Derivation of ironical implicatures by English foreign language learners: do language proficiency and culture play a role?

Abstract

Literature on cross-cultural communication has demonstrated that communication breakdowns are more likely to occur among speakers from different cultural backgrounds (Togame, 2016). This led other scholars, such as Bouton (1988), to test the communicative habits of non-native speakers of English and to contrast them with those of English native speakers. The results of these studies have proved that the derivation of implicatures by English non-native speakers differs if compared with that of English native speakers and that ironical implicatures are among the most difficult ones to grasp for English non-native speakers. Both language proficiency and culture have been regarded as possible variables influencing the derivation of implicatures (Bouton, 1988). In view of this literature and applying Hall’s (1976) proposal on the notion of culture, the present study aims at analysing which the variables influencing the derivation of ironical implicatures by English foreign language learners are. For current purposes, the present study analyses first whether the sample participating derives pragmatically felicitous ironical implicatures or not; secondly, if culture as a bidirectional factor has an impact on the participants’ interpretations; and finally, if the language proficiency level of the participants can also influence their interpretations. In order to do so, a sample of 12 English foreign language learners (all of them belonging to a high context culture) filled a questionnaire which was used to gather data. The questionnaire contained 15 questions: 10 multiple-choice questions and 5 open questions, each of them giving rise to an ironical implicature. The findings suggest that the sample examined shows a high tendency to derive pragmatically felicitous ironical implicatures, especially if questions are presented as multiple choice questions. Also, the data obtained reveal that while the impact of the participants’ high context cultural background on their interpretations is not that clear, it may have had an impact on their interpretations of some questions, as common patterns of interpretation to some questions have been found. Additionally, the results prove that participants’ lack of familiarity with some items of the target language culture may directly influence the participants’ interpretations. Regarding the role of the language proficiency variable, data confirm that questions which are grammatically more complex pose a difficulty when it comes to interpreting them and that it has been more challenging to derive a pragmatically felicitous ironical interpretation for those participants whose language proficiency was slightly under the mean of the sample. These findings lead to the conclusion that both culture and language proficiency seem to play a role in the derivation of ironical implicatures by English foreign language learners.