Applied Psycholinguistics
for the 1980s:

Student­Done Discourse Analysis

and The VideotapeLanguage Lab

Dr. Leon James
Dr. Diane Nahl
(c)1981

Leon James is a professor in the Departmentof Psychology, University of Hawaii at Manoa. Diane Nahl is Associate Professor in the Department of computer Science, Library and Information Science Program and is the former librarian of the Daily Round Archives in the Departmentof Psychology.

The 1950s developed the theory and practice of the'audiolingual method.' This was language teaching entering thetechnological age. The 1960s generated the 'developmental psycholinguistics'of first language acquisition. This gave second languageteaching the impetus and techniques for teaching natural speech(cf. 'communicative competence, ''speech acts,' 'transactionalengineering competence'). The 1970s saw the evolution of 'ethno'studies (and 'socio'­linguistics). As a result behavioralobjectives and instructional techniques veered more and more towardthe 'naturalistic outlook' in language teaching (called 'unconventionallanguage teaching methods' in the ESI. literature). The 1980smay well see the fruition of the naturalistic outlook in languageteaching in the form of student done discourse analysis and socialmicro­analysis in the Videotape Language Lab.

The 1950.s

World War II left the tape recorder in its wake.That at least may be the perspective of language teaching (henceforth,LT). The audiolingual approach provided teachers with the softwareprograms needed to feed the demands of the language lab in thousandsof schools and training

institutes. This was the Golden Age for our field;the entry of LT into its modern 'technologized' status. A decadelater it was evident the 'greening' of LT had not truly arrived.There was a snag: Students did well enough on our tests but weresilent in social exchanges. So, the quest was on for more researchin psycholinguistics (Jakobovits, 1970, Ch. 3). The problems wereidentified according to the theoretical level available at thetime; namely, learning theory and information or communicationtheory (Jakobovits and Miron, 1967). Within cognitive psychologyas a context, the villain in language learning was identifiedas a 'block,' or inhibitionto talk. The tape recorder provided the obvious solution: Theaudio language lab loosened the tongue of the language learner.

In retrospect it turns out that the tape recorderis a double­edged sword. Technologically, it is capable of'overdevelopment.' Using the tape recorder to mimic the soundsand phrases of the target language through repetition drills anddialog skits succeeded in constraining discourse emission to promptedcues. The limited success of the audiotape lab activity to producereal talk may partly be attributed to the fact that it requiresmostly solitary work (talk is social). True, the oral blocks ofthe 1950s were overcome; students were no longersilent. Unfortunately the Golem principle (or 'the Sorcerer'sApprentice' phenomenon) became an embarrassing reality, for didit not come to pass that the machine conditioned students to 'promptedspeech' rather than taught them real speech? Indeed, it lookedas though (did it not?) without an exercise conductor or a cueline from a fellow student or helpful book, the language learnerwas once again silent. Alas, no speech. No thought. No enga8edself for subjectivity or personality. A new quest was on.

The 1960s

Three pre­war writers to whom many in our fieldare indebted and who are still relevant are Sapir, Whorf, andVygotsky. They were true psycholinguists: Their important workcenters on the relation between ' linguistic description' and'cognitive process.' In the 1960s Chomsky's school of thoughthad an immediate and deep effect on cognitive and developmentalpsychology, and through these on LT as well. It gave us a newindependence. It permitted us to 'extrapolate' the hidden psycholinguisticrelation; to make it more visible through such techniques as countingerrors and latencies of subjects repeating model sentences, whileexperimentally varying 'type of sentence' (through syntactic complexity)and 'type of subjects' (children, adults, etc.). It seemed thatwe had won a handle on the connection between visible linguisticstructure and elusive cognitive function (Steinberg and Jakobovits,1971).

Psycholinguistics now entered its second Golden Age,spawning subfields such as cognitive psycholinguistics and developmentalpsycholinguistics. It was a tremendously prolific time (Jakobovits,1970; Jakobovits and Miron, 1967; Steinberg and Jakobovits, 1971). But a decade later it became apparent why the psycho­part wouldn't stick to the linguistic part and whytheir connection was left imperfectly integrated in the languagelearners. For though they could now babble (on cue!), they stillcouldn't 'mean anything sincerely.' What was wrong? Why didn'tthis produce the 'liberated' language learner who is freed fromlearning and into talking?

Again, the answer is clear in retrospect. We acceptedthe notion from Chomsky's school that second language learningproceeds through developmental stages in like manner to thoseuncovered for first language acquisition. At any rate,there followed vigorous research into applied linguistics or languagetesting (Jakobovits, 1970: Ch. 4, 5). But the relevant issuethat ensued still remains: Granted that tests are now super­reliable,what is their validity? Too often high test scorers remained shallowspeakers and no 'balanced bilingualism' was achieved (Jakobovits1970: Ch. 4). The use of a second language remained superficial.It was functional yes, but as a tourist's international phrasebookis functional.

In the past decade, radically new solutions havebeen explored and new hope has emerged that the classroom situationmay yet be converted into a richer cultural environment, one thatpermits the students to acquire a more normal and ordinary 'speechact repertoire' (Jakobovits and Gordon, 1979, 1980).

The 1970s

The decade of the 1970s evolved a mature developmentaloutlook in psycholinguistics, grounded in biology and sociology.The realization dawned that language use is necessarily contextualized.Once more the quest was on, but now we were looking for theactual, naturalistic social cues that really relate to what getssaid in particular real life situations. This gave us the vigorousnew fields of sociolinguistics, ethnomethodology, ethnosemantics,and ethogenics. These 'ethno' studies at last provided LT withinstructional techniques for 'managing the environment' ratherthan managing the student. In particular, the second languagelearner could now be offered significant cultural background informationin a more systematic fashion through various 'culture simulation'techniques in the classroom. The following is an example of alanguage classroom activity based on one of these models (Jakobovitsand Gordon, 1977­79, 1975­1979).

It involves a discourse analysis performed bythe learner with the help of adequate written or oral 'prompting.'Sentences are provided to the class and students respond to threeprompts relating to each sentence:

Exercise A: "Giveme an adequate paraphrase of the sentence." (This is themeaning comprehension issue.)

Exercise B: "Giveme some logical consequences of the sentence, assuming it is true."(This is the issue of deriving implications.)

Exercise C: "Giveme some background assumptions contained in the sentence."(This is the issue of knowing presuppositions.)

This guided exercise in discourse analysis-doneby the students, not the linguist-may be called 'ethno­studies'because it deals with information speakers need for their topicalizationbehavior (Jakobovits and Gordon, 1976­77, 1978, 1975­79).Here LT is raised above the level of training for mechanical manipulation;it is, instead, training for adequate topicalizatlon behaviorin social exchanges.

Experience reveals that students can give an adequateparaphrase of a sentence without necessarily processing its logicalconsequences or background assumptions. Now this couldmean that the paraphrasing skill is acquired through imitationof models (model speakers, model sentences). But note thatderiving the logical consequences of a sentence requires studyof the target culture's norms of social behavior. Similarly,identifying the background assumptions of a sentence requiresstudy of the target culture's standards of speech behaviorappropriate to particular settings and circumstances (cf. thenotion of 'locale'). It is apparent from the nature of ExerciseA (above) that when we require students to practice giving adequateparaphrases of a sentence, we are in fact using a method for teachingmeaning (semantic equivalence). (Refer to Figure 1, andtry it yourself for confirmation.) Similarly, having studentspractice Exercise B (above), we are in fact teaching communitynorms. And Exercise C may be seen as the teaching of culturalstandards. These correspondences are represented in Figure2. (Space restrictions preclude a full description, but the readermay study it through inspection and reflection on the correspondencesindicated. Also, see in particular Jakobovits and Gordon, 1976­77,1977­79, 1978, 1979, and 1980 where these correspondencesare elaborated.)

These three areas of ethno­studies provide studentswith a solid repertoire of topicalization behavior tied to socialcircumstances rather than to prompted cues. Once a sufficientbase is established for the student' s situational knowledge ofsentences (the ethno­studies), LT proceeds with 'psycho­studies,'which permit the student to connect the cultural knowledge baseto personal use. As indicated in Figure 2, our theory postulatesthree areas of psycho­studies for the language learner: makingattn10uhons, making evaluations, and making judgments( these notions come to us from social psychology).

FIGURE 1 Processing Areas for Meaning Comprehension

    FIGURE 2 Language Teaching in the 1980s: Culture Simulation in the Classroom

Students perform the following type of exercise.They collectively observe classroom exchanges or events and labelthem according to the prompt: "Give me a title thatis fitting to that situation." The labels or titles are tobe given in the form of a proposition, e.g., "Bill is talkingto Mary." or, "Bill is mad at Mary." or, "Thechair is too short so he can't reach it." and so on. Theseare attributions. They represent the speaker' s understandingof what's going on. Guided practice in making attributional sentencesthat are appropriate to ongoing events in the classroom buildsthe student's social awareness. This awareness of 'what'sgoing on' is a prerequisite for the learner to reach a stage ofautomaticity or spontaneity in speech production. This is whatallows the learner to mean the sentences uttered, thatis, to speak in the genuine sense. Similarly, making evaluationsbuilds speaker objectivity (e.g., "Bill did itvery well" or, "I think this might fit better"or, "Is it enough?" and so on.! And finally, guidedpractice in making judgments builds the student' s personalpoint of view or subjectivity (e.g., "I'm ready togo" or "I'm not feeling well" or "Bill shouldn'tinterfere with this," and so on).

Thus the overall LT curriculum (first as well assecond, we think) could profitably be divided up and presentedinstructionally in six areas of LT objectives.

The 1980s

It is easy to see that the audiolingual languagelab serves mostly a solitary function. It therefore fails to offerthe most essential component of LT, namely, the opportunity topractice social talk. The videotape language lab easily rectifiesthis huge impediment when it is used for setting up a genuineculture simulation 'learning milieu' in the classroom (cost isless than Sl,500, and it is as easy to use as a tape recorderplus movie camera hooked up to a TV set). The three areas of psycho­studiesproposed above can be effectively realized within the instructionalcontext of the videotape language lab. The essential techniquesthat make this educational development possible now were pioneeredby Erving Goffman (see his many books). We would like to callit the joint micro­analysis technique.

Briefly, students are given some collective or teamtasks (e.g., putting up posters, reaching consensus in an oralexchange, or writing a composition jointly-Jakobovits and Nahl,in preparation). As well, they videotape themselves in the executionof the tasks they've been given. At the completion of the tasks,the class or team collectively reviews the videotape, and exchangesspontaneous reactions to it. This is the 'joint micro­analysis.'For example, by replaying scenes and using the fast forward andreview controls, the students are inescapably drawn into genuinesocial talk regarding events they themselves participated in orwere witness to. Imagine student X's micro­analysis ofa scene on the video: "Bill is looking around a lot withouta definite purpose. We could've hurried it up a little, I suppose."While student Y's title for the scene is: "Bill was urgingeveryone to hurry up. He went around collecting the ballots, andI thought that that was very helpful." This kind of situationarouses genuine social involvement and satisfies the essentialrequirement for LT, namely that LT be able to provide a structuredpresentation for the relation between social event and speech.This is because: (a) The social event is now 'frozen' for representationsand identified precisely by the videotape counter numbers (or'footage'); (b) The student's involvement is genuine. Collectivesocial talk is occurring about what was experienced as a participantor witness, ( c) A natural and large repertoire of speech behavioris effortlessly and unselfconsciously learned because of the naturaltransactional demands of the exercise situation.

Summary

The pedagogic techniques we've described here asethnostudies and psycho­studies announce a new role for languageteachers in the 1980s. Now they will be training people what tosay, when and where, as well as how. At last!

References

Jakobovits, L. A. 1970. Foreign Language Learning.Rowley, MA: Newbury House.  Chapters available here.

1976­77. "Transactional Engineering forthe Language Teacher: The Third Force in Language Teaching."Alberta Modern Language Journal 152, 11­44.

James, L.. and Nahl, D. 1975­1979. Community­Cataloguing Practices. University of Hawaii Library.

1977­79. Bound Lecture Notes in Social Psychology.1977, 1978a, 1978b, 1979. University of Hawaii Library.  Many are available online here.

1978. "The Social Psychology of Language Teaching."In The Teaching of English in Japan, pp. 814­863.Tokyo Eichosha Publishing Co.

Jakobovits, L. A., and Miron, M. S. Eds.1. 1967.Readings in the Psychology of Language. New York: Prentice­Hall.

Steinberg, D. D., and Jakobovits, L. A. (Eds). 1971.Semantics: An Interdisciplinary Reader in Philosophy, Linguisticsand Psychology. New York: Cambridge University Press.

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