Research Paper: Teaching Language at the Discourse Level

Teaching language is a complex phenomenon that consists of several integral parts. This process is performed on several different levels. Students who learn English as a second language can have a perfect knowledge of grammar, phonetics and syntax but still not possess enough knowledge in order to speak the language freely. This happens because language is realized through a discourse, which shows the dynamics of language. Progress in the language learning is impossible without the knowledge of this part of language. Famous linguist James Gee defined discourse as “as a socially accepted association among ways of using language, of thinking, feeling, believing, valuing, and of acting that can be used to identify oneself as a member of a socially meaningful group… or to signal (that one is playing) a socially meaningful ‘role’” (Gee, 1990, p. 143). This means that each time we use language we use it in a discourse, we utter sentences connected with other sentences, we count on the linguistic context during the act of speech or writing and the purpose of the language use. Continue reading

The Importance of Punctuation Essay

As a matter of fact, punctuation plays a great role in contemporary society, though we seldom think about it or come across the data proving this thesis. Every day we read and write a number of periodicals, check mail, etc. Hence, we may not realize the whole point concerning punctuation significance. In the flow of time rules evolve and become not so strict as they used to be years ago and it seems, that modern life does not allow us to stop, make pauses and change the intonation in order to emphasize the importance of this or that sentence, idea, to separate various sentence parts or just stop in the right place to breathe in the air. Continue reading