Pronunciation seems to be back on the agenda in the teaching of English as a foreign or second language. This has resulted in a widelyfelt need to reorganise contents and methodology for this important area. The main reason for this would seem to be that the timehonoured segment‐centred approach is often experienced as unsatisfactory by learners and teachers alike. This paper reviews recent insights into the pragmatics of language use and language learning which point to the importance of larger prefabricated units. Much of the relevant work makes reference to lexicogrammar; this article is a programmatic attempt to examine related work done in different fields and to explore the usefulness of these ideas with relation to the learning and teaching of pronunciation. It is suggested that prefabricated chunks might be a useful starting point for a more holistic approach to pronunciation teaching, an approach that takes into account what is effective for learners to learn rather than what is convenient for teachers to teac