Tema 12 y 36 Ingles.indd

Temario de oposiciones
INGLÉS
SECUNDARIA
Teresa Vaello Ros
Vicenta María Llorca Llorca
Temario de
Oposiciones de
Inglés de Secundaria
Última edición 2016
Autoras: Teresa Vaello Ros y Vicenta María Llorca Llorca
Maquetación:
Edita: Educàlia Editorial
Imprime: Ulzama digital
ISBN: 978-84-92655-22-9
Depósito legal: En curso
Printed in Spain/Impreso en España.
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MUESTRA TEMARIOS
TEMA 12
Concepto de gramática: reflexión sobre la lengua y su aprendizaje.
De la gramática normativa a la gramática en función del uso de la
lengua y la comunicación.
0. Introduction.
1. Definition of grammar.
2. The history of grammar.
3. Transition of the normative grammar to the functional.
4. Conclusion.
5. Bibliography.
0. INTRODUCTION
Topic number 12 deals with: Concepto de gramática: reflexión sobre la lengua y su aprendizaje. De
la gramática normativa a la gramática en función del uso de la lengua y la comunicación being this
important part of the teaching-learning process of English.
This topic analysis the study of grammar through its history. Thus, we will see how the previous educative
system mainly focused on grammar and lexical aspects as it was thought that the mastery of a language
was based on the degree of proficiency at grammar level. Hence, generally students were able to
apply the grammatical rules of the language but some of them had problems when using the language
orally. They knew about the language but they did not know how to use it. For this reason, the new
Organic Law LOMCE ”Ley Orgánica para la Mejora de la Calidad Educativa” 8/2013 on December
9th have proposed a communicative approach to foreign languages. An approach which implies the
consideration of not only grammatical aspects but also cultural, historical and literal characteristics of
the countries where the English language is spoken.
I will divide this topic into three general parts: starting with a definition of the term grammar. Secondly, I
will continue with the analysis of the history of grammar to finish with transition of the normative grammar
to the functional.
1. DEFINITION OF GRAMMAR
Grammar is the field of linguistics that covers the conventions governing the use of any given natural
language. It includes morphology and syntax, often complemented by phonetics, phonology, semantics,
and pragmatics.
Grammar is a term that has had many and different interpretations and still have today. The word comes
from the Greek noun grama meaning letter, and from it the derivation gramatike, the study of letters, the
way they are arranged to form meaningful sentences.
In order to fulfil communication successfully language uses a rule, a norm which is the result of many
complex processes and has been developed for each specific language along centuries. Once fixed
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the norm takes a long time to be changed. A language and its grammar and vocabulary establish a
set of-structures that would be passed on to the following generations very much easily, by parents or
adults to children.
Each language has its own distinct grammar. “English grammar” is the set of rules of the English language
itself. The current English grammar is the result of many changes that have been taken place through the
history of the English language. Many historical events have influenced it. Thus it is necessary to consider
the different invasions that Great Britain has suffered in the course of its history, invasions that made their
mark in the history of the language: the first settlers were the Celts who were invaded by the Romans by
the Romans (43BC) who introduced some Latin words into the English language. In the 5th century the
Anglo-Saxons arrived in England bringing their dialects whose fusion became the Old English. With the
Christianization (597) many Latin words were introduced. The Vikings also invaded the island followed
by the Normans (1066) who brought their French language to England having an impressive influence
on the Old English not only on the vocabulary and spelling but on grammar, to mention some changes
that took place: The main aspects being the following:
• There was a loss of inflection. The genitive Saxon ‘s is the only one left of the Anglo-Saxon inflection.
• Loss that was compensated with the development of the prepositions: in fact, by means of, in general…
• Many adjectives were borrowed as English was not very well provided, together with the French
position of adjectives that is after the noun, thus Shakespeare wrote “poem unlimited” and the use
of the plural “the Goddess Celestials”.
• The article was used with the relative pronoun: the which.
• The infinitive was combined with the present participle or gerund: come singing from “venire chantant”.
• The construction with the verb to take: take a promenade.
• The use of the verb “to do” as an auxiliary verb in negative and interrogative sentences: I do not like
sausages.
In addition, the Renaissance brought Latin and Greek terms to the English language and the extension
of the British Empire led to the acquisition of the words from different continents.
Furthermore the study of the mother tongue or of the national language of a country was termed the
study of grammar, and it always took a large part of the school curriculum.
The other main tract of grammar is more closely related to linguistics and is considered a matter of
higher learning. Its aim is to explain not the rules of the actual speech, but the laws by which they are
formed, the inner construction of the system and its implications with other aspects of the human mind
as psychology or the social behaviour, or the notions of time and space within the framework of groups
and/or the individual. In this sense grammar is never referred to in school textbooks, and no one but the
scholar is supposed or expected to know about it.
2. THE HISTORY OF GRAMMAR
Through history the approach to grammar has changed considerably. Here, we will study some of the
most relevant approaches to it from the classical one to the current communicative approach.
GREEK LATIN
MEDIEVAL
CARTESIAN
XIX CENTURY
XX CENTURY
CURRENT COMMUNICATIVE
APPROACH
Greek and Latin Grammar
In Europe the Greeks were the first to write grammars. To them, grammar was a tool that could be used
in the study of Greek literature; hence their focus on the literary language. The Alexandrians of the 1st
century BC further developed Greek grammar in order to preserve the purity of the language.
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• Dionysus Thrax of Alexandria later wrote a treatise called The Art of Grammar, in which he analyzed
literary texts in terms of letters, syllables, and eight parts of speech.
The Romans adopted the grammatical system of the Greeks and applied it to Latin. Except for Varro, of
the 1st century BC, who believed that grammarians should discover structures, not dictate them, most
Latin grammarians did not attempt to alter the Greek system and also sought to protect their language
from decay. Whereas the model for the Greeks and Alexandrians was the language of Homer, the works
of Cicero and Virgil set the Latin standard.
Medieval Grammar
The works of Donatus (4th century ad) and Priscian (6th century ad), the most important Latin grammarians,
were widely used to teach Latin grammar during the European Middle Ages. In medieval Europe,
education was conducted in LATIN as Latin continued to enjoy immense prestige as the language of
the Church, the language of classical literature, and the common language of educated discourse
and scholarly writing throughout Europe, and Latin grammar became the foundation of the liberal arts
curriculum. Many grammars were composed for students during this time. Aelfric, the abbot of Eynsham
(11th century), who wrote the first Latin grammar in Anglo-Saxon, proposed that this work served as
an introduction to English grammar as well. Thus it began the tradition of devising English grammar
according to a Latin model.
The effects of the Renaissance on linguistics studies in Europe were firstly the rediscovery of Ancient
Greek by the West and its incorporation into western studies. The renewed study of the Greek language
was accompanied by more grammatical study of Hebrew and Arabic, the first two-non I-E languages
to be the object of systematic European scholarship. Progressively trade, exploration, colonization, and
missionary work brought Europeans into contact with the languages of different parts of their expanding
world and with cultures very far removed from the traditions of Greco-Roman and Christian civilization.
This continuous widening of European linguistic horizon was accompanied by a growth in linguistic interest
in the vernacular, spoken, languages of Europe itself, as the hold of Latin on the world of scholarship
relaxed and the printing presses produced books in more and more tongues.
Port Royal Grammar
Port Royal Grammar is a universal and rational grammar written by Antoine Arnauld and Claud Lancelot
in the monastery of Port Royal, France, in 1660.
It has some French examples in it, and is partly a study of French language, but on the whole it is about
the structure of any language. It is the base of most of the grammars of certain languages written
afterwards, up to nowadays.
The central argument of the Grammar is that grammar is simply mental processes, which are universal;
therefore grammar is universal. It has had a great influence on the modern study of linguistics. The
Grammar was heavily influenced by the Regulae of René Descartes and it has been held up as an
example of Cartesian linguistics by Noam Chomsky.
It has been translated into English and published by Jacques Rieux and Bernard E. Rollin under the title
General and Rational Grammar: The Port-Royal Grammar (The Hague: Mouton, 1975).
XIX Century Grammar
At the end of the XVIII century a new and highly important stream entered European linguistic scholarship.
This came from the European colonization of India and took two forms: the discovery of Sanskrit, the
classical language of India, and of its indisputable relationship with the major language groups of Europe,
and the transmission to the West of the Indian linguistic tradition itself, and in particular the work of Panini
on the Sanskrit language, the first translation of which appeared in Europe early in the XIX.
One effect of the discovery of Sanskrit was the remarkable interest shown in historical linguistics, in
particular with regard to the Indo-European family, by European scholarship, especially in Germany.
The XIX saw comparative-historical linguistics established in much of its present form, and in this century
linguistics was primarily envisaged as a historical discipline.
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Panini is the best known of the Indian linguists. His work is dated around 600 BC. His Sanskrit grammar has
been described by Bloomfield as “one of the greatest monuments of human intelligence”.
In Europe general linguistics of the modern period largely grew out of XIX comparative and historical
studies, as scholars began to widen the scope of their work. In America there was the additional influence
of anthropological studies, carried on through American-Indian people.
The British showed a strong interest in phonetics. At the end of XIX Sweet and Jones were the pioneers
on this field.
Twentieth Century Linguistic Schools
The study of language as a system of human communication as a whole is but a recent development. It
is not till the end of the XIX century that the term linguistics began to be used extensively and considered
a science.
Prague School
School of linguistic thought and analysis established in Prague in the 1920s by Vilém Mathesius. It
included among its most prominent members the Russian linguist Nikolay Trubetskoy and the Russianborn American linguist Roman Jakobson; the school was most active during the 1920s and ’30s.
Linguists of the Prague school stress the function of elements within language, the contrast of
language elements to one another, and the total pattern or system formed by these contrasts, and
they have distinguished themselves in the study of sound systems.
They developed distinctive-feature analysis of sounds; by this analysis, each distinctive sound in a
language is seen as composed of a number of contrasting articulator and acoustic features, and any
two sounds of a language that are perceived as being distinct will have at least one feature contrast
in their compositions. The concept of distinctive-feature analysis in studying the sound systems of
languages has been incorporated within the standard model of transformational grammar.
Saussure
Considered the father of the term structuralism, and one of the most influential
linguist all over the world. His influence, nevertheless has been greater in Europe
than in America. His work Cours de linguistique generale (1916) was the
compilation of his class notes made by some of his pupils, Saussure died before
the complete writing of his theory. The publication of his work is frequently
considered the starting point of 20th-century linguistics.
Saussure contended that language must be considered as a social phenomenon,
a structured system that can be viewed synchronically (as it exists at any
particular time) and diachronically (as it changes in the course of time). He thus formalized the
basic approaches to language study and asserted that the principles and methodology of each
approach are distinct and mutually exclusive.
He also introduced two terms that have become common currency in linguistics—“parole” or the
speech of the individual person, and “langue,” or a systematic, structured language, such as English,
existing at a given time within a given society. His distinctions proved to be mainsprings to productive
linguistic research and can be regarded as starting points on the avenue of linguistics known as
structuralism.
The exact linguistic translation of these sociological ideas is Saussure’s dichotomy langue vs. Parole.
• Langue is the social part of the language, a sort of ideal to which individuals refer as model. It
is the sum of verbal images, a deposit where all the linguistic
LANGUAGE
experiences are stacked.
• Parole is an individual act, but the only physical reality shown
SIGNIFIED
SIGNIFIER
to us of the langue. “There is nothing in langue which has not
SOUND, CONCEPT MEANING, IMAGE
previously passed through parole.
These terms are the origin of what THE LINGUISTIC Noah Chomsky will call COMPETENCE and
PERFORMANCE.
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Another of his famous theories is the concept of linguistic sign. For him, language is made up of signs
and every sign has two sides:
the SIGNIFIER (French signifiant), the “shape” of a word, its phonic component, i.e. the sequence
of letters or phonemes e.g. D-O-G
the SIGNIFIED (French signifié), the ideational component, the concept or object that appears
in our minds when we hear or read the signifier e.g. a small domesticated feline (The signified is
not to be confused with the “referent”. The former is a “mental concept”, the latter the “actual
object” in the world)
According to Saussure, the relation between the signifier and the signified is arbitrary, as there is
no direct connection between the two parts: the sound and the meaning. For instance, there is
no reason why the letters D-O-G (or the sound of these phonemes) produce exactly the image
of a domesticated animal with fur, four legs and a tail in our minds. It is a result of “convention”:
speakers of the same language group have agreed (and learned) that these letters or sounds evoke
a certain image.
Another important characteristic of linguistic sign is that it has a lineal sequence: an oral linguistic
sign requires time to be uttered and the written space.
This theory permits to understand the utterances of the language and its complexities as it makes a
thinks about the meaning of words, its origin and the grammatical class they belong to.
Languages are changing concepts as they expand and change due to different influences: new
concepts (that appear or are adopted from other civilizations) sociological changes and fashion.
Considering these changes the English language is the fastest growing language in the world due
to its international feature.
Bloomfield
Leonard Bloomfield (1887 –1949) was an American linguist, whose influence dominated
the development of structural linguistics in America between the 1930s and the 1950s.
He is most especially known for his book Language (1933), describing the state of the
art of linguistics at its time.
Bloomfield was the main founder of the Linguistic Society of America.
Bloomfield’s thought was mainly characterized by its behaviorist principles for the
study of meaning, its insistence on formal procedures for the analysis of language data, as well
as a general concern to provide linguistics with rigorous scientific methodology. Its pre-eminence
decreased in the late 1950s and 1960s, after the emergence of Generative Grammar.
It is worth noting that Bloomfield and Bloomefiedian linguistics are still considered a major achievement
in the linguistic and grammar fields.

Chomsky
The most important of the XX century studies on linguistics is the developments by
Noam Chomsky’s transformational generative linguistics, and also called TG grammar.
It is an attempt to provide a model for the description of all languages, although most
of the works deal only with English.
TG describes language as a set of fixed rules that conform language through
operations, called transformations, that the speaker makes in order to produce
correct grammatical sentences. These rules which conform the deep structure of the
language are said to generate all and only the grammatical sentences of a language. The written
or oral sentences belong to the surface structure. Chomsky’s theory is based on the underlying
universality of language as a human faculty. Thus language is not learned but rather generated
through the transformations the speaker/hearer produces. The product is called performance,
while the internalized grammar of a language is called competence. Any potential speaker has a
grammatical competence, that is any person is able to create and understand sentences, including
those they never heard before.
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This theory goes back to the XVII and XVIII century rationalist philosophers, and the universal or general
grammars written in this period, as Port Royal grammar. Descartes’ theory of man as respensante,
who has an innate capacity which is shown by means of language, the creative aspect of the use
of language, is present in Chomsky’s theory of language.
Furthermore to connect this recent theory to traditional grammars it may be remembered that the
transformation rules described to form i.e. the passive or the reported speech, correspond exactly
to the rules taught from the time of the Latin studies at school to the present teaching of English in
our schools to transform active sentences into passive sentences, and direct speech into reported
speech. The aim of these exercises and the continuous repetitions of the rules in drills and patterns are
to enable the student to handle the correct usage, performance, of grammatical English through the
use of logical constructions.
The labelled trees used to show the sentence structure in TG grammatical analysis is the commonest
form of grammatical analysis in present-day grammar textbooks.
Chomsky affirms that there exists a universal grammar that forms a part of the genetic patrimony of
the human beings, which on having been born, we possess a linguistic basic determinant boss to
whom all the languages are molded. This singular capacity of the human species and the current use
of the language demonstrates the enormous possibilities of the creative potential of the humanity.
According to him, the skill with which the children learn the can be due to that not only the capacity
for the language but also a fundamental grammar they are innate It is almost sure, affirms, that the
persons should not be born ‘programmed’ for a language in particular (a Chinese baby raised in USA
will speak in English identically to a North American while a North American making a detour of people
who speaks Chinese will speak Chinese identically to a Chinese), thus, there exists a universal underlying
grammar to the structure of all the languages. Chomsky will use a system of symbols comparable to
the mathematical operations in order to formulate the operations of such a universal grammar.
Chomsky postulates that some grammatical rules are excessively complex so that the children can
“make them up “, therefore, these skills cannot be ‘acquired’ but they are innate. A child has not
incorporated yet the sufficient information since to be able to elaborate alone a complex new
system without making mistakes.
Thus we must distinguish between:
1. Acquisition of the language: evolutionary spontaneous stage. The mother language is
assimilated with great rapidity and with a minimal stimulus.
2. Learning of the language: later the learning will take place similarly to any type of learning:
through practice, memorization, etc.
Halliday
Developed by M.K. Hallyday sees language in a social context. The theory is functional
rather than formal, it considers language as a resource used for communication, not
as a set of rules. An essential concept of this theory is that each time language is
used, the user is making constant choices. These choices are essentially choices in
meaning but are expressed through intonation, words and grammatical structures.
This theory is also called neo-Firthian linguistics, because it is supposed to follow the
path that Firth left unfinished.
Halliday (1975) identifies seven functions that language has for children in their early years. Children
are motivated to acquire language because it serves certain purposes or functions for them. The
first four functions help the child to satisfy physical, emotional and social needs. Halliday calls them
instrumental, regulatory, interactional, and personal functions.
• Instrumental: This is when the child uses language to express their needs (‘Want juice’)
• Regulatory: This is where language is used to tell others what to do (‘Go away’)
• Interactional: Here language is used to make contact with others and form relationships (‘Love
you, mummy’)
• Personal: This is the use of language to express feelings, opinions and individual identity (‘My
dear friend’)
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The next three functions are heuristic, imaginative, and representational, all helping the child to
come to terms with his or her environment.
• Heuristic: This is when language is used to gain knowledge about the environment (e.g. ‘What
is the tractor doing?’)
• Imaginative: Here language is used to tell stories and jokes, and to create an imaginary
environment.
• Representational: The use of language to convey facts and information.
3. TRANSITION OF THE NORMATIVE GRAMMAR TO THE FUNCTIONAL GRAMMAR
Until the end of the XIX century grammarians were concerned with a type of language:
the standard language, the official one and they advocated for its preservation rejecting
any more constructions as incorrectly. Thus grammar textbooks dealt with rules all over
them. What was correct and what was not acceptable. This type of grammar is the
normative grammar.
The functional approach to grammar which has been a constant development since the beginnings of
structuralism deals more with usage than with rules.
A functional grammar states first the needs of communication among the speakers of a language, or
among the students of it, and then classifies these needs according to several paradigms: the easiest
ones, the most frequent ones, the most relevant ones. In this kind of grammar errors and mistakes are
treated in a very different way from normative grammars. Students are supposed to commit errors through
the process of learning, and errors are not looked upon as something unbearable unless they seriously
damage communication. COMMUNICATION PROFICIENCY IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN
GRAMMAR OR LEXICAL ACCURATENESS, and the student improvement is not evaluated
and asserted on rules but on communicative competence. Linguistic, or communicative
competence is a major goal. It means the ability to transmit successfully an information,
a request, an enquiry, or someone’s thoughts and feelings.
The linguistic theory more related to the functional grammar and communicative approach used
presently in schools and textbooks is pragmatics. Pragmatics is very much concerned with speakers
interpretation of the real world, or the world that is relevant to them, and devotes much thought to the
communicative functions of language. It pays attention to context rather than to meaning, regarding
meaning as a separate entity without reference to the users and communicative functions of sentences.
And finally it is a theory that takes into large account the relationship between speaker and hearer. Both
interested parties.
In the current Spanish educative system, the general objective of English learning is to provide our
students with the necessary knowledge to communicate with people from other countries. In order to
do so, we need to use a communicative methodology that must be flexible and appealing for our
students. Through this type of methodology my students will appreciate the importance of the English
language throughout the world. Therefore, student must always consider that English is only a subject in
the curriculum but a fundamental instrument to communicate around the world. Teachers do not only
transmit grammatical contents. Recently the LOE has grouped the contents into four blocks according
to the needs of teaching and learning process:
1.
2.
3.
4.
Oral language.
Written language.
The constituent elements of the linguistic system, its operations and relations.
The social and cultural dimension of the foreign language.
The contents are called:
• Block I: listening and speaking.
• Block II: reading and writing.
• Block III: subdivided into: knowledge of the language including: Linguistic functions & Grammar,
Lexic, Phonetics, and Reflection on learning.
• Block IV: socio-cultural aspects and intercultural awareness.
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To teach them implies not only to widen their academic knowledge but also to deal with phonology,
grammar, lexicon, semantics and cultural aspects in order to achieve a successful level of communicative
competence.
4. CONCLUSION
To conclude I will highlight the idea that learning English is not just learning a second language, but
discovering a practical usage of it. In this way it is very useful for our students to be aware of the most
important of having a communicative competence in a foreign language, in this case, English language
making use of all the grammatical aspects which can be suitable for our students.
Therefore, this topic is of great importance in the current foreign language curriculum. Our student must be
aware of the radical change that language learning has suffered in the last decades. Long list of vocabulary
and artificial sentences are not longer used. Instead, they must learn language in context and they must
know not only about the language but also about its speakers. Since a language cannot be separated
from its speakers, it is through the acquisition of diverse aspects not only grammar that our students will be
able to understand and communicate in English achieving a proper accuracy of the language.
5. BIBLIOGRAPHY
QUIRK.R // LEECH, G. A Grammar of Contemporary English, Longman, London, 1972
JESPERSEN, O. A Modern English Grammar on Historical Principals, Part VII, Copenhagen, 1949.
Dictionaries:
FOWLER, H.W. A dictionary of Modern English Usage, Oxford 1927.
JONES D. An English Pronunciation Dictionary, London 1972.4
The Oxford English Dictionary.
Referencias legislativas:
ͳͳ Royal decree 1105/2014, of December 26, by which there is established the basic curriculum of the
Secondary Obligatory Education and of the Baccalaureate.
ͳͳ Order ECD/1361/2015, of July 3, by which there is established the curriculum of Secondary Obligatory
Education and Baccalaureate for the area of management of the Department of Education,
Culture and Sport, and its implantation is regulated, as well as the continuous assessment and certain
organizational aspects of the stages.
Webgrafía:
www.wikipedia.org
www.chomsky.info
www.wikipedia.com
www.comunicacion.idoneos.com
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TEMA 36
Los textos dialógicos. Estructura y características.
0. Introduction
1. Definition of a dialoguic text
2. Structure of a dialoguic text
3. Characteristics of dialoguic texts
4. Application in the English classroom
5. Conclusion
6. Bibliography
0. INTRODUCTION
Topic number 36 deals with: Los textos dialógicos. Estructura y características being this an important
part of the teaching-learning process of English.
To begin with I would like to justify this topic in the English curriculum. The previous educative system
mainly focused on grammar and lexical aspects as it was thought that the mastery of a language was
based on the degree of proficiency at grammar level. Hence, generally students were able to apply
the grammatical rules of the language but some of them had problems when using the language orally.
They knew about the language but they did not know how to use it. For this reason, the new Organic Law
LOMCE ”Ley Orgánica para la Mejora de la Calidad Educativa” 8/2013 on December 9th has proposed
a communicative approach to foreign languages. An approach which implies the consideration of not
only grammatical aspects but also communicative, cultural, historical and literal characteristics of the
countries where the English language is spoken.
In this context, this topic number 36 has a relevant role in the English curriculum as it deals with
communicative aspects and it can be a tool to transmit to our students some of the basic and
indispensable competences such as: competence on linguistic communication.
All topics about communicative concepts are interrelated and they will always be treated as a whole.
For example, to understand how oral communication and the different kinds of texts are necessary we
can revise unit 6, 32, 33, 34, 35, 29 which deal with textual elements and functions is essential information
in order to achieve a good understanding of this topic among others, are necessary.
I will divide this topic into three general parts: starting with a definition of dialogic texts. Secondly, I
will continue with the usage and structures of dialogue and its functions including some linguistic
considerations. Finally, to take into account some characteristics totally necessary for the good
understanding of a dialogue.
In this topic we will study one of the most outstanding linguistic speech category in a communicative
process: the Dialogic text. It plays an important role within the learning of any language, for instance in
the conversations, formal and informal texts, and we will be able to communicate in a successful way as
soon as we control all the following structures ad features.
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1. DEFINITION
When analysing the different types of discourse we will bear in mind the main types of text:
• Descriptive texts
• Argumentative texts
• Expository texts
• Dialogical texts
• Narrative texts
All of them have their own features but they could be linked by a common purpose:
“To give information to the reader or listener”
And in this topic we will put emphasis on the Dialogical texts’ main purpose being: verbal exchanges
between at least two persons respecting their turn at the speaking time.
To talk about conversations we should distinguish between spontaneous – a phone call, chatting -,
or non-spontaneous – a planned conversation. Besides, as speakers we will take into account some
factors such as to talk about a concrete topic within a specific context and of course lead by one of
the participants. In short, one of the most remarkable linguist was Halliday (1973) who defined it as an
instrument of social interaction with a clear communicative purpose.
It will be defined as the basic way of interactive and social communication.
According to an American anthropologist sociologist named Hymes (1979), sometimes when using the
language we do not use the appropriate level of language in a certain situation, and we often have
expectations towards the answer of the listener or person to whom we are addressing the message
because some of our expectations are culturally based on.
The field of sociolinguistics concerns itself with the way language is used for communication within the
social group in terms of language use, speech varieties within a community, the language of ethnic
groups, bilingualism and multilingualism.
2. STRUCTURE
From the linguistic point of view, a dialogical text may be divided into the following parts:
TURN
It is defined as the information given by the first speaker before the
second speaker starts to talk or to answer the questions.
PAIR
It is defined as a double turn by two different speakers in many varied
occasions such as questions-replies, greetings, comments...
SEQUENCE
It is defined as the whole communicative process where more than
one turn participates.
Statements in communication always imply a receiver of the information, and statements we make are
often responses to prior statements made by someone else. Wherever we start in examining cultural
expressions in any medium, we are looking at a moment in dialogue: what is said reflects back on
and often quotes what was said before and of course, any statement also implies further statements,
responses and interpretations. In short, what we say and mean is part of an ongoing dialogue.
On the other hand, according to Bakhtin, a well-known Russian linguist, the reader or audience is
therefore always already inscribed in the medium, message, text or visual sign. Discourses, texts, cultural
message presuppose and embody a network of implicit references, gestures, and unmarked quotations
from other works.
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Where traditional dialectical methodology involves thesis and antithesis coming together into synthesis,
dialogue is more open and flexible and it does not pretend to have an end point: the point with dialogue
is not fixed because it lies within the dialogic practise itself.
Dialogic discourse goes beyond the category of Saussure’s “parole” because it is language with a
trajectory: that is inter-active. Dialogic discourse reflects an anti-ideological and anti-hierarchical politics
according to Bakhtin’s work.
3. CHARACTERISTICS OF DIALOGIC TEXTS
Most people define oral communication narrowly, focusing on speaking and listening skills separately.
Traditionally, when people describe speaking skills, they do so in a context of public speaking. Recently,
however, definitions of speaking have been expanded.
One tendency has been to focus on communication activities that reflect a variety of settings: oneto-many, small group, one-to-one, and mass media. Another approach has been to focus on using
communication to achieve specific purposes: to inform, to persuade, and to solve problems. A third
tendency has been to focus on basic competencies needed for everyday life, for example: giving
directions, asking for information, or providing basic information in an emergency situation.
Considering dialogue as an interactive process some main steps should be mentioned:
When organizing the structure of a dialogue, the term of turn will contribute in the
distributions and flow of the conversation. Every participant will wait for their turn in
an ordered way. This will imply natural pauses and silences throughout the whole
conversation in order to incorporate the next speaker.
Turn term
Sequence
term
Moreover, some special features will help in the transmission of the message, that is
the so called back-channellers. They consist of short phrases such as
I see, You know, Right… some noises or small answers: Uh, mmm, ugh.
And, of course, others that provide attention and orientation:
nods, body gestures, gazes, etc.
It provides the order to the conversations. People talking will respect a concrete
order such as rules for arranging the openings, developments and closings of the
conversation. All these factors will vary depending on the context and the topic.
Some examples:
Hey!
Excuse me!
Sorry!
Yes/No
In short, they could be represented by greetings, request for information, orders, etc.
Sometimes one structure will require its equivalent: How are you? Fine, and you?
Interruptions
Silences
They are defined as a way of turn change but causing conflict, opposition and
tension between the participants. It is known that every speaker must speak at a time.
However, in a simultaneous dialogue overlaps may mean a sign of attention.
This communicative strategy will be used in different purposes: the election of speaking
or not speaking, answering or not answering, etc. here, the timing and duration of
each silence will determine if we are dealing with a dramatized meaning or not. Some
examples:
erms, ers, to use long syllables, etc
Other functions carried out by these silences could be the expression of hesitation,
confidence, uncertainty, and in some cases, to create ambiguity and confusion.
Nobody is capable of communicating a sound or word he/she has never listened to before. It is a
practical method where the speaker will have to listen to the message and understand it in order to
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produce a communicative act. It is the principal step when we are trying to reach oral fluency and
accuracy. It involves the understanding, it embodies nods, glances, body movements, non-verbal
noises, etc on the part of the listener.
All these signals will help the speaker to find out if the message has been decoded by the listener.
Listening to different accents from a variety of speakers is also helpful for students to become familiar
with variations they are bound to encounter in lectures and discussions or on radio.
As teachers, we should encourage active, responsive listening and speaking skills. To facilitate this,
teachers should present a suitable methodology clearly with prompts to support listening, on one hand,
– use of voice; on the other, emphasis on key words and sometimes speaking quietly. Teachers are the
best models of language in use and should model gesture, volume and tone.
When we are practicing speaking and listening we should demonstrate and discuss the process. To
obtain a successful result and encourage the students to make eye contact with the listener; to speak
clearly and audibly; to use facial expressions and gestures; to use precise words to convey meaning and
to hold the attention of the audience and to respond to others’ contributions by adding or elaborating on
them or by expressing an alternative point of view. Students will be provided with models of appropriate
use of English language.
It is essential that students are provided with planned opportunities for speaking in a range of contexts,
including: to different audiences, such as class, the teacher and other adults; with different levels of
formality such as with peers, to another class, a whole-school assembly and for different purposes, such as
telling stories, explaining, describing, justifying views and persuading others. Furthermore, students need to
be taught how to make more extended contributions, such as expanding ideas using connectives; making
connections between reasoning and predicting; using language to organize and sequence ideas.
Dialogue, as an event that occurs between people is an abstract and relative force. Every text – an
image, film, musical composition…- is a mosaic of references to other texts, genres, and discourses. Every
text or set of signs implies a set of relationships to other signs like quotations that have lost their exact
references. The concept of intertextuality is a condition for meaning beyond “texts” in the strict sense
of things written, and includes units of meaning in any media. Whatever meaning we discover can only
occur through a network of prior texts that provide the context of possible meanings and our negotiation
of meaning at all.
4. APPLICATIONS IN THE ENGLISH CLASSROOM
This analysis is an attempt to investigate, theoretically as well as practically, certain important concepts
in foreign language learning: dialogue, communication, intercultural and language awareness, and
the roles of teacher and student. It presents and discusses approaches to literature and other authentic
texts in the classroom based on theoretical explorations of the relationship between reader and text and
reading and writing processes as dynamic dialogues with the Foreign culture.
According to Robin Alexander, dialogic teaching is an approach to teaching the power of talking to
stimulate and extend pupils’ thinking and advance their learning and understanding.
Dialogic teaching is as much about the teacher as the learner, and relates to
teaching across the curriculum. It embodies the terms of collectivity, reciprocity,
support, dialogic teaching draws on recent psychological research on children’s
development. The approach links with the work of Bakhtin, Bruner, and others as
well as with new developments in cultural psychology and activity theory.
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5. cONCLUSION
To conclude I will highlight the idea that learning English is not just learning a second language, but
discovering a practical usage of it. In this way it is very useful for our students to be aware of the most
important of having a communicative competence in a foreign language, in this case, English language
making use of all the grammatical aspects which can be suitable for our students.
In this study we have attempted to take a fairly view of the distinction between Dialogic texts and the
other types of texts we can see a connection between its learning and the communicative process.
Here, we will present our students the whole set of dialogic text features in English Language regarding
to their form, function and usage of their parts.
To teach them implies not only to widen their academic knowledge but also to deal with phonology,
grammar, lexicon, and semantics in order to achieve a successful level of communicative competence.
This linguistic and communicative information will be taken into practice in our everyday speech and this
must encourage our students to have the best management of it.
We must not forget that it will be present in the teaching-learning process from the lowest levels in the
first cycle of CSE since second of Bachillerato where our students will be completing their knowledge in
a progressive way.
Therefore, this topic is of great importance in the current foreign language curriculum. Since a language
cannot be separated from its speakers, it is through the acquisition of communicative aspects that our students
will be able to understand and communicate in English achieving a proper accuracy of the language.
6. BIBLIOGRAPHY
QUIRK.R // LEECH, G. A Grammar of Contemporary English, Longman, London, 1972
JESPERSEN, O. A Modern English Grammar on Historical Principals, Part VII, Copenhagen, 1949.
ECKERSLEY, C. E. A Comprehensive English Grammar for Foreign Students, Longman, Marlow, 1960
THOMSON, A.J AND MARTINET, A.V. A practical English Grammar, Oxford University Press, 1969.
Dictionaries:
FOWLER, H.W. A dictionary of Modern English Usage, Oxford 1927.
JONES D. An English Pronunciation Dictionary, London 1972.4
The Oxford English Dictionary
Referencias legislativas:
ͳͳ Royal decree 1105/2014, of December 26, by which there is established the basic curriculum of the
Secondary Obligatory Education and of the Baccalaureate.
ͳͳ Order ECD/1361/2015, of July 3, by which there is established the curriculum of Secondary Obligatory
Education and Baccalaureate for the area of management of the Department of Education,
Culture and Sport, and its implantation is regulated, as well as the continuous assessment and certain
organizational aspects of the stages.
Webgrafía:
www.wikipedia.org
www.comunicacion.idoneos.com
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