Martin Joos (1967) provided one of the most common classifications of speech styles using the criterion of formality, which tends to subsume subject matter, audience, and occasion. Joos described five levels of formality.
1. An oratorical style is used in public speaking before a large audience; wording is carefully planned in advance, intonation is some what exaggerated, and numerous rhetorical devices are appropriate.
2. A deliberative style is also used in addressing audiences, usually
audiences too large to permit effective interchange between speaker and hearers, although the forms are normally not as polished as those in an oratorical style. A typical university classroom lecture is often carried out in a deliberative style.
3. A consultative style is typically a dialogue, though formal enough that words are chosen with some care. Business transactions, doctor-patient conversations, and the like are usually consultative in nature.
4. Casual conversations are between friends or colleagues or some
times members of a family; in this context words need not be
guarded and social barriers are moderately low.
5. An intimate style is one characterized by complete absence of
social inhibitions. Talk with family, loved ones, and very close friends, where the inner self is revealed, is usually in an intimate style.
Categories of style can apply to written discourse as well. Most writing is addressed to readers who cannot respond immediately; that is, long stretches of discourse—books, essays, even letters—are read from beginning to end before the reader gives a response. Written style is therefore usually more deliberative with the exception of friendly letters, notes, or literature intended to capture a more personal style. Even the latter, however, often carry with them reasonably carefully chosen wording with relatively few performance variables.
Styles are manifested by both verbal and nonverbal features. Differences in style can be conveyed in body language, gestures, eye contact, and the like—all very difficult aspects of "language" for the learner to acquire. (Nonverbal communication is discussed below.) Verbal aspects of style are difficult enough to learn. Syntax in many languages is characterized by contractions and other deletions in intimate and casual styles. Lexical items vary, too. Bolinger (1975) gave a somewhat tongue-in-cheek illustration of lexical items that have one semantic meaning but represent each of the five styles: on the ball, smart, intelligent, perceptive, and astute—from intimate to frozen, respectively. He of course recognized other meanings besides those of style that intervene to make the example somewhat overstated. Style distinctions in pronunciation are likely to be most noticeable in the form of hesitations and other misarticulations, phonological deletion rules in informal speech, and perhaps a more affected pronunciation in formal language.
Related to stylistic variation is another factor called "register," sometimes incorrectly used as a synonym for style. Registers are commonly identified by certain phonological variants, vocabulary, idioms, and other expressions that are associated with different occupational or socioeconomic groups. Registers sometimes enable people to identify with a particular group and to maintain solidarity. Colleagues in the same occupation or profession will use certain jargon to communicate with each other, to the exclusion of eavesdroppers. Truckers, airline pilots, salespersons, and farmers, for example, use words and phrases unique to their own group. Register is also sometimes associated with social class distinctions, but here the line between register and dialect is difficult to define (see Wardhaugh 1992 and Chaika 1989 for further comments).
The acquisition of styles and registers poses no simple problem for second language learners. Cross-cultural variation is a primary barrier—that is, understanding cognitively and affectively what levels of formality are appropriate or inappropriate. North American culture generally tends to accept more informal styles for given occasions than some other cultures.
Some English learners in the United States consequently experience difficulty in gauging appropriate formality distinctions and tend to be overly formal. Such students are often surprised by the level of informality expressed by their American professors. The acquisition of both styles and registers thus combines a linguistic and culture-learning process.
We communicate so much information nonverbally in conversations that often the verbal aspect of the conversation is negligible. This is particularly true for interactive language functions in which social contact is of key importance and in which it is not what you say that counts but how you say it—what you convey with body language, gestures, eye contact, physical distance, and other nonverbal messages. Nonverbal communication, however, is so subtle and subconscious in a native speaker that verbal language seems, by comparison, quite mechanical and systematic. Language becomes distinctly human through its nonverbal dimension, or what Edward Hall (1959) called the "silent language." The expression of culture is so bound up in nonverbal communication that the barriers to culture learning are more nonverbal than verbal. Verbal language requires the use of only one of the five sensory modalities: hearing. But there remain in our communicative repertoire three other senses by which we communicate every day, if we for the moment rule out taste as falling within a communicative category (though messages are indeed sent and received through the taste modality). We will examine each of these.
Every culture and language uses body language, or kinesics, in unique but clearly interpretable ways. "There was speech in their dumbness, language in their very gesture," wrote Shakespeare in The Winter's Tale. All cultures throughout the history of humankind have relied on kinesics for conveying important messages. Books like Dresser's Multicultural Manners (1996) join a long string of manuals (e.g., Fast 1970; Hall 1959,1966) offering light-hearted but provocative insights on the use of kinesics in North American and other cultures. Today, virtually every book on communication explains how you communicate—and miscommunicate—when you fold your arms, cross your legs, stand, walk, move your eyes and mouth, and so on.
But as universal as kinesic communication is, there is tremendous variation cross-culturally and cross-linguistically in the specific interpretations of gestures. Human beings all move their heads, blink their eyes, move their arms and hands, but the significance of these movements varies from society to society. Consider the following categories and how you would express them in American culture.
1. Agreement, "yes"
2. "No!"
3. "Come here"
4. Lack of interest,'! don't know"
5. Flirting signals, sexual signals
6. Insults, obscene gestures
There are conventionalized gestural signals to convey these semantic categories. Are those signals the same in another language and culture? Sometimes they are not. And sometimes a gesture that is appropriate in one culture is obscene or insulting in another. Nodding the head, for example, means "yes" among most European language speakers. But among the Ainu of Japan, "yes" is expressed by bringing the arms to the chest and waving them. The pygmy Negritos of interior Malaya indicate "yes" by thrusting the head sharply forward, and people from the Punjab of India throw their heads sharply backward. The Ceylonese curve their chins gracefully downward in an arc to the left shoulder, whereas Bengalis rock their heads rapidly from one shoulder to the other.
Is eye contact appropriate between two participants in a conversation? When is it permissible not to maintain eye contact? What does eye contact or the absence thereof signal? Cultures differ widely in this particular visual modality of nonverbal communication. In American culture it is permissible, for example, for two participants of unequal status to maintain prolonged eye contact. In fact, an American might interpret lack of eye contact as discourteous lack of attention, while in Japanese culture eye contact might be considered rude. Intercultural interference in this nonverbal category can lead to misunderstanding.
Not only is eye contact itself an important category, but the gestures, as it were, of the eyes are in some instances keys to communication. Eyes can signal interest, boredom, empathy, hostility, attraction, understanding, misunderstanding, and other messages. The nonverbal language of each culture has different ways of signaling such messages. An important aspect of unfettered and unambiguous conversation in a second language is the acquisition of conventions for conveying messages by means of eye signals.
Physical proximity, or proxemics, is also a meaningful communicative category. Cultures vary widely in acceptable distances for conversation Edward Hall (1966) calculated acceptable distances for public, social-consultative, personal, and intimate discourse. He noted, for example, that Americans feel that a certain personal space "bubble" has been violated if a stranger stands closer than twenty to twenty-four inches away unless space is restricted, such as in a subway or an elevator. However, a typical member of a Latin American culture would feel that such a physical distance would be too great. The interesting thing is that neither party is specifically await of what is wrong when the distance is not right. They merely have vague feelings of discomfort or anxiety.
Sometimes objects—desks, counters, other furniture—serve to maintain certain physical distances. Such objects tend to establish both the overall register and relationship of participants. Thus, a counter between two people maintains a consultative mood. Similarly, the presence of a desk or a computer monitor will set the tone of a conversation. Again, however, different cultures interpret different messages in such objects. In some cultures, objects might enhance the communicative process, but in other cases they impede it.
The nonverbal messages of clothing and ornamentation are also important aspects of communication. Clothes often signal a person's sense of self-esteem, socioeconomic class, and general character. Jewelry also conveys certain messages. In a multicultural conversation group, such artifacts, along with other nonverbal signals, can be a significant factor in lifting barriers, identifying certain personality characteristics, and setting a general mood.
Touching, sometimes referred to as kinesthetics, is another culturally loaded aspect of nonverbal communication. How we touch others and where we touch them is sometimes the most misunderstood aspect of nonverbal communication. Touching in some cultures signals a very personal or intimate register, while in other cultures extensive touching is commonplace. Knowing the limits and conventions is important for clear and unambiguous communication.
Our noses also receive sensory nonverbal messages. The olfactory modality is of course an important one for the animal kingdom, but for the human race, too, different cultures have established different dimensions of olfactory communication. The twentieth century has created in most technological societies a penchant for perfumes, lotions, creams, and powders as acceptable and even necessary; natural human odors, especially perspiration, are thought to be undesirable. In some societies, of course, the smell of human perspiration is quite acceptable and even attractive. Second language and especially second culture learners need to be aware of the accepted mores of other cultures in the olfactory modality.
We cannot underestimate the importance of nonverbal communication in second language learning and in conversational analysis (see Kellerman 1992). Communicative competence includes nonverbal competence—knowledge of all the varying nonverbal semantics of the second culture, and an ability both to send and receive nonverbal signals unambiguously.
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We have seen in this chapter alone that communicative competence is such an intricate web of psychological, sociocultural, physical, and linguistic features that it is easy to become entangled in just one part of that web. But some of the distinctive features of human discourse are becoming clearer, and language teaching methodology has demonstrated our steadily improving capacity to teach communication in the classroom. I believe we are moving in positive and creative directions. The language teacher and researcher, in dialog with each other, can be a part of that creative event by fashioning an integrated and cohesive understanding of how learners acquire the ability to communicate clearly and effectively in a second language.
As the field of second language pedagogy has developed and matured over the past few decades, we have experienced a number of reactions and counter-reactions in methods and approaches to language teaching. We can look back over a century of foreign language teaching and observe the trends as they came and went. How will we look back 100 years from now and characterize the present era? Almost certainly the answer lies in our recent efforts to engage in communicative language teaching (CLT). The "push toward communication" (Higgs & Clifford 1982) has been relentless. Researchers have defined and redefined the construct of communicative competence. They have explored the myriad functions of language that learners must be able to accomplish. They have described spoken and written discourse and pragmatic conventions. They have examined the nature of styles and nonverbal communication. With this storehouse of knowledge we have valiantly pursued the goal of learning how best to teach communication.
One glance at current journals in second language teaching reveals quite an array of material on CLT. Numerous textbooks for teachers and teacher trainers expound on the nature of communicative approaches and offer techniques for varying ages and purposes. In short, wherever you look in the literature today, you will find reference to the communicative nature of language classes.
CLT is best understood as an approach, not a method. (For some comments on the difference between a method and an approach, see Brown 2000 and the vignette at the end of Chapter 6.) It is therefore a unified but broadly based theoretical position about the nature of language and of language learning and teaching. It is nevertheless difficult to synthesize all of the various definitions that have been offered. From the earlier seminal works in CLT (Savignon 1983; Breen & Candlin 1980; Widdowson 1978b) up to more recent teacher education textbooks (Brown 2000; Richard-Amato 1996), we have definitions enough to send us reeling. For the sake of simplicity and directness, I offer the following four interconnected characteristics as a definition of CLT.
1. Classroom goals are focused on all of the components of
communicative competence and not restricted to grammatical or linguistic competence.
2. Language techniques are designed to engage learners in the
pragmatic, authentic, functional use of language for meaningful purposes. Organizational language forms are not the central focus but rather aspects of language that enable the learner to accomplish those purposes.
3. Fluency and accuracy are seen as complementary principles
underlying communicative techniques. At times fluency may have to take on more importance than accuracy in order to keep learners meaningfully engaged in language use. 4. In the communicative classroom, students ultimately have to use the language, productively and receptively, in unrehearsed contexts.
These four characteristics underscore some major departures from earlier approaches. In some ways those departures were a gradual product of outgrowing the numerous methods (CLL, the Natural Approach, etc.—see vignette at the end of Chapter 4) that characterized a long stretch of history. In other ways those departures were radical. Structurally (grammatically) sequenced curricula were a mainstay of language teaching for centuries. CLT suggests that grammatical structure might better be subsumed under various functional categories. In CLT we pay considerably less attention to the overt presentation and discussion of grammatical rules than we traditionally did. A great deal of use of authentic language is implied in CLT, as we attempt to build fluency (Chambers 1997). It is important to note, however, that fluency should never be encouraged at the expense of clear, unambiguous, direct communication. Finally, much more spontaneity is present in communicative classrooms: students are encouraged to deal with unrehearsed situations under the guidance, but not control, of the teacher.