Microstrategies for Contextualizing the Linguistic

Input
VISHAL VIJAYAN

Language as a tool for communication always attached to certain communicative

contexts. It is to be said that the best way of imparting a language to someone is
to introduce him an ambience where the communication takes place only in
target language. Having been introduced to ‘the world of object language’, the
learner imbibes the language naturally and explores the linguistic features
unintentionally. Being acquainted with the various linguistic environments, the
learner himself learns to distinguish between the changes in the use of
communicative language in accordance with situations that helps him to do away
with what is termed as ‘out of context’ and to get familiarized with the factors
which contribute to the linguistic cohesion of a second language at the
communicative level.

The immediate linguistic environment that consists of the formal aspects of

language required for the process of meaning making is known as the linguistic
context of that language. These formal aspects include pronouns, articles,
conjunctions and other features of linguistic code that are fundamental to the
functioning of a language. The meaning of the grammatical or lexical items can
easily be understood from the contextual clues left off by the linguistic
environment. The immediate linguistic environment that contains prosodic
signals such as stress and intonation is known as extra linguistic context. The
duration of syllables and the changes in the pitch of the speaker’s voice come
under the category of extra linguistic context, which carry subtle information
beyond what is expressed through syntactic and semantic features of the
language.

Linguistic contexts and the extra linguistic context are the internal constructs built
into the system of a language that contribute to the process of meaning making
though they play only a limited role in helping the listener to infer the intended
meaning from the speaker’s side. In order to understand the real meaning of the
speech event, one has to be familiar with what is termed as situational context.

Language is always fixed within the context of a situation so that in order to make
a sense out of the speech event, one has to move beyond the linguistic and extra
linguistic context. A clear-cut apprehension is possible only when the situational
context becomes perceptible to the learner. The illocutions, for example, become
relevant only when they are uttered in the exact situational context when it is
required. The several factors that shape the situational context of a
communicative event, according to Hyms, are Setting, Participants, Ends, Act
sequence, Key, Instrumentalities, Norms and Genre, which contribute to the frame
of reference for understanding. A linguistically incoherent speech event can
become communicatively coherent when it is read by placing it in an appropriate
situational context.
The extra situational context is also known as the context of culture. The
meaning of speech event is shaped by several contexts such as the social,
cultural, political, or ideological, which determine the appropriateness of a
communication. The norms of interpretation from culture to culture pose a great
challenge before the L2 learners in the process of meaning making.

A Microstrategy for Contextualizing Linguistic Input:

Travel Matters.

The pedagogists came to an assumption that by creating meaningful contexts for

language learning and teaching activities in a class would make the second
language acquisition more feasible for the learners. This microstrategy is based
on the language learning scenarios proposed by Di Pietro, who suggested
treating the language classroom itself as a kind of speech community that can
provide the setting for interactive language use. By making use of this
microstrategy, a teacher can make her students familiar the language and
communication in the world outside the classroom.

At first, the students are asked to share their travel experiences that they may
have undertaken to visit places in their country or abroad. Then the teacher
presents a situation before the students, where they are presented with a problem
to solve. For example, telling the students to imagine that they are at the airport
for a return trip home. Due to some clerical mistake, their flight has been
overbooked. A supervisor is requesting ten of the passengers to take a flight
scheduled for the following day. If they do, they will be suitably compensated,
including a free hotel room for the night. And the students are among the
passengers and they have to make a quick decision. Then the students can be
divided into three groups out of which one group plays the role of the supervisor
and the other two are of passengers who are willing and and who are not willing
to accept the offer respectively.

Then letting each group to discuss and prepare a script for arguing its case. As
the group discussion proceeds, the teacher has to move from group to group,
monitoring any communicative or linguistic difficulty the participants may
encounter. The teacher is free to record the discussions for further analysis. After
the discussion, a role-play will be conducted. After the performance, the teacher
can initiate an analytical discussion on the group discussion and performance
from the perspective of communication. At this point, the teacher may wish to
offer her comments, both positive and negative. In addition, she can highlight
some of the communicative and linguistic difficulties that may have noted
during the group discussion. Based on your notes, the teacher may decide to treat
in detail any grammatical and lexical features by designing focused exercises to
be done in the class later.

Here, the language learning is turned to be an easy task as far as the learners’
part is concerned. By getting exposed to various contexts, the language
development in learner becomes incidental. In addition, the group discussion
helps the learner to share his/her points without any inhibition. And the learners
will get familiar with various jargons, which may help them to deal with the
situations that they come across in the long run.
Work cited

Kumaravadivelu, B.Beyond Methods: Macrostrategies for Language Learning.

London: Yale University Press, 2003. Print.