Lancaster University

Department of Linguistics and Modern Languages

MA in Applied Linguistics for ELT
Corpus Linguistics – November 1998

Luiz Otavio de Barros Souza

luizotaviobarros@gmail.com

“Well, you could say that, but you wouldn’t”: Textbook

descriptions, corpus data and two English linking words.

Part 1

A Introduction

This paper will report a small-scale piece of research using corpora to

investigate the extent to which a selection of EFL reference books,
dictionaries and coursebooks “tell the truth” about the rules governing the
use of two selected English cohesive devices: despite and in spite of. The
basic theoretical assumption underlying this paper can be usefully
summarised by Leech’s views (1990) on the importance of textual data:

Testing against data is the only guarantee that one can talk
meaningfully about the truth or falsehood of theories or statements
about language. And the most obvious kind of linguistic data one
has is textual data (pg. 55).

Underpinned by this assumption, the issue of “telling the truth” in this

paper will be addressed from a predominantly pedagogical point of view.
To begin with, the choice of despite and in spite of for investigation was
pedagogically motivated, as we will shortly see. Similarly, most of the
books and dictionaries I will be referring to in this paper were produced
for the EFL market. And finally, the corpus-based findings derived from

© Luiz Otávio Barros 1999. All rights reserved. 1

this study will be used to raise a few hypotheses which might help to shed
some light on the classroom teaching/learning of the words under study.

The aim of this paper is by no means to “present new and shocking

findings to the world” (Mc Enery and Wilson 1996: 147). As I have
mentioned, this is a tentative attempt to investigate the validity of what is
currently known -largely intuitively- about the cohesive devices being
investigated. It goes without saying, therefore, that there is a second
assumption underlying all the methodology that has been used in this
study: there is room for both introspection and the analysis of attestable
examples of language use. In other words, the approach was “corpus-
based rather than corpus-driven” (Ooi 1998: 51), or to portray this issue
in Summer’s terms (1996: 266) “corpus-based, not corpus-bound”.

B Fuzzy edges

It is important to decide at the outset whether the cohesive devices under

study will be labelled Lexis or Grammar. Since most of the reference books
used in this project are Grammar books, the reader might be misled into
assuming that it is my belief that despite and in spite of deserve a
grammatical, rather than lexical treatment. That is not the case. I am
aware that the boundaries between Grammar and Lexis are far from clear-
cut, but an in-depth discussion would be beyond the scope of this paper.

At any rate, when one examines the literature there seems to be

compelling evidence (Ooi:1998) that it is indeed difficult to draw a line:

Do we need to divide Grammar and Lexis ? There appears to be

less of such a need; instead there is a trend towards lexicalism,
where the notion of a word is expanded and enriched to include
more types of linguistic information vis-à-vis the grammar. (pg. 19)

© Luiz Otávio Barros 1999. All rights reserved. 2

Therefore, it seems sensible to refer to despite and in spite of as “Grammar
Words” (see Sinclair and Renouf 1991:128).

C My motives in choosing despite and in spite of.

As someone who has done a fair amount of EFL teaching to Brazilian

students of all levels and age groups, I have come across a plethora of
error types. Being aware of the probable nature of most of those errors has
always provided me with a number of insights which have, in turn, guided
most of my pedagogic interventions. However, there is one aspect of Lexis
(or should we say Grammar?) which my students have always had
considerable difficulty with: cohesive devices, the so-called linking words.
For the purpose of this paper, I am going to concentrate on despite and in
spite of, which are clearly some of the most difficult for the students with
whom I have worked.
Students’ errors could be divided into two distinct categories. The first of
these comprises errors related to the syntactic (rather than semantic)
properties of despite and in spite of. The examples below illustrate typical
errors often made by upper-intermediate, pre-FCE1 learners:

Despite I have money, I’m not happy.

I’ll go in spite it’s late.

The second category comprises discourse produced by more proficient

learners, characterised by grammatical and often acceptable instances of

1
FCE stands for First Certificate in English, the most popular EFL examination currently available.

devised by the University of Cambridge Local Examinations Syndicate.

© Luiz Otávio Barros 1999. All rights reserved. 3

 usage, which nonetheless sound “dissonant to native speakers” (Magee
and Rundell 1996: 19). Those are examples of things “you could say, but
you wouldn’t” (see Lewis 1993: 77). The errors in neither category appear
immediately attributable to L1 interference, since in Portuguese “apesar
de” and “a despeito de” share the same meaning and formal syntactic
constraints. Additionally, one could argue that because cohesive devices
are used mostly in written English, students usually have time to think
and monitor their output when using them, which makes it unlikely that
inaccurate use is the result of processing problems and performance slips
only. It soon became apparent to me that there might be something wrong
with the way in which these words are taught. To address this issue I will
examine the kind of exposure and lexico-grammatical information that
current EFL materials provide students with.

D EFL materials: a survey

To learn more about the treatment of despite and in spite of in current

EFL materials, I have compiled information from a number of grammars,
general coursebooks and monolingual dictionaries. In each case, I
analysed the way in which those words are dealt with, focusing on both
rules and examples2. The findings are presented in the tables below.

Group 1 - General coursebooks

Source and brief description. Example sentences

Soars and Soars 1998

In the vastly popular Headway 1. He writes all personal letters by hand DESPITE having a PC.
series, despite and in spite of He writes all personal letters by hand ALTHOUGH he has a PC.
are dealt with as part of the

2
For a discussion on the role of exemplar and rule-based systems in second language acquisition, see

Skehan 1998: 60.

© Luiz Otávio Barros 1999. All rights reserved. 4

writing syllabus. Before writing
an argumentative composition,
students are asked to join the
sentences in a table containing a
number of other contrast words.
2. It took only an hour to get to the airport IN SPITE OF the traffic.
It took only an hour to get to the airport HOWEVER they still
missed the place.

O’neill et al 1987

These examples were taken 3. Despite his lack of qualifications, he fooled a lot of people.
from an UCLES-FCE Although he had no qualifications, he fooled a lot of people.
preparation book. The writer
devotes a whole page to 4. Despite the good weather, we stayed indoors.
although and despite. Students Although the weather was good, we stayed indoors.
are asked to compare two
examples (3) and then do
sentence transformation (In all examples despite appeared in the middle of the sentence.)
exercises. (4)

Willis and Willis 1989

In their relentlessly ambitious
Collins Cobuild English Course,
the writers chose treat despite
and in spite of separately.
Examples 5 and 6 were taken
from the despite grammar box.
5. Yelties did not delay their concert despite the loss of their flight
case. (= although their flight case was lost...)
6. Despite not having their own instruments, the concert still went
ahead. (=even though they didn’t have...)

Table 1 - coursebooks.

Group 2 - Reference Grammars

Source and brief description. Example sentences

Swam and Walter 1997

Surprisingly, there was not a 7. In spite of the rain, we went for a walk.
single example of despite. Although it was raining, we went for a walk.
Although and in spite of were
contrasted in one small table
without any further information or
practice.

Eastwood 1992

Despite and in spite of were 8. Laurie went to work in spite of / despite not feeling well.
included in a chapter on
preposition + ing. The sentences
on the right were part of a table
along with 8 examples using
various prepositions.

© Luiz Otávio Barros 1999. All rights reserved. 5

Azar 1989

A similar table to the one used 9. I went swimming in spite of / despite the cold weather.
by Eastwood (above). But only Although / even though / though it was cold, I went swimming.
words “showing opposition” were
used.

Leech and Svartvik 1975

In their grammar for “advanced 10. We are enjoying ourselves in spite of the weather.
learners, undergraduates and 11. Despite a shortage of steal, industrial output has increased by
teachers of English”, Leech and 5%.
Svartvik list despite and in spite
of under phrases and adverbs of
contrast. Interestingly, mention is
made of the fact that despite and
in spite of are formal words.

Murphy 1994

The best-selling EFL grammar in 12. In spite of / Despite the rain, we enjoyed our holidays.
the world deals with despite and 13. In spite of / Despite having all the necessary qualifications, she
in spite of more thoroughly. didn’t get the job.
Students are given rules such as
“after these words we use a
noun, a pronoun or an ing form.
You can also say despite/in spite
of the fact that...”

Table 2 - reference grammars

Group 3 - Monolingual dictionaries.

Dictionary Examples

Oxford Advanced Learners’ 14. They had a wonderful holiday, despite the bad weather.
Dictionary 15. Despite wanting to see him again, she refused to reply to his
letters.

Longman Dictionary of
Contemporary English
16. Despite all our efforts to save the school, the County decided
to close it.
17. She went to Spain despite the fact that the doctor had told her
to rest.
18. Despite herself, she found his attention rather enjoyable.
Table 3 - monolingual dictionaries.

D Brief analysis of EFL materials and a few initial hypotheses

A cursory glance at tables 1, 2 and 3 shows that :

© Luiz Otávio Barros 1999. All rights reserved. 6

1. In spite of and despite are used interchangeably in four examples.
2. Even when that is not explicitly the case, no mention is made
whatsoever of any difference is usage, use or relative frequency.
3. There are four instances of in spite and despite followed by an ing verb.
In spite and despite + noun phrase make up 77% of the examples.
4. Again, the relative frequency of the two patterns is never mentioned.
5. There are no apparent collocational patterns, though mention is made
of despite the fact twice.
6. The semantic prosody (see Ooi 1998: 62) of the words under study is
predominantly negative. Interestingly, there are six references to weather
(!), five of which to bad weather.

The linguistic generalisations above have given rise to a number of

questions which this paper will attempt to answer by exploring the
“linguistic ecology” (Kennedy 1991: 98) of the words under study:
 Do native speakers of English use despite more often than in spite of or
vice versa?
 Despite / in spite of + ing verb or despite / in spite of + noun phrase.
Which pattern in more frequent?
 Are there any collocational patterns?
 Do despite and in spite of tend to have a negative semantic prosody? In
other words, is it pragmatically odd to say, for example, despite her
beauty or despite his happiness?

To answer those questions, I have undertaken a small-scale corpus-

based investigation of despite and inspite of , drawing on material
from the 100-million word British National Corpus3. On the basis of
the data from the BNC, I will discuss the extent to which there is a

3
For detailed information on the BNC, see Aston 1996: 178.

© Luiz Otávio Barros 1999. All rights reserved. 7

mismatch between the picture that emerged from the examples
analysed in the previous section and linguistic generalisations based
on attestable examples of real language use provided by the BNC.

© Luiz Otávio Barros 1999. All rights reserved. 8

Part 2

In the second part of this paper, I will analyse the combinatorial properties
of despite and in spite of and make a few tentative claims based on the
emerging empirical evidence. The key word here is tentative. It must be
borne in mind that this is a small scale study based on the observation of
a modest, random sample of concordance lines: 1019 for despite and 879
for in spite of. This in itself clearly limits the generalisability of any claims I
might want to make. Similarly, most of my analyses are expressed in
percentages, which seems sensible enough since my aim is to derive only
partially accurate insights from the corpus data. On those grounds, it
seems reasonable to suggest that a statistical analysis of the data would
be beyond the scope of this paper.

We will now consider each of the questions asked in part 1, section D in

turn.

E Do native speakers use despite more often than in spite of or vice versa?

Despite and in spite of differ markedly in their relative frequency. The

former occurs as many as 14589 times in the British National Corpus,
while the latter is limited to only 2797 occurrences. These figures allow me
to make the only broad generalisation in the entire paper: despite is used
far more frequently than in spite of, at least in written English, of which
the BNC is 90% made up. At this point, it would probably be interesting
to report the relative frequency of other contrast words and phrases which
are often semantically associated with (and therefore pedagogically
exploited alongside) despite and in spite of.

© Luiz Otávio Barros 1999. All rights reserved. 9

 word occurrences
however 60492
although 43613
though 34177
despite 14589
nevertheless 7225
even though 5888
on the other hand 5307
in spite of 2797
nonetheless 1306
conversely 821
having said that 320
Table 4 - frequency of contrast words and phrases

From a non-native speaker’s perspective, I was not surprised to find words

like however and although at the top levels of frequency. I would have
expected, however, to see a greater number of occurrences of even though
and on the other hand, which are generally heavily emphasised in EFL
materials.

F ing verbs vs. noun phrase. Which pattern is more

frequent?

According to most of the EFL materials I analysed, despite and in spite of

can be followed by either an ing verb or a noun phrase. However, no
distinctions were made about the relative frequency in which these two
patterns are used. To discover that, I surveyed a BNC sample through
Wordsmith, a piece of software for corpus research. As I mentioned before,
my sample contained 1019 despite sentences and 879 in spite of
sentences. By isolating the [w V*G]4 tags and examining each token in a
context of seven following words, I found out that despite / in spite of +

4
all ing verbs.

© Luiz Otávio Barros 1999. All rights reserved. 10

ing verb is a much less frequent pattern than is commonly assumed:

total ing %
despite 1019 91 8.9%
in spite of 879 70 7.9%
Table 5 - despite and in spite of + ing. See files inspall.cnc and dispall.cnc

Table 5 shows that ing verbs account for 8.9% of the total corpus
instances of despite and 7.9% of in spite of. To attempt a more fine-grained
classification, I also investigated the ing pattern in three distinct
categories: the ing form of be [w VBG], have [w VHG] and other lexical
verbs [w VVG]. The results are shown in table 6:

[w VBG] [w VHG] [w VVG]

despite 30 2,9% 26 2,5% 35 3,4%
in spite of 20 2,2% 29 3,3% 30 3,4%
Table 6- 3 categories of ing. See files inspvhg.cnc , inspvbg.cnc,
inspvvg.cnc, despvbg.cnc, despvhg.cnc and despvvg.cnc.

Most of the 161 tokens instanced examples of despite / in spite of

immediately followed by an ing verb:

HSO 162 As quality carpet, it still looks as good as ever in spite of [w VBG] being well used.
CHK 870 Well organised folks can book a permit to camp up to a year in advance, but we
managed to get in despite [w VHG] having no permit.

On certain occasions, however, there were singular / plural / proper

nouns ( [w NN1] , [w NN2], [w NP0] respectively), or personal pronouns ( [w
PNP]) placed between despite / in spite of and the ing verb:

FPF 3304 I thought I heard birds, despite the[w NN1] sky [w VVG] showing no signs of thinning.
FPX 1799 In spite of so much[w NN1] time[w VBG] being given to singing, many children also
learn at least one musical instrument.

Sentences like these were relatively common in the concordance (45

© Luiz Otávio Barros 1999. All rights reserved. 11

occurrences), and they illustrate the point I made earlier about the
importance of intuition interacting with corpus data. Had I limited myself
to analysing those sentences in which the [w VVG] tag was placed
immediately after despite / in spite of, I would have failed to include
examples like the ones above.

Therefore, there is a further possible subdivision. For practical purposes, I

will refer to the first group of sentences as A and to the second group as B.

+ VVG + VBG +VHG Total (V*G)

A B A B A B A B A+B
Despite 29 6 20 10 22 4 71 20 91
In spite of 21 9 11 9 12 7 44 25 70
Table 7.- 3 categories of ing, with and without a noun before the verb. See files inspvhg.cnc , inspvbg.cnc,
inspvvg.cnc, despvbg.cnc, despvhg.cnc and despvvg.cnc.

Table 7 shows that out of the 161 ing examples, 45 (28%) belonged to
group B. Interestingly, this sort of pattern was not exemplified in any of
the EFL materials I surveyed earlier in this paper.

At this point we return to the question of which syntactic pattern is more

frequent. Since we know that despite / in spite of + ing make up only
8,9% and 7,9% of all occurrences, it is safe to assume that the
overwhelming majority of the occurrences are noun phrases.

G Are there any common collocations?

In this section I examine the commonest collocational patterns of despite

and in spite of. I will analyse singular [w NN1] and plural [w NN2] nouns
separately with a view to obtaining more fine grained categorisations. I
begin with in spite of + singular nouns. 395 tokens were analysed, in a
context of seven following words.

© Luiz Otávio Barros 1999. All rights reserved. 12

 NN1 collocate number of %
occurrences
the fact that 44 11
lack of 6 1.5
interest 4 1
recession 4 1
opposition 4 1
Table 8 - NN1 collocates. See file inspnn1.cnc

As table 8 shows, the fact that is overwhelmingly more frequent than the
other collocates. Interestingly, only two EFL books referred to the fact that
at all, one of which being the Longman corpus-based dictionary. As for the
lower-frequency collocations, even though I ignored collocates that had
less than four occurrences, it is still questionable whether interest,
recession and opposition merit the label collocation ( or whether they
should be referred to as “co-locations” - see Lewis 1993 ). In other words,
in view of such a small body of data, one cannot be sure whether such co-
occurrences did not happen by chance. Or to portray this issue in
Kjellmer’s terms (1991), one might say that “there is no generally valid cut
off point between collocations and accidental groupings of words” (pp 126).
The reader should bear these points in mind when interpreting the
information in the remaining tables.

Table 9 presents the most frequent Despite + [w NN1] collocates. This time,
540 tokens were analysed.

NN1 collocate number of %

occurrences
the fact that 71 13%
lack of 10 1,8%
evidence 8 1,5%
success 8 1,5%
recession 5 0,9%
setback 5 0.9%
Table 9 - NN1 collocates. See file despnn1.cnc

Table 10 compares collocates shared by despite and in spite of.

despite in spite of

© Luiz Otávio Barros 1999. All rights reserved. 13

 the fact that 13% 11%
lack of 1,8% 1,5%
recession 0.9% 1%
Table 10 -NN1 collocates: despite vs. in spite of.

The data shown in tables 8, 9 and 10 allow us to observe that the phrase
the fact that tends to collocate strongly with both prepositions. Lack of also
appears to occur with more than random frequency. Indeed, it could be
safely argued that as far as NN1 collocates go, despite and in spite of seem
to operate in a similar way.

We now turn to an analysis of plural noun [w NN2] collocates. 201 in spite

of tokens were analysed.

NN2 collocate number of %

occurrences
efforts 11 5.5%
difficulties 7 3.5%
attempts 5 2.5%
warnings 5 2.5%
years 5 2.5%
problems 4 2%
doubts 4 2%
claims 4 2%
Table 11 - NN2 collocates. See file inspnn2.cnc

Table 11 shows that the relatively higher frequencies may suggest that in
spite of attracts stronger plural collocates. Indeed, a phrase like in spite of
his best efforts sounds, to a large extent, as if it has a life of its own, as it
were. Despite (259 tokens) seems to follow the same trend, as shown in
tables 12 and 13.

NN2 collocate number of %

occurrences
efforts 12 4.6%
attempts 10 3.8%
problems 6 2.3%
claims 5 1,9%
difficulties 4 1,5%
assurances 4 1.5%
protests 4 1.5%
fears 4 1.5%
Table 12 - NN2 collocates. See file despnn2.cnc

© Luiz Otávio Barros 1999. All rights reserved. 14

 despite in spite of
efforts 4.6% 5.5%
difficulties 1.5% 3.5%
attempts 3.8% 2.5%
problems 2.3% 2%
claims 1.9% 2%
Table 13 -NN2 collocates: despite vs. in spite of.

All things considered, the answer to the question asked at the beginning of
this section (“are there common collocational patterns?”) would be a
definite “yes” for the fact that and a tentative “possibly” for NN2 collocates
such as efforts and attempts.

H Do despite and in spite of tend to have a negative semantic prosody?

An immediately noticeable feature of the collocational environment of

despite and in spite of is the predominantly negative “aura of meaning”
(Louw 1993, cited by Ooi 1998: 62) created by its collocates. A cursory
glance at tables 8 to 13 reveals a preponderance of negative semantic
associations: lack, recession, opposition, setbacks, warnings, problems,
difficulties.

However, before making any tentative claims or generalisations, it is

important to analyse not only the most frequent collocates, but also a
minimally representative sample of other adjacent words operating in the
immediate right-hand environment of despite and in spite of. While
markedly negative words such as the ones mentioned above do not require
an in depth analysis of the whole sentence in which they are embedded, a
number of other words probably do. For example, a noun such as feature,
which at first glance one might regard as attitudinally neutral, is heavily
dependent on context and has the potential to be used negatively, as
illustrated by the sentences below:

G3D 757 amazingly addicted to the continuation of the status quo despite all its desperate
features, just like the primary sufferer is addicted to the continuation of his own
© Luiz Otávio Barros 1999. All rights reserved. 15
drinking or drug use.
J27 218 Nevertheless, despite the above positive features of assessment and certification, there
may be some well motivated and diligent pupils who still fail to achieve all the learning
outcomes.

In other words, most seemingly neutral adjacent words must be analysed

in context if they are to provide us with any evidence of semantic prosody.
Therefore, in order to work with a manageable body of data, l restricted my
analysis to samples of approximately a hundred random sentences from
each of the following: in spite + [w NN1], despite + [w NN1] , in spite of + [w
NN2], despite + [w NN2]. Because common collocates have already been
dealt with, I will exclude those and focus on nouns which may not have
made it to the list of “top collocates”, but nonetheless still tell us about the
semantic prosody of despite and in spite of. Needless to say, negative and
positive are perhaps best dealt with as two ends of a continuum that can
accommodate fuzziness and shades of grey. So for present purposes, I will
arbitrarily classify the words as negative, neutral/negative, neutral,
neutral/positive, positive, as shown in tables 13-18.

In spite of +[w NN1] - 91 sentences analysed.

A- Negative B-Neg/Neutral Neutral A-Neut/posit B- Positive

Number of 32 20 15 14 10
occurrences
A+B= 52 ( 57%) 15 (16,5%) A+B= 24 (26,3%)
Examples arrogance evidence force (of evidence beauty
boycott (related to gravity) (related to dexterity
gloom suicide) preference qualifications)
improvement
hostility expenditure (for breadth of richness
inflation jargon highnecks) (sample)
smile

Table 13 -in spite of - NN1 shades of meaning. See file inspnn1s.cnc

Despite + [w NN1] - 107 sentences analysed.

5 uninterpretable occurrences.

A- Negative B-Neg/Neutral Neutral A-Neut/posit B- Positive

© Luiz Otávio Barros 1999. All rights reserved. 16

Number of 34 23 19 22 4
occurrences
A+B= 57 ( 53,2%) 19 (17,7%) A+B= 26 (24,3%)
Examples dying wish instinct confirmation investment improvement
crumbling (related to identification vote (against kindness
rock scepticism) name nuclear splendour
impact insistence dumping)
(related to (related to
crash) pornography)
tube strike variety
(related to
complexity)
Table 14 -despite - NN1 shades of meaning. See file despnn1s.cnc

In spite of + [w NN2] - 92 sentences analysed.

5 uninterpretable occurrences.

A- Negative B-Neg/Neutral Neutral A-Neut/posit B- Positive

Number of 43 10 10 18 6
occurrences
A+B= 53 (57,6%) 10 (10,8%) A+B= 24 (26%)
Examples massacres police reports petitions tougher attractions
misgivings (on violations) findings controls ( in benefits
tourists evidence drug best
(related to (about health trafficking) intentions
noise) hazards) hopes
years tariffs (related to
(related to weather)
blindness)
Table 15 -in spite of- NN2 shades of meaning. See file inspnn2s.cnc

Despite + [w NN2] - 107 sentences analysed.

9 uninterpretable occurrences.

A- Negative B-Neg/Neutral Neutral A-Neut/posit B- Positive

Number of 48 13 15 12 10
occurrences
A+B= 61 (57%) 15 (14%) A+B=22 (20.5%)
Examples disadvantages retirements dimensions adjustments anti-roll
threats odds genuflections prayers bars
failings changes (not similarities grand plans
reputations always wit
(for being welcome)
unapproachable)
Table 16 -despite- NN2 shades of meaning. See file dispnn2s.cnc

© Luiz Otávio Barros 1999. All rights reserved. 17

Despite vs. in spite of - NN1

Negative + Neg/neutral Neutral Positive + Pos/neutral

despite 53,2% 17,7% 24,3%
in spite of 57 % 16,5% 26,3%
Table 17-despite vs. in spite of - NN1 shades of meaning.

Despite vs. in spite of - NN2

Negative + Neg/neutral Neutral Positive + Pos/neutral

despite 57% 14% 20.5%
in spite of 57,6 % 10,8% 26%
Table 18-despite vs. in spite of - NN2 shades of meaning.

Needless to say, more study is needed to establish the precise sort of

constraints operating here, but by analysing the information presented
above, one begins to get a feeling the semantic prosody of despite and in
spite of is predominantly negative. In that respect, the two words appear to
behave in remarkably similar ways: differences of 4% and 6% arising out
of a purely intuitive categorisation such as the one I undertook in this
study are hardly significant.

I Final thoughts

Maybe the most obvious question to put at the end of this study is: did it
reveal anything I did not know already? The answer is both yes and no.
For example, I was unaware of the fact that despite is about five times as
common as in spite of. Also, this study confirmed what I knew intuitively
about the different syntactic constraints of despite and in spite of, but
shed new light on their relative frequency. As regards collocational
properties, though my assumption that the fact that was a frequent
collocate was corroborated by the data, it came as a surprise to discover
that there were other nouns which despite and in spite of seemed to
attract with more than random frequency. And finally, when it comes to
the semantic prosody of those words, the data suggested that negative

© Luiz Otávio Barros 1999. All rights reserved. 18

associations are more frequent than neutral or positive ones, which I
suspected to be the case.

The pedagogical relevance of the above is obvious. I can see clearly now
that the sort of information I have been giving students about the use of
despite and in spite of is at best limited. Therefore, in order to enable them
to use those words more effectively, I might now make a number of
alternative pedagogical choices, grounded in attestable examples of real
language use. For example, since I am now aware that despite / in spite of
+ noun phrase is by far the most frequently occurring pattern, it might be
sensible to concentrate on it rather than place equal emphasis on both
noun phrase and ing , at least at intermediate/upper-intermediate levels.
In the same way, there are grounds for arguing that despite/in spite of
deserve a lexical rather than grammatical treatment. In that respect, an
ever-increasing number of scholars have discussed the importance of
chunking as a teaching strategy (see Lewis 1993 for a discussion on the
usefulness of lexical chunking). That means, for example, that if students
are taught that in real life people do actually say despite the fact quite
often, they will probably be better able to express a wider range of ideas
more easily and effortlessly, since the fact that is a collocate with a lot of
generative potential. Similarly, one could argue that drawing students’
attention to the fact that despite / in spite of often have a negative “aura of
meaning” might be a useful way to help create memorable semantic
associations would might, in turn, ease retrieval and accurate use.

© Luiz Otávio Barros 1999. All rights reserved. 19

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© Luiz Otávio Barros 1999. All rights reserved. 21