Abstract:

This paper focuses on the shape of agreement and disagreement in English as a foreign language (EFL) discourse from an (im)politeness perspective that draws on Brown and Levinson’s (1987) Politeness Theory, and frameworks of face aggravating language, rudeness and impoliteness (cf. Bousfield, 2007, 2008; Culpeper, 1996, 2005; Culpeper et al., 2003; Lachenicht, 1980; Kienpointner, 1997). (Im)politeness investigations on discourses in which English is not used as a first language are scant if balanced against (im)politeness research conducted on L1 English. Additionally, (im)politeness phenomena are part of a speaker's pragmatic competence (García-Pastor, 2012), namely, his/her knowledge of the linguistic resources for conveying and interpreting communicative action and relational or interpersonal meanings in a specific language (Kasper & Rose, 2001). Helping learners develop their pragmatic competence in a second or foreign (L2/FL) language is essential for them to be able to master it fully. Therefore, this study has aimed to jointly contribute to (im)politeness research and EFL learning and instruction through the analysis of (dis)agreement sequences as face attention (polite) or face damage (impolite) units in EFL exchanges consisting of approximately 20 hours of ongoing talk. Learners’ agreements and disagreements in EFL were observed to adopt the shape of jointly constructed floors (cf. Edelsky, 1981) of a collaborative nature in the case of agreement, and of a combative condition in the case of disagreement. Agreements were thus mainly tailored as attention to positive face or the desire to be approved of (Brown and Levinson, 1987), but also as “non-pure face attention”, which includes a face damage component (García-Pastor, 2006, 2008, in press). Disagreements, on the other hand, were primarily cast as “non-pure face damage” (ibid.), which includes a face attention element, and, to a lesser extent, damage to positive face and negative face or the desire to be unimpeded upon (Brown and Levinson, 1987). These results were then compared to English as L1 (dis)agreement production, and, upon analysis, a different use of mitigation devices was observed in EFL discourse on the whole, thus pointing out learners' need of greater awareness of the linguistic resources commonly employed for voicing (dis)agreement in the target language. In brief, it is believed here that a better understanding of how certain linguistic functions (e.g., agreeing and disagreeing) work in L2/FL may be helpful to yield more effective instructional treatments and designs for learners.

Keywords:

EFL learning and instruction, (disa)agreement, (im)politeness, face attention, face damage, pragmatic competence.