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SOCIOLINGUISTICS AND THE ESL CLASSROOM Master’s Course Assoc.Prof.Dr.Azamat Akbarov. Two or more people communication – the system they use is a code Bilingual speakers – code-switching System (grammar) – that speaker “ knows ”. Important issues for linguist;
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SOCIOLINGUISTICS AND THE ESL CLASSROOM • Master’s Course • Assoc.Prof.Dr.AzamatAkbarov
Two or more people communication – the system they use is a code • Bilingual speakers – code-switching • System (grammar) – that speaker “knows”
Important issues for linguist; • What that knowledge comprises • How we may best characterize it
Grammar is hard to describe • Speaker knows the language more than contained in grammar book • Shared knowledge – possessed by all speakers
“dead” languages • Knowledge of language is abstract • Knowledge of rules and principles - ways of saying and doing things with sounds, words, and sentences
Its is knowing what is in language, what is not • What is possible, what is not • We can understand sentences we never heard before • Reject as ungrammatical
Psychological, social, genetic factors are crucial • Language is communal possession • Speakers have access to it – show proper usage • Proper use – skills/activities
Chomsky; • Research on language • Linguists must try to distinguish between • What is important • What is unimportant about language and linguistic behavior
Matters to deal with; • Learnability • Characteristics they share (construing and interpreting sentences) • Individual speakers use specific words in a different contexts
Lightfoot (2006) • Distinction between; • “I-language” • “E-language”
The reference to Chomsky’s notions of • E-Language -(External(ised) Language) • I-language (Internal(ised) Language) make clear that we acknowledge these two aspects of language.
Chomsky maintains that E-Language, such as English, German, and Korean, are mere ‘epiphenomena’, a body of knowledge or behavioural habits shared by a community • and as such are not suitable subjects for scientific study
I-Language, argues Chomsky, is a ‘mental object’ • is biologically/genetically specified, equates to language itself and so is a suitable object of study
“I-language” – mental system that characterizes a person’s linguistic range • Represented in the speaker’s brain
“E-language” – part of the outside world, incoherent, not a system
Chomsky; • Competence and performance • Linguist’s task – to characterize what speakers know about their language (competence)
Pinker (2007) • Language is constantly being pushed and pulled at the margins by different speakers in different ways