Until recently, English teaching in Japan focused on giving much grammatical knowledge to students, and paid little attention to communicative competence, 'competence as to when to speak, when not, and as to what to talk about with whom, when, where, in what manner' (Hymes 1971: 277). However, nowadays, the importance of communicating with foreign people for mutual understanding is often pointed out, and communicative competence is gradually receiving more attention in English teaching in Japan. Grammatical knowledge is not sufficient for making students communicate well, and in addition to grammatical knowledge, the knowledge of appropriate use of the language is necessary for effective communication. Furthermore, as a part of communicative competence, 'social competence', the knowledge and ability to create and maintain a harmonious atmosphere in social interaction, should be given more attention in order to allow students to communicate with English speaking people harmoniously and effectively. Although a number of teachers have noticed the importance of communicative and social competence, such competence is not taught sufficiently in Japan. One reason for this is that, with few opportunities to communicate with native speakers of English in Japan, teachers themselves do not know well the communication patterns of English in actual situations. To develop students' communicative competence, Japanese teachers of English need to know the cultural patterns in English, and to see what kind of problems could occur for Japanese students. It is intended that this field study will contribute a small part to the growing understanding of the cultural patterns in English and Japanese. Before considering the possible problems especially for Japanese learners of English, three possible causal factors of communication problems for non-native speakers are discussed: (1) lack of linguistic competence (2) transfer of native cultural patterns (3) false stereotyping. As a basis for considering the problems in terms of politeness strategies, in particular, Brown and Levinson (1978)'s 'face theory' is introduced, and some characteristics of Japanese cultural patterns which may cause some politeness problems are discussed. Based on the discussion, some hypotheses are built up about Australian and Japanese communication patterns, and an investigation has been conducted, focusing on two request situations: (1) asking a lecturer to lend a book (2) asking a friend to lend a book. Four Australian native speakers of English and four native speakers of Japanese were asked to role-play in each situation, and their results were compared with each other. These results were also analyzed in comparison with the results of four Japanese speakers of English and four Australian speakers of Japanese. Although this is a preliminary study and has some limitations in the investigation, the results show that, although politeness is a universal phenomenon, it is expressed differently in English and Japanese, and they indicate some possible problems in politeness strategies for Japanese speakers of English and for Australian speakers of Japanese. As to the implications of the results for English teaching in Japan, three points can be considered: (1) the need to make students aware of the cultural patterns of English (2) the need to teach students sufficient variety of expressions (3) the need to give students enough practice. In terms of these points, some weaknesses in English teaching in Japan are discussed. For example, teachers do not have enough knowledge of communication patterns in English, materials used in class do not give enough information about the target culture and actual use of English by native speakers, and the amount of time spent on English in the school curriculum and the number of students in one class cannot be considered desirable for the purpose of giving enough practice to each student. These problems are not easy to solve, but it is possible to find ways to improve the situation. In the final chapter, some practical, though tentative, suggestions are made in the hope that English teaching in Japan will be improved to help students to communicate well with people in different cultures.

Increasing contact between China and English-speaking countries in recent years calls for competent language workers to fulfil various communication tasks. To meet this need, it is of great importance and urgency for the Chinese EFL teaching profession to be conscious of the existing problem of communicative incompetence of Chinese EFL learners and to strive for ways and means of reducing it. This study was undertaken as an exploratory study of this problem. As recognised by many now, linguistic competence alone is not sufficient for a successful foreign language learner, one needs to acquire communicative competence as well. In this study, a historical overview of the theory of communicative competence is provided. Following it is a detailed description of a survey which aimed to measure several areas of communicative competence of Chinese learners of English and to find out existing problems. Possible causal factors of those problems are also discussed and are categorised into two groups: communicative interference and weaknesses in the present curriculum, teaching methodology and teaching materials. Finally, implications of this study are examined and tentative suggestions are made in the hope that more and more Chinese EFL teachers will respond to the problem and search for ways to bring about effective learning.

Thesis (M.Ed.)--Memorial University of Newfoundland, 2004. / Bibliography: leaves 111-116.

The aim of this essay is to analyze two different educational paradigms, which I refer to broadly as the behavioristic way of learning through imitation versus intercultural education, as these are depicted in the novel Purple Hibiscus by the Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. The analysis focuses on how the narrator Kambili´s learning, identity and personal development are differently affected by these two contrastive approaches to education. After the analysis, examples of how the novel can be taught in intercultural, communicative EFL classrooms will be given. In the analysis theories of mimicry and imitation, and identity will be used as well as understandings of the terms intercultural education and behaviorism. The analysis shows that Kambili´s father Eugene represents behaviorism in the novel, whereas Kambili´s aunt Ifeoma symbolizes intercultural education. At home, Kambili learns to imitate her father´s behavior and values. In Ifeoma´s house on the other hand she encounters a kind of intercultural education, where critical thinking and questioning are encouraged. The thematization of contrastive educational and developmental paradigms in the novel is relevant to the comprehensive goals of Swedish upper secondary schools, which promote intercultural learning, as well as critical thinking and reflection on learning processes. Reading literature in the EFL classroom at this level may promote these broad educational objectives as well as the achievement of more specific, language- and culture-based learning outcomes. For many Swedish EFL students, Purple Hibiscus may represent difference, and therefore it is a suitable novel to include in intercultural education, as the students are encouraged tounderstand and reflect on different perspectives. By discussing the novel in groups, the education becomes intercultural because everyone becomes active participants and everyone´s voices are heard.

Observations of adolescent's language in upper secondary school in Sweden. Do teenagers stule-shift when speaking in different communicative settings; that is the core of this essay. Five informants have been observed in three different speaking sessions, and their language is analyzed, discussed and compared to secondary sources.

Face-to-face interaction has been studied both within sociology and linguistics, as well as withinother disciplines. Often has the perspective been too narrow, something which is not compatiblewith the diverse and dynamic nature of this type of interaction. This narrow view prevents fullunderstanding of interaction. Within this theoretical paper it is suggested that face-to-faceinteraction has to be studied with a broad perspective; when studying face-to-face interaction itis necessary to acknowledge its dynamic nature and therefore it is necessary to combineknowledge from different disciplines. Within this paper, I combine theories from linguistics andsociology in order to gain a broader perspective upon interaction. What has been missing fromearlier research upon face-to-face interaction and upon the competence needed to participatein such interaction is not the knowledge of the different features of interaction but a will toconnect them all. Existing concepts for describing the competence needed in order to be ableto interact have often failed to describe the dynamic, multi-faceted nature of interaction; therehas been a tendency to try to explain everything with just one factor. Within this paper, amore covering concept of the competence needed of an interactant within face-to-faceinteraction is proposed and sketched; a concept which I name Interaction Competence. Thiscompetence is the knowledge and abilities needed of an interactant in order to be able tointeract with others. This concept, which can be a valuable analytical tool for analyzing faceto-face interaction, has Dell Hymes’ concept of Communicative Competence and ErvingGoffman’s and Ann Warfield Rawls’ concept of Interaction Order as building-blocks andconsists of four main areas of competence: Control Body, Command Language, HandleSocio-cultural Knowledge and Understand Interaction Order. Within this paper also the affectof two interactant-external factors: the context and acceptability. Both are found to be highlyrelevant for the Interaction Competence of an interactant, thus the need for acknowledging therole of sufficient and acceptable Interaction Competence is seen. / <p>Presenterades (utöver uppsatsseminariet) inom ramen för Sociologiska Institutionens IMER (Internationella Migration Etniska Relationer)-seminarium</p>

Professional research project (Au. D.)--University of South Florida, 2002. / Title from PDF of title page. / Document formatted into pages; contains 20 pages. / Includes bibliographical references. / Text (Electronic thesis) in PDF format. / ABSTRACT: The modified Goodman scale, a hearing loss classification scale, is commonly used to describe audiometric findings for both children and adults (Haggard & Primus, 1999). This scale uses one or two word descriptors for hearing level categories and is based on a pure tone average (PTA), the average of hearing thresholds at 500, 1000, and 2000 Hz. Although these categories were developed from clinical and educational observations (Goodman, 1965), degree of hearing loss has not been shown to reliably predict the educational or language performance of children with hearing impairment (Martin & Clark, 1996). This study was designed to evaluate how the presentation modality (hearing loss simulation vs. using a term to describe the hearing loss using the Goodman scale) affects predictions of children&softsign;s communication difficulties in the classroom by graduate speech-language pathology students. / ABSTRACT: The perceptions of graduate speech-language pathology students were of interest because this population had not been included in earlier investigations, despite the fact that they often work with hearing-impaired children in the school systems. Three levels of hearing loss (mild, moderate, and severe) were introduced using two different presentation conditions. In one condition, a descriptive term from the Goodman scale was used to describe the hearing loss. In the other presentation conditions, a simulated hearing loss was presented to the participants. Following each presentation of each hearing loss, the participants rated the potential communication difficulty a child with that loss may have in the classroom using a questionnaire composed of nine different communication-related tasks (Appendix A). / ABSTRACT: In general, participants predicted significantly greater difficulty when presented with the simulated hearing loss, than when presented with the descriptive term for the same degree of hearing loss with a few exceptions. The results of this study indicated that the standard method of classifying hearing loss results in underestimation of the impact a hearing loss might have for a child. / System requirements: World Wide Web browser and PDF reader. / Mode of access: World Wide Web.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2000. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 151-170). Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2000. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 151-170). Also available on the Internet.

published_or_final_version / Linguistics / Master / Master of Arts in Applied Linguistics