Interlanguage Pragmatic Development Research Articles

The effect of Virtual and Real Classroom Instruction on Inter-language Pragmatic Development: Microblogging versus Traditional Instruction of Speech Acts to Iranian EFL Learners

Despite the fact that virtual learning seems to have considerable potential for enhancing language learners’ communicative abilities, it has received less attention for improving pragmatic competence of learners in EFL educational settings. The present study was an attempt to investigate the impact of virtual and real classroom instruction of speech acts on the pragmatic awareness and development of Iranian EFL learners. To do so, a quasi-experimental study was designed and, through a homogeneity test, 57 EFL female language learners at the intermediate level were chosen. The participants were randomly divided into the experimental groups of virtual and real classroom learning and went through the procedure of pretest, intervention, and posttest; the pertinent data were collected by means of a PET test, a speech-act pre-test and comparable post-tests of speech acts. Both measures of independent and paired-samples t-test were used to analyze the data. The findings revealed that instruction of speech acts through both virtual and real classroom techniques can be conducive to the promotion of pragmatic awareness among the EFL learners in the Iranian context; meanwhile, real classroom instruction of speech acts proved to be more fruitful and more significantly elevated the pragmatic awareness of Iranian EFL learners. We conclude the study drawing on the implications of our findings for ELT and EFL policy makers, language educators and teachers, material developers, and learners.

Learning pragmatics through tasks

Abstract This study aims at examining the benefits of teaching L2 pragmatics with the use of tasks. The participants were 50 Catalan/Spanish bilingual students (aged 12–14) from three intact classes who were learners of English as a Foreign Language and with an upper-intermediate level of proficiency. The three groups followed different approaches to teaching pragmatics: G1 was instructed in pragmatics following a task-supported approach; G2 was also instructed in pragmatics but no tasks were used; and G3 was a control group with no instruction on pragmatics and no use of tasks, either. To assess pragmatic learning, role-plays were used both before and after the pedagogical intervention. The pragmatic analysis focused on the speech acts of giving opinion, agreeing/disagreeing, interrupting, and acknowledging the interlocutor. Results showed that the two instructed groups, regardless of the type, were more pragmatically competent in the posttest in one of the pragmatic moves (i.e., interrupting). Additionally, G1 presented statistically significant differences in the posttest when acknowledging the interlocutor. Regarding the control group, no differences were found in any of the moves. These findings suggest that instruction in general, and task-supported instruction in particular, has a positive impact on the development of interlanguage pragmatics in a classroom context.

Children’s Requestive Behavior in L2 Greek: Beyond the Core Request

The study focuses on the frequency and distribution of supportive moves (SMs) produced by L2 Greek child learners to frame their requests as an index of young learners’ ability to take into account sociocultural parameters of the communicative situation (cost of the requested action, speaker–addressee relationship). It draws on a corpus of data elicited via a Cartoon Oral Production Task in order to explore the request performance among 51 learners of Greek at two intermediate levels vis a vis 37 L1 Greek children of the same age groups (8- and 11-year-olds). SMs, i.e. pre- or post-positioned modifiers to the core request, have been claimed to be an easily accessible strategy for adult L2 learners to mitigate the imposition of the request from the early stages of L2 proficiency, even if not always in a native-like fashion. Regarding child L2 requestive behavior, previous research into school-aged learners of English reveals restricted use of SMs at the more advanced level only. However, our data shows earlier signs of sociopragmatic awareness. Although the L2 participants of the study lag behind their L1 peers, they used SMs more frequently, more appropriately and in a more native-like fashion than reported in previous research. SMs are particularly preferred in high cost and low familiarity situations in both learners and native speakers, thus indicating a common developmental path on their way to producing sociopragmatically sensitive requests with increasing age and proficiency. Implications of findings for young learners’ interlanguage pragmatic development are further discussed.

The Impact of Computerized Dynamic Assessment on Iranian EFL Learners' Interlanguage Pragmatic Development

The present study reports the results of a dissertation aimed at consolidating assessment and instruction of L2 pragmatics comprehension by drawing on an interventionist computerized dynamic assessment (C-DA) through which the test was embodied by providing graduated hints (from the most explicit to the most implicit) which were standardized for all test takers. To do so, a web-based software, called a Computerized Dynamic Assessment of Speech Acts, Routines, and Implicatures (CDASRI), accessible at http://da-pragmatics.com, was developed. Then, 137 upper-intermediate or advanced high school and university students ranging in age from 16 to 36 from two provinces of Khorasan Razavi and Golestan, Iran, were selected based on convenience sampling, who voluntarily took part in the study. Based on how many hints or mediations were used by each test-taker, the CDASRI provided three scores: actual score (traditional score), mediated score, and learning potential score (LPS). The results of the study indicated that the test could improve test takers’ pragmatic comprehension competence. Moreover, the significant difference between the mediated (using hints) and actual (without hints) scores of learners accounted for the fact that because of test-takers’ different Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) levels, their level of responsiveness to mediation was significantly different from one another. Hence, it can be concluded that traditional non-dynamic test loses sight of a big part of learners’ abilities through neglecting learners’ potentialities and putting emphasis only on their preliminary performance. The study concludes with some pedagogical implications for language teachers and instructors who seek an effective perspective for their assessment and instruction.

Assessing the effectiveness of a web-based tutorial for interlanguage pragmatic development prior to studying abroad

This manuscript reports the results of a research study that investigated the effect of a web-based tutorial (WBT) on 13 Spanish language learners’ pragmatic development during the semester prior to studying abroad in Spain. Students who anticipate living abroad with a host family may be particularly motivated to acquire pragmatic competence in order to better assimilate into the target language culture. The WBT was designed to teach the speech acts of complaints and requests to Spanish language learners whose first language is English. The content in the WBT is based upon available empirical evidence at the time of development. Data were collected at pretest and posttest and the analysis employed a mixed methods approach. The results revealed that the WBT was more effective with intermediate- than with novice-level learners of Spanish. In addition, learners’ comprehension gains were greater than their production gains. In other words, learners improved in their ability to recognize appropriate pragmatic strategy use; however, they still had difficulty producing pragmatically appropriate features after completing the WBT. It is possible that pragmatic awareness may precede learners’ ability to use appropriate pragmatic strategies in their linguistic output.

The development of interlanguage pragmatics in L2 Arabic: The production of apology strategies

This study investigated apology strategies in formal and informal situations of American university students learning Arabic as a foreign language (AFL) in the United States. Data were collected from spoken discourse completion tasks for 15 Arabic native speakers and 45 university students from three different proficiency levels. The findings show that there is a positive relationship between an increase in proficiency level and the production of apology strategies as well as between level of proficiency and approximation of native speakers' (NSs) apology strategy production norms. Learners in general used more statements of regret than the NS group did. Unlike what previous studies posit, the findings show that lower proficiency learners have the tendency to produce more explicit apologies than those at a higher proficiency. Results also demonstrate that verbosity was salient in oral production, which is at odds with previous claims that it tends to occur only in learners’ written responses. In addition, findings show that the NS group tends to provide vague explanations when offering apologies, whereas the learners prefer to provide specific reasons for their offense. The study also discusses pedagogical implications for teaching apologies in L2 Arabic.

Interlanguage Pragmatic Development: Internal and External Modification in L2 Arabic Requests

AbstractThis study investigated the way in which American university students learning Arabic as a foreign language in the United States developed the ability to make and modify requests both internally, through an addition of mitigating or aggravating modality markers, and externally, via supportive moves before or after the main request in formal and informal situations. Data were gathered from spoken discourse completion tasks for 56 university students from four different proficiency levels. While previous studies showed that learners at lower proficiency levels relied heavily on politeness markers, lower‐proficiency students in this study most frequently used grounders. Also in contrast to previous studies, the ways in which advanced learners mitigated their requests diverged from those used by Arabic native speakers. Pedagogical implications are discussed.

E-POLITENESS: AN ANALYSIS OF TAIWANESE EFL LEARNERS’ EMAIL DISCOURSE ON REQUEST STRATEGIES

This study aims to investigate EFL learners’ interlanguage pragmatic development through the elicited request emails addressed to the faculty in an institutional setting. Sixty Taiwanese students of two linguistic levels (i.e., high-intermediate, and low-intermediate) were included and different email tasks with varied imposition levels were designed to examine if and how students’ use of request strategies and politeness features would vary accordingly. In total, 180 emails were composed for qualitative and quantitative analysis. By applying Blum-Kulka, House and Kasper’s (1989) CCSARP framework, the results revealed that students of both levels adopted more direct strategies as main requestive head acts for clarity and used the most numbers of supportive moves prior to the request in the highest imposition request. Different combinations of supportive moves were also adopted for different request tasks by the two groups, indicating students’ awareness of different imposition levels inherited in different tasks. In addition, the high-intermediate proficiency group displayed more varieties of internal and external modifiers in their request than their less proficient counterparts. Some developmental sequences in the use of politeness features can thus be identified. However, certain syntactic and lexical downgraders never appeared in both groups’ email messages, suggesting the need for explicit instruction. From the preferred use of direct strategies, supportive moves, as well as a pre-posed request sequences, L1 pragmatic transfer can be observed in the email messages of both groups. The possible perlocutionary effect of this transfer will be further explored in this study. The findings in this study can provide practical suggestions for classroom intervention, particularly in the area of pragmatic instruction in EFL classrooms.

Critical Perspectives on Interlanguage Pragmatic Development: An Agenda for Research

Research on L2 pragmatic development forms the mainstay of many interlanguage pragmatic (ILP) inquiries. Yet promoting L2 pragmatic competence becomes an exceedingly demanding task when different constraints are brought to bear. This dilemma is due in large part to contrasting theories on interlanguage pragmatics development. From exposure to instruction, ILP research has long wrestled with the practical problems in the way of such development. Adding these together, the field is in dire need of practically meaningful research to address the full spectrum of both the pragmatic construct and the factors to foster its development. Intent on piecing together disparate sources of theory and data, this review synthesizes research regarding key considerations in L2 pragmatic development from cognitive, sociocultural, psycholinguistic and independent vantage points. Meanwhile, it summarizes the current knowledge on ILP development and draws out critical questions in connection with the past research. It is argued that there is a dearth of an integrative model for the acquisition of pragmatic competence, which renders several controversies surrounding L2 pragmatic development, especially that of the relationship between grammar and pragmatic development patterns, implausible. To serve that purpose then, a model for the acquisition of L2 pragmatic competence is expounded. In conclusion, a research agenda involving two prime research questions is outlined for future directions.

Korean EFL learners’ development of interlanguage pragmatics in speech act of request

Korean EFL learners’ development of interlanguage pragmatics in speech act of request

Metapsychological awareness of comprehension and epistemic vigilance of L2 communication in interlanguage pragmatic development

L2 learners may make interpretive mistakes at both the explicit and the implicit levels of communication. They may not construct the right lower- or higher-level explicatures, turn explicatures into unintended implicatures, miss implicit contents or recover alternative implicatures. Defective mastery of the L2 code, lack of the necessary pragmalinguistic and/or sociopragmatic knowledge, and selection of an inadequate processing strategy may cause learners to arrive at unintended interpretations, which may accidentally appear relevant or irrelevant. If they behave as naïvely optimistic hearers and trust unintended interpretations, they could end up making wrong attributions of beliefs and intentions. Therefore, this paper argues that instruction in L2 pragmatics should develop a necessary meta-psychological awareness of comprehension as a way to develop or fine-tune learners’ epistemic vigilance (Mascaro and Sperber, 2009; Sperber et al., 2010) of the reliability of the interpretive routes they follow and the believability of the interpretations they arrive at. It also claims that epistemic vigilance is essential when comprehension skills are underdeveloped or not as sophisticated as those of natives, since it may trigger a more sophisticated processing strategy that enables hearers to avoid or overcome misunderstandings, namely cautious optimism.

Motivation and Interlanguage Pragmatics in Iranian English Language Learners

It is generally believed that interlanguage pragmatics and motivation play important roles in learning. Motivation is important because it determines the extent of the learner’s active involvement and attitude toward learning. The major purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of integrative and instrumental motivation on the development of interlanguage pragmatics (ILP) in Iranian English language learners. A secondary goal of this study was to assess the effect of the type of motivation on pragmatic transfer. To this end, the Attitude/Motivation Test Battery (AMTB) developed by Gardner (1985) was given to the students to distinguish learners with integrative and instrumental motivation. Finally, 40 integratively and 40 instrumentally motivated learners were selected as participants. Then, a Discourse Completion Task (DCT) regarding pragmatic transfer developed by the researchers was administered to the two groups. Two weeks later another interlanguage pragmatics Discourse Completion Task (DCT) was administered in order to elicit the required data from both groups. The findings demonstrate that there is a significant relationship between type of motivation and interlanguage pragmatic development and the amount of negative pragmatic transfer as well. More precisely, this study revealed that integratively motivated learners performed significantly better than instrumentally motivated learners in both ILP development and pragmatic transfer.

Study Abroad and Interlanguage Pragmatic Development in Request and Apology Speech Acts among Iranian Learners

This research study empirically investigated the impact of study abroad context on L2 learners’ pragmatic development compared with study at home group in Iran. For the study abroad group the participants were selected from the Iranian students who registered in a six-month program in language institutes in India (Mysore) and for the study at home group the participants were chosen from the language learners at the most outstanding language institute in Iran (Iran Language Institute) at the intermediate level. A Discourse Completion Task (DCT) including request and apology speech acts was used to measure the gains in the two groups. The DCT was administered one at the beginning as a pre-test and then at the end of the six months course as a post-test. Overall, the study revealed significant development in study abroad learners’ pragmatic knowledge, whereas this change in at home group was meager. It was also found that a correlation governs the growth in apology and request proficiency in language learning. This comparative study moreover yielded this finding that gender is not a determining factor in the acquisition of pragmatic knowledge specifically in request and apology speech acts in language learning.

Web 2.0, Synthetic Immersive Environments, and Mobile Resources for Language Education

In light of the increasingly blurred line between mediated and nonmediated contexts for social, professional, and educational purposes, attention to the presence and use of innovative digital media is critical to the consideration of the future of computer-assisted language learning (CALL). This article reviews current trends in the use of mediated communication and offers a vision for near-future second and foreign language (L2) learning that utilizes emerging media as (a) meaningful contexts for L2 language development and (b) a means for adding real world relevance to in-class uses of internet-mediated communication tools. In this article, we first explore a sampling of Web 2.0 technologies (e.g., blogs, wikis, and social bookmarking) related to collaborative content building and dissemination of information. We then consider three types of 3-dimensional virtual environments, including open social virtualities (such as Second Life and There), massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs) (e.g., World of Warcraft, Everquest, and Eve Online), and synthetic immersive environments (SIEs, i.e., visually rendered spaces which combine aspects of open social virtualities with goal-directed gaming models to address specific learning objectives). In particular, we report on SIEs as they might be used to foster interlanguage pragmatic development and briefly report on an existing project in this area. The ultimate goal is to spark future research and pedagogical innovation in these areas of emerging digital media in order to arrive at a greater understanding of the complexities involved in their integration with language learning in ways that will be most relevant to the communicative contexts of the 21st century.

Web 2.0, Synthetic Immersive Environments, and Mobile Resources for Language Education

In light of the increasingly blurred line between mediated and nonmediated contexts for social, professional, and educational purposes, attention to the presence and use of innovative digital media is critical to the consideration of the future of computer-assisted language learning (CALL). This article reviews current trends in the use of mediated communication and offers a vision for near-future second and foreign language (L2) learning that utilizes emerging media as (a) meaningful contexts for L2 language development and (b) a means for adding real world relevance to in-class uses of internet-mediated communication tools. In this article, we first explore a sampling of Web 2.0 technologies (e.g., blogs, wikis, and social bookmarking) related to collaborative content building and dissemination of information. We then consider three types of 3-dimensional virtual environments, including open social virtualities (such as Second Life and There), massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs) (e.g., World of Warcraft, Everquest, and Eve Online), and synthetic immersive environments (SIEs, i.e., visually rendered spaces which combine aspects of open social virtualities with goal-directed gaming models to address specific learning objectives). In particular, we report on SIEs as they might be used to foster interlanguage pragmatic development and briefly report on an existing project in this area. The ultimate goal is to spark future research and pedagogical innovation in these areas of emerging digital media in order to arrive at a greater understanding of the complexities involved in their integration with language learning in ways that will be most relevant to the communicative contexts of the 21st century.

A preliminary study of the thinking processes and speech act comprehension patterns of Contonese learners of English

Abstract The paper aims to reveal the thinking processes and identify comprehension patterns of three groups of Cantonese learners of English who were secondary students while they were working on a multiple-choice speech act comprehension exercise. The elicited verbal protocols provide significant information for interlanguage pragmatic comprehension and development from the learners.A multiple-choice pragmatic comprehension exercise which consisted of five English direct and indirect speech acts (requests, apologies, refusals, compliments and complaints) in contextualized dialogues was conducted to 156 Cantonese learners of English. They were studying from F2 to F6 of about ages 14 to 18 in three Hong Kong secondary schools during the research period. The comprehension exercise scores showed that the interlanguage pragmatic competence of the three groups of secondary students progressed steadily. The students� verbal protocols exhibited that they were less reliant on literal meaning in interpretation of meaning, and adopted more varied and complex processing strategies from F2 to F6 gradually. The variety and complexity of comprehension strategies and patterns illustrate the characteristic features of the formal representation stage in Bialystok�s cognitive processing model.

“Mum, Sister Hit Me”: Interlanguage Complaint Strategies of Cantonese Learners of English from Childhood to Their Teens

The act of complaining takes place in home and institutional settings in many forms every day. However, it is an under-represented speech act compared with the wealth of studies on other speech acts such as requesting, apologising, refusing and responding to compliments. The recent studies on complaint making have concentrated on the discussion about the nature of the act, identification of its communicative features and interlanguage or cross-cultural comparison among adult speakers or second language learners at different proficiency levels. Very little is known about the strategy preferences and realisation patterns of the act made by young and teenage second language learners.This study attempts to provide a fuller picture of how a complaint is realised in an oral-production task by learners of English from childhood to their teens. Based on the transcribed spoken discourse of 176 and 156 young and teenage Cantonese learners of English in Hong Kong primary and secondary schools, it was found that their complaints were moderate in terms of directness and severity. There was a significant decreasing use of direct strategies but a growing sociopragmatic awareness and flexibility in the use of a direct single strategy towards less direct combined strategies according to age and level of study. Pragmalinguistically, the learners used a similar range of intensifiers and softeners. The teenage groups are, however, better at increasing or mitigating the force of the act through the use of supportive moves, descriptions and requesting. The study has demonstrated some evidence for the interlanguage pragmatic development of Cantonese learners of English in the act of complaining.

Interlanguage Pragmatic Development: The Study Abroad Context by SCHAUER, GILA A.

The article reviews the book Interlanguage Pragmatic Development: The Study Abroad Context, by Gila A. Schauer.

Argumentative Discourse in L2 German: A Sociocognitive Perspective on the Development of Facework Strategies

This study contributes to the growing field of research on interlanguage pragmatic development with a study on the development of argumentative discourse ability by second-language learners of German. I will be focusing on facework—that is, the use of verbal strategies that allow the speaker to have his or her social identities, particular personal qualities, and attributes validated by others. The study approaches the data, which were gathered from learners of German at 3 levels of proficiency, from the perspective of sequential and preference organisation. The analysis shows that argumentative sequences develop from a simple 2- or 3-turn structure, which consists of merely 1 “core” adjacency pair (assessment/opinion–agreement/disagreement), to being extended by postsequences and insertion sequences. It is only for learners of higher proficiency, however, that these extensions serve to further the argument rather than merely building on agreement. When disagreeing, learners increasingly use agreement turns to sharpen forthcoming disagreement or use their interlocutors’ turns to serve that purpose. These developments are then explained from a sociocognitive perspective. I will argue that developments are due to learners overcoming processing constraints as proficiency progresses as well as their changing frames of reference for the task.

Interlanguage pragmatic development: the relation between pragmalinguistic competence and sociopragmatic competence

The past few years saw significant advances in the field of interlanguage pragmatics development since several researchers’ call for more studies focusing on the development of pragmatic competence of second or foreign language learners. The existing literature, however, still leaves us an incomplete picture of the nature of the relation between pragmalinguistic competence and sociopragmatic competence in the development of L2 learners’ pragmatic competence, as the research findings suggest two conflicting patterns: pragmalinguistic competence precedes sociopragmatic competence and vice versa ( Rose, 2000). A review of the preceding research demonstrates contradictory views on the relation between sociopragmatic competence and pragmalinguistic competence in the development of L2 pragmatic competence and suggests the need to expand the scope of data analysis in future studies. The present study attempts to shed light on how these two aspects of pragmatic competence are related by collecting both perception and production data and extending the scope of data analysis to analyze the difference in the use of strategy, content and form across situations involving a teacher and a classmate.