“The language is very formal and appropriate”: L2 learners’ in/appropriateness evaluations and metapragmatic judgments in student-faculty emails

Abstract

The present study examines Greek, EFL learners’ pragmatic judgments and metapragmatic explanations in relation to student-faculty emails. It aims to shed light on their pragmalinguistic and sociopragmatic considerations relevant for their perceptions of email in/appropriateness, and to identify email features (linguistic and/or contextual) which are most salient to them and hence influence their pragmatic judgments. Using qualitative and quantitative data from perception questionnaires, the study found that learners demonstrated low sociopragmatic and pragmalinguistic awareness when evaluating status-incongruent emails. They were overall unable to acknowledge and balance the importance between email content and email form, as their evaluations focused primarily on email framing devices and formality relevant to forms of address and sign-offs. They paid little attention to the various content moves pertaining to the presence or absence of status-preserving pragmalinguistic strategies, and to sociopragmatic and contextual considerations such as the involved institutional rights and obligations, or the acknowledgement of imposition. Overall, findings indicated that the learners saw the email domain more as a system of structural rules that need to be adhered to through specific framing devices, and less as a system of communication where social relationships are established and maintained though the selection of appropriate content moves.