UNDERSTANDING LANGUAGE TEACHING From Method to Post-method Language: concepts & percepts

1. LANGUAGE: CONCEPTS & PERCEPTS
Omid Sanaei
Islamic Azad
University of
Malayer, Hamedan,
Iran
UNDERSTANDING LANGUAGE
TEACHING
From Method to Postmethod
(Kumaravadivelu, Chapter 1)

2. LANGUAGE FROM THREE VANTAGE
POINTS
 Language as System
 Language as Discourse
 Language as Ideology
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3. LANGUAGE AS SYSTEM
 Each unit of language has a character of its own and each, is delimited by and
dependent upon its co-occurring units.
 The central core of language as system: phonological, semantic and syntactic
systems
 Crucial to understanding language is the idea of systematicity.
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4. CHOMSKY’S VIEWS
An infinite number of sentences can be produced using a finite number of grammatical rules.
 The poverty of stimulus argument
 Mentalism: Much of human behavior is biologically determined.
 Innateness Hypothesis: Innate ability
 Universal Grammar: Principles and parameters
 Competence/performance distinction
 Human language as a cognitive psychological mechanism
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5. LANGUAGE AS DISCOURSE
 Discourse: a connected and contextualized unit of language use
 Language as meaning potential (Halliday, 1973)
 Language as a means of functioning in the society
 Communication as the product of the process of interplay between language
metafunctions or macrofunctions
 Learning a language: Learning to mean (language embedded in a sociocultural milieu)
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6. METAFUNCTIONS OF LANGUAGE
(HALLIDAY)
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 Competence: a mental structure of tacit knowledge possessed by the idealized
speaker-hearer (as Chomsky stated) PLUS the communicative ability to use a
language in concrete situations
 Chomsky’s notion is biologically based and Hymes’ notion is more socially based.
 Communicative competence: dependent upon the both tacit knowledge and ability
for use

7. HYMES’ VIEWS
 Competence: a mental structure of tacit knowledge possessed by the idealized
speaker-hearer (as Chomsky stated) PLUS the communicative ability to use a language
in concrete situations
 Chomsky’s notion is biologically based and Hymes’ notion is more socially based.
 Communicative competence: dependent upon the both tacit knowledge and ability
for use
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8. FACTORS GOVERNING
SUCCESSFUL COMMUNICATION
(HYMES)
 Setting: place & time
 Participants: speakers & hearers along with their roles
 Ends: objectives
 Act: form, content, & sequence
 Key: manner & tone
 Instrumentalities: channel (oral/written) & code (formality)
 Norms: conventions (shared knowledge)
 Genre: categories of communication
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9. THREE COMPONENTS OF
SPEECH ACT
 Locution: Propositional statement
 Illocution: Intended meaning
 Perlocution: Expected response
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10. LANGUAGE AS IDEOLOGY
 Ideology: A systematic set of ideas from a specific point of view
 Power and domination (meaning in the service of power)
 Establishing and sustaining relations of domination
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11. DIMENSIONS OF LANGUAGE
IDEOLOGIES
(KROSKRITY, 2000)
 Representing the perception of language and discourse constructed in the interests of
a specific social or cultural group
 Being multiple because of multiplicity of social divisions
 Displaying varying degrees of awareness of local language ideologies
 Mediating between social structures and forms of talk
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12. FOUCAULT’S CONCEPT OF
DISCOURSE
Language as one aspect of discourse
 Three-dimensional definition:
– all actual utterances or texts
– specific formations or field (feminism & racism)
– sociopolitical structures
 No text is innocent.
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13. CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS
(CDA)
 Description, interpretation, & explanation
 Language teaching as a prime source for sensitizing learners to social inequalities
 Developing necessary capabilities for addressing inequalities
 Creating critical language awareness in our learners
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14. COMPONENTS OF COMPETENCE
 Canale & Swain (1983):
- grammatical, sociolinguistic, discourse & strategic competence
 Bachman’s (1990) communicative language ability:
- organizational competence (grammatical/textual)
- pragmatic competence (illocutionary/sociolinguistic)
 Celce-Murcia, Dornyei & Thurrell (1995):
- linguistic, sociolinguistic, discourse, strategic, & actional competence
 Cook (1996):
- multicompetence & monocompetence
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15. AREAS OF KNOWLEDGE/ABILITY
Language knowledge & language ability
 Widdowson (1989): - knowledge (analyzability)
- ability (accessibility)
 Anderson (1983): declarative/procedural knowledge
 Kumaravadivelu (2008): linguistic knowledge/ability & pragmatic knowledge/ability
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16. CONCLUSION
 Language as system, discourse & ideology
 Pedagogic precepts about components of competence
 Areas of language/ability
 Knowledge/ability: linguistic & pragmatic
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