Teaching learners to appropriately mitigate requests

Abstract

It is commonly recognized that, for lecturers of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) in a university setting, the goal of their teaching of is to develop learners' ability to communicate appropriately in this language. This means that teaching practices should pay attention not only to the key features of the linguistic system of English, but also to its pragmatic norms since lack of this knowledge may impede communication. Consequently, language learners need to be exposed to appropriate input in the classroom. In order to help lecturers in this task, it is the aim of this paper to present a learner-based instructional method designed to develop learners' pragmatic ability when using request mitigating devices in EFL. The rationale behind the selection of this pragmatic feature is discussed in the paper together with an explanation of the proposed teaching method.

Dealing with jokes in the ESL class: a pedagogical proposal centred on comprehension

“…Instructional proposals focusing on the L2 pragmatics abound, even if many of them centre exclusively on production of certain speech acts (e.g., HOLMES, BROWN, 1987;OLSHTAIN, COHEN, 1990, 1991TAKAHASHI, BEEBE, 1993;BARDOVI-HARLIG, 1996;NELSON, EL BAKARY, AL BATAL, 1996;MARTÍNEZ FLOR, FUKUYA, 2005; PADILLA CRUZ, 2015b), discourse types (e.g., PADILLA CRUZ, 2013; ECONOMIDOU-KOGETSIDIS, 2015) or (im)politeness (BOU FRANCH, GARCÉS CONEJOS, 2003;MUGFORD, 2008), to name but a few. Some of them agree that learning must be a guided or structured process and integrate acquisitional strategies aimed at understanding how the target feature is produced by native speakers and debriefing its peculiarities, use strategies facilitating opportunities for real and/or simulated practice (COHEN, 2005;USÓ JUAN, MARTÍNEZ FLOR, 2008) and feedback on performance from both instructors and peers (ESLAMI-RASEKH, 2005;KOIKE, PEARSON, 2005). Such a process may be organised into steps through which learners are introduced to the object of instruction, can observe it, reflect on it with a view to understanding it, and, finally, practise (KONDO, 2008;MARTÍNEZ FLOR, USÓ JUAN, 2006).…”

Acculturation and acquisition of pragmatic routines in the study abroad context

“…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, p. 301) The second definition is from Usó-Juan and Martínez-Flor (2008), who view pragmatic competence as "learners' ability to employ different linguistic formulae in an appropriate way when interacting in a particular social and cultural context" (p. 254). Their conceptualization of pragmatics is important for this investigation which is focused on how L2 students develop their knowledge of formulaic language that they need to interact with L2 users.…”

Exploring Pragmatic Competence in Formal Communicative Contexts: The case of thanking by native and non-native speakers of Greek

“…ommunicative competence (Hymes, 1972) is considered a fundamental purpose of language acquisition and teaching. When interacting, speakers need to employ a variety of linguistic means in a manner that is appropriate for each communicative situation (Usó-Juan & Martínez-Flor, 2008). In other words, they need to develop their pragmatic competence-an ability which is integral part of the communicative competence (Canale, 1983;Canale & Swain, 1980).…”