Topics in Language and Linguistics - Böcker

The "function" and "notion" of literacy may be considered the keystone, a "filigree" principle underlying the educational, social, and cultural organiza­ tion of the societies of the twentieth century. It is therefore interesting to try to pinpoint the notion and its implications at the tum of the century by focusing the attention of scholars from various disciplines-sociolinguistics, psychology, psycholinguistics, and pedagogy-on the subject. This is the purpose of this volume, which originated from an inter­ disciplinary meeting on trends in and problems of research on early literacy through mother tongues and/or second languages, held in Venice under the auspices of the University of Venice, and in particular of the Seminario di Linguistica e di Didattica della Lingue and the Centro Linguistico Interfacolta, and the Municipality of Venice, together with UNESCO and AILA. A first far-reaching question touches on the role assigned to or fulfilled by mass "literacy" in modem society. The concept of literacy considered as a social achievement, an essential component in the process of education to be institutionally prompted and controlled, fluctuates between two opposite poles. A polemic-destructive view considers the notion and the educational "prac­ tices" connected with it as a potent instrument of social control, a tool for social reproduction and consensus. On the other side, a plurifunctional con­ structive view considers the acquisition and maintenance of different languages via educational institutions as a concrete possibility for the defense and main­ tenance of cultural pluralism and identity, be it social, ethnic, or religious.

Recent work in applied linguistics has expanded our understanding of the rule­ governed nature of language. The concept of an idealized speaker -hearer whose linguistic competence is abstract and separate from reality has been enriched by the notion of an actual interlocutor who possesses communicative compe­ tence, a knowledge of language which accounts for its use in real-world con­ texts. Areas of variation previously relegated to idiosyncratic differences in performance have been found to be dynamic yet consistent and lend themselves to study and systematic description. Because language acquisition involves the development of communicative competence, by its very nature it incorporates variation and systematicity. Sec­ ond-language acquisition is similarly variable, since interlanguage is subject to the same universal and language-specific conventions. In addition, aspects of the second language have been found to be unevenly acquired and are differ­ entially reflected in particular contexts or settings. Yet, despite our expanding knowledge, this variability is only beginning to be treated in much of the sec­ ond-language acquisition literature. This volume presents the work of some researchers and methodologists who have taken on the challenge of including variation in their research designs and pedagogical recommendations. Variation is shown to be relevant to lin­ guistic, social, and psychological aspects of language. It is apparent in the registers and dialects of the target language and in the inter language of learners.

The introduction of communicative competence as the goal of second and for­ eign language teaching has led to recognition of the role of context in language learning and use. As communicative competence is defined by the social and cultural contexts in which it is used, no single communicative competence can serve as the goal and model for all learners. This recognition has had an impact on program design and materials development. One significant change is that the choice of a teaching method is no longer the primary concern. Instead, the first step for the program designer is becoming familiar with the social and cultural features of the context of the language being taught. This includes a consideration of the uses speakers make of the language, their reasons for using it, and their attitudes toward it. Contexts of Competence: Social and Cultural Considerations in Commu­ nicative Language Teaching explores the relationship between context and com­ petence from a theoretical and practical perspective. Its audience is applied linguists in general and language teaching practitioners in particular. The overall aim of its five chapters is to provide a framework for consideration of various contexts of language learning and use and to guide the implementation and development of models of communicative language teaching that are responsive to the context-specific needs of learners.

In that The Anatomy of Speech Notions (1976) was the precursor to The Grammar of Discourse (1983), this revision embodies a third "edition" of some of the material that is found here. The original intent of the 1976 volume was to construct a hierarchical arrangement of notional categories, which find surface realization in the grammatical constructions of the various languages of the world. The idea was to marshal the categories that every analyst-regardless of theoretical bent-had to take account of as cognitive entities. The volume began with a couple of chapters on what was then popularly known as "case grammar," then expanded upward and downward to include other notional categories on other levels. Chapters on dis­ course, monologue, and dialogue were buried in the center of the volume. In the 1983 volume, the chapters on monologue and dialogue discourse were moved to the fore of the book and the chapters on case grammar were made less prominent; the volume was then renamed The Grammar of Discourse. The current revision features more clearly than its predecessors the intersection of discourse and pragmatic concerns with grammatical structures on various levels. It retains and expands much of the former material but includes new material reflecting current advances in such topics as salience clines for discourse, rhetorical relations, paragraph structures, transitivity, ergativity, agency hierarchy, and word­ order typologies.

Topics discussed include: language shift and code mixing speaker attitudes the role of schools and media in the maintenance of these languages and such language planning initiatives as the CODOFIL program to revive the sue of French in Louisiana.

Second Language Teaching, A View from the Right Side of the Brain: -offers a practical introduction to the use of neuroscience to teach second languages;-provides information on the relation between how the brain learns and how this can be used to construct classroom activities; -evaluates methods, syllabi, approaches, etc. from the perspective of brain functioning; -illustrates how teaching can unfold with actual examples in several languages. This volume is indispensable in courses designed for language teachers, curriculum planners, and applied linguists.

Second Language Teaching, A View from the Right Side of the Brain: -offers a practical introduction to the use of neuroscience to teach second languages;-provides information on the relation between how the brain learns and how this can be used to construct classroom activities; -evaluates methods, syllabi, approaches, etc. from the perspective of brain functioning; -illustrates how teaching can unfold with actual examples in several languages. This volume is indispensable in courses designed for language teachers, curriculum planners, and applied linguists.

Leading specialists on Cajun French and Louisiana Creole examine dialectology and sociolinguistics in this volume, the first comprehensive treatment of the linguistic situation of francophone Louisiana and its relation to the current development of French in North America outside of Quebec. Topics discussed include: language shift and code mixing speaker attitudes the role of schools and media in the maintenance of these languages and such language planning initiatives as the CODOFIL program to revive the sue of French in Louisiana. GBP/LISTGBP

The relationship of theoretical and applied linguistics has lately prompted numer­ ous debates. This volume originated at one of them. The essence of most of the chapters, of all of them except Fraser's and Davies's, was actually presented at the Round Table on "The Relationships of Theoretical and Applied Linguistics," organized during the 7th World Congress of Applied Linguistics, held in Brus­ sels, in August 1984. Individually and collectively the chapters assembled here offer support to the idea that applied linguistics should not be juxtaposed to theoretical linguistics; it is a field of research with theoretical as well as applied aspects. Written by different authors from a wide variety of different countries, the chapters may at times express views that are not totally consistent. Nevertheless, we believe that the variability of viewpoints counts among the merits (rather than the defaults) of this internationally written and edited volume. It is our hope that it will prove stimulating to linguists and practitioners in related fields and instructive to students. We wish to express our thanks to Albert Valdman for the interest he has shown in the volume and to record our appreciation to our editors, in particular Eliot Werner and Declan Scully, for their tolerance and patience.

While this volume is based on an earlier work, An Anatomy of Speech Notions (1976), the overall orientation of the present volume is distinctive enough to make it a new work.

William Frawley University of Delaware Several years ago, I performed a kind of perverse experiment. I showed, to several linguistic colleagues, the following comment made by Walker Percy (in The Message in the Bottle): language is too important a problem to be left only to linguists. The linguists' responses were peculiarly predictable: "What does Percy know? He's a mercenary outsider, a novelist, a psychiatrist! How can he say something like that?" Now, it should be known that the linguists who said such things in response were ardent followers of the linguistic vogue: to cross disciplines at whim for the sake of explanation---any explanation. It was odd, to say the least: Percy was damned by the very people who agreed with him! Fortunately, the papers in this book, though radically interdisciplinary, do not fall prey to the kind of hypocrisy described above. The papers (from the Third Delaware Symposium on Language Studies) address the question of literacy---a linguistic problem too important to be left only to linguists--but many of the authors are not linguists at all, and those who are linguists have taken the care to see beyond the parochialism of a single discipline. The subsequent papers have been written by psychologists, linguists, anthropologists, computer scientists, and language teachers to explain the problem of how humans develop, comprehend, and produce extended pieces of informa­ tion (discourses and texts).

CHRISTINA BRAIT PAULSTON There is an important difference between merely experimental and genuine experiment. The one may be a feeling for novelty, the other is rationally based on experience seeking a better way. - Frank Lloyd Wright Wright was talking about architecture, but the same difference can be applied to analyzing the relationship between standard and vernacular languages in bilingual education; surely we are also seeking a better way to handle bilingual education based on experience. How rationally based our efforts are, is another question. Works on this and similar topics can at times become the scene for very emotional-and very moving-presentations which sometimes are more utopian than rational. One can perhaps call this a very 'rational' text, because so few of the contributors are members of ethnic subordinate groups. Am I suggesting that minority group members are less rational? Of course not. I am suggesting that it is much easier to be calm, objective and scholarly about the lot of others than about your own. The most salient feature about the bilingual education of vernacular speaking groups is the social and economic exploitation of its members by the dominant group. The papers herein, treating bilingual education from a psychological perspective, agree at least on the issue that an understanding of the social and economic factors underlying bilingual education is crucial for understanding the psychological studies on bilingualism.

The introduction of communicative competence as the goal of second and for­ eign language teaching has led to recognition of the role of context in language learning and use. As communicative competence is defined by the social and cultural contexts in which it is used, no single communicative competence can serve as the goal and model for all learners. This recognition has had an impact on program design and materials development. One significant change is that the choice of a teaching method is no longer the primary concern. Instead, the first step for the program designer is becoming familiar with the social and cultural features of the context of the language being taught. This includes a consideration of the uses speakers make of the language, their reasons for using it, and their attitudes toward it. Contexts of Competence: Social and Cultural Considerations in Commu­ nicative Language Teaching explores the relationship between context and com­ petence from a theoretical and practical perspective. Its audience is applied linguists in general and language teaching practitioners in particular. The overall aim of its five chapters is to provide a framework for consideration of various contexts of language learning and use and to guide the implementation and development of models of communicative language teaching that are responsive to the context-specific needs of learners.

In that The Anatomy of Speech Notions (1976) was the precursor to The Grammar of Discourse (1983), this revision embodies a third "edition" of some of the material that is found here. In the 1983 volume, the chapters on monologue and dialogue discourse were moved to the fore of the book and the chapters on case grammar were made less prominent;

Recent work in applied linguistics has expanded our understanding of the rule­ governed nature of language. The concept of an idealized speaker -hearer whose linguistic competence is abstract and separate from reality has been enriched by the notion of an actual interlocutor who possesses communicative compe­ tence, a knowledge of language which accounts for its use in real-world con­ texts. Areas of variation previously relegated to idiosyncratic differences in performance have been found to be dynamic yet consistent and lend themselves to study and systematic description. Because language acquisition involves the development of communicative competence, by its very nature it incorporates variation and systematicity. Sec­ ond-language acquisition is similarly variable, since interlanguage is subject to the same universal and language-specific conventions. In addition, aspects of the second language have been found to be unevenly acquired and are differ­ entially reflected in particular contexts or settings. Yet, despite our expanding knowledge, this variability is only beginning to be treated in much of the sec­ ond-language acquisition literature. This volume presents the work of some researchers and methodologists who have taken on the challenge of including variation in their research designs and pedagogical recommendations. Variation is shown to be relevant to lin­ guistic, social, and psychological aspects of language. It is apparent in the registers and dialects of the target language and in the inter language of learners.