Summer Institute
Language and Culture in Sync: Teaching the Pragmatics of a Second Language
July 26-30, 2010, CARLA Summer Institute, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis
A truly daunting challenge for second language learners is to adjust their language use so that it is appropriate for different sociocultural contexts. How, for example, are learners supposed to address strangers, close friends, or people of higher social status in that culture? While acquiring discourse practices can take learners many years, research has shown that the process can be facilitated through explicit instruction.
This institute provides practical insights for teachers on how to enhance the learning of pragmatics. Participants will have hands-on opportunities to develop activities and materials for the classroom.
Testimonials from past participants:
Becoming aware and excited about new aspects of teaching are an important part of our continual development as instructors. The professional quality of the workshop, the ideas and experiences of other participants will definitely result in benefits for my students.
I like being on the “cutting edge” of the new book by Noriko and Andrew. I like know about their research and I especially like the warm invitation and access they offered throughout the week... I especially like how much lateral learning exists. The instructors are always good but the room is filled with expertise and it’s wonderful to share and learn from each other and to have that valued.
Presenters:
Noriko Ishihara, PhD, Hosei University, Japan
Andrew D. Cohen, PhD, University of Minnesota (guest speaker)
Readings include:
Ishihara, N., & Cohen, A. D. (2010). Teaching and learning pragmatics: Where language and culture meet. Pearson Education
CARLA website at:
Second Call for Papers
Observing Talk: Conversation Analytic Studies of Second Language Interaction
JALT Pragmatics SIG Pragmatic Resources series.
Editor
Tim Greer, Kobe University, Japan
<tim(at)kobe-u.ac.jp>
As language teachers, much of our work involves talk-in-interaction. Although the participant-centered approach to talk in Conversation Analysis (CA) has been widely used in sociology over the past forty years, it has only been recently that it has received a growing interest among researchers into second language learning. Markee and Kasper (2004) proposed a possible research agenda for Conversation Analysis for Second Language Acquisition (CA for SLA) including;
- treating cognition as socially distributed
- respecifying learning as something that is observable in and through learner talk
- documenting how L2 learners accomplish aspects of their identities in talk
- focusing primarily on actions rather than language
There is a clear need to investigate what this kind of careful observation of natural interaction can offer teachers of second languages, and to make CA research more accessible to teachers and applicable to classrooms.
The JALT Pragmatics SIG is currently seeking papers for inclusion in the second book in its Pragmatic Resource Series. This collection will explore ways in which CA can be applied to investigations of interaction in second language contexts. Authors must adhere to the CA precepts of;
- privileging the participants’ actions over analyst interpretations and/or pre-existing models
- basing findings on detailed analysis of recordings of naturally-occurring interaction
- beginning with “unmotivated looking” rather than testing a hypothesis
- building collections of related interactional phenomena, based on the organizational principles of sequence, preference, turn-taking, repair, turn construction and action formation.
Papers will be considered in two main areas:
1. CA studies based on collections of phenomena from second language interaction.
These studies will inform research into ways that second language users accomplish certain social actions in their second language, and/or investigate how language learning takes place as social action. CA-based studies of novice/expert identity accomplishment in second language interaction are also welcome. Authors should also endeavor to comment on the study’s implications for learning and/or implications for classroom practice.
2. Commentary on how CA principles can be incorporated into classroom practices.
Articles in this section must be based around a practical theme, such as advising teachers on how to assess conversation, or applying CA findings to evaluate textbook dialogues or create teaching materials for second language learners. As such, the papers in this section may deviate somewhat from a traditional CA-style analysis, but should still present original ideas that are grounded in micro-level understandings of interactional data.
Papers must be written in English (4000 to 6000 words) and use APA referencing. Transcripts should follow the conventions developed by Gail Jefferson, as outlined in Schegloff (2007), and be limited to 60 characters per line, including punctuation and spaces. Any additional symbols should be clearly noted in an appendix.
Timeline
First draft due:20 February 2010
Proposed publication: November 2010
In addition, interested researchers are requested to submit a working title to the editor by January 30, 2010.
