Unveiling pragmatic proficiency: Harnessing corpus pragmatics for effective implicature assessment in high school language learning
This research delves into the realm of second language acquisition and pragmatic competence, with a specific focus on the intricate domain of conversational implicatures. Several studies have emphasized the need to raise L2 learners’ pragmatic awareness vis-à-vis the use of naturally-occurring discourse (Schmidt, 1993a,b; Kasper, 1997; Rose, 2000; Eslami-Rasekh, 2005). In Ifantidou (2014), pragmatic awareness was defined and tested for the first time in terms of an open-ended array of pragmatically inferred implicatures rather than as a fixed set of routines.The aim of this study was to design an effective assessment tool for implicature comprehension by harnessing the power of corpus pragmatics. Utilizing the COCA (Corpus of Contemporary American English) corpus, Ι crafted a comprehensive test on conversational implicatures. This test was administered to first-grade high school students, with the objective of evaluating both their comprehension and production abilities within pragmatic contexts. The study reveals the synergistic relationship between corpus pragmatics and digital technology, showcasing the seamless integration of authentic language use through online corpora. The results obtained from the test underscore the efficacy of this approach, with overwhelmingly positive outcomes observed among the participants. By illuminating the intersection of corpus pragmatics, technology, and language acquisition, this research not only contributes to the advancement of language pedagogy but also highlights a promising avenue for future language assessment methodologies.
References
Ifantidou, E. 2014. Pragmatic competence and Relevance. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company.
Kasper, G. 1997. Can pragmatic competence be taught? Honolulu: University of Hawaii, Second Language Teaching & Curriculum Center. Retrieved from the World Wide Web: http://www.nflrc.hawaii.edu/NetWorks/NW06/
Rose, K. 2000. An exploratory cross-sectional study of interlanguage pragmatic development. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 22: 27-67.
Schmidt, R. 1993a. Foundations of problem‐based learning: some explanatory notes. Medical Education, 27(5): 422-432.
Schmidt, R. 1993b. Consciousness, learning and interlanguage pragmatics. In: G. Kasper and S. Blum- Kulka (Eds.), Interlanguage pragmatics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 21-42.