Languages for intercultural communication and education

Culture and Conversational English
This chapter turns to the more specific focus of conversational English, and
argues that casual conversation is quintessentially cultural. It addresses the
following issues:
•
The difference between transactional and interactional talk.
•
The neglect of interactional talk in the language classroom.
•
The exploration of the cultural functions of talk through a case study.
•
Genres of conversational English.
•
Power relations and participant goals in conversation.
•
Constructing intercultural activities to teach conversation.
What is ‘Casual Conversation’?
If you think of all the reasons for which you use spoken language during
the day, from the time you wake up to the time you go to sleep, you will
quickly come up with a long list of reasons for speaking. Sometimes speech
is
transactional
: it is ‘message’ oriented, and involves the communication of
information to achieve some goal, such as buying and selling, instructing,
describing, and so on. At other times speech is
interactional
: it is social in
nature, and includes greetings, compliments, telling jokes, and making
‘casual conversation’ or ‘chat’. Even when the interactional function of
speech is acknowledged, teacher training in the communicative tradition
has tended to dismiss its importance. For example, Ur (1996: 131) makes the
following claim:
The way interactional talk is carried out in different languages is very
culture-linked, and it is difficult to explain the conventions that govern
it in a foreign language; it is dubious therefore whether it is worth
investing very much effort in teaching and practising them. My own
opinion is that given general language proficiency, and a knowledge of
the more obvious courtesy conventions, most learners will be able to
cope adequately with interactional speech on the basis of their own
cultural knowledge and common sense.
47
Intercultural Approaches to ELT
Culture and Conversational English
C:\Documents and Settings\Stephen Cracknell\My Documents\corbett\corbett.vp
13 August 2003 16:39:02
Color profile: Generic CMYK printer profile
Composite Default screen

---

An intercultural approach to language learning addresses the ‘difficulty’
underlying the conventions of interactional speech more directly than Ur rec-
ommends (although, to be fair, some of the role play activities she suggests do
deal with casual conversation). If the conventions are indeed difficult, then it
seems likely that learners will appreciate guidance in this respect that extends
beyond a general proficiency, some ritual expressions, and their ‘common
sense’. This chapter seeks to untangle some of the complexities of interactional
speech in ways that will facilitate in particular the teaching of ‘casual conver-
sation’.