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‘There was a time when the progress of research required that each

community should be considered linguistically self-contained and

homogenous […] Linguists will always have to revert at times to this

pragmatic assumption. But we shall now have to stress the fact that

a linguistic community is never homogenous and hardly ever self-

contained’ (Martinet, 1974). Discuss how and why foreign language

teaching (FLT) materials changed in order to incorporate language

variation.

Introduction

Between 1916 and 1980 (broadly the period analysed in this essay),

there were great strides in the development of linguistic theory.

Ferdinand de Saussure’s important distinction of langue and parole1

affected discussions in structural linguistics during the first half

of the 20th century. Noam Chomsky in the mid-1960s theorised a

similar dichotomy of “competence” and “performance”.2 Until the late

‘60s, the focus of attention in linguistic theory was on the

langue/“competence” half of these language binaries; that which could

be considered homogeneous and classifiable. From the late ‘60s

onwards, this changed, as it was the “performance” of language and

its role in society that became the focus of linguistic study. This

meant that the variations that occur as a result of the performance

of language, an area that had been previously neglected, were

examined and this was at the core of what became known as

Sociolinguistics - the study of language in society.3 These

advancements in the study of linguistics inevitably had an impact on

foreign language teaching (FLT). This essay will trace how FLT

methods developed alongside linguistic theory and particularly how1 Ferdinand de Saussure, Cours de linguistique générale, New edn (Paris : Payot, 1975), pp. 25-6.2 Noam Chomsky, Aspects of the Theory of Syntax (Cambridge, MA: M.I.T. Press, 1965), p. 4.3 Peter Trudgill, Sociolinguistics, 4th edn (London: Penguin, 2000), p. 7.

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the materials adapted to a focus on communication and variation.

Specifically, the application of these changes will be examined

through the analysis of a selection of materials teaching English as

a foreign language (EFL) that have been made available by the

Resource Library of The Centre for Applied Linguistics at the University of

Warwick. The essay will work (mostly) chronologically, with three

sections discussing developing linguistic theory, starting with

Saussure’s text Cours de linguistique générale. Each of these theoretical

sections is followed by a section on the effects that these

discussions had on English language teaching (ELT) materials and

methods. The importance of “Culture” in relation to language changed

and how this was synchronous with the inclusion of language

variation in FLT material will be discussed. Close attention will be

paid to materials that focus on teaching spoken English, because

this an aspect of EFL teaching that illuminates the evolved

incorporation of language variation. Two branches of language in

particular will be focussed on when analysing the teaching English

as a foreign language: pronunciation and grammar. Grammar in this

essay is taken to mean the combination of morphology and syntax, and

references to a “model” refer to an abstract, ideal form of

language, as theorised by Saussure and Chomsky, for which a pupil

should strive.

The origins and development of 20 th century structural linguistic

theory

Linguistic theory in the first half of the 20th century was centred

on an abstract, “model” language system, removed from its actual

human use. Whilst there was general acceptance of the variation in

the performance of language, for the purpose of study this

variability was removed.

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In 1916, Ferdinand de Saussure published his book Cours de

linguistique générale, which has been widely accepted as the ‘foundation

for the structural study of language’.4 In this text Saussure made a

significant separation in his theory of language, he distinguished

langue and parole. For Saussure, parole is how language is performed by

the individual; it is heterogeneous and unclassifiable in its

variations. Langue, conversely, is a homogenous system that can be

separated from the individual, it is ‘un tout en soi et un principe

de classification.’5 He explains that ‘en séparant la langue de la

parole, on sépare du même coup : (1) ce qui est social de ce qui est

individuel ; (2) ce qui est essentiel de ce qui est accessoire et

plus ou moins accidentel’.6 Given the proposed random nature of the

performance of language (parole), Saussure’s work is focussed on the

study of langue because of its proposed ‘nature homogène’7 and

therefore the capacity it has to be studied as a standalone system.

Saussure is also very clear that langue and parole must not overlap

when analysed.8 This dichotomy was the start of a trend in

linguistic theory that was continued and developed for about half a

century, as linguists focussed their studies on the abstract,

homogeneous, “model” langue rather than the random and turbulent

parole.

Other linguists in the early 20th century such as the American,

Leonard Bloomfield adopted a structural approach to language theory.

Bloomfield was ‘interested mainly in the classification of the items […]

identified through the segmentation of the spoken chain,’9 and his

4 William Labov, The Social Stratification of English in New York City, 2nd edn (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), p. 7.5 Saussure, p. 25.6 Ibid., p. 30.7 Saussure, p. 31.8 Ibid., p. 32.9 Giulio Lepschy, A Survey of Structural Linguistics (London: Faber and Faber, 1970), p. 36.

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taxonomic descriptions of the components of language, in his 1933

book Language, were based on a high level of abstraction of language.

30 years later Noam Chomsky introduced another dichotomy into the

study of language; that of “competence” and “performance”. He makes

the ‘fundamental distinction’ between a speaker/listener’s knowledge

of their language (“competence”), and their ability to use this

language in actual social situations (“performance”).10 Chomsky

admits that his “competence”/“performance” binary ‘is relating to

the langue/parole distinction of Saussure’.11 Like Saussure’s langue,

the Chomskyan theory of linguistic “competence” is based on the

removal of language from real-life situations and, similar to

Saussure and parole, there is minimal attention given to linguistic

performance. He says that ‘linguistic theory is concerned primarily

with an ideal speaker-listener, in a completely homogeneous speech

community, who knows its language perfectly’.12 For the first half of

the 20th century, linguists were interested in a language system

separated from its actual use in society. J. K. Chambers explains

the reason for this:

The decision that the proper domain of linguistics should be

homogeneous langue rather than heterogeneous parole […] aroused very

little debate. Given the central fact of variability in language, the

only way to study linguistic competence will be approaching language

at some remove from its real life performance.13

Chambers’ notion that variability in language, whilst acknowledged,

must be removed in order to study language in a structural manner is

something that is echoed in ELT materials from this period.

10 Chomsky, p. 4.11 Ibid.12 Ibid., p. 3.13 J. K. Chambers, Sociolinguistic Theory (Oxford: Blackwell, 1999), p. 26.

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Reflections of a “model” language in ELT materials

Up to 1965, linguistic theory relied upon the idea of an abstract

language. Chomsky is clear that his ideas are based on an ‘ideal’

speaker-listener and this has clear implications for, and

reflections in, ELT. Spoken English textbooks and study guides state

there aims to teach a “model” (also expressed in textbooks as a

‘standard’ or ‘correct’ English), which, in these instances, relates

to pronunciation and grammar. The “model” pronunciation is received

pronunciation (RP): that which ‘developed largely in the

residential, fee-paying English “Public Schools” and [is] favoured

by the aristocracy.’14 The “model” grammar is described by Thomson

and Lyons as the ‘most widely accepted scientific description of the

language’15 - as theorised by Bloomfield, Chomsky. Whilst there is

evidence of some acknowledgement of variation in pronunciation and

grammar in ELT material from this period, the focus is entirely on

teaching the “models” of pronunciation and grammar, just as Saussure

and Chomsky note the variable nature of language when it is

performed by humans but concentrate their studies on the homogenous

“model”.

David Shillan’s A Short Guide to English Speech from 1954 defines the

type of accent it teaches as ‘the “standard” English as spoken, for

example, by the announcers of the B.B.C.’.16 To this day, the form of

English that, ‘until quite recently [,] was required of all BBC

announcers’ (also RP), is the accent taught to foreign students.17

Here, RP is considered the “model”, the ideal pronunciation for

which all students should strive and it is the only accent taught in

14 Trudgill, p. 7.15 David Thomson and Robert Lyons, Spoken English: A Textbook for Practical English Conversation. Book One (Kyoto: English Academy, 1959), p. 5.16 David Shillan, Spoken English: A Short Guide to English Speech (London: Longmans, 1954), p. 11.17 Trudgill, p. 7.

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this book. Shillan does recognise that ‘the English language is

spoken in many different places with differing pronunciations’,18 but

there is no attempt to teach these variations in his textbook, the

attention is entirely on the RP “model”.

Further to this, it would seem from the introduction to his

work Selected Texts of Modern Dialogue from 1955 - an exercise book with

passages from novels intended to be read aloud to improve English

pronunciation and knowledge of conversational English - that W. J.

Ball considers “model” pronunciation and “model” grammar to exist

concurrently. Ball explains that an aim of the book is to help

foreign students practice ‘correct pronunciation’.19 He also says

that whilst selecting the extracts for the book he applied the test

‘is this the sort of language used today in conversation?’20 It would

seem here, then, that this textbook should include everyday language

and, therefore, sentence structures not necessarily considered

exemplary, because when language is performed there is variation.

However, Ball goes on to contradict this notion by saying ‘I have

had constantly in mind the desirability of avoiding slang and

ungrammatical English.’21 Whilst implying that he will include a

variety of language, some of which may evade the “models”, Ball

actually adheres to the tendencies in linguistic theory of the time

and selects extracts of dialogue that exemplify “model” grammar and

uses these to help students achieve “model” pronunciation. Like

Shillan, Ball does acknowledge that there are variations of the

English grammar and vocabulary used in conversation that stray from

this “model,” and yet there are no steps to teach students anything

other than this form.

18 David Shillan, Spoken English, p. 11.19 W. J. Ball, Selected Texts of Modern Dialogue (London: Lowe and Brydone, 1955), p. v.20 Ibid.21 Ibid.

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The endeavour to teach “model” pronunciation was not only

evident in materials teaching English as a foreign language. In a

handbook for English language teachers at English schools published

in 1957 by The Association of Assistant Masters in Secondary Schools suggests that

native English speakers who do not speak with “model” English

pronunciation should have more time devoted to them during study.22

Interestingly, showing an awareness of society’s effect on language

before Sociolinguistics had really been theorised, this textbook

suggests, in reference to ‘Speech Training’, that ‘pupils who come

from the poorer parts of a big city or from a predominantly rural

area may need more help than those who live in a prosperous

suburb.’23 Here, not only is it implied that there is linguistic

variation within a community, it is suggested that this variation

occurs as a result of the pupil’s place in society – be that

geographically (‘big city’, ‘rural area’, ‘suburb’) or in relation

to wealth (‘poorer parts’, ‘prosperous’). However, these examples

are employed not to educate the teacher and pupil about language

variation; they are used to inform the teacher of potential

variations precisely so that they are prepared to spend more time

inculcating the varying pupils with the “model” pronunciation.

At this time the “model” language was also associated with

“Culture”, in line with Raymond Williams’ third definition of the

word as ‘the works and practices of intellectual and especially

artistic creativity,’24 and this is reflected to the selection of

content in these texts. Ball’s text only includes examples of

dialogue from literature such as ‘A Black Affair from Many Cargoes by W.

22 The Incorporated Association of Assistant Masters in Secondary Schools, The Teaching of English (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1957), p. 44.23 The Incorporated Association of Assistant Masters in Secondary Schools, p. 44.24 Raymond Williams, Keywords: A vocabulary of culture and society (London: Harper Collins, 1983), p. 90.

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W. Jacobs [… Atlanta in Wimbledon from Seven Modern Comedies by Lord

Dunsany […] [and ] I Dreamt Miss Fiske was Dead from Ladies in Retirement by

Edward Percy and Reginald Denham’.25 Literature and other forms of

“Culture” had a similar sort of abstraction from real-life as the

language that was associated with them.

It is clear that EFL teaching materials from the period during

which structural linguistics was championed had an emphasis on

teaching a “model”. The fact that variation in language was

disregarded by linguists up to this point means that EFL teaching

materials were entirely focussed on teaching “model” pronunciation

and grammar. This is exemplified by the aims of spoken English

textbooks, which only teach RP and include a selection of linguistic

content that avoids vocabulary and grammatical structures that evade

the “model”. This significance of the word “Culture”/“culture” soon

shifted and this was significant for the incorporation of language

variation in EFL materials.

The change in notions of culture and the move away from a structural

theory of language

A contrastive approach to language learning was introduced as a

development of structural linguistic theory. Robert Lado, in his

work on Contrastive Analysis, theorised the importance of studying

the “cultural” (different here from “Culture” as previously

mentioned) structures of a country to inform and improve knowledge

of the language. In 1966, the relationship between language and

“culture” is something that was developed by William Labov in his

innovative study on language use in New York City as he analysed the

speech habits of people from different cultural and social

25 Ball, p. xi.

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backgrounds, which indicated a move away from the sole study of

linguistic “competence”.

Contrastive Analysis was theorised by Lado in the late 1950s

as a technique of locating problems in language learning by

comparing the structures of two languages. In his 1957 book Linguistics

Across Cultures, he emphasised the importance not only of comparing the

two languages in question, but also of comparing their cultures.26

Lado’s use of the word “culture” in his text agrees with Williams’

second definition of the term: ‘a particular way of life, whether of

a people, a period, a group, or humanity in general’.27 For Lado, an

understanding of a foreign “culture” is as important as a grasp of a

foreign language because both are necessary in order to gain what he

calls ‘General Understanding’28 of a country. The focus here is the

link between language and “culture” and not language and “Culture” -

the high arts and such like – as was previously favoured.

The change from the interest in the relationship between

language and “Culture” to language and “culture” continued into the

1960s. In 1966, William Labov published the results of a study he

carried out in a book entitled The Social Stratification of English and New York

City. This groundbreaking text pioneered the study of the linguistic

variable. Labov analysed the speech patterns of employees at three

different department stores in Manhattan: one store that was

considered to be in a wealthy area and to attract upper and upper-

middle class customers, another that was deemed to be in a middle

class area and to appeal to the middle and lower-middle class, and a

third that was found in a working class area and receiving mainly

working class custom.29 Labov was interested in the speech variables26 Robert Lado, Linguistics Across Cultures (Michigan: University of Michigan Press, 1976), pp.1-8.27 Williams, p. 90.28 Ibid., p. 8.29 Labov, pp. 42-5.

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of the different employees, but also the cultural and social

differences between these people and the resulting effect on the

variables. According to R. B. Le Page, ‘Labov's most important

innovation in the 1966 study was to quantify the incidence in

different speech samples of variants of significant linguistic

variables and then to write “variable rules.”’30 Labov’s plotting of

the different variables and how this related to the ‘class’ of the

individuals laid the foundations for Sociolinguistics as a

discipline. For the first time, the study of an abstract language

was applied to actual social context. The focus shifted from langue

to parole and from “competence” to “performance” and, therefore,

attention was given to the variability that was previously

sidelined. In the introduction to his study, Labov explains the

reasons that this shift was possible:

‘We can now return to this area of work with more adequate material

[…] Not only do we have a more explicit theory of phonological

structure, but we also possess such useful tools as tape recording,

spectrograms and methods of sampling and handling large quantities of

data.’31

The technology that was available to Labov in 1966 was, he explains,

the reason that he was able to carry out his study and acquire such

pertinent results. Milroy and Milroy second this argument stating ‘a

major reason for advances in variation studies is technological.’32

The importance given by Lado to the comparative study of a

country’s “culture” alongside, and to inform, the study of a

30 R. B. Le Page, ‘The Evolution of a Sociolinguistic Theory of Language’, in The Handbook of Sociolinguistics, ed. by Florian Coulmas (Oxford: Blackwell, 1998), pp. 12-23, p. 17. 31 Labov, p. 12.32 James Milroy and Lesley Milroy, ‘Variations and Varieties’, in The Handbook of Sociolinguistics, ed. by Florian Coulmas (Oxford: Blackwell, 1998), pp. 33-45, p. 33.

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language greatly affected linguistic study and this is something is

evident from the change in content of EFL teaching materials. There

are signs, in the 1960s, that these materials begin to incorporate

some variations on the “model” pronunciation and grammar in line

with Labov’s application of language in social context, and also due

to the development of the Situational Method in language teaching.

Teaching EFL in the 1960s

By analysing the objectives EFL teaching materials that focus on the

speaking of English, it is possible to observe how these texts moved

away from the teaching of a “model” form as a more general style

pronunciation is proposed. Then, as the Situational approach

developed, pupils were presented with language structures that

varied in different contexts.

Materials teaching spoken English from the early 1960s include

several mentions of the aim to teach native-like pronunciation. In

previously analysed texts, the aim was to teach a specific “model”

pronunciation however, the 1964 publication English This Way: Teacher’s

Manual and Key simply advises to the teacher that, ‘if you can find a

native speaker of English who is willing to help out with the

pronunciation class, do not hesitate to invite him into your

classroom.’33 The text goes on to suggest that ‘an educated native

speaker is the best model one could have’34 when learning

pronunciation. This is a much more general description of the

pronunciation that pupils learning English should strive for; the

pronunciation of a native Glaswegian is decidedly different from

that of a native Texan, but the author does not specify which

33 English Language Services, English This Way: Teacher’s Manual and Key (Washington:The Macmillan Company, 1964), p. 24.34 Ibid.

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pronunciation is preferred. The lack of emphasis on one “model”

pronunciation is a sign of the move away from an abstract ideal in

language teaching, which, in 1964, was before this was really

published in linguistic theory.

There is a similar lack of concern for one “model”

pronunciation in the 1965 exercise book Stress and Intonation Step by Step.

The introduction, which is specifically aimed at the native English

speaking teachers as opposed to the EFL learners, states ‘if the

native English speaker finds that his or her own patterns are not

always the same as those given in this book, there is no need to

worry: there are dialectal and even personal variations in stress

and intonation’.35 It is suggested here that there are many varieties

of stress and intonation and, whilst the text advances a particular

form, it is implied that other native styles are perfectly

acceptable and equally correct. This is an interesting contrast with

the proposed extra help for those native English speakers with a

pronunciation other than the “model”, in the pronunciation chapter

of the 1957 text mentioned earlier.

In the ‘60s, the Situational approach to language teaching had

a structural element. In textbooks using this method, situations

were selected based on their suitability to accompany a certain

language structure. Despite this, textbooks following this method

gave pupils the opportunity to become familiar with of vocabulary

and syntax that varied from one situation to another. A. E Sweeting

explains that in his book Situational Composition ‘the candidate is

placed firmly within a reasonably realistic situation’ and, in doing

so ‘an intelligent student will see that the language of, say,

advertisements ought to be different from the language of an

35 L. A. Hill, Stress and Intonation Step by Step (London: Oxford University Press, 1965), p. viii.

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objective scientific report.’36 Here, he points out that presenting

pupils with a variety of situations will enhance their ability to

notice the variety in language. He also posits that when composing

texts themselves, the students’ focus should be on ‘arrangement and

choice of language’.37 The students are encouraged to be competent in a

variety of different situations and therefore they must understand

how vocabulary and arrangement vary as a result of this method.

There is a marked change in the content of textbooks that

follow the Situational method in the ‘60s. This is precisely

because the situations are required to be culturally relevant so

that the language system is taught in a realistic context. As

Gillian Brown notes, the textbooks from the ‘50s and before feature

specifically literary language associated with “Culture”,38 this is

because this content conforms to the “model” language that is the

aim of the teaching. Situational Compositions is comprised of topics that

exist as part of British “culture”, such as ‘In School’, ‘In A Job’

and ‘Outside’.39 In line with Lado’s theory, the foreign student will

be enhancing their “General Understanding” of the country by

learning about the culture alongside the language.

There are examples in EFL teaching materials from the 1960s in

which the aims are distanced from acquisition of a “model” language.

This is synchronous with the shift in linguistic theory away from

the study of a decontextualized language. The Situational Method

introduced the pupil to how vocabulary and syntax vary in different

contexts and, because the language was taught through

representative, real-life situations, the pupil could learn about

the “culture” of the country. Still, however, the language36 A. E, Sweeting, Situational Composition (London: Oxford University Press, 1969), p. 2.37 Ibid., p. 3.38 Gillian Brown, Listening to Spoken English (London: Longman, 1977), p. 1. 39 Sweeting, p. v.

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structure was prioritised over the ability to communicate in the

language.

Hymes’ theory of “communicative competence” and the development of

Sociolinguistics

In the late 1960s, ‘the study of language as a behavioural science’

gained popularity and, going against Chomskyan theory, which

‘appeared to sweep away all concern with variation in language,’40

Dell Hymes published his theory of “communicative competence”. Hymes

was concerned with a “real” speaker-listener and their ability to

adapt their knowledge of a language in order to communicate

adequately in a given situation. This was a notable move away from

previous theories concerned with a decontextualized language.

Sandra Savignon explains that Hymes’ interest in social

interaction stemmed from his concern with semantics.41 Because of

this, Hymes did not focus his attention on the abstract, homogeneous

language that was the subject of the works of Chomsky and Saussure.

Hymes argued that ‘the theoretical notion of [Chomsky’s] ideal

speaker-hearer is unilluminating’ because it excludes the socio-

cultural elements of language and that ‘it would be arbitrary […]

not to consider […] that aspect of linguistics which is part of a

science of social man.’42 Hymes, like Labov, was interested in the

use of language in real-life situations and this is something that

was supported by many linguists in the early 1970s. One of these

linguists was John Lyons who said that ‘the ability to use one’s

40 Le Page, p. 16.41 Sandra Savignon, Communicative Competence: Theory and Classroom Practice (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1983), p. 11.42 Dell Hymes, ‘Communicative Competence in Linguistic Theory’, in Language Acquisition: Models and Methods, ed. by Reniar Huxley and Elizabeth Ingram (London: Academic Press, 1971), pp. 3-28, pp. 4-6.

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language correctly in a variety of socially determined situations is

as much and as central a part of linguistic “competence” as the

ability to produce grammatically well-formed sentences’. 43 Here,

there is a clear shift in emphasis in linguistic theory towards the

study of language use in social situations. This was as a result of

the Hymes’ notion of “communicative competence” and it meant an

increase in the study of language variation. The use of a “model”

language was less important than the ability to communicate and when

speaking a language, humans perform variation. As the study of

language in context gained attention, Chomsky’s theory of

transformational grammar with its separation of “competence” and

“performance” received criticism, precisely for its exclusion of

language in use. In James Bailey’s book, Variation and Linguistic Theory

published in 1973 (a title that demonstrates how important language

variation had become by this point), the author notes:

While the simplifying idealization advocated by Chomsky has probably

been a necessary step in the development toward an adequate theory of

language, sociolinguists, variationists, and generative semanticists

maintain that even formal grammatical competence has to include the

functional knowledge of how to communicate.44

This sort of criticism of Chomskyan theory highlights the extent to

which communication had become recognised as central to linguistic

theory.

Hymes’ theory of communicative competence and his focus on the

social aspect of language, along with the works of Labov, Peter

Trudgill and others,45 meant that the beginning of the ‘70s saw the

establishment of Sociolinguistics as an increasingly well-researched43 John Lyons, New Horizons in Linguistics (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1970)44 James Bailey, Variation and Linguistic Theory (Virginia: Centre for Applied Linguistics, 1973), p. 8. 45 See Peter Trudgill, The Social Differentiation of Speech in Norwich (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1974).

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area of study.46 With communication as the focal point of linguistic

discussion, language variation become more widely studied and

acknowledged, as the idea of an abstract “model” language was

relegated to criticism.

Sociolinguistics, variation and EFL materials in the 1970s

As Coulmas says ‘School curricula [had] traditionally presupposed

standard language’, but in EFL materials from the late 1960s, the

shift of focus from “competence” to “performance”, and therefore the

incorporation of language variation, is notable.

Even before Hymes had published his theory of “communicative

competence”, EFL materials showed an awareness of the importance of

a knowledge of language variation. In 1969, Leslie Dickinson and

Ronald Mackin published a workbook entitled Varieties of Spoken English. The

aim of the book is to help students ‘understand the [English]

language as it is actually spoken in a variety of circumstances’ and

they explain that ‘no attempt has been made to restrict the language

used, so the student may be confident that what he is listening to

is the “real thing”’.47 The fact that no restrictions have been made

means that the language is completely contextualised and, therefore,

variation is at the forefront of the text. There is no mention of a

“model” pronunciation or grammar as the introduction boasts:

The participants are as varied as the contents […] there are young

and old, male and female, English, Scottish, American and Australian

native speakers, and one or two who have learnt English as a second

language to near perfection. […] There are fluent speakers and

hesitant speakers, all with their own clearly identifiable speech

habits.48

46 Le Page, p. 15.47 Leslie Dickinson and Ronald Mackin, Varieties of Spoken English: Workbook (London: Oxford University Press, 1969), p. vii.48 Ibid.

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The text shows a keen awareness of the variations that occur when

language is performed. At this point, though, rather than simply

mentioning the existence of such variations, the textbook attempts

to teach the pupil to understand the different types of English.

This is as well as equipping them with the ability to use these

variations in the language in order that they are better

communicators. That Dickinson and Mackin are teaching language from

“real” conversations means that the content centres on areas of

English “culture”, with topics such as ‘Sheep Farming’ and ‘A trip

down the Thames’.49

The same sort of topics relating to “culture” are found in in

the 1975 textbook, Advanced Conversational English. The authors have

selected chapters on ‘Talking about Football’, ‘Living in London’

and ‘Country Life’.50 This text also states its aims to teach the

language from ‘everyday conversations’ which links the study of

language in context with the study of “culture”. Working through a

series of conversations, this textbook ‘sets out to chart the nature

of conversational speech, looking not only at the linguistic and

phonetic markers […] but also to indicate how these markers are

typically employed sociolinguistically within the personal tactics of

general conversation.’51 This, the authors claim, will help the pupil

‘produce more successful and fluent conversation’.52 The interest in

how language is used sociolinguistically means that this textbook

incorporates language variation and this is consistent with its aim:

to render the pupil a competent communicator. This is a considerable

change from the textbooks analysed from the structural era, but in

accordance with Hymes’ theory. The text also calls into question

49 Ibid. p. i.50 David Crystal and Derek Davy, Advanced Conversational English (London: Longman,1975), p. vii.51 Crystal and Davy, p. v. (Emphasis my own.)52 Ibid., p. 8.

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‘the oral dialogues of many [previous] ELT textbooks which’ include

dialogues that ‘have borne little resemblance to […] everyday

speech’53 and this is precisely because ‘the characters that are

developed in [these] textbooks […] are not real’54. It is expressed

here that the subjects in previous textbooks are abstract beings and

that the dialogues that the pupil is presented with are

decontextualized. This is problematized because students are not

prepared to communicate in the foreign country; they are not

introduced to language variation. By 1975, ELT materials are more

interested in teaching language in context through topics relating

to ‘culture’.

This trend developed further into the ‘70s with several

examples of textbooks that put teaching language variation at their

core. Gillian Brown implies the importance of understanding language

variation through the emphasis on the comprehension of actual spoken

English in EFL. She states that ‘with the enormous increase of

international mobility many thousands of students come to Britain

each year […] Very many of these, though they speak English

reasonably comprehensibly, they cannot understand it.’55 Brown

suggests here that it is probable that, whatever EFL material the

pupil has encountered before coming to Britain, they have not been

taught how to understand the variation in language that occurs

during performance. She therefore says that it is important that

pupils be ‘taught how to understand spoken English before they

arrive.’56

It is clear that in Gillian Browns textbook, and in other EFL

textbooks published from the early 70s onwards that communication is

53 Ibid., p v.54 Ibid., p. 3.55 Brown, pp. 1-2.56 Ibid., p. 2.

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championed, the focus is on how English is spoken in context and so

language variation is central. This is due to the advances in

Sociolinguistics study that, by this time, was widely preferred to

Structural theories. The emphasis on language in context also meant

that the content of the materials contained more information about

British “culture” which helped the growing number of pupils who were

learning so that they could travel to Britain.

Concluding remarks

It can be said that by the 1970s the teaching of English as a

foreign language had developed such that language variation formed

an important part. This is a notable difference from EFL materials

from the late Structural era of which the aim was to teach a

homogeneous, “model” language. The focus on obtaining an ideal

language occurred because of the tendencies in Structural

linguistics, which concentrated on an abstract idea of language and

not on its actual performance. In the late 1960s, as focus in

linguistic theory shifted to discussions of the use of language in

society and there is a noticeable distancing of EFL materials from

teaching one ideal form of the language. Linguists like Labov study

the use of language in real-life applications and this means that

language variation became the focal point. At the same time, the

study of language variation affected, and was affected, by the

changed perceptions of “culture”, which becomes appreciated for its

value in learning a foreign language. This is reflected in EFL

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material from the ‘60s as they begin to teach British language and

“culture” simultaneously. In the 1970s communication was the skill

at the centre of linguistic theory whilst previous theories

focussing “competence” rather than “performance” were criticized.

Since Saussure, it has always been acknowledged that, when

performed, there is variation in language however; it was only when

attention in linguistic theory was given to this performance that

language variation became significant in EFL teaching. As the

pendulum swung from langue to parole, “Culture” to “culture” and

“competence” to “performance”, language students were taught to

understand variation and, as a result, to become better

communicators.

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