Spoken and Written English Chunks

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

Departrment of Foreign Languages and Linguistics, Shiraz University, Iran

Abstract

Lexical chunks are conventionalized multi-word units stored in the minds of native speakers that convey a single, unified meaning. Native speakers frequently use these chunks in both spoken and written language. The present study aims to examine spoken and written Persian lexical chunks from a grammatical-structural perspective and to analyze their role in creating coherence in speech and text. The data for this research included natural telephone conversations, selected scenes from several television series, Persian magazines, short stories, texts from various websites, and formal messages exchanged on social media platforms. These data were transcribed and compiled into two separate corpora: one spoken and one written. Then, two-word, three-word, and four-word lexical chunks were extracted using AntConc software and transferred to Excel for further analysis. The lexical chunks were manually identified by the researcher and analyzed based on Como’s grammatical framework. The quantitative analysis showed structural differences between spoken and written lexical chunks. In spoken two-word chunks, patterns such as noun+verb, adjective+verb, noun+noun, verb+verb, and numeral+noun were more frequent, whereas written two-word chunks followed patterns like preposition+noun, noun+preposition, and pronoun+noun. Three- and four-word spoken lexical chunks often followed the noun+pronoun+noun+verb pattern, while written three-word chunks frequently followed preposition+pronoun+noun and preposition+noun+preposition structures. Written four-word chunks displayed a wider range of grammatical patterns. The qualitative analysis further revealed that these lexical chunks significantly contribute to the coherence and cohesion of both spoken discourse and written texts.

Keywords

Main Subjects

References

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Journal of Linguistics & Iranian Languages
Volume 10, Issue 4
February 2026
Pages 1-17

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History

  • Receive Date: 21 April 2026
  • Revise Date: 22 May 2026
  • Accept Date: 02 June 2026

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