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Sociopragmatic Variation in Native Speakers’ and ESL Learners’ Requests

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Book cover Researching Sociopragmatic Variability

Abstract

The research literature in interlanguage pragmatics now comprises a wealth of studies which have addressed the pragmalinguistic and sociopragmatic aspects of second language learners’ (henceforth L2 learners) pragmatic competence (Scarcella 1979, Blum-Kulka et al. 1989, Trosborg 1995, Schauer 2007, 2009, Economidou-Kogetsidis 2008, 2010, Lin 2009, Economidou-Kogetsidis and Woodfield 2012, Bella 2012). Following Leech (1983) and Thomas (1983), pragmalinguistic knowledge ‘incorporates the linguistic tools necessary for implementing speech intentions, and relies crucially on general target language knowledge’ (Roever 2009: 560). Such linguistic tools may include for example knowledge of those linguistic resources which can ‘intensify or soften communicative acts’ (Kasper and Rose 2001: 2). Modification devices for softening the force of a request (House and Kasper 1981, Economidou-Kogetsidis and Woodfield 2012), for example modals, tense and aspect, and syntactic knowledge, for example of negation and question formation (Bardovi-Harlig 1999: 691), also form important linguistic components of a learner’s pragmalinguistic knowledge. In addition, pragmalinguistic knowledge ‘requires mappings of form, meaning, force and context, which are sometimes obligatory (as in the case of prepackaged routines) and sometimes not as in the case of indirectness’ (Kasper 2001: 51).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Bristol Graduate School of Education, UK

    Helen Woodfield

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  1. Helen Woodfield
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of the West of England, UK

    Kate Beeching

  2. University of Bristol, UK

    Helen Woodfield

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© 2015 Helen Woodfield

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Woodfield, H. (2015). Sociopragmatic Variation in Native Speakers’ and ESL Learners’ Requests. In: Beeching, K., Woodfield, H. (eds) Researching Sociopragmatic Variability. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137373953_7

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