Pragmatic Utterances and Students’ Perceptions: A Hong Kong Case Study

Abstract

The growth of English learner population and globalization of tertiary institutions in the past few decades have provided increased opportunities for these learners to study in universities that use English as the medium of instruction (EMI). In such a context, acquiring native proficiency may not be the ultimate goal for many learners, because English is used primarily as a contact language with other nonnative speakers in a global community (Jenkins, 2002; Mauranen, 2012; Seidlhofer, 2011). Given this situation, there remains much uncertainty about the extent to which pragmatic utterances formulaic language should be taught formally in the classroom. To examine this issue, the paper uses a case study approach to report on students’ perceptions of the use of pragmatic utterances in an EMI university in Hong Kong. The case constitutes two cohorts of 18 students enrolled in a course focusing on teaching the use of English pragmatic utterances for communicative purposes such as idioms, colloquial phrases and swear words. Data was collected by means of class observations and end-of-course qualitative feedback from students. For the purposes of this paper, pragmatic utterances refer to words or phrases that have an implied and/or a double meaning. These utterances are dependent on contextual factors and their meanings are often situation-based. It was found that students’ views on the importance of pragmatic utterances varied greatly. First, it was observed that students from international schools with comparatively higher proficiency in spoken English saw the benefits of learning pragmatic utterances in facilitating communication in English-speaking environments. Second, some students said that they preferred to use more “delicate” language in comparison to the coarser sounding colloquial utterances and would rather learn more polished ways of speaking. Last, a few students did not see the point of learning the use of these utterances using formulaic language. For instance, one student who was working towards completion of his doctoral thesis expressed his concern about the lack of grammatical accuracy in these forms of utterances, which made him extremely reluctant to use it during the lessons. In another instance, it was noted that two female students refused to engage in a role play that required the use of foul language to learn their pragmatic function. Clearly, multiple factors shape Hong Kong university students’ views on how English should be spoken and what should be taught in courses on spoken English. Prior exposure to pragmatic utterances seems to play a vital role among students who perceive its importance. But among those who see little value in learning it, while concerns related to grammatical in/accuracy seem to suggest that they are influenced by the need to conform to the genre most frequently used in their programme of study, issues regarding the use of “delicate” language highlight the complex interplay between social class, gender and the region’s political history that can affect students’ inclination to use pragmatic speech to varying degrees. Future research in this area can look into each of these variables in more detail.