Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs

OFFICE OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE PROGRAMS
Home > English Language Programs > Teaching Pragmatics > Promoting Solidarity in Short Interactions

Promoting Solidarity in Short Interactions

Janet M. D. Higgins
Okinawa University, Japan

Level: Elementary upward; difficulty level depends on the structures used in the conversations and the topic and lexical items (Teachers will need to adapt the examples to their own students and teaching contexts.)

Time: 10-15 minutes to set up the vocabulary search task in a previous lesson; 40- 45 minutes for each activity

Resources:

• Teacher-prepared model conversations for the awareness raising activities, board or overhead projector (OHP) (optional: tape recorder with home-produced recordings of the model conversation).
  
  
• Teacher- and learner-prepared lexical sets

Goals:

• To raise awareness of and give practice in using strategies of "relexicalization," a rephrasing process involving reformulating the same idea using homonyms, near synonyms, or antonyms for descriptive accounts and for promoting solidarity in short interactions
  
  
• To provide students with interesting and natural vehicles for vocabulary development, recycling, and revision
  

Description of the Activities
Two activities illustrate how rephrasing operates in different conversational contexts. The first context is a commonly used two-turn exchange where speakers who are sharing an experience comment upon it. The first speaker makes a comment that the second speaker builds upon by rephrasing it with an adjective or phrase that has the same positive or negative orientation, that is, the same overall meaning but with a different degree of intensity. The effect of this rephrasing process, or relexicalization, is collaborative and produces solidarity between speakers.

The second context in which a relexicalization strategy can be used is in descriptive accounts, the focus of activity 2. The speaker uses homonyms, near synonyms and antonyms to build up a descriptive picture and display personal attitudes towards the objects, people or events described. Listeners then contribute collaboratively to the development of the conversation by adding an evaluative comment in words which fall within the same lexical set and which may or may not be repetitions or qualified repetitions of words used by the main speaker.

Activity 1: Sharing an experience
Using the strategy of relexicalisation, students practice exchanging brief evaluative comments between friends or strangers who are sharing an experience. The prototypical exchange illustrated uses the topic of weather because it is useful as a conversational opening gambit. The exchange here occurs between two people, but three or more could be involved to make it more fun. When talking about the weather, typical comments employ a metaphorical usage, a word on a temperature scale, or a near synonym.

Example:

The model is
A: ________ (adjective) weather today!

B: Yes, __________ (adjective (near synonym))

The pedagogic pragmatic rule for learners is that A chooses an adjective and B immediately responds with a different adjective or phrase but one with the same quality (positive or negative). Note the tendency for B to use a more intense response, that is, one that includes either a qualifier or a word that is both more specific and stronger. Timing (rhythm) is important. B responds on the next 'beat'. So B must be ready with a response.

Preparation
Teacher and students collect a lexical set of 4-5 words that have the same orientation (positive or negative) and same meaning but may be more or less specific or intense. Two examples are provided. In my idiolect (British English) nice is often a word A starts with, not one B responds with unless it is qualified - really nice. Notice also that very cannot be used with adjectives which already express a strong degree, so the modifier really + is provided. The + sign means it is placed in front of the adjective. If you want to use pretty +, you need to specify its collocations.

The third example is of words matched in pairs where A uses a basic, rather neutral, adjective and B uses a more specific and extreme adjective.

Procedure
1. Introduce the activity and the topic and explain the aim. Ask students to bring 3 adjectives to the next class (see preparation). 15 minutes.

2. Next class. Collect all the adjectives and write them on the board or OHT (if any are inappropriate explain why, but keep for another activity). Practice the pronunciation and stress of the words. Explain the modifiers.

3. Write the model conversation on the board or OHT (such as the model exchange about weather above). Show the connection between the adjectives by, for instance, highlighting them with the same color.

4. Explain the conversational strategy. Demonstrate the timing of the response. Play the tape if you have recorded the model conversation. In pairs ask the students to practice the exchange.

5. Erase the adjectives and substitute blanks. Ask students to use the adjectives they have all collected in their own short exchanges. Stress the importance of the rhythm of the two turns. Students change partners, trying to speak with at least five different people.

6. Monitor practice. Stop the activity if there is a common problem, demonstrate, and ask students to continue.

7. Finally, summarize the strategy and stress the main points. Students write down the example and the vocabulary items if they have not already done so.

8. Recycle this strategy with the different topics of your syllabus. It can act as a warmer, a way of vocabulary building, or a vocabulary activation strategy for revision or review.

Alternatives and Caveats
Topics can be virtually any situation where speakers make brief comments about something they are currently experiencing, thereby showing solidarity and shared values: weather, music, TV programmes, food. Be sure to use lexical items commonly used in your context in these situations. There is some overlap between situations, but not a complete one. Examples of opening lines include Great party!
Good food! Nice car! Interesting shirt!

1. Use tag questions with falling intonation in first lines. The use of such tag questions in these situations is also a common collaborative strategy. Example: Great party, isn't it?

2. Extend the conversation into interactions with three or more speakers. This is more challenging because students need to know more words as the numbers of participants increase. However, one of the rules can be that speakers may reuse words if they qualify them. Example:

A: This is great music.
B: Fantastic!
C: Yeah, really great!

3. At advanced levels idioms can be introduced as near synonyms and antonyms.

4. If you have the resources, record the students' exchanges on video and allow time for playback and discussion of rhythm, pronunciation and non-verbal aspects of the exchange.

Activity 2: Use of relexicalization in descriptions
Strategies: Students practice how to a) describe what their place (flat, apartment, room, or house) is like using a relexicalization strategy; b) listen to other people talk about their places, then make a comment to show friendship and support.

New words: Students search for, use, and practice synonyms and antonyms appropriate to the topic.
Topic: The example below involves talking about people's homes.

Preparation - vocabulary search
Choose an appropriate topic to fit your syllabus. Help learners to brainstorm and use dictionaries or other resources to develop a short list of commonly used adjectives and phrases that make up the lexical set for the chosen topic. The number and type of the words and phrases will depend upon the level of the students, and will also vary with age, sex, and occupation of the speakers.

The following is an example of a lexical set for describing people's homes:

Preparation- structure
Structures you will have to introduce or ensure that learners can handle are listed in the model example below:

a) What's X like?
b) It's + adjective (check that this is known)
c) it sounds + adjective; it feels + adjective
d) use of the modifiers really, quite, very

Procedure
1. Introduce the activity and topic and explain the aim. Ask students to bring four to five adjectives to the next class. In my syllabus I incorporate this activity within the general topic of talking about places.

2. In the next class, in a box on the board/OHT write the adjectives collected by students plus your own (to ensure that you have the necessary modifiers and words for the awareness raising activity). Explain the role of the modifiers not, very, really, quite.

3. Raise awareness by modelling a conversation.

Student Task: Read and listen to B telling A about his/her place. In the text underline the words that describe B's place. Use the same color for words or phrases that mean almost the same thing. (The model is emphasized here for illustration, but the conversations given to the students would not be.)

A: What's your new place like, B?

B: Well, it's not very big. It's quite small really, but it's cosy. It's got one room. I don't have a lot of furniture so it feels spacious and roomy.

A: It sounds comfortable.

B: Yes, it's very comfortable. I like it.

Give the students time to work together to see the emerging pattern. Use colors on the board/OHT to show the pattern. Check that the concept is understood.

4. Speaking activity
In pairs, talk about your room or home. Use the conversation we studied to help you. Change partners. Speak with at least five different people. Change roles. Here is an outline of the conversation to guide you:

A: [Ask about B's place.]

B: [Use as many of the words in the box as you can to describe your place.]

A: [At the end, use one of the adjective to show what you think of B's place.]

B: [Agree and make a comment.]

5. Follow-up. Briefly summarize the strategy again and stress the main points.

Alternatives and Caveats
1. Give bonus points for using especially interesting adjectives and phrases. This can be a lot of fun if students stretch their imaginations.

2. Use photos of rooms as visual stimuli. Ask the learners to imagine who lives in the room, then ask them try to be that person and describe the room as their own. After changing roles they can show their pictures to each other and compare the photo with what they imagined the room to be like. This is stimulating for more proficient students.

3. Ask students to say (or write about) whose place they liked best and why.

4. If you have the resources, record the students' exchanges on video and allow time for playback and discussion of rhythm, pronunciation, and non-verbal aspects of the exchange.

Rationale
The series from which these activities are drawn derives from work on spoken discourse analysis, in particular from the work of the British linguist Michael McCarthy and his work with the CANCODE British English corpus of spoken English. In Spoken Language and Applied Linguistics, McCarthy (1998) illustrates the strategy of relexicalization (reformulating the same idea using homonyms, near synonyms or antonyms) and how this functions in collaborative discourse to produce solidarity and support and to move the conversation forward.

Often when students practice conversational exchanges they are asked to choose from a limited list of lexical alternatives. Relexicalization strategies teach learners to say things in different ways using words that reflect their attitudes. In the awareness raising model example in Activity 2, for instance, the near synonyms and antonyms show the speaker's attitudes towards the place. This seems intrinsically more interesting for communicative interaction than a physical description divorced from the speaker's personal experience. The comment at the end by the second speaker is facilitated and motivated by the attitudinal content of the description. It becomes easier for listeners to comment supportively in response to the personal element. Structures such as It sounds… and It seems… reflect this sharing of personal experience.

Reference
McCarthy, M. (1998). Spoken Language and Applied Linguistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Back to the top