16th International Conference on Pragmatics and Language Learning
Indiana University - Bloomington
April 14-16, 2005

Workplace Pragmatics: Advice Giving from the Perspective of Chinese Personnel

Karen Ngeow & Dr. Martha Nyikos

Teacher-Learner Classroom Talk and Email Exchanges as Authentic

Resource Material for Teaching Pragmatic

Helen Osimo

Addressing Pragmatic Gaps in Learning Russian Requests

Jeanette Owen

Use of TV Materials in Korean Language Pragmatics:

Plain, Polite, and Deferential Verb Endings

Yunjoo Park & Hohsung Choe

Expanding Future Teacher Horizons:

The Pragmatics Project Component in the French Methodologies Course

Kelly Sax

How Can Insights from Conversation Analysis Be Directly Applied

to Teaching L2 Pragmatics?

Thorsten Huth &

Carmen Taleghani-Nikazm

Julie Belz

Perennial concerns within communicative language teaching have centered around the authenticity of learning tasks and materials, the range of discourse options in which learners can engage, the variety and significance of the subject positions available to the learner, and the role of the classroom in fostering language awareness (Kinginger, 2004). Recent publications in the fields of foreign language learning and teaching have explored the ways in which these concerns can be addressed in the context of globally networked language learning partnerships, a hallmark of which is the inclusion of expert-speaking age peers in the language learning process (e.g., Belz and Thorne, forthcoming; Belz and Müller-Hartmann; Kinginger, Gourvès-Hayward, and Simpson, 1999; Furstenberg et al., 2001; Warschauer and Kern, 2000). Belz and Kinginger (2002, 2003) and Kinginger (2000) have found that such telecollaborative partnerships may be particularly conducive to the development of L2 pragmatic competence. In this workshop, we will examine concrete instances of the development of address form competence, the use of attitudinal particles, and the use of cohesive ties in the electronic discourse of learners and expert speakers who participated in telecollaborative partnerships from 2000-2004. In addition, participants will explore the ways in which contrastive learner corpus analysis may contribute to the classroom-based teaching of pragmatic competence.

Alwiya Omar

In this workshop we will provide a demonstration of a web based multi media resource for integrating culture in the classroom and then we will show how it can be used to develop classroom activities to promote and enhance pragmatic awareness. This resource introduces learners of African languages (Bambara, Hausa, Kiswahili, Twi, and Zulu) to different cultural topics with each topic broken down into smaller sub topics following Omaggio’s (2001) discussion of culture clusters and capsules. Learners are able to read/listen to a text on a certain sub-topic, view appropriate authentic visuals (either still or video), and listen to dialogues. Learners can check their comprehension by doing exercises that provide immediate feedback. Each cultural topic is linked to a website with suggestions for activities to be done in the classroom. In one activity, learners watch and discuss interactions by native speakers (classroom visitor, video taped role plays, or television plays). The interaction can focus on greetings, leave takings, invitations, making requests, and other speech acts. Following these native speaker interactions, learners work in pairs or in groups to prepare their own scripts and perform role-plays, or they can do role-plays based on situations provided by their instructors. These and other activities are also discussed in Martínez-Flor, Usó-Juan, and Fernández-Guerra (2003) and in Bardovi-Harlig and Mahan-Taylor (2003) Workshop participants will work in groups to discuss and share examples of activities that promote pragmatic awareness from languages that they teach.

César Félix-Brasdefer

A constant challenge among foreign (FL) and second language (L2) teachers is to implement innovative ways to enhance learners’ communicative ability. One way to develop this ability is through the negotiation of speech acts in conversational interactions. Recently, a few studies in ILP have analyzed the negotiation of meaning, sequencing in conversation, and the structure of turns among learners in L2 and FL contexts (Bardovi-Harlig & Salsbury, 2004; Félix-Brasdefer, 2004; Gass & Houck, 1999). Aside from a collection of pedagogical activities to teach various aspects of pragmatics in the FL and L2 classroom presented in Bardovi-Harlig and Mahan-Taylor (2003), little attention has been given to how to teach the negotiation and sequencing of multi-turn speech acts in ILP. Following the framework of conversation analysis (CA) (Atkinson & Heritage, 1984; Markee, 2000; Pomerantz, 1984; Sacks, 1995; Sacks, Schegloff, & Jefferson, 1974), this workshop will present general principles of CA to teach the negotiation of multi-turn speech acts to learners through active engagement in conversational interactions. Specifically, we will focus on the sequence and structure of turns in refusals during talk-in-interaction. Further, we will examine how general concepts of CA can be applied to ILP which will help instructors teach strategies for negotiating speech acts in the classroom such as turn-taking and sequencing in conversation. To illustrate this, we will analyze conversational data from native and non-native speakers and examine the sequential information used during the negotiation of refusals in formal and informal settings.

Rebecca Mahan-Taylor

Second language instructors who wish to incorporate pragmatics into their curriculum often need to create their own materials and activities. Research on this problem over the last 15 years indicates that a majority of second language texts and/or media do not sufficiently address learners’ awareness or competency in the pragmatics of their target languages (Bardovi-Harlig, Hartford, Mahan-Taylor, Morgan, & Reynolds, 1991; Burns, 1998; Grant & Starks, 2001; Koike, 1989; Vellenga, 2004). This situation has resulted in many professionals choosing to exclude pragmatics from their language instruction goals. Fortunately, this no longer needs to be the case. With a small amount of training, language teachers and materials developers can become adept at gleaning available resources and designing pragmatic materials that will enable them to offer students more comprehensive second language experiences.

After surveying various sources including electronic media, print-based texts, expert or native speaking informants, and related disciplines, participants will find combinations of resources and materials to meet any pragmatic objective. Factoring in constraints, conducting needs analyses, inventorying authentic materials, and taking part in sample activities will help participants design frameworks to use when creating their own pragmatic lessons.

16th International Conference on Pragmatics and Language Learning Indiana University - Bloomington April 14-16, 2005

Conference Proceedings

Workplace Pragmatics: Advice Giving from the Perspective of Chinese Personnel

16th International Conference on Pragmatics and Language Learning
Indiana University - Bloomington
April 14-16, 2005