IntroductionThis book is an attempt to clarify certain issues that seem to me to arisefrom adopting a communicative approach to the teaching of language.I have in mind,in particular,the teaching of English to speakers ofother languages.Over recent years I (and a number of others)haveadvocated such an approach in principle and have tried to put it intopractice in the preparation of teaching terials.In principle andpractice,however,there always seemed to be loose ends of one sort oranother:inconsistencies,unexamined assumptions,unresolved diffi-culties.My aim in this book was to sort out some of the things that Ihad been saying,consider their implications more closely,and see ifthey might be ordered into a coherent account.I wanted to try to thinkthings through.The 'communicative'approach is,of course,very much in vogue atpresent.As with all tters of fashion,the problem is that popularapprobation tends to conceal the need for critical examination.Thereseems to be an assumption in some quarters,for example,that languageis autotically taught as communication by the simple expent ofconcentrating on 'notions'or 'functions'rather than on sentences.Butpeople do not communicate by expressing isolated notions or fulfillingisolated functions any more than they do so by uttering isolated sentencepatterns.We do not progress very far in our pedagogy by simplyreplacing abstract isolates of a linguistic kind by those of a cognitive orbehavioural kind.If we are seriously interested in an approach tolanguage teaching which will develop the ability to communicate,thenwe must accept the commitment to investigate the whole complexbusiness of communication and the practical consequences of adoptingit as a teaching aim.Such a commitment involves,I believe,a considera-tion of the nature of discourse and of the abilities that are engaged increating it.This is the in concern of the first part of this book.Thecommitment involves,too,an attempt to think out the possible peda-gogic procedures which will lead the learner towards the ability tohandle discourse.The second part of the book represents such anattempt.I do not claim that in either part I have done any more thanopen up a number of possibilities.Our present state of knowledge aboutx Introductionlanguage and language learning is such that it would be irresponsibleto be anything but tentative.But it would be even more irresponsible toavoid investigation and to pretend that there are no problems.So this book is not in any way intended as propaganda for a new'communicative'orthodoxy in language teaching.It is,on the contrary,an appeal for critical investigation into the bases of a belief and itspractical implications.I am not trying to present a conclusive case butto start an inquiry.There are,it seems to me,two ways of looking at publication.Thefirst,which one might dub the classical view,regards appearance inprint as the final public revelation of carefully rehearsed ideas de asdefinitive and as precise as possible.The aim is for universality andpernence and one proceeds towards publication with cautiouscircumspection.This classical view is the one expressed by AlexanderPope in his curt recommendation to other,and lesser,poets:'Keepyour piece nine years!'The other view,the rontic,is less concernedwith completeness,is much less cautious and circumspect,and regardspublication,more cavalierly perhaps,as a device for public speculation.The aim here is to stimulate interest by exposure,to suggest rather thanto specify,to allow the public access to personal thinking.It is thissecond view that I subscribe to in publishing this book.I accept,therefore,that its contents are transitional and transient.They aremeant as a personal consideration of issues that seem to me to stand inneed of examination at the moment.When I say that this book is personal,I do not want to imply thatI have produced it in isolation from the ideas of others.Quite the reverse.Over the past eight years I have had the benefit of continuing discussionswith the staff and students in the Department of Linguistics at Edin-burgh and most of what is worthwhile in this book derives directly orindirectly from them.Now,as I am about to leave Edinburgh forLondon,I should like to express my sense of personal and professionaldebt to that department.I must ke particular mention of PatrickAllen with whom I have worked in developing the Euglish in Focusseries,which has been,and continues to be,an attempt to producepractical teaching terials in accordance with the kind of approach Iexplore here.The authors of particular titles in the series-EricGlendinning,Elizabeth Laird,Joan Maclean,Alan Mountford and IanPearson-have all de valuable contributions to this development andhave given me ideas that I would not have thought of on my own.Other people whose influence I would particularly like to acknowledgeare Tony Howatt,who was kind enough to read through an earlierdraft of the book and de ny valuable suggestions for improvement,Guy Aston,Christopher Candlin,Malcolm Coulthard,John Sinclair,Hugh Trappes-Lox,Sandy Urquhart and David Wilkins.None of