Abstract Impoliteness in student emails to faculty can have negative consequences. However, the nuances of perceived impoliteness by faculty with different language backgrounds have not been thoroughly studied in the literature. This paper explores how emails written by non-native English-speaking students are perceived impolite by faculty depending on social identity variables such as native speaker status, gender, and seniority. Participants (n = 152 faculty) read six emails and rated their perceptions of the emails on a questionnaire. The items on the questionnaire were about lack of face enhancement, use of face threat, acknowledgment of imposition, and not giving a choice in complying with requests. Results suggest that in their perceptions of the lack of face enhancement, senior faculty seemed to be more tolerant than their junior counterparts. Further, non-native speakers of English were found to be more tolerant of the lack of acknowledgment of imposition. However, no significant association was observed between the social identity of the faculty and their perception of face threat nor between social identity and giving a choice in complying with requests. The paper has implications for raising the awareness of the faculty and students about their potential biases in academic correspondence.
{"title":"In my professor’s eyes: Faculty and perceived impoliteness in student emails","authors":"I. Haider, H. Zandi","doi":"10.1515/lpp-2022-0009","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/lpp-2022-0009","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Impoliteness in student emails to faculty can have negative consequences. However, the nuances of perceived impoliteness by faculty with different language backgrounds have not been thoroughly studied in the literature. This paper explores how emails written by non-native English-speaking students are perceived impolite by faculty depending on social identity variables such as native speaker status, gender, and seniority. Participants (n = 152 faculty) read six emails and rated their perceptions of the emails on a questionnaire. The items on the questionnaire were about lack of face enhancement, use of face threat, acknowledgment of imposition, and not giving a choice in complying with requests. Results suggest that in their perceptions of the lack of face enhancement, senior faculty seemed to be more tolerant than their junior counterparts. Further, non-native speakers of English were found to be more tolerant of the lack of acknowledgment of imposition. However, no significant association was observed between the social identity of the faculty and their perception of face threat nor between social identity and giving a choice in complying with requests. The paper has implications for raising the awareness of the faculty and students about their potential biases in academic correspondence.","PeriodicalId":39423,"journal":{"name":"Lodz Papers in Pragmatics","volume":"18 1","pages":"197 - 222"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46520984","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract This paper examines a number of proverbs in English and Persian to shed light on certain pragmatic issues involved in translation. By analyzing three sets of data within the pragmatic framework, we found that the translatability of proverbs should be characterized as a continuum, rather a clear-cut dichotomy. Depending on the universality or culture-specificity of background cultural information associated with proverbs, three main categories, namely translatables, semi-translatables, and untranslatables are proposed. These categories fall along different points on a postulated continuum of translatability. Our study also shows that implicatures and presuppositions, when applicable to translatability, influence it in an incontrovertible manner. On top of this, the indubitable role of metaphor in the conceptualization of proverbs, and as a result, on the translatability of them is acknowledged.
{"title":"Pragmatics of proverb translation: The case of English and Persian","authors":"M. Tavangar, Masoumeh Diyanati, M. Amouzadeh","doi":"10.1515/lpp-2022-0006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/lpp-2022-0006","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This paper examines a number of proverbs in English and Persian to shed light on certain pragmatic issues involved in translation. By analyzing three sets of data within the pragmatic framework, we found that the translatability of proverbs should be characterized as a continuum, rather a clear-cut dichotomy. Depending on the universality or culture-specificity of background cultural information associated with proverbs, three main categories, namely translatables, semi-translatables, and untranslatables are proposed. These categories fall along different points on a postulated continuum of translatability. Our study also shows that implicatures and presuppositions, when applicable to translatability, influence it in an incontrovertible manner. On top of this, the indubitable role of metaphor in the conceptualization of proverbs, and as a result, on the translatability of them is acknowledged.","PeriodicalId":39423,"journal":{"name":"Lodz Papers in Pragmatics","volume":"18 1","pages":"131 - 150"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43428592","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract Assessing the quality of translation is never straightforward and rarely objective. Context, audience, text type, function and lexis are only some of the criteria that need to be taken into account. In the case of constrained intersemiotic translation, subtitling being a prime example thereof, determining universal criteria for assessment is particularly testing. Often referred to as “necessary evil”, audiovisual translation (AVT) needs to avoid distracting the audience, while aiding their comprehension of the audiovisual message. This is particularly the case for additive AVT, for instance subtitling, where the translation does not replace the original, but coexists with it. Relevance Theory, a controversial but flexible approach to communication, may provide a viable framework for gauging subtitling quality. The interplay between relevance, communicative intention and processing effort can help explain the rationale behind the process of decision-making in the practice of AVT. This paper provides a theoretical foundation for the application of Sperber and Wilson’s Relevance Theory to interlingual subtitling, followed by an analysis of selected examples from a large corpus of mostly English-language movies, series and documentaries streamed on Netflix with Polish subtitles. Though the corpus is Polish-centred, the research conclusions are intended to be universal enough to apply regardless of the language pair.
{"title":"Subtitling quality assessment from a relevance-theoretic perspective","authors":"Łukasz Bogucki","doi":"10.1515/lpp-2022-0005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/lpp-2022-0005","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Assessing the quality of translation is never straightforward and rarely objective. Context, audience, text type, function and lexis are only some of the criteria that need to be taken into account. In the case of constrained intersemiotic translation, subtitling being a prime example thereof, determining universal criteria for assessment is particularly testing. Often referred to as “necessary evil”, audiovisual translation (AVT) needs to avoid distracting the audience, while aiding their comprehension of the audiovisual message. This is particularly the case for additive AVT, for instance subtitling, where the translation does not replace the original, but coexists with it. Relevance Theory, a controversial but flexible approach to communication, may provide a viable framework for gauging subtitling quality. The interplay between relevance, communicative intention and processing effort can help explain the rationale behind the process of decision-making in the practice of AVT. This paper provides a theoretical foundation for the application of Sperber and Wilson’s Relevance Theory to interlingual subtitling, followed by an analysis of selected examples from a large corpus of mostly English-language movies, series and documentaries streamed on Netflix with Polish subtitles. Though the corpus is Polish-centred, the research conclusions are intended to be universal enough to apply regardless of the language pair.","PeriodicalId":39423,"journal":{"name":"Lodz Papers in Pragmatics","volume":"18 1","pages":"113 - 129"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48156311","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract Research in the fields of pragmatics has highlighted important differences in speech act realisation strategies and the perception of contextual variables across lingua-cultures. This particularly applies for requests, which are potentially face-threating acts and important expressions of cultural behaviour, as their performance is influenced by culturally-embedded perspectives on rights and obligations. Although some languages have been widely investigated in terms of request realisation, such as English, little research has been done on Italian. This study examines request realisation strategies in Italian, in terms of Head Acts and request perspective, and the impact of the sociopragmatic factors of social distance and weight of imposition of the request on strategy choice amongst eight Italian speakers, by means of open-ended roleplays. The data was analysed by using a coding scheme based on Blum-Kulka and Olshtain (1984) and revealed that the Italian speakers where more influenced by social distance, which in turn impacted on the choice of request perspective. They were shown to prefer using hearer-orientation, which reflected in the verb conjugation of the Head Acts, since this perspective allows them to do relational work with the hearer, by either addressing the recipient with the familiar tu or with the formal lei.
{"title":"Request realisation strategies in Italian: The influence of the variables of Distance and Weight of Imposition on strategy choice","authors":"Valentina Bartali","doi":"10.1515/lpp-2022-0003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/lpp-2022-0003","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Research in the fields of pragmatics has highlighted important differences in speech act realisation strategies and the perception of contextual variables across lingua-cultures. This particularly applies for requests, which are potentially face-threating acts and important expressions of cultural behaviour, as their performance is influenced by culturally-embedded perspectives on rights and obligations. Although some languages have been widely investigated in terms of request realisation, such as English, little research has been done on Italian. This study examines request realisation strategies in Italian, in terms of Head Acts and request perspective, and the impact of the sociopragmatic factors of social distance and weight of imposition of the request on strategy choice amongst eight Italian speakers, by means of open-ended roleplays. The data was analysed by using a coding scheme based on Blum-Kulka and Olshtain (1984) and revealed that the Italian speakers where more influenced by social distance, which in turn impacted on the choice of request perspective. They were shown to prefer using hearer-orientation, which reflected in the verb conjugation of the Head Acts, since this perspective allows them to do relational work with the hearer, by either addressing the recipient with the familiar tu or with the formal lei.","PeriodicalId":39423,"journal":{"name":"Lodz Papers in Pragmatics","volume":"18 1","pages":"55 - 90"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42237842","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract This article studies the cognitive and communicative effects of typographical iconicity in poetry from the perspective of relevance theory. It argues that the visual aspect pertaining to an instance of typographical iconicity conveys a sensory impression, which perceptually resembles elements of the semantic material represented via the typographical iconicity’s lexical aspect. It is suggested that the non-propositional information relating to this impression can trigger the derivation of a wide array of weak implicatures which can combine to form an impressionistic and indeterminate cognitive state described within relevance theory as a poetic effect. Furthermore, since the added effort, which the typographical iconicity requires to be perceived and processed, is offset by the derived implicatures, the use of typographical iconicity may be said to produce an optimally relevant level of processing.
{"title":"Typographical iconicity and the communication of impressions: A relevance-theoretic perspective","authors":"Daniel William Pinder","doi":"10.1515/lpp-2022-0001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/lpp-2022-0001","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This article studies the cognitive and communicative effects of typographical iconicity in poetry from the perspective of relevance theory. It argues that the visual aspect pertaining to an instance of typographical iconicity conveys a sensory impression, which perceptually resembles elements of the semantic material represented via the typographical iconicity’s lexical aspect. It is suggested that the non-propositional information relating to this impression can trigger the derivation of a wide array of weak implicatures which can combine to form an impressionistic and indeterminate cognitive state described within relevance theory as a poetic effect. Furthermore, since the added effort, which the typographical iconicity requires to be perceived and processed, is offset by the derived implicatures, the use of typographical iconicity may be said to produce an optimally relevant level of processing.","PeriodicalId":39423,"journal":{"name":"Lodz Papers in Pragmatics","volume":"18 1","pages":"1 - 27"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49663836","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract As a part of religious discourse, Christian sermons are a “…persuasive discourse par excellence” (Adams 2019:7). This is more pronounced in the Christian Prosperity Gospel (CPG), a system of thought and belief in which preachers The word preacher and speaker are used interchangeably in this paper. attempt to convince audiences to donate to their churches with the expectation that God will reward them with health and wealth. Previous research shows that the use of metaphors and metonymies pervade CPG sermons but an explanation on the mechanisms through which they persuade is rarer. With this in mind and viewing CPG sermons from their persuasive angle; this paper sets out to investigate how metaphors and metonymies are used for persuasion purposes in televised sermons presented in the Gĩkũyũ language Gĩkũyũ is the language of the Agĩkũyũ who are largely found in central Kenya as well as in some other parts of the country. It is a Bantu language classified as a Zone E (E51) language by Guthrie (1971). According to the 2019, Population and Housing Census, the gĩkũyũ is the largest tribe in Kenya at 8,148,668 individuals. The community has dominated in televangelism but the position is changing due to the proliferation of many vernacular television stations.. The data is drawn from authentic televised sermons. The findings indicate that metaphors and metonymies engender persuasion in sermons by affecting the perceived altruism and trustworthiness of a speaker in a sermon. This is done by means of manipulating various forms of distance suggested in the Media Proximization Approach (Kopytowska 2015, 2022). Metaphor is found to affect the axiological, epistemic, temporal and emotional distances while metonymy affects the axiological and spatial distances to activate certain pragmatic presuppositions which make them persuasive in a covert way.
{"title":"Figurative language and persuasion in CPG sermons: The Example of a Gĩkũyũ televangelist","authors":"Bernard G Njuguna, Helga Schröder","doi":"10.1515/lpp-2022-0007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/lpp-2022-0007","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract As a part of religious discourse, Christian sermons are a “…persuasive discourse par excellence” (Adams 2019:7). This is more pronounced in the Christian Prosperity Gospel (CPG), a system of thought and belief in which preachers The word preacher and speaker are used interchangeably in this paper. attempt to convince audiences to donate to their churches with the expectation that God will reward them with health and wealth. Previous research shows that the use of metaphors and metonymies pervade CPG sermons but an explanation on the mechanisms through which they persuade is rarer. With this in mind and viewing CPG sermons from their persuasive angle; this paper sets out to investigate how metaphors and metonymies are used for persuasion purposes in televised sermons presented in the Gĩkũyũ language Gĩkũyũ is the language of the Agĩkũyũ who are largely found in central Kenya as well as in some other parts of the country. It is a Bantu language classified as a Zone E (E51) language by Guthrie (1971). According to the 2019, Population and Housing Census, the gĩkũyũ is the largest tribe in Kenya at 8,148,668 individuals. The community has dominated in televangelism but the position is changing due to the proliferation of many vernacular television stations.. The data is drawn from authentic televised sermons. The findings indicate that metaphors and metonymies engender persuasion in sermons by affecting the perceived altruism and trustworthiness of a speaker in a sermon. This is done by means of manipulating various forms of distance suggested in the Media Proximization Approach (Kopytowska 2015, 2022). Metaphor is found to affect the axiological, epistemic, temporal and emotional distances while metonymy affects the axiological and spatial distances to activate certain pragmatic presuppositions which make them persuasive in a covert way.","PeriodicalId":39423,"journal":{"name":"Lodz Papers in Pragmatics","volume":"18 1","pages":"151 - 173"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49333979","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Liudmila Arcimavičienė, Adam Mastandrea, Irena Snukiškienė, Lina Marčiulionytė, Rūta Burbaitė
Abstract This study aims to establish ideological effects of the pre-pandemic metaphor use in the mainstream media on users’ perceptions of their relationship with technologies during the COVID-19 pandemic. To achieve that, 120 media articles from global mainstream media sources during the pre-pandemic period were collected and analysed at three levels: (1) metaphor identification; (2) deconstruction of conceptual source domains; (3) the coding of metaphorical expressions into psychological types of interpersonal relationships that are projected on technologies. The established metaphorical patterns were tested in an online survey with 100 young adults and adults from Lithuania during the COVID-19 pandemic period of 2019-2020. The research findings resulted in the ideological perceptions of Reversed Agentivity and Mechanised Action characterising our relationship with technology and pointing out to the loss of individual autonomy, a lack of personal growth and more fragmented personal identity during the pandemic.
{"title":"The ideological effect of pre COVID-19 metaphors on our perceptions of technology during the pandemic","authors":"Liudmila Arcimavičienė, Adam Mastandrea, Irena Snukiškienė, Lina Marčiulionytė, Rūta Burbaitė","doi":"10.1515/lpp-2021-0005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/lpp-2021-0005","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This study aims to establish ideological effects of the pre-pandemic metaphor use in the mainstream media on users’ perceptions of their relationship with technologies during the COVID-19 pandemic. To achieve that, 120 media articles from global mainstream media sources during the pre-pandemic period were collected and analysed at three levels: (1) metaphor identification; (2) deconstruction of conceptual source domains; (3) the coding of metaphorical expressions into psychological types of interpersonal relationships that are projected on technologies. The established metaphorical patterns were tested in an online survey with 100 young adults and adults from Lithuania during the COVID-19 pandemic period of 2019-2020. The research findings resulted in the ideological perceptions of Reversed Agentivity and Mechanised Action characterising our relationship with technology and pointing out to the loss of individual autonomy, a lack of personal growth and more fragmented personal identity during the pandemic.","PeriodicalId":39423,"journal":{"name":"Lodz Papers in Pragmatics","volume":"17 1","pages":"87 - 110"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46811646","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract This paper focuses on Sinophobia which is usually not expressed openly in the public service media. The Sinophobia discourse intensified in 2020 in connection with the coverage of the pandemic. How are anti-Chinese attitudes expressed in the news discourse of the Czech Radio and Czech Television? Examples from a broader analysis of the representation of the SARS-COV-2 pandemic in news and journalism programmes are given. Inductive qualitative research methods (discourse and semiotic analysis) were used to detect subtle nuances of meaning and reveal implicit presuppositions. This study focuses on the manifestations of bias, e.g., the ideologically grounded attitudes of the speakers. The anti-Chinese statements (about poor hygiene habits and eating wild animals) were most often mentioned in connection with the origin of the coronavirus, vaccination, and China expansive policy. Sinophobic messages were built on the opposition of Us and Them, which is, according to van Dijk (2000), the core of new racism. In spite of the fact that the open hate speech and systematic bias (intentional implications, obvious evaluation or signposting) were not found in the researched sample, the analysis identified the presence of Sinophobic statements in both public service media.
{"title":"Anti-Chinese sentiment in the Czech public service media during the COVID-19 pandemic","authors":"R. Sedláková","doi":"10.1515/lpp-2021-0004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/lpp-2021-0004","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This paper focuses on Sinophobia which is usually not expressed openly in the public service media. The Sinophobia discourse intensified in 2020 in connection with the coverage of the pandemic. How are anti-Chinese attitudes expressed in the news discourse of the Czech Radio and Czech Television? Examples from a broader analysis of the representation of the SARS-COV-2 pandemic in news and journalism programmes are given. Inductive qualitative research methods (discourse and semiotic analysis) were used to detect subtle nuances of meaning and reveal implicit presuppositions. This study focuses on the manifestations of bias, e.g., the ideologically grounded attitudes of the speakers. The anti-Chinese statements (about poor hygiene habits and eating wild animals) were most often mentioned in connection with the origin of the coronavirus, vaccination, and China expansive policy. Sinophobic messages were built on the opposition of Us and Them, which is, according to van Dijk (2000), the core of new racism. In spite of the fact that the open hate speech and systematic bias (intentional implications, obvious evaluation or signposting) were not found in the researched sample, the analysis identified the presence of Sinophobic statements in both public service media.","PeriodicalId":39423,"journal":{"name":"Lodz Papers in Pragmatics","volume":"17 1","pages":"65 - 86"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44078684","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
A. Mirzaei, Farshad Naseri, A. Jafarpour, Zohreh R. Eslami
Abstract Conversational implicatures (CIMs) are implied by the speaker in context rather than being linguistically encoded, and learners’ inability to infer the intended meaning, if not remedied through instruction (or mediation), leads to communication breakdowns. Given this premise, the current study aimed to examine effects of classroom praxis-based instruction adjusted to EFL learners’ Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) on their comprehension of CIMs. Participants were 36 Iranian high school students in 2 classrooms, assigned to experimental and comparison groups. A 20-item CIM test was administered at pretest and posttest times to collect the data. Microgenetic trajectories were also traced through audio-recorded role-plays and social interactions within the ZPD setting. ZPD-adjusted mediational instruction on CIMs was given based on a multi-level regulatory scale and a view of microgenetic development along an other-to self-regulated functioning continuum. In the non-ZPD setting, mainstream teacher-fronted instruction was employed. ANCOVA results revealed differential instructional effects in favor of the praxis-based mediational setting. Microgenetic learning episodes also portrayed how collectively-mediated, ZPD-activated learning led to L2 learners’ progressively improved comprehension of CIMs. The findings suggest that comprehension (and perhaps production) of L2 CIMs can be improved through praxis-oriented co-construction of pragmatic knowledge through collaborative engagement with communicative activity.
{"title":"ZPD-based mediation of L2 learners’ comprehension of implicatures: An educational praxis framework","authors":"A. Mirzaei, Farshad Naseri, A. Jafarpour, Zohreh R. Eslami","doi":"10.1515/lpp-2021-0007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/lpp-2021-0007","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Conversational implicatures (CIMs) are implied by the speaker in context rather than being linguistically encoded, and learners’ inability to infer the intended meaning, if not remedied through instruction (or mediation), leads to communication breakdowns. Given this premise, the current study aimed to examine effects of classroom praxis-based instruction adjusted to EFL learners’ Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) on their comprehension of CIMs. Participants were 36 Iranian high school students in 2 classrooms, assigned to experimental and comparison groups. A 20-item CIM test was administered at pretest and posttest times to collect the data. Microgenetic trajectories were also traced through audio-recorded role-plays and social interactions within the ZPD setting. ZPD-adjusted mediational instruction on CIMs was given based on a multi-level regulatory scale and a view of microgenetic development along an other-to self-regulated functioning continuum. In the non-ZPD setting, mainstream teacher-fronted instruction was employed. ANCOVA results revealed differential instructional effects in favor of the praxis-based mediational setting. Microgenetic learning episodes also portrayed how collectively-mediated, ZPD-activated learning led to L2 learners’ progressively improved comprehension of CIMs. The findings suggest that comprehension (and perhaps production) of L2 CIMs can be improved through praxis-oriented co-construction of pragmatic knowledge through collaborative engagement with communicative activity.","PeriodicalId":39423,"journal":{"name":"Lodz Papers in Pragmatics","volume":"17 1","pages":"127 - 152"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"67024702","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}