Introducing Language in Use: a Coursebook
Activities
Discussion Topics
These discussion topics are listed by number for clarity. The numbers do not necessarily relate to the numbers of the units in Introducing Language in Use.
- How do numbers relate to language and in what way might maths be considered a language in its own right? Does a number mean anything — and if so, what? Why does it make sense to think of the language of mathematics?
- Are international road signs truly international? Go on the world wide web (or get a copy of The Highway Code) and find a list of road signs. How many do you understand immediately? Are the signs iconic, symbolic or indexical? How does that analysis help account for the signs you understood more easily or less easily? Arguably, iconic signs are more likely to be internationally comprehensible (as they ‘draw’ what they represent) whereas indexical or symbolic signs might be culturally specific. Is that the case in the signs that you have found?
- Many aspects of human behaviour can be interpreted as signs. Consider the following questions:
- What do students drink? When the authors were at university (admittedly a good few years ago), we mostly drank beer. Now students drink wine, or vodka shots.
- Would you drink sherry? Why (not)? Who does drink sherry and are they older or younger than you? Do men or women drink sherry?
- Who drinks whisky, Madeira, lager and lime, or white wine spritzer?
- What do you drink? Does your choice change when you change the company with whom you are drinking?
As answers emerge to these questions, so do ideas about the communicative (and so, the semiotic) value of drinks. Think about various ways in which you might wish to present yourself (to a prospective employer, perhaps, or to a distant relative at a family wedding or to a potential girlfriend/boyfriend) and therefore what drink you might choose (not) to have. How would you ask for your chosen drink and how do the circumstances of the occasion affect your language choices? How would your language change if you were in a five-star hotel as opposed to being at your home?
You could ask a very similar set of questions about the clothes people choose to wear for different events or even the topics they discuss in conversation.
PS Think about the value of the asterisk. Why might it have been misleading or inappropriate to write about five-star hotels as ***** hotels? What are asterisks often used for?
- What is a word? Would you count a contraction such as don't as one word or as two? If the item is hyphenated ( e.g. silver-grey), do you count it as one word or two? Word types and word tokens answer many of the points but not all.
- What other information besides the words in the script does the actor need to have if s/he is to give a realistic representation of a particular accent?
- Most people will accept that a language has to have words but some people will want to argue that grammar or structure is not so important. What do you think about this? Do you think grammar is important or not and why do you hold that opinion? You might like to think about how meaning changes when the words appear in a different order or why languages such as French and German have so many endings on verbs and nouns.
- Text messaging and e-mailing are creating new forms of English. How do you think the English language will have changed in, say, a hundred years? Will spelling as we know it have changed completely and will we all be using text-language in all written forms of English such as formal letters, examination answers and greetings cards? Are there any examples of written English where you think it might be inappropriate to use this form of language, and, if so, why?
- (a) In what ways might someone be (dis)advantaged if s/he can speak only in a strong regional accent? (b) In what ways might someone be (dis)advantaged if s/he can only speak in a formal standard accent? (c) Do you think it matters how we speak and pronounce our language? (d) Do you think you would answer this question differently if you lived in the US or the UK?
- How have you set the spell-checker for English on your computer? Did you accept the settings of the manufacturer or did you change them? Why?
- Why do you think language and communication are worth studying?