Now let’s turn to five different real-world scenarios or puzzles, where knowledge about language can be used to inform decision-making.
Allow 1.5 hours
Consider each of the following puzzles in which decisions about language need to be taken. These are all real situations, though some identifiers have been changed. How would you go about investigating these in order to formulate and give your advice to those who have to take these decisions? (You do not need to come up with solutions, just a possible process for arriving at one.) Make notes of your ideas.
The head teacher of a London secondary school is thinking of offering another foreign language in addition to French. The options are Chinese (the world’s largest first language), Spanish (one of the world’s largest and most widely distributed languages) or the Indian language Gujarati (the largest home language in the school and local community – and one which has approximately 43 million speakers worldwide). Which of these languages should be taught, and why?
In Metropolis, a US city with a large immigrant population, a specialist healthcare clinic wants to improve the care they offer to people with low English proficiency. They have already introduced translated versions of their information leaflets and provide interpreters on demand. However, even with interpreters present, the clinic finds that consultations involving patients with low English proficiency don’t go as smoothly as others and they want to find out why. What aspects of communication might be at play here? What should the clinic investigate?
Zramzshra is a small island in the Indian Ocean. The Zramzshran language uses a unique alphabet, which (like Greek) developed from the Phoenician alphabet when traders came there 3000 years ago. The island’s finance minister argues for a ‘reform’ in which this alphabet will be replaced by the Roman alphabet (the one used in English and many other languages). This change, she argues, will make the island’s life easier and more prosperous, with benefits for English teaching, computer-mediated communication, trade and tourism. Is this the best policy? What other factors should the finance minister consider?
Two medium sized travel agencies are about to merge and form a new mass market travel company. They are trying to decide what to name their new company and have a shortlist of two names: ‘Destinations’ and ‘Going Places’. Which name would you recommend and why?
The interaction below took place in an office in Australia. Why did the first speaker not achieve her goal of getting time off?
In responding to such language-related problems, one can of course draw upon common sense and experience to judge what action should be taken. Yet, if called upon to offer advice on these problems as an applied linguist, a more systematic approach is needed, as Block’s description of the research process suggests. Each puzzle was set so the next step might be to study what other people have said on similar matters and to see what other information may need to be gathered to understand the situation better. You may have noted down different approaches, but our suggestions are:
In the video below, you can see the difference a change in communicative style made. Think about what aspects of communication have changed.
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