Page 390 - DENG504_LINGUISTICS

Linguistics

Notes 30.1 Linguistics and Language Teaching

Mackey sees no worthwhile relevance of linguistics to the teaching of English as a foreign language.
His main objections are that linguistic descriptions are not identical and similar; the methods of the
linguistic scientist as a teacher are not necessarily the most effective; the errors predicted by contrastive
analysis are not always because of mother tongue interference; it is not enough to predict mistakes,
what is needed is their correction; applications of different descriptions are so superficial and
incomplete and misleading that there is a multiplicity of terms and approaches in linguistics; and
that most of linguistically approved grammars are difficult to follow.

Linguistics and language teaching are two different disciplines. One is science and
other is mostly an art. The objects of the linguist and the language teacher are at
great variance. What is elixir to the linguist may be poison to the language-teacher.

Then there are statements of outstanding linguists like Chomsky :
I am, frankly, rather sceptical about the significance, for the teaching of languages, of such
insights and understanding as have been attained in linguistics and psychology...it is difficult
to believe that their linguistics or psychology has achieved a level of theoretical understanding
that might enable it to support a ‘technology’ of language teaching.
Should the language teacher then give up in despair and go back to the bad old ways and the days
when the scientific approach was regarded with uncomprehending mistrust, and when the teacher
preferred his own ‘intuitive’ knowledge of the language ? Certainly not. Linguistics is not a useless
stuff. It is not and should not be an end with language teachers. If employed as a useful tool, it may
be found worthwhile and relevant.
A host of scholars such as Halliday, Mcintosh, Strevens, Wilga Rivers, Paul Roberts, Sol Saporta,
Lakoff and others find linguistics very useful to second language teaching. The following arguments
can be put forward in favour of linguistics with regard to its role to language teaching.
30.2 Linguistics with Regard to its Role to Language Teaching

(1) Linguistics is one of the major components of language teaching, others being organizational,
pedagogic, technological, psychological and sociological ones and the disciplines like psycho-
linguistics and socio-linguistics, besides pure linguistics, have tremendous insights to offer to
the teacher as well as the learner by answering questions like the following :
(a) How is a language learnt ? What is the difference between first language acquisition and
second language learning ? What is the innate, built-in property of human mind that
internalizes the generalizations about a language ?
(b) What is meant by the use of language according to the role, the situation and the occasion,
the hearer, etc. ?
(c) Is register based course possible and useful ? If yes, how, can a register based course be
prepared ?
(2) Linguistics helps in taking, fundamental decisions such as which languages are to be taught
upto what time and at what level in an educational system. When such fundamental decisions
have been made there is another aspect of planning and decision-making which is based on
economic, administrative and social considerations within the country. For how long, for what
purpose and to whom a certain language be taught ?...and here again the socio-linguistics has
a part to play.”
(3) So linguistics helps in determining the place and position of a foreign language in a syllabus
and also helps in determining the aims and objectives of the teaching of the target language.

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