An Introduction to Applied Linguistics

Hands-on Activity
There are obvious practical constraints on representing the ‘process’ of listening 
on the printed page. We have chosen two different sorts of listening data for 
you to analyse: the first comes from a dictation exercise done by an L2 learner of 
English; the second is an example of misunderstanding observed in real life. 
A classroom example
For our purposes here, the advantage of using a dictation example is that it shows 
precisely what the learner understood and allows us to speculate as to how he 
reached that interpretation. 
On the left-hand side below are the 10 sentences of an English for Academic 
Purposes dictation about the problems of talking to native speakers. The text 
was recorded onto a cassette at slightly less than conversational speed but with 
natural pronunciation and assimilation. The learners were told the topic of the 
text, which they would hear as separate sentences, and were asked to write down 
what they heard, in 30-second pauses between the sentences. On the right-hand 
side is the version of the text produced by an intermediate-level Japanese learner 
of English. 
Original version
Learner version 
1. Conversing with native speakers 
can cause a range of difficulties. 
Convergent is very difficult. 
2. However, many of them have 
practical solutions. 
However, many be made practical 
solution. 
3. One thing you have to get used to 
is uncertainty. 
One thing you have to get on seventy. 
4. For instance, you may not be able 
to decipher every word. 
Whatever may be you’re able to decide 
everywhere. 
5. But then you can use the context 
to guess. 
But then you can get contact the 
guest. 
6. Another problem is the cultural 
assumptions in what is said. 
Another problem is consumption in 
what he said. 
7. You may catch the words but fail 
to grasp their meaning. 
You might catch the dog while 
wandering. 
8. In either case, you want to get 
your doubts cleared up. 
You may want to be done clear-up. 
9. Requesting repetition and 
clarification is natural in our 
mother tongue 
Repetition and indication is natural in 
another tongue. 
10. In the foreign language it is more 
demanding but beneficial. 
In the language, there is more demand 
than benefit.

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196 An Introduction to Applied Linguistics
Question 1: Listening sub-skills 
Look back to Table 11.1 on p. 186. Compare the two versions of the dictation text, 
and look for points where the learner had problems in applying the following 
sub-skills:
• Discriminating sounds in words.
• Recognizing word boundaries.
• Deducing the meaning of unfamiliar words.
Question 2: Overall comprehension 
What did the learner appear to think the text was about? Does his text give you 
any clue about his own professional field?
The real-life example
Tony Lynch heard this during an interview on BBC television in 1999. The 
setting was a mosque in Glasgow, where Muslims were celebrating the end of 
the Ramadhan fast. A BBC Scotland TV reporter was sitting at a table with two 
Pakistani men (father and son) and had just taken his first mouthful of their 
celebration meal. 
Reporter:
Wow, this is hot!
Interviewee: Well, when we break the fast, we like to eat something tasty.
Reporter:
This is certainly… tasty (laughs awkwardly; looks briefly towards 
the camera). I don’t suppose you have a carry-out, do you?
Interviewee: (laughs) No, I’m a doctor, a general practitioner.
(Note: In Scotland, ‘carry-out’ is used to refer either to a take-away meal or to the 
premises where the meal is made and sold.)
Question 3: Intercultural misunderstanding
What was the misunderstanding, and how can you explain it?

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Speaking and Pronunciation
Anne Burns
Macquarie University, Sydney
Barbara Seidlhofer
University of Vienna
What are Speaking and Pronunciation?
We take as our starting point the notion of spoken language in use, drawing 
on insights from discourse analysis which make it clear that language is used 
to negotiate and achieve meaning in social contexts and so cannot be divorced 
from those contexts (see Chapter 4, Discourse Analysis). Corpus linguistic research 
over the last decade and a half, involving computer analysis of large bodies of 
naturally produced language has also greatly influenced the way in which 
spoken language and the patterns of its grammar are understood (see Chapter 6