| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立彰化師範大學 === 兒童英語研究所 === 97 === ABSTRACT
Language learning involves not only acquiring the linguistic forms and structures but understanding how language is used appropriately in different socio-cultural contexts. It is believed teaching of speech acts can help foreign language learners sharpen their competence in language use and enable them to communicate with native speakers successfully (Hymes, 1974; Searle, 1969; Wolfson, 1989; Yu, 1999). Textbooks play an important role in English learning, particularly for those students who learn English as a Foreign Language (EFL) and receive their language inputs primarily from textbooks (Kim & Hall, 2002). Therefore, the present study aims to investigate the appropriateness of speech act presentation in the elementary English textbooks with respect to English language instruction in Taiwan. Two adjacency pairs of speech acts (compliments/compliment responses and requests/request responses) in seven series of elementary English textbooks were scrutinized to examine if adequate information regarding these two speech act pairs was properly delineated. Contextual information and cross-cultural pragmatic description were also investigated to determine whether teachers and learners were provided with meta-pragmatic information to facilitate their understanding of the dialogues and the proper employment of speech act patterns. In addition, to explore elementary school English teachers’ perceptions toward speech act presentation in textbooks and pragmatics in English teaching, semi-structured interviews were conducted.
The findings show, first, the presentation of compliments, compliment responses, requests and request responses in the elementary school English textbooks did not reflect native speakers’ interaction norms. Speech acts of requests, request responses, compliments and compliment responses in the textbooks were not thorough and inaccurately represented the actual language use. Furthermore, contrastive knowledge of speech act forms and
functions between English and Chinese was found lacking. Contextual information, which is
essential for comprehending uses of speech act patterns in specific situations, was insufficient and overlooked in the textbooks. Moreover, results from teacher surveys revealed that English teachers did not seem to equip with sufficient and adequate knowledge of cross-cultural pragmatics, which may be adverse for language learners. The findings suggest that speech acts be properly integrated into elementary school English instruction, teachers receive further training in pragmatics, and textbook designers incorporate contextual supplements, cross-cultural pragmatic notes and meta-pragmatic information into textbooks to facilitate both English teaching and learning in the elementary school.
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