Roots of miscommunication
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.14198/raei.1998.11.16Keywords:
Segunda lengua, Lengua inglesa, Investigación lingüística, Análisis del discurso, Competencia comunicativa, Enseñanza de la lengua, Diferenciación culturalAbstract
This paper proposes an account for the problem of miscommunication observed between native and non-native speakers of the English language. The analysis of interviews has shown that monologues produced by Russian speakers of English are structurally different from American monologues. A system based on the markedness theory was developed in order to account for the differences and provide a guide for teaching discourse skills in an ESL classroom It is suggested that universally sentences can be broken down into organizational features. This means that just like sounds, utterances can be found in polar opposition. The order in which utterances marked by these features are put together, represents the unmarked organizational structure of a monologue in a given language. The data received form the interviews indicates that Russian speakers of English do not acquire the unmarked American structure because they are not aware of the existing differences.Downloads
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Published
30-11-1998
How to Cite
Schmitt, Elena. 1998. “Roots of Miscommunication”. Alicante Journal of English Studies / Revista Alicantina De Estudios Ingleses, no. 11 (November):217-29. https://doi.org/10.14198/raei.1998.11.16.
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Copyright (c) 1998 Elena Schmitt
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.