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45THEORY AND METHODOLOGY OF TEACHING FOREIGN LANGUAGES
UDC 81-139
DISCURSIVE APPROACH IN PRAGMADIDACTICS
N.N. Ulianova, Ju.Yu. Khlystunova, E.V. Pankina
Faculty of foreign languages Shukshin Altai State Academy of Education (ASAE)
(Biysk, Russian Federation). E-mail: natascha297@rambler.ru; xlystunova1981@mail.ru; gololobovaev@mail.ru
A person must believe in possibility to understand ununderstandable.
J. W. von Goethe
Abstract. Nowadays pragmatics is often discussed in the scientific sphere. No doubt we can't define pragmatics as new science but till present day there is no specific pragmatic methods as we have in basic sciences (linguistics, philosophy, psychology, pedagogics, etc.), that is why this notion is often used in applied sciences.
The authors of the present paper make an attempt to summarize available experience of outstanding scientists in methods of teaching foreign languages. Keywords: pragmatics; pragmadidactics; discourse; text; situation; foreign language teaching.
Introduction
The term "pragmatics" appeared in the late 30-s of the XX century due to Ch. Morris as a name for one of subdisciplines of semiotics that was divided into semantics - the discipline dealing with signs and their denotation and syntactics - the science studying the interplay of signs and pragmatics, the aim of the latter is to trace the attitude of the speakers to the signs they use.
Linguistic pragmatics as a branch of linguistics appeared in the 60-s of the XX century but in its basic there is an old linguistic and philosophic tradition that was created in the works of Humboldt. The great scientist was interested in speech perception and comprehension. He tried to find the essence of this process in linguistic unity of human association.
Pragmatics detachment and formation in specific area of linguistic research, promoted by Ch. Pierce's ideas, began in the 60-s - 70-s of the XX century under the influence of logical-philosophic speech act theories by J. Ostin, J.R. Searle, Z. Vendler and others, pragmatic notion theories by P.Grice and pragmatic reference theories by L. Linskoy, J.R. Searle, P.F. Strawson and others.
Considerable contribution to pragmalinguistics development was made by German scientists G. Klaus, D. Wunderlich, A. Lang, R. Konrad and some others such as R. Montague, G. Guillaume, T. Van Dijk, F. Kiefer.
The connection of pragmatic didactics and linguistic pragmatics
In Germany pragmalinguistics is the basis of communicative foreign language lesson [1]. Franz-Eberchard Piefho basing on discourse model introduced the notion of pragmodidactics, the aims of which are defined according to the criteria of communicative relationship and discourse communication. Stated differently it is necessary to specify communicative necessities and whenever appropriate to define topic area of communicative functions and as a result to introduce new linguistic means.
In the context of discourse model the pupil should not identify himself with the content or with its parts but conversely he should mentally analyse, interpret and appraise the content and the form. The mentioned factors contribute to pupils' motivation formation taking into account their abilities and stimulate them to suggest their opinion and stand their ground using the foreign language, thus the linguistic means used are not necessarily correct [Ibid: 13].
The pragmadidactic theory by Piefho is closely connected with the main problem of pragmatics - the theory of speech acts consisting of locu-tionary, illocutionary acts and perlocution.
In the sphere of pragmatics it is important to take into account the person involved into communication. The speaker describes the event and his experience through his speech. The listener perceives the speech and thus reproduces the event. V.V. Krasnych stresses the following: "Besides the information about the subject of thought the act of speech implicitly conveys the precise intention of the speaker - the supposed effect of impact which is expected by the speaker who makes an attempt to convince, to warn or to make the listener do something" [2: 7].
In order to realize the pragmatic approach in foreign language teaching it is necessary to treat a communicative situation in its entirety including human factor in the initial position (production of speech) and in the final position (rate of influence). For this purpose the following scheme is given. The aim of the scheme is to show the linguistic potential, the potential of the speaker, the speech act's intentional ability relating to the foreign language teaching (fig. 1).
While interpreting the process of communication from the point of view of pragmatics one should mainly take into account relationship of the participants - the speaker and the listener. The speaker / teacher chooses the listener / pupil, defines the aim of communication, the strategy of presentation, linguistic forms of statement explication, estimates the content. The
listener / pupil gets the information, both explicit and implicit, correlates it with his own knowledge of the speech subject, defines the best way of further communication.
Semi intics
Fig. 1. The General Model of Speech Act
It is necessary to stress that in the given scheme the word communication is not occasional. The situation is a real life atmosphere, but not an abstract text, because the language has an ability to perceive the influence coming from the outside and together with, adjusting to the conditions of ex-tralinguistic reality the language also influences it [3: 4].
The linguistic notion discourse is topical for pragmadidactics. In the 70-s European scientists made an attempt to define this notion.
According to T. Van Dijk, discourse is a core part of cultural and social communication with the main features of interest, aim and style. Chang-
es and restrictions reflect in discourse in the form of special topic repertoire. The speakers may produce general assumptions about what and by whom something was said in a definite situation [4: 53]. This statement applied to a real example may be traced in the following: while foreign language teaching the teacher pays attention to the forms of greetings "Guten Tag", "Hallo", "Hei" and others, explains the situations containing the mentioned language means, gives characteristics of the speaker and the listener. In such a way the teacher involves the pupil into the communicative sphere of the foreign language and makes supposition concerning the rate of probability and acceptability. "The rate of probability makes an impact on our expectations concerning probable topics in a certain discourse and consequently influences the conclusion of hypothetic macroposition till the beginning of the discourse or its fragment" [4: 53].
In other words, T. Van Dijk conforms the following statement: "We understand the text only in case we understand the situation we are speaking about" [Ibid: 9]. It is easy to imagine: you constantly hear about a certain person you have never seen, and each time before the conversation the speaker has to spend some time to provide you with the information about the subject of speech. But in case you saw the photo of the person (or if you have met the person) it is natural for you to perceive the information quite differently. The text you have heard before becomes a real personal situation.
In the current paper discourse - is a definite situation that expresses and reflects with the help of language means of different range the characteristic features of a subject, personal relations, communication and influence inside the given situation. The text that is a part of a communicative situation being its main element is also treated as the discourse because it has verbal and nonverbal parts with explicit or implicit subject connections [5: 36].
Correctly chosen modern teaching aids containing minimum texts but maximum exercises the aim of which is pupils' self-acting studying the information (e.g. a definite lexical of grammar structure) can be regarded as an example of discourse approach in teaching. Good examples of such approach are Cambridge, Oxford, Hueber, Cornelson, Klett textbooks.
Conclusion
The current paper presents the view of the teachers working in provincial educational establishment having its own pros and cons. Beneficial impacts of the approach are attempts of teachers from a small establishment of higher education to use modern interactive methods of teaching, to take part in foreign and national short and long-term projects, and collaborative work with partners that gives an opportunity to exchange teaching experience. The main problem is low pupils' motivation for foreign language learning. It is
common knowledge that the main function of a language is communication and discourse approach to language teaching in class gives an opportunity to create a real life atmosphere of communication.
References
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lischunterricht. Dornburg: Friechhofen.
2. KRASNYH, V.V., 2001. Basics of psycholinguistics and theory of communication. Mos-
cow: Gnozis.
3. GURAL', S.K., 2011. Some new approaches to FL teaching. Language and culture, I, 3-7.
Tomsk: Publishing House Tomsk State University.
4. DEJK, T. van., 2000. Language. Cognition. Communication. Blagoveshhensk: Blagovesh-
henskij Gumanitarnyj kolledzh im. I.A. Bodujena de Kurtenje.
5. GRANKOVA, N., 2011. Pragmatic aspects of substandart vocabulary actualization in
German discourse. Dis. kand. filol. nauk. Barnaul.
6. MORRIS, Ch.W., 1938. Foundations of the theory of signs. Chicago.
ДИСКУРСИВНЫЙ ПОДХОД В ПРАГМАДИДАКТИКЕ
Ульянова Н.Н., Хлыстунова Ю.Ю., Панькина Е.В. Алтайская государственная академия образования им. В.М. Шукшина (Бийск, Россия).
E-mail: natascha297@rambler.ru; xlystunova1981@mail.ru; gololobovaev@mail.ru
Аннотация. В последнее время все чаще в научных кругах обсуждается тема прагматики, конечно, эта область знания не нова, но до сих пор нет конкретных прагматических методов, таких как в фундаментальных науках (теория языка, философия, психология, педагогика и др.), поэтому это понятие все чаще употребляется в прикладных науках. Авторы данной статьи не претендуют на нововведение, а пытаются обобщить имеющийся опыт выдающихся ученых применительно к методике преподавания иностранных языков.
Ключевые слова: прагматика; дискурс; текст; ситуация; преподавание иностранных языков.
