Between pragmatics and grammar: which kind of relationship?

Between pragmatics and grammar: which kind of relationship?


For many it seems obvious that grammar should always precede pragmatics. Kasper and Rose (2002) devote a lot of attention to this issue which seems to lead to opposite conclusions:


- pragmatics precedes grammar

- grammar precedes pragmatics


These two conclusions seem contradictory but they are correct because they refer to different stages of learning development, as well as in different learning contexts and for different pragmatic elements. It seems impossible that pragmatics could precede grammar since before you can use words to 'do' something you need to know and connect them together. In interactional linguistics (Kramsch, 2002, Pallotti, 2001) we understand language learning as inextricably linked to the socialization practices through which the learner becomes part of a community. In this perspective, grammar 'emerges' from the many concrete interactions that take place between speakers. In the initial stages of learning, especially in the country of L2, the learner uses a 'pragmatic mode', that is, a pre-syntactic way of acting linguistically by exploiting the situational and discursive context, together with that minimum of lexicon and formulaic expressions that he learns from the context. A very effective pragmatic strategy is to 'repeat' what members of a given micro-culture do. The hetero and self-repetitions as they occur in Pallotti's research work (1994, 2001, 2002) have a discursive function of cohesion, of attachment to the speech given by others, and allows the girl Fatma to 'talk about the same thing'. Let's take an example between the little girl and the researcher Gabriele Pallotti:

- F: come si chiama
G: questa si chiama pesce
f: pesce questo qui cosi non mangiare pesce
G: no



or a other example between kids:



-Kid 1:  mi dai acqua
kid 2: acqua
kid 3: mi dai l'acqua
Fatma: dai acqua



Pallotti (2005 b) illustrates how self-repetitions tend to increase in number and complexity in the first months together with the child's desire to communicate, and then gradually decrease with the progress of learning by the girl Fatma. For example, in a work by Dittmar (1990) on the learning of German by an Italian woman, the difficulty of using modal particles with pragmatic functions was noted. In German, some words with primary (lexical) function of adverbs and conjunctions also have the secondary (pragmatic) function of modal particles. These particles serve to regulate attitudes, subjective positions and the atmosphere of dialogue and are very important in interpersonal communication. The most relevant examples are: ja, doch, eigentlich.


These particles are learned late by the learners of German l2 (Weydt 1981) and are used few in addition to the structural causes (phonetic relevance and syntactic position) as well as their deictic role changes according to the context. This makes their use difficult for a learner. In this general path towards learning, pragmatics seems to proceed grammar in the first stages while progress seems to proceed in three stages in the following stages:


- literal use

- pragmalinguistic function

socio-pragmatic distribution



In the first stage, the grammatical form is known but is not used to express or modify the illocutionary force of the act. In the second stage its pragmalinguistic value is understood but its socio-pragmatic distribution does not conform to the native norm. In the third stage, the expression and modulation of the illocutionary force are distributed according to the situational context. Unfortunately, these three stages can be very distant from each other.

The teaching of pragmatics


How to use Italian effectively in real life seems to be the mantra of all courses with a reference to pragmatics since studies show that pragmatics is teachable and that teaching it is useful. How to teach it remains the big question. According to Liddicoat and Crozet, it would be useful to study these "rich points" (Agar 1996) with their high cultural content. For example, Liddicoat and Crozet worked on how to answer the question in French and English:

How did your weekend go?

In Italian, this question is dealt with extensively because this question is not considered as a form of conversational routine between people with little familiarity but only with close or intimate people. In French "t'as passe 'un bon weekend? (Beal, 1992) highlights how this question is not a routine Monday morning question among colleagues. In English it is a formulaic question and receives a formulaic answer while in French it is the beginning of an interesting topic to be developed, therefore it will be a longer and more detailed conversation. Liddicoat and Crozet (2001) tried to teach these pragmatic differences to Australian students in 4 phases (awareness, experimentation, production, reflection) with various activities (role play, explanation, analysis) with a course duration of thirteen weeks for the development of oral skills.

Difference between Australians and French


Australians French


- the question is routine - question not asked at all, it is not a routine greeting

short, friendly and reciprocal answer


- be positive, without showing too much enthusiasm - expect detailed answer


- mention typical weekend activities - be honest, give your opinion with your feelings


- mention facts rather than opinions - be fun and lively in describing what you do


- only what is useful or interesting for - shows that you know the places and the people named

the other party


don't interrupt the speaker - use a conversational style that shows your interest


- wait for the speaker to stop completely - repeat and add something to the conversation

before saying what you mean. - interrupt the person speaking

- overlap each other

This study showed that teaching was successful and that it lasted over time on the conversational and awareness levels. In teaching pragmatics it is always important to evaluate two factors such as:


- the learning context (difference between L2 or Ls)

- the age of the students (teenagers, pre-adults, children).


Let us now consider the question of the pedagogical action planned in these points:


- needs: what should learners know how to do with language?

- the objectives: for what purpose to teach?

- the sequences: in what order?

- the methods: how?

- materials: by what means?

- verification: how to evaluate teaching?


We will use these points to conceptually order some food for thought for better programming. In fact, the needs, objectives and contents are closely related to each other. The aim is to understand how many speakers would do to better distinguish knowledge from competence in execution. The ability to behave like someone else is no guarantee of being accepted as such. Here the choice between aiming for competence or pragmatic execution is a "political" choice. There are strictly linguistic objectives and more largely political objectives. To know what to teach you need to know why you teach it. Languages ​​can be taught to fulfill various needs:

humanitarian and social

- intellectual and cultural

- commercial and industrial

- political and strategic

- tourist and recreational


From these needs it is then determined which language or languages ​​to teach. For example, in the 1950s, greeting within a small community was a form of "information-control"; in the 70s, greeting becomes a norm of personal courtesy. Today with the process of fragmentation of the community, the occasional greeting or conversation no longer exercises any social function either on the public or private level. Aware that plurilingualism is the optimal solution that does not oblige to exclude any language, every language taught carries with it its own pragmatic phenomena in terms of conversational styles, presuppositions, implications, irony, courtesy. Once the needs of the learners and the objectives in general have been established, we must operationalize these macro-objectives into a series of specific objectives that can be pursued in class.

An example of teaching activity in a pragmatic perspective could be: “how to close a service meeting in the library? When using "thank you" and "please" becomes a way to learn when and how to thank, accepting thanks means learning generalizable conversational negotiation procedures that concern both the referential content and the relationship between the roles of the interacting. The closure will depend on how the repair work is articulated during the meeting. The simple "thank you-please" exchange is the result of an extensive negotiation. However, in the light of an informed teaching program, the selection of pragmatic contents can take place in two directions:

• the first element is to understand which language to teach (linguistic variety, register or style) are all elements external to the language.
  
       The second element concerns the linguistic material which depends on choices of criteria within the language. Here much depends on the distance between L1 \ C1 and L2 \ C2 as well as on the difficulty.
  
  
  For example, the English "you" as a form of an egalitarian "ethos", the Italian titolomania as a form of hierarchical society linked to the professional role of a person in the social space (in practice without work there is no identity). What are the elements that cause the misunderstanding or that irritate the interacting in the intercultural encounter. With the help of contrastive research it will be easier to identify the important points to teach. In what sequence the pragmatic elements are to be proposed is set out in Bettoni (2006):
  
       development of grammatical procedures
  
       implication processing

For example: for pleasure as a lexical modifier it can appear at any moment of the curriculum while the morphosyntactic relievers "excuse me, could" require a stage of grammatical evolution in which the subjunctive and the conditional begin to emerge. I personally believe that such grammatical elements could be treated as lexical chunks (Lewis, 1986) as is claimed in the lexical method. In fact, the goal of language teaching must be the development of strategies for the speech and the negotiation of meaning of the sentences. So it is gradually a literal, direct, indirect conventionalized meaning to an unconventional indirect one. The method must be to have a student learn to interpret rather than be informed.

The method must be to bring awareness to the phenomena to be learned by subjecting students to expressions that are said in a different way. So the student can become a speech and conversation analyst so that he can start asking himself the questions set out in Gumperz (1982):

What is A trying to achieve by talking that way?

    What's in the way he says it that makes you think \ understand \ intuit?

    Could you try to do \ say?

    How would he have said if he wanted to .....?

    How did B interpret what A said?

    How can you say that B misunderstood?

    How would B have to answer to show he understood?


With these questions we can probe the relationships between our perception and the clues present in the uttered statement. The crucial question remains:

"What are the most useful teaching materials for achieving culturally appropriate linguistic behavior in real life?"


In teaching pragmatics, working with authentic texts is very important. Having a trained, motivated and native speaker teacher are just as important elements.

For example, the teaching of relievers, barkers, negative particles, lexical modifiers are all clues to index the speaker's attitude towards the interlocutor and the topic of the conversation. The language must be used to communicate better outside the classroom remains an objective that needs a real response.

The teaching of pragmatics must take into account the identity of the speaker while keeping two points clear:

the difference between understanding and production

     the consequences of your choice


Today in education, the eyes are open on the problems of the use of language, on those who use it as a social action on the world, as interaction between interlocutors, as affirmation of their identity and as interpreter of their values. Today the teacher has to evaluate the social implications of his teaching. The teacher must help the student to be a conversation analyst.

The teaching of culture


Teaching culture in language learning 2 must focus both on the anthropological sense of the notion of culture as well as culture intended as the heritage of a given society. In fact we can list them like this:

- life practices

- social norms

- area studies: history, geography, art, institutions

- the literary canon

In this approach, language is an integral part of culture without wanting to make any separation between language and culture. Pragmatics represents a form of bridge between language and culture.

Hammerly (1982) and Stern (1992) have listed the objectives of the cultural component in order of difficulty:


1. know the cultural connotations of words and expressions

2. know the behaviors to be followed in common situations

3. develop interest and understanding for C2

4. understand the cross-cultural differences C1-C2

5. understand the intra-cultural differences

6. conduct investigations on C2

7. develop an integrated vision of C2

8. develop a critical sense towards aspects of C2

9. develop feelings of empathy towards C2 and its people

10. conduct academic research on C2


For Stern there are three perspectives in learning culture:


- the learner's perspective

- the perspective of the native speaker of L2

- the research perspective


The teaching of C2 also aims to objectify the acculturation process by trying to explain the reasons for such a context. In this process of acculturation of the learner there are three phases:

• an initial phase of cultural shock
  
  - a longer phase of cultural stress
  
  - an adjustment phase
  
  
  This path can lead to complete assimilation to the new culture, to complete rejection or a partial adaptation. With elements taken from the two cultures with the aim of creating a synthesis.
  
  
  An example of a didactic approach to create so-called "capsules of Italy" is that of the cultural analysis of Italian cities such as Siena from a geographical, historical, artistic, linguistic, theatrical, economic and daily life point of view.
  
  Kramsch (1993) establishes some general guidelines for teaching practice:
  
  
  - treat culture as a difference
  
  - establish a sphere of interculturality
  
  - treat culture as an interpersonal process
  
  - go beyond the disciplined boundaries
  
  
  The aim of the teaching is to learn to live this meeting \ clash cognitively informed and lived emotionally.
  
  Conclusion

Speaking of pragmatics, we discussed culture. Culture has been defined as the collective programming of the mind. In culture we find the three things that make us who we are: knowledge, identity and action. The mediation between these elements as well as between us and the community is done by language. Pragmatics serves to anchor the language as an abstract system of signs to a real world, making it a vital means of communication and relationship with others.

As we know, the grammatically correct use is fundamental while the use of pragmatics is difficult because it is subject to variability. Unfortunately in the intercultural context, the linguistic error is excused while the pragmatic error is perceived as a behavioral oddity or even typical of that country of origin. Our intent is to avoid conversational misunderstanding and stereotype. How to achieve this: learning to use social deissi, courtesy, mitigation, taking turns, managing despair, speaking indirectly, accepting or rejecting a compliment. All of this is to be learned culturally. Herein lies the problem because it is difficult for an LS student to make the connection between linguistic form and existing cultural meanings. Pragmatics elude because languages ​​are maps that have to map different reliefs between them: each language determines an image of the world.

The interactional connection is elusive because when we speak we leave only some clues but we don't say everything. These statements suggest an interpretation for those who are of that culture while escaping those who are of another culture. In fact, the teacher must help to understand the new rules in order to understand the cultural values ​​that support a conversational style in order to behave linguistically in an appropriate way.

From here you can better understand the tendency of the Chinese to react modestly to compliments in harmony with a culture more oriented towards harmony and cooperation within the group rather than confrontation. In Italy, the representative of the institutions does not feel the need to do the remedial work because culturally he feels strong and the client feels weaker.

The problem of pragmatics is to create two languages ​​not only in the head but above all in the heart of the speakers. By speaking two languages ​​we become a member of two collectivities and express two identities. But do we want to join two worlds? So how are others ready to let us into their world? Pragmatics emphasizes the single interaction as a negotiation of meanings as joint, reciprocal and ever new work.

The more culturally distant we are, the more delicate the negotiating job becomes. Furthermore, it will always be crucial which pragmatic rules are used or adopted by our interlocutor: active participation in a speech can be seen as enthusiasm or intrusiveness, laconicity can be seen as respect or coldness.

This is the analyst's job to avoid understanding joke from a poke.

Bibliography

Bettoni, C ( 2006). Usare un'altra lingua. Guida alla pragmatica interculturale, La Terza Editori, Bari