Re: Bakhtin and genre and... language learning

From: Phil Chappell (phil_chappell@access.inet.co.th)
Date: Mon May 12 2003 - 02:53:17 PDT


At 18:41 11/5/03 -0400, Jay wrote:
>We are rarely given a specific task to accomplish, with language, within
>the activity scene. Or to be less task-driven about it, we are not often
>helped to see what new opportunities for us to make various language moves
>are opened up at each point in the dialogue and action. What can we do
>now? What can we say now? what are the options? Speech genres and action
>genres are just scaffolds, or skeletons. We need to put flesh on the
>bones, take advantage of the scaffolded opportunities, and DO something,
>in part with words. The point should not just be to get through the
>sequence without embarassment.

Thanks (as usual) for your take on Bakhtin, Hasan and Martin, Jay. And your
comments about how we can help learners do things through language while
learning more about how language unfolds in activity, rather than relying
on the homogenised content of course books fits with what I am working on.
My little description of a conversational turn that doesn't match the
intent of the interactant(s) wasn't meant to portray an embarrassing
moment, but rather, as you say, it could be used as an analytical scaffold
for the learners. The work of Eggins and Slade uses Bakhtinian theory as
well as the work of Fairclough and Kress to introduce a more critical
element to the discursive relations of power at all levels of the system,
which I find in my context important, not because the learners need to be
able to engage with others as NS-like 'language experts', but partly
because they often need to be able go about their daily lives using English
to engage with other NNS's from neighbouring countries. The last thing many
students I have worked with want is to sound or act like a "westerner", but
they do want to be able to converse with them on some kind of equal footing.

Phil

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