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This chapter will introduce you to working at the full-text level of language (i.e. the level beyond single sentences and single paragraphs). It contains suggestions for dealing with full-blown communication in oral and written form. Topics that this chapter will address include:

• Managing oral communication

• Managing written communication

Managing oral communication

One can conceive of two kinds of communication, when it comes to linguistic interrelations among interlocutors. These are (1) speaking among native speakers, and (2) speaking among native speakers and non-native speakers. In the first case, language does not create problems in communication, although, of course, non-language problems may interfere. In the second kind of communication, language difficulties interfere with communication. In native speaker–non-native speaker interaction, the non-native speaker constantly performs dual activity in real time: keeping track of the ideas of both (or all) speakers as they evolve during the conversation and understanding and generating speech consciously through the manipulation of foreign forms, sounds, and word order. Moreover, sometimes (and perhaps, even, often) the content of the conversation depends not on what the non-native speaker wishes to express but rather what he or she is able to express in the foreign language – a situation that is diametrically opposite to that of the native speaker.

Beginning student speech is characterized by uncomfortable pauses, tedious searching for words, and annoying self-corrections. For advanced-level, and especially superior-level, students, the gap between the proficiency of the student and that of the native speaker narrows but rarely disappears completely.