Analysing pragmatics in textbooks: Requests and topics in listening transcripts

Abstract

Textbooks are one of the main sources of input learners receive in the classroom. Most of the times, they are considered the key component of the curriculum in English Language Teaching (ELT). However, they have been often criticised for not providing adequate input for acquiring pragmatic competence (Boxer and Pickering, 1995; Vellenga, 2004; Kakiuchi, 2005; Usó-Juan, 2007; Nguyen, 2011, Ren and Han, 2016). This paper provides a deeper insight on the presentation of pragmatics in communicative textbooks, analysing the pragmatic content of current textbooks used in Spanish academic institutions. Particularly, this study focuses on the presence of requests in the transcripts of the listening activities of four textbooks. For the purpose of this study, a literature review is presented. Afterwards, an analysis of the textbook transcripts is conducted, focusing on the amount and variety of requests presented as well as the topics tackled in the conversations of those transcripts. Results show that the number and variety of requests increase in comparison to previous studies. However, textbooks are far to be considered a reliable source of input. Furthermore, this study shows that topics influence the number and variety of requests. Finally, pedagogical recommendations for improvement of textbooks are given, suggesting that textbook developers could include more authentic examples of speech acts and pragmatic issues to ease the acquisition of pragmatic competence.