English Language Teaching in its Social Context
English Language Teaching in its Social Context
English Language Teaching in its Social Context
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COMPREHENSION AND PRODUCTION STRATEGIES 87deal of the time. S<strong>in</strong>ce it is mean<strong>in</strong>gs which are primary, as long as the speaker feels thatcommunication is proceed<strong>in</strong>g satisfactorily, the need for precise syntax is dim<strong>in</strong>ished. Thiscontrasts very clearly with the younger language learner who has much less schematic andcontextual knowledge available personally, and who is also much less able to imag<strong>in</strong>e whathis or her <strong>in</strong>terlocutor has by way of knowledge <strong>in</strong> each of these areas. As a result, the childhas much less scope to take syntactic liberties and short cuts.We are now fac<strong>in</strong>g quite a changed picture regard<strong>in</strong>g the usefulness (or lack of it) ofconversation for language development.There is less need, for the older learner, to producecomplete and well-formed utterances, because most <strong>in</strong>teractions require collaborativeconstruction of mean<strong>in</strong>g rather than solipsistic party pieces. Further, when communicativeproblems occur, the strategies second language learners adopt are not likely to push forwardunderly<strong>in</strong>g system change <strong>in</strong> any cumulative way. F<strong>in</strong>ally, there is the issue that, even ifconversation were by means of complete, well-formed utterances, and attempts to copewith communicative problems were useful, there is still the likelihood that attempts to copewith ongo<strong>in</strong>g process<strong>in</strong>g demands would not allow the learner to capitali7e upon such atemporary breakthrough, establish a memory trace of it, and use it <strong>in</strong> the future.ConclusionThe central theme of this chapter has been that syntax has fragile properties. Normalcommunication is pervaded by the pressures of process<strong>in</strong>g language <strong>in</strong> real time. Wecomprehend and produce language not by exhaustively analys<strong>in</strong>g and comput<strong>in</strong>g (althoughwe can do these th<strong>in</strong>gs if we have to, for reasons of creativity or precision) but <strong>in</strong>stead bydraw<strong>in</strong>g shamelessly on probabilistic strategies which work effectively enough (given thesupport and potential for retrieval of miscommunication that discourse provides) atconsiderable speed of process<strong>in</strong>g. We rely on time-creat<strong>in</strong>g devices, context, predictionskills, elliptical language, and a range of similar performance factors to reduce the process<strong>in</strong>gload that we have to deal with dur<strong>in</strong>g conversation. And the older we become (up to a po<strong>in</strong>t)the more adept we can be at exploit<strong>in</strong>g these resources.The central po<strong>in</strong>t is that language use, <strong>in</strong> <strong>its</strong>elf, does not lead to the development of ananalytic knowledge system s<strong>in</strong>ce mean<strong>in</strong>g distracts attention from form. But clearlycommunication does proceed, so one can <strong>in</strong>fer that speakers draw upon other non-analyticknowledge systems which, one assumes, have qualities relevant to real-time communication.Note1 In one sense, of course, this po<strong>in</strong>t is addressed through the dist<strong>in</strong>ction betweencommunication and learn<strong>in</strong>g strategies. The former emphasizes solutions to immediatecommunication problems, while the latter are concerned with activities which are <strong>in</strong>tendedby the learner to lead to longer-term development. In some cases this dist<strong>in</strong>ction is clear,as when, for example, a communication strategy deals with (say) how to express an ideawhen a lexical item is miss<strong>in</strong>g (and has no last<strong>in</strong>g effect) or when a learner deliberatelyorgani7es a list of words for memorization, not attempt<strong>in</strong>g to use these words immediately,but <strong>in</strong>stead work<strong>in</strong>g towards the extension of an underly<strong>in</strong>g vocabulary. But the centralissue is that one can also regard the operation of many communication strategies asconta<strong>in</strong><strong>in</strong>g learn<strong>in</strong>g potential, for example when a useful communication strategy becomesproceduralized and so reusable. It is precisely this type of communication strategy that isrelevant <strong>in</strong> this section.