Functional Categories of Language

Mary Finocchiaro (1983, p. 65-66) has placed the functional categories under five headings as noted below: personal, interpersonal, directive, referential, and imaginative.

Personal = Clarifying or arranging one’s ideas; expressing one’s thoughts or feelings: love, joy, pleasure, happiness, surprise, likes, satisfaction, dislikes, disappointment, distress, pain, anger, anguish, fear, anxiety, sorrow, frustration, annoyance at missed opportunities, moral, intellectual and social concerns; and the everyday feelings of hunger, thirst, fatigue, sleepiness, cold, or warmth

Interpersonal = Enabling us to establish and maintain desirable social and working relationships: Enabling us to establish and maintain desirable social and working relationships:

• greetings and leave takings
• introducing people to others
• identifying oneself to others
• expressing joy at another’s success
• expressing concern for other people’s welfare
• extending and accepting invitations
• refusing invitations politely or making alternative arrangements
• making appointments for meetings
• breaking appointments politely and arranging another mutually convenient time
• apologizing
• excusing oneself and accepting excuses for not meeting commitments
• indicating agreement or disagreement
• interrupting another speaker politely
• changing an embarrassing subject
• receiving visitors and paying visits to others
• offering food or drinks and accepting or declining politely
• sharing wishes, hopes, desires, problems
• making promises and committing oneself to some action
• complimenting someone
• making excuses
• expressing and acknowledging gratitude

Directive = Attempting to influence the actions of others; accepting or refusing direction:

• making suggestions in which the speaker is included
• making requests; making suggestions
• refusing to accept a suggestion or a request but offering an alternative
• persuading someone to change his point of view
• requesting and granting permission
• asking for help and responding to a plea for help
• forbidding someone to do something; issuing a command
• giving and responding to instructions
• warning someone
• discouraging someone from pursuing a course of action
• establishing guidelines and deadlines for the completion of actions
• asking for directions or instructions

Referential = talking or reporting about things, actions, events, or people in the environment in the past or in the future; talking about language (what is termed the metalinguistic function: = talking or reporting about things, actions, events, or people in the environment in the past or in the future; talking about language (what is termed the metalinguistic function:

• identifying items or people in the classroom, the school the home, the community
• asking for a description of someone or something
• defining something or a language item or asking for a definition
• paraphrasing, summarizing, or translating (L1 to L2 or vice versa)
• explaining or asking for explanations of how something works
• comparing or contrasting things
• discussing possibilities, probabilities, or capabilities of doing something
• requesting or reporting facts about events or actions
• evaluating the results of an action or event

Imaginative = Discussions involving elements of creativity and artistic expression

• discussing a poem, a story, a piece of music, a play, a painting, a film, a TV program, etc.
• expanding ideas suggested by other or by a piece of literature or reading material
• creating rhymes, poetry, stories or plays
• recombining familiar dialogs or passages creatively
• suggesting original beginnings or endings to dialogs or stories
• solving problems or mysteries

Total Physical Response

James J. Asher defines the Total Physical Response (TPR) method as one that combines information and skills through the use of the kinesthetic sensory system. This combination of skills allows the student to assimilate information and skills at a rapid rate. As a result, this success leads to a high degree of motivation. The basic tenets are:

Understanding the spoken language before developing the skills of speaking. Imperatives are the main structures to transfer or communicate information. The student is not forced to speak, but is allowed an individual readiness period and allowed to spontaneously begin to speak when the student feels comfortable and confident in understanding and producing the utterances.

TECHNIQUE

Step I The teacher says the commands as he himself performs the action.

Step 2 The teacher says the command as both the teacher and the students then perform the action.

Step 3 The teacher says the command but only students perform the action

Step 4 The teacher tells one student at a time to do commands

Step 5 The roles of teacher and student are reversed. Students give commands to teacher and to other students.

Step 6 The teacher and student allow for command expansion or produces new sentences.

Recommended Literature:

Основные направлении в методике преподавания иностранна языков в XI.X-XX вв. Под ред. чл.-кор. АПН СССР И. В. Рах № нова. М.,..Педагогика-. 1972. с. 17-20; 27-69; 119-230; 235-211.

Рахманов И. В. Очерки по истории методики преподавания западноевропейских языков. М-, 1947, с. 58—64.

Пальмср Г. Устный метод обучения иностранным языкам. М.. I960, с. 5-7.

Уэст М. Обучение английскому языку в трудных условиях. М. 1966. с. 3-10.

Questions for Discussion:

1. The grammar-translation method.

—Mention the main do's and don'ts of the method.

—Principles of the grammar-translation method can be applied nowadays. Give reasons to support your statement.

2. The direct method.

—Recall the distinguishing features of the method. Compare the grammar-translation with the direct method and state the difference.

—Express your own opinion on the direct method.

3. H. Palmer is the prominent advocate of the direct method. Do
you agree with it?

—Make a survey of the main points in H. Palmer's method.

—H. Palmer fights against some vicious evils to which most of the students are subject. Name them. Say how far you agree with the views of M. Palmer.

4.Make a survey of the main points in M. West's method and recall the arguments he advances to justify them.

5.H. Palmer and At. West have enriched methods of teaching foreign languages. In what way?

The features of the contemporary methods should illustrate your statements with some concrete examples.

— In teaching a foreign language considerable attention is paid to all kinds of tests. Express your own opinion on the subject.

Lately one witnesses a vividly expressed tendency towards
more intensive language teaching. What are the practical
results of this?

— Outline the main characteristics of the method used in teaching

foreign languages in schools. Do you believe they are fully justified? (give your reasons).

 

Chapter III