Teacher Discussion Forums

Which of the following expressions would one expect to find in 1) a gardening magazine or website and 2) in travel writing?

a) in winter
b) during the winter months

You would see both; depends on the context.

Stephen Jones wrote:You would see both; depends on the context.

You'd expect to see both in both types of text? Is that what you're saying?

yes

Stephen Jones wrote:yes

I'm trying to find an example of "during the winter months" in a travel guide or similar publication. If you come across anything such as that, please post it. There's lots of examples of that expression in gardening mags, though.

All this has got me wondering if you've got Percy Throwup now as a student, metal!

fluffyhamster wrote:All this has got me wondering if you've got Percy Throwup now as a student, metal!

Really? It's just got me wondering - useful activity for some. So, what's your on-topic response?

Well, it's not much of a topic, is it. What were you expecting people to add, that you can't find out for yourself? (Not after another flamewar, just answering your question).

Well, it's not much of a topic, is it.

Not much of a topic? Are we at the "I'm Fluff. I don't yet work at that level of questioning with my students in my small world and so I expect that nobody else does or should find a need to." point of the discussion?

Since when was semantic prosody and lexical priming not an interesting topic for EFL teachers working with high-level learners?

Moving on...

Do moist and damp have the same meaning, for you?

Other posters on your 'Awareness of semantic prosody' thread have implicitly questioned the utility of the term (it doesn't seem a very helpful one, does it); I myself wonder why anyone would ask 'What does "set in" or "cause" mean when the "collocates" (that is, items encountered at any point of time in the actual original text) would seem to make the (in this case, negative) 'semantic prosody' (i.e. meaning) perfectly clear to anyone knowing the meaning of 'rot' and 'accident' respectively. (I'm drawing upon the Wikipedia entry that you posted. It might help to post something a bit more substantial...perhaps from the likes of McEnery et al 2006. I'll try a bit later, if I have time).

To put it another way, one could simply present students with sentences containing phrases like 'and then the rot really set in', and 'his negligence caused a horrific traffic accident', then leave them to realize the "negativity" involved (assuming such realization would take long at all).

But hold on...what's so "negative" about the above contexts? Nothing really, if we accept (as we must) that unfortunate or undesirable events can and do occur (maybe this is a bit "real world" versus "linguistic system/means of expression" blah blah blahblah).

It might help the cause of corpus linguistics sometimes if the examples that were selected actually shed some light on the mysterious and subtle whatsits ('semantic prosody' etc) involved i.e. weren't quite so "obvious" (see above 'wonder why anyone would ask...' bit) and lame. On the face of this, a lot of what is touted as 'discoveries' probably wouldn't give even (passably competent) learners too much of a problem.

All that being said, 'moist' versus 'damp' could well do with some explaining. My two cents' worth:

This thread is getting me...wet/?moist/*damp!



But seriously though, how will a KWIC (and even the eyes scanning it) be able to reveal (assuming that there are sufficient occurences) that 'wet' there is not just (or even necessarily) sexual (it could be referring to my 'linguistic appetite'), let alone ironic? The subtler nuances of the language are perhaps less to be taught than "simply" picked up (when noticed) by the perpetual learner (native as well as non)...but I'm not against a few JUICY examples being sent their way every now and then.

Blast from the past:
http://forums.eslcafe.com/teacher/viewt ... ight=irony

(it doesn't seem a very helpful one, does it);

Pick your own term. There are others.

I myself wonder why anyone would ask 'What does "set in" or "cause" mean when the "collocates" (that is, items encountered at any point of time in the actual original text) would seem to make the (in this case, negative) 'semantic prosody' (i.e. meaning) perfectly clear to anyone knowing the meaning of 'rot' and 'accident' respectively.

So you are saying that students who wish to use "set in", for example, having come across it in one or two texts and with negative semantic prosody, will from then on only use it negatively, right?

i.e. weren't quite so "obvious" (see above 'wonder why anyone would ask...' bit) and lame.

Interesting response. Most of the natives I've questioned on this responded by saying "I didn't know that" to comments such as "cause" is normally primed with negative semantic prosody. Also, are you sure you are not speaking too much as a native? Do you think these things are obvious to most nonnatives?

Students do come up with example such as "caused a lot of joy", thinking there's nothing unusual about such a combination. Do you think their native-speaking readers will also miss the "unusualness" of such?

A learner needs to know when something sounds natural and when it sounds unusual. Or maybe you don't agree with that.

I've gotta dash soon, but a few parting words: 'cause joy' smacks of settling for the wrong noun (or indeed forgetting that there are adjectives such as '(make sb/people) happy' (and the derived 'happiness' etc) rather than (coincidentally, also wrong) verb.

I'm glad that you posted that example, because it's reminded me of how dictionaries such as the Oxford Collocations usually operates from (assumes one will proceed from) more "concrete" words (that is, '(...)cause...' draws more of a blank in the mind, would be a "weaker" word to start with, than say '...happy...' (or indeed, 'joy(ful)').

As for ruling on what sounds natural or unnatural, it reminds me a bit of that whole Ron Carter vs Guy Cook debate.

As for ruling on what sounds natural or unnatural, it reminds me a bit of that whole Ron Carter vs Guy Cook debate.

You don't need those two, Fluff, just tell us if "cause joy" sounds unnatural to you or not. And, if you do think it sounds unnatural, do you imagine that your fellow natives feel the same?

Obviously it is unnatural to my NATIVE ear.

I suppose that couldn't possibly now be a cause for joy for you if not students.

fluffyhamster wrote:Obviously it is unnatural to my NATIVE ear.

I suppose that couldn't possibly now be a cause for joy for you if not students.

Joy is found in many avenues. Just look for the fishnet tights.