Islamic Azad University, Ilam. Iran
Department of English Language Teaching
Thesis for Receiving M.A. Degree on English Language Teaching
English as a Foreign Language (TEFL)
Title:
The Effects Instruction on Pragmatic Development among Iranian EFL Learners:Teaching Polite Refusahs in English
Supervisor:
-
Azizifar. Ph.D
Advisor:
-
Gowhary. Ph.D
Spring 2015
(در فایل دانلودی نام نویسنده موجود است)
تکه هایی از متن پایان نامه به عنوان نمونه :
(ممکن است هنگام انتقال از فایل اصلی به داخل سایت بعضی متون به هم بریزد یا بعضی نمادها و اشکال درج نشود ولی در فایل دانلودی همه چیز مرتب و کامل است)
Table of Contents
Abstract……………………………………………………………………………………………….. 1
1.1 Pragmatic Competence. 3
1.2 Speech acts. 5
1.3 The Speech Act of Refusal…………………………………………………………………. 6
1.4 Explicit instruction for developing pragmatic knowledge……………………….. 7
1.5 Statement of the problem…………………………………………………………………… 8
1.6 Research question and hypothesis………………………………………………………. 9
1.7 Significance of the Study…………………………………………………………………… 9
- Review of the literature……………………………………………………………………….. 12
2.1 Introduction…………………………………………………………………………………….. 12
2.2 Semantics versus pragmatics……………………………………………………………… 14
2.3 Pragmatic competence versus pragmatic failure……………………………………. 15
2 4.Pragmatic Awareness………………………………………………………………………… 16
2.5 Cross-cultural pragmatics………………………………………………………………….. 18
2.6 Factors Influencing L2 Learners, pragmatic Acquisition…………………………. 18
2.6.1 Linguistic competence. 18
2.6.2 Length of Residence in a target Country……………………………………………. 20
2.7 Speech acts. 20
2.8 On heretical frameworks related to L2 pragmatic development 22
2.9 On teachability of pragmatic knowledge. 23
2.10 Factors Influencing L2 Learners’ Pragmatic Acquisition. 25
2.11 On how EFL learners produce refusals………………………………………………. 26
- Methodology……………………………………………………………………………………… 36
3.1 Introduction…………………………………………………………………………………….. 36
3.2 Participants………………………………………………………………………………………. 36
3.3 Instrument 37
3.4 Procedure………………………………………………………………………………………… 37
3.5 Data analysis. 39
- Results and discussion………………………………………………………………………… 41
4.1 Overview.. 41
4.2 Demographic statistics………………………………………………………………………. 41
4.2.1 Demographic statistics of participants according to gender 41
4.2.2 Demographic statistics of participants according to age. 42
4.3 Descriptive Statistics. 43
4.4 Checking the assumptions of covariance analysis…………………………………. 44
4.5 The findings of the hypothesis of the study. 45
4.6 Discussion………………………………………………………………………………………. 46
- Discussion and conclusion. 54
5.1 Introduction…………………………………………………………………………………….. 54
5.2. Summary……………………………………………………………………………………….. 54
5.3. Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………………… 55
5.4. Implications……………………………………………………………………………………. 56
5.5. Suggestions for further research. 57
5.6 Limitations of the study…………………………………………………………………….. 58
References. 60
64
list of Table
Table 4.1 The Frequency and Percentage of Participants According to Gender 42
Table 4.2 Frequency and Percentage of Participants According to Age………….. 42
Table 4.3 Descriptive statistics of learners’ polite refusal in English for experimental and control groups. 43
Table 4.4. The test results of normality of variable distribution in the participants 44
Table 4.5. The results of homogeneity of the variances using Levene’s test 44
Table 4.6. The results of analyzing the homogeneity of the regression slopes in the variable of the study………………………………………………………………………………. 45
Table 4.7. The ANCOVA results of the posttest mean scores of “polite refusal” 46
list of Figure
Figure 4.1 The Frequency and Percentage of Participants According to Gender 42
Figure 4.2 Frequency and Percentage of Participants According to Age. 43
Figure 4.3. The comparison of pre- and posttest between control and experimental groups………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 46
Abstract
Communicative competence as the language users’ knowledge of how language is used encompasses one important component, pragmatic competence, which plays an important role in proper use of language in various contexts. The present study brought the concept of pragmatic competence into focus and took up an inquiry to make it clear whether L2 learners’ ability in using the speech acts of refusals can be developed by explicit instruction. To do so, the study encompassed 60 L2 learners who were in intermediate level of ability studying English in some language institutes in Ilam. The study was experimental in its approach having both control and experimental groups which were pre- and posttested to see the effect of interventionist approach on their pragmatic ability. In order to include continuous explanatory variables, covariates, ANCOVA was put to service. For the purpose of getting data to evaluate learners’ degree of refusal knowledge, the participants took the discourse completion test prior and after the training course. The findings of the study revealed that leaners’ knowledge of using speech acts of refusals improved significantly by applying the explicit technique of instruction in the classroom. Results in this study suggest equipping the language learners with understanding of both linguistic forms and behavior patterns in refusing strategies of the target language.
Keywords: Pragmatic competence, speech acts of refusals, explicit instruction, L2 learners
Chapter One:
Introduction
1.1 Pragmatic Competence
Over the last two decades, the development of learners’ communicative competence in second or foreign language has established one of the main concerns in language teaching in the field of Second Language Aqcuisition (Kasper & Rose, 2002). Recent models of communicative competence (Celce-Murcia, Dornyei, & Thurrell 1995; Martinez-Flor & Uso-Juan, 2006) have asserted that effective communication in target language entails not only knowledge of language system but knowledge of pragmatic rules and language use. Fundamentally, pragmatics reflects on communicative action and its context. Furthermore, pragmatics considers another dimension in communicative action and context that is the users involved.
It is a noteworthy fact that pragmatics plays a very significant role in the production and perception of speech. Crystal (1985) defines pragmatics as ‘‘the study of language from the point of view of users, especially of the choices they make, the constraints they encounter in using language in social interaction and the effects their use of language has on other participants in the act of communication’’ (as cited in Allami & Naeimi (2011), p. 240). One of the main factors in the process of communication is pragmatic competence. How interlocutors produce and perceive speech in diverse situations is an important issue as creating inappropriate utterances would cause misunderstanding and miscommunication (Sahragard & Javanmardi, 2011).
Studying pragmatics enables one to probe people’s intended meanings, their assumptions, their purposes or goals, and the kinds of actions (for example, requests) while they are interacting (Yule, 1996). Based on this assumption, successful communication in the target language implies crossing the boundaries of grammatical knowledge and achieving the competency in pragmatics. Accordingly, pragmatic competence necessitates comprehension and production of speech acts and their appropriateness in a given context. Study of pragmatic development in a second language, observes how nonnative speakers comprehend and produce action in the target language and considers how second language learners develop the ability to understand and perform action in a target language.
The field of pragmatics has hosted a number of models by which the realm of pragmatic competence has been demarcated. Fraser (1983) for instance, defines pragmatic competence in terms of conveying an attitude. He describes communication as an interaction between speaker meaning and hearer-effect and is accomplished successfully when the speaker conveys his or her attitude to the hearer. He argues that this attitude can only be conveyed and interpreted through pragmatic competence. Faerch and Kasper (1984) proposed a model in which pragmatic competence was divided into two categories: declarative knowledge and procedural knowledge. The declarative knowledge includes six categories of knowledge: linguistic, socio-cultural, speech act, discourse, context, and knowledge of the world. The procedural knowledge, on the other hand, refers to the process of selecting and combining declarative knowledge from these categories. Bachman (1990) proposed another model that divides pragmatic competence into illocutionary and sociolinguistic competencies. The illocutionary competence has four main functions: ideational, manipulative, heuristic, and imaginative. The sociolinguistic competence, on the other hand, is divided into four categories: sensitivity to differences in dialect, sensitivity to register, sensitivity to naturalness, and knowledge of the culture.
As the above mentioned models portrayed, pragmatic competence encompasses a complex set of inter-related factors, both linguistic and socio-cultural. It comes as no surprise then that this kind of knowledge is very difficult for non-native speakers to acquire. Language learners often fail to follow the socio-cultural rules that govern language behavior in the target language, and this has been referred to in the literature as pragmatic failure.
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