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Article published In: Journal of Immersion and Content-Based Language Education
Vol. 4:2 (2016) ► pp.225–250

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Pragmatic functions of formulaic speech in three different languages

A focus on early L3 learners of English

 | Universitat Jaume I
Published online: 16 September 2016
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https://doi.org/10.1075/jicb.4.2.04saf
The study examines early multilingual formulaic speech with a focus on the English classroom. We have followed a discourse-pragmatic approach in the analysis of our data, which comprises transcripts from eight 45-minute sessions. Transcripts from these sessions involved 184 participants from two different age ranges. In this analysis, we have considered formulas produced in three languages: Catalan, Spanish, and English. Our goal is to provide further evidence for the inherent dynamism and complexity of early multilingual pragmatic development, and in so doing, to acknowledge the role of the educational level and the language program adopted in the school. Findings are partly in line with (a) previous studies dealing with the identification of pragmatic functions in the EFL classroom (Llinares & Pastrana, 2013), and (b) the peculiarities of early third language learners (Portolés, 2015). Finally, we tackle the importance of adopting multilingual perspectives in the analyses of multilingual students.
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