Oposiciones Ingles Primaria

Tema-1 “ LANGUAGE AS COMMUNICATION: ORAL AND WRITTEN LANGUAGE. FACTORS DEFINING A COMMUNICATIVE SITUATION: LISTENER, CODE, FUNCTIONALITY AND CONTEXT “

In this unit we are going to study language and its major functions: * We will show how Communication is one of these Functions. * We will show how learning a language is not only a grammatical process but also a Social Process. * We will alsoanalyse the differences between Writing and Speech. * We will discuss some important Communicative Theory defining their key factors. * Finally, we will show how important it is to create Real Communication Situations in our Classrooms in order to improve language teaching. A conclusion summing up what has been said throught the unit will follow, ending up with the bibliography used for theelaboration of this discussion.

INTRODUCTION

We must point out that language is not just a “subject” in the sense of a package of knowledge. It is not just a set of information and insights. It is a fundamental part of being human. Traditional approaches used to treat a language as if it were a free-standing package of knowledge by analysing and observing it. Many of us learnt a language that way.But this process is a very abstract one and experience has shown that it does not appeal to everyone. To learn to use a language at all well for ourselves rather than for textbook purposes, most of us have to become involved in it as an experience. We have to make it a human event not just a set of information. We do this by using it for real communication, for genuine giving and receiving ofmessages.

* Now that we have introduced this particular topic we are going to deal with the study of language as Communication, its functions and the concept of communicative competence. The word language has prompted many definitions. For example; Sapir said that “ language is a purely human and non instinctive method of commicating ideas, emotions and desires by means of voluntarily producedsymbols “. Hall defined language as “ the institution whereby humans communicate and interact with each other by means of habitually used oral-auditory symbols “

As we can see with these two definitions it is difficult to make a precise and comprehensive statement about formal and functional universal properties of language, so some linguists have tried to identify the various properties that arethought to be its essential defining characteristics. The most widely acknowledged comparative approach has been that proposed by Charles Hockett. This set of 13 design features of communication using spoken language are as follows: 1. Auditory-vocal channel: sound is used between mouth and ear. 2. Broadcast transmission and directional reception: a signal can be heard by any auditory systemwithin earshot and the source can be located using the ear’s direction finding. 3. Rapid fading: auditory signals are transitory. 4. Interchangeability: speakers of a language can reproduce any linguistic message they can understand. 5. Total feedback: speakers hear and can reflect upon everything they say. 6. Specialization: the sound waves of speech have no other functions than to signal meaning. 7.Semanticity: the elements of the signal convey meaning through their stable association with real world situations.

8. Arbitrariness: there is no depency between the element of the signal and the nature of the reality to which it refers. 9. Discreetness: speech uses a small set of found elements that clearly contrast with each other. 10. Displacement: it is possible to talk about eventsremote in space or time from the situation of the speaker. 11. Productivity: there is an infinitive capacity to express and understand meaning, by using old sentence elements to produce new elements. 12. Traditional transmission: language is transmitted from a generation to the next by a process of teaching and learning. 13. Duality of patterning: the sounds of language have no intrinsic meaning, but...