The role of pragmatic markers in academic spoken interlanguage: A corpus-based study of a group of brazilian efl university students

Abstract

The present work addresses a group of university students of EFL (English as a Foreign Language) on how they use pragmatic markers in their oral productions. The initial hypothesis was that there would be differences both in usage and form in comparison to native speakers. In order to verify our claim, we set off to investigate two corpora: a learner oral corpus being compiled at the Federal University of Minas Gerais/Brazil and a sub-corpus from the British Academic Spoken English (BASE). While Brazilian students overuse items such as maybe and just, the data recorded in the UK displayed a more varied range of markers and multiword forms. Overall, the findings reinforce the importance of analyzing empirical data for a broader understanding of how native speakers and learners can differ in their oral academic production. The paper also sheds light on language teaching and learning in the academic setting from a pragmatic viewpoint.