1- A definition of CORPUS Uses of corpora

A corpus is a collection of texts, written or spoken, which

is stored on a computer. It is a principled (there is a
structure, there are rules and specifications) collection of
texts available for qualitative (how it is used) and
quantitative (number of occurrences) analysis. Any old
(not new any) collection of texts does not make a
corpus. It must be representative. For example, if we
wished to build a corpus about to represent classroom
discourse in ELT, we would have to create a design that
would ideally capture all the essential variables of age,
gender, location, type of school (state or private), level,
teacher, class groups (large, small, one-to-one),
locations, nationalities and so on.
Because corpora are stored on a computer, an especially
design software is used. Language corpora can be
composed of written or spoken texts, or a mix of both. If
it is written, texts may be entering by scanning, typing,
downloading from the internet or by using files that
already exist. Spoken corpora are much more time
consuming to assemble. It may be coded for different
speaker turns, interruptions, speaker overlaps, truncated
utterances, extra-linguistic information such as giggling
, door closes in background, dog barking
We can look at a language feature in a corpus in different
ways. We can look beyond the frequency of the word's
occurrence.
2- Dictionaries and corpora
There is no one corpus to suit all purposes. Some may
wish to use a corpus for research purposes to study how
a lexical item or pattern is used. A corpus may also be
utilized for reference purposes. The advantage of looking
up a lexico-grammatical enquiry in a corpus is that it

provides us with many examples of the search item in its

context of use. However, a corpus will not tell us the
meaning of the word or phrase. Combining a dictionary
and a corpus can be a valuable route in a pedagogical
context.
What constitutes a large or small corpus, it depends on
whether it is a spoken or written corpus and what is
seeking to represent. For example, a corpus containing
only highly technical engineering language will be
inappropriate for largely teacher trainees wanting to
investigate general vocabulary.
3- Corpus techniques: concordancing and wordlists
Concordancing
It is a core tool and it simply means using corpus
software to find every occurrence of a particular word or
phrase. The search word is often referred to as the node
and concordance lines are usually presented with the
node word/phrase in the center of the line with seven or
eight words presented at either side. These are known as
Key-Word-In-Context concordances (KWIC). Concordance
lines are usually scanned vertically at first glance.
Concordance lines challenge the reader to go through
them in an entirely new way, vertically or from left to
right.
Word frequency counts or wordlists
By running a wordlist on your corpus, you can get a rank
ordering of all the words in it order of frequency. This
function facilitates enquiry across different corpora,
different language varieties and different contexts of use.
Tendencies of using different items are based on genres
and contexts of use.
SEE CHART

4- Corpus techniques: keyword analysis and cluster

analysis
Key Word Analysis
This function serves to identify the key words in one or more
texts. Key words are those whose frequency is unusually high
in comparison with some norm. KW are not usually the most
frequent words in a text, rather they are the more unusually
frequent or keyness
Cluster Analysis
The analysis of how systemically clusters into combinations of
words or chunks (e.g. I mean, this that and the other, etc.)
can give insights into how we describe the vocabulary of a
language. It has also implications for what we teach in our
vocabulary lessons and how learners approach the task of
acquiring vocabulary and developing fluency. The process of
generating cluster lists is similar to making simple word lists.
We can ask the computer to look for combinations of words
5- Corpus techniques: lexico-grammatical profiles
When looking at concordance lines, is to create a lexicogrammatical profile of a word and its contexts of use. An
L-GP describes typical contexts in terms of:
1- Collocates: which words occur most frequently in the words
environment.
2- Chunks/idioms: does the word form part of any current chunk?
What types occur?
3- Syntactic restrictions: are there syntactic patterns which
restrict the word?
For example, are there propositions that go with the
word? What are the typical clause positions?
4- Semantic restrictions: are there semantic restrictions? The
word/phrase is applied to humans only, or is never used with
an intensifier.

5- Prosody: words tend to occur in particular environments, in a

way that their meaning, especially their connotative and
attitudinal meaning. For example, words tend to occur in
positive or negative environments. More than 90% of the
collocates of cause are negative, for example, accident,
cancer, crisis, delay. By way of a positive semantic prosody
example, he offers providecare, food, help, jobs, relief, and
support.
An L-GP is principally drawn from concordance lines,
though frequency of any item in a particular corpus
may also be of relevance.
Left-screen sorting seems to produce the most visible
and productive patterning since abroad tends to be
phrase-, clause-, or sentence-final.
6- Applications of corpora in your field of interest
a) Lexicography: it is the standard tool for lexicographers, who
use word corpora to examine word frequency, patterning and
semantics in the compilation of dictionaries. This tradition of
basing dictionary entries on actual use provides very useful
information about the types of lexical and grammatical errors
that are made in so doing allows for dictionary writers and
other materials writers to highlight typical problems.
b) Grammar: the concept of pattern is provided as an interface
between lexis and grammar. How pattern-grammar emerged
through corpus-based lexico grammatical research. Carter and
McCarthy found that it was crucially important in many cases
to separate statements made about spoken as opposed to
written grammar. Corpus tools allow grammarians to
extensively investigate grammatical frequency and
patterning.
c) Stylistics: the area of stylistic, which is mostly concerned with
the study of the language of literature, notes that traditional
and computational forms of stylistics have much in common.
There are interesting similarities in the approaches of stylistics

and corpus linguistics. Stylistics is a field of empirical inquiry,

in which the insights and techniques of linguistic theory are
used to analyse literary texts, that is by applying systems of
categorization and linguistic analysis to, f.e, poems and prose.
A related area of increasing in the study of language and
literature is the notion of semantic prosody
d) Translation: language corpora have considerable application in
this area. This has been from two main perspectives,
descriptive and practical; with corpora of original texts so as
to establish the characteristics both particular and universal to
translated texts. Corpora have been looked at as aids in the
process of human and machine translation, and for this
purpose he distinguishes between three main types of
corpora:
- Monolingual corpora--> texts in a single language
- Comparable corpora--> monolingual corpora of similar design
are available for two or more languages. C.C has the potential
to reveal most about feature specific to translated texts.
- Parallel corpora--> have components in two or more
languages, consisting of original texts and their translations.
The distinction between unidirectional parallel corpora
consists of texts in one language along with translations of
those texts into other languages and bidirectional or
reciprocal parallel corpora which contain four components.
P.C exists for several language pairings including EnglishFrench, English-Italian, and English-Norwegian. Typical
applications of parallel corpora include translator training,
bilingual lexicography and machine translation.
e) Forensic linguistics: it uses language corpora as a tool for the
use of language in law and crime investigation. The analysis
of genuineness of documents from confessions to suicide
notes, authorship identification in academics settings, ransom
notes, threat letters, readability/comprehensibility of legal
language, forensic phonetics (speaker identification), police

interview and interrogation data, language rights of ethnic

minorities, as well as the discourse of the courtroom setting.
f) Sociolinguistics: sociolinguistic variables such as age, gender,
level of education, socio-economic background and so on.
Regional variation, for example, can be explored using
language corpora. Taboo language is also looked at using
corpora. Corpora have had a major influence in the areas of
discourse and pragmatics.
7- Unplanned Public Speech: service encounters
The term S.E has been used to describe a wide range
of transactional talking. Hasan defines S.E as requests
for a service made by one person to another (visiting
the doctor, shopping in the market, post office, a
travel agency, etc.) Following Hasans generic
structure theory (every genre has its unique structural
pattern or GSP [generic structure potential]). There is
a structural pattern to all these service encounters:
-an offer of service
-a request for service
-a transaction
-a salutation
Further optional elements may include shop and
market stall transactions, door-to-door canvassing, as
well as doctor-patient consultation.
S.E: Business:
-service message (goods) via answer phone
-service encounter in shop
Frequency of adjacency pairs, politeness strategies,
use of deictic and greetings
-service encounter market stall (goods)
Particular lexis, terms of address, level of formality,
non-fluency features (hesitations, overlapping), and
adjacency pairs.

-service encounter (door-to-door)

+ Say hello and apologies for disturbing them
+explain who you are working for
+describe process of damp survey and time taken
+if yes make appointment, take name, address,
telephone number, thank them and say goodbye
+if no explain that you are seeing many people in
area, that survey is free, only takes minutes.
+if they insist they don't want survey, leave them
leaflet and say goodbye.
8- U.P.S: service encounters: professional consultations
Although doctor-patient interviews are mainly
transactional in nature, that exchanges are likely to
contain strong interactional elements. There is an
imbalance of power, which the well-trained doctor
needs to address in order to make the patient feel as
comfortable and equal as possible. It can be done by
choice of lexis, adjusting the level of medical jargon to
the perceived preferences of patients, by adjusting
register, framing devices and schema as appropriate
and by using interactional language within the
transaction. The success of the consultation depends
on the expectations of doctor and patient being met.
Professional consultations (counselor-client, financial
advisor-client, spiritual counselor-client, and lawyerclient) can require skillful management of the
interactional with the transactional elements.
-Doctor-patient interview: though a physical
examination has non-linguistic behavior, it is usually
accompanied by talk
-Doctor-child patient interview: transactional. The
doctor adapts his language to talk to a child.

9- U.P.S: classroom talk

Although lessons are structured and planned in
advance, and methods of imparting knowledge and
skills are learnt strategies, predominantly spontaneous
and unplanned remains. Courtyard and Sinclairs
model of classroom interaction is particularly useful,
with its focus on the three-part exchange (initiation,
response, feedback IRF). Apart from openings and
closing moves, these may include:
+teacher inform
+teacher direct
+teacher elicit
+pupil elicit
+teacher inform
+teacher check
+teacher re-initiate or elicit
+teacher re-initiate from wrong answer
+teacher require multiple/class response
+teacher reinforce
+teacher repeat
-beginning of dance school lesson: the teacher very
frequently echoes to evaluate.
10-

U.P.S: radio and TV

Genres such as chat shows, phone-ins, discussions,
interviews, documentaries, commentaries of various
kinds , as well as the spontaneous comments of
presenters, disc jockeys, weather forecasters and even
news readers. All these genres include unplanned
talking, but adhere broadly to their expected generic
structures. For example, the characteristic form of the
celebrity interview (introduction, biographical, outline,

questioning about past, present and future, thanks

and closure) is recognizable. Register and levels of
formality may vary widely, but each genre of media
talk will have its own GSP.
Chat show: it is a relatively recent televisual genre. A
personality figure hosts a discussion, interview guests,
and chairs and monitors the spontaneous debate. The
structure of the individual chat show may vary to a
degree, but there are basic similarities. All adopt an
informal register and use exchange structure
strategies.
Chat show host starts with greetings (hello and good
morning), or a contextualization (today, we are
talking) followed by topic identification (Mr. Bernie
Grant says). Then the adjacency pairs sequence
begins.
Radio phone-ins: another kind of media talk is the R P-I
which is similar to the chat show model. The subject
matter will be determined by the kind of audience the
radio station usually addresses. The generic structure
can vary from question/answer or
comment/elaboration to a complex debate using a
variety of structures. Thus the relationship between
presenter and caller is rather different from normal
interaction. A third potential interactant is always
present the radio audience. Politeness strategies are
essential.
Sport commentaries: they provide good examples of
public talk which has elements in its structure and
organization in radio broadcasting. Different sports
have different requirements; cricket commentaries

(where there are extended pauses between actions)

have different patterns of language from football
commentaries, where the action tends to be fast and
more or less continuous. Racing commentaries are
even faster, with the commentator's voice
dramatically speeding up and rising in pitch as the
winning post is reached. In football commentaries in
particular there are usually two commentators,
providing a dual perspective on the action for the
benefit of the listening audience. The GSP of football
commentary describes the scene, discussing likely
outcomes, commenting on players etc. the aim of
commentators is to give as accurate and vivid an
account of the match as possible. The commentary
functions rather than like an ongoing narrative.
Broadcast debate: this involves a number of
participants, including a chair who manages the
discussion, makes sure speakers are allocated turns.
The audience asks a panel of speakers questions
about current issues. The speakers then debate the
issue, whilst the audience remains silent. Similarly, in
a televised public debate, a panel responds to
questions from the audience. The major difference is
that the audience is invited to participate as well as
ask questions. Sometimes, these responses are
prepared, sometimes they are spontaneous.
From a linguistic perspective, the organization area of
turn-taking is the key area of interest. Multi party
talk, each participant is both speaker and listener.
Communicating information: public announcements,
information about trains, planes and buses, weather
forecasting, air traffic control, police, fire and

ambulance services. In some cases the audience is

the general public needing specific information; in
other cases there are direct exchanges between the
information provider and the information receiver.
Each information-communicating spoken genre has a
characteristic format, usually modeling exchange
structure patterns. What is paradoxical about these
public information-communicating genres is that they
remain rigid in form, whether monologic or dialogic
(planned), and yet must be flexible enough to respond
to changing situations (unplanned). The adjacency
pairs include: initiation/response;
statement/acknowledgement; question/answer;
instruction/acknowledgement; greeting/farewell.
11Planned Public
Speech in occupational and business contexts
Political and legal genres
Political speech: it may or may not involve audience
response, depending on the context. Thus the political
speech, or the political interview where opportunity
has been given to prepare answers in advance, is a
flexible and powerful instrument for persuasion. I
have a dream by Martin Luther King there is much
more opportunity for planned linguistic strategies than
spontaneous one. King uses a range of rhetorical
strategies (lexical, grammatical and syntactical) to
create a powerful image of his dream for his people.
Parliamentary speech
Language of the law
The language of court procedure is public and planned and
talking is central. The legal judgment is an example of highly

planned legal language, intended for the broadest public

audience, presented as spoken language but set down in
written form. This judgment is the expression of opinion on a
matter of legal principle by a law.
Media talk: scripted genres
A variety of genres including soap opera, situation comedy
and comedy shows, as well as news broadcasting, weather
forecasts and documentaries. Some genres are entirely
scripted; some seem spontaneous but are actually scripted;
other genres may include a combination of scripted and nonscripted items. The aim to seem as natural and spontaneous
as possible.
Soap operas:
Because the setting usually a small town or community, with
the focus on a few key families, most of the scripted dialogue
is in the genre of casual conversation, with some occasional
service encounters. The regional variation in accent, updated
lexis including slang. The language of soaps is intended to
sound entirely lifelike and realistic.
Game show: this popular comedy genre, usually involves a
single celebrity figure quizzing members of the public who
have volunteered to take part in the show. What is interesting
about this genre are not only its planned and public nature,
but its fixed structure and formulaic language, which
satisfactorily fulfill the expectations of the audience every
week.
Situation comedy: it is another genre which transfers easily
btw radio and TV. Its aim is to make the audience laugh;
characters can, and should be, as rounded as any characters
in a television play. But the pressure is to say amusing things
more or less all the time. The characters are normal people in

recognizable real-life situations. In other words, the sitcom is a

playlet with laughs. Making the audience laugh is achieved
by a range of linguistic strategies: misunderstanding, crosspurpose talking (two characters think they're talking about the
same thing, but they're not), the frustration routine, innuendo,
exaggeration, visual gags, etc.
12-

Planned Public Speech in professional contexts

13Perspectives on listening: listening is quite

apparently relevant in humanities and applied sciences such
as linguistics, education, business and law, and in social
sciences. At the same time, the processes of listening are
relevant to natural science such as biology and chemistry,
neurology and medicine, and to the formal studies of
computer and systems sciences.
Listening: a receptive perspective = receiving
what the speaker actually says.
Listening means:
- getting the speaker's idea
- decode what is in the speaker's mind
- Receiving the transfer of images, impressions, thoughts,
beliefs, attitudes and emotions from the speaker.
14A constructive perspective = constructing and
representing meaning
Listening means:
- Finding something interesting in what the speaker is saying.
- Finding out what is relevant for you
- Understanding why the speaker is talking to you
- Noticing what is not said
- Recognized and interpreted in terms of past experiences and
future experiences.

15A collaborative perspective = negotiating meaning

with the speaker and responding
Listening means:
- Co-ordinating with the speaker on the choice of a code and a
context.
- Responding to what the speaker has said
- The process of negotiating shared information or values with
the speaker
- Acting interested while the speaker is talking
- Signaling to the speaker which ideas are clear and acceptable
to you
- The acquisition, processing, and retention of information in
the interpersonal context.
16A transformative perspective = creating meaning
through involvement, imagination and empathy
Listening is:
- Being involved with the speaker, without judgment.
- The intention to complete the communication process
- Talking to heart, being moved and appreciating
- Feeling the flow of consciousness as you pay attention to
things.
17-

Define hearing and listening

Hearing is the primary physiological system that
allows for reception and conversion of sound waves.
Beyond the conversion process of external stimuli to
auditory perceptions, hearing is the sense that is often
identified with our affective experience of participating
in events.
Of all our senses, hearing may be said to be the most
grounded and most essential to awareness because it
occurs in real time, in a temporal continuum. Sound
perception is about always anticipating what is about
to be heard hearing forward- as well as

18-

retrospectively organizing what has just been heard

hearing backward- in order to assemble coherent
packages of sound.
While hearing provides a basis for listening, it is only a
precursor for it. Though the terms HEARING and
LISTENING are often used interchangeably in everyday
talk, there are essential differences between them.
Both hearing and listening are initiated through sound
perception; the difference between them is
essentially a degree of intention. Intention is an
acknowledgement of a distal source and a willingness
to be influenced by this source.
Consciousness and listening
Consciousness is the aspect of mind that has a selfcentered point of view and orientation to the
environment. Consciousness is related to
intentionality- the intention to understand and to be
understood. Consciousness is the neurological
cognitive bridge between individual and universal
perception and experience. Consciousness has been
described as a flow of energy, emerging when two
cognitive processes coincide: (1) the brain identifies
an outside object or event as consisting of
independent properties; and (2) the brain sets up the
listener as the central agent who willingly and
purposefully witnesses this object or event.
Consciousness is the phenomenon of experiencing this
integration as a subjunctive phenomenon. This means
that consciousness. Is a continuous force that links
experiences in the internal and external environments
and allows the experiencer to make sense of these
experiences and, to some degree, direct them.
Consciousness helps to define the notion of context.
Consciousness involves the activation of portions of

the listeners model of the surrounding world. The

active portion of the model is constructed from the
perceptual contact with the external event (external
context) and from our subjective experience
(internal context).

The properties of consciousness

There are five properties of consciousness that affect
listening.
Consciousness is embedded in a surrounding area of
peripheral awareness. The active focus is surrounded by a
periphery of semi-active information that provides a context
for it.
C is dynamic. The focus of consciousness moves constantly
from one focus, or item of information, to the next. This
movement is experienced by the listener as a continuous
event.
C has a point of view. Ones model of the world is necessarily
centered on a self. The location and needs of that selfestablish a point of view, which is a constant ingredient of
consciousness and a guide for the selection of subsequent
movements.
C has a need for orientation. Peripheral awareness must
include information regarding a person's location in space,
time, society and ongoing activity. This orientation allows
consciousness to shift from an immediate mode, in which
the person is attending to present, tangible references, to a
distal mode in which the person is attending to non-present,
abstract or imaginary references and concepts.
C can focus on only one thing at a time. The limited capacity
of consciousness is reflected as a linguistic constraint: A
speaker can produce only one focus of consciousness at a
time, called intonation units.

19-

Comprehension process

Individual differences in neurological processes

There are six differences among individuals:
-Local processing: individuals show marked differences
in basic attributes such as memory and attention, and
patterns of neural connectivity.
- Commitment and plasticity: neural commitment
leads to a beneficial increase in automaticity and
speed of processing. The plasticity or neural flexibility
required for language reorganization declines
progressively through childhood and adolescence and
may be the primary cause of some of the difficulties
that adults face in second language learning.
- Integrative circuits: these neutral connections allow a
variety of local areas of the brain to form a series of
impressions of sensory and conceptual aspects of an
utterance, which are then linked into a new
grammatical form or syntactic construction.
- Functional neural circuits: complemented by a
variety of other functional neural circuits that
integrates across wider areas of the brain.
- Strategic control: Brain functioning can be readily
modified, amplified, integrated and controlled by
higher-level strategic process. These include mood
control, attention control, motivational control as well
as learning strategies and applications of cognitive
maps and scripts.
- Level of attention
Summary: organization of neurological processing
We humans are a meaning-oriented species, and our
neurobiology is geared not only to process information
and make sense of the external world and our internal
world.
Information processing and meaning building, we
should not lose touch with the understanding that

meaning-making is also fundamentally human and

interactive.
20-

Types of understanding and non-understanding:

Non-understanding listener is unable to activate any
appropriate schemata to understand speaker.
Misunderstanding listener activates schemata that
have significant mismatches to speakers schemata
Partial understanding listener activates schema that
include some overlap with speakers active schemata.
Plausible understanding listener activates schema
that include central items in speaker's discourse,
though not largely shared with speaker.
Acceptable understandinglistener activates schema
that include central items in speaker's discourse,
largely shared with speaker.
Complete understanding listener activates schema
that are completely shared with speaker.

21-

Disfluency Features
Disfluencies, while often considered to be signs of
flawed speech, can actually improve communication
through adding processing cues for the listener.
Sometimes, subjects have better comprehension of
tasks instructions when the instructions influenced
Disfluencies, such as pauses, fillers, and selfcorrections. While attending to speech over a period of
several intonation units, the listener has to store a
mental representation of the discourse and
continuously update the representation with new
information.
Social understanding: the role of common ground
Understanding spoken discourse goes beyond creating
a cognitive map. Social frameworks and affective

22-

elements are also involved. What a listener

understands depends to a large degree upon having
common ground with the speaker to have same script
for sequences of action. However, it is possible that
two conversant will share what are known as common
activation spaces that will allow them to arrive a
mutual empathy and acceptable understanding, due
to their common cultural or educational or experiential
backgrounds.
Our schemata consist of activation patterns across the
brains neurons. Each activation space has a distinct
weight, or activity level. Activity levels are influenced
by frequency of use, but also by emotional factors.
Speakers and listeners communicate in part through
activation of similar prototypes. As we listen,
prototype neural patterns get activated as we respond
intellectually to certain language inputs. According to
prototype theory, people may react to events in the
world in similar ways because their activation spaces
are similarly partitioned and their concentration on
particular partitions is equally energized. In every
listening situation, it is essential for the listener to
activate knowledge from stored prototypes. When
relevant knowledge is activated during
comprehension, additional information in related
schemata becomes available to the listener. The
listener may also experience an effective response
associated with it a cognitive commitment which
further influences connections with the speaker and
her ideas.
23-

Compensatory strategies during comprehension

Given natural limitations of memory, all listeners need
to resort to compensatory strategies from time to time

to perform semantic processing to make sense of

spoken language when conditions become severe. The
listeners capacity for comprehension may be
overworked or exhausted, or the listener becomes
distracted, and some kind of compensation may be
required.
A breakdown in semantic processing may occur when:
- The listener cannot hear what the speaker is saying
- Does not know specific expressions the speaker is using
- The information the speaker gives is incomplete
- The listener hears a familiar word, but it is used in an
unfamiliar way; the speakers proceed too quickly for the
listener to conduct all of the reasoning processes required,
and no opportunity for clarification is available.
Some of the commonly noted compensation
strategies are:
- Skipping: omitting or block part of a text from processing for
comprehension
- Approximation: using a superordinate concept; constructing a
less precise meaning for a word or concept than the speaker
may have intended
- Filtering: compressing a longer message or a set of
propositions into a more concise one. Filtering involves active
construction of a larger semantic context.
- Incompletion: maintaining an incomplete position in memory,
waiting until clarification can be obtained
- Substitution: substituting a word or concept or proposition for
one that is not understandable.
24Distinctive features of lecture comprehension: a
matter of degree
Lecture comprehension has its own distinctive
features, with regard to listening in general. Richards
distinguishes between conversational listening and
academic listening.

- One difference that is the matter of DEGREE is the type of

BACKGROUND knowledge required. Listeners requires
knowledge of the specialist subject matter, while in
conversation, necessary background knowledge will be more
general.
- Another difference in degree is the need to understand what is
RELEVANT and what Irrelevant is.
- A third difference between academic and conversational
listening is the application of the TURN-TAKING conventions. In
conversation, T-T is obviously essential while in lectures will
only be required if questions are allowed from the audience or
come from the lecturer.
- A fourth difference is in the amount of implied meaning or
indirect speech acts. The emphasis on lectures is on
PROPOSITIONAL MEANING while in conversation interpersonal
or ILLOCUTIONARY MEANING is more important.
25Distinctive features of lecture comprehension: a
matter of kind
- The first skill associated with lectures is the requirement to be
able to CONCENTRATE on and understand long stretches of
talk without the opportunity of engaging in the facilitating
functions of interactive discourse.
- A second difference is NOTE TAKING. There is a five-stage
process which culminates in note taking process: decode,
comprehend, identify main points, decide when to record
these, write quickly and clearly.
- A third skill is the ability to integrate the incoming message
with information derived from other media. For example, if
you are listening to a speaker but you may have a handout.
26-

Lecture comprehension micro-skills

+ Information from comprehension theory: this is one
of the micro-skills assumed to be necessary for the
comprehension of lectures in a second language. In

fact, there is a list of 18 skills for lecture

comprehension including the following:
1- Ability to identify purpose and scope for lecture.
2- --- topic of lecture and following topic development
3- -- recognize role of discourse markers of signaling structure of
lecture
4- ---key lexical items related to the subject/topic
5- --deduce meanings of words from context
6- Ability to recognize function of intonation to signal information
structure (pitch, volume, key)
+ Information from lecturers: nine skills were rated as
the most important:
1- Identifying major themes or ideas
2- Identifying relationships among major ideas
3- Identifying the topic of a lecture
4- Retaining information through note-taking
5- Retrieving info from notes
6- Inferring relationships between information
7- Comprehending key vocabulary
8- Following the spoken mode of lectures
9- Identifying supporting ideas and examples.
Faculty members who are not involved in language
instruction may not be competent to analyze
listening activities of non-native students, and
faculty perceptions are only one of many sources of
information that must be considered in assessing
necessary listening skills.
+Information from learners: another source of
information on skills necessary for lecture
comprehension is the non-native listeners
themselves. Problems encountered by the students
were speed of delivery, excessive load of new
terminology and concepts, and difficulties in
concentrating. Strategies used to help

comprehension were pre- and post- reading of the

set text, peer help, lecturer/ tutor help, highlighting
relevant sections of the set text during the lecture,
note taking, and efforts to concentrate harder. The
making of new connections within already familiar
concepts, and identification with the teacher's
viewpoints.
+Note-taking: the extent to which note-taking is
employed may depend on the
amount
of support material available to students in the form of
handouts, or students use of highlighting techniques
on their set texts.
Rost provides a chart of types of notes classified into
topic relation notes (writing down a word or phrase,
copying, translating, diagramming), concept-ordering
notes (listing topics in order, labeling notes as main
points, indenting), focusing notes (highlighting,
parenthesizing) and revising notes (inserting,
deleting).
27-

Lecturing styles
Morrison divides science lectures into two kinds:
formal (close to spoken prose read aloud lectures)
and informal (high informational content, but not
necessarily in highly formal register).
There are three kinds of lecturing: reading style,
where the speaker speaks or reads as if reading from
notes, conversational style (the most frequent style),
where the speaker speaks informally, with or without
notes; and the rhetorical style, where the speaker
presents herself or himself as a performer (as a
professional actor), using a wide international range
and making frequent digressions, marked by shifts of
key and tempo. Goffman recognizes three modes of

lecture: memorization, aloud reading, and fresh

talk. And the participatory lecture is closer to
discussion.
Informal, conversational style, based on notes or
handouts, is probably the predominant mode of
lecture presentation, to both native and non-native
speaker audiences. The larger groups, the less
interaction.
28-

Academic listening: speech rate and by accent

Speech rate is an important area for lecture
comprehension research rating speed of delivery as
the greatest obstacle to understanding. The great
amount of processing required of the incoming data in
a very short space of time.
1- What are the reasons for non-native speakers difficulty with
speed of delivery?
With time-compressed speech, native speakers are
more able than non-native speakers to get a
maximum amount of information from the message
by using their knowledge of the language to assign
syntax and to predict which words would be content
words. Non-native speaker comprehension is more
hindered. Dependency of non-native speakers on a
strategy in which they attempted perfect decoding.
2- Can comprehension be improved by controlling speed of
delivery?
Non- native listeners scored markedly higher on
comprehension tests based on texts modified in
terms of articulation rate and pause frequency and
duration. Non-native speakers scored better on
comprehension tests as rates were decreased.
Slower rates enhance comprehension.
3- What are the optimum rates for different levels of learners?

The effect of text difficulty as a variable on

comprehension at various speech rates needs to be
investigated, as does the effect of different ways of
slowing: by means of machine, by slower
articulation on the part of the speaker, by
lengthening of pauses, or by insertion of extra
pauses. Another factor that needs to be borne in
mind in evaluation the research on speech rate is
that much of this research is based on read text.
More research is needed in this area of speech rate
studies before recommendations can be made to
lecturers or materials developers regarding
optimum rates of delivery.
4- Is it possible for lecturers consciously to control their rate of
delivery?
Low-proficiency non-native speakers and highproficiency non-native speakers. Lecturers made no
significant adjustment to their speech rate when
lecturing to the different groups. This finding
suggests that lecturers cannot necessarily be
expected to modify their speech rate when lecturing
to non-native speakers. The question remains as to
whether lecturers are able to moderate their speech
rate, given training.
Accent
Accent is a factor contributing to difficulties for nonnative lecture comprehension. Non-native speakers
studying through the medium of English are likely to
encounter a range of accents, both native and nonnative.
Unfamiliar accents cause difficulty in
comprehension. The concept of familiarity extends
to the question of the comprehensibility of local vs.

standard accents of English, local accents proving to

be more comprehensible. Next most
comprehensible are likely to be those lecturers with
the accent closest to the models learners have been
exposed to in their studies and in society at large.
29Definitions and scope of EAP (English for Academic
Purposes) and study skills
EAP is concerned with those communication skills in
English which are required for study purposes in
formal educational systems.
Range of settings
EAP takes place in a variety of settings and
circumstances. The students may need EAP for higher
education studies in their own country or for higher
education in L1 countries before studying abroad.
These courses may be pre-sessional, i.e. held before
an academic course begins, in-sessional, i.e. held
during an academic term or semester, and usually
part-time.
The settings and situations, like other aspects of
education, are subject to change.
ENGLISH

SPEECH-BASED: Receptive
Productive
TEXT-BASED: Reading

Writing

GENERAL PURPOSES
SOCIAL PURPOSES

e.g.: for conversational purposes and communicative

situations (shopping, letter-writing, telephoning, and survival
English

English for Specific Purposes:

Academic Purposes:

English for General

Medicine, Economics, Engineering

taking, A, W, seminars

Listening and note

What are study skills?

Abilities, techniques, and strategies which are used when
reading, writing or listening for study purposes. Using the
dictionary, guessing word meanings from context, interpreting
graphs, diagrams and symbols, note taking and
summarizing.
The term study skills is reserved for the more mechanical
aspects of study.
1- Lecture/talks: listening and understanding, note-taking, asking
questions for: repetition, clarification and information.
2- Seminars/tutorials/discussions/supervisions: listening and
note-taking, asking questions; explaining agreeing and
disagreeing; giving reasons; interrupting. Speaking with (out)
notes: giving paper/oral presentations, initiating comments,
responding; verbalizing data.
3- Practicals/laboratory work/field work: Understanding
instructions: written and spoken, formal and informal. Asking
questions; requesting help. Recording results.
4- Private study: Reading efficiently: comprehension and speed.
Scanning and skimming; evaluating. Understanding and
analyzing data. Note-making. Summarizing and paraphrasing.

5- Reference material/library use: using the contents/index

paging. Using a dictionary efficiently. Understanding
classification systems. Using a library catalogue on cards,
microfiche and computer. Finding information quickly.
Collating information
6- Essays/reports/projects/case
studies/dissertations/theses/research papers/articles:
planning, writing drafts, revising. Summarizing, paraphrasing
and synthesizing. Continuous writing in an academic style,
organized appropriately,
7- Research: conducting interview. Designing questionnaires.
Undertaking surveys.
8- Examinations: written: preparing for exams. Revision.
Understanding questions/instructions. Writing quickly:
pressure of time.
Oral: Answering questions: explicitly, precisely. Explaining,
describing, justifying.
Skills generally applicable:
a) Time management
b) Use of cohesive markers and connectives; recognizing
weaknesses and bias in arguments; balance; critical
analysis.
c) Accuracy
d) Memory
e) Using computers/word processors
30- Lecturing styles and lecture structure:
Morrison:

Noted that students had greater difficulty understanding

informal lectures than formal ones. Three styles of
lecturing:
A- Reading Style: the lecturer reads from the notes.
B- Conversational Style: the lecturer speaks informally, with or
without notes
C- Rhetorical Style: the lecturer as performer.
Structure: information versus ideas
Many students were not aware of the distinction between: (1)
lecturers giving information, (2) those developing an
argument, point by point, with a discussion of ideas and in a
problem-solving framework. A information-driven listening
strategy is needed, whereby facts can be absorbed. A pointdriven listening strategy is needed with which listener take a
broader can view of the larger situation of which the
discourse is part.
Taking notes
Note-taking is the straightforward writing down of whatever is
said or written on a board. It may not require much thought.
Note-making, on the other hand, is the creation of your own
notes, which may involve summarizing, paraphrasing, putting
question marks against some items.
Rost provides a list of types of note-taking. Many of the
aspects and items listed are practiced on EAP courses and in
listening and note-taking books.
Topic- relation notes:
1- Topicalizing writing down a word or phrase to represent a
section of the text.
2- Translating

3- Copying- writing down verbatim what the lecturer has written

on the blackboard
4- Transcribing writing down verbatim what the lecturer has
said
5- Schematizing inserting graphics to organize a topic
Concept- ordering notes:
1- Sequence cuing
2- Hierarchy cuing
3- Relation ordering
Focusing notes:
1- Highlighting:
2- De-highlighting
Revising notes:
1- Inserting
2- Erasing
The main reasons given by students for the importance
of note taking were:
- As a mnemonic device
- To prepare for exams
- To reinforce or compare information contained in the textbook
and the lecture
- To increase attention during the lecture
- To increasing attention during the lecture
By using standard and personal abbreviations
and symbols, they can save some time in writing.
The provision of a table or a chart must be
completed while listening to a talk.
A linear system use of numbers and letters to
separate sections and sub-sections, the use of
capital letters and underlining, as well as boxing
and the possible use of colours can increase the

impact. The branching system may be referred to

by diagramming, web, mapping or concept map.
The use of lines, arrows, and boxes is important
for providing the linking. The system is
essentially visual, and for some people it makes
is easier to remember its content.
Seminars

30Form

The label seminar is most usually employed in higher

education. The typical seminar at postgraduate level
seem to be more of a teaching situation than a discussion
situation: it is not an inward-facing circle in which free
address is the norm.
Three types of seminar are observed:
1- Student group work: e.g. a problem-solving exercise;
2- The lesson: nominated students go over prepared answers to
case studies;
3- Discussion: e.g. of material previously read by the whole
group;
4- Presentation: e.g. class members reporting on reading they
had done or research students present research to date.
Within the category of clarification, students used four
related strategies: asking for repetition, getting
confirmation, correcting misunderstanding and
rephrasing.
Some of the difficulties that students experience in
seminars were:
-the publicness of the performance
-the need to think on your feet
-the requirement to call up relevant subject knowledge
- The need to present logically ordered arguments

-the fact that you may be being assessed academically

on the basis of your contribution.
Language
Apart from language use, the bid for permission to speak
may take a subtle form, `such as a breath intake, a
worried facial expression, eye contact with the tutor, a
filler such as er or um, or all of these simultaneously.
Probably, there are also culturally different conventions
for interrupting.
In many seminars of the discussions or problem-solving
type, exchanges of view are encouraged or expected, an
analysis of the language functions employed reveals the
following:
Disagreeing, agreeing, expressing an opinion,
persuading, stating a criticism, giving an example,
introducing, giving a reason, commenting
Price had found that the following language functions
were needed in seminars: interrupting, asking questions,
expressing general comments, agreeing, disagreeing,
expressing criticism, objections, and doubt; making
suggestions.
She divided agreement into full agreement (I fully
support what you say) and partial agreement (I agree
with you to a certain extent, but) and disagreement
into `soft type` (I think you may be wrong`) and `hard
type` (I disagree with you).
Lynch and Anderson describe how to divide the materials
and teaching of seminar skills: presentation skills and
participation skills:
SEMINAR SKILLS

Presentation (as main speaker)

Participation (audience)
- Sequencing
- indicating non-comprehension
- Signposting
- asking for clarification
- Delivery (speed/clarity)
- questioning
- Visual aids
- disagreeing
- Body language
- Concluding
For preparation for seminar participation it would seem
worthwhile to focus on the following:
1- Listening skills, with special emphasis on picking up
those `throw-away` instructions by a lecturer at the
end of a seminar regarding reading for the next one;
2- Oral presentation skills, with special emphasis on
conciseness, and intelligibility to a non-specialist
audience;
3-asking questions; and
4-problem-solving, of the collaborative case-study sort,
where a clear product, often on an overhead
transparency, will be required at the end of a fixed
time period.
Questions
In lectures and seminars it may be necessary for students to
ask questions for purposes of repetition, or clarification, or for
furthermore information.
Discussions

After noting that a topic may be expressed in the form of a

statement or question, Wallace analyzed the various forms of
the topic subject matter and observed that the most common
were:
1- Fact
2- Personal feeling
3-Opinion
4-Action
32- Top-down and bottom-up processing skills
Listening to lectures requires a number of activities, at
different levels of processing, to be performed simultaneously.
To understand the content, students ,must use bottom-up
processing skills to decode the stream of speech , and
distinguish words and phrases which refer to the topic from
those which, signal the structure of the lecture or are intended
to promote empathy with the audience. They must be able to
ignore unknown vocabulary or to guess it from the context.
They will have to cope with features of spoken language such
as false starts, hesitation fillers and repetition. The lecturer's
accent and speed of delivery, or the informality of the
language used, may affect students ability to do these tasks.
In addition, students need to use top-down processing skills to
understand the organization of the lecture and follow the
development of the topic, recognizing the main points and
their relationship to supporting ideas and examples. They
need to understand the roles of the asides in explaining
apparent contradictions between ideas, highlighting contrasts,
or establishing relevance to the course.
Students must also recognize when the lecturer is injecting an
interpersonal note, using jokes to lighten up a long monologue

and reduce tension. Jokes might be used by lecturers to

promote solidarity with the students, and reduce the power
distance.
As they listen, students are expected to take notes. Quality or
quantity of students notes does not necessarily reflect their
level of understanding. Notes are sometimes simply a record
of keywords that students recognize and they do not capture
the main points of a lecture. They may be trying to identify
areas of understanding into which they can integrate new
ideas.
Listening to lectures and taking notes is a challenging task,
even for native speakers.
Imagine that you have missed a lecture, either for study or
work, that you really wanted to attend. What would you get
the information presented in the lecture?
33- The conventions of group discussions
Students who are used to learning from lecturers rather than
other students may not take group discussions seriously and,
therefore, not prepare well for them.
What do you consider to be the main aims of discussion at
university?
How are discussions expected to facilitate learning?
What are the unwritten conventions for participating in
discussions?
How is silence viewed?
The main aim of discussion is to reach a deeper level of
understanding through analysis and negotiation of ideas.
Reformulate and summarize ideas and concepts, and apply
them to new situations or problems. Learn from peers whose

level of understanding is just above their own. Discussions

give lecturer feedback.
Talk is not as informal as conversations because there is
usually a specific topic to discuss, and students are often
expected to prepare in advance. This preparation may require
quite heavy reading load. So silence denotes a lack of
involvement.
Students cite lack of confidence in their spoken skills and
content knowledge as key factors which prevent them from
participating actively.

They were possibly relying on the more able students for

support. Another factor which may have contributed to
the problem is that, in team working, there is always the
potential for conflict, with some members being more
committed to the team than others.
It is possible that cultural factors may have been
involved. In some of them, teachers are viewed as
authority figures that transmit knowledge. Students are
not encouraged to express opinions publicly, unless they
are given permission to do so.
It is also possible that the problems stemmed from the
NS students cultural values, where individual needs
often take priority.
The course director decided that the best way to deal
with the complaint was to view the problems and issues
as resulting from poor team communication, and to try to
facilitate better commitment to team working on the part
of all students in the team.
34- An effective presentation

Effective presentations leave members of the audience

feeling that they have had an entertaining conversation
with the presenter, which has added to their
understanding or changed their way of thinking about a
topic. But, it is impossible to communicate and persuade
effectively without keeping your audience entertained.
Many of the features of effective presentations also
underpin good eye contact, attention to their level of
knowledge, and awareness of their needs.
Talking to an audience is not a particularly efficient
means of giving them information. Most audiences lose
concentration after about 20 minutes, and need a
change of activity or pace to renew their attention. They
pitch the talk in an appropriate level. Good speakers
understand that a talk is a very different genre from a
written report.
Guidebooks often recommend the rule of three: tell them
what you are going to say; say it; tell them what you
said. They will use functional signaling language to
preface their summaries, e.g., the reason for (+
summary of previous point), the difference between (+
summary of two items), to make clear to the audience
the relationship between ideas.
A certain degree of nervousness is needed in order to
give a good performance. A presentation is never
effective if read aloud; as the conversational style and
audience interaction are lost. Good speakers aim for a
speaking style which seems spontaneous, with space for
digressions or anecdotes, although these will be planned
to avoid running out of time. Questions are usually asked
in order to request additional information or clarify a
point.

35- The Noun Phrase in Academic English:

nominalization
Noun phrases are more typical of written styles, with
much premodification and post modification, occur in
formal lectures.
But despite the apparent diversity of opinion, AntiPanelists were united on what they saw as three serious
problems. All of which pertained to the earlier
apparently subversive part of the novel.
In more informal lecturing styles and in informal tutorials
and classes, typical spoken noun phrases are common,
where information is added incrementally rather than
integrated into a single noun phrase.
It is a fascinating question. It`s a question of the kind
that i don't think we pursue enough. And it's one
that I'm still wrestling with.
NOMINALISATION
Noun phrases that often used in academic style as an
alternative to longer, clausal constructions are called
nominalization. Nominalizations include nouns which
express verb-type meanings and adjective type
meanings. They are more frequent in written academic
styles.
The result was an IR canon, of the `Plato to Nato`variety,
which was substantially anachronistic. Its dismantling
over the last twenty years has much to do with efforts in
the area of conceptual history.
36- TEXTUAL SIGNALS: THE VERB PHRASE
General

These include using tense-aspect choices to mark the status

of quotations or citation vis--vis the writer`s/speaker`s
current position, or the use of modal verbs for hedging
prepositions.
Signposting: tense-aspect choices refer the reader/listener
backwards and forwards in the text.
Structuring: particular tense-aspect choices tend to be
associated with particular parts of academic texts. Abstracts,
summaries, concluding sections of academic books, etc.
Reporting/narrating: tense-aspect choices have become
institutionalized for reporting and narrating experiments and
studies, and for stating findings and conclusions.
Citation: tense-aspect choices have become institutionalized
for citing and quoting one`s own work and the work of others
in different way
The present simple
Abstracts/summaries
The Pr.S appears in abstracts and summaries of academic
works such as articles, theses, essays.
E.g. this article looks at the effect of transoceanic migration
on rural Sicilian families.
Reporting findings
The Pr.S is often used to report the outcome, results or
findings of a piece of research.
These results are subsequently used to linearize nonlinear
regression quintiles.
Reporting significant aspects of people's work

Aspects of the work are considered important or relevant to

the present context. However, where the citation reports
experiments and specific studies, the past simple is preferred.
e.g.: Halliday argues that there are three basic transitivity
choices.
Creating synopses of fictional plots in works of
literature
The Pr.S is used to summarize the plot/events in e.g. novels
and plays.
Four men close to Jack Dodds, a London butcher, meet to
carry out his peculiar last wish: to have his ashes scattered
into the sea.
The past simple
The Pa.S form refers to the procedures used in their own and
others individual experiments and studies
e.g.: For each clip, the child was asked whether the animal or
object were moving.
Bogren et al (2000) statistically modeled the magnitude of
such temperature deficits with respect to solar evaluation.
The present perfect
Citing: an alternative to the present simple, but the present
perfect is especially used to emphasize current or continuing
debate
e.g.: Berg and Hudson have emphasized that modern
factories need not have been large.
Recapitulating: summarize or recapitulate points or
arguments

e.g.: what is more, the qualitative analyses in this chapter

have illustrated crucial aspects of the lexical characteristics
of everyday spoken language.
Ongoing processes: the present perfect progressive is not
typically used in concluding sections of academic texts, but
may be used to refer to an ongoing process in the discourse
up to a given point.
e.g.: this pure space, which I has only extension but not
location, is quite different from the theatrical spaces Ive
been discussing so far.
Progressive verb forms are not frequent in academic citations
and in the structuring of academic texts, things academic
texts are usually concerned with things that have permanent
and long-lasting relevance.
37- Modal Expressions

Will/Shall/ll
An academic writer/speaker may use will/shall/ll to refer
forward in written texts or in academic presentation, to
outline or points to things which are to be found later in
the text.
Progressive aspect is especially used when the
writer/speaker refers to text.
Shall, especially, indicate an undertaking by the
writer/speaker to do the action referred to:
e.g.: it seems to me that this second case, in which
coordination gives way to subordination, often holds in
the works of Pascal that I shall be discussing.

e.g.: In the different subsections of this section, I will

discuss different possible mechanisms underlying
aspects of display development and their
interrelationship.
e.g.: Lets now concentrate on the B cells for a few
minutes. And the well come back to the T cells.
*ll contraction is not normally used in written academic
style
Be going to
It is often used for forward reference in spoken academic
style but it is generally not used for this purpose in
written academic style:
We are going to talk about this more next week
because were going to be talking about the Unfair
term.
Verb phrases: contractions
Contracted verbs are generally avoided in academic
writing:
e.g.: it is doubtful that such a project ever existed
Spoken academic presentations, however, often use
contracted forms:
[University tutorial group; lecturer speaking about the
writer, Jane Austen]: maxims usually express a
commonsense point of view and Jane Austens full of
that commonsense.
38- Hedging Modality in Academic English
Academic texts are most frequently characterized by a desire
to avoid making claims and statements that are too direct and

assertive, since academic discourse is often about theories,

conclusions drawn from evidence, exchanging viewpoints, and
so on, rather than hard, indisputable facts. Therefore, hedging
is very important in academic styles.
Modality and Tense Aspect
Will is used to make confident predictions or assert known or
accepted facts:
e.g.: represented as a value between zero and one, X will
approach unity in perfectly flat and open terrain, whereas
locations with obstructions such as buildings will cause X to
become less.
Must is used to make confident predictions or conclusions;
e.g.: such changes must be due to changes in motivational
organization of social behavior.
Must is also used in boosted directives to the reader/listener
to pay attention to particular points:
e.g.: we must remember, however, that migrants may not
need information about more than one destination.
The unmodified simple form of verb tenses is used to make
non-hedged assertions:
Attachment, then, results in closed and prolonged proximity
of bacterial digestive enzymes with the substrate.
HEDGING: modality
Can, could, might and may:
A.E often needs to state possibilities rather than facts, and
academics frequently hypothesize and draw tentative
conclusions.

Can is often used to make fairly confident but not absolute

assertions, in contrast with could, might or may.
e.g.: these news insights into the multiple meanings of family
can help us understand the experience of transactional
migration.
Could and might are used for more tentative assertions:
One could say that our concept of selfhood is radically
contaminated by the mind-set of this is mine. I am this
A- Right. Very good. What do you think might have happen
since he left hospital that caused this ulcer to break
down again?
B- He could have either occluded his graft.
A particular use of May, common in academic texts, is to
describe things which are likely to occur or which normally
do occur. In this usage it is an equivalent of can:
e.g.: The anger experience may culminate in a variety of
behavioral reactions, including aggression or withdrawal.
May is also used in a more general way in academic texts
to make a proposition more tentative. May is less tentative
than could or might:
e.g.: this change may also have been in progress in other
counties.
Would
Would is frequently used to hedge assertions with someone
might challenge and to make argumentative claims less
direct when used with speech-act verbs such as advocate,
argue, assume, claim, propose, suggest:
e.g.: Theoretically, one would assume that this increased
bacterial mass would synthesize more enzymes

Would is also frequently used with appear and seem:

e.g.: I would seem that in this domain, as in so many
others, the north was more favored than the south.
Should and ought to
Should allow the writer/speaker to describe desired or ideal
situations. It is less strong than must:
e.g.: however, to assess different advantages in other
circumstances, the chosen method should be examined
critically before use.
Ought to occasionally use in this way in academic style, but
is much less frequent than should:
e.g.: our use of the term stable ought to be defined here.
Should is used to hedge conclusions and predictions, but it
expresses confidence in the probability that a situation will
occur in a particular way:
The overall agreement of the results should allow us to
accept them with some confidence.
39- Boosting in Academic English
Boosting in academic texts, to make a claim more
assertively, is often carried out by the use of a range of
adverbial and prepositional constructions (plus some other
types of expressions).
Common boosting expressions include adverbs such as:
-Categorically
-Certainly
-Clearly
-Definitely
-Emphatically
-Indisputably

-Inevitably
-Irrefutably
-Observably
-Obviously
-Plainly
-Undoubtedly
-Unquestionably
Other expressions used in boosting include:
-For sure/for certain
-It is/was clear/obvious/indisputable/etc. that
-There is/was no doubt that
-Without doubt
40- Linking Adjuncts
The use of linking adjuncts in writing is useful to give
coherence to the text and to organize it. The following
occur frequently in academic contexts but only very
infrequently in day-to-day conversational language:
-Additive: adding further ideas
Additionally, equally, furthermore, in addition, likewise,
moreover, similarly.
-Resultative: expressing causes reasons, results,
consequences
Accordingly, as a consequence/ result, consequently,
hence, in consequence, in (the) light of, this/that, in
view of this/that, therefore, thus
-Contrastive: contrasting, opposing
By/in contrast, conversely, however, nevertheless,
nonetheless, on the contrary, on the one handon the
other hand.
-Organizational: organizing and structuring the text,
listing:
Finally, firstly, secondly, thirdly, in brief, in conclusion,
in its/in their turn, in short, in sum, in summary, lastly,
respectively, subsequently.

Note also that a number of non-finite clausal

constructions are used in academic texts to signal
summaries.
Problems with linking adjuncts:
On the contrary, by contrast, on the other
hand not the same.
On the contrary rejects a previous statement in favor
of an opposite one:
e.g.: such complex impressions on the part of teachers
by no means arise from ignorance or prejudice: on the
contrary, they are the result of powerful, historically
informed, perspectives on musical reality.
By contrast and on the other hand are used for
consideration and comparison/contrast, but do not
reject the first one:
e.g.: Criminality in pre-industrialized Europe is thus
characterized more by violence against persons than
by property crimes such as theft. Modern society, by
contrast, is thought to experience more theft than
violence.
e.g.: Athenian public buildings and spaces were
magnificent. Private houses, on the other hand, seem
to have been small, and minimally furnished.
Firstly and at first not the same
First or firstly, is used to label the first item or point in
a list:
e.g.: in this paper, we firstly review the empirical
studies carried out by Annet. We then discuss the
ways in which genotypes are identified within the
Anent studies, we show that this is inefficient.
At first is used to contrast two different situations in
time:

Employment had at first been only too full, and the

economy was overloaded. But by the end of the
period the very idea of full employment seem illusory.
Last(ly) and at last
Last(ly) not at last, is used to label the first item or
point in a list:
As a rule the multiple-function centers were the first to
acquire the innovation; they were followed by the
prefect oral towns, then by industrial towns, and
lastly by those not dominated by any single activity.
At last is used to indicate that something happens, but
later or after a long period of time than was hoped or
expected:
The upsurge has been interrupted as being the
structural change that the 1920s failed to achieve.
New industries were at last replacing the old staples.
41- Interference Processes in Interphonology
The first issue encountered in designing the
pronunciation curriculum requires to take into
consideration such factors as our learners ages,
exposure to the target language, amount and type of
prior pronunciation instruction, and perhaps most
importantly their attitude toward the target language
and their motivation to achieve intelligible speech
patterns in the second language.
We need to be aware of how these factors figure in
determining performance in speaking English (or
alternatively in coloring attitudes toward such
performance).
AGE
Adult second language learners attain the apparent
inability to attain nativelike proficiency in
pronunciation has often intrigued linguists and non-

linguists alike. Scovel terms this lack of adult facility in

acquiring second language pronunciation the Joseph
Conrad phenomenon. Adults are unable to achieve
perfect or targetlike pronunciation in a second
language. This view goes hand in hand with the
generally held notion that prepubescent children with
adequate exposure to a second language can achieve
perfect or near perfect pronunciation with relative
ease.
One line of research that supports these claims posits
a period (occurring around puberty) after which brain
lateralization. Or the assigning of certain functions into
the different hemispheres of the brain is completed.
The period prior to the competition of lateralization,
called the critical period, represents the biologically
determined period of life during which maximal
conditions for language acquisition exist.
However, Flege cites the lack of empirical evidence to
substantiate this claim neither physiological
maturation nor neurological reorganization renders an
adult incapable of speaking a foreign language without
accent.
42- Developmental Processes in Interphonology
There are a number of sensitive periods during which
different aspects of language acquisition occur.
Children and adults perceive sounds in a very similar
manner, and those differences between the two ages
than to any innate differences in ability.
However, it is undoubtedly the case that adults will
acquire the phonological system of a second language
in a manner different from that of their first language,
given that the acquisition of new sounds in the second
language must be integrated into already existing
neutral networks. Biological factors impose

limitations much the same as psychological and

sociocultural factors
Exposure to the target language
Learners acquire language primarily from the input
they receive. Learners exposure to the target
language will be crucial factor in determining their
success.
Amount and type of prior pronunciation
instruction
We also need to examine the amount and type of prior
pronunciation instruction students have had,
43- Contrastive Analysis Hypothesis
This theory holds that second language acquisition is
filtered through the learners first language, with the
native language facilitating acquisition in those cases
where target structures are similar, and interfering
with acquisition in cases where the target structures
are dissimilar or nonexistent. Interference (negative
transfer) is valid in second language pronunciation
acquisition. Negative transfer is a significant factor in
accounting for foreign accents.
44- The markedeness Analysis Hypothesis
This theory proposes that in every linguistic
opposition- phonological or semantic- there is one
member of any pair of opposites that
psycholinguistically unmarked (more basic or neutral,
more universal, more frequent, first acquired) and one
that is marked (more specific, less frequent, more
limited, later acquired). For example, according to
markedeness theory, English (which allows both
voiceless /p, t, k/ and voiced /b, d, g/ stop consonants
in word or syllable final position) is more marked with
respect to stop consonants in final position than are

German and Russian (which permit only voiceless stop

consonants /p, t, k/ in this position). In terms of current
research on second-language phonological acquisition,
markedeness theory has been applied by Eckman in
his markedness differential hypothesis.
Eckmans theory is a direct response to criticisms of
the contrastive analysis hypothesis. It did not (1)
accurately predict which areas of target language
phonologically would be most difficult for learners of a
given language group or (2) predict which exact
sounds would be sustained by the learner.
Eckman proposes to remedy this deficiency by
constructing a hierarchy of difficulty for phonological
acquisition that utilizes insights from markedness
theory. German speakers (whose language prohibits
them from voicing stops and fricatives in final position)
will, when speaking English, experience difficulty in
producing the marked voice-consonant forms in final
position. On the other hand, English speakers will,
when speak German, experience relatively less
difficulty in learning to ignore the marked forms and to
use the unmarked forms exclusively in syllable-final
position.
45- Fossilization
This term comes from Slinker, who describes it as a
plateau in language learning beyond which it is
difficult for learners to progress without exceptional
effort or motivation.
Interlanguage is visualized as a dynamic continuum
along which a second language learner can move
toward an increasingly targetlike system. The learner
continually process input from the target language and
refines rules or hypotheses in the direction of the
target or until there is fossilization. Research on the

Interlanguage phonology had several focuses, which

included: (1) models of phonological development, (2)
theories of Interlanguage phonology, (3) acquisition of
syllable structure, (4) acquisition of suprasegmentals,
and (5) the varying phonological production of learners
resulting from the formality of the speech.
46- Motivation
According to Carroll, there are four traits that
constitute language aptitude:
1- Phonemic coding ability: the capacity to
discriminate and code foreign sounds such that they
can be recalled.
2- Grammatical Sensitivity: the ability to analyze
language and figure out rules.
3- Indicative language learning ability: the capacity to
pick up language through exposure.
4- Memory: the amount of rote learning activity
needed to internalize something (a new sound, a
lexical item, a grammatical rule, the pronunciation
of spelling of a word).
Some learners are in fact fairly balanced in these
four traits, whereas others have very strong
patterns of strength and weakness. Teachers need
to be sensitive to such learner differences and not
expect all learners to achieve the same level of
success in the same amount of time.
We need to go beyond language aptitude and
educational and cultural experience to see how
individuals and their personalities affect the
learning process. Guiora postulates that accent or
pronunciation is the key to the extent to which the
individual is physiologically capable of stepping nto
new system of communication.