International Journal of Applied Linguistics & English Literature ISSN 2200-3592 (Print)

ISSN 2200-3452 (Online)

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International Journal of Applied Linguistics & English Literature

All papers on which this is printed in this book meet the minimum requirements of "National Library of Australia and EBSCOhost".

All papers published in this book are accessible online.

Editors-in-Chief: Prof. Dr. Dan J. Tannacito , Indiana University of Pennsylvania, USA

Prof. Dr. Jayakaran Mukundan , University Putra Malaysia, Malaysia

Dr. Tan Bee Tin , The University of Auckland, New Zealand

Managing Editor: Seyed Ali Rezvani Kalajahi

Website: www.ijalel.org

E-mail: editor@ijalel.org

ISBN: 978 -600-5361-84-1

ISSN 2200-3592 (Print)

ISSN 2200-3452 (Online)

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Editors-in-Chief Professor Dr. Dan J. Tannacito, Composition & TESOL Indiana University of Pennsylvania, USA Professor Dr. Jayakaran Mukundan, ELT University Putra Malaysia, Malaysia Dr. Tan Bee Tin, Applied Language Studies and Linguistics The University of Auckland, New Zealand Managing Editor Seyed Ali Rezvani Kalajahi Senior Associate Editors Professor Dr. Hossein Farhadi, Assessment University of Southern California, Los Angeles, USA Associate Professor Dr. Jesús García Laborda, Linguistics Universidad de Alcala, Madrid, Spain Professor Dr. Ali Miremadi, Language, Linguistics California State University, USA Professor Dr. Eugenio Cianflone, TEFLUniversity of Messina, Italy Professor Dr. Kazem Lotfipour-Saedi Ottawa University, Canada Associate Professor Dr. Ali S. M. Al-Issa, Applied Linguistics Sultan Qaboos University, Oman Professor Dr. Mohammad Ziahosseini, Linguistics Allameh Tabataba’i University, Tehran, Iran Associate Professor Dr. Mojgan Rashtchi, Applied Linguistics IAU North Tehran Branch, Iran Professor Dr. Farzad Sharifian, Applied Linguistics Monash University, Australia Associate Professor Dr. Reza Pishghadam, TEFL Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Iran Associate Professor Dr. Parviz Maftoon, TEFLIAU, Science & Research Branch, Tehran, Iran Associate Professor Dr. Wan Roselezam Wan Yahya, Literature University Putra Malaysia, Malaysia Professor Dr. Juliane House, Applied Linguistics University of Hamburg, Germany Associate Professor Dr. Alireza Jalilifar , Applied Linguistics Shahid Chamran University of Ahvaz, Iran Associate Professor Dr. Biljana Cubrovic, LinguisticsUniversity of Belgrade, Serbia Assistant Professor Dr. leyli Jamali IAU Tabriz, Iran Associate Professor Dr. Fatemeh Azizmohammadi, Literature IAU Arak, Iran Associate Professor Dr. Christina Alm-Arvius, Linguistics Stockholm University, Sweden Associate Professor Dr. Moussa Ahmadfian, Literature Arak University, Arak, Iran Associate Professor Dr. Zia Tajeddin, Applied Linguistics Allameh Tabataba'i University,Tehran, Iran Associate Professor Dr. Ahmad M. Al-Hassan, Applied Linguistics Petra University, Amman, JordanProfessor Dr. Biook Behnam, ELT IAU Tabriz, Iran Professor Dr. Meixia Li, Linguistics Beijing International Studies University, China Professor Dr. Kourosh Lachini, Applied Linguistics University of Qatar, Qatar Professor Dr. Ruzy Suliza Hashim, Literature Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Malaysia Professor Dr. Cem Alptekin, Applied Linguistics Bogaziçi University, Turkey Associate Editors Associate Professor Dr. Minoo Alemi, Applied Linguistics Sharif University of Technology, Iran Dr. Servet Celik , Literacy, Culture, and Language Education Karadeniz Technical University, Turkey Dr. John Dolan, Literature Najran University, Saudi Arabia Assistant Professor Dr. Mohd Nazim, ELT Najran University, Saudi Arabia Assistant Professor Dr. Marisa Luisa Carrió Pastor, Linguistics Universitat Politècnica de València, SpainAssistant Professor Dr. Ahmed Gumaa Siddiek, ELT Shaqra University. KSA Assistant Professor Dr. Ramesh K. Mishra, Linguistics University of Allahabad, India Assistant Professor Dr. Javad Gholami, TESOL Urmia University, Iran Assistant Professor Dr. Saeed Yazdani, Literature IAU Bushehr, Iran Dr. Vahid Nimehchisalem, TESL University Putra Malaysia, Malaysia Assistant Professor Dr. Reza Kafipour, ELT Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran

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Assistant Professor Dr. Nasrin Hadidi Tamjid, Applied Linguistics IAU, Tabriz, Iran Assistant Professor Dr. Sasan Baleghizadeh, TEFL Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran, Iran Assistant Professor Dr. Nooreen Noordin, TESL University Putra Malaysia, Malaysia Assistant Professor Dr. Touran Ahour, TEFL IAU Tabriz, Iran Assistant Professor Dr. Hossein Pirnajmuddin, Literature University of Isfahan, Iran Assistant Professor Dr. Javanshir Shibliyev, Linguistics Eastern Mediterranean University, Cyprus Assistant Professor Dr. Roselan Baki, TESL University Putra Malaysia, Malaysia Assistant Professor Dr. Masoud Zoghi, TESL IAU Ahar, Iran Assistant Professor Dr. Md. Motiur Rahman, Applied Linguistics Qassim University, Saudi Arabia Assistant Professor Dr. Natasha Pourdana, TEFL IAU Karaj, Iran Dr. Usaporn Sucaromana, TEFL Srinakharinwirot University, Thailand Assistant Professor Dr. Arshya Keyvanfar, TEFL IAU North Tehran Branch, Iran Assistant Professor Dr. Nader Assadi Aidinlou, Applied Linguistics IAU Ahar, Iran Dr. Tanja Angelovska, Applied Linguistics Ludwig Maximilians University, Munich, Germany Dr. Catherine Buon, Applied Linguistics American University of Armenia, Armenia Dr. Ferit Kılıçkaya, ELT Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey Assistant Professor Dr. Karim Sadeghi, TEFL Urmia University, Iran Distinguished Advisors Professor Dr. Brian Tomlinson, Material Development Leeds Metropolitan University, UK Professor Dr. Alan Maley, Creative Writing Leeds Metropolitan University, UK Professor Dr. Dan Douglas, Applied Linguistics Iowa State University, USA Professor Dr. Jalal Sokhanvar , English Literature Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran, Iran Professor Dr. Hossein Nassaji, Applied Linguistics University of Victoria, Canada Professor Dr. Roger Nunn, Communication, The Petroleum Institute, Abu Dhabi, UAE Advisors Dr. Ian Bruce, Discourse Analysis and Genre Studies The university of Waikato, New Zealand Mohammad Reza Mehdizadeh IUST, Iran Steve Neufeld, ELT Middle East Technical University, Cyprus Hassan Fartousi, English Studies University of Malaya, Malaysia Shadi Khojasteh rad, Applied Linguistics University Putra Malaysia, Malaysia Majid Hamdani, Educational Technology University Technology of Malaysia, Malaysia Atieh Rafati, ELT & literature Eastern Mediterranean University, Cyprus Kristina Smith, ELT Pearson Education , Turkey Saeed Kalajahi, Literature IAU Tabriz, Iran Oytun Sözüdoğru, ELT University of York, UK Reviewers Associate Professor Dr. Esmaeel Abdollahzadeh, TEFL University of Science and Technology, Iran Dr. Helena I. R. Agustien, Applied Linguistics Semarang State University, Indonesia Chili Jason LI, Applied Linguistics University of Liverpool, UK Said Rasooli Rizi, ELT Eastern Mediterranean University, Cyprus Bakhtiar Naghdipour, ELT Eastern Mediterranean University, Cyprus Ebrahim Samani, TESL University Putra Malaysia, Malaysia Ruzbeh Babaee, English Literature University Putra Malaysia, Malaysia Yasemin Aksoyalp, ELT Adam Mickiewicz University, Poland Shannon Kelly Hillman, Applied Linguistics University of Hawaii, Hawaii Dr. Muhammed Shahriar Haque, Linguistics East West University, Bangladesh

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İsmail Zeki Dikici, ELT Muğla University, Turkey Assistant Professor Dr. Ali H. Al-Bulushi, Applied Linguistics University of Lancaster, UK Mahdi Alizadeh Ziaei, Literature The university of Edinburgh, UK Dr. Melchor Tatlonghari, TESOL The University of Santo Tomas , Manila, The Philippines Siamak Mazloomi, ELT IAU Islamshahr, Tehran, Iran Assistant Professor Dr. Hassan Soleimani, Applied Linguistics Payame Noor University, Tehran, Iran Sepideh Mirzaei Fard, ELT National University of Malaysia, Malaysia Bora DEMİR, ELT Canakkale Onsekiz Mart University, Turkey Hossein Saadabadi, TESL University Putra Malaysia, Malaysia Kenan DİKİLİTAŞ, ELT Gediz University, Turkey Haleh Zargarzadeh, Literature Urmia University, Iran Dr. Mohammad Javad Riasati, TESL IAU Shiraz, Iran Orkun Janbay, ELT Izmir University, Turkey Yassamin Pouriran, TESL IAU Tabriz, Iran Taher Bahrani, Applied Linguistics IAU Mahshahr, Iran Tin T. Dang, Applied Linguistics Vietnam National University, Vietnam Sardar M. Anwaruddin, TESOL University of Toronto, Canada Erdem AKBAS, ELT University of York, UK Inayatullah Kakepoto, ELT Quaid-e-University of EST(Sindh), Pakistan Assistant Professor Dr. Omid Akbari, TESL Imam Reza International University, Iran Gandhimathi Subramaniam, Language & Literature Anna University Coimbatore, India Editorial Assistants Ali Asghar Yousefi Azarfam, TESL, IAU Tabriz, Iran Reza Vaseghi, TESL, University Putra Malaysia, Malaysia

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Conjunctions in Malaysian Secondary School English Language Textbooks Alicia Philip Jayakaran Mukundan Vahid Nimehchisalem 1

Exploring Metadiscourse in Master’s Dissertation Abstracts: Cultural and Linguistic Variations across Postgraduate Writers

Erdem Akbas 11 Moving From Theory to Practice: ELT Pre-service Teachers

Şaziye Yaman Meryem Özdemir 25 L1 Shapes L2 Auditory Representation Elicited Imitation of Arabic-Speaking Learners of English

Rajaa Aquil 36 A Study of Educational Reform & Teacher Training in Oman

Khalid Salim Saif Al Jardani 60 The Effect of Explicit Instruction of Discourse Markers on the Quality of Oral Output

Forough Rahimi Mohammad Javad Riasati 66 Politics of Food, the Culinary and Ethnicity in Ruth Ozeki’ My Year of Meat: An Ecocritical Reading

Saeed Kalajahi 78 Errors in Translation: A Tool for Linguistic and Socio-cultural Competence

Jose Manuel Oro Cabanas 87 Introducing Communicative Event As A Tool To Communicate Via the Medium Of Language: The Case of Job Advertisement

Minoo Pourfarhad 101 The Comparative Effect of Non-Task and Provide-A-Model Preparation Activities on EFL Learners’ Vocabulary Retention

Mona Khabiri Saeedeh Charmgar 110

International Journal of Applied Linguistics & English Literature

ISSN 2200-3592 (Print), ISSN 2200-3452 (Online) Vol. 1 No. 1; May 2012

Conjunctions in Malaysian Secondary School English Language

Textbooks

Alicia Philip College of Foundation and General Studies

Universiti Tenaga Nasional, Kampus Putrajaya 43000 Kajang, Selangor Darul Ehsan

Mobile: 012-910 4335 Email: Alicia@uniten.edu.my

Jayakaran Mukundan (Corresponding author) Department of Language and Humanities Education

Faculty of Educational Studies Universiti Putra Malaysia

43400 UPM Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia Mobile: 012- 209 9717 Fax: 603-89435386

E-mails: jaya@educ.upm.edu.my; jayakaranmukundan@yahoo.com

Vahid Nimehchisalem Department of Language and Humanities Education

Faculty of Educational Studies Universiti Putra Malaysia

Mobile: 017-667 8715 Emails: nimechie22@yahoo.com; vahid@educ.upm.edu.my

Received: 05-05- 2012 Accepted: 20-05- 2012 Published: 31-05- 2012 doi:10.7575/ijalel.v.1n.1p.1 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.7575/ijalel.v.1n.1p.1

Abstract

The present research aims to investigate the distribution pattern of conjunctions and their ranking in two different corpora, namely the Malaysian school English language Textbook Corpus (Textbook Corpus) and the British National Corpus (BNC). An additional objective of the study was to find out how conjunctions had been presented in the Malaysian school English language textbooks (Forms 1-5). The method applied was qualitative content analysis. The findings indicated that coordinating conjunctions were the most frequent conjunctions that occurred in the five textbooks followed by subordinating and correlative conjunctions. The ranking of the different types of conjunctions in the Textbook Corpus was similar to that of the reference corpus, BNC. The results also indicated that the textbooks failed to present conjunctions effectively. The findings are expected to help textbook developers or language teachers in developing or adapting learning materials. Keywords: Conjunctions, Textbook evaluation, Distribution patterns

1. Introduction One of the important skills to be mastered in the acquisition of the English language is grammar. In order to be able to communicate effectively in English, one should be able to understand the grammar system of the language; without sufficient knowledge of the grammar system, one would fail to be a competent communicator of the language. Swan (1996) defined grammar as the rules that describe the combination, arrangement and

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change of words at sentence level that could produce different meanings. Grammar is governed by sets of rules that the speakers of the language use in order to get their meaning across (Ministry of Education, 1991). The conjunction is an essential part of the English grammar system as it links phrases, clauses and sentences. It may also be used to indicate the relationship between ideas expressed in clauses and ideas expressed in the sentences. Bloor and Bloor (1995) describe the conjunction as a cohesive device that ties clauses or sections of a text to demonstrate meaningful patterns. Conjunctions are classified into three different types, including coordinating, correlative and subordinating conjunctions (Good, 2002). This is the classification followed in the present study, but other classifications are also available in the literature. For instance, Celce-Murcia and Larsen-Freeman (1999) classify these grammar units into coordinating conjunctions, adverbial subordinators and conjunctive adverbials. There are seven coordinating conjunctions, but, or, yet, for, and, nor and so (Celce-Murcia and Larsen-Freeman, 1999). The most common subordinate conjunctions are after, although, as, as if, as though, because, before, even if, even though, except, if now that, since, than, though, unless, until, when, where and while (Robin, 2008). Finally, the most commonly used correlative conjunctions are either… or, neither… nor, nor… but, not only… but also, and both… and (Good, 2002). 1.1 Conjunctions in the Malaysian school syllabus Table 1 summarizes the conjunctions that are presented in the Malaysian syllabus: Table 1. Conjunctions in the Malaysian secondary school English language syllabus (Curriculum specification MOE, 2003)

Form Conjunctions

1 and ,but, or

2 and, but ,or ,so

3 and ,but ,or, so

4 either …or, neither …nor, although, however

5 either …or, neither …nor, although, however

Based on Table 1, all three types of conjunctions are taught to the students over the period of five years of school. However, not all types of coordinating, subordinating and correlative conjunctions are taught to the students. Hughes and Heah (1994) state that students tend to misuse coordinating, subordinating and correlative conjunctions because they fail to understand the proper usage of these conjunctions in sentences as a result of lack of exposure to the different types of conjunctions. The textbook is the main material used in the process of teaching and learning in the Malaysian schools that use the prescribed English language textbooks published by the Textbook Bureau of the Ministry of Education (Mukundan, 2009). These textbooks are guided by the syllabus that is set by the Ministry of Education in accordance to the national English language guideline. Research, however, indicates that the textbooks have been developed through intuition and assumptions (Mukundan, 2009; Mukundan & Roslim, 2011). Since intuition was involved in their development, there are possibilities that the textbooks fail to present the new language elements efficiently. There are a few studies carried out on the presentation of grammar items in the Malaysian textbooks. For example, Khojasteh (2010) investigated the presentation of modal auxiliary verbs. Roslim (2011) studied the presentation of prepositions in the Malaysian secondary school English textbooks. Leong (2011) also examined the presentation of articles in the Malaysian secondary school textbooks. However, there has been no research carried out on the presentation of conjunctions in the Malaysian English textbooks. Thus, there is need to research the presentation of conjunctions in these materials. 1.2 Objectives of the study The purpose of this study is to investigate the presentation of conjunctions in Malaysian secondary school English language textbooks. The specific objectives of the study are: 1. To investigate the distributions of conjunctions used within and across the Malaysian secondary school English language textbooks (Form 1 to Form 5), 2. To compare the ranking of different types of conjunctions in the Textbook Corpus and the British National Corpus, 3. To analyze the presentation of conjunctions in the Malaysian secondary school English language textbooks

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(Form 1 to Form 5). 1.3 Research questions The following research questions were formulated in order to meet the research objectives: 1. What are the distribution patterns of conjunctions used within and across the Malaysian Secondary School English Language textbooks (Form 1 to Form 5)? 2. Does the ranking of conjunctions have similar patterns in the Textbook Corpus and the British National Corpus (BNC)? 3. How have the conjunctions been presented in the Malaysian secondary school English language textbooks (Form 1 to Form 5)? 2. Literature review 2.1 Textbook in ESL/EFL classroom Textbooks have been recognized as the central resources for teachers in assisting students to learn English in Malaysian schools (Nooreen & Arshad, 2005). Textbooks function as a supplement to the teacher’s instructions in ESL teaching and learning process. Thus, it seems true to regard them as the key component in language classes (Nooreen & Arshad, 2005). O’Neil (1982) states that textbooks help provide the core framework for students to get in touch with the language and have a chance to look forward for the future lessons and get prepared for them. On the contrary, textbooks are sometimes criticized for posing a potential problem to the education system and leading to educational failure (Swales, 1980 as cited in Sheldon, 1988). Sheldon (1988) views textbooks as being static and outdated because of the delays of writing and publications. The mismatch between the content of textbooks and the students’ needs makes teachers unable to rely on them and obliges them to develop their own material in order to teach effectively. In Sheldon’s (1988, p.239) words, textbooks are merely “tainted end product of an author or publisher’s desire for quick profit.” Despite the researchers’ contradictory arguments, textbooks still remain as important materials in the process of teaching and learning. Hence, language textbooks should be evaluated to ensure that a suitable selection or adaptation is made so that the material could match the students’ needs and the aim of the teaching program. 2.2 Corpus linguistics and English language teaching materials Corpora have been established as useful pedagogical aids in the language teaching and learning scene. Comprehensive volumes on the use of corpora in teaching and learning have been provided by a number of researchers such as Burnard and McEnery (2000), Connor and Upton (2004), as well as Sinclair (2004). According to researchers (e.g., Biber & Reppen, 2002; Carter & McCarthy, 1995; Lawson, 2001), grammar descriptions are not appropriate in most textbooks. This may be attributed to several reasons. First, the descriptions in textbooks are often based on writer’s intuition rather than empirical data. Additionally, textbooks often neglect register specific or discourse content specific information. They present grammatical and lexical patterns as equally generalizable. Moreover, some textbooks ignore the spoken language and are mostly based on the writers’ norms. Finally, for pedagogical purposes, textbooks often simplify real language use. Based on these attributes addressed, Lawson (2001) suggests that there are four areas of language in which corpus linguistics could help address the lack of fit highlighted by comparing textbook description and corpus findings. First, corpora could provide information on frequency of occurrence of linguistic features in natural languages. Second, they can also provide information on the variation of particular linguistic features across different contexts of use. Third, information on the salience of particular features could be provided through corpus based analysis. Finally, information on the discourse property of particular linguistic features could be provided through corpus linguistic analysis. Hence, it can be claimed that “corpus based analysis is an ideal tool to reevaluate the order of presentation of linguistic features in textbooks and to make principled decisions about what to prioritize in textbook presentation” (Barbieri & Eckhardt, 2007, p. 322). Regrettably, there is a wide gap between corpus based activities suggested by applied corpus linguists and the limited extent to which corpora are used in the ESL classroom (Mukherjee, 2004). Tribble (2000) agrees with this argument by claiming that there seems to be a clash between corpus linguists and teachers whereby corpus linguists are enthusiastic on the pedagogical use of corpora while teachers are reluctant to use corpora in their classrooms. Although corpus data have been widely accepted as a relevant input for learners especially through dictionaries, the language of ELT textbooks is not consistent with corpus analysis findings (Mukherjee, 2006). The creation of such a consistency will result in more natural and real materials (Mukherjee, 2006).

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According to Mcenery and Wilson (1996), the role of corpora goes beyond providing realistic examples of language usage in language pedagogy. A number of researchers have used corpus data to do critical studies on the existing language teaching materials. Most of these studies found out that there are considerable differences between the actual usage of language by native speakers and textbook language. Teaching materials often present inappropriate content. To avoid this, findings of corpus studies should be used in the production of ELT materials (Kennedy, 1998; Mindt, 1996). This can help the teacher highlight more common usage in the language classroom. Conrad (2000) states that register variation is a vital feature of language. An aspect of register variation could be seen through linking adverbials where words and expressions connect two units of discourse. Although linking adverbials are seen as an important aspect for textual cohesion, they are insufficiently covered in most textbooks (Conrad, 2000). ELT textbooks can be further refined by taking corpus data into consideration. 2.3 English language corpus in Malaysia There are not many English Language corpora that have been developed and used except for major ESL learners corpora such as the English Language of Malaysian school corpus (Arshad et al., 2002), Corpus or the Archive of Learner English Sabah –Sarawak (CALES) (Botley, De Alwis, Metom & Izza, 2005). Mukundan and Anelka (2007) compiled their pedagogic corpus which comprises the currently used Form 1 to Form 5 Malaysian English language textbooks. Mukundan and Roslim (2009) as well as Roslim and Mukundan (2011) used this corpus to provide information on the presentation of preposition in the textbooks. In addition, Mukundan and Khojasteh (2011) studied the presentation of modal auxiliary verbs using the same corpus. On the other hand, Menon (2009) created textbook corpora including the Science and Technology (EST) textbooks and Science textbooks used in Malaysian secondary level schools. These corpora can be used to analyze and identify the lexical and grammatical patterns used in textbooks as well as vocabulary distribution patterns. 2.4 Difficulties in learning conjunctions Learners may be unclear about what conjunctions really mean. This makes it difficult for students to appreciate them and use them accurately. It seems true to argue that students need to know the meaning of the conjunctions in order to master them (Steffani & Nippold, 1997 cited in Lai, 2008). From a pedagogical perspective, the difficulties in learning conjunctions are mainly induced by inappropriate textbooks. According to Johns (1986), Field and Yip (1992) as well as Kaszubski (1998, cited in Lai, 2008), the most influential pedagogical source that results in ESL students’ difficulties in learning conjunctions is the improper design of the textbooks. According to Lai (2010), most textbooks introduce conjunctions by providing the students with a list of conjunctions that are categorized according to their semantic functions. However, there are often no further explanations for the semantic function of each of the conjunctions. Zamel (1983) states that only providing the list of conjunctions and teaching students to just replace the conjunctions that come under the same semantic category would not guarantee the students’ correct use of conjunctions in their daily writing or conversation as the list does not describe the logical relationship between ideas presented through the cohesive devices. In this respect, Lai (2010) contends that the manner in which the conjunctions are presented in most textbooks would direct students to conclude that words that come under the same functional categories are similar and interchangeable. This will leave the learner ignorant of the fact that even though some conjunctions share similar semantic functions, they may have different meanings. Researchers warn that most textbooks provide practice and exercises that are too mechanical and insufficient (Lai, 2010). Zamel (1980) doubts whether mechanical practice on conjunctions (such as sentence combining exercises) in most English language textbooks could really improve students’ written syntax. It is unrealistic for ESL teachers to expect such practice could improve students’ written syntax and the overall quality of the students’ writing (Zamel, 1980). 3. Methodology Corpus based analysis is an ideal tool to evaluate the presentation of linguistic features in textbooks and to make principled decisions about what to prioritize (Barbieri & Eckhardt, 2007). Through corpus based studies, the scope of certain features can be determined (Hulstijn, 1995).The present corpus based study used content analysis to analyze the frequency of conjunctions in the textbooks. According to Ary, Jacob and Sorensen (2010), content analysis is a method applied to identify specific characteristics of written or visual materials. Content analysis is widely used in educational research. Additionally, a qualitative analysis helped the researchers address the final research question. • 3.1 Material The material used in this study was the Malaysian school English language textbooks (Form 1 to Form 5) and

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their digitized corpus, referred to as the Textbook Corpus in the present paper. This corpus consists of 311 214 running words. The reference corpus in this study was the British National Corpus (BNC), which is a very large corpus consisting of 100 million words from various written and spoken sources. • 3.2 Instrumentation Wordsmith tool designed by Scott (1996, 1997, 1999) was used to analyze the data. The software is recognized as the most suitable tool for research of this nature (Mukundan, 2009; Mukundan & Menon, 2006; Mukundan & Roslim, 2009; Scott, 2001). Wordsmith tool provides word list frequencies. The location of words in the text can be identified using the concordance line. 4. Results and discussion This section presents the findings of the present study. 4.1 Distribution of conjunctions There are eight forms of conjunctions that are stipulated in the Malaysian secondary school syllabus. These forms are ‘and’, ‘but’, ‘or’, ‘so’, ‘although’, ‘however’, ‘either…or’, ‘neither… nor’. In this study, in addition to these conjunctions, the researchers investigated the frequency of other conjunctions taught implicitly in the textbooks. According to the Malaysian secondary school syllabus, in the first three years of secondary education, students are taught and exposed to coordinating conjunctions. Then, as they enter upper levels, they are exposed to subordinating and correlative conjunctions. According to the results of the present study, collectively, there are 14 055 conjunctions across the five Malaysian English language textbooks. The most frequent types of conjunctions are coordinating conjunctions with a frequency and percentage of 11 059 and 78.68%, followed by subordinating conjunctions (2930, 20.85%). The least frequent conjunctions are correlative conjunctions (66, 0.47%). Conrad (2000) stated that frequency information presented in a corpus based study will be able to help teachers to decide which item to emphasize and by providing more practice especially to low level students. Thornbury (2004) posits that the more frequently a grammar item is taught, the higher is the learner’s chance to remember it. If a particular grammar structure is repeatedly presented to students, they will find it easier to gain mastery over the target structure (Celce-Murcia and Larsen-Freeman, 1983). Thus, based on the findings of this study, it can be recommended that students are in need of more exposure to correlative conjunctions and subordinating conjunctions because they have been under-presented in the textbooks. This suggests that teachers should give more emphasis to these conjunctions. 4.2 Ranking of conjunctions in the two corpora Table 2 presents the ranking of conjuncations in the Textbook and reference corpora: Table 2. Ranking of conjunctions in the Textbook corpus and BNC

Ranking Textbook Corpus (Mukundan & Anealka Aziz, 2007)

British National Corpus (BNC) (Kennedy, 2002)

1 Coordinating conjunctions Coordinating conjunctions

2 Subordinating conjunctions Subordinating conjunctions

3 Correlative conjunctions (no data reported)

As the table shows, the ranking of conjunctions matches in the two corpora (Textbook Corpus and BNC). This finding indicates that the frequencies of the three types of conjunctions in the Textbook Corpus are in accordance with the BNC. It is reported that in the BNC, there are 35 622 conjunctions. Subordinating conjunctions have a frequency of 742. However, no records have been reported on the frequency of correlative conjunctions. As the findings of the present study indicate, conjunctions are well represented in the Malaysian secondary school textbooks. Findings of this sort can be useful for teachers and students who can confidently use a textbook (McCarty, 2004). 4.3 Presentation of conjunctions in the textbooks The third research question concerned the way in which conjunctions had been presented in the textbooks. The types of tasks that presented the conjunctions across the five textbooks were analyzed manually. Table 3 summarizes the results of this analysis. Table 3. Types of tasks presented across Forms 1-5 English textbooks

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Forms Types of tasks

1 Sentence combining (p.62, p.117 and p.122)

2 Fill in the blanks (p.35) Matching (p.35)

3 Fill in the blanks (p.81 and p.86) Sentence combining (p.208 and p.214)

4 Fill in the blanks Sentence combining

5 Sentence combining (p.26) Fill in the blanks (p.80) Summary (p.27)

As the table shows, sentence combining, filling in the blanks, matching, and summary writing are the only task types providing practice on conjunctions for the students. Sentence combining task is the most common type of task while there is only one matching task in the Form 2 textbook and only one summary writing task in the Form 5 textbook. As it is evident from our results, these textbooks definitely lack variety in their task types. One of the reasons that a textbook might be a total turn-off to students is because it appears to be boring and unattractive. It has been suggested that lack of variety in the textbook may cause it to look dry and unattractive to the students. Hence, grammar practice should be presented and made more enjoyable and interesting to the students (Ur, 2006). This could be done by introducing interesting games which could reduce the tension and anxiety among students and add to their motivation. According to Tomlinson (1998), efficient ELT materials can achieve impact. This cannot be accomplished when exercises lack novelty and variety which will make them unattractive for the learner. Additionally, in order to provide an answer for the third research question the frequencies of different types of tasks that addressed conjunctions in the five textbooks were analyzed. Table 4 presents the results of this analysis. Table 4. Frequency of task types presenting conjunctions in Forms 1-5 English textbooks

Types of tasks Frequency Percentages (%)

Sentence combining 7 50

Fill in the blanks 5 35.71

Matching 1 7.14

Summary 1 7.14

Total 14 100

As the results indicate, overall there are 14 tasks related to conjunctions in the five English textbooks. Sentence combing task is the most common task with 50% (7 tasks). This is followed by filling in the blanks, 35.71% (5 tasks). Lastly, matching and summary writing tasks which occur once and constitute only 7.14% of the tasks throughout the five textbooks. According to the related literature, sentence combining activities are the best activities that could reflect students’ understanding of conjunctions (Zamel, 1983). Such activities could reinforce the conjunctions that have been taught to the students. However, sentence combining practice would be more effective when the semantic meaning of conjunctions is emphasized rather than directly providing students with the conjunction itself (Zamel, 1983). On the other hand, fill in the blanks or gap-filling tasks were the second most frequent types of tasks that focused on conjunctions in the textbooks. It should, however, be noted that these types of activities may cause students to identify the use of conjunctions as lexical substitutions and to neglect the textual connections that are signified by conjunctions which may result in redundancy (Crewe, 1990). Thus, teachers need to be aware in using fill in the blanks activities by making sure that students are taught the appropriate usage of conjunctions so that they can realize the textual connections that are reflected through conjunctions in sentences.

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Further analysis was carried out to find out whether conjunctions were presented explicitly or implicitly in the aforementioned tasks. The results of this qualitative analysis were tabulated. Table 5 summarizes these results. Table 5. Explicit and implicit input on conjunctions across Forms 1-5 English textbooks

Forms Presentation of Conjunctions

Explicit Implicit

1 Focus on conjunctions: and, or, but Presented in list form Surface level information Introduction of types of sentences

No implicit teaching of conjunctions

2 Very brief notes and examples of conjunctions: and, but, so

Introduction of compound sentences Indirectly focusing on conjunctions: but, so

3 Introduced through a poster Very brief explanation on the usage of conjunctions in sentences Presented in list form Conjunctions introduced: and, or, but, so

Introduction of compound sentences coordinating conjunctions are highlighted implicitly

4 Detailed explanations of subordinating conjunctions with examples

Introduction of compound and complex sentences Indirect highlight on coordinating conjunctions: and, or, but, so and subordinating conjunctions

5 Very brief notes and examples of correlative conjunctions Revision on conjunctions Very brief notes and examples on the definitions and usage of conjunctions Very short notes on subordinating conjunctions

No implicit teaching of conjunctions

As it is evident from our findings, the textbooks fail to present conjunctions effectively. In most of the textbooks (excluding the Form 4 book), the grammar notes were too brief and superficial. In reference to Table 5, although the textbooks presented both explicit and implicit instruction of conjunctions, the explanations were too brief to help the students comprehend them. Most of the grammar notes or tasks merely provided lists of conjunctions with their semantic functions without further explanation on the semantic functions and syntactic restrictions in the use of each conjunction. As discussed above, it has been found that providing a list of a particular grammatical unit (like conjunctions) and directing the students to replace the items in the list that come under the same semantic category would not guarantee that they will be able to comprehend and use conjunctions in their writing task and in their daily conversations (Zamel, 1983). It was also evident that conjunctions were often practiced through controlled exercises and drilling activities in all the textbooks. Very few were contextualized. Drilling activities do not always lead to students’ mastery of the grammar item being taught. As Krashen (1981) warns, to acquire a language the learner does not really need extensive use of conscious grammatical rules in the form of tedious drills. Ellis (2002) states that grammar practices that are in a controlled situation do not give freedom to the students to learn the structures freely. According to Tomlinson (1998), most of what our students learn in controlled practice is only retained in short term memory. As he suggests, meaningful activities should be provided in textbooks that encourage outcome feedback and give a chance for the learners to check their language achievement. As the results of our analysis showed, the conjunction tasks in the textbooks mostly lacked such a quality. In this respect, Zamel (1983) suggested that instead of providing students with the choices of conjunctions in each of the sentences, students should be given the liberty to supply any conjunctions when practicing sentence combing tasks. Teachers then could discuss with the students on the appropriate conjunction that suits the blank. In this way, students might learn the correct usage of conjunctions and understand the necessity to choose the appropriate conjunctions to develop coherence and cohesive sentences. Finally, all the five textbooks lacked communicative tasks on conjunctions. Nunan (1989) describes

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communicative tasks as tasks that could help students to comprehend, manipulate and interact with the target language. Cowen (2009, cited in Khojasteh, 2011) stated that communicative tasks require students to use the target structure frequently. Unfortunately, none of the tasks in any of the textbooks involved describing pictures, role playing, and writing letters that would support successful communication across different communication contexts. 5. Conclusion The present study investigated the presentation of conjunctions in the Malaysian textbooks Forms 1 to Form 5. The findings revealed that the frequency of conjunctions that are presented across Form 1 to Form 5 Malaysian English language textbooks increases as the students’ level increases. It was also found that the distribution of coordinating conjunctions is higher as compared to subordinating and correlative conjunctions. Correlative conjunctions are the least occurring conjunctions among the three types of conjunctions. The findings, thus, suggest that more weight should be given to correlative conjunctions. Students are least exposed to correlative conjunctions as compared to coordinating and subordinating conjunctions. Hence, teacher intervention is needed. Teachers should come up with extra material that could help students learn more on correlative conjunctions to support the inadequacies of the English textbooks. The results also indicated that the Textbook Corpus is in accordance with the frequency ranking of conjunctions in the British National Corpus (BNC). Finally, the study looked at the types of tasks in which conjunctions were presented in the five English textbooks. These tasks lacked variety. There were only four types of tasks on conjunctions in the five books. Moreover, most of the tasks were controlled and emphasized drilling. Such task types, as it was discussed above, do not give freedom to the students to explore their understanding of grammar. The findings of this study can help teachers to recognize the weakness and strength of the textbooks especially in teaching conjunctions. Curriculum planners could also benefit from this study by considering the distribution patterns of conjunctions within each textbook and making the necessary adaptations in order to meet the actual need of students. It is hoped that analyzing the presentation patterns of conjunctions in these textbooks will make textbook writers aware of the importance of such patterns in developing future textbooks. Cunningsworth (1995) and Ellis (1997) state that textbook evaluation could be a means of professional development for teachers. Mukundan (2007) argues that textbook evaluation should be considered as an important activity among language teachers. Further research is required in the area. A large scale study that focuses on a larger sample could lead to more useful findings. Besides the Malaysian secondary school English language textbooks, analyzing the Malaysian primary school English language textbooks could reveal the distribution patterns of conjunctions in these textbooks as well. Comparing Malaysian secondary school English language textbooks with similar textbooks from another country such as Singapore could also lead to insightful findings. Finally, research could also look into collocation and colligation patterns of conjunctions to identify the word classes that often collocate and colligate with conjunctions. References Arshad A. S., Hassan. F., Mukundan. J., Kamarudin. G., Abd. Rahman. S. Z. S., Rashid. J., & Vethamani. M. E. (2002). The English of Malaysian school students (EMAS) corpus. Serdang: UPM. Ary, D., Jacobs, L. C. & Sorensen, C. (2010). Introduction to Research in Education (8thed.). California: Wadsworth Cengage Learning. Barbieri, F., & Eckhardt, S. (2007). Applying corpus-based findings to form-focused instruction: The case of reported speech. Language Teaching Research, 1(3), 319–346. Biber, D. & Reppen, R. (2002).What does frequency have to do with grammar teaching? Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 24, 199–208. Bloor, T. &Bloor, M. (1995). The Functional Analysis of English London, New York: Arnold Botley, De Alwis, Metom & Izza, (2005). CALES: a corpus based archive of learner English in Sarawak. A Report. Universiti Teknologi MARA. Burnard, L. & McEnery, T. (Eds.). (2000). Rethinking language pedagogy from a corpus perspective. Frankfurt: Peter Lang. Carter, R. & McCarthy, M. (1995). Grammar and the spoken language. Applied Linguistics 16(2), 141-58. Celce-Murcia, Marianne and Diane Larsen-Freeman. 1983. The Grammar Book: An ESL/EFL Teacher’s Course. New York: Newbury House. Celce-Murcia, M. & Larsen-Freeman, D. (1999). The Grammar book: an ESL/EFL teacher’scourse. 2nd ed. Boston: Heinle&Heinle.

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Conrad, S. M. (2000). Will corpus linguistics revolutionize grammar teaching in the 21st century? TESOL Quarterly 34(3), 548–60. Connor, U and Upton, T. A. (Eds.). (2004). Applied corpus linguistics: A multi-dimensional perspective. Amsterdam: Rodopi. Cowan, R. (2008). The Teacher's Grammar of English. Cambridge: Cambridge University. Cunningsworth, A. (1995). Choosing your coursebook. Oxford: Heinemann Crewe, W.J. (1990). The illogical connectives. ELT Journal, 44(4), 316-325. Ellis, R. (1997). Second language acquisition. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Ellis, R. (2002). Grammar teaching – practice or consciousness raising? In J.C. Richards & W.A. Renandya (Eds.), Methodology in language teaching: An anthology of current practice (pp. 167-174). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Field, Y. & Yip, L. (1992). A comparison of internal conjunctive cohesion in the English essay writing of Cantonese speakers and native speakers of English. RELC Journal,23(1), 15-28 Good, E.C. (2002). A grammar book for you and I—oops, me! : All the grammar you need to succeed in life. Virginia: Capital Books Inc. Hughes, R. & Heah, C. (1993). Common errors in English: Grammar exercises for Malaysians (2nd ed.). Shah Alam: FajarBakti. Hulstijn, J.H. (1995). Not all grammar rules are equal: giving grammar instruction its proper place in foreign language teaching. In R. Schmidt (Ed.), Attention and awareness in foreign language learning (Technical Report No.6) (pp. 359–386). Honolulu: University of Hawaii, Second Language Teaching and Curriculum Center. Johns, T. (1997), Contexts: the background, development and Mailing of a concordance-based CALL program. In Baker, P. Using Corpora in Discourse Analysis. London: Continuum. Kaszubski, P. (1998). Enhancing a written textbook: national perspective. In S. Granger (Ed.), Learners English on computer. London: Longman. Kennedy, G. (1998). An introduction to corpus linguistics. London: Longman Publishing. Khojasteh, L. (2010). A corpus-based study of modal auxiliary verbs used in the Malaysian English language textbooks. (Unpublished doctoral thesis). Serdang: Universiti Putra Malaysia. Khojasteh, L. (2011). Modal auxiliary verb in prescribed Malaysian English textbooks. English Language Teaching 4(1), pp.79-89. Krashen, S. (1981). Principle and Practice in second language acquisition English language: Teaching series. London: Prentice Hall. Lai, Y.Y. (2008). A corpus investigation of conjunctive use in the Taiwanese students’ writing. (Unpublished master thesis). Ming Chuan University, Taiwan. Leong, A. (2011). Analysis on the use of articles in the Malaysian secondary school English language textbook. (Unpublished master thesis). Serdang: University Putra Malaysia. Lawson, A. (2001). Rethinking French grammar for pedagogy: The contribution of French corpora. In Simpson, R.C. & Swales, J.M., (Eds.), Corpus linguistics in North America: Selections from the 1999 Symposium (pp. 179-194). Ann Arbor, MI: The University of Michigan Press. McCarty, M. (2004). From Corpus to coursebook. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. McEnery, T. & Wilson, A. (2001). Corpus linguistics: An introduction (2nd ed.). Edinburgh: Edinburgh University. Mellon, J.C. (1969). Transformational sentence-combining: A method for enhancing the development of syntactic fluency in English composition. Urbana, Illinois: NCTE. Menon, S. (2009). Corpus-based analysis of lexical patterns in Malaysian secondary school science and English for science and technology textbooks (Unpublished doctoral thesis). Serdang: Universiti Putra Malaysia. Mindt, D. (1996). English corpus linguistics and the foreign language teaching syllabus in J. Thomas and M. Short (eds.). Using corpora for language research (pp. 232-247). Harlow: Longman. Ministry of Education, Malaysia (1991). Compendium: A handbook for ELT teachers. vol 2. Kuala Lumpur: Maziza. Mukundan, J. (2007). Evaluation of Language Textbooks: Some Important Issues for consideration. Journal of NELTA, 12(1&2).

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Mukundan, J. (2009). ESL textbook evaluation: A composite framework. Köln, Germany: Lambert Academic Publishing. Mukundan, J. & Anealka, A. H. (2007). A forensic study of vocabulary load and distribution in five Malaysian Secondary School Textbooks (Forms 1-5). Pertanika Journal of Social Science and Humanities, 15(2), 59-74. Mukundan, J. & Khojasteh, L. (2011). Modal auxiliary verbs in prescribed Malaysian English textbooks. English Language Teaching, 4(1), 79-89. Mukundan, J. & Roslim, N. (2009). Textbook representation of prepositions. English Language Teaching, 2(4), 123-130. Mukherjee, J. & Rohrbach, J. (2006). Rethinking applied corpus linguistics from a language-pedagogical perspective: New departures in learner corpus research in B. Kettemann & G. Marko (eds.). Planning and gluing corpora: Inside the applied corpus linguist's workshop. Frankfurt: Peter Lang. Nooreen, N. & Arshad A. S. (2005). Examining the Importance of EST and ESL Textbooks and Materials: Objectives, Content and Form. English for Specific Purposes World. Retrieved from http://www.esp-world.info/Articles_9/textbooks.htm Nunan, D. (1989). Designing tasks for the communicative classroom. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. O’Neill, R. (1982). Why Use Textbooks? ELT Journal. 36(2), 23-30. Robin, T.G. (2008). Intermediate English Grammar for ESL learners. United States of America, USA: McGraw Hill. Sinclair, J. (2004). Intuition and annotation - the discussion continues. In Advances in corpus linguistics. Papers from the 23rd International Conference on English Language Research on Computerized corproa (ICAME 23). Göteborg 22-26 May 2002., eds. Karin Aijmer and Bengt Altenberg, 39-59. Amsterdam/New York: Rodopi. Sheldon, L. (1988). Evaluating ELT textbooks and materials. ELT Journals, 42(4). Smith, C., Butler, N.L., Griffith, K.G., &Kritsonis, W.A. (2007). The Role of Communication Context, Corpus-Based Grammar, and Scaffolded Interaction in ESL/EFL Instruction. The Lamar University Electronic Journal of Student Research, 4. Scott, M. (1996, 1997, 1999). Versions (1.0, 2.0, 3.0, 4.0) WordSmith Tools. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Steffani, S.A. & Nippold, M.A. (1997). Japanese speakers of American English: Competence with connectives in written language. Journal of Speech, Language and Hearing Research, 40, 1048-1055. Swan, M. (1996). Practical English usage. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Thornbury, S. (2004). How to teach grammar? Malaysia: Pearson Education Limited. Tribble, C. (2000): Practical uses for language corpora in ELT, In P. Brett & G. Motteram (eds.). A special interest in computers: Learning and teaching with information and communications technologies (pp. 31-41), IATEFL, Whitstable: Kent. Ur, P. (2006). Grammar practice activities. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Zamel, V. (1980). Re-evaluating Sentences combining Practice. TESOL Quarterly 14(1), 81-90. Zamel, V. (1983). Teaching those missing links in writing. ELT Journal, 37(1), 22-29.

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Exploring Metadiscourse in Master’s Dissertation Abstracts: Cultural and Linguistic Variations across Postgraduate Writers

Erdem Akbas

Department of Education, University of York

York, YO10 5 DD, United Kingdom

E-mail: ea527@york.ac.uk

Received: 02-05- 2012 Accepted: 21-05- 2012 Published: 31-05- 2012

doi:10.7575/ijalel.v.1n.1p.12 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.7575/ijalel.v.1n.1p.12

Abstract This study investigates metadiscourse in the dissertation abstracts written by Native Speakers of Turkish (NST), Turkish Speakers of English (TSE) and Native Speakers of English (NSE) in the Social Sciences to determine how they make use of metadiscourse devices. It attempts to determine whether student writers from a shared cultural background (Turkish) tend to use similar rhetorical features to those of their mother tongue or harmonise themselves with the language (English) in which they are writing. Metadiscourse as a rhetorical device for the effective use of language facilitates writers in guiding their readers, conveying their ideas, establishing and determining the social distance of the reader-writer relationship, and creating an involved style of writer persona or a more remote stance. In that sense, interactive resources employed by writers help readers to find the information needed and interactional resources convey to readers the personality of the writers and their assertions. In addition, using ‘more personal’ resources is a way of keeping readers more intentionally within the text to interpret what is proposed by the writers personally and to judge them. The overall aim of the study is to compare and contrast 90 abstracts of dissertations produced by native Turkish speakers (30), native English speakers (30) and Turkish speakers of English (30) in the Social Sciences and to consider how writing in English (L2) deviates from writing in Turkish (L1) and becomes closer to the target language in terms of the metadiscourse elements, that is, interactive resources (transitions, frame markers, endophoric markers, evidentials and code glosses) and interactional resources (hedges, boosters, attitude markers, engagement markers and self-mentions).1

Keywords: metadiscourse, written academic discourse, postgraduate student writing, contrastive rhetoric, learner corpus 1. Introduction The importance of abstracts in academic texts has been receiving increasing attention. Thus, the popularity of abstract investigations across disciplines or cultures reveals the significant status of the abstract as a well-established genre in the negotiation of knowledge through academic texts. It does help scholars to exchange essential parts of their work by means of a combination of community-based practices. In other words, the value and function attached by writers to their abstracts are quite crucial in addressing their research to scholars and readers who are from the same community and who are interested in the topic; abstracts clearly stand out as a consequence of the rhetorical functions of briefly introducing what has been done in the research and what the striking points are. As Gillaerts and Van de Velde (2010) have commented, one of the most important roles of the abstract, that of revealing interaction, is a recently determined genre. That function of the abstract in highlighting interaction between a writer and a particular group of people is mostly dependent on a range of rhetorical strategies and discourse conventions of that specific community. The rhetorical variations across cultures, languages or disciplines are acquired by novice researchers in any specific community by imitating experienced and reputable researchers well-known as a result of successful publications in their particular discourse community (Day, 1988 as cited in Pedro Martin, 2003). Most of the investigations carried out in order to have a deeper understanding of the prominent nature of abstracts have examined research article (RA) abstracts across/within disciplines focusing on the function of abstracts in ‘selling’ the articles (for example, Salager-Myer, 1992; Hyland, 2000; Pedro Martin, 2003; Gillaerts & Van de Velde, 2010). However, little attention has been given to the forthcoming scholar candidates of academic communities. That is, postgraduate students taking their first steps into academia after carrying out particular kinds of research in their specific areas to transmit their knowledge by contributing to the existing literature. This paper is therefore an attempt to look at the abstracts of postgraduate students’ masters dissertations in order to examine the cross-linguistic and cross-cultural variations

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with a special focus on making a comparison of interpersonal relations within the abstracts of their final work. The reason why interpersonal relations are investigated throughout this paper is because of the nature and considerable impact of subjective exchange and organisation of knowledge in academic texts, and whether these elements vary within different groups of writers in the same discipline. As a point of departure, I have taken Hyland and Tse’s (2004) framework on metadiscourse in which they differentiated two sub-categories of the concept of metadiscourse by following Thompson (2001): interactive and interactional metadiscourse. The difference between these sub-categories is clearly demonstrated in their work. The former involves looking at the aspects of writers’ guidance for the intended audiences with a set of language items within the discourse produced, whereas the latter, interactional metadiscourse allows writers either to open a space for expressing their stance clearly by considering readers’ expectations or to build a relationship with target audiences and attract their attention. Metadiscourse has been portrayed by a range of researchers since the term was coined by Harris in 1959 (as cited in Beauvais, 1989), with a common view of the features of creating and emphasising writer-reader interaction within the discourse. Metadiscourse has been regarded as the concept of bringing many sets of different language devices into text and exploiting them for the sake of the explicit organisation of successful texts, reader engagement, and signalling attitudes towards the readers and the research itself. The robust model offered by Hyland and Tse (2004) reassessed the notion of metadiscourse and highlighted a range of key principles by analysing postgraduate students’ texts. Such a well-rounded model with clear-cut distinctions is in line with the purpose of the current study as two different languages and cultures will be investigated using three different sample groups (native speakers of Turkish: NST; Turkish speakers of English: TSE; and native speakers of English: NSE). This study can make a contribution to the line of investigations of crucial and rhetorical strategies of Anglophone and non-Anglophone scholars as it looks at three different groups of writers: NST, TSE and NSE. Comparisons of Anglophone contexts with others (such as Finnish by Mauranen, 1993; Bulgarian by Vassilieva, 2001; Norwegian by Blagojevic, 2004) help users of any of those languages to comprehend cultural or linguistic differences within different contexts. Most importantly, non-native writers of English would definitely benefit from such studies to pinpoint the ways in which Anglophone discourse goals and conventions are accomplished through the text. As non-native writers of English mostly follow the rhetorical and textual conventions of their own cultures and languages in constructing knowledge, this might result in inappropriate use of linguistic features in terms of the English discourse expectations. Alternatively, translation without paying much/enough attention to the discourse conventions of target language (English) would appear to be used by those non-English speaking writers and to cause some additional problems in terms of expressing themselves in the eyes of scholars who have become accustomed to finding identical strategies and linguistic resources in texts within their English-medium discourse community. Hyland (2005) suggested that “all metadiscourse is interpersonal in that it takes account of the reader’s knowledge, textual experiences and processing needs and that it provides writers with an armoury of rhetorical appeals to achieve this” (p.41). From this point of view, the main aim of the research is to investigate descriptively whether students coming from the same cultural background (Turkish) or having the same mode of writing (English) follow the same, closer or totally different rhetorical strategies in their writings in the social sciences to accomplish interpersonal relations in their dissertation abstracts. In other words, this contrastive study will consider the non-native students’ adaptation of themselves (Turkish) into the target language (English) and then tracing what their culturally identical peers (native Turkish) do when producing an interpersonal piece of work at the beginning of their dissertations. Therefore, the unit analysis of this corpus-based investigation will be particular linguistic features and strategies employed in order to produce a text which is as reader-friendly and comprehensible as possible with a focus on interpersonal relations. As Connor (1996) has argued, being unaware of cross-cultural differences may cause non-native speakers of English (Turkish writers, in this case) to be unsuccessful in achieving recognition of their particular work in the global community because English is known to be extensively based on the reader’s expectation that it is a ‘writer-responsible language’ (Hinds, 1987). The paper also discusses potential factors which could be related to the prominent similarities or differences across the groups included in the present study. 2. Corpus, Methodology and Procedures Ninety randomly selected and comparable master’s dissertation abstracts in the social sciences (30 per group) were carefully examined quantitatively using WordSmith Tools (5.0). The corpus was in total 25,155 words. However, the variation of the length of the texts in sub-corpora was significant (NST: 9,290; TSE: 8,245; NSE: 7,620). It is worth noting that the inclusion of native Turkish student writers in the present study added highly significant value to the comparison between Turkish speakers of English writers and native speakers of English writers. The reason behind this was to look at and explain the potential traces (if there were any) that Turkish speakers of English followed their culturally identical peers in producing their rhetorically noteworthy piece of work. The quantitative nature of this kind of investigation enables the results to be compared with studies

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previously carried out and reported in the literature. The procedure included running that particular piece of software individually for each group, and then instances were evaluated in their specific contexts. Any instance confirming and displaying any functions of metadiscourse according to Hyland and Tse’s (2004) framework was included; otherwise it was not counted as a linguistic resource contributing to a writer’s expression of interpersonal resources. Some of the linguistic resources in both Turkish and English were found to have more than one meaning and the contexts revealed whether they had metadiscourse functions. For instance, the auxiliary ‘can’ has been treated as associated with the notion of hedging when it included epistemic realisation of presenting some information and expressing tentativeness. However, some of the cases exhibited ‘can’ as a way of expressing ability, in which a non-epistemic sense is conveyed to the reader as the example from the TSE sub-corpus below illustrates:

(1). ‘[t]eachers can construct knowledge through interaction and collaboration with teacher educators, and colleagues.’

Instead of marking the knowledge or information as less than certain, similar to the use of might, the example clearly demonstrates that the auxiliary can within this context is easily interpreted as not associated with an observation about carrying an epistemic nature. Following Hyland’s (2005) list of potential metadiscourse resources to identify some cases of metadiscourse, I integrated a substitution test for the resources not found in his list but having the potential of being employed for the purpose of achieving a specific kind of interpersonal relation with the texts. To do this, provisional occurrences (new resources) were analysed within the contexts by substituting linguistic resources with lexically identical examples in Hyland’s list. When similar achievements and interpretations were obtained, the provisional items were added to the search list in the corpus and an additional search for those specific words was carried out within the corpus. This was because the concept of metadiscourse confirms the idea that an open-ended set of feasible linguistic items are used to achieve different functions of metadiscoursal expressions. Therefore, a text-driven nature of research was also followed within the present study in order to find new ways of achieving interpersonal relations. The same procedure was applied to the sub-corpus of native speakers of Turkish (NST). Nevertheless, as there is not much information about metadiscourse in the Turkish language, the criteria used to identify metadiscoursal uses in NST were primarily based on the clear-cut explanations of Hyland and Tse (2004) for the subcategories of their framework, and on translated versions of particular resources (such as ‘firstly’ – ilk olarak, ‘in general’ – genelde and so on) found in Turkish texts as well. The substitution test and text-driven methodology for the provisional resources in Turkish texts were more fruitful as there were many linguistic items with approximately the same meaning in Turkish used by the student writers in their dissertations to accomplish interaction with their intended audience. The design of the corpus to determine the extent to which interpersonal relations are achieved by three different groups of writers was principally based upon drawing attention to certain issues within the texts of representative writers of the three groups. However, the diversity among the selected groups of writers was also crucial in terms of revealing particular use of patterns to represent the general tendency specific to each context studied. As the distribution of the samples was not identical among the three groups of writers, non-parametric tests were run to ascertain the significance level of the differences. First, an ANOVA was used in order to measure the statistical significance between how commonly one sort of metadiscoursal item occurred within one of the sub-corpora relative to its equivalent frequency in the other sub-corpora. According to Biber, Condrad and Reppen (1998), it is practical to use that statistical test to compare variance across more than two groups. Thus, due to the number of groups included, ANOVA was used to compare the extent of variations both between groups and within groups. 3. Results 3.1. Frequency of Metadiscourse Before looking at the individual groups of writers and different metadiscourse resources, I would like to draw attention to the lengths of the abstracts included in the study. Although the same number of dissertation abstracts was included for each group, it was found that the Turkish (L1) writers tended to produce longer abstracts in comparison with the Turkish. Table 1. The size of sub-corpora and metadiscourse items

Sub-Corpus Total Number of Words Total number of metadiscourse NST 9,690 248 items TSE 8,245 286 items NSE 7,620 392 items

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writers of English and the native writers of English. The mean scores of the total number of words used in the abstracts differed significantly. It is obvious that the deviation in the mean scores of the Turkish native writers expresses the inconsistency of writers within the sub-corpus on the length of their abstracts, which ranged from 85 words to 825 words (Mean: 322.83; SD: 132.933). In contrast, both the TSE (range from 141 to 434 words; Mean: 278.47; SD: 78.911) and the NSE (from 116 to 486 words; Mean: 255.60; SD: 90.120) writers seemed more consistent with the length of their abstracts, since the standard deviation was substantially smaller than the NST. As the number of words in the three sub-corpora was not equal (see Table 1), the occurrences were equalised (per 1000 words) for the subcategories of metadiscourse in order to enable a direct comparison of frequencies. The mean frequency of all metadiscourse resources was 26.7 in NST, 34.7 in TSE, and 51.4 in NSE. As can be clearly seen from Table 2 (for interactive and interactional items), NSE writers employed the highest number of metadiscourse resources in their abstracts. Although NST writers produced longer abstracts compared with TSE and NSE writers, as Table 1 displays, they made use of fairly low amounts of metadiscoursal items in their writing. The three groups of writers employed more interactional resources than interactive resources in their texts. Specifically, in terms of the individual analyses of writer groups, it was found that TSE used 20% more interactional resources whereas NST and NSE writers employed approximately 66% more interactional resources than interactive ones. However, comparison between the three sub-corpora shows that NSE writers employed around 70% more interactional resources (with 32.2 occurrences per 1000 words) than TSE, and twice what native Turkish writers used in their abstracts per 1000 words. The variation between the use of hedges and boosters by writers was Table 2. Mean frequency for Interactive and Interactional Metadiscourse (per 1000 words)

Category NST TSE NSE Interactive Metadiscourse

Transitions 4.3 8 10.4 Frame Markers (FM) 1.6 2.8 3.9 Endophoric Markers (EnM) 1.4 0.4 1.3 Evidentials 0.6 2.8 1.7 Code Glosses (CG) 2 1.8 2.1

Totals 9.9 15.8 19.4 Interactional Metadiscourse

Hedges 5 8.4 13.3 Boosters 8.3 4.5 6.2 Attitude Markers (AM) 2.3 3.6 6.2 Engagement Markers (EM) 0.6 0.6 2 Self-Mentions (SM) 0.5 1.8 4.5

Totals 16.7 18.9 32.2

quite contradictory. As Table 2 displays, except for the NST writers, writers preferred employing approximately half as many hedges as boosters whereas native Turkish writers prioritised the use of boosters (66% more) over hedges. In terms of interactive resources found in the corpus of the study, the normalised frequencies per 1000 words demonstrate wide differences across the writer groups. The amount of interactive resources which Turkish native writers employed (9.9 times per 1000 words) was almost half of the amount which native writers of English used (19.4). The sharpest variation in individual interactive resources found in the whole corpus was between the equalised frequencies of transitions used by Turkish (L1) and English (L1) writers. The least salient interactive resource in the whole corpus was endophoric markers. In the TSE sub-corpus, there were hardly any endophoric markers except for a few occurrences (0.4 times per 1000 words). The next section will describe whether the differences found in the comparison between the sub-corpora are statistically significant or not, and the level of significance across groups based on the ANOVA tests. 3.2. Statistical Analysis of Metadiscourse use by the Student Writers After counting the frequencies of interactive and interactional metadiscourse resources within the three sub-corpora of Turkish (L1) and English (L1 and L2) student writers, normality tests were applied to ascertain the distribution of the student writers’ use of those items and to determine whether parametric or non-parametric tests would be appropriate for statistical analysis. The homogeneity of variances demonstrated that the

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distribution was normal except one group. As the complete sets of resources were not found in some of the texts within just one of the groups (NST) for interactional resources, this group seemed to have a non-normal distribution according to the Shapiro-Wilk test (see Appendix A). Nevertheless, a further visual analysis with Q-Q plots and checking the values for skewness (as suggested by Field, 2009) results of that specific violating group showed that the distribution is reasonably normal. This was also supplemented by satisfying normality using the Central Limit Theorem (CLT). After finding Gaussian normality using the CLT, ANOVA was, therefore, selected to compare the differences across sub-corpora as the data is normally distributed. The small deviation of NST from normal distribution might have very little effect because analysis of variance is known to be robust against such small deviations (Schminder, Ziegler, Danay, Beyer and Buhner, 2010) since equal numbers of samples were included. Table 3 clearly shows that there was not a statistically significant difference for the overall use of interactive resources among the three different writer groups (see Appendix B). However, an individual comparison of dependent variables of interactive metadiscourse categories revealed that the student writers differed significantly in the use of transitions. As ANOVA is not itself enough to explain which groups caused this significant difference, one of the most flexible post hoc methods, Bonferroni, was run to comprehend the stem of the significance. According to the post hoc test, it was found that the difference between Turkish L1 writers’ and native English writers’ use of transitions was statistically significant whereas the difference between the use of transitions by TSE and the other groups was not statistically significant (see Appendix C for the post hoc of transitions). As stated in the Table 3. ANOVA test results for interactive and interactional metadiscourse across groups Category df Sum of Squares Mean Square F Sig. Interactive MD 2 49.267 24.633 2.343 .102 Transitions 2 24.067 12.033 3.983 .022* Frame Markers 2 3.756 1.778 1.230 .297 Endophoric Markers 2 1.756 0.778 0.880 .418 Evidentials 2 4.867 2.433 1.634 .201 Code Glosses 2 .289 .144 .157 .855 Interactional MD 2 174.200 87.100 5.098 .008* Hedges 2 51.536 25.678 4.434 .015* Boosters 2 32.089 16.044 3.342 .040* Attitude Markers 2 11.622 5.811 4.088 .020* Engagement Markers 2 1.622 .811 1.745 .181 Self-Mentions 2 15.556 7.778 4.234 .018* * The mean difference is significant at the .05 level.

previous section, the sharpest variation found in the comparison between sub-categories of interactive resources was in the use of transitions, which is now confirmed by both the ANOVA and Bonferroni tests as statistically significant. In contrast to interactive metadiscourse, it is clearly seen from Table 3 that there is a statistically significant difference in the use of overall interactional metadiscourse across groups. In other words, the likelihood of the observed differences (as a result of the analysis using WordSmith Tools 5.0) between the three sub-corpora is not due to chance when the pre-determined level of significance (P<.05) is considered. It is clear that the significance of the difference between the groups is explained by the probability level (P=.008) of the three groups in terms of the use of overall interactional metadiscourse, which is smaller than alpha. The individual statistical analysis performed in the sub-categories of interactional metadiscourse demonstrated that the use of all sub-categories except engagement markers differed at a significant level. Although engagement markers were used more frequently by NSE writers in their abstracts (two instances per 1000 words), from a statistical point of view, no significant difference was found across the sub-corpora. The statistical evidence of the difference in the use of attitude markers (.040) was also at a reasonable significance level (although not as significant as hedges, boosters or self-mentions) as Turkish L1 writers and Turkish writers of English employed that attitude markers at a close frequency level (see Table 2). The result of a Bonferroni multiple comparison test of attitude markers (see Appendix D) shows that attitude resources were employed by NST and TSE writers almost identically (.997) as the value is bigger than alpha (.05) and close to 1.000. 3.3. Examples from the Corpus Although the three different writer profiles employed different rhetorical strategies to attract their readers’ attention and guide them through their texts in a way in which they could effectively express their stance, a

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range of similarities between NST, TSE and NSE were also found. This is probably due to the generic nature of abstract writing, for instance, introducing the topic and mentioning the methods with some tentative results. Some examples from the actual corpus will illustrate such similarities in addition to clear-cut differences across the writer groups. 3.3.1. Interactive Resources in Abstracts NSE writers employed more frequent organisational features for interaction in their abstracts compared with Turkish writers. It was found that NSE texts included the method of occupying the research niche after arguing important elements of information to express centrality and to announce the goal(s) of the research by employing different interactive resources. Nevertheless, while doing so, the writers greatly illustrated the relations between sentences or clauses (such as adding new information, contrast, cause and effect, and so on.) with transitions, which had statistically significant differences across the sub-corpora as stated in the previous section. The example below from the NSE sub-corpus clearly shows the maintenance of displaying interpersonal relations by the way explained above (Claiming Centrality – Marking a change in the discourse – Announcing Goal(s)):

(2). ‘The massacres at My Lai in Vietnam and El Mozote in El Salvador came to be regarded by many as the defining actions of those wars. These tragedies, however, were not isolated examples, and civilians in each war often bore the brunt of military operations designed to defeat the leftist insurgencies that had erupted in these countries. This thesis will examine why soldiers committed such war crimes in Vietnam and El Salvador.’

The writer holds the ground for introducing the aim of the whole study by talking about the tragedies in Vietnam and El Salvador, and by showing a gap to the intended audience with the help of a concessive form (‘however’) and building new information after that contrast with an additive form (‘and’). After clearly indicating what the research will be looking at, the writer announces the goal of the discourse with a frame marker (‘This thesis will examine’). In contrast to NSE, Turkish writers (writing in both Turkish and English) mostly started their abstracts with apparent frame markers without giving any background information about the topic or discussing key issues briefly to create a research niche. The examples below display how similarly Turkish and English texts written by Turkish writers were organised.

(3). Bu araştırmada, Sosyal Bilgiler dersinde yapılandırmacı yaklaşımın yaratıcı düşünme becerisi desteklenerek uygulanan eğitimin, öğrencilerde akademik başarıyı, becerileri, cinsiyet değişkeni icinde başarılarının artıp artmadığı ve sosyal bilgiler dersine yönelik tutumları üzerinde etkisi olup olmadığı araştırılmıştır. Araştırmada nitel ve nicel araştırma yöntemleri kullanılmıştır. Araştırma Gündoğdu Nene Hatun ilköğretim okulunun 6/Ave 6/B sınıfı öğrencileri ile yapılmıştır. Araştırmaya 36 deney 33 kontrol grubundan olmak üzere toplam 69 öğrenci katılmıştır…’ (4). ‘The present study targets at providing efficient data on the use of attentional resources through exploring the effects of cognitive task complexity on written output. Robinson’s Cognition Hypothesis (2001a) and Skehan and Foster’s Limited Attentional Capacity Model (2001) are tested to see which one is a better predictor of academic writing performance. In this study, 40 intermediate level preparatory learners of English who received Basic English classes during the 2009-2010 academic year at Hacettepe University were under investigation …’

As can clearly be seen, the way in which the Turkish writers introduced their whole research to the intended audience is quite similar from an organisational perspective: starting with a frame marker and then moving on to the methodology without making the pragmatic connections between propositions as explicit as NSE writers did. In other words, instead of making their texts more interpretively guide their readers, Turkish writers preferred to describe some important elements of the whole dissertation (commonly methodology including participants, and methods of investigation) by using less interactive metadiscourse features. However, it is worth noting again that the difference (except for transitions) was not at a significant level according to the ANOVA results. 3.3.2. Interactional Resources in Abstracts The ways in which the student writers made their textual voices explicit for their intended audiences show a great deal of statistically significant difference. However, the use of engagement markers across sub-corpora did not show that significance level no matter how frequently native English writers made use of such resources (almost three times more than Turkish writers) within their community-recognizable and rhetorically forceful piece of work. NSE writers employed more interactional metadiscourse resources compared with both NST and

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TSE writers. The frequency was approximately twice that used by NST writers in their texts whereas Turkish speakers of English employed interactional category of metadiscourse in between the frequencies of NST and NSE writers, with 18.9 items per 1000 words. Nevertheless, the pair-wise comparison of the Bonferroni post hoc test (see Appendix E) across the writer groups revealed that the difference between Turkish writers (L1) and Turkish writers of English is statistically insignificant. Thus, it is clear that the significance stemmed from the interactional metadiscourse use of native speakers of English in their abstracts. NSE writers mostly grounded their propositions within a lower degree of subjective certainty with high use of hedges; NST writers, in contrast, did not open a dialogue with their intended audience to express a degree of caution as often as NSE writers did, but amplified their degree of certainty with the higher use of boosters. How NST, TSE and NSE writers presented their degree of confidence towards the propositions which they were introducing to their intended audiences can be illustrated by the following examples from (5) to (10) with hedges and boosters respectively.

(5) Yalnızca Sayı Öbeği değil, sayıların ve niceleyicilerin Niceleyici Öbeği (NÖ), ‘tane, adet,salkım’ vb. gibi ölçü- miktar- sayı belirten birimlerin de Ölçüm Öbeği (ÖÖ) işlevsel ulamını oluşturduğu ileri sürülmektedir. (NST) (6) Based on the findings of the study, it could be said that there are a number of important changes that need to be made related to the working conditions, status and education of adult educators. (TSE) (7) This suggests further studies, in which varying the model, and/or use of more sophisticated optimisation methods, may yet produce synthesis that is perceived as more natural for any input text. (NSE)

The three groups of writers with the typical examples given above represented the notion of hedging to suggest ideas tentatively based on the findings of their entire research. However, it should be remembered that such occurrences were more frequently employed in NSE texts (13.3 times per 1000 words) compared with Turkish writers’ texts. Supporting this, in contrast, native speakers of Turkish preferred describing and reporting what their research had come up with by using a less tentative approach (66% more boosters than hedges).

(8) Bu fikirler çerçevesinde aksaklıkların ortaya çıkarılması ve yeni nesil teknolojilerin yardımıyla bu aksaklıkların giderilmesi ile katılımcı tatmininde ve portföyünde gelişmeler yaşanacağı kesindir. (NST) (9) The study results demonstrated that international students who have low acculturative stress, low perceived cultural distance and high use of positive coping skills were better adjusted to college. (TSE) (10) Without doubt, the profile of the modern translator is undergoing a significant change, sideling individuals who are not able or willing to adapt. (NSE)

The frequency of the explicit markers indicating the affective of writers towards their propositions or readers varied across sub-corpora significantly. Such expressions were far more frequently employed in English abstracts by TSE and NSE writers. The occurrences pf attitude markers included a range of adjectives as illustrated in (11) and (13) and sentence adverbs (12).

(11) Bu ihtiyaçların doğru bir şekilde karşılanabilmesi için her yaş dönemine ait gelişim özelliklerin bilinmesi ve ona gore hareket edilmesi çok önemlidir. (NST) (12) Hopefully, this study will help English teachers to plan their lessons and to define their teaching philosophies according to student interests. (TSE) (13) It would also be interesting to make a long-term study to see if the sustainable messages have any lasting effect on the students after 10 years and 20 years as they become adults with the associated responsibilities. (NSE)

Although the results of the ANOVA tests revealed that the difference between the writers in terms of engagement markers was not at a significant level, the qualitative analysis demonstrated that the Turkish writers tended to involve their readers by equating themselves with their intended audience (the inclusive we) but not with a direct personal pronoun (you) to them, as in the example (16) from the native speakers of English texts.

(14) Bizim yapmamız gereken bu tür fırsatlar elde etmektir. (NST) (15) The resulting framework of the study gave us clues about the student attitudes against techniques and frequency of teachers’ usage. (TSE) (16) I tend to think of myself as bodily. Probably, so do you. (NSE)

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It is interesting to note that although the dissertations were all written by single authors, tokens of the exclusive we were found in both the NST and NSE sub-corpora. However, the choice of native Turkish writers in referring to themselves as the researchers/writers of their research was quite the opposite of the other writers. There were only five instances of self-mentions in the NST texts, all of which were based on the exclusive we (17).

(17) Post modernizmin romana ne derecede uygulanabildigi gibi konularda birtakim çikarimlarda bulunduk. (NST) (18) Qualitative data analysed by coding system were collected from the reflection journal of the subject and the interviews conducted by the researcher with the subject. (TSE) (19) My central aim is to highlight the power of animals to make profound and far-reaching changes in society, and specifically in the British metropolis. (NSE)

In contrast, TSE and NSE writers mostly took on the responsibility as researchers by employing first person singular pronouns (19) to a greater extent than the exclusive ‘we’ or other expressions such as ‘the writer’ or ‘the researcher’ (18). 4. Discussion and Conclusion It is evident that the three groups of writers made use of both interactive and interactional metadiscourse with particular community-based strategies. Similarities have been found in the abstracts of these writers based on the fact that the total number of interactional metadiscourse items was more than that of interactive resources for each group. In other words, all the writers employed more interactional metadiscourse to clearly express their stances rather than interactive resources. Individual analyses of sub-categories also revealed that transitions were the most common interactive subcategory used across the sub-corpora. The other strategies varied (see Table 2) in terms of the frequencies. However, as the aim of this current research is to determine whether the use of metadiscourse resources differed across groups, namely native Turkish writers, Turkish writers of English, and native writers of English, I shall look at community-based diversity as well as the traces in the texts of TSE from Turkish and English speaking peers. The results based on the three-way comparisons between the groups demonstrated that NSE texts included more interactive and interactional metadiscourse. That is to say, English-speaking writers produced their abstracts with more interaction and guidance compared with Turkish writers. Interestingly, Turkish writers of English stood between native Turkish and native English writers in terms of the total number of interactive and interactional metadiscourse resources. This indicates that the level of interaction and guidance with which TSE writers organised their texts and expressed their stance in addition to using strategies to engage their readers was not as high as NSE or as low as TSE. It is possible to argue that the TSE produced their abstracts using a mixture of their cultural tendencies and an adaptation of themselves to the target language conventions. For instance, there was not even one instance of the first person singular pronoun in the Turkish texts, but on the other hand, native English writers made their authorial presence explicit with the employment of ‘I’ in their abstracts, as did TSE. Other studies have also demonstrated that Turkish writers preferred a style in which they downplayed their personal and authorial roles in the discussion sections of their MA dissertations (Akbas, 2011a) and in their introduction and conclusion sections (Akbas, 2011b). In contrast, Turkish writers of English had the tendency, as this study reveals, towards establishing their authorial self by using a quite different rhetorical stance close to NSE writers. The reason for this could be due to the literature (in English) which TSE writers had read so far; the more they see such occurrences, the more they get used to including them in their target language writing. Nevertheless, it is apparent that the harmonisation of Turkish writers themselves with the target language, English, is not yet at a significant level according to pair-wise comparison of Turkish writers using the Bonferroni test (see Appendix F), and this may be an indication that they are still following the cultural tendency of Turkish academic prose. As stated by Hyland (2005), Anglo-American academic English has a tendency towards making organisation patterns and purposes more explicit. The findings of my research also support the idea that English-speaking writers pay more attention to guidance within the text in order to produce a reader-friendly text. In this sense, the numbers of sentence connectors (‘such as’, ‘however’, ‘therefore’ and so on) used by NSE and TSE writers are basically more than twice the numbers used by native Turkish writers (see Table 2 for transitions). It could therefore be argued that by signalling the pragmatic connection between sentences, English-speaking writers make their texts more coherent as a result of these connections between propositions compared with Turkish texts with greater numbers of isolated sentences. Another tendency of Anglo-American writing based on many studies (as cited in Hyland, 2005) is the tentativeness and cautiousness displayed by writers from that community. As can be clearly seen from the frequencies of hedges in Table 2, native speakers of English preferred that style of writing in their abstracts whereas Turkish writers did not follow such conventions, and made use of more boosters to introduce their claims with a more confident manner. From a wider perspective in terms of interactional metadiscourse

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resources, it is easily noticeable that native English writers offer more credibility to represent themselves and their research within their abstracts by building solidarity with their intended audience, and elaborating a platform for alternative voices/opinions to be interpreted from the propositions and evaluated material. Conversely, native Turkish writers employed such strategic metadiscoursal features far less frequently to promote their research. For example, by minimizing their involvement in the discourses by not making use of self-mentions, except for a few exclusive we items, I suggest that the Turkish L1 student writers did not want to express their authorial identity as the owners of claims as explicitly as English writers in favour of being objective. Instead, many other ways of expressing such claims were employed, such as using the passive voice or impersonal forms to represent their identity implicitly. The reason why they enhanced their presence with the employment of the exclusive we with a particular suffix (bulunduk, şekillendirdik, ortaya koyduk) at some points could be related to the potential inclusion of their supervisors in recognition of their help and guidance during the time when the research was being carried out. By doing this, they are simply implying the presence of their supervisors and strengthening their own stance with the established presence of experienced researchers. In other words, as Hyland (2001) emphasised, reducing personal intrusion is a matter of a writer’s choice, and Turkish students minimised that to a very low level in order to convey their authorial identity behind their personal voices implicitly. The analysis also shows that the native Turkish students offered their potential intended audience their personal voices by displaying their complete commitment within their propositions. The number of boosters used by NST writers is almost half of the interactional resources used by that group in their abstracts. Hinkel (2002) stated that some rhetorical conventions of different languages other than English mean that it could be quite normal to express a higher degree of certainty within their academic community as this can be a style of persuading the intended audience effectively. Thus, the way in which the Turkish students intensified their degree of confidence over the meanings might be explained by this argument. However, this has not been confirmed in the texts of the Turkish speakers of English. They employed that kind of resource in a similar way to the NSE writers. This means the student writers who produced texts in English seemed more self-aware compared with Turkish L1 writers. Most of the points by which the English writing students (TSE and NSE) emphasised the truth of their propositions were about the findings that their research revealed, therefore the TSE and NSE student writers felt sufficient confidence to strengthen such values and claims based on their actual findings. Turning back to the one of the main aims of this research paper, this paper investigated whether culturally identical students (Turkish L1 and Turkish writers of English) and students producing the same language (English) follow similar or different rhetorical strategies in their abstracts to contribute to the literature with their research. According to the findings based on how Turkish speakers of English employed interactive and interactional metadiscourse resources – they are the joint members of the groups specified above (culture vs. language) – it could be argued that, as cross-cultural comparison has highlighted, Turkish writers of English followed similar rhetorical strategies to those used by the native speakers of English, producing a more cautious and engaging level of interaction even though the levels are all higher in the NSE texts. References Akbas, E. (2011a). Are they discussing in the same way?: interactional metadiscourse in Turkish writers’ texts. Paper presented at the 2nd International PRISEAL Conference, Sosnowiec/Katowice, Poland. Akbas, E. (2011b). A Cross-cultural Study: Metadiscourse in MA Dissertation Introduction and Conclusions. Paper presented at the 8th METU International Postgraduate Conference on Linguistics and Teaching, Ankara, Turkey. Beauvais, P. J. (1989). A Speech Act Theory of Metadiscourse. Written Communication, 6(1), 11-30. Biber, D., Conrad, S., & Reppen, R. (1998). Corpus Linguistics: Investigating Language Structure and Use. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Blagojevic, S. (2004). Metadiscourse in Academic Prose: a Contrastive Study of Academic Articles Written in English by English and Norwegian Native Speakers. Studies About Languages (Kalbų Studijos), 5, 60-67 Connor, U. (1996). Contrastive rhetoric: Cross-cultural aspects of second language writing. Cambridge: CUP Day, R. A. (1988). How to write and publish a scientific paper. Cambridge: CUP Field, A. P. (2009). Discovering Statistics Using SPSS: (and Sex and Drugs and Rock 'n' Roll): Sage. Gillaerts, P., & Velde, F. V. d. (2010). Interactional metadiscourse in research article abstracts. Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 9, 128-139. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jeap.2010.02.004

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Hinds, J. (1987). Reader versus writer responsibility: A new typology. In U. Connor & R. Kaplan (Eds.), Writing across languages: Analysis of L2 text (pp. 141–152). Reading: Addison-Wesley. Hinkel, E. (2002). Second Language Writers' Text: Linguistic and Rhetorical Features. Mahwah, NJ.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Hyland, K. (2000). Disciplinary Discourses: Social Interactions in Academic Writing. London: Longman. Hyland, K. (2001). Humble servants of the discipline? Self-mention in research articles. English for Specific Purposes, 20(3), 207–226. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0889-4906(00)00012-0 Hyland, K. (2005). Metadiscourse: Exploring writing in interaction. London: Continuum. Hyland, K. & Tse, P. (2004). Metadiscourse in Academic Writing: A Reappraisal. Applied Linguistics, 25(2), 156-177. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/applin/25.2.156 Mauranen, A. (1993). Contrastive ESP Rhetoric: Metatext in Finnish-English Economics Texts. English for Specific Purposes, 12, 3-22. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0889-4906(93)90024-I Martin, P. M. (2003). A genre analysis of English and Spanish research paper abstracts in experimental social sciences. English for Specific Purposes, 22(1), 25-43. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0889-4906(01)00033-3 Salager-Myer, F. (1992). A text type and move analysis study of verb tense and modality distribution in medical English abstracts. English for Specific Purposes, 11(2), 93–113. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0889-4906(05)80002-X Schmider, E., Ziegler, M., Danay, E., Beyer, L., & Bühner, M. (2010). Is it really robust? Reinvestigating the robustness of ANOVA against violations of the normal distribution assumption. Methodology European Journal of Research Methods for the Behavioral and Social Sciences, 6(4), 147-151. doi: 10.1027/1614-2241/a000016 Thompson, G. (2001). Interaction in academic writing: learning to argue with the reader. Applied Linguistics, 22(1), 58-78. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/applin/22.1.58 Vassileva, I. (2001). Commitment and detachment in English and Bulgarian academic writing. English for Specific Purposes, 20(1), 83-102. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0889-4906(99)00029-0

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Appendices

Appendix A

Tests of Normality

Group

Kolmogorov-Smirnova Shapiro-Wilk

Statistic df Sig. Statistic df Sig.

Interactive Turkish .212 30 .001 .823 30 .000

Turkish of English .180 30 .015 .932 30 .055

English .172 30 .024 .846 30 .001

*Interactional Turkish .124 30 .200* .921 30 .028

Turkish of English .165 30 .037 .881 30 .003

English .189 30 .008 .917 30 .022

a. Lilliefors Significance Correction

*. This is a lower bound of the true significance.

Appendix B

Tests of Between-Subjects Effects

Dependent Variable: Interactive

Source Type III Sum of

Squares df Mean Square F Sig.

Corrected Model 49.267a 2 24.633 2.343 .102

Intercept 1512.900 1 1512.900 143.876 .000

Group 49.267 2 24.633 2.343 .102

Error 914.833 87 10.515

Total 2477.000 90

Corrected Total 964.100 89

a. R Squared = .051 (Adjusted R Squared = .029)

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Pairwise Comparisons

Dependent Variable: Interactive

(I) Group (J) Group

Mean Difference (I-

J) Std. Error Sig.a

95% Confidence Interval for Differencea

Lower Bound

Upper Bound

Turkish Turkish of English -1.233 .837 .433 -3.277 .811

English -1.767 .837 .113 -3.811 .277

Turkish of English

Turkish 1.233 .837 .433 -.811 3.277

English -.533 .837 1.000 -2.577 1.511

English Turkish 1.767 .837 .113 -.277 3.811

Turkish of English .533 .837 1.000 -1.511 2.577

Based on estimated marginal means

a. Adjustment for multiple comparisons: Bonferroni

Appendix C

Multiple Comparisons

Bonferroni : Transitions

(I) Group (J) Group Mean

Difference (I-J) Std. Error Sig.

95% Confidence Interval

Lower Bound

Upper Bound

Turkish Turkish of English -.87 .449 .170 -1.96 .23

English -1.23* .449 .022 -2.33 -.14

Turkish of English

Turkish .87 .449 .170 -.23 1.96

English -.37 .449 1.000 -1.46 .73

English Turkish 1.23* .449 .022 .14 2.33

Turkish of English .37 .449 1.000 -.73 1.46

Based on observed means.

The error term is Mean Square(Error) = 3.021.

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Appendix D

Multiple Comparisons

Bonferroni : Attitude Markers

(I) Group (J) Group Mean

Difference (I-J) Std. Error Sig.

95% Confidence Interval

Lower Bound

Upper Bound

Turkish Turkish of English -.30 .308 .997 -1.05 .45

English -.87* .308 .018 -1.62 -.12

Turkish of English

Turkish .30 .308 .997 -.45 1.05

English -.57 .308 .207 -1.32 .18

English Turkish .87* .308 .018 .12 1.62

Turkish of English .57 .308 .207 -.18 1.32

Based on observed means.

The error term is Mean Square(Error) = 1.421. *. The mean difference is significant at the .05 level

Appendix E

Pairwise Comparisons

Dependent Variable: Interactional

(I) Group (J) Group Mean

Difference (I-J) Std. Error Sig.a

95% Confidence Interval for Differencea

Lower Bound

Upper Bound

Turkish Turkish of English .100 1.067 1.000 -2.505 2.705

English -2.900* 1.067 .024 -5.505 -.295

Turkish of English

Turkish -.100 1.067 1.000 -2.705 2.505

English -3.000* 1.067 .018 -5.605 -.395

English Turkish 2.900* 1.067 .024 .295 5.505

Turkish of English 3.000* 1.067 .018 .395 5.605

Based on estimated marginal means

*. The mean difference is significant at the .05 level.

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Appendix F

Pairwise Comparisons

Note:

1. The earlier version of this paper has been presented at the 2012 CCCC Convention in St Louis, USA.

Dependent Variable: Self Mentions

(I) Group (J) Group Mean

Difference (I-J) Std. Error Sig.a

95% Confidence Interval for Differencea

Lower Bound Upper Bound

Turkish Turkish of English -.333 .350 1.000 -1.188 .521

English -1.000* .350 .016 -1.854 -.146

Turkish of English

Turkish .333 .350 1.000 -.521 1.188

English -.667 .350 .180 -1.521 .188

English Turkish 1.000* .350 .016 .146 1.854

Turkish of English .667 .350 .180 -.188 1.521

Based on estimated marginal means

*. The mean difference is significant at the .05 level.

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Moving From Theory to Practice: ELT Pre-service Teachers Şaziye Yaman

Faculty of Education, Mersin University Yenisehir Campus, English Language Teaching Department Yenişehir, Mersin 33160, Turkey

Tel: 0090-324-361-00-01 E-mail: syaman33@gmail.com

Meryem Özdemir (corresponding author) Faculty of Education, Mersin University

Yenisehir Campus, English Language Teaching Department Yenişehir, Mersin 33160, Turkey Tel: 0090-324-361-00-01 E-mail: meryemzdemir@gmail.com

Received: 08-05- 2012 Accepted: 24-05- 2012 Published: 31-05- 2012 doi:10.7575/ijalel.v.1n.1p.27 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.7575/ijalel.v.1n.1p.27

Abstract This study was conducted to investigate the perceptual change in pre-service teachers’ effective teacher beliefs throughout their education in English Language Teaching (ELT) Department of which programme is constructed spirally from theoretical knowledge to the practical one. Throughout a data collection procedure lasted 5 academic terms, 80 pre-service teachers were asked to write their ideas about “the characteristics of an effective teacher”. In each time, as the pre-service teachers moved from theoretical courses to practical ones, the data obtained at each time was analyzed through content analysis and classified under 3 semantic groups; “content knowledge, classroom behaviours, academic qualities”. Results showed that pre-service teachers’ beliefs of effective teacher changed throughout their teacher education programme as they moved from theory to practice. Keywords: Effective teacher beliefs; effective teacher; pre-service teachers’ beliefs

1. Introduction One of the main objectives of teacher training programs is bringing out teachers who know both content knowledge well and the way of transmitting that knowledge to their students in an effective way. Herein, a growing body of research indicates that the effectiveness of instruction basically depend on pre-service teachers’ held effective teacher beliefs. Thus, it can be inferred that along with content knowledge, teachers’ beliefs have a significant role in terms of their influence on educational outcomes. Therefore, it is primarily important to understand pre-service teachers’ beliefs beforehand so as to develop their educational outcomes in the field of teaching. In the context of English language teacher training in Turkey, there is 4 year teacher education curriculum in education faculties which is organized spirally from theoretical courses to practical ones. More specifically, pre-service English teachers have met the theory of teaching in their sophomore year through “Approaches and Methods in ELT I-II” courses. Afterwards, in their junior year, pre-service English teachers take “ELT Methodology I-II” courses in which they practice teaching through microteaching technique in simulated classroom environment with their peers. Finally, they become ready to take their part in teaching profession after getting “School Experience” and “Practicum” courses enabling them to practice teaching in real class environment in a school under the guidance of a mentor teacher and a university supervisor. The organization of courses aims to carry pre-service teachers from theoretical methodology knowledge to practice step by step in order to help them gain insight towards teaching. The intention of instructors in teacher education program with that curriculum is to bring out effective teachers adorned not only with theory of teaching but also with the skill of applying theory into practice. Rather than the pure knowledge of teaching theory and its practices, through these courses, pre-service English teachers are supposed to develop their effective teacher beliefs, as well. However, the question whether this kind of organization helps pre-service English teachers to change their beliefs at the expense of being effective teachers should be questioned. Taking this concern into account, the present study aims to investigate the characteristics of effective teacher beliefs pre-service teachers which are supposed to be changed and developed through that spiral curriculum. Hence, the following questions guide the study: 1- What are the pre-service teachers’ beliefs of effective teacher before knowing any theory of teaching?

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2- What are the pre-service teachers’ beliefs of effective teacher having learnt about the theory of teaching? 3- What are the pre-service teachers’ beliefs of effective teacher after putting the theory of teaching into practice in a simulated classroom setting (via microteaching)? 4- What are the pre-service teachers’ beliefs of effective teacher after practicing teaching in a real classroom setting? 2. Literature Review The concept of belief itself is prominent as it “is a proposition which may be consciously or unconsciously held, is evaluative in that it is accepted as true by the individual, and is therefore imbued with emotive commitment; further, it serves as a guide to thought and behaviour” (Borg, 2001, p.186). Teacher belief, specifically, is defined by Borg (2001) as teachers’ pedagogic belief or belief of relevance to an individual’s. Moreover, teacher belief is defined as a teacher’s attitudes about education—about schooling, teaching, learning, and students by Pajares (1992). At that point, teacher belief is not referred to general beliefs of teachers, rather to their beliefs about educational beliefs within the frames of their belief system (Pajares, 1992). That is, teacher belief as a very broad term also includes so many other educational beliefs that each of them may a subject of a new study; however, two main components closely related to the term teacher belief are content-specific beliefs and teacher self-efficacy beliefs (Pajares, 1992; Kagan, 1992). On one hand, content-specific beliefs which include beliefs about the epistemological knowledge of the field to be taught are significant for an effective teaching process as they have an impact on goal setting, choice of appropriate tasks and effectiveness of instruction of teachers. (Kagan 1992; Cheng at al. 2009).Schommer (1994, as cited in Cheng et al., 2009) posits two categories of epistemological knowledge: naïve and sophisticated. While sophisticated learners may believe that a vast amount of knowledge is evolving, some knowledge is to be discovered and very small amount of knowledge remain unchanged, naïve learners may believe that a vast amount of knowledge is certain, some knowledge to be discovered and very small amount of knowledge is changing. In that kind of distinction sophisticated learners are the ones who develop more flexible and critical thinking. Teacher self-efficacy belief, on the other hand, is teacher’s belief in his or her capability to organize and execute courses of action required to successfully accomplish a specific teaching task in a particular context (Tschannen-Moran & Hoy, 2001). Teacher self-efficacy belief is also substantial as it is related with educational outcomes such as student achievement (Ross, 1992), and student motivation (Midgley, Feldlaufer, & Eccles, 1989). Considering that effective teaching is mediated with beliefs of teachers, it is important to help pre-service teachers enhance their beliefs to be more effective professionals in the field. For this reason, one of the objectives of the teacher training is to modify these beliefs on the way to bring out effective teachers; however, it is a challenging goal to achieve for teacher education programmes as the pre-service teachers have a tendency to get the new knowledge of teaching through filtering it from their previous beliefs (Kagan, 1992; Pajares, 1992). It is also difficult to change the beliefs of the students who entered the teacher education faculty since they bring their beliefs about teaching which they get through their observation of their own teachers; that is called as “apprenticeship of observation” by Lortie (1975, as cited in Pajares, 1992; Mattheoudakis, 2007; Cheng at al., 2009). Moreover, it is enounced by Rokeach (1968, as cited in Raths, 2001) that some beliefs are more important than others and the more important the belief is, the more difficult to change it. As Posner et al. (1982 as cited in Kagan, 1992) note three steps should be followed to make differences in the previous beliefs, a) making students their implicit beliefs explicit, b) confronting students with the inadequacy or inconsistency of these beliefs, and c) giving opportunities to students to integrate or change their beliefs. In order to challenge beliefs of pre-service teachers, in that manner, may be considered primarily as they first experience teaching on scene. However, the effect of field experience period onto the pre-service teachers’ beliefs of effective teaching has been hot-debated issue as it has no clear-cut consensus for either negative or positive impact of the practicum period on pre-service teachers’ beliefs. In the study of tracking changes in pre-service English teacher beliefs in Greece, Mattheoudakis (2007) concluded that “student teachers” engagement in teaching practice did not have the expected impact on the development of their beliefs” (p. 1283). On the contrary, the study of Ng et al. (2009) indicates the possibility for teacher education programs to actively engage with their students’ beliefs and to increase their students’ efficacy by engagement. Furthermore, Atay (2008) concluded that the failure of increasing teachers’ professional development is bound to ignorance of the situational factors affecting their classroom practices. 3. Method 3.1. Context of the Study The study was conducted in the context of ELT department of Mersin University which is a state university in the southern part of Turkey. ELT department is located in Education Faculty, and all departments in this faculty serve 4 year teacher training to their students. Specifically in ELT department, students may need to take a

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preparation class depending on their scores on proficiency exam which is conducted as soon as they enter the department. Throughout the main 4 years, the courses offered to students are the ones such as Approaches and Methods in ELT, Linguistics, English Literature, ELT Methodology, and Second Language Acquisition. Other than these kind of lecture based courses, students are also offered field experience courses of School Experience and Practicum. In the present study, the students of ELT department are named as pre-service English teachers as many of them plan to take their part in English education as teachers in the future. 3.2 Participants The participants were pre-service teachers at ELT Department of Mersin University. As the study was conducted longitudinally, the participants participated into study at four different times in three years. The number of participants varied from time to time. According to this variance, the number of participants in each time is presented in Table 1. Table 1. Numbers of participants

Time of data collection

Time 1 Time 2 Time 3 Time 4

Number of participants

68 70 46 53

The age range of participants was between 20 and 26. Furthermore, English pre-service teachers who were the participants of the present study stated that they had no teaching experience outside the practices in the department. 3.3 Data Collection The aim of the present study was to investigate pre-service English teachers’ beliefs of effective teachers which were expected to be changed and developed while they were moving theory to practice. In an attempt to elicit effective teacher beliefs and perception of English pre-service teachers, the pre-service teachers were asked to write down their perception of “effective teacher”, “average teacher”, and “ineffective teacher” four times starting from their sophomore year to the end of the fall term of their senior year. Therefore, the data was collected in qualitative manner. The times when the data was collected from participants are shown in Figure 1.

Time 1 Time 2 Sophomore year

Time 3 Junior year

Time 4 Senior year

Fall Term Spring Term Figure 1. Data Collection Times

As it can be clearly seen on the Figure 1, the first data was collected at the beginning of the pre-service English teachers’ sophomore year. This was the time when they had not met any theoretical knowledge of teaching considering that they would take “Approaches and Methods in ELT I-II” courses in the fall and spring term of their sophomore year. After they took these courses, they were supposed to learn theory of teaching, and Time 2 data collection was made at the end of spring term of their sophomore year. When they came to the end of spring term when Time 3 data collection was made, they took “ELT Methodology I-II” courses through which they practiced their theoretical knowledge via microteaching technique in a simulated class with their peers. Finally, Time 4 data was collected at the end of fall term of their senior year when they completed “School Experience” course which includes teaching practice in a real school under the guidance of a mentor teacher and a university supervisor. 3.4 Data Analysis Parallel with the aim of the present study, the data was collected through pre-service English teachers own writings about the characteristics of “effective teacher”, “average teacher”, and “ineffective teacher” was

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analyzed through content analysis. In order to elicit the effective teacher beliefs of pre-service English teachers through their training in ELT department, their attributions about the qualification of these three kinds of teachers were counted four times in three years time. Each of their statement was handled as a construct and a construct pool was constituted. These statements were asked to classify into semantic groups by the 5 experts in the field. As a result, three semantic groups were emerged: content knowledge, classroom behaviors, and academic qualities. The constructs reflecting the subject-specific knowledge of pre-service teachers were grouped under content knowledge group. The semantic group of classroom behaviors included constructs about the teachers’ acts in classroom. Lastly, the constructs regarding the personal characteristics of teachers were grouped under the semantic group of academic qualities. (All of the constructs that are gathered under these three semantic groups may be seen in Appendix). The frequency was counted for both sum of total constructs and sum of constructs for each semantic group each time. The frequency raised and decreased through time gives an idea about when and how there was a change in effective teacher beliefs and perception of pre-service English teachers. 4. Results and Discussion Constructs of participants are obtained through their own wording of statements about characteristics of effective teacher, average teacher and ineffective teacher. When examined in each time, 100 constructs are sorted at Time 1, 105 constructs are sorted at Time 2, 106 constructs are sorted at Time 3, and finally the sum of constructs for Time 4 is 110. While a great deal of constructs remains concrete in all times, there are constructs added or deleted in each time. The sum of all constructs, the sum of constructs in all semantic groups in each time, the number of new constructs out of sum of constructs is shown in Table 2. Table 2. Construct categories with frequencies at Time 1, Time 2, Time 3 and Time 4

CONSTRUCT GROUPS

TIME 1 TIME 2 TIME 3 TIME 4

1. Content Knowledge

7 9/2 New Constructs

8/0 New Construct

9/0 New Construct

2. Classroom Behaviours

49 52/5 New Constructs

60/20 New Constructs

55/5 New Constructs

3. Academic Qualities

44 44/4 New Constructs

38/0 New Construct

46/7 New Constructs

TOTAL : 143 Constructs

100 105/11 New Constructs

106/20 New Constructs

110/12 New Constructs

As it is shown in Table 2, there were 7 constructs elicited in Time 1 for the semantic group of content knowledge. These 7 constructs seemed to be the ones that English pre-service teachers have before knowing the theory of teaching. After they took “Approaches and Methods I-II” courses in which they were supposed to have an idea about theory of teaching, there are 2 new constructs emerged from Time 1 to Time 2. These two constructs added were (C101) “Knowledge of giving appropriate feedback”, and (C102) “Not knowing about approaches and methods” (See Appendix). At Time 3 and Time 4, there was no new construct labelled for the group of content knowledge. The semantic group of classroom behaviours included 49 constructs at Time 1. At Time 2 when the students were adorned theoretically in teaching, and ready to practice it, there were 5 new constructs emerged. These constructs were (C103) “Using time effectively”, (C104) “Not taking care of communicative aspect of language”, (C105) “Teaching grammar inductively”, (C106) “Not taking care of the role of atmosphere”, and (C107) “Being flexible and eclectic. At the point of Time 3 data collection when pre-service English teachers had chances to practice their teaching in a simulated class with their peers and got extensive feedback from their peers and instructor, there are 20 new constructs were observed to be arised. These constructs were (C112) “Managing the class effectively”, (C113) “Giving clear instructions”, (C114) “Controlling own voice effectively”, (C115) “Introducing the lesson effectively”, (C116) “Using time effectively”, (C117) “Using body language effectively”, (C118) “Creating meaningful context”, (C119) “Having a B plan”, (C120) “Arranging suitable class layout”, (C121) “Using board effectively”, (C122) “Passing smoothly between the phases of lesson”, (C123) “Not creating a context”, (C124) “Having pronunciation mistakes”, and (C125) “Giving unclear instructions”, (C126) “Not introducing lesson effectively”, (C127) “Not using time effectively”, (C128) “Not using error correction”, (C129) “Giving no importance to class layout”, (C130) “Not managing class

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effectively”, (C131) “Not giving clear instruction”. After the pre-service English teachers had to observe real class dynamic in “Schoool Experience” course, there are 5 more new constructs added. These constructs were (C132) “Giving negative/positive reinforcement rather than giving punishment”, (C133) “Focusing on success, not failure”, (C134) “Not depending just on course book”, (C135) “Using true pronunciation”, and (C136) “Integrating four skills”. Lastly, 44 constructs were elicited for the group of academic qualities at Time 1. After English pre-service teachers got “Approaches and Methods I-II” courses, there were still 44 constructs at Time, but 4 constructs of these were new constructs, Namely, these constructs were (C108) “Being reflective to own teaching”, (C109) “Giving importance to collaborative works of students”, (C110) “Being flexible and eclectic”, (C111) “Being reflective”. When they practiced their teaching through microteaching technique at Time 3, there were 38 constructs; however there were no new constructs. At time 4, after they had chances to observe real teaching, 7 constructs were sorted as new constructs. These new constructs were (C137) “Being equal towards students”, (C138) “Being tolerant”, (C139) “Criticizing conditions all the time”, (C140) “Being not tolerant”, (C141) “Having lack of efficacy”, (C142) “Being unequal towards students”, and (C143) “Making assistants do own job”. Other than the semantic groups, the change occurring in the effective teacher beliefs of pre-service teachers can also be examined by looking the change of constructs longitudinally over sum of constructs. 100 constructs were sorted at Time 1 which had risen to 105 at Time 2. Out of these 105 constructs, 11 of them are new constructs that were added after pre-service English teachers learned the theory of teaching. These 11 constructs were distributed among three semantic groups as follows: 2 constructs for content knowledge, 5 constructs for classroom behaviors and 4 constructs academic qualities. From Time 2 to Time 3 indicating the process of pre-service English teachers’ moving from theory to practice, 106 constructs were elicited 20 of which were new constructs. While there were no new constructs added to semantic groups of content knowledge and academic qualities, all of 20 new constructs were added for classroom behaviors. Finally, from Time 3 to Time 4, 110 constructs were found to be reflected effective teacher beliefs of pre-service English teachers out of which 12 new constructs were elicited. These 20 constructs were shared between semantic groups of classroom behaviors (5 new constructs) and academic qualities (7 new constructs) as there were no new constructs for content knowledge. As it can be concluded from the results of the present study, there was a little change of effective teacher beliefs of pre-service English teachers as they followed a curriculum carrying them from theory to practice. The result of being a change in these beliefs is consistent with the study of Ng et al. (2009); however there being a slight change may be a result of that pre-service English teacher enter the professional development studies with internal and firm beliefs regarding effective teacher as they observe so many individuals in teaching profession (Kagan, 1992). Especially for the content knowledge, it seems that pre-service teachers had stable beliefs as only 2 constructs were added through their three years of education. What is remarkable in these results is the increase for the semantic group of classroom behaviors as the pre-service English teachers moved from theory to practice. It may be result of that they had chances to practice their teaching in front of their own peers and their instruction which challenged their beliefs as the challenging of beliefs is the prequisite for making a chance or reconstruction in the teachers’ beliefs (Kagan 1992; Tillema, 2000). Moreover, pre-service teachers might have had chances to reflect on their teaching as result of the feedback they got from their instructor and their peers. As Tillema (2000) proposes reflective practice is a tool to make pre-service teachers learn to teach. Other from that, through practicing teaching, pre-service English teachers may become more aware of the classroom factors which include so many dimensions. When pre-service teachers of English observed a real class environment and a mentor teacher, they became more familiar with teacher characteristics. To conclude, pre-service English teacher slightly changed their belief as they moved from theory to practice. Although positive change is an intended one in teacher training, this slight change clearly underlines the fact that prior beliefs of pre-service teachers are effective in shaping the new ones (Mansfield & Volet, 2010). Moreover, the increase in the beliefs related to classroom behaviors after pre-service English teachers teaching practices via microteaching technique is consistent with the studies that practice in the profession is an effective tool for belief change (Tillema, 2000). For more intended belief change, the field work by which students have chance practice work should be expanded in teacher training (Özgün-Koca & Şen, 2006). 5. Conclusion It is a common fact that how teachers perceive themselves affects their teaching performance which in turn affects so many educational outcomes, primarily effective student learning. The main objective of teacher education institutions is to bring out teachers who can teach content knowledge with a skillful pedagogy effectively. In that sense, improving their beliefs towards being an effective teacher is the key point in teacher education. Taking that fact into consideration, in this longitudinal study, the change into students’ perception of

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being an effective teacher is examined. With the present spiral curriculum of English teacher training institutions carrying pre-service teachers from theoretical knowledge to practicum, it is expected to achieve perceptual change of being an effective teacher. In order to see that expected change, data was gathered in a longitudinal way from pre-service teachers as they are going from theoretical knowledge to practice. Findings have shown that the beliefs of pre-service teachers about being an effective teacher have changed slightly via their course experience from theory to practice. References Atay, D. (2008). Teacher research for professional development. ELT Journal, 62/2, 139-147. doi: 10.1093/elt/ccl053 Borg, M. (2001). Key Concepts in ELT Teachers’ beliefs. ELT Journal, 55/2, 186-188 Cheng M.M.H., Chan K, Tang S.Y.F., and Cheng A.Y.N. (2009). Pre-service teacher education students’ epistemological beliefs and their conceptions of teaching.Teaching and Teacher Education, 23, 319-327. Hoy, A.W. (2000). Changes in teacher efficacy during the early years of teaching. Paper presented at the annual meeting of American Educational Research Association, New Orleans, LA. Kagan, D.M. (1992). Implications of research on teacher beliefs. Educational Phychologist, 27(1), 65-90. Mansfield, C.F., & Volet, S.E. (2010). Developing beliefs about classroom motivation: journeys of preservice teachers, Teaching and Teacher Education, 26, 1404-1415 Mattheoudakis, M. (2007). Tracking changes in pre-service EFL teacher beliefs in Greece: longitudinal study. Teaching and Teacher Education, 23, 1272-1288. Midgley, C., Feldlaufer, H., & Eccles J.S. (1989). Change in teacher efficacy and student self- and task-related beliefs in mathematics during the transition to junior high school, Journal of Educational Psychology, 81(2), 247-258 Ng,W., Howard, N., & Williams A. (2009). School experience influences on pre-service teachers’ evolving beliefs about effective teaching. Teaching and Teacher Education (in press). doi:10.1016/j.tate.2009.03.010 Özgün-Koca, S.A., & Şen A.İ. (2006). The beliefs and perceptions of pre-service teachers enrolled in a subject-area dominant teacher education program about “effective education”. Teaching and Teacher Education, 22, 946-960 Pajares, F. (1992).Teachers' Beliefs and Educational Research: Cleaning up a Messy Construction. Review of Educational Research, 62 (13), 307-332. Raths,J.(2007).Teachers’ beliefs and teaching beliefs. Retrieved March 29, 2010, from http://ecrp.uiuc.edu/v3n1/raths.html Ross, J.A. (1992). Teacher efficacy and the effects of coaching on student achievement, Canadian Journal of Education, 17 (1), 51-65 Tillema, H.H. (2000). Belief change towards self-directed learning in student teachers: immersion in practice or reflection on action. Teaching and Teacher Education, 16, 575-591 Tschannen-Moran, M., & Hoy, A.W. (2001). Teacher efficacy: capturing an elusive construct. Teaching and Teacher Education, 17, 783-805. Notes Note 1. This paper was presented orally at Telling ELT Tales out of School: 3rd International ELT Conference, in Famagusta, North Cyprus, at 5-7 May 2010.

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Appendix

GROUP ONE FREQUENCY 1. CONTENT KNOWLEDGE Time

1 Time 2

Time 3

Time 4

TOTAL

ET (EFFECTIVE TEACHER)

C1 Knowing what/how to teach 11 11 3 9 34

C2 Knowing all approaches, methods and techniques to transmit language knowledge

21 29 4 11 65

C3 Knowing best sides of approaches and methods and putting them n practice

18 41 - 4 63

C4 Improving own knowledge 24 27 8 12 71

AT (AVERAGE TEACHER)

C5 Knowledge of all approaches and methods 13 16 6 7 42

IT (INEFFECTIVE TEACHER)

C6 Knowing all methods and techniques 1 2 1 1 5

C7 Having no knowledge about what and how to teach

7 9 6 4 26

TIME 2

C101 Knowledge of giving appropriate feedback (ET)

- 5 5 5 15

C102 Not knowing about approaches and methods (IT)

- 14 6 1 21

95 154 39 54 342

GROUP TWO FREQUENCY 2. CLASSROOM BEHAVIOURS Time

1 Time 2

Time 3

Time 4

TOTAL

ET

C8 Giving time to students to get ready 1 1 2 - 4

C9 Using various and suitable techniques in class

10 14 2 9 35

C10 Combining different approaches, methods, and techniques

4 8 - 2 14

C11 Making students actively participate in lesson

19 17 8 10 54

C12 Controlling students’ learning 11 6 3 3 23

C13 Controlling class effectively 4 4 6 - 14

C14 Organizing lesson according to students’ level

11 12 0 10 33

C15 Using of different and appropriate materials 14 13 9 13 49

C16 Integrating technology in teaching process 9 11 4 7 31

C17 Integrating methods 5 2 - 2 9

C18 Being prepared for lesson 10 3 1 8 22

C19 Making students enjoy in lesson 16 18 3 4 41

C20 Teaching language as a whole 6 8 4 3 21

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C21 Direct students to construct their own knowledge 4 4 - 3 11

C22 Being active in class 2 4 - - 6

C23 Adopting methods of communicative teaching 6 22 13 9 50

C24 Having a student-centered class 5 1 2 5 13

C25 Using of authentic material 2 3 2 - 7

C26 Using of error-correction 4 8 9 5 26

AT

C27 Using the limited techniques and materials for a long time 16 22 7 1 46

C28 Providing no warm-up before lesson 1 - - - 1

C29 Not choosing suitable methods and techniques 7 4 2 2 15

C30 Having a teacher-centered class 3 8 2 2 15

C31 Not applying approaches and methods despite the knowledge of them 11 16 9 5 41

C32 Evaluating just with the exams (being only interested in acquired knowledge) 5 3 3 3 14

C33 Making students passive throughout the lesson 6 3 3 3 15

C34 Teaching deductively 4 5 3 2 14

C35 Making students learn with some deficiencies 4 4 1 3 12

C36 Making students bored in lesson 6 7 3 4 20

C37 Experiencing some problems in using technology 7 5 1 3 16

C38 Making students memorize 2 3 2 - 7

C39 Teaching regarding the syllabus 3 4 1 2 10

C40 Using mother tongue in class instruction 1 2 1 2 6

IT C41 Giving homework to students 2 1 1 - 4

C42 Having teacher-centered classroom with passive students 20 14 7 3 44

C43 Only instructing lesson (no additional materials) 30 25 6 7 68

C44 Depending just on course book 5 5 4 6 20

C45 Using insufficient examples 2 - - - 2

C46 Not using any methods or techniques 9 16 3 6 34

C47 Evaluating only with exams 4 7 1 1 13

C48 Making students bored throughout the lesson 11 10 1 2 24

C49 Not using any different or effective materials 6 6 4 8 24

C50 Not using any piece of technology 6 9 8 4 27

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C51 Being passive behind the table 4 4 - 1 9

C52 Ignoring the skills 1 1 1 3 6

C53 Making mistakes while teaching 1 1 - - 2

C54 Speaking in mother tongue in class instruction 6 4 3 2 15

C55 Giving no importance to communication 5 7 3 1 16

C56 Making students memorize 5 7 2 2 16

TIME 2 C103 Using time effectively - 3 - 4 7

C104 Not taking care of communicative aspect of language - 4 - - 4

C105 Teaching grammar inductively - 3 4 - 7

C106 Not taking care of the role of atmosphere - 4 1 1 6

C107 Being flexible and eclectic - 5 - 3 8

TIME 3 C112 Managing the class effectively - - 7 9 16

C113 Giving clear instructions - - 6 - 6

C114 Controlling own voice effectively - - 3 2 5

C115 Introducing the lesson effectively - - 3 - 3

C116 Using time effectively - - 4 4 8

C117 Using body language effectively - - 3 - 3

C118 Creating meaningful context - - 12 1 13

C119 Having a B plan - - 5 4 9

C120 Arranging suitable class layout - - 3 - 3

C121 Using board effectively - - 2 - 2

C122 Passing smoothly between the phases of lesson - - 3 - 3

C123 Not creating a context - - 6 - 6

C124 Having pronunciation mistakes - - 2 - 2

C125 Giving unclear instructions - - 4 - 4

C126 Not introducing lesson effectively - - 3 - 3

C127 Not using time effectively - - 3 1 4

C128 Not using error correction - - 6 2 8

C129 Giving no importance to class layout - - 4 - 4

C130 Not managing class effectively - - 5 1 6

C131 Not giving clear instruction - - 4 - 4

TIME 4 C132 Giving negative/positive reinforcement

rather than giving punishment - - - 2 2

C133 Focusing on success, not failure - - - 1 1

C134 Not depending just on course book - - - 1 1

C135 Using true pronunciation - - - 3 3

C136 Integrating four skills - - - 5 5

336 381 243 215 1175

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GROUP THREE FREQUENCY 1. ACADEMIC QUALITIES Time

1 Time 2

Time 3

Time 4

TOTAL

ET

C57 Regarding students as human beings and knowing their psychology

8 25 5 10 48

C58 Taking students’ needs, feelings and opinions into consideration

53 61 11 23 148

C59 Being competent in all skills of L1 and L2 22 19 5 6 52

C60 Being ready for unexpected situations 4 2 3 - 9

C61 Raising successful students 3 - 3 1 7

C62 Being respectful to job 22 10 3 3 38

C63 Having good rapport with students 20 32 9 10 71

C64 Being creative in developing materials 12 9 5 7 33

C65 Motivating students 3 6 2 6 17

C66 Being capable of effective teaching 9 12 1 7 29

C67 Encouraging students to study 4 6 2 2 14

C68 Being good model for students 3 1 2 1 7

C69 Being aware of importance of class environment 7 12 4 3 26

C70 Adopting ‘guiding’ role 1 1 - 3 5

C71 Being consistent 1 - - - 1

C72 Making students love language 1 3 - 1 5

C73 Being patient with students 2 5 1 2 10

AT C74 Planning the lesson rarely 2 3 4 4 13

C75 Ignoring students’ feelings, psychology and personality 6 12 7 5 30

C76 Not caring about students’ needs and levels 22 23 8 6 59

C77 Not enabling success of all students 4 1 3 3 11

C78 Not taking responsibility o students 2 - - 1 3

C79 Not having any effort to create new things 20 16 4 9 49

C80 Doing job only for money 6 7 2 4 19

C81 Only teaching lesson 15 19 10 15 59

C82 Being good at job 1 3 1 2 7

C83 Having a humanistic view 1 2 - - 3

C84 Giving importance to grammar 10 5 - - 15

C85 Not having any effort for self-improvement 4 8 3 5 20

C86 Being an efficient teacher 11 15 1 6 33

C87 Being in class on time 1 1 2 0 4

C88 Having good rapport with hardworking students 1 3 - - 4

IT C89 Never planning 1 - 1 1 3

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C90 Not giving importance to self-improvement 15 17 6 6 44

C91 Ignoring students’ psychology, needs and opinions 41 41 12 9 103

C92 Teaching just for money 9 10 7 5 31

C93 Raising no successful students 2 1 2 - 5

C94 Not taking responsibility of students 2 1 - - 3

C95 Giving no importance to students’ learning and performance 11 14 1 4 30

C96 Not proficient in L1 and L2 12 11 3 5 31

C97 Not avoiding shouting at students 7 5 1 1 14

C98 Being strict 10 8 1 5 24

C99 Not teaching effectively 13 11 2 2 28

C100 Seeing teaching as a grammar teaching 6 8 6 4 24

TIME 2 C108 Being reflective to own teaching - 8 1 2 11

C109 Giving importance to collaborative works of students - 3 1 - 4

C110 Being flexible and eclectic - 5 - 3 4

C111 Being reflective - 4 1 1 6

TIME 4 C137 Being equal towards students - - - 2 2

C138 Being tolerant - - - 3 3

C139 Criticizing conditions all the time - - - 1 1

C140 Being not tolerant - - - 3 3

C141 Having lack of efficacy - - - 1 1

C142 Being unequal towards students - - - 3 3

C143 Making assistants do own job - - - 1 1

410 469 146 207 1232

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L1 Shapes L2 Auditory Representation

Elicited Imitation of Arabic-Speaking Learners of English Rajaa Aquil, Ph.D.

School of Modern Languages Georgia Institute of Technology

613 Cherry Street Swann Building #317

Atlanta, GA 30332 Tel: 4043857252 E-mail: rajaa.aquil@modlangs.gatech.edu

Received: 02-05- 2012 Accepted: 25-05- 2012 Published: 31-05- 2012 doi:10.7575/ijalel.v.1n.1p.39 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.7575/ijalel.v.1n.1p.39 Abstract L1 interference plays a major role in second language acquisition, as evidenced by empirical studies (Kellerman & Sharwood Smith, 1986). The interference could result from a learner's conscious or unconscious judgment that some linguistic features in L1 and L2 are similar (Odlin, 1989), particularly in phonology (MacKain, Best, & Strange, 1981). This paper reports on two experiments using Elicited Imitation and Reading Tasks to investigate whether L1, Cairene Arabic prosodic strategy of epenthesis to break up consonant clusters is transferred to the participants' English output. Results of Experiment A showed that epenthesis took place more in reading than in repetition, as tested by the Elicited Imitation and Reading Tasks. Mimicking was suspected to be behind the results. To control for mimicking, a second experiment (Experiment B) was conducted following the same design, but with the addition of a familiarity task to ensure that the participants knew and understood the words of an utterance and did not just mimic them. Results of Experiment B showed that epenthesis instances were the same in repetition as in reading. Epenthesis of a vowel to break consonant clusters suggests that participants of the study reconstructed the utterances based not only on how English words are stored in their mental representation, but also on Cairene Arabic syllable structure rules. This study, through the usage of Elicited Imitation Task, is able to tap into L2 Arabic speaking learners’ auditory mental representation of L2 input and demonstrate the influence of L1 transfer. Key words: Elicited imitation, L1 transfer, epenthesis, L2 listening, auditory mental representation 1. Introduction First language interference plays a major role in Second Language Acquisition. Empirical studies conducted provide evidence that elements from one language could be incorporated into another (Kellerman & Sharwood Smith, 1986) and that the transfer of these elements was in all levels of the language, especially in the level of the sound system (Ellis, 1994, 1997). Odlin (1989) investigated cross-linguistic influence in language learning. Agreeing with the original Contrastive Analysis Hypothesis (Lado, 1957), Odlin adds that there are two types of transfer, negative and positive, and that both types of transfer involve similarities present between L1 and L2. Contrary to how similarities initially were viewed (cf. Lado, 1957), Oldin considers similarities as facilitators at times and inhibitors at other times. Positive transfer occurs when similarities between L1 and L2 help in the acquisition process. As an example, Odlin refers to similarity and cognates in vocabulary between L1 and L2 and in phonemic systems, which can reduce the time needed in the acquisition process (see Scholes, 1969 reported in Odlin,1989). The other type of transfer, according to Oldin (1989), is negative transfer, which involves divergences from norms in the target language. Negative transfer, as manifested in learners’ errors, occurs either due to similarities or differences between the native and target language. It can take the form of: (a) substitutions, which involve the use of a native language structure in the target language, (b) calques, errors which reflect native language structure as evident in idiomatic and word order errors, and (c) alternations of structures, and hypercorrections, cases of overreactions to a particular influence from L1. L1 influence results from a learner’s conscious or unconscious judgment that linguistic elements in the native and target language are similar (Odlin, 1989). Native language phonology can influence the interpretation of the target language. For example, misperceptions of the sounds of the target language are likely to be categorized in terms of the native language phonology (See Goto, 1971; MacKain, Best, & Strange, 1981 ; Miyawaki et al., 1975; Mochizuki, 1981) on Japanese speakers’ difficulty in perceiving English /l/ and /r/.

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Although there is widespread recognition that transfer takes place more at the level of the sound system, specifically production and pronunciation, cross-linguistic studies that investigated language transfer on word order have shown that acquisition of morphemes, and other higher-order syntactic structures, are actually more frequent than phonology-related transfer studies. Only in the last two decades has the influence of phonology and prosody of L1 into L2 been examined (Best, 1994; Best, McRoberts, & Sithole, 1988; Broselow, 1987a, 1987b, 1988, 1993; Brown, 2000; Eckman, 1987; Flege & MacKay, 2004; Ioup & Weinberger, 1987; Kim & Jung, 1998; Lotz, Abramson, Gerstman, Ingemann, & Nemser, 1960; Mitleb, 1984a, 1984b; Ostrom, 1998; Tak, 1996; Tarone, 1987). The present paper reports on two experiments that employed Elicited Imitation as a psycholinguistic technique to investigate whether L1 prosody transfer occurs, as manifested in the repair strategy of epenthesis which Arabic-speaking participants of English resort to when they hear or read an utterance that has a string of three consonants as a result of morpheme and word concatenation in English. The remaining sections of this paper are organized as follows. Section 2 gives an overview of syllable structures in Cairene Arabic. Section 3 discusses Elicited Imitation as psycholinguistic methodology in studying L2 acquisition. Section 4 reports on the experiments. 2. Overview of syllable structure of Cairene Arabic English and Cairene Arabic (henceforth referred to as CA) are both classified as stress-timed languages (Hayes, 1995; McCarthy, 1979; Watson, 2002). Rhythmically, languages can be classified as stress-timed or syllable-timed languages (Pike, 1945). Stress-timed means that stress occurs at approximately equal intervals, which can contain different numbers of syllables. In order for stress to occur at equal intervals, languages take different measures to fulfill this requirement. In some languages, the time allotted to syllables is reduced or shortened; whereas, in other languages, time that is allotted to syllables is spread out. In the case of English, the former applies, but with CA the latter apparently takes place. In Arabic in general, and CA in particular, when word concatenation takes place, it usually occurs in a way that would not result in an illicit syllable. That is, postlexical resyllabification always preserves the original segmental content by inducing insertion instead of deletion. CA has strong limitations on well-formed syllables, which can only be drawn from the following set: CV, CVV, CVC or phrase-final CVVC or CVCC. CA does not allow a cluster of three consonants; therefore, if through concatenating and connecting words, such a cluster is generated, an epenthetic vowel is inserted (Broselow, 1979, 1988) as the following examples demonstrate.

1) a. kalb ‘dog’ kalbína ‘our dog’ / kalb-na/ dog-our

b. katáb-t ‘you wrote’ katábtí gawáab ‘you wrote a letter’ / katab-t/

wrote-2 m. sg.

Epenthesis is an active process in the phonology of CA. As seen above, to avoid a sequencing of CCC, syllable modification is triggered through the repair strategy of epenthesis when a string of three consonants is created because of morpheme and word concatenation. The epenthesis strategy is systematic and can be observed across the board. As a consequence, I expect that CA native speakers, upon reading and repeating English utterances (e.g., words and phrases) that contain three- and four-consonant clusters, will transfer their own prosodic strategy of epenthesis and insert a vowel to break up a cluster of these consonants. Transfer of prosodic strategies, especially vowel epenthesis, from L1 to L2 has been studied in the SLA literature, and it has been found that L2 speakers often resort to these strategies as repair tactics to simplify and modify L2 syllable structures (Alber, 2000; Alber & Plag, 1999; Alsin & Pisoni, 1980; Asci, 1996; Broselow, 1979, 1987a, 1987b, 1988, 1993; Carlisle, 1991; Hansen, 2001, 2004; Kim & Jung, 1998; Tarone, 1978, 1980, 1987; Weinberger, 1987). See (Broselow, 1979, 1987a, 1987b, 1988, 1992, 1993) for Arabic and (Dupoux, Kakehi, Hirose, Pallier, & Mehler, 1999) for Japanese. To check whether vowel epenthesis as a repair strategy plays a role in processing English spoken language, data were collected from CA native speakers in two experiments (i.e., Experiments A and B). The expectation in both studies was that CA speakers would insert a vowel to break up a consonant cluster in onset and medial positions when heard in English auditory input. In both studies, the method of Elicited Imitation was used to investigate whether or not CA learners of English would resort to the English pool of utterances stored in their mental representation when asked to immediately repeat an English auditory input and also whether they would insert a vowel to break up a consonant cluster as the syllable structure rules of their language specify From this point on, the terms “imitate” and “repeat” are interchangeably used to mean the participants’ immediate production and repetition of an utterance just heard on the headphones. 3. Elicited Imitation

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Elicited Imitation has been used to evaluate language proficiency in three areas: i) child language research (Dailey & Boxx, 1979; Fraser, Bellugi, & Brown, 1963; Lust, Flynn, & Foley, 1996; Slobin & Welsh, 1973), ii) neuropsychological research (Menyuk, 1964), and iii) second language research (Bley- Vroman & Chaudron, 1994; Gallimore & Tharp, 1981; Hamayan, Saegert, & Larudee, 1977; Munnich, Flynn, & Martohardjono, 1994; Naiman, 1974). In Elicited Imitation (henceforth referred to as EI) a participant is usually presented with a spoken string and is asked to repeat the utterance as exactly as possible. The repetition is mostly oral, especially in child language acquisition; but some researchers have made use of written imitation in L2 acquisition (Savignon, 1982; Scheibner-Herzig, Sauerbrey, & Kokoschka, 1991; Spitze & Fischer, 1981). For example, Scheibner-Herzig et al. (1991) used written imitation as a means to predict foreign language oral proficiency. In the field of L2 research, EI has been used mainly in assessing grammar proficiency. Based on the degree of similarity between the learner’s repetition and the original utterance, researchers have evaluated learners’ grammatical competence of L2 (Bley- Vroman & Chaudron, 1994; Hamayan et al., 1977; Naiman, 1974; Schimke, 2011). The underlying assumption is that the accuracy of repetition reflects the learners’ grammatical competence of L2, while failure to imitate accurately shows that the structure was beyond the level of complexity of the participants’ L2 grammar. EI’s usage has also been extended to measuring oral competence among adult L2 learners (Hameyer, 1980), as well as to gauging communicative competence (Savignon, 1982). It has also been employed as a tool to evaluate L2 learners’ implicit knowledge of L2 grammar (Ellis, 2005; Erlam, 2006). Additionally, it has been used in listening comprehension. For example, Jensen and Vinther (2003) used EI primarily as a tool in assessing listening comprehension on the assumption that, if the participants understood the stimulus sentence, they would be able to repeat it by reconstructing it based on its meaning. On the other hand, if participants did not understand the sentence, they would not be able to imitate it correctly. EI is considered to be reconstructive in nature, which requires the learner to process the stimulus. In an EI task, participants go through some cognitive processes. For example: 1) processing a sentence or an utterance-stimulus, 2) reconstructing the stimulus with their own grammar and mental representation, and 3) reproducing it. It is argued that the utterance elicited reflects the degree to which a learner is able to assimilate the stimulus into an internal grammar (Munnich et al. 1994). For example, according to Eisenstein, Bailey and Madden (1982) participants when imitating have to reconstruct someone else’s grammar and meaning, which is sometimes beyond their productive capacities. He or she has to form a hypothesis about what is said, passing the actual utterance through a filter of existing grammatical knowledge. The resulting “imitation” constitutes the learner’s best guess about grammar, which may or may not have been completely mastered (p. 391). However, when sentences are not understood, they can only be imitated accurately if they are short enough to be retained in immediate memory as an acoustic image; and therefore, reproduced by mimicking or “parroting” (Lee, 1970; Munnich et al., 1994). Actually, mimicking or parroting is the most challenging aspect of using EI. It has been maintained that in assessing linguistic skills by means of EI it is difficult to tell whether the participants really understand the utterance they are repeating, or whether they are simply imitating a chain or stream of sounds without knowing the meaning. In the present study, mimicking is a very important aspect because it indicates that the subject does not tap into his or her auditory mental representation or grammar -- a grammar that is expected to be influenced by L1 (i.e., Cairene Arabic) prosody and, accordingly, includes an epenthetic vowel between consonant clusters. Participants of the present study have learned English through the grammar translation method and have not had enough exposure and experience with spoken English. In addition, unlike stimuli used in most EI studies, the stimulus-string in the present study does not contain the recommended number of syllables (i.e., 12-16) (Chaudron, in press). The reason for its shortness is that the purpose of the study is not to assess the participants’ grammar or competence but to examine the epenthetic vowel that is expected to appear in their production. EI is employed here to tap on the participants’ auditory mental representation of English. It is applied based on the assumption that participants process the utterance, reconstruct it with the input in their own mental representation and accordingly reproduce it. Although an imitation that is exact in accuracy and matching to the original utterance has been the norm in the experiments using EI as a methodology, in the experiments of this study exact pronunciation is not the focus of the study. EI is chosen because production here is considered a reflection of the participants’ internalization of the target utterance (Munnich et al., 1994). Listeners’ repetition or production of the utterance is constrained by time (the pause between a target utterance and the follow-up was only 30 seconds); and therefore, a production that has epenthesis between consonant clusters could point to the interfering role a listener’s stored input in his mental representation may have in processing the auditory input. The assumption here is that the presence of epenthesis in the participants’ output could reflect how the English utterance is stored in the learner’s mental representation. On the other hand, if epenthesis is not observed, this will be suggestive of other processes; mimicking could be one of them.

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To address the hypothesis that CA native speakers upon processing L2 auditory text will transfer their L1 constraints of prosody (e.g., vowel epenthesis to break up consonant clusters), two experiments were conducted. Both experiments followed a one-shot, repeated measures design, where the independent variable is L1 (i.e., CA) prosody and the dependent variable is epenthesis of a default vowel to break up a cluster of three or more consonants. 4. Experiments: Transfer of epenthesis while repeating and reading L2 input 4.1Method: Experiment A Twenty participants, 16 males and four females, voluntarily participated in the study. Of the 20, thirteen were students in AID/AUC English courses. The remaining seven were not enrolled in any English language program; two were students of architecture at Cairo University, and the remaining five were professionals in banks and engineering companies whose English proficiency level ranged from beginning to intermediate. At Egyptian schools, English instruction starts in the seventh grade and is mainly taught explicitly through grammar rules and translation. 4.1.1 Materials An instrument of 37 items was constructed. The test items contained English target utterances (e.g., lexical compounds and noun phrases) that contained three-consonant clusters within and between words of the utterance. Five of the test items were distractors. These distractors did not include clusters of more than two consonants. In CA, clusters of two consonants are permissible in word medial and final positions because they are considered syllable-abutting consonants. The instrument was read by a 25-year-old American male whose accent was Midwestern. He was instructed to read the items at a natural speaking rate. His reading was recorded and used as the experiment stimulus. A Tascam 302 was used to record both the American native speaker’s reading of the test items and the participants’ responses. The test vocabulary consisted of simple and high-frequency words (see Appendix A). 4.1.2 Procedure The procedure included three tasks: repetition, writing, and reading. In the first task, participants listened and immediately repeated the target words and phrases. Immediately after the Elicited Imitation, participants were asked to perform the second task, which was writing the target word or phrase. In the third task, participants were asked to read out loud the sentences that included the target words and phrases. To carry out the repetition and writing tasks, participants were given sheets of paper that contained all 37 utterances, but the target words and phrases were missing and represented as blanks. As participants listened, they immediately repeated the word or the phrase that was missing in the sentence. Repetition of the missing word or phrase was recorded on a tape recorder for analysis. After repeating the target utterance, participants wrote the word or phrase on the provided blanks. However, to control for participants’ resorting to reading what they wrote on the blanks instead of repeating the target utterance, an emphasis was made that they attempt the writing only after having repeated and pronounced the target word or phrase out loud. The purpose of the writing task was to have a written record of what the participants were trying to say, in case their repetition was incomprehensible. In the reading task, participants were given sheets that contained the same 37 utterances in full (with no blanks representing the target words and phrases). Here, participants were instructed to read the target words and phrases, which in turn were also recorded. 4.1.3 Coding and analysis The collected data was analyzed for epenthesis and a score of “1” was given each time epenthesis was found. Epenthesis was checked in reading as well as in repetition. Articulation was also transcribed and analyzed by SpeechStation2 software (Sensimetrics, 1997-1998). The percentage of occurrences of epenthesis in Elicited Imitation versus that in reading was run, and the means were calculated, using SPSS software. Analysis of variance, using task and epenthesis as factors, was carried out to check whether there was an interaction between epenthesis in Elicited Imitation versus that in reading. 4.1.4 Results Results showed that epenthesis took place more in the reading task than in the repetition task. As illustrated in Table 1 and Figure 1, epenthesis took place 62% of the time in the reading task, but only 38% of the time in repetition. Table 1: Percentage of Epenthesis in Reading vs. Repetition Tasks

Cases of epenthesis

Total of epenthesis

Percentage

Percentage of Epenthesis in Reading 668 1,078 0.6197 Percentage of Epenthesis in Repetition 410 1,078 0.3803

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Figure 1: Epenthesis in Reading vs. Repetition The difference between epenthesis in reading, compared with that in repetition, was found to be statistically significant. The following table illustrates the t value for each of the mean percentages of epenthesis in reading versus that of repetition.

Table 2: Difference in Epenthesis between Reading and Repetition

Paired Differences t df Sig. (2-tailed)

Mean Std. Deviation

Std. Error Mean

95% Confidence Interval of the Difference

Lower Upper Pair 1

Mean Read Mean Rept.

.10702 .19962 .03645 .03248 .18156 2.936 29 .006

Epenthesis of a vowel was investigated phrase internally (between word 1 and word 2) and word internally, that is, in words that have consonant clusters in the medial position – translation, sixteen and mystery.

Table 3: Percentage of Epenthesis in Reading vs. Repetition Task

Cases on epenthesis Total Percentage Epenthesis in reading word internally 428 668 0.641 Epenthesis in reading phrase internally 240 668 0.359 Epenthesis in repetition word internally 274 410 0.668 Epenthesis in repetition phrase internally 136 410 0.332

Epenthesis Word and Phrase Internally in Reading vs. Repetition

0100200300400500600700800

Epenthesis inreading word

internally

Epenthesis inreadingphrase

internally

Epethesis inrepetition

wordinternally

Epenthesis inrepetitionphrase

internally

Figure 2: Epenthesis of a Vowel Word and Phrase Internal in Reading vs. Repetition Tasks

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Although epenthesis happened between the words of a phrase more in reading than in repetition, further analysis of data showed that there were cases when epenthesis did not happen at all. These cases were intriguing because the expectation was that epenthesis should happen in reading every time the participants saw a cluster of three or four consonants, either word internally or phrase internally. The following words or phrases were used:

2) English Predicted output CA output (reading) wall clock wa [lɨk]lɔk [wal.klɔk]/ [wal.kɨlɔk] top floor to[pɨf]lor [tɔp.flor]/[tɔp.fɨlor] farm fresh far[mɨf]resh [farm.fɨreʃ] spring camps sprin[gɨs]cam[pɨs] [ʔɨspriŋg. kampɨs] handbook han[dɨ]book [hand.bʊk] guest room gues [tɨ]room [gest.ru:m] strong proof strong[ɨ]proof [ʔ ɨstrɔŋ.pru:f] strong dislike stron[gɨ]dislike [ʔ ɨstrɔŋɡ.dɨslaik] ends meet en[dɨz]meet [ʔendz. mi:t]

In addition, the epenthetic vowel was not regularly inserted between the words of a phrase. For example, it was inserted word internally in top floor, spring camps, strong proof, and strong dislike. In wall clock and top floor, some participants inserted a vowel to break up the initial cluster of the second word, as seen in the given examples. As for the other words, because they all started with an [s] followed by two consonants, a vowel got inserted before the [s] and after the second consonant, as illustrated above. The insertion of a vowel after the second consonant in a sequence of three consonants CɨCC has been attested to in other studies (Broselow, 1979, 1992; Watson, 2002). In repetition, on the other hand, epenthesis did not occur as consistently as it did in reading. This led to further investigation, which indicated that participants’ responses in the repetition task could be divided into i) utterances that were not recognized at all and no elicitation was given, that is, participants either uttered one word, part of the word or skipped the item altogether, ii) utterances that were produced incorrectly, and iii) utterances that were faithfully mimicked. The following examples illustrate the last two categories.

3) Some Elicited Imitations Eng. input Predicted output CA output (repetition)

wol clɔk [wolɨlɔk] [wok kɨrok] [work lɔt] [work lɔk]

hænbʊk [hændɨbʊk] [hiirin bɔk] [henbark] [henbɔk]

stænstıl [ʔɨstandɨstıl] [ʔɨstansiʔof] [ʔɨstandɨted] [ʔɨstandʔɨstor]

kolkrim [koldɨdkri:m] [koldɨkri:m] [kuul gre:f] [kot rain] An item analysis of the categories mentioned above showed that 50% of the participants produced the target phrase wall clock incorrectly, 40% produced handbook differently; whereas, 44% of the participants produced the utterance standstill incorrectly. This was in addition to the items that were unrecognized or recognized partially. For example, the target utterances kind landlord, and cold cream, were either incompletely repeated, as participants missed a part of the phrase, or utterly missed when participants failed to repeat the entire phrase. Such total or partial non-elicitation occurred 75% of the time for kind landlord and 80% of the time for cold cream. Moreover, parts or words of the target phrases spring camps, standstill, old tennis ball, and strong proof, were also not repeated by the participants 50% to 65% of the time. 4.1.5 Discussion Based on CA syllable structure rules and on the premise that CA listeners would transfer their L1 prosodic constraints, epenthesis was expected to occur within and between words to break up clusters of more than two consonants in the participants' elicited production in both the repetition and reading tasks. CA speaking participants in this experiment did transfer their prosodic strategy of vowel epenthesis mostly in the output elicited in the reading task, but inconsistently in repetition. In reading, participants regularly inserted a default

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vowel when they saw more than two consonants clustering together within and between words. However, in repetition, epenthesis took place in some cases, but not others. This inconsistency in the presence of epenthesis in the elicited output from the repetition task could be attributed to the following possible factors: i) mimicking the auditory input, ii) abstaining from production due to the incomplete or partial match between the English auditory input and a CA speaking learner's corresponding mental representation of the input, and finally ii) unfamiliarity with the real life English pronunciation of the target utterance. Utterances of the American speaker's output, such as handbook, standstill, kind landlord, lack the coda consonant of the cluster in the first, second and third words of the string, and are actually pronounced as [hænbuk], [stænstıl] and [kainlænlor] respectively. The absence of [d] in the American English native speaker’s pronunciation reflects a pronunciation rule, which states that alveolar stops are reduced and deleted when they occur between two consonants (Ladefoged, 2001, p. 59). In fact, it could be regarded as a postlexical rule and unspecified in the lexicon. It could be considered an automatic process, which the speaker is not consciously controlling. Some acoustic studies indicate that, although the tongue takes the position to pronounce the consonant, the consonant is not released (Zsiga, 2003). Nevertheless, the participants’ production, in the repetition task, which was similar to the American English native speaker's pronunciation, could not indicate with certainty whether the participants produced the utterance that way because they were aware of the rule or because they were just mimicking. Mimicking is considered to be a potential reason behind the participants not resorting to epenthesis in the output elicited from the repetition task. Participants might have faithfully mimicked and repeated the target utterance exactly the way it was uttered on the tape. Therefore, the assumption here is that, by mimicking, the subject just repeated the utterance without tapping on the stored lexical representation for the utterance, and the absence of the epenthetic vowel is an indication that such tapping did not take place. In addition to mimicking, there were cases with no elicited repetitions; participants remained silent, or participants repeated only part of the target utterances. This occurred with certain target words and phrases, which added to the observed inconsistency of epenthesis in the Elicited Imitation task. A strong possibility behind abstinence from repeating, or just giving partial production, could be unfamiliarity with the components of the string. Unfamiliar words and utterances might have been entirely nonexistent in the listener’s mental representation. Perhaps, participants refrained from repeating the phrase, or repeated only a fragment, because the target utterances were both semantically and auditorily unfamiliar. Since familiarity was not controlled for in this study, it could be a confounding factor that interfered with the results. Had participants been made familiar with the way American English native speakers produce such strings, would they have still inserted an epenthetic vowel to break up the consonant cluster in the output elicited from the repetition task, as well as in the reading task? To control for familiarity, a second experiment was conducted. The procedure is the same as that of the first experiment, except for the inclusion of a familiarity task. This task was incorporated to familiarize the participants with the sound of the utterance, and to serve as a checkpoint as to how well they knew the utterance, which was operationalized as: how they understood it and could translate it into Arabic. A description of the task is given below. 4.2Method: Experiment B 4.2.1 Participants A different CA population sample participated in this study. They were 25 participants between the ages of 25 and 45 from different vocational backgrounds studying at the American University, Center for Adult and Continuing Education. However, due to recording problems, data from 10 participants had to be disregarded. Out of the 15 remaining participants, 11 were female and four were male participants. Their level of English ranged from beginner to advanced. Only three advanced students were able to participate. Most of the participants started learning English at age 12 in middle school. They learned English through the grammar translation method, characterized mainly by emphasis on reading and grammar, rather than on listening and communication. 4.2.2 Materials An instrument similar to the one in Experiment A was devised, but with more distractors to control for training transfer effect. Fifty utterances were constructed, out of which 30 were experimental utterances containing consonant clusters, 15 were distractors, and five were practice items. These sentences and questions were recorded at a normal speech rate by a 23-year-old male native speaker of American English with a Midwestern accent. As in Experiment A, oral and written instructions were given to the native speaker to read the sentences in “real life” English as naturally as possible (in one breath group) using a rapid, educated American accent. As with the stimulus in Experiment A, target words and phrases were English lexical compounds and phrases (mainly noun phrases) that contained more than two consonant clusters. Also, as in the previous study, the target utterances’ position in the utterance varied; that is, some of the target utterances appeared sentence initial, some

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medial and some final. The vocabulary of the test items consisted of simple words. The instrument data was carefully analyzed phonetically. The Test Instrument is in Appendix B. 4.2.3 Procedure The same procedure was used as in Experiment A. Participants listened and repeated the English target words and phrases, and then immediately wrote them on the provided blanks. After they completed the elicited imitation and writing tasks, the sheets were collected and subsequently analyzed for the written data they contained. The reading task followed the writing one and was performed in the same way as in the previous experiment. The participants’ oral elicitations in the repetition and reading tasks were collected on a tape recorder for analysis. Based on the collected elicitations, the writer checked whether epenthesis of a vowel occurred to break up the consonant clusters in the participants’ elicitation in repetition and reading. As pointed out earlier, this experiment differs from the previous one in controlling for familiarity. To factor out the effect, or lack of effect, of familiarity of the utterances, a point was made, prior to the experiment, to make the participants familiar with the meaning of the target utterance as well as with how it sounded in “real life” English. To accomplish this, participants were given a training phase before the actual experiment. During this phase they listened and read the experimental target words and phrases. These utterances were previously sliced out of the original sound track and copied onto a separate tape, to which the participants listened during the training phase. Participants were instructed that they would hear a target word or phrase twice, and then read the same word or phrase, which was inserted and underlined on the sheet that was in front of them. To control for transfer of training, the sentences that carried the target words and phrases in the training session were different from the original sentences of the instrument. Upon reading the sentence, participants were asked to choose a corresponding Arabic translation out of two translations given, for the underlined segment of the sentence that corresponded to the target word or phrase. Participants received no feedback to the responses they made. Please see Appendix C. So that possible fatigue and boredom would not interfere with the familiarity training phase and the subsequent tasks, not all of the 50 utterances were included; only the 30 experimental- target- utterances were. Also, to manage the progress of the task and make sure that the participants focused on the utterance being uttered, each example of the 30 experimental utterances was presented on a separate page in a bound booklet. The sheets were devised so that each utterance in a sentence, and its corresponding translation, was displayed on a single page and separated from the other sentences. The participants were instructed to flip the page when they finished listening, reading and translating. To ensure that the participants focused on listening to the utterance, and were not distracted by being in the middle of reading and translating the previous utterance, the tape was controlled by the writer. A point was made that the new utterance would not be heard until all the participants finished reading and choosing the corresponding translation. Actually, the tape was turned on only when all the participants flipped the page they worked on. Participants completed this training phase in groups of two or four. The training phase lasted for 20 minutes. After the familiarity training phase, participants, individually in a quiet room, performed the first, second and third tasks. From this point on, the procedure was the same as that in the first experiment, where participants were given sheets that contained blanks corresponding to the target words and phrases and were asked to listen and immediately repeat into the recorder the target words and phrases and then immediately wrote what they heard on the provided blanks. The reading task followed that of the repetition and writing. Participants’ written and oral elicitations were collected and analyzed. The written data was used as a reference in case their elicited imitation was incomprehensible, while their oral elicitations in the repetition and reading tasks were recorded and analyzed to check for the absence or presence of the epenthetic default vowel [ɨ] within and between words that contained clusters of more than two consonants. 4.2.4 Coding and analysis The same coding system of Experiment A was used in Experiment B, except for the one additional aspect of familiarity. Since familiarity was added here, a score of “1” was given to the subject if he or she knew the meaning of the utterance by choosing the correct Arabic translation and a score of “0” was given if they chose the wrong translation. The data was analyzed for epenthesis and, as in Experiment (A), the mean percentage of epenthesis was calculated, and an analysis of variance using task and epenthesis as factors was carried out to check whether there was an interaction between epenthesis and elicited imitation or reading. In addition, cases where a vowel was epenthesized were compared and checked against cases of the participants’ familiarity of the target utterance. This was in order to check whether there was a relationship between inserting a vowel to break up consonant clusters abundant in English connected speech, and participants' familiarity of that particular utterance which had the consonant clusters. 4.2.5 Results Participants’ elicitations in elicited imitation and reading tasks were analyzed for epenthesis. The mean percentage for epenthesis in repetition was found to be slightly higher than the mean percentage for epenthesis

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in reading. Table 4 and Error! Reference source not found. illustrate the mean percentage in repetition versus that in reading.

Table 4: Percentage of Epenthesis in Repetition vs. Reading Participants as a Factor Epenthesis Percentage N Minimum Maximum Mean Std. Deviation

Repetition 15 .00 100.00 50.1819 24.54834 Reading 15 .00 100.00 49.8181 24.54834 Valid N (listwise) 15

Figure 3: Percentage of Epenthesis in Repetition and Reading Elicited Output

A t-test showed no statistical significance between the mean of epenthesis in the elicited output of repetition versus that in reading. Analysis of epenthesis of items as a factor showed that epenthesis took place more in repetition than in reading, as illustrated in Table 5 and Figure 4 below. Table 5: Mean of Epenthesis in Repetition vs. Reading items as a factor

Mean N Std. Deviation Std. Error Mean Pair 1 Mean Epen Rep .4981 30 .23101 .04218 Epen Read Mean .4217 30 .17327 .03163

Repetition Elicited Output

Reading Elicited Output

0.00

10.00

20.00

30.00

40.00

50.00

60.00 P

E R C E N T

45

Figure 4: Mean of Epenthesis in Repetition vs. Reading A t-test showed there is a statistical difference between epenthesis in repetition and in reading (t (29) = 2.625, p = 0.14). To improve on the first experiment, I decided that verification for the presence of an epenthetic vowel between consonant clusters was warranted. Therefore, I conducted a spectral analysis on the epenthetic vowel utilized in the repetition and reading tasks and measured the formants as evidence for the presence of the epenthetic vowel. An epenthetic vowel was found in the spectral analysis. This vowel was utilized in repetition and in reading, and was found to have the same first formant in both reading and repeating the stimulus utterance. The vowel is found to be in a similar range for the second format. Frequencies of the first and second formants illustrate that the vowel used was a closed front vowel. As for duration, vowel duration in the output from reading the stimulus utterance was longer. The following tables (Table 6 and Table 7) and Figure 5 illustrate the epenthetic vowel’s formants and duration in repetition and reading tasks.

Table 6: Epenthetic Vowel First and Second Formants and Duration in Repetition

Table 7: Epenthetic Vowel First and Second Formants and Duration in Reading

N Minimum Maximum Mean Rd F1 29 655.75 854.00 748.3122 Rd F2 29 1,189.60 2,240.50 1,835.1401 Rd Dur 29 34.00 766.86 69.8564

Valid N (listwise) 29

N Minimum Maximum Mean Rep F1 29 667.00 895.00 756.1671 Rep F2 29 1,220.00 2,686.00 1,682.3845 Rep Dur 29 30.00 56.75 44.1931

Valid N (listwise) 29

EpenRepMean EpenReadMean0.00

0.10

0.20

0.30

0.40

0.50

M

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Figure 5: Epenthetic Vowels’ Formants and Duration in Repetition and Reading

No statistical significance was found in the difference between the mean for the first formant and vowel duration in repetition and reading; t (27) = .695, p = .493 for the first formant; t (27) = 1.000, p = .326 for vowel duration. An analysis on the relation between familiarity of the utterance and epenthesis showed that there is a correlation between epenthesis in repetition and familiarity of utterance, as illustrated below in Table 8 and Figure 7.

Table 8: Correlation Between Familiarity and Epenthesis

Epen Read

Mean Fam Mean Epen Read Mean Pearson Correlation 1 .207

Sig. (2-tailed) . .272

N 30 30

Fam Mean Pearson Correlation .207 1 Sig. (2-tailed) .272 .

N 30 30

Rep F1 Rd F1 Rep F2 Rd F2 Rep Dur Rd Dur0.00

500.00

1,000.00

1,500.00

2,000.00

Mean

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Figure 6: Relation between Familiarity and Epenthesis in Repetition

0.00 0.20 0.40 0.60 0.80 1.00

ItemFamMean

0.00

0.20

0.40

0.60

0.80

EpenIn

RepMea

n

Figure 7: Scatter Plot of Correlation between Epenthesis in Repetition and Familiarity of Item

Upon analyzing participants’ data per level and condition (i.e., repetition versus reading) a general tendency for inserting an epenthetic vowel is found to be related to proficiency level and condition. See the figures below.

Figure 8: Epenthesis and Lack of in Elementary Participants’ Repetition and Reading

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Figure 9: Epenthesis and Lack of in Intermediate Participants’ Repetition and Reading

Figure 10: Epenthesis and Lack of in Advanced Participants’ Repetition and Reading As observed, there is an overall tendency for epenthesis to increase in reading more than in repetition among elementary participants, except for participant 22, whose epenthesis decreased contrary to expectation. However, upon analyzing and comparing the no elicitation cases of this participant with the no elicitation cases of the other participants of the same group, we find that it increased, not decreased, in reading, as demonstrated by the other participants’ performance. Fatigue is expected to be behind the increase of no elicitation with participant 22, hence, the variation in epenthesis in reading. As seen in the charts of the intermediate and advanced groups, we find that there is more variability among intermediate participants than among the advanced ones in using epenthesis in repetition versus that in reading. In some cases it increased in reading, e.g., participants 8, 19 and 21, while it decreased in other participants, e.g., participants 14 and 20. Epenthesis disappeared completely with participant 13 (see Figures 9 and 10). The variability could be related to two aspects; one is that mimicking is still at play among intermediate participants and the other is that L1 interference may be playing a role. This performance illustrates the U shape of learning that is taking place among intermediate participants. As for the advanced participants, we see that epenthesis did not show up in their repetition or in their reading, suggesting that experience and exposure to spoken language is at play. In fact, one of the advanced participants, participant 27, decreased using epenthesis in her reading to a great extent. The data show that there is a relation between the proficiency level of the participants and the use or lack of use of an epenthetic vowel in breaking up consonant clusters in the two tasks investigated, repetition and reading. The higher the level, the less use of epenthetic vowel in both tasks. See Figures 11, 12, and 13 below.

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Figure 11: Repetition and Reading by Elementary Learners Illustrating Epenthesis, Lack of Epenthesis and No Elicitation in Repetition and Readings Tasks

Figure 12: Repetition and Reading by Intermediate Learners Illustrating Epenthesis,

Lack of Epenthesis and No Elicitation in Repetition and Readings Tasks

Figure 13: Repetition and Reading by Advanced Learners Illustrating Epenthesis,

Lack of Epenthesis and No Elicitation in Repetition and Readings Tasks By comparing the three charts we find that no epenthesis cases occur more among advanced participants in repetition and reading conditions than among intermediate and elementary participants. No elicitation cases decrease to a greater extent in repetition among intermediate participants than among elementary-level ones. The most interesting aspect in the data is the no epenthesis cases increase in reading among intermediate

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participants. This is contrary to the expectation of the study. It was expected that epenthesis would take place every time a participant encountered a consonant cluster visually and was asked to read it. This finding suggests that some implicit learning may have taken place. On the whole, cases of no elicitations decreased in comparison to those in Experiment A of the study. However, the utterances that were the least elicited, as a whole or partially, were the same as those that were missed in Experiment A, such as kind landlord, alarm clock, standstill, spring trees, ends meet, and work place. Some of these items had a very low percentage in terms of familiarity, like stand still, ends meet and work place, as illustrated in.

Figure14: Familiarity of Utterance The items, their familiarity percentage, miss rate and spoken and written elicitations are illustrated in (Appendix D). 4.2.6 Discussion The conducted study has two main findings. The first is that CA speaking learners of English transfer their prosodic strategy of vowel epenthesis in elicited imitation or repetition and reading tasks. The second is that familiarity training helped the learners match the English input (citation forms) stored in their mental representation with the spoken input they heard on the tape. By going through the familiarity phase, participants had the opportunity to correspond and associate the auditory stimulus with the stored mental representation. Contrary to the findings of Experiment A, epenthesis in the output of the elicited imitation task in Experiment B has increased, and is even slightly higher in repetition than in reading. The difference is statistically significant when items are a factor in the analysis. This directs one’s attention to the hypothesis that CA-speaking learners of low and intermediate proficiency of English in this study may have tapped into the stored mental representation in repeating a heard target utterance only when the utterance is both auditorily and semantically familiar to them. The evidence is inferred from the epenthetic vowel used in their elicited output, especially in the repetition task. The presence of an epenthetic vowel in the learner’s repetition and reading indicates that L1 phonological rules still affect learners’ processing of L2 input. However, as demonstrated by the findings in the box plot charts, the epenthetic vowel disappears as proficiency level increases. Participants’ translation choices for the target utterances in the familiarity phase did not show that semantics was a problem. In fact, participants chose the correct translation most of the time in the familiarity training session. Yet, being auditorily familiar with the target utterance seems to be a completely different issue. This is

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in line with the argument raised in Experiment A, i.e., for listeners to process a sequence of auditory segments or words, they most likely need to match what they hear to the corresponding match stored in their mental lexicon. Familiarity with the auditory aspect of the input (i.e., spoken form) is shown to have an effect. As demonstrated in the results, it is indirectly related to the presence of an epenthetic vowel in participants’ elicited output. More participants in Experiment B inserted a vowel to break up consonant clusters they thought they had heard in the utterance. As discussed above, this epenthetic vowel suggests that the participants had tapped into the stored English in their mental representation. I argue that, the mental representation of the learners of English in this study is not only shaped by the input the learners have been exposed to in learning English throughout the years, but also by L1 prosodic and phonological structures and constraints. The participants in this study, upon listening to the input, construct a phonological representation of the utterance, provided that they are familiar with the pronunciation and meaning of the utterance. The constructed phonological representation is mapped with the representation they have in their mental lexicon. If the mapping matches, the utterance is reproduced. Whether or not the utterance has an epenthetic vowel between the consonant clusters, depends on two factors whether i) L1 phonological rules are at play, ii) L2 phonological rules are inactive or lacking because there is not enough positive input of, exposure to and experience with the spoken form of the utterances. In Experiment B, the intermediate learners as well as the advanced ones inserted a vowel in repetition, but not in reading. I consider this quite interesting. Naturally, one would expect the absence of an epenthetic vowel in the repetition due to mimicking the auditory input (i.e. American English connected spoken language) where such an epenthetic vowel between consonant clusters is not present in the stimulus. Whereas in reading, due to the presence of the letter graphemes corresponding to the consonant cluster, epenthesis of a vowel is expected and is in fact inevitable. As shown, this was not the case -- suggesting that exposure to and experience with a spoken form of the input play a major role. Studies in L2 speech perception consider experience to be of great importance. According to them, it plays a major role because it can profoundly change not only how speech is perceived (Kuhl, 1992: 294), but also can alter the mechanisms which underlie speech perception and, accordingly, the listener’s mind (Kuhl & Iverson, 1995, p. 121). Empirical studies have found that experience has a role in learning L2 consonant clusters, as experienced learners performed better than inexperienced ones in learning to identify consonant clusters (Guiona, Flege, Yamada, & Pruitt, 2000). Flege (1984) also found that experienced Arab learners of English responded much like the Americans in identifying the /s/ and /z/ phonemes as in the words “piece’ or “peas” of English, whereas the relatively inexperienced Arab learners , on the other hand, were inconsistent in labeling the stimuli. Returning to the decrease of an epenthetic vowel among intermediate and advanced learners, two related issues are worth mentioning. The first is EI as a psycholinguistic methodology, and the second is the role of implicit learning. The study suggests that EI could be a valid methodology in examining whether or not L2 learners tap into their mental representation in processing L2 spoken input, and the second is that learning of a linguistic feature might take place even if participants were not explicitly instructed on the given linguistic feature. Whether this learning is temporary or permanent is an open question that should be addressed in further studies. More evidence that L2 listeners resort to their stored L1 mental representation is found in a study conducted by (Dupoux, Pallier, Kakehi, & Mehler, 2001).The authors found that Japanese listeners, upon listening to stimuli that contained illicit consonant clusters, tend to hear an imaginary vowel to conform to the phonotactics and syllable structures of their language, demonstrating the impact that knowledge of phonotactics and syllable structures has on speech perception. It would be interesting to find out whether CA speakers would tend to hear an imaginary vowel as well. EI can help researchers investigate the mental representation of L2 learners. This is because time is constrained in EI as the participants are asked to immediately repeat the target utterance. Consequently, there is not enough time to first meta-linguistically check whether the utterance to be uttered follows the phonological rules of L2; therefore, what controls the nature of the elicited production should be the subject's grammar, as stored in his mental representation. 5. Conclusion Through Elicited Imitation Task this study was able to examine the mental representation of spoken English by CA-speaking learners of English. The study investigated whether CA speaking learners of varied proficiency levels would insert an epenthetic vowel to break up consonant clusters when asked to repeat an utterance of English that had consonant clusters. Consonants clusters in certain positions of the word are illicit in Cairene

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Arabic because their presence produces illicit syllable structures. The study demonstrated that presence of an epenthetic vowel correlated with the familiarity of the spoken form, and with the proficiency level of the learners. The higher the proficiency level was, the less the epenthetic vowel appeared in the learners’ output. Finally, the study also showed that Elicited Imitation as a methodology could be used to examine L2 learners’ mental representation of spoken L2 input. References Alber, B. (2000). Regional variation at edges: Glottal stop epenthesis and dissimilation in Standard and Southern varieties of German, from http://roa.rutgers.edu/view.php3?roa=417 Alber, B., & Plag, I. (1999). Epenthesis, deletion and the emergence of the optimal syllable in creole, from http://roa.rutgers.edu/view.php3?roa=335 Alsin, R. N., & Pisoni, D. B. (1980). Some developmental processes in speech perception. In G. Yeni-Komshian, J. Kavanagh & D. 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Appendix A Test instrument Experiment A 1. Spring camps are my favorite. 2. What a nice wall clock! 3. That was a long play. 4. Lunch break is for an hour. 5. I didn't like the end of this movie. 6. Your kind landlord has given us a year's lease. 7. Our office is on Main Street. 8. These eggs are farm fresh. 9. I'm not so good at translation. 10. I forgot to bring the bank draft. 11. His office is on top floor. 12. Do we have a guest in the house? 13. These strawberries will taste better with cold cream. 14. I want to buy pink blouses. 15. I want the old green chair over there. 16. I can't make both ends meet! 17. I hate dark glasses. 18. Long distance calls cost a lot. 19. What do you usually do for a work out? 20. I don't have the student handbook. 21. Is this the only guest room? 22. They put me in a different class. 23. The storm finally came to a stand still. 24. This is an old tennis ball. 25. New York streets are very crowded 26. Rafter won many grand slams. 27. I told my son "don't flunk tests." 28. This is strong proof she did it. 29. These days, young people wear strange clothes. 30. I love hearing the birds sing. 31. I developed a strong dislike to ice cream. 32. These tomatoes are very fresh, aren't they? 33. I have only sixteen dollars left 34. Spring trees are splendid in this town 35. How do you want to fly, first class or coach? 36. The second exam wasn't easy to pass. 37. I love to read mystery novels.

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Appendix B Test Instrument and Stimulus Experiment B 1. This apple is very sweet. 2. I need to go to the supermarket. 3. I am so tired. 4. This bag is very heavy. 5. Do you like coffee or tea? 6. My typewriter is broken. 7. That was a long play. 8. Lunch break is for an hour. 9. I like this movie. 10. Your kind landlord has given us a year's lease. 11. He is Polish not German. 12. Our office is on Main Street. 13. I am allergic to peanuts. 14. These eggs are farm fresh. 15. There is a virus on this compact disc. 16. I'm not so good at translation. 17. Your sister is very nice. 18 I forgot to bring the bank draft. 19 His office is on top floor. 20. Do we have a guest in the house? 21. These strawberries will taste better with cold cream. 22. I know how to type very well. 23. I want the old green chair over there. 24. I hate dark glasses. 25. These tomatoes are very fresh, aren't they? 26. Could you set the alarm clock at 7? 27. Italy is my choice for summer holiday. 28. I don't have the student handbook. 29. Is this the only guest room? 30. They put me in a different class. 31. The storm finally came to a stand still. 32. My teacher lives in London. 33. This is an old tennis ball. 34. New York streets are very crowded. 35. This is strong proof she did it. 36. I like your bag. 37. These days, young people wear strange clothes. 38. I have only sixteen dollars left. 39. Spring trees are nice in this town. 40. Please call me when you have time. 41. How do you want to fly, first class or coach? 42. I can’t make both ends meet! 43. Hand me the book, please. 44. Do you like this white sofa? 45. I mean the yellow book, not the green. 46. Pete Sampras is a world class athlete. 47. This is a good work place to be at. 48. The international community fights all kinds of hate crime. 49. What is your educational background? 50. Again, my computer is down.

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Appendix C Familiarity Task Booklet Name: _______________________________________ Age: (Approximately)___________________________ Class and level:________________________________ Profession: ___________________________________________ How many courses did you take at this institute? ________________ How many years of English at school?_________________________________________ At what age did you start learning English? ____________________________________ Familiarity Task You will find in front of you a small booklet. On each page you will find an English utterance, either a sentence or a question. Please read the sentence or question and pay attention to the underlined part of the sentence or the question. Then, choose the corresponding Arabic translation for the underlined part. Do this by checking either (1) or (2). Please note that the given translation is only of the underlined part. In choosing your answer, you should check one answer only; it cannot be both. So please make sure that you check one answer only. If you check, for example, (1) and then want to change your mind and check (2), please make sure that you cross out the first checked number completely, as in the example given. Example:

This apple is very sweet. مرة جداً (2) جداً لذیذة (1)

And then you want to change your mind, so please cross out the checked translation like that and choose the other one.

)١( جداً لذیذة )مرة جداً ٢( ____________________________________________________________________________ After checking the Arabic translation, you will hear the utterance (only the underlined part) through your head-phones said only one time. After hearing the utterance you will be asked to turn the page to do the following item. If you have any questions, please make sure to ask them before the task begins. Thank you for your participation.

1. In summer I like to eat strawberries with cold cream.

باردة كریمة (2) محروق سكر )1(--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2. This house belongs to this kind landlord

صاحب البیت الطیب (2) السیدة الجمیلة 1) --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3. Farm fresh eggs are the best to eat.

فاسدة (2) طازجة (1)--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4. My apartment is not on top floor.

األول الطابق (2) ألعلوي الطابق (1) --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 5. I am hungry when are we going to take our lunch break?

األكل عن التوقف(2) الغذاء راحة(1) --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 6. Sixteen dollars is too much for this bag.

شرع )2( ستة عشر )1( --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 7. The old green chair over there is broken.

الجدید األخضر (2) القدیم األخضر (1) --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 8. It’s very quiet now. It is like a storm stand still.

توقع )2( توقف )1( --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 9. A different class is better for this student.

فصل مختلف )2( فصل كبیر )1(--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 10. This is a world class movie.

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فصل عالمي )2( حسن الموجدین من أ )1(--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 11. Don’t play with an old tennis ball

كرة تنس قدیمة )2( كرة قدم قدیمة )1(------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 12. They both work to make ends meet!

كل من الطرفین متفقین )2( االنفاق بما ال یزید على الدخل )1(--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 13. My student handbook is in my bag.

حقیبة الطالب )2( كراسة الطالب )1(---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

13. Does the company require a bank draft? نقدیة ورقة (2) سحب حوآلة (1)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 14. Spring trees are very green in March in this city.

نأشجار الزیتو )2( أشجار الربیع )1(------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 15. First class tickets are much more expensive than coach.

أول الفصل )2( درجة أولى )1(--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 16. In this city boys wear strange clothes.

مالبس قدیمة )2( مالبس غریبة )1( ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 17. New York streets are as noisy as Cairo streets.

شوارع جدیدة )2( شوارع نیویورك )1( --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 18. Can you hand me the salt, please.

خذ مني )2( أعطني )1(------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 20. Don’t use this compact disc, it is broken.

مدمجة أسطوانة (2) بوتاجاز امبوبة (1)--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 21. The alarm clock did not go off this morning.

المنبھ ) 2( التلیفزیون ) 1(--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 22. The guest room is on the first floor.

غرفة النوم )2( غرفة الضیوف )1(-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 23. A healthy work place is very important to me.

طریقة عمل )2( مكان عمل )1(--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 24. Any kind of hate crime should be stopped in all countries of the world.

سرقةجریمة )2( جریمة حقد )1(--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 25. Although my background is very solid, I did not get the job.

شارع خلفي )2( خلفیة )1(-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

26. Al za ‘iim is a long play by ‘Adel Imam. رحلة طویل (2) مسرحیة طویلة (1)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 27. I live on Main Street.

ألرئیسي الشارع (2) الشارع اسم (1)--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 28. Translation is important in language studies.

قراءة (2) ترجمة (1)-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 29. Dark glasses are good when your eyes hurt.

غامقة قمصان (2) غامقة نظارات (1)

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------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 30. Give me a strong proof that she stole your wallet.

د لیل التلیفون (2) دلیل قوي )1(------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Appendix D Participants familiarity of the utterance

Stimulus

Phonetic Transcription Familiarity

1 Long play lɔŋplei 15 15 100 2 lunch break lʌnʃbrek 13 15 86.7 3 kind land lord kainlænlor 14 15 93.3 4 main street meinstri 5 15 33.3 5 farm fresh farmfrɛʃ 14 15 93.3 6 compact disc kɔmpækdɪs 14 15 93.3 7 translation trænzleiʃen 15 15 100 8 bank draft bæŋdræft 13 15 86.7 9 top floor tɔpflɔr 13 15 86.7

10 cold cream koldrim 15 15 100 11 old green olɡrin 15 15 100 12 dark glasses darɡlasɪs 15 15 100 13 alarm clock alarmkʌ 15 15 100 14 student handbook stjudɪnhænkʊk 13 15 86.7 15 guest room ɡɛsrum 15 15 100 16 different class dɪfrɛnklas 15 15 100 17 stand still stænstɪl 11 15 73.3 8 old tennis ball oldtɛnɪsbol 14 15 93.3

19 New York streets njujorstrits 15 15 100 20 strong proof strɔŋpruf 15 15 100 21 strange clothes strænʒkloz 15 15 100 22 sixteen sɪkstin 15 15 100 23 spring trees sprɪŋtriz 15 15 100 24 first class fɪrsklas 14 15 93.3 25 ends meet ɛnzmit 4 15 26.7 26 hand me hænmi 10 15 66.7 27 world class worklas 4 15 26.7 28 work place worpleis 15 15 100 29 hate crime hekraim 14 15 93.3 30 background bækrawnd 13 15 86.7

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A Study of Educational Reform & Teacher Training in Oman Khalid Salim Saif Al Jardani

Sultanate of Oman, Oman E-mail: kaljardani@hotmail.com

Received: 30-05- 2012 Accepted: 25-05- 2012 Published: 31-05- 2012 doi:10.7575/ijalel.v.1n.1p.64 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.7575/ijalel.v.1n.1p.64 Abstract Training plays an important part in supporting educational reform in Oman. This report looks at the effectiveness of the 2005 Primary Teachers’ Course (PRIT) for cycle 1 (grades 1-4) in preparing and supporting English teachers in implementing the new national curriculum. A number of key issues are identified, such as the importance of training courses and their need to focus on teachers’ requirements and interests. The need to update the course and introduce more activity types and modes of input is discussed. The article ends with suggestions for ways to continue supporting teachers in implementing the new curriculum. These include an on-going system of support where the trainer develops links with supervisors and senior teachers, and also the development of self-assessment and small-scale classroom-based research strategies, with which teachers can investigate their own practice. Keywords: Training courses, Primary, English teachers 1. Background The rapidly changing global economy requires a high degree of adaptability, and a strong background in mathematics, science, technology and languages. The English Language Curriculum Department (ELCD) of the Sultanate of Oman Ministry of Education (1999) has developed a new English language curriculum designed to provide pupils with the knowledge, skills and attitudes that they will need to succeed. The new curriculum, approach and objectives for teaching English, as well as approaches to teacher training and learner assessment, were developed to: • meet expectations for higher levels of achievement from the school programme; • promote learner-centred methodology; • create less dependence on transmission–oriented modes of teaching; • create less dependence on the textbook as the primary source of teaching and learning; • place less emphasis on a linguistic product being seen as the outcome of every lesson; • place greater emphasis on the role of English in continuing technological and economic development, and promoting knowledge of the world (ELCD, 1999). The ELCD announced the reforms in 1999 with the publication of the Curriculum Framework. Training for teachers had begun earlier (in 1996) when the ELCD’s training section started to instruct teachers and encourage them to teach the old syllabus using a learner-centred approach. Therefore, the reform was not a sudden change for teachers who had been teaching for some years in the Sultanate. This research investigated the effectiveness of the Primary Teachers’ Course (PRIT) in preparing and supporting English teachers in implementing the new national curriculum by analysing the training course design and the participants’ perceptions towards the course regarding the fulfilment of their needs, interests and expectations. There are different factors which need to be considered when planning a training course. This would help to shape a clear understanding of the course aims and philosophy. Below is a summary of the issues that Wallace (1991: 141–64) suggests as important. Table 1: Wallace’s Checklist (model)

Rationale: • training and educational philosophy • reasoned explanation of what kind of course (pre- or in-service? How long is the course? Level? Resources? Target Population? Admission requirements?

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Need for course?)

Aims and Objectives:

• What does the course intends to achieve? (objectives relate to the more general aims, are more specific and, ideally, measurable through assessment)

Principles:

• relate to overall course design (e.g. relevance to needs, to what extent/how the course provides a broad education, whether the course is fully professional/vocational)

Syllabus and Structure:

• What are main subject areas and the relationships between these? • What are the major strands/modules? • How are the units organised?

Progression: • How will a gradual increase in challenge be achieved?

Coherence:

• synchronic (links between modules) • sequential (logical progression)

Methodology:

• activities and tasks for participants • modes of input/procedures

Assessment: • Of what? How? When? By whom?

Course Evaluation:

• formative/illuminative (ongoing feedback for course improvement) • summative (end of course)

2. Method Wallace's model (1991) contains a list of issues that he suggests are important to consider in developing a training program. Wallace’s model is related directly to models of teacher training (Richards, 1998, p. 45). Wallace’s list was used in this study to develop criteria for evaluating the Primary Teachers’ Course (PRIT) for cycle 1 (grades 1-4) as it introduces the New National Curriculum for teaching English. The main criteria were: rationale; aims and objectives; syllabus and structure; progression; coherence; methodology; assessment; and course evaluation and its use as feedback to upgrade the course (Wallace, pp. 141–64). This study made use of a survey approach and collected data using document analysis, a questionnaire and interviews. Document analysis (Wallace, 1991; Krippendorff, 1980; Bell, 1999) was done by the researcher based on the Wallace checklist and then used to enable course participants to analyse the tasks, activities and documents used during the course. In order to ensure valid results, the questionnaire contained simple, direct language that was appropriate to the target participants (Swetnam, 2004). The questionnaire was piloted and further adjustment was made. The questionnaire consists of a number of section covering all training aspects: training and the new reform, aims and objectives of the course, course structure, involvement, resources available, input, assessment used, course evaluation and follow up after the course. After administering and analysing the questionnaire, interviews were held with three participants. 3. Participants The 22 survey participants came from three regions in Oman as they were having the course at the time of the study. Five of the teacher participants were from Muscat region, five from Musandam region and twelve from Wusta region. This group of participants was chosen to ensure that all were working with the same version of the training course which was analysed. The research questionnaire was given to participants at the end of the course. Participants in the study were both male and female teachers. Fifteen of the 22 participants were non-Omanis. Nine participants had been teaching from 1 to 5 years and another nine from 6 to 10 years. The other four had been teaching for more than 10 years. The non-Omani teacher participants, especially the males, had more teaching experience than the Omani teachers. 4. Findings 4.1 General comments It was found that the course covered most aspects of the new reform, including the child-centred approach, learning by doing, independent learning strategies and the activity-based approach. The course also introduced new practices such as teacher reflection, writing notes about what happened during a lesson and ways to support learners, after each lesson and new assessment procedures used in schools such using grades instead of marks and give more weight for the continuous evaluation. This training on assessment procedures was especially important because otherwise, the procedures might be interpreted differently by teachers with different

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backgrounds (Al-Jardani, 2002). The participants reported that the course helped them to understand the needs and interests of their learners based on their levels and ages. The participants also felt that the course did a good job of covering the relevant theoretical principles. However, the participants felt that more work was needed on practical skills. It was also found that teachers need basic skills in using computer applications as stated in the interviews. 4.2 Length of the course There seems to have been enough time for teachers to process the new reform and to understand issues related to teaching young learners. However, some of the teachers felt the long breaks in the middle of the program hindered the training. They were teaching in General Education Schools which still used the old curriculum, and they had trouble remembering some of the key concepts of the new curriculum as they were not using it. Others saw it as a good chance to process concepts and understand the new input they received. 4.3 Resources The trainer was an experienced teacher trainer and aware of the underlying principles of the new reform and the English for Me textbook curriculum that participants were preparing to teach. The training site had adequate facilities to achieve the training goals. However, most participants come from remote regions, and they said that they would have preferred to have the trainer visit them in their regions and observe their teaching situations. The teachers reported that all the required curriculum materials were available in time for the courses. The teachers also felt the trainers provided them with enough supplementary books for background reading and practical ideas. These included methodology books, practical techniques books and EFL course books. However, some participants still felt that more references were needed. The teachers also asked to have a borrowing system so that they could read at home. 4.4 Choice of Participants There was disagreement about whether teachers should be required to take the training course before teaching the new syllabus. New teachers join the school system every year. Because of delayed time-tabling in the schools, it is often not clear which courses new teachers will teach, and it is not always possible to train every new teacher at the beginning of the year. As a result some teachers have to teach before training. 4.5 Input The teachers seemed to be satisfied with the sequence of topics. They felt the activities used in the course were interesting and purposeful, and that the activities would ensure better understanding of learner behaviour and ways of supporting young learners. However, trainees also expressed a desire to analyse and evaluate the materials, activities not included in the course. Ellis (1986, p. 94) and Kouraogo (1987) have suggested that analysing and evaluating activities helps develop teachers’ awareness of materials they are going to work with. The teachers were of the opinion that the modes of input used within the course were varied and suitable. However, other modes of input (Ellis, 1986, p 92) could be added. They include video and audio recordings of actual lessons, transcripts of lessons, case studies and samples of pupils’ written work. These types of input would help bring the classroom and pupils into the training room. Micro-teaching was one type of activity and mode of input that the teachers did many times during the course. They seemed to be happy with it. However, they felt there was a need to do more classroom observation during school visits. This would help to ensure that they gain more practical experience as they observe other teachers and discuss practical issues with them after the lessons. 4.6 Assessment of participants The trainer’s reports on the participants’ performance during the training course covered most of the issues. The reports were based on the trainer's observations, assignments and reports on micro-teaching. However, the reports were generally not utilized within the schools by the supervisors or the senior teachers to help the teachers work to improve their reported weaknesses. The participants felt that the certificate given on completion of the course had a negative impact on their motivation. They saw no connection between the certificate and their performance evaluations. They also said that the format of the certificate should be changed to make it look more official. One way to increase the motivational effect of the certificate would be to use it as part of an evaluation process that could result in an offer of a longer contract for foreign teachers to teach in Oman.

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4.7 Formative feedback The effect of the formative feedback on the development of the course was clear. The teachers felt that their needs were considered and the course was carefully planned and adapted by the trainer based on their feedback. 4.8 On-going support This training course was only one aspect of the training the teachers receive. They generally receive on-going support from the senior English teachers in their schools, the supervisors and the regional teacher trainers once they start teaching. However, the course did not have any clear follow-up procedure. Trainers say that they sometimes visit the participants; however, it is left for the supervisors to support the teachers in schools. It should be possible to plan in a systematic way to visit some teachers, especially those who need more support. This could be worked out in coordination with the senior teachers or the supervisors of the schools. Another point to consider is that the course did not enrol practitioners other than teachers although there was a need to involve supervisors and significant others such as curriculum and assessment officers. Involving other relevant practitioners would have placed greater demands on the trainer to ensure rich and appropriate input and varied activities. Being involved with the course would have helped supervisors to become more aware of the new reforms in addition to involving them in doing actual tasks with the teachers. This would have given the supervisors the opportunity to get a better idea of the teachers’ strengths and weaknesses, and it help form good relationships between the supervisors and the teachers. If the senior teachers and the supervisors were provided with copies of the participants’ course reports, this would also help them to deal with specific needs identified by the trainers. 5. Discussion This section looks at specific changes which could be made to improve the training course. These include adapting some of the course items or adding new input which would cater for participants’ needs and interests. 5.1 Syllabus renewal and continuous revision of course materials The course was written more than eight years ago and has been updated partly based on the trainers’ ideas and backgrounds. There is a need for feedback from the course participants to be considered in revising the course. Support materials, especially recommended readings, also need to be updated. The readings and the articles now being given to the participants are more or less the same as in the past. There are also some changes related to teaching this level (cycle 1, grades 1-4) such as the new assessment procedure. The system of assessment needs more explicit focus in the training course. Participants are expected to receive two kinds of knowledge: subject matter knowledge and action system knowledge. The subject matter knowledge part of the syllabus includes revising some of the vocabulary and grammatical items in the curriculum. However, this was not covered at all. Even if we argue that teachers are mainly going to teach young pupils, they need to thoroughly grasp the target grammar and vocabulary items. Trainers need to consider both formative and summative feedback when planning new training courses. They need to consider the summative evaluation, the questionnaire they administered at the end of the course, to develop and plan a better course for the coming groups. 5.2 Case studies Teachers could be provided with case studies that would bring the real experiences of teachers who are teaching in schools into the training room. The case studies could focus on various aspects of teaching, including classroom management, self-assessment and the new assessment procedures. Inputs could be in the form of videos or readings. Such case studies can help participants reflect upon their understanding and observation of actual classroom experiences. Inviting teachers from similar educational contexts to discuss their practice with participants might also help the participants to gain greater insight into their teaching situation. 5.3 School visits Participants made some school visits. They observed teachers and discussed the lessons with them for less than two hours, and then returned to the training centre. Sometimes they observed lessons and left without having discussions with the teachers as they were asked to observe as many lessons as possible. Giving the participants more chances to observe the class level they were going to deal with, and providing more time for them to discuss and reflect using the input they gained from the training room, would have been helpful. Having participants teach at least one or two periods while being observed by the trainers, or the senior teacher of the school visited might have also helped them to link theory and practice. This could have been done in the last week for at least a full day.

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5.4 Classroom research In the future, teachers could be asked to carry out small-scale classroom-action research projects. They could collect classroom data to feed back into the course as part of their formative and summative evaluation. This would help to develop better teaching and assessment practice. 5.5 Reflective journals Asking teachers to do specific reading tasks and keep journals could feed back into the course, and contribute to their formative and summative evaluation. Writing journals and diaries can help teachers reflect and express their thoughts and expectations. 5.6 Length of the course Another consideration is the amount of time needed to bring about a transition by experienced teachers from a teacher–centred approach to learner–centred teaching. One hundred hours of training seem insufficient to help experienced teachers make such a major adjustment. 6. Limitations 6.1 The participants There was only one group of participants. Thus, the data is limited in scope. Some of the participants were from Muscat. However, most were teaching in remote regions. 6.2 The questionnaire Giving out the questionnaire at the end of the course and in the training room might have affected its validity. At the end of a course, when the training is still fresh, its long-term impact is not clear. Time is needed for participants to process the course and apply it in their classrooms. Giving out the questionnaire in the training room might also have affected participants’ responses. Participants were informed that their names would not be released. Only three participants who were absent have not returned the questionnaire. Some teachers were working as temporary teachers were in a weaker position. This may have seriously hampered their ability to respond frankly. Moreover, they might not have taken the questionnaire and interview seriously because they are on temporary assignment. 6.3 The Interview Just three participants, about 20% of the total group, were interviewed. The number was limited as interviews require a great deal of time to plan, carry out and to transcribe. They also involve choosing an appropriate time which suits both the researcher and the participants. After doing the interviews, the researcher felt that there are topics which needed further clarification. An example of that is that most participants indicated that they were happy with the support provided by the training course. The support included help in understanding new reforms such as child-centred learning and the activity-based approach. Participants who were interviewed should have been asked about their understanding of these issues and then been asked to provide specific examples. 7. Conclusion The success of the training course in increasing the understanding of the new reforms needs more investigation. All participants agreed that they understood learning by doing, the activity-based syllabus and learner-centred learning; however, as mentioned in the introduction, participants and other teachers in the schools have difficulty in applying these concepts. The course needs to be revised regularly to cater for the changing expectations and interests of the various participants. It should also provide more flexibility in the tasks, modes of input and assessment procedures that are used. A greater variety of reading material/resources should be available. The new reforms need to be considered as more than implementing a new course book. They involve a number of other issues, such as instructional technology and appropriate supplementary teaching materials. Teachers need to be trained in the use of these items as well. The course needs to expose participants to a rich reading selection related to methodology and teaching practice, to encourage them to engage in classroom research. Participants should be encouraged to keep their own reflective journals in which they record their thoughts on the training and school visits. Although the course seems to fit most of the participants’ expectations, needs and interests, trainers need to develop a system of continuous support and feedback based on the needs identified during the training periods. This needs to be focused on real teaching practice. This plan should be implemented co-operatively with other mentors, such as supervisors and senior teachers.

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References Al Jardani, K. (2002). Self-assessment in the classroom. In P. Deshpande (Ed.), Proceedings of the Second National ELT Conference. Curriculum, testing and new technologies in ELT. (pp. 128-132). Al Khoud, Oman: The Language Centre, Sultan Qaboos University. Bell, J. (1999). Doing your research project: A guide for first time researchers in education and social science (3rd ed.). Buckinghamshire: Open University Press. ELCD (1999). English language curriculum framework. Sultanate of Oman: The English Language Curriculum Department, Ministry of Education. Ellis, R. (1986). Activities and procedure for teacher training. ELT Journal, 40 (2), 91-99. Kouraogo, P. (1987). Curriculum renewal and INSET in difficult circumstances. ELT Journal, 41 (3), 171-178. Krippendorff, K. (1980). Content analysis: An introduction to its methodology. London: Sage. Richards, J. (Ed.). (1998). Beyond training: Perspectives on language teacher education. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Swetnam, D. (2004). Writing your dissertation: The bestselling guide to planning, preparing and presenting first-class work (3rd ed.). Oxford, UK: Cromwell Press. Wallace, M. (1991). Training foreign language teachers: A reflective approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Acknowledgment Thanks to: James Echelberry

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The Effect of Explicit Instruction of Discourse Markers on the Quality of Oral Output

Forough Rahimi Department of Foreign Languages, Shiraz Branch, Islamic Azad University, Shiraz, Iran

Email: rahimi.forough@yahoo.com

Mohammad Javad Riasati (Corresponding Author) Department of Foreign Languages, Shiraz Branch, Islamic Azad University, Shiraz, Iran

Email: mjriasati2002@yahoo.com

Received: 02-05- 2012 Accepted: 26-05- 2012 Published: 31-05- 2012 doi:10.7575/ijalel.v.1n.1p.70 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.7575/ijalel.v.1n.1p.70 Abstract The present study was an attempt to investigate the effect of explicit vs. implicit instruction of discourse markers (DMs hereafter) on learners’ oral production. To this end, 40 Iranian adult EFL learners (including both males and females) with the age range of 23 to 30 years of age were randomly selected. The sample was randomly divided into two equal groups with 20 members. The control group attending the speaking course received no explicit instruction on DMs, while participants in the experimental group attending the same course, received an explicit treatment on DMs. The experimental group received five sessions of explicit instruction on DMs, consuming 20 minutes of the class time. The data required for the study was collected through semi-structure interview with the participants of the study who spoke on similar topics. Results indicate that the participants in the control group who were exposed to implicit way of teaching discourse markers did not show to use discourse markers frequently. In contrast, the learners in the experimental group who received explicit instruction on discourse markers proved that they used discourse markers frequently in their speech. The final conclusion is that explicit teaching of discourse markers to learners in the experimental group was useful. Keywords: Discourse markers, explicit instruction, oral output 1. Introduction One of the important items for having a fluent use of English is using discourse markers which are a group of cohesive devices that cause the cohesion and smoothness of language. The omission of discourse markers in one's speech may cause his speech to seem dogmatic, impolite, boring, awkward to talk to, etc. As can be seen in native speakers’ oral discourse, plenty of various types of discourse markers with different roles are used. In other words, it is quite common for native speakers of every language to apply discourse markers (DMs) in their daily speech and that is why their speech seems quite spontaneous and smooth. As a matter of fact, discourse markers have the role of smoothing spontaneous interaction between speakers and also facilitating comprehension of the hearers. Thus, if L2 learners want to have a more natural and native-like speech, they should adopt DMs and apply them properly in their speech (Fuller, 2003). Several terms such as discourse marker (Schiffrin 1987), pragmatic marker (Fraser 1996), discourse particle (Schourup 1985), pragmatic particle (Östman 1981), pragmatic expression (Erman 1987), and connectives (Blakemore 1987) are coined and used by some researchers to name the linguistic items that are used as connectors of sentences in discourse. However, the term “Discourse markers” is the most common one employed by most researchers who work on English discourse. In spite of the argument on an appropriate term which can best describe these types of connectors, there is no doubt that DMs play a salient role in the organization of native speaker discourse. Schiffrin (1987) describes DMs as “sequentially dependent elements which bracket units of talk.” DMs can facilitate listener comprehension and help smooth spontaneous interaction between speakers through different roles. For example, you know is often used to show the importance of the information conveyed by the speaker, oh may be used to mark a speaker’s receipt of new information, and ok may serve as moving towards closure of speech. Considering the common use of discourse markers in everyday spoken discourse of native speakers and the important role that DMs play in the coherence and naturalness of speech, it can be concluded that they should be included in EFL classrooms as well. However, based on the previous research such as the one done by Shen Ying (1998) on DMs, reported that DMs are not included in the EFL curricula seriously in spite of the

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significant role they play in spoken discourse. As De Klerk (2005) mentions, it might be because of “their lack of clear semantic denotation and syntactic role, which makes formal or explicit commentary on their use fairly difficult”. Moreover, if an L2 speaker does not apply any DMs, native speakers cannot distinguish any grammatical errors. Hence, since DMs are not explicitly taught in classrooms and L2 speakers can speak grammatically without the employment of discourse markers, these cohesive devices are often invisible for L2 speakers who learn the language in a formal classroom setting. Generally speaking there is a lack of instruction on the use of DMs in formal language classrooms. Besides, the use of DMs is important in native discourse. Studies done on discourse markers so far have suggested that if an L2 speaker is more acculturated to the L2 culture or wants to sound more like a native speaker, he or she may pick up how “things are said” and adopt those “conventional expressions” (i.e. DMs) by the native speakers in the community (de Klerk, 2005; Hellermann and Vergun, 2007). Sankoff et al. (1997) also mention that the use of DMs is an ideal indicator of the extent to which an L2 speaker desires to be integrated into the local community because DMs are often not part of the traditional classroom curriculum and L2 speakers generally acquire these expressions through contact with native speakers. In other words, it is assumed that if an L2 speaker has more contact with the native speakers or desires to be assimilated in the their community, he or she will employ more use of discourse markers in comparison with those who do not. 1.2 Significance of the Study Regarding that it has been proved that DMs give a well-articulated organizational structure to speech, this study provides the researchers with a clear idea about how Iranian adult EFL learners might benefit to learn more about the importance and application of DMs in their speech. Research on the differences between English discourse produced by a native and non-native speaker (Tyler, 1992) has indicated that native speakers’ discourse contains a number of discourse structuring devices that make their speech more comprehensible to their listeners. However, a lack of discourse cues in non-native discourse creates communication problems for native listeners. Moreover, most studies done on DMs in Iran deal with the two skills listening and reading. On the other hand, little research has been done on speaking. 1.3 Statement of the Problem One of the important indices of second/foreign language learners’ communicative competence is the ability to form a coherent discourse and maintain discourse cohesion (McCarthy, 1993). Thus, if language learners want to develop connected and well-formed speech, they must develop the ability to use a range of cohesive devices, including discourse markers, in order to organize their oral discourse in a cohesive and smooth manner. However, it is observed that EFL learners often have various problems in organizing their sentences into a coherent unified whole (Shen Ying, 1998). This issue might be the result of the fact that each language has its own unique system of conveying meaning through oral discourse and since language learners try to transfer their L1 system into the L2 system, they have problems in managing their speech in a smooth and natural way. On the other hand, the lack of instruction on the appropriate use of DMs in EFL formal language classrooms is often observed and as a result, EFL learners who are mostly far from native speaker contexts and their language learning opportunities are restricted to class hours suffer from this lack of instruction (Shen Ying, 1998). Therefore, there is a need to deeply explore and distinguish EFL learners’ oral discourse to examine the way they try to convey meaning in English through the use of cohesive devices and also distinguish their problems. Then, through the instruction of these discourse markers, teachers can help them to get a better understanding of discourse markers and the way they are used to have a cohesive text in English. 1.4 Purpose of the study In order to help foreign language learners to develop their communicative competence and find out their problems in the complex process of interlanguage, English instructors need to distinguish learners’ ability to maintain discourse cohesion. Hence, this study, aimed at investigating Iranian adult learners’ use of a group of cohesive devices i.e. discourse markers in their English oral discourse and exploring if there is any erroneous use, underuse, or overuse of these cohesive devices. It is also aimed to explore the effect of explicit instruction of discourse markers on learners’ oral production. Moreover, the present study wants to determine the most frequent DMs used by learners in speaking and comparing them with the DMs which native speakers of English use in their daily speaking to observe the similarities and differences of them. Based on the purpose of the study, the research questions are as follows: 1. Do Iranian adult EFL learners who receive explicit teaching of discourse markers outperform those who

receive implicit teaching of discourse markers in speaking? 2. Do Iranian adult EFL learners have any underuse of discourse markers in their speaking? 1.5 Null Hypotheses In order to answer the above questions, the following null hypotheses were formed: H0-1. There is no difference between the speaking output of the Iranian adult EFL learners who receive explicit DM teaching and the Iranian adult EFL learners who receive implicit DM teaching. H0-2. There is no underuse of discourse markers in Iranian adult EFL learners’ oral production.

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2. Review of Literature 2.1 Overview Discourse markers (DMs), i.e. expressions like well, but, oh, and you know are linguistic items that function in discourses of various styles or registers. Fraser (1998: 301) calls discourse marker analysis “a growth market in linguistics.” Since the late 1980’s discourse markers have been studied in a variety of languages and examined in a variety of genres and interactive contexts, though many scholars do not agree on how to define them, even what to call them. Redeker (1991: 1168) calls them discourse operators and defines them as “a word or phrase, for instance, a conjunction, adverbial, comment clause, interjection that is uttered with the primary function of bringing to listener’s attention a particular kind of the upcoming utterance with the immediate discourse context.” Schiffrin who provides “an operational definition” defines DMs at a more theoretical level as “members of a functional class of verbal and nonverbal devices which provide contextual coordinates for ongoing talk” (1987: 41). Discourse markers play crucial roles in interactions (Carter and McCarthy 2006), and they have a high frequency of occurrence in spoken discourse. So far, extensive bodies of literature exist on discourse markers (Clark and Fox Tree 2002; Fraser 1990, 1996, 1999; Jucker and Ziv 1998; Schiffrin 1987, 1994; Schourup 1985; Fox Tree and Schrock 2002). However, scholars have no agreement regarding their classifications and functions. This disagreement has partly led to using multifarious terms by different scholars such as discourse marker (Schiffrin 2003), discourse particle (Gupta 2006; Schourup 1985) and pragmatic particle (Östman 1981; Wouk 1998). Also, Fung and Carter (2007:410) have noted that ‘relatively limited research has been undertaken on the range and variety of DMs used in spoken English by second or foreign language speakers’. However, in spite of this disagreement, there are numerous DMs which can be easily spotted in conversations. They are expressions like uh, um, yeah, and you know. Discourse markers are defined by Schiffrin (1987, p.31) as “sequentially dependent elements which bracket units of talk” and they often help to make interactions coherent by bringing together the different aspects of discourse in a meaningful way. According to Akande (2008, p.81), DMs are “peripheral to the syntax of the sentence or the clause they relate to since they can be omitted without causing any damage to the structure of the sentence or clause”. This means that DMs can be omitted and such omission does not affect the truth value of the proposition in the sentence or the clause. DMs are performance additions which convey various communicative intentions without which effective communication in spontaneous talks may be impaired (Levelt, 1989). According to Blakemore (2006, p.221), “this concept (i.e. discourse marker) is generally used to refer to syntactically heterogeneous class of expressions which are distinguished by their function in discourse and the kind of meaning they encode.” The basic denominator of all these is that DMs are communicative devices through which participants in conversations can negotiate meaning and cooperate with one another. Syntactically, DMs have peripheral roles and can be omitted without affecting the truth values of the propositions in which they occur (Rouchota, 1998). DMs are most of the time optional since they have no effect on the propositional contents of the utterances in which they occur. This is attested to by fact that the grammaticality of a sentence remains intact even after the DM in it is removed. The constituents of DMs can be a single word, a phrase or a clause (Gupta, 2006). Brinton (1996) points out that DM has been the most suggested name for “seemingly empty expressions found in oral discourse”, however, she proposes the term pragmatic markers, as pragmatic “better captures the range of functions filled by these items”. Although Brinton claims the fact that there has been little agreement on the items that can be called pragmatic markers, she compiles an inventory of thirty three markers that have received scholarly attention and suggests a broad number of characteristics typical of these words. Those characteristics were later taken up by Jucker & Ziv (1998) who reordered them to gain features that relate to the same level of linguistic description: phonological and lexical, syntactic, semantic, functional and sociolinguistic features. Since 1987, a great deal of attention has been focused on DMs. Three proposals were developed at roughly the same time; Schiffrin (1987), Blakemore (1987) and Fraser (1988). Schiffrin (1987) presents a very detailed analysis of DMs as linguistic expressions; she studies the semantic and grammatical status of these markers, their functions and characteristics. She maintains that DMs as one of the leading figures in the coherence group, contribute to the coherence of the text by establishing coherence relationships between units of talk (Schiffrin, 1987). Schiffrin gives a detailed analysis of twelve DMs in English: and, but, or, so, well, then, now, because, oh, well, youknow, and I mean. She claims that DMs can function on different levels of discourse structure (linguistic or non-linguistic). They can operate on the ‘ideational’ (informational) structure in the sense that they indicate relations between ideas in discourse or in other words, they mark the organization of ideas in discourse. For example, a DM such as but indicates that what follows it contrasts with what precedes it. They can also operate on the participation framework (discourse exchange and interaction) in the sense that they play a role in controlling the conversational labor between speakers and hearers as is the case with oh and well.

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2.2 Discourse Marker Use in Spoken Language With the growing interest in discourse analysis, in the past 15 years or so, an extensive body of pragmatic and linguistic research has been devoted to a functionally related group of expressions mostly referred to as discourse markers, which are also known by a variety of other competing names, such as pragmatic markers, discourse particles or discourse operators. In addition to the indeterminacy of terminology, scholars have no consensus in regard to the other fundamental issues of DMs, such as their definitions, classifications and functions. The controversy is still open to further elaboration (Lee and Jung, 2005). The status of well, you know, and I mean as DMs in speech is disclosed by Schiffrin’s (1987) preliminary study on DMs, which defines DMs as “sequentially dependent elements which bracket unit of talk.” Based on the conversational coherence-based functional approach, she examined eleven DMs in depth, among which well, you know and I mean are included. In addition, researchers such as Fox Tree and Schrock (1999) propose that the presence of DMs such as well and I mean is one of the most salient features of spontaneous talk. Considering that the use of DMs creates a naturalistic conversational effect, many novelists draw on the given trait to distinguish their descriptions of the setting or plot and the characters’ dialogue. For instance, Norrick (2001) examines Mark Twain’s “The notorious jumping frog of Calaveras county” to illustrate how the use of well lends verisimilitude to the oral narrative technique of a traditional storyteller. The fact that the early work on DMs focused predominantly on conversational items also reflects the close relationship between DMs and orality. All in all, DM use manifests one of the important dimensions of natural spoken discourse. Discourse analysts and language teachers can barely afford to ignore its significance in spoken language. 2.3 Explicit vs. Implicit Teaching and Learning Almost every language teacher will agree that the controversy of the effectiveness of explicit and implicit teaching has been questioned for decades. Some researchers agree that explicit teaching methods are more beneficial for language learners; some researchers agree that implicit teaching methods are more beneficial for learners; and some researchers believe that a combination of the two methods is beneficial for optimal learning (Lee and Jung, 2005). 2.4 Explicit Learning and Teaching Explicit learning is a “conscious awareness and intention” (Brown, 2007, p.291) to learn. In addition, explicit learning involves “input processing to find out whether the input information contains regularities, and if so, to work out the concepts and rules with which these regularities can be captured” (Brown, 2007, p.291). Explicit learning is an active process where students seek out the structure of information that is presented to them. Explicit teaching involves directing student attention toward a specific learning objective in a highly structured environment. Topics are taught in a logical order directed by the teacher through demonstration, explanation and practice. Explicit teaching also involved modelling thinking patterns. This involves a teacher thinking out loud while working through a “problem” to help students understand how they should think about accomplishing a task. The attention of students is very important since explicit teaching is very teacher-centered. Explicit teaching is closely related to deductive teaching, which means that rules are given before any examples are seen. The purpose of explicit teaching is: - Introducing a new topic or skill - Providing guided instruction for understanding rules, skills, and thinking - Giving students specific instruction through modelling, which allows students develop understanding through practice (Best et al., 2005). 2.5 Implicit Learning and Teaching Implicit learning is “learning without conscious attention or awareness” (Brown, 2007, p.291). In addition, implicit learning occurs “without intention to learn and without awareness of what has been learned” (Brown, 2007, p.292). Implicit learning is a passive process where students are exposed to information, and acquire knowledge of that information simply through that exposure. Some synonyms of implicit learning are: passive, unintentional, inductive, intuitive, automatic, subconscious acquisition, unreflective, behaviorism, mimicry and memory, exposure to language in use. Implicit teaching involves teaching a certain topic in a suggestive or implied manner; the objective is not plainly expressed. Implicit teaching is closely related to inductive teaching, which means that rules are inferred from examples presented first. It allows for students to create their own schemas for understanding rules instead of memorizing specific rules which enables long-term memory retention. The purpose of implicit teaching is:

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- Introducing new concepts in a student-centered manner - Giving students instruction with a variety of several examples, without teaching students the actual grammar rules (Burns and Mason, 2002). 2.6 The Relationship between SLA and Implicit and Explicit Learning and Teaching Many studies have been performed to determine which teaching technique is the most effective according to research results, and according to the Second Language Acquisition theory. A study by Robert DeKeyser reveals that “explicit and deductive learning is better than implicit for simple categorical rules” and “Implicit learning is equally good as or ever better than explicit learning for prototypes. In addition, many researchers have found that a combination of implicit and explicit learning may yield the best results. This is because every learner has a different learning preference, so it is necessary to vary one’s teaching method to optimally influence students. 2.7 Research on Discourse Markers Discourse markers have been much studied in the last twenty years; and different proposals and approaches have been developed on this subject. Fraser (1999) refers to their problematic and controversial nature. He points out that DMs have been studied by different researchers under different labels. According to Fraser researchers have agreed that DMs are lexical expressions that relate discourse segments, but they have disagreed on how they are defined and what functions they carry. While much work has been done in studying the acquisition of English morphology, syntax, and phonology by non-native speakers of English, there is a paucity of research on the acquisition of English DMs by English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners. Chaudron and Richards (1986) investigated how different categories of discourse markers affect the degree to which foreign students understand university lectures. They classified cues into macro and micro-markers. According to them, macro-markers are cues used to signal the relationship among main segments or to mark the major transition points in discourse (e.g. what I’m going to talk about today…) while micro-markers are cues employed to indicate inter-sentential relations or to function as pause fillers (e.g. and, so and well). The results showed that macro-markers more significantly helped the learners comprehend the lecture; on the other hand, the beneficial effects for micro-markers in this aspect were not found. Flowerdew and Tauroza (1995) replicate the study with certain remedies against the flaws aforementioned. They convincingly demonstrate that micro-markers facilitate comprehension of L2 oral texts and suggest that practitioners have been too quick in deemphasizing the importance of micro-markers for comprehension. According to Flowerdew and Tauroza (1995), the counterintuitive findings of Chaudron and Richards (1986) basically resulted from methodological drawbacks in the study design. For instance, the researchers used a scripted text instead of authentic lecture materials for the study. As a result, when the spoken micro-markers were inserted into the written text, they appeared artificial and redundant. In addition, the researchers segmented the text into units no longer than 6o to 90 second to allow their subjects time to complete cloze versions of the lecture. The inserted 40-second pauses at such junctures greatly reduced the risk of their subjects suffering information overload and therefore minimized significance of the markers. Vasilescu et al. (1998) investigated the role of discourse markers in interactive spoken question answering systems. Their study presents a preliminary analysis of the role of some discourse markers and the vocalic hesitation euh in a corpus of spoken human utterances collected with the RITEL system, an open domain and spoken dialog system. The frequency and contextual combination patterns of classical discourse markers and of the vocalic hesitation has been studied. This analysis highlights some specificities in terms of combination patterns of the analyzed items. They reported that the classical discourse markers seem to help initiating larger discursive blocks both at initial and medial positions of the ongoing turns. The vocalic hesitation also stands for marking the user’s embarrassments and wish to close the dialog. Schourup (1999) expresses similar views. He argues that there is disagreement on fundamental issues in the study of DMs. Researchers are unable to agree on the grammatical category of DMs or how to delimit their class or even what types of meaning these markers express. Anderson, et al. (1999) compare young children’s use of DMs affected by social variables such as age, gender and social class differences in three language communities: 18 middle-class, monolingual English-speaking American children aged 4-7, and the same number of middle-class French monolinguals from Lyon, France and Chicano bilingual children who live in a working class community in Southern California. The researchers find that children across language communities are sensitive to the social meanings conveyed by the use of different DMs even by the time they enter school. The data suggest that English-speaking children have acquired a fair degree of sophistication in how to use a variety of DMs to mark status asymmetry across a variety of situations and roles and to manipulate the social situation where the power relationships are not established.

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Fraser (1999) pointed out that the study of DMs has turned into a growth industry in the last ten years. Dozens of articles appear yearly focusing on the nature, meaning and function of DMs. Fraser (1999) investigates the past research and concludes that no clear definition has been given of DMs. He mentions an early reference by Levinson (1983) who considers DMs as a class of linguistic expressions worthy of study in its own rights. Heeman and Allen (2000) studied Speech Repairs, Intonational Phrases and Discourse Markers. This paper presents a statistical language model in which we redefine the speech recognition problem so that it includes the identification of POS tags, discourse markers, speech repairs and intonational phrases. This model is able to identify 72% of turn-internal intonational boundaries with a precision of 71%, 97% of discourse markers with 96% precision, and detect and correct 66% of repairs with 74% precision. Macaulay (2002) makes use of computerized transcription of speech to count the frequency of the use of DM you know in extended samples of speech from a stratified population. Two data-sets are collected: interviews recorded in Ayr and a set of same-sex conversations recorded in Glasgow. The implications suggested by this quantitative study include: The use of you know varies among individuals from similar backgrounds. Speakers are more likely to use you know in conversations with an acquaintance than in interviews with a stranger. Women are more likely to use you know than men. Adolescents have not yet developed the use of you know as a characteristic of their discourse style. And the use of you know does not appear to be primarily based on assumptions of shared knowledge. Fuller (2003) examines the use of the DMs you know, like, oh, well, yeah, and I mean in two speech contexts, i.e., interviews and casual conversations, to determine their role in marking and negotiating speaker roles. The two speech contexts in the study contrast in three main dimensions: speaker roles (asymmetrical vs. symmetrical), relative intimacy of the speakers (relative strangers vs. intimates), and relative formality of the speech event (semi-formal vs. casual). Based on Jucker and Smith’s (1998, cited in Fuller, 2003) study, the researcher classifies you know, like, well and I mean as presentation markers, which are predicted to appear less frequently in the conversation context than in the interviews; oh, and yeah are reception markers and are predicted to appear more frequently in the conversation data. However, based on the study findings, Fuller argues that well also has some feature of a reception marker Jung (2003) involved 80 Korean EFL learners to investigate the role of discourse signaling cues in L2 listening in hopes of answering the questions of whether and how the combination of macro and micro-markers affect L2 listening comprehension. The study demonstrated that the group listening to a lecture with cues recall significantly more high and low-level information when performing summary tasks than the group listening to a lecture without such cues from the lecture. Fung and Carter (2007) studied Discourse Markers use in Native and Learner. Their study examined and compared the production of discourse markers by native speakers and learners of English based on a pedagogic sub-corpus from CANCODE, a corpus of spoken British English, and a corpus of interactive classroom discourse of secondary pupils in Hong Kong. The results indicated that in both groups discourse markers serve as useful interactional manoeuvres to structure and organize speech on interpersonal, referential, structural, and cognitive levels. The Hong Kong learners are found to display a liberal use of referentially functional discourse markers (and, but, because, OK, so, etc.) but a relatively restricted use of other markers (yeah, really, say, sort of, I see, you see, well, right, actually, you know, etc.). Native speakers are found to use discourse markers for a wider variety of pragmatic functions and the study therefore also discusses some possible pedagogical implications involved in preparing learners to become more interactionaly competent speakers. Jung (2008) studied Discourse Markers in Cross-Cultural Conversation. Results showed that L2 learners need not only the necessary DMs means but also the ability to use those means in a socially effective manner. Akande (2009) studied Discourse markers in the spontaneous speech of Nigerian university graduates. This study examined the distribution and the use of discourse markers in the conversation of 30 Nigerian university graduates (NUGs) selected from three university towns; namely Ife, Kano and Nsukka. Evidence from a 30 hour recorded interview shows that discourse markers in the spontaneous speech of NUGs have different socio-pragmatic functions such as reparation, clarification and gap filling. It is found out that there is regional variation in the use of discourse markers between the Southwest (or Southeast) and the North. In addition, it is discovered that of the six discourse markers this study focuses on, uh is the most frequent while I mean is the least frequent in the spontaneous speaking of NUGs. Ramos (2010) performed a comparative study of the DM types in the body section of the research papers of DLSU students. Two English (Basic Research) classes at De La Salle University - Manila, each composed of between forty and forty-three students who were assigned to work in pairs, were selected. Classes were taken from two colleges. From the two research paper classes, thirty papers were collected. The papers were examined on the basis of what DMs types are predominantly used in the Body section of the students’ research papers.

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This study used Hyland and Tse’s Taxonomy of Textual and Interpersonal Metadiscourse (2004) and Halliday and Hasan’s (1976) concept of cohesion. Results reveal that the students from the College of Engineering who are required to write a descriptive research paper use the logical connectives of addition and contrast more than they use the other types of DMs. On the other hand, the students from the College of Liberal Arts, who are expected to turn in an argumentative research paper, show preference for the logical connectives of addition, contrast and consequence because the development of the ideas in the research paper needs to escalate into a level where they are supposed to present their contentions to the arguments that they are putting forth. 3. Method 3.1 Participants The participants were 40 randomly selected Iranian adult EFL learners, including both male and female learners with the age range of 23 to 30. They were preparing themselves for the speaking module of Academic IELTS through attending speaking courses held in Bahar Language Institute, Shiraz, Iran. All participants had studied English as a foreign language for 5-7 years before registering for this class. This could ensure the researchers that all the participants had received an approximately same level of instruction in English, and hence quite a homogeneous sample population in terms of English language proficiency is chosen. The sample was randomly divided into two equal groups with 20 members. The control group attending the speaking course received no explicit instruction on DMs, while participants in the experimental group attending the same course, received an explicit treatment on DMs. 3.2 Instrumentation Before attending the IELTS preparation courses, all of the Iranian participants of this study had taken an IELTS mock exam and had received a score between 6 and 6.5 to become eligible for participating in the IELTS courses. Hence, they were approximately at the same level of English language proficiency. On the other hand, regarding the use of discourse markers by the participants before the treatment, to minimize the individual differences and select a homogeneous sample, a pre-test was run. All the candidates had a conversation on a general topic selected by the researchers such as ‘the advantages and disadvantages of public transportation’ in pairs. This was done through a semi-structured interview by the researchers. Each participant talked about the selected topic for about three minutes. The participants' oral performances were recorded and then transcribed for the purpose of further analysis and comparison. The experimental group received five sessions of explicit instruction on DMs, consuming 20 minutes of the class time. At the end of the treatment, again, the candidates had a conversation on different topics in pairs as a post-test to elicit discourse markers from the participants to observe the difference in performance of the two groups, if any, which could be regarded as the effect of the explicit way of teaching DMs. 3.3 Procedures At first, to make the participants homogeneous, a pre-test was used to investigate the frequency and types of discourse markers used by the learners; i.e. they had a conversation on a general topic while their conversations were audio-recorded. Next, the recorded speech of candidates was transcribed for analysing their discourse markers use. The pre-test evaluations were recorded and the frequency of use of DMs used by each participant was calculated. Then, the 40 selected EFL learners on the basis of the pre-test were assigned to two IELTS speaking preparation classes. The course was held in 12 two hour sessions with 2 weekly meetings. In one of the classes, the teacher worked in 5 sessions on DMs explicitly i.e. he specified 20 minutes of the class hour to the instruction of discourse markers and students did some practice in order to make sure they had understood the application of the discourse markers properly, but in the other one, the class was held as usual with no explicit referring to DMs. It should be noted that the same teacher instructed the second class as well. At the end of the course, the post-test was conducted, audiotaped and transcribed to investigate if any significant difference was observed in the performance of the two groups. Finally, the results of the pre-test and post-test were compared through a t-test and a percentage rate. 4. Results and Discussion This section presents the results and statistical analyses of pre-tests and post-tests taken by both the experimental and the control groups. The obtained results have been summarized in related tables, followed by a discussion on the presented results.

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4.1 Results of t-tests of the experimental and control groups pre-tests Table 4.1 t-test results for both groups

Variable N M SD t df Significance

level Percentage of

DMs

Experimental 20 28.35 3.48 0.41 38 0.68 38%

Control 20 27.85 4.17

34%

As stated earlier, a pre-test was taken by both experimental and control group participants, to observe and compare the students' performances prior to the treatment. As can be seen form the table, there is a slight non-statistically significant difference between the performances of the experimental and control group on the pre-test. The results indicate that the learners were almost at the same level of English language proficiency, before the researchers started to test the effectiveness of the explicit way of teaching DMs on them. This will ensure us that all the participants in both groups were almost similar at the beginning stage, and any change in their performance is due to the effectiveness of the instruction under investigation. Moreover, the frequency of the use of DMs in both the experimental and control groups' oral productions were calculated. The percentage rates obtained show that Iranian adult EFL learners do not show a considerable degree of using discourse markers in their speech. In other words, the presented data illustrate that there is an underuse of DMs in the learners' oral production. This data will be used as a means of comparison after the results of post-tests are presented, to see if the explicit way of teaching DMs can effectively escalate their degree of use in the learners' oral performances. 4.2 Results of t-tests of the control group's pre-test and post-test Table 4.2 t-tests of the control group's pre-test and post-test

Variable N M SD t df Significance

level

Pre-test 20 27.85 4.17 0.60 19 0.55

Post-test 20 27.40 3.85

As can be seen in the table, there is no statistically significant difference between the performance of the control group in the pre-test and post-test, which can make us conclude that the implicit way of teaching DMs has not been effective (Significance level 0.001). Students do not show a noticeable progress with regard to this instruction. It seems that the implicit instruction on DMs cannot enhance learners' attention and cannot draw their attention to the instruction being taught. So, they will not notice that the teacher is teaching some DMs that are considered to be important for the improvement of oral fluency. As a result, learning is not enhanced. Therefore, we can draw the conclusion that the implicit technique on teaching DMs has not been useful for the development of the learners' oral production. 4.3 Results of t-tests of the experimental group's pre-test and post-test Table 4.3 t-tests of the experimental group's pre-test and post-test

Variable N M SD t df Significance

level

Pre-test 20 28.35 3.48 6.79 19 0001.0

Post-test 20 32.10 3.87

The analysis of the obtained data indicates a significant difference between the pre-test and post-test of the experimental group at the significance level of 0.0001. This shows that there is a significant difference in the performance of the experimental group, when they receive the instruction on the DMs explicitly as compared to the case when they receive the instruction implicitly. The data show that when the students are taught explicitly,

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their use of DMs increases in their speech. The results of the post-test of the participant in the experimental group also show that they have benefited from the explicit instruction on teaching DMs. 4.4 Results of t-tests of the experimental and control groups' post-test Table 4.4 t-tests of the experimental and control groups' post-test

Variable N M SD t df Significance

level Percentage of

DMs

Experimental 20 32.10 3.87 3.84 38 0.0001

69%

Control 20 37.40 3.85 37%

This table shows the results of data analysis and the comparison of the control and the experimental groups post-tests. The results mark a significant difference between the performances of these two groups on the post-test (Significance level 0.005). The participants in the control group that have received the instruction on DMs implicitly do not show a progress in the use of DMs in their speech. The participants in the experimental group, on the other hand, mark a great advance in the post-test. It means that receiving the explicit instruction on DMs, has positively and significantly affected their oral performance. In other words, the participants in the experimental group have outperformed those in the control group, and this indicates the effectiveness of explicit instruction on DMs to Iranian adult EFL learners. A comparison made between the frequency of use of DMs between the participants in the experiment group and those in the control group also marks a difference. The post-test data show that the participants in the experimental group have used DMs more in their speech as compared to the participants in the control group, and as compared to their performance on their own pre-test. The frequency of use of DMs in the speech of the participants in the experimental group is 38% in the pre-test. But after receiving the explicit technique of teaching DMs, it is increased to 69%. It is concluded that the learners use DMs more often in their speech after they are taught explicitly. 4.5 Summary Table 4.5 summarizes the results of the t-tests run to compare the performances of the experimental and control groups when they receive implicit vs. explicit instruction on DMs. Table 4.5 Summary of t-tests results for both groups

Variable N M SD t df Significance level

Percentage of DMs

Pre-test E 20 28.35 3.48

0.41 38 0.68

38%

Pre-test C 20 27.85 4.17

34%

Post-test E 20 32.10 3.87 3.84 38 0.0001

69%

Post-test C 20 37.40 3.85 37%

The results show that the participants in the experimental group have outperformed the participants in the control group when they have received the explicit instruction on DMs. Therefore, it can be concluded that they have benefited from the explicit instruction on DMs. It is observed that the performance of the participants in the control group has not changed significantly. So, the implicit instruction on DMs has not been effective for the learners to improve their speaking skill. This may lead us to conclude that the explicit instruction on DMs can be more beneficial as compared to implicit instruction. Moreover, the data show that the learners do not show a great use of DMs in their speech when they receive no instruction, or the implicit instruction, on DMs (38% for the participants in the experimental group's pre-test,

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34% for the participants in the control group's pre-test, and 37% for the participants in the control group's post-test). On the contrary, they have used a greater number of DMs in their speech when they are taught DMs directly and explicitly (69% for the participants in the experimental group's post-test). This increase in the frequency of use of DMs is attributed to the explicit instruction on DMs that the learners have received. This contributes to the development of EFL learners' oral fluency skills. 5. Conclusions In this section, the two research questions raised in the first chapter will be answered one by one.

1. Do Iranian adult EFL learners who receive explicit teaching of discourse markers outperform those who receive implicit teaching of discourse markers in speaking?

The first research question of the study sought if there is any difference between learners’ use of discourse markers between those who received explicit instruction and those who were exposed to implicit type of instruction. Results of the study proved that the participants in the experimental group who received explicit instruction on discourse markers made more frequent use of them in their oral production. On the contrary, the learners who were in the control group and received implicit instruction did not use discourse markers frequently in their speech. Put it simply, the participants in the experimental group outperformed those in the control group. This could be attributed to the effect on explicit instruction of discourse markers to language learners. This shows that the explicit teaching of discourse markers to learners could be beneficial to them and increases their performance. Trillo (2002) and Muller (2005), too, believe that a general neglect of knowledge of DMs in the foreign language teaching curriculum seems to be unjustifiable. Such being the case, the first null hypothesis of the study, which states that there is no difference between the speaking output of the Iranian adult EFL learners who receive explicit DM teaching and the Iranian adult EFL learners who receive implicit DM teaching, is rejected.

2. Do Iranian adult EFL learners have any underuse of discourse markers in their speaking? The second research question of the study investigated if Iranian EFL learners use sufficient number of discourse markers in their speaking. The results demonstrate that learners who took part in the study did not use discourse markers frequently in their speech. The results of pre-tests and also the performance of the control group who received no explicit instruction on DMs indicate that the learners do not use DMs very often in their speech. However, the results of the post-test showed that the participants used more discourse markers in their speech. This can be the result of the explicit instruction they were exposed to during the treatment. To conclude, the second null hypothesis of the study which states that there is no underuse of discourse markers in Iranian adult EFL learners’ oral production, is rejected. 6. Pedagogical Implications Several implications can be drawn from the present study:

1. One implication for language teachers is that any kind of explicit instruction can be more useful and productive that the implicit type. As the results of the study proved, the participants in the experimental group who were exposed to explicit instruction on DMs outperformed those in the control group who got implicit instruction on DMs. 2. Another implication for language teachers is that discourse markers had better be taught explicitly rather than implicitly. As findings of the study proved, the language learners who got explicit instruction on discourse markers showed a better performance in comparison with those who were taught implicitly. Moreover, language teachers are recommended to teach language learners discourse markers since it was shown in the study such knowledge would help learners make more use of discourse markers, which will thus lead to a better performance in their speaking skill. 3. Language learners are also advised to make themselves familiar with discourse markers and their applications in their speech. Such knowledge will help them boost their knowledge of discourse markers and hence their oral performance.

References Akande. A. T. (2009). Discourse markers in the spontaneous speech of Nigerian university graduates. Lagos Papers in English Studies, 4, 28-37. Anderson, E. S., Brizuela, M. Dupuy, B. & Gonnerman, L. (1999). Cross-linguistic evidence for the early acquisition of discourse markers as register variables. Journal of Pragmatics 31, 1339-1351. Anstey, M. (1998). ‘Being explicit about literacy instruction’. The Australian Journal of Language and Literacy. 2, 1, 200-206.

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Best, R.M., Rowe, M., Ozuru, Y., & McNamara, D.S. (2005). Deep-level comprehension of science texts: The role of the read and the test. Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, 25, 1, 65-83. Blakemore, D. (2002). Relevance and linguistic meaning: The semantics and pragmatics of discourse markers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Blass, R. (1990). Relevance relations in discourse. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Brinton, L. (1996). Pragmatic markers in English: Grammaticalization and discourse functions. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Burns, R.B., & Mason, D.A. (2002). Class composition and student achievement in elementary schools. American Educational Research Journal, 39(1), 207–233. Chaudron, C. & Richards J. (1986). The effect of discourse markers on the comprehension of lectures. Applied Linguistics 7, 113-127. Feng, L. (2010). Discourse markers in English writing. The Journal of International Social Research, 3, 11, 299-305. Flowerdew, J. & Tauroza, D. (1995). The effects of discourse markers on second language lecture comprehension. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 17, 435-458. Fox, J., E. Schrock. (2002). Basic meanings of you know and I mean. Journal of Pragmatics 34, 727-747. Fraser, B. (1988). Types of English discourse markers. Acta Linguistica Hungarica 38, 1, 19-33. Fraser, B. (1990). An approach to discourse markers. Journal of Pragmatics 14, 383- 395. Fuller, J. M. (2003). The influence of speaker role on discourse marker use. Journal of Pragmatics 35, 23-45. Fung, L and R, Carter. (2007). Discourse markers and spoken English: Native and learner use in pedagogic settings. Language Teaching Research 11, 2, 159-182. Heeman, P and J, Allen. (2000). Speech repairs, intonational phrases and discourse markers: Modeling speakers’ utterances in spoken dialogue. Computational Linguistics, 25, 4. 80-122. Hussein, M. (2005). Two accounts of discourse markers in English. Journal of Pragmatics, 49, 75-86 Jucker, A., & Ziv, Y. (1998). Discourse markers: Descriptions and theory. Amsterdam/ Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Jung, E. H. (2003). The role of discourse signaling cues in second language listening comprehension. The Modern Language Journal, 87, 562-576. Jung, J. (2008). Discourse markers in cross-cultural conversation. Working Papers in TESOL & Applied Linguistics, 8, 2, 1-4. Lee, B. and Jung, C. (2005). Discourse marker teaching in college conversation classrooms: Focus on well, you know, I mean. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lenk, Uta. (1998): Marking discourse coherence: Functions of discourse markers. Tubingen: Gunter Narr Verlag. Lewis, Diana M. (2003). "Rhetorical motivations for the emergence of discourse particles, with special reference to English of course". In Ton van der Wouden, Ad Foolen and Piet Van de Craen (eds.) Particles (Belgian Journal of Linguistics vol. 16). Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 79-91. Macaulay, R. (2002). You know, it depends. Journal of Pragmatics 34, 749-767. Nadie, A. (2007). The use of discourse markers in three academic lectures. Asian EFL Journal 9(1), 22-38. Ramos, J. (2010). A comparative study of the discourse marker types in the body section of the research papers of DLSU students. TESOL Journal, 2, 62-73. Redeker, G. (1990). Ideational and pragmatic markers of discourse structure. Journal of Pragmatics 14(3), 367-81. Schiffrin, D. (1986). Discourse markers: Studies in interactional sociolinguistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Schiffrin, D. (1987 ). Discourse markers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Schourup, L. (1999). Discourse markers. Lingua 3(4), 227-265. Smith, Sara W. & Andreas H. Jucker (2000). Actually and other markers of an apparent discrepancy between propositional attitudes of conversational partners. In G. Andersen & T. Fretheim (eds.) Pragmatic Markers and Propositional Attitude. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

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Tateyama, Y., Kasper, G., Mui, L., Tay , H., & Thananart, O. (1997). Explicit and implicit teaching of pragmatic routines. In L. Bouton (Ed.), Pragmatics and language learning, Vol. 8 (pp. 163–177). Urbana, IL: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign University Press. Vasilescu, I., S, Rosset and M, Decker. (1998). On the role of discourse markers in interactive spoken question answering systems. Journal of Pragmatics, 30, 485-496.

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Politics of Food, the Culinary and Ethnicity in Ruth Ozeki’ My Year of Meat: An Ecocritical Reading

Saeed Kalejahi Department of English language and Literature, Tabriz Azad University

PO box 51575-5311, Tabriz, Iran Tel: +989395815274 Email: kalejahi@gmail.com

Received: 06-05- 2012 Accepted: 28-05- 2012 Published: 31-05- 2012 doi:10.7575/ijalel.v.1n.1p.82 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.7575/ijalel.v.1n.1p.82

Abstract The Canadian-American-Japanese writer and filmmaker Ruth Ozeki’ My year of Meat is built around one major nutritional source—protein or meat or, more exactly, beef. Applying an ecocritical method, but at the same time trying to not fall into the trap of mere ideology, the present article explores the question of authenticity and representation of politics of food, culinary and ethnicity in the aforementioned novel. In the following essay I will argue that in her novels, Ruth Ozeki employs a three-step narrative strategy: invocation, subversion, and redefinition. The problem Ozeki addresses in this novel is that of disclosing the invisible reality behind the visible surface of that which poses as the real. In doing so she moves the problem of authenticity beyond the realm of ethnic and culinary culture. Rather than examining it as a form of ethnic “self-exoticization” or treating it merely as a fiction about cultural purity, she presents the authentic as an indispensable attribute of an ecologically viable culture and as a marker of representational sincerity in a globalized media economy. Keywords: ethnicity, ethics, hybridity, the culinary, representation, authenticity, inauthenticity intranarrative, resignification 1. Genealogy The author of My Year of Meat (1998) and All Over Creation (2003), Ruth L. Ozeki built each of her two novels around one major nutritional source—protein and starch, or more tangibly, meat and potatoes. Plotting her stories along the culinary practices, economic systems, and social habits associated with these foods, and locating them in a transnational and multicultural context, Ozeki (who began her artistic career as a documentary filmmaker) emerged as a writeri during a time when food and ethnicity were gaining currency on the international book and media markets as subjects that promised experiences of authenticity. Witness the publication of novels and culinary autobiographies such as Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s Mistress of the Spices (1997), Ruth Reichl’s Tender at the Bone (1998), Ntozake Shange’s If I Can Cook, You Know God Can (1998), and David Wong Louie’s The Barbarians Are Coming (2000); the resurgent interest in the writing of food journalist M.F.K. Fisher or “vibration” cook Vertamae Smart-Grosvenor; the popularity and international box office success of films such as Ang Lee’s Eat Drink Man Woman (1994) and Sandra Nettelbeck’s Bella Martha (2001). All of these texts are concerned with issues of self-identity and cultural authenticity— be it Chinese, Indian, Jewish, Southern Black American, Italian, or German—as they manifest themselves through figures of the culinary. A similar list could be provided for studies on the history of food and the cultures of eating and drinking. Books like Sidney Mintz’ Tasting Food, Tasting Freedom (1996) come to mind here, or Mark Bradford McWilliams’ yet unpublished but highly informative dissertation From Sustenance to Resonance: Food as Metaphorical Identity in the Nineteenth-Century American Novel (2002), two studies that, like Doris Witt’s Black Hunger (1999) and Eric Schlosser’s Fast Food Nation (2001), investigate the relationship between “food and the politics of U.S. identity” (Witt, 1999). Denise Gigante’s Taste: A Literary History (2005) investigates the metaphoric links between “aesthetic taste and the more substantial phenomena of appetite” (3), a relationship that found its early roots in Milton, became of primary interest to philosophers and poets during the age of (English) Romanticism, and continues to be relevant for understanding some of the cultural mechanisms in modern consumer societies. This upsurge of artistic, literary, scholarly and popular interests in food issues can be read as one version of the phenomenon that Hal Foster described as “the return of the real,” a phrase that refers to the grounding of artistic and theoretical discourses in the materiality of objects, bodies, events, and social sites rather than in concepts of culture as simulacrum, text, or electronic media event. This brings us back to Ruth Ozeki. For putting meat at the symbolic center of her first, and potatoes at the symbolic center of her second novel points at the significance of the real, material stuff of everyday life for the formation of individual and cultural identities. In an interview she gave after the publication of All Over Creation, Ozeki acknowledged her interest in “meat and potatoes, hamburgers and French fries” as “the staples of the

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American diet. We are,” she said, “a nation of meat and potatoes. When you’re writing a novel, you want to write about issues of identity—in this case, national identity” (Clyne 2003). The meat-and-potato metaphor utilized by Ozeki to describe national identity evokes questions about the pathos of authenticity inscribed in that figure. Take, for example, the description of the San Francisco-based band Red Meatii as a group of musicians “play[ing] country music the old-fashioned meat-and-potatoes way” (Arnold 2001). Their songs, as another critic observed, “bear an uncanny resemblance to real country music,” thereby drawing attention to the fact that what may sound like “pure unadulterated country of the Bakersfield honky tonk variety” (Joulie 2002) is a musical style adopted to produce and simultaneously subvert, through the application of humor and comic twists in the lyrics, the nostalgia for a past when life was still as simple as a country western song. In the following essay I will argue that in her novels, Ruth Ozeki employs a narrative strategy akin to lyrical one deployed by Red Meat: invocation, subversion, and redefinition. For reasons of space, I will concentrate my analysis on My Year of Meat. The problem Ozeki addresses in this novel is that of disclosing the invisible reality behind the visible surface of that which poses as the real. In doing so she moves the problem of authenticity beyond the realm of ethnic and culinary culture. Rather than examining it as a form of ethnic “self-exoticization”iii or treating it merely as a fiction about cultural purity, she presents the authentic as an indispensable attribute of an ecologically viable culture and as a marker of representational sincerity in a globalized media economy. 2. Representations Responding to the question of why she writes so much about food, Ozeki claims that “food is our fundamental identity” (Clyne 2003). Further elaborating on that notion and taking American culture as her representative example, she discloses the interplay of the material and the discursive that shape the culinary fundament of contemporary notions of self: When you trace the chain of production of something as simple as a potato, you start to realize that in every bite, every mouthful you chew and swallow, you are taking into your body a series of decisions that you really have no idea about. You think you’re simply eating a french fry, but in fact, that fry is the result of a series of decisions that have been made by the Food and Drug Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency, by corporations and scientists, by marketing agencies and PR firms, and it’s hugely complicated. So this idea that the political is the personal, and the personal is political becomes very real. The key phrase that prevents Ozeki from lapsing into a new, culinary essentialism is “you are taking into your body a series of decisions.” But equally significant is the fact that these “decisions” materialize as the things we eat, and as such they wear the mask of the natural. This is the conceptual and thematic focus of Ozeki’s novels. Taking the ethnic and cultural complexity of the United States for granted and acknowledging the social, political, emotional, and familial conflicts that occur within a multicultural society, she examines the figure of a racially and culturally mixed American self as it is defined and redefined through its relationship to nature. And she does so through the lens of food imagery.iv In her novels Ozeki counterbalances a potentially nostalgic approach to nature as the most authentic anchor of American nationality with a narrative structure that exposes the ethical and aesthetic implications of nature’s reality as a dish. This strategy allows Ozeki to simultaneously question the authenticity of nature as a socially and culturally normative absolute and to acknowledge the absolute value of nature as a concept indispensable for an ecological critique of instrumental reason. Ozeki employs meat and vegetables as tropes that simultaneously gesture towards the real and the symbolic, i.e., to the past and present nature of animal, plant, and human bodies, as well as to the existence of these bodies after their entry into the symbolic world of America as it unfolds in the literary and cultural history of the United States. As technologically enhanced beef, cows are no longer animals but the things Ozeki’s characters eat (or refuse to eat), thus representing human culture’s most immediate mode of incorporating nature. At the same time, beef and potatoes are meaningful emblems of America’s cultural self-identification, referencing the historical narratives of the continent’s European colonization, the mythology of the cowboy, the ideology of Manifest Destiny, and the stories of Irish and Polish immigration. Ironically though, the potato, while indigenous to the Americas, has never achieved the same symbolic currency as an authentic medium of U.S. culture as has beef, the signature ingredient of the fast-food nation’s core staple.v The consumption of bovine meat also acquired a hardly noticed poetic value in the wake of Walt Whitman’s salutation of the body as “a locus of democratic energies” (Erkkila 1989: 177). “How is it I extract strength from the beef I eat?” asked Whitman in Song of Myself, immediately continuing his existential inquiry: “What is a man anyhow? What am I? What are you?” (Whitman 1983: 37-38). The inquisitive poet puzzles over questions of identity. He does not know what constitutes his humanity, his sense of self. And even though he may not know how, he does know that the flesh of a slaughtered full-grown steer, bull, ox or cow invigorates his body. With a few strokes of the poet’s pen, beef becomes the source of America’s democratic vitality, a poetic legacy that

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Ruth Ozeki revisits in My Year of Meat, her 1998 debut novel. The title of the novel refers to a year in the life of aspiring documentary film maker Jane Takagi-Little, the author’s fictional alter ego as well as the novel’s protagonist and primary narrator. Growing up in the 1960s and 70s as the daughter of a Japanese mother and the descendant of “weather-beaten Anglo-Saxon farmers” (147) on her father’s side, Jane describes herself, in an allusion to Grant Wood’s famous painting, as “An American Gothic gone wrong” (ibid.). Because Jane needs money, she accepts a job as coordinator and location scout for a nameless Japanese TV production company commissioned to create a commercial program for promoting American meats in the Asian market. Sponsored by BEEF-EXvi, “a national lobby organization that represented American meats of all kinds—beef, pork, lamb, goat, horse—as well as livestock producers, packers, purveyors, exporters, grain promoters, pharmaceutical companies, and agribusiness groups” (9-10), the program, airing as a reality show called My American Wife!, is packaged as a look into the kitchens of ordinary American families. Jane’s bosses at the TV production company translate BEEF-EX’s6, mandate “to foster among Japanese housewives a proper understanding of the wholesomeness of U.S. meats” (10) into a prescriptive list of parameters for representing American cultural authenticity. In a series of memos faxed across the Pacific (the novel is set in 1991, the pre-email era) the “desirable things” (11) in an American wife are seen as her “attractiveness, wholesomeness, warm personality” (11), which are considered to be enhanced by an “attractive, docile husband” and “attractive, obedient children” (12). These couples are then expected to live an “attractive, wholesome lifestyle” in an “attractive, clean house” with “attractive friends and neighbors” (12). “Undesirable things” that should not appear in My American Wife! are “physical imperfections,” “obesity,” “squalor” and “second class peoples” (12). And most importantly, the meat of choice is beef: “(NOTE: Pork and other meats is second class meats, so please remember this easy motto: ‘Pork is Possible, but Beef is Best!’)” (12). In addition to neutralizing its claim to representing authentic American culture, the excessive repetition of the demand for “attractiveness” points towards the burlesque as the narrative mode in which Ozeki exposes the racism, classism, sexism, and trophism (i.e., the privileging of one nutritional resource over all others) of the show. When the representational prescriptions meet with resistance from Jane Takagi-Little and some of the American members of the crew, the production company seeks to make amends, but in fact corroborates existing stereotypes: NOTE ON AMERICAN HUSBANDS—Japanese market studies show that Japanese wives often feel neglected by their husbands and are susceptible to the qualities of kindness, generosity, and sweetness that they see as typical of American men. Accordingly, our wives should have clean, healthy-looking husbands who help with the cooking, washing up, housekeeping, and child care. The Agency running the BEEF-EX advertising campaign is looking to create a new truism: The wife who serves meat has a kinder, gentler mate. (12-13) The “NOTE ON RACE & CLASS” justifies racism and classism, insisting that “the average Japanese wife finds a middle-to-upper-middle-class white American woman with two to three children to be both sufficiently exotic and yet reassuringly familiar” (13). And finally, the “NOTE ON ALL-AMERICAN VALUES” maintains that in the globalized economy of the 1990s, in which Japan was emerging as a major technological player, things such as “a spanking-new refrigerator or automatic can opener” represent the values of a post-WWII “old-fashioned consumerism” and, therefore, need to be replaced with “contemporary wholesome values, represented not by gadgets for the wife’s sole convenience but by good, nourishing food for her entire family. And that means meat” (13). It is important to point out that these notes on gender, race, class, and national values are actually written by Jane Takagi-Little in order to “convey” (12) the TV production company’s views on representational politics to her American “Research Stuff” (12). Mimicking the tone of the original memos, Jane’s texts push the originals to their surrealistic limits. In addition, they identify the narrator as a person whose “cynical reason” (Sloterdijk) helps her to simultaneously fulfill the requirements of her job and articulate her frustration about the fact that although she became “a documentarian partly in order to correct cultural misunderstanding” (88-89) she now actively participates in cultural deception. Initially, Jane submits to representing a racially, socially, and sexually homogenized America, but she uses every opportunity to ridicule the idea that American cultural authenticity rests on the notion of white American middle-class wholesomeness. One way for her to do so is to suggest the inclusion in the program of recipes such as the one for “BEEF FUDGE,” made out of “2 cups white sugar / ½ cup ground beef / 1 cup brown sugar / 3 tablespoons butter / ½ cup white corn syrup / 2 oz. unsweetened chocolate / ½ cup milk / ½ cup walnuts / 1 teaspoon vanilla” (183-84). Jane ends the fax in which she presents this recipe to her Japanese boss, Joichi “John” Ueno, by asking him “Doesn’t this sound delicious?” and signing off “Sincerely, J.Takagi- Little” (184).

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This passage is an important key for unlocking some of the poetological and philosophical concerns of the novel. Here and in the immediate textual environment, Jane Takagi-Little, the autodiegetic narrator, exposes her increasing discomfort as the inhabitant of the Weberian “iron cage” of economic necessity, a location in which she is expected to relinquish the ethical imperative of representational sincerity as a documentarian for a negative ethics of marketability.vii In order to preserve her sense of self amidst the insane obligations of her work life, Jane initially adopts a style of satirical exaggeration and mock sincerity reminiscent of postmodern strategies of psychological self preservation and cultural representation. Yet she eventually realizes that cynicism, while it may preserve her psychological integrity as an individual, a biracial American, and a coordinator-cum-director working for corporate TV, it does not solve the problem of advancing her skills and her professional goals as a documentarian. Venting her anger about the “BEEF-EX people” to her lover, she complains: They don’t want their meat to have a synergistic association with deformities. Like race. Or poverty. Or clubfeet. But at the same time, the Network is always complaining that the shows aren’t ‘authentic’ enough. Well, I’ve been saying if only they’d let me direct, I’d show them some real Americans. (57) Determined to replace the faux authenticity decreed by the American meat lobby and corroborated by the Japanese TV production company with images of another American reality, Jane begins to deconstruct the imagined wholesomeness of the white, beef-consuming, middle American family by shifting the series’ focus to people whose lives do not neatly match the prescribed framework of physical attractiveness and social respectability. The America she shows is inhabited by black families; families with ten children, eight of whom are adopted and of ethnic and national backgrounds different from that of their parents; families with physically disabled children, who prefer lamb to beef, (“Lamb was Lovable” but “un-American,” 140/164); interracial lesbian families who “like meat, like the taste of it, but […] would just never eat it the way it’s produced here in America” (177). What Dyann, one of the lesbian wives, is referring to is a meat production system that relies on the illegal use of a growth hormone called diethylstilbestrol (DES), and on dubious practices of fattening cattle on factory-like feedlots where recycled animal proteins are the future mad cow’s common staple, and even manure becomes part of the diet, a feeding method that is cynically described by one of the novel’s characters as the epitome of organic waste disposal. Dyann’s remarks catch Jane’s attention and prompt her to investigate the system of industrial meat production in the United States. Thus begins the narrator’s gradual transformation from self-described “cultural pimp” to investigative documentarian. An entry in her diary records the self-conscious quality of this process: Went to the library and found more books on the meat industry. The DES stuff was only the tip of the iceberg. Why didn’t I pursue this? I call myself a documentarian, but I’ve learned almost nothing about the industry that’s paid for the shows. Paid me for these shows. (202) Once Jane’s awareness is raised, the narrative moves out of the American kitchen, away from the family dining table, and into American feedlots, thus not only shifting its thematic attention from the scene of food preparation and consumption to the scene of food production, but also abandoning the classic locations of the ethnic food novel and the culinary autobiography. To the extent that the narrator becomes aware of her own implication in the dubious and absolutely unsavory practices of industrial meat production, the novel develops a metanarrative concern for what Jane calls “the ethics of representing” (211). When her Japanese boss, Ueno, insists on focusing the show on beef, Jane notes in her diary: Ueno wants beef, and beef he shall have. […] So here we go. I will probe [the meat industry’s] stinking heart and rub Ueno’s nose in its offal. No more fudge. I’m thinking slaughterhouses for the next show. A meat-packin’ mama in Chicago, perhaps? Or a feedlot family? (202) In addition to their immediate function of signifying modes of meat preparation and meat production, the “fudge” and the “slaughterhouses” in Jane’s verbal rant symbolize modes of literary and cultural representation—the culinary burlesque described earlier in this paper on the one hand, and, on the other hand, the poetic fusion of fact and fiction adopted by literary muckrakers like Upton Sinclair or Rachel Carson. As the narrator (and her author) feel the need to switch representational modes from satire to (fictionalized) documentary, they find themselves confronted with the task of reconfiguring and reauthorizing authenticity as an expression of veracity rather than a mode of deception. This is not an easy task, given that the concrete political work of exposing the ecological malpractice of the beef industry involves dealing with another ideologically discredited concept, namely the natural. About half way through My Year of Meat, the author articulates what I read as the philosophical and political motivation behind the writing of My Year of Meat. The scene I am about to describe occurs in the context of Jane Takagi-Little’s memories of life as a biracial teenager in the American heartland. When other girls in their

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early teens “were assembling ideal boyfriends from the body parts of teen movie idols and lead guitarists,” Jane figured that she had “the chance to make a baby who could one day be King of the World. An embodied United Nations” (149). Unlike her peers, who turn to popular magazines, Jane turns to the library where she stumbles across a chapter on “The Races of Men” in Alex Everett Frye’s Grammar School Geography (1902). During one of her visits with her mother back home in Minnesota, Jane checks out the book again, reading in its introduction that “In this book, man is the central thought” (154). In a flash of post-feminist rebelliousness and for no apparent narrative reason, the narrator hastens to emphasize that unlike other women, who “might object” to “Frye’s use of the generic ‘man’ for ‘human’,” she regards such intervention “an intraspecific quibble” (154). This being said, she continues: The conflict that interests me isn’t man versus woman; its man versus life. Man’s REASON, his industries and commerce, versus the entire world. This, to me, is the dirty secret hidden between the fraying covers. (154) The immediate narrative context for the Jane’s musings and her return to Frye’s “The Races of Man” is her inability to conceive, a circumstance that she self-ironically ascribes to her racial hybridity (“Like many hybrids, it seemed, I was destined to be nonreproductive,” 152). However, the larger context in which Jane develops an interest in the conflict of “man versus life” is her growing suspicion that her infertility—her “mulish sterility” (153), as she refers to it in yet another rhetorical gesture of cynical self-distancing—may in fact be the effect of technological manipulation of her mother’s body. As it turns out, in order to increase her own fertility, Takagi-Little’s mother had been prescribed regular doses of DES, the same substance that is used to accelerate the growth of cows. As Julie Sze formulated in a 2006 American Quarterly article: “women and animals are linked in DES, not accidentally or incidentally, but through an American technological and medical culture that saw the improvement of nature through technology and increased efficiency as central to the larger cultural project of improvement and progress” (Sze 2006: 803). Sze describes her critical project in “Boundaries and Border Wars: DES, Technology, and Environmental Justice” as “an American studies analysis of DES” (792) whose aim is to complicate “hybridity, purity, and nature as cultural concepts in technological and environmental studies” (792). Ozeki’s novel is recruited in this project, not so much for its literary merits as a translation of publicly available information (about DES and health) into persuasive fiction, but for the pedagogical value contained in the information presented in the narrative text. According to Sze, My Year of Meat raises the issues of technology and environmental justice in a way “accessible” (799) to undergraduate readers. And she “focus[es] on this novel because it resurrects the DES story long buried from popular consciousness” (799). Accordingly, she identifies the “key cultural question” of the novel not as one addressing the ethics of meat eating, but rather as one that asks “how has meat been made different technologically, what kinds of food and social systems have developed in the last fifty years that are significantly different in scale and scope from older systems of production and consumption, and what do race and gender have to do with these changes?” (805). While I find Sze’s formulation of the novel’s “key cultural question” sharp and thought-provoking, it leaves another, equally important key question unaddressed—and that is the question about the “ethics of representing” which, if we take the literariness of the literary text seriously, always involves questions of poetic (or literary) authenticity. It designates the quality of a text that is dependent on the writer’s ability to find narrative forms and rhetorical figures which best depict what Susan Sontag called “the foul realities, realities of rapture” (2007: 151). In the final section I will address this problem, taking my cue from a point in the narrative when Jane Takagi-Little resolves to uncover “the health hazards of meat production” (211), a decision that forces the author to have her protagonist rethink the concept of authenticity. On a thematic level, authenticity undergoes a resignification from a commercialized anthropological to an ecological value; on a poetological level, authenticity signifies a fusion of storytelling and documentation. 3. Authenticity and in Authenticity Shooting footage for an episode of My American Wife! on the cattle feedlot of the Dunn family, which is located in Colorado, “one of the most beautiful states in the country” (245), Jane discovers that the total submission of the animal body to a regime of profitable production, its industrial translation, as it were, from living organism to edible thing, has effects on the human body that are “much too … real” (343) to be shown on television. The mythical Wild West, home to a long tradition of American cattle breeding, is also inhabited by Rose Dunn, a five year-old girl who suffers from “precocious puberty” (270), caused by her exposure to DES on her father’s feedlot. After Jane becomes aware of the girl’s condition, she convinces Rose’s mother that filming the girl and creating a documentary may not only provide Rose with the medical attention she needs but also enlighten the larger public about the effects of illegal feeding practices on humans. Jane’s documentation of the faceless, grotesque body of a pre-school girl with premature pubic hair becomes the pathologically authentic site through which the author articulates the conflict between “Man’s REASON,

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his industry and commerce” and life. If Whitman implicates beef in the poetic production of democratic bodies, Ozeki’s narrative does something similar, albeit with critical twist. The beef that is supposed to symbolize American wholesomeness to Japanese audiences turns out to be contaminated; and it produces bodies that exhibit the effects of an economic and medical rationalism that contradicts their original functions as modes of sustaining human existence. As the location of a reality that some deem “too real” for public display, Rose Dunn’s body becomes the site of a new authenticity, one that articulates an otherwise unrecognized and perhaps even unrecognizable “National Crisis” (248). The novel suggests that this crisis has been brought on through an excess of instrumental and commercial reason. Paradoxically, it is the monstrous body of a child, a body whose contours were defined by an act of cultural intervention into natural processes, that comes to authenticate the natural— not, however, as the material manifestation of a culturally uncontaminated, ‘innocent’ ideal, but as a force which, in Elizabeth Grosz’s words, “provokes and incites the cultural by generating problems, questions, events that must be addressed and negotiated, symbolized, or left unrepresented” (Grosz 2005: 51). In order to further elaborate on this idea, let me take a rather unconventional step across disciplinary boundaries and venture into the field of forestry. Interestingly, “authenticity” is one of the four general criteria suggested by the World Wide Fund for Nature to measure forest quality. What sounds like material for a joke actually turns out to be a conceptually evocative set of strategies for approximating the natural and the authentic in a way that allows us, in our own fields of literary and cultural criticism, to simultaneously question the idealizations of such concepts as nature and authenticity. In a 1996 article for Biodiversity Letters (a journal that appears under the imprint of Blackwell Publishing), Nigel Dudley, environmental consultant and senior forest advisor for WWF-Int, describes authenticity as follows: Authenticity can only be ‘absolute’ within a forest that has never experienced human interference. In practice, wholly ‘natural’ forests no longer exist except for isolated fragments. A more realistic working definition of an authentic forest might be a forest in which all the expected ecosystem functions can operate over time. (Dudley 1996: 7) In Dudley’s definition the “natural” is replaced by the “authentic,” but the authentic retains a significant quality of the natural—ecosystemic sustainability. Later in the article, authenticity in forests is characterized as an effect of careful management. In order to achieve the effect of authenticity through management, “some idea of the original ecosystem is important” (7), yet it can never “exactly duplicate the natural ecological process of a forest” (8). In other words, authenticity in a forest is the repetition of a natural forest with a difference, that difference being an ecologically informed mode of cultural intervention. One of the measures suggested by Dudley for creating authentic forests is the “application of management techniques which mimic natural ecological processes” (8). Now, against this background and bearing in mind that, by definition, an ecosystem is “an ecological community together with its environment, functioning as a unit,” we arrive at a definition of authenticity as the effect of a cultural performance (management) that makes it possible for a community as well as its individual members to exist in space and over time. In Ruth Ozeki’s novel, the illegal and hazardous practices of beef production epitomize what I suggest calling an ecological inauthenticity— animal proteins are fed to herbivores; the application of growth hormones overrides the pace of biological time. In the narrative logic of the novel, the ecological inauthenticity of meat production in feedlots mirrors the cultural and social inauthenticity of meat representation in reality shows such as My American Wife!. Ozeki juxtaposes these discredited forms of the authentic with two alternatives. I have already mentioned the authenticity of the grotesque body. Its pathological realness, once it becomes the subject of documentary film-making and storytelling, carries the potential to create the passionate effects that are necessary to “alter [social and political] outcomes” (My Year of Meat 360). The motif of cultural pathology introduced by the trope of the grotesque body finds its intranarrative counterpart in a story about kudzu, one of Japan’s most vigorous mountain plants. First introduced to the United States in 1876, planting kudzu was highly recommended as a method to reduce soil erosion in the American South between the mid 1930s and 1950s. Nicknamed “the vine that ate the South,” kudzu is now officially recognized as a pest weed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. During one of their visits to the South, Jane’s Japanese camera man recognizes the plant and teaches one of the subjects of My American Wife!, the father of a large family and owner of a restaurant, how to utilize kudzu in his kitchen. While this may not entirely solve the actual ecosystemic problems caused by kudzu, the narrative suggests that its ecologically authentic management as a nutritional resource may at least inhibit some of the undesired side effects. After all, the botanical monster can be eaten, as Rose, the ‘human monster,’ can be medically treated once her condition is no longer covered up. The metaphoric fields around Rose and kudzu demonstrate that Ozeki’s approach to nature as a dish prevents her text from a nostalgic idealization of nature as the location of purity vis-à-vis the contaminated space of culture. In other words, her call for

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ecological authenticity is not motivated by a culturally regressive desire for a better, more ‘natural’ past, but for developing what Hans Jonas described as the “imperative of responsibility” in view of “the critical vulnerability of nature to man’s technological intervention” (1984: 6). My Year of Meat is a novel whose author presents authenticity as a concept which, although blemished by its service to ideologies of purity and cultural discourses of nostalgia, is still valid as a measure of ethical conduct and literary sincerity. References: Arnold, G. (2001, January 18). Musical protein. Metro: Silicon Valley’s Weekly Newspaper. Retrieved August 26, 2008, from http://www.metroactive.com/papers/metro/01.18.01/red-meat-0103.html. Clyne, C. (2003). Creating novel life forms—literally: the sataya interview with Ruth Ozeki. Retrieved August 26, 2008, from http://www.ruthozeki.com/reviews/satya.html. Dudley, N. (1996). Authenticity as a means of measuring forest quality. Biodiversity Letters, 3, 6-9. Joulie, L. (2002). Red meat: Alameda County line. Take country back. (February): Retrieved August 26, 2008, from http://www.takecountryback.com/reviews/redmeat0202.htm. Erkkila, B. (1989). Whitman the political poet. New York: Oxford University Press. Gigante, D. (2005). Taste: a literary history. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. Foster, H. (1996). The return of the real: the avant-garde at the end of the century. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Grosz, E. (2005). Time travels: feminism, nature, power. Durham and London: Duke University Press. Horowitz, R. (2006). Putting meat on the American table: taste, technology, transformation. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press. Jonas, H. (1984). The imperative of responsibility: in search of an ethics for the technological age. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Karem, J. (2004). The romance of authenticity: the cultural politics of regional and ethnic literature. Charlottesville: The University of Virginia Press. Sontag, S. (2007). At the same time: essays and speeches. London and New York: Penguin Books. Sze, J. (2006). Boundaries and border wars: DES, technology, and environmental justice. American Quarterly, 58(3), 791-814. Taylor, C. (1991). The ethics of authenticity. Cambridge, MA and London, England: Harvard University Press. Trilling, L. (1971). Sincerity and authenticity. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Whitman, W. (1983). Leaves of grass. (The 1892 Edition). New York et al.: Bantam Books. Witt, D. (1999). Black hunger: food and the politics of U.S. identity. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press. Notes: 1 Her books have won Ozeki several awards. For My Year of Meat she received the Special Jury Prize of the World Cookbook Awards in Versailles as well as the Kiriyama Prize, an award established in 1996 by a nonprofit organization, Pacific Rim Voices, in order “to recognize outstanding books about the Pacific Rim and South Asia that encourage greater mutual understanding of and among the peoples and nations of this vast and culturally diverse region” (The Kiriyama Prize, http://www.kiriyamaprize.org/). For her second novel, All Over Creation, Ozeki received the 2004 American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation, a prize that acknowledges “the excellence and multicultural diversity of American writing” (The American Book Awards/Before Columbus Foundation, http://www.bookweb.org/btw/awards/The-American-Book-Awards---Before-Columbus-Foundation.html), and the WILLA Literary Award for Contemporary Fiction issued annually to celebrate “outstanding literature featuring women’s stories set in the West” (http://www.womenwritingthewest.org/willaaward.html). As these prizes and awards indicate, Ozeki’s work circulates not only on the transpacific and transatlantic literary markets; her novels are also recognized as texts that address international, national, and regional as well as gender and ethnic sensibilities. 2 Their music made it onto the soundtrack of Marc Forster’s Monster’s Ball (2001), the film for which Halle Berry received an Academy Award for Best Actress. 3 In The Romance of Authenticity, Jeff Karem referred to regional, ethnic, and racial “selfexoticization” (3) as an ambiguous strategy of gaining literary visibility on a national (or even international) scale. Discussing the growing interest in regional literature at the turn of the nineteenth century, Karem observed: “Works that have eschewed local color,

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rejected self-exoticization, or otherwise violated expectations of what is accepted as ‘authentic’ have found censure or cold reception” (ibid.). 4 As one of the three principal modes of negotiating and representing the nature-culture relationship, food references the materiality of nature as a consumable thing in much the same way that landscape epitomizes aesthetic conceptualizations of nature as sublime space, and technology manifests the scientific perception and appropriation of nature as process. 5 In Putting Meat on the American Table (2006), food historian Roger Horowitz observed: “Meat supply and forms of meat have changed dramatically over American history, but beef has held a remarkably constant place in the nation’s symbolic food universe” (18). 6 Whether intended or not, the name of this fictitious organization alludes to the global nature of the problems addressed in the novel. BeefEx is also the real name for the biannual meeting of the Australian Lot Feeders Association. See http://www.beefex.com.au/about.htm (August 25, 2008). 7 With Lionel Trilling, Takagi-Little’s pursuit of representational sincerity can be described as an effort of communicating “without deceiving or misleading” (1971: 58).

Errors in Translation:

A Tool for Linguistic and Socio-cultural Competence Jose. M. Oro Cabanas

Universidad de Santiago de Compostela, Spain E-mail: josemanuel.oro@usc.es

Received: 08-05- 2012 Accepted: 28-05- 2012 Published: 31-05- 2012 doi:10.7575/ijalel.v.1n.1p.90 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.7575/ijalel.v.1n.1p.90

Abstract One of the important insights in recent translation studies research is that errors are a consequence of both linguistic and cultural misconceptions. In recent years translation studies have become increasingly involved in a quest for explanations of all phenomena associated with meaning interaction and a lot of detailed research has been attempted at most translation stages. Whole solid books have been written on specific topics but whole solid books can not include all the variations that different manifestations of language might adopt. As far as we understand, these theoretical ideas have not normally been applied to translations so far and when they have, explanations and descriptive interpretations given do sound rather artificial and unsatisfactory. We intend to propose an analytic approach to solve problems on translation based upon the principles of identity or equivalence, the main ideas of which might be suitable both for research and tuition purposes. In this paper, clear and cut distinctions between canonical and non-canonical expressions, collocations and idiomatic expressions are summed up succinctly both for language explanations and translation analyses, due to the fact that a good number of realizations belonging to the Gray Areas (GA) of language may arise from recurrent combinations of specific types of combined lexical items. The resultant lack of interaction between L1 propositions and L2 representations, identical or not, is often explainable and clarified by the Error Analysis (EA) method. Data collected and analysed here have been chosen at random. Keywords: error analysis, canonical expressions, non-canonical expressions, collocations, idiomatic

expressions, identity, equivalence 1. Introduction Numerous debates have been produced as far as translation proposals are concerned along the history. It has often been said that no text can be analysed by itself, far from the culture in which it has been conceived, far from the period in which it has been written. Thus, contemporary scholars debate on the fact that at least these three factors are to be taken into account: linguistic, cultural and time dimensions. However, of the three the first two were given more attention from a theoretical point of view and this gave rise to two different approaches upheld in the first case by Nida, Wilss and Steiner among others and the second by A. Lefevere, Even Zohar, Vermeer, Nord, Höning, etc. The first group, following the ‘universals’ linguistic theory insist on the fact that there exist a set of universal syntagmatic structures applicable to any language indistinctly. The second seeks support to resolve formal linguistic problems due to the fact that there exist intercultural factors which are far different from one culture to othersi. This dichotomy, however, as usual as far as human production is concerned, though perhaps more elaborated, is nothing new as for devoted scholars to this field of research such as St. Jerome, Luther, Dryden, Montaigne, Tytler, Schleiermacher, Beatriz de Luna, Isotta Nogarola or illustrated persons who have also dedicated a good part of their lives to the art of translation such as Goethe, Mallarmé, Cortázar, Menéndez y Pelayo, Gómez de la Serna, among others, have had this double conception in their minds as the most relevant concerns within this field of studies (Oro: 2001:1-12). During the XIIth and XIIIth centuries it was the cosmopolitan Toledo’s Translators School (a set of studiers who have translated scientific and philosophical Arabic worksii to Latin and Spanish) a prestigious scientific center grouping translators from the three relevant religions of the period: Islamic, Hebrew and Christian. The work done there at that time embraces science, literatureiii but also religious works; for example, one important achievement was the translation of Mi’ray or Mahoma’s Scaleiv both to Castilian and Latin, or the Coran’s translation by Herman the Dalmat, the English Robert of Chester and Spanish Pedro de Toledo. It is compulsory to mention Abū l-Walīd Muhammad ibn Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn Rushd (Arabic: en أبو الولید محمد بن أحمد بن

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known as Averroesv (1120- December-10,198), the best studier of Aristotle at that period, but there ,(محمد بن رشدwere also other important Arabic scholars such as the Persian, Avicennavi, al-FärÄbïvii or the Jewish, philosopher and physician, Moses Maimonides. This important work had a double dimension: the translation of works of the Islamic culture proper and the recuperation of classical works lost in Occident which has been recuperated through Arabic translations. One of the main contributors to the double dichotomy and other translation principles through which contemporary scholars try to set their approaches to this hard discipline of studies was Saint Jerome (4th century). His methodology has set the fundamental laws, especially that concerning sense. However, even though for him the act of translation especially for general texts would not consist only in transposing words from one language to another (i.e. this process needs to go further than that, translation becomes an act of interpretation –‘ut interpres, ut orator’), he would not apply this principle to Sacred texts (for example, the Sacred Writings, in this case as they perform an act of faith the possibility of interpreting is not permitted; thus, he claims for identity. Perhaps the weakest point of his doctrine was to distinguish between two types of texts for translation analysis: sacred and profane, and attributes different principles to their design. No doubt, this was an important contribution as for he proposes that there is a need for an adequation of the translation process to text types. His influence in posterior scholars and translators is a fact, for example the principle of literalness or literalism for sacred texts was the basis approach that Fray Luis de León in his translation of the ‘Cantar de los Cantares’ or Martin Luther’s Bible version has followed. It was not until the XVth. century when another interesting proposal for this field arrives. We are referring to the principles set by Juan Luis Vivesviii, which in spite of being left soon aside, were retaken by German Romanticists during the XIX century. Vives makes a clear distinction between translation theoretical approaches and the practical situation when translating; besides, he realises that different languages are at the same time very similar and very different and he feels that even though translation is a maxim fixed and tacitly accepted, he understands that languages with peculiar and specific characters do present certain barriers impossible to pass through for translation interaction. He is referring to the canonical and non-canonical language representations proper. He concurs with San Jerome and Cicero on the fact that the translation process is a thoughtful and meditative activity in which the domain of liberty moves between the language to which meaning is transferred and the sense of the text which one pretends to translate. Luis Vives (1492-1540) is, no doubt, aware of some limitations which often might appear in this process: lack of expressions between the languages in question and a possible deficiency to understand the original sense proposed. He is also aware of the fact that proposals based on ideal norms for translation purposes do not exist in spite of the existence of certain general norms and conditions attributed to the field, such as: knowledge of languages and technical language, knowledge of the topic, culture, etc.

• 2. Sampling of Errors The central core of this analysis will be essentially based in the comparison of certain units from 1961 Penguin edition of Brave new world and 1969 Hernández’s translation into Spanish. Posterior editions to the above mentioned, (for example, 1980 BARCELONA, PLAZA & JANES) will be referred to from time to time due to the fact that it includes various changes, noticeable changes, from other editions. As far as Hernández’s translation is concerned, it is interesting noticing that there are variations from one edition to another and that there are variations comparing with other editions as well As can be observed in the figs. below differences between L1 and L2 have a double appearance: formal (i.e. they allow to recognise linguistic alteration and the typical and atypical world referents’ representations) and as a result semantic (i.e. They affect meaning as being transferred to L2). Formal differences have often been categorised into 3 main types of errors: (O) omissions (omitting a unit of meaning); (A) additions (adding one unit of meaning) and (S) substitutions (substituting one unit of meaning). This often involves a lack of linguistic interaction which provokes a certain prochain or remote distance between the two languages and the world referents or mental representations (i.e concrete or abstract references) often referred to as grammatical (GR). This misuse of grammatical devices between the two languages is often the result of: (M) morphological (changing word-classes); (L)Lexical variation (word, phrases, verbal tense confusion, etc) from conceptual of basic meaning to denotative meanings, or even from hyponym to hyponym; from super-ordinate to hyponymy, or on the other way round; SY) syntactic alterations from one language to another (changing unnecessarily any piece of syntax; for example, unnecessary word order change); (P) punctuation; (G) Graphological (Printed errors) and (SE) semantic (using units semantically related instead of the proper ones: for example a superordinate term instead of a hyponym). All these aspects as a result would lead the interaction between L1 and L2 representations to grammatical and semantic distortion.

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In general, the above categories are referred to by various scholars, following House (1977) and her model intent for translation quality assessment, as substitutions, which together with omissions and substitutions would constitute one of the three subtypes of the second part of her dichotomy errors classification (covertix and overt)x usually found in translations according to her and her followers from a formal point of view at first sight. To make a succinct comparison with various editions: the original writes cardinal points beginning with a small letter, but the Mexican DIANA, the Spanish Plaza & Janes and Collección Millenium (published by the Journal ‘El mundo’ use capital letters to translate them and the Galician Edicións Xerais uses small letters like the original. The same happens with the word ‘Sauvage [salvaje]’ which appears with a Capital all along the original version. The following tables exemplify some errors at the beginning of the novel which might alter the message given in L1. Table 1. Sample or errors in Hernández’s translation of Brave New World

− A Brave New World. A. Huxley. Penguin Modern Classics (Printed in 1961)

− Un Mundo Feliz. Ramón Hernández’s Translation. Barcelona: Plaza & Janés. 1969.

− Some proposals

− Motto (p. 15) − Divisa (p.18) − Lema, consigna, dicho, proverbio.

− Barrels (P.15) − Tambores (18) − Barril, barrica, tonel, barrilete

− Arrived (p.15) in ‘a troop of newly arrived students, (…)

− Ingresados (p.19) in ‘un grupo de estudiantes recién ingresados

− Llegados.

− Callow (p.15), …, pink and callow,

− Imberbes (p.19) − Inmaduros, inexpertos, novatos

− Zealous (p.16) − Celosos (p.20) − Afanoso, ardiente, entusiasta.

− He would explain to them (p. 15)

− (…) les explicaba (p.19) − Les explicaría

− He would add (p.16) − Anadió (p.199 − Añadiría − … but upright (p.16) − … muy erguido … − Pero erguido

− It was hard to say (p. 16)

− Hubiera sido dificil decirlo − Era dificil decirlo

− (and he took them to watch the operation) p.17.

− (y para ello los llevó al sitio donde se realizaba la operación) p.20

− (y los condujo a observar la operación)

− (….) he insisted; (p.17) − (…) como hizo constar con insistencia; (p.20)

− (…), insistió;

‘These,’ ‘he waved his hands’, are the incubators (p. 16)

Esto , -siguió al director, con un movimiento de la mano- son las incubadoras(p.20)

Estos, señalo con las manos, son las incubadoras.

Variations also exist between or among different editions; some are clear misspellings, others change from one edition to other, some for worse and some for better and yet others remain unalterable edition after edition.

Table 2. Comparison among English and two Spanish Editions

− 1961 Penguin, Great Britain

− 1961 Plaza & Janes Edition

− 1980 Plaza & Janes Edition (OBRAS PERENNES)

− Heather (p.191) − Brazales (p.306) − Brezales (p.192) − Rope and string (p. − Cuerdas, Alambres − Cuerdas, alambre (p.307)

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91) (p.192)

− Bed of rushes (p.91)

− Alfombras de juncos (p. 192

− Alfombras de juntos (p. 307)

− And then, in a voice of despair (p.196)

− Y después con voz de desentonación (p. 197

− Y, después, con voz de desesperación (p. 314)

3. A Linguistic Approach. Canonical versus Non-Canonical Expressions Both translation and linguistics are condemned to be integrated, as for translation cannot survive on sociocultural justifications. On the one hand, linguistics is the study of our knowledge of language: what it is, and how we acquire and use it; the study is pursued through the construction of grammars; that is hypothesis about this knowledge and how we come by that knowledge and use it to think or communicate. The knowledge of language is not monolithic. It is usually divided into our knowledge of vocabulary and our knowledge of how we combine that vocabulary into sentences: id est. the lexicon and the rules of formation. Some of this knowledge is easily accessible in most languages. Translation, on the other hand, must be understood as a linguistic mechanism to process meaning identity from one language to another, through the study of their linguistic behaviour as a whole but out of the sum of the different parts that compose the pieces of language to be translated. It is our intention in order to integrate both fields of research to combine information from several different sources distinguishing between canonical patterns and non-canonical patterns of lexical domain. The former tend to be universal and the latter tend to be more exclusive. To make a proposal concerning translation we will include brief references to different expressions embraced under the super-ordinate term ‘grammatical expressions’, also referred to as ‘the gray areas of language’, idiomatic expressions, set phrases, etc.. This creates a fabric of ideas which range from formal canonical appearance in its diverse varieties to semantic uniqueness far from the meaning of the parts that very often compose these pieces of language object of linguistic analytic and descriptive interest. It is also our aim to combine linguistic behaviour with the translation process in order to see if adequacy is possible and if diversity should be avoided. Even though the different states are still in a situation of development, we can conclude that only some of these expressions are to be considered lexical items proper. The majority of them follow normal formal canonical patterns and meaning may rouse raging from the transparent or semitransparent meaning of their constituents to the totally opaque, or they keep on going with their conceptual meaning as transparent realisations, i.e. a maxim which seems to be constant in great many linguistic processes (cf., for example, put at its simplest, verbs acting as full verbs or as auxiliaries). However a good number of expressions behave as lexical items proper and thus they are to be treated independently for language internal understanding but especially for translation comparative development, especially opaque realisations. Opaque realisations cannot be deduced adding together the meaning of the parts, i.e., they cannot be deduced linguistically, as the meaning goes beyond its conceptual meaning or through other extra-linguistic patterns, which are to be delimited. The collocational process is a general linguistic process in Language behaviour that can be split into: The associational process which ranges from loose to tight and derives into proper collocations or idiomatic phrases, normally set phrases, and a previous step for compounding. Then, it is important to have in mind that the main problem a translator has to face, once he/she has decided the stuff he is going to deal with and the appropriate materials and methodology to be employed are the linguistic differences at different levels. In general, most of them should not present any problems but some do, for example expressions considered to be unique or expressions the semantic extension of which has evolved differently in both languages due, for example, to socio-cultural inferences or to technological advances. That is a real fact, and of course we are not thinking of the awareness of expressions based upon canonical patterns, well, by canonical patterns we mean, for example,

- as far as simple sentences are concerned: those following the structure: subject, predicate and complement, - as far as lexis is concerned those lexical units under their conceptual meaning, not presented under other types of meaning that are the result of semantic extension and/or linguistic arrangement.

In sum, taking this into account, for understanding translation problems it is useful to consider two types of expressions which are to be treated independently when translating. The first, canonical expressionsxi should not present problems for the translation process neither with lexical items nor with grammatical ones as it is illustrated in fig.1 below, which corresponds to sentence pattern IV. Opaque realisations cannot be deduced adding together the meaning of the parts, i.e., they cannot be deduced

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linguistically, as the meaning goes beyond its conceptual meaning or through other extra-linguistic patterns, which are to be delimited. 3.1 Canonical and Non-Canonical Expressions The collocational process is a general linguistic process in language behaviour that can be split into: The associational process which ranges from loose to tight lexical units and derives into proper collocations or idiomatic phrases, normally set phrases or compounding. In most occasions they constitute the first step for the compounding resultant state (well known -àwell-known à wellknown; hard workingà hard-working à hardworking; book caseà book case à book-case, etc. mother in lawà mother-in-law; bull’s eye), which is the result of combining two or more words to form a single unit. Then, it is important to have in mind that one of the main problems a translator has to face, once he/she has decided the stuff he is going to deal with and the appropriate lexicon and rules of formation to be employed, is the typical and atypical deviations from one language to another. In general, the use or selection of canonical expressions should not present any problem if the translators should have enough linguistic background and control of their native languages. That is a real fact, and of course we are not thinking of the awareness of expressions based upon canonical patterns. By canonical patterns we mean, for example, one the one hand, those following the most common structural clausal or sentence patterns; i.e. subject, predicate and complement; or the normal phrase structure, i.e. head and modifier(s); in general, processes which are recognised in most languages, which tend to be universal, at least from a semantic point of view and which are not far from their formal representations. On the other hand, those referring to those lexical unitsxii under their conceptual meaning in their surface structure representation or other clear and cut types of meanings which tend to be universal to realise linguistically most world concrete or abstract objects or ideas, which are not considered to be unique or exclusive of one culture or of a particular community. We can probably exclude those lexical units which have acquired a very specific meaning by semantic extension and/or linguistic arrangement, full or idiomacities and irregulatiries. In sum, taking this into account, one can deduce that there are two types of expressions which are to be treated independently for linguistic and translation theoretical and practical analysis. The first, canonical expressions, i.e. those expressions –from a lower to a higher rank- which follow general formation, realisation and functional patterns, either alone or in combination, should not present problems for the translation process neither with lexical items nor with grammatical ones as it is illustrated in fig.1 below, which corresponds to sentence pattern IV, due to their straightforward reference to world objects, concrete ideas or abstract ideas world-wide developed. They normally range from basic and transparent communicative messages to semi-transparent interpretable realisations. They constitute essential basic communicative constructions for all or most communities.

Table 3: Sentence pattern IV

Languages Subject Verb Indirect Object Direct Object ENGLISH I brought you [for you ---à] ß----this material

SPANISH [os] traje este material

(Yo) traje [os ] para vosotros ---à

GALICIAN (Eu) Trousen- vos este material

RUMANIAN Ti-am adus ti-¿ acest material

POLISH (Ja) przyniosτem przyniosτam

wam ten materiaτ

The second, non-canonical expressions are far more complex, they are affected formally, morphologically and syntactically, but essentially semantically. Put at its simplest, this specific behaviour of language can be viewed as a special type of indirect speech, and it constitutes a violation of the behaviour of formal canonical expressions. This violation signals that literal meaning and real meaning are different. This does not mean that both can be explained, interpreted and translated. However, linguistic treatment of concrete manifestations of language cannot be thoroughly analysed using only one linguistic level by itself. Languages are far more complex and independent that it is easy to show that there exists an inherent contradiction in the application of principles proposed along the history of linguistic in certain situations. However several principles are fundamental assumptions for the development of language interpretation and the understanding of language’s realisations. 3.2 Non-Canonical Expressions and some Translation Problems Within the gray areas of languagexiii, units that form lexical units proper on their own right at least from a semantic point of view do often range from a transparent or semitransparent interpretability to the totally opaque

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are said to behave in non-canonical manner, and specially the latter constitute the units which very often present problems for translation, due to the fact that are normally fixed expressions, not very often used, referring to very specific and the concrete actuation of a community or of the individuals of a community. In general, these expressions are referred to in linguistic treatment as follows: non-canonical expressions proper or inner terms, collocations, idioms (special phrases, sayings, etc.) and clishes, among others. Non-canonical expressions include expressionsxiv of what about's type, as in What about the financial assistance?; expressions like if only (...), as in If only we haven't lost our way; here one needs a type of tense control, but one is free to fill the gaps very freely; For example, Spanish and Galician languages would follow different patterns to represent the identical lexical meaning, a canonical expression in the former and a subjunctive mode in the latter; or even expressions like 'The more (....) the more', whereas, certainly you expects a comparative form as the second constituent as in: The more you ask the less you get or Better for women better for men (S.T. Title of the article: Teen girls urged to admire Role Model Spice); Collocationsxv, a problematic linguistic term is interpreted as a nominalization or verbalization of two lexical and/or grammatical items put together. The concept of collocation, which plays an important role in British linguistics where it originated, seems to be vague and neutral in dealing with word classes and to which element acts as to modifier or head. This term, however, is one of the key concepts of functional grammar proposed by Firthxvi and developed by Halliday. Probably we could, even say that it has its origins in word-association of the syntactic type in spite of the class, due to the fact that they are paradigmatically linked by this process. Besides, the idea of collocation is extremely far reaching, and furthermore, the users must realise that some language is deliberately eccentric and creative in that kind of way. Not all languages would use the same formal correlates to represent these semantic lexical units In sum, the idea of collocationxvii is extremely far reaching, and furthermore, the users must realise that some language is deliberately eccentric and creative in that kind of way. Not all languages would use the same formal correlates to represent these semantic lexical units. Other clear types of expressions which can be included under this specific linguistic area are ‘Clichés’. These are ready-made expressions but not necessarily idiomatic. From a formal point of view they are usually built up with canonical constituents. However, some are non-canonical expressions in the sense that they block the general principles of grammar, as in A little knowledge is a dangerous thing [knowledge or learning] or in The Devil can quote Scripture for his purpose [quote for cite] though it can be argued that quote is common in AE, where they don't say cite). Due to semantic variation by extension and movement of meaning a normal canonical expression, or a minor sentence can very easily become clichés when they lose their conceptual meaning and they are applied for a different purpose as in Can I help you? or Good morning!. In general, a cliché is a metaphor characterised by its overuse. A very common type to be included here is referred to as ‘Idioms’. These are ready-made expressions with a proper meaning; i.e. apart from the meaning of the term ‘idiom’ the linguistic connotation is that they are independent units in the sense that in most occurrences one cannot deduce the meaning of the whole adding together the meanings of the parts. Thus, the whole expression has a lexically independent existence apart from the parts with which it is made up. A great number of them are found in the field of phrasal verbs, such as to give up (to stop), to account for (to explain), to look into (to examine), etc. The use of certain idioms (for example, sayings, informal phrases, etc.) depends particularly on style, however semantic idiomacity ranging from the semitransparent to the totally opaque is another thing, both for internal interpretation and for translation, as for semitransparent are not far from basic conceptualisations but the meaning of opaque expressions goes beyond the conceptual one. For a simplified representation of the expressions briefly described above, see fig. 1

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Fig.1. Some types of Non-canonical expressions (from Oro, 2005)

3.3 Diversity and Adequacy Lexical diversityxviii must be understood as a varied number of language constituents some of which might be more similar to one another; thought one might need the context as a whole in order to show which one fits better. In comparative studies, we would dare say, for instance, that to translate steed into the Spanish caballo, would be far from the basic meaning according to style. Thus, the use of this word in Spanish would cause some of the primary accuracy of the world referent to be lost for this the context. As Dresler (1981:141) has asserted,

‘translation alters and redistributes the orders of informativity of a text’. So does the semantic process of expanding the meaning of lexical units by extension and movement from the basic or conceptual meaning to other types of meaning in any language; the meaning would become rather obscure within and specially out of context. Nonetheless, if formal redistribution is required, due to divergent structural systems, alteration of meaning must be avoided when we seek identical meaning representations, as required in true translations. Hence, it is quite important to control the various aspects linguistic theory provides us with. On occasion, the second constituent or 'substitutor' may be blocked at the linguistic surface lexical form representation. In spite of the existence of probable identical constituents, there might be instances in which they have followed different structural dimensions, as in the case of those belonging to the GAs of language. In these cases, a suitable word or expression is to be found that allows for maintaining complete meaning when playing with formal variation.

What about ...?The more....theIf only.............

Focus constructions. etc

INNERTERMS

FORMAL

Life is lifeBy accident

Don't worry, be happyCan I help you?

CLICHÉS

SEMÁNTIC

Go bananasClip someone's wings

Kick the bucketRun up the bill

TRANSPARENTSEMI-TRANSPARENT

OPAQUE

IDIOMS

Fill in the gapscure a deceasecapa categórica

capa nera

COLLOCATIONS

FORMAL ANDSEMANTIC

CANONICALNON-CANONICAL

BOTH

THE GRAY AREASENGLISH

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In comparative studies, some scholars would insist on the fact that the network of associations embedded in L1 text cannot be duplicated in the L2. To say this is to deny the possibility of naming world referents and the linguistic capacity to perform rules of actuation within the comparative field. However, if very complex units of meaning are being performed through looser associations, which make them difficult to be understood in L1, there will be a need, as Newbert and Shreve (1992: 91-92) point out, for the translator to intervene by inserting footnotesxix or creating explanatory paraphrases. The same occurs, albeit to a different extent, when comparing internal comparable structures of a language X. What we can say with confidence is that even if human languages do not differ in essence from each other as for they behave systematically in spite of their formation arbitrariness, they certainly differ in degree, both formally and semantically. Perhaps nothing in the world even approximates to human language due to its capability for flexibility, complexity, precision, productivity and sheer quantity, under the appropriate circumstances. Humans have learnt to make infinite use of finite formal linguistic means. Thus from a lower to higher degree, the results during the translation process can be less accurate. It appears to be true that the choice of words and some structures is arbitrary; it varies from individual to individual; it is non predictable to use one or other possibility, but speakers of Galician, Arabic, Spanish, French, Gaelic etc. regularly and habitually use one word, for example, from their language to express any concrete worldwide representation and most abstractions, with the exception of those evolved independently or which are considered to be unique. It is worthwhile noting that the translation procedure is purely compositional, and thus, it can be viewed as assigning meanings to all the expressions of any language (though it only indirectly assigns senses and denotations to them. In this process there must be an assignment function of meanings to basic expressions, as illustrated in Table 1, but complex meaning has to be treated under specific linguistic principles which range from finding equivalent expressions to interpreting, as illustrated in Tables 2 and 3. Table 4. English non-canonical expressions. Interpretation and translation

TYPE OF ENGLISH EXPRESSIONS TRANSLATION INTO

TYPE EXPRESSION MEANING SPANISH GALICIAN

IDIOMS Kick the bucket To pass away To die

Estirar la pata, palmar

Estira la pata, palmar

To be sent to Coventry

To be excluded from society

Take after To take care, to care

Cuidar Coidar

COLLOCATIONS Lame duck inconclusive patoso Patoso

CLISHES Can I help you? High!, Hello! Good morning

¿Qué desea? ¿Qué quere?

INNER TERMS What about you? And you what do you ---- of this, about it?

Y tú, que? E tí, qué?

4. Conclusion As it can be seen through the analysis of the examples above it is not difficult to deduce that the basic requirement for this discipline is to provide the agents with an exhaustive knowledge of both languages, as for identical representations of L1 and L2 texts must provide an analysis of the linguistic situational peculiarities of both linguistic corpuses, as well as employ equivalent means for achieving any function. Moreover, the evaluation of cultural problems must be considered since differences in cultural presuppositions may need the application of a cultural filter. In this sense, means and mechanisms might be considered equivalent but the resultant state of both linguistic affairs has to be identical, that is, understandable, referential to the world elements that are being represented, and co-referential to each other. Typical formal deviations are accepted if necessary but not as a general rule. To determine when typical deviations are allowed is restricted to fidelity, loyalty and linguistic dominion.

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The following linguistic principles showing similarities and dissimilarities between the languages analysed are to be taken into account in order to better both theoretical issues on translation studies and what is far more important for the practical activity to get an interaction among the three elements forming up the triadic phenomenon which essentially constitutes the translation process as such: world referents à language one constituents à language 2 constituents.

- Typical and atypical deviation structuresxx followed in languages. - Uniqueness of some world referents in certain communities - Linguistic and socio-cultural community interactive processes - Psychological effects upon linguistic development (i.e. the language of the mind) - Grouping interaction of levels versus individualistic action. - Linguistic linking and cohesion features - The referential function (pronominal or anaphoric or both). - The gray areas of language versus canonical realisations. - The interrelation among the points mentioned above.

In translation, however, it is dangerous to try to eliminate in language 2 certain aspects of informality, poor grammar, verbose phrasing and any other features that contravene good abstracting practice in language 1. Translating from one language to another can be seen as a language-game, following Wittgestein, for example, as for this includes many kinds of definitions, projections, correlations, transcriptions, decipherings, etc. It is also obviously related to such activities as reading, comparing, note-taken, indexing, cataloguing, briefing, reviewing, etc.

• We cannot translate from one language-game into another, because language games are independent to each other, but we can translate from one language into another in the many different ways in which we do. (Finch, 1977:86)

Put at its simplest, translation is not a creative linguistic process as a linguistic corpus already exists. It is a combination of formal and semantic processes of a second language representing world concepts or ideas through the grammatical and lexical units and patterns of a target one either in the written medium or in the spoken medium, as shown in Table I. Data Sources Conrad. J. (1902). The heart of Darkeness. London: Penguin Classics. Conrad.J. (1991). El Corazón de las Tinieblas. Trad. Por Sergio Pito. Barcelona: Ed. Orby Fabbri. Forster, E. M. (1971). Maurice. New YorkW. W. Norton & Company. Hemingway, Ernest. (1929). Farewell to Arms. Lodon: Penguin Classics. Horta, Joana María y Joaquín Horta. (1978). Traducción de Farewell to Arms. Barcelona: Bruguera (20 edición: 1982). Salinger, J. C. (1958). The Catcher in the Rye. London: Penguin ___________ (1978). El Guardián entre el centeno. Madríd: Alianza ___________ (1990). 0 vixía no centeno. Vigo: Edicións Xeráis. HUXLEY, A. (1932). Brave new world, Penguin Books. Penguin Modern Classics. ___________ (1969). Un mundo feliz. Plaza&Janés,SA.Editores. Barcelona. Traducción de Ramón Hernández. ____________(1992).Un mundo feliz. Colección Millenium. Una colección publicada por EL MUNDO. Traducción de Ramón Hernández. Prólogo de Lucía Etxebarría.

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___________(1980). Un mundo feliz. Plaza&Janés, SA.Editores. Obras Perennes.Tercerc Enero 1980, Barcelona. Traducción de Ramón Hernández. ___________(1959).Un mundo feliz. Editorial Diana SA. 1ª Edición Junio de 1959. 21Q Julio de 1994. México. Traducción de L.S.M. HUXLEY, Aldous. __________ (1996). Un feliz mundo novo. Edicions XERAIS de Galicia, D.L. (Grandes do noso tempo, 18). Traducción de Anxo Romero Louro. References Benson, M., Benson, E., & Ilson, R. (1986). Lexicographic description of English. Amsterdam: Jhon Benjamins Publishing Company. Chafe, W. and D. Tannen. (1987). ‘The relation between written and spoken language’. Annual Review of Anthropology, 16: 383-407. Crystal, D. (1971). Linguistics. London: Penguin. Crystal, D. (1986). Who cares about English usage?. London: Penguin. Dressler, W. (1985). ‘On the predictiveness of natural morphology’. Journal of Linguistics 21: 321-37 --------------- (1986) ‘Explanation in natural morphology, illustrated with comparative and agent-noun formation’, Linguistics 24: 519-48 Emmoroy, K. D., & Fromkin, V. A. (1988). ‘The mental lexicon’. Linguistics: The Cambridge survey (Vol. III) (pp. 124-149).Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Even-Zohar, Itamar 1997. "Factors and Dependencies in Culture: A Revised Draft for Polysystem Culture Research." Canadian Review of Comparative Literature / Revue Canadienne de Littérature Comparée XXIV(1, March), pp. 15–34. Firth, J. R. (1951). Papers in linguistics, 1934-1951. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Firth, R. P., & Palmer, F. R. (1968). Selected papers of J. R. Firth, 1952-1959. London: Longmans. Furlan, Mauri. “Apresentação a Versiones seu traductiones, de Juan Luis Vives”. In: Clássicos da Teoria da Tradução. Antologia bilíngüe, vol. 4, Renascimento. Florianópolis: NUPLITT, 2006. (p. 119) Givon, T. 1993. English Grammar. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company. Jackendoff, R. (1995). ‘The boundaries of the lexicon’. In M. Everaert & S. Anagnostopoulou (Eds.), Idioms Structural and psychological perspectives. New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Jespersen, O. (1917). Negation in English and other languages. Copenhagen: A. F. Host. Halliday MAK. (1984). A Short Introduction to Functional Grammar. London: Arnold. Höning Hans G. and P. Kussmaul. 1982. Strategie der Übersetazung. Ein Lerh-und Arbeitsbuch. Tübingen: Narr. House, J. M. (1976). A Model for Translation Quality Assessment and some implications for Foreing Language teaching. University of Toronto. Lefevere, A. (ED.) (1992). Translation History Culture. London: Routeldge. Mellville, A. (1946). Spoken English. An Idiomatic Grammar for foreign students. Edimburg: Oliver and Boyd, Nida, E. 1975. 'The nature of translating'. in Language Structure and Translation. Essays by E. A: Nida et all Nida, E. & C.A. Taber. (1969). The Theory and Practice of Translation. Leiden: E.J. Brill. Neubert, A. & G. M. Shreve. (1992).Translation as Text. Kent: The Kent State U.P. Nord, Ch. (1997). Translating as a Purposeful Activity. Manchester: St. Jerome publishing Newmark, P. (1991). ‘The Curse of Dogma in Translation Studies’. Lebende Sprachen 36(3): 105-8. __________ (1988). A Textbook of Translation. Hempstead: Prentice Hall. Oro Cabanas, J. M. (2012). Teoría lingüística y gramatical. Fundamentos claves para su aprendizaje. 2nd edición. KG Editorial: Académica Española (LAP LAMBERT Academic Publishing GmbH & Co) 2ª Edición (2012, Enero). ______________ (2011).‘Do We Need a Specific Grammar for Non-canonical Expressions? A Description and Analysis ofDefinitions of some NC Constituents’ in Languages for Specific Purposes in Theory and Practice. Pp. 313-332. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. .

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_______________(2011). ‘Do we need a specific grammar for non-canonical expressions? A description and analysis of definitions of some NC constituents’. US-China Foreign Language and Sino-US English Teaching. Pp. 749-761. David Publishing Company, Chicago, IL, USA ________________( 2008). Some Keynotes on Language, Linguistics and Grammar. Lugo: Unicopia. ________________ (2008). ‘Algunhas nimiedades literarias e unhas cantas Shant dos poemas de Lorenzo Varela: Catro poemas para catro grabados. [María Pita, María Balteira, A Ruy Xordo, O Touro]’. Insights in to translation. La Coruña: SPU _________________ (2007). Selected papers on trasnlation (From 1988 to 1999) Lugo: Unicopia. _________________ (2007). Selected papers on trasnlation (From 1995 to 2003). Lugo: Unicopia. _________________ (2002a). Current Trends in Linguistics. An English Morphology based Study. Lugo: Unicopia. _________________ (2002b). ‘On the Gray Areas of Language’, incl. in The teaching of English as a Foreign Language: A European Perspective, pp. 31-63. _________________ (2002c). ‘A Practical Approach to the Study of Non-canonical Expressions in English’, incl. in The teaching of English as a Foreign Language: A European Perspective, pp.323-367 _________________(2001). On translation Historical Aspects, Interpretability and Linguistic Trifles. Lugo:Unicopia. _________________(1999a). ‘On translation identity and Oro’s Identity Approach’. Included in Actas del Congreso de Lingüística Contrastiva. Pp. 397-412. Santiago: Servicio de Publicacións.http://www.lugo.usc.es/pepeoro/PAPERS.htm __________________(1999b) ‘Linguistic identity, world referents and the choice of words in the translation process'. En Homenaxe ó Profesor Alonso Montero. Pp. 775-786. Santiago: Servicio de Publicacións. http://www.lugo.usc.es/pepeoro/PAPERS.htm _________________(1999c) ‘Text and Context in Contrastive Analysis’. In The Contribution of Language Teaching and Learning to the Promotion of a Peace Culture. Ed Prof Stathis Efstathiadis. pp. 371-380. Thessalonica. http://www.lugo.usc.es/pepeoro/PAPERS.htm (2004) ________________ (1999d) ‘Towards a linguistic identity translation approach’, en Homenaxe ó Profesor Varela Flores. Pp. 560-568. Santiago: Servicio de Publicacións. http://www.lugo.usc.es/pepeoro/PAPERS.htm. (2004) _________________(1999e). ‘World referents and the choice of words in the translation process. The identity approach'. En Actas del Congreso de Aesla. Alcalá: Servicios de Publicaciones. http://www.lugo.usc.es/pepeoro/PAPERS.htm. (2004) __________________(1995). ‘Solving Translation Problems Through Error Análisis’. Ponencia presentada en el Simposio sobre traducción Literaria y Científico Técnica. Cáceres. __________________(1995). ‘Linguistic Parallelism between English, Galician and Spanish Defining Relative Clauses and other Related Structures: Surface and Deep Structure Interrelations’. Moenia, vol 1, 1995: 437-444. http://www.lugo.usc.es/pepeoro/PAPERS.htm. (2004) __________________(1993). ‘About Covert and Overt Errors in Oral and Written Translation’. Ponencia presentada en el Simposio sobre traducción Literaria y Científico Técnica. Cáceres 1994. http://www.lugo.usc.es/pepeoro/PAPERS.htm. (2004) __________________(1992) ‘A Brief Comment on House's Model for Translation Quality Assessment and Textual Translation’. Ponencia presentada en el Simposio sobre Traducción Literaria y Científico-Técnica. Cáceres 1993. http://www.lugo.usc.es/pepeoro/PAPERS.htm. (2004) __________________(1991) ‘Semantics and Translation’. Ponencia presentada en el VI Simposio sobre traducción Literaria y Científico Técnica. Cáceres: 1992. http://www.lugo.usc.es/pepeoro/PAPERS.htm. (2004) Vermeer, H. (1986). ‘Übersetzen als kultureller Transfer’, in Snell-Hornby 1986:30-53. Vidal Claramonte, A. 1995. Traducción , Manipulación, Deconstrucción. Ediciones Colegio de España Vives, L.1533 ‘Versiones seu Interpretationes’ in De ratione Dicendi. Lovaina Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations (1936-49). Translated by G.E.M. Anscombe, 3rd edition. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1968.

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Notes i In relation to this second approach, for example Vidal Claramonte (1995:13) reintroduces Günter Grass popular saying: ‘la traducción es aquello que lo transforma todo para que nada cambie’/ translation is that which transforms everything in order not to change anything’, which defines perfectly their philosophical point of view. ii For example, Domingo Gonzalvo translated al-Färäbï, Avicena and ALgacel; Juan the Sevilla, also known as Johanes Hispalensis, and the English Adelardo the Bath have translated the Works of the Mathematician Juwarizimï. iii Alfonso X the wise ordered to translate the Indian story Calila and Diman directly to Arabic (the version by Ibn al-Mugaffa) iv This was the means by which Dante could have acess to the scathologic journey of the Islam Profet and there are traces in his work ‘The Divine Comedy’ v Ibn-Rushd was an Andalusian-Arab philosopher, physician,and polymath: a master of philosophy, Islamic law, astronomy, geography, mathematics, medicine, physics, and science. He was born in Córdoba, Spain, and died in Marrakech, Morocco. His school of philosophy is known as Averroism. He has been described as the founding father of secular thought in Western Europe. vi Avicenna/ ٩٨٠ابن سینا/ابن سینا ( – 1037), commonly known in English by his Latinized name Avicenna and Avicena in other Latinized countries was a Persian philosopher and physician; his interpretation of Aristotle influenced St. Thomas Aquinas; his writings on medicine were also very important. vii Al-Farabi (Persian, فارابی محمد نصر ابو ). Abū Nasr Muhammad ibn al-Farakh al-Fārābi or Abū Nasr al-Fārābi (in some sources, known as Muhammad ibn Muhammad ibn Tarkhan ibn Uzlagh al-Farabi), also known in the West as Alpharabius, Al-Farabi, Farabi, and Abunaser (c. 872 – between 14 December, 950 and 12 January, 951) is considered a great polymath, scientist and philosopher in the history of Persia and the Islamic world. viii The Spanish Humanist, Luis Vives (1531) was also interested in the difficulties of translating and he probably is the precursor of the textual translation method when he writes in Versiones seu Interpretationes: ‘Si un hombre quisiera traducir los discursos de Demóstenes o Marco Tulio (Cicerón), o los poemas de Homero y Virgilio a otras lenguas, tendría que prestar atención primero y ante todo a la forma en que el texto se conforma y a las figuras del habla que contiene.’ He also says that there is a third kind of text in which both the substance and the words are important, in which the words bring power and elegance to senses, so as to speak, whether taken singly, in conjunction with other words, or in the text as whole. ix By covertly erroneous errors House understands those that occur by any mismatch produced under one of the dimensions listed from Crystal and Davy’s system of situational dimensions’ adapted version (dimensions of the language user: space, social class and temporal; and the language use type: medium, participation, social role relationship, social attitude and province). x House does not draw a very definite line between covert and overt erroneous mismatches and so one does not know much about the nature of errors in spite of the ideational component inference. xi Canonical expressions are regular expressions. A regular expression is a pattern that describes a set of strings. Regular expressions are constructed analagously to arithmetic expressions, by using various operators to combine smaller expressions

xii As Wittgestein would put it ‘the essence of a propositional sign is very clearly seen if we imagine one composed of spatial objects (such as tables, chairs, and books) instead of written signs. xiii Due to the fact that some realisations have acquired an elevated realisation state in most concrete manifestations of language we are not going to propose an analysis of different types of figures of speech such as: similes, metaphors, euphemisms, hyperboles, litotes, irony, apostrophe, personification, metonymy, synecdoche, etc. as for most figures of speech as well as all idiomatic expressions of all kinds might follow identical procedures in different manifestations of languages, at least from a semantic point of view. xiv Here there can also be included expressions which block the general syntactic principles in relation to canonical expressions, as in:

"Historians will look back on this project as most important thing we did (S.T. Chronicle Future, p.12)

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(...) but it is a fraud on a consumers. (S.T. 26TH DECEMBER)

xv Even though the invention of the term collocation as applied in linguistics was attributed to Firth and extended by Halliday, the process itself has worried many scholars as mentioned above since classical times. For example, Mellville’s Grammar for foreign students. (originally designed as a manual of English Grammar for Dutch students), includes a good number of examples with collocates:

I have never seen him so out of temper (angry) The violinist is out of the tune (discordant, not in harmony)

In fact he concentrates on collocates of various kinds, combined with prepositions, compound conjunctions and verb combinations. Neither must one forget the non-canonicity of certain verbs in English, commonly known as irregulars. xvi According to Firth, it seems to be the case that we know a word by the company it keeps and he considers collocation to this 'relationship between words', to be part of its meaning (see, Palmer 1976: 94ff, Carter 1987: 36 ff. And 48 ff.) xvii Benson and Ilson (1986:253) refer to them as ‘loosely fixed combinations. Lipka (1972) mentions that the idiomacity of collocations is such that some scholars have chosen to include them as a subtype of idiom. xviii Chafe and Tannen (1987) review the literature on the differences between written and spoken language searching for examples of differences in internal interpretation. An example can be lexical diversity. A writer can increase lexical diversity by simply playing with conceptual meanings and their relations. For a translator this process is somewhat different. He might increase lexical diversity providing several alternatives for one L1 term, limiting the number of function words or increasing the number of content words. Moreover, not adjusting L1 constituents to L2 constituents or on the other way round would lead to atypical meaning deviations, misinterpretations and errors. xix As, Givon, T. 1993:1 remarks in his grammar book: �Grammar is not a set of rigid rules that must be followed in order to produce grammatical sentences. Rather, grammar is a set of strategies that one employs in order to produce coherent communication.

Introducing Communicative Event As A Tool To Communicate Via the Medium Of Language: The Case of Job Advertisement

Minoo Pourfarhad National University of Malaysia (UKM), Malaysia

Tel: 60-14-7179-516 E-mail: mnprfrhd@yahoo.com

Received: 10-05- 2012 Accepted: 28-05- 2012 Published: 31-05- 2012 doi:10.7575/ijalel.v.1n.1p.104 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.7575/ijalel.v.1n.1p.104 Abstract This study is going to investigate the language style of classified advertisements of job vacancies in order to understand how advertisers manipulate language in convincing the job-seekers to apply for the advertised jobs. Furthermore, the study tries to examine the ways that advertisements’ language may be concisely used to convey the meaning in the fewest words and avoid blurring the job seekers. To gain a clear picture of the form and content of job advertisements the views of (Lunde, 1974) and (Fairclough, 1989) are exploited to clarify how job advertisements may be perceived as a class of communicative events in order to communicate via the medium of language with potential job seekers and persuade them towards applying for the advertised jobs. The data for this qualitative study which came from the local English newspaper (Star) in the month of August were analyzed through content analysis. Being grounded in Lund (1974), who believes that an advertisement should: attract attention, arouse interests, stimulate desires, create conviction and get action, the sample advertisements were examined and the results revealed that all are in accordance with Lund’s AIDEA formula. An analysis of the surface structure of the samples did not reveal how the basic structure of English sentences was adapted. The spaces allocated to these types of advertisements were so limited. Thus, the advertisers manipulate language in a way that they can convey their purposes with the use of minimum words. This may only be achieved by the use of the key words to convey the message and nominalizations. Key words: concise language; language of communication; persuasive; conveying message; convincing language 1. Introduction Local newspapers are replete with classified advertisement for job vacancies. Although some of the job advertisements are well elaborated, most of them are succinctly written and contain too much information which makes them somehow blurred or ambiguous to job seekers. Many candidates for the jobs need a better understanding of the job advertisements so that they can apply for the job with better insight. Language is the medium of communication. As a result, job advertisers use language in order to encourage the job seekers to believe their claims (Jefkins , 2000). Since the space allocated to an advertisement is quite small in a newspaper, the advertisers need to be quite concise in using language for the communicational purpose. Besides, the language of advertisements in general and the language of job advertisements in particular need to be powerful. It is because the goal of an advertisement is for example to convince people to buy a product or to find services which may assist them to be more convenient with their life, or to respond to the advertisement (in this case, job candidates looking for jobs). Language can be exploited to persuade people to follow certain behavior (Fairclough, 1984), for example language may be used to encourage people towards performing specific acts. Thus, people in charge of advertisements use language effectively to convince people towards performing certain acts that may differ from purchasing specific products to spending their holidays in a particular place or to apply for an advertised job. There is always a possibility that people under the influence of advertisements act in certain ways which may not be in harmony with their benefits. As a small scale study, this study has scrutinized the use and manipulation of language in job related classified advertisements and tried to investigate how advertisers exploit language in order to convince people that the claim of the advertisement is true, although sometimes it might not be the real truth. 1.1 Analysis of different definition of advertisements An analysis of different definitions of advertisement would clarify the nature of advertisement and its relationship with social control and CDA. Advertisement can be defined as a notification to public in order to extend information in the society with an emphasis on specific service or product (Harris and Seldon, 1962, in Senders & Fryburger, 1976). This

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definition of advertisement is applicable to both industrial and commercial consumer advertisings (Vestergaard and Schroder, 1994). However, with the swift improvement of economy and the urgent needs for consumers, advertisement language shifted towards a persuasive and manipulative function (ibid). Barret (1997, cited in Solomon, 1998) asserted that advertising is a necessity for supporting the marketing in order to impose influence through impression. (Burnett, 2000) defined advertisement as a paid communicational process from unknown supporter in order to encourage and affect audience through mass media. This definition has highlighted the persuasive aspect of advertisement rather than its informative aspect. According to (Harrison, 2000) “the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising defined advertising as the most persuasive possible selling message to the right prospects for the product or service at the lowest possible cost”. (p.5) In the quotation of the advertising the adjective “persuasive” is quite noticeable. It is in harmony with (Blackman, 2006) who asserted that job advertisements are a type of encouraging, convincing language and persuasive communication. It may be concluded that language of advertisement is supposed to be a “persuasive” language. However, there are other researchers like (Steel , 1998) who presented another definition for the advertising. Steel considered advertisement as a series of easy words and actions for communicational purposes which lead consumers to think about the product that they are willing to get it. (Steel, 1998) added that consumers are intelligent enough to process any information-related to the product or services-that they are confronted with. Similarly, (Jefkins, 2000) defines advertisement as an artistic work; therefore for postmodernism and post modern time it should be communication of realism. To Jefkins advertisements are capable of being meaningful as far as they are “corporate and credible”. He contended that advertising cannot be performed by only: “cocking a snook at consumerism”, (ibid). The above analysis of literature reveals that researchers are not in agreement weather advertisements’ language should be influential or not. Consequently, it is needed to carry out more analyses about the language use in advertisements. 1.2 Appraising the function of advertising Investigation into the advertisement function will result in clarifying the initial function of advertising as a source of information which later evolved into a language of persuasion employed by advertisers for the benefits of both consumers and producers. In the time that capitalism was not at its peak; for example the pre-capitalist era, advertising was employed as a means of informing consumers about existence of specific product (Vestergaard and Schroder, 1994). In post Second World War era when the economy of the western countries like the United States of America and European Western countries were booming , the goal of advertising had been changed considerably. Vestergaard and Schroder (1994) maintained that it was the era that the function of advertising changed from informative into persuasive. This was because capitalism became the most supreme hegemony in the market. As a result of the improvement of economy and the swift growth of industries, the purpose of advertising shifted to be manipulative. Researchers in advertising asserted that the main function of advertising is the act of persuading consumers to buy the product (Barret, 1997). There are even researchers like (Solomon , 1988) that claimed the manipulation facet of advertisement is more important than its persuasion facet. Burnett (2000) claimed that the goal of the advertisement is to pay attention to the taste of ordinary people and simultaneously help the industries to produce goods in harmony with the consumers’ tastes. (Stuart, 1988, cited in Vestergaard and Schroder, 1994) underscored the provocative aspect of the advertisement and maintained advertisements should be attractive to the eyes of the consumers. At the extreme (Cook, 1992) emphasized on the emotive facet of the advertisement rather than its determinate aspect. This definition of advertisement will be resulted in lack of harmony between the factual performance of a piece of product and the consumer’s belief constructed by the related advertisement. As a result, advertisements not only aim at changing the consumers behavior in relation to purchasing goods, but also it tries to persuade people towards a specific lifestyle that is in harmony with producers benefits. But there are still researchers like (Rothschild, 1987) who believed those advertisements which are manipulative and have a tendency to direct the consumers towards buying cannot continue their existence in the free market for a long time. Therefore, it may be expressed that nowadays the function of advertisement is persuasive and manipulative. 1.3 Structure of the advertisement An analysis of advertisement’s form is important. This is because such analysis provides some understanding of how an advertisement may attract the attention of consumers without having them to get involved in reading the advertisement like a piece of serious literature which requires close attention. (Vestergaard and Schroder, 1994) emphasized that an advertisement should be organized in a way that much of its message can be conveyed to the reader without reading it thoroughly. (Jefkins, 2000) addressed the structure of advertisement as having the

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highest importance. (Lund , 1974) presented five characteristics for the structure of the advertisement as follows: 1. Attract attention, 2. Arouse interest, 3. Stimulate desire, 4. Create conviction and 5. Get action. The rationale of Lunde’s outline for the structure of the advertisement is based on the reasoning that since people do not read the advertisement from beginning to end, its message should be conveyed by the form-rather than by the content-of the advertisement (Lunde, 1974). This will be achieved by including short words, short sentences and short paragraphs that assist to convey the message as conveniently as possible so that it can be absorbed by readers. Consequently, the advertisers need to present their advertisements as clearly as possible and use language in a way that grasps people’s attention (Jefkins, 2000). Furthermore, due to the limited space allocated to an advertisement in a newspaper, the advertisers can rarely use images to assist written language to convey their purpose. This shortcoming forces the advertisers to use encouraging words such as “Earn”, “Enjoy”, and “Find” in order to create a feeling of urgency in people (Jefkins, 2000). As soon as the employed language attracts the attention of people, the next step is to encourage them to continue reading the whole advertisement. This also will be achieved by the use of persuasive as well as captive language such as “try to fulfill your dream” (Vestergaard and Schroder, 1994). In job advertisement such language unconsciously attracts the attention of job seekers and encourages them to continue reading the advertisement. In order to force people towards certain behavior, the next step for an advertiser is to create a sense of wanting in readers. A potential job seeker who is confronted with an advertisement which presents them with the benefits of the job will feel a necessity for applying. It is why in job advertisements concise expressions referring to salary, wage or other benefits of the job are included. As the final step, an advertiser should direct people towards a quick response to the advertisement; i.e. to apply for the advertised job. Vestergaard and Schroder (1994) contended that this may be achieved by two strategies: 1.By the use of imperative language and, 2. by the use of directive speech acts encourage people to perform a trial or ask for more information (ibid). The above discussion tried to shed light on the structure of advertisements in general and the structure of job advertisement in particular. 1.4 Advertisements and Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) People in power try to form the beliefs of other people about the way that they do practice their life (Fairclough, 1989). This may be achieved by depicting people’s life in advertisements’ language (ibid). (Qualter, 1991) emphasized on the use of advertisements in establishing and interpreting the real world according to certain beliefs, values and ideologies that belong to people in power. Qualter highlighted the value of advertisements as a medium which function as an important establishment by which a society may be directed towards certain goals. Qualter contended that this may happen in an indirect way. By this definition of advertisements, it can be concluded that advertisements are functioning as manipulative establishments in the society. This view was formulated by Qualter as: “advertisements are seen as the source of authoritative guide to social behavior.” The logic conclusion of the above discussion is that advertisements are sources of power that indirectly impose the advertisers’ authority on the society; i.e. they direct people towards particular behaviors without any use of violence or authoritative command. This act of indirect imposing of power on the society takes place by discourse. When organizations or individual persons are able to impose their authorities on people, it may be interpreted as a way to indirectly manipulate people towards certain behavior. (Fairclough, 1989) admitted this fact by asserting that there is a power behind the language which by it, one can control and direct others. He asserted that those who are at power will always try to maintain and intensify their power. And this can only be achieved by controlling the mass media (ibid). As a consequence, hegemony is achievable by manipulating people towards those specific behaviors which are favourable to individuals in positions of power. The manipulating of people and imposing hegemony on them can be achieved by the power which is in discourse. It is also claimed that advertisements are employed to influence and shape the thoughts of people. Ingham (2000) discussed that advertisements not only used to inform people about particular services or products, but more importantly they are exploited to shape the mode of thinking of people as well as canalizing their social behavior. As a result, Critical Discourse Analysis can be perceived as a powerful medium which is capable of shedding light on the hidden aspects of advertisements and can be employed to clarify how people may be persuaded towards particular courses of action. Language and society have an organic mutual connection that can shape and modify each other (Fairclough, 1989). Language as a manipulating tool in the hands of owners of power is a medium of imposing hegemony, whereas expert in CDA can critically analyze language in order to show the hidden power behind it. 1.5 Statement of Problem

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The language of the classified advertisement is a manifestation of types of discourse that is theorized as persuasive language (Vestergaard, T. & Schroder, K., 1994). The purpose of such language is to communicate available products or services succinctly and inexpensively (Primentel, 2000). However, the spaces allocated to classified advertisements in the newspapers-in comparison to other discourses-are very limited and advertisers cannot use the elaborated language of other discourses, for example editorials (ibid). Lopes (1993) maintained that advertisers employ the fewest number of words to convey the meaning. As a result, the advertisers are restricted in their choice of language and there is a possibility that some necessary information for job seekers is left out in their advertisements. Which this in turns may lead to the possibility that some of those who are addressed by the advertisement; here jobseekers, will be misguided or will not become fully aware of the aims of the advertisement, or feel that the claim of the advertisement is not compatible with the real world situation. In other words, when potential job seekers find an advertisement they make a mental image of their future career. But when they confront with the real situation they may be become disappointed because there is a possibility that the claim of the advertisement is not exactly the same as the real situation. One may say that while advertisements are not fully capable of conveying the necessary information, what is the point of presenting people with materials that can be misleading? However, there are researchers such as (Jefkins, 2000) who emphasized the importance of the advertisements in the modern life. Therefore, the study investigates the use of language in the job related advertisements in order to understand how advertisers exploit language to convince people towards certain behavior and besides, how the possibility of misguiding the job seekers can be minimized. Consequently, it may lead to the refinement of the language of job advertisers and better insight of job seekers towards their future career as well. 1.6 Theoretical framework of the study To gain a clear picture of the form and content of job advertisements the views of (Lunde, 1974) and (Fairclough ,1989) are exploited to clarify how job advertisements may be perceived as a class of communicative events in order to communicate via the medium of language with potential job seekers and persuade them towards applying for the advertised jobs. The views of (Lunde, 1974) are used to as a basis for discussion about the structure of job advertisements as a type of written discourse. Besides (Fairclough, 1989) maintained that advertisements are media discourses since they employ language in connection to society. The Fairclough’s views provide a second basis to investigate the content of job advertisements as a genre that comprises specific communicative purposes; for example to persuade potential job seekers to apply for the advertised jobs. 1.7 Objectives of the study The study is going to investigate the language style of classified advertisements of job vacancies in order to understand how advertisers manipulate language in convincing the job-seekers to apply for the advertised jobs. Furthermore, the study tries to examine the ways that advertisements’ language may be concisely used to convey the meaning in the fewest words and avoid blurring the job seekers. Therefore, the study aimed at:

1. To discuss the structure of classified job advertisements in relation to Lunde’s views about the forms of advertisements (Lund, 1974).

2. To investigate the techniques which may be employed in order to concisely convey meaning in the classified advertisements for job seekers in relation to the theoretical framework presented by (Fairclough, 1989. 1999).

1.8 Research Questions 1. What are the major characteristics of an advertisement for job vacancy? 2. How the language of advertisements is concisely employed in order to convey the meaning in the

fewest words? 2. Methodology Since the researcher is more interested in describing the data in order to explicitly address the research questions, a qualitative research design is more adaptable for this study. Like any other basic qualitative research study, the researcher is the main instrument for the data collection. Qualitative data collection method of this study is the content analysis of the advertisements in the local English newspaper (Star) in the month of August 2010. Data collection procedure involves: 1. Locate five job-related classified advertisements in the English local newspaper (Star) which were chosen

randomly in the month August 2010. 2. All the chosen job related advertisements were analyzed in relation to the frameworks discussed under the

theoretical frame work of the study; i.e. the proposed frameworks for advertisements by (Lund, 1974), and the views of (Fairclough, 1989 & 1999) in terms of language and power.

3. Data analysis procedure was conducted by attempts to analyze if the selected advertisements are adaptable with theories; i.e. :

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a. Are they in harmony with Lund (1974); i.e. do they attract attention, arouse interest, stimulate desire, create conviction, and get action?

b. How the selected advertisements employ the written language as a particular discourse in relation to the society based on Fairclough’s (1984, 1999) views.

2.1Research Design As it was discussed before, the researcher was more interested in describing the collected data as well as the results of the data analysis in order to investigate and pinpoint the language of advertisements; it is why a qualitative methodology was adapted for the study. The researcher attempted to interpret the data based upon the theoretical framework which was explained before. 2.2 Data Collection Procedure Askehave (2010) contended: “the task of business communication is to find the appropriate words to pique the curiosity of the desired potential workers and encourage them to continue through the application process.” Askehave’s assertion is quite compatible with the classic definitions of advertisements which were briefly surveyed in literature review chapter. To make a content analysis of the classified job advertisements and to understand how language of them is in harmony with classic definitions of advertisements, five job-related classified advertisements were chosen randomly from the English local newspaper (Star) in the month of August of the year 2010. 2.3 Data Analysis Procedure As the first step in data analysis procedure, attempt was made to understand how the structures of the advertisements are in harmony with the proposed advertisement structure by (Lunde, 1974). Lund proposed five criteria to organize an advertisement. He clarified that an advertisement should: 1. Attract attention, 2. Arouse interest, 3. Stimulate desire, 4. Create conviction, and finally, 5. Get action. The next step of data analysis was the proposed approach by (Fairclough, 1984 &1999). Fairclough described a text in terms of having “experiential, rational and expressive” values. The experiential value is the way that the text producer experiences the world and presents it in the form of their text (Fairclough, 1984 &1999). As a small scale study, only experiential values of the advertisements in terms of the grammatical features as well as choice of words of the classified advertisements were examined. 3. Results and Discussion This part was focused on the analysis of the samples of the classified advertisements. In order to answer the research questions: first the samples were analyzed to see whether they are in harmony with the AIDCA formula (Lund, 1974); i.e. Attention, Interest, Desire, Conviction, Action, second the samples were analyzed in relation to the forms of the texts. Fairclough (1984, 1990) distinguished six main levels of a text interpretation. Two levels of interpretations are related to context. Four levels of interpretations are in relation to text. This study looked at text of classified advertisements in terms of grammar and vocabulary to clarify how advertisers have employed language concisely in order to encourage potential job-seekers towards certain behavior; i.e. applying for the advertised job. Analyzing samples to answer research question 1: What are the major characteristics of an advertisement for job vacancy? In sample 1 in order to attract attention the phrase “Immediate Vacancies ” is used, the phrases “Admin Executive: RM 2300-3.000, Admin Assistance: 1.800-2.200” simultaneously arouses interest and stimulate desire, “Please Call 03-21266 1366” gets action. In order to convince the reader the Benefits are included as well.

Sample 1 IMMEDIATE VACANCIES

ADMIN EXECUTIVE: 2.300-3.000,ADMIN ASSISTANCE: 1.800-2.200 Requirements: Diploma/Degree holders (any field), Fresh graduate are encouraged to apply, with or without experience, Age bellow 30 is preferable Benefits: 5 working days, Carrere advancement Opportunity, nearby public transportation, Annual Leave & bonus, Company trips (local/Overseas) Please call: E., MALIK/CIK HANIM (03-2166 1366)

Table 1 summarized the results of the analysis to investigate if the samples are in harmony with AIDCA formula (Lund, 1974):

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structure of an advertisement sample 1 sample 2 sample 3 sample 4 sample 5

attract attention ü ü

ü ü

ü

arouse Interest ü ü

ü ü

ü

stimulate desire ü ü

ü ü

ü

create conviction ü ü

ü ü

ü

get attention ü ü

ü ü

ü

Analyzing the samples in order to answer research question 2: How the language of advertisements is concisely employed in order to convey the meaning in the fewest words? In the second level of analysis, briefly the grammar of simple sentences in English is examined. Three types of simple sentences in English are identified:

1. Subject + Verb (S V) 2. Subject + Verb + Object (S V O) 3. Subject + Verb + Complement (S V C)

Each type may typically be the manifestation of a specific process. Type two (S V O) may convey Actions. Type one (S V) and three (S V C) may convey Events and attributions respectively. An analysis of the surface structure of the samples (answer to research question 1) did not reveal how the basic structure of English sentences is adapted. It was discussed already that the spaces allocated to these type advertisements are so limited. Thus, the advertisers manipulate language in a way that with the use of minimum words they can convey their purpose. This only may be achieved by the use of the key words to convey the message. Besides, the charge imposed on classified advertisements will be based upon the number of words used in each advertisement. As a result, the less words included in an advertisement, the less the cost will be. Consequently, the classified advertisements are manipulated in such a way that only key words are used. The use of the key words in advertisements solves the problems of charge and restricted allocated space to advertisements. But there is another problem that the advertisement should be capable of informing the job-seekers so that they can perceive an image of the job that would be as close as to the real nature of the job. Under other circumstances; i.e. when the job specifications are not in harmony with the related advertisement, the potential candidate for the job may feel that they are cheated or at least misguided. This takes the analysis directly to the employed strategies by the advertisers. The advertisers, based on the analyzed samples in this study, excluded the names as well as the positions of the jobs for the potential job seekers. In occasions that the name of the job is included, the details of the job are excluded. Sample 2 is an evidence of the above discussion:

Sample 2 PHARMACISTS ARE WANTED

ü Incentive ü Profit Sharing ü Good Benefits

Care Farmasi No. 5, Jalan SG/3, Taman Sri Gombak,

68100 Batu Caves, Selangor Tel:03-61856682

In the above sample, although the name of the job is mentioned; for example Pharmacist, there is no description of the job. A potential job seeker may be confronted with the question: “What are the specifications of the job?” This may be interpreted as a way that language is exploited in order to receive the maximum feedbacks; i.e. the maximum number of applicants, whereas the minimum of information is provided. This assists the owner of the industry to interview a large number of candidates in order to select the best one(s) who fit(s) the job. Another strategy exploited by the advertisers is to put the job seekers in the position of the subject of the advertisement. In spite of the fact that no clear simple sentences used in such advertisements, a careful analysis revealed that the imperative sentences were used which in turn led the researcher to this finding that the used

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verbs are expressions of action. In the expressions of actions there are two elements of agent and patient. An analysis of sample 3 provides an evidence for the above discussion:

Sample 3 ENHANCE YOUR EMPLOYIBILITY

Join our Graduate Employability Program to enhance your industry-specific skills. Enjoy RM 500 allowance per month Get free Training sponsored by the Ministry of Human Resources Call 012-699 5655 Mr. Thinahran Note: open to diploma/degree graduate only (unemployed for at least three month)

If the two imperative sentences in the advertisement are rewritten in simple sentences, the two following sentences will result:

You can join our graduate employability program to enhance your industry-specific skills. S V O Adjunct You can get free training sponsored by the Ministry of Human Resources. S V O Adjunct In the above examples, the job seekers or the readers are the agents and the benefits of the job are perceived as patients. It seems if all the imperatives in the samples change into simple sentences, the process of action, subject, and agent will be the prominent in the advertisements’ texts. It may be concluded that the advertisers are persuading the job-seekers to perceive themselves as the subjects of the sentences. As soon as the job-seekers perceive themselves as the subjects of the sentences, they can conclude that they will benefit from the advantages of the job.

Sample 4 TELE-SALES CLERK

(MENARE KUALA LUMPUR) FULL TIME

Basic Salary RM 1200 Commission RM 1000-3000 Weekly Incentive Trips to Local and Overseas Full Training Provided in Menara KL

No experience Needed

If one simple sentence from sample four is rewritten in a simple sentence the result will be: Original sentence in sample four: Basic salary RM 1200 Rewritten sentence: Your basic salary will be RM 1200. S V O The above discussion about sample three is applicable to extracted sentence from sample four. That the reader can conclude if they apply for the job, their basic salary will be RM 1200. The logic conclusion is that the advertiser is persuading the readers that they will benefit from the job if they apply for it. 3.1Use of nominalization A nominalization is a process in which a sentence is reduced into a noun. This procedure may be employed to put the readers in the position of the agent (Fairclough, 1989).

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It was found that nominalization process is used in all five sample advertisements. In sample five the nominalization process is used repeatedly in order to convince the readers to perceive themselves as the agent for the action.

Sample 5 Vacancies

ELECTRICAL ENGINEER Email: wongss@projalma.com.my Degree/Diploma in Electrical Engineering Tel: 03-6753355 Fax; 03-62753288 Fresh graduated are encouraged to apply GENERAL CLERK SPM & above TECHNICAL TRAINEE Good writing & verbal communication skills in English and Chinese DRAUGHTSPERSON TECHNICAL ASSISTANT Fresh graduated are encouraged to apply STORE KEEPER (Based in Bt. Gajah, Perk) Interested candidates are invited to submit their resume to: Lot 11 & 12 Jalan 2, Taman Kepong, 52100 Kepong, KL (beside Kepong central) 4. Summary and Conclusion Classified job advertisement can be considered as a particular written discourse that employs language in order to persuade people towards certain acts; for example applying for the advertised job. In producing job-advertisements, like any other types of classified advertisements, advertisers are confronted with the problem of limited allocated space to their advertisement. Consequently, the language of classified advertisements in general and job-advertisements in particular, is a concise language. This study investigated the classified job advertisements in order to understand how the language of advertisements is concisely used to persuade the potential job seeker to apply for the advertised job. Besides, the studies hopefully aimed at clarifying the language of job advertisements in order to assist the job advertisers improve their product so that can convey the maximum message in the minimum space. On the other hand, the study tried to help the potential job-seekers to gain a better insight of the classified job-advertisements so that they may apply for their future career with better awareness. This will hopefully help the potential job-seekers not to feel that they are cheated or misbehaved by the advertisements. In order to carry out the study, five classified job advertisements were selected randomly from the English newspaper (Star) in the month August of the year 2010. In relation to the theoretical framework suggested by Lund (1975), that believes an advertisement should: attract attention, arouse interests, stimulate desires, create conviction and get action, the sample advertisements were examined and the result was arranged in a table based on AIDEA formula. In the second layer of the analysis, under the theoretical framework of Fairclough (1984, 1990) the samples were examined to understand how the sentence structure of the samples is in agreement with structure of English simple sentences. Besides attempt was given to clarify how nominalization was used to concisely employ and manipulate the persuasive language of the classified job advertisements. References Askehave, I. (2010). Communicating Leadership: A Discourse Analytical Perspective on the Job Advertisement. Journal of Business Communication 47 (3): 313-345. Baran, S.j. & Davies, D.K. (1992). Mass Communication in the Mass Media. London: Macmillan Press Ltd. Blackman, A. (2006). Graduating students' responses to recruitment advertisements. Journal of Business Communication 43(4), 367-388. Burnett, M. (2000). Advertising: Principles and Practice. Pearson. Cook, G. (1992). The Discourse of Advertising. London: Rutledge. Fairclough, N. (1984). Language and power. United Kingdom: Longman. Fairclough, N. (1989). Language and Power. United Kingdom: Longman. Fairclough, N. (1999). Critical Discourse Analysis, London: Longman.

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Harrison, S. (2000). Public Relations. Second edition. London: Thomas Learning. Ingham, H. (2000). What Value is there in Studying Advertisements. Retrieved on September 28, 2010 from http://www/aber.ac.ukmedia/stdent/hin5501.html. Jefkins, F. (2000). Advertising (4th edition). England: Pearson Education Limited. Lopes, D. M. (1993). The Construction of Meaning in Advertising Language: The rules of the game, UMI Pro Quest Digital Dissertation 55 (03), 703, 1999 Lunde, J. V. (1974). News Advertising. New York: Prentice Hall, Inc. Primentel, J. J. Jr. (2000). Sociolinguistic Reflection of Privatization and Globalization: The Arabic of Egyptian Newspaper Advertisements, Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation. Michigan: University of Mishigan. Qualter, T. H. (1991). Advertising and democracy in the Mass Media. London: The Macmillan Press Ltd. Rothschild, M. L. (1987). Advertising. Toronto: D. C. HEATH AND COMPANY. Sanders & Fryburger (1976). Advertising Theory and Practice. Illinois: IRWN, INC. Solomon, (1988). Master of Desire: The Culture of American Advertising. Retrieved on September 10, 2010 from http://sare20-/unixlab.virginia.edu/ams/enmr101/solmon.html Steel, J. (1998). Truth, Lies and Advertising: the Art of Account Planning. John Wiley & Sons. Vestergaard, T. & Schroder, K. (1994). The Language of advertising. Oxford: Blackwell.

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The Comparative Effect of Non-Task and Provide-A-Model Preparation Activities on EFL Learners’ Vocabulary Retention

Mona Khabiri (Corresponding author) English Department, Faculty of Foreign Languages

Islamic Azad University, Central Tehran Branch Simayeh Iran Street, Shahrake Ghods,

Tehran 14676-86831, Iran Tel: 0098-912-3395118 E-mail: monakhabir@yahoo.com

Saeedeh Charmgar, M.A.

English Department, Faculty of Foreign Languages Islamic Azad University, Central Tehran Branch, Iran

Tel: 00989123466933 E-mail: saeedeh_charmgar@yahoo.com

Received: 10-05- 2012 Accepted: 28-05- 2012 Published: 31-05- 2012 doi:10.7575/ijalel.v.1n.1p.113 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.7575/ijalel.v.1n.1p.113 Abstract This study investigated the comparative effective of non-task preparation activities and providing a model as two types of pre-task activities on vocabulary retention of 60 EFL students from a language school in Karaj, Iran. The participants were sorted out of a larger population of 90 intermediate students based on their scores on a piloted Preliminary English Test (PET) and a vocabulary test. As a result of the two mentioned tests, first 65 participants were selected and then randomly divided into two experimental groups: non-task preparation activities group and providing a model group. However, the results of five participants who did not attend the classes regularly during the treatment were finally discarded. The two experimental groups received different treatments. In one class, vocabularies were taught through doing some non-task preparation pre-task activities by the learners and in the other, the teacher provided the model of doing the activity. At the end of the treatment period, the researchers administered a vocabulary retention posttest. Analyzing the collected data through an independent samples t-test revealed that non-task preparation pre-task activities had a significantly higher impact on the vocabulary retention of the participants. The significant difference between the two pre-task activities is interpreted to be the possible outcome of the difference in the type of schemata each activates and the type of load each reduces. Key words: non-task preparation activities, providing a model, vocabulary retention, TBLT, pre-task phase 1. Introduction The issue of selecting the teaching method, approach, and strategy that serves each context best has always been a major challenge in EFL/ESL history. Richards and Rodgers (2001) state that considering different methods throughout history, foreign language learning and teaching has been the center of discussions and an important practical concern. Schmitt (2000, p. 15) states that “language teaching methodology has swung like a pendulum between language instruction as language analysis and language use. Likewise, vocabulary has had differing fortunes in the previous approaches”. One major reason for the ‘swing of the vocabulary pendulum’ might have been its importance in language learning and teaching. According to Nunan (2001) vocabularies are the “fundamentally important aspect of language development” (p. 103) and Brown (2001) regards vocabularies as “basic building blocks of language … and [vocabularies] are among the first priorities” (p. 377). Likewise, Harely (as cited in Wang, 2009) recognizes vocabulary as the unique way of improvement in language acquisition. Vocabulary teaching, as a result, has been treated differently during the past years from presenting vocabularies as a long list of words to presenting them in a context or through various tasks. It is believed that the way vocabulary is presented affects its acquisition. For example, Tajeddin and Chiniforoushan (2011) cite various authors (i.e., Coady, 1997; Nation & Newton, 1997; Paribakht & Wesche, 1997; Zimmerman, 1997) who believe that “different modes, affected by different models of the nature of vocabulary and vocabulary

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acquisition and use, are favored” (p. 114). This might be the direct consequence of what Richards and Rodgers (2001) highlight as the recognitions that have caused the change in teaching methods in general: recognition of changes in the kind of proficiency learners need and changes in language and language learning theories. Perhaps one of the most important of such recognition has been the acknowledgment of learners’ need for communicative competence which manifested itself as the weak and strong versions of Communicative Language Teaching (Ellis, 2003) with the latter version leaving a great and durable impact on EFL/ESL contexts and is known as ‘Task-Based Language Teaching’ (TBLT). 1.1 Tasks and the Stages of Implementing Tasks in TBLT Undoubtedly, tasks are the center of TBLT. Skehan (2003) mentions that the term ‘task’ replaced ‘communicative activity’ which used to be the core element in communicative approaches and thus was used during the 1970s and 1980s. Ellis (2006) believes that TBLT proposes task to be the most important element in the language classroom providing contexts for triggering learner acquisition processes and further learning. There are diverse definitions for task in the literature, each pointing to or highlighting one or some aspects of a task. For example, Bygate, Skehan, and Swain (as cited in Chen & Chen, 2008) believe that task prompts learners to use the language in order to achieve an objective while focusing on meaning. The prominence of ‘objective’ and ‘focus on meaning’ is also evident in how Ellis (2003) defines a task as “a work plan that requires learners to process language pragmatically in order to achieve an outcome” (p. 16). Some also believe that tasks are subsets of techniques and thus, to implement tasks, one in fact may need to apply some techniques (Nunan, 2004). Prabhu (1987), however seems to base his definition on a more psychological basis, though still maintaining ‘objective’ as the core component of task, by asserting that “an activity which required learners to arrive at an outcome from given information through some process of thought, and which allowed teachers to control and regulate that process, was regarded as a task” (p. 24). However, Willis and Willis (2007) believe that tasks are any activity done in the classroom and state that the teacher-led introduction is a task in itself because “It involves a genuine exchange of meaning, in which learners are required to process language for meaning and it also serves a priming function” (p. 21). Other definitions of task have focused more on delineating the difference between tasks and exercises or other language or communicative activities. Crooks and Chaudron (1991) consider activities as a general term and tasks as a means for practicing language to engage students to work with each other to obtain an outcome. Ellis (2003) distinguishes between tasks, where the primary focus is on meaning, and exercises, where the primary focus is on form. Using the criteria, he reviews a number of activities commonly used in classroom teaching to determine to what extent they can be said to be tasks or exercises. His examples show that it is not always possible to clearly distinguish between the two as they “manifest features of both” (p. 16). Regarding their types, tasks can be real world tasks or pedagogical tasks with the latter being the focus in this research, that is, those tasks that “occur in the classroom” (Nunan, 2004, p. 1), and “form the nucleus of the classroom activity” (Brown, 2001, p. 242). Nevertheless, note has to be taken that tasks can also be used for measurement purposes in research (e.g., studies cited in Zheng, 2009, for measuring vocabulary familiarity by prompting them through tasks). According to Nunan (2001), classroom tasks can lead to the ability to communicate in real world whether such tasks are real tasks or pedagogical ones. By considering the previous research studies, Garret and Shartall (as cited in Rivers, 2008) and Lam (as cited in Rivers, 2008) believe in the effectiveness of pedagogical tasks for being learner-centered. Moreover, Brown (2001) asserts that the goal of pedagogical tasks is to make the students ready for doing real world tasks. For effective implementation of pedagogical tasks inside the classroom, often one issue is how to approach a task, or as Ellis (2003) maintains, “How a task can be fitted into a cycle of teaching” (p. 33). For this purpose usually different stages are considered in performing a task, which reflect what Ellis defines as “the chronology of a task-based lesson” (p. 243). As an illustration, Willis (1996) sets down a task cycle consisting of three phases of pre-task, task, and language focus and maintains that attention to form can be evident in all three stages. Others like Ellis consider the same three stages but more generally name them as pre-task, during-task (or while-task), and post-task phases or activities. In the pre-task stage, the focus is usually on getting prepared for the main while-task activities “in ways that will promote acquisition” (Ellis, 2003, p. 244). Skehan (1996) considers pre-task as a kind of pre-teaching and setting up the relevant language for a task and provides two alternatives for this phase with the emphasis being put either on the cognitive demands of the task or on the linguistic factors. Skehan, however, concludes that “engaging in activities which reduce cognitive load will release attentional capacity for the learner to concentrate more on linguistic factors” (p. 25). The importance of the pre-task stage is often highlighted in the literature on TBLT. Prabhu (1987, p. 29), for instance, believes that a half or two-third of the time of the class can be allocated to the pre-task phase doing “teacher directed, whole-class activity while the rest was used by the learners for working on their own”. Although majority attribute the importance of pre-task stage to its function in giving instruction and preparing the students for the main task (e.g, Beglar & Hunt, 2002; Boston, 2008; Lee, 2000; Richards, 1999), many also emphasize its role in motivating the students (e.g., Dörnyei, 2001; Willis, 2006; Verhelst, 2002). Yet others

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assert that the pre-task stage, just like the during-task stage, can provide the opportunity for focusing on and learning language forms (e.g., Beglar & Hunt, 2002; Richards, 1999; Willis, 1996, Willis & Willis, 2007) such as new vocabularies or the general language the learners need for doing the task. Furthermore, the pre-task stage can also make learners familiar with the communicative goal and context of the task (Boston, 2008). Finally, Ellis (2006) states that “the teacher, as an expert, uses the pre-task to scaffold learners’ performance of the task with the expectancy that this ‘other regulation’ facilitates the ‘self-regulation’ learners will need to perform the main task on their own” (p. 3). Ellis (2003) recognizes four ways to handle pre-task phase; providing a model, non-task preparation activities, performing a similar task, and strategic planning. Preparing the learners and making them cognitively and linguistically ready for performing a task can be done by providing them with a model of the task. Ellis (2006, p. 3) describes this type of pre-task activity as “asking the students to observe a model of how the task can be performed without requiring them to undertake a trial performance of the task”. Ellis (2003, p. 246) pinpoints that, “Minimally this involves presenting them with a text (oral or written) to demonstrate an ‘ideal’ performance of the task”. Alternatively Willis (1996) suggests asking two students to perform the task so that others can watch them or the teacher playing the audio or video recordings of fluent speakers performing the task. Willis (1990) believes that the teacher can help the students to have a better production by ‘modeling’ them the language. By providing a model, learners can observe a model to see how to perform a task and it has some positive effects on reducing the cognitive load by activating learners’ content schemata (Ellis, 2006; Willis, 1996). Non-task preparation activities, on the other hand, revolve around triggering the background knowledge of the learners and clarifying the topic area. As Ellis (2003) maintains varieties of activities are suggested under this category with the unified focus of minimizing the “cognitive and linguistic demands” (p. 246) of the task. According to Ellis (2003) in order to clarify the theme and topic of a task, one can activate the learners’ schemata or give them some information related to the topic as background knowledge (p. 246). This type of pre-task activity is, thus, based on schema theory which according to Nunan (2001) “is based on the notion that past experiences lead to the creation of mental frameworks that help us make sense of new experiences” (p. 201). Moreover, connecting new information with previous knowledge results in better retention of newly learned language (Hulstijn & Laufer, 2001). Ellis (2006) believes that to clarify the theme or topic of a task, the learners’ background knowledge or schemata can be activated. To obtain this aim, Willis (1996) proposes a series of activities such as classifying words and phrases, brainstorming, and mind-maps. However, Ellis (2003) maintains that the suggestions in the literature for minimizing the linguistic demands of the task through this type of pre-task activities seldom focus on grammar and more highlight vocabulary as it is believed that vocabulary is more central to task performance. In this regard, Ellis (2003) refers to the three ways Newton proposes for teachers to focus on vocabulary during the non-task preparation activities as predicting (i.e., asking learners brainstorm as many related words to the topic as possible), cooperative dictionary search (i.e., assigning certain words to the learners to look up in the dictionary), and words and definitions (i.e., matching words to their definitions in a list). 1.2 Vocabulary Retention As discussed earlier, vocabulary teaching and learning has been approached differently during the history of language teaching and learning. There has been an obvious movement from asking the learners to memorize a list of words and rote learning to teaching the words in meaningful context. In this line, Nunan (2004) indicates that it is generally accepted that language is more than a set of grammatical rules, with attendant sets of vocabulary, to be memorized. It is a dynamic resource for creating meaning. Learning is no longer seen simply as a process of habit formation (pp. 6-7). There is abundant evidence that memorization of word lists does not comprise an effective vocabulary learning and retention strategy. Such evidence dates back to 1950s; for example, Miller (1956) maintained that Short Term Memory had a limited capacity of around 7 ‘chunks’ of information and that such a limitation would, under some conditions, impede learning. It seems that the more learners are actively involved in the process of learning the language by observing and using it actively in the context, the more deeply they process it. Craik and Lockhart (1972) and Craik and Tulving (1975) maintained that a stimulus’ mental processing depth is determined by five factors: connections with pre-existing memory, time spent processing the stimulus, cognitive effort, self-reference effect, and sensory input mode. On equal grounds, Nemati (2010) believes that processing the language deeply is something that should be taught to the learners as it leads them to long term retention. Vocabulary retention appears to be no exception as Hulstjin and Laufer (2001) assert that, “Cognitive psychologists agree that processing new lexical information more elaborately will lead to a better retention than if it had been processed less elaborately” (p. 451). They further maintain that processing the meaning of a word happens at a deep level, but its phonological form at a shallow level. Likewise, Schmitt (2000) believes that mere exposure to language does not guarantee that learners can acquire enough vocabulary, but to be engaged with words meaningfully can be a good way to practice language. The basic contention of the Involvement Load

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Hypothesis according to Hulstijn and Laufer (2001) is that retention of unfamiliar words is, generally, conditional upon the degree of involvement in processing these words; ‘The greater the involvement load, the better the retention’ (p. 245). And it is important to note that successful retention along with correct use will ultimately result in productive vocabulary (Vasiljevic, 2009). One plausible alternative to activities that result in shallow processing of vocabulary seems to be the use of language tasks and incorporating vocabulary into different stages of task performance. The reason is that there is a consensus on the issue that performing a task requires several cognitive processes and the controversy, according to Ellis (2003), is only over the nature of such processes (e.g., Richards, Platt, & Weber, as cited in Ellis, 2003; Nunan, as cited in Ellis, 2003; Prabhu, 1987). As Ellis (2003) asserts, one rationale for task-based syllabus is ‘learner engagement’ and maintains that “tasks, as long as they provide a ‘reasonable challenge’, will be cognitively involving and motivating” (p. 209). Conclusively, practicing vocabulary as part of task performance may bring about the motivation and engagement required for deeper processing and hopefully more effective retention. One concern, however, may be at which stage of task performance to focus on vocabulary. Skehan (1996) believes that vocabulary can be the focus during the pre-emptive, in-task, and post-task stages. However, he highlights pre-teaching vocabulary for its advantage in creating the opportunity for the learners to face necessary vocabularies they need before performing the task, and consequently, reducing the ‘processing load’ which is considered by Nunan (2004) to be an important issue: “Learners and the cognitive processes they engage in as they learn are seen as fundamentally important to the learning process” (p. 7). Likewise, Willis and Willis (2007, p. 72) suggest that ‘through priming the processing load will be lightened’. 1.3 Purpose of the Study In the milieu of the presented theoretical background, on one hand approaching vocabulary through tasks in a TBLT context was argued to be effective and promising and on the other hand, focusing on vocabulary during the pre-task phase was alleged to minimize the cognitive and linguistic load during the while-task phase and thus resulting in better task performance and more effective learning. Therefore, this study intended to compare the effect of two of the four suggested pre-task activities by Ellis (2003) on vocabulary retention. More specifically, the purpose of the study was to investigate whether non-task preparation and providing a model as two pre-task activities had different impacts on intermediate EFL learners’ vocabulary retention. Therefore, the following research question was posed: Q: Is there any significant difference between the effect of providing a model and non-task preparation pre-task activities on EFL learners’ vocabulary retention? To answer the research question the following null hypothesis was stated: H0: There is no significant difference between the effect of providing a model and non-task preparation pre-task activities on EFL learners’ vocabulary retention. 2. Method 2.1 Participants The participants of this study were 65 female students sorted out of a larger population of 90 intermediate students studying English as a foreign language at a language school in Karaj (a city close to the capital city of Tehran). The participants’ age ranged from 15 to 35 and they had minimum two years of English learning experience. The selection procedure took place at two stages. At the first stage, the homogeneity of the aforementioned participants was confirmed based on their scores on a Preliminary English Test (PET) which was piloted in advance. That is, 67 participants were selected as those who obtained a score falling one standard deviation above and below the sample mean. During the second stage, the 67 selected participants sat for a piloted 88-item vocabulary test to ensure their homogeneity in terms of vocabulary knowledge and to indentify the vocabularies that were unknown by all participants. Two participants who knew 10% of the vocabularies were omitted and the result was selection of 65 participants. These participants were then randomly assigned to two experimental groups: 32 participants comprised the non-task preparation activities group and 33 participants formed the providing a model group. The two experimental groups received two different treatments for learning vocabularies. However, the results of two participants in the non-task preparation group and three in the providing a model group were omitted from the final analysis as these students were spotted as those who did not attend the classes regularly and thus were not representative of their group. 2.2 Instruments The instruments used in this study included three tests, the course book, and the tasks and activities utilized for each group. 2.2.1 Proficiency Test A sample PET was administered to the participants for the purpose of ensuring their homogeneity vis-á-vis their language proficiency as the first step in the study. PET had two papers: Reading and Writing and Listening. The reading and writing paper consisted of 35 reading questions in the form of multiple-choice, matching, and true-

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false items and the seven writing tasks in the form of sentence transformation questions and essays. One hour and thirty minutes were allocated to this paper. The listening paper, however, consisted of 25 multiple-choice, gap-filling, and yes/no questions with a thirty-minute time allocation. Note has to be taken that since the purpose of the study was investigating the impact of the two modes of pre-task activities on the vocabulary retention of the students, the speaking section of PET was not administered. Finally, PET’s ‘General Mark Scheme’ was utilized for rating the two essays of the writing section. 2.2.2 Vocabulary Pre- and Post-Test A vocabulary test was designed based on the content of the five reading passages of the book ‘Intermediate Select Reading’ which was practiced during the treatment. The test comprised a list of 96 vocabularies which were supposed to be unknown to the intermediate students according to one of the researcher’s experience in teaching that level for years. The participants were asked to write either the Persian meaning or the English equivalent for each of the vocabularies on the list. In the pilot phase eight vocabularies which were known by 60% of the participants were omitted from the list leaving the final list with 88 vocabularies to be administered for the pre-test. However, as a result of the main administration of the vocabulary list for homogenizing the participants during the pre-test, three of the vocabularies which were answered by five percent of the participants were also omitted from the list. So, there remained 85 vocabularies to be taught during the treatment, which were all unknown to the participants of the study. In order to come up with the vocabulary list for the post-test, the researchers randomly selected 40 vocabularies from the final 85 vocabularies which were taught during the treatment sessions. The participants were asked to write either the Persian meaning or the English equivalent for each word on the list. 2.2.3 Instructional Material The book ‘Select Readings’ (Intermediate) by Lee and Gundersen (2001) was used as the course book. Moreover, activities for pre-tasks were selected from ‘Doing Task-based Teaching’ by Willis and Willis (2007) which will be fully described in the procedure section. 2.3 Procedure At first, a piloted PET was administered to 90 intermediate students and those whose scores fell within one standard deviation above and below the mean (M=43.57, SD= 11.58) were selected. The application of Cronbach’s alpha demonstrated that the reliability of the closed-ended items of PET was .83. Moreover, the inter-rater consistency for rating the essays in the writing section as measured by Pearson correlation turned out to be .91. As the second step, the piloted 88-item vocabulary pre-test (as explained before) was given to the participants and two students who knew 10% of the vocabularies were also omitted from the final sample. The remaining 65 participants were then randomly assigned to two experimental groups with an assurance that the two groups bore no significant difference in terms of their overall language proficiency as well as vocabulary knowledge. The whole research project took place in 12 instructional sessions each lasting for 45 to 60 minutes. During these sessions, 85 vocabularies were taught through five reading texts selected from ‘Select Reading’ book to both groups with approximately seven vocabularies covered in each session. Each passage was split into two or three sections based on its length and each section was covered in one session in a way that each session around seven vocabularies would be introduced. The same teacher (one of the researchers) taught the two experimental groups and the two groups received same hours of instruction, reading passages, vocabularies, and the while-task and post-task activities. The only difference between the two groups was the type of pre-task activities through which the vocabularies were presented. For both groups, the teacher conducted a warm-up using a picture and the title of the text. Then, the pre-task phase would start and continue for around thirty minutes for each group but through two different types of activities. For the non-task preparation activities group, the teacher would conduct brainstorming and asking participants to mention as many related words to the topic as possible. This was followed by several activities with a shared focus of gradually introducing the vocabularies and helping the participants guess their meaning before the main task. One of the activities was ‘sequencing’ in which some sentences were presented to the students which they were encouraged to re-order through recognizing the main and supporting ideas and the sequence of events. Some parts of these sentences were underlined which were the definition or synonym of the new vocabularies in the main text. Thus, the students would do the task through scanning the text, finding the vocabularies presented in the main text that matched the underlined definitions or synonyms in the sentences, and finally re-ordered the sentences. Other tasks for the non-task preparation activities group were matching vocabularies with the definitions, matching the vocabularies with the meanings (synonyms) through finding lexical relations (parts of speech), and filling in the blanks through finding the meaning of the required vocabularies in the text. The basis for all these pre-task activities was scanning and skimming the text and guessing the meaning of the vocabularies. In the providing a model group, all the activities that were done by the participants during the pre-task phase in the non-task preparation activities group (explained above) were carried out as a model by the teacher. In fact,

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the teacher provided the group with a model of the task performance. Through thinking aloud, the teacher demonstrated all the steps of each activity; for example how she scanned the text for the intended vocabulary, skimmed the paragraph or part of it, and used the text and the context to reach the best and most appropriate meaning for each of the above activities. The participants followed her to be able to guess the meaning of the vocabularies and were thus cognitively active during the whole process and the last and most important step for them was finding out the suitable meaning. Therefore, although the students finally performed the activities themselves, they first received a model on how to conduct them. As mentioned before, the while- and post-task phases were exactly the same for both groups. The while-task phase was reading the text silently during which the teacher would guide the students in case they faced any problem. For the post-task phase, the participants in both groups were encouraged to take part in activities in which they would practice the same vocabularies such as: fill in the gaps, true/false, multiple choice comprehension questions, paraphrasing, and finally communal memory task for which the participants were encouraged to write a summary of the text using as many new vocabularies as they remembered. During all these three phases, the participants received feedback from the teacher since as Liu (2011) maintains feedback has a great role in ensuring the students of the correctness of their contextual guesses. Note has to be taken that the students were not told that they were supposed to take part in a subsequent test to measure their vocabulary retention. Since the focus was on the retention of vocabularies, the vocabulary post-test was administered after a two-week interval and the results of the two groups were compared to determine the efficacy of the pre-task activities. 2.4 Data Analysis Based on the nature and the purpose of the research, the design was experimental comparison-group as participants were randomly selected and assigned into two experimental groups. The major variables which the researchers manipulated in this study (independent variables) were non-task preparation activities and providing a model as two types of pre-task activities. Vocabulary retention was the dependent variable and language proficiency level of the participants, vocabulary knowledge, and gender were the control variables. 3. Results The results of administering the piloted PET among 90 intermediate students were used for homogenizing the participants. For this purpose the descriptive statistics of the results were obtained and the reliability of different sections (reported in the instruments section) were estimated. Table 1 demonstrates the descriptive statistics of PET. TABLE 1: Total Scores on PET

N Mean Std. Deviation

PET Scores 90 43.57 11.58

Following the selection of the participants based on the PET results, the 67 students sat for the vocabulary pre-tests and two students who knew 10% of the vocabularies were omitted from the target sample, thus the remaining 65 participants did not have knowledge of the target words and their scores on the 88-item vocabulary pre-test ranged between 0-3. Subsequently, the participants were randomly assigned to the two experimental groups and at the end of the treatment they took the vocabulary post-test. As mentioned before, on the whole the results of five participants from the two groups were discarded for the final analysis as they did not attend their classes regularly, leaving the number of participants 30 in each group. The purpose of the vocabulary post-test was to investigate which group had a significantly higher vocabulary retention. Since the two groups bore no difference in terms of their general proficiency as well as knowledge of the target vocabularies prior to the treatment, any significant difference on the post-test between the two groups could be attributed to the differential impact of the pre-task activities which comprised the only difference in the procedure followed in the two groups. Therefore, first the descriptive statistics of the post-test were obtained for the target analysis. Table 2 demonstrates the results. TABLE 2: Descriptive Statistics for the Vocabulary Post-Test

Group N Mean Std. Deviation

Skewness

Statistic Std. Error Statistic Std. Error Ratio

Non-task preparation

30 24.17 1.135 6.215 0.028 0.427 0.065

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Providing a Model

30 20.80 1.197 6.557 0.076 0.427 0.177

As shown in Table 2, non-task preparation group obtained a higher mean than the providing a model group on the vocabulary post-test. However, to test the null hypothesis of the study, group means had to be statistically compared through an independent samples t-test. Therefore, the noramality of both distributions of scores as the assumption for running t-test was checked first. As demonstrated in Table 2, the skewness ratios for both groups (.065 and .177) fell within the acceptable range of ±1.96 meaning that both sets of scores were normally distributed and running a t-test was legitimate. Table 3 demonstrates the results of the t-test. TABLE 3: The Result of Independent Samples t-test for Comparing the Vocabulary Retention Post-test Mean Scores of the Two Experimental Groups

Levene’s Test for Equality of Variances

f Sig. t df Sig (2-tailed)

Mean Difference

Std. Error Difference

Equal Variances Assumed

0.519 0.474 2.041 58 0.046 3.367 1.649

Equal Variances not Assumed

2.041 57.834 0.046 3.367 1.649

As Table 3 indicates, the results of the Levene’s test (f=.519, p=.474> .05) showed that the variances between the two groups were not significantly different and thus, homogeneity of variances was assumed. Therefore, the results of the t-test with equal variances assumed are reported here. The results (t=2.041, df=58, p=.046 < .05) show that there was a significant difference between the mean scores of the two experimental groups at the post-test. The differences observed between the sample means on the post-test (24.17 and 20.80 for non-task preparation activities and providing a model groups, respectively) were large enough to be attributed to the differences between the population means and therefore not due to sampling errors. It means that there was a significant difference between the effect of the non-task preparation activities technique and providing a model technique on EFL learners’ vocabulary retention. Moreover, the effect size was computed by Cohen’s d and r using the t-value and df. Cohen’s d came out to be .536 which according to Cohen’s standard shows a medium effect. Cohen’s d of .536 corresponds with r value of .26 yielding eta square of .067 which indicates that non-task preparation activities accounted for 6.7% of the variability in the vocabulary retention scores of the group. Therefore, the findings of the study could be considered moderate for the purpose of generalization. 4. Discussion As a result of the data analysis, the null hypothesis of the research was rejected and the data moderately suggested that out of the two treatments given to the two experimental groups, use of non-task preparation pre-task activities had a significantly more effective impact on the vocabulary retention of the intermediate students. Note has to be taken that in this study both groups received the same warm up and the same while-task activities and both practiced the vocabularies again during the identical post-task activities. Therefore, the justification for the higher impact of the non-task preparation activities may reside in the difference the two pre-task activities may possibly have in the mental processes they involve and the type of load each reduce for the learners. As discussed in the introduction, provide a model activity is argued to reduce the cognitive load by activating learners’ content schemata (Ellis, 2006; Willis, 1996), while non-task preparation is said to minimize both the cognitive and linguistic demands of the task (Ellis, 2003) along with developing learners’ schemata (Ellis, 2003). Therefore, it seems that in the case of provide a model, while the cognitive load is reduced, the learners still need to struggle with the linguistic features of the task with vocabulary being one of the fundamental ones. However, by means of the non-task preparation activities, both the cognitive and linguistic loads are minimized, leaving the participants with an advantage especially when the focus of the task, like this study, is learning and retention of vocabulary. Another possible justification, which of course requires further research, might be the activation of different types of schemata by the two pre-task activities. As mentioned in the previous paragraph, provide a model seems to activate the content schemata and thus, the advantage of non-task preparation activities might lie in its probable influence on activating both formal and content schemata, a conjecture which definitely requires evidence obtained through research. Yet, it might have also been the case that the non-task preparation activities resulted in a more student-centered practice in which the participants not only were more cognitively involved but also felt more responsible in

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finding the meaning of the vocabularies, and thus, became more autonomous. According to Weimer (2002), in a learner-centered context, the learners are more motivated, more involved or engaged, more creative, and more responsible for their learning, and as a result more learning takes place. Moreover, Rivers (2008) states that the focus of TBLT is on learner-centered educational philosophies. Therefore, an additional conclusion might be that non-task preparation activities better serve such a philosophy. On the contrary, in the providing a model group the participants had to imitate the teacher rather than exploring the ways and means of doing the task themselves and as a result might have been more dependent upon the teacher and also less cognitively involved. Therefore, although Ellis (2006) asserts that teachers can scaffold learners’ performance through the pre-task activities knowing that such other-regulation will in future result in self-regulation; it might have been the case that providing a model pre-task activity, kept the participants more dependent on the teacher. This interpretation entails taking the limited time span of this research into account. The conclusion might be that provide a model activity may result in a more gradual autonomy of the students if practiced for a period of time longer than the current study. Finally, the results of this research, though limited in scope, suggest that using non-task preparation activities instruction in learning vocabularies and recalling them is useful for pre-intermediate learners. Consequently, attempts should be made to teach learners to be independent of using dictionaries or the teacher to present the meaning of the unknown vocabularies. 5. Conclusion With the highly significant role that vocabulary plays in communication and thus in teaching and learning a foreign language along with the centrality TBLT has gained in foreign language teaching, the important issue is how and when to incorporate vocabulary into a TBLT syllabus to involve learners as much as possible and aid them in processing the vocabulary at a deeper level in order to have a higher degree of retention. The results of this study suggested that incorporating vocabulary in pre-task phase through non-task preparation activities brings about a significantly better retention in comparison to providing a model activity. Therefore, it can be concluded that findings of this study may have implications for foreign language teachers in raising their awareness regarding the importance of the pre-task phase and the effectiveness of non-task preparation activities when the focus is vocabulary retention. Moreover, syllabus designers and materials developers are encouraged through the findings of this study to design more innovative non-task preparation activities and incorporate them into the text books. This study does not put an end to the research on the effectiveness of using non-task preparation activities. Further study is needed to compare the effect of these two pre-task activities at different levels of language proficiency and on different language components or skills. Furthermore, in another research, other pre-task alternatives, strategic planning and performing a similar task, and any combination of them can be compared. Ultimately, according to Cui and Wang, Li, and Nurweni (all cited in Zheng, 2011) who believe that there is a direct relation between vocabulary depth (being processed deeply) and vocabulary breadth (vocabulary size), further studies can compare the impact of different pre-task activities on such a relationship. References Beglar, D., & Hunt, A. (2002). 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