Accuracy and speed in the interpretation of implied meanings in English: Turkish teacher trainees versus native speakers

Year 2018, Volume: 14 Issue: 2, 325 - 342, 15.06.2018

Uğur Recep Çetinavcı

Abstract

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Accuracy and speed in the interpretation of implied meanings in English: Turkish teacher trainees versus native speakers
This study aims to investigate how Turkish Teacher Trainees of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) interpret implied meanings, which is an integral but lesser-studied component of pragmatic competence. The conduct of the study began with the development of an online multiple-choice discourse completion test (MDCT) through two piloting phases. Next, the test was given to a group of 144 1st year teacher trainees and a group of 127 native speakers of English, who served as the comparison group to provide interpretation norms as the benchmark. The results revealed a significant difference between the native speakers and teacher trainees in favor of the former in terms of both accuracy and speed at the interpretation of implied meanings in English. In consideration of the fact that teacher training is critical for inevitably influencing how instructional practices are used in the future, the study identified an improvable aspect in the pragmatic skills of prospective EFL teachers, which could pave way for informed instructional solutions for both EFL teacher trainees and learners.
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Author 1
Author (Last name, First name)	Çetinavcı, Uğur Recep
Affiliated institution (University)	Uludag University
Country	Turkey
Email address	[e-mail]
Department & Rank	ELT Department
Corresponding author (Yes/No) Write only one corresponding author.	Yes
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Keywords

pragmatics; pragmatic comprehension; implied meanings (implicature); teacher education

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