scholarly journals Trilinguals' Identity Synergism Through Pragmatic Skills

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 165-180
Author(s):  
Esmaeel Ali Salimi ◽  
Hadi Abedi

Recent studies on bilingualism and pragmatics paid little attention to trilingual speakers. This investigation examined the trilinguals' identity synergism by drawing on their linguistic repertoire and discursive identity through pragmatic skills. For this purpose, twenty advanced EFL learners with Persian and Turkish as their mother tongues were homogenized through IELTS and played roles in Persian, Turkish, and English languages. For modeling, three monolingual native speakers of the English language responded to the English version of written discourse completion tests taken from the same role-plays. The data underwent content analysis to extract and codify the themes. The results revealed a synergy among the trilinguals' discursive systems when performing apology, complaint, refusal, and request speech acts. Multidirectional transfers among the trilinguals' Turkish, Persian, and English languages developed a form of English communication that was different from that of the native speakers' model. Gestures and mimes were the non-verbal strategies employed more in the trilinguals' Turkish and English languages than their Persian. This study helps researchers and teachers gain insight into identity, pragmatics, and multilingualism.

2018 ◽  
Vol 150 ◽  
pp. 05081
Author(s):  
K. Othman ◽  
A. I. Ismail

The international nature of the English language has affected many communities across the globe and this has led to the emergence of varieties of English, specifically to meet the needs of non-native speakers of English. For Muslim speakers, Islamic English has been proposed which aims to maintain Arabic terms in the English language when there is an absence of equivalent English words. An attempt to translate would lead to distortion in meanings. This paper aims to highlight the presence of Islamic English employed by a prominent international Islamic speaker. Content analysis method is employed. The findings indicate the functions of Islamic English in the speaker’s talks are to provide the accurate meaning of the terms, correct misconceptions and lack of equivalent word in the English language, hence the need for Islamic English for Muslim speakers of English.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ayman Elesery

<p>The study reports on a group of EFL learners studying listening and speaking intensive course at Qassim University, KSA. The study reports on engaging the sample of the study in awareness-raising and practicing suprasegmentals of the English language. For achieving the objectives of the study and raising the participants’ self-perceptions and efficacy in listening comprehension, and speech intelligibility a shadowing technique was implemented. The shadowing cycle is a comprehensive one built upon cognitive and technical norms. Results of the study showed a systematic pattern of participants and endorsement for native speakers, improvement in their perceptions of suprasegmentals, and listening comprehension as well. Furthermore, results revealed the participants’ familiarity with suprasegmentals and their ability to implement them in their oracy.</p>


2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ardi Nugroho

<p>The use of metadiscourse in academic writing has become a topic of interest in recent years. It can be defined as the words and phrases that writers use in their writing to express their ideas and thoughts to make it easier for readers to process the information presented. It is especially crucial in academic writing since writers are expected to present their arguments in an appropriate and acceptable manner. It has also been said that culture plays a role influencing how arguments and ideas are expressed, especially in academic writing. Although metadiscourse plays an integral role in academic writing, studies have shown how EFL learners often make mistakes in employing this linguistic device. From this, the writer would like to explore the metadiscourse produced by Indonesian EFL learners and compare it with how native speakers of English employ metadiscourse in their writing. In other words, this study is basically an attempt to find out whether the metadiscourse produced by the two groups with different cultural backgrounds are different or similar. The source of data for the current study is the metadiscourse markers from the thesis abstracts of students of the English Language and Culture Department at Bunda Mulia University and American students from a university in the U.S. In order to analyze the metadiscourse markers found in the thesis abstracts of the Indonesian and American students, the writer will make use of the AntConc software version 3.5.6 by Anthony (2018). The result of the study reveals that there are some differences and similarities in the way both group of students employed these markers.<strong></strong></p><strong>Keywords: </strong>metadiscourse, thesis abstracts, Indonesian and American students


Author(s):  
Qurat- Ul-Aine

This paper investigates the use of Urdu words by Post-colonial writer Daniyal Muneenuddin in his short stories. A content analysis of four short stories from the short stories collection “In other rooms, Other wonders”, published by Random House Group Limited, UK, has been conducted carefully. The three short stories are “NAWABDIN ELECTRICIAN”, “SALEEMA”, and “IN OTHER ROOMS, IN OTHER WONDERS”. The current research answer many questions like why have English words are replaced with Urdu Word in English short stories? Is the English Language is failed to convey contextual meanings? The frequency of Urdu words in the written discourse of short stories indicates the Multilingualism phenomenon in given texts. The analysis also highlights the emerging trends in Pakistani English writings and language mixing as multilingualism in written text. The post-colonial literature written by Pakistani writers provides a clue of the emergence of Pakistani English, and the use of Urdu words in Pakistani English variety anticipates its different forms and functions in written discourse.


Author(s):  
Victoriya Yu. Trubnikova

The article discusses the issue of pragmatic meanings of diminutive forms in the Russian language from the point of view of politeness and speech act theories. The impact of diminutives on the illocutionary force and perlocutionary effects of speech acts raises the question of their appropriateness in various communicative situations. Since there is a negative bias towards diminutives among lay native speakers, it was decided to analyse their opinions, beliefs and feelings in order to define 1) the speakers illocutionary intentions; 2) contexts of use and 3) perlocutionary effects. The online articles, forums, posts on social networks and comments of Internet users were collected, with a total amount of 23 sources and 714 user comments. The emic and bottom-up approach referred to speakers intuition reveal 1) negative attitude towards diminutives in hierarchical relationships, 2) perception of diminutives as a positive politeness tool in low distance relationships, 3) perception of diminutives as a manipulative tool in unequal relationships. Thus, the appropriate use of diminutives calls for pragmatic skills to assess a communicative situation in terms of social variables, such as social distance and power, mutual costs and benefits, rights and obligations of interlocutors.


Author(s):  
Anna Marietta Da Silva

The English language competence of an EFL learner can be reflectedin his pragmatic competence. Yet, for language learners and teachers a mastery of the pragmatic competence may unconsciously be neglected. In other words, it may not be taught in line with the grammatical competence since the initial period of learning. The article centers on two problems: (1) the similarities and differences of speech act of complaints among Indonesian EFL learners, Indonesian EFL teachers and American native speakers, and (2) the evidence of any pragmatic transfer in the complaint performance. DCT was used to gather the data, which was then analyzed using Rinnert, Nogami and Iwai?s aspects of complaining (2006). It was found that there were both differences and similarities of complaints performed by both the native and non-native speakers of English when power and social status were involved. Some evidence on pragmatic transfer was also tangible; mainly it was due to cultural differences


Author(s):  
Maryam Alipour ◽  
Khazriyati Salehuddin ◽  
Siti Hamin Stapa

Spelling is considered a difficult skill for foreign and second language learners of English as the ability to spell in English language comes with a lot of effort, particularly when the English spelling system is known to be a complex system, even among native speakers. The difficulties could be linguistic and extra-linguistic. This conceptual paper reviews the differences and similarities between English and Persian spelling system, the sages of spelling difficulties among children, particularly the approach suggested by Tabrizi, Tabrizi, and Tabrizi (2013)in which the stages of learning spelling among Iranian learners are analyzed. The types of morphological, phonological, and orthographical spelling difficulties, factors contributing to the spelling difficulty, as well as a comprehensive literature review of EFL studies conducted on English spelling are provided in this paper. Finally, the mental processing and the role of memory are discussed briefly. It was concluded that examining the differences between the learners’ first language and English language may provide useful insights into the English spelling problems faced by EFL learners.


2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (6) ◽  
pp. 148
Author(s):  
Mohanad A. Amret ◽  
Sinan A. Yousif

The purpose of this paper is to recognize the level of pragma-linguistic difficulties Iraqi EFL university learners face when handling phrasal verbs. Despite the fact that phrasal verbs are easy to understand by native speakers of English, non-native speakers usually encounter some difficulties in understanding the meaning of a phrasal verb depending on the meaning of the root verb, or different phrasal verbs of the same root. The problem might be attributed to pragma-linguistic knowledge. However, culture gap could be the reason behind such difficulties. The aim of the study is (1) to evaluate the pragma-linguistic level of interpreting phrasal verbs as understood and used by Iraqi EFL university learners, (2) to check the level of difficulty they experience while recognizing phrasal verbs, and (3) to find out reasons behind such misinterpretations. It is hypothesized that (1) the pragma-linguistic interpretation of phrasal verbs tends to play an important role in understanding the message conveyed by the speaker; (2) cultural gap could be the reason that EFL learners recognize phrasal verbs incorrectly, and (3) mother tongue language might make it difficult for EFL learners to understand phrasal verbs. To verify the aforementioned hypothesis, a test has been constructed and administered to a sample of 100 fourth-year Iraqi EFL university learners, morning classes at the department of English Language and Literature, College of Arts, in Mustansiriyah University, during the academic year 2017 – 2018. The responses of the students have been collected and linguistically analyzed according to a model given by Richards and Schmidt (2010). It has been found that Iraqi students’ lack of cultural norms of the target language makes it difficult for them to understand phrasal verbs. The lack of this knowledge is considered as a factor of confusion and then failure. The influence of the first language culture on the recognition of phrasal verbs may be seen as a negative first language transfer. The reason behind this negative transfer is that the norms and principles of first language are different from the norms and principles of the target language. It has been concluded that Iraqi EFL university learners have difficulties in pragma-linguistic knowledge as far as phrasal verbs are concerned. Iraqi EFL university learners face great difficulties in using phrasal verbs while communicating with other people. While using phrasal verbs, Iraqi EFL university learners have been highly influenced by their mother tongue language.


Author(s):  
Lana Kreishan

This study investigated the refusal and complaint speech act strategies employed by Jordanian undergraduate EFL learners. Refusal and complaint data were collected using a discourse completion test and role-plays. The findings revealed that, as non-native speakers, the respondents preferred to use indirect semantic formulas. The most frequently used refusal strategies involved an explanation or excuse, apology, negative ability, postponement or adjuncts to refusals. Conveying hints, requests, and annoyance constituted the preferred strategies for expressing complaints. The Jordanian students utilized these strategies quite often because the strategies are less direct and more polite. The analysis revealed similarities between the strategies used by the sample EFL learners and the strategies used by native English speakers. Because speech acts depend on standard cultural norms and practices, it is important for EFL learners to understand English-speaking social settings in order to avoid pragmatic failure and miscommunication. EFL instructors should therefore emphasize linguistic pragmatics for learners to assimilate into an English speaking cultural environment and maintain clear and unambiguous communication.


2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (5) ◽  
pp. 1103
Author(s):  
Mojgan Rashtchi ◽  
Reza Porkar

Since authentic texts address native speakers, they might lack the reader-friendly attributes which can help EFL learners to read and understand them. Also, learning the new vocabulary through reading can be difficult for EFL learners. As such, in order to utilize these texts as teaching materials in EFL classes, they should be modified. The present study investigated Iranian intermediate-level EFL learners and how they acquire English language vocabulary incidentally from modified English texts while their primary task is reading for meaning. In order to measure the impact of lexical input modification on the improvement of foreign language vocabulary learning, 60 adult Iranian EFL learners between the ages of 18 and 22 in two intact classes were selected and randomly assigned to two homogenous groups of control and experimental. The analysis of the data revealed that incidental second language vocabulary learning could be improved effectively by lexical input modifications such as lexical and typographical elaboration.


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