Junko Kosaki    Department   Kawasaki University of Medical Welfare  ,    Position   Associate Professor
Language	English
Title	Pragmatic rules as an enhancement of students' intercultural competence: a study based on a functional analysis of overlaps in task-based dialogues
Conference	15th International Pragmatics Conference
Promoters	International Pragmatics Association (IPrA)
Conference Type	International society and overseas society
Presentation Type	Speech
Lecture Type	General
Publisher and common publisher	◎Kosaki Junko, Takeda Lala
Date	2017/07/18
Venue (city and name of the country)	Belfast, Northern Ireland
Summary	This study investigates overlaps in student-student interactions in English and Japanese task-based dialogues in order to elucidate differences in the functions of overlaps between the two languages. The goal of this study is to help students communicative effectively with others in their first and second languages and to help teachers instruct students more effectively in communication. Data from 11 American English and 11 Japanese female university student dyads were analyzed both quantitatively and qualitatively from the perspective of a metacommunicative approach. The results showed that when presenting new ideas or supporting their interlocutors' ideas, both English and Japanese participants overlapped to show their agreement with the viewpoints and confirm that they have gained a common understanding of the content. However, when supporting their interlocutors' ideas, the English participants overlapped to express clear agreement and acceptance of the suggested ideas in order to accept coexistence with each other as individuals while the Japanese participants overlapped to show shared understanding or commonality through the content of overlaps or a unification of their ideas as collaborators in their interactions. Moreover, when expressing different points of view, the English participants overlapped to clarify the difference in opinions although they sometimes used mitigating overlaps with a slight pause to show a certain understanding of and respect for the suggested ideas. The Japanese participants, on the other hand, mitigated the negative and assertive nuances of the content of the specific overlaps with frequent pauses or repetitions to show consideration toward the other. According to these findings, there is a need to explicitly introduce into conversation instruction some pragmatic rules tailored to a given genre and intimacy level for better intercultural communication.