interlanguage pragmatics in second language acquisition
TRANSCRIPT
Interlanguage Pragmatics
in Second Language Acquisition and Identity Construction
Diplomarbeit
zur Erlangung des akademischen Grades
eines Magisters der Philosophie
an der Geisteswissenschaftlichen Fakultät der
an der Karl-Franzens-Universität Graz
vorgelegt von
Viktor KOCSIS
am Institut für Anglistik
Begutachterin: Ao. Univ.-Prof. Mag. Dr. Margit Reitbauer
Graz, 2013
Table of Contents
1. Introduction ……………………………………………………… …….….1-4
1.1 Interlanguage Pragmatics: Educational Relevance and
Investigative Value ……………………………………………....................1-3
1.2 Thesis Outline …………………………………………………………….....3/4
2. The Field of Pragmatics ……………………………………………….4-34 2.1 Philosophers’ and Linguists’ Contributions and Defining Concepts …..4-15
2.1.1 AUSTIN, J.L. (1962) …………………………………………...........4-6
2.1.2 CRYSTAL, David (1985) …………………………………………….6-8
2.1.3 GRICE, H.P. (1989) …………………………………………………8/9
2.1.4 LEECH, Geoffrey N. (1983) ……………………………………....9-12
2.1.5 MORRIS, Charles (1938) …………………………………….…..12/13
2.1.6 SEARLE, John (1969) ……………………………………………13-15
2.2 Communicative and Pragmatic Competence …………………………15-19
2.2.1 HYMES (1972) ……………………………………………………15-17
2.2.2 CANALE/SWAIN (1980) …………………………………………...17/18
2.2.3 BACHMAN/PALMER (1996) ……………………………………….18/19
2.3 Speech Act Theory ………………………………………………………..19-22
2.4 Politeness Theory …………………………………………………………22-27
2.5 Intercultural Pragmatics …………………………………………………..27-34
2.5.1 The Field of Cross-cultural Pragmatics ……………………….27-29
2.5.1.1 The Domain of Interlanguage Pragmatics ………….29-34
2.5.1.1.1 Definition ……………………………………..29-31
2.5.1.1.2 ILP Research in L1 and L2 …………..........31-34
3. First Language Acquisition …………………………………………34-53
3.1 Hypotheses of L1 Acquisition …………………………………………...34-41
3.1.1 Critical Period Hypothesis ……………………………………..34-37
3.1.2 Universal Grammar Hypothesis ……………………………….37-41
3.2 Stage and Period Models of L1 Acquisition ……………………………41-53
3.2.1 STERN, William and Clara STERN (1924) ……………………..41-46
3.2.2 NICE, Margaret (1925) ………………………………………….46-49
3.2.3 BROWN, Roger (1973) …………………………………………..49-53
4. Second Language Acquisition ……………………………………...53-74
4.1 Implications of the Critical Period and Universal Grammar Hypothesis
for L2 Acquisition …………………......................................................53-55
4.2 Hypotheses of L2 Grammar Acquisition ………………………………..55-58
4.2.1 Full Transfer Full Access Hypothesis ………………………...55/56
4.2.2 Minimal Trees Hypothesis ……………………………………..56/57
4.2.3 Valueless Features Hypothesis ……………………………….57/58
4.3 L2 Pragmatic Development ……………………………………………...58-74
4.3.1 Interlanguage Realisations of Speech Acts ………………….58-69
4.3.1.1 Pragmalinguistic and sociopragmatic transfer ……..58-64
4.3.1.2 Negative and Positive Transfer ……………………...64-67
4.3.1.3 Pragmatic Overgeneralization …………………….....67-69
4.3.2. FL Learner’s Identity and Pragmatic
Instruction Methods …………………………………………....69-74
5. Conclusion ……………………………………………………………..74-76
6. Bibliography ……………………………………………………………77-79
7. Appendix ………………………………………………………………..80/81
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1. Introduction
1.1 Interlanguage Pragmatics: Educational Relevance and
Investigative Value
“One of my students visited Japan, and when she returned she said, ‘Boy, they sure
don’t talk like we were taught in class’.” (ALCÓN SOLER and MARTÍNEZ-FLOR 2008: xi).
In Investigating Pragmatics in Foreign Language Learning, Teaching and Testing,
SNYDER OHTA reflects on a pupil’s highly frustrating realization troubling many foreign
language learners when they are first exposed to the culture and speech community
of the target language. As the language teacher discovers, her taught materials had
been largely responsible for her pupil’s language shock, as they merely examined
“sentence-level concerns and nearly always neglected pragmatics” (IBID: xi). Though
her handouts were compiled in an effort to partially substitute and complement “an old-
fashioned audiolingual method textbook” (IBID: xi), it seems that the traditionally
grammar-focused language teaching of the 1960s has continued to influence the
teacher’s material design considerably.
Considering the history of linguistic discoveries, the prevalent strength of this influence
is easily comprehensible. GASS and NEU (cf. 1995: 1) locate the origins of speech act
studies relatively late in the 1960s and 70s launched by philosophers such as AUSTIN
or GRICE and base their research on AUSTIN’s concept of a speech-act. They are
interested in investigating the hypothesis “that speech acts are realized from culture to
culture in different ways and that these differences may result in communication
difficulties that range from the humorous to the serious” (IBID: 1).
AS an SL learner of German, BARRON (cf. 2003: 1) herself observes such complications
in the second language community and reports on a situation in Germany where she
was offered some coffee but was served none after replying with “No, I’m fine.”
(BARRON 2003: 1). Expecting a second offer as an Irishwoman, BARRON assumed that
her utterance would be considered a polite remark, whilst the Germans naturally took
her literally, since they associated straightforwardness and honesty with friendliness.
As the author concludes, “Lying to avoid telling someone an unwelcome truth is
consequently not highly valued in German society.” (IBID: 1).
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It follows from such observations that cultural peculiarities characterize speech act
realization and that there is a need to teach foreign language pragmatics to decrease
misunderstandings abroad. With reference to BARDOVI-HARLIG’s reviews of pragmatic
studies, TAGUCHI (cf. 2009: 131) confirms L2 pragmatic deficits in FL learner’s speech
and mentions the risk of misunderstanding, since “learners who do not receive specific
instruction in L2 pragmatics have noticeably different L2 pragmatic systems than NSs
of the target language in both production and comprehension.” (IBID: 131).
As ALCÓN SOLER and MARTÍNEZ-FLOR (cf. 2008: xi) point out, pragmatic instruction has
luckily been facilitated by the relatively new field of Interlanguage Pragmatics, which is
concerned with “the investigation of non-native speakers’ comprehension and
production of speech acts, and the acquisition of L2-related speech act knowledge
(BARRON 2003: 26)”. ISHIHARA and COHEN (cf. 2010: ix) confirm that Interlanguage
Pragmatics and the relation between language and culture have over the last decades
become global research areas and salient aspects in the domain of language teaching.
Moreover, it seems necessary to investigate the way foreign language learners acquire
pragmatic competence in their mother tongue and in their target language to gain more
understanding of SL pragmatic development and to discover major implications for
pragmatic instruction in the FL classroom.
As BARRON (cf. 2003: 2) reveals, the need for investigation and pragmatic instruction
is enforced by three major reasons. While on the one hand, there is “a lack of research
in the area [of interlanguage pragmatics]” (IBID: 2), on the other, pragmatic instruction
seems to cause problems in some pragmatic areas “due to the fact that sociopragmatic
competence, a sub-component of pragmatic competence, is concerned with the
interface of linguistic action and social structure.” (IBID: 2). This means that the learner’s
identity has an influence on its pragmatic development and competence, which
complicates things since each human being’s identity is rather unique. Despite a
possibly shared L1, linguistic developmental issues will remain more or less individual
and thus complicated to examine. However, the extent to which sociocultural aspects
influence L2 pragmatic development is an important aspect to explore.
Finally, BARRON addresses the educational dimension of second language pragmatics,
claiming that “research on the teaching of L2 pragmatic competence is still rather in its
infancy” (IBID: 2), which is a further important reason for a need of pragmatic research
increase.
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Based on these reasons, ALCÓN SOLER and MARTÍNEZ-FLOR (2008: 11) describe three
important research areas of Interlanguage Pragmatics. Some researchers are known
to deal with developmental questions of “pragmatics competence […] in classroom
contexts, online communities or sojourns abroad”, whereas others “consider
developmental issues and problems related to language transfer” and “yet others
investigate methods of teaching and assessing pragmatics” (IBID: 11). Whereas
developmental aspects of L1 and L2 pragmatic competence will be addressed in more
detail in chapters 3 and 4, pragmatic instruction in the FL classroom and assessment
issues will be more vaguely examined in section 4.3.2. Compiled in the domain of
linguistics and being theoretical in nature, the thesis will remain focused on linguistic
examinations of the field of Interlanguage Pragmatics and put less emphasis on
didactic investigations.
1.2 Thesis Outline
Investigating the developmental nature of L2 pragmatic acquisition, the thesis builds
on important pragmatic concepts and domains developed from the 1960s.
Along with other revolutionary discoveries defining contemporary pragmatics, AUSTIN’s
and SEARLE’s Theory of Speech Acts, MORRIS’ and CRYSTAL’s definitions of
Pragmatics, GRICE’s co-operative principle and maxims and LEECH’s politeness
principle are fundamental notions in the field of Pragmatics, comprising Cross-cultural
and Interlanguage Pragmatics. Exploring developmental issues of pragmatic
acquisition in ILP requires knowledge of these concepts and an accurate definition of
Interlanguage Pragmatics with a historical overview. These issues will be explored in
chapter 2 and compose the first part of the thesis.
Chapter 3 will then develop principle properties of First Language Acquisition by
drawing on the Critical Period and Universal Grammar Hypotheses and outline
proposed models (BROWN (1973), STERN (1924), NICE (1925)) of L1 Acquisition.
Despite their grammatical focus, these models imply information on a native speaker’s
pragmatic acquisition and are intertwined with pragmatic terminology raised in chapter
2.
Similarly structured and complementary to the previous section, chapter 4 supports a
contrastive analysis by discussing the role of the described Critical Period and
Universal Grammar Hypotheses in Second Language Acquisition. To account for
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transfer of L1 properties to L2, further hypotheses will be considered in 4.2, including
the Full Transfer Full Access Hypothesis, the Minimal Trees Hypothesis and the
Valueless Features Hypothesis.
These hypotheses examine L1 grammar transfer to L2 and serve to establish a link
between pragmatics and grammar, by implying that learners need to be grammatically
accurate to succeed pragmatically. Other influential parameters in interlanguage
articulations will be addressed in Chapter 4, including transfer of pragmalinguistic and
sociopragmatic properties, beneficial and harmful transfer, the notion of pragmatic
overgeneralization, and identity issues.
Finally, Chapter 5 will briefly address some critical research areas in the contemporary
fields of ILP and First and Second Language Acquisition to specify where further
investigations are deemed necessary.
2. The Field of Pragmatics
2.1 Philosophers’ and Linguists’ Contributions and Defining
Concepts
2.1.1 AUSTIN, J.L. (1962)
One of the most fundamental components of our contemporary understandings of
pragmatics and thus a central research aspect in Cross-Cultural- and Interlanguage
Pragmatics (cf. 2.5.1) is AUSTIN’s concept of speech act, developed in his famous
publication How to Do Things with Words of 1962, which is based on his lectures of
Speech Act Theory in 1955 (cf. 2.3). AUSTIN developed the notion of speech act to
replace the prevalent “truth-conditional model” in “linguistic meaning” (EVANS and
GREEN 2006: 212), which had very poor investigative potential at the time.
AUSTIN believes that speakers not only express “things” in speech in form of assertions
or “statements” but additionally “do things” and “perform actions” through utterances
(MEY 2009: 1009). The lecturer’s analysis of speech reveals two utterance types that
he names “constative utterances, or constatives” and “performative utterances, or
performatives” (IBID: 1009). AUSTIN demonstrates that truth-conditions1 are only
applicable to a very limited number of utterances that only represent articulated
1 Truth-conditions are supposed to verify the semantic verity and factuality of utterances.
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descriptive information about something, namely the constatives, whereas
performatives “create new facts” (IBID: 1009) by completing an action through speech2
and are frankly unverifiable and pointless to verify (cf. IBID: 1010).
However, as LEECH (cf. 1983: 176) points out, AUSTIN quickly extended the
performative quality of performatives, thus abandoning it (cf. MEY 2009: 1009) to all
the remaining utterances, since speech acts by their very nature seem to imply more
than just expressed information, irrespective of the presence of a performative verb.
The accuracy of this assumption is best illustrated with the juxtaposition of so-called
“’primary performatives’” and “‘explicit performatives’”, where it becomes clear that the
utterance “I shall be there.” can be expressed in “I promise that I shall be there.” with
a performative verb without actually modifying content (LEECH 1983: 176).
It follows from this utterance interchangeability that the speaker’s intentionality is
directly expressed in the second statement, whereas it could also be implicitly
articulated in the first utterance. Since speech naturally occurs in conversation driven
by interests and purposes, the implicit nature of intentions can be naturally
presupposed. However, according to GRICE’s cooperative principle (cf. 2.1.3), the
particular speaker intention needs to be correctly interpreted by the hearer on the basis
of contextual-information. Interactants also need to trust their partners, who should
communicate cooperatively.
Important due to such possible utterance variants is AUSTIN’s distinction between
locutionary acts and illocutionary acts (cf. LEECH 1983: 176, MEY 2009: 1011, YULE
1996: 48). These acts are considered “dimensions [and not parts] of a speech act”
(MEY 2009: 1011), since speaker intentionality can be both implicitly and explicitly
conveyed, as illustrated in the previous example.
Therefore, the locutionary act, which can be defined as “the basic act of utterance, or
[the production of] a meaningful linguistic expression” (YULE 1996: 48), normally
implies the illocutionary dimension of a speech act, known as the illocutionary act. The
illocutionary act reflects “the intended action by the speaker, the force or intention
behind the words” (MEY 2009: 1011). The third and last speech act dimension is called
the perlocutionary act, which portrays the particular “effect that an utterance has on
the thoughts, feelings, attitudes, or actions of the hearer” (MEY 2009: 1011).
2 An example would be the performative ‘I invite you to my party’, which executes the act of inviting.
6
Regarding AUSTIN’s established categories of performative verbs3, criticism was voiced
by SEARLE who strongly disapproved of the claim that the classified performative verbs
necessarily represent the particular illocutionary force linked to them (cf. LEECH 1983:
176). DEGAND illustrates in his example “I promise things will go wrong for you if you
don’t go to bed immediately!” that a performative verb can indeed complete a different
illocutionary force from the conventionally associated one (i.e. a “threat” instead of a
“promise”) (MEY 2009: 1011).
Aside from such criticism, however, AUSTIN’s speech act concept remains the most
influential notion in pragmatics and its subdomains. As will be developed in 2.3, the
illocutionary intention or the so-called illocutionary force (cf. YULE 1996: 48) of a speech
act is the most widely explored speech act dimension. Moreover, it is particularly
important in Cross-Cultural and Interlanguage Pragmatics, where culture specific
nuances in the comprehension and production of illocutionary forces are explored.
Such differences will be elaborated in 2.4, 2.5 and 4.3.1.
2.1.2 CRYSTAL, David (1985)
As a subdomain of Pragmatics, Interlanguage Pragmatics inevitably builds on
elaborated pragmatic concepts, such as AUSTIN’s Speech Act Theory or GRICE’s co-
operative principle, and on the more general and holistic definitions4 of pragmatics
derived from these conceptions.
A widely accepted and concise description of pragmatics is CRYSTAL’s formulation of
1985, which characterizes the linguistic domain 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”.
(quoted in ALCÓN SOLER and MARTÍNEZ-FLOR 2008: 202)
3 Austin categorized performative verbs into Verdictives (verbs expressing a decision based on a judgement), Exercitives (verbs executing authority), Commissives (verbs obliging the speaker to do something), Behabitives (verbs commenting human manners) and Expositives (verbs embedding the speech act adequately in the respective context). (cf. LEECH 1983: 176; MEY 2009: 1010) 4 Definitions of pragmatics are proposed by various researchers such as KASPER & BLUM-KULKA (1993) (i.e. ‘the study of people’s comprehension and production of linguistic action in context’ (ALCÓN SOLER and MARTÍNEZ-FLOR 2008: 201)) or MEY (2001) (i.e. “Pragmatics studies the use of language in human communication as determined by the conditions of society.” (SCHAUER 2009: 6)).
7
Importantly, this definition reflects both the contextualized nature of language use and
the central research areas of pragmatics, which are “the coding and decoding of
utterances [of actual language use] by speakers and hearers” (SCHAUER 2009: 6).
Indeed, language learners need to develop language comprehension and production
simultaneously to communicate successfully. In research, on the other hand, language
coding and decoding need to be considered to infer developmental information on
language acquisition and to measure language proficiency in verbal discourse.
Commenting on CRYSTAL’s definition, BARRON (2003: 7) draws a comparison between
the term pairs “choices” and “constraints” and LEECH and THOMAS’ “sociopragmatic”
and “pragmalinguistic” concepts (cf. 2.2.3). Here, BARRON addresses the speakers’
selection options in a number of language devices to perform certain speech acts (i.e.
pragmalinguistic aspect) and notes their simultaneous obligation to restrict their choice
to a more limited amount of alternatives due to social circumstances (i.e. sociolinguistic
aspect). This characterization of the nature of language use resembles MEY’s
Aristotelian portrayal of the user, who relies on and is limited by the present contextual
and environmental conditions (cf. 2.1.5).
In the domain of Interlanguage Pragmatics, CRYSTAL’s definition connects perfectly
with culture-specific factors influencing communication. As to be specified in 2.5.1, the
realization of speech acts varies from culture to culture, a peculiarity which urges
foreign language speakers to alter identity positions to communicate conveniently in
the target speech community by “construct[ing], ascrib[ing] to, or resist[ing] their
various identities” (TAGUCHI 2009: 340). TAGUCHI (2009: 340) believes that the user’s
“point of view” as mentioned by CRYSTAL differs from person to person and that it is
thus “imperative to consider how each individual’s subjectivity comes into play when
making choices in interaction”.
In this respect, the speakers’ skill to meet the cultural language conventions in a
particular nation through “deliberate cultural alternation” is called “intercultural
competence” (IBID: 340). Intertwined with pragmatic competence, intercultural
competence should be taught by foreign language teachers to help their pupils master
both the sociopragmatic and pragmalinguistic faculties of the target language. For this
purpose and due to the contemporary perceptions of “native speaker”, “culture” and
“intercultural communication”, TAGUCHI (2009: 341) recommends a “reevaluation of
8
research designs as well as instructional methods” on which language instructors can
base their teaching.
Lastly, CRYSTAL’s definition can be applied to the notion of register, which tends to be
characterized by “situational characteristics”, to which belong “the setting, the
audience, interactiveness, and extent of planning” (MEY 2009: 848). Further situational
factors were accurately specified for individual registers by CRYSTAL and DAVY (1969)
and other researchers in the 1970s and 80s to determine register qualities (cf. IBID:
848) and to examine, amongst other aspects, the “relationships [between participants]
and their attitudes toward communication”.
As will be illustrated with a juxtaposition of directness conventions in German and
British culture (cf. 2.4 and 2.5.1), these attitudes tend to vary from nation to nation and
influence the speakers’ interpretative understanding and linguistic realizations of
politeness, as well as their relationship.
2.1.3 GRICE, H.P. (1989)
Highly influential and widely acknowledged in the field of pragmatics is GRICE’s notion
of the “inferential nature of communication” (MEY 2009: 106). This notion suggests that
the correct understanding of speech-implicit intentions is enabled through “available
[evidence]” (ARIEL 2008: 4) that the hearer processes. By forming “contextual and
background assumptions” (MEY 2009: 106) based on conveyed meaning, the hearer
can guess his partner’s intentions.
As KECSKÉS develops, interpretative efforts in interaction are rather of “conversational”
than of “semantic” nature (MEY 2009: 106). This is because the identification of implicit
speech act intentions (i.e. illocutionary forces) is primarily influenced by the respective
speech event and largely depends on so-called “implicatures”, which are conveyed by
the speaker and which the hearer deduces from the “meaning of utterances, contextual
and background assumptions, and [from] principles of communication” (IBID: 106).
Such a communication principle was elaborated by GRICE (1989) and is called the co-
operative principle, which defines verbal interaction as a “co-operative activity in which
participants tacitly agree to abide by certain norms” (CRUSE 2006: 40). Quite inevitably,
GRICE’s co-operative principle is part of successful conversations and respects the
interests of all communication participants. Since everyone generally desires to protect
9
his face and to remain respected (cf. 2.4), speakers should agree to conversational
norms. As GRICE specifies in his broad definition of the co-operative principle, it is
crucial to “[m]ake your conversational contribution such as is required, at the stage at
which it occurs, by the accepted purpose or direction of the talk exchange in which you
are engaged” (quoted in CRUSE 2006: 40). This concept is therefore intertwined with
particular rules, which are also known as the GRICEAN Maxims, including the Maxim of
Relation, the Maxim of Manner, the Maxim of Quality and the Maxim of Quantity:
The Maxim of Relation obliges the speaker to stick to the point, to be relevant.
The Maxim of Manner requires clarity and explicitness in communication.
The Maxim of Quality urges the speaker to stick to the truth.
The Maxim of Quantity recommends the use of sufficiently informative speech.
(cf. ARIEL 2008: 6; MEY 2009: 106f.)
In Politeness Theory, an important research area of Interlanguage Pragmatics, the
GRICEAN Maxims have only been partly successfully influential due to criticism
expressed by LEECH, who found that the flouting of GRICEAN maxims does not
necessarily decrease the level of politeness in speech acts (cf. 2.4).
Additionally, the claim that GRICE’s maxims are globally applicable to languages has
been heavily criticized by researchers who “argu[e] that different cultures have different
principles or maxims” (MEY 2009: 107). Accordingly, conventions of politeness tend to
be culture-specific, as are conventions in the realization and interpretation of speech
acts in Cross-Cultural Pragmatics.
Due to elaborated differences in speech act realization across cultures, the notion of
culture specificity is central to speech act research in Interlanguage Pragmatics, which
explores language learners’ utterances in their interlanguage state to infer
developmental information on L2 pragmatic acquisition. This issue will be addressed
in 2.5.1.1.2.
2.1.4 LEECH, Geoffrey N. (1983)
Crucial to the definition of Cross-cultural and Interlanguage pragmatics is LEECH’s
classification of “General Pragmatics” into “socio-pragmatics” and “pragmalinguistics”,
which unifies a both social and linguistic perspective of pragmatics (cf. LEECH 1983:
10f.).
10
As the linguist explains, the realm of socio-pragmatics represents “the socio-logical
interface of pragmatics”, influenced by the realization that GRICE’s “Cooperative
Principle and […] [LEECH’s] Politeness Principle operate variably in different cultures
or language communities, in different social situations, among different social classes,
etc.” (IBID: 10).
LEECH notes that politeness parameters in speech act production and speech act
comprehension are culture specific and that they need to be considered along with the
corresponding area (cf. ACHIBA 2003: 73) of pragmalinguistics, which covers “the
particular resources which a given language provides for conveying particular
illocutions” (LEECH 1983: 11). He additionally emphasises the necessity for research
on pragmalinguistic features in different languages and for socio-pragmatic
investigations in different societies. To meet the holistic requirements of research and
to elaborate on universal theoretical information on pragmatics, these two study types
should finally be supplemented by a third, more abstract study form of General
Pragmatics (cf. LEECH 1983: 11).
In Interlanguage Pragmatics, sociopragmatic differences are examined in speech to
determine sociocultural properties of language that shape the (pragmalinguistic)
realization of illocutionary forces. Since LEECH’s maxims of the Politeness Principle are
claimed to be culture-specific, they constitute important criteria in ILP to account for
language specific politeness conventions. The principle includes the following six
maxims:
a) The Tact Maxim: This maxim requires the speaker to ask little from the
communication partner and to increase the number of beneficial comments.
b) The Generosity Maxim: Here, the speaker should try to stay as humble as
possible by decreasing the number of self-beneficial remarks and by
increasing the number of self-sacrificing comments.
c) The Approbation Maxim: The speaker decreases expressions of
disapproval of the communication partner and increases the number of
approving utterances.
d) The Modesty Maxim: This maxim urges the speaker to decrease self-
approval and to increase self-disapproval.
11
e) The Agreement Maxim: The Agreement Maxim recommends that the
speakers attempt to increasingly agree with each other and that they thus
reduce the number of disagreeing utterances.
f) The Sympathy Maxim: This maxim encourages speakers to increase
sympathetic remarks and to decrease the amount of insensitive comments.
(cf. LEECH 1983: 132; SCHAUER 2009: 11f.)
Furthermore, the Politeness Principle claims that speakers tend to avoid the linguistic
realization of disrespectful views and that they usually support the articulation of
courteous and respectful attitudes. Such proper behaviour is required to protect one’s
own face (cf. BROWN/LEVINSON in 2.4), that is, to maintain one’s personal respected
and esteemed social status.
Although LEECH’s Politeness Principle is not considered the most influential Politeness
Theory (which would be BROWN and LEVINSON’s face-saving theory, cf. 2.4), it manages
to clarify “why people are often so indirect in conveying what they mean” and “what
[…] the relation between sense and force [is] when non-declarative types of sentences
are being considered” (LEECH 1983: 80). According to LEECH, the GRICEAN Maxims
alone cannot account for these problems, which is why the Politeness Principle should
be regarded as a necessary supplementary theory (cf. IBID: 80). As will be illustrated in
2.4, the mere violation of a GRICEAN Maxim in a speech act does indeed not obligatorily
result in an impolite remark, but may, on the contrary, produce an even more elegant
and tactful comment.
Finally, LEECH’s maxims represent ideal tools to assess culture-specific differences in
polite speech. Juxtaposing mini-dialogues, in which Japanese, Indonesian and New
Zealanders are confronted with compliments, HOLMES (cf. MEY 2009: 717) observes
that the Modesty Maxim is more highly valued in Japan and Indonesia than the
Agreement Maxim in the West, such as in New Zealand:
“(8) Context: Teacher to a Japanese student who is waiting outside the
teacher’s room in the corridor
T: what a beautiful blouse
S: [looks down and shakes her head] no no
T: but it looks lovely
S: [stays silent but continues to look down]
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[…] [New Zealanders:]
(9) M: that’s a snazzy scarf you’re wearing
S: yeah it’s nice isn’t it my mother sent it for my birthday”
MEY (2009: 717)
The researcher concludes that there is a tendency in Japan and Indonesia to associate
politeness with modesty by decreasing self-praise, whereas it is considered more polite
to accept and agree with a compliment in New Zealand.
However, as will be specified in 2.4, LEECH’s (1983) Politeness Principle has been
criticised by many researchers for a number of reasons and should be applied with
caution in research. Even BROWN and LEVINSON’s (1987) more popular face-saving
theory has been criticised, a sign that Politeness Theories are still to be developed.
2.1.5 MORRIS, Charles (1938)
In a broad sense, AUSTIN’s elaboration of Speech Act Theory in the 1960s is
responsible for our modern understandings of pragmatics and for the relatively late
emergence of subdomains, such as Cross-Cultural- and Interlanguage Pragmatics (cf.
2.5.1 and 2.5.1.1), of which speech acts are a basic research concept. Additionally,
debates in the 1970s about the manner of linguistic examination of meaning in either
semantics or pragmatics (cf. LEECH 1983: 6f.) have caused some confusion. Finally,
classification efforts of the two linguistic domains (i.e. including semantics in
pragmatics and vice versa) seem to have impeded definition efforts of the linguistic
areas as well as research in the broad field of pragmatics.
Whereas some researchers such as SEARLE see meaning as a vital component of the
speech event and of the utterances produced by interactants in a communicative
situation, linguists such as ROSS believe that the root of meaning lies directly in the
deep structure of speech acts and that this meaning is transmitted to the surface forms
of utterances, which are known as illocutionary acts (cf. LEECH 1987: 7). A third
researcher perspective preferred by LEECH defends “complementarism” (IBID: 7), an
approach that adopts a mixed perspective of meaning from a both semantic and
pragmatic angle. As a result of such differing positions, rather fruitless attempts were
made to integrate, for instance, pragmatics into semantics in the 1990s. BUSSMANN (cf.
13
2006: 927) refers to revolutionary umbrella terms, such as “situation semantics”,
coined by GAWRON and PETERS, or “illocutionary logic”, invented by VANDERVEKEN.
However, even these relatively recent classification attempts appear rather natural in
the broader and young historical context of pragmatics. Indeed, the expression
pragmatics was coined as early as 1938 (cf. IBID: 926) by the American language
philosopher Charles W. MORRIS, who established a “tripartition of semiotics into
syntactics, semantics, and pragmatics” and who defined pragmatics in terms of the
“relations of signs to their interpreters” (quoted in MEY 2009: 653).
Whereas pragmatics explores the sign-speaker relationship in MORRIS’ semiotic
theory, semantics investigates the sign-referent relations and syntax the formal ties
between signs (cf. MEY 2009: 786). Whereas BUSSMANN (2006: 926) claims that the
contemporary “distinction between pragmatics and semantics and syntax” as well as
the distinction between “pragmatics and sociolinguistics […] depends wholly on the
particular theory”, MEY (2009: 786) identifies a common target of MORRIS’ pragmatics
and contemporary pragmatics, which is the focus on “the user”, but nowadays “in the
Aristotelian sense[,] [the user considered] […] a being that is dependent on the context
in which she or he lives, but at the same time is able to interact with and change that
context through the use of signs”.
This notion of a responsibly interacting autonomous speaker is implicitly central to
Cross-Cultural- and Interlanguage Pragmatics, and it is hoped that research in these
areas facilitates the elaboration of developmental information on pragmatic acquisition
to develop more effective methods of pragmatic instruction for FL teachers.
2.1.6 SEARLE, John (1969)
Important theoretical elaborations of AUSTIN’s Speech Act Theory have made language
philosopher JOHN SEARLE the vital co-founder of the thesis, who “turned Austin’s
gradually revised approach into a comprehensive speech act theory” (MEY 2009: 28).
Passing away in 1960, AUSTIN could no longer “answer the objections […] made to the
published version of his lectures”, whereupon SEARLE decided to develop a more
“systematic” and detailed version of the theory (cf. IBID: 28).
14
Regarding terminology, SEARLE suggested the umbrella term “utterance act”5 or
“locution” for AUSTIN’s expressions “phonetic act”6 and “phatic act”7 and elaborated his
notion of “rhetic act”8 by proposing the substituting term “proposition act” with the
subcomponents “reference”9 and “predication”10 (BUSSMANN 2006: 1107).
The concept of proposition accounts for the speakers’ possibility of articulating a
common meaning in speech in different ways, that is, in form of different speaker
intentions in different illocutionary acts. As BUSSMANN (2006: 959) illustrates, the
common proposition (act) of “Phil” (common referent) “smoking [habitually]” (common
predication) can be expressed in various ways, such as in form of an assertion11, a
question12, or a conditional13. In Politeness Theory and Interlanguage Pragmatics, it is
necessary to assess the speakers’ culture-specific choice and interpretation of such
illocutionary forces to develop effective pragmatic instruction methods based on the
differences.
Doing this, researchers rely on SEARLE’s classification of illocutionary acts, which
contains the most influential speech act categories in pragmatics, that is, Assertives,
Directives, Commissives, Expressives and Declaratives:
By realizing Assertives, speakers are normally obliged to articulate true
utterances, as is usually the case in assertions or claims. (cf. CRUSE 2006:
168)
With Directives, speakers attempt to make their communication partners do
something, for instance in form of warnings or commands (cf. IBID: 168).
Commissives, such as promises, compel the speaker to do something
sometime. (cf. IBID: 168)
5 An utterance act can be defined as “the articulation of linguistic elements in a particular grammatical order.” (BUSSMANN 2006: 1108) 6 AUSTIN’s phonetic act describes the realization of “speech sounds”. (IBID: 1107) 7 The phatic act describes the articulation of “words in a particular grammar structure”. (IBID: 1107) 8 AUSTIN describes the rhetic act as a statement “about something”. (IBID: 1107) 9 The linguistic term reference characterizes the mentioning of a non-linguistic referent/item (e.g. the girl is beautiful). (cf. IBID: 1108) 10 The term predication refers to qualities related to a certain referent (e.g. the girl is beautiful). (cf. IBID: 1108) 11 “Phil smokes habitually.” (IBID: 959) 12 “Does Phil really smoke habitually?” (IBID: 959) 13 “If Phil smokes habitually, then he will not live much longer.” (IBID: 959)
15
Expressives help interactants articulate their emotions, as is for instance the
case in congratulations. (cf. IBID: 168)
With Declaratives, speakers modify something existing. A judge’s sentence,
for instance, can result in imprisonment. (cf. IBID: 169)
Importantly, SEARLE additionally defines four conditions, which speakers must respect
in their realization of illocutionary acts to interact clearly and successfully, or as he puts
it, in a felicitous manner. These speech act properties are also called felicity conditions
and contain the so-called general conditions, preparatory conditions, sincerity
conditions and essential conditions:
General conditions regulate the overall comprehensibility of speech by obliging
the interactants to communicate in a serious and rational manner (cf. YULE
1996: 50).
Preparatory conditions describe the circumstantial qualities of speech acts. For
instance, a promise implies that something favourable (first condition) will be
done for the hearer on purpose (second condition) (cf. IBID: 50f.).
Sincerity conditions examine the speaker’s honest intention when producing a
certain speech act, such as a promise, which one should truly mean to keep
(cf. IBID: 51).
Essential conditions naturally compel the speaker to accomplish something,
for instance to keep a promise (cf. IBID: 51).
In ILP and Politeness Theory, speech acts are additionally assessed by politeness
maxims (cf. LEECH, 2.1.4) or super-strategies (cf. BROWN/LEVINSON, 2.4), which are
claimed to be differently valued by individual cultures. These theories are highly
influential in contemporary ILP studies and will be carefully outlined in 2.4.
2.2 Communicative and Pragmatic Competence
2.2.1 HYMES (1972)
In the field of Interlanguage Pragmatics, research in the pragmatic properties of
individual languages (cf. Variation Theory in 2.5.1.1.2) is considered essential to
16
analyse and prognosticate learners’ mistakes in terms of linguistic correctness and
pragmatic appropriateness. Quoting WOLFSON (1989), GASS and NEU (1995: 110) point
out that “by comparing speech acts across cultures, [it is hoped that]
miscommunication resulting from the pragmatic transfer of first language rules to
second language speech situations can be predicted and prevented”. Based on
elaborated speech act conventions across languages, the conceptualization of
effective methods of pragmatic instruction needed to communicate appropriately in the
target speech community could help decrease L1 pragmatic transfer anticipated by
WOLFSON.
Therefore, GASS and NEU (1995: 110) believe that language instructors need for
instance be able to teach “the socially appropriate uses of compliments in the target
language” by drawing on contextualized speech act samples from research. However,
the concept of pragmatic competence was only acknowledged relatively late in the 90s
as an individual linguistic entity (cf. 2.2.3), although the first Interlanguage Studies were
launched in the 70s (cf. 2.5.1.1.2). Thus, it is still elaborated in contemporary models
as in those of ALCÓN (2000) or MARTÍNEZ-FLOR (2006) (cf. ALCÓN SOLER and MARTÍNEZ-
FLOR 2008: 5).
Responsible for the elaboration of pragmatic competence in succeeding
communication models is HYMES’ term communicative competence, which the
sociolinguist developed “in his ethnography of communication” (BUSSMANN 2006: 208)
in response to the CHOMSKIAN competence concept. CHOMSKY’s concept merely
focused on linguistic correctness and ignored the appropriate use of language in
communicative situations (cf. ADAMSON 2009: 153; BARRON 2003: 8; BUSSMANN 2006:
208; COOK 2008: 22f.; GASS and NEU 1995: 109). Thus, HYMES considered CHOMSKY’s
rather limited idea of competence in terms of grammatical accuracy insufficient and
found that “the meaning of an utterance can be understood only in relation to the
‘speech event’, or ‘communicative event,’ in which it is embedded” (BUSSMANN 2006:
381). Along with KRASHEN, HYMES delved into the new field of “communicative
language teaching” to substitute the previously grammar-drilling “audio-lingual
method”, but focused, unlike KRASHEN14, on the “sociolinguistic” nature of
communicative competence (ADAMSON 2009: 153). Adopting the sociolinguistic
14 KRASHEN researched communicative competence from a psycholinguistic perspective, suggesting that “meaningful, stress-free, and interesting [language lessons]” (ADAMSON 2009: 153) are most necessary and effective in Second Language Acquisition.
17
perspective, HYMES realized that speech is largely shaped by cultural components and
factors.
Therefore, his communicative model of language captures both “grammatical
competence and knowledge of the sociocultural rules of appropriate language use”
(BARRON 2003: 8), driven by the conviction that “language must be not only
linguistically accurate, but socially appropriate” (GASS and NEU 1995: 109). Thus,
central to HYMES’ concept of communicative competence are the notions of language
knowledge and the use of that knowledge, technically known as language in use (cf.
BARRON 2003: 8). Rules pertaining to language in use have been increasingly
elaborated through “systematic observation, analysis of spontaneous language, and
interviews with native speakers” (BUSSMANN 2006: 381f.).
In the domain of discourse analysis, HYMES’ concept of communicative competence
resulted in the discovery of schematic knowledge, which promotes coherent speech
production through contextualization. That is, communication partners associate the
semantics of produced speech with their world knowledge. Since the communication
partners’ schematic knowledge is socio-culturally shaped, the culture-specificity of
speech acts constitutes a central research area within Cross-cultural- (cf. 2.5.1) and
Interlanguage Pragmatics (cf. 2.5.1.1.2). The later elaborated concept of pragmatic
competence directly intertwines with this sociolinguistic aspect, as the following
communication models illustrate.
2.2.2 CANALE/SWAIN (1980)
Based on HYMES’ more general concept of communicative competence, CANALE and
SWAIN carefully developed a model in the 1980s to elaborate major components of this
revolutionary notion. In a revised model version of 1983 (cf. BARRON 2003: 9), CANALE
believes that communicative competence is best characterized by four domains that
language speakers need to master to communicate successfully. These four
constituents are labelled grammatical competence, sociolinguistic competence,
discourse competence and strategic competence (cf. IBID: 9).
Whereas grammatical competence largely implies the CHOMSKIAN notion of
competence in terms of “mastery of vocabulary, word formation, sentence formation,
semantics [and] phonology”, the area of sociolinguistic competence involves “choices
of language in use” and relates to a more pragmatically oriented conception of
18
language within a communicative context (IBID: 9). According to ALCÓN SOLER and
MARTÍNEZ-FLOR, sociolinguistic competence contains the notion of pragmatics or
pragmatic competence, since it is subdivided into the realms of “discourse [rules]” and
“rules of use”, of which the latter examine the “appropriateness of an utterance with
respect to a specific speech event” (2008: 5). Discourse rules, on the other hand, are
concerned with the linguistic concepts of cohesion and coherence (IBID: 5). Although
the technical term pragmatic competence is not yet stated in CANALE and SWAIN’s
model, contextualization of speech is clearly respected as an essential component of
sociolinguistic competence. The model also contains the concept of strategic
competence, which investigates procedures that help communication participants
interact more smoothly and adequately, involving the use of “rhetorical strategies”
(BARRON 2003: 9).
Lastly, BARRON indicates that CANALE and SWAIN differentiate between “communicative
competence” and “communicative performance” to indicate that an interactant’s
performance can vary according to situational circumstances and personal conditions
(i.e. “fatigue and nervousness” (IBID: 9)) independent of his communicative
competence (i.e. knowledge). These factors are also implied in BACHMAN’s,
LEECH/THOMAS’ (1983) and FEARCH/KASPER’s (1984) models (cf. BARRON 2003: 9f.),
which are explained beneath.
2.2.3 BACHMAN/PALMER (1996)
Equally shaped by the “notion of [language] appropriacy” (DAVIES 2007: 38) of
communicative competence, BACHMAN and PALMER’s model is considered the first to
“[explicitly] mention the pragmatic component” (ALCÓN SOLER and MARTÍNEZ-FLOR
2008: 5) of language, that is, pragmatic competence as an individual element. The
model is carefully structured and contains the three major categories “language
competence, strategic competence and physiological mechanisms” (BARRON 2003: 9).
Along with “organizational competence”, pragmatic competence is part of BACHMAN’s
supercategory language competence and examines interactants’ language production
in terms of speech act knowledge (i.e. “illocutionary competence”) and in terms of
context-related awareness shaping adequate interaction (i.e. “sociolinguistic
competence”) (BARRON 2003: 9).
19
Organizational competence, on the other hand, includes grammatical competence,
which characterizes the skill to generate and recognize grammatically correct
constructions (cf. ALCÓN SOLER and MARTÍNEZ-FLOR 2008: 5), and textual competence,
which examines text-structuring skills (cf. IBID: 5) (BARRON 2003: 9).
As BARRON (cf. 2003: 9f.) suggests, BACHMAN’s pragmatic subcategories illocutionary
competence and sociolinguistic competence resemble LEECH and THOMAS’
classification of the linguistic domain of pragmatics, which proposes a pragmalinguistic
and a sociopragmatic constituent with the corresponding terms “knowledge” and
“ability” (cf. IBID: 9). Similarly to BACHMAN’s conceptions, LEECH and THOMAS
differentiate between what one can imagine as a more theoretically oriented pragmatic
comprehension of speech acts acquired by speakers (knowledge) and the actual
performance of this knowledge in a communicative setting (ability).
The same semantic differentiation is intended by FAERCH and KASPER’s (1984)
juxtaposition of the terms “declarative” and “procedural pragmatic knowledge” (BARRON
2003: 10). As indicated in 2.2.2, it occasionally happens that speakers with the
necessary pragmatic or declarative knowledge still fail to produce and realize speech
acts due to circumstantial difficulties, such as “pressure” or “complex cognitive content”
(IBID: 10). Such exceptional situations should be generally kept in mind to remain
conscious of the fact that failure in communication does not uniquely indicate lack of
pragmalinguistic knowledge.
2.3 Speech Act Theory
Responsible for the origin of pragmatics (cf. BARRON 2003: 11) and central to pragmatic
investigations in the fields of “cross-cultural and interlanguage pragmatics” (IBID: 13),
the notion of speech act is based on a revolutionary concept of pragmatic nature that
needs accurate defining.
As LEECH (cf. 1983: 14) suggests, the terms act and utterance must be distinguished
from the expressions sentence or question to specify the intended speech act concept.
This distinction allows us to differentiate between two basic types of meaning, the so-
called “sentence meaning” studied in the linguistic field of semantics, and the
“utterance meaning” examined in the domain of pragmatics (IBID: 14). Whereas the
notion of the sentence linguistically relates to aspects of grammar, an utterance reflects
a communicative situation outside the “language system” in which the sentence is
20
embedded, or as LEECH (1983: 14) puts it, an utterance is a “sentence-instance” and
“the product of a verbal act”.
The difference between these terms not only defines a speech act as the verbal
production of context-embedded language, it also characterizes the domain of
pragmatics “as dealing with utterance meaning” and separates it from semantics,
which “deal[s] with sentence meaning” (IBID: 14). The communicative context as a
defining feature of the speech act concept is also emphasized by DIRVEN and
VERSPOOR (2004: 151), who describe the speech act in terms of “[t]he actual words we
utter to realize a communicative intention”, and by GRIFFITHS (2006: 148), who explains
that the “the basic units of linguistic interaction – such as give a warning to, greet, apply
for, tell what, confirm an appointment” represent typical speech acts.
Despite AUSTIN’s identification of the three speech act dimensions, both BARRON (2003)
and YULE (1996) note that the speech act concept as such is most often linked to the
illocutionary act:
“The illocutionary act is the principal focus of speech act theory and it is,
indeed, itself, standardly referred to as the “speech act”.
(BARRON 2003: 12)
“Indeed, the term ‘speech act’ is generally interpreted quite narrowly to mean
only the illocutionary force of an utterance.”
(YULE 1996: 49)
The reason why the illocutionary force constitutes the central research aspect in
Speech Act Theory is well illustrated with YULE’s exemplification of the various possible
illocutionary acts based on a common proposition:
“[5] a. I’ll see you later. (=A)
b. [I predict that] A.
c. [I promise you that] A.
d. [I warn you that] A.”
(IBID: 49)
In the given example, the proposition “I’ll see you later” (IBID: 49) can be interpreted in
diverse ways, namely as a prediction, a promise or a warning. Identifying these
21
illocutionary forces in communicative situations is particularly important to determine
differences in speaker intention or degrees of certainty. These individual speaker
intentions influence the communication process directly, since the partners’ reactions
are based on them.
The indicative realization of an illocutionary force is attained through so-called
“Illocutionary Force Indicating Devices and Felicity Conditions” (IBID: 49), which are
vital speech act components and characteristics of clear communication. Whereas
Force Indicating Devices, such as accent, adverbs (cf. BUSSMANN 2006: 1108)
performative verbs (cf. BARRON 2003: 12; BUSSMANN 2006: 1108; DIRVEN and
VERSPOOR 2004: 157; GASS and NEU 1995: 192; YULE 1996: 49), mood, or intonation
(cf. BARRON 2003: 12) are normally part of illocutionary acts, felicity conditions (cf.
section 2.1.6) represent conventional conditional characteristics of individual
illocutionary forces. Identified as “[t]he most obvious device for indicating the
illocutionary force” (YULE 1996: 49), performative verbs specify the respective illocution
and equal amount-wise the corresponding number of existing speech acts, which were
partly recorded in 1962 in a list by AUSTIN, who believed that hundreds of such lists
could be compiled (cf. GRIFFITHS 2006: 148).
The vast number of performative verbs and speech acts have generated serious
problems in speech act categorization, which is marked by “many attempts at
classification” (BARRON 2003: 12). Numerous expressions and phrases have been
analysed to discover speech act types with a cultural focus, such as compliments (cf.
MANES/WOLFSON (1983) or apologies (cf. COHEN/OLSHTAIN (1981). The latter have
been the subject of “intercultural research” (GASS and NEU 1995: 193), which correlates
directly with investigation in Interlanguage Pragmatics.
Despite critique, SEARLE’s taxonomy of speech acts of 1976 is the most widely
accepted (cf. BARRON 2003: 12), containing the five speech act categories
Representatives/Assertives, Directives, Commissives, Expressives and Declarations
(cf. section 2.1.6; BARRON 2003: 12; DIRVEN and VERSPOOR 2004: 152). However, even
this categorization has been semantically subsumed under three “superordinate
categories” (DIRVEN and VERSPOOR 2004: 153). Since Assertives include “information
questions”, they should be named “informative speech acts”, whereas Directives and
Commissives form the common semantic category of “obligative speech acts”, which
“impos[e] an obligation, either on the hearer (directive) or on [the speaker]
22
(commissive)” (IBID: 153). Finally, Expressives and Declarations constitute the group
of “constitutive speech acts”, which “constitute a social reality”, as in the declarative “I
name this ship the Queen Elizabeth” (IBID: 154). Such influential classification
suggestions have been put forward by many researchers for the development of the
Speech Act Theory.
However, as BARRON (cf. 2003: 13f.) points out, criticism relating to the Speech Act
Theory has also been expressed in the field of Interlanguage Pragmatics. On the one
hand, Speech Act Theory is claimed to ignore the interactant’s influential role (hence,
the communicative context) on the speaker’s production of illocutions by merely
defining the illocutionary force through applied Illocutionary Force Indicating Devices
and felicity conditions (cf. IBID: 13). On the other hand, non-linguistic properties are
ignored due to the examination of spoken discourse (cf. IBID: 14.).
Finally, BARRON notes that due to the discovery of culture specific speech act
properties (cf. 2.5.1), researchers have increasingly criticised the view that indirect
speech act strategies are realized identically across cultures. Influential cultural
peculiarities in learners’ speech production will therefore be considered in various
examples of interlanguage realizations in 4.3.1.
2.4 Politeness Theory
“One can be near-native in one’s fluency in a foreign language and yet, if one does not
have control of the pragmatics of politeness in the language, sound offensively abrupt
in one’s request or ludicrously flattering in one’s compliments.” (BUSSMANN 2006: 916)
Politeness is indeed one of the most decisive aspects in communication and a central
property of speech acts in pragmatics and interlanguage pragmatics, since it naturally
determines degrees of esteem and respect between conversation participants.
BUSSMANN quite rightly implies the idea that correct language alone cannot possibly
regulate emotive language properties. In fact, one needs to use adequate language by
“being tactful, generous, modest, and sympathetic toward others” (YULE 1996: 60) to
act appropriately as a tourist or as a well-integrated citizen. Regularly emerging
questions, such as “Will the others be upset if I say what I really want to say?” and
“How can I say what I want to say so that we can continue the interactional
relationship?” (DIRVEN and VERSPOOR 2004: 168) suggest that communication partners
not only exchange information on the topic- but also on the social level (cf. IBID: 168).
23
This in turn suggests that it is necessary to keep “minimising the negative effects of
what one says on the feelings of others and maximising the positive effects” (CRUSE
2006: 131) to maintain a solid and friendly relationship with interactants.
Importantly, politeness varies “from culture to culture and from language to language
in ways that are difficult to calibrate” (BUSSMANN 2006: 916), which is why it has been
described as a “cultural script” (DIRVEN and VERSPOOR 2004: 141) that is applied
differently by individual nations (cf. DIRVEN and VERSPOOR 2004: 140) and “dictated by
sociolinguistic norms” (BARRON 2003: 15). There are numerous examples (cf. DIRVEN
and VERSPOOR 2004: 141f.; SHARIFIAN and PALMER 2007: 36) that illustrate cultural
differences in politeness, such as the following request situation in German and
English:
“A bank clerk may say “Sie müssen hier unterschreiben” (You have to (must)
sign here) and not “Würden Sie bitte hier unterschreiben?” (Would you please
sign here?). At best he will say “Unterschreiben Sie bitte” (Sign here please).
Although the imperative is used it is not meant as a command. The word
müssen (must) is very much part of the language and keeps cropping up in
situations where it would not do so in English.”
(DIRVEN and VERSPOOR 2004: 142)
Such examples illustrate cross-cultural differences in directness, which seems to be a
very delicate issue in some countries, and particularly on the Britain Isles.
Since the 1970s (cf. BARRON 2003: 14), several pragmatic characterizations of
politeness have been put forward. However, along with the development of pragmatics
and the ongoing attempts of speech act categorization (cf. section 2.3), the relatively
young research period in politeness has generated widely criticized theories (cf.
BARRON 2003: 14-20). Still, BROWN and LEVINSON’s face-saving theory of politeness
(1978) is considered a highly dominant and popular (cf. BARRON 2003: 17) one, since
their notion of face (cf. BUSSMANN 2006: 916; DIRVEN and VERSPOOR 2004: 169;
SHARIFIAN and PALMER 2007: 36; YULE 1996: 61f.) is acknowledged as “a central
concept of politeness theory” (BUSSMANN 2006: 916).
Face describes the manner in which communication partners desire to be perceived
(cf. DIRVEN and VERSPOOR 2004: 169), or, to put it in BROWN/LEVINSON’s words, it is
“[…] the public self-image that every member wants to claim for himself […]” that face
24
defines. The concept contains a positive and a negative face (cf. YULE 1996: 61f.),
which can either be saved or threatened and which are common to both the speaker
and the hearer (cf. BARRON 2003: 17). It is crucial to note that neither positive nor
negative are conventional notions in terms of good or bad (cf. YULE 1996: 62). Rather,
the adjective positive characterizes the speaker’s or hearer’s wish to remain socially
integrated and appreciated, whereas negative refers to a person who longs for liberty
and self-determination (cf. IBID: 62).
As is usually the case, it is most desirable to save the communication partner’s face in
order to maintain one’s own and to preserve mutual respect, if one “want[s] to be liked
and […] feel good when interacting” (DIRVEN and VERSPOOR 2004: 169). Particularly
for FL learners, the acquisition of L2 pragmatic knowledge with a focus on politeness
conventions belongs to the most important tasks to communicate appropriately in the
target speech community and to enhance what MERCER (2011: 17) labels “L2 linguistic
self-confidence”. Otherwise, it is reasonable to suspect that inefficient and inadequate
communication with native speakers negatively influences a learner’s pragmatic self-
evaluation and his/her “L2 linguistic self-confidence”, a notion that CLÉMENT and
KRUIDENIER have developed to describe the “individual’s self-evaluations of second
language proficiency” (IBID: 17).
To save each other’s face, BROWN and LEVINSON have elaborated five super-strategies:
“Do the act bald on the record”: Speakers try to communicate as clearly as
possible.
“Do the act with positive redress (positive politeness)”: Speakers express their
positive feelings for their communication partner.
“Do the act with negative redress (negative politeness)”: Speakers perform
indirect speech acts (e.g. requests) to promote the partner’s liberty.
“Do the act off the record”: Speakers use unclear language to hide a specific,
potentially face threatening illocution and to justify the intended use of a
different illocution in case of trouble.
“Don’t do the act”: Speakers do not perform a speech act due to high face
threatening potential.
(BARRON 2003: 18)
25
In addition to these super strategies that interactants are advised to use, BROWN and
LEVINSON outline three major aspects that influence the speaker’s strategy choice:
“social distance (D)“: measures how well the communication partners know
each other.
“relative power (P)”: determines the power relations between the speech
participants.
“absolute rank of imposition in the particular culture (R)”: gauges the culture-
specific constraint of a speech act.
(IBID: 18)
Including the power relations between two interactants or the force degree of speech
acts, these three qualities vary across cultures and are responsible for “culture-specific
views of the relative degree of face-threat and, thus, [for] culture-specific strategy
choices in a single situation”, as observed by BROWN and LEVINSON (paraphrased in
BARRON 2003: 19).
Although BARRON (cf. 2003: 19) observes that BROWN and LEVINSON’s theory has
obtained numerous positive reactions, she notes that the theory has been criticised for
the assumption that the notion of face remains globally common. As section 2.5.1
illustrates, the idea of universality is usually rejected in cross-cultural and interlanguage
pragmatics on the grounds that the culture-specificity of language properties has been
increasingly successfully explored in research. BARRON (cf. 2003: 19) claims that an
individual’s face may vary from culture to culture and hints at the important difference
between Western Europe and cultures in the Eastern hemisphere, such as Japan.
Whereas face is naturally intertwined with group membership (cf. IBID: 19) in the
Japanese language community, it expresses a more individualistic position (cf.
SHARIFIAN and PALMER 2007: 36) in the Western World (cf. BARRON 2003: 19). Other
areas of critique concern the idea of the immediate connection between “increasing
indirectness and increasing politeness” (BARRON 2003: 19), or the mistaken belief that
citizens of a lower social stratum are less polite than highly educated people and
academics (cf. IBID: 19).
Criticism has also been voiced of LEECH’s conversational-maxim view (1983) (cf.
BARRON 2003: 16), a politeness theory originally developed to suggest a solution to the
GRICEAN maxims, which declare that the “mere flouting of the maxims” (IBID: 15)
26
characterizes impoliteness. GRICE’s explanations of politeness have been found
unreliable insofar as a speech act violating a GRICEAN maxim may in fact be more polite
than an equivalent speech act respecting the same maxim. As an example, BARRON
(2003: 15) juxtaposes the speech act variants “Bring out the rubbish” and “Could you
bring out the rubbish?” to illustrate that the manner maxim need not necessarily be
obeyed in polite conversation.
LEECH’s theory (cf. 2.1.4), on the contrary, has been criticized for insufficient research
data to support his elaborated maxims, and for the limited amount of described
maxims, which could theoretically be extended by a virtually endless list of maxims.
Additionally, the conversational-maxim view has been observed to ignore
conversations where participants are not cooperative, but instead engaged in an
argument or a dispute (cf. BARRON 2003: 17).
However, unlike GRICE’s maxims and FRASER and NOLEN’S (1981) “conversational-
contract view” (IBID: 20), LEECH’s and BROWN/LEVINSON’s theories concentrate both on
speech acts and on the relational function of language, that is, on the situational
context of language rather than on its referential function (IBID: 15). This is important
because the referential component of language is only concerned with linguistic
properties of speech outside the communicative situation (IBID: 15). Moreover, FRASER
and NOLEN merely consider politeness a basic element of verbal communication,
claiming that it depends on the bond between the speakers (IBID: 20). However, no
further specifications are given and the approach is essentially “discourse-based” (IBID:
20).
Thus, LEECH’s Maxims of Tact, of Generosity (cf. CRUSE 2006: 177f.), of Approbation,
of Modesty (cf. IBID: 15f.), of Agreement (cf. IBID: 9f.) and of Sympathy (cf. IBID: 175)
respect in addition to GRICE’s co-operative principle the interactional nature of
conversation (BARRON 2003: 16), that is, the conversational-maxim view takes into
account sociolinguistic properties of politeness.
For instance, BARRON’s sample directive “Can you come here for a minute?” (2003: 16)
illustrates the implementation of “The Tact Maxim” in conversation. “[T]he cost to h”
(the hearer) is “minimize[d]” (i.e. a minute instead of an hour), which is a central
property of this maxim (IBID: 16). Since LEECH’s Maxims determine “the interactional
nature of conversation” (BARRON 2003: 16), all maxims can be viewed as part of the
interactants’ sociolinguistic competence.
27
Finally, LEECH’s definition of the politeness principle (“’Minimize […] the expression of
impolite beliefs’ […] ‘Maximize the expression of polite beliefs’ […]” (BARRON 2003: 16))
implies the notion of belief, which is claimed to be part of identity (cf. BLOCK 2010: 43)
and is therefore marked by culture-specific traits.
2.5 Intercultural Pragmatics
2.5.1 The Field of Cross-cultural Pragmatics
Defined as “the study of similarities and differences in cultural norms for expressing
and understanding messages, such as differences in the conventions for the
realization of speech acts” (RICHARDS and SCHMIDT 2010: 148), the domain of Cross-
cultural Pragmatics carries great taxonomic relevance, since Interlanguage Pragmatics
is considered its “direct off-shoot” (BARRON 2003: 27). RICHARDS and SCHMIDT’s
definition puts great emphasis on the sociocultural embedding of language production,
since sociopragmatic aspects are increasingly claimed to influence our interpretative
comprehension and production of speech acts (cf. BARRON 2003: 23). A further
definition is cited by BARRON with reference to HOUSE-EDMONDSON, whose formulation
of 1986 foregrounds the great social significance of languages in speech production:
“Cross-cultural pragmatics is a field of inquiry which compares the ways in
which two or more languages are used in communication. Cross-cultural
pragmatics is an important new branch of contrastive linguistic studies
because in any two languages different features of the social context may be
found to be relevant in deciding what can be expressed and how it is
conventionally expressed.”
(BARRON 2003: 23)
BARRON notes that cross-cultural pragmatics emerged from the domain of contrastive
pragmatics, as many researchers started to question the notions of “[universal]
language use” and “universal principles” in contrastive research (2003: 23), which
draws on the universality of language properties to enable comparability of shared
features. In contrastive pragmatics, research based on these notions generated
studies that concentrated merely on the pragmalinguistic aspect of speech acts, as
does, for instance, the “investigation of the strategies employed in the realisation of the
28
speech act “request” in German and in English” (IBID: 23). Since contrastive analysis
ignored sociopragmatic aspects and since the resulting debates on the universality of
pragmatic features led to an increasing exploration of cultural characteristics of
language, investigations were launched in the new domain of cross-cultural
pragmatics, such as “The Cross-Cultural Speech Act Realisation Project (CCSARP)”
(ACHIBA 2003: 10).
Within the frame of this research study examining “both native and non-native varieties
of request and apology realisations” (BARRON 2003: 24) across languages, researchers
not only observed that conventional indirectness is the commonly preferred request
strategy (ACHIBA 2003: 10), but also found that FL learners rather use longer
formulations in request situations than natives. Similarly, a different study conducted
by NELSON/EL BAKARY/AL BATAL shows that Egyptians tend to express compliments in
longer utterances than Americans (cf. GASS and NEU 1995: 8). In connection with the
CCSARP study, “learners […] [are thus said to] give priority to clarity”, which they
associate with thorough speech and more detailed assertions even at the high-
intermediate stage (ACHIBA 2003: 11).
The discovery of such developmental issues shows that the L2 pragmatic development
of FL learners must be different from the natives’ L1 pragmatic acquisition and justifies
the proclaimed
“need for [the examination of] cross-cultural and intercultural aspects of
pragmatics, with a clear emphasis on the different ways in which languages
realize functions that are quasi-universal and how speakers of a second or
foreign language can realize these functions in the target language.” (ROMERO-
TRILLO 2012: 2).
Therefore, FL learners are urged to acquire and rely on both pragmalinguistic and
sociolinguistic knowledge, if they are to communicate adequately in a native speaker
context. Otherwise, the high risk of cross- and intercultural pragmatic
misunderstandings (cf. BARRON 2003: 24; ISHIHARA and COHEN 2010: 14; ROMERO-
TRILLO 2012: 2) remains a serious problem for learners of a second language.
Cultural implications for speech act production are already partly researched, as
HOUSE’s (2000) findings on language differences between the Germans and the British
(cf. BARRON 2003: 24) or ISHIHARA and COHEN’s examples of convenient, or rather,
29
inconvenient questions (cf. 2010: 14f.) across cultures illustrate. Accordingly, when FL
learners acquire pragmatic competence, they need not only gain pragmalinguistic
knowledge (e.g. knowledge of the speech act dimensions) but also attain
sociopragmatic proficiency, knowing, for instance that the Germans prefer
“directness/orientation towards self/orientation towards content/[or] explicitness”,
whereas the British favour “indirectness/orientation towards other/orientation towards
addresses/[and] implicitness” (BARRON 2003: 24).
Finally, language learners need to know whether or not it is “appropriate to ask the
other person his/her age[,] since in some cultures, advanced age brings with it added
status[,] or how much s/he makes a month[,] since in some cultures, a higher salary
brings with it higher social status” (ISHIHARA and COHEN 2010: 14). Such and many
more examples of sociopragmatic competence need to be both explored and
implemented in FL pragmatic instruction, which is yet to be thoroughly elaborated.
2.5.1.1 The Domain of Interlanguage Pragmatics
2.5.1.1.1 Definition
As mentioned in section 1.1, Interlanguage Pragmatics “investigat[es] […] non-native
speakers’ comprehension and production of speech acts, and the acquisition of L2-
related speech act knowledge” (BARRON 2003: 26). BARRON adds two further definitions
of Interlanguage Pragmatics, which are semantically almost identical, since they
associate ILP with “language in use, i.e. with language as action” and with the
“learner’s use and acquisition of pragmatic knowledge” (IBID: 27):
ILP is “… the study of nonnative speakers’ use and acquisition of L2 pragmatic
knowledge… (KASPER/ROSE 1999: 81)” and “…the study of nonnative speakers’
comprehension, production, and acquisition of linguistic action in L2, or, put briefly, ILP
[interlanguage pragmatics] investigates ‘how to do things with words’ (Austin) in a
second language. (KASPER 1998b: 184)”
Although these definitions imply cultural aspects, since L2 pragmatic knowledge, L2-
related speech act knowledge and linguistic action naturally occur in communicative
situations of the target language speech community, one might still prefer SCHAUER’s
formulation of ILP, since it seems to highlight the contextual embedding of pragmatics
even more clearly:
30
“[…] interlanguage pragmatics – the acquisition, comprehension and production of
contextually appropriate language by foreign or second language learners […]”
(SCHAUER 2009: 2)
Unlike KASPER, SCHAUER explicitly delivers the notion that pragmatic competence has
to be contextually appropriate, expressing simultaneously the reason for the learners’
urgent necessity to acquire pragmatic knowledge. Without communicating
appropriately, one cannot possibly express him/herself efficiently and clearly. Instead
of using KASPER’s metalanguage, such as pragmatic knowledge or linguistic action,
she substitutes pragmatic competence with the term contextually appropriate language
and allows nonspecialists to more easily grasp the logic of pragmatic competence and
ILP.
Importantly, Interlanguage Pragmatics also examines the learner’s L1 pragmatic
competence. As ADAMSON (2009: xi) points out, “variation is the hallmark of
interlanguage”, and variations in L1 and L2 pragmatic competence are increasingly
explored in studies. Examining the issue of language variation, researchers need to
keep in mind that it is a changing and more or less dynamic process, influenced by
both L1 competence and L2 acquisition, hence the term interlanguage:
“Simply put, an interlanguage is a stage on a continuum within a rule-governed
language system that is developed by L2 learners on the way to acquiring the
target language. This language system is intermediate between the learner’s
native language and his or her target language.” (MEY 2009: 1008)
Researchers’ published works, such as BARRON’s, are therefore driven by research
questions trying to explore developmental issues of L2 pragmatic acquisition:
“1. Is there evidence of changes in learners’ L2 pragmatic competence towards
or away from the L2 norm over time spent in the target speech community?
2. Does pragmatic transfer increase or decrease with time in the target culture?
3. What implications do any changes or lack of changes in learners’ L2
pragmatic competence have for our understanding of the development of L2
pragmatic competence?
4. Can one speak of stages of acquisition of L2 pragmatic competence?”
31
(BARRON 2003: 4)
To address some important aspects of L2 pragmatic development in section 4.3,
chapter 3 and the previous sections of chapter 4 will explore acquisitional
characteristics of L1 and L2. Rounding off chapter 2, the following section will briefly
comment on the current research status of Interlanguage Pragmatics.
2.5.1.1.2 ILP Research in L1 and L2
In form of cross-sectional and longitudinal studies (cf. BARRON 2003: 30-33), ILP
Research in L1 and L2 developed in the 1980s from the first Interlanguage studies
emerging in the 70s, after the elaboration of the concept of Interlanguage by CORDER
and SELINKER in 1967 and 1972 (cf. SIMPSON 2011: 172). The term Interlanguage, as
WHITE (cf. 2003: 1) specifies, was equally suggested and introduced by the
researchers ADJÉMIAN in 1976 and NEMSER in 1971. It is based on the thesis that FL
learners’ language errors result from “rule-governed behaviour”, which hints at a
complex linguistic system that learners portray language-wise (cf. WHITE 2003: 1).
SIMPSON (cf. 2011: 172) claims that both CORDER and SELINKER argue against the
comparative method of Contrastive Analysis (CL), since they distrust the idea that the
systematic comparison and juxtaposition of L1 and L2 properties allows for inferences
in terms of acquisitional and developmental information.
However, these researchers argue in favour of investigating the learners’ language
competence when talking in the foreign language. That is, the errors emerging in
communication are believed to have great scientific profit and are rather considered
“objects of study that hold great value for understanding L2 acquisition” (SIMPSON 2011:
172) than mistakes needing correction. This in turn means that researchers start to
perceive FL learners as responsible individuals, who are conscious of their learning
process and “engag[e] in the discovery of underlying L2 rules” (IBID: 172). Therefore,
several studies were conducted from the 70s up to the 80s with special attention on
“cognitive” and “psycholinguistic aspects of acquisition” (IBID: 172). SIMPSON adds that
some researchers also investigated variation theories belonging to quantitative
sociolinguistics to delve into developmental issues of second language acquisition.
Variation theory, as ADAMSON (cf. 2009: xi) accurately describes, was conceptualized
by LABOV and his colleagues during the 1960s in order to explore varieties in various
32
dialects. ADAMSON (2009: XI) points out that “these language varieties differed from
each other not so much in terms of features that were always present in one variety
and never present in another, but in terms of the frequency at which shared features
occurred.” This information is crucial to second language acquisition since many
language features are shared by native speakers and foreign language learners more
or less frequently. As an example, ADAMSON refers to the speech act variants “I’m
running”/“I’m runnin’” expressed by a native speaker and “I don’t like it”/”I no like it.”
(2009: xi) articulated by an FL learner of English, showing that whereas native
speakers distinguish between "a formal and an informal variant”, FL learners use “a
grammatical and an ungrammatical variant” (IBID: xi). To find the common language
property in these examples, one needs to consider both first versions, which are formal
and correct variants. Variation Theories are considered in ADAMSON’s Interlanguage
Variation in Theoretical and Pedagogical Perspective (2009) and have significantly
influenced SLA research.
Categorizations of interlanguage and ILP studies are proposed by BARRON (2003), MEY
(2009), and ISHIHARA and COHEN (2010). BARRON (cf. 2003: 29) distinguishes between
two study types, the longitudinal (studies recording developmental aspects of chosen
individuals over a relatively long period of time) and the cross-sectional studies (studies
capturing the language data of heterogeneous individuals at a specific moment)
commencing in the 1980s.
MEY (cf. 2009: 1008), on the other hand, characterizes studies semantically and
distinguishes between those that describe the way learners produce a certain speech
act and those that prefer a contrastive examination of speech peculiarities produced
by learners and native speakers (including in particular variation theories).
Lastly, ISHIHARA and COHEN (cf. 2010: ix) note that several studies have been
conducted on the nature of speech act types in many languages, and others on the
manner learners process pragmatic knowledge in both the mother tongue and the
target language in terms of comprehension and production.
Despite the large and continuously increasing number of such studies, some aspects
are observed to be poorly researched and may generally be considered problematic in
Interlanguage Pragmatics.
33
Firstly, “English is the most common investigated” L2 (BARRON 2003: 29) due to its
global prestige. This aspect is also confirmed by MEY, who claims that “[t]he best
studied interlanguage is that developed by speakers of English as a second language”
(MEY 2010: 1008). Although BARRON’s substantial lists of cross-sectional and
longitudinal studies include different L2s (e.g. French, Japanese, Norwegian), the most
frequently appearing target language remains English (cf. BARRON 2003: 29). Although
no reference has been found to support the hypothesis, it can be assumed that the
lack of research in other target languages not only limits our understanding of those
foreign language systems, but even influences our understanding of acquisition
processes in English. Since all languages differ from each other, each L1 will
presumably have a different influence on L2 acquisition.
Secondly, since “cross-sectional and longitudinal studies […] differ in the data
gathered” (BARRON 2003: 29), data comparability seems to be seriously complicated.
Whereas longitudinal studies capture developmental language phenomena from the
beginning of the child’s language acquisition with relatively passive observational
methods, such as “tape-recording” or “hand-written notes” (IBID: 30), cross-sectional
studies apply more interactional data collection methods, such as questionnaires or
roleplays, which demand some skills for completion (cf. IBID: 29). This means that
participants in cross-sectional studies are not actual beginners, although they might
have been categorized as beginners in the first place (cf. IBID: 29). Thus, due to
prevailing cultural and developmental information in longitudinal studies and a lack of
information on the participants’ identity and their pragmatic development in cross-
sectional studies, it is difficult to compare the two study types.
Moreover, it seems that the numerous study types and areas mentioned previously15
and in section 1.116 remain separate and poorly interlinked research areas within the
field of Interlanguage Pragmatics. ISHIHARA and COHEN (2010: IX), for instance, observe
that “not much of [the] empirical work [related to speech act studies in numerous
languages and pragmatic comprehension and production in FL learners] has as yet
15 These include the FL learners’ production and comprehension of speech acts, the juxtaposition of FL learners’ and native speakers’ produced speech acts as well as the examination of speech act characteristics in different languages. 16 These contain pragmatic acquisition in class, developmental aspects of language transfer as well as pragmatic instruction methods in class.
34
been systematically applied to the L2 classroom and few commercially available
textbooks offer research-informed information.”
Commenting on the issue, BARRON (2003: 2) claims that “the pragmatics of different
languages are not as readily available to language teachers as [described grammar
phenomena]” as a result of insufficient investigation. Moreover, as cited in 1.1, she
states that “research on the teaching of L2 pragmatic competence is still rather in its
infancy” (IBID: 2).
Therefore, an increase of pragmatic research in various languages seems necessary
to develop pragmatic understanding of the FL learners’ L1 on which instruction builds.
Finally, research on the developmental processes of L2 pragmatic acquisition is
needed, involving investigation in both First and Second Language Acquisition with a
focus on pragmatic competence and pragmatic language transfer.
Introducing important theories and models of L1 Acquisition, the following chapter will
address some developmental issues and comment on implications for L1 pragmatic
acquisition.
3. First Language Acquisition
3.1 Hypotheses of L1 Acquisition
3.1.1 Critical Period Hypothesis
LENNEBERG’s critical period hypothesis (CPH) of 1967 (cf. MEY 2009: 50) belongs to
the most influential and researched theories accounting for the experience that FL
learners’ L2 proficiency is usually poorer than natives’ L1 level. The theory builds on
the prediction that “neural maturation […] open[s] and close[s] windows of
opportunities during which certain learning tasks […] can be achieved with relative
ease and maximal success” (IBID: 203). According to this hypothesis, the acquisition of
specific grammar areas is considerably facilitated by so-called critical periods in the
course of the child’s maturation.
MEISEL (2011: 204) specifies that the hypothesis addresses developmental issues in
particular “domains of grammar”, which are shaped in individual time intervals.
However, the acquisition of “lexical knowledge” is not predicted to be affected by age
35
and thus by the CPH. In accordance with SCHACHTER’s definition17 of the critical period,
MEISEL prefers the expression “cluster of sensitive phases” (2011: 205) to the term
critical period to refer to the numerous stages of delicate developmental changes in
language acquisition. As the linguist’s chart illustrates, each of these “sensitive phases”
starts with an “onset”, which marks its beginning, and is followed by an “optimal period”
(MEISEL 2011: 205), during which the acquisition of a specific grammar unit, such as
“syntax, phonology [or] morphology” (IBID: 204) is particularly stimulated. Finally, the
phase ends with what MEISEL (2011: 205) calls the “offset”, characterizing the decline
of the developmental impetus.
Importantly, the relation between grammar and pragmatics must be explored in the
field of Pragmatics and Interlanguage Pragmatics to account for the relevance of the
CPH to L2 pragmatic development. Since pragmatic issues are usually not addressed
in relation to the CPH as such, the domain of pragmatics needs a well-defined position
in the field of grammar. As ARIEL (2008: 1) emphasizes, it is necessary to consider
“language use […] neither wholly grammatical nor wholly pragmatic” since grammar
items, such as the deictic expressions “I” and “this”, are naturally intertwined with
pragmatic components.
Grammatically, these expressions represent individual word categories (personal
pronoun vs. demonstrative pronoun) whereas they relate to clearly defined
nonlinguistic components of the world (i.e. ‘I’ to the spokesperson and ‘this’ to a
particular thing) pragmatically. Since deictic terms are used in communicative
situations to establish reference whilst being applied in a grammatically correct way,
one cannot simply separate the two language domains. As ARIEL (2008: 2) points out,
“[g]rammar and pragmatics always go together. You can’t have one without the other
for effective communication.”
17 SCHACHTER (1996: 105) interprets critical periods “‘as periods of heightened sensitivity or responsiveness to specific types of environmental stimuli or input, bounded on both sides by states of lesser sensitivity’” (MEISEL 2011: 205).
MEISEL’s (2011: 205) “Schematic
representation of sensitive
phases“
36
With regard to the sociopragmatic aspect in ILP, it is necessary to note that “social-
psychological factors” (MEISEL 2011: 206) have secondary priority in language
acquisition and are mostly required after the age of 7. Clearly, MEISEL (2011: 206) gives
priority to “maturation […] during the first years of childhood”, believing that the socio-
psychological parameters are “negligible during early childhood”. If the assumption is
safe, this might mean that the socio-pragmatic knowledge of a foreign language is fully
attainable and that the elaboration of pragmatic instruction methods is an optimistic
and useful task. However, as will be explored in 3.2.1, some researchers consider the
influence of socio-pragmatic aspects immensely important in L1 Acquisition and argue
that infants initially only depend on semantic and pragmatic properties.
Bearing ARIEL’s theory in mind, the development of pragmatic competence can be
considered an integral part of the grammar areas affected by the CPH, which suggests
a number of age specific acquisition stages. Whereas HYLTENSTAM and ABRAHAMSSON
locate an influential stage in phonology already at the age of one (cf. MEISEL 2011:
206), other linguists such as JOHNSON and NEWPORT (cf. MEY 2009: 50) consider the
period from 5 to 7 crucial in this area and claim that the more complex development of
the phonetic and phonological faculties precedes progress in the domains of
morphology and syntax. The period from 6-7 has indeed been acknowledged as a very
significant phase, which generally sets the onset limit of language acquisition at native
speaker level (cf. MEISEL 2011: 205), that is, children exposed to language input after
this age are likely to reach a language level that is very similar to adult learners’ L2
competence. Other period speculations in this respect are mentioned in 4.1.
Although hotly debated, the CPH has been strongly underpinned by research (cf.
MEISEL 2011: 204), gaining wide global reputation in First and Second Language
Acquisition. With the rise of revolutionary discoveries in medicine, such as the fMRI,
PET and EEG (cf. IBID: 207), researchers have managed to record brain activity in
native speakers’ and FL learners’ lobes. MEISEL (cf. 2011: 207) touches on WEBER-
FOX’s and NEVILLE’s EEG study of 1996, which reveals that brain stimulus declines with
the growing age of onset in the left cerebral hemisphere while it increases in the right.
The results show that a new language is largely processed in more widespread areas
of the right hemisphere from 4 and 7 onwards. Furthermore, these researchers have
found that the brain of native speaker children and older FL learners reacts differently
to syntax errors but identically to semantic inaccuracies. MEISEL (cf. 2011: 208)
develops that this phenomenon has been verified by HAHNE and FRIEDERICI in 2001,
37
who measured disagreeing activity values for syntactic input and were equally unable
to spot any differences in brain activity between native speakers and FL learners in
semantic processing.
Other studies include fMRI examinations, such as those conducted by
KIM/RELKIN/LEE/HIRSCH and DEHEANE/DUPOUX/MEHLER/COHEN/PAULESCU/PERANI/VAN
DE MOORTELE/LEEHÉRICY/LE BIHAN in 1997 (cf. MEISEL 2011: 208). The first set of
researchers compared two groups of children (six each), of which one was exposed to
bilingual input from the beginning of language acquisition whereas the other group
acquired the languages in succession. The results revealed that the simultaneous
acquisition of languages activates roughly the same parts of the left hemisphere
(BROCA’s area), unlike sequential language acquisition, which rather stimulates
different realms of the brain.
The latter study discovered that a native speaker’s mother tongue is processed
differently from his L2, since the second language activates rather loosely connected
neural circuits in the “temporal lobe and in the right hemisphere” (IBID: 208), whereas
L1 is almost uniquely processed in smaller brain areas of the left hemisphere.
Strongly supporting LENNEBERG’s CPH, such studies help understand the nature of
language acquisition, which seems to be marked by “sensitive periods governing the
ultimate level of […] attainment possible in different linguistic domains, […] with
cumulative declines in learning capacity, […] and beginning as early as age 6 in many
individuals, not at puberty, as is often claimed.” (WHITE 2003: 245)
Finally, the critical period is believed to be completed at the age of 15 (cf. WHITE 2003:
245; MEISEL 2011: 206), when the native-speaker level of language proficiency is
usually attained.
3.1.2 Universal Grammar Hypothesis
Investigating First Language Acquisition, researchers observe that native speakers
manage to form a large number of grammatically correct sentences at a very early age,
although their realizations do not occur in previous language input (cf. INGRAM 1989:
26). Not only does environmental input lack the myriad realizations of grammatically
correct sentences (cf. IBID: 26), it also contains many mistakes and is pedagogically
useless, since language explanations are rarely provided by parents (cf. JOHNSON
38
2004: 32). Additionally, as INGRAM (1989: 26) illustrates with the question “Is the boy
who left happy?”, input itself does not contain any information on syntax in its “phonetic
string” (i.e. “[ɪzðəbɔɪhulɛfthæpi]”), from which the child could deduce “possible rules
that move constituents” (i.e. the “auxiliary ‘is’”, the “noun phrase ‘the boy’”, and the
“relative clause ‘who left’”).
However, children manage to attain a high level of language despite these obstacles,
as FLETCHER and GARMAN (1986: 57) claim with reference to LIMBER (1973), who
observes “the spontaneous emergence of complex sentence look-alikes in children
under 3 years”.
As grown-ups, native speakers are usually unable to provide explanations for
grammatically incorrect sentences that they are able to correct. JOHNSON (2004: 31)
refers to the wrong sample question “Is raining?”, which native speakers would
intuitively label wrong without actually knowing why.
Whereas the disproportionate relationship between the child’s grammatical proficiency
and the obtained input is addressed in CHOMSKY’s concept of the “logical problem of
language acquisition”, the theoretically insufficient amount of input (“degenerate”) is
subject of the “poverty of stimulus argument” (IBID: 32).
Such mysteries of language acquisition have stimulated CHOMSKY’s elaboration of a
mental apparatus called the “language acquisition device[, or] LAD” (JOHNSON 2004:
30), which is a “highly complex innate ability” (INGRAM 1989: 26) aiding language
acquisition. According to CHOMSKY, this device is equipped with an inborn mechanism
known as “Universal Grammar (UG)” (JOHNSON 2004: 30), which contains “universal
principles of language” (INGRAM 1989: 25), that is, general rules defining the imaginable
and potential grammatical framework of a random language.
A typical rule or principle is the “pro-drop parameter” (JOHNSON 2004: 35) determining
the natural “subject position in sentences” in a language, which may either be a “pro-
drop” (allowing subject omission in sentences) or a “non-pro-drop” (demanding a
subject in sentences) language. As JOHNSON (2004: 35) illustrates, English, unlike
Spanish, belongs to the non-pro-drop languages, where the “dummy subjects […] it
and there” remain compulsory components of sentences such as “It is raining.” Since
all children manage to acquire their mother tongue from birth, it is assumed by nativists
such as CHOMSKY that the LAD sets the required principle and parameter values for a
39
language. As JOHNSON (2004: 36) beautifully describes, the LAD may be compared
with a radio that “needs to be plugged in and turned on, which is accomplished with
the assistance of the environment. But in order to be able to listen to a jazz station –
the grammar of a particular language – one needs to adjust the dial.”
Although nativists agree on the existence of such principles, the manner in which these
parameters are activated is debated. INGRAM (1989: 26) mentions a “maturationist” and
“constructionist” approach to this question, noting that maturationists such as CHOMSKY
believe the principles to be triggered at “some genetically determined time”, whereas
constructionists see language acquisition as a strict structural phenomenon. According
to constructionists, language modifications are based on former changes and remain
largely independent from maturational matters (cf. IBID: 26).
Beneath, CHOMSKY’s illustrated concept of L1 Acquisition visualizes the so-called
“triggering effect” (JOHNSON 2004: 34) of the environmental language stimulus, which
induces grammar acquisition governed by the LAD that sets the required grammar
principles and parameters.
As one will realize, the focus of CHOMSKY’s concept of UG is set on grammar and not
pragmatics. Although CHOMSKY admits that pragmatic competence is needed to
contextualize language by combining speaker objectives with linguistic resources, he
prefers a clear “separation of linguistic competence […] from pragmatic competence”
(IBID: 31) to investigate the basic structural qualities of universal grammar more
effectively. BARRON (2003: 28), too, suggests that the Universal Grammar Hypothesis
is “a theory in which pragmatics has no place.”
However, as has been mentioned in 3.1.1, pragmatics and grammar cannot be
separated and are essentially required if verbal communication is to be effective. The
fact that CHOMSKY’s hypothesis “does not attempt to explain the child’s ability to use
JOHNSON’s (2004: 34)
copy of CHOMSKY’s LAD
concept in L1
Acquisition
40
[…] grammatical knowledge in real-life situations” (JOHNSON 2004: 30) does not
dissolve the indispensable relationship between the two domains, since speakers
always use deictic expressions to establish reference to objects and people. Moreover,
reference is subject of many studies investigating the accuracy of the Universal
Grammar Hypothesis, such as of those conducted by OTSU (1981), JAKUBOWICZ (1984)
and SOLAN (cf. FLETCHER and GARMAN 1986: 57).
Although these researchers confront children with prefabricated sentences to measure
their awareness of word classes, the referential components are part of a narrated
mini-situation. These studies strongly confirm that children have largely acquired a
solid “linguistic system by age 5” (IBID: 57), which agrees perfectly with HYLTENSTAM
and ABRAHAMSSON’s prediction that children have attained enough proficiency by age
6 or 7 to be qualified as native speakers of their L1 (cf. 3.1.1).
The studies reveal that the examined children are able to differentiate between “definite
pronouns on the one hand and reflexives and reciprocals on the other”, as they
manage to match the coordinated referential items in the sentences “The pig
remembered that the dog hit him” (i.e. matching pig with him) and “The pig
remembered that the dog hit himself” (i.e. linking dog to himself) (IBID: 57). The children
even show awareness of the hierarchical links between constituents when referential
relations have to be determined (cf. IBID: 58). Accordingly, they more frequently avoid
to join the pronoun he and the noun dog in “He hit the pig when the dog ran around”
than in “When he ran around, the dog hit the pig” (IBID: 59).
This result suggests that children aged 5 are unconsciously aware of the rule that the
co-referential relation between the pronoun he and the noun dog is enabled when the
noun phrase the dog is on a superordinate level in the tree structure and the pronoun
on a subordinate one (cf. IBID: 59). However, when the noun phrase is on a lower
position than the pronoun, the referential relation is unclear (cf. IBID: 59). FLETCHER and
GARMAN’s structural sketch of the sentence pair “When he was at the airport Jones
saw Sue” and “He saw Sue when Jones was at the airport” (1986: 59) nicely illustrates
this rule.
41
Combined with the EEG and fMRI examinations in 3.1.1, these studies provide solid
empirical evidence for LENNEBERG’s Critical Period and CHOMSKY’s Universal Grammar
Hypothesis. Moreover, as established by CANALE/SWAIN (cf. 2.2.1.2) and
BACHMAN/PALMER (cf. 2.2.1.3), pragmatic competence cannot be separated from
language use and remains along with grammatical competence an important and
essential constituent of effective communication. The following models of L1
Acquisition elaborated by STERN (1924), NICE (1925) and BROWN (1973) will outline
important stages and periods of acquisition from which implications for pragmatic
development will be deduced.
3.2 Stage and Period Models of L1 Acquisition
3.2.1 STERN, William and Clara STERN (1924)
Focusing on the “development of the adult spoken language system”, STERN & STERN’s
model of L1 Acquisition has been globally acknowledged as one of the most important
linguistic paradigms examining “infant vocal output” from birth (FLETCHER and GARMAN
1986: 149). Quoting OSKAAR (1938), INGRAM (1989: 38) in fact claims STERN’s study to
be the “climax” of “child language research […] initiat[ing] modern paedolinguistics”.
As INGRAM’s (1989: 38) copy of STERN’s paradigm demonstrates, the model contains
a so-called preliminary stage, which is followed by four periods of acquisition.
FLETCHER and
GARMAN’s (1986: 59)
illustration of an
enabled and an
obscured pronoun-
noun referential
relation
42
Combined with MEISEL’s (2011) more contemporary descriptions of First Language
Acquisition, STERN’s stage and period model reveals interesting information on a native
speaker’s pragmatic development. Although the focus is set on morpho-syntactic and
semantic aspects, important implications for pragmatic acquisition are identifiable.
The first, preliminary stage of STERN’s model is considered the fundament of language
acquisition but not a phase of acquisition per se, since the noticeable child “babbling,
imitation or ‘ecco-babbling’, and rudimentary understanding” (INGRAM 1989: 39) are
associated with the comprehensive combination of sounds and happenings rather than
with proper and conscious language production (cf. IBID: 39f.). STERN refers to the
child’s instinctive faculties, such as “impulses” or “inner energies” to account for the
phenomenon of babbling, which is caused by the toddler’s “drive to express [it]self”
and its need to “socialize with others” (IBID: 39). Rudimentary understanding, on the
other hand, is characterized by the baby’s physical reactions to particular speech acts
(i.e. waving ‘bye-bye’ when being greeted) (IBID: 39), and imitation and ecco-babbling
are triggered for the purposes of speech training.
Though the gestures relating to rudimentary understanding do not involve any speech
act realizations and are not qualified as language by STERN (cf. IBID: 40), researchers
such as JUSCZYK and GUASTI (cf. MEISEL 2011: 24f.) believe that the beginnings of
acquisition may already be traced at this period and even earlier, before birth. This
conviction is based on the results of modern medical examinations such as “[i]ntra-
uterine recordings[, which] show that speech sounds are perceived distinctly [by
STERN’s (1924)
model of L1
Acquisition (INGRAM
1989: 39)
43
babies] […] and that infants, only a few days old, recognize the voices of their mothers”
(MEISEL 2011: 24). It is also known that babies manage to differentiate between
“linguistic and non-linguistic sounds” (IBID: 25), since only the linguistic variants activate
specific brain areas. Finally, researchers find that babies are capable of keeping
languages apart by being particularly sensitive to the language spoken by their
environment (cf. IBID: 25). Although the exact implications of such behaviour patterns
for language acquisition are largely unknown, prenatal reactions to the mother’s voice
are “likely to have a learning effect” (IBID: 25) and support CHOMSKY’s concept of
Universal Grammar and its innate principles governed by the infant’s LAD (cf. 3.1.2).
Pragmatically, STERN’s descriptions of the nature of babbling and rudimentary
understanding are highly interesting. Although infants do not speak at this stage, there
is a clear effort to communicate with the environment in order to articulate needs and
to establish human contact. The notion of mutual interaction defined by the sign-
speaker and the sign-interpreter relations is one of the main characteristics of
pragmatics (cf. 2.1.5) and is partly established in the preliminary stage. Although the
baby does not use a linguistic sign, that is, a word to express itself, the relation between
the word’s concept and the adult hearer is maintained through a visual sign, such as
waving. Of course, expression is very limited in this form, and adults may easily
misinterpret the infant’s nonverbalized intentions. However, it can be argued that the
preliminary stage implies pragmatic behaviour in a partially non-verbal context, in
which the child’s physical responses to obtained language input maintain interaction.
Discussing the beginnings of language acquisition, MEISEL (2011: 24) believes that
“[c]ontextual support, pragmatic information and so on contribute in important ways to
ensure communicative success, and it is not implausible to suppose that children
initially rely entirely on such means.”
By the end of the preliminary stage, STERN observes the emergence of so-called “one-
word sentences” (INGRAM 1989: 40). At this point, the child attempts to express an
entire thought with only one word (cf. IBID: 41) due to a missing syntactic repertoire.
Importantly, the acquired words have to be existing lexemes or lexeme forms In order
to qualify as one-word sentences. The lexical acquisition lasts approximately half a
year and is marked by a highly irregular pace of acquisition, until it reaches a point
where it proceeds considerably faster (cf. IBID: 40). Indeed, a child may only acquire
two words within half a year, as is the case with AXEL PREYER, who manages the
realization of “’atta’” and “’ta’” after this time span (IBID: 40). Moreover, the acquired set
44
of words is chosen, that is, the acquired words usually contain the sounds used by the
infant to babble, since they facilitate the acquisition process (cf. IBID: 40). Finally, there
is a preference for the acquisition of onomatopoetic words due to the strong
resemblance between the sign, the concept and the referent (IBID: 40).
Due to a lack of grammatical properties in one-word sentences, the first period
supports the assumption (cf. MEISEL 2011: 35) that the acquisition of socio-pragmatic
aspects precedes grammatical development. Moreover, one-word sentences usually
describe a complete notion (cf. INGRAM 1989: 41) that implies a conventional
illocutionary act with a specific illocutionary force. The ambiguity of one-word
sentences (cf. IBID: 41) such as “mama”, which may imply the notions “mother, come
here”, “mother, give me” or indeed, “mother, set me on the chair” (IBID: 41) is a further
indicator of expressed intentions. FLETCHER and GARMAN use the term symbolic
autonomy (1986: 212) to refer to this ambiguity, that is, to the child’s autonomous ability
to use a word in a number of situations.
STERN’s second period is characterized by a rather dynamic acquisition of lexemes
and by the emergence of multiword speech (INGRAM 1989: 42). Recognizing that all
objects carry a name, children try to acquire as many words as possible by “asking for
names with a question like ‘that?’” (IBID: 42). Such one-word questions are conventional
requests despite the missing structural framework, which emerges in the fourth period
(cf. IBID: 44). Exploring the sign-concept relations, that is, the Principle of the Linguistic
Sign (IBID: 41), children acquire two main word classes, namely nominals in the
“substance stage” and activity expressions (verbs) in the action stage (ibid: 42).
Concerning the emergence of longer utterances, children usually articulate their first
multiword expressions as a result of a language famine (IBID: 43), which occurs as they
try to report a large amount of happenings with proportionally insufficient language
resources (cf. IBID: 43). Moreover, the child’s ability to imitate more than before and to
understand more than what it can produce are responsible reasons for the combinative
articulation of words (cf. IBID: 43).
Since the produced word combinations are claimed to be “non-syntactic” (IBID: 43), the
question whether “children’s first word combinations [should] be described in terms of
their ultimate target, i.e. in terms of adult syntax” or rather in terms of “semantics, case
relations, or pragmatics” (FLETCHER and GARMAN 1986: 309) should be answered in
favour of the latter domains. In this respect, MEISEL (2011: 35) refers to GIVÓN, who
45
claims that “the pragmatic mode precedes the syntactic mode ontogenetically and
possibly also phylogenetically”, since the earlier semantic and pragmatic entities seem
to be substituted by syntactical variants. Despite a lack of evidence for this theory, the
idea that “the emergence of grammatical devices is functionally driven” (MEISEL 2011:
35) remains an important thesis in research. However, it needs to be emphasized that
some researchers examining the beginnings of L1 Acquisition believe socio-pragmatic
aspects to be less influential properties than grammatical features (cf. in 3.1.1).
STERN’s third period of language acquisition records the first syntactic realizations of
word combinations as well as “the onset of the acquisition of inflections” such as
“declension, conjugation, comparison” (INGRAM 1989: 43). Subsuming such morpho-
syntactic developments under the Principle of Syntactic Structure (IBID: 43), INGRAM (cf.
1989: 44) notes that language acquisition remains rather slow. In fact, years are
required for the full control of inflections and for the realization of longer sentences,
which are still rather short at this stage with an average sentence length of 2-3 words
(cf. IBID: 46):
“Mama. Want pickies. Room. Wanty pickies. Back. Dada, mama fetch.” (IBID: 44)
In this example, STERN’s daughter HILDE articulates short but precise commands (i.e.
directives) to obtain pickles from her mother. The purpose oriented, perlocutionary
dimension of the utterances is imperative and urges the development of pragmatic
competence to attain more accuracy. Importantly, this example shows that pragmatic
properties are subject of language acquisition and thus affected by the CPH (it remains
unclear to what extent), which sets the onset limit of L2 Acquisition at native speaker
level at age 6 or 7 (cf. 3.1.1). Lastly, this stage is characterized by linguistic
overgeneralizations, since the child extends the use of “regular inflections” to “irregular
forms”, saying drinked or badder (INGRAM 1989: 44). Though it remains a mystery how
children manage to get rid of these ungrammatical variants (cf. IBID: 44), the mistakes
disappear with time.
Finally, the fourth period is characterized by the emergence of “subordinate sentences”
(IBID: 44), an increase of question use and the “creative construction of new words”
such as compounds (IBID: 46). Whereas subordinate sentences are mainly examined
in grammatical terms, “’why?’” and “’when?’” questions (cf. IBID: 45) are mostly
considered from a pragmatic angle. Accordingly, whereas subordinate clauses are
initially characterized by the possible absence of “complementizers, relative pronouns,
46
and adverbials” (IBID: 44), when and why questions adopt the form of requests.
However, neither of them are only grammatical or pragmatic, since subordinate
sentences occur in utterances, whereas questions contain grammatical components.
In this period, coined expressions appear in speech as well, although INGRAM links
word inventions to his Principle of Derivational Morphology (1989: 46). Lastly, from an
interlanguage perspective, one can assume that these ‘innovations’ are language
specific, since the large number of invented compounds in the speech of STERN’s
children is due to the nature of German, which is “known for its extensive use of
compounds” (IBID: 46).
3.2.2 NICE, Margaret (1925)
Although marked by “a loss of interest in explanation, and in certain respects,
description” (INGRAM 1989: 49), NICE’s model of L1 Acquisition is an important
paradigm assessing language development in a quantitative manner. Complementary
to STERN’s stage and period model, this paradigm uses a measuring instrument called
the Average Length of Sentence, or ALS (cf. INGRAM 1989: 47) to determine utterance
length. The model connects well with STERN’s language periods and contains five
acquisition stages indicating the usual duration and average sentence length of each
stage.
Ignoring STERN’s preliminary stage after birth, NICE locates the first stage of acquisition
at year one (cf. IBID: 48). At this age, the child’s first single words appear, which are
acquired and articulated for the next six months (cf. IBID: 48). Not further specified, the
single word stage corresponds to STERN’s first period of language acquisition and
agrees exactly with the indicated duration. To examine the role of pragmatics in this
phase, the stage must be considered together with STERN’s preliminary stage and her
first period of language acquisition. Additionally, empirical data from intonational
The five stages of L1
Acquisition in NICE’s
model (INGRAM 1989:
46)
47
studies conducted in the 1970s and 80s (cf. FLETCHER and GARMAN 1986: 186) reveal
important information on children’s pragmatic competence at this age.
As mentioned in 3.2.1, the child’s reason to babble and imitate is to establish
communication and contact with the environment. This internal need is purpose
oriented and thus of pragmatic nature, that is, children need to express themselves to
obtain attention or help, as has been illustrated with the implicit directive meanings of
the ambiguous one-word sentence mama (cf. 3.2.1). Moreover, intonational studies
examining the prosodic patterns of child speech in the 1970s and 80s reveal that
children aged one differentiate between what HALLIDAY calls “pragmatic” and “mathetic
utterances”, that is, between utterances demanding a reply and remarks requiring none
(FLETCHER and GARMAN 1986: 187).
Accordingly, HALLIDAY’s child realizes pragmatic utterances with “rising tones”,
whereas it articulates mathetic utterances with “falling tones” (IBID: 187). Similarly,
MENN’s child between year one and 1;3 applies a “low rising tone (…) to ‘institute or
maintain social interaction’ (…) and a high rising tone (…) for ‘instrumental use of the
adult’ (‘obtaining an object or service’)” (IBID: 187). Finally, TUAYCHAROEN’s and
CLUMECK’s children use a rather high tone for directives (i.e. for speech acts obliging
the hearer to act) and a relatively low tone for assertives that “indicat[e] familiar things”
or “something found” (IBID: 187).
The child’s habit of articulating directives with a higher tone than other utterances
reflects a certain level of pragmatic awareness already during the single word and early
sentence stage. Resembling STERN’s second period, the early sentence stage records
an ALS of exactly 1.35 words based on a sample of 1042 utterances, of which only 7
contain three words (cf. INGRAM 1989: 48).
Interestingly, the number of words acquired during this stage can reach from 14 to
18018, which implies that the child’s scope of vocabulary is quite independent of the
emergence of multiword speech (cf. IBID: 48). As mentioned in 3.2.1, children at that
stage indeed manage to ask for names with only a single word (e.g. “that?”) and
attempt to pick up as many expressions as they possibly can.
Furthermore, NICE confirms the 65% rate of nouns in child speech (cf. INGRAM 1989:
48), suggesting that the semantic value of content words is particularly required for
18 These limits are based on examinations of speech produced by 19 children.
48
pragmatic purposes (e.g. asking for food or toys), whereas grammatical properties
emerge in the following short sentence stage. Depending on the child’s maturation, the
early sentence stage can be completed after three or even thirteen months.
The following, short sentence stage with an ALS of 3.5 to 4.5 words resembles STERN’s
third period of language acquisition and is marked by the emergence of “inflections and
grammatical words” (IBID: 48). According to NICE’s “proportion of incomplete
sentences”, which measures sentence integrity, three out of five utterances are
complete at the beginning of the stage (IBID: 48). Thus, the child’s utterances seem
relatively clear, as HILDE’s directives illustrate in 3.2.1. By the end of the short sentence
stage period, the child’s vocabulary contains approximately 400 to 600 words with a
relatively normal distribution of word classes, comprising fifty to sixty per cent of nouns
and twenty to twenty four per cent of verbs (cf. IBID: 49). Additionally, only one of five
sentences remains incomplete by that time (cf. IBID: 48).
Although NICE does not reveal any information on the child’s pragmatic acquisition in
this stage, more modern studies conducted by researchers such as HICKMANN and
WERTSCH (1978) reveal the immense significance of pragmalinguistic and
sociopragmatic input in child language both in terms of language comprehension and
production (cf. FLETCHER and GARMAN 1986: 19). In these studies, children aged 2,5 to
4,5 years are given puzzles to match whilst relying on their mothers’ instructions due
to the high difficulty level chosen (cf. IBID: 19). During completion, mothers are
observed to provide the younger children with a relatively wide range of formulations
in their use of directives, applying “highly explicit directives” with “pointing gestures”,
whereas older children manage the task with shorter directives and fewer gestures
(IBID: 19).
FLETCHER and GARMAN (cf. 1986: 19f.) emphasize the sociocultural value of the
mothers’ communicative patterns and mention some studies, which reveal the child’s
use of the mother’s utterance forms by the end of the activity. Although CHOMSKY’s
notions of Universal Grammar and the LAD are important concepts accounting for the
logical problem of language acquisition, these studies show that pragmatic input
matters considerably in language acquisition. Children undeniably rely on pragmatic
input, which they seem to imitate and acquire immensely fast.
However, as CHIAT’s (1981), WILLS’ (1977), and DURKIN, RUTTER and TUCKER’s (1982)
examinations reveal, pragmatic acquisition is affected by both pragmatically correct
49
and incorrect input (cf. IBID: 351). Analysing the use of pronouns in language samples
gathered from 48 children aged two to 4;6, CHIAT’s cross-sectional study shows that
“eight children [use] proper names in self-reference” (cf. IBID: 350). In comparison, her
longitudinal study with eight child participants reports on the self-referential use of
proper names in six cases and on the hearer related use of proper names in four cases
(cf. IBID: 350). As CHIAT notes, this language error occurs quite irregularly due to a
mixed use of pronouns and proper names and their random co-emergence in one
clause, such as in TREVOR’s utterance “No, wait Trevor’s going to draw my money”
(IBID: 351). Moreover, the researcher finds that the error has “its origins [largely] in the
input the child receives” (IBID: 351).
Examining adult language input, WILLS, DURKIN et al. indeed notice parental use of
both word classes, which serves to facilitate communication with children (cf. IBID: 351).
These researchers argue that the use of proper names in utterances such as “I’ll wipe
mummy’s hand up” or “I think mummy might have to blow hers” facilitates
“command[ing] children’s attention and direct[ing] their behaviour” (IBID: 351). Similarly
to the child’s linguistic overgeneralizations, which gradually disappear (cf. 3.2.1), this
mistake vanishes later but still occurs frequently during NICE’s complete sentence
stage, which is marked by an ALS of 6 to 8 words (cf. INGRAM 1989: 49).
Preceded by a short transition stage with an ALS of five words, this stage is further
characterized by a rate of less than 1/5 incomplete sentences and contains “complex
and compound sentences” (IBID: 49). Lastly, as discovered by STERN (cf. 3.2.1), an
increase of why and when questions is noticeable, which broadens the child’s
pragmatic horizons in the realization of directives.
3.2.3 BROWN, Roger (1973)
Focusing on grammatical aspects of language acquisition, BROWN’s five stage model
primarily considers language development from a structural perspective (cf. INGRAM
1989: 49). However, it introduces an important measuring device similar to NICE’s ALS
to determine the child’s utterance length. Considering the paradigm, one should bear
in mind that babies start acquiring a language for a pragmatic reason (i.e. expressing
intentions), relying on pragmatic information (cf. 3.2.1). Additionally, studies outlined in
3.2.2 show that children are aware of pragmatic aspects and that they depend on
pragmalinguistic and sociopragmatic input to master certain tasks. Furthermore,
50
common pragmatic mistakes in parental and child speech support the assumption that
children acquire environmental pragmatic input (cf. 3.2.2).
Whereas BROWN determines the first stage of grammatical acquisition at approximately
one and a half years, he believes in the existence of an “initial phase of language
development”, which he considers a period with “no tense, aspect, mood, number or
the like” (FLETCHER and GARMAN 1986: 358). Corresponding to STERN’s first period and
NICE’s single word stage, this initial phase is already marked by the child’s ability to
“make a pragmatic distinction between statements and requests” (IBID: 358)
For instance, Nicky at age 1;1 in GREENFIELD and SMITH’s study addressed his mother
with “Do(t)” to make a statement and combined the lexeme “mama” with grasping and
crying gestures to request certain things (IBID: 358). In ZAREBINA’s study, HANIA at age
one used verbs in the imperative mode (such as “’take’”) to make requests and verbs
in the indicative mode to produce statements (such as “‘plays’”) in Polish (IBID: 358).
Another study conducted by BERMAN (cf. IBID : 358f.) reveals that Hebrew children use
the imperative verb form in requests and the infinitive verb mode in assertives and
commissives, which express the child’s intention to do something on its own. Thus, the
use of pragmatic and some grammatical aspects is already noticeable at this stage,
but the child is unlikely to be consciously aware of grammatical properties due to the
use of individual words constituting “clearly frozen” and “unanalysed forms” (IBID: 358).
As BROWN’s paradigm illustrates, the first significant stage of grammatical acquisition
is marked by well-structured multiword speech containing semantic links between
entities such as agent and action (cf. INGRAM 1989: 51).
51
BROWN’s stages of
grammatical
acquisition (INGRAM
1989: 50)
Although BROWN considers word order the first syntactic property acquired by the child,
he emphasizes the dominance of semantic connections in speech (cf. IBID: 51).
Furthermore, this stage is characterized by an average mean length of utterance (MLU,
BROWN’s designed measuring instrument) of 1.75 morphemes.
“Using the morpheme rather than the word as the unit of measurement”, the MLU is
an apparatus registering the “average [morpheme] length of the utterances a child
produces” (RICHARDS and SCHMIDT 2010: 356). INGRAM (1989: 50) specifies that the
MLU constitutes “a more sensitive” measuring tool than NICE’s ASL, since utterance
variants with an equal amount of words may have an individual number of morphemes.
An example are the utterance pairs “’boy play dog’” and “’boys playing dogs’”, which
both include three words but the latter variant three additional morphemes (IBID: 50).
BROWN’s term midpoint refers to the typical MLU value of a stage and is based on
mean calculations of 713 utterance samples produced by the children ADAM, EVE and
SARAH at different developmental periods (cf. IBID: 51).
In comparison to NICE’s single words, BROWN’s suggested midpoint of 1.75
morphemes is more precise, specifying that children aged one utter two-morpheme-
words more frequently than one-morpheme-expressions. Moreover, the prevalence of
semantic relations is due to the child’s interest in acquiring the name of objects, as is
mentioned in STERN’s second period.
52
Following this acquisition phase, BROWN’s second stage records the acquisition of
morphemes and inflections and corresponds to the third period in STERN’s model and
to the short sentence stage in NICE’s paradigm (cf. IBID: 52). Requiring at least three
utterance samples, which contain the respective inflection to 90 per cent in its context-
adequate position, CAZDEN’s acquisition principle of 1968 is used to define the
completion of morpheme acquisition (cf. MEISEL 2011: 63). By assessing individual
completion dates of acquisition, this method allowed BROWN to determine the
acquisition pattern and order of English morphemes.
Initially, the child’s utterances contain –ing forms and prepositions such as in and on,
whereas the regular past and the irregular third person forms occur later, as illustrated
by BROWN’s ranking list.
As in chapter 3.2.2, where wrong language input is seen as a major cause of the child’s
wrong use of proper names and pronouns, it is parental speech marked by a
comparably frequent occurrence of these morphemes that BROWN believes to
determine the observed acquisition sequence (cf. IBID: 67).
Next, in stage three, the child starts acquiring the English auxiliary as well as questions
and negations with a midpoint of 2.75 morphemes (cf. INGRAM 1989: 52). Being a part
of the third period and the short sentence stage, this phase prepares for the acquisition
of multi-clause sentences in stages four and five, which claim sentence integration to
precede the use of conjunctions in sentence coordination (cf. IBID: 52). These two final
stages are part of the fourth period and the complete sentence stage (cf. IBID: 52),
which are marked by the acquisition of more complex questions and a low rate of
incomplete sentences.
Lastly, BROWN and BELLUGI (1964) (cf. COOK 2008: 225) describe a method of parental
language correction, which provides an explanation for why children manage to
eliminate language errors, such as linguistic overgeneralizations (cf. 3.2.1) or the
wrong use of proper names and pronouns (cf. 3.2.2). As COOK’s sample interaction
BROWN’s first
language
acquisition
pattern of
morphemes
(MEISEL 2011: 63)
53
between a mother and its child illustrates, this method named “imitation with
expansion” (COOK 2008: 225) involves the parent’s correct reproduction of the child’s
incorrect utterance:
“Child: Baby highchair
Mother: Baby is in the highchair” (IBID: 225)
However, the extent to which this method proves profitable for language acquisition is
debated by researchers such as NELSON (1973) and BRUNER (1983), who hold
controversial views on the effects of this indirect repair technique (cf. IBID: 225). It
seems that CHOMSKY’s concepts of LAD and Universal Grammar remain the most
reliable notions explaining successful language acquisition, until the effects of such
repair techniques are empirically explored.
The next section will discuss the role of LENNEBERG’s and CHOMSKY’s hypotheses in
Second Language Acquisition as a contrast to the theories and paradigms in this
chapter and address the issue of pragmatic and grammar acquisition in the target
language.
4. Second Language Acquisition
4.1 Implications of the Critical Period and Universal Grammar
Hypothesis for L2 Acquisition
As mentioned in 3.1, a second language is largely processed in the right hemisphere
of the brain when the onset of acquisition occurs at age 4 or later, whereas earlier
simultaneous bilingual acquisition activates largely overlapping brain parts in the left
hemisphere, where BROCA’s area is located. Such empirical evidence provides a
plausible explanation for why non-native speakers generally fail to attain native
speaker proficiency in a second language to which they are usually first exposed in
school.
As for the relevance of the Universal Grammar Hypothesis, it seems reasonable to
credit the existence of a parameter-setting LAD, since studies (cf. 3.1.2) have
registered children’s awareness of word classes despite their lack of grammar
knowledge.
54
However, as far as second language acquisition is concerned, the influence of the LAD
and Universal Grammar is more difficult to assess. Whereas the Full Transfer Full
Access Hypothesis (to be read in 4.2.1) predicts full access to Universal Grammar at
the onset of L2 Acquisition, the Minimal Trees Hypothesis (cf. 4.2.2) suggests that only
part of the L1 grammar (lexical, but not functional categories) is initially transferred to
L2, despite the learners’ access to “the full UG inventory of functional categories”
(WHITE 2003: 69).
Although the precise operational patterns of Universal Grammar in L2 Acquisition are
rather unclear due to such mixed predictions, one can at least claim that there are
developmental differences between first and second language acquisition. Knowing
that the brain patterns in language processing vary according to age and that FL
learners fail to reach native proficiency due to the use of L1 patterns (grammatical (cf.
4.2) and pragmatic (cf.4.4.2)) in L2, there must be some developmental deviations from
First Language Acquisition in SLA. However, precise details on these differences are
yet to be explored. Moreover, the questions to which extent L1 language transfer
influences L2 Acquisition and what precise implications theories such as the CPH or
the UGH have for SLA are only vaguely answered and remain important aspects in
interlanguage research.
Investigating the acquisition of L2 pragmatics, one will hardly find developmental
information in theories such as the CPH or the UGH but plenty of examples of
interlanguage speech act realizations proving L1 pragmatic transfer. Although BARRON
(2003: 27) notes “a slow increase in the number of developmental studies conducted”
in ILP, the field is still very young and needs to be thoroughly investigated. However,
some general stages of L2 pragmatic development are proposed by BAHNS ET AL.
(1986) and KECSKÉS (1999), who examined learners’ use of non-target like utterances,
which gradually developed into L2 patterned speech acts. Based on his observations,
BAHN et al. outlined an initial stage characterised by “creative, albeit sometimes
inadequate, verbalisations” and a final stage marked by L2 pragmatic forms, whereas
KECSKÉS (1999) suggested “a period of strong L1-culture transfer, a period usually
characterised by false generalisations, and a period during which things seem to fall
into place.” (BARRON 2003: 49f.).
A final aspect to be addressed is the interdependence of grammar and pragmatics in
speech. Teachers need to bear in mind that one without the other simply fails to equip
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learners with the sufficient knowledge about the L2 rules and conventions needed to
communicate successfully. Whereas a high level of grammatical competence allows a
person to express his ideas fluently in the target language, it proves insufficient in
shaping the manner of expression by failing to set the particular sociocultural
parameters (cf. ISHIHARA and COHEN 2010: 80). Conversely, a speaker with highly
developed pragmatic skills and a relatively poor level of grammatical competence has
difficulties formulating his otherwise appropriate utterances fluently and correctly (cf.
IBID: 80). In both situations, misunderstandings and breakdowns will occur.
By introducing a number of L2 grammar hypotheses predicting full or partial grammar
transfer to the target language, the following chapter supports the belief that learners,
particularly at the beginning of SLA, need both grammar and pragmatic instruction to
acquire a language successfully.
4.2 Hypotheses of L2 Grammar Acquisition
4.2.1 Full Transfer Full Access Hypothesis
In their Full Transfer Full Access Hypothesis, SCHWARTZ and SPROUSE (1994) suggest
that the FL learner’s L1 grammar is fully transferred to L2, marking “the initial state”
(WHITE 2003: 61) of the target language. These researchers claim that “all abstract
[grammar] properties” (IBID: 61) of the learner’s mother tongue are adopted with the
exception of some “lexical items” and that modifications in grammar are possible.
Describing the Hypothesis, RICHARDS and SCHMIDT restrict transferability to syntax,
since SCHWARTZ and SPROUSE’S definition clearly rejects the possibility of
morphological transfer: “the initial state of L2 acquisition is the final state of L1
acquisition...excluding the phonetic matrices of lexical/morphological items” (quoted in
MEISEL 2011: 96). Due to the accessibility of Universal Grammar, learners may adjust
the “parameter settings, functional categories and feature values” to the L2
requirements whenever “the L1 grammar is unable to accommodate properties of the
L2 input” (WHITE 2003: 61). In short, learners have full access to Universal Grammar
in their interlanguage system and rely on the complete L1 grammar (full transfer) at the
beginning of second language acquisition (cf. IBID: 61).
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While the Full Transfer Full Access Hypothesis is supported by empirical evidence
found by HAZNEDAR (1997)19, WHITE (1985)20, YUAN and SLABAKOVA (2000)21, the
theory is criticized for not specifying the duration of L1 control (cf. WHITE 2003: 64) or
for ignoring interlanguage research in the 1980s, which discovered that FL learners
acquire L2 grammar in distinct acquisition phases (cf. MEISEL 2011: 100). Other
researchers rejecting the Full Transfer Full Access Hypothesis propose different
theories predicting less grammar transfer to L2, including VAINIKKA and YOUNG-
SCHOLTEN’S (1994) Minimal Trees Hypothesis and EUBANK’s Valueless Features
Hypothesis described beneath.
4.2.2 Minimal Trees Hypothesis
Unlike SCHWARTZ and SPROUSE, VAINIKKA and YOUNG-SCHOLTEN believe that functional
categories are initially absent in L2 grammar, which is only claimed to include “lexical
categories and their projections (NP, VP, PP, AP)” (WHITE 2003: 68). This conviction
is due to the analysis of minimal trees, which do not reveal any functional categories
in early L2 grammar (cf. IBID: 73). As MEISEL (2011: 101) explains, FL learners’
“sentence structures […] resemble VPs” at the beginning of L2 acquisition, whereas
functional categories appear steadily later under the influence of L2 input.
Along with lexical properties, “headedness” (WHITE 2003: 69) has been noticed in
transfer, a grammar aspect determining the order of a verb and a noun phrase in a VP.
Empirical studies conducted by VAINIKKA and YOUNG-SCHOLTEN confirm the transfer of
headedness, assessing a rate of 95% of “head final” German utterances produced by
native Turkish and Korean citizens (whose mother tongue is head final) and a similarly
high quote of “head-initial” German speech acts uttered by Spanish and Italian
speakers (whose L1 is head-initial).
However, the Minimal Trees Hypothesis has been criticised by many researchers due
to empirical counterevidence that proves FL learners’ early use of functional categories
19 Analysing spontaneous speech, HAZNEDAR (1997) finds that a Turkish boy (spending his first years in Turkey) articulates English utterances with the Turkish “head-final word order” (i.e. “I something eating.” and “Finish no.”) during his first 3 months in England at age 4 and changes the verbal phrase position in the 4th month (i.e. “You eating apple.” and “I not eat cornflake.”) (WHITE 2003: 62). 20 Finding that Spanish, unlike French learners, usually tolerate null subjects in English, WHITE registered grammar transfer from Spanish, which is a “null subject language” (WHITE 2003: 63). 21 In YUAN and SLABAKOVA’s studies, FL learners with different L1s and the same L2 show differences in the realization of language properties as a result of a stronger transfer from the L1 that shares the most similarities with the L2.
57
in L2 grammar. GRONDIN and WHITE (1996), for instance, register two native English
children’ correct use of determiners in French, whereas LAKSHMANAN and SELINKER
(1994) record “tensed embedded clauses […] with null complementizers” (WHITE 2003:
73) in a native Spanish and a native French child’s English (cf. IBID: 73). While the
validity of the Minimal Trees Hypothesis is hotly debated (for details cf. WHITE 2003:
73f.), one must remember that interlanguage research is relative young, making these
hypotheses remaining subjects of research. EUBANK’s Valueless Features Hypothesis
beneath proves problematic in some aspects, too and needs to be further investigated.
4.2.3 Valueless Features Hypothesis
Similarly to SCHWARTZ and SPROUSE, EUBANK (1993) predicts that most parts of the L1
grammar containing “lexical and functional categories” (WHITE 2003: 78) are initially
transferred to L2. However, the features of transferred functional categories are
claimed to be valueless, which affects word order in the target language. Since
unspecified strength values of features allow “finite verbs […] [to] alternate between
raising or not raising” (IBID: 79), a mixed production of possible word order patterns is
postulated in FL learners’ speech22. The following English statements support this
assumption:
“(14) a. Mary [often [VP watches television]]
b. Mary watchesi [often [VP ti television]]” (WHITE 2003: 79)
As WHITE (1990) confirms with gathered language data, French learners of English
indeed use and tolerate both variants, but clearly prefer the grammatically correct
variant in negatives (cf. WHITE 2003: 79), as in:
“(15) a. The children likei [not [VP ti spinach]]
b. The children (do) [not [VP like spinach]]” (WHITE 2003: 79)
As WHITE, YUAN (2001) determined majority preference for the correct statement in his
assessment of French and English learners’ acceptance of a grammatically correct
Chinese statement and its incorrect variant (cf. WHITE 2003: 80). Along with WHITE’s
finding, YUAN’s result questions the global validity of the Valueless Features
Hypothesis, which cannot account for these outcomes.
22 Mixed word order is predicted for all FL learners, independent of the strength value of the target language.
58
Considering the data from a teacher’s perspective, the question is how the wrong use
of variants such as 14b is eliminated. MEISEL (2011: 103) claims that FL learners have
to “discover the L2 values and thus also the strength of these features”, which
presumably implies that they rely on language instruction, L2 input and on interaction
with native speakers in their ‘quest’. As will be touched upon in 4.4.2.5, a certain level
of grammatical competence is required to manage the production of longer and
structurally more complex speech acts, which occur every now and then.
As these theories commonly illustrate with a good deal of empirical evidence, some
properties of L1 grammar are initially transferred to L2. Moreover, according to the
CPH, learners’ L2 proficiency is unlikely to ever reach native speaker level when
language exposure occurs at age 7 or above. Due to these reasons, teachers should
combine pragmatic instruction with grammar teaching, especially when grammar
errors impede speech production. Furthermore, authentic conversations and utterance
samples need to be presented to illustrate L2 pragmatic norms as correctly as possible.
This issue will be addressed with a few pragmatic tasks in chapter 4.4.2.5 after a
discussion of a number of speech act types produced in the interlanguage state.
4.3 L2 Pragmatic Development
4.3.1 Interlanguage Realisations of Speech Acts
4.3.1.1 Pragmalinguistic and sociopragmatic transfer
The central characteristic feature of interlanguage is pragmatic transfer, which is
described by KASPER (1992) as “the influence exerted by learners’ pragmatic
knowledge of languages and cultures other than L2 on their comprehension,
production and learning of L2 pragmatic information” (BARRON 2003: 36). As will be
demonstrated with a number of empirical examples beneath, transfer of L1 pragmatic
properties to L2 is noticeable in various types of speech acts in communicative
situations.
In accordance with the sociopragmatic and pragmalinguistic notions raised in 2.1.2,
pragmatic transfer includes pragmalinguistic and sociopragmatic transfer. Whereas
pragmalinguistic transfer relates to the influence of formal L1 pragmatic properties,
sociopragmatic transfer implies the choice of strategies and speech acts based on L1
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contextual and cultural norms. As KASPER (1992) emphasizes, pragmalinguistic
transfer is “the process whereby the illocutionary force or politeness value assigned to
particular linguistic material in L1 influences learners’ perception and production of
form-function mappings in L2” (BARRON 2003: 36), whereas sociopragmatic transfer
concerns “the influence of the social perceptions underlying language user’s
interpretation and performance of linguistic action in L1 on their assessment of
subjectively equivalent L2 contexts” (IBID: 37).
As the following examples will show, pragmalinguistic and sociopragmatic transfer are
intertwined and co-occur, a reason why sociopragmatic knowledge is required for the
acquisition of the pragmalinguistic forms of the target language. Native speakers’
choice of pragmalinguistic components, that is, their use of speech acts and
communicative strategies, harmonize with the contexts in their culture and are
therefore determined by sociopragmatic aspects. Touching upon WILDNER-BASSETT’s
(1984) ideas, BARRON (2003: 186) emphasizes that learners need to adopt the required
sociolinguistic conventions of the L2 to promote their communicative efficiency and
integration in the target language community.
This requirement must for instance be met in apology situations. Researchers such as
BERGMAN and KASPER (1993) notice a decisive pragmatic difference in the apologies
produced by native interactants of English and non-native communication partners (cf.
GASS and NEU 1995: 159). Whereas natives adjust the “apologetic force” to the
harshness of the violation, FL learners rather regulate the intensity of their apologies
independently of the seriousness of the situation (IBID: 159). If FL learners
underestimate the L2 gravity norms in relation to the trouble by ignoring the situational
circumstances, such a difference may be quite problematic in the target language
community. The resulting inadequate apologies may maximize the offense and evoke
the impression of impoliteness.
In some countries, such as Japan, apology patterns are rigorously altered with the
interactant’s hierarchical position (cf. GASS and NEU 1995: 159) and employees need
to communicate in accordance with this convention to avoid trouble (i.e. being sacked
by their employer). According to BARNLUND and YOSHIOKA, it is on the contrary
appropriate for Americans and Thais to ignore the participants’ rank in their formulation
of apologies (cf. IBID: 159). To recapitulate, a sociopragmatic shift is deemed necessary
to produce appropriate speech act forms (pragmalinguistic component) when moving
60
An appropriate
explanatory apology in
the Israeli Hebrew
language community
(ISHIHARA and COHEN
2010: 10)
to a foreign country such as Japan in order to maintain a good relationship with the
citizens and the employer. Of course, the transition is only manageable if one is aware
of the socio-cultural norms in the country, whereas grammatical accuracy alone will
not suffice to generate appropriate utterances.
Furthermore, Japanese citizens are prone to apologize plenty of times without
accounting for the inconvenience, whereas Israeli Hebrews are likely to integrate an
explanation in their apology (ISHIHARA and COHEN 2010: 10). Outlining a situation in
which an employee accidentally misses an important meeting with the employer and
apologizes later, ISHIHARA and COHEN (cf. 2010: 10) illustrate these characteristics with
an authentic Japanese and Israeli example:
Whereas a Hebrew citizen would explain the reason for missing the appointment and
avoid the use of repair, a Japanese speaker would opt for a thorough, repetitive excuse
lacking explanations (cf. IBID: 11). These pragmalinguistic differences are due to
sociopragmatic reasons, since in Israeli culture, the employer determines the following
action, whereas in Japan, explanations are seen as a way of “requesting the boss’s
forgiveness which is undeserved” (IBID: 11). Then again, Americans often provide
repair in their apologies, since polite excuses normally require the person causing the
trouble to propose a solution (cf. IBID: 11). Citing ISHIHARA and COHEN (2010: 11), such
an apology could be formulated as follows:
“Oh no! I guess I really had my head screwed on backward! Please let me make it up
to you. I can rush those papers to you within the hour, or how about meeting on it first
thing tomorrow?”
An appropriate,
repetitively regretful
Japanese apology
lacking justification
(ISHIHARA and COHEN
2010: 11)
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The difference between Japanese and American apologies is also examined in a study
conducted by MAESHIBA/YOSHINAGA/KASPER/ROSS (cf. 4.3.1.2), who assess the
apologies produced by speakers of both nationalities in a series of offense situations.
The expressives beneath illustrate that in a restaurant situation in which the waiter
spills food on the guest’s clothes (32) (cf. GASS and NEU (1995: 172), the Japanese
native speaker (J) applies an extremely strong strategy judging the offense as
inexcusable, whereas American natives (A) and Japanese learners of English
(JEI/JEA) behave less harshly, allowing forgiveness:
“(32) J: Mooshiwakearimasen, okyakusama. “It is inexcusable, sir/ma’am”.
JEI: Oh, I’m sorry.
A & JEA: Oh no! I’m so incredibly sorry!” (IBID: 172)
Alternative apologies in the same situation are consistent with the strategies in the
missed meeting situation above, showing that Americans offer repair, which is omitted
in Japanese:
“(36) J: Taihen mooshiwake gozaimasen. “I am very sorry”
JEI: Oh, I’m sorry. Are you all right?
A & JEA: Oh, I’m terribly sorry. We’ll have the suit cleaned for you.”
(IBID: 173)
Furthermore, it is noticeable that the less advanced Japanese learners of English (JEI)
utter apologies that reflect Japanese and American apology patterns, which plausibly
indicates the influence of these learners’ interlanguage state.
A further type of expressives realised differently across cultures are compliments.
Quoting contrastive analyst GOLATO’s (2002) breakfast transcript, which portrays a
conversation between the German native speakers CHRISTIANE and ANNETTE and the
Native American interactant DAVID, ISHIHARA and COHEN demonstrate how differently
these nationalities react to compliments (cf. 2010: 168). The witnessed conversation
runs as follows:
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Obtaining a compliment for her prepared tea from DAVID, CHRISTIANE responds with a
so-called “same-strength second assessment” strategy, “Great” and a “response
pursuit marker”, i.e. “right?” (ISHIHARA and COHEN 2010: 168). Felicitous in German
conversations but highly unusual in American discourse, CHRISTIANE’s agreeing
response causes DAVID to look confused and to pause briefly as well as to utter the
“hesitation marker” “Uh”, which reflects his surprise due to a violation of the American
response norm, which is marked by a rather humble, or “downgrad[ing]” reaction (IBID:
168f.).
Possibly assuming that CHRISTIANE asks him to clarify or confirm his compliment, DAVID
provides a short explanatory description of the taste of the tea with a successive
confirming ‘yeah’ (cf. IBID: 169). Interestingly, he then produces the pragmalinguistically
expected compliment response in American English by adding “a second assessment
which is downgraded” (IBID: 170). In her analysis, GOLATO further assumes that
CHRISTIANE’s smile and her following second assessment reflect her awareness of
pragmatic breakdown, which she tries to terminate by formulating a more modest
judgement of the tea (cf. IBID: 170).
An even more ‘humble’ compliment response strategy is realized by Japanese citizens,
who tend to fully reject a compliment (pragmalinguistic aspect) regarding the family
when expressed by non-relatives (cf. IBID: 119). Whereas Western FL learners approve
such compliments (pragmalinguistic aspect) and consider compliment rejection
negative and impolite (sociopragmatic reason), the Japanese interpret compliment
approval as a form of boasting and strictly avoid it (cf. IBID: 119). Additionally,
compliments are often rejected in Japan to close the social gap, which the speaker
paying the compliment enlarges to ascribe a higher communicative position to the
hearer (cf. IBID: 119).
An English breakfast
conversation between
the American native
speaker DAVID and the
German native speakers
CHRISTIANE and
ANNETTE (ISHIHARA and
COHEN 2010: 168)
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Directives are a third type of speech acts addressed by ISHIHARA and COHEN.
Examining the pragmatic conventions of inquiries, the authors note that the beginning
of telephone conversations is differently managed by Iranian and German speakers
(cf. IBID: 168). Unlike Iranians who start with a series of questions concerning one’s
condition and relatives, Germans tend to use relatively brief formulations omitting
inquiries of this kind (cf. IBID: 168). Similarly, Australians have a habitual way of asking
one about his weekend (i.e. “Did you have a good weekend”), whereupon the hearer
usually replies with a polite and brief answer (IBID: 170). On the contrary, the French
would interpret this directive as a serious question provoking a “conversation with
details, opinions, and feelings” (IBID: 170).
Examining the realization of declaratives, KUMAGAI (2005) analyses 15 Japanese
refusal conversations between native Japanese and French speakers on the
telephone, revealing a much higher level of directness in the French learners’ refusals
(cf. TAGUCHI 2009: 203). Whereas French speakers apply expressions such as “‘I
cannot do it’” (dekinai) and “‘I do not want to do it’” (iyada), the Japanese interactants
rather opt for subtle negative remarks (IBID: 203f.) Conversely, FUJIURA (2007)
discovers that Korean learners of Japanese apply more indirect refusal patterns than
Japanese natives (cf. IBID: 204) as a result of rather indirect refusal forms in their L1.
The examples raised in this section show that the sociopragmatic conventions of a
culture determine the pragmalinguistic form of speech acts and strategies. Moreover,
differences in speech act interpretation and production, such as in DAVID’s and
CHRISTIANE’s case, are likely to result in pragmatic failure and misunderstandings that
influence the speaker-hearer relationship.
Despite its frequently negative effects, pragmatic failure may positively influence
pragmatic acquisition since learners usually remember breakdowns in communication
and locate the root of the problem. ROBINSON (1992) in fact observes that Japanese
study participants are aware of sociopragmatic differences, knowing that “refusing
offers, requests, or invitations [is] much more acceptable in American than in Japanese
society” and that the use of Japan communicative strategies results in conversational
difficulties (GASS and NEU 1995: 156). Germans too are conscious of the language
specificity of certain utterances, such as “ich meine”, which they would rather avoid
using literally in the form of “’I mean’” (IBID: 156).
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Moreover, BARRON (2003: 193) records a decline in the number of literal Irish
translations in the German of Irish learners. Since the native variants “I was
wondering…” and “You’re very kind” carry different meaning, the utterances “Ich
wundere mich, ob…” and “Du bist/Sie sind sehr nett” (instead of “Das ist (sehr) nett
von Dir/Ihnen”) are avoided (IBID: 193).
Apart from the negative experience gained in conversations with native speakers,
learners need to pay particular attention to the correct patterns of the native speaker
(cf. BARRON 2003: 194). Lastly, BARRON (cf. 2003: 194) claims that utterance variants
appearing more frequently in L1 speech are prioritized in the learners’ pragmatic
repertoire and thus more often used. An example is the use of the assertive “Es geht
schon”, which appears many times in both native speakers’ and FL learners’ speech,
whereas the version “Ich schaff’ das schon” hardly occurs (IBID: 194).
The following section will explore further situations where pragmatic failure impedes
effective communication and address cases where pragmatic transfer succeeds.
These situations are partly distinguished by the negative and positive effects of
pragmatic transfer, covered by the notions of negative and positive transfer.
4.3.1.2 Negative and Positive Transfer
Although in most cases negative pragmatic transfer leads to pragmatic failure due to a
violation of L2 patterns, BARRON (cf. 2003: 38) does not propose conversational
breakdown as a reliable defining feature. Referring to HOUSE/KASPER (2000), BARRON
(2003: 76) in fact notes that negative transfer “may or may not trigger pragmatic
failure”, depending on “whether any differences are compatible with the cultural
assumptions and belief system of the speech community in question”. Moreover, as
has been mentioned in 4.3.1.1, poor communication resulting from negative pragmatic
transfer can have quite a positive influence on learners’ pragmatic acquisition.
Therefore, the concept of negative transfer needs to be defined more accurately.
Instead of determining negativity in terms of communicative failure, researchers use
the expression ‘negative’ to refer to the interlanguage speech patterns deviating from
the target norm. A concise description is put forward by MAESHIBA et al. (1996), who
consider negative transfer “the projection of first language-based sociopragmatic and
pragmalinguistic knowledge onto second language contexts where such projections
result in perceptions and behaviors different from those of second language users”
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(BARRON 2003: 38). Since difficulties in communication are mostly caused by such
differences, negative pragmatic transfer is prioritized in ILP research, whereas positive
transfer remains a less imperative aspect, as it “generally aids rather than hinders
communication” (BARRON 2003: 37).
DIANA BOXER mentions two further reasons for prioritized research in negative
pragmatic transfer in English (cf. GASS and NEU 1995: 218). On the one hand, English
is spoken by almost as many learners as native speakers and on the other hand, native
speakers tend to misinterpret pragmatic mistakes as insulting or offensive behaviour
(cf. IBID: 218). Indeed, pragmatic errors are often taken personally, whereas
“phonological, syntactic and lexical errors” (IBID: 218) are intuitively categorized as
language mistakes. This may be due to a lack of sociopragmatic and cultural
awareness of the foreign nationality. Whereas communication needs to be ‘clear’ in
this heterogeneous and immense network of English interactants, native speakers
should remain patient when learners say ‘inappropriate’ things.
Irrespective of the language in which negative transfer occurs, the resulting
misunderstandings are likely to cause trouble between the interactants. For instance,
an Israeli conductor will feel very annoyed if an American starts chatting during the trip,
since communication with a hitchhiker is inappropriate in Israeli culture (cf. ISHIHARA
and COHEN 2010: 79). Accordingly, it is inappropriate to request information on a
married Arab man’s children or to explain a Mexican companion why coming to his
birthday party is impossible (cf. IBID: 79). Unlike in America where such sociopragmatic
patterns are fully acceptable and polite, providing information on family members
brings bad luck in Arab culture and Mexicans prefer rejecting the invitation ‘more’
politely by claiming that one will try to come (IBID: 79).
The issue of politeness is indeed quite crucial in ILP since it is linked to strong
emotions. For instance, a University professor in the English native speaker community
will be very irritated if a student asks him how to assess written work, whereas a
Japanese professor will highly appreciate student requests (cf. ALCÓN SOLER and
MARTÍNEZ-FLOR 2008: 205). ALCÓN SOLER and MARTÍNEZ-FLOR (2008: 205) name
THOMAS’ (1983) experience as an example, whose Japanese student presented a
sketch of her thesis, saying “’Please read my draft and give me some comments.’”
THOMAS’ emerging fury (cf. IBID: 205) in this situation is consistent with BOXER’s
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observation of the seriousness of (socio)pragmatic mistakes, which are frequently
misinterpreted and viewed as intended assault rather than language errors.
A more serious situation may occur when negative pragmatic transfer appears in
formal speech at public meetings, where offense is even more likely to be taken.
WIERZBICKA (2003) quotes a highly inappropriate greeting formula uttered by a Polish
host to welcome an Australian visitor at a formal meeting: “Mrs Vanessa! Please! Sit!
Sit!” (SCHAUER 2009: 14)
In this situation, the host offers Mrs. SMITH a seat by using the imperative verb form
Sit! as well as the expression Mrs in front of the first name (cf. IBID: 14). Whereas the
word Mrs is translated from the Polish equivalent “pani” and can be placed, unlike in
English, in front of the person’s first name, the imperative form Sit! is an acceptable
utterance in formal Polish contexts but a very unusual und confusing expression in
English, “sound[ing] like a command, and in fact like a command addressed to a dog”
(IBID: 14).
It is often due to individual words such as the imperative verb form “Sit!” that speech
acts realized with the best intentions are still interpreted as rude and hostile. COHEN
himself was negatively surprised by an e-mail response from a Japanese partner, who
confirmed the feedback obtained from a critic on a section of a book of which Cohen
was the co-editor (cf. ISHIHARA and COHEN 2010: 15). Reading the line “I certainly
received the feedback. Thanks a lot.” (IBID: 15), COHEN thought that the brevity of the
answer and the use of the adverb certainly serve to evoke the impression of bad irony.
From COHEN’s native speaker perspective, the reply implied that too much feedback
was sent, which somewhat displeased the colleague (IBID: 16). However, as COHEN
and ISHIHARA discover, the use of certainly, or “tashikani”, is used as an “intensifier in
formal contexts”, assuring the recipient that the feedback has arrived and that “any
glitch afterwards […] is [the recipient’s] fault and not COHEN’s” (IBID: 16).
Despite the focus on negative transfer, the concept of positive transfer needs to be
addressed in ILP, since awareness of pragmatic similarities may help learners identify
with the target language. It is defined by MAESHIBA et al. (1996) as “the projection of
first language-based sociopragmatic and pragmalinguistic knowledge where such
projections result in perceptions and behaviours consistent with those of second
language users” (BARRON 2003: 37).
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An example of positive pragmatic transfer is the use of “No problem” and “Kein
Problem” in Irish English (L1) and German (L2) (IBID: 195). Although the variants do
not share all illocutionary speaker intentions, they are commonly applicable to several
communicative situations, namely to an “initiative offer”23, a “reoffer”24, an offer refusal
with a successive alternative proposal25 and an offer refusal26 (IBID: 195). Further
examples of positive transfer are given by MAESHIBA/YOSHINAGA/KASPER/ROSS in a
study on apologizing (cf. GASS and NEU 1995: 161). In this study, ninety native
Japanese and thirty English speakers assessed thirteen out of twenty English apology
situations similarly and only one differently (cf. IBID: 161). The remaining six situations
contained a balanced number of mixed assessments (cf. IBID: 166).
Apart from negative and positive transfer, pragmatic acquisition is influenced by
inappropriate attempts of pragmatic overgeneralisation (cf. BARRON 2003: 40). This
phenomenon is briefly described in the following chapter.
4.3.1.3 Pragmatic Overgeneralization
When learners start using a familiar pragmatic pattern in a larger number of
communicative situations adequately, one speaks of pragmatic generalisation (cf.
BARRON 2003: 40). However, when L2 pragmatic forms appear inappropriately in
contexts and impede communication (cf. IBID: 40), overgeneralization occurs, that is,
learners overuse their interlanguage speech patterns. As ISHIHARA and COHEN (2010:
81) observe, overgeneralization is often a result of a lack of knowledge about L2
pragmatic conventions, which forces learners to rely entirely on their L2 concepts in
23 “Professor: Mir fällt ein. Sie wohnen doch beide in meiner Nähe. Ich könnte Sie mitnehmen. Kein Problem. […] Professor: It’s just occurred to me. Mm … you both live near me. I could give you a lift. No problem.” (BARRON 2003: 195) 24 “You: I could give you some extra help after school if you would like. Friend: No, you’re okay. Thanks. You: It’s no problem. Friend: Patricia is going to help me after school on Friday. […]”(IBID: 195) 25 “Onkel: Was hältst Du von einer Tasse Kaffee? Nichte/Neffe: Nein danke, aber wenn Du vielleicht einen Tee kochen würdest, das wäre klasse! Onkel: Ach kein Problem, ich setze schon mal Wasser auf. […] Uncle: How about a cup of coffee? Niece/nephew: No thanks, but if you’d make a cup of tea maybe, that would be great! Uncle: Oh no problem, I’ll put the kettle on.” (IBID: 196) 26 “Du: Wenn du willst, helfe ich dir, deine schweren Koffer zu tragen. Junge Frau: Danke für das nette Angebot. Aber ich schaffe das schon allein. Kein Problem. […] You: If you want, I’ll help you carry your heavy cases. Girl: Thanks for the kind offer. But I’ll manage on my own all right. No problem.” (IBID: 196)
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various situations. Thus, less advanced learners literally “depend on their
preconceived notions about L2 norms, […] [which they] wrongly apply […] to different
contexts”, possibly “neglecting the social, geographical, and situational variability in the
L2” (IBID: 81).
Addressing the reasons for pragmatic overgeneralization, BARRON (2003: 40) mentions
three causes of the linguistic phenomenon, which are “the strategy of least effort, [the
learners’] need for clarity and explicitness […] and […] metalinguistic motives”. All
these factors imply a certain psychological reason causing the FL learner to
overgeneralize.
Describing the learner’s tendency to utter relatively simple and frequently occurring
speech patterns, the strategy of least effort is characterized by a use of elementary
speech acts, which promote syntactic and semantic clarity and facilitate speech
production (cf. IBID: 40). An example is the learners’ frequent use of “I think” and “I
know” instead of modal verbs and adjectives, which are more complicated to acquire
(IBID: 40). Since modals cause confusion for non-native speakers in conversations and
do not carry propositional meaning, they tend to be ignored by learners who foreground
and thus overgeneralize the referential entities of a speech act (cf. IBID: 40f.).
Whereas the use of the relatively simple apology formula such as “I’m sorry” and
“Excuse me” may fit in certain situations, some contexts marked by serious offense or
the hearer’s high social position will require more sophisticated apologetic
constructions (ISHIHARA and COHEN 2010: 81). However, the learner’s needs to be
understood and to manage speech production force him to use easily acquired and
simple pragmatic patterns in a multitude of contexts.
The second influential element in pragmatic overgeneralization is similar to the first
strategy in that the learner values clarity in speech production to increase
comprehension and to gain more self-confidence (cf. BARRON 2003: 41). Explicit
speech is considered essential by learners to promote transparency and is subject of
HASSAL’s (1997) research, which reveals that his informants (FL learners of English)
“over-use […] want statements and […] under-use […] elided imperatives in requests
[…] due to uncertainty” (IBID: 41). KASPER (1981), too, mentions an interesting language
phenomenon, which is the frequent use of ‘oh’ serving to indicate the hearer’s active
concentration (cf. IBID: 41). Along with the strategy of least effort, this strategy entitled
69
“Need for clarity and explicitness” constitutes a so-called “Playing-it-safe” strategy,
which stands for safety in communication (IBID: 41).
Finally, based on language exchanges with native speakers or on careless pragmatic
advice in textbooks (cf. ISHIHARA and COHEN 2010: 85), learners may develop certain
beliefs and hypotheses about what can be considered a typical speech pattern or form.
However, these impressions are learner misjudgements resulting in inappropriate
pragmatic use.
KASPER, for instance, notes that FL learners of English tend to over-use the language
device ‘well’ at the beginning of utterances (cf. BARRON 2003: 41), whereas MATSUURA
claims that some learners consider expression length a measuring device of deference
and formality (cf. ISHIHARA and COHEN 2010: 81). Accordingly, FL learners of English
may wrongly assume that the elegant and courteous directive “May I…?” is quite
informal and impolite (IBID: 81). Conversely, native English speakers communicating in
Hebrew often exaggerate in being direct as a result of the stereotypical notion that
Israelis are always frank, which remains an inaccurate and superficial observation (cf.
BARRON 2003: 41).
Caused by pragmatic overgeneralization, errors of this kind need to be dealt with in
language instruction to avoid inappropriateness and to minimize the risk of breakdown
in communication. Some proposed awareness raising tasks will therefore be
considered in the second half of the next chapter.
4.3.2 FL Learner’s Identity and Pragmatic Instruction Methods
As illustrated in sections 4.3.1.1 and 4.3.1.2, various speech act strategies and
patterns are inevitably shaped by sociopragmatic conventions. In some cases, as in
the breakfast conversation between DAVID and CHRISTIANE (cf. 4.3.1.1), the
sociocultural norms are so strongly prevalent and identity-forming that the speakers
face great difficulties interpreting and sympathizing with the partner’s pragmatic
patterns. Moreover, the consequences of negative pragmatic transfer can be
devastating, as mentioned in 4.3.1.1.
The questions following from the raised examples are what makes human beings cling
so strongly to the pragmatic patterns in their L1, how willing they are to study and apply
70
the sociopragmatic norms of the target language and how L2 pragmatics can be taught
effectively. These questions will be addressed in the following paragraphs.
Recapitulating the characteristics of STERN’s preliminary stage in 3.2.1, the baby’s
initial and internal reason to babble is the need to express itself and to socialize with
the environment on which it depends. Based on this need, the acquisition of the lexical
and grammatical properties of a language is shaped by environmental stimulus in a
process of socialization, which moulds the growing child’s identity. Once children start
communicating in a language, they are members of that language community, and
their “membership in […] [the] linguistic group is […] [an aspect] of identity” (TURNBULL
and DAILEY-O’CAIN 2009: 127).
In a study conducted by AUER/BAILEY/ELÍAS-OLIVARES/NAYAR, 16 of 27 interviewed
bilingual children declare that they identify with two or more cultures, feeling “English
and German, Greek and American, and so on”, whereas ten participants claim to
belong uniquely to the German language community (IBID: 127). These figures reveal
that the majority of children having abroad experience and parents with culturally
different backgrounds sense some kind of “multiple or hybrid identity” (IBID: 127). A
child even claims to feel at home everywhere, stating that it is “a citizen of the world”:
“Ich bin überall zu Hause. Ich fühle mich als Weltmensch.” (IBID: 127).
However, for reasons unknown, 10 children prefer their German identities despite the
language contact abroad. Lacking important information on the participants’
nationalities and on the periods of exposure to the language communities, one cannot
determine developmental differences between the groups or find an explanation for
the differing results. However, one can deduce on a general basis that early bilingual
input does not necessarily create double identities, since some children prefer one
language over another.
Monolinguals, on the contrary, rely on the sociocultural norms of one language
community in which they pursue social integration, a natural determinant of their self-
acceptance, their “highest human priority” (quoted in DÖRNYEI 2005: 211). In other
words, self-acceptance and satisfaction requires humans to be integrated into a society
in which they develop a good reputation or make career by behaving properly and by
adopting the particular speech (pragmatic) conventions. In this process, the human
identity turns into a social construct determined by the norms of a “social identity” (IBID:
212). Thus, it is barely astonishing that L1 pragmatic patterns are taken very seriously
71
by native speakers and that utterances violating these patterns are unacceptable in
their eyes (cf. THOMAS’ feeling and COHEN’s impression in 4.3.1.2).
As for the question of how open-minded learners are about pragmatic acquisition and
use, there is a large number of factors worthy of examination. GARDNER’s (1985)
paradigm of integrative motivation, for instance, contains numerous influential
elements in L2 Acquisition, to which belong among other aspects the learner’s
“attitudes toward [the] L2 community”, the “evaluation of the L2 teacher [and the L2
Course]”, “motivational intensity” or “interest in Foreign Languages” (DÖRNYEI 2005:
69). Without elaborating these concepts (for details cf. IBID: 68-73), it is evident that
learners assess such aspects rather individually, as tastes naturally differ. Accordingly,
a teacher’s popularity or the love of languages will vary among learners and the
success of a language course will partly depend on whether the taught contents appeal
to individual tastes. While these crucial theoretical concepts do influence a learners’
success in a foreign language, teachers may want to study these notions on their own
and provide their students with course-specific advice instead.
For instance, teachers may want to emphasize that students do not sacrifice their first
language identity when they learn about second language pragmatics. Possible
concerns about identity substitution are unrealistic, since “non-nativeness can be made
relevant at any time”, either “by repairs and corrections, […] by accent, […] or by
reformulations” (GARDNER and WAGNER 2004: 16). Although L2 speech is marked by
the socio-cultural conventions and pragmatic patterns of the target language
community, these aspects only characterise “one identity a speaker can adopt” (IBID:
16) and just as quickly ‘swap’ through code-switching.
Moreover, teachers should encourage learners to think positively and express belief in
their competence to acquire a language successfully, since motivation greatly matters
in language acquisition. In this respect, the concept of self is central to learner
motivation and needs to be addressed in more detail.
Quoting MARKUS and NURIUS (1986), DÖRNYEI (2005: 99) determines two types of self,
namely the “possible selves […] include[ing] the successful self, the creative self, the
rich self, the thin self, or the loved and admired self” and “the dreaded possible selves
[…] [to which belong] the alone self, the depressed self, the incompetent self, the
alcoholic self, the unemployed self, or the bag lady self.” Whereas the possible selves
constitute highly positive beliefs about what is attainable in life, the dreaded possible
72
selves define very negative thoughts discouraging humans and preventing success.
Indeed, as MERCER (2011: 14) confirms in her descriptions about the FL learner’s Self-
Concept, it is “one’s self-perception”, or “what one believes to be true about oneself”
that matters, rather than “facts” about a person, such as a bad grade or communication
difficulties with native speakers of the target language. Therefore, positive self-beliefs
are crucial to successful language acquisition and need to be strongly supported by
teachers, whose comments are often taken seriously by students.
Finally, instructors should try to convey L2 pragmatic knowledge in a careful manner
by using awareness-raising tasks and authentic language input, that is, contextualized
sample utterances of the speech act in question. Including a wealth of attractive
pragmatic tasks in their book, ISHIHARA and COHEN suggest a set of useful awareness-
raising questions:
“What do people say in your country when they give and receive compliments
on a nice-looking possession or a presentation that is well done? Provide a
literal translation of some examples.”
(ISHIHARA and COHEN 2010: 79)
“How often do you give, receive, or overhear compliments in English compared
to in your first language?
What do people say in giving and responding to compliments in English? Write
a few dialogues illustrating giving and responding to compliments.
What do people say in giving and responding to compliments in your first
language community? Write a few dialogues in that language and provide a
literal translation into English.”
“What do people compliment others on? (What are some topics of
compliments?)”
(IBID: 126)
Importantly, these questions focus on both the learner’s mother tongue and the target
language (English) in order to assess pragmatic differences, of which learners need to
be aware to avoid negative pragmatic transfer. Moreover, requiring a literal translation
of L1 pragmatic speech acts is a very interesting method to show learners that it hardly
ever works. ISHIHARA and COHEN quote a native Arabic learner, who was aware of this
73
problem and said: “Even if I know it [how to give compliments] in my native language,
if I translate it, it won’t work” (2010: 79).
Of course, students may encounter difficulties answering these questions due to a lack
of sociopragmatic knowledge, but the teacher is there to help. For instance, instructors
could hand out a list of authentic English compliment phrases, such as the following
series of compliment giving speech acts to help their students in the writing process:
Such sample utterances are meticulously collected by ISHIHARA and COHEN and are
carefully categorized according to distinct communicative situations. In fact, the
authors’ descriptions seem so transparent that they can even be used as plain self-
study material providing just the sufficient amount of theory and examples (cf., for
instance, the chapter on request strategies in English in IBID: 66).
Concerning the issue of language proficiency, teachers conceptualizing pragmatic
tasks should bear in mind that a learner’s low level of grammatical competence may
impede the realization of more complicated speech acts. While learners of English may
succeed in uttering grammatically correct requests with only one clause, they may have
trouble using “bi-clausal requests”, such as “Would you mind if… or I was wondering
if…” (ISHIHARA and COHEN 2010: 80). Therefore, language teachers should regularly
train the production of such formulations and highlight the critical grammar parts, as in
“Would you mind if I borrowed your notes? or I was wondering if you could possibly
lend me your car for a few minutes” (IBID: 80).
Lastly, teachers should prove stereotypical pragmatic descriptions wrong by
discussing communicative situations in which speakers violate the speech patterns in
question. Since stereotypical advice on how to use certain phrases in the target
language is sometimes given in textbooks and other teaching materials, instructors
A list of English
compliment giving
utterances presented by
ISHIHARA and COHEN
(2010: 58)
74
need to be prepared to provide more accurate explanations. For instance, students
need to know that Japanese people do occasionally speak directly and that the use of
indirect constructions may sometimes be appropriate. In relation to a sample situation
in which a Japanese girl asks her roommate to lend her some money every now and
then (cf. APPENDIX: A), ISHIHARA and COHEN (2010: 82-84) first provide a real
conversation between two Japanese girls with the stereotypically courteous and
indirect speech patterns (cf. APPENDIX: B) and then present a second recorded
conversation between two male Japanese, in which this generalized ‘convention’ is
violated (cf. APPENDIX: C).
If found in magazines or on the Internet, such conversations can be used to
demonstrate situations in which specific conventions are broken. Moreover, awareness
raising conversations are didactically exploitable, since they can be acted out in role
plays to drill pragmatic patterns or cut into speech act pieces, which learners put in the
right order to test reading comprehension, a skill that requires an awareness of
cohesion and coherence.
As indicated in the introductory chapter, pragmatic instruction is a largely unexplored
territory needing creative ideas and empirically tested activities. However, the domain
of Interlanguage Pragmatics contains other areas that are short of investigation. These
will be briefly addressed in the following comments to round off the thesis on
Interlanguage Pragmatics in Second Language Acquisition and Identity Construction.
5. Conclusion
Needless to say, the area of Interlanguage Pragmatics as a subdomain of the relatively
young field of Pragmatics is shaped by a large number of concepts, theories and
studies relating to cultural, pragmatic, politeness and interlanguage investigations.
Examining the important issues of speech act realisations across cultures,
developmental aspects of pragmatic acquisition and pragmatic instruction methods in
the FL classroom, ILP is not a simple research area but a complex domain dealing with
many questions. There are a number of difficulties relating to the domain, which need
to be addressed.
Exploring the realm of ILP, one will first notice the relatively chaotic and uncategorised
presentation of speech acts and their realizations in literature. Clearly, there is a
75
tendency in contemporary ILP research to explore as many aspects and languages as
possible, which is due to the youth of the field encouraging a rather dynamic and
holistic approach to investigation. Although this investigative style is a natural
consequence of a lack of information and thus a normal phenomenon, there is a
necessity to establish some order in the gathered data by classifying studies according
to specific qualities, such as language or speech act type. More recent publications,
such as ISHIHARA and COHEN’s (2010) Teaching and Learning Pragmatics: Where
Language and Culture Meet, already respond to this problem by including a well-
structured list of English speech act classes and their pragmatic characteristics.
However, only few books and Internet websites provide a similar classified
presentation of speech acts and speech act studies, which impedes easy access to
well described patterns in languages.
Another difficulty in contemporary ILP is the elaboration of an empirically driven,
detailed paradigm of pragmatic development. Preferably, such a model includes both
language specific and language universal explanations, describing developmental
characteristics in individual languages on the one hand and developmental similarities
on the other. Whereas pragmatic transfer from L1 has been proved by various studies
in several languages, the amount of transfer and the ideal combination of influential
factors in L2 pragmatic acquisition remain largely undetermined. Although BAHNS
(1986) and KECSKÉS (1999) have proposed general stages of pragmatic acquisition in
the target language, they need to be developed on the basis of further findings in
interlanguage studies and probably combined to form one transparent paradigm.
Clarifications are also required in LENNEBERG’s Critical Period Hypothesis, which does
not examine the implications of critical phases of acquisition for pragmatic
development as such. On the other hand, CHOMSKY’s Universal Grammar Hypothesis
ignores that grammar and pragmatics are interdependent (cf. 3.1.1), a major reason
why the hypothesis should be examined in relation to possible pragmatic parameters
set by the LAD.
Finally, the findings in interlanguage studies need to be implemented in a learner-
friendly way in teaching materials, which usually lack a sufficient amount of information
on speech conventions. Since most textbooks simply omit pragmatic explanations,
teachers may prefer discussing important speech characteristics in authentic dialogues
taken from corpora or video interviews. Moreover, regular grammar instruction is
76
recommended to develop learners’ fluency and accuracy, otherwise students may end
up producing fragmentary and incorrect utterances. Lastly, to help students avoid
negative pragmatic transfer, teachers should draw their attention to misleading
stereotypical formulations and phrases that cannot be applied to all but a very limited
number of contexts. Here, the analysis of sample dialogues may prove beneficial,
allowing students to juxtapose conversations in which some speakers respect and
others violate the formulations in question.
77
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7. Appendix
A: A money request
situation between a
Japanese friend and
her roommate
(ISHIHARA and
COHEN 2010: 82)
B: A money request
conversation
between two
Japanese girls
respecting the
‘typical’ pragmatic
conventions
(ISHIHARA and COHEN
2010 :82f.)
81
C: A money request
conversation
between two
Japanese men
violating the assumed
pragmatic patterns
(ISHIHARA and COHEN
2010 :83f.)