Não sei como dizer em português para não sembrare tão maleducada – o ato de censura na interlíngua de falantes de PLNM “I don´t know how to say it in Portuguese without sounding so disrespectful”- the act of criticism in the interlanguage of non-native

Abstract

There are few studies in the framework of Interlanguage Pragmatics on how foreign language learners produce the illocutionary speech act of criticism. This is a demanding act, as it threatens the interlocutor’s face, leading to negative emotions, and with implications regarding interpersonal relationships. With focus on a pragmatic perspective, this study aims to analyse the illocutionary speech act of criticism in a formal and asymmetrical context produced by learners of Portuguese as a foreign language. Through a set of oral productions by B1 level students in the project CORal-Cocorpus, and Nguyen’s (2005) model as support, the present analysis intends to (i)identify the direct and indirect intentions of the act of criticism, (ii) list the semantic formulas used by learners, (iii) evaluate the modification strategies students used and (iv) present a proposal for the prototypical structure of this speech act set produced by those learners. The results point to a continuum between the act of criticism and the act of request. There is also evidence of two critical areas in the production of that act, one related to the erroneous use regarding formal and informal language (forms of address) and the other is caused by the coexistent use of strategies that lead to mitigation and intensification