Research methods of imperative discourse on examples of teaching instructions

Abstract

Introduction. The article is devoted to imperative discourse as the source for discovering the mechanisms of successful communication among participants of learning process. The early XXI century is marked by the transition to a new learning paradigm that focuses on lifelong learning. Plenty of available resources such as video lessons, Skype lessons, original multimedia courses, etc. increased greatly the opportunities for learning, shifting the teachers role from the main bearer of professional knowledge and skills to the advisor in the immense pool of learning methods and approaches. For that matter the teacher directs and motivates students for self education and lifelong learning.

On the motivation stage the teacher faces one of the most complicated challenges: how to articulate the right instructions for such demanding and sophisticated students. Lenient, nonintrusive encouragement or tough, dictatorial compulsion will lead to effective motivation nowadays? This dilemma is of current interest, so causative discourse is becoming the subject of research, first of all, for linguists.

The findings of recent research showed that causative discourse has a great potential for eliciting new effective mechanisms for successful communication among participants of learning process.

Purpose. The aim of the article is to summarize research positions concerning causative discourse; outline constitutive features of an instruction as causative discourse; analyze samples of instructions for doing exercises applying inferential pragmatic research methods.

Results. We refer instructions, as a language pragmatic category, to causative discourse as they are associated with the impact of one communicator to another with the aim to perform some (non)communicative actions, change viewpoint, (dis)agree with the opponent, express opinion, etc. Learning instructions belong to neutral imperative acts, that is caused by their pragmatic purpose: to follow instructions willingly, no intrusively, with sufficient amount of presuppositions enough for an addressee to realize and carry out them properly.

In this article we have analyzed some samples of instructive discourse (learning instructions) applying inferential pragmatic research methods, based on the Relevance theory by G. P. Grice and developed by D. Sperber and D. Wilson. The offered research method focuses on the universals of rational language behavior, regularized by Cooperative principle; on learning the Speakers implicated meaning and the rules of its reference by the Hearer.

Conclusion. Research methods of causative discourse, based on inferential pragmatic research model, let identify some possible variants of semantic interpretations of an instruction, elicit its most suitable inference that correlates with implicated meaning and this way guarantee the pragmatic effect of an instruction.