Multiple-choice Discourse Completion Test Research Articles

English learning motivation and pragmatic competence: Correlational study of non-English major postgraduate students in java

This research aims to investigate the significant relationship between English learning motivation and pragmatic competence of non-English major postgraduate students and their current pragmatic competence. 350 non-English major postgraduate students from Javanese provinces (West, Central, and East Java) participated in this study. This study was quantitative research in the form of a correlational study by using one adapted questionnaire (Attitude and Motivation Test Battery (AMTB)) for English learning motivation and two kinds of adapted pragmatic competence tests (Multiple-choice Discourse Completion Test (MDCT) and Written Discourse Completion Test (WDCT)). The data were analyzed by using Normality Test, Linearity Test, Bivariate Pearson Product Moment, and Descriptive statistical analysis by IBM SPSS 26. The finding indicated English learning motivation correlated with English pragmatic competence. Although the correlation degree was 0.563 which had a moderate degree of correlation, they have a positive correlation which means the English learning motivation has contributed to the pragmatic competence. The current level of the non-English major postgraduate students’ pragmatic competence in Javanese provinces was categorized as still developing because the students hardly understand responses in the pragmatic competence test, especially in pragmatic awareness.

The relationships between students' comprehension of conversational implicatures and their achievement in reading comprehension.

The most important thing in effective communication is understanding not only what is said, but also why it is said. Therefore, the development of pragmatic competence in another language is essential to be able to communicate effectively. Pragmatic competence plays an important role in enabling interlocutors to work out what is intended by what is said. In this sense, special emphasis should be placed on the pragmatic aspects of language in order to enable language learners to use language appropriately. In this regard, this study aims to investigate whether there is a relationship between students’ comprehension of conversational implicatures and their achievement in reading comprehension. To this end, the data were collected from first-year 122 students at one of the private universities in northern Cyprus with different bachelor’s degrees via the Multiple-Choice Discourse Completion Test (MCDCT) and the reading test. The quantitative data were analysed by means of A Pearson Correlational Analysis, Simple Linear Regression, and Canonical Correlational Analysis. The results of the study revealed that comprehension of conversational implicatures of first-year university students is positively related to their achievement in reading comprehension. Moreover, it has been depicted that among the eight implicature types, topic change, indirect refusal, and disclosure are more related (0.855) to reading comprehension. Therefore, these three implicature types provide the most contribution to the participants’ comprehension of conversational implicatures. As it is, they are more powerful predictors of reading comprehension. In addition to these results, there is only one high positive correlation among the six reading subskills; that is between the subskill to identify ideas and opinions of the writer and the subskill to scan a text to find specific information (0.749). In the light of the findings, this study yields crucial implications for language teachers, material developers, and curriculum designers to take full advantage of these associations for promoting EFL learners’ achievement in reading and comprehension of conversational implicatures in the target language.

Pragmatic awareness of conversational implicatures by L2 undergraduate students in Saudi Arabia

Pragmatic competence is one of the chief components of language learners’ communicative abilities. However, in research and instruction, limited attention is often directed towards the pragmatic aspects of language. One such pragmatic aspect is conversational implicature. This study investigates the perception of implicatures by EFL undergraduates in Saudi Arabia, where, as in East Asian countries, English is spoken as a foreign language. It employs an exploratory mixed-methods design to collect and analyse the data. Three instruments were used to collect the data, namely, a multiple-choice discourse completion test, the design based on Bouton’s works (1988, 1994), a questionnaire, developed from and based on the taxonomy of the implicature of interpretative strategies by Vandergrift (1997), and interviews. A total of 40 undergraduates who enrolled on a four-year English programme at Majmaah University were randomly selected to participate in this study. The findings revealed that EFL learners encountered difficulties in understanding implicatures. It was also shown that Quantity, Indirect Criticism, Quality, Sequential, and Scalar implicatures are more problematic for learners than the other five types of implicatures, namely, Minimum Requirement Rule, Manner, POPE-Q, Idiomatic, and Relation, respectively. Moreover, the findings obtained from the questionnaire indicated that the participants tended to use inference strategies, deduction/induction, repetition, and transfer strategies more frequently than grouping strategies, elaboration strategies, translation strategies, and summarisation strategies. The study recommends that language teachers should incorporate the pragmatic aspects of language in their teaching, and such aspects should also be incorporated in the English curricula. It provides significant implications which could be useful for EFL/ESL learners and teachers as well as curriculum designers in Saudi Arabia, as much as in East Asia.

RETRACTED ARTICLE: Pragmatic competence: an imperative competency for a safe and healthy communication

Having pragmatic competence, one can communicate appropriately in social contexts. Pragmatic competence is defined as “the ability to use the language to express a wide range of functions as well as interpret their illocutionary force in discourse according to the socio-cultural context in which they are used”. The present study aimed at investigating the pragmatic competence of Iraqi Kurdish EFL learners through their comprehension of speech acts, implicatures, and situational routines as three aspects of pragmatic competence. The study further focused on the effects of communicative language teaching methods in enhancing pragmatic competence, which is the originality of the study. Moreover, the study attempted to see any variance between males and females regarding this issue. For this reason, the study comprised 90 participants. A multiple-choice discourse completion test including 32 items was used for the collection of data. The results unveiled Iraqi Kurdish EFL learners recorded a low level of pragmatic competence. Moreover, the findings revealed that communicative teaching methods interestingly enhance this competency.

Reasons Behind Mis/Understanding English Conversational Implicatures by University Learners in Yemen

English, as a communication tool, plays an extremely significant role in cross-cultural communication. While it is true that language users can mean exactly what they mean in their utterances, it is also true that they can have their utterances mean much more than what they say. Speakers of English speak indirectly, and using conversational implicatures is a way to be indirect. And as sentences often express messages above and beyond their literal meanings, it is not surprising that pragmatic errors are found in language learning process of EFL learners' communication. Therefore, this study aims at investigating the factors beyond misunderstanding or understanding of English conversational implicatures among Yemeni EFL university learners. It follows an empirical analytical-descriptive method consisting of a test and an interview. Randomly, 50% of the study population was selected as the study sample. They were 62 Yemeni EFL university learners. A multiple-choice discourse completion test ( MCDCT ) and a semi structure interview were used for collecting the study data. The test contained eleven types of conversational implicature The collected data was analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively. The results reveal that different factors caused misinterpretation of conversational implicatures among Yemeni EFL learners. However, the differences in socio-cultural knowledge and indirectness are instrumental in the misunderstanding of conversational contexts in the study. While the familiarity of some conversational implicatures and formulaic pattern of others pose no challenge for the study subjects to interpret some of the test conversational implicatures. The study test conversational implicatures that are formulaic or familiar to the subjects are easy to grasp. Therefore, this study provides some recommendations that are expected to enable EFL university learners to develop their pragmatic competence regarding English conversational implicature and suggests a reconsideration of the existing methodologies on teaching English as a foreign language. Hence, this would ease the concern of EFL students about English conversational implicature, build up their confidence and enhance language learning.

Investigating the Interplay of Emotional Intelligence and Interlanguage Pragmatic Competence in Iranian Lower-Intermediate EFL Learners

Despite the significant role of emotions in any aspect of language learning, including its pragmatic aspect, there have been few research studies on this topic. As a stride toward narrowing this research niche, the objectives of this research were threefold. Firstly, it aimed to examine the two face-threatening speech acts of request and apology as indicators of learners’‎ interlanguage pragmatic competence (ILP) and its relationships with learners’ Emotional Quotient (EQ). Secondly, it sought to investigate ‎whether gender as an intervening variable would have any significant relationship with ILP and EQ, and thirdly whether EQ could predict ILP ‎development. To this end, 72 (50 females and 22 males) Iranian lower-intermediate level learners ranging ‎in age from 17 to 25 from two universities took part in this research. A multiple-choice discourse completion test ‎‎(MDCT) (Liu, 2004) and Bar-Onʼs ‎(1997) EQ scale were used and correlation analysis was done to search for any linkage between ILP and EQ. The Pearson product-moment correlation outcomes ‎revealed no significant relationship between EQ and ILP. However, a significant relation was found between Independence as a component of EQ and ‎EFL learners’ ILP competence. The independent samples t-test outcomes indicated ‎that female participants had a higher level of (ILP) competence than male participants; however, male and female participants did not differ significantly regarding their EQ level. The findings indicate that ‎EQ, in general, is not influential in EFL learners’ ILP competence. The paper concludes by providing pedagogical implications for EFL learners and instructors.

The Effect of Flipped Classroom on Iranian EFL Learners' Speech Act Production: Does Flip Type Make a Difference?

This study investigated the effect of two types of flipped classroom on the Iranian upper-intermediate EFL learnerschr('39') appropriate use of refusals, apologies and requests. The participants of the study included 60 upper-intermediate EFL learners from a language institute in Tehran, Iran. The participants were selected based on convenience sampling in the form of three intact classes. Then, the three classes were randomly assigned to three groups namely, traditional flipping group, debate-oriented flipping group and non-flipping group. The three groups were exposed to 14 treatment sessions. Speech act instruction was offered to the flipping groups through explicit flipped instruction and to the non-flipping group through explicit non-flipped instruction. Moreover, a Multiple Choice Discourse Completion Test (WDCT) was administered to the participants to measure their speech act production ability at the pre-treatment and post-treatment, phases of the study. The results revealed that both types of flipped instruction had a significantly positive effect on the EFL learnerschr('39') use of the speech acts (F=10.622, p<.0.05; F=19.358, p<.0.05; F=18.785, p<.0.05). Accordingly, EFL teachers are recommended to use flipping methods in an attempt to enhance EFL learnerschr('39') appropriate use of speech acts.

The production and comprehension of apology strategies: Effects of English language proficiency

This cross-sectional study examined the effects of English language proficiency on Jordanian EFL students’ production and comprehension of apology strategies. The participants were 270 Jordanian EFL learners and 90 native speakers of English. Data were collected using Written Discourse Completion Test (WDCT) and Multiple-choice Discourse Completion Test (MDCT). Descriptive statistics and the Spearman rank-order correlation coefficient (rho) test were used to analyse the data. Results showed that Jordanian EFL learners’ production and comprehension of apology strategies are influenced by their levels of English language proficiency. A small to large negative correlation relationship was reported between Jordanian EFL learners’ language proficiency and the production of explicit apology strategies and non-apology strategies. On the other hand, the study revealed a small to medium positive correlation relationship between Jordanian EFL learners’ language proficiency and the production of less-explicit apology. The study also showed a significant correlation relationship between proficiency and the comprehension of apology strategies. Thus, teachers of English at Jordanian schools may need to consider focusing on classroom activities that can help EFL learners enhance their pragmatic knowledge of apology strategies.

The production and comprehension of apology strategies: Effects of English language proficiency

This cross-sectional study examined the effects of English language proficiency on Jordanian EFL students’ production and comprehension of apology strategies. The participants were 270 Jordanian EFL learners and 90 native speakers of English. Data were collected using Written Discourse Completion Test (WDCT) and Multiple-choice Discourse Completion Test (MDCT). Descriptive statistics and the Spearman rank-order correlation coefficient (rho) test were used to analyse the data. Results showed that Jordanian EFL learners’ production and comprehension of apology strategies is influenced by their levels of English language proficiency. A small to large negative correlation relationship was reported between Jordanian EFL learners’ language proficiency and the production of explicit apology strategies and non-apology strategies. On the other hand, the study revealed a small to medium positive correlation relationship between Jordanian EFL learners’ language proficiency and the production of less-explicit apology. The study also showed a significant correlation relationship between proficiency and the comprehension of apology strategies. Thus, teachers of English at Jordanian schools may need consider focusing on classroom activities that can help EFL learners enhance their pragmatic knowledge of apology strategies.

Instructed Second Language English Pragmatics in the Iranian Context

The present study aimed to review the instruction of the L2 speech acts in English pragmatics in the Iranian context during the last two decades from 2000 to 2020. To this end, upon the completion of the study search, the retrieved articles were selected and analyzed based on the research domain. The results of our synthesis from 54 studies carried out on the instruction of the speech act not only reveal that pragmatics is amenable to instruction but also unfold that the most frequently instructed speech act is the speech act of request which has been conducted in 29 studies, while the least instructed speech act is invitation, used in only one study. Moreover, analyzing the data collection methods documented that Multiple-choice Discourse Completion Test (MDCT) is the most predominant method utilized in 36 papers during the last decades in English pragmatic instruction. With respect to the treatment types, it is illuminated that the most recurrent treatment type is explicit, implicit vs. control, followed by explicit vs. implicit, although other treatment types have been embarked on. As a final point, it is worth noting that 53 of the conducted studies utilized the quantitative method in their data analyses, whereas only one study implemented the qualitative method. The paper concludes with some avenues for further research.

The Understandable English Conversational Implicatures by Yemeni EFL University Learners

English, as a communication tool, is playing an extremely significant role in cross-cultural communication. While it is true that language users can mean exactly what they mean in their utterances, it is also true that they can have their utterances mean much more than what they say. Speakers of English choose to speak indirectly, and that using conversational implicatures is a way to be indirect. This research paper examined the perception of English conversational implicatures among Yemeni EFL university learners. It followed an empirical analytical-descriptive method consisting of a test and an interview. The study subjects were 62 Yemeni EFL university learners. A multiple-choice discourse completion test and an interview were used for collecting the study data. The test contains six types of conversational implicature: Stating, Tautology, Rhetorical Question, Understatement, Indirect Refusal and Indirect Request. All the implicatures included in the test were adapted from the study related literature, whereas most of the test scenarios containing these implicatures were ready-made ones that the researcher came across throughout her reading. The results revealed that these implicatures were found easy by Yemeni EFL university learners to understand.

Pragmatic Awareness of English Conversational Implicatures among Yemeni-Arabic EFL College Learners

Conversational implicatures are considered as a tool of indirect communication. Through the researcher 's teaching experience, it has been noticed that Yemeni Arabic EFL College learners are not sufficiently aware of the rules of the use of English and that often words and expressions convey messages above and beyond their literal meanings. This study examined the perception of English conversational implicatures among those learners. The method applied in this study was empirical analytical descriptive with a test and an interview. The subjects were 62 Yemeni Arabic EFL learners. A multiple choice discourse completion test and interview were used for collecting the study data. All the implicatures included in the test were taken from the study related literature, wheras most of test scenarios containing these implicatures were ready -made ones that the researcher came across throughout her reading. The test contains seven types of conversational implicature : Overstatement, Deliberate Ambiguity, Assertion, Indirect Refusal, Disapproval, Indirect Criticism and Indirect Requests. The results showed that Yemeni Arabic EFL College learners do face challenges in relation to the interpretation of these seven conversational implicatures.

The Effects of Explicit Film-based Instruction on EFL Teacher Trainees’ Interpretation of Implied Meanings

&lt;p style="text-align:justify"&gt;Pragmatic competence is an indispensable dimension of overall language ability, and proper interpretation of implied meanings is a major constituent of pragmatic competence. In this regard, this study aimed to investigate the efficiency of a film-based instruction program devised to facilitate the interpretation of implied meanings in English. It was conducted with a quasi-experimental design. First, a multiple-choice discourse completion test was given to 144 English language teacher trainees with 77 people in the experimental group and 67 in the control group. After the 5-week instruction given to the experimental group, the test was administered to both groups again. The results revealed significant differences in favor of the experimental group. This makes the program a promising one as it made the participants, who were also prospective English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers responsible for helping their own students have pragmatic competence too, significantly more equipped about processing implied meanings as a major constituent of pragmatic competence.&lt;/p&gt;

The Effects of Explicit/Implicit Instructions on the Development of Advanced EFL Learners’ Pragmatic Knowledge of English: Apology Speech Act

The current study explored the effects of explicit and implicit instructions on the development of advanced EFL learners’ pragmatic knowledge in terms of apology speech act. A total of 10 English native speakers and 40 advanced EFL students participated in this study. The Iraqi Kurdish EFL learners were selected from grade 12 in British International School in Erbil/ Iraq and their level was determined by Oxford Quick Placement Test (OQPT) proficiency test. These 40 participants were divided randomly into two; explicit group (EG) and implicit group (IG) Later, they were provided a Multiple-choice Discourse Completion Test (MDCT) as a pre-test, which consisted of 10 different situations of apology and were based on the participants’ real-life situation, each situation included 3 options and only one answer could be selected which considered to be the most appropriate answer to them. The aim was to show if there were any significant differences between EG and IG. The English native speakers were given the same (MDCT) and were asked to choose the most appropriate answers. After the treatment, (EG) and (IG) were provided the same MDCT as a post-test. The findings revealed that the results of EG and IG were significant and they showed improvements after the treatment, and the EG outperformed the IG in post-test and delayed-test.

Exploring the Potential of Explicit/Implicit Teaching through Plays for EFL Learners’ Pragmatic Development

The present study investigated the possible contribution of plays as a medium of instruction for pragmatic development through explicit and implicit instruction. To this end, 80 English-major university students formed four intact experimental groups: two literary and two nonliterary groups. One of the literary groups (Implicit Play) received typographically enhanced plays containing the speech acts of apology, request, and refusal, and the other (Explicit Play) received the same plus metapragmatic instruction on the speech acts. The medium of instruction for the nonliterary groups were dialogs containing the given functions; they were also given either enhanced input (Implicit Dialog) or input plus metapragmatic information (Explicit Dialog). All the groups took a written discourse completion test (WDCT) and a multiple-choice discourse completion test (MDCT) before and after instruction. Analysis of the groups’ performance on the WDCT pretest and posttest did not show an advantage for the literary medium, that is, there was no significant difference between literary and nonliterary groups. It was rather the mode of instruction that mattered most; explicit groups outperformed their implicit counterparts. As for the groups’ performance on the MDCT pre and posttest, analyses revealed that the groups had improved, but there was no significant difference among the groups as a result of the four teaching conditions, suggesting that pragmatic instruction regardless of the medium and mode of teaching can improve learners’ knowledge of speech acts.

Teaching English Pragmatic Features in EFL Context: A Focus on Request Speech Acts

This study attempted to explore the possible impacts of teaching English pragmatic features to Iranian high school students’ use of request speech acts. To this end, a sample of Iranian female high school students (n=50) between 12 to 18 years range of age participated in the study. The students with the same level of proficiency were assigned into two experimental and control groups. The data were collected by administering Multiple-Choice Discourse Completion Test (MDCT) as both the pre and the post-tests. The pragmatic features were selected from the high school English textbooks and the excerpts taken from the Top Notch series (2A, 3A, 2B). With the focus on request speech acts, the control group received conventional instructions whereas the experimental group was exposed to the researchers’ request speech act interventions. After statistical analysis of the findings, the data revealed that teaching pragmatic features has significant impact on the Iranian high school students’ performance on request speech acts. Besides, the overall responses by the experimental group showed that indirect request speech acts were more widely used than direct request speech acts as the sign of social and cultural politeness.

The Impact of Instruction on the Pragmatic Comprehension of Speech Acts of Apology, Request, and Refusal Among Iranian Intermediate EFL Learners

Theoretical and pedagogical attention in pragmatic competence and instruction for second- and foreign language learners has culminated in the growing body of literature on teaching pragmatics. Based on cognitively oriented second-language acquisition (SLA) theories, most studies on pragmatic intervention have primarily focused on dichotomous teaching approaches including explicit vs. implicit as well as inductive vs. deductive interventions. However, very few studies have capitalized on more dynamic teaching approaches taking advantage of authentic video-driven vignettes. Therefore, the present study sought to find out the impact of video-enhanced input on the comprehension of three speech acts of apology, request, and refusal on 69 (27 males and 42 females) Iranian intermediate EFL learners who were randomly divided into four homogenous groups (i.e., metapragmatic, form-search, interactive translation, and control) based on the results of the Oxford Quick Placement Test (OQPT). The four groups were accordingly exposed to 60 video vignettes (20 for each speech act) extracted from different episodes of Friends and Seinfeld sitcoms as well as Annie Hall movie for eight 60-min sessions of instruction twice a week. Results of the multiple-choice discourse completion test (MDCT) (Birjandi and Derakhshan Applied Research on English Language, 3(1), 67-85, 2014) revealed that metapragmatic consciousness-raising, form-search, and interactive translation groups led to the development of pragmatic comprehension from pretest to posttest. Furthermore, the results of the post hoc test of Tukey (HSD) demonstrated that while the form-search group had a better performance than interactive translation and control groups, the metapragmatic group outperformed the other treatment groups. In the light of the gained results, the findings might provide pedagogical implications for pragmatic practitioners and theoreticians as well as materials developers, teachers, and learners. Finally, it concludes with some avenues for further research.

EFL Students’ English Pragmatic Knowledge: Evidence from University of Gulian

This study aimed to investigate the extent of Iranian EFL students’ pragmatic knowledge, and if there were any significant differences among EFL learners at different years of study (the freshmen, the sophomores, and the seniors) on this knowledge. To this end, 78 EFL students of University of Guilan (Rasht-Iran) were tested using a Multiple-choice Discourse Completion Test (MDCT), (Birjandi &amp; Rezaei, 2010). The results showed that, their extent of pragmatic knowledge wasnot at satisfying level. Also, the results showed that there were significant differences between the freshmen and seniors in this regard.

Directness vs. Indirectness: A Study of the Linguistic Choices of Persian Speakers When Giving Advice

Considering lack of research in communication style in Persian and drawing upon Tannen’s conversational style theory (1984), this study aimed at investigating the degree of indirectness in Persian by focusing on the giving-advice speech act. To this end, the data were collected through a multiple choice Discourse Completion Test (DCT), developed and designed by the researchers. The results indicated that, except for gender, other variables such as age, status, and social distance of the interlocutors had a significant effect on the linguistic choices of the participants and on their directness score. The findings, thus confirmed the efficacy of Tannen’s conversational style theory in justifying the functions of indirectness in Persian.

The Construct of Interlanguage Pragmatic Learning Strategies: Investigating Preferences of High vs. Low Pragmatic Performers

Interlanguage pragmatics (ILP) has witnessed a growing body of research in the past two decades. One of the under-explored domains of L2 pragmatics is the role of learning strategies specifically tailored for the development of ILP knowledge. Therefore, this investigation aimed to determine the significant interlanguage pragmatic learning strategies (IPLS) used by high vs. low L2 pragmatic achievers. It was conducted in two phases. First, a multiple-choice discourse completion test including five common English speech acts was administered to 500 EFL learners. Next, 80 highest and 80 lowest ILP performers were orally interviewed and their answers were audio-taped. The most important interlanguage pragmatic learning strategies were extracted from L2 learners' interviews. The elicited IPLS were arranged based on Cohen's (2005, 2010) classification, the findings of the study itself, and an analogy with general language learning strategies (LLS) classification suggested by Oxford (1990). The extracted IPLS were divided into six categories of memory-related, cognitive, social, affective, metacognitive and compensatory IPLS. The high ILP performers used more strategies in all the six categories. The main conclusion of this study is that the use of more IPLS means a better ILP knowledge of speech acts. The most significant implication of the current study was that ILPS need to be taught to L2 learners to enhance their ILP knowledge in general and their speech-act-specific competence in particular.