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Article published In:
Pragmatics and its Interfaces as related to the Expression of Intention
Edited by István Kecskés
[Pragmatics & Cognition 26:1] 2019
► pp. 85–111

Indirect reporting and pragmatically enriched context

A case study into Russian learners of English

ORCID logo | Tomsk State University
ORCID logo | Tomsk State University
ORCID logo | Tomsk State University

This article examines the pragmatic comprehensibility of indirect reporting. The research problem is to determine how Russian EFL learners (linguists and non-linguists) are able to turn original utterances expressing the intentions of native speakers of American English in direct speech into indirect reports to a third party. Two major issues are analyzed: adequacy of semantic content and preservation of pragmatic enrichment. The study was carried out employing the framework of Kecskes’ Socio-Cognitive Approach (2008, 2010, 2014, 2017). Twelve stimulus-utterances belonging to three communicative types (statements, questions, commands/requests) were video-recorded. Qualitative and quantitative analyses revealed that the participants met with some difficulties preserving the speaker’s intention while interpreting attached pragmatic enrichment and perlocutionary effect. Both cohorts of Russian EFL learners were able to preserve the semantic content relatively efficiently, but encountered substantial difficulties inferring a complex pragmatic content.

Keywords: propositional content, indirect report, illocutionary force, pragmatic enrichment, communicative intention
Article outline
  • 1.Background to the study
    • 1.1Introduction
    • 1.2Problem statement
  • 2.Methodology and data
    • 2.1The participants
    • 2.2Methods
      • 2.2.1Experimental procedure
      • 2.2.2Qualitative approach
  • 3.Results
  • 4.Analysis and discussion
    • 4.1Q1: The extent of keeping the original lexical content
    • 4.2Q2: Preservation of pragmatic enrichment
    • 4.3The correlation between parameters P1 and P2
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 27 March 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/pc.19011.obd
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