THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE NINTH GRADE
STUDENTS’ EXPECTATIONS FROM ENGLISH SPEAKING
COURSE AND THE COURSE TEACHERS’ READINESS IN
TERMS OF CONSTRUCTIVISM
M. A. THESIS
By Pınar Zeydan
Supervisor
Assist. Prof. Dr. Cemal Çakır
Eğitim Bilimleri Enstitüsü Müdürlüğü’ne
Pınar Zeydan’a ait “Dokuzuncu Sınıf Öğrencilerinin İngilizce Konuşma Derslerinden Beklentileri İle İngilizce Konuşma Dersi Öğretmenlerinin Hazır Bulunuşluk Durumları Arasındaki İlişkinin Yapılandırmacı Bir Bakış Açısıyla İncelenmesi” adlı çalışma jürimiz tarafından Yabancı Diller Eğitimi Anabilim Dalında YÜKSEK LİSANS TEZİ olarak kabul edilmiştir.
Başkan: Yrd. Doç. Dr. Nurdan ÖZBEK GÜRBÜZ
Üye: Yrd. Doç. Dr. Cemal ÇAKIR (Danışman)
ABSTRACT
THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE NINTH GRADE STUDENTS’ EXPECTATIONS FROM ENGLISH SPEAKING COURSE AND THE COURSE TEACHERS’ READINESS IN TERMS OF CONSTRUCTIVISM
ZEYDAN, Pınar
M. A., Department of Teaching English as a Foreign Language Supervisor: Assist. Prof. Dr. Cemal Çakır
March 2008
The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between the ninth grade students’ expectations from English speaking instruction and English teachers’ readiness within a constructivist standpoint.
In spite of having been exposed to instruction of English for a long time, students cannot communicate through English effectively. Within this context this study aims at collecting data as a possible contribution to determining the solutions for this problem with a constructivist standpoint. Discussing the topic with a constructivist point of view is expected to create a new perspective to speaking skill.
In order to collect the related data, two questionnaires were used. The first questionnaire was given to ninth-grade students to investigate their expectations and the second one was created to collect data about teachers’ readiness. Both of the questionnaires were designed in the frame of constructivist learning theory.
The results of the study indicate that from several perspectives such as promoting active participation of students in oral activities, presenting the new teaching item by relating it to students’ existing knowledge, being familiar with the importance of learner autonomy, teachers meet the expectations of students. On the other hand, it is concluded that from several perspectives such as utilizing internet in teaching speaking, sharing responsibility of instructional design, using peer collaboration through feedback, teachers do not meet students’ expectations from speaking instruction.
ÖZET
DOKUZUNCU SINIF ÖĞRENCİLERİNİN İNGİLİZCE KONUŞMA DERSLERİNDEN BEKLENTİLERİ İLE İNGİLİZCE KONUŞMA DERSİ
ÖĞRETMENLERİNİN HAZIR BULUNUŞLUK DURUMLARI ARASINDAKİ İLİŞKİNİN YAPILANDIRMACI BİR BAKIŞ AÇISIYLA
İNCELENMESİ
ZEYDAN, Pınar
Yüksek Lisans, İngiliz Dili Eğitimi Bölümü Danışman: Yrd. Doç. Dr. Cemal Çakır
Mart 2008
Bu çalışma dokuzuncu sınıf öğrencilerinin konuşma öğretiminden beklentileri ile İngilizce öğretmenlerinin konuşma öğretimi konusunda hazırbulunuşluğu arasındaki ilişkiyi yapılandırmacı bir bakış açısı ile incelenmektedir.
Uzun yıllar İngilizce öğrenmiş olmalarına karşılık öğrenciler bu dille etkili bir biçimde iletişim kuramamaktadırlar. Bu bağlamda bu çalışmada elde edilen verilerin, öğretimin düzenlenmesine ve problemlerin çözümüne katkı sağlayacağı öngörülmektedir. Çalışmanın yapılandırmacılık kapsamında gerçekleştirilmesinin, konuya yeni bir bakış açısı kazandıracağı umulmaktadır.
Bu çalışmada, hedeflenen veriyi elde etmek üzere iki anket kullanılmıştır. Birinci anket dokuzuncu sınıf öğrencilerine uygulanmış bir beklenti anketidir. İkinci anketin amacı ise öğretmenlerin hazırbulunuşluk durumları ile ilgili veri toplamaktır. Her iki anket de yapılandırmacı yaklaşımın çerçevesinde oluşturulmuştur.
Çalışmanın sonucuna göre öğretmenler, öğrencilerin etkinliklerine aktif katılımının desteklenmesi, yeni bilginin öğrencinin mevcut bilgisiyle ilişkilendirilerek sunulması gibi açılardan öğrenci beklentilerini karşılarken, öğretimde internetin kullanılması, öğrenme etkinliklerinin hazırlanmasında sorumluluğun paylaşılması, öğrencilerin birbirlerine dönüt vermek yoluyla işbirliği yapması gibi açılardan öğrenci beklentilerini karşılayamamaktadırlar.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to express my deep gratitude to my thesis supervisor, Assist. Prof. Dr. Cemal Çakır, for his invaluable guidance, suggestions and patience throughout my study. I greatly appreciate having the chance to study with him.
I would like to thank my dear friend Aslı Atalı, whose valuable suggestions and warm encouragement contributed a lot to me. I would like to thank Assist. Prof. Dr. Fatma Zehra Savi for her support and suggestions especially on conducting and analyzing the questionnaires. I am also thankful to all my friends who helped me throughout my study.
My special thanks to my relatives and my dear friends Gülnur Yardımcı and Şaduman İzmitlioğlu who are always with me in spirit.
I would like to express my deepest gratitude and thanks to my mother, Selma Zeydan for her never ending love, encouragement and support. I am especially thankful to my mother for her patience. I owe all what I have to her.
Finally, I devote this study to my dear father, Cemal Zeydan who will always be in my heart. I will always miss him.
ABSTRACT...iii ÖZET...iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS...v TABLE OF CONTENTS...vi LIST OF TABLES...ix LIST OF GRAPHS...xi LIST OF FIGURES...xii
CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION...1
1.0 Presentation ...1
1.1 Background to the Study...1
1.2 Aim of the Study...3
1.3 Scope of the Study...3
1.4 Methodology...4
1.5 Significance of the Study...4
1.6 Assumptions...5
1.7 Limitations...5
1.8 Definition of Terms...6
CHAPTER TWO: REVIEW OF LITERATURE...7
2.0 Presentation...7 2.1 Nature of Communication...7 2.2 Nature of Speaking...20 2.3 Components of Speaking...25 2.3.1 Pronunciation...25 2.3.2 Grammar...27 2.3.3 Lexis...29 2.3.4 Fluency...30 2.3.5 Turn-taking ...30 2.3.6 Paralinguistic items...32
2.4 Spoken vs. Written Language...33
2.5 Functions of Spoken Language...36
2.6 Communicative Competence...38
2.8 Constructivism...45
2.8.1 Definition of the Term...46
2.8.2 Types of Constructivism...48 2.8.2.1 Cognitive Constructivism...48 2.8.2.2 Radical Constructivism...50 2.8.2.3 Social Constructivism ...52 2.8.3 Principles of Constructivism...55 2.8.3.1 Learner Autonomy...55
2.8.3.2 Active Participation of Learners...56
2.8.3.3 Zone of Proximal Development and Scaffolding...57
2.8.3.4 Collaborative Learning and Trust in Learning Community...58
2.8.4 Constructivism in Classroom...59
2.8.4.1 Characteristics of Constructivist Classrooms...59
2.8.4.2 Role of the Teacher and Students...61
CHAPTER THREE: METHODOLOGY ...63
3.0 Introduction...63
3.1 Research Questions...63
3.2 Instruments...63
3.2.1 Questionnaire for Ninth Grade Students’ Expectations in Teaching Speaking Skill...64
3.2.2 Questionnaire for Teachers’ Readiness to Meet the Students’ Expectations from a Constructivist Point of View...69
3.3 Subjects...70
3.4 Procedures...72
3.5 Data Analysis...73
CHAPTER FOUR: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION...74
4.0 Introduction...74
4.1 Analysis of the Questionnaire Results...74
4.1.1 Results of the Questionnaire for Ninth Grade Students’ Expectations in Teaching Speaking Skill...74
4.1.2 Results of the Questionnaire for Teachers’ Readiness to Meet the Students’ Expectations from a Constructivist Point of View...88
4.2 Discussion...110
CHAPTER FIVE: CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS...123
5.0 Presentation...123
5.1 Overview of the Study...123
5.2 Recommendations...129 REFERENCES...131 APPENDICES...141 Appendix I………142 Appendix II………...146 Appendix III………..150 Appendix IV………..155
LIST OF TABLES
Table 3.1. Distribution of Students...70 Table 3.2. Distribution of Teachers...72 Table 4.1 Frequencies and Percentages of the Responses Given to Items 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 18, 19 ………..75 Table 4.2 Frequencies and Percentages of the Responses Given to Items 7, 8, 38, 39, 42 ………77 Table 4.3 Frequencies and Percentages of the Responses Given to Items 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 39, 42………...78 Table 4.4 Frequencies and Percentages of the Responses Given to Items 15, 16, 17……….79 Table 4.5 Frequencies and Percentages of the Responses Given to Items 20, 21, 22, 23, 40 41………..81 Table 4.6 Frequencies and Percentages of the Responses Given to Items 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 44……….82 Table 4.7 Frequencies and Percentages of the Responses Given to Items 30, 31, 32……….83 Table 4.8 Frequencies and Percentages of the Responses Given to Items 34, 35, 36, 45……….84 Table 4.9 Frequencies and Percentages of the Responses Given to Items 14, 28, 35, 45……….85 Table 4.10 Frequencies and Percentages of the Responses Given to Items 27, 29, 33……….86 Table 4.11 Frequencies and Percentages of the Responses Given to Items 37, 43....87 Table 4.12 Frequencies and Percentages of the Responses Given to Items 1, 2, 3, 4, 60……….89 Table 4.13 Frequencies and Percentages of the Responses Given to Items 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 76, 77, 79……….91 Table 4.14 Frequencies and Percentages of the Responses Given to Items 10, 11, 12, 13, 14………...93
Table 4.15 Frequencies and Percentages of the Responses Given to Items 15, 16, 17, 21, 22………...94 Table 4.16 Frequencies and Percentages of the Responses Given to Items 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28………...96 Table 4.17 Frequencies and Percentages of the Responses Given to Items 28, 29....98 Table 4.18 Frequencies and Percentages of the Responses Given to Items 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 37, 38, 52, 53………...99 Table 4.19 Frequencies and Percentages of the Responses Given to Items 35, 36, 39, 40, 42, 43, 45, 65………...102 Table 4.20 Frequencies and Percentages of the Responses Given to Items 41, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 61, 62, 63, 64……….104 Table 4.21 Frequencies and Percentages of the Responses Given to Items 44, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51……….106 Table 4.22 Frequencies and Percentages of the Responses Given to Items 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73………...107 Table 4.23 Frequencies and Percentages of the Responses Given to Items 74, 75, 78………...109 Table 5.1 The results of the study...125
LIST OF GRAPHS
Graph 4.1 Percentages of the Responses Given to Items 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 18, 19…….76
Graph 4.2 Percentages of the Responses Given to Items 7, 8, 38, 39, 42…………...77
Graph 4.3 Percentages of the Responses Given to Items 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 39, 42….78 Graph 4.4 Percentages of the Responses Given to Items 15, 16, 17………...80
Graph 4.5 Percentages of the Responses Given to Items 20, 21, 22, 23, 40, 41…….81
Graph 4.6 Percentages of the Responses Given to Items 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 44…….82
Graph 4.7 Percentages of the Responses Given to Items 30, 31, 32………...…83
Graph 4.8 Percentages of the Responses Given to Items 34, 35, 36, 45……….84
Graph 4.9 Percentages of the Responses Given to Items 14, 28, 35, 45……….86
Graph 4.10 Percentages of the Responses Given to Items 27, 29, 33……….87
Graph 4.11 Percentages of the Responses Given to Items 37, 43………...88
Graph 4.12 Percentages of the Responses Given to Items 1, 2, 3, 4, 60……….90
Graph 4.13 Percentages of the Responses Given to Items 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 76, 77, 79……….91
Graph 4.14 Percentages of the Responses Given to Items 10, 11, 12, 13, 14……….93
Graph 4.15 Percentages of the Responses Given to Items 15, 16, 17, 21, 22……….94
Graph 4.16 Percentages of the Responses Given to Items 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27……….96
Graph 4.17 Percentages of the Responses Given to Items 28, 29………...98
Graph 4.18 Percentages of the Responses Given to Items 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 37, 38, 52, 53……….100
Graph 4.19 Percentages of the Responses Given to Items 35, 36, 39, 40, 42, 43, 45, 65………...102
Graph 4.20 Percentages of the Responses Given to Items 41, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 61, 62, 63………...104
Graph 4.21 Percentages of the Responses Given to Items 44, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51………...106
Graph 4.22 Percentages of the Responses Given to Items 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73………...108
TABLE OF FIGURES
CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
1.0 Presentation
In this chapter, the background to the study, the problem underlying the study, and the aim for conducting the study will be discussed. The scope, the methodology, the limitations and the assumptions of the study will be presented. Moreover, the relevant terms will be defined briefly.
1.1 Background to the Study
In an age of globalization, much more significance is attributed to communication. Majority of people in the world somehow take part in exchanges including commercial activities, international affairs, scientific studies, etc. And people having different ethnic origins and living in different countries mostly communicate through English which can be considered as the lingua franca of today. Hasman (2000) presents statistical information on the role of English in the world, in which it is reported that over 1.4 billion people worldwide use English for some reasons. One out of five of the world population speaks English. Over 70% of the world’s scientists read works written in English. Approximately 85% of mail around the world and 90% of information stored in electronic systems is in English (p. 3). Due to the rapid growth of English all over the world, there is obviously a need for students to be able to interact through English.
Furthermore, the growing trend in terms of educational policy in various countries is that institutions are more sensitive to language instruction especially for the purpose of communication. Citizens equipped with international communicative competence are considered as a prerequisite to taking part in competitive multinational arena. Thus, a marked increase in significance attached to foreign language, especially English, instruction is realized around the world.
Although the ability to function in a language requires mastery of four language skills, it is often the speaking skill upon which a person is judged (McDonough and Shaw, 1993: 151; Nunan, 1999: 225). Thus, it is inevitable to enable students to use language effectively in oral exchanges. In other words, to make students communicatively competent requires the speaking skill to take part in instructional process.
Owing to the situation mentioned above, one of the major reasons students attend English courses is to acquire the ability to communicate with people of a different linguistic background (Valette, 1967: 119). However, in spite of getting exposed to a great deal of English instruction, Turkish students of EFL cannot participate in oral exchanges through English effectively. In spite of its vitality for language learning, speaking is in many respects undervalued (Bygate, 1987; Hughes, 2003; McDonough and Shaw, 1993).
Just like international affairs, demands of the age and technological conditions, educational curricula are also changing. One of the prominent changes experienced in this context is growing respect to individual differences and their implementations in educational arena. Recently, in this respect, a great deal of attention has been paid to constructivism, an epistemology which “recognizes that knowing is active, that it is individual and personal, and that it is based on previously constructed knowledge” (Ernest, 1995: 462).
Due to rapid technological changes and internet as a means of facilitating access to knowledge, traditional way of teaching does not meet the demands of human being (Can, 2006). Knowledge, in the eye of traditional view, can be described as a representation of an observer-independent world (von Glasersfeld, 1989a: 1). Constructivism, on the other hand, takes to educational arena the concepts such as holistic view of instruction, collaboration, respect to differences and equality, autonomy and self- awareness (Can, 2006). Thus constructivism aims at creating a new perspective to instruction by challenging the traditional view.
1.2 Aim of the Study
The main aim of this study is to find out whether the English teachers working at the public high schools can meet the expectations of the ninth grade students in teaching speaking skill. In order to achieve this aim, the relation between ninth grade students’ expectations in teaching speaking skill and teachers’ readiness to meet their expectations will be analysed in terms of constructivism. It is expected that the data collected through this study will contribute to teaching speaking skill at high schools.
This study aims at addressing the following questions:
1. What are the expectations of the ninth grade students in teaching speaking skill?
2. Do English teachers meet the expectations of students in teaching speaking skill?
3. What is the relationship between students’ expectations and teachers’ readiness?
1.3 Scope of the Study
This study focuses on the relation between ninth grade students’ expectations in teaching speaking skill and teachers’ readiness to meet their expectations from a constructivist point of view. Within this context, rather than what happens in speaking instruction, students’ expectations in teaching speaking skill are the focus point of the study. Then data related to English teachers’ readiness were collected to see whether they met students’ expectations.
The only language skill taken into consideration within this study is speaking. Listening, reading and writing are out of concern throughout this study. Moreover, factors such as age, gender, social and educational background are not taken into consideration.
1.4 Methodology
The data collection instruments used in this study are two questionnaires. The first questionnaire (see Appendix I and Appendix II for questionnaires in Turkish and Engish versions) addresses the ninth grade students with the purpose of finding out their expectations in teaching speaking. This questionnaire includes 45 items and is delivered to 467 ninth grade students in Kastamonu. The second questionnaire (see Appendix III and Appendix IV for questionnaires in Turkish and Engish versions) adressing the English teachers is created in the light of the data collected through the first questionnaire. The aim of the second instrument is to collect data concerning teachers’ readiness level to meet students’ expectations. This questionnaire includes 79 items and is delivered to 25 teachers working at high schools.
1.5 Significance of the Study
In an age that promotes multicultural interactions, international affairs, and sending and receiving information at increasing speed, it is inevitably necessary to be able to communicate through a foreign language. Therefore, enabling people to take active part in communication is a matter of great significance. Majority of the communicative events around the world include oral exchanges. Indeed, using a language effectively is identified with communicating orally through this language. Thus, it is necessary to enable students to use language effectively in oral exchanges. However, most students’ expectations in speaking instruction are not satisfied for various reasons. Studying speaking skill as a research subject and collecting data concerning it are supposed to contribute to solving problems within the framework of speaking teaching.
This study is carried out to find out the ninth grade students’ expectations in teaching speaking. Determining students’ expectations is expected to make a contribution to syllabus design. Moreover, determining teachers’ readiness is expected to clarify the current situation of teaching speaking skill, thus to contribute to finding solutions to related problems.
Constructivism, which is another subject included in this study, has been deliberately chosen. As aformentioned, educational curricula are changing with a tendency to pay attention on individual differences and learner independency. Constructivism, a theory focusing on these concept, has a long history, and particularly for the last several decades, a great many studies have been carried out to explain the process of knowledge construction; however, not many studies relating constructivism to speaking skill are available. It will be reasonable to relate it to speaking skill especially for further study on shaping the curricula on teaching speaking with a constructive point of view.
1.6 Assumptions
The following assumptions are taken into consideration in this study:
The questionnaires are assumed to define the current cases, attitudes and views of teachers and students related to the issue.
The students are assumed to be able to make judgements about teaching the speaking skill.
The teachers are assumed to be able to make judgements about teaching the speaking skill.
The participants are assumed to be honest while taking the questionnaires.
1.7 Limitations
This study was administered to 467 ninth grade students and 25 teachers of English. Owing to the aformentioned numbers, the results gained through this study can be generalised to other schools in the same city. However, the fact that the study was conducted in a local area and the samples and the number of the samples were chosen randomly limits the study’s generalizability to nation-wide. Examining only one city also limits the study’s ability to indicate universal truths.
The items included in the data collection instruments were composed by the researcher. Reliability analyses were conducted for both of the questionnaires
through using Statistical Packages for Social Sciences (SPSS) 13.0. The statistical result for the questionnaire given to students is 86,5%, and the result for the questionnaire given to teachers is 87,8%, which indicates that the instruments are suitable for this study. However, the answers given by the subjects may reflect partial truths.
1.8 Definition of Terms
• Speaking: It is defined as a method or a verbal means of communicating or conveying meaning (Owens, 1988: 3)
• Constructivism: Constructivism is a theory of learning whose main proposition is that learning is constructing, creating, inventing and developing our own knowldge (Marlowe and Page, 1998: 10)
• Readiness: It is defined as the state of being ready (Longman Active Study Dictionary of English, 1987, 504) and it is used to indicate that someone is prepared for doing an activity (Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, 2007, 1363).
• Students’ Expectations: It stands for what the students expect in insruction, what they want to learn in class and for what purpose they take the course.
CHAPTER 2
REVIEW OF LITERATURE
2.0 Presentation
This part is devoted to review the related literature, which includes two main parts. In the first part, literature concerning speaking skill will be reviwed, and in the second part literature related to constructivist learning theory will be dealt with.
2.1 Nature of Communication
Humans are social beings who do not act alone. Throughout their evolution, from hunter-gatherer days to the technological present, they have sought to establish communities, societies and thus cultures as an attempt to survive collectively rather than individually (Fosnot and Perry in Fosnot 2005: 29). What has helped human beings to survive is communication. Adler and Rodman (2003) state that “some scientists have gone as far as to argue that communication is the primary goal of human existence because relationships with others are vital”(p. 9). Many scientists have carried out research to explain this precious action and several definitions have come to the stage. Owens (1988) defines communication as the process of exchanging information and ideas between participants (p. 6); on the other hand, Adler and Rodman (2003) take communication as the process of human beings responding to the symbolic behaviour of other people (p. 2). Lynch (1996) defines communication as enabling someone else to understand what we want to tell them, what is often referred to as our message (p. 3). The definition of deBeaugrande and Dressler (1981) for communication is that it is the activity of expressing and transmitting cognitions by a sensorially endowed entity (p. 96).
“All living beings communicate with other individuals of their own species”, says Dessalles (2007: 5) and claims that human beings spend most of their time exchanging various linguistic messages (p. 24). As Canale (1983) notes the exchange
may occur through the use of verbal and non-verbal symbols or in oral and written modes (p. 4).
In order to explain the nature of communication, several models were put forward. According to Akmajian et al (2001), one of the oldest models that express human interaction is the Message Model (see Figure 1):
Figure 2.1 The Message Model (Akmajian et al, 2001)
Akmajian et al (2001) elaborates on this figure as follows:
A speaker has some message in mind that she wants to communicate to a hearer. The speaker then produces some expression from the language that encodes the message as its meaning. Upon hearing the beginning of the expression. the hearer begins identifying the incoming sounds, syntax, and meanings; then, using her knowledge of language, she composes these meanings in the form of a successfully decoded message. (p. 364)
Therefore, in the eye of the Message Model, a communicative event comprises a speaker (also called as transmitter), a hearer (also called as receiver), the vocal tract as the channel and the messages to be conveyed, and it is successful when the hearer receives the speaker's message by sharing knowledge of the linguistic meaning of an expression (Akmajian etal, 2001: 369). However, it can be noticed that the process explained above sounds like a perfect communication with no
deficiencies, and we know that in real life everything does not occur in such a smooth way. As Akmajian et al (2001) point out, decoding of the meaning(s) of a sentence is certainly a crucial part of linguistic communication, but the communicative process does not end with processing structural properties, and decoding meaning, and it is here that the Message Model encounters a number of problems (p. 366). Akmajian et al (2001) define six problems. First, the Message Model does not offer a way to deal with linguistically ambiguous expressions, which is called the problem of ambiguity. The second problem is called underdetermination of reference and it makes the Message Model lack of accounting for the expressions including references which can rarely be determined by the meaning of expression. Third, what is missing in the Message Model is an account of the speaker’s communicative intention which is not generally appearent in the linguistic meaning of expression uttered. This is the problem of underdetermination of communicative intention. The fourth one is the problem of nonliterality due to which this model does not account for the fact that we may not always mean what our words mean. The fifth Akmajian et al suggest is the problem of indirection. And finally, the Message Model does not account for noncommunicative acts such as changing someone’s institutional status. (pp. 366-369).
The process explained within the framework of the Message Model is quite similar to the Linear Model (see Adler and Rodman, 2003). In addition to the components presented in the model of Akmajian et al, the Linear Model includes the concept of “noise” (Adler and Rodman, 2003: 11-12). It stands for any forces that interfere with effective communication. Adler and Rodman enumerate three types of noises: external (the factors outside the receiver), physiological (biological factors in the receiver or sender) and psychological (the forces within a communicator). Another concept taking place in the Linear Model is “environment”- the fields of experience that help communicators understand others’ behaviours (Adler and Rodman, 2003: 12). Including personal experiences, cultural or ethnic background, social status etc, environment is a matter of great importance in communication.
Adler and Rodman (2003) claim that the Linear Model does not do a very good job of representing the way most communication operates and that the Transactional Communication Model presents a more accurate picture (p. 14).
According to Adler and Rodman (2003), this model is based on the assumption that “most communication is a two-way affair” (p. 15). Therefore, the seperate roles of speaker and hearer in the Linear Model are now superimposed and the participants are called “communicators” rather than speaker and hearer, and the encoding-decoding process is replaced by receiving-encoding-decoding-responding process including feedback. This model, too, includes the channels conveying the message, noises interfering with attempts to communicate and different environments affecting each of the communicators. According to the Transactional Communication Model, “communication isn’t something we do to others; rather, it is something we do with them” (Adler and Rodman, 2003: 13). Besides putting the responsibility of communicating on the shoulders of both communicators, this model relates it with the preceding events. That is, the notion environment is much more discernible in this model than it is in the Linear Model.
Akmajian et al (2001: 370) suggest that the connection between a speaker's communicative intention (message) and a sentence is not one of conventional coding of the message into the sentence via its meaning but the one of inferential. According to the theory of the Inferential Model, “linguistic communication is successful when the hearer, upon hearing an expression, recognizes the speaker’s communicative intent” (Akmajian et al, 1990: 315). In this model, linguistic communication is possible due to a system of inferential strategies shared by the speaker and hearer (Akmajian et al, 1990: 315). It is highlighted in an analogy to our native language acquisition. “In the course of learning to speak our language we also learn how to communicate in that language, and learning this involves acquiring a variety of shared beliefs or presumptions,as well as a system of inferential strategies”(Akmajian et al, 1990: 316). Adler and Rodman (2003) propose that effective communication depends on the agreement of people about a set of rules (p. 3). It will be a tautology to say that they are culturally shaped. These rules are not usually salient to the members of a particular society; rather they are noticed when violated.
This model is to identify the relation between the expression uttered and the message to be conveyed via it. Through the inferential stategies followed, the hearer reaches the speaker’s communicative intent. Thus, inferential approach to
communication takes interaction beyond the bounderies of linguistic meaning of an utterance.
In the light of inferential model come the very striking foci of communication: more is communicated than what is said (Akmajian et al, 1990; Gumperz, 1982; Holmes, 1992; Yule, 1996 &1985a). In interaction with others, what our words suggest is not always compatible with what we mean. As Akmajian et al (1990: 318) propose, “even the simplest forms of linguistic communication are complicated affairs”. The complexity of communicative processes will be taken into consideration throughout this study.
Adler and Rodman (2003) note that communication may occur in various forms. One form is intrapersonal communication which is defined as “communicating with one self”. The second form is dyadic, in other words, interpersonal communication that defines two people interacting. It is the most common way of exchange. The third form of communication is public communication which occurs when a group of people is too large for every member to get involved. Thus, one or more members are to be the one to deliver the message to the others who will act as listeners. In this form the chance for feedback is quite limited in comparison to dyadic communication. Public speaker usually has a greater chance to plan their speech in advance than do people involved in smaller events. The last type is mass communication which consists of messages that are conveyed to wide-spread audiences via newspapers, magazines, television and so on. Mass communication is a far less personal type and mostly controlled by large organizations with financial concerns (pp. 4-6).
As can be inferred from the information presented so far, in real life people usually take part in communicative events in the form of give-and-take for some particular reasons. Any piece of language produced during these give-and-take interactions can be called as discourse. The term discourse is any verbal expression in speech or writing (http://www.answers.com/topic/discourse) . This term can also be defined as concerned with language use beyond the bounderies of a sentence (Stubbs, 1983: 2 cited in Widdowson, 1995: 135; Hughes, 2002: 18, 38; Haris, 1952 cited in Widdowson, 1995: 135). Moreover, Akmajian etal (1990) state that the study of discourse is the study of units of language and language use consisting of more
than a single sentence, but connected by some system of related topics (p. 331). The definitions put forward by different scientists support the idea that while communicating, people participate in an activity that cannot be confined within the bounderies of grammatical structure of a single sentence.
Before moving onto the scope of discourse analysis it is necessary to see what text is in order to elaborate the notion “beyond a single sentence”. Brown and Yule (1983a) define a text as the verbal record of a communicative event (p. 190). For several authors, such as Chafe (1992, as cited in Widdowson, 1995: 136), a single sentence cannot be interpreted as a text because a text is expected to be beyond the bounderies of an isolated sentence. In this respect, public notices like ‘Toilets’, ‘Open’, ‘Staff only’ are not texts. On the other hand, Widdowson (1995) points out that they are intuitively textual due to the fact that they stand for larger texts. That is, one is not expected to limit his understanding to one word in a public notice, rather it is expected to go beyond this one word. The letter ‘P’ when seen in a public notice means “This area is suitable for parking. It is allowed to park vehicles here, so they can be kept here for some time”. Even one letter may stand for a pair of sentences. Widdowson (1995: 137) asserts that it is the circumtances, not the size of linguistic unit, which determine textuality. In this case, talking about the inner organisation of a piece of discourse means to examine it both within and among sentences.
So when we consider the level of discourse, we are thinking about how speakers interact with one another and how talk is organised in particular kinds of patterns over long stretch of language (Hughes, 2002: 36). Nunan (1999) explains the scope of discourse analysis as follows:
Discourse analysis covers an extremely wide range of activities, from the narrowly focused investigation of how words such as ‘oh’ or ‘well’ are used in casual talk, to the study of the dominant ideology in a culture as represented, for example, in its educational or political practices (p. 83).
Here it will be reasonable to classify the dimensions of discourse into two: its inner organization and the social aspect of it. As Nunan (1999) suggests, speakers have to organize both the structure and content of what they want to say. They have to package their messages in accordance with what they think their listeners do and do not know, as well as sequence everything in a coherent way (p. 83). The social
aspect of discourse analysis will be clarified within the framework of pragmatics later in this study. Before this, how the inner structure of a piece of discourse is organised so that communication is carried out successfully will be examined. Here, two terms of textuality come to stage: cohesion and coherence.
Nunan (1999) states that there is a great deal of interest in the structure of discourse, with particular attention paid to what makes a well-formed text (p. 84). If a group of sentences is called a text, then that means there is a unity among these sentences. Sentences in a text are hung together in terms of grammatical structure and meaning. What creates linguistic or structural unity is cohesion.
One of the most comprehensive definitions of cohesion comes from Halliday and Hasan (1985). According to them, the term cohesion stands for the set of linguistic resources that every language has for linking one part of a text to another (p. 48). They classify cohesive devices into four: (1) reference, (2) substition and ellipsis, (3) conjuntion, and (4) lexical cohesion (p. 48). DeBeaugrande and Dressler (1981) point out that cohesion concerns the ways in which the components of the surface text are mutually connected within a sequence and that cohesion rests upon grammatical dependencies (p. 3).
Cohesive relations are seen as the primary signal of well-formed text, but it is a mistake to think that we only operate with them (Brown and Yule, 1983a: 223; deBeaugrande and Dressler, 1981: 4; Nunan, 1999: 127). On the contrary, they do no guarantee that a speaker or writer will be understood. Yule (1985a) states that it is easy to create highly cohesive texts remaining difficult to interpret (p. 140). There must be interaction between cohesion and the other standards of textuality to make sense out of a text and to take part in effective communication (deBeaugrande and Dressler, 1981). The standard of textuality that helps us make sense is coherence.
We can point out linguistic messages which are not presented in sentences and consequently cannot be discussed in terms of syntactic well-formedness, but which are readily interpreted. Our lives are full of such”fragments” (Brown and Yule, 1983a: 223). What keeps these fragments in a unity and helps people make sense out of them will be analysed under the concept of “coherence.”
The key to the concept of coherence is not something which exists in the language, but something which exists in people. It is people who make sense of what
they read or hear (Yule, 1985a: 141). In other words, coherence provides people with arriving at an interpretation of what they read or hear. As mentioned above, more is communicated than is said, that is, communicative events include more than what is seen on the surface. DeBeaugrande and Dressler (1981) point out that coherence concerns “the ways in which the configuration of concepts and relations which underlie the surface text are mutually accessible and relevant” (p. 4). Coherence goes beyond the bounderies of grammatical structure of a sentence, and even in the absence of cohesive devices it is possible to interpret what the speaker or writer means.
Owing to the fact that more is communicated than is said, interlocutors in a communicative event go through a process of interpretation. Brown and Yule (1983a) define this process as involving computing the communicative function (how to take the message), using general socio-cultural knowledge (facts about the world) and determining the inferences to be made (p. 225).
The hearer has no direct access to a speaker’s intended meaning in producing an utterance; he, therefore, has to rely on a process of inference to arrive at an interpretation for utterances or for connections between utterances (Brown and Yule, 1983a: 33, 256). Nunan (1999) elaborates on this matter as follows:
The studies showed that discourse comprehension requires more than knowledge of the words and grammatical structures used by the writer or speaker. It also requires the listener or reader to relate the content of the text to their knowledge of the world, that is, to entities, states of affairs, and so on that exist in the world outside the text (p. 132).
In interpretation process, the notion of using general socio-cultural knowlegde, in other words, using background knowledge displays a crucial importance. Yule (1996) claims that “our ability to arrive automatically at interpretataions of the unwritten and the unsaid must be based on pre-existing knowledge” (p. 85). According to deBeaugrande and Dressler (1981), a text does not make sense by itself but rather it should be related to people’s stored knowledge of the world (p. 6). Consequently, interpreting discourse is not a matter of limiting our understanding to what is on the surface, rather retrieving stored information based on past experiences from memory and relating it to the encountered discourse (Brown
and Yule, 1983a: 236; Yule, 1985a: 147). Lynch (1996) explains background knowledge as follows:
Background knowledge covers a wide range of information and experience stored in memory; for example, general knowledge of scientific facts and historical events, the beliefs and conventions of our culture, local knowledge about the place we live, and the individual experiences of our social and private lives (p. 21).
Operating system of background knowledge can be explained via the analogy of computer. Just like a computer, human brain keeps structures which are updated in parallel with the newly coming files. While the structures, in other words, files in a computer are created by the user himself, it is our experiences that supply us with mental structures in memory. A newly coming experience is expected to be categorised under an existing structure. If the ones previously stored are not suitable for the new comer, the mind creates a new structure for the new one. Cognitive structures function like familiar patterns from previous experience that we use to interpret new experiences (Yule, 1996: 85).
Organization of knowledge in mind is done via schemata.The types of schema which will be mentioned in this study are frame and script. “A schema is a general term for a conventional knowledge structure which exists in memory” Yule (1985a: 147). In the frame of schema theory, the structures are constructed on the basis of our previous experiences, and they enable us to make predictions about future experiences (Nunan, 1999: 133). People mostly make inferences related to their mental structures, so that they can eliminate the ones that do not seem possible and focus on the familiar ones. Moreover, people tend to make interpretations of familiar materials and tend not to see possible alternatives (Yule, 1996: 84-85).
One type of schema is script. George Yule puts forward definitions of script in his two different works. He accounts for script as a dynamic schema including a series of conventional and expected actions related to a particular event (Yule, 1996: 86-87; 1985a: 147). One has a script, for example, for going to the cinema or going to a restaurant. Due to the fact that the actions taking part in a particular script are conventional, they are not necessarily to be stated. Actually, it will be odd to mention these items because they are already familiar to the interlocutor.
“If there is a fixed, static pattern to the schema, it is called a frame”, Yule (1996) says (p. 85). Brown and Yule (1983a) define frame as a fixed representation of knowledge about the world (p. 23). Frames can be called prototypical or common sense on account of the fact that they are shared by a group of people (deBeaugrande and Dressler, 1981: 90; Yule, 1996: 85). “For example, within a frame for an apartment, there will be assumed components such as kitchen, bathroom, and bedroom” (Yule, 1996: 85). “Frames state what things belong together in principle, but not in what order things will be done or mentioned” (DeBeaugrande and Dressler, 1981: 90).
Moreover, it is obvious that shared knowledge shapes the communication among people. Yule (1996) points out that “it is almost inevitable that our background knowledge structures , our schemata for making sense of the world, will be culturally determined” (p. 87). Harmer (2001) expresses the effects of shared knowledge on communication in a particular community as follows:
When people with similar cultural and linguistic backgrounds get together they speak to each other easily because they know the rules of conversation in their language and their shared culture. When they write to each other they obey certain conventions. Such rules and conventions are not written down anywhere, nor are they easy to define. But at some cultural level our shared schemata help us to communicate with each other successfully (pp. 246-247)
People from different backgrounds have got different cultural schemata; as a result of this, they interpret what is happening around in different ways. This is one of the most common problems in foreign language teaching. Even after long years of language instruction, students familiar with a huge amount of vocabulary and grammar rules cannot communicate appropriately, in fact they sometimes sound odd. Yule (1996) notes that “students studying foreign language should be taught cultural items/ cultural speech convention to sound natural and appropriate” (pp. 87-88).
Kecskés (2006) states that “a considerable part of our everyday conversation is usually restricted to short routinized interchanges” (p 606). These routinized interchanges are so conventionalized that speakers, according to Kecskés (2006: 606), do remembering more than putting together. Bygate (1987) notes that these
expressions are predictable and help ensure clarity (p 23). One of these conventional expressions to be taught is situation-bound utterances (SBUs). Kecskés (2006) defines SBUs as conventionalized, prefabricated pragmatic units and notes that their occurance is tied to standardized communicative situations (p. 606). He gives the following examples for SBUs: “Can I help you?”, “Please fill out this form”, “Thank you”, “You are welcome”.
Kecskés (2006) connects acquisition of SBUs to the culture of the target language and says “the acquisition of these units in an L2 requires the knowledge of the socio-cultural background of the target language” (p 607). It is also claimed that due to the fact that the meaning of an SBU is directly attributed to a particular situation, it may lose its semantic transperancy (2006: 608). This opinion reflects the fact that SBUs are fixed expressions which are habitually produced in particular situation without much thinking. Existence of SBUs in a speech indicates that the speaker is familiar with the background knowledge of this particular culture and supplies the speaker with a more natural-like speech.
SBUs with other culturally fixed expressions provide us with time saving and economy of language. This type of expressions implies more than their semantic meaning shows. Owing to the fact that peeople in a particular community are familiar with this implication, the speaker does not have to put forward extra explanation. The same is for mental structures. Brown and Yule (1983a) suggest that for a particular script such as a restaurant, one does not have to inform others that there are table and waiters around and it is a must to pay for the food consumed there (p. 236). Shared knowledge also affects the choice of referring expressions.Yule (1996) points out that “the choice of one type of referring expression rather than another seems to be based, to a large extent, on what the speaker assumes the listener already knows” (p. 17).
Coherence in language instruction occupies an important place, especially in terms of teaching speaking and writing. Halliday and Hasan (1985) claim that “a teacher is often called to judge the coherence of a text” (p. 48). Evaluating a text teachers mostly utter expressions such as “This doesn’t hang together”. This hanging together case cannot be determined without understanding of coherence.
Finally it can be said that in order for communication to be successful we have to structure our discourse in such a way that it will be understood by our listeners or readers (Harmer, 2001: 246). We utter discourse for the purpose of communicating in real-life. Thus, besides its inner organization, discourse has a social aspect which will, here, be studied in the frame of pragmatics.
“Pragmatics is concerned with the study of meaning as communicated by a speaker and interpreted by a listener”(Yule, 1996: 3). In other words, how language is used in real communication is taken into consideration in the frame of pragmatics (Leech,1988: 1; Owens, 1988: 19) rather than the way it is structured. According to Akmajian et al (1990), the real job of pragmatics is to investigate the systems of intented inference and shared beliefs (p. 316).
Yule (1996) puts forward four areas of pragmatics, which are the study of (1) speaker meaning, (2) contextual meaning, (3) invisible meaning and (4) relative distance.
When we hear pieces of language, we try to understand not only what the words mean, but also what the speaker intends to convey (Yule, 1985a: 127). Here the intent of the speaker is emphasized. Yule (1996) defines pragmatics as the study of how more gets communicated than is said (p. 3). Thus, understanding language must take into account not only the text itself, but also the processes by which the text is produced and interpreted. Such an understanding must be based on understanding of the function a given text has within society, the social factors which produced the text and knowledge of the relationship between texts.
The meaning of an utterance does not wholly depend on its grammatical form, rather it is highly affected by who says what, to whom, where, why, in what manner and in what effect (http://ekamanis.blogspot.com/2006/01/linguistic-and-communicative.html). This is called context, the surrounding environment in which a piece of discourse is used. Linguists have become increasingly aware of the significance of context in meaning interpretation since the beginnig of the 1970s (Brown and Yule, 1983a: 35). A lot of ideas on context have been put forward since then, some of which are as follows: Brown and Yule (1983a) question the belief that a linguistic event can be fully analysed without taking context into account (p. 25). Meaning is claimed to be sensitive to its context (Akmajian et.al, 1991: 331;
deBeaugrande and Dressler, 1981: 94). Context is considered as an important factor contributing to the interlocutor’s comprehension and interpretation of which possible meaning is intented on the spot (Leech, 1988: 13; Lynch, 1996: 21).
Van Dijk and Knitsch (1983) categorize the knowledge systems contributing to context as (1) knowledge about the actual context, (2) knowledge about the previous text and (3) general knowledge of the world. These categories appear to be corresponding to the major levels of context: (1) context of situation, (2) context of text, (3) context of culture.
“The context of situation is the immediate environment in which a text is actually functioning (Halliday and Hasan, 1985, 46). Halliday and Hasan categorize the components of situation of context into three: (1) field, what is happening, (2) tenor,who are taking part and (3) mode, what language is being used. Brown and Yule (1985a) argue the importance of immediate context as follows:
the roles of speaker and hearer, or hearers, and their relationships. Whether they were friends, strangers, young, old, or equal or unequal status, and many other factors. All of these factors will have an influence on what is said and how it is said. We would have to describe what was the topic of conversation and in what setting or context it took place (p 143).
What Van Dijk and Knitsch (1983) call as “the knowledge about the previous text” is co-text. “The co-text of a word is the set of other words used in the same phrase or sentence”, says Yule (1985a: 129). It is believed that every text constitutes its own context (Brown and Yule, 1983a: 50; Halliday and Hasan, 1985: 48). Through the use of co-text it is possible to arrive at an interpretation, at least partly, even in the absence of information about the interlocutors, place and time of the utterance (Brown and Yule, 1983a: 49). The striking significance of co-text is that it limits the range of possible interpretations we might have for words having more than one meaning (Yule, 1996: 21).
Context of culture can be defined as “the shared body of stable knowledge as coded in the lexicon carried by all members of a speech community” (Leckie-Terry, 1995: 19). Yule (1996) asserts that much of what is communicated is determined by our social relationships and he defines a linguistic interaction as a social interaction (p. 59). As aformentioned, many scientists claim that people bring their world of
knowledge to these interactions, and this affects their understanding in the exchange (see Brown and Yule, 1983a; deBeaugrande and Dressler, 1981; Halliday and Hasan, 1985; Tony Lynch, 1996; Yule, 1985a; Yule, 1996).
Yule (1996) states that “the more two speakers have in common, the less language they’ll need to use to identify familiar things” (p 8). Thus two speakers in the same physical context will not use much language to identify something available in this setting, which means context supplies us with economy of language. Moreover, what is said and the way it is said is determined by the context.According to Holmes (1992), the choice of appropriate language is influenced not only by the relationship among the speakers but also the formality of the context (p. 261). Furthermore, there are linguistic elements which require contextual information for their interpretation such as deictic terms (Brown and Yule, 1983a: 27; Yule, 1996: 9). Brown and Yule (1983a) note that it is necessary to know the participants of the exchange and its place and time in order to interpret deictic terms.
According to what Morita (2000) reports, many second language researchers explored the significant place of context in language learning (p. 279). Halliday and Hasan (1985) point out that all learning is a process of contextualisation (p. 49). Organisation of language is determined by the functions it has in a particular society. Holmes (1992) argues that “learning to speak appropriately in a range of contexts is important if one wants to avoid giving offence” (p. 374). In this respect, contextualisation of a language has a vital importance in teaching and learning this language.
2.2 Nature of Speaking
In order to be able to communicate with other people, the initial and most common way people use is speaking. This valuable way of surviving in a community is described as a method or a verbal means of communicating or conveying meaning by Owens (1988: 3). It can also be described as the productive skill in the oral mode. (http://www.sil.org/lingualinks/languagelearning/OtherResources/GudlnsFrALnggA ndCltrLrnngPrgrm/SpeakingSkill.htm)
A striking feature of speaking which reveals its nature to a great extent is that it is an interactive activity. As McDonough and Shaw (1993) state, “speaking is only very rarely carried out in isolation; it is generally an interactive skill unless an uninterrupted oral presentation is being given” (p. 153).
Speaking requires at least two participants, except the speeches that were prepared in advance. The participant who speaks is the speaker, and the other one is called as listener, receiver or interlocutor. In Byrne’s (1986) brief explanation of the speech process, it is stated that the speaker has to encode the message to be conveyed in appropriate language and the listener has to decode it (p. 8). It is taken for granted that this process is not as simple as it seems. “Speaking is not the oral production of written language, but involves learners in the mastery of a wide range of sub-skills which, added together, constitute and overall competence in the spoken language” (McDonough and Shaw, 1993: 151).
Different sub-skills of speaking were offered by different linguists. In this study, sub-skills offered by Brown (2001) will be taken into consideration. His list is presented below:
1- Produce chunks of language of different lengths.
2- Orally produce differences among the English phonemes and allophonic variants.
3- Produce English stres patterns, words in stressed and unstressed positions, rhythmic structure and intonational contours.
4- Produce reduced forms of words and phrases.
5- Use an adequate number of lexical units (words) in order to accomplish pragmatic purposes.
6- Produce fluent speech at different rates of delivery.
7- Monitor your own oral production and use various strategic devices- pauses, fillers, self-corrections, backtracking-to enhance the clarity of the message. 8- Use grammatical word classes (nouns, verbs, etc.), systems (e.g., tense,
agreement, and pluralization), word order, patterns, rules, and elliptical forms. 9- Produce speech in natural constituents- in appropriate phrases, pause groups,
breath groups, and sentences.
10- Express a particular meaning in different grammatical forms. 11- Use cohesive devices in spoken discourse.
12- Accomplish appropriately communicative functions according to situations, participants, and goals.
13- Use appropriate registers, implicature, pragmatic conventions, and other socio-linguistic features in face-to-face conversations.
14- Convey links and connections between events and communicate such relations as main idea, supporting idea, new information, given information, generalization, and exemplification.
15- Use facial features, kinesics, body language and other nonverbal cues along with verbal language to convey meanings.
16- Develop and use a battery of speaking strategies, such as emphasizing key words, rephrasing, providing a context for interpreting the meaning of words, appealing for help, and accurately assesing how well your interlocutor is understanding you. (p 272)
According to Bygate (1987), the way speech is organized is mostly shaped by the processing and reciprocity conditions affecting it. Thus, for the purpose of understanding the nature of speaking skill thoroughly, it is necessary to examine these two conditions.
The fact that spoken interaction takes place under the pressure of time is called its processing conditions (Bygate, 1987: 7). Oral interaction in real life allows limited time for deciding what to say and how to say it as a response to the other intelocutor(s) (Bygate, 1987: 14; McDonough and Shaw, 1993: 153). According to Bygate (1987) this time pressure affects language used in at least two ways. Firstly, speakers use devices to facilitate production, and secondly they compensate for faults (p. 14).
The fact that speakers plan, organize and execute their messages in little time gives rise to facilitation process. In the facilitation process, speakers use shortcuts and less complex syntax including incomplete sentences and phrases. Furthermore, fixed conventional phrases and devices to gain time to speak take place quite often in their speeches in facilitation conditions (Bygate, 1987: 14)
On the other hand, while conversing speakers need to make alterations in what they already said and in speech both mistakes and corrections are tolerated (Bygate, 1987: 18). This is called compensation process which includes repetitions, rephrasings, self-corrections and false starts (Bygate, 1987: 15).
Brown and Yule (1983b) note “the native speakers of a language do not produce ideal strings of complete, perfectly formed sentences” (p. 21). Thus it is quite common to see make-ups for what has been said before. If native speakers, and also non-native speakers, in an interaction usually use language with these characterictics, then this may influence what we will demand from our learners in a speaking course (Brown and Yule, 1983b: 26; Bygate, 1987: 21). Brown and Yule (1983b) state that “correctness, in terms of complete sentences, seems inappropriate
notion in spoken language” (p. 26). The two following example is presented to illustrate that chunks accompanied by devices to gain time and corrections sound natural.
A: a friend +a stupid friend of minegot her telephone cut off+because well she asked for it to be cut off in fact+because her last bill was £500
B: oh goodness+………oh that’s dreadful
A: she comes from Vanezuela+uhm of course that’s these long distances+it’s two or three pounds a time+maybe for a minute or two++
B: oh but imagine getting a bill into the house for that oh my goodness+that’s the biggest one I’ve heard of+Mrs.Gibson got an awfully big one but she’s been talking to Can+Canada a few times. (Brown and Yule, 1983b: 38)
Brown and Yule (1983b) point out that native speakers of English find it hard to feel friendly towards someone who addresses them a speech made up of ideal complete sentences. It is stated that they feel as if they were listeners at a public meeting. Brown and Yule also note that language which is formally correct may not be appropriate everytime (pp. 21-22). As a result, mastering the processing conditions of speech enables learners not only to be fluent with a given topic but also to sound natural (Bygate, 1987). Then it is not reasonable to expect language learners to produce full sentences everytime they open their mouths (Brown and Yule, 1983b; Bygate, 1987). Indeed “the use of formulaic expressions, hesitation devices, self-correction, rephrasing and repetition can be expected to help learners become more fluent” (Bygate, 1987: 20).
Other conditions of speech, as suggested by Bygate (1987), affecting it are reciprocity conditions. This term refers to the relation between the speaker and the listener in the process of oral communication (p. 8). He also states that it depends on two types of skills: communication routines and negotiation skills (p. 22).
In many circumstances, speakers use typical and conventional patterns to convey the meaning (Bygate, 1987; Kecskés, 2006; see also Coulmas, 1981). These are called communication routines and are classified into two: information routines and interaction routines.
The term information routines refers to the frequently recurring types of information structures including narratives, descriptions of people and places,
instructions, comparisons, etc (Bygate, 1987: 23). While narrating a story, for instance, it is expected to hear some fixed structures such as “once upon a time”. The ability to manipulate these routines supplies speakers with economy of language, and owing to the expectations communication will be performed more easily. Interaction routines, on the other hand, are characterized in terms of typically occuring situations such as service encounters, telephone conversations, interviews, conversations at parties or dinner, lessons, radio or television shows, etc (Bygate, 1987: 25). These all tend to be structured in particular ways and particular utterances are highly expected in particular situations.
Real-life interactions are based on a wide range of formulaic expressions. Frequency and distribution of these routines are claimed to be determined by two factors: the social organization of the speech community and the structural make-up of its language (Coulmas, 1981: 11). The instructional implication out of this fact is that in foreign language classes there is a need to place emphasis on the fixed pieces of languages to be used in particular oral interactions (Bygate, 1987: 27; McDonough and Shaw, 1993: 157). McDonough and Shaw (1993) state that these oral frames should be taught from the very early stages of language instruction. And if language learners develop their awareness to conversational features and strategies, they will find themselves much more able on this issue (p. 157).
Another dimenson of speaking skill analysed in the frame of reciprocity conditions is negotiation skill which is divided into two subtitles: negotion of meaning and management of interaction.
Once the interlocutors initiate a talk, the reciprocal nature of speech starts to affect them. For the purpose of negotiating the meaning in an appropriate way it is necessary to be explicit properly. Harmer (2001) points out that the skill of speaking partly depends upon our interlocutor (p. 248). Thus, level of explicitness depends upon what our interlocutor brings to the communication exchange, for example, what we assume he knows or does not know. Besides the level of explicitness, it is important to apply procedures of negotiation while conversing to ensure understanding. McDonough and Shaw (1993) point out that listeners may give feedback to reflect whether or not they understand what the speaker said. The speaker then will reformulate his discourse to convey the meaning (p. 154). So it is
significant to adapt the variants of the talk and tailor the language accordingly. In order to implement this skill to language class, Bygate (1987) asserts that it is highly useful for language learners to have the knowledge of various ways of getting things repeated or clarified (p. 33).
Management of interaction, on the other hand, refers to the business of agreeing who is going to speak next and what the topic will be (Bygate, 1987: 27). Here then a speaker’s “basic freedom to start, maintain, direct and end a conversation without confirming to a script, and without the intervention of a third party” (Bygate, 1987, 36) is at stake.
In this section, aspects of spoken language have been explained. If the ability to understand and handle these aspects of oral language is important in native language production, then these aspects are surely necessary to be practiced in foreign language learning tasks (Bygate, 1987: 41).
2.3 Components of Speaking
In the light of the aformentioned sub-skills, there are 6 components of speaking put forward in this section:
Pronunciation Grammar Lexis Fluency Turn-taking Paralinguistic items 2.3.1 Pronunciation
Pronunciation is the act of saying or pronuncing a word. Harmer (2001) notes that when speaking we construct words with individual sounds through using intonation and stress to convey different meaning (p 28). Thus pronunciation involves sounds, stress and intonation.
