Reading Recommendation

Experienced Educator

system with teacher-directed teaching, and traditional methods were used. At present, schools and teachers have more freedom with an overwhelming range of possibilities. There is more flexibility and focus on individuality. There are different schools, and traditional education is being broken down from bigger bundles of knowledge into small segments that can be mixed and matched to suit the needs of each prospective learner (the so-called learner-centered teaching). Are all schools and teachers ready to make good choices, evaluate their options and understand the responsibility that choice brings and the consequences of their decisions? I do not know because when we consider the advances that have been made in technology over the past 20 years, it is difficult to recommend what I like to change at school or in education now. According to different surveys, Estonian education system ranks among the best education systems in the world; according to OECD’s international survey PISA Estonian students rank 1st in Europe in all three domains of assessment. Schools have their success stories. So do foreign language teachers and teachers’ associations. Now it is your turn to share your expertise and know-how.

Our foreign language teachers should be more active sharing their expertise and best practices at conferences in Estonia and outside it. It is no secret that sharing best practices is an excellent way to improve the performance, make your school/association visible and, apart from that, introduce Estonia, Estonian schools, language teachers’ associations, language teaching and language policy to the wider world.

Ene Peterson was interviewed by EATE Committee members

Kärt Roomäe

HOW DO WE TALK THEN?

MA student, University of Tartu

Enfield, Nick J. 2017. How We Talk: The Inner Workings of Conversation. New York: Basic Books.

It can be argued that spoken language reveals more about the deeper patterns of our cognition than writing. Human language was created through conversation, and there are many languages in the world that do not have a written form. However, in everyday life, we generally pay little attention to how exactly we talk, or how others perceive what we are saying. Have you ever considered, for example, how can conversation be compared to group work?

How We Talk: The Inner Workings of Conversation, a book published in 2017, was written by N. J. Enfield, Professor of Linguistics at the University of Sydney. While having been written by an academician, this book is clearly intended for a general audience and is not a collection of scholarly articles. It is a 257-page hardback, so not very light-weight, but not too much of a commitment either thanks to its relatively short length, making it accessible for reading.

The main claim of How We Talk is that fillers like oh and huh form a salient part of exchanging ideas and cooperating while talking to other people. These little words in addition to glances, pauses, and changes in tone, even though often frowned upon, give the speakers a chance to gather their thoughts, among other reasons. Those are sometimes used seemingly unconsciously due to the speed of cognitive processing.

The book starts with a list of seemingly random facts in the introduction, then discussing each issue later in the book. The author explains wide-spread controversies such as the seemingly slow talkers in the rural wilds of Scandinavia, who, as you will learn, might only seem slow due to conversation partner’s expectations, but will still never compete with those living in midtown Manhattan. The reader will find out why saying “I don’t know” takes longer than answering questions with “yes” or “no”, and the connection between a delayed response and dogs baring their teeth. This book lends insight into the reasons why people do not normally allow for pauses that last longer than one second. These details provide information about different aspects of conversations, relating them to everyday situations, and aid in understanding the argumentation of the whole book.

The book moreover shows why sometimes dictionaries and grammar books just are not enough. Audio and video recordings of everyday interactions show language in its so-called raw form. As Enfield says on page 8, “[t]o find out how people really talk, a researcher needs a special kind of direct access to language in its wild environment.” Another point he makes is that conversation is not one-sided; it requires, alternatively, a “high-level interpersonal cognition,” (page 11) and is “inherently cooperative” (page 16). These aspects are a testament to the importance of teaching informal register and spoken language, especially in higher-level classes of English. Only then will students be able to produce natural-sounding, idiomatic English. It is true that prescriptive grammar and basic rules must be learned first to create the framework, but teachers should not underestimate the less rule-based features of language. How We Talk will also be of some help for understanding what and why your students are saying, in addition to what kind of language they use.

The methods employed in different studies about both humans (such as Margaret Thatcher’s interviews) and animals (such as marmoset and capuchin monkeys) are discussed in the text, revealing Enfield’s background in conversation analysis. Each chapter has its own introduction and conclusion. Of course, some chapters are more technical, like chapter 3, “Split-Second Timing” with its adapted scatter plots and diagrams from different studies, such as the timing of people’s responses. More detailed information about the studies mentioned in How We Talk, conducted both by Enfield and other researchers from various decades, can be accessed in the back – all the references and further comments about the topics discussed are available at the end of the book, chapter by chapter. This makes for a better reading experience for non-specialist readers while enabling those interested in the topic to find the original sources. It is possible to read only some parts of the book; however, chapter titles such as “Traffic Signals” might not reveal much without actually reading the previous chapter, and the narrative is easier to follow when chapters are read in the order presented in the book.

As for stylistic analysis, active voice predominates, and the tone is conversational, as if Enfield was telling the reader a story. Interestingly, there are only a couple of examples of contracted forms, which are quite frequent in popular science. Sentences are short and digestible. It is pleasant to see that important scientific discoveries can be introduced in an accessible way without having to work your way through dense prose and lots of number crunching. Thanks to Enfield’s long career this is likely to be easier for him than for novice writers. Examples from everyday life and transcribed conversations add to the book’s appeal. Additionally, nominalization, i.e. nouns derived from verbs is avoided; instead, Enfield prefers phrasal verbs. This shows how How We Talk deviates from strictly academic register. The author avoided an overuse of scientific terminology as well.