An analysis of the pragmatic competence of pre-service English language teachers: Appropriateness of forms of address

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Tezin Türü: Doktora

Tezin Yürütüldüğü Kurum: Orta Doğu Teknik Üniversitesi, Eğitim Fakültesi, Yabancı Diller Eğitimi Bölümü, Türkiye

Tezin Onay Tarihi: 2014

Öğrenci: CANAN TERZİ

Danışman: GÖLGE SEFEROĞLU

Özet:

Pragmatic competence has been one of the main concerns of cross-cultural studies for more than 40 years now and has been investigated from various aspects. However, the pragmatic competence of pre-service English language teachers seems to be a rather neglected area. This study investigates the use of English address forms by pre-service English language teachers. The address system of a language consists of an inventory of address forms through which the speakers of the language express the underlying norms and conventions in a society and which are culturally-determined. As learners and prospective teachers, pre-service English language teachers find themselves between, at least, two cultures when they are communicating in the foreign language and it is challenging for them to choose the addressing norms that they should conform to. Therefore, it is necessary that their awareness in this regard be raised. To that end, this study examines the forms of address pre-service English language teachers prefer to use in academic and non-academic settings. The data for the study were collected through both quantitative and qualitative data collection tools. These tools were a Discourse Completion Task (DCT), a Scaled Response Task (SRT), think-alouds, and interviews. The findings of the study suggest that pre-service English language teachers have a rather limited repertoire of forms of address in English and they are not pragmatically-competent enough regarding their knowledge of address forms in English, which might be suggesting the existence of a gap in language teacher education programs in Turkey.