• Author / Uploaded
• mamell96

Citation preview

,-';

OX {Mi. lLvl;i ~

(oof.) G. Lt 1fq)

Iy ~1

j)PJ~

Introduction

Discourse

Discourse analysis examines how stretches of language, considered in their full textual, social, and psychological context, become meaningful and unified for their users. Ir is a rapidly expanding field, providing insights into the problems and processes of language use and language learning, and is therefore of great importance to language teachers. Traditionally, language teaching has concentrated on pronunciation, grammar, and vocabulary, and while these rema in the basis of foreign language knowledge, discourse analysis can draw attention to the skills needed to put this knowledge into action and to achieve successful communication.

This book aims to explain the theory of discourse analysis and to demonstrate its practical relevance to language learning and teaching. Section One examines the most important theoretical .approaches. Section Two explores ways in which the knowledge described in Section One can be put into action for language learners, and the extent to which existing exercises and activities develop discourse .skills. Section Three, through a series of tasks, suggests how practising teachers can try out, critically, the ideas of the other two sections, thus hopefully reaching their own conclusions, and making their own contribution to both theory and practice. The foreign language classroom pro vides discourse analysis with one of its best sources of observation and its most rigorous testing grounds for theory.

A book on .discourse demands data. 1 have tried to choose my examples from a wide range of discourse types. Where sources are not given, the data are from my own transcriptions of the discourse of my family, students, friends and acquaintances, and where it is invented, this is clearly indicated in the texto

One srylistic point needs comment. There is now no choice among the pronouns referring to general cases which does not attract attention, and either the support or antagonism of the reader. 'He/she' and 's/he' seem clumsy, but as 1 wanted to avoid 'he', 1 have opted for the rather long-winded 'he or she' in some instances, and just 'she' or 'they' in others. 1 do not imply that linguistic change is all that is needed-but fewer 'he's are probably for the best.

There are several people 1 want to thank for their friendship and help.

x

Introduction

Guy Cook

The hard work and foresight of the two series editors has made the Scheme possible, and they have given me a great deal of detailed and constructive advice. In particular, my thanks go to Henry Widdowson, who gave me the opportunity, the inspiration, and the confidence to write this book. Anne Conybeare and Jennifer Bassett edited-and improved-my manuscript with meticulous attention to detail. My colleague Tony Cowie provided constant encouragement, and fertile discussion of many relevant issues. Julie Ashworth and John Clark, by sharing the development of their work, made me think harder about my own. Lastly, my thanks to Elena Poptsova-Cook, not for being the docile domes tic protectress of the traditional male preface, but for discussing, contesting, and adding to these ideas.

Language T eaching: A Scheme for Teacher Education The purpose of this scheme of books is to engage language teachers in a process of continual professional development. We have designed it so as to guide teachers towards the critical appraisal of ideas and the informed application of these ideas in their own classrooms. The scheme provides the means for teachers to take the initiative themselves in pedagogic planning. The emphasis is on critical enquiry as a basis for effective action. We believe that advances in language teaching stem from the independent efforts of teachers in their own classrooms. This independence is not brought about by imposing fixed ideas and promoting fashionable formulas. It can only occur where teachers, individually or collectively, explore principies and experiment with techniques. Our purpose is to offer guidance on how this might be achieved. The scheme consists of thr~e sub-series of books covering areas of enquiry and practice of immediate relevance to language teaching and learning. Sub-series 1 (of which this present volume forms a part) focuses on areas of language knowledge, with books linked to the conventionallevels of linguistic description: pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar, and discourse. Sub-series 2 focuses on different modes of behaviour which realize this knowledge. lt is concerned with the pedagogic ski lis of speaking, listening, reading, and writing. Sub-series 3 focuses on a variety of modes of action which are needed if this knowledge and behaviour is to be acquired in the operation of language teaching. The books in this sub-series have to do with such

topics as syllabus design, the content of methodology and evaluation.

of language

Introduction

xi

course, and aspects

This sub-division of the field is not meant to suggest that different topics can be dealt with in isolation. On the contrary, the concept of a scheme implies making coherent links between all these different areas of enquiry and activity. We wish to emphasize how their integration formalizes the complex factors present in any teaching process. Each book, then, highlights a particular topic, bu' also deals contingently with other issues, themselves treated as focal in other books in the series. Clearly, an enquiry into a mode of behaviour like speaking, for example, must also refer to aspects of language knowledge which it realizes. It must also connect to modes of action which can be directed at developing this behaviour in learners. As elements of the whole scheme, therefore, books cross-refer both within and across the different sub-series.

This principie of cross-reference which links the elements of the scheme is also applied to the internal design of the different inter-related books within it, Thus, each book contains three sections, which, by a combination of text and task, engage the reader in a principled enquiry into ideas and practices. The first section of each book makes explicit those theoretical ideas which bear on the topic in question. lt provides a conceptual framework for those sections which follow. Here the text has a mainly explanatory function, and the tasks serve to clarify and consolidate the points raised. The second section shifts the focus of attention to how the ideas from Section One relate to activities in the classroom. Here the text is con cerned with demonstration, and the tasks are designed to get readers to evaluate suggestions for teaching in reference both to the ideas from Section One and also to their own teaching experience. In the third section this experience is projected into future work. Here the set of tasks, modelled on those in Section Two, are designed to be carried out by the reader as a combination of teaching techniques and action research in the actual classroom. lt is this section that renews the reader's contact with reality: the ideas expounded in Section One and linked to pedagogic practice in Section Two are now to be systematically tested out in the process of classroom teaching. .

If language teaching is to be a genuinely professional enterprise, it requires continual experimentation and evaluation on the part of practitioners whereby in seeking to be more effective in their pedagogy they provide at the same time-and as a corollary-for their own continuing education.It is our aim in this scheme to promote this dual purpose.

Christopher N. Candlin Henry Widdowson

SECTION ONE

Explanation

Theories of discourse

1

What is discourse?

1.1 Introduction Much language study, and a good deal of language teaching, has always been devoted to sentences. Yet we all know, even if we submit to this approach as a temporary=.and perhaps very fruitful=-rneasure, that there is more to using language, and communicating successfully with other people, than being able to produce correct sentences. Not all sentences are interesting, relevant, or suitable; one cannot just put any sentence after another and hope that it will mean something. People do not always speak-or write-in complete sentences, yet they still succeed in communicating. Knowing what is supposed to make a sentence correct, and where that sentence ends, though it may be important and worth teaching and learning, is clearly not enough.

r~