Guy Cook

Own-language use in language teaching and learning

Until recently, the assumption of the language-teaching literature has been that new languages are best taught and learned monolingually, without the use of the students’ own language(s). In recent years, however, this monolingual assumption has been increasingly questioned, and a re-evaluation of teaching that relates the language being taught to the students’ own language has begun. This article surveys the developing English language literature on the role of students’ own language(s) in the language classroom. After clarifying key terms, the paper charts the continuing widespread use of students’ own languages in classrooms around the world and the contemporary academic and societal trends which have led to a revival of support for this. It then explores key arguments which underpin this revival, and reviews a range of empirical studies which examine the extent and functions of own-language use within language classrooms. Next, the article examines the support for own-language use that a range of theoretical frameworks provide, including psycholinguistic and cognitive approaches, general learning theory and sociocultural approaches. Having explored the notion of ‘optimal’ in-class own-language use, the article then reviews research into teachers’ and students’ attitudes towards own-language use. It concludes by examining how a bilingual approach to language teaching and learning might be implemented in practice.

The scientists think and the public feels : expert perceptions of the discourse of GM food.

Debates about new technologies, such as crop and food genetic modification (GM), raise pressing questions about the ways ‘experts’ and ‘ nonexperts’ communicate. These debates are dynamic, characterized by many voices contesting numerous storylines. The discoursal features, including language choices and communication strategies, of the GM debate are in some ways taken for granted and in others actively manipulated by participants. Although there are many voices, some have more influence than others. This study makes use of 50 hours of in-depth interviews with GM scientists, nonexperts, and other stakeholders in the GM debate to examine this phenomenon. We uncover rhetorical devices used by scientists to characterize and ultimately undermine participation by non-experts in areas including rationality, knowledge, understanding and objectivity. Scientists engage with ‘the public’ from their own linguistic and social domain, without reflexive confirmation of their own status as part of the public and the citizenry. This raises a number of interesting ironies and contradictions, which are explored in the article. As such, it provides valuable insights into an increasingly important type of discourse.

“Words of mass destruction”: British newspaper coverage of the genetically modified food debate, expert and non-expert reactions

This article reports the findings of a one-year project examining British press coverage of the genetically modified (GM) food debate during the first half of 2003, and both expert and non-expert reactions to that coverage. Two pro-GM newspapers and two anti-GM newspapers were selected for analysis, and all articles mentioning GM during the period in question were stored in a machine readable database. This was then analyzed using corpus linguistic and discourse analytic techniques to reveal recurrent wording, themes and content. This text analysis was complemented by 12 interviews with experts involved in the communication of GM issues, and 12 focus-group sessions in which members of the public reacted to selected newspaper texts and other GM material. Both in the press and in public reaction, the issue of GM was found to be intimately associated with other political events of the time, notably the invasion of Iraq. Except among experts, there was little awareness of the official national debate and issues were approached in more general terms. Pro-GM characterization of the issues as primarily scientific, both by newspapers and experts, was rejected by the anti-GM press and campaigners, and by the focus-group participants. They assessed the issues in a more global frame, rejecting scientists and companies as unreliable. In addition, they linked both US and British GM policy to the invasion of Iraq, and, by analogy, rejected pro-GM arguments as untrustworthy.

Genetically Modified Language : The Discourse of Arguments for GM Crops and Food

The GM debate is a war of words, to be won as much by persuasion as by action in the laboratory, field or supermarket. As the argument intensifies and the voices on all sides get louder, Genetically Modified Language cuts through the controversy to unpick the issues and ideology at the heart of the debate. Scientific, commercial, ethical or political perspectives each have their own discourse, with differing styles of argument, metaphors, analogies, and word choices. When they are mixed together, either inadvertently or on purpose, this can lead to dramatic misunderstanding and disagreement. By carefully examining the language used by key players in the arena, from the media to politicians, supermarkets, Biotech corporations and scientists, Guy Cook analyses critically the effects of their arguments on both policy and opinion. Written in a clear, accessible style and drawing on illustrative examples, Genetically Modified Language is an insightful look at how language shapes, and can be used to manipulate, our opinions.

Rewritten rites: language and social relations in traditional and contemporary funerals

Despite their personal and social significance, life-course transition rituals (marking, for example, birth, marriage, death) have received scant attention in discourse analysis. Yet radical changes in them, including a growth in secular ceremonies, can provide insight into contemporary discourse and society. This article considers the case of funerals. By contrasting the openings of a traditional religious (Christian) funeral, an updated version of the same, and a secular alternative, it seeks to elucidate the nature of pragmatic, semantic and linguistic changes. The argument is that the most significant contrast is not between religious and secular, but between traditional and contemporary, with the latter being marked by the reduced authority of the celebrant, greater personalization and choice, euphemistic reference to death, less poetic language, and diminished ritual movement. The article concludes with discussion of possible connections between these dimensions of change, and of the extent to which contemporary funerals can be regarded as rituals.

But it's all true!: commercialism and commitment in the discourse of organic food promotion

Abstract Debates over food politics provide insight into the convergence of commercial and political discourses. As the organic food market has grown, campaigners and independent producers have faced the dilemma of how far they should promote their cause using standard marketing language. We report on a research project which combined corpus analysis, interviews, and focus group discussions to investigate the discourse of organic food promotion in Britain, the thinking behind it, and how people react to it. We found growing convergence across the sector. Whether produced by supermarkets, small politically committed producers, or environmentalist campaign groups, the language used tends to be poetic, vague, dialogic, narrative, and emotive, with an emphasis upon bucolic imagery and consumer self-interest. Text producers assume that consumer attitudes can be easily manipulated by such an approach. Our focus group data however suggest both a critical resistance to marketing language in general, and that attitudes to food may be less amenable to manipulation through standard promotional techniques than is commonly assumed. Our findings contribute not only to an understanding of food politics and persuasive discourse more generally, but also to the development of discourse analytic methodology which integrates textual analysis with investigation of sender and receiver perceptions.

ELF and translation and interpreting: common ground, common interest, common cause

Abstract The study of ELF and of translation have been conducted with little reference to each other, yet they have a great deal of common ground, and would benefit from greater recognition of their common interests. Both are concerned with crosslinguistic communication in the unprecedented linguistic landscape of the 21st century. Both are central to the understanding and amelioration of contemporary problems. Both can be regarded as branches of applied linguistics. In addition, translation into English is increasingly both by and for non-native speakers. Having surveyed these similarities, the article explores how concepts and theories from translation studies are relevant to the study of ELF: notably the notions of nativisation and foreignisation, and polysystems theory, which conceives of change beginning in the interaction of systems and at their peripheries. In conclusion, the article discusses the range of crucial contemporary issues to which both ELF and translation are relevant and central, but points out some imbalances and omissions on both sides. It is suggested that given their importance in international and intranational issues of all kinds, and their relevance to other social sciences, the two fields of enquiry, expanded in range and working together, could be central rather than peripheral to applied linguistics.

‘A pig is a person’ or ‘You can love a fox and hunt it’: Innovation and tradition in the discursive representation of animals

In contemporary urban society, animals have been erased in many people’s lives. They are generally encountered only as meat, pets, pests or vicariously in fiction and documentaries; yet the relation of humans to other animals is a matter of pressing environmental, social, economic and philosophical concern, and across the social and natural sciences there is increased interest in human–animal interaction. This situation gives rise to many different and often irreconcilable ways of talking about animals, and current debates about human–animal interaction are frequently polarised and based on incompatible standpoints, such as those of animal rights and human exceptionalism. This article analyses two interviews which exemplify such radically opposed views: one with a spokesperson for the Vegan Society, and one with a spokesperson for the Countryside Alliance, a pro-hunting pressure group. Both are placed against the background of other interviews collected as part of an ongoing larger research project on the discursive representation of animals. Each is shown to use and promote a way of speaking about animals which is at odds with mainstream establishment discourse. It is suggested that they represent two mirror-image reactions to the erasure of animals in contemporary urban life which, despite their differences, reflect a more intimate encounter with actual animals. One actively seeks to preserve and promote a traditional discourse, the other to innovate a new non-speciesist discourse. They thus reflect, in their uses of language, contrasting possible reactions to a major social and environmental change.

Overlooked issues of religious identity in the school dinners debate.

The TV broadcast of Jamies school dinners in 2005 prompted action throughout the UK to improve the standards of school meals. A public debate continues across the media around changes, resistance to them and consequences. This article draws upon the findings of a one‐year ESRC‐funded project on the English school dinners debate, which analysed interviews with stakeholders, focus groups of primary and secondary pupils and their parents, and corpora of newspaper articles and relevant websites. We focus here on our finding of a neglected area of the debate: provision for religious diets, dealing in particular with halal. Despite many intentions by providers to meet complex requirements, these are imperfectly understood, and pupils requiring religious diets may not be benefiting from general reforms. Our analysis suggests that improved communications could lead to better understanding of need and take up of school meals provision.

Sweet talking: Food, language, and democracy

At a time of diminishing resources, the sum of apparently minor personal decisions about food can have immense impact. These individual choices are heavily influenced by language, as those with vested interests seek to persuade individuals to act in certain ways. This makes the language of food politics a fitting area for an expanding applied linguistics oriented towards real-world language-related problems of global and social importance. The paper draws upon five consecutive research projects to show how applied linguistics research may contribute to public policy and debate, and also how, by entering such new arenas, it can develop its own methods and understanding of contemporary language use.