Issues
Can Research into Coherence Affect How Writing Is Taught?
Can the findings of discourse analysis
about the coherence and structure of written texts contribute to the teaching of writing?
As
Odlin (1989: 58) points out,
Differences related to expectations about
coherence in discourse may create special problems
for learners in their reading or listening
comprehension efforts. Alternatively, those
differences may lead members of a speech community
to consider the speech or writing of non-native
speakers incoherent. It is not yet clear just how
often such differences actually result in negative
transfer. What is clear is the potential that
cross-linguistic variations in discourse have for
creating misunderstandings.§
More specifically: How do differences in standards of
logicality and relevance among speech communities within the same
language affect their production and understanding of written
communication?
Or, perhaps more to the point, when will educators abandon their misguided emphasis on prescriptive grammar in favor of the structural properties of written texts?
§ Odlin, Terence. 1989. Language Transfer: Cross-Linguistic
Influence in Language Learning. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
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