40514 COMPLEMENTS FOR TEACHER TRAINING

IN THE DISCIPLINE
TOPIC 1
LANGUAGE SCIENCES AND COMMUNICATIVE
COMPETENCE: A HISTORICAL AND EPISTEMOLOGICAL
APPROACH

1.1. Language sciences and education

Education
 LANGUAGE SCIENCES AND COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE: A
HISTORICAL AND EPISTEMOLOGICAL APPROACH
1.1. Language sciences and education
Education
LOMCE:
La educación: “principal instrumento de movilidad
social, ayude a superar barreras económicas y sociales
y genere aspiraciones y ambiciones realizables para
todos”
“tendrá por objeto el pleno desarrollo de la
personalidad humana en el respeto a los principios
democráticos de convivencia y a los derechos y
libertades fundamentales” (artículo 27.2 de la
Constitución española)
“la formación de personas activas con autoconfianza,
curiosas, emprendedoras e innovadoras, deseosas de
participar en la sociedad a la pertenecen, de crear
valor individual y colectivo, capaces de asumir como
propio el valor del equilibrio entre el esfuerzo y la
recompensa”
LOMLOE:
La educación: “Mientras que para cualquier persona
la educación es el medio más adecuado para
desarrollar al máximo sus capacidades, construir su
personalidad, conformar su propia identidad y
configurar su comprensión de la realidad, integrando
la dimensión cognoscitiva, la afectiva y la axiológica,
para la sociedad es el medio más idóneo para
transmitir y, al mismo tiempo, renovar la cultura y el
acervo de conocimientos y valores que la sustentan,
extraer las máximas posibilidades de sus fuentes de
riqueza, fomentar la convivencia democrática y el
respeto a las diferencias individuales, promover la
solidaridad y evitar la discriminación, con el objetivo
fundamental de lograr la necesaria cohesión social”.
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HISTORICAL AND EPISTEMOLOGICAL APPROACH

1.1. Language sciences and education

Education
LOMLOE:
In Bachillerato, the law includes the 'general' (mixed) Bachillerato besides
Science & Technology, Humanities, and Social Sciences & Art. In the Arts
modality, it includes 2 options: music and performing arts v. arts & crafts,
image, and design.
In ESO, the law fosters project-based learning and increases the number of
electives (attention to diversity).
The law includes more support and reinforcement measures to avoid students
sitting for the same year.
It empowers teachers, as they can make decisions about promoting students
who failed more than 3 subjects.
Bachillerato includes the subject of Philosophy again, and religion is an elective.
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HISTORICAL AND EPISTEMOLOGICAL APPROACH
0

Psycholinguistics

Halliday, M.A.K. (1978): Language as social semiotic: the social interpretation of language and meaning. London:
Edward Arnold.
 LANGUAGE SCIENCES AND COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE: A
HISTORICAL AND EPISTEMOLOGICAL APPROACH
What is the relationship between language sciences and
education if any?
Both are concerned with language and communication
Education has continuously searched for solutions to problems, and
answers to queries in the language sciences
Official documents talk about competence in linguistic communication ≠
from the concept of communicative competence
Devoid of its connotations
Different origin

Education needs to turn to language sciences, but the reverse does not
necessarily occur
 LANGUAGE SCIENCES AND COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE: A
HISTORICAL AND EPISTEMOLOGICAL APPROACH
What is the relationship between language sciences and education if
any?
According to the Curriculum for CSE (Royal Decree 1105/2014, of 3rd of
January, BOE), the ultimate aim of the subject Foreign Language is:

Develop Ss’ competence in linguistic communication…which equals:

“[el] desarrollo del sentido de la iniciativa, en especial por lo que respecta a las
actividades de expresión e interacción oral y escrita, en las que, desde su misma
planificación, el alumnado ha de tomar decisiones sobre qué decir y cómo hacerlo,
a través de qué canal y con qué medios, en qué circunstancias y dependiendo de
qué expectativas y reacciones de los interlocutores o corresponsales, todo ello con
el fin de cumplir el propósito comunicativo que persigue con el mayor grado
posible de éxito. La elección y aplicación consciente de las estrategias de
comunicación, de organización del discurso, de control sobre su ejecución y de
reparación del mismo, preparan a los estudiantes para asumir sus
responsabilidades, encontrar seguridad en sus propias capacidades, reforzar su
identidad y regular su comportamiento”.
 LANGUAGE SCIENCES AND COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE: A
HISTORICAL AND EPISTEMOLOGICAL APPROACH
What is the relationship between language sciences and
education if any?

The ultimate aim of foreign language teaching is the development

of learners’ competence in linguistic communication
(communicative competence), so that we provide learners with
the resources for adequate production and understanding of
spoken, written, and mediated messages in verbal or non-verbal
communication in the foreign language within specific contexts as
well as for the reflection on such messages therein. In so doing,
we need to make learners aware of the discursive, interpersonal
and socio-cultural assumptions underlying the use of these
resources in those contexts (Lomas, Osoro & Tusón, 1992)
 LANGUAGE SCIENCES AND COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE: A
HISTORICAL AND EPISTEMOLOGICAL APPROACH
What is the relationship between language sciences and
education if any?
Official documents:
Curriculum for CSE (Royal Decree 1105/2014, of 26th of
December)
Curriculum for CSE in the Valencian Community (Decree
87/2015, of 5th of June)
Latest modification of the Curriculum for CSE in the Valencian
Community (Decree 136/2015, of 4th of September and Decree
51/2018, of 27th April)
Curriculum for foreign language teaching in official language
schools (Decree 1629/2006, of 29th December)
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HISTORICAL AND EPISTEMOLOGICAL APPROACH

Historical perspective

18th and 19th centuries:

General development of linguistics :

– Historical linguistics: Historical grammar, comparative grammar, and

Dialectology (18th century)
– Phonetics (19th century)

At universities and in the private sphere: traditional models of teaching

language, which was conceived as “the art of speaking and writing
correctly”

ACTIVITY (Video)
 LANGUAGE SCIENCES AND COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE: A
HISTORICAL AND EPISTEMOLOGICAL APPROACH
In the language sciences there were problems and
achievements that affected language teaching:
Problems:
– General confusion between prescription and description
– Inconsistencies of theoretical premises or lack of these
– Mixture of formal and functional criteria in the definition of units
of analysis
Achievements:
– Language had started to be explored as a system v. historical
exploration
– Vast amount of empirical data
– The emergence of phonetics:
– possibility for exploring speech
– provides teachers with interesting elements for their practice
LANGUAGE SCIENCES AND COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE: A
HISTORICAL AND EPISTEMOLOGICAL APPROACH
20th century:
Development of linguistics:
Structural linguistics (Europe): Saussure
– Overcome the shortcomings and contradictions of
traditional grammar
– Language (langue)
abstract system, whose elements need to be seen as parts of
such system
structured in separate levels: morphology, syntax, phonetics,
phonology and semantics
the sentence is the main unit of analysis
analysis of written texts (v. speech (parole)) at the
superficial level
LANGUAGE SCIENCES AND COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE: A
HISTORICAL AND EPISTEMOLOGICAL APPROACH

20th century:
Development of linguistics:
Structural linguistics (US & Europe): Bloomfield (B) (US)
and Firth (F) (Europe)
– Interest in native American languages (B)
– Interest in speech (B&F)
– Interest in language teaching (B)
The linguist is responsible for preparing language teaching
materials and establishing teaching and learning objectives
A native American speaker helps with pronunciation (speech)
Learners learn lists of words (emphasis in morphology) and
repeat aloud (drills)
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HISTORICAL AND EPISTEMOLOGICAL APPROACH

Transformational-generative linguistics (Chomsky) – formal

paradigm

Aim: account for an individual’s linguistic competence (v. his/her

performance) explain language acquisition or learning

An individual’s performance is
incomplete
subject to a great diversity
and heterogeneity
Children can createsentences that they have never heard before.
There are universals that appear in all languages.
Chomsky did not care about performance.
LANGUAGE SCIENCES AND COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE: A
HISTORICAL AND EPISTEMOLOGICAL APPROACH

Transformational-generative linguistics (cont.)

Language = an individual’s innate body of knowledge common to all

human beings (universal)

UG

Language Acquisition Device (LAD)

Focus: ideal speaker-hearer

Linguistic competence: an ideal speaker-listener’s innate knowledge

of grammatical rules and factors
 LANGUAGE SCIENCES AND COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE: A
HISTORICAL AND EPISTEMOLOGICAL APPROACH
Functional or communicative paradigm
Object of study: linguistic performance.

Linguistic competence needs to be studied always related to the

functions we perform when we speak
Formal linguistics: simple, artificial and predictable elements
Functional linguistics: complex, natural and unpredictable
elements

Consequences of formal and functional paradigms in linguistics

for language teaching: positive and negative aspects (Handout
# 1)
LANGUAGE SCIENCES AND COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE: A
HISTORICAL AND EPISTEMOLOGICAL APPROACH
Functional or communicative paradigm (cont.)
Encompasses different disciplines that can be divided into 3
different blocks:
A. Language philosophy or philosophical pragmatics
(linguistics)

B. Linguistic anthropology (anthropology), sociolinguistics

(sociology)

C. Cognitive science: psycholinguistics (psychology)

LANGUAGE SCIENCES AND COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE: A
HISTORICAL AND EPISTEMOLOGICAL APPROACH

Functional or communicative paradigm (cont.)

Common to all: focus on the study of language in

use or for communication go beyond the
sentence to look at the utterance or discourse in
context.
 LANGUAGE SCIENCES AND COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE: A
HISTORICAL AND EPISTEMOLOGICAL APPROACH

Functional or communicative paradigm (cont.)

A. Language philosophy or philosophical pragmatics
– 60’s and 70’s:
Speech Act Theory (Austin, Searle)
Focus: Speaking (language use) = action in context

SPEECH ACT

o E.g.: Thank you very much for your help (thanking)

o E.g.: Can you pass me the salt, please? (requesting)
 LANGUAGE SCIENCES AND COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE: A
HISTORICAL AND EPISTEMOLOGICAL APPROACH

Functional or communicative paradigm (cont.)

A. Language philosophy or philosophical pragmatics
– 60’s and 70’s:
Grice’s model of logic and conversation
The (CP) is based on the following Maxims: Cooperative Principle

– The Maxim of Quantity We think we need to give the hearer the right amount of information
– The Maxim of Quality When you assume that you are not lying and the other person is not lying to
you either in a conversation

– The Maxim of Relation When you expect relevant conversation in a conversation and you deliver
relevant information too

– The Maxim of Manner We normally assume others to be polite and not to offend the hearer

When the class has been too talkative and the teacher shouts to a a student that has not been misbehaving. MAXIM OF MANNER
When you expect that the teacher provides you with faithful info about the exam. MAXIM OF QUALITY
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Functional or communicative paradigm (cont.)

A. Language philosophy or philosophical pragmatics
– 60s and 70s:
Bakhtin Discourse genres: primary and secondary genres.

Reproduces society
Language: means for socialization, consciousness,
and ideology to emerge in children/individuals
Every discourse is always shaped as a discursive
genre
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HISTORICAL AND EPISTEMOLOGICAL APPROACH
Hymes: The ethnography of speaking

Tradition in anthropological linguistics + a framework to describe

communicative behaviour across speech communities
Components:
– Setting and scene Physical place

S – Participants People physically present

E
P – Ends Purpose of the conversation
V
E – Act sequences Actions in a sequence: 1st raise your hand, 2nd the waiter comes, 3rd you talk to the
E waiter....
E
N – Key Tone: humorous? Serious?
C
T
H – Instrumentalities Things that we need in the conversation for it to happen.

– Norms of interaction and interpretation What is expected from that situation in

general

– Genre Type of conversation: medical for instance.

 LANGUAGE SCIENCES AND COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE: A
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Functional or communicative paradigm (cont.)
B.2. Sociolinguistics (Variational sociolinguistics) (Labov)
Focus: study of language use in relation to the agents as members of linguistic
communities characterised by linguistic diversity

Key concepts:
We normally recognise 2 varieties: British and American. But we
should show the kids other English varieties.
– Language variety
– Verbal repertoire
– Linguistic community
– Standard language
– Dialect
– Register
– Diglossia
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Functional or communicative paradigm (cont.)

C. Cognitive science: psycholinguistics:

C.2. Socio-cultural theory (Vigotsky)

Children learn a language through interaction with adults

Interaction is crucial for a child’s cognitive development.
Adults facilitate learning by intervening in a child’s Zone of
Proximal Development (ZPD) We should teach a level above their level of competence.
The area in which we see what a learner knows already
and what a learner cannot do without another person
Difference between what a learner can do without help and
what s/he can do with the help of an adult or a more advanced
learner. They learn from each other and it does not matter the language
they use among each other.
LANGUAGE SCIENCES AND COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE: A
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Functional or communicative paradigm (cont.)

Contribution to language teaching and learning

(Handout # 2)
LANGUAGE SCIENCES AND COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE: A
HISTORICAL AND EPISTEMOLOGICAL APPROACH

Competencia en
comunicación
lingüística (MEC,2016)