Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
Linguistics: Cross Cultural Perspectives, F. Büşra Süverdem,Selen Tekalp, Editör, Peter Lang Publishing, Inc., Berlin, ss.71-92, 2022
Abstract: Pragmatic
competence has long been a curious area of research and has been investigated
from various aspects. However, the pragmatic competence of pre-service English
language teachers regarding the use of forms of address seems to be a rather
neglected area. This study investigates the appropriateness of English address
forms preferred 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 is stated by Chen (2010), to ensure effective
communication and successful maintenance of interpersonal relationships,
appropriate address behavior is crucial. When choosing the forms of address to
use, one should be aware of several factors such as sex, age, family
relationship, occupational hierarchy, and degree of intimacy and so on (Yang,
2010), which might be a great challenge for non-native speakers of a language. 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 since choosing the right thing to say and how to say
it depend on understanding exactly what is appropriate for the context and the
culture. Such a challenge might be worked out by a native
speaker through several conversational means or strategies, but a foreign
language speaker might not have the same advantage, and they might have a
greater difficulty choosing the appropriate form of address.
Therefore, it is necessary that their use of English address forms should be
examined so that their awareness in this regard could 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 and investigates how
appropriate the address forms preferred by pre-service English language
teachers are according to native speakers of English. The data for the study
were collected through both quantitative and qualitative data collection tools:
A Discourse Completion Task (DCT) questionnaire, a Scaled Response Task (SRT)
questionnaire, 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; they handle most of the addressing situations,
except those in which they address classmates or little children, by using
Title + Last Name, Honorifics or non-address forms. It can be concluded that
the PSELTs in general are deprived of the necessary pragmatic competence regarding
the forms of address in English, which might be suggesting the existence of a
gap in language teacher education and foreign language teaching programs in
Turkey.