colloquium

Teaching Pragmatics

This colloquium features practical applications of teaching pragmatics including a video-based lesson plan based on various speech acts, a comparison of native and non-native speaker greetings in English, shifting desu/masu forms to mark pragmatic meaning, and a study of 'suggesting' in peer responses. All participants are authors of the Prag Sig's newly released book, Pragmatics in Language Learning, Theory, & Practice.

Detailed abstract

Study One: A Video-Based Pragmatics Class

John Rylander

Kobe Women’s University

Abstract

The following describes a video-based lesson plan for teaching high beginning to high intermediate EFL learners’ one method of speech act analysis. Combined with an overview of the rationale for using select video clips extracted from feature films and television shows is an explanation of classroom worksheets to guide learners in their discovery of pragmalinguistic forms and sociolinguistic features.

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Study two: Language variation analysis

Yuki Kakiuchi

Chubu University

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Study Three: Raising awareness about the pragmatic

use of the Japanese plain and desu/masu forms

Kazutoh Ishida

Abstract

Current Japanese pedagogical practices tend to introduce the Japanese plain and desu/masu forms simply as markers of informality and formality, and instruct the learners to stick to a single form in a certain situation. However, avoiding instruction of the various pragmatic meanings which the forms can index and the ways in which one can shift between the forms could result in limiting the range of linguistic resources which learners can use to express themselves when participating in interaction in Japanese.Drawing on findings of research which examined the use of the Japanese plain and desu/masu forms in natural discourse, this paper introduces two activities which aim at raising learners’ awareness about how one can shift between the forms when addressing the same person to mark various pragmatic meanings. Naturally occurring interactions which involve a certain individual communicating through various modes, e.g., phone, letter etc., are used for the activities.

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Study four: The speech act of suggesting as part

of peer response activities

Mayumi Fujioka

Kinki University

Abstract

Performing the speech act of suggesting appropriately in English appears to be problematic for Japanese learners of English. Thus, instruction in suggesting should be provided in classrooms. Peer response, in which learners exchange drafts of their written essays and provide feedback to each other, could offer effective opportunities for students to learn to make suggestions. Focusing on a Japanese university EFL writing course, the study introduces a series of lessons in which learners receive instruction in specific strategies for appropriate suggestions in English including the use of hedged or softened expressions. As well as pragmatic instruction, learners also receive instruction that helps them develop skills to critique peers’ essays. In addition to the step-by-step descriptions of each lesson, responses by students who participated in the lessons are provided, along with specific suggestions for improving the activities.

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Mayumi Fujioka received her Ph.D. from Indiana University, U.S.A. She is currently teaching at Kinki University, Osaka. Her research interests include interlanguage pragmatics, language learning strategies, and L2 academic literacy development. She has presented papers at the International Conference on Pragmatics and Language Learning and also has published a short article on pragmatics in The Language Teacher. She has been actively involved in a JACET SIG on language learning strategies, and two books by the group are scheduled to come out in 2005. Currently, she is planning a new research project, pursuing her on-going interest in academic literacy in context.

Kazutoh Ishida received a Ph.D. in the Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa. His research interests include Japanese sociolinguistics, pragmatics and foreign language pedagogy. He has taught beginning and intermediate level Japanese courses and incorporated various activities which raise the learners’ awareness about the pragmatic aspects of the Japanese language. His dissertation focuses on how explicit instruction about the indexical use of the desu/masu and plain forms enables beginning learners to talk about the forms and also use them in interaction to express various pragmatic meanings as an interaction unfolds.