Literary dialogues as models of conversation in English Language Teaching

Jones, Christian ORCID: 0000-0003-0407-8860 and Oakey, DJ ORCID: 0000-0001-7936-8315 (2019) Literary dialogues as models of conversation in English Language Teaching. Journal of Second Language Teaching & Research, 7 (1). pp. 107-135.

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Abstract

This study explores dialogues from a corpus of 19th century fiction as a possible model of conversation for use in English as a second or foreign language classrooms. We employ corpus linguistics methods to investigate the extent to which such dialogues contain lexical chunks and conversation strategies. This is then compared to usage in unscripted 21st century conversations, as found in a large spoken corpus. Findings show that there are a number of similarities to modern day spoken language in the chunks used in the 19th century data but also some key differences in how some common chunks function. It is also clear that many conversation strategies are significantly underused in the fictional dialogues. Overall, the study shows that dialogues from fiction have some potential as a model of conversation and could be used to supplement materials offering very contrived dialogues.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	spoken language, conversation, fictional dialogues, models of conversation, corpus linguistics
Depositing User:	Symplectic Admin
Date Deposited:	13 Jun 2019 13:46
Last Modified:	19 Jan 2023 00:40
Open Access URL:	http://pops.uclan.ac.uk/index.php/jsltr/article/do...
Related URLs:	Publisher
URI:	https://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/id/eprint/3045703