Evaluating the emiprical evidence

Grounds for instruction in pragmatics?

Showing that NSs and NNSs have different system of pragmatics,

Diccusing the factors affecting the development of L2 pragmatics system,

Addressing the question whether differences in pragmatics systems warrant instructional treatment.

Revealing the emprical evidence

Perspective: Speech act

Stundets: intermediate to advanced with different L1

Data collection techniques: natural converations, role-plays, written questionnaires,…

A learner of high grammatical proficiency will not necessarily possess related pragmatic competence.

Evindence

There are many ways in which NNS differ from NSs in the production speech acts.

Cohen (1996) identifies three areas:1. Speech acts2. Semantic formulas3. Forms

Blum-Kulka (1982) speech act realization deviates on three levels:1. Social acceptibility of the utterance,2. Lingusitic acceptibility of the utterance,3. Pragmatic acceptibility of

Production

1. Choice of speech acts

2. Semantic formulas

3. Content

4. Forms

In this part

Environment: authentic academic advising session (a flexible, authentic conversation)

NNS: more rejections NS: more suggestions Both participating in determining what

courses to take. Same function but different speech acts.

Opting out: choice of not performing a speech act under investigation and it’s difficult to investigate in written questionnaires.

Choice of speech acts

Semantic formulas represent the means by which a particular speech act is accomplished in terms of the primary content fo an utterance. For example:

An apology may contain an illocutionary force indicating device: I’m sorry.

An explanation of the situation: The bus was late.

An acknowledgment of a responsibility: It’s my fault.

An offer of repair: I’ll pay for the broken vase.

Semantic formulas

Native speakers Non-native speakers

Explanations ExplanationsAlternatives Verbal avoidance

• Hedges• Postponement • Asking for repetition of info• Asking for additional info

Verbal avoidance Alternatives

Semantic formulas used when rejecting an advisor’s suggestion

Semantic formulas: name the type of information given

NSs and NNSs may use the same semantic formulas but the content can be different.

In an investigation of explanations: Americans: giving more details Japanese: being vague by the American

norm.

American: I have a business lunch that day.Japanese: I have something to do.

Contentspecific information given by a speaker

A longitudinal study found that in late stages NSs and NNS used the same speech acts but in a different form.

NNS used no mitigators, but a lot of aggravators, upgraders

NS used mitigators, but no aggravators, downgraders. I’m not sure that I’m really interested in this

topic I would rather not take this course because the

topic does not interest me at al.

Form

These studies analyse the differences which are not clearly obvious to an observer.

Learners judgments and comprehension are often different from those of NSs.

Judgment and perception

NNS differentiate more request strategies than NS.

NNS may have difficulty in identifying the intent of a speech act.

«how about lending me some money» rejected by adult Hebrew learners, accepted by Israelis. «lend me some money, please» is the same.

As lenght of residence increases, learners move toward target-like norms.

Examples from studies

Learners performed worse on formula-based implicatures.

Eg. Pope-questions (questions whose answer is obvious)

NNS: will the teacher actually give the exam tomorrow?NS: Does the sun come up in the east these days?

The answer to NS’s question is obviously YES. So is the answer to NNS’s question. Without this knowledge, NNS cannot understand the implicature.

Wolfson (1989a) argues that NNS often are unaware that status-equal Amaricans use compliments as conversation openers. In Wolfson’s corpus, NNS show that they undersand the illocutionary force, but not their conversational functions of opening a conversation.

NS: Your blouse is beautiful.NNS: Thank you.NS: Did you bring it from China?NNS: Yeah.

There are several proposed explanations for pragmatic differences between NNS and NS.

Availability of input Influence of instruction Proficiency Length of exposure Transfer

Factors in determining L2 pragmatic competence

Academic talk between teacher and student is unequal.

Speech of teacher as higher status does not serve a pragmatic model.

Result of research on textbooks Dialogues don’t always have closings appropriately Invitation forms are only quaterly similar to NS

corpus They lack so-called indirect complaints,

Information about the interlocutors Information about the context of the textbook

conversations.

Textbooks do not present a pragmatic input for classroom language learners.

Input

Instruction may play a role in sustaining some nontarget-like realization of speech acts.

Also, it may increase learners’ movement towards target-language norm.

Instructional emphasis on one semantic formula (I’m sorry)

may cause overuse. Where as learners take grammar-oriented exams,

rewards are also prıvided by successful cominication with NSs.

Micro-level grammar accuracy may cause macro-level pragmatic inappropriateness.

Instruction

Proficiency may have a little effect on the range of realizations strategies of NNS. Both intermediate and advanced NNS use the

same realization strategies with NS. It may influence transfer. Advance NNS were

found to be better than intermediate NNS at identifying contexts where L1 apology strategies could and could not be used.

Use of modality markers increase with proficiency.

Level of proficiency and lenght of stay

Length of stay is also a factor in pragmatic development.

As the length of stay increases, NNS perform more target-like speech acts.

ESL learners are more sensetive than EFL learners to pragmatic infelicities.

Grammatical competence may also limit the value of the input to the NNS. (eg. Tense, mood, aspect)Eg. …. İf tomorrow is good for you, I could come any

time…Could=past tense, but here future??????

Grammatical competence does not guarantee pragmatic competence.

L1 and culture are the most investigated influence on speech act realization.

Pragmatic transfer from L1 to L2 can have positive and negative outcomes.

Positive: successful exchanges Negative: nonnative use of semantic formulas,

linguistic forms, and speech acts.

First language, first culture

There are differences between L1 and L2 pragmatics.

NNS without any specific instruction in L2 pragmatics have clearly different pragmatic system than NS.

Different system in production and comprehension.

Areas of difficulty have been traditionally

interpreted as areas in need of instruction.

Evaluating the empirical evidence

Overcoming incomplete or misleading input in pedagogical materials.

Assisting learners with comprehension. Provide assistance for social interpretations of speech acts. The use or nonuse of certain speech acts as a result of

cultural preferences is difficult to tackle in class. Pragmalinguistic errors are easier to correct, but

sociopragmatic miscalculations are harder. NNS can be sensetive about having their social (political, religious, moral) judgement called into question.

Towards a target-like pragmatics

The role of instruction may be t0 help the learner encode her own values into a clear, unambigious message.

Learners could be aided by being pointed toword the (culturally) more successful semantic formula.

Pedagogy should aim to make contextualized, pragmatically appropriate input available to learners from early stages of acqusition.

Without input, acquisition cannot take place.

Thanks