Intention

[Ramin Akbari]

Dear netters,

Greetings

I have been following the discussion on communication
and intention closely and I have found it quite
stimulating. However, as an applied linguist with some
background in psychology I would like to look at the
question from another perspective.

In educational research, one of the important concerns
for the researcher is establishing the psychological
reality of the construct being investigated. That is,
there should be some objective, preferably
quatinfiable method for approaching a construct. If
intention is part of any authentic communication (
which I am sure it is) what real, objective, data-
based support do we have for its existence as a
research construct ? If we can "prove" the
psychological reality of intention objectively, then
we can hope to have better tests of language ability
and probably some new approaches to teaching foreign
languages.

Sincerely,
Ramin Akbari,
English Language Teaching Department,
Tarbiat Modares University,
Tehran,
Iran.

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