第十届全国语用学研讨会大会主题发言摘要

By Prof. Gabriele Kasper
University of Hawai'i at Manoa

Pragmatics made its entrance to second language research thirty years ago, mainly under the influence of curricular interests in teaching and testing language for communication and sociolinguistic concerns with intercultural discourse. A few notable precursors in the 1980s aside, studies of how L2 pragmatics is learned first started to slowly gain momentum in the 1990s (Bardovi-Harlig, 1999; Kasper & Rose, 2002; Kasper & Schmidt, 1996). In the same period, metatheoretical debates from across the social sciences made their way into SLA, where they introduced new ontological and epistemological perspectives to the discipline (Zuengler & Miller, 2006). Several of these perspectives have influenced research on L2 pragmatic development as well.

      The most prevalent theoretical and methodological orientations in developmental L2 pragmatics come from cognitive and cultural-historical psychology (socio-cultural theory, SCT), linguistic anthropology (language socialization), and sociology (conversation analysis). Although cognitive psychology and SCT share their interest in the development of mind and language, their ontological outlook contrasts markedly and aligns SCT more with language socialization and conversation analysis. Cognitive-psychological theories conceptualize second language learning as the operation of internal cognitive processes, located in the individual learner’s mind, and operating on externally available data as well as internal knowledge stores to establish new L2 knowledge. To the extent that social context is accorded a role in L2 acquisition, it is typically conceptualized as a constellation of learner-external factors that may influence learner-internal learning processes and outcomes. In contrast to theories that share the view of SLA as individual cognition, SCT, language socialization, and conversation analysis propose (or are compatible with) L2 learning as a socially constituted - not merely socially influenced - inter-individual process, situated in and intertwined with social activities. 

      Recent comprehensive reviews of L2 pragmatic learning (Bardovi-Harlig, 2001; Kasper & Roever, 2005; Kasper & Rose, 2002) have covered such topics as the relationship between L2 grammar and pragmatics (Bardovi-Harlig, 1999; Niezgoda & R鰒er, 2001; Schauer, 2006), developmental trajectories (Achiba, 2003; Barron, 2003), social-affective factors (Takahashi, 2005), and the influence of the learning environment, including pragmatic learning during study abroad (Barron, 2003; DuFon & Churchill, 2006), in institutional settings outside of classrooms (Bardovi-Harlig & Hartford, 2005) and under formal instruction (Alcón & Martínez Flor, 2005; Jeon & Kaya, 2006; Rose, 2005; Rose & Kasper, 2001). With the exception of two influential studies by Schmidt (1983; Schmidt & Frota, 1986), the earlier research in particular was largely descriptive rather than theory-guided, charting the development of a pragmatic object longitudinally or inferring developmental paths from cross-sectional data (Kasper & Rose, 2002). While the learning object was often explicitly conceptualized according to speech act theory (predominantly Searle, 1969, 1976) or politeness theory (Brown & Levinson, 1987), the learning process remained untheorized for the most part, or theoretical explanations of the research findings were offered post-hoc rather than motivating or guiding the study from the outset. In my talk, I will discuss research on developmental interlanguage pragmatics conducted explicitly under one (or more) of the theoretical perspectives introduced earlier: theories of cognitive processing, sociocultural theory, language socialization, and conversation analysis.