Language Essentials: Morphology and Communication Insights
The Significance of Morphology in Language
Understanding Word Formation and Language Structure
Morphology, as a core linguistic discipline, serves two primary purposes: the creation of new words and the modification of existing ones. Fundamentally, its overarching goal is to deepen our understanding of language itself.
This understanding is particularly beneficial for educators. When words possess identifiable components like prefixes or suffixes, their meanings and functions become more predictable,
Read MoreLanguage Assessment Principles and Test Types
Purposes of Language Testing
Different purposes require different kinds of tests. The purposes of testing discussed in this context include:
- To measure language proficiency regardless of any language courses that candidates may have followed.
- To discover how far students have achieved the objectives of a course of study.
- To diagnose students’ strengths and weaknesses, identifying what they know and what they do not know.
- To assist placement of students by identifying the stage or part of a teaching programme
Principles of Effective Text Construction and Organization
Text Coherence: Ensuring Logical Flow
Consistency means a logical relationship should exist between all parts of a text. The ideas developed should refer to the same theme and be related to each other. A text is coherent when it meets the following requisites:
- Perceiving it as a unit of meaning, not as a set of disjointed information.
- Presenting a logical progression of ideas.
- Maintaining the same theme throughout the text.
- Providing sufficient information without contradictions.
- Referring to events that
Understanding the Listening Process and Skills
What is Listening?
Let’s look at listening as an interactive process!
Process of Listening
According to Clark & Clark (1977):
- Hearer processes the “raw/pure speech” (the actual phrases, clauses, etc.).
- Hearer determines the type of speech (conversation, speech, etc.).
- Hearer infers the objectives of the speaker (to persuade, request, etc.).
- Hearer recalls schemata (own background knowledge).
- Hearer assigns literal meaning to utterance.
- Hearer assigns intended meaning to utterance.
- Hearer determines
Decoding Oral Speech: Content, Process & Strategies
Content Involved in Listening Comprehension
We can distinguish three types of content involved in this ability:
Procedures
- Recognize
- Select
- Interpret
- Infer
- Anticipate
- Retain
Concepts
- Text: adequacy, consistency, cohesion, grammar, style, and presentation.
Attitudes
- Oral Culture
- Receptor Role
- Dialogue and Conversation
- Parliaments (Turn-taking/Discourse Structures)
The procedures are the different communication strategies used to decode spoken messages. The concepts are the same as those of other skills, i.e., the
Read MoreKey Linguistic Concepts
Aspects of Language Analysis
1. Communicative Functions of Language
- Representative or Referential: Information on events and concepts.
- Emotive: Shows the feeling or emotion of the speaker.
- Conative: Aims to change the reader’s attitude or activity.
- Metalinguistic: Clarifies or defines the meaning of words or expressions.
- Poetic: Focuses the reader’s attention on the form and sound of words, rather than content.
- Phatic: Ensures the communication channel is open and the partner is present.
2. Text Types
- Narrative: