Actes de langage et politesse : une étude empirique chez les étudiants espagnols

Abstract

Speech Acts and Politeness: An Empirical Research among Spanish Students

The pragmatic dimension of language is a key element that allows human beings to communicate and, in this way, to define themselves culturally. More specifically, the interest of a study of pragmatics lies in the following fundamental idea: the use of linguistic codes cannot be envisaged without taking into account the social component of the communicative process. The importance of this functional vision of the communicative act is such that it alone makes it possible to promote a study of the language that goes beyond the systemic dimension advocated until the end of the seventies of the 20th century. We therefore wish to frame our work in the field of pragmalinguistics and, more precisely, in the paradigm of politeness. This work allows us to frame our object of study by identifying the fundamental elements that define the paradigm concerned (politeness). It discusses the importance of pragmatic competence for learning a foreign language, in accordance with the precepts established by the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages. This article, therefore, deals with the study of pragmalinguistics and that of the linguistic elements that are used by Spanish speakers to express certain speech acts in their mother tongue. The idea that shapes this research is based on the principles of politeness and on the importance given to the pragmatic component in the classroom to minimize the cases of interference (negative transfer) by learners in their process of learning a foreign language. Certain learning resources, such as oral / written discourse corpora, enable students to see how native speakers express themselves in concrete circumstances. Therefore, we present the results of a survey carried out among Spanish university students with the aim of analyzing the use of linguistic resources in their mother tongue to express the acts of request, refusal, order, instruction and complaint. For that purpose, respondents were asked to watch a silent short film, to consider the degree of cordiality in each for each scene and, then, to put forward the statements of each actor. The gathering of data has been ensured through the Discourse Completion Task methodology. The results confirm the link between this interpretation, the linguistic elements chosen and the politeness strategies developed for each scene. We also underline the highly cultural and intersubjective character of the use of the language, which results, among others, in the use of fixed expressions, of more or less complex propositions, of semantic or syntactic markers, of interjections, in order to downgrade or upgrade the illocutionary force of the statement. This work is meant to offer the scientific and teaching community an authentic and practical tool that can provide useful information about the way Spanish speakers use their mother tongue to express certain language acts.