Pragmatic competence is an indispensable dimension of overall language ability, and proper interpretation of implied meanings is a major constituent of pragmatic competence. In this regard, this study aimed to investigate the efficiency of a film-based instruction program devised to facilitate the interpretation of implied meanings in English. It was conducted with a quasiexperimental design. First, a multiple-choice discourse completion test was given to 144 English language teacher trainees with 77 people in the experimental group and 67 in the control group. After the 5-week instruction given to the experimental group, the test was administered to both groups again. The results revealed significant differences in favor of the experimental group. This makes the program a promising one as it made the participants, who were also prospective English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers responsible for helping their own students have pragmatic competence too, significantly more equipped about processing implied meanings as a major constituent of pragmatic competence.
In terms of their directness and modification strategies, this study investigated how undergraduate speakers of Turkish formulate their naturally occurring requests in an academic context, in which they request things from an academic in his office. After a 4-year data collection period, the researcher analyzed 395 of the requests (hand-recorded as immediate field notes) made to him. The findings on levels of directness revealed that the strongest tendency is towards conventionally indirect strategies, while the female tendency towards them is even clearer. The dominance of conventional indirectness is in parallel also with the degree of imposition of the requests. 'Zero marking' is what dominates the findings on internal modification strategies, while some preferences, such as unfinished sentences, could suggest language or context-specific results. In light of these descriptive findings on a part of everyday language in academia, the study could in practical terms help learners and teachers of Turkish and Turkish learners/teachers of English or any other language as well. Moreover, it could contribute to the efforts towards handling the methodological concerns in pragmatics research about the extent to which elicited data can represent what people actually say in natural conversation.
Based on a critical review of selected relevant studies and with a historical perspective, this review article as a piece of secondary research (Nunan, 1992, 8) aims to point out where the world of language teaching is in terms of the competences that learners are expected to gain. It was determined that intercultural communicative competence, i.e. the knowledge, motivation and skills to interact effectively and appropriately with members of different cultures (Wiseman, 2002, 208), is currently the highly favored one after the sequential dominance of grammatical (linguistic) competence and communicative competence. The major inference drawn from the review was that although a number of particular studies draw heavily on intercultural communicative competence, they are paradoxical or not clear about where and how they differ from the tenets of its criticized predecessor, i.e. communicative language teaching, and whose culture is to be taught along with the language. Taking sides for a pedagogical philosophy predicated on intercultural communicative competence, the author concludes that it is yet a set of beliefs and procedures in need of multidisciplinary research-driven clarification and maturation and in this respect, he refers to and discusses some fundamental principles and standpoints upon which a new model based on intercultural communicative competence can be built. Özet:İlgili çalışmaların eleştirel ve tarihsel bir bakış açısıyla taranmasına dayalı olarak, bu çalışma İngilizce öğretiminin öğrencilerden beklenen yeterlilikler açısından nasıl bir noktada olduğunu ortaya koymayı amaçlamıştır. Dilbilgisi (gramer) yeterliliği ve iletişimsel yeterliliğin birbirini takip eden hakimiyetlerinin ardından, kültürlerarası iletişim yeterliliğinin (farklı kültürlerin mensuplarıyla etkin ve uygun bir biçimde etkileşime girmek için gereken bilgi, motivasyon ve beceriler [Wiseman, 2002, 208]) mevcut durumda ön planda tutulan yeterlilik türü olduğu görülmüştür. Ulaşılan başlıca sonuca göre, birçok çalışma kültürlerarası iletişim yeterliliğini temel almaktadır; fakat bu çalışmalar iletişimsel yeterlilik nosyonunun temel ilkelerinden nerede ve nasıl ayrıldıkları ve dille beraber hangi kültürün öğretileceği konularında ya çelişkilidir ya da net değildir. Yazar, kültürlerarası iletişim yeterliliğinin kazandırılmasına dayalı bir pedagojik felsefenin tarafı olarak, bu tür bir modelin henüz araştırmaya dayalı bir olgunlaştırma sürecine ihtiyaç duyduğu sonucuna varmıştır. Bu bağlamda, kültürlerarası iletişim yeterliliğinin üzerine inşa edilebileceği yeni bir model üzerine bir takım temel ilkeler ve bakış açıları ilgili atıflar desteğinde tartışılmıştır.Anahtar Sözcükler: Yeterlilik, kültürlerarası iletişim yeterliliği, yabancı dil öğretimi, kültür öğretimi, kültürlerarası iletişim Lecturer, English Language
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