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

Literature / 35

used it for ħis own influential theories on bilingualism (see 2.2.4).
Because of its consequences for education and language learning, in both
Ll and L2, the question of the comparison between oral versus written
language is further examined.

2.2.2 Differences between oral and written language

It seemed easy to relate the difference between text and utterance to the
difference between oral and literate traditions (including ways of
knowing and approaching learning), and consequently to consider
children’s sole or predominant exposure to oral language, typical of non-
literate or minimally-literate groups and considered highly
contextualized, as a possible cause of learning difficulties at school. The
critique of the positions briefly presented above must begin with a
rejection of their starting point, i.e the polarization of the differences
between oral and written modes of communication (the ’great divide'
theory).

This has been done by many authors from the domains of anthropology,
linguistics, pragmatics and sociolinguistics , who pointed out that:
- the traditional oral-literate dichotomy does not capture the ways
other cultural patterns in different societies affect the uses of oral
and written language' (Heath,1983:344);

- literacy as a specific societal activity within a culture cannot be
equated with literacy in other cultures or in other times
(Zebroski,1982);

- features that have been associated exclusively with literacy are also
found in oral communication, and the reverse, e.g.:

. rhetorical strategies (Tannen,1982a,b)

. structural ambiguity of the meaning of a text (Stubbs,1980)

. cohesion and coherence of text and discourse (James,1980; Craig
and Tracy,1983; Verth,1981)

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