Pragmatics Case Study

In addition, Leech (1983: X) asserts that "Pragmatics can be usefully defined as the study of how utterances have meanings in situations." He also adds, "The meaning in pragmatics is defined relative to a speaker or user of the language, whereas meaning in semantics is defined purely as a property of expression in a given language, in abstraction from particular situation, speaker or hearer." (ibid: 5).

For people who regard the English language as a foreign language or second language, it’s so difficult to express it as perfect. This “mini research paper” talks about “Cultural Effect on English Language Collocation as Foreign Language” to help them more understanding in how to mastering English.

Communicating what we want to say, how we want to say it is the goal of expressing ourselves linguistically. For English Language Learners (and their teachers), the ability to do that successfully in their new language presents a challenge. In the content areas of instruction, it is especially important to draw out the information that a student already knows in their native language – even when they do not have the linguistic ability to express themselves in English – in order to assess their level of understanding and engage prior knowledge. Using non-linguistic representations provides a way of bridging that gap between actual understanding and the ability to express that

To conclude, in relation with the findings made and my own experience on my practicum in a public school, I can realize that my beliefs were similar to the students who participate in the research. Nevertheless, the only difference is that I do not agree with the memorization of the rules instead, with the internalization by connections with their mother tongue. Also, I believe that in our practicum, we tend to copy the strategies that our mentor teachers use, which are the mechanic activities, paper sheets or drills, and so forth, letting our belief that English is acquired through

In my experience, pragmatics, is disguise as many other terms in my curriculum: tone, voice, style, historical and cultural contexts. Style is how something is said. Tone is a writer’s attitude toward a subject. Voice is a writer’s unique use of language; the way a writer chooses words, construct sentences, and expresses ideas. Historical and cultural contexts refers to the events, social problems, traditions, and values that may have influenced the author and the writing. According to Lesaux and Harris, “Pragmatics refers to an understanding of the social rules of communication (Snow and Uccelli 2009)” (Lesaux Harris, p. 17). Even though I don’t directly teach the definition of pragmatics, I feel that in my middle school curriculum pragmatics

 Adult learners can feel ‘infantilised’ when they speak a foreign language. They may have a

Schools are excellent environments in which to develop knowledge of the courtesies and conventions of communication in a wide variety of situations. The achievement aims of the National English Curriculum state that:

Pragmatics is "the study of the purposes for which sentences is used, of the real world conditions under which a sentence may be appropriately used as an utterance" (Hatim, Basil (1992), p.59). Pragmatic Equivalence as a theory demonstrates the close relation between the meaning of a text in the source language and the target language. Speech Act Theory and Grice's Cooperative Principle set the basics of linguistics related with translation studies in terms of the meaning and its effect between two different languages, the meaning and intentionality are primary elements to any translator seeks to transfer the exact message of the text in the source language .

The second chapter of "Foundations of Pragmatics" describes three essential concepts in pragmatics. It starts with identifying the pragmatic perspective as a scope concerned with "all aspects of human (linguistic) communication" (Fetzer 2002); such as the speaker's background knowledge, intentions and assumptions, etc. This perspective also examines the linguistic and non-linguistic resources available for a speaker to accomplish a communicative goal in a certain social context.

Considering the continuing demand of English language skills in a global, competitive arena, teaching English as a Second Language can be a complicated issue. One of the major things to be considered while teaching is what language can be allowed or accepted in an ESL classroom. While teaching English as a second language in a country like India, instructors have struggled majorly while introducing the American colloquial English in the classroom. We might wonder what could possibly be wrong with American English. Nothing is! But, language doesn’t reach the students in one, unchanged, unadulterated form. Language, especially English is a continuum of local expressions, slangs, and popular media sliding into a grand structure and creating different forms and meaning for your perusal. This interest and convenience is a key ingredient to be analyzed when we talk about teaching English as a second language.

A task involves a primary focus on meaning and engages learners in using language pragmatically.

In line with the fact that speech acts of suggestion themselves have not been studied in the same capacity as other speech acts (Schmidt, et al., 1995), L2 pragmatics literature on suggestions is also quite limited. Only a small number of researchers have made attempts to explicitly address suggestions, how they are used in classroom interaction, and teacher-student conversations in conferences. Overall, a unanimous agreement exists among the available research (Bardovi-Harlig and Hartford, 1990, 1993; Bardovi-Harlig, 1996; Rintell, 1979; Bell, 1998; Matsumura, 2001) that L2 learners fall short of institutional expectations to use pragmatic strategies effectively because of a lack of the socio-cultural and sociolinguistic knowledge

The world of English language teaching (ELT) presents a great number of ideas and concepts, expounding a vast assortment of styles, models and techniques, but often makes a general assumption on the

(if ?required) ? ? Journal of Pragmatics ? ____________________ ?

Electronic Journal of Foreign Language Teaching 2009, Vol. 6, No. 1, pp. 31–41 © Centre for Language Studies National University of Singapore