27.4143, Review: App Ling; Lang Acq; Pragmatics; Socioling: Locher, Pizziconi (2015)

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Subject: 27.4143, Review: App Ling; Lang Acq; Pragmatics; Socioling: Locher, Pizziconi (2015)

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Date: Mon, 17 Oct 2016 09:46:23
From: Wei Ren [renweixz at yahoo.com]
Subject: Teaching and Learning (Im)Politeness

 
Discuss this message:
http://linguistlist.org/pubs/reviews/get-review.cfm?subid=36164297


Book announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/26/26-5016.html

EDITOR: Barbara  Pizziconi
EDITOR: Miriam A. Locher
TITLE: Teaching and Learning (Im)Politeness
SERIES TITLE: Trends in Applied Linguistics [TAL] 22
PUBLISHER: De Gruyter Mouton
YEAR: 2015

REVIEWER: Wei Ren, Guangdong University of Foreign Studies

Reviews Editor: Helen Aristar-Dry

SUMMARY

Politeness research has undergone a tremendous shift from traditional
approaches such as Brown and Levinson’s Politeness Theory (1987) to discursive
approaches such as relational work (e.g. Watts 2003; Locher & Watts 2005) and
rapport management (Spencer-Oatey 2005; Spencer-Oatey 2008). In addition,
impoliteness is now viewed as an important form of social practice, rather
than the opposite to politeness. However, these research trends have not been
well imported into second language acquisition (SLA) research and language
pedagogy. The book ‘Teaching and Learning (Im)Politeness’ edited by Barbara
Pizziconi and Miriam A. Locher therefore is a timely attempt to bring together
the fields of (im)politeness and second language acquisition and teaching.

The volume consists of nine chapters, with the first chapter (Pizziconi and
Locher) serving as the introduction and the last chapter (9) as the epilogue.
In the introduction chapter, Pizziconi and Locher explicitly write that in
this collection ‘learning’ and ‘teaching’ are understood as broad labels for
issues of cultural transmission and acculturation in many diverse contexts
(p.5). 

The main chapters of this volume include two sections. Section 1
‘(Im)politeness in L2 instructional contexts’ consists of four chapters (2-5).
In the second chapter, ‘Teaching politeness?’, Spyridoula Bella, Maria
Sifianou and Gngeliki Tzanne propose an eclectic approach to teaching
politeness in second language (L2) learners. It first reviews traditional
approaches to politeness research particularly on the merits of Brown and
Levinson’s politeness theory (1987), and the more recent discursive or
postmodern approaches. The authors argue that Brown and Levinson’s theory,
although widely criticized and challenged, offers a number of means of
relating linguistic form and social function, which is significant for
language pedagogy. As noted by the authors, L2 users are bearers of different
lingua-cultural systems who need familiarization with the basics before
proceeding with the particularities of the target language and assistance in
enriching their available resources. Therefore the information provided to
learners and teachers should not be the same. Teacher trainers, textbook
writers and finally teachers have to be eclectic as to what will be useful to
their respective audiences. The chapter then provides suggestions as to what a
teacher-training program should include, and specific suggestions for learners
at the lower-intermediate and intermediate level, focusing on teaching Greek
to L2 learners in Greece. For the latter case, the authors call for a
‘production—awareness raising—production’ teaching approach. 

Chapter 3 (Eiko Gyogi), ‘Voices from the Japanese language classroom:
Honorifics do far more than politeness’, examines the effect of an
experimental class on directing learners’ attention to the indexical
properties of Japanese honorifics, on learners who were intermediate students
majoring in Japanese as a foreign language. The chapter starts with a brief
overview of previous studies on honorifics, followed by a review of three
major Japanese textbooks. The students were asked to translate a BBC news
article on the Japanese imperial couple from English to Japanese to a
hypothetical Japanese host father and a hypothetical Korean friend. Before the
translation task, the students were given three Japanese newspaper articles
reporting the same news but with different uses of honorifics towards the
royal family. Analyses of learners’ classroom interaction, homework and
learning diaries indicate that the lesson design was successful in directing
the students’ attention to multiple and variable contextual factors affecting
the use of honorifics. Although it is not explicitly acknowledged by the
author, the experimental lesson design in this study can be considered as an
awareness-raising—production approach. 

In Chapter 4, ‘(Im)politeness and L2 socialization: Using reactions from
online fora to a word leader’s “impolite” behavior’, Caroline L. Rieger
reports on a German class activity which makes use of a video clip containing
a controversial incident with respect to (im)politeness, together with a
handful of English and German comments taken from online forums. The chapter
reviews some key concepts from interpersonal pragmatics and relational work,
how politeness is currently taught in language classes, and the challenges L2
users face in intercultural encounters. It then describes the instructional
activity aiming at teaching (im)politeness to a group of advanced learners of
German (at B2 to C1 level according to the Common European Framework of
Reference for languages (CEFR)). Analyses of the learners’ comments suggest
that the instruction, which can be considered as an awareness-raising
approach, was successful, because the learners showed the more elaborate
metapragmatic and metalinguistic knowledge necessary to communicate about
(im)politeness in their L2. 

In Chapter 5, ‘Teaching and learning (im)politeness: A look at the CEFR and
pedagogical research’, Pizziconi explores how CEFR conceptualizes
(im)politeness. It reviews various understandings of (im)politeness in the
pedagogical literature, highlighting the necessity of practice in addition to
explicit teaching. Furthermore, the author argues that multiple models must be
made available to learners when teaching (im)politeness. The chapter then
meticulously analyzes the contextualization of (im)politeness in the
descriptive scheme and in the proficiency level descriptors of CEFR,
highlighting a few shortcomings or demerits with regard to the above aspects. 

Section 2, ‘Teaching’ and ‘learning’ (about) (im)politeness in L1 and L2,
consists of 3 chapters. In Chapter 6, ‘Paths to politeness: Exploring how
professional interpreters develop an understanding of politeness norms in
British Sign Language (henceforth BSL) and English’, Rachel Mapson
investigates an under-explored area, the acquisition of BSL as an L1 and as an
L2. Eight highly experienced BSL/English interpreters took part in the study.
Four acquired BSL naturally as L1 and acquired English in childhood as L2. By
contrast, the other four acquired English as their L1 and learned BSL formally
as their L2. Data were generated in a series of semi-structured discussions
with the two participant groups (BSL as L1 vs. as L2). Each group was
interviewed three times within six months with approximately two-month
intervals (but the study only discusses the data collected during the first
two sessions). The findings are discussed with respect to acquisition of
politeness as children, experiential learning as adults, formal learning of
BSL, and participants’ understanding of politeness. Interestingly, three of
the four participants of BSL as L1 revealed that they adopted a different
personality when interacting in BSL and in English. In addition, constraints
on transferability were less restrictive for bimodal bilinguals, because
elements of signed and spoken language could be produced concurrently. 

Chapter 7 (Locher), ‘“After all, the last thing I wanted to be was rude”:
Raising of pragmatic awareness through reflective writing’, reports how
pragmatic knowledge is reflected in a corpus of reflective texts written by
medical students at a British university. The data were 189 writings of one to
four pages in length in connection with a clinical communication skills
course. The students received instructions asking them to focus on
communication skills and to include reflections on the feelings and emotions
that were part of the experience. The reflective writings were analyzed in
terms of the following aspects: teaching input on clinical communication
skills, the communication skills mentioned in writing, awareness of empathy
and rapport, presentation of self, and comments on (im)politeness and
emotions. It is argued that  reflective writing tasks can be considered a good
first step in making individuals aware of their subconscious expectations
about their roles and their behavior in different communities of practice. 

In Chapter 8, ‘Children instructing kin and peers in politeness routines in
Japanese’, Matthew Burdelski examines the ways Japanese-speaking children
informally instruct kin and peers in non-honorific politeness routines. The
analysis draws on four sets of audiovisual recordings of naturally occurring
interaction in households and preschools in Japan and the United States. The
findings demonstrate that children instruct kin and peers in politeness
routines in various situations within the home and preschool. Furthermore,
children may instruct children in the immediate presence of caregivers (home
and preschool), and outside their immediate presence (preschool). Second, the
findings also indicate that the instructed child may respond to the
instruction or display his/her agency by refusing to repeat the elicited
expressions. Third, the findings have shown that children prefer to use
elicited imitation in dyadic arrangements, contrary to the triadic
arrangements preferred by adults. 

In the last chapter (9), ‘Epilogue: Impoliteness in learning and teaching’,
Juliane House comments on individual chapters of the volume and makes a few
suggestions about learning and teaching impoliteness. 

EVALUATION

This edited volume has many strong points. First, it successfully links new
perspectives on (im)politeness with the literature of studies on pragmatic
competence (particularly second language pragmatics and pragmatic
development). Second, the chapters examine a variety of languages, including
English, Greek, Japanese, German, and British Sign Language, expanding the
pool of target languages in the existing research on pragmatic competence.
Third, studies included cover various contexts for teaching and learning of
(im)politeness, such as general university language departments, naturalistic
interactions (children, British Sign Language), and a specific communication
course for medical students. Fourth, some chapters provide detailed
suggestions for pedagogy, highlighting the importance of raising awareness in
developing pragmatic competence. Fifth, the studies feature not only oral
interactions but also written discourses, for instance reflective writings and
translation tasks.

There are a couple of limitations, however. First, as noted by House in the
epilogue, although the title of the edited book is ‘teaching and learning
(im)politeness’, impoliteness is only discussed in three chapters in detail.
Nevertheless, relational frameworks observe that impoliteness is not
necessarily a marked phenomenon, which deserves more attention in a volume
targeting the issues of politeness and impoliteness. Second, although several
chapters showcase teaching activities to enhance students’ pragmatic awareness
of (im)politeness, they lack objective measures to demonstrate the improvement
of the learners’ pragmatic competence or performance in real interaction.
Third, since (im)politeness is often perceived as situated in intercultural
communication, using English as a lingua franca (henceforth ELF), where
nonnative speakers dominate, poses new challenges to normativity of
(im)politeness. Pragmatic strategies employed by interactants in ELF
communication (e.g. Ren 2016) are not discussed in the volume but may provide
useful implications for teachers and learners in many real-life situations in
intercultural communication. 

To conclude, despite the few weaknesses mentioned above, the edited volume
makes important contributions to the existing literature of second language
acquisition/teaching and (im)politeness research. It consists of studies from
various research backgrounds and explores several topics that are
under-researched. I highly recommend this book for researchers and graduate
students in the fields of first/second language pragmatics, (im)politeness
research, and second language acquisition and pedagogy.


REFERENCES

Brown, Penelope & Levinson, Stephen C. (1987). Politeness: some universals in
language usage. (Studies in interactional sociolinguistics ; 4,  Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.

Locher, Miriam A. & Watts, Richard J. (2005). Politeness theory and relational
work. Journal of Politeness Research 1, 9-33.

Ren, Wei (2016). Strategies used in Chinese university students’ ELF emails to
remedy or prevent problems in understanding. In Yuan-Shan Chen, Der-Hwa
Victoria Rau & Gerald Rau (eds.), Email Discourse among Chinese Using English
as a Lingua Franca 163-181. Berlin: Springer.

Spencer-Oatey, Helen (2005). (Im)Politeness, face and perceptions of rapport:
Unpackaging their bases and interrelationships. Journal of Politeness Research
1, 95-119.

Spencer-Oatey, Helen (2008). Face, (im)politeness and rapport. In Helen
Spencer-Oatey (ed.), Culturally speaking: Culture, Communication and
Politeness Theory 11-47. London: Continuum.

Watts, Richard (2003). Politeness.  Cambridge: cambridge University Press.


ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Wei Ren is currently Professor of Applied Linguistics and a Yunshan Young
Scholar at the Center for Linguistics & Applied Linguistics at Guangdong
University of Foreign Studies, China. His research interests include L2
Pragmatics, Cross-Cultural Pragmatics, and Pragmatics in English as a Lingua
Franca Communication. His recent publications include a monograph L2 Pragmatic
Development in Study Abroad Contexts and articles in Applied Linguistics,
Critical Discourse Studies, ELT Journal, Journal of Pragmatics, Pragmatics,
System, and Language Teaching.





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