Tracking the Development of Sociopragmatic Skills

Sociopragmatic skills1 have been identified as important aspects of communicative competence in the workplace (e.g., Clyne, 1994; Geluykens & Pelsmaekers, 1999; Candlin, 2002), yet few studies have evaluated the effects of classroom-based support in developing these areas of language proficiency. This report describes a research project that tracks the development of skilled migrants' sociopragmatic performance over 12 weeks from the classroom to the workplace. The research reported here focuses on requests in workplace interaction. Learners often have difficulty negotiating culturally appro priate content in particular speech acts, such as requests in specific contexts, even when they are able to identify the semantic features and formula required. In other words, it is often culturally appropriate content and form that learners struggle to identify (Bardovi-Harlig Sc Griffin, 2005; Bardovi-Harlig & Hartford, 1993). This study tracked the development of learners' sociopragmatic proficiency as they developed awareness of cultural differences in the appropriate expression of requests in New Zealand workplaces.