Using Muted-Video Enactments to Develop Sociolinguistic Awareness

Yıl 2021, Cilt: 15 Sayı: 2, 259 - 275, 26.12.2021

Seher Balbay , Gökçe Erkan

https://doi.org/10.47777/cankujhss.1047484

Öz

Silent films have long been shown during language classes to ease contextual and
pragmatic acquisition. Equally empowering, muted videos are commonly used to help
students to learn culture-laden and fixed expressions. They report to appreciate and
enjoy using visual cues to understand and then appropriately use unfamiliar language
,and especially to cope with novel situations such as job interviews. This study analyses
students’ voiceover responses to a series of muted videos shown during their
participation in an oral communication skills course intended to develop their sociolinguistic awareness. The researchers wanted to know the extent to which students
benefited from the muted video task. A mixed method design was used to identify the
most common challenges learners face with when using culture-laden expressions.
Both self-developed, online pre and post-test, and focus group interviews were used as
data collection tools. The participants, selected according to the convenience sampling
method, were students studying at an English-medium state university in Turkey and
taking a compulsory oral communications-oriented English course. Afterwards,
participants were seen to have developed sensitivity towards using context-bound
fixed phrases. The research data was also useful in helping to pinpoint common
challenges for learners when using contextually fixed phrases in English.

Anahtar Kelimeler

muted videos, pragmatics, sociolinguistics, contextual language, fixed phrases

Sessiz Film Sahnelerinin Toplumdilbilim Konusunda Bilinçlendirme Amaçlı Kullanılması

Öz

Silent films have long been shown during language classes to ease contextual and pragmatic acquisition. Equally empowering, muted videos are commonly used to help students to learn culture-laden and fixed expressions. They report to appreciate and enjoy using visual cues to understand and then appropriately use unfamiliar language ,and especially to cope with novel situations such as job interviews. This study analyses students’ voiceover responses to a series of muted videos shown during their participation in an oral communication skills course intended to develop their sociolinguistic awareness. The researchers wanted to know the extent to which students benefited from the muted video task. A mixed method design was used to identify the most common challenges learners face with when using culture-laden expressions. Both self-developed, online pre and post-test, and focus group interviews were used as data collection tools. The participants, selected according to the convenience sampling method, were students studying at an English-medium state university in Turkey and taking a compulsory oral communications-oriented English course. Afterwards, participants were seen to have developed sensitivity towards using context-bound fixed phrases. The research data was also useful in helping to pinpoint common challenges for learners when using contextually fixed phrases in English.

Anahtar Kelimeler

sessiz filmler, bağlamsal dilbilim, toplumdilbilim, bağlamsal dil, sabitlesmis ifadeler

Kaynakça

• Austin, John Langshaw. How to Do Things with Words. 1st ed., Oxford University Press, 1962.
• Barron, Anne. “Variational Pragmatics in The Foreign Language Classroom”. System, vol 33, no. 3, 2005, pp. 519-536.
• Berns, Margie S. “Review of The Book 'The Functional-Notional Approach: From Theory to Practice'”. TESOL Quarterly, vol 18, no. 2, 1984, pp. 325-329.
• Birjandi, Parviz, and Ali Derakhshan. “Pragmatic Comprehension of Apology, Request and Refusal: An Investigation on The Effect of Consciousness-Raising Video- Driven Prompts”. Applied Research on English Language, vol 3, no. 1, 2014, pp. 67- 86.
• Brown, H. Douglas. Teaching by Principles: An Interactive Approach to Language Pedagogy. 1st ed., Prentice Hall Regents, 1994.
• Brown, H. Douglas. Principles of Language Learning and Teaching. 5th ed., Pearson Education, 2007.
• Canale, Michael, and Merrill Swain. “Theoretical Bases of Communicative Approaches to Second Language Teaching and Testing”. Applied Linguistics, vol 1, no. 1, 1980, pp. 1-47.
• Davies, Catherine, and Tyler, Andrea. “Discourse Strategies in the Context of Crosscultural Institutional Talk: Uncovering Interlanguage Pragmatics in the University Classroom”. In Kathleen Bardovi-Harlig and Beverly Hartford (Eds.), Interlanguage Pragmatics: Exploring Institutional Talk, pp. 133-156, Routledge, 2005.
• DeCapua, Andrea and Ann Wintergerst. Crossing Cultures in The Language Classroom. 1st ed., University of Michigan Press, 2004.
• Hall, Edward. The Silent Language. 1st ed., Doubleday, 1959.
• Hymes, Dell. On Communicative Competence. Unpublished manuscript, University of Pennsylvania, 1972.
• Kasper, Gabriele, and Roever, Carsten. Pragmatics in second language learning. In Eli Hinkel (Ed.), Handbook of research in second language teaching and learning, pp. 317-334, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2005.
• Skandera, Paul, ed. by. Phraseology and Culture in English. 1st ed., Mouton De Gruyter, 2007.
• Jernigan, Justin. "Output and English As A Second Language Pragmatic Development: The Effectiveness of Output-Focused Video-Based Instruction". English Language Teaching, vol 5, no. 4, 2012, pp. 2-14. Canadian Center Of Science And Education, doi:10.5539/elt.v5n4p2.
• “Sayılarla - ODTÜ”. METU At A Glance, http://ilkbakista.odtu.edu.tr/english/#section1. “ODTÜ Tarafından Kabul Edilen İngilizce Yeterlik Sınavları Eşdeğerlik Tablosu”. ODTÜ Öğrencı̇ İşlerı̇ Daı̇re Başkanlığı, 19 March 2021, https://oidb.metu.edu.tr/tr/odtu-tarafindan-kabul-edilen-ingilizce-yeterliliksinavlari- es-degerlik-tablosu.
• Paulston, Christina Bratt. "Linguistic and Communicative Competence". TESOL Quarterly, vol 8, no. 4, 1974, pp. 347-362. JSTOR, doi:10.2307/3585467.
• Roever, Carsten. Teaching and testing pragmatics. In Doughty, Catherine, and Michael Long, ed. by. The Handbook of Language Teaching. 1st ed., Wiley-Blackwell, 2009, pp. 560-577, Wiley, http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/9781444315783
• Rose, Kenneth. Pragmatic consciousness-raising in an EFL context. In Bouton, Lawrence, and Yamuna Kachru, ed. by. Pragmatics and Language Learning. 5th ed., University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1994, pp. 52-63.
• Rose, Kenneth. Teachers and students learning about requests in Hong Kong. In Eli Hinkel, ed. by. Culture in Second Language Teaching and Learning. Cambridge University Press, 1999, pp. 167-180.
• Sapir, Edward. In Mandelbaum, David, ed. by. Selected Writings of Edward Sapir In Language, Culture and Personality. 1st ed., University of California Press, 2021.
• Schmidt, Richard. Consciousness, learning and interlanguage pragmatics. In Kasper, Gabriel, and Blum-Kulka, Shoskena, ed. by. Interlanguage Pragmatics. Oxford University Press, 1993, pp. 21-42.
• Schmidt, Richard. Attention. In Robinson, Peter, ed. by. Cognition and second language instruction. Cambridge University Press, 2001, pp. 3-33.
• Wagner-Gough, Judy. "Comparative Studies in Second Language Learning". CALERIC/ CLL Series on Languages and Linguistics, vol 26, 1975. ERIC, https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED107157.pdf.
• Wilkins, David Arthur. Notional Syllabuses. 1st ed., Oxford University Press, 1976.
• Woods, Rebecca. “Investigating the Syntax of Speech Acts: Embedding Illocutionary Force”. PhD thesis, University of York, 2016.