English in the Environment, the Environment in English
Thomas Ricento
Summary of Plenary Talk for the Annual ATESL Conference
Calgary, Alberta
October 19, 2007
I would venture to say that the majority of people in the language teaching profession today subscribe (consciously or unconsciously) to the idea of language as a rule-governed system used primarily for communication. And by communication, I mean the transmission of meaning aurally or visually from one individual to another or other individuals. The goal of language teaching and learning in this view is to provide learners with the best possible chance of successfully transmitting meaning, i.e., of being ‘successful communicators’. In general, curricula in ESL or EFL provide ‘content’ that is mostly vocabulary, grammar rules, idioms, pronunciation tips, and examples of actual language samples on tapes or CDs. These can certainly be useful and can help a learner advance in a career, and perhaps integrate into an English-speaking society, such as Canada. However, if we accept the view that “language has meaning only in and through social practices” (Gee 1999:8), what, exactly, are the social practices that students have experienced/practiced in the ESL classroom? And if language is a behavior that is enacted through both big ‘D’iscourses and little ‘d’iscourses (Gee 1999), where (D)iscourses takes into account non-linguistic features, such as dress, gestures, actions, interactions, symbols, tools, technologies, values, attitudes, beliefs, and emotions, and (d)iscourses encompasses actual verbal texts), what sorts of behaviors are students prepared to engage in/with in the world(s) they inhabit outside the classroom?
SLA research and our own personal experiences as language learners and teachers tell us that fluency requires far more than knowing the words and ways of combining (and pronouncing) them to, for example, answer a question, make a request, provide information, etc. True fluency always involves a high degree of social understanding of situation, sociocultural knowledge of norms and expectations in particular settings, and the appropriate language forms that both reflect and constitute appropriate behavior.
Competence in the forms of language only accounts for a portion of our ability to understand and perform language; we are often capable (as native speakers of a language) of understanding texts because of our understanding of and dependence on the context, the (perceived) intentions of interlocutors, past experience, cultural knowledge, and so on. Consider the following text of a recorded conversation between two women lawyers recorded in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia [from Crystal 1999: 166-167]:
CHANDRA: Lee Lian, you were saying you wanted to go shopping, nak pergi tak?
LEE LIAN: Okay, okay, at about twelve, can or not?
CHANDRA: Can lah, no problem one! My case going to be adjourned anyway.
LEE LIAN: What you looking for? Furnitures or kitchenwares? You were saying, that day, you wanted to beli some barang-barang for your new house.
CHANDRA: Yes lah! Might as well go window-shopping a bit at least. No chance to ronda otherwise. My husband, he got no patience one!
LEE LIAN: You mean you actually think husbands got all that patience ah? No chance man! Yes or not?
CHANDRA: Betul juga. No chance at all! But if anything to do with their stuff—golf or snooker or whatever, then dia pun boleh sabar one.
LEE LIAN: Yes lah, what to do? It still is a man’s world, in that sense! Anyway, we better go now—so late already—wait traffic jam, then real susah!
Glossary:
Lah, one = emphatic particles
Can or not? = tag question
Nak pergi tak = tag question in Malay (‘Want to go, not?’)
Ronda = loaf
Susah = difficult
Beli some barang-barang = Malay (‘buy…things’)
Dia pun boleh sabar one = Malay (‘he too can be patient’)
Betul juga = ‘true also’
There are a number of words and grammatical constructions unfamiliar to many English speakers; yet, we are able to get the ‘gist’ of the conversation; we can relate to two women making plans to go shopping and can understand humor about spouses and the shortcomings of husbands, and so on.
Now consider the following British newspaper headline (from Crystal 2003: 162): ‘Blairite MP in New Labour Sleaze Trap, say Tories’—six words with British political meanings or overtones used in quick succession, tied to local culture. We may recognize all of the words, yet the meaning is likely to be more opaque for most of us (what is a sleaze trap?). Consider another example from the South African Sunday Times (also an English language newspaper, from Crystal 2003: 162, 164): ‘It is interesting to recall that some verkrampte Nationalists, who pose now as super Afrikaners, were once bittereinder bloedsappe’ (verkrampt (‘bigoted); bittereinder (‘die hard of the Anglo-Boer war’); bloedsappe (‘staunch member of the United Party’). All of the local words are Afrikaans in origin. Without an understanding of local culture, we cannot easily get the gist of the language because we cannot construct a context and we have no way of understanding the intentions of the writer.
On the other hand, the simplest and most straightforward language, apparently devoid of local cultural meanings, may be doing rather complex ‘social work’ in everyday conversation. Someone unfamiliar with cultural ‘rules’ of politeness and cooperation may fail to correctly interpret very (apparently) simple language, as in the following example:
A: Are you busy right now?
B: No.
A: I hate to impose, but would you mind helping me carry these boxes to my car?
B: Sure, no problem.
The coherence of this brief conversation is not based only or primarily on knowledge of English grammar; rather, it is achieved because both A and B are doing ‘social work’, or as soci5 ologist Erving Goffman (1967) put it, ‘face work’. If B fails to understand (interpret) A’s utterance (a question) as a ‘prelude to a request’, or pre-sequence in the terminology of Conversation Analysis, and answers ‘No’, but then turns down A’s request for help, B will (perhaps unknowingly, if he is an English language learner) have committed a social faux pas. The real social purpose of the ‘linguistic dance’ captured in this short interchange is for A to impose on B (asking a favor) and the way in which this is done in many middle class North American English speaking contexts is by indirection and the use of politeness strategies, which are realized linguistically with: (1) a pre-sequence (‘Are you busy now?’), (2) a disclaimer (‘I hate to impose’), (3) politeness modal (‘would you mind…’). This is not the only way to achieve cooperation through politeness, and the language forms used in English are not necessarily the same ones used in other cultures and languages. Yet, all societies and cultures have ‘rules’ like these which are not transparent to ‘outsiders’. Although we can describe the above text in terms of words and structures, what is missing is the cultural knowledge of why these forms are used to perform particular social behavior (in this case, this is how, in middle class North American society, we maintain positive ‘face’ when we impose on others with requests or favors). The real meaning in this brief text is not found in the words, but in their use in familiar patterns that have derived (over time) within a particular culture to do particular social work.
Let’s now consider another way in which we can understand how language has meaning only in and through social practices. Here are examples of some English idioms commonly used in Pakistan, Nigeria and Ghana (from Crystal 2003: 163):
| Example | Gloss |
| Declare a surplus | throw a party |
| Recite offhead | speak spontaneously |
| Put sand in one’s gari | interfere with one’s good luck |
| Take in | become pregnant |
| Give me chance/way | let me pass |
| I’m not financial | have no money |
The only word we would not likely know from this list is ‘gari’; yet few of us would recognize the meanings of these phrases in the English commonly used in these countries. But if we reflect on the fact that the meaning or connotation of words or phrases may change over time—as may their grammatical category—it is easier to understand how English may look different in a different society. Even in North America, English has undergone remarkable changes even during our lifetimes. The word ‘mailman’ may still exist, but ‘letter carrier’ is generally preferred, a direct result of the movement to promote gender equality in North America and elsewhere. While the older meaning of ‘gay’ (merry) may still exist, the more recent meaning generally takes precedence. The negative connotation of ‘queer’ has been co-opted and embraced as a positive term by the gay community. These observations demonstrate not that these English usages are wrong or odd, but rather that the meanings of words (alone or in combination with other words) are not inherent in the ‘words’, and that usage (like grammar) is a matter of social custom and habit, and so that knowing a word or words means knowing how they ‘work’ to do particular ‘things’ in particular societies for particular purposes. Such changes occur in ‘grammar’ as well, since grammar is affected by changes in usage that are influenced by changes in technology (e.g., the internet and mass media) and other social and political movements and processes. We cannot presume to really ‘know’ the meanings of words or the ‘grammars’ (i.e., customary patterns and subsystems) that they inhabit until/unless we are socialized to some degree in the societies (and cultures) in which they ‘live’ and ‘work’.
Conclusion
Let me briefly summarize the main points of this talk:
(1) Language has meaning only in and through social practices
(2) The naming (or labeling) of a language is a political act, since there is no discernable, definable entity associated with the label ‘English’ or ‘French’ or ‘Spanish’
(3) There is no natural fixed structure to language. Rather, speakers borrow heavily from their previous experiences of communication in similar circumstances, on similar topics, and with similar interlocutors (from Paul Hopper 1998)
(4) Innovation, change, and adaptation occur when language varieties come into contact; motivation for language change is primarily social
(5) Language environments are everywhere multi-layered, multiglossic, heterogeneous, and complex because human societies are all those things
What does all of this mean for the teaching of English? Classrooms are places where certain things can and should be done (learning vocabulary, improving reading skills through intensive and extensive reading, learning about culture, etc.), but the environments outside the classroom are where language actually gets performed. One concrete suggestion is that we should pay more attention to the social and culture aspects of language behavior and the ways in which language users perform identities and how they may ‘read’ the identities of others in their various environments. Language learners ideally should become amateur ethnographers, learning how to read meaning from language used in varied social contexts. They must become active students of the complex environments they inhabit. The environment of the classroom can provide guidance, general rules, relevant content, language routines and patterns, but it simply cannot duplicate what happens outside the classroom walls. So, my advice is: teach your students to become ethnographers of communication, the sooner the better! It is also your job to investigate, to become more consciously aware of the many ways that language behavior is performed in the environments in which you live and work, as well as in the environments inhabited by your students.
References
Crystal, D. (2003). English as a global language (second edition). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Gee, J. (1999). An introduction to discourse analysis: Theory and method. New York: Routledge.
Goffman, E. (1967). Interaction and ritual: Essays on face-to-face behavior. New York: Anchor Books.
Hopper, P. (1998). Emergent grammar. In M. Tomasello (ed.), The new psychology of language (pp. 155-175). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.