A Comparative Study of Pragmatic Elements in Marketized EFL Textbooks
Dissertation
Ali Dezhkameh
Persian Literature and Foreign Languages
1400
79p.
cd
M.A.
English Language and Literature
1400/11/27
AbstractTextbooks, being at the heart of every educational program, are treated with much care and delicacy in terms of writing. These subtleties are usually reflected in countless ways including the use of pragmatic elements in different sections of these books including the dialogues sections. This thesis investigated the types and frequencies of implicatures, various types of speech acts, and pragmatic markers in American English Files and the Prospect series in a comparative manner consistent with the studies conducted before. For the speech acts, Searle’s (1976) typology of speech acts was used. In the case of implicatures, Leech’s expansionist theory was employed. Pragmatic markers were analysed using Biber’s (1999) definition of pragmatic markers. This research investigated the frequency and types of the aforementioned pragmatic elements using different methods including Pearson’s Chi-square test in order to evaluate these two textbook series and also pinpoint their problems and put forward suggestions regarding the ways through which these textbooks can be made more efficient. Since doing a meta-analysis reveals that many series share the very same order of presenting grammatical structures and vocabulary items, and the problems found in one of these series are likely to be found in other series as well, the results of this study might be generalizable to a great extent. These books have been chosen because the American English Files, with their focus being on the socio-cultural aspects of learning English, are very rich in terms of the pragmatic elements they contain and are very popular with students trying to learn and master American English; Prospect series are taught in high schools and are of paramount importance for Iranian people. This study employed a mixed-methods design to answer questions of both qualitative and quantitative nature. The data obtained from these two sources revealed that there was no significant difference between these series in terms of the pragmatic elements they contained. The findings of this research can be used in a wide variety of contexts. Researchers in the areas of materials development, pragmatics, and teacher training will find the study at hand very useful. It was found out that no significant difference existed between the two series.
کتابهای درسی، که در قلب هر برنامه آموزشی قرار دارند، از نظر نگارش بادقت و ظرافت نوشته می شوند. این ریزهکاریها معمولا به روشهای بی شماری از جمله استفاده از المان های معناشناختی در بخشهای مختلف این کتابها از جمله بخشهای گفت و گو منعکس میشوند. این پژوهش به بررسی فراوانی و انواع المان های معنا شناختی فوقالذکر با استفاده از روشهای مختلف از جمله آزمون مربع کای پیرسون به منظور ارزیابی این دو مجموعه کتاب درسی و همچنین اشاره به مشکلات آنها و ارائه پیشنهادها در مورد روشهایی که این کتابهای درسی میتوانند از طریق آنها کارآمدتر شوند، پرداختهاست. از آنجا که انجام یک فراآنالیز نشان میدهد که بسیاری از سریها در ارایه ساختارهای دستوری و آیتمهای واژگان مشترک هستند، و مشکلات یافتشده در یکی از این سریها احتمالا در سایر سریها نیز یافت میشوند، نتایج این مطالعه ممکن است تا حد زیادی قابل تعمیم باشد. این کتاب ها بر أساس این موضوع انتخاب شده اند که کتب امریکن انگلیش فایل در بین زبان آموزان از محبوبیت ویژه ای برخودار است. کتب پراسپکت نیز کتب رسمی آموزش و پرورش است و تمامی دانش آموزان این کتاب ها را مطالعه می کندد. نتایج این تحقیق نشان داد که تفاوت معنا داری بین این کتب وجود نداشت. محققین حوزه آموزش زبان این تحقیق را مفید خواهند یافت.
المان های معناشناختی در کتب آموزش زبان
Pragmatic knowledge, implicature, American English File series, Prospect series, Leech, Searle’ expansionist theory, speech act theory