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Tesl Studies C'^ ll^- CENTRAL CIRCULATION BOOKSTACKS The person charging this material is re- sponsible for its renewal or its return to the library from which it was borrowed on or before the Latest Date stamped below. The Minimum Fee for each Lost Book is $50.00. ore reasons TheH, mufllatloiv ond underlining of booW dismissal from for disciplinary action and may result In the University. TO RENEW CAIL TEIEPHONE CENTER, 333-8400 UNIVERSITY OF ILIINOIS tIBRARY AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN NOV 3 ia94, , OCT 6 1997 OCT 7 2005 When renewing by phone, write new due date below ^162 previous due date. Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2011 with funding from University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign http://www.archive.org/details/teslstudies56univ STUDIES 1982 PUBLICA TIONOF THE DIVISION OF ENGLISH AS A SECOND LANGUAQ^ UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS t^^ imBANA, ILLINOIS TESL STUDIES EDITORS: YAMUNA KACHRU, J RONAYNE COWAN EDITORIAL BOARD: Katherine O. Aston, Lyle F. Bachman, Dickerson, Lawrence F. Boulon, H. Douglas Brown, Lonna J. Wayne B. Dickerson and Rebecca G. Dixon TESL STUDIES is intended as a forum for the presentation, in pre-publication form, of the research done by the faculty and students of the Division of English as a Second Language, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. TESL STUDIES will also publish research of other University of Illinois faculty and interested in students if it is of relevance to our field. All TESL STUDIES should write to the obtaining copies of PUBLICATION OF THE following enclosing payment (Checks should be made DIVISION OF ENGLISH AS A SECOND LANGUAGE payable to the University of Illinois): Mrs. Norma H. UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS Robinson, Division of English as a Second Language, URBANA, ILLINOIS 3070 Foreign Languages Building, Urbana, III. 6180L Price per copy: $4. 00 TESL STUDIES EDITORS YAMNUA KACHRU, J RONAYNE COWAN EDITORIAL BOARD KATHERINE O. ASTON; LYLE F. BACHMAN; LAWRENCE F. BOUTON; H. DOUGLAS BROWN; LONNA DICKERSON; WAYNE B. DICKERSON REBECCA G. DIXON VOLUME 5 1982 DIVISION OF ENGLISH AS A SECOND LANGUAGE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS URBANA-CHAMPAIGN TESL Studies ^^^'^' Volume 5. 1982 XLipt TmiE OF CONTENTS- Page Margie Berns The Systemic Model and Its Implications for Language Teaching 1 Cynthia Ann Boardman The Copying ^Tistake ^ 17 J Ronayne Cowan English for Special Purposes: The American Perspective 38 Wayne B. Dickerson A Pedagogical Interpretation of Generative Phonology: III. Vowels in the Key and Left Syllables 65 Nien-Hsuan Jennifer Lir Developing Integrated Language Testing Techniques: The Gradu- ated Dictation and the Copytest 108 Peter H. Lowenberg Non-Native Varieties of English: Implications for American Teachers of ESL 130 Daniel L. Robertson Toward a Model for the Evaluation of Programs in English as a Second Language 155 REVIEWS Lan-Sheng Gao Shigeo Imamura and James W. Ney. Readings in the Philosophy of Scienae 111 Connie Greenleaf A. Flint. Insights: A Contem- povavy Reader 176 Kathy Larson Ian Dunlop and Heinrich Schrand. Matter's of Moment: Materials for Reading Comprehension and Discuss- ion in English 179 Sharon Tiebout Amy L. Sonka. A Text and Workbook for Students of English as a Second Language 185 ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS 191 TESL Studies Volume 5. 1982 THE SYSTEMIC MODEL AND ITS IMPLICATIONS FOR LANGUAGE TEACHING Margie S. Bems Connmmicatlve language teaching and materials have been influenced to a considerable extent by M. A. K. Halliday's theory of language and language learning. Hany of the terms associated with the communi- cative approach, e.g., function, context, language as interaction, mean- ing, are essential features of Halliday's systemic model. This study provides a summary of the development of the model, an overview of its scope, and looks at its application to language teach- ing materials and curricula which represent language as interaction. Examples are dravm from the work of applied linguists who have ex- ploited Halliday's model to varying degrees, e.g.. Rivers, Wilkins, van Ek, and Candlin. Systemic and functional linguistics is one school of thought which has been recently recognized as a resource for developing language teaching curricula and materials which present language as the exchange of meaning. Michael Halliday's (1973, 1975, 1978) model in particular has been applied by applied linguists and teaching methodologists to varying degrees and in various forms. Among these are Brumfit and Johnson (1979), Candlin (1975, 1976, 1979), Trim (1973), van Ek (1975), Widdowson (178), and Wilkins (1972, 1976), to name only a few. While there are some differences among them, their work is based on a view of language as interaction. The evolution of Halliday's systemic model to its present form through- out the last twenty years has involved changes and modifications in the terms which serve to describe or define features and aspects of the theory. These changes and modifications can be seen as a consequence of the inherent directionality in the interpretation of the language system as a whole (de Joia and Stenton 1980: Introduction). Prior to a discussion of implications and applicatons of the systemic model, it is necessary to consider some of the terminology which is integral to comprehension of the model as well as to the meaningful transfer of the theory to language teaching. -z- MEANING The starting point for a sociosemantic description of language is meaning. "The term semantic is not to be understood in the restricted sense of lexicosemantic It refers to the totality of meaning in language" (Halliday 1975:9). It is also the starting polng for the child's acquisi- tion of language, as Halliday observed in his own son's development of language between the ages of nine and eighteen months. This development Halliday calls 'learning how to mean,' or a process which is the child's means of realizing and expressing meanings. Halliday maintains that meaning is the foundation upon which the child's own language is built before he adopts the adult language system with its lexis and structure. This is a break with the view of linguists such as Chomsky, Fries, among others, that the lexicogrammatical level of language is the standard point of departure for the study of the acquisition of first language. Before the child has a mastery of the lexicogrammatical system, he makes use of a two-level system consisting of content and sound. Such a system is observable in utterances which may or may not be recognizable as items identi- fiable in the adult system. In fact, in the case of Halliday 's son, Nigel, the sounds produced at one point in development conveyed meaning through in- tonation alone: the utterances for questions or statements In the 'doing,' or pragmatic, functions were on a rising tone ("squeeze orange") and utterances in the 'learning,' or mathetic, functions were on a falling tone ("clever boy fix roof on lorry") . Pragmatic and mathetic here refer to whether the utter- ance required a response or not, respectively. How does the child learn how to mean? Halliday sees the process within the social system of which the linguistic system is a component. Language Is the main channel through which patterns of the culture are transmitted to the child. Bernstein's (1971, 1973) theory of social learning and cultural trans- mission are evident in Halliday 's thinking on this point. Using the language is purposeless for the child unless he has the potential to be, to do, to act, and to interact with others in a meaningful way (Halliday 1975) . For ex- ample, when the child wants something (his bottle, perhaps, which is set out of the way on the table in front of him), he articulates a particular sound or group of sounds which he has constructed for this purpose, Halliday -3- found systematlcity and functionality throughout his son's 'language,' thus allowing for expectations to be set up as a result of the regularity of the connection between the type of utterance and the situation. The child usee the langiiage to fulfill his immediate needs through the one-to-one re- lationship of language use to language function. At the beginning stages of language development, meaning is related pri- marily to limited functions, or tises, of language. As the child broadens his uses and takes on more social roles as his potential to mean increases, meaning becomes a more potent aspect of the realm of social acts. As he acquires and uses his language, he learns the potential within the language and also learns roles in which this potential can be realized and even predicted. Halliday holds that the value system of a culture itself is encoded in the language behavior of the members and that as a child learns language, he simultaneously acquires the meaning system or information of the culture. Thus, for Halliday (1975:60), "The meaning potential of a language, its semantic system, is seen as riaallzing a higher level of relations, that of the social .." semiotic. , The diagram below shows the place of the linguistic system within the en- tire social system, or social semiotic, and how the various components are interrelated (Halliday 1978): Social System, Social Structure _^ Context of Culture ^Linguistic System lexicogranmatical -roles phonological, and -values semantic components -behavior patterns -codes -ideational — - interpersonal- Social Hierarchy -textual Social Dialect Social Contexts or Situation. Types • -field <- -tenor •^ —mode ^- *TEXT in Situation *TEXr is the language people produce and react to, what they say and write, and read and listen to, in the course of daily life (Halliday 1975:123). -A- FUNCTION Function is best illustrated through the phases of language development delineated by Halliday as a result of his observations of Nigel's language. Phase I begins at about nine months of age and is characterized by six social functions of language which may be called micro-functions: the regu- latory, the instrumental, the interactional, the imaginative, the heuristic, and the personal.
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