Pragmatic development in Chinese speakers’ L2 English refusals

2012 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
pp. 63-87 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wei Ren

This study investigates the effect of learning environment (study abroad vs. at home) on the pragmatic development of Chinese speakers’ L2 English refusals. A total of 20 Chinese Study Abroad (SA) students participated in the study and their L2 refusals were examined over the course of one academic year. These refusals were compared with those of 20 Chinese At Home (AH) students. Data were collected three times by an 8-situation Multimedia Elicitation Task. The results revealed that the SA students’ overall frequency of opt-outs remained consistent throughout a year’s stay in the L2 community but the study abroad experience influenced their choices sociopragmatically. Regarding repertoire of refusal strategies and that of refusal adjuncts, both groups demonstrated significant development, thus indicating no significant benefit of study abroad in these respects. The findings reveal the complexity of L2 pragmatic development and the importance of longitudinal investigations in such research.

Pragmatics ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 715-741 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wei Ren

Few studies have investigated the internal modification of refusals. This study investigates the effect of participating in a study abroad programme on the pragmatic development of Chinese students’ employment of internal modifiers in their L2 English refusals. 20 Chinese students studying abroad and 20 Chinese students remaining at home participated in the study, and their L2 refusals were examined over the course of one academic year. Data were collected three times by an 8-situation Multimedia Elicitation Task. The results reveal that the two groups showed similar development with regard to the range of internal modification types in their refusals. Furthermore, with respect to the frequency of internal modifications, the results suggest that the differences between the two groups were not significant. However, analyses of the participants’ use of individual internal modifications revealed different developmental patterns in the utilisation of ‘address term’ and ‘downtoner’. These patterns indicate a unique effect of studying abroad on learners’ pragmatic development, at least with respect to the aforementioned pragmatic aspects.


2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-54
Author(s):  
Hikmah ◽  
Ance Jusmaya

Being a housewife is a multi-tasking  tasks and it is not an easy thing. In this case, a housewife has many roles such as should be a mother , a counselor for her daughter  as well as taking care of everything. Besides, the mother is also a teacher. As we know that,  the  first  teacher of a child is a mother. Then,  the mother is also a financial manager and general administration  at home. Many problems have been encountered, so a housewife  tasks are  very hard, in this case they have to  harmonize and regulate the amount of income and increase in some basic needs and daily needs. Except the problems that regarding  with financial management, the problem  face also relates with the lack of knowledge of housewives in English.  As a housewife needs an ability of English skill  to help their children  in studying later on.  Those phenomenon  happens in  families who live in Griya Batu Aji stage 1.The solution offered housewife  that a family financial management is very important for financial survival of a family. As a financial manager at home, a housewife must be able to manage expenditure and income posts. Besides, for teaching English,  parents should implement a fun learning environment and learning strategies that can motivate children to learn English. A learning environment that suits the real-world context is needed so that parents can apply it to everyday learning activities with children.


System ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 98 ◽  
pp. 102475
Author(s):  
Li Yang ◽  
Chuanren Ke

2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 79-113
Author(s):  
Farrah Neumann ◽  
Matthew Kanwit

AbstractSince many linguistic structures are variable (i. e. conveyed by multiple forms), building a second-language grammar critically involves developing sociolinguistic competence (Canale and Swain. 1980. Theoretical bases of communicative approaches to second language teaching and testing. Applied Linguistics 1(1). 1–47), including knowledge of contexts in which to use one form over another (Bayley and Langman. 2004. Variation in the group and the individual: Evidence from second language acquisition. International Review of Applied Linguistics in Language Teaching 42(4). 303–318). Consequently, researchers interested in such competence have increasingly analyzed the study-abroad context to gauge learners’ ability to approximate local norms following a stay abroad, due to the quality and quantity of input to which learners may gain access (Lafford. 2006. The effects of study abroad vs. classroom contexts on Spanish SLA: Old assumptions, new insights and future research directions. In Carol Klee & Timothy Face (eds.), Selected proceedings of the 7th conference on the acquisition of Spanish and Portuguese as first and second languages, 1–25. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project). Nevertheless, the present study is the first to examine native or learner variation between imperative (e. g. ven ‘come’) and optative Spanish commands (e. g. que vengas ‘come’). We first performed a corpus analysis to determine the linguistic factors to manipulate in a contextualized task, which elicited commands from learners before and after four weeks abroad in Alcalá de Henares, Spain. Their overall rates of selection and predictive factors were compared to local native speakers (NSs) and a control group of at-home learners.Results revealed that the abroad learners more closely approached NS rates of selection following the stay abroad. Nonetheless, for both learner groups conditioning by independent variables only partially approximated the NS system, which was more complex than previously suggested.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Joris Boonen ◽  
Ankie Hoefnagels ◽  
Mark Pluymaekers ◽  
Armand Odekerken

PurposeThe authors examine the role of internationalisation at-home activities and an international classroom at a home institution to promote intercultural competence development during a study abroad.Design/methodology/approachThe authors use large scale longitudinal data from the global mind monitor (GMM) (2018–2020) to examine change over time in both multicultural personality (MPQ) and cultural knowledge (CQ) among students in Dutch higher education institutions. The authors analyse the moderating effect of the preparation in the home institution by looking at the added value of both intercultural communication courses and international classroom setting for intercultural competence development during a study abroad.FindingsThe results show that particularly courses on intercultural communication significantly promote intercultural competence development during a stay abroad. Frequent interactions with international staff also seem to be beneficial for this development.Research limitations/implicationsThis study was conducted in the Netherlands, in one of the most internationalised educational systems in the world. Therefore, it is difficult to generalise these findings to other contexts before any further empirical research is conducted.Practical implicationsBased on the findings, the authors formulate practical advice for higher education institutions that aim to get the most out of the international learning outcomes of a study abroad.Originality/valueThis paper is the first to assess the moderating effect of preparatory internationalisation at home initiatives on the intercultural learning effects of international experiences later on in a study program. Other studies have proposed that these effects will exist but have not tested them empirically with longitudinal data.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Boz Bowles ◽  
Paige Davis ◽  
Warren Waggenspack ◽  
Barbara Heifferon

2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 3807-3812
Author(s):  
Aziez Chettoum ◽  
Kamilia Guedri ◽  
Zouhir Djerrou ◽  
Rachid Mosbah ◽  
Latifa Khattabi ◽  
...  

Psychoneuroimmunology or the study of the relationships between the brain and the immune system is an area of research that has experienced significant development over the decade. Stress does not appear without consequences on the state of health, the role of fears, emotions and significant constraints in the appearance of organic and mental diseases. In this research, we studied the effect of stress and anxiety during exams at the end of the academic year (2018/2019) on the distribution of leukocyte subpopulations and the immune system, questionnaires has been completed by student volunteers, to estimate the anxio-depressive comorbidities through the (HADS) test during and outside exams, and in the same time we asked them for a blood sample the next morning day to carry out some biological assays (CBC). We also found that stress during exams caused a change in the distribution of different types of white blood cells, a total decrease in white blood cell counts with neutropenia and lymphopenia were found in students during exams compared to controls, and an increase in monocyte and other types of polymorphonuclear levels in students during exams compared to controls. Other tests measuring the effects of stress on specific functions of the immune system can be used.


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