Unique signs for plural utterances. Alleviating doubt in the language learner

Abstract

[Abstract] This paper demonstrates the application of the pragmatics of signification and pragmatics of communication to the analysis of the interplay between the speakers of two highly dissimilar languages engaged in meaning negotiation by means of semantic maps. When a language learner's first language and target language have profoundly different systems for encoding meaning, the interpretation and formation of complex second language utterance are at times impeded by the learner's lack of a confident mapping between meaning and second language syntax. In Japanese, written signs carry meaning, but in many cases do not speak, or do not speak unambiguously. As well, Japanese is a left-branching language, and thus clause semantic completeness is not the primary processing unit in initial segmentation (whereas it is the primary unit in English). This results in a mindset where written utterance need not speak, is not expected to speak, yet where rich meaning does arise. Some Japanese college level learners of English, dubbed 'false beginners,' have acquired English vocabulary and grammar knowledge in six years of high school study but, resuming their study of English in college, they appear unable to make sense of, or sense with, strings of English lexical units. This paper presents information structure maps (ISmaps), the author's system for low-text representation of the structured information represented in a constrained body of utterance. ISmaps provide an 'interlanguage' for a restricted domain of English utterance, i.e. sentence level utterances consisting of logically related atomic lexical units with concrete referents. After using this mapping tool for meaning clarification for a brief period of time, false beginners have rather consistently demonstrated willingness to interpret received English utterance, and to engage in the risky business of producing English utterance to convey meaning. Rational use of ISmaps as a tool for professional second language teaching work requires a theoretical characterization of how the tool functions, and to this end, the paper takes two pragmatics approaches to explain the apparent success of the system in overcoming second language learner doubt. CV: Lawrie Hunter directs the critical thinking and English academic writing programs at Kochi University of Technology, Japan. His research interests include educational document design, concept mapping, computer assisted language learning, and hypertext for second language learning.