DOCUMENT RESUME ED 400 700 FL 024 180 AUTHOR Bouton, Lawrence F., Ed. TITLE Pragmatics and Language Learning. Monograph Series Volume 7. INSTITUTION Illinois Univ., Urbana. Div. of English as an International Language. PUB DATE 96 NOTE 219p.; For individual papers, see FL 024 181-191. AVAILABLE FROM Pragmatics and Language Learning, English as an International Language, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 3070 Foreign Languages Building, 707 South Mathews Avenue, Urbana, IL 61801 ($12). PUB TYPE Collected Works General (020) EDRS PRICE MFOI/PC09 Plus Postage. DESCRIPTORS Chinese; College Faculty; College Students; Communication Apprehension; Contrastive Linguistics; Discourse Analysis; English (Second Language); *Intercultural Communication; Interpersonal Communication; *Language Patterns; Language Research; Linguistic Theory; Metacognition; Metaphors; North American English; *Pragmatics; Russian; Second Language Instruction; Second Language Learning; *Second Languages; Sociocultural Patterns; Special Education; Teacher Student Relationship; *Writing (Composition); Written Language IDENTIFIERS Requests ABSTRACT Papers on aa?ects of pragmatics include: "Pragmatics and Language Learning" (Lawrence F. Bouton); "Pragmatics and Language Teaching: Bringing Pragmatics and Pedagogy Together" (Kathleen Bardovi-Harlig); "Cross-Cultural Communication and Interlanguage Pragmatics: American vs. European Requests" (Jasone Cenoz, Jose F. Valencia); "'At Your Earliest Convenience:' A Study. of Written Student Requests to Faculty" (Beverly S. Hartford, Bardovi-Harlig); "Cross-Cultural Differences in American and Russian General Conventions of Communication" (Yuliya B. Kartalova); "Foregrounding the Role of Common Ground in Language Learning" (Sara W. Smith, Andreas H. Jucker); "The Pragmatics of Uncertainty" (Noriko Tanaka); "Sociocultural Dimensions on Voice in Non-Native Language Writing" (Linda A. Harklau, Sandra R. Schecter); "Metadiscourse and Text Pragmatics: How Students Write After Learning about Metadiscourse" (Margaret S. Steffensen, Xiaoguang Cheng); "Underproduction Does Not Necessarily Mean Avoidance: Investigation of Underproduction Using Chinese ESL Learners" (Jiang Li); and "Contextual Thinking about Teaching: Special Educators' Metaphorical Representations of Practical Knowledge" (Mark P. Mostert). 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NEM PERMISSIONTO REPRODUCE .0 DISSEMINATE AND THIS MATERIAL HAS BEEN GRANTEDBy TO THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) , .2 BEST PY A Pragmatics and LanguageLearning Monograph Series PURPOSE AND SCOPE from those Pragmatics and Language Learningconsists of papers selected each year sponsored by the Division ofEnglish as an International presented at the annual conference Illinois at Urbana- Language and the Intensive EnglishInstitute at the University of conference each year is on weinteraction of Champaign. The general theme of this with the teaching and/or pragmatics (including) discourse analysisand conversation analysis) (especially English) in eitherformal or informal learning of a second or foreign language following related topics: surroundings. Individuals papers maybe focused on any of the understanding of what we meanby 1.the contribution of pragmatics to our communicative competence 2.research into specific facts ofEnglish discourse 3.contrastive pragmatics 4.analysis of the discourse patternsfound in the language classroom for and this monograph seriesis to serve as a forum The purpose of both the conference encourage theinteraction research into the pragmatics of thelanguage learning process and to in a common effort toincrease of scholars involved in pragmaticsand in language pedagogy the level of communicative competenceachieved in the language classroom. SUBSCRIPTIONINFORMATION in the spring. Copies canbe Pragmatics and Language Learningis published once each year obtained at a cost of $12.00 eachby writing to: Editors Pragmatics and Language Learning English as an International Language University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 3070 Foreign Languages Building 707 South Mathews Avenue Urbana, Illinois 61801 U.S.A. Pragmatics and Language Learning Volume 7 1996 Editor Lawrence F. Bouton Published by Division of English as an International Language Intensive English Institute University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Copyright 1996 Pragmatics and Language Learning Monograph Series Volume 7 1996 CONTENTS Introduction i Pragmatics and Language Learning Lawrence F. Bouton 1 Pragmatics and Language Teaching: Bringing Pragmatics and Pedagogy Together Kathleen Bardovi-Harlig 21 Cross-cultural Communication and Interlanguage Pragmatics: American vs. European Requests Jasone Cenoz and Jose F. Valencia 41 "At Your Earliest Convenience:" A Study of Written Student Requests to Faculty Beverly S. Hartford and Kathleen Bardovi-Harlig 55 Cross-cultural Differences in American and Russian General Conventions of Communication Yuliya B. Kartalova 71 Foregrounding the Role of Common Ground in Language Learning Sara W. Smith and Andreas H. _fucker 97 The Pragmatics of Uncertainty Noriko Tanaka 119 Sociocultural Dimensions of Voice in Non-native Language Writing Linda A. Harklau and Sandra R. Schecter 141 Metadiscourse and Text Pragmatics: How Students Write after Learning about Metadiscourse Margaret S. Steffensen and Xiaoguang Cheng 153 Underproduction Does Not Necessarily Mean Avoidance: Investigation of Underproduction Using Chinese ESL Learners Jiang Li 171 Contextual Thinking about Teaching: Special Educators' Metaphorical Representations of Practical Knowledge Mark P. Mostert 189 INTRODUCTION The papers in this volume have been divided into four groups which might be subtitled 1) pragmatics and language teaching, 2) pragmatic aspects of human interaction, 3) the analysis of written discourse, and 4) pragmatics and second language learning. The first of these, Bouton's Pragmatics and Language Learning, attempts to demonstrate three general ways in which pragmatics is crucial to any attempt to assist students in their learning of a language. Bouton's first example is based on the assumption that what pragmatics has to offer to language pedagogy is no better than the research from which it is derived. He also assumes that cross-cultural research into the pragmatics of a student's native and target languages is essential to our perception of what our students must learn as they work to increase their communicative competence. These two assumptions point to the importance of rigorous cross-cultural research as one contribution that pragmatics can make to language pedagogy. Yet significant doubts have been raised in the past few years of the validity of much of the cross-cultural research in recent years because of the weakness of the devices designed to assure that the subjects from the different cultures perceive the situations to which they must respond in the same way. With this in mind, one of the most important things that pragmatics can contribute to language pedagogy today is the development of research techniques that will provide results on which teachers can rely with confidence as they develop materials and teach their classes. And so the first example of what pragmatics can give to language pedagogy involves one person's rigorously worked out strategies for guaranteeing that the situations used in cross-cultural research are, in fact, perceived in the same way by subjects from both cultures. For his second illustration of the bond between pragmatics and language teaching, he briefly describes his own work with implicatures. Beginning with the need to identify different types of implicatures that proved difficult to nonnative speakers of English (NNS), he moved from there to an investigation of how rapidly those NNS learned to interpret different types of implicatures effectively under the normal situation in which they receive no instruction focused directly on helping them develop the skills they need to do so. Finally, he compares the progress made by those NNS with that of others who did receive formal instruction designed to make them aware of implicatures, to help them realize that they have implicatures in their own languages, too, and to give them some practice at developing and using them in English. The result was somewhat mixed, but did show beyond a doubt that some types of implicatures that are quite hard to learn to use without explicit instruction are quite easy to learn with it. Then, in closing, Bouton offers one example of how much difference there can be between the treatment of a speech act in an otherwise excellent ESL text and in the literature describing that speech act from data based on the analysis of actual conversation. This difference, he concludes, suggests the need for both pragmatics researchers and language educators to become more aware of the need for them to work together