Business-Situated Oral Nepali Explored Through English-Based Functional Concepts: Implications for Language Teaching

Abstract

The study entitled “Business-Situated Oral Nepali Explored Through English-Based Functional Concepts: Implications for Language Teaching” was conducted to explore the functions of business-situated oral Nepali (BSON); to examine their inter-relationships; to induct a framework for functional data analysis in linguistics and to draw implications for language pedagogy. The study was underpinned by the pragmatic philosophy, interpretivist worldview, grounded theory methods and qualitative approach. Likewise, observation, audio-recording, interview, data elicitation and field notes were the major techniques applied to collect the data from the urban sites and hubs within Nepal, where the oral medium of business transactions was Nepali. Consistent with grounded theory, the principle of data saturation and the constant comparative method were applied to the collection and analysis of the data respectively. Potentially extendable or reducible through future research, a total of twelve macro functions including 156 lower level functions were explored from the BSON data. It was also investigated that a form underlies each function, and typically that the ultimate function is expressed with a strategy. The most commonly used form was the declarative whereas the most complex function, intricately associated with all the other functions, was the Referential. Though not very common, utterances were also found hidden beneath the immediate function, typically accompanying certain strategies-a concept termed as ‘ultimate function’ in this research. Drawing from the data patterns, a framework for functional data analysis was inducted. The framework recognizes that language functions are patterned at various levels and are explicable using a hierarchical taxonomy comprising the core and the peripheral functional elements. Additionally, the concept of functional embedding as a new dimension of form-function relations has been proposed. Building on the insights from the findings, some implications for language pedagogy were suggested. The implications centrally concern forms (grammar) as the prelude to actual language use, the role of fun and entertainment in the language classroom, functional material development, learner autonomy as part of classroom environment and methodology, student practice and testing aimed at developing authentic oral language use; teacher preparation and, the role of the policy for creating a favorable environment needed for functional language teaching.