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开必要的项目进度管理，才能确保工程的施工进度符合工程建设要求。根据建筑建造的不同阶段所面临的建造施工情况，影响智能工程施工进度的因素有前期的土木工程建造进度、技术信息掌握情况和业主变更情况，中期的装修工程进度、监理单位反馈时间、管线设备铺设和采购时间以及后期的调试工作涉及的技术人员水平影响等。因此，建筑智能化项目的进度控制需要展开统筹的计划工作，制定明确的项目施工进度计划，明确智能工程相关施工责任人，并建立完善的计划进度管理体系，保证项目工程的顺利完成。

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.

第三阶段是“It's Fun to Read”（趣味阅读）。在这一阶段，阅读文本以不同的有趣情境和形式呈现出来，比如诗歌、音乐、谜语等（见图8）。图片、颜色、背景、文本和动画都会增强学习活动的互动性。[5]学习者可以通过点击或者移动鼠标来选择去哪里，做什么。他们既可以关注电影，歌曲和视频所表达的内容也可以关注他们的表达方式，活动和游戏让学习者既有意识地也潜意识地使用他们学习系统中的规则。

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］洪岗.英语语用能力的调查及其对外语教学的启示[J].外语教学与研究,1991.