In this presentation, I will examine five different picturebooks (The airport book, The prince and the pee, The suitcase, Weirdo, When Charley met Emma) regarding their speech act content. I will focus on 15 speech acts acts (Advice, Advice Response, Apology, Agreement, Disagreement, Complaint, Expression of Feelings / Physical states, Greeting, Leave-take, Offer, Offer Response, Request, Request-Responses, Reprimand, Thanking) but will also briefly address issues such as exclusion and inclusion, talking about bodily functions and intercultural content.
Although interlanguage pragmatics has established itself as a subfield of English Language Teaching and Second Language Acquisition, very little research to date has focused on interlanguage pragmatics and young L2 learners (but see Rose 2000, Lee 2010) and even fewer studies have examined the potential of children's literature for teaching pragmatics in TEYL classrooms (e.g. Ishihara 2013, Schauer 2019). In a recent study on primary EFL teachers' use of picturebooks and 10 speech acts that form the basis of a primary school curriculum in a German state, Schauer (2019) found that the number of speech acts included in 20 popular picturebooks (such as Elmer, Something else, The very hungry caterpillar) was rather limited. This meant that the picturebooks investigated did not provide young L2 learners with rich and varied input regarding speech acts that are also frequently not covered sufficiently in EFL textbooks for young learners (cf. Vollmuth 2004). As a result, young EFL learners may receive very limited input regarding key speech acts such as apologies, expressions of gratitude, greetings and leave-takes via textbooks or frequently employed children's books. This is problematic since it can result in young EFL learners not acquiring basic language skills (i.e. productive pragmatic speech act competence as well as pragmatic comprehension) in their L2 that they may need in situations and contexts in which their L1 is not understood or spoken. It can also mean that young L2 learners may lack simple expressions to communicate politely in everyday life situations. In this presentation, I will analyse five different picturebooks with a main focus on the pragmatic input they offer young L2 learners of English concerning 15 speech acts: Advice, Advice Response, Apology, Agreement, Disagreement, Complaint, Expression of Feelings / Physical states, Greeting, Leave-take, Offer, Offer Response, Request, Request-Responses, Reprimand, Thanking. In addition, I will also address issues such as exclusion and inclusion, talking about bodily functions and intercultural content.
