Introduction to Applied English Linguistics winter semester 200203

1
Introduction to Applied English Linguistics-
winter semester 2002/03 -
PART I
Prof Dr Kurt Kohn University of Tübingen Chair of
Applied English Linguistics kurt.kohn_at_uni-tuebinge
n.de
This lecture is organised in two parts. In the
first part, I will give a review of main trends
in the development of modern linguistic theory
structuralism, generative grammar, pragmatics,
discourse analysis. Particular attention will be
given to complementary models of language
(system, knowledge, use) with an emphasis on
cognitive approaches. In the second part, I will
give an introduction to theoretical and empirical
dimensions of applied linguistics from the
perspective of second language research. This
mainly includes second language learning and
teaching, bilingualism and bilingual education,
translation and interpreting.
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Contents

• PART I
• (1) Getting started 24 Oct
• (2) First orientation 24, 31 Oct
• (3) Dimensions of language 7, 14, 21 Nov
• PART II
• (4) Translation interpreting 5 Dec
• (5) Second language acquisition
  learning 12, 19 Dec
• (6) Second language teaching 9 Jan
• (7) Bilingualism and bilingual education 16
  Jan
• (8) Language testing 23 Jan
• (9) Prof Nigel Holden The language of
  management 30 Jan (?)
• (10) Language learning with multimedia web 6,
  13 Feb

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Part I
(1) Getting started 24 Oct
(2) First orientation 24, 31 Oct
(3) Dimensions and models of Language 7, 14, 21
Nov
4
Getting started

• Teach me and I forget - Tell me and I remember -
  Involve me and I learn. (Benjamin Franklin)
• ? Lecture with active participation!

back
5
First Orientation Structure and Meaning
What do little boys and girls do when they are
somping (pomping, momping) aimlessly in the
school yard?
The farmer killed the bear
Agricola necavit ursum
Old men and women are dangerous
They are visiting fishermen
Flying planes can be dangerous
back
6
First Orientation Phonetic processing
phonological categories
The eighth tall bottle fell of the tray last
night
The fifth tall bottle fell of the tray last
night
back
7
First Orientation Bottom up top down
Guess what?
?????????????????????
back
8
First Orientation Whats in a language
Far back in the mists of ancient time, in the
great and glorious days of the former . . .
. . . Galactic Empire, life was wild, rich and
largely tax-free.
Douglas Adams, Hitch-hikers guide to the galaxy
figure
9
First Orientation Whats in a language?
Cognitive
Processing
Linguistic Knowledge
Discourse
World Knowledge
Comprehension
Production
next
10
First Orientation Whats in a language
Do you have a watch?
No, sorry. But I think its about six
figure
11
First Orientation Whats in a language?
Cognitive
Processing
Linguistic Knowledge
Communicative situation
Communicative intentions
Discourse
World Knowledge
Comprehension
Production
next
12
First Orientation Whats in a language
Do you smoke? No thanks. Oh, I wasnt offering. I
just wanted to know if you did.
Harry Kemelman, Sunday the Rabbi stayed home.
figure
13
First Orientation Whats in a language?
Cognitive
Processing
Linguistic Knowledge
Communicative situation
Communicative intentions
Discourse
World Knowledge
Comprehension
Production
Social interaction
14
Dimensions models of Language
Basic principles of structuralism
Constituent structure
Models A few interim remarks
Grammatical competence
Communicative competence
Speech act theory
From sentence to utterance meaning
Discourse discourse processing
Language as cognition
15
Dimensions models of Language Basic principles
of structuralism
Leonard Bloomfield (1933). Language. London
George Allen Unwin.
Pauls Principles ? Hermann Paul (1880).
Prinzipien der Sprachgeschichte. Halle ? suffers
from faults that seem obvious today, because they
are significant of the limitations of
nineteenth-century linguistics. (p. 16) . One
of these faults is Pauls neglect of descriptive
language study. He admitted that descriptions of
languages were necessary, but confined his actual
discussion to matters of linguistic change.
? descriptive (i.e. synchronic) language study
16
Dimensions models of Language Basic
principles of structuralism
The other great weakness of Pauls Principles is
his insistence upon psychological
interpretation. He accompanies his statements
about language with a paraphrase in terms of
mental processes which the speakers are supposed
to have undergone. The only evidence for these
mental processes is the linguistic process they
add nothing to the discussion, but only obscure
it. (p.17)
? empirical (i.e. non-psychological,
non-mentalistic study of language
17
Dimensions models of Language Basic
principles of structuralism
In order to describe a language one needs no
historical knowledge whatever in fact, the
observer who allows such knowledge to affect his
description, is bound to distort his data. Our
descriptions must be unprejudiced, if they are to
give a sound basis for comparative work. The only
useful generalizations about language are
inductive generalizations. (p. 19/20)
? synchronic description ? inductive
generalizations (based on observable
data) ? discovery procedures (e.g. Z. Harris.
From morpheme to utterance)
18
Dimensions models of Language Basic
principles of structuralism
The discrimination of elegant or correct
speech is a by-product of certain social
conditions. The linguist has to observe it as he
observes other linguistic phenomena. The fact
that speakers label a speech-form as good nor
'correct', or else as bad or incorrect, is
merely a part of the linguists data concerning
this speech-form. Needless to say, it does not
permit him to ignore part of his material or to
falsify his records he observes all speech-forms
impartially. (p. 20)
? description vs. prescription ? (inductive
generalizations based on) observable data
(corpus
19
Dimensions models of Language Basic
principles of structuralism
Jack and Jill are walking down a lane. Jill is
hungry. She sees an apple in a tree. She makes a
noise with her larynx, tongue, and lips. Jack
vaults the fence, climbs the tree, takes the
apple, brings it to Jill, and places it in her
hand. Jill eats the apple. (p. 22
20
Dimensions models of Language Basic
principles of structuralism
In this succession of events, Bloomfield
distinguishes three parts (p. 23 ff.) (A)
Practical events preceding the act of speech.
speakers stimulus S (practical stimulus) (B)
Speech r . . . . s (linguistic substitute
stimulus/reaction) (C) Practical events following
the act of speech hearers response R
(practical reaction)
Two human ways of responding to a
stimulus speechless reaction S ??????
R reaction mediated by speech S ??? (r . . . . .
s) ??? R
21
Dimensions models of Language Basic
principles of structuralism
The difference between the two types is evident.
The speechless reaction occurs always in the same
person as does the stimulus the person who gets
the stimulus is the only one who can make the
response. The response, accordingly, is limited
to whatever actions the receiver of the stimulus
can make. In contrast with this, the reaction
mediated by speech may occur in a person who did
not get the practical stimulus the person who
gets a stimulus can prompt another person to make
a response, and this other person may be able to
do things which the speaker cannot. (p. 26) The
speech-occurrence, s . . . . r, is merely a means
by which S and R may occur in different
individuals. (p. 26)
22
Dimensions models of Language Basic
principles of structuralism
Human speech differs from the signal-like
actions of animals, even of those which use the
voice, by its great differentiation. Dogs, for
instance, make only two or three kinds of noise
say, barking, growling, and whining a dog can
set another dog acting by means of only these few
different signals. Parrots can make a great many
kinds of noise, but apparently do not make
different responses to different sounds. Man
utters many kinds of vocal noise and makes use of
the variety under certain types of stimuli he
produces certain vocal sounds, and his fellows,
hearing these same sounds, make the appropriate
response. To put it briefly, in human speech,
different sounds have different meanings. To
study this co-ordination of certain sounds with
certain meanings is to study language. (p.
27) (also compare de Saussure!!)
23
Dimensions models of Language Basic
principles of structuralism
A group of people who use the same system of
speech-signals is a speech-community. . . . . .
. Every child that is born into a group acquires
these habits of speech and response in the first
years of his life. (p. 29) ? the learning is
based on repetition and imitation (pp. 29-31)
back
24
Dimensions models of Language Constituent
structure
Bloomfield (1933) on immediate constituents Any
English-speaking person who concerns himself with
this matter, is sure to tell us that the
immediate constituents of Poor John ran away are
the two forms poor John and ran away that each
of these is, in turn, a complex form that the
immediate constituents of ran away are ran and
away and that the constituents of poor John are
poor and John.
25
Dimensions models of Language Constituent
structure
John Lyons (1968 210 ff) Sentences are not
just linear sequences of elements, but are made
up of layers of immediate constituents, each
lower-level constituent being part of a higher
level constituent.
26
Dimensions models of Language Constituent
structure
? (Poor John) (ran away) ?
X Y Z Poor John ran away
Constituent structure and ambiguityThey are
visiting fishermen
27
Dimensions models of Language Constituent
structure
Distributional analysis Every linguistic unit (
... ) is to a greater or lesser degree restricted
with respect to the contexts in which it can
occur. This fact is expressed by saying that
every linguistic unit (below the level of
sentences) has a characteristic distribution. If
two (or more) units occur in the same range of
contexts they are said to be distributionally
equivalent (or to have the same
distribution). (John Lyons 196870)
28
Dimensions models of Language Constituent
structure
Distributional classification of
constituents(substitution classes)
Poor John ran way Poor John wrote a book Poor
John is eating Poor John is a nice guy
Poor John ran way Sally ran away My horse ran
away She ran away
NP noun phrase
VP verb phrase
back
29
Models A few interim remarks
What is a model ?
And what do we need them for?
Diagrams activities statements
Mapsactivities statements
Objects meanings construction rules
30
Models A few interim remarks
Models of language
And what we need them for
??(Poor)A (John)N ?NP ?(ran)V (awayP)?VP ?S

• Phrase structure Grammar
• Objects meanings construction rules
• Activities statements

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31
Grammatical competence Grammar of L
Noam Chomsky (1957). Syntactic structures. The
Hague Mouton. Noam Chomsky (1964). Aspects
of the theory of syntax. Cambridge, Mass.
MIT Press.
From now on I will consider a language to be a
set (finite or infinite) of sentences, each
finite in length and constructed out of a finite
set of elements. All natural languages in their
spoken or written form are languages in this
sense, since each natural language has a finite
number of phonemes (or letters in its alphabet)
and each sentence is representable as a finite
sequence of these phonemes (or letters), though
there are infinitely many sentences.
Noam Chomsky (1957 13)
32
Grammatical competence Grammar of L
The fundamental aim in the linguistic analysis
of a language L is to separate the grammatical
sequences which are the sentences of L from the
ungrammatical sequences which are not sentences
of L and to study the structure of the
grammatical sequences.
The grammar of L will thus be a device that
generates all of the grammatical sequences of L
and none of the ungrammatical ones.
Noam Chomsky (1957 13)
33
Grammatical competence Grammar of L
. . . we assume intuitive knowledge of the
grammatical sentences of English and ask what
sort of grammar will be able to do the job of
producing these in some effective and
illuminating way. We thus face the familiar task
of explication of some intuitive concept in
this case, the concept grammatical in English,
and more generally, the concept grammatical.
Noam Chomsky (1957 13)
34
Grammatical competence Grammar of L
First, it is obvious that the set of grammatical
sentences cannot be identified with any
particular corpus of utterances obtained by the
linguist in his field work. Any grammar of a
language will project the finite and somewhat
accidental corpus of observed utterances to a set
(presumably infinite) of grammatical utterances.
In this respect, a grammar mirrors the behavior
of the speaker who, on the basis of a finite and
accidental experience with language, can produce
or understand an indefinite number of new
sentences.
Indeed, any explication of the notion
grammatical in L (i.e., any characterization of
grammatical in L in terms of observed
utterances of L) can be thought of as offering
an explanation of this fundamental aspect of
linguistic behavior.
Noam Chomsky (1957 15)
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Grammatical competence Grammar of L
Second, the notion grammatical cannot be
identified with meaningful or significant in
any semantic sense. Sentences (1) and (2) are
equally nonsensical, but any speaker of English
will recognize that only the former is
grammatical. (Chomsky 1957 15)
Colorless green ideas sleep furiously. Furiously
sleep ideas green colorless
Third, the notion grammatical in English
cannot be identified in any way with the notion
high order of statistical approximation to
English. (Chomsky 1957 15/16)
One requirement that a grammar must certainly
meet is that it be finite. Hence the grammar
cannot simply be a list of all morpheme (or word)
sequences, since there are infinitely many of
these. (1957 18)
36
Grammatical competence Phrase structure grammar
Derivation Sentence NP VP T N VP T N
Verb NP the N Verb NP the man Verb
NP the man hit NP the man hit T
N the man hit the N the man hit the
ball
Phrase structure rules (rewrite
rules) Sentence ? NP VP NP ? T N VP ? Verb
NP T ? the N ? man, ball Verb ? hit, took
Tree diagram
37
Grammatical competence Limitations of PSG
(1) Conjunction the scene of the movie was in
Chicago the scene of the play was in
Chicago the scene of the movie and of the play
was in Chicago   the liner sailed down the
river the tugboat chugged up the river the
liner sailed down the and tugboat chugged up the
- river
(2) active-passive relation (3) Flying planes can
be dangerous
? surface structure / deep structure ?
transformational rules
38
Grammatical competence Linguistic ( grammatical
) competence
"Linguistic theory is concerned primarily with an
ideal speaker-listener, in a completely
homogeneous speech-community, who knows its
language perfectly and is unaffected by such
grammatically irrelevant conditions as memory
limitations, distractions, shifts of attention
and interest, and errors (random or
characteristic) in allying his knowledge of the
language in actual performance."
Noam Chomsky 1964 3
39
Grammatical competence Linguistic ( grammatical
) competence
"We thus make a fundamental distinction between
competence (the speaker-hearer's knowledge of his
language) and performance (the actual use of
language in concrete situations).
In actual fact, it ?performance? obviously could
not directly reflect competence. A record of
natural speech will show numerous false starts,
deviations from rules, changes of plan in
mid-course, and so on.
The problem for the linguist, as well as for the
child learning the language, is to determine from
the data of performance the underlying system of
rules that has been mastered by the
speaker-hearer and that he puts to use in actual
performance.
Hence, in a technical sense, linguistic theory is
mentalistic, since it is concerned with
discovering a mental reality underlying actual
behavior."
Noam Chomsky 1964 4
back
40
Communicative competence The initial observation
Hymes, D. (1972). On communicative competence. In
J. B. Pride J. Holmes (eds.). Sociolinguistics.
Harmondsworth Penguin.
"Consider now a child with just that ability. A
child who might produce any sentence whatever
such a child would be likely to be
institutionalized even more so if not only
sentences, but also speech or silence was random,
unpredictable." (Hymes 1972 4)
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Communicative competence The scope
"We have then to account for the fact that a
normal child acquires knowledge of sentences, not
only as grammatical, but also as appropriate. He
or she? acquires competence as to when to speak,
when not, and as to what to talk about with whom,
when, where, in what manner. In short, a child
becomes able to accomplish a repertoire of speech
acts, to take part in speech events, and to
evaluate their accomplishment by others.
This competence, moreover, is integral with
attitudes, values, and motivations concerning
language, its features and uses, and integral
with competence for, and attitudes toward, the
interrelation of language with the other code of
communicative conduct ?viz. social interaction?."
(Hymes 1972 277-278)
42
Communicative competence A model
Canale, M. Swain, M. (1980). Theoretical bases
of communicative approaches to language teaching
and testing. Applied Linguistics 1/1, 1-47.
"Communicative competence is composed minimally
of grammatical competence, sociolinguistic
competence, and communication strategies, or what
we will refer to as strategic competence."
(Canale Swain 1980 27)
43
Communicative competence?? Grammatical
competence ??
???? Grammatical Competence as part
of Communicative Competence ????
back
44
Models of Language Speech act theory
Austin, J. L. (1952/62). How to do things with
words. Cambridge, Mass. Harvard UP. Searle, J.
R. (1969). Speech acts an essay in the
philosophy of language. Cambridge Cambridge
University Press. Searle, J. R. (1979).
Expression and meaning. Studies in the theory of
speech acts. Cambridge Cambridge University
Press.
Speakers use language to perform acts they e.g.
They make statements
They ask questions
They make requests
They issue warnings
They make predictions
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Speech act theory Austin's argument

• background truth-conditional semantics of
  declarative (!) sentences

!
!
The world is round. I name this ship the Queen
Elizabeth.
?
?

• As a consequence, Austin distinguishes between

Constatives say things The world is round. John
runs down the street.
Performatives do things I name this ship the
Queen Elizabeth. I bet it will rain tomorrow. I
declare war on Fantasyland. I dub thee Sir
Walter. I apologise.
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Speech act theoryFelicity conditions according
to Austin
These are conditions performatives must meet if
they are to succeed. Austin distinguishes three
main categories
A. (1) conventional procedure with conventional
effect (2) appropriate persons and
circumstances
I hereby divorce you.
I declare war on Fantasyland.
B. (1) correct execution of the
procedure (2) complete execution
Marriage ceremony I it pleases you. Ill do
my best.
I bet you six pence it will rain tomorrow -
You're on.
C. (1) speaker's thoughts, feelings, intentions
as required (2) consequent conduct as specified
in the procedure
I find you guilty.
I promise to be there.
"misfires"
"abuses"
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Speech act theory3 dimensions

• Three different (but inseparable) aspects of
  meaning can be distinguished in each utterance
  (Austin different 'forces')

It's me again.

• 1. conveys the proposition that ...

the speaker has returned to a place s/he was
before

• locutionary force

an (intended) apology for troubling someone a
second time
2. counts as ...

• illocutionary force

3. will have effects on the hearer ...
which are not necessarily intended (e.g.
disturbing the addressee)

• perlocutionary force

48
Speech act theoryIndirect speech acts
Open the window.
Can you open the window.
I want you to open the window.
Dont you think its rather hot in here?
back
49
Models of Language From sentence to utterance
meaning
Blakemore, D. (1992). Understanding
utterances Sperber,D. D. Wilson (1986).
Relevance theory
A Did you enjoy your holiday? B The beaches
were crowded and the hotel was full of bugs
50
Models of Language From sentence to utterance
meaning
A Did you enjoy your holiday? B The beaches
were crowded and the hotel was full of bugs
Blakemore distinguishes between  (1)
Explicatures assumptions that are explicated, ie
explicitly communicated, eg The beaches at the
holiday resort that the speaker went to were
crowded with people and the hotel where he stayed
was full of insects   (2) Implicatures
assumptions that are implicated, ie implicitly
communicated, eg The speaker did not enjoy his
holiday
51
Models of Language From sentence to utterance
meaning
A Did you enjoy your holiday? B The beaches
were crowded and the hotel was full of bugs
Explicatures flesh out a linguistically encoded
semantic representation. While they go beyond the
meaning of the words uttered, they are
nevertheless directly dependent on those
meanings. Implicatures are inferred from these
fleshed-out semantic representations. The
recovery of an implicature presupposes the
hearer's understanding of what the speaker has
said. ? Pragmatic interpretation contextual
information and the Principle of Relevance are
involved in the recovery of both explicatures and
implicatures.
52
Models of Language From sentence to utterance
meaning
A Did you enjoy your holiday? B The beaches
were crowded and the hotel was full of bugs
" . . . by context we mean the beliefs and
assumptions the hearer constructs for the
interpretation of an utterance either on the
basis of her perceptual abilities or on the basis
of the assumption she has stored in memory or on
the basis of her interpretation of previous
utterances." (Blakemore, p. 87) 
back
53
Models of Language Discourse and discourse
processing
Halliday, M.A.K. R. Hasan (1976). Cohesion in
English. Longman Brown, G. G. Yule (1983).
Discourse analysis. CUP
From discourse as object to discourse as process
54
Discourse and discourse processing Cohesion and
coherence
 Douglas had given him the impression that some
danger was hanging over his head, and he always
looked upon his sudden departure from California,
and also his renting a house in so quiet a place
in England, as being connected with this peril.
He imagined that some secret society, some
implacable organization, was on Douglass track
which would never rest until it killed him. Some
remarks of his had given him this idea, though he
had never told him what the society was, nor how
he had come to offend it. He could only suppose
that the legend upon the placard had some
reference to this secret society. (The
Valley of Fear, p. 50)
55
Discourse and discourse processing Language in
use
"A text is a unit of language in use. It is not a
grammatical unit like a clause or a sentence and
it is not defined by its size. A text is
sometimes envisaged to be some kind of
super-sentence, a grammatical unit that is larger
than a sentence but is related to a sentence in
the same way that a sentence is related to a
clause, a clause to a group and so on by
CONSTITUENCY, the composition of larger units out
of smaller ones. But this is misleading. A text
is not something that is like a sentence, only
bigger it is something that differs from a
sentence in kind. " (Halliday Hasan, p. 1ff.)
56
Discourse and discourse processing Discourse as
a semantic unit
"A text is best regarded as a SEMANTIC unit a
unit not of form but of meaning. Thus it is
related to a clause or sentence not by size but
by REALIZATION, the coding of one symbolic system
in another. A text does not CONSIST of sentences
it is REALIZED BY, or encoded in, sentences. If
we understand it in this way, we shall not expect
to find the same kind of STRUCTURAL integration
among the parts of a text as we find among the
parts of a sentence or clause. The unity of a
text is a unity of a different kind." (Halliday
Hasan, p. 1ff.)
57
Discourse and discourse processing Texture
Wash and core six cooking apples. Put them into a
fireproof dish.
The concept of TEXTURE is entirely appropriate
to express the property of being a text. A text
has texture, and this is what distinguishes it
from something that is not a text. It derives
this texture from the fact that it functions as a
unity with respect to its environment. What we
are investigating in this book are the resources
that English has for creating texture."
(Halliday Hasan p. 2)
58
Discourse and discourse processing Cohesion
Wash and core six cooking apples. Put them into a
fireproof dish.
But there is one specific kind of meaning
relation that is critical for the creation of
texture that in which ONE ELEMENT IS INTERPRETED
BY REFERENCE TO ANOTHER. What cohesion has to do
with is the way in which the meaning of the
elements is interpreted. Where the interpretation
of any item in the discourse requires making
reference to some other item in the discourse,
there is cohesion." (Halliday Hasan p.11)
59
Discourse and discourse processing Train
desaster
Train Disaster Bernard used all his strength to
push the speed control towards "zero", and closed
his eyes. It was too late. With a screeching
noise and a deafening crash, the train hit the
truck and both shattered to pieces against the
steep bare wall of the mountain. Chunks of
wagons, passenger seats, and parts of bodies were
flung through the air, and landed hard on the
rails or rolled lifelessly down towards the lake.
When everything was finally still, the scene was
covered in rubble and dust, as if a battle had
taken place.
"Don't worry, sonny," he heard his father say,
"we'll get you a new one for your birthday. But
don't go so fast next time!" The boy wiped his
tears and went to fetch the vacuum cleaner.
60
World(s) in the Mind
Faces
Tea-potting
Ceci nest pas une pipe
61
Constructing Mental Worlds 1 (remote control and
co-operativity)
John was on his way to school.
Last week he had been unable to control the
class.
It was unfair of the math teacher to leave him
in charge.
After all, it is not a normal part of a
janitor's duties.
62
Constructing Mental Worlds 2 (bottom up top
down)
Through the fence, between the curling flower
spaces, I could see them hitting. They were
coming toward where the flag was and I went along
the fence. Luster was hunting in the grass by the
flower tree. They took the flag out, and they
were hitting. Then they put the flag back and
they went to the table, and he hit and the other
hit. They went on, and I went along the fence.
Luster came away from the flower tree and we went
along the fence and they stopped and I looked
through the fence while Luster was hunting in the
grass.
(William Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury)
63
Constructing Mental Worlds 3 (up the garden
path)
Far back in the mists of ancient time, in the
great and glorious days of the . . .
. . . former Galactic Empire, life was wild, rich
and largely tax free.
(Douglas Adams, Hitch-Hikers Guide to the Galaxy)
64
Discourse and discourse processing Discourse as
process
"We do not see an advantage in trying to
determine constitutive formal features which a
text must possess to qualify as a 'text'. Texts
are what hearers and readers treat as texts."
(Brown Yule, p. 199)
Mental Modelling / Constructing Mental Worlds
Linguistic knowledge, Contextual knowledge World
knowledge
Cohesion and coherence
Bottom up top down
Back to our central questionWhat kind of model
of language is involved ?
65
Once again Whats in a language?
Cognitive
Processing
Linguistic Knowledge
Communicative situation
Communicative intentions
Discourse
World Knowledge
Comprehension
Production
Social interaction