INTRODUCTION

Language is an essential and characteristic part of being human. We spend an immense amount of time
speaking, listening, reading and writing. Communication between humans is an extremely complex
phenomenon, with many variables –the participants, context, purpose and channel are some of the factors that
are present in a communicative act. Whenever communication takes place, there is a speaker (or writer) and a
listener (or reader) who has a communicative purpose: having a conversation, giving information…and they
will use a medium for doing so: a letter, face to face, telephone…

Learning a second language is complicated, too. Second language students have to learn a new system of signs
to transmit a message. Since the 1970s, the belief that language is a means of communication has inspired a
new approach in English language teaching: the Communicative Approach, based on providing the students
with communicative activities that will develop their oral and written skills.

Our current Educational System has incorporated this functional and communicative potential of language in
its objectives and methodology. The ultimate goal is the development of the students’ communicative
competence.

This chapter on oral and written language will analyze, on the one hand, the differences of the two means we
use to communicate, speech and writing, as well as the pedagogical implications in the development of these
two abilities. On the other hand, we will study the factors that intervene in a communicative act, and see in
which way they relate to each other when transmitting a message. Finally, we will study the main ideas of the
Communicative Approach to foreign language teaching.

1 LANGUAGE AS COMMUNICATION

1.1 WHAT IS LANGUAGE?

Language is the main means by which people communicate. It can broadly be defined as a system of signs
that are combined, with the help of conventional rules, to transmit a message. Some definitions about language
are:

 “Language is a purely human and non-instinctive method of communicating ideas, emotions and
desires by means of voluntarily –produced symbols” (E. Sapir, 1921)
 “A language is a system of arbitrary vocal symbols by means of which the members of a society
interact in terms of their total culture” (G. Trager, 1949)
 “A language is a set (finite or infinite) of sentences, each finite in length and constructed out of a finite
set of elements” (N. Chomsky, 1957)
 “Language is the institution whereby humans communicate and interact with each other by means of
habitually used oral-auditory arbitrary symbols” (R.A. Hall, 1964)
The physical aspects of human teeth, larynx and so on are not shared by other creatures and may explain why
only the human creature has the capacity for speech. However, we did not suggest that the human was the
only creature which was capable of communicating. All creatures are capable of communicating with other
members of their species. A useful approach to language is to identify its essential defining features. The aim
is to establish what counts as a human language, as opposed to other systems of communication. The most
widely recognized comparative approach was proposed by the American linguist Charles F. Hocket, who
made a set of 13 design features of communication using spoken language, and studied whether these features
could be found in animal communication. He concluded that some animals shared these characteristics when
communicating, however, most of the features are unique to human language. We will discuss some important
ones:

 Auditory-vocal channel. Human language is a system of sound signals used between mouth and ear.
 Total feedback. Speakers hear and can reflect upon everything they say.
 Arbitrariness. There is no link between the signal and the nature of the reality to which it refers.
 Traditional transmission. Human language is acquired by a long learning process, which is transmitted
from one generation to the next.
 Duality. The sounds of a language or its phonemes mean nothing separately, but they become
meaningful when they are combined with other phoneme s to form words.
 Displacement. Speakers can talk about events remote in time and space.
 Productivity. Human language is essentially creative (or productive). Humans can produce new
sentences.
 Structure dependence. Language operations depend on an understanding of the internal structure of a
sentence, rather than on the number of elements involved.

All these features show that acquiring a language is a complicated process which is unconscious and effortless
when children learn their mother tongue, but conscious and difficult when learning a foreign language.

1.2 COMMUNICATION THEORIES

Nowadays, language is considered a means of communication, it is an interactive event occurring between

participants. Communication is the exchange of meanings between individuals through a common system of
symbols.

The branch of linguistic that studies the factors that govern our choice of language in social interaction is
called pragmatics. Pragmatic factors always influence our selection of grammatical structures, vocabulary and
intonation.

We will now explain three influential approaches on communication theory: the cooperative principle, the
speech act theory and discourse analysis.
Cooperative principle

The term is derived from the American philosopher Paul Grice. Grice emphasized that people cooperate in
the process of communication in order to reduce misunderstanding. He attempted to specify the principles
which underline this cooperative behaviour, and proposed four maxims or rules of conversation.

 Maxim of quantity. States that speakers should give the right amount of information.
 Maxim of quality. States that a speaker’s contribution to a conversation ought to be true.
 Maxim of relevance. States that contributions should clearly relate to the purpose of exchange.
 Maxim of manner. States that the contributions should be clear, perspicuous.

These maxims are best regarded not as rules but as implicit principles on which successful communication is
built.

Speech act theory

The British philosopher J.L. Austin was the first to draw attention to the fact that many utterance do not
communicate information but are equivalent to actions. Austin called these utterances performatives. He has
found three types of performative acts:

 Locutionary act. This refers to the literal meaning conveyed by the words contained in the utterance.
 Illocutionary act. This refers to the act which is performed as a result of the speaker making an
utterance.
 Perlocutionary act. This refers to the effect the speaker’s utterance has on the listener.

One of the most widely-used taxonomies of speech acts is that proposed by J.R. Searl:

1. Representative Description of states and events with an assertion.

2. Directive Suggestions, commands, requesting, etc.
3. Commissives Threats, promises, etc.
4. Expressive Expressions of feelings and attitudes.
5. Declarative Marrying, declaring, etc.

Discourse analysis

Discourse is often used to mean any sequence of language in written or spoken form larger than a sentence.
The distinctive feature of discourse is that it stresses the communicative dynamics of language. Discourse
analysis means studying all those features which are part of the communicative act: the context, the tenor, etc.
Of the many types of communicative acts, most study has been devoted to conversation.

Conversation analysis studies aspects such as strategies for beginning and ending a conversation, changing
topics, and the use of adjacency pairs.
Once we have studied these approaches, we can conclude that they have a common concern: they see language
as a dynamic, social an interactive phenomenon, whether between the speaker and listener or the writer and
reader. Meaning is conveyed not only by single sentences but by more complex exchanges, in which the
participants, the purpose and the situation play a crucial part.

2 ORAL AND WRITTEN LANGUAGE

2.1 HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

For centuries written language held a more pre-eminent place than oral language. The supremacy of written
language over oral language remained until the 19th century, in which there was sporadic criticism of this
viewpoint. It wasn’t until the 20th century, however, that a new approach appeared. This new approach pointed
out that speech was more important than writing for three reasons.

1. Because speech is much more ancient than writing.

2. Because it is developed naturally in children while writing is artificially taught.
3. And because writing is a transcription of the sounds of speech.

Nowadays, the vision of both means is changing. Linguists no longer consider one means better than the other,
or one of them to be the reflection of the other. Speech and writing are different systems of communication,
with their own characteristics and uses.

2.2 CHARACTERISTICS OF ORAL LANGUAGE

 Expressive possibilities. The immediacy of oral language makes it more expressive than writing.
 Use of gestures and body language. They reinforce the transmission of the message.
 Simple constructions. The spontaneity of oral language makes a person build simpler sentences.
 Pause, repetitions or rephrasing.
 Errors. It’s normal to make mistakes when uttering words

2.3 CHARACTERISTICS OF WRITTEN LANGUAGE

 Precision. The fact that writing is permanent allows more time for its preparation, promoting the
development of careful organization and more structured expression than in oral language.
 Clarity. The participants in written interaction are not usually present.
 Unique graphic features. Writing displays several unique features
 Formal. Written language tends to be more formal than spoken language

2.4 DIFFERENCES BETWEEN ORAL AND WRITTEN LANGUAGE

The most obvious difference between oral and written language is the physical form: speech uses the form
of air-pressure movements and the written language uses graphs that are marks on the surface. Speech is
immediate, dynamic, transitory and interactive. Writing is static and permanent, and there is no interaction,
in general, between the addresser and addressee.

The knowledge of the differences between speech and writing will allow the teacher to design activities
depending on the difficulty of the skills that must be developed: speaking and listening are oral skills;
reading and writing are written skills. We mustn’t forget that in English language there is a great difference
between the oral and written form, which usually leads students to having problems when writing or
pronunciation.

ORAL LANGUAGE WRITTEN LANGUAGE

Immensely ancient
The primary form of language
Dies without trace (transitory)
Phonetic and auditive problems
Modifies rapidly (dynamic)
Takes place quickly and automatically (immediate)
The speaker exercises direct influence on the
listener (interactive)
Subjective
Affection influences directly
Comparatively recent
The secondary form
Dies but leaves traces (permanent)
Handwriting and spelling problems
Modifies more slowly (static)
There is time for correction and reflection
The writer has indirect and put off influence on the
reader (no interactive)
Objective
Affection influences indirectly

2.5 PEDAGOGICAL IMPLICATIONS

The knowledge of the characteristics of oral and written language allows the teacher to programme activities
which will develop each one of them in an appropriate way. We can draw several conclusions:

 Oral language is easier to acquire than written language, so it should be introduced earlier.
 Written language is characterized by a bigger demand in the correction of its structure than oral
language.
 Errors in oral language should be considered as more normal within the learning process, due to time
constraints when uttering a message.
 Spelling exercises are important: students find the writing of words in English difficult, because of
the difference between the oral and written forms.
 The understanding of oral expressions should be encouraged
 The graphic features of writing make the learning of this skill the slowest to acquire
 To be able to write is not only a necessary linguistic competence.
3 FACTORS THAT DEFINE A COMMUNICATIVE SITUATION

As we saw above, communication between humans is a complex and dynamic phenomenon. Our daily life is
full of communicative acts, and their nature depends on several factors: the participants, the context and the
type of activity. In fact, the choice of the words that we use will vary according to the factors of each
situation. Language appropriateness will depend on the knowledge of language use.

In the English classroom it is necessary to keep these factors in mind, since it is through small
communicative acts that we will introduce language structures and vocabulary. The communicative
approach is based not only on creating communicative situations in the classroom as models for learning the
language, but also on developing appropriateness.

We are going to analyze he factors that take part in a communicative act and the pedagogical implications
derived from them:

 Addresser, addressee. They are the participants in the communicative act. The addresser is the author
of the message and the addressee is the person or people to whom it is directed. In an oral
communicative act the participants can see each other. Gestures and body language will be more
usual in a face to face conversation, while a conversation on the phone will be full of expressions,
which indicate that the addressee has no problem in following the message. In written language the
addresser and the addressee can be two people exchanging letter. The relationship between the
participants in a communicative act is called the tenor. This is one of the factors that affect the style
of language we adopt, and it is particularly relevant in situations which call for more or less
formality.
 The context. Linguists distinguish between linguistic context and situational context. The former
refers to the context provided by the linguistic system itself, it is the text that accompanies the
particular sentence or utterance. The latter refers to the place and the moment in which he
communicative act is developed. The situational context will influence the language type that is used
in a communicative act. In the English class the student should not only be able to communicate a
message; he or she should also learn how to select the language form to use in a certain context.
Many linguist make a distinction between micro-context and macro-context. The micro-context is
the immediate one in which a communicative act occurs and it includes two features: the setting,
which is the place where the act occurs and the occasion, which is the particular set of circumstances.
The macro-context refers to more remote environments. It includes sociocultural aspects.
 Purpose. The purpose is the intention of a message. When learning English, the students should have
a purpose or desire to communicate. If the students have a communicative purpose then
communication will be effective, and they will learn the language.
 Topic. The topic is the matter about which the interaction develops. There is usually a set of terms
particular to each topic or field which we interpret in relation to the field. In order to have successful
 communicative activities in the English class it is essential for the topics to be based on the
students’’ interests.
 Medium/channel. The medium is the means by which a message is transmitted, there are two types
of media: speech and writing. The channel is the technical means of transmission: telephone,
television, radio, etc.
 Code. The code is the communication system shared by addresser and addressee. Language is the
most frequent code used. But there are also other extralinguistic codes, such as the facial expressions,
body language or intonation. Non-verbal communication is very important in the first year of
learning the spoken language, because students still have very little communicative competence.
Facial expressions help the message to be transmitted and understood.
 Register. In linguistic, registers refers to a defined style of language and has to do with more (or less)
formality in the use of language. The register relates all the factors entering into a communication
act. According to Aitchison, register could be defined as the rules of the game that must be learnt to
be able to express ourselves correctly. The aims of language involve the intention of the addresser.
The rules are given by social and cultural conventions. The permitted moves are related to
grammatical and spelling rules. Martin Joos, mentioned by Geoffrey Finch in Linguistic Terms and
Concepts, describes the following register.
o Formal. Complex structures, ample vocabulary, meticulous pronunciation and no
contractions.
o Consultative. Complete grammatical forms, absence of elaborated terms and slang, clear and
friendly pronunciation.
o Casual. Sentences fillers, semantically empty words, not always clear pronunciation and
varied intonation.
o Intimate. Non-verbal communication, nonsense words, reduced vocabulary and exaggerated
intonation.
o Frozen. Ceremonial language, meticulous pronunciation, neutral intonation, archaic and
latinized vocabulary.

In the English classroom, the register used correspond to informal or intimate situations, since the
context will always be friendly. In the third cycle the teacher could introduce a more formal
language.

4 FUNCTIONALITY

What do we use language for in its oral or written form? The most immediate answer would be “to
communicate our ideas and feelings”. But it would be wrong to think of it as the only function of language.
Linguists have identified many other functions of language and they consider that the communication of
ideas is only one of many functions.
There are a number of familiar classifications of linguistic functions: for example, that put forwards by
Malinowski, which is associated with his work on situation and meaning. Malinowski (1923) classified the
functions of language into the two broad categories of pragmatic and magical.

A quiet different classification is that associated with Bühler (1934), who was concerned with the functions
of language from the standpoint not some much of the culture but of the individual. Bühler made the
distinction into:

 Expressive language. The expressive being language that is oriented towards the self, the speaker.
 Conative language. The conative being language that is oriented towards the addressee
 Representational language. The representational being language that is oriented towards the rest of
reality –that is, anything other than speaker and addressee.

However, one of the most influential models has been that of the Swedish linguist Roman Jakobson who has
found six general functions. These functions can be paired with the factors that define the communicative
situation.

 Emotive function. This is the expression of feelings and attitudes.

 Conative function. This is used to draw the addressee’s attention.
 Referential function. It is the communication of ideas or facts.
 Poetic function. This is the language used for aesthetic purposes or as verbal play.
 Phatic function. This is based on the human being’s need for showing signs of friendship.
 Metalingual function. This refers to the use of language to speak about language itself.

The British linguistic Michael Halliday believes language exists to fulfill certain human needs, such as the
need to make sense of the world or to relate to others. His model of language is called functional or systemic
grammar. Halliday grouped all these functions into three metafunctions:

 The ideational function. This function emphasizes language as an instrument of though with which
we represent the world to ourselves. We use the language to conceptualize the world.
 The interpersonal function. This function emphasizes language as an instrument of transaction by
which we represent ourselves to other people. We use language as a personal medium.
 The textual function. This function emphasizes language as an instrument of communication with
which we construct sentences cohesively and coherently.

Today, FLT has incorporated the functional and communicative potential of language into teaching.
Language teaching now focuses on communicative proficiency rather than on mastery of structures. Several
pedagogical implications can be derived from this view of language.

1. The language presented to students must be contextualized in realistic and natural situations.
 2. Students are expected to interact with one another through pair and group work in order to
experience communication.
3. Syllabuses should be organized around the notions and functions that learners may need in order to
communicate successfully.

5 THE COMMUNICATIVE APPROACH TO FLT

5.1 BACKGROUND

The Communicative Approach also called Communicative Language Teaching and Functional Approach is
one of the principles on which foreign language methodology is based on at the moment. This approach
appeared in the 1970s as a reaction to the Audiolingual Method, which paid more attention to structure than
to its function. The changes became a revolution in applied linguistics, that is, the teaching of a language. The
person responsible for these changes was Noam Chomsky.

Noam Chomsky rejected the structuralist approach to language description and the behaviourist ideas on
language learning: “Language is not a habit structure. Ordinary linguistics behaviour characteristically
involves innovation, formation of new sentences and patterns in accordance with rules of great abstractness
and intricacy”. What struck Chomsky about language was its creativity.

He proposed an alternative theory of language learning to that of behaviourism. Chomsky argued that
sentences are not learned by imitation and repetition but are generated from the learners’ competence.
Learners, then, should be encouraged to use their innate and creative abilities.

The linguists that pleaded for a new approach based their position on the theory that learning a language is not
only the learning of structures, it implies much more. It is also necessary to learn how to use these structures
by keeping in mind the moment, the place, the social conventions and the channel used. The work of these
scholars had a significant impact on the development of a Communicative Approach to language teaching.

The Council of Europe incorporated this communicative view into a set of specifications for a First Level
Communicative Syllabus called Threshold Level English in the 1980s. These specifications have had a strong
influence on the design of methods and textbooks in Europe.

5.2 COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE

The main concept derived from communicative teaching is communicative competence, which is defined as
what a speaker needs to know in order to be communicatively competent in a speech community, Hymes
coined this term in contrast to Chomsky’s theory of competence. For Chomsky, competence simply implied
the knowledge of the language system. Hymes maintained that Chomsky’s theory was incomplete and that a
communicative and cultural dimension should be incorporated. A speaker does not only need the ability to
use grammatical structures, but also to learn how to use those structures in a community (appropriateness).
Canale and Swain (1980) were two linguists who expanded the previous description of Hymes’, establishing
four dimensions of the communicative competence (subcompetences).

1. Grammatical competence. This refers to the correct use of the linguistic code, i.e. the mastery of
grammatical structures, vocabulary and pronunciation.
2. Discursive competence. The ability to relate and combine grammatical forms, in order to achieve
coherent texts.
3. Sociolinguistic competence. The ability to produce and understand messages relating to social context,
participants and purpose; in other words, the appropriate use of language.
4. Strategic competence. It refers to participants’ verbal and non-verbal strategies: beginning,
maintaining or finishing a chunk of communication, avoiding ruptures in the transmission of the
message. These are the procedures which are necessary for communication to be effective.

These four skills are complemented by socio-cultural competence, which implies the knowledge of certain
cultural facts which are of key importance for us to understand a message completely.

The communicative strand relates to conscious and subconscious learning, and to accuracy as well as to
fluency and appropriateness. Julian Edge describes the students’ tasks as juggling with three clubs: 1)
accuracy, conforming to the language itself, 2) fluency, using the system quickly and easily, and 3)
appropriateness, relating successfully to other people through language.

5.3 COMMNICATIVE ACTIVITIES

Communicative activities refer to tasks and exercises that the student carries out for real communication.
These activities focus more on the message than on the linguistic features of language. Children learn how to
speak without knowing anything about verbs, adjectives or verbal tenses.

The Communicative Approach believes that the practice of communicative activities will produce an
unconscious learning of the structures of the language. A communicative activity must be:

 Interactive. Two or more people are involved in the communicative interaction.

 Unpredictable. A student has to seek the information his/her partner has. This will create the necessity
and the desire to communicate.
 Within a context. This refers to the situational context (place, channel) as well as to the linguistic
context (cohesion in linguistic forms and vocabulary).
 Authentic. The language used should be genuine, that is to say, similar to an English-speaking
person’s.
 Developed within a relaxed atmosphere. If the student is under normal emotional conditions, the
learning will be more effective.
Examples of oral communicative activities: information-gap activities, role-play, problem-solving, following
instructions, describing personal experiences, communicative games and reaching a consensus.

Examples of written communicative activities: writing instructions, writing short messages, writing short
letters, writing to penfriends, writing questionnaires, writing imaginary diaries, filling in forms,
communicative games and project work.

CONCLUSION

Learning a foreign language today implies knowing how to use the language just as a native does: knowing
the structures and the vocabulary, at oral and written levels, in a variety of circumstances and situations.

Right now the teaching of English is more complex than it used to be. The English teacher can’t just teach
structures, vocabulary and pronunciation. He/she should add a new element: the social one. The teacher
should keep in mind that the structures that he/she will teach are transmitted within a certain context,
through a channel, and orientated to an addressee who will interpret it. In short, the function of the message
and the factors that intervene in a communicative act are aspects which must be include in the methodology
of the foreign language.