Communicative Grammar Research Articles

Exploring the Needs and Challenges in Teaching English Grammar Communicatively in Albanian Context

The aim of this study is to explore through details of teaching English grammar communicatively within the Albanian context. With the global trend for communicative language teaching, Albanian teachers of English as a foreign language face specific challenges in attempting to integrate this approach effectively in their classes. The research applies a mixed-methods approach, including a questionnaire and structured interviews with teachers from several districts in Albania. Both cases intend to assess the actual situation of teaching grammar of English as a Foreign Language, identify main obstacles, and highlight opportunities for integrating communicative grammar. Findings indicate that even though the teachers are aware of the theoretical aspects of communicative methods, sometimes they find it hard to implement them due to limited resources, insufficient teacher training, and traditional teaching curricula. Additionally, the study emphasizes the need for professional development programs and appropriate classroom materials that align with the communicative approach. By addressing these challenges, the research aims to provide concrete recommendations for teachers and policymakers to improve English grammar teaching in Albanian schools, so as to improve language proficiency and communicative competence among learners of different ages and educational levels in a larger context.

An evaluation of grammar exercise in grade nine Amharic language textbook based on communicative grammar principles

The objective of this study was to assess whether the grammar exercises presented in the grade nine Amharic language textbook published by the Ethiopian Ministry of Education in 2004 are based on the principle of communicative grammar. The main data collection techniques employed were document analysis and interview. The document analysis was conducted based on the principles of communicative grammar exercises. For this purpose, 29 selected grammar exercises presented in the textbook were investigated. Additional data was collected from 14 Amharic teachers using interviews. The findings indicated that most of the grammar exercises presented in the grade nine Amharic textbook were not prepared based on the communicative grammar principles. The 75% of grammar exercises were not prepared in an integrated manner containing meaning and function of the language. In addition, 96% of grammar exercises did not focus on authenticity; 55% of grammar exercises were not focused on a student-centered approach; and 79% of grammar exercises were not focused on a process-oriented approach. If grammar exercises are prepared based on the principles of communicative grammar, it will help students to identify the rules, meaning, and function of the language. This will have a positive effect on students' collaborative learning and communication skills. Therefore, the researchers recommended that the textbook writers need to prepare the grammar exercises presented in the language textbook based on the communicative grammar principles.

EFL Learner’s Beliefs in Learning Grammar

This qualitative study aims to identify students’ beliefs about learning grammar. Data were collected by using questionnaire and reflection of twenty-five English Education Department students. The data were analyzed based on thematic analysis which consists of six themes emerged. This study focuses on students’ beliefs in learning grammar particularly on the aspect of the importance of grammar, learners’ needs in learning grammar, learners’ strategy in learning grammar, learners’ beliefs about difficulty of grammar, learners belief on the error correction and feedback and learners confidence of using grammar in communication. This will provide information to lecturers and universities to take advantage of beliefs in learning grammar. This study thus implies that the educators can design the lesson by taking into consideration the students’ beliefs.Keywords: Importance of Grammar; Learning Grammar; Students’ Beliefs.

Grammar and Technology: A Bibliometric Exploration of Research Trends and Influential Works

The study delves into the pivotal role of Grammar in scholarly communication, emphasising the need for a nuanced understanding of evolving grammatical research. Conducting a bibliometric analysis of 381 papers from the Scopus database (2015-2023), it explores grammar teaching and learning via technology. Employing advanced methods, the research identifies influential authors, institutions, and countries, tracks evolving themes, and assesses funding sources. The study utilises tools like Microsoft Excel, VOS Viewer, and Harzing to unveil partnerships, current research areas, and impact assessment. By categorising five clusters, it sheds light on underexplored research areas, offering insights for future investigations into grammar research.

The Art of Communicative Grammar

Abstract This review article of the Oxford Latin Syntax (Vols. I-II, 2015 and 2021) demonstrates how the communicative approach of Harm Pinkster’s monumental grammar complements recent revivals of oral, aural, and active Latin pedagogical methods. I conclude with examples of how Pinkster’s analysis of discourse may be applied to select passages (from Plautus’ Rudens, as a productive means of explicating dramaturgical and narratological matters there) in order to illustrate the OLS’s manifold potential for exploring discursive strategies of Latin texts generally.

Обучение иноязычной коммуникативной грамматике студентов неязыковых направлений подготовки: проблемы и пути их решения

The study aims to substantiate the need to improve the organization of the educational process for teaching foreign language communicative grammar to students in non-linguistic training programs. The paper presents the factors that determine the need for students of non-linguistic universities to learn grammar within the framework of a communicative approach. The problems hindering the successful implementation of this process are as follows: the lack of academic hours allocated for practical classes, contradictions between the communicative and the traditional approach, the low level of skills in the field of teaching communicative grammar among the teaching staff, reliance on a conscious approach to teaching foreign grammar, mismatch of the scientific and methodological support complex for teaching students to modern trends regarding the communicative orientation of foreign language training. The paper is the first to substantiate the significance and to describe the problems of teaching foreign language communicative grammar to students in non-linguistic training programs, which accounts for the scientific novelty of the study. As a result, the study has found that the problems of teaching communicative grammar to students in non-linguistic training programs are manifested at all levels of the educational process organization: at the level of approaches (communicative and traditional); at the level of the teacher’s activities to develop their professional skills; at the level of the university management determining the number of academic hours allocated for foreign language practical classes.

Cultural Footprint. Rich Personality of the Teacher as a Factor of the Development of Scientific Schooling

Between November 1st to 2nd, 2023 the Faculty of Philology of Moscow State University held a scientific and methodological seminar Linguodidactic description of the Russian language in the “mirror” of foreign language systems, dedicated to the 95th anniversary of the birth of Professor M. V. Vsevolodova and her scientific heritage. An outstanding scientist, Doctor of Philology, Honored Professor of Moscow State University, Honorary Professor of the Shanghai University of Foreign Languages, Maya Vladimirovna Vsevolodova was at the origins of the creation of one of the most important applied areas in Russian studies — Russian as a foreign language (RFL). She was one of the founders of the linguodidactic scientific school in the field of RFL, as well as in the field of functional communicative grammar. The seminar was attended by famous scientists (E. L. Barkhudarova, L. P. Klobukova, A. V. Velichko, V. V. Krasnykh) and young teachers from different universities of Russia (Kazan Federal University, Vladivostok State University, etc.). Over two days of work, seminar participants listened to 35 reports. Most of the reports were devoted to the personality of Maya Vladimirovna along with her scientific and teaching activities. In his opening address Professor A. A. Lipgart called the seminar an important scientific event and wished the participants interesting creative reports. On the first day of the seminar O. V. Chagina and L. P. Klobukova spoke of the unique personality, intellect, and work of Maya Vladimirovna. E. L. Barkhudarova devoted her report to Vsevolodova’s textbook of Russian phonetics for Polish speakers, a model of a nationally oriented pronunciation course. On the second day of the seminar there were two sections — Grammar and Cultural Studies. The work of both was opened by reports from teachers of the Russian Language Department of the MGIMO University. N. D. Afanasyeva, in her report, emphasized the importance of considering the characteristics of the national mentality of students, the need not only to give students knowledge about the Russian language as a system, but also to include them in Russianlanguage communication. The presentation contained many striking examples, which aroused great interest among the audience. T. L. Borisenko shared her experience of teaching verb types in the RFL practical grammar course. As on the first day of the seminar, on November 2nd, some of the reports were of a memorial nature and were dedicated directly to the personality of Maya Vladimirovna. The cultural significance of the work of Maya Vladimirovna Vsevolodova, the creator of a scientific school, a wonderful scientist and wise mentor who raised more than one generation of Russian scholars, goes beyond her time: her students continue her work today in different parts of the world.

Förderung der Schlüsselkompetenzen im universitären Grammatikunterricht durch den Einsatz der LdL-Methode – Ergebnisse einer Fragebogenstudie

In the knowledge economy, the memorization of facts and procedures is important but not sufficient. In order to responding to changes in society and the economy it becomes necessary to develop key competences. Competences-oriented education introduces innovative forms of teaching and learning based on the constructivist learning approach, such as the LbT-Method (Learning by Teaching /Lernen durch Lehren/), which gives the students the opportunity to learn by doing. The article introduces the results of a survey which was conducted during the third semester of a “Grammar in Communication” course at the faculty of Applied Linguistics at Maria Curie-Skłodowska University in Lublin. According to the students’ assessment, their participation in this course enhanced their literacy, multilingual, personal, social and learning-to-learn competences, as well as their entrepreneurial competence. The results of this survey will be used to optimize the course design in the future.

Exploration of an Innovative Curriculum and Pedagogical Approaches for IT Students

The empirical research explores a cutting-edge curriculum and instructional methods that are relevant to IT students in general and Saudi IT- students in particular. The respondents were asked objective questions to obtain extensive information about the topic. In addition, they were asked open-ended questions to reveal their intensive opinions about the topic. Such empirical surveys were conducted on IT-students/faculties and professionals to ascertain what language skills and professional abilities the IT students really need to enhance in their educational and occupational domains. The overwhelming empirical findings indicate that the IT-English- curriculum needs to rely on integrated language skills, vocabulary and communicative grammar that are embedded in IT contents. With regard to the instructional methods, it was found that the ESP educators need to adopt such pedagogies that pertain to collaborative approach, learners-cantered and tasks-based instructional methods to let IT-students get adequate opportunity to communicate with their counterparts in their academic domain. 

Predicative Adverbs in Russian and Modern Greek Languages: Linguodidactic Approach

The article deals with Russian predicative adverbs in comparison with their Modern Greek correlates. Methodological basis of the research is functional communicative grammar. The authors consider the interrelations between the notions of traditional formal descriptive grammar such as “the category of state”, “modal words”, “predicative”, “predicative adverbs”. Authors’ vision of word classes is based on multiple-factor analysis: the word belongs to a particular category (part of speech), if it is characterized by a set of morphological and syntactic features. The novelty of the research lies in the fact that it made a first attempt to describe Russian predicative adverbs in comparison with Modern Greek ones in a systematic way and presented the fragment of linguodidactic model of Russian grammar on an example of adverbs vidno (it is seen) and vidimo (apparently). The authors have used as study materials the information from dictionaries, handbooks and manuals, Russian National Corpus as well as errors made by Greek learners while using Russian adverbial lexemes in their oral and written speech. The language units are being analyzed on the level of their lexicosemantic variants. The purpose of the work is to bring to the fore the relevant in terms of teaching Russian as a foreign language morphological, syntactic, stylistic, syntagmatic, discursive characteristics of the specified predicative adverbs and to develop an appropriate set of tasks and exercises which will answer students’ communicative needs. The explanations and exercises are focused primarily on Greek learners but can be also applied while teaching the speakers of other languages. Nationally-oriented teaching Russian language, multiple-factor model of description of lexical units allows the authors to arrange the study process in the most efficient way and facilitate the building of stable communicative skills.

Communicative Grammar of the Bulgarian Language for Teaching in a Bilingual Environment

Communicative Grammar of the Bulgarian Language for Teaching in a Bilingual Environment

Examination of some issues related to communicative grammar of foreign language

Examination of some issues related to communicative grammar of foreign language

Critical discourse analysis of cultural representations in EFL national commercial textbooks

Mastering grammar and vocabulary in communication are seemingly insufficient for learners to communicate with different societies worldwide. For this rationale, cultures in ELT materials took a pivotal role in equipping learners with intercultural communicative competence (ICC). Hence, the researchers critically analyze two national commercial textbooks commonly used in senior high schools for the tenth and eleventh grades in any area to examine the elements of cultures and their representations. The researchers address this gap by adopting critical discourse analysis (CDA) to get a profound interpretation of data. The textual data was categorized, coded, counted, and finalized by creating a description. The result revealed that these textbooks contained elements of cultures; product (63%, 44%), person (13%, 42%), practice (19 %, 8%), and perspective (5%, 6%) in different proportions. The result also points out that there is an unbalance among culture-related items with 59%, 51% in source cultures, 11% and 26% in target, and 17% and 8% in international, which means target and international cultures are less than source cultures. This research also found universal cultures relating to cultures free in these textbooks with 13% and 18%, respectively. The finding indicated that both textbooks have imbalanced cultures, which means that target and international cultures were under-represented. The researchers suggest that other Southeast Asian, African, and Russian cultures must be considered in the textbooks. Furthermore, this research expects the stakeholders to be more concerned with designing, concerning, and choosing suitable textbooks to equip learners with diverse cultures.

VISUAL GRAMMAR OF THE VIETNAMESE ADVERTISING DISCOURSE

Vietnamese copywriters combine languages and images to convey the contents of advertisements to readers. However, the arrangement of images along with other non-linguistic factors follows certain rules due to cultural differences. The paper uses the theory of Kress and Leeuwen’s (1996, 2006) visual grammar so as to find out how Vietnamese copywriters present the contents of advertisements to persuade the readers to buy advertised products or use advertised services. The findings from the layout analysis of 400 Vietnamese advertising posters indicated that the Vietnamese copywriters utilized three aspects of layout design such as framing, information value and salience to contribute to making meaning for the advertising discourse and language. The findings of the paper help clarify the application of theory of systemic functional linguistics, particularly visual grammar in daily communication and interdisciplinary studies. The findings are also beneficial to those who study image design together with language to construe meaning for the advertising discourse.

Subject Structure of Texts on New Reality

The article demonstrates the potential of Prof. G.A. Zolotova’s functional and communicative grammar in analysis of texts on new reality regarding subjects involved in this reality. The author examines different genres – from news to philosophical essay – dwelling upon high technologies and digitalization. The subject structure of a text includes communicative frame (sender and recipient) and in-text subjects (human and non-human) which receive different predicates from the author constructing his textual world. The linguistic analysis of the text’s subject structure allows one to reveal the author’s point of view, the properties of his desirable world and ideas critical for the epoque. The analysis of the characteristics predicated to different types of subjects as well as the linguistic means of expression or elimination of these subjects helps to see these critical ideas activization of non-human “intelligent” devices acquiring independence and intentionality together with deindividualization and disembodiment of human subjects. The ideology of independency and personalization of machines and “dissolution” of human subjects is expressed both by language-specific means and lexicogrammar ones, common for Russian and other languages.

Multimodal Discourse Analysis of Djarum 76 Advertisement Entitled “New Normal”

Advertisement is one of the communication media that aims to convey information in order to persuade people to buy products. Advertisements use verbal and nonverbal language in conveying the information, as the result it is included as multimodal text. Djarum 76 advertisement is interesting to analyze because they show a different concept from other cigarette advertisements. This study aims to (1) describe language metafunctions, (2) examine visual metafunctions, and (3) explain the relationship between language metafunction and visual metafunction of Djarum 76 advertisements as a multimodal text. The data used in this study are a video of Djarum 76 advertisements entitled "New Normal" in 2020. This video was obtained at Glow Films Jakarta’s YouTube channel, which is the production house for this advertisement. In collecting data, documentation methods and techniques of screenshots, transcripts, and notes were used. This study used the theory of Systemic Functional Linguistics by Halliday (1985), the theory of visual communication grammar from Kress and Leeuwen (2006), intersemiosis (Liu & O’Halloran, 2009) and resemiotization (Iedema, 2003). In explaining the research results, formal and informal methods were used. Based on the analysis of language metafunction, the Djarum 76 advertisement entitled “New Normal” is dominated by mental processes and relational identification processes, declarative mode, and simplex themes. Based on visual metafunctions, this advertisement is dominated by narrative representation process, no eye contact, far social distance, subjective, and center-margin information. The relationship of language and visual metafunctions show that this advertisement is dominated by additive intersemiosis. It means the text elements give a new information to visual elements and vice versa. In addition, resemiotization in this advertisement is used as a marketing technique to attract the attention of the audience.
 Keywords: Multimodality, Language Metafunctions, Visual Metafunctions, Intersemiosis, Resemiotization, Djarum 76 Cigarette Advertisiments

Theories and Practices of Language Education: An Interview with Prof. Zhuanglin Hu

In this interview, Professor Hu showed his insights in the linguistic basis of language education. Among the various schools of linguistic theories, he lays special emphasis on the influence of communicative grammar, systemic functional linguistics, pragmatics and cognitive linguistics on language education, in particular on foreign language teaching and learning in China. According to him, language education should fall within the scope of applied linguistics, and there should be a combination of the narrow-sense applied linguistics and the machine-oriented applied linguistics for better development of language education research and practice. Educational linguistics is considered as able to integrate language studies that focuses on the way to teach first, second or foreign language and education studies that emphasizes how to use a language in teaching different courses. Professor Hu highlighted the important role of functional linguistics in foreign language education in China, and drew our attention to the positive role of social semiotics in language teaching at all levels of education. He advocated to apply to language education the principle of Halliday’s “appliable linguistics”, according to which we should learn to find out for what purpose, under what condition and with what result a theory is better than other theories in practices in general and in language teaching in particular, while the task of an experienced teacher is to choose an appropriate approach to cope with a particular problem and the teacher himself/herself is expected to be a resource in language teaching. Professor Hu summarized the major stages of foreign language education since the founding of new China, and highlighted the shift of the objective in foreign language education in China from literature to language. He reminded us of the major challenges to foreign language education in China in the new century: including those due to the need of cross-discipline and crossspecialty personnel, the new development of technology, and the increasing importance of multiple intelligence and Internet education in foreign language learning. He also advocated the adoption of new teaching approaches in teaching Chinese as foreign language.

Peculiarities of complex sentences with object clauses in the texts of mathematical works in the english and french languages

The aim of the article is to study the basic structural and semantic qualities of two-component complex sentences with object clauses functioning in mathematical works in English and French. The works of outstanding modern mathematicians in the field of differential geometry and algebraic topology served as a material for the research. Using the technique of continuous sampling the authors extracted the sentences to be studied. The basic principles of communicative grammar, structural and semantic analysis, as well as statistical methods to process the extracted material, were applied. For the difficult material to be apprehended properly the language of mathematical works must obey some definite syntactical laws. Complex sentences with clear subordination of clauses favor to a great extent the logical consecutive statement of the mathematical text. Having a more complicated structure than simple sentences they are more evident in semantic facilitating apprehension of the information being conveyed. Constructions with object clauses are highly productive among the complex sentences of the inseparable type. As a rule, it is the subordinate clause that contains somewhat new that promotes the advancement of the course of reasoning whereas the main clause is assigned only an auxiliary part. The article covers such important features of the studied sentences as the position and construction of the main and subordinate clauses, their means of connection, morphological and semantic properties of the subordinating word, etc. In the course of analysis of these structures in the two languages, some common features (for example, the absolute predominance of the preposition of the main clause), as well as considerable differences (for example, the absence of a conjunction in English) are revealed, which should be taken into account at working with the texts of mathematical works in these languages.

Inversion and word order in English: A functional perspective

English is an SVO (Subject, Verb, Object) word order language. This canonical SVO pattern is the default unmarked word-order configuration typical of English, which makes this language to be classified under the typology of SVO languages. However, driven by the major purpose of language as an instrument of human communication and social interaction, and as a semantic system for making meanings, addressors sometimes depart in their discourse from this basic canonical order of constituents where a grammaticalized system like inversion takes place, resulting in inverted constructions. Through testing and developing the Degree of Focus Hypothesis, proposed by Huffman (1993), this study, which employed a mixed methods research design, sought to explore the communicative and semantic values of inversion; and the pragmalinguistc functions of preposing, i.e., clause-initial adjuncts, to the pragmatic process of communication. The study confirmed the Degree of Focus Hypothesis where the hypothesized notion of concentration of attention stemming from inversion was found to be applicable. The paper stressed that what triggers inversion or non-inversion is a certain communicative effect such as focus rather than a relation of formal determination where one element determines mechanically the form or appearance of another. A contribution to linguistic and educational research, the paper, therefore, highlighted the importance of a human factor in the functioning of language and emphasized the need to break away from grammar-based teaching (traditional grammar) to discourse-based language teaching (communicative grammar) where languaging rather than language should be the focus of language teaching and learning.

ANALYSIS OF ERRORS ON INVITATION LETTERS: (A CASE STUDY OF WRITING INVITATION LETTER BY TENTH GRADE STUDENTS MAJORING MARKETING AT SMK N 1 SLAWI USED AS WRITING ASSESSMENT)

There are four aspects of English skills should be owned by English learners in order to reach communicative competence, namely Speaking, Listening, Grammar, and Writing. By viewing the facts around, we know that the achievement of writing of Indonesian students are in a shitter, either in structure a word, the use of the term, grammar, or another objectives. They still often do mistakes and errors when they writing. In line with this case, in this article the writer tries to analyze errors in tenth grade students majoring marketing in class A at SMK N 1 Slawi while they were writing invitation letters.