peter grundy

Peter Grundy Durham University <[email protected]>

One of the most

dispiriting areas in the

study of language?

You don’t say! You’ll be asking

for a rethink next!

Language awareness is a person’s sensitivity to

and conscious awareness of the nature of

language and its role in human life (UK National Council for Language in

Education Working Party on Language Awareness,

1985)

Does ‘conscious awareness’

imply that that there could be non-conscious

awareness?

Language awareness can be defined as explicit

knowledge about language, and conscious

perception and sensitivity in language learning,

language teaching and language use.(Association of Language Awareness, 1992-)

Only explicit knowledge?

Does this mean just declarative

knowledge then?

Language awareness refers to the development

in learners of an enhanced c0nsciousness of

and sensitivity to the forms and functions of

language.(Ron Carter, ELTJournal 57/1, 2003)

Still unclear: is

awareness necessarily conscious?

Language Awareness is a mental attribute

which develops through paying motivated

attention to language in use, and which enables

language learners to gradually gain insight into

how languages work.(Brian Tomlinson, ELTJournal 57/3, 2003)

Eh?

The first three

definitions use the

term ‘conscious

’ / ‘consciousness’ but

don’t draw

attention to the

methodological

problem posed by the study

of conscious

ness

Exactly, Professor Egghead!

You imply, if I understan

d you correctly, we may not be

aware of our own awarenes

s!

Language awareness as a set of beliefs about language

Teacher language awareness

• Teacher preparation• How teachers manage learner language issues• NESTs and non-NESTs

Pedagogic issues

• Deficit oriented teaching• Teaching oriented to enhanced awareness of selected regular or irregular target language features• A language awareness syllabus: explicit teaching → declarative knowledge vs an inductive approach → procedural knowledge• Critical language awareness

Language awareness and SLA

• The role of apperception / noticing in SLA - awareness distinguished from understanding• Salience and language awareness: frequency, markedness, affect, etc. • Degrees of salience

Language awareness and levels

• Form: syntax, morphology, phonetics, phonology• Meaning: semantics• Function: pragmatics• Code, especially in bi- multi- and plurilingual contexts

• Affective as well as cognitive

Forgive me, Dr

Brainbox, but there seems to be a lot going on here, so why did you say that this is one of the most

dispiriting areas in

the study of

language ?

For a start,

because it’s

virtually unknown for the

literature in this area to provide

any linguistic evidence

of the phenome

non

Evidence, awareness and consciousness

?

I suppose you might find the evidence

you’re looking

for if you studied

pragmatic, and

particularly

metapragmatic,

phenomena?

Precisely! But

pragmatics is rarely mentioned in the

language awarenes

s literature , and then

only superficially. Let me show you!

Teacher Language AwarenessStephen AndrewsCUP 2007pp.232

No mention of pragmatics

Language awareness and language learningAgneta SvalbergLanguage Teaching 40, 287-308, 2007ca.15,000 words

Pragmatics mentioned in four places - 1

p.289: Pragmatic competence, for example, would require some awareness to be focused both on forms as such, and their function meanings in the social contexts in which they occur (Schmidt 1993).



p.295: For teachers to make informed choices regarding the teaching/learning of pragmatics, Kasper (1997) suggests that they need to be aware not only of native speakers’ use of language but also of the pragmatics of the classroom, including cross-cultural issues.. In Brazil, a brief course on pragmatics failed to produce a change in teachers’ classroom practices (Lana Chavez de Castro 2005) possibly because pragmatics had not been discussed in relation to naturally occurring classroom situations.



p.298: Hinkel (1999) addresses culture in classroom interaction, its effect on writing and acquisition of pragmatic competence, and in relation to teaching materials.



p.300: Being bilingual, Jessner asserts, has cognitive effects in itself such as enhanced metalinguistic awareness and an enhanced multilingual capacity to monitor, and it positively affects divergent and creative thinking, pragmatic competence, communicative sensitivity and translation skills.

Ten questions aboutlanguage awarenessRod Bolitho, Ronald Carter,Rebecca Hughes, Roz Ivanič,Hitomi Masuhara and Brian TomlinsonELTJournal 57/3, 251-9, 2003

One mention of pragmatics

p.253The relatively new disciplines of discourse analysis, pragmatics, and, especially, corpus linguistics are pushing back existing frontiers and compelling new descriptions of language.

Language awarenessRon CarterELTJournal 57/1, 64-5, 2003Key Concept

No mention of pragmatics

Gosh! Yes, Dr

Brainbox, how

depressing for

pragmaticians like us! We

really do need a

rethink!

And especially

when there are

lots of insightful

things about

consciousness

written by pragmatic

ians!

At the implicit end of the scale we find metapragmatic indexicality ... It is here that

one may situate .. ‘contextualization cues’, the

linguistic means (often prosodic) that speakers use (usually with a very low

degree of awareness) to signal how (forms occurring in)

utterances are to be appropriately

interpreted.Notes on the role of metapragmatic (p.442)awareness in language useJef VerschuerenPragmatics 10/4, 439-56, 2000

A

not everything that happens in linguistic behavior occupies the same place in

consciousness.(p.443)

Notes on the role of metapragmatic awareness in language useJef VerschuerenPragmatics 10/4, 439-56, 2000

A

speakers’ awareness of pragmatic phenomena

does not have to match the linguist’s metapragmatic descriptions.

(p.443)

Notes on the role of metapragmatic awareness in language useJef VerschuerenPragmatics 10/4, 439-56, 2000

A

So, if I’ve understoo

d correctly, speakers

know what

they’re doing

when they use

language, but they

don’t necessaril

y know this at the

level of conscious awareness

?

Got it in one,

Egghead! And

there’s a reason

why too:

The linguistic ideology of the native speaker .. highlights awareness of the referential

function of language while hindering awareness of the indexical function.

(p.468)

Pragmatic s in the late twentiethcentury: countering recenthistoriographic neglectJon PressmanPragmatics 4/4, 461-89, 1994

A

So we’re programmed to be aware of

literal meaning

(the referential function)..

..but not of how we signal our awarenes

s (the indexical function)

But this doesn’t

mean we don’t know what we’re

doing – right?

Absolutely,

Egghead! Time for

evidence, I think.

(1) Receptionist: So you haven’t

had your letter PG: I haven’t had a

letter

(2) JH: Was Zain a good student

PG: Exceptional – take that as

you will

Metalinguistic evidence

(1) Bob Monkhouse: Everybody

laughed when I first said I

wanted to be a comedian.

Well they’re not laughing now

are they

(2) I’ll say that again

Metapragmatic evidence

(1) Receptionist: So you haven’t

had your letter PG: I haven’t had a

letter

(2) P: .hh Bonsai are cool yone

J: Yes, they are cool yo=

P: = Actually I’m a bit interested in bonsai

too and J: Oh shall I give you

some

(Saigo, 2011)

Metasequential evidence

G = Grace, a Chinese student living with a

British host-family.L = Les, the husband of the host-

motherM = Les’s mother

M: but that’s just to let them know I’m still here

(.) you see when I whinge <laughs>

G: ah whinge what’s that mean (.) whinge

M: when I umm er erL: complaining all the time

M: nice today(1.5) G: nya (1.0) ah [wha- ]M: [I went] for a ten

mile walkG: ah (..) a ten mile walkM: <laughs>G: so the doctor told you you have to

(.) on diet

M: um (1.0) and I didn’t have any bust very much you

knowG: <laughs>M: flat(0.5)G: me too [<laughs> ]M: [and I worked] (2.0) one placeG: ye[s]M: and they used to say (.) oh here she

comes (.) two fried eggs [<laughs> ]G: [two flastic]M: that’s because I had no bust [<laughs>

]G: [oh

(..) I have no too]M: <laughs> so you see I was slim then

M: nice today(1.5) G: nya (1.0) ah [wha- ]M: [I went] for a ten mile

walkG: ah (..) a ten mile walkM: <laughs>G: so the doctor told you you have to (.)

on diet(0.5)M: I’ve got to slimG: ah-hM: ‘ve got to lose some weight

M: um (1.0) and I didn’t have any bust very much you

knowG: <laughs>M: flat(0.5)G: me too [<laughs> ]M: [and I worked] (2.0) one placeG: ye[s]M: and they used to say (.) oh here she

comes (.) two fried eggs [<laughs> ]G: [two flastic]M: that’s because I had no bust [<laughs>

]G: [oh

(..) I have no too]M: <laughs> so you see I was slim then

M: ha when I go [up there] <pointing upwards>

L: [you’ll ] still be whingeing on

M: <laughs>G: sorryL: she will still whingeM: <laughs>(3.0)M: but that’s just to let them know I’m

still here (.) you see when I whinge <laughs>G: ah whinge what’s that mean (.)

whingeM: when I umm er erL: complaining all the time

If G, L and M weren’t aware of what they were doing, they wouldn’t be able to hold this conversation

We shouldn’t think of language awareness only as conscious

Evidence of awareness takes the form of procedural skill as well as declarative knowledge

NNSs show the same control of the meta-functions of language as NSs

Teacher language awareness

• As teachers, we need to develop awareness of the metapragmatic and metasequential nature of language and add this to our existing metalinguistic knowledge• This is an issue in initial teacher preparation• Our awareness will be relevant for the way we respond to language learner language

Pedagogic issues

• Deficit oriented teaching might be applied in situations where an unintended pragmatic effect occurs• Pragmatic and sequential procedural knowledge is unlikely to result from explicit focus-on-function teaching except in a small number of metasequential areas and in areas of formulaic pragmalinguistics

Language awareness and SLA

• Because we are more likely to be consciously aware of pragmatic effect and the forms that bring it about in one-on-one and small group face-to-face encounters, applied linguists who argue for the role of output in SLA should also give prominence to the role of pragmatic phenomena in SLA

Language awareness and levels

• The ‘levels’ approach to language study and linguistic description doesn’t sit well with the view of metapragmatics as a dimension (rather than as a set of discrete phenomena such as discourse markers, etc.)• The ’dimension’ view of language helps us to understand how all uses of language are ideological (which will please the critical language awareness lobby)

Evidence, awareness and consciousness

At last, thanks to pragmatic

s, evidence

of language awarenes

s!

Thank you for inviting me to your Conference

(And thank you for listening to these two bores)

A

Here’s a thought

Brainbox. The word

‘awareness’ itself implies…

I know what you’re

going to say,

Egghead – “the word

‘awareness’ itself

implies that you

have meta-knowledge!

”

peter grundy

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