음성언어 문법의 특징과 영어 교재 개발

'Heads' and 'tails' in spoken grammar and English language teaching

The study attempted to explore grammatical features that frequently occur in spoken English with focus on the constructions called "heads" and "tails." Heads are noun phrases that occur at the beginning of the clause but are not included in the syntactic structure of the clause, co-referring to the same referents with one of the clause constituents (pronouns). Heads orient the listener toward the topic of the message in the form of content noun phrases. Similarly, tails are noun phrases or [noun phrase+auxiliary] constructions, dislocated at the end of the clause but not included in the syntactic structure of the clause, co-referring to the same referents with one of the clause constituents (pronouns). Tails usually clarify or comment the message by being added in the form of content noun phrases (and auxiliaries) to the end of the clause or just being repeated in the form of pronouns. Literature reviews showed that two spoken English grammar constructions, heads and tails, reflect the characteristics of spoken language such as real-time constraints and interpersonal functions; these constructions are listener-sensitive and speaker-friendly. It is argued that these constructions and other spoken grammar features should be explicitly taught in English classrooms so that the learners can develop their interpersonal grammar ability and communicative competence in true meaning.