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The Syntax and Pragmatics of English Tag Questions: A The Syntax and Pragmatics o f English Tag Questions: A Study of Adult Arabic Learners of English By Imad Al-Nabtiti A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Affairs in partial fulfilment of die requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Applied Linguistics and Discourse Studies Carleton University Ottawa, Ontario ©2012 Imad Al-Nabtiti Library and Archives Bibliotheque et Canada Archives Canada Published Heritage Direction du 1+1 Branch Patrimoine de I'edition 395 Wellington Street 395, rue Wellington Ottawa ON K1A0N4 Ottawa ON K1A 0N4 Canada Canada Your file Votre reference ISBN: 978-0-494-94618-3 Our file Notre reference ISBN: 978-0-494-94618-3 NOTICE: AVIS: The author has granted a non­ L'auteur a accorde une licence non exclusive exclusive license allowing Library and permettant a la Bibliotheque et Archives Archives Canada to reproduce, Canada de reproduire, publier, archiver, publish, archive, preserve, conserve, sauvegarder, conserver, transmettre au public communicate to the public by par telecommunication ou par I'lnternet, preter, telecommunication or on the Internet, distribuer et vendre des theses partout dans le loan, distrbute and sell theses monde, a des fins commerciales ou autres, sur worldwide, for commercial or non­ support microforme, papier, electronique et/ou commercial purposes, in microform, autres formats. paper, electronic and/or any other formats. The author retains copyright L'auteur conserve la propriete du droit d'auteur ownership and moral rights in this et des droits moraux qui protege cette these. Ni thesis. Neither the thesis nor la these ni des extraits substantiels de celle-ci substantial extracts from it may be ne doivent etre imprimes ou autrement printed or otherwise reproduced reproduits sans son autorisation. without the author's permission. In compliance with the Canadian Conformement a la loi canadienne sur la Privacy Act some supporting forms protection de la vie privee, quelques may have been removed from this formulaires secondaires ont ete enleves de thesis. cette these. While these forms may be included Bien que ces formulaires aient inclus dans in the document page count, their la pagination, il n'y aura aucun contenu removal does not represent any loss manquant. of content from the thesis. Canada Abstract Canonical Tag Questions are important hedging devices in the English language and are used very often by native speakers. Almost all languages have tag questions; however, Canonical Tag Questions are unique to the English language (Bublitz, 1979) and mastering them requires a high level of proficiency in English (Holmes, 1982). This study investigates the difficulties that adult Arabic-speaking ESL learners have in the formation and use of English canonical tag question. Two groups of participants were recruited: thirty-two adult Arabic-speaking participants and ten adult native speakers of English. The results of the study reveal that non-native speakers cannot use Canonical Tag Questions appropriately not because of the syntactic complexity of these kinds of questions, but because of their pragmatic requirements. The results also show the importance of incorporating a pragmatic theory and the social contexts in which discourses take place in ESL curricula. Acknowledgements This thesis could not have been completed without die highly appreciated support and involvement of a significant number of people. My first debt of gratitude must be paid to the thirty-two Arabic-Speaking participants and to the ten Native Speakers of English who volunteered their time and effort as participants in this project I am also indebted to Ron Lavoie, die manager of the OCISO Schools in Ottawa, and the teaching staff at OCISO schools at Bank Street and Belfast Road for their sincere support and help in facilitating the involvement of Arabic-Speaking participants in this project I would also like to express my thanks to the native speaker judges who sincerely and willingly helped in designing the Pragmatic Tests for this thesis, especially Mike Barker who has always been available and supportive. My special dianks also go to the SLALS faculty and staff especially Joan Grant for always having the answers to my administrative enquiries. And of course my special thanks and sincere gratitude go to my supervisor Kumiko Murasugi for her motivation, guidance, encouragement, and thoughtful insights during all the phases of this project Table of Contents B B S M B B B B B B S B O B B O B B O B B O B B B S B B S B B S B O B B B S B M • • • B B S B M B O B M S O B B O O B B B B B S B M B B B B M M B B B B * ^idPEIO'^ytCC^^^WlOfltB B B B M M B B B B B B B M B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B H I B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B — B B B B ■ ■ ■ B B B M B B B B Ut Table of contentsB B S B B S B B B M B B B S B B S B B B B B B B B B S M M B B B S B B S M B M B B B B M B M B B B S B B B M B B M B B B B M B B B B B p. lv Lbt of Tdlilcs............................ m........*.................. .................. ....m... vii liist ofALppcndiccs ••••».•••••••••••«•••... ...... ■«*•.. .«.»•«... ......... ... p. ix Chapter One: Introduction............................................................. p. 1 1.1 Tag Questions in English______________________________________ p . 1 U Research Questions-------------------------------------------------------------- p . 4 Chapter Two: The Syntactic and Pragmatic Properties of Canonical Tag Questions__ p. 8 2.1. Categorizing Tag Questions Syntactically — p. 9 22.. The Syntactic Properties of Tag Q uestions_____________________ p. 10 2.3. The Meanings and Pragmatic Functions o f Tag Q uestion---------------- p. 12 2.4. Intonation and Polarity of Tag Questions ------------------------ p. 18 iv Chapter Three: Acquisition ofTag Questions.............................. p. 20 3.1. Tag Questions and Second Langnage Learners___________________ p. 2 1 3.2. Tag Questions and Native Children_______________________ p. 26 Chapter Four Method of Study________ ______ ______ ____ p. 29 4.1. Design of the Study ------ — ________ p. 2 9 4 2. Participants ------------------------------------------------------------ p, 30 4.2.1. Arabic Speakers (AS)-------------------------------- p. 30 4.2.2. Native English Speakers (NS)__________________________ p. 3 1 43. Study Tests________________________________________________ p.3 1 43.1. Proficiency Tests----------------- MM ■■■■■■— IIHW1I ••• Ma (MM p. 31 4 .3 .1 .1 . Cloze T e s t--------------------------------------------------- p. 32 43.1.2. Oral Proficiency Test--------------------------- p . 32 4.3.2. Experimental Tests p. 32 433.1. Tag Question Written Test___________________ p.33 4 3 .2 3 . Tag Q uestion Oral T est-------------------------- p. 34 4 3 3 3 . Pragmatic Test 1_____________________________ p . 3 6 433.4. Pragmatic Test 2— _____ p . 37 44. Procedure -------------------------------------------------------------------- p. 37 Chapter 5: Results a a o o o o m o mmm m— oao oao ••• ooa ••• «m mam • • • mmmaam mam mam mma • • • o m aam m m p. 40 5.1. Proficiency T ests____________________________________________ p. 4 0 5 .1 .1 . O oze T est-------------------------------------------------------- p.4 0 5 .1 3 . Oral P roficien cy T e s_____________________ t —__________ p. 4 1 53. Experimental Tests — -------------- — ,___ p. 4 4 v 5.2.1. Tag Question Written T est---------------------------------------- p. 4 4 5.2.2. Tag Question Oral T est------------------------------- p . 4 8 5.23. Pragmatic Test 1. -- »-------- p. 5 1 5.2.4. Pragmatic Test 2 ___________________________________ p. 5 3 5.3. Proficiency and Performance ----------------------------------------------- p, 5 7 5.3.1. Cloze and Experimental Tests p.5 7 53.2. Proficiency Level and Performanc__________________ e — p. 5 3 53.2.1. Proficiency and Tag Question Written T e s t...p. 5 8 5333. Proficiency and Tag Question Oral Test—— — p.5 9 5 3 3 3 . Proficiency and Pragmatic Test ______________1 p. 5 9 533.4. Proficiency and Pragmatic Test 2~..._.«............... p. 60 Chapter Six: Discussioneee eeseee ■■«■■■ me ••• • • • • • •mmm mmm eee eee a n • • • eoe mmm ••• •••« p. 61 6.1. The Syntactic Properties of Tag Questions____________________ p. 6 1 63. Pragmatics of Tag Questions_________________________________ p. 63 6 3 . Intonation of Tag Questions---------------------------------------------— p. 6 4 6.4. L2 Proficiency and Tag Questions---------------- — ______________ p. 6 4 6.5. Limitations and Recommendation _____ _ _ _ . - ^ 7 3 vi List of Tables Table 1: Mean scores of AS and NS participants on the Cloze T est ....................... p. 40 Table 2: Mean scores of AS participants on the Cloze Test and die Oral Proficiency Test .................................................................................................... p. 43 Table 3: Mean scores of AS and NS participants on the Tag Question Written Test................................................................................... p. 45 Table 4: Mean number of errors made by AS and NS participants on the Tag Question Written Test ............................................................................................. p. 47 Table 5: Mean scores of AS and NS participants on the Tag Question Oral Test....................................................................................................................... p. 48 Table 6: Mean number of errors made by AS and NS participants on the Tag Question Oral Test ................................................................................................
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