Lexical chains as exponents of textual coherence in the written pragmatics of interlingua.

Abstract

Interlanguage pragmatics, although with a short life within second language research, has proved to be an efficient tool to analyse pragmalinguistic behaviour of non-native speakers versus other sociopragmatic instruments. Throughout an empirical research we want to contribute to this research discipline showing the results drawn from an experiment done with native (NS) and non-native speakers (NNS). We have compared the usage that both groups make of lexical cohesion nets as a means to achieve textual coherence. The research question is whether rhetorical competence of native speakers should parallel their grammatical competence, therefore being inferior to that of non-natives, or whether there could be differences due to L1 transfer in NNS. For this purpose we have applied Hoey's model of lexical cohesion nets (Hoey, 1991). Results suggest that both kinds of competence, grammatical and rhetorical, follow individual processes and patterns in both groups.