%0 Journal Article
%T THE EFFECT OF TEXTBOOKS ON ELT TRAINEESĄ¯ USE OF PRAGMALINGUISTIC FEATURES
%A Esim G¨šRSOY
%J Novitas-ROYAL
%D 2011
%I Novitas-ROYAL
%X As the aims for learning foreign languages change in consequence of globalization, the need for teaching and learning native-like conventions of everyday speech gains importance. However, whether the textbooks used for language teaching provide such information is questionable. LearnersĄ¯ pragmatic knowledge and competence is framed mostly by the information presented in the textbooks. As future foreign language teachers, traineesĄ¯ use of daily conventions is significant to foresee their tendency to use them in their future occupations. Thus, the current study aims to investigate one of the features of language competence by focusing on the politeness strategies when making requests. In the present study 68 freshmen ELT students were inquired about their politeness strategies. A questionnaire, designed as a discourse completion task, was given to 58 trainees to which they were asked to write an appropriate request to the given 12 situations. The rest of the trainees (10) completed the discourse orally on the same situations during an interview. Eight of the twelve situations were designed according to the Power (P), Social Distance (D), and Rank of Imposition (R) as described by Brown and Levinson (1987). The other four situations were designed to see the effects of contextual factors on usersĄ¯ linguistic preferences. The research results indicate that although the majority of the participants use language forms, appropriately, these are very limited to the information provided in the textbooks and that there are similarities between oral and written responses. Moreover, the results indicate that the participants are not aware of the ways to reduce Face Threatening Acts.
%K Politeness strategies
%K requests
%K pragmatic awareness
%K foreign language learning
%U http://www.novitasroyal.org/Vol_5_2/GursoyE.pdf