Discourse Patterns in First Language Use at Hcme and Second Language Learning at School: an Ethnographic Approach

Interpretation I 146

The problem lies, in ay opinion, in the concept of what is ’easy' or
'familiar' for the L2 learner. It is assumed that a context for
interaction is familiar when it reproduces or matches the environment of
the learner, for example his house and family group. It is also assumed
that a familiar context helps the learning of a L2. This view is based on
a conception of language, and language acquisition, that reduces language
learning to labelling and imitating, so that the learner would give new
(L2) labels to familiar experiences. This does not respond, however, to
the communicative needs of the learner, as there is no sense, for example,
in practising meals etiquette in a language that is not used or needed at
meal time. In the functional and communicative approach to language
acquisition and learning, the context is not seen as the backdrop
(scenery) for action, but the source of activity and consequent language.

A dialogue in L2 on the use of chalk or pencil between a 1st and a 3rd
grader who introduce themselves as speakers of two different Lls would
be perhaps more effective as its context is genuinely conducive to verbal
interaction. Almost all Dialogue Texts present situations that are un-
natural and un-familiar in Sociolingulstic terms, except Dialogue 16,
where a mother takes the son to a medical surgery: often doctors are not
speakers of the local language in Kozambique.

If language is learned through the collaborative negotiation of meaning,
then Dialogue Texts should be about speakers of different Lls who try to
inter-act in a common lingua franca <L2), making use of strategies like
Clarification Requests, repetitions etc. in their effort to communicate.
This is in fact a common situation in Kozambique: the agriculture
extension worker, the truck driver, the nurse, the shopkeeper can have
different Lls, and the multilingualism of the country could then be used
as an asset for interactions in learner language. In fact, children in
their Ll conversations use a variety of communicative strategies because
they talk in more cognitively demanding situations. It is along this
cognitive dimension that simplification should be introduced in L2
learning in the classroom, while maintaining the complexity of genuine
language communication.

How can we reconcile the context-of-use principle with the
shorter-is-easler—to-process principle? (Brown,1986:289)

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