Intercultural Pragmatics and Proficiency: ‘Polite’ Noises for Cultural Appropriateness

Abstract

This article summarizes a study in the field of German-English interlanguage pragmatics which investigates pragmatic declarative and procedural knowledge äs realized by routine formulas and conversational strategies. Language instruction which has the goal of developing metapragmatic declarative knowledge äs well äs situational/ functional (procedural) knowledge-results in real progress toward proficiency, even at the elementary level of language instruction. The results of the empirical study show a typology of deficits and characteristic pragmatic aspects of American learners' German interlanguage. These findings and further studies of the pragmatics of the native, target, and interlanguages of our students will help us successfully teach them to make the right polite noises at the time most interactionally appropriate for achieving their personal communicative goals in the target language.This contribution reports a study in the field of German-English intercultural and interlanguage pragmatics which investigates pragmatic declarative and procedural knowledge 1 äs realized by routine formulas and conversational strategies. The important difference between these types of knowledge is summarized by O'Malley and Chamot (16: p. 20) äs follows: "All of the things we know about constitute declarative knowledge, and the things we know how to do are procedural knowledge'' If we are to help adult students reach the goal of oral proficiency on any level, we need to investigate the development of pragmatic, procedural knowledge in learners äs they take part in target language communication. The more we know about this procedural knowledge, the more we will be in the position to include empirically sound Information about pragmatic aspects of the target language in instructional materials and syllabi. We äs classroom teachers, textbook authors, or curriculum designers for adult \anguage learners need to increase our own awareness of pragmatic aspects of students' interlanguage in order to be able to pass this knowledge on to our learners.The ultimate goal of this research is to discover the best way to present pragmatic aspects of the target language to learners. A theoretical and practical model needs to focus on how to help learners integrale in memory pragmatic Information about the target language and Information Brought to you by | University of Michigan Authenticated Download Date | 6/21/15 10:33 PM

Awareness of meaning of conventional expressions in second-language pragmatics

“…Kasper and Blum-Kulka (1993, p. 9) identified conventional expressions as 'one area where insufficient control of pragmalinguistic knowledge is particularly obvious'. Wildner-Bassett (1994) suggested that routines 'reduce the complexity of social interaction by offering the security that the act performed will be understood by the partner in the intended way ' (p. 4). The present study investigates learners' awareness of meaning in order to explore (1) the meanings that learners assign to conventional expressions and (2) the effect that the associated meanings are likely to have on the use of conventional expressions in social interactions.…”

Proficiency, length of stay, and intensity of interaction and the acquisition of conventional expressions in L2 pragmatics

“…The use of conventional expressions by learners (which is always an intercultural context) has been credited with certain advantages, namely, increasing speakers' confidence that the speech acts they perform will be understood by interlocutors in the intended way (Wildner-Bassett 1994) and making language learners appear nativelike (Yorio 1989).…”

Teaching Formulaic Sequences in the ESL Classroom

“…In fact, these sequences—at least those which have been memorized correctly—can help learners achieve linguistic accuracy, as they provide zones of safety where learners are less likely to make errors (Boers et al., ). Formulaic sequences also allow learners to be confident that they will be understood by their interlocutor in the way they intended (Wildner‐Bassett, ).…”