International Journal of Language and Translation Research

Textual Pragmatic Markers in the Speech of Jordanian University Students...

Document Type : Original Article

Author

English Department, Isra Unversity, Hyderabad, Pakistan

Abstract

This study aimed at investigating the use of textual English pragmatic markers (PMs) as used by Jordanian university students by adopting a functional-pragmatic approach to explore the functions of these PMs. It also examined the effect of gender on the use of textual PMs. Participants were 10 fourth-year university students (5 males and 5 females) who studied Translation at Isra Private University. Online interviews, storytelling activities, and a short questionnaire were used to elicit data from the participants. The data were analyzed qualitatively and quantitatively in light of the study’s research questions.  The study revealed that the functions of textual markers are: marking contrast, elaborating, reformulating and exemplifying, showing temporal sequence, indicating inferential or conclusive relationships and summaries, signaling shifts or transition of discourse and continuation of discourse, and signaling the opening or closing of opening or closing of discourse. In relation to the use of textual PMs, the results showed that there were no significant differences between males and females.

Keywords

Article Title [Persian]

نشانگرهای کاربردی متنی در گفتار دانشجویان دانشگاه اردن: رویکردی کاربردی-عملی

Abstract [Persian]

این مطالعه با هدف بررسی استفاده از نشانگرهای کاربردی متنی انگلیسی (PMs) که توسط دانشجویان دانشگاه اردن استفاده می‌شود با اتخاذ یک رویکرد کاربردی-عملی برای کشف عملکرد این PMs انجام شد. همچنین تأثیر جنسیت بر استفاده از PM های متنی را بررسی کرد. شرکت کنندگان 10 دانشجوی سال چهارم (5 پسر و 5 زن) بودند که در دانشگاه خصوصی اسرا در رشته مترجمی تحصیل کردند. مصاحبه های آنلاین، فعالیت های داستان سرایی و یک پرسشنامه کوتاه برای استخراج داده ها از شرکت کنندگان استفاده شد. داده ها با توجه به سؤالات تحقیق به صورت کیفی و کمی مورد تجزیه و تحلیل قرار گرفت. این مطالعه نشان داد که کارکردهای نشانگرهای متنی عبارتند از: نشانه‌گذاری تضاد، توضیح دادن، دوباره‌سازی و مثال زدن، نشان دادن توالی زمانی، نشان دادن روابط و خلاصه‌های استنتاجی یا قطعی، سیگنال‌دهی تغییر یا انتقال گفتمان و ادامه گفتمان، و علامت دادن به باز یا بسته شدن باز یا بسته شدن گفتمان در رابطه با استفاده از PM های متنی، نتایج نشان داد که بین زن و مرد تفاوت معناداری وجود ندارد.
 

Keywords [Persian]

  • انطباق زبانی
  • کارکرد عملی
  • نشانگرهای عمل‌گرا
  • نظریه ارتباط
  • نشانگر متنی
Aijmer, K. (1996). Conversational Routines in English, Convention and Creativity. London, Longman.
Aijmer, K. (2002). English Discourse Particles. Evidence from a Corpus. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, John Benjamins.
Aijmer, K. (2004). Pragmatic markers in spoken interlanguage. Nordic Journal of English Studies, 3(1), 173-190.
Al-Makoshi, M. (2014). Discourse markers and code-switching: academic medical lectures in Saudi Arabia using English as the medium of instruction. Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation, University of Birmingham.
Ament, J. R. (2018). Textual and interpersonal pragmatic markers in full- and semi-English medium instruction: Their acquisition and the impact of learners' motivational profiles. Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona. https://www. Semanticscholar.org/paper/Textual-and-interpersonal-pragmatic-markers-in full-Ament /de9a3b 996d8164c69b5aa9ddafa8e2be66cfae
Ament, J. R., Pérez-Vidal, C., & Barón, J. (2018). The effects of English-medium instruction on the use of textual and interpersonal pragmatic markers. Pragmatics, 28(4):517-546.
Ament, J. R., &Barón, J. (2018). The acquisition of discourse markers in the English-medium instruction context. In C. Pérez-Vidal, S. López-Serrano, J. R. Ament, & D. Thomas-Wilhelm (Eds.), Learning context effects: study abroad, formal instruction, and international immersion classrooms (Euro SLA Studies, pp. 41–72). Berlin: Language Science Press.
Ament, J. R., & Pérez-Vidal, C. (2015). Linguistic Outcomes of English Medium Instruction Programmes in Higher Education: A study on Economics Undergraduates at a Catalan University. Higher Learning Research Communications, 5(51), 47–67. https:// doi.org/10 .18870/hlrc.v5i1.239
Andersen, G. (2001). Pragmatic Markers and Sociolinguistic Variation. Philadelphia, NL: John Benjamins Publishing Company.
Bazzanella, CandMorra, L. (2002). Discourse markers and the indeterminacy of translation. In IørnKorzen& Caria Marello (eds.), Argomenti per unalinguistica dellatraduzione, On linguistic aspects of translation, Notes pour unelinguistique de la traduction. Alessandria: Edizioni dell’ Orso. 149-157.
Blakemore, D. (1992). Understanding utterances: an introduction to pragmatics. Oxford: Black well Publishing Ltd.
Brinton, L. J. (1996). Pragmatic markers in English. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Blakemore, D. (2002). Relevance and Linguistic Meaning: The Semantics and Pragmatics of Discourse Markers. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
Blakemore, D. (1987). Semantic Constraints on Relevance. Oxford, Blackwell.
Blakemore, D. (1998). On the context for so-called discourse markers. In Williams, J.& Malmkjaer, K. (eds) Context in language understanding and language learning. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, pp. 44–60.
Blakemore, D. (1992). Understanding Utterances: An Introduction to Pragmatics. Oxford: Blackwell.
Brinton, L. J. (1996). Pragmatic markers in English. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Bazzanella, C. (1990). Phatic connectives as interactional cues in contemporary spoken Italian. Journal of Pragmatics 14: 629-647.
Blakemore, D., (1987). Semantic Constraints on Relevance. Blackwell, Oxford.
Coates, J. (1986). Women, Men and Language: A Sociolinguistic Account of Gender Difference. London and New York: Longman.
Coates, J. (1988). Gossip revisited: Language in all-female groups. In Jennifer Coates and Deborah Cameron (eds.) Women in their Speech Communities. London: Longman. 110-131.
Crystal, D. and Davy, D. (1975). Advanced Conversational English. Longman, London.
Dyson, A. H., & Genishi, C. (1994). The need for story: cultural diversity in classroom and community. Urbana, Ill, National Council of Teachers of English.
Erman, B. (1992). Female and male usage of pragmatic expressions in same-sex and mixed-sex interaction. Language Variation and Change 4: 217-234.
Escalera, E. A. (2009). Gender differences in children's use of discourse markers: Separate worlds or different contexts? Journal of Pragmatics, 41(12), 2479–2495. http s://doi.or g/10.10 16/j.pragma.2006.08.013
Feng, G. (2010). A Theory of Conventional Implicature and Pragmatic Markers in Chinese. BRILL.
Ferrara, K. & Bell, B. (1995). Sociolinguistic variation and discourse function of constructed dialogue introducers: The case of be+like. American Speech, 70, 265–290.
Firth, A. (1996). The discursive accomplishment of normality: On “lingua franca” English and conversation analysis. Journal of Pragmatics, 26(2), 237–259.
Fischer, K. (2006). Approaches to Discourse Particles. Amsterdam: Elsevier Ltd
Fishman, P. (1983). Interaction: The work women do. In Barrie Thorne, Cheris Kramarae and Nancy Henley (eds.) Language, Gender and Society. Rowley, Massachu- setts: Newbury House. 89±101.
Flowerdew, J., & Tauroza, S. (1995). The effect of discourse markers on second language comprehension. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 17, 435–458.
Fraser, B. (1999). 'What are discourse markers? 'Journal of Pragmatics, (31), 931-52
Fraser, B. (1988). Types of English discourse markers, Acta Linguistica Hungarica, 38 (1-4), 19-33.
Fraser, B. (2006). Towards a Theory of Discourse Markers. In: Kerstin Fischer (ed) Approaches to Discourse Particles. Amsterdam, Elsevier. 189–204.
Fraser, B. (1996). Pragmatic markers. Pragmatics, 6(2), 167–190.
Freed, A and Greenwood. A. (1996). Women, men and type of talk: What makes the difference? Language in Society 25: 1-26.
Fung, L., & Carter, R. (2007). Discourse markers and spoken English: Native and learner use in pedagogic settings. Applied Linguistics, 28(3), 410–439. https://do i.org/10.10 93/ applin /amm0 30
Goldbergju, L. (1980). Discourse particles: An analysis of the role of 'y'know', 'I mean', 'well', and 'actually' in conversation. Unpublished PhD thesis. Cambridge University.
Halliday, M. A. K., & Hasan, R. (1976). Cohesion in English (2013th ed.). London and New York: Routledge.
Han, D. (2011). Utterance production and interpretation: A discourse-pragmatic study on pragmatic markers in English public speeches. Journal of Pragmatics, 43(2011) 2776–2794.
Holmes, J. (1986). Functions of you know in women's and men's speech. Language in Society 15: 1-22.
House, J. (2003). Teaching and learning pragmatic fluency in a foreign language: the case English as a lingua franca. In A. Martínez-Flor, E. Usó Juan, & A.
Hsu, Y. (2010). The influence of English Storytelling on the Oral language complexity of EFL primary students. (Unpublished master’s thesis). National Yunlin University of Science & Technology, Yunlin.
Jung, E. (2003). The role of discourse signaling cues in second language listening comprehension. The Modern Language Journal, 87, 562–576.
Kurdi, H. (2008). The Use of Discourse Markers by Syrian Arabic Learners of English. Unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Manchester.
Labov, W. (1972). Language in the inner city: Studies in the Black English vernacular. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania.
Leech, G., & Svartvik, J. (1975). A communicative grammar of English. London/New York: Routledge.
Lenk, U. (1998). Discourse markers and global coherence in conversations, Journal of Pragmatics, 30(2), pp.245–257.
Liu, M., & Jackson, J. (2008). An exploration of Chinese EFL learners’ unwillingness to communicate and foreign language anxiety. The Modern Language Journal, 92(1), 71–86.
Martínez-Flor, A.M., Fernández-Guerra, A.F., Usó-Juan, E.U. (Eds.) (2003). Pragmatic competence and foreign language teaching. Castellón de la Plana: Publicacions de la Universitat Jaume.
Meng, K. & Schrabback, D. (1999). Interjections in adult-child discourse: the cases of German hm and na. Journal of pragmatics, 31. 1263-1287.
Montes, Rosa Graciela. (1999). The development of discourse markers in Spanish: interjections. Journal of Pragmatics, 31. 1289-1319.
Müller, S. (2005). Discourse Markers in Native and Non-native English Discourse. Amsterdam, John Benjamins.
Mc Drury, J. and Alterio, M. (2003). Learning Through Storytelling in Higher Education. London: KoganPage. Oxford University website: https://www.ox.ac.uk/about/organisation
Neary-Sundquist, C. (2013). Task Type Effects on Pragmatic Marker Use by Learners at Varying Proficiency Levels. L2 Journal, 5(2), 1–21. Retrieved from .http:// eschola rship.org/ uc/item/9bm489h8
Nordenstam, K. (1992), Tag questions and gender in Swedish conversations. Working Papers on Language, Gender and Sexism, 2: 75-86.
Östman, J. O. (1981). 'You Know': A discourse-functional study. Amsterdam, John Benjamins.
Östman, J. O. (1982). The symbiotic relationship between pragmatic particles and impromptu speech. In Enkvist, N. (ed), Impromptu Speech: A symposium, pp.147–177. Abe, Abe Akademi.
Östman, J.-O. (1995). Pragmatic particles twenty years after. In Organization in Discourse (pp. 95–108). Turku: University of Turku.
Redeker, G. (1990). Ideational and pragmatic markers of discourse structure. Journal of Pragmatics, 14(3), 367–381. https://doi.org/10.1016/0378-2166(90)90095-U.
Redeker, G. (1991). Linguistic markers of discourse structure. Linguistics, 29, 1139–1172.
Riekkinen, N. (2009). ‘This is not criticism, but…’ softening criticism: The use of lexical hedges in academic spoken interaction. Unpublished master’s thesis. University of Helsinki, Finland.
Romero-Trillo, J. (2002). The pragmatic fossilization of discourse markers in non-native speakers of English. Journal of Pragmatics, 34(6), 769–784.
Rouchota, V. (1996). Discourse conectives: what do they link? UCL Working Papers in Linguistics, 8(199–214).
Sacks, H., Schegloff, Emanuel A., Jefferson, G. (1974). A simplest systematics for the organization of turn-taking for conversation. Language, 50(4-1), 696-735.
Shiffrin, D. (1987). Discourse Markers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Smith, K. (2004). Studying in an additional language: What is gained, what is lost and what is assessed? In R. Wilkinson (Ed.), Integrating content and language: Meeting the challenge of a multilingual higher education. (pp. 78–93). Maastricht: Universitaire pers.
Sankoff, G., Thibault, P.; Nagy, N. Blondeau, H. Fonollosa, M. and Gagnon, L. (1997). 'Variation in the use of discourse markers in a language contact situation', Language Variation and Change, (9), pp.191-217.
Smith, J. (1992). Women in charge: Politeness and directiveness in the speech of Japanese women. Language in Society, 21: 59-82.
Stubbe, M. & Holmes, J. (1995). You know, eh and other ‘exasperating expressions’: an analysis of social and stylistic variation in the use of pragmatic devices in a sample of New Zealand English. Language and Communication, 15(1) 63–88.
Sperber, D., Wilson, D.  (1995). Relevance: Communication and Cognition. (2nd ed.) Oxford, Blackwell.
Sperber, D., Wilson, D. (2001). Relevance: Communication and Cognition. Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press, Beijing.
Schiffrin, D. (1987). Discourse Markers. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
Schiffrin, D. (2001). Discourse markers: language, meaning, and context. In Schiffrin, D., Tannen, D. & Hamilton, H. E. (eds) The Handbook of Discourse Analysis. Malden, MA, Blackwell Publishers, pp. 54–75.
Schourup, L. (1985). Common Discourse Particles in English Conversation. New York, Garland.
Schourup, L. (1999). Discourse Markers. Tutorial overview, Lingua, (107), .227-265.
Sperber, D., Wilson, D. (2001). Relevance: Communication and Cognition. Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press, Beijing.
Traugott, E. C. (1989). On the rise of epistemic meaning in English: an example of simplification. Language, 65. 31-55.
Traugott, E. C. (1995). The role of the development of discourse markers in a theory of grammaticalization. ichl XII, Manchester, 1–23.
Verschueren, J. (2000). Notes on the role of metapragmatic awareness in language use. Pragmatics2, 10(4), 439–456.
Verschueren, J., (2000). Understanding Pragmatics. Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press, Beijing. Aijmer, K. (1996) Conversational Routines in English. Convention and Creativity. London, Longman.
Wei, M. (2011). Investigating the oral proficiency of English learners in China: A comparative study of the use of pragmatic markers. Journal of Pragmatics, 43, 3455–3472.
Wilson, D., & Sperber, D. (1993). Linguistic form and relevance. Lingua, 90(1–2), 1–25.
Zienkowski, J., Östman, J., & Verschueren, J. (2011). Discursive Pragmatics: Handbook of Pragmatics Highlights. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. 2011. 307 pp. ISBN: 978-90-272-0785-2.
 
International Journal of Language and Translation Research
Volume 2, Issue 2 - Serial Number 2
ISBN 9783899664812
August 2022
Pages 59-87
  • Receive Date: 18 April 2022
  • Revise Date: 09 June 2022
  • Accept Date: 04 October 2022