Linguistic Cliches at the Crossroads of Controversy: their Impact in Teaching English as a Foreign Language

Abstract

The acute reliance on cliches reflects on the one hand a general and inevitable but intrinsec feature of language (Amossy, Herschberg Pierrot 2011), inscribed in its "genetic code". On the other hand, from the perspective of social psychology, it reflects a broader phenomenon that marks the human mind, in order to simplify the complex set of stimuli from the environment. Apparently, linguistic cliches arise only negative reactions, especially from stylistics’, being disqualified and strongly perceived as a deviation from the aesthetic imperatives promoted under the auspices of the Romanticism. However, this paper tries to investigate if these types of linguistic patterns or the so-called frozen discourse (cliches, stereotypes, lexical phrases, sayings, collocations) can have a major impact on teaching and learning a foreign language. Informed by the theoretical perspective of Dufays (1994), Riffaterre (1979) and Eco (2007) on the constructive function of stereotypes and cliches in the process of reading, the present  paper will report the results of a survey conducted on a group of middle school teachers learning English as a foreign language through an innovative method (flipped classroom) and by exploiting the potential of cliches. As a result of attending a teacher trainer course at Bell Cambridge, we have designed a series of workshops which explores different ways of teaching and learning English by using creatively prefabricated language chunks. Language acquisition specialists have pointed out that the competence to use prefabricated units is vital to the language learner. Furthermore, linguistic cliches can trigger more easily adhesion to the target culture. We aim at promoting the positive value of cliches in teaching, since, besides their cultural overtones, they can help learners achieve the ideal standard of expressing oneself as a native speaker.

 

Keywords: cliche; positive function, frozen language, teaching and learning, foreign language