english experts

english experts

The Evolution of English Language Studies: From Traditional to Contemporary Approaches

1. Introduction to the Study of English Language

Traditionally, most foreign language (FL) teaching programs included a literature-oriented approach in which students studied the literature of the target language country/language as the principal means of learning the sounds, grammatical structures, vocabulary, and even the mechanics of the printing system. An important rationale for the literature-oriented approach in FL classes is that in ancient and medieval times grammar schools had used ancient Latin and Greek texts as their principal instructional materials. On the one hand, this was surely a logical choice for the FL classes because it was proved to be successful over centuries. On the other hand, literature texts are perhaps considered the height of human expression and developer to students’ senses of literary taste.

In contemporary times, however, a new approach to FL teaching – studying the language directly and not the cognate literary classics – arose from recent research which has shown that people learn to understand spoken language much faster and more accurately than language that are written. The study of the significance of this finding has resulted in a new approach to FL, identified in this report as the communicative approach (CA), and it is based upon the strong principle that language is the linguistic, paralinguistic, and extralinguistic behavior that people use to communicate meaning. As a result, the CA is a method of instruction that emphasizes communication in the foreign language and downplays the study of grammatical forms and word lists as the primary goal of communicative activities.

2. Historical Perspectives on English Language Studies

2.1 Early English Language Studies

English language studies have a long history, going back to classical times, and can be briefly sketched as follows. The domain of English language studies has seen a great deal of change, so much so that the content of linguistics and English language has been greatly affected by this entangled and overlapping field. English language studies include related academic disciplines such as literature, pedagogy, translation studies, and rhetoric, and can be related to related fields for various influences.

English is considered the world’s most important world language today. It has been carried by Britain colonizing many areas of the world, colonizing vast areas of North America and leaving linguistic traces in different regions of South America and Oceania. It was Britain’s fear, this selfish domestic and colonial concern, which was responsible for the perfecting of the language of Shakespeare, passion, and Ibsen, and for its international dimension. Shakespeare’s literature spread English and formed the wool of dialogue. England, a trade-oriented country, taught the language to French workers and to the other British people mastering their own language. The language of the occupant is spoken by “native” English-speaking inhabitants, Chinese, Sudanese or Algerian being called “indigenous,” which is the best proof that the Scottish and Irish are often incorrectly excluded from this designation. The British sent missionaries throughout its colonized world and, for many Indians, it was preferable to be Indian in the British sense than an indigenous inhabitant ignored by the employers. The British acculturated Russia to English by hiring Indians as garrisons of southern Russia and it is curious that the first settlement in Africa was a Portuguese city where women educated under British and European influence disputed each other.

A language is always a tool, like a machine. If it is difficult to speak of friendship between the individual who exploits and the individual who provides the work, it is impossible to speak of friendship between the dominant group and the dominant language. If the humanistic demagogues had remembered that Latin had extirpated Cymbrian and the Slavic language, a probable humanity would have exchanged the technical term for another, such as brotherliness or communication. Latin has no ties. No one knows today a Latin fairy tale, an Italian: the Bible was never written in Rome. It is a classic coincidence. In the sixteenth century, Steve, the Christian spirit of presents, and, three centuries later, the divine comedy of Durkheim, who reworked in a single ethereal divinity the two mythological religions, were never in Rome. It is true that English is not gone from the North American wilderness where rough men allied it to the West. For the past four centuries, it has been she who lingers in the Virgin Forest of Humanity, the heroine-denouement of history. Merkel had ceased to speak Creole, it was their tutor. The less humble Irish could only dream of decay, fearful that linguistic nationalism would expropriate the children as Brittany’s Ermine River formed French-speaking paraders at the beginning of the century.

3. Key Theories and Methods in English Language Research

As a contrast to my description of mainstream ‘structural’ approaches to English in the last section, I shall deal here with ‘alternative’, in other words ‘theoretical’ English language studies. These cover ‘critical’, ‘socio-‘, ‘psycho-‘ etc. linguistics and differ from what I call ‘structural’ approaches in that they have a vertical, rather than the horizontal stand. They are the result of the abstract vision and are often seen as ‘theoretical’. They are based on other theories, pursue other aims, and use other methods. I will focus mainly on purely theoretical work dealing with different England; I think this has not been done elsewhere. Such classification is difficult to make in English, and one’s best is never enough, so let us begin by listing the various sides of English linguistic research. Since novelty usually appears from the theorists’ interested vision of their subject, the first test for classification is time. I begin with the oldest research in England, Gothic.

One may be able to correlate a certain research with the methods employed. Such a classification – by method, technique, rather than (traditional) use of method in any research piece – will involve various aspects: material, purpose, method, course, and result in English research. Due to the tools to be used in their works, whether Latin, Spanish, German, or native of the research, the linguistics discussed in Chapter One were mainly Italians, learned people of the 16th century. Seeing how data had been collected could be the most obvious approach because of the amount of text available in the abbeys of the Italian peninsula well before any English student of Latin at any English University might have access to England’s written past.

4. Emerging Trends and Technologies in English Language Studies

Emerging techniques such as computer-assisted language learning and virtual-interaction language learning are proving invaluable to English language instructors and their students. Indeed, today’s sophisticated computer software and electronic media are presenting nearly unlimited possibilities for aiding in the acquisition of a second/foreign language. The potential of these technologies will only continue to grow and realize until we make an all-out effort to bring quality language learning applications to all English language learners, from adults in their twenties and thirties to young learners of seven and ten. These four textbooks use emerging technologies.

Technology is most valuable in instructional and peer management scaffolding and in providing variety in achieving a balance in several activities including whole group, small group, and individual tasks in communicative settings. As websites grow more sophisticated and virtual reality enters the picture, it will be insightful for publishers, universities, and faculty to realize the potential.

The computer and its associated processes can communicate innovative language learning possibilities using digital multimedia – products such as Adobe Acrobat, Inspire Data Corporation, Easy Language Learning, Microsoft Office Suite, Macromedia, and Inspiration. Creative inspiration software, by combining the word, sound, and picture, is a significant language learning methodology. With easy-to-learn packages, language students can learn through the construction of posters and projects on a variety of topics which are well within their interests. Creech, personalising program, encourages student insight and visual statements showing probable futures. Such language learning software uses creativity and innovative motivation and offers significant promise, based on student testimonials, in perfecting writing and expressive skills.

5. Implications and Future Directions in the Field

New research into language cannot help but have significant implications for our understanding of a host of issues as diverse as the social lives of language learners and users, the diversity of languages themselves, questions of language change, language teaching, or the nature and status of language in human cognition and experience. The recent shift from traditional to a wider range of understandings of language in language education has remarkable implications and far-reaching effects for researchers, teachers, and students of language. To form a coherent understanding that encompasses diverse sociocultural, historical, political, and developmental aspects of using, knowing, and learning language, a broader study of language is necessary. Responding to this call, the sociology of language and linguistics studies grow within the field, informing linguists and language educators of issues such as language ideology, critical discourse analysis, language philosophy, and linguistic anthropology.

The new sociocultural linguistic perspective frames the next generation of language education through social discourse, identity, and ideological processes, attending to relations and tensions embedded in the interactions and complexities of language use, learning, acquisition, and teaching, focusing on developing curricula, teacher education, and classroom practices. Lastly, a wide range of ways in which contemporary research is being mobilized and focused within applied areas of language education are found. Issues include learners’ writing processes and identities, bilingual education and literacy development, teacher development through practitioner research, and language policy. It is hoped that, in light of the postmodern turn, this critical synthesis may help foster a more carefully considered, multifaceted, culturally responsive and transformative ‘take’ on the study and methodology of language and language-related activities as they impact language learners and users who are the ultimate stakeholders in the game.