Pragmatic Competence of Iranian EFL Learners in the Light of Refusal Speech Act

In order to communicate accurately and fluently, learners need to know how to produce different speech acts inside and outside the classroom context. Refusal speech act is complicated, and performing refusals successfully needs a higher level of pragmatic competence (Eslami, 2010). This study is done in order to analyze refusal speech act and its responses among Iranian EFL learners. The participants of this study are 120 advanced Iranian EFL learners. These learners are provided with scenarios so that they are exposed to situations where they should both refuse and respond to refusals. The first phase of this paper includes the analysis of refusal strategies. The second phase of the paper deals with refusal responses. It was revealed that female participants are more inclined to use indirect strategies as related to refusals and male participants are more inclined to use direct strategies. For refusal responses, male learners used reinforcing micro functions while female learners used accepting micro functions more frequently. The results of this study contribute to pragmatic instruction in a way to help learners interpret and realize this speech act successfully. I will also investigate possible cross-cultural miscommunication, which its occurrence is also acknowledged in previous research studies (Shishavan & Sharifian, 2016).

Teacher agency in pragmatic pedagogy

Despite the existence of a large body of research on pragmatic instruction, teachers’ beliefs about teaching and assessing pragmatic competence have received scant attention. The present study sought to investigate Persian-speaking EFL teachers’ beliefs and perceived knowledge about pragmatic instruction and assessment and their self-reported instructional practice. To achieve this aim, a questionnaire was administered to 204 EFL teachers and 30 of these teachers also participated in semi-structured interviews. The findings showed that even though the teachers were aware of the importance of pragmatics, they did not consider themselves highly competent in teaching the subject to learners or in the assessment of learners’ pragmatic abilities. The most frequent method they reported having used was pragmatic corrective feedback. Further, the teachers believed that their colleagues and institute directors also gave little weight to the improvement of learners’ pragmatic abilities, and they further argued that textbooks and exams, while containing some pragmatics-related sections, failed to enhance and measure learners’ pragmatic knowledge. These results have critical implications for teachers’ pragmatic awareness in their professional development and for the inclusion of more explicit pragmatic activities in textbooks.

Developing EFL students ’ pragmatic competence: The case of compliment responses

This study investigated the effect of consciousness-raising instruction and corpus-based instruction on EFL (English as a foreign language) students’ development of compliment responses. It employed a quasi-experimental design with 136 EFL university students divided between three groups: control, consciousness-raising, and corpus groups. A discourse completion test (DCT) was used as a pre- and post-test with all the groups to investigate any significant differences between them. Further, a questionnaire with open-ended questions was used to explore students’ perceptions of pragmatic instruction of compliment responses. The results showed the effectiveness of pragmatic instruction of compliment responses through both consciousness-raising instruction and corpus- based instruction. More specifically, significant differences were found between consciousness-raising group and the corpus group on one hand, and the control group on the other. No significant differences were found between the consciousness-raising group and the corpus group. The results also revealed that the students value the importance of pragmatic instruction indicating that it was important, necessary, useful, and enjoyable at the same time. The article ends with some pedagogical recommendations for pragmatic instruction.

Pragmatic instruction in L2-Russian

Over the last three decades, a growing number of studies have investigated the effects of instruction on the acquisition of pragmatic features in L2. The bulk of this research has focused mainly on the teaching of English as a second/foreign language. However, instructional pragmatic studies in L2-Russian are lacking. The main purpose of our study is to contribute towards filling this gap by analysing the effects of pragmatic instruction on the acquisition of two speech acts by Italian learners of Russian. Furthermore, we aim to explore whether the Multimodal Russian Corpus (MURCO), a multimedia subcorpus of the Russian National Corpus, can be an effective tool for teaching speech acts in L2-Russian. Our research was composed of one experimental group (n = 18) and one control group (n = 11); each was composed of two intact classes of Italian university students at an intermediate level of L2-Russian, who were pre- and post-tested using a written discourse completion task. The experimental group was subjected to a programme of pragmatic instruction – eight thirty-minute MURCO-based lessons devoted to requests and advice, while the control group was taught according to the standard syllabus, that is, with no pragmatic instruction. The results revealed that the use of the target pragmatic features varied significantly in the experimental group, but not in the control group, thus showing a general positive effect of the instructional treatment based on the MURCO corpus. However, some limitations were identified with regard to the usability of this tool by teachers and learners.

Investigating the effects of pragmatic instruction: a comparison of L2 Spanish compliments and apologies during short term study-abroad

Study abroad has been proposed as a crucial aspect to acquire pragmatics in a second language, under the assumption that learners receive more access to authentic input than is available in the classroom. Recent trends indicate a rise in the frequency of short-term study abroad programs (less than 3 months, Allen, 2010), although research has shown that learners may need closer to 9 months to approximate native-like norms without instruction (FÉLIX-BRASDEFER, 2004). This raises the question of how much pragmatic development can be seen in short-term programs, and how to maximize this development. The current study analyzed the development of two expressive speech acts, compliments and apologies, in students who completed a five-week study abroad program in Mérida, Mexico. During the program, learners received instruction on compliments, but not apologies. Speech act data was collected via a 24-item oral discourse completion task administered at both the beginning and end of the program and was further analyzed in SPSS. Results indicate that only some learners developed their production of apologies, while almost all learners showed development in their production of compliments, operationalized by an increased repertoire of strategies available. These results suggest the need for pragmatic instruction during short-term study abroad, and question the utility of native-speaker norms to measure pragmatic development during short-term programs.***Uma pesquisa sobre os efeitos da instrução pragmática: uma comparação de elogios e desculpas em espanhol como segunda língua durante um programa de intercâmbio de curta duração***O intercâmbio estudantil foi proposto como um aspecto crucial para adquirir competência pragmática em um segundo idioma, sob a suposição de que os alunos recebem mais acesso à linguagem autêntica do que é oferecido em sala de aula. As tendências recentes indicam um aumento na frequência de programas de intercâmbio de curto prazo no exterior (menos de três meses, Allen, 2010), contudo outras pesquisas têm mostrado que os alunos podem precisar de mais de nove meses para aproximar-se das normas nativas sem instrução (FÉLIX-BRASDEFER, 2004). Isso levanta a questão de quanto o desenvolvimento pragmático pode ser visto em programas de intercâmbio de curto prazo, e como maximizar esse desenvolvimento. O presente estudo analisou o desenvolvimento de dois atos de fala expressivos, elogios e desculpas, em estudantes que completaram um programa de intercâmbio de cinco semanas em Mérida, México. Durante o programa, os alunos receberam instrução sobre expressões de elogios, mas não sobre pedidos de desculpas. Os dados do ato de fala foram coletados por meio de uma tarefa de conclusão do discurso oral de 24 itens, administrada no início e no final do programa e analisados no SPSS. Os resultados indicam que apenas alguns dos estudantes desenvolveram seus atos de pedir desculpas, enquanto quase todos os alunos mostraram desenvolvimento em sua produção de elogios, operacionalizado como um repertório crescente de estratégias disponíveis. Esses resultados sugerem a necessidade da instrução pragmática durante os programas de intercâmbio estudantil de curto prazo e questionam a utilidade das normas dos falantes nativos para medir o desenvolvimento pragmático durante programas de curto prazo.

Investigating longitudinal pragmatic development of complaints made by Chinese EFL learners

Few studies have investigated the development of L2 complaints. This paper reports on a longitudinal study of L2 complaints produced by Chinese university English learners based on their performance of a discourse completion task consisting of 18 complaint scenarios in terms of power (+P, =P, −P) and social distance (−D, =D, +D), supplemented by a delayed retrospective verbal report. Data were collected twice, over two academic years. The results indicate that students in these two ‘phases’ showed broadly similar patterns of sociopragmatic competence in terms of their ability to calibrate complaints to complainees’ (addressees’) position on power and social distance continua. However, as to internal modifications, learners in Phase 2 used significantly more lexical and syntactic downgraders than in Phase 1 at all levels of power and social distance except for syntactic downgraders at +D and =D; they only used significantly more lexical upgraders at −D. As for external modifications, the findings also showed significantly different patterns in the use of pre-moves at all levels and post-moves at all levels except at −P. Increase of English proficiency and a certain degree of explicit pragmatic instruction may have contributed to Chinese EFL learners’ pragmatic development. Implications for pragmatic instruction are also discussed.

THE EFFECTS OF PRAGMATIC INSTRUCTION ON THE PRAGMATIC AWARENESS AND PRODUCTION OF KOREAN UNIVERSITY STUDENTS

Despite the ongoing research of interlanguage pragmatics, intervention studies concerning pragmatic instruction have not been conducted as actively. The present study aims to investigate the effects of pragmatic instruction on Korean university students specifically regarding compliment responses. The effects of the instruction were examined in terms of the students' pragmatic awareness and production, according to the various language proficiency levels of the students. A total of 106 Korean university students from various majors participated in the study. The experimental group received explicit pragmatic instruction, which entailed metapragmatic instruction, awareness raising activities, and output practice regarding compliment responses, whereas the control group was exposed to the target features with no explicit instruction. A set of pragmatic awareness questionnaire and discourse completion tasks were administered as the data collection instruments and an eclectic design was adopted to analyze the effects of the instruction regarding their pragmatic awareness and production. The results indicate that explicit pragmatic instruction provided positive effects for raising the level of pragmatic awareness in the low group. Additionally, both the intermediate and low groups showed a significant improvement in production, as confirmed by the examination between and within subjects, and also displayed a range of formulaic expressions with a less idiosyncrasy attributed to first language transfer. These results call for further attention to pragmatics in second language (L2) teaching and learning.