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Description:
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This book demonstrates the relevance of an integrational linguistic
perspective to a practical, real-world need, namely the learning of
languages. Integrational linguistics’ shunning of both realist and
structuralist theories of language, its commitment to an unwavering
attention to the perspective of the language user, and its adherence to a
semiology in which signs are the situated products of interactants
interpretive behaviour, mean that it radically reconceptualizes language
learning and language teaching. Detractors have implied that IL is so
‘philosophical’ or ‘theoretical’ an exercise that it has no useful bearing
on the practical problems of language learning. These papers refute that
misconception by demonstrating how an IL stance can help disentangle the
conflicting considerations and contradictory assumptions that arise in a
host of language teaching situations: first, second- and foreign-language
classrooms in a diversity of settings (including India, Australia, the
United States, and Hong Kong), with different age-groups of students,
whether the focus is on speech or writing, and in more informal settings.
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