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Schleppegrell, Mary J. (1996). Conjunction in Spoken English and ESL Writing. Applied Linguistics, 17(3).
Summary:
This paper focuses on the use of conjunctions, in particular the because clause, by ESL students in spoken English and writing. The author demonstrates how ESL students, at high levels of oral proficiency, tend to make inappropriate use of the because conjunction in academic writing. This is because they use strategies for conjunctions that are typical of spoken English. The author illustrates three main uses for because clauses common in spoken uses- to indicate the knowledge base for assertions, to introduce independent segments, and to display links between sections of discourse. These are common in spoken English, but are realized differently in academic writing. Elements of speech are highlighted in the article, "Spontaneous spoken language typically employs clause chaining strategies, using adverbial clauses and conjunctions to link segments of discourse." Thus spoken English contains a greater amount of finite verbs and clauses linked with conjunctions, and more adverbial clauses. Because is defined as "representing a causal relationship between two clauses. (Quirk, Greenbaum, Leech, and Svartvik, 1972). In spoken discourse, because clauses extend to a range of interactional concerns and pragmatic functions such as negotiating meaning, informational flow and structuring discourse. These, although typical in speech, rarely occur in academic writing and this proves to be problematic for ESL writer, as their essays contain an oral tone, resulting from a primarily spoken register.
Notes:
Highlights an important difference between interactive speech and academic writing, illustrating why the ESL learner is dogged by a persistently oral tone in their academic writing.
"Because clauses are more frequent in speech than writing when studies compare these two modes (Altenberg 1984;Beaman 1984). Biber’s (1988) work on textual dimensions of speech and writing shows that causal subordination, defined as use of because clauses, cooccurs with involved and generalized-content features, typically more characteristic of speech, rather than with informational features, typically more characteristic of speech, rather than with informational features, typically associated with writing. In a larger database from which the ESL examples in this paper come, university-level ESL writers use twice the number of because clauses as non’ESL writers responding to the same essay prompt."
This quotation effectively state the central theme of the article, the problems of relating speech and writing.
ESL writers must become aware of the lines delineating conversational speech and expository writing. They must be taught how to expand their grammatical resources of academic registers, this can only be achieved through increased exposure. Their main problem seems to be that they are relying on their oral skills in academics because they have not had much exposure to written genres. The author suggests writing tasks involving reflection, rather than timed essays, and increased feedback on grammatical accuracy and appropriateness.
Bardovi-Harlig, Kathleen; Hartford, Beverly S.(1990) Congruence in Native and Nonnative Conversations: Status Balance in the Academic Advising Session.Language Learning, 40(4), 467-501.
Summary:
The authors’ focus in on congruence as a factor in determining the success of native speaker and non native speaker speech interactions. "The ability to use utterances that are appropriate for a given speech event and for the participants in that event is part of a speaker’s pragmatic competence." This is shown to be problematic even for linguistically competent nonnative speakers, and tends more to distinguish them from native speakers than their grammatical competence. In this article, the language of the academic advising session is examined, the success rate of the outcome of which is shown to be due in large part to the student’s use of language when negotiating in non congruent terms. Thirty two sessions were examined, and the results of the findings are illustrated throughout the article. In "negotiating non congruent (status challenging) speech acts such as suggestions non native speakers are generally less successful because of the absence of status-preserving strategies that minimize the force of noncongruent speech acts." This is not because of their lack of linguistic competence, but rather a lack of context specific knowledge of the nuances of status-preserving strategies and the content and form appropriate for such speech acts.
Notes:
The authors intend this research to be part of a greater project directed towards preparing nonnative speakers and advisors for intercultural conversations.
"Advising sessions are more often less successful with nonnative speaking students than with native speakers. Because the nonnatives are linguistically competent, they may also be expected to have pragmatic abilities near those of their native-speaking counterparts. That this is not the case may not be obvious to the advisor whose attention is on other things in this interaction. By not being pragmatically competent, the nonnative students are at agrater risk than are the native students in an already precarious context."
This quotation succintly encapsulates the nature of the problem and consequences, justifying a need for their research.
Biber, D. (1988). Variation Across Speech and Writing, pp.3-27. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
Summary:
In Variation Across Speech and Writing, Douglas Biber proposes that the traditional distinction between speech and writing as the principal discourse types is inaccurate in the light of his research and methodology on discourse types and textual relations. This particular reference refers primarily to his introductory chapters in which Biber outlines the methodology, rationale and process of his research on discourse analysis. Biber eventually identifies four major discourse types - involved, informational, narrative and non narrative. Traditionally, language has been delineated into written and spoken genres, with written language tending towards structural complexity, formality, and abstractions. Its counterpart, spoken language tends to be more contextually dependent and structurally simple. Academics have long regarded writing as the true form of language, whilst speech has been considered less worthy. Linguistics, on the other hand, saw speech as primary, and writing as a derivative of speech.
A key concept in Biber’s work is that of dimension. Text has generally been compared along ‘dimensions of linguistic variation,’ resulting in the situational and functional parameters such as formal/informal, interactive/non interactive and restricted/elaborated. In relation to this, Biber attempts to answer three key questions. 1. What evidence can we give to support these linguistic impressions? 2. Do these characterizations represent a single linguistic dimension, or two dimensions? 3. Are there other linguistic dimensions that are not represented by the above linguistic impressions? (Biber, 1988)
To pursue concrete evidence, Biber employs a rigorous methodology and process based on empirical fact rather than a priori assumptions about the presumed features of the discourse types of language. For data he uses frequency counts of particular linguistic features. He arrives at a specific linguistic dimension on the basis of consistent co-occurence patterns among the features. For example, informal conversation makes heavy use of agentless passives and nominalizations. Most prior analyses of language had used situational or functional distinctions and subsequently identified linguistic features associated with that distinction. Bibers’ rationale is that strong co-occurence patterns of linguistic features mark underlying functional dimensions, features do not just randomly occur in texts. " We can then proceed from the linguistic features that are in fact used systematically in texts to an account of the underlying functional dimensions of English. These dimensions then illustrate the extent to which different discourse types are independent of each other."(Biber,1988) For example, Biber describes conversations texts as fragmented and involved, having many loosely joined clauses and features such as first person pronouns and emphatics.
Biber subsequently arrives at a new understanding of the linguistic term - Dimension. It contains three characteristics; firstly, no one dimension alone is adequate to account for linguistic variation in language, a multi dimensional approach is required. Dimensions are continuing scales of variation and the co-occurence patterns underlying them are identified from analyzing data rather than on an a priori functional basis. Biber also does not identify a linguistic dimension of co-occuring features that distinguishes between spoken and written texts.
Notes:
Although not directly relevant to accomplishing a resource module on the grammar of involved discourse, Bibers opening chapters provide valuable insights into the methodology and theoretical framework of this radical approach to grammar pedagogy, and hence to a better understanding of the rationale of teaching grammar from context.
" This approach is based on the assumption that strong co-occurence patterns of linguistic features mark underlying functional dimensions. Features do not randomly co-occur in texts. If certain features consistently co-occur, then it is reasonable to look for an underlying functional influence that encourages their use. In this way, the functions are not posited on an a priori basis; rather they are required to account for the observed co-occurrence patterns among linguistic features."
Illustrates Biber’s subsequent rigorous methodology, and his use of large amounts of raw data to empirically ascertain fundamental functional dimensions that lead to a differentiation in discourse types.
Reference:
Harris Bosselmann, Tonna. (1996) Teaching the Grammar of Involved Discourse in an Adult Ed ESL Class: A Resource Module. Unpublished paper
A resource module which outlines ways to aid students in a new culture by developing their language skills and communicative competence. This module draws on two main references - Douglas Bibers’ (1988) research on discourse types and particularly his explanation of involved discourse, ie. the language of interactive communication, and the features of grammar presented in Grammar in the Composition Class (P. Byrd and J. Reid, [Eds.] in press). Bibers’ notion of involved discourse is expanded upon, and the features of such verbal, interactive language are provided. Byrd’s rejections of the traditional proficiency based grammar in Its all the Same Grammar, in favor of authenticated grammar directed towards student’s need and future requirements also expounded to provide a theoretical framework for the paper.
There follows thirteen classroom activities designed expressly to coerce students into speaking interactively, using language in an involved way to express themselves and learn more about each other and their own learning style. The idea is that "students learn to communicate by communicating," and will have the opportunity to put the grammar of involved discourse into use, subconsciously picking up its forms and patterns and internalizing them through real life usage.
Notes:
This paper, with its adapted activities can provide a valuable resource for the classroom, and the teaching of interactive communication.
Quotation of Particular Value:
"For me, Biber’s research is important because it challenges my traditional opinion that spoken and written language are dramatically different. If any broad generalizations can indeed be made about such a difference, they could be attributed to the phonolgical processes and time constraints of speaking, but not the underlying grammatical structure. To support this, Biber did a statistical analysis of numerous linguistic features (grammar items such as present tense, infinitives, passives, etc.) to see how they show up in different text genres. In the texts he examined, he found that certain features consistently co-occurred, or clustered together. He theorizes that "these co-occurrence patterns indicate an underlying communicative function shared by the features: that is, it is assumed that linguistic features co-occur frequently in texts because they are used for a shared set of communicative functions in those texts."
Reference included in the quotation:
Biber, Douglas. (1988). Variation Across Speech and Writing. Cambridge, England. Cambridge University Press.
This quotation provides good justification for the teaching of interactive communication as a specific grammar exercise, it focuses on a specific discourse type, and develops the grammar specific to it, or its shared communicative functions.
Applications:
This resource module provides numerous specific activities which can be easily performed in the classroom. They mainly employ small group work, and a lot of spontaneous, unrehearsed language in informal settings.
Reference:
Byrd, Patricia. (in press). It's All the Same Grammar: Re-thinking Grammar at Various Proficiency Levels
Byrd proposes a different approach to the teaching of grammar which endorses the teaching of grammar according to a students needs rather than their level of proficiency. The old system of grammar in ESL involved dividing English into proficiency levels, and teaching along those levels, dividing up grammar into tiers of difficulty. This was implemented in accordance with notions of linguistic interconnectedness, where language learning is a process of moving from a lower level to a higher, and the idea of the ease and difficulty of grammatical concepts. It dictated that grammatical structures must be learned on a progressively harder level. This is found to be inadequate because it artificially divides a unified language into levels which do not address the students specific need for grammar, or enable them to read specific texts and have a general knowledge of its grammatical structures.
Byrd proposes that English is too interrelated to have its components taught in isolation. The answer to this dilemma of how to teach grammar most effectively is to be found in Biber’s work, Variation Across Speech and Writing, (1988) whose research shows that features of grammar are clustered together in sets that are used in different types of discourse. This includes the linguistic features of narrative communication, interactive communication and informational communication. Byrd proposes a more authentic approach to teaching along the lines of these linguistic genres. Features of grammar which keep recurring in these discourse types can then form the basis for grammar instruction from a more unified angle.
Note:
For additional information on involved grammar and other discourse types and their applications see also the article Grammar From Context in It's All the Same Grammar (Byrd, in press)
Quotation of Particular Value:
"A peculiarity of the traditional design (teaching along proficiency levels) is its assumption that students can "put off" elements of grammar for later in their lives ...The frustration of teachers with such a plan is only natural - such a division is both inauthentic (students can’t wait until level 2 to start working with noun phrases since any authentic English will have articles and noun phrases) and unrealistic (few students will "master" noun phrases in a single term of study.)"
Here the frustrations of the teachers who have to teach according to such a policy are highlighted and the inadequacy of the old system is emphasized. The issue of lack of authenticity in teaching isolated grammar and the assumption that students can master grammatical concepts within to a time limit and move on is addressed.