Actual Language Use Research Articles

TERRI: A CALL lesson simulating conversational interaction

This paper describes TERRI, a CALL simulation lesson on English imperatives for students of English as a Foreign Language. The simulation was suggested by Winograd's (1976), which used a display with a table, a box, blocks, pyramids, and a ‘robot hand’. His program responded to questions about the objects and to commands to move them (using the ‘robot hand’). TERRI is a much-simplified adaptation of Winograd's simulation. The scene with several objects remains. The program sets a goal (in terms of object locations) for the student. The student gives commands in English, ordering TERRI to relocate individual objects. The program checks the student's grammar, vocabulary, and ‘sense’, requesting corrections and/or more information if needed. The lesson continues until the student achieves the goal or quits. As TERRI demonstrates, small-scale natural language processing permits the creation of CALL simulations of actual language use.

Inkblots, Norman Rockwell, and New Yorker Ads: Let's Talk (and Read, Write, Listen, Guess, Interpret…)

ABSTRACT Inkblots, Rockwell illustrations, and magazine ads have proved an effective means of provoking active language use. Their appeal to inventiveness on the part of each student is a strong motivating force. They can be used effectively at all levels of language instruction, even in beginning courses, and can be linked to the four basic language skills. Perhaps most important, they provoke individual response leading to collective discussion. The present article illustrates these propositions by discussion of the use of one inkblot, a Rockwell illustration called “After the Prom,” and a New Yorker ad. In each case the illustration is given, and tactics for individual work, small group interaction, and full class discussion are described. Vocabulary building, techniques of interpretation and discussion, and selected grammar points are highlighted. In addition, an interview (with transcript) of native speakers reacting to the visual materials is used for listening comprehension, further vocabulary, idiomatic expressions, and topics for written exercises. Follow‐up exercises (students choosing their own ads for presentation to the class, cross‐cultural issues, video tapes of foreign language television commercials, etc.) are also described.

Bilingualism during Initial Language Acquisition

the number of graduation competency tests passed. This measure was related to the LC test and to a combination of overall second language skill and specific linguistic skill. The findings of this study show that linguistic and communicative competence can be distinguished. This suggests the need to assess the relationship between these two types of language skill in the native as well as in the second language and in learners at various stages of proficiency. Because the language tests used had, at best, moderate predictive relationships with the measures of actual language use, this study shows that language tests alone are not adequate for student placement in school programs. The strong relationship between English grammatical skill and school achievement measured in English implies that control of language structure is involved in many school tasks in addition to oral language tests. This result underscores the need for more research on the relationship between language use and school achievement in students of different ages and different native and second language backgrounds. (Ph.D. Dissertation, Stanford University, 1982)

More on Rules for Rules: Gender in Spanish and the Monitor User

Abstract In attempting to perfect rules for use in pedagogical grammars, there is a tendency to rely too heavily on formal criteria, without taking into account actual data about language use. Two sets of rules for determining noun gender and making gender agreements in Spanish are examined critically on the basis of both formal criteria, including frequency in discourse of the items described by the rules, and the notions about the role of rules in second language use formalized in the Monitor Model. Some of the proposed rules prove to be either descriptively invalid or, for other reasons, likely to be of little practical utility to the language user. It is suggested that formal criteria, psychological criteria, and data about actual language use by second language learners should be considered in evaluating the formal rules of a pedagogical grammar.

Sociolinguistics and the teaching of foreign languages

People living in a given culture generally are not conscious of the laws that govern their linguistic system, yet they can immediately recognize if a speaker is using the system correctly. The so-called hidden rules comprise a major part of sociolinguistics. It is the purpose in this paper to relate some specific examples of sociolinguistic principles as they affect language teaching. Although the examples are taken from Portuguese, the situations are intended to apply to the teaching of foreign langages in general. The first part of the study treats practical matters of gathering sociolinguistic data. In the ensuing sections on phonology and syntax the discrepancy between actual language use and typical learning materials is presented and suggestions for improvement are offered. The part on interactional rules purports to show one area of neglect in traditional teaching materials. The final section summarizes ideas on the importance of broadening language learning to include research from sociolinguistics.

A sociolinguistics of the Utopian and the use of language in classrooms

The notion of the Utopian use of language in classrooms was developed and applied as a theoretical tool during the empirical study of language in classrooms. It is claimed that a notion like this may turn out to be particularly profitable when the purpose is to interpret and characterize the content and consequences of a certain use of language. It enables us to present the results of the interpretation in a form that facilitates the proposal of alternative ways of using language by the persons involved — in this case, by the teachers. A sample from the interpretations is presented, and the conclusion is ventured that it is necessary to anchor the sociolinguistic descriptions of actual language use in a sociological conception of the relevant social praxis — in our case taken from the sociology of education.

Pragmatic observations on the active-passive controversy

This paper re-examines two arguments that have been advanced by Katz and his associates in support of their contention that semantic interpretation rules for actives and passives need only refer to their deep syntactic representations. It is shown that both arguments suffer from a failure to do justice to certain essential properties of linguistic expressions that are inherent to their status as instruments in the communicative interaction between speakers and their hearers. In this respect, the arguments in question lend support to the general plea that is being made for an approach to linguistic semantics in which linguistics base their theories on ‘pragmatic occurrences’ of linguistic expressions as they can be observed in the actual use of language by a speaker and his audience rather than on ‘exhibitory occurrences’, the type of illustrative occurence that can only be observed in publications about language and that comes close to being totally devoid of meaning. 1975. Kognities en taal. Report Nr. ICO.159.JS. 1976a. Notities bij Fillmores case grammar. Report Nr.ICO.168.JS. 1976b. Procesgerichte formele syntaksis van eenvoudige nederlandse zinnen. Report Nr.ICO.170.JS. 1976c. De mens in de taalgebruiker: een memorandum voor (taal)psychologen. Report Nr.ICO.189.JS. 1977. Noun phrases as quantifiers. Report Nr. ICO.208.JS. In his dissertation (Schoorl, in preparation) he expounds and defends a pragmatic view of meaning and reference in natural language.

Recent Sociolinguïstisch Onderzoek in Vlaanderen

In the introduction of this paper the author discusses the relevance of sociolinguistic research for Belgium. In this respect he mentions the problems of the pacification between the language communities in the Brussels area and the relation between dialect and standard language in Flanders. In this paper he mainly deals with the latter problem which is discussed along the following lines: a. Who speaks in Flanders what variety (dialect or standard Dutch) to whom and when? (cf Fishman; research by Meeus and Geerts, Nootens and Van den Broeck). b. What attitude do the Flemish show towards the Dutch used by the Flemish as compared to the Dutch used by the Dutch? What do they eventually reject in the Dutch as used by Dutch speakers? (Attitu-des, cf. Lambert & Giles, research by Geerts, Nootens and Van den Broeck and by Deprez). c. Problems of standardisation ("the long road to the standard Dutch") illustrated by some concrete lexical and pronominal (jij-gij) variables, ("linguistic insecurity", cf. Labov; research by Deprez and Geerts in Kortrijk-Poperinge). d. The relation between the dimension of dialect/standard language and the code-theory of Bernstein; research by Van den Broeck of the syntactic complexity in the actual use of both standard language and dialect by workers and middleclass in Maaseik (Bernstein, Labov, Ammon).

De Behoeften aan Moderne Vreemde Talen en Differentiatie in Doelstellingen Voor Vreemde-Talenonderwijs

At the Institute for Applied Sociology of the University of Nijmegen, an investigation into foreign language needs of several groups in Dutch society has been carried out in 1975 through 1977. Questionnaires were submitted to these different groups, e.g. to former pupils of secondary schools. The questionnaire consisted mainly of a list of 24 descriptions of situations in which foreign languages are used. In these descriptions the significant features of language situations are systematically varied. For each situa-tion we asked if and how frequently it occurs and if the knowledge of the languages learnt is sufficient for this kind of situation. The results of the investigation show large differences in language needs (defined as actual use of the foreign language and shortcomings in the knowledge of that language in certain situations) both between the former pupils of the different types of secondary schools as well as between the languages most commonly taught in Dutch schools, French, German and English. More specifically it was found that the actual use of foreign languages occurs more frequently among former pupils of certain vocational schools (especially technical schools) than among former pupils of general secondary schools. French appears to be used less frequently than German and English. English is used by a somewhat larger group than German, but this does not hold for all groups. Former pupils of technical schools use German as much as English. The resulting data can be used to choose objectives for foreign language teaching. There is however no simple and direct way from language needs to objectives. In choosing objectives on the basis of findings on language needs, one will have to decide which measure of language needs is taken into account and how this measure (or these measures) is (are) used. If we decide for example to take the size of the group that has actually used a foreign language in one of the situations as a criterion for the choice of that situation as a part of the objectives of language teaching, we will then have to decide where we draw the line between situations that are and situations that are not important enough to be chosen. In other words, we have to decide how large the group of language users must be. It is evident that there is no shorter way from language needs to objectives than a carefully argued choice of measures and of the use of these measures.

Formal and Informal Linguistic Environments in Language Acquisition and Language Learning

While some studies indicate that adults can efficiently utilize informal linguistic environments for second language acquisition, other studies suggest that the classroom is of greater benefit. This conflict is resolved in three ways. Evidence is presented to support the hypothesis that informal and formal environments contribute to different aspects of second language competence, the former affecting acquired competence and the latter affecting learned competence. Second, a distinction must be made between informal environments in which active language use occurs regularly and those in which language use is irregular. Finally, data is presented that suggests that the classroom can be used simultaneously as a formal and informal linguistic environment, a result that is consistent with reports of success with language teaching systems that emphasize active language use.

Linguistic performance and minority groups

Abstract Beginning with linguistic performance as currently defined, this article systematically pursues its implications to and through the notion of “successful communication.” The four divisions of the article attempt explorations of the following questions: What does linguistic performance do? What place does it have in a theory of communication? What are the practical implications of such a theory in connection with actual language use? How is all this relevant to problems of what we take to be “linguistically underprivileged” (minority) groups? The article concludes that the concept of linguistic performance, “scientifically” based, is not significant in successful communication, which is an art.

Dialectology and Linguistic Theory

Since the late 1950s linguistic theory and dialectology have gone their separate ways. Chomsky's distinction between competence and led to a devotion to underlying linguistic ability, and many disciples came to worship at the shrine of innate ideas. Much attention was given to explicating the rules underlying linguistic competence, while very little attention was given to its potential or actual variations. As Chomsky said in 1965, Linguistic theory is concerned primarily with an ideal speaker-listener, in a completely homogeneous speech-community, who knows its language perfectly and is unaffected by such grammatically irrelevant conditions as memory limitations, distractions, shifts of attention and interest, and errors ... in applying his knowledge of the language in actual performance (Aspects, p. 3). In this way, dialectology and linguistic theory became almost antithetical, for linguistic theory, as defined by Chomsky, left little or no possibility for variation within the idealized speaker-hearer. Actual language use, with which most dialectologists are concerned, was relegated to the peripheral area of performance, which, by definition, could not advance beyond a mere, or in the pejorative vernacular of the day, trivial collection of isolated data, which are uninteresting in themselves because they are collected and analyzed without an attendant linguistic theory. In fact, the study of language as it is actually used could not proceed until the rules of a more basic lingustic ability had been more fully elaborated. Chomsky remarks that there seems to be little reason to question the traditional view that investigation of will proceed only so far as understanding of underlying competence permits (Aspects, p. 10).

Knowledge Of Meanings And Knowledge Of The World

One of the most characteristic (and certainly most original) claims of the dominant movement in contemporary British philosophy, to which we shall refer as the philosophy of ordinary language, is that traditional philosophical discourse has usually been logically improper because it has depended upon systematic misuses of certain expressions in ordinary language and that philosophy is a legitimate cognitive discipline only if it is concerned with the description of the actual use of language. To substantiate this claim, the philosopher of ordinary language has had to establish at least the following two general philosophical theses, which together seem to constitute the hard core of original doctrine in the philosophy of ordinary language. First, that the meaning of an expression is its use and not its referent or what it corresponds to. Second, that the description of the uses of certain expressions in language is not merely a study of words but genuinely solves the same problems which traditional philosophy had tried to solve through other methods.

Meaning-as-Use and Meaning-as-Correspondence

The purpose of this article is to examine two major arguments in favour of the philosophical thesis that the meaning of an expression is its use, and not its referent or what it corresponds to. A second philosophical thesis which is closely related to the first is that the study of the ordinary, “actual” uses of certain expressions is not of purely linguistic interest but in fact is a way, probably the only proper way, of solving the problems of traditional philosophy; in the sequel to the present article, we shall examine one major argument in favour of this second thesis. Both theses occupy a place of central importance in the dominant movement in contemporary British philosophy, to which we shall refer as “the philosophy of ordinary language”. Together they seem to constitute the basis of the most characteristic claim of this movement: that traditional philosophic discourse is logically improper and that philosophy is a legitimate cognitive discipline only if it is concerned with “the spatial and temporal phenomenon of language” by describing “the actual use of language”. Both theses are necessary for the justifi cation of this more general claim.