Abstract
This paper presents the extent to which like is used as a pragmatic marker (PM) by Brazilian university students living in Ireland. This is a case study which is part of a broader PhD research project on L2 pragmatic development within a study-abroad context. The results and reflections of this study are based on a sample corpus of spoken language, which comprises four 30-minute informal interactions between 6 participants and the researcher. Drawing on the Limerick Corpus of Irish English, a representative corpus of spoken Irish English (IrE), the interpersonal functions and procedural meanings of the PM like in the participants’ L2 are compared and contrasted against those of the IrE data. Quantitatively, the PM like is found to be a keyword in the L2 corpus and three times more frequent by comparison to the IrE data. Qualitatively, this study shows evidence of like being used multifunctionally by the L2-speakers of English, with all functions of the PM also previously described in the literature on IrE. However, some specific functional patterns also emerge from the L2 data, which indicates the pragmatic needs and linguistic demands which may arise during communication when using an L2.***Pragmática da segunda língua: um estudo de corpus do marcador pragmático like***Este artigo apresenta a extensão com que like é usado como marcador pragmático (MP) por brasileiros universitários na Irlanda. Este é um estudo de caso, e parte de um projeto de pesquisa de doutorado sobre o desenvolvimento da pragmática da segunda língua (L2) no contexto de intercâmbio. Os resultados e reflexões deste estudo são embasados em uma amostra de um corpus de língua falada, que é constituído de quatro interações informais de 30 minutos entre 6 participantes e o pesquisador. Tendo como referência o Limerick Corpus of Irish English, um corpus representativo do inglês irlandês falado, as funções interpessoais e os significados procedurais do MP like usados pelos participantes são comparados e contrastados. Quantitativamente, o MP like se encontra como uma palavra-chave no corpus de L2, e é três vezes mais frequente se comparado com os dados do inglês irlandês. Qualitativamente, este estudo evidencia a multifuncionalidade de like na L2 dos participantes, sendo todas as funções usadas pelos participantes também previamente descritas na literatura sobre o inglês irlandês. Contudo, alguns padrões funcionais específicos também emergem do corpus de L2, o que indica as necessidades pragmáticas e exigências linguísticas que podem surgir durante a comunicação quando usando uma L2.
Highlights
Studies on spoken language have benefited greatly from Corpus Linguistics over recent years
pragmatic marker (PM) are, consequentially, essential linguistic features in contributing to the development of pragmatic competence in second languages (Fung and Carter, 2007). It is against this background that the present paper addresses the extent to which like is used as a PM by Brazilian university students living in Ireland
Owing to the fact that the researcher participates in all conversations with the participants, his contribution was extracted from the data in order to provide a more reliable account of the phenomenon in the L2 corpus, which is labelled as L2 corpus (-r) in Figure 1 below: Figure 1: Frequency of like per million words
Summary
Studies on spoken language have benefited greatly from Corpus Linguistics over recent years. It would be fair to observe that one of Corpus Linguistics’ major contributions has been helping bring to light important features of spoken language that, otherwise, would not have been accessed or uncovered – especially from unnatural elicited data. 4) aptly puts it, “the ability to examine large text corpora in a systematic manner allows access to a quality of evidence that has not been available before”. This is true of spoken corpora as they provide the researcher with natural language in use with all its distinctive features which arise during online interaction between interactants
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