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Tema-1 In this unit we are going to study language and its major functions: * We will show how Communication is one of these Functions. * We will show how learning a language is not only a grammatical process but also a Social Process. * We will also analyse the differences between Writing and Speech. * We will discuss some important Communicative Theory defining their key factors. * Finally, we will show how important it is to create Real Communication Situations in our Classrooms in order to improve language teaching. A conclusion summing up what has been said throught the unit will follow, ending up with the bibliography used for the elaboration of this discussion.
We must point out that language is not just a "subject" in the sense of a package of knowledge. It is not just a set of information and insights. It is a fundamental part of being human. Traditional approaches used to treat a language as if it were a free-standing package of knowledge by analysing and observing it. Many of us learnt a language that way. But this process is a very abstract one and experience has shown that it does not appeal to everyone. To learn to use a language at all well for ourselves rather than for textbook purposes, most of us have to become involved in it as an experience. We have to make it a human event not just a set of information. We do this by using it for real communication, for genuine giving and receiving of messages. * Now that we have introduced this particular topic we are going to deal with the study of language as Communication, its functions and the concept of communicative competence. The word language has prompted many definitions. For example; Sapir said that " language is a purely human and non instinctive method of commicating ideas, emotions and desires by means of voluntarily produced symbols ". Hall defined language as " the institution whereby humans communicate and interact with each other by means of habitually used oral-auditory symbols "
The most widely acknowledged comparative approach has been that proposed by Charles Hockett. This set of 13 design features of communication using spoken language are as follows: 1. Auditory-vocal channel: sound is used between mouth and ear. 2. Broadcast transmission and directional reception: a signal can be heard by any auditory system within earshot and the source can be located using the ear's direction finding. 3. Rapid fading: auditory signals are transitory. 4. Interchangeability: speakers of a language can reproduce any linguistic message they can understand. 5. Total feedback: speakers hear and can reflect upon everything they say. 6. Specialization: the sound waves of speech have no other functions than to signal meaning. 7. Semanticity: the elements of the signal convey meaning through their stable association with real world situations. 8. Arbitrariness: there is no depency between the element of the signal and the nature of the reality to which it refers. 9. Discreetness: speech uses a small set of found elements that clearly contrast with each other. 10. Displacement: it is possible to talk about events remote in space or time from the situation of the speaker. 11. Productivity: there is an infinitive capacity to express and understand meaning, by using old sentence elements to produce new elements. 12. Traditional transmission: language is transmitted from a generation to the next by a process of teaching and learning. 13. Duality of patterning: the sounds of language have no intrinsic meaning, but combine in different ways to form elements, such as words, that do convey meaning. * After having studied the main properties of language, and communication,
we will now see how the learning of a language involves a Social Process. One of the most common uses of language, the expressive or emotional one, is a means of getting rid of our nervous energy when we are under stress, when we are angry, afraid, etc. We do not try to communicate because we can use language in this way whether we are alone or not. Malinowski termed the third use of language we are studying Phatic Communication. He used it to refer to the social function of language, that is, to signal friendship or lack of enemity. Also, to maintain a comfortable relationship between people. The fourth function we may find is based on Phonetic Properties.
The persuasive cadences of political speechmaking, or the chants used
by prisoners or soldiers have only one apparent reason: people take
delight in them. The fifth function is the Performative one. A performative is an utterance that performs an act. This use occurs in the naming of a ship at a launching ceremony, or when a priest baptises a child. We can also find other functions such as: - recording facts - instrument of thought - expression of regional, social, educational, sexual or occupational identity.
1) The Idealistic Funtion: is to organise the speaker's or writer's experience of the real or imaginary world. 2) The Interpersonal Function: is to indicate, establish or maintain social relationships between people. 3) The Textual Function: which serves to create written or spoken texts which cohere within themselves and which fit the particular situation in which they are used.
Chomsky defined language as a set of sentences, each finite in length
and constructed out of a finite set of elements. An able speaker has
a subconcious knowledge of the grammer rules of his language which
allows him to make sentences in that language. However, Dell Hymes
thought that Chomsky had missed out some very important information: For Hymes the Communicative Competence had four aspects: 1) Systematic Potential: 2) Appropriacy: 3) Occurence: 4) Feasibility:
1) Grammar Competence.
3) Sociocultural Competence.
5) Strategic Competence.
* Up to this point we have studied the concept of language as means
of communication, amongst other functions. Before summarising the main differences between spoken and written language we will outline their main features independantly. On the one hand we have spoken language, which is the most obvious aspect of language. Speech is not essential to the definition of an infinitely productive communication system, such as is constituted by language. But, in fact, speech is the universal material of language. Man has almost certainly been a speaking animal. The earliest known systems of writing go back perhaps some 5000 years. This means that for many hundreds of thousands of years human languages have been transmitted and developed entirely as a spoken means of communication. The description and classification of speech sounds is the main aim of phonetics. Sounds may be identified with reference to their production, their transmission and their reception. These three activities occur at the physiological level, which implies the action of muscles and nerves. The motor nerves that link the speaker's brain with his speech mechanism activate the corresponding muscles. The movements of the tongue, lips, vocal chords, etc, constitute the articulatory stage of the speech chain, and the area of phonetics that deals with it is articulatory phonetics. The movement of the articulation produces disturbances in the air pressure called sound waves which are physical manifestations. This is the acoustic stage of the chain, during which the sound waves travel towards the listener's ear. These sound waves activate the listener's ear drum.
1) Non-Phonological Systems. 2) Phonological Systems.
Now let's study the main differences between writing and speech. The most obvious is the contrast in physical form. Speech uses phonic substance typically in the form of air-pressure movements, whereas writing uses graphic substance, typically in the form of marks on a surface. As writing can only occasionally be thought of as an interaction, we can establish the following points of contrast: 1) The permanence of writing allows repeated reading and close analysis. The spontaneity and rapidity of speech minimises the chance of complex pre-planning, and promotes features that assisst speakers to think standing up. 2) The participants in written interaction cannot usually see each other, so they cannot make clear what they mean. However, in speech interactions feedback is possible. 3) The majority of graphic features presents a system of contrasts that has no speech equivalent. Many genres of written language, such as tables, graphs and complex formulae, cannot be conveyed by reading aloud. 4) Some contructions may only be found in writing, others only occur in speech, such as in slang and swear words. 5) Finally we can say that writing tends to be more formal and so it is more likely to provide the standard that society values. Its performance provides it with a special status.
* Now we have examined the differences between speech and written
language According to Ivor Armstrong Richards, "communication takes place when one mind so acts upon its environment that another mind is influenced, and in that other mind an experience occurs which is like the experience in the first mind, and is caused in part by that experience." From this definition we can conclude that any communicative act necessarily happens among persons or between a person who acts as a speaker and a listener or between various people who act as receivers. Besides these people there are other elements in a communicative act: * The Message * The Channel * The Code * The Context * As we have seen communication is the exchange of meanings through
a common system of symbols. Now it is time to ask ourselves: Many studies of classroom language have shown that in most native speaker ? is used for function rather than for direct teaching. These extra functions include: greetings, discussion, health, attendance,the weather and so on. Barnes (1969), in his description of classroom language, labelled these functions "social". Social interaction also takes placein foreign language and 2nd language classrooms, but in many such classrooms native language is used for this purpose. Fanselow (1977) attempted to set up a system for observing and recording different types of communication in the language classroom. He established five headings in the form of questions: 1) Who communicates ? 2) What is the pedagological purpose of the communication ? 3) What mediums are used to communicate content ? 4) How are the mediums used ? 5) What areas of content are communicated ?
The second, Procedure, concerns those times when the teacher is managing the classroom, explaining what to do next, how to do it and so on. Some teachers use English for classroom management, and others use the children's mother tongue, at least during the early stages. The third of Fanselow's categories, Subject Matter, concerns those times when the language is being used to convey some specific topic as a part of a lesson. For example, if the teacher tells the story "The Frog Got Lost", the subject matter is the frog and its adventures. In this case the teacher's aim might be to illustrate the use of the past simple tense, but the content area of language used in that part of the lesson is not tense but the tale of the frog. In the language classroom, this part of the lesson would be conducted in English. The final content category identified by Fanselow, Life, concerns
communication between teacher and pupils about Real Life Matters,
not directly about the lesson. This category embraces the type of
questioning that Barnes called "social" as well as any other
type of communication about the real world. Strategies that parents use intuitively to draw children into the use of the first language must be used deliberately by the teachers to draw children into using the second language. Research has shown that parents generally speak more slowly, articulate more carefully, and use gesture, facial expression and tone when talking to young children to aid their understanding and to encourage them to produce.
To conclude, we could bear in mind that an important aspect of interaction in the English classroom is that it must be managed by the learners as well as by the teacher. That is to say that learners must be confident enough to initiate communication in English, and not merely respond when they are addressed by the teacher. A pupil that has something to say, an apology or a request to make, a question to ask, a greeting to give, should be encouraged to express him/herself in English. If resources are not to be wanted and opportunities to be missed, children must learn English in the same way they learnt their mother tongue, as a living language that can be used for active communication as much as for establishing personal relationships.
The bibliography used for the elaboration of this topic is as follows: * "Teaching the Spoken Language" by Gillian Brown and George Yule C.U.P. 1997. * "Teaching English to Children" by Christopher Brumfit, Jayne Moon and Ray Tongue. Longman 1992. * "Teaching English in the Primary Classroom" by Susan Halliwell. Longman 1992. TEMA 1 LA LENGUA COMO COMUNICACIÓN: LENGUAJE ORAL Y LENGUAJE ESCRITO.
1.1. Language definitions. 1.2. Language functions. 1.3. Communicative competence.
2.1. Spoken language. 2.2. Written language. 2.3. Historical Attitudes. 2.4. Differences between writing and speech.
3.1. Communication definition. 3.2. Main Models. 3.3. Key factors.
Traditional foreign language teaching concentrated on getting students consciously to learn items of language in insolation. These bits of information would be mainly used to read texts and only occasionally for oral communication. The focus was not on communication but on a piece of language. Following Krashen's distinction between acquisition and learning we can say that people got to know about the language (learning) but could not use it in a real context (acquisition). The British applied linguist Allwright tried to bridge this dichotomy when he theorised that if de language teacher's management activities were directed exclusively at involving the learners in solving communication problems in the target language, then language learning wil take care of itlself. We may or may not agree with this extreme rendering of the Communicative approach, but we all agree nowadays on the importance of letting ous pupils use English for real communication during at least, the production stage. In this unit we are going to study language and its functions to see that communication is one of thes functions. We wil then posit that learning a language is not only a grammatical and lexical process but also a social process. We also analyze the differences between writing and speech; and finally we will discuss the most important communication theory models, defining their key factors. 1. LANGUAGE AS COMMUNICATION. 1.1. Language Definitions. The word language has prompted innumerable definitions. Some focus on the general concept of language (what we call lengua or lenguaje) and some focus on the more specific notion of a language (what we call lengua or idioma). SAPIR (1921) said that "language is a purely human non-instinctive method of communicating ideas, emotions and desires by means of voluntarily produced symbols". HALL (1964) defined language as "the institution whereby humans communicate and interact whith each other by means of habitually used oral-auditory arbitrary symbols". As we can see in these two definitions it is diffi cult to make a precise and comprehensive statement about formal adn functional universal properties of language so some linguists have trien to indentify the various properties that are thought to be its essential defining characteristics. The most widely acknowledged comparative approach has been the one proposed by Charles HOCKETT. His set of 13 design features of communication using spoken language were as follows: - Auditory-vocal channel: sound is used between mouth and ear. - Broadcast transmission and directional reception: a signal can be heard by any auditory system within earshot, and the source can be located using the ears' direction-finding ability. - Rapid fading: auditory signals are transitory. - Interchangeability: speakers of a language can reproduce any linguistic message they can understand. - Total feedback: speakers hear and can reflect upon everything that they say. - Specitalization: the sound waves of speech have no other function than to signal meaning. - Semanticity: the elemens of the signal convey meaning through their stable association with real-world situations. - Arbitrariness: there is no dependence of the element of the signal on the nature of the reality to which it refers. - Discreteness: speech uses a small set of sound elements tha clearly contrast whith each other. - Displacement: it is possible to talk about events remote in space or time from the situation of the speaker. - Productivity: ther is an infinite capacity to express and understand meaning, by using old setence elements to produce new sentences. - Traditional transmissión: language is transmitted from one generation to the next primarily by a process of teaching and learning. - Duality of pottering: the sound of language have no intrinsic meaning, but combine in diferents ways to form elements, such as words, than do convey meaning. After having studied thje main properties of language (what is language?) we will now see its function (whats language for?).
We may also finde other functions such as: - recording facts. The British linguist HALLIDAY grouped all these functions into three metafunctions, shich are the manifestation in the linguistic system of the two veryu general purposes shich underlie all uses of language combine whith the rhird component (textual) shich brethes relevance into the other two. 1.- The ideational function is to organize the speaker's or writer's experience of the real or imaginary world, i.e. language refers to real or imagined persons, things, actions, events, states,etc. 2.- The interpersonal function is to indicate, establish or mantain social relationships between people. It includes forms of address, speech function, modality ... 3.- The third component is the textual function which serves to create written or spoken texts which cohere within themselves and which fit the particular situation in which they are used.
CHOMSKY (1957) defined language as `a set of sentences, each finite in length and constructed out of a finite set of elements. A capable speaker has a subconscious knowledge of the grammar rules of his language which allows him to make sentences in that language'. However, Dell HYMES thought that Chomsky had missed out some very important information: the rules of the use. When a native speaker speaks, he does not onlu utter grammatically correct forms, he also knows where and when to use these sentences and to whom. Hymes, then, said that competence by itself is not enough to explain a native speaker's knowledge, and he replaced it with his own concept of communicative competence. HYMES distinguishes 4 aspects of this competence: - systematic potential
Appropriacy means that the native speaker knows what language is
appropriate in a given situation. His choice is based on the following
variables, among others: Feasibility means that the native speaker knows whether something is possible in the language. Even if there is no grammatical rule to ban 20-adjective prehead construction, we know that these constructions are not possible in the language. These 4 categories have been adapted for teaching purposes. Thus, the Royal Decree 1006/1991 of 14 June (BOE 25 June), which establishes the teaching requirements for Primary Education nationwide, sees communicative competence as comprising five subcompetences: - Grammar competence (competencia gramatical, o capacidad de poner
en práctica las unidades y reglas de funcionamiento del sistema
de la lengua). The terms grammar, sociolinguistic and sociocultural competence are quite self explanatory so we will only analyze discourse and strategic competence. CANALE (1980) defined discourse competence as an aspect of communicative competence which describes the ability to produce unified written or spoken discourse that shows coherence and cohesion and which conforms to the norms of different genres. Our pupils must be able to produce discourse in which successive utterances are linked through ruoles of discourse competence. Strategic competence may be defined as an aspect of communicative competence which describes the ability of speakers to use verbal and non-verbal communication strategies to compensate for breakdowns in communication or to improve the effectiveness of communication.
It is traditionl in language study to distinguish between spoken and written language. Before summarizing their main differences we will outline their main features independently.
The description and clasification of sounds is the main aim of phonetics. Sounds may be identified with reference to their production, transmission and reception. These three activities occur at a physiological level, which implies the action of nerves and muscles. The motor nerves that link the speaker's brain with his speech mechanism activate the corresponding muscle. The movements of the tongue, lips, vocal folds, etc. Constitute the articulatory stage of the speech chain, and the area of phonetics that deals with it is articulatory phonetics.The movement of the articulators produces disturbances in the air pressure called sound waves, which are physical manifestations. This is the acoustic stage of the chain, during which the sound waves travel towards the listener's ear-drum. The study of speech sound waves correspons to acoustic phonetics. The hearing process is the domain of auditory phonetics. This can be seen in the following table:
In this table we can see how phonetics is the study of all possible
speech sounds. 2.2. Written language. Myths and legends of the supernatural shroud the early history of writing. One point, at least, is fairly clear. It now seems most likely that writing systems evolved independently of each other at different times in several parts of the world -in Mesopotamia, China... There is nothing to support a theory of common origin. We can classify writting systems into two types: Non-phonological systems do not show a clear relationship between the symbols and the sounds of the language. They include the pictographic, ideographic, cuneiform and egyptian hieroglyphic and logographic. In the pictographic system, the graphemes or pictographs or pictograms provide a recognizable picture of entities as they exist in the world. Ideograms or ideographs have an abstract or conventional meaning, no longer displaying a clear pictorial link whith external reality. The cuneiform method of writing dates from the 4th. Millennium BC, and was used to express both non-phonological and phonological writing systems. The name derives from the Latin, meaning 'wedge-shaped' and refers to the technique used to make the symbols. Egyptian hieroglyphic developed about 3000 BC. It is a mixture of ideograms, phonograms and determinative symbols. It was called hieroglyphic because of its prominent use in temples ad tombs (Greek, 'sacred carving"). Logographic writing systems are those where the graphemes represent words. The best known case is Chinese and Japanese kanji. The symbols are variously referred to as logographs, logograms or characters.
In a system of syllabic writing, each grapheme corresponds to a spoken syllable, usually a consonant-vowel pair. This system can be seen in Japanese Kataka. Alphabetic writing establishes a direct correspondence between graphemes and morphemes. This makes it the most economic and adaptable of all the writing systems. In a perfectly regular sustem there is one grapheme for each morpheme. However, most alphabets in present day use fail to meet this criterion. At one extreme we find such languages as Spanish, which has a very regular system; at the other, we find such cases as English and Gaelic, where there is a marked tendency to irregularity.
Historically speaking, written language was considered tobe superior to spoken language for many centuries. It was the medium of literature, and literature was considered a source of standards of linguistic excellence. Witten records provide language with permanence and authority and so the rules of grammar were illustrated exclusively from written texts. On the other hand, spoken language was ignored as an object unworthy of study. Spoken language demostrates such a lack of care and organization that cannot be studied scientifically; it was said to have no rules, and speakers have thought that, in order to speak properly, it was necessary to follow the correct norm. As this norm was based on written standards, it is clear that the prescriptive tradition rested supremacy of writing over speech. This viewpiont became widely criticized at the turn of our century. Leonard Bloomfield insisted that "writing is not language but merely a way of recording language by means of visible marks". This approach pointed out several factors, some of which we have already mentioned:
If speech is the primary medium of communication, it was also argued that it should be the main object of linguistic study. Actually, the majority of the world's cultures' languages have never been written down and this has nothing to do with their evolutionary degree. It is a fallacy to suppose that the languages of illiterate or so-called primitive peoples are less structured, less rich in vocabulary, and less efficient than the languages of literate civilization. E. Sapir was one of the first linguistics to attack the myth that primitive peoples spoke primitive languages. In one study he compared the grammatical equivalents of the sentence "he will give it to you" in six Amerindian languages. Among many fascinating features of these complex grammatical forms, note the level of abstraction introduced by the following example: Southern Paiute Maya-vaania-aka-anga-'mi= guve will visible-thing visible-creature thee Many linguistics and ethnographerstherefore stressed the urgency of providing techniques for the analysis of spoken language and because of this emphasis on the spoken language, it was now the turn of writing to fall into disrepute. Many linguistics came to think of written language as a tool of secundary inportance. Writing came to be excluded from the primary subject matter of linguistic science. Many grammarians presented an account of speech alone. Nowadays, there is no sense in the view that one medium of communication is untrinsically better. Writing cannot substitute for speech, nor speech for writing. The functions of speech and writing are usually said to complement each other. On the other hand, there are many functional para llels which seem to be increase in modern society. We cannot use recording devices to keep facts and communicate ideas. On the other hand writing is also taken the social of phatic function typically associated with the immediacy of speech. Despite these parallels we can obviously find striking differences. 2.4. Differences between writing and speech Research has begun to investigate the nature and extent of the differences between them. Most obviously, they contrast in physical form: - Specch uses phonic substance typically in the form of air-pressure
movements Differences of structure and use are the product of radically different communicative situations. Crystal (1987) pointed that `speech is tme-bound, dynamic, transient, part of an interaction in which, typically, both participants are present, and the speaker has a specific addressee in mind´. Writing is space-bound, static, permanent, the result of a situation in which, typically, the producer is distant from the recipient and, often, may not even know who the recipient is. As writing can only occasionally be thought of as an interaction it is just normal that we can establish the following points of contrast: 1.- The permanence of writing allows repeated reading and close analysis. The spontaneity and rapidity of speech minimizes the chance of complex preplanning, and promotes features that assist to think standing up. 2.- The participants in written interaction cannot usually see each other, and they thus cannot rely on the context to help make clear what they mean as they would when speaking. As a consequence, deictic expressions are normally avoided. On the other hand, feedback is available in most speech interactions. 3.- The majority of graphic features present a system of contrast that has no speech equivalent. Many genres of written language, such as tables, graphs, and complex formulae, cannot be conveyed by reading aloud. 4.- Some constructions may be found onlu¡y in writing, such as the French simple past, and others only occur in speech, such as `whatchamacallit´, or slang expressions. 5.- Finally we can say that written language tends to be more formal and so it is more likely to provide the standard that society values. Despite these differences, there are many respects in which the written and the spoken language have mutually interacted. We normally use the written language in order to improve our command of vocabulary, active or passive, spoken or written. Loan words may come into a country in a written form, and sometimes, everything we know about language is its writing.
3.1. Definition Communication, the exchange of meanings between individuals through a common system of symbols, concerned scholars since the time of ancient Greece. In 1928 the English literary critic and author Ivor Armtrong Richards offered one of the first definitions of communication. Since about 1920 the growth and apparent influence of communication technology have attracted the attention of many specialists who have attempted to isolate communication as a specific facet of their particular interest. In the1960s, Marshall McLuhan, drew the threads of interest in the field of communication into a view that associated many contemporary psychological and sociological phenomena with the media employed in modern culture. McLuhan's idea, `the medium is the message´, stimulated numerous filmmakers, photographers, and others, who adopted McLuhan´s view that contemporary society had moved from a print culture to a visual one.
1.- The mass communication industries In short, a communication expert may be oriented to any number of disciplines in a field of inquiry that has, as yet, neither drawn for itself a conclusive roster of subject matter nor agreed upon specific methodologies of analysis. 3.2. Models Fragmentation and problems of interdisciplinarity outlook have generated a wide range of discussion concerning the ways in which communication occurs and the processes it entails. Most communication theorists admit that their main task is to answer the query originally posed by the U.S political scientist H. D. Lasswell, `Who says what to whom with what effect?´. Obviously all of the factors in this question may be interpreted differently by scholars and writers in different disciplines. Scientists may make use of dynamic or linear models. 3.2.1. Dynamic models. Dynamic models are used in describe cognitive, emotional, and artistic aspects of communication as they occur in sociocultural contexts. These models do not try to be quantitative as linear ones. They often centre attention upon different modes of communication and theorize that the messages they contain including messages of emotional quality and artistic content, are communicated in various manners to and from different sorts of people. Many analysts of communication such as McLuhan assert that the channel actually dictates, or severely influences, the message, both as sent and received. For them, the stability and function of channel or medium are more variable and less mechanistically related to the process than they are for followers of Shannon and Weaver. 3.2.2. Linear models: Shannon and Weaver's. Claude Shannon and Warren Weaver's Mathematical Model of Communication is one of the most productive schematic models of a communication systems that has ever been proposed. The simplicity, clarity, and surface generally of their model proved attractive to many students of communication in a number of disciplines. As originally conceived, the model contained five elements arranged in linear order:
This model was originally intended for electronic messages so, in time, the five elements of the model were renamed so as to specify components for other types of communication transmitted in various manners. The information source was split into its components to provide a wider range of applicability: - a source Another concept, first called a `noise source´ but later associated with the notion of entropy was imposed upon the communication model. Entropy diminishes the integrity of the message and distorts the message for the receiver. Negative entropy may also occur in instances where incomplete or blurred messages are nevertheless received intact, either because of the ability of the receiver to fill in missing details or to recognize, despite distortion or paucity of information, both the intent and the content of the communication. But not only negative entropy counteracts entropy. Redundancy, the repetition of elements within a message that prevents the failure of communication of information, is the greatest antidote to entropy. Redundancy is apparently involved in most human activities, and, because it helps to overcome the various forms of entropy that tends to turn intelligible messages into unintelligible ones, it is an indispensable element for effective communication. We can see that the model, despite the introduction of entropy and redundancy, is conceptually static. To correct this flaw, Norbert Wiener, the father of cybernetics, added the principle of feedback, ie, sources tend to be responsive to their own behaviour and to the context of communication. Interaction between human beings in conversation cannot function without the ability of the message sender to weigh and calculate the apparent effect of this words on his listener. We will now analyze each of these key factors. 3.3. Key factors This unit title mentions some of the key factors affecting any communicative interaction such as the sender and the receiver. After putting them in the broader framework of the Mathematical Model of Communication we will analyze the intended effects of our communicative interactions (speech acts) and the environment in which they are exchanged (social context). The information source selects a desired message out of a possible set of messages. The transmitter changes the message into a signal which is sent over the communication channel where it is received by the receiver and changed back into a message which is sent to the destination. In the process of transmission certain unwanted additions to the signal may occur which are not part of the message and these are referred to as noise or entropy; negative entropy and redundancy counteract entropy. For somo communication systems the components are simple to specify as, for instance: - information source: a man on the telephone In face-to-face communication, the speaker can be both information source and transmitter, while the listener can be both receiver and destination. 3.3.1. Speech acts. J.L. Austin (1911-1960) was the first to draw attention to the many functions performed by utterances as part of interpersonal communication. He distinguishes two main types of functional potential: - performative A performative is an utterance that perform an act: to say is to act, as we have already seen when studying language functions. Performatives may be explicit and implicit performatives, which do not contain a performative verb. Constatives are utterances which assert something that is either true or false. In speech act analysis the effect of utterances on the behaviour of speaker and hearer is studies using a threefold distinction: A locutionary act is the saying of something which is meaningful and can be understood. For example, saying the sentence `shoot the snake´ is a locutionary act if hearers understand the words `shoot´, `the´and `snake´ and can identify the particular snake referred to. An illocutionary act is using a sentence to perform a function. For example `shoot the snake´may be intended as an order or a piece of advice. A perlocutionary act is the result or effect that is produced by means of saying something. For example, shooting the snake would be a perlocutionary act. Austin´s three-part distinction is less frequently used than a two part distinction between the propositional content of a sentence and the illocutionary force or intended effects of speech acts. There are thousands of possible illocutionary acts, and several attempts have been made to classify them into a small number of types: - representatives In declaratives the speaker is committed in varying degrees, to the truth of a proposition. In directives the speaker tries to get the hearer to do something. In commissives the speaker is committed, in varying degrees, to a certain course of action. In expressives the speaker expresses an attitude about a state of affairs. In declarations the speaker alters the external status or conditions of an object or situation solely by making the utterance. As we can infer from the examples there are some fuzzy areas and overlappings between different types of illocutionary force. But an utterance may lose its illocutionary force if does not satisfy several criteria, known as felicity conditions. For example the preparatory conditions have to be right: the person performing the speech act has to have the authority to do so. Ordinary people automatically accept these conditions when they communicate. If any of these conditions does not obtain, then a special interpretation of the speech act has to apply. Both normal and special interpretations of utterances have much to do with the context in which they are made. 3.3.2. Context. Context is defined by the Collins English Dictionary as: 1. The parts of a piece of writing, speech, etc, that precede and
follow a word or passage and contribute to its full meaning. The first definition covers what we may call linguistic context, but as we can infer from the second definition, linguistic context may not be enough to fully understand an utterance understood as a speech act. In fact, linguistic elements in a text may refer not only to other parts of the text but also to the outside world, to the context of situation. The concept of context of situation was formulated by Malinowski in 1923. It has been worked over and extended by a number of linguistics, specially Hymes and Halliday. Hymes categorizes the communicative situation in terms of eight components while Halliday offers three headings for the analysis: HYMES HALLIDAY We will now analyze Halliday´s more abstract interpretation as it practically subsumes Hymes´s one. The field is the total event, in which the text is functioning, together with the purpose activity of the speaker or writer; it thus includes the suject matter as one element in it. The mode is the function of the text in the event, including therefore both the channel taken by the language, and its genre or rethorical mode, as narrative, didactic, persuasive and so on. The tenor refers to to the participants who are taking part in this communicative exchange, who they are and what kind of relationship thay have to one another. It is clear that role relationships, ie, the relationship which people have to each other in a act of communication, influences the way they speak to each other. One of the speakers may have, for instance, a role which has a higher status than that of the other speaker or speakers.
- Collins English Dictionary. Collins. Glasgow, 1992. - Crystal, D. The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language. CUP. Cambridge, 1987. - Encyclopaedia Britannica. Enc. Brit. Inc. Chicago, 1990. - Halliday, M. A. K. Spoken and written Language. Geelong, Vic. Deakin University Press, 1976. - Halliday, M. A. K. Language as social semiotics. Arnold. London, 1978. - Halliday, M. A. K. Functional grammar. Arnold. London, 1982. - Halliday, M. A. K and Hasan, R. Cohesion in English. Longman. London, 1976. - Richards, J. C, Platt, J., and Platt, H. Longman Dictionary of
Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics. Longman. London, 1992. - Steinberg, D. D. Psycholinguistics. Longman. London.1982
LA LENGUA COMO COMUNICACIÓN: LENGUAJE ORAL Y LENGUAJE ESCRITO. FACTORES QUE DEFINEN UNA SITUACIÓN COMUNICATIVA: EMISOR, RECEPTOR, FUNCIONALIDAD Y CONTEXTO.
Traditionally, theories of language have concentrated on the study of its different components in isolation, such as grammar, semantics, phonology, seeing language as a system that included all of them. However, when language is first acquired in childhood, is merely by means of communicating with the people around. In this sense, new approaches in the last third of the 20th C, paid attention to language as communication. We, as human beings, need to communicate, and as most of us live in a literary society, we normally use oral and written language to transmit or receive information. As far as oral communication is concerned, most human beings speak using oral language in order to exchange information and interact with other people, but the use of oral language entails the knowledge of certain particular elements, norms, routines, formulae and strategies that are put into work when we are in conversations. On the other hand, writing and reading require formal instruction, and children face a series of difficulties when learning these skills, because they have to comfort oral to written discourse, adapting rules, learning spelling, dividing speech chains into chunks called words, etc. However, learning to write and read is probably the most fundamental step in education, because is the basis for future instruction and access to many fields of knowledge. In this unit, we are going to review the main characteristics of oral and written language, and then we will analyse the factors that define a communicative situation, namely the sender and the receiver of the message, the functionality and the context.
Among all the communication codes which are used by human beings (music, kinesics, sign language), written and oral language is the most efficient for the transmission and reception of information, thoughts, feelings and opinions. In addition, these linguistic codes are exclusively human and make us distinct from animals. But written and oral language are different processes: whereas we learn to write through a formal instruction, speaking and listening come naturally along different stages of the child´s evolution. Therefore we can say that oral language comes first in our history as individuals. Therefore, speech and writing are not alternative processes, but rather we must consider them counterparts: all oral language should have a good representative system in a written form. From a psychological point of view, oral communication is a two-way process in which both speaker (encoder) and hearer (decoder) must be present in the same situational context at a particular time and place (unless we talk about special cases of oral communication such as phone conversations). The functions of oral communication are, as we said before, to communicate or exchange our ideas or to interact with other people. Unlike written communication, in oral interaction we can monitor the reactions of the hearer through the feedback so that we can our speech in the course of the communication, as well as use different linguistic and non-linguistic features (gesturing, intonation...) to make our messages clearer. However, as it takes place in a particular place and time, the interlocutors have to make their contributions at a high speed, without much time to think, unlike writing. Along history, the study of spoken language has not much tradition, unlike written language, due to several reasons: - it was considered a secondary type of language as it was not reserved
only to cultivate people. Prepared speech The formal setting is organised as writing (syntax,
lexis & discourse organisation) It is memorised or written down
before (lectures, speech, oral poetry) But because of its pervasive and everyday nature, its scientific study has proved particularly complex. It has been difficult to obtain acoustically clear, natural samples of spontaneous conversation, especially of its more informal varieties. When samples have been obtained, the variety of topics, participants, and social situations which characterise conversation have made it difficult to determine which aspects of the behaviour are systematic and rule-governed. 2.1. ELEMENTS AND NORMS THAT RULE ORAL DISCOURSE Linguistic elements STRESS When we talk we have to bare in mind there is a regular distribution of accents along words and sentences. However, if we want to give special emphasis to a particular word or phrase, we change that regular pattern of stress and accent in order to make more prominent what we want. RHYTHM It is the relationship we make between accents (chunks of words) and silences. Rhythm can range from very monotonous one (in quick or prepared speech) to rhythm with contrasts in order to give expressiveness and sense to our speech. Pauses are also important, because sometimes are made to divide grammatical units and other times are unpredictable and caused by hesitations. INTONATION is the falling and rising of voice during speech. Any departure from what it is considered "normal" intonation shows special effects and expresses emotions and attitudes. Normally, falling tones show conclusion and certainty, whereas rising tones may show inconclusion or doubt (I´ll do it / I´ll do it... )
We cannot consider oral verbal communication without remembering that the whole body takes part. In fact, many times, a person can express sympathy, hostility or incredulity by means of body and facial gestures. This "body language" is normally culturally related & is learnt the same way as verbal behaviour is learnt, although it allows for spontaneity and creativity: we use head, face, hands, arms, shoulders, fingers...
Speed of speech is relatively rapid; there are many assimilations & elisions of letters; compressions of auxiliary sequences (gonna); it can be difficult to identify sentence boundaries in long loose passages; informal discourse markers are common ( you know, I mean); great creativity in the vocabulary choice, ranging from unexpected coinage (Be unsad) to use of vague words (thingummy).
When we use language, we do not only utter grammatically correct sentences, but we know where, when and to whom we are addressing our utterances. This is the reason why a speaker needs to know not only the linguistic and grammatical rules of a language (Chomsky´s linguistic competence) or rules of usage, but also how to put into effect these rules in order to achieve effective communication, so that we also need to be familiar with rules of use. Rules of usage In order to produce and understand messages in a particular language we need to be familiar with: PHONOLOGY We need to know the organisation, characteristics and
patterns of sounds to communicate. Rules of use To be communicatively efficient, we need to show our linguistic competence in real speech through: APPROPRIATENESS or knowledge of what type of language suits best
in a given situation, taking into account the context with its participants
and their social relationships, the setting, the topic, the purpose..
Man´s ability to be creative with language is something obvious, but there are times when we choose how, when and why not to be creative, to repeat what has been said or heard many times, often in exactly the same form. Linguistic routines are fixed utterances which must be considered as single units to understand their meaning, and they are of a learned character (Hi! familiar or empty How do you do?), the process through which we acquire ritual competence being perhaps the most important socialisation we make of language. Understanding routines & formulae require shared cultural knowledge because they are generally metaphorical in nature and must be interpreted at a non-literal level. People are often quite opposed to routines, formulae and rituals because they are meaningless and depersonalise our ideas, because literal semantic value is largely irrelevant. Some typical routines and habitual formulae are used in funeral condolences, religious ceremonies, weddings, graduation ceremonies... 2.4. STRATEGIES SPECIFIC OF ORAL COMMUNICATION Particular attention has been paid to the markers of conversational turns: how people know their turn to speak. In formal dialogue, there are often explicit markers, showing that a speaker is about to talk; in debate, the person in the chair more or less controls speakers´ turns. In conversation, however, the cues are more subtle, involving variations in the melody, rhythm, and speed of speech, and in patterns of eye movement. When people talk in a group, they look at and away from their listeners in about equal proportions, but when approaching the end of what they have to say, they look at the listeners more steadily, and in particular maintain closer eye contact with those they expect to continue the conversation. A listener who wishes to be the next speaker may indicate a desire to do so by showing an increase in bodily tension, such as by leaning forward or audibly drawing in breath. In addition, there are many explicit indications, verbal and non-verbal, that a speaker is coming to an end (Last but not least...), wishes to pass the conversational ball (What do you think?, staring to someone), wishes to join in (Could I just say that...), leave (Well, that is all...), change the topic (Speaking of Mary...), or check on listeners´ attention or attitude (Are you with me?). The subject-matter is an important variable, with some topics being "safe" in certain social groups (in Britain, the weather, pets, children, and the locality), others more or less "unsafe" (religious and political beliefs, questions of personal income such as How much do you earn¿). There are usually some arbitrary divisions: for example, in Britain, it is polite to comment o the taste and presentation of a meal, but usually impolite to enquire after how much it cost. In Grice´s view, we cooperate in a conversation in order to produce a rational and efficient exchange of information, so that to reach a good final result in a communicative process, we apply 4 cooperative principles or maxims: - Maxim of quality: Our contributions have to be sincere, believing
what we say & avoiding things we lack evidence of
Written communication is a type of communication, and as such, its main purpose is to express ideas and experiences or exchange meanings between individuals with a particular system of codes, which is different to that used in oral communication. In written communication, the encoder of the message is the writer and the decoder and interpreter of the message is the reader, and many times, this interpretation does not coincide with the writer´s intended meaning. When we write, we use graphic symbols, which relate to the sounds we make when we speak. But writing is much more than the production of graphic symbols, just as speech is more than the production of sounds: these symbols have to be arranged, according to certain conventions, to form words, and words to form sentences. These sentences then have to be ordered and linked together in certain ways, forming a coherent whole called text. Since classical times, there have been two contradictory approaches to speech and writing: firstly, the view that writing is the primary and speech the secondary medium, because writing is more culturally significant and lastingly valuable than speech; and secondly, the view that speech is primary and writing secondary because speech is prior to writing both historically and in terms of a child´s acquisition of language. But leaving aside this dichotomy, the first thing we must notice is that speech and writing are not alternative processes: speech comes first, but writing demands more skill and practice, and they have different formal patterns. Most important of all, however, is that written and spoken language are counterparts: a writing system should be capable of representing all the possible wordings of a person´s thoughts. This implies that both systems could be regarded as the two sides of the same coin. From a psychological point of view, writing is a solitary activity, the interlocutor is not present, so we are required to write on our own, without the interaction or the help of the feedback usually provided in oral communication. That is why we have to compensate for the absence of some linguistic features which help to keep communication going on in speech, such as prosody and paralinguisic devices such as gesturing, intonation, etc. Our texts are interpreted by the reader alone, and we cannot monitor his or her reactions, unlike the speaker: we have to sustain the whole process of communication and to stay in contact with our reader through words alone, and this is why we must be very clear and explicit about our intentions when we write. However, not all the acvantages are on the side of the oral communication: in writing, we normally have time to think about what we are trying to express, so that we can revise it and re-write it, if need be, and the reader, to understand a text, can also read and re-read it as many times as wanted.
There are some features characteristic of written language, but this should not be taken to imply that there´s a well-delimited dividing line between writing and speech. However, the extend to which each of them makes use of different resources is directly related to the nature of the two channels: speech is the language of immediate communication, and writing is a type of communication with a distance in between. This is the reason why written texts present the following formal elements: Linguistic features of written language A good writing system must be fixed, flexible, and adaptable at a time, so that: - it must provide a codified expression for the elements expressed
by oral language: each idea = a written form - markers and rhetorical organisers for clauses relationships and
clarity (written texts are more permanent) - more accuracy in the use of vocabulary, avoiding redundancy and
ambiguity (due to its permanent nature) In any case, what is most characteristic of written communication is that we see it (the organisation, length...).
In writing, communication also takes place following system and ritual
constraints: this is the reason why when we look at a text we can
distinguish and obtain information regarding different types of organisation,
different purposes and different lengths. Postcards Pieces of writing normally directed to friends or family when travelling ,and sometimes used for congratulations and greetings. We just write on one side and the language used is colloquial. Letters They can be formal (to enterprises or someone we are not
closed to) and informal (to friends or family) There are some routines
to write letters: apart from the writer´s address on the top
right-hand corner, the date, the first line (dear + name/sir/madam/Mr/Mrs...),
the closing (Yours...) and the signature, present in both types of
letters, each type of letter follows this structural organisation
into paragraphs: Filling-in forms Consist of answering what you are asked, as briefly as possible, so no writing style is needed to do so. Curriculum vitae Consists of a clear summary to give the academic knowledge and experience someone has on a certain matter, so it includes personal details, current occupation, academic qualification and professional experience. Summaries Brief résumés of articles, booklets and books that due to their special form of composition and writing they allow the reader to gather the main information about the original work without reading it. Reports They are used to present clearly and with details the summary of present and past facts or activities, and sometimes of predictable future facts from checked data, sometimes containing the interpretation of the writer but normally with the intention of stating the reality of an enterprise or institution without deformative personal visions, and can be expositive, interpretative & demonstrative Narrative texts The most universal of all the types of written texts,
refer back to the story-telling traditions of most cultures. In fact
there seem to be some basic universal structure that governs this
type of texts: Descriptive texts They are concerned with the location and characterisation
of people and things in the space, as well as providing background
information which sets the stage for narration. This type of texts
is very popular in L2 teaching, and all types have the same pre-established
organisation. Within descriptive texts we might find: Expository texts They identify and characterise phenomena, including
text forms such as definitions, explanations, instructions, guidelines,
summaries, etc...They may be subjective (an essay) and objective (definitions,
instructions), or even advice giving. They may be analytical, starting
from a concept and then characterising its parts, and ending with
a conclusion. Argumentative texts They are those whose purpose is to support or
weaken another statement whose validity is questionable. There are sometimes when we choose how, when and why not to be creative with language to repeat what is normally used in a given situation: we use linguistic routines and formulae. These are defined as fixed utterances or sequences of utterances which must be considered as single units, because their meaning cannot be derived of them unless considered as a whole. In written texts we find different types of routines and formulaic expressions, which vary depending on the type of text, as we have been previously seeing. Understanding them usually requires sharing cultural knowledge, because they are genarally metaphorical in nature and must be interpreted at a non-linguistic level (for instance, Dear in a letter does not always carry affective meaning). All those phrases and sentences that, to some extend, have a prescriptive character, can be considered as routines and formulaic expressions: to consider all the different existing routines would take too long, but some examples are, in letters & postcards (Yours sincerely) in C.V´s, the organisation of info in different blocks, in narration (Once upon a time) in descriptions (on the left, high above),etc... All in all, we can say that they are sometimes very useful but often meaningless & depersonalise our expressions & ideas.
Definition Generally speaking, communication is the exchange of meanings between individuals through a common system of symbols, and this has been the concern of scholars since the Greeks. Communication refers to the transmission of information (a message) between a source and a receiver, using a signalling system. At the turn of the century, the English literary critic Ivor Armstrong Richards offered one of the first definitions, saying that communication takes place when one mind so acts upon its environment that another mind is influenced, and in that other mind an experience occurs which is like the experience in the first mind, and is caused in part by that experience. The study of human communication in all its modes is known as semiotics. There are several types of communication, and although in principle any of the five senses can be used as a medium of communication, in practice only three (tactile, visual and aural) are implemented in both active-expressive and passive-receptive ways. Tactile communication involves touch (e.g. shaking hands, grasping the arm) and the manipulation of physical distance and body orientation in order to communicate indifference or disagreement, and is studied by proxemics. Visual communication involves the use of facial expressions (smiling, winking..., which communicate a wide range of emotions) and gestures and body postures of varying levels of formality (kneeling, bowing...). Visual non-verbal communication is studied by kinesics. Often, visual and tactile effects interact closely with verbal communication, sometimes even conveying particular nuances of meaning not easy to communicate in speech (such as the drawing of inverted commas in the air to signal a special meaning), and most of the times culturally related. The chief branch of communication studies involves the oral-aural mode, in the form of speech, and its systematic visual reflex in the form of writing. These are the verbal aspects of communication, distinguished from the non-verbal (kinesics and proxemics) aspects, often popularly referred to as body language. The term language, as we understand it, is usually restricted to speech and writing, because these mediums of transmission display a highly sophisticated internal structure and creativity. Non-verbal communication, by contrast, involves relatively little creativity. In language, it is commonplace to find new words being created, and sentences varying in practically infinite complexity. In this respect, languages differ markedly from the very limited set of facial expressions, gestures, and body movements. According to Harmer, the characteristics apply to every communicative situation is that a speaker/writer wants to communicate, has a communicative purpose, and selects language, and a listener/reader wants to listen to something, is interested in a communicative purpose, and process a variety of language. Models In order to study the process of communication several models
have been offered; fragmentation and problems of interdisciplinary
outlook have generated a wide range of discussion concerning the ways
in which communication occurs. Most communication theorists admit
that their main task is to answer the question Who says what to whom
with what effect? The most important models are: In theory, communication is said to have taken place if the information received is the same as that sent. In practice, we have to allow for all kinds of interfering factors, such as entropy (noise distorsion) which can be counteracted by negative entropy (receiver´s ability to clear blurred messages), by redundancy (used by the encoder), or by feedback (the sender calculates and weights the effects on the receiver and acts accordingly); and then we have the context, which covers the references to the linguistic aspects of the message or endophora (anaphora and cataphora) and the external aspects of situation or exophora (such as the field, or total event and purpose of the communication, the mode, or function of the text in the event, including channel and genre, and the tenor, which refers to the participants and their relationships).
The most usual answer to the question "why do we use language?" is "to communicate our ideas". But it would be wrong to think that communicating our ideas is the only purpose for which we use language. Several other functions may be identified where the communication of ideas is marginal or irrelevant. We hardly find verbal messages that would fulfil only one function , although the verbal structure of a message depends primarily on the predominant function; Following Jakobson, we agree that language must be investigated in all the variety of its functions, but an outline of these functions demands a concise survey of the constitutive factors in any act of verbal communication: the ADDRESSER sends a MESSAGE to the ADDRESSEE that to be operative requires a CONTEXT referred to and to be grasped by the addressee (either verbal and situational, a CODE, fully or partially common to the addresser and addressee, and a CONTACT, a physical channel and psychological connection enabling them to enter and stay in communication If the main purpose of our use of language is to communicate our ideas, concentrating on the context to which these ideas refer to, then we are dealing with the referential or ideational function. If there is a direct expression of the addresser´s attitude toward what is being communicated, tending to produce an impression of a certain emotion, that is the emotive or expressive function (also very common), which differs from the referential one in the sound pattern, and it flavours to some extend all our utterances. If we orientate our message towards the addressee because we want a certain reaction, we are dealing with the conative function, syntactically and often phonetically deviate from other functions (vocatives and imperatives). We talk about the phatic function when the language we use is for the purpose of establishing or maintaining social relationships, to check if the channel or contact works, to attract or confirm the attention of the interlocutor or to discontinue communication, rather than to communicate ideas, and is normally displayed by ritualised formulas (Well..., How do you do?). If we use the language to talk about the language, such as when checking if addressee is using the same code as the addresser (Do you follow me? Do you know what I mean?), we talk of the metalingual function. If, on the contrary, the focus is on the phonetic properties of the message, althogh not being the sole function of the message, we say that we are using the poetic function of language. To end up, we will say that Halliday grouped all the functions into three interrelated metafunctions: ideational, to express ideas or experiences, the interpersonal to indicate, establish or maintain social relationships, and the textual, to create written or spoken texts that fit in the particular situation in which they are used.
However, if communication were simply a matter of applying the adequate schema, we wouldn´t have to worry about the addressee´s response to the communication process. Therefore, we need procedures to integrate these abstract schemata into the concrete process of discourse itself. All communication depends on the alignment and adjustment of each interlocutor´s schemata, and the procedures we use are the interactive negotiating activities that interpret the directions provided and enable us to alter our expectations in the light of new evidence as the discourse proceeds, and this procedural ability which traduces the schematic knowledge into communicative behaviour is called capacity (inference, practical reasoning, negotiation of meaning, problem solving...). This capacity apply to two different dimensions: one referred to the kind of schema that is being realised, and the other to the kind of communicative situation that has to be negotiated, that is, to the way in which the relationship between the schemata of the interlocutors is to be managed. We find that there are occasions in which we use procedures to clear up and make more explicit and evident the frame of reference, or use rhetorical routines to specify more accurately our illocutionary acts (the intended effects of our utterances) or that felicity conditions are not satisfactory so that we must use those procedures. Other procedures, this time on the part of the addressee, are interpretative (as in A-"I have two tickets for the theatre" B- "I´ve got an exam tomorrow"). In some occasions, however, negotiation is too long, too difficult or even fails (as in interethnic interaction) because the schemata are very different, so that interlocutors may use other signalling system (e.g. pictorial), or use (re)-formulation procedures (So what you say is... Now let´s put it straight..) 7. CONCLUSION Communication is , therefore, the main purpose of a language, and the use and function that fulfils depends greatly on the characteristics of the information or the form of the message. In any case, for a communication process to be complete, it is necessary that both addresser and addressee negotiate the meaning of what is being transmitted, overcoming any possible obstacles difficulting that process.
Halliday, M. A. K. An Introduction to Functional Grammar Chapter 9 1985 Tannen, D. Conversational Style Chapter 8 1984 MacArthur, T. The Oxford Companion to the English Language OUP Oxford 1992 Hedge, T. Writing. OUP. Oxford. 1993 UNIT 2: COMMUNICATION IN THE LANGUAGE LESSON. LINGUISTIC AND NON-LINGUISTIC COMMUNICATION 1. COMMUNICATION 2. COMMUNICATION IN THE CLASSROOM 3. COMMUNICATIVE LEARNING AND TEACHING ACTIVITIES 4. NON-VERBAL COMMUNICATION 5. EXTRALINGUISTIC STRATEGIES Procedure: "COMMUNICATION IN THE FOREIGN LANGUAGE CLASSROOM: VERBAL AND NON-VERBAL COMMUNICATION. EXTRALINGUISTIC STRATEGIES: NON VERBAL REACTIONS TO MESSAGES IN DIFERENT CONTEXTS".- INTRODUCTION.-
Chomsky was one of the first language investigators to try to explain why a child learns language; he says that the enfant begins to produce language by a process of deduction using the input received and with natural resources construct an internal grammar. But later, linguists such as Hymes, noted that a child doesn´t know just a set of rules. He/she learns how and when to use them, and to whom.He says that when a native person speaks, he or she takes into account factors such as: 1. Systemic potential. Whether something (word, structure...) works
grammatically or not if it fits into the grammatical system. Halliday considers that language is, indeed, learned in a functional context of use. To summarize all the above, a communicative context governs language use, and language learning implies an acquisition of these rules of use. Grammar is not enough, as we can be grammatically correct and socioculturally incorrect or with ill-designed strategies. And so communication breaks down. Canale and Swain developed the idea of communicative competence, a design taken on by the M.E.C. as the basis for objectives in the curricular design and as a guide for teaching methodology. This communicative competence consists of 5 subcompetences: grammatical, discourse, sociolinguistic, strategic and sociocultural. - GRAMMATICAL or the ability to use the rules of the language system.
(example: the position of the adjective in English).' systemic potential. |