Introdungcing English language part 38: 'In this exciting new textbook, Louise Mullany and Peter Stockwell have provided a fresh and imaginative set of alternatives for teaching and learning a huge amount about the English language. The book allows tor creative and lateral approaches to developing an understanding of important linguistic concepts and, together with the thought-provoking activities, and accessible readings, guarantees there is something to stimulate every learner. | Joan Cutting 208 EXTENSION LINGUISTIC READINGS then. Thus the second social rule seems to be Express a negative attitude to yourself and to the situation especially if you are talking about the course and especially in the spring term . A detailed qualitative analysis of the predominant speech acts within the category negative attitude to a situation or third party in CK dialogues showed that students evaluate negatively the work books and lecturers. They complain that the revision for the examination is a lot of work that 3 000 words for the project is lot to write that there is a lot of pressure and that the main problem is time . They express dissatisfaction with theories fields of thought and courses about them saying that they are rubbish as in 1 AM Gram- Grammar Two. But it I mean it s it s just I don t know. It s just I don t know. Bloody tosh isn t it CM Well it s- it s a bit abstract. 1 Note numbers in brackets indicate length of pause in seconds . This example shows that negative evaluations are interactive in the sense that if one speaker displays a negative attitude the other s are expected to do the same. The students complain that books are too theoretical and that articles are completely useless . In 2 BM and DM are discussing an article. 2 BM It s pretty it s scurrilous isn t it DM I think it is awful. Again BM chooses to talk negatively and DM is expected to echo the sentiments. They evaluate some lecturers in an exaggeratedly negative fashion one is a fanatic and another a complete maniac . It would seem that one way that students can show a positive attitude to the course is when they are being ironic and flouting the maxim of quality to imply a negative attitude note that the transcription note used by Cutting here signals simultaneous speech 3 AF You did this last week didn t you heh NF Yeah. I really like the teacher very much. AF heh heh DM It s very relaxing. 1 Here NF gives the teacher as the cause of her being late to class again. .
