This paper argues the need for an updated and explicit description of language teaching areas generated with reference to a detailed model of communicative competence. We describe two existing models of communicative competence and then propose our own pedagogically motivated construct, which includes five components: (1) discourse competence, (2) linguistic competence, (3) actional competence, (4) sociocultural competence, and (5) strategic competence. We discuss these competencies in as much detail as is currently feasible, provide content specifications for each component, and touch on remaining issues and possible future developments.

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Communicative Competence: A Pedagogically Motivated Model with Content Specifications

The increasing domination of English as the world's leading medium of international professional communication has begun to impact English for Academic Purposes programs. Specifically, questions arise as to whether English is becoming too successful. This paper reviews several of the resulting ideological challenges to EAP. Although not all of these challenges are accepted as well-founded, the paper argues that resistance to the 'triumphalism' of English is also a responsibility of EAP teachers. This resistance can be encouraged by further research into the academic registers of languages other than English, by support for local-language scholarly publications, and by using the current controversies as consciousness-raising exercises in EAP classes for international graduate students.

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English as Tyrannosaurus rex

This paper involves a consideration of the validity of the common assumption in literacy development that narrative or story is somehow primary—that children's abilities to understand and compose stories precede their capabilities to understand and use non-story, informational written language. An examination of kindergarteners' repeated pretend readings of two stories and two information books was made to gain insights into their strategies in dealing with the distinctive textual properties of the two genres. Two features were specifically addressed: (a) their use of co-referentiality of stories versus the co-classification aspects of information books, and (b) their acquisition of lexical items in the two genres. These analyses indicated that children were just as successful in reenacting the information books as they were the stories. Based on these findings, as well as children's preferences for the information books over the stories, it is argued that our unexamined, unacknowledged narrative as primary ideology needs to be reevaluated. There is a common assumption in literacy development that narrative or story is somehow primary—that children's abilities to understand and compose stories precede their capabilities to understand and use non-story written language (Spiro & Taylor, 1987). Older, widely accepted developmental schemes, such as those developed by Britton, Burgess, Martin, McLeod, and Rosen (1975) and Moffet (1968), have supported this assumption. Moreover, more recent claims made by curriculum theorists such as Egan (1988) and those who work in the area of literacy more specifically (e.g., Adams, 1990; Wells, 1986) also foster this story primacy notion.

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/10862969309547803

Is Narrative “Primary”? Some Insights from Kindergarteners' Pretend Readings of Stories and Information Books

Generic knowledge plays an important role in the packing and unpacking of texts used in a wide-ranging institutionalized socio-rhetorical context. If, on the one hand, it imposes constraints on an uninitiated genre writer to conform to the conventions and rhetorical expectations of the relevant professional community, on the other hand, it allows an experienced and established writer of the genre to exploit conventions to create new forms to suit specific contexts. Unfortunately, however, this privilege to exploit generic conventions to create new forms becomes available only to those few who enjoy a certain degree of visibility in the relevant professional community; for a wide majority of others, it is more of a matter of apprenticeship in accommodating the expectations of disciplinary cultures. This paper reviews current research to investigate the way the power and the politics of genre is often exploited by the so-called established membership of disciplinary communities to keep outsiders at a safe distance.

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The Power and Politics of Genre

Of the various concerns in the teaching of second language writing, issues regarding audience, or readers' expectations, have been the least explored. This article reviews the audience literature in composition studies, focusing on the topic of real audiences as central to understanding how writers produce successful texts in authentic contexts. It discusses the efforts of one teacher/researcher to explore the interaction of audience awareness, writers' purposes, and argumentation in the process of grant-proposal writing undertaken by two bilingual researchers. Finally, it suggests ways in which teachers can give students experiences writing authentic argumentative texts addressed to real audiences.

Written Argumentation for Real Audiences: Suggestions for Teacher Research and Classroom Practice

In recent years the concept of 'register' has been increasingly replaced by emphasis on the analysis of genre, which relates work in sociolinguistics, text linguistics and discourse analysis to the study of specialist areas of language. This book is a clear, authoritative guide to this complex area. He provides a survey of approaches to varieties of language, and considers these in relation to communication and task-based language learning. Swales outlines an approach to the analysis of genre, and then proceeds to consider examples of different genres and how they can be made accessible through genre analysis. This is important reading for all those working in teaching English for academic purposes and also of interest to those working in post-secondary writing and composition due to relevant issues in writing across the curriculum.

Genre Analysis: English in Academic and Research Settings

Text und Bild: Grundfragen der Beschreibung von Text-Bild-Kommunikationen aus sprachwissen-schaftlicher Sicht

https://muse.jhu.edu/journals/language/v066/66.1.pufahl.pdf

Ingrid Pufahl

Papers

Genre Analysis: English in Academic and Research Settings

Text und Bild: Grundfragen der Beschreibung von Text-Bild-Kommunikationen aus sprachwissen-schaftlicher Sicht

Text und Bild: Grundfragen der Beschreibung von Text-Bild-Kommunikationen aus sprachwissenschaftlicher Sicht By Manfred Muckenhaupt (review)