Reflections On Language Learning

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Reflections On Language Learning Barbara, Leila. Multilingual Matters 1853592587 9781853592584 9780585126159 English English language--Study and teaching--Foreign speakers, Language and languages--Study and teaching. 1994 PE1128.A2R38 1994eb 428/.007 English language--Study and teaching--Foreign speakers, Language and languages--Study and teaching.

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Reflections on Language Learning

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Multilingual Matters Approaches to Second Language Acquisition R. Towell and R. Hawkins Attitudes and Language Colin Baker Culture and Language Learning in Higher Education Michael Byram (ed.) Language, Culture and Education M. Beveridge and G. Reddiford (eds) Language Diversity Surveys as Agents of Change Joe Nicholas Language Education for Intercultural Communication D. Ager, G. Muskens and S. Wright (eds) Mission Incomprehensible: The Linguistic Barrier to Effective Police Co-operation in Europe Roy D. Ingleton Quantifying Language Phil Scholfield Second Language Acquisition and Language Pedagogy Rod Ellis The Step-Tongue: Children's English in Singapore Anthea Fraser Gupta System in Black Language David Sutcliffe with John Figueroa Tasks and Language Learning Graham Crookes and Susan M. Gass (eds) Tasks in a Pedagogical Context Graham Crookes and Susan M. Gass (eds) Teaching-and-Learning Language-and-Culture Michael Byram, Carol Morgan and colleagues Towards Global Multilingualism R. Khoo, U. Kreher and R. Wong (eds) Please contact us for the latest book information: Multilingual Matters Ltd, Frankfurt Lodge, Clevedon Hall, Victoria Road, Clevedon, Avon BS21 7SJ, England.

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Antonieta Celani Photograph: Beatriz Berrini

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Reflections On Language Learning Edited by Leila Barbara and Mike Scott In Honour of Antonieta Celani

MULTILINGUAL MATTERS LTD Clevedon Philadelphia Adelaide

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The Editors wish to express thanks to the British Council in Brazil and the Sociedade Brasileira de Cultura Inglesa de São Paulo for their financial support for this publication. Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Reflections on Language Learning/Edited by Leila Barbara and Mike Scott 'In Honour of Antonieta Celani' Includes bibliographical references 1. English language-Study and teaching-Foreign speakers. 2. Language and languages-Study and teaching. I. Barbara, Leila. II. Scott, Mike, 1946-. III. Celani, Antonieta. 1994 PE1128.A2R38 94-30239 428'.007-dc20 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN 1-85359-258-7 (hbk) ISBN 1-85359-257-9 (pbk) Multilingual Matters Ltd UK: Frankfurt Lodge, Clevedon Hall, Victoria Road, Clevedon, Avon BS21 7SJ. USA: 1900 Frost Road, Suite 101, Bristol, PA 19007, USA. Australia: P.O. Box 6025, 83 Gilles Street, Adelaide, SA 5000, Australia. Copyright © 1994 Leila Barbara, Mike Scott and the authors of individual chapters. All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced in any form or by any means without permission in writing from the publisher. Printed and bound in Great Britain by WBC, Bridgend.

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Contents Tribute to Antonieta Celani Leila Barbara

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List of Antonieta Celani's Publications A Personal Word Mike Potter

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Introduction Mike Scott

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The Contributors

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Project Development 1 Towards a Theory of Participatory Evaluation: Insights from Applied Linguistics J. Charles Alderson

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2 The Importance of the Affective Domain in ELT Projects Maurice Broughton

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3 Aspects of Awareness Raising in Reading Courses Célia A. Figueiredo

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4 Influencing Research and Research Design: The Brazilian ESP Project Angela B. Kleiman

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5 Managing Change in Education: A Teacher Development Project for Primary and Secondary School Teachers Vilma Sampaio de Oliveira

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Teacher Education 6 The Virtues of Untrained Teachers John Holmes and Patricia Crossley

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7 Teacher-Researchers at the Pivot Between Tradition and Innovation in the Foreign Language Classroom Luiz Paulo da Moita-Lopes

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8 Classroom Interaction and Strategic Reading Development Maria Cecilia C. Magalhães and Roxane H.R. Rojo

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9 Metaphors and Language Awareness Mike Scott

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10 A Thesis 20 Years On: Principles of Linguistics and the TheoryPraxis of the Rights of Language-learners Francisco Gomes de Matos

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Page vi Language Processing 11 Describing and Teaching Speech Act Behaviour: Stating and Changing an Opinion Andrew D. Cohen and Elaine Tarone

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12 Metalinguistic Reflections on Code-switching Mary Aizawa Kato

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13 Cognitive Skills and Individual Differences in Reading Abuêndia Padilha Pinto

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14 Introspection in Applied Linguistics: Meta-research on Verbal Protocols Marilda C. Cavalcanti and Mara S. Zanotto

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15 The Value of Accessing Translation as a Process Nélia Scott

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Business Interaction Analysis 16 From Writer Roles to Elements of Text: Interactive, Organisational and Topical Florence Davies

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17 The Place of In-house Journals in Business Interaction: A Case Study Anthony F. Deyes

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18 The Analysis of Verbal Interaction: A Meeting Maria Cecilia Pérez de Souza e Silva

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19 Laughter and Interpersonal Management in a Business Meeting Susan Thompson

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20 Modal Profiling in Oral Presentations Heloísa Collins

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Bibliographical References

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Index

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Tribute to Antonieta Celani Leila Barbara This volume is dedicated to Dr Maria Antonieta Alba Celani, OBE, Professor of English at the Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo (PUC-SP). It is a token from those who benefit from her work, a symbol of the admiration, friendship and gratitude of her friends, admirers and students. The idea of a tribute to Antonieta occurred jointly to both editors of this volume; the desire to have some sort of homage for her had been widespread for a long time, but 'She is too young for that' people had been telling themselves. It was the appearance of festschrifts for others even younger in years, which caused the idea to take its final shape. It was immediately and enthusiastically supported by many others, to begin with by the contributors to this volume. The greatest difficulty of all, for the editors, was to decide whom to invite it would have been impossible to ask all her friends and admirers, colleagues who have worked with her and students who became friends. We take the blame for the inevitable omissions and we hope and expect that the contributors to the volume will represent everyone. A very special role in the tribute is played by both The British Council and the Sociedade Brasileira de Cultura Inglesa de Silo Paulo. It was the immediate and enthusiastic support of both institutions that made the project feasible by providing financial support. Antonieta has had a longstanding relationship with both. She has been the vice-president of the Cultura for many years and a Board member since 1973, and for an even longer period she has been involved in their teacher-training activities, their selection of personnel, and their academic policy-making. In 1955 she held a British Council Scholarship to the Institute of Education, London University, and of course she made a very good use of her stay there. Back in Brazil, she began to introduce great changes in the curriculum of the English course at the Faculty of Philosophy, Sciences and Letters 'Sedes Sapentiae' of PUC-SP, where she had started working in 1954. Those changes brought about what was to become a highly praised and influential English BA, a course for intending teachers of English. Eventually it came to influence other BAs at PUC-SP and at other universities.

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Antonieta's life is full of far-reaching enterprise. She has had a leading role in practical language teaching and in research into language teaching, linguistics and especially applied linguistics in Brazil. Antonieta began her career as a secondary school teacher of English. In the late 1950s, teacher-training activities at PUC-SP consisted of academic work, lectures, and classroom observation; however, in 1958, she started teaching practices for her trainees. Later, coordinated by other members of staff, this would become an important service provided by the university for the community, welcoming over 500 children and adults every term in a range of courses. Antonieta was also one of the initiators of activities for in-service teacher training in the form of summer or winter courses and seminars. In 1963 a Major in English was set up at the other Faculty of Arts of PUC-SP (São Bento) and Antonieta was placed in charge; her involvement with the University started to take up all her time but she never really relinquished her links with school teachers and school children. Antonieta published teaching materials herself (Take Off (1973 to 1975), Get Ahead (1979), Particularly Verbs (1974)). However she is interested in, as the Brazilian saying goes, 'teaching how to fish, not supplying the fish' and she has concentrated on research and teacher development. Although research was not a central activity in Brazilian universities at that time, Antonieta had been conducting it from the outset of her graduate career. When she took her doctorate in 1960 with a thesis on Literature (Celani, 1960) she was one of the very few doctors at the University (and certainly the youngest). She began to take more responsibility in what was then the Department of Letters and was later, when the two Arts Faculties merged, to become the Faculty of Communication and Philosophy; she was moving into a position to stimulate younger members of the department to do research, to pursue further degrees in Brazil or abroad, and to study new developments so as to be able to find better solutions for language teaching in Brazil. By the late 1960s new regulations helped promote post-graduate courses leading to Brazilian MAs and Doctorates. In the beginning, they were restricted to a very few large universities, and largely favoured the sciences. They provided an important opportunity to develop research, raising more interest in it, and helping those who were already involved in doctoral theses. As early as 1969, Antonieta started to set wheels in motion to gain full status for Applied Linguistics at PUC-SP. With the help of a FAPESP (Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo) grant, she started a post-graduate programme (Programa de Pós-graduação em Lingüística Aplicada ao Ensino de Línguas LAEL, for short) which she coordinated for ten years. It was several years before another Applied Linguistics Programme would be created. At present, there are students from LAEL in

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all parts of Brazil, holding major posts and doing vital research throughout the country nearly all of them former students of Antonieta. In the beginning Antonieta's influence was most strongly felt in São Paulo. Her work at LAEL put her in closer contact with teachers from all over Brazil and that provided new opportunities for her to work on a larger scale, helping to provide teaching that is relevant for the needs of the whole country. In the second half of the 1970s, she embarked on the Projeto National Ensino de Inglês Instrumental em Universidades Brasileiras (the Brazilian National Project for the Teaching of English for Specific Purposes). This project started with a feasibility study in 1977. By 1980, 23 Federal Universities were enrolled. From the start, some teachers from Federal Technical Schools (Escolas Técnicas Federais) had participated unofficially; from 1987 to 1992 Antonieta coordinated a linked project, aimed at the Technical Schools B Access to Scientific and Technological Information. More than twenty of these institutions were actively engaged, and the universities continued to participate. Regular seminars were held: local, regional (three annually) and national (every other year). In the beginning all the input came from abroad but soon the role of the participating institutions became very active the Brazilians began to run workshops and present research papers themselves, and act as visiting speakers in the seminars. Since 1992, the two projects have merged into what may be thought of as a special type of support network, presided over by Antonieta. They meet regularly to exchange information, with a member or an outsider commissioned for some special input, and still have the Resource Centre at PUC-SP, CEPRIL, at the hub. More of this below. The extraordinary success of the project has been due to Antonieta's leadership of its members, as anyone who has had close contact with Antonieta will agree. The spirit of the project allows for people to participate, play their role actively, and develop their potential. The project has had other effects. In 1980 Antonieta launched a Bulletin of the ESP project (The ESPecialist). When the University project officially came to an end the Bulletin turned into a fully fledged journal with two issues a year the 1994 volume is number 15. A set of 21 working papers were produced by the ESP project between 1981 and 1989 as well as a set of 5 Resource Packages between 1985 and 1987. An ESP News Letter started in 1983. Antonieta has been editor of all of them. Those are only some of the effects of the project. They give some indication of the enormous number of people who have benefited from it people who have learned more English, who have become better teachers, researchers some of whom would not have dreamt they could aspire to

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research, departments that have developed in all parts of the country and can make their teaching more meaningful and more satisfying. I have given a lot of space to a description of the ESP project. ESP has been the centre, but by no means the only one of Antonieta's interests for these 17 years. Others have been her teaching at LAEL, her publications, her talks in Brazil and abroad, the dissertations she has supervised, her influence on the teaching of other foreign languages and the teaching of Portuguese as a mother tongue. As part of the ESP project, Antonieta set up a resource centre that, after running experimentally for a few years, was formally installed in 1985 as CEPRIL (Centro de Pesquisas, Recursos e Informação em Leitura Centre for Research, Resources and Information on Reading). From the outset, Antonieta ran a very active centre where undergraduate and graduate students, staff and visitors interact to develop their work or gather information. At CEPRIL, with support from government grants, Antonieta introduces an average of eight undergraduates and newly graduate students every year to the mysteries of research. Since 1990, Antonieta has coordinated the Brazilian arm of a link with the University of Liverpool, Development of International Research in English for Commerce and Technology (DIRECT), an arm that grew to include research on the use of Portuguese in industry and commerce (Communication for Professional Purposes: for a more efficient performance in work interactions). Teachers of other foreign languages and of Portuguese as a mother tongue have benefited from this work, and the close interaction between native and foreign language research in LAEL made this project viable. This is no accident. Even before LAEL, Antonieta would encourage students in all possible areas, including the learning and teaching of foreign languages and of the mother tongue, as well as in language acquisition, the description of languages and linguistic theory. She would go out of her way to supervise dissertations in many of these areas; she would write or help prepare bids to bring visiting professors to LAEL so as to give the students more theoretical support; she helped them to study abroad. Now that her encouragement of others has been so successful she can concentrate on the areas that interest her most. But the students know that if they want to study something very new or controversial they can always turn to Antonieta and she will be ready to listen, help study the problem, and maybe, supervise their dissertation. Antonieta is a founding member of most of the important associations of teachers, of English, of linguists, of applied linguists in Brazil as well as being a member of many international associations. She is a referee in grant-awarding agencies in Brazil and abroad. As is apparent from this summary, Antonieta's contribution as a scholar has been great: she has taught countless numbers of school teachers and

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university lecturers, and supervised many MAs and doctorates; the talks and papers at conferences in Brazil and abroad and the seminars or conferences of various sizes which she has organised number in hundreds; mimeo copies of a number of those papers and talks circulate freely in Brazil and are part of many course bibliographies. She is an excellent teacher and lecturer and researcher. But it is her personal behaviour, her example and her attitude, in all moments of life, in all types of situation, which have been even more influential. I remember, not long ago, one of Antonieta's undergraduate students at the final evaluation of a course saying 'You are our oldest teacher, but the youngest of the lot'. Did she mean: ready to learn? full of ideas? lively? curious? enthusiastic? Antonieta is all these things put together. Most of all: ready to hear and help to find solutions.

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Antonieta Celani's Publications Pascoli e Wordsworth. Anuário da Faculdade de Filosofia, Ciências e Letras 'Sedes Sapientiae'. PUC-SP, 12, pp. 97-107, 19541955. Aspetti del Romanzo Storico in Walter Scott e nel Manzoni. Sao Paulo: Livraria Nobel, 1957. Programa-Roteiro Mínimo para o Ensino do Inglês no Curso Ginasial. Escola Secundária 7, CADES, 1958. A Formação de Professores de Inglês. Anuário da Faculdade de Filosofia, Ciências e Letras 'Sedes Sapientiae'. PUC-SP, 19581959. A Obra Poética de W.H. Davies. Doctoral Dissertation. Faculdade de Filosofia, Ciên-cias e Letras 'Sedes Sapientiae'. Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo, 1960. A Importância da Pesquisa Lingüística no Conceito Moderno de Método no Ensino de Inglês. Boletim da Sociedade de Estudos Filosóficos, III, 5, 1961. O Trabalho Corretivo no Ensino de Inglês. Anuário da Faculdade de Filosofia, Ciências e Letras 'Sedes Sapientiae'. PUC-SP, 1961-1962. Tipos do 'underworld' da Sociedade Eduardina na Poesia de W.H. Davies. Revista da Universidade Católica de São Paulo, XV/45, pp. 67-68, March, 1963. Problemas do Ensino de Inglês, apostilas do Curso de Aperfeiçoamento para Professores de Inglês, ministrado na TV Cultura. Publicação da Inspetoria Seccional de São Paulo, 1965. Curso de Inglês na TV Student's material for English course taught via TV Globo. Sociedade Brasileira de Cultura Inglesa de Sao Paulo, 1965. 'TV é a Solução'. Article published in the section 'Problemas de Educação'. A Folha de São Paulo, October 31, 1965. (Et alii). Roteiro de Orientaçao para a Cadeira de Inglês, destinado às escolas oficiais do Estado, curso secundário, 1º e 2º ciclos. Diário Oficial do Estado de São Paulo, Ano LXXVI, 4, January 6, 1966. (Et alii). Nasalisation in Brazilian Portuguese and its effects in the learning of English. Presented at the IV International British Council Summer School, Rio de Janeiro 15/01 to 3/02, 1967. Distributed by the British Council. Phonology at teacher training level. English Teaching Boletim para professores de Inglês no Brasil. Rio de Janeiro: The British Council, 1967. (Et alii). Some aspects of teacher training in Brazil. English Teaching Boletim para professores de Inglês no Brasil. Rio de Janeiro: The British Council, 1967. English Teaching. English Teaching Boletim para professores de Inglês no Brasil. Rio de Janeiro: The British Council, 1968. Review of Audio Visual Pronunciation Exercises by D. Clare, Longman, 1969. English Teaching Boletim para professores de Inglês no Brasil. Rio de Janeiro: The British Council, 1969. Sources of Non-Anaphoric 'it'. English: Pedagogical implications in the teaching of English to speakers of Portuguese. Revista da Universidade Católica de São Paulo, XLI, 79-80, pp. 296-339, 1971.

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(Et alii). Aspectos da Linguística Moderna. Translation of A.A. Hill. Linguistics Today. São Paulo: Cultrix, 1972. (Et alii). Take-off. An English Course for Brazilian Schools. Student's Book 1. London: Longman, 1973. (Et alii). Take-off. An English Course for Brazilian Schools. Teacher's Book 1. London: Longman, 1973. (Et alii). Take-off. An English Course for Brazilian Schools. Student's Book 2. London: Longman, 1974. (Et alii). Take-off. An English Course for Brazilian Schools. Teacher's Book 2. London: Longman, 1974. (Et alii). Particularly Verbs. London: London University Press, 1974. (Et alii). Particularly Verbs. Teacher's Book. London: London University Press, 1974. (Et alii). Take-off. An English Course for Brazilian Schools. Student's Book 3. London: Longman, 1975. (Et alii). Take-off. An English Course for Brazilian Schools. Teacher's Book 3. London: Longman, 1975. Descrição Lingüística no Currículo de Graduação em Língua Estrangeira. Cadernos da PUC-RJ. I Encontro Nacional de Lingüística, Rio de Janeiro, 1976. Comentários sobre um aspecto de contacto linguístico e possíveis aplicaçoes ao ensino de línguas. Creativity 21, 1976. The teaching of English and ESP at Secondary School level. English for Specific Purposes: An International Seminar. The British Council. Bogotá, Colombia, pp. 96-99, 1977. Peer teaching as a motivating factor in developing communicative skills. English Language Teaching Journal, XXXIV, 1, 1979. Get Ahead. Book 1. London: Longman, 1979. Get Ahead. Teacher's Guide. London: Longman, 1979. (Et alii). Projeto Nacional de Ensino de Inglês Instrumental em Universidades Brasileiras. Revista da Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo, XLIX, 97, pp. 67-76, 1979. A national ESP project for Brazilian universities. Creativity, 34, pp. 1-3, 1979. Teacher education for English language teaching at university level. I° Seminário Nacional para Professores Universitários de Lingua Inglesa. Documento Básico, MEC-UFRGN, Natal, 1980. Get Ahead. Book 2. London: Longman, 1980. O Ensino de Inglês Instrumental em Universidades Brasileiras. The ESPecialist, Boletim do Projeto Nacional Ensino de Inglês Instrumental em Universidades Brasileiras, 1981. Relatório do Grupo de Trabalho sobre Ensino Instrumental de Línguas. Estudos Linguísticos. VI Anais de Seminários do GEL. Pontifícia Universidade Católica de Campinas, 1982. Considerações sobre a pesquisa 'A Necessidade e Eficiência do Ensino de Inglês Instrumental em Universidade Brasileiras'. The ESPecialist, 6, pp. 2-9, 1983. O Ensino da Leitura de Textos Acadêmicos no Projeto 'Ensino de Inglês Instrumental em Universidades Brasileiras'. Anais do I Encontro de Redação e Leitura. PUC-SP, 1983. O Papel da Lingüística nos Cursos de Letras. Estudos Linguísticos. VIII. Anais de Seminários do GEL. Assis: Universidade Estadual Paulista, Instituto de Letras, História e Psicologia, 1984. Editor: Ensino de Línguas. Cadernos PUC 17. São Paulo, EDUC, 1984. Uma abordagem centrada no Aluno. In: M.A.A. Celani (ed.), pp. 32-39, 1984. Considerações sobre a disciplina 'Prática de Ensino de Inglês' nos cursos de Licenciatura. In M.A.A. Celani (ed.), pp. 70-78, 1984.

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Is there too much concern for the cognitive in our teacher training programmes? Anais V ENPULI. II, pp. 458-465, PUC-SP, Sao Paulo, 1984. A minimum programme for teacher training courses. (Report on Workshop). Anais V ENPULI. I, pp. 196-199, PUC-SP, São Paulo, 1984. O Papel da Aprendizagem de Línguas Estrangeiras na Formação Integral do Indivíduo. Anais V ENPULI. I, pp. 1-2, PUC-SP, Sao Paulo, 1984. Learners' terminal behaviour in the Letras course. Anais VI ENPULI, pp. 91-96. Recife: Ed. Massangana Fundação Joaquim Nabuco, 1985. Research needs in second language learning/teaching. Annals of Congresso de Lingüística Aplicada. Campinas: UNICAMP, 1986. Testing. Resource Package V. 79pp. São Paulo: Cepril, 1987. (Et alii) The Brazilian ESP Project: An Evaluation. São Paulo: EDUC, 1988. A educação continuada do professor. Ciência e Cultura, 40, 2, pp. 158-163. São Paulo: SBPC. February, 1988. A participatory evaluation. The ESPecialist, IX, 1/2, pp. 9-26, 1989. Research needs in L2 learning/teaching. Trabalhos em Linguistica Aplicada, 2, 13, pp. 27-42, 1989. (Et M.S.Z. de Paschoal) (eds) Lingüística Aplicada: da aplicação da Lingüítica à Lingüística transdisciplinar. Sao Paulo: EDUC, 1992. Afinal, o que é Lingüística Aplicada? In M.S.Z. de Paschoal and M.A.A. Celani (eds), pp. 15-23, 1992. Providing opportunities for learning: A teacher training experience. In A. van Essen and E.I. Burkhart (eds) Homage to W.R. Lee: Essays in English as a Foreign or Second Language. Berlin: Foris Publications, pp. 29-37, 1992. Assessing the value of English for special purpose programmes in national development. In A. Waters and R. Allwright (eds) Language in Aid Projects: Towards the Year 2000 (Colloquium Proceedings). Centre for Research in Language Education, Lancaster University, pp. 36-49, 1994.

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A Personal Word Mike Potter I should like to add to this celebration of Antonieta Celani's professional life by paying my own personal tribute as well as echoing some of the feeling of those many colleagues from the British Council who have worked with her during what, by any standards, is a remarkable career. I write of her as a dear friend, colleague and mentor. When I look back over the twenty-two years that I have known Antonieta I am struck by the extent to which my own professional development and values have been shaped by insights that I have gained from what has been the remarkably consistent contact over the years, even to the extent of bumping into her quite unexpectedly on the Metropolitan Line of the London Underground in the mid 1980s when I was quite sure that she was in Brazil! It was during my time at the Cultura Inglesa in São Paulo in the 1970s while Antonieta was serving as a member of its Board that I gained my first insights into her commitment to professionalism and quality in terms of teacher training and teacher education. Many of the Cultura staff were graduates of PUC, and reached us with a sound grounding in ELT methodology and near-native English-speaking standards of pronunciation and intonation. 'You can always tell a PUC graduate' was a frequently heard comment, and it was true. At a time when methodology training and teaching practice were virtually unheard of outside the PGCE and Diploma Courses in the UK, Antonieta was breaking new ground in her belief that non-native speakers of English could equal and often surpass native speakers in professionalism and expertise. She remained a constant source of positive advice as to the ways in which the Cultura could model its own pre- and in-service training programmes, and was instrumental in helping the Teacher Training Department to become one of the few overseas centres to offer the RSA Diploma Course during the latter part of the 1970s. The commitment to teacher development, to TEFL and its role in its broader educational context undoubtedly comprises one of recurrent themes of her career. Combine this with the strengths of leadership, determination and a sense of vision, and you already have the key elements that make up a potent portfolio. It is not only the fact that Antonieta possessed the vision to see

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that, despite comparative isolation from the mainstream of UK TEFL and Applied Linguistics, the ELT profession in Brazil could be both self-sufficient in terms of the resources at its disposal, but that it also possessed a potential for creativity and innovation as its contribution to the profession world-wide. I think of the way in which she was able to establish the first MA programme in Applied Linguistics in South America, and as a result to establish PUC's justified and now long-term reputation as a centre of excellence in the field. I recall the midnight oil that was burnt back in 1978 putting together what was the embryo of the 'Projeto de Inglês Instrumental', to meet the 6 am deadline of the visiting adviser from the Overseas Development Administration. I remember also the somewhat awe-struck team from Brazil, myself included among them, that attended the ESP conference organised by the British Council in Paipa, Colombia in 1976 and how transformed that team had become and the level of its contributions by the time that we gathered again in 1978 for the second conference at Cocoyoc in Mexico. The achievements of the Brazilian ESP Project have been well documented and have served as a model for similar projects elsewhere. Sixteen years ago, a steep learning curve had to be overcome; in 1994 the product of that experience is a national, indeed international, network that has radiated out from CEPRIL in the Rua Monte Alegre. Most important is the way in which ESP and the development of reading skills in specialised contexts has become infused into all levels of the education system in Brazil, from the Federal Universities to the Federal Technical Schools and the State Secretariats of Education. The highest accolade is that the methodology, the materials, the emphasis on training and development of the network have been dearly demonstrated as having a relevance not only to the teaching of foreign languages apart from English, but to the teaching of the mother-tongue as well a long way from the humble framework that was handed over to the visiting ODA adviser way back in 1978, and a resounding testimonial to her commitment to education and the educational process. None of this would have been possible without the application of skills well beyond those of the educator pure and simple. Antonieta's achievements have been realised through the combination of a myriad of skills, the tact and diplomacy of the skilled negotiator, the expert use of networks, an encyclopaedic knowledge of Who's Who and What's What in terms of attracting funding to the project, and most important of all, the continuing enthusiasm, trust and loyalty that she has been able to inspire among all who have worked with her. But it is the inspiration that she has provided to at least two generations of young graduates and practising teachers, and colleagues in universities, colleges and schools throughout Brazil, that is certainly of major significance. There was hardly a dry eye in the audience at the end of her

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presentation on the social and educational role of language teachers given at the BRASTESOL conference in Rio de Janeiro in 1990. Her frequent defence of the role of the English language as the principal medium of international communication and the belief that one cart only promote the value of a country's human resources and contributions that benefit mankind as a whole, by ensuring that these reach the widest possible audience world-wide through a language that has global currency, has been a theme to which she has often returned, not just in Brazil, but also at major events such as the Conference on Language in Development and Aid Projects (LAP 2000), hosted by the University of Lancaster in September 1992, and the first regional ESP conference for the countries of central and eastern Europe held in Rumania a year later. Antonieta Celani is a person whose unique skills, wisdom and experience have contributed greatly to the enhancement of the professional credibility of English language teaching around the world. It is to this international dimension of her work that I particularly wish to draw attention, but it is the friend, colleague and mentor to whom I wish personally to pay tribute.

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Introduction MIKE SCOTT Reflections on Language Learning is at once an all-embracing title for a festschrift to honour Antonieta Celani and an organised set of four major themes. 'Reflections', here, is no mere synonym for 'thoughts': they are those of a candle in a mirror, of the moon in the surface of a lake, of the facets of a diamond in the sunshine: they are the true reflections from our joint and several experiences of working with Antonieta Celani in Brazil. The major themes uniting these contributions are Project Development, Teacher Education, Business Interaction Analysis, and Language Processing. Together they give a fair view of her work; separately they provide valuable insights and suggest future developments. However, nearly all of the papers relate to more than one of Antonieta Celani's main endeavours and interests, and these are interlinked, as her professional career itself shows. Those on Project Development also concern attitudes towards language, the business English texts are at the same time linguistic descriptions, and so on. All were offered to honour Antonieta Celani in response to an invitation to report on work related to her own. The colleagues who write here are now working in Brazil, Ecuador, Thailand, the UK and the USA. They operate in many different teaching situations from primary schooling through to university education, concerning English and in a few studies, Brazilian Portuguese as a foreign or second or native language. Most contributions report on studies carried out for the purpose of this volume. The following section may perhaps provide a menu to the dishes within. We hope you will appreciate the meal. Project Development The first paper in this section, Charles Alderson's, presents and defends the case for participatory evaluation, a theme which stemmed directly from the Brazilian ESP Project, and from his role in advising it. Alderson defends participatory evaluation by referring to aspects of reading theory, and by considering the role of the expert, sometimes mistakenly presumed to be a native speaker from a First World university. He presents an argument

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which suggests that evaluation which does not involve those directly affected is likely to be of little utility, whatever its 'objectivity'. Maurice Broughton's contribution also concerns the human element in Project work. He argues that the affective domain in Project work can easily be undervalued or ignored, a notion which ties in with Alderson's preoccupation with humanistic evaluation. This affective domain is arguably the precondition for success. Antonieta Celani has provided the kind of affectiveplus-effective leadership which discourages squabbling and jealousies, and encourages cooperation. Célia Figueiredo presents a study concerning student awareness in the EAP context of the Brazilian ESP Project. Her paper therefore links to a number of papers which deal with EAP and language awareness. Implicit in her view is a belief that Needs Analysis (NA) is not merely something the EAP teacher undertakes before the course, but that NA goes on as the course progresses. Procedures such as those she describes will provide some access to student misapprehensions about the learning of a foreign language. Angela Kleiman has carried out an appraisal of the effects, particularly research effects, of the Brazilian ESP Project. Her paper is largely based on her analysis of the CEPRIL archives. It therefore relates most directly to the contributions by Alderson and Figueiredo. The final paper in this section, by Vilma Sampaio de Oliveira, provides detail on an educational project which was partly inspired by Antonieta Celani's work in the ESP project. This is the PIMEI project involving teachers of English at Brazilian primary and secondary schools, and universities. Antonieta Celani and Charles Alderson have both acted as consultants to this important development. Teacher Education John Holmes and Pat Crossley describe research into the attitudes and experience of teachers working in TEFL in Luanda, Angola. Far from seeing the untrained teacher as a problem, to be solved by the outside trainer, they show that untrained teachers have a great deal to offer to the trainers, and a wealth of insights to bring to in-service teacher training courses. Their paper links to reports on the work of the Brazilian ESP Project, mentioned in many of the contributions but most of all perhaps in the one by Kleiman. In its emphasis on the knowledge and insights held by the insider, it also links to Alderson's paper. Luiz Paulo da Moita-Lopes discusses a research project examining the learning of English in Rio secondary schools. Like Magalhães and Rojo, he shows critical analysis of both the teacher's classroom practice and his or her awareness. There is an ever-present danger of what in the Brazilian ESP

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Project was sometimes called 'Rosa Luxemburgism': a dogmatic assumption that certain techniques or strategies are 'correct'. His research methodology is related to that of Cavalcanti and Zanotto and his belief in the importance of an insider perspective to the contribution from Alderson. Maria Cecilia Magalhães and Roxane Rojo give an account of the trials and tribulations of awareness-raising in primary school teaching. Like the paper by Cavalcanti and Zanotto, this concerns reading in Brazilian Portuguese as L1. However, their paper also links up with those by Figueiredo and Moita-Lopes in dealing with awareness of appropriate strategies. It is very clear from their account that strategy teaching is not something to be undertaken mechanically, but that teacher awareness as to learner processes is essential. Mike Scott's paper first discusses the notion of language awareness, with particular emphasis on metaphor as a device for raising awareness, and then describes a study of metaphors developed for language-teaching. His subjects, like those of Magalhães and Rojo, and Holmes and Crossley, are practising language teachers. Francisco Gomes de Matos deals with awareness too, in a very general sense: awareness in the learner as well as in the applied linguist of language rights. He makes a forceful plea for the rights of learners to be respected, in the same way as the learner's other human rights must be respected and preserved. Language Processing Andrew Cohen and Elaine Tarone provide an analysis of products from which inferences are drawn concerning language learning processes. Their study, in the general field of English for Academic Purposes (EAP) looks at the problem of expressing opinion in writing a review of the literature. They consider the effect of training in native-like production. Their findings relate to those in Collins' paper, described in the section on Business Interaction Analysis, in that they found a problem of abruptness in handling this interpersonal question. Mary Kato's paper contains a detailed study of code-switching. The data for her 'insider account' comes from the most appropriate source possible, the informant whom one knows and understands intimately. Again, there is fascinating evidence not just of code-switching as a phenomenon to be described, but of awareness of it in the informants concerned. The paper by Abuêndia Padilha Pinto, like those by Figueiredo and Moita-Lopes, deals with reading processes. She contrasts the detailed behaviours of two postgraduates reading English for Academic Purposes. In the PUC-SP tradition, she uses oral protocols as her research technique.

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The remaining papers in this section debate the status of oral protocols as a research and teaching method. Marilda Cavalcanti and Mara Zanotto write about 'meta-research': research into research itself. They report on a study using subjects who were learning about research methods, and who produced introspective oral protocols while reading, as part of their learning. Oral protocol work, as they point out, has become a much-used research method at PUC-SP, in part because of encouragement by Andrew Cohen who was a Visiting Professor there at Antonieta Celani's invitation. Nélia Scott's contribution deals with learner awareness in the context of translation. Where Kato discusses swift, semi-automatic transitions from one language to another, Nélia Scott's subjects have to struggle. She presents data from a study which shows translators' processes as they engage in translation, and builds on the existing literature to construct a model of insightful process. Her study advances the notion of the benefits to be obtained not only by linguists or translation researchers in studying oral protocols, but also those for the learner. Business Interaction Analysis Florence Davies takes a close look, within a systemic perspective, at a specific written text. This is a persuasive text, intended to attract students to a university. She presents a model of communicative elements and functions and shows how it works in detail. Here too there is language awareness, in this case of how writers take readers into account, managing their task so as to minimise abruptness and promote bonding. Tony Deyes also examines a specific text. In his case it is an in-house magazine: the aim here is to identify features which reflect business procedures, awareness of readership, and other characteristics of the 'business brain'. The text has a role, therefore, not only in transmitting information smoothly and bonding reader to writer, but also in the development of the business as an enterprise. The last three papers in this section stem straight from the DIRECT research project, which amongst other objectives, aims to describe the language of industry and commerce. Maria Cecilia Pérez de Souza e Silva analyses spoken discourse from the world of business with Brazilian Portuguese as L1. She examines the role of turn-taking in a meeting which presents a fascinating mixture of serious analysis of client-supplier relations along with joking digressions. The paper by Susan Thompson relates very closely to this, though with English as L1. She considers laughter in terms of 'face'. Laughter is seen to play a vital interpersonal role in mitigating face-threatening acts, acting as a 'discourse lubricant'. This in turn ties in with the next paper, where discourse lubrication is also studied.

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Heloísa Collins' paper takes English as L2. She develops an originally systemic model, related to that of Davies, in the direction of critical language awareness, with the ultimate aim of helping language users manage their oral competence, much as in the Cohen and Tarone paper. Among the problems faced by the language-learner and discussed by Collins is that of appropriate bonding and lack of abruptness. Thus not only are the themes of these papers interlinked, but there is also one general theme in all of them and at the very heart of all Antonieta Celani's leadership: the importance of respecting the human rights and qualities of those involved in language learning as insiders; a respect for their own descriptions of their processes as well as their products; a concern to help them, by cooperating in Projects, so as to further their development, bringing about a wider understanding of the language itself and of the language-learning process. These are the true Reflections.

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The Contributors J. Charles Alderson, Dept of Linguistics & Modem English Language, University of Lancaster, Lancaster LA1 4YT, UK. Leila Barbara, Dept of Applied Linguistics for Language Teaching (LAEL), Catholic University of São Paulo, Rua Monte Alegre 984, 05014-001, São Paulo SP, Brazil. Maurice Broughton, Dept of Foreign Languages, Faculty of Sciences, Mahidol University, Rama VI Road, Bangkok 10400, Thailand Marilda do Couto Cavalcanti, Depto de Lingüística Aplicada, Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Cidade Universitária Zeferino Vaz, CP 6045, 13081-970 Campinas SP, Brazil. Andrew D. Cohen, Institute of Languages and Literatures, University of Minnesota, 130 Klaeber Court, 320 16th Ave SE, Minneapolis, MN55455, USA. Heloísa Collins, Dept of Applied Linguistics for Language Teaching (LAEL), Catholic University of Silo Paulo, Rua Monte Alegre 984, 05014-001 Silo Paulo SP, Brazil. Patricia Crossley, English Language Teaching Project, ODA, Luanda, Angola. Florence I. Davies, School of Education, University of Bristol, 35 Berkeley Square, Bristol BS8 1JA, UK. Anthony F. Deyes, British Council, Av. Amazonas 1646, Casilla 8829, Quito, Ecuador. Célia A. Figueiredo, Federal University of Uberlândia, CP 593, 38400-902 Uberlandia MG, Brazil. Francisco Gomes de Matos, Depto de Letras, Federal University of Pemambuco, Cidade Univeritária, 50670-420 Recife PE, Brazil. John Holmes, Dept of Linguistics & Modem English Language, University of Lancaster, Lancaster LA1 4YT, UK. Mary Aizawa Kato, Depto de Lingüística Aplicada, Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Cidade Universitária Zeferino Vaz, CP 6045, 13081-970 Campinas SP, Brazil.

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Angela B. Kleiman, Depto de Lingüística Aplicada, Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Cidade Universitária Zeferino Vaz, CP 6045, 13081-970 Campinas SP, Brazil. Maria Cecilia C. Magalhães, Dept of Applied Linguistics for Language Teaching (LAEL), Catholic University of São Paulo, Rua Monte Alegre 984, 05014-001 São Paulo SP, Brazil. Luiz Paulo da Moita-Lopes, Depto de Latras Anglo-Germanicas, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, 21044-020 Rio de Janeiro RJ, Brazil. Maria Cecilia Pérez de Souza e Silva, Dept of Applied Linguistics for Language Teaching (LAEL), Catholic University of São Paulo, Rua Monte Alegre 984, 05014-001 São Paulo SP, Brazil. Abuêndia Padilha Pinto, Depto de Letras, Federal University of Pernambuco, Cidade Universitária, 50670-420 Recife PE, Brazil. Mike Potter, Consultancy Group (Professional Services), British Council, Medlock Street, Manchester M15 4BR, UK. Roxane H.R. Rojo, Dept of Applied Linguistics for Language Teaching (LAEL), Catholic University of São Paulo, Rua Monte Alegre 984, 05014-001 Sao Paulo SP, Brazil. Vilma Sampaio de Oliveira, Depto de Latras, Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte, 59072-970 Natal RN, Brazil. Mike Scott, Applied English Language Studies Unit, University of Liverpool, Liverpool L69 3BX, UK. Nélia Scott, Applied English Language Studies Unit, University of Liverpool, Liverpool L69 3BX, UK. Elaine Tarone, Institute of Languages and Literatures, University of Minnesota, 130 Klaeber Court, 320 16th Ave SE, Minneapolis, MN55455, USA. Susan Thompson, Applied English Language Studies Unit, University of Liverpool, Liverpool L69 3BX, UK. Mara S. Zanotto, Dept of Applied Linguistics for Language Teaching (LAEL), Catholic University of São Paulo, Rua Monte Alegre 984, 05014-001 São Paulo SP, Brazil.

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1 Towards a Theory of Participatory Evaluation: Insights from Applied Linguistics J. Charles Alderson This paper concentrates on the notion of participatory evaluation (PE) first articulated in connection with the Brazilian Federal University ESP Project. I intend to show how PE has been criticised by reviewers, but how it can be justified theoretically from an applied linguistic perspective. I argue that the onus lies with the critics of PE to justify their own theoretical position from an applied linguistic perspective. In this chapter I wish to acknowledge the debt I owe to Brazilian Applied Linguistics in general and Dr Antonieta Celani in particular, in developing my experience of, and thinking about, evaluation in language education. I also wish to develop further some of the ideas on participatory evaluation (PE) first articulated in publications with Dr Celani and with Mike Scott, then of the Brazilian Federal University ESP Project. I intend to show how PE has been criticised by reviewers, but how it can be justified theoretically from an applied linguistic perspective. I argue that the onus lies with the critics of PE to justify their own theoretical position from an applied linguistic perspective. My initial involvement in Brazilian Applied Linguistics was through attending seminars of the Federal University ESP Project, and my early inputs addressed research about reading, especially reading in a foreign language. More recently, I became involved in contributing to the evaluation of the ESP Project. Ideas on the nature of evaluation, on the difficulties of external evaluations and the desirability for participatory evaluation between insiders and outsiders developed in interaction with the Project and Project members. These ideas resulted, not only in contributions to Project

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Evaluations, but also in publications discussing the value of dialogic approaches to evaluation. The ideas published in Alderson & Scott (1992), and which inform editorial and other comments in Alderson & Beretta (1992), have been variously received. They have been criticised in one review of Alderson & Beretta (Davies, 1992), praised in others (Safadi, 1993; Allison, 1993). They have allegedly been imitated in evaluation schemes in Central Europe (Kiely & Murkowska, 1993), and have been castigated in private communications with the ODA. Participatory Evaluation In Alderson & Scott (1992) we attempted to work towards a definition of PE. We suggested that evaluation is participatory when the decision-making and planning of an evaluation, as well as its execution and reporting, is shared amongst all those involved in the project being evaluated, as well as by outsiders commissioned for the purpose. In addition, to be participatory, an evaluation requires that all participants take an active part, rather than standing on the sidelines watching. And finally, all concerned should gain benefit from the evaluation: benefit should not be confined to one party. In short, participation 'involves joint execution and planning, joint involvement and joint perception of benefit' (1992: 42). We also suggested that such a PE should have both a training and a research role: those involved should learn from the experience and the evaluation should be seen as a means of increasing an understanding about the project and related matters. Our rationale was largely in terms of the nature of the project being evaluated: it was democratic, not top-down, participatory, not coercive and so on. Therefore it made sense for a PE to take place. In fact a different model could not have been employed without major negative disruption. However, I believe that PE is more generally justifiable than in the context of one project. Criticisms of Participatory Evaluation Alderson & Scott (1992) has been criticised in various ways. Beretta, in his editorial comments on that chapter, asserts that the use of insiders has 'a high price to pay': One of the principal arguments in favour of an outside evaluation is that it might provide a fresh perspective. Where everyone is nodding agreement, it seems less likely that something new will be learnt, that assumptions will be questioned... Another reason that outsiders are perhaps to be preferred is that they may be perceived by stakeholders as less biased than insiders. (1992: 60)

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Conceding Alderson and Scott's point that there is no guarantee that outsiders are neutral, Beretta nevertheless claims: It is the perception that is important. Outsiders have greater credibility, if not necessarily to project members, then probably to parents, politicians, funding bodies and other interest groups and observers: this in itself could promote the likelihood of use of findings. (Beretta, 1992) A more hostile reception is found in Davies (1992). Despite admitting that he finds it 'difficult to argue' with the conclusion that 'shared (or participatory) evaluation is desirable' (1992: 208), Davies then contradicts himself by stating: 'the case for any insider involvement remains unclear'. Davies appears to think that there is a case for external evaluation only, and that the role of the insider is at best questionable. However, he goes beyond implying the superiority of external over participatory evaluation. He complains about the book's insistent elegiac approach: 'No evaluation is ever objective. The best we can hope for is pooled intersubjectivity and reduced or neutralised partiality' (Alderson & Beretta, 1992: 273) and asserts 'there are indeed acceptably objective ways of evaluating'. Allison (1993) addresses Davies' point about objectivity, commenting that: The problem for objectivism, which at least has serious implications also for a positivist belief in 'objectivity' is that reality cannot be known and conveyed independently of some point of view. The ideal 'God's eye' view may be the ultimate synthesis of all views, rather than the one perfect vantage point. Such a synthesis is humanly unattainable. Allison points out that: A conviction that an 'objective' stance is unattainable surely need not lead us to reject external reality, or to renounce all prospects of socially constituted knowledge... To suggest that 'reality' is observed, and constructed, from some point of view is (in this view!) to accept the conditions by which reality can be known, and not to despair of its existence. (1993: 136) In other words, what is needed is to take account of multiple perspectives of participants or stakeholders 'with acceptability and success being matters of degree, and related to users in contexts' (Allison, 1993: 137). Allison's criticism is that: In seeking to encourage a disciplinary perspective, Alderson & Beretta do not themselves propose any overall theory or framework for the evaluation of second language education. (p. 135) What I now propose to do is to move towards such a theory, from an applied linguistic perspective, by taking issue with Davies' assertions and criticisms.

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Evaluation and Objectivity Unfortunately, Davies does not define what he means by objectivity. He simply asserts that it can be achieved. Juxtaposed to the assertion that 'there are indeed acceptably objective ways of evaluating' is the statement: 'projects can be judged'. Later in the same review, Davies says 'an evaluation must be an interpretation: it is not a history nor is it an account'. Davies agrees that evaluation is judgemental, and involves interpretations. Why, then, the apparently contradictory claim that it can be objective? Without a definition of objectivity, we cannot answer this. The notion and desirability of objectivity is pervasive in science and the social sciences, even in language testing. In the latter discipline, it is usually taken to mean that when scoring a test, a human being does not have to use judgement: an objective test can be scored by machines. Objectivity, in short, implies lack of human judgement. Yet, as early as 1968 Pilliner reminded us that no test can be objective in the sense of not involving judgement: judgements will necessarily be involved in deciding what to put in the test, as well as into the answer key that might subsequently be applied by machine. Tests cannot be objective, other than in a trivial sense. The dichotomy between judgement and objectivity seems to hold for Pilliner. My position is that if judgement is involved, however well informed, it is not objective. Objectivity implies the lack of judgement, the superiority over the application of human judgement of some other means of arriving at decisions. In what follows, I appeal to different aspects of applied linguistic theory to show that participatory evaluation is fully justified, and that applied linguists who differ need to justify their views theoretically. Evaluation and Reading Theory In reading research, it is common to distinguish different levels of understanding. Evaluation is seen as one of the highest levels, along with appreciation, and is always distinguished from understanding literal meaning, inferring implicit meanings, and understanding the main ideas and discriminating them from minor or irrelevant details. It is also usually distinguished from the ability to detect bias and flaws in argumentation. Barrett, cited in Clymer, 1968, identifies evaluation as follows: In essence evaluation deals with judgement and focuses on qualities of accuracy, acceptability, desirability, worth, or probability of occurrence. Evaluative thinking may be demonstrated by asking the student to make the following judgments...of reality or fantasy... of fact or opinion...of adequacy and validity, ...of appropriateness, of worth, desirability and acceptability'. (1968: 59)

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Such evaluation would appear to involve the application of personal values B within the reader to the ideas 'contained' in the text: a form of reader response of a fairly personal, albeit defensible sort. Reading theory and reading research consistently show that understanding is dependent upon the readers' knowledge of the world this is a consistent view held by schema theorists, ESP practitioners, and advocates of top-down and interactive approaches to text. Not only will one's understanding be constrained by a lack of relevant knowledge, the process of understanding will be impaired by that lack. Knowledge of the world, cultural knowledge, formal knowledge of language and text, all are essential to comprehension. Yet knowledge of the world varies: by culture, by individual, from occasion to occasion. Knowledge of the world and therefore understanding will inevitably change, depending upon who is doing the understanding. In addition, reading theory and reading research consistently show that understanding is dependent upon one's purpose for understanding: why we read affects what we pay attention to, what we understand, how we process. And purposes vary not only by text type, but by reader and by occasion. Further, it can be shown that motivation (dearly related to, but not isomorphous with, purpose) affects what we understand and how we understand it. Intrinsic motivation is hard to manipulate, but leads to deep processing (Fransson, 1984), extrinsic motivation leads to surface processing. Reading theory further suggests, although research has found it harder to demonstrate, that readers vary in the skill with which they read, and that reading is composed of a number of different but interrelated skills. It is supposed that one's understanding will vary according to the skills one has as a reader or according to one's ability or willingness to apply the skills one has. There are, in short, a number of theoretical and empirically established reasons for supposing that one's understanding in this case, of text -will vary by individual, according to that individual's knowledge of the world or ability to activate it, his purpose and motivation for understanding, and his ability to understand. Linguists like Halliday and applied linguists like Widdowson, furthermore, assert that texts do not 'contain' meaning. Rather they have a potential for the creation of meaning in the interaction between reader and writer through text. Meaning is created, not extracted, from texts. This creative construction view of reading is common in the writings of reading theorists. What language provides is a skeleton, a blueprint for the creation of meaning. Such skeletal representations must then be enriched and embellished so that they conform with the understander's preexisting world views and the operative purposes of understanding at a given

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time. This process of knowledge-based, contextually influenced and purposeful enrichment in comprehending language is what is referred to as 'construction'. (Spiro, 1980: 250) Reading is a constructive search for meaning. (Goodman, 1976: 58) This is not necessarily to assert that meaning is not constrained by text: it must be, or any text could mean absolutely anything, which is manifestly not the case or society would dissolve into chaos. If we now extrapolate from reading theory to language processing generally, it seems not unreasonable to assert that different individuals will interpret and evaluate different-events, documents and accounts of 'reality' differently. Different evaluators will doubtless also evaluate differently. Why, then, does the external evaluator have a privileged position? By definition, an outsider is outside, and has less knowledge of the world about the project being 'evaluated than the insider. Even by reading documents, interviewing participants, observing events, the outsider is unlikely to remove that advantage of world knowledge, since the insider can equally acquire additional knowledge in similar ways. Thus it is reasonable to argue, first, that evaluators will vary in their interpretations of texts (written or spoken), secondly that texts will have different potentials for meaning for different people, and thirdly that the evaluation of texts is likely to be more variable than other levels of meaning. Native Speakers and Awareness The nature and role of the native speaker has become controversial in applied linguistics. From an earlier position where native speaker competence was regarded as the goal of language learning, and was enshrined in scales of language proficiency, recent writers have questioned the unitary nature of the concept of the native speaker (a 'native speaker of what?'), the value or desirability of native speaker competence as a model or goal and the authority of the native speaker with respect to relevant insights into his/her language for the purposes of language teaching. Widdowson (1993) develops this latter point, claiming that what native speakers of a language clearly have is an ability to use that language, but what they do not necessarily possess is awareness of the language: what rules of form and use govern its application in communication. He suggests that a model of competence more appropriate for trainee language teachers than the native speaker ability model is that of language awareness: 'knowing about the language as well, declarative as well as procedural knowledge'. He points out that whilst native speakers might be able to exemplify language use, they cannot necessarily explain it: non-native speakers are arguably better placed to do this:

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More naturally disposed to acquire such awareness precisely because English is foreign to them, and so in some degree detached, at a remove from the immediacy of the primary cultural experience of upbringing. Widdowson develops this argument by discussing the issue of authenticity of classroom language, and suggests that a native speaker has no special privilege with respect to insights into the discourse of instruction. This timely questioning of the relative contributions that native and non-native speakers can make in language education is of relevance to evaluation also: firstly, in that it questions the automatic fight of native speakers to evaluate language education projects. Secondly it questions the fight of experts in language use to evaluate language education projects: their expertise may not be relevant. More relevant expertise may be expertise in the discourse of the classroom of that particular setting. Thirdly, however, the distinction Widdowson reminds us of between declarative and procedural knowledge can itself be applied to evaluation: those best fitted to evaluate projects may well be those with both procedural and declarative knowledge about the project: not just having experienced the project, but being able to step back and reflect upon the project, analyse it and communicate their analyses. Such qualities are not the exclusive province of outsiders. This argues for participatory evaluation. Learner Autonomy and Learner Training Alongside the advocacy of communicative language teaching, with its emphasis on learners learning and using the language they will need in future settings, there has developed a recognition of the contribution that learners themselves can and should make to their own learning. This was partly because involvement in one's own learning leads to more effective learning; it was also partly because of the need for learners to inform teachers and others about their own perspectives on their needs, wants and preferred learning styles. Along with an increased understanding of the nature of effective language use strategies came research findings into the nature of good language learning strategies, and the need for learners to adopt strategies that could lead to more effective learning and communication. This has recently led to a belief that learners are ultimately responsible for their own learning, and therefore they need to learn how to manage their own learning. An interest has also developed in encouraging learners to take responsibility for the assessment of their learning, and some writers (see Alderson, 1986) have advocated learner involvement in test construction, in the development of criteria for assessment, and in the scoring of tests and the interpreting of results. Kiely & Murkowska (1993) present an interesting account of student participation in evaluation and testing, and conclude that they are:

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now deeply convinced that making students participate in the assessment process can be extremely helpful when introducing improvements to course content and methodology. (1993: 23/4) The existence of such learner-centred approaches to both learning and assessment argues strongly for the extension of learner involvement to the evaluation of their own learning and the programmes and projects in which they are involved. If evaluation can provide new insights into learning why would one wish to deny such an opportunity to learners? I would argue that the definition of 'insider' could be extended to include learners themselves, be they language learners or teacher trainees, in the evaluation of their courses, and not just as recipients of questionnaires, tests or interviews, but as active contributors to the design of the evaluation and its instruments. The onus on those arguing against this is to show, not simply that this is impractical, but that it would neither benefit the learners nor contribute to the quality of the evaluation, and that it was theoretically undesirable. The Reflective Teacher and Responsibility As language education has matured, it has increasingly sought to position itself within education more generally, and language teacher education has latterly made more frequent reference to current models of teacher training. One example is Wallace (1991) who surveys such models and argues for the applicability of the 'reflective model'. Increasingly, applied linguists involved in teacher education refer to 'reflective models', to 'The Reflective Teacher', and to the need for teachers to see themselves as researchers as well as craftspeople (see, for example, the papers in Richards & Nunan (1990), Nunan (1989), and the arguments in Woodward (1991) for the 'trainer as researcher'). The reflective teacher model implies that teachers are responsible, not only for their own professional development on an ongoing basis, but also and importantly for their own evaluation. Reflective practitioners learn by doing and by observing critically, they thereby develop their own ability to evaluate and reflect. Reflective teachers (and trainers) are encouraged to take responsibility for their own development: to be agents not patients of their own professionalism. Kiely & Murkowska (1993) present a case-study of evaluation in which the involvement of insiders in the evaluation of their work is believed to have significantly raised awareness with regard to evaluation and its relevance to professional activities...to the extent where a substantial proportion of the teacher trainers involved want to try things out. (1993: 28)

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Evaluation clearly contributes to professional development: why then would we wish to exclude teachers or trainers from evaluating their own practice? If we preach a reflective approach to teacher development and to the design of teacher education, we should be advocating teacher and trainer involvement in the evaluation of their language education projects, as an essential part of their professional development. Evaluation as Applied Linguistic Research Evaluation needs to be systematic, explicit, and open. It requires not inconsiderable expertise, in order to design the study or studies that will be conducted, to give due thought to the sampling process, and to develop instruments for data collection that will be suitable for the purpose of the evaluation. This may involve specially designed questionnaires, tests, interview procedures or observation schedules. It may involve the analysis of policy documents, project frameworks, project correspondence and reports. It will certainly involve a need to talk to a range of different people, stakeholders and others. Data collected will need to be sifted, analysed, evaluated for its interpretability, relevance, bias. When the data has been interpreted, those interpretations will need to be translated into recommendations for action. Finally, all this will need to be written up as a report or series of reports for different audiences, taking account of the needs, background knowledge, and constraints of each audience. These are all skills required of the researcher, too, and they are not easily acquired: they need practice, experience, critical feedback, trial and error. Often an outsider is more likely to have such expertise or experience than many insiders. But that does not imply that insiders are either incapable of developing such expertise, or that they do not need to. If, as often asserted in the applied linguistic literature, it is true that teachers need research skills in order to develop as professionals, then the best way to develop such skills is by doing research. Evaluation is a relevant, practical way of gaining experience in many research skills: especially in the design of instruments, and the interpretation of results. Many accounts of teacher involvement in evaluation testify to the value of the experience perceived by teachers. What theoretical reason could there be for not wishing to encourage teachers to develop such skills, especially if it is believed that involvement in research is of value to teachers? Project and Curriculum Theory The literature on project design and management stresses the need for projects to become sustainable. Project designers and participants need to plan for their own departure, to ensure that the aims of the project are

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continued beyond the end of the project itself. One way in which sustain-ability is achieved is by emphasising, not only the need for accountability, but the creation of a sense of ownership among participants. Those who feel they own the project are more likely to work for project goals at the end of the project. Similarly, project theorists are increasingly aware of the need for sensitivity to local cultures and issues. Language education projects in particular frequently involve cross-cultural communication. Recent experience of projects in Central Europe reinforces my belief in the need to be aware of the culturally biassed view of projects that has prevailed in English language education. We need also to be aware of the cultural relativity of West European/North American models of evaluation, which may be alien in many of the different cultures where EFL is being taught and evaluated. In many cultures, evaluation is something done to you, and not developmental. Evaluation is something to be feared. However, such cultural relativism does not mean that we must reject PE as being culturally alien; it can equally be used to justify introducing a new, and possibly more acceptable model of evaluation in those contexts where evaluation is resisted. PE may well be such a model. What could be the justification for not trying to improve sustainability, ownership and knowledge of and respect for local sensitivities by involving insiders? Furthermore, it is commonplace in the curriculum design and development literature to assert that evaluation should be a continuing process: it should begin at the inception of the project, by designing and conducting feasibility and baseline studies, it should continue through the deliberate building-in of plans and designs for evaluation. Yet no outsider can, by definition, do this. The responsibility for such continuous and ongoing evaluation is necessarily the work of insiders. Why, then, would applied linguists wish to assert the supremacy of an outsider model of evaluation when models of curriculum design insist on the opposite? Evaluation and Action It has frequently been remarked that an evaluation that is not acted upon is a waste of time and resources. Evaluation must be seen as a prelude to action (Levkova & Reid, 1993). However, it is crucial to recognise that such action will most likely be taken by insiders, not by outsiders. The outside evaluator will not be expected to implement recommendations, nor to bear any further responsibility for the evaluation once the report has been submitted. Insiders, on the other hand, will have to live with the results, and to take whatever action is needed. If insiders do not agree with the action proposed, they are highly unlikely to take it. For an evaluation to succeed, it would seem self-evident that the insiders should own the action

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being recommended. The best way of ensuring their ownership would appear to be by close involvement in drawing up the recommendations. Those who oppose the involvement of insiders in evaluation must show how they can guarantee that suitable action will be taken on recommendations: sadly this is all too often neglected, and reports gather dust. Practical Justifications There are also practical reasons for encouraging the involvement of those who are on the inside of projects: an outside evaluator hardly ever has the time or resources to do all the work that is needed to gather relevant, meaningful data for an adequate evaluation. Of course, some outsiders are satisfied with the JIJO model of evaluation: jetting in to a project, taking a quick and inevitably superficial look at what can be seen, making rapid judgements about value, then jetting out with no responsibility for the consequences. It is hard to imagine advocating such an approach to research: why then advocate it for evaluation? Much more respectable and indeed practical is an approach where insiders are involved in designing and conducting the evaluation: where the insiders contribute fully to decisions on what will be evaluated and how, where they contribute data, as well as the interpretation of data. The fact is that only insiders can do the detailed week by week work of documentation and data collection. Without the collaboration, cooperation and contribution of insiders, no evaluation is possible. Despite a belief in the superiority of participatory evaluation, I have been involved in outside evaluations of several projects, sometimes with other outsiders and not, at least nominally, with insiders. However, as outside evaluators, we were heavily dependent upon information supplied by insiders. In all cases, the evaluations would have been impossible without due preparation and data collection by insiders. Not only that: we needed to test out our developing judgements about the projects on insiders, in order to verify our perceptions, to confirm that we had not overlooked significant information, to ensure that we were not unduly biassed. In addition, we depended upon the reactions of insiders to our interpretations and recommendations. If the insiders did not find them acceptable, they would not act upon them, nor would they collaborate with those who might be determined to implement recommendations. Outsiders are almost totally dependent on insiders not only for information and opinions but also for interpretations and judgements about the feasibility and acceptability of recommendations. The job of outside evaluator would be impossible without the cooperation of the insiders. Therefore, it follows that the more the insiders are involved the more likely they are to cooperate and provide information and judgements.

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Qualities of Outsiders and Insiders In the above, I have argued for PE involving both outsiders and insiders. What are the relative merits of outsiders and insiders? The advantages of outsiders will be presented and discussed alongside the arguments for insiders. (1) Outsiders are distanced in two ways: (i) they may be disinterested, having no immediate interest or stake in a particular outcome or interpretation. (ii) by perspective, lateral or from above: they can stand back from the detail and see the wood for the trees. The notion of a lateral perspective can usefully also imply lateral thinking, because of the relative lack of involvement. However, the metaphor 'from above' should not be taken to imply superiority in terms of insight or expertise. It is merely intended to emphasise the possibility of overview. BUT insiders can be made aware of the need to suspend their interest in particular outcomes, and to be less defensive about judgements. Similarly, insiders can be encouraged to stand back in order to gain an overview. (2) Expertise: outsiders are believed to have some expertise that insiders lack: technical, or experiential. Instruments may be flawed because of the insiders' lack of expertise. BUT this is not necessarily the case. Insiders can in principle be at least as expert as outsiders. They may have experience of other projects, of relevant research, or of suitable evaluation techniques. Because of the limitations of time and resources, outsiders often use instruments that are as flawed as those that might be devised by insiders. (3) Outsiders can concentrate: during the evaluation the outsider usually has nothing else to do, is distant from other professional and personal responsibilities and is much less likely to be distracted by irrelevant pressures. BUT insiders can equally be protected from outside distractions in order to concentrate on the evaluation. The practical problem is often that not all insiders can so be protected: thus some will inevitably be more involved than others. (4) The availability of outsiders' time is limited: an evaluation cannot continue indefinitely but must be delivered by specified dates and agreed outcomes. HOWEVER, there is no reason in principle why insiders cannot be subject to the same discipline, even though I acknowledge that PE involves more time and effort than non-PE: to persuade, to communicate, to allow different opinions and points of view to be taken into account. The key issue in the debate over outsider vs insider is probably that of perspective: outside evaluators are employed precisely because they do not have close and detailed knowledge of a project, and it is hoped that as a result they will bring a different perspective from those closely involved.

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Not, please note, an objective perspective, just a different (and potentially underinformed) one. This may lead to fresh insights for the insiders: assumptions may be questioned or laid bare, questions that have not been asked might be aired, long forgotten reasons for (in)action might be revived. In other words, the outsider might act as a catalyst for things that might have been difficult for insiders, with their knowledge and their perceived partiality, to address. That does not amount to objectivity, as I have defined it. What an outsider can bring, then, is potentially relevant and different experiences and perspectives, or lack of knowledge, and lack of interest in outcomes. These are not privileged over the insider perspectives: they are different, and as likely to colour, influence and bias judgements as those of the insider. Nobody is free from bias. Conclusion The case for involving insiders has been made above in terms of applied linguistic theory. Beretta claims that Alderson & Scott (1992) present PE as the only solution to evaluation (1992: 59). This is incorrect: we simply think it is superior to other models. Obviously in any human endeavour, to advocate one approach or model is quite inappropriate and unrealistic. Whatever the theoretical advantages of one model in practice compromises will be needed. This does not, however, absolve those who advocate other models from the responsibility of justifying them from a theoretical perspective.

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2 The Importance of the Affective Domain in Elt Projects Maurice Broughton This paper concerns the implementation of effective EFL projects. While acknowledging the considerable advances that have been made in the ELT profession, most specifically as a result of recent work in project design, management, and evaluation, I want to draw attention to possible pitfalls that might undermine these advances if our approach gives importance to only the technical aspects of project and programme development to the exclusion of philosophical considerations: our beliefs about language and language learning. Such beliefs form part of what I term the affective domain of a project; that is the attitudes of all who participate in a project, and the way in which these attitudes are influenced or perhaps changed by the implementation of the project and by the attainment of the project goal. In this paper, I concentrate on three factors which influence the affective domain: attitude to the English language, quality of collaboration, and the concept of evaluation. In recent years ELT projects have become an important element in bilateral and multilateral aid to developing countries, the reason being that, in many parts of the world, English is seen as being a necessary instrument for development. In other countries, English is seen as the most useful language for international communication in commerce, in scientific research and in technology. Thus the need for English appears to be self perpetuating. It is easy to imagine how this situation could lead to complacency in the ELT profession. I would wish to argue, however, that this has not happened. Rather, the contrary: the profession now takes a more stringent approach to training, to planning, to effective use of resources, and to evaluation of success and failure, than it did in the days when the English language was considered an elitist commodity of restricted appeal and usefulness. The exigencies of project planning have played an important role in developing and refining approaches to ELT at all levels, from classroom instruction to programme and curriculum design. Aid projects, in particu-

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lar, have led to the same thoroughness being applied to competence-building education projects as to projects that involve the construction of physical amenities such as hospitals, roads and dams. This has introduced the requirement of accountability and thus the need to justify individual components as well as overall goals the parts as well as the whole. Another area of activity that has had a marked influence on the ELT profession in recent years is business administration. In both style and focus, the fields of project management and business administration have made an impact on language teaching operations of all kinds. The result has, I believe, been largely beneficial both to those engaged in the ELT profession and to those who are now commonly referred to as the recipients or customers: the learners. Private language schools, not surprisingly perhaps, have been quick to apply the knowledge and skills of business administration to improve the quality of their operations to the benefit of their customers, the learners. The ever increasing demand for English teaching has led to the opening of more language schools, and this has created more competition. The spirit of competition feeds on the know-how and techniques that help it to flourish. The result is, inter alia, more accurate publicity, a greater variety of courses, more informed attention given to learners' requirements and more attention to physical amenities and acceptable quality of instructional services than at any time in the past. While acknowledging the considerable advances that have been made in the ELT profession, most specifically as a result of recent work in project design, management, and evaluation, I want to draw attention to possible pitfalls that might undermine these advances if our approach gives importance to only the technical aspects of project and programme development to the exclusion of philosophical considerations: our beliefs about language and language learning. Such beliefs form part of what I term the affective domain of a project; that is the attitudes of all who participate in a project, and the way in which these attitudes are influenced or perhaps changed by the implementation of the project and by the attainment of the project goal. In this paper, I shall concentrate on three factors which influence the affective domain: attitude to the English language, quality of collaboration, and the concept of evaluation. (I realise that there are many other possible factors that might be examined in this domain, but they must remain outside the focus of this paper.) The attitude of project implementers to the English language is a crucially important factor in any description of the affective domain in aid projects because it is one that will set the tone of the project, influencing perceptions and attitudes of all who are involved: students, parents, teachers (both of English and of other subjects) and administrators at all levels. There is a danger of perceiving an aid project (however unconsciously) in

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terms of giving a coveted commodity to a needy recipient. In the case of an education project, even a carefully disguised proprietorial attitude towards the English language on the part of the donor could well be an undermining element in its development, and could indeed lead to rejection. A textbook writing project in Somalia described in a volume of project papers entitled 'Language Teaching Projects For The Third World' (Brumfit, 1983) shows an awareness of this danger: 'While, for interest, material concerned with Britain might be introduced, it was no part of the intention of the course to provide an introduction to the culture of the English-speaking world' (Clarke et al., 1983). My reservation with regard to this statement is that it suggests that Britain incorporates the Englishspeaking world. I would argue that Somalia has as much right as any other country to consider itself part of the Englishspeaking world and its modem culture. There has been, in recent years, an important change both in the status and in the use of the English language. It is no longer principally the language of colonisers and native speakers, but one of international communication and integration; and as such it is the birthright of everyone. The effect of this change on the English language was described in a recent article in Time magazine, entitled 'The Empire Writes Back': Authors from Britain's former colonies have begun to capture the very heart of English literature, transforming the canon with bright colours and strong cadences and foreign eyes. They are revolutionising the language from within. (Iyer, 1993) This change has taken place in varying degrees and at different rates in different countries. In Thailand, a country where I have lived for a number of years, it has occurred in the space of a single decade, despite the fact that this is a country that throughout its history has never been a colony of a Western power. Before the last decade, even in the capital Bangkok, it was quite rare to find shop assistants, bank clerks, policemen, or indeed government officials who could communicate in English. Foreign travellers and business people would comment frequently on how much easier it was to make themselves understood in Malaysia, Hong Kong or Singapore, for example, than in Thailand. Now, however, within the space of a few years, many Thais from a wide range of educational backgrounds are able to communicate effectively in English. For the majority, the language is used in an inimitable Thai way because, as a result of its change in status, English has become to a degree transformed by the influence of different national cultures and world views. I shall give two examples of the international use of English, one from the writing of a Thai novelist and one from the work of a Thai educator.

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The novelist, Pira Sudham, gives the following reason for opting to write in English, rather than in Thai: I chose English as a medium because of the discipline of the language and the process of reasoning that it reflects, in contrast, for example, to Thai, which does not have any punctuation marks. Language reflects the mind, and I could see my own lack of discipline, my crippled mind, maimed for life by my background and upbringing. I use the discipline of the English language like a cripple uses crutches ... Fortunately, I still retain so much of my Thai mentality that I, a person born and raised in this country, also view Thai as an insider. For me, it is a blessing to be able to do both. (Sudham, 1988) The Thai educator M. L. Boonlua Debyasuvarn (for many years my mentor on all aspects of Thai culture) also feels equally at home in the national and international languages. In a paper on English for cross-cultural communication, with the tongue-incheek title: 'Will EIIL succeed where ESL and EFL fail?' (Smith, 1981), she provides an example of a situation which illustrates the need for an awareness of the functional constraints of international language use as a necessary feature of our communicative competence: International communication through English takes place at many levels, from between tourists and hotel boys, to highranking officials of different countries. I once sat in a place where I could hear every word of a conversation between one quite important Thai official and a specialist consultant who was a native speaker of English. On every occasion when the Thai official should have said 'we would like to' he said 'we will'. The specialist consultant came out of the room beaming and told me that all his proposals had been accepted. I was not in a position to discourage him and left the knot to be disentangled, or more entangled, depending on the luck of the official and the consultant. In her paper, M. L. Boonlua goes on to discuss the need for a standard form of English to reduce the risk of such break-downs in communication: The ancient Chinese developed an ingenious system of writing. We with all our modem technology should do better. We should be able to preserve and also develop English so that it can serve as an (effective) international medium of communication in writing and also in speaking. (Debyasuvarn in Smith, 1981) It is not my purpose here to enter into a discussion on the need for standardisation, important though that discussion is. Rather, I wish to emphasise the importance of native speaker attitudes to English when using it internationally, and particularly when using it professionally in aid projects. If attitudes do not embrace an understanding of the ways English functions internationally free of historical proprietorial claims and

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parochial conceits then divisiveness will be built-in to all aspects of a project. This applies equally to the teaching of English, whether within the context of a project or an educational programme. In a recent paper I described some implications of the international use of English for teachers and learners in the Thai educational system, but I believe them to be of general validity. I believe that Thais should be proud of their use of this international language that enables the nation to perform on the world stage and have an international influence which, quite apart from anything else, permits others to learn and understand more about Thailand. It provides a further dimension to the national character and culture. For this reason Thai children should learn their English in the Thai education system, ideally from Thai teachers who have broad-based, international experience, rather than learn it in a parochial context from over-valued native speakers. It is in the education system that the national language and culture is valued as the foundation of all other learning. Divorced from the national culture, the international language will be mere trappings, insubstantial and, ultimately, demeaning. (Broughton, 1993) I should now like to consider the second of the three factors that I have claimed to be important to the affective domain of a developmental project within the context of bilateral and multilateral aid programmes. This factor I shall label 'quality of collaboration'. In their design, all projects (or, at least all education projects) are essentially collaborative in nature, with the common aim of assisting or developing some aspect of an existing system. The attitude to collaboration and the value assigned to it, however, can vary greatly from project to project. I quoted earlier from a collection of published papers on ELT project design, Language Teaching Projects For The Third World. A paper in that volume, 'The Sierra Leone ELT Project' (Hayes, 1983), identifies the quality of humility as an important principle in the design of a project: We tried to build into our plans a recognition that the Sierra Leoneans know best when it comes to their own education system. The expatriate specialists are there to help the Sierra Leoneans do what they want to do, not to impose on them what they themselves think best. This is a laudable attitude, but I suspect that without genuine integration of commitment and endeavour, humility alone is an insubstantial basis for an effective working partnership. And an aid project, if it is to be successful in its affective domain, must be conceived as a collaborative effort from the outset. The very title of the collection of papers from which I have drawn the above example denotes a hierarchical division of the world in terms of material wealth and ideology. It is one that presupposes the superiority of some countries over others. This divisive concept can undermine even the

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most technically accomplished project. It is, perhaps, indicative of the underlying beliefs concerning individual roles that all eighteen authors of the papers included in the volume are from the donor side. Even when there is an awareness of the pitfalls of assumed superiority, accepted beliefs and roles are so firmly rooted in the very language we unthinkingly use that underlying attitudes are often revealed. An example of this comes from my own experience of a British aid project in another African country, Tanzania. The aim of the project was to raise the standard of English in secondary schools in the state education system by, among other things, introducing class libraries of simplified English texts, structural readers and the like. At a ceremony and press conference to mark the beginning of the of the project, the Head of Mission for the aid donors presented a selection of the class library books to the Tanzanian Minister of Education. Cordial sentiments were expressed on both sides. The tone of the press conference that followed was not so amicable, however. The first question from the press typified the general mood. 'Why are foreign books that are ideologically unsound being allowed into our schools?' The reaction from the donor side was immediate: 'If schools do not wish for the books, they need not accept them. The books can easily be sent back'. Mercifully, the response from the Minister was more deliberate. 'What's that around your neck?' he asked a member of the press. As we could all see, it was a rather splendid camera: a vintage Leica. 'Where was it made?' It was, of course, made in Germany. 'Why don't you use a Tanzanian camera?' There was a bemused silence, eventually broken by the Minister. 'The important thing is not where these books come from but how they are used. If they help our students to improve their English, they will serve our purpose'. There were nods and smiles all round. The dichotomy of the two reactions was, I suspect, hardly perceived as such: 'Those roles we think to occupy turn out to be minds we find ourselves to have' (Geertz, 1983). The way in which project designers and implementers perceive their role has important consequences in the affective domain of a project since it is this perception that determines the quality and degree of collaborative effort which will direct and sustain the project. Of perhaps even greater importance, however, is the perception and definition of the role of project evaluators; for, if their evaluation is not sensitive to affective issues, improvement and development of projects and programmes will be limited to only their technical aspects, and the exercise of project renewal will become a circular one. This, then, is the third factor that I want to examine: the importance of the affective domain in ELT project evaluation. Spurred by aid donors' demands for accountability, and also assisted by the use of ideas and techniques from the field of business administration and management, the exercise of project evaluation has received increased

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attention in recent years. The series of annual summer schools that started in 1987, organised by John Sinclair of Birmingham University, has done much to increase awareness of the central importance of evaluation in project development. In the first of these summer schools, Peter Hargreaves presented a checklist of factors to guide project evaluation. This was later published in a collection of papers entitled 'The Second Language Curriculum' (Johnson, 1989). To. my mind, this paper makes an important contribution to the concept of project evaluation both in its comprehensiveness and in the awareness shown to the dangers of contrived, improper application of any evaluation instrument. Hargreaves asserts: If there is one single point that I should like to highlight...it is that there can be little or no justification for what so often happens in the case of summative evaluation viz. the jetting in of 'evaluation experts' to assess the impact of a project; which may have started anything up to ten years earlier; where base-line data do not exist and important project documentation is irretrievable; and most of all after the project team has already dispersed and is no longer accessible'. (Hargreaves in Johnson, 1989) Evaluation can, too easily, become debased, and when the credibility of a 'professional' evaluation is in doubt, there can be no planned improvement nor cumulative gains in knowledge and understanding. Worse, when the exercise of evaluation becomes a means to maintain the status quo and to pander to the known wishes of a donor or funding agency, the very fabric of intellectual honesty is damaged. For any particular project and the individuals and institutions that take part in it, that damage might be irreparable. The example I shall give to illustrate this point comes, not from an aid project, but from a project funded by the Hong Kong Education Department from 1988-91. In an attempt to raise standards of English in the Crown Colony's secondary school system, native speaker teachers of English were recruited from Australia, Britain, Canada and Ireland, to work alongside Hong Kong teachers of English in some sixty selected schools, acting as catalysts in improving standards. Evaluation instruments were specified in the project plan. One of them, involving what is commonly referred to as a 'classic' evaluation procedure, was a measurement of learning gains of students taught by native speakers compared to students taught by Hong Kong teachers. This was within an education system where local teachers, sensitive to the issues affecting the use of English in Hong Kong and alert to the need to protect their own jobs, had voiced strong opposition to the project when it was first proposed. I would argue that the adoption of this divisive evaluation instrument showed total insensitivity to, and disregard for the feelings and attitudes

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of those taking part in the project. I would further argue that the instrument itself ensured that there would be two opposed camps in project schools thus alienating local teachers from the outset. Nor should we underestimate the effect that this divisiveness has on the students, the beneficiaries of the project. Recent press reports suggest school children, the sons and daughters of the Hong Kong citizens who are staying on, are clamouring to learn Mandarin; and there is little wonder why. In his paper Hargreaves makes the important point that, in an evaluation exercise, the application of a framework such as the one he presents should not be a mechanical process in which fixed categories of related factors are appraised in a fixed order. I believe, however, there is a very real danger, particularly in summative evaluation, that this is what generally will happen; with the result that the commissioners of the exercise will be addressed to the exclusion of other parties. Rather than the usual monodirectional evaluation, I should like to see a format in which the evaluation addresses different parties within the same exercise, with reactions from the various categories of participants included in the final evaluation report. This should provide a degree of internal validation, with evidence of variance of view points that is either lacking in most 'professional' ELT project evaluations or glossed by the sole evaluator who presents a view that is at best monofocal, at worst wilfully distorted. Within a multidirectional format, the affective domain of a project might be accorded greater prominence than it commonly receives. I would argue that in ELT project evaluation, one factor that should always be considered is the participants' attitudes to language (particularly the relationship between international and intranational languages) and the changes in attitudes that take place during and as a result of the project. In the longer term, this factor may well be a more telling aspect of educational development and related development in other areas of social activity than the material and technical products of the project: a textbook, a teacher training course, or a measurable increase in English language proficiency. The nature and degree of collaborative effort should be another factor to receive prominence in project evaluation since it is on the qualitative gains in this area that sustainable development beyond the life of a project depends. In my view, the summative evaluation should be the most highly prized product of any education project. It should document failure as well as success, charting new, improved approaches to future project design. To this end, a summative evaluation should assign due importance and value to the wider implications of the affective domain rather than the more narrow focus of accountability (in all its aspects) to those who commission the exercise. Such criteria formed the basis for The Brazilian ESP Project an Evaluation (Celani et al., 1988). This evaluation is summative in the sense that it

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documents and draws conclusions from the formative evaluation procedures that had been built in to the original project design and carried out throughout the duration of the six-year project. These procedures were based on a project philosophy that gave due importance to the affective domain: It was felt from the outset that the evaluation of the Project should reflect the basic principles of the Project itself i.e. participation of all those involved, no external impositions, and sensitivity to the inevitable variety of situations, given the geographical dimensions of the Project. (Celani et al., 1988) I can think of no better guiding principles.

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3 Aspects of Awareness Raising in Reading Courses CÉLIA ASSUNÇÃ FIGUEIREDO The aim of this paper is to consider certain awareness-raising aspects of reading courses within the scope of the Brazilian ESP Project. Our experience along these years in the Project has shown that the student can benefit from the teaching of reading strategies, discoursal and language elements if he learns to learn in a conscious way: awareness raising can play an important role in helping learners develop their learning potentialities. The paper presents the results of a study which aimed to investigate students' conceptions and misconceptions about reading in English for Academic Purposes. During the last few decades, the conception of reading has undergone decisive reformulation which in turn, influenced the teaching of this process. Such reformulation has hit multiple targets: the learning/acquisition processes, methodology, teacher training, the principles of materials production for reading as well as its evaluation. In practice, this has meant looking more closely into learners' cognitive styles, and their objectives as well as their limitations and potentialities as a means of achieving not only better results but also ways of making these learners more independent and proficient in their learning. In the beginning of the Brazilian ESP Project, emphasis was attached to the development of reading strategies. Materials production definitely reflected this concern in a theoretical as well as in a practical way: a quick glance at the papers published in the ESPecialist and in the Working Papers can show a variety of topics in the area. As Scott put it, 'strategy teaching alone is not enough' (Scott, 1986: 2): a certain balance was reached through the inclusion of discoursal aspects (Deyes, 1981, 1985a) and language items (Holmes, 1983) in the teaching 'units' of reading courses. Our experience along these years in the Project has shown that the student can benefit from the teaching of reading strategies, discoursal and language elements if he learns to learn in a conscious way: awareness

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raising can play an important role in helping learners develop their learning potentialities. Awareness Raising As an emerging area, the term and the concept of awareness raising (AR) have been widely used without much clarification and are sometimes used as equivalent to a variety of concepts, namely, 'conscientização' consciousness raising (CR), language awareness (LA), metacognition... This paper aims at discussing practical aspects of awareness raising in reading courses and, for this reason, will not include a theoretical definition of all the above terms (Schmidt's 1990 paper differentiates between consciousness as awareness, as intention and as knowledge, and the perspective is different: it considers the individual's processing of language.) However, Scott's definition of conscientização will be used in an attempt to follow a certain direction: Ensuring students understand, with their hearts as well as their heads, why they are learning and practising the skills being taught, how they individually do so, and to what extent proposed strategies are effective, and what the reading process involves. Scott (1986: 2) Rutherford (1987) in turn considers the role of CR as one in which data that are crucial for the learner's testing of hypotheses, and for him to form generalisations, are made available to him in a somewhat controlled and principled fashion. What is Involved in Conscientização? For Scott, 'conscientização does not simply mean explaining about reading processes or about language or text structures'. He suggests that: Conscientizaçao involves attitude as well as awareness, correcting misapprehensions and building up confidence by promoting understanding of the underlying processes. (1986: 2) A troublesome aspect in this field is the tremendous difficulty one finds when trying to 'measure' product(s) coming from the exploitation of awareness raising. After all, the learner (= the reader, in this paper) may not be able to verbalise, answer questions or react in an explicit way in order to demonstrate change in his learning, among other aspects, but he may do all this or part of this in a different way...not made available to him in a classroom or through research instruments. The search for answers about how one learns, or how one reads has been a major concern in Brazil (see Cavalcanti, 1983; Ribeiro, 1989, among others). The results of investigations about the way(s) people read can be a decisive element for the teaching of the reading process to learners with

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little confidence in themselves as readers, with difficulty in processing a text, with little notion of how they can change their reading behaviour, and also to proficient readers who cannot read critically or are not aware of the possibility of transferring reading strategies from L1 to a foreign language (FL). Awareness Raising in Reading Courses The great demand for reading courses in Brazilian universities has certainly caused structural changes in the institutions that offer them. Materials adaptation and production, teachers' preparation, and teaching approaches are some of the topics that have been reconsidered due to such demand with the purpose, of course, of producing better results. These results are usually numerical representations of students' grades. However, there are other aspects in the learning and teaching process that must be taken into account, otherwise, important variables of this process would be omitted: these aspects concern awareness raising, its possible (measurable?) results and implications. It is often claimed that, overall, knowledge can cause change in men's behaviour. This assumption has proven wrong for many university students enrolled in reading courses: they complain 'they don't know how to read', and few 'know how to read critically', to mention just some of their difficulties. But all these students have received reading instruction in L1 (and sometimes in FL, too) since their early years of schooling. Carrell suggests possible causes for these misconceived ideas: Over emphasis on decoding skills, and on the code in general, especially in early language and reading instruction, reading passages that are insular and lacking in relevance to existing knowledge and reader interests; and tests of reading that stress literal text content rather than its integration with related prior knowledge. (1988: 109) If the ultimate goal of education is to promote lasting changes in human beings, the teaching of a language should also help learners reach such goal: the development of the reading ability through a conscious process could elicit different results. With this purpose in mind, a study was carried out in order to get to students' conceptions (or misconceptions) about reading (Figueiredo, 1993), and from the analysis of the data found, to promote changes in reading courses. The data mentioned below came from this study. Readers' (lack of) Awareness About Learning and Reading It may be impossible to trace readers' conceptions or misconceptions back in time, but it is also impossible to ignore their effect on classroom

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activities and, most importantly, on the readers' overall attitude towards their learning process. What do we, as teachers, know about our students? How can this kind of information affect our teaching? Interviews, classroom observation and questionnaires were used to try to answer the first question; for the second, as '... LA (language awareness) begins with teacher awareness' (James & Garrett, 1991: 21), teacher reorientation seems to be a crucial element and will be mentioned later on. The subjects' answers or reactions are mentioned below; for the purpose of illustrating answers, each subject will be referred as S1, S2, etc. The answers are sumrnarised below under 3 headings: General Attitude Towards Learning Most subjects stated they had never thought about their own learning before: 'Previous disciplines (including ''General English'') have not elicited this kind of thinking' (S4). Rare exceptions of a more participant attitude in class contrasted with most students' passive role in the learning process: at the beginning of the course, when asked to read a text without any obvious objective or questions to be answered, the students read the passage in silence and '... waited for the teacher to start the comprehension part' (S1). This passive attitude appeared again and again when students read the 'comprehension part' (the questions)first '...to know what the teacher wants from this text' (S3). The meaning this and other students extracted from the text depended on what their teacher expected! The Students' Expectations Concerning the Teacher's Role More than half of the students expected the teacher: 1. To specify the course objectives, methodology and evaluation ('The teacher knows best' S1,S9,S10). 2. To initiate all classroom procedures such as students' silent reading, the reading tasks, and correction of exercises ('The teacher is here to teach' S2). 3. To have original and efficient ways to make them learn ('When are you going to give us the list of reading strategies?' S5). The Students' Conceptions and Attitude Towards Their Own Reading in FL Considering their needs before the course, most students confessed they did not know how to read in English and 'to make things worse, I cannot explain the way or ways I read because reading is very complicated' (S8). The general tendency was to relate reading comprehension to translation; however, for Brazilian students 'translating' a text sometimes means understanding it! Another frequent answer was that they did not want to learn English, but only to read in English. Few agreed they read critically because '... our texts are scientific, you know' (S7). One of the most frequent responses was 'I don't know how to go about a text, how to look for the correct answer even in Portuguese'. The solution

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for this general difficulty was, according to many students, 'the use of reading techniques and solid knowledge of grammar' (italics added). Pedagogical Implications It is true that other elements, besides students' information, must be considered when promoting changes or when deriving implications for teaching purposes. But it is also true that a lot of pedagogical decision-making goes on without any student information. Because success in reading better may imply changing one's behaviour when learning, the data obtained from the students was a determinant variable in the decision-making process of our reading courses at the Federal University of Uberlândia. The topics listed below are general implications that were considered in the design of reading courses whose aim included raising awareness: First of all, teacher reorientation can be pointed out as an essential element in raising students' awareness. Traditional teacher training courses have failed to take into account broader aspects of the learning process such as the role of metacognition and previous knowledge in learning, or formative evaluation, for example; rather, they have emphasised product-oriented activities, or summative evaluation. Aspects of the reading process were explained to students in a way that could help them see how they, themselves, could start deciding what was effective in their L1 reading, and consequently, in FL reading, too. Second, very often students see their role in class as mere spectators, as if the learning process did not belong to the learner. Fear of wrong answers can make students' self confidence decrease: class time was devoted to talking about cognitive styles, reading habits, the reading process, meta-cognitive strategies, progress (or otherwise), use of the course content in life-like activities (Do we only answer questions in our everyday reading?), among other aspects. By verbalising their ideas, misconceived or not, students were able to organise their learning variables into a more meaningful learning process. Third, students' needs must really play an important role in deciding what the course design should be. Negotiation was important from the very first class: many courses are labelled as communicative but continue to be teacher-centred in many aspects. Students have aims that sometimes do not match standard courses; these students tend to feel marginal to the educational system and do not realise the true role education can have in their life. Fourth, a need for change in the reading materials was a consequence of the implications mentioned above. Students felt they were becoming readers when they spent most of their time reading and not only doing exercises. Especially at the end of the course, reading activities should aim at real life

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activities with clear objectives and instructions. Process-oriented tasks were in balance with product-oriented ones. Through the development of meta-cognitive strategies, the student was able to get more control (Bialystok & Ryan, 1985) over his learning and also increase his language knowledge. Different questions may allow the activation of different mental operations, so variety as to the levels of questioning (Smith, 1981) was essential. Above all, the students were encouraged to explain how they reached their answers (whether right or wrong), what kind of information they used to reach that specific answer, and what the causes of their difficulties were (lexical, rhetorical, syntactic...). Fifth, critical reading can be a key element in learning how to read in either L1 or FL. The development of awareness along the course contributed to improve the students' understanding of the way(s) information could be translated from a text. As many students resisted criticising scientific texts, special care and time were devoted to the discussion of contradictory aspects of what were, after all, not so scientific passages. Sixth, evaluation reflects teaching and was, therefore, based as much as possible on life-like reading situations: project work, writing summaries, comparing new information from texts in L1 and in English, problem-solving or task-oriented activities are some examples of more life-like evaluation procedures in an academic environment...all depending on the students' aim(s). The evaluation system was discussed with the students beforehand; they contributed to it through comments and suggestions concerning what they really did when reading outside class: it can be said that this was fair to the learner and also to the teacher who is responsible for keeping the course attuned to the students' reality. Final Considerations Measuring possible change(s) in one's behaviour is a delicate matter. Statistical curves do not seem appropriate; nor does a conventional grading system. On the other hand, the record of students' answers and reactions since the beginning of the course can provide some insight. Most students stated they finally managed to understand more what was meant by learning and learning to read, and that this process was a continuous one, depending largely on themselves. They still regarded the teacher's role as decisive, but not to control or just to correct them; instead, the teacher could help them develop their learning potentialities. Conceptions and attitude towards reading in English were clearly very important to students in general: in many occasions they wrote they had never realised that misconceptions about learning or about reading could work as barriers, obstacles that prevented them from seeing other routes for their learning.

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Frustration was expressed concerning the time available (60 hours) for the course in a semester: it was considered not enough for this kind of approach. Awareness raising cannot be seen as a collection of recipes, something ready-made, easy to get to. Both teachers and learners must work hard to see, at least, some of its results...and this takes time. One result was evident at the very end of the semester: no student was worried about his grade; they stated they were aware of their work in and out of class, and the Reading Project they were developing, that is, their final exam was only a consequence of their development in reading. They also wished they had known earlier about the possibility of transferring reading knowledge from L1 to FL reading (text structure, for example). Even a small change in attitude towards learning in general can bring consequences to the learning of a foreign language. We teachers could take advantage of this not only in ESP reading courses but also in other disciplines, in our general teaching practice.

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4 Influencing Research and Research Design: the Brazilian Esp Project ANGELA B. KLEIMAN This paper focuses on the impact which the influential Brazilian ESP Project had, over the years, not only on areas related to the teaching of English, an influence which would be expected, but on other areas of academic interest. Therefore, this paper has as background the emergence and development of English for Special Purposes (ESP) in Brazil through M. A. A. Celani's specific actions, namely, the project for ESP at Brazilian universities, and goes from there to examine the contributions of Celani's influential work to other areas. ESP represents, in Brazil, a new student- and skill-oriented conception that has dominated most of our thinking about learning and teaching in the last 13 years, determining, to a large extent, a very productive research agenda in the areas of foreign language learning and teaching, of teacher education, of reading and in research development in general. This paper will focus on those areas. In 1978, recently arrived in Brazil, and more recently hired to coordinate a centre for the teaching of foreign languages (Centre for Applied Linguistics, CLA) to the undergraduate students at the State University of Campinas, I submitted a research project to a funding agency in the Ministry of Education in order to develop an ESP programme for our university. ESP was, at the time, an innovative and novel proposal for the teaching of English in academic settings, and research on the subject, although already under way abroad, was practically non-existent in Brazil. The answer, at the time, was a refusal to finance my proposal. As I learnt later, the reason was that a national project, which would involve a large number of federal universities had recently been approved by the same government agency, and would begin implementation in the very near future. This was the project whose contribution to the teaching of English for Special Purposes I will examine in this paper, 'Ensino de Inglis Instrumental em Universidades Brasileiras', coordinated by Antonieta Celani. This was a rather inauspicious start for the professional relationship, based on esteem and respect, I came to develop with her, but it made clear,

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then, two aspects of her career which have been confirmed and reconfirmed throughout the years. First, her strong ability to identify, at a national level, areas which are in need of support and research, and second, her ability to devise long-ranging measures in order to meet those needs based on both basic and applied research. It is only fitting that this paper tries to portray some of effects which those aspects had upon the national academic scenario. I will focus on the impact which that influential project had, over the years, not only on areas related to the teaching of English, an influence which would be expected, but on other areas of academic interest. Therefore, this paper has as background the emergence and development of ESP in Brazil through Antonieta Celani's specific actions, namely, the project for ESP at Brazilian universities, and goes from there to examine the contributions of Celani's influential work to other areas. ESP represents, in Brazil, a new student- and skill-oriented conception that has dominated most of our thinking about learning and teaching in the last 13 years, determining, to a large extent, a very productive research agenda in the areas of foreign language learning and teaching, of teacher education, of reading and in research development in general. This paper will focus on those areas. This review will not be exhaustive, for it will reflect the bias of my current research interests, nor will it be an evaluation of the project. Such approaches can be found, for instance, in Deyes (1984) and more recently, in Celani et al. (1988). I will discuss research 1 as an outcome (the most important outcome, in my view) of the national project. First, I will examine the topic within the strict framework of the project, exploring its development and its degree of attunement with existing research policies at the time of implementation. Secondly, I will look at one modality of research, what has recently been called teacher research, and how it was woven in the continuing teacher education component of the project; finally, I will explore the influence which particular research results emanating from the project have had in a wider educational context. Teaching One's Way into Research The project under review developed out of pragmatic considerations in answer to a situation which pointed out great areas of neglect and un-preparedness on the part of our universities in meeting the demands of students who needed to know how to read English for academic purposes. Thus, in one of the first documents of the project, we read that the basic assumptions for the project were the increasing need of ESP courses in Brazilian universities, a general dissatisfaction on the part of teachers and students regarding the discipline at the University level, and an awareness that English teachers, and the Language Departments in which they

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worked were not prepared to meet the needs of students who came from other university departments to learn English for very specific purposes, because, in order to do this, a specialised form of teaching was required, not yet familiar to these teachers (Celani, 1983). There was a research-related objective in the project, according to Deyes (1984), which had to do both with development and with interaction: to promote research by staff in the universities and to interact with research projects going on elsewhere. Little mention is made, as can be seen, to specific research objectives, planning or policies, yet the development of specialised knowledge in ESP and other related areas by the participating university teachers is one of the most important results of the project. I believe such results are in great part due to the research design chosen. The combination of opportunities for team work and interaction among the participants, of the immediate involvement of these participants in both the planning and implementation stages of the project, of the ample means of making the results of each team known to others and of an effort which depended on the participants' writing documents to communicate their experiences to a wider audience, proved to be a very efficient model for the development of research, in that it first involved the application of basic research results to classroom problems, and later involved the investigation of basic questions related to topics such as reading, text analysis, cognitive skills, to mention the most important. The development of research was not a by-product of the project but it was one of its constitutive elements. Furthermore, research methodology was a permanent topic in the workshops, first indirectly, through interaction with researchers, and later, directly, by explicit teaching on how to ask the right questions and how to proceed in order to produce the knowledge sought for. Important issues for the would-be researchers were discussed with the participants of these workshops: the importance of clearly identifying the problem, of getting to know the literature about the problem, of transforming the problem into clear, well-defined research questions, of formulating a working hypothesis, of controlling variables in experimental designs, of pretesting, and of publishing the results, are among the research elements discussed (see Scott, 1985). Such discussion made the research process seem less formidable, and more attainable to a great number of teachers inexperienced in research, as the publications emanating from the project demonstrate. In order to understand the import and impact of such a research design, we must look at the Brazilian context at the time of the project's implementation, during the 1980s. A study carried on in that decade (Nagel, 1986), regarding the university role in the education of teachers and researchers, pointed out, as one of the serious problems for the development of research and of research policies, the fact that research was understood, at the time,

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as one more bureaucratic contractual obligation for university teachers. This understanding accounted for the lack of relevance and depth of most research in the context, since most university researchers seldom had objectives other than fulfilling some pre-requisite for promotion. Around the same time, another author (Alves, 1980) wrote that one of the major problems with research at the universities was the narrowness and fragmentation of research projects, which resulted in the abandonment of wide-ranging, perhaps relevant, questions. The design of the national ESP project offered some measure of protection against both shortcomings. With regard to the first problem, motivations other than the need for knowledge, it was not possible to participate in the project without engaging in some type of research, since there were no given, ready-made solutions to pedagogical problems such as those of syllabus design, material development, and others. The participants had to engage in the search for answers to these questions; hence, my statement that research was constitutive. With regard to the second issue, fragmentation and narrowness were avoided because the project itself provided the far-ranging relevant objectives and questions, for the fulfilment and answer to which the smaller, more limited projects were necessary. During the time of the project implementation, scientific activity in Brazil was extremely vulnerable, according to Schwartzman (1980), because there were no social sectors or governmental agencies that supported research efforts as an activity in its own right. It was in that context that national policies for research planning began to be delineated, policies which had as one of their main objectives the support of team projects, which would congregate a group of researchers interested in the same question, to be studied from different perspectives. Even though its priority was not research, as we stated above, the project under review, which anteceded this policy by almost a decade, had the characteristics of later team projects: it was sufficiently ample to justify being the object of investigation of several researchers, but was, at the same time, sufficiently restricted so that the investigation could be planned and controlled according to very specific objectives (cf. guidelines for thematic projects, FAPESP, 1990). A look at the topics of the papers in the journal of the project, The ESPecialist, shows the progressive widening of the research interests of the contributors (in general, though not always, members of the project). In the first two years, a large number of the articles published contain reports about the work in progress. With very few exceptions, the theoretical papers are written by the researchers coordinating the various regional groups, and of the few papers written by the university teachers who were participating as team members, most deal with very specific classroom issues (such as text selection, how to formulate teaching objectives), thus pointing to a rather narrow initial view of application.

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Yet it is a fact that no pedagogical decisions, however immediate and narrowly oriented, can be made without recourse to some theoretical apparatus. In the case of text selections, for example, decisions have to be grounded upon the findings of such disciplines as discourse analysis, text grammars, text typologies. When the descriptions fall short of what is needed, a natural development is to attempt the descriptive job, that is, to do the necessary research. In the area of ESP, such pedagogical decisions as the use, as reading material in the classroom, of unabridged, unsimplified scientific articles soon evolved from the evaluation of such texts against existing models of scientific argumentation and text structure and from the devising of criteria for text selection (see Dantas, 1982; Pinto, 1982; Ristoff, 1982; Deyes, 1983), towards systematic reflections upon the interplay of form and comprehension. The genesis of this particular topic of research can be found in a listing of research topics related to language issues suggested to the project participants in the periodic project workshops (Scott, 1985). Among those topics, we might mention the following as bearing directly on the relationship between form and comprehension: Which points of grammar (either above or below sentence-level) cause most difficulty to Brazilian university students? Which types of text do students of which subject areas need to read at which levels of comprehension? Are most of our students' reading problems caused by 'language' difficulties or by something else, e.g. lack of purpose, lack of experience in reading and thinking? How do texts of different subject specialisms differ in terms of grammar? How far is a knowledge of discourse analysis an essential condition for the ESP teacher/student?' (1985: 28-9). Thus, the relationship between reading strategies and text structure became a topic that was examined from several perspectives, and according to several objectives. Such an examination contributed in an important way to the firm adoption and establishment of an interactive view of reading, contributing several arguments for teaching approaches aiming at the development, in the student, of top-down strategies for the processing of written materials in a foreign language. The importance of this particular result becomes clear in a historical perspective: those university teachers who are now setting up experiments and analysing texts in order to prove hypotheses regarding the salience, or facilitating effect, of particular text structures or discourse markers (that is, features from the macrolevel of analysis) emerged from the same ranks of teachers who had, only years before, accepted on faith the need to vary the repertoire of reading strategies

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taught to the students, so that the importance of previous linguistic knowledge (that is, features from the microlevel of analysis), disproportionately important for teachers and students at the time, could be relativised (see, for example, Celani, 1983). The interrelationship of reading and structural aspects of text and discourse became the subject of several theses and articles, of varying degrees of proximity to the actual classroom, but all in the tradition of applied research. Discourse aspects of the text were analysed, for instance, in order to determine the relationship between one particular reading strategy, that of recognising text structure, and the text rhetorical and structural features (Figuereido, 1984). Particular models of text grammar were analysed, in another study, in order to explore the applicability of one model of text grammar for the teaching of reading, and specifically for the devising of activities and exercises whose grading and type were determined by the model (Santos Lima, 1983). Several other articles investigated the subject further, along interdisciplinary lines that reflected the complexity of the problems under investigation. These variations touched upon such related areas as schema theory, semiotics, experimental and introspective methods for the study of reading. Boxwell (1988), for example, explored the use of text frameworks for enhancing reading comprehension; Maciel & Thielen (1988) investigated, through the evidence of reading tests results, the relationship between discourse patterns which were characteristic of specific areas of knowledge and comprehension; Dias (1987a, 1987b) investigated the role of verbal and non-verbal semiotic devices in scientific discourse for the processing and storage of the information, and, by extension, for the facilitation of reading comprehension in a foreign language. In an experimental framework, working with protocol analysis and summary tasks, Santos (1987) looked at the relationship of discourse markers and degrees of success in the tasks devised, presumed to correlate highly with discourse comprehension. It is worthy of note, once again, that the emphasis of the studies which focus the relation between form and comprehension is on the macrostructural features of texts. We consider that to be a salutary effect of the success of the teaching, or continuing education, component of the project since, given the language courses these teachers had been exposed to, only the microlevel aspects could be the focus of concentrated concern in the earlier stages of participation. The rapid emergence and diversification of research interests extended to other areas, such as reading strategies, materials evaluation, reading evaluation, course design. It is not our objective to review them here. For our purpose, one example is enough, since it clearly shows that the 'collective mode of scientific production' (in the words of Castilho, 1990), which was foreign to the human sciences, had been adopted as the model for

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research and was proving to be capable of providing an important anchor for the development of both individual research and of the individual researcher. Teacher's Continuing Education Though Teacher Research One of the most influential components in the ESP project involved the periodic training seminars, both regional and national, whose aim was to evaluate the several programmes participating, develop materials for such programmes, and serve as a regular forum in which the university teachers participating could voice their concerns, pose questions and find answers to them. This particular design was well fitted to the reality of foreign language teaching at the university level. In a diagnostic survey carried out in 1981, with the project already under implementation, it became clear that respondents, both teachers and students, did not understand the difference between General English courses and Instrumental English courses. Even if the confusion as to course objectives had been more prevalent among students than among teachers (though it was present in both groups), the fact that students were not too certain as to objectives revealed a lack of precision in teaching, for in ESP, according to Celani (1983): It is essential that the objectives be not only clearly stated to the students, but also that the students themselves contribute to the discussion regarding those objectives. In this type of teaching, the student participation in the establishment of the course main lines (in terms of objectives in answer to particular needs), is essential. (1983: 4, translation mine) The author added that: English teachers, in general, are not prepared for this type of situation, and it is common for them to transfer criteria, main lines of action, attitudes, from general English courses offered to undergraduates majoring in languages to Instrumental English teaching situations, due to their lack of awareness of what the new situation involves. (1983: 4, translation mine) For this reason, also according to the author, one of the main targets of the national project was the area of continuing teacher education, which had to start aiming at a clear definition, on the teachers' part, of what ESP was about. We may conclude, then, that at the beginning of the project, university teachers were unprepared to meet the demands involved in implementing ESP courses, a fact which is not surprising if we consider that, in the Brazilian context, teaching language was (and still is, to a lesser degree) considered to be less prestigious than teaching literature. Therefore, lan-

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guage courses have generally been assigned to the most recently hired teachers, who usually happen to be those with the least experience. The task of preparing these teachers for the new ESP challenge was enormous, considering the fact that the project did not simply involve an adaptation of existing methodology, but a completely new methodological proposal (...) ranging from the discussion of the theoretical basis for instrumental teaching up to the practical consequences of such an approach, such as text selection, text presentation, types of exercises, reading strategies, etc.' (Celani, 1983: 5-6, translation mine) As was stated above, the initial treatment of teacher continuing education involved participation in seminars which were coordinated by researchers with a wider experience in the area. From the beginning though, even when there was strong pressure to solve immediate, practical, everyday problems, the participants were involved in the development of their own teaching materials and in course planning. In a seminar held in 1981, for instance, it is clear from the description of the seminar that most participants were encountering for the first time variations upon the theme of syllabus design such as the relative advantages and disadvantages of spiral vs. step-by-step designs. Yet after grappling with the new concepts, and arriving at pedagogical decisions regarding choice of one over the other, they were reported to have engaged in working their teaching objectives into planned units in the syllabus design selected (see Scott, 1983). This is work in the best tradition of teacher research, since it involves reflecting upon a theoretical concept, evaluating it upon reflection based on experience, and applying it to novel situations. Once encouraged to deal with the more restricted topics of classroom related research, it was a natural step for teachers to widen their area of action, which, of course, emphasises the success of the teacher continuing education program. This widening of area is exemplified, above, by the diversification and consolidation of research interests among the teachers participating in the project. I would, therefore, like to explore now a different type of action, for which the national project seems to have served as direct model, that of action research, understood as efforts of intervention to transform a particular context, such as the classroom. There were, throughout the period in which the project was implemented, several efforts on the part of the participants to make some of the knowledge gained in the project known to other English teachers, working in other contexts. These efforts do not qualify, in the strict sense, as action research projects, since the intervention stopped short of actual involvement of these teachers in research. However, these irradiating experiences

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had some of the essential aspects of action research: they originated from an analysis of the needs and problems in the context to be studied, they proposed measures to actually transform that context, they involved the participants in that context in the reflection and transformation process. Thus, we may argue, for these efforts to have become instances of action research projects, they would have needed to be complemented with the research component, which could have fitted naturally in the project, with no need, in principle, for radical changes, since many of the important elements were already there. Such a research component involves a qualitative dimension, in that the university teachers participating in the national project needed to qualify as leaders of research, but such leadership, i.e. the capacity to identify relevant research questions, could also have been in progress, as one of the outcomes of these teachers' recently accomplished transformation into researchers (see above). One example, which almost fits the modality of action research, comes as early as 1983, from a course offered by the team of ESP teachers from one of the universities participating in the project, to their colleagues teaching English at the junior high and high school levels (Célia, 1983). It is interesting to note that such a course was not a misguided attempt to apply the new approach to all kinds of situations, but to provide those high school teachers participating in the course with general guidelines, based on theory and practice, on how to plan courses 'with precise and specified objectives' (1983: 31); to do this these courses had, as their aim, 'to provide theoretical grounding and practice in alternative ways of dealing with secondary school learners' (1983: 24). These teachers (and others working on the same topic, later on, see also papers by Magalhães, 1986; Shepherd & Shepherd, 1986; Victor & Melo, 1988) are far from experiencing the recurrent problems identified by Kennedy (1985) regarding the teacher and his/her role in ESP courses: 'the relatively powerless recipient role of the teacher in the educational planning process' and 'the gap between much research and what actually happens in classrooms' (1985: 3). In fact, they have advanced one step towards their independence as researchers by trying to reduplicate the contexts which encourage the production, instead of the consumption, of knowledge. Broadening Teacher's Influence Through Research The final dimension of the project I would like to discuss is its outward influence: the ways in which it came to modify areas outside the scope of teaching and learning ESP and foreign languages in general. The area which interests me in this respect is the area of mother tongue teaching, and in it, reading in the mother tongue.

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Reading, and the teaching of reading, in the Brazilian context, has been called a national catastrophe. The school has been consistently unsuccessful in introducing children to the world of writing, as is evident from the perpetual cycle of illiteracy to which the very poor are condemned. Besides the structural and social reasons for this failure, we are faced with a number of other reasons which can be directly traced to the university or the teacher training college: courses about reading, be it from a cognitive, psycho-linguistic or discourse perspective are not part of the curriculum, with the result that the recently trained mother tongue or literacy teachers are not prepared to meet the increasingly more difficult task of teaching reading and writing to large numbers of children who have had no previous contacts with literacy practices. Because of its very specific, clearly defined objectives, ESP had to meet head-on the challenge of teaching to read. As it soon became obvious, such teaching did not merely involve transference of reading strategies in the mother tongue to a new foreign language: for a large number of undergraduates, it involved learning those strategies for the first time, and for the English teacher it involved becoming a reading teacher. Such was the case for the participants in the national ESP project for Brazilian universities. The spin-off of this new commitment of the foreign language teacher was the production of knowledge in the area of reading. The sub-area of reading strategies is worthy of note in this respect, since it congregates most of the studies whose relevance for mother tongue and foreign language reading is practically the same. Such sharedness and relatedness of research issues and questions was a consequence of the larger methodological approach to the teaching of reading adopted in the project since the beginning. As was stated before, the over-riding concern of the participants with language and the students' linguistic knowledge, or lack of it, was neutralised by the proposal to move away from word-to-word comprehension towards general and main idea comprehension, before attempting detailed comprehension, when necessary. Regardless of the merits of this particular approach, it foregrounds the need to teach global comprehension strategies, which were practically unheard of thirteen years ago, and which continue to be unknown for far too many mother tongue teachers. Such global comprehension strategies, as, for instance, prediction, hypothesis testing, lexical inferencing, comprehension monitoring, are not language specific. The teaching, or perhaps modelling of such strategies, can be naturally related to specific studying and reading skills, which are not language specific either: thus, for instance, there is much that is transferable to mother tongue teaching of reading from the studies on summarising and note-taking skills, which became the focus of research in the project (see Lima, 1985; Sá Brito, 1987; Lara, 1990; Pinto, 1990). The use of guessing from

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context, is another case in point: it was a skill which had to be taught to the students in order for them not to be bogged down by the usually large amounts of unknown lexicon they encountered while reading for details; this in turn originated several studies in the area of lexical inferencing, where the results, in many cases, cut across language boundaries (see Pinto, 1985; Ramos, 1989; Carvalho & Henriques, 1990; de Souza, 1990). Even in regard to studies which seem to be language specific, we find that results can be extended to other systems. For example, even though it is true that the linguistic features of a text can be explored only when there is specific language knowledge, there are textual features which seem to be common to discourse types in the occidental culture, such as schematic and macrostructural features (pertaining to theme, superstructure, information hierarchy). In order to explore these aspects, both the text and discourse descriptions, on one side, and the role of previous knowledge in text comprehension, on the other, became important areas of research whose findings, once again were just as relevant for mother tongue teaching (see Shepherd, 1983; Costa, 1984; Leffa, 1988; Oliveira, 1988). Although the possibility of using the results of this research in other areas is important, I would like to stress the importance of the model that was set up, where research was the option of many teachers who had practically no previous experience as researchers. They found, in the context of the ESP project for Brazilian universities, the expertise and the instruments to observe the classroom critically, to gather data to support their observations, and to make the results of the process known to others working in similar contexts. Notes 1. I call attention to the fact that all references to research in the areas of ESP and reading are to the journal of the project, The ESPecialist. Furthermore, the researchers are teachers who participated in the project.

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5 Managing Change in Education: A Teacher Development Project for Primary and Secondary School Teachers VILMA SAMPAIO DE OLIVEIRA This paper discusses the development of, and the principles underlying, a National Project for English in Primary and Secondary schools in Brazil. It details the achievements of this large-scale endeavour, which have involved considerable materials preparation, teacher education, trainer training, and research. Educational institutions responsible for teacher training are faced with the task of designing teacher development programmes which should aim at preparing teachers to be able to fulfil their job in the best possible way, in a changing and challenging world. A lot is demanded of teachers, and at the same time very little stimulus is given to them. Factors such as the low status of education in our society and the little value attributed to the teaching profession nowadays clearly reflected in badly-paid teachers make their task very difficult, making them feel demoralised in their work. In spite of all the difficulties, however, teacher education programmes have to be organised in such a way that the basic professional needs of teachers can be satisfied. In establishing principles for any teacher education programme some aspects must be taken into consideration, if one wants to truly involve teachers in the process of Education, and not only make them able to use some new techniques, which may, sometimes, not be appropriate for the needs of learners and for the aims of a particular programme of instruction. In our specific context ELT it is imperative, first of all, that they be made aware of their role of educators and not of mere instructors of a foreign language.

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According to Parrot (1991: 43-5), regarding the aims of such programmes, the following questions should be considered within the brief of 'helping learners to learn more effectively': Is the aim to help teachers to work within their specific teaching circumstances? Is the aim to prepare teachers to take account of impending changes? Is the education process itself envisaged as an instrument of bringing about any such changes? Is the aim of the programme 'education' in its very general sense, in opposition to 'training'? (Widdowson, 1983: 16-20) Parrott also lists some features he believes should be taken into account in such programmes, i.e. selection: pre-service or inservice? voluntary or compulsory participation? location, format, length, staffing, content, methodology of the teacher education programme, and assessment. As to the roles of teachers in Education, Celani (1987) states 1 that the learning of foreign languages plays a very important role in the individual's general education. Teacher education programmes, therefore, should prepare teachers to face this task by showing them the importance of considering three dimensions which are central to the formation of human beings; (a) educational, as a factor of openness to new visions of reality and which provides insight into human nature; (b) social, that leads to tolerance and to appreciation of human and cultural differences and to a philosophy of linguistic and cultural pluralism; (c) psychological, that adds a new dimension to life. and which is a liberating process for the human being. Other points she considers essential for teachers to take into account, and teacher education programmes should help them in this, are: (a) Concerning their own role as teachers: (i) being at the same time, not only the 'knowers', but also mediators of knowledge, observers, organisers and evaluators of the whole teaching/learning process; (ii) when designing teaching programmes, establishing aims, choosing methodology and contents, the different realities which surround the learners familiar, educational (school) and social, should be considered. (b) Concerning the approach to be followed: (i) establishing aims which are realistic and attainable and making them clear to the students as well, as a way of making them aware of their own learning process; (ii) stimulating students by making them realise that when they start learning a foreign language they already bring something with them; (iii) reflecting on the need for learning English as a starting point for future learning and as an ability which is going to be used in the future. On the same lines, Alderson (1987) points out2 that teachers should know certain things and at the same time they have to do others in order to be able to carry out their tasks. In the first place, what should teachers know?

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They should: (a) understand the process of foreign language learning, being able to facilitate learning and encourage good learning strategies; (b) understand the meaning of errors, their causes and how to treat them; (c) understand the linguistic process; (d) analyse learners' needs and establish and develop relevant aims; (e) find ways to promote classroom interaction, and to promote it in large, heterogeneous classes; (f) be familiarised with different methods and approaches, knowing how to analyse and implement them; (g) analyse materials critically making them adequate for their own circumstances; (h) manage the classroom; (i) evaluate students and activities. Among the things teachers have to do, are: (a) preparing (planning, designing, selecting, adapting and producing materials, activities and tests); (b) organising (creating favourable conditions, developing a supportive atmosphere and interesting, facilitating activities/interaction and administering); (c) presenting (explaining, exemplifying, paraphrasing and adapting language to learners); (d) monitoring (observing, advising, evaluating students' performance, selecting, providing feedback, adjusting activities; negotiating, differentiating and diagnosing), and (e) reflecting. As can be noted from the ideas presented above, these are important requirements to be considered by teacher training institutions in the preparation of 'good' teachers/educators. Universities, among these institutions, should not regard it as their sole responsibility to offer pre-service courses ('cursos de licenciatura'). In addition to that they should provide follow-up schemes to bring professionals up-to-date. This contact will, certainly, result in a profitable exchange for both sides. Teachers will gain more expertise, and the universities will gain more input to better prepare professionals for a specific context. However, it is not enough to offer teachers courses, seminars and other activities. Quality should be the main ingredient to be considered. We believe that an integrative programme between universities and the primary/secondary level will only be successful if some points discussed by Celani (1988) are taken into account: Teacher Education is commonly discussed Within the limited and ill-focused view of in-service training, understood as participation in isolated events such as courses, seminars or conferences, not usually related to the teachers' real experiences as individuals... (She proposes)...a view of teacher education which includes continuity, integration at different levels of participation and responsibility, and particularly, changes in attitudes, habits and beliefs as its essential elements. The ultimate aim is for teachers themselves to take up the responsibility for their own continuous education. (1988: 158)

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It was with such principles and ideas in mind that PIMEI (University Primary/Secondary School Integration Project for Improvement to English Language Teaching) was born. Pimei: An ELT Teacher Development Programme The Beginning PIMEI had as its starting point the preoccupation of a group of university teachers, some years ago, about the situation of the teaching of English at primary and secondary school level. The National ESP Project had started some years earlier under the coordination of Professor Antonieta Celani and was proving to be a successful venture contributing to the improvement of the teaching of English for Specific Purposes in Brazilian Universities. This project was then the main inspiration for the idea to set up something similar to improve the teaching of English in primary and secondary schools. A group was formed, in 1982, in Florianópolis, SC, during the IV SENPUI (a national conference for university teachers of English held annually) 3 to start discussions on such a project. For various reasons nothing could be done then. One year later, in São Paulo, during the V ENPULI, the issue was discussed again and a new group was formed. The first step to be taken was to carry out a survey through which the situation of the teaching of English should be portrayed, and from its results a plan of action would be defined. The survey was conducted in 1984/85 and it involved 1,859 primary and secondary school teachers from fourteen states in Brazil. Its purpose was to outline the existing problems in ELT in primary/secondary schools. The results showed among other things, that teachers in those schools were provided with very limited training opportunities. The information obtained led to the design of a project, in 1985, whose main aim was to improve the qualification of teachers. It was hoped that this would contribute to improve the quality and effectiveness of EFL teaching/learning at primary/secondary level in the country. The main features of the project are: (a) integration between primary/secondary schools and higher education; (b) the disseminating effect training of 'multipliers'; (c) its modular structure, and (d) flexibility of execution according to local needs. The aims set out for the project at that moment were: (a) In relation to primary/secondary school teachers: (i) to plan teaching activities adequately and efficiently; (ii) to use plans, materials and evaluation procedures effectively; (iii) to understand and react flexibly to classroom dynamics; (iv) to improve linguistic proficiency in the foreign language taught;

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(b) Concerning methodology: no imposition of one particular method or approach, but to provide information to make teachers aware of (i) factors that interfere in students' performance; (ii) the teaching/ learning process; (iii) different approaches and methods for the teaching of foreign languages, and (iv) the nature of classroom interaction. (c) In relation to materials: to provide a wide range of instructional and bibliographic resources which teachers could make use of in their teaching activities. PIMEI and Its Development Since then PIMEI has gone through several phases. The first one was a Needs Analysis survey (1986/87) in the four places where PIMEI was set up as a pilot scheme Amazonas (NAP/AM), Brasília (NAP/DF), Rio Grande do Norte (NAP/RN) and Rio Grande do Sul (NAP/RS). The survey involved headteachers, students and teachers of English. After a national seminar (1987) in which the main guidelines were established and the main decisions taken, the project was implemented at its next stage the design of instructional modules to be used in the INSET activities to be conducted in the 'Núcleos de Apoio Pedagógico' (NAPs), or pedagogical support centres, a task shared by the university teachers from the different institutions involved in the project. Throughout these years three of the original centres have been very active in promoting teacher training/development activities NAP/AM, NAP/RN and NAP/RS. In 1989, after two years of work, NAP/DF dropped out of the project due to the limited number of university staff to develop the project there. In 1992, a new centre joined the project NAP/Pb-Campina Grande. The work of PIMEI has been carried out in four areas: In-service Training, Research, Pedagogic and Technical Consultancy (through the implementation of resource centres in the different NAP's), Training Trainers (consisting of the training of pedagogical support teams [PST], formed of primary and secondary school teachers). In the different places, the project has developed at differing speeds as it has also emphasized different areas. In-service Education: The Production of Instructional Modules One of the main achievements of the project has been the production of its own training/development materials by the university staff involved. Several modules have been produced so far, and they are in different stages. They have all been tried out in the different states where PIMEI is carrying out its training and development activities. Two of them The Foreign Language Learning Process (NAP/RS), and Evaluation in the Learning Process (NAP/RN) 4 were published in 1993, with the support of The British

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Council. The other titles produced to this date, and which shall be published in a near future, are: Reading (NAP/RN), Approaches, Methods and Techniques (NAP/AM) and Classroom Research (NAP/RS) to be published in 1994; Materials: Evaluation, Adaptation and Design (NAP/RN), Speaking (NAP/AM) and Listening (NAP/RS) are being edited now for publication in 1995. Two other titles Listening and Classroom Language (both from NAP/RS), are in outline form and have been devised as the result of needs felt by trainees. Other modules which have also been used in the project are Learners Needs and Aims of Instruction and Classroom Interaction, both produced by NAP/DF. The modules aim at developing teachers' teaching skills and are activity based. They provide some theoretical support and create opportunities for making teachers reflect upon their own classroom practice and their attitudes towards teaching and learning. The modules, in general, have been well accepted and valued by the trainees, and it is worth listing here some of the positive aspects about them, highlighted by trainees: providing access to information on different recent approaches; making teachers able to conduct textbook and materials analysis and evaluation; practical application of information to classrooms; making trainees aware of the need to devote more attention to the learners; motivating, dynamic and interesting materials and activities; providing a good range of examples; providing opportunities for teacher creativity and exchange of ideas and experiences; and topics relevant to ELT in primary/ secondary schools. National and Local Activities (Courses, Seminars, Workshops) The activities of PIMEI have been carried out at both national and local levels. The national ones have consisted of National Seminars conducted with the support of the Brazilian institutions involved in the project (universities, state secretariats of education and other teaching institutions) and The British Council in bringing in specialists 5 to act as consultants and/or instructors in several areas. They have usually centred on different topics each and have provided opportunities for the coordinating staff in the NAPs to have access to current issues in ELT and Teacher Training/ Development. The topics dealt with in these seminars were: Cooperative Development, Methodology for Teacher Training, Exploratory Language Teaching, Project Design and Implementation, Project Evaluation, Module Writing/ Design, and Research. At the local level, the activities have consisted of courses, seminars and workshops run by both local staff and British specialists. The courses have usually centred around the teaching of the modules mentioned elsewhere, and the seminars and workshops have dealt with topics such as: The Teaching of Grammar, Motivation and Learning, Teacher Development, The Use of Songs in the Classroom, Curriculum Development, Designing Teaching Mate-

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rials for Primary and Secondary School Level, and Oral Production, among others. Besides these, activities such as meetings, talks and visits have also been organised by the different NAPs. Language improvement courses have also been taught in order to improve trainees' linguistic abilities. Training Trainers Another area of development in PIMEI training trainers B has as its main aim to constitute a Pedagogic Support Team (PST) formed by primary and secondary school teachers who will be responsible, in the future, for the training of their peers. Such a programme, which is of a continuing education nature is organised at both national and local levels, which means that in the different NAPs there may be different activities going on, as there are activities which are organised for the national system as a whole. In Porto Alegre (NAP/RS), for instance, a group of thirteen teachers form a special interest study group (SISG), who meet weekly to study and investigate pedagogic issues related to the process of learning a foreign language, and of relevance to their work, e.g. curriculum development, interdisciplinarity and the teaching of English at primary/secondary school level, teachers' self-development and classroom research. According to the opinions 6 of the teachers involved in the group the positive aspects to be highlighted are: (a) the possibility for meeting and discussing current classroom problems faced by the teachers; (b) the possibility of permanent search for self-improvement, consciousness-raising and ways for keeping up self-esteem; (c) the profitable exchange of teaching experiences and instructional materials as sound input for better practice teaching; (d) free access to specialised books and journals available at the NAP Resource Centre; (e) systematic material evaluation aiming at finding more suitable aids for classroom use; (f) more solid theoretical knowledge of the teaching-learning process, leading to more research topics and further discussions among the members of the group; (g) the initiative of profitable integration between university and primary/secondary levels particularly state schools. There is also from their perspective, an awareness that the teaching of a foreign language should not be viewed as a subject, but as an important component of any curriculum. Furthermore, the members of SISG share a strong feeling of becoming really outstanding professionals, as teachers, believing that it is the only way to be properly valued and respected in their professional career. In Natal (NAP/RN), there are two groups of teachers working on materials design for the teaching of reading. One of the groups is associated with the northeastern ERIC network supported by the British Council7, who have produced and printed a set of forty reading cards to be used in schools. The other group is producing complete reading units for use in the classroom as well, as a follow-up activity of the reading module they

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attended. A third group has recently started work on the production of visuals at very low cost, using waste and very cheap materials, as a follow-up also, of the module on Materials. Pedagogical and Technical Consultancy The work in this area is done through the setting up, in the different NAPs, of Resource centres, whose work have been developed through: (a) putting bibliographic resources at the disposal of teachers; (b) providing pedagogic consultancy on topics such as analysing textbooks, designing materials, finding suitable activities to suit learners needs, identifying more adequate teaching techniques to meet the teaching/learning aims, designing evaluation instruments and discussing general methodological issues, and (c) organising workshops. Research Research work in PIMEI started, in fact, before the project was implemented, at a time when discussions concerning the need of a greater involvement of university teachers in the primary/secondary school system were evolving in ENPULI. As it has already been mentioned elsewhere in this paper, the survey carried out in 1984/85 was the starting point of the project. The Needs Analysis survey conducted in 1986/87, besides identifying the ELT needs of the professionals, aimed to find out attitudes of head-teachers and pupils towards the teaching/learning of English. A similar survey was carried out in 1993, in Campina Grande, PB, where PIMEI has recently been implemented. Later on, after the actual implementation of PIMEI in 1987, both NAP/RN and NAP/RS started to carry out research involving primary/secondary school teachers. In NAP/RS the following Research projects have been carried out: (a) The relevance of the 'Project Approach' for the teaching of English at primary and secondary levels; (b) Primary and Secondary school students' needs and expectations towards English in the state of Rio Grande do Sul; (c) Which of Howard Gardner's multiple intelligencies are actually worked on in the primary/secondary English classroom? a case study; (d) the relationship of neurolinguistic programming (NLP) and second language acquisition: a case study with third level students of English. In NAP/RN, a research group was formed aiming, initially, to carry out research on issues concerned with Testing and Evaluation. Topics such as (a) cheating: attitudes and practices; (b) factors contributing to students success/failure in test-taking situations; (c) error treatment, and (d) psychological factors which affect test performance, have been investigated.

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Lately, the group has broadened its interests and also dealt with issues related to the classroom in general. In this respect investigative work has been carried out using the notion of exploratory teaching as an approach to classroom research. It is worth pointing out that the involvement of teachers with research has had very positive outcomes in that they have become more aware of what goes on in their classrooms. Their pedagogy has changed when it has been felt to be necessary; new instructional materials have been devised, and traditional classroom routines have given way to more adequate and suitable innovative practices to foster better learning. In spite of not having formally started work on research, there is a growing concern in NAP/AM on the part of both trainers and trainees of the need to start investigative work. A group is now being formed for the purpose of conducting classroom research through exploratory teaching. Achievements and Benefits of PIMEI and Its Impact Publications and Participation in Academic Events One of the outcomes of PIMEI to be highlighted is of an academic nature. As a result of the involvement of teachers in the project, a large number of papers and presentations has generated from it. So far, over sixty pieces of work have been produced and presented in academic events, such as conferences, workshops and seminars (both in Brazil and abroad), and published in vehicles such as conference proceedings, journals and newsletters. Achievements There are some aspects to be highlighted as achievements in the project, since they are signs of success of the work done up to the present. The first one is that, although slow to develop in some centres, there has been more integration between official institutions responsible for education than has happened before at a local level, and as a result, there is now a better relationship between the Universities and Secretariats of Education, which has contributed to the achievement of some of the aims. Along the same lines, there has also been more integration among primary/secondary school teachers and between them and university teachers. Other achievements to be mentioned are: the multiplying effect of training/development of human resources; repercussions in the Letters Course (revision of the Teaching Practice programme in some universities), which may result in more qualified training for prospective teachers; production of training materials at very low cost; change in teachers' attitudes towards teaching English self-esteem is higher now; teachers looking at themselves as

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educators and not only as mere language 'instructors'; opportunities created to increase teachers' professional awareness, to meet other teachers to exchange ideas and materials, to get together to discuss common problems; the opportunity to use English; teachers being able to produce their own teaching materials; teachers feeling more 'protected' now, since they know that there are people who care and who can help them. And, most important of all is the fact that they know that NAPs are places where they can turn to for help. Educational and Social Benefits Not only school teachers and the university lecturers together with their students in the Letters Courses have benefited from this project. A much wider section of society consisting of the pupils of our trainees who work in the state school system has been profiting from this experience. Through the work of PIMEI it has been possible for thousands of poor students in Brazil to have the right of having good teaching, and thus, better learning of a foreign language. This is an issue related to social distribution of benefits. Not only the rich because they have better opportunities should have access to a foreign language and to a foreign culture, but the poor as well. Another important issue to be considered when analysing the benefits of PIMEI is related to the development of women in society. It is interesting to note that the great majority of the ELT teaching population, especially in the official education system, consists of women. In the survey carried out in 1984/85 nearly 70% of the subjects were women. This percentage becomes even greater when it comes to the number of teachers who have participated in the activities offered by PIMEI over 80% are women. It must be emphasised that this is not solely a Teacher Training project. It is a teacher development programme. Besides aiming at having better qualified and skilled teachers, it is trying to help develop individuals who can be better educators. It is trying to raise their self-esteem by making teachers aware of the fact that what they do as professionals is important 'and relevant to the educational system, to the Brazilian society, and as such, it should, thus, be well done. Taking these facts into account, and the benefits it has produced, it is reasonable to state that PIMEI has certainly had not only educational impact, but social impact as well in the society it has been serving. A further relevant aspect to be highlighted is the cost/benefit ratio of this scheme. So far, we have reached over 370 teachers in the four present active NAPs, and around 100 teachers from Brasília, D.F. It is true that not all of them have participated in all activities offered. The majority, however, have attended more than one course. Around 180 public/state schools have been

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reached, i.e. (NAP/RS: 45 schools [estimate]; NAP/RN: 94; NAP/AM: 25, and NAP/Pb-Campina Grande: 10 schools) in addition to 17 school districts in Brasília. Over 40 private schools have also been reached. It is not possible to provide the exact figures for number of students taking English in these schools. However, if we multiply, for instance, the average number of students per class taught by the number of groups of students/classes teachers usually have to teach in the state/public school system, in a full-time contract basis, the numbers will be very high. At this moment, we estimate that over 195,000 pupils have benefited from the project. It is worth mentioning that after the publication of the two modules in 1993, which means enabling access to the materials by a larger audience outside the boundaries of PIMEI, its work will be more widely known and widespread and more teachers will be able to use the ideas produced in the scheme. Another achievement of the project is that it has served as example to other teacher training/development schemes created in the country. There are very concrete examples of innovation happening in the education system via PIMEI. Some examples could be mentioned. A very big teacher training operation in the state of Rio de Janeiro for all the disciplines of the school curriculum, involving the State Secretariat of Education and a consortium of seven universities, was inspired by our project. In Rio Grande do Sul, PIMEI was involved in a Linguistic Pluralism project and provided training for teachers of other foreign languages. In UFRN, Natal, a Teacher Training scheme for teachers of Portuguese was built on the experience of PIMEI. We can, therefore, be sure that the impact of PIMEI has been well beyond the confines of the ELT world at primary/secondary school level. As it can be noticed, the quantitative assessment is very positive. Nevertheless, we have not been able, so far, to assess qualitatively what has been happening on the other end of the line the classroom. We know how teachers feel and it is a very positive and rewarding feeling. There are signs that things are improving, but we have to know for sure what is happening there. We are very aware of the fact that this type of evaluation must be pursued in a very near future, so that we are able to know how the pupils are feeling. Has their learning improved? Do they have more positive attitudes towards learning English? Are their needs and aims being attained? In 1991, such an evaluation was attempted in Natal (NAP/RN), but due to many logistical problems, we were not able to conclude it. A preliminary evaluation 8 was carried out in 1989, but it looked mostly at feedback provided by trainees and at documents produced in the project (statements of aims, proposals, trainees end-of-course assignments, instructional materials, etc.). A formal evaluation will be carried out by the British Council in the first semester of 1994. Not only the coordinating staff of PIMEI (instructors) and teachers (trainees) will be involved, but educa-

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tional administrators and pupils as well. We hope that through that we will be able to have answers to the many questions still unanswered. The Future Two new centres will shortly start their operations Recife, PE (NAP/PE) and Goiânia, GO (NAP/GO). They are getting organised and in the beginning of 1994 they will carry out the Needs Analysis survey, and in the second semester, the training/development activities will start to take place. As for the 'old' centres, work will still continue on the same basis and in the same areas. Research will continue, the training trainers scheme will be strengthened, more modules will be published, new instructional modules will be produced, and more classroom teaching materials for schools will be designed by teachers themselves. New 'doors' will, certainly, be opened. As an example of this, NAP/RS has been recently invited to join an interdisciplinary research group on Informatics in Education (UFRGS) with the purpose of setting up a Computer Assisted Language Learning Laboratory on campus, as a foreseeable 'new door' for expanding the services already available. New NAPs will be set up, since there is a growing interest for PIMEI on the part of university teachers in other states. We know that a lot has been done and a lot has been achieved in spite of the many problems we had to face along the road. Nevertheless, we know that this is still very little if we consider the immense challenging task before us. The road does not end here, nor does our dream to see, one day, teachers teaching (efficiently) and learners learning (happily). Notes 1. Talks given in the First PIMEI National Seminar, held in Brasília, in Jan-Feb 1987. Both M. Antonieta Celani and Charles Alderson participated in the Seminar as consultants supported by The British Council. 2. Talks given in the First PIMEI National Seminar, held in Brasília, in Jan-Feb 1987. Both M. Antonieta Celani and Charles Alderson participated in the Seminar as consultants supported by The British Council. 3. SENPUI is the same as ENPULI (National Conference of University Teachers of English), held annually in different universities and organised by ABRAPUI (Brazilian Association of University Teachers of English). That was the first 'setting' of PIMEI. 4. The authors are: (a) The Foreign Language Learning Process: Vilson J. Leffa and Maria da Graça Gomes Paiva, both from Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS); (b) Evaluation in the Learning Process: Vilma Sampaio de Oliveira, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte (UFRN). 5. The British specialists sponsored by The British Council were: Richard Rossner (1985); Charles Alderson (1987, 1989); Marion Geddes (1987, 1988, 1990); Julian Edge (1989, 1990); Dick Allwright (1991), and Adrian Doff (1991). Antonieta Celani was also sponsored by The British Council, as a consultant, in 1985, 1987 and 1989. 6. As reported in an article published in Past, Present and Future, the British Council Newsletter, Dec. 1990.

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7. The British Council/Northeast has coordinated since 1988, a network of ERICs (English Resource and Information Centre) based in São Luís, MA, Natal, RN, Terezina, PI and in the Teachers' Centre/Recife. 8. A report of the Preliminary Evaluation was published in the proceedings of the IX ENPULI (ANAIS do IX ENPULI). The evaluation was carried out in two moments: The first was in the IV PIMEI National Seminar, in Brasília, June 1989, with the participation of PIMEI coordinating staff in the various NAPs, Charles Alderson and Antonieta Celani; the second was done in Natal, RN, by the Research Group on Testing and Evaluation, formed by Primary and secondary school teachers, students of the Letters Course (UFRN) and coordinated by Vilma Sampaio de Oliveira.

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6 The Virtues of Untrained Teachers JOHN HOLMES and PATRICIA CROSSLEY This paper reports on a study of EFL teachers without formal qualifications, working in secondary schools in Luanda, Angola. Information was gathered by interviews, questionnaires and team teaching as part of an INSETT course. The paper focuses on the positive and original contributions that such teachers can bring to their classroom work and to classroom research. Untrained Teachers as a Problem In many developing countries a substantial number of EFL teachers working in the state education system do not possess the full formal qualifications prescribed or recommended by the education authorities. The paths by which these teachers arrived at their present posts can vary enormously. Some teachers first qualified in one subject and switched later to English, others learned English in a non-academic way and were the only available candidates for the post with any knowledge of English. However well they do their jobs, the fact remains that in some developing countries many of those working and earning their living as teachers of English are not formally trained. There are two approaches to this problem. If the system produces a sufficient number of newly trained staff then the untrained teachers can be replaced. Alternatively a programme of in-service training can be set up to equip the teachers with the necessary formal training. In both cases, though, the attitude of the teacher training establishment has been that these untrained teachers are a disease for which we hold the cure. However, this Schwarzenegger approach to the problem conceals the many complexities of the situation and not least the positive aspects which these teachers can bring to their profession. This paper explores some of the specific ways in which untrained teachers can contribute positively to an INSETT course and the fresh insights which these teachers can bring to the classroom. Our experience in Angola takes as a starting point a question that Antonieta Celani has often addressed in her pre- and inservice training work: How can trainees become agents for their own development?

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This emphasis on trainee autonomy as put forward in Celani (1991) stems from her lifelong concern with the underpaid and overworked teachers of the Brazilian state system. In seminars and workshops all over Brazil she has always shown a concern in tackling the problems which come from a chronic lack of resources and self-confidence. It is possible, she insists, for teachers to assume control over their own problems even in the difficult circumstances which prevail in Brazil. In this paper we hope to show how these insights can be applied in a different situation, on another continent. We shall focus on the different identities which trainees bring to INSETT programmes, and show how important these other identities are. Those who appear as problems and inadequacies in the statistics of the Ministry of Education are autonomous individuals who are endeavouring to lead new and better lives as teachers. They bring to the classroom a variety of experiences and a commitment to their chosen profession which may often not be found in those undertaking a conventional pre-service teacher-training programme. Our work as teacher trainers in Luanda, Angola, took place within two projects, the English Teacher Education and Training Project (ETETP) and the English Language Teaching Project (ELTP). Both were financed by the ODA and supported by the Angolan government. Unfortunately, due to the political situation, the work of the projects suffered a serious interruption late in 1992. They are now being resumed, but our classroom research and opportunities for discussion with our Angolan colleagues are limited, due to the changed circumstances. We would like to thank our Angolan colleagues, in particular Teka Pedro of ISCED Luanda and Agostinho Dumbo of IMNE Luanda, for keeping our enthusiasm alive and for helping us all in trying to overcome the problems Of EFL in such a difficult but rewarding situation. The Context: Objectives of INSETT Course In Angola, the lack of trained teachers of English has been chronic and stems from a shortage of competent speakers of English at all levels. In spite of the efforts of EFL teacher training projects, the English language graduates of Angolan teacher training institutions have consistently found more lucrative jobs than teaching, as interpreters, translators or secretaries in government and in the offices of NGOs and multinationals. Thus a shortage of English teachers is perpetuated and creates a vicious circle. A foreign language is compulsory in Angolan schools at the 7th and 8th grade; this can either be English or French. In the light of the problem we have described above, how is it possible that there are English teachers and that English does in fact get taught?

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The answer comes from 'untrained' teachers of English. In order to teach in Angolan schools teachers must have a graduation diploma from a teacher training college or one of the specialist 'high schools' which exist in a variety of areas such as economics, technology and medicine. In practice many current teachers of English have this diploma, although they have specialised in an area other than English. Thus, although they may be, on paper, qualified to teach, they are untrained as teachers of English. As part of the teacher training programme, our two projects, ETETP and ELTP set up an in-service training course aimed at these formally untrained teachers of English in the capital city, Luanda. The first stage of the course lasted six months, with a two hour session twice a week, complemented with a programme of team-teaching and lesson observation in which the trainers worked with the trainees in their own classrooms. At the end of this part those who had reached a satisfactory standard received a certificate. This was meant to be the first stage of a longer-term programme of support for practising teachers. A total of about 30 untrained teachers took part: a substantial proportion of the English teachers in Luanda who were able to attend. The course objectives that we initially proposed reflect the usual concerns of this type of in-service training course, as exemplified by Breen, Candlin & Dam (1989). In order of priority they were as follows: (a) Language improvement; (b) Methodology: techniques and activities for the classroom; (c) Classroom materials: analysing and using them; (d) Setting up an infrastructure for observing classes and team-teaching. To evaluate the success of the project, a base-line evaluation was carried out. This took the form of a test of grammatical competence and reading comprehension and a questionnaire supplemented by an informal interview. As the course developed we also gathered information from the team-teaching sessions, which gradually increased in their importance. These sessions gave a useful opportunity for informal observation and conversation about language teaching, on the teacher's home ground. Team teaching also helped us to build up an atmosphere of cooperation rather than a simple trainer/trainee relationship. In this paper we would like to focus on the most interesting aspects of the data and the way they emerged both at the needs analysis stage and during the course itself. In particular we shall compare the ways in which raw numerical data such as that provided by a questionnaire, can conceal or reveal important information. Although we cannot give a long term evaluation of the success of the course, since political events made it impossible to bring it to completion, we hope that some of our observations have a relevance beyond the original context.

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Gathering Information We originally planned to gather our data by triangulation from four sources: a base-line test, a questionnaire, interviews and sessions for team teaching and lesson observation. Base-line Test We intended to administer a test at the very beginning of the course. But problems of communication meant that the course began slowly as word got round. Thus in the first session we only had a dozen participants, which then doubled in the following session. This was the point at which we administered the test. After this, more participants came along, and some others dropped out. Thus we had results for only part of the group. In addition, few had taken a similar type of English test before, so we doubted the validity of the test scores. Without going into too much detail, the test results were a useful bench mark to indicate the level of English of some of the group, but could not really supply generalisable data about the whole group. Questionnaires At the beginning of the course, a questionnaire was administered to the trainees. As the course got going, new participants were also invited to fill in the questionnaire. In effect 30 people completed the questionnaires, and stayed with the course. The questionnaire was in Portuguese, the working language of the participants. Interviews In order to obtain more data, further information was gathered from one-to-one interviews, recorded and transcribed. We planned to carry these out regularly with trainees, but in the event we found that conflicts in timetables and availability made it difficult to manage. We intended to build interviews into the second stage of the course, and combine them with group discussions, but events did not allow us to. Team Teaching and Lesson Observation As an integral part of the course, trainers visited the trainees in their schools and observed classes, twice during the first stage of the course. In practice this was combined with team-teaching; the trainer and trainees discussed the lesson plan and divided the teaching load. After a few encounters of this type, we noticed that this was an ideal way to structure the trainer-trainee relationship, since the trainers were on the trainees' home ground, and in effect we were able to share authority. The trainee

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knew about the class and its individual peculiarities, and could tell the trainer what would be useful and well-received. Trainers could get a feel for the class and also, by their presence in the school, raise the profile of the project in the school system and the prestige of the trainee in the school. In discussing the class, both before and after, we had an excellent opportunity for informal conversation. This enabled us to gather more information, of a very different nature to that of the questionnaire, and also get to know each other better. Although both trainers are fluent speakers of Portuguese, at the request of the trainees these sessions took place almost entirely in English. In effect, of the four data-gathering instruments, the two most useful and complete ones were the questionnaire and the teamteaching/lesson observation. In this discussion we shall begin by giving the results of the questionnaire and interpret these in the light of the information gathered by the team-teaching and observation. Results of Questionnaire The questionnaire was completed by 30 participants. Note that some of the questions can be answered by indicating several alternatives, so that the percentages may add up to more than 100. Q.1 Sex Male Female

27 (90%) 3 (10%)

Q.2 Age of participants 20-25 years old: 25-30 years old: 30-35 years old: Over 35:

5 (17%) 18 (60%) 6 (20%) 1 (3%)

Most teachers are young men. In practice this may be due to the fact that teachers are exempt from military service; the fully trained graduates in English from the training college are mostly women, but, as explained earlier, their knowledge of English enables them to find better-paid jobs elsewhere. Q.3 What is your most recent educational qualification? School leaving certificate (secondary school) Teacher training college (high school) Other specialist high school University graduate

N 5 5 18 2

% 17 17 60 7

Most teachers are graduates of 'high schools' of various kinds. Although the English department at the university in Luanda opened at the time of

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this course, this is not yet reflected in the responses. The two university graduates were from neighbouring African countries. Q.4 What were the most important means by which you learned English? Secondary school High school University Contact with native speakers Contact with non-native speakers Travel to anglophone country Studying from books Listening to the radio Private lessons

N 10 10 1 8 6 5 9 5 8

% 33 33 3 27 20 17 30 17 27

This is the point where we realised how little emerged from the questionnaire results. For example, those who mentioned 'travel to an anglophone country' had in fact been refugees in Namibia or Zambia. To learn the language of one's host country in a refugee community demands an enormous amount of determination and resilience. Similarly we were impressed by those who learned their English with the help of the BBC World Service. Listening to a crackly short wave radio cannot be the best way of perfecting one's pronunciation or listening skills. One informant described how he would do this in secret when learning English was politically suspect. 'Studying from books' refers to old and battered grammar books from pre-independence days. Given such precarious means of language learning one is left with increased respect for our teachers who have managed through perseverance to acquire a modest competence in English. One feature which stands out is the low number who learned English at school. In effect many of those who indicated 'high school' also indicated secondary school, so only about half of the total mentioned classroom environments as the principal means of learning English. Q.5 What is your main reason for taking part in this course? N% A formal qualification or certificate 30100 A chance to improve my knowledge of English 30100 An opportunity to speak English 2067 Learn about classroom techniques 1550 Learn about published materials 1550 Contact with other English teachers 5 17 We asked for a main reason but got several. As expected, the certificate was a powerful incentive, since this would give the teachers a formal qualification and secure their jobs for the foreseeable future. However, note that

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most of the other reasons relate to improving their knowledge of English rather than classroom-related matters. Q.6 What are the most important problems facing you as a teacher of English in your school? Lack of student motivation Lack of materials Large classrooms Poor facilities T's lack of experience T's lack of knowledge of techniques T's lack of fluency in English

N 3 30 5 6 16 20 15

% 100 100 17 20 53 67 50

Moving the focus to the classroom situation brought different results. The lack of materials refers to the chronic lack of a suitable textbook, one of the major obstacles in improving standards of EFL in Angola. Most interesting, perhaps, is what is not mentioned as frequently as expected. To anyone who has taken part in an English class in a typical Luanda school the most glaring problems seem obvious. The classes number 50 upwards, there are frequently not enough chairs and desks to go round and the heat and noise from outside make it difficult to hear the teacher and impossible to use a tape recorder. However, the teachers compare their own conditions with those of their colleagues and find they are no worse for teachers of English rather than geography and mathematics. They can see no special reason for complaining of large class size to the people who are running an INSETT course. Many teachers mentioned that class size was a problem but they certainly didn't expect an in-service training course to solve it. Q.7 Why are you a teacher of English? A well paid job A respected job An interesting job I have enthusiasm for English

N 5 5 20 20

% 17 17 67 67

The questionnaire does not throw much light on an important aspect of the teachers' careers. They have all taken a conscious decision to change the direction of their professional development, and these decisions are an important part of their identity as teachers of English. The reasons are more varied than the questionnaire data indicates. One teacher switched from agronomy to English when he saw the terrible effects of land mines in the countryside and the number of his agronomist colleagues who had suffered in consequence. Others had always enjoyed speaking and hearing English but had had to follow another track because of political pressures when English was regarded as socially undesirable. What stands out, and seems

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consistent with what we observed in the classroom, is that they enjoy teaching English. Q.8 What do you need to make you become a better teacher of English? Practice English structure Increase vocabulary Get to know published materials Cultural information Conversation practice Classroom techniques Hints and tips

N 30 30 28 20 30 20 25

% 100 100 93 67 100 67 83

This is another example where a questionnaire is less than revealing, and one can almost visualise the teachers ticking off all the options, saying: 'Yes. I need whatever I can get...' In this case the data from team teaching was much more revealing. Many teachers mentioned their lack of confidence in using English in front of their students and indeed many of the group were less than fluent. It is also apparent that initially most teachers seemed concerned at becoming better speakers of English, rather than gaining insight into methodology that might make them better teachers of English. However the problems of supplying spoken English input had been recognised by all the teachers we worked with and often solved in a variety of interesting ways. Several teachers had a small repertoire of stories and jokes including traditional African tales to tell the class. They had built these up over the years, often working with colleagues or informants. Others would improvise imaginary interviews with figures in the news, such as Michael Jackson or Nelson Mandela, where the class would devise questions and write down the answers given by the 'celebrity'. In one class the students themselves voluntarily transcribed the words of pop songs and these were sung or jazz-chanted in class, an activity which the students enjoyed very much. Thus, the teachers had identified and tackled a number of problems and had devised solutions that appeared to us, as teacher trainers, to be extremely creative and imaginative. To take one example, jazz chants are not part of our own personal repertoire of 'useful activities', which we recommend to trainees. We have never found them- really successful and we always felt a little embarrassed trying them out in the classroom. So for us to see a teacher 'reinventing' and successfully using jazz chants was a revelation. The teacher in question was then able to give input to other colleagues in the INSETT course.

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Insights from Collected Data From the data, principally the questionnaire and the team teaching, we could build up a profile of the untrained teachers that we were able to visit and work with in their schools. (a) Teachers are highly motivated as learners and speakers of English. (b) They enjoy teaching English. (c) They have little experience of learning language in a classroom environment. (d) They see their problems as due to their inadequate English rather than their command of classroom techniques. (e) They have little awareness of the possibilities of using appropriate techniques or methodologies. (f) They do not relate the in-service course content to their classroom problems. Perhaps these results fit into two main categories. First, the 'disease' view of the untrained teacher. The teachers have little awareness of the TEFL techniques and approaches that they could use in the classroom. They are not aware of the benefits that an INSETT course could bring them, apart from language improvement. Secondly and more interesting are the virtues and new insights that the untrained teachers bring to their classrooms. There is the enthusiasm that comes from conscious commitment to their chosen career and there are the insights that come from having earned English in a variety of circumstances and using these new ideas in the classroom. Finally there is the detailed knowledge of local conditions that means they have tried to solve problems using local knowledge rather than import suggestions from outside. Let us end by examining these positive aspects. Food for Thought for the Teacher Trainer Career Decisions and Identities When looking at the information on EFL in Angola, when we saw the large number of untrained teachers our first thought was 'Why are these people teaching English?' From our point of view this meant a weakness in the project, a fault to be repaired. It is interesting to consider the question from the other point of view. After suffering the vicissitudes of post-independence Angola the teachers have managed to complete high school. Somehow they maintained their knowledge of English by various means and always cherished an ambition to teach English. Finally they managed to secure a post as a teacher of

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English, a job which they enjoy. They now wish to regularise their professional status and also become better teachers. These teachers, then, rather than being uncomfortable statistics, are people who know the direction of their lives and have committed themselves to the profession. They recognise that in their interests and those of their families, the INSETT course is an important step forward. The course must take this aspect into consideration as in Corrigan (1986) who considers in-service training from the specific viewpoint of the adult learner. Motivation Another question which the teacher trainer may ask on watching a crowded Angolan classroom begin to fill up on a hot day is 'How can anyone enjoy teaching in these circumstances?' The answer comes from the previous decision, that the teachers have chosen their career, and stepped across the boundaries that academic systems create. Usually the good student of any subject can become a teacher of that subject by simply going through the system, passing the exams at each stage. To break out of this path, and change from, say, geography to mathematics, from agronomy to English requires conscious and often difficult decision-making. It means that those who have made a career transition have made a major new commitment in their lives. One other factor, pointed to by Coleman (1989), helped to retain the motivation of the group. They have a familiarity with Angolan conditions, they accept and work within the constraints of the situation rather than get depressed at the mass of insoluble problems that appear. No-one has shown them techniques or materials that only work in small classes with glorious acoustics, so they do not feel envy of their more fortunate colleagues because they do not know anyone in such a position. This is in contrast to countries such as Brazil where state school teachers constantly compare themselves to those in the expensive, well-resourced and widely advertised private sector. The state school teachers' lack of motivation is compounded by a general consensus in Brazil that no-one can learn. English in a state school. Originality vs. Re-Inventing the Wheel One of the authors arrived in a classroom in a dusty suburb of Luanda and was greeted by a class of 70 thirteen year olds chanting the words to a Phil Collins ballad with infectious enthusiasm and sense of the rhythm of spoken English. It was a humbling experience for the teacher training 'expert' coming to Africa to sort out some of the continent's problems. On the other hand it could be said that by 'rediscovering' something similar to jazz chants the teachers had been condemned to 're-invent the wheel'. In

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fact, something personally discovered is far more precious than something handed to one from an expert or a textbook. To set up conditions where teachers can work out and share their own solutions to local problems is far more valuable than simply handing over pre-packaged insights. Perhaps teacher trainers should focus on creating conditions for discovery and sharing of this kind to take place more often. Importance of Work Setting The experience of the team teaching and observation sessions was a fruitful one which served not only as an occasion for gathering data but as a neutral ground where trainer and trainee could talk on an equal footing. Although the trainer arrived with the prestige of an outside visitor the teacher was the one who knew the class well and knew what kind of activities and topics would work best. The trainer had to ask advice and check whether the lesson plan would work. In some cases the trainer's lesson was less than successful and the trainee could point that out. In the classroom, teaching together, both were equals, supporting and observing each other. It was also our own experience that by alternating between observing and teaching in the same lesson it was possible to understand the classroom processes better, and give more valuable feedback to the trainees. Another point relates to the identities of the trainees. On INSETT premises they were 'students' and reacted as such, asking for information, eager to get good grades for their homework. The interviews that we were able to carry out took place on Ministry premises and again showed the trainees in their role as humble students rather than experienced teachers. In their own classrooms they were the experts, and although they had areas of insecurity they also had the insights that come from working several years in the same school. Thus the data that came from the two sites was different. Working Outside the System The creativity and enthusiasm of the untrained teachers came partially from the fact that they had not been produced by the educational system which, all over the world, pushes good students into being teachers of their best school subject. In fact, what happens is that those students who get good results in exams but do not take a decision to get out of the system, end up as teachers. There are several drawbacks to this. First, the teachers tend to respond to students who learn the way they themselves learned. Since the teachers know what makes a good student they have an investment in a certain way of learning their own way. Secondly, teachers are reluctant to change methodology. Since-they became good students by using a particular approach, why should they

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change and use techniques which they themselves might not have responded to as students? Thirdly, it leads to a homogeneity in the teaching profession. Of course, EFL teachers are no exceptions: medics, lawyers and physicists all follow certain recognisable stereotypes. We are mostly former good students who thrive in the environment of the educational system of our generation. The INSETT group in Luanda in contrast covered a range of life experiences and learning styles. In such a group this rich and diverse pool of experience made the INSETT sessions an interesting place for interaction. Moving the Centre When teacher trainers or project officers arrive in a developing country and a project is put into operation it is customary for certain fixed rôles to take over. The outsider brings new ideas and the trainees bring their problems to be solved. The trainees feel that they have been using old-fashioned methods, and new ideas will now be brought to them from the places where ideas originate. The trainers feel that they are now on the periphery and that their job is to let themselves be drained of these new ideas and from time to tune return 'home' to replenish themselves with what new goodies have been developed during the time of exile on the periphery. This is described vividly in Ngugi's concept of 'Moving the Centre' (1990). The people running the project in Angola were delighted to find that their 'untrained' Angolan colleagues were a source of insights and new ideas and that the traffic was not simply one-way. It seems strange that for so long trainers have set up projects and nobly done their best to transmit what is new and useful without thinking of getting something in return. Perhaps this would lead to research such as that by Cook (1994) in examining learning strategies, such as learning by heart, that are used by millions of learners, but in 'peripheral' countries where fashionable research does not often take place. It would be more healthy in future projects for trainers to become a little less selfless, to sit down with their local colleagues and work according to an agenda that asks the question: 'What can I get out of it? What's in it for ME?' This is not a selfish question. All true exchange of ideas works in two directions. The periphery has much to teach the centre, and if a two-way traffic increases this distinction will become no longer relevant. Antonieta Celani in her work has shown that however experienced the trainer may become, there is always something new to learn for the mind that is open and alert.

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7 Teacher-Researchers at the Pivot Between Tradition and Innovation in the Foreign Language Classroom 1 LUIZ PAULO DA MOITA-LOPES One of the main concerns of those interested in educational innovation relates to the question of changing existing teaching practices since it is a well-known fact that very conservative forces are at work in educational contexts. This paper is an attempt to address this issue by reporting on data of an ethnographic nature which account for how a particular innovation in the teaching of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) was perceived by teacher-researchers immersed in traditional practices. The first part of the paper presents some general information about the research project from which the data discussed here are derived. The second concentrates on the discussion and analysis of the data as regards teachers' perception of the innovation, and the third summarises the main findings. EFL teaching/learning in Brazilian schools of the public sector has been considered quite an impossible task for a long time. On the one hand, teachers complain that the existing teaching conditions in this context are inadequate for FL learning (i.e. learning four language skills), and, on the other, there is a growing belief among teachers and educational psychologists that pupils in the public sector perform poorly in all subjects, in general, and in foreign languages in particular (cf. Soares, 1986; Patto, 1984; Moita-Lopes, 1991). Moita-Lopes (1986), however, put forward a syllabus for EFL teaching in Brazilian secondary schools, which centres on the teaching of reading comprehension a skill which accounts for why most people in Brazil need English and which can be taught within the existing teaching conditions (little instruction time allotted to EFL in the curriculum, large classes, basic teaching equipment, etc.) with the purpose of demonstrating that difficulties in EFL teaching in the public sector in Brazil were caused by the inadequacy of the available teaching approaches rather than

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by any learning difficulty on the part of the learners. One of the aims of this syllabus was to help to unmask a discriminatory attitude towards pupils of the public sector, who tend to come from lower social classes. The data used in this paper derive from an evaluative ethnographic investigation of this syllabus in Francisco Cabrita School in the city of Rio de Janeiro through the use of teaching materials which realise the syllabus in the classroom. The project was developed over three years (from 1988-1990) and involved three main phases: (1) Implementation of the syllabus. (2) Evaluation of the syllabus. (3) Transference of the underlying principles of this EFL reading syllabus to a mother-tongue (Portuguese) reading syllabus, which is currently being investigated in schools in a new research project. Participants and Research Instruments The participants of the project were the following: (a) Two teacher-researchers of the above mentioned school, who volunteered to take part in the project. Both of them were quite experienced professionals who had been teaching in the Rio school system for over 20 years. One of them holds an MA in English and the other a BA in English and Portuguese. (b) Three research-assistants. (c) Two groups (30 pupils each), which were investigated in the 5th, 6th and 7th grades. The pupils, on average, were 11 years old when they started out as 5th graders and they were zero-level beginners in English. Four research instruments were used: research assistants' diaries, teachers' diaries, interviews with teachers and audio-taping of lessons. Description of the Syllabus The reading syllabus investigated here is informed by an ethnomethodological view of discourse (cf. Widdowson, 1983), interactive theories of reading (cf. Stanovich, 1981), cognitivist theories of learning (cf. Neisser, 1976), and FL learning syllabus design theories (cf. Widdowson, 1990; Brumfit, 1984). Its design was guided by an operational model (cf. Moita-Lopes, 1987) in the sense that, besides considering the theoretical principles above, it also relied on an analysis of the existing conditions in which FLs are taught in schools of the public sector from socio-political, socio-psychological, logistico-administrative, methodological and materials perspectives so that the very operation of the syllabus was taken into consideration in the design.

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However, despite this central concern with the operation of the syllabus in the design, the syllabus represented an innovation in terms of the objective of EFL teaching, i.e. focus on one single skill (reading), and in terms of the theoretical views of reading, discourse and learning, which inform its design. These are very different from the theories which underlie the existing teaching practice in this learning milieu, namely, a behaviourist view of learning, a decoding view of reading, a view of meaning as being intrinsic to language, and a four-language-skill-based syllabus. In fact, in order to foster change, this different theoretical perspective was expected from the innovation. Nevertheless, how teachers would interpret it and how it would in the end be implemented in the classroom was a point of concern from the very beginning of the project and, in fact, constitutes the core of this paper. Teachers' Familiarisation with the Syllabus and Research Before the materials which realise the syllabus were actually implemented in the classrooms, both teacher-researchers went through a total of 10 hours of seminar work held by the outside researcher. These seminars involved the discussion of the theoretical framework of the syllabus as well as the actual principles underlying the teaching materials. These discussions were preceded and followed up by readings of papers, which expanded on the content of the seminars. Teachers were also familiarised with field-note taking so that they could write diaries and were told that they were viewed as inside researchers. It was made quite clear to them that we were interested in having them investigate their own practice so that we could learn about the syllabus from their inside perspectives. That is, they knew they were working as research collaborators. This point is actually confirmed by interview data collected at the beginning and at the end of the third year of the project. Teachers pointed out that they saw themselves as teacher-researchers and that they did not feel threatened by our presence in the classrooms: 'I see myself as a collaborator in the research; I hope to learn something about my work' (Teacher A); '[The research assistant] is observing what the classes are like; she doesn't really bother me' (Teacher B). This issue was also clear during our informal conversations when the teachers would openly criticise specific aspects of the materials. It is true, however, that data derived from research assistants' diaries reveal that teachers did not actually ignore the presence of the assistants since they made eye-contact with them in search of approval, etc. This, nevertheless, does not necessarily imply that teachers did not see themselves as collaborators.

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Data Analysis In order to understand how teachers perceive the syllabus they are using, it is essential to look into what they do in the classroom as a manifestation of their interpretation of the syllabus. And, as said above, in the present case we were asking teachers to change deep-rooted beliefs about EFL teaching (cf. my description of the theoretical basis of the existing teaching practice in the school system of the city of Rio above) into a particular teaching ideology. Therefore, the research question was: how do teachers perceive the implementation of a new EFL syllabus, considering the fact that they sat through seminar sessions on the principles of the syllabus and that they took part in the implementation as researchers? It was expected that their interpretation would be in line with our approach from the very beginning since we were asking them to look into their own action in the classroom critically and we were making them aware of the theoretical underpinnings of the materials. In the traditional mode of implementation when teachers are asked to follow a particular syllabus or teaching materials, it is quite common for them to fall back on old practices, as there is a tendency for teachers to conform to old assumptions because of the effort involved in innovation. Here, however, teachers were asked to examine the innovation critically, which meant that they would get deeply involved with it through investigation and, hopefully, change their ideology about FL teaching in the direction of the innovation. Nevertheless, the analysis of the data derived from the four types of instruments used in this research to tap teachers' perception indicate that traditional aspects of EFL teaching in this particular context persisted throughout the three years of this research. There is evidence, on the one hand, that teachers' perception reflects the innovation represented by the syllabus, and, on the other, that the existing tradition of EFL teaching deeply influenced their interpretation of the syllabus. This pattern, however, seemed to change by the end of the second year when the data indicate that teachers' perception became more congruent with the principles of the innovation. First, I discuss data 2 that clearly demonstrate that the interpretation of the teachers is influenced by the innovation: (1) Appeal to metacognitive strategies related to the process of reading with the purpose of facilitating the acquisition of this skill: Teacher: Let's read the texts by trying to discover what you already know, i.e. the words which are similar [to Portuguese words]. (audiotape, 14.4.90) Teacher: When you read, you should be aware of the fact that you are not going to understand every word. (audio-tape, 14.4.90)

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(2) Appeal to the formal schematic organisation of the text at the macro level: '...the teacher continues the class asking where the solution to the problem presented in the story is. The pupils reply that it is at the end of the text' (assistant's diaries, 19.9.89). 'The teacher... asks: ''What is the function of this text? Does it describe anything? Does it discuss a point?'' The pupils reply that the text tells a story' (assistant's diaries, 27.6.88). (3) Appeal to the content schema of the text: 'The teacher, then, exploits the illustration and title of the text, i.e. Pollution in Rio. ... The teacher asks them about the types of pollution which they can identify in the illustration. They say: "Sound, sea and air pollution"' (assistant's diaries, 30.5.90). (4) Appeal to cognitive strategies by focusing on problem-solving heuristics: Teacher: Let's match the words, by relying on cognates and on the text. We must always start from what we already know. (assistant's diaries, 27.6.88) [When correcting a task which involves the solution of a word puzzle], the teacher asks the pupils for the fight word by giving them clues to find the solution to the problem. She asks: 'How do you say MUITO in English with four letters?' (assistant's diaries, 27.3.90) (5) Appeal to the development of critical reading: '[Discussing a character Catita, the hen in a metaphorical text], the teacher says: "If you leave the context of the text aside, and view the same question in our society, could one say that there are people who are like Catita? Could you provide examples of Catitas in our society?"' (audio-tape, 9.4.89); '[Trying to make pupils react critically to the content of the text], the teacher asks a pupil if he has already seen anyone been discriminated against' (assistant's diaries, 24.5.89). (6) A view of reading as a purposeful activity: 'The teacher tells the pupils that they will read the text again. She adds that we also do this when we read a newspaper in Portuguese. On the first page we are introduced to a general view of the topic, which is discussed in detail inside the paper' (assistant's diaries, 8.2.89). (7) A view of reading as an activity which involves the confirmation of hypotheses on the part of the reader by operating on the structure of predictability of discourse: 'The teacher asks the pupils to read the first sentence of the first paragraph. The teacher says: "Jaciara, what did they [the characters] face last summer?" Jaciara replies: "Problems"; Margareth: "Why, teacher?"; Teacher: "Exactly. Let's read the second sentence to see if you can guess"' (assistant's diaries, 2.8.89). (8) A view of reading which involves the use by the reader of linguistic and non-linguistic data as constitutive of written discourse: 'The

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teacher asks the pupils to look at the graph and say what they understand from it. A pupil replies that it is possible to see in the graph which countries invest money in education' (assistant's diaries, 9.5.90). (9) A view of reading which involves cooperation between the reader and the writer in the search for meaning: Teacher: [When we read], we have to adjust our background knowledge to what is said in the text... We have to add what we know to what is in the text. (assistant's diaries, 28.8.89) Above I have reported on data which show that teachers' interpretation was in line with the innovation. Next, I present data which indicate that the teaching/learning process as represented by both teachers in the classroom reflected the tradition of EFL teaching prevalent in this learning milieu: (10) A view of reading as translation: Teacher: Translation more or less reflects the process of reading. (audiotape, 20.11.89) This view seems to be due to an inadequate comprehension of translation tasks as a pedagogical device in the methodology of the innovative materials, i.e. an aspect of a procedural nature, which is interpreted by the teacher as being related to the product of learning. (11) Use of extra tasks elaborated by one of the teachers, based on the comprehension of decontextualised sentences: Teacher: Translate the following sentences [written on the blackboard]. (audio-tape, 20.11.89) These activities are contrary to the view of reading on which the materials are based. This view relies on the reader's use of the predictable structure of discourse, in the sense that reading is taken as an integrative activity. The emphasis on decontextualised sentences rather than on texts is typical of a tradition which emphasizes learning sentence patterns or local meaning instead of global meaning as is the case in the innovation here. (12) Concern with orthographic knowledge, which is unnecessary for the teaching of reading in a FL: 'The pupils have problems with spelling and pronunciation' (interview, Teacher A); 'The teacher makes two points in relation to the task. The first is that [the word] promise is spelled with only one S. And the second is that the past tense of [the verb] cancel is written with two Ls,..., in British English'. (assistant's diaries, 11.9.89). This concern with orthography seems to be due to the EFL teaching tradition, which emphasizes spelling problems affecting writing skills. (13) Emphasis on a type of grammatical and lexical knowledge related to production skills rather than to reading skills: 'When I walked into the classroom, the teacher was doing an oral task with the pupils using the

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following patterns: Do you drink whisky?/Yes, I do; Do you eat chocolate cake?/No, I don't' (assistant's diaries, 17.7.89): 'The methodology should include more exercises involving the recycling of the material. The pupils forget what they have learned' (interview, Teacher A). The issue here appears to be due to the fact that teachers find it difficult to adapt to a syllabus which does not centre on production skills, which are part of the FL tradition in schools. (14) Excessive appeal to pupils' knowledge of their mother-tongue without any consequence for the development of their reading skills in English: '[Pointing to a sentence in Portuguese on the blackboard], the teacher says: "What kind of predicate is this?" And a pupil replies: "Nominal" (assistant's diaries, 17.4.90). 'Teacher: "What is the grammatical class of who and which in Portuguese?"' (audio-tape, 27.3.90). The problem here seems to be caused by an inadequate understanding of a pedagogical device included in the innovation which incorporates the cognitivist principle that the new m English grammar, in this case should be taught in the context of what the pupil already knows, i.e. Portuguese grammar. The teacher, however, focuses on Portuguese grammar as an end in itself. (15) Emphasis on the development of oral skills, which deserve no attention in the syllabus being investigated: 'The teacher says: "Now you are going to ask your classmate in English about whether he or she does that or not and then you will tell me their answer"' (assistant's diaries, 17.7.89); 'The teacher goes back to exercise I and asks pupils to pronounce the words' (assistant's diaries, 2.10.89). The concern with oral skills on the part of teachers seems to be due to the strong audio-lingual tradition of FL teaching in Brazil, which makes it difficult for teachers to adapt to teaching approaches which do not account for oral skills. So far I have discussed evidence that indicates that in the first two years of the project teachers' interpretation oscillated between the principles of the innovation and the force of tradition. Now I want to show how teachers' interpretation seemed to be closer to the principles of the innovation by the third year of their use of the materials in the classroom. To illustrate that, I am going to centre on particular issues of the approach and demonstrate how teachers' perception of these aspects changed. (16) A view of reading as an integrative act: In item 11 above it was shown that the teachers seemed to operate with a view of reading contrary to the principles of the innovation in the sense that they did not see reading as an integrative act. The point was illustrated with a task elaborated by one of the teachers, which relied on the use of decontextualised sentences. Nevertheless, in the transcription of a class taught

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in 1990, we find evidence that teachers' conceptualisation of the reading act has approximated that of the innovation: Teacher: If the sentences were in a text, the text would help their comprehension because you [Pupils] would use reading strategies. (audio-tape, 27.11.90) The teacher seems to be working now with a view of reading as an integrative act. That is, a new proposition is interpreted in the light of a previous one. (17) Lack of concern with oral skills: While in 15 above it was indicated that the teachers found it difficult to use an approach which did not involve the teaching of oral skills, in one of the research assistants' diaries (21.3.90), there is evidence that teachers are aware of the fact that oral skills play no role in the approach they are using: 'The teacher says to a girl...that she should not worry about her pronunciation since the method the teacher is using focuses on reading skills' (assistants' diaries, 21.3.90). (18) Lack of concern with orthography: The only comment that the teachers made as regards orthography in the last year of the project was related to a possible misunderstanding which the final -nt of want could cause since pupils could take that ending as a mark of negation because of analogy with don't: 'The teacher calls the pupils' attention to the word want which has nothing to do with negation' (assistant's diaries, 23.5.90). This kind of problem is actually related to written comprehension problems and is, therefore, very different from the way orthography is considered in 12 above, i.e. as a type of knowledge useful for writing skillstypical of the teaching tradition in this learning context. (19) Emphasis on a type of grammatical knowledge which is useful when learning how to read: Differently from 13 above, the type of grammatical knowledge emphasized in the third year was more suitable to the development of reading skills and not to writing skills, as done previously: '[Reviewing particular productive morphemes], the teacher asks the pupils for the meanings of -less and -ful and provides examples' (assistant's diaries, 10.10.90). (20) Emphasis on contextually-based skills for teaching lexis: In the last year the teachers' concern with learning lexis from a productive perspective, as put in 13 above, disappears. There is a growing concern with the fact that learner-readers can guess the meaning of words from context: 'After reading a sentence, a pupil says that although he did not know the meaning of the word health, he was able to guess it' (assistant's diaries, 23.5.90). It should be said that the greater congruency with the innovation on the part of teachers' interpretation of the syllabus in the last year is not detected in the clear-cut way that my discussion here may otherwise imply. The

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change is very gradual and some aspects of tradition co-occur in the classrooms, i.e. the change should be seen in terms of a cline. Summary of Findings and Conclusions The analysis of the data presented above indicates that teachers' perceptions of the innovation contain features which are in line with the principles of the innovative syllabus and, at the same time, features which reflect the existing EFL teaching tradition in this school context. Besides, the analysis shows that some aspects of the innovation are misrepresented by teachers in the classroom because of inadequate understanding of the underlying principles of some of the aspects of the innovation. It is also made evident that in the last year of the use of the materials in the classroom there seems to be a change in the teachers' perception in the direction of the innovation. These findings have implications for the implementation of innovative programmes and for teacher education. As regards the implementation of innovation, this research suggests that even when this is done through the involvement of teachers as researchers, the variable time cannot be ignored since it has been demonstrated that it takes a while for the innovation to be incorporated into the classroom. It is true, however, that the data indicate that the more teachers submitted their practice to criticism by investigating it, the more they altered their perception of the EFL syllabus they were using in the direction of the innovation. The positive effects of research involvement on the part of teachers are clear. On the other hand, it cannot be emphasized enough that it took a long time for these effects to be noticed in the classroom. This fact could be credited to most EFL teacher education programmes in Brazil, and, for that matter, in other parts of the world, which seem to favour dogmas rather than a process which involves criticism and the actual involvement with research. That this process can foster progress in language education has been shown by the research described here. Notes 1. This paper is based on research sponsored by a CNPq grant (CNPq 300194-86). A first version of it was presented at the 13th Ethnography in Education Forum, University of Pennsylvania, 1992. 2. The data sources are in Portuguese. I have translated the data included here for the purpose of this paper. My translation, however, has been checked by two proficient users of English.

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8 Classroom Interaction and Strategic Reading Development MARIA CECILIA CAMARGO MAGALHãES and ROXANE HELENA RODRIGUES ROJO This article discusses the interactional processes used by teachers during reading classes. We argue that, while working with teachers, it is not enough to directly 'tell' them what and when to emphasize, when constructing meaning. Rather, the main point is to focus on how and why to interact in meaning construction. In order to reach this aim, we analyse and compare two reading classes in different schools of different socio-economic backgrounds. While one of the teachers is 'content-centred' and the other is 'process-centred', both focus on negotiations during interactions. Research on literacy development in classrooms has emphasized the importance of providing students with opportunities for learning about the interactive and the strategic characteristics of the reading and the writing processes. According to Celani (1981), there is a need to create in classrooms opportunities to assist students' learning about what, why, how, to what extent, and when to use a particular piece of knowledge. In other words classrooms need to offer students experience in learning how to organise their own learning. Dissatisfaction with students' effective literacy development has led researchers to look into classrooms to understand (a) the role of the teacher and/or more advanced peers in students' learning and development, (b) the interactional patterns teachers and students construct together in order to accomplish the classroom tasks, and (c) how these patterns give students opportunities for literacy development. The purpose of this paper is to examine teacher/students' interactions during reading class in two different contexts involving the second year of Elementary school. We wish to investigate (a) what kind of interactions are created in classrooms which differ in terms of students' socio-economic class, and (b) how these patterns may provide students with opportunities to become strategic readers. We will first discuss the socio-constructivist

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theoretical framework within which we understand teaching and learning in classrooms, and which the strategies research on reading has pointed out as principally involved in strategic reading. Next we discuss the methodologies of data collection and data analysis and some instances of classroom interaction. Theoretical Framework Teaching and Learning in Classrooms In a Vygotskian socio-historical approach concerning the process of learning any new cultural form of action including strategic reading it is from the other, i.e. from interpersonal interactional patterns, that any new cognitive construct will appear. This socio-constructivist postulation is embedded in the view that instruction has always works on the Zone of Potential Development (ZPD). For Vygotsky (1930), at any moment of the developmental process, an individual will present some completed developmental cycles, some already realised constructions Real Development (RD) that enable him or her to achieve some tasks and to solve some problems autonomously. These constructs have developed in interpersonal cultural patterns of interaction, and have been transformed into intrapersonal knowledge, improving autonomy, though the mechanism of internalisation, responsible for the construction of cultural development. On the other hand, the same individual, at any moment of his or her cultural development, presents some cycles which are still being constructed as well as some cultural constructs still in interpersonal elaboration Potential Development (PD). Since these constructs are still developing, some tasks and problems which will include them can only be first realised in collaboration with more advanced peers. It is at the Zone of Potential Development (ZPD) i.e. at the time between RD and PD that these constructs, still dependent on inter-personality, will be internalised, becoming intrapersonal ones, resulting in RD and generating autonomy in the tasks. Following Vygotsky, any effective instruction and, therefore, instruction that generates learning and Real Development, must begin by the evaluation of the real and potential development i.e. of tasks that the child can face autonomously and of the tasks that child can already face in interaction but not yet autonomously and must work on ZPD, that is to say, must provide mechanisms of internalisation of these patterns which are still interpersonal. Bruner (1977) elaborates the notion of scaffolding precisely to express the fact that for learning to take place, appropriate social interaction frameworks must be provided. For him, during language acquisition, the adult and the child engage in games or in interactional activities that have a

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format, i.e. present a fixed and predictable routine, and, because of these characteristics, provide a useful framework a scaffolding within which the child develops language and constitutes culture. Also for Cazden (1983), the adult actively guides and provides assistance to the language learning in interaction. There are three ways in which the adult supports the child in language learning. The first way is precisely Bruner's scaffolding. But Cazden further distinguishes between vertical and sequential scaffolding. In vertical scaffolding, the adult extends the child's language or capacity, by, for example, asking further questions or asking for elaboration. In sequential scaffolding, we can see the routines and formats in play and in conventionalised activities mentioned above. The second way of developing interpersonal relationships described by Cazden in language learning is the use of language models by the adult, which supply children with new models of language. Language modelling may also involve elaboration and expansion of the child's language and is probably not mutually exclusive to vertical or sequential scaffolding. The third way the adult can provide assistance to the child's cultural growth is by direct instruction, which is noted especially in the teaching of social conventions. In Vygotskian terms, these three ways to interact in language learning can be seen as processes of interpersonal interaction in the ZPD. According to Vygotsky (1934), the first two ways of interaction vertical and sequential scaffolding and modelling can be seen as examples of daily learning. The third way direct instruction may assume, mainly in school, the form of daily learning or scientific (systematic) learning (i.e. conceptual, metalinguistic, conscious and deductive learning). For the child to internalise the actions, concepts, terms or whatever else is in the course of negotiation, a very important interactional movement is the one named withdrawal of scaffolding. After the interpersonal construction of language activities and knowledge takes place and when the adult presumes that the child can do things autonomously, he or she withdraws the assistance or supports adopted before, allowing the child to do things by her- or himself. These processes and mechanisms of interaction in the ZPD also have implications for the study of the development of written language. Particularly, scaffolding (and withdrawal of scaffolding), modelling and direct instruction are useful mechanisms when looking at the development and teaching of reading and writing in classroom contexts. Reading Strategies Learning to read is one of the most important tasks children have to face when entering school, since effective reading is an essential condition for

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their academic success. In school, children spend many hours in reading instruction. Nonetheless, some of them have difficulty in learning to read. Children's effective reading seems to be greatly influenced by their knowledge about the process, about reading strategies, and about their metacognitive awareness of their own reasoning (Paris, Lipson & Wixson, 1983; Baker & Brown, 1984; Duffy & Roehler, 1987; Magalhães, 1990). For the purposes of this paper, strategies are understood, based on Paris et al. (1983), as actions selected by the reader among others for the purpose of achieving a particular goal. A reader's choice of strategy varies according to the reading situation, the readers' purpose and goals in reading, the difficulty of the text and/or the task, and the reader's resources. Closely related to the concept of strategy and, in fact, an essential condition for strategic behaviour is the concept of metacognition. Metacognition is understood, in this paper, as a person's knowledge of and control over his or her own thinking and learning (Baker & Brown, 1984). According to Palincsar & Brown (1984: 120), there is considerable agreement about the important functions readers engage in: (1) understanding the purposes of reading, both explicit and implicit; (2) activating relevant background knowledge; (3) allocating attention so that concentration can be focused on the major content at the expense of trivia; (4) critical evaluation of content for internal consistency, and compatibility with prior knowledge and common sense; (5) monitoring ongoing activities to see if comprehension is occurring, by engaging in such activities as periodic review and self-questioning; and (6) drawing and testing inferences of many kinds, including interpretations, predictions and conclusions. Methods of Data Collection and Analysis Data Collection Data came from two different research projects. 1 Videotapes of a second-year elementary reading class2 from each research project were selected by the researchers. Data differed concerning the way they were collected and the socio-economic levels of the students involved. That is, one of the schools (School A) was a municipal school located in a poor district where the students typically came from very low socio-economic levels. The other, (School B) was a private one located in a high socio-economic level district, and the students came from the upper classes. Similarly the projects differ according to the relationships between teacher and researcher, during data collection. The project from School A was a collaborative one. The researcher acted as a participant observer in classroom and, later on, negotiated with the teachers regarding the comprehension and transformation of the classroom dialogues, to understand

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the opportunities for literacy development offered. The researcher's role during the project in School B was as observer only. Both teachers E (School A) and K (School B) were volunteers. In both cases, data collection was longitudinal, with weekly video-re-cording. Data Analysis Data were scrutinised many times to examine teacher/student interactions in both classes in order to understand their meaning and how they could assist students to learn about the interactive and strategic process of reading. During this process of comparison and contrast, assertions were generated, transformed and eliminated, and instances of the classroom interactions which we believed best showed teacher and students' joint construction of knowledge were selected. Discussion As the results of data analysis show, what is in question when teaching reading is not merely what is focused on by the teacher (strategies, content, words, structures, and so on), but mainly how it is done by the teacher to provide learning. The dialogues between both teachers and their students in Schools A and B reveal their intention to emphasise reading as a strategic and interactive process of constructing meaning. That is, they create opportunities for students to interact with reading and to demonstrate their knowledge about using strategies such as predicting from the title, using lexical inference, recovering information from background knowledge and selecting important ideas to keep track of meaning. Teacher emphasis on strategic and interactive reading is not common in ordinary Brazilian elementary schools (Magalhães, 1991; Kleiman, 1990, 1993). In fact, reading instruction usually emphasises the product viewed as decoding and extracting explicit information. In this sense, K's and E's reading practices are ahead of what is typically going on in Brazilian schools at any socio-economic level. Although both teachers are working ahead of most others, they still reveal difficulties in stressing the process of using strategies, mainly due to the interactional patterns of looking for content as traditionally established in classrooms. In order to examine the interactional patterns in both classrooms from Schools A and B, examples from each instructional context will be separately discussed.

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School A Throughout the lesson, the interactional pattern jointly constructed by E and her students shows her role in questioning and the students' role in answering according to clues provided by her. E initiates and guides all the thinking and talking in classroom. She assists students in (a) revealing their knowledge about predicting from the title; Co) clarifying their answers; (c) introducing the purpose of reading; and (d) using the story structure to construct meaning. She explains to them the purpose of task completion, the concept of summarising, and signals the moment to stop so as to select the important ideas. She also models how to monitor their comprehension and how to proceed when a comprehension problem is detected. Three instances of classroom interaction will be discussed in order to closely examine teachers' role in offering students an expert scaffold to assist them during meaning construction. In fact, it seems, though our (joint) intention was to emphasise reading as a process, it seems content was mostly emphasised. (1) (E (the teacher) writes on the board the name of the book she is going to read with the students. She writes on the board: 'Bitu, the dirty little lamb') E: I want to remember... Before we start, I want to remember everything that helps us to read a book. What is the first thing we do? Sts: We read the title. E: Why does looking at the title help? Help what? Sts: To know. E: To know what? Sts: The story. E: But, why does the title help to know anything about the story? St: It doesn't help. E: Do you think it doesn't help? Sts: It does help. E: Why do you think it doesn't help? For instance, the title, Bitu the dirty little lamb, do you think this helps us to think about the story? Sts: It does help. E: If you did not know the title, would you know the story would be about Bitu, a dirty little lamb? Sts: No. St: We do not need the title. We have the drawing. E: Ah! That's the reason you said you did not need the title. That's true. The drawing helps, but the title also helps. Let's think about the story. What is the story going to be about? Sts: About a little lamb called Bitu. E: Let's read to see what this little lamb is and what he is going to do. Knowing that it is a narrative also helps because in the narrative you know we have characters, setting, and what else?

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Sts: The problem. E: And then? Sts: Solve the problem. E: Well, we are going to read, trying to see in each paragraph, in each little piece a main idea to help us to summarise the story. After reading we will write a summary of the story. What is a summary? Sts: I don't know. E: Does anybody know what a summary is? Sts: I don't know. St: A summary is rewriting. E: It is to rewrite a story, but in summary format. Sts: We do not tell everything about the story. E: You don't understand what a summary is. I am going to read the story and next we will select what is the most important. Whatever was written only to add something, we will not select. We will write only what is MOST ESPECIALLY IMPORTANT in the story. Now do you understand what a summary is? Sts: (silence) E: You do not tell everything, only the most important ideas. We are going to summarise. Sts: I tell everything. E: Everything? No, only the summary. St: I tell everything alike. E: You tell with your words what happened. It is the summary. Do you understand? Summaries are the things which are most. Sts: important. (2) (E reads the introduction of the characters and the setting of the story. The students listen attentively): E: Of this that I've read, what is it most important? Sts: The house with the red roof. Sts: The two brothers. E: Is it more important to talk about the house with the red roof or about the two brothers? Sts: The two brothers. E: (Writes on the board: 'Characters: They were two brothers') Let's see the description of the house. (Reads) All of this is detail. The story starts with the two brothers. It is the most important thing. (Reads) What is the most important in all I've read? (...): E: Let's see the description of the house. (Reads) It's all details. The story starts with the two brothers. It's more important. (Goes on reading) What's there which is most important in what I've read? St: The brothers are different. Bitu is dirty...

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E: Bitu is dirty. So, what is more important in all I've read? (Points to a student) He said that the two brothers are different. (Pointing to another one) He said that one is clean and the other is dirty. What else? (...) E: Do you think the problem has already come up? Sts: No. E: I think the problem is going to come up. (Reads) Let's see. Of this I've read what is the most important? Sts: The problem. E: The problem has already come up. Something has just happened ... St: No. St: Yes. E: (Points to a student) He thinks it has. He invited the brother for a walk. Well, let's see what's going to happen. (Reads, reduces reading speed) This bit I haven't understood. Well, I'm going to read it again. (E goes back to the beginning of the sentence and reads again) Now, I get it, the sun has dried the water and the mud. This is the way we proceed when we don't understand what we read. We go back and read again. I didn't understand, I went back, read again and understood. One has always to remember what we've done up to now. (She reconsiders the ideas written on the board) (3) (It's almost break time. E has finished reading): E: Let's read what I've written. Do you think you're able to tell this story to anyone at home?. St: No, I don't. St: The two brothers... E: You don't tell only if you don't want to. St: I am. E: So, come and tell me. St: No. E: (Reads the summary on the board. The students talk holding their sandwiches. A few took at the teacher.) Well, folks, it's remembering these main points that we are going to make a summary. You're going to include the main parts of the story. St: I've already memorised. I'm going to copy. E: You're going to make a summary after break. I'm going to clean the blackboard. Sts: Ah!, Ah!, Ah! The first instance exemplifies a procedure for starting reading classes which was typical of E's instruction. That is, she tries to assist students to activate their knowledge about what strategies might help them before reading in order to activate their background knowledge (predicting from the title), during reading in order to keep control of meaning (using the

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narrative structure, and questioning oneself about what is important to know), and after reading to organise information (making a summary). The interactional pattern jointly constructed by both teacher and students, during this episode, is shaped by E's action in providing students with vertical scaffolding to help them to activate and to reveal their knowledge about which strategy to use and, sometimes, why to use it. She does that through questioning, through direct instruction, and expanding students' answers. The students' role is one of answering the questions and acting within the framework provided by the teacher. However, the interactional pattern also reveals E's conflict motivated by her intention in providing students with an opportunity to experience the reading process and the typical emphasis of school on the content, and on the question/answer interactional pattern, centred on the teacher. Thus, despite E's intention to emphasise the process she actually stresses what to do (declarative knowledge) rather than how (procedural knowledge) and why and when to use (metacognitive knowledge), working mostly on students' RD. The second episode reveals the same interactional pattern. That is, E guides the students to consider the most important ideas. When a students' answers reveals difficulty in selecting the important ideas at the expense of trivia she provides more help and a clue to guide them to direct attention to what she considered important. The structure of the story is emphasised to help students to recognise the details and to select the important ideas. However, this excerpt shows an instant in which E makes overt her own process while thinking aloud to reveal how she monitors her own comprehension and how she solves a problem which she has detected. At this moment E emphasises what to do, how to proceed, then why to proceed this way. This last episode was chosen since it reveals some of the students' reactions when they realise E is cleaning the board and that after break they are supposed to summarise the information read. The strategies students show they use, such as memorisation and copying at the expense of the ones stressed during class, such as the structure of narrative, asking oneself about what information was important, reveal their difficulty in transferring information to independent work. In addition, E's excessive control of task development, as well as her difficulty in withdrawing the scaffolding and the emphasis on content (declarative knowledge) may have made it more difficult for students to learn how to use the strategies stressed and to develop a strategic behaviour in reading. School B In School B, K is also teaching the second year of primary school. The following examples were recorded during a class of Social Studies, where K was reviewing information with the children about the way of life of

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Eskimos, worked on before by using films, texts and discussion, to relate them to new information to appear in a new text about the way of life of Lapps. She negotiates reading strategies with the children. Her focus is on prediction, recovering information and lexical inference strategies. In Example (1), collected in the beginning of the class, K's main focus is on recovering information strategies; in Example (2), recorded when K will present the new text to the group, her focus is on prediction strategies; and, finally, in Example (3), recorded during the commented and interactive reading of the new text about Lapp people made by K, her main focus is on lexical inference strategies. (1) (K (the teacher) and the students (Sts) are discussing Eskimos): K: (K is seating on the table, in front of the group) Well... Let's remember... What are we studying? St: / Fishes. K: / ...by now?/No! Fishes are where? Sts: Eskimos! K: Eskimos! Who are the Eskimos? (Children talk at the same time) K: Let's do it this way: you put your hands up. (Some children raise their hands) K: P! P: They/they/they...are/someone like this/who live/... K: Are they persons? P: Yes. They are/...they are people... J: / Living beings...who live... P: / Because they live in a colder place... K: In a colder region? P: Yes. K: What is a colder region? Why it is colder there? (Children talk at the same time) K: Wait! M! M: (Makes a circular gesture with his arms) Because he is a...it is up... K: Up what? M: Up...(he makes a circular gesture, rotating his index finger) J: / the Heart. Sts: / the Heart. K: (to M) What is the name of that thing? That round thing? St: Globe! K: No./The globe!/ Is it up in the globe? ST: No. ST: Yes. M: Yes. K: What is the name of this region where they live? M: North Pole. Sts: North Pole.

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K: Yeah! (...) (2) (K has just handed out the text 'Lapps, the people of the midnight sun') K: P, wait to read with me because there are so many things. P: No, I've only read the title. K: You've read the title? P: Yes. K: And what is the title? P & Sts: 'Lapps/ the people of/ of the midnight sun' K: The people of the midnight sun. Have you ever seen the sun at midnight? P: No. K: But it does happen. Sts: In Japan. St: Is it there? K: No. Not in Japan./ St: /Yes. It is the opposite. K: When it is day here, it is night in Japan./ St: / They are sleeping now./ K: / But there is a people who live in some regions where the sun still shines at midnight. M: What time is it? K: In Japan? M: No. Here in São Paulo. K: Here in São Paulo? Ah! Why do you want to know that? (Children talk at the same time) K: It is/ four o'clock. (Children talk at the same time) K: Four o'clock in the morning!/ Speak up, M! M: Ah! There is a country there/ that it is...day for a month/ and night for a month/ F: / Six months... K: Let's check, now?/We can talk a little later about it, because I think that this question of yours will be here.../ There will be a moment to discuss your doubts later on, Ok? Let's find some things out...(...) (3) (K is reading the text 'Lapps, the people of midnight sun' with the children): K: 'They are nine hundred thousand people/ who, through many generations have improved their way of life/in harmony with nature'.../ Who has understood this paragraph? Shall we read again? I want to see who.../ ...Ok. Let's make a deal. Anything that you can understand, anything, it is Ok, Ok? Anything, do you heard, F? This is a class to make hypotheses, Ok? Anything is valid. It is to guess. Hypothesis is to guess. We read, we think about what it means and we say. Without fear of making a mistake, Ok? Well,

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we'll read it again. 'In these lands, there are an unusual people. They are nine hundred thousand persons/ who, through many generations/ have improved their way of life/ in harmony with nature St: I know! St: I know! K: Wait! The first was P.! P: They live with () nature... () with nature. K: They live in harmony with nature. What is 'harmony'? What does the word 'harmony' suggest to you? (to P) J: The Harmony Club! K: Hum! The Harmony Club is not at all suggested by the word 'harmony', Ok? Does anyone else want to guess? Because the Club is something else, Ok? (The children laugh) K: But it is valid, Ok? What about you, F.! What is the word 'harmony'? F: It is peace.../ ...more or less... K: Peace.../ Isn't there music that is harmonious to listen to?/ St: / I know something!/ K.: / Music that are what? (Children talk at the same time) K: Soft.../ Who says 'soft'? M: (Puts up his hand) K: Soft.../ 'Harmony' is peace, all the things well-balanced.../ For example, if all of you speak at the same time and if I keep speaking louder and louder, can we have a harmonious day? Sts: Noooo! J: On the contrary. K: Shall we have a day...?/ What is the opposite of 'harmony'? St: Unharmony. (The children laugh) K: It may be. 'Unharmony'. St: No harmony. K.: No harmony. Ok! F: It will be a troubled day. K: Troubled. No harmony. St: Unharmony. Unharmony. K.: Disharmony, Ok? (...) In this example, although K is supposed to work on strategic reading, especially on recovering information, predicting and lexical inference strategies, the interactional method she uses is doubtful. First of all, we cannot know whether she is working on the children's ZPD or RD or PD, because there is no intentional episode of evaluation of reading strategies recorded. Secondly, during recovering information, in example (1), her main focus is on vocabulary and ideas extracted from the original text (like 'people', 'region', 'Earth', 'North Pole'), which makes her

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interaction less flexible about the ideas and content given by the children. Although in this episode she never gives direct information, her preferred type of scaffolding is vertical, mainly based on modelling her chosen lexicon and content, instead of recovering the most meaningful information from the children. In the second example, where from the title she is anticipating information of the text about the Lapps that will be read, although she tries to maintain her focus on the prediction strategy, she seems to act in an unfriendly way and to be in a hurry to check on strategies. For example, when the children ask for the time, to compare with the time in Japan, she asks 'Why do you want to know that?'. Questioned later about her unwillingness to answer this question, she declares that she thought M was asking for a break. Also, when M anticipates the information activated by the title, she describes this prediction as a 'question' or 'doubt' and she immediately moves to checking strategies ('Let's check, now?/ We can talk a little later about it, because I think that this question of yours will be here.../ There will be a moment to discuss your doubts later on, Ok? Let's find some things out...'). This is again a sign of the absolute priority she attaches to the text against the children's knowledge. But it is the third example, when she is reading the text in collaboration with the children, again centred on the lexicon ('harmony') and working on a lexical inference strategy, where K's attitude is clearest. She has a declared pedagogical intention to work on lexical inferences ('Let's make a deal. Anything that you can understand, anything, it is Ok, Ok? Anything, do you heard, F? This is a class to make hypotheses, Ok? Anything is valid. It is to guess. Hypothesis is to guess. We read, we think about what it means and we say. Without fear of making a mistake, Ok?'), but at J's first try, relating the word 'harmony' to a Club of the city that has the same name, she cannot rejects it, preferring F.'s talk about 'peace' ('The Harmony Club is not at all suggested by the word ''harmony'', Ok? Does anyone else want to guess ? Because the Club is something else, Ok?). Even F's contribution about 'peace' is soon substituted by her own frame of 'harmony' that is embedded in 'musical harmony', which determines the selection of 'soft' (in the sense of 'pianissimo', as demonstrated by the next moral episode in her example). Although her frame of 'harmony' is as inadequate to the sense of the text as J's frame, she establishes her frame as the best frame. Nevertheless, this attitude is not absolutely crystallised in K. In the next episode, about the opposite of 'harmony', she is much more flexible with the 'wrong' inferences of the children (like 'unharmony' or 'no harmony'). She is more prepared to tolerate 'wrong' inferences in the form than in the content or in the meaning.

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Finally, although the children demonstrate autonomy in these strategies, she never withdraws the scaffolding or passes the centre of the interaction to her pupils. These episodes of classroom interaction, not very common in reading classroom interaction in regular Brazilian schools, because of being focused on strategies and not merely on content as is the general practice in Brazilian reading classes, are not totally effective. This is not due to the teacher's training in strategic reading, but to the teacher's education in learning and instruction. This demonstrates the need for better teacher education in the domain of learning processes and interaction, so as to provide children with opportunities to gain effective participation in learning, by the adoption of true interpersonal scaffolding and appropriately-timed withdrawal of it. Notes 1. Both projects are coordinated by the authors. We are grateful for support provided by the Brazilian research agency CNPq. 2. The class was of course taught in Portuguese. The transcripts are translated. (Editors' note)

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9 Metaphors and Language Awareness MIKE SCOTT This paper argues a case for Language Awareness, relating the need for student understanding of language and of language processing, to an important but hitherto little-used method of presentation, the illustrated metaphor. It then presents the results of a small-scale study investigating metaphors produced by EFL teachers. How do those on either side of formal foreign language learning see the process? Do teachers see it as something which necessarily involves hard work on the part of the learners? Do they think that if learners attend class regularly and pay attention, learning will usually follow? Do they think motivation is the key, or perhaps that getting hold of the fight method will open doors for learning? Do they place nearly all the responsibility on the learners' shoulders? What about learners? Do they think it's really the teacher's job to teach them, and that if the teacher is good, they will learn the foreign language? Do they think the method is important? Do they believe as teachers usually do that almost anybody can learn a foreign language? How much of the responsibility do they place on the teacher's shoulders? These questions are amongst the concerns of those engaged in studying Language Awareness (LA). The purpose of this paper is to explore the concept and applicability of LA. In so doing, we shall have occasion to explore the mental models underlying it. So far, I have used at least two fairly easily-spotted metaphors. I referred to a 'key', which can 'open doors'; I likened responsibility to a weight carried on the shoulders. Other words (e.g. see, model) in the text above can also be considered to be metaphorical but here I am concerned with metaphor which can easily be raised to consciousness. A recent paper (Pöhl, 1994) describes how teacher trainees and language learners in Budapest saw some of these roles. Some, reportedly, saw language learning as akin to a visit to the hairdresser's: in return for patience and payment, a transformation is effected, without much effort on the learner's part. Others saw it as a visit to a fitness centre. The centre provides

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the facilities and some advice, but any changes are almost entirely dependent on the learner's efforts. Others might see language learning as they would going to a disco where you have fun and make relationships: essentially a social enterprise. Why Language Awareness? Those involved in the growing movement concerned with LA do not see these questions as merely peripheral. On the contrary, they go to the heart of the language learning activity. In order to justify this, we shall need to consider various aspects of language learning, and what learning entails, before eventually returning to metaphors. It is clear that involved in language learning are at least the following six factors: opportunity, practice, memory, motor skills, attention, and understanding. The first two factors concern access: without an opportunity to use a language, even a mother tongue may decline with time, and there are no cases of language learning reported in the literature which did not involve some practice. For most learners a lot of practice is required and supplied by teachers. The next pair, memory and motor skills, concern swift, efficient processing. It is obvious that learners need to remember a lot of grammar and vocabulary, and that they need to retrieve what they have stored quickly and automatically. Motor skills (efficient coordination of the vocal apparatus and hand-eye coordination in writing) may already be present for most foreign language learners but usually further development will be needed to 'get one's tongue around' new sound combinations or a different writing system. Eventually, language use should ideally become semi-automatic, so that one speaks, writes, listens and reads without needing to think much and without usually being aware about how one does it. But the problem, and much of the rationale for language awareness insofar as it applies to foreign language learning, is paradoxical. In order to reach automatic, almost unconscious language competence, the learner (so LA proponents claim) will need to be consciously aware of two fundamental aspects of language learning: the language system, and how to go about learning it. This will mean that they will need to pay attention (a non-controversial claim to most teachers) and to understand. Understanding involves both 'how to learn' and how the target language 'works'. 'How it works' has itself at least three aspects: grammar rules, the scope of lexis, and appropriacy. That learners of English as a foreign language will need to have some control of the tense system, is another non-controversial claim. The English-speaking learner of Spanish has to

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know that 'red wine' is not 'vino rojo' (literally wine + red as in red paint) but 'vino tinto' (coloured wine): lexical equivalence between two languages is a matter of more or less matching relationships and the most predictable aspect of lexical scope is that it is not readily predictable. Likewise, the learner has to understand that in English the rhetorical patterns usually encourage a frequent and often insincere use of politeness markers such as please and thank you. Let us however consider more carefully what it may mean 'to have control of the tense system'. The claim made above was that a necessary (although clearly not sufficient) condition of language learning is 'understanding'. Perhaps the best evidence of this comes from the phenomenon known as over-generalisation. It is well established that native-speaking children appear to pass through three phases in learning how to form an utterance such as 'He went to work'. At a first stage the verb is 'went' (whatever may happen to the rest of the utterance); at a second stage children characteristically produce 'goed', even when they are certain never to have heard anyone else producing this form. In the third phase they return to 'went'. The universal existence of the second phase is at once an example of over-generalisation and evidence that the child has analysed the structure of the verb phrase. This process of analysis may be called 'understanding'. Naturally the child at this second stage cannot explain her analysis, but it is not unreasonable to call the phenomenon analysis and (some kind or degree of) understanding. In a similar fashion, foreign language learners over-generalise. That is, they produce forms which show that they have partially understood the system operating in the target language. So far, I think it is non-controversial to claim that language learners must 'understand' in the sense shown above. The question now arises, how explicit and conscious should such 'understanding' be? Is it necessary, or useful, for learners (unlike little children) to be able to explain what their learning processes are, and to be able to state or consciously understand how the language system works? The definition of LA in the Constitution of the Association for Language Awareness goes as follows: Language Awareness is explicit knowledge about language and conscious perception and sensitivity in language learning, language teaching and language use. Key words (note the opening doors metaphor again) here are: explicit, conscious, perception, sensitivity. Table 9.1 shows associations of these terms as produced (a) by a thesaurus, and (b) by a study of their collocates in a sample of journalistic text. The table suggests that understanding comes into language learning in terms of perception and sensitivity, and that know-

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Table 9.1 Key word Thesaurus explicit

Collocates

definite, distinct, precise, sexually, (anatomically specific explicit dolls), knowledge

conscious alert, sensible, sentient

become, raise, public, make, issue, importance, women

comprehension, knowledge, realisation, perception understanding

public, problem, world

sympathy, tenderness, sensitivity understanding

great, little, improved, feelings

ledge comes into perception and explicit. It seems that someone raises consciousness on issues of importance. Sensitivity involves feelings as well as analysis. To what extent is it necessary for the understanding described above to be made explicit? Here, the research evidence is not yet at all decisive. But let us at least consider what it would mean for such understanding, as it presumably is in the case of the young child, not to be made explicit. The Germans have a word for it: Sprachgefühl. This is the feeling that one may have that a construction 'sounds fight', and it surely underlies most of our production and reception of language, native and often foreign. It is through Sprachgefühl that an advertiser prefers not to call a new product 'slirt', or 'snirt', and it is through Sprachgefühl that a native speaker rejects 'Also he arrived', preferring 'He arrived too'. Linguists describe these constructions 1 but most language users cannot. So how do we 'know' or 'understand' that a construction is possible or unlikely in our native language? It seems that through a great deal of exposure to speech and writing, we build up a vague sense of pattern. We 'understand', in this sense, that something 'sounds natural' or otherwise. If the native speaker has Sprachgefühl, why do LA proponents argue then for explicit knowledge and conscious perception? This is because of the important distinction between target abilities and enabling abilities. The target does not necessarily include conscious perception of language, merely competent handling of the foreign language. (Incidentally, LA proponents would argue that explicit knowledge about language should also be part of every citizen's cultural baggage, as should some understanding of, say the Big Bang theory.) But in order to reach the target, LA proponents will claim, we need to have some explicit understanding of language function and structure.

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'I just want to drive: I don't need to know how the engine works!' Someone learning to drive does not need to know that the HT lead from coil to distributor carries a very high voltage current. We may confidently reject a claim that to learn to drive one needs the understanding that an automotive engineer has consciously available. This is one end of a cline. What about the other? full conscious understanding ...................... no conscious understanding It is unlikely that someone learning to drive who had no conscious understanding of driving would survive the experience. A learner driver needs to be aware that the middle foot pedal is used for braking, that changing down also helps braking, that some pressure on the accelerator is needed if the engine is not to stall, etc. Naturally, after a time, these become 'second nature': we forget we had to think about them when we learned, and driving becomes more 'fluent' and more automatic. Resources can now be spared for listening to the radio or having a conversation; at the early stages all our resources were taken up with controlling pedals and avoiding oncoming traffic. Thus far, I have argued that some 'explicit knowledge about language and conscious perception and sensitivity' will help learners to learn a foreign language. Nobody can learn to drive without any conscious knowledge about driving. If L1 learners acquire language by covert processes of analysis and without systematic overt explicit knowledge, that does not mean that L2 learners should proceed in the same way. For one thing, they just don't have the time. A simple, very rough-and-ready calculation shows that after an L1 learner has spent, let us say 6 hours a day exposed to and covertly analysing language, this child will have totted up over 10,000 hours in language acquisition over the first five years. L2 learners starting from scratch and attending 7 years of classes in a language school, at 3 hours a week, will have done only 10% of this. Of course, the two situations are very different in many important respects, but the LA claim is merely that some of the L2 learner's time is well spent on explicit knowledge, that 'understanding' in this sense will enable learning so that eventually much language production in L2 can become automatised and run on Sprachgefühl. It was claimed above that foreign language learning entailed learning not only how the target language 'works', but also how to learn it. LA is not merely dry-as-dust knowledge about grammar. It is not mere knowledge of technical terms. It is not to be equated with teaching deductively; it is most certainly not a return to the grammar-translation method. Learning to learn involves a process which I have described elsewhere as conscientização, and defined thus for a context concerned centrally with reading comprehension in English for Academic Purposes: Ensuring students understand, with their hearts as well as their heads, why they are learning and practising the skills being taught, how they

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individually do so, and to what extent proposed strategies are effective, and what the reading process involves. (Scott, 1986: 3) The two main reasons for learning to learn are: students often simply do not know some pieces of information about learning (like not knowing which pedal is which in a car); and learners may suffer from misapprehensions about learning, usually acquired in earlier language learning. Examples, (developed at more length in Scott, 1986) include: the misapprehension that one should always start a text at the beginning and work gradually through it, and most basic, that I, the learner, am not going to manage. Misapprehensions can be measured and tackled: one way is through metaphor. Such a view suggests that as part of enabling FL learners, some time should be spent on conscious awareness-raising about learning strategies. I am heartened by the more general acceptance of this claim and application of it in EFL materials, than was the case in the mid 1980s. Nevertheless, I feel that we still need efficient techniques for developing learner awareness, and that there is a gulf between teaching efficient coping strategies (which is handled in modem materials) and showing why they should be used. Back to Metaphor One of the most powerful techniques for raising conscious awareness, both of how the target language works and of how to learn it, is metaphor, and it is with metaphor that the rest of this paper is concerned. It is useful to consider how metaphor works in this context and what the limits of conscious metaphor may be. The first question to tackle concerns why metaphor may be powerful as an enabling tool. After that, we shall consider limitations and dangers, and end up with the question of ownership: 'whose metaphor is it?' To see metaphor as intrinsically powerful, it is first necessary to consider the function of labelling and the use of technical terms. Technical terms are the bug-bear of any formal learning. They are generally subsumed under the pejorative term 'jargon' which is the label given to words-I-don't-understand-and-don't-like. 2 Speakers rail at jargon because they feel excluded by it, and one side-effect of the use of technical terms is to exclude those who are not 'in the know'. However, complaint about this side-effect does not invalidate the notion of a technical term. The point is, rather, that technical terms are part of language use, and an essential part of it at that. Words are created for a purpose, and an important part of that purpose is to aid thought and communication. The word 'chair' or its ancestor form, was once a technical term in this sense, when someone decided it was useful to build furniture and not just sit on whatever came to hand or rather to bottom.

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Clearly, replacing 'that thing with legs and a back which Mary has built' with 'chair' was a metaphorical step forward. It made it easier to talk about different kinds of chair and perhaps invent new pieces of furniture: sofas, stools, etc. The claim here is that the very existence of the new term makes life paradoxically harder and at the same time easier. Harder, because everyone has to learn the new word; easier, because the handle, or label, acting as a convenient short-hand, helps us to manipulate ideas in shortterm memory. As Miller's landmark article of 1956 shows, the capacity of short-term memory is limited to about 7 'chunks'. A label enables one to chunk the complexity of Mary building something out of wood, an object which has several verticals (which Mary or her friends have labelled metaphorically because of their supporting function as 'legs'), to encapsulate it, as 'chair'. Having learned the label and become familiar with it, we can now handle 'chair' as one chunk, instead of cluttering up the whole of short-term memory with the complex details, and that then leaves us room in short-term memory storage buffer for about six other chunks to be manipulated as we please. Labelling the world is not only quite central to any kind of language use, it is also the mechanism by which language may grow, and thought develop, according to this argument. It even becomes possible to ignore certain features (such as Mary's chair being made of wood) so as to concentrate on a simplified chunk. Miller put it like this: The point is that recoding is an extremely powerful weapon for increasing the amount of information that we can deal with. In one form or another we use recoding constantly in our daily behaviour. (...) In particular, the kind of linguistic recoding that people do seems to me to be the very life-blood of the thought processes. (1968: 47-8) In terms of foreign language learning, as we start class, many of our learners may have as part of their 'mental furniture', the terms 'verb' and 'noun'. Most other terms used by linguists will be either absent or confused. The question then arises: to what extent is it convenient to label ideas we need to talk about explicitly, using technical terms. This question was debated at the end of a recent presentation on teaching young children in L1 to think critically. The speaker, Victor Quinn, teaches children aged 7 about premises and conclusions, the essentials of the logical syllogism. Hence 'Sarah's first Contradiction'. The advantage of the label to Sarah as well as to her teacher, was that they had a language with which to think about talk: a metalanguage. No doubt to Sarah the new terms contradiction and universal claim were no harder or easier to retain and handle than any other label she is learning as she grows up, however unfamiliar or jargon-like they might seem to her parents or other teachers. The argument for metaphor as an enabling tool, is that just as the technical term may provide a means for talking about talk, so metaphor can help us talk about learning. One example I have often used is illustrated by the idiom 'You can't see the forest for the trees'.

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Figure 9.1 The forest and the trees The stick figure in Figure 9.1 'nearest to the camera' can see the whole scene; the one nearest to the trees can see the twigs and branches but cannot get an overview. In language learning terms, this is akin to a learner who struggles painfully through a text reading every word very carefully and checking the unknown words in the dictionary, and who is unable to see the whole message. After mentioning the metaphor in class, I have had an easy means of talking about this problem, a shorthand, a metalanguage. Learners in Brazil and in Liverpool can and do tell each other or me 'I'm having trouble with the forest'. In Colombia I once saw illustrated as a language teaching device, an equally powerful way of representing the same notion, also expressed in idiom: the 'bird's eye view'. Metaphors can be powerful learning devices. But they can also be deceptive. The chief danger comes where the similarity between the original concept and the metaphorical likeness is stretched too far. For example, a common metaphor, so common that it's a cliché, is 'the ship of state'. This metaphor likens a country to a ship navigating the seas, and is usually used in association with the 'captain'. The three examples found, using a concordancer, in a sample of 4.2 million words of Guardian newspaper from 1990-93, are all rather jocular in tone, which is not surprising as journalists writing serious texts usually attempt to avoid cliché.

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(1) 'Captain Paddy and the ship of state...' (2) 'Downing Street still insists that John Major has no plans to change his ministerial crew until the summer. But as the ship of state pushes through the storm ministers are engaged in a kind of slow-motion, rolling reshuffle, fighting for better positions in the lifeboat rather than in the water.' (3) 'Last time they tried the poll tax on The ship of state was jolted. It's sad to say, it didn't pay: The peasants all revolted.' What are the points of resemblance between a ship and a country? The metaphor might suggest that a country is almost completely isolated from other countries (unless these are 'pirate sloops'): the main problem is the 'storm'. The captain of a ship has total control and can act as a judge: there is little consultation with a cabinet of ministers and none with the passengers. The chief danger, expressed clearly in (2), is of sinking, a fate which does not befall countries, which may decline and fall but are not generally destroyed. 3 A major presupposition is that the ship's passengers, who do not have anything in particular to contribute to the voyage or the captain's decisions, are the citizens of the country. Another is that countries are progressing, from a home port, with a destination in mind. It is important, then, to be sure that a learning metaphor does not impose a view which stretches the facts too far. Let us consider another metaphor often produced by teachers. This relates reading a text to travelling on a journey. In this scenario, reading has a 'starting point' and a 'goal', and certain aids to travel: a map (skimming), a compass (the dictionary), etc. I have also used the metaphor of riding a bicycle, or crossing stepping-stones in a river in relation to reading: if you go very slowly, you'll fall off. The problem is that reading is not very like a journey. Or rather, that the kinds of reading which one wants to advocate are not like a journey. Usually, one wants to suggest that students should use flexibility (start the journey in the middle or near the end), and that they should first skim over the text and then re-read the most important parts until they have achieved their purposes. This is not much like a journey! A better metaphor is that of the dictionary as a bottle of medicine (Figure 9.2). The idea is that a dictionary is to be used in small doses when it is needed not all the time. I have been collecting metaphors like these for some years, and the dictionary as medicine came up in a workshop on this topic with primary and secondary school teachers in Piauí, Brazil. The following study was an attempt to investigate the new metaphors which foreign-language teachers might develop.

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Figure 9.2 The dictionary as medicine The Study Subjects were some 50 EFL teachers in two workshops, in the University of Lancaster and the University of Liverpool. They were of many different nationalities, though there was a preponderance of teachers from Malaysia, Albania and Rumania, in the Lancaster session. After a brief introduction showing the 'forest and the trees' and 'dictionary as medicine', subjects were asked to produce their own metaphors, individually or in consultation with a neighbour, based on a handout (see Figure 9.3). This is not easy for all subjects. In previous workshops I have found that cajoling the creative juices to flow can take time, and I suspect that productivity, as in language-learning, may be related to willingness to take risks. This is not yet a conventional TEFL or teacher-education task, and it is possible that some teachers in the workshops may have questioned its purpose. By the end of the workshop, however, there were enough metaphors generated for a lively discussion of their potential suitability. Results 42 copies of the handout were returned. These included a wide variety of responses; those which appeared to relate a languageteaching concept to the world outside are cited below in categories, with the most frequent at the top of each. My interpretation of the idea intended is of course subjective, as informants mostly did not explain their reasoning in writing.

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Metaphors and Language Awareness Examples A verb in a sentence can be compared to a pivot of a see-saw. In some ways, listening to a foreign language is like going to a party where you don't know anybody. Instructions Please try to think of some comparisons like those of the examples. For the first 5 I'm giving you the objects, for the second 5 you get linguistic phenomena. A. What in your teaching or studying of TEFL, is similar to: (1) an egg (2) a pair of scissors (3) an hour-glass (4) going on a journey (5) a game of football B. What objects or processes are similar to: (1) skimming a text (2) the Present Perfect tense (3) narratives (4) please and thank you (5) the introduction to an article Figure 9.3 Handout (1) An Egg growth: potehtial / pregnant with significance / many uses of the English language / language acquisition: 'change hidden inside until one day something magic happens!' / 'exploiting a language to creative use' wholeness: good in parts / a lesson as a whole fragility: learner's self-esteem (2) / 'the student's heart: once you've broken it or let them down, there's no way of fixing it' / 'phonetics, something fragile for foreigners' versatility: set phrases e.g. 'That's a nice shirt', versatile like an egg (scrambled, boiled etc.) in cooking / other: new course for the learner or problematic learner for the teacher / collecting data / learning / good communication / clichés & phrases /

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reading & understanding / the yolk of vocabulary and the white of context / tenses / lexis / knowledge storage / a successful lesson / student motivation / pronunciation / varying activities in class / spelling / word-order, swear-words / input theory: hopefully hatchable / deep & surface structure (2) A Pair of Scissors cutting: error correction (5) / teaching 'you cut off ragged edges to form a perfect shape' / structural analysis (2) / cutting out unnecessary or difficult concepts / focus on the most important things / 'shaping the student into something useful' / matching & shaping students to needs / substitution tables / conciseness two parts: teacher & students joined (2) / teacher-learner interaction / symbiosis other: parents of students you've just failed, coming to attack you / Sprachgefühl / exercises that flop / much knowledge but fewer skills / grammar teaching / teaching ESP / Present-Past Tense, Present-Future, Past-Future / collocations / conjunctions / tips in teaching pronunciation / antonymy (3) An Hour-glass time: time constraint (6) / patience (2) / short language courses in private schools / a boring lesson (student's perspective) shape: talking in a FL: all ideas have to pass through a very narrow strait / linking the Present Tense to Past Tense / a balanced sentence / word order statement-question with 'is', 'have', etc. / 'to be' and 'to have' in affirmatives & interrogative sentences: the learner changes subject & predicate / transformation of sentences other: testing (2) / correcting homework / covering a structure / feedback / vocabulary / reading / testing oral skills (4) Going on a Journey novelty: planning an essay (2) / starting a new lesson or topic (2) / starting to say something in a FL / beginning to read a text / preparing for an exam / a new lesson interest: reading an interesting text (5) / 'feeling of excitement from no understanding to full understanding'

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other: learning a language (2) / teaching structures: simple-complex / teaching methods / teaching grammar / classroom activity / a revision lesson / the dictionary / designing a task / a monologue / studying English: 'the more you learn about it, the more you find that you don't know' / word order (5) A Game of Football interaction: conversation (6) / group-work (5) / team-work (5) / open discussion, ideas passed around (2) / meaning gets kicked around, into touch / encouraging students to speak in class / teacher-student interaction / learning all 4 skills interactively / interactive skills rules: following grammar rules (3) players: 'the teacher is the referee: he/she never joins in the action' / asking & answering questions with teacher as goal-keeper competitiveness: competition in class / competitive classroom activity other: grammar 'sweat it out to reach a goal' / role-play, mime / extensive reading & speaking / sequence of tenses (1) Skimming a Text selectivity: skimming milk (3) / window-shopping (2) / eating only the food you like in a party/searching for a book on a shelf / clarifying butter / picking the best blackberries / a map in which you look for certain towns / a sieve speed: water-skiing (2) / running in a race / an express train stopping only at certain stations / recognising someone on a passing train / skimming stones on a pond familiarity: meeting someone for the first time / a party where you've vaguely met a few people before / reviewing value: a treasure hunt (2) other: aerial view (3) / the WordPerfect spell-checker / an image / a sausage machine / a PC mouse / a rake or spoon / forest / going downstairs / producing a draft / a medical check-up

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(2) The Present Perfect Tense time: a photograph (2) / pregnancy / remembering something / saying goodbye to someone you'll never see again / a souvenir / buying a souvenir / the déja vu / launching a product on the market links: a bridge (2) / a crocodile (lives in water & on land) problem: a puzzle / a rabbit or eel: hard to catch / gymnastics / slap on the face / weeds in a garden that keep coming up but are best just ignored / money 'our language doesn't have it' other: a fixed denture / 'it makes the student perfectly tense' / a delicious dish: 'you don't know how it was made' / zoom lens / 'emotion recollected in tranquillity' / having spare ribs / jelly / a rainbow / wearing a classic dress / fresh cream / being married / the human race (3) Narratives structure: a circle or spiral (2) / a chain / a cluster of lights / lasagna / a winding road movement: cooking (2) / walking up a flight of stairs / going on a journey / pilgrimage other: history (2) / rivers / ageing / having a meal / sugared almonds at a christening / grandmother's story / composing music / radio programme / marriage proposal / Life / surgery / a sound sleep (4) Please and Thank You manners: smiling at someone (2) / like table manners, vary from country to country / 'little keys to open hearts' reciprocity: opening & shutting a door (3) / trade / ping-pong / a pair of gloves and a muffler / kissing lubrication: salad dressing (2) / oiling machinery other: getting exam results / fancy dresses / Play School or Sesame Street / a recorder / the mouth / tail of a dog / bridgeheads

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(5) The Introduction to an Article start: overture to an opera (2) / news headlines / gift wrap / dentist's chair: 'getting you in the right position for what's coming' / the credits of a film / preparing ingredients for a meal / warm-up / dark clouds before the rain / 'starter before main course, increasing your appetite or putting you off' / opening a door / start the ball rolling / hors d'oeuvres / foreplay promise: an advert or label (2) / glimpse through a peep-hole access: a tin-opener / cracking a nut / a theatre ticket other: staff room in a University / the body of a car / meeting an unknown person / drawing a map / ecology of rare species on desert island / glass of brandy before a meal: 'if you like the meal you get both, if not, at least you have the drink' Discussion It is clear that, when asked to, informants can provide a good number of metaphors relating to their field. The range of metaphors is considerable. Informants seem to have homed in on one aspect of each topic suggested. Thus to some, an egg symbolised growth and development, to others it was the fragility of the shell which was most salient in metaphor construction. As discussed above, metaphors can be 'dangerous' in this homing-in. By emphasizing one aspect at the expense of others, they inevitably distort the truth. Over-enthusiastic promotion of a metaphor may be harmful, much as excessive enthusiasm for a new method may be. 4 Nevertheless, metaphors can be very powerful in education. They are the stock-in-trade of most professional communicators and their power should be used by teachers, too. I believe this small study suggests that the solution is to take advantage of the rich variety of metaphor which informants can develop: by asking one's students to develop their metaphor, the power of application can be properly channelled. Students may come up with any kind of idea; these can then be compared and discussed. Whatever the aspect which they home in on, they are likely to remember their product. Notes 1. The effect of 'sn' and 'sl' in slack, slouch, slush, sludge; sneak, snack, snatch, etc. was first discussed by Firth in 1930 (1966: 184-5). He concluded that 'sl' represents a 'pejorative phonetic habit' and described an 'associated kinaesthetic background'.

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2. There's a rather attractive ironic phrase in Brazilian Portuguese which sums this up nicely. Não vi, não sei, e tenho raiva de quem sabe: I haven't seen it, don't know it, and can't stand those who do. 3. With the possible exception of some islands in the Pacific, if global warming should melt the polar ice-caps. 4. In the Brazilian ESP Project, some teachers' road-to-Damascus conversion to ESP was dubbed 'Rosa Luxemburgism'.

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10 A Thesis 20 Years On: Principles of Linguistics and the Theory-Praxis of the Rights of Language-Learners FRANCISCO GOMES DE MATOS This is at the same time a backward-looking and a forward-looking paper. It looks backwards at principles of Applied Linguistics twenty years ago, when Antonieta Celani and her colleagues established the first Brazilian postgraduate programme in Applied Linguistics. It then turns to the present, a time when the notion of language fights has been set forth but not widely implemented. Finally it carries the issue forwards to the future. A Thesis 20 Years Ago What principles of linguistics were almost universally accepted by linguists in the early 70s and which of those fundamental assumptions about language could be said to influence the teaching of English as a foreign language? These were the challenging questions underlying the research I carried out for the PhD in Applied Linguistics at the Catholic University of São Paulo, under the competent, motivating, scholarly orientation of a most amiable advisor: Maria Antonieta Alba Celani. The methodology adopted for that investigation included a comprehensive bibliographical survey of Manuals for Teachers of English, published in 16 countries and then widely used and a questionnaire submitted to authors of those guides, applied linguistics, and methodologists predominantly from English-speaking countries. At first, a listing of eight principles was established, as follows: (1) The systematicity of language. (2) The primacy of speech over writing. (3) The arbitrariness of linguistic symbols. (4) The social nature of language.

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(5) The uniqueness of each linguistic system. (6) Linguistic variation. (7) Linguistic universals. (8) Linguistic creativity. On the basis of the data gathered through personal communications and a survey of the relevant literature, the list was reduced to six principles, with the suppression of principles 3 and 5. The slightly condensed list proved to be revealing of the interaction between principles of linguistics and the approaches used by authors of teachers' Manuals. (Gomes de Matos, 1973). The revised list was also included in the published edition of the thesis, which ended with my plea for Applied Linguistics to the Teaching of English to be considered and realised as a professional activity centred on enhancing learners' communicative empathy while they are humanised during their learning of English and other foreign languages (Gomes de Matos, 1976: 103). Such entreaty, an embryo to be nurtured and developed, has brought about a sustained commitment to probing the neglected dimension of human rights in language pedagogy. Updating the Principles of Linguistics: What is Missing? If I were to update the enumeration of principles of linguistics, thus characterising the state of the art in the 80s and early 90s, two more principles would be added: The cognitive nature of language and the humanising nature of language. The former was expressed by Bolinger & Sears (1982: 2) as 'Language is thought and activity', while the latter has usually been formulated in terms of 'Language as a human faculty' (cf. Beaugrande, 1991: 123). The fact is, however, that by stating that language is human, we do not do full justice to another distinguishing trait of language and of language acquisition and learning its humanising power. This insight has remained implicit in the literature of linguistics and language teaching, as an examination of two recent works will show. (cf. Richards et al., 1992; Crystal, 1992). While a case has been cogently made for language as being embedded in cognition (Langacker, 1987), the humanising force of language has not been made explicit, especially when language teaching and learning is seen from a humanistic perspective. On the latter, see, for example, Stevick, 1990. My belief that learners humanise themselves while learning languages has led to three more pleas: for humanising Applied Linguistics (Gomes de Matos, 1982), for a Universal Declaration of Linguistic Rights (Gomes de Matos, 1984) and for Communicative Peace as a now Universal in language education (Gomes de Matos, 1987). The then embryonic principle of language as humanising was to inspire the inclusion, in a typology of linguistic rights published in a Brazilian journal, of the right to learn a second language (Gomes de Matos, 1984).

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From the Humanising Principle to Language Learners Rights A slightly expanded treatment of learners' rights as a new category of linguistic rights appeared in a journal aimed at language planners (Gomes de Matos, 1985). That same year, the Canadian applied linguist Hammerley published A Bill of Rights for Language Students as Appendix B to his book (Hammerley, 1985). Language learning is humanising to the extent that, first and foremost, language learners rights be identified, recognised, respected, implemented. Since such pedagogically and linguistically just claims had not yet been incorporated in the tradition of English language teaching, I pointed out that an important concept had been neglected in the methodology of teaching English to speakers of other languages (Gomes de Matos, 1986). Soon after the publication of such critical appraisal of ESL, methodologists started echoing my plea. Two instances have been Grant (1987) and Ellis & Sinclair (1989). How can the rights of English-language learners in Brazil be spelled out in detail? That was the demanding question I asked myself at the first ERPULI, a meeting of teachers of English, held in Rio de Janeiro under the auspices of the Brazilian Association of University Teachers of English, the Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro, the British Council and the Fulbright Commission (Gomes de Matos, 1988). Although the concept of learners rights proved to be pedagogically appealing, reactions to it have ranged from supportive, favourable, to cautious interpretations, as these statements from personal communications evince: I look forward to reading more of your needed work on the critical area of learners' rights. (Bernard Spolsky, December 15, 1991) I think the matter of learners' rights is an important one, but is also rather complex. One of the difficulties, as I see it, is that learners can be given the freedom of choice without being sufficiently informed as to what choices are available, and what the implications of choice might be. (H.G. Widdowson, 21 August, 1991) I think your rights checklist is just fine. My only reservation is that it apparently gives the student the right to opt out of activities that he may need to do in order to develop a skill successfully. (Hector Hammerley, April 22, 1993) That learners' rights remain somewhat controversial comes as no surprise, given the still nearly universally prevalent practice of conducting learners' Needs Analysis as the first stage in language teaching decision making. The humanising of language education calls for a strong determination to do a language learners Rights Analysis prior to establishing what their needs are (Gomes de Matos, 1991: 274).

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The Rights of Adults and Children: A Checklist To illustrate the kinds of specific rights which could be considered for the sake of adult learners and children, a brief listing is given. It is hoped that colleagues try these suggested rights and share the results of such application not only on a local but national and even international basis. Only by cooperating across our cultural, educational, and scientific cultures can we develop and enhance a cooperatively created and tested tradition in the methodology of language learning and teaching. The checklist below is to be read with this question in mind: Can I assure my students of the right... Adult Learners' Rights (1) To have classmates of a similar age range. (2) To be given explicit explanations concerning the organisation and uses of the English language. (3) To be provided with truly relevant, contextualised examples, especially as related to their professional or educational experience. (4) To contribute to classmates' repertoire of learning strategies by letting others know about the kinds of operations which have served students well and which could be shared by their peers in class. (5) To use monolingual or multilingual dictionaries while doing written work or taking a written exam. Children's Rights (1) To learn how to learn the language effectively. (2) To learn to explore the fun element in language learning, that is, to learn languages through playful experiencing of such languages. (3) To learn languages in an ecologically relevant manner, that is, by considering how human beings can interact with one another and with Nature in dignifying ways. (4) To develop and cultivate cross-cultural awareness and understanding. (5) To learn languages as tools for promoting communicative peace, that is, for helping build a peace-loving-and-sustaining world, centred on human rights. What Learners Say About Their Rights The question 'What right would you like to be assured of by your teacher in class?' was asked of students taking 8th grade French at Colégio de Aplicação experimental Secondary School which is part of the Federal University of Pernambuco. Here are six illustrative answers: (1) To have the right to have access to better equipment for studying French, such as tape-recorders, video-cassettes etc.

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(2) To be able to talk with classmates in class about the subject matter presented, without interfering with the teacher's work, rather than having to wait till after the class to do so. (3) To have the fight to communicate with French students, through an exchange between students' associations. (4) To have the fight to take tests in a group, rather than individually. (5) To have the fight to study French in a room specifically set aside for the purpose. (6) To have the fight of switching to English upon conclusion of this grade. The same fight could be enjoyed by students taking English, that is, they should be able to switch to French, too, so that we could experience two foreign languages. Toward a Theory and Praxis of Language Learners' Rights My search for a system of principles aimed at analysing and explaining the nature of language learning under a human rights perspective has been strongly influenced by the suggestion, by this volume's editors, to provide a report on 20 years of progress, concentrating on learners' fights in the more recent past. It dawned on me that I had not only to acknowledge Celani's influence during the time she was an advisor to my doctoral thesis but also as extending well beyond that experience. In fact, to do justice to her influential role in my work I have had to coin a term to appropriately refer to her. As a result, in the light of my proposed principle of language learning is humanising, I would call her a Humaniser, that is, a language-teaching specialist who is deeply imbued with human kindness and who displays the capacity of recognising and respecting the fights of learners. Accordingly, Celani's contribution is characterised as well beyond that of a humanistic applied linguist (concerned with the needs and interests of the learner): she belongs to a new type of language education inter-disciplinarian, seriously committed to humanising persons-as-learners through what I would call a Pedagogy of Positiveness, recently included in a Report by FIPLV for UNESCO (see Batley et al., 1993). My on-going research on a theory and praxis of language learners' fights builds on the achievements of a painstakingly created, universal tradition of second and foreign language pedagogy and takes on the challenge to fill gaps, particularly as the humanising aspects are concerned. The road from the 1973 thesis to the present has been travelled on with the conviction that only by probing hitherto established concepts, such as communicative competence, can we aspire to exercise our fight to innovate for the well-being of learners and teachers and the communities in which they interact. To learn languages well is to learn them so as to humanise oneself and one's co-learners in the language education process.

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11 Describing and Teaching Speech Act Behaviour: Stating and Changing an Opinion 1 ANDREW D. COHEN and ELAINE TARONE This study intends to investigate the process of stating and changing an opinion as it is conducted by non-native writers of English. In the process, the study will bring together two strands of usually unrelated research: (1) learners' performance of speech acts in a second language (a branch of second-language acquisition research), and (2) the way in which functions are expressed by skilled writers of Scientific and Technical English (a branch of research on English for Specific Purposes). The central question for us here is: given the goal as described in (2), what is learners' behaviour as described in (1)? In their academic course work, English-second-language (ESL) students are sometimes called upon to provide a critical review of the work of others and to offer their own view. This sort of review, sometimes called a 'review of the literature', is basic to academic writing, particularly writing for publication. On the face of it, a critical review of the literature would seem to be a very simple proposition. However, research on the grammar and rhetoric of Scientific and Technical English has shown that such a 'review of the literature' can be deceptively complex: the frequency and distribution of the functions expressed, and the structural conventions used to express those functions may be far from obvious, even to non-specialist native speakers (cf. Swales (1990: 137-66) for an excellent review of research on Scientific and Technical English article introductions). Myers (1989) suggests that politeness strategies are used to mitigate two central impositions expressed in scientific writing: claims made by the writer and denials of claims made by others. To express an opinion is to make a claim (particularly central in 'establishing a niche', in Swales' (1990: 141) terms) and to make a claim is to impose one's opinion on others. The centrality of these two functions, and their impositional nature, require the sophisticated use of politeness strategies, which in turn result in the use of

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the variety of speech acts and stylistic features characteristic of scientific writing. The complexity of those features is still being described by researchers, and certainly remains to be taught explicitly to non-native speakers of English. An additional problem is that the task of performing a critical review of the work of others, with an offering of one's own view, may be culturally difficult for non-native speakers. We have observed many such learners, when confronted with such a task, to simply report views without interpretation and without taking a stand on the matter. The responses of such learners, when asked about their difficulties, suggest to us that they are often quite aware of the impositional nature of the speech acts they are being asked to perform, and simply opt out of performing them (Bonikowska, 1988). Part of the problem is that by expressing a view, writers are performing speech acts or functions, and acceptable use of speech acts in an academic context may not be overtly clear to non-natives. For example, skilled academic writers may be apologising for an earlier view, but may do it through a speech act strategy that seems more like a displacement of responsibility onto the scientific community than an individual acceptance of responsibility (a positive politeness strategy, in Myers' (1989: 7-8) terms). Instead of acknowledging responsibility for previous views, skilled writers make it appear that they were victims of circumstance that 'the field' imposed this view upon them. Myers cites Blake (1983) who dismisses all earlier viewpoints, including his own, this way: 'Thus none of the current ideas on the relation of coding sequences to protein function and structure seems fully correct' (Blake, 1983, cited in Myers, 1989:8). Non-natives may not even realise that the writer is changing a position and offering an apology, however covert, for having taken a previously erroneous position. It may also be the case that the speech act is stated by means of language forms that nonnatives have trouble interpreting. For example, the writer may use a negative politeness strategy, employing a hedge so as to play down the discrepancy between what s/he had claimed in the past and what s/he ascribes to at the present moment. This hedge may be in the form of a modal with impersonal subject e.g. 'one might now construe that...', or even a passive, 'it could now be surmised that...'. What non-native writers, their ESL instructors, and their instructors in academic courses have come to realise is that just because non-native writers of English are good writers in their native language does not mean that they will be effective writers in English. As Kaplan (1988) and others have pointed out, the non-native writer may not be aware of the frequency and distribution of written functions, nor may they be aware of the structural conventions used for expressing these functions. Certainly, as we have already pointed out, the work of Myers (1989), Swales (1990) and others

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indicates that these features, as used by skilled writers in various academic fields may be quite complex. The job of the ESL student in interpreting and then presenting conflicting views in the academic literature, then, is complex. While reading text in order to comprehend opposing views, ESL students need to identify the functions performed by the speech acts involved (e.g. making a claim, disagreeing with a colleague's opinion, apologising for an error in one's own earlier claim, suggesting further research). They may also need to identify sometimes subtle language forms that writers use to express these functions (e.g. mitigation to tone down a statement 'a somewhat helpful view'). Then in preparing a written statement, the ESL students are faced with choosing speech acts that are socioculturally appropriate for example, knowing if and when to apologise for a previous opinion. If they deem it appropriate to apologise, they need to know which strategies or semantic formulas within the apology speech act set to use (see Olshtain & Cohen, 1983). For example, they might use expression of apology ('I am sorry') and acknowledgment of responsibility ('I misjudged the importance of...'), but would be unlikely to include the strategy of promise of non-reoccurrence ('I will never do that again'). In addition, the students need to have at least some control over the language forms that are considered sociolinguistically appropriate at the given level of formality. Whereas ESL students may be aware of the proper speech acts to use and the semantic formulas appropriate for realising the given speech act in the given context, they may still fail to select the appropriate language forms to convey these speech acts. It has been suggested that Asian students are taught to represent text meticulously and to respect each text, but not to take sides, to criticise them 'the criticism of a neophyte' (Ballard & Clanchy, 1991). Ballard & Clanchy would suggest that Japanese students may justify the bases for differing interpretations of source material but will not test or evaluate these interpretations, as the intention is to achieve harmony. While these students may develop arguments through implication, these arguments are likely to go unrecognised by American readers of their university essays (1991:33). The concern for harmony apparently has deep roots in the Eastern approach to communication, more so than in that of the West. According to Cushman & Kincaid, 'The Western perspective is seen by the East as that of preserving political, social, and economic freedom for the individual' (Cushman & Kincaid, 1987). Myers' (1989) research indicates that this view about how Eastern and Western perspectives differ, may not apply so simply to the subculture of Western science:

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I will assume in the subculture of science: (1) that the social distance between individuals D must be treated as very great; (2) that the relative differences in power between individuals P are supposed to be small but (3) that the community as a whole is supposed to be vastly more powerful than any individual in it. Thus... one researcher must always humble himself or herself before the community as a whole. Of course in reality scientists have a network of informal contacts, collaborations and long-standing personal commitments that do not require great social distance. But none of this is to emerge in print...everyone must present themselves as equally the humble servants of the discipline. (1989:4) Thus, for Western academics, the complex task is to present themselves in print as humble servants of the scientific community, while at the same time asserting individuality: expressing their unique opinion, making claims, and discounting the claims of others. The use of politeness strategies which involve hedging, use of the passive, modals and other structural conventions described by Myers (1989) permits Western academics to make claims while simultaneously presenting themselves as servants of the scientific community. This paper reports on conduct an experiment aimed at determining the manner in which ESL students express and change opinions in their academic writing, and the extent to which the skills associated with expressing and changing an opinion in this context can be taught. The research questions investigated in the current study were as follows: (1) How can the written speech act of stating an opinion and then changing it be characterised amongst natives? (2) How can the speech act of changing an opinion be characterised amongst non-natives? What similarities and differences are there between native and non-native respondents? (3) What are the effects of training on the production of the written speech act of changing an opinion? The study is interdisciplinary in nature in that it combines reading comprehension, writing skill, and sociolinguistic awareness as well. The study has scholarly value in that the field of literacy is currently looking at the relationship between reading and writing in academic settings. It has even been suggested that at times it is difficult to draw the line between reading and writing. Furthermore, there has been a keen interest over the last decade in the role of speech acts in discourse, especially regarding the more complex speech acts such as apologising, complaining, and requesting, since considerable language proficiency is called for in order to understand and to execute them effectively. At the more applied level the importance of such research for the training of non-native English-speaking academics cannot be overempha-

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sised. There is a need to better understand the sources of difficulty for non-natives in preparing reviews of the literature, and there is a commensurate need to generate training materials that would help to rectify the situation by dealing with such issues in the ESL courses that these students take. Design Sample Twenty-five students in the two most advanced reading/composition classes of the 1992 Summer Intensive English Language and Orientation Program (SIELOP) at the University of Minnesota participated in the study, one class of thirteen as a treatment group and another class of twelve as the control group. The Treatment Group was comprised of six German speakers, four Japanese speakers, and one Korean, Chinese, and Italian speaker respectively. The Control Group also consisted of six German speakers, two Japanese speakers, and one Korean, Thai, Serbo-Croatian, and Arabic speaker respectively. There was also a comparison group of ten native speakers, all teachers at the Minnesota English Center. Instrumentation and Data Collection Procedures All three groups received a pre-test in which they were given two brief articles with conflicting views on an academic theme namely, research comparing the male and female brain. The first, 'Brain Structure Explains Male/Female Differences', was excerpted from an article appearing in the New York Times (Goleman, 1989), and the second, 'Brain Structure Does Not Explain Male/Female Differences', was excerpted from a book dealing with biological theories about women and men (FaustoSterling, 1985). The texts were both about 1,300 words long. The ESL students were told to role-play a professor who had taken a public stand in favour of the views expressed in one article, but who now had found irrefutable evidence to favour the views expressed in the second article. The students could choose which article would represent their initial position and which their current position. Hence, the student as 'professor' was given the task of writing a brief article for an academic journal or newsletter, summarising both views (approximately 80 words per summary), noting that he or she had changed his/her opinion and now ascribed to the second view, and apologising for having previously ascribed to the first view. The task took them approximately 1 hour. Given the complex nature of the task, the students were given their papers back for the purpose of revision if they did not complete the task as requested i.e. if they took a position but did not indicate that this was a

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change of opinion. This procedure was utilised to reinforce the notion that academic writing is usually accomplished through the writing of various drafts, in a process-oriented manner. Thus, one of the investigators read all papers and supplied the students with a brief critique, indicating what portion of the task was misinterpreted or omitted and requesting that the student revise the task. 2 The Treatment class of ESL students then received training from their regular classroom teacher in how to prepare such reviews of the literature and how to take a stand in such cases. Parts of five class sessions were devoted to the training, and the students did some of the work out of class. Among their training materials was Leki's (1989) chapter on 'Responding to Written Arguments', which chapter presents two brief texts with conflicting views and then guides students through the summarising of both positions and the formulation of a personal stance on the issue. The students were also trained in the use of appropriate speech acts in their written literature reviews, based on a content analysis of the responses collected from the ten native-speaking ESL teachers/teacher trainees performing the same task.3 The control group received the regular summer course. Five weeks later, the students were once again asked to perform the same task. This time the two articles with conflicting views were, 'The Greenhouse Effect is Potentially Disastrous', excerpted from an article in The Nation (Steel, 1984) and from USA Today (1986), and 'The Greenhouse Effect is Exaggerated', excerpted from an article by Landsberg (1984).4 Data analysis procedures Two raters rated the responses on the written tasks in scrambled order so that the raters were unaware of whether the response was from the Treatment or the Control group. The order of pre-test and post-test tasks was also scrambled and the raters were told not to pay attention to the content of the responses. They focused on the language in the responses which could be used to identify the respondent's position. They rated the responses on a scale of from 4 to 1 for their performance on the task: 4= Good a position is stated and then a change of position is stated. 3= Fair the two positions are there but one or both may have to be inferred. 2= Poor just one opinion was stated and no change of opinion. 1= Very poor the respondents did not perform the task. For example, all they did was to summarise one or both of the texts.

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Results How can the written speech act of stating an opinion and then changing it be characterised amongst natives? Although the sample of native writers was limited to ten, there did emerge a structure for stating and then changing a position. There tended to be some indication as to the duration of the previously held opinion and as to the time when the new view took effect. Then there was a brief statement of the original opinion. Next, there was usually a logical connector of concession, followed by a statement of the new opinion and an explanation or justification for it, occasionally with a time frame for the new opinion. On occasion there would be a comment or apology for having held the previous opinion and once or twice an indication of collective or individual responsibility for the previously-held opinion. The semantic formulas or speech act strategies were as follows, although their order varied slightly: (a) A time frame for the first position: 'as recently as one year ago', 'in 1984', 'until reading...', 'originally'. (b) A statement of the first position: 'I held that...', 'many, including this researcher, argued that...', 'in the past, I supported the view that...' (c) A logical connector of concession: 'however', 'despite', 'in spite of'. (d) A time frame for the new position: 'just recently'. (e) An expression of a change of opinion: (e1) direct expression of change of opinion: 'I would like to retract my previous position that...and state that I now feel...', 'now, however, after years of examining research findings, I am not convinced that....I no longer feel that...'. (e2) Indirect expression of change of opinion: 'that have/has prompted me to reconsider my stance...', 'this leads me to believe more that...'. (e3) Focus on current opinion: 'the position I now hold is that there is irrefutable evidence that...', 'I now tend to agree more with the argument that...'. (f) An explanation, justification, or cause for the change of opinion: (fl) The writer as agent in the change of opinion: 'further research on my part leads me to doubt these claims and pushed me to investigate...', 'a deeper investigation has lead me to reconsider...'. (f2) Lack of evidence prompting the change of opinion: 'indeed, with no hard data to support the claims...', 'due largely to the lack of existing evidence...'. (f3) New evidence causing the change of opinion: 'compelling results', 'more plausible evidence for my new position...'

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(g) A comment: 'we can't go on insisting that there are no differences...any more than we could try to cling to the idea that the earth is flat...' (h) collective or individual responsibility: 'it has become clear that many of us in the scientific community erred when we rejected those early explanations for...', 5 'what can we do?' How can the speech act of changing an opinion be characterised amongst non-natives? What similarities and differences were there between native and non-native respondents? A comparison of Semantic Formula or Strategy Use For the most part, the non-natives used the same semantic formulas or discourse strategies as did the natives. This is not so surprising since the basic moves were specified in the task itself. Thus, the non-native data often included a time frame for the first position, a statement of the first position, a logical connector of concession, a time frame for the new position, an expression of a new opinion, and an explanation or justification for the change of opinion. With regard to the expression of the new opinion, the non-natives used all three of the sub-strategies used by natives: direct expression of change of opinion, indirect expression of change of opinion, and focus on current opinion. Concerning the explanation or justification for this new position, the non-natives also used all three sub-strategies used by the natives: the writer as agent in the change of opinion, lack of evidence prompting the change of opinion, and new evidence causing the change of opinion. There were two strategies that some natives used that none of the non-natives used and then there was one strategy used by nonnatives and not by natives. One of the strategies used only by natives was that of offering a personal evaluative comment which Cohen, Olshtain & Rosenstein (1986) found to serve as a social lubricant in projective oral discourse6 in rough moments: 'I am embarrassed to say, I found much of the research to be shoddy and the claims unwarranted...', 'but we can't go on insisting that there are no differences...any more than we could try to cling to the idea that the earth is flat...' This sort of strategy is, in Myers' (1989) interpretation of the Brown & Levinson model, an unmitigated face-threatening act of criticism, and as such it would probably be unusual to find such a bald statement in print in a professional journal (although such phrasing might be more likely in a letter to the editor of such a journal). The other strategy was that of evoking collective responsibility: 'How wrong we were!' 'it has become clear that many of us in the scientific community erred when we rejected those early explanations for...' 'what can we do?' In these instances, the responsibility is shifted off the shoulders of the individual scholar and instead placed upon a larger, more amorphous group of academicians. This strategy is described by Myers (1989):

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One way of making a criticism while minimising the [face-threatening act] is for writers to use pronouns that include themselves in the criticism. Besides the WE that means the writers, there is a WE that means the discipline as a whole.... Crick uses the...device when drawing lessons from the split gene episode. Lacking evidence we had become overconfident in the generality of some of our basic ideas (Crick, 1979). (Myers, 1989:7) The strategy used only by non-natives was that of explaining or justifying their first position: 'The statements...seemed to be very strong, and so we thought that...' (German speaker), 'We used our best equipment, our best specialist... We could not give consistent foresight...' (German speaker), 'My observation were strengthened by the scientific investigations of...' (German speaker), 'In #1, he shows some evidences which... So #1 is more reliable than #2 for me' (Japanese speaker). None of the natives felt compelled to explain or justify the position that they were now refuting. Perhaps it was a deliberate strategy of the natives not to call more attention to their previous position than they had to. The non-natives, on the contrary, occasionally did this. A Comparison of the Linguistic Forms Used Perhaps the most conspicuous difference with respect to form was in the choice of logical connector of concession. The natives used forms like however, despite, and in spite of. The non-natives used but almost exclusively. In fact, there were 22 instances of the use of but and only four uses of other connectors all in the Treatment Group and all in post-testing. Three of these were appropriate the use of however twice and the use of despite Once. But one of the respondents who did use however correctly (a native Chinese speaker), used but and nevertheless incorrectly, perhaps in making an exaggerated effort to use connectors: However, new studies and reports let me doubt my earlier position. The E.P.A. says that the greenhouse effect has the potential to destroy civilisations, in contrast to other environmental problems. But [underlining added] the officials will first deal with this problem if it is upon us. Nevertheless, it is necessary to act against the greenhouse effect before it is to late... The author probably meant consequently or hence instead of but, and clearly rather than nevertheless. In both cases he has created an opposition that is not warranted, given the rest of the text that he generated. This result is reminiscent of the unpublished study by Jisa & Scarcella (1982) which demonstrated how non-natives felt so compelled to use connectors they had learned that they made more use of them in their essay as additives or in contrast per t-unit than did natives (36% vs. 21%). They also often used them incorrectly.

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Then with respect to expressing a change of opinion, the non-natives were more abrupt in doing so than were natives. Several natives used hedges or mitigators both in explicitly stating their change of opinion ('although I am not quick to make judgments, and by nature examine the facts carefully before taking a stand, I have on this issue had to change my view...') and in focusing on their current opinion ('I now tend to agree more with the argument that...'). Non-natives, on the other hand, simply came right out with the change statement ('I changed my mind...', 'I changed my attitude...', 'I have change my opinion...) and/or with their current opinion ('Now I think...', 'Now I agree with X's stand...'). What were the effects of training on the production of the written speech act of changing an opinion? The interrater reliability for the two raters was high: r = 0.91 on the pre-test, and r = 0.94 on the post-test. The ratings were averaged and a t-test analysis for independent groups was performed on the data. The results showed that the Treatment and Control Groups did not differ significantly in pre-testing, but that there was a significant difference in post-testing in favour of the Treatment Group (Table 11.1). Table 11.1 Mean differences in ratings of pre-test and post-test tasks Pre-test

Post-test

Mean

S.D.

Mean

S.D.

Treatment (N = 13)

3.25

1.03

3.50

0.82

Control (N = 12)

3.04

1.12

2.46

1.27

t = -0.47; df = 22

t = -2.46*; df = 23

*p < 0.05 In addition, a t-test of the gain scores was performed in order to adjust the post-test scores for the effect of pre-test performance, and once again the Treatment Group came out significantly ahead (Table 11.2). Table 11.2 Mean differences in gain scores Mean Gain Score

S.D.

Treatment

0.33

0.96 (N = 13)

Control

-0.58

0.87 (N = 12)

t = -2.44*; df = 22 *p < 0.05

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Discussion and Conclusions This study set out first of all to describe the speech acts of stating and then changing an opinion, both among native and nonnative users of English. The findings for what amounted to a relatively small-scale study still constitute a beginning in this direction. Among the natives, there was a tendency to indicate the duration of the previously held opinion and when the new view took effect. Then there was a brief statement of the first opinion, followed by a logical connector of concession. Then there often appeared a statement of the new opinion and an explanation or justification for it, occasionally with a time frame for the new opinion. For the most part the non-natives used the same semantic formulas or discourse strategies as did the natives. There were two strategies that some natives used that none of the non-natives used and then there was one strategy used by non-natives and not by natives. One of the strategies used only by natives was that of offering a personal evaluative comment, and the other was that of evoking collective responsibility. The strategy used only by non-natives was that of explaining or justifying their first position. None of the natives explained or justified the position that they were refuting. With respect to the form that the message took, the most conspicuous difference was in the choice of logical connector of concession. While the natives used forms like however, despite, and in spite of, the non-natives used but almost exclusively. Then with respect to expressing a change of opinion, the non-natives were more abrupt in doing so. Several natives used hedges both in explicitly stating their change of opinion and in focusing on their current opinion. Non-natives, on the other hand, simply came right out with the change statement and/or with their current opinion. As to the effects of the Treatment, there seem to have been some systematic effects, both in terms of a greater awareness as to the speech acts that the Treatment students needed to perform and in terms of the carrier language they were to use to convey these speech acts. Although the significance of the difference was not high (0.05), the sample was small, and the treatment was relatively brief, the findings about the positive effects of training in the use of speech acts in written academic discourse are consistent with those for training in the use of speech acts in oral language (Olshtain & Cohen, 1990; Billmyer, 1990). The research aims originally included a focus on the nature of the respondents' summaries for each of the texts, as well as their handling of their opinions. This broader focus proved to be too ambitious in that the students had enough to do simply dealing with the stating of an opinion and then expressing a change of opinion. A few of the students in each group, both in pre- and post-testing, did not provide summaries of the two

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articles, but launched directly into a discussion of their opinions. In rating the responses it became clear that the issue was not how well the respondents summarised the two texts but of greater interest was how they articulated their position and then their change of position. The performance of the speech act then was the major concern. We must remember that although the selected texts were relevant to the topics being discussed in the ESL courses at the time of the pre- and post-testing (i.e. 'learning' and 'the environment', respectively), the passages were not directly connected to the respondents' field of study. This lack of context expertise could have worked to the detriment of those less comfortable with the scientific nature of the subject matter. For this reason, a recommendation for follow-up research would be that the respondents perform such tasks using texts from their respective fields of expertise. Future research of this type could also gather data samples from the non-natives in their native languages in order to determine the influence of L1 discourse patterns on the writing of L2 text. The current study also provided insights as to whether systematic interventions to teach given speech functions would be of value. In this study, there seemed to be value in providing a treatment, but only after an empirical study of what ESL teachers would write, and comparing that to what the ESL students wrote. Notes 1. We would like to thank Susan Gilbert and William Flitte, the two ESL teachers who participated in this study>1 We would like to thank Susan Gilbert and William Flitte, the two ESL teachers who participated in this study. We would also like to thank the students. In addition, we acknowledge the feedback we received from Thom Upton, Jim Lantolf, and George Yule. 2. On the pre-test, four papers were revised, two from the Treatment Group and two from the Control Group. However, on the post-test only two papers were revised both for the Treatment Group. 3. Actually, eight of the natives did the task with the pre-test passages and two did it with the post-test passages. 4. In both this and the previous task, the passages reflected the theme being addressed in the classroom at the time 'learning' in the first case, 'the environment' in the second. 5. This represents a classic strategy according to Myers (1989). 6. For example the respondents in the Cohen et al. (1986) study wrote down their responses in a discourse completion task presumably the way that they would say them.

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12 Metalinguistic Reflections on Code-Switching MARY AIZAWA KATO This paper is an insider account of two different situations of code-switching (CS). The first concerns code-switching between two western SVO languages: Portuguese and English, and the second deals with two typologically distant ones: Portuguese (SVO) ad Japanese (SOV). 1 The situation of languages in contact which create the conditions for bilingual acquisition and for language mixing activities are diverse. The following are some that we may think of: (a) The formal learning of a foreign language after the child is literate in his/her mother tongue. (b) The late acquisition of a second language by an adult immigrant; (c) The acquisition of a second language simultaneously with the beginning of regular schooling; (d) The simultaneous acquisition of more than one language (cf. studies by Meisel, 1990, 1992, 1993). Situation (a) is common among middle class children in Brazil and in other countries, but it normally does not lead to real CS activities, though language interference and some sort of mixing may result from it. But there are cases in which the initiation through formal training can be continued through an immersion experience in the country where the foreign language is spoken, which was the experience of two daughters of mine living in the States today. Their case may be configured as situation (b). It is the situation of immersion that seems to favour CS activities, especially if the subject has other people around who are equally bilingual. This seems to indicate that CS activities are culturally-bound. The situation of type (c), which has been my case, was extremely common with immigrant children in countries like Brazil and the States. In such cases, the second language tends to displace the first in terms of performance skills and in many cases the first language becomes fossilised. Today I am much more fluent in Portuguese than in Japanese, though the latter was my first language and it was the only language I spoke until I was six

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years of age. The difference between my bilingualism and that of my daughters, who are and probably will continue to be more fluent in Portuguese than in English (or at least equally fluent), can be attributed not only to age of acquisition of the second language, but also to lack or completion of schooling in the first language. Schooling, or formal training in reading and writing in the second language, can also be used to explain why some late bilinguals can become more fluent than others. Bilingual studies have given much attention lately to the simultaneous acquisition of two L1 or to second language acquisition. In Brazil it is no longer very easy to find children acquiring two languages simultaneously in immigrant families, but there is still some language mixing among the second generation and the few surviving immigrants, a situation which is on the wane and condemned to disappear. If in the States the languages spoken by minority communities have deserved the attention of many researchers, in Brazil very few authors have devoted their studies to these languages. 2 Being a linguist and in a privileged position, as a spectator and a participant, to observe what goes on in a bilingual situation, makes me feel in a situation of pressure to register a cultural phenomenon which will be irrecoverable in a few years. Complying with this pressure, I will be also satisfying my own linguistic speculations. The main question I will be addressing in this paper is the following: how does one code-switch when the languages are syntactically related (e.g. Portuguese and English) compared to what one does when the languages are typologically distant (e.g. Portuguese and Japanese)? The other question is: how does bilingual acquisition facts described in the literature compare with first language fossilisation?3 For the CS between Portuguese and English I will be using data produced in written letters addressed to me from one of my daughters referred to as S. For Portuguese and Japanese, I will use my own intuitions and informal observations of what goes on in my own family. Strict positivist researchers may object to my use of data here, as it will not be consistent with the methodological canons in the area. It may be contested on grounds of the lack of control of certain variables such as age of acquisition, schooling and the comparison of actual data with introspective data. However, as I consider this an essay on my experience, and my interpretation of the linguistic reality I have been experiencing tells me that the data are comparable, or contrastable, I will try to find cues to answer the question I have posed to myself.

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The Concept of Code-Switching (CS) Much has been written on bilingual acquisition and on the nature of the code-switching activities practised by bilinguals. There is also a consensus about code-switching (cs) processes or products being rule-governed. Many researchers agree that judgements of what is acceptable or not in CS can be elicited from these bilinguals and that their responses can be used to investigate the constraints underlying such linguistic activities (Gingràs, 1974; Gumperz, 1976). Others rely on naturalistic data for the same purposes (Poplack, 1982; Pfaff, 1982). For Meisel (1992: 1), 'in spite of the wealth of existing studies, a number of problems related to code-switching are not yet wellunderstood'. What Meisel says becomes evident when we follow the CS studies developed by Poplack, Sankoff and collaborators, by far one of the major projects on CS. I will try to develop a picture of my own, first using S's data on Portuguese and English CS and then on Portuguese/Japanese mixing. In Sankoff & Poplack (1981) CS is distinguished, from other code-mixing processes that deform or substitute parts of the grammar and the lexicon of the languages that are being mixed. Insertion of single words is considered a 'borrowing' by Reyes (1982: 161) and also suggested to differ from CS in Poplack (1982). According to her, (a) 'code-switching constitutes the skilled manipulation of overlapping sections of two (or more) grammars...' and (b) 'switches are made up of segments larger than just single nouns inserted into an otherwise L2 sentence; and code-switching is used for purposes other than that of conveying untranslatable items' (p. 248) For the author CS is highly constrained by principles, which will be seen later on. Data from Portuguese and English found in S's letters conform to what Poplack says: (1) e a moña confirmou duas vezes que o trem estava on time. and the girl confirmed twice that the train was ________ (2) For now ele tá working well mesmo. _______ he is _______________really. (3) Os dois são uns amores, very caring about their students the two are a love_________________________ (4) E que de certa forma to spend dois anos da minha vida aqui vai ser and that in a way ________ two years of my life here will be um waste of time. a_______________ Her position is against the then frequent view that codes were switched when a word or expression was not easily accessible in one language, a conditioning factor also found in bilingual acquisition, termed in Meisel (1992) as the 'relief strategy', without the 'deficit' connotation used for minorities.

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The examples from (1) to (4) show that Poplack's definition of code-switching suits them perfectly. There are perfect easily accessible equivalents in Portuguese for all the expressions and stretches in English, a fact that shows that, contrary to CS in acquisition, accessibility is not the conditioning factor. But against Poplack's prediction, the same subject S uses one word insertion, or borrowing 4 as smoothly as she uses longer stretches: (5) Hoje vou para Michigan again e idem tomorrow. today (I) go to Michigan ________ and too__________ (6) Vou para casa comer porque estou starving. (I) go home to eat because (I)am ___________ (7) Ele me falou desse pupilo do Rostropovitch, named XXX. he spoke to me about this pupil of R. ________ XXX (8) A cafeteria é horrível e a comida disgusting. the _________ is awful and the food__________ However, comparing the CS between Spanish and English among Puerto-Ricans and the CS between French and English among Canadians, Poplack (1987) distinguishes two types of code-switching: the smooth CS (Puerto-Ricans) and the flagged CS (Canadians), in search of the 'mot juste'. We might say that this would be a sort of 'epilinguistic' process (cf. Karmillof-Smith, 1979), used to turn communication more efficient. In the above examples, we might say that cafeteria is being used as the 'mot juste' and perhaps starving is more economical than 'morrendo de fome' (dying of hunger), but the other 'borrowings' have perfect equivalent terms in Portuguese. We could look at the concept of 'mot juste' from an acquisitional point of view and imagine that code-switchers are often learners and may be using discarded acquisition strategies in their code-switching activities, but in a different clothing. Thus, one striking fact in my subject's CS is the appearance of English words, constituents and even sentences, when she is reporting what some native person said. It is a refined sort of 'mirroring strategy' (cf. de Lemos, 1985) used by children when they mimic their elders. What my subject does is to make an almost literal report of what was said to her: (9) Ele mesmo disse que a Ms So-and-so era wonderful. he himself told me that _________ was__________ (10) Ele me ligou dizendo que não tinha hard feelings. he called me to say that he had no__________ (11) Ele então me falou que tinham várias coisas que tavam upsetting him he then told me that there were several things that were__________ na escola. in school.

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(12) Ele falou que ela sometimes is too nice. he said that she__________ (13) Ele foi muito legal de novo e disse que he'd be happy he was very cute again and said that to help me. ___________ (14) Dizem aqui que April showers bring Mayflowers! (they) say here that_____________ In more recent work borrowing is assigned a new dimension in Sankoff, Poplack and collaborators' work, when they start comparing code-switching between typologically distant languages. 5 They actually find that, when languages are typologically dissimilar, borrowing and NP insertions are more usual strategies than the CS as defined in the earlier works. If it is lack of structural equivalence between language A and language B (see Poplack's constraints below) that makes bilinguals resort to only N or NP insertion in language mixing, CS is structurally constrained and the definition based on stretches longer than one word cannot be maintained. As it is, we could use the term borrowing only when a foreign word is used by a monolingual speaker. Thus, in this paper the mixing that occurs in bilingual settings will be referred to in general as CS. Code-Switching with Fluent and Non-Fluent Bilinguals Referring again to Poplack's seminal work (Poplack, 1982), a variable that showed itself important in the form taken by the code-switching was the degree of language fluency of the CS practitioners. What she found was that balanced fluency bilinguals tended to make more intrasentential codeswitching, while less balanced bilinguals tended to make inter-sentential CS. This is easy to understand, as switching only intersententially avoids violating the structural principles that govern code-switching. We could change the term intersentential to extra-sentential, as this would allow us to put, under the same heading, formulaic discursive elements that often occur intrasententially: (15) Nas outras áreas até pode fazer diferença, mas na nossa, I'm sorry, in other areas (it)can even make a difference, but in ours, ________, mas não faz mesmo. but (it) doesn't really. (16) Anyway eu tô tocando com ele. __________, I am playing with him. (17) After all, não há pressa nenhuma pra eu tomar essa decisão. ________, (there)is no hurry for me to take this decision. (18) Cross your fingers pra pintar urea solução. _____________ for a solution to emerge.

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Formal Constraints on CS Despite the different conditioning factors found by Sankoff & Poplack and their collaborators in the different forms that CS can take, in all of these different forms the constraints proposed by Poplack (1982: 234) are satisfied. The constraints are the following: (a) the equivalence constraint: 'code-switches will tend to occur at points in discourse where juxtaposition of L1 and L2 elements does not violate a syntactic rule of either language'; (b) the free morpheme constraint: 'codes may be switched after any constituent in discourse provided that constituent is not a bound morpheme'. Though most of S's code-switching products conform to these constraints, some are not as smooth as the ones presented in previous sections, and they should be violating one or the other constraint: (19) ...e realmente esse campus cheer up so much quando faz sol que é and really this campus ________________ when the sun shines that urea delícia. it is delicious. (20) Apesar de ser cansativo a gente have fun. though it is tiring one _______ (one=we folks) In the two cases there is a violation of agreement. The third person morpheme required in the English verb cheer and have is absent in both cases. This is the most common slip in S's CS. The cause for such unsmooth CS could be attributed to the unmarked third person singular in Portuguese vs the marked third person in the present tense in English. S switches more often after an auxiliary verb as no agreement problem has to be solved in this case:. (21)...eu tô done com as minhas coisas aqui. I am _______ with my things here. (22) Por hora ele tá working super bem. For the moment he is __________ really well. However, the problem with (19) and (20) can be attributed to Klavans' (1985) notion of 'matrix language'. According to Klavans, the inflection carrying element determines the matrix language of a sentence. What is contradictory in (19) and (20) is the fact that, though Portuguese is clearly the matrix language of S's discourse as a whole, those particular sentences behave as if English were the matrix language. If the lack of smoothness in (19) and (20) had to do with agreement, the following sentence which is in the past tense should sound better, but it does not:

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(23) Acho que alguém cursed os cachorros de Campinas. (I) think that someone __________ the dogs in Campinas. Moreover, Poplack's equivalence constraint is not explicit about the nature or level of the categories involved in the switch. Thus while English has the word order A + N, Portuguese licenses both A + N and N + A orders, but the A + N order is restricted by the subcategory of adjectives. Evaluation adjectives can occur pre-nominally, though the preference is to have all adjectives postnominally. S produces switches before an A + N sequence in English, and the forms sound good, though this order is the marked option in Portuguese for a subclass of adjectives. (24) Recebi forwarded mail da Mama. (I) got ______________ from Mom. (*reendereçado correio) (25) O cara só sabe a respeito do practical training... the guy only knows about _______________ (*prático treinamento) Compare with (26), which has a perfect equivalence with Portuguese: (26) Recebi beautiful letters da Mama. (I) got __________________ from Mom. (lindas cartas) The point is that Poplack's equivalence constraint does not say anything about the type or level of the category or function which have to obey the equivalence constraint. It should also be pointed out that if the switch occurs between the adjective and the noun, the result is equally bad for both types of adjectives, though (27b) should be better than (27a): (27a) *Recebi forwarded correio da Mama. (27b) *Recebi beautiful cartas da Mama. These two examples seem to suggest that the head of a construction governs code-switching inside that construction. Thus, if the head noun is affected by switching, its modifiers are allowed to switch too, though not necessarily. What is ruled out is switching the modifier and not the head. The following example seems to be a violation of Poplack's second constraint: (28a) A casa tá meio over-populada. the house is rather over-populated. The stem popul- is a bound morpheme and the switch occurs just after it. This was the only instance of violation at the morphological level. It should be noticed that, though crowd is not a bound morpheme like popul-, the parallel example (28b). is equally bad, even worse: (28b) *A casa está over-crowdada. the house is_____________

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What we could postulate is a more general principle obeyed by skilful code-switchers: 'avoid word-internal switches'. The Categories Affected by CS Nouns and Noun Phrases have been observed to be the easiest and most frequent categories in code-switching. In S's data, however, other categories appear smoothly blended, though nouns are effectively more frequent: (a) adjectives and APs (29a) O negócio aqui tá meio boring por aqui. the business here is rather _______ around here. (29b) A biblioteca fica super-crowded. the library becomes over-_______. (29c) Ele foi procurar uma pessoa mais demanding. he went looking for a person more ________. (29d) Os dois são uns amores, very caring for their students. the two are very sweet, ____________________ (b) adverbs and adverbial PPs (30a) Ai, ai, tá nevando again. oh, oh,(it)is snowing _______ (30b) Espero que eu consiga um job mais easily do que em LA (I) hope that I get a job more ________ than in LA (30c) Se eu for no meu recital de calça preta, como a gente usually faz... if I go to the concert with black pants, as we _____ do... (30d) Antes que a mamãe comece a dar os contras para a nossa viagem by car, before mummy starts to argue against our trip ______, jã digo de antemão que desistimos. (I) warn beforehand that (we) gave up (c) verbs and verb phrases (31a) Felizmente era fácil de guessar. fortunately (it)was easy to _______ (guess +infinitive) (31b) Eu teria que apply em person. I'd have to ________ in person. (31c) ...pois esse cello é supposed to be very good. for this cello is___________ (31d) Bem, como eu falei antes, o professor resigned from the faculty well, as I said before, the teacher _____________. One thing that calls our attention is the fact that verbs tend to appear more frequently in their non-finite forms, the tense and agreement being carried by an auxiliary in Portuguese. Likewise, Noun Phrases tend to appear with determiners 6 in Portuguese even when the noun appears modified by an adjective or a PP in English:

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(32a) um waste of time (32b) a new school (32c) nenhum big deal (32d) o meu advisor What this suggests is that the matrix language is not only given by INFL(ection) but also by the Determiner, both functors or functional words. This leads us to predict that Comp is also part of the team, and that is exactly what we find. See examples (13) and (14), in which the embedded sentences are entirely in English but the Complementiser is not. Functional Skeleton and Matrix Language The hypothesis that emerges from the previous sections is that there is a strong constraint that derives from the distinction between lexical vs functional words and morphemes. The matrix language is identified as the one that provides the functional skeleton of the mixed language. The functional skeleton, viewed in the perspective of the Principles and Parameters framework contains: Complementiser, Tense, Agreement morphemes, Determiners, Negation, Case morphemes. Lexical categories include: Nouns, Verbs, Adjectives, Adverbs. Prepositions seem to constitute a mixed category. This hypothesis predicts what is not possible in CS. In the case of our subject S, who uses Portuguese as the matrix language and English as the embedded one we will not find sequences of the following sort: Det+English N= Portuguese (33a) the novela (soap opera) (33b) no dinheiro (money) Aux=English V=Portuguese (34a) is paquerando (flirting) (34b) has paquerado (flirted) Comp=English S=Portuguese (35) that Garfield está apaixonado Garfield is in love However, if the matrix language is English and the embedded language is Portuguese, all these combinations are smooth sequences: (36a) I think that Garfield está apaixonado (36b) Have you seen the last chapter of the novela? (36c) I think Garfield has paquerado Paquita Whenever a function word of one of the languages appears it opens the possibility of CS. It is as if it licensed block protecting subsequent stretches to be marked, as I did through italics in the examples above. Thus the complementiser that licenses the ensuing sentence to be in Portuguese; the

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article the opens the possibility for the next word to be in the other language. And the inflection carrying element has allows CS to occur just after it. This predicts that CS can occur recurrently: (37a) I think that Garfield está apaixonado and that Paquita também está. Paquita also is. When the bilingual subject does not have a balanced competence in the two languages involved, there is a clear-cut distinction as to which the matrix language is. The stretches of the embedded language are shorter, very often a single noun, or a noun plus a modifier. The more competent the bilingual is the more variation he will present and the longer the embedded stretches will be. Sometimes it becomes difficult to determine which is the matrix and which is the embedded sentence. Code-Switching between Portuguese and Japanese Portuguese is a head-initial language and Japanese is a head-final one, a fact that makes us predict that Poplack's equivalence constraint will prevent code-switchers from using it in many syntactic positions. Thus while Portuguese is SVO, Japanese is SOV, and if there is an Auxiliary we have the contrast AuxVO vs OVAux. If in Portuguese we have Prep+NP, in Japanese we will have NP+Postp. The difficulty to code-switch while obeying the restriction we described above should be obvious. If the verb is intransitive, apparently the same word order can occur in the two languages, namely SV. But switching gives bad results. (38a) *A vovó neta. (the Grandma slept) Portuguese(P), then Japanese(J) (38b) *A vovó nenai. (the Grandma sleep-not) (38c) *A vovó nenakatta. (the Grandma sleep-not-past) Using Klavan's idea, these forms are bad because the verb inflection is Japanese and the matrix sentence is Portuguese. But how do we know that the matrix language is Portuguese? The sentence is out of context and quantitatively there is as much Japanese as there is English at least in (32b), where there is a perfect balance. Though the forms in (38) are bad, the ones in (39) and (40) are perfect: (39a) Vovó-ga neta. (Grandma-nominative slept) P J (39b) Vovó-wa nenai. (Grandma-topic sleep-not) (39c) Vovó-wa nenakatta (Grandma-top sleep-not-past) (40a) A Obachan dormiu. (the Grandma slept) P J P (40b) A Obachan não dorme. (the Grandma not sleeps) (40c) A Obachan não dormiu. (the Grandma not slept) What is required is congruence between the function words and morphemes that appear in a single predication. Thus in (39) and (40) the

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nominal function words the article in Portuguese and the case marker in Japanese are in the same language as the inflection in the verb. In (38) there is no such agreement or congruence. However, once the portion of the matrix language is block protected through a function word in this language, the head of the phrase in the embedded language can be further expanded within the grammar of the embedded language: (41a) Vovó grande-ga neta. (Grandma big-nom. slept) P (N+A) (41b) A tichai Obacham não dorme. (the little Grandma not sleeps) J (A+N) This expansion can even contain closed class words, like the preposition de in Portuguese or the genitive marker no in Japanese. (42a) Vovó da Emy-ga neta. (Grandma of Emy slept) (42b) Emy-no Obachan-ga neta. (Emy's Grandma slept) (43) Nas festas as wakai Obachán sentam no tatami novo. in parties the young aunts sit on the tatami new Notice that adjoined elements like adjectives can either take the position of the matrix language (wakai N) or the position of the embedded language (N novo). Notice that switching to Japanese was licensed by the article, but switching back to Portuguese between the noun and the adjective in 'tatami novo' was possible without a function word. Not only nouns can have such behaviour. The following examples are possible: (44a) Eu não quero um emprego abunai. I don't want a job dangerous. (44b) Eu acho motainai jogar esse arroz. I think (it)wasteful to throw out this rice. These are simply cases of single slot filling, a strategy that can be used by a monolingual who knows some foreign words, but nothing of its grammar, but is also a largely used strategy by proficient bilinguals, especially by those who code-switch between languages with different head positions. Though N and NP insertion is by far the most extensively used strategy, P&J CS is not limited to it. Function word block protection also works for P&J CS: (45a) Imanotoko-wa, ele tá indo bem mesmo for the moment-topic he is doing well really (45b) A moça confirmou duas vezes que o trem estava jikan dori the girl confirmed twice that the train was time according. (45c) E que de certa forma ninen koko de sugosute yuu koto-wa and that in a way [to spend two years here (said fact-topic)] é barra pesada. is a heavy matter. (45d) Eles são uns amores: seito-tati-ni taishite totemo sewasukinano. they are so cute: about their students very caring

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In (45a) the topic marked by the functional particle -wa is in Japanese and the sentence that follows (the comment) is in Portuguese. In (45b) the predicate of the subordinated clause is in Japanese and what licenses the switch is the inflection carrying verb. In (c) the Japanese segment in italics is the topic/subject marked again by -wa followed by the predicate in Portuguese. The initial segment in (c) is a discursive introductor. The Japanese segment in (d) has a discursive function of clarification, equivalent to the first clause in Portuguese. Discursive fillers are juxtaposed and not structurally dependent on the syntactic unit with which they are related. I consider such relation extrasentential (cf. examples (15)-(17) in Portuguese and English). Because of the difficulties of a smooth transition, the most common CS occurs through word or NP insertion and extrasentential switches. This confirms Poplack et al. (1987) and the conclusions of Nait Marek & Sankoff (1988) in their analyses of EnglishFinnish CS and French-Arab CS respectively. Code-switching between Portuguese and Japanese can also be strongly discourse conditioned. The Japanese are known for their extensive use of formulaic speech often linked to polite expressions. Thus one often hears a conversation start in Japanese, with thanks for previous favours and kindnesses, and finish in Japanese with take-leave formulaic sentences. The informative part of the message appears sandwiched in Portuguese. The discursive elements function like a frame for the insertion of messages in Portuguese. (46) Kinoo-wa domo gotissosamadeshita. Será que vocês vão Thank you for the wonderful meal yesterday. I wonder estar em casa amanhã?... Obachama-ni yoroshiku. whether you will be home tomorrow?... Give my love to Grandma. Code-Switching and Language Fossilisation Most members of the second generation of speakers of Japanese did not have formal schooling in Japanese, a fact that limited their vocabulary to the everyday domestic use. Facing the problem of vocabulary accessibility, the second generation starts to insert inaccessible items in otherwise Portuguese sentences, code-switching according to the subject and the situation. The language of the homes becomes increasingly Portuguese. To favour intergeneration communication, members of the older generation start the practice of language mixing, the members that are less proficient in Portuguese do it by filling Portuguese words in a Japanese grammatical skeleton. The practice becomes so unconscious that sometimes the practitioners are not even aware that a Japanese in Japan would not make head or tail of what is being said.

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I had the opportunity to observe the following situation. An aunt of mine aged 82 called up another aunt in Japan and after the preliminary phatic formulas, she said (Japanese in italics): (47) Segunda-feira-ni teregrama-wo manda-shimashita. Monday-ni telegram wo send-shimashita on accus did What this example shows is that the Japanese speaker inserts items from the Portuguese lexicon into the functional skeleton of Japanese. Adjoined adjectives may expand the Portuguese items: (48) Segunda-feira passada-ni teregram-wo manda-shimashita. Monday past This construction already configures knowledge of grammar of Portuguese unlike the mere word insertion strategy. No switching between the week-day noun and the adjective is necessary because no function word is involved. However, if a noun modifier with a genitive postposition is inserted, the postposition belongs necessarily to the Japanese functional skeleton. The lexical filling is now free to be Portuguese or Japanese: (49) Semana passada-no segunda-feira-ni teregrama-wo... Senshu-no segunda-feira-ni teregrama-wo... last week's Monday What this contrast shows is that function words allow, but do not determine code-switching. It is a common finding in CS research that verbs are the most unlikely category to be mixed into the other language (cf. an overview of these findings in Meisel, 1992). It is true that we do not find main verb insertion in P&J CS. But one phenomenon that is worth pointing out is the use of the auxiliary 'suru' and its inflected forms (shita, shimashita) which replaces the bound tense and agreement morphemes of Portuguese. In (47), that is how the Portuguese verb 'manda' is inserted. The auxiliary 'suru' has the properties of the auxiliary do in English, as do also is a tense carrier and is neutral regarding the active or stative nature of the verb with which it appears. The difference is in the fact that 'suru' appears in the declarative form without emphatic effect. (50) compra-suru buy-do transitive, active senta-suru sit-do intransitive-active ama-suru love-do transitive, stative dorme-suru sleep-do intransitive, stative aparece-suru appear-do ergative, presentative quebra-suruo break-do ergative, causative The behaviour of the V+suru is that of V+light verb, found in other situations of code-switching and language contact. 7 Like auxiliaries in general,

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suru does not select arguments. The selection of the arguments is a property of the main predicate (originally a verb in Portuguese), which in CS appears as a bare noun, that is, without a postposition. This possibility is internal to Japanese and also found in Portuguese: (51) kanjo-suru counting do fazer conta(s) do counting The other auxiliaries or 'light' verbs that are used as tense carriers are the directionality verbs 'iku'(go) and 'kuru' (come). In this case the predication is expressed by an NP with the postposition that marks 'goal'. (52) Professora-wa compra-ni itta/kitta. teacher-topic shopping-to went/came. Comparing what S did when mixing a verb in her P&E CS, we observe that the bound nature of the tense morpheme is maintained when an English verb is mixed into Portuguese (guessar) resulting in intra-word switching, which sounds much worse to me. Looking back to (49), one more aspect that deserves attention is the absence of the subject pronoun. Both Portuguese and English are 'pro-drop languages', and this feature is expected in code-switching. However, I have often heard the use of Portuguese pronouns (phonologically adapted: eu yo) in P&J CS, when the functional skeleton is that of Japanese. (53) Yo-ga teregrama-wo manda-shita. I nom telegram accus send did Brazilian Portuguese, however, has been undergoing a change from a '+pro-drop' to '-pro-drop' language (cf. Tarallo & Kato, 1989; Duarte, 1993) and, contrary to other 'prodrop' languages, does not obey the 'avoid pronoun' principle (Jaeggli, 1982). However, this explains the over-use of unnecessary pronouns, but does not explain the use of Portuguese pronouns. The motivation may have to do with the complicated system of pronouns and address forms in Japanese. While in Portuguese the first person is invariably 'eu' (pronounced 'yo' by the Japanese), in Japanese there are several forms, depending on semantic, interpersonal and contextual factors and the same is true for the second person. (54) I = watashi (formal or female speaker) I boku (informal male speaker) ore (male, hierarchically superior) etc. The phenomenon resembles what Corvalán (1993) describes as a phenomenon of 'permeability of grammars' of languages. in intense contact like English and Spanish in the US. In her view, when two languages A and B are in contact, the permeability may have to do, among other things, with 'the preferential use in B of a structure parallel to one in A to the detriment of variants in B' (p. 20). Thus, the use of overt pronouns, which is a feature

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that is preferential in Portuguese and recessive in Japanese, permeates CS between P&J. But this overt use of pronouns is avoided in CS by educated people, being common among rural immigrants, which shows that the choice of drop or maintenance of pronouns is regulated by pragmatic conditions, as observed by Corvalán. Conclusions The facts analysed in this paper allow me to distinguish three kinds of language mixing: (a) One that preserves the functional skeleton of one language and uses isolated items of the substantive lexicon of the two languages to fill in the skeletal frame. The user of such a mode of mixing is not a syntactic bilingual. (b) One that preserves the functional skeleton of one language and uses the substantive lexicon of the two languages, showing the ability to combine substantive words in adjunction; the user of such a mode of mixing has only a compounding sort of language ability, which can be rote-learned even by monolinguals (examples in English: bus stop, free ride, day off). (c) One that combines functional projections from different languages. My last concluding speculation is that CS must be constrained not only by syntactic and discursive factors, but also by prosodic ones. If we can reduce prosodic patterns to syntactic ones or vice-versa, then this observation is irrelevant. To me the codeswitching cases in S's letters sound not only syntactically very smooth but also rhythmically graceful. It is not accidental that I picked my musician daughter for a subject and not the one who is a computer graphics designer. Notes 1. I say 'typologically' distant ones because one is SVO and the other is SOV, though there are some essential syntactic similarities in the two languages: productive Topic constructions, null subjects and objects. See Kato (1989) for comparative aspects between these two languages. 2. Some exceptions for Japanese are Suzuki (1984), Handa (1980). The former is a doctoral research on address forms in the Japanese spoken in Brazil and the latter, a non-technical essay on the Portuguese learning experience by Japanese immigrants. 3. Another question that intrigues me is: how do bilingual acquisition facts described in the literature compare with first language fossilisation? This question is more complex and requires more time and space to be answered. 4. The word 'borrowing' has been distinguished from 'code-switching' in the literature, the former as a strategy of the monolingual who has no grammatical competence in another language and the latter as an activity of someone with balanced or unbalanced bilingual competence. But most authors acknowledge the fact that there is no clear-cut distinction.

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5. Sankoff, Poplack & Vanniarajan (1986), comparing Tamil and English CS; Poplack, Wheeler & Westwood (1987), comparing Finnish and English CS; Barek & Sankoff (1988), comparing Arab and French CS. 6. The exception is a sentence with a subject containing a superlative adjective, but we can attribute this fact to the nature of the superlative construction: The worst thing é a respeito do XXX ___________ is with respect to XXX. 7. See reference to this process in English-Spanish code-switching in Pfaff: Su hija hace teach allá en San José. His daughter does- there in San José (1982: 276)

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13 Cognitive Skills and Individual Differences in Reading ABUÊNDIA PADILHA PINTO The purpose of this study was to investigate how the similarities and differences in subjects' cognitive skills during reading, as reported in pause protocols, affect comprehension and to what extent these individual differences influenced the results of monitoring training techniques for EFL reading. The subjects were two Brazilian postgraduate students. Both read a text before the research, received specific training and read another text at the end of the study. Results showed that despite many similarities, a number of differences were detected in their reading behaviour. Notwithstanding differences, their various cognitive skills facilitated their apprehension of meaning and enabled them to understand the texts fully. Although their individual preferences did not present many changes after the training period, they gradually became aware of their cognitive skills during reading. Additional studies are needed to focus on a varied and long-term training to accommodate differing cognitive skills, in order to increase independence in reading a foreign language. Since the beginning of this century reading has been defined (as a process, as a product and again as a process), learnt, taught and evaluated in various different ways. The notions related to this product-process dichotomy, however, stem from old roots. This can be clearly inferred from Huey's (1908) and Thorndike's (1917) conceptions concerning the reading process. According to Glazer & Searfoss (1988), Huey was concerned with the mental processes used by readers to interpret textual information. Thorndike, likewise, regarded reading as a reasoning process. Huey's and Thorndike's ideas, which preceded present notions, reflect the belief that reading requires both visual and non-visual information. It can be observed that present positions on this subject do not differ basically from their definitions and concepts. Nowadays these ideas emphasize readers' affective, cognitive and psychomotor processes in their attempt to understand written messages.

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In the field of reading, more specifically in the area of foreign language reading, it is amazing that researchers are not concerned with the part played by individual differences in reading comprehension. They concentrate solely on the ordinary processes which are common to both good and poor readers. In areas like psychology, for instance, studies related to both ordinary processes and individual differences have been equally and widely explored. In language teaching, as mentioned above, especially in foreign language teaching, these aspects have been neglected by researchers. In an attempt to contribute to changing this situation, this paper tries to identify the influence of the various mental processes in reading and to assess to what extent the cognitive monitoring training techniques are affected by individual differences. It is hoped that such differences will become more evident and will thus lead to more appropriate instructional techniques, capable ultimately of promoting foreign language reading autonomy. Metacognitive Skills and Reading Over the past fifteen years researchers concerned with students' cognition in classroom activities (Doyle 1987; Marx, Winne & Walsh, 1985) have begun to consider cognitive processes during reading. Baker & Brown (1984), for instance, established a relation between metacognitive ability and efficient reading. Two dimensions were detected in this ability: people's awareness of their own cognitive resources, also defined as 'declarative knowledge' as opposed to 'procedural knowledge', which means the way people regulate their own learning activities, such as the following: checking the results of a problem-solving trial, planning the next move, monitoring action efficiency, revision and evaluation of one's own learning strategies. Another metacognitive ability that has been highlighted by these authors is the development and use of compensatory strategies. These are the result of readers' awareness of their cognitive skills and monitoring of their own progress. Since Rubin (1975), these comprehension monitoring activities metacognitive function and cognitive processing function also developed by Wenden (1985), Oxford (1989), O'Malley & Chamot (1990), have been incorporated into various reading models (Goodman, 1985; Rumelhart, 1980; Anderson, 1985; Carrell, 1988). In spite of these new approaches, pupils continue to experience failures in comprehension, which may be due to the nonactivation of appropriate schemata, to the absence of specific goals, to the misunderstanding of the task at hand or even to the non-use of known strategies. All these differences stem from the fact that pupils are not used to controlling their own reading. According to Brown (1984), they lack the necessary metacognitive knowledge for planning, monitoring and evaluat-

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ing their own reading tasks. These are the cognitive skills that help readers to evaluate their degree of comprehension and to decide how and when to take compensatory action. These self-regulating mechanisms, the main concern of this paper, and which were termed 'strategic activity' by Wertsch (1985), lead pupils to evaluate their own strategies and seek solutions to problems arising from effective comprehension monitoring. Interaction and Reading Tasks Self-regulating control mechanisms should be acquired in the classroom setting through the interaction of teachers and students. According to Foley (1991), the traditional approach offered few opportunities for obtaining self-control in task performance. The classroom was object-regulated (pupils' learning was focused on texts, drills and exercises) and other-regulated (pupils were controlled by the teacher). There was no concern for pupils' metacognitive performance. Prabhu (1987) distinguishes between traditional and task-based approaches. According to him, the learner's capacity for selfregulation represents one of the main purposes of education. Prabhu points out that information gathering, reasoning and critical opinion constitute activities present in two types of task assigned in the classroom setting: the teacher-oriented pre-task (otherregulated) and the real task (self-regulated), which is independently performed by the pupil. These two types of task divide the duration of a lesson into two phases, the first represented by an interactional activity under the orientation and control of the teacher, the second by an activity performed individually by each pupil. The performance of task-based activities may be regarded as an attempt to gain strategic self-control. This derives from the fact that when the pupil faces a difficult situation he returns to the strategic behaviour of object-control and other-control in order to reach the self-regulated control that the task requires. The subjects' training in the present research was based on Prabhu's theory of the task-based approach in the classroom. Individual Cognitive Skills Strategic resolutions are decisions taken according to the reader's style (the way he perceives, organises, analyses and retains information) and cognitive skills (what type of information is being processed?; how is it operated?; in which way?) bearing on the acquisition, retention and use of information. Granted that pupils are normally taught in a homogeneous way irrespective of their individual differences (age, sex, level of linguistic knowledge, previous experience, etc.), there has been a growing concern over such differences because their pedagogical implications are highly relevant.

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Neither teachers nor pupils seem to be aware of the fact that difficulties in the use of instructional material, feelings of frustration and failures may originate outside the classroom. The causes of these problems can be found in the teaching-learning process itself. To ensure a better chance of success teachers should learn more about the characteristics of their students and the conscious mental operations that may help or hinder the development of the latter's skills in foreign language reading. Differences related to reading efficiency levels and to the systematic usage of strategies may be directly linked to the various degrees of metacognitive knowledge. This is so because in the context of reading, metacognition comprises two types of cognition: the knowledge of strategies for learning from texts and the control that readers exert on their own actions while performing reading for different purposes. This metacognitive control, consciously activated by readers in their reasoning processes, constitutes the most important aspect of strategic reading. For this reason, the development of reading comprehension and the use of metacognitive strategies must be preceded by appropriate training. Since the 1980s, previous training has been advocated by a movement dedicated to the improvement of the conscious learning of foreign languages. Cohen (1985) considers consciousness a crucial issue to foreign language learning and maintains that the student must not only be aware of the task he is performing but also of how it is being accomplished. By means of systematic training, readers become conscious of the reading process, learn how to establish goals, evaluate tasks, choose adequate strategies and monitor their efficacy. Methodology Subjects Research was conducted with two female Brazilian students, aged 42 and 46, from the Catholic University of São Paulo (PUC) Post-graduate Programme of Applied Linguistics (Portuguese), at MA and PhD level, whose command of English corresponded to that of a secondary school student. Data-gathering instruments Texts The texts for study in class and utilised for data gathering were short. They consisted mainly of introductions to academic articles in Social Psychology journals.

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Pause protocols Following the orientation of Cavalcanti (1989) concerning efficient administration of texts, pause protocols were used at the first stage of data gathering for the purpose of identifying the subjects' conscious mental processes. After the interactive instruction phase, pause protocols were repeated to identify changes not only in individual cognitive skills but also in reading autonomy levels. The administration of pause protocols was preceded by a short period of training aimed at inducing the subjects to place the necessary emphasis on each pause and making them conscious of such pauses during the act of reading. Questionnaire Following the first stage of data collection the questionnaire was administered with a view to obtaining the profile of each student and ensuring a better evaluation of the main similarities and differences between their individual cognitive skills. Diaries At the end of the two sessions, notes were taken to register activities producing learning opportunities in the classroom and the reflections of the conscious mental operations connected with the task performance. Procedures The research comprised three different phases. Activities during Phase 1 were classified as follows: Pause protocol, preceded by a training period, the pause protocol itself and an oral summary. Questionnaire answered after completion of the first pause protocol. At this stage protocols and questionnaires were analysed in order to determine the influence of individual cognitive skills in reading comprehension. In Phase 2 interactive instruction was carried out along the lines suggested by Prabhu (pre-task and real task). Each task was accordingly demonstrated in class and performed by students via teacher-oriented practice (other-regulated). The task was then performed independently by each student (self-regulated). At this stage notes were written down in diaries so as to keep a record not only of the activities developed in class but also of the conscious mental operations utilised during task performance. Diaries were then subjected to analysis for the purpose of identifying existing relations between the training in task selfregulated mechanisms by students and their conscious mental operations. In order to study the results of the interactive instruction for task self-regulation, a pause protocol was repeated at the final stage of the research. This second pause

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protocol was then analysed to verify to what extent individual differences had affected the results of cognitive monitoring training techniques. Analysis of Results Phase 1 Questionnaire Although the subjects appeared to be at the same level in their knowledge of English, their answers related to reading performance in the target language and those connected with the understanding of magazines, newspaper articles and classroomtype texts differed to some extent. It was also found that while Subject 2 tried to identify elements of lexical and grammatical cohesion, Subject 1 did not take these into consideration. Some coincidences in the utilisation of cognitive skills such as apprehension of text superstructure, use of previous knowledge, identification of the important aspects of text content and perception of relevant and irrelevant information, were also observed. Both subjects asserted, with a certain frequency, that they employed, in their text information processing, the following strategies: returning to the text after finishing their reading, making interruptions to allow for analysis of segments not clearly understood, identifying the type of problem and trying to solve it. However, as will be seen later, from the analysis of the pause protocols, Subject 2 was much more concerned with rereading and questioning parts of the text not understood than Subject 1. Nevertheless, this strategic behaviour did not impair the latter's comprehension owing to her ability in taking into consideration her own ideas and expressing her critical opinion on the author's style and viewpoints. Pause Protocol 1 When analysing the cognitive skills of the subjects it was observed that both presented the following points of similarity: (a) Inferences Subject 1 Subject 2 (...) It seems to me that he is going (...) It seems to me that it to do (.) he is going to say deals with parents doing something related to psychology (...) research training (...) (b) Morphological analysis of unknown words (e.g. 'shortage') and erroneous apprehension of their meaning. (...) 'Short' I know is something small (.) but here it must be 'underage' (.) I suppose it means 'of few years of age' (.) I don't know (...) (...) 'short' (.) 'short' is small (.) 'age' (.) 'of few years of age' (...)

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(c) False cognate 'parents' leading to interpretation problems. ('Parentes' in Portuguese means relatives). (...) I am not sure if this 'parents' means father and mother(...)

(-) the training of 'relatives' was impossible (...)

(d) Skipping key words unknown to them without trying to interpret their meaning. This was more frequent with Subject 1. (...) 'Has focused' (.) this word I haven't the faintest idea what it means (...) (...)'Assessment' also I haven't the faintest idea (...) (...) This one here I don't understand what it means (...) When asked to produce a brief summary of the text, unlike Subject 1, who did not make use of compensatory strategies, Subject 2, on detecting comprehension gaps, tried to perform corrective actions. The following excerpt illustrates this point: (...) Listen, for me it is a bit vague (.)there are a lot of things I didn't understand and besides I'm rather slow (laughs) in this (.) here (...) (...) Oh (.) a brief summary for me would be the following (.) well (.) that is (.) ah (.) I'm reading again just to see how it would be (...) There were some other differences between the subjects in relation to their conscious mental operations. As to the question of textual content, this is how Subject 1 made use of her previous knowledge to establish connections with the new ideas presented in the reading: (...) when he mentioned newspapers (.) I was reminded of a classroom (.) and it was just yesterday that I came across an article in the Folha da Tarde newspaper where there is something on the importance of using newspapers in class (.) so as to (.) induce people to (.) the habit of reading (...) She also made a critical appreciation of the text: (...) I found it very interesting and here when he talks about newspapers I recalled what I had read (...) Subject 2, on the other hand, was more specific in manifesting her conscious mental operations and her personality traits when expressing: (a) her difficulties in decoding text structure; (b) her strategic behaviour during text processing and (c) her anxiety caused by the challenge the task presented. Besides enunciating her cognitive abilities and her feelings of insecurity with respect to her task performance, Subject 2 (a) questioned herself while trying to interpret the meaning of words and sentences (e.g. 'with a certain efficiency?') and (b) used words in reverse order (e.g. 'sources indispensable').

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Phase 2 Diaries After two pedagogic treatment sessions subjects wrote a diary where they registered their impressions on classroom activities, cognitive skills stimulated by task accomplishment, and the influence of instruction in reading styles. Although the protocol analysis has emphasized some similarities among the conscious mental operations of the subjects, their diaries demonstrated that these points of convergence became more evident after interactive instruction in the classroom. The subjects, then, started to present slight changes in their reading styles. Besides becoming aware of other cognitive skills, which were until then seldom performed, they knew what strategy to use and how to use it successfully and appropriately in combination with other strategies. Phase 3 Pause Protocol 2 The second text was submitted to the subjects with the same control measures used during the procedures. Although the subjects presented a number of concerns about morphological analysis of unknown words, the frequency of this operation was greater in Subject 2. Subject 1 restricted her analysis solely to two terms: 'non-depressed' and 'underachieving'. Both subjects also tried to classify words according to their syntactic features. This kind of grouping method was not evident before the training period. (...) here comes that verb (.) there it was a noun (.) here it is a verb (.) so I never know what it is (...) (...) 'lessened' may be a verb (.) no (.)this sounds so strange (.) 'lessened' can't be a verb (...) With regard to the use of other cognitive skills for grasping the meaning of unknown words, it was found that while Subject 2 skipped only a few unimportant ones, Subject 1 repeated her neglectful behaviour by enunciating key words unknown to her without trying to interpret their meaning. On the other hand, as was detected during the first protocol, Subject 1 used previous knowledge to identify connections between her ideas and the new information presented in the text. (...) I immediately associated the idea with cases that I know from children who appear sad (.) who give the impression of being indifferent and deep, deep down it is only (.) lack of attention, lack of(.) of(.) a need they feel (.) it is generally a lack of affection (...) Although more evident in Subject 1, critical reactions were observed in both subjects.

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(...) they will find difficulties in learning (.) which I disagree with because I know children with depression who learn well (...) (...) Because the text is very interesting and depression is something that I am particularly concerned about (...) More aware of her cognitive skills during this second protocol, Subject 1 stated her difficulties in connection with text structure while monitoring and evaluating her comprehension. This strategic behaviour was only evident in Subject 2 during the first data gathering. (...) here is structure (.) it's the structure that prevents my understanding (...) However, only Subject 2 dearly showed her conscious mental operations while describing her reading process. (...) I tried to reread and discover from the context what it would be (...) Subject 2 repeated the strategic behaviour noticed during the first data gathering by: (a) self-questioning (e.g. 'children (.) with depression (.) depressed?' ) and (b) using words in reverse order (e.g. (...) affections negative (...) a child with limitations cognitive (...) It is important to point out that not only in the first but even more so in the second protocol subjects monitored their task-related activities in order to check comprehension. As was observed in their diaries, comprehension monitoring and the use of compensation strategies provided subjects with a somewhat greater independence in reading. Final Considerations Differences detected in text processing during reading comprehension were obvious. Subject 1, for instance, exhibited a preference for skipping key words unknown to her without trying to use compensatory strategies such as rereading or using context clues to get at their meaning. Despite presenting this sort of behaviour, the same subject used other conscious mental operations which helped her understand the written message. The attitude of Subject 2, however, was fundamentally different. She constantly resorted to morphological analysis of unknown items, grouped and classified them according to their semantic and syntactic features. In doing this she showed her concern for aspects of meaning not only at word and phrase level but at paragraph and text level as well. Throughout her data gathering this subject demonstrated her: (a) monitoring techniques in the face of difficulties in grasping meaning from context; (b) strategic behaviour in the course of text processing and (c) personality traits when stating her anxiety during task performance. These differences, nevertheless, did not impair the validity of task performance since subjects apprehended and retained the main ideas, even

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making use of their own peculiar reading styles. It is assumed, therefore, that the use of different cognitive skills does not affect reading comprehension. Results suggest that the training of reading-related task activities helped the subjects enhance their reading awareness and the control of their own cognitive skills. They also demonstrate that individual differences do not significantly affect the outcome of cognitive monitoring training techniques. However, notwithstanding the short time dedicated to the pedagogical treatment, no noteworthy changes could be detected in the conscious mental processes clearly expressed during the initial and final data gathering periods. Owing to the scanty information produced by the small number of subjects and sessions involved in the research, results should accordingly be interpreted with caution. It is necessary, therefore, that new studies be started with a view to providing specific training for the accommodation of individual cognitive skills and the promotion of autonomy in foreign language reading.

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14 Introspection in Applied Linguistics: Meta-Research on Verbal Protocols MARILDA C. CAVALCANTI and MARA SOPHIA ZANOTTO This paper begins by discussing the status of introspection as a research tool; it then presents a study which used introspection to gain access to insights into introspection itself. Subjects, who were learning about introspective research methods, read poems or prose in their first language, Brazilian Portuguese and produced oral protocols while reading. Subsequently they were interviewed and wrote reports on their procedures. Finally, the paper discusses the value of the whole meta-research procedure. To talk about introspection is usually an invitation for debate and misunderstanding due to the fact that the concept is taken to epitomise subjectivity in science. This may be one of the reasons for introspection being generally dismissed as a research tool and a research topic, even in the more recent research methodology books. As Lyons (1986: xi) states: 'introspection has rarely been approached as a topic worthy of investigation in its own fight'. Another reason may derive from the fact that it is seen as a tool to reach cognitive processes and this has been seen as a 'methodological taboo' during behaviourism (Faerch & Kasper, 1987: 10) and, in our opinion, subsequently too. Introspection is used here as an umbrella term to refer to introspective tools and as a synonym for, as Grotjahn (1987: 55) suggests, 'introspective data collection' or 'introspective procedures'. It encompasses verbal and written reports such as think aloud (verbal) protocols, introspective and retrospective records, diaries, fieldnotes, repertory grids, interviews and questionnaires (cf. Cavalcanti, 1993). All of these tools involve one form or another of thinking aloud or thinking to oneself. However, in this paper we focus only upon verbal reports since they are usually seen as the prototype of introspection and as such as its scapegoat. The other tools, one way or another, have not been 'acknowledged as introspective tools in the literature' (see Cavalcanti, 1993) and seem to be out of reach in terms of the debate.

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This exploratory study aims at investigating a data collection procedure through verbal protocols, examining the reading of Portuguese as a first language by Applied Linguistics postgraduate students. The procedure was designed within a wider metaresearch project, which focused on the validity and reliability of the protocol as a research tool. We take as a departure point for this study that any research tool has advantages and disadvantages and deserves investigation in its own right. We argue, however, that the investigation should take place within the social context of data collection. In other words, in the case of this study, we are interested in introspection as a 'social encounter' (cf. Salmon, 1977: 39) in data collection and not as a lab encounter. This does not, however, exclude the need for the researcher to be thoroughly familiar with the research tool. (See Faerch & Kasper, 1987; Cavalcanti, 1987, for further discussion.) The paper is organised in three parts: a presentation of the research tool, the design of the meta-research, and the data analysis. Verbal Protocols Protocols are usually defined as verbal reports of the informants' conscious thought processes. In other words, they refer to the informant thinking aloud while tackling a task, be it reading a text, constructing meaning on a linguistic (logical or any other kind of) task, maths problem-solving, writing a diary, or taking part in a playback session of a video-recorded event. Verbal protocols were introduced in qualitative research in psychology in 1890, ever since when their validity to reveal thought processes has been questioned. Despite the continuous debate, protocols have always had their followers in research, even during behaviourism when they were virtually banned from science. When cognitivism came into evidence as a new paradigm, however, protocols, Phoenix-like, arose as the major data source for cognitive research (see Ericsson & Simon, 1987: 24). This rebirth happened within the theoretical framework of information-processing, mainly in relation to problem-solving studies. Verbal protocols have gone beyond the realm of cognitive psychology into applied linguistics. 1 Here they have shown a really strong presence in foreign/second language reading research (Hosenfeld, 1976; Cohen & Hosenfeld, 1981; Faerch & Kasper, 1987). They have also been used in mother tongue research (Flower & Hayes, 1981; Matsuhashi, 1981). No doubt reading research has been a leader in the use of protocols (see, for example, Olshavsky, 1977; Tierney & Lazanski, 1983; Cavalcanti, 1983, 1987; Paschoal, 1988, 1992). In translation, the only studies we know of are the ones reported in Faerch & Kasper (1987). Hosenfeld is regarded as the introducer of protocols in educational research, and Cohen may be considered the researcher who has diversified the use of protocols beyond reading

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to investigate test-taking (Cohen, 1984a), learning strategies (Cohen, 1984b), and essay-marking (Cohen & Cavalcanti, 1990). Very few studies have used protocols to look at oral language comprehension (see Mann, 1982). Due to the increased use of protocols in the new paradigm in psychology, Ericsson & Simon (1987: 1) then point out the necessity and importance of investigating this methodology 2 to collect and analyse protocol data sources, so as to provide protocol analysis with a solid theoretical basis and to be able to respond to the objections made by psychologists about the acceptance of protocols as scientific data source. The main objection to verbal protocols is that process reporting may alter thought processes and indirectly the performance of the task. Embedded in this objection is the fact that informants have to raise their thought processes to consciousness. However, this need only be thought of/ requested if the informant is interested in doing so, for example, if he or she wishes to study protocols in order to use them. Otherwise, we believe, verbal protocols should really be taken as stream-of-consciousness reports similar to psychoanalytic/therapeutic reports. The other objections refer to the fact that reports: (a) may render an incomplete record of cognitive processes; (b) are idiosyncratic, i.e. represent a unique experience; and (c) are epiphenomenal, that is, they are generated independently from cognitive processes which produce non-verbal behaviour and performance. Verbal protocols, within the portrait just given, on the one hand, thus represent an important data source, and, on the other hand, present the researchers with added problems in data collection, due to the objections described above, which force the researcher to take extra care. This may seem somehow paradoxical and incongruous in connection with research tools. However, the incongruence and paradox seem to be the result of the fact that protocols have been the target of fierce criticism. As such, critics seem to forget that there are objections to any kind of research tool and that care should be taken when any tool is used in research lest the objections may be prejudiced. We believe that these objections are related to the fact that protocols were perhaps an avant-garde research tool which claimed, daringly, to provide access to the human mind. The objections just presented have an intrinsic or cognitive nature. All of these, however, are speculative since no empirical evidence is presented. Our attempt here is to look at what happens when people who are curious about the use of protocols, accept the challenge of being part of a meta-research design where they will have to reflect about doing a verbal protocol. By doing this we are attempting specifically to fill in the gap detected in the literature, in both psychology and applied linguistics. It should be stated that our interest is not in refuting these

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objections, since this has been dealt with by Ericsson & Simon, 1984, inter alia, but to show what happens when novice researchers use the protocol for the first time either as informants or as protocol elicitors. The research question we will focus upon is: What types of relationships are established in the interactions based on protocol elicitation? These relationships are seen as a social network and are central for this collective meta-research. 3 They seem to show that when one carries out research work on reading comprehension, one is not always aware that there are interactional aspects which may be playing an important role in the context of data collection. This interactional network may affect the quality of the collected data sources and may redirect the data analysis, sometimes pointing to a need for a new data collection, to extend the original procedure. The Meta-Research Design Our informants were twelve MA and PhD postgraduate students from various Brazilian universities who participated in a course given by the authors on mother-tongue reading and writing research. The focus of the course was the use of protocols in research and it included a theoretical introduction to the subject. Therefore, the students were either interested in the technique for their own research work or curious about the research tool. As such, they were potentially motivated to use protocols either as elicitors or as informants. The research design proposed for the students had two phases. The first phase included two types of situations encompassing the idea of a protocol session as a social encounter, i.e. (a) with the technical support of a peer or of one of the lecturers, and (b) with no technical support, that is, on one's own. Having in mind that prose and poetry might generate differences in reading interaction, both a fable and a poem by Brazilian writers were selected by the lecturers. The students had to organise their protocol sessions in order to include either the reading of the prose text or the reading of the poem. After the sessions they were to be interviewed by their peers or lecturers and to write a personal report. The peers who provided technical support were also asked to write reports. The original research design, however, had to be altered due to the fact that most students resisted reading the poem and doing the protocol with no technical support. Thus the first phase design came out with most students choosing the prose text (8 out of 12). For the second phase of the data collection, the students who had read the prose text had to read the poem and vice-versa. However, due to the fact that they had resisted reading the poem in the first phase, we decided to modify the research design so as to have only volunteers in this second

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phase. These volunteers could decide between doing the protocol on their own or with the technical support of one of the course lecturers, and to read the poem or the prose text depending on what they had read in the first phase. Only four students took part in this phase: two read the prose text, one on his own and the other with technical support, and two read the poem. Data Analysis: Interactions in the Research Context An initial look at the data sources indicated that the following relationships are established in verbal protocol interaction: (i) the informant in relation to the chosen text; (ii) the informant and the research tool; (iii) the informant and the ongoing research aim(s); and (iv) the informant and the peer who acted as protocol elicitor and as interviewer. Having in mind the change in the data collection design due to the students' resistance to text and task types (itself a finding), and also due to space restrictions, we shall focus on the first and second of these relationships, referring only briefly to the third and the fourth. (i) The Informant and the Focused Text This level of the interactional network is seen as central in this meta-research because it is at this level that we expect to get information about the interaction that is built during a protocol. To search for this, we will restrict ourselves to the protocol of one informant. As for the informant chosen, Informant 1, we decided to pick out precisely the one who was most resistant to protocols when the course started. Informant 1 read the poem and the prose text. Below we have a short extract of the warm-up protocol (based on a poem): OK (reads aloud) What attracted my attention were the capital letters here/ Love... Madness... Well (resumes reading, this time silently). I thought it interesting, this confrontation here: human/not human, this game here, this paradox (resumes reading). I don't quite remember Drummond's poems where he establishes a dialogue within the...within the poem... 'Love knocked on the door of madness' Ah...and there's something else, he personifies love and madness. 'Love knocks on the door of madness, asks her to come in, says she is his sister...um, um... Although the protocol elicitor showed signs of worry in her data collection report because the informant was 'more interested in interpreting the poem than in doing the protocol', the informant herself seemed to enjoy her experience. She says in her log that she 'acted spontaneously, well at ease, not tense'. However, as she describes her path through the warm-up text to the actual collection-text, she states she was worried about not being up to the expectations of her peer. It is interesting to notice that the students,

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in general, took the data collection so seriously that they almost made it fail. A protocol elicitation, in our view, is like an interview and depends on the informant's reactions. There should be some leeway for spontaneity. The blame may be placed, perhaps, on one of the lecturers who, in giving guidance, may have overdone the advice to take data collection seriously. (ii) The Informant and the Protocol At this level of the interactional network, we go beyond Informant 1 to the other informant through their retrospective reports and interviews. From these, we inferred that the following points were relevant: familiarity, metacognition, speech as related to thought, truthfulness, and motivation. Regarding familiarity with verbal protocols, the informants state that this is a crucial factor for carrying out the proposed task. To illustrate, consider what the informants 1 and 2 say in their retrospective written report and retrospective interview respectively: It was the first time and in these circumstances, it is usually more difficult. (Informant 1 Retrospective Report) Well, I have to say that this was the first time, you know. I had never done anything like this before, and it is due to this that, you know, the fact that I am not used to verbalising what I am thinking about, right? (...) Really, to talk about what you're thinking about is a strange experience! It is strange. (Informant 2 Interview) In research and in teaching, the traditional focus of attention was the product or output. The process of reading did not appear important. Verbalising what one does while reading is probably stranger than talking about what one does to solve a maths problem. This is the reason why some researchers, e.g. Cavalcanti (1983), based upon pilot studies, have pointed out the need for warming up before launching into doing a protocol. This warm-up would be the first step towards familiarity with the research tool. In psychology, familiarity with the tool is referred to as a training (sic) issue. Pritchard (1991), for instance, refers to the fact that Titchener back in 1912, during the classical psychology period only accepted trained subject-observers. His observers had to go through an intensive training before taking part in a formal experiment. The intensiveness of the training reflected a conception of introspection as an acquired skill. In cognitive psychology, however, the view about trained subjects is somewhat different. As Pritchard says: From (...) [this] came a consensus that the responses of the highly trained observers used in early research were more artificial and therefore less valid than those of untrained subjects (...). As a result, naive subjects' responses most commonly referred to as verbal reports became an important part of the research in cognitive psychology. (1991: 3)

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Concerning metacognition, the relationship between informant and tool shows that s/he finds it important to think about her/his cognitive processing. The making of a protocol, it should be pointed out, increases metacognition. The inference in this case is that protocols may have a pedagogical potential to be exploited (Brown & Lytle, 1988). As Informant 1, for instance, says: With the two protocol sessions, I could confirm what I had foreseen in the beginning as to the informant's benefits in an experience of this type: the informant forces herself to read better when she tries to elicit data from her metacognition. The task of talking aloud leads one to a de-automation of reading, which I see not as mere mechanical process, but as a critical reflexive process par excellence. (Informant 1 Retrospective Report) The informant above seems to be referring to what Schiffrin & Schneider (1977) say about the slowing down of cognitive processing as a prerequisite for being able to bring cognition to consciousness. Besides, from what the informant says, it could be inferred that protocols may have a role in teaching and not only in research, thus confirming what Brown & Lytle (1988) proposed. As to speech in relation to thought, this was pointed out by more than one informant as an important aspect. Thought is more rapid (see Schiffrin & Schneider, 1977) and this requires the informant to be attentive, or to have her/his metacognition well developed so as to capture his/her flux of thought and be able to monitor his/her speech. Informant 2 brings in this issue, in her interview: when (...) and it is interesting, it was interesting to notice that it is something, I think it is something everybody knows. You only feel it, however, in practice. Thought is more rapid than words, isn't it? Then when you think about verbalising a thought, there is another thought getting shaped. Then you find yourself bogged down, with three or four thoughts ahead of what you are trying to say. (Informant 2 Interview) The same informant adds that though verbalising is easy, it is made difficult by the swiftness of thoughts. As to truthfulness, it is Informant 3 who is worried about the issue: But I believe that, that, I don't actually know, right? Maybe it is early to talk about something of this kind. It's this type of research, this type of experience, it may (pause) Well, how can I say this? Let me find the exact word. He [the informant] may feel threatened. You may be touching something that he is not willing to expose. Then perhaps you may not get truthfulness in the data (...) the informant isn't always

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going to bring to surface what he actually feels. (Informant 3 Retrospective Report) The protocol elicitor of Informant 12 also focuses upon this issue in the questions she makes in her retrospective report: 'How can one check whether the protocol is taken seriously by the informant? How does one know whether he will reveal his cognitive processes? Can't the informant omit or block them?' Concerning motivation, most informants were highly and potentially motivated towards using protocols for the first time because, as mentioned earlier in this paper, they, as novice researchers, were getting ready to carry out their own piece of research and had decided to use protocols as a research tool: As I was interested in using the protocol technique in my own research, I am curious to see how an informant behaves while carrying out a task. (Informant 6 Retrospective Report) (iii) The informant and the oOgoing Research Aim(s) The informants, in general, were very sceptical about the research aims. Although interested in using the research tool themselves, they seemed to want to perform as 'subjects of an experiment'. (iv) The Informant and the Peer Who Acted as Protocol Elicitor and as Interviewer There was very close cooperation between peers from the moment they chose to do the protocol with technical support to the actual interaction itself. The interviewers/protocol elicitors felt more tense than the informants. It is interesting to notice that the students, in general, took the data collection so seriously that they almost made it unworkable. As it was their first time, they virtually demanded rules to follow. A protocol elicitation, in our view, is like an interview and depends on the informant's reactions. There should be some leeway for spontaneity. Concluding Remarks In our attempt to answer the research question What types of relationships are established in the interactions based on protocol elicitation? we noticed that the novice researchers responded very positively to acting as informants and not so positively to acting as protocol elicitors. The students who did the protocol on their own were also very much at ease, despite their initial fear of not having technical support. In the types of relationships considered in the interactions analysed, the ones relating the informant to the text and to the research tool appeared to be the most relevant in this meta-research. Doing meta-research brings implications for researcher education, such as the need for researcher and researcher-to-be to experience the research tool they are interested in. In the case of the researcher, there is a need not

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to succumb to temptation and provide recipes for novice researchers, even though they show their insecurity and worry. Doing meta-research also implies another type of interaction, the interaction between the research itself (in our case, this refers to two separate research proposals See Note 3) and the meta-research. This interaction allows us to look at the data properly and it helps the development of the research within appropriate parameters, mainly in terms of data collection. This is so because the meta-research made the researchers aware of what was happening in the collection, making adjustments and expansions possible. In the long run, it helps minimise the lack of familiarity with research tools. In sum, we are suggesting that doing meta-research should be seriously considered as part of doing research. Notes 1. In Brazil, particularly at the Applied Linguistics (LAEL) postgraduate programme of the Catholic University of São Paulo, protocols have been used as research tools in many MA dissertations (for example, Tolentino, 1992; Salina, 1993; Nardi, 1993) and have been the focus of seminars, such as the one chaired by Cohen in 1987, and of courses, like the one offered at the LAEL Winter Institute in 1988 where the authors collected the data for the study reported here. 2. Regarding verbal protocol methodology, in psychology, one would have to refer to Ericsson & Simon (1984) and in applied linguistics, a seminal collection is the one edited by Faerch & Kasper (1987). 3. They are regarded as important for the authors' own individual research works on reader-text interaction, specifically, reading plurality/intersubjectivity and metaphor comprehension, respectively.

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15 The Value of Accessing Translation as a Process NÉLIA SCOTT This paper argues the case for process studies of translation, both as a means of understanding how translation is actually achieved, and as an awareness-raising technique for the translator or learner of translation. These notions are illustrated with data from a study of two informants, translating from English into their native language, Spanish. A taxonomy of translation behaviours is provided. Research on translation has traditionally been product-oriented; more recently however, this focus has shifted to the process (Bassnett-McGuire, 1980, 1991; Bell, 1991, Hatira & Mason, 1990). Process studies have mostly referred to: (a) analysis of the different translation variants of the same text; (b) analysis of drafts of the same translation. This procedure for gaining access to the process '...to pathways leading to decision, to the dilemmas...' (Hatim & Mason, 1990: 3) has its limitations in that it is still text-bound and it gives no psycholinguistic account of the process. Another problem with looking at process in this way, is that no other material is available for analysis, apart from the source text and the translations, and what went on in the mind of the translator can only be inferred by the researcher, who works backwards from the output of the mechanism 1. The working definition of process in the present study as the internal process that leads to the product is derived from insights in the data which show process as involving the progression from one thought stage to another, putting forward and checking various proposals, amending and rejecting or affirming these to achieve a final outcome or product. Access and identification of this kind of ongoing process have been made possible because of immediate retrospection and/or introspection of concurrent processing, recorded and presented for analysis in the form of oral protocols or documents. The apprehension over the validity of protocol analysis (or think-aloud) as a method of eliciting data cannot, however, be dismissed. In relation to translation the most frequent types of criticism are

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that the verbalisation interrupts the course of the translation task because of the various activities interfering 2 with one another3, and that the anxiety over recorded protocols significantly alters what really goes on in the mind of the informant during the translation task. Amongst those who have defended the procedure, Krings (1987) suggests that of all the mental processes it is translation which is the most suitable for verbal reporting, because, like translating, thinking aloud is a linguistic process. Other leading scholars (Lörscher, 1986, 1991; Gerloff, 1986, 1988; Krings, 1986, 1988) have also pointed out that this is the nearest we can get to real translation phenomena. A typical claim (Gerloff, 1987; Krings, 1988) based on empirical evidence from students translating from and into German and French is that these insights might well be of help to refine teaching and learning methods. The aim of this paper is to assess and discuss the strength of such a claim and to illustrate and discuss the value of evidence for and/or against it. In order to prepare the ground to present the study proper I want to first highlight some of the decisions researchers have to make prior to collecting empirical evidence, which have enabled them to create hypotheses about mental processes. One concern which researchers in the area seem to share is how to go about tapping onto the process. There seems to be consensus about giving informants a task which is difficult enough to provoke (many and varied) problems in order to see which strategies were used to solve them. This degree of difficulty can be gauged and controlled by the factors shown below. There seems to be no consensus however, about which factors (or combination thereof) unveil which type of strategies or which ones are most productive. The studies that I have come across so far reflect a design choice from the following features: The Informant (a) Sometimes the choice involves an advanced learner with enough confidence to talk about problems she comes across; (b) Others choose intermediate level learners because of the obvious language difficulties presented to them at this stage. (c) Professional translators as a rule are seen to have automatised the process and cannot, or do not want, to verbalise the task (Börsch, 1986; Seguinot, in press). However, Jaaskelainen & Tirkkonen's (1991) study of the automatised processes highlights some of the complexity of the problem4.

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The Text A certain degree of difficulty in the text chosen triggers more strategies; as well as grammatical difficulties, allusion, metaphors, images, play on words, culture-specific aspects, etc., play an important part. L1 or L2 (a) Whereas a task to translate into L1 may be seen as a test of text comprehension (Thiel, 1985), (b) a task to translate into L2 can be predicted to involve more problems (grammatical and lexical structures which diverge from those in the mother tongue, for example) and therefore more strategies will be unveiled. (c) The language in which the process is being voiced may facilitate or hinder the flow and clarity of what goes on in the mind of the informant. The Study Having delineated the main issues which are directly linked to the present study, I now present three questions which will be developed and supported by insights from both the literature and the data collected. (1) To what extent does the experience of introspection result for the informants in a clearer understanding of the process and product? (2) To what extent do they become aware of types of behaviour hitherto employed mechanically and even unconsciously? (3) What are the insights the researcher and the learner get of their highly complex cognitive processes? Data In order to improve reliability and to avoid the drawbacks derived from the type of elicitation procedure described above I have collected two types of data: (1) simultaneous verbalisation, in the form of oral protocols, of the problems and the handling, coping and solutions encountered while translating; (2) the end product of that translation to be analysed and compared with the think-aloud protocol and with a professional version (in order to see 'differences of performance on the 'inexperienced-experienced' axis' (Toury, 1991)) of the same text (translation variants). However, due to space constraints this paper can only deal with the simultaneous verbalisation aspect of the data. The data 5 from which I am drawing most of the examples were collected from two informants at different times but in similar places and under similar conditions.

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Informants Informant A, female, and Informant B, male, were both native speakers of Spanish and advanced learners of English; both are used to translating texts for their studies from English into Spanish; being MA students and teachers they are aware of language problems and are used to talking about them. They were both taking a translation module in their MA course and were not familiar with protocol analysis before the experiment. Texts Informant A was given an academic text, an extract from S.W. Hawking's A Brief History of Time, about 230 words long. Informant B was given a much harder journalistic text from The Independent, with a lot of cultural references, puns and play on words, about 700 words long. It can be predicted that a journalistic text which plays extensively on other culturally loaded texts will present many problems to readers/translators of other cultures. The reason for using two different types of texts, in length and genre is a methodological one. I am interested in the great variety of translation problems the different texts will present so as to identify as many types of informant problem-solving behaviour as possible. The length of the text may also make a difference according to whether the informant sees the task as achievable or not. L1- L2 There were no explicit instructions about which language to use while talking about the problems. It seemed that English was the most natural language to use, and both informants appeared to have no problems in this. Task The same task was given to both informants: to translate the text and to talk about the thoughts they had as they translated and explain the kind of problems and solutions they came across in as much detail as possible while they were recorded; both had a trial run and access to a monolingual English-English dictionary. The Analysis The qualitative analysis of the data serves two important purposes. First, I can look at the common features which stand out most in the two protocols and, by comparing and contrasting the informants' behaviour, say which one is more successful in terms of task completion. Secondly, I can use examples from their behaviour as evidence to support or reject claims that looking at process in this way might be of help to refine teaching and

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learning methods. At the same time I can point towards answers to the questions posed at the outset. Preliminary analysis In the analysis of the two concurrent protocols the following features were found to be prominent. The groupings under which the data are arranged are data-driven and the categories (labels) adapted from Lörscher (1986) (except for the ones marked with a hash which have been generated from the present data). For ease of comprehension, examples from the data are supplied. (1) RP Realising a translational problem (this is followed by a search for a solution) A. ... 'at the end of the lecture' is it a format one?... I reckon it's going to be conferencia...so, al final de la conferencia, conferencia...a little old lady...(laughs) ai, dios! uhm...una...this is very difficult to translate... (1st problem: lecture, solution: 'conferencia'; 2nd: 'little old lady') 2. VP Verbalising a translational problem (problem verbalised either after or during search) B. ...(reading) 'Last week Tim Warren bought a ground- and first-floor maisonette' ...now this is a borrowed word...this is going to be a problem so just let me underline... 3. Se Searching for a solution to a problem (reference books, dictionary or any other strategy) B. ...is a cheapo repo the best buy? (laughs)...this is a play on words...first thing to do is to look it up or just go to a native speaker and ask him what...he may think it means...cheapo...I think is related to cheap...and repo...I don't know... 4. PS Parts of a solution to a translational problem (a problem is solved in stages) B. ...a repossessed house...una casa reposeida...leave it a little b...to the end...una casa recobrada...una casa recomprada...no recobrada...una casa recomprada a un precio ganga... (Problem: repossessed, solutions go from reposeida - recobrada recomprada - recomparada a un precio ganga) 5. CTP# Carry out translation plan (follow a plan to approach the task) A. ...uhm...well, I would like to read through it first of all, the whole text first...(pause, 2') I'm ready now... 6. LP A solution to a translational problem is still to be found (leaving a problem aside) B. ...I will try to rephrase it later somehow later on...you obviously always need to come back to the...the most difficult things I will leave for the end and just come back when I've got more time to think about them... I don't know how to translate it... I will just leave the gap over there...

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7. PSL Problem in the reception of the SL text (comprehension or interpretation of SL) B. ...oh my goodness!... I've just realised that... I just got the right meaning of repossession...I think repossession means that...if you can't pay the mortgage you will be turned out of your house... 8. MSeg Monitoring of SL or TL text segments (verbatim repetition of SL, TL text seg. in order to recognise the remain translation plan and to take the translation further) B. ...this is something to weigh...to think about very carefully...now I'll just go back to regain the meaning... (reading) 'It is, after all, a fertile field.. .' bla bla bla... 9. VTK Verbalising translational knowledge (verbalising knowledge about: (a) grammatical structures, (b) translational procedures, (c#) reader/audience perspective, etc.) B. ...over the past few months... 'it has become received wisdom that'...it's complicated to translate this because we don't have a cleft subject in Spanish... another example: B ...it obviously depends on the...on the target reader because...if I think they are going to know something about the English culture they may not need so much explanation...for the beginner than I may need to...to write...to add a footnote explaining what 'council' means...and the cultural associations... 10. VpA# Verbalising personal assessment (awareness of own weaknesses and strengths) A. ...You get tired of having problems and trying to solve them...for me its frustrating that you can understand everything very clearly but you can't say it in your own language even when you know your own language very well! ...When you say I'm going to translate this and you actually sit down and start writing down your translation you realise you have to stop every other word...because you are not sure the way...but I think it is because there are many things involved in transferring one text from one language into another...lots of things like...meanings may vary and lots of implications...language...Spanish and English are very different languages... B. ...I mean...for me...I'm very much used to talking (thinking) in English and I don't bother to took up words in dictionaries, so I don't know the exact meaning in Spanish, so when I come... I come to translate something... I need to spend a lot of time...to look up words because I don't know their exact meaning... 11. S Solution to a translational problem (finding a good or optimum solution) A. ...orbits around the centre of a vast collection of stars called our galaxy...una imensa coleccion de estrellas...vast, imensa coleccion de estrellas...que llamamos nuestra galaxia...if you say llamada nuestra galaxia doesn't sound right at all...

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Table 15.1 Frequency and quality of the behaviour-types A

B

1.RP

Yes

Yes

2.VP

Yes

Yes +

3. Se

Yes

Yes +

4. PS

Yes +

Yes -

*

5.CTP

Yes +

*

6. LP

Yes +

*

7. PSL

Yes +

8. MSeg

Yes

Yes +

*

9. VTK

Yes

Yes +RR

*

10. VpA

Yes

Yes +

11. S

Yes +

Yes-

See below for explanation of symbols. Table 15.1 is an attempt to juxtapose the types of behaviour displayed by the two informants in order to see how far they share the features which stand out most in both protocols. Comments on the Analysis Table 15.1 has a number of significant aspects which need to be highlighted. The eleven types of behaviour identified in the data collected from Informants A and B represented here have been labelled following the criteria explained above. When the quality of the comments differs in degree (i.e. more or less explicit and informative) this is marked with a minus or a plus sign after the 'Yes'. 'RR' means translation knowledge or awareness of reader/audience-response. The asterisks on the left of numbers 5, 6, 7, 9 and 10 mean that they stand out for reasons which I now proceed to discuss. In brief, the types of behaviour grouped under 5, 6 and 7, show us what Informant B did not do that Informant A did to complete the task. Notice that the types of behaviour found in 5, 6, and 7, generate the types of behaviour under 9 and 10. If we now look at the types of behaviour more closely, some interesting things start to emerge: Informant A announces her plan:

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(1) uhm...well, I would like to read through it first of all, the whole text first (pause, 2') then she announces: I'm ready now... and starts translating. One of the things Informant B does not do is to carry out his translation plan (CTP) which he sets out to do at the start of the protocol: (2) ...the first thing to do is to go quickly through the 'encabezamiento' (headline)...just to get...the basic idea...what the text is about... Towards the end of his protocol he acknowledges he has not followed his intended plan: (3) ...so, I think what I should have done...is to go through the whole text and get an overall...a global meaning of the text... Unlike A, he leaves a lot of problems unresolved (LP), and a solution to be found at a later stage 6. In some cases this is because he is unable to find a suitable equivalent (a problem of rendering) or of a culture-specific term like 'Council', for example: (4) ...'council'...now, I don't know how to translate 'council'...what do I do? I'll just leave it because I can't think of any word right now...and the thing is that it's going to be something cultural... More often it is because there is a break-point in the comprehension process of the SL (PSL): (5) ...'to the greenhorn'...I don't know what it means...because 'cuernoverde' (literal translation) doesn't make any sense... In order to explain what happens in 6 and 7 Informant B voices a lot of translation knowledge in number 9 (VTK) about linguistics and grammar: (6) ...'it has become'...it's complicated to translate because we don't have a cleft... cleft subject in Spanish... (7) ...'it is, after all, a fertile field'...we don't use adverbs in the middle of the sentence...in Spanish we use them either at the beginning or at the end of the sentence...; about translation procedure: (8) ...there is not going to be a...any...loss of meaning; or...I would translate it literally and add a footnote...; and about pragmatic considerations which include decisions in relation to reader/audience perspective: (9) ...it obviously depends on the...on the target reader...because they may not need so much explanation... Both informants voice translation knowledge but B's comments are more profuse and more varied than A's in that he voices text-oriented knowledge as well as reader/audience-oriented knowledge.

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In terms of behaviour number 10 (VpA), Informant A glosses what we see in 7 (PSL) which is that she does not have problems with understanding the text in the way that B does: (10) ...for me it's frustrating that you can understand everything very clearly but you can't say it in your own language even when you know your own language very well! The type of behaviour which comes under number 10 (VpA) is also very valuable, in that as we can see in the example above and the ones below; it provides the space for registering self-evaluation and awareness of one's weaknesses and strengths, misconceptions and limitations. This Informant B realises a slip of the mind: (11) ...'Putney'...let me see...here it is in the first...first paragraph...so it's a place...right, so... I shouldn't have forgotten it...; or when he shows awareness of his own limitations: (12) ...when I come to translate something...I need to spend a lot of time...to look up words because I don't know their exact meaning in Spanish... Awareness of having failed his initial plan to read the whole text first: (13)...but maybe I'm doing the wrong thing...maybe what I should have tried to do from the very beginning is just go through the whole text... Again on another occasion when he says: (14)...I think I'm just going through word...word by word and then...just going through the same mistake... I should try to rephrase the whole sentence and not go word by word because it isn't making much sense... On the whole Informant B displays more varied types of behaviour than Informant A's and together they unveil valuable insights about translation and language learning procedures. One example of this is that although Informant B seems to know in theory that what he needs to do before translating the text, which is to understand its overall meaning (comprehension before production) and that in order to do so the most productive way to approach the text is to be more interactive 7, rather than persisting with the bottom-up processing he seems to be engaged in, he does not carry it out. He knows with his head but does not know with his heart, to use Scott's (1986) phrase. Looking at it from another perspective, the sheer volume of B's protocol8 gives us a good indication of how he becomes overwhelmed by the task he has undertaken, which is to think aloud and talk about all the problems he comes across in the process of translating it. This may justify to a certain extent Toury's concern when he discusses the validity of the protocol to collect data: 'What I have in mind is the possibility that, during the verbalisation, activities of various types interfere with each other'. (1991: 59)

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However, Informant B is never stuck for words to explain what problems he is facing and as he tries to solve them succeeding or failing, he gives plenty of clues about his present or future decisions to solve the problems. It is probably ironic that, despite the fact that Informant B did not complete the task, his comments reveal knowledge about the two languages and about translation far more varied and enriching than Informant A's. General Discussion In the present exploratory study I set out to find out as many different types of behaviour as possible from the protocols of the two informants while they were translating two different texts. I want to suggest that the process the protocol throws up seems to fall into two types. First, there are the things the informants voice about what they do or want to do in order to carry out the translation task, or the process proper; this comprises most of the data. Then, in a very small proportion of the data, there are the comments informants make about things they 'realise' they have done or should have done: the 'insight' phenomenon. I want to suggest that this last type of comment falls into an 'insight cline' in that some 'realisations' are more useful than others. This can be illustrated thus: Information from Translation Protocols

To the left and middle of the cline the researcher gains information from protocols but the informant does not appear to gain insights into effective translation, which would benefit future translation work. The right-hand side of the cline can be expanded and illustrated thus:

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At one end of the spectrum we find the type of behaviour which illustrates the process of 'realising' something the informant did due to a mistake or a slip of the mind. This realisation is not very useful or informative. At the other end of the spectrum however, we find insights which are new to informants and which may help them to become better translators because they have realised that there is an alternative, more efficient way of proceeding. Conclusions Although I saw confirmed some of the limitations of the protocol procedure, I found other advantages. An important, if unsurprising, insight is that the quality of the product seems to be in inverse proportion to the quality of the process. A rich, varied and informative process in terms of voicing problems, solutions and strategies, which is what Informant B showed, yielded a poor product in terms of translation. Getting closer to the process of translation may have been in detriment to the quality of the product. Let us now return to the questions posed at the outset. To what extent does the experience of introspection result for the informants in a clearer understanding of the process and product? Evidence from the protocols, that the experience of introspection resulted in a clearer understanding of the process and product, is not entirely clear. Subjects showed some realisations about the process: it is not possible to know whether they would have done so simply by carrying out the translation alone. The whole experience of protocol analysis itself is guided towards differentiating between product and process. By expressing their thoughts at a more conscious level at the same time as they are writing down the translated text, informants showed some signs of learning. This is akin to what happens in other subject areas such as maths, where students are encouraged to talk through what they are doing, and show their processes in the form of draft working, as this is believed to benefit learning and demonstrate their degree of understanding. To what extent do they become aware of types of behaviour hitherto employed mechanically and even unconsciously? This is seen to be present in the data in the way Informant B has all the knowledge and planning necessary for a good translator but gets bogged down by comprehension problems which he consciously admits; or he gets stuck and leaves problems aside. The insights here are near the left end of the insight cline, however. What are the insights the researcher and the learner get into the highly complex cognitive processes? Introspective methods can provide invaluable insights for researchers and the learners into highly complex cognitive processes. The method gives an

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opportunity for the learner and the teacher to clear up misconceptions about the translation task and linguistic problems. The most important point here is that the teacher/researcher has access to what learners know, and they can jointly develop a common vocabulary for talking about translation processes. In this way researchers as teachers can evaluate the effectiveness of teaching materials and the methodology on which these materials are based. As a teaching device oral protocols can be used for later discussion with the class or the students concerned. The value of accessing translation as a process in the present study has also been that it has raised the hypothesis that the problems presented here, and the solutions found, may be not very different from the ones the professional translator would voice. It is essential to carry out further research to test this hypothesis, looking at professional translators and advanced learners' behaviour-types when given controlled tasks. These considerations have important implications for teaching and need to be translated into materials for both the translator and the language learner. Notes 1.Toury sees protocols as products: 'the analysis is applied to products again, the protocols' (1991: 58). Whether or not one concurs with Toury's view, it is clear that the 'product' of think-aloud protocols as characterised in the definition given below is not of the same nature and importance as translation variants. The protocol focuses on the reader/translator (reader/translatororiented text), while the latter focuses on the texts (text-oriented text). 2. On the topic of interference see Toury (1991) and his concern with the possible interference of two models of translation: a written text producing a written translation but being spoken or 'loud verbalisation'. 3. Another preoccupation which is pointed out in the literature is in relation to real-time processing complications (Kintsch, 1985) derived from short term memory and the task of constructing propositions as the reader works his/her way through the text. Interestingly, my informant suffers exactly from this inability to recall a proposition: (reading the source text segment) he knows the Putney business backwards...there is a problem with Putney because it may refer to different things...it may refer to...Putney...and this word has come up before when we were talking about estate agents...let me see if the word comes up...right here it is in the first...the first paragraph... Putney, south London, so it's a place... I shouldn't have forgotten it... (p. 21) 4. Weaver (1989) describes trying 'to fix on paper the elusive process' while translating the first paragraph of an Italian text into English. 5. Part of the data for the present study was collected and transcribed by Maria Thereza Martinez, to whom thanks are due. 6. I am aware of the fact that in itself this can be a productive type of behaviour to adopt but that when it is overused as it was the case with Informant B it is symptomatic of other problems. 7. In a manner resembling Stanovich's (1980) interactive reading model which relies on interplay between the bottom-up and top-down approach. What B does in practice however is bottom-up processing depicting 'the information

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flow in a series of discrete stages, with each stage transforming the input and then passing the recoded information on to the next higher stage...which does not allow for processing stages which occur later in the system to influence processing which occurs earlier in the system' (p. 212). 8. 30 pages of typescript, about 8000 words; the SL text is of about 700 words. Informant B takes about three pages of typed double spaced A4 paper to get through the translation of the first sentence in the text which is 14 words long. Towards the middle of the text when he has an overall view of what the text is about he moves fast.

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16 From Writer Roles to Elements of Text: Interactive, Organisational and Topical FLORENCE DAVIES The paper discusses three crucial discourse functions of interacting, informing and organising. In written discourse there are, it is argued, three primary elements of text: Topical or Informing elements, Interactive elements and Organising elements. From this it is predicted that complete texts are made up of patternings and orderings of the three types of element, and that each serves a distinct communicative function within the complete text. Thus the function of Topical elements is seen to be restricted to that of informing, with the option of presenting writer Viewpoint. Interactive and Organising elements are also seen to share this basic informing function, but in addition, to serve other functions, with Interactive elements responsible for contextualising Topic, establishing goals and negotiating writer and reader roles, and Organising elements serving the deictic function of pointing forwards, backwards and sideways to the structure and progression of the discourse. One of the characteristics of informal talk is that participants take more or less equal responsibility, depending on the circumstances, for structuring the talk, taking turns, checking understanding, and collaborating in the development of topic, maintaining focus where agreed or shifting when appropriate. In the context of such talk, goals are normally mutually understood and the situation in which the talk goes on is a shared physical environment. In more formal speech situations, as in the lesson, seminar or lecture, the physical environment is still shared by participants, but their various roles in this environment are less open to negotiation and goals may not necessarily be mutually shared. In further contrast to the context of informal talk, in the formal educational or public setting, responsibility for negotiating the discourse, for turn taking and for setting goals is typically assigned to a 'key communicator' who both dominates and structures the talk; typically

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it is also the key communicator, who selects the topic of the talk and the way in which is developed. Amongst the obligatory or optional responsibilities of the key communicator in formal settings will be those of focusing attention on topic, contextualising it in the real world, relating it to the experience of participants, justifying its selection and making goals explicit. We may further predict that in developing the topic under focus, the manager of the monologue will also be required to negotiate the role relationship between her/himself and other participants, and to signal the organisation and progression of the unfolding discourse. From this it would seem that as the context of talk moves from informal to formal, there is still the requirement for the discourse to be 'managed', but there is increasing pressure for greater explicitness with respect to the negotiation of the content of the talk, the relationship between participants and the organisation and progression of the discourse (cf. Sinclair, 1985). Such pressure will be familiar to teachers at all levels and in all contexts of education. When we turn to written discourse, where the language is constitutive (Hasan, 1985/89) the pressure on the communicator to fulfil these requirements becomes more insistent. In written discourse, the physical environment (except in special circumstances) is no longer shared by participants; nor can the writer, as the distanced communicator, exercise any ultimate control over the constituency which chooses to participate as the readership of the discourse. Nonetheless the requirement on the writer to select from a range of options, one or more of a number of roles, e.g. 'friendly interacter', 'instructor', 'informer', and in so doing to assign or offer the reader the possibility of different roles, is evident, as are the associated requirements to develop and contextualise Topic, and to signal, in one of a number of possible ways, the organisation of the discourse. From this we may predict that at all stages of the discourse the writer is required to negotiate his/her position in the discourse, seeking to achieve an appropriate balance amongst the competing requirements of informing and interacting with the reader, and organising the discourse. The successful achievement of such goals in educational contexts, the evidence would suggest, involves an extended and often painful apprenticeship. However, we may speculate that writers whose communications are published do succeed in fulfilling these requirements, at least in some measure. Certainly Swales' (1990) analysis of Introductions in the genre of the Research Article reveals the communicative 'moves' which writers make as they contextualise the general topic of the research, through the 'Establishment of Territory' (Move One), justify their specific focus through the 'Establishment of a Niche', (Move Two) and make their goals explicit through their 'Occupation of the Niche', (Move Three). In this CARS (Create a Research Space) model of Introductions, Swales also shows the possibili-

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ties of choice from a range of options through his identification of the optional Steps which are available to writers within each move. An emphasis on the possibilities and consequences of choice is also explicit in Berry's (1989) analysis of a more widely accessible genre, the 'guide' to a place. In this study Berry does not seek to identify elements of structure, but drawing upon Halliday's (1976 and 1985) theory of language as a network of systems of choice, focuses on the role of Theme, (or sentenceinitial element) as an index of genre, and distinguishes between Interactional Themes and Topical Themes, identifying Interactive Theme as represented by the selection of personal pronouns such as 'we' you' etc., and Topical Theme as the selection of 'writer's topic area', e.g. 'Grantham', 'The town'. Berry hypothesises that 'successful' exemplifications of the genre of the guide will be characterised by a predominance of Topical Themes. Of particular interest here is the potential of Berry's distinction between Topical and Interactional Themes as an index of the way in which writers move, in their negotiations with their readers, from adopting an interactive, to an informing role. With the addition of the notion of Discourse Theme as reference to the text itself, e.g. 'This paper' 'The following section' (Davies, 1988; Gibson, 1993) to Berry's Interactional and Topical Themes, the possibility is suggested of tracking writer roles through reference to the three discourse functions of interacting, informing and organising. It is with the exploration of this possibility that the present paper is concerned. The pressure to fulfil these three roles gives rise in written discourse to three primary elements of text: Topical or Informing elements Interactive elements Organisin g elements. From this it is predicted that complete texts are made up of patternings and orderings of the three types of element and that each serves a distinct communicative function within the complete text. Thus the function of Topical elements is seen to be restricted to that of informing, with the option of presenting writer Viewpoint. Interactive and Organising elements are also seen to share this basic informing function, but in addition, to serve other functions, with Interactive elements responsible for contextualising Topic, establishing goals and negotiating writer and reader roles, and Organising elements serving the deictic function of pointing forwards, backwards and sideways to the structure and progression of the discourse. A further claim is that the identification of the hypothesised primary elements of written discourse will provide a heuristic for characterising the structure and texture of written discourse through reference to variations in the distribution, sequence and realisation of the basic units across texts and genres. In turn this would allow for more delicate analysis of the internal structure and texture of different units such as those already

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pioneered respectively by Swales with his analysis, noted above, of author moves in the 'Interactive and/or Organisational' units which serves to introduce the Research Article, and Davies' (1986) 'Topic-Type' analysis of the 'Informing' units of school textbook, e.g. descriptions of 'physical and social structures', 'processes', 'mechanism' etc. With respect to the more specific 'moves' and 'acts' (e.g. 'Occupy a Niche' in the Research Territory), which might realise the primary elements, the heuristic is initially neutral, since such moves are assumed to be genre-specific. However the potential of genre-oriented analysis of the kind suggested by Swales and currently being pioneered by Martin (1992) is seen-to provide a rich source of hypotheses. For the purposes of the present paper, however, I shall confine myself to trying to achieve the more limited objectives of: defining the three primary elements of written discourse; establishing initial criteria for their identification; applying the criteria to the analysis of a sequence of textual units drawn from the genre of promotional literature, and suggesting through the analysis, something of the motivation for, and consequences of choice made by a particular writer in his/her management of an exemplar of this genre. Defining the Elements Drawing metaphorically, at this point, on Halliday's theory of language metafunctions, and on the concept of register as outlined by Hasan (1985/89) each of the hypothesised elements is seen to be determined by the context of situation in which the text was produced and/or which the writer projects as appropriate for his/her message and/or intended readership, and is seen to realise one the basic metafunctions as follows: Interactive elements, predominantly, though not exclusively, concerned with negotiating the relationship between writer and reader and hence expressing the Interpersonal function of language. Organising elements, predominantly though not exclusively, concerned with linking one part of the text with another and hence with expressing the Textual metafunction of language. Topical or Informing elements, predominantly, though not' exclusively, concerned with presenting information, and hence expressing the logical/experiential or Ideational metafunction of language. In addition to the three basic elements, an additional prosodic (Martin, 1992) feature of Viewpoint is posited; this choice is not treated as an element, but as an optional internal layer, which, while typically associated with Interactive and Organisational elements may, like Labov's (1972) 'evaluation', be spread throughout the discourse; thus it may appear for instance,

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in the guise of Topical Theme as a marked choice, e.g. as 'Objectivised Viewpoint' (Davies, 1988) in examples such as 'The evident inability of the higher education authorities to honour the principles laid down under the Freedom of Speech Act...' 'The challenge for the Minister...' In the proposed analytic system, elements are defined by function and not by orthographic or paragraph boundaries; and analysis to date indicates that elements can be realised at the level of the clause, the clause complex or in stretches of text coinciding with or extending over paragraphs. When one of the functions is consistent over three or more sentences or independent clauses, the section of text is referred to as a Unit of Text; when it when it is found in less than three sentences it is referred to as a Thread. Analysis to date indicates that in longer texts, such as chapters of textbooks, academic papers, and reports of various kinds there is a patterning of both 'units' and 'threads'; in shorter texts such as letters, etc., threads are predicted to dominate. Realisation of the Elements of Structure The analysis is multi-layered (Ventola, 1988) and following Ventola & Halliday, starts with analysis of the system of mood, which yields an initial distinction between 'Interactive' interrogatives/imperatives, and declaratives, which are typically, but not necessarily, associated with the 'Informing' function. However, as indicated above, the identification of Theme constitutes the major 'pass' in the analysis, but here, following Davies (1988), Berry (1989) and Gosden (1993) it departs from Halliday, first, in including as an obligatory element in Theme, grammatical Subject, identifying Topic, and in treating all pre-Subject Thematic elements, including dependent clauses in first position, as Contextualising Frames (Davies, 1988; Gosden, 1993). Secondly, it takes as the primary Theme system, the three options of Interactive, Discourse/Organising and Topical Themes, as opposed to Halliday's marked/unmarked distinction. This allows for a more delicate categorisation of Themes with respect to participant roles, as follows: Interactive Themes such as 'you', 'we', etc. as Subject Theme and/or Interactive Contextual Frames such as 'If you approach the city from the motorway', 'In my view'; Discourse Themes as grammatical Subject/Topic, such as 'This paper', 'This section', 'Table 3.1', and as Contextual Frames 'Up to this point', 'In what follows'; and Topical Themes of the kinds identified by Davies (1988) and ranging from Real-World Entity: 'The rose garden', 'The muted mulberry shades of the Gallicas and the softer pink of the English roses', to Themes which express Viewpoint, projected as RealWorld entities such as the Objectivised Viewpoint Theme cited above, and also

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Hypothesised Entity, e.g. 'The proposed elements of structure', and Invisible Subject: 'It is clear that...' 'There is no reason to suppose...'. The identification of Theme in turn, pulls in selections from other systems such as certain expressions of modality, which occur in first position, e.g. 'Perhaps', 'Somehow', 'Generally', and also constrains selections from the systems of transitivity, since as the first element in the clause, Theme choice acts as a powerful constraint on what follows in the clause, sentence and subsequent sentences. Thus the analysis includes the identification of the basic process types identified by Halliday (1985) i.e. material processes of doing, or action, verbal processes of saying, mental processes of thinking, perceiving and feeling, relational processes of being, having and existing and behavioural processes such as laughing, smiling, etc. Lexical Cohesion is the final criterion; following Hasan (1985/89 and Davies, 1986), the analysis of lexico-semantic cohesion is seen to contribute to our understanding of the way in which Topic is developed, maintained and re-negotiated as sub-topic, and hence is seen to reflect the extent to which a writer is adopting the role of 'Informant' or not. Thus, following Hasan (1984 and 1985/89), the analysis includes the identification of 'identity' and 'similarity' chains through reference, respectively, to synonymy or 'instantial' equivalence of meaning within the text, and to relations of 'inclusion' such as hyponymy and part-whole (or meronymy) relations and to opposition or antonymy. Criteria for Identification of Units Drawing upon the multi-layered analysis, the criteria for identifying the three elements of text are as follows: Interactive Units are seen to be characterised by: the selection of interrogatives/imperatives as well as declaratives, Interactive Theme choices, modality/evaluation, mental/verbal processes relating to discourse participants, superordinate lexical items specifying Topic and short lexical chains/changes of topic, and reference to goals. Organising Units are seen to be characterised by: the selection of Discourse Themes, anaphoric and cataphoric reference to discourse and textual support, headings and sub-headings, and expressions of opposition, through adversative conjunction and antonymy. Topical Units are seen to be characterised by: declaratives, Topical Themes, plus or minus 'Viewpoint', relational/existential and material processes, lengthy lexical chains, maintaining Topic through the specification of co-hyponyms and co-meronyms, realising lexico-semantic relations of 'similarity', or synonymous lexical items, realising 'identity' chains.

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Viewpoint is seen to be realised by modality selections, Objectivised Viewpoint Themes, and by various types of grammatical and interpersonal metaphors (Halliday, 1985; Martin, 1992). Distribution and Sequencing of Elements Analysis to date is not sufficiently extensive to make firm predictions about the relative distribution of elements within and across texts and genres; however it is suggestive of certain possibilities. Thus the unmarked positions of Interactive units are predicted to be the 'opening' and 'closing' sections of complete texts or of long stretches of text. Topical elements are predicted to be marked in first or final position and to need the Interpersonal and Textual 'support' of Interactive and Organising elements throughout the text, while Organising elements are predicted to be less constrained with respect to position in longer texts, but in short texts, which are constrained by format such as letters, to be realised in opening and closing conventions. Applying the Analysis to a Text In what follows I apply the criteria outlined above to identify Interactive, Organising and Topical elements as they are realised in Units and Threads in the opening, middle and concluding sections of a 'chapter' of a booklet representative of the broad genre of promotional literature: the 1991 Liverpool University Undergraduate Prospectus. For reasons of space the sections of text analysed are not complete. While not giving a full account of the Contextual Configuration of the text, I have assumed that the major goal of the writer is to interest readers in considering Liverpool University as a place to study. In seeking to achieve this aim, I suggest, a specific requirement on the writer in his/her interaction with the readership, will be to anticipate the potentially diverse interests and needs of the prospective clients. The analysis, I trust, reveals the strategies used to achieve this. The analysis is initially presented in the form of a labelling of the primary Units and Threads, with Theme choices marked. In this presentation, below, Themes functioning as Contextual frames are bound by curly brackets, {...} and Subject/Topical Themes are underlined. It is this analysis which is discussed in the commentary in the main body of the paper. In the analysis, boundaries between units and threads are marked by line-spacing, while the original paragraphing is indicated by the symbol: #. Interpreting the Analysis Space does not here permit any extended discussion of how 'moves' or 'acts' which are realised by the different elements of structure, might be

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identified and labelled. However a functional description of written discourse must aim at such an account; thus in the analysis which follows I exercise the privilege of interpretation, by suggesting that certain selections have the effect of doing things like 'promising', 'offering', 'inviting' and so on, though within this paper I make no claims for the status of such labels. For further research, the potential of Hasan's conceptualisation of register through the specification of a Contextual Configuration of the values of field mode and tenor, and Martin's outline of a network of systems of genres, is acknowledged. The Analysis Liverpool for beginners: Opening section [Organising Thread]: Liverpool for Beginners [* INTERACTIVE Unit Introduction] # {Because Liverpool is a major city}, you will probably have heard something about it, even if you have never been here. {Perhaps} you think of it as 'the home of the Beatles', 'a major seaport', 'where the Grand National is run' or 'famous for Liverpool and Everton Football Clubs'. Liverpool is all these things but it is also much more. [ORGANISING Unit Introduction] This section sets out to show some of the features of Liverpool which make it an attractive place to spend your student days. The next few paragraphs will tell you a little about sport and entertainment, local attractions, enjoyment further afield, shopping, food and drink and the Liverpool people. [Organising Thread]: Sport and Entertainment # [INTERACTIVE Unit: Sport and Entertainment] {If Liverpool does mean sport or entertainment to you, then} you will not be disappointed. You can be part of the crowd at Anfield or Goodison Park, where you will see soccer of the highest quality; no other city has such a record of success in League or Cup competitions. {What could be more alive than} these grounds when the first team is playing at home? Some would say 'Aintree in April', for when the Grand National steeplechase takes place, the northern outskirts of the city teem with cosmopolitan life. {But while these are well-known sporting images of Liverpool}, adherents of other sports will have little difficulty in satisfying their needs. [TOPICAL Unit: Sport and Entertainment] # {For example}, Liverpool Cricket Club hosts some of the Lancashire's County Championship matches each season; St. Helen's RLFC; Waterloo RUFC and Liverpool St. Helen's RUFC all play within Merseyside; the Royal Birkdale Golf Club has brought the British Open Championships to the region; the Wirral International Tennis Tournament attracts world-class

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players; the city claims international champions in archery and the martial arts {and of course}, water sports are well represented. Middle Section [Organising Thread]: Local Attractions [* INTERACTIVE Unit: Local Attractions] # {If you arrive in Liverpool at the famous Lime Street Station and go out into Lime Street itself} you may be astonished to see a Grecian Temple across the road. This is no mirage, {but} (it is) one of the world's great neo-classical buildings, St. George's Hall. [TOPICAL Unit: Local Attractions] Liverpool is one of the minority of cities distinguished by two cathedrals. The Roman Catholic Cathedral is almost on the Precinct. [Interactive Thread] (You) visit it preferably on a sunny day when the light streams through the stained glass lantern into the vast interior. [Viewpoint] {Irreverently nicknamed 'Paddy's Wigwam', or 'The Merseyside Funnel', it uses modem stressed concrete engineering to achieve its 'space capsule' outline and a spacious serenity within. The Anglican Cathedral is built in the traditional way, using masonry, {and in sheer size} it is the climax of the neo-Gothic style of building; {as in the finest Medieval Buildings} the huge stone arches seem to soar weightlessly into the great height above the nave. [Viewpoint] {In typical Liverpool fashion] the Anglican Cathedral was built by a Roman Catholic {and} the Catholic Cathedral was built by a protestant. Hope Street. aptly named, rims directly between the two cathedrals. {In the heart of the city centre is} a gem of a building called the Bluecoat Chambers which remains a haven of peace in the busy shopping area. Paintings by local artists are often displayed on its railings. [Interactive Thread] {For more formal exhibitions} (you) try the walker Art Gallery, with the largest collection of paintings outside London, ranging from early Flemish, to twentieth century. The Tate Gallery, Liverpool, which attracted 750,000 visitors in its first year of opening. houses a major collection of contemporary and modem art. It is situated in the Albert Dock, one of the best examples of Victorian maritime architecture still extant. {in 1984} it was re-opened as a social and business centre, {and} it now houses an exciting array of shops restaurants and exhibition halls.

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[Interactive Thread] {If you are lucky on the day you visit} you may see how barrels or ropes were made in the old days of sail, {and at all times} you can see examples of the boats which have served Liverpool down the years. The world-famous ferries are still a live Merseyside attraction. {Across the river}, the model village of Port Sunlight houses the Lady Lever Gallery which contains one of the best collections of applied art in Britain. Concluding Section [Organising Thread]: The People Multifunctional Section [Interactive Thread: The People] {Wherever you go in Liverpool} you will meet the native Liverpudlians. You will find them cheerful, friendly and helpful; always ready to laugh with you and seldom at you. [Topical Viewpoint] The natural wit of Scousers is well-known, {and} many famous comedians. past and present hail from the city. [Topical Thread] Playwrights and authors too find inspiration in Liverpool. [Interactive Thread] (do you) Remember Willy Russell's 'Educating Rita' and 'Blood Brothers', Frank Clarke's 'Letter to Brezhnev? {Do} you watch 'Brookside'? [Topical Thread] Phil Redmond is one of our graduates. Carla Lane's 'Bread' follows her earlier successes with 'The Liver Birds' and 'Birds and Butterflies'. [Topical Viewpoint] {It can said of both the University and the city that} they are close-knit, caring but outward-looking communities. [Interactive Thread] {If you come to Liverpool} you will be welcomed warmly into a community which is friendly, lively, proud of its past and eager to show that it has a great deal to offer the rest of the world. Commentary Opening Section [INTERACTIVE Unit: Introduction: Liverpool for Beginners]. We may predict that this unit, in first position, and the only unit without a content heading, will not only serve as an Introduction by virtue of its position in the text, but also because of 'the job it is doing' in relation to the text as a whole. The analysis appears to confirm this and to show that this unit meets a number of the discourse requirements outlined above. First it identifies the Topic of the text as a whole, Liverpool, and contextualises it as a major city. The focus on this topic is further reinforced by the Identifying chain referring to Liverpool: Liverpool, it, here, it, the home of the Beatles,

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a major seaport, where the Grand National is held, famous for Liverpool and Everton Football Clubs, all these things, also much more and by a chain referring to the reader you. In a few clauses the writer makes it clear that the text is about the potential relationship between the reader and Liverpool, without appearing to manipulate or shape this relationship. And yet this is clearly an interactive unit of text, which is characterised as Interactive through the selection of Interactive Themes oriented to the reader, 'Because you...you; you, and by the selection of Mental Processes of Perception and Cognition which are assigned to the reader: heard, think, and the selection of the modal perhaps which provides further evidence of the writer's orientation to the reader, 'offering' her/him the choice of selecting from a range of different images, an image (or value) with which to identify Liverpool. As indicated by the asterisk, the assignment of an interactive role to the final sentence: 'Liverpool is all these things, but it is also much more' may be challenged since it is not introduced by an interactive Theme; my criterion for including it here is that in selecting an evaluative identifying clause to present his/her own identification of Liverpool, the writer is implicitly interacting with the reader by adopting the role of 'primary knower' of the city. ORGANISING Unit: Introduction As Swales has shown, one of the optional steps in Introductions to RAs is that of 'Indicating the RA structure' and we may predict that this is an option which is frequently taken up in longer texts; readers like to have some idea of where they and the text are going. Hence this organising unit simultaneously indicates the structure of the text through identifying the sub-topics of Liverpool through the 'similarity' chain of hyponymy: sport and entertainment, local attractions, enjoyment further afield, shopping, food and drink and the Liverpool people. It also makes the writer's goals explicit: sets out to show, will tell. Despite the writer's identification of her/himself with the 'objectivised' discourse, the selection of Discourse Themes: This section, The next few paragraphs, clearly also reveal traces of the writer's interaction with the reader: here the process of 'showing', like that of 'will tell' is Verbal, and may be seen to constitute a 'promise' to the reader. Evidence that the promise will be fulfilled is provided through the selection, as the next heading, of the first sub-topic promised: Sport and Entertainment. Organisational Thread: Sport and Entertainment INTERACTIVE Unit: Sport and Entertainment In view of the highly reader-oriented Introduction above, it would not be surprising here if the writer opened this section of the text with a Topical Unit; this is not the choice made. Instead the writer follows up his first introduction to the city as a whole with a further introduction in which s/he seeks to orient the reader to the sub-topic Sport and Entertainment. Like the first introduction this unit is highly interactive. The unit opens with the

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choice of the Interactive Theme you and the selection of Mental Processes of cognition, does mean and affect, will not be disappointed, the latter simultaneously constituting a further 'promise', and Verbal Processes will see, would say. And again there are the 'offers' of optional roles through modality: can be, which together with the selection of Identifying Relational clauses, permits the writer to characterise reader(s) as fulfilling one or more of a number of different roles: you [as reader/selector of sporting activity, as answerer of my questions], part of the crowd, some [who like Aintree], [an] adherent of other sports. TOPICAL Unit: Sport and Entertainment. As the heading promises, this unit deals with the first of two topics, sport and entertainment, which in the full text are further subdivided into sections on sport, popular music, classical music, and theatre, which are not separated by any interactive units. In contrast to the Interactive/Organising units above, this unit, focusing on sport, is characterised by Topical Themes representing 'Real-World Entities', which we can classify as 'institutions': Liverpool Cricket Club, [the various] Football Clubs, The Royal Birkdale, or Real-World Events: the Wirrall International Tennis Tournament, and the generic water sports. With this range of different entities, the cohesion of the text becomes more complex; thus with the introduction of 'the Merseyside region', the Topic of the text as a whole is broadened to become 'Liverpool and the Merseyside Region'; at the same time, different levels of cohesion may be detected, with Sport in Merseyside representing the superordinate, the different institutions functioning as co-hyponyms at the next level different sports events at the next level and players at the lowest level. In contrast to the Mental, Verbal and Identifying processes which characterised the Interactive and Organising units above, here the processes are predominantly Material. Middle Section ORGANISING Unit: Local Attractions INTERACTIVE Unit: Local Attractions With the Organising Thread: Local Attractions, marking the boundary between this and the previous section, we are now approaching the major Topical section of the text, which like that on Sport and Entertainment is introduced with a major Interactive Unit, characterised as above by the choice of Interactive Themes: If you arrive in Liverpool, at the famous Lime Street Station, and go out into Lime Street itself, you, and Mental processes of Affect and Perception. However, here the reader is not only assigned the processes of feeling and seeing, but also the material processes of 'doing' 'arriving', 'going'. We may ask whether this suggests that the writer is now

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more confident that the reader is likely to come to Liverpool. And again the writer selects an Identifying Relational process and the lexico-semantic relation of opposition, to project a positive image of the city: is no mirage one of the world's greatest neoclassical buildings, St. George's Hall. TOPICAL Unit: Local Attractions With the reader's arrival established, this Interactive unit is now followed by an extensive Topical unit, marked by a predominance of Topical Themes identifying Real-World Entities, the buildings of the city, supported at certain points by 'orienting' Themes of Location and Time: In the heart of the city centre, In 1984, Adjacent to the city centre, at all times, Across the river, Just a tittle further out. Where Viewpoint is embedded in Theme, it typically takes the more transparently evaluative form of a comment Adjunct: Irreverently nicknamed Paddy's Wigwam or the Merseyside Funnel, In sheer size, In typical Liverpool fashion, and there is only one example of Viewpoint embedded in Subject Theme: The loving restoration. The topical, informing nature of the unit is further reflected in the choice of relational and material processes and by extended and highly cohesive 'Similarity' chains which link the features of the city in a relation of Inclusion, as shown below: Liverpool City: R.C Cathedral - Anglican Cathedral - Bluecoat - Walker Gallery -Albert Dock - Tate Gallery Maritime Museum: history of Liverpool shipping - ships - boats - lantern - interior -outline - masonry - railings - paintings - exhibitions - collections This multi-level similarity chain is matched by an almost equally extended similarity chain referring to the attributes of the city and its parts: style-traditional, sheer size - neo-Gothic, [winner off many awards, still a live Merseyside attraction, the function and 'values' of the city and its parts: a haven of peace-busy shopping centre, one of the best examples of Victorian architecture, a social and business centre, an attractive resource for leisure and pleasure. And in contrast to previous sections, Topical development is interrupted only intermittently by Viewpoint or Interactive Threads. Consistent with the selections in the sections analysed above, where Interactive Threads occur, they serve the function of 'offering the reader choice': For more formal exhibitions [you] try, If you are lucky on the day you visit, you. Concluding Section Organising Thread: the People Multifunctional Section We turn now from the highly cohesive Topical Unit describing the architecture and attractions of the city to the concluding section of the text,

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which, in its rapid shifting between Interactive, Topical and Topical Viewpoint threads, presents a contrast with previous sections, in each of which substantial Topical Units reflected the predominant informing role of the text as a whole. In addition the nature of the Interaction presents a contrast with earlier interaction. In this section, the role assigned to the reader is subtly different from the initial role offered. Thus instead of the reader being 'identified' as an 'imager' of Liverpool, here s/he is assigned the roles of 'goer about the city': Wherever you go, 'responder to its citizens': you will find them and an established 'fan' of Liverpool celebrities: Remember Willy Russell's Educating Rita, Do you watch Brookside? As in other Interactive sections, there are also 'promises', here embedded in an 'Objectivised' evaluation of the city: It can be said...you will be welcomed. From this concluding sentence, let me then borrow with the observation: it may be said that the writer of this text demonstrates a sophisticated management of the competing requirements to inform his/her readers, to organise the discourse and to interact, where judged appropriate with his/her readers. Whether or not the text is successful in achieving its goals remains to be tested. Concluding Remarks In the analysis and discussion above I have sought to illustrate the potential of an analytic system which shows the patterning of a text through the identification of hypothesised primary roles adopted by the writer as s/he manages the progression of the discourse. However, the actual potential of the approach can only be evaluated through the replication of the analytic system to more substantial corpora of complete texts within and across genres. It is my hope that this paper will serve to stimulate such replication; if it does I have no doubt that the first outcome will be critical comment; if this should lead to a gradual refinement of the methodology I will be rewarded; if the paper contributes to an understanding of 'what is going on in texts' that would be something more. With respect to the application of the methodology to an example of the genre of the 'promotional guide', I hope that the analysis reveals at least some of the range of possible options available to writers as they negotiate their own roles in the discourse and the roles they assign to their readers. However my prediction is that there are a great many more possibilities than those exploited in the text analysed here.

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17 The Place of In-House Journals in Business Interaction: a Case Study ANTHONY F. DEYES In this paper the role of an organisation's in-house magazine is considered; the in-house magazine is used as part of the internal discourse of a 'learning organisation; contributing to operational and policy awareness among members of the organisation. A brief case-study is made of an in-house journal to identify aspects of discourse which contribute to organisational effectiveness as part of the 'business brain' (Garratt, 1987:80). In her paper presented to SIMPLA (1993) Antonieta Celani referred to the role of discourse in the work situation; one of the aims of the DIRECT project is, she explained, to look at the language of work. As Oliveira (1993: 68) points out, language can have important implications in the workplace: It seems foolish to emphasise that any organisation depends on the articulation between its parts. But this obvious requirement is often observed only in theory. In practice, many firms retain a policy of providing the employee only with the segmented information which his or her job requires, through a false notion of economy or security so as not to be training future rivals or exposing weak points of the organisation to those who are not strictly within its confidence. The other side of this coin are firms which invest time, money, training resources, workshops and courses in their employees at all levels. 1 Companies adopting this latter more open strategy, Oliveira goes on to say, function as a living changing organism, dependent as any such organism is on human interaction; and so: The sub-product of this policy is that, acting as a learning community (his italics), the firm surpasses the idea that only school serves to transmit and produce knowledge, other communities can also take on this role (Oliveira, 1993: 68)

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The Learning Organisation The notion of a 'learning organisation' is not a new one; one of its major exponents and advocates has been Bob Garratt, who in his book of the same name (1987) describes, using tried and tested business principles and theories, as well as his own innovative idea of 'the business brain', to show how knowledge flows around an the organisation and contributes to a learning cycle. The 'learning organisation' itself is described as follows: There is a minimum of three types of role needed to allow any organisation to perform actively, to both think and do: integrating and direction-giving; external monitoring; operational planning and action. The integrating and direction giving level performs the 'brain' function of a business. It monitors what is happening in day-to-day operations, checks what is happening in the wider environment, and then takes decisions on how best to deploy the limited resources it controls to achieve its objectives in the given conditions. It is the core of information processing and consciousness in the business. (Garratt, 1987: 80) The centrality of 'the business brain' to Garratt's thinking is captured in a diagram (see Figure 17.1) linking those areas of business concerned with policy and those concerned with operations.

Figure 17.1

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We suggest in this paper that the in-house journal of an organisation can valuably contribute to some of the business brain's 'thinking' and that it effectively straddles the policy and operations loops shown in Garratt's diagram, in as far as contributions to it may come from members at any level of the organisational hierarchy. Discourse and text-analysis techniques can be used to explore how far such an organ may contribute towards organisational learning. Connect Connect is the British Council's in-house staff magazine, produced once every three months and consisting of articles, letters, photographs and other contributions from members of the British Council staff. In this paper we shall be examining two editions nº 63 (May 1993), and nº 64 (August 1993), consisting of 24 and 16 pages respectively. There is no editorial column in the paper (although there is the normal disclaimer that 'views expressed in Connect are not necessarily those of British Council') nor is there any specific stated aim for the journal itself, although a recent readership survey by Hay management consultants made the following comment: Just under half (of the 610 respondents to the survey, 49% of who worked overseas) found it well written, an interesting mix of news, comment and management issues, and a worthwhile read. The present paper in no way claims to be evaluative; it takes as a given that a house magazine contributes to the learning processes in an organisation, and asks how this is reflected in discourse terms in the case of Connect. Learning Discourse But what is the nature of a discourse which contributes to learning? There can be no established learning 'genre', since learning is a cognitive process or attitude that can be brought to bear on any text. A novel, for example, (and it need not be, for example, a historical or semi-factual one) can provide opportunities for learning by the reader, even though his/her primary purpose will be reading for pleasure. Learning may not be even a conscious or demand-driven process. We learn 'in spite of ourselves' on many occasions, simply because 'we did not know X before' but text A or conversation B has filled a cognitive gap in our knowledge structures. But what about the writer of a discourse from which it is the writer's intention that the reader will learn something can the writer do anything to make learning more likely? We suggest that a writer might make use of 'teacher-like' techniques to draw attention to those points in the text when he wishes to draw attention to a point to be 'learnt'. Research into classroom discourse(s) provides us with inventories of rhetorical devices that charac-

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terise teaching discourse. The learning text will be one in which the writer encourages the reader to respond to questions, to interact with his own questions and opinions; the writer will assume that the reader requires definitions and explanations to help him understand new concepts or new situations. The learning text will make contrasts and categorise in a way that will encourage the reader to refine his knowledge (see in this connection Deyes, 1985b). The writer of the learning text will offer his potential 'learner/reader' suggestions, advice, and instructions. To illustrate how a house journal can contribute to learning within an organisation, we shall now examine two editions of Connect for the above features and, further, question whether such learning represents an interchange between the policy and operational levels of the organisation 'Learning' features in Connect texts Questions: Both of the issues of Connect examined in this paper contain interviews with personalities connected with the British Council's work. Issue 63, for example, contains an interview with Helena Molyneux who recently took over as Director of Personnel; this interview is set out as a series of explicit questions and answers, (the editor of Connect acting as a representative of his readers. This representative role is made more explicit by a somewhat unusual mode of questioning referring to the interviewee in the third person: 'How does she define the challenge? How has it been presented to her?' The interviewee answers: 'The way I see it is that the Council is going through a fair amount of change...' and then later, the interviewer: 'Then why, I wonder, did she give up a promising carrier in the industry to join VSO?' 'I didn't actually give it up, I was seconded from United Biscuits for one year... The editor's 'wondering' is an attempt to pre-empt the questioning (in order to learn) of the average Connect reader, the average member of the British Council's staff. In Connect 64 an interview with a new member of the British Council Board ('John Hemming, writer, explorer, environmentalist and Director of the Royal Geographical Society') has been set down as a prose report without the intervening questions asked by the interviewer; nevertheless the replies to the questions are set down as extensive verbatim 'quotes' by the interviewee.

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Other contributors to Connect make use of the question format inserted in the text to guide readers' learning about the organisation. Here there is no interlocutor or interviewee present, just from the Connect readers themselves. Examples of this type of question within the body of the text taken from the two issues of Connect under review are: Another story of rip-roaring success overseas familiar to all readers of Connect but why, how and to what effect? (No. 63: 3) Had my views about South Africa changed? Had they simply been self-indulgent? Or was South Africa, as I believed, really changing? (No. 63: 11) How are development planners failing to meet the needs of women? (No. 63: 14) The British Council and Bhutan: Who are we helping? (title of an article, No. 63: 16) So how can the Council fulfil this role? (No. 63: 21) How did this come about? (No. 64: 2) Why should Australia be receiving donations of books? (No. 64: 7) Discussion A frequent teach-learning type of discourse is to promote learning and opinion-forming through contrasting views and debate. The question mentioned above as a title: 'The British Council and Bhutan: Who are we helping?' is, in fact billed on the cover of issue 63 of Connect as 'who we are really helping?', suggesting that it is possible to hold more than one view on the issue. Other titles which reflect this debating approach to issues are: Good aid, bad aid (No. 63: 5) A powerful question mark in India (No. 64: 8) The discussion/debating mode suggested by some of these titles is taken up through the letters column of the journal, or through readers writing further articles in response. 'Good aid, bad aid' is, in fact, a reply to an article on development in an earlier issue, and is taken further in the letters section of issue 64 which refers back to the 'Good aid, bad aid' article and is written by the initiator of the discussion, Ian Baker. Another article consists of contributions by two members of staff with contrasting views, and concludes: I think the debate is one that should be aired more thoroughly within the Council and with its sponsors. thus making explicit the opportunities that Connect presents for learning through discussion.

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Finally debate is to be found, not only in the relationship between topics spread over two or more issues of Connect, but also in the prevalent vocabulary such as, 'debate', 'think-piece' (out of thinking hopefully comes learning!), 'views', 'issue', 'discussion', 'argument', etc. Definitions and Distinctions Learning will consist not only of information about events and policies, but also an attempt to refine the organisation's sensitivities so that staff may respond more accurately and effectively to demands that are placed upon it from both outside and within. The external environment of Garratt's (1987) diagram needs to as fully understood as possible if policies deriving from it are to be translated into the effective operations of Garratt's lower loop; good definitions and distinctions contribute to this. Examples from the two issues are: British Studies defined as 'a full understanding of contemporary Britain', (No. 64: 5) and elsewhere in the same issue as 'the contemporary British experience which offers many points of useful comparison' (No. 64: 7). 'Vertical single focus programmes' are defined as programmes 'which are not delivered in integration with other primary health care activities' (No. 64: 10). 'Good aid' is defined as follows: enlarging the range of people's choices (No. 63: 5); improvements in the quality of life (No. 64: 16) the more equitable distribution of power (idem) And to quote an example of an explicit distinction: Practical gender needs look towards women's needs now; strategic gender needs look towards the future empowerment of women. (No. 63: 14) Columns going by the names of 'Jargon Update' and 'Vital Statistics' provide opportunities for more amusing definitions and distinctions: Skilling renaming what you are already doing so you can be given a training course in it. Quality-driven your chauffeur owns a stately home. The 'business brain' does not only consult statistics but should also know how to laugh another aid to learning. Listings Learning texts i.e. those designed for use in the specific teach-learning situation often facilitate the transmission of information through a list format so that the information is more accessibly presented and assimilated. In addition to the statistics and humorous glossary mentioned above, the

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two editions of Connect which were examined for this study contained lists in the following contexts: Resources offered by the British Council's film and video library. Planning and selection criteria for an environmentally friendly company. Areas of input by ODA in the field of natural resources; Items to be found in the 'charter for educational aid'. Factors in ODA's re-structuring of training policy. These latter three significantly come from seminars given on Council premises and thus were originally present as part of explicit teach-learning events. Suggestions/Advice One further means whereby Connect can be construed as an organ which contributes to learning as well as to pleasure is to be found in those instances where writers make direct recommendations or suggestions at either a policy or operational level. Examples are: I would like to ask the Division to go further and consider designing an integrated package of events within a thematic framework. (No. 63: 2) Projects like should be given a long hard look before the Council shows itself willing to have anything to do with them. (No. 63: 24) Arts Division is very good at passing on ideas. Programme Officers from other departments in Britain and overseas might consider doing likewise. (No. 63: 18) We could perhaps take a more European view of development. More contact with European development aid agencies. (No. 63: 21) It is particularly through the functions of debate and suggestion that we see the in-house magazine contributing to the circulation of ideas between the two hierarchical levels in Garratt's diagram those of policy and operations. The way in which policy and operational concerns integrate and interact in the discourse of Connect is now the subject of our final analytical section. Policy/Operations in Connect Discourses As will have been seen from quotations so far in this paper some of the contents of Connect have a specifically policy focus, while others tend more towards the narrative or description of a particular event or incident on the operational side. Both in their way contribute to the role of the in-house magazine as a central pivot of the learning organisation; those discussing or advocating policy may eventually be crystallised into a policy statement which will feed through into the way in which the organisation operates;

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those describing a particular event may provide a learning experience from which the directors of the organisation might consider whether there are not policy implications for what the Council is doing. In order to illustrate how these processes make use of the in-house magazine we analyse in this section an article which, happily but not all together unusually among those in the two editions reviewed, shows two ends of the process and clearly demonstrates how effectively the in-house organ can be a bridge between. The article in question is to be found at Appendix 17.1. It has already been argued elsewhere in this paper that the point at which learning most crucially takes place is when the business brain is faced with questions that need an answer or suggestions that need to be debated. In the article 'In the air and on the ground' (Nº 63: 18-19) the organisation is challenged by the questions: How many overseas directors have designated and trained press officers? How much training is the Council giving in PR? What is the Council's PR strategy worldwide and how well do staff understand and respond to the needs of the press?' (para. 10). It is out of these questions that a new policy is being urged for the organisation, as can be seen also at the lexical level by the use of the word 'strategy'. Previous to the first of these questions the article narrates and records a number of operational experiences that the Council has recently gone through in terms of co-operation with the BBC World Service; these are as follows: World Service Spotlight on South Asia exhibition. ELT resources for BBC English projects. Academic and political intelligence fed to BBC English. These events are described largely by members of BBC English staff who appreciate the Council's operations (or more specifically 'co-operation') which 'worked well'. The events thus form inputs to Garratt's (1987) operations loop and demonstrate the efficiency and effectiveness of the Council's collaboration with the BBC. What the writer of the article is suggesting is that these isolated incidents should now be discussed and enshrined if considered worthwhile, into a policy of collaboration with the media which would enhance the Council's organisational effectiveness. We have already noted that the use of the word 'strategy' can mark the translation of singular events into a coherent policy; the transition from commentary by members of the BBC to the statement by the Council's Head of Press and PR (para. 9), and the call for improvement of 'press and public relations management at all levels throughout the organisation' (para. 9) further mark the transition from individual incidents ('in February...', para. 1; '...in one day...', para. 8). The writer then suggests that adopting such a policy would improve the effectiveness (i.e. the concept in the upper circle

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Figure 17.2 of Garratt's diagram) provided this was matched by training. If we now reproduce the content of this text in the form of a Garratt's diagram an interesting discourse model emerges (see Figure 17.2). The reference at the end of the article to the guidance manual being produced by the PR firm is the completion of the policyloop back into the business brain, providing procedures for operations to now implement these activities as policy rather than as isolated events. This can render the organisation both more effective and efficient. Conclusion In this paper we have looked at a model of the learning organisation and considered how an in-house magazine might fit into this concept fulfilling the role of a 'business brain' where opportunities for questioning, discussing, defining and suggesting might assist in translating individual experiences into corporate policy. Notes 1. Translation by the editors.

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Appendix 17.1: Text from Connect In the Air and on the Ground Christopher Wade looks at relations 'between the British Council and the BBC World Service. 'I owe my life and my career to Jaideep Balial Ganguly at the British Council in Delhi'. Praise indeed from Chantal Benjamin, Publicity Officer with the World Service, who spent three weeks in February touring the World Service Spotlight on South Asia exhibition around the subcontinent with Council support. Jaideep and his colleagues negotiated the three-ton juggernaut through Indian customs, found a reliable freight company to nurse the CD-Rom equipment across furrowed roads, organised gallery space, signwriters, satellite feeds and even ran Chantal round Delhi for chana-chuur for the opening bash. 'The Council offered us secure premises, local contacts and an uninterrupted power supply B which nobody else could', says Chantal. In return, the World Service paid support costs and brought a new and lively audience of eighteen to twenty-five-yearolds onto Council premises for open discussions of BBC coverage of Kashmir. It worked so well that there are plans to tour a similar exhibition called The Cold War around eastern and central Europe, again with Council backing. Such co-operation is growing fast driven by a common agenda for Britain's primary agencies for cultural diplomacy and by an expanding World Service looking for self-promotion. The links are strongest between the Council and BBC English, with the Council providing ELT resources for a wide range of joint projects such as: BBC recordings of a seminar on ELT in literature in Cologne, for broadcast worldwide as four radio programmes. The establishment in Moscow of the post of Educational Broadcasting Initiatives Coordinator, co-funded by the Council and BBC English, to help adapt and present English by TV courses. Joint funding by the two organisations plus Longmans and Cambridge Examinations of Look Ahead, the new distance teaching series which will revamp the flared trousers and kipper ties of Follow Me. BBC English co-ordinator Hamish Norbrook particularly values his informal links with the Council. Faxes from overseas alert him to visits by potential customers like the Director-General of the Namibian Broadcasting Corporation. He says the Council gives him the academic and political intelligence he needs, rather than commercial market research. He gets the contacts, the Council gets the PR from highly visible TV and radio slots. Together they promote English.

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'We're not in competition here', says Hamish. 'This is synergy. If central and eastern Europe become markets for English, it will be American or British English. We have to stake a claim together now'. Council directorates around the world are already plugging in to World Service TV, often as a loss leader to attract people to DTEs, and Council visitors and contacts will soon be able to read occasional British Council inserts in the programme guide London Calling, which has a distribution of 60,000. But what about a strategy to target journalists themselves? British hacks overseas turn more readily to embassies for information than to the Council, unaware of the extent of its networks of high-level contacts. As a result, valuable opportunities to publicise the Council's overseas work are being lost. The challenge now is to improve press and public relations management at all levels throughout the organisation... But there is a big difference between 'being representational' and being good at PR. To quote Chantal Benjamin, 'It isn't enough just to send out invitations to journalists for a cocktail. You need to phone and badger them until they agree to come'. Paul Howson, Head of Press and PR at the Council, agrees. 'Some overseas directorates are very good at media relations and understand the value of investing time in getting it right. But too many still treat it as an afterthought.' And yet, how many overseas directorates have designated and trained press officers? How much training is the Council giving in PR? What is the Council's PR strategy worldwide and how well do staff understand and respond to the needs of the press? Targets for media coverage as a measure of the effectiveness of Council work would make even better sense if they were backed up with training in how to target the media itself. Paul Howson acknowledges the limitations of the Council's present resources. 'We have one full-time press officer for the entire organisation. But we do have potentially 6,500 PR people. The task is to draw out this potential'. The PR firm Dewe Rogerson has been commissioned to write a guidance manual for Council staff in Britain and overseas on how to get media coverage. High on the list of topics to be covered are relations with our colleagues in Bush House, half a mile from Spring Gardens. Christopher Wade is currently on secondment from the Council to the World Service as a trainee radio producer.

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18 The Analysis of Verbal Interaction: A Meeting MARIA CECILIA PéRES DE SOUZA E SILVA This paper relates generally to the area of discourse analysis, and specifically to discourse practices in relations concerning work in business. 1 Data for the study discussed here comes from an audiotaped training session conducted in Portuguese within the company. The paper poses the question: what is the function of turn-taking and digressions in this verbal exchange? Digressions have been defined in the literature as conversational segments not topically related to the pieces of material immediately preceding or following (Koch, 1989). This definition was questioned by Dascal & Katriel (1979)2 who considered them not only from a textual or illocutionary perspective, but also from an interactional perspective. For this they adopted an expanded notion of topic,3 which takes into consideration the contextual factors of the setting where the conversation takes place and a concept of topicality4 according to which we can distinguish different types of relevance which divide the conscious field into 'theme' and 'horizon'. Within the sphere in mind there would be a topic A, with all of its set of relevances occupying the centre of the thematic field, and an A' also with its relevances, occupying the 'horizon'. Both topic A and A' would be within the control of the interlocutors, in spite of A' acting as a topic within parentheses. However and it is here that the most important feature of digression resides the preceding topic and the set of relevances attached to it are merely interrupted while another topic, with its own set of relevances, assumes a focal position: One can only talk about digression in itself, when there is a clear abandonment of a complete structure of thematic relevances and its replacement by another. (Dascal & Katriel, 1979) Analysis and Discussion of the Data The purpose of the session which took place in a firm operating in the sector of metallurgy5 that was implementing the 'Total Quality Programme' was to identify, within the group, the relationship between clients and

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suppliers in terms of mutual provision of services within the company itself and, based on this identification, fill out a form. The participants, their function, their level of education and length of service in the company are as follows. J: director and coordinator of the event, aged 38, college educated and 4 years with the company. N: human resources manager, 42, college education, 4 years with the company. E: head of exports department, 35, college education, 5 years with the company. W: commercial manager, 38, college education, 3 years with the company. Ra: financial manager, 48, college education, 5 years with the company. Rp: head of maintenance, 60, elementary education, 32 years with the company. In addition to these 'authorised' interlocutors, Rs, a woman from Human Resources, also took part. In spite of not being an 'officially authorised participant' in the interaction (for she does not come within the specifications of this group (Goffman, 1981), she permitted herself to make a few remarks. The characteristics of this meeting can thus be summarised as follows: (1) the existence of a pre-set and imposed central topic and goal; (2) the compulsory presence of specific participants; (3) including one member in charge of coordinating it. These features lead us to resort to the concept of speech event, henceforth 'event', as formalised by Gumperz, i.e. A language activity governed by social rules, which specify who can take part in the conversation, which are the roles performed by the participants, what type of content is authorised, in which order the information must be introduced and which speech labels apply. (1982: 155) Returning to the issue of the function of turn-taking, Table 18.1 shows that the majority of turns is taken by J, a foreseeable result in view of his position as director and his role as coordinator; E and N take the second position. I will concentrate the analysis on their utterances, as the other participants have a noticeably marginal performance. During most of the meeting, J's role is to distribute the turns (ex. 1) to delimit the topic, to give continuity to the objective of the meeting (ex. 2 and 3) and to complete the interaction (ex. 4). (1) J what about you, are you a supplier or aren't you? 6 E: no (2) J: then let's start with you

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Table 18.1 Number of turns per participant Participant

No. of turns

Percentage

J

283

38%

E

186

25%

N

171

23%

Ra

38

5%

Rp

35

4%

W

21

3%

Rs

18

2%

(3) J: shall we proceed to the next stage? (4) J: only to conclude... I am going to draw up the minutes of the meeting. It will be needed in 24 hours and...in the next session we are going to take an example to decide...(and one or two)...and make this...this standardisation...work... If at first the role of coordinator is assigned only to J, there are several turn takings by E and N, which establish a new dynamic, creating a partial symmetry of roles among the three of them, as seen in examples (5) and (6) where both organise the turntaking, disputing with J the function of coordinator of the meeting. (5) E: ah...some more... I give the parameter for him to work... N: of course ( ): 7 yes ( ): that's true ( ): then let's start by...let's discuss...specifically the training ( ): the training I think. (6) E: N, is there something new there or not? N: no, no( ) According to Sacks, Schegloff & Jefferson (1974) there is a good set of rules which determine the distribution and coordination of turns, aimed at avoiding overlaps pauses and interruptions. The first says that the speaker in charge of directing the interaction select:; the subsequent interlocutor; should he fail to do so, the other interlocutors may take the floor, as E and N do. Moreover, E and N's taking over the coordinating role seems to be

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related to a certain impossibility by J (ex. 7 and 8), in some moments, to guide the course of the meeting. 8 (7) J: the fact is that... I didn't have enough time to think about these things... (8) J: and what are you going to do with recruiting and selection? Although the numbers of turns taken by E and N is roughly the same (ex. 9), E seems to care about the good image of the group and N is the one who effectively conducts the meeting, delimits the problem, proposes a solution and produces longer and more discursive stretches (10). (9) Rp: well, I think that's it, isn't it? E: basically E: I think that the visitor (the research group) will get a poor impression of managerial communication. J: the language, no...because it is being recorded Rs: we should not worry about that. (10) E: that's it...there is a problem right there, isn't there? J: and in the others it became evident, didn't it? this is so obvious N: the problem here is the following: we have two people who are at such a different hierarchical level, then I don't know.., you, I think that due to this very difference it is natural that these persons supply us and that we do not supply them...do you agree? then we are, that is a direct operational picture...of direct tasks from one to the other, do you agree? During the second part of the meeting, which is where they centre in on the topic, concentrating on the very reason of the meeting, N seems to take over as 'unofficial coordinator'. N's turn in (15) is a good example of his role as organiser of the discussion. In (11) and (12), he disagrees, whether tentatively, using a modal verb or otherwise; in (13) he controls the participation of those present, at times excluding them from the interaction (14) and at other times seeing a consensus among them (15). (11) N: wouldn't it be the opposite? (12) E: dismissals...dismissals N: there is no dismissal (13) N: No jokes E...no jokes please... (14) Rp: shall I also answer? J: no, only... N: be quiet Rp E: be quiet there [laughter...] (15) J: price alterations

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N: price alterations I think that the policy they have adopted, right, has always been to supply (...) to me...today I think this a service that I offer to the client because all clients demanded that we should issue the adjusted price on the first day of the month...so I have been pushing Ra...haven't I? Two types of behaviour can be identified in N in his role as structurer of the meeting. The first is shown by the frequency with which he directs the discussion, taking the floor to add suggestions, close topics, give orders, etc. 9 The second one is noticeable in his metaconversational capacity which shows an effort to adjust the utterance according to the needs of the moment (16). (16) E: what I mean is that I called 'disagreement elements' (...) discussing this topic...here. N: ( ) ...simulations J: (or as) disagreement elements N: I would include statement too, don't you think so? J: Yeah...that too N: statement is very important, because it is the summary. I think that in a statement you include the summary...of all...of all of the company indices. And it is the statement that I rely on. Now, going back to the issue on the function of digressions in the meeting, I will comment on some especially clear examples. In (17) we notice the ease with which the members of the group become involved in a digression. J, himself the coordinator, promotes it, and E, who had his speech disrupted by the digression, accepts it. Finally N, whose interference gave J the opportunity for the digression, takes the turn to put the meeting back in its track. (17) E: legal support concerning information, hiring, dismissals, personnel training and development. N:do you do all that ( )? [laughter] J: how many words per second do you say ( )? E: w.p.s. ( ): words per second E: words per second, high density, isn't it plus watts pro ( ) watts is really modes, it is wrong, but... J: how is it again ( )? N: let's listen to it seriously after the ( ), right? In (18) the reintroduction of the central topic is made by the speaker who had been interrupted.

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(18) ( ): was it you the person in charge of installing the (kennel)? Rp: you took part in this...project, didn't you? E: it is the kennel project (laughter)... E: the Dracula project (...) Rp: well, I think that's it, isn't it? Finally, digression (19) indicates that the type of event 'liberates' the participants from the obligation of maintaining the central topic under control, since they know that somehow it will be reintroduced by the coordinator. And it is this certainly that allows the members of the group to accept and participate in the rupture, causing such long digressions that in a less regulated situation, no return might take place but instead a switch of topics. 10 (19) Ra: the people there had to make a certain...conversion, because the people were (talking to Prof. Paulo) ( ) 'is no movie' (in English in the original) ( ) that's right! Ra: 'is no movie' and that snow...(in English in the original) J: freezing! Ra: it is for this reason that she doesn't, isn't it? ( ): freez... J: freezing, isn't it? Ra: when we switched to 'snow movie' (in English in the original), snow is 'neve' (in Portuguese), isn't it? ( ): when you changed 'snow' ...(in English in the original) you did it slowly...but did it ( ): slowly but surely ( ): talking 'snow' no (in English in the original) ( ): it was frozen, wasn't it? J: it is like when the people say 'you are going to have to serve the 'aviso breve''11 (laughter) E: 'aviso breve' is a good one, isn't it? Ra: it is better than having sulphuric acid on your foot [laughter] J: and 'menas' instead of 'menos' (less) J: gives you 'menas' headache ( ): one week with a headache ( )... N: a 'vetema' J: well...now it is important to go back to see...

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Only one example of digression (20), among the nineteen observed, seems to threaten the interaction. In this example, there is a hierarchical inversion, although only momentary, caused by Rp's first remark (Rp is the speaker with the lowest educational level in the group and who had been excluded as such in 14), which is absorbed by a digression by E's: 'Now I felt your firmness' reinforced by E's remark: 'Now I felt a strong hand'. (20) N: you mean I still know how to do it...isn't it? Rp: that's right...I still do it Rs: you're right...Now I felt your firmness E: now I felt a strong hand. Rp: sometimes I do many foolish things to you but I do ( ) you asked for it... you asked for it. N: now let's talk CLEARLY...turn off the tape recorder ...let's (have) a parenthesis...a parenthesis... ( ): to wash dirty linen...because, look... ( ): I bet a hundred on Mr. Rp Rp: he always owes me...always owes me a lot of things... ( ): he is paying...he is paying with a hundred... ( ) ok...well...then let's go to...(), isn't it right? ( ): let's stay ( ) not that ( ) (it's going)... J: what else: is that all? Rp's subsequent remark shows that the approval by Rs and E enables him to keep the floor, giving him a stronger participation in the meeting (where his number of exchanges is small) and a certain dominance over N. This whole situation unbalances the situation temporarily by threatening N's position in the group. J's intervention, finishing the digression, indicates that in this aspect, he fully assumes the role of coordinator, whose duty in an event such as this is to guarantee the main flow of the central topic. Conclusion Let us start with the notion of 'event' considering it flexibly, as an operational concept which operates as a guideline for interpretation and not as a unit which allows for clearly defined limits waiting to be labelled. This leads me to confirm that the turn taking in events such as this meeting has the purpose of defining the role of each participant, as hypothesised. Before the meeting started, we could predict a certain symmetry of roles; all of the participants were indistinctively either clients and/or suppliers; all of them, with the exception of Rp, have the same educational level, are in the same age group and hold similar status in the company. A certain

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dominance of J could also be anticipated, since he held two functions: that of director of the Company and of coordinator of the event. The turn takings, however, led to a new configuration: on the one hand, an overtly active group, whose turns took up to 86% of the meeting and on the other an apparently passive group (14% of the turns). The participants in the first group (J, N and E) distribute the turns, direct the meeting, pose questions, express their point of view, finally try to combine controlling and participation procedures. On the other hand, although we can characterise the participants in group two (W, Ra and Rp) as cooperative in relation to the pursuit of the goal of the meeting, they act almost always as respondents, holding the floor only when it is assigned to them or when a question is asked of them. This new configuration, in which the three participants in the group seem to perform the same roles interchangeably, led me to think that the responsibility for the course of the meeting was divided among them; however, a more refined analysis enables us to state that this role is shared, mainly, by J and N. Although the three of them distribute the sequence of turns, demarcate the theme and take turns themselves, J, the official coordinator, is the one who reintroduces the main topic, after the digressions. Also as the top-ranking participant in the hierarchy, and the one who is responsible for the smooth course of the meeting, J puts an end to the few conflicts which emerge and which threaten the interaction. On the other hand, N seems to master his subject better which makes his presence more strongly felt in the second half of the meeting, in which the turns are more centred on the central topic. This presence is manifested through control procedures, at times excluding one participant (Rp), at other times directing the discussion towards a position of consensus and by participation procedures, thanks mainly to his initiative and to his meta-conversational capacity. Within this event an obligatory meeting, with previously determined coordinator participants, topic and goal the digressions operate as interaction facilitators. This situation, with consensus concerning the main content, and a possibility of resuming the central topic, allows for topics not directly linked to the central topic but related to the group, to be brought up in the form of digressions. One hypothesis for further research. In the Brazilian, as opposed to the North American culture (Garcez, 1991) it seems that digressions have a functional motivation: that of making the atmosphere more relaxed and pleasant and the imposed task less arduous and enabling a more productive interaction. So much so that many episodes which could have caused a rupture in the development of the central topic and disrupt the progress of the interaction were events of a different type. The extent of the digressional episodes and the fact that they remain throughout various turns indicates

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the degree of participation of those present and also the certainty of recovering the central topic. As spoken text activities are limited in time and space, the turn takings and the digressions in this event are indicative of norms which circumscribe what can and what cannot be said, at what point, and to what point. Acknowledgements I would like to thank Leila Barbara for comments on the draft manuscript. Notes 1. This research is part of the DIRECT project (FAPESP grant 91/0477-0). 2. Dascal & Katriel's paper has the main purpose of discussing the relationship between coherence and digression. 3. This notion takes into account not only the structure of the sentences and their meanings, but also the contextual factors of the environment in which the conversation takes place (background of participants, or stimuli experienced during the interaction). 4. This concept was proposed by Schutz (1970) Reflections of the Problem of Relevance. New Haven: Yale University Press (cited in Dascal & Katriel, 1979). 5. The contacts with the company were made possible by M.J. Machado, S.M.C. Maher and S.C. da Fonseca, students in the PUC-SP Post-Graduate Programme in Applied Linguistics. 6. The meeting was held in Portuguese, examples were translated. 7. ( ) = non-identified speaker. 8. This is noted by Maher & Fonseca (1994). 9. This is noted by Soares (1993). 10. In one of them, the digression develops throughout 22 turns (see Ribereiral, 1994). 11. Jokes contrasting standard and non-standard Portuguese; the language of bureaucracy and its comprehension and production by unskilled labour: aviso breve instead of aviso prévio; menas instead of menos; vetema instead of vítima.

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19 Laughter and Interpersonal Management in a Business Meeting Susan Thompson In this study I investigate the possible ways in which laughter within a particular group interaction can be used as a means of dealing with points in the interaction where the 'face' or 'self-esteem' of one or more of the interactants is threatened. Interactants possess two types of face: positive and negative (Brown & Levinson, 1987). Broadly speaking, positive face relates to our desire to be approved of, while negative face relates to our desire to get our own way. In an interaction, each speaker needs to attend to his own and his interlocutor's positive and negative face wants and to avoid committing face threatening acts, or FTAs, such as criticising or commanding. When the performance of a FTA is unavoidable, the speaker may employ a range of politeness strategies to mitigate the FTA being performed. The study analyses data from a business meeting conducted in English as a first language. The greater part of research into laughter has linked it directly with humour (see, for example, Boston, 1974; Chiaro, 1992). However, 'theories of laughter need to take into account the numerous types of non-humorous as well as humorous situations which can cause laughter' (Chapman & Foot, 1976: 4). For example, Chapman (1976) calls laughter a 'safety valve' to reduce social tension or interpersonal conflict which 'can reach uncomfortable proportions during everyday encounters' (1976: 182); his analysis suggests a complex interrelationship between laughter, humour and interpersonal management. In this study 1 I investigate the possible ways in which laughter within a particular group interaction can be used as a means of dealing with points in the interaction where the 'face' (Goffman, 1967) of one or more of the interactants is threatened. All interactants possess two types of face: positive and negative (Brown & Levinson, 1987). Broadly speaking, positive face relates to our desire to be approved of, while negative face relates to our desire to get our own way. In an interaction, each speaker needs to attend to his own and his interlocutor's face wants and to avoid committing

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face threatening acts, or FTAs, such as criticising. When the performance of a FTA is unavoidable, the speaker may employ politeness strategies to mitigate the FTA being performed. It appears that laughter is closely related to face (in particular to positive face) and to politeness strategies (Jefferson, Sacks & Schegloff, 1976). In her study of laughter occurring in conversations about troubles, Jefferson (1984) analyses the laughter behaviour of both troubles-tellers and troubles-recipients. She finds a recurring pattern in which 'the troubles-teller produces an utterance and then laughs, and the troubles-recipient does not laugh, but produces a recognisably serious response' (1984: 346). This deviates from the norm of conversational behaviour in which one interactant's laughter is echoed by the other participants, since 'laughing together is a valued occurrence' (1984: 348). By laughing when recounting a trouble, the troubles-teller seems both to be protecting his or her own positive face by showing fortitude in misfortune, and also to be protecting the troublesrecipient's negative face by minimising the need for the troubles-recipient to take the problem seriously. In return, the troublesrecipient, by not laughing, protects the troubles-teller's positive face, since laughter as a response to another's problems would indicate an under-valuation of the importance of the problem. Moreover, the troubles-recipient protects his or her own positive face by not appearing insensitive or uncaring. As Jefferson's study indicates, the relationship between laughter and face is complex. The present study considers whether laughter may also be exploited as a politeness strategy for dealing with an actual or potential FTA for either speaker or hearer. Neither Brown & Levinson (1987) nor Leech (1983) include laughter as a politeness strategy, though they do include jokes. Nevertheless, Jefferson's research suggests that laughter is an interesting phenomenon in itself to consider in relation to the management of interpersonal communication. The Management of Face in Business Meetings This study grew out of an interest in how interpersonal communication is managed in business meetings. In recent years there has developed an increasing interest in the language of business, particularly for the teaching of English for Business Purposes to non-native speakers (Williams, 1988; Thompson, 1991). However, relatively little detailed research so far has been carried out into politeness phenomena and the use of face work in business interaction (though see Mulholland, 1991). There have, however, been a number of recent studies on politeness phenomena in other types of institutional interactions (see, for example, Myers, 1991). These studies have focused on linguistic choices such as pronoun choice and modality, rather than non-linguistic types of communication, such as laughter, which could be associated with politeness phenomena in a business context.

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Nevertheless, the importance of paralinguistics and kinesics in interpersonal aspects of spoken interaction is well established (Gosling, 1981; Brown, 1990). Brown & Levinson (1987), whilst conceding that their study of politeness focuses on linguistic realisations, state 'we have in mind also the broader communicative spectrum including paralinguistic and kinesic detail' and argue that 'many aspects of non-linguistic communicative behaviour can be naturally accommodated' in their linguistically-based model of politeness (1987: 92). The Meeting The meeting took place in a Business School at a British University. The participants were a Lecturer from the Business School who is also a business consultant (referred to as 'A'), and two Course Leaders (referred to as 'B' and 'C') from the Department of Information and Library Studies in the same Business School; B is a Lecturer, C a Professor. A already knew B and C quite well, though they did not work closely together. The meeting had been arranged to explore the possibility of the Business School bidding for a European Community funded TEMPUS project with countries from the former Soviet Union. A, in his role as coordinator of the potential project, had invited B and C to discuss their possible participation. Although this meeting takes place in an academic setting, I would argue that it shares similar goals with a business meeting. In the Britain of the 1990s, universities are increasingly run as businesses, and funding for projects from such agencies as the European Community is fought for with business-like zeal. The goal of this meeting is essentially how best to achieve a successful bid in terms of possible financial rewards, which A refers to as 'megabucks', rather than academic excellence or research possibilities. The contents of the meeting can be summarised quite briefly. The meeting opens with A explaining to his colleagues how TEMPUS projects work. A explains he has already secured commitment to the bid from one University department, and asks if B and C would be interested, to which they respond very positively. The three discuss how they could be involved in the project, negotiate the split of funding among the three departments involved and calculate the exact figures. They discuss possible outside partners for the project. B asks for help about what his department should include in the outline bid, and A gives advice. They then discuss the likelihood of their bid being a success and agree deadlines for their outline bids. A summarises what they have agreed, and they end with arrangements for the next meeting. The tone of the meeting is collaborative and informal, but it is almost inevitable that conflicts will occur since the participants come to the meeting with different agendas. The potential for FTAs is clear, but, as Myers (1991) argues, 'Since these people have to get along, we would expect that

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they will in some way redress these acts, by softening the threat, or by showing that they do not mean to assert themselves, or to undermine the other person' (1991: 40). The Data The meeting, which lasted approximately 28 minutes, was audio-recorded by a researcher 2 who was present throughout. The interaction was transcribed orthographically using the following conventions. The initial time of the exchanges is marked in minutes and seconds (e.g. 12'24'' means that the exchange began 12 minutes and 24 seconds from the start of the meeting). The turns are numbered sequentially (1, 2, 3) in each example, and the speaker's identity is given using the letter A, B or C; in discussion, turns are referred to by numbers in brackets. Simultaneous speech or laughter is marked by the use of slashed brackets. Laughter, Roles and Role Conflicts Laughter occurs in 15 separate segments of the meeting. In the majority of the cases (11 segments) it seems that laughter is strongly associated with the management and negotiation of interpersonal roles and relationships between the interactants,3 and it is these cases that I will focus on. A has the dominant role in this meeting, as indicated by several different factors: he speaks for approximately 60% of the time, he initiates most of the phases of the meeting, and he controls both the opening and the closing of the meeting. A has all the official TEMPUS documentation, while B and C do not, placing A in a privileged position of knowledge. He also appears to have greater experience of making bids. Overall, his superior status within the meeting is clear. However, in terms of the external world, C, who is of professorial rank (and greater age), has higher status. Such uncertainties of external versus internal status (Cheepen & Monaghan, 1990: 15) might be expected to cause problems, and the longest and most complex sequences involving laughter are associated with role negotiation and role conflicts. At a number of points in the meeting, A seems to be aware of the problem of his status. In the example below, he uses a politeness strategy of modestly downgrading his importance by referring to the fact that his superiors originated the bid proposal and remarking: 3'8'' 1 A:they kindly then deputed me to make it happen 2 B: typical 3 C: (laughs)

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4 A:typical fight and all fight I mean I'm not I could well be doing something else but I don't mind doing bids because erm well I've I've had some success with them you know A's apparently ironic remark triggers two types of response: a solidarity-promoting comment by B (2) indicating shared criticism of their superiors, and C's laugh (3), which is less easy to categorise. C may, for example, intend to show solidarity with A by orienting to the humour in his remark and implicitly agreeing with his ironic comment. It is, of course, crucial for this analysisto consider A's reaction to B and C's responses. A's next utterance (4) offers an insight into his interpretation of C's laugh. A immediately performs a FTA towards B and C by boasting about his past success with bids (Brown & Levinson, 1987: 67). This behaviour seems to indicate a negative reaction to B and C's responses, and suggests an uncertain power/solidarity relationship with B and C. Cheepen & Monaghan (1990) argue that 'the power relationship alongside, and in dynamic tension with, the solidarity relationship is a central feature in conversation' (1990: 17). What we seem to see in this extract is A's vacillation between wishing to appear equal with his colleagues and to demonstrate his superiority over them. It is possible A hopes that B and C's responses will contradict his downgrading of his own importance to the bid. When they both appear to go along with his self-assessment he moves to reassert his dominance over them. A's role as dominant partner does not however go entirely unchallenged in the meeting. An interesting point in the negotiations comes when A reveals that they have only one week to put together their bid: 14'0" 1 A:right ok well that being the case erm let let let's sort of suggest that that erm we put together something erm that talks about phase one now we're we're on a deadline for this we've actually got to get this into er Brussels by the 30th August 2 B: blimey 3 C: (laughs) 4 A:but I mean that's I'm I just live with this day by day C this doesn't surprise me at all these things sit on vice-chancellors' desks /for months / 5 C:/oh I know I know/ 6 A:then they get to divisional directors and then I've got to do it within 24 hours 7 C: I've had it too yes (laughs) 8 A:(laughs) so let's say let's go for a bid A rather hesitantly proposes (1) that they work on a bid and immediately informs them of the very close deadline. This is a threat to B and C's negative

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face by imposing a challenging task on them (Brown & Levinson, 1987: 65). Both men respond to this immediately: B with a mild swear word (2), C with a laugh (3). B's 'blimey' is a fairly transparent expression of surprise and disapproval, but C's laughter is more ambiguous. Is he laughing at A's information or B's response? Is the laughter face-threatening (a challenge to A by ridiculing the proposed deadline), or face-saving (mitigating B's negative response by treating it as a joke)? Again, it is necessary to consider A's next response (4). Interestingly, he appears to ignore B's negative comment and responds only to C's laugh, specifically naming him in his response. This at least suggests that he feels more threatened by C's laugh than by B's swearing. This may be because of C's higher external status as a Professor; alternatively, it may be that, by focusing on C, A avoids performing a FTA towards B, who at least in this meeting appears to be in charge. A's justification (4 and 6) is highly personal he is frequently a victim of incompetent superiors. The interaction then moves into a face-saving phase, initiated by C's response (5) 'I know' and then by C's comment that he has had the same experience, followed by a laugh (6). Again, the solidarity move (we've both shared this experience) is used as a face-saving strategy, and is accompanied by laughter. At this point A echoes C's laugh, and the FTA appears to be resolved, since A then returns (8) to the proposed bid. In this quite complex sequence we find two apparently quite different communicative effects of laughter. C's first laugh (3) seems to be treated by A as a threat, whilst the second (7) is treated as an invitation to express A and C's solidarity through shared laughter. This part of the meeting seems particularly fraught with interpersonal problems. In the phase immediately following the last sequence, C performs a clear FTA against A by correcting his terminology: 14'24" 1 A:(laughs) so let's say let's go for a bid now in view of the likely level of involvement let's go for something that says no let's take the overhead off first that's 27 how about going something like erm 50 30 20 so 50% Business School that is our sort of end of the Business School erm 30% activity Library orientated and 20% Language school right 2 C: can we say information instead of library please 3 A:/oh yes sorry I I pardon my my rude rude ignorance lack lack of use of language/ 4 C:/(laughs)/it's alright I'm trying to train John as well (laughs) 5 A:well that's fight you see the trouble as soon as I say information I then think of systems 6 B: yeah that's the problem but yes 7 A:I I I think I know what I'll come and talk to you about it later 8 C: (laughs).

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A proposes a possible split of funding among the partners in the bid and in doing so uses the term 'library'. C takes exception to the term and asks for the use of the right term, 'information' (2). This FTA is mitigated by linguistic choices such as using a question rather than a command, using we rather than you to indicate shared responsibility, and the politeness marker please. However, the mitigation is clearly not sufficient to save A's face, since A's response (3) is an elaborately incoherent, stumbled apology which may indeed be ironic in that it appears too self-abasing for the gravity of the 'offence'. C's immediate response to this is laughter, together with what appears to be a joking reference to another colleague who also needs to be 'trained' to use the correct term. By referring to John, C appears to try to mitigate his own FTA by indicating that other people make the same mistake (though the notion of 'training' could be construed as a possible further FTA to A). Despite (or perhaps because of) C's laughing acceptance of his apology, A does not join in the laughter, but offers an explanation for his 'mistake' (5), which is supported by B (6). A then appears to employ a politeness strategy himself, by suggesting (7) that he will consult C about this later. C's response is laughter, which may also be a politeness strategy in that it treats A's suggestion as something that he does not take seriously; by implication, perhaps, he shows that A does not need to consult him about the terminology. At this point, B abruptly changes the subject back to the main point at issue, which is whether the Library School would accept a 30% cut of the funding: 9 B: 30 seems to be a reasonable figure from what you've been saying. In this segment, A appears to have been disquieted by C's challenge to his authority and it takes a number of turns to settle the issue in such a way that both A and C are satisfied and the discussion can move on. Laughter plays an important role in this segment, signalling face-saving behaviour following the performance of FTAs. A little later in the meeting, laughter again occurs at a FTA performed against A during calculations of how much money each partner would receive. 15'20" 1 A:did I say 30 thousand or 50 thousand just/double check that/ 2 B: /I think it was 50/ 3 A:I won't won't swizz you don't worry about that I'm not that sharp 4 B: (laughs)/if it was / 5 A:/don't turn/your back on me though just to be on the safe side 6 B: I believe in the Holy Cross 7 A:(laughs) the Holy Cross that's right 8 B: (laughs)

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B's rapid overlapping response (2) reminds A of the correct figure. This is a clear if apparently fairly minor FTA to A, who, as we have however already seen, is not happy to be corrected by his colleagues. A's approach to this FTA is interesting, since his response (3) indicates that he takes B's remark as a different kind of FTA: an indication that B does not trust him. However, it seems unlikely that this is what B actually meant, and even less likely that A would comment on it if he really believed that B mistrusted him. It is therefore possible that A's reassurance (3) is a joking deflection of B's actual FTA. B's response is laughter (4). Again it is difficult to say with certainty why he laughs, but it seems probable this signals that he takes A's assurance (3) as a joke, therefore mitigating his own original FTA (2). He goes on to speak, but A interrupts (5) with a joking warning not to trust him (an apparent threat to B's negative face). This is perhaps a signal that A is still worried by the original FTA and is not yet prepared to let it drop. B responds with what is clearly an in-joke (6) which results in A's loudest and longest laugh in the whole meeting. Such private jokes offer a positive politeness strategy in that they demonstrate 'shared background' or 'shared values' (Brown & Levinson, 1987: 124). The solidarity promoted by B's joke is underlined by A's (7) repetition of the key words 'the Holy Cross' and his evaluative comment 'that's right'. Shared laughter rounds off the management of the FTA, and the meeting again moves on to serious business. It may be helpful to contrast the quite complex examples of FTA management related to A's role given above with one example of the four FTAs committed by A and B against C. C is important to the bid because of his professorial rank and his experience; as B explains to A when C is absent for part of the meeting 'he does know what the score is'. However, despite having junior rank to C, both A and B commit potential FTAs against him. On four occasions during the meeting either A or B makes an apparently critical comment about C. In the following example, C is talking about his experience of teaching courses on information systems: 13'32" 1 C: I did a 2-week course in Mexico on marketing information systems 2 B: which we've heard about many many times (laughs) 3 A:/(laughs) / 4 C:/(laughs)/ The potential FTA to C created by B's critical comment (2) is mitigated by B's laughter, which A and C immediately join in with. Shared laughter demonstrates the solidarity of the three interactants in spite of B's comment. At no point in the meeting does a critical comment about C cause an adverse reaction from C or any need for redressive action apart from laughter. Interestingly, each occurrence of a comment about C is accompanied by laughter from at least one of the participants. Each potential FTA is also

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resolved quickly, in contrast to the longer interactions relating to FTAs towards A. So far we have considered the occurrence of laughter at FTAs against a hearer. However, another type of laughter occurrence can be associated with a FTA against a speaker. For example, at three points in the meeting B emphatically states an interest in the project, and at two of these points, laughter occurs. The first of these comes when A first asks if they are interested: 8'8" 1 A:and just when the word library management came in I just thought it would be a good opportunity maybe for you to have some input so I think the way to turn this round is saying if you had an opportunity to do something with Russia 2 B: well we'd do it the answer's yes 3 C:/(laughs) / 4 A:/(laughs) / 5 B:/whatever yes/ 6 A:so does anything spring to mind A raises the question of their involvement very indirectly and tentatively (1); in doing so, his strategy is to 'be tentative, not about the quality of the idea or its value but about whether it will be accepted, and so leave room to avoid face loss' (Mulholland, 1991: 190). This suggests that A anticipates a dispreferred response (Pomerantz, 1984) of some kind, possibly a rejection or a counter proposal. However, after a minimal hesitation marker 'well' B baldly accepts the offer (2). A and C both greet this preferred response (Pomerantz, 1984) with laughter. B simultaneously (5) states that they will do anything, and A asks for their suggestions (6). Why do A and C laugh at B's acceptance? B's acceptance of A's invitation is the preferred option and therefore appears to create no threat to face. Neither is it, on the surface at least, a humorous remark. However, I would argue that the mode of B's acceptance is a threat to his own (and indeed C's) face because by accepting without condition he places himself and C entirely in A's power. In the context of a business meeting between representatives of two different interests, one would expect some kind of initial position on each side (what Neu, 1986:43 calls the 'first price') which might be modified through negotiation towards a mutually agreeable compromise. Certainly A's careful broaching of the possibility that B and C might be interested indicates that he anticipates this behaviour. B therefore breaks the rules of the game, and in this context A and C's laughter may reflect their wish to save B's face by treating his faux pas as a deliberate joke.

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Laughter and Facework: Some Conclusions This study indicates the significance of laughter in the management of interaction in a business meeting. Laughter is not just a side issue, signalling a little 'light relief' from the serious matters of the meeting. Rather, it seems likely to co-occur with potential and actual FTAs, and it appears to play an important role in mitigating these FTAs. In those examples where laughter is simultaneous it also appears to be related to the promotion of solidarity between the participants. However, given the small amount of data analysed, it will now be necessary to carry out a wider study of different business meetings to find whether the results of the present study are generalisable. The potential relevance of such findings is not simply that teachers of English for Business Purposes should attempt to teach the functions of laughter, though this may be particularly interesting in terms of cross-cultural perceptions of what kind of behaviour is acceptable in the context of a business meeting, and, equally importantly, when it is acceptable. What I think is also vital is that EBP practitioners should continue to develop a greater sensitivity to the paralinguistic and non-linguistic phenomena which can accompany language in a business context and which can be so influential on the successful management of interaction. Notes 1. The study on which this paper is based was carried out within the framework of the DIRECT Project. 2. I would like to express my thanks to the researcher, Johanna Jakabovicova, for permission to use her unpublished data in this study. 3. Of the four occurrences of laughter excluded from this study, three occurrences relate to talk between the participants and the researcher, and the fourth occurrence appears to be a straightforward response to a joke about a person not present at the meeting.

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20 Modal Profiling in Oral Presentations 1 Heloisa Collins The general aim of this paper is to conduct a critical discussion of the choice of modal forms in public technicalprofessional oral presentations. More specifically, the paper suggests that different presentations may have different modal profiles and that these profiles may offer valuable clues towards a study of type and degree of interpersonal impact upon the audience. Some basic assumptions underlie the discussion. First, language is here understood as a type of social practice, in which linguistic features are always socially motivated. Linguistic description is then regarded as the definitive support for discourse analysis. Second, interpersonal features of discourse are considered specially relevant in the delivery of oral presentations. Moreover, the way language works to convey particular interpersonal meanings and effects depends largely on choices of mood and modality. On the basis of these assumptions, this study will attempt to provide an organised picture, motivated by the choices of modals, modality metaphors and modal adjuncts, in public presentations made in a specific cultural context, a large public conference, the SP ECO 92, held in São Paulo, Brazil, in June 1992. The paper uses some notions and concepts that situate the research in the area of Critical Discourse Analysis (Kress, 1990). One is the notion of power, here understood as a possible dimension within relations amongst participants (in contrast with solidarity). An analysis of the interaction between power (and solidarity) and text may help make explicit and operational certain discourse strategies used to induce people towards particular beliefs and establish, keep or subvert power relations. As Hodge & Kress explain and exemplify, What is at issue always in social processes is the definition of social participants, relations, structures, processes, in terms of solidarity or in terms of power. Semiotic processes are means whereby these can be tested, reaffirmed, altered. Hence questions of power are always at

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issue, whether in the affirmation of solidarity or in the assertion of power; whether in the reproduction of a semiotic system or in a challenge to that system. (...) The hypothetical forms if...then and would are indicators of ontological distance, uncertainty, tentativeness, and can therefore serve as signifiers for social distance. (1988:122 and 126) Revealing the relations between power, solidarity and text may promote awareness of macro features of discourse such as genre and register variation, as well as productive knowledge about the presence and effect of certain micro features of particular genres, a 'recognition of the ways in which language can construct and sustain identity; how language can shape social practice' (Clark et at., 1990). The second is the notion of language that considers the social, cultural and political features of communicative events as vital for the critical description of linguistic choices. The third important concept is the one of type of impact, which is derived from the notions of power and solidarity and may generate some degree of bonding between the audience and the presenter. Bonding presupposes that presenters make successful choices in order to arouse solidarity with the audience. In other words, bonding seems to be close to the idea of interactive success, particularly in public presentations like the ones here analysed. Background The paper adopts a functional systemic approach to language, according to which linguistic choices are the result of and result in socially relevant meanings (Halliday, 1985). According to this perspective, language is structured in three macro functions: the ideational, the interpersonal and the textual. Ideational meaning is the representation of experience, is meaning in the sense of content. Interpersonal meaning is meaning as a form of action and at the level of the clause its function is that of exchanging roles in rhetorical interaction. Textual meaning is relevance to the context and has the function of constructing the message (Halliday, 1985: 53). Within the view of language succinctly described, the paper considers in some detail a few features of the interpersonal macrofunction. These will be briefly described below. Modality as a System Many are the studies which have dealt with modality in a function-oriented approach. Most rely on Halliday's concept of modality, as a system of choices to convey judgement, opinion, subjectivity, objectivity, doubt,

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the space between yes and no, always and never, positive and negative commands, positive and negative offers (Halliday, 1985: 335). Others view modality as a broader, underlying system. Modality as such is dealt with in detail by Hodge & Kress: Halliday's theory recognises that modality is a matter of the relation of the participants in a verbal interaction, hence squarely in the domain of the social, and that modal forms are the traces of the activity of speakers acting in a social context. Once this step is taken it becomes apparent that all utterances, all texts, given their social provenance, will always bear signs of modality. (1988: 124) G. Thompson & Thetela (1994), in turn, propose a distinction within Halliday's interpersonal function, where modality is considered to have a personal function, together with evaluation. One recognises, however, that Halliday's mapping of modality is adequate for the present purposes and offers enough elements for the type of profiles to be suggested. The elements to be specifically referred to during the report and discussion of results will be briefly defined below. Modality Types The modality types referred to will be Halliday's modulation (imperative type) and modalisation (indicative type), which roughly correspond to logicians' deontic (meaning expressed by those forms which indicate obligation and permission) and epistemic types of modality (expressed by those linguistic forms which indicate the speaker's confidence in the truth of the proposition expressed in the utterance) (Coates, 1990: 54). In the specification of meanings conveyed by modulation, however, an alteration will be suggested. To the original dual specification for modalisation probability and usuality Halliday adds a third one, potentiality, and thus accounts for the meanings conveyed by can, possible and *able forms (1985: 339). For modulation, he keeps a dual specification obligation and inclination m and defines permission as a low value modal meaning of obligation. It is here suggested that permission is considered, together with obligation and inclination, as a third type of modulation meaning. It seems that whereas obligation meanings are externally-oriented, permission meanings are internally motivated. This proposal will interfere with modality values, as we shall see later. Modality Values The modality values attributed by Halliday range from high to median and low. It is, of course, virtually impossible to define in a clear-cut fashion where a high value stops and a median value begins. In fact, keen is classified

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by Halliday as median inclination but it is easy to think of contexts where it would convey as high a value as determined. Modal meanings are necessarily fuzzy because they constitute and are constituted by interpersonal meanings, which, in turn, are socially, contextually constructed. The divisions of modal meanings into three values and Halliday's choices of linguistic signals to represent them, therefore, will be used here only for purposes of organisation. Modality Metaphors and Modal Adjuncts Modality metaphors should be understood as non-propositional (and therefore metaphorical in Halliday's definition) projecting clauses of the type I think, I presume, I believe, in addition to less conventional forms of introducing opinion or personal viewpoint. Modal adjuncts include mood adjuncts expressing probability, usuality, obligation and inclination or time and comment adjuncts, usually placed at word boundaries, expressing the speaker's comment on what he is saying. In addition to the types and values attributed to modal choices in the Hallidayian tradition, this paper will make use of a further notion. This is the notion of bonding, which will be here used with the meaning of a possible result from a type of impact that the presenter may seek to obtain through choices that promote solidarity. This potential effect seems to be generated by the speaker's actions to get the audience on his side, to neutralise matters of hierarchy, to remove or disguise power. In this sense, bonding seems to be the mirror of what Hodge & Kress define as affinity: Modality expresses affinity or lack of it of speaker with hearer (...). Affinity is therefore an indicator of relations of solidarity or of power... A high degree of affinity indicates the expression of solidarity between participants. A low degree of affinity indicates that power difference is at issue. (1988: 123) Data The five technical-professional presentations here analysed were delivered at a large public conference, the SP ECO 92, held in São Paulo, Brazil, in June 1992. The presentations offered information about environmental problems in urban centres, biodiversity and sustainable development (see Collins & S. Thompson (1994) for a discussion of distribution of roles in two of the presentations here analysed). Three presentations were originally delivered in English and two were delivered in Portuguese and simultaneously interpreted into English. A detailed comparison was conducted between the original texts in Portuguese and the texts of their interpretations into English for purposes of

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evaluation of the translation of modal choices. Having been translated by professional interpreters, the texts as a whole and the modal choices in particular were considered adequate. For purposes of language uniformity in the exemplification, a decision was then made to use these two presentations in their English versions. They were delivered by S, Brazilian and a native speaker of Portuguese, and R, a native speaker of German but also a speaker of Portuguese; two of the other presenters, B and E, are native speakers of English. Our fifth presenter, F, is a native speaker of French. The SP ECO 92 was 'a kind of Rio-92 in São Paulo' (Jornal do Brasil, June 1, 1992), also referred to as a combined event of 'ECOBRAZIL-92, an International Exhibition of Environment Technology and an International Seminar bringing together universities, business organisations and communities and their relations with the environment' (Folha de São Paulo, June 9, 1992). At the time of SP ECO 92, all Brazilian newspapers discussed the agenda, the organisation and the political interfaces of Rio-92, especially the implications of Agenda 21 for the developing countries and the refusal by the USA to sign the biodiversity agreement. In addition to this, Rio-92 staged an intricate battle of implicit and explicit ideologies of powerful first-world nations and developing countries around a new world order concerning the environment. The themes chosen for SP ECO 92 Sustainable Development, Biodiversity, among others were treated with direct or indirect reference to these political issues. The ECO presentations can be matched to a broad generic pattern of public conferences. On the other hand, they were novel in the sense of having been the result, as much as they helped constitute, a new subject area (ecology) of international debate over modem issues and problems by institutional holders of conflicting forces and policies. Their main function, therefore, seems to be of an ideational nature, where the content of the arguments must reflect or foster (contentious) action. They aimed at giving information and recommending policies, giving information about results, products or services. The audiences were rather mixed, including both specialists and lay people, people of the general public and powerful politicians. These features nourish expectations of deliveries carefully balanced between an audience and an argument orientation. Procedures The organisation and grammatical analysis of the data have been conducted through the use of a concordancer (Scott & Johns, 1993), and software analysing lexical frequency and keywords in text (Scott, forthcoming).

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Initially, lexical frequencies, as well as a list of keywords in each text, were obtained for observation of the frequency status of the searched items. The concordancer was then used for the relevant lexical searches in context. Together, these instruments have made it possible (a) to observe the frequency status of modality markers across the five presentations; (b) to separate data into blocks, according to the function of the markers in their contexts. The organisational and analytical advantages of such instrumental procedures will become clearer as results are presented and discussed. Results and Discussion Modality Types and Values All five presentations were concordanced for nuclear modals and modal lexis expressing probability, usuality, potentiality, obligation, permission and inclination, with three different values high, median and low. In general, there was more modulation than modalisation, i.e. the presentations were more heavily marked by imperative choices than by indicative meanings. Within modulation, high and median obligation and inclination were plentiful. Within modalisation, potentiality was almost exclusively the most frequent choice. If we look at each one of the presentations, it will be possible to start drawing different modal profiles, both in quantitative and in qualitative terms (Table 20.1). R and S display very similar quantitative performances. Both used most instances of high obligation, median inclination and low potentiality. Even in the least busy modal meaning corners, for example, high usuality, R and S present very similar numbers. Their linguistic options to convey those modal meanings, however, are somewhat different. In their expression of obligation, R's main concern is with the expression of necessity and needs (necessary, needs, need), whereas S's main expressed meaning is related to obligation and duty (have to and should) as we can see in the examples below. Obligation in R Highly polluting industries must be converted, must be, must be modernised... ...or at least it has to be redefined ...we have to remember the objectives... ...from which we have to find solutions. So, it is necessary to mobilise public opinion, So, for these ends, it is not necessary... The need for planning was never as... So, there's a need for planning. So, they need to emphasise...

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Table 20.1 Modality types and values in five presentations Modality types Modalisation: Indicative Values Probability Usuality High

certain

Modalisation: Imperative

Potentiality Obligation Permission Inclination

always

required

allow

must

determine want to

ha* to need is to

Medium probably

B0

B8

B2

B4

E0

E5

E0

E0

R3

R16

R3

R0

S3

S20

S2

S0

F0

F10

F0

F4

usually

supposed may

keen

should

will

might

would going to

Low

B0

B0

B7

E0

E0

E9

R18

R3

R4

S12

S4

S2

F0

F0

F3

possible

sometimes can able

B0

B1

B20

E0

E0

E3

R1

R1

R7

S7

SO

S10

F0

F0

F8

...which doesn't mean that there is a need to isolate ourselves... ...is able to provide for the basic needs of its population... ...which is unsatisfactory and should be changed. ...but technology should not be conceived in its... Obligation in S We must not approach these problems... And that was the message I had to give to you. Thank you. ...low productivity, they had to respect the ecology. ...on the contrary, I believe we have to face this process as a... ...we have to re-exam... If we have to go look for local solutions... We, in the North, have to do our best to change our... ...we have to identify the technology by...

willing

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We have to preserve it. And also, we have to consider new things... We have, they have to be translated into a... We have to have institutional conditions... ...and we have to learn to find local solutions... We need to use the resource of our... When we define needs and we look at the environment... So maybe we should talk about self-reliance... ...we should face the future with more... ...about the tasks that should be accomplished in the South In their expression of inclination, R and S's choices were again compatible in terms of number of occurrences. R focuses on the use of will and going to to express degrees of probability and would like to express polite inclination; similarly, S shares his choices between going to and will to express degrees of probability and the polite use of would to express inclination (see below for further discussion). Inclination in R To finish I'd like to focus on, I'd like, I'd like to talk about the four... ...I'd like to also to make... I would like to point out some aspects... Probability in R ...with which we are going to be faced and from which we... ...and later on we will enter a phase of prosperity ...that ultimately will decide on the legitimacy... Inclination in S ...development. Just to end, I would like to say one more thing. One of ...public sector here in Brazil, I would like to know if there is any Probability in S ...I'm going to talk in telegraphic style... ...technology is not going to be the only thing that we're going to... ...is going to take place in Manaus on June... ..and these all are going to be in favour of... ...all the innovations will be practised here and there. ...going to be a conference which will have researchers from Asia... The decisions made next week will not solve it all, on the contrary... ...sustained development will not be accomplished overnight ...publicity of these innovations would allow us... ...these European peasants wouldn't have been able to survive... One further 'point for comparison between these two presenters is their use of less conventional, less nuclear modals, which will be generally referred to as modal lexis. In their expression of low potentiality, both use

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forms of can and *able-inflected adjectives. S, however, makes intensive use of ability to praise Brazilian institutional ecological action, as shown in the examples below. Potentiality in S ...does not believe in the ability of the Brazilian University... ...in Brazilian ability to produce new technology... ...But what exists is the ability to cultivate... peasants wouldn't have been able to survive New ecological possibilities make us consider... This in terms of renewable resources. ...today is called sustainable development. Potentiality in R ...and have always been able to solve them. ...no longer is able to provide for the basic needs... ...depression of non-renewable resources... ...the tendency to use non-renewable resources. It is probably your experience, gentlemen,... there will be no sustainable development... the obligation to renew usable resources for direct transfer... In their expression of high obligation, both S and R use important to convey necessity. But R also uses fundamental to convey the same meaning and deny in the context of prohibition, i.e. negative permission: High Obligation through lexis in S and R (S)...the more important is the maintenance... (S)...hierarchically the most important for its social pertinence (R)In this respect it is important that one has mentioned the (R)No doubt, this is extremely important, but it is incomplete, (R)...is not an universal panacea, it is important, fundamental, (R)Those that are denied access to the process in the future... (R)...and denies them the benefits of urban civilisation... (R)...denies them access to the world market... B, E and F, as Table 20.1 shows, offer a more mild use of nuclear modals and modal lexis than the other two presenters, apart from B's use of can (17 instances), the highest of all. In sum, there is a lot of inclination, obligation and potentiality going on, but not much of anything else. R and S are basically in charge of the expressions of necessity, requirement, duty and inclination and share with B most expressions of potentiality. The insights that the data offers towards a modal profile of the presentations point towards more dogmatism, certainty and assertiveness on the part of S and R, especially the latter. In their intensive use of markers of inclination, S is less assertive, as it becomes clear from his use of would. By using the conditional, he makes his assertions less direct and, presumably,

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less imposing on the audience (see Modality and Bonding, below). In relation to B, E and F, R and S dominate the scene and display the highest use of nuclear modals. Modal metaphors Modal metaphors, in the five presentations, are limited to the common forms I think and I believe. They introduce assertions in such a way as to remove from them a full state of certainty. Their function is, then, to remove assertiveness and introduce opinions and personal viewpoints. Within this general function, there seems to be some variation along this line of how much certainty is removed from the assertion, given by the position of the metaphor, whether before or after the assertion and by the presence or absence of emphasisers. Consider the following examples: 1 ...and I am on their side, I think that it is necessary to... 2 ...and I think that it is very important... 3 he rides his bicycle, I believe, fifteen to twenty kilometres a 4 this is a picture, I believe, of DC, Florida, which 5 ...following this reasoning, I do believe that if we undermine 6 I believe personally that one of the roots of... In examples 1 and 2, the metaphors are clause initial and keep more assertiveness to the proposition (it is my opinion that...) than the metaphors in examples 3 and 4, where their medial position, between pauses, assigns them a status of fillers (if I am not mistaken). In examples 5 and 6, not only are the metaphors clause initial, they are also made stronger by the emphatic particles do and personally. Of the 13 instances of metaphors identified, S is responsible for 7, F for 3, B for 2 and R for 1. The only one R chooses to use, curiously, is noticeable for its force and originality and confirms the highly assertive, dogmatic line which helps draw R's profile (see above): ...nothing can be further from the truth than this vision of... Modality and bonding Bonding will be here used as an umbrella term for certain possible interactive effects planned by the presenter: trying to neutralise matters of place in the hierarchy, getting the audience on his side, diminishing distance between presenter and audience. The linguistic choices which may have had the effect of bonding seem to be of two types, with possibly different effects. In the first group are included all forms of more or less polite inclination: I would like, I'd like, I'd just want, I want, I will. Consider the examples below: 1 The first thing I would like to do is share ...

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2 Just to end, I would like to say one more thing. 3 I would like to know if there is any... 4 I would like to point out some aspects... 5 What I would like to do today is share ... 6 I'd like to talk about the four... 7 To finish I'd like to focus on, I'd like to 8 At this time I'd like to go ahead and show... 9 I'd like to also to make an observation... 10 and I'd just want to show you some ... 11 Now ...I want to speak about metans... 12 And I want to talk a bit about Helsinki... 13 Now I want to say some word about the . 14 Now I want to give my conclusions. 15 I want to talk here about what we can... 16 I want to talk with you today about ... 17 Now I want, yes, it is a schematisation, ...

S S R E R R E R B F B F.. F B B F

Examples 1-10 display possible bonding-promoting introductions to verbal or non-verbal action (point out, share, say, show, make an observation, focus on, talk about). The use of full and short forms ('d and would) give the announced actions statuses of implicit conditions which will be accomplished subject to the agreement of the audience (I would...if you agreed/if you let me). They seem to attempt more proximity with the audience than do examples 11-17. If we re-interpret this tendency in the light of Hodge & Kress's approach to modality, we can say that the context involving presenter and audience is one of low affinity, low solidarity; there is, after all, considerable distance of power. The use of forms of would, then, seem to be 'indicators of ontological distance' (p. 126), as well as serve the purpose of increasing the degree of affinity and solidarity. The entries using want are more abrupt introducers to action, and in that sense might reflect more affinity between presenter and audience, at least from the presenter's point of view. The distribution of want and would clauses, as introducers to action, points to B and F as the presenters who use them the most (source of the example on the extreme right). Curiously, these are also the presenters who do not use would clauses. In sum, F is clearly a user of more abrupt introducers, B uses both types and R, whom we might think of as a more direct speaker, chooses the more polite and distant choice would. E and S are the ones who use them the least. The second group includes clauses where if has important roles. Consider the following examples: 1 one of the lead cities, if not the lead city in North America...B 2 one of the largest projects in the world, if not the largest ... E 3 in a very heated battle, if you can believe it in the USA, ... B

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4 his kind of architecture, if you can call it that... B 5 And if you compare that with Minneapolis ... B 6 And if you look at also to forests, ... F 7 And if we look now at the concentrations F 8 you have the same thing if we look at the concentrations ... F 9 And if we look now at the, eh, an estimation... F 10...if you look at the concentration, it is F 11...if you notice the circles on this picture, B 12If we talk about cities, cities are ... S 13And if we think that this value of the ... F Entries 1 and 2, produced by presenters B and E, display if not as an interesting softener, i.e. as an instance of hedging (Myers, 1989: 12). The face-threatening pieces of information are delivered in medial position, as parenthetic clauses, i.e. as the second best choice (one of the lead cities, if not the lead city...; one of the largest renewal projects in the world, if not the largest...). In other words, they give the audience a choice as to the amount of boasting it is prepared to cope with and, in that sense, are bonding-promoting (see Thompson & Collins, 1994 for a detailed discussion of face work in oral presentations). Entries 3 and 4, both produced by B, seem to be highly bonding-promoting, not only because they give the audience an open choice (not an ideational, one-of-two type of choice as above), but because they count on two very important ingredients of bonding, i.e. cultural alliance and professional/technical competence. When B, a Canadian talking to Brazilians in Brazil, makes a subtly ironical remark on the fact that Americans have engaged in a heated battle over a social issue, he is trying to promote high bonding with his audience, as well as make it clear that he is not American. Those who followed the debates at the time of the 1992 Rio Summit in Brazil will remember the diplomatic, political and ecological difficulties involving the USA. Similarly, when B defines the situation he is talking about as architecture and gives the audience the choice to 'correct' him (if you can call it that), he is attributing to the audience professional/technical expertise and thus attempting a highly bondingpromoting effect. Entries 5-13 constitute the most numerous functional group and use [if + bonding-promoting pronoun + mental process] as invitations to action. In other words, they are potentially highly bonding-promoting in the sense that they combine invitations to action (please look, please notice, etc.) and a grammatical possibility of refusal, built into the conditional particle. A total of 32 occurrences were observed where a bonding effect may have been generated. In Table 20.2 the High column stands for potentially successful bonding-promoting choices ('d, would and if forms); the Low column

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stands for potentially weak bonding-promoting options (want and will forms). Again, F and B are the most frequent users of potentially bonding-promoting if clauses, whether with a higher or lower value. B, however, is the presenter who uses them most creatively. F's use of this type of clause is highly common, predictable, repetitive and, therefore, monotonous. Table 20.2 Potentially bonding-generating choices Presenter

High

Low

Total

R

4

0

4

S

2

0

2

B

5

4

9

E

4

0

4

F

6

5

11

Modal Adjuncts and Evaluation One last aspect of the use of modality to be here discussed is the use of modal adjuncts. They were observed in the corpus in terms of their type, whether mood or comment, their variety and number in each presentation as a whole and their variety and number in each presentation's list of keywords. Each presentation's list of keywords (Scott, forthcoming) was obtained through a comparison between each presentation's wordlist and the main wordlist of the entire corpus. The computer program criterion to include a word as a keyword is that its relative frequency in a particular presentation is at least twice as high as it is in the set of presentations (the main wordlist). Obtaining key adjuncts through the use of the keyword concept was thought to be particularly relevant for the analysis in the sense that one would be able to look at each presentation's key adjuncts only, i.e. those especially frequent in relation to the presentations as a whole. As a category largely composed of derivated words, modal adjuncts are very productive and can be more or less varied depending on linguistic ability and personal style. In other words, it was thought that observing the use of a highly flexible and varied category associated to modality might suitably combine with the analysis of more nuclear and limited nuclei, such as the modals and the modality metaphors. Table 20.3 gives a general account of the total number of adjuncts in each presentation, the number of key adjuncts, the complete list of these adjuncts, their frequency in relation to the main wordlist and their type. There seem to be two main issues for an initial discussion of the adjunct

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Table 20.3 Variety of modal adjuncts and adjuncts as keywords Non-key Presenteradjuncts

Key adjuncts

Relative frequency

Adjunct types (Halliday, 1985: 822)

B

absolutely

basically

4

degree

actually

considerably4

degree

dearly

dramaticaly 4

degree

easily

entirely

4

degree

exactly

obviously

4

presumption

particularly

typically

4

presumption

presently

rather

4

degree

certainly

really

6

intensity

extremely

totally

5

degree

fairly

actually

4

intensity

highly

quite

3

degree

certainly

6

presumption

efficiently

4

probability

extremely

3

probability

-

-

-

mainly

3

intensity

nearly only relatively safely E

mainly nearly only probably recently unfortunately R

globally highly only satisfactorily ultimately probably certainly S

badly certainly dearly frequently increasingly lately only perfectly precisely totally

F

definitively

directly generally necessarily particularly partly really

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data. First, the variety of choices exhibited by each presenter. Second, the number of choices which are used with special frequency, i.e. as keywords in each presentation. B is the presenter who uses the highest number of different adjuncts, as well as the highest number of keyword adjuncts. B is followed by E, who uses 14 different adjuncts, where only 4 are keywords. R reveals a similar pattern, with 10 adjuncts and 3 keywords. F and S, however, present a very different pattern. A comparably high number of adjuncts used during their presentations, 9 and 13, respectively, is in contrast with a virtual absence of key adjuncts. Combined to this quantitative profile, there is the question of types. B's are the most evaluative, most original and richest in style. All the others, whether key or non-key adjuncts, are pretty common and relatively empty of evaluative meaning, with the odd exception (E's unfortunately, R's globally and efficiently, S's precisely). B's originality in the choice of adjuncts in general and key adjuncts in particular matches a similar pattern in the use of bonding-promoting if clauses, as we have seen. F's dullness in the use of the latter also matches some monotony in the exercise of the former. Although there seems to be some coherence in the patterns observed, a point must be made about the presence of a good number of adjuncts in contrast to an absence of adjuncts as keywords, as in the case of S. It is not totally clear how one should approach simple repetition, the type of textual device the keywords function is based upon. Is it desirable in all circumstances? Does it contribute positively to cohesion and style pattern? Or is variety to be preferred? These questions cannot really start to be considered before one matches textual features to presenters's intended purposes and audiences's evaluation of suitability and success. This is what we shall discuss, though briefly, in the last section. Concluding Remarks The main aim of this paper was to suggest that it is possible to draw modal profiles of presentations by observing modal choices related to nuclear modal operators, modal metaphors, modal adjuncts and modal lexis. This angle of analysis, as proposed, might throw some light on the ways presentations may be like with respect to some features of modality. A secondary aim, derived from the first, was to collect valuable clues for further studies of the type of impact that different modal profiles may have upon the audience. It is possible to say, at this stage, that the analysis reveals some interesting consistency among the modal choices observed in each presentation and that they allow for some clear profiling of the presentations delivered by B, R, S and, to a minor extent, F and E. The relevance of the profiles obtained

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may stop at the descriptive level but may also be extended to areas of application. In the context of English for Professional Purposes, for example, within a wide-scope needs analysis type of approach (Collins, 1992), they may provide relevant descriptive data about public presentations as the target situation discourse (Chambers, 1980). In the circles of Language Awareness studies, it is now a reasonably well developed idea that there is a need for explicit knowledge about the genre to be acquired, in such a way that learners 'can understand why, in a particular situation, one feature is selected rather than another' (Stainton, 1992: 116). In Stainton's dynamic model of Language Awareness (p. 112), genre and register variation are defined as belonging to a type of knowledge 'concerned with the social and contextual aspects of language' (p. 113). For these reasons, it is extremely desirable that those involved with presentations, whether as presenters or as members of the audience, have access to information about the ways linguistic choices affect meaning within particular domains of power and solidarity. As to the indicators the study may have provided to further research about impact of modal profiles upon the audience, several specific modal choices have been hypothesised as potential generators of bonding. It was also possible to suggest degrees of creativity, variety and monotony of style as the final impression a presentation may cause. However, a systematised dialogue between discourse analysis and impact on audience requires a lot more research. Presentations will have to be analysed and evaluated from the point of view of the beliefs and expectations of audiences. Other potential variables such as degree of experience as a presenter, proficiency in the language of delivery, presenter purposes (individual as opposed to institutional), to mention only a few, will have to be brought forward in future analyses. Notes 1. This piece of research was sponsored by the CNPq (Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Cientifico e Tecnologico), Process No. 350101/92 2 and by the CEPE (Conselho de Ensino e Pesquisa) of the Catholic University of Sáo Paulo.

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Biblographical References Alderson, J.C. (1986) Innovations in language testing? In M. Portal (ed.) Innovations in Language Testing London: NFER Nelson. Alderson, J.C. and Beretta, A. (eds) (1992) Evaluating Second Language Education. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Alderson, J.C. and Scott, M. (1992) Insiders, outsiders and participatory evaluation. In Alderson and Beretta (eds). Allison, D. (1993) Review of evaluating second language education. Hong Kong Papers in Linguistics and Language Teaching 16, 134-7. Allwright, R.L. (1984) The importance of interaction in classroom language learning. Applied Linguistics 5, 157-71. Anderson, R. (1985) Role of reader's schema in comprehension, learning and memory. In H. Singer and R. Ruddell Theoretical Models and Processes of Reading. Newark, DE: International Reading Association. Alves, R. (1980) Conversas corn Quem Gosta de Ensinar. Sáo Paulo: Cortez Editora. (2nd edn 1993). Amastae, J. and Elías-Olivares L. (eds) (1982) Spanish in the United States: Sociolinguistic Aspects. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Atkinson, J.M. and Heritage J. (eds) (1984) Structures of Social Action: Studies in Conversation Analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Baker, L. and Brown, A.L. (1984) Metacognitive skills and reading. In D. Pearson (ed.) Handbook of Reading Research. New York: Longman. Ballard, B. and Clanchy, J. (1991) Assessment by misconception: Cultural influences and intellectual traditions. In L. HampLyons (ed.) Assessing Second Language Writing in Academic Contexts. Norwood, NJ: Ablex. Bassnett-McGuire, S. (1991) Translation Studies. London: Methuen. Batley, E. et at. (1993) Language policies for the world of the 21st Century. A Report for UNESCO by FIPLV, International Federation of Modem Language Teachers, Paris. Beaugrande, R. de (1991) Linguistic Theory. The Discourse of Fundamental Works. Harlow: Longman. Bell, R. (1991) Translation and Translating: Theory and Practice. London: Longman. Beretta, A. (1992) Editors' postscript to Alderson and Scott. In Alderson and Beretta (eds). Berry, M. (1989) Thematic options and success in writing. In C.S. Butler, R.A. Cartwell and J. Channel (eds) Language and Literature: Theory and Practice A Tribute to Walter Grauberg. University of Nottingham. Bialystok, E. and Ryan, E.B. (1985) A metacognitive framework for the development of language skills. In D.G. ForrestPresley, G.E. MacKinnon and T.G. Waller (eds) Metacogniton, Cognition and Human Performance 1. New York: Academic Press.

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Billmyer, K. (1990) 'I really like your lifestyle': ESL learners learning how to compliment. Penn Working Papers in Educational Linguistics 6 (2), 31-48. Blake, C.C.F. (1983) Exons present from the beginning? Nature 306, 535-7. Bolinger, D. and Sears, D. (1981) Aspects of Language. New York: Harcourt, Brace Jovanovich. Bonikowska, M.P. (1988) The choice of opting out. Applied Linguistics 9 (2), 169-81. Börsch, S. (1986) Introspective methods in research on interlingual and intercultural communication. In J. House and S. BlumKulka (eds). Boston, R. (1974) An Anatomy of Laughter. London: Collins. Boxwell, H.M.F. (1986) Text typology in use. The ESPecialist 9, 210-2. Breen, M., Candlin, C., Dam, L. and Gabrielsen, G. (1989) The evolution of a teacher training curriculum. In R.K. Johnson (ed.) The Second Language Curriculum. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Broughton, M. (1993) Interacting with reluctant second language speakers. Thai TESOL Bulletin 5 (4). Brown, A.L. (1985) Metacognitive development and reading. In R.C. Spiro, B.C. Bruce and W.E. Brewer (eds) Theoretical Issues in Reading Comprehension Perspectives from Cognitive Psychology, Linguistics, Artificial Intelligence and Education. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Brown, C.S. and Lytle, S.L. (1985) Merging assessment and instruction: Protocols in the classroom. In S.M. Glazer, L.W. Seafoss and L.M. Gentile (eds) Reexamining Reading Diagnosis: New Trends and Procedures. Newark, DE: International reading Association. Brown, G. (1990) Listening to Spoken English (2nd edn). London: Longman. Brown, P. and Levinson, S.C. (1987) Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Brumfit, C.J. (ed.) (1983) Language Teaching Projects for the Third World. Oxford: Pergamon Press and The British Council. (1984) General English Syllabus Design: Curriculum and Syllabus Design for the General English Classroom. ELT Documents, 118 (The British Council). Oxford: Pergamon. Bruner, J. (1977) Early social interaction and language development. In H.R. Schaffer (ed.) Studies in Mother-Child Interaction. London: Academic Press. Carrell, P.L. (1988) Some causes of text-boundness and schema interference in ESL reading. In P.L. Carrell and D.E. Eskey (eds) Interactive Approaches to Second Language Reading. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Carvalho, C.M.B. and Henriques, L.V. (1990) Lexical inferencing and reading comprehension. The ESPecialist 11 (2), 153-73. Castilho, A. (1990) Apresentaçao do projeto de gramática do português falado. In A. Castilho (ed.) Gramática do Português Falado 1. São Paulo: Editora da UNICAMP e FAPESP. Cavalcanti, M.C. (1983) The pragmatics of FL reader-text interaction: Key lexical items as source of potential reading problem. PhD Thesis (unpublished). University of Lancaster. (1987) Investigating FL reading performance through pause protocols. In C. Faerch and G. Kasper (eds) Introspection in Second Language Research. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.

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Index A accessibility, 124, 125 action research, 37 advice, 190 affective domain, 14, 15, 19, 21, 22 Alderson, J.C. xviii-xx, 2, 3, 7, 13, 42, 52, Allison, D. 2, 3 Alves, R., Anderson, R., 139 apologising , 111-114, 116 assertiveness, 222, 223 attitude 17, 21, 26, 28, 29 awareness of reader, 163 awareness raising, 23-25, 27, 29, 94, 157 B Baker, L. 78, 139 Ballard, B., 112 Bassnett-McGuire, S., 157 Batley, E., 109 BBC, 191 Beaugrande, R., 106 Bell, R, 157 Beretta, A., 2, 3, 13 Berry, M., 172, 174 Bialystok, E., 28 bilingualism, 123 Blake, C.C.F., 111 block protecting, 130, 132 Bolinger, D., 106 bonding xxi, xxii, 215, 217, 223-225, 228, 229 Bonikowska, M.P., 111 borrowing, 125, 126, 136 Börsch, S., 158 Boston, R., 204 Boxwell, H.M.F., 35 BRASTESOL, xvii Brazilian ESP Project, ix, xvi, xviii, xix, 1, 21, 23, 30, 33, 36, 39, 40, 44 Breen, M., 56 British Council , vii, xv, xvi, 46, 47, 51, 186-188, 190, 191 Broughton, M. xix, 14 Brown, A.L. 78, 139

Brown, C.S., 154 Brown, G., 206 Brown, P., 117, 204-206, 208 Brumfit, C.J. 16, 67 Bruner, J. 76, 77 business xxi, 195, 204-206, 212, 213 business administration, 15 business brain xxi, 184-186, 189, 191, 192 C Candlin, C., 56 Carrell, P.L., 25, 139 Carvalho, C.M.B., 40 Castilho, A., 35 Cavalcanti, M.C. xx, xxi, 24, 142, 148-150, 153 Cazden, C.B., 77 Celani, M.A.A., vii, xii, xv, xix, xxi, xxii, 1, 21, 22, 30, 32, 35-37, 42, 43, 52, 54, 55, 65, 105, 109, 184 Célia, M.H.C., 38 CEPRIL x, xvi, xix Chambers, F., 229 Chamot, A.U., 139 Chapman, A.J. 204 Cheepen, C. 207, 208 Chiaro, D. 204 Clanchy, J. 112 Clark, R. 215 Clarke, D. 16 Clymer, T. 4 Coates, J. 216 code-switching xx, 122-127, 129, 131, 133-136 Cohen, A.D. 112 Cohen, A.D. xx-xxii, 110, 117, 121, 141, 149, 150, 156 collaboration 18 Collins, H. xx, xxii, 217, 225, 229 conscientização 24, 93 Cook, G. 65 Crick, F. 118

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Critical Discourse Analysis 214 critical language awareness xxii critical reading 25, 26, 28, 70, 144, 145 Crossley xix, xx Crystal, D. 106 Cultura Inglesa vii, xv Cushman, D.P. 112 D Dam, L. 56 Dantas, M.P.O. 34 Dascal, M.G. 195 Davies, A. 2-4 Davies, F. xxi, xxii, 170-175 de Lemos, C.G.T.G. 125 de Souza, M.H.G.M. 40 Debyasuvarn, M.L.B. 17 definitions 189 Deyes, A.F. xxi, 23, 31, 32, 34, 184, 187 Dias, R. 35 dictionary 97, 98 digression xxi, 195, 199-203 DIRECT x, xxi, 184, 213 dos Santos, V.S. 35 Doyle, W. 139 Duarte, M.E.L. 135 E Eastern and Western perspectives 112 Ecuador xviii Ellis, G. 107 English as international language 16 equivalance constraint 127 Ericsson, K.149-151, 156 The ESPecialist ix, 33, 40 expectations 26 F face xxi, 204, 205, 208-213, 225 Faerch, C. 148, 149, 156 FAPESP 33 Fausto-Sterling, A. 114 Figueiredo, C. xix, xx, 23, 35 FIPLV 109 Firth, J.R. 103 Flower, L. 149

Foley, J. 140 Foot, H.C. 204 formative evaluation 27 fossilisation 123, 133, 136 free morpheme constraint 127 G Geertz, C. 19 Gerloff, P. 158 Gibson, T.R. 172 Gingràs, R. 124 Glazer, S.M. 138 Goffman, E. 196, 204 Goleman, D. 114 Gomes de Matos, F. xx, 105-107 Goodman, K. 6, 139 Gosden, H. 174 Gosling, J. 206 Grant, N. 107 Grotjahn, R. 148 Gumperz, J.J. 124 H Halliday, M.A.K. 5, 172-175, 215-217 Hammerley, H. 107 Handa, T. 136 Hargreaves, P. 20 Hasan, R. 171, 175, 177 Hatim, B. 157 Hawking, S.W. 160 Hayes, A. 18 Hayes, J.R. 149 hedging 111, 113, 119, 120 Henriques, L.V. 40 Hodge, R. 214, 216, 217, 224 Holmes, J.L. xix, xx, 23 Hong Kong 20, 21 Hosenfeld, C. 149 I ideology 19, 69 in-house journals 184, 186, 190-192 informing elements 170 innovation 66, 69, 72, 73, 109 insight xxi, 166, 167 interactive elements 170, 172, 173, 175, 176, 180-183 introspection 148, 153, 157, 159, 167 Iyer, P. 16 J

Jaaskelainen, R. 158 Jaeggli, O. 135 Japanese 122-124, 131-134, 136 Jefferson, G. 197 Jefferson, G. 205 Jisa, H. 118 Johns, T. 218 K Kaplan, R.B. 111 Karmillof-Smith, A. 125 Kasper, G. 148, 149, 156 Kato, M.A. xx, xxi, 135, 136 Katriel, T. 195 Kennedy, C. 38 keywords 219, 226-228 Kiely, R. 2, 7, 8 Kincaid, D.L. 112

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Klavans, J.L. 127 Kleiman, A. xix, 30, 79 Koch, I.G.V. 195 Kress, G. 214, 216, 217, 224 Krings, H.P. 158 L L1 reading 38, 67, 148, 151 labels 95, 96, 161 Labov, W. 173 LAEL viii, xvi, 105, 141, 156 Landsberg, H.E. 115 Langacker, R. 106 language awareness xix-xxi, 6, 15, 24, 26, 78, 89, 90-92, 94, 139, 141, 142, 144-147, 154, 159, 164, 166, 167, 229 language modelling 77, 80, 82, 87 language rights xx, 105, 106 Lara, G.M.P. 39 laughter xxi, 204-213 learners' rights 107-109 learning organisation 184, 185, 191, 192 learning text 187 Leech, G. 205 Leki, I. 115 Levinson, S.C., 117, 204-206, 208 Levkova, A. 10 Lima, M. dos S. 39 listing 189 Lörscher, W. 158, 161 Lyons, W. 148 Lytle, S.L. 154 M Maciel, A.M.B. 35 Magalhães, M.C.C. xix, xx, 38, 75, 78, 79 Martin, J. 173, 177 Marx, R.W. 139 Mason, I. 157 matrix language 127, 130-132 Meisel, J.M. 122, 124, 134 Melo, R.S. 38 meta-research 148-151, 155, 156 metaphor xx, 89, 94-98, 103, 156, 159, 223 Mexico xvi Miller, G. 95 mirroring strategy 125 modality 175, 176, 205, 214-228

Moita-Lopes, L.P. xix, xx, 66, 67 Monaghan, J. 207, 208 mot juste 125 moves 176 Mulholland, J. 205 Murkowska, A. 2, 7, 8 Myers, G. 110-112, 117, 118, 121, 205, 206, 225 N Nagel, J. 32 Nait, M'B.M. 133 needs 26, 38, 45, 48, 107, 176, 229 needs analysis xix Neisser, U. 67 Neu, J. 212 Ngugi, W.T. 65 Nunan, D. 8 O O'Malley, J.M. 139 objectivity xix, 3, 4, 13 Oliveira A. 184 Oliveira V.S. xix, 41 Olshtain, E. 112 Olshtain, E. 117 opinion-changing 113-117, 120 opinion-stating xx, 110, 113, 115-117, 120 oral presentations 18, 214, 217, 228, 229 organisational elements 181 organisational learning 186 organising elements 170-176 Oxford, R. 139 P Padilha Pinto, A. xx, 138 Palincsar, A.S. 78 Parrot, M. 42 participatory evaluation xviii, 1-4, 10-12 Paschoal, M.S.Z. 149 Patto, M.H.S. 66 Pedagogic Support Team (PST) 47 pedagogical support centres 45-47, 50, 52 Pérez de Souza e Silva, M.C. xxi permeability of grammars 135 Pfaff, C.W. 124 Pilliner, A. 4 PIMEI xix, 44 Pinto, A.P. 34, 39, 40

politeness strategies 110, 113, 205, 207, 210, 211 Poplack, S. 124, 127, 137 Poplack, S. 125, 126, 128, 133, 137 power 214, 215, 224, 229 Prabhu, N.S. 140, 142 Pritchard, R. 153 pro-drop languages 135 project designers 19

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Project Development xviii project evaluation 1, 7, 9, 19-21, 51, 56 project planning 14, 32, 44 Q Quinn, V. 95 R Ramos, R.C.G. 40 reading xvi, 1, 4-6, 23-25, 27, 32, 35, 47, 56, 66, 68, 78, 112, 138-142, 147, 149, 151, 153, 168, 186 reading strategies 23, 26, 34, 35, 39, 69, 70, 75, 77, 78, 82-84, 94, 139-141, 144-146 Real Development (RD) 76, 86 Reid, M. 10 research 30, 31, 33, 38, 40, 48, 49 research effects xix Reyes, R. 124 Ribeiro, E.B. 24 Richards, J.C. 8, 106 Ristoff, D.I. 34 Rosenstein, D.S. 117 Rubin, J. 139 Rumelhart, D.E. 139 Rutherford, W. 24 Ryan, E.B. 28 S Sá Brito, R.A. 39 Sacks, H. 197, 205 Safadi, M. 2 Sankoff, D. 124, 126, 127, 133, 137 Santos Lima, M. 35 scaffolding 76, 77, 80, 87, 88 Scarcella, R. 118 Schegloff, E.A. 197, 205 Schiffrin, R.M. 154 Schmidt, R.W. 24 Schneider, W. 154 Schwartzman, S. 33 Scott, M. xxi, xxii, 1-3, 13, 23, 24, 32, 34, 37, 89, 94, 165, 218, 226 Scott, N. xii Searfoss, L.W. 138 Sears, D. 106 Shepherd, D. 38 Shepherd, T. 38 Sierra Leone 18 Sinclair, B. 107 Sinclair, J. McH. 20, 171

Smith, D.E. 17, 28 Soares, M. 66 speech acts 110, 112, 120, 121 Spiro, R.J. 6 Spotsky, B. 107 Sprachgefiihl 92, 93, 100 Stainton, C. 229 Stanovich, K.E. 67, 168 Steel, L.M. 115 Stevick, E. 106 Sudham, P. 17 summative evaluation 20, 21, 27 Suzuki, T. 136 Swales, J. 110, 111, 171, 173, 180 switch 128 T Tarallo, F. 135 task-based approach 140 teacher education 9, 31, 37, 41, 43, 54-56, 60-63, 88 teacher identity 60, 64, 65 teacher research 9, 31, 36, 37, 51, 66 teacher training 51 team teaching 54, 56-58, 61, 62, 64 text 70 text structure 34, 35, 40, 143, 146 theme 159, 172, 174-176, 181, 182 Thetela, P. 216 Thiel, G. 159 Thielen, N.T. 35 Thompson, G. 216 Thompson, S. xxi, 217 Thompson, S.E. 205, 225 Tirkkonen, S. 158 topic 195-202 topical elements 172-176, 180-183 Toury, G. 159, 168 training trainers 47, 52 transitivity 175 translation 26, 71, 149, 157-159, 162-169, 218 turn-taking xxi, 170, 195-203 U UK xviii understanding 4-6, 90-93, 167 UNESCO 109 V Ventola 174

verbal protocols xxi, 148-168 Victor, D.R. 38 views of reading 68, 71, 73 Vygotsky, L. 76 W Wallace, M. 8 Walsh, J. 139 Weaver, W. 168 Wenden, A. 139

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Wertsch, J. 140 Westwood, A. 137 Wheeler, S. 137 Widdowson, H.G. 5-7, 67, 107 Williams, M. 205 Winne, P.H. 139 women 50 Woodward 8 word order 128, 144, 146 writer viewpoint 173 writing xxi, 110-114, 170, 171, 183, 187 Z Zone of Potential Development (ZPD) 76, 77, 86

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