1. Introduction
Conversations are often a part of my classroom teaching. I have used this to teach target language or to introduce functional language such as to interrupt, agree or disagree etc. This has always been something that is appreciated by my learners; however as a teacher this has never been done with conscious effort or to let students ‘express themselves’ per se or backed up by theoretical underpinning. I have chosen to focus on turn-taking in conversation for opinions hoping to learn more about it and thus making learning more meaningful for my learners in turn.
2. Analysis
2.1 Speaking
Both Thornbury (2005:1) and Bygate (1987:vii) refer to speaking as undervalued and taken for granted. It is so innate and natural that it is …show more content…
sorry? Pardon?
Actual Message: This is the core message in the utterance for the listener (Dornyei and Thurrell 1994:45). The function is the purpose for the interaction within a given situation. Guntermann and Phillips (1982:5) define functions as the hundreds of purposes for which people communicate.
• Language functions such as agreeing, asking for opinion, making suggestions, etc. play a very important role. They are expressed through chunks, e.g. ‘What do think about this, John’?
Social and cultural context determines conversation is in many ways. Lack of knowledge of societal and cultural norms in conversations can lead to blunders and may seem offensive to others (Dornyei and Thurrell 1994:46). For example,
• The way we speak to people in a formal or an informal setting, it shows our awareness of the norms. When we speak to friends, we can get away with colloquial phrases such as ‘hang on’ but when we speak to professors or superiors for example our language changes. E.g. ‘If I could add something …show more content…
Michael Agar (1994: 172) writes: “Someone talks, and I lie back and listen and let them roll for a while. When they’re done, there’ll be a pause that will flash like a green light to announce that someone else can have the floor”. I believe turn-taking is a way to equally participate in a conversation.
However, there is a lot more to turn taking as Sacks, Schegloff, and Jefferson (1974) propose in their paper ‘A Simplest Systematics for the Organisation of Turn –Taking for Conversation’
They give a robust system to analyse turn-taking in conversation. It is through this study that we understand turn taking a little better. The core of the system is as follows:
1. Current speaker selects next speaker
2. Self-selection by non-speaker
3. Current speaker continues.
This keeps two important things in place: a) one speaker at any one time talks and b) it prevents long awkward pause. They claim that the conversation in real time is not meant to give equal opportunity to participants; it has no fixed pattern or number of speakers (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turn-taking.) The researchers did not specify any linguistic means to fulfil these rules but it is obvious that there are linguistic (and non linguistic) cues to do
Conversations are often a part of my classroom teaching. I have used this to teach target language or to introduce functional language such as to interrupt, agree or disagree etc. This has always been something that is appreciated by my learners; however as a teacher this has never been done with conscious effort or to let students ‘express themselves’ per se or backed up by theoretical underpinning. I have chosen to focus on turn-taking in conversation for opinions hoping to learn more about it and thus making learning more meaningful for my learners in turn.
2. Analysis
2.1 Speaking
Both Thornbury (2005:1) and Bygate (1987:vii) refer to speaking as undervalued and taken for granted. It is so innate and natural that it is …show more content…
sorry? Pardon?
Actual Message: This is the core message in the utterance for the listener (Dornyei and Thurrell 1994:45). The function is the purpose for the interaction within a given situation. Guntermann and Phillips (1982:5) define functions as the hundreds of purposes for which people communicate.
• Language functions such as agreeing, asking for opinion, making suggestions, etc. play a very important role. They are expressed through chunks, e.g. ‘What do think about this, John’?
Social and cultural context determines conversation is in many ways. Lack of knowledge of societal and cultural norms in conversations can lead to blunders and may seem offensive to others (Dornyei and Thurrell 1994:46). For example,
• The way we speak to people in a formal or an informal setting, it shows our awareness of the norms. When we speak to friends, we can get away with colloquial phrases such as ‘hang on’ but when we speak to professors or superiors for example our language changes. E.g. ‘If I could add something …show more content…
Michael Agar (1994: 172) writes: “Someone talks, and I lie back and listen and let them roll for a while. When they’re done, there’ll be a pause that will flash like a green light to announce that someone else can have the floor”. I believe turn-taking is a way to equally participate in a conversation.
However, there is a lot more to turn taking as Sacks, Schegloff, and Jefferson (1974) propose in their paper ‘A Simplest Systematics for the Organisation of Turn –Taking for Conversation’
They give a robust system to analyse turn-taking in conversation. It is through this study that we understand turn taking a little better. The core of the system is as follows:
1. Current speaker selects next speaker
2. Self-selection by non-speaker
3. Current speaker continues.
This keeps two important things in place: a) one speaker at any one time talks and b) it prevents long awkward pause. They claim that the conversation in real time is not meant to give equal opportunity to participants; it has no fixed pattern or number of speakers (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turn-taking.) The researchers did not specify any linguistic means to fulfil these rules but it is obvious that there are linguistic (and non linguistic) cues to do