Pragmatic Development in Study Abroad Contexts
Dr. Maria Shardakova, Indiana University
As local and international demand for proficient speakers of foreign languages grows, study abroad is being advocated as the optimal way to learn a language. Over the last decade, a number of small and large-scale studies have explored the advantages of language immersion. Some researchers, however, have problematized the experience of studying abroad, pointing to potential problems related to identity, muting, limited socializing practices, etc.
This colloquium aims to explore study abroad learning as a variable in pragmatic competence development. The presenters approach the phenomenon from diverse theoretical standpoints, and employ a broad range of methodologies, including longitudinal naturalistic observations and cross-sectional experimental studies. The development of pragmatic competence is exemplified by an exciting range of social practices such as speech act behavior, conversational humor, and identity construction and reception. A variety of second languages - English, Russian, and Spanish - allows for a greater extrapolation and comparison of developmental tracks across learners, languages, and cultures.
The effect of study abroad on L2 English pragmatic competence: A longitudinal investigation
Wei Ren, University of Bristol, UK
The present study is a longitudinal investigation into the effect of study abroad on the development of Chinese learners’ L2 English pragmatic competence. Using the Multimedia Elicitation Task (MET) and the Appropriate Judgment Task (AJT), the study collected data from 20 Chinese graduate students studying abroad (SA) and 20 Chinese graduate students studying at home (AH) at three different points during one academic year. The SA students also completed a retrospective verbal report (RVR) in each phase of the data collection.
Overall the study has evidenced the complexity in the effect of study abroad on learners’ L2 pragmatic development. The results revealed that study abroad did not affect the overall frequency of the learners’ choice of opt-outs, nor did it significantly influence their overall frequency of refusal modifications. However, study abroad did have an impact on the first occurrence of pragmatic strategies among the SA students, although the same developmental trend was also observed in the AH students’ refusals. Furthermore, a significant change in the overall frequency of refusal strategies was only observed in the SA students’ data.
This study also documented that study abroad did not affect the SA students’ overall ratings in the AJT. However, analyses of the SA students’ RVR data evidenced that their noticing of pragmatic infelicities developed significantly during their study abroad in the UK, indicating a positive influence of study abroad in the development of learners’ L2 pragmatic awareness.
The analyses of the SA students’ RVR revealed that throughout the study the SA students paid increasingly more attention to sociopragmatics in context when they read the MET, whereas fewer SA students reported employing L1 as the language of thought in fewer instances. The changes of the SA students’ preference of directness or indirectness of refusals indicated that they became more aware of the social status of their interlocutor during social interactions. Furthermore, the study also evidenced the SA students’ pragmatic development across the three phases, reflected by the decrease of pragmatic difficulties and the increase of experiential knowledge acquired.
The Taxonomy of the Speech Act Set of Direct Complaints of American Speakers, Russian Native Speakers, and American Learners of Russian
Beata Moskala-Gallaher Swarthmore College, University Of Pennsylvania, PA
While there is a growing body of research on speech acts across cultures, the empirical data on complaints remain scarce. The present study explored the speech act set of direct complaints (according to Boxer’s terminology of complaints, 1993) elicited from 30 American speakers, 30 Russian native speakers, and 37 American learners of Russian as a second language, who participated in a study abroad program. The data was obtained through oral responses to an open-ended discourse completion questionnaire followed by an assessment questionnaire.
The presentation will focus on major differences between ASs and RSs based on the taxonomy of the speech act set of direct complaints, and on learners’ strategy selection, as compared to the native speakers’ norms in both cultures. The semantic categories that speakers in each language group used to structure their complaints and the order of occurrence of the categories will be discussed from the point of view of face-saving strategies.
The findings demonstrate that although the speech act set of direct complaints can be perceived as universal because the speakers express their dissatisfaction about the wrongdoer or the wrongdoing in a complaint, its realization is language- and culture-specific. The results indicate possible difficulties for L2 learners at the pragmalinguistic and sociopragmatic levels, which should be addressed by language instructors so that learners avoid direct transfer of first language (L1) and first culture (C1) while negotiating a problem in the target language.
References:
Boxer, D. (1993). Complaining and commiserating: A speech act view of solidarity in spoken American English. New York: Peter Lang.
Learning to be funny in Spanish during study abroad
Rachel L. Shively, Illinois State University, Normal, IL
An issue that has received little attention in the literature on second language (L2) pragmatic development in study abroad is L2 learners’ use of and participation in conversational humor. A pervasive feature of social interaction, humor is an important means by which individuals create and maintain rapport and develop social relationships (e.g., Norrick, 1993; Boxer & Cortès-Conde, 1997), as well as a positive politeness strategy that can mitigate threats to face (Brown & Levinson, 1987). Thus, the study of humor is a crucial piece of the puzzle in understanding social interaction and L2 pragmatic development in study abroad.
While comprehending and participating in humor can be difficult for L2 learners (e.g., Bell, 2002; Bell & Attardo, 2010), even beginning and intermediate L2 learners have been shown to be able to be playful and humorous in their L2 (e.g., Bell, 2006; Davies, 2003; Pomerantz & Bell, 2007). A growing number of studies have examined humor and language play in an L2, however, few have explored how learners’ comprehension or production of humor develops over time. The present study is a longitudinal examination of changes in the ways in which six L2 learners of Spanish initiated and contributed to humorous talk in everyday conversations in Spanish with host families, language partners, and Spanish native speaker friends over the course of one semester studying in Spain.
The participants in the study included four female and two male undergraduate students from a large public university in the Midwest U.S. Over the course of one semester in Spain, each student made a total of eight audio recordings of naturalistic conversations in Spanish, four with the host family and four with a language partner or Spanish native speaker friend, resulting in a corpus of over 25 hours of audio-recordings. In addition, participants wrote weekly language learning journals, completed background and language contact questionnaires, and participated in a final interview.
Analysis of the data indicates that humor occurred frequently in the corpus and that L2 learners both initiated and contributed to humorous talk. The results suggest that, in small ways, all six students acquired linguistic and cultural resources over time that they were able to use to be humorous in Spanish. Linguistic resources that students acquired and used for humorous purposes included specific lexical items and language structures, colloquial expressions, and routine formulas that learners had been exposed to in both humorous and non-humorous contexts in Spain. Participants also employed references to material culture and cultural practices and beliefs that they had learned about in Spain as a means to be funny. Furthermore, four of the six students perceived differences between their L1 and L2 in the use of sarcasm, leading three students to avoid this form of humor altogether in the L2 and the fourth to consciously modify his use of sarcasm in Spanish in order to use it more successfully. Getting to know specific individuals also appeared to play a role; over time, one student took a more active role in initiating humor with her language partner and another student learned how to avoid failed humor with a particular Spanish native speaker friend. Finally, the findings of this study also provide insights into ways in which study abroad programs can prepare students to deal with humor in their L2.
References:
Bell, N. D. (2002). Using and understanding humor in a second language: A case study. Doctoral dissertation, University of Pennsylvania.
Bell, N. D. (2006). Interactional adjustments in humorous intercultural communication. Intercultural Pragmatics, 3(1), 1-28.
Bell, N. D., & Attardo, S. Failed humor: Issues in non-native speakers’ appreciation and understanding of humor. Intercultural Pragmatics, 7(3), 423-447.
Boxer, D., & Cortès-Conde, F. (1997). From bonding to biting: Conversational joking and identity display. Journal of Pragmatics, 27, 275–294.
Brown, P., & Levinson, S. C. (1987). Politeness: Some universals in language usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Davies, C. E. (2003). How English-learners joke with native speakers: An interactional sociolinguistic perspective on humor as collaborative discourse across cultures. Journal of Pragmatics, 35, 1361–1385.
Norrick, N. (1993). Conversational joking: Humor in everyday talk. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Pomerantz, A., & Bell, N. D. (2007). Learning to play, playing to learn: FL learners as multicompetent language users. Applied Linguistics, 28(4), 556-578.
I Joke You Don’t”: Second Language Humor and Intercultural Identity Construction
Maria Shardakova Indiana University, Bloomington, IN
For over a decade, scholars from different disciplines have explored the connection between humor and individuality, maintaining that humor offers a customary way of displaying and creating one’s personal, social, and relational identity. Studies addressing second language (L2) humor have shown that L2 speakers are also able to successfully participate in playful practices. It remains unclear, however, how L2 speakers actually intend to position themselves, what identity claims they make through humor, and whether their interlocutors understand and uphold these claims.
The present study explores the relationship between intended identities claimed by American learners of Russian through humor, and their received identities by native speakers as well as peers alike. In particular, it addresses the effects of proficiency and study abroad on learners’ self-positioning and on the ensuing reception by their audiences.
One hundred eighty four American students and forty eight Russian native speakers participated in this experimental cross-sectional study. There were two separate stages of data collection. During the first stage, one hundred fourteen learners filled out discourse completion questionnaires with sixteen role-play scenarios featuring various speech acts; subsequently, humorous responses were selected from the collected data; nineteen participants who provided humorous responses were then asked to complete a separate questionnaire to indicate how they wanted to be seen by their addressees, what kind of self-image they wanted to project. During the second phase, two new groups of participants - native speakers (48 individuals) and learners (70 individuals) – evaluated humorous responses collected during the first phase, indicating how they perceived the authors of the humorous responses. This procedure yielded 1144 lexical tokens with 713 coming from the native speaker group and 431 delivered by the learner group.
The analysis has shown that interlanguage humor poses significant challenges for interactants, regardless of whether they share their native culture or belong to different traditions with dissimilar values and behavioral expectations. The intended and received collective identities of L2 learners who tried to present themselves through humor were significantly skewed along the continuum of positive and negative evaluations. These identities were also disparate in the selection of the focal traits claimed by the authors of humorous emails and the ones ascribed to them by their addressees: while speakers emphasized their personal characteristics, such as ‘geniality’ and ‘articulateness’, their addressees judged them based on the perceived inter-personal qualities of ‘impoliteness’ and ‘insensitivity’.
Neither proficiency or study abroad affected learners’ self-positioning. However, both variables were implicated in learners’ changing perception of L2 humor in relation to speakers’ identities. Proficiency in particular was a decisive factor in learners’ ability to attend to the target culture rules. The study abroad experience seemed to be beneficial for learners with low proficiency levels, although in this study experience abroad did not exert statistically significant effects.
Several issues brought to light by this study merit further exploration, among them, relations between identity claims and different second languages studied by American learners, as well as relations between various linguistic behaviors and established preferences of American learners for foregrounding personal qualities over interpersonal ones.