Growing Up Shifting: Immigrant Children, Their Families, and the Schools
Author(s):
Burt, Susan Meredith; Yang, Hua
Format:
Book section
Publisher:
Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Publishers, Mahwah, NJ, 2005.
Language:
English
Abstract:
This chapter uses pragmatic knowledge to show how an awareness of pragmatic differences is crucial for teachers, especially ESL teachers, whose job is to help immigrant children and families cope with the language and culture of the host community. Specifically, the chapter examines the issue of pragmatic failure, or communication breakdown, in immigrant communities based on language shift as speakers begin to identify with mainstream rather than home language. The authors show, based on evidence from ways in which different generations of Hmong speakers perform different social/linguistic politeness practices, that knowledge of pragmatics plays a crucial role in understanding communication both within the community and between immigrant and host communities. Their ideas may be extended to other minority groups. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved) (Source: preface)