1513. A rather new discipline: Pragmatics



Pragmatics is a rather new area of knowledge and practice that is pretty important. 

What a person says can be rude for another person of another language. 

An example of pragmatics. A marriage of a German guy and a Japanese woman. They’re in their car going to somewhere. And the lady, instead of saying “We should stop and buy some sandwiches”, she says “Could we feel hungry sometime, darling, you think?”. 

That is pragmatics. 

Another example: a French lady says “It’s very cold here”, instead of “Do you all mind me closing the window?” / Photo from: newsimage idw-online de

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

1930. The necessity of compromise

Image
We have freedom, tentatively, and by principle. First premise.  However if I skip any compromise, I can't use my freedom.  If I compromise with someone about something I must fulfill it, right?  Albeit some people think that getting married for example doesn't entail to live with your spouse for the rest of your life, I'd say that compromise is for all the lifetime of one of the spouses however. I do know many marriages that have lived together until death of one of the spouses. / Photo from: compromise-settling-our-differences-in-agreement-thumb. howtodateinlv wordpress com
Read more

3710. What Can You Do when Your Students Know Nothing or Nearly So? Some Try

  You know what? Like one month ago I finished to teach English to a nice class of adults, 0 beginners, or better said, false beginners, for they had some knowledge of English.  And over all the school year I have been struggling to actually teach them, and striving also for them to learn something, you know, like the basics. I don’t usually encounter such a group, beginners I mean. It was a nice fight to really make good use of time – tell me, what can you do when the students know close to nothing, and they’ve got few communicative competences?  As I said, it was a nice group, and the ones who persevered along the school year, well, you know, they did have a real interest to learn – so nice people they were.  I’ve been screwing my brain to learn what to do with such people; even I consulted the Internet to learn about such a group. Plus the group was not very much settled, and only a small group stayed with us until the end of the year – I mean us because we were ...
Read more

157. Speeches, debates, promises, promises, promises

Image
NB.- I just realized the attached picture might someway mean something pejorative about those gentlemen. Nothing this sort I meant. Furthermore, i do not know them. Just i liked the photograph, an interesting one if you have a peek at it. Let's carry over it: The teaching coach told old Shean, "I was thinking of telling you, of giving you some brief clues so as you may have a view of higher-level, heavy tasks for your students. First, you all will have to carry out a search of terminology. Second, they implement the task, you know. From a more simple contest between two students giving speeches as each has been proposed as the principal of the school, and she, or he presents the new schedule, rules, recess-periods, new technology, whether uniform or not (in Spain some students don't like wearing uniforms of the school at all; as soon as they arrive home, they change), and so on. Or a candidate for the primaries. Or proposals to end up out the world economic crisis. Pros a...
Read more

3125. Working as a Team in the Classroom

Image
  We teachers should be updated about education trends or research trends, more if they seem okay. What I mean is that quite many teachers are trying the following working scheme. The class plus the teacher would be a working team. Anyway this does not mean the teacher is secondary or minor role, or he cannot present topics, like for example grammar patterns. The point is roping the class into a process of learning: the students also are the main characters at this play. The teacher would boost their learning, for example by making them participate more, and also by doing everything that would put them as protagonists of the lesson, together with their teacher. In other words the teacher would foster and boost his students’ creativity. In the lesson there would be the teacher’s creativity plus the students’ creativity too. The class with their teacher is like a work-team or group. The trend is creating thinking classes, thinking individuals. / Photo from: arion2render...
Read more

560. Just listen

Image
One day teacher of English B said to teacher of English A, “Pronunciation in English is essential in teaching/learning this language. The teacher has to pronounce single words clearly, and make the students repeat, as a chorus, and individually. Also the teacher should read sentences in a more naturalistic way, and make the students read aloud too, and so listen to one another. He or she will dedicate enough time to the vowels, for example the pronunciation of ‘i’ in different words, like idea, finish, mine, meantime, bit, bite . Though the students may not understand much, it seems good they listen massively to their teacher, to sense the peculiar texture of English. CDs and DVDs help the learners focus attentively on the spoken language and its pronunciation. With passing time, the teacher can start to teach the international phonetic alphabet (IPA), a great aid, as it appears in dictionaries.” / Photo from: www thecia au. The film is Once , a moving Irish movie, produced with an ama...
Read more