Traditionally, pragmatic aspects of the Spanish language are overlooked in the communicative classroom. Pragmatic competence is important because it may ultimately determine whether a successful communicative interaction takes place. Successful communication in language learning must not only address linguistic forms but also acknowledge language as a reflection of the socio-cultural norms of the L2 community. The research questions of this thesis explore the aspects of experience and instruction and their degree of influence as they relate to the development of pragmatic competence. This thesis reports on the results of a pedagogically-based, empirical study in which the researcher investigated the extent to which course level, study abroad, and pedagogical intervention facilitate the development of pragmatic competence of L2 learners when making a request in Spanish. Two main aspects of politeness, pronominal address forms and verbal forms, were examined to measure the learners level of pragmatic competence. Whether responses were pragmatically-appropriate were based on the responses of native speakers of Spanish. The results of this study reveal that learners who have more experience or exposure to the language, or explicit classroom instruction do not necessarily possess a higher degree of pragmatic competence than those who have not. These findings suggest that perhaps grammatical competence and pragmatic competence may develop separately and at differing rates. Further research and attention to the various factors surrounding pragmatic competence is necessary in the language educators goal to aid the student towards acquisition of overall communicative competence.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LSU/oai:etd.lsu.edu:etd-11092009-124748 |
| Date | 10 November 2009 |
| Creators | Vitale, Sarah J |
| Contributors | Thoms, Joshua, Brody, Jill, King, Jeremy |
| Publisher | LSU |
| Source Sets | Louisiana State University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.lsu.edu/docs/available/etd-11092009-124748/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached herein a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to LSU or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below and in appropriate University policies, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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