Describing and Teaching Spoken English: An Educational-linguistic Study of Scripted Speech Inaugural-Dissertation zur Erlangung des Doktorgrades der Philosophie des Fachbereiches 05 der Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen vorgelegt von Stefanie Dose aus Espelkamp 2013 Dekan: Prof. Dr. Magnus Huber 1. Berichterstatter: Prof. Dr. Joybrato Mukherjee 2. Berichterstatter: Prof. Dr. Magnus Huber Tag der Disputation: 9. Oktober 2013 Table of contents Erklärung zur Dissertation .................................................................................................................................... vii Acknowledgements .............................................................................................................................................. viii List of abbreviations and acronyms (incl. corpora) ................................................................................................ ix List of figures .......................................................................................................................................................... x List of tables .......................................................................................................................................................... xii 1 INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................ 1 1.1 What it's all about: Motivation and objective of the present study ......................................................... 1 1.1.1 The starting point: Spoken English and the EFL language classroom ................................................. 1 1.1.2 Research aim and methodological steps............................................................................................... 3 1.1.3 An educational-linguistic study ............................................................................................................ 6 1.2 What it's not about: Beyond the scope of this study ................................................................................. 6 1.3 Preview .......................................................................................................................................................... 7 — PART I — 2 SPOKEN LANGUAGE, SPOKEN ENGLISH, SPOKEN ENGLISH GRAMMAR 11 2.1 The spoken language in linguistics and society ........................................................................................ 11 2.1.1 The status of speech in linguistics ...................................................................................................... 11 2.1.2 The status of speech in society ........................................................................................................... 12 2.1.3 Overview: Major contrasts between speech and writing (Hughes 2002) ........................................... 13 2.2 Speech data in linguistics ........................................................................................................................... 15 2.3 'Spoken language' vs. 'written language': Resolving the terminological ambiguity ............................ 16 2.3.1 Medium vs. style ................................................................................................................................ 16 2.3.2 'Language of immediacy' and 'language of distance' (Koch and Oesterreicher 1985) ....................... 18 2.4 Spoken English grammar .......................................................................................................................... 20 2.4.1 The need for description .................................................................................................................... 20 2.4.2 The corpus-linguistic study of spoken grammar ................................................................................ 21 2.4.2.1 The role of corpus linguistics in the description of spoken grammar ....................................... 21 2.4.2.2 Biber's (1988) corpus-based study of variation in spoken and written registers ....................... 23 2.4.3 On 'spoken English,' 'conversation,' and grammar ............................................................................. 25 2.4.4 Approaches to spoken English grammar ............................................................................................ 26 2.4.4.1 Spoken and written grammar: Fundamentally different or principally the same? .................... 26 2.4.4.2 A pool of linguistic features for spoken and written grammar ................................................. 28 2.5 Features of spoken English grammar ....................................................................................................... 30 2.5.1 Categories of features ......................................................................................................................... 30 2.5.2 The communicative circumstances of conversation and associated grammatical features ................ 31 3 TEACHING SPOKEN ENGLISH ................................................................................ 34 3.1 Teaching speaking English and teaching spoken English ....................................................................... 34 3.2 Spoken English in the curriculum ............................................................................................................ 35 3.2.1 From language research to language teaching ................................................................................... 35 3.2.2 Spoken grammar in curricular frameworks ........................................................................................ 35 3.2.2.1 The Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (2001) ................................ 35 ii 3.2.2.2 Regional curricula in Germany ................................................................................................. 37 3.2.3 Diverse perspectives on spoken grammar in the curriculum .............................................................. 39 3.2.3.1 Linguists, FLT researchers, teachers, and the curriculum: A clash of interests? ...................... 39 3.2.3.2 Should spoken grammar be taught? .......................................................................................... 39 3.2.3.3 Which spoken grammar features should be taught? ................................................................. 41 3.3 The issue of 'authenticity' .......................................................................................................................... 45 3.3.1 Spoken English and the notion of 'authenticity' ................................................................................. 46 3.3.2 Arguments in favor of authentic language material in the classroom ................................................ 46 3.3.3 'Authenticity' in language teaching: Controversies ............................................................................ 47 3.3.3.1 Linguistic authenticity in the broad and in the narrow sense .................................................... 48 3.3.3.2 Widdowson (1998): 'Authenticity' vs. 'genuineness' ................................................................ 49 3.3.3.3 Further objections to naturally occurring data in language teaching ........................................ 51 3.3.3.4 Putting the positions on 'authenticity' into perspective ............................................................. 51 3.3.4 Naturally occurring and invented language in teaching practice: Striking a balance ......................... 52 3.3.4.1 From teacher to textbook .......................................................................................................... 52 3.3.4.2 Degrees of authenticity: Mixing and matching for pedagogical materials ............................... 53 3.4 Spoken English in the classroom............................................................................................................... 54 3.4.1 The status of spoken grammar in mainstream teaching practice ........................................................ 55 3.4.2 The learners' lack of spoken competence ........................................................................................... 56 3.4.3 Spoken grammar in the classroom: Recent advances and recommendations ..................................... 57 3.4.3.1 Spoken grammar and the teacher: Prospects and potentials ..................................................... 57 3.4.3.2 Spoken grammar in the textbook: Prospects and potentials ..................................................... 58 3.4.3.3 More materials: Products of the target language (Literature, film, and television) .................. 59 3.4.3.4 How should spoken grammar be taught? .................................................................................. 60 3.4.4 Preview: Spoken corpora for teaching spoken grammar .................................................................... 60 3.5 Using corpora for teaching spoken English ............................................................................................. 61 3.5.1 The interface of corpus linguistics and language teaching ................................................................. 61 3.5.2 Direct uses of general corpora: Potential and (lack of) implementation ............................................ 63 3.5.3 Focus on data-driven learning (DDL) ................................................................................................ 64 3.5.3.1 What is DDL? ..........................................................................................................................