�Learner Strategies for Performing Intercultural Pragmatics�

Andrew D. Cohen

Prof. Emeritus

University of Minnesota

adcohen@umn.edu

z.umn.edu/adcohen

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Instagram Talk for ELT Teachers hosted by Talaei Poor Babak, Manager, Inventive House of English, Mashad, Iran – 27 Aug 20.

The Focus of the Talk

• In this talk, we will be taking a close look at what comprehensibility of language at the level of intercultural pragmatics actually means.
• We will focus first on the strategies that you employ in an effort to ensure that the input that you process is pragmatically comprehensible to you.
• Secondly, we will look at the strategies that you can make use of so that your output is comprehensible pragmatically to the people who you interact with.
• Our principle interest: the strategies that might be called on in order to avoid pragmatic failure.

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Terminology

• Comprehensible input and comprehensible output in second and foreign-language pragmatics: where the intended meanings often go beyond the literal ones.  (Note: For the purposes of this seminar, L2 refers both to second- and to foreign-language pragmatics.)
• Pragmatic ability as a listener or reader = you are able to interpret the intended meanings of what is said or written, the assumptions, purposes or goals, and the kinds of actions that are being performed (Yule, 1996: 3-4).

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• Pragmatic ability as a speaker = knowing how to say what you want to say with politeness, directness, and appropriate level of sformality (e.g., as the boss, telling employees that they are being laid off; or in the role of teacher, telling students that their work is unacceptable); also knowing what not to say at all and what to communicate non-verbally.
• Pragmatic ability as a writer = knowing how to write your message intelligibly, paying attention to politeness, directness, formality, and appropriateness of the rhetorical structure (e.g., as employee, composing an e-mail message to your boss requesting a promotion and a raise, or a paid vacation; or as neighbor, writing a note complaining about late-evening TV noise).

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Strategies for Comprehending the � Pragmatic Message in the Input � �

• The input could be through language (e.g., lexical items – words and phrases, syntax – e.g., verb tenses, or discourse), though gestures, or through silence.
• Whether the input is pragmatically comprehensible to the nonnative depends on:

(1) the functional proficiency of the nonnative in the L2 and in other languages,

(2) the age, gender, occupation, social status, and experience of the nonnative in the relevant communities of practice (e.g., talk on the shop floor),

(3) the nonnative’s previous multilingual/multicul-tural experiences.

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• Comprehending the Pragmatics of the Input:

We will consider a sampling of verbal and nonverbal behaviors in an effort to illustrate how strategies can come into play so as to avoid difficulty or even failure at interpreting the L2 pragmatics of an interaction in a given situation.

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• Example #1: Understanding the illocutionary force (function) of bonjour in a French-speaking community 
• An American approaches a man on the street in Martinique and launches directly into a request for help in interpreting a confusing parking slip issued by a machine.
• Instead of responding to the man’s question (asked in fluent French), the man in the street says, “Bonjour.”
• So what does the bonjour mean pragmatically?
• “What? I didn’t hear the question.”

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• “I was put off by your focusing immediately and exclusively on the parking slip, without going through the courtesy of extending a morning greeting”– an instance of negative transfer from US norms for asking for directions from a stranger.
• After a proper greeting, a nice conversation took place with the man – a Martiniquais, living in Paris for over 40 years and working with the police there.
• His response: “No one will be checking parking for the next few days since it is a holiday period.”
• So the strategic approach is to get coached on the function of greetings in the given language. It is not enough just to memorize the various greetings for different times of day. It is crucial to know the “when,” “how,” and “why” of using them.

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• Example #2: Understanding “goodonya” as used in New Zealand
• I was a bit startled, thinking that I had slopped something on myself.
• Part of pragmatic comprehension includes recognizing and interpreting local expressions that are not completely opaque, but may not be easy to comprehend – even for a “native” speaker.
• Example #3: Getting the role of grammar in pragmatics – the crucial role of verb tenses
• For instance, English-speaking study-abroad students in Spanish-speaking countries misread the locals’ use of the conditional in requests (e.g., podrías ‘could you…’ instead of puedes ‘can you’) as being overly formal (Cohen & Shively, 2007).

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• A strategic approach would be to check with locals as to just what verb tenses are used for what. This can seem so basic, but it can actually be rather subtle.
• Example #4: Speech acts may be spread over many turns, culminating in, “Well, then, I’m sorry for that” (see Félix-Brasdefer, 2006).
• It may be progressive enough and subtle enough that you do not even realize that an apology is taking place!
• A strategy would be to ask your interlocutor what just happened if you are not sure. For example, you would say, “I’m still learning the language, and I want to make sure I understood correctly. Was that an apology?”

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• Example #5: Gestures such as “wait” in Hebrew – extending the forearm, fingers and thumb

bunched, pointing upwards, no hand movement

• Its meaning: “Just a second and I’ll be with you,” or “Please wait and let me cut in” (when on a bike, in a car, or in whatever vehicle).
• While such a gesture does not exist in American English, it does (with the hand moving) in European languages. So seeing this similar version in Europe may wrongly be interpreted as “wait,” when it can actually means something obscene.
• All the more reason to deploy the strategy of asking about these seemingly curious and perhaps a bit bewildering gestures early on, rather than assuming you know what they mean when you do not.

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• Example #6: Pragmatic function of silence – lost on a nonnative speaker who is unaware of the norms
• First instance: An American English speaker may interpret silence from a Japanese engaged in a talk as meaning that the person is finished and is relinquishing the floor.
• As chair of a session at an international academic meeting, I once lead a round of applause for a Japanese presenter giving a talk (in English) when I interpreted his extended pause as meaning that he had ended his remarks when he had not.
• Second instance: In past days, hitchhikers getting a ride in Israel were expected to remain silent, not to entertain the driver with their conversation as was common in the U.S.
• The strategy called for here would be to inquire

about the role of silence in the target language,

something that learners may not even have on

their pragmatics agenda.

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• Example #7: Curse words (e.g., “f___ you!”) in the discourse
• Providing an important bonding between employer and employee, and among the employees.
• For the “Language in the Workplace” project at Victoria University of Wellington, Holmes and her colleagues collected over 2,000 interactions in English (mostly LI) in the workplace in New Zealand (Daly, Holmes, Newton, & Stubbe, 2004).
• Analysis of corpus yielded insights into how to fit in and become an integrated member of that workforce.
• The focus of the study was on small talk, humor, complaints and whinges (i.e., indirect complaints or complaints to the wrong person), refusals, and cursing.
• Re cursing, a strategy: taking a co-worker aside and getting briefed on how to curse effectively, something which language teachers usually do not deal with.

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• Example #8: False analogy from previous cross-cultural experiences
• At an InterRent shack near a small airport in Martinique, a French-speaking clerk asked when my driver’s license was issued.
• I promptly told her “February of 2007,” reading the date of issue from my Minneapolis driver’s license.
• The perplexed clerk exclaimed: “I can’t rent you a car since the driver must have at least a year’s experience driving before renting a car.”
• The meaning of the question: the month/day/year when I was issued my first driver’s license.
• No real strategy other than the Peace

Corps mottos from 1965: “Expect the un-

expected” and “Be flexible.”

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Producing Pragmatically Comprehensible Output

• What strategies might help you produce output that is comprehensible pragmatically? 
• Factors possibly leading the nonnatives to pragmatically divergent output (Ishihara & Cohen, 2014), that may lead to pragmatic failure:

(1) negative transfer of pragmatic behavior from your L1 or some other language you know,

(2) limited L2 grammatical ability,

(3) overgeneralization of perceived L2 pragmatic norms,

(4) the effect of instruction or instructional materials,

(5) resistance to using perceived L2 pragmatic norms.

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1. Negative transfer : You transfer the pattern for how you would conduct the interaction in your L1 or another language speech community.

• Unknowingly or because it is all you know how to do.
• One instance: a Korean learner of English responds to an American friend’s compliment about nice looking clothes saying "No, that’s not true” –
• While this is appropriately modest behavior in Korean culture, in U.S. culture this response = rejection of compliment or questioning the friend’s judgment, and could be considered an insult.
• The best strategy would probably be to check with local peers as to the most appropriate ways to respond to a compliment.

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• Another instance: A Japanese student requests that a professor read a paper she wrote by saying, “Professor, please read this MA thesis.”
• It may sound too direct, even though the student said “please,” making the request polite enough in Japanese.
• A useful strategy: to collect data on the pragmatics of how to make polite requests in such situations in that speech community.

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2. Limited L2 grammatical ability: Lack of knowledge of grammatical niceties in a TL may inadvertently lead to producing language that is pragmatically gauche.

• A beginning ESL learner to a repair-shop clerk re an appliance in disrepair, “You must fix this” because he hasn’t learned to be more indirect (e.g., “I was wondering how soon you might be able to repair this for me.”).
• Such a request (interpreted as an order) may, in fact, annoy the clerk.
• Again, an appropriate strategy would be to get models for appropriate ways to phrase such a service-encounter request.

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3. Overgeneralization of L2 norms: Pragmatic norms acceptable in one situation generalized to another situation.

• One instance: A Korean learner of American English perceives Americans as direct and frank – reinforced by an instance when the American male passenger next to him on a flight shares intimacies.
• The Korean is surprised when the fellow passenger is put off by a question as to his monthly salary.
• While the Korean would not ask that question in his home culture, he just assumed that American frankness in discussing intimacies would carry over to other topics as well.
• A pragmatics strategy here would be to gather information about delicate topics for conversation in a given speech community, especially with casual acquaintances or strangers .

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• A second instance: Seeing Italians “talking” with their hands, an American makes an effort to use a lot of hand gestures to make his points in Italian while studying in Rome.
• An Italian friend tells him that he is gesturing too much, and that some of the gestures are pragmatically off.
• Just as in the section on comprehension of pragmatics, it would be strategic to have natives explain the meaning of some non-transparent gestures for the target language in that speech community (see Gregersen &. MacIntyre, 2017).

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• A third instance: American study-abroaders to Barcelona assume that their hosts are more formal in requests in Spanish. Consequently, they ask for a glass of water politely – the equivalent of “Would you be able to give me a glass of water, please.”
• Their style is seen as overly formal – their hosts would just say the equivalent of “Water, please” or “Give me a glass of water, please.”
• This kind of situation can be avoided by checking out the pragmatics of how to be appropriate in terms of the pragmalinguistics (functional language forms). It is not enough just to learn the conditional forms of the verb in Spanish – it is crucial to know when and how to use them.

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• A fourth instance: An English-speaking Japanese learner eating dinner at the apartment of a close Japanese friend when offered more food.
• The learner knows an expression, Iie, kekkoudesu, ‘No thanks’ and so uses it.
• She is unaware that this expression is usually used in formal situations and sounds funny or awkward if used with a close friend.
• Especially when learning languages where formality plays an important role, check out the formality of expressions. Don’t assume that one expression will work in all situations, as is often the case with English.
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4. The effect of instruction or instructional materials: You might also be led to pragmatic failure as a result of somewhat misleading information that you receive either from the teacher or from the course materials.

• One instance: An ESL textbook has a dialogue with a friend giving the precise reason for why he cannot attend a party (e.g., he has expensive, non-refundable tickets to an important sports event), so the learner uses this strategy.
• He finds that in the particular instance (say, an important work-related party) it may be interpreted as an unacceptable excuse.
• So strategizing would need to include checking out the possible exceptions to that pragmatics rule about being relatively honest and explicit in refusals.

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• Another instance: An American learner of Japanese may be taught in class to fill a pause with eeto (more informal) or ano (more formal), and so she fills as many pauses as she can that way.
• Her native-speaking interlocutor is annoyed by this overuse of filled pauses and eventually tells the learner that she is doing it too much – that natives prefer to use silence or non-verbal cues more.
• Whereas in part this is overgeneralization, it originates from instruction regarding the filling of pauses.
• The teacher neglected to point out that in Japanese silence is favored more than in English.
• This filled-pause example is a perfect case where some data gathering could play a strategic role in helping you to avoid speech behavior that annoys native speakers of the language.

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5. Resistance to using perceived L2 pragmatic norms: An intentional desire not to abide by the speech community’s norms in the given instance, despite having full knowledge of what is expected – which sets this category off from the other four.

• One instance: An English-speaking Indonesian learner hears native speakers use the equivalent of “Did you eat yet?” as a regular greeting, but avoids using it herself because it doesn’t seem like a greeting to her.
• While choosing to opt out of conforming to the pragmatic norms is every learner’s prerogative, a strategic approach to the matter of conformity would be to find out what the repercussions for doing so are.

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• Another instance: An American learner of Japanese has learned the honorific verbs that are required when speaking to or about people of higher status – even if these people are not present at the time.
• So the learner asks a fellow student if a revered senior professor has eaten yet using the non-honorific tabemashitika, instead of using the expected honorific verb, meshiagarimashitika (even though the professor isn’t present).
• The learner resists using the honorific verb out of a feeling that this is excessive and illogical.
• While choosing to opt out of conforming to the pragmatic norms is your prerogative, a strategic approach to the matter of conformity would be to find out what the repercussions for doing so are.

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When does a message actually lead to pragmatic failure?

• Native speakers may go the extra distance to comprehend you, even if what you say constitutes a major goof in L2 pragmatics.
• Native speakers can cut you slack or lower the boom, even if your intended message is understood.
• Nonetheless, a perceived breach of pragmatic etiquette may itself be enough to result in pragmatic failure.

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• E.g., several years ago while I was a visiting professor in New Zealand, a Japanese student who had recently graduated from the department came to my office, put her MA thesis on my desk, and said, “Dr. Cohen, please read this MA thesis,” an example of negative transfer mentioned above.
• I hesitated for a moment but then had a visceral reaction and responded, “No, I won’t. I’m on sabbatical here and they don’t pay me to do this. Sorry.”
• I did take a glance at it but no more than that. Had she said, “Dr. Cohen – I was wondering if you might just take a look at my MA thesis and let me know what you think of …,” I may very well have read through it.

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Strategies for Negotiating Meaning and Making Conversational Repairs

• Some of us are better at getting the L2 pragmatics right than are others.
• Not only is it beneficial to be strategic in learning and in performing L2 pragmatics – ensuring that both comprehension and production of language are pragmatically appropriate for the given situation.
• It is also important to deploy strategies for evaluating metapragmatically how well you did on in a interaction (see Cohen, 2005). The following are two examples of metapragmatic strategies:

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• You could include an alerter before a delicate speech act so that the addressee will be lenient in interpreting the intent of the message:
• “Hi, George. I want to make apology but not so sure it is OK. I try now…”
• You could check to make sure that you interpreted a message correctly (such as a request from a co-worker that is delivered in an indirect, even oblique fashion):
• “So let me see if I understand your request, George. You want me to speak to the boss on your behalf?”

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• Individual differences in learners: learning styles, language strategy repertoires, and motivation for language learning (see Cohen & Weaver, 2006):
• What works for some L2 learners in terms of gaining pragmatic awareness and enhanced pragmatic performance may not work for others.
• Some learners benefit from observation of native behavior without much interaction.
• Others may prefer to start interacting from the beginning.

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CONCLUSION

• The purpose for this exploration: to take a strategies-based look at both the input and output sides of comprehensibility in L2 pragmatics.
• The intention: to provide some ideas for what needs to be done to better deal with the issues of comprehensibility in the pragmatics arena so as to enhance our performance in L2 pragmatics.
• For more on the handling of pragmatics by nonnative speakers/teachers, see Cohen (2018).

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References

Cohen, A. D. (2005). Strategies for learning and performing L2 speech acts. Intercultural Pragmatics, 2(3), 275-301.

Cohen, A. D. (2018). Learning pragmatics from native and nonnative language teachers. Bristol, England: Multilingual Matters

Cohen, A. D. & Shively, R. L.(2007). Acquisition of requests and apologies in Spanish and French: Impact of study abroad and strategy-building intervention. Modern Language Journal, 91(2), 189-212.

 Cohen, A. D. & Weaver, S. J. (2006). Styles and strategies-based instruction: A teachers’ guide. Minneapolis, MN: Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition, University of Minnesota.

 Daly, N., Holmes, J., Newton, J., & Stubbe, M. (2004). Expletives as solidarity signals in FTAs on the factory floor. Journal of Pragmatics, 36(5), 945-964.

Félix-Brasdefer, C. (2006). Teaching the negotiation of multi-turn speech acts: Using conversation-analytic tools to teach pragmatics in the FL classroom. In Bardovi-Harlig, K., C. Félix-Brasdefer & A. Omar (eds.) (2006). Pragmatics and language learning (pp. 167-197). Vol. 11. Honolulu, HI: National Foreign Language Resource Center, University of Hawai’i at Manoa.

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Gregersen, T., & MacIntyre, P. D. (2017). Optimizing language

learners' nonverbal behavior: From tenet to technique. Bristol,� UK: Multilingual Matters.

Ishihara, N. & Cohe, A. D. (2014). Teaching and learning

pragmatics: Where language and culture meet. Abingdon,

England: Routledge.

Yule, G. (1996). Pragmatics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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