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Discourse and the Non-Native English Speaker

2009
Discourse and the Non-Native English Speaker

Author: Michael Cribb

Publisher: Cambria Press

ISBN: 9781604976571

Category: Education

Page: 356

View: 945

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The main thesis of the book is that the construction of extended discourse carries with it an additional burden for the speaker, namely the need to package information without support from the interlocutor in such a way as to make a coherent interpretation possible. For the mother-tongue speaker, the management of this packaging is of second nature, but for the non-native, the removal of collaborative support from the interlocutor in the form of back-channels and negotiation of meaning leads to miscues at the discourse level which impinge on coherence. As these miscues accumulate and interact with each other, the coherence of the discourse is diminished even further and in extreme cases a complete breakdown in communication can be observed. Two key areas where these miscues materialize are in the semantic consistency and pragmatic relevance of the utterances as each one is added to the common ground. Semantic consistency refers to the need to maintain the internal specificity of utterances and the external consistency across utterances, while pragmatic relevance refers to the need to make contributions which are well-contextualized and relevant to the on-going discourse. The book is both a textual and evaluative approach to studying discourse. It contains copious examples of transcribed non-native discourse with commentaries that indicate where miscues arise and how these lead to a lack of coherence. The book also describes in detail a manipulation experiment which looks at the effect of repairing discourse on the perceived coherence, thus evaluating the psycholinguistic reality of the identified miscues. The book also considers the relationship of fluency to coherence and how disfluent performance can impinge on perceived coherence.

Discourse Markers in Native and Non-native English Discourse

2005-01-01
Discourse Markers in Native and Non-native English Discourse

Author: Simone Müller

Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing

ISBN: 9027253811

Category: Language Arts & Disciplines

Page: 320

View: 124

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While discourse markers have been examined in some detail, little is known about their usage by non-native speakers. This book provides valuable insights into the functions of four discourse markers (so, well, you know and like) in native and non-native English discourse, adding to both discourse marker literature and to studies in the pragmatics of learner language. It presents a thorough analysis on the basis of a substantial parallel corpus of spoken language. In this corpus, American students who are native speakers of English and German non-native speakers of English retell and discuss a silent movie. Each of the main chapters of the book is dedicated to one discourse marker, giving a detailed analysis of the functions this discourse marker fulfills in the corpus and a quantitative comparison between the two speaker groups. The book also develops a two-level model of discourse marker functions comprising a textual and an interactional level.

Discourse Across Languages and Cultures

2004-08-31
Discourse Across Languages and Cultures

Author: Carol Lynn Moder

Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing

ISBN: 9789027295262

Category: Language Arts & Disciplines

Page: 366

View: 483

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This volume brings together for the first time research by linguists working in cross-linguistic discourse analysis and by second language researchers working in the contrastive rhetoric tradition. The collection of articles by prominent authors and younger scholars encompasses a variety of research approaches and treats numerous naturally-occurring spoken and written genres, including conversations, narratives, academic expository writing, journalism, advertising, and professional promotional texts. Languages examined include English, Spanish, French, Brazilian Portuguese, Korean, Japanese, Chinese, Hebrew, Urdu, Dutch, Turkish and Serbo-Croatian. Taken individually and collectively, the articles in this collection draw important conclusions concerning the roles of cognition, multilingualism, communities of practice, and linguistic typology in shaping discourse within and across cultures.

Discourse markers in non-native English

2010-02-05
Discourse markers in non-native English

Author: Uwe Mehlbaum

Publisher: GRIN Verlag

ISBN: 9783640528899

Category: Literary Collections

Page: 39

View: 198

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Bachelor Thesis from the year 2008 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Linguistics, grade: 2,0, University of Bayreuth (Lehrstuhl für Englische Sprachwissenschaft), language: English, abstract: Discourse Marker is a term which is relatively hard to define. A simplified way is to say that it refers to words or phrases which are usually used to structure sequences of a speech or a written text. Examples of Discourse Markers include expressions like actually, you know, well or OK. Discourse Markers are lexemes which could often simply be left out, without changing the semantic function of a sentence, because they usually don’t contribute to the sentence’s truth-condition or the propositional content. However, they often have other important functions. Apart from being used in order to organise and structure a speech, they often indicate some aspects of attitude (Renkema 2004:169) and the relation between different utterances. Discourse Markers appear very frequently in speeches (usually every few seconds); in written texts they are very frequent as well, though usually not as frequent as in verbal speech. Discourse Markers can also give information about social dimensions, group identity and relations between communicating people (Aijmer 2002:14). Although this definition is by far not entirely comprehensive, it should serve for the moment in order to clarify the subject of this paper. This paper is going to explain the term Discourse Markers in some detail and then analyse the use of Discourse Markers by speakers of non native English, namely members of University Parliamentary Debating competitions (a close definition will follow in chapter 2), who are from the countries Germany, the Netherlands, Czech Republic, Turkey and Malaysia. It will be analysed and explored how often Discourse Markers occur in the speeches of different speakers and what exactly the different Discourse Markers are used for.

Us and Others

2002
Us and Others

Author: Anna Duszak

Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing

ISBN: 1588112055

Category: Social Science

Page: 538

View: 396

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A look at the various cognitive, social, and linguistic aspects of how social identities are constructed, forgrounded and redefined in interaction. Concepts and methodologies are taken from studies in language variation and change, multilingualism, conversation analysis, genre analysis, sociolinguistics, critical discourse analysis, as well as translation studies and applied linguistics.

Japanese Communication

1997-06-01
Japanese Communication

Author: Senko K. Maynard

Publisher: University of Hawaii Press

ISBN: 0824818784

Category: Foreign Language Study

Page: 274

View: 584

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In an accessible and original study of the Japanese language in relation to Japanese society and culture, Senko Maynard characterizes the ways of communicating in Japanese and explores Japanese language-associated modes of thinking and feeling. Japanese Communication: Language and Thought in Context opens with a comparison of basic American and Japanese values via cultural icons--the cowboy and the samurai--before leading the reader to the key concept in her study: rationality. Writing for those who have a basic knowledge of Japanese language and culture, Maynard examines topics such as masculine and feminine speech, swearing, expressions of ridicule and conflict, adverbs of emotional attitude and the eloquence of silence. Maynard provides a refreshing and entertaining perspective for interpreting contemporary Japan, sometimes in contrast to the United States.

Intercultural Communication

2010
Intercultural Communication

Author: Adrian Holliday

Publisher: Routledge

ISBN: 9780415489416

Category: Language Arts & Disciplines

Page: 362

View: 710

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'Intercultural Communication' introduces the key theories of intercultural communication and explores ways in which people communicate within and across social groups.

Reclaiming the Local in Language Policy and Practice

2005-01-15
Reclaiming the Local in Language Policy and Practice

Author: A. Suresh Canagarajah

Publisher: Routledge

ISBN: 9781135623517

Category: Education

Page: 328

View: 290

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This volume inserts the place of the local in theorizing about language policies and practices in applied linguistics. While the effects of globalization around the world are being discussed in such diverse circles as corporations, law firms, and education, and while the spread of English has come to largely benefit those in positions of power, relatively little has been said about the impact of globalization at the local level, directly or indirectly. Reclaiming the Local in Language Policy and Practice is unique in focusing specifically on the outcomes of globalization in and among the communities affected by these changes. The authors make a case for why it is important for local social practices, communicative conventions, linguistic realities, and knowledge paradigms to actively inform language policies and practices for classrooms and communities in specific contexts, and to critically inform those pertaining to other communities. Engaging with the dominant paradigms in the discipline of applied linguistics, the chapters include research relating to second language acquisition, sociolinguistics, literacy, and language planning. The majority of chapters are case studies of specific contexts and communities, focused on situations of language teaching. Beyond their local contexts these studies are important for initiating discussion of their relevance for other, different communities and contexts. Taken together, the chapters in this book approach the task of reclaiming and making space for the local by means of negotiating with the present and the global. They illuminate the paradox that the local contains complex values of diversity, multilingualism, and plurality that can help to reconceive the multilingual society and education for postmodern times.

Receptive Multilingualism

2007-06-05
Receptive Multilingualism

Author: Jan D. ten Thije

Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing

ISBN: 9789027292476

Category: Language Arts & Disciplines

Page: 328

View: 167

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Receptive multilingualism refers to the language constellation in which interlocutors use their respective mother tongue while speaking to each other. Since the mid-nineties receptive multilingualism is promoted by the European commission on par with other possibilities of increasing the mobility of the European citizens. Throughout the last ten years a marked increase in the research on this topic has been observable. This volume reveals new perspectives from different theoretical frameworks on linguistic analyses of receptive multilingualism in Europe. Case studies are presented from contemporary settings, along with analyses of historical examples, theoretical considerations and, finally, descriptions of didactical concepts established in order to transfer and disseminate receptive multilingual competence. The book contains results from research carried out at the Research Center on Multilingualism at the University of Hamburg as well as contributions by various international scholars working in the field of receptive multilingualism.

Non-native English-speaking Engineers’ Writing at the Workplace

2019-12-10
Non-native English-speaking Engineers’ Writing at the Workplace

Author: Juan Du

Publisher: Springer Nature

ISBN: 9789811519833

Category: Language Arts & Disciplines

Page: 92

View: 865

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Based on 55 semi-structured in-depth interviews, this book investigates 15 high-tech engineering co-op professionals’ writing experience in the workplace. It shows how the digital age has had a marked impact on the engineers’ methods of communication at work, and how on-the -job writing has affected engineers’ technical competence, shaped their professional identities, challenged their views on Chinese and English writing, and hindered their success in the workplace. The book identifies three aspects of writing practice: engineers’ linguistic and literacy challenges, the reasons behind these challenges, and coping strategies, which suggest that engineers are underprepared and lack necessary support in the workplace. Lastly, the study shows that engineers need to engage in technical literacy through on-the-job writing so that they can fully deal with workplace discourse and socialize with diverse professional groups. Since the sample group interviewed in this book is engineers who studied at universities in the United States and have a foot in the world of school and work as well as knowledge of both Eastern and Western cultures, the book appeals to teachers, students, engineers and scientists who are interested in scientific and technological writing. It is also valuable for educators who prepare scientists, engineers, and technical communicators for professional roles, as well as for communication practitioners who work with engineers. /div

English as a Lingua Franca

2014-04-08
English as a Lingua Franca

Author: Stefania Taviano

Publisher: Routledge

ISBN: 9781317641025

Category: Language Arts & Disciplines

Page: 172

View: 758

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The study of English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) has grown considerably in the last decades, and a wide number of issues related to this field have been addressed through a variety of lenses. These range from the changes occurring in spoken English, to the much-debated notion of the native-speaker; from the threat that English represents for minority languages, to the metadiscourse(s) contributing to the myth of English as a language equally accessible to speakers of all nationalities. Adopting different perspectives and positions, the articles in this special issue of The Interpreter and Translator Trainer all demonstrate that ELF poses many challenges to the teaching of translation and that, while there are no simple and ready-made solutions, such challenges need to be taken on board to fill the current gap between translation pedagogy and translation practice. The volume is intended as a starting point to encourage educators to rethink their approach to translation pedagogy by envisaging tools and practices that can contribute to preparing students to become professional translators of ELF and reflective practitioners who are aware of the centrality of translation in the digital age.