Questões de Concurso

    The history of language study illustrates widely divergent attitudes concerning the relationship between writing and speech. Written language was the medium of literature, and, thus, a source of standards of linguistic excellence. It was felt to provide language with permanence and authority. The rules of grammar were, accordingly, illustrated exclusively from written texts.

    The everyday spoken language, by contrast, was ignored or condemned as an object unworthy of study, demonstrating only lack of care and organization. It was said to have no rules, and speakers were left under the illusion that, in order to “speak properly”, it was necessary to follow the “correct” norms, as laid down in the recognized grammar books and manuals of written style.

    There was sporadic criticism of this viewpoint throughout the 19th century, but it was not until the 20th century that an alternative approach became widespread. This approach pointed out that speech is many thousands of years older than writing; that it develops naturally in children (whereas writing has to be artificially taught); and that writing systems are derivative — mostly based on sounds of speech.

    In the old days, we didn’t much write like talking because there was no mechanism to reproduce the speed of conversation. But texting and instant messaging do — and a revolution has begun. It involves the brute mechanics of writing, but in its economy, spontaneity and even vulgarity, texting is actually a new kind of talking. There is a virtual cult of concision and little interest in capitalization or punctuation. The argument that texting is “poor writing” is analogous, then, to one that the Rolling Stones is “bad music” because it doesn’t use violas. Texting is developing its own kind of grammar and conventions.

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    As soon as learners step outside the classroom, they act as users of English who communicate with other speakers of English from a wide variety of linguacultural backgrounds. Given the global spread of English and the fact that the majority of users do not speak English as their mother tongue, learners are likely to be involved in interactions with other non-native speakers. These situations then bear the hallmarks of English as a lingua franca (ELF), which is “any use of English among speakers of different first languages for whom English is the communicative medium of choice, and often the only option”, according to Seidlhofer.

    Since ELF speakers represent various cultures and languages, ELF contexts of use are characterized by diversity and the subsequent unpredictability and variability of communication. Therefore, interactions where English functions as a lingua franca require active engagement in the meaning-making process by the participants.