Article published in:
Revista Española de Lingüística Aplicada/Spanish Journal of Applied Linguistics
Vol. 31:2 (2018) ► pp. 467–494

Pragmatics in CLIL

A comparison of CLIL and non-CLIL students’ requests

| San Jorge University-Zaragoza

This study is a mixed-method, cross-sectional study that compares the acquisition of request modification in the productions of two secondary school groups (15–16 years old) in two school programs: content and language integrated learning (CLIL) and traditional mainstream (non-CLIL). A total of 192 requests were gathered from both groups by means of an elicitation instrument (a Written Discourse Completion Test – WDCT). The requestive pragmatic moves (external and internal modifiers and request strategies) were analysed according to their pragmatic functions (softeners and aggravators) and a data-driven taxonomy of request modification was elaborated in line with previously developed taxonomies (Blum-Kulka et al., 1989; Alcón Soler et al., 2005) for the data analysis. The results showed that both groups share similarities typical of foreign language learners. Nonetheless, significant statistical differences between them indicated that the CLIL group had a fuller repertoire of request modification strategies, yet their sociopragmatic knowledge is questioned.

Keywords: Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL), pragmatic competence, request modification, taxonomy of requests
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Previous research
    • 2.1Interpersonal language and the importance of language pragmatics to CLIL students
    • 2.2Pragmatics in CLIL classroom discourse
    • 2.3Requestive modifiers and strategies: Taxonomies and studies
  • 3.The study
    • 3.1Participants
    • 3.2The elicitation instrument
    • 3.3Data collection procedure
    • 3.4Data analysis
      • 3.4.1Initial data coding
      • 3.4.2Newly emerging pragmatic features
  • 4.Results and discussion
    • 4.1Softening and aggravating external modifiers
    • 4.2Softening and aggravating internal modifiers
    • 4.3Softening strategies
    • 4.4Aggravating strategies in CLIL and non-CLIL learners’ requests
  • 5.Conclusion
  • References

Article language: Spanish

Published online: 27 December 2018
https://doi.org/10.1075/resla.16040.nas
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