L2 pragmatics M1 MEEF classroom research

6/11/15

Classroom observation and research VMAN14

bit.ly/1k24xjo

L2 pragmatics

Other classes …

✤ audio diaries VMAN121

✤ YouTube You Teach

VMAN14 Classroom research

✤ school placement: observing classroom practice

✤ learning about classroom research

Elaine Tarone: exploring learner language

Lynda Yates: softening short requests

L2 pragmatics

1. What is pragmatics and why should language teachers be interested?

2. How can we study pragmatics? Aisha Siddiqa

3. How can you contribute to this area during your school placement?

Kasper & Rose

✤ Introduction to second language pragmatic development

✤ 2002

What is pragmatics?

✤ “the societally necessary and consciously interactive dimension of the study of language” (Mey, 1993).

✤ “the study of language from the point of view of users, especially of the choices they make, the constraints they encounter in using language in social interaction and the effects their use of language has on other participants in the act of communication” (Crystal, 1997)

✤ “meaning in interaction” (Thomas, 1995)

“Pragmatic meanings arise from choices between linguistic forms, such as using one discourse marker or particle over

another, or opting for one linguistic format of a communicative act instead of a contextually possible alterna-

tive to convey illocutionary force or politeness.”

–Kasper & Rose, 2002

“Speakers’ and writers’ choices,however, are not unconstrained but are governed by social conventions,which can be flexed to

different, contextually varying degrees but only entirely set aside at the peril of losing claims to face, insider status, or

sanity.”

interlanguage studies

✤ interlanguage grammar

✤ interlanguage phonology

✤ interlanguage lexicon

✤ interlanguage pragmatics

Cross-cultural (mis)communication

✤ Do you have a bag? Beebe & Takahashi (1989)

✤ Japanese waiter in New York sushi bar asked female American customer if she had a bag

✤ Information question vs warning

the pragmatic ability of non-native speakers

✤ comprehension of L2 pragmatic meanings

✤ production of L2 pragmatic meanings

✤ interactions in different settings

✤ pragmatic aspects of L2 writing

use or development?✤ researchers working in

interlanguage pragmatics have not emphasised the acquisitional dimension of pragmatics (how learners learn to use language appropriately)

✤ researchers have treated pragmatics as if it has no developmental dimension

✤ pragmatics has been studied as an issue of language use, not development

not only [is] interlanguage pragmatics not

fundamentally acquisitional, but it [is] in fact

fundamentally not acquisitional

Bardovi-Harlig, 1999

Research questions

1.Are there universals of language underlying cross-linguistic variation? If so, do they play a role in interlanguage pragmatics?

2.How can approximation to target language norms be measured?

3.Does the L1 influence the learning of a second language?

4.Is pragmatic development in a second language similar to first language learning?

5. Does type of input make a difference?

6. Does instruction make a difference?

7. Do motivation and attitudes make a difference?

8. Does personality play a role?

9. Does formulaic speech play a role?

10. What mechanisms drive development from stage to stage?

L2 pragmatics

1. What is pragmatics and why should language teachers be interested?

2. How can we study pragmatics? Aisha Siddiqa

3. How can you contribute to this area during your school placement?

Aisha SiddiqaThe use and acquisition of politeness strategies among EFL learners in France: An exploratory study of interlanguage pragmatic development

L2 pragmatics

1. What is pragmatics and why should language teachers be interested?

2. How can we study pragmatics? Aisha Siddiqa

3. How can you contribute to this area during your school placement?

School placements

✤ First placement (November): observation => what kinds of requests can you spot?

✤ Second placement (Spring): intervention => what kind of teaching/learning activity can you design?

Observation of secondary school requests

✤ analysis of written teaching material (textbook, or teacher handouts) - look at any examples of requests, or teaching of requests, or opportunities for requests to be made

✤ observation/recording/filming of classroom interaction, looking for requests in EN or FR

✤ COPT in French

✤ interview students/teachers about views of objectives of English teaching/learning

For next week

✤ look for examples of requests in English or French

✤ oral, written

✤ live, scripted, overheard

✤ REMEMBER

✤ not all requests are questions

✤ not all questions are requests (What is the capital of Peru? - is not a request)