Oposiciones al Cuerpo de Maestros 2008-2009: INGLÉS

TOPIC 1: LANGUAGE AS COMMUNICATION, ORAL AND WRITTEN LANGUAGE.

ELEMENTS THAT DETERMINE A COMMUNICATIVE SITUATION: SENDER,
RECEIVER, FUNCTIONALITY AND CONTEXT.

1. LINGUISTIC THEORIES, ATTEMPTS TO HAVE A LANGUAGE FOR EVERYONE.

http://liceu.uab.es/~joaquim/general_linguistics/internet_ling/rec_ling_internet.html

Language is the ability humans have to exchange ideas and feelings with others. A
language is an artificial creation which serves the purpose of communicating.

In its turn, linguistics concerns itself with describing and explaining the nature of human
language. Relevant to this are the questions of what is universal to language, how language can
vary, and how human beings come to know languages. All humans (setting aside extremely
pathological cases) achieve competence in whatever language is spoken (or signed, in the case of
signed languages) around them when growing up, with apparently little need for explicit
conscious instruction. While non-humans acquire their own communication systems, they do not
acquire human language in this way (although many non-human animals can learn to respond to
language, or can even be trained to use it to a degree). Therefore, linguists assume, the ability to
acquire and use language is an innate, biologically-based potential of modern human beings,
similar to the ability to walk. There is no consensus, however, as to the extent of this innate
potential, or its domain-specificity (the degree to which such innate abilities are specific to
language), with some theorists claiming that there is a very large set of highly abstract and
specific binary settings coded into the human brain, while others claim that the ability to learn
language is a product of general human cognition. It is, however, generally agreed that there are
no strong genetic differences underlying the differences between languages: an individual will
acquire whatever language(s) they are exposed to as a child, regardless of parentage or ethnic
origin.

1.1. Natural vs. artificial Language.

A language is natural when it is spoken by a community of speakers in a country or

several countries (Spanish, English, German, Chinese, Czech, Basque, etc). By contrast, a
language is artificial when it has been created with a purpose in mind, for instance with traffic
signs or in the case of Esperanto (flag of Esperanto shown on the left, for further info click on
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esperanto) which, although no country has adopted the language
officially, has enjoyed continuous usage by a community estimated at between 100,000 and 2
million speakers and it is estimated that there are about a thousand native speakers.

Linguistics, as a science for the study of artificial and, above all, natural languages, was
born in 1916 thanks to the Course on General Linguistics (Cours de Linguistique Générale,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cours_de_linguistique_g%C3%A9n%C3%A9rale) offered by the
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Swiss Saussure. A linguist researches into a language as a system of signs.

According to Saussure (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferdinand_de_Saussure), language

is made up of signs and every sign has two sides:

• the signifier (French signifiant)

the "shape" of a word, i.e. the sequence of letters or phonemes or “acoustic image”.
e.g. T-R-E-E

• the signified (French signifié) or “concept” transmitted, i.e. the concept or object that
appears in our minds when we hear or read the signifier

e.g. plant with roots, large trunk and leaves.

(The signified must not be confused with the referent. The former is a mental concept,
the latter the actual object in the world)

According to Saussure, the relation between the signifier and the signified is arbitrary,
i.e. there is no direct connection between the signifier and the signified. For instance, there is no
reason why the letters C-A-T (or the sound of these phonemes) produce exactly the image of the
small, domesticated animal with fur, four legs and a tail in our minds. It is a result of
convention: speakers of the same language group have agreed (and learned) that these letters or
sounds evoke a certain image.

Apart from Ferdinand de Saussure, there have been many other important linguists
throughout history, here are the most outstanding.

1.2. Other major linguists along history.

1.2.1. Bloomfield (1887-1949).

Leonard Bloomfield was born in Chicago on April 18, 1887. His parents were Sigmund and
Carola Buber Bloomfield. He came from a family of many high achievers. His aunt Fannie
Bloomfield Zeisler had an international reputation as a concert pianist. His uncle Maurice
Bloomfield, like Leonard, was a scholar in the field of linguistics. Maurice Bloomfield was
Professor of Sanskrit and Comparative Philology at John Hopkins and was the second President
of the Linguistic Society.

In the mid-1890's, his father Sigmund took a position of proprietor at a hotel in Elkhart Lake,
Wisconsin and moved the family there. Leonard was nine years old at that time and started
attending the village school. At one time he failed to be promoted to the next grade and it was
said that the village school did not agree with him. There was a family joke that the village
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school was too hard for him. But it could have been that he just didn't agree with the method of
teaching. His mother tutored him and he was able to pass the then required high-school entrance
examination. He moved to Chicago and entered the North Division School.

Bloomfield entered Harvard College in 1903 and graduated three years later. One of his
favorite courses there was conducted by the late Professor Charles Townsend Copeland on daily
themes. Bloomfield said later that it was that course, with its daily writing, that taught him not
only to write but to think. He said that every awkward sentence or careless word would be
mercilessly exposed so one was careful with every word. He then went on to graduate from the
University of Wisconsin in 1908 and later studied at the University of Chicago. He spent most of
his time comparing and contrasting Germanic languages. At the University of Ohio, Bloomfield
caught his first break as an Assistant Professor of German. He spent seven years under that title,
and then moved on to the University of Chicago where he was the head Professor of German,
and taught there from 1921-1928.

Bloomfield eventually became more interested in the description of languages, and how they
pertained to science. When he got into this aspect of language, he wrote his masterpiece
Language. It dealt with a standard text and had a tremendous influence on other linguists. Until
very recently, most United States linguists considered themselves in some sense as Bloomfield's
disciples, whether they actually studied under him or not, and a great deal of American linguistic
work has taken the form of working out questions raised and methods suggested by Bloomfield
(Online-Media: Important Linguists).

Leonard had six main publications during his lifetime, and they too have had their own little
mark in the history of linguists. His first main book came in 1914, when he was an Assistant
Professor at the University of Illinois. It was called Introduction to the Study of Language; this
dealt with the overall aspect of language and was just the beginning of Leonard's profound
career. After this Leonard went into the grammatical aspect of the Philippine language, he wrote
and published his next main book Tagalog Texts with Grammatical Analysis (1917). The next
book was called Menomini Texts (1928), one of Bloomfield's least favorable publications. In the
middle of his writing career came Language (1933), which was the book he is renowned for.
From here Leonard went deeper into grammar, and wrote The Stressed Vowels of American
English (1935). The last main book of Leonard Bloomfield's career was when he went back into
the scientific research of language. It dealt with the overall aspect of language and science, and
didn't get as much publicity as Language. This book was called Linguistic Aspects of Science
(1939). At the end of Leonard's writing career, he tried to write about other languages (Dutch
and Russian) but couldn't really get the true feeling out of this, like he did with his other books.
In the end, Leonard Bloomfield is not only considered one of the best Linguists of his time, he is
considered one of the best of all time.

1.2.2. Edward Sapir (1884-1939).

Edward Sapir was born in Lauenburg, Germany in 1884 to an orthodox Jewish family. He
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emigrated to the United States in 1889 and lived in New York City. He received his Bachelors
Degree in 1904 and his Ph.D. in 1909 from Columbia University where he came under the
influence of Franz Boas. He taught briefly at the University of California and the University of
Pennsylvania, he became Chief of Anthropology for the Canadian National Museum from 1910
to 1925, then went on to teach at the University of Chicago from 1925 to 1931 and Yale
University from 1931 to 1939.

Although he is most often thought of as working with language, Sapir was also interested
in cultural behaviorism and the development of personality. He is noted for his work with the
ethnology and linguistics of Native American groups, and saw language as a verbal symbol of
human relations. Dr. Sapir stressed that language shapes our perceptions, and he thought that
understanding cultural behavior was impossible unless its development through language was
thoroughly traced.

Even more than the facts of the fields he studied, Sapir was interested in the more abstract
connections between personality, verbal expression and socially determined behavior. He was
one of those rare individuals who was brilliant and devoted, yet expressed himself clearly and
modestly, and attempted to pass on his love, specifically that of anthropology. Edward Sapir
inspired literally thousands of students over his too-short career; so profound was his effect on
them that many of his now well-renowned former students put together a collection of their own
essays based on his studies, entitled Culture, Language, and Personality, and dedicated it to him.

After reviewing some of his writings, one can draw out and learn from some of Sapir’s
more influential ideas, such as: Nothing in language is perfectly static. It is always changing, due
to a phenomenon Sapir called "The Language Drift." Although the parts of language that change
most quickly often seem to be the most important parts of that language, they usually show
themselves to be less fundamental than the slower-changing parts once the groups have grown to
be mutually alien forms of speech.

It is an illusion that reality adjusts without language or that languages are just incidental
means of solving problems of communication. In fact, the "real world" is, to a large extent,
unconsciously built up on the language habits of the group. We see, hear and experience what we
do largely because the language habits of our culture predispose certain choices of interpretation.
We are at the mercy of our form of expression…our language.

The most important aspect of our interpersonal communication may be our wordless,
sometimes unconscious body language read by others in social situations.

Edward Sapir produced an extremely large volume of writing over his lifetime. To list
them here would be impractical, but one can find a listing of all of his scientific works in
American Anthropologist, Vol. 41, pg. 469-77, 1939. Also, many of his main themes are
discussed by his former students in the aforementioned book Language, Culture, and Personality.

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Perhaps Sapir is best known for his work with Benjamin Lee Whorf on what has come to
be known as the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis. Edward Sapir died on February 4, 1939.

1.2.3. Noam Chomsky. (1928- )

http://cognet.mit.edu/library/books/chomsky/chomsky/gen_timeline/ling.html

Special mention should also be made of Chomsky’s Generative Grammar, according to

which all languages have a finite number of basic sentence structures which originate an almost
endless number of messages.

In theoretical linguistics, generative grammar refers to a particular approach to the study

of syntax. A generative grammar of a language attempts to give a set of rules that will correctly
predict which combinations of words will form grammatical sentences. In most approaches to
generative grammar, the rules will also predict the morphology of a sentence.

Generative grammar originates in the work of Noam Chomsky, beginning in the late
1950s. (Early versions of Chomsky's theory were called Transformational Grammar.) There are a
number of competing versions of generative grammar currently practiced within linguistics.
Chomsky's current theory is known as the Minimalist Program. Other prominent theories include
or have included Head-driven phrase structure grammar, Lexical functional grammar, Categorial
grammar, Relational grammar, and Tree-adjoining grammar.

Noam Chomsky has argued that many of the properties of a generative grammar arise
from an "innate" Universal grammar, which is common to all languages. Proponents of
generative grammar have argued that most grammar is not the result of communicative function
and is not simply learned from the environment. In this respect, generative grammar takes a point
of view different from functional and behaviourist theories.

2. LANGUAGE AS COMMUNICATION: ORAL LANGUAGE.

From the 1970’s onwards. Language learning has been seen as primarily oral-based,
something which has been used throughout history with real-life purposes.

2.1. Characteristics of oral language: phonetic (phonemes) and prosodic elements

(intonation, rhythm). In oral language there is little time to change things, and if changes are
made some mistakes could occur; however, oral language is, by definition, spontaneous, which
means that all these mistakes are allowed and understood as reasonable.

2.2. Aspects of oral language.

2.2.1. The organization of a message: 2 types of speakers- free-association speakers

(speakers intervene freely as different people join in a conversation, they observe
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turns and take part in an orderly way), confusing speakers (no clear rules are
followed as to who must speak first and who should come later, turns are randomly
and disorderly).

2.2.2. Linguistic resources: phonetic (articulation, pause, stress, intonation and rhythm),
lexico-semantic and morphosyntactic.

2.2.3. Extralinguistic resources: gestures, body language, being this one of the reasons
why drama playing is so useful in the English classroom.

2.2.4. Affective aspects: favourable attitude from both the speaker and the hearer. 3 types of
speakers: (a) listens to himself/herself, (b) egocentric, (c) shy. 3 types of hearers: (a)
only me speaking, (b) distracted, (c) pro-monologue.

2.3. A methodology for oral language.

2.3.1.Methodological principles:

 Constant practical use of the language must be made, a language is primarily learnt
through socialization, although individual thinking of each speaker is good for
reflection on the language (language awareness).

 Motivation: interest from the pupil through tasks that catch his/her attention and
desire to participate.

2.3.2.Main ways and techniques for oral communication: dialogues, monologues.

 Dialogues: free and spontaneous conversation, discussion on the basis of controversy,

drama playing (dramatisation) good to promote verbal fluency, imagination and
creativity, interviews and surveys searching for information on a particular topic.

 Monologues: speech/talk through different stages  selection of a topic, information

searching, giving linguistic form to the content.

3. THE EVALUATION OF ORAL LANGUAGE IN THE TEFL CLASSROOM.

Evaluation involves researching into how far objectives were achieved. Evaluation must be
continuous and formative/nourishing. The objectives should be achieved gradually, too.
Evaluation must be carried out individually, considering that each pupil is different by nature.
Evaluation must also be tactful, otherwise we might discourage the speaker and disallow him for
further speaking.

Evaluation should observe the following principles:

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• It serves to establish a good atmosphere in class.

• It tends to self-evaluation: pupils know how well they are doing.
• Self-correction: students participate in their own correction.
• Objectives are graded, things are done little by little.

Teachers and/or raters should establish scoring criteria for a range of grade levels (e.g.,
Grades A to D) and identify at least three categories of proficiency: non-English proficient
(NEP), limited English proficient (LEP), and fluent English proficient (FEP).

Scoring criteria should be global, with a focus on the student's ability to receive and
convey meaning. Holistic scoring procedures evaluate performance as a whole rather than by its
separate linguistic or grammatical features.

Teachers wanting to score grammar and pronunciation may wish to treat these as
subscores and assign them weights which are less than the weight assigned to a subscore for
overall communicative ability (Hamayan, 1985; Gonzalez Pino, 1988). Well in advance of the
oral assessment, students should be provided with an explanation of how they will be rated. If
teachers plan to assign a grade to the oral assessment, they will have to determine the scoring
range which corresponds to specific letter grades at each grade level.

Next we show an example of a sheet which could be used to score students’ oral skills:

TOTAL SCORE: Student's Name:___________________

School: ___________________

Rated by:___________________ Grade:___________________

City:___________________ Language Observed:________________

Date:____

Directions: For each of the 5 categories below on the left, mark an "X" across the level that
best describes the student's abilities.

CATEGORY A: Comprehensive

Level 1 Cannot understand even simple conversation

Level 2 Has great difficulty following what is said. Can comprehend only "social
conversation" spoken slowly and with frequent repetitions.
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Level 3 Understands most of what is said at slower-than-normal speed with repetitions.

Level 4 Understands nearly everything at normal speed although occasional repetition may
be necessary.

Level 5 Understands everyday conversation and normal classroom discussions without

difficulty.

CATEGORY B: Fluency

Level 1 Speech is so halting and fragmentary as to make conversion virtually impossible.

Level 2 Usually hesitant; often forced into silence by language limitations.

Level 3 Speech in everyday communication and classroom discussion is frequently disrupted

by the student's search for the correct manner of expression.

Level 4 Speech in everyday communication and classroom discussion is generally fluent,

with occasional lapses while the student searches for the correct manner of expression.

Level 5 Speech in everyday conversation and in classroom discussions is fluent and

effortless, approximating that of a native speaker.

CATEGORY C: Vocabulary

Level 1 Vocabulary limitations are so extreme as to make conversation virtually impossible.

Level 2 Misuse of words and very limited vocabulary make comprehension quite difficult.

Level 3 Frequently uses the wrong words; conversation somewhat limited because of
inadequate vocabulary.

Level 4 Occasionally uses inappropriate terms or must rephrase ideas because of inadequate
vocabulary.

Level 5 Use of vocabulary and idioms approximates that of a native speaker.

CATEGORY D: Pronunciation

Level 1 Pronunciation problems so severe as to make speech virtually unintelligible.

Level 2 Very hard to understand because of pronunciation problems. Must frequently repeat
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in order to be understood.

Level 3 Pronunciation problems necessitate concentration on the part of the listener and
occasionally lead to misunderstanding.

Level 4 Always intelligible, though one is conscious of a definite accent and occasional
inappropriate intonation patterns.

Level 5 Pronunciation and intonation approximate a native speaker's.

CATEGORY E: Grammar

Level 1 Errors in grammar and word order so severe as to make speech virtually
unintelligible.

Level 2 Grammar and word order errors make comprehension difficult. Must often rephrase
or restrict what is said to basic patterns.

Level 3 Makes frequent errors of grammar and word order which occasionally obscure
meaning.

Level 4 Occasionally makes grammatical or word order errors which do not obscure
meaning.

Level 5 Grammatical usage and word order approximate a native speaker's.

Signature of rater____________________________________________

4. THE WRITTEN LANGUAGE.

Written language (mechanic) follows a number of rigid rules and conventions, as opposed
to written production (productive), in which the writer has more liberty to go beyond the rules
fixed for written language and thus create his own messages in an unpredictable way.

Some basic ideas about how to teach writing could be: it should be taught at the same
time the pupils learns to read, writing does not start with letters (instead, it should start with basic
pre-orthographic techniques, like drawing), writing must not be started too early, writing must be
understood as a fundamental part of education.

Some basic ideas about how to learn writing:

 How the pencil is taken.

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 Right body position and paper holding.

 Shape and size of the letters.
 Orthography.
 Separation between words and letters.

To learn writing, three moments must be considered:

(1) Copying (what the pupil sees). It must be corrected by the teacher strictly, worrying
for detail.

(2) Dictation (what the pupil hears). It is useful to listen, remember and write at the same
time, this is also good for spelling in English.

(3) Written composition (what the pupil thinks). Very useful to stimulate our pupils’
creativity and early autonomy.

5. THE EVALUATION OF WRITTEN LANGUAGE IN THE TEFL CLASSROOM.

Here is an example of what could be a guide for written assessment:

WRITING TASK

CRITERIA

WRITING PROCESSES

I. WRITING SKILLS
Writes comprehensible stories ____ ____ ____ ____
Use of vocabulary ____ ____ ____ ____
II. INTEREST
Initiates own writing ____ ____ ____ ____
Shows pleasure in writing ____ ____ ____ ____
Selects books independently ____ ____ ____ ____
III. APPLICATIONS
Participates in language experience story development ____ ____ ____ ____
Participates in reading & writing discussion groups ____ ____ ____ ____
Uses reading in written communication ____ ____ ____ ____

6. A COMPARISON BETWEEN ORAL & WRITTEN LANGUAGE.

6.1. ORAL LANGUAGE:

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 Gradual progress, it is built little by little.

 A vehicle for daily communication.
 Phonic and auditory inconveniences, disturbing sounds or background noise which
makes it difficult to distinguish individual or isolated words.
 Interlocutor is present, which facilitates mutual understanding, perhaps through body
language.
 Subjective, the speaker uses the oral medium to express his/her own feelings and views
of life.
 Direct influence of affective aspects.
 Methodology: participation, individualisation (each speaker has his/her own identity),
motivation.
 Evaluation: Pronunciation, vocabulary.

6.2. WRITTEN LANGUAGE:

 Gradual progress. (same)

 A vehicle for communication when oral language is not possible. (different)
 Orthography difficulties. (different)
 Time for correction and thinking. (different)
 No direct influence from an interlocutor. (different)
 Objectives: thematic unity, an ability to be precise in the way ideas are expressed, order,
clarity and coherence. (different)
 Methodology: participation, social skills, individualisation, motivation. (same)
 Evaluation. Orthography, use of vocabulary, written expression. (different)

7. ELEMENTS THAT DETERMINE A COMMUNICATIVE SITUATION:

SENDER, RECEIVER, FUNCTIONALITY AND CONTEXT.

Even if the concept of communication has been defined many times by lots of authors, it
basically means the interaction between speaker/hearer (oral medium) or writer/reader
(written medium) intended for the delivery of information which is completely or partly
unknown to the hearer/reader.

7.1. Elements of Communication.

Before all the elements of communication are drawn on the chart below, we should
remember that the concept of redundance means that, sometimes, the speaker repeats
something to make it clearer or to insist on an idea.

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CONTEXT CONTEXT

CODE

SENDER MESSAGE RECEIVER

CHANNEL
CONTEXT CONTEXT

72. Means of communication: usually through written or oral language, but also through hand-
shaking, traffic lights, greetings with your hand or your head, etc.

7.3. Functions of language: The Prague School (language as primarily intended to communicate
information), understands communication is a primary purpose of language use.

The best renowned theoreticians on the study of the functions of communication are:
psychologist Karl Bühler: representational, expressive, calling. Jackobson in turn talked about:
referential, emotive, conative, phatic, metalinguistic and poetic. The explanation of Jackonson's
functions of language could be summarised as follows:

1. referential (= contextual information)

2. poetic (= autotelic)
3. emotive (= self-expression)
4. conative (= vocative or imperative addressing of receiver)
5. phatic (= checking channel working)
6. metalingual (= checking code working)

One of the six functions is always the dominant function in a text and usually related to
the type of text. In poetry, the dominant function is the poetic function: the focus is on the
message itself. The true hallmark of poetry is according to Jackobson "the projection of the
principle of equivalence from the axis of selection to the axis of combination". Very broadly
speaking, it implies that poetry successfully combines and integrates form and function, that
poetry turns the poetry of grammar into the grammar of poetry, so to speak. A famous example
of this principle is the political slogan "I like Ike". Jackobson's theory of communicative
functions was first published in "Closing Statements: Linguistics and Poetics" (in Thomas A.
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Sebeok, Style In Language, Cambridge Massachusetts, MIT Press, 1960, p. 350-377).

8. BIBLIOGRAPHY.

 CANALE, M. (1983). From Communicative Competence to Communicative Language

Pedagogy. New York: Longman.
 DOUGHTY, C. & PICA, T. (1984). Information gap tasks: do they facilitate second
language acquisition. 18th Annual TESOL Conference. Houston.
 FAERCH, C. & KASPER, G. (1983). Strategies in Interlanguage Communication.
London: Longman.
 FRASER, B. (1983). The Domain of Pragmatics. New York: Longman.
 HALLIDAY, M. (1987). Spoken and Written Modes of Meaning. San Diego Academic
Press.
 HALLIDAY, M. (1989). Spoken and Written Language. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
 HATCH, E. (1992). Discourse and Language Education. Cambridge: Cambridge
 HAYES, B. et alii (2001) Answer Key For Linguistics: An Introduction to Linguistic
Theory. Victoria A. Fromkins Ed. New York.
 JAKOBSON, R. (1963). Essays de Linguistique Générale. Paris: Minuit.
 KRASHEN, S. (1982). Principles and Practice in Second Language Acquisition.
Oxford: Pergamon Press.

 MANN, W. & THOMPSON, S. (1987). Rhetorical Structure Theory: A Theory of Text

Organization. Information Sciences Institute. University of Southern California.
 YOUNG, K. S. & TRAVIS, H. P. (2007) Oral Communication: Skills, Choices, and
Consequences. Travis Inc. Editions. California.

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