Principles of Effective Text Construction and Organization
Text Coherence: Ensuring Logical Flow
Consistency means a logical relationship should exist between all parts of a text. The ideas developed should refer to the same theme and be related to each other. A text is coherent when it meets the following requisites:
- Perceiving it as a unit of meaning, not as a set of disjointed information.
- Presenting a logical progression of ideas.
- Maintaining the same theme throughout the text.
- Providing sufficient information without contradictions.
- Referring to events that
Understanding the Listening Process and Skills
What is Listening?
Let’s look at listening as an interactive process!
Process of Listening
According to Clark & Clark (1977):
- Hearer processes the “raw/pure speech” (the actual phrases, clauses, etc.).
- Hearer determines the type of speech (conversation, speech, etc.).
- Hearer infers the objectives of the speaker (to persuade, request, etc.).
- Hearer recalls schemata (own background knowledge).
- Hearer assigns literal meaning to utterance.
- Hearer assigns intended meaning to utterance.
- Hearer determines
Decoding Oral Speech: Content, Process & Strategies
Content Involved in Listening Comprehension
We can distinguish three types of content involved in this ability:
Procedures
- Recognize
- Select
- Interpret
- Infer
- Anticipate
- Retain
Concepts
- Text: adequacy, consistency, cohesion, grammar, style, and presentation.
Attitudes
- Oral Culture
- Receptor Role
- Dialogue and Conversation
- Parliaments (Turn-taking/Discourse Structures)
The procedures are the different communication strategies used to decode spoken messages. The concepts are the same as those of other skills, i.e., the
Read MoreKey Linguistic Concepts
Aspects of Language Analysis
1. Communicative Functions of Language
- Representative or Referential: Information on events and concepts.
- Emotive: Shows the feeling or emotion of the speaker.
- Conative: Aims to change the reader’s attitude or activity.
- Metalinguistic: Clarifies or defines the meaning of words or expressions.
- Poetic: Focuses the reader’s attention on the form and sound of words, rather than content.
- Phatic: Ensures the communication channel is open and the partner is present.
2. Text Types
- Narrative:
Key Concepts in Child Language Acquisition
Language Acquisition Device (LAD)
Proposed by Chomsky (1959), the Language Acquisition Device (LAD) refers to an innate grammatical structure believed to underlie all human languages. It enables children, once they acquire a sufficient vocabulary, to combine words into novel yet grammatically consistent utterances and to understand the meaning of language quickly. Children are not explicitly taught language rules; instead, this ability develops naturally with mere exposure to a language environment.
Read MoreBehaviorism vs. Innatism: Language Acquisition Theories
Behaviorism and Innatism in Language Acquisition
Behaviorism
Behaviorism is a psychological theory of learning that was very influential in the 1940s and 1950s, especially in the United States. Traditional behaviorists believed that language learning is the result of imitation, practice, feedback on success, and habit formation. Children imitate the sounds and patterns they hear around them and receive positive reinforcement for doing so. Thus encouraged by their environment, they continue to imitate
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