Patricia Salazar

El objetivo de este estudio a pequeña escala es analizar las marcas de descortesía de correos electrónicos reales con alto grado de imposición enviados por estudiantes universitarios a su profesora. Los resultados revelan que en la estructura del mensaje tiende a omitirse la identificación del estudiante, se prioriza el uso de tú frente a usted y se usan tanto pretéritos imperfectos y condicionales para mitigar la imposición como formas más directas (imperativos) que no la mitigan.

The present study explored the writing development of 134 second-year high school students of English as a foreign language(EFL) in Spain over one academic year. In order to assess students’ writing performance from a communicative perspective (Usó-Juan and Martínez-Flor, 2006), their essays were examined by means of an analytic rubric especially designed for this investigation in terms of these dimensions: content, task requirement, coherence and cohesion, grammar and vocabulary. In addition, we sought to examine whether proficiency level had an impact on the dimensions in the rubric.

In the present era of global online communication, email exchanges are one the most common means of interaction between students and professors (Tseng, 2015). However, emails may convey an impolite tone if students do not take status or power imbalance into account to show politeness (Economidou-Kogetsidis, 2011). The present study explored the informal second person pronoun of address (tú) and the formal one (usted) in first and follow-up requestive emails sent by Spanish students. In addition, some structural elements to show politeness in the emails were also examined.

La importància d’aspectes discursius en l’ensenyament i aprenentatge de segones llengües s’ha fet palesa en les últimes dècades, sobretot a partir de la presència de l’enfocament comunicatiu en l’ensenyament. Com a conseqüència d’aquesta visió, diversos estudis s’han dut a terme tot considerant el desenvolupament i la promoció de la competència comunicativa dels aprenents.

Nowadays, most interaction between students and professors is carried out by means of emails. According to Crystal (2006), emails include an obligatory element (obviously, the message) and two optional elements: greeting (or opening) and farewell (or closing). Previous research (e.g., Bou-Franch, 2011; Félix-Brasdefer, 2012) has examined openings and closings in emails, but, to our knowledge, research on these two moves in follow-up emails is scarce.

In the university context, much of the communication between students and professors takes place via emails. Despite the fact that there is a power asymmetry in this relationship, on many occasions professors receive requestive emails which may sound too direct or informal. In this study, Codina-Espurz and Salazar-Campillo explore whether there is a relationship between the language in which the emails were written (Spanish, Catalan and English) and the degree of (in)directness by examining the request strategy and the internal modification employed to soften the imposition of the request.

Little exposure and few opportunities for practice are two main drawbacks for learners in instructional contexts. These problems are intensified when dealing with face-threatening acts such as refusals, as learners are not fully capable of expressing their meanings and miscommunication is a likely by-product. The present volume aims at exploring factors and production of refusals in different instructional settings by means of ten original papers which address key questions dealing with the speech act of refusals.

Email communication is pervasive in faculty interaction. As there exists status imbalance between students and professors in this type of context, emails are expected to cater for the uneven power relationships by means of using appropriate polite features. Previous research (e.g., Eslami, 2013; Salazar-Campillo & Codina-Espurz, in press) has pointed out the pragmatically deficient use of openings and closings in requestive emails sent by non-native students in educational contexts, revealing a lack of the expected deference and respect to the professor.

Corrective feedback (CF, henceforth) has been an issue of investigation in second language acquisition for a number of years now. In the English-as-a-foreign-language classroom, students may have different preferences towards how to have their errors corrected. Research has shown that differences in the learning styles of the students will affect the learning environment by either supporting or inhibiting their intentional cognition and active engagement. In the classroom, teachers can use this information as a tool to motivate students and help them improve in their learning process.