The Use of Pragmatic Devices by German Non-Native Speakers of English

Abstract

Mastering the pragmatic norms of another language is one of the greatest challenges to non-native speakers. One particularly difficult aspect of pragmatic conventions is the appropriate use of pragmatic devices such as like, you know, I think, and or something like that which have been found to serve a number of important textual and interactive functions in discourse. This study investigates the use of such devices by non-native speakers in cross-cultural conversations in terms of frequency and function in order to establish to what extent L2 usage differs from native speaker norms. In particular, the study examines the use of the English pragmatic devices like, eh and General Extenders (and things like that, or something like that) by German non-native speakers of English (GNNSE) in interactions with native speakers of New Zealand English (NSNZE). The results are compared with the use of these forms in native-native conversations in New Zealand English and the use of close equivalent forms in German by the same GNNSE. The analysis is based on a corpus of approximately 18 1/2 hours of dyadic conversation or about 224,338 words of transcription. Overall, the data shows that while GNNSE use all of the pragmatic devices included in the investigation, they consistently produced fewer tokens per number of words than their native speaker interactants. The use of the marker eh, which is regarded as a typical feature of NZE, seems to be an indicator of the speaker's level of linguistic and pragmatic proficiency in NZE as it was only used by GNNSE who had lived in New Zealand for an extended period of time. With regard to their functional application, GNNSE appear to use the pragmatic devices for the same purposes as NSNZE. The most notable difference in this regard is a markedly lower use of quotative like by GNNSE. The data shows that NSNZE generally use fewer pragmatic devices when talking to non-native speakers. The data also suggests correlations between the way German speakers use pragmatic devices in German and English, and the analysis explores cases of L1 transfer. Thus, GNNSE's infrequent use of the like-quotative form appears to correspond to a low frequency use of the equivalent German form und ich so. Similarly, the most frequently used disjunctive General Extender by GNNSE is or so, which matches the German form oder so. As well as being a case of formal L1 transfer, the use of or so by GNNSE also indicates that they have not acquired the rules governing the use of or so which restrict it exclusively to numerical approximation. Factors found to influence the use of certain pragmatic devices by GNNSE are the speakers' length of exposure to informal English, length of stay in New Zealand, the use of corresponding forms in German, and the use of the forms by their native speaker interlocutor. This analysis of paired interactions between native speakers of English and of German, and between members of each group speaking English to each other, contributes to the fields of cross-cultural and interlanguage pragmatics. In particular, this research extends our understanding of how non-native uses of pragmatic devices differ from the uses exploited by native speakers, and explores the effects of L1 transfer. The study provides a detailed qualitative analysis of three English pragmatic devices, leading to a better understanding of their functions. Moreover, it identifies possible German near-equivalents of the English pragmatic devices, and thereby highlights the differences and similarities between the two languages with regard to their uses of such devices. Finally, by considering the possible impact of the speakers' personal background and the interlocutor's language use, this research also adds to our understanding of the ways in which L2 learners acquire pragmatic devices in the absence of formal teaching. Overall, then, this research on pragmatic devices provides valuable insights into a specific area of cross-cultural contrast in language use, and identifies a number of interesting areas for further research.