Pragmatic Transfer: Reflecting on the Use of EMI Lecturers’ Pragmatic Markers

Abstract

Acknowledging the critical nature of EMI lecturers as bi- or multilinguals, this Chapter continues the investigation into cross-linguistic influence now turning attention to its pragmatic features. It focuses on the Chinese lecturers’ metalinguistic skills, particularly the L1 (Chinese) to L2 (English) transfer in their use of pragmatic markers (PMs). The investigation is informed by current studies arguing that highly proficient L2 language users do not necessarily make the most effective teachers, and the capacity to employ pragmatic strategies is essential to engage students’ learning; and that from amongst all the competencies in which lecturers should be proficient, one of the most essential is pragmatic competence. This Chapter provides an analysis of the participating EMI lecturers’ verbal characteristics of the PMs they implemented in their teaching. Whilst acknowledging individual differences, the trend of PM use and the degree of pragmatic transfer revealed in this group’s EMI teaching can be explained in terms of their pedagogical ideologies and subsequent practice, culturally influenced teacher-student relationships, the EMI discipline and its relevant subject matter and the lecturers’ language cognition as L2 users.