assignment 5

Discourse Analysis Approaches

Discourse analysis is the study of how stretches of language used in communication assume meaning, purpose and unity for their users.

For making simple, the analysis are study about:

•          How texts relate to contexts of situation and context of culture

•          How texts are produced as a social practice

•          What texts tell us about happenings, what people think, believe etc.

•          How texts represent ideology (power struggle etc.)

In analysing the discourse, the analysits study the text-forming devices with reference to the purposes and functions for which the discourse was produced, and the context within which the discourse was created. The ultimate goal is to show how the linguistic elements enable language users to communicate.

Doe to make easy to analyze, the analysist use an approach. However, there are several approaches available. The approaches are as follow:

1. Speech Act Theory
2. Interactional Sociolinguistics
3. Ethnography of Communication
4. Pragmatics
5. Conversational Analysis
6. Variation Analysis
7. SFL

For further explanation, those approaches will be disscus here.

Speech Act Theory

This approach use a logico-philosophic perspective on conversational organization  and focusing on interpretation rather than the production of utterances in discourse. The analysis figure of this approach are Austin 1955 and Searle 1969. From the basic belief that language is used to perform actions. Every utterance can be analyzed as the realization of the speaker’s intent (illocutionary force) to achieve a particular purpose. The unit of analysis is speech act (SA) or illocutionary force (IF). Principal problems of this approach is the lack of a one-to-one match up between discourse function (IF) and the grammatical form.

Interactional Sociolinguistic

The approach of intractional sociolinguistic is centrally concerned with the importance of context in the production and interpretation of discourse. The units of analysis in this approach are grammatical and prosodic features in interactions. The analysis figure of this approach are  Gumperz 1982 and Goffman 1959-1981. The basic concern here is the accomplishment of conversational coherence. Gumperz demonstrated that interactants from different socio-cultural backgrounds may “hear” and understand discourse differently according to their interpretation contextualisation cues in discourse. E.g. intonation contours, ‘speaking for another’, alignment, gender. While Schiffrin (1987) is focused on quantitative interactive sociolinguistic analysis, esp. discourse markers (defined as ‘sequentially dependent elements which bracket units of talk). She argues for the importance of both qualitative and quantitative / distributional analysis in order to determine the function of the different discourse markers in conversation.

Ethnography of Communication

The approache of Ethnography of Communication is concerned with understanding the social context of linguistic interactions: ‘who says what to whom, when, where. Why, and how’. The prime unit of analysis is speech event. Analysis of these components of a speech event is central to what became known as ethnography of communication or ethnography of speaking, with the ethnographer’s aim being to discover rules of appropriateness in speech events. The ethnographic framework has led to broader notions of communicative competence. Based on Hymes SPEAKING grid, it stated “Speech event comprises componen”.The Problem of this approach is lack of explicitness in Hymes’ account on the relationship between genre and other components of the speaking grid and their expression in language.

Pragmatics

Pragmatics formulates conversational behaviour in terms of general “principles” rather than rules. It provides useful means of characterizing different varieties of conversation, e.g. in interactions, one can deliberately try to be provocative or consensual. This principle seeks to account for not only how participants decide what to DO next in conversation, but also how interlocutors go about interpreting what the previous speaker has just done. This principle is the broken down into specific maxims: Quantity (say only as much as necessary), Quality (try to make your contribution one that is true), Relation (be relevant), and manner (be brief and avoid ambiguity)

Conversational Analysis

Refers to Garfinkel (sociologist), this approach concerns  to understand how social members make sense of everyday life while Sack, Schegloff, Jefferson (1973)tried to explain how conversation can happen at all. Two grossly apparent facts of this approach are: a) only one person speaks at a time, and b) speakers change recurs. Thus conversation is a ‘turn taking’ activity. Speakers recognize points of potential speekar change – turn constructional unit (TCU).

This approach drive some problems a) lack of systematicity- thus quantitative analysis is impossible; 2) limited I its ability to deal comprehensively with complete, sustained interactions; 3) though offers a powerful interpretation of conversation as dynamic interactive achievement, it is unable to say just what kind of achievement it is.

Variation Analysis

Variationists’ approach to discourse stems from quantitative of linguistic change and variation. Although typically focused on social and linguistic constraints on semantically equivalent variants, the approach has also been extended to texts. The problems in this approach is data is obtained from interviews.

L & W argue that fundamental narrative structures are evident in spoken narratives of personal experience. The overall structure of fully formed narrative of personal experience involves six stages: 1) Abstract, 2) Orientation, 3) Complication, 4) Evaluation, 5) Resolution, 6) Coda where 1) and 6) are optional. Strength of it are its clarity and applicability.

SFL (Structural-Functional Approaches)

In this approach, utterances may have multiple functions. The major concern here is the discourse analysis can turn out into a more general and broader analysis of language functions. Or it will fail to make a special place for the analysis of relationships between utterances. Refers to two major approaches to discourse analysis which have relevance to the analysis of casual conversation. They are the Birmingham School and Systemic Functional Linguistics. Draw on semantic theory (Firth 1957) and Palmer (1968) the approach Seek to offer functional interpretations of discourse structure as the expression and dimensions of the social and cultural context.

Source: The Power Point of Approaches to Discourse taken from sofwanunnes@wordpress.com

assignment 4

Discourse analysis

Discourse analysis is defined as language use beyond the boundaries of a sentence/utterance, the interrelationships between language and society and the interactive or dialogic properties of everyday communication (Stubbs, 1983:1).

For wider definition, discourse analysis are the study of how stretches of language used in communication assume meaning, purpose and unity for their users; called the quality of COHERENCE. A general consensus that COHERENCE does not derive solely from the linguistic forms and propositional content of a text, though these may contribute to it. COHERENCE derives from an interaction of text with given participants (context). Context here means the  participants’ knowledge and perception of paralanguage, other texts, the situation, the culture, the world in general and the role, intentions and relationships of participants.

Discourse analysis are related to how texts relate to contexts of situation and context of culture, how texts are produced as a social practice, what texts tell us about happenings, what people think, believe etc, how texts represent ideology (power struggle etc.).

There are several approaches in discourse analysis as follow:

*        Speech Act Theory

In this approaches, every utterance can be analyzed as the realization of the speaker’s intent (illocutionary force) to achieve a particular purpose. Principal problems: the lack of a one-to-one match up between discourse function (IF) and the grammatical form. Unit of analysis: speech act (SA) or illocutionary force (IF). Provides the insight that the basic unit of conversational analysis must be functionally motivated rather than formally defined one.

*        Interactional Sociolinguistics

Centrally concerned with the importance of context in the production and interpretation of discourse. The units of analysis of the approach are grammatical and prosodic features in interactions. The basic concern of this approach is  the accomplishment of conversational coherence

*        Ethnography of Communication

This approach is concerned with understanding the social context of linguistic interactions: ‘who says what to whom, when, where. Why, and how’. The prime unit of analysis is speech event.

*        Pragmatics

Pragmatics formulates conversational behaviour in terms of general “principles” rather than rules. It provides useful means of characterizing different varieties of conversation, e.g. in interactions, one can deliberately try to be provocative or consensual.

*        Conversational Analysis

Refers to Garfinkel (sociologist), this approach concerns  to understand how social members make sense of everyday life while Sack, Schegloff, Jefferson (1973)tried to explain how conversation can happen at all.

This approach drive some problems a) lack of systematicity- thus quantitative analysis is impossible; 2) limited I its ability to deal comprehensively with complete, sustained interactions; 3) though offers a powerful interpretation of conversation as dynamic interactive achievement, it is unable to say just what kind of achievement it is.

*        Variation Analysis

Variationists’ approach to discourse stems from quantitative of linguistic change and variation. Although typically focused on social and linguistic constraints on semantically equivalent variants, the approach has also been extended to texts. The Problems in this approach is data is obtained from interviews.

*        SFL (Structural-Functional Approaches)

In this approach, utterances may have multiple functions. The major concern here is the discourse analysis can turn out into a more general and broader analysis of language functions. Or it will fail to make a special place for the analysis of relationships between utterances.

assignment 3_communicative competence

Communicative Competence

Recently, the trend of the teaching approach among the teacher is about language teaching in the way of communicative. The focus of the learning or studying process of this approach is on the learners or the students. The way of the learning process in the communicative approach is focus on the communicative competence. Thus, the main goal of the learning language based on the communicative approach is the teaching of communicative competence.

What the communicative competence?

Communicative competence is the ability of the learners or students in using the language, in this case foreign language, in their communication needs. In other words, it can be said as the competence of the learners using foreign language in the different kind of the situation in their life ahead.

Due to acquire the communicative competence, the teachers should use materials that focus on the language needed to express and understand different kinds of functions. (Examples include asking for things, describing people, expressing likes and dislikes and telling time). The teachers also emphasize the processes of communication – for example, using language appropriately in different types of social situations. They encourage students to use their foreign language to perform different kinds of tasks, like solving puzzles and getting information. They also stress using language to interact with other people.

The teaching processes in order to acquire the communicative competence include some abilities to be mastered by the learners as the goals of the learning foreign language: linguistic competence, the knowledge of grammar and vocabulary; sociolinguistics competence, the ability  to say the appropriate thing in a certain social situation; discourse competence, the ability to start, enter, contribute to, and end a conversation, and the ability to do this in a consistent and coherent manner; strategic competence, the ability to communicate effectively and repair problems caused by communication breakdowns; grammatical competence refers to the ability to use the language correctly, (Pearson, 2007).

References

MacKenzi. 2006. Language Matters [online].  [Accesed 30^th March 2012]. Retrieved from http://languageinstinct.blogspot.com/2006/09/what-is-clt-language-competencies.html

Pearson. 2007. Principles of Communicative Language Teaching and Task-Based Instruction [online]. [Accesed 30^th March 2012]. Retrieved from http://www.pearsonhighered.com/samplechapter/0131579061.pdf

assignment 2

Assignment 2- Nur Hasanah

The history of Communicative Language Teaching

What is Communicative language teaching?

Communicative language teaching is a compromise solution that aims to reconcile form-oriented with meaning-oriented learning and teaching. Communicative language teaching is both processes and goals in classroom learning. The central concept of communicative language teaching is the “communicative competence”. The definition of the competence here are expression, interpretation and negotiation of meaning.

How communicative language teaching appears?

In the last 50 years, there have been many changes in ideas about the methodology of language teaching. In this period of time, based on Richard (2006) there are three phases of trends in language teaching.

The three of them are:

The following are the consideration from the traditional approaches to what we call communicative language teaching in the recently.

Phase 1

Traditional Approaches (up to late 1960)

From the 19^th century, the education of foreign language was getting less dynamical. At this time, the teaching of foreign language were emphasizing on the written language than spoken language. In addition, the teaching process of this approach was showed a formal, passive, and mechanical education where the teacher had a traditional role (Stridsberg, 2007).

A big perception of the language teaching in the traditional approaches is a ability to build up a kind of sentences and grammatical learning. The learning process in this approach is learning to produce the sentences accurately and quickly. The famous techniques of giving commands of the language are through memorizing the dialogue, oral drilling and controlled practice. Great attention to accurate pronunciation and accurate mastery of grammar was stressed from the very beginning stages of the language  learning.

Some methodologies are included in the traditional approaches, such as Grammar Translation Method, Direct Method, Substitutions / Transformation Drilling, Audio-lingual Method. All of those methods or approaches were assumed that errors of any kind were to be avoided, so the learner of the foreign language were not establish bad habit in their learning. For these reason, the trainee or the teacher of the foreign language must be perfect one. Due to overcorrection of students’ errors by the teacher, anxiety levels were often quite high among students.

The methodologies that are included in the traditional approaches widely brought forward some problems, that are the learners lacked engagements in meaningful language use and the learners also had only limited opportunities to use language creatively while they interacting with other (in the teaching process’ case, the peers). As Willis (2004) on Pearson (2007) points out, “This was because the emphasis was on eradication of errors and accurate production of the target forms, not on communication of meanings”.

Phase 2

Classic Communicative Language Teaching

                In early of 1970s, a change of perspective gave way to the possibility of developing new strategies in the teaching a foreign language for communication, with the aim of communicating in daily situations. From the new perspective showed that there was possibility to analyze communication with the concern of language in the daily context. Teaching and learning could focus mainly on the context of the communication as a means of daily life.

                The perspective of new learning approaches came from the statement that it was needed an approaches in teaching foreign language that more than focus on the grammatical competence, besides the teaching foreign language that can be used in the communication in the context of daily life. The approaches that give a competence are showing “when to speak, when not, and as to what to talk about and with whom, when, where, in what manner”, Hymes (1972) (in Richard (2006).

                The communicative language teaching answered the teacher’s awareness about the approaches that can give a competence in communication in the context of the daily life or in short “communication competence”. The appearance of the communication language teaching was in the 1970s were accepted enthusiasly as an alternative of their teaching process. From these situations, the teachers began to rethink their teaching. Grammar was no longer the starting point of their teaching process’ planning, besides the communication one. And in this period of time, in teaching foreign language was based on the social context.

                Some of these classic communicative language teaching includes comprehension-based methods such as the Total Physical Response (TPR), the Natural Approach, the Silent Way, or Suggestopedia.

Phase 3

Current Communicative Language Teaching

The classic communicative language teaching is not completely satisfied the teacher in their teaching. In the late of 1990s, the classic methodologies were upgraded in order to find the better way in teaching foreign language. The current communicative language teaching was appeared. This is generally regarded as an approach to teaching foreign language that reflects a certain model. The basic principle of this approach is the primary function of language, which is language uses in communication. The essential goal of the communicative language teaching is to develop the communication competence of the learners, or simply put the communicative ability in using the language fluently. In other words, the goal of this approach is to make use of real-life situations that necessitate the communication.

The process of the learning in communicative language teaching is changing, different with the traditional one. The development of communicative skill is placed at the firefront, while the grammar is now introduced only as much as needed to support the development of these skills.

Current communicative language teaching requires the active involvement of the learners in the production of the target language. The teaching process include some abilities to be mastered by the learners as the goals of the learning foreign language: linguistic competence, the knowledge of grammar and vocabulary; sociolingistic competence, the ability  to say the appropriate thing in a certain social situation; discourse competence, the ability to start, enter, contribute to, and end a conversation, and the ability to do this in a consistent and coherent manner; strategic competence, the ability to communicate effectively and repair problems caused by communication breakdowns (Pearson, 2007).

The current communicative language teaching offer a new way, that is the learner learn or study a foreign language through social interaction. This way allows the students to work toward a clear goal, share the information and opinions, negotiate meaning, get the interlocutor’s help in comprehending input, and receives feedback on their language production (Pearson, 2007). In the process of the communicative learning, the learners not only use the inter-language but also modify the language.

The current communicative language teaching looks at the quality of classroom learning interaction and language use. Some of the material that include in these approaches are: text-based, task-based, and realia.

References

Pearson. 2007. Principles of Communicative Language Teaching and Task-Based Instruction [online]. [Accesed 30^th March 2012]. Retrieved from http://www.pearsonhighered.com/samplechapter/0131579061.pdf

Richard, J C. 2006. Communicative Language Teaching Today [online]. [Accesed 30^th March 2012]. Retrieved from http://www.cambridge.org/other_files/downloads/esl/booklets/Richards-Communicative-Language.pdf

Stridsberg, L. 2007. Communicative Language Teaching: English as a second language (L 2) in Swedish primary school – as seen by a small group of teachers [online]. [Accesed 30^th March 2012]. Retrieved from http://dooku.miun.se/engelska/englishC/C-essay/VT07/Final/Ling/Lars%20Stridsberg_final%20essay.pdf