Language in Use 135
This unit is concerned with the degree to which certain everyday words come
to acquire particular meanings through their habitual use in one particular
social context. The aim is to show that the precise meaning of the words
and phrases used to describe tasks in school and college is not a property of
the language and thus immediately available to all, but a function of the social
context provided by one particular school or college. In this way, words like
'essay' and 'homework' mark out the boundaries within which pupils and students
are expected to work, although the teachers and lecturers who use them may be
quite unconscious of the fact. It explores the way in which words commonly used
to describe written tasks in school acquire their meanings.
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[1] Ask the class for the words their teachers most commonly use to describe written work. In discussion, let the class evolve their own definitions of two or three of them. The next stage is to construct a simple questionnaire which will find out what other members of staff intend by their use of these words. This is best done through small groups, each with a reporter. Composition, essay, project, topic, thesis, dissertation, paper, article, review, creative writing, free verse are some of the words likely to come up.
[2] The results of the questionnaire need to be available to the whole
class, because this session draws upon them in order to find answers to questions
like:
(a) which words have been interpreted individually?
(b) which words are used on the assumption that everyone knows, or should know,
what they mean?
(c) which words take their meaning, explicitly or implicitly, from their use
in public examinations?
[3] Returning to the information provided by the questionnaire, set the class to work out a definition for each word that will take account of as many of the variant meanings as possible; then compare these with the definition which the class worked out in [1].
Related work will be found in G5 (on questionnaires, for [1]) and in G9.