Osmania Journal of English Studies, Vol. 26, 1990.
ADVERTISING ENGLISH: AN ELT AFPROACH
T. Vinoda
If the aim of teaching literature is the study of the communica¬tive potential of the literary language and of the manner in which this potential is realised in literary language as opposed to the conventional discourse, the English teacher must adopt a stylistic approach. Very often the English teacher resorts to paraphrasing the literary text to his students in order to overcome its linguistic difficulties thereby treating it as a source of information; the focus is seldom on the uniqueness of the literary use of the language. This is probably the reason why an overwhelming majority of students who major in literature do not show sensitivity either in their use of English or in their appreciation of it. The stylistic approach to teaching literature would warrant that the English teacher first develop materials that would introduce learners to the limited low-key literary uses before launching them on the classics. With a view to sensitising students to some literary uses, this paper presents stylistic description of such uses in a few adver¬tising copies
When one thinks of it, the mode of discourse employed by the copywriter is not very dissimilar to that of the poet in some limited ways. The similarities are to be observed mostly in regard to attitudinising and persuasive techniques used by him. This paper focuses on some of these techniques taking familiar examples from the advertising copies commonly found in many commercial journals. For an English teacher faced with insensitive and indifferent students this paper has an immediate pedagogic value in that the stylistic analysis presented here helps him tune in the students to a variety of creative uses of the language.
A word of caution: most people have a patronising attitude towards the copywriter, regarding him as a failed writer. But they overlook the fact that copywriting has provided the necessary training ground to some great prose stylists like F. Scott Fitzgerald. In our times the advertising English has acquired a high degree of sophistication, worthy of attention by the most cultivated minds.
It may at first be noted that the advertising copy generally refers to the words in print or broadcast advertising, but as a comprehensive label when it is used collectively it includes the art work, illustration and the general layout besides the words in the body text. This paper, however, devotes itself to a discussion of the linguistic strategies in some advertising copies. The advertising copy might look like so much salestalk, but their persuasive and attitudinising techniques often succeed with their prospects (or else, they wouldn't be in business). And interestingly enough most of these techniques are borrowed from the literary discourse.
In selling his wares the copywriter must make his salestalk arresting and engaging. Since his survival depends on it, he will use every imaginable deviant use of the language to catch the attention of his prospects. Since literature by definition flourishes on deviant use, the copywriter makes copious use of the li1terary devices in this advertsing copy. Alliteration, assonace, concatenation, etc. are some stylistic devices we frequently come across in his copies:
a. A simple sweep and swab routine
b. Silken and super-smooth. Subtle and sophisticated
c. Shoes in subtle, startling, scintillating shades
d. The no-nonsense, no-nuisance automotive battery
e. Yours to relish, rewind, review and retain
f. Say goodbye to boring flooring
Among other stylistic devices popular with the copywriters are intensification through reiteration, doublings, intense co-ordinat¬ion, epizeuxis, couplings, etc. : a. The big, big taste of energy!
b. Yes, Asian paints has been chosen for more homes than any other paint every year, year after year since 1967.
c. For the whitest white that stays white. Nerolac Ultra White Synthetic Enamel.
d. It's not for her or her. it's for you.
e. Swissair Excursion Fare. Less is more and more and more.
f. There're so, so many Rasna flavours I'd like to try! I wish summer will just go on and on.
g. The milky milk biscuit
h. Friends get friendlier wth Fruitbits.
i. It's a battery that will bowl you over. Over and over again. j. Srnart looking walls for smart thinking people.
The principle of opposition as a stylistic device comes in handy to the copywriter to approach the more discerning urban buyer with a titillating and yet factual copy that relies on contrast for its effect. This device also helps the copywriter to put into prominence one particular quality of his product in contrast to others:
a. It's soft, but it's no softie.
b. Cool refreshing drinks on a warm summer day.
c. Tomorrow's most celebrated watch today.
d. Its a sweeter life without sugar!
e. Your executives can now fly to work. At ground level.
The preponderance of compounds, phrasal compounds, string compounds, doublings and multiple adjectives in the advertising copies explain the strange need of the copywriter to turn plain descriptive English into hyphenated hyperbole. The use of these also have the effect of precision, clarity and compactness of the ideas expressed while giving impression of several things happening simultaneously:
a. Non-remote model, full-function remote control, Zero-defect, hi-impact, anti-glare, stand-by facility.
b. The roll-out, lay-flat, stay-flat floor.
c. For that special "mummy's-made-them" taste. That special home-made taste.
d. Farm-fresh, freezer-fresh, oven-fresh and corn-on ¬the-cob-fresh.
Over the years the Indian context has produced a brand of Indian English which inescapably mixes the native words with the English. The copywriter is aware that the use of the native words in his English copy has the kind of immediacy of appeal as the use of pure English wouldn't have. Straining after such emotive effect on his prospects the copywriter has been using single loan¬words, compound words and noun phrases that are essentially loan-shifts. In this category of usage are also found blends and hybrid formations:
a. rangoli, shehnai, sindur, mehendi, bahu, pallu, odhni, pusti, dahi, lassi,. kheer,halwa, biwi.
b. shahi gulab, kool khus, kala khatta, kesar elaichi, rasgollas, gulabjamuns, dudhwala
c. amrakhand (amras+shrikhand)
d. kuchcha road, lajawab cheese, mughal cuisine
e. Musti ka Aalam-Parag zarda (though not frequent, the loan-shifts of structure words are also used by the copywriter)
The English language as it is spoken in India has developed characteristics which are totally absent in its written variety (which is still very similar to the British English). The shrewd copywriter succeeds in touching a deep chord of his prospects by presenting his copy in the new variety of spoken Indian English that is at once intimate and pleasantly recognisable by the educaed classes in India. The thermoware copy uses this strategy most endearingly:
"I agree with my biwi on everything. Well, almost. For I realised, with holidays and travel round the corner, the Hylo would be ekdum invaluable. Who wants those hazaar journey hassles? ... And yes, the Hylo is going to be an asli investment and even come in everyday use around the house ... perfect for keeping anything hot-from cofee to tea, anything cold--from juices to lassis."
Here the copywriter simulates the close-to-heart day-to-day conversational style that instinctively interpolates expressions from the native language. In other words a judicious mixture of the colloquial English with Indian words does the trick here.
The copywriter uses allusions in a way that the educated common reader is able to derive pleasure in recognising the things alluded to while drawing his attention to the product advertised. In using this strategy, however, the copywriter is careful to make it easy for the prospect to recognise the things alluded to so that he would experience a joy in reading the copy through.
a. In these "Modern Times."
I'd love to be in your shoes (Cherry Blossom ad)
This ad goes with an illustration of Charles Chaplin (lest the consumer should miss the allusion) in his characteristic shoes. Being universally known the Chaplin connection is easily estab¬lished here and the consumer, of course, would derive bonus pleasure if he has known the film, "Modern Times." By the end of the copy the consumer would have discerned the idiomatic use of "shoes" as distinct from literal referent advertised here. A copy like this would also have the effect of flattering the consumer's intelligence and doing the work for the copywriter.
Similarly another copy alludes to the most familiar Keats line with "A thing of beauty is convenience forever." Yet another copy recalls Aldous Huxley's book with "At the touch of a key, a brave new world opens out before your child." Other copywriters seek to capture the imagination of their prospects by using idioms not in their idiomatic sense but in their composite literal sense.
a. How does the underworld keep its cool and confidence (Anukool underwears)
b. We have got the whole world at your feet (North Star Shoes)
c. Some gifts are closest to the heart (Bridalform bra)
d. You have got to begin at the bottom ... and work your way up (Focus Exclusive socks).
This kind of usage is unendingly fascinating and amusing and in the process the reader can not but take note of the product adver¬tised.
Instances of metaphoric use of English are also not infrequent in advertising copies, especially in those that aim at the well¬-informed, well-educated prospects:
a. Drape your walls with Luxol Silk.
b. You won't find it difficult to lose your heart to this bath tub.
c. For Nerolac, it is the way to ensure that the Indian paint industry remains in the pink of health.
The subtle play with words and phrases observed here extends to the interesting use of puns, coinages, repetitions, phonic equi¬valence and parallel syntactic structures:
a. So when you stand in Elpar Picanova, you stand out.
b. You won't have to tear your hair over balding non-sticking pans any longer.
c. Royal House Cushion Vinyl Flooring is "all designed to leave you floored! Designed to take the floor!"
d. Each and every Eagle product goes through a tough work¬out under our Eagle eyed quality controllers.
e. If your soul is in fittness, this should be perfect fit (Power Jogger ad).
f. The body and sole of fitness (Power Jogger ad).
g. All in all there should be no room for doubt about a Dyanora. Certainly not in your living room.
h. Wall tiles on the other leg, sorry, hand, serve a more decorative function.
i. Gap shirts to fill the fashion gap.
The copy of the Flying Machine Jeans tries being innovative and "ori 'jean' al" and reads thus:
"With their hip hep. For whoever wears the pants in the family. And now a wearever, whenever range of things to wear at the waist. Enter the Flying Machine age. Whatever your age."
Each of these examples succeeds by employ¬ing one or the other stylistic device that stops us in our tracks and makes us all mull over it with relish. In the process, of course, the copywriter manages to draw attention to the product as well.
At times the copywriter achieves the desired effect through a violent distortion of language in much the same way as the literary use does. For instance, one copywriter expresses one type of sensory perception in terms of another ( 'crisp colours"), another employs deviation in morphology ("cushionability), or gives human attributes to a nonhuman referent, or uses unexpected lexical collocations. However the advertising copy, unlike literary writing depends rather heavily on the technique of startling the reader into a state of alertness to its verbal pyrotechniques. These techniques appear rather pronounced, concentrated and even loud in the advertising copy because of its small canvas. Further, the self-conscious, continual efforts of the copywriter to be strikingly original in his use of language put the stylistic devices in bold perspective. Crude as it may appear to be, this quality of the advertising copy lends it pedagogic value for the English teacher.
Also noteworthy is the fact that for the copywriter what deter¬mines the use of one or the other stylistic device is the target group he is addressing. If it is children that he levels with, he would use vocabulary that appeals to them ("moo-cow"); he would use fancy spelling (frooti zing lime 'n lemon flavour, 3 lip lickin' flavours, Limca veri veri lime 'n lemon, etc.) or use figures from comic books (like the superhero, superman) that have caught their imagination. In addressing the youth or adolecents the advertising copy of the Novino batteries, for instance, would describe its superior performance in sports register, taking the jargon from cricket for obvious reasons. Use of the sports register at the beginning of the copy is only a come-on to the cricket-mad transister user but once he begins to read the copy something else crops up half-way and the absorbed reader ends up by being impressed with the sincerity of the Novino salesman:
With Novino, quality isn't a string of empty overworked phrases. Like longer life. More power. Better leak resistance. Novino quality is something you see or hear.
The copywriter protests to using salestalk here while assuring the prospect that his own eyes and ears will be a witness to the superior quality of Novino batteries. In the process he produces the effect of affirming those very qualities ("longer life, '" more power" "leak- resistance") which he did not want to appear to be pushing through. The preemptive strategy implicit here prevents the consumer from dismissing it as so much salestalk while making for an irnpression of sincerity, trustworthiness and authenticity.
Another interesting stylistic feature that the copywriter often uses is to orchestrate the syntactical and graphological sentences. This he does to give his style pep and vigour. The syntactic and graphological sentences, however, coexist in different permutations and combinations in the various advertising copies. The effect of this use is, of course, to ensure easy and clear absorption by the consumer the impressive attributes of the product item by item, even as it contributes to a smart style of the copy. The advertising copy of Boroline, for instance, makes use of this strategy:
Skin that is lively even after
the razor has taken its daily toll.
Skin that can stand the nicks
of the sharpest blade.
Skin that stays fresh and
protected--With Boroline.
Boraline fights and cures
infection in cuts, pimples,
rashes and dry skin.
Its antiseptic action protects your skin.
The copy combines the first four graphological sentences with the two syntactic sentences that follow. Out of the first four grapholo¬gical sentences, the first three are relative clauses, while the fourth one is a prepositional phrase; What would have been a single syntactic sentence is broken here into four graphological sentences. The copywriter uses here short, graphic units with heavy punctuation. This style of punctuation is abnormally emphatic in that it disjoins by full-stops (the 'heaviest' punctuation mark) constrcutions which syntactically are parts of the same sentence. The punctuation itself has an important stylistic role in that it is used to emphasize the autonomy of each piece of information given here.
The two-word graphological sentence, "With Boroline," coming after the three relatively long sentences, in fact, provides the "end-focus" in part one of this copy. By making the brief fourth sentence stand out at the end, the copywriter lets emphasis fall where he wants it to. The copywriter would have weakened the emphasis on "With Borolirie" if he had combined it with the third graphological sentence. Also contributing to the emphasis here is the pattern variation. Further, the segmentation by interacting with salience helps the copywriter put the product into prominence here. These various stylistic devices make the copy an excellent example of convergence. The device of anaphora by its iterative mode also helps highlight the skin care here.
The two syntactic sentences of the second part of the copy in a way release the anticipatory tension of the first part. The two declarative sentences start with "Boroline " and "Its antiseptic action" in subject position and this naturally shifts the focus for a briefer spell (than that of the first part) from the consumer benefit to the product publicity. Structurally the last two sentences also intro¬duce elements of informality, easiness and relaxation. The use of "doublings' ("fights and cures") and of concatenati on "cuts, pimples, rashes and dry skin" in the last two sentences also contributes to reader-interest both from the point of view of stylistic virtuosity and from the product's usefulness. Further, the declarative mood of the last sentences finally underscores, with disarming honesty and candidness, the theme of skin-care that the first part of the copy has emphasized. Also the copy distributes the emphasis in such a way that consumer's interest is sustained all through in terms of style and content. A copy like this takes in a whole range of writing skills such as conciseness, clarity, purpose and above all the ability to give character and personality to the prose. We find many of the same stylistic devices in such great prose stylists as Dickens and Lawrence. While these masters abound in such stylistic devices, an example, each from these writers is given here if only to draw parallels as far as the devices discussed are concerned. In Lawrence's passage given below, for instance, we find the same emphatic, style as the Boroline copy does:
The renegade hates life itself. He wants the
death of life. So these many, reformers and
idealists who glorify the savaqes in America.
They are death-birds, life-haters, Renegades.
We can't go back. And Melville couldn't. Much
as he hated the civilized humanity he knew. He
couldn't go back to the savages. He wanted to.
He tried to. And he couldn't.
Because, in the first place, it made him sick.
(Studies in Classic American Literature. New York edn. 1955, p.149).
This passage too combines the syntactic with graphological sentences much to the same effect as does the Boroline copy.
Also presented below is a passage from Dickens Hard Times to illustrate how it uses convergence as a stylistic device, including in it anaphora, epizeuxis, irony, paradox, quasi-similes, hyperboles, collocational clashes etc.
A man made out of a coarse material. which seemed to have been stretched to make so much of him. A man with a great puffed head and forehead, swelled veins in his temples and such strained skin to his face that it seemed to hold his eyes open, and lift his eyebrows up. A man with a pervading appearance on him of being inflated like a balloon and ready to start. A man who could never sufficiently vaunt himself a self-made man. A man who was always proclaimed through that brassy speaking trumpet of a voice of his, his old ignorance and his old poverty. A man who was the bully of humility. (Hard Times, Part I, Ch. 4)
These writers, however, use the various stylistic devices discussed in this paper towards ends other than those of the copywriter.
Sunday, May 16, 2010
Communicative Competence : Some Reflections
Communicative Competence: Some Reflections
T. Vinoda
Nearly 170 years after English was introduced into India to further colonial ends, this language has entrenched itself in our midst to assume altogether different purpose to help us access global markets. The most obvious function of English today is to work as a transactional language helping several classes of people, be they exporters, businessmen, IT workers, Call Centre men and women and as the language of the public life. The language and its ways of thinking get adapted and seep into the lives of these people even though they may conduct the rest of their existence in Telugu, Tamil, Kannada, Malayalam, Hindi, Panjabi, Marathi, Bengali, etc. Their English may be primitive or transactional and clumsy, but using it day in and day out prepares them for a cultural life in this language. As teachers of English our function is to conceive relevant courses, produce suitable teaching materials and practice apt methods of teaching that would facilitate smooth progress of our students to their appointed goals. Irrespective of the varying goals our students for themselves, there is one constant expectation from them as far as acquisition of English as second language is concerned; that is, as graduates they would like to have the basic linguistic equipment to use English at least as a transactional language.
Starting from the 1950s a real shift took place in the approach, methods and techniques in language pedagogy. The goal of English instruction originally was to enable the users to construct correct sentences with the help of grammatical rules. Thus the focus was mainly on usage. However later the goal of language instruction shifted to building up learners’ “communicative competence.” Their focus has shifted now to rules of use, i.e. the use of language to accomplish some kind of communication purpose. “Sound sociolinguistic principles” has become the key phrase in language teaching. Drawing on the work of the British functional linguists, Firth and Halliday, a group of applied linguists like Wilkins, Christopher Candlin, Henry Widdowson, Christopher Brumfit, Keith Johnson and others have advocated what is called “notional-functional syllabus.” This meant building a course around the uses or functions to which language is put. For example, one lesson could be planned on requesting information, another on apologizing, a third on expressing gratitude, greetings, and so on. The familiar structural patterns remained, but they were ordered differently and organized around functional headings. They insisted that the purpose of teaching a second language was not merely to enable the students to know about language but to enable them to use it in real life situations.
In fact there is an interesting problem here regarding the dialectical relationship between the system and its use: we cannot use a language unless we learn the rules (i.e. the system) and we can learn the rules only through using the language. Where does one begin in this situation where usage and use are interdependent?
Language can either be acquired or learned. Acquisition means “picking up” the language in a natural way. Krashen calls this method the “Natural Method.” And “learning” on the contrary refers to “conscious” grammar learning, which is knowing about a language rather than learning to perform. However in a second language situation it is through the interaction between the two that the learning of English takes place.
It must be remembered that communication takes place not merely through language but through a variety of non-linguistic ways as well. That is, sometimes we communicate by raising brows of knitting them, by shrugging, by clearing throat, by emoting feelings on the face, by certain body gestures, by the way we dress or in innumerable other ways. However the sole function of language is communication. But all vocal behaviour need not necessarily be language. Cries, grunting, screaming, etc. are not part of language. Perhaps even the predictable ‘good-byes,’ ‘hellos,’ and ‘how do you dos’ are only language-like behaviour. Language per se or verbal behaviour is a special sort of communicative behaviour.
When we talk about acceptable and unacceptable behaviour or appropriate and inappropriate language, we are taking a view of language as a social institution, a body of socially conditioned or culturally determined ways of behaving. The traditional language teaching with its insistence on correctness, the rules of grammar, and its limited objectives lacked this social dimension. Little thought seems to have been given to the notion of appropriateness, to the way the language behaviour is responsive to differing social situations. However modern pedagogy adopts a more social approach to language and addresses problems of communication function in different social situations. We see this in the modern insistence on presenting language in situations, in dialogue form rather than isolated exemplificatory sentences, in the use of audio-visual materials and in the emphasis on ‘natural’ linguistic examples.
There are at least three dimensions of variability in the language use. The first is concerned with the relative social status of the speaker and hearer. Thus we would expect to find the language used by a teacher speaking to a student to be different from that used by a student speaking to his classmate; or a judge speaking to a prisoner or to a lawyer. This status-related dimension of variability is called style. A well-known illustration of this was given by Martin Joos (1962) where he arbitrarily divided up the continuum of variability into five stages of formality:
1. Frozen: Visitors should make their way at once to the upper floor by way
of staircase.
2. Formal: Visitors should go up the stairs at once.
3. Consultative: Would you mind going upstairs right away, please?
4. Casual: Time you all went upstairs now.
5. Intimate: Up you go chaps!
It could be seen that features of languageregularly mark social relationships between participants in a language event. People are generally aware of their own status in relation to one another and will choose the appropriate language forms quite unconsciously. Status may be marked at any level of language—syntax, lexis, and phonetics. If I write to my employer asking for an increase in my salary, it would be most unwise on my part to use either the imperative or the interrogative form of the verb:
Give me a pay-rise. (Imperative)
Or
Will you increase my pay next month? (Interrogative)
These forms would certainly be counter-productive. On the other hand a circumlocutory approach would suggest an appropriate recognition of our relative status:
I should therefore be grateful if you could give serious consideration to the possibility of increasing my salary.
Thus the more formal sentence here is not only different structurally but also shows a change in vocabulary. For “pay” we now have “salary.” For that matter there is a very large vocabulary of items used for “salary” received for work done:
Wages, money, remuneration, income, emoluments, earnings, fee, commission,
Honorarium, retainer, etc.
And no doubt many more. The degree of formality of an utterance is undoubtedly a factor in our choice from these alternatives for “pay.” However slang words do not fit in here because they are appropriate only to a casual or intimate style. “Dough,” “bloke,” “cuppa,” “loo,” “booze,” are of a category that go with the casual, informal or intimate style. Thus in lexis too there are degrees of formality. For example,
“offspring” is very formal (used in legalese)
“children” is neutral
“kids” is very informal.
If the parents of two school going children meet, the enquiry, “How is your offspring [in place of child] doing” will be very awkward.
If I am making an application for leave of absence to my superior officer, I cannot use this casual language:
“Hi! Chum!
I’ve a lousy headache. I’m chucking this bloody work and going to hit the hay. Cheerio."
This is absolutely unacceptable. I have to be using officialese as shown below:
“Sir,
As I have a persistent headache, I request you for a day’s leave of absence
Thanking you,”
So is the case when I apply for a job: I can not use the informal or slang variety of language. Similarly in a speech situation phonology may also be an indicator of relative status. Deference due to a superior or indifference to an inferior can be shown easily enough through intonation. For example “thank you” said with a falling intonation marks gratitude while the one with a rise signifies just a formality—perfunctory response.
The second use-related language variation we find is what is called register. Area or context-specific language is register. Subject-specific language use is also known as field of discourse. We have ‘scientific, religious, legal, literary, sports’ registers and also such varieties as the language of newspaper headlines, of cables and telegrams, of cookery and embroidery, of advertising, and so on.
One of the marked features of a register is the predominance of a particular type of technical terms. Certain marked lexical features help us delimit and classify registers. Consider this passage:
Soak the breadcrumbs in boiling water, then strain. Add the beaten eggs, herbs and finely chopped fried onions. Shape into fritters. Fry in deep hot fat until brown.
You immediately recognize it as the register of cookery. You will find here predominant use of imperative structures and register-specific vocabulary. Effective acquisition of communication skills in English in a chosen field of discourse ought to lead the learners to that specific register. Cricket commentators, public speakers, announcers at airports and railway stations, sales representatives could be given special tailor-made courses with focus on the register-specific vocabulary, syntax and special phonological features these occupations demand.
In point of fact, leaning a second language is a process of making a number of choices and putting them together. Teachers of English in a second language situation must help the student make an appropriate register choice out of the total register range. Register-shift, i.e. the ability to shift registers according to shifts in the situation is one of the crucial conditions for success in handling second language effectively. The dictum is: “If you don’t know your lines, you are no use in the play.” In fact man in his day-to-day life finds himself in a network of institutionalized roles and has to select role-worthy varieties of the language appropriate to the topic and the situation. Teaching of communicative English should be geared to meet such typical language needs.
The third area where a second language learner of English needs help at undergraduate level is the use of spoken language as opposed to written language. Unfortunately the existing scheme of things as far as English teaching is concerned is very weak in this respect. Since our teaching is geared to the annual written examination at the end of the year, students as well as teachers tend to lay stress on written skills rather than the spoken competency. As a consequence the students tend to bring in the style of writing model to operate on spoken English, leading sometimes to very embarrassing situations. When they speak they use outrageously perfect sentences, too complete, too grammatical, too lengthy and too cogent. Incomplete sentences, breaks, digressions in conversation that we expect to find in spoken medium are not to be found.
It is probably because of this piquant situation that both at the UG and PG level a majority of students fail to use good communicative English, although they are otherwise good at grammar. This, of course, does not mean that students who are bad at grammar are necessarily good at communication skills. Often, these students find it difficult relating to people because their learning stopped with grammatical competence and has not progressed toward communicative competence.
It must be remembered that language learning is not complete when one is proficient in producing grammatical forms and has assimilated the relations that they express. For what we describe as the grammatical function of a sentence is not necessarily the same as its utterance function. For example, in teaching imperative form of a verb it is not enough to explain them that it is used for giving orders or for making requests. We ignore the fact that an imperative, typically, is used for several other purposes as well. For example, in the following speech acts, the imperative form is used to convey suggestion, threat, instruction, direction, warning, invitation, etc.
Grammatical function Utterance function
1. Find a seat and I’ll get drinks. Suggestion
2. Do that and I’ll knock your teeth in. Threat
3. Connect the hose to the water supply. Instruction
4. Turn left at the traffic lights and take the third Direction
turning on the left..
5. Watch your glass. Warning
6. Have a drink. Invitation
These six imperative sentences express six different utterance functions. That is to say, in indirect speech acts the imperative can signify functions other than order and request. Conversely, it is equally possible to produce utterances that do not contain imperative forms, but still have the effect of imposing the will of the speaker on the hearer. Consider the following examples.
1. If you don't shut the window, you'll get a good hiding.
2. I insist that you do it.
3. You are not going out in that dress.
4. My driver will carry your bag for you (indirectly order to the driver)
These sentences are declaratives but are used to signify theutterance function of 'ordering.' It is clear that non-imperative sentences also can signal 'order', a function that is usually performed by imperative forms. Similarly we can go further and show that interrogatives are not necessarily questions or conditionals are not always conditions. It is not only that the same utterance function like 'order' can be expressed through different sentence types, but that the use of one form in place of another makes for a subtle difference. Observe the following sentences: they show how the hierarchies of formality, indirection and politeness interact:
Shut the door. (order)
Shut the door, will you? (familiar)
Please shut the door. (polite)
Would you please shut the door? (more polite)
Would you mind shutting the door? (still more polite)
Generally the indirect speech acts are considered to be more polite than the direct speech acts. Lack of awareness of such implications involved in the use of direct and indirect speech acts often leads to breakdown in communication. To illustrate it further, all the students here know that there are mainly two types of interrogative sentences--'yes/no' type and 'wh-' type. A 'yes/no' interrogative like:
"Do you know where the Ratna Hotel is?"
Under normal circumstances elicits either 'yes' or 'no' as an answer from the interlocutor in direct speech act. Nevertheless it is possible to have numorous effects as a result of one person failing to recognize another person's indirect speech act. Consider the following scene. A visitor to Warangal, carrying luggage, looking lost, stope a passer-by:
Visitor: Excuse me, do you know where the Ratna Hotel is?
Passer-by: Oh sure, I know where it is. (and walks away)
Instead of responding to the request the passer-by replies to the question, treating an indirect speech act as if were direct. That is, he has failed to interpret the speaker's intention. Indirect commands and requests are simply considered more gentle and more polite in our society than the direct commands. The knowledge of pragmatics and the awareness of conversational principles, also play a significant role in communication.
All this is to conclude that at the UG level the existing formal approach by teaching the context and purpose of utterance and by showing how these might be expressed. They may be taught to master the means of expressing notions. We will be better preparing our students to meet life situations if our course design includes such components as:
1. expressing emoitons like surprise, pleasure, sorrow, anger, anxiety, hope enthusiasm, etc.
2. our emotional reactions to others: such as expressing sympathy, condolence, affection, admireation, thrust, dislike, ridicule, etc.
3. attitudes and obligations: expressing praise, blame, apologies, regret, promises, prohibition, tolerance, permission, etc.
4. modalities and deictics like: degree of possibility, probability, necessity, likelihood, doubt, certainty, ability agreement,
disagreement, persuasion, suggestion, demands, orders, insistence, warnings, acceptance, caution, refusal, assertion,
opposition, qualification, admission, emphasis, contrast, understatement, exaggeration, frankness, tact, etc.
Much of our language use is personally motivated to express many of these communication functions and the conventional courses at the UG do not focus on them at all. I do not think that the learner will develop this ability on the basis of the formal knowledge sought to be imparted to him in the3 existing set up. A notion-oriented teaching with a need-based register-specific courses should render English teaching more purposeful than it is now.
However in the context of a more general course the conventional systematic grammar-based approach might do but if we intend planning an advanced language learning course at UG/PG level to achieve communicative competence the situational and notional approach to language teaching becomes inevitable. The idea here is to enable the student master the grammar rules first, and then teach him to exploit his grammatical competence for effective communication. In actual practice no guiding principles inform our advanced learning courses now. Perhaps these communication universals provide a means for the students to practise the application of their linguistic knowledge. Very often we are haunted by a nagging feeling that perhaps pedagogy serves very limited purpose especially with the kind of unmotivated and unfocused students that we get and with the kind of teaching materials and testing methods that obtain in the existing scheme of things. Bernard Shaw put this in his typically humorous vein: He said that his education had been continuous from childhood except for a brief interruption in school. We may have to work for thirty or so years and retire with the galling awareness of the pitfalls of English teaching especially since we work in a larger system where it is impossible to change things in a way that enables us to deliver. At best we may hope that this awareness of pitfalls and this discontentment in itself will so the seeds of change for the better.
T. Vinoda
Nearly 170 years after English was introduced into India to further colonial ends, this language has entrenched itself in our midst to assume altogether different purpose to help us access global markets. The most obvious function of English today is to work as a transactional language helping several classes of people, be they exporters, businessmen, IT workers, Call Centre men and women and as the language of the public life. The language and its ways of thinking get adapted and seep into the lives of these people even though they may conduct the rest of their existence in Telugu, Tamil, Kannada, Malayalam, Hindi, Panjabi, Marathi, Bengali, etc. Their English may be primitive or transactional and clumsy, but using it day in and day out prepares them for a cultural life in this language. As teachers of English our function is to conceive relevant courses, produce suitable teaching materials and practice apt methods of teaching that would facilitate smooth progress of our students to their appointed goals. Irrespective of the varying goals our students for themselves, there is one constant expectation from them as far as acquisition of English as second language is concerned; that is, as graduates they would like to have the basic linguistic equipment to use English at least as a transactional language.
Starting from the 1950s a real shift took place in the approach, methods and techniques in language pedagogy. The goal of English instruction originally was to enable the users to construct correct sentences with the help of grammatical rules. Thus the focus was mainly on usage. However later the goal of language instruction shifted to building up learners’ “communicative competence.” Their focus has shifted now to rules of use, i.e. the use of language to accomplish some kind of communication purpose. “Sound sociolinguistic principles” has become the key phrase in language teaching. Drawing on the work of the British functional linguists, Firth and Halliday, a group of applied linguists like Wilkins, Christopher Candlin, Henry Widdowson, Christopher Brumfit, Keith Johnson and others have advocated what is called “notional-functional syllabus.” This meant building a course around the uses or functions to which language is put. For example, one lesson could be planned on requesting information, another on apologizing, a third on expressing gratitude, greetings, and so on. The familiar structural patterns remained, but they were ordered differently and organized around functional headings. They insisted that the purpose of teaching a second language was not merely to enable the students to know about language but to enable them to use it in real life situations.
In fact there is an interesting problem here regarding the dialectical relationship between the system and its use: we cannot use a language unless we learn the rules (i.e. the system) and we can learn the rules only through using the language. Where does one begin in this situation where usage and use are interdependent?
Language can either be acquired or learned. Acquisition means “picking up” the language in a natural way. Krashen calls this method the “Natural Method.” And “learning” on the contrary refers to “conscious” grammar learning, which is knowing about a language rather than learning to perform. However in a second language situation it is through the interaction between the two that the learning of English takes place.
It must be remembered that communication takes place not merely through language but through a variety of non-linguistic ways as well. That is, sometimes we communicate by raising brows of knitting them, by shrugging, by clearing throat, by emoting feelings on the face, by certain body gestures, by the way we dress or in innumerable other ways. However the sole function of language is communication. But all vocal behaviour need not necessarily be language. Cries, grunting, screaming, etc. are not part of language. Perhaps even the predictable ‘good-byes,’ ‘hellos,’ and ‘how do you dos’ are only language-like behaviour. Language per se or verbal behaviour is a special sort of communicative behaviour.
When we talk about acceptable and unacceptable behaviour or appropriate and inappropriate language, we are taking a view of language as a social institution, a body of socially conditioned or culturally determined ways of behaving. The traditional language teaching with its insistence on correctness, the rules of grammar, and its limited objectives lacked this social dimension. Little thought seems to have been given to the notion of appropriateness, to the way the language behaviour is responsive to differing social situations. However modern pedagogy adopts a more social approach to language and addresses problems of communication function in different social situations. We see this in the modern insistence on presenting language in situations, in dialogue form rather than isolated exemplificatory sentences, in the use of audio-visual materials and in the emphasis on ‘natural’ linguistic examples.
There are at least three dimensions of variability in the language use. The first is concerned with the relative social status of the speaker and hearer. Thus we would expect to find the language used by a teacher speaking to a student to be different from that used by a student speaking to his classmate; or a judge speaking to a prisoner or to a lawyer. This status-related dimension of variability is called style. A well-known illustration of this was given by Martin Joos (1962) where he arbitrarily divided up the continuum of variability into five stages of formality:
1. Frozen: Visitors should make their way at once to the upper floor by way
of staircase.
2. Formal: Visitors should go up the stairs at once.
3. Consultative: Would you mind going upstairs right away, please?
4. Casual: Time you all went upstairs now.
5. Intimate: Up you go chaps!
It could be seen that features of languageregularly mark social relationships between participants in a language event. People are generally aware of their own status in relation to one another and will choose the appropriate language forms quite unconsciously. Status may be marked at any level of language—syntax, lexis, and phonetics. If I write to my employer asking for an increase in my salary, it would be most unwise on my part to use either the imperative or the interrogative form of the verb:
Give me a pay-rise. (Imperative)
Or
Will you increase my pay next month? (Interrogative)
These forms would certainly be counter-productive. On the other hand a circumlocutory approach would suggest an appropriate recognition of our relative status:
I should therefore be grateful if you could give serious consideration to the possibility of increasing my salary.
Thus the more formal sentence here is not only different structurally but also shows a change in vocabulary. For “pay” we now have “salary.” For that matter there is a very large vocabulary of items used for “salary” received for work done:
Wages, money, remuneration, income, emoluments, earnings, fee, commission,
Honorarium, retainer, etc.
And no doubt many more. The degree of formality of an utterance is undoubtedly a factor in our choice from these alternatives for “pay.” However slang words do not fit in here because they are appropriate only to a casual or intimate style. “Dough,” “bloke,” “cuppa,” “loo,” “booze,” are of a category that go with the casual, informal or intimate style. Thus in lexis too there are degrees of formality. For example,
“offspring” is very formal (used in legalese)
“children” is neutral
“kids” is very informal.
If the parents of two school going children meet, the enquiry, “How is your offspring [in place of child] doing” will be very awkward.
If I am making an application for leave of absence to my superior officer, I cannot use this casual language:
“Hi! Chum!
I’ve a lousy headache. I’m chucking this bloody work and going to hit the hay. Cheerio."
This is absolutely unacceptable. I have to be using officialese as shown below:
“Sir,
As I have a persistent headache, I request you for a day’s leave of absence
Thanking you,”
So is the case when I apply for a job: I can not use the informal or slang variety of language. Similarly in a speech situation phonology may also be an indicator of relative status. Deference due to a superior or indifference to an inferior can be shown easily enough through intonation. For example “thank you” said with a falling intonation marks gratitude while the one with a rise signifies just a formality—perfunctory response.
The second use-related language variation we find is what is called register. Area or context-specific language is register. Subject-specific language use is also known as field of discourse. We have ‘scientific, religious, legal, literary, sports’ registers and also such varieties as the language of newspaper headlines, of cables and telegrams, of cookery and embroidery, of advertising, and so on.
One of the marked features of a register is the predominance of a particular type of technical terms. Certain marked lexical features help us delimit and classify registers. Consider this passage:
Soak the breadcrumbs in boiling water, then strain. Add the beaten eggs, herbs and finely chopped fried onions. Shape into fritters. Fry in deep hot fat until brown.
You immediately recognize it as the register of cookery. You will find here predominant use of imperative structures and register-specific vocabulary. Effective acquisition of communication skills in English in a chosen field of discourse ought to lead the learners to that specific register. Cricket commentators, public speakers, announcers at airports and railway stations, sales representatives could be given special tailor-made courses with focus on the register-specific vocabulary, syntax and special phonological features these occupations demand.
In point of fact, leaning a second language is a process of making a number of choices and putting them together. Teachers of English in a second language situation must help the student make an appropriate register choice out of the total register range. Register-shift, i.e. the ability to shift registers according to shifts in the situation is one of the crucial conditions for success in handling second language effectively. The dictum is: “If you don’t know your lines, you are no use in the play.” In fact man in his day-to-day life finds himself in a network of institutionalized roles and has to select role-worthy varieties of the language appropriate to the topic and the situation. Teaching of communicative English should be geared to meet such typical language needs.
The third area where a second language learner of English needs help at undergraduate level is the use of spoken language as opposed to written language. Unfortunately the existing scheme of things as far as English teaching is concerned is very weak in this respect. Since our teaching is geared to the annual written examination at the end of the year, students as well as teachers tend to lay stress on written skills rather than the spoken competency. As a consequence the students tend to bring in the style of writing model to operate on spoken English, leading sometimes to very embarrassing situations. When they speak they use outrageously perfect sentences, too complete, too grammatical, too lengthy and too cogent. Incomplete sentences, breaks, digressions in conversation that we expect to find in spoken medium are not to be found.
It is probably because of this piquant situation that both at the UG and PG level a majority of students fail to use good communicative English, although they are otherwise good at grammar. This, of course, does not mean that students who are bad at grammar are necessarily good at communication skills. Often, these students find it difficult relating to people because their learning stopped with grammatical competence and has not progressed toward communicative competence.
It must be remembered that language learning is not complete when one is proficient in producing grammatical forms and has assimilated the relations that they express. For what we describe as the grammatical function of a sentence is not necessarily the same as its utterance function. For example, in teaching imperative form of a verb it is not enough to explain them that it is used for giving orders or for making requests. We ignore the fact that an imperative, typically, is used for several other purposes as well. For example, in the following speech acts, the imperative form is used to convey suggestion, threat, instruction, direction, warning, invitation, etc.
Grammatical function Utterance function
1. Find a seat and I’ll get drinks. Suggestion
2. Do that and I’ll knock your teeth in. Threat
3. Connect the hose to the water supply. Instruction
4. Turn left at the traffic lights and take the third Direction
turning on the left..
5. Watch your glass. Warning
6. Have a drink. Invitation
These six imperative sentences express six different utterance functions. That is to say, in indirect speech acts the imperative can signify functions other than order and request. Conversely, it is equally possible to produce utterances that do not contain imperative forms, but still have the effect of imposing the will of the speaker on the hearer. Consider the following examples.
1. If you don't shut the window, you'll get a good hiding.
2. I insist that you do it.
3. You are not going out in that dress.
4. My driver will carry your bag for you (indirectly order to the driver)
These sentences are declaratives but are used to signify theutterance function of 'ordering.' It is clear that non-imperative sentences also can signal 'order', a function that is usually performed by imperative forms. Similarly we can go further and show that interrogatives are not necessarily questions or conditionals are not always conditions. It is not only that the same utterance function like 'order' can be expressed through different sentence types, but that the use of one form in place of another makes for a subtle difference. Observe the following sentences: they show how the hierarchies of formality, indirection and politeness interact:
Shut the door. (order)
Shut the door, will you? (familiar)
Please shut the door. (polite)
Would you please shut the door? (more polite)
Would you mind shutting the door? (still more polite)
Generally the indirect speech acts are considered to be more polite than the direct speech acts. Lack of awareness of such implications involved in the use of direct and indirect speech acts often leads to breakdown in communication. To illustrate it further, all the students here know that there are mainly two types of interrogative sentences--'yes/no' type and 'wh-' type. A 'yes/no' interrogative like:
"Do you know where the Ratna Hotel is?"
Under normal circumstances elicits either 'yes' or 'no' as an answer from the interlocutor in direct speech act. Nevertheless it is possible to have numorous effects as a result of one person failing to recognize another person's indirect speech act. Consider the following scene. A visitor to Warangal, carrying luggage, looking lost, stope a passer-by:
Visitor: Excuse me, do you know where the Ratna Hotel is?
Passer-by: Oh sure, I know where it is. (and walks away)
Instead of responding to the request the passer-by replies to the question, treating an indirect speech act as if were direct. That is, he has failed to interpret the speaker's intention. Indirect commands and requests are simply considered more gentle and more polite in our society than the direct commands. The knowledge of pragmatics and the awareness of conversational principles, also play a significant role in communication.
All this is to conclude that at the UG level the existing formal approach by teaching the context and purpose of utterance and by showing how these might be expressed. They may be taught to master the means of expressing notions. We will be better preparing our students to meet life situations if our course design includes such components as:
1. expressing emoitons like surprise, pleasure, sorrow, anger, anxiety, hope enthusiasm, etc.
2. our emotional reactions to others: such as expressing sympathy, condolence, affection, admireation, thrust, dislike, ridicule, etc.
3. attitudes and obligations: expressing praise, blame, apologies, regret, promises, prohibition, tolerance, permission, etc.
4. modalities and deictics like: degree of possibility, probability, necessity, likelihood, doubt, certainty, ability agreement,
disagreement, persuasion, suggestion, demands, orders, insistence, warnings, acceptance, caution, refusal, assertion,
opposition, qualification, admission, emphasis, contrast, understatement, exaggeration, frankness, tact, etc.
Much of our language use is personally motivated to express many of these communication functions and the conventional courses at the UG do not focus on them at all. I do not think that the learner will develop this ability on the basis of the formal knowledge sought to be imparted to him in the3 existing set up. A notion-oriented teaching with a need-based register-specific courses should render English teaching more purposeful than it is now.
However in the context of a more general course the conventional systematic grammar-based approach might do but if we intend planning an advanced language learning course at UG/PG level to achieve communicative competence the situational and notional approach to language teaching becomes inevitable. The idea here is to enable the student master the grammar rules first, and then teach him to exploit his grammatical competence for effective communication. In actual practice no guiding principles inform our advanced learning courses now. Perhaps these communication universals provide a means for the students to practise the application of their linguistic knowledge. Very often we are haunted by a nagging feeling that perhaps pedagogy serves very limited purpose especially with the kind of unmotivated and unfocused students that we get and with the kind of teaching materials and testing methods that obtain in the existing scheme of things. Bernard Shaw put this in his typically humorous vein: He said that his education had been continuous from childhood except for a brief interruption in school. We may have to work for thirty or so years and retire with the galling awareness of the pitfalls of English teaching especially since we work in a larger system where it is impossible to change things in a way that enables us to deliver. At best we may hope that this awareness of pitfalls and this discontentment in itself will so the seeds of change for the better.
ELT : A Lexical Approach
ELT: A Lexical Approach
T. Vinoda
As teachers of English all of us are into the business of teaching English. Some of you might have been in this profession for a long and some are relatively new-comers. But all of us know very well that much of the respect we command in society comes from the subject we teach, i.e. English. In today’s world, English is needed for upward mobility and for social and economic success. There is a great demand for English because it has a lot of “surrender value” and the learners want to cash in on that. Aspiring professionals even go to expensive English language institutes for improving their communication skills. English is not only the language of opportunities, but a language of information as well. All modern information in any branch of knowledge—say medicine, computer technology, space technology, biotechnology, bio-informatics, genetic engineering, economics, agriculture, etc.—is readily available in English. To put it briefly, English is “an exploding language” in a world of “exploding information.” Learners know that in orde4r to bring modern knowledge into their lives, English is a must. Ask students of any course at any level, they will tell you their aim is to speak well, write well, read with comprehension and be efficient listeners, and thereby conquer the world. It is this simple legitimate desire of theirs that we are not able to fulfill, even after eight to ten years of continuous English teaching.
We know for sure that not all is well with the education system. But let us see how best we deliver the goods within this system. Over the years, researchers and teachers in the field of language acquisition have come up with several Methods, Approaches and Techniques—some Methods focusing on writing and reading skills and yet others on speaking and listening skills. The goals of teaching generally decided the methodology. We have methods galore now—starting from Grammar-Translation Method, we have Reform Movement of 1880s under the intellectual leadership of linguists like Henry Sweet; the Direct Method at the very end of 19th century; Reading Method/Situational Language Teaching of the ‘20s and ‘30s leading to the concept of Word Lists—Word lists by Michael West, Thorndike and Lorge; the Audio-lingual Method of the ‘50s, under the leadership of Charles Fries, putting vocabulary teaching on the backburner, treating lexical items as the means by which to illustrate grammatical topics rather than as items with communicative value in themselves. Then came the Communicative Approach, and with it the focus shifted from language usage to language use. Unlike Chomsky whose focus was on linguistic competence, Dell Hymes gave greater emphasis to the socio-linguistic and pragmatic factors governing effective language use. Accordingly the focus in language teaching shifted to Communicative Proficiency rather than the Command of Structures. They maintained skill-getting practices should be supported by “skill-using” opportunities in real communication. With it started the era of authentic language materials in the classroom and emergence of notional and functional syllabi. Here too the focus was not on vocabulary but on the appropriate use of communication categories and towards language as Discourse; Krashen’s The Natural Approach methodology emphasizes comprehensible and meaningful input rather than grammatically correct production. It is in this approach that the vocabulary as a bearer of meaning is considered very important to the language acquisition process.
Lexicographical research begun in the 1980s led to COBUILD (The Collins Birmingham University International Language Database) Project. It is an extensive computer analysis based on central corpus of 20 million words, designed to account for actual language use. Work on corpus analysis and computational linguistics has led to a considerable interest in the importance of large chunks of language, variously known as lexical items, lexical phrases, and prefabricated units. These are multiword chunks (as it were, on the other hand, as X would have us believe). The findings revealed that pragmatic competence is determined by a learner’s ability to access and adapt prefabricated ‘chunks’ of language.
The work of Sinclair, Nattinger, DeCarrico, and Lewis established the fact that lexical items are central to language use and should be central to language teaching. Lewis maintains that “language consists of grammaticalised lexis, not lexicalised grammer” (Lewis 1993, p.89). Lewis challenges the validity of a grammar-vocabulary dichotomy and emphasizes the language learner’s need to perceive and use patterns of lexis and collocation. So the focus, in a way, shifted from the traditional view of word boundaries to larger phrasal units.
We as non-native speakers of English feel that a good amount of vocabulary—with a minimum of structure—often makes for better reading comprehension and more efficient survival communications than near-perfect structure with an impoverished vocabulary of 100 words or less. The point I would like to make here is that neither impoverished structure nor vocabulary is desirable. Recognition of the significance of emphasis on vocabulary development does not imply the need for vocabulary lists, the memorization of twenty words per week, or isolated attention to individual words away from their natural environment. It does mean learners should develop their own system for improving their reading vocabularies. It implies that they be helped to work out strategies for unlocking the meanings of unknown units of written language. For this students need to be made aware of all the cues that help them develop their vocabularies—cues within themselves, and cues within the language.
Often students claim that their primary problem in acquiring English is the lack of vocabulary. Such students, it generally turns out, have an adequate active vocabulary, also called “productive” vocabulary. Frequency counts indicate that about 2000 words make up 90% of the vocabulary that native speakers use in everyday conversation. Most second language learners of English too would have acquired this much of Basic English by the time they reach +2 level (Intermediate Degree). Yet they feel their vocabulary is inadequate for purposes of reading and listening. Why is it so? The problem is in the category of Passive Vocabulary or Recognition Vocabulary which the language user employs in reading and listening. While a native speaker of English has a vast passive vocabulary the second/foreign learner of English finds it difficult acquiring this vocabulary; hence their problem with reading and listening comprehension skills. The techniques used to teach passive vocabulary are different from those used to increase a student’s active vocabulary. The ability to use a dictionary and a thesaurus and training oneself to guess meanings of words in context are the seminal strategies in learning passive vocabulary. A new word finds reinforcement when student encounters it the second time and the third time and very soon he starts using the word in his speech and writing. Thus it becomes a part and parcel of his active vocabulary. More than any other strategy, extensive reading is the key to building adequate vocabulary. As Marianne Celce-Mercia and Fred Rosenweig put it, “most important, perhaps, is the teacher’s ability to arouse in his students a genuine interest in vocabulary, to develop the skills and the curiosity that will guarantee the growth of every student’s vocabulary far beyond the spatial and temporal limits of the ESL classroom.
The words of a language are more than merely a list of lexical items. The words of a language are a highly complex system of classes of items—interlocking classes as to meaning, form, grammatical function, distribution, etc.
To enabling the student to read himself into knowledge of vocabulary should be the aim of teaching at college level. We do not want the pupil to concentrate on learning facts about words but the skills of appropriate response and use, which can only be practised in context. We want him to learn English, not lexis. For this he has to run the grammatical patterns of the language through his mind at the same time as the collocations. Our course materials at degree level provide ample scope for contextualizing the lexical items.
Generally we are under a false impression that each word has a form side and a meaning side. The form [d>g] has a meaning “a carnivorous animal that is faithful to man.” This one-to-one correspondence between form (signifier) and meaning (signifie) is a myth. The word ‘spring’ has form but it may mean “a water fountain” or “the season spring” or “the metal coil with elasticity.” Here we have one form signifying three different meanings. In contrast we can also find instances where several different forms may denote the same meaning. For example, ‘enquire, question, ask, interrogate, catechize,’ all mean “question.”
Languages differ from one another both in form and meaning categories. The word ‘horse’ was not a part of American English lexis before the Spanish Conquest. The Spaniards introduced the animal “horse” until the same Spanish people brought them from
The point I would like to make here is that when you look at English look at it with fresh eyes; do not look through coloured glasses, tinted with your mother tongue.
All of us are aware that words are the building blocks of communication. To communicate efficiently you need to know the lexical items in a language. How many words do you need to know in English to make conversation with ease? Do all languages in the world have equal number of words in them? No. Yet another relevant question we should ask ourselves is: Do the number of words in a language remain the same in all ages, or change? For instance, way back in 1755, the famous English critic and a Man of Letters, Samuel Johnson brought out the first important English Dictionary. He worked very hard for ten years to compile that dictionary. Samuel Johnson’s Dictionary included 48,000 words in it. That means, in 18th century, English language had less than 50,000 words. Go to any modern English dictionary—it lists not less than 500,000 words. In fact the word-count of English now stands at 600,000. That means the English language has posted a 12 fold increase in just 250 years. We are not going to talk about how a language increases its vocabulary in course of time.
Now we should know what exactly is meant by learning a language? Do we have to learn all the words that are there in it? Not really. If that were the case nobody would come forward to learn that language. An average native speaker of English uses 5000 words in his day to day life – just 5000, and conducts life’s transactions efficiently. On the face of it, it looks quite simple, a cake-walk. But it is not; knowing a word means knowing the entire family of that word. What do you mean by learning a word as a family?
I
Let me explain it. Take the word ‘horse’: mare, stallion, foal (male young), filly (female young), colt (neuter young), pony (a small horse breed), palfrey (women ride on it).” If you compare it with Telugu we have only one word for it – gurram (literary use: ashvam/saindhavam). This is not all. We have several compound words in English that have the word ‘horse’ in them:
Horse sense; horsewhip; horse laugh; horseplay; horse power; horse shoe; horse flesh; forse chestnut; horse box; horse-and-buggy [days]; horse fly; horse hair; horse radish; high horse; clothes horse; a dark horse; a willing horse; riding a hobby horse; horse back; horseman/horsewoman; horsemanship; horse racing; horse shit; horse trading.
Now if you want to heave a sigh of relief—thank god! The word ‘horse’ is over! We have mastered it all—then you are wrong—absolutely wrong. Why? Because we have several phrases in English, you can also call them idioms, which include the word ‘horse’ in them. Let’s find out some:
He eats like a horse; works like a horse; [straight] from the horse’s mouth; flogging a dead horse; putting the cart before the horse; you can lead a horse to the water but you can’t make it drink; hold your horses; don’t look a gift horse in the mouth; horse of another colour; back the wrong horse.
Off the cuff I could list these; there might be some more still. Then knowing a word means knowing all the permutations and combinations and configurations in which the word occurs. Does it appear difficult? Difficult somewhat, but not absolutely so. When you go to the dictionary for the meaning of a new word—don’t just look for the meaning of that word alone—let your eye rove above that word as well as below to find out if there are any other expressions using that word.
Do we have such a linguistic phenomenon in Telugu as well? Yes. Let’s find out the semantic field of a Telugu word—‘maata’ “word”:
Maata ichchaanu; maata padadu; maata saagutundi; maataloo vachchadu; oka maata; naa maata vinu; okka maataloo cheppu; aa maata eemaindi; maaku maatalu leevu; maata poovaddu; maatante maate; maa abbaayiki maatalostunnai; maatakaari; maataa muchchata; vaadi maata niilla moota.
II
So the most important way of enriching one’s vocabulary is to familiarize oneself with the words that have the same root in them. Just take the word ‘sense’ and find out how many words you can get out of it by applying derivation technique:
Sense, non-sense, senseless, sensible, sensibly, insensible, insensibly, sensibility, sensitive, insensitive, sensitivity, insensitivity, sentient, insensate, sensation, sensational, sensationalize, sensitize, sensitization, desensitize, desensitization, sensuous, sensuousness, sensual, sensuality, sensualist, sensor, sensory, nonsensical, senses.
This is what is meant by learning the word as a family or a class. Teacher can give a helping hand to his students by providing contexts for these words. This entails a bit of homework on your part. I know you wouldn’t grudge it.
III
The meaning of a word depends on the context in which it is used. There is no such thing as the meaning of a word in isolation. For example, the word ‘fast’ has several meanings depending upon the context in which it is used:
He runs fast. He stands fast. The color is fast. Friday is fast day. He is fast asleep. My watch is five minutes fast. He is leading a fast life.
So the meaning of a word depends upon the context in which it is used; the use to which it is put in a context. If somebody is engaged in laying the table and asks “Where is the jam?” the meaning of “jam” is clear enough as part of the whole situation (strawberry jam/pineapple jam). If, on the other hand, somebody used the same word sitting in a line of cars, it would mean a “traffic jam”. If somebody asks you for ‘saindhavam’ while he is having dinner, you give him salt; you get him horse if he asks for it after he has dinner. So learning a word is to know the various contexts in which it appears. To put it crudely, the student needs to learn a great many new meanings for words that he already has with him.
Just with one word “go” you can express scores of meanings. Think of phrasal verbs.
His mind went blank. She goes about her work silently. I will go long with you in your decision to marry the girl you love. The politicians went back on their promises. The lecture went down well with the public. He went for his victim’s throat. If you are going for Santro go for ‘zingthing’. The gun went off. He went on talking. He went into the matter of fodder scam. I will go over the matter. I will go through the file. He had to go through a hell of a time. He was given the go-ahead to demolish the illegally built structures.
The list is still incomplete, but it does serve to illustrate that mastering the word “go” in its principal uses is a key to mastering the vocabulary of English. Indeed, without it a student would have quite a gap in his vocabulary. Teaching the ESL student the multiple meanings of lexical items (multiword chunks—here phrasal verbs) presents a formidable challenge. The teacher must take care not to introduce too many uses in any one day. To do so would probably lead to confusion and misuse by the students.
So what matters is not how many words you have in your kitty but to what use you put them to. Words are like coins; the greater the use greater the shine. Though English language has 600,000 words, no one uses all those words in his life time—not even the great writers or greatest orators. Winston Churchill who won the Nobel Prize for literature and was also a great speaker and a statesman had 60,000 active vocabulary in use. That is, only 1/10 of the total vocabulary.
V
If knowing the vocabulary is one thing, using it appropriately is another. May be more difficult than you actually it is. All of you are familiar with synonyms—words with similar or identical meanings. You have a feeling that where one word occurs the other also can go there. But that is not the case; not many words are total synonyms; total synonymy is a luxury no language can afford. Take for instance, ‘start’ and ‘begin’.
You can either start a session or begin a session. But you start the car.
Never begin it.
Similarly if you take words like “declare, announce, pronounce” --all having the meaning “to make it known”--and try using them in specific contexts. You will realize the subtle differences in use:
You declare your assets. (never pronounce or announce).
He was pronounced guilty/dead.
He was declared guilty/dead. (never announced guilty/dead)
The arrival time of the train is just announced. (never declared or pronounced)
Though all the three have shared meaning, each one has its place of occurrence. Mutual substitution is not always possible. We say ‘O God! Help me.’ Never aid me.
VI
This brings us to collocations. These are co-occurrence rules.
Leaves stir in the light breeze; flag flutters in the wind; clouds drift across the sky; trees sway back and forth as the gale grew; the car swerved to avoid running over a dog; ---- boats/ships sail, rivers/streams either flow/run through towns; cars and trucks either travel or drive along roads—rumbling thunder, hissing steam/gas, rustle of silks or paper, roar of the water fall/traffic, clatter of metal pans, pattering of rain on the roof, banging doors, crashing, thud, etc.
Don’t we say “eye of the storm/needle, head of the nail/table, foot of the hill/tree, ears of corn, tongues of flame, mouth of a cave, arms of a chair, legs of a table, teeth of a saw, hands of a clock, etc. Try reversing the combinations presented here, and you will come up with unacceptable collocations. “Foot of a tree” is o.k., but not “head of the tree.”
“Old” shares meaning with both “elderly and antique.” We can say “old furniture,” “old gentleman;” try using “antique” and “elderly” here. “Antique furniture,” and “elderly gentleman,” are o.k., but not “antique gentleman” and “elderly furniture.” You take a walk, make a journey, deliver a lecture, make a speech, teach a lesson, take a class, etc. Most second language learners of English are bad at collocations. The teacher can pitch in and help out the student in this area.
VII
In the first languages we generally pick up strong emotional associations within the home. They are built into the learning situation. But a second language is normally learnt in the less passionate atmosphere of the classroom. The result is a lack of emotional involvement in the language and hence great difficulty in seeing any meaning other than plain sense. If ‘obstinate’ is understood to mean no more than ‘determined’—the writer’s attitude of disapproval is missed. Many of the new learning items the students will meet at college level are loaded with suggestions of feeling and implication.
Each language has words that have pejorative sense or ameliorative sense. The words with bad connotation are called snarl words and the other category is labeled purr words. Observe the following:
‘snarl’ words vis-Ã -vis ‘purr’ words
Pig-headed/obstinate/stubborn (determined/resolute); stingy/miserly/parsimonious (thrifty/economical); wordy/verbose/high-falutin (fluent); skinny (slim); notorious (famous); spendthrift/extravagant (generous); politician (statesman); blunt/curt/abrupt/brusque (frank/direct/open); aggressive/bossy (assertive); pushy (ambitious); naïve/gullible (innocent); eccentric (original).
VIII
Denotative - Connotative
He showed his teeth. (neutral) He bared his teeth (anger)
He relinquished his post (neutral) He abandoned his post (moral blame)
IX
Languages also differ in the range of lexical sets. A language might make subtle distinctions in a semantic field that are not available in other languages. For example
A. boiling/very hot/hot/quite hot/warm/luke warm/tepid/cool/cold/freezing
B. adore/like very much/ like/quite like/not mind/dislike/hate/loathe/can’t stand
C. fabulous, marvelous/very good/good/quite good/ok, average/not very good/mediocre/bad/awful/dreadful.
X
The Basic English Vocabulary items that the ESL students are taught at the primary and secondary school level are mostly of general nature and are most frequently used words. When they come to college level they keep encountering words which generally apply to narrower contexts than the known words.
In addition to ‘walk’ which they already know, they meet ‘limp,’ ‘hobble,’ ‘stroll,’ ‘saunter,’ ‘march,’ ‘stride.’
In addition to ‘pull,’ they may find ‘tug, jerk, twitch, haul, tow,’ etc.
In addition to ‘box,’ they will find ‘chest, case, carton,’ etc.
In addition to ‘swim,’ there are the words: ‘wade, splash, dive, squelch,’ etc.
It is important that pupils should not be allowed to assume that such words are synonymous. Some general explanation on the part of the teacher is required, reinforced by questions aimed at drawing attention to the precise meaning of the word, and at helping the pupil to infer the meaning as accurately as possible from the context (when it is met during reading). An ideal teacher, in such situations, would prepare exercises in advance to elicit the answers from the students by providing interesting context for all these sets of words to show the subtle differences in their meanings.
XI
The teacher can examine nouns and noun groups that name different levels of generality and consider the rules of appropriateness in choosing one level rather than another. That is, the teacher should familiarize the students with the hierarchical arrangement of words in English lexis. This lexical phenomenon is known as ‘hyponymy’ –the higher order words are called “superordinate terms” and the lower order words of the set are called “hyponyms.” If we start with a very general word or superordinate term such as vehicle, and work towards a pattern based on different hierarchies:
- Vehicles.
- Vehicles à Buses, lorries, cars, motor-cycles, bicycles, vans, trains, ships, aeroplanes.
- Car à saloon, sports car, taxi
- Saloon à Mercedes saloons, Ford saloons, Volkswagen saloons, Peugot saloons.
- Mercedes saloon à Mercedes Benz 190 D Saloon.
Words here are arranged at five different levels of generality such that all (b)s are (a), but not all (a)s are (b)s, all (c)s are (b)s, not all (b)s are (c)s, and so on.
Here it is interesting to ask which level word one would choose for particular purposes. You are planning to buy a car; so you go to the nearby car showroom. The minute you step in the polite salesman approaches you. Then what would you say? Would you say
1) “I want to buy a vehicle” or
2) “I want to buy a car.
Sentence 1 sounds odd, even ridiculous though the car is also a vehicle.
People generally have a feeling that it is always safe to use the particular term rather than the general one. But it does not always work. Can you say
3) “Would you like a lift in my Mercedes Benz 190D/Hundai Elantra/Maruti Alto?” without inviting derision. You would certainly sound funny.
It is in such cases the teacher needs to step in and demonstrate from time to time the additional meaning that a word associated with a narrower context brings in, what suggestions are implicit in the choice of this word rather than that.
XII
Not infrequently the same vocabulary item is a member of two scales. Examples are
Old – young hard – soft short – long
Old -- new hard –easy short – tall
Failure to recognize the two scales in which an item occurs often leads foreigners into such errors as
A short building (for a low building)
A young dress (a new dress)
If the language has pairs of collocations that are opposites both members have to be learnt. Given below are two types of opposites: one belongs to general category and the other collocational category.
General Collocational
left X right a right answer X wrong
married X single a single ticket X return
wet X dry dry wine X sweet
soft X hard a hard job X easy
weak X strong a strong smell X faint
smooth X rough a rough sea X calm
heavy X light a light colour X dark
hot X cold a cold person X a warm person
high X low a high voice X a deep voice
There are three types of oppositeness:
A. Binary antonyms (complementarity) like: dead/alive, true/false, single/married, same/different, perfect/imperfect, male/female, etc.
B. Under antonymy we have gradable items such as:
Young/old, long/short, big/small, little/much, few/many, quick/slow
“She is young but she is older than her sister.”
C. Converseness includes sets of words like buy/sell, husband/wife, parent/child,
lend/borrow, above/below, employee/employer. Here it is a bi-directional sense relationship. Prediction of one term inevitably implies the other.
XIII
Teaching the Productive Processes of Word Formation:
We may try teaching the active use of Vocabulary by taking the productive processes of word-formation. Celce-Murcia (1973, p. 252) calls one such process “incorporation.” This refers to the syntactic nature of vocabulary. Examples cited by Celce-Murcia are given below:
i. They put the milk into bottles. ii. They bottled the milk.
i. Sita took the dust off the furniture. ii. Sita dusted the furniture.
i. The cowboys led the horses into the corral. ii. The cowboys corralled the horses.
In the above examples, the several activity verbs in the first of each pair of sentences have incorporated the semantic function of one of the nouns to create a new verb in the second.
The process of changing one part of speech into another without the addition of any derivative affix is called conversion.
Nouns > Verbs: ‘paper, butter, bottle, vacation’ were originally used only as nouns. But now you find constructions like “Why don’t you paper your bedroom walls?”
Adjectives > Verbs: dirty > to dirty; empty > to empty.
Adjectives > Nouns: crazy > a crazy; nasty > a nasty.
If the teacher encounters ‘conversion’ in the text, all that he is required to do is to bring it to the notice of the students and supply some more words in that category.
B. The other productive lexical process is the use of affixes, derivation. In using affixes, for example, when the native speaker says unbutton, s/he knows it means “to undo the buttons.” The prefix un- (like in unpack, uncover) is often used with verbs to denote a reversal of action (e.g. do/undo, tie/untie, quote/unquote, fasten/unfasten, lock/unlock, fold/unfold, etc.) and can thus be termed productive prefix. There are undoubtedly semantic restrictions on the use of such prefixes since they cannot occur in all contexts, but they are nevertheless common and should be taught. Although it is unrealistic to expect the students to be familiar with all the semantic restrictions (like die/*undie, eat/*uneat, run/*unrun, etc.; code/decode, frost/defrost, decentralize, deforestation, disown, etc.) it is realistic to teach them to recognize the productive affixes when they occur and to be able to use the more common ones.
C. Yet another productive lexical process worth mentioning is compounding. We have compounds like “bathroom, headache, stomachache, toothache, goldfish, birthright, earthquake, footstool” where the meaning of the compound may be derived from the combined meaning of the stems composing the compound word. They are called endocentric compounds. Here, in this category the teacher can elicit some more examples from the students and supply some from his side. However not all compounds are equally straightforward. Take for example words like: upshot, backlash, outcome, holdup, input, showdown, greenhouse. The meaning of the compounds here is not the combined meaning of the constituent stems. They are called exocentric compounds. You can ask the students to list the compounds from the prescribed text and arrange them in the categories mentioned above.
D. Another productive lexical process is clipping (shortened forms). Each age contributes its own set of new clipped forms to the language. Sometimes both the clipped and the full forms coexist. “He is a professor of Mathematics / He is a math(s) prof.” Here math/maths are the clipped forms of mathematics. Similarly, prof is the clipped form of professor. The teacher could ask his students to supply some such clipped forms from their reading of the text and newspapers. They are bound to come up with some clipped forms that you have not already listed. And yet another way is to elicit the clipped forms by supplying them the full forms, or the other way round. The class is bound to come alive when you supply: legit, hyper, ammo, max, pop, porno, grad, condo, limo, med, sale reps, mill, hoods, doc, obit, handycam, some temps, admin law, ad, vet, alco, detox, sub, rehab, prephols, varsity, mag, dorm, champ, celeb, vac, dip, geog, exam, deli, certif., ex-con, tech, info, etc.
E. Another productive lexical process is Acronymy. Words like TADA (Terrorist and Disruption Activity), RADAR (Radio Detecting and Ranging). Test them with some more words like ‘laser, CRY, FIR, FRUMP (Frugal, Responsible, Unpretentious Mature Person), AIDS, yuppies, recap, recci, jeep, FAQS, DJs, VJs,
F. Yet another important productive lexical process is portmonteau words or blends.
Breakfast + lunch > brunch; potato + tomato > pomato
Then you could give students forms that are blends and ask them to supply the source words:
Forex reserves, slumflation, Eurasia, liger, digiquette, urinalysis, digiteratti, motel, boatel, fantabulous, documedia, infotainment, mediclaim, glocal, workaholics, shopaholics, bionics, exim policy, glamdoll, romcom, sitcom, telex, electrocute, etc. Just a glance into any daily newspaper will give the English teacher ample material to use in his class room and enrich the students’ vocabulary. The only thing needed is the passion on the part of the teacher—learning will automatically follow. Language teaching should be learnt as a science but practiced as an art. No one is a born teacher; Awareness is all.
XIV
While learning vocabulary you have to pay attention to yet another side of vocabulary, i.e. style. Depending on the addresser-addressee relationship the style employed may be intimate, colloquial, consultative, informal, formal, very formal, or rigid.
A.
Frozen: Visitors should make their way at once to the upper floor by way of staircase.
Formal: Visitors should go up the stairs at once.
Consultative: Would you mind going upstairs right away, please<
Casual: Time you all went upstairs now.
Intimate: Up you go chaps!
B.
He is a nice guy. (informal)
He is a thorough gentleman. (formal)
C.
He is full of himself. (informal)
He is arrogant/self-important. (formal)
D.
Similarly if I am making a request for an increase in my salary, it would be most unwise on my part to use either imperative “Give me a pay-rise,” or an interrogative as in “Will you increase my pay next month?” These forms would certainly be counter-productive. On the other hand a circumlocutory approach would suggest an appropriate recognition of our relative status. As in
“I should, therefore, be grateful if you could give serious consideration to the possibility of increasing my salary.” Thus the more formal sentence here is not only different structurally but shows a change in vocabulary.
One would not expect you to try all this at one go or in just a class or a day. All that is expected of you is to have these things in mind when you teach next. I am sure you will be amply rewarded with affection and respect from your students for this thoughtfulness and diligence. Give them the awareness and attitude. Given these, they are on their own for life.
Notes
1. Bright and McGregor, Teaching English as a Second Language.
2. Celce-Murcia, Marianne and Fred Rosensweig. 1969. “Teaching Vocabulary in the ESL Classroom,” in Teaching English as Second or Foreign Language by Marianne Celce-Murcia and Lois McIntosh.
3. Coady, James and Thomas Huckin (eds.) 1996. Second Language Vocabulary Acquisition: A Rationale for Pedagogy. Second Language Vocabulary Acquisition: A Rationale for Pedagogy. Series Editors: Michael H. Long and Jack C. Richards.
4. Fries, C.C. 1945. Teaching and Learning Englishas a Foreign Language. Cresset Press.
5. Fries, C.C. and A.A. Traver. 1950. English Word Lists: A Study of their Adaptability for Instruction.
6. Halliday, M.A.K., A. McIntosh and P. Stevens. 1964. The Linguistic Sciences and Language Teaching. Longman.
7. Lewis, M. 1993. The Lexical Approach: The State of
8. Nattinger, J.R. and J.S. DeCarrico. 1992. Lexical Phrases and Language Teaching.
9. Osman, N. 1965. Word Function and Dictionary Use. OUP.
10. Sinclair, J. 1985. “Selected Issues,” in English in the World, eds. R. Quirk and H.G. Widdowson.
11. Sweet, H. 1964. The Practical Study of Languages: A Guide for Teachers and Learners. OUP.
12. Thorndike, E.L., and
13. Twaddel, F. 1980. “Vocabulary Expansion in the TESOL Classroom.” In K. Croft (ed.),
14. West, M. 1953. A General Service List of English Words. Longman.
Address at English Teachers' Regional Conference on Social Justice Through English Education, organised in honour of Prof.T. Vinoda on the occasion of her superannuation by Students' Welfare Center and Placement Cell, Kakatiya University, Warangal, India on 17-2-2007.
English for Social Justice
English for Social Justice
T. Vinoda
At a recent seminar on “Empowerment of Dalits” UR Anantha Murthy has argued that the best way to beat the “English speaking community” is to learn to speak that language. However the Nativist intellectuals and proponents of Desi languages have always argued, under the guise of Orientalism, that English endangers local languages and perpetuates inequality. But this need not happen as indeed it did not happen. For, the Desi traditions have always strengthened as one moved up the English intellectual ladder. This is best seen in some of the well known Indian writers in English like Raja Rao or Salman Rushdie. Also, as the eminent linguist, David Crystal pointed out, widespread in
His conclusions give substance to the view that English has helped Indians with global reach even as it helped them decolonise themselves and march towards the preservation of local identities. In fact some Indian intellectuals like Gail Omvedt even think that, through English education, Dalits can even come back to break the elitist Brahminical stranglehold of Sanskrit over the regional languages. English skills, therefore, have the effect of empowerment, liberation and emancipation especially for the oppressed classes.
The Dalit intellectual and activist Chandrabhan Prasad recently celebrated Lord Macaulay’s 206th birthday with merriment, joviality and jesting because he hailed him as the Father of Indian Modernity, for, as he puts it, it was after the introduction of his English system of education in 1854 that Dalits got the right to education. Prasad thinks that, had it not been for Macaulay, notwithstanding his insidious imperialist designs to make “intellectual slaves” of Indians for the British Empire,
What is also unique to the Indian experience is the multiple linguistic continuities that it provides along with English; the Nativist fears about the endangerment to the regional languages are entirely unfounded. It is my firm belief that the strong Indian identity will remain unshaken by the temporary incursions that the Western culture might make through the English language. I believe that, at the end of the day, English will remain a language with which we do business with the rest of the world. The English juggernaut moves on helping growth and development in
It is interesting to note that Viniti Vaish of Centre for Research in Pedagogy and Practice at the National Instt. of Education in
One of the important issues that the organizers of this Seminar wanted us to address is:
- Like Sankrit in old times, is English today used to keep the disadvantaged sections out of power;
- is English confined to elite groups like Sanskrit in old times.
- Is linguicism practiced deliberately to divide the society into the advantaged and disadvantaged, etc.
I wish to state that the conspiracy theory is valid for the pre-Independence times when it was first introduced in
In
In June 2003 Regional Institute of English (
Whether we know it or not, whether we recognize it or not, the University English Departments in
We need to recognize that English Studies in
We have arrived today at a situation where performance and performance alone is important. We now live in an age of internet, economic liberalization, of heavy foreign direct investments in
A word here on the pedagogical perspectives, is in place. The organizers of this conference have devoted an entire session, the technical session, for evolving strategies and techniques to produce need-specific teaching materials and appropriate context-specific teaching methodologies. It goes without saying that we would all agree on one particular point: the power distribution in the classroom be righted by making the pedagogy learner-centred. There is need for empowerment everywhere: empowerment of schools with equipment and aids to teaching—we cannot underestimate the role technology plays in education in the age of internet. There is need for empowerment of teachers with good pronunciation, proficiency and skills of teaching; of learners with self-confidence and faith in their cognitive resourcefulness, i.e. faith in their own native abilities and learning resources. Thus empowerment may come through English, but first the schools and the teachers need to be empowered.
Before I conclude I would like to draw the attention of the scholars to a point of view that prevails at the other end of the spectrum. That is, there are people who maintain that children learn best and quickest in their mother-tongues, and not having English as the primary mode of education has not prevented Koreans, Malays, and Chinese from getting ahead or the Russians from producing mathematical geniuses or the French and the Germans producing Nobel Prize winners in the sciences. These people argue it is a more a matter of allocation and deployment of resources for education than of language issue. Scholars can debate this point of view as well.
Lecture at the UGC-sponsored Seminar on "Emerging Trends in Communication Skills in English," organised by the Department of English, CKM Arts & Science College, Warangal on September 5-6, 2000.
Communicative Competence: Some Reflections
T. Vinoda
Nearly 170 years after English was introduced into
Starting from the 1950s a real shift took place in the approach, methods and techniques in language pedagogy. The goal of English instruction originally was to enable the users to construct correct sentences with the help of grammatical rules. Thus the focus was mainly on usage. However later the goal of language instruction shifted to building up learners’ “communicative competence.” Their focus has shifted now to rules of use, i.e. the use of language to accomplish some kind of communication purpose. “Sound sociolinguistic principles” has become the key phrase in language teaching. Drawing on the work of the British functional linguists, Firth and Halliday, a group of applied linguists like Wilkins, Christopher Candlin, Henry Widdowson, Christopher Brumfit, Keith Johnson and others have advocated what is called “notional-functional syllabus.” This meant building a course around the uses or functions to which language is put. For example, one lesson could be planned on requesting information, another on apologizing, a third on expressing gratitude, greetings, and so on. The familiar structural patterns remained, but they were ordered differently and organized around functional headings. They insisted that the purpose of teaching a second language was not merely to enable the students to know about language but to enable them to use it in real life situations.
In fact there is an interesting problem here regarding the dialectical relationship between the system and its use: we cannot use a language unless we learn the rules (i.e. the system) and we can learn the rules only through using the language. Where does one begin in this situation where usage and use are interdependent?
Language can either be acquired or learned. Acquisition means “picking up” the language in a natural way. Krashen calls this method the “Natural Method.” And “learning” on the contrary refers to “conscious” grammar learning, which is knowing about a language rather than learning to perform. However in a second language situation it is through the interaction between the two that the learning of English takes place.
It must be remembered that communication takes place not merely through language but through a variety of non-linguistic ways as well. That is, sometimes we communicate by raising brows of knitting them, by shrugging, by clearing throat, by emoting feelings on the face, by certain body gestures, by the way we dress or in innumerable other ways. However the sole function of language is communication. But all vocal behaviour need not necessarily be language. Cries, grunting, screaming, etc. are not part of language. Perhaps even the predictable ‘good-byes,’ ‘hellos,’ and ‘how do you dos’ are only language-like behaviour. Language per se or verbal behaviour is a special sort of communicative behaviour.
When we talk about acceptable and unacceptable behaviour or appropriate and inappropriate language, we are taking a view of language as a social institution, a body of socially conditioned or culturally determined ways of behaving. The traditional language teaching with its insistence on correctness, the rules of grammar, and its limited objectives lacked this social dimension. Little thought seems to have been given to the notion of appropriateness, to the way the language behaviour is responsive to differing social situations. However modern pedagogy adopts a more social approach to language and addresses problems of communication function in different social situations. We see this in the modern insistence on presenting language in situations, in dialogue form rather than isolated exemplificatory sentences, in the use of audio-visual materials and in the emphasis on ‘natural’ linguistic examples.
There are at least three dimensions of variability in the language use. The first is concerned with the relative social status of the speaker and hearer. Thus we would expect to find the language used by a teacher speaking to a student to be different from that used by a student speaking to his classmate; or a judge speaking to a prisoner or to a lawyer. This status-related dimension of variability is called style. A well-known illustration of this was given by Martin Joos (1962) where he arbitrarily divided up the continuum of variability into five stages of formality:
1. Frozen: Visitors should make their way at once to the upper floor by way
of staircase.
2. Formal: Visitors should go up the stairs at once.
3. Consultative: Would you mind going upstairs right away, please?
4. Casual: Time you all went upstairs now.
5. Intimate: Up you go chaps!
It could be seen that features of languageregularly mark social relationships between participants in a language event. People are generally aware of their own status in relation to one another and will choose the appropriate language forms quite unconsciously. Status may be marked at any level of language—syntax, lexis, and phonetics. If I write to my employer asking for an increase in my salary, it would be most unwise on my part to use either the imperative or the interrogative form of the verb:
Give me a pay-rise. (Imperative)
Or
Will you increase my pay next month? (Interrogative)
These forms would certainly be counter-productive. On the other hand a circumlocutory approach would suggest an appropriate recognition of our relative status:
I should therefore be grateful if you could give serious consideration to the possibility of increasing my salary.
Thus the more formal sentence here is not only different structurally but also shows a change in vocabulary. For “pay” we now have “salary.” For that matter there is a very large vocabulary of items used for “salary” received for work done:
Wages, money, remuneration, income, emoluments, earnings, fee, commission,
Honorarium, retainer, etc.
And no doubt many more. The degree of formality of an utterance is undoubtedly a factor in our choice from these alternatives for “pay.” However slang words do not fit in here because they are appropriate only to a casual or intimate style. “Dough,” “bloke,” “cuppa,” “loo,” “booze,” are of a category that go with the casual, informal or intimate style. Thus in lexis too there are degrees of formality. For example,
“offspring” is very formal (used in legalese)
“children” is neutral
“kids” is very informal.
If the parents of two school going children meet, the enquiry, “How is your offspring [in place of child] doing” will be very awkward.
If I am making an application for leave of absence to my superior officer, I cannot use this casual language:
“Hi! Chum!
I’ve a lousy headache. I’m chucking this bloody work and going to hit the hay. Cheerio."
This is absolutely unacceptable. I have to be using officialese as shown below:
“Sir,
As I have a persistent headache, I request you for a day’s leave of absence
Thanking you,”
So is the case when I apply for a job: I can not use the informal or slang variety of language. Similarly in a speech situation phonology may also be an indicator of relative status. Deference due to a superior or indifference to an inferior can be shown easily enough through intonation. For example “thank you” said with a falling intonation marks gratitude while the one with a rise signifies just a formality—perfunctory response.
The second use-related language variation we find is what is called register. Area or context-specific language is register. Subject-specific language use is also known as field of discourse. We have ‘scientific, religious, legal, literary, sports’ registers and also such varieties as the language of newspaper headlines, of cables and telegrams, of cookery and embroidery, of advertising, and so on.
One of the marked features of a register is the predominance of a particular type of technical terms. Certain marked lexical features help us delimit and classify registers. Consider this passage:
Soak the breadcrumbs in boiling water, then strain. Add the beaten eggs, herbs and finely chopped fried onions. Shape into fritters. Fry in deep hot fat until brown.
You immediately recognize it as the register of cookery. You will find here predominant use of imperative structures and register-specific vocabulary. Effective acquisition of communication skills in English in a chosen field of discourse ought to lead the learners to that specific register. Cricket commentators, public speakers, announcers at airports and railway stations, sales representatives could be given special tailor-made courses with focus on the register-specific vocabulary, syntax and special phonological features these occupations demand.
In point of fact, leaning a second language is a process of making a number of choices and putting them together. Teachers of English in a second language situation must help the student make an appropriate register choice out of the total register range. Register-shift, i.e. the ability to shift registers according to shifts in the situation is one of the crucial conditions for success in handling second language effectively. The dictum is: “If you don’t know your lines, you are no use in the play.” In fact man in his day-to-day life finds himself in a network of institutionalized roles and has to select role-worthy varieties of the language appropriate to the topic and the situation. Teaching of communicative English should be geared to meet such typical language needs.
The third area where a second language learner of English needs help at undergraduate level is the use of spoken language as opposed to written language. Unfortunately the existing scheme of things as far as English teaching is concerned is very weak in this respect. Since our teaching is geared to the annual written examination at the end of the year, students as well as teachers tend to lay stress on written skills rather than the spoken competency. As a consequence the students tend to bring in the style of writing model to operate on spoken English, leading sometimes to very embarrassing situations. When they speak they use outrageously perfect sentences, too complete, too grammatical, too lengthy and too cogent. Incomplete sentences, breaks, digressions in conversation that we expect to find in spoken medium are not to be found.
It is probably because of this piquant situation that both at the UG and PG level a majority of students fail to use good communicative English, although they are otherwise good at grammar. This, of course, does not mean that students who are bad at grammar are necessarily good at communication skills. Often, these students find it difficult relating to people because their learning stopped with grammatical competence and has not progressed toward communicative competence.
It must be remembered that language learning is not complete when one is proficient in producing grammatical forms and has assimilated the relations that they express. For what we describe as the grammatical function of a sentence is not necessarily the same as its utterance function. For example, in teaching imperative form of a verb it is not enough to explain them that it is used for giving orders or for making requests. We ignore the fact that an imperative, typically, is used for several other purposes as well. For example, in the following speech acts, the imperative form is used to convey suggestion, threat, instruction, direction, warning, invitation, etc.
Grammatical function Utterance function
1. Find a seat and I’ll get drinks. Suggestion
2. Do that and I’ll knock your teeth in. Threat
3. Connect the hose to the water supply. Instruction
4. Turn left at the traffic lights and take the third Direction
turning on the left..
5. Watch your glass. Warning
6. Have a drink. Invitation
These six imperative sentences express six different utterance functions. That is to say, in indirect speech acts the imperative can signify functions other than order and request. Conversely, it is equally possible to produce utterances that do not contain imperative forms, but still have the effect of imposing the will of the speaker on the hearer. Consider the following examples.
1. If you don't shut the window, you'll get a good hiding.
2. I insist that you do it.
3. You are not going out in that dress.
4. My driver will carry your bag for you (indirectly order to the driver)
These sentences are declaratives but are used to signify theutterance function of 'ordering.' It is clear that non-imperative sentences also can signal 'order', a function that is usually performed by imperative forms. Similarly we can go further and show that interrogatives are not necessarily questions or conditionals are not always conditions. It is not only that the same utterance function like 'order' can be expressed through different sentence types, but that the use of one form in place of another makes for a subtle difference. Observe the following sentences: they show how the hierarchies of formality, indirection and politeness interact:
Shut the door. (order)
Shut the door, will you? (familiar)
Please shut the door. (polite)
Would you please shut the door? (more polite)
Would you mind shutting the door? (still more polite)
Generally the indirect speech acts are considered to be more polite than the direct speech acts. Lack of awareness of such implications involved in the use of direct and indirect speech acts often leads to breakdown in communication. To illustrate it further, all the students here know that there are mainly two types of interrogative sentences--'yes/no' type and 'wh-' type. A 'yes/no' interrogative like:
"Do you know where the Ratna Hotel is?"
Under normal circumstances elicits either 'yes' or 'no' as an answer from the interlocutor in direct speech act. Nevertheless it is possible to have numorous effects as a result of one person failing to recognize another person's indirect speech act. Consider the following scene. A visitor to
Visitor: Excuse me, do you know where the Ratna Hotel is?
Passer-by: Oh sure, I know where it is. (and walks away)
Instead of responding to the request the passer-by replies to the question, treating an indirect speech act as if were direct. That is, he has failed to interpret the speaker's intention. Indirect commands and requests are simply considered more gentle and more polite in our society than the direct commands. The knowledge of pragmatics and the awareness of conversational principles, also play a significant role in communication.
All this is to conclude that at the UG level the existing formal approach by teaching the context and purpose of utterance and by showing how these might be expressed. They may be taught to master the means of expressing notions. We will be better preparing our students to meet life situations if our course design includes such components as:
1. expressing emoitons like surprise, pleasure, sorrow, anger, anxiety, hope enthusiasm, etc.
2. our emotional reactions to others: such as expressing sympathy, condolence, affection, admireation, thrust, dislike, ridicule, etc.
3. attitudes and obligations: expressing praise, blame, apologies, regret, promises, prohibition, tolerance, permission, etc.
4. modalities and deictics like: degree of possibility, probability, necessity, likelihood, doubt, certainty, ability agreement,
disagreement, persuasion, suggestion, demands, orders, insistence, warnings, acceptance, caution, refusal, assertion,
opposition, qualification, admission, emphasis, contrast, understatement, exaggeration, frankness, tact, etc.
Much of our language use is personally motivated to express many of these communication functions and the conventional courses at the UG do not focus on them at all. I do not think that the learner will develop this ability on the basis of the formal knowledge sought to be imparted to him in the3 existing set up. A notion-oriented teaching with a need-based register-specific courses should render English teaching more purposeful than it is now.
However in the context of a more general course the conventional systematic grammar-based approach might do but if we intend planning an advanced language learning course at UG/PG level to achieve communicative competence the situational and notional approach to language teaching becomes inevitable. The idea here is to enable the student master the grammar rules first, and then teach him to exploit his grammatical competence for effective communication. In actual practice no guiding principles inform our advanced learning courses now. Perhaps these communication universals provide a means for the students to practise the application of their linguistic knowledge. Very often we are haunted by a nagging feeling that perhaps pedagogy serves very limited purpose especially with the kind of unmotivated and unfocused students that we get and with the kind of teaching materials and testing methods that obtain in the existing scheme of things. Bernard Shaw put this in his typically humorous vein: He said that his education had been continuous from childhood except for a brief interruption in school. We may have to work for thirty or so years and retire with the galling awareness of the pitfalls of English teaching especially since we work in a larger system where it is impossible to change things in a way that enables us to deliver. At best we may hope that this awareness of pitfalls and this discontentment in itself will so the seeds of change for the better.
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