Learning to Request in a Second Language: A Study of Child Interlanguage Pragmatics

by Machiko Achiba

Overview

This book examines the acquisition of requests in English by a seven- year-old Japanese girl during her 17-month residence in Australia. The study focuses on the linguistic repertoire available to the child as she attempts to make requests and vary these to suit different goals and addressees. This book helps unravel features of pragmatic development in the child's interlanguage, a subject about which we yet know very little.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781853596124
Publisher:	Multilingual Matters Ltd.
Publication date:	03/04/2003
Series:	Second Language Acquisition Series , #2
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	240
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.30(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Machiko Achiba is a Professor of Applied Linguistics at Tokyo Woman's Christian University (Tokyo Joshi Daigaku) in Japan and has been teaching for many years in the field. Her research interests are pragmatics, second language acquisition, and the methodologies of teaching English as a foreign language. She received her master's degree from Southern Illinois University in the United States and holds her doctorate from La Trobe University in Australia. She is the mother of this study's subject.

Table of Contents

	Tables, Figures and Appendices	viii
	Summary	xi
	Acknowledgements	xii
1	Introduction	1
1.0	The Background of the Study	1
1.1	Interlanguage Pragmatics in Second Language Acquisition Research	1
1.2	Speech Acts	2
1.3	The Choice of Speech Act for Research	3
1.4	The Purpose of the Study	3
1.5	The Organisation of the Book	4
2	A Review of the Literature	5
2.0	Introduction	5
2.1	Defining Requests	5
2.2	Direct Strategies, Conventionally Indirect Strategies and Nonconventionally Indirect Strategies	7
2.3	Studies in L2 Request Realisation	10
2.4	The Development of Request Realisation in L1 English-speaking Children	15
2.5	Variation in Relation to Goal	24
2.6	Conclusion	25
3	Methodology	27
3.0	Introduction	27
3.1	The Longitudinal Case Study	27
3.2	The Subject	28
3.3	Data Collection Procedures	29
3.4	Data Sets	32
3.5	Defining Requests	32
3.6	Units for Analysis	33
3.7	Identifying Requests	33
3.8	Classification of Strategies	35
3.9	Conclusion	39
4	Development of Request Realisation	42
4.0	Introduction	42
4.1	Procedures for Analysis	43
4.2	Results and Discussion	43
4.3	Summary and Conclusion	72
5	Requestive Hints	74
5.0	Introduction	74
5.1	Identifying Hints in Context	74
5.2	Results and Discussion	76
5.3	Summary and Conclusion	91
6	Variation in Use: Request Goals	93
6.0	Introduction	93
6.1	Types of Request Goal	93
6.2	The Distribution of Request Goals	95
6.3	The Choice of Strategy Types	96
6.4	The Choice of Strategy Types Over Time	105
6.5	Request Perspectives	112
6.6	Summary and Conclusion	119
7	Variation in Use: Addresses	120
7.0	Introduction	120
7.1	Requests with Varying Addressees	120
7.2	Results and Discussion	121
7.3	Summary and Conclusion	129
8	Modification	131
8.0	Introduction	131
8.1	Categories of Modification	132
8.2	Analysis	141
8.3	Results and Discussion	141
8.4	Summary and Conclusion	170
9	Summary and Conclusions	172
9.0	Introduction	172
9.1	A Child Second Language Learner's Request Realisation	172
9.2	Variation According to Goal	174
9.3	Variation According to Addressee	175
9.4	A Developmental Profile	178
9.5	Constraints on Variation in Request Forms According to Addressee	184
9.6	Is One Kind of Data Enough?	186
9.7	How Far Did Yao Get?	186
9.8	Implications of this Study	188
9.9	Concluding Remarks	190
	References	191
	Appendices	200
	Index	220