Content uploaded by Sandro Caruana
Author content
All content in this area was uploaded by Sandro Caruana on Mar 25, 2020
Content may be subject to copyright.
Current Issues in Intercultural Pragmatics
Pragmatics & Beyond New Series ()
-
Volume 274
Current Issues in Intercultural Pragmatics
Edited by Istvan Kecskes and Stavros Assimakopoulos
Pragmatics & Beyond New Series is a continuation of Pragmatics & Beyond and
its Companion Series. e New Series offers a selection of high quality work
covering the full richness of Pragmatics as an interdisciplinary field, within
language sciences.
For an overview of all books published in this series, please see
http://benjamins.com/catalog/pbns
Founding Editors
Jacob L. Mey
University of Southern
Denmark
Herman Parret
Belgian National Science
Foundation, Universities of
Louvain and Antwerp
Jef Verschueren
Belgian National Science
Foundation,
University of Antwerp
Editorial Board
Robyn Carston
University College London
orstein Fretheim
University of Trondheim
John C. Heritage
University of California at Los
Angeles
Susan C. Herring
Indiana University
Masako K. Hiraga
St. Paul’s (Rikkyo) University
Sachiko Ide
Japan Women’s University
Kuniyoshi Kataoka
Aichi University
Miriam A. Locher
Universität Basel
Sophia S.A. Marmaridou
University of Athens
Srikant Sarangi
Aalborg University
Marina Sbisà
University of Trieste
Deborah Schiffrin
Georgetown University
Paul Osamu Takahara
Kobe City University of
Foreign Studies
Sandra A. ompson
University of California at
Santa Barbara
Teun A. van Dijk
Universitat Pompeu Fabra,
Barcelona
Chaoqun Xie
Fujian Normal University
Yunxia Zhu
e University of Queensland
Editor
Anita Fetzer
University of Augsburg
Associate Editor
Andreas H. Jucker
University of Zurich
Current Issues
in Intercultural Pragmatics
Edited by
Istvan Kecskes
State University of New York, Albany
Stavros Assimakopoulos
University of Malta
John Benjamins Publishing Company
Amsterdam / Philadelphia
./pbns.
Cataloging-in-Publication Data available from Library of Congress:
() / (-)
()
(-)
© – John Benjamins B.V.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or any
other means, without written permission from the publisher.
John Benjamins Publishing Company · https://benjamins.com
8
TM
e paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of
the American National Standard for Information Sciences – Permanence
of Paper for Printed Library Materials, z.-.
Table of contents
Introduction
Istvan Kecskes and Stavros Assimakopoulos
Part I. e socio-cultural turn in pragmatics
Determinacy, distance and intensity in intercultural communication:
An emancipatory approach
Robert Crawshaw
“Western” Grice? Lying in a cross-cultural dimension
Jörg Meibauer
Part II. Lingua franca communication
Why is miscommunication more common in everyday life
than in lingua franca conversation?
Arto Mustajoki
“Burn the antifa traitors at the stake…”: Transnational political
cyber-exchanges, proximisation of emotions
Fabienne H. Baider and Maria Constantinou
Part III. Business communication
e interpersonal pragmatics of intercultural nancial discourse:
A contrastive analysis of European vs. Asian earnings conference calls
Belinda Crawford Camiciottoli
Current Issues in Intercultural Pragmatics
Face-threatening e-mail complaint negotiation in a multilingual
business environment: A discursive analysis of refusal
and disagreement strategies
Soe Decock and Anneleen Spiessens
Part IV. Cultural perceptions
Auto- and hetero-stereotypes in the mutual perception
of Germans and Spaniards
Jessica Haß and Sylvia Wächter
e interactive (self-)reexive construction of culture-related key words
Ulrike Schröder
“It’s really insulting to say something like that to anyone”: An investigation
of English and German native speakers’ impoliteness perceptions
Gila A. Schauer
Part V. Translation
Identities and impoliteness in translated Harry Potter novels
Monika Pleyer
Presuppositions, paralanguage, visual kinesics: ree culture-pragmatic
categories of errors and misunderstanding in translation and interpreting
illustrated on the basis of the language pair German/Greek
Olaf Immanuel Seel
Part VI. Pragmatic development
Development of pragmatic routines by Japanese learners
in a study abroad context
Naoko Osuka
Table of contents
A cross-sectional study of Syrian EFL learners’ pragmatic development:
Towards a taxonomy of modication in interlanguage requests
Ziyad Ali and Helen Woodeld
e pragmatic competence of student-teachers of Italian L2
Phyllisienne Gauci, Elisa Ghia and Sandro Caruana
Adaptive management and bilingual education: A longitudinal
corpus-based analysis of pragmatic markers in teacher talk
Laura Maguire and Jesús Romero-Trillo
Index
e pragmatic competence
of student-teachers of Italian L2
Phyllisienne Gauci, Elisa Ghia and Sandro Caruana
University of Malta / Università per Stranieri di Siena / University of Malta
Pragmatics is rarely included in teacher-training courses. It is therefore worth
investigating whether student-teachers of an L2 are familiar with it, especially
when the pragmatic features under question are L2-specic. In this paper, we
present results from an investigation on 15 Maltese future teachers of Italian
who, despite being exposed regularly to Italian, did not attend any courses
specically on Italian pragmatics. Data regarding the production of requests
and complaints were collected via role-plays (RP) and discourse completion
tasks (DCTs) and were evaluated by native speakers. Results show that, despite
an overall positive performance, subjects displayed a certain lack of sensitiv-
ity towards contextual variables and that RPs were rated lower than DCTs.
Enhancing pragmatic awareness can thus be seen as an essential aspect of lan-
guage education.
1
Keywords: L2 pragmatics, speech act performance, Italian L2, teacher training
. Introduction
In spite of the usually explicit recognition that communicative competence is made
up of both linguistic and pragmatic competences, many language learners oen
focus on developing the ability to learn language rules in order to form gram-
matically-correct sentences, while the importance of being able to use language
appropriately in dierent contexts is ignored. is oen occurs in formal settings,
. Some of the results reported in this study are included in Gauci et al. (2016), in a volume of
the proceedings of the XXI Congresso dell’Associazione Internazionale dei Professori di Italiano
(AIPI), Est-Ovest / Nord-Sud: Frontiere, Passaggi, Incontri Culturali that took place in Bari,
27–30 August 2014. at publication is in Italian and is intended specically for teachers; there-
fore the data reported there are interpreted and discussed mainly from a pedagogical rather than
a linguistic perspective.
./pbns..gau
© John Benjamins Publishing Company
Phyllisienne Gauci, Elisa Ghia and Sandro Caruana
such as the language class at school, where, in many cases, priority is given to the
development of grammatical skills based on the standard variety of the language
being learnt. However, when learners are called to use this language in informal
contexts they are oen faced with situations of communication breakdown be-
cause they may wrongly transfer pragmatic knowledge from their L1 to the L2.
Rose (2005, 390) suggests that there are three central questions that need to
be addressed regarding the acquisition of L2 pragmatic knowledge, i.e. whether
(a) pragmatics is teachable, (b) instruction in pragmatics produces results that
outpace exposure alone, and (c) dierent instructional approaches yield dierent
outcomes. A number of studies conducted in the past 10–15 years on the teaching
of L2 pragmatics have shown that pragmatics is indeed teachable (Rose and Kasper
2001; Liddicoat and Crozet 2001; Martínez-Flor et al. 2003; Safont 2003, 2005;
Salazar 2003; Rose 2005; Martínez-Flor 2008) and that the teaching of pragmatics
gives better results than simple exposure to the target language (Safont and Alcón
2000; Fukuya and Zhang 2002; Rose 2005; Codina-Espurz 2008; Félix-Brasdefer
2008a, 2008b). As to the eects of dierent teaching approaches, most instruct-
ed pragmatics studies made use of awareness-raising treatment conditions that
reected a continuum between the absolutely explicit and the absolutely implicit
extremes (cf. Jeon and Kaya 2006). While some of these studies show a clear advan-
tage for explicit over implicit instruction (Rose and Ng Kwai-Fun 2001; Takahashi
2001; Alcón-Soler 2005), others report either inconclusive results (Fukuya and
Clark 2001) or positive results for both forms of instruction (Koike and Pearson
2005; Martínez-Flor and Fukuya 2005). Still, there are also studies that shed light
on the potentiality of implicit instruction (Takimoto 2007; Nuzzo and Gauci 2012;
Gauci 2015).
Instruction in pragmatics makes a notable dierence in improving learners’
pragmatic competence, especially in the foreign language (FL) context, where
learners nd scarce opportunities to be exposed to target pragmatic norms (in-
put) and an impoverished environment for practice (output): in such settings the
possibility of developing their pragmatic competence depends considerably on the
pragmatic input presented to them in the classroom (Martìnez-Flor and Usó-Juan
2010, 10). Furthermore, most pedagogical materials used in the schooling context,
including those present in FL learning textbooks, have oen been considered in-
adequate as a reliable source of pragmatic input for classroom language learners.
For these reasons, teachers are oen the only models of appropriate linguistic
and pragmatic behaviour, and learners are seldom exposed to social situations
and roles other than those related to being students in the FL classroom (Roever
2009, 565).
While many studies illustrate the beneficial effect of instruction on lan-
guage learners’ pragmatic competence in the FL classrooms, the issue of whether
Chapter14. e pragmatic competence of student-teachers of Italian L2
language teachers who are non-native speakers (NNSs) of the L2 are suciently
equipped to provide such instruction is less clear and insuciently documented.
Studies conducted on advanced L2 learners indicate that they generally possess
a lower level of pragmatic competence when compared to native speakers (NSs),
although their lexical and grammatical knowledge of the L2 may be almost native-
like (Bardovi Harlig 2001, 14). Yet, most teacher education programmes do not
focus on improving the pragmatic competence of pre-service teachers and possibly
even fewer pre-service programmes worldwide train prospective language teachers
to teach the pragmatic dimensions of language to their students. is results in
several teachers who may be highly uent L2 speakers and also knowledgeable in
the grammar of the language they teach but less so in pragmatics, as illustrated
in the following studies.
Pinyo et al. (2010) investigated the pragmatic competence of 30 ai English
teachers enrolled in an MA programme in making, accepting and declining re-
quests. ese teachers were asked to take part in an oral discourse completion task
(DCT) containing 27 dierent situations. Results showed that they had a moderate
level of pragmatic competence that was deemed just adequate for communication
in the given contexts, which suggests that teachers need to receive more intensive
training on both linguistic and pragmatic knowledge. Similarly, using a 48-item
multiple choice DCT, Dong (2006) surveyed the pragmatic competence of 64
Chinese English teachers. Once again, results showed that the pragmatic com-
petence of the teachers involved was relatively poor, evidently due to their lack of
pragmatic knowledge when compared to their knowledge of grammar.
In Bektas-Citinkaya (2012), 23 pre-service Turkish teachers of English com-
pleted a DCT involving 18 dierent situations, in which they were asked to per-
form speech acts of responding, giving advice, refusing and making requests. In
this case, results showed that although the speech acts produced diverge from NS
norms, most of the responses provided by pre-service teachers were comprehensi-
ble to other English language users, including NSs. ere are two other studies that
were conducted with Turkish pre-service/in-service teachers in the EFL context:
Atay (2005) showed that the teachers who participated in her study had little or
no instruction on aspects of language use or on language functions and therefore
exhibited very low pragmatic condence, while, in Kilickaya (2010), pre-service
teachers of English were found to possess the linguistic means to perform the act
of requesting; however, their level of politeness was still unsatisfactory.
An interventional study conducted by Eslami and Eslami-Rasekh (2008) in-
vestigated the eects of instruction on the pragmatic awareness and production
of Iranian NN English-speaking teacher candidates in an EFL context. is study
examined the development of the learner teachers’ ability to correctly identify
pragmatic violations and to produce pragmatically appropriate speech acts. To this
Phyllisienne Gauci, Elisa Ghia and Sandro Caruana
end, two MA student groups were included in the sample: an experimental group
which went through the ESL methodology course with a focus on pragmatics, and
a control group, whose course lacked the pragmatic focus. e ndings of the study
showed that both pragmalinguistic and sociopragmatic aspects (cf. Leech 1983;
omas 1983) were insuciently developed in the absence of pragmatics instruc-
tion. Although all participants were a select group of learner teachers with high
instrumental motivation, since they had made English the focus of their careers,
the results of the pre-test showed that they had not developed enough pragmatic
competence to be able to produce correct speech acts or identify the pragmatic
inappropriateness their speech acts contained. However, at the end of the 14-week
course, the students’ awareness, as well as their ability to produce speech acts, im-
proved signicantly for the participants in the experimental group, as their score
improvement from pre-test to post-test made evident, when such improvement
was not visible in the control group.
Besides being consistent with claims that pragmatic awareness can indeed be
acquired when pedagogical focus is placed on pragmatic competence, these nd-
ings show that this holds true even when the learners at hand are future language
teachers. Due to the limited number of studies conducted to investigate teachers’
and student-teachers’ pragmatic competence, with practically none focusing on
target languages other than English, however, it is presently very dicult to de-
termine whether NN language teachers have sucient pragmatic awareness and
knowledge in order for them to be in a position to improve their learners’ prag-
matic competence too.
Against this background, for the present study, we investigated the pragmatic
competence of Maltese NNSs of Italian who were either in their penultimate or
nal year of a four-year University course to become teachers of Italian, or fol-
lowing a one-year Post Graduate Certicate in Education (PGCE) course. ese
student-teachers, who already possessed a C1 level (CEFR) of Italian but had never
had any formal instruction in Italian pragmatics, were required to complete two
tasks, a written DCT and an oral RP, in which they were presented with a number
of situations used to elicit requests and complaints. A group of ve Italian NSs were
subsequently asked to rate the students’ responses in accordance with a set of given
criteria, as shall be illustrated in further detail in the methodology section that
follows. e following research questions (RQs) were addressed:
RQ1: Are Maltese student-teachers of Italian rated as pragmatically competent by
NSs of Italian?
RQ2: Do they perform in signicantly dierent ways when producing dierent
speech act types at dierent levels of formality in DCTs?
RQ3: Do they perform in signicantly dierent ways when producing dierent
speech act types at dierent levels of formality in RPs?
Chapter14. e pragmatic competence of student-teachers of Italian L2
. Methodology
. Participants
Fieen Maltese NSs (of Maltese parents and residing in Malta), attending a uni-
versity course in order to become qualied teachers of Italian participated in our
study. All 15 subjects (13 females and 2 males), whose age varies from 20 to 24
(with an average age of 21.5 years), have been studying Italian in Malta for at least
8 years and, in some cases, up to 11 years. ey have an excellent command of the
language, comparable to a C1 level (CEFR) in both productive and recognition
skills. What is more, their competence is not limited to a “scholastic” use of the
language, as they are regularly in contact with native-like forms of production.
at is because Italian is the third language of Malta and it is present on the
Maltese islands because of its historical role, as well as due to Malta’s commercial
ties and geographical proximity with Sicily. Italian was one of Malta’s ocial lan-
guages till 1936 and, historically, it was used mainly within administrative and
cultural spheres of society. Today, contact with Italian is evident in many Maltese
words, especially those which form part of the language as integrated borrowings.
Although exposure to Italian television programmes has declined when compared
to the recent past, many Maltese still tune into Italian TV channels quite regularly,
Italian is the most popular foreign language studied in local schools and there are
regular political, commercial and cultural exchanges between Italy and Malta.
Given this special status of Italian in the Maltese context, prior to the DCT and
RP tasks, a short questionnaire was distributed to the subjects, with the intention
of investigating their exposure to and use of Italian. e following background
information, based on the subjects’ self-perception, was collected via a self- report
questionnaire:
– All subjects read Italian magazines, 12 of them read Italian newspapers, and
14 read Italian books. ey reported dedicating from one to ve hours weekly
to such activities;
– All subjects access Italian Internet sites very oen, in most cases spending
more than ve hours weekly in doing so. 12 of them also correspond in Italian
via email, although less time is dedicated to this activity when compared to
visiting Italian websites;
– Italian media, especially television, are very popular among our subjects. 13
out of them reported that they watch more than ve hours of Italian television
weekly;
– As expected, subjects do not have as many opportunities to speak Italian
socially (i.e. not within the formal setting of the university lecture hall). 8
Phyllisienne Gauci, Elisa Ghia and Sandro Caruana
subjects, however, report that they speak to Italian friends or relatives quite
regularly;
– Although most subjects report that they have visited Italy (or Italian-speaking
countries), 4 subjects out of 15 have (quite surprisingly) never done so;
– Most subjects stated that they opted to study Italian at school mainly because
they liked the Italian language and were attracted to Italy’s culture;
2
– Finally, all subjects reported their own perception of their level of Italian, with
4 of them describing it as ‘very good’, 9 as ‘good’, and 2 as ‘quite good’.
Overall, therefore, the picture that emerges through the data gathered by means
of the questionnaire is that these subjects have developed a competence in Italian
both through the formal instruction received and via spontaneous acquisition of
it through various means, including the media. is corresponds to the picture
of advanced learners of Italian in Malta, amply documented in past studies (e.g.
Caruana 2012), as being exposed to Italian regularly throughout the course of
their lives. is puts them in a dierent situation when compared to learners
included in the studies mentioned earlier, and shows the dierent angle that this
study has in comparison to previous studies of student teachers who have little or
no contact with an L2 outside the classroom. Furthermore, although it must be
noted that opportunities to be exposed to the language are more frequent than
opportunities to speak it, several instances are also reported wherein our subjects
spoke Italian– this also includes a few weeks in which they carried out Teaching
Practice and thereby taught the language in Secondary Schools (with 11–16 year-
old students) as part of their teacher training. Still, none of the subjects had ever
attended courses dealing specically with Italian pragmatics.
. Procedure
As the main tasks of this study, all subjects were rst requested to complete the
written DCTs and subsequently took part in the oral RPs. e stimuli prompted
student-teachers to produce dierent speech acts (requests vs. complaints) across
varying levels of formality (formal vs. informal situations) (see Table1 for a sum-
mary of all situations). A total of 90 speech acts were elicited via the spoken and
written stimuli.
. In Maltese public schools studying Italian is not obligatory, and students who opt to do so
normally start classes at 11 years of age.
Chapter14. e pragmatic competence of student-teachers of Italian L2
Table1. Distribution of situations across experimental settings and levels of formality
DCT task RP task
Informal
request
Small change at the vending machine
You are about to buy a drink from a
vending machine when you notice you
have no money with you. You thus ask
a schoolmate who is walking by for
some small change.
Laptop to borrow
You need to send an urgent e-mail but
your laptop is not working. You ask
your at mate if you can borrow her
laptop.
Formal
request
Shirt to be changed
You have bought a shirt for your father,
but when he tries it on you nd out it is
too small. You go back to the shop and
ask the shop assistant to replace it.
Timetable change
You are going to attend an Italian
language course at a language school.
However, you cannot attend the course
in the time slot you have been allocated
and you ask for a timetable change.
Formal
complaint
Mistaken order at the bar
At a bar, the waiter brings you coee
instead of cappuccino. You complain to
him/her.
Incorrect change at the supermarket
You are checking out at the
supermarket and the assistant gives
you back a smaller amount of change.
You complain to him/her.
Informal
complaint
Slow-paced shopping
You are shopping with a friend who
stops and looks at every shop window.
You are in a hurry and you complain to
her about her behaviour.
Claiming your pen
At a university lecture, you lent your
pen to a classmate. At the end of the
lesson, s/he forgets to give it back to
you and you complain to him/her.
As illustrated in Table1, in the written DCT each subject produced a speech act
in a dierent context (hence, formal request, informal request, formal complaint,
informal complaint). e formal setting situations included situations like ask-
ing a shop assistant to replace a previously acquired item (formal request; see
Example1) or complaining about a mistaken order at a bar (formal complaint),
while the informal ones involved situations like asking a friend for small change
(informal request) or complaining to a friend who is shopping too slowly (informal
complaint; see Example2).
(1) Shirt to be changed (formal request)
Hai comprato una camicia per tuo padre, ma quando lui la indossa ti rendi
conto che la misura è sbagliata. Torni al negozio dove l’hai comprata e cosa
dici alla commessa?
Tu:……………………………………………………………………………………
Commessa: Sì, va bene. Ha conservato lo scontrino?
Phyllisienne Gauci, Elisa Ghia and Sandro Caruana
(2) Slow-paced shopping (informal complaint)
Stai facendo shopping con una tua amica che si ferma davanti a tutte le vetrine
per almeno 10 minuti. Tu devi ancora comprare molti regali e state cammi-
nando già da 2 ore. Cosa dici alla tua amica?
Tu:……………………………………………………………………………………
Amica: Allora, tu lo sai… quando devo comprare un paio di scarpe, io mi devo
fermare in ogni vetrina e guardare bene tutto.
In the closed RPs, participants only produced speech acts at unvarying level of
formality, that is, each participant only produced a formal request and a formal
complaint, or only an informal request and an informal complaint. at was
deemed necessary due to the interactivity of the task, which was performed in
pairs. e RP task included situations like a request for a timetable change at a
language school (formal request) or a complaint aer receiving incorrect change
at the supermarket (formal complaint; see Example3), while the informal settings
involved situations like a request to borrow a laptop from a atmate (informal
request; see Example4) or a complaint about a friend involuntarily taking the
speaker’s pen (informal complaint).
(3) Incorrect change at the supermarket (formal complaint)
A. Al supermercato, dopo aver pagato, ti accorgi che la cassiera ti ha dato
meno resto di quello che doveva. Cosa le dici?
B. Sei il/la cassiere/a di un supermercato. Hai appena nito di dare il resto
a un cliente.
(4) Laptop to borrow (informal request)
A. È domenica e devi mandare un’ e-mail urgente, ma ti accorgi che il com-
puter non funziona. Cosa dici all’/alla amico/a che abita con te?
B. È domenica e tu sei a casa con l’amico/a che abita con te.
Our study is therefore based both on spoken and written data. In the next phase of
the study, the speech acts produced by the Maltese student-teachers were evaluated
by NSs of Italian for their appropriateness and acceptability. Before the actual rat-
ing of the subjects’ responses, however, all NS raters were trained to use the rating
procedure and criteria. is pilot phase was useful in rening both rating criteria
and the instructions provided to raters. Subsequently, the rating of each written
and spoken speech act was performed by each rater individually.
One of the main challenges of our study was to identify a valid and reliable
methodology, especially since it is based on the rating of NNSs’ utterances from
a pragmatic perspective. e very nature of the task required that the NS raters
had some knowledge of pragmatics, and the predisposition to not rate on the
basis of grammatical correctness but rather in terms of what is appropriate or
Chapter14. e pragmatic competence of student-teachers of Italian L2
inappropriate within a speech act. at is why all NSs chosen as raters were lin-
guists who were instructed to follow a set of very specic criteria on which to base
their rating.
is brings us to the second challenge that we had to face. Rating criteria to
assess speech act ability are quite dicult to devise, a point oen made in the
relevant literature:
Despite the greater access than ever before to information about speech acts, the
question still arises as to whether we know enough about them at this point in
time to be able to adequately assess their performance in an L2 classroom setting.
e problem is that sociocu ltural and sociolinguistic behaviour are, by their very
nature, variable. us, there will be very few “right” and “wrong” answers in
comparing L2 to L1 responses, but rather tendencies in one direction or another.
(Cohen 2004, 322)
Against this backdrop, we opted to adopt for our research a set of criteria originally
developed by Hudson et al. (1995; for a comprehensive description, see Cohen
2004, 309), since these criteria are the outcome of several studies, and have been
used quite extensively in the eld:
– the ability to use the correct speech act (e.g. if one is asked to perform a re-
quest, does the provided utterance do so?, i.e. would a NS understand that it
is a request?)
– the ability to use typical expressions
– the appropriate amount of speech and information given
– the level of formality, including word choice and phrasing
– the level of directness
– the level of politeness
Each aspect was thus rated on a four-point Likert scale ranging from 1, very un-
satisfactory, to 4, completely appropriate.
1. very unsatisfactory / completely incorrect
2. inappropriate
3. somewhat appropriate
4. completely appropriate
One of the main advantages of using a four-point scale is that it enables raters to
be more discriminating, as it eliminates the possibility of resorting to a neutral
stance represented by a mid-point: this was an aspect which we deemed important
in this study. In this way, the raters could position themselves clearly as far as the
appropriateness or inappropriateness of the speech acts. Evidently, each nal score
Phyllisienne Gauci, Elisa Ghia and Sandro Caruana
could range between a minimum of 6 points (minimal rating on all six criteria)
and a maximum of 24 points (maximum rating on all six criteria).
. Results
Our collected data were analysed through Rasch analysis and ANOVA tests. e
Minifac soware (Linacre 1996, 2014) was used for Rasch measurement and both
descriptive and inferential statistics were applied to the data. In addition to an-
swering our RQs, data from the Rasch model also allow to draw a more complete
sketch of the rating context, taking into account the complex interaction between
subject (referred to as ‘examinee’ in the Rasch model) performance, test item spec-
icity and rater severity.
ree facets were included in the model (‘examinees’, ‘test items’, ‘raters’) and
their impact on the learners’ ratings was explored. In response to RQ1 (Are Maltese
student-teachers of Italian rated as pragmatically competent by NSs?), initial in-
vestigations on the written DCTs show some variability in participants’ perfor-
mance; yet, all examinee logit values were above the zero logit (i.e. all examinees
scored above 50%). Overall, rather signicant dierences emerged in relation to
the student-teachers’ pragmatic competence in Italian (χ² = 62.2, d.f.: 14, p < .001;
RMSE = .08, S.D. = .16, Sep. 1.89, Rel. = .78): two subjects were on average rated
above 90%, four subjects between 85% and 90%, six subjects between 80% and
85%, one subject between 75% and 80%, and two subjects below 75%. eir level
of pragmatic competence was, however, rated as quite high overall, with most
student-teachers producing speech acts rated on average as ‘somewhat appropri-
ate’ (11 subjects, 73%) and four subjects (27%) receiving, on average, a ‘completely
appropriate’ rating.
e rst step taken to address RQ2 (Do Maltese student-teachers of Italian
perform in signicantly dierent ways when producing dierent speech act types
at dierent levels of formality in the DCTs?) was to consider the response provided
by the NS raters to the DCTs. Dierent degrees of severity were recorded in the
raters’ judgments; raters 3 and 4 were the most severe ones, rater 5 was the most
lenient, and raters 1 and 2 placed in-between. Table2 summarises the distribution
of facet values (examinees, items, raters) in the sample.
As evident from Table2, our subjects’ performance in the written DCT was
also rated dierently across test items: the items which were generally rated the
farthest away from NS competence were the formal complaint (Task C, situation
3, logit .08) and the informal request (Task A, situation 1, logit .07). Examples of
the two items are shown in (5)–(6), where representative speech acts which were
Chapter14. e pragmatic competence of student-teachers of Italian L2
rated dierently are provided (the codes used to identify the subjects appear in
brackets, following the utterances, e.g. S6, S12):
(5) Formal complaint (DCT, mistaken order at a bar)
a. Completely appropriate item (23/24 average rating):
Mi scusi cameriere, io ho ordinato un cappuccino e non un caè. Me lo
potrebbe cambiare per favore? (S6)
Excuse me (formal address), waiter, I ordered cappuccino, not coee.
Could you please replace it for me?]
b. Somewhat appropriate item (18/24 average rating):
Scusi, avevo ordinato un cappuccino. Questo è un caè. (S12)
Excuse me (formal address), I ordered cappuccino. is is coee.
(6) Informal request (DCT, small change at the vending machine)
a. Completely appropriate item (23/24 average rating):
Scusami, non è che mi presteresti qualche moneta per prendere un caè?
(S14)
Excuse me (informal address), wouldn’t you lend me some coins to get
a coee?
Table2. Average performance, rating and item complexity in the DCTs according
to the Rasch model
1
6
14
12
1
15
13
11
7
4 9 3
4
1
5
2
A
B
C
D
(24)
23
---
22
---
21
20
18
17
16
15
13
12
11
---
10
---
9
(6)
2
10
3
5
8
0
-1
Measr + examinees - raters - items Scale
Measr + examinees - raters - items Scale
******
Phyllisienne Gauci, Elisa Ghia and Sandro Caruana
b. Somewhat appropriate item (16/24 average rating):
Hai delle monetine? (S11)
Do you have any small change?
e items which were generally rated higher (i.e. those where learners were gen-
erally judged to perform close to NS level) were the informal complaint (TaskD,
situation 4, logit –.09) and the formal request (Task B, situation 2, logit –.07).
Examples are provided in (7)–(8):
(7) Informal complaint (DCT, slow-paced shopping)
a. Completely appropriate item (22.6/24 average rating):
Paola lo sai quante cose devo comprare ancora! Devi proprio fermarti da-
vanti a ogni vetrina? (S2)
Paola, you know how many things I still have to buy! Do you really need
to stop at every single shop window?
b. Somewhat appropriate item (19.4/24 average rating):
Ti vuoi sbrigare? (S11)
Will you hurry up?
(8) Formal request (DCT, shirt to be changed)
a. Completely appropriate item (22.4/24 average rating):
Ho appena comprato questa camicia, ma non va bene a mio padre. Gliela
potrei cambiare? (S7)
I have just bought this shirt, but it does not suit my father. Could I have
it changed for him?
b. Somewhat appropriate item (17.6/24 average rating):
Potrei cambiare questa camicia
3 (S5)
Could I have this shirt changed.
In addition to the above, one-way ANOVA
4 was performed on the DCT data to
address RQ2 and investigate whether learners performed in signicantly dierent
ways across dierent tasks and speech act types. Mean scores were calculated
per learner per item (situation) based on the ratings received from all evaluators.
Table3 illustrates learners’ mean rating per situation:
. e item was produced with no interrogative marking.
. The SPSS 20 software was used for the ANOVA test. Most data sets showed normal
distribution.
Chapter14. e pragmatic competence of student-teachers of Italian L2
Table3. Learners’ mean rating across situations (DCTs)
Mean S.D. N
Informal request 19.573 2.4887 15
Formal request 20.653 3.1291 15
Formal complaint 19.507 1.7515 15
Informal complaint 20.800 1.3459 15
In spite of the dierences found in item complexity (i.e. the tendency to be gen-
erally rated as closer to or farther away from the native model), learners did not
perform in significantly different ways across the four situations considered
(F(3) = 1.65, df = 3, p = 0.192).
e rst step taken to address RQ3 (Do student-teachers perform in signi-
cantly dierent ways when producing dierent speech act types at dierent levels
of formality in the RPs?) was to consider the response provided by the NS raters: as
in the case of the DCTs, raters showed dierent degrees of severity here too. ese
appear to be similar across the two RP contexts, but are dierently distributed with
respect to the DCTs (compare Tables4 and 5 below with Table2 above):
Table4. Average performance, rating and item complexity in the formal context RPs
according to the Rasch model
1
10
1
3
13
4
15
9
5
3
1
2 4
A B
(24)
22
---
21
---
20
---
19
18
---
17
16
15
---
13
12
---
11
(6)
9
---
7
0
-1
Measr + examinees - raters - items Scale
Measr + examinees - raters - items Scale
*****
*
Phyllisienne Gauci, Elisa Ghia and Sandro Caruana
Table5. Average performance, rating and item complexity in the informal context RPs
according to the Rasch model
2
15
5
14
5
2
1
3
55
11
2
4
C
D
(24)
23
---
---
20
---
17
15
22
21
19
18
16
---
14
13
---
12
---
11
(8)
10
---
0
1
-1
Measr + examinees - raters - items Scale
Measr + examinees - raters - items Scale
*****
****
*
RP ratings were analysed through two separate Rasch models, since, as noted in
Section3.2 above, the subjects were divided into two sub-groups for the RP task
(subjects 1, 3, 4, 7, 9, 10, 13, 15 acted out the RPs in the formal setting, whereas
subjects 2, 5, 6, 8, 11, 12, 14 took part in the informal situations). RP data also
show variability in learners’ performance and slightly lower average scores than
the DCTs (χ² = 38.9, d.f.: 7, p < .001; RMSE = .13, S.D. = .28, Sep. 2.10, Rel. = .82;
χ² = 63.1, d.f.: 6, p < .001; RMSE = .16, S.D. = .50, Sep. 3.25, Rel. = .91). Most stu-
dent-teachers produced speech acts which were rated on average as ‘somewhat
appropriate’ (13 subjects, 87%). One subject’s performance was on average rated
as ‘completely appropriate’, whereas one participant produced speech acts on av-
erage rated as ‘inappropriate’ by evaluators. Test items showed a comparable level
of diculty, with the exception of the informal request (Task C, informal context
group, logit .09). Examples of the dierent speech acts produced are illustrated in
(9)–(12) below:
Chapter14. e pragmatic competence of student-teachers of Italian L2
(9) Informal request (RP, laptop to borrow)
a. Completely appropriate item (22.8/24 average rating):
Scusa, Giulia, posso usare il tuo computer perché il mio non funziona e
devo mandare un’e-mail veramente urgente? (S2)
Excuse me (informal address), Giulia, can I use your laptop because mine
isn’t working and I need to send a really urgent e-mail?
b. Somewhat appropriate item (15.6/24 average rating):
Eh Giulia, vedi che c’è qualcosa che non va col computer, non sta funzio-
nando. Devo mandare un’e-mail, è urgente. (S12, RP)
Eh, Giulia, you see that something’s wrong with my laptop, it’s not work-
ing. I have to send an e-mail, it’s urgent.
(10) Formal request (RP, timetable change)
a. Completely appropriate item (22.2/24 average rating):
Salve. Avrei un problema con l’orario del corso perché a quell’ora devo
lavorare. Non è che mi potrebbe spostare ad un altro orario? (S3)
Hello. I have a problem with my course timetable as I have to work at that
time. Could you maybe move me to a dierent time slot?
b. Somewhat appropriate item (18/24 average rating):
Eh ciao eh io mi sono iscritta ad un corso di italiano. Posso cambiare le mie
lezioni perché ho un altro impegno in quell’orario? (S10)
Eh hi eh I signed up for an Italian language course. Can I change my
classes as I have another engagement at that time?
c. Inappropriate item (14.4/24 average rating):
Mi dispiace, signora, ma non posso venire alle lezioni perché c’ho
5 un im-
pegno molto importante. (S4)
I am sorry, Miss, but I can’t come to classes because I have a very impor-
tant engagement.
(11) Informal complaint (RP, claiming your pen)
a. Completely appropriate item (23.6/24 average rating):
Scusa, Giulia, mi puoi restituire la penna per favore? (S2)
Excuse me (informal address), Giulia, can you please give me back the
pen?
b. Somewhat appropriate item (18/24 average rating):
Oh, quella è mia. (S14)
Oh, that’s mine.
. Italian c’ho (‘I’ve got’) is neo-standard, normally associated to the spoken language variety,
therefore inappropriate in standard written Italian and formal spoken Italian.
Phyllisienne Gauci, Elisa Ghia and Sandro Caruana
(12) Formal complaint (incorrect change at the supermarket)
a. Somewhat appropriate item (16.4/24 average rating):
Mi scusi, ma mancano dei soldi qui. (S7)
Excuse me (formal address), but some money is missing here.
In view of the above considerations, in order to address RQ3 a mixed-design
ANOVA was performed on all RP data to investigate the presence of signicant
dierences across dierent speech acts (within-subjects factor) and levels of for-
mality (between-subjects factor). e learners’ mean ratings are illustrated in
Table6 below:
Table6. Learners’ mean rating across situations (RPs)
Mean SD N
Request Formal 17.7500 3.39874 8
Informal 18.8286 2.86689 7
Complaint Formal 18.0000 1.72047 8
Informal 19.8000 2.72274 7
Finally, no signicant dierences were recorded in the subjects’ mean evaluation
both across dierent speech acts (requests vs. complaints) and dierent levels of
formality (formal vs. informal contexts).
6
. Discussion
e results of our study conrm that most of the subjects who participated in it
have a rather high level of pragmatic competence in Italian, which in some cases
may be even comparable to that of NSs. Most subjects were given a ‘somewhat
appropriate’ rating in both the written DCTs and the oral RPs. is, to a cer-
tain extent, is in contrast with ndings of other studies conducted with English
L2 teachers in dierent contexts (e.g. Kilickaya 2010; Pinyo et al. 2010; Bektas-
Citinkaya 2012).
e overall positive performance is undoubtedly due to the fact that these
Maltese student-teachers of L2 Italian had been studying the language for several
years and were attending a teacher-training course in it. Most importantly, though,
they had all been exposed to Italian in informal contexts too, including the media,
as illustrated in their response to the pre-tasks questionnaire. is contributed to
. Eect for speech act: F = .866, df = 1, p = .369; eect for formality level: F = 1.309, df = 1,
p = .273; eect for interaction between speechact and formality level: F = .302, df = 1, p = .592
Chapter14. e pragmatic competence of student-teachers of Italian L2
improving their pragmatic competence as they acquired the language by being
exposed to natural, unstructured input, oen accompanied by visual cues, which
are vital in helping the learner place linguistic items within a communicatively
meaningful context.
Nevertheless, in some cases subjects show lower sensitivity towards contex-
tual variables when compared to NSs, despite their ne command of the L2. is
indicates that, as argued, among others, by Rose (2005), Takimoto (2007), Codina-
Espurz (2008), Félix-Brasdefer (2008a, 2008b), Nuzzo and Gauci (2012) and Gauci
(2015), direct pedagogical intervention on pragmatic aspects of the language could
indeed be benecial even in the case of advanced learners, as this could lead to a
more native-like competence and would make pre-service teachers more aware of
the importance of pragmatics in L2 acquisition.
Within our sample, performance in both the written DCTs and the RPs re-
vealed rather signicant variability in subjects’ pragmatic competence; however,
no signicant dierences in individual performance were recorded across dierent
speech acts or levels of formality. Student-teachers were equally able to produce
target-like requests and complaints in the L2 in both formal and informal contexts.
is result, yet again, can be attributed to the advanced level of competence of our
subjects and to the fact that they are exposed to Italian in various contexts– in-
cluding formal and informal ones– thereby gaining familiarity with the dierent
registers used.
Although the level of pragmatic competence was on the whole rather advanced,
dierences were observed across DCTs and RPs, with subjects’ oral productions
being rated slightly lower than their written ones. is trend suggests a role for the
medium in which the speech act is performed: when required to formulate written
requests or complaints, student-teachers performed closer to the native model.
e result can be explained in terms of the greater availability of processing time
typical of oine as opposed to online tasks (Ogiermann 2009).
An important aspect which should also be considered relates to the inher-
ent diculties in testing pragmatic competence– a task that is far from easy.
Pragmatic skills are strictly dependent on context, and their assessment poses
complex challenges to second language acquisition researchers, particularly in
terms of the testing techniques to be used (i.e. how to elicit pragmatic competence),
the medium through which pragmatic competence is elicited (spoken vs. written),
and its rating (i.e. how to evaluate pragmatic competence). Some limitations of
our study stem directly from such diculties. Subjects produced fewer speech
acts in the RPs as compared to the DCTs and that is a consequence of the inter-
active nature of RPs themselves, where participants took turns in delivering the
items, and the same item could not be repeated, to avoid priming eects. Future
studies could involve the addition of multiple speech acts of the same nature and
Phyllisienne Gauci, Elisa Ghia and Sandro Caruana
degree of formality to be produced by all subjects, as well as investigations of larger
participant samples. In parallel, they could also include non-expert NS raters for
assessing the subjects’ pragmatic competence, or a NS reference corpus, so as to
draw direct comparisons against native performance.
. Conclusion
Many teachers face a number of diculties in developing the pragmatic compe-
tence of their students. Several are indeed unaware of the importance of this aspect
of communication, especially if they are entrenched in traditional grammar-based
approaches to teaching. Undoubtedly, some of the major challenges, as illustrated
in depth in El-Okda (2011) include: the lack of courses in pragmatics both in teach-
ers’ pre-service education programmes and in subsequent in-service professional
development training; the lack of authentic, reliable sources of pragmatic input
and of explicit treatment of pragmatic phenomena in prescribed textbooks and
their accompanying teacher guides; diculties in testing pragmatic development
due to the challenges of setting up appropriate tests and the lack of importance
given to testing this important language component in the curriculum; the lack of
opportunities for learners’ exposure to natural language use outside the classroom,
especially when learning takes place in the FL classroom alone.
Yates and Wigglesworth (2005) proposed a rst attempt to design a profes-
sional development workshop for in-service teachers which would raise their
awareness on pragmatic phenomena such as mitigation and oer them teaching
strategies which they could use in the classroom. ree questions were asked to
the over 100 teachers who participated in the post-workshop questionnaire:
– How aware were you of using such soening devices in your own interactions
before today?
– How important do you think they are for learners?
– In the classroom have you explicitly focused on how to use these aspects of
language? How? How oen?
Overall results showed that the value of teaching these soening devices was ac-
knowledged by this group of teachers. Yates and Wigglesworth (2005, 276–277),
however, state that although the workshop helped raise teachers’ awareness in
this area, a longer-term relationship, such as one fostered in a series of workshops
rather than a single session, would be preferable, as it would have allowed the
consolidation of teachers’ knowledge of pragmatics and enabled a closer and more
accurate investigation of its impact on teachers.
Chapter14. e pragmatic competence of student-teachers of Italian L2
Another attempt to initiate and investigate the eectiveness of in-service prag-
matics workshops can be found in a study by Chavez de Castro (2005), who set up a
teacher-training awareness-raising programme on pragmatics with a view to prob-
ing teachers to increase the provision of pragmatic corrective feedback during their
lessons. e results of this study showed that aer attending the awareness-raising
programme, teachers still applied corrective feedback mostly to other language
levels (phonological, morphological, syntactic, lexical/semantic), for which they
had been previously trained and acquired knowledge during their pre-service
courses, while failing to correct pragmatic inappropriateness during their lessons.
In all fairness, however, even though the teacher-training programme used in this
research did not bring about any sort of change in teachers’ performance as far as
corrective feedback in pragmatics is concerned, all informants taking part in the
study expressed their belief that the awareness-raising programme (consisting of
7.5 hours) had been too short in order for them to introduce eective changes in
their teaching.
As to the diculties in assessing pragmatic competence, McNamara and
Roever (2006) determined that eective tests of pragmatic ability must be highly
contextualised, ideally simulating real-world situations. Yet, they should still be
scored by human raters, which would have the negative eect of increasing costs
and making them less practical. Advances in technology may possibly bridge some
of the limitations that have been observed in the pragmatics testing literature so far
(Tsutagawa 2012); today’s computer-assisted language testing (CALT) technology,
for example, can provide us with means to create rich simulations of real-world
pragmatic situations and interactions that can also be simultaneously recorded
for later formal analysis.
e use of spoken corpora
7 as well as material from audiovisual sources can
also familiarise the classroom with authentic language use, thereby providing
possibilities to highlight pragmatic features (cf. Nuzzo 2015). Such material could
be useful during the training of NN student-teachers too, as it would enable them
to think about appropriate teaching materials they would later use to develop the
pragmatic competence of their future students. Boxer (2010) highlights the impor-
tance of collecting real-life data which capture oral interactions between speakers.
Such authentic data are useful in order to analyse the underlying social strategies
of speech behaviour. Computer mediation can also play a role in solving some of
the most problematic areas in the teaching and learning of L2 pragmatics, such
as the availability and authenticity of instructional materials and the provision
. Cf. the study conducted by Santoro (2013) and Nuzzo and Zanoni (2012) on the multimedia
repository Lingua /Cultura Italiana in Rete per l’Apprendimento (LIRA)– for the construction of
systemised corpora of NS and learner productions in Italian.
Phyllisienne Gauci, Elisa Ghia and Sandro Caruana
of opportunities for the performance and practice of L2 pragmatic competence
in meaningful interactions. Belz (2007), for example stresses the importance of
internet-mediated intercultural foreign language education, commonly known as
telecollaboration, i.e. the use of ICTs to link linguistically and culturally disparate
groups of language learners and teachers over an extended period of time, ena-
bling them to work collaboratively on a variety of language-based activities and/
or projects (Belz 2007, 46).
It is indeed surprising that although the shi to teaching languages commu-
nicatively and through the introduction of authentic materials in the L2 classroom
is now widely acknowledged, little attention is given to the development of teach-
ers’ pragmatic competences and to highlighting the importance of introducing
aspects related to pragmatics in L2 language teaching. As an attempt to address
this lacuna, the University of Malta has lately introduced specialised courses with
the aim of making prospective and in-service teachers aware of the many factors
that govern our choice of language in social interaction and of the eects that such
choice can have on others. ese courses can help teachers and student-teachers
gain familiarity with basic notions of Italian pragmatics, while allowing them to
identify and correct pragmalinguistic and sociopragmatic errors that may oc-
cur in the Italian L2 classroom context. Still, they require further reinforcement
through their inclusion in regular in-service continued professional development
and training, thereby making pragmatic instruction one of the main components
in pedagogical programmes and addressing communicative aspects which repre-
sent the very core of eective social interaction.
References
Atay, Derin. 2005. “e Eects of Action Research on the Professional Competence of English
Foreign Language Teachers.” In Bridging Individual, Organisational, and Cultural Aspects of
Professional Learning, ed. by Hans Gruber, Christian Harteis, Regina H. Mulder, and Monika
Rehlm, 59–72. Regensburg: Roderer Verlag.
Alcón-Soler, Eva. 2005. “Does Instruction work for Learning Pragmatics in the EFL Context?.”
System 33: 417–435. doi: 10.1016/j.system.2005.06.005
Bardovi Harlig, Kathleen. 2001. “Evaluating the Empirical Evidence: Grounds for Instruction
in Pragmatics?” In Pragmatics in Language Teaching, ed. by Kenneth R. Rose, and Gabriele
Kasper, 13–32. New York: Cambridge University Press. doi: 10.1017/CBO9781139524797.005
Bektas-Cetinkaya, Yesim. 2012. “Pre-service EFL Teachers’ Pragmatic Competence: e Turkish
C as e.” International Journal of Language Studies 6: 107–122.
Belz, Julie A. 2007. “e Role of Computer Mediation in the Instruction and Development of L2
Pragmatic Competence.” Annual Review of Applied Linguistics 27: 45–75.
doi: 10.1017/S0267190508070037
Chapter14. e pragmatic competence of student-teachers of Italian L2
Boxer, Diana. 2010. “Complaints: How to Gripe and Establish Rapport.” In Speech Act Performance:
eoretical, Empirical and Methodological issues, ed. by Alicia Martínez-Flor, and Eva Usó-
Juan, 163–178. Amsterdam / Philadelphia: John Benjamins. doi: 10.1075/lllt.26.10box
Caruana, Sandro. 2012. “Italian in Malta: A Socio-educational Perspective.” International Journal
of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism 16: 602–614. doi: 10.1080/13670050.2012.716816
Chavez de Castro, Maria Christina. 2005. “Why Teachers don’t use their Pragmatic Awareness.”
In Applied Linguistics and Language Teacher Education, ed. by Nat Bartels, 281–293. New
York: Springer. doi: 10.1007/1-4020-2954-3_16
Codina-Espurz, Victòria. 2008. “e Immediate vs. Delayed Eect of Instruction on Mitigators
in Relation to the Learner’s Language Prociency in English.” In Learning how to Request in
an Instructed Language Learning Context, ed. by Eva Alcón-Soler, 227–256. B ern: Peter Lang.
Cohen, Andrew D. 2004. “Assessing Speech Acts in a Second Language.” In Studying Speaking
to Inform Second Language Learning, ed. by Diana Boxer, and Andrew D. Cohen, 302–327.
Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.
Dong, He. 2006. “Survey of high school English teachers’ pragmatic failure.” Available at: http://
nhwy.scnu.edu.cn/tech/tech5_009.htm (accessed 20 November 2014)
El-Okda, Mohamed. 2011. “Developing Pragmatic Competence: Challenges and Solutions.” e
Asian EFL Journal Quarterly 13: 169–198.
Eslami, Zohreh R., and Abbass Eslami-Rasekh. 2008. “Enhancing the Pragmatic Competence
of Non-native English-speaking Teacher Candidates in an EFL Context.” In Investigating
Pragmatics in Foreign Language Learning: Teaching and Testing, ed. by Eva Alcón-Soler, and
Alicia Martínez-Flor, 178–197. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.
Félix-Brasdefer, J. César. 2008a. “Pedagogical Intervention and the Development of Pragmatic
Competence in Learning Spanish as a Foreign Language.” Issues in Applied Linguistics 16:
49–84.
Félix-Brasdefer, J. César. 2008b. “Teaching Pragmatics in the Classroom: Instruction of Mitigation
in Spanish as a Foreign Language.” Hispania 91: 479–494. doi: 10.2307/20063733
Fukuya, Yoshinori J., and Martyn K. Clark. 2001. “A Comparison of Input Enhancement and
Explicit Instruction of Mitigators.” In Pragmatics and Language Learning, ed. by Lawrence
F. Bouton, 111–129. Urbana-Champaign: University of Illinois.
Fukuya, Yoshinori J., and Yao Zhang, Yao. 2002. “The Effects of Recasts on EFL Learners’
Acquisition of Pragmalinguistic Conventions of Requests.” Second Language Studies 21: 1–47.
Hudson, om, Detmer, Emily, and Brown, J. D. 1995. Developing Prototypic Measures of Cross-
Cultural Pragmatics (Technical Report#7). Honolulu: University of Hawai’i at Manoa,
Second Language Teaching and Curriculum Centre.
Gauci, Phyllisienne. 2015. “Te aching L2 Pragmatics: From an Empirical Study to Recommendations
for Pedagogical Practice.” In Teaching, Learning and Investigating Pragmatics: Principles,
Methods and Practices, ed. by Sara Gesuato, Winnie Cheng, and Francesca Bianchi, 109–132.
Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
Gauci, Phyllisienne, Ghia, Elisa, and Caruana, Sandro. 2016. “L’insegnamento della Pragmatica e
la Formazione degli Insegnanti di Italiano a Malta”. In Pragmatica e Interculturalità in Italiano
Lingua Seconda, ed. by Inneke Vedder, and Elisabetta Santoro, 67–78. Firenze: Cesati.
Jeon, Eun Hee, and Tadayoshi Kaya. 2006. “Eects of L2 Instruction on Interlanguage Pragmatic
Development: A Meta-analysis.” In Synthesizing Research on Language Learning and
Teaching, ed. by John M. Norris, and Lourdes Ortega. 165–211. Amsterdam / Philadelphia:
John Benjamins. doi: 10.1075/lllt.13.10jeo
Phyllisienne Gauci, Elisa Ghia and Sandro Caruana
Kilickaya, Ferit. 2010. “e Pragmatic Knowledge of Turkish EFL Students in Using Certain
Request Strategies.” Gaziantep University Journal of Social Sciences 9: 185–201.
Koike, Dale April, and Lynn Pearson. 2005. “e Eect of Instruction and Feedback in the
Development of Pragmatic Competence.” System 33: 481–501.
doi: 10.1016/j.system.2005.06.008
Leech, Georey. 1983. Principles of Pragmatics. London: Longman.
Liddicoat, Anthony J., and Chantal Crozet. 2001. “Acquiring French Interactional Norms through
Instruction.” In Pragmatics in Language Teaching, ed. by Kenneth R. Rose, and Gabriele Kasper.
125–144. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi: 10.1017/CBO9781139524797.012
Linacre, John Michael. 1996. “Generalizability eory and Rasch Measurement, Chapter5.” In
Objective Measurement Vol. 3, ed. by George Engelhard Jr, and Mark Wilson, 486–507.
Newark, NJ: Ablex.
Linacre, John Michael. 2014. Facets Computer Program for Many-Facet Rasch Measurement
(Version 3.71.4). Beaverton, OR: Winsteps.com.
Martínez-Flor, Alicia. 2008. “e Eect of an Inductive-deductive Teaching Approach to Develop
Learners’ Use of Request Modiers in the EFL Classroom.” In Learning how to Request in an
Instructed Language Learning Context, ed. by Eva Alcón-Soler, 191–225. Bern: Peter Lang.
Martínez-Flor, Alicia, and Yoshinori J. Fukuya. 2005. “e Eects of Instruction on Learners’
Production of Appropriate and Accurate Suggestions.” System 33: 463–480.
doi: 10.1016/j.system.2005.06.007
Martínez-Flor, Alicia, and Eva Usó-Juan. 2010. “Pragmatics and Speech Act Performance.” In
Speech Act Performance: eoretical, Empirical and Methodological Issues, ed. by Alivia
Martínez-Flor, and Eva Usó-Juan, 3–20. Amsterdam / Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
doi: 10.1075/lllt.26.01mar
Martínez-Flor, Alicia, Eva Usó-Juan, and Ana Fernàndez-Guerra. 2003. Pragmatic Competence
and Foreign Language Teaching. Castellón: Servei de Publicacions de la Universitat Jaume 1.
McNamara, Tim, and Carsten Roever. 2006. Language Testing: e Social Dimension. Malden,
MA: Blackwell Publishing.
Nuzzo, Elena. 2015. “Comparing Textbooks and TV Series as Sources of Pragmatic Input for
Learners of Italian as a Second Language: e Case of Compliments and Invitations.” In
Teaching, Learning and Investigating Pragmatics: Principles, Methods and Practices, ed. by
Sara Gesuato, Winnie Cheng, and Francesca Bianchi, 85–107. Cambridge: Cambridge
Scholars Publishing.
Nuzzo, Elena and Phyllisienne Gauci. 2012. Insegnare la Pragmatica in Italiano L2. Recenti
Ricerche nella Prospettiva della Teoria degli Atti Linguistici. Roma: Carocci Editore.
Nuzzo, Elena and Greta Zanoni. 2012. “Il Progetto LIRA: Un Repository Multimediale per lo
Sviluppo delle Competenze Pragmatiche in Parlanti Non Nativi d’ Italiano.” In Proceedings of
the VIIth GSCP International Conference Speech and Corpora, ed. by Heliana Mello, Massimo
Pettorino, and Tommaso Raso, 323–325. Firenze: Firenze University Press.
Ogiermann, Eva. 2009. On Apologising in Negative and Positive Politeness Cultures. Amsterdam/
Philadelphia: John Benjamins. doi: 10.1075/pbns.191
Pinyo, Suratchawadee, Patama Aksornjarung, and Chonlada Laohawiriyanon. 2010. “Pragmatic
Competence in Requests: A Case Study with ai English Teachers.” Paper presented at e
2nd International Conference on Humanities and Social Sciences, Faculty of Liberal Arts,
Prince of Songkla University, April 10.
Chapter14. e pragmatic competence of student-teachers of Italian L2
Roever, Carsten. 2009. “Teaching and Testing Pragmatics.” In e Handbook of Language Teaching,
ed. by Michael H. Long, and Catherine J. Doughty, 560–575. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.
doi: 10.1002/9781444315783.ch29
Rose, Kenneth R. 2005. “On the Eect of Instruction in Second Language Pragmatics.” System
33: 383–399. doi: 10.1016/j.system.2005.06.003
Rose, Kenneth R., and Gabriele Kasper. 2001. Pragmatics in Language Teaching. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press. doi: 10.1017/CBO9781139524797
Rose, Kenneth R., and Connie Ng Kwai-Fun. 2001. “Inductive and Deductive Teaching of
Compliments and Compliment Responses.” In Pragmatics in Language Teaching, ed. by
Kenneth R. Rose, and Gabriele Kasper, 145–170. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
doi: 10.1017/CBO9781139524797.013
Safont, Maria P. 2003. “Instructional Eects on the Use of Request Acts Modication Devices
by EFL Learners.” In Pragmatic Competence and Foreign Language Teaching, ed. by Alicia
Martínez-Flor, Eva Usó-Juan, and Ana Fernández-Guerra, 211–232. Castelló de la Plana:
Publicacions de la Universitat Jaume I.
Safont, Maria P. 2005. ird Language Learners: Pragmatic Production and Awareness. Clevedon:
Multilingual Matters.
Safont, Maria P., and Eva Alcón. 2000. “Pragmatic Competence and Foreign Language Instruction:
A Study on the Use of Request Strategies by English Adult Learners.” In Proceedings of the
24th International Conference of AEDEAN, ed by Ángel Mateos-Aparicio, and Silvia Molina,
61–65. Castilla la Mancha: Publicaciones de la Universidad de Castilla la Mancha.
Salazar, Patricia. 2003. “Pragmatic Instruction in the EFL Context.” In Pragmatic Competence and
Foreign Language Teaching, A. Martínez-Flor, E. Usó-Juan, and A. Fernández-Guerra (eds),
233–246. Castelló de la Plana: Publicacions de la Universitat Jaume I.
Santoro, Elisabetta. 2013. “Lo Sviluppo della Competenza Pragmatica in Italiano L2: Un
Esperimento a Partire da un Corso Online.” In Contesti di Apprendimento di Italiano L2.
Tra Teoria e Pratica Didattica, ed. by Michaela Rückl, Elisabetta Santoro, and Ineke Vedder,
27–42. Firenze: Franco Cesati Editore.
Takahashi, Satomi. 2001. “e Role of Input Enhancement in Developing Pragmatic Competence.”
In Pragmatics in Language Teaching, ed. by Kenneth R. Rose, and Gabriele Kasper, 171–199.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi: 10.1017/CBO9781139524797.014
Takimoto, Masahiro. 2007. “e Eects of Input-based Tasks on the Development of Learners’
Pragmatic Prociency.” Applied Linguistics 30: 1–25. doi: 10.1093/applin/amm049
omas, Jenny. 1983. “Cross-cultural Pragmatic Failure.” Applied Linguistics 4: 91–112.
doi: 10.1093/applin/4.2.91
Tsutagawa, Fred S. 2012. “Future Directions in Pragmatics Assessment.” Working Papers in TESOL
and Applied Linguistics, Teachers College, Columbia University Vol. 2, No.2: 43–45.
Yates, Lynda, and Gillian Wiggleworth. 2005. “Researching the Eectiveness of Professional
Development in Pragmatics.” In Applied Linguistics and Language Teacher Education, ed. by
Nat Bartels, 261–280. New York: Springer. doi: 10.1007/1-4020-2954-3_15
