Microsoft Word - Editorial StatementI_ISSUE1.doc Language Value http://www.e-revistes.uji.es/languagevalue September 2009, Volume 1, Number 1 ISSN 1989-7103 Articles are copyrighted by their respective authors Table of Contents From the editors Mari Carmen Campoy Cubillo, Miguel F. Ruiz Garrido, Carme Manuel Cuenca i-vii Articles The phraseology of intertextuality in English for professional communication Martin Warren 1-16 A little bit about: analyzing and teaching lexical bundles in academic lectures Elizabeth Neely, Viviana Cortes 17-38 How the linguistic colonization of the present by the past influences the colonization of other cultures adopting English as second language C. A. Bowers 39-50 Constitution of the White Earth Nation Gerald Vizenor 51-80 Language Value http://www.e-revistes.uji.es/languagevalue September 2009, Volume 1, Number 1 pp. i-vii ISSN 1989-7103 Articles are copyrighted by their respective authors i From the Editors Welcome to the inaugural issue of Language Value. This international online journal was conceived as a freely accessible forum for all scholars world-wide. We would like to thank our colleagues at the Department of English Studies for their support in starting up this new journal. From the very beginning they fully relied on us (the editors) and on our decisions. We are pleased to see it now become a reality and would also like to thank the Servei de Publicacions i Comunicació at the Universitat Jaume I for working with us on making this journal the first fully online journal published by our university. It is a great pleasure and an honour to welcome members of the Editing Committee, the Advisory Board and the Editorial Board. All of these highly reputed scholars are giving us the assistance we need to start our journey. We are confident in our future and in the team backing us. It is our intention to offer a different standpoint about the English language use, searching for the attitudes and values language users convey in different contexts and situations. Our journal aims at addressing innovative approaches to traditional ideas. Language use is an essential activity in our daily routines. Language reflects thoughts and creates not only sociological but also intellectual values. Adopting new patterns of thought implies finding a way to put those thoughts into a linguistic pattern that conveys our attitudes towards a key issue. Our journal invites contributors to analyze and discuss the value of language in order to present, exchange and store information, knowledge and beliefs. The journal welcomes original research and conceptual articles, reviews and commentary articles where previous articles can be critiqued, is a clear example of these readers’ contributions we want. The pages of Language Value are therefore open to a broad diversity of opinions. This first issue consists of four papers. The first two articles are corpus-based studies on language use. Both articles tackle an issue which has been redefined by Corpus Linguistics, that of lexical phrases (Nattinger and de Carrico 1992). Word combinations like ‘so to speak’ or ‘give a talk’ are phrases that were easily identified as forming units that are useful in building up speech. Such phrases were said to be recognised by native From the editors Articles are copyrighted by their respective authors ii speakers as conventional units and most studies relied on criteria such as transparency of meaning or idiomaticy, and the observance of syntactic and semantic criteria. The analysis of such phrases through the use of corpus tools has opened up new insights into the concept of ‘lexical phrase’ (Biber et al. 1999). On the one hand, a new term, ‘lexical bundle’, is preferred in corpus studies to signal language chunks that do not necessarily form complete phrases or clauses (e.g. ‘if you look at’, ‘the end of the’, ‘I want you to’, ‘I don’t want to’). On the other hand, the possibility to analyse large amounts of texts has facilitated the statistic counts that inform us on which are the most frequent phrases used in a collection of texts belonging to a specific genre or text type, and may also inform us on their distribution. Corpus tools also allow us to study positional and constituent variation in a more systematic and informed way. Lexical bundles are said to act as functional frames. In the first article of this issue, “The phraseology of intertextuality in English for professional communication”, lexical bundles are studied in the context of written discourse and in relation to the signalling of intertextuality in professional communication. In the second article, “A little bit about: analyzing and teaching lexical bundles in academic lectures” lexical bundles are analysed as frames signalling how listeners should interpret the coming information. The first article is written by Martin Warren from the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. His department is involved in educational and research projects at the Research Centre for Professional Communication in English (RCPCE) which collaborates with the professional communities to carry out professional communication-related projects. The department has been engaged in the creation of corpora such as the Hong Kong Financial Services Corpus, The PolyU Language Bank, a large archive of written and spoken texts totalling over 12 million words, and the Hong Kong Engineering Corpus, with more than 1,066,000 words from texts that are representative of the English language in the Hong Kong Engineering sector. Warren and his colleagues have also recently been involved in the creation of the Asia-Pacific Rim LSP and Professional Communication Association. Warren has published monographs on discourse intonation and conversational features and his research has appeared in the ICAME Journal, International Journal of Corpus Linguistics, Applied Linguistics, System and ReCALL Journal. Language Value http://www.e-revistes.uji.es/languagevalue September 2009, Volume 1, Number 1 pp. i-vii ISSN 1989-7103 Articles are copyrighted by their respective authors iii In his article, Warren uses a new corpus analysis tool called ConcGram©. This programme allows the extraction of sets of between 2 and 5 co-occurring words, thus revealing the word co-selections made by the speakers in a corpus and aiding the identification of phraseological profiles. The advantage of ConcGram© over other programmes for finding n-grams (word bundles) is that it is able to provide word co- occurrences taking into account the possibility of both constituent variation (tastes delicious; tastes so delicious; taste me, I’m delicious, etc.) and positional variation (i.e. speaking English, English speaking). Warren’s research is unique in its pursuit of the combination of discourse flow and the analysis of congrams. The author investigates how a specific discourse flow relies on intertextuality and whether there is some kind of phraseology associated with the signalling of this form of intertextuality. In his innovative study, he uses a corpus of business emails which is then processed by ConcGram© and reveals lexical bundles whose words are not constrained in terms of position or variation, thus revealing a number of less predictable patterns. Shedding light on an identifiable set of phraseologies used to signal intertextuality in professional discourse will undoubtedly have significant benefits for ESP practitioners. The second article in this issue is written by Elizabeth Neely and Viviana Cortes. Neely teaches listening for academic purposes at Tsinghua University in Beijing and in her paper with Cortes she combines her experience in language teaching with the use of corpus and its pedagogical applications. Viviana Cortes has a solid reputation in Corpus Linguistics. She taught in the TESL/Applied Linguistics and Technology program at Iowa State University (USA) and currently works as Assistant Professor at the Department of Applied Linguistics and ESL at Georgia State University. Her work has been published in Applied Linguistics, English for Specific Purposes, Linguistics and Education, and Corpora. She has a wide teaching experience in corpus-based English grammar, academic writing and discourse analysis. She has collaborated in research articles and book chapters with Douglas Biber and Susan Conrad. Her main publications are related to the study of lexical bundles in academic settings. In their article for Language Value, Neely and Cortes explore the functions that a number of lexical bundles perform in academic lectures and contrast the use of such bundles by instructors and students. They analyse the language used in lectures and students presentation and From the editors Articles are copyrighted by their respective authors iv dissertation defenses in the MICASE corpus (Simpson et al. 2002), paying attention to the following bundles: a little bit of, a little bit about, I want you to, if you look at, and I would like you to. If applied corpus studies on spoken language are scarce in comparison to the study of written language in the field of ELT, analyzing data to create classroom materials aimed at developing listening skills are still practically inexistent. For this reason the article by Neely and Cortes presented here is extremely valuable and may open up new avenues for future research. The online MICASE corpus provides speech transcriptions for academic spoken English and these transcripts are supplemented by the annotation of speaker profiles and speech events. On request, the recordings of the speech events are also available. In a sense, we could say that MICASE is a multimedia non-assembled corpus, and as such it allows for the combination of modes in the pedagogical applications of specialized language corpora. Thus, Neely and Cortes work on academic listening skills by combining corpus use of recordings and corpus transcriptions, and they discuss, among other tasks, the possibility of listening to a sample lecture to identify bundles within the context of a lecture. Their direct approach in classroom corpus use for the development of listening skills is mainly based on awareness rising of the use of specific lexical bundles in academic speech. This approach is enriched by suggesting strategies to work with top-down corpus analysis combined with the more usual bottom-up approach to corpus use in the English language classroom. The third article in this issue, “How the linguistic colonization of the present by the past influences the colonization of other cultures adopting English as second language” is signed by Chet A. Bowers, Courtesy Professor of Environmental Studies at the University of Oregon. A creative and prolific writer, he has published 16 books and more than 90 articles appearing in journals on environmental studies, education, history and linguistics. One of his main concerns is how schools and universities contribute to ecological crisis, and focuses on the importance of language use in educational settings. He is the co-funder of the international online journal The Ecojustice Review: Educating for the Commons. Some of his best known publications are The Culture of Denial (1997), Let Them Eat Data: How Computers Affect Education, Cultural Diversity, and the Prospects of Ecological Sustainability (2000), Educating for Eco-Justice and Language Value http://www.e-revistes.uji.es/languagevalue September 2009, Volume 1, Number 1 pp. i-vii ISSN 1989-7103 Articles are copyrighted by their respective authors v Community (2001). He has recently written University Reform in an Era of Global Warming (2008), Toward a Post-Industrial Consciousness: Understanding the Linguistic Basis of Ecologically Sustainable Educational Reforms (2008), and Educating for Ecological Intelligence: Practices and Challenges (2009). In his article, Bowers sets out to critique what he describes as the transmission of consumerist representations of nature through language. Just like the different schools of feminism coincided in identifying the deeply rooted patriarchal ideology that is perpetuated in language, Bowers claims that we often make use of language schemata that have long been removed from the analogs around which they originated. In doing so, we fail to question the culture of consumerism and abuse of nature that is ingrained in the English language. Bowers analyses how the use of metaphors in language is the basis for cognitive frames that will accompany that metaphor whenever it is used again in a new context. When a language is given the status of lingua franca in professional settings and is regarded as the most common L2, the influence of metaphorical thoughts may remain hidden to the majority of non-native users of that language. In the case of the English language, this influence is also enhanced by printed books and the predominance of the use of English in computer-mediated publications and communications. From this point of view, an interdisciplinary analysis on the influence of metaphorical thinking on (environmental) education is presented. It is pointed out that there is no objective knowledge, information, no objective language use, and that educational institutions and teachers should make an effort to promote critical thinking on how language is used and to explain how metaphors are carriers of historical meaning and reflect a specific world view. In his article for Language Value, he goes even further, for, in his opinion, English teachers play an important role in the transmission of this consumerist ideology for in uncritically teaching English to speakers of other languages they help propagate consumerism. In the last article, Gerald Vizenor presents the text of the Constitution of the White Earth Nation. Gerald Vizenor is the most important Native American writer in the United States, not only because his list of published books is remarkable but because the quality of his writing defies qualification. He is a poet, essay writer, journalist, university professor, novelist, committed activist and bitter critic of his country’s racial From the editors Articles are copyrighted by their respective authors vi politics. He has devoted his entire life to studying, exploring and redefining Native American past and present stories and Histories in more than thirty books, which break exceptional new literary paths. Vizenor was born in 1934 and, as an Anishinaabe, he is an enrolled member of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe, White Earth Reservation. In 2009 Gerald Vizenor was named the Principal Writer of the Constitution of the White Earth Nation and in our first issue of Language Value he presents the origin of the constitution explaining the issues debated in its creation. This document is also reproduced here after his introduction to the text. Vizenor’s political struggle linked itself to a number of influences coming from the field of cultural and literary criticism. Vizenor’s ideas on the complexity and diversity of linguistic resources and on how they are used by individuals and nations are a solid illustration of the value of language within culture. For Vizenor, political vindications and empowerment must necessarily tag along language freedom and empowerment. That meant that the decolonization of Indians entailed a linguistic decolonization. Language should be cleansed off its racist and colonizing traces to achieve political freedom. According to Vizenor, literature should always promote change, uneasiness and contradiction. Throughout his literary work Vizenor has tried to rewrite the concept Indian, to strip it bare of its colonizing connotations and endow it with new meanings. Vizenor breaks down the logic of language and questions the mechanisms of power which lay undercover. He annihilates the fixed meaning of words, shakes language off its roots to make readers aware of its perennial ambiguities. Vizenor describes himself as a tribal wordmaker, an inventor of words inspired in the oral tradition. Gerald Vizenor is an original voice which has deconstructed the myths behind the concept of Indianness. In doing so he has helped and helps to enhance survival for Native American communities without ignoring criticism of both Native American politics and White American colonizing and imperialistic processes. His participation in the creation and writing of the Constitution of the White Earth Nation is one more sign of his cultural and politic compromise. Together, these papers are a good illustration of the complexity and diversity of linguistic and pedagogic work. As a multi-disciplinary journal, we are pleased to Language Value http://www.e-revistes.uji.es/languagevalue September 2009, Volume 1, Number 1 pp. i-vii ISSN 1989-7103 Articles are copyrighted by their respective authors vii publish a first issue which covers such a broad range of subjects. We hope the international online journal Language Value can serve the English language community well and may become a forum to share, present or discuss ideas and research work in literature, linguistics and computer-assisted language learning. We hope you enjoy reading this edition of Language Value, and will consider contributing in the future either as an author or as a reviewer. Mari Carmen Campoy Cubillo Miguel F. Ruiz Garrido Universitat Jaume I. Castelló Editors Carme Manuel Cuenca Universitat de València Editorial Board REFERENCES Biber, D., S. Johansson, G. Leech, S. Conrad and E. Finegan. 1999. Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English. Harlow, UK: Longman. Nattinger, J. R. and J. DeCarrico. 1992. Lexical phrases and language teaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Simpson R. C., Briggs S. L., Ovens J. and Swales J. M. 2002. The Michigan Corpus of Academic Spoken English. Ann Arbor, MI: The Regents of the University of Michigan. Language Value http://www.e-revistes.uji.es/languagevalue September 2009, Volume 1, Number 1 pp. 1-16 ISSN 1989-7103 Articles are copyrighted by their respective authors The phraseology of intertextuality in English for professional communication Martin Warren Research Centre for Professional Communication in English English Department, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University ABSTRACT There is increasing interest in researching phraseology and intertextuality, but they are not usually studied together. This paper explores the implications of combining the two in the learning and teaching of English for professional communication. Using data compiled at the Hong Kong-based Research Centre for Professional Communication in English, in combination with the recently developed corpus linguistics methodology of ‘congramming’ (Cheng et al. 2006, Cheng et al. 2009), this study investigates how intertextuality can be signalled in a corpus of discourse flows. A discourse flow is a series of interconnected discourses and the flows in this study were collected from a professional over a period of one week. Concgramming is the process of fully automatically identifying concgrams in a text or corpus. Concgrams are co-occurrences of words (e.g. hard and work) irrespective of any constituent variation (work hard, work very hard, work so very hard, etc.) and positional variation (i.e. work hard, hard work, etc.) that might be present. Using concgrams extracted from the discourse flow corpus, examples of frequent phraseologies associated with the signalling of intertextuality are identified and their role in the realisation of intertextuality discussed. Keywords: concgram, constituent variation, discourse flow, intertextuality, phraseology, positional variation INTRODUCTION Descriptions of the nature of professional discourse are hard to come by because it is difficult for the researcher to access professional discourses due to the thorny issues of confidentiality and/or the reluctance of professionals and their organisations to permit researchers to collect and analyse their discourses. These difficulties are well documented by others interested in investigating business and professional discourses (see, for example, Candlin 2002, Louhiala-Salminen 2002, McCarthy and Handford 2004, Sarangi 2002,). This study examines the discourses a professional engages with over a working week. It is particularly interested in how a specific discourse flow relies on intertextuality to situate each discourse relative to other discourses in the flow and whether there is a phraseology associated with signalling this form of intertextuality. Martin Warren Language Value 1, (1), 1–16 http://www.e-revistes.uji.es/languagevalue 2 A discourse (or text) does not exist in isolation. Each one is usually based partly on prior discourses, partly on the current communicative goals of the speaker or writer, and partly in anticipating or predicting future discourses. This study is interested in the interconnectedness of discourse events and how they are explicitly managed in discourse flows. The very existence of discourse flows is evidence of the “intertextuality” (e.g. de Beaugrande 1980) of discourses, which is the process by which parts of a specific discourse(s) become part of other discourses. By means of intertextuality, the information in a specific discourse is “condensed, reformulated and reshaped to fit the purposes of the author” (Ventola 1999: 109). This is not the first study to look at discourse flows. For example, a study by Gimenez (2006) looks at what he terms “embedded” business e-mails which is the term he uses to describe a discourse flow. Others have studied such flows and termed them “mosiac messages” (Markus 1994) and “e-mail dialogues” (Eklundh and MacDonald 1994). However, other studies on interconnectedness and intertextuality have not examined how these phenomena are signalled, which is the focus of this study. When the data for the project were collected it was recognised that the researchers’ needs, expectations and interpretations with regard to the data collected may sometimes differ from those of the professionals who provided the data. Sarangi (2002: 99) emphasises the importance of understanding “professional practice and knowledge representations from the insiders’ perspective”. In order to follow Sarangi’s advice on how to better analyse and interpret the discourses collected, additional information was collected including information that would assist in determining whether or not the discourses collected were interconnected. The data examined in this paper were collected over a five-day period from an Information Technology (IT) Manager based at a multinational bank in Hong Kong. The data collected consist mainly of e-mail correspondence written in English between the IT manager and his colleagues, both internal and external to the multinational bank. The data were analysed and collated into discourse flows consisting of interconnected e-mails which were sometimes also interconnected with other types of discourse such as meetings, telephone calls, informal discussions and reports. At the end of the data collection period, there was a review of the data collected to determine whether or not it was necessary to go back to the subject for more information in order to better understand and analyse the data. After the data The phraseology of intertextuality in English for professional communication Language Value 1, (1), 1-16 http://www.e-revistes.uji.es/languagevalue 3 were analysed, the researcher again met with the subject to discuss the findings and conclusions. The input of the IT professional was particularly important in helping the researchers to correctly identify discourses belonging to the same discourse flow. A simple illustration of a discourse flow is shown in Figure 1 below. Figure 1. Discourse flow. In Figure 1, the current discourse is depicted in the centre of a discourse flow. This discourse makes reference to prior discourses (for example, a telephone discussion, project report, meeting or prior e-mail) and it may also refer to discourses which are prospected or predicted to occur by the speaker/writer of the current discourse. Just as the current discourse at the centre of this discourse flow is in part comprised of prior and predicted discourses, so each of the prior and each of the predicted discourses are also comprised of prior and predicted texts. In this way, all discourses are intertextual in that they are comprised partly of previous discourses and also typically prospect or predict future discourses. Importantly, the ability of a speaker or writer to master intertextuality, and to appropriately signal it, helps to facilitate communication in professional contexts and hence is an important component of professional communicative competence. In the data collected, thirty-two separate discourse flows were identified across a five- day period. In this particular professional context, e-mail communication is the main means of communication and so contributes significantly to intertextuality. The discourse flows total approximately 30,000 words of data and they were also compiled as a small corpus to assist in examining the language used to signal intertextuality. INTERTEXTUALITY Candlin and Maley (1997: 203) describe one important way in which “discourses are internally viable” which is that they manifest “a plurality of sources” and are “thus prior discourses ↔ current discourse ↔ predicted discourses Martin Warren Language Value 1, (1), 1–16 http://www.e-revistes.uji.es/languagevalue 4 intertextual” in nature. In other words, a discourse is less coherent, or may even be incoherent, if it is not appropriately situated within its discourse flow relative to both prior and predicted discourses. Situating a discourse within its discourse flow requires the partial incorporation, or references to, prior discourses and, typically, the prospection or prediction of future discourses. There are a number of forms intertextuality can take, according to Bhatia (2004: 126- 127). For example, “texts providing a context” (ibid: 126) such as the response to a prior request or “texts within and around the text” (ibid: 127) as in the sequencing of sections or chapters in a text. Also, “texts explicitly referred to in the text” (ibid: 127) such as the explicit use of citations and “texts implicitly referred to in the text” such as the adaptation of a well-known quotes in a text which then relies on the shared knowledge between the participants to be correctly understood. The last of the forms described by Bhatia are “texts embedded within the text” and “texts mixed with the text” (ibid: 127). An example of the former is when a different genre is used within a text, for example a section of a legal document in a business e-mail, and an example of the latter is the use of direct quotes in the text. All of the forms of intertextuality described by Bhatia need to be handled appropriately by speakers and writers, and they all require that the speaker or writer signals to the hearer or reader that intertextuality is taking place. Failure to signal intertextuality may result in the discourse being less intelligible to the hearer or reader. Examples of intertextuality manifested in e-mails collected in this study are given below (Example 1). In the e-mails, intertextuality related to prior texts is underlined while intertextuality related to predicted texts is shown in italics. The e-mails have been anonymised and all participant names are denoted with a capital letter followed for four Xs (for example, AXXXX) and all confidential information and company names are denoted with three Xs. The phraseology of intertextuality in English for professional communication Language Value 1, (1), 1-16 http://www.e-revistes.uji.es/languagevalue 5 Example 1. A sequence of e-mails illustrating intertextuality (Prior texts underlined, predicted texts in italics) E-mail 1 From: DXXXX Sent: Friday, June 13, 2008 1:35 PM To: AXXXX; KXXXX Cc: TXXXX; NXXXX; RXXXX; SXXXX Subject: RE: Changes required for indirect Facilities & cases with guarantors rating >= 5 6. without approval to use it - RE: Test Cases Importance: High 1. Hi AXXXX & KXXXX 2. Previously, AXXXX told us that we should use Event supertype = ‘0’ instead of 3. ‘2’ to obtain the approved limit for indirect facility. We amended the iDecision 4. Calculator and managed to test the case with approved indirect facility 5. successfully. However, when we try to re-test the similar case again recently, it 6. failed and we realized that the Event supertype = ‘0’ is not found for the approved 7. indirect facility (but only found ‘2’ & ‘1’). 8. Please advise ASAP which Event supertype (XXX) we should use? AXXXX 9. said we should only look at column “XXX XX DOM object”. I will log this as a 10. XXX problem. 11. Also, the Facility country of risk attribute (XXX) was in previous XXX XML, 12. but is now missing. Has XXX version changed recently which affected these? 13. Thanks. 14. DXXXX E-mail 2 From: AXXXX Sent: Friday, 13 June 2008 2:04 PM To: LXXXX; BXXXX Cc: VXXXX; PXXXX; JXXXX Subject: FW: Changes required for Indirect Facilities & cases with guarantors rating >= 5 without approval to use it - RE: Test Cases Importance: High 1. LXXXX/BXXXX, 2. This is another error of the FRR interface that field value is not matched with 3. Interface specification. 4. Please fix or clarify this ASAP. 5. PXXXX, 6. Please log an XXX on XXX. Martin Warren Language Value 1, (1), 1–16 http://www.e-revistes.uji.es/languagevalue 6 7. Regards 8. AXXXX E-mail 3 From:BXXXX Sent: Friday, June 13, 2008 2:55 PM To:AXXXX Cc: VXXXX; PXXXX; JXXXX; KXXXX Subject: RE: Changes required for Indirect Facilities & cases with guarantors rating >= 5 6. without approval to use it - RE: Test Cases 1. Hi AXXXX, 2. Could l understand at which stage of the Credit application lifecycle this seems to 3. be an issue? 4. At the point of approval the lifecycle event is XXX = 2. However, remember 5. that the RMs would like to see the previously approved (XXX = 0), the 6. proposed line (XXX = l) and the approved line (XXX = 2). 7. You might want to note that the approved timeline here under XXX = 2 can be 8. amended by CCU INPUT units if the workflow path of “Approved On Paper” 9. is taken. Hence the snapshot for the FRR calc at the approved timeline here too 10. may also change if CCU INPUT has to make changes to the limits as per the hard 11. copy approved XXX. 12. However, once everything has been confirmed approved, the final XXX document 13. printed and the credit facility detaches from the credit application, the facility only 14. has “existing” events (ie. XXX = 0). That will also be synonymous with your 15. approved line for the facility. 16. I need to find out from development if anything has changed in the XXX object 17. preventing the Facility country of risk attribute (XXX) that was in previous 18. XXX XML, but is now missing. LXXXX, can you help raise an XXX assist for 19. this? 20. Hope this clarifies. 21. Thanks. 22. BXXXX. E-mail 4 From: AXXXX Sent: Friday, June 13, 2008 3:06 PM To: DXXXX Cc: VXXXX; PXXXX; HXXXX; SXXXX; FXXXX; GXXXX The phraseology of intertextuality in English for professional communication Language Value 1, (1), 1-16 http://www.e-revistes.uji.es/languagevalue 7 Subject: FW: Changes required for Indirect Facilities & cases with guarantors rating > 6. 5 without approval to use it - RE: Test Cases 1. DXXXX, 2. I think the question from XXX is that in which stage we would like to have the 3. FRR calculated. 4. You can call me to discuss and if necessary, we can get GXXXX and HXXXX 5. involved. 6. Regards 7. AXXXX One notable aspect of intertextuality such as that depicted in the above sequence of consecutive e-mails, which are taken from a larger discourse flow, is that the writer usually begins the discourse by invoking a prior discourse and closes by predicting a future discourse. This structure can be seen in e-mails 1, 2 and 4 in which the writers begin and end in this manner. The exception is e-mail 3 which begins with a question, and questions, of course, typically predict a future discourse, but, even in e-mail 3, the opening question, while predicting a future discourse, contains a reference to a prior discourse. Writers, therefore, have a strong tendency to begin a new discourse by situating it relative to prior discourses. There is also a strong tendency to end a discourse with the prospection or prediction of a future discourse and this can be seen in all of the above e-mails which end with questions (e-mails 1 and 3), requests for action (e-mail 2) and offers of assistance (e-mail 4). The stereotypical opening and closing formulaics are ‘thank you for your e-mail’ and ‘thank you in advance for your help’ and neither of these are found here which is to be expected in a fast-moving discourse flow between colleagues where these four e-mails are written and read within a short timeframe of approximately ninety minutes. Most importantly, all of the above e-mails clearly show that intertextuality is by no means confined to the opening and closing stages of e-mails. They demonstrate that intertextuality is to be found throughout and references to prior and predicted discourses account for most of the contents of these discourses. Intertextuality, therefore, is not a minor factor when describing the composition of a discourse, in these business e-mails it plays a major role. On balance, there are more references to prior discourses across the four e-mails, but a number are also predicted. Prior discourses are sometimes Martin Warren Language Value 1, (1), 1–16 http://www.e-revistes.uji.es/languagevalue 8 paraphrased (see, for example, e-mail 3, lines 9-11) and sometimes they are quoted directly (see, for example, e-mail 1, line 2). However it is achieved, intertextuality needs to be signalled and below some of more frequent phraseologies used when doing this are examined. Signalling intertextuality It has been shown that intertextuality is prevalent in the e-mails examined in this study. Incorporating intertextuality into a discourse requires the speaker or writer to signal that it is taking place in order for the discourse to be intelligible to the hearer or reader. An earlier preliminary study (Warren, 2008) identified words and invariant clusters which are associated with the signalling of intertextuality. For example, please, as, and based on occur frequently in the data and were found to be associated with prior discourses, as discussed, based on your advice, or with predicted discourses, please check. This study, however, is interested in uncovering phraseologies associated with this function which may exhibit variation. In order to find instances of phraseological variation, the discourse flow corpus was “concgrammed” (Cheng et al. 2006, Cheng et al. 2009, Greaves and Warren 2007, Warren, 2009) using ConcGram 1.0 (Greaves 2009). This software is specifically designed to fully automatically find word co-occurrences irrespective of variation and therefore reveals the full range of phraseologies in a text or corpus as opposed to software which is focused on finding n-grams (sometimes termed ‘clusters’ or ‘bundles’) which is unable to automatically find instances of phraseological variation. As a result, less predictable phraseologies were uncovered. The use of n-grams, such as based on, which contain predictable lexical words to signal intertextuality is perhaps not so surprising. However, ConcGram found other less predictable phrases associated with intertextuality which are less predictable and contain a core set of so-called ‘grammatical’ words. The importance of the co-selection of grammatical words framing more lexically-rich words, termed ‘collocational frameworks” (Renouf and Sinclair 1991), has received very little attention. This lack of attention has not been helped by the use of stop lists (i.e. lists of words, typically frequent grammatical words, deliberately excluded from corpus searches) which pushes them further off many The phraseology of intertextuality in English for professional communication Language Value 1, (1), 1-16 http://www.e-revistes.uji.es/languagevalue 9 researchers’ radar. The phraseological tendency in language, or what Sinclair (1987) terms “the idiom principle”, whereby words are co-selected by speakers and writers to create meaning, has yet to be fully described and all the forms and variation that these co-selections take need to be better understood. Figures 2-6 below provide instances of some of the more frequent phraseologies found to signal intertextuality. For each phraseology, the total number of occurrences associated with intertextuality is given as a percentage of the total number of occurrences in the discourse flow corpus to underline the extent to which these phraseologies are associated with intertextuality. Phraseologies are defined broadly in this study as all recurrent co-selections of two or more words in the corpus and here the interest is in those phraseologies which serve explicitly to introduce, or otherwise signal the boundaries of, intertextuality in the e-mails. It should also be pointed out that the convention for representing concgrams which exhibit variation is to write the words comprising the concgram alphabetically separated by a forward slash. predict prior 9 and trying to recreate. In some instances we can find the problem in others we can t and we don’t 10 which is name of OOA risk entity, and we can’t find the record in XXX. But we can find the Figure 2. Instances of “can/the/we”, 15/17 (88%). In Figure 2, 88% of the instances of the phraseology we can + the are used to introduce intertextuality in the form of both predicted and prior discourses. This phraseology frames a main verb which indicates the form of action to be taken in the case of predicted discourses (for example, ‘make’, ‘test’, ‘discuss’) or the action that has been taken in the case of prior discourses (‘find’), and is then typically followed by a reference to the contents of the future discourse (for example, ‘XXX reports’, ‘patch’ and ‘changes’) or the prior discourse (‘problem’ and ‘record’). The variation in this particular phraseology is confined to constituency variation. Martin Warren Language Value 1, (1), 1–16 http://www.e-revistes.uji.es/languagevalue 10 Instances of similar phraseologies are illustrated in Figures 3 and 4. Figure 3. Instances of “need/to/we”, 37/41 (90%). The phraseology we + need + to occurs more frequently in the corpus than we can + the (41 versus 17) and almost all of the instances (90%) are associated with the onset of intertextuality and all of these are predicting a future discourse in the ongoing discourse flow. Again, variation is confined to constituency variation with the use of modal verbs between we and need in lines 1-5. This phraseology forms part of a larger verb group which includes a lexical verb that usually indicates the action to be taken in the predicted discourse (for example, ‘identify’, ‘check’, ‘change’ and ‘discuss’). In figure 4, there are three phraseologies which are, again, associated with predicting discourses in the discourse flow. Figure 4. Instances of “can/you”, 26/28 (92%) and “could or would/you”, 29/29 (100%). The phraseologies in Figure 4 are very strongly associated with the prediction of future discourses and, in the case of could or would/you, all of the instances in the discourse The phraseology of intertextuality in English for professional communication Language Value 1, (1), 1-16 http://www.e-revistes.uji.es/languagevalue 11 flow corpus are associated with the onset of this form of intertextuality. Also, while these phraseologies do not exhibit constituency variation, they can have positional variation. Irrespective of the variation that is exhibited, they are all associated with requests for action and the nature of the action to be taken is provided by a wide variety of lexical verbs (for example, ‘clarify’, advise’, ‘check’, ‘suggest’, ‘confirm’, ‘continue’, ‘elaborate’, ‘generate’, ‘call’ and ‘join’). Figure 5 shows examples one of the more unlikely phraseologies, to/you, found to be associated with the onset of intertextuality in the data studied. Figure 5. Instances of “to/you”, 41/43 (95%). This phraseology occurs frequently (43 instances) and also has a strong association with intertextuality (95%). It has both constituency and positional variation and can signal both prior and predicted discourses. When it is used in its contiguous form, to you, it is in the context of the writer referring to a prior discourse which is accessible to the reader (lines 6-8) or, in the case of predicted texts, a discourse that will be accessible to the reader in the future (line 1). In the other instances, you again refers to the reader and the to-infinitive states the action taken (‘notify’) in a prior discourse or requested to be taken (for example, ‘provide’ and ‘liaise’) in a predicted discourse. Figure 6 is another unlikely phraseology composed of grammatical words which has considerable variation, both constituency and positional, and is strongly associated (90%) with the initiation of intertextuality in the e-mails. Martin Warren Language Value 1, (1), 1–16 http://www.e-revistes.uji.es/languagevalue 12 Figure 6. Instances of “is/the/to”, 19/21 (90%). Despite the extent of the phraseological variation, the patterns of usage are evident whether they are associated with predicted or prior discourses. In all of the above instances, the is used in combination with either the identification of the predicted discourse (for example, ‘following’ and ‘XXX patch’) or prior discourse (‘risk entity’, ‘update’, ‘procedure’ and ‘changes’) or the individual(s) responsible for the discourse (line 7). While is and to are typically used in combination with the action required (for example, ‘is to be done’ and ‘is ready to deploy’) or the action taken (for example, ‘This is to confirm the changes’ and ‘Here is the procedure to fix the problem’). CONCLUSIONS This paper has shown, through the examination of e-mails collected in a professional context, that each e-mail is part of a discourse flow. This in turn means that an important component of each of these e-mails is its intertextuality which results from the speaker or writer situating each e-mail within the discourse flow. It is argued that the inability to situate a discourse within its discourse flow may result in the discourse being less intelligible to the hearer or reader. Intertextuality is a major component of the e-mails examined in this study and is the product of referencing both prior and future discourses. Given the levels of complexity in both producing and interpreting the widespread intertextuality to be found in almost any discourse, an important aspect of professional communication is that the speaker or writer needs to be able to effectively signal the boundaries of intertextuality. This study has found that there are identifiable phraseologies, which are used almost exclusively for this function. The phraseology of intertextuality in English for professional communication Language Value 1, (1), 1-16 http://www.e-revistes.uji.es/languagevalue 13 While there are a number of options available to speakers and writers to signal intertextuality, there are discernible patterns of phraseology associated with the signalling of both prior and predicted discourses and these patterns, in turn, contribute to the coherence achieved by intertextuality. The study of the phraseology of interconnected discourses rather than individual words has been shown to be a good way of uncovering how intertextuality is managed by writers and speakers. What has been most significant with regard to the phraseologies associated with signaling intertextuality identified in this study is that they are predominantly comprised of grammatical words which frame or foreground a wider variety of lexically-rich words. Given the potential variety of lexically-rich words that can be framed or foregrounded by these phraseologies of grammatical words, it has been shown that it is often the co-selection of grammatical words which is the more easily identified source of signalling intertextuality, and the borders of intertextuality, in a discourse based on their frequency in the discourse flow corpus. This finding further underlines the importance of not excluding grammatical words when searching a corpus. More research is needed, but from these initial findings it is increasingly better understood that professionals often need to signal intertextuality in their professional discourses and that there is an identifiable set of phraseologies associated with this important discourse function which could have implications for the learning and teaching of English for Specific purposes. It is important to have the ability to refer to, and accurately reference, prior and predicted discourses, as well as the ability to summarise prior discourses and succinctly revise specific aspects of them. Coupled with these skills is the need for a heightened awareness on the part of speakers and writers with regard to the importance of intertextuality and appropriately signalling its presence in the ongoing discourse flow. Acknowledgements Thanks are due to the IT professional who generously provided the data used in this study. The work described in this paper was substantially supported by a grant from the Research Grants Council of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (Project No. PolyU 5480/06H, B-QO2J). Martin Warren Language Value 1, (1), 1–16 http://www.e-revistes.uji.es/languagevalue 14 REFERENCES Bhatia, V. 2004. Worlds of Written Discourse. London: Continuum. Candlin, C. (Ed.) 2002. Research and Practice in Professional Discourse. Hong Kong: City University of Hong Kong. Candlin, C. and Maley, Y. 1997. Intertextuality and interdiscursivity in the discourse of alternative dispute resolution. In Gunnarsson, B-L, Linell, P. and Nordberg, B. et al (Eds.) The Construction of Professional Discourse. London: Longman, 201–222. Cheng, W., Greaves, C. and Warren, M. 2006. From n-gram to skipgram to concgrarn. International Journal of Corpus Linguistics 11 (4), 411-433. Cheng, W., Greaves, C., Sinclair, J. McH. and Warren, M. 2009. Uncovering the extent of the phraseological tendency: towards a systematic analysis of concgrams, Applied Linguistics, 30 (2), 236-252. de Beaugrande, R. 1980. Text, Discourse and Process. London: Longman. Eklundh, S. and MacDonald, C. 1994. The use of quoting to preserve context in electronic mail dialogues. IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication 37 (4), 97-202. Gimenez, J. 2006. Embedded business e-mails: meeting new demands in international communication. English for Specific Purposes 25, 154-172. Greaves, C. 2009. ConcGram 1.0: a phraseological search engine. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Greaves, C. and Warren, M. 2007. Concgramming: A computer-driven approach to learning the phraseology of English. ReCALL Journal 17 (3), 287-306. Louhiala-Salminen, L. 2002. The fly’s perspective: discourse in the daily routine of a business manager. English for Specific Purposes, 21, 211-231. Markus, M. 1994. Electronic mail as the medium of managerial choice. Organization Science 5 (4), 502-527. McCarthy, M. and Handford, M. 2004. “Invisible to us”: a preliminary corpus-based study of spoken business English. In Connor, U. & T. Upton (Eds.), Discourse in The phraseology of intertextuality in English for professional communication Language Value 1, (1), 1-16 http://www.e-revistes.uji.es/languagevalue 15 the Professions: Perspectives from Corpus Linguistics. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 167-202. Renouf, A.J. and Sinclair, J.McH. 1991. Collocational Frameworks in English. In Aijmer, K. and B. Altenberg (eds.) English Corpus Linguistics: Studies in Honour of Jan Svartvik. London: Longman, 128-43. Sarangi, S. 2002. Discourse practitioners as a community of interprofessional practice: some insights from health communication research. In Candlin, C. (Ed.), Research and Practice in Professional Discourse. Hong Kong: City University of Hong Kong, 95-113. Sarangi, S., and Coulthard, M. (Eds.) 2000. Discourse and Social Life. London: Longman. Sinclair, J.McH. 1987. Collocation: A Progress Report. In Steele, R. and T. Threadgold (Eds.) Language Topics: Essays in Honour of Michael Halliday. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 319-331. Ventola, E. 1999. Semiotic Spanning at Conferences: Cohesion and Coherence in and across Conference Papers and their Discussions. In Bublitz, W., U. Lenk and E. Ventola (Eds.) Coherence in Spoken and Written Discourse. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 101-124. Warren, M. 2008. The Role of Intertextuality in Discourse Coherence. International Conference: Discourse Coherence - Text and Theory. Centre de Linguistique Theoretique et Appliquee (CELTA), Paris-Sorbonne University, Paris, France, September 18-20, 2008. Warren, M. 2009. Why Concgram? In Greaves, C. (Ed.) ConcGram 1.0: a phraseological search engine. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 1-11. Received September 2009 Martin Warren Language Value 1, (1), 1–16 http://www.e-revistes.uji.es/languagevalue 16 Cite this article as: Warren, M. 2009. “The phraseology of intertextuality in English for professional communication”. Language Value, 1 (1), 1-16. Servei de Publicacions de la Universitat Jaume I: Castelló, Spain. http://www.e-revistes.uji.es/languagevalue ISSN 1989-7103 Articles are copyrighted by their respective authors Language Value http://www.e-revistes.uji.es/languagevalue September 2009, Volume 1, Number 1 pp. 17-38 ISSN 1989-7103 Articles are copyrighted by their respective authors A little bit about: analyzing and teaching lexical bundles in academic lectures Elizabeth Neely and Viviana Cortes Georgia State University ABSTRACT For English as a second language (ESL) or English as a foreign language (EFL) students, high academic listening skills are essential in order to succeed at the university level, and yet instructional materials in academic listening often lack authenticity (Flowerdew and Miller 1997). As corpus-based data has become more prevalent and corpus-based findings have become more and more accessible, ESL/EFL instructors are now in a position to investigate how language is actually used in the content classroom and to design lessons accordingly. The present study focuses on the use of lexical bundles, defined as recurrent word combinations, in academic lectures. A small group of lexical bundles which are frequently found in spoken academic language are examined in order to carefully analyze their function in this register, comparing the use of bundles by instructors to that of students. The findings of this comparison are used as the basis for the design of a series of academic listening lesson plans, focusing on those bundles that most often occur in academic lectures and the functions they perform in that context. Keywords: lexical bundles, corpora, listening comprehension, English for Academic Purposes, authentic materials I. INTRODUCTION For students learning English as a second language (ESL) or as a foreign language (EFL), there may be a moment of startling realization if they find that those language skills that were emphasized in the language classroom are not precisely the skills needed in an actual university environment. For instance, in his personal narrative about learning English as a foreign language and then attending school at an American university, Tsai (2001: 138) writes, “…we learned grammar in depth and performed well in exams, but had no real experience…. Most foreign students, including myself, struggled because we were in a real world – all lectures were given in English”. Tsai’s narrative is but one example of what many ESL/EFL students experience when there is a noticeable gap between the language skills acquired in the classroom and those needed to successfully function in academic studies conducted entirely in English. Especially noticeable, as Tsai mentioned, is when there is a gap in the listening skills needed to comprehend academic lectures. According to Flowerdew (1995: 7), “academic listening Elizabeth Neely and Viviana Cortes Language Value 1, (1) 17–38 http://www.e-revistes.uji.es/languagevalue 18 skills are… an essential component of communicative competence in a university setting”, and yet Morley (2001: 69) observes that “listening is still regarded as the least important skill”. For this reason, English for academic purposes (EAP) instructors might wonder about the best way to teach academic listening skills so that students are adequately prepared for the demands of comprehending lectures in English. This is a valid concern of EAP practitioners, and for many years a wide variety of research has been devoted to understanding classroom discourse and listening comprehension in academic settings. One research approach to the analysis of academic lectures that has recently become more widespread because of advances in technology is corpus-based research. “A corpus is a collection of texts, written or spoken, stored in machine readable form, which may be annotated with varied linguistic information” (McEnery et al. 2006: 345). Once an electronic corpus has been compiled, computer programs such as concordancers can search for various linguistic features within the corpus texts. Corpora are valuable tools for researchers and instructors alike; from the instructors’ perspectives, using a corpus as a resource or to inform their teaching with corpus-based findings may provide them with a sense of confidence. Instead of relying on “intuitions and anecdotal evidence of how speakers and writers use language,” teachers can rely on a language corpus or the findings of corpora analyses to help them know how language is used in real life (Biber et al. 2002: 10). Further, Conrad (1999: 3) states that “Practicing teachers and teachers-in-training can learn a great deal from corpus-based studies and, in fact, owe it to their students to share the insights into language use that corpus linguistics provides”. Corpus-based research is a valuable tool for classroom instruction and materials design; in the area of academic listening, one possible motivation for using corpus-based research is to better understand the type of language that is actually used in academic lectures, thus proving or disproving intuition. Indeed, corpus-based studies on spoken academic language have revealed much about what type of language occurs in the classroom. One language feature that has come to light from such investigations is the lexical bundle. Biber et al. (1999) define lexical bundles as sequences of three or more words that frequently occur in a particular register. Biber et al. (2002: 443) add that these expressions “become ‘prefabricated chunks’ that speakers and writers can easily A little bit about: analysing and teaching lexical bundles in academic lectures Language Value 1, (1), 17–38 http://www.e-revistes.uji.es/languagevalue 19 retrieve from their memory and use again and again as text building blocks”. In academic writing, frequent lexical bundles are expressions such as as a result of, on the other hand, and in the context of, among many others, and in academic speech, expressions such as a little bit about, I want you to, and if you look at. Lexical bundles are identified empirically and determined by their frequency across a multitude of texts (Biber et al. 2002). In this way, corpus based research, by permitting efficient examination of a large quantity of texts, has allowed for the discovery of bundles that otherwise would be nearly impossible to identify. Other features of lexical bundles are discussed in more detail later in this paper in order to show that bundles can serve a wide variety of functions within discourse. The purpose of this paper is to examine five lexical bundles as identified by Biber et al. (2004) and Nesi and Basturkmen (2006) that can be used to introduce new topics and organize the discourse in academic lectures. In order to illustrate how an EAP instructor might go about using corpus data and concordance tools to better understand the function of these bundles and to design classroom materials, we survey the use of these bundles in MICASE, the Michigan Corpus of Academic Spoken English, which will be described in more detail in section 2. The following research questions were posed to guide our research: 1. How frequently do the topic-introducing/discourse organizing bundles if you look at, a little bit about, a little bit of, I want you to, and I would like you occur in the spoken production of instructors and students in the academic lectures of MICASE? 2. What are the teaching applications from the pattern of use of these bundles in academic lectures? Thus, the current study is designed to show how EAP practitioners can use the findings of current research along with available corpora and corpus-based research tools (e.g. concordancing programs) to not only analyze the use of linguistic features but also design lessons for the EAP classroom. The rest of the paper is organized as follows. The next section describes how corpus-based research methods have contributed to the description of the language used to introduce new topics in academic lectures, focusing on lexical bundles that have been functionally classified as introducing or focusing on a topic. Section three describes the methodology and the corpus used in this study. Elizabeth Neely and Viviana Cortes Language Value 1, (1) 17–38 http://www.e-revistes.uji.es/languagevalue 20 Section four presents the results of the analysis of lexical bundles and a discussion of those results. Section five outlines the importance of lexical bundles in connection to academic listening comprehension. In the final section, the findings of this study are applied to the teaching of lexical bundles and listening comprehension by means of a series of activities that incorporate corpora and corpus-based research tools. II. RECURRING PHRASES IN ACADEMIC LECTURES In this section we will present a brief review of the literature on lexical bundles in general and of the functions performed by lexical bundles in academic speech in particular. In addition, we will include a section on the relationship between lexical bundles and academic listening comprehension. II.1. Lexical bundles across registers: Academic lectures Within the field of research on academic lectures, special attention has been given to lexical phrases (e.g. De Carrico and Nattinger 1988: 91, 92). Lexical phrases were defined as “‘chunks’ of language of varying length, phrases like as it were, that goes without saying, on the other hand,” and the assumption has been that knowledge of these chunks of language can “ease the problem of [listening] perception”. Recently, with advances in technology and the prevalence of corpus-based research methodologies, lexical phrases within academic lectures have been revisited on a larger scale (Rilling 1996). Significantly larger numbers of transcribed lectures have been compiled into larger corpora, yielding a larger pool of information upon which to base findings. Additionally, corpus-based research has allowed researchers to examine the lexical phrases in lectures without necessarily having pre-existing ideas of which phrases will be the most common. Computer programs can be developed to search for commonly occurring three-, four-, or five-word (or longer) combinations. Thus, corpus- based methodologies have allowed for a revelation of the frequently occurring lexical phrases in academic lectures that were not possible to identify before computers. This is the case of a particular type of word combination called lexical bundles (Biber et al. 1999). According to Biber and Barbieri (2007) there are three characteristics of lexical bundles. The first one relates to their frequency: whether found in spoken or written A little bit about: analysing and teaching lexical bundles in academic lectures   Language Value 1, (1), 17–38 http://www.e-revistes.uji.es/languagevalue 21 discourse, lexical bundles are extremely common, as previously mentioned. The second characteristic is that they are not idiomatic but transparent in meaning. Their final characteristic is that they are usually not complete phrases or clauses. Biber et al. (2004) determined that in spoken registers, lexical bundles act as functional frames that signal to the listeners how they should interpret the coming information. Taken together, these characteristics would imply that lexical bundles, while occurring frequently, are not always obvious to the listener or the speaker due to their being fragments of language that are often used simply to frame other information. In this way, it is evident that corpus-based research, which objectively searches for frequencies of occurrences in large corpora, has been crucial in allowing lexical bundles to come into clearer focus. Two recent studies that have contributed significantly to our understanding of lexical bundles in spoken academic discourse are Biber et al. (2004) and Nesi and Basturkmen (2006). In the first study, Biber et al. (2004) start their study by explaining two important considerations when identifying lexical bundles in texts: frequency and range. Frequency refers to how often a phrase recurs. As the cut-off point used to consider a recurrent word-combination a lexical bundle is somewhat arbitrary (10 or 20 times in a million words depending on the study), for this study they chose a very conservative frequency-cut off point at 40 times in a million words. Additionally, the authors mention that a phrase must be used in a range of texts, at least five different texts in the corpus, to avoid idiosyncratic use by individual writers or speakers. This feature is particularly important when trying to determine the phrases that students will encounter across a wide variety of settings. In addition, Biber et al. (2004) provide insights into how lexical bundles are structurally and functionally classified, introducing a comprehensive functional taxonomy. The functional categories of lexical bundles identified in their study included stance expressions, discourse organizers, and referential expressions, with several sub-categories under each of these groups. In a broad sense, stance bundles provide a frame for which one can interpret coming information, discourse organizers allow for introducing new topics and elaborate on given topics, and referential bundles specify an attribute of something as being important. Some of the bundles classified as discourse organizers will be analyzed in the current study, specifically those that have been labeled topic introduction/focus bundles, Elizabeth Neely and Viviana Cortes Language Value 1, (1) 17–38 http://www.e-revistes.uji.es/languagevalue 22 which “provide overt signals to the student that a new topic is being introduced” (Biber et al. 2004: 391). Similarly to Biber et al. (2004), the work of Nesi and Basturkmen (2006) examined the use of lexical bundles in academic lectures. These authors used monologic university lectures from two different corpora searching for four-word lexical bundles. Their findings indicate that classroom teaching uses a large number of lexical bundles. The authors compiled a list of the 20 most frequently occurring bundles, 17 out of which were also reported in the findings of Biber et al. (2004). In sum, the findings of both of these studies implicate that lexical bundles are frequently used in academic discourse and lend support to the necessity of knowing how bundles operate in introduction/focus bundles in these studies were used as a starting point for data analysis for materials development, as will be shown in the following section. II.2. Lexical bundles and academic listening comprehension Two terms commonly used to describe listening processing are bottom-up and top-down listening processing skills. According to Morley (2001), bottom-up skills call for the listener to pay attention to every detail of language input while top-down skills involve the listeners’ ability to access previous knowledge in order to understand what they are hearing. It has long been believed that problems in listening comprehension can arise when students depend too heavily on bottom-up rather than top-down skills; in this way, students may understand every word of an utterance without grasping the overall meaning. In this vein, Chaudron and Richards (1986) examined the effect of using what they termed micro-markers in academic lectures on students’ comprehension. Micro-markers such as “well,” “now,” and “so” were believed to signal lower-level information and macro-markers such as “what I’m going to talk about today” were believed to signal higher level information. It was hypothesized that students would better comprehend a lecture when both micro- and macro-markers were used rather than when one or the other was used alone. What the results of this study showed was that students actually did better on the comprehension checks after listening to the lecture that used macro- markers alone rather than in addition to micro-markers or with micro-markers alone. A A little bit about: analysing and teaching lexical bundles in academic lectures Language Value 1, (1), 17–38 http://www.e-revistes.uji.es/languagevalue 23 possible explanation for the benefit of macro-markers was that they allowed for better top-down processing, as students were able to categorize information based on those cues. The authors further concluded that the micro-markers added little in the way of semantic meaning and were possibly overlooked due to their inessentiality of the overall meaning. In light of the current study, an important note here is that some of the macro- markers chosen by Chaudron and Richards are actually similar to those lexical bundles identified in academic lectures, as shown in corpus data. For instance, the phrases what I’m going to talk about today is something you probably know and and that’s all we’ll talk about today as chosen by Chaudron and Richards (1986) contain the bundles (or similar bundles) what we’re going to and going to talk about as seen in Biber et al. (2004). Thus, from Chaudron and Richards, one might indirectly conclude that introduction/topic lexical bundles in academic lectures may actually help students better understand the structure of the lecture and utilize top-down rather than bottom-up processing. In addition, in a more explicit examination of the presence and distribution of lexical bundles in university classroom talk, Csomay and Cortes (in press) found that lexical bundles seem to aid in allowing the listener to follow the macro-level structure of classroom talk. III. DATA AND METHODOLOGY The comparison of Biber et al. (2004) and Nesi and Basturkmen (2006) provided us with a corpus-generated list of lexical bundles used to introduce new topics in academic lectures. From this list, the bundles if you look at, a little bit about, a little bit of, I want you to, and I would like you were chosen to conduct the analysis of the present study. The use of these five bundles was examined in the online version of the Michigan Corpus of Academic Spoken English (MICASE) and the concordancer software built in on its website. The search criteria were restricted by speech event type and speaker attributes. First, in examining the speech of instructors, the search criteria was limited so that the results only came from large and small lectures which were either interactive or monologic. The speaker attributes were limited so that only speech by faculty was considered in the results. Then, in examining the speech of students, the results were limited to student presentations and dissertation defenses, and the speaker attributes Elizabeth Neely and Viviana Cortes Language Value 1, (1) 17–38 http://www.e-revistes.uji.es/languagevalue 24 were limited to speech by students. With these restrictions established, there were 62 lectures used to gather data about the speech of instructors and 15 student presentation and dissertation defenses to analyze student speech. Each speech event had a different speaker. A search was conducted for each of the five topic-introducing bundles selected for this study: if you look at, a little bit of, a little bit about, I want you to and I would like you. As the list of instances of occurrences came up, each instance was examined to determine the bundle’s function in the context, and these functions were compared to those described in Biber et al. (2004) and Nesi and Basturkmen (2006). Special attention was given to those bundles that did not function in the expected way (i.e. whose function did not resemble those in the reviewed studies) in order to better understand the nature of the bundle. IV. LEXICAL BUNDLE FUNCTION IN MICASE In this section, we present the analyses of the lexical bundles selected for this study in the speech of instructors first and then in the speech of students as identified in MICASE in order to carefully review the function they perform in these registers. The bundles’ use is illustrated by examples taken from the corpus. IV.1. If you look at Instructor’s speech: The phrase was found 54 times across 34 transcripts. Of the 54 occurrences, in 17 instances (31%) the bundle was used as topic introduction. By examining the co-texts, some interesting patterns were discovered. For instance, the contrastive transition word but preceded the bundle in some instances. “…uh dissolve in a liter of water, but if you look at this one a very very small number of moles of mercury-two iodide…” In keeping with the tendency of academic speech to resemble conversation as well as academic prose, the word so, which has been found to be a frequent conversational linking adverbial (Biber et al. 2002) preceded the bundle as well, often when the bundle acted as the introduction of a new topic: A little bit about: analysing and teaching lexical bundles in academic lectures Language Value 1, (1), 17–38 http://www.e-revistes.uji.es/languagevalue 25 “…that’s those N-O-three-minus anions that are highly soluble, uh will not precipitate. Okay so if you look at question number one, uh, in your handout…” Additionally, references to present time or a present object were made with the use of words such as here and now, both preceding and following the bundle. “…and, what can you see here especially if you look at the eyes, the hollow of the eyes, and the um, and the way the skin looks like she stood up out of a swamp.” A final observation was that if you look at was often used in order to draw student’s attention to an object, a visual representation, or part of class materials. “…so if you look at that top figure…” It is necessary to point out that two-thirds of the bundle occurrences showed the bundle used for topic elaboration or clarification, which is the second function of discourse organizing bundles as explained by Biber et al. (2004). Of these instances, if you look at was used 54% of the time with the meaning of “if you consider.” For example: “…about six lines from the bottom of that page where Gertrudis is making an argument about how, well this is true if you look at it one way but it could be true if you look at another way and so on.” Thus, it would not be enough to teach the topic introduction/focus function of this bundle in an academic listening skills class; both this function and the topic elaboration function should be emphasized. Student speech: If you look at occurred 10 times in 5 transcripts of student speech. Nine of these tokens can be interpreted to mean “if you consider” as in the following example: “…you don’t all of a sudden see a slew of multicultural films coming out every year. If you look at all the Oscar nominees, um, if you look at the top ten grossing film [sic] sometimes you have…” Elizabeth Neely and Viviana Cortes Language Value 1, (1) 17–38 http://www.e-revistes.uji.es/languagevalue 26 Student speech seems to follow instructor speech in the tendency to use if you look at as a topic elaboration/clarification bundle. This finding emphasizes the fact that the bundle should be presented to students in both of the functions it often performs. IV.2. A little bit of Instructor speech: In the corpus, a little bit about had 40 tokens across 22 texts and in 11 of these occurrences it was used to introduce a topic. In four of these occurrences, the bundle was preceded by the word spend and immediately followed by the word time, creating a six-word recurrent expression, spend a little bit of time. Furthermore, three out of these four occurrences were part of the longer expression spend a little bit of time talking about, as shown in the following example: “…so, lemme spend a little bit of time and I mean a little bit of time talking about um a little bit about the continuous methods…” Another frequent collocate of the bundle was the word reading that occurred in three occasions. On the other hand, 27 occurrences of a little bit about (68%) did not show it as introducing a topic. In these cases, the bundle was used as a quantifier. “…the application of serotonin itself, and you get a little bit of inhibition for a short period of time.” Thus, in the instructor speech examples from MICASE, a little bit of functioned more often as a quantifier than a discourse organizer. This use as a quantifier could be attributed to instructors hedging when not sure of exact statistics or to deemphasize an action. These pragmatic implications for a little bit of should also be introduced to students. Likewise, the phrase spend a little bit of time talking/discussing should be presented as a topic introduction marker, as it occurs relatively often in the corpus as well. Student speech: A little bit about occurred 13 times in 7 texts of student speech. In 62% of the cases, it acted as a quantifier, similar to the tendency in instructor speech. In A little bit about: analysing and teaching lexical bundles in academic lectures Language Value 1, (1), 17–38 http://www.e-revistes.uji.es/languagevalue 27 the remaining occurrences, it was used as topic introduction/focus. The following examples illustrate these functions, respectively: “…so I think that really until you could get a little bit of information, from an oral r- some real data, it’s gonna be hard to do…” “…um, and let me, tell you a little bit of this article, Encountering Language and Language…” IV.3. A little bit about Instructor speech: Interestingly, a little bit about, while just one word different from a little bit of, showed a much stronger preference for acting as a topic introduction bundle. This bundle was used 81% of the time performing this function and it was preceded or followed by some reference to time, such as the word today or next. “…we talked about medical ecology on Monday and today we’re gonna talk a little bit about epidemiology” Student speech: the bundle a little bit about was used 6 times in 5 texts. Four out of these six occurrences showed the bundle functioning as a topic introduction/focus marker. “…alright, let’s talk a little bit about Mindspeak.” Both in instructor and student speech, this bundle was often preceded by a communication verb such as tell, talk, and show. IV.4. I want you to Instructor speech: The bundle I want you to occurred 43 times in 18 texts. This bundle was used only five times as a topic introduction marker. True to its nature as a directive, it was used as a kind of downplayed command, as if giving instructions or guiding the student to notice something: “…um , alright. Let me tell you a couple other things I want you to know. You can control…” Elizabeth Neely and Viviana Cortes Language Value 1, (1) 17–38 http://www.e-revistes.uji.es/languagevalue 28 The other 38 occurrences of this bundle showed it functioning as a directive but not introducing a topic. In these cases, the expression was used to ask students to literally do something as in the following example: “…assume a level of knowledge and comfort with uh archeological terminology that I don’t expect you to have so I want you to email me and let me know when you come across terms or concepts that you don’t know.” Student speech: There were only five tokens for I want you to in 4 transcripts of student speech. In all 5 occurrences, the bundle was functioning as a directive, much as in the instructor samples. “…so, if you think that this is still a problem today, I want you to, um (do we stand up?) maybe we should stand up everybody…” IV.5. I would like you Instructor speech: I would like you was mostly used as a directive in instructor speech. The bundle appeared only 5 times in four texts and was never used as a topic introduction marker. “…they are not in order. I would like you to rank them, from one to twenty- two, with one being…” Student speech: There was only one token of this bundle produced by students, in which it functioned as a directive. “…when she comes she’ll come in around two o’clock, she’ll stay until around, two fifteen and I would like you asking her questions…” V. DISCUSSION This small-scale corpus study exemplifies how to go about using corpora to examine how language features are used by both instructors and students in academic settings and how implications for the instruction of academic listening skills can be drawn in order to inform the EAP classroom. For instance, the data show that the lexical bundles A little bit about: analysing and teaching lexical bundles in academic lectures Language Value 1, (1), 17–38 http://www.e-revistes.uji.es/languagevalue 29 analyzed in this study have numerous functions in academic lectures; labeling a lexical bundle as a “discourse organizer” or a “topic introducer” may serve as type of broad categorization, but often lexical bundles serve more than one purpose, a finding which aligns with that of Biber et al. (2004). Students should be aware of this flexibility that bundles have and should therefore be exposed to multiple occurrences of lexical bundles used to express different functions. For example, if you look at, while not always used to introduce a topic in a lecture or student presentation, was often used to ask students to turn their attention to a new object in the classroom or to imagine or contemplate a topic already under discussion. Therefore, teachers should discuss this bundle’s tendency to be used to direct one’s attention, whether it be to a new topic or to contemplate a current topic further. The data also showed that certain bundles do have lexical preferences. For example, a little bit about seems to have a clear preference for being a discourse organizer, specifically a topic introducing bundle, and it commonly occurs with reference to time. Teaching students this tendency would be very valuable, considering the frequency with which a little bit about is used in this way. Likewise, a little bit of has a tendency to occur in the expression spend a little bit of time talking about, which has several functions. One might be that the instructor is making an aside to introduce knowledge that he/she thinks is important but has not been mentioned beforehand; another implication might be that the instructor is recognizing the importance of the students’ time and is showing a sign of politeness or rapport-building. Without discussion about these subtle meanings, EAP students may miss nuances of a lecture. As can be seen from the above results and discussion, lexical bundles are frequently used in academic lectures, and lexical bundles are used in a variety of types of academic lectures, varying by style (interactive or monologic) and subject. In addition, while a lexical bundle can have a primary function, the same bundle can be used for different functions across the span of a lecture. Obviously, it would be beneficial to teach lexical bundles in regard to listening comprehension, but in what way? Taking into account what research about lexical bundles in general and their use in the teaching of listening comprehension in particular, the next section will present our view of possible pedagogical applications of the findings of our study to English for Academic Purposes teaching settings. Elizabeth Neely and Viviana Cortes Language Value 1, (1) 17–38 http://www.e-revistes.uji.es/languagevalue 30 VI. PEDAGOGICAL APPLICATIONS: CORPUS-BASED ACTIVITIES IN THE CLASSROOM Several criticisms of corpus-based classroom activities are addressed by Flowerdew (2005). One criticism is that concordance, most often used to pull key words from the texts in a corpus with a line or so of surrounding co-text, only allow for bottom-up processing instead of top-down. Similarly, another criticism is that corpus-based activities do not account for contextual features, since concordance programs only allow one to see a small “clip” of the entire picture. In other words, it has been argued that the “decontextualized nature of certain corpus-based activities have actually created an inauthentic language learning experience. Yet Flowerdew contends that corpus-based activities can be better contextualized by the use of whole texts; she states that “…carefully-chosen and appropriately constructed texts do lend themselves to more top-down processing” (p. 329). Other criticisms have been aimed at the fact that much of the attention given to corpus- based activities has been from the perspective of instructors and materials developers but not students themselves. Yet Yoon and Hirvela (2004), in their evaluation of students’ attitudes toward corpus-based language learning activities, established that the students actually found corpus activities to be useful ways of learning some types of features, such as words in context. Additionally, these authors concluded that those students who had a strong desire to improve their language skills (writing skills in this case) were the ones who found the corpus-based activities the most useful. Likewise, other researchers (Cortes 2007, Lee and Swales 2006, Thurstun and Candlin 1998) also found that students appreciate corpus-based classroom activities when they are well- aligned with the goals of the course. Thus, the research suggests that corpus-based activities can be effective teaching and learning tools when proper planning and instruction takes place. Students should be aware that corpora and concordance programs are simply tools for language learning and should be treated as such. Therefore, the following lesson plans, which focus on lexical bundles and listening comprehension, strive to include corpus-based activities in such a way that that students are encountering features (lexical bundles) within their context (academic lectures). The following series of lessons could be used consecutively or periodically over the length of a course. While they were not designed for an actual class, the intended A little bit about: analysing and teaching lexical bundles in academic lectures Language Value 1, (1), 17–38 http://www.e-revistes.uji.es/languagevalue 31 audience would be a course of English for academic skills, particularly academic listening, in an ESL or EFL setting with students at the high intermediate or advanced level. As we wanted to concentrate on expressions that are used to mark the introduction of a topic in speech, for the purpose of this paper, only the lexical bundles if you look at, a little bit about, and a little bit of were used in the design of these activities in order to allow students to investigate how they are used to introduce topics in academic lectures. In the case of if you look at, the function of elaborating upon topics was also included in the units, as this function was also found to be very frequent in academic lectures. VI.1. Lesson 1: Comparing the language of textbooks to MICASE The first lesson aims at simply raising students’ awareness to the fact that the way that textbooks present materials (through “textbook” or contrived lectures) uses very different transition / topic introduction expressions from an actual academic lecture. As Rilling (1996) suggests, one way to raise this awareness is to have students compare a textbook lecture to a lecture taken from a corpus (such as MICASE). Students can examine an entire lecture or just an excerpt from both registers and make note of where transitions occur, as shown in Figure 1. This could lead to a whole class discussion about the language used to make such transitions; while this activity will not necessarily highlight all of the bundles under examination, it will certainly raise students’ awareness of the vast difference between contrived and actual lectures. Directions: Read the following excerpt taken from a MICASE lecture on river flooding and mark the language the speakers used when they are going to introduce a topic. Which words/expressions are generally used? Alright great. The topic for today’s lecture is river floodplains, and what we’re gonna be doing is first I wanna talk about, the larger picture what it means, a watershed is and what drainage basins are, and then we’ll look at some specific drainage patterns which are actually, on page ninety-five I think, yeah in your coursepack. And then we’ll talk about the different processes, that are, that go on surrounding a river, followed by the Elizabeth Neely and Viviana Cortes Language Value 1, (1) 17–38 http://www.e-revistes.uji.es/languagevalue 32 specific landforms of the floodplain, the climate of the floodplain, soils, and vegetation of the floodplain, and then if we have time we’ll look at slides of, um last week’s lab, when we went to Sharon Hollow, okay, so the first thing, is talking about this idea of a… Figure 1. Awareness-raising activity based on lecture excerpt. VI.2. Lesson 2: Lexical bundles in academic lectures The purpose of this lesson is to explicitly introduce lexical bundles and their functions, which can be done through a variety of activities. Similar to lesson one, students should be led to noticing the ways in which the instructors introduce new topics within academic lectures, but attention should be drawn specifically to lexical bundles as language features that can have the function of introducing new topics. In order to lead this activity in the most authentic manner, an audio excerpt from MICASE could be used and students could be asked to listen for ways in which the speaker introduces new topics within the lecture. In order to focus on a particular lexical bundle at a time, several excerpts in which the bundle is used performing the function of introducing a new topic should be used to help students draw conclusions on the function of the bundle in different contexts. The following excerpt has been selected from MICASE to illustrate the way in which a little bit about has been used to introduce a new topic in these lectures. It would be advisable to present students with several excerpts from different lectures that include the bundle for them to draw their own conclusions. …so the average is somewhere, from point-two to two centimeters per thousand years. that's not very fast. and so you can see, if it were say one centimeter per thousand years, somewhere in the middle there, if the oldest part of the ocean is like two hundred million years old, uh a thousand years is ten-to-the-third, a million is ten-to-the-sixth, so it'd be one times ten-to-the-third, centimeters thick, on the oldest part of the ocean. that's not very thick... so u- usually on the average you expect to f- find, a few hundred meters, of sediment. and that is indeed what you do find. now let's talk a little bit about each of these types of sediment. and we'll start with the terrigenous, stuff. it's very difficult... to carry sediment, out into the ocean very far. if you think about it, what happens? the the rivers flow down to the ocean A little bit about: analysing and teaching lexical bundles in academic lectures Language Value 1, (1), 17–38 http://www.e-revistes.uji.es/languagevalue 33 right? in general in most places not every place but in most places, as you come down, from the mountains down through the hills down through the coastal plain, the level or the or the um, the steepness of the slope of the river gets lower and lower, and then when it hits the ocean, in a way it's like, hitting a s- a rock wall i mean that it can't go any deeper than that, and so the flow, stops, in terms of river flow. and other processes take over. currents, tidal flushing in and out, longshore currents, wave generated currents, things like that, will then take that sediment that's delivered by the rivers, and move it around a little bit. but it's hard to get it out, out, far into the ocean. so the terrigenous sediment just tends to pile up around the edges. unless it's carried by the winds. and, of course dust, in the in the atmosphere, can go a long long way. in fact, uh, people have traced dust storms uh via satellite, well clear across the Atlantic. (Oceanography Lecture) Figure 2. Example of lexical bundle use from MICASE. VI.3. Lesson 3: Familiarization with form and function The purpose of this lesson is to familiarize students with the form and function of lexical bundles. To do this, corpus-based activities similar to those of Thurstun and Candlin (1998) can be created, as shown in the figures below. First, students are given a page of one-line concordances for each of the bundles under examination (see Figure 2) taken from MICASE, and they are guided in how to interpret the handout. Students are asked to look at the words directly before and after the bundle and pay special attention to lexical patterns as well as the function the bundle is performing (as well as can be perceived). For further practice with form and function, a set of “fill-in-the-blank” exercises can be designed for students to determine the most appropriate bundle to use in a give context from MICASE, as shown in Figure 4. A final example of this sort should include listening to a sample lecture so that students can identify the appropriate bundle within the context of that lecture. Directions: Examine the concordance lines containing a little bit about. Notice the words immediately preceding and following a little bit about. Is there a pattern? What do you think the speaker’s purpose was in using a little bit about? Elizabeth Neely and Viviana Cortes Language Value 1, (1) 17–38 http://www.e-revistes.uji.es/languagevalue 34 also. On page ninety-seven…okay…so the next thing, is to talk a little bit about how the climate is different in these into a larger cohort of mice. and then, to conclude, i wanna talk a little bit about how this works. so, there’s really two it’s just a brief outline of what i’m talking about first i’ll go into a little bit about stress, uh and the different types of it ’re gonna talk about in case, people really care we’re gonna talk a little bit about the phytase content, we’re gonna talks …how ‘bout the role of groups in politics? wanna tell us a little bit about that? politics isn’t, politics doesn’t just that means of course, that you know, remember when we talked a little bit about range of resources available? states tha t one that you start out with…so my, final topics i'm gonna talk a little bit about the honeycomb problem, which is the t nna be. and then before that nothing happened right? we talked a little bit about that the other night when we talked abo e gonna talk a little bit about delayed ripening, we’re gonna talk a little bit about the phytase content, we’re gonna talk Figure 3. Activity based on concordancing lines from MICASE. Directions: In each of the following sentences, a lexical bundle is missing. Using the context of the sentence, decide which bundle should go in each blank. Choose between if you look at and a little bit of …it's a good time to get into some of this. um this is just in the US. but this is actually, world wide so I wanna spend ____________ time talking about the extent, or extant i guess the the, distribution, of biotech, around the world. …now consistent with that, argument, are just a few things, first is that,___________the facial neuro-muscular mechanisms, fun to say that three times they show continuity from higher primates to man. we could’ve seen it after the glaciers left okay so that’s ______________ the soil profiles, how they get formed and then there’s six major soil orders. And um there’s other ones too but these… but now you start to look at other ki- other hallucinogens. so ____________ something like mescaline. You see mescaline, which is a hallucinogen shows cross-tolerance and L-S-D doesn't bind to the one five or seven family. Figure 4. Fill-in-the-blanks examples taken from MICASE. A little bit about: analysing and teaching lexical bundles in academic lectures Language Value 1, (1), 17–38 http://www.e-revistes.uji.es/languagevalue 35 A follow-up for this activity could consist of providing students with opportunities to continue noticing lexical bundles in a variety of academic context and reporting their analysis afterwards. Students could then be asked to attend a public academic forum on their university campus (e.g. a special presentation, a guest lecturer, or some type of published speaking setting). Students should be asked to pay special attention to how speakers organize their speech, to see if there are any key words or lexical bundles used. Ideally, the purpose of this last activity is to increase students’ awareness of the presence of discourse organizers in the academic discourse they hear inside and outside the classroom. VII. CONCLUSION The present study showed how it is possible to use existing corpus-based research findings in conjunction with publicly available corpora and concordance programs in order to design lessons and materials for the ESL/EFL classroom. In examining the presence of the bundles analyzed in this study in academic lectures, it was found that bundles should be taught presenting the complete spectrum of their functions in context for students to analyze these functions in discourse similar to the one they encounter daily in their academic lives. The series of lessons presented attempt to align current research in listening comprehension with the findings of corpus-based research, enabling students to become familiar with corpus-based research tools such as concordancing software. As corpus-based research findings become more popular and as publicly available corpora continue to increase, it is hoped that EAP instructors will feel empowered to use these resources to inform their teaching and in the process of designing their classroom materials. REFERENCES Biber, D. and Barbieri, F. 2007. “Lexical bundles in university spoken and written registers”. English for Specific Purposes, 26, 263-286. Biber, D., Conrad, S. and Cortes, V. 2004. “If you look at…: Lexical bundles in university teaching and textbooks”. Applied Linguistics, 25, 3, 371-405. Elizabeth Neely and Viviana Cortes Language Value 1, (1) 17–38 http://www.e-revistes.uji.es/languagevalue 36 Biber, D., Conrad, S. and Leech, G. 2002. Longman Student Grammar of Spoken and Written English. Harlow: Pearson Education Limited. Biber, D., Conrad, S., Reppen, R., Byrd, P. and Helt, M. 2002. “Speaking and writing in the university: A multidimensional comparison”. TESOL Quarterly, 36 (1), 9-48. Biber, D., Johansson, S., Leech, G., Conrad, S., and Finegan, E. 1999. Longman grammar of spoken and written English. London: Longman. Chaudron, C., Loschky, L. and Cook, J. 1994. “Second language listening comprehension and lecture note-taking”. In Flowerdew, J. (Ed.) Academic listening: Research perspectives. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 75- 92. Chaudron, C. and Richards, J. 1986. “The effect of discourse markers on the comprehension of lectures”. Applied Linguistics, 7 (2), 113-127. Conrad, S.M. 1999. “The importance of corpus-based research for language teachers”. System, 27, 1-18. Cortes, V. 2007. “Exploring corpora in the English for academic writing class”. ORTESOL Journal, 25, 9-16. Csomay, E. and Cortes, V. (in press). “Lexical bundle distribution in university classroom talk”. In Gries, S., S.Wulff and M. Davies (Eds.). Proceedings of AACL 2008. DeCarrico, J. and Nattinger, J. 1988. “Lexical phrases for the comprehension of academic lectures”. English for Specific Purposes, 7, 91-102. Flowerdew, J. 1995. “Research of relevance to second language comprehension – an overview”. In J. Flowerdew (Ed.), Academic listening: Research perspectives. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 7-30. Flowerdew, J. and Miller, L. 1997. “The teaching of academic listening comprehension and the question of authenticity”. English for Specific Purposes, 16 (1), 27-46. A little bit about: analysing and teaching lexical bundles in academic lectures Language Value 1, (1), 17–38 http://www.e-revistes.uji.es/languagevalue 37 Flowerdew, L. 2005. “An integration of corpus-based and genre-based approaches to text analysis in EAP/ESP: countering criticisms against corpus-based methodologies”. English for Specific Purposes, 24, 321-332. Lee, D. and Swales, J. 2006. “A corpus-based EAP course for NNS doctoral students: Moving from available specialized corpora to self-compiled corpora”. English for Specific Purposes, 25, 56-75. McEnery, T., Xiao, R. and Tono, Y. 2006. Corpus-based language studies. New York: Routledge. Morley, J. 2001. “Aural comprehension instruction: Principles and practices.” In Celce- Murcia, M. (Ed.) Teaching English as a second or foreign language. Boston: Heinle & Heinle, 69-85. MICASE (n.d.) http://lw.lsa.umich.edu/eli/micase/research.html (see Simpson et al.) Nesi, H. & Basturkmen, H. 2006. “Lexical bundles and discourse signalling in academic lectures”. International Journal of Corpus Linguistics, 11 (3), 283- 304. Rilling, S. 1996. “Lexical phrases as organizational markers in academic lectures: A corpus- and computer-based approach to research and teaching”. ORTESOL Journal, 17, 19-40. Simpson R. C., Briggs S. L., Ovens J., and Swales J. M. 2002. The Michigan Corpus of Academic Spoken English. Ann Arbor, MI: The Regents of the University of Michigan. Thurston, J. and Candlin, C. 1998. “Concordancing and the teaching of the vocabulary of academic English”. English for Specific Purposes, 17 (3), 267- 280. Tsai, M. 2001. “Learning is a lifelong process.” In Belcher, D. and U. Connor (Eds.) Reflections on Multiliterate Lives. Tonawanda: Cromwell Press Ltd., 135-140. Yoon, H. and Hirvela, A. 2004. “ESL student attitudes toward corpus use in L2 writing”. Journal of Second Language Writing, 13, 257-283. Elizabeth Neely and Viviana Cortes Language Value 1, (1) 17–38 http://www.e-revistes.uji.es/languagevalue 38 Received September 2009 Cite this article as: E. Neely and V. Cortes. 2009. “A little bit about: analyzing and teaching lexical bundles in academic lectures”. Language Value, 1 (1), 17-38. Servei de Publicacions de la Universitat Jaume I: Castelló, Spain. http://www.e- revistes.uji.es/languagevalue. ISSN 1989-7103 Articles are copyrighted by their respective authors Language Value http://www.e-revistes.uji.es/languagevalue September 2009, Volume 1, Number 1 pp. 39-50 ISSN 1989-7103 Articles are copyrighted by their respective authors How the linguistic colonization of the present by the past influences the colonization of other cultures adopting English as second language C. A. Bowers University of Oregon ABSTRACT The conduit view of language that is widely taken-for-granted in the education of English speaking cultures has marginalized awareness that most of the English vocabulary are metaphors whose meanings were framed by the analogies that can be traced back to earlier thinkers. Thus, words such as “property”, “wealth”, “progress”, “individualism”, “tradition”, “woman”, and so forth, carry forward the earlier ways of understanding—including the prejudices and silences of earlier eras. This essay addresses several of the implications of this process of linguistic colonization of the present by the past within the English speaking communities, as well as how the largely unrecognized process of cultural colonization by the past may be reproduced in teaching English as a second language. One of most important implications relates to how the meaning of words framed by earlier thinkers who were unaware of environmental limits continues to perpetuate the same patterns of thinking that is now globalizing an economic system that is ecologically unsustainable. Another implication of not recognizing that the metaphorical nature of the English vocabulary has a history is that when learning English is associated with becoming modern and progressive, the process of cultural colonization continues. What is often marginalized are the intergenerational forms of knowledge, skills, and mutually supportive relationships that both English and non-English speaking cultures need to revitalize as alternatives to the consumer-oriented lifestyle that has such an ecologically destructive footprint. Keywords: linguistic colonization, metaphor, double-bind, framing, ecological, intergenerational, sustainability Two groups —English speakers and those who are learning English as a second language— now face a common threat. This is the ecological crisis that is impacting different regions and cultures in ways that vary from the melting of glaciers that are the source of water for hundreds of millions of people, to the drying up of aquifers, the collapse of local fisheries, the spread of droughts, the loss of forests, and the extinction of species that some scientists view as the early stage of entering the world’s 6th extinction of life. Less often mentioned, but no less threatening, are the billions of pounds of chemicals, ranging from PCBs, dioxins, mercury, and pesticides— to cite only a few of the chemicals that have been put into the environment in the name of progress and profit. They can now be found in humans, the water supply, and in the How the linguistic colonization of the present by the past influences the colonization of other cultures Language Value 1, (1), 39–50 http://www.e-revistes.uji.es/languagevalue 40 plants and animals eaten around the world. The crisis has resulted in the poverty and hopelessness experienced by several billion people who are caught between the global spread of a money economy and the loss of their intergenerational knowledge that enabled previous generations to live a subsistence lifestyle within the limits and possibilities of their bioregion. The focus here will be on how much of the vocabulary that frames the thinking and values of people in English speaking countries and, by extension, the thinking of people who are learning to think and communicate in English as a second language, contributes to deepening the ecological crises. The problem that goes unrecognized in English speaking countries is the linguistic colonization of the present by the past. For people learning to speak English as a second language, the problem is an even more complex process of cultural colonization. Linguistic colonization of the present by the past occurs in English speaking public schools and university classrooms, in the media, in the use of the Internet by English speakers, and in daily conversations when it is ignored that the meaning of words (metaphors) are framed by cultural assumptions that were taken-for-granted at an earlier time in the culture’s development. What is widely overlooked in English speaking settings where students are being socialized in how to think and communicate about different aspects of their culture, as well as about other cultures, is that words have a history. The dominant message, as Michael Reddy pointed out in his pioneering essay, is that the educational processes as well as the everyday use of language, reinforce the idea that language is a conduit in a sender/receiver process of communication. In effect, the widely held assumption is that ideas, information, data, etc., can be put into words and then sent to others through the conduit of language (Reddy 1979). This concept of language is important in maintaining several minor myths that have huge implications —for deepening the ecological crises and for contributing to the linguistic colonization of other cultures. First, the conduit view of language is essential to maintaining the myth that individuals are autonomous thinkers (or have the potential to become so). Second, this view of language supports the idea that the rational process is free of cultural influences. This myth also requires assuming that words have a universal meaning — over time and for different cultures. The third myth is that there is such a thing as objective knowledge, information, and data. This myth hides the reality that observations and other ways of gathering C. A. Bowers Language Value 1, (1), 39–50 http://www.e-revistes.uji.es/languagevalue 41 “objective” information, data, and ideas involve a human observer who relies upon a culturally layered metaphorical language that has a history that is seldom recognized. These three myths, as well as the idea that language is a conduit, marginalize awareness that most words are metaphors. The idea that the analogs that frame the meaning of words are derived from the individual’s embodied experiences, which George Lakoff and Mark Johnson refer to as the source of “embodied reason” (Lakoff and Johnson 1999: 555), further marginalizes the awareness that words have a history, and that individuals are born into a community shared linguistic ecology that provides the initial cognitive schemata for interpreting the world, making value judgments, and that also influences the individual’s embodied experiences (Bowers 2009, Lakoff and Johnson 1999). Recognizing that words have a history should lead to the awareness of another fundamental characteristic of language. That is, most words are metaphors, and their meanings are framed by the process of analogic thinking. In 1885, Friedrich Nietzsche described the process of analogic thinking when he wrote “In our thought, the essential feature is fitting new material into old schemas…” (Kaufman 1967: 273). That is, the initial understanding of what is new and thus unnamed is to identify what it is like, or what is similar. For example, in the early stage of developing computer technology there was an awareness that computers “processed” data and information. Psychologists at that time also thought of human intelligence as processing information. This assumed similarity between computers and human thinking led to thinking of computers as devices that exhibited “artificial intelligence”. As people became more accustomed to thinking of computers as exhibiting intelligence, it has become the new analog for understanding the brain as a computer. Another example of analogic thinking is in a textbook that explains that genes are passed from one person to the next in the same way that footballs are passed —which is an analog that most young students understand. In yet another textbook the students’ understanding of a crop of vegetables is introduced as the analog for understanding the life cycle of a forest. This analog leads to the basic misunderstanding that the main difference between farming the forest and a crop of vegetables is the mount of time between when the two “crops” can be harvested. This mapping of the familiar onto what is new may provide an initial basis for understanding, as long it is emphasized that the new and the already familiar are not represented as identical. What is often overlooked, however, is how the process of How the linguistic colonization of the present by the past influences the colonization of other cultures Language Value 1, (1), 39–50 http://www.e-revistes.uji.es/languagevalue 42 analogic thinking may involve ignoring that the differences are far more important than similarities. The dire consequences that may result from the choice of the wrong analogs can be seen in how President Ronald Reagan explained, in response to his critics, that an economy is like a game, and that the leader of the team does not change the plan in the fourth quarter. Both an economy and a game may be based on a plan, but the difference is that one can walk away from a game that is poorly played and quickly put it in the past. But one cannot walk away and put out of thought an economy that is out of control. Understanding the new in terms of the already familiar should alert students to being aware that words have a history, and that they carry forward the assumptions, prejudices, and silences of the individuals or groups who established the analogs that subsequent individuals or generations accept as framing the meaning of words. As other aspects of metaphorical thinking are explained, including how this process is key to understanding the linguistic colonization of the present by the past, other examples of metaphorical thinking will be introduced—including how to reframe the meaning of words by introducing new analogs that are ecologically and culturally informed. A key influence on the choice of analogies that frame and, over time, lead to the reframing the meaning of words, is the existence of what can be referred to as the root metaphors of the culture. The root metaphors in Western cultures, such as patriarchy, anthropocentrism (a human-centered world), individualism, progress, mechanism, and now evolution, have their origins in the mythopoetic narratives, powerful evocative experiences, and other forces in the culture’s past and present experiences. Root metaphors provide the largely taken-for-granted interpretive frameworks that influence cultural ways of thinking and practices in a wide range of activities — and over hundreds and even thousands of years. The vocabulary influenced by the root metaphor both reinforces its taken-for-granted status while at the same time excluding words that undermine its conceptual coherence. For example, Johannes Kepler (1571-1630) suggested that instead of thinking of the universe as a divine organism it should be thought of as a giant clockwork. This mechanistic root metaphor continues to be the basis of thinking in the area of artificial intelligence and even taken-for-granted by important environmental thinkers such as E. O. Wilson who refers to the brain as a machine, and as a problem in engineering. The root metaphor of individualism started C. A. Bowers Language Value 1, (1), 39–50 http://www.e-revistes.uji.es/languagevalue 43 out as an image or iconic metaphor that changed over time from being associated with being a subject, to being a citizen, to being self-creating, to being autonomous. It has now become a root metaphor (interpretative framework) in the West that leads to a taken-for-granted understanding that individuals own property and ideas, to the current understanding that they that construct their own ideas and values (as some educators now claim), to possessing civil rights, and so forth. This brief overview of the role of root metaphors, which are derived from the culture’s mythopoetic accounts of the beginning, purpose, and processes of reality, is meant to bring into focus a key aspect of language that is overlooked when the culture’s educational processes represent language as a neutral conduit. To restate a point made earlier, words have a history and in many instances the current meanings can be traced to an earlier period in the culture’s history when people were responding to a different set of circumstances. That is, analogies that framed the meaning of words that are still taken-for-granted today were settled upon by influential thinkers who were attempting to establish how to think about the changes taking place in their times. John Locke, for example lived during a time of transition in the traditional feudal system of land ownership. The analogy that became his legacy to Western cultures was to claim that private ownership of property is established through the person’s labor. Adam Smith, who was concerned about the restrictions of the mercantile system on local farmers and business, argued for “free markets” and observed that members of his community were engaging in activities he described as “truck, barter, and trade”. The analogs introduced by Smith and the French Physiocrats (who coined another metaphor, “laissez faire”) reflected the community-based experience and thinking of that era. However, the local markets that served as the analogs for his economic theory were ignored by readers who succeeded in reifying and thus turning his metaphorically based theory into a universal truth that has the same status as the law of gravity. That is, the cultural context as well as assumptions and prejudices of Smith’s era have been ignored by today’s market- liberals who are working to globalize the layers of misunderstandings related to the idea of a free-market economy. To restate what is ignored when language is understood as a conduit in a sender/receiver process of communication: words are not objective representations of the real world, but are, as Nietzsche pointed out, metaphorically based interpretations of people who were responding to the needs of their times. Too How the linguistic colonization of the present by the past influences the colonization of other cultures Language Value 1, (1), 39–50 http://www.e-revistes.uji.es/languagevalue 44 often their responses to the challenges of their times involved a linguistic problem that Gregory Bateson has recently shed light upon. If we engage in examining the origins of the analogs that are carried forward and continue to influence today’s thinking, including the silences and prejudices, we would recognize what is now referred to by Gregory Bateson as double bind thinking (1972). Conceptual and moral double binds result from relying upon earlier ways of thinking as the basis for addressing current issues and problems. Double bind thinking increases the likelihood that the metaphors inherited from earlier thinkers will prevent us from recognizing the deep conceptual roots of the ecological crises for the simple reason that these earlier thinkers took for granted many of the same root metaphors that gave conceptual direction and moral legitimacy to the industrial and consumer-dependent culture that is overshooting the sustaining capacity of the Earth’s natural systems. Today, the major emphasis in addressing the ecological crisis is to rely upon technological solutions, which leaves these root metaphors unexamined. Thus, economic growth is still seen as part of the solution to the crises of our times even though it further threatens the self-renewing capacity of natural systems. More specific examples of double bind thinking for speakers of English occurs when they ignore that the analogs that frame the meaning of much of today’s key words reproduce the prejudices, silences, and taken-for-granted deep cultural assumptions of earlier thinkers. For example, the analogs for thinking of “technology” as both culturally neutral and as an expression of progress, of “tradition” as a source of individual oppression and a restriction on progress, of “wealth” as measured in material possessions and money, of “intelligence” as an attribute of the autonomous individual and a process that occurs in the brain, of “freedom” as a right of the individual that needs to be expanded without limits, of “community” from the anthropocentric perspective that excludes awareness of the animals and plants that share with humans the same physical space, of “literacy” as representing a more advanced stage of cultural development, and so on, have all been influenced by different combinations of the West’s dominant root metaphors that were taken-for-granted in the past—and are still taken-for-granted by the majority of today’s speakers of English. C. A. Bowers Language Value 1, (1), 39–50 http://www.e-revistes.uji.es/languagevalue 45 As we begin to recognize that both cultures and natural systems can be understood as ecologies (which means expanding the meaning of the word beyond how Ernst Haeckel reduced the Greek word oikos in 1866 to mean the study of natural systems) the above metaphors, as well as many other English words (metaphors) take on profoundly different meanings. For example, both cultural and natural ecologies have a history and face the challenge of surviving into the future. Given this understanding, culturally and ecologically informed analogs that frame the meaning of the word “tradition” no longer reproduce the Enlightenment thinkers’ way of thinking of traditions as privileging small groups over others and of standing in the way of progress and rational thought. Similarly, if we understand cultural and natural ecologies in terms of information circulating through the interdependent systems, and of the patterns that connect within and between both ecologies, it becomes clear that the old analogs for understanding “intelligence”, “freedom”, “individualism” and so forth, need to be radically revised. These context free metaphors were derived from the abstract theories of western philosophers and theorists who ignored other cultural ways of knowing as well as the cultural influences on their own thinking (Bowers 2007). We also need to take account of what Bateson refers to as the unit of survival —which takes account of how the individual is nested in the cultural ecology that is simultaneously nested in the natural ecology. As many non-English speaking cultures are facing the impact of global warming and other forms of environmental degradation that have far more severe consequences than what is being experienced in western countries, the problem of linguistic colonization of the present by the past becomes an even greater challenge where English is being adopted as a second language —and in some instances, as the primary language for relying upon western technologies and for participating in the global economy. If English words such as “development”, “modernization”, “market”, “progress”, “state”, “science”, “poverty”, and so forth, are taught as though they represent different universal possibilities, in the same way that gravity is understood as universal reality, then the colonization of the present by past influential English speakers is being ignored. That is, if students learning the meaning of English words do not question the current appropriateness of the analogs settled upon at earlier stages in the development How the linguistic colonization of the present by the past influences the colonization of other cultures Language Value 1, (1), 39–50 http://www.e-revistes.uji.es/languagevalue 46 of English speaking cultures, they will be undergoing the worst case scenario of linguistic colonization. If the English vocabulary were informed by analogs derived from a deep understanding of the differences in the world’s cultural ecologies as well as the natural ecologies, the linguistic colonization associated with learning English would not be so life threatening. But it would still be a form of linguistic and thus cultural colonization. Given the thousands of years it has taken to revise the analogs as well as the underlying root metaphors for such English words as “environment” and “woman”, which are still not widely adopted in English speaking countries, it is not likely that other key metaphors in the English vocabulary will be revised in ways that avoid the double bind that Albert Einstein warned about when he observed that we cannot rely upon the same mindset to fix the problem that it created. There are a number of other important issues connected with learning English as a second language. One of the issues relates to learning English from a printed source. As Walter Ong and others have pointed out, print-based communication alters consciousness in fundamental ways (Muhlhausler 1996, Ong 1982). The form of cultural colonization that occurs when print-based communication is relied upon, such as in computer-mediated learning, is that print reproduces many of the characteristics of a conduit view of language, including how it hides that words have a culturally specific history as well as how it reinforces a taken-for-granted attitude toward abstract thinking. The printed word, whether appearing in a book or on a computer screen, marginalizes the importance of local contexts, tacit understandings, and the patterns of meta- communication that are integral to spoken English. It also marginalizes the importance of personal memory of identity forming narratives and relationships with mentors and others who nurture and model how to participate in the largely non-monetized intergenerational commons—which, in most cultures, have a smaller ecological footprint. In short, print-based approaches to learning English contribute to the reification of the analogs settled upon by earlier thinkers, thus making it difficult for the first-time learner to question them. There is another issue that arises when English is being learned as a second language. As local communities in English speaking countries are rediscovering the C. A. Bowers Language Value 1, (1), 39–50 http://www.e-revistes.uji.es/languagevalue 47 intergenerational knowledge, skills, and practices that represent alternatives to the industrial and consumer dependent lifestyle that has such an adverse impact on the environment, there is beginning to be a change in the analogs that frame the meaning of such words as tradition, individualism, freedom, community, intelligence, progress, and so forth. For example, associating tradition with learning how to preserve vegetables as well as the daily practices of the older generation that are less reliant upon increasingly scarce sources of energy and water means that the Enlightenment derived analogs that represented tradition as an obstacle to progress are less taken-for-granted today. Similarly, the old analogs that represented all forms of change, especially in the area of technology and in the development of new markets and consumer goods, as the expression of progress are also being increasingly questioned as people are beginning to ask what traditions of community self-reliance are being overturned. The old analogs that framed the meaning of individualism, freedom, and community are also beginning to be questioned as the emerging root metaphor of ecology becomes more widely understood as the explanatory framework for understanding the interdependence between cultural and natural systems. The key point is that if the teachers of English as a second language are unaware that the ecological crises is causing fundamental linguistic changes among a small yet growing segment of the population in English speaking countries they may be teaching their students to adopt the meaning of words framed by the earlier analogs that are now being questioned and modified in way that take account of how to live more ecologically sustainable lives. Changes in the root metaphors of patriarchy, anthropocentrism, and even mechanism, which framed the meaning of much of English vocabulary that still justifies economic and cultural colonization, are beginning to be revised as the explanatory power of new root metaphors such as evolution and ecology are recognized as more relevant to meeting today’s challenges. In effect, the emerging analogs that are reframing the meaning of words are being contested by reactionary groups still holding onto the assumptions that underlie the industrial and consumer- dependent lifestyle, and the old analogs are being challenged by social groups who are beginning to exercise ecological intelligence that is informed about the interdependencies of cultural and natural systems. The linguistic changes occurring in English speaking countries that are resulting from the growing awareness of the cultural How the linguistic colonization of the present by the past influences the colonization of other cultures Language Value 1, (1), 39–50 http://www.e-revistes.uji.es/languagevalue 48 roots of the ecological crisis means that teaching English cannot be separated from helping students understand how linguistic changes mirror the contending political and economic forces in English speaking countries. There is a third issue that needs to be addressed in teaching English as a second language. That is, not only is there a need to introduce students to how the different ways in which key words are being contested and revised in English speaking countries, students also need to be encouraged to consider how the old analogs that framed the meaning of English words would, if accepted as the way everyday reality should be understood, undermine traditions that the students think essential to their own self- identity and sense of community self-reliance. They should also be encouraged to question whether the new ecologically informed analogs that are changing the meaning of English words have implications for rethinking the historically constituted analogs that underlie their own vocabulary. Do the historically constituted analogs that frame the meaning of key words in their own language take account of such challenges as the ecological crisis that earlier influential thinkers were unaware of? Following Ivan Illich’s suggestion, Wolfgang Sachs published a series of essays by Third World writers who examined how adopting the still dominant English meaning of such words as “development”, “progress”, “markets”, “needs”, “poverty”, and so on would introduce fundamental changes in local ways of thinking and practices. The collection of essays, titled The Development Dictionary: A Guide to Knowledge as Power (1992), provides a model of what also needs to be included in teaching English. Escaping from the subtle and complex ways in which linguistic colonization occurs can only be achieved by questioning the cultural assumptions taken-for-granted by earlier influential thinkers who established the analogs for judging what represents “developed” and “modern” cultures, and what cultures are to be viewed as undeveloped and backward. The ecologically informed analogs are reframing the meaning of words of these colonizing words by foregrounding the importance of such words and phrases as “ecologically sustainable”, “eco-justice”, and “local knowledge”. As the linguistic colonization of the present by the past is not unique to English, the need to conserve ecologically sustainable cultural practices is closely related to the need to conserve the diversity of the world’s languages. This will require greater awareness C. A. Bowers Language Value 1, (1), 39–50 http://www.e-revistes.uji.es/languagevalue 49 that words are metaphors, that they have a history, and that the analogs that frame their meaning are derived from mythopoetic narratives and powerful evocative experiences that underlie culturally specific assumptions that are too often taken for granted. Whether classroom teachers and university professors can avoid relying upon the conduit view of language that marginalizes the awareness that most words are metaphors that often carry forward the misconceptions, prejudices, and silences of earlier generations will be a challenge that must be met if they are to avoid the double bind that Bateson and Einstein identified. REFERENCES Bateson, G. 1972. Steps to an Ecology of Mind. New York: Ballantine Books. Bowers, C. A. 2007. “Philosophy, Language, and the Titanic Mindset”. Language and Ecology. http://ecoling.net/journal.html, 2 (1), 1-16 Bowers, C. A. 2009. “Why the Lakoff and Johnson Theory of Metaphor is Inadequate for Addressing the Cultural Issues Related to the Ecological Crises” Language and Ecology http://ecoling.net/journal.html, 2, (4), 1-16. Kaufmann, W. (Ed.) 1967. Friedrich Nietzsche: The Will to Power. New York: Vintage Books. Lakoff, G. and Johnson, M. 1999. Philosophy in the Flesh: The Embodied Mind and Its Challenge to Western Thought. New York: Basic Books. Muhlhausler, P. 1996. Linguistic Ecology: Language Change and Linguistic Imperialism in the Pacific Region. London: Routledge. Ong, W. 1982. Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word. New York. Methuen Publishers. Reddy, M. J. 1979. “The Conduit Metaphor—A Case of Frame Conflict in Our Language About Language”. In Ortony, A. (Ed.) Metaphor and Thought. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 284-324. Sachs, W. 1992. The Develoment Dictionary: A Guide to Knowledge as Power. London: Zed Books. How the linguistic colonization of the present by the past influences the colonization of other cultures Language Value 1, (1), 39–50 http://www.e-revistes.uji.es/languagevalue 50 Received May 2009 Cite this article as: Bowers, C. A. 2009. “How the linguistic colonization of the present by the past influences the colonization of other cultures adopting English as second language”. Language Value, 1 (1), 39-50. Servei de Publicacions de la Universitat Jaume I: Castelló, Spain. http://www.e-revistes.uji.es/languagevalue. ISSN 1989-7103 Articles are copyrighted by their respective authors Language Value http://www.e-revistes.uji.es/languagevalue September 2009, Volume 1, Number 1 pp. 51-80 ISSN 1989-7103 Articles are copyrighted by their respective authors Constitution of the White Earth Nation Gerald Vizenor University of New Mexico ABSTRACT The Constitution of the White Earth Nation was ratified by sworn delegates on April 4, 2009. The Constitution declares a separation from the current federal constitution that consolidated six Anishinaabe or Chippewa reservations in Minnesota. This federal constitutional association has not served the specific interests of the citizens of the White Earth Reservation. The disposition of treaty land, for instance, and the uses of natural resources cannot equitably be decided by any other government or federation of reservations. Forty citizen delegates were appointed to deliberate the appropriate formation of an independent reservation government. In the past two years after three two-day Constitutional Conventions on the White Earth Reservation, Gerald Vizenor was named the principal writer of the new constitution. The Constitution of the White Earth Nation was ratified at the fourth Constitutional Convention. The ratified Constitution will soon be presented to the citizens of the reservation as a referendum. Keywords: White Earth, Anishinaabe, Constitution, Nation, Minnesota. PRELUDE TO A NATIVE CHARTER The White Earth Reservation is located in three counties, Becker, Clearwater, and Mahnomen, in northwestern Minnesota. The legal boundaries of the reservation were established by federal treaty on March 19, 1867. The reservation was first governed by federal agents, and with the unbidden counsel of Native elders and representatives of the community. The federal agents, who were stony and unlikable, in the main, ruled the reservation as an occupied territory held in trust by the federal government. The agents of the trust were mainly capricious and corrupt in the administration of the reservation. The hundreds of original families on the reservation had been removed according to the treaty from a wide area of woodland settlements in the northern sections of Minnesota. Alas, federal legislation partitioned the reservation into individual allotments, and subsequent state and federal legislation separated many Native families from each other and from the treaty land. Separated by federal racialist policies, and from the land by Gerald Vizenor Language Value 1 (1), 51–80 http://www.e-revistes.uji.es/languagevalue 52 legislation that favored the timber speculators of white pine and other natural resources on the reservation. The Anishinaabe elders resisted for several generations the unreasonable partitions of ethnic and racial policies. The notion of arithmetic blood quantum was concocted as a measure to determine federal services, tribal membership, and identity. Title 25 of the United States Code names and describes the laws relevant to the services provided by the government, for instance, education, health care, housing, land claims, child protection, family justice, and graves protection and repatriation. The severe quarter blood requirements for federal services have been amended, in certain circumstances, to accommodate reservation governments. Many Natives both liberal and traditional have declared that family descent, not blood quantum, determines personal associations and identity. The Minnesota Chippewa Tribe was established by federal legislation as a government on June 18, 1934. Six reservations, White Earth, Leech Lake, Fond du Lac, Bois Forte, Mille Lac, and Grand Portage, were consolidated by a master constitution as a federation with a single government. The purpose of the federation, according to the Revised Constitution of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe, “shall be to conserve and develop tribal resources and to promote the conservation and development of individual Indian trust property; to promote the general welfare of the members of the Tribe; to preserve and maintain justice for its members and otherwise exercise all powers granted and provided the Indians, and take advantage of the privileges afforded by the Act of June 18, 1934.” The Revised Constitution of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe was adopted by the Assistant Secretary of the Interior on September 12, 1963, and equivocally ratified by voters on November 23, 1963. The Minnesota Chippewa Tribe provides that membership includes those persons of “Indian blood whose names appear on the annuity roll of April 14, 1941, prepared pursuant to the Treaty with said Indians as enacted by Congress in the Act of January 14, 1889.” Anishinaabe children born between April 14, 1941, the date of the annuity roll, and July 3, 1961, the approval date of the “membership ordinance” by federal agents, “to a parent or parents, either or both of whose names appear on the basic membership role,” shall be members according to Constitution of the White Earth Nation Language Value 1, (1) 51–80 http://www.e-revistes.uji.es/languagevalue 53 provisions of an application. Moreover, these contingencies persist today. Children who are “at least one quarter degree Minnesota Chippewa Indian blood born after July 3, 1961, to a member, provided that an application for enrollment” was properly filed, are considered members. The United States policies and provisions based on blood quantum as racial evidence of reservation enumeration association, separates families. This practice of blood quantum, or racial arithmetic, would in time terminate the people named the Anishinaabe. The Anishinaabe of the White Earth Reservation convey and demonstrate sanguine notions of citizens and families. “There was no single system for determining who was a part of the community and who was not,” observed Jill Doerfler in Anishinaabeg Today, the newspaper of the White Earth Reservation. “More importantly the Anishinaabeg maintained their identity as they adapted to new ways of life at White Earth. Identity was flexible and depended on the choices of individuals. Ultimately, little was agreed upon except that rigid racial designations of ‘mixed-blood’ and ‘full- blood’ pushed by the United States government investigators were unacceptable and in direct conflict with all Anishinaabeg understandings of identity.” The Anishinaabeg “continue to use their own definitions even though they demonstrate a clear awareness” of the ethnic and racial applications of these notions by the federal government. The Constitution of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe was created and imposed by the federal government. The Constitution, a charter federation of six reservations, established a strong executive, and with reservation advisory committees, but no separate reservation judiciary. There were no real divisions of power in the government. The Tribal Executive Committee, for instance, “shall be authorized to manage, lease, permit, or otherwise deal with tribal lands, interests in lands or other tribal assets; to engage in any business that will further the economic well being of members of the Tribe,” and borrow money from the federal government. The White Earth Reservation is one of the largest in the federation, and there are specific treaty, charter, and constitutional issues that should be the reserved powers of the reservation, and not decided by the federation. Tribal Executive Committee decisions about individual reservation resources, for instance, and the actual division and distribution of land claims and settlements could be adverse to the citizens of the Gerald Vizenor Language Value 1 (1), 51–80 http://www.e-revistes.uji.es/languagevalue 54 White Earth Reservation. For these, and many other reasons, a new constitution was proposed to separate the White Earth Reservation from the jurisdiction of the federated Minnesota Chippewa Tribe. Erma Vizenor, Chief of the White Earth Reservation, was reelected for a second four- year term in 2008. She has clearly articulated a determination to create a new constitution that would provide a separation of powers, the executive, legislative, and judiciary, that would fairly protect the treaty resources and land claims of the reservation. The ratification of a new constitution would mean the separation from the federation of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe. Chief Vizenor invited reservation communities to nominate eligible citizens to serve as official delegates to the White Earth Constitutional Convention. And, she provided for the nomination of two at-large delegates. Erma, who is related by marriage, nominated me as a delegate, and later she named me the Principal Writer of the Constitution of the White Earth Nation. The Constitutional Convention convened for the first time on October 19, 20, 2007, at the Shooting Star Casino Hotel, White Earth Reservation, Mahnomen, Minnesota. Judge Anita Fineday presided over the oath, a solemn promise to serve as delegates. That evening and the following day the delegates convened in groups of five to consider the course and significance of discussions about the general content of the proposed Constitution of the White Earth Nation. The delegates used the words “reservation” and “nation” in the same sense at the start of the Convention. Later, a distinction was made between the treaty reservation, cultural sovereignty, and the relevant constitutional declarations of a nation. The delegates eagerly pronounced their confidence in the inauguration the new Constitution, and, at the same time, many delegates raised serious issues about the definition of a citizen, by blood quantum or by family descent. The word “member” was renounced in favor of “citizens” of a nation. I declared, in my introduction as a delegate, that I could imagine the day when the Constitution of the White Earth Nation would be taught in public schools, and that I would carry in my pocket a reference copy of the new Constitution. I was probably more idealistic than some delegates about the creation of an actual constitutional document, but, at the same time, I had my doubts about how Constitution of the White Earth Nation Language Value 1, (1) 51–80 http://www.e-revistes.uji.es/languagevalue 55 the diverse views of forty delegates, and some delegates espoused notions of racial separatism, could be reconciled by association, discussion, and inescapable compromises to create a document of individual rights, duties, and principals of governance and justice. Robert Dahl pointed out similar circumstances in the necessary compromises made by delegates to the Convention of the United States Constitution. “The delegates had to confront still another stubborn limit: the need to engage in fundamental compromises in order to secure agreement on any constitution at all,” Dahl wrote in How Democratic Is the American Constitution? “Compromises were necessary because, like the country at large, members of the convention held different views on some very basic issues.” The second Constitutional Convention was held on January 4, 5, 2008. The Shooting Star Casino Hotel was a comfortable and convenient place to schedule the four Conventions. Delegates arrived in the early afternoon, convened for dinner, followed by general discussions, and stayed over night for a full day to exchange ideas. Surely, some of the delegates were pleased to have the evening to gamble at the casino. The third Convention was scheduled on October 24, 25, 2008. The number of delegates in attendance had slightly but steadily decreased with each Convention. I demonstrated my concern that the attendance of delegates would be eroded to a bare majority if there were more than four conventions. Erma Vizenor was persuaded by my argument and declared that ratification would be considered on April 3, 4, 2009, at the last Convention. Erma named me the lead or Principal Writer of the proposed Constitution, and with a committee of three advisors: Jill Doerfler, Assistant Professor of Indian Studies, University of Minnesota, Duluth; JoAnne Stately, Vice President of Development for the Indian Land Tenure Foundation; and Anita Fineday, Chief Tribal Court Judge, White Earth Nation. Erma convened one last committee discussion session on January 9, 2009, at the Brenda Café in Minneapolis to discuss the final suggestions and changes to the draft Constitution. I made the minor changes and prepared the proposed Constitution for consideration and ratification by the delegates. Gerald Vizenor Language Value 1 (1), 51–80 http://www.e-revistes.uji.es/languagevalue 56 The Constitution of the White Earth Nation was ratified by the delegates on Saturday, April 4, 2009. The ratification was by secret ballot of twenty-four delegates present. Sixteen delegates voted for ratification, and eight delegates voted against ratification. The Constitution of the White Earth Nation will now be presented to eligible citizen voters in a referendum. There are more than twenty thousand citizens of the White Earth Nation. I duly completed the changes approved by a majority vote of the delegates, including the addition of two elected members of the Legislative Council from outside the reservation community but in Minnesota. The changes in the final version of the document were only minor. The Constitution of the White Earth Nation was posted on several websites and published in the reservation newspaper, Anishinaabeg Today. PRESENTATION AT THE FINAL CONVENTION The Constitution of the White Earth Nation provides and ensures a continuation of the Native practices of reciprocity, cultural survivance and sovereignty, and the foundations of Native common law. The Constitution, ratified on Saturday, April 4, 2009, confirms in conscience and custom the principles of Anishinaabe governance, common justice, and Native continental liberty. The Constitution of the White Earth Nation entitles the delegates and citizens to say with confidence, “I know my rights.” By this Constitution we become a nation that advances the formal practices of governance, cultural sovereignty, liberty, suffrage, and the rights of citizens. By this Constitution we exercise a new political power and communal duties derived from the traditional practices of the Anishinaabe. These were the cultural practices of continental liberty, reciprocity, courage, and the survivance of our ancestors. And by the legacy of other constitutions, documents, and the perceptive ideas of liberty inspired by the Magna Carta, we become a new nation. The Magna Carta, The Great Charter of Freedoms, was first issued almost eight hundred years ago in 1215. The Magna Carta is the foundation chronicle of liberty in England. This ancient, original document considers grievances over feudal land, capricious Constitution of the White Earth Nation Language Value 1, (1) 51–80 http://www.e-revistes.uji.es/languagevalue 57 taxation and the autocratic justice of the monarchy. The Magna Carta announced, for instance, that no person would be imprisoned, or exiled, without the lawful judgment of his peers. Later, these principles of fundamental justice were provided in the Habeas Corpus Act of 1679 in England. The Magna Carta declared that no monarch was above the law. This document became one of the most significant influences in the development of common law and subsequent constitutions around the world. The Constitution of the White Earth Nation declares a solemn association of these Native and Occidental traditions of human rights and liberty. The Second Magna Carta, an anonymous document, was published in 1771, sixteen years before the adoption of the United States Constitution. Notably, the Second Magna Carta called for “forty-eight representatives from the American Colonies (including some for the Indian Nations) to be allotted seats at the Westminster Parliament.” The American Revolution concluded the inspired representation of Native Nations at the Parliament. The United States Constitution was proposed and adopted by unanimous consent and signed by thirty-nine delegates at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia on September 17, 1787. Seven Articles, including the last Article which is the “Ratification of the Conventions of nine States, shall be sufficient for the Establishment of this Constitution between the States so ratifying the Same.” Delaware was the first state to ratify on December 7, 1787. New Hampshire, the ninth state, confirmed the ratification on June 21, 1788. The Constitution was actually ratified by all thirteen states. The United States Constitution created a government on March 4, 1789. George Washington was elected the first president and took the oath of office on April 30, 1789. “The fact that we purport to follow and be bound by the Constitution that was proposed in 1787, ratified in 1789, and formally amended just 27 times,” wrote Laurence Tribe in The Invisible Constitution, “is due, in large part, to the fact that it is a single and singular text, one writing, that memorializes the commitments defining us over the course of time in a ways that neither our physical territory nor the multiple ancestral origins of our nation can. Indeed, the physical writing itself—from the parchment Gerald Vizenor Language Value 1 (1), 51–80 http://www.e-revistes.uji.es/languagevalue 58 signed in Philadelphia in 1787 and still carefully preserved at considerable expense in the National Archives to the numbered copies of the original that circulated physically throughout the several ratifying states—is almost instinctively treated with a devotion ordinarily accorded only to an object of national veneration, rather than any mere statute.” The Constitution of the White Earth Nation was conceived by the stance of resistance, by the shared sentiments and associations of continental liberty, and by the epitome of cultural sovereignty and constitutional governance. The declaration and protection of human rights is a universal sentiment, and that promise has been ratified by the delegates in the Constitution of the White Earth Nation. The first Ten Amendments to the United States Constitution, the Bill of Rights, provide the foundations of liberty, that no law respecting religion or prohibiting free expression thereof, the freedom of speech, assembly and petition of grievances, the right to keep and bear arms, no unreasonable searches or seizures, due process of law, speedy and public trial, no excessive bail, and powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people. The Bill of Rights was ratified in 1791. The Constitution has been amended only twenty-seven times in more than two hundred years. “The American commitment to freedom of speech and press is the more remarkable because it emerged from legal and political origins that were highly repressive,” observed Anthony Lewis in Freedom for the Thought That We Hate. “The colonists who crossed the Atlantic in the seventeenth century came from an England where it was extremely dangerous to utter a thought that differed from official truth. The state defined what was allowable in politics and, perhaps even more rigorously, in religion.” The Fifth Amendment, ratified in 1868, at the same time the White Earth Reservation was established by federal treaty, provides that “Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting whole numbers of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed.” “Indians not taxed!” Now, by the stories of resistance, courage, political and artistic irony, and a sense of survivance, our ancestors and families of the fur trade anticipated this extraordinary Constitution of the White Earth Nation Language Value 1, (1) 51–80 http://www.e-revistes.uji.es/languagevalue 59 moment of continental liberty. The Anishinaabe delegates to the four conventions, taxed or not taxed, considered, compromised, and ratified the Constitution of the White Earth Nation. The White Earth Constitution provides in each chapter a crucial composition of checks and balances, a distinct organization of the powers, measures, limitations, and constraints of three branches of government, the executive, legislative, and judicial. The composition of these powers of governance would embrace the necessary advice of the Community Councils, the Council of Elders, and the Youth Council. “So the visible Constitution necessarily floats in a vast and deep—and, crucially invisible—ocean of ideas, propositions, recovered memories, and imagined experiences that the Constitution as a whole puts us in a position to glimpse,” wrote Tribe in The Invisible Constitution. The Constitution of the White Earth Nation contains two preambles, the first announces the sentiments of cultural sovereignty and continental liberty, and the second is a declaration of essential political sovereignty and inalienable rights. There are twenty chapters and one hundred eighteen specific articles on the branches of the government and the rights of the citizens. I declared at the first Constitutional Convention that one day we would carry in our pockets a printed copy of the ratified Constitution of the White Earth Nation. The sworn delegates to the final Constitutional Convention have created by the ratification of this document, a great and memorable moment in the history of the White Earth Nation. The Constitution ensures a continuation of compassionate reciprocity, cultural sovereignty, survivance, and entitles the delegates and citizens to say with confidence, “I know my rights.” Gerald Vizenor Language Value 1 (1), 51–80 http://www.e-revistes.uji.es/languagevalue 60 THE CONSTITUTION OF THE WHITE EARTH NATION Gerald Vizenor University of New Mexico PREAMBLE The Anishinaabeg of the White Earth Nation are the successors of a great tradition of continental liberty, a native constitution of families, totemic associations. The Anishinaabeg create stories of natural reason, of courage, loyalty, humor, spiritual inspiration, survivance, reciprocal altruism, and native cultural sovereignty. We the Anishinaabeg of the White Earth Nation in order to secure an inherent and essential sovereignty, to promote traditions of liberty, justice, and peace, and reserve common resources, and to ensure the inalienable rights of native governance for our posterity, do constitute, ordain and establish this Constitution of the White Earth Nation. CHAPTER 1: TERRITORY AND JURISDICTION The White Earth Nation shall have jurisdiction over citizens, residents, visitors, altruistic relations, and the whole of the land, including transfers, conferrals, and acquisitions of land in futurity, water, wild rice, public and private property, right of way, airspace, minerals, natural resources, parks, and any other environmental estates or territories designated by and located within the boundaries of the White Earth Reservation, as established and described in the Treaty of March 19, 1867, and over the reserved rights within the ceded waterways and territories of the Treaty of 1855. The Constitution of the White Earth Nation was duly ratified on April 4, 2009, at the Shooting Star Casino Hotel, Mahnomen, Minnesota. Copyright © by Gerald Vizenor Constitution of the White Earth Nation Language Value 1, (1) 51–80 http://www.e-revistes.uji.es/languagevalue 61 CHAPTER 2: CITIZENS OF THE WHITE EARTH NATION Article 1 Citizens of the White Earth Nation shall be descendants of Anishinaabeg families and related by linear descent to enrolled members of the White Earth Reservation and Nation, according to genealogical documents, treaties and other agreements with the government of the United States. Article 2 Services and entitlements provided by government agencies to citizens, otherwise designated members of the White Earth Nation, shall be defined according to treaties, trusts, and diplomatic agreements, state and federal laws, rules and regulations, and in policies and procedures established by the government of the White Earth Nation. Article 3 The Anishinaabeg and their descendants shall have the right to appeal to the President and to the White Earth Court any decisions that deny citizenship in the White Earth Nation. Article 4 No person or government has the privilege or power to diminish the sovereignty of the White Earth Nation. CHAPTER 3: RIGHTS AND DUTIES Article 1 The White Earth Nation shall make no laws that would establish a religion, or laws that would deny the free expression of religion, speech, or of the press and electronic communication. Article 2 The White Earth Nation shall make no laws that deny the right of the people to peaceably gather or assemble for any reason, and shall make no laws that prohibit the right to petition the government for restitution, amendments, or redress of grievances, Gerald Vizenor Language Value 1 (1), 51–80 http://www.e-revistes.uji.es/languagevalue 62 and no person shall be discriminated against for initiating or espousing an untimely or contrary petition about governance. Article 3 The people shall not be denied the fundamental human rights of citizenship in the White Earth Nation. Article 4 The people are equal under the law and no law, government policy, or agency practice shall discriminate in political, economic, social or cultural associations because of race, creed, sex, gender, disability, or social status. Article 5 The freedom of thought and conscience, academic, artistic irony, and literary expression, shall not be denied, violated or controverted by the government. Article 6 The secrecy of personal communication shall not be violated, and no censorship shall be practiced or maintained by the government. Article 7 The right to own and transfer of private property is inviolable. The rights of property shall be protected, and private property expropriated for public use shall be according to due process of law and just compensation. Article 8 No person shall be denied or deprived of life or liberty, except certain serious misdemeanors and felony convictions, and no criminal penalties shall be imposed without due process of law and judicial procedures. Article 9 No person shall be apprehended by law enforcement officers without probable cause and due process of law or by warrant duly issued by a court. Constitution of the White Earth Nation Language Value 1, (1) 51–80 http://www.e-revistes.uji.es/languagevalue 63 Article 10 The people shall have the right to possess firearms except for convicted felons in accordance with state and federal laws. Article 11 The people shall be secure in their homes, personal papers and documents, against entries, electronic and material searches, without a specific, descriptive warrant for adequate cause issued by a court. Each search and seizure shall require a separate, specific warrant issued by a court, except in cases of probable threats or potential emergencies. Article 12 No person shall be obligated to testify or provide evidence in a court against himself or herself, and any confessions obtained under compulsion, torture, or threats, or after arrest and excessive detention, may not be admissible as evidence in court. No person shall be convicted or punished for a crime when the only evidence against him or her is a confession, except in cases of crimes that can be proven by other evidence. Article 13 No person shall be subject to trial twice for the same criminal indictment or offence. Article 14 No person shall be denied the right to be duly informed of the nature and cause of a warrant, indictment, or criminal proceeding, and shall not be denied the right to be represented by legal counsel. Article 15 The people shall have the right to confront and challenge witnesses in a criminal court, and the legal option of a speedy court hearing or public jury trial shall not be refused or contradicted. Article 16 Citizens shall never be banished from the White Earth Nation. Gerald Vizenor Language Value 1 (1), 51–80 http://www.e-revistes.uji.es/languagevalue 64 Article 17 The Constitution of the White Earth Nation is inspired by inherent and traditional sovereignty, and contains, embodies, and promotes the rights and provisions provided in the articles and amendments of the Indian Civil Rights Act of 1968, and the United States Constitution. CHAPTER 4: SOVEREIGN IMMUNITY The White Earth Nation declares sovereign territorial, political and cultural rights and powers as an independent government and immunity to civil law suits. The Legislative Council by certain formal policies and procedures shall have the right to waive the sovereign immunity of the government in the best interests of the White Earth Nation. CHAPTER 5: BOARD OF ELECTIONS Article 1 Citizens must be at least eighteen years old to vote in government referenda and elections. Article 2 Election and voting procedures shall be established by an Election Code and managed by an independent Board of Elections appointed by the Legislative Council. Article 3 The Board of Elections shall consist of five eligible citizen voters of the White Earth Nation. The Chief Judge of the Board of Elections shall administer and supervise election regulations and procedures according to provisions of the Election Code. The Chief Judge shall not vote as a member of the Board of Elections. Article 4 Members of the Board of Elections shall ensure fair and impartial elections according to the Election Code and the Constitution of the White Earth Nation. Constitution of the White Earth Nation Language Value 1, (1) 51–80 http://www.e-revistes.uji.es/languagevalue 65 Article 5 The Legislative Council shall resolve any challenges or allegations of impropriety of election laws or procedures. Article 6 Citizens who become candidates for elected positions in the government shall not be members of the Board of Elections. The Legislative Council shall appoint the Chief Judge and replacements to the Board of Elections. CHAPTER 6: GOVERNANCE Article 1 The White Earth Nation shall be governed by a representative and elected Legislative Council. Article 2 The Legislative Council shall consist of a President, or White Earth Chief, the Secretary Treasurer, and elected Representatives of acknowledged communities of the White Earth Nation. Article 3 The respective communities shall be entitled to one elected Representative to serve on the Legislative Council. Article 4 Communities shall be established or changed by petition, by population, historic or totemic associations, and ratified by a simple majority of eligible citizen voters in a general referendum. Article 5 The President and the Secretary Treasurer shall be elected at large by eligible citizen voters of the White Earth Nation. Gerald Vizenor Language Value 1 (1), 51–80 http://www.e-revistes.uji.es/languagevalue 66 Article 6 The President, Secretary Treasure, and Representatives of the Legislative Council shall be elected for no more than two four year terms, and staggered elections shall be ordered every two years. Article 7 Two citizens of the White Earth Nation shall be elected at large to serve constituencies outside the White Earth Reservation in the State of Minnesota. Article 8 The Legislative Council shall have the authority to propose changes in the count of elected Representatives based on changes in population or the number of acknowledged communities. Proposals to change the count of Representatives shall be subject to a majority vote of citizens in a referendum. Article 9 Candidates for elected government offices shall be citizens who reside within the treaty boundaries according to the Treaty of March 19, 1867, of the White Earth Nation, except two citizen members of the Legislative Council who shall be elected at large in the State of Minnesota. Article 10 Citizens who have been convicted of a felony may vote in elections and referenda but shall not be eligible to hold elected offices in the White Earth Nation. Article 11 Candidates for elected government office shall be at least twenty-five years of age at the time of the election. Article 12 The Legislative Council shall appoint a new President in the event of the death, resignation, incapacity, or removal of the duly elected President. The appointed President shall serve the remainder of the elected term of the office. Constitution of the White Earth Nation Language Value 1, (1) 51–80 http://www.e-revistes.uji.es/languagevalue 67 Article 13 The Legislative Council has the power to initiate impeachment proceedings of elected representatives of the government for specific allegations of misconduct, criminal indictments, or felony convictions. To initiate impeachment procedures requires at least a two-thirds vote of the Legislative Council. Article 14 There shall be two distinct procedures of impeachment. The first is admonition of misconduct but no other action or decree, and the second procedure is impeachment and removal from elected office. Article 15 The White Earth Nation shall obligate candidates for elected offices not to disburse in campaign services, promotion and advertising more than three times the amount of the annual national family poverty guidelines, for one person in the Contiguous States, established and published in the Federal Register by the United States Department of Human Services. Article 16 Candidates for elected office shall file a formal report no later than thirty days after the election with the Chief Judge of the Board of Elections. The report shall be an affirmation of total election contributions and disbursements of the candidate. Article 17 The President and Legislative Council of the White Earth Nation shall maintain public records and documents for posterity. The President shall nominate an archive to secure the public records and documents. CHAPTER 7: COMMUNITY COUNCILS The Community Councils shall be initiated and established in geographically based communities by citizens of the White Earth Nation. The Community Councils shall provide communal information, guidance, and recommendations to both the Legislative Council and the President on matters of concern to the citizens. The Community Gerald Vizenor Language Value 1 (1), 51–80 http://www.e-revistes.uji.es/languagevalue 68 Councils shall promote, advance and strengthen the philosophy of mino-bimaadiziwin, to live a good life, and in good health, through the creation and formation of associations, events and activities that demonstrate, teach and encourage respect, love, bravery, humility, wisdom, honesty and truth for citizens. CHAPTER 8: COUNCIL OF ELDERS The Council of Elders shall be nominated by citizens and designated by the Legislative Council. The Council of Elders shall provide ideas and thoughts on totemic associations, traditional knowledge, cultural and spiritual practices, native survivance, and considerations of resource management, and advice the Legislative Council. The Council of Elders shall consist of twenty citizens of the White Earth Nation who are at least fifty-five years of age at the time of appointment. CHAPTER 9: YOUTH COUNCIL The Youth Council shall be nominated by citizens and designated by the Legislative Council. The Youth Council shall provide information about matters that affect young people and advise the President and Legislative Council. The Youth Council shall consist of twenty citizens who are between the ages of twelve and eighteen, and who are residents of the White Earth Nation. CHAPTER 10: SEPARATION OF POWERS The White Earth Nation shall be divided into three separate branches of government. The Executive branch is the elected President, the Board of Elections, Council of Elders, Youth Council, and other executive designations. The Legislative branch includes the Representatives elected to the Legislative Council. The Judicial branch of government is the Judiciary and White Earth Courts. The three respective branches of government shall have no authority over any other branch, except for certain nominations and other provisions specified in the Constitution of the White Earth Nation. Constitution of the White Earth Nation Language Value 1, (1) 51–80 http://www.e-revistes.uji.es/languagevalue 69 CHAPTER 11: THE PRESIDENT Article 1 The President, or White Earth Chief, shall be the official national and international elected representative of the White Earth Nation. Article 2 The President shall have the authority to secure and accept grants, negotiate agreements with associations, foundations, organizations, institutions, corporations, municipal, state, federal, and local governments, and other states and nations in the world with the ratification of the Legislative Council. Article 3 The President shall be responsible for the administration and management of the government, and shall implement and execute the laws, ordinances, resolutions, and other enactments of the Legislative Council. Article 4 The President shall approve by signature the laws, ordinances, measures, resolutions and appropriations of the Legislative Council. Article 5 The President shall have the power to veto proposed laws, ordinances, measures, and resolutions initiated by the Legislative Council. Article 6 The President shall return within five days vetoed or rejected proposed laws, ordinances and measures with a required statement of objection. Article 7 The Legislative Council may overcome any veto of proposed laws, ordinances and resolutions by a two-thirds vote of the elected Representatives. Article 8 The President shall have the authority to appoint executive branch administrators and other officials to serve the White Earth Nation. Gerald Vizenor Language Value 1 (1), 51–80 http://www.e-revistes.uji.es/languagevalue 70 Article 9 The President shall have the power to schedule and preside over sessions of the Legislative Council. Article 10 The President shall not vote except in the case of a tie vote of the Legislative Council. Article 11 The President shall deliver an annual address dedicated to the State of the White Earth Nation. Article 12 The President shall be bonded as an elected official. Article 13 The President may serve no more than two four year elected terms. Article 14 The President shall promote, protect, and defend cultural and political sovereignty and the Constitution of the White Earth Nation. Article 15 The President shall have the authority to nominate honorary ambassadors, consuls, citizens, and to initiate and establish embassies of the White Earth Nation to serve the national and international concerns of native survivance and moral equity. CHAPTER 12: THE LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL Article 1 Representatives of the Legislative Council shall propose and enact laws, codes, ordinances, resolutions, and statutes of the White Earth Nation. Article 2 The Legislative Council shall have the authority to raise general revenue, levy and collect taxes for government services and operations, establish license and service fees, Constitution of the White Earth Nation Language Value 1, (1) 51–80 http://www.e-revistes.uji.es/languagevalue 71 and initiate other specific levies and taxes for the welfare of the citizens of the White Earth Nation. Article 3 The Legislative Council shall have the authority to borrow money, issue public bonds, appropriate funds for the operation of the government, and to initiate other monetary policies in the interests of the White Earth Nation. Article 4 The Legislative Council shall promote and protect the health, public welfare, safety, education, and the cultural and political sovereignty of the citizens of the White Earth Nation. Article 5 The Legislative Council shall establish subordinate and secondary boards, appoint delegates, and reserves the right to review the initiatives and actions of the delegates and boards. Article 6 The Legislative Council shall be responsible for the proper management of government programs, land, waterways, resources, commerce, public housing, transportation, casino operations, business enterprises, and other assets of the White Earth Nation. Article 7 The Legislative Council shall have the authority to control the distribution and sale of alcoholic beverages within the treaty boundaries of the White Earth Nation. Article 8 The Legislative Council shall not establish, support, or embody any covert political, military, or intelligence operations, without due process of law and legal warrants, against peaceable citizens of the White Earth Nation. Article 9 The Legislative Council shall have residual powers, and the powers of governance provided, specified and entrusted in the Constitution shall not be construed as the Gerald Vizenor Language Value 1 (1), 51–80 http://www.e-revistes.uji.es/languagevalue 72 limitation of legislative power or authority. The powers of the government not specifically expressed or entrusted to the Legislative Council shall be reserved to the citizens of the White Earth Nation. CHAPTER 13: THE SECRETARY TREASURER Article 1 The Secretary Treasurer shall be bonded and responsible for monetary and financial matters, resources, documents and records of the Legislative Council. Government records shall be available for public inspection and review. Article 2 The Secretary Treasurer shall schedule an annual audit of funds, monetary transactions and records, deposits and expenditures by a duly certified independent auditor. Article 3 The Secretary Treasurer shall carry through official duties and responsibilities of the President and the Representatives of the Legislative Council. Article 4 The Secretary Treasurer shall be a voting member of the Legislative Council. Article 5 The Secretary Treasure shall provide and publish an annual fiscal report and accounting of the White Earth Nation. CHAPTER 14: THE JUDICIARY Article 1 The Judiciary shall consist of the White Earth Court, Court of Appeals, and other courts established by the Legislative Council. Constitution of the White Earth Nation Language Value 1, (1) 51–80 http://www.e-revistes.uji.es/languagevalue 73 Article 2 The White Earth Court shall have the power of judicial review and jurisdiction over any legal matters, disputes, civil procedures and criminal laws, ordinances, regulations, codes and customs of family relations, protection, and dissolution, adoption, domestic violence, juvenile justice, and probate, housing and property, conservation, taxation, governance, the corporate code, election disputes, and constitutional issues of the White Earth Nation. Article 3 The Court of Appeals shall have original and appellate jurisdiction. The Court of Appeals shall hear case appeals and issues initiated by the Legislative Council. Decisions of the Court of Appeals are conclusive. CHAPTER 15: POWERS OF THE WHITE EARTH COURTS Article 1 The Courts shall have the authority to interpret and construe the laws, ordinances, and regulations of the Legislative Council and the Constitution of the White Earth Nation. Article 2 The Courts shall issue legal decisions, injunctions, reviews, writs of mandamus, extradition, certiorari, writs of habeas corpus, and other legal orders, instruments and documents. Article 3 The Courts shall establish procedures, rules, legal forms, and review by formal requests of citizens the specific and comprehensive constitutional validity of laws, ordinances and codes initiated and passed by the Legislative Council. Article 4 The Courts shall ensure and practice restorative justice in civil actions, minor criminal offences, juvenile and family matters, whenever appropriate to resolve complaints and disputes of the White Earth Nation. Gerald Vizenor Language Value 1 (1), 51–80 http://www.e-revistes.uji.es/languagevalue 74 Article 5 The Courts shall establish and publish a code of judicial ethics. CHAPTER 16: THE WHITE EARTH JUDGES Article 1 The White Earth Court shall consist of a Chief Judge and Associate Judges. The Chief Judge shall be appointed and removed by the Legislative Council. Article 2 The Chief Judge shall appoint the necessary number of Associate Judges for five-year terms with the consent of the Legislative Council. Article 3 The Court of Appeals shall consist of three judges and shall be appointed by the Legislative Council in consultation with the Chief Judge. Article 4 The Chief Judge shall not be a member of the Court of Appeals. Article 5 Judges of the Court of Appeals shall serve for five-years, and may otherwise practice law or be associated with a law firm. Article 6 The judges of the courts shall be at least twenty-five years of age, of proven moral character, and who have not been convicted of a felony. Article 7 The judges shall be graduates of a law school accredited by the American Bar Association. Article 8 The judges shall be admitted to the bar to practice law in native communities, state, or federal courts. Constitution of the White Earth Nation Language Value 1, (1) 51–80 http://www.e-revistes.uji.es/languagevalue 75 Article 9 The judges shall be experienced lawyers, magistrates, or judges. Article 10 The judges shall have knowledge of Anishinaabe culture, traditions, and general history. Article 11 The judges shall recuse themselves, an assertion of judicial disqualification, as unsuitable to perform legal duties where there are possible conflicts of interest, or the appearance of personal interests, or potential challenges of partiality. Article 12 The judges shall be impeached by the Legislative Council and removed from judicial practice for abuses of impartiality, bribery, political impropriety, or felony conviction. CHAPTER 17: LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL MEETINGS Article 1 The Legislative Council shall meet at least once each month to conduct government business. The time and place of each session shall be posted in advance. Article 2 Citizens of the White Earth Nation have the right to attend sessions of the Legislative Council. Article 3 The President has the authority to schedule special and emergency sessions of the Legislative Council. Article 4 The Legislative Council by a majority vote and written request shall have the authority to schedule a special session. Gerald Vizenor Language Value 1 (1), 51–80 http://www.e-revistes.uji.es/languagevalue 76 Article 5 The President shall be obligated to schedule a special session of the Legislative Council by an official petition of thirty percent of eligible citizen voters of the White Earth Nation. Article 6 The President may schedule an emergency session of the Legislative Council without written notice to consider urgent matters, services, protection of the health, welfare and safety of the citizens and communities of the White Earth Nation. Article 7 The Legislative Council shall conduct no other business than the specific stated purpose of an emergency session. Article 8 The Legislative Council shall have the authority to meet in closed executive sessions with the President to discuss matters of litigation, proposed and discreet negotiations, and other concerns of confidentiality. Article 9 The Legislative Council shall not decide actions on matters of litigation or confidentiality in closed executive sessions except when the outcome of the session has been fully reported in subsequent public sessions of the Legislative Council. The results of executive sessions shall be decided by vote at a public meeting. Article 10 Legislative Council motions, votes, resolutions and decisions shall be noted and preserved in the official minutes of the sessions. Article 11 Legislative Council actions, decisions, and enactments of record shall be available for inspection by citizens during normal business hours of the government. Constitution of the White Earth Nation Language Value 1, (1) 51–80 http://www.e-revistes.uji.es/languagevalue 77 Article 12 The Legislative Council shall date and number each and every resolution, ordinance, law and statute, and cite the appropriate authority of the Constitution of the White Earth Nation. Article 13 The Legislative Council shall prepare a certificate for each resolution, ordinance, and statute that confirms the presence of a quorum and indicates the number of members voting for or against each enactment. Article 14 The Legislative Council shall constitute a quorum by a simple majority of fifty-one percent of the elected members at a duly schedule session. CHAPTER 18: ETHICS AND IMPEACHMENT Article 1 Elected members of the government may be impeached or removed from office by a recorded two-thirds vote of the entire Legislative Council. Article 2 The Legislative Council may impeach or remove from office an elected member of government for a felony conviction in a court of competent jurisdiction. Article 3 The Legislative Council may impeach or remove from office an elected member of the government for two misdemeanor convictions, including driving while intoxicated, but not including ordinary traffic violations. Article 4 Elected officials of the government may not be suspended or removed from office without due process of law. Gerald Vizenor Language Value 1 (1), 51–80 http://www.e-revistes.uji.es/languagevalue 78 Article 5 The Legislative Council may impeach for cause an elected member of the government. The impeachment may be a form of admonition, a warning or legal statement of charges, or the impeachment may be based on an indictment or conviction for a felony, and the forcible removal of an official of the government. Article 6 The White Earth Nation shall provide for a recall election of an elected official of the government. Citizens have the right to initiate a petition to recall an elected official. The petition shall secure at least two-thirds of the eligible voters for a recall election. The petition may be political and may include allegations, grievances, complaints and assertions of misconduct, nonfeasance, or mismanagement by an elected official of the government. CHAPTER 19: PETITIONS AND REFERENDA Article 1 The Legislative Council may initiate a referendum by a vote of two-thirds of the elected Representatives. Article 2 Citizens of the White Earth Nation may initiate a referendum by evidence of a vote of thirty percent of the eligible citizen voters. Article 3 The Legislative Council and eligible citizens may present proposed laws, ordinances, and initiatives to a referendum vote of the electorate, according to certified evidence of the constitutional process. Article 4 The referendum vote shall be held within one hundred and eighty days from the official receipt of the petition, unless the scheduled date of the referendum is within six months of a general election, in that event the referendum would be presented to the eligible voters in the general election. Constitution of the White Earth Nation Language Value 1, (1) 51–80 http://www.e-revistes.uji.es/languagevalue 79 Article 5 Scheduled referenda shall be conducted according to the rules and regulations of the Board of Elections and the Election Code. CHAPTER 20: AMENDMENTS TO THE CONSTITUTION The Constitution of the White Earth Nation may be amended by two-thirds of the recorded eligible votes in a duly called election or referendum to amend the Constitution. Eligible voters must be formally informed by written and published notices of the proposed amendment to the Constitution of the White Earth Nation. RATIFICATION OF THE CONSTITUTION The sworn delegates to the White Earth Constitutional Convention hereby duly ratify for a citizen referendum the Constitution of the White Earth Nation. The Constitution of the White Earth Nation was duly ratified on April 4, 2009, at the Shooting Star Casino Hotel, Mahnomen, Minnesota. The ratification was by secret ballots of twenty-four delegates present. Sixteen delegates voted for ratification, and eight delegates votes against ratification. Gerald Vizenor, Distinguished Professor of American Studies at the University of New Mexico, was a delegate to the Constitutional Convention and the Principal Writer of the proposed Constitution of the White Earth Nation. The Constitution Proposal Team included Erma Vizenor, President of the White Earth Nation, Jill May Doerfler, Assistant Professor, Department of Indian Studies, University of Minnesota, Duluth, Jo Anne E. Stately, Vice President of Development for the Indian Land Tenure Foundation, and Anita Fineday, Chief Tribal Court Judge, White Earth Nation. David E. Wilkins, Professor of American Indian Studies, University of Minnesota, was a Special Consultant to the Constitutional Convention and the Proposal Team. Gerald Vizenor Language Value 1 (1), 51–80 http://www.e-revistes.uji.es/languagevalue 80 Anton Treuer, Professor, American Indian Resource Center, Languages and Ethnic Studies, Bemidji State University, was the translator of the Preamble to the Constitution. Received May 2009 Cite this article as: Vizenor, G. 2009. “Constitution of the White Earth Nation”. Language Value, 1 (1), 51-80. Servei de Publicacions de la Universitat Jaume I: Castelló, Spain. http://www.e-revistes.uji.es/languagevalue. ISSN 1989-7103 Articles are copyrighted by their respective authors