语言学功能转向对英语教学的启发
Introduction
1)Shift from the formal view to social and semantic view of language
According to Noam Chomsky [1], there is the ‘ideal’ language system in man’mind that makes it possible for speakers to produce and understand an infinite number of sentences in thEir language and distinguish grammatical sentences from ungrammatical sentences. Chomsky called it ‘Competence’ which was first introduced by Noam Chomsky[1]as part of the foundations for his Generative grammar.
In 1970s, linguists started to shift their view of language as an abstract system to view it as a social and semantic system for they think language is not only formal but also functional, especially social functional, which underpins the social development. It is a great change. Many different researches on this aspect emerge and complement each other.
2)The main principles of the social and semantic view of language
Communicative competence is a term in linguistics which refers to a language user’s grammatical knowledge of phonology,morphology,syntax, and the like, as well as social knowledge about how and when to use utterances appropriately.
1 The application of this view in language teaching
The shift of view on language promotes the pedagogical reform in language teaching. Communicative language teaching gains more and more attention, which aims to develop students’ ability in appropriately using language so as to have an effective interpersonal or intercultural communication. Communicative language teaching is an approach to the teaching of second and forEign languages that emphasizes interaction as both the means and the ultimate goal of learning a language. There are several advantages in adopting a communicative language teaching: firstly, communicative teaching approach combines teaching language itself with language’s function. Students are given more opportunities to use language in a social context which is created by communicative activities. They get access to know the particular meaning of utterance in particular context and learn to use language appropriately according to social context. Secondly, communicative language teaching focuses on student-centered teaching mode rather than teacher-centered teaching mode. It is very interested in the needs and desires of their learners as well as the connection between the language as it is taught in their class and as it used outside the classroom.Thirdly, in a communicative teaching class, the teacher consciously raises students’ awareness of cultural background so as to cultivate students’ intercultural communicative competence. Finally, the application of communicative teaching approach motivates students’ interest and motivation in a relaxing atmosphere so as to learn effectively.
2 The application of this view in language learning
Rod Ellis[4](1985) preferred the interactionist view of language acquisition that the acquisition of language is a result of an interaction between the learner’s mental abilities and the linguistic environment. In other words, language acquisition derives from the collaborative efforts of the learner and his interlocutors and involves a dynamic interplay between external and internal factors. Similarly, the quality of the input affects and is affected by the nature of the internal mechanisms.
Communicative language teaching also emphasizes both the learners’ internal linguistic mechanism and external linguistic environment given that the learners possess linguistic competence that encompasses knowledge of lexical items and of rules of phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, and the like. What the learners should do is to participate actively in various communicative activities. The student firstly should imagine the situation which is created by teacher, think and analyze what utterance should be used in that situation, and seek appropriate strategies to cope with different feedbacks from their partners or problems emerging from interaction. Through this interaction, the students’ thinking is enhanced as well as their awareness of communicative competence.
3 Conclusion
With the further research on language, linguistics has integrated language itself with interdisciplinary research, sociolinguistics, psycholinguistic and nerolinguistics etc. Learning language is not simply learning abstract linguistic system with rules but emphasize more on learning how to use language in different context. Since the born of the term—communicative competence, communicative language teaching approach has always experienced reform from the audio-lingual methods to present Task-based methods. In a sense, viewing language as meaningful in social context brings about profound effect on language teaching and learning and this effect is still continuing to a wide and deep landscape.
