Using Film and Television to Teach Pragmatics

Kerry PuseyNorthern Arizona University

Acknowledgements AZ-TESOL

NAU faculty

GSAAL

Colleagues

You!

Anecdote

What is Pragmatics? Disciplinary definition:

“The study of language from the point of view of users, especially of the choices they make, the constraints they encounter in using language in social interaction and the effects their use of language has on other participants in the act of communication” (Crystal, 1997, p. 301).

More simply put: appropriate ways of speaking and interacting within a given sociocultural context.

Some Domains of Pragmatics

Speech acts

Implicature

Indirectness

Politeness

Topic appropriateness

Conversational management

Pragmatics as Part of Communicative Competence

Bachman, 1990

Why is Learning Pragmatics Important?

Essential to the attainment of communicative competence

“Speech communities differ in their assessment of speakers’ and hearers’ social distance and social power, their rights and obligations, and the degree of imposition involved in particular communicative acts” (Kasper & Rose, 2001, p. 2)

Saving ‘face’: pragmatic errors are commonly perceived not as deficiencies in L2 knowledge, but rather as personal defects in character or personality

Pragmatic knowledge gives learners a sense of ownership of the language and membership within the speech community

One of the most interesting aspects of language learning!

Can Pragmatic Competence be Taught?

No…but yes!

According to Kasper (1997), “The simple answer to the question as formulated is “no”. Competence is a type of knowledge that learners possess, develop, acquire, use or lose. The challenge for foreign or second language teachers is whether we can arrange learning opportunities in such a way that they benefit the development of pragmatic competence in [the] L2”

Therefore…Yes – we can ‘arrange opportunities’ for learners

to develop their pragmatic knowledge

These opportunities include:Direct instruction of select pragmatic features

Awareness-raising activities

Strategies for autonomous learning

Film and Television as Pedagogic Resources

Film and television provide authentic samples of language in use

Familiarity with film and television can help give students a sense of membership within the target language community

Film and television allow students to see and hear language in use, thus offering rich contextualized input

Film and television are often relevant to students’ personal interests

Using humorous clips (in particular) can help create a positive, relaxed classroom atmosphere

Potential sources of materials are vast

What Types/Genres of Film and Television Should Be Used?

Different genres offer different opportunities for learning

Sitcoms/comedies – particularly useful (cf. Washburn, 2001)

Soap operas/dramas

Talk shows

Getting StartedConsider your learners

Make a list of films and/or television series that you are familiar with

Think of and write down the names of ‘quirky’ characters from shows or movies – chances are they regularly violate pragmatic norms!

Look for short clips from the TV shows or films you listed on Youtube (or from the full episodes or films, if you have access) and watch several of them.

Getting Started (continued)

Try to identify any aspects of pragmatics that you observe

While viewing, try to identify what a language learner would need to know in order to understand the pragmatic features contained in the clips

Once you’ve determined that a clip is appropriate for your students and contains useful pragmatic information, you can start to think of activities that incorporate the clips.

Creating Activities: Some Example Types

‘Guided discovery’ tasks (Rylander, 2005)

Play multiple clips with transcripts and have Ss identify common features

Identify speaker roles and what their [perceived] relationship is

Role-plays

Amateur ethnographers

Play clips with the sound turned off and have students make predictions about speaker attitudes based on nonverbal communication

Exploit the ‘laugh track’ on sitcoms: ask questions like ‘what made the scene funny?’ ‘What did the character do wrong?’ ‘What should he have said instead?’ (Raising metapragmatic awareness)

Potential Activity?Seinfeld (Newman’s greatest moment)

Example Activity 1: Implicature

Friends (Chandler and Phoebe)

Example Activity 2: Giving Advice

Billy Madison (Billy gets advice)

Clip 1

Clip 2 [start at 02:42]

Clip 3 [stop at 00:09]

Example Activity 3: Analyzing Power, Social Distance, and Degree of Threat

Seinfeld (Elaine orders Chinese food)

Caveats and LimitationsGeneral/theoretical notion of ‘appropriateness’ is

relative, not absolute (e.g., World Englishes)

Appropriateness of the clip (topic, language used, other potentially offensive content)

Curricular constraints

Resources

Lack of familiarity with American television and films and/or low confidence of one’s own pragmatic competence (especially NNSs)

Copyright Laws (see AIME website)

Concluding: Creativity in Materials Development

Teachers should always be on the lookout for new ways of teaching, new activity types, and effective ways of engaging their students

With activities involving film, television, and pragmatics, one must learn to be a critical consumer of popular media and be a ‘scavenger’ for relevant materials

We must put ourselves in our learners’ shoes and think about the ‘mysteries’ that abound in their day to day interactions with people and the target language

Q & A

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References Bachman, L. F. (1990). Fundamental considerations in language testing. New York, NY:

Oxford University Press.

Canale, M., & Swain, M. (1980). Theoretical aspects of communicative approaches to second language teaching and testing. Applied Linguistics, 1, 1–47.

Crystal, D. (Ed.). (1997). The Cambridge encyclopedia of language (2nd ed.). New York: Cambridge University Press.

Kasper, G. (1997). Can pragmatics be taught? Plenary speech presented at the Annual

TESOL Convention (March, the 32nd conference, international), Orlando, Florida.

Kasper, G., & Rose, K. (2001). Pragmatics in language teaching. In Rose, K., & Kasper, G. (Eds.), Pragmatics in language teaching (pp. 1-9). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Rose, K., & Kasper, G. (2001). Pragmatics in language teaching. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Rylander, J. (2005). Teaching Pragmatics via Video. In K. Bradford-Watts, C. Ikeguchi, & M. Swanson (Eds.) JALT2004 Conference Proceedings. Tokyo: JALT.

Thomas, J. (1983). Cross-cultural pragmatic failure. Applied Linguistics, 4, 91-112.

Washburn, G. (2001). Using situation comedies for pragmatic language teaching and learning. TESOL Journal, 10(4), 21‐26.

Wolfson, N. (1989). Perspectives: Sociolinguistics and TESOL. Boston: Heinle & Heinle.

Thank you!!