Introdungcing English language part 17 pdf

82 DEVELOPMENT: ASPECTS OF ENGLISH is taking place in this interaction. Jill and Sue talk at exactly the same time, collabor- ating and agreeing with one another by engaging in supportive simultaneous talk to produce their discourse jointly. They use repetition and say similar things at the same and at slightly different times. While supportive simultaneous talk occurs very frequently in private, informal contexts, it can also take place in formal, public contexts. In the following ex- ample, which also utilises the ‘musical score’ style of transcription, we have two male business managers using supportive simultaneous talk during a business meeting: The meeting participants have been discussing changes to stock ordering. Rob is the meeting chair and is drawing the discussion to a close. 1 Rob: So we just need to think about how we 2 Rob: [(-) how we can categorize ] that [how ] we look at it separately 3 David: [how we categorize on that ] [yeah] In lines 2–3, David and Rob utter a remarkably similar utterance, almost saying exactly the same thing at exactly the same time. This is a classic illustration of supportive simultaneous speech and firmly indicates that they agree with one another. David reiterates his agreement by issuing ‘yeah’ simultaneously here too, in line 3, known as a supportive minimal response. This short utterance is not an attempt to take the floor, but is instead a signal of active listenership and agreement. Come up with other contexts, either formal or informal, where supportive simul- taneous talk takes place, using the above examples as a guide. Topic Another area of examination which conversation analysts focus upon is that of con- versational topic. Again, context is a crucial consideration. In informal settings where conversation is progressing well, topic change usually occurs gradually: there is topic drift as speakers gradually move from one topic to another. This contrasts with more formal settings, particularly institutional or organisational settings such as courtrooms or, to a lesser extent, business meetings. In courtroom settings the turn-taking system is rigidly governed by the judge. In business meetings, particularly formal, pre- planned encounters, it is common practice for a written agenda which formally lists the topics to be covered to be circulated beforehand. It then becomes the job of the meeting chair to ensure topic shift during the meeting according to the order of the written agenda text. In contrast to topic drift, successful topic shift should take place swiftly and deliberately. Agenda-based topic shifts can be achieved quickly and concisely, as participants are all aware of what the topics will be beforehand. This is illustrated in the meeting extract below: Meeting chair Chris has been discussing financial budgets, a specified topic on the meeting agenda . He is bringing this topic to a close . 1 Chris: Errm I have it on memo I’ll get you the information 2 Stuart: Yeah (.) CONVERSATION 83 3 Chris: Okay (.) recruitment 4 Jim: Yeah ((Chris talks on the topic of recruitment followed by discussion)) 5 Chris: You okay with that Stuart yeah? 6 Stuart: Okay 7 Chair: Okay so if you can work towards that that will be great (-) err 8 a couple of revised store aims (.) at tills . . . At line 3 Chris initiates topic shift from ‘financial budgets’ to ‘recruitment’, the next specified topic listed on the meeting’s written agenda. He signals this transition by use of ‘okay’, a discourse marker, marking a transition in the interaction, followed by a short pause and then direct naming of the next agenda item. In line 5, he checks Stuart is happy with what they have agreed to do regarding recruitment, summarises what Stuart needs to do and then positively evaluates this. The topic shift is then signalled by a lengthy pause and a hesitation (‘err’). The next topic is then asserted by a declarative (like ‘recruitment’, this topic was listed on the written agenda as ‘revised store aims’) followed by a short pause. The details of the topic then begin ‘at tills’. Although topic change in informal settings is a much less rigid process, speakers do need to signal why they are introducing a particular topic at a particular moment in time. Even in the most informal of contexts where speakers know each other very well, there is still a need for new topics to be justified, otherwise speakers run the risk of being negatively evaluated as conversational bores or as individuals who ramble on rather aimlessly, without paying adequate attention to the need for topical relevance. This leads us back to politeness and the importance of paying attention to face needs (B3). In the following example, Jill introduces a new topic firstly by carefully ensuring that the previous topic is finished. After two evaluative comments on the previous topic (‘oh dear’ and ‘arrrrr’) and a lengthy pause (line 3) she then establishes the new topic’s newsworthiness, thus justifying why this particular topic shift and why now. As with Jill and Sue’s example of supportive simultaneous talk above, this is a rather collaborative enterprise: Jill and Sue are talking about a man who lives by them, whom they both frequently see in the neighbourhood. 1 Sue: I think his sister nags him so he doesn’t stop too long 2 [((laughs))] 3 Jill: [((laughs))] oh dear (.) arrrrr (-) did I tell you (.) erm my niece 4 had a baby (.) I don’t think I did did I? You know I said she 5 was having her fourth baby (.) did I tell you Sue? 6 Sue: I said to Suz- to you about Sharon having a baby 7 didn’t I= 8 Jill: =that’s right 9 Sue: having a baby daughter and you says ‘oh my niece is waiting 10 [to have her baby’] 11 Jill: [she was ] due (.) she she had the baby two two 12 weeks old this week 84 DEVELOPMENT: ASPECTS OF ENGLISH Jill negotiates the newsworthiness of her new topic by asking Sue whether she has told her before that her niece had given birth (lines 3–4). She back-tracks further by asking Sue to confirm that she had told her that her niece was pregnant (line 5). These questioning strategies help Jill ascertain the newsworthiness of the topic and aid in confirming exactly where she needs to start the topic, ensuring that she does not repeat any information that may have been given already. Following confirma- tion from Sue, where Sue recounts one of their previous conversations and reports Jill’s previous speech to her (lines 6–7 and 9–10), Jill goes ahead with her topic (lines 11–12). Consider the last conversation you had which took place in a similar context to Jill and Sue’s conversation. What topics did you talk about? Did the topic drift or shift? What does this tell you about your relationship with these speakers? In overall summary, in this unit the tools and techniques of conversation analysis have been investigated. Producing analyses of the various facets of the turn-taking system and topic can result in fruitful and thorough analyses of discourse being pro- duced in a multitude of different settings. LITERACY Writing is not simply speech written down. Though of course there are close con- nections and influences between speech and writing, it is better to think of writing and speech as two distinct but cognate systems, both of which represent the more abstract system of language. The distinctiveness between speech and writing can be seen right across the structure of language in each case. A simple comparison of a conversation and a passage of written text will quickly reveal significant differences in vocabulary choice, fluency, clause length and complexity, sequencing of the main point, and address forms, among many other variations. To give only a few examples (see also strand 5): q Speech is prototypically dialogic; writing is – at least initially – more monologic. So speech tends to have more explicit second-person address forms, imperatives, invitations, and supportive feedback phrases than writing. q The basic unit of speech is the utterance or turn; in writing it is the clause. So speech turns tend to consist of simple clauses, whereas writing often features complex or compound multi-clause sentences. q Speech tends to be spontaneous; writing tends to be planned. So writing is more likely to feature multiple logical relative clauses such as ‘if , and , or , then . . .’, or ‘because of this, which , then . . .’, and so on, and speech is more likely to have vague words like ‘stuff ’, and ‘thing’. q Speech is tolerated in many accents; writing tends to have a strongly prestigious and standardised form that is socially preferred and sanctioned. So variation in pronunciation is accepted, whereas variation in spelling is not. English spelling largely represents medieval pronunciation at the point at which printing froze many spelling forms (‘through’, ‘knight’, ‘name’). Even in languages that have a more B6 LITERACY 85 phonetic spelling relationship (such as Italian), there are still various accents that can be used for a single unchangeable spelling. q Speech tends to be face-to-face; writing tends to be displaced in time and space. So speech tends to consist of two or more people taking turns, asking questions, offering opinion and viewpoint explicitly. Writing tends to be free of the context, whereas speakers can refer to ‘this’, ‘that’ and ‘those’ things that are in their im- mediate vicinity, without further explanation. q Speech exists in the aural medium whereas writing is visual. So speech features more sound-effects, intonation-effects and emphatic gestures, whereas writing relies more on shape and structure, and is only able to signal sound-effects iconically. Becoming literate Clearly we acquire speech before writing (see A6): speech has a 4–5 year head-start on writing in most formal educational systems of the world. This means that pre-school children only have one system for representing language (their speech) before they are encouraged to learn another (writing), and so early writing is strongly affected by the child’s speech capacities at age 5. Between this point and early teens, both speech and writing skills continue to develop and influence each other. In this unit, we will outline the stages of the development of literacy in these years. The general assumption for most people would be that children’s writing develop- ment begins with learning the alphabet and being able to write the letters – though of course ABC (/ai bi£ si£ di£ i£™f dni£/) rather than abc (/æ be ke de™fe ge/ and so on) are learned first. People might assume that simple phonetic words (‘cat’, ‘dog’, ‘went’) are then learned, followed by words with digraphs (‘the’, ‘ship’, ‘chop’), and non-phonetic words with various irregular or ‘magic’ rules (‘time’, ‘brought’, ‘knife’). Then it might be supposed that sentences are learned with spaces between words, punctuation and capital letters, and finally sequencing of narratives and other text-level genres are mastered. In fact, literacy development is much more complicated than this, with several of these processes developing alongside each other. The evolution of narrative skills, for example, can be observed at a very early stage, even if those narratives are very simple or apparently poorly formed from an adult perspective. It is important to realise – as with the acquisition of speech – that literacy should not be viewed as an imperfect version of adult writing, with errors and omissions, but as a form in its own right which gradually comes to converge with adult writing. Children’s written capacity is usually roughly sufficient at each stage for the level of expression that they require. As these expressive requirements advance alongside their socialisation into a print-rich culture, so their need for literacy development advances too. Scribble script Children, especially those with older siblings, will scribble circles and whirls while colouring or drawing that they regard as writing. This initial stage of pre-school ‘writing’ is important both in mechanical training and in the conceptualisation that marks have representative meaning. In the transition around initial schooling, children will often imitate adults’ practices in writing – typically this will involve writing notes or shopping lists. Children’s pre-school shopping lists will look like scribbled lines, 86 DEVELOPMENT: ASPECTS OF ENGLISH though (Western) features such as linearity, left to right and top to bottom, and gaps between ‘words’ can often be noticed even at this stage. Children will ‘read’ out their shopping lists as genuine grocery items, though of course their spoken list will change each time they ‘read’ aloud: they do not in fact have their own secretly denotational scribble system. Naming and captioning One of the first recognisable words to appear is the child’s own name. Being able to recognise your own name (to identify possessions, your coat peg, or just for the fun of it) is a skill that adults encourage at an early stage, and children quickly learn to shape their own name in writing. The letters of the child’s own name are often those which are also most strongly learned and recognised in other words. It seems that the first function of this genuine writing is labelling and captioning, with self-drawings of the child being named in writing, and then other family and friends being labelled, and other drawn objects similarly captioned. Sequences of captioned drawings, or a network of labels on a page of paper are used narratively – often the story is told as the child draws/writes it radially on the page, rather than in a linear sequence that can be read out afterwards. In these early stages, children’s attention is focused largely on mastering the mech- anics of making legible letters of roughly equal size, ensuring that the directionality of letters is right (contrasting ‘p’ / ‘q’ or ‘b’ / ‘d’ or ‘n’ / ‘h’), writing left to right along a line and top to bottom down a page, creating spaces between words by placing a finger after the last letter, and not writing off the margin onto the table-top. This preparation stage develops into a consolidation stage after a couple of years at which children are able to express their speech in writing. Later, they can differentiate speech patterning from writing, and lastly – by age 9–10 – most children possess integrative knowledge to be able to choose which blend of patterning is most appropriate for their communicative purpose. Pattern-generation Children begin to experiment with patterns that seem to constitute their own rules and principles as soon as they begin to learn letter shapes, syllable shapes and word shapes. For example, many schools using a ‘phonics’ approach teach the small letter sounds (/æ be ke/ not /ai bi£ si£/) first. Non-phonetic vocabulary is a challenge to a pure phonics approach (‘lamb’, ‘lame’, for example), so children will try to create their own pattern: ‘lam’ for lamb and ‘lAm’ or ‘laam’ for lame. Similar patterns will be applied across a large range of words. The patterns that children generalise cannot be regarded as rules, though, since they are often highly variable. So ‘pole’ for target poorly does not always get gener- alised to produce ‘hole’ for holy, though holly might be spelled ‘hole’. Similarly, a child who uses a capital to signal the vowel shift produced by CVCe (consonant-vowel- consonant-e as in ‘name’, ‘mite’, ‘fame’) as in ‘lAm’ for target lame might on other occasions use doubling ‘shiin’ for shine or a variant digraph ‘piel’ or ‘payl’ for pile, and so on. Word-boundaries are also flexible, so ‘wonsa pona taym’ for once upon a time or even ‘wyanetn’ for wire netting have been observed. Clearly, these are also influenced by pronunciation and accent patterns. LITERACY 87 Vocabulary development in writing is obviously dependent on the size of the child’s spoken vocabulary. For example, a child whose past tense of ‘bring’ is ‘bringed’ will not recognise ‘brought’ as a genuine word. This is a good example of where the ex- perience of the written form is likely to expand the spoken repertoire. In general, though, the influence is the other way round. Early vocabulary (up to age 10) tends to develop by the acquisition of new words and their extension by derivation (plural -s, person agreement, tensing and aspectuals), whereas the adaptation of complex morphology seems to be a late skill: so younger children are unlikely to write ‘unlikely’ even though they might have ‘like’ and be able to read and understand the prefix ‘un-’ and the suffix ‘-ly’. As vocabulary extends in later years, children make use of synonyms to avoid lexical repetition for aesthetic and cosmetic reasons. Speech-influence to written conventions Early examples of coherent writing are often strongly speech-like. Since the sentence is not a unit of speech, children initially do not have a representative model for the main unit of writing, and so their production echoes oral turns very closely. As chil- dren develop the ability to chain clauses together in writing, after two or three years of schooling the clauses are less likely to be connected simply by ‘and’ and more likely to be related in more logically complex ways using ‘though’, ‘because’, ‘before’, ‘while’ and so on. Ultimately, the use of conjunctions decreases altogether as clausal apposition, relative clauses, and implicitness in logical argument take a more sophis- ticated role. At the same time, conversational tags (‘like’, ‘you know’), which might have appeared in some form early on, are discarded. Conversational vocabulary choices (‘stuff ’, ‘like that’, ‘and all’) are replaced by more formal choices. Narrative and other generic discourse patterns emerge, so that the opening of a text will signal (often in a headline title) what the passage is about; the text will begin with orientation to help the reader create the participants and setting; the core of the text itself will feature embedded evaluations and other commentary that digresses from the main line of the story or argument; and the text will end with a reiteration of what the point of the writing was, or some sort of conclusion. Narrative is the most popular form of school text, with the majority of children’s writing focusing on recounting experience, and the majority of reading scheme books being narrative in orientation. Freeing from bound context Gradually as literacy develops, children’s writing moves from being bound to the con- text to becoming context-free. In other words, it becomes possible to read children’s texts without needing to be in the same surroundings as the child in order to under- stand the referents. ‘This’, ‘these’, those’, and ambiguous ‘it’ or ‘he’ begin to be intro- duced with full identifications, followed by co-reference: ‘There was a boy. He was called Eric.’ This shift indicates a growing awareness of the diversity of audience that writing has that speech does not easily have. Children like to write cards or letters to family, grandparents, neighbours and friends who are not immediately in the environ- ment. These developments involve learning about registers and genres. For example, early children’s writing often involves an explicit signal in the beginning that the pragmatics of the current situation are suspended (‘Once upon a . is a much less rigid process, speakers do need to signal why they are introducing a particular topic at a particular moment in time. Even in the most informal of contexts where speakers know. of which represent the more abstract system of language. The distinctiveness between speech and writing can be seen right across the structure of language in each case. A simple comparison of. in spelling is not. English spelling largely represents medieval pronunciation at the point at which printing froze many spelling forms (‘through’, ‘knight’, ‘name’). Even in languages that have