Communication, experience and meaning: a theoretical perspective  (Page 2/3)

*ON THE NATURE OF LANGUAGE AND EXPERIENCE: Experience resides in the purposes for which language is used. Among these purposes or functions are (1) Expressive, (2) Communicative and (3) Thought functions as in inner discourse and verbal thought.One of the main functions of language for children is the creation, expression and communication of meaning. This is often identified with experience or the "bed" which generates meaning.

"The forms of language are arbitrary and do not generate out of themselves the meanings with which they are associated. When someone wants to communicate something in language, his (her) starting points are not the arbitrary elements of language. Rather (s)he starts from his experience--feelings, images, sensations, intuitions, thoughts...Thus our speaker's task is to encode and express those non-verbal contents in linguistic form. Conversely, when someone listens to a speaker or reads, (s)he does not have direct or ummediated access to what the speaker (or writer)meant--the listener (reader) himself(herself) creates the meanings...which "partake of the personal, the unique, the private experiences of speakers, hearers, readers." (Holdaway, pp.150-3) Making meaning is a creative function of language and this depends on the experience and verbal competence of the listener or reader.

*MAKING MEANING AND CREOLE-INFLUENCED STUDENTS: In the English-speaking Caribbean Standard English is the language of the educated.Its characteristics are prestige, decorum and polite behaviour and has it high social value, while Creole speech is still sometimes regarded as "noise" and is associated with lower-class behaviour. But Creole speech, the qualities of which are naturalness and spontaniety, has positive value within certain contexts. In a classroom setting ,both students and teachers are caught in the conflicting social ambiguities associated with these varieties and the movement between them: propriety vs. impropriety, decorum vs. freedom and licence, of control vs. the fear of lack of control which is sometimes associated with the Creole vernacular. Grammatical features and attitudes to these varieties are described by Winford James, a Caribbean Creole linguist.

Reading may be viewed as a transaction with texts. While engaged in this act, students are processing language using "the strategies for creating meaning out of their experience." (Lytle and Botel,1990).Our young people read and communicate within a "mesh" of tensions, linguistic ambiguities, of spontaniety and of constraints which are bound to have an effect on Comprehension. What is needed is a teaching "tool" that will help them to achieve greater Standard English facility without eradicating their spontaniety and "native" communicative strategies.One way of doing this is suggested in "An Alternative Language Experience Guide."

**Q: What is the relationship between these native communicative strategies (that can be extrapolated from talk as this occurs in the community) and the strategies that a reader or listener uses for negotiating text or accessing meaning from text ? What part does their experience with language play in all of this for creole-influenced students? *In other words, our students' community speech styles must in some way affect their negotiation of meaning in a variety of texts. THESE NATIVE STRATEGIES FOR SPEAKING CONSTITUTE A PART OF THEIR PRIOR EXPERIENCE OF HOW LANGUAGE WORKS AND HOW THEY VALUE (OR MUST LEARN TO VALUE) LANGUAGE AND MAY ALSO BE AN ELEMENT IN GETTING MEANING FROM TEXT.