Linguistics expert who changed how we think about language
MICHAEL HOEY, who has died aged 73, was an intellectual giant of modern English language sciences whose ideas revolutionised our understanding of how languages are learnt.
A gentle and self-effacing figure, Hoey once joked that his best-selling publication was a guide to the real ale pubs of Southport, where he lived for many years. But that was far from true – his main works are on the shelves of every serious student of language.
He is best known for his “lexical priming” theory of language which has transformed our understanding of the relationship between words and grammar. The theory is of interest not only in understanding how people acquire language, but also in how it can be taught to machines using artificial intelligence. The newest Ai-based language-learning programmes work on Hoeyian principles.
In Lexical Priming: A New Theory of Words and Language (2005), Hoey explained how we learn to string words together through long-term exposure to speech and writing, storing these associations in our minds and later reproducing them – and repeating the cycle by priming others.
He argued that as children we learn language not through some inborn sense of grammar; instead we are “primed” to pull out words in certain strings from our memory bank and use them together, because we have heard others do the same.
He tested his ideas with a series of light-hearted experiments. He liked to take well-crafted sentences from literature and swap out words for equivalents. The new sentences were grammatically correct, so should have sounded fine – but because we were not primed to expect the new word combinations, the language sounded odd.
Take Bill Bryson’s line from Neither Here Nor There: “In winter, Hammerfest is a 30-hour ride by bus from Oslo, though why anyone would want to go there in winter is a question worth considering.”
Compare it with its ugly sibling: “Through winter, rides between Oslo and Hammerfest use 30 hours up in a bus, though why travellers would select to ride there then might be pondered.”
Michael Hoey was born on February 24 1948 and grew up in Hertfordshire. He attended Berkhamsted School and later took a PHD in English at University College London, supervised by the great linguist Sir Randolph Quirk.
Hoey went on to teach at Hatfield College, Birmingham University and, from 1993 until his retirement in 2014, at the University of Liverpool. The first 20 years of his career were devoted to the study of written texts.
Working with Eugene Winter he developed the “clause relational” system for describing ways in which texts tend to be organised as building blocks for constructing an argument.
His 1991 book Patterns of Lexis in Text, which was awarded a Duke of Edinburgh English Speaking Union Prize, showed how patterns of words are repeated across texts, and argued that these patterns are more important than sentences for making sense of a piece of writing.
At the time, Hoey was a senior lecturer at the University of Birmingham, and he co-authored, under the direction of Professor John Sinclair, a proposal that led to the development of the Collins-cobuild (an acronym for Collins Birmingham University International Language Database) dictionary.
Hoey accumulated a range of responsibilities, becoming Professor of English Language at the University of Liverpool, Pro Vice Chancellor for Internationalisation and Academician of the Academy of Social Sciences.
A kindly, convivial, modest man, inspired by his Christian faith, Michael Hoey lectured in more than 40 countries – from Brazil, to China, to Iraqi Kurdistan – often accompanied by his wife, Sue.
She survives him with their daughter and son.
Michael Hoey, born February 24 1948, died September 10 2021