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- Volume 4, Issue 1, 2022
Applied Pragmatics - Volume 4, Issue 1, 2022
Volume 4, Issue 1, 2022
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The roles of language proficiency and study abroad in Japanese students’ receptive pragmatic competence
Author(s): Natsuko Shintani and Rod Ellispp.: 1–32 (32)More LessAbstractThis study investigated the pragmatic competence of 50 Japanese English major students, divided into two groups, one of which participated in a study abroad (SA) program and the other stayed at home (AH) taking regular university classes. Two tests were used to measure two aspects of the students’ pragmatic competence. The Irony Test measured their ability to identify negative and positive irony. The Metapragmatic Test measured their ability to identify inappropriate speech acts and their understanding of why they were inappropriate. Results showed that, compared with a group of native speakers, the students had difficulty in identifying both irony – especially positive irony – and speech act inappropriateness. The students’ language proficiency was related to their metapragmatic ability but not to their ability to detect irony. A comparison of the SA and AH students revealed a small advantage for the former in the Metapragmatic Test but not in the Irony Test.
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Epistemic stance in L2 English discourse
Author(s): Mika Kizu, Eiko Gyogi and Patrick Doughertypp.: 33–62 (30)More LessAbstractThis study investigates the development of pragmatic strategies in study abroad among a group of upper-intermediate to advanced second language (L2) learners studying in English as a lingua franca (ELF) context. For this purpose, their use of epistemic stance markers (EMs) was observed before, during, immediately after, and six months after their study abroad over a period of two years. An analysis of our qualitative results found significant inter-speaker variations in the use of EMs. This close analysis demonstrates that learners with lower-level speaking skills relied more on lexical verbs and adverbs when expressing their epistemic stance than those with higher-level speaking skills. This finding is in accordance with previous studies. Furthermore, our qualitative analysis of two learners demonstrates their pragmatic development through a more nuanced hedged assertion, as well as the non-linear and complex nature of their development. In addition, the pedagogical implications of this study are discussed from the ELF perspective.
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The multilingual turn in pragmatics
Author(s): Sofía Martín-Lagunapp.: 63–91 (29)More LessAbstractIn the Valencian Community in Spain, the coexistence of Spanish and Catalan as co-official languages and English as a foreign language, which is learned as a third language (L3), shapes a unique multilingual setting. This study examined the extent to which multilingual learners’ use of two interpersonal pragmatic markers (PMs), i.e., hedges (e.g., I believe) and attitude markers (e.g., fortunately), is related across languages and whether the relationship changes over time. Participants were 313 Spanish-Catalan bilingual high school learners of L3 English. They wrote three opinion essays over one academic year in the three languages of instruction: Spanish, Catalan, and English. Quantitative results revealed a trend towards stronger correlations over time in both PMs. At Time 3, correlations were statistically significant for all language pairs in hedges and for two language pairs in attitude markers (Spanish and Catalan, Spanish and English). Qualitative analyses of the learners’ essays lend support to these results and show transfer at the phrase and discourse-level.
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Pragmatic manipulation of metapragmatic expressions in BELF meetings
Author(s): Ping Liu and Huiying Liupp.: 92–118 (27)More LessAbstractThis article explores the function of metapragmatic expressions (MPEs) as pragmatic manipulation during Business English as a lingua franca (BELF) meetings within the framework of the socio-cognitive approach (SCA), with special attention to how MPEs in the chair’s utterances reveal their way of using institutional power to accomplish communicative tasks. Drawing on data from three BELF meetings from the Vienna-Oxford International Corpus of English, four types of MPEs are identified in the chair’s utterances. Their pragmatic manipulation is examined in three dimensions: information-oriented, procedure-oriented, and interpersonal relationship-oriented. Data analysis reveals that MPEs are intended to activate shared senses (e.g., shared experiences, mutual knowledge, and common interests) and current senses (e.g., personal judgments, evaluations, and opinions). The activation of these senses supports the creation of emergent common ground to control and shape ongoing interactions, which leads towards task accomplishment. The findings shed light on English language teaching and professional training.
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