Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
Uluslararası Eğitim Araştırmacıları Derneği (ULEAD) 2025 Kongresi, 9. Uluslararası Uygulamalı Dilbilim Araştırmaları Kongresi (ELT-ICRAL) ve 14. Uluslararası İngiliz Dili Eğitimi Araştırma Konferansı, Ankara, Türkiye, 26 - 27 Eylül 2025, ss.23, (Özet Bildiri)
In communication, effective comprehension is essential between and among the interlocutors. Since the subject matter of Pragmatics is to analyze intention of the interlocutors, this study aims to identify how well speech acts are used in textbooks to raise the pragmatic awareness of learners, and improve their pragmatic competence through listening texts they are exposed to. A descriptive-qualitative methodology has been used along with Content Analysis. The data have been collected through the randomly selected listening comprehension sections of an A2-level textbook Life by National Geographic Learning. Their corresponding audio scripts have been retrieved from the publisher's official website for the content analysis. 798 interlocutors’ utterances have been totally analyzed with regard to Searle’s (1979) speech act classification by two independent inter-raters for reliability; the monologues have been excluded. The findings reveal that all five categories of speech acts, such as assertives, directives, expressives, commissives, and declarations seem to have been represented in the textbook. Nevertheless, their distribution does not seem well balanced. According to the results, out of 798 utterances, there are 357 assertives (44.7%), 238 directives (29.8%), 139 expressives (17.4%), 58 commissives (7.3%), and 6 declarations (0.8%). The results suggest that assertives remain the most frequently used speech act type, while declarations are the least represented. Given that the use of speech acts contributes to pragmatic competence in communication, the analysis of the speech acts in listening texts may support learners’ speaking skill development, and corroborate language teachers to use authentic teaching materials. Therefore, textbooks should integrate all types of speech acts more equally in order to reflect natural language use better. Keywords: speech act theory, language teaching, textbooks, pragmatics