The Effects Of Task Characteristics On The Quality And Quantity Of Negotiation Of Meaning

The realization of meaning in actual language use can be thought of as taking bearings on two points of reference: systemic knowledge and schematic knowledge. It is in this sense that language use can be regarded as essentially a matter of the negotiation of meaning.It has now been widely acknowledged that negotiation of meaning occupies a crucial position in language instruction as well as in communication. First of all, it is enormously facilitative of communication, particularly, 1) the nature of communication enables us to negotiate implicitly; 2) meaning negotiation promotes the crucial socializing purpose of language (Widdowson, 1999); and 3) it prevents conversational trouble and overcomes communication breakdown (Oliver, 2002). Furthermore, negotiation of meaning is beneficial for language learning in that it enables learners to get comprehensible input, comprehensible output and feedback.Much literature has been devoted to the theoretical and practical concerns of this phenomenon to gain a profound insight into it. 1980s witnessed many a heated discussion of meaning negotiation abroad, whereas, in China, the research, especially the empirical research on it remains a fertile but unexplored field. So far, little research has been carried out on the empirical effects of task characteristics on the quality and quantity of meaning negotiation at home and abroad.With a thorough theoretical review of meaning negotiation as a departure, the thesis introduces task-based instruction, an optimal approach to facilitate negotiation of meaning. The characteristics of task itself and the information processing model of language learning...