School of Languages and Linguistics - Theses
Permanent URI for this collection
Search Results
1 - 1 of 1
-
ItemAdolescent identity and pragmatic marker acquisition in a study abroad context( 2010)This longitudinal study investigated the acquisition of interpersonal markers by adolescent German students on a five or ten month exchange to Australia. Interpersonal markers were defined as syntactically optional elements of speech that provided implicit information about the relationship between the speakers and the message. The study also explored how structured and semi-structured data collection methods impacted on interpersonal marker use. The data consisted of audio-recordings of informal conversational interviews and the retelling of a story based on Mr Bean DVD clips. A language contact questionnaire was also used to help explain variation in acquisition. Three groups of sixteen to seventeen year old adolescents were recruited for the study: an experimental group of twenty-six German exchange students to Australia, a control group of twenty adolescents in Germany and native-speaker data from a group of twelve Australian adolescents. The experimental group was further divided into fourteen teenagers on a ten month exchange and twelve adolescents on a five month exchange to Australia. The exchange students acquired a large number of those interpersonal markers most associated with adolescent language within the first five months of their exchange. However, even after ten months of the exchange, levels of interpersonal marker use did not always match that of native speakers. Lower levels of interpersonal markers were found for students participating on a five month exchange compared to those on a ten month programme. This was most likely due to lower levels of personal investment and social integration in the five month cohort. Little or no acquisition was observed for German high school students who did not participate in an extended exchange. On a methodological level, a reliable system for the coding of pragmatic markers was developed. The study also highlighted issues of task effects in interview versus retelling data collection and of collecting information via written language contact profiles. The research adds to the growing repertoire of study abroad and developmental pragmatic competence literature and is of particular interest to exchange programme development as well as curriculum design for second language teaching.