Interactional pragmatic strategies in the Mexican university classroom

Abstract

Learning to speak English not only involves knowing the foreign language, but also knowing strategies that help interactants communicate. One aspect of communication refers to strategic behaviour when a breakdown in communication causes misunderstanding (Mauranen 2012) or non-understanding (Cogo and Dewey 2012). Dealing with these kinds of communication problems showcases the different ways in which interactional pragmatic strategies interconnect in order to help interactants reach mutual understanding. Awareness and deliberate use of these strategies may have a positive impact in the workplace that has adquired characteristics of a globalized society (Chiang 2009), in which English is the means of communication most of the time. The language classroom is one of the settings where interaction could be studied in that sense, where the study of English is fundamental to students’ professional development. It is in the classroom where second language is shaped (Walsh 2011); and here different interactional pragmatic strategies such as repetition, rephrasing, repair, and code-switching among others are used to fulfil the teaching and learning processes. Therefore, this thesis examines some interactional pragmatic strategies that help to overcome communicative breakdowns that could hinder understanding within classroom interaction in business English classes. The detailed analysis of classroom interaction – naturally occurring speech – has revealed there is a diverse set of patterns, which go from using one single strategy to more complex patterns that encompass a series of strategies, necessary to reach understanding. In addition, participants have evidenced from their own perceptions that interactional pragmatic strategies are used commonly and confirm both simple and complex classroom interaction patterns, which signals speakers’ awareness of interactional behaviour. In a wider view, students’ and teacher’s perceptions also suggest contradicting issues among English that is used in the workplace (e.g. ELF) and English taught in the classroom (native-like English). This set of findings has implications in language teaching and learning.

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ORCID for William Baker: orcid.org/0000-0003-0533-2795

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