Learning activity 2.1.

1. Design a Mind-map of Chapter 4.

KEY

DISCOURSE ANALYSIS
AND PHONOLOLOGY
RHYTHM
WORD STRESS AND
PROMINENCE
The impression of rhythm
may arise out of a feeling
of alternation between
strong and weak 'beats' in
various patterned
recurrences
In order to capture a felt
rhythmicality, we can mark
silent beats to maintain the
rhythm
Utterances can be
divided up into groups
of syllables that have
more or less the same
duration, called feet
For the learner of English,
information about which
syllables may be prominent is
useful; it is a natural part of the
lexical competence of native
speakers.
It is helpful to have this
special term, prominence, so
as not to confuse word
stress, which words bear in
their citation forms
PRONUNCIATION
TONES
Ability of linguists to segment
the sounds of language into
discrete items called pbonemes
linguists to segment the
sounds of language into
discrete items called
pbonemes
Three areas, or components,
should be addressed: segmental
features, voice-setting features,
and prosodic (intonational)
features.
The manner of articulation of
phonemes are well described
and can be resented and
practised in language classes
The relative level of pitch between
one part of an utterance and
another can often be heard to
change, to jump upwards, or to drop
Hnd trail off.
Gramatical approaches: One
widely held view is that
intonation has a grammatical
function, that is to say
Attitudinal approaches: By far
the most common view of
intonation is that it is related to
attitude and/or emotion, that
some intonations
Interactive approaches: The
speaker has to judge how to,
deliver the tone group. Should it
be delivered as open-ended, as
incomplete
in some way, as non-conducive
with regard to a possible
response
When speakers are speaking in the
middle of their average pitch range,
they are speaking in mid-key, and the
utterance simply addsmore to the
ongoing discourse.
PITCH ACROSS
SPEAKERS
A final observation needs
to be made concerning how
pitch-level choices operate
across speaker turns
This kind of 'termination'
choice exercises constraints
on the listener as to what
sort of key will be used in
the answer
2. Make up a 30-word story and do the following activities:
a. Mark every word with / for stressed beats and for unstressed beats.








b. Analyze the same story based on Bollingers principles. Does Bolingers system
produce a natural rendition?
c. With the similar story, decide which syllables/words the speaker will most
likely emphasize as prominent. Explain why.



Learning activity 2.2.

1. Write four advanced utterances: Sentence, Order, Yes/No question, and a Wh-
question.




2. In your own words explain the following terms: Rhythm, Word stress, Tones, and
Pitch (three lines each).


Rhythm

Rhythm is the way that syllables are patterned. It can refer to the pattern of stressed and
unstressed syllables, or to the arrangement of long and short syllables. As a result, it
occurs in both accentual verse, which has a fixed number of stresses per line no matter
how many syllables there are, and quantitative verse, which is based on the time it takes
to say the syllables.


Stress

In phonology, stress isthe degree of emphasis given a sound or syllable in speech.
One of the main functions of stress is to provide a way of distinguishing degrees of
emphasis or contrast in sentences or lines of verse.


Tone

Tone is a variation in the pitch of the voice while speaking. The word tone is usually
applied to those languages (called tone languages) in which pitch serves to help
distinguish words and grammatical categories- In which pitch characteristics are used to
differentiate one word from another word that is otherwise identical in its sequence of
consonants and vowels.


Pitch


Pitch is the relative highness or lowness of a tone as perceived by the ear, which
depends on the number of vibrations per second produced by the vocal cords. Pitch is
the main acoustic correlate of tone and intonation.






3. Write a six-line conversation and identify the above elements. Explain your
answers.





Learning activity 2.3.

1. Write three utterances (greetings, congratulations, etc.) with their expected
responses. The responses must contain: identical, different, equally, etc.,
second pair- part elements.



2. In your own words, explain the following terms: Exchanges, Follow-up moves,
Transactions, and Back- channel utterances. (three lines each)


Language Exchange

Language exchange is a method of language learning based on mutual language
practicing by learning partners who are speakers of different languages. Language
exchange is sometimes called Tandem language learning. In modern contexts,
"language exchange" most often refers to mutual teaching of partners' first languages.
Language exchanges are generally considered helpful for developing language
proficiency, especially in speaking fluency and listening comprehension.

Turn taking

Turn-taking refers to the process by which people in a conversation decide who is to
speak next. It depends on both cultural factors and subtle cues. Turn-taking is a part of
the structure and systematic organization of conversation. Turn-taking in conversation is
not stereotypical of any type of person, conversation, or language. Turn-taking is done in
most settings, by any type of person and is not reliant on a set amount of participants.


Transaction

Transactional language is language which is used to make a transaction and which has a
result. It can be compared with interactional language, which is used to maintain
relationships. Transactional language is often taught more than interactional language,
as it involves shorter turns, simpler and more predictable language, and can have a
measurable result.
Back - channels

Back - channels are feedback given while someone else is talking, to show interest,
attention and/or a willingness to keep listening. Back - channels are typically short
utterances such as uh-huh. Back - channels are also sometimes known as "response
tokens," "reactive tokens," "minimal responses," and "continuers".



3. Write a six-line conversation and identify the above aspects. Explain your
answers.



Learning activity 2.4.

Design a mind-map of Chapter 6.




SPEECH AND
WRITING

WRITTEN LENGUAGE
PATTERNS AND
THE LEARNER CLAUSE RELATIONS
If we look at learners' attempts to
create textual patterns of the kinds we
have described above, we find that
there are sometimes problems.
At lower levels, clause- and sentence-
chaining activities can take the strain
off macro-level planning but still
produce a learner-generated text for
scrutiny in class.
The aim of the activity was to
reproduce some of the processes of
choice that are involved in using the
lexicon of clause-relational signals,
once again as an alternative to only
examining textual products
containing
An opening segment (which could be a
sentence or more) and a closing segment
of a text are given to a group of four or
five students, and each individual is given
the start of a segment containing a
different lexical clause signal.
DISCOURSE AND
THE READER
UNITS
In recent years, questions of
reading pedagogy have centred
on whether bottom-up (i.e.
decoding of the text step-by-
step from small textual elements
such as words and phrases) or
top-down (using macro-level
clues
to decode the text) strategies
are more important.
Interpreting the author's signals
at the level of grammar and
vocabulary as to what questions
helshe is going to address is as
useful as predicting
A broadcast lecture on radio may be quite
'freestanding' in that everything is explicit,
self-contained and highly structured, which
may also be true of an oral anecdote, joke or
other kind of narrative.
In all our discussions on speaking,
the sentence was dismissed as
being of dubious value as a unit of
discourse
For the purposes of our
discussion of these discoursal
features, the sentence will have
no special status other than as a
grammatical and orthographic
unit which orthographic unit
Both spoken and written
discourses are dependent on
their immediate contexts to a
greater or lesser degree.
TEXT TYPES
Unlike our knowledge of speech,
our knowledge of written text
has been greatly assisted by the
existence of huge computerised
corpora of written material
Most people read of these
'mainstream' text types, but a
whole hidden world
exists too, of memos, forms,
notices, telexes, tickets,
letters, hoardings,
labels, junk mail, etc