John Benjamins Publishing Company
Communicative tasks across languages: Movie narratives in English, in English as a foreign language and in German
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Andreas H. Jucker
Abstract
In cooperation between the California State University, Long Beach and the Justus Liebig University, Giessen narratives were elicited from different groups of speakers (native speakers of English and native speakers of German who contributed either narratives in English or in their native language). The narratives were elicited with the help of a silent Charlie Chaplin movie in order to contrast how the different groups of speakers solve several narrative subtasks, i.e. the sequencing of narrative episodes with the appropriate choice of tense, the introduction of individual characters, and the reporting of characters’ thoughts and utterances. The results indicate that there are a number of subtle differences in how such tasks are solved in English and in German and that German speakers tend to adopt pragmatic strategies from their native language in spite of their generally excellent command of English.
Abstract
In cooperation between the California State University, Long Beach and the Justus Liebig University, Giessen narratives were elicited from different groups of speakers (native speakers of English and native speakers of German who contributed either narratives in English or in their native language). The narratives were elicited with the help of a silent Charlie Chaplin movie in order to contrast how the different groups of speakers solve several narrative subtasks, i.e. the sequencing of narrative episodes with the appropriate choice of tense, the introduction of individual characters, and the reporting of characters’ thoughts and utterances. The results indicate that there are a number of subtle differences in how such tasks are solved in English and in German and that German speakers tend to adopt pragmatic strategies from their native language in spite of their generally excellent command of English.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Contributors vii
- Introduction xv
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Part I. Information structure
- Theme zones in contrast: An analysis of their linguistic realization in the communicative act of a non-acceptance 3
- Last things first: An FDG approach to clause-final focus constituents in Spanish and English 33
- Contrastive perspectives on cleft sentences 69
- The position of adverbials and the pragmatic organization of the sentence: A comparison of French and Dutch 89
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Part II. Lexis in contrast
- Swedish verbs of perception from a typological and contrastive perspective 123
- 'Abroad' and semantically related terms in some European languages and in Akan (Ghana) 173
- The expression of emotion in Italian and English fairy tales 193
- The feminine stereotype in gay characterization: A look at English and Spanish 221
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Part III. Contrastive perspectives on SLA
- Communicative tasks across languages: Movie narratives in English, in English as a foreign language and in German 247
- Linguistic theory and bilingual systems: Simultaneous and sequential English/Spanish bilingualism 275
- Awareness of orthographic form and morphophonemic learning in EFL 299
- Contrastive intonation and error analysis: Tonality and tonicity in the interlanguage of a group of Spanish learners of English 327
- Author index 355
- Index of languages 359
- Index of terms 361
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Contributors vii
- Introduction xv
-
Part I. Information structure
- Theme zones in contrast: An analysis of their linguistic realization in the communicative act of a non-acceptance 3
- Last things first: An FDG approach to clause-final focus constituents in Spanish and English 33
- Contrastive perspectives on cleft sentences 69
- The position of adverbials and the pragmatic organization of the sentence: A comparison of French and Dutch 89
-
Part II. Lexis in contrast
- Swedish verbs of perception from a typological and contrastive perspective 123
- 'Abroad' and semantically related terms in some European languages and in Akan (Ghana) 173
- The expression of emotion in Italian and English fairy tales 193
- The feminine stereotype in gay characterization: A look at English and Spanish 221
-
Part III. Contrastive perspectives on SLA
- Communicative tasks across languages: Movie narratives in English, in English as a foreign language and in German 247
- Linguistic theory and bilingual systems: Simultaneous and sequential English/Spanish bilingualism 275
- Awareness of orthographic form and morphophonemic learning in EFL 299
- Contrastive intonation and error analysis: Tonality and tonicity in the interlanguage of a group of Spanish learners of English 327
- Author index 355
- Index of languages 359
- Index of terms 361
