The paper begins with the recent development of second language acquisition, in particular, L2 pragmatics, the study of acquisition of speech acts. Secondly, after exploring the distinction of competence and communica...The paper begins with the recent development of second language acquisition, in particular, L2 pragmatics, the study of acquisition of speech acts. Secondly, after exploring the distinction of competence and communicative competence, looking into the to-do-things nature of utterances as well, the paper introduces the empirical researches on acquisition of request, apology, refusal, ect. in detail, emphasizing the significant findings. The paper finally draws some practically useful pedagogical implications on the basis of acquisition of speech acts.展开更多
According to the principals of the Course Standard of English for Ordinary Senior Schools, published by China Education Ministry in 2001, the general goal of English curriculum on the basic education stage is to foste...According to the principals of the Course Standard of English for Ordinary Senior Schools, published by China Education Ministry in 2001, the general goal of English curriculum on the basic education stage is to foster the students＇ cross-cultural awareness, which is to develop their cross-cultural communicative competence. To achieve this goal, most of all, teachers of English at high school must have a good command of cross-cultural pragmatic competence. By looking through papers in various periodicals and the Internet, the writer finds that most of the studies have coped with pragmatic failures of ESL students but few of ESL teachers＇. Therefore, this thesis studies the present situation --- how much do schoolteachers of English know about pragmatics？ What about their cross-cultural communicative competence？ Can they communicate with the native speakers fluently and appropriately？ What are the most serious problems among them in pragmatics？ What can be done to solve the problems？ With all the questions, this research has collected considerable firsthand data and information. Only after the basic situations are known overall, can actions be taken to solve the problems existing in everyday ESL teaching. So this research is necessary and urgent for the present basic English pedagogy. However, since the present writer＇s ability and research conditions are limited, it is not possible to make a wider investigation in many places. Therefore, the district --- Bameng League, Inner Mongolia, China, is selected as the basic range of the survey, the situation of which is believed to be able to represent the basic educational ones in the poor and remote districts in the north and the west of China where education is more backward. The questionnaire consists of two parts： a table of individual information and a test paper. The former investigates informants＇ basic information, including the items of name, age, sex, teaching age, title of the technical post, degree, academic career, college or university that they graduated from, working unit, grades for teaching and the others. The latter is the test paper cited from He Ziran and Yan Zhuang （1986）, that is, Chinese Students＇Pragmatic Failure in English Communication --- Survey of the Pragmatic Difference between Chinese and English. And it contains 48 items, with items of pragmalinguistic and socio-pragmatic competence mixedly arranged. 120 of the questionnaire copies were handed out and 86 are collected, but only 64 are collected. The survey covers over 10 high schools in all the 7 banners of Bameng League, including two autonomous region-class key schools and five other league-class key schools. After the investigation, the present writer carefully corrects, marks, arranges, summarizes and analyzes the questionnaire, and obtains plenty of firsthand data and information. Then some conclusions have been drawn based on the data analysis. The result of the survey shows that linguistic competence is not equal to pragmatic competence, that ESL high school English teachers may use English rather fluently, without many mistakes in vocabulary and grammar,but it does not necessarily mean that they can use the target language appropriately to communicate with native speakers without pragmatic failures, and that the informants＇ knowledge of pragmatics and their pragmatic competence are rather poor. As a result, improving their knowledge and competence in pragmatics becomes a very necessary and urgent task to develop the quality of ELT in basic educational stages. In order to solve the above problems, the writer makes some suggestions as follows： （1） Pragmatics should be required as an essential course for the English majors in colleges and universities, especially in normal colleges and universities; （2） In-service high school English teachers must study courses of pragmatics and cross-cultural communication; （3） In some poor and remote districts, if educational conditions don＇t permit, textbooks of pragmatics and cross-cultural communication must be handed out to the high school English teachers who can study by themselves, then tests are regularly held for them and certificates will be given to those who have passed the tests; （4） In some developed districts, if conditions permit, English teachers can be sent abroad to English-speaking countries for further education in order to have a good command of the English language in the authentic contexts; （5） Modern multiple medias, such as VCD or DVD videos, TV or radio programs, the Internet, should be widely and frequently applied to training teachers; （6） More native language teachers and experts from English-speaking countries must be invited to high schools to train teachers of English.展开更多
This paper interrogates the pragmatic choice of the rhetorical question(RQ)as a linguistic resource in some disputational discourse in the verses of the English translated Qur’an.It argues that the choice of this sen...This paper interrogates the pragmatic choice of the rhetorical question(RQ)as a linguistic resource in some disputational discourse in the verses of the English translated Qur’an.It argues that the choice of this sentence-type not only puts the speaker in a position of control in powerful assertion of facts,but also strengthens the pragmatic acts in the context to be more emphatic.Adopting Mey’s(2001)Pragmatic Acts theory and Caponigro and Sprouse’s(2007)Concept of Common Ground,the paper does a close reading of the last forty Quranic chapters for a critical analysis and finds that RQ accounts for 15%(61)of the 410 verses in the seventeen(17)chapters that have RQs out of the last forty chapters investigated.We find that the Authorial Voice in the Qur’an employs the RQ as an argumentative strategy to perform the pragmatic acts of challenging,inviting,affirming,reminding,reinforcing,assuring,appealing,and warning in series of intellectual engagements with the addressees in order to put them in a reflective mode.It is concluded that the RQ is an effective,dialogic,evidence-gathering,change-seeking pragmatic tool for securing improved attitude and ideological understanding from the addressees.Addressees are sought after to be convinced by the Speaker in a dialogue,and then left alone to decide,which presents the Speaker as One that uses rational argument in the context of disputation to persuade humans in real dialogues so as to seek change.展开更多
A sermon is a talk or advice given by clergy in religious discourse.This sermonizing function,however,seems to have ceased to be an exclusive preserve of the clerics.This paper investigates this pragmatic act of sermo...A sermon is a talk or advice given by clergy in religious discourse.This sermonizing function,however,seems to have ceased to be an exclusive preserve of the clerics.This paper investigates this pragmatic act of sermonizing in thirty-one (31) selected lyrics of Sikiru Ayinde Barrister (SAB) of the Fuji fame in Nigeria’s music industry,using Jacob Mey’s (2001) Pragmatic Act theory and Kecskes’ (2010) Socio-Cognitive Approach.A surprising depth of sermonizing in various categories,including social,economic and political sermonizing acts were found paramount in his lyrics.The socio-economic sermonizing act relates to family matters,managing marital conflict,child training and upbringing,value of hard work and dedication to duty,family planning,and such other personal values as showing gratitude for being alive and well,honesty,patience,peacemaking,respect for all,leading a responsible life,helping people,resisting doing evil,wishing others well and cooperating in doing good,the ultimate good judgement of God,being prayerful,inevitability of death,destiny,etc.The political sermonizing act calls for unity,peace,progress,political will,creating an enabling environment by the government,protecting democratic norms and the rule of law,and the need to look inward for an all-round national development.This paper concludes that SAB,beyond being an entertainer,is also a master sermonizer,as his sermonizing acts are deep,comprehensive,and revolve around building not only a complete,prosperous human figure but also a prosperous and peaceful nation.The lyrics,which qualify him as a Music Prophet,have something timeless,fresh and refreshing for all categories of people,particularly Nigerians.The limitation to his lyrics is that they are originally produced in Yoruba language;the import of the sermonizing act,however,is universal.展开更多
文摘The paper begins with the recent development of second language acquisition, in particular, L2 pragmatics, the study of acquisition of speech acts. Secondly, after exploring the distinction of competence and communicative competence, looking into the to-do-things nature of utterances as well, the paper introduces the empirical researches on acquisition of request, apology, refusal, ect. in detail, emphasizing the significant findings. The paper finally draws some practically useful pedagogical implications on the basis of acquisition of speech acts.
文摘According to the principals of the Course Standard of English for Ordinary Senior Schools, published by China Education Ministry in 2001, the general goal of English curriculum on the basic education stage is to foster the students＇ cross-cultural awareness, which is to develop their cross-cultural communicative competence. To achieve this goal, most of all, teachers of English at high school must have a good command of cross-cultural pragmatic competence. By looking through papers in various periodicals and the Internet, the writer finds that most of the studies have coped with pragmatic failures of ESL students but few of ESL teachers＇. Therefore, this thesis studies the present situation --- how much do schoolteachers of English know about pragmatics？ What about their cross-cultural communicative competence？ Can they communicate with the native speakers fluently and appropriately？ What are the most serious problems among them in pragmatics？ What can be done to solve the problems？ With all the questions, this research has collected considerable firsthand data and information. Only after the basic situations are known overall, can actions be taken to solve the problems existing in everyday ESL teaching. So this research is necessary and urgent for the present basic English pedagogy. However, since the present writer＇s ability and research conditions are limited, it is not possible to make a wider investigation in many places. Therefore, the district --- Bameng League, Inner Mongolia, China, is selected as the basic range of the survey, the situation of which is believed to be able to represent the basic educational ones in the poor and remote districts in the north and the west of China where education is more backward. The questionnaire consists of two parts： a table of individual information and a test paper. The former investigates informants＇ basic information, including the items of name, age, sex, teaching age, title of the technical post, degree, academic career, college or university that they graduated from, working unit, grades for teaching and the others. The latter is the test paper cited from He Ziran and Yan Zhuang （1986）, that is, Chinese Students＇Pragmatic Failure in English Communication --- Survey of the Pragmatic Difference between Chinese and English. And it contains 48 items, with items of pragmalinguistic and socio-pragmatic competence mixedly arranged. 120 of the questionnaire copies were handed out and 86 are collected, but only 64 are collected. The survey covers over 10 high schools in all the 7 banners of Bameng League, including two autonomous region-class key schools and five other league-class key schools. After the investigation, the present writer carefully corrects, marks, arranges, summarizes and analyzes the questionnaire, and obtains plenty of firsthand data and information. Then some conclusions have been drawn based on the data analysis. The result of the survey shows that linguistic competence is not equal to pragmatic competence, that ESL high school English teachers may use English rather fluently, without many mistakes in vocabulary and grammar,but it does not necessarily mean that they can use the target language appropriately to communicate with native speakers without pragmatic failures, and that the informants＇ knowledge of pragmatics and their pragmatic competence are rather poor. As a result, improving their knowledge and competence in pragmatics becomes a very necessary and urgent task to develop the quality of ELT in basic educational stages. In order to solve the above problems, the writer makes some suggestions as follows： （1） Pragmatics should be required as an essential course for the English majors in colleges and universities, especially in normal colleges and universities; （2） In-service high school English teachers must study courses of pragmatics and cross-cultural communication; （3） In some poor and remote districts, if educational conditions don＇t permit, textbooks of pragmatics and cross-cultural communication must be handed out to the high school English teachers who can study by themselves, then tests are regularly held for them and certificates will be given to those who have passed the tests; （4） In some developed districts, if conditions permit, English teachers can be sent abroad to English-speaking countries for further education in order to have a good command of the English language in the authentic contexts; （5） Modern multiple medias, such as VCD or DVD videos, TV or radio programs, the Internet, should be widely and frequently applied to training teachers; （6） More native language teachers and experts from English-speaking countries must be invited to high schools to train teachers of English.
文摘This paper interrogates the pragmatic choice of the rhetorical question(RQ)as a linguistic resource in some disputational discourse in the verses of the English translated Qur’an.It argues that the choice of this sentence-type not only puts the speaker in a position of control in powerful assertion of facts,but also strengthens the pragmatic acts in the context to be more emphatic.Adopting Mey’s(2001)Pragmatic Acts theory and Caponigro and Sprouse’s(2007)Concept of Common Ground,the paper does a close reading of the last forty Quranic chapters for a critical analysis and finds that RQ accounts for 15%(61)of the 410 verses in the seventeen(17)chapters that have RQs out of the last forty chapters investigated.We find that the Authorial Voice in the Qur’an employs the RQ as an argumentative strategy to perform the pragmatic acts of challenging,inviting,affirming,reminding,reinforcing,assuring,appealing,and warning in series of intellectual engagements with the addressees in order to put them in a reflective mode.It is concluded that the RQ is an effective,dialogic,evidence-gathering,change-seeking pragmatic tool for securing improved attitude and ideological understanding from the addressees.Addressees are sought after to be convinced by the Speaker in a dialogue,and then left alone to decide,which presents the Speaker as One that uses rational argument in the context of disputation to persuade humans in real dialogues so as to seek change.
文摘A sermon is a talk or advice given by clergy in religious discourse.This sermonizing function,however,seems to have ceased to be an exclusive preserve of the clerics.This paper investigates this pragmatic act of sermonizing in thirty-one (31) selected lyrics of Sikiru Ayinde Barrister (SAB) of the Fuji fame in Nigeria’s music industry,using Jacob Mey’s (2001) Pragmatic Act theory and Kecskes’ (2010) Socio-Cognitive Approach.A surprising depth of sermonizing in various categories,including social,economic and political sermonizing acts were found paramount in his lyrics.The socio-economic sermonizing act relates to family matters,managing marital conflict,child training and upbringing,value of hard work and dedication to duty,family planning,and such other personal values as showing gratitude for being alive and well,honesty,patience,peacemaking,respect for all,leading a responsible life,helping people,resisting doing evil,wishing others well and cooperating in doing good,the ultimate good judgement of God,being prayerful,inevitability of death,destiny,etc.The political sermonizing act calls for unity,peace,progress,political will,creating an enabling environment by the government,protecting democratic norms and the rule of law,and the need to look inward for an all-round national development.This paper concludes that SAB,beyond being an entertainer,is also a master sermonizer,as his sermonizing acts are deep,comprehensive,and revolve around building not only a complete,prosperous human figure but also a prosperous and peaceful nation.The lyrics,which qualify him as a Music Prophet,have something timeless,fresh and refreshing for all categories of people,particularly Nigerians.The limitation to his lyrics is that they are originally produced in Yoruba language;the import of the sermonizing act,however,is universal.
