{"id":1503,"date":"2011-04-16T22:00:39","date_gmt":"2011-04-16T20:00:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/elanguage.net\/blogs\/booknotices\/?p=1503"},"modified":"2011-03-30T13:42:10","modified_gmt":"2011-03-30T11:42:10","slug":"pragmatic-competence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/?p=1503","title":{"rendered":"Pragmatic competence"},"content":{"rendered":"
Pragmatic competence<\/strong>. Ed. by Naoko Taguchi<\/strong>. (Mouton series in pragmatics 5.) Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 2009. Pp. xxi, 364. ISBN 9783110218541<\/a>. $140 (Hb)<\/div>\n

Reviewed by Reda A. H. Mahmoud<\/strong><\/a>, Minya University, Egypt<\/em><\/p>\n

This illuminating thirteen-chapter volume gives an authoritative stance of current research on pragmatics in second language acquisition of Japanese. A concise forward by Gabriele Kasper<\/strong> reviews the extensive history of Japanese interlanguage pragmatics (ILP) and its contribution to general ILP.<\/p>\n

In the first chapter, Naoko Taguchi<\/strong> sketches the study of Japanese pragmatics and its influence on Japanese pedagogy and curriculum. Developing a framework of pragmalinguistics and sociopragmatics, she introduces empirical studies of the following topics: honorifics, speech style, reactive tokens, sentence-final particles, speech acts of various types, formulaic utterances, and indirect expressions. In Ch. 3, Dina R. Yoshimi<\/strong> surveys the literature on Japanese pragmatics, focusing on theoretical and methodological factors that shape the treatment of Japanese pragmatics in Japanese as a second language (JSL) and Japanese as a foreign language (JFL).<\/p>\n

In the first experimental study in pragmatic competence, Kazuto Ishida<\/strong> investigates the pragmatic development of six beginning level Japanese learners handling the formal\/informal speech-level markers desu<\/em> (nominal\/adjectival copula) and masu<\/em> (auxiliary verb used in verbal ending) in different contexts. Keiko Ikeda<\/strong> conducts a task-situation study to examine qualitatively and quantitatively the use of honorifics in emails and telephone conversations by adult advanced Japanese learners. The learners use various linguistic and non-linguistic resources to project various styles of deference and demeanor in these two tasks.<\/p>\n

Noriko Ishihara<\/strong> and Elaine Tarone<\/strong> explore the link between adult learners\u2019 subjectivity and their pragmatic use in Japanese as a second language (L2) in a case study of how accommodation and resistance reflect on perceived L2 pragmatic norms. Using telephone message and role play tasks as measurements, Yumiko Tateyama<\/strong> focuses on the use of request strategies in teaching to investigate the effect of instruction on the pragmatic competence of learners of JFL. Takafumi Shimizu<\/strong> compares the production of three compliment responses (negative, positive, and avoidance strategies) by American learners as JSL and JFL to explore the influence of the learning context on L2 pragmatic realizations.<\/p>\n

Megumi Kawate-Mierzejewska<\/strong> studies request-refusal sequences in telephone conversations. The study reveals that Japanese and American students pursue different strategies of request and refusal during interactions. Akiko Hagiwara<\/strong> adopts a pragmatic comprehension approach to reveal how first language (L1) and L2 speakers of Japanese comprehend three types of literal and non-literal utterances in order to understand the underlying mechanisms of utterance comprehension. Naoko Taguchi examines three types of indirect meanings of opinion and refusal to see how JFL students of different levels use the knowledge of pragmalinguistic forms and sociolinguistic norms to interpret speakers\u2019 intentions.<\/p>\n

Takafumi Utashiro<\/strong> and Goh Kawai<\/strong> study verbal and non-verbal reactive tokens (RTs) or \u2018back-channeling\u2019 and propose an instructional syllabus of RTs that reflects the levels and order of instructions for learners of Japanese. In her study of native Japanese and American learners of Japanese, Tomomi Kakegawa<\/strong> investigates the use of Japanese sentence-final particles in email correspondence with native speakers. Individual variations in email exchange point to a positive outcome in pragmatic learning. Finally, Junko Mori<\/strong> reviews the development of Japanese ILP and clarifies current controversies in second language acquisition and general applied linguistics research.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pragmatic competence. Ed. by Naoko Taguchi. (Mouton series in pragmatics 5.) Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 2009. Pp. xxi, 364. ISBN 9783110218541. $140 (Hb) Reviewed by Reda A. H. Mahmoud, Minya University, Egypt This illuminating thirteen-chapter volume gives an authoritative stance of current research on pragmatics in second language acquisition of Japanese. A concise forward by […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1503"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1503"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1503\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1504,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1503\/revisions\/1504"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1503"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1503"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1503"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}