Ÿ Stylistic Variety: It refers to differences in the speech or writing of a person or group of people according to the situation, the topic, and addressees and the location. Stylistic variety can be observed in the use of different speech sounds, different words or expressions, or different sentence structures.
Ÿ Idiolect: It is the language system of an individual as expressed by the way he or she speaks or writes within the overall system of a particular language.
In its widest sense, someone’s idiolect included their way of communicating; for example, their choice of utterances and the way they interpret the utterances made by others. In a narrow sense, an idiolect may include those features, either in speech or writing, which distinguish one individual from others, such as voice quality, pitch, and speech rhythm.
Ÿ Pidgin : contact language; a limited vocabulary; a reduced grammatical structure.
Ÿ Creole : a pidgin language which has become the native language of a group of speakers; more complex than pidgin language.
Ÿ Speech community: It is a group of people who form a community, e.g. a village, a region, a nation, and who have at least one speech variety in common as well as similar linguistic norms.
= Sociolinguistic study of society & Sociolinguistic study of language
Categorically, sociolinguistic studies can further be specified as two related but not identical perspectives of observation, namely, a Sociolinguistic Study of Society and a Sociolinguistic Study of Language.
The Sociolinguistic Study of Society examines issues related to the subject from more societal perspective. That is, we are doing sociolinguistics at a macro level of investigation and at this level of discussion things that we are interested in include bilingualism or multilingualism, language planning and standardization, vernacular education etc.
In Sociolinguistic Study of Language, we are more interested in examining micro linguistic phenomena such as structural variants, address forms, gender differences, discourse analysis, Pidgin and Creole languages, and other more language related issues.
= Applied sociolinguistics
Some more successful practices of this attempt have been found in language classrooms, law courts (the joint work by sociolinguists and legislators in the preparation of some legal documents is proven to be helpful to increase the readability of this text), and clinical settings, respectively.
« Cross-culture Communication
For a successful Cross-culture Communication, Rogers set up a tripartite [traiˈpɑ:tait] 三方的 model: 1) try to look at things from other persons’ point of view, 2) try to sense their feeling to a given issue, and 3) try to understand their way of knowing the world.
And we should follow the rules below in Cross-cultural communication.
1) When in Roman do as the Romans do
2) Put yourself in other’s shoes
3) One culture’s meat is another culture’s poison
4) Honesty and sincerity are key points to mutual understanding
补充一些：
1. Slang: Casual, very informal speech, using expressive but informal words and expressions.
2. Taboo : an obscene淫秽的, profane, or swear word or expression that is prohibited from general use by the educated and “polite” society.
3. Euphemism: the use of a word which is thought to be less offensive or unpleasant than another word. For example, “indisposed” instead of “sick”, or “to pass away”, instead of “to die”.
4. Lingua franca : it is a language that is used for communication between different groups of people, each speaking a different language.
5. bilingualism & bilingual
It is the use of at least two languages either by an individual or by a group of speakers. A bilingual is a person who knows and uses two languages.
6. Code switching : It refers to a change by a speaker (or writer)from one language or language variety to another one.
7. Vernacular: it is a term of a language or language variety that is unclassical, unofficial and unnational but local.
8. FLB & FLN
The faculty of language in the broad sense & The faculty of language in the narrow sense
9. Communication competence
It is the ability not only to apply the grammatical rules of a language in order to form grammatically correct sentences but also to known when and where to use these sentences and to whom.
10. Women Register
It is a hypothesis which assumes that the following features are prevailing in women’s linguistic behavior:
1) Women use more “fancy” color terms such as “mauve” and “beige”.
2) Women use less powerful curse words.
3) Women use more intensifiers such as “terrible” and “awful”.
4) Women use more tag questions.
5) Women use more statement questions like “Dinner will be ready at seven o’clock?” (with a rising intonation at the end)
6) Women’s linguistic behavior is more indirect and, hence, more polite than men’s.
11. Relationship between functionalism and formalism
Regard them as two sides of a coin rather than two contrasting theories or concepts.
P Chapter 11 Linguistics and Foreign Language Teaching
« Linguistics and Language Learning
Many language learning theories are proposed based on certain linguistic theories. In fact, knowledge in linguistics lies at the root of understanding what language learners can learn how they actually learn and what they learn ultimately.
= Grammar and Language Learning
Ÿ Focus on Form
As a compromise between the “purely form-focused approaches” and the “purely meaning-focused” approaches, a recent movement called Focus on Form seems to take a more balanced view on the role of grammar in language learning.
The key point in Focus on Form is that although language learning should generally be meaning –focused and communication-oriented, it is still necessary and beneficial to focus on form occasionally. Focus on Form often consists of an occasional shift of attention to linguistic code feature— by the teacher and/ or one or more students—triggered by perceived problems with comprehension or production.
=Input and Language learning
Ÿ Input Hypothesis
练习册 P65
( Krashen; “i +1” principle ; understand ; challenged to make progress ; input should neither be so far beyond their reach that they are overwhelmed, nor so close to their current stage that they are not challenged.)
= Interlanguage
The type of language constructed by second language learners who are still in the process of learning a language is often referred to as Interlanguage.
Interlanguage is often understood as a language system between the target language and the learner’s native language. It is imperfect compared with the target language, but it is not mere translation from the learner’s native language.
However, interlanguage should not really be seen as a bridging language between the target language and native language. Interlanguage is a dynamic language system, which is constantly moving from the departure level to the native-like level. Therefore, “inter” actually means between the beginning stage and the final stage.
« Linguistics and Language Teaching
= The Discourse-based View of Language Teaching
Ÿ The Discourse-based view of language teaching
课本p273
Ÿ Communication Competence
课本p273
Ÿ Communicative Language Teaching
课本p273 (real-world tasks & pedagogical tasks)
= The Universal Grammar and Language Teaching
Ÿ The universal Grammar
Chomsky’s Universal Grammar, previously known as Transformation-Generative Grammar, or TG grammar, has gained wider acceptance and popularity. UG attempts to explain the relatively quick acquisition of L1 on the basis of minimum exposure to external input. The view supports the idea that the external input per se may not account for language acquisition.
In Chomsky’s view, a native speaker possesses a kind of linguistic competence. The child is born with knowledge of some linguistic universals. While acquiring his mother tongue, he compares his innate language system with that of his native language and modifies his grammar. Therefore, language learning is not a matter of habit formation, but an activity of building and testing hypothesis.
« Linguistics and Syllabus Design
= A Clarification of Terms: Syllabus and Curriculum
A syllabus is a specification of what takes places in the classroom, which usually contains the aims and contents of teaching and sometimes contains suggestions of methodology.
A curriculum, however, provides general statements about the rationale 理由; 逻辑依据about language, language learning and language teaching. In some sense, a syllabus is part of a curriculum. And syllabus design is more of a pedagogical nature, whereas curriculum development is an educational planning.
= Theoretical Views behind Syllabus Design
In some sense, syllabus design is a bridge between language teaching theory and language teaching practice. It translates theoretical understanding of language teaching and sets up an operable framework in which language teaching takes place.
The most important part of syllabus design is selecting and sequencing items. Obviously, the selecting and sequencing of language items should be based on a sound understanding of the language system itself. The whole process of selection must be applied at all levels of language, such as phonology, grammar, lexis, contexts (semantic and cultural). After a list of language items have been selected, the next process is to put them into the most appropriate order for practical teaching purpose. This process is often referred to as grading, which is subdivided into two distinct operations. We use the term ‘staging’ to refer to the division of the course into time segments, and ‘sequencing’ to refer to the problem of deciding the order in which the items should be taught.
= Types of Syllabus
In theory, a language teaching syllabus can be designed in many different ways, depending on the designer’s view of language learning and teaching. Below are some of the influential types of syllabus:
Ÿ The structural syllabus
Influenced by structuralist linguistics, the Structural Syllabus is a grammar oriented syllabus based on a selection of language items and structures. The vocabulary and grammatical rules included in the teaching materials are carefully ordered according to factors such as frequency, complexity and usefulness.
The structural syllabus has been used for many years, and still dominates some language programmes, including most of the foreign language courses in China. However, people have become more and more aware of its shortcomings. The major drawback of such a syllabus is that it concentrates only on the grammatical forms and the meaning of individual words, whereas the meaning of the whole sentence is thought to be self-evident, whatever its context may be. Students are not taught how to use these sentences appropriately in real situations. As a result, students trained by a structural syllabus often prove to be communicatively incompetent.
