Pragmalinguistic Awareness in EFL Teacher Training

Abstract

This study investigates to what extent Turkish teacher trainees had learned about pragmalinguistics even though it was found to be under represented in the course programme (Karatepe, 1998). It focuses particularly on realisation of indirect requests, in English and its use in different contexts by both NS and Turkish teacher trainees. The data was collected by means of a two-part questionnaire where subjects were first given contexts and asked to choose an appropriate option from a set of multiple choices, and then to write an appropriate form for a similar situation. The questionnaire was administered to gain information about the awareness of trainees of expressing themselves appropriately in different contexts. The appropriateness of the trainees' replies with regard to the contextual questions was assessed by comparing them with the baseline data collected by administering a slightly different version of the same questionnaire to native speakers in England. The results of the analysis revealed that the trainees were quite successful in recognising appropriate forms in multiple-choice questions. However, when they were asked to create their own forms, they tended to improvise. They also appear to have transferred certain forms from Turkish.