Analysis of Presupposition Triggers in English Reading Textbooks: Learners’ Familiarity

Authors : Savaş Gençtürk

Pages : 1-10

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Publication Date : 2018-10-08

Article Type : Research

Abstract :This study aimed to investigate the presupposition usage in English reading textbooks and students’ familiarity with them. 14 reading texts in a reading book were analyzed to see the amount of presupposition triggers used and 34 B2 level students were included in the study to find out to what extent they are familiar with presuppositions used in their reading textbook. The reading texts were analyzed based on Yule’s (2006) categorization of presupposition triggers consisting of six different categories: existential, factive, lexical, structural, non-factive and counter-factual (pp.30). The students were given a survey consisting of randomly chosen six sentences from the readings representing each presupposition category and asked to choose ‘yes’ if they are familiar with the presuppositions or ‘no’ if they are not familiar with the presuppositions. The results clearly showed that the presuppositions are not widely used in the reading texts. Lexical and existential presupposition triggers are the most commonly used types among all the triggers. The results also indicated that students’ familiarity with the content and presuppositions will help them understand the content better.
Keywords : pragmatics and presuppositions, presupposition triggers