Arab World English Journal, August 2015 Bejaia University, International Conference Proceedings – 2015 Pp. 17-24
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Towards an Alternative Form of Teaching Pragmatics: Cues to Unfold the Untold.
TEFL and Cognitive Niche Considerations
Nacif Labed
University Mentouri Bros. Constantine, Algeria
Abstract :
The background of this paper comes from several disciplines as pragmatics, vocabulary and diction, and other related theoretical pedagogic perspectives, my personal alignment is cognitive. What I share with cognition and cognitivists is that what one can do with words is manifold. Besides, with an industriously built schemata (Widdownson.2007), one can through a dynamic process, adapt to any particular contexts, understand and interpret, and ultimately become an inhabitant of a psychological niche (Pinker. 2010). Accordingly, the purport is that cues as particular grammatical constructions, punctuation marks, or any others can aid the foreign language learners in considering the underlying pragmatic force of any text they read. The experiment conducted with 35 FL (Foreign language)students at the University of Constantine has allowed us to shed some light on how to enhance in learners the aptitudes to sharpen their cognitive buoyancy while making the language they are learning their own. Such a trial-and-error empirical test has evenly given us to add another voice in the teaching of English as a foreign language and pragmatics within the general framework of a cognitive niche.
Keywords: cognitive niche, learning, pragmatics, psychology, teaching