Drd.Paula-Andreea Vlad“Al.I.Cuza” University (The Centre of Foreign

Languages)Prep. at “G. Enescu” Arts University , Iasi

For creativity and innovation…

www.galanet.eu( international project related to Romance languages, focused on developing the ability of intercomprehension)

Language varies….

• Do lawyes speak like truck drivers? occupation-field• Do upper-class people speak like working-class people? Class• Do we speak as we write? medium-

mode• Do we talk to friends as we talk to strangers? attitude-

tenor• Do the Americans speak like the English? geography• Do messages change with interpersonal distance? proxemics• Did our grandparents speak as we do today? time• Do men and women use the same language? gender• Do we address superiors like subordinates or peers? status • Do Frenchmen speak the same English as Dutchmen? interference

can be correlated with a number of situational constraints.

in accordance with the demands of the situation is part of a language user’s communicative competence.

LISTENINGSPEAKINGREADING

WRITING and…..CHOOSING

Could you please bring me the book you had offered to lend me?

“les deux partis interjettent appel”

“les deux côtés sont attrayants”

The sentence has two potential meanings. The communicative context (court and beach) triggers the most relevant choice among them.

Linguistic features►Communicative (situational) constraints

D. Hymes –SpeakingTowards Ethnographies of Communication :

S Setting, Scheme (hist., soc., psych., context)P Participants ( senders, receivers)E Ends ( aims pursued)A Act Sequences (form and content)K Key (styles of communication)I Instrumentalities (means of communication)N Norms ( norms of interpretation/reception)G Genres ( expectations and constraints)

1. Moon blue rapidly the be of make pizza have.

→Ungrammatical by any standard

2. Did you hurt her? No ,she me.

→ Ungrammatical in isolation, but retrievable in the proper context.

3. I don’t have understand you. She avoid to have an accident. While she was waiting a baby, she spent whole her time looking the TV.

→Recognizable English,but riddled with errors, possibly due to L1 interference.

4. Green ideas sleep furiously. Quadruplicity drinks procrastination.

→ Syntactically grammatical, but semantically impossible (violation of language selection rules LSR)

5. The book believes in fellowship. Racism is an apartment owner who refuses to rent his flat to coloured people. People depending on the context will use different styles.

→ Syntactically grammatical, but semantically poorly related(the violation of the rules of concord –LSR or other)

6. The cherry pie cast me a luring glance.

→Semantically incorrect, but retrievable if processed as a metaphor.

7. Jane wrote to Sally when she was on holiday. Although only a small boy, my father expected me to do a man’s work.

→Grammatical, but potentially ambiguous.

8. Hitler, that great benefactor of humanity. The communist principles of capitalism. God’s derrière (God turned His back on me).

→ Grammatical, but “ideologically” unacceptable.

9. Receiving a large hug caused the small girl much pleasure.

→ Grammatical, but collocationally unlikely.

9. Receiving a large hug caused the small girl much pleasureBeing given a big hug gave the little girl a lot of pleasure.

→ Grammatical, but collocationally likely.

…does not mean “anything goes as long as you get your message across. Acceptability enters into the picture, but it is not the only criterion.

► Locutionary (what the language says)

► Illocutionary (what the speaker intends)

►Perlocutionary (what the language does)