Some comments on the existing typologies of communication strategies: Its effect on the interpretation of empirical findings

Segones Jornades de Foment de la Investigació de la FCHS (Any 1996-1997

Predicting language learners' grades in the L1, L2, L3 and L4: the effect of some psychological and sociocognitive variables

This study of 89 Flemish high-school students' grades for L1 (Dutch), L2 (French), L3 (English) and L4 (German) investigates the effects of three higher-level personality dimensions (psychoticism, extraversion, neuroticism), one lower-level personality dimension (foreign language anxiety) and sociobiographical variables (gender, social class) on the participants' language grades. Analyses of variance revealed no significant effects of the higher-level personality dimensions on grades. Participants with high levels of foreign language anxiety obtained significantly lower grades in the L2 and L3. Gender and social class had no effect. Strong positive correlations between grades in the different languages could point to an underlying sociocognitive dimension. The implications of these findings are discussed

An analysis on EAP learners' pragmatic production: a focus on request forms

The present study focuses on the effect of instruction in the use of request linguistic realisations by 160 female learners of English as a foreign language. All participants were engaged in an English for Academic Purposes course. Data were collected by means of a pre-test and post-test distributed before and after a training period that lasted one semester. Learners' performance denoted the positive effects of explicit instruction in the use of request strategies, thus coinciding with findings from previous studies (Tateyama et al., 1997). Results from the present study also lead to further research in settings where English is learnt as a foreign language and where learners lack the chances to be exposed to authentic pragmatic inputEl presente estudio considera el efecto de la instrucción en el uso de estrategias lingüísticas de petición por parte de 160 aprendices de inglés como lengua extranjera. Todos los participantes asistían a un curso de inglés para fines académicos. Los datos del estudio fueron recogidos mediante un pre-test y un post-test distribuidos antes y después de un periodo de instrucción que duró un semestre. El análisis de los datos obtenidos reveló los efectos positivos de la instrucción explícita en la producción de estrategias de petición, coincidiendo con resultados de estudios previos sobre la materia (Tateyama et al., 1997). Los resultados de este estudio también conllevan ideas para futuras investigaciones en contextos en los que el inglés se aprende como lengua extranjera y donde los aprendices tienen mínimas oportunidades de estar expuestos a input pragmático auténtic

Commentary on Copp Mökkönen dissertation summary

The summary of Alicia Copp Mökkonen’s dissertation presents a timely phenomenon that has received increasing interest in the last twenty years (Schieffelin and Ochs, 1996; Duff, 2012), namely that of language socialization in the classroom. The ethnographic perspective adopted by Copp Mökkonen shows the rise of qualitative methods in applied linguistics (Dörnyei, 2007; Duff, 2008; Paltridge and Phakiti, 2010; Talmy and Richards, 2011) and, consequently, in the analysis of classroom discourse (Rampton et al. 2002)

Refusal strategies : a proposal from a sociopragmatic approach

The aim of this paper is to present an open typology of refusal strategies which may be employed in the analysis of refusal performance from a discourse approach. We will first review previous research carried out on refusals in order to classify non-native speakers’ production of this speech act. Secondly, we will describe the suggested taxonomy in a systematised way from a sociopragmatic perspective and within a conversational analysis framework. Finally, we conclude that social variables such as power, social distance and ranking of imposition play an important role in the production of this face-threatening speech act of refusingEl objetivo de este artículo es presentar una taxonomía abierta de estrategias de rechazo, la cual puede ser usada para el análisis de la producción de negativas desde una perspectiva discursiva. En primer lugar revisaremos los primeros estudios llevados a cabo sobre las negativas para clasificar la producción de este acto de habla por hablantes no nativos. En segundo lugar describiremos la taxonomía que proponemos de una forma sistematizada teniendo en cuenta tanto el enfoque sociopragmático como el del análisis conversacional. Para finalizar, sugerimos que diversas variables sociales tales como poder, distancia social o grado de imposición juegan un papel fundamental en la producción de este acto de habl

Presentació del monogràfic «Retrat de l?educació multilingüe»

Presentació del monogràfic «Retrat de l?educació multilingüe», número 68 (Primavera, 2020) de Caplletra. Revista Internacional de Filologia, coordinat per Laura Portolés i Pilar Safont

Examining authentic and elicited data from a multilingual perspective. The real picture of child requestive behaviour in the L3 classroom

While child req uestive behavior has recei ved some attention in SLA research, very few studies have considered req uests production and comprehension in young learners from a multilingual perspective (Safont & Portol es, 201 5, 201 6; Portol es, 201 5; Safont, 20 1 7). However , data in previous studies were obtained either from comp letion tests or from natural classroom discourse. To the best of our knowledge, no studies have explored young learners’ requests in three languages by combining both authentic and elicited data. For that reason, the aim of the present study is to provide a comprehensive picture of child requestive beha vior in the multilingual classroom setting. W e examine 1 27 young learners' requests comprehension and production in three languages by combining elicited and authentic data. Additionally, we investigate the effect of the language program adopted by the schools. Our results show that the combination of methods offers new evidence on the dynamism and complexity of L3 pragmatics. Findin gs further confirm the idea that we may best describe multil ingual speakers' requestive behaviour by including all learne rs' lan- guages and by resorting to authentic and elicited data. As a conclusion, we suggest that a monolingual approach in the stud y of pragmatics may provide us wi th a partial portrait of L3 learners’ pragmatic development