From Conversation and Interaction to Edited Written Text: Steps in the Journey

• In Event: Complicating Accounts of Oral and Written Discourses in the Teaching and Learning of Multilingual Youth

Abstract

The paper provides a theoretical framing for the symposium by examining the multidimensionality of oral and written interaction. The paper demonstrates that both speech and writing leverage language users’ productive as well as receptive skills and take into account the specific characteristics of the interaction.. The paper uses the notion of one-to-many versus one-to one interaction to critically investigate the general characteristics of both oral communication and edited written texts. The paper sheds light on the demands of oral interactivity that are often not appreciated by teachers of multilingual students by taking the position that conversational, interpersonal classroom interactions offer valuable affordances for the development of written language production. It first provides an overview of the characteristics of conversational interaction. It describes the general characteristics of both conversation and interaction and emphasizes the intricacy and multidimensionality of of face-to-face communication in comparison to those of edited written texts. This description of multidimensionality counters well-established notions of the supposedly "basic" character of interpersonal communication skills (BICS) and argues that the demands of oral interactivity give rise to analytical thinking in real-time and to the making of sophisticated communicative choices that may involve complex vocabulary, grammar and other discourse strategies for making meaning in a face-to-face and one-to-one mode. The paper then moves to a description of the discourse and textual characteristics of the one-to-many communicative demands of written language and offers examples of the ways in which this language only appears to be more complex. Presenting examples of the ways in which written language conventions (e.g. punctuation, headings, paragraphing) are used to compensate for prosodic and other features that are used to communicate meaning in interpersonal interaction (intonation, tempo, rhythm repetition), an argument is made for the development of pedagogies that can make students aware of the ways in which the sophisticated ideas they exchange in conversation can be transferred effectively to written form. The paper not only contributes to our theoretical understanding of oral and written discourses (by challenging the dichotomy between conversational and written modes) but also offers guidance on integrating these discourses to more effectively support the learning of multilingual students.

Author

• Guadalupe Valdes, Stanford University