A video-based method of assessing pragmatic awareness

Abstract

For assessing second language (L2) learners’ comprehension and production of pragmalinguistic forms and sociopragmatic features, the primary measurement tool employed by researchers of interlanguage pragmatic (ILP) development has been a variant of the discourse completion task (DCT). The unit of analysis guiding DCT construction has been the speech act. Originally, within ILP research DCTs served as productive language questionnaires designed to elicit a range of stereotypical assumptions held by competent (i.e., native speaker) members of a speech community regarding speech acts (see research into the Cross-Cultural Speech Act Realization Project/CCSARP; Blum-Kulka, House, & Kasper, 1989). Items within the DCT format are comprised of two interconnected sections. The first is a written prompt designed with specific constraints placed on factors such as setting, speaker status and degree of familiarity and speaker intent. These sociopragmatic variables are assumed to be necessary resources in informing speakers of which linguistic options are available or most appropriate for conveying intention. The second section of the DCT directs respondents to produce written forms of utterances regarding the pragmalinguistic forms (e.g., formulas, phrases, explanations, assessments) deemed appropriate for satisfying the sociopragmatic requirements of the situation. In this form, DCTs proved an economical method of gathering data for the purpose implied by the CCSARP research goal: to provide speech samples from a range of languages (13 in the project) strictly for comparative, crosslinguistic purposes.