Language as Communication: Oral, Written & FLT
Introduction: My name is Paula Cantón Prieto, and I am going to develop the unit whose title is… Since language is the main means of human communication, learning a foreign language is a necessity in a society that promotes international relationships at social, cultural, professional, and political levels. Moreover, it also promotes mutual understanding, tolerance, and respect for the cultural values of others, as well as broadening the mind. Furthermore, the incorporation of Spain into the European community generates new formative necessities in the linguistic environment: there is a new communicative context and cultural exchange. On the other hand, history demonstrates that there have been precedents in the idea of using a common language to communicate and exchange ideas. Nowadays, the language used as *lingua franca* is English. Our educational system establishes an open and flexible curriculum that must be adapted to the particular needs of students through different levels of curricular development. Though the teaching plan should not be carried out in an arbitrary way. Nowadays, the main aim in foreign language teaching is developing students’ communicative competence. This implies adopting an approach based on communication: the Communicative Approach. It consists of providing the students with enough communicative practice to develop their ability to use the language in a variety of situations, which is the aim of our current educational law (LOE). Otherwise, the Foreign Language Area in the Curriculum contributes to the learners’ integral development. So today, learning a second language enables students to open up to different ways of life.
Unit 1: Language as Communication
Oral and written language. Factors that define a communicative situation. Functionality. The communicative approach to FLT.
Introduction
Communication between humans is an extremely complex phenomenon, with many variables: the participant, context, purpose, and channel. Whenever communication takes place, there is a speaker or writer, and a listener or reader who has a communicative purpose: having a conversation; and they will use a medium or channel for doing so: a letter, face-to-face, telephone, and so on. Since the 1970s, the belief that language is a means of communication has inspired a new approach in English language teaching: The Communicative Approach. This is based on providing students with communicative activities that will develop their oral and written skills, so they can use the language with accuracy and appropriateness. The ultimate goal is the development of the students’ communicative competence, which refers to the ability to use the language and the social dimension is also taken into consideration.
Language as Communication
What is Language?
Language is the main means by which people communicate. It is a system of signs that are combined to transmit a message. Here we will discuss some important human language features:
- Auditory-vocal channel: It is a system of sound signals used between mouth and ear.
- Total feedback: Speakers hear and can reflect upon everything they say.
- Arbitrariness: There is no link between the signal and the nature of the reality to which it refers.
- Traditional transmission: Human language is transmitted from one generation to the next.
- Duality: The sounds of a language are combined with other phonemes to form words.
- Displacement: Speakers can talk about events remote in time and space.
- Productivity: Human language is essentially creative.
- Structure dependence: A person must know how the elements of the structure are related to each other.
All the features show that acquiring a language is a complicated process which is unconscious and effortless when children learn their mother tongue, but conscious and difficult when learning a foreign language.
Communication Theories
We will now explain three influential approaches on communication theory:
- Cooperative principle: Paul Grice emphasized that people cooperate in the process of communication to reduce misunderstanding. He proposed four rules of conversation:
- Maxim of quantity: it states that speakers should give the right amount of information.
- Maxim of Quality: It states that a speaker’s contribution to a conversation ought to be true.
- Maxim of Manner: It states that the contributions should be clear.
- Speech act theory: J.L. Austin has found three types of performative acts: Locutionary act, Illocutionary act, Perlocutionary act.
- Discourse analysis: Discourse is often used to mean any sequence of language in written or spoken form larger than a sentence. Conversation analysis studies strategies for beginning and ending a conversation, changing topics; in fact, formulaic exchanges: question-answer, greeting-greeting, apology-acceptance.
Once we have studied these approaches, we can conclude that they have a common concern: they see language as a dynamic, social, and interactive phenomenon, whether between the speaker and listener or the writer and reader. Meaning is conveyed by more complex exchanges, in which the participant, the purpose, and the situation play a crucial part. Now, I will continue by analyzing the main features of oral and written language.
Oral and Written Language
Historical Background
For centuries, written language held a more pre-eminent place than oral language. It wasn’t until the 20th century, however, that a new approach appeared. This new approach pointed out that speech was more important than writing because it is developed naturally in children, while writing is artificially taught and because writing is a transcription of the sounds of speech. Nowadays, speech and writing are different systems of communication, with their own characteristics and uses.
Differences Between Oral and Written Language
The physical form: speech uses the form of air-pressure movements and the written language uses graphs that are marks on a surface. Speech is immediate, dynamic, transitory, and interactive. Writing is static and permanent, and there is no interaction between the addresser and the addressee. Let’s look at the differences between oral and written language.
Characteristics of Oral Language
A. Expressive possibilities: When speaking, we can vary the tone, the accent, and the speed of our words to underline the most important word in our speech, or to show our attitude towards what we are saying. B. Use of gestures and body language: they are important because they reinforce the transmission of the message. C. Simple constructions: The spontaneity and speed of oral language makes a person build simpler sentences when speaking than when writing. Pause, repetitions, or rephrasing. These are frequent, according to the degree of the speaker’s understanding. Errors. It is normal to make mistakes or to hesitate when speaking.
Methodological Principles of Oral Language
Activity, socialization, individualization, and motivation. The first aim at school should be to motivate and release oral language starting from the child’s interest and experience.
Main Forms and Techniques of Oral Communication
The practice of dialogues and monologues.
Assessment of Oral Language
It is a complex process due to the fact that oral communication is not only influenced by the way of expressing but also by the speaker’s personality, intelligence, and emotions. Evaluation of oral language includes three levels: diagnosis of the difficulties and mistakes, correction, and planning of activities of reinforcement and extension.
Characteristics of Written Language
A. Precision: The fact that writing is permanent allows more time for its preparation, promoting the development of careful organization and more structured expression than in oral language. B. Clarity: The participants in a written interaction are not usually present. Therefore, ambiguity should be limited to the maximum. C. Unique graphic features: Writing displays several features such as punctuation, spelling, space organization, capitalization, and calligraphy. All this make the learning of written skills more difficult. D. Formal: Written language tends to be more formal than spoken language and it provides a standard valued by society.
Methodology of Written Language
In the same way as we distinguish controlled practice, guided or directed practice, and free practice in oral language, we should distinguish them in written language. The difference between the three stages is the level of free participation the student has when writing.
Assessment of Written Language
A good test should give us a reliable indication of our student’s skill.
Pedagogical Implications
We can draw several conclusions: oral language is easier to acquire, so it should be introduced earlier. It is more natural. Written language is characterized by a bigger demand in the correction of its structure than oral language. Errors in oral language should be considered as more normal within the learning process. Spelling exercises are important: students find the writing of words in English difficult because of the difference between the oral and written forms. The understanding of oral expressions should be encouraged. The graphic features of writing make the learning of this skill the slowest to acquire. To be able to write is not only a necessary linguistic competence. It is also necessary to learn how to organize ideas in a written text. The teacher should give notions of style to help the students to organize their discourse logically and cohesively.
Factors that Define a Communicative Situation
Addresser, Addressee
They are the participants in the communicative act. The addresser is the author of the message and the addressee is the person or people to whom it is directed. The relationship between the participants in a communicative act is called the tenor. In an English classroom, we should try to vary the interactions: teacher-student, student-teacher, student-student, student-students.
The Context
Linguists distinguish between linguistic context (the text, words, phrases…) and the situational context (the place and the moment in which the communicative act is developed). In the English class, the students should learn how to select the language form to use in a certain context. We can use role-plays with children to recreate a situation.
Purpose
It is the intention of a message. When learning English, the students should have a purpose or desire to communicate.
Topic
It is the matter about which the interaction develops. In order to have successful communicative activities in the English class, it is essential for the topics to be based on the students’ interests.
Medium/ Channel
The medium is the means by which a message is transmitted. There are two types of media: speech and writing. The channel is the technical means of transmission: telephone, television, radio.
The Code
The code is the communication system shared by the addresser and addressee. Language is the most frequent code used. But there are also extra-linguistic codes as facial expressions, body language, or intonation. Non-verbal communication is also very important.
Register
In linguistics, *register* refers to a defined style of language and has to do with more or less formality. Martin Joos describes the following register: formal, consultative, casual, intimate, frozen. In the English classroom, the register used corresponds to informal or intimate situations, since the context will always be friendly. In the third cycle, the teacher could introduce a more formal language.
Functionality
Jakobson’s Model
He has found six general functions:
- Emotive: This is the expression of feelings and attitudes.
- Conative: This is used to draw the addressee’s attention.
- Referential: It is the communication of ideas or facts.
- Poetic: This is the language used for aesthetic purposes or as verbal play.
- Phatic: This is based on the human being’s need for showing signs of friendship.
- Metalingual function: This is used when explanations are requested for clarification.
Halliday’s Model
Halliday sees language as a social and cultural phenomenon. He identifies three principal functions of language:
- The ideational: This function emphasizes language as an instrument of thought with which we represent the world to ourselves.
- The interpersonal function: This function emphasizes language as an instrument of transaction by which we represent ourselves to other people.
- The textual function: It emphasizes language as an instrument of communication with which we construct sentences cohesively and coherently.
Language Teaching now focuses on communicative proficiency rather than on mastery structures. The language presented to students must be contextualized in realistic and natural situations. Students are expected to interact with one another through pair and group work in order to experience communication. The syllabus should be organized around the notions and functions that learners may need in order to communicate successfully.
The Communicative Approach to FLT
Background
The Communicative approach appeared in the 1970s as a reaction to the Audiolingual Method, which paid more attention to structure than to its function. The changes became a revolution when Chomsky proposed an alternative theory. He argued that sentences are not learned by imitation and repetition but are generated from the learners’ competence. Learners, then, should be encouraged to use their innate and creative abilities.
Communicative Competence
Dell Hymes established the communicative competence. It is defined as what a speaker needs to know in order to be communicatively competent in a speech community. Hymes said that a communicative and cultural dimension should be incorporated. Canale and Swain established four sub-competences:
- Grammatical (linguistic code).
- Discursive (the ability to relate and combine grammatical forms to achieve coherent texts).
- Sociolinguistic (the ability to produce and understand messages relating to social context, participants, and purpose).
- Strategic (it refers to participant’s verbal and non-verbal strategies).
These four skills are complemented by the socio-cultural competence. Julian Edge describes the students’ tasks as juggling with accuracy, fluency, and appropriateness.
Communicative Activities
Communicative activities refer to the tasks and exercises that the student carries out for real communication. A communicative activity must be interactive, unpredictable, within a context, and authentic. *Examples:* information-gap activities, role-play, problem-solving, following instructions, describing personal experiences, communicative games, reaching a consensus. *Examples of written activities:* writing instructions, short messages, short letters, to penfriends, questionnaires, imaginary diaries, filling forms, project work.
Conclusion
Learning a foreign language today implies knowing the structures and the vocabulary, at oral and written in a variety of circumstances and situations. The English teacher can’t just teach structures, vocabulary, and pronunciation. He should add the social element. The teacher should keep in mind that the structures he will teach are transmitted within a certain context, through a channel, orientated to an addressee who will interpret it. The function of the message and the factors that intervene in a communication act must be included in the methodology of the foreign language.