Variations in developmental patterns across pragmatic features

Drawing on the findings of longitudinal studies in uninstructed contexts over the last two decades, this synthesis explores variations in developmental patterns across second language (L2) pragmatic features. Two synthesis questions were addressed: (a) What are the variations in developmental patterns across pragmatic features?, and (b) What are the potential explanations for the variations? In response to the first question, previous studies showed that L2 pragmatic development is a non-linear, dynamic process, with developmental paces varying across pragmatic features (Ortactepe, 2013; Taguchi, 2010, 2011, 2012; Warga & Scholmberger, 2007). These studies revealed that some aspects of pragmatic features (e.g., semantic strategies of speech acts) develop faster than others (e.g., lexical features such as mitigators). In response to the second question, three potential explanations were identified to account for the developmental variations: (a) language-related, (b) situation-dependent, and (c) learner-related explanations, with three subcategories for the language-related explanation: (a) the functions of pragmatic features, (b) the frequency of availability of target features, and (c) the similarity and difference between languages with respect to the target feature

Examining the development of pragmatics of Chinese JFL students

The field of interlanguage pragmatics has burgeoned since late 20th century. Requests, as a part of speech act theory, have been investigated by many scholars. This cross-sectional study explores the acquisition of pragmatics of Chinese learners of Japanese in foreign language contexts (JFL) by examining their request usages, which incorporates pragmatic transfer as a tool to interpret data. Discourse completion task (DCT) questionnaires were distributed to first-year, second-year and fourth-year Japanese learners at a university in China, as well as to native speakers in the U.S. to elicit requests. Requests were analyzed according to the following six categories: perspectives, speech levels, strategies, syntactic downgraders, semantic downgraders, and supportive moves. Based on data analysis, the preliminary findings are: 1) Significant improvement from the first- year group to the second-year group can be observed. 2) In general, the fourth-year group performed similar to or less native-like than the second-year group. 3) Regardless of the advancement, a gap still exists between learners and native speakers regarding pragmatics proficiency. The study not only sheds light on the evolution of learners’ interlanguage from a perspective of pragmatics, but can also reveal part of the current teaching and learning situations of Japanese pragmatics at universities in China. By discussing learners' success and potential areas that need developing, the findings could provide some meaningful implications for Japanese pedagogy

Teaching spoken discourse markers explicitly: A comparison of III and PPP

This article reports on mixed methods classroom research carried out at a British university. The study investigates the effectiveness of two different explicit teaching frameworks, Illustration, Interaction, Induction (III) and Present, Practice, Produce (PPP) used to teach the same spoken discourse markers (DMs) to two different groups of Chinese learners and compared to a control group. Univariate analysis of the pre and post tests indicated statistically significant differences between the PPP group and III/control groups in terms of a higher mean usage of the target DMs in the immediate post test. Qualitative results demonstrated that the PPP group generally found this method to be more useful, which tallied with their better performances in the tests. Both groups also articulated a desire for a different kind of practice to be used in class, based on rehearsal for real world tasks. This suggests a need to reconceptualise practice within III, PPP or other teaching frameworks

カイワ ダイアログ アンショウ ニ ジュウジ サセル ガイコクゴ シドウホウ ガ スピｰキングジ ノ テイケイ ヒョウゲン ノ シヨウ ト アンキ ガクシュウ ニ オヨボス エイキョウ ニ カンスル キソ ケンキュウ

PDF/A formatsAccess: via World Wide Web東京外国語大学大学院総合国際学研究科博士 (学術) 論文 (2016年4月)Author's thesis (Ph.D)--Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, 2016博甲第214号Bibliography: p. 183-195Summary in English and Japanese東京外国語大学 (Tokyo University of Foreign Studies)博士 (学術

Issues in Acquisitional Pragmatics

This paper aims at a comprehensive review of the growing body of research in L2 pragmatic acquisition, including both theoretical discussions and empirical studies to date. To this end, the paper deals with a number of issues which are grouped into four broad categories: the essential constituents of pragmatic competence, models of pragmatic development, major processes of pragmatic competence, and various factors affecting pragmatic development. Throughout the paper, it is shown that cultural knowledge is of central importance in pragmatic competence and that such knowledge can be acquired through language-mediated social interactions. Furthermore, a learner’s unconditional adoption of a new set of cultural beliefs and values is unrealistic due to the unresolved conflict between L2 norms of speaking and the learner’s needs and beliefs about the ways of being in the world. Given these perspectives, this paper points to the need for a holistic approach to L2 pragmatic development, taking into account both the intra-learner, psychological and the inter-learner, sociocultural aspects of learning. The paper concludes with the suggestion that L2 pragmatic competence be discussed in terms of intercultural competence involving the learner’s continuous identity and attitude formation, rather than the acquisition of prescribed behavioral rules of speaking

Oral Proficiency and Language Learning Strategies: A Preliminary Effort to Find Learner Internal Factors that Enhance Oral Proficiency of Second Language Learners

The purpose of this study was to test empirical sustainability of three major positions about the nature of internal linguistic input processing that is associated with the enhancement of second language learnings’ oral proficiency. These three positions are what may be called an implicit-only position, an explicit-only position, and a weak interface position, respectively. An implicit-only position asserts that input processing for oral proficiency is exclusively implicit. An explicit-only position asserts that it is exclusively explicit. A weak interface position asserts that the processing is mainly implicit even though explicit processing plays a limited but important role in oral proficiency enhancement. These three positions make distinct predictions about the relationship between oral proficiency and the use of two kinds of language learning strategies (i.e., cognitive strategies and functional-use strategies). An implicit-only position predicts that oral proficiency has zero correlation to cognitive strategies while it has a positive correlation to functional-use strategies. An explicit-only position predicts that oral proficiency has a positive correlation to both cognitive and functional-use strategies. A weak interface position predicts that oral proficiency has a slightly positive correlation to cognitive strategies while it has a positive correlation to functional-use strategies. By using these predictions as research hypotheses, this study tested the empirical sustainability of the three positions. The nature of internal linguistic input processing that is associated with the enhancement of oral proficiency could be best inferred based on a position that would be empirically verified by this hypothesis testing. This knowledge is mandatory to identify the internal learning process by which second language learning come to acquire oral proficiency. To test the hypotheses, 175 non-native English speaker subjects were selected by stratified random sampling from UTK (The University of Tennessee at Knoxville) international graduate students who lived in four UTK apartment complexes, and whose first language was Chinese, Korean, or Japanese. To measure the subjects’ use of the above two kinds of strategies, 31 items were selected from the Strategy Inventory for Language Learning, Version for English Speakers Learning a New Language (Oxford, 1990). To measure the subjects’ English oral proficiency, a 20-item oral proficiency scale was created for this study. These two tools comprised a questionnaire together with several demographic items. Data were collected by mail survey. As many as 124 subjects returned the questionnaire. Four subjects turned out not to belong to the population. The return rate was thus 72.5%. By factoring the respondents’ answers on the 31 strategy items using the principal axes method with the Varimax rotation, cognitive strategies and functional-use strategies were empirically defined. Cognitive strategies were defined as a combination of two strategy categories that emerged from the factor analysis (i.e., structural interest and transfer caution). Functional-use strategies were defined as a combination of three strategy categories that also emerged from the same analysis (i.e., idiom use, naturalistic exposure, and English for fun). The validity and the reliability of the oral proficiency scale were checked. Then, multiple R’s were computed between oral proficiency and each of these five categories. All the three functional-use strategy categories showed a medium correlation to oral proficiency (R’s between .564 and .622). The two cognitive strategy categories showed a small correlation to oral proficiency (R’s of .300 and .356). This result matched the prediction made by a weak interface position. It was concluded that the nature of internal linguistic input processing that was associated with the enhancement of the respondents’ oral proficiency was mainly implicit. At the same time, explicit learning of discrete grammatical items was concluded to play a limited but important role in the enhancement of the respondents’ English oral proficiency

Grammatical meaning and the second language classroom : introduction

This special issue assembles empirical work on second language teaching and learning from a generative linguistic perspective. The focus is on properties that constitute grammar–meaning interaction, that differ in the native and target language grammars, and that have not been highlighted in the pedagogical literature so far. Common topics address whether and how learners acquire grammatical meanings in the second language, including difficult misalignments between native and target-language constructions and functional morphemes. We propose that teaching and learning a second language can be enhanced by focusing on the relationship between grammatical forms and their meanings, as elucidated by contemporary linguistic theory