Institute of Pragmatics Theory and Application

1. Overview:

Found in 2011, the Institute of Pragmatics Theory and Application is currently made up of 9 members, heading 1 project sponsored by Humanities and Social Sciences Fund of the Ministry of Education Fund, 1 project by Social Sciences Fund of Jiangsu Province, 3 projects by Jiangsu University Initiative Fund for Top Talents, etc. The Institute has published 5 books, with 1 completed independently and 4 in collaboration with others. It has already published about 10 papers on major periodicals for foreign language studies both at home and abroad and/or indexed by the CSSCI, including Foreign Language Teaching and Research, Modern Foreign Languages, and Foreign Languages. The achievements of ours have won 4 awards of the provincial or ministerial level 4 times, awards of the municipal or provincial department of education level twice, and awards of the University level twice, enjoying some prestige in the field of linguistics both at home and abroad.

2. Achievements and Features:

The Institute of Pragmatics Theory and Application is mainly devoted to researches on pragmatic competence, discourse analysis by combining pragmatics theory with theories in second language acquisition, corpus linguistics, language teaching, translation, etc.
The Institute of Pragmatics Theory and Application highlights the “cultivation of pragmatic competence” and has now published 6 papers in core foreign language periodicals indexed by the CSSCI including Foreign Language Teaching and Research, and 2 monographs (one of which is completed independently).

3. Academic Exchanges

The Institute of Pragmatics Theory and Application takes an active part in carrying out academic exchanges both at home and abroad. As a visiting scholar, Director Li Min went to study in the University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa for a whole year. Members of the Institute also attended national as well as international seminars and conferences sponsored by China Pragmatics Association, China Foreign Language Education Association, Jiangsu Foreign Languages and Linguistics Society, and a workshop on research methodology and project application sponsored by National Research Center of Foreign Language Education, BFSU. Moreover, the Institute resorts to off-campus resources by carrying out cooperation with such famous universities as Nanjing University.

4. Achievements:

The Institute of Pragmatics Theory and Application has formed a research group with prominent research orientations and achievements in pragmatic competence, discourse analysis, pragmatic translation, etc.

(1) In the field of pragmatic competence
Academic discourse corpora-based pragmatic competence research on Chinese EFL learners (No.: 12YJC740047）, Youth Fund for Humanities and Social Sciences of the Ministry of Education, project head, in progress (2012-）
Research on English academic pragmatic competence (No.: 11YYC012）, Jiangsu 2011 Youth Fund for Social Sciences, project head, in progress (2011 -）
Chinese EFL Learners’ Acquisition of Conversational Incrementing[M]. Beijing: China Social Sciences Press, 2011/10 (monograph)
A Practical Course for English Academic Writing[M]. Suzhou: Soochou University Press, 2012/10月。(Rankings 2/9）
Comment on the analysis framework of pragmatic competence[J]. Foreign Language Teaching Theory and Practice, 2012, 3: 50-56. (Rankings 1/2）
Research on personality types of Chinese English majors and grammar, pragmatic competence and their awareness[J]. Foreign Language Teaching and Research, 2009, 2: 119–124.  (Rankings 1/3）
A survey on grammar/pragmatic awareness and competence of Chinese English majors[J]. Foreign Languages in China, 2007, 6: 35-41. (Rankings 1/2）
Chinese English majors’ acquisition of the discourse marker “WELL’: Am empirical study[J]. Foreign Language Teaching and Research, 2007, 1: 21-26.  (Rankings 1/2）
A review of studies on pragmatic acquisition of Chinese English majors[A]. Ed. By Zhang Xuemei. New Researches on Second Language Acquisition[C]. [pp. 15-22] Shanghai: Shanghai Science and Technology Press. 2006. (Rankings 2/2）

(2) In the field of discourse analysis
A pragmatic competence approach to Chinese English majors’ acquisition of conversational incrementing [J]. Foreign Language Education, 2013, 1: 69-72. (Rankings1/2）
Social Behaviorism: A new perspective on conversational analysis[J]. Foreign Languages and Their Teaching, 2013, 6: 1-5. (Rankings 2/2）
Defining the English conversational incrementing: Problem and solution[J]. Journal of Foreign Languages, 2012, 2: 63-70. ((Rankings 1/1)
A pragmatic competence approach to English conversational incrementing[J]. Modern Foreign Languages, 2011, 3: 245-253. ((Rankings 1/1)
12 Lectures on Pragmatics[M]. Shanghai: East China Normal University Press, 2011/4. (writer of Lecture 11, Conversational Analysis)

(3) In the field of translation studies in view of pragmatics
On the Recreational Adaptation in the E-C Translation of Film Subtitles—a case study of Protecting the Earth from the Scum of the Universe 3 and Madagascar 3[J]. China’s Translator Journal, 2013, 3: 105-109. (Rankings 2/2）
Recreational adaptation in the E-C translation of film subtitles in view of the theory of defamiliarization[J]. Journal of Beijing Second Foreign Languages Institute, 2014, 6: 45-50. (Rankings 2/2）