La Pragmatica nei Manuali d’Italiano L2: Una Prima Indagine sull’Atto Linguistico del Ringraziare

Abstract

The appropriateness of L2 textbooks in presenting learners with pragmatic features of the target language has been repeatedly questioned. Coursebooks of L2 Italian have not been analysed from this perspective. Therefore, an exploratory study was carried out with a focus on the speech act of thanking. The study compares 50 thanking situations taken from 17 textbooks to 50 thanking situations taken from 3 TV series (26 episodes altogether), with regard to pragmalinguistic features (head act strategies and modifiers) and sociopragmatic variables (objects of gratitude and social distance between participants). Based on previous research, it is assumed that the use of television dialogue as a surrogate for natural conversation for the analysis of certain linguistic features is appropriate, although the language used in television is obviously not the same as unscripted language. Results show both pragmalinguistic and sociopragmatic differences between the two sources, suggesting that Italian teaching materials offer a poor pragmatic input, as far as expressions of gratitude are concerned. The study therefore provides support to the claim that L2 books are unlikely to help learners develop pragmatic competence, and that teachers and textbook writers should rely less on their native-speakers’ intuitions and more on naturalistic data, or at least on TV material