Pour une théorie de la réception du discours grammatical
Language scholars usually show little concern for the reception of abstract grammatical concepts by the common folk, their highest priority being the production of accurate metalinguistic descriptions. This often results in what Vygotsky (1934: 148) calls “verbalism” - an “excessive abstractness and...
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| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Presses Universitaires du Midi
2017-03-01
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| Series: | Anglophonia |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://journals.openedition.org/anglophonia/1051 |
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| Summary: | Language scholars usually show little concern for the reception of abstract grammatical concepts by the common folk, their highest priority being the production of accurate metalinguistic descriptions. This often results in what Vygotsky (1934: 148) calls “verbalism” - an “excessive abstractness and detachment” from common experience and understanding. The claim is made here that too wide a gap between grammatical concepts and everyday cognition is detrimental to the full comprehension and practical usefulness of smart grammatical talk. To avoid the negative effects of “verbalism” on motivation and performance, a “convergence” (Iser 1972) must be sought that draws the producers and recipients of metalinguistic descriptions closer together. Such a “convergence” is required to achieve successful communication and understanding between language scholars and ordinary language users. For this to happen, the mechanisms of concept formation must be identified in the first place. This article presents the results of a 2014-15 study involving a group of 33 students, enrolled in the first year of the English B.A. course at Université Bordeaux Montaigne, France. The aim was to assess their metalinguistic knowledge, shortly after graduating from the French secondary education system. All members of the group were tested on their definitions of tense, aspect and modality at the beginning of term. The respondents were asked to produce two sets of definitions: one in “technical mode” (posing as experts), another in “colloquial mode” (addressing a young child or some uneducated person). Their answers provide valuable insight into cognitive processing and the formation of grammatical concepts in the average learner’s mind, while revealing some important dimensions of metalinguistic knowledge: the degree of metalinguistic confidence in one’s ability to construe grammatical phenomena, the metalinguistic transparency, distance and persuasive force of a particular label, concept or description; metalinguistic avoidance strategies, centrality and salience (in metalinguistic categorization). The study also reveals the existence of “proto-concepts” that may serve as a foundation for the elaboration of higher order concepts. Finally, the study shows that seemingly “naïve” remarks on language functioning do not necessarily reflect deficient conceptions of language. Some of the simple images and sociocultural references present in the non-technical definitions can be very powerful. These may provide precious, inspirational material for scholars and pedagogues willing to develop accessible forms of grammatical discourse, in which production (expression) and reception (comprehension) are better adjusted. The article closes with a brief study of an alternative, multimodal approach to linguistic description. Recorded gesture sequences – or Kinegrams– were used with the same group of students to explain grammatical phenomena during the semester. The verbal and kinetic imagery was largely metaphoric and clearly anchored in everyday cognition. Reception was tested in the last week. Results suggest that instant access to abstract metalinguistic concepts was indeed provided but that the response remains unequal and gain uncertain. |
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| ISSN: | 1278-3331 2427-0466 |