Developing Pragmatic Competence Using EFL Textbooks: Focus .

Literacy Information and Computer Education Journal (LICEJ), Volume 7, Issue 1, March 2016Developing Pragmatic Competence Using EFL Textbooks: Focus onRequestsAnne BarronLeuphana University of Lüneburg, GermanyAbstractLearning to request in a foreign language is a keycompetence within communicative languageteaching. This paper examines how requests aretaught using English G2000A (Cornelsen), an EFLtextbook series employed in many schools inGermany. The focus of analysis is on the linguisticrequest strategies and request modification(pragmalinguistics) to be learned and on thecontextual information provided on the use of theselinguistic forms (sociopragmatics). Findings revealthat commonly employed request strategies andcognitively simple forms of modification areintroduced – also in line with developmentalpatterns. However, it is also found that manystrategies are not dealt with and that modification isonly touched on. On a sociopragmatic level, a strongfocus is found to exist on standard situations inwhich role relations are clear. Contextualconstraints are generally communicated implicitlyonly and there is a general danger ofovergeneralization. Finally, the textbook onlyconsiders cross-cultural differences in requesting toa very narrow extent. The paper closes with somerecommendations.1. IntroductionCommunicative language teaching, first putforward in the 1970s, remains an important approachto English language teaching today. Key to thisapproach is the aim that foreign language learners beempowered to use language for a range of purposesand functions and also taught to vary language useaccording to the participants involved and accordingto the particular context of use. In the foreignlanguage context, learners are largely reliant on y competent. Thus, textbooks arefaced with the challenge of providing input andopportunities for output in a range of areas, mostprominent among them speech act realization.Previous research on textbooks has highlighted afrequent lack of representation of particular speechacts, as well as inaccurate and incompleterepresentations of speech acts and a paucity ofmetapragmatic information (cf., e.g. [1], [2], [3], [4],[5]). The present paper adds to this research, posingthe question as to how requests, are taught in EnglishCopyright 2016, Infonomics SocietyG2000A, an English as a Foreign Language (EFL)textbook published by Cornelsen, one of the mainEFL publishing houses in the German context [6][11]. The presentation of and exercises on requestingin the English G2000A series are analysed from apragmalinguistic, sociopragmatic and cross-culturalperspective in order to ascertain which requeststrategies and which modification are introduced andpracticed and what contextual information isprovided on the use of these pragmalinguistic forms.Findings are contrasted with previous findings onnative speaker (NS) request realizations.2. Learning to request in a foreignlanguageRequests are directive speech acts whichrepresent attempts by a speaker to get the hearer todo an act x. They are intrinsically face-threateningacts (FTAs) since in requesting, the speaker imposeson the hearer’s freedom of action and, thus, threatenshis/ her negative face-wants. Consequently, requestsmay be accomplished via indirectness andmodification (cf., e.g. [12]). Conventionally indirectrequest strategies, such as Can you give me a lift?,for instance, create the impression that the personrequested has some freedom in his/ her decision tocomply with a particular request or not. Theoreticallyat least, he/ she could answer No, I can’t (i.e. I amnot able). In addition, should the person requestedcomplain about the request for a lift, the speaker mayreply that s/he was only enquiring about thepossibility of a lift (i.e. literal act: question) despitean intended requestive act. Modifiers also serve tosoften a request by reducing the imposition on thehearer and lessening any negative effect associatedwith the illocution. By using a conditional form, suchas could rather than can in our example, for instance,the speaker explicitly pays respect to the negativeface of the hearer, recognizing his/ her status as anindependent person.Requests more than any other speech act haveattracted researchers’ attention in cross-cultural andinterlanguage pragmatics. Realizing a requestinvolves knowledge of the relevant speech act (cf.Table 1) and modification strategies. In addition,sociopragmatic knowledge is necessary for learnersto know when to use which request strategy and2172

Literacy Information and Computer Education Journal (LICEJ), Volume 7, Issue 1, March 2016which modifier(s). Such knowledge is dependent onappropriately accessing the social distance, socialdominance and degree of imposition in a particularsituation and knowing its effect on the realizationstrategy and modification employed. While many ofthe request strategies and modification types havebeen found to be largely universal, learners are facedwith the challenge of acquiring the pragmalinguisticmeans to realize these. The relative level of difficultyof this task also depends at least partly on theexistence of equivalent forms in the L1. Hassall, across-sectional study of Australian foreign languagelearners’ acquisition of Bahasa Indonesian, forinstance, points out that the lack of equivalence forimportant English modifiers, such as the politenessmarker please, in Indonesian complicated acquisition[19]. With relation to sociopragmatic competence,learners’ knowledge of situational variation fromtheir first language is helpful, but cross-culturaldifferences on this level also exist which may lead tonegative transfer. The most important differences onthis level for requests in the English/ German contextare detailed in the following.House and Kasper, in a roleplay study, forinstance, found a more direct locution derivablestrategy (cf. Table 1) to be the preferred realizationstrategy in German, a contrast to the English data inwhich a more indirect query preparatory strategy (cf.Table 1) was favored [13]. They also founddowngraders to be employed by English speakers 1.5times as frequently as by German speakers. Withinthe class of downgraders, downtoners were preferredin German while hesitators were the most popularform in English. German speakers also usedupgraders more than English speakers. Indeed, thelatter scarcely used upgraders at all with requests[13]. Also related to these differences inmodification are Ogiermann’s findings on requests inEnglish, German, Polish and Russian [14]. Shereports that when modification is used, Englishspeakers prefer consultative devices (e.g. Do youthink?) (cf. also [13]), while German speakers favordowntoners (e.g. mal (eben) [‘just’], vielleicht[‘perhaps’]) (cf. also [13]). In addition, a slightlyhigher use of grounders (explanations) was recordedin Ogiermann’s English data [14] relative to herGerman data. Finally, Barron [15] found higherlevels of syntactic downgrading in Irish Englishrequests realized with query preparatory strategiesrelative to German NS levels (cf. also [16] forsimilar findings for British English and German).Apart from such interlingual and cross-culturaldifferences, textbooks also need to take foreignlanguage acquisition development patterns inrequesting into account. Interlanguage pragmaticresearch using longitudinal and cross-sectional dataelicited from foreign language learners in the foreignlanguage context has revealed a reliance on directrequest strategies in early stages of development withCopyright 2016, Infonomics Societya gradual move to conventional indirectness. FélixBrasdefer, for example, in a cross-sectional study ofthree groups of adult learner requests from thebeginning of foreign language instruction toadvanced levels of proficiency via open role playsfinds beginners to produce the largest number ofdirect requests [17]. By contrast, intermediate andadvanced learners revealed a strong preference forconventionally indirect requests in both formal andinformal situations, with a decline in direct requestsnoted to appear with increasing proficiency.On the level of modification, EconomidouKogetsidis reports a preference for externalmodification, and in particular for the use ofgrounders (i.e. explanations) among learnersirrespective of proficiency level [18]. In contrast,internal modification appears to increase withproficiency level (cf. [17], [18]). This is suggested torelate to the high demands which internalmodification places on processing capacity.However, the levels of complexity also depend onthe individual modifiers chosen (cf. [19]). Göy,Zeyrek and Otcu, for instance, in a study of TurkishEFL learners found beginners to underuse syntacticand lexical/phrasal downgraders with the exceptionof the cognitively simple politeness marker please([20]). Syntactic downgrading among higherproficiency learners was restricted to conditionalclauses [20]. Tense and aspect remained difficult forlearners to master at that proficiency level (cf. also[21]). Such findings reflect the explanatory power ofthe complexification hypothesis for ILP. Thishypothesis claims that certain linguistic features areacquired in line with a developmental principle. Theorder of development is stable and dependent onstructural complexity and, therefore, on the degree ofprocessing capacity necessary. Applied to pragmaticcompetence, the hypothesis predicts that learnershave to first master the head act strategy of theparticular speech act they wish to realise, and onlythen can they begin to insert modality markers. In thesame vein, cognitively simple modifiers are acquiredprior to complex modifiers. Thus, please generallyemerges as one of the first internal modifier inrequests in English (presuming the existence of L1equivalent forms) (cf. above), while the use of morecomplex modifiers will gradually emerge at laterstages.Finally, availability of input and restrictedlearning opportunities of the linguistic meansnecessary for the development of request strategiesand modification also plays a role. It is to findings onpragmatic input in textbooks, the main source ofinput in the foreign classroom context, to which wenow turn.2173