Keywords: Collocation, Corpus, Concordance, Semantic Patterns.

What is Lexico-Grammar? Why Use This Perspective?

This central idea is that there is a strong and inseparable relationship between grammatical patterns and lexical collocations. This means that certain grammatical units combine most frequently with specific words to form meaning units that are both lexical and grammatical. Grammar and vocabulary should be taught together in chunks that are more readily usable. We retain chunks more easily and can say much more with them. It is far less taxing on the brain to recall strings of highly associated lexicogrammar than it is to build word by word, applying rules of grammar. Learning chunks of language also makes speech more automated and leads more quickly to fluency and a sense of "autopilot".
The term, introduced by renowned linguist M.A.K. Halliday, is an amalgamation of the words "lexicon" and "grammar." Adjective: lexicogrammatical.
It is understood that these combinations are not mere exceptions but form a continuum between specific collocations and more general co-occurrence restrictions in lexico-grammar.
Teaching Spanish from a lexico-grammatical perspective is beneficial because it helps students understand and use the language more naturally and effectively. This approach emphasizes the interconnectedness of vocabulary and grammar, showing how words and grammatical structures combine to create precise and contextually appropriate meanings.
This approach has been implemented in many other English speaking countries with unanimous success, thanks to the pioneering work by Dr Di Conti. Our site draws from that expertise but adapts it to the specific requirements of ACTFL (American Council For Teaching Languages) with a strong cultural content. The Spanish language on this site embraces the varieties of the Hispanic world.