143.00

Paperback – Available

ISBN 9789027222992 | EUR 33.00 | USD 49.95

e-Book –

ISBN 9789027293060 | EUR 95.00/33.00*
| USD 143.00/49.95*

People have a natural propensity to understand language text as a succession of smallish chunks, whether they are reading, writing, speaking or listening. Linguists have found that this propensity can shed light on the nature and structure of language, and there are many studies which attempt to harness the potential of natural chunking.

This book explores the role of chunking in the description of discourse, especially spoken discourse. It appears that chunking offers a sound but flexible platform on which can be built a descriptive model which is more open and comprehensive than more familiar approaches to structural description. The model remains linear, in that it avoids hierarchies, and it concentrates on the combinatorial patterns of text.

The linear approach turns out to have many advantages, bringing together under one descriptive method a wide variety of different styles of speech and writing. It is complementary to established grammars, but it raises pertinent questions about many of their assumptions.

[Studies in Corpus Linguistics, 25] 2006. xxii, 185 pp.

Publishing status: Available
Published online on 1 July 2008

https://doi.org/10.1075/scl.25

Table of Contents

Dedication | p. vii

Acknowledgements | p. ix

Preamble | pp. xi–xiii

Introduction | pp. xv–xxi

Section A: Preliminaries

Setting the scene | pp. 3–22

Background | pp. 23–40

Data description | pp. 41–45

Section B: Analysis

System of analysis | pp. 49–54

Provisional Unit Boundaries | pp. 55–58

Types of chunks | pp. 59–70

Types of organisational elements | pp. 71–78

Types of increments to shared experience | pp. 79–89

Synthesis | pp. 91–103

Section C: Theory and follow-up

The example texts analysed | pp. 107–127

Theoretical synopsis | pp. 129–144

Looking ahead | pp. 145–166

Appendix | pp. 167–173

Index of names | pp. 181–182

Index of subjects | pp. 183–185

Cited by (55)

Cited by 55 other publications

Order by:

Cislaru, Georgeta, Quentin Feltgen, Elie Khoury, Richard Delorme & Maria Pia Bucci

2024. Language Processing Units Are Not Equivalent to Sentences: Evidence from Writing Tasks in Typical and Dyslexic Children. Languages 9:5 ► pp. 155 ff.

O’Grady, Gerard

2024. Theme in spoken language: when a tone group is not a clause. Journal of World Languages 10:1 ► pp. 76 ff.

Riabtseva, N. K.

2024. Cross-Linguistic Scientific Communication, Contemporary Digital Terminological Neologisms in English, and Translation Issues. Nauchnyi dialog 13:5 ► pp. 124 ff.

Dobrego, Aleksandra, Alena Konina & Anna Mauranen

2023. Continuous speech segmentation by L1 and L2 speakers of English: the role of syntactic and prosodic cues. Language Awareness 32:3 ► pp. 487 ff.

Vetchinnikova, Svetlana, Alena Konina, Nitin Williams, Nina Mikušová & Anna Mauranen

2023. Chunking up speech in real time: linguistic predictors and cognitive constraints. Language and Cognition 15:3 ► pp. 453 ff.

Anurova, Irina, Svetlana Vetchinnikova, Aleksandra Dobrego, Nitin Williams, Nina Mikusova, Antti Suni, Anna Mauranen & Satu Palva

2022. Event-related responses reflect chunk boundaries in natural speech. NeuroImage 255 ► pp. 119203 ff.

Feltgen, Quentin, Georgeta Cislaru, Christophe Benzitoun, F. Neveu, S. Prévost, A. Steuckardt, G. Bergounioux & B. Hamma

2022. Étude linguistique et statistique des unités de performance écrite : le cas deet. SHS Web of Conferences 138 ► pp. 10001 ff.

Nicoladis, Elena & Pui Ting Chan

2022. Literacy within a language affects bilinguals’ spoken language processing: evidence from grammaticality judgments. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism 25:7 ► pp. 2412 ff.

Tantucci, Vittorio & Aiqing Wang

2022. Resonance as an Applied Predictor of Cross-Cultural Interaction: Constructional Priming in Mandarin and American English Interaction. Applied Linguistics 43:1 ► pp. 115 ff.

Cislaru, Georgeta

2021. L'actualisation des noms sous-spécifiés dans le processus d'écriture enregistré en temps réel : considérations fonctionnelles. Corela :HS-34

Kopotev, Mikhail, Olesya Kisselev & Maria Polinsky

2020. Collocations and near-native competence: Lexical strategies of heritage speakers of Russian. International Journal of Bilingualism

Wang, Qian

2020. A corpus-based contrastive analysis ofI thinkin spoken Hong Kong English: Research from the International Corpus of English (ICE). Australian Journal of Linguistics 40:3 ► pp. 319 ff.

Krishnamurthy, Ramesh

2019. Collocations and Lexicography: Sinclairian Theory in Practice. In International Handbook of Modern Lexis and Lexicography, ► pp. 1 ff.

Pang, Priscilla

2019. Directives in Professional Kitchens and Potential Learning Opportunities. Applied Linguistics 40:5 ► pp. 754 ff.

Tribble, Christopher

2019. Expert, Native or Lingua Franca? Paradigm Choices in Novice Academic Writer Support. In Novice Writers and Scholarly Publication, ► pp. 53 ff.

Vetchinnikova, Svetlana

2019. Phraseology and the Advanced Language Learner,

Bondi, Marina

2018. Dialogicity in written language use. In From Pragmatics to Dialogue [Dialogue Studies, 31], ► pp. 137 ff.

Bondi, Marina

2022. Dialogicity in Individual and Institutional Scientific Blogs. Publications 10:1 ► pp. 9 ff.

Schneider, Gerold & Gintare Grigonyte

2018. Chapter 2. From lexical bundles to surprisal and language models. In Applications of Pattern-driven Methods in Corpus Linguistics [Studies in Corpus Linguistics, 82], ► pp. 15 ff.

Tyrkkö, Jukka & Joanna Kopaczyk

2018. Chapter 1. Present applications and future directions in pattern-driven approaches to corpus linguistics. In Applications of Pattern-driven Methods in Corpus Linguistics [Studies in Corpus Linguistics, 82], ► pp. 1 ff.

Carter, Ronald & Michael McCarthy

2017. Spoken Grammar: Where Are We and Where Are We Going?. Applied Linguistics 38:1 ► pp. 1 ff.

Cislaru, Georgeta & Thierry Olive

2017. Segments répétés, jets textuels et autres routines.Quel niveau de pré-construction ?. Corpus :17

Gledhill, Christopher, Stéphane Patin & Maria Zimina

2017. Lexico-grammaire et textométrie : identification et visualisation de schémas lexico-grammaticaux caractéristiques dans deux corpus juridiques comparables en français. Corpus :17

Saridakis, Ioannis E.

2017. Chapter 11. Golden Dawn and the traits of extreme right-wing discourse amidst the Greek crisis. In Greece in Crisis [Discourse Approaches to Politics, Society and Culture, 70], ► pp. 375 ff.

Čermáková, Anna, Zuzana Komrsková, Marie Kopřivová & Petra Poukarová

2017. Between Syntax and Pragmatics: The Causal Conjunction Protože in Spoken and Written Czech. Corpus Pragmatics 1:4 ► pp. 393 ff.

Cislaru, Georgeta, Thierry Olive, F. Neveu, G. Bergounioux, M.-H. Côté, J.-M. Fournier, L. Hriba & S. Prévost

2016. Les automatismes du scripteur : Jets textuels spontanés dans le processus de production écrite, le cas des constructions coordinatives. SHS Web of Conferences 27 ► pp. 06003 ff.

Clarke, Ben & Jorge Arús Hita

2016. The dynamicity of communication below, around and above the clause. English Text Construction 9:1 ► pp. 1 ff.

MacKenzie, Ian

2016. Multi-competence and English as a lingua franca. In The Cambridge Handbook of Linguistic Multi-Competence, ► pp. 478 ff.

Mackenzie, J. Lachlan

2016. Dynamicity and dialogue. English Text Construction 9:1 ► pp. 56 ff.

Mackenzie, J. Lachlan

2023. The Grammar of Incremental Language Production in Context. In The Cambridge Handbook of Language in Context, ► pp. 140 ff.

Tománková, Veronika

2016. LEXICAL BUNDLES IN LEGAL TEXTS CORPORA – SELECTION, CLASSIFICATION AND PEDAGOGICAL IMPLICATIONS. Discourse and Interaction 9:2 ► pp. 75 ff.

Hoey, Michael & Juan Shao

2015. Lexical Priming: The Odd Case of a Psycholinguistic Theory that Generates Corpus-Linguistic Hypotheses for Both English and Chinese. In Corpus Linguistics in Chinese Contexts, ► pp. 15 ff.

Hopper, Paul J.

2015. Temporality and the Emergence of a Construction. In Temporality in Interaction [Studies in Language and Social Interaction, 27], ► pp. 123 ff.

Hopper, Paul J.

2015. An Emergentist Approach to Grammar. In The Handbook of Language Emergence, ► pp. 314 ff.

Ishikawa, Shin’ichiro

2015. A CONSIDERATION OF THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE SPOKEN AND WRITTEN ENGLISH OF NATIVE SPEAKERS AND JAPANESE LEARNERS: A CORPUS-BASED STUDY. Discourse and Interaction 8:1 ► pp. 37 ff.

Laury, Ritva, Marja Etelämäki & Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen

2015. Introduction. Pragmatics. Quarterly Publication of the International Pragmatics Association (IPrA) ► pp. 435 ff.

Sánchez Rufat, Anna & Francisco Jiménez Calderón

2015. New perspectives on the acquisition and teaching of Spanish vocabulary/Nuevas perspectivas sobre la adquisición y la enseñanza del vocabulario del español. Journal of Spanish Language Teaching 2:2 ► pp. 99 ff.

Thomas, James

2015. Stealing a march on collocation. In Multiple Affordances of Language Corpora for Data-driven Learning [Studies in Corpus Linguistics, 69], ► pp. 85 ff.

Willis, Dave

2015. Conversational English: Teaching Spontaneity. In Issues in Teaching, Learning and Testing Speaking in a Second Language [Second Language Learning and Teaching, ], ► pp. 3 ff.

Wilcock, Graham & Kristiina Jokinen

2013. 2013 IEEE 4th International Conference on Cognitive Infocommunications (CogInfoCom), ► pp. 413 ff.

Xiao, Richard & Tony McEnery

2013. Grammar and Corpora. In The Encyclopedia of Applied Linguistics, ► pp. 1 ff.

Mauranen, Anna

2012. Linear Unit Grammar. In The Encyclopedia of Applied Linguistics,

Mauranen, Anna

2016. Temporality in speech – Linear Unit Grammar. English Text Construction 9:1 ► pp. 77 ff.

Mauranen, Anna

2022. Linear Unit Grammar. In Handbook of Pragmatics [Handbook of Pragmatics, ], ► pp. 865 ff.

Lam, Phoenix W. Y.

2010. Discourse Particles in Corpus Data and Textbooks: The Case of Well. Applied Linguistics 31:2 ► pp. 260 ff.

Lam, Phoenix W.Y.

2009. The effect of text type on the use of so as a discourse particle. Discourse Studies 11:3 ► pp. 353 ff.

Cheng, Winnie, Chris Greaves, John McH. Sinclair & Martin Warren

2009. Uncovering the Extent of the Phraseological Tendency: Towards a Systematic Analysis of Concgrams. Applied Linguistics 30:2 ► pp. 236 ff.

Stubbs, Michael

2009. Memorial Article: John Sinclair (1933–2007). Applied Linguistics 30:1 ► pp. 115 ff.

Stubbs, Michael

2012. Sinclair, John. In The Encyclopedia of Applied Linguistics,

VAN ROOY, BERTUS

2008. An alternative interpretation of tense and aspect in Black South African English. World Englishes 27:3-4 ► pp. 335 ff.

[no author supplied]

2014. Letters as Loot [Advances in Historical Sociolinguistics, 2],

[no author supplied]

2016. Discourse Reflexivity in Linear Unit Grammar [Studies in Corpus Linguistics, 76],

[no author supplied]

2016. Intonation Units Revisited [Studies in Language and Social Interaction, 29],

[no author supplied]

2018. How to Do Corpus Pragmatics on Pragmatically Annotated Data [Studies in Corpus Linguistics, 84],

[no author supplied]

2024. A Construction Grammar of the English Language [Cognitive Linguistics in Practice, 5],

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 29 october 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

Subjects