Language Descriptions

4 Language descriptions
They have been at a great feast of language, and stolen the

scraps.
(Shakespeare: Love's Labour's Lost)
Any ESP course makes use of explicit or implicit ideas about the nature
of language. These ideas are drawn from the various language
descriptions that have been developed by succeeding schools of thought
in Linguistics. We now have a number of ways of describing language
available to us. It is, therefore, important to understand the main
features of each of these descriptions in order to consider how they can
be used most appropriately in ESP courses. Not all the developments in
Linguistics have had pedagogic applications, of course. In this chapter
we shall give a brief outline of the various ideas about language that
have influenced ESP in some way. We can identify six main stages of
development.
1 Classical or traditional grammar

Although language teaching has a long history stretching back to ancient
times (see Howatt, 1984), the ways of describing language remained little
changed until this century. Descriptions of English and other languages
were based on the grammars of the classical languages, Greek and Latin.
These descriptions were based on an analysis of the role played by each
word in the sentence. Languages were described in this way because the
classical languages were case-based languages where the grammatical
function of each word in the sentence was made apparent by the use
of appropriate inflections. Thus the form of a word would change
according to whether it was a subject, object, indirect object and so on.
The prestige of the old classical languages ensured the survival of this
form of description even after English had lost most of its case markers
and become a largely word-order based language.
Since ESP emerged after the classical form of description had been
largely abandoned, its influence on ESP has never been strong. Never-
theless, it has continued to provide the teacher with a useful indirect
source of guidance. Register analysis, for example, drew heavily upon
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Language descriptions
its terminology in syllabus design (see p. 9). As Allen and Widdowson

(1975)say:
* Teachers who wish to maintain a balanced view of linguistics should not
overlook the fact that traditional grammar has many useful virtues. The
traditional handbooks provided an array of terms and distinctions which most
of us used in learning to talk about our own language, and which many people
continue tofindserviceable throughout their lives.'
It can also be argued that, although cases may no longer be apparent
in modern English, the concepts they represent underlie any language
(Fillmore, 1968). Thus a knowledge of the classical description can still
deepen our knowledge of how languages operate.
2 Structural linguistics
The first real challenge to the classical description of languages came
in the 1930s with the advent of structuralism, associated with linguists
such as Bloomfield (1935). The structural or 'slot and filler' form of
language description will be familiar to most language teachers as a
result of the enormous influence it has had on language teaching since
the Second World War.
In a structural description the grammar of the language is described
in terms of syntagmatic structures which carry the fundamental propo-
sitions (statement, interrogative, negative, imperative etc.) and notions
(time, number, gender etc.). By varying the words within these structural
frameworks, sentences with different meanings can be generated. This
method of linguistic analysis led in English language teaching to the
development of the substitution table as a typical means of explaining
grammatical patterns. These are still widely used today as this example
from the Nucleus series shows:
5. Write nine sentences from this table. Remember that there are many
different possibilities, not just nine correct sentences.
Diabetes mellitus unconsciousness.

Inadequate heat loss cause shock.
Some foods bad teeth.
A dog bite death.
An electric shock can result in heat stroke.
Insufficient calcium may blisters.
Severe shock allergies.
Burns lead to asphyxia.
A haemorrhage rabies.
(from Nucleus: Nursing Science by R. Kerr and J. Smith, Longman, 1978)

Figure 5: A substitution table in ESP
2-5
Course design
In fact, the development of structural descriptions of languages had little

to do with English in its early stages, but came from the need to describe
the Indian languages of North America before the last native speakers
died. It soon became apparent, however, that for a word-order language
such as English the slot and filler description would also be particularly
appropriate.
Apart from the substitution table, the most enduring application of
structural linguistics was the structural syllabus, which has proved to
be a very powerful means of selecting and sequencing language items.
In such a syllabus, items are graded so that simpler and more immediately
useable structures precede the more complex ones. An example of an
ESP syllabus based on structural precepts is that used by Ewer and
Latorre (1969) (minor details omitted):
1 Simple Present Active

2 Simple Present Passive
3 Simple Present Active and Passive
4 -ing forms
5 Present Perfect; Present Continuous
6 Infinitives
7 Anomalous Finites
8 Past Perfect; Conditionals
At its best the structural syllabus provides the learner with a systematic
description of the generative core of the language - the finite range of
structures that make it possible to generate an infinite number of novel
utterances. For this reason the structural syllabus continues to be widely
used in spite of criticism from advocates of functional, notional or
use-based descriptions of English (see e.g. Wilkins, 1976 and Widdowson,
1979). Its strength is also its greatest weakness. The very simplicity of
the structural language description entails that there are large areas of
language use that it cannot explain. In particular it may fail to provide
the learner with an understanding of the communicative use of the
structures (Allen and Widdowson, 1974). Later developments in language
teaching and linguistics have attempted to remedy this weakness.
3 Transformational Generative (TG) grammar

The structural view of language as a collection of syntagmatic patterns
held sway until the publication in 1957 of Syntactic Structures by Noam
Chomsky. Chomsky argued that the structural description was too
superficial, because it only described the surface structure of the
language, and thus could not explain relationships of meaning which
26
were quite clearly there, but which were not realised in the surface
structure. Thus these two sentences:
John is easy to please.
John is eager to please.
would, according to a structural description, indicate the same relation-
ship between the words in the sentences. But obviously the relationship
is not the same: in the first sentence John is the receiver of pleasing, while
in the second he is doing the pleasing. Similarly the identity of meaning
between an active and passive sentence would not be shown, e.g.
The City Bank has taken over Acme Holdings.
Acme Holdings has been taken over by the City Bank.
Here the relationships of meaning within the two sentences are identical,
but in a structural description this cannot be shown. Structurally they
are different and there is no way of indicating the identity of meaning.
Chomsky concluded that these problems arose because language was
being analysed and described in isolation from the human mind which
produces it. He maintained that, if we want to understand how language
works, it cannot be viewed as a phenomenon in itself. It must be viewed
as a reflection of human thought patterns. He proposed that there must
be two levels of meaning: a deep level, which is concerned with the
organisation of thoughts and a surface level, where these thoughts are
expressed through the syntax of the language. The grammar of a
language is, therefore, not the surface structures themselves, but the rules
that enable the language user to generate the surface structures from the
deep level of meaning.
Chomsky's work had an enormous and direct influence on the
world of Linguistics. His effect on language teaching has been more
indirect, but no less important. Firstly he re-established the idea that
language is rule-governed. (We shall consider this aspect in more detail
under learning theories in chapter 5.) Secondly, he widened the view of
language to incorporate the relationship between meaning and form.
This second aspect had a considerable influence on language teaching
through the next school of thought that we shall describe. But for ESP
the most important lesson to be drawn from Chomsky's work was the
distinction he made between performance (i.e. the surface structures)
and competence (i.e. the deep level rules). Chomsky's own definition of
performance and competence was narrowly based, being concerned only
with syntax. In ESP we need to take a much broader view, but the basic
distinction itself is still valid. Put simply, describing what people do with
the language (performance) is important, but of equal, if not greater
Course design
importance is discovering the competence that enables them to do it

(Hutchinson and Waters, 1981).
A simple way of seeing the distinction between performance and
competence is in our capacity to understand the meanings of words we
have never met before. For example, the expression * multangular tower'
occurs in a widely used English test. It is a word most people will never
have seen. But, if you know the prefix * multi' (whether in your own
language or English), the word 'angle' and the basic word formation
rules of English, it is an easy matter to work out that a 'multangular
tower' is a many-sided tower, that is, not a round or a square one (see
also p. 140). This process of interpretation would not be possible unless
there were an underlying competence which can operate separately from
the performance features of the language.
In the early stages of its development, ESP put most emphasis on
describing the performance needed for communication in the target
situation and paid little attention to the competence underlying it.
Indeed, accustomed as we are to seeing language and language learning
in terms of performance, it can be difficult to grasp the importance of
the competence/performance distinction. But it is one of crucial
importance for ESP and we shall return to it in the ensuing chapters.
As we have argued elsewhere:
'We need to make a distinction between the performance repertoire of the

target situation and the competence required to cope with it. The competence,
providing, as it does, the generative basis for further learning... is the proper
concern of ESP.' (ibid.)
In the developments we have described so far we have considered

language solely from the point of view of form. But language does not
exist for its own sake. It exists because people do things with it: they
give information; they promise; they threaten; they make excuses; they
seek information; they classify; they identify; they report. Language, in
other words, can also be looked at from the point of view of function,
that is, what people do with it. This is not a new idea. The British
sociolinguist, J. R. Firth, investigated language in this way in the 1930s.
But it only became an important movement in Linguistics with the
development of the concept of 'communicative competence'. Socio-
linguists, such as Dell Hymes, proposed that competence consists not
just of a set of rules for formulating grammatically correct sentences, but
also a knowledge of ' when to speak, when not... what to talk about
with whom, when, where, in what manner.' (Hymes, 1972) The study of
language in use, therefore, should look not just at syntax, but also at the
other ingredients of communication, such as: non-verbal communica-
tion (gesture, posture, eye contact etc.), the medium and channel of
28
communication, role relationships between the participants, the topic

and purpose of communication.
The concept of communicative competence has had far-reaching
consequences for ESP. It led to the next three stages of development
which we shall consider: language variation and register analysis;
language as function; discourse analysis.
4 Language variation and register analysis

Consider these two texts. They are both describing the same job: drilling
a hole in a metal workpiece on a lathe. Text A is a transcript from a
video-taped demonstration in using the lathe. Text B is a set of
instructions taken from a workshop manual.
TEXT A
Now I have to change to the final size drill I require, which is three-quarters of an
inch diameter, and this is called a morse-taper sleeve.
A slower speed for a larger drill.
Nice even feed should give a reasonable finish to the hole.
Applying coolant periodically. This is mainly for lubrication rather than cooling.
Almost to depth now.
Right. Withdrawing the drill.
That's fine.
TEXTB
1 Select required drill.
2 Mount drill in tailstock. Use taper sleeves as necessary.
3 Set speed and start machine spindle.
4 Position tailstock to workpiece.
5 Apply firm even pressure to tailstock handwheel to feed drill into workpiece.
6 Apply coolant frequently.
7 Drill hole to depth.
8 Withdraw drill.
9 Stop machine. (Hutchinson and Waters, 1981)
The illocutionary force of these two texts is the same, that is to say they
are both conveying the same message and they both have the same
purpose, namely to give instructions in carrying out the particular job.
But the language of text A differs from that of text B in a number of
significant ways:
a) In A the speaker is not giving a direct set of instructions. He is actually
commenting on what he is doing, but this functions as a set of
instructions.
Course design
b) The language is more anecdotal and sporadic. This is because there

is a visual element to the discourse. The main thrust of the
communication is carried by what he is doing with the machine
(Hutchinson, 1978).
c) In text A there is an interpersonal dimension. The language is,
therefore, less formal and contains some comments and expressions
of feeling, for example, 'That's fine.'
d) The grammar of text B is consistent (e.g. the articles are always
omitted; the verb form is always the imperative). In text A there is
less consistency, because it is a free-flowing piece of spoken discourse.
There are other differences too, but our purpose is not to give a detailed
analysis. The important point is that, if we view language as part of a
communicative whole, it is clear that language use shows considerable
variety. The whole communicative act is made up of a number of
contextually dependent factors. Varying one or more of these factors will
have 'knock-on' effects on the other factors. Thus the presence of the
machine in text A affects what needs to be said in order to convey the
message. This sentence,' and this is called a morse-taper sleeve' is only
possible, because the audience can see both the object referred to and
the speaker's actions which indicate that it is being referred to.
Language, then, varies according to the context of use and it is this fact
that enables us to distinguish, for example, formal from informal,
written from spoken, self-sufficient language from context-dependent.
The concept of language variation gave rise to the type of ESP which
was based on register analysis (see above p. 9). If language varies
according to context, it was argued, then it should be possible to identify
the kind of language associated with a specific context, such as an area
of knowledge (legal English; social English; medical English; business
English; scientific English etc.), or an area of use (technical manuals,
academic texts, business meetings, advertisements, doctor-patient com-
munication etc.). Much ESP research was focussed as a result on
determining the formal characteristics of various registers in order to
establish a basis for the selection of syllabus items. The work of Ewer
and Latorre (1969) and Swales (1971) on the language of science was
particularly significant here. However, register analysis has, as we have
already noted, ultimately proved to be an insubstantial basis for the
selection of syllabus items. As Coffey (1984) says about EST:
'Research and experiment continue, but in general the results have not been
encouraging... In short, register cannot be used as a main basis for selection,
because there is no significant way in which the language of science differs
from any other kind of language.'
The key phrase here is 'no significant way'. There are clearly language
forms that tend to be used more frequently in one context than in
30
another. The classic example of this is the use of the passive in Scientific
English. But even this may have been overemphasised. Tarone et al.
(1981) found in their analysis of two Astrophysics journal papers that
the active accounted for over 80% of the verbs used. But the important
point is that even if particular registers favour certain forms, they are
not distinctive forms. They are simply drawn from the common stock
of the grammar of the language. Though attractive at first sight, the
assumption that language variation implies the existence of identifiable
varieties of language related to specific contexts of use has, in effect,
proved to be unfounded.
5 Functional/Notional grammar
The second major offshoot of work into language as communication
which has influenced ESP has been the functional/notional concept of
language description. The terms 'functional' and 'notional' are easily
and frequently confused. There is, however, a difference. Functions are
concerned with social behaviour and represent the intention of the
speaker or writer, for example, advising, warning, threatening, describing
etc. They can be approximately equated with the communicative acts
that are carried out through language. Notions, on the other hand, reflect
the way in which the human mind thinks. They are the categories into
which the mind and thereby language divides reality, for example, time,
frequency, duration, gender, number, location, quantity, quality etc. (see
e.g. Johnson and Morrow, 1981, pp. 1-11).
The functional view of language began to have an influence on
language teaching in the 1970s, largely as a result of the Council of
Europe's efforts to establish some kind of equivalence in the syllabuses
for learning various languages. Equivalence was difficult to establish on
formal grounds, since the formal structures of languages show consider-
able variation. The student of German, for example, is likely to have
to spend a large amount of time in learning the gender/case endings of
articles, nouns and adjectives. The learner of English on the other hand
will not have this problem, but may need to spend more time on, for
example, the spelling, the simple/continuous tense distinction or the
countable/uncountable distinction. These variations in the formal
features of languages obviously make it difficult to divide up the learning
tasks into units of equivalent value across the various languages on the
basis of formal grammar. On notional or functional grounds, however,
some approximate equivalence can be achieved, since notions and
functions represent the categories of human thinking and social be-
haviour, which do not (as far as we know) vary across languages. Thus
in the 1970s there was a move from language syllabuses organised on
Course design
structural grounds to ones based on functional or notional criteria. The

most influential of such syllabuses were the Threshold Level (Van Ek,
1975) and Waystage (Van Ek and Alexander, 1977) syllabuses produced
by the Council of Europe.
The move towards functionally based syllabuses has been particularly
strong in the development of ESP, largely on the pragmatic grounds that
the majority of ESP students have already done a structurally organised
syllabus, probably at school. Their needs, therefore, are not to learn the
basic grammar, but rather to learn how to use the knowledge they
already have.
The attraction of the functional syllabus is that it appears to be based
on language in use, in contrast to the structural syllabus, which shows
only form. For example, compare this syllabus with the Ewer and
Latorre syllabus above (p. 26):
Asking about travel

Making travel arrangements
Ordering a meal
Asking the way
Hiring a car
(from English for Travel by John Eastwood, OUP, 1980)
(See pp. 85-8 for various types of syllabus.)

The functional syllabus, however, has its own drawbacks. It suffers in
particular from a lack of any kind of systematic conceptual framework,
and as such does not help the learners to organise their knowledge of
the language.
The main problem with the functional syllabus, however, is not the
syllabus itself, but the fact that it is too often seen as a replacement for
the older structural syllabus. A more constructive approach to describing
language in structural or functional terms is to see the two as
complementary, with each supporting and enriching the other. The
relationship between the two can be best expressed in the form of this
simple equation:
structure + context = function
Brumfit (1981) proposes a similar approach with his 'snakes and
ladders' syllabus. A core ladder of structures is intertwined with a
spiralling snake of related functions. An example of this kind of syllabus
can be seen in more recent ESP materials (seefigure6).
Contents
Unit One A visitor to BOS Page l
Business content: Organisation chart
Structures: The verb to be
Possessive pronouns
Genitive fs)
Question words: What? Where? Who?
Functions: Introductions; greetings; giving personal information:
registering at a hotel
Lexis: Jobs, countries, nationalities, titles
Unit Two A newcomer Page 9

Business content: Telephone conversations; business letter format
Structures: Demonstrative pronouns: this/that/these/those
There is/there are
Prepositions: on, in, above, below, under, between, next to.
to the left/right of. on the right/left
Question words: How many?
Function: Describing location
Lexis: Office furniture and equipment, stationery, cardinal numbers,
business letter teminology
Unit Three The BOS building Page 18

Business content: A memorandum; telephone conversations; company names
Structures: Present progressive tense
Imperatives
Prepositions {continued)
Question word: Which?
Functions: Discussing activities; giving directions; giving commands
Lexis: Ordinal numbers, parts of a building, some office activities
(from We Mean Business by Susan N o r m a n , Longman, 1982)

Figure 6: A structural/functional syllabus
6 Discourse (Rhetorical) analysis

This next development has also had a profound effect on ESP. Till this
point language had been viewed in terms of the sentence. Now the
emphasis moved to looking at how meaning is generated between
sentences. This was a logical development of the functional/notional
view of language which had shown that there is more to meaning than
just the words in the sentence. The context of the sentence is also
important in creating the meaning.
If we take this simple sentence: 'It is raining' and we put it into three
different dialogues, we can see how the meaning changes.
Can I go out to play ?
It's raining.
Have you cut the grass yet ?
It's raining.
33
Course design
I think I'll go out for a walk.

It's raining.
In each case the propositional meaning (statement) of the sentence is the
same. The notions in it are also the same (present time, neuter). But the
sentence is fulfilling three different communicative purposes.
In the first dialogue a parent could be talking to a child. The child
is asking permission to go out. The parent's reply of 'It is raining' acts
as a refusal of the request. The second dialogue might be a husband/wife
dialogue. 'It is raining' now functions as a reason or an excuse. In the
third dialogue it takes on yet another function, and this time is probably
acting as advice or a mild warning and might take place between friends.
The meaning of this same sentence changes with the different
contexts. This change is brought about by two factors. The first factor,
as we have seen, is the sociolinguistic context: who is speaking to whom
and why. The meaning changes according to the relationship between
the participants in the dialogue and according to their reason for
speaking. But there is another factor which influences the meaning — the
relative positions of the utterances within the discourse. An utterance
acquires meaning by virtue of what utterances it precedes or follows.
We might call this the discoursal meaning.
For example, if we take the third dialogue above and turn the two
utterances round, we get:
It's raining.
I think I'll go out for a walk.
By doing so, we have first of all removed the idea of advice or warning.
We have also completely changed the logical meaning of the dialogue.
In the first example the underlying meaning is that rain provides a reason
against going for a walk, whereas in the reversed example rain is a reason
in favour of going out for a walk. Thus the relative positions of the
utterances within the discourse affect the meaning of the discourse.
As we noted in chapter 2, discourse analysis has been closely
associated with ESP, particularly through the influence of Henry
Widdowson and the Washington School of American linguists. We can
identify two key ways in which the results of studies into the nature of
discourse have been used in ESP teaching materials:
a) Learners are made aware of the stages in certain set-piece transactions
associated with particular specialist fields. One of the most influential
projects of this kind has been the analysis of doctor-patient com-
munication by Candlin, Bruton and Leather (1976). A similar
approach can be seen in the following example (see figure 7).
b) The second use of discourse analysis in ESP has been through
materials which aim to explain how meaning is created by the relative
34
2 The form of a consultation
Objective: To examine the sequence of a consultation.
The form of a consultation

The conversation between Mr Watson and Mr Finbury, like most
consultations in a bank, was of the following form.
1 Establishing contact. The manager or assistant manager first

establishes contact with his customer, greeting him and putting him
at his ease. This is done politely, but with neither effusiveness or
familiarity.
2 Finding out what the person wants. It's necessary to find out what the
client wants.
3 Giving information. Information is given concisely, vividly and

clearly. Moreover, it is adapted to the listener's viewpoint.
4 Arguing the point. The client is persuaded to do something.
5 Taking down details in writing. Very often it will be necessary to fill

in a form or take notes.
6 Conclusion and thanks. The manager reaffirms his readiness to help.
Look at the text of the dialogue on pp. 4-6, and mark where each section
begins and ends.
(from English for International Banking by Ferguson and O'Reilly, Evans, 1979)
Figure 7: Discourse analysis in ESP
positions of the sentences in a written text. This has become the
central feature of a large number of ESP textbooks aimed at
developing a knowledge of how sentences are combined in texts in
order to produce a particular meaning (Allen and Widdowson, 1974).
This approach has led, in particular, to the text-diagramming type
of exercise found in many ESP materials. The ultimate aim of such
35
Course design
an approach is to make the learners into more efficient readers, by

making them aware of the underlying structure of a text and the way
in which language has been organised to create this structure. The
following extract from Reading and Thinking in English: Exploring
Functions is an example of the text-diagramming type of exercise.
Unit 6 GENERALIZING AND EXEMPLIFYING
b uses of natural materials

c uses of man-made materials
d the advantages of natural materials.
The two dominant factors which determine the

use of a material are its cost and its physical and
chemical properties.'' The specificaions of the
designers have to be matched against what is What does the use of a
material depend on?
known about a material's strength, how easily it
conducts electricity, how quickly it corrodes,
meet - satisfy etc. l2 But the material chosen for a given appli-
cation is the one which most cheaply meets the The material's strength,
etc. are examples of
specifications of the designers.1' Even when
material which meets the special materials have to be developed to meet a ,3
specifications: particular specification, the costs of production Which material is chosen?
a £50 have to be carefully controlled.
b £20
c £15*-choice
9 Complete the following table to summarize

the paragraph.
Generalization
(from Reading and Thinking: Exploring Functions, OUP, 1979)

Figure 8: Text-diagramming
36
Even before Reading and Thinking was published, the approach had
come under attack on the grounds that it misrepresents the real nature
of discourse. It has been suggested (see, in particular, Coulthard (1977)
pp. 147-53) that the approach does for discourse what structural
linguistics did for sentence grammar, in other words, it establishes
patterns, but does not account for how these patterns create meaning.
It has produced, in effect, a sort of discourse structuralism. It can also
be argued that it falls into the very same trap that Allen and Widdowson
(1974) claimed to be trying to remedy. If getting learners to learn
structural sentence patterns does not enable the learner to use those
patterns in communication, is it any more likely that making learners
aware of the patterns in discourse will enable them to use those discourse
patterns in communication ? Are not descriptions of language use being
taken for descriptions of language learning? We shall return to this
theme in the following chapters, when we consider the fields of learning
and needs.
Conclusion
We have looked in this chapter at the ways in which language can be,
and has been, described. There are three lessons to be learnt from this
survey and they must be borne in mind when we draw conclusions
regarding their relevance to ESP course design:
a) There is no single source from which a language course can, or
should, derive its linguistic input. The various developments which
we have described are not separate entities. Each stage has reacted
to, and drawn inspiration from, those preceding it. A functional
description does not imply that a structural description is wrong,
simply that it is not sufficient as an explanation of what language is
like. The ESP teacher needs to recognise that the various approaches
are different ways of looking at the same thing. All communication
has a structural level, a functional level and a discoursal level. They
are not mutually exclusive, but complementary, and each may have
its place in the ESP course.
b) Describing a language for the purposes of linguistic analysis does not
necessarily carry any implications for language learning. The purposes
of the linguist and of the language teacher are not the same. Stern
(1983) sounds a note of caution, which ESP practitioners would do
well to heed:
'Whether techniques of linguistic analysis - however well they may lend

themselves to linguistic research - are equally applicable to language
teaching is of course open to question.'
37
Course design
c) Describing a language is not the same as describing what enables

someone to use or learn a language. We must make a distinction
between what a person does (performance) and what enables them
to do it {competence). Similarly we must not confuse how people use
a language with how people learn it.
The importance of these points can only be fully appreciated when we
consider the psychological processes that lie behind language use and
language learning. In the next chapter we shall consider this dimension
by describing developments in learning theories and their implications
for ESP.
Tasks
1 Do you think that classical and structural descriptions still have a
value in ESP? Why?
2 What do you think is the importance of the concept of communicative
competence in ESP ?
3 Continue the analysis of texts A and B on p. 29. What further
differences can you see ? Account for the differences.
4 Look at the dialogues on pp. 33-4. What knowledge enables us to
interpret them? How are we able to imagine a context for them ?
5 Look at the extract from Reading and Thinking (p. 36).
a) What are the exercises trying to teach ?
b) What sort of learners do you think would benefit from this
material ?
6 In what ways do the interests of linguistic research and language
teaching differ ?

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4 Language descriptions

They have been at a great feast of language, and stolen the

1 Classical or traditional grammar

its terminology in syllabus design (see p. 9). As Allen and Widdowson

Diabetes mellitus unconsciousness.

(from Nucleus: Nursing Science by R. Kerr and J. Smith, Longman, 1978)

In fact, the development of structural descriptions of languages had little

1 Simple Present Active

3 Transformational Generative (TG) grammar

importance is discovering the competence that enables them to do it

'We need to make a distinction between the performance repertoire of the

In the developments we have described so far we have considered

communication, role relationships between the participants, the topic

4 Language variation and register analysis

b) The language is more anecdotal and sporadic. This is because there

structural grounds to ones based on functional or notional criteria. The

Asking about travel

(See pp. 85-8 for various types of syllabus.)

Unit Two A newcomer Page 9

Unit Three The BOS building Page 18

(from We Mean Business by Susan N o r m a n , Longman, 1982)

6 Discourse (Rhetorical) analysis

I think I'll go out for a walk.

2 The form of a consultation

Objective: To examine the sequence of a consultation.

The form of a consultation

1 Establishing contact. The manager or assistant manager first

3 Giving information. Information is given concisely, vividly and

4 Arguing the point. The client is persuaded to do something.

5 Taking down details in writing. Very often it will be necessary to fill

6 Conclusion and thanks. The manager reaffirms his readiness to help.

an approach is to make the learners into more efficient readers, by

Unit 6 GENERALIZING AND EXEMPLIFYING

b uses of natural materials

The two dominant factors which determine the

9 Complete the following table to summarize

(from Reading and Thinking: Exploring Functions, OUP, 1979)

'Whether techniques of linguistic analysis - however well they may lend

c) Describing a language is not the same as describing what enables

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