Table of Contents
Foreword to the Issue
I. Articles
Gerald Delahunty (Fort Collins (Co), USA):
Language,Ideology, and Participant Positioning in Amnesty International Appeal Letters
It
is well known (Bell 1984) that individual texts may serve different
purposes, each for a different audience. The current research
reveals how one instrument, the "appeal letter," in
Amnesty International's (AI) activism in support of human rights
simultaneously linguistically enacts at least two roles - of
attempting to persuade powerful government functionaries to act in
accord with human rights and to persuade AI's members / volunteers of
the righteousness of their causes, to act for those causes, and to
donate in their support. The letters are written by AI staffers and
distributed to AI members / volunteers embedded in emails that
provide information on the case and exhort the volunteers to
send the appeals. This paper demonstrates how a particular
characterization of ideology (Eagleton 2007, Verschueren 2012)
provides the means to identify how linguistic choices index these
various purposes and their respective audiences. One major device for
engaging volunteers is the construction of the letters as direct
first-to-second-person appeals, i.e., from an I
to a you,
thereby positioning the AI volunteers as principals
"whose position is established by the words that are spoken, ...
whose beliefs have been told, . . . who [are] committed to what the
words say" (Goffman 1981:144-145). This paper demonstrates how
this and other linguistic devices, most especially
presupposition,
ideologically construct the letter senders, by rationalizing,
universalizing, and naturalizing - and thus legitimizing - their
human rights commitments, thereby unifying them as a social group and
motivating their actions in support of those commitments.
Georgios Neokleous & Anna Krulatz (both Trondheim, Norway):
An Investigation into Norwegian Teachers’ Perspectives on the Use ofStudents' Mother Tongue in the EFL Classroom
Abstract (English)
This paper reports the results of a
questionnaire-based study that examined Norwegian EFL teachers’
views on the use of students' mother tongue (MT) in teaching English
as a foreign language (EFL). It focuses on the teachers’ attitudes
towards the use of MT and their aspirations to create an English-only
or a bilingual environment in the EFL classroom. Twenty-four
in-service EFL teachers enrolled in an EFL endorsement course at a
university in Mid-Norway completed the questionnaire. The responses
suggest that while the majority of the participating teachers used
Norwegian when teaching English, they also would like to minimize
their reliance on students' MT and increase the use of the target
language. Future research directions and baseline implications for
language teacher education are discussed.
Denne artikkelen rapporterer resultatene av en
spørreundersøkelse som var en del av en studie som undersøkte
norske EFL læreres syn på bruk av elevens morsmål (MT) i
undervisning av engelsk som fremmedspråk (EFL). Studien fokuserer på
lærernes holdninger til bruk av MT og egne ambisjoner om å skape et
ett- eller tospråklig miljø i EFL klasserommet. Tjuefire EFL lærere
som deltok på et EFL kurs ved et universitet i Midt-Norge besvarte
spørreskjemaet. Svarene tyder på at mens flertallet av de
deltakende lærerne bruker norsk i engelskundervisningen, ønsker de
også å redusere egen avhengighet av elevens MT og øke bruken av
engelsk. Retninger for fremtidig forskning og grunnleggende
implikasjoner for språklærerutdanningen blir diskutert.
Ghania Ouahmiche (Oran, Algeria) & Khalid Ziad (Mila, Algeria):
An Investigation on Free Voluntary Reading of a Group of EFL Studentsand their Beliefs about its Impact on their Writing Performance
Abstract
Research on the benefits of free voluntary reading
in EFL settings has been in the ascendant following the numerous
reports documenting the power of reading voluntarily in helping
students reach satisfactory levels of target language proficiency,
especially writing skills which are widely considered as a source of
trouble for many EFL students. From this perspective, our study
examines the FVR habits of a group of EFL university students as well
as their beliefs concerning the efficiency of reading voluntarily to
enhance their writing development. The main results of the study
reveal that despite students’ inconstant Free Voluntary Reading
habits, they hold positive beliefs about its efficiency in enhancing
writing development specifically in terms of content enrichment
rather than form correctness.
C. Cecilia Tocaimaza-Hatch (Omaha (NE), USA) & Ashwini Ganeshan (Athens (GA), USA):
Praxis:How Service-Learning Promotes Understanding and Control Of VerbalAspect in Spanish L2 Learners
Abstract (English)
Service-learning (SL) provides learners with
opportunities for genuine language negotiation (Caldwell 2007, Abbott
& Lear 2010, Barreneche 2011, Uehara & Raatior 2016, Zapata
2011, Askildson, Kelly & Mick 2013, Tocaimaza-Hatch & Walls
2016). This investigation explores how SL improves learners’
conceptual development and use of verbal aspect in oral narrations.
For the pre-test and post-test, learners narrated Mercer Mayer’s
book Frog Goes to Dinner providing spontaneous performance
data. Immediately after, learners were prompted to discuss their
aspectual choices. Finally, after the post-test, learners answered
open-ended questions on whether and how their ability to narrate
improved over time. While findings show no evidence of improvement in
use and control of verbal aspect, there is improvement in SL
learners’ conceptual understanding of verbal aspect. The open-ended
questions suggest learners perceived SL helped in improving their
narration skills, and they recognized SL as a setting where theory
and practice, i.e., praxis, come together. Overall, learners’
reflections on the SL experience demonstrated increased confidence in
language abilities. SL, in this investigation, provided learners with
opportunities to simultaneously develop affective and cognitive
processes and in this way, SL proved to be a beneficial and enriching
experience for language learning.
Abstract (Español)
El aprendizaje a través de servicio (AS) brinda a
los estudiantes oportunidades reales de negociación lingüística
(Caldwell 2007, Abbott & Lear 2010, Barreneche 2011, Uehara &
Raatior 2016, Zapata 2011, Askildson, Kelly, & Mick 2013,
Tocaimaza-Hatch & Walls 2016). Esta investigación estudia cómo
AS mejora en los estudiantes la comprensión conceptual y el uso del
aspecto verbal en las narraciones orales. Para las pruebas anterior y
posterior, los estudiantes narraron el libro de Mercer Mayer, Frog
Goes to Dinner, así proporcionando datos espontáneos.
Inmediatamente después, se les pidió que reflexionaran y explicaran
sus elecciones aspectuales. Finalmente, después de la prueba post,
los estudiantes respondieron a preguntas abiertas sobre mejorías en
su habilidad de narrar. Si bien los resultados no muestran evidencia
de mejoría en el uso y control del aspecto verbal, indican un
desarrollo en la comprensión conceptual del aspecto verbal en los
estudiantes. Las preguntas abiertas sugieren que los estudiantes
percibieron que AS les ayudó a mejorar sus habilidades de narración,
y reconocieron AS como un entorno donde la teoría y la práctica, es
decir, la praxis, se unen. En general, en las reflexiones
sobre la experiencia AS, los estudiantes demostraron una mayor
confianza en sus habilidades con el idioma. AS, en esta
investigación, proporcionó a los estudiantes oportunidades para
desarrollar simultáneamente procesos afectivos y cognitivos, y de
esta manera, AS fue una experiencia beneficiosa y enriquecedora para
el aprendizaje de idiomas.
Karl-Heinz Eggensperger (Potsdam, République fédérale d'Allemagne):
L'enseignementdu français intégré aux programmes de double diplôme
Abstract (English)
This article deals with French language courses for
specific purposes for students enrolled in dual degree programs. The
language skills students need can obviously not be acquired in
general language courses. Currently, training programs at
universities in France are intended for heterogeneous student
profiles. The article outlines another type of language training for
students enrolled in law, political science, economics and
management. These foreign language courses aim to develop a language
proficiency allowing students to understand lectures in their
discipline, take notes and pass written and oral exams. The article
describes interdisciplinary research divided into legal, linguistic
and methodological areas. Its objective is to identify disciplinary
knowledge, linguistic knowledge and language skills by the analysis
of a homogeneous corpus of law lectures. Suggestions for teaching
materials illustrate the theoretical concept.
Abstract (Deutsch)
Im Mittelpunkt des Beitrags stehen curriculare
Elemente für fachbezogene Französischkurse in integrierten
Studiengängen mit Doppelabschluss. Die dafür erforderlichen
sprachlichen Voraussetzungen können nicht in allgemeinsprachlichen
Kursen erworben werden. Eine Grundlage für die Bewältigung
hochschulspezifischer Aufgaben in der Fremdsprache bilden der
handlungstheoretische Ansatz des Gemeinsamen Europäischen
Referenzrahmens und UNIcert®. Sprachkompetenz wird als
interagierendes Gefüge von Teilkompetenzen zur Bewältigung
kommunikativer Aufgaben beschrieben. Die Vielschichtigkeit der
notwendigen Kompetenzen lässt sich durch ein Modell sichtbar machen.
Anschließend werden studienfachbezogene Grundkenntnisse
zusammengestellt. Am Beispiel des französischen
Staatsorganisationsrechts zeigen sich wesentliche Unterschiede
zwischen Fachcurriculum und fachbezogenem Fremdsprachencurriculum.
Vorschläge zu Unterrichtsmaterialien für fachbezogene Lexik,
Notationstechniken für Vorlesungen und zur Redaktion von
Präsentationsvorlagen sollen das theoretische Konzept
veranschaulichen.
Thomas Tinnefeld (Saarbrücken, Germany):
KenHyland: The Essential Hyland. Studies in Applied Linguistics. Londonet al.: Bloomsbury 2018.