The Insights of Social View of Language on English Teaching and Learning

0 Introduction

1）Shift from the formal view to social and semantic view of language

According to Noam Chomsky[1],there is the ‘ideal’ language system in man’mind that makes it possible for speakers to produce and understand an infinite number of sentences in their language and distinguish grammatical sentences from ungrammatical sentences.Chomsky called it ‘Competence’ which was first introduced by Noam Chomsky[1]as part of the foundations for his Generative grammar.

In 1970s,linguists started to shift their view of language as an abstract system to view it as a social and semantic system for they think language is not only formal but also functional,especially social functional,which underpins the social development.It is a great change.Many different researches on this aspect emerge and complement each other.

This reduction of DIBL in GSGCDMT structure is due to better gate controllability and screening of the minimum potential position from VDS due to gate and channel engineering techniques. The calculated and simulated values are in close agreement.

2）The main principles of the social and semantic view of language

建筑智能化施工需要展開必要的項目進度管理，才能確保工程的施工進度符合工程建設要求。根據建筑建造的不同階段所面臨的建造施工情況，影響智能工程施工進度的因素有前期的土木工程建造進度、技術信息掌握情況和業主變更情況，中期的裝修工程進度、監理單位反饋時間、管線設備鋪設和采購時間以及后期的調試工作涉及的技術人員水平影響等。因此，建筑智能化項目的進度控制需要展開統籌的計劃工作，制定明確的項目施工進度計劃，明確智能工程相關施工責任人，并建立完善的計劃進度管理體系，保證項目工程的順利完成。

The shift of view on language promotes the pedagogical reform in language teaching.Communicative language teaching gains more and more attention,which aims to develop students’ability in appropriately using language so as to have an effective interpersonal or intercultural communication.Communicative language teaching is an approach to the teaching of second and foreign languages that emphasizes interaction as both the means and the ultimate goal of learning a language.There are several advantages in adopting a communicative language teaching：firstly,communicative teaching approach combines teaching language itself with language’s function.Students are given more opportunities to use language in a social context which is created by communicative activities.They get access to know the particular meaning of utterance in particular context and learn to use language appropriately according to social context.Secondly,communicative language teaching focuses on student-centered teaching mode rather than teacher-centered teaching mode.It is very interested in the needs and desires of their learners as well as the connection between the language as it is taught in their class and as it used outside the classroom.Thirdly,in a communicative teaching class,the teacher consciously raises students’awareness of cultural background so as to cultivate students’intercultural communicative competence.Finally,the application of communicative teaching approach motivates students’interest and motivation in a relaxing atmosphere so as to learn effectively.

第三階段是“It's Fun to Read”（趣味閱讀）。在這一階段，閱讀文本以不同的有趣情境和形式呈現出來，比如詩歌、音樂、謎語等（見圖8）。圖片、顏色、背景、文本和動畫都會增強學習活動的互動性。[5]學習者可以通過點擊或者移動鼠標來選擇去哪里，做什么。他們既可以關注電影，歌曲和視頻所表達的內容也可以關注他們的表達方式，活動和游戲讓學習者既有意識地也潛意識地使用他們學習系統中的規則。

This term was first coined by Dell Hymes(158)[2]in 1966,reacting against the perceived inadequacy of Noam Chomsky[1]’s(1965)distinction between competence and performance.Latter,in 1970,Dell Hymes defined communicative competence as consisting of four sectors：(1)the ability to judge whether something is formally possible(2)the ability to judge whether something is feasible (3)the abilityto judge whether something is appropriate(4)the ability to judge whether something is done.Latter,Canale and Swain[3](1980)made a further definition and Canale(1983)put forward that communicative competence includes four competence,namely,grammatical competence,discourse competence,sociolinguistic competence,and strategic competence.People begin to pay attention to language using and educators and teachers emphasize more on cultivating students with communicative competence than linguistic competence.Communicative language teaching which occurred in the United States during the 1970s began to be applied in different classes throughout the world.

1 The application of this view in language teaching

Communicative competence is a term in linguistics which refers to a language user’s grammatical knowledge of phonology,morphology,syntax,and the like,as well as social knowledge about how and when to use utterances appropriately.

2 The application of this view in language learning

Rod Ellis[4](1985)preferred the interactionist view of language acquisition that the acquisition of language is a result of an interaction between the learner’s mental abilities and the linguistic environment.In other words,language acquisition derives from the collaborative efforts of the learner and his interlocutors and involves a dynamic interplay between external and internal factors.Similarly,the quality of the input affects and is affected by the nature of the internal mechanisms.

Communicative language teaching also emphasizes both the learners’ internal linguistic mechanism and external linguistic environment given that the learners possess linguistic competence that encompasses knowledge of lexical items and of rules of phonology,morphology,syntax,semantics,and the like.What the learners should do is to participate actively in various communicative activities.The student firstly should imagine the situation which is created by teacher,think and analyze what utterance should be used in that situation,and seek appropriate strategies to cope with different feedbacks fromtheir partnersor problemsemergingfrominteraction.Through this interaction,the students’thinking is enhanced as well as their awarenessof communicativecompetence.

3 Conclusion

With the further research on language,linguistics has integrated language itself with interdisciplinary research, sociolinguistics,psycholinguistic and nerolinguistics etc.Learning language is not simply learning abstract linguistic system with rules but emphasize more on learning how to use language in different context.Since the born of the term—communicative competence,communicative language teaching approach has always experienced reform from the audio-lingual methods to present Task-based methods.In a sense,viewing language as meaningful in social context brings about profound effect on language teaching and learning and this effect is still continuing to a wide and deep landscape.

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［3］Canal,M,Swain.Theoretical bases of communicative approaches to second langauge teaching and testing[J].Applied Linguistics,1980.

［4］Rod Ellis.Understandingsecond languageacquisition[M].Oxford University Press,1985.

［5］Stern,H.H.Issues and Options in LanguagenTeaching[M].OUP,1996.

［6］Brown,H.D.Principles of Language Learning andTeaching：Chapter 9[M].Prentice Hall,Inc,1994.

［7］洪崗.英語語用能力的調查及其對外語教學的啟示[J].外語教學與研究,1991.