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21Особенности умения рассказывать шутки на английском языке
Липина Анна Алексеевна,
кандидат филологических наук, доцент, ФГБОУ ВО «Российская академия народного хозяйства и государственной службы при Президенте Российской Федерации»
E-mail: lipina-aa@ranepa.ru
Данная работа направлена на развитие у студентов навыков коммуникации путем повествования. Выбор данной темы обусловлен тем, что процесс обмена историями является важной составляющей нашей повседневной коммуникации. Однако, даже когда студенты достигают высокого уровня владения английским языком, им может не хватать навыков, чтобы вести повествование таким образом, чтобы привлечь внимание слушателя. В данной работе основное внимание будет уделено особенностям повествования в неформальной обстановке, так как это наиболее актуальный аспект повествования для студентов. Разговорная практика и вовлеченность помогают развить речевые способности изучающих английский язык. В связи с этим, предполагается, что оценка языковых приемов, используемых в таком жанре, как анекдот, помогает учащимся научиться владеть языком более уверенно.
Ключевые слова: иллокуционная сила; волеизъявление; условное придаточное; настойчивость; вежливый косвенный императив; отказ; предсказание будущего события/результата, основанного на настоящей действительности; косвенный вопрос.
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Being able to tell an anecdote is an integral part of human interaction [2]. In a survey conducted by Jones (2001), he identified over 40 instances of storytelling with his friends, family, and colleagues over a week-long period. As these findings suggest, sharing stories holds an important place in our daily interactions.
An upper-intermediate student liked telling anecdotes in Arabic '[but] struggle[d] to make them flow in English.' Even when students reach a high level of English, they may lack the strategies that would help them tell an anecdote in such a way as to engage the listener. Therefore, when teaching English as a foreign language, it is important to give students the opportunity to develop their storytelling skills -"to help them develop their own voices, and to raise levels of confidence and participation." [2, p. 157]. For this reason, I have chosen to focus on the development of learners' ability to tell anecdotes.
These anecdotes are rarely the retelling of a mundane series of events, but often an unusual account of an event that in some way causes amusement or surprise. As states, storytelling is an important part of everyday speech and is told to serve a particular purpose, which, as Thornbury and Slade (2006) put it, is "to elicit an emotional response" [7, p.169].
Proficient speakers
Being able to tell a good story is universally admired [1, p. 23], but even for native speakers doing so is an art form in itself. However, native speakers already have the advantage of being able to speak with fluency and confidence. This is because they have already harnessed the cognitive process, which allows them to think about what they will say, and then speak with little or no hesitation. This automaticity is key to telling a story as an anecdote is difficult to be considered engaging if there is too much hesitation, or too many long vocalized pauses.
Genre Features
Although anecdotes can appear to be part of a monologue, listeners cannot be said to be mere passive observers. The listeners' role in the telling of an anecdote is to react and respond appropriately, with surprise or amusement and help the anecdote progress. These responses (back-channeling), give feedback to the speaker, telling them that the listener is following the story-arch or showing their emotional response (e.g. surprise, or amusement).
Back-channeling can often be non-verbal signaling such as laughter, nodding, or smile, but can include some vocalized reactions such as mmhmm, right, yeah, etc. Therefore, an awareness of back-channe-
ling and being able to recognize them is important in storytelling.
The language used from one anecdote to another may vary greatly depending on context. This context will not only affect the lexicon-syntactic choice, but also the selection of the story itself. An anecdote told during the keynote speech at a conference, would undoubtedly differ in style and content to one that is being told over a few drinks at the pub. Yet both of these scenarios are those in which anecdotes are frequently used.
This essay shall be focused primarily on the relevant features of storytelling which occurs in an informal setting, as this shall be the most relevant aspect of storytelling for the students.
Organizational features
The universally admired art of telling an anecdote, as mentioned above, is made up of 4 main ingredients:
1. Reference to Time and Place;
2. Characters Involved;
3. A Surprising or amusing plot;
4. An Outcome or conclusion to the events [1, p. 23]. Typically, the anecdote would also appear in a linear chronology.
However, other aspects can be added to make the story a little more engaging entertaining which including:
1. Embellishment e.g. exaggeration;
2. Features to make it more vivid e.g. use of dialogue or changing the tense from past to present;
3. Commentary on how characters felt during the event; and finally
4. Some sort of relevance to the context of the anecdote being told in e.g. linking it to something that someone has recently said [1, p. 23].
A further model that deals with the structure of the narrative speech was theorized by Labov et al (Labov 1972, cited in [2]). Labov's framework was divided into 6 subsections, each section dealing with different information presented in a narrative:
Abstract. Which introduces the anecdote a gives the listener an idea of the content.
Orientation. Details time, characters involved, and place.
Complication. The main events, and the moments of complication which make the story interesting
Evaluation. The point of the story gives emphasis to the speaker's feelings and reactions. Result. This is the resolution of the story. Coda. Which brings the anecdote to a close and brings the focus of the listener back to the present.
Linguistic features
Tenses:
Anecdotes, by their nature, are concerned with past actions and therefore require narrative tenses in order to develop the story. E.g. Past Simple; Past Continuous; Past Perfect.
For example: So when I got back, Dad was arguing with Sarah again because she'd forgotten to do something.
The past continuous verb forms are used to set the time frame in which the main (past simple) event occurs, and the past perfect verb form is used to give a sense of depth to the past simple and continuous events.
It must be noted, however, that the historic present (present tense referencing a past event) can be used to illustrate immediacy within an anecdote
e.g. So I get back, and Dad is arguing with Sarah because she's forgotten to do something... However, traditional narrative tenses occur with more frequency.
Descriptive language (adjectives, adverbs etc.)
'Speakers also employ a lot of words and expressions that express positive or negative appraisal' - [6, p. 22]. This is done because, as mentioned above, anecdotes are used to elicit an emotional response.
By using either positive or negative descriptive language, the speaker can express what they like and dislike and conversationalists can 'express solidarity with one another [6, p. 22].
Thus, being able to identify with your audience, or make your audience identify with your point of view can be very important when telling an anecdote. This is related to the evaluation section of Labov's model (Labov 1972 cited in [3]).
The example Thornbury gives us is:
"Its one of those ridiculously old fashioned dish that they make you cook in domestic science" [6, p. 22]
Therefore, using descriptive language during an anecdote is important to engage with the listener, and also make the listener sympathetic to your opinion.
Chunks
Thornbury makes it clear that a great deal of storytelling is scaffolded out of prefabricated chunks [6, p. 23]. These include collocations; phrasal verbs; idioms and saying; sentence frames; and discourse markers.
The implication of this is that a great deal of knowledge of these prefabricated chunks is necessary for storytelling to take place.
Additionally, anecdotes are filled with general features of spoken English, such as fillers (um, er, etc.), which can be used to allow the speaker time to conceptualize and formulate their thoughts before speaking, and used as a signal to inform the listener that the speaker is not yet finished.
Learner Problems and Teacher Suggestions
Issue 1: Automaticity
Generally, anecdotes are long, monologic narratives told with little prior planning, scaffolded by prefabricated chunks [6, p. 23], with a lack of undue hesitation. This coupled with the added pressure of trying not only, to be understood by the listener but also to entertain them can lead to the great cognitive strain being placed on the storyteller.
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While teaching in Somaliland, my students were often able to understand an anecdote when it was relayed to them but often unable to respond with one of their own. Their lack of automaticity affected their fluency to tell an anecdote. The inability to conceptualize and formulate their ideas quickly enough will reduce their fluency, and therefore have a negative effect on the listener. Suggestion: Aim
To help improve the learners' automaticity/fluency through task repetition: (Appendix 1) Procedure:
Level: B1 + - General English Task: On the spot anecdotes
Stage Procedure
Task Students are put in pairs, and given the letter either A or B. As and Bs are given different pieces of paper, each with 5 different questions on them e.g. "Tell me about your least favourite teacher." Or "How did you meet your best friend?" A asks question 1 to student B. B then has 2 minutes to ask tell A their anecdote. The B ask 1 question to student A, and A has 2 minutes to respond. This is repeated until both A and B have told 5 different anecdotes each.
Language Focus Fluency issues are addressed e.g practicing telling anecdotes spontaneously to an audience; practice speaking for extended periods; practices using prefabricated chunks to tell an anecdote.
Task The task can be repeated with different partners.
Evaluation
By encouraging students to sustain their speech by taking longer turns speaking, this adheres to Claire Kramsch's rules for teachers when teaching speaking (Kramsch cited by [6, p. 123]). This approach will allow students to improve their fluency in sustaining the retelling of an anecdote in their past.
The task also adheres to Thronbury's criteria for effective tasks in that it is interactive, authentic, purposeful, and (most importantly) productive [6].
The repetition of a communicative task with different partners incorporates the task-based methodology, proposed by Willis [8].
Issue 2: Unfamiliarity with lexical phrases Suggestion:
Students achieve fluency through the use of prefabricated chunks [6, p. 23]. If students are unfamiliar with „ these established lexical phrases it may be difficult for = speakers of English as a second language to achieve ^ fluency, as they will be constantly searching for words S or phrases to perform the function of language which ° they are unaware of.
Aim
To raise awareness of functional language used in making an anecdote (Appendix 2): Procedure:
Stage Procedure
Task Students listen to a 2 short clip of two anecdotes (1-2 minutes each) Students answer some comprehensive questions based on the audio. Students check in pairs, and the class feedbacks as a group Students are given the scripts of the recording Students go through and highlight the fixed expressions that appear in both anecdote, and appear to be a prefabricated chunk. E.g. (to cut a long story short; if you ask me; at the end of the day; by the way; anyway; so, anyway; in the end etc.)
After a few minutes, the students and the teacher go through and hear which phrases were the prefabricated chunks. The teacher brings up on the Interactive White Board the prefabricated chunks used when telling an anecdote. The students check the meaning of the phrases with their partner The students then feedback the meaning of the words with the teacher, to make sure they understand the phrases usage. The students work in pairs and repeat each alternating phrase on the list The teacher removes a portion of a fixed expression e.g. "At the end of the day" becomes "at...............the day" The students try again to repeat the phrase, and remember the phrase in its entirety.
Language Focus Recognition and meaning of fixed expressions used in anecdotes; Practice pronunciation of fixed expressions;
Task The task can be repeated with different partners.
Evaluation
If learners can first 'notice' the language in context before being asked to practice, memorize and understand the correct usage of these chunks, then we can help them become better able to perform the task of sharing anecdotes [5].
Issue 3: Lack of practice telling and retelling anecdotes Suggestion:
The telling of anecdotes is usually a product of several retellings, honed over a period of time. Learners are rarely afforded the opportunity to develop an anecdote during a speaking lesson and are expected to perform perfectly each time.
Aim
To give learners practice telling and retelling anecdotes:
Level: B1-C1 General English
Task: Telling Anecdotes about Cultural Differences with different
partners.
Stage Procedure
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Окончание
Level: B1-C1 General English Task: Telling Anecdotes about Cultural Differences with different partners.
Task Students are given 5 minutes to make a few notes about their anecdotes on their experiences involving cultural difference, to use as prompts. Students are then split into pairs A and B. As then are given 5 minutes, to tell their anecdote to their partner. After 5 minutes, Bs are given 5 minutes to tell their anecdote to As. After both A and B have finished telling their anecdotes, the pairs are shuffled so that everyone has a new partner.
The exercise is then repeated, but now the students only have 4 minutes to tell the anecdote to their partner. Once the new A and B have finished telling their anecdotes for a second time to their new partners, the partners are shuffled again for a third time. The new pairs then tell their new partner their anecdote again, but now they only have 3 minutes.
Language Focus Fluency issues are addressed. Practicing telling and retelling anecdotes to new partners.
Task The task can be repeated with different partners.
Evaluation
Telling anecdotes is a key part of spoken interactions, and serves as a key to the interpersonal function of conversation [6]. The above task gives the narrator a chance to modify the detail, the language used, or even decide where to use dramatic pauses. The above procedure allows the learners to repeatedly tell their own story to a variety of listeners, and allow the students to develop their own style of telling one particular story.
Issue 4: Lack of awareness of the importance of evaluation elements in telling anecdotes.
Suggestion:
Some students, particularly Polish and other Slavic speakers, often underuse adjectives and other descriptive languages when speaking. This reduces the ability of the anecdote to elicit an emotive response [7, p. 169], and therefore the speaker is not able to get their point of view across and persuade the listener to identify with their point of view. Knowledge of different adjectives would give more depth to anecdotes told in the future.
Aim
To improve the knowledge and understanding of the usage of extreme adjectives: (Appendix 2)
Procedure:
Level: B2+ General English
Task: Vocabulary
Presentation Give students a 5 groups of 4 words.
stage Ask learners to identify the word in each group
that does not belong in the group e.g.
excellent, superb, vast, wonderful
Level: B2+ General English Task: Vocabulary
Task Match the groups of words with their ordinary adjectives below E.g. Excellent, superb, wonderful = very good
Language Focus Introduction of form and meaning of extreme adjectives
Evaluation
This task also asks the students to first notice the vocabulary presented and decided which one is erroneous. The meaning of the new vocabulary is then reinforced by a repetition of the task.
Appendices
Appendix 1
Student A:
1. How did you meet your best friend?
2. Tell me about your first day at work.
3. What happened at the last wedding you attended?
4. Tell me about the first time you went to your favorite city
5. Tell me about the happiest day of your life? Student B:
1. Tell me about your first day at this school/university.
2. Tell me about the worst restaurant you've been to.
3. What did you do on your last birthday?
4. How did you meet your partner?
5. What is the most scared you have ever been? Appendix 2
Task 1
Cross out the extreme adjective, which does not belong in groups 1-5 below. Rewrite it in the correct group.
1. Excellent, superb, vast, wonderful
2. Appalling, horrendous, terrible, terrific
3. Amazing, gorgeous, extraordinary, remarkable
4. Enormous, huge, incredible, massive, vast
5. Awful, beautiful, exquisite, stunning
Task 2. Match the phrases in the box to groups 1-5. Very beautiful, very good, very bad, very big, very strange/impressive
Task 3. Match the extreme adjectives in box A with the meaning in box B.
A: deafening, exhausting, furious, tiny, starving, ridiculous, tragic
B: very angry, very hungry, very loud, very sad, very silly, very small, very tiring Conclusion
Leaners speaking ability is developed by engaging an authentic speaking practice. By providing tasks that allow the learners to repeat the exercise, we are able to promote automaticity in speaking.
We provide guide discovery of language to use within an anecdote, and presentation of a language used in the evaluation stage of an anecdote. This guides learners to become more independent and more con-
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fident to continue to practice using the sub-skill of storytelling outside of the classroom.
DEVELOPING LEARNERS' ABILITIES TO TELL ANECDOTES
Lipina A.A.
Russian Academy of National Economy and Public Administration
The following paper is aimed at developing students' story-telling skills. The choice of this topic is conditioned by the fact that sharing stories is important in our daily interactions. However, even when students reach a high level of English, they may lack the strategies that would help them tell stories, for instance in a form of an anecdote, in such a way that a listener would be engaged. This essay shall be focused primarily on the relevant features of storytelling which occurs in an informal setting, as this shall be the most relevant aspect of storytelling for the students. An authentic speaking practice, as well as engagement, help developing learners' speaking abilities. Therefore, it is suggested that evaluating the language, discovered within an anecdote, guides learners to become more independent and confident.
Keywords: illocutionary force; willfulness; conditional adjective; insistence; polite indirect imperative; refusal; prediction of future event/result based on present reality; indirect question
References
1. Carter R. and McCarthy M., 1997. Exploring Spoken English (Vol. 2). Cambridge University Press
2. Cortazzi M., 1994. Narrative analysis. State of the art article. Language Teaching
3. Hyvarinen M., Alasuutari P., 2008. Social Research Methods. SAGE Handbook.
4. Jones R., 2001. A consciousness-raising approach to the teaching of conversational storytelling skills. ELT Journal
5. Schmidt R., 1991. Applied Linguistics, Volume 11, Issue 2.
6. Thornbury S., 2005. How to teach speaking. Harlow: Pearson
7. Thornbury S. and Slade D., 2006. Conversation: from description to pedagogy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
8. Willis J., 1996. A Framework for Task-Based Learning. Harlow: Longman.
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