Applied Linguistics Unit III

Applied Linguistics Unit III D ISCOURSE AND VOCABUL ARY We cannot deny the fact that vocabulary is one of the most important components of any language to be learnt. The place we give vocabulary in a class can still be discourse-oriented. Most of us will agree that vocabulary should be taught in context, the challenge we may encounter with this way of approaching teaching is that the word ‘context’ is a rather catch-all term and what we need to do at this point is to look at some of the specific relationships between vocabulary choice, context (in the sense of the situation in which the discourse is produced) and co-text (the actual text surrounding any given lexical item). Lexical cohesion As we have seen in Discourse Analysis, related vocabulary items occur across clause and sentence boundaries in written texts and across act, move, and turn boundaries in speech and are a major characteristic of coherent discourse. Do you remember which were those relationships in texts we studied last Semester? We call them Formal links or cohesive devices and they are: verb form, parallelism, referring expressions, repetition and lexical chains, substitution and ellipsis. Some of these are grammatical cohesive devices, like Reference, Substitution and Ellipsis; some others are Lexical Cohesive devices, like Repetition, and lexical chains (such us Synonymy, Antonymy, Meronymy etc.) Why should we study all this? Well, we are not suggesting exploiting them just because they are there, but only because we can give our learners meaningful, controlled practice and the hope of improving them with more varied contexts for using and practicing vocabulary. Halliday and Hasan (1976) gave lexical devices the name of Reiteration. Reiteration means either restating an item in a later part of the discourse by direct repetition or else reasserting its meaning by exploiting lexical relationships. Lexical relations Reiteration means either are the stable semantic relationships that exist restating an item in a later between words and which are the basis of part of the discourse by descriptions given in dictionaries and thesauri: direct repetition or else for example, rose and flower are related by reasserting its meaning by exploiting lexical hyponymy; rose is a hyponymy of flower. relationships. Reiteration is not a chance event; writers and speakers make conscious choices whether to repeat , or find a synonym, or use another device. Unfortunately, Discourse analysts have not yet given us any convincing rules or guidelines as to when or why a writer or speaker might choose a synonym for reiteration rather than repetition or any other device. However, in practice, language teachers must content themselves with observing each case as it arises and, for the moment, work on raising an awareness of such phenomena where awareness is lacking, and, most important of all, providing the lexical equipment in L2 and practice of the skills to enable learners to create texts that resemble naturally occurring ones themselves. It means that it is important to make learners aware that synonyms are not just ways of understanding new words when they crop up in class, nor are they some abstract notion for the organization of lexicons and thesauri, but they actually are there to be used, just as any other linguistic device, in the creation of natural discourse. Another implication for language pedagogy mentioned by McCarthy (1991), is that learning to observe lexical links in a text could be useful in the following way: it encourages learners to group lexical items together according to particular contexts by looking at the lexical relations in any given text. One of the recurring problems for learners is that words presented by the teacher or coursebook as synonym will probably be only synonymous in certain contexts and the learner has to learn to observe just when and where individual pairs of words may be used interchangeably. For example: Start and commence in the first sentence are interchangeable, but not in the second. The meeting commenced at six thirty. But from the moment it started, it was clear that all was not well. I commenced* to climb the tree, I started to feel insecure. Little is known about the transferability of these lexical features of text from one language to another. Some languages may have a preference for repetition rather than linking by synonymy. What do you think about Spanish? And English? Sometimes learners may find the transfer of these skills to be easy and automatic. In either case, the learner may need to use a range of vocabulary that is perhaps wider than the coursebook or materials have allowed for. Additionally, an awareness of the usefulness of learning synonyms and hyponyms for text-creating purposes may not always be psychologically present among learner; there is often a tendency for such areas of vocabulary learning to be seen as word study divorced from actual use, or at best only concerned with receptive skills. Conventional treatments of vocabulary in published materials often underline this word-out-of- context approach. L EXIS IN TALK So far we been focusing mostly on written texts and their Textuality, but what is there to say about spoken language? According to McCarthy, there is no reason why the lexical relations taken into account above should not also apply to spoken data. Discourse analysts have observed how Textuality is a concept in linguistics and speakers reiterate their own and take up one another’s literary theory that vocabulary selections in one form or another from turn to turn refers to the attributes and develop and expand topics in doing so. McCarthy names this that distinguish the text phenomenon as relexicalisation and we are certain to say that (a technical term through relexicalisation speaker follow or not the maxims of indicating any conversations, already studied in Linguistics, Discourse Analysis, communicative content last Semester. under analysis) as an object of study in those Let us look at a piece of data from the film If you are able to, see fields. It is associated in this film. I am sure you “Something’s gotta give” and find instances of will enjoy it and besides both fields with you’ll give the dialogue structuralism and post- relexicalisation: a clearer contextual framework which will structuralism. help you to understand the situation. E_ You know my name. H_ Erica Jane Barry. I have looked you up on the Internet. Do you know that there are over 8000 websites that mention you? E_ That's not possible. H_ Yeah, it's true. I know everything about you now, and not because of last night. E_ Yeah, no, no. I understood. Actually, I looked you up too. H_ You did? E_ I know you grew up in L.A., which I think nobody did. You started your own record label at 29, very impressive and sold it at 40, even more impressive. Then you started a magazine, dabbled in the Internet, and then you invested in a small record company...which you turned into the second largest hip-hop label in the world. H_ It's exhausting just hearing about it. E_ Yeah, I know. I know, but...The truth is, it goes by fast, doesn't it? H_ Like the blink of an eye. The arrows show us the connections the speakers (Erica and Harry) are making to show acceptance or refusal of the topics brought up by them. For example, Erica finds it funny that Harry knows what her name is, so she makes that comment in order to know , we suppose, more about Harry’s thoughts about her and Harry responds with her complete name confirming that he actually does know her name. Then he brings up the topic of websites mentioning Erica’s name to which Erica reacts with a laughter and surprise saying that it is impossible that her name is mentioned in so many sites. Harry goes back to it claiming that it is true, making an innocent joke about how much he knows her already, linking the great number of websites plus the fact he saw her naked the night before. We can clearly see the way Erica avoids the talking about ‘last night’ and instead, she goes back to browsing-the-web topic. The choice of Harry of the short question ‘you did?’ is maybe not for confirmation but out of curiosity and surprise, and with it he is also encouraging Erica to say what she has found out about him. Erica gives him a report of his past achievements to what he answers, as a concluding comment, with the word ‘exhausting’, to which Erica adds in the same mood (conclusion) that it all goes fast, to which in turn, Harry shows Relexicalisation of some elements of the agreement by adding a synonymous phrase of ‘fast’: ‘like a blink of previous turn provides an eye’. just such a contribution to As we can see, the intimate bond between topic relevance and development and the modification and reworking of lexical items provides other already used makes the conversation develop coherently, seeming important ‘I am with to move from sub-topic as a seamless whole. Speakers can bring you’ signals to the up topics into conversations, but whether they are taken up or not initiator. depends on the other speaker(s). If one speaker insists on pursuing his/her topics, ignoring the wishes of others, this is precisely when we recognize deviance into monologue or complain later to our friends that ‘X was hogging the conversation’. Utterances by one speaker are the invitation to a response by another. Do you see the connection with the maxims by Grice more clearly now? Relexicalisation of some elements of the previous turn provides such a contribution to relevance and provides other important ‘I am with you’ signals to the initiator.

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