Reviews and Book Notices, Revista de Lenguas para Fines Específicos, 18 (2012)

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Francisco Yus. 2011. Cyberpragmatics.Internet-mediated communication in context.

Amsterdam/Philadelphia: JohnBen jamins Publishing Co. [Pragmatics &Be yond New Series, 213] xiv, 353 pp.

The last decades have seen theemergence of new and really impressivetech nologies which have not onlybrought in new modes of communicationbut have also transformed the traditionaldichoto my between speech and writing.Many scholars have recently approachedthe issue, mainly from a social oranthropological perspective. Yus’svolume, focusing on language usage, isan excellent example of the interestaroused by these new ways of socializingand communicating trough electronicmedia. It provides a profound analysis ofthe differentgenres of Internet-mediatedcommunication by studying all thevarieties of interaction online: the webpage, chat rooms, instant messaging,social networking sites, 3D virtual worlds,blogs, videoconference, e-mail, Twitter,etc.

Organised in eight chapters, the bookstarts with an introduction in which theauthor explains how he coined the termcyberpragmatics for the specific approachhe carries out in his study of Internet-mediated communication from theperspective of cognitive pragmatics,using the framework of Relevance

Theory. According to Yus, this theoryhas proved to be useful to account bothfor face-to-face and for asynchronouscommunication. In his own words(2012: xi) “typed texts often appear to behybrids between the stability and rigidityof the written (i.e. typed) text, on the onehand, and the spontaneity and ephemeralquality of speech, on the other”. Hefinds, however, little difference betweeninterpreting messages in physical contextsor in virtual scenarios, since the onlything that changes is the means used byhumans in order to engage in interactions.Today, it is obvious that thanks to theInternet, geographical limits and the lackof physical co-presence are no longer aproblem for communication. In addition,Yus underlines the role of the Internetas a broad field of research for thoseinterested in user-to-user communicationon the Net.

In the Introduction Yus also offersa brief but detailed summary of thecontents and main aims of each of theeight chapters comprised in the volume.Thus, in the first chapter, titled“Pragmatics, context and relevance”, hecomments on various pragmaticassumptions, underlining the majorcontribution of Prag matics to languagestudy, namely “the certainty that it isimpossible to analyse language outsidethe context in which it is produced andinterpreted” (p. 2). Subsequently, he

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develops the main tenets of RelevanceTheory with the aim of using them laterin his descriptionof user’s communicativebehaviour on the Internet. Two finalsections in this chapter are devoted todescribe Cyber prag matics, a term he coinedin 2001, and the foundations of thissubdiscipline, together with its connectionwith cognition and the Internet.

In the second chapter, under theheading “The presentation of self inevery day web use”, Yus successfullymanages to provide an overview of thelinks between discourse and identity, bypointing out how our discursive featuresand interactive behaviours shape ourpersonalities as human beings in thecom munication process. The authorresorts to the film You’ve got mail toillustrate the problem of the constructionof identity through discourse on theNet, showing how the Internet modifiesthe public presentation of people’sidentities. The Internet is presented notonly as “a powerful tool for the definitionand develop ment of identities andpersonalities” but also for “the creationand consolidation of virtual groups andcommunities” (p. 21).

For this chapter, Yus draws fromGoffman’s differentiation between thevarious social roles an individual can playin society and his real identity behindthat social façade. Yus applies this modelto Internet-mediated communication,

where a number of virtual or electronicidentities tend to cover the user’s realpersonality. This way, the author showsthe importance and enormous influen ceof both the social use of language andthefeeling of group or network membership.In short, virtual communication can beconsidered as “an effect of the progressiveadaptation of human beings to differentenvironments or habitats: natural, urbanand now telematics” (p. 26). The chapterfinishes with Yus’s comments on twoforms of self-presen tation on theInternet: the personal web page and thenickname. The former seems to acquirea certain independence or autonomyfrom the author, as long as it allows forthe creation of what is known as theautonomous media identity; the latter oftentends to be used with the aim of maskingone’s identity. However, it can alsofunction connotatively, since it mayconvey information or assumptions thatthe user tries “to make manifest in aspecific context” (p. 44).

The third chapter discusses “Rele vanceon the web page”. Here Yus starts bydescribing three possible perspecti veswhich can be adopted when carrying outa cognitive pragmatics analysis of webpages, namely, the author’s point ofview, the textual or discursive point ofview and the reader’s point of view.Since the main aim of this chapter is toapply Relevance Theory to Internet-

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mediated communication, Yus beginsby studying relevance in informationretrieval systems, before concentratingon the user who is surfing the Net. Thenhe focuses on usability, i.e., the effortthat the use of a computer systemdemands. Finally, he devotes two sectionsto analysing the process of transferringoffline discourse to the Internet. This isillustrated with the cases of the printednewspaper and the printed advertisement,including comments on their respectivepragmatic implications.

Chapter four deals with “Socialnetworks on the Internet: The Web2.0”. As the title suggests, this chapter isdevoted to new forms of interactionthrough the Internet which have quiterecently had a great impact. Thesecommunicative resources can be classifiedunder the label Web 2.0, namely, blogs,social networking sites –such as MySpace,Facebook or, in Spain, Tuenti– and theshort-messaging microblog Twitter. Asregards blogs, Yus explains that they canbe studied from three main perspectives.The first is the author’s intention whenuploading information on the blog.Ac cording to Yus, this point of view isessential in a pragmatic analysis. Thesecond perspective has to do with thequalities of blog as a genre, as long asthey reflect the blogger’s intention.Finally, the third point of view is that ofthe content of the blog, since this will be

useful to predict the quality of readers’interpretations. In Yus’s opinion a fourthperspective might be added: it would beone that fo cuses “on the blog as a mediumto sustain interactions and as evidenceof group or community ties” (p. 95).

After distinguishing social networkson the Internet from social networkingsites (SNSs), Yus offers some defini-tions of the latter, “a subgroup of all thepossible scenarios available for In ter net-sustained social networks” (p. 111) Hecontinues with some comments on theirattributes and types, including sometheoretical approaches.

As for the microblog Twitter, a verypopular short-message service, Yus alsooffers some definitions, before analysingits communicative and interactive quali ties,from the perspective of Relevance Theory.He also comments on some inferentialstrategies which are normally appliedfor the interpretation of tweets, such asreference assignment, disambiguation, conceptualadjustment, free enrichment, among others.After giving examples of Twitterconversations, Yus underlines the factthat tweets have all the typical features ofSMS (short messages of up to 140characters) but exhibit a social networkingorientation.

Chapter five approaches “The virtualconversation”, a type of interaction thatconstitutes a new mode of communicationwhich establishes its own code and

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Revista de Lenguas para Fines Específicos, 18 (2012)

definitely eliminates the limits betweenspeech and writing. Yus presents a de tailedaccount of the distinguishing featuresof the conversations held by chat roomusers and offers an interesting re view ofthe literature regarding the conversationalstrategies which can or cannot be used inthis communicative resource. The authordescribes the strategies users employ inorder to compensate for the lack ofaudio channels, visual channels andcontextual information, such as emoticons;he also gives examples to illustrate thekind of hints they provide. The fact thatchat room messages can be considered asoralized written texts is clearly underlined.In this sense, Yus points out how thischaracteristic allows not only for thetransmission of information but also ofthe user’s attitude towards the typed text.Instant messaging, chatting in 3D andvideoconferencing are also studied inthe final sections of this chapter.

In chapter six, Yus undertakes ananalysis of the electronic mail (e-mail),a very popular form of asynchronousvirtual communication and a label thatcomprises various types of interactionwith some overlapping among them. Afirst section of this chapter is devoted tothe description of the main features ofe-mail, with the emphasis put on thedifficulty to classify it in the oral/writtendichotomy. In another section, Yusre views the main elements of an electronic

message and studies their role in theprocess of interpretation. Apart fromthe personal message, the most commone-mail type, Yus also comments on twoother worth mentioning types, thenews group and the Listserv.

“Politeness on the Net”, or netiquette,is the selected topic for the seventhchap ter, which starts with the author’srecognition of the difficulty to definepoliteness and the different ways it isexpressed in different cultures, despiteits universality. Conceived either as socialnorms or as strategies that determinethe choice of certain linguistic formulas,politeness is mostly described as the usageof certain linguistic forms aimed atimproving social relationships incommunicative interactions. In the caseof computer-mediated communication,Yus underlines the fact that thesepoliteness strategies may be used eitheras a result of a personal option of thespeaker/ writer or may be imposedupon by an external moderator of thevirtual system. The author also offers areview of the various approaches to thestudy of po liteness, including Brown andLevinson’s model. Here, he summarisesthe connection between politeness and(in)direct speech acts, politeness andtransactional and interactional discourse,politeness and rudeness, comparingeach aspect with the situations on theInternet. The relationship between


politeness and rele vance is also one ofthe questions approached by Yus, whounderlines the possible applications ofrelevance theory to politeness, despite theinitial difficulties.

The last chapter, chapter eight,provides the author’s conclusion andpros pects for cyberpragmatic research. Itis divided into six sections that respectivelydeal with the oral/written and visual/verbal dichotomy, the ubiquity of theInternet, the consolidation of hybridnetworks of interactions, the transferen ceof information from the Internet to themobile phone, the transference of contentto the web, and the consolidation ofWeb 2.0, participatory culture and user-generated content. In most of theseissues, Yus highlights the increasinglyimportant role played by the mo bilephone as well as the interesting pragmaticconsequences derived from discourseproduction and interpretation on the Net.

In addition to the usual referencesection, the volume includes a name indexand a subject index, which complementthe edition.

This is definitely a groundbreakinghandbook, which provides a brilliant andcomprehensive account of the variedtypes of interaction on the web. Yus’swork is really an insightful contributionto a novel area of inquiry. Researchersworking on computer-mediatedcommunication and university students

at all levels will surely benefit from thisvalua ble source of knowledge andresources for the study of language useand humaninteraction. Likewise, generallinguists and scholars interested inlanguage and particularly in the impact ofthe electronic media on language use willundoubtedly find this work a must. [MªIsabel GON záLEz CRuz, Universidad deLas Palmas de Gran Canaria]

Bruce, Ian. 2011. Theory and Conceptsof English for Academic Purposes. Basingtoke,uK: Palgrave Macmillan. Pp. 227.

Theory and Concepts of English forAca demic Purposes provides an exhaustiveoverview on key issues in the field ofEnglish for Academic Purposes (EAP)as an informed basis for spelling out a setof principles around which EAP coursesmay be designed, developed andimplemented. Following a user-friendly,gene ral-to-specific arrangement, thevolume is structured into three parts:the first one deals with a theoreticalframework for teaching EAP asdifferentiated from teaching generalEnglish. The second part focuses on thedesign of EAP courses, paying specialattention to approaches to syllabusdevelopment in relation to the types ofknowledge that are to be integrated inthem. The third one offers important

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points as for the implementation anddelivery of EAP courses in terms ofteacher competencies, the de velopmentof the four skills, i.e. writing, reading,listening and speaking, and assessment.

The first part is entitled “A Theo -retical Basis for English for AcademicPurposes” and comprises three chapters:“Introduction to EAP: Key Issues andConcepts”, “Investigating the Aca de micWorld” and “Students’ Needs and EAPCourse Design”. “Introduction to EAP:Issues and Concepts” presents anddefinessome basic concepts such as EAP itself,which is generally defined as a branch ofEnglish for Specific Purposes (ESP) thatfocuses on “the study of English for thepurpose of participating in highereducation” (Bruce 2011: 6). Therefore,it is a needs-driven activity which aimsto train students to master both the spokenand written discourses of the academiccommunity so that they can successfullyparticipate in it. As a needs-driven activity,EAP relies heavily on needs analysis, asystematic process of student needsidentification where both present andtarget situations have to be taken intoaccount. The approach to EAP adoptedin this book is also left clear in thisintroductory chapter: the author rightlynotes that binary ap proaches like theaccomodationist and critical ones shouldbe avoided because they offer simplisticviews on educational issues which tend

to be complex and multifaceted, andadvocates for a combination of both ofthem.

“Investigating the Academic World”theorises about approaches and toolsthat can be used when researchingacademic contexts with the aim ofinfor ming EAP courses. In this sense,research must cover several aspectsrelated to the characteristics of theacademic community the students wantto join, their discipline-specific subjectknowledge and academic subjects ingeneral. The author offers a review ofdifferent approaches which can beadopted when gathering information inthese areas; for zinstance, the issue ofacademic communities may be approachedfrom the perspectives of (i) speechcommunities, (ii) discourse communitiesor (iii) communities of prac tice. Textualgenres, both written and spoken, play aprominent role when researchingdisciplinary knowledge since the designof EAP courses will be determined to agreat extent by the way knowl edge iscreated, validated and com municated ina given discipline. In relation to academicsubjects, EAP courses are also aimed atdeveloping students’ awareness of the wayacademic institutions operate, i.e. courseorganisation, teaching methods, interactionbetween the agents in academic contextsand assessment. The author then proposesthree methodologies for investigating


particular academic communities, i.e.ethnographic, genre-based and corpus-based, commenting on both theirstrengths and weaknesses in a neutralway so that readers can choose the onethat fits best into their purposes.

“Students’ Needs and EAP CourseDesign” presents the three steps to befollowed when designing andimplementing EAP courses. The firststep is needs analysis, which will provideteachers with the necessary informationabout students’ present knowledge andskills and the ones they are expected toachieveonce the course is complete. Thesecond step is the formulation ofcourse aims and objectives on the basisof the information gathered during thefirst step, and this is followed by theselection and staging of coursecontents, which is the third step. Animportant point raised here is that thedevelopment of stages two and three hasto be informed by theo ries of discourse,and theories of language teaching andlearning, respectively. Theories ofdiscourse will assist the formulation ofaims and objectives in relation to thedevelopment of the students’ capacity(i) to process and create texts typicallyfound in academic contexts, (ii) to exploitand transfer their linguistic knowledge interms of textual processing and creationin a variety of contexts, and (iii) toacknowledge disciplinary differences.

Theories of language teaching andlearning will obviously help teachers inthe selection and staging of coursecontents in a pedagogical way.

The second part of the book isentitled “The Design of EAP courses”and contains three chapters: “Developingan EAP Syllabus: Approaches andModels”, “EAP Courses and SubjectDiscipline Knowledge” and “EAP Coursesand Lan guage Knowledge”. “Developingand EAP Syllabus: Approaches andModels” gives the reader some generalguidelines for designing an EAP syllabus,including (i) the combination of bothdeclarative and procedural knowledge;(ii) the adop tion of holistic approacheswhen setting up the objectives, allowingfor the integration of different types ofknowledge; and (iii) the top-down,synthetic organi sation of the contents,i.e. moving from the general to thespecific in such a way that the emphasisis placed on developing the students’discourse competence. On the basis ofthese principles, the chapter ends upillustrating how the process of syllabusdevelopment can proceed.

“EAP Courses and Subject Dis ci plineKnowledge” centres around theintegration of subject disciplineknowledge in the EAP curriculum. Therole of the EAP teacher is vital heresince s/he has to engage with subjectdiscipline staff in order to gather

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information from the subject discipline.Following Dudley-Evans and St John(1998), three models of engagement areproposed: co-operation, collaborationand team-teaching. Teachers themselvesmust be able to analyse not onlydisciplinary knowledge and practices, butalso disciplinary texts and discourses.They must be equipped with discourseanalyst tools that help them understand theconventional forms of communicationexisting in specific disciplines to thentransfer that knowledge to their teachingpractice. The framework proposed bythe author to classify spoken and writtenforms of communication in academiccontexts is the social genre/cognitive genreapproach. The social genre/cognitive genreapproach seems to be more than adequatefor analysing disciplinary knowledge as itprovides EAP practitioners and learnerswith a framework for carrying outethnographic and textual analysis.

“EAP Courses and LanguageKnowl edge” argues that linguisticknowledge, i.e. textual grammar,metadiscourse and vocabulary, should beintegrated in EAP courses following aholistic, functional approach. This is doneby highlighting the problems associatedwith a decontextualised approach tolanguage teaching and by offering thereader some useful illustrations of howthis task can be performed with sampletexts and exercises.

The third part of the book is entitled“The Implementation of EAP Courses”.Six chapters are included in this part:“EAP and Teacher Competencies”,“EAP and Teaching the Writing Skill”,“EAP and Teaching the Reading Skill”,“EAP and Teaching the Listening Skill”,“EAP and Teaching the Speaking Skill:Teaching Critical Thinking” and “EAPand Assessment”. “EAP and TeacherCompetencies” focus on the type ofknowl edge and skills an EAP teachershould have. The information contai nedhere is based on the Competency Frameworkfor Teachers of English for Academic Purposes(CFTEAP) as developed by the BritishAssociation of Lecturers in English forAcademic Purposes (BALEAP, 2008).The discussion on this document startswith an overall statement that insists on theteacher’s capacity to help their studentsin the acquisition and development oflanguage, skills and knowledge asnecessary for studying in higher educationcontexts. It then continues with othercompetency specifications related toacademic practice, EAP students,curriculum development and programmeimplementation. In general, EAP teachersshould have knowledge of organisationand values, including communicativeones, governing academic contexts aswell as of disciplinary differences andthe way these shape how knowledge iscommunicated. They should be aware


of their students’ needs bearing in mindthe specific target contexts they wish tojoin. Apart from this, they are requiredto know about critical approaches tocreation and processing of academicknowl edge to help students develop acritical voice towards the knowledgegenerated in their field. Moreover, theyare expected to have knowledge of bothsyllabus and programme developmentso that EAP courses actually addressstudents’ needs in academic contexts, aswell as of text-focused and genre-basedapproaches to text processing and textcreation. The CFTEAP document finallycomments on teaching practices andassessment practices. As regards teachingpractices, the document highlights theimportance of locating teaching practicesin the specific contexts in which they areto occur, namely, academic, in contrastto general ELT contexts. In relation toassessment, EAP teachers should assessthe four skills, and particularly theproductive ones, at a performance-based level and in such a way thatassessment serves as ongoing feedbackfor learners.

“EAP and Teaching the WritingSkill” emphasises the idea that writinginstruction in EAP courses should bebased on developing the students’discourse competence, i.e. social, genericand textual (Bahtia 2004: 144-145), andcritical competence so that they can

im prove their skills when writingextended academic texts in an analytical,critical way. The author recommendsagain a genre-based approach, andparticularly the social genre/cognitive genremodel, becauseit will provide a principledmeth odology for the deconstructionand con struction of disciplinary genres.The employment of this approach isillustrated by means of some prototypicalcognitive genres, i.e. recount, report,explanation, discussion and resultssection, as well as some writing tasks ascan be found in a course syllabus.

In “EAP and Teaching the ReadingSkill”, the author notes that teaching thereading skill in academic contexts shouldtake account of a number of differenttypes of knowledge that are involved intextual processing, i.e. contextualknowl edge, pre-textual expectations,study skills and sub-skills competence,and discourse competence. The wayreading should be integrated in an EAPcourse is also touched upon in thischapter. The author proposes a curricularprogression based on the principle thatreceptive skills should be placed beforeproductive ones. Receptive texts willthen be the focus of attention to analysecontent and discursive, organisationaland linguistic features. The knowledgeobtained after this analysis is to be thentransferred to productive texts followinga genre-based pedagogy. The chapter

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ends up with con sidering two importantissues, i.e. reading speed and vocabularyknowledge, both of which arecommented on as related to strategiesthat can be used for im proving readingproficiency and vocabu lary development.

“EAP and Teaching the ListeningSkill” concentrates on the processing ofextended spoken texts, mainly monologic,in higher education contexts. Thechapter begins with an overview of thetypes of processes, i.e. top-down andbottom-up, and knowledge, i.e. contextualand pragmatic, semantic, syntactic, lexicaland phonological, that are involvedwhen listening to spoken texts. Takingas the starting point the notion thatdeveloping the listening skill involves anumber of areas and tasks which haveto be worked on actively, the authorthen discusses those areas and proposessome tasks in relation to processingskills and task knowledge. The genre-based focus is also considered here:preparing students for processingextended spoken texts would benefitfrom creating awareness about themacro-structure of the spoken texts sothat they become familiarised with theirconventional organisation and mostrecurrent linguistic features.

“EAP and Teaching the SpeakingSkill: Teaching Critical Thinking” startswith an overview of theoreticalframeworks in relation to the

development of this skill, i.e. cognitiveand physical, knowl edge-related andtask-related. Relying on Levelt’s (1989)processing model and Martínez-Flor’s,usó-Juan’s and Alcón-Soler’s (2006)communicative competen ce model, theauthor posits that speaking is also acomplex activity in which a number ofprocesses and knowledge have to beintegrated. Performance in speaking issaid to improve by means of repetitionof tasks since it helps students ininternalising the elements involved, and assaid later on in the chapter, an emphasisshould be made on encouragingstudents to participate regularly in class.It continues with an overview of themost frequent types of speaking routines,tasks and genres in academic contexts,such as asking questions in lectures,seminar participation, oral presentationsand verbalising data. This chapterfinishes by addressing the developmentof critical thinking, relying on the twoapproaches taken by Atkinson (1997)on this issue, namely, the teachable skillsapproach and the cognitiveapprenticeship approach. The formertakes the teaching of critical thinking asa set of general skills that may be thentransferred to disciplinary contexts;however, this view has been challengedby scholars like Ramanathan and Kaplan(1996) who consider the teaching ofcritical thinking as inextrica bly bound to


the context in which it is to be developed.The cognitive apprenticeship approach,the one favoured by the author,considers that students who wish to joina given discourse community have tolearn the practices of that communityand so the teaching of critical thinkingcannot exist but in a discipline-specificcontext: its teaching has to be shaped bythe discursive characteristics and practicesof the academic discipline.

“EAP and Assessment” provides ashort overview on issues related toassessment in EAP contexts. Due to thefact that EAP courses have to integratea wide range of skills and knowledge,assessment of outcomes have to be donein an integrative and holistic way, too.Some key concepts related to languagetesting discussed here include the identi -fication of the tasks used for assessment,the relationship between language testsand the type of knowledge and/or skillthey are to assess, language test typolo-gies, and approaches to measuring theoutcomes of testing. Focusing on theproductive skills, the author proposesthat both the speaking and the writingskills should be assessed at a performan -ce-based level by using sample tasks ascarried out in class. These, in turn, shouldbe analytically scored on the basis ofthose criteria that relate to the fulfilmentof the tasks. Both performance testingand analytic scoring provide optimal

feedback to students who want to developtheir discourse competence.

This book is highly recommendedas an invaluable theoretical presentationand revision of fundamental conceptsand theories related to EAP activities. Itstands as an informative and insightfulwork for anyone interested in the designand implementation of EAP courses asit provides a sound theoretical basis tocarry out such a task, being amplyillustrated with examples of syllabusdevelop ment, areas of languageknowledge to be included and specificactivities aimed at developing students’discourse competence. EAP teachersand course de velopers can benefit fromthis detailed discussion on EAP wheretheory and practice are skilfully organisedand com bined, making this volume apractical guide which can be used as helpin EAP practitioners everyday activities.

References

Atkinson, D. (1997). A critical approachto critical thinking in TESOL.TESOL Quarterly 31(1), 71-94.

BALEAP. (2008). Competency Frame -work for Teachers of English forAcademic Purposes (CFTEAP). Re -trieved May 2012 from <http://www.baleap.org.uk/media/uploads/pdfs/teap-competency-frame -work.pdf>.

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Bhatia, V. K. (2004). Worlds of writtendiscourse. New York: Continuum.

Bruce, I. (2011). Theory and concepts ofEnglish for Academic Purposes. Basingt oke,uK: Palgrave Macmillan.

Dudley-Evans, T. & St John, M. J.(1998). Developments in English forSpecific Pur poses: A multidisciplinaryapproach. Cam bridge: Cambridgeuniversity Press.

Levelt, W. J. M. (1989). Speaking: Fromintention to articulation. Cambridge,MA: MIT Press.

Martínes-Flor, A., usó-Juan, E. &Alcón-So ler, E. (2006). Towardsacquiring communicative competencethrough speaking. In usó-Juan, E. &Martí nez-Flor, A. (Eds.), Currenttrends in the development and teaching ofthe four language skills (Studies onLanguage Acqui sition Series) (pp. 139-157). Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.

Ramanathan, V. & Kaplan, R. B. (1996).Some problematic “channels” in theteaching of critical thinking incurrent L1 composition textbooks:Im plications for L2 student-writers.Issues in Applied Linguistics 7(2), 225-249.

[Elena QuINTANA TOLEDO, Univer -sidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria]

Walsh, Steve. 2011. ExploringClassroom Discourse. Language in Action.London and New York: Routledge, pp.239.

Exploring Classroom Discourse is partof the Routledge Introductions toApplied Linguistics series, introductorylevel text books covering the core topicsin Applied Linguistics and primarilydesigned for those enteringpostgraduate studies and languageprofessionals returning to academicstudy. According to its author, “thecentral thesis of the book is thatlanguage teachers can improve theirprofessional practice by developing acloser understanding of classroomdiscourse and, in particular, by focusingon the complex relationship betweenlanguage, interaction and learning(2011: 1).”

Divided into nine chapters, each ofthem includes an introduction, sometasks and a concise summary. After theConclusions, the reader will find theTask commentaries, Appendix A withthe Self Evaluation of Teacher TalkProce dure and Lesson Cover Sheet,Appendix B with the transcriptionsystem used in the textbook, a glossary,a suggested list of additional readingwith a brief comment after eachreference and, finally, the references andthe index.


The introduction is divided intothree sections. In the first one, theauthor presents a description of thenature of classroom interaction in thecontext of language teaching andhighlights the important role of languagein the classroom as “it is throughlanguage in interaction that we accessnew knowledge, acquire and developnew skills, identify any problems ofunderstanding, deal with ‘breakdowns’in the communication, establish andmaintain relationships.” He offers anoverview of the most im por tant featuresof second language class room discourse,e.g. control of the interaction, speechmodification, elicitation and repair,illustrating them by using data extracts.Finally, the author shows how differentstrategies are more or less appropriateaccording to the parti cular pedagogicgoal of the moment and to the teacher’sunderstanding of local context. In thesecond section, one of the mostcommonly found structu res-the IRFexchange- is introduced and exemplified.Finally, the author considers some ofthe challenges that teachers and learnersface in relation to classroom interactionwhich will be addressed in the followingchapters.

In chapter 2, “Classroom discourseand teaching”, the author turns hisatten tion to the ways in which anunderstanding of classroom discourse

can help teachers enhance theirunderstanding of teaching. Theseunderstandings can be enhanced interms of whole methodologies such astask-based language teaching, inrelation to the teaching of specific skills,and in response to specific strategiessuch as increasing wait-time or reducingteacher echo. According to Walsh, “thebasic argument is that teachers can domuch to improve their professionalpractice and enhance learning bystudying their own interactions withstudents.” By either re cording orrecording and transcribing their owninteractions with students, teachers cangain true understandings of thecomplexities of classroom interactions.

“Classroom discourse and learning”reviews a sample of the literature onclass-based second language acquisition.It begins by considering the com plexrelationship between interaction andlanguage learning. In the section“Learning as a cognitive activity”, thereis a brief overview of some of the moreimportant hypotheses that haveattempted to explain this relationship.The three main hypotheses presentedall place interaction at the centre oflearning: Krashen’s Input Hypothesis,Long’s In teraction Hypothesis andSwain’s Output Hypothesis. Theposition taken by the author is that,while interaction is central to the L2

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teaching/learning process, the interactiveprocesses that make up class roomdiscourse are not adequately un derstoodby either teachers or learners. In section“Learning as a social process”, a secondstrand to the theoretical framework forlanguage learning is presented in theshape of socio-cultural theories ofeducation and learning including theLearning and the zone of ProximalDe velopment.

In Chapter 4, “Approaches to stu dyingclassroom discourse”, Walsh discussesthe issues involved in recording andtranscribing classroom data fromethical considerations to sound qualityor the role of the observer. Next, heprovides a critical overview of some ofthe better-known approaches toinvestigating L2 classroom interaction,both the Interaction and the Discourseanalysis traditions, while in the finalsection Conversational Analysis (CA) isoffered as a potentially more powerfulapproach to recording classroomdiscourse and the main features of thisapproach are summarised.

In “Alternative approaches tostu dying classroom discourse”, theauthor considers alternative approachesfor stu dying classroom interaction suchas the Corpus Linguistics (CL), a combi nedapproach both of the ConversationalAnalysis and the Corpus Linguistics(CLCA), and some variable approaches

which focus on promoting detailedun der standings of micro-contexts in abid to understand the complexrelationship between language,interaction and learning. After outliningthe main benefits of a CL approach, theCLCA is proposed as one way ofovercoming the CL’s shortcomings,allowing a multi-layered perspectivethat offers a description of bothlinguistic and interactional features.Walsh presents a brief summary of thework that has been done to promotevaria ble approaches to analysingclassroom interaction and mentionsvan Lier (1988), Jarvis and Robinson(1997), Kumaravadivelu (1999) andSeedhouse (2004) studies. He thenpresents an argument for adopting avariable approach to classroomdiscourse, which emphasises the factthat interaction and pedagogic goals areinextricably linked, that the dis course isconstantly changing according to theteacher’s agenda, and that teaching andlearning can be greatly improved byadopting a variable approach.

In chapter 6, “Enhancingunderstandings of classroom discourse”,the author presents a framework that iscon ceived to help teachers improve thequality of the interaction taking place intheir classes as the first step towardsim proving teaching and learning. NamedSETT (self-evaluation of teacher talk)


and devised in collaboration with L2teachers, this framework is designed toenable teachers to access the interactio nalorganisation of their classes to facili tateunderstanding. The SETT frame workcomprises four classroom micro-contexts, called modes, and fourteeninteractional features, called interactures.The four modes, identified anddescribed according to their pedagogicgoals and interactional features, are: themanagerial mode, the classroomcontext mode, the skills and systemsmode and the materials mode. Eachmode is made up of specificinteractional features (such as displayquestions, repair, or content feedback)and particu lar pedagogic goals. Eachmode has its specific interactionalfeatures that are rela ted to teachingobjectives, and it may last for one wholelesson or for much shorter periods withmore frequent changes.

The aim of the following chapter,“Classroom discourse as reflectiveprac tice”, is to introduce readers to theidea that reflective practice can beenhanced by making classroom discoursethe main focus of the reflection. In thefirst part, the author presents a critiqueof the no tion of teacher as reflectivepractitioner and explains that teachersin training need to be taught how toreflect so that reflection plus actionbecomes an integral element of their

professional practice. Therefore, Walshproposes action research as one of thebest ways to promote teachers reflectivepractice. The second part of the chapterdeals with a classroom discourse orientedapproach to reflective practice as thisapproach is, according to the author, morelikely to result in sustainable professionaldevelopment and enable teachers toreally gain close understandings of thecontexts in which they work.

In “Classroom interactionalcompetence”, Walsh presents anddevelops the notion of classroominteractional competence and considershow it can be characterised in differentcontexts. The chapter is divided intothree sections. In the first, the authorreviews the work that has beencompleted on Interactional Competence.In the second section, he characterisesclassroom interactional competence(CIC) using data extracts to examine thestrategies open to both teachers andlearners to enhance interaction andimprove opportunities for learning. Inthe final section, he considers howteachers and learners might developtheir own classroom interactionalcompetence and offers some specificstrategies, activities, tasks, etc. designedto help both teachers and learnersenhance their CIC.

The final chapter with theconclusions is divided into two sections:

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“Class room discourse: looking back”and “Class room discourse: futuredirections”. In the first section, theauthor makes some observations on thecurrent position of classroom discourseresearch taking more than fifty years ofresearch into account, while in thesecond section he summarizes thereasons why he believes that anunderstanding of interaction is crucialto effective teaching. He also justifiesthe need to make a distinction betweenresearch tools for teachers and forre searchers. Finally, Walsh states thatfuture challenges will be concernedwith collecting data that offers greaterinsights into what really happens inclassrooms.

Following an innovative “practice totheory” approach, the author leads thereader from real-world problems andissues through a discussion on the needto reflective practice and the use of theSETT framework to analyse classroomdiscourse. In most chapters there is oneor two exercises of personal reflection,where the reader is asked a questionabout his or her personal experience onthe topic that is going to be introduced,and some tasks taken from real teachingexperiences with commentaries at theend of the book. For the author, there isa compelling need to put classroomdiscourse at the centre of reflectivepractice by advocating a more structured

approach to the process of reflectionon practice. Both pre and in-serviceteacher education programmes shouldteach teachers how to do reflectivepractice and should be given the toolsand skills needed to make reflection apart of a teacher’s professional life.Exploring Class room Discourse is a highlyrecommenda ble book, with manyexamples and exer cises on how theproposed framework works. [MaríaJesús VERA CAzORLA. uni ver sidad deLas Palmas de Gran Canaria]

Seidlhofer, Barbara. (2011).Under standing English as a Lingua Franca.Oxford: OuP. Pp. 231.

Understanding English as a LinguaFranca, structured into eight differentworth reading chapters, is the result ofseveral years of research by ProfessorSeidlhofer. Jenkins defines lingua franca,as follows “a lingua franca is a contactlanguage used among people who donot share a first language, and is acommonly understood to mean asecond (or subsequent) langua ge of itsspeakers” (2007, p. 1). Seidlhofer, beingone of the main precursors, along withJenkins, of the relatively new field ofresearch namely English as a lingua francaprovides a deep account of thisinteresting area of study.


In the preface, the author gives asuccint description of her objectives,and she also makes some references tothe VOICE project (VOICE=Vienna-Oxford International Corpus of En glish).VOICE aims at compiling a corpus ofspoken English to provide evidence ofEnglish as a lingua franca. Chapter 1,What is this thing called English?, issubdivided into eight different sections,each of which contributes to thegeneral un derstanding of English as alingua franca. Notwithstanding, there aresome key concepts that should behighlighted. Firstly, this scholar clearlystates the importance of figures when itcomes to the number of native speakersof En glish and non-native speakers,being the number of non-native speakersmuch higher. Accordingly, non-nativespeakers of English should not beattached to the linguistic norms set bynative speakers. However, against thelogics of figures, and following thetradition, native speakers of English areassociated with positive connotations,whereas the fact of being a non-nativespeaker of En glish trying to imitate(more or less successfully) native modelsis more related to negative connotations.In that sense, the author questions theimpact that research in applied linguisticshas had on teachers and practitionersthroughout the last years, since most ofthem re main loyal to native speakers’

norms. Personally, I think there is stillmuch work to do by applied linguists inthis area, but it will finally have effectsnot only on those people who teachEn glish, but also on anyone who wantto learn the language. There is a changein the teaching orientation where nativeand non-native speakers have the ‘right’“to speak in ways that meet diverse localand situational needs” (Seidlhofer 2011,p. 14).

This chapter also explains thedi fferen ces between EIL (English as anInternational Language) and ELF(En glish as a Lingua Franca), and aptlycriticises the widespread model of thethree concentric circles by Kachru(1992). This model, which was veryappropriate when it was created, iscurrently outdated, since it does notreflect the increasing uses (encouragedby globalisation and electroniccommunications) of English across theglobe. The ownership of En glish is alsoquestioned in this chapter, as non-nativespeakers clearly outnumber nativespeakers. Finally, the author en couragesmore urgent research on how ELF issuccessfully used in different contexts.

Chapter two, Assumptions andpresum ptions, provides various examplesof the prescriptive vision towards theownership of English by well-knownlinguists and scholars such as PeterTrudgill or Vivian Cook. Even the

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committed linguist ac ti vist RobertPhillipson seems to be in two mindsabout English when it is used ininternational contexts. Seidlhofer in vitesthese scholars to reflect upon thesecon ser vationalist views of English asthe pro perty of native speakers, and theun der estimation of non-native speakerswho may adapt better to use Englishappropriately in any intercultural context.This short chapter gives the reader anidea of the academic atmosphere relatedto the view of English as somethinginternational, not only attached to nativespeaker norms.

In Chapter three, Standard Englishand Real English, Seidlhofer insists on theunprecedented situation of English asthe lingua franca of internationalcommu nication, and therefore, it mustbe considered as the language of all itsusers, and not merely as the property ofits native speakers. She refers to someworks by Quirk who is a great supporterof the need for native models forforeign language teaching and learning.Seidlhofer aptly rejects these “naive”and outdated theories, since “ELF userstypically ope rate in international settingsin which native speakers of English mayor may not figure, but certainly are not apriori models” (2011, p. 54). I stronglyagree with Seidlhofer, since the aim ofusing a language is to achieve effectivecommunication. Tha author follows

with a discussion on the variety of Englishmostly used. Standard English seems tofavour effective communication incontrast to other American and Britishmodels.

In Chapter four, ReconceptualisingEn glish, the author suggests that somekey concepts such as “variety”,“community” and “competence” needsbeing reconsidered. English as a linguafranca must be seen as a tool that allowsinternational, intercultural communication,and is not tied to specific countries orpeople. Ob viously, it implies a dynamicprocess of constant adaptation of thislanguage to the new realities that comewith globali sation (technological advance,mobility, economic changes, amongothers). The idea of competence alsoneeds to be reconsidered, as levels ofcompetence in a language have beentraditionally measu red depending onthe degree of mastery of grammar ofthe language. But, does it really reflectthe actual competence of a speaker?The paradigm of English as a linguafranca advocates for the capacity ofcommunication through the use ofnegotiating resources among speakersrather than through the imitation ofrules that represent the ideal speaker.This is the way the author understandsEnglish nowadays.

Chapter 5, The dynamics of ELF usage,deals with the dynamism and fluidity that


is associated with ELF communication.users of ELF exploit the potential ofthe language in interactions by focusingon the message rather than on thegrammatical aspects of language. Thisbrings about specific uses of langua geincluding lexical innovations, e.g. bignessand clearness, and grammaticaldisruptions, e.g. the drop of the thirdperson singular in the present simpletense, probably as the result ofredundancy. The interchangea ble use ofwho and which is another example of thiscreative use of language. In line withSeidlhofer’s interpretation, I see thesenew uses as a result of flexibility anddynamism of ELF. These uses merelyreflect the capacity of adaptation of alanguage that intends to be effecti ve interms of communication, rather than“grammatically correct”. Therefore,creativity is a natural process ofperfor mance.

Chapter six, Form and Function inELF, discusses the importance of formand function in ELF, as in any otherlangua ge. In the paradigm of ELF, formis subject to function in the sense thatthe form of ELF has to adapt oraccommodate to the function of thislanguage, as Cogo (2008) aptly depicts.Seidlhofer refers to the concept ofunilateral idiomaticity as “a sense of lack ofconcern for one’s interlo cutor, a neglectof the need for accommodation”

(Seidlhofer, 2011, p. 135). This act goesdirectly against the principles of theELF paradigm, where negotiation andaccommodation are the basis ofcommunication. Idioms and otherespecial uses of the language have to beunderstood in the particular contextwhere they are produced, rather thanfollowing the meaning they have in anENL context. This is one more examplewhere the principles of adaptation andflexibility apply to ELF. Seidlhofer(2009, p. 39) states that

Conditions of language use in theearly 21st century have changed drasticallycompared to even the second half ofthe 20th. Countless interaction networksare now independent of physicalproximity and are instantiated throughinteraction over vast distances, oftenwithout the participants ever meeting inthe same physical space. Instead, virtualcommunities have achieved considerablesignificance in the sum of globalinteractions.

Therefore, the ELF paradigm intendsto meet the needs of any speaker,anywhere, anytime, especially in a globa lisedworld where many communicativesituations and transactions take place ina “virtual” way.

Chapter seven, Designing English as aninternational language, deals withdescription vs. prescription, languageplanning and linguistic intervention. All

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these topics are closely related to thequestion what kind of English should betaught and learned? In this chapter, theauthor refers to three different approachesor proposals: Globish, created by J.P.Nerrière, is the most recent one. Itconsists of a list of 1,500 English wordsthat this author selects, based onimpressionistic observation as the mostcommonly occurring terms in interactionsamong non-native users of English.Nerrière, in addition, provides a set ofprescriptions or recipes with instructionsthat guide users about how to use thelangua ge (http://www. globish.com). Asecond proposal, Nuclear English, comesfrom Quirk, and his proposal “is anairing of ideas about the ways in whichnative English might be modified tomake it easier to learn as a foreignlanguage and easier to use as aninternational langua ge” (Seidlhofer 2011,p. 158). To illustrate, non-restrictiverelative clauses can be replaced withadverbial clauses, as in: I expressed mysympathy to the captain, who had beenreprimanded, which could be replaced byI expressed my sympathy to the captain becausehe had been reprimanded. In short, NuclearEnglish intends to be a simplification ofnative norms of En glish and its rules ofusage.

The third proposal, Basic English,dated back from 1938 and created by C.K. Odgen, compiles a set of 1,500words that attempt to regulate the

language to make it a more effective wayof global communication. Differentlyfrom Glo bish, this compilation ofwords is the result of a decade ofscientific research by the author. BasicEnglish stands for British AmericanScientific International Com mercial, whatimplies that English still remains theproperty of the British and the Americans.

ELF is another approach or paradigmthat assumes the international status ofEnglish in a natural way fulfilling thefunctions of this unplanned development.There is evidence that differentattempts to solve the problem ofEn glish as the vehicle of internationalcom munication have been created.However, which attempts do reallyrespond to real needs of internationalusers? From my point of view, the ELFparadigm is probably the mostdemocratic, neutral and appropriateway of understanding these uses ofEnglish as the global language ofcommunication.

The last chapter, ELF and EnglishLanguage Teaching, is the most interestingone. The author refers to differentpeda gogical approaches such as CLT(Com municative Language Teaching),TBLT (Task Based Language Teaching)or CLIL (Content Language IntegratedLearning) to language teaching, butnone of them questions, “what kind oflangua ge constitutes the best learninginvestment” (Seidlhofer 2011, p. 178).


All these methods, along with otherssuch as the Basic (referred to in theprevious chapter) give for granted thatthe linguistic learning achievementshave to be measured against theimitation of the rules set by nativemodels. Even the Com mon EuropeanFramework of Reference for Languages(Council of Europe 2001), despite itsclaims to promote and support aplurilingual Europe, insists on itsorientation to keep native norms as themodels to imitate.

I find particularly interesting the factthat Seidlhofer invites reconsiderationof these strongly ingrained ideas. Thereare other ways of teaching, and aboveall, learning English where the use andthe capacity of accommodation ofusers to create effective communicationmay also be considered as an alternative.The author (2011, p. 187) considers that“the result of learners putting theirlearnt language to use as an end initself... we should make reference todescriptions of what people actually dowith the language they have learnt, howthey actually communicate in English asan additional language”. Suchdescriptions represent what learnersactually achieve as a communicativeability rather than what they areexpected and guided to achievefollowing NS linguistic competence.This rationale is closely connected withPen nycook’s (2010) claims that

language should be a local rather than aglobal practice. It is the adaptation oflanguage to the real needs of speakersof a certain community rather than theuse of norms and materials created by asingle native speaking community andexported to different and distant places.Meeting the needs of each speaker,native or non-native, should be the finalgoal of effective communication.

Reactions towards this new approachare various, mostly of rejection andde nial, especially by governments andministries of education. This isunsurprising because a long period oftime is normally required beforeinnovations have an impact onestablished procedu res. However, asimilar attitude of resis tance may beobserved in the case of practitioners,probably for conformity or for the‘teachers’ peace of mind’ in Seidlhofer’swords (2011, p. 192).

The list of bibliography is quiteextensive and updated, compiling all theliterature which has been publishedre lated to this topic. Finally, an Indexcloses the volume.

Personally, I believe that English as aLingua Franca paradigm provides dyna micand flexible ways of thinking aboutEnglish. It is unquestionable the role ofEnglish as the tool that allowsinternational communication amongspeakers of such different and distantcountries. In addition, this communication

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takes place not only in face-to-facecommunication, but also by othermeans as a result of technologicaladvances (e-mail, chats, forums, skype,and so on). In this kind of interactions,what is more important: to be effectivein communication or to follow thestandard norms described by grammariansor the models used by na tive speakers?From my point of view, effectivecommunication takes priority over anyother aspect. Why do learners andteachers have to imitate native models?L2 learners are not native speakers, andthey will never be. Therefore, thepriority should be communication andexploitation of the linguistic resourcesof the learners with the aim of interac tingand communicating effectively. Theaccent they use should not be importantas long as communication takes place.

We can consider the book as a valua blecontribution within the field of En glishas a Lingua Franca. This work con tributesto clarify basic issues related to thepara digm of ELF, which has beenrejected or misinterpreted by somescholars who share a different (probably,more traditional) point of view towardsEnglish and its spread throughout theworld as a result of globalisation.Written in a very accessible language, itcan be of great interest to all scholarsworking in socio linguistics, and to themore general audience interested in the

issue of En glish as the internationallanguage of communication in thisglobalised world. It is also an invaluabletool for English language specialists toreconsider their traditional practicesand ideas. [Carmen LuJáN-GARCíA,universidad de Las Pal mas de GranCanaria].

Works cited

Cogo, A. (2008). English as a LinguaFran ca: form follows function.English Today, 95.24: 58-61.

Council of Europe, (2001). CommonEuro pean Framework of Reference forLan guages: Learning, teaching,assessment. Cam bridge: CuP.

Jenkins, J. (2007). English as a linguafranca: Attitude and identity. Oxford:Oxford university Press.

Jenkins, J. (2009). English as a linguafran ca: interpretation and attitudes.World Englishes 28, 2: 200-207.

Kachru, B. (Ed.). (1992). The Other Ton -gue. English across Cultures. Chicago:university of Illinois Press.

Pennycook, A. (2010). Language as aLo cal Practce. New York: Routledge.

Seidlhofer, B. (2009). Orientations inELF Research: Form and Function.(Eds). Mauranen, A. and Ranta, E.English as a Lingua Franca: Studies andFindings. Cambridge: CambridgeScholars Pu blishing, 37-59.


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