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Presented by:

Michael Buckhoff

Derrick Taberski

Sydney Rice

Instructors, American Culture and Language Program

Calfornia State University, San Bernardino

TESOL/CLAD Conference UCR

I. Introduction

A. A STUDY OF THE EXPLICIT TEACHING OF IMPLICATURE TO ESL STUDENTS AND ITS EFFECT ON THEIR PERFORMANCE ON THE LISTENING

B. Teaching Implicature at the Intermediate/Advanced levels

C. Teaching Implicature at the Lower/Beginning Levels

II. Grice’s theory on Conversational Implicature

A. Make your conversation contribution such as is required, at the stage at which it occurs, by the accepted purpose or direction of the talk exchange in which you are engaged (45).

B. Under the CP there are four maxims:

1. Quantity

a. Make your contribution as informative as required (for the current purposes of the talk exchange).

b. Do not make your contribution more informative than is required.

Speaker A: Who broke the vase?

Speaker B: Sandy did. She wasn't wearing her glasses.

2. Quality

a. Do not say what you believe to be false.

Speaker A: Jeff just borrowed your new Lexus.

Speaker B: Frank: I like that.

b. Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence.

3. Relation: Be relevant

Speaker A: Where is my chocolate?

Speaker B: John was in your room this morning.

4. Manner Be perspicuous.

a. Avoid obscurity of expression.

b. Avoid ambiguity.

c. Be brief (avoid unnecessary prolixity).

d. Be orderly

Speaker A: You still feel the same toward him?

Speaker B: I just don't trust that guy.

Speaker A: Why he's a great trouble shooter.

Speaker B: Trouble. Period.

III. Why is Conversational Implicature to non native speakers?

A. Grice’s theories enable one to explain how native speakers work out the implied meanings of their interlocutors.

B. Speakers rely heavily on the cooperative principle when interpreting utterances that involve implicature. The speaker assumes that the listener will be able to work out the implied meaning as to Grice’s maxims (Pfaff 291).

C. A reliance on the CP and its maxims is a strategy that must be learned by NNS if they are to be ‘discourse competent’. (Adamson 26).

D. A knowledge of implicature is assumed on standardized English proficiency tests such as the TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language).

1. The teacher is responsible for teaching the culture of English to raise the students’ awareness of culturally specific implicatures.

2. Students must be taught how to work out utterances involving implicature and/or idiomatic/ figurative expressions by direct application of Grice’s cooperative principle if they are to answer the short and extended conversations of the TOEFL with any degree of success.

IV. A REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE

A. Bouton (1988)

The conclusions of the study suggest that a student’s unawareness of a particular culture may cause the student to derive different interpretations of culture-specific implicature.

B. Bouton (1990)

1. Bouton found that almost no attention at all is spent on rasing the students’ awareness of implicature.

2. He contended that implicature can and should be taught in the classroom. Since the textbooks did not include such instruction, he suggested that it be the responsibility of the instructor to develop suitable materials.

C. Bouton (1994)

1. He found that the nonnative speakers chose the same interpretation of imlpicature upon arrival in 1986 79.5% of the time and 91.5% of the time in 1981.

2. Nonnative speakers can interpret implicature better after 17 and 33 months in the US.

a. Second group who stayed in the US for 33 months only scored slightly higher than the first group who stayed in the US for 17 months.

b. Students reach their level of proficiency in interpreting implicature by 17 months.

3. Students who had six hours of explicit instruction of implicature improved more than the other group that had received no instruction of implicature.

D. Chen and Harris (1993)

1. ESL instruction without explicit instruction of implicature does not help a student in his or her ability to interpret implicature.

2. It does seem to help in a student’s overall linguistic competence as measured by the Michigan Test.

E. Chen and Harris (1994)

1. Explicit instruction of implicature did seem to help, though not all of the students improved equally.

a. The students who were the most limited in their overall English competency at the beginning of the quarter seemed to make the most improvements by the end of the quarter.

2. The "quality" and "manner" implicatures were easier to teach than the "quantity" and "relation" implicatures.

3. The study confirms Bouton’s findings in his pilot study.

V. A STUDY OF THE EXPLICIT TEACHING OF IMPLICATURE TO ESL STUDENTS AND ITS EFFECT ON THEIR PERFORMANCE ON THE LISTENING SECTION OF THE TEST OF ENGLISH AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE

A. Hypothesis

The experimental group receiving the explicit instruction of implicature would improve significantly higher (P<.05) on the TOEFL than the control group that received no such instruction.

B. Subjects

1. 25 international students enrolled at the American Culture and Language Program at Cal State San Bernardino for the 1996 Spring and Summer Quarters.

2. The students’ TOEFL scores were between 346 to approximately 470.

3. The students were taking 25 hours of ESL instruction in the ACLP at the time they participated in the study. The TOEFL Preparation class met for four hours a week for ten weeks for the two consecutive quarters in which the study was conducted.

C. Treatment

1. Experimental group (n=12)

a. Seven hours - which was spread out over six class sessions - of explicit instruction of Grice’s theories. This was done in addition to the regular TOEFL curriculum instruction.

b. Searle’s theories of direct and indirect speech acts (McManis, C. et al. 225-231).

2. Control group (n=13 only received the regular TOEFL curriculum instruction without the seven hours of instruction on implicature.

V. Results of the Study

A. The experimental group mean change was 7.09.

Pretest mean=21 post-test mean=28.3

B. The control group mean change was 3.69.

Pretest mean=21.3 post-test mean=26.167

C. Variable = PRETEST

Variable = POST TEST

Even more significant results would be found if additional students were used. Twenty-five additional subjects would add more statistical power to this study.

This study makes definite contributions to the study of ESL and how explicit instruction of implicature impacts a student’s listening comprehension abilities. Outright, I can claim that the seven hours of explicit teaching did not adversely effect the students scores. The students in the experimental group did improve by increasing their scores on average from 20.58 to 27.67 during the ten weeks of instruction. The fact that the students increased their scores 7.09 points is encouraging. The mean of 7.09 points should be seen as an approximate gauge in which an ESL instructor can measure the success of the improvements of a class as a whole. In contrast, the control group improved 3.69 points higher on the post test than on the pretest.

My study indirectly coincides with Hymes (1971) who pointed out that understanding a language involves much more than understanding the syntax and phonology of a language. It also involves understanding how to use the language appropriately. I am in line with Long who went on to outline implications of Hymes theories and how it would affect teaching (1976). In addition to that, statistically quantifying the explicit teaching of implicature by looking at its effects on students listening TOEFL scores is extending the work of Bouton (1990) and Chen and Harris (1993, 1994).