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• Lorena Gómez

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Topic 1. LANGUAGE AS COMMUNICATION: SPOKEN AND WRITTEN LANGUAGE. FACTORS DEFINING A COMMUNICATIVE SITUATION: ADDRESSE, ADDRESSE, FUNCTION AND CONTEX. INDEX 1. INTRODUCTION. 2. LANGUAGE AS COMMUNICATION. 2.1. COMMUNICATIVE LANGUAGE TEACHING (CLT). 2.2. COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE. 3. SPOKEN AND WRITTEN LANGUAGE. 3.1. HISTORICAL OVERVIEW. 3.2. DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE SPOKEN AND WRITTEN LANGUAGE. 4.

ELEMENTS DEFINING A COMMUNICATIVE SITUATION.

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LINGUISTICS FUNCTIONS. 5.1. 5.2. 5.3. 5.4.

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MALINOWSKI´S CLASSIFICATION (1923) BUHLER’S CONSTITUTIVE FACTORS (1934) JACOBSON’S LINGUISTIC FUNCTIONS HALLIDAY´S CLASSIFICATION

CONCLUSIONS

1. INTRODUCTION 1

In the introduction to the Foreign Languages Part which can be read in the 1513/2006 Royal Decree, it is said that the main aim of this area is learning to communicate in the language studied and developing communicative competence. Communication can be defined as the exchange of information between individuals through a common code. According to the linguistic David Crystal, language is the most frequently used form of human communication we possess. Language, as a means to communication, can be described within the general scheme valid for any transmission of information, whose elements are: addresser, addressee, message, contact and code. In this topic, I am going to see all these contents in more detail. And finally I will see briefly some classifications of the linguistics functions as well.

2. LANGUAGE AS COMMUNICATION The word language has many definitions. Sapir said that language is a purely human and non-instinctive method of communicating ideas, emotions and desires. Hall defined language as the institution whereby humans communicate and interact with each other by means of habitually used oral-auditory symbols. David Crystal said that language is the most frequently used and most highly developed form of human communication we possess. The communicative approach in language teaching starts from a theory of language as communication. The goal of language teaching is to develop what Hymes referred to as “communicative competence”.

2.1. COMMUNICATIVE LANGUAGE TEACHING (CLT) Communicative Language Teaching or CLT is the commonly accepted norm form effective language learning. It is an approach that parts from a theory of language as communication, being its main aim the development of communicative competence, that is, the knowledge and the ability necessary to be able to communicate in a natural way. CLT was founded at the end of the 60s but it really emerged during the second half of the 70s, when a group of British Applied linguistics (led Widdowson and Johnson) reacted against prevalent methodologies that forgot teaching communicative proficiency since they were in favour of language as a set of structures. These methodologies are Grammar-translation and Audiolingualism and I am going to see why: - In Grammar-translation most of the lesson was taught in the mother tongue: so, there was very little speaking in the target language. Learners had a good mastery of reading and writing but they usually were not able to use the language for direct communication. The teacher worked as an instructor who connected students in order to develop accuracy (through task of descontextualised language). - Audiolingualism presented some differences if compared with grammar translation: mother tongue was used with a lesser frequency and the teacher, as a driller, connected students only when it was considered necessary, so accuracy was developed in a lesser way as well. - CLT proposed a very different way of teaching: the teacher worked as a facilitator who taught students to understand and communication in the target 2

language using tasks of real and contextualized language and correcting them very few. In fact, sometimes they were not corrected at all because the main aim was the development of their fluency. However, CLT also presented some aspects that were considered to be necessary to revise: - The appropriate point between accuracy and fluency: children can need accuracy in order to be understood more easily by others and to pass some specific tests required at school. - The use of rules. - Error treatment: formal errors sometimes need to be corrected in order to eliminate them. - Mother tongue can be very useful for clarification at specific moments. - Authentic language sometimes is very difficult for students to understand. Artificial language can be used to adapt the contents to pupils´ needs. - Language manipulation is necessary to help students to understand specific contents. - Teacher´s role: teachers can´t work always as facilitators since sometimes other roles are necessary (for example, the pedagogical role for teaching new contents).

2.2. COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE The main aim for learning a language is developing communicative competence, that is acquiring linguistic means to carry out different types of functions or learning to use the language. Meaning is more important than form. In Hymes’ view, a person who develops communicative competence acquires both knowledge and ability to use the language. Canale and Swain identified the different dimensions of communicative competence: - Grammatical Competence. This refers to what Chomsky calls linguistic competence and what Hymes intends by what is formally possible (language code). It includes features and rules of language. - Sociolinguistic Competence. It refers to an understanding of the social context in which communication takes place. - Discourse Competence. How to combine grammatical forms and meanings in order to achieve different text-types through cohesion in form and coherence in meaning. - Strategic competence. It contains verbal and non-verbal communication strategies that may be used to compensate for breakdowns in communication or to improve the effect of it. - Sociocultural competence is also includes in comunicative comepetence: it considers the social and cultural context. According to Canale and Swain this competence is included within the sociolinguistic competence.

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3. SPOKEN AND WRITTEN LANGUAGE 3.1. SPOKEN AND WRITTEN LANGUAGE: A HISTORICAL OVERVIEW Historically, written language has been considered superior to oral language for many centuries. But the 20th century, Bloomfield insisted that writing is not language, but visible marks, and mentioned several factors: - Speech is many centuries older than written language. - It develops naturally in children. - Written systems usually derive from the sounds of speech. Writing came to be excluded from the primary subject matter of linguistic science. Nowadays, writing cannot substitute speech, nor speech writing. The functions of speech and writing are usually said to complement each other.

3.2. DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE SPOKEN AND WRITTEN LANGUAGE These two types of language are different. We could start pointing out that the maim difference is physical: - Speech uses oral substance - Writing uses graphic substance According to David Crystal: - Speech is time-bound, dynamic and transient, and participants are present. - Writing is space-bound, static and permanent, and producer is distant from receiver. Daniel Madrid and Neil McLaren also pointed out some differences that can be showed in the following table: Oral language -Spontaneous and unpredictable -simple -repetitive and redundant -fillers -gestures -phonetic variations

Written language -planned and revised -complex syntax -less redundant -avoidance of fillers -no gestures -no phonetic variations

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 a language is its writing, as happens with Latin.

4. ELEMENTS DEFINING A COMMUNICATIVE SITUATION

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Jakobson said that in any act of verbal communication there are six constituents: - Addresser: the person who sends a message. - Addressee: the person who receives the message. - Message: the information sent by the addresser. - Context: the circumstances outside the speech act itself, where the message is. - Code: the language used to transmit the message. - Contact: the channel of communication between speaker and addressee

CONTEXT ADDRESSER

MESSAGE

ADDRESSEE

CONTACT CODE 5. LINGUISTICS FUNCTIONS People expect to achieve by talking and writing, and by listening and reading, a large number of different aims and different purposes. There are a lot of different classifications of linguistic functions. I am going to see some of them.

5.1. MALINOWSKI´S CLASSIFICATION This author, classified the linguistic functions in the two broad categories of pragmatic or practical, which he divided into active and narrative, and magical or ritual (related to religious acts of ceremonies of the culture).

5.2. BUHLER’S CONSTITUTIVE FACTORS He distinguised expressive language (oriented towards the speaker), conative language (oriented towards the listener) and representational language (oriented towards the rest of reality). The functional structure has four factors: sign, speaker, hearer and context. The relation of the first (sign) with the other determines speech functions: - Sign + hearer: Conative function - Sign + speaker: Expressive function - Sign + context: Representational function

5.3. JACOBSON’S LINGUISTIC FUNCTIONS According to this author, each of the components of a communicative situation system (addresser, addressee, message, contact and code) performs a linguistic function: - Addresser: Emotive function - Addressee: Conative function - Context: Referential function - Contact: Phatic function - Message: Poetic function - Code: Metalinguistic function

5.4. HALLIDAY´S CLASSIFICATION Halliday described seven basic functions.

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Instrumental function: using language to get things. Regulatory function: using language to control the behavior of others. Personal function: using it to express personal feelings and meanings Imaginative function: using language to create a world of the imagination Heuristic function: using it to learn and discover Representational function: using language to communicate Interactional function: to create interactions with others.

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