Freitag, 13.00 Uhr
"Data collection is primary in relation to analysis: not only because it comes prior to analysis in the sequential organisation of the research process, but also because it is a more powerful determinant of the final product."
This statement from Kasper / Dahl (1991:216) highlights the enormous challenge with which researchers in the field of Interlanguage Pragmatics are confronted in their efforts to identify and explain the underlying roots of pragmatic failure and stereotyping.
Within the framework of my research, entitled, 'A longitudinal study of the effect of the year abroad on the development of pragmatic competence among second language learners of German.' I am looking, firstly, at how four specific speech-acts most notably "offering" and "refusing offers", are realised by Irish students of German compared to native speakers of German (German nationality) and native speakers of English (Irish nationality), and then tracing the development of these students´ pragmatic competence over their year abroad. This is a project which offers many new challenges in the area of primary research, the following of which I would like to address:
a. One of the hypotheses of the project is that the speech acts "offering" and "refusing offers" are realised predominately by sequences rather than isolated strategies by Irish native speakers of English (giving, rise to the "are you sure?" syndrome), and therefore presumably also by similar sequences by Irish learners of German in German. As a result, existing research tools, such as the discourse completion task (DCT) could not be employed. Instead, an alternative instrument, the Open Discourse Construction Task (ODCT), was developed.
b. Research instruments, by their nature, are constructs which can only attempt to approach the authenticity of data gathered using natural data gathering techniques. An intercultural project of this nature does not, however, lend itself to the use of such techniques due to the need for comparability of speakers of different speech communities and also of the speech of a particular person over time. Given this recognition, this project endeavours to compensate for the intrinsic drawbacks associated with these contrived methods by employing multiple instruments, namely audio- and video-recorded role-plays as well asopen discourse construction tasks (ODCR).
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