The present study investigates pragmatic transfer by Chinese learners of English as a foreign language (EFL) at low and high proficiency levels in email requests. Data was elicited using an email production questionnaire consisting of four email situations, which vary along two social dimensions: relative power, either equal or higher, and size of imposition, either big or small. Four groups of participants, who were all university students, took part in the study. Thirty-seven Chinese native speakers of Mandarin and 35 Australian native speakers of English provided the baseline data. Thirty-five Chinese EFL learners at low proficiency level and 38 Chinese EFL learners at high proficiency level provided the target data. Altogether 580 emails were collected. Data was classified according to an adapted version of the coding scheme developed by Blum-Kulka et al. (1989). Email requests were analyzed at both the utterance and discourse levels. At the utterance level, directness level, strategy types and internal modifiers were examined. At the discourse level, external modifiers, including all the supportive moves in the opening, body, and closing of an email request were analyzed. Following Beebe et al. (1990), data was looked at in terms of the frequency, content and average number of pragmatic features. Both qualitative and quantitative analysis methods were adopted. To determine evidence of pragmatic transfer, first, the Chinese baseline data and the English baseline data were compared. The EFL data was then compared with that of the two baseline groups. Pragmatic transfer was confirmed if the EFL data resembled the Chinese baseline data but differed from the English baseline data. In addition, the instances of pragmatic transfer displayed by the EFL groups at low and high proficiency levels were compared to examine the correlation between pragmatic transfer and language proficiency, that is, whether pragmatic transfer increases or decreases as learners’ language proficiency increases. Pragmatic transfer was investigated on both pragmalinguistic and sociopragmatic levels. Findings of the present study show that pragmalinguistic and sociopragmatic transfer occurred at the utterance and the discourse levels in all three areas: the frequency, content and average number of pragmatic features, by both the low and high proficiency EFL learners. Moreover, a comparison of the performance of requests by the two learner groups indicates that the high proficiency learners had a greater amount of pragmatic transfer than the low proficiency learners. The findings of this study lend strong support to the positive correlation hypothesis proposed by T. Takahashi and Beebe (1987). The findings of the present study highlight the importance of the inclusion of pragmatic components in foreign language teaching. Pedagogical implications of the findings are discussed. Possible suggestions regarding how to improve the EFL learners’ pragmatic competence are provided.

The present study investigates pragmatic transfer by Chinese learners of English as a foreign language (EFL) at low and high proficiency levels in email requests. Data was elicited using an email production questionnaire consisting of four email situations, which vary along two social dimensions: relative power, either equal or higher, and size of imposition, either big or small. Four groups of participants, who were all university students, took part in the study. Thirty-seven Chinese native speakers of Mandarin and 35 Australian native speakers of English provided the baseline data. Thirty-five Chinese EFL learners at low proficiency level and 38 Chinese EFL learners at high proficiency level provided the target data. Altogether 580 emails were collected. Data was classified according to an adapted version of the coding scheme developed by Blum-Kulka et al. (1989). Email requests were analyzed at both the utterance and discourse levels. At the utterance level, directness level, strategy types and internal modifiers were examined. At the discourse level, external modifiers, including all the supportive moves in the opening, body, and closing of an email request were analyzed. Following Beebe et al. (1990), data was looked at in terms of the frequency, content and average number of pragmatic features. Both qualitative and quantitative analysis methods were adopted. To determine evidence of pragmatic transfer, first, the Chinese baseline data and the English baseline data were compared. The EFL data was then compared with that of the two baseline groups. Pragmatic transfer was confirmed if the EFL data resembled the Chinese baseline data but differed from the English baseline data. In addition, the instances of pragmatic transfer displayed by the EFL groups at low and high proficiency levels were compared to examine the correlation between pragmatic transfer and language proficiency, that is, whether pragmatic transfer increases or decreases as learners’ language proficiency increases. Pragmatic transfer was investigated on both pragmalinguistic and sociopragmatic levels. Findings of the present study show that pragmalinguistic and sociopragmatic transfer occurred at the utterance and the discourse levels in all three areas: the frequency, content and average number of pragmatic features, by both the low and high proficiency EFL learners. Moreover, a comparison of the performance of requests by the two learner groups indicates that the high proficiency learners had a greater amount of pragmatic transfer than the low proficiency learners. The findings of this study lend strong support to the positive correlation hypothesis proposed by T. Takahashi and Beebe (1987). The findings of the present study highlight the importance of the inclusion of pragmatic components in foreign language teaching. Pedagogical implications of the findings are discussed. Possible suggestions regarding how to improve the EFL learners’ pragmatic competence are provided.

This purpose of this study was to examine pragmatic differences in children with hearing loss compared to children without hearing loss by understanding use of communication repairs, self and peer attitudes and perceptions to suggest the most appropriate intervention approaches. Previous research has found use of communication repairs, self and peer perceptions and attitudes to be associated with pragmatic skills. Intervention approaches were suggested for remediating pragmatic differences in children with hearing loss. / text

Abstract Employing the theories of new liberalism as the analytic structure, this research paper takes the trend and changes of foreign aid during the post-cold-war period as a reference for the foreign aid policy of Taiwan. Since the government initiated Southward Policy in 1994, and signed many related investment and trade protection agreements with Indonesia, there are positive effects to the economic and trading exchange and investments between Taiwan and Indonesia. Although Indonesia has been taking the standpoint of ¡§Politically Inclining to China, Economically Inclining to Taipei,¡¨ ever since Taiwan provided aid to Indonesia, the respects to the institutions of Taiwan functioning in Indonesia have been obviously promoted. In order to meet the investments needs of Taiwanese businessmen and attract more Taiwanese businessmen to invest in the nation, Indonesia opens the import of the Chinese books and allows the building of schools exclusively for the children of Taiwanese businessmen. In future the practical diplomacy policy of Taiwan towards Indonesia should implement mutual-beneficial and mutual-trust aiding measures. The industries being beneficial to both parties should be selected. There should be policies to give guidelines to the abundant economic resources in the private sectors of Taiwan. The government should assist Indonesia to establish excellent production environment for small business so as to build up multiple cooperation channels between Taiwan and Indonesia. Besides, Taiwan government should also combine with the power of private sectors and organizations, giving aid and cooperation in a way of ¡§downward development from the top,¡¨ and strengthening the expansion of relationship with the Indonesian people and community. Once the foundation is established, spots must be gradually expanded to planes, and the political diplomatic relationship between Taiwan and Indonesia must be enhanced.

The purpose of the study was to investigate Chinese EFL interlanguage request behaviors in terms of both perception and production on the perspective of pragmatic transfer based on theoretical issues of Speech Act Theory, politeness theory and cultural dimension of individualism vs. collectivism. Data were obtained from three groups of participants: 30 native speakers of Chinese college students (CL1s), 30 non-English-major Chinese EFLs college students (Chinese EFLs) and 30 native speakers of English college students (EL1s). Data for analysis consisted of 5400 perception responses collected with the instrument of 5-point Scale-response Questionnaires (SRQ) and 1800 production responses collected with the instrument of 20-item Discourse Completion Task (DCT) varied with contextual factors of Degree of Imposition, Status and Distance. Responses of perceptions were analyzed in terms of Degree of Imposition, Degree of Difficulty, and the Likelihood of Request on performing the act. Responses of productions were coded into two parts: the head act of request strategies consisting of Direct (including Mood Derivable, Explicit Performative, Hedge Performative, Locution Derivable, Want Statement), Conventional Indirect (including Suggestory Formula, Query Preparatory), Non-conventional Indirect strategies (Strong Hint, Mild Hints) and external modifications (i.e. supportive moves) according to the coding schema of CCSARP (Blum-Kulka, House & Kasper, 1989). With qualitative and quantitative data analysis, some important findings were obtained. Regarding the perception task, CL1s and EFLs did not differ in their judgment on the Likelihood of Request, which further verified the validity of the questionnaire. However, CL1s generally perceived higher Degree of Imposition and Difficulty than did EL1s on requestive behaviors regardless of the shifting of contextual factors Status, Distance and Degree of Imposition and such perception reflected in their more frequent use of supportive moves than EL1s in all contexts. With regard to strategy use, the three groups yielded the same preference order: Conventional Indirect>Direct> Non-Conventional Indirect strategies in all contexts. Although CL1s were found to use more Direct strategies than did their EL1 counterparts, significant difference lay only in Low Imposition, Low Status and Low Distance situations. As for pragmatic transfer, negative pragmalinguistic transfers were found in Chinese EFLs¡¦ use of linguistic forms of Direct strategies such as Bare-imperative Help, Please+Imperative, Please+help and the Conventional Indirect strategy, Would you let me¡K? Negative sociolinguistic pragmatic transfers were found in Chinese EFLs¡¦ use of Direct strategies in Low Status/Distance situations, and the Conventional Indirect strategy of Can (Could) ¡K? /¯à¤£¯à (Neng bu neng )¡K? in Low Imposition/Distance and May I ¡K? Positive pragmalinguistic and sociolinguistic transfers were also found in either Chinese EFLs¡¦ Direct or Conventional Indiret strategies. The study ends up with some theoretical and pedagogical implications. It is suggested that both participants¡¦ requestive responses of production and perception be considered when analyzing interlanguage speech act behaviors in order to gain a better understanding of speakers¡¦ and learners¡¦ pragmatic awareness of speech act behaviors.

This study discusses how the pragmatic text functions of the Prince Edward Island Visitor’s Guide can be retained in translation from English into Swedish. Katharina Reiss’ model of texttypes and their different functions have been used to identify the functions of the source text, and in order to investigate the possibilities of retaining these functions in the target text, the discussion is tied to text features where the pragmatic text functions are displayed. The translation choices, next, are supported by the translation strategies offered by Rune Ingo and Peter Newmark. The results show that the informative function can be retained by using the translation strategies of addition or explicitation in most cases, whereas the operative function can be retained by copying the sentence structure or the direct address from the source text to the target text. The expressive function, next, can be retained by using Ingo’s strategy of equivalence. However, there are also examples where the expressive function has to be neglected in favor of the informative function.

This thesis analyzes how can pragmatic jurisprudence supplement the dominant ideas of law ontology and epistemology, if it is possible to reach unequivocal answer about its purpose. The conclusion made here is that law cannot be described only as some normative order. It is lawyers’ activity, which aim is to solve some social problems, rather then normative order. In order to solve it lawyers usually use many methods, nevertheless none of them is unmistakable. Although pragmatic jurisprudence emphasize that normative acts and judgments must take into consideration the wealth of society, it does acknowledge that use of this principle has some limits as well.

Metapragmatic awareness (MPA) is the ability to explicitly reflect upon the pragmatic rules that govern conversation. There is a paucity of research on how MPA develops in childhood and whether it is impaired in children with pragmatic impairments. Despite this, MPA is often cited as an intervention tool for children with pragmatic language impairments (cwPLI) and children with specific language impairments (cwSLI). There are currently no published assessments of MPA ability and practice would benefit from application of a formalised assessment methodology. This thesis reports the phases of development of a novel clinical assessment of MPA for school-aged children called the Assessment of Metapragmatics (AMP). The AMP task is a set of 13 Video Items each depicting a conversation between pairs of school-aged children. Each Video Item portrays a different pragmatic rule violation. After viewing each AMP Video Item the participants were asked a set of Assessor Questions designed to measure MPA. The AMP Video Items were shown to 40 children with typical language development (cwTLD), 34 cwPLI and 14 cwSLI. Preliminary analyses revealed the AMP to be sensitive to age-related changes in MPA and to demonstrate good internal reliability. For the cwTLD there was a distinct developmental shift in MPA ability around seven years of age. At this age there was an increase in the child’s ability to use explicit metapragmatic vocabulary to describe a pragmatic rule violation. CwTLD demonstrated superior MPA ability in comparison to the cwPLI and the cwSLI. No differential impairment in MPA abilities was present between the cwPLI and cwSLI. Considerable variability in MPA abilities occurred for both the cwPLI and cwSLI and this was associated with language ability. This suggests that where MPA is found to be impaired, the child’s language ability should be taken into account and that language ability should be remediated before MPA is targeted in intervention. Where MPA is impaired, raising awareness of pragmatic rule may be the first step for intervention. Where MPA is age-appropriate, the child’s ability to monitor their use of the pragmatic rule, or their motivation to use the pragmatic rule, may be a more effective target of intervention in order to change behaviour. The relationship between MPA and social understanding for the pragmatic rule violation is also discussed and further studies of MPA are considered.

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It is the purpose of this thesis to show that pragmatic philosophy is in operation in the schools of today by giving evidences of living experiences.