Teaching Functionally to Develop Pragmatic Competence

This article looks at the way teaching functions and pragmatic competence in general are treated in contemporary coursebooks and classrooms. Whereas these areas were the main focus of any course in the late 70s and early 80s, looking at the contents page of any contemporary coursebook shows that they are generally downplayed. This article deals with three areas:

a)    why the situation has changed

b)   what the advantages of teaching functionally are

c)    the types of activity that can be used to teach functions and develop pragmatic competence

 

So why has the situation changed?

•     "Purely" functional coursebooks (used largely in the early 1980s) were a reaction to the "purely" structural coursebooks of the previous years, which had produced Ls who had a good receptive knowledge of the language but were unable to apply it to specific situations. They were therefore often aimed at "remedial" learning - showing learners who already knew the language how to apply it in specific social contexts. For example, learners might know the  simple present, the modal could, the adverb possibly and the phrasal verb turn (something) on, but not know how to combine them to make a request such as Do you think you could possibly turn the heating on. I’m really cold.  This is, in general, no longer the situation as language use is now given as much emphasis as structural form in current approaches.

•     "Purely" functional coursebooks were ungraded in terms of level of the exponents used. This again was fine as remedial work for learners who had covered the grammar already, but could cause overload for those who hadn't. For example, a unit on Making Requests might cover exponents such as  Can you… Do you think you could possibly… Would you mind (+Ving) etc all at the same time. They were therefore not suitable for use outside the remedial context.  This caused coursebooks to return to a more traditional graded syllabus of "Grammar McNuggets" (Thornbury) though. As already mentioned, usually now incorporating a focus on use as well as form.

•      Because of other precepts of the Communicative Approach, the influence of Krashen’s “Input Hypothesis” and the effect of the Lexical Approach (Lewis), coursebooks also drifted towards emphasising a skills based, text-based approach where language focus was dependent on the text used. Very often the text and the language it contained had no connection with the type of pragmatic competence mentioned above and again the textbook  just returned to a focus on grammatical form and use.

•     Pragmatic competence thus tended to be "relegated" to the occasional section called something like "Social English" or "English in Use". However, various researchers ( eg Ekin and  Barron) have shown that these sections take up a minimal part of the coursebook, often exclude specific functions and, I would argue, do not meet learners’ pragmatic needs. For example, I have never seen a course book that focuses on the difference caused by stress and the positioning of the word please between Could you XXX please? / Could you PLEASE XXX? and PLEASE could you XXX! 

What are the advantages of teaching functionally?

•      Some language clearly lends itself to a functional lesson format – eg asking for and giving directions exponents like “Go straight on until you come to the traffic lights”. Advantage : If not taught in a functional format, it is unlikely that this language would occur in the course.

•      It is an ideal format for mixed ability classes. A range of exponents for the same function can be presented, but weaker and stronger ls can be encouraged to use those at their own level productively when doing further practice and production activities. For example, in a lesson on polite requests, weak learners may practise Can you/Could you + infinitive, while stronger learners practise Would you mind + Ving. Advantage for the learners : Weaker learners get the advantage of understanding all the exponents receptively without risking confusion by  having to use them while stronger learners are challenged productively;  Advantage for the teacher : The lesson can be differentiated without having to provide different activities - thus saving lesson planning time.

•      It is a useful format when teaching learners who have already followed a general purpose course, but are about to go to an English speaking country for the first time – eg teenagers who are going to attend a summer course in Britain and will be staying with host families. Advantage for the learners : Lessons on functions such as asking for permission, apologising, introducing friends, asking for directions, paying and accepting compliments  etc can give them confidence that they will be able to communicate appropriately while they are there.

•      Some functions, eg polite requests, are extremely complex as they involve decisions relating to appropriacy which – if made incorrectly – can cause offence. These include: the level of directness of the exponents used, knowledge of formulaic replies, the place of the request in an adjacency pair format – whether it can be made directly or needs a pre-sequence, the existence of preferred and dispreferred seconds, how dispreferred seconds need to be expressed etc. This all needs to be taught, as it is culturally determined and may not be the same in the L’s own culture/L1. For example, the polite response to a compliment in Thailand is silence (showing humility) rather than the thanks or downplaying used in English (Oh, it’s just something I picked up at the market…) Advantage : A functional organisation of the lesson is the clearest way of presenting and practising all this.

What types of activity can be used to teach functions and develop pragmatic competence?

•      If the Ls have met a certain number of the exponents before then a Test-Teach-Test format can be used. The learners can be given a situation to roleplay, possibly in the form of a conversation frame, where prompts are given for each utterance in the conversation,  and the teacher can monitor to see which exponents they are using and whether they are using them accurately and appropriately. This gives the T. important information for the Teach stage – s/he can decide whether time needs to be spent correcting, revising and consolidating previously known exponents, or whether the Ls are ready to meet more complex structures.

•       Roleplays may also be used for free practice in the final stage of the TTT sequence or in the Production stage of a PPP sequence. The learners might be asked to repeat the initial roleplay with a different partner, but incorporating the new exponents they have focused on.  

•      If the learners are eg beginners and have never met any exponents of the function before, then a limited number of exponents, suitable for the level, need first to be presented. To do this a recorded dialogue may be used, and after gist comprehension work, a transcript with the exponents highlighted  can be used to provide examples for a language focus stage. A recorded dialogue can also be used if the Ls complete the initial Test stage using exponents they are “comfortable” with. They can then listen to and compare their performance with the language used in a dialogue using more complex exponents, possibly using a gapped transcript. Both the highlighted and gapped transcripts will help promote “noticing” (Schmidt) ensuring the language is processed at a deeper cognitive level than otherwise.

•      Controlled practice activities will be similar to those used for other language systems areas. However, repetition work may be particularly important as the degree of politeness/appropriacy of a functional exponent is often dependent on the stress and intonation pattern used.

•      Other practice activities (or an alternative format for the initial “test” section) might be a What would you say? activity – which is really a series of mini roleplays. Eg in an intermediate+  lesson on requests, learners have a list of five to ten situations such as You’ve just realised you left your purse/wallet at home. Ask a friend to lend you £5. / You’re at work. Your mother-in-law is coming to dinner and you need to get home to cook. Ask your boss if you can leave half an hour early and make up the time by working late tomorrow. etc.

Related Articles on the Notebook

Teaching Polite Requests : Part One

Teaching Polite Requests : Part Two

Teaching Polite Requests : Part One

The first part of this article on teaching polite requests will look at why students often have difficulty with the area and the elements we need to be focusing on. In the second part, we'll look at a sample lesson plan for the area which uses a test-teach - test format.

A : David, I’m really sorry to have to bother you, but my car’s broken down. Would it be awfully inconvenient for you to give me a lift home this evening?

B : Oh Helen – I’m really sorry. I would, but my mother’s in hospital and I have to go straight there after work. Why don’t you ask Jean? She goes your way.

A request – and a refusal. Now imagine giving that situation to your learners as a roleplay : Your car has broken down so you need to ask a colleague for a lift home. Your colleague refuses. What do you both say? The resulting conversation will probably go something like : S1 : Can you give me a lift home this evening? S2: No I can’t.

What problems do students have when faced with a functional area like making and responding to polite requests? Why is it that even when what they say is grammatically correct, as here, it often still sounds at best stilted and inauthentic, and at worse rude or aggressive?

One problem students have is simply the grammatical complexity of many of the exponents. Here’s a list of a few possibilities :

- Sign here (please).
- Open the window, can/could/will/would you (please)?
- Can/Could/Will/Would you open the window (please)?
- Could you just/ possibly open the window (please)?
- Do you think you could (possibly/just) open the window (please)?
- Is there any chance of you giving me a lift home tonight?
- Would you mind (awfully) opening the window (please)?
- If you will/would/can/could (just) sign here (please)
- I wonder if you could (just/possibly) open the window (please)
- I wonder if you’d mind (awfully) opening the window (please).
- Would it be very inconvenient for you if I asked you to give me a lift?
- I should/would be grateful if you could/would reply before March 10th.
- I should/would appreciate it if you could/would reply before March 10th.

Notice that most of these exponents use modal verbs, and the more indirect (or tentative) the request is, the longer it becomes and the more likely it is that the request is expressed hypothetically : Would you mind … I wonder if you could … I would be grateful if … and so on. Modality is, in my experience, one of the areas that students find most difficult to use spontaneously in English, and it is therefore not surprising that they frequently fall back to the simplest forms Can /Could you ….

However, by avoiding the grammatical complexity of the exponents, the students are also abandoning any attempt to match what they say to the situation. The choice of an appropriate exponent will depend on three factors :

• Participant relationships (who says it and who they say it to ). If I want my husband to open the window, I may well use an imperative form. If I’m in a client’s office and feel desperately hot, I’m more likely to use a longer exponent. And it is not only the exponents which may need to change, but also the formulation of the request itself. In the client’s office I might also avoid making a direct request for him or her to act – ie Do you think you could possibly open the window? - by saying something like Do you think we could possibly have the window open?
• The level of “threat” posed by the request (Am I asking for a service - Could you check the oil please? - where I have a socially acknowledged right to make the request, or a favour. If so, do I want you to lend me your bike or your Ferrari?)
• The context of the request (is it the first time I ask you not to play music after 11pm or the tenth?)

The forms may also take on a different level of directness dependent on the intonation used. For example, the imperative I use with my husband may function as an order or a request. If I’ve burnt the toast again and the kitchen is full of smoke I may say /open the WINdow/ using a final falling tone. The situation is urgent and I am giving a command. But if it’s a hot day, I’m reading on the sofa and am just too lazy to get up myself, /Open the WINdow/ said with a lengthened first syllable in open and a final fall-rise tone will move my utterance much closer to a request. The same can happen with any of the exponents Would you mind opening the window? said by a Managing Director to the office cleaner is functionally an order, and liable to finish with a falling tone, even though it has the structure of a request.

The effect of intonation is something we clearly have to focus on in the classroom, but it is also an area that we know many students are going to find difficult. A native speaker can automatically increase or decrease the level of indirectness of an exponent by adding the appropriate intonation, but students don’t always get it right. As Hendriks, referring to Brown and Levinson, points out: the non-communication of the polite attitude will be read not merely as the absence of that attitude, but as the inverse, the holding of an aggressive attitude.
If students have chosen a fairly direct exponent and have also mistakenly used direct intonation, their listeners may not give them the benefit of the doubt.

Within the exponents, the use of politeness markers such as please can also cause problems. Learners tend to see please as “the” marker of politeness, overestimating its importance and also sometimes its function. They therefore feel that if they have included please in the sentence, they have automatically been polite. Yet the meaning of please will again depend on intonation, and also on its sentence position. For example, talking to my son, I might say can you put your TRAINers away, please/ with please in final position. Five minutes later, when I see the trainers are still in the same position as before, the request becomes can you PLEASE put your trainers away. The shift in position of please and the added stress mark my request as considerably less “polite” than before. If another five minutes pass without action, I may well yell /PLEASE / can you put your TRAINers away/ - which I would argue is neither polite, nor a request. The situation is complicated though by the interaction of the two factors: stress and position. Even if please remains in final position the request again becomes more insistent if please is stressed /Can you put your trainers away, PLEASE/ while it is sometimes included in initial or mid-position but with weaker stress to emphasise that the request is important, but not necessarily to express displeasure. Oh, that reminds me – next week, please can you remember to bring all the tests we’ve done this term. In writing, please is often used in this way.

Related to this is the use of modifying adverbs – possibly, awfully, just etc. They often have a much more important role in enhancing politeness than does please – compare for example Would you just take a seat and Would you take a seat, please – but are often avoided by students.

And finally, but perhaps most importantly, there is the difference in discourse structure of the request sequence which is often apparent when comparing native speaker and learner English. As always, this will depend on the three factors mentioned above, but compare the sequence which started this article with the learners’ version :

David, I’m really sorry to have to bother you, but my car’s broken down. The sequence starts with a pre-request. Brown and Levinson (again quoted in Hendriks) suggest that utterances such as these are motivated by the need to maintain “face” – here, to retain the other person’s approval. The speaker therefore starts with an apology. Before making the request she wishes to assume a “humble” attitude, and to show that she appreciates that she is asking for something that might irritate or “bother” the listener. Her use of “have to” suggests that it is not her fault, she is obliged to do so, and she backs this up by giving the reason for the request. The request itself Would it be awfully inconvenient for you to give me a lift home this evening? repeats her acknowledgement that she might be causing problems for the other person, while the interrogative structure gives him a “way out” – the possibility of refusing.

For it is not only the requester who risks losing face, in Brown and Levinson’s terms. In a request sequence there are two possible replies : acceptance or refusal. But for the language (not necessarily for the speaker) it is acceptance which is the “preferred” choice. If you agree to a request, there’s no need to be subtle about it. Yes, of course will do. But a refusal is far trickier in terms of retaining “face” (ie approval) and also allowing the requester to retain face. I risk offending or embarrassing the other person. So, in our example we have first an apology Oh Helen – I’m really sorry. and then an assurance that the speaker would really like to agree but is prevented by a situation outside his control - I would, but my mother’s in hospital and I have to go straight there after work. He then does what he can to make up for the refusal by making a helpful suggestion that can resolve the problem : Why don’t you ask Jean. She goes your way.
Compare this with the straight request-refusal pattern of the learners’ discourse. Scarcella and Brunak, quoted by McCarthy (2) noticed the same difference between the two groups in the context of giving invitations :

The native speakers prefaced their invitations (e.g. I was wondering, uh, we’re having a party…), while the non-natives were sometimes too formal or too blunt (e.g. I would like to invite you to a party ….)

This leaves us with a dilemma. Request exponents are often complex grammatically, lexically and from the point of view of intonation, and learners may need to focus on them in isolation in order to understand and assimilate them. But if we are to promote their ability to use appropriate discourse patterns, these exponents cannot be taught in isolation, but must be presented and practised in the context of an authentic request sequence. In Part Two of this article we’ll look at how we might go about doing this.

Notes
1. H.Hendricks, Indirect speech acts, Politeness and the Civilising Process
2. M. McCarthy, Discourse Analysis for Language Teachers, CUP 1991

Acknowledgement

Photo provided under Creative Commons Licence by Matthew Weston via flickr

An ELT Glossary : Pragmatics

Pragmatics studies how language is used in context (including the relationship between the speakers) and how meaning is interpreted in specific situations. Widdowson (1978:29)  gave the following example :

A : That's the phone.
B : I'm in the bath.
A : OK. 

As Widdowson points out, the first utterance, though a declarative sentence, is clearly interpreted by B as being a request to answer the phone, and B's reply is interpreted by A as a refusal and excuse. Although, as Widdowson says, there are no explicit cohesive links between the utterances, recognising how the speakers interpret their illocutionary force enable us to supply the "missing" propositional links and recognise it as coherent discourse.  :

A : That's the phone. (Can you answer it, please?)
B :  (No I can't answer it because) I'm in the bath.
A : OK (I'll answer it).

This interpretation is made possible by the speakers' knowledge of the world : phones need to be answered when they ring, if you're in the bath it's difficult to get to the phone in time to answer it etc.

See also : Pragmatic competence      Functions    Adjacency pairs

Reference 

Widdowson, H.G. (1978) Teaching English as Communication, Oxford University Press