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Title Communication Theory: The Problems of Self-Expression, Comprehension and Communicative Urge

Author(s) Muhammad Iqbal

Abstract The thesis hypothesizes that communicative competence is situational and relative because it is theme as well as age reliant. The potential of a theme of communication for inducing communicative involvement is different for different age-groups. Communication is a reciprocal process and the communicative gusto of a communicative setting depends on whether or not its theme is somewhere within the imaginative and psycho-social frontiers of the participants. Such a potential of a theme of communication for ignition / inducement communication needs investigation. The approach and the subsequent selection of the reading texts of the Intermediate Level presently used as language teaching material in Khyber Pakhtoonkhwa, Pakistan do not meet the requirement. The themes of many of these texts are too thick, erudite and off -the- wall for the teenagers to make their discourse. They tend more towards the discourse of the teachers i.e. the discourse of the aged and elderly than the discourse of the students (teenage level). As an alternative approach, the researcher has put to test another theme – Recollections – encompassing and embodying the spirit of the discourse advocated by the research's hypothesis. The analyses of the data obtained via three questionnaires confirm that English language classroom in Khyber Pakhtoonkhwa is a site of two conflicting discourses: the discourse of teenagism and the discourse of English perceptual assumptions maintained through the selection of foreign reading texts. As the selection of the reading texts is made by teachers, it is, to an extent, the linguistic realization of their social interests. The pro-teacher nature of the reading texts creates problems of selfexpression and comprehension for the students – it dampens their communicative urge.

Type Thesis/Dissertation PhD

Faculty Languages

Department English

Language English

Publication Date 2012-01-01

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