Speech acts

1. Speech Acts in
Interlanguage
Interlanguage Pragmatics

2. Taguchi, N. (2017). Interlanguage pragmatics. In A. Barron, P. Grundy, & G. Yueguo (eds.), The
Routledge Handbook of Pragmatics (pp. 153–167). Oxford/New York: Routledge.
Interlanguage pragmatics (ILP), a branch of second language acquisition
(SLA), examines second language (L2) learners' knowledge, use, and
development in performing sociocultural functions.

3. L2 learners need linguistic forms and skills
to perform everyday social functions
● our way of speaking is determined by context
● to whom we are talking and under what circumstances
● learners need to know which forms are appropriate to use in what
situations.

4. The Original Definition of ILP goes back to
Kasper & Dahl (1991)
‘interlanguage pragmatics will be defined in a narrow sense, referring to
nonnative speakers’ (NNSs’) comprehension and production of speech acts,
and how their L2-related speech act knowledge is acquired’.

5. Evaluation of Pragmatic Competence
● Dell Hymes (1972): Pragmatic competence in models of communicative
competence
“language knowledge entails both grammatical knowledge and
sociocultural knowledge that determine the appropriateness of language
use in context.”
● Swain & Canale (1980)’s Model was a forerunner in this trend, maintaining that
successful communication entails an efficient integration of grammatical,
sociolinguistic, discourse, and strategic competencies.

6. Canale and Swain’s model, however, did not sufficiently distinguish between sociolinguistic
and pragmatic competence, nor did it explicitly articulate pragmatic competence within the
model.
In Bachman and Palmer's (1996, 2010) framework, language knowledge consists of organisational knowledge and pragmatic
knowledge. Organisational knowledge in this framework dealt with formal aspects of language (grammar and textual aspects), whereas
pragmatic knowledge concerned language use in relation to language users and language use settings. Two types of pragmatic
knowledge were distinguished, namely functional knowledge, which enables us to interpret relationships between utterances and the
communicative goals of language users (e.g., knowledge of how to perform the speech act of request), and sociolinguistic knowledge,
which enables us to interpret or create utterances that are appropriate to specific language use settings (e.g., which forms to use to make
a request in situation).

7. Pragmatic Competence in Interaction
● ILP practice has been to identify those linguistic forms and semantic moves that
convey illocutionary force in a particular language, and compare these with
learners’ forms in order to determine a learner’s level of pragmatic competence.
● DCTs can be an example.

8. KEY ILP CONCEPTS
● Speech Acts: acts that constitute attempts by language users to perform
specific actions, in particular interpersonal functions like compliments,
requests, complaints, refusals, apologies, etc.
○ Three types of forces: Locutionary, Illocutionary, Perlocutionary
● Pragmatic Failure: the inability to understand “what’s meant by what’s said”.
● Factors Influencing Speech Acts: power, distance, imposition

9. KEY ILP CONCEPTS
Types of Pragmatic Knowledge:
1. Cognitive Awareness refers to learners’ ability to consciously identify and
distinguish between linguistic & sociolinguistic features of speech acts in both
L1 and TL. Two potential approaches include: Presentation (deductive) and
Student Discovery (inductive)
2. Receptive Skills address learners’ ability to comprehend and interpret
pragmatic behavior in teacher-generated material and natural data.
3. Productive Skills refer to the linguistic & pragmatic patterns that learners can
actually produce and incorporate into their speech production.

10. MODEL OF L2 PRAGMATIC INSTRUCTION
According to Judd (1999), the best practice for integrating L2 pragmatic instruction
includes three stages.
1. Observation focuses on ways learners will actively explore L2 pragmatic
learning targets
2. Analysis refers to the techniques and activities designed to facilitate
engagement with L2 pragmatic learning targets
3. Extension activities give learners the opportunity to apply what they have
learned in the observation and analysis stages.

13. Pragmatic Development
Speech Acts
Naoko Taguchi, Carsten
Roever

14. In terms of Speech Acts:
● Development of requesting has been the most investigated area of research in
ILP.
● Kasper & Rose (2000) proposed five stages of request development:
○ Pre-basic stage
○ Formulaic stage
○ Unpacking stage
○ Pragmatic expansion
○ Fine tuning

15. PRE-BASIC STAGE
● This stage is non-pragmatic in that learners’
resources are so limited that they use whatever
they have to get their message across. Very
short utterances dominate, and there is no
apparent politeness or orientation to social
relationships.

16. FORMULAIC STAGE
● Learners use chunks, routine formulae, and
imperatives to make requests. There is little
evidence of deployment of sociopragmatic
knowledge, but high-frequency constructions
and formulae do occur.

17. UNPACKING STAGE
● Learners start using conventional indirectness
(“Can I…”) and increasingly analyze formulae. They
start to make pragmalinguistic choices based on
social context variables (power, distance, and
degree of imposition)

18. PRAGMATIC EXPANSION
● Learners’ repertoire of pragmalinguistic tools
increases, with utterances becoming more
syntactically complex and including more mitigation.

19. FINE-TUNING
● Learners’ mapping of pragmalinguistic tools
and pragmatic rules becomes increasingly
target-like, and utterances are recipient-
designed for particular interlocutors and
situations.

20. Many longitudinal research has
supported Kasper & Rose’s stage
sequences for requests.
Some differences have
been found amongst
languages.

21. ...
Some research also exists on other speech acts besides
requesting. Development in apologizing has been
researched widely. Studies on apology revealed similar
tendencies found in studies on request, with learners
expanding their pragmalinguistic repertoire of apology
strategies, and moving from formulaic to more complex
apologies.

22. As L2 learners improve, they
replace direct strategies with
indirect ones as stated by Bella
(2014)

23. Overall, developmental studies have shown:
● Shift from using brief utterances to complex utterances
● from directness to indirectness
● greater automatization in linguistic knowledge, more
complex speech acts

24. The Cross-Cultural Speech Act Realisation Project (CCSARP)
BLUM-KULKA & OLSHTAIN
The goals of the project are to compare across languages
the realization patterns of two speech acts—requests and
apologies —and to establish the similarities and
differences between native and non-native speakers'
realization patterns in these two acts in each of the
languages studied within the project.

26. The Goals of the Project
● Situational variability
● Cross-cultural variability
● Native vs. non-native variability

27. In conclusion

28. CARLA
Most materials have been written based on the intuition of the
textbook writers. There seems to exist a shared belief that
native English speakers just know intuitively how to interact in
their language and should be able to explain the social use of the
language to the learners.

29. Example
A: What a beautiful dress!
B: Thank you. I’m glad you like it.
However, in real life, when someone compliments us, we may reply:
A: That’s a cute dress you’re wearing.
B: Really? This old rag? I got it at the Salvation Army for $2.00!
or
B: You’re the third person today who’s complimented me on it. I must have done something right!
Research has shown that native speakers of American English accept a compliment only about one third of the time, which would
suggest that what ESL learners are learning from textbooks may be grammatically correct, but inauthentic in terms of real
language and real interactions with native speakers.

30. More info.
https://carla.umn.edu/speechacts/descriptions.html