Pragmatism Paper Outline

Thesis: Discourse Completion Tasks and Speech Corpora are both sources that are used in analyzing pragmatism. However, the corpora method is more accurate when coming up with a theory on how we perceive various texts. Body Paragraph 1 Topic Sentence: DCTs are efficient sources of data when testing a particular set of conditions in an environment. The DCT takes place in an already set environment with the conditions tested. Therefore, one is able to get the specific results they are looking for. This can lead to one making an accurate conclusion on the hypothesis that they were testing. Evidence: “These tasks usually referred to as Discourse Completion Tasks or Discourse Completion Tests (DCTs) are widely and successfully used in the study of Speech acts (see Chapter 5) and speech events (e.g., asking the time). They are particularly favored as a methodology in the study of second language pragmatic competence. They are essentially a type of language questionnaire whereby you elicit what a speaker thinks they would say in a situation. In addition to their use in the study of speech acts and events, they are used in dialect studies where they can focus on very specific structures” (Boxer & Cohen 2004). Body Paragraph 2 Topic Sentence: Speech Corpora and Discourses get utilized in the analysis of foreign languages. However, DCTs are not convenient sources of data when assessing these languages. This is because they do not evaluate an array of situations which is the typical phenomenon. In most environments, reactions are made by far too many parameters contrary to the ideal environment created, when trying to obtain a reaction through the DCT method. Entities obtain data stored in speech corpora from sources that were unaware that their speech got recorded. Evidence: “The level of control in DCTs has come in for criticism over the years. It is argued that DCTs cannot be used to appraise pragmatic competence in the study of foreign language users because, apart from providing too little context, they cannot constrain discourse options without contaminating the response. To redress this, I used a cartoon DCT to provide a pictorial context to constrain the response while allowing freedom to elaborate language,” (Adolph 2008).