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Pragmatic Competence (pragmatic + competence)

Distribution by Scientific Domains

Humanities and Social Sciences	100%

Selected Abstracts

The Role of an Interactive Book Reading Program in the Development of Second Language Pragmatic Competence

MODERN LANGUAGE JOURNAL, Issue 3 2002
Daejin Kim
The development of pragmatic competence in another language is significant to second (L2) and foreign language (FL) learners' ability to communicate successfully in the target language. Although a great deal of research has focused on defining and comparing the content of pragmatic competence across culture groups, far less attention has been given to examining its development. Our study is a partial response to this gap. The purpose of the study was to investigate the connection between Korean children's participation in an interactive book reading program and their development of pragmatic competence in English. We found that their participation led to significant changes over a 4,month period in the mean number of words, utterances, and talk management features as measured by the changes in children's use of these during role play sessions. The findings suggest that participation in such reading programs provides opportunities for the development of at least some aspects of L2 pragmatic competence. [source]

Self-qualification in L2 Japanese: An Interface of Pragmatic, Grammatical, and Discourse Competences

LANGUAGE LEARNING, Issue 3 2007
Naomi Geyer
In Japanese, self-qualification, or a qualifying segment of talk that reduces the force of the speaker's own utterances, is frequently introduced with contrastive markers, such as demo, kedo, and ga. This study explores the relationship between the grammatical and pragmatic competence of Japanese L2 learners by examining their use of such self-qualification in a corpus of oral proficiency interviews. It demonstrates that successful self-qualification is achieved not only by the placement of appropriate connective expressions but also through effective use of foregrounding and/or backgrounding discourse mechanisms. The results indicate a close relationship between pragmatic, grammatical, and discourse competence in learner language. [source]

Instructional Pragmatics: Bridging Teaching, Research, and Teacher Education

LINGUISTICS & LANGUAGE COMPASS (ELECTRONIC), Issue 10 2010
Noriko Ishihara
Pragmatics deals with meaning in context that is the meaning conveyed often indirectly beyond what is literally communicated. Ever since Hymes (1972, Sociolinguistics: Selected readings, Penguin, Harmondsworth, England, 269,93) highlighted the importance of socially appropriate language use, ability to use language in context has been identified as an essential component of communicative competence (e.g., Canale and Swain, 1980, Applied Linguistics, 1: 1,47; Canale, 1983, Language and communication, Longman, Harlow; Bachman, 1990, Fundamental considerations in language testing, Oxford University Press, Oxford; Bachman & Palmer, 1996, Language testing in practice: Designing and developing useful language tests, Oxford University Press, Oxford; Celce-Murcia, 2008, Intercultural language use and language learning, Springer, The Netherlands, 41,58; Celce-Murcia et al. 1995, Issues in Applied Linguistics, 6: 5,35), and there has been rigorous research investigating the pragmatic competence of second/foreign language (L2) learners. This paper aims to provide an overview of research conducted in the area of interlanguage pragmatics with a focus on its pedagogical component, instructional pragmatics. The primary emphasis of this paper will be placed on the introduction of current resources in instructional pragmatics and recent efforts that empirically inform pragmatic-focused instruction and classroom-based assessment. The paper concludes with the discussion of the issues associated with future pragmatics-focused instruction and curriculum development, along with a suggested direction for future research and teacher education in support of instructional pragmatics. [source]

Patterns of Development in Spanish L2 Pragmatic Acquisition: An Analysis of Novice Learners' Production of Directives

MODERN LANGUAGE JOURNAL, Issue 4 2006
LYNN PEARSON
This article investigates from an acquisitional approach the development of pragmatic competence by novice learners of second language (L2) Spanish. Specifically, it examines the acquisition of various strategies (e.g., head acts, use of softeners, formality marking, and hearer-oriented directives) to realize Spanish directives. A quantitative and qualitative analysis of the data detected patterns in the learners' directive production. The analysis considered factors such as instruction, L2 grammatical competence, and the influence of the first language (L1) to illustrate the patterns of development of L2 pragmatics at lower proficiency levels. The results show (a) verb forms with increased morphological complexity replaced lower level directive strategies, possibly as a result of the expansion of L2 grammatical competence; (b) pragmatic competence seems to precede grammatical competence; and (c) the L1 pragmatic system appears to play a role in interpreting and processing new L2 data for use in production. [source]