Natural Semantic Metalanguage as a Tool for Mediating Communication in Language Teaching and Learning
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.34739/clg.2024.16.01Keywords:
natural semantic metalanguage (NSM), Common Eurepean Framework of Reference (CEFR), language teaching and learning, mediation, greetingsAbstract
In this paper we seek to implement the natural semantic metalanguage (NSM) approach as a tool for mediating communication in foreign language classroom. Mediation is an important term introduced to language teaching and learning in the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR2001) and developed in CEFR. Companion Volume (2020). It refers to one of the four modes of communication (reception, production, interaction and mediation) – in which social dimension of language is put forward, and the language user is viewed as a social agent. Language per se is an important mediating tool, a mini-language curved out of any human language is even stronger facilitator of meaning explication. It can be useful both in constructing and co-constructing new meaning, and in passing on information, especially in multicultural contexts. Being free from ethnocentric bias, NSM can provide a clear and effective strategy to deal with “otherness” and to create a neutral, safe communication space. To illustrate its efficacy, we will give some examples, explaining via NSM how deceptively similar concepts, such as names for time of day, especially the ones used in greetings, vary between Spanish, English and Polish language.
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