Second Languag E Acquisition

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GROUP 1 - SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION COLLABORATIVE DOCUMENT SECOND WEEK SLA DEBATE FEBRUARY 23rd a) What is the comic strip about? The comic is about a tourist entering an eastern country. As he walks to his hotel, native speakers smile at him and produce the same utterance, simultaneously. When he finally arrives there, and listens to the clerk repeating the same phrase but in a completely different context (the clerk seems to be angry and in pain), the tourist is taken back because he realizes that he has obviously misunderstood the natives’ message. (Group 1 summary) b) What is the connection between the story, negotiation of meanings and communicative competence? The comic strip portrays a context that brings two different cultural contexts together. One context, eastern civilization, is exemplified by the native speakers (NS). The second, western civilization, is exemplified by the tourist: a silent non-native speaker (NNS) interacting with native speakers (NS) in a non-verbal way. In the first part of the story, the foreigner decodes meaning according to his western background. He equates natives’ smile and utterance to western politeness (greeting). Being presented as a silent character, the foreigner does not attempt to negotiate meaning: to use discourse features such as confirmation checks, comprehension checks, or clarification requests. Thus, he misunderstands the codes of ‘language’ (communicative competence), politeness (socio-cultural competence) and body language. In the final scene, he becomes aware of his misunderstanding. He confronts the comprehensible input crystallized in the context built from the native’s angry expression, native’s utterance, crack in the wall, hammer and picture on the floor. (Martin, Maria, Veronica) c) Recognizing the importance of negotiation of meanings in SLA, does it always help in an EFL context? Why? Why not?

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