ABSTRACT |
The necessity of integrating pragmatics in foreign language teaching has
given rise to a lot of research (Rose and Kasper, 2001; Martínez-Flor,
Usó and Fernández, 2003). However, most of the interventional studies
have focused on the teachability of particular speech acts, such as
requests or apologies, and have included only one group of participants.
Thus, as claimed by Kasper and Rose (2002), there is a need to conduct
more research on the role of instruction on other pragmatic features,
and include a control group in the research design. On that account,
this study examines the effects of pedagogical intervention to develop
learners’ use of downgraders (i.e. particular mitigating devices) when
making suggestions in comparison to a control group, which did not
receive any instruction. Results showed that the learners receiving
pedagogical intervention significantly improved their production of
downgraders when suggesting in comparison to the control group. These
findings therefore demonstrate the benefits of teaching this particular
pragmatic aspect in the foreign language classroom, and call for further
research that examines the teachability of other features.
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