Abstract

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Being a competent language learner requires to develop not only morphological, syntactic or lexical knowledge in the target language but also pragmatic competence to interact with others appropriately in social contexts. Conceptual socialization, in that sense, refers to the process second/foreign language learners go through to transform their conceptual system so as “to fit the functional needs of the new language and culture” (Kecskes, 2002, p. 157). Therefore, the present study examined Turkish EFL learners’ conceptual socialization by analyzing the similarities and differences between native speakers of English and Turkish learners of English in their request speech acts realization. The data were collected from Turkish learners of English (focal group) and native speakers of English (baseline group) through role-plays and a written discourse completion task on requests both in Turkish and English. Participants’ responses were rated in terms of the level of formality, politeness, directness and appropriateness by using a criterion. The results indicated that although the Turkish EFL learners were higher level learners, they could not produce the required level of politeness, formality and appropriateness in their speech acts as much as the native speakers did. This study reveals that in EFL contexts, where there is lack of authentic social interaction and engagement with a community of practice, language learners’ conceptual socialization process is bound to their experiences of classroom instruction and L1 socialization. When the instruction and the course books are designed by considering the learners’ needs in terms of speech act realization patterns, learners’ difficulties can be addressed and their awareness could be raised to use the language appropriately in different social contexts. Thus, learners can be helped to attain successful communication in the target language by making them aware of the cultural differences and helping them improve their socio-pragmatic competence.

 

Reference

Kecskes, I. (2002). Situation-bound utterances in L1 and L2. Berlin; New York: Mouton de Gruyter.