La presente ricerca, che si inserisce negli ambiti della pragmatica, della linguistica testuale e della linguistica applicata, analizza il fenomeno della mitigazione all’interno di un corpus di 25 articoli scientifici in italiano, con l’intento di comprendere meglio questo fenomeno pragmatico nel suo contesto di azione. Si cerca quindi di rispondere ad alcune domande riguardanti forme, funzioni e domini testuali della mitigazione. Per riuscire in ciò, si è elaborato un approccio pragmatico integrato, derivato dal modello tripartito di Caffi (2007), basato sulla nozione di scope (contenuto proposizionale, dimensione illocutiva e origine deittica dell’enunciato), e dalla lunga tradizione di studi di stampo funzionalista. Si presentano quindi i primi risultati di questa ricerca originale, sia da un punto di vista qualitativo sia qualitativo. Infine, tale ricerca investiga alcune possibili implicazioni per l’insegnamento dell’italiano LS in ambito accademico, offrendo a quanti coinvolti nell’insegnamento, sia in qualità di ricercatori che di insegnanti, alcune prime conclusioni, strumenti e risorse immediatamente utilizzabili per la progettazione di percorsi formativi volti allo sviluppo di sensibilità testuali e di genere e di abilità come quella di scrittura accademica, definibili comunicative, accademiche e transferable, , abilità cruciali per qualunque studente universitario che intenda completare con successo il proprio percorso di studi. / This research, framed into the domain of pragmatics, textual linguistics and applied linguistics, aims to analyse mitigation phenomena within a 25 Italian RA’s corpus, to contribute to a better comprehension of these phenomenon in its context of action. More in details, this work attempts to answers to some questions regarding forms, functions and text domains of mitigation. In order to do so, an integrated pragmatic approach was elaborated, derived from Caffi’s tripartite model (2007), based on the notion of scope (propositional content, illocutionary dimension and deictic origin), and on the tradition of literature in a functionalist perspective. The first results of this original investigation, both qualitative and quantitative, will be presented. Furthermore, this research investigates some possible implications in the domain of Italian as FL teaching, and some potential implementations. It provides then, to those involved in teaching Italian LS in academic context, as both teacher and researcher, some first conclusions, tools and resources immediately expendable to design language formation paths, meant to develop textual and genre sensibility as well as competences and skills, like academic writing, defined communicative, academic and transferable, which are crucial for any kind of student to achieve success in their studies.

El siguiente trabajo pretende analizar el nivel de desarrollo de la competencia pragmática en usuarios nativos y no-nativos del español con origen chileno y sueco respectivamente. Se han analizado una serie de conversaciones telefónicas endolingües y exolingües y se han comparado en términos de longitud y en organización de sus secuencias de negociación. Por otro lado, también se ha observado en detalle la cantidad y tipología de marcadores lingüísticos de mitigación utilizados en ambos grupos. A partir de dicho análisis conversacional comparativo se pretendió determinar en qué medida un usuario no nativo de nivel avanzado en español inmerso en una cultura hispanohablante ha logrado dominar la segunda lengua en términos del dominio del discurso y el uso funcional de los recursos lingüísticos de acuerdo a un cierto escenario de intercambio comunicativo. Como resultado se han observado diferencias entre los usuarios nativos y no-nativos en relación con la producción de marcadores de mitigación pero no en la longitud y organización secuencial de las conversaciones. / The following paper aims at analyzing the level of development of pragmatic competence among native and nonnative Spanish speakers from Chile and Sweden. A series of endolinguistic and exolinguistic phone conversations have been analyzed and compared with regard to their length and the organization of negotiation sequences. Also, the amount and types of linguistic mitigation markers used in both groups have been accounted for. The overall aim of this comparative study in conversation analysis is to determine in which way nonnative advanced Spanish L2 speakers immersed in a Hispanic culture have been able to master the second language in terms of discourse command and functional use of linguistic resources in a given communicative activity type. Differences were found between native and nonnative speakers with regard to mitigation markers production but not in the length and organization sequence of the conversations.

本篇論文目的在探討兒童在同儕對話中所使用的請求言語行為，研究問題如下：1.在同儕對話中，兒童採用哪些請求策略？、2.兒童使用哪些稱呼語(alerter)和修飾語(modification)來調整他們的請求言語行為?。研究語料來自兩人一組的兒童在玩耍時的對話，兒童的年紀在四歲三個月到五歲六個月之間(平均年齡為五歲三個月)。本研究主要採用Blum-Kulka等人的請求言語行為策略分類，包含中心行為策略(head act)、稱呼語(alerter）、修飾語(modification)三個部分。研究結果發現，在中心行為策略的三個策略中—直接請求、規約性間接請求、和非規約性間接請求，兒童使用較多的直接請求策略，特別是祈使語態句(mood derivable)，顯示出兒童在同儕互動中傾向使用直接且有效力的請求策略。研究結果也發現兒童會使用稱呼語和修飾語來調整請求言語行為；在稱呼語方面，兒童使用了呼喚語(vocative)和名字(name)這兩種表親密的稱呼語來吸引同儕的注意，顯示出兒童不只能判斷對話者的注意力，也知道他們與同儕之間的對等、親近關係；在修飾語方面，兒童使用較多的緩和修飾語(mitigating modifiers)，而在所有修飾語中，兒童最常使用的三種分別為語氣弱化詞(downtoner)、 原因解釋(grounder)、強化詞(intensifier)，另外，我們也發現到兒童有時會使用兩種以上的修飾語在單一個請求行為中，從兒童使用的各種修飾語結果顯示，兒童在做請求時，能考量不同情況和跟同儕間的關係來調整請求言語行為。本研究對於漢語兒童在同儕互動中的請求言語行為的使用，不僅顯示出他們的溝通技巧與語用能力，也反映出同儕互動的特性。 / The purpose of this study is to explore preschool children’s performance of requests in peer talk. We aim to investigate what request strategies children employ when interacting with peers and how children adjust their requests with alerters and modifications. The data analyzed were the natural conversations produced by dyads of children aged from 4;3 to 5;6 (mean age: 5;3). The analytical framework adopted in this study is mainly based on the categorization of Blum-Kulka et al. (1989), including the three components of head act, alerter, and modification. The results show that among direct request, conventionally indirect request and non-conventionally indirect request, children employed more direct request strategies, especially mood derivable. It reveals that children’s requests tend to be direct in interactions with peers as the use of direct requests is more effective to attain compliance. In addition, children were found to use alerters and modifications on some occasions to get attention and to lessen or aggravate the request force. There were two types of alerters used by the children, which were name and vocative, and vocative was used more frequently than name. The children’s use of the two intimate alerters indicates that not only can children assess the focus of their interlocutors’ attention, but also that they are aware of their equal and close relationships with their peers. Regarding the use of modifications, it was found that children used more mitigating modifiers than aggravating modifiers, and that the children used downtoner, grounder, and intensifier more frequently among the modifiers. Moreover, although the children commonly used one request with one modifier, there were some cases where the children used more than one modifier in one request. The diversity in the use of modified requests reveals the children’s sensitivity to the situations in which they and their peers are engaged, and their consideration for the maintenance of interpersonal relationships. It is concluded that Mandarin-speaking children’s use of requests not only demonstrates their communicative skills and pragmatic competence, but also reflects the nature of peer interactions.

The focus of dissertation belongs to the field of learning Czech as a foreign language and deals with the acquisition of pragmatic competence of non-native speakers. Whereas this is a broad area, the work concentrates on speech act request. The aim is to describe how two students of Czech acquired the speech act during a one-year intensive course. The theoretical background is given in Chapter I. The term Interlanguage Pragmatics is introduced to Czech readers. The Chapter further maps what the pragmatic research of non- native speakers generally deals with and what questions it asks. Attention is paid to possible methods for collecting data for research of pragmatic competence, what kinds of errors non- native speakers usually make, what environment is suitable for the acquisition of pragmatic competence or how individual differences among students affects pragmatic competence. In the second chapter attention is paid to speech act request. We present an overview of major longitudinal studies. On the bass of this longitudinal research it was found that students of English go through five stages of development when acquiring request. The stages are presented here in detail. In the research part of the dissertation the investigation of how two non-native speakers (a student from Taiwan and a student...

El objetivo de esta monografía es tratar de determinar en qué medida y de qué manera cuatro manuales didácticos suecos de español como lengua extranjera (ELE), usados en la enseñanza en el nivel de bachillerato, tratan aspectos pragmáticos. Además, evaluaremos el potencial y la relevancia de la información metapragmática y las actividades relacionadas a los aspectos pragmáticos para el proceso de adquisición de una competencia tanto metapragmática como pragmática. En este estudio se parte de la noción de la competencia pragmática como una destreza orientada a saber crear y comprender significados en la interacción de manera eficaz (Thomas, 1995), que supone, más que los conocimientos lingüísticos en una interacción intercultural, los conocimientos extralingüísticos (cf. Bravo, 2005). La hipótesis de partida de este trabajo postula que los manuales no explican a fondo por qué cierto lenguaje se utiliza en ciertos contextos y que el contenido pragmático sería poco variado y difícil de asimilar y que los ejercicios no estarían diseñados principalmente para desarrollar la competencia pragmática. Hasta cierta medida se puede decir que los resultados de esta investigación confirman la hipótesis: los manuales podrían efectivamente ser más exhaustivos en cuanto a los temas que abarcan, asimismo podrían variar y explicar más a fondo aquellos temas. No obstante, parece haber un esfuerzo de incorporar actividades comunicativas e información extralingüística, sin embargo, hace falta una conceptualización y progresión en cuanto a cómo tratar estos temas como el propósito principal. Ni siquiera se ofrecen en las guías del profesor modelos didácticos o información adicional, y por lo general, no se combina la información metapragmática en los manuales con actividades complementarias que pretenden desarrollar las destrezas comunicativas. / The purpose of this paper is to try to determine to what extent and in what way four Swedish textbooks on Spanish as a foreign language (SFL) treat pragmatic aspects, as well as to evaluate the potential and relevance of the metapragmatic information and activities related to pragmatic aspects provided by the textbooks, for the development of pragmatic awareness and competence in Spanish. This study parts from the notion of pragmatic competence as a skill of knowing how to create and understand meanings in interaction effectively (Thomas, 1995), which in intercultural interaction probably requires extra-linguistic knowledge more than language skills (cf. Bravo, 2005). The hypothesis postulated at the beginning of the study was that the manuals would not fully explain why certain language is being used in certain contexts, that the pragmatic content would be scarcely varied and rather difficult to assimilate and that the exercises would not be designed primarily to develop a pragmatic competence. To some extent it can be said that the hypothesis is confirmed: the manuals could have been more comprehensive in terms of the topics covered, they could also have varied and explained those issues further. Despite the fact that there seems to be an effort to incorporate extra-linguistic information and communicative activities, the results indicate that there is a lack of emphasis on or progression on how to treat these issues. For example, there are no didactic models or suggestions in the teacher’s guide, nor is additional information provided elsewhere; usually the metapragmatic information is not combined with any activities, and the activities that aim to develop communicative skills are not combined with further metapragmatic information.