Intro to CALL: vanLier
Part II: Authentic Audience
Rachel Parrish
Chapter 5: Theory & Research: Audience, Language Use, &
Language Learning
By: Bill Johnston
 Sociolinguistic Background overview
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“Speaker’s relation to audience has crucial effect on forms of
language chosen to encode the message (p. 55)” i.e., tu & vous in
French determine formality (distance between speakers). Even
more extreme in Korean and Japanese. They have intricate
addressee honorific systems where choice of pronoun to refer to
addressee, lexical, and morphological choices hinge on WHO the
addressee is
Speakers must take listeners into account when speaking (Bell,
1984) thereby adjusting speech according to who interlocutor is
(Giles&Smith, 1979; Thakerar, Giles, & Cheshire, 1982)
“Any language addresses a particular listener and by the same
token contains the anticipation of its own response (p. 56)”
(Bakhtin, 1986)
Sociolinguistics, Pragmatics, and Literary Studies agree, “the
speaker’s relation to the addressee are a central concern in
describing and understanding features of language use (p.56).”
 Audience is also a crucial factor in acquisition of the L2
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Chomsky believed ability to learn language was innate &
Pinkerton (1994) said that babies must have “proper interlocutors
to provide the necessary input for the innate language acquisition
device (p.57)” to function
“Children have a drive to learn language, just as they have a
natural tendency to lean to walk (p. 57)” (Pinkerton, 1994)
SLA (Spolsky, 1989) argues that interaction (availability of
authentic audience) is a necessary (but not sufficient) condition to
learn (acquisition) (also: Ellis, 1994; Lightbown & Spada, 1994)
Basically above research based on belief that audience is crucial
factor in acquisition of L2-“specifically, that the availability of an
authentic audience affects the rate and extent of language learning.
THEREFORE: audience is a vital part of language learning
 Traditional language teaching (audiolingualism, grammar-
translation) offers essentially no audience.
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Language production is for grammar, drills, not for communication
purposes and only for teacher or classmates
 3 Approaches that Incorporate Audience
 Whole Language insists on ‘real language use’-so audience is central here,
too
 Ss write for more people than just teacher: classmates, other class
levels, & members of community
Intro to CALL: vanLier
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Important part of process of writing is being aware of audience;
possible reader reactions form feedback for revision of drafts
 Process Approach
 Emphasis not just on end product but also on process of
“brainstorming, writing drafts, revising, gathering feedback, and
organizing all the procures that real writers in the real world use all
the time (p.58)”
 Also treat writing as something to be read by real audience.
 ESP
 Audience is focused on prescriptive form of writing for specific
audience (discourse community) and audience expectations
 What does AUDIENCE mean?
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2 meanings of audience:
 1) The “actual people external to a text-whom the
writer must accommodate (p. 59)” –ESP campish
 2) “The text itself and set of suggested or evoked
attitudes, interests, reactions, conditions of knowledge
which may or may not fit with actual readers or
listeners (p59” – Process writing campish
 L2 Learners Marginal Members of Relevant Discourse Communities
 They may have different ideas of audience relating to actual
readers or with the audience of the text itself
 Limited language skills may limit L2 learners’ abilitites to
implement necessary “audience design (p. 59)”
 Foreign language classroom is an artificial environment but
audience in classroom context is not without its worth.
 Audience is “both real and imagined,” “interested in both
information and attitude;” “ it is both social and individual (p. 60)”
 Authentic Audience
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“Use authentic texts, materials, encourage real conversations, find
genuine purposes for language use (p. 60)”
“Authenticity dwells not in audience itself but in what the audience
chooses to do with the text (p. 60)”-are concerned exclusively with
the speaker’s message –so teacher is discounted as authentic
audience
 CALL
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E-mail, chat lines/groups, MUDs (multiuser domains) opened up
huge audience to L2
Invisible but immediate audiences
No body language, facial expressions, intonation, or accents-it’s all
language (writing) based.
Ss must create (& adapt to) new ways of communicating feelings
and personality
Email is a middle ground of formality where spoken and written
language converge.
Intro to CALL: vanLier
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L2 become authentic audiences themselves as they search for
information
E-communication has developed it’s own set of conventions for
interaction-i.e., in chatrooms + means I want to add something, A
means I agree, D means I disagree, // means I’ve finished my turn,
… means I’m not done talking yet.
 IN SUMMARY
o Audience is extremely complex in language learning and
teaching, however it is crucial for successful L2 learning.
o L2 Ss at disadvantage due to lack of background knowledge
about different audiences and the expectations as well as
their lack of language ability.
o E-communication offers huge variety of authentic
experiences for L1 learners, but they must again learn the
conventions in order to communicate effectively.