TEMA 1 - Preparadores de Oposiciones para la Enseñanza

Lenguaje y Comunicación • 1
E.O.I. INGLES
TEMA 1:
Lenguaje y comunicación. Funciones del lenguaje. La
competencia comunicativa: sus componentes.
Autora: Silvia Riesco Bernier
(Actualizado a septiembre 2007)
Contents:
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1. Introduction
2. The communicative process
2.1. Aspects of speech situation
2.2. Schematic models of communication
3. Functions of language
3.1. Formalism and functionalism
3.1.1. Formal and functional explanations of language
3.1.2. Halliday’s metafunctions
3.2. A process model of language
4. Language teaching: theoretical background
4.1. Principal methods and characteristics
4.2. Grammar Translation
4.3. Natural Method
4.4. Direct Method
4.5. Audiolingual Method
4.6. Cognitive Method
4.7. Suggestopedia
5. Communicative competence: specification of communicative competence
in second and foreign language teaching
5.1. On communicative competence
5.2. Communicative Language Teaching
5.3. Communicative competence in the language classroom
5.3.1. Grammar and grammatical competence
5.3.2. Pronunciation and phonological competence
5.3.3. Vocabulary and lexical competence
5.3.4. Sociolinguistic and pragmatic competence
REV.: 09/07
6. Bibliography
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Lenguaje y Comunicación • 2
1. INTRODUCTION
Our students, to be able to communicate effectively in English, must
bring to bear both general and linguistic capacities. The Common
European Framework (2001) analysis of the former includes knowledge
of the world, sociocultural knowledge, intercultural knowledge, skills and
know-how, existential competence and an ability to learn. These are now
mentioned in our legal framework as it contain provisions relating to
language competence attainment targets and programmes of study in
English for our students. By the end of the “Advanced level” (R.D.
1629/2006; L.O.E. 2/2006; B.O.C.M. 147 22/06/2007), our students are
expected to have a functional knowledge of English and appropriate
communicative skills to use it in both written and oral communicative
situations. To achieve this result, four aspects of language instruction
contribute to the mastery of English: phonetic, morphosyntactic, lexical
and sociolinguistic. The first three are subsumed under the heading
linguistic competence by CEF; to sociolinguistic competence, CEF adds
pragmatic competence.
In accordance with the aforementioned Royal Decrees, this unit will
focus first on the characteristics of language and communication.
Secondly, it will describe the functions of language. And, thirdly, it will
concentrate on communicative competence and its factors, paying
special attention to those techniques and resources we believe to be
more suitable for the different stages of teaching and assessment and
according to our students' characteristics and needs.
2. THE COMMUNICATIVE PROCESS
2.1. Aspects of speech situation
The speech situation results from the addresser, addressee, the context,
the goals, the utterance and the illocutionary act. Pragmatics is
concerned with meaning in relation to a speech situation, i.e. language in
context.
Following the practice of Searle (1969), Leech (1983) refers to
addressers and addressees as a matter of convenience as speaker
and hearer. These will be speaker/writer and hearer/reader. But,
according to Lyons (1977), a significant distinction can be made between
a receiver (a person who receives and interprets the message) and an
addressee (a person who is an intended receiver of a message).
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The context of utterance refers to the relevant aspects of the physical
or social setting of an utterance. Leech considers context to be any
background knowledge assumed to be shared by the speaker and
hearer and which contributes to the hearer’s interpretation of what the
speaker means by a given utterance. According to Halliday (1994) this is
undoubtedly shaped by the context of situation (“the register”) and the
context of culture (“genre”).
The goals of an utterance refers to the function and intention of an
utterance. And finally, the utterance is to be understood as a form of
act and the product of a verbal action. Whereas grammar deals with
abstract entities such as sentences and propositions, pragmatics deals
with verbal acts (known as “speech acts”, cf. Searle 1969).
2.2. Schematic models of communication
According to Jakobson, the model of communication includes the
addresser, addresee and context, mentioned above, but also considers
the message (what is being said/written), the contact (physical
contact/connection between speaker and hearer) and the code (written
vs. spoken).
According to Systemic Functional Linguistics (Hasan 1985; Halliday and
Hasan 1985; Martin 1992; Halliday 1994), communication is to be
understood within the speech situation, whose components are:
-
-
-
The Field refers to the content of the message, i.e. the
topic, “the nature of the social action: what it is the
interactants are about”, and influences language in that it
defines the degree of generality or specificity the message
should display.
The Tenor refers to “the statuses and role relationships:
who is taking part in the interaction”, it thus shapes
language by considering the nature of the participants and
their relation to each other (distance and power
relationships).
And, the Mode refers to the role and part the text is playing,
contrasting thus written vs. spoken, spontaneous vs.
prepared..
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3. FUNCTIONS OF LANGUAGE
3.1. Formalism and Functionalism
As two approaches to linguistics, Formalism and Functionalism tend to
be associated with very different views of nature of language.
Formalists tend to regard language as a mental phenomenon (Chomsky)
whereas functionalists usually regard it as a societal phenomenon
(Halliday 1985). While formalists tend to explain universals as deriving
from a common genetic linguistic inheritance of human species,
functionalists tend to explain the universals of language as deriving from
the universality of the uses to which language is put in human societies.
Additionally, formalists are inclined to explain children’s acquisition of
language in terms of a built-in human capacity to learn language
whereas functionalists explain it in terms of the development of the
child’s communicative needs and abilities in society. Above all, formalists
approach language as an autonomous system. On the contrary,
functionalists analyse it in relation to its social functions.
3.1.1. Formal and functional explanations of language
Broadly, a formal grammatical theory such as Transformational Grammar
(Chomsky 1965) defines language as a set of sentences. These
sentences have meanings (senses) and pronunciation. Thus, the
grammar has to define a set of mappings whereby particular senses are
matched with particular pronunciations. The central level of syntax is an
essential component of this complex mapping. Three levels of
representation (semantics, syntax and phonology) are therefore
assumed. In addition to the mapping rules, there are rules of well
formedness, specifying what is well formedness or grammatical
representation at each level.
A functional explanation, in turn, means explaining why a given
phenomenon occurs by showing what its contribution is to a larger
system of which it is itself a sub system. A functional theory defines
language as a form of communication and therefore is concerned with
showing how language works within the larger systems of human
society. When we discuss meanings of intentions, (illocutionary
meanings), we talk about the purposes, goals and ends (Grice 1975,
Searle 1969).
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When discussing the properties of language, the term “Function” leaves
open how far the attainment of goals is due to conscious states of the
individual, or for that matter, whether the goal is an attribute of the
individual or the community.
As an introduction, let us mention three well-known classifications of
linguistic functions and later focus on Popper’s and Halliday’s.
- Malinowsky’s anthropological model which classified the functions
of language into two broad categories: magical (ritual use of
language for social or religious activities in a particular society) vs.
pragmatic (practical use of language- active and narrative).
- Bühler’s interpretation which focuses more on the individual and
which distinguishes the expressive use of language (oriented
towards the self), the conative use (oriented towards the
addressee) and the representational use (oriented towards the
world). His model oriented the Prague School and was extended
by Jakobson.
- Jakobson’s six functions of language:referential, emotive, poetic,
conative, phatic and metalingual.
More specifically, Popper’s taxonomy understands that there is a
progression from lower to higher functions in the evolution of human
language, e.g. in more primitive communicative systems, the expressive
and signalling functions of language are more frequent.
•
•
•
•
Expressive function: using language expressing internal states
of the individual
Signalling function: using language to communicate information
about internal states to other individuals
Descriptive function: using language to describe the external
world.
Argumentative function: using language to present and evaluate
arguments and explanations.
Actually, there seems to be a hierarchy of linguistic theory types
corresponding to those four worlds (Popper). The most basic type treats
language as purely physical. The second theory type treats language as
a mental phenomenon and is advocated by Chomsky and the Generative
Grammar school. It should be mentioned that this theory does not handle
social facts about language and cannot generalise linguistic descriptions
beyond the linguistic competence of the individual. The third type, in turn,
treats language as a social phenomenon (Saussure, Firth, Halliday).
Saussure’s concept of language as a social institution, which exists apart
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from any particular members of the linguistic community is already halfway towards the fourth and final theory type, which regards language as
an inmate of the fourth world, the world of the objective knowledge. In
other wods, language exists outside the individual. Interestingly,
pragmatics deals with the relation between the third and fourth world.
3.1.2. Halliday’s metafunctions
Once Popper’s four language functions have been considered, let us
now move onto the semantic and functional orientation of Systemic
Functional Linguistics, which accounts for the intention of explaining
how language is structured to be used in accordance with the contextual
situation. SFL focuses on the different ways the three main functions
performed by language (ideational, interpersonal and textual) are
represented in the language system through the called “metafunctions”
(Halliday 1985) and on how those are articulated in relation to the
context of occurrence.
Understanding meaning as the expression of the language functions,
meaning is to be looked at in the light of the three different functions that
language, according to SFL, simultaneously performs and achieves in
the text. More specifically, it is said that language organises itself around
two fundamental types of meaning: i.e. the ideational or reflexive related
to the speaker’s or writer’s experience of the world, used to describe
events or states; and the interpersonal or active related to the interaction
with other people, concerned with the expression of social roles (Halliday
1994:xiii). Articulated between the two lies the third component “which
breathes relevance into the other two” (ibid.), the textual function, that
accounts for the actual use of language in order to organise the message
both internally (within clauses and sentences/utterances, making links in
itself) and externally (within the text as a whole and the situation where it
is created).
The three functions of the language are therefore realised in grammar
through the systems of linguistic choices of the three metafunctions:
ideational, interpersonal and textual. First, just a word to clarify that the
ideational metafunction comprises the experiential and the logical
components of language, which Popper calls “descriptive and
argumentative functions” respectively.
The experiential function aims at the expression of content. The
selections relate to the semantic categories embodied in the linguistic
structures that express the phenomena of the real world: the Processes
(goings on), Participants (people/things involved in the process) and
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Circumstances of the particular meaning that is communicated. And the
grammatical system by which this is achieved is TRANSITIVITY. And,
the logical component, standing for some authors as the “fourth
metafunction” defines complex units, e.g. the CLAUSE COMPLEX
(clause relationships: expansion, projection, etc...).
Secondly, the interpersonal function (named “expressive and signalling”
by Popper) is the use of language to express the speaker’s roles in the
interaction. It is identified with the expression of the interpersonal
metafunction in lexicogrammar. The MOOD system allows the speaker
to express his/her role by displaying the range of the basic speech
functions (i) give information, (ii) give goods and services, (iii) demand
information and (iv) demand goods and services, which are embodied in
the different mood types: indicative (declarative and interrogative) and
imperative. Additionally, the interpersonal meanings are expressed in the
Mood structure (Mood –subject and finite- and Residue) and the modality
expressed. Furthermore, in spoken discourse, the TONE system within
intonation displays an interpersonal function (Halliday 1970; Halliday
1994:302).
Thirdly, the textual function- related to the creation of an appropriate
context for the expression of ideational and interpersonal meanings- is
associated to the lexicogrammatical choices in the textual metafunction,
where the speakers organise the message, structure the information of a
text and relate the different parts of discourse to construct a whole. The
expression of textual meanings in the clause is achieved by the system
of THEME (in written language) and INFORMATION STRUCTURE (in
spoken language) at a structural level, and COHESION (Halliday and
Hasan 1976) at a non-structural level.
3.2. A process model of language
We shall build how the interpersonal and textual prgamatics fit into the
overall functional view of langauge so as to represent both the speaker’s
and hearer’s ends of the communicative process.
A linguistic act of communication (an utterance) is described as
constituting a transaction on three different grounds (a) an interpersonal
transaction or discourse, (b) an indeational transaction or message
transmission, and (c) a textual transaction or text. But these are ordered
such that the discourse includes the message, and the message
includes the text. The model Leech adopts is functional: it shows how the
various elements of grammar and rhetoric contribute to the functioning of
language in the service of goal-directed behaviour.
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4. LANGUAGE TEACHING: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
Changes in language teaching methods throughout history have
reflected recognition of changes in the kind of proficiency learners need
such as move towards oral proficiency rather than reading
comprehension as the goal of language study and have also reflected
changes in theories of the nature of language and of language learning.
First, a number of principal methods of second language teaching are
described. Later, we will focus on how “communicative competence” has
gradually been integrated as a crucial ingredient in language teaching.
4.1. Principal methods and characteristics
Essentially, the various methods involve at their foundations one or
more of four basic ideas: translation, situational context participation,
linguistic analysis and learning psychology.
- Translation involves providing comparable native language words,
phrases, sentences, for unkown target language items.
- Situational context participation involves the use of the target
language in actual or simulated situations in which the student
participates.
- Linguistic analysis concerns the application of linguistic knowledge
either indirectly through the selection, organization and grading of
target language materials or directly in the actual teaching of
studends involves a consideration of learning psychology.
Obviously, teaching methods differ on a number of other characteristics
in addition to those outlined: skills emphasized, the use of spontaneous
language materials in the target language, features involved, etc...
4.2. Grammar Translation
The Grammar Translation method (hereafter, GT) essentially involves
two components, the explicit study of grammatical rules and vocabulary
and the use of translation. Translation is the oldest of the components.
By the 18th century, grammar had already become a full partner in the
method, even to the extent of being included in the name. Rules are
explained by the teacher, then memorized and recited and applied by the
student.
The aim of GT has changed over the years. Originally, it had two
principal aims: the study of the literature of the second language and the
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development of analytical skills. The 20th c. has seen three main changes
in grammatical explanations: the neogrammarial prescrptivist approach,
the structural approach and the transformational approach.
4.3. Natural Method
The Natural Method developed as a reaction to GT and grew more
vigorously in France with inspiration from the work of Rousseau. The
method took its name from what is considered to be the natural way to
learn a language, by exposure to language that is used in ordinary
personal communicative situations. Its model was the child’s learning a
first language where grammar is not taught and translation is irrelevant.
On the contrary, it is claimed that students learn through conversation.
4.4. Direct Method
The DM became established towards the end of the 19th c. and reached
the height of its influence in the first quarter of the 20th century. It also
developed as a reaction against GT. It, too, emphasized the learning of
speech, acquiring meaning in environmental context and learning
grammar through induction. The advocates of the DM, while approving of
NM, sought to improve upon it by providing systematic procedures based
on scientific knowledge of linguistics and psycholinguistics.
There was considerably less use of spontaneous language as a result.
Materials were selected and graded and oral pattern drills and dialogues
for memorisation were devised.
4.5. Audiolingual Method
The Audiolingual Method is the direct successor to the DM, for aside
from incorporating structural linguistic theory and behavioristic
psychology into foundation, the ALM significantly differs from DM only in
emphasis.
The ALM was developed during World War II and reached its height of
influence during the fifties and sixties (Fries 1945 and Lado 1964). It
preferred drills to the natural use of language in context. It was this lack
of attention to the communicative use of language that stimulated the
growth of a number of methods which do emphasize the environmental
aspects, e.g. Communicty language learning and the Silent Way. The
former regards the second language learning situation from the point of
view of small group dynamics where the teacher takes the role of a
counselor who fosters interaction. On the contrary, in the latter the
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teacher is almost entirely silent so as to develop the students’ productive
speaking competence.
4.6. Cognitive Code
Embodied in Ausubel’s works, The Cognitive Code arose in the sixties as
reaction to the ALM. Linguists within the CC are mentalist in their
philosophy, advocates of Generative Grammar and eclectic in
methodology. They developed little in the way of a distinctive method.
4.7. Suggestopedia
According to Lozanov (its founder), in 24 days, second language
students can learn 1800 words, speak within the framework of a whole
essential grammar and read any text. These remarkable achievements
can be gained through a state of hypermnesia in which memory powers
and other abilities related to language learning are increased remarkably.
Teaching involves the presentation of dialogues and vocabulary which
the student is to study and memorize. The materials are presented first in
written then spoken forms. A translation is offered along with the written
form. The unique aspect of teaching lies in the way materials are
presented in conjunction with certain learners.
5. COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE AND SECOND AND FOREIGN
LANGUAGE TEACHING
Back to the Bloomfieldian American Structuralism, linguistics was
exclusively the study of language structure and the classification of forms
of language without reference to the categories of meaning.
Then, in the late fifties, Chomsky published his Syntactic Structures and
this event heralded the arrival of transformational generative grammar. TG
is a revolution in the aims of linguistic theory. Taxonomic classifications of
structures is no longer considered adequate and were concerned with
developing systems of rules which account for the structural possibilities of
a language. The language teacher’s emphasis on mastery of structure is,
then, parallelled by a similar emphasis within linguistics. And in both fields
a parallel reaction has taken place. It is a reaction against the view of
language as a set of structures: it is a reaction towards the view of
language as communication, a view in which meaning and the uses to
which language is put play a central part.
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5.1. On Communicative Competence
In traditional approaches to language teaching, the degree of proficiency
that our students achieved was described in terms of their mastery of the
system of the language at three levels: phonology, morphosyntax and
lexis. It is obvious that this kind of knowledge is not adequate in itself for
those learners who want to learn a foreign language in order to make use
of it rather than know about it. If we believe that people learn languages so
that they can communicate with one another we must study what exactly
constitutes proficiency in a foreign language.
Chomsky (1965) defined language as a set of sentences, each finite in
length and constructed out of a finite set of elements. Able speakers have
a subconscious knowledge of the grammar rules of their language which
allows them to make sentences in that language. This linguistic
competence is the knowledge of a language and what the linguist should
be concerned with, while linguistic performance is the knowledge of a
finite set of rules which enables the language user to produce an infinite
set of sentences. Chomsky associates his views of “competence” and
“performance” with the Saussurean conception of langue (the priviledged
ground of structure) and parole (the residual realm of variation).
However, far from understanding language as a formal system and
convinced that competence means far more than “grammatical
knowledge”, Hymes (1972) feels a linguistic theory should develop to
provide a more constituitive role for sociocultural factors, deal with a
heterogeneous speech community and
differential competence.
Furthermore, performance is an imperfect reflection of the underlying
system. Therefore, Chomsky’s dychotomy competence/performance is
further subdivided into “linguistic competence” (producing and
understanding grammatically correct sentences) and “communicative
competence” (producing and understanding sentences that are
appropriate and acceptable to a particular situation). Communicative
competence is indeed the knowledge of other types of rules related to
the referential and social meaning of language: the rules of use.
Speakers need a social and cultural knowledge to understand and use
linguistic forms. When native speakers speak, not only do they utter
grammatically correct forms, but also know 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 replaced it with
his own concept of communicative competence. Hymes distinguished
four aspects of this competence: systematic potential; appropriacy;
occurrence; feasibility.
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(i)
(ii)
(iii)
(iv)
Systematic potential means that the native speaker possesses
a system that has a potential for creating a lot of language.
This is similar to Chomsky's competence.
Appropriacy means that the native speaker knows what
language is appropriate in a given situation. This choice is
based on the following variables, among others: setting,
participants, purpose, channel and topic.
Occurrence means that the native speaker knows how often
something is said in the language and act accordingly.
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 constructions we
know that these constructions are not possible in the language.
5.2. Communicative Language Teaching
The areas contributing to CLT are many. It is possible however to
consider these under three and very overlapping headings: the
sociological (i.e. the ethnography, ethnomethodology and antropology
of speaking- Hymes, Gumper), the philosophical (concerned with what
the structure of language tells us about the structure of the mind- Austin,
Grice, Searle) and the linguistic (generative semantics, applied
linguistics, discourse analysis in functional texts and semantic networks).
Relating language to extra-linguistic phenomena is what links the world
of Halliday to Hymes in a common tradition. And just as for Halliday and
Hymes, we can only understand language if we view it in this way so it
may be that we can only really teach language if we present and practise
it in relation to its uses. It is on that belief that CLT is based. In other
words, the instrumentality of language teaching.
CLT is generally accpeted as the norm in the field but subject to many
interpretations. Its five distinctive features are:
- emphasis on learning to communicate through interaction in the
target language
- introduction to authentic texts into the learning situation
- provision of opportunities to focus, not only on language but on
learning process
- enhancement of learners’ own personal experiences
- link learning in class with language activation outside class.
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5.3. Communicative competence in the language classroom
Undoubtedly, Hymes’s work was of great influence among English
language teachers as it coincided with (i) the dissatisfaction with the
structural approaches and (ii) the elaboration of a functional/situational
syllabus set up by the Council of Europe. The main goal for English
Language Teaching (hence, ELT) became to enable learners to interact
successfully with other members of other societies, which was
materialised in the different components of communicative competence:
linguistic competence, pragmatic competence, discourse competence,
strategic competence and fluency (cf. Canale and Swain 1980).
The communicative approach to language teaching is based on the
development
of
communicative
language
ability.
Therefore,
communicative practice constitutes an essential part of the learning
process in the ELT classroom where (i) the language should be a means
to an end, (ii) the content should be determined by the learner, (iii) there
must be a negotiation of meaning between speakers, (iv) there should be
an information gap and (v) the teacher’s intervention to correct should be
minimal (Hedge 2000:57). Altogether, the above ingredients result in
Communicative Language Teaching (cf. Widdowson 1978), orientated
towards the teaching of appropriateness (communicative competence)
along with the linguistic skills (linguistic competence). The direct
implications of Communicative Language Teaching (hereafter, CLT) are
involving learners in tasks that require face-to-face interaction, and giving
students practice in communicating and negotiating meanings, i.e. “learn
to communicate by communicating” (Larsen-Freeman 1986:131).
Canale and Swain provided in 1980 a specification of communicative
competence which included three intercommunicating factors. Canale later
subdivided one of these factors (pragmatic competence), listing a total of
four areas of knowledge and skills:
(i)
(ii)
(iii)
(iv)
Grammatical competence is the mastery of the language
code.
Sociolinguistic competence is the appropriateness of
utterances with respect to both
meaning and form.
Discourse competence is the mastery of how to combine
grammatical forms and meanings to achieve unity of a spoken
or written text.
Strategic competence is the mastery of verbal and nonverbal communication strategies used to compensate for
breakdowns in communication, and to make communication
more
effective.
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These four categories have been adapted for teaching purposes. Thus,
Royal Decrees which establish the teaching requirements for Primary and
Secondary Education, and English Distance Learning (That's English!)
nationwide see communicative competence as comprising five
subcompetences:
(i)
(ii)
(iii)
(iv)
(v)
grammar competence
discourse competence
sociolinguistic competence
strategic competence
sociocultural competence
Finally, the Common European Framework for Languages has established
the componential analysis we will follow.
5.3.1. Grammar and grammatical competence
The view of grammar that emerged from that model had the following
features (Kerr 1996):
grammar is at the centre of language learning
grammar is concerned with isolated sentences
grammar is concerned mainly with verbs
grammar is acquired through practice of previously presented
rules
- grammar is independent of lexis
-
For the realisation of their communicative intentions, our students must
be able to use their grammatical competence, i.e., they must be able,
according to the Common European Framework, to understand and
express meanings by producing and recognising well-formed phrases
and sentences in accordance with the principles governing the assembly
of grammatical elements. As the grammar of any language is extremely
complex one of our roles as teachers will be, following the R.D.
1629/2006, the B.O.C.M. 147 22/06/2007 and the Common European
Framework, to consider and state which morphosyntactical elements our
students need for effective communication according to their level.
5.3.2. Pronunciation and phonological competence
Nowadays, the Communicative approach emphasizes the attainment of
a threshold level of pronunciation (intelligibility), rather than a native-like
performance. Its techniques and resources include (Ur 1996): listen and
imitate; phonetic training; minimal pair drills; contextualized minimal
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pairs; visual aids; tongue twisters; vowel shifts; stress shifts; reading
aloud; recording of learners' production, etc.
For the realisation of their communicative intentions, our students,
following R.D. 1629/2006, the B.O.C.M. 147 22/06/2007 and the
Common European Framework Specifications, must have knowledge of,
and skill in the production of phonemes and allophones; distinctive
features; phonetic composition of words; prosody (suprasegmental
features) and phonetic reduction (connected speech).
5.3.3. Vocabulary and Lexical competence
The traditional view of vocabulary was heavily dominated by the
dictionary. Students think of it as a list of individual words that they try to
memorise. However, current developments in language teaching and
applied linguistics have forced us to change this word-by-word, form-totranslation idea of vocabulary.
Research seems to point out that lexical items – single word forms, fixed
expressions such as sentential formulas, phrasal idioms, fixed frames,
fixed collocations, etc., and grammatical forms belonging to closed word
classes (Common European Framework)- are arranged in a number of
associative networks. These networks can be activated in different ways:
semantic fields, similar spelling and/or pronunciation, more idiosyncratic
factors, et cetera. Other variables, such as word frequency and recency
of use, will also affect our retrieval and recognition systems.
For the realisation of their communicative intentions, our students must
be able to use their lexical competence, i.e., they must, following the
Common European Framework, have the knowledge of, and ability to
use, the vocabulary of English organised into functions, notions and
semantic fields.
5.3.4. Sociolinguistic and Pragmatic competence
Sociolinguistics can be defined as the study of all aspects of the
relationship between society and language (Crystal 2003). These social
factors may include social class, age, gender, ethnic origin, etc. The
Common European Framework gives a detailed list of those aspects of
sociocultural competence which are linguistic in nature and therefore
sociolinguistic: (i) markers of social relations; (ii) politeness conventions;
(iii) expressions of folk-wisdom; (iv) register differences; and (v) dialect
and accent.
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Pragmatics studies language from the point of view of the users. Crystal
(2003) mentions three factors: (i) the choices we make; (ii) the
constraints we encounter in social interaction; and (iii) the effect we have
on other participants. For Richards et al. (1992), pragmatics includes the
study of: (i) how the interpretation and use of utterances depends on
knowledge of the real world; (ii) how speakers understand and use
speech acts; and (iii) how the structure of sentences is influenced by the
relation between speaker and hearer.
The Common European Framework considers that pragmatic
competence is concerned with the principles according to which
messages are: (i) organised; (ii) used in communication; and (iii)
sequenced. Following this threefold nature, pragmatic competence will
be divided into
o Discourse competence has to do with the ordering of
elements in terms of: (i) the information structure of a
sentence/utterance; (ii) natural sequencing and (iii) discourse
structure.
o Functional competence is concerned with the use of
language for particular purposes.
o Design competence is defined by CEF as the knowledge of
and ability to use the schemata that underlie communication
(i.e. structured sequence of actions in which participants take
turns to interact).
More recently, the B.O.C.M. 147 (22/06/2007) acknowledges that
communicative competence results from
o Linguistic competence: grammar, discourse, lexis, phonology
and spelling
o Pragmatic competence: functional (in that it teaches
language so as to express an intention or a particular
function) and discoursive (in that it expresses such functions
through texts- spoken or written)
o Sociolinguistic competence: the social use of language
according to the context of occurrence (situation and culture)
o Strategic: which refers to communication strategies (to repair
communication breakdowns) and to learning strategies.
To conclude, it can be said that teachers are invited to follow a
communicative approach to language teaching today. However, it should
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be borne in mind that the effectiveness of a method, according to
Richards and Rodgers (1986), requires empirical validation independent
of the motivating theory or its supposed effects. In the final analysis, a
method can be judged successful only if it is successful, i.e. empirical
research is necessary to make an objective assessment in this regard.
6.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
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Richards J. C. and T.S. Rogers 1986. Approaches and Methods in
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