Oral Discourse Completion Task Research Articles

A Contrastive Study of Gratitude Speech Act: A Case Study of Algerian and Jordanian Arabic

This study aims to investigate how Jordanian and Algerian Arabic speakers express gratitude and compare the differences and similarities in the gratitude speech act between the two varieties of Arabic. The study also aims to determine if there are variations in the strategies used by the participants based on their social status (equal, high, and low) and gender (male and female). The study involved 80 participants from two different universities in Algeria and Jordan, and the data was collected using Oral Discourse Completion Task. Cheng's (2005) framework was used to classify the strategies for expressing gratitude. The findings suggest that thanking and religious formulas are the most used strategies for expressing gratitude. Additionally, Jordanian females express more gratitude than Jordanian males, while Algerian females use more thanking than Algerian males. Furthermore, participants of equal status tend to express more thanking and joking, while those of low to high status tend to use more titles.

A Sociolinguistic Examination of the Dual Usted in Medellín, Colombia: Evidence from Semi-spontaneous Speech and Implicit Language Attitudes

Abstract: The system of second person singular forms of address (2PS) in Medellín, Colombia is tripartite consisting of tú, vos , and usted , while also including the existence of a dual usted . The current study compares usage of the intimate usted versus the distant usted with data from an oral discourse completion task (DCT) while also investigating listeners' implicit language attitudes toward the usage of usted utilizing the matched guise technique. A sample of speakers from Medellín (N=72) stratified by age, sex, and education level completed an oral DCT, and a subset (N=38) also completed a matched guise task. For usage, it was found that intimate usted occurred 36.7% of the time with distant usted occurring 63.3% of the time. A multivariate mixed effects regression selected all fixed effects as significant. Specifically, intimate usted was favored by commands, statements, indirect commands, male interlocutors, same age interlocutors, male speakers, younger speakers, and speakers with high school education. These findings show that although the default usted usage is with distant interlocutors, the intimate usted is extremely vital, especially between men and with younger speakers. The current study also demonstrates the importance of comparing usage data and attitudinal data.

Comparing the Use of Linguistic Hedging Devices (LHDs) in English and Bahasa Indonesia: Gender and Pedagogical Perspectives

The use of Linguistics Hedging Devices (LHDs) serves a notable function in our daily conversations and thus is thought-provoking to analyze. Although its occurrence tends to be more prominent in spoken communications, the use of this linguistic feature is still frequently apparent in written conversations. Although they do not add much to the proportional content of an utterance, their occurrence remains unique in terms of variations, frequency, and functions across languages. This study examines the use of LHDs by native speakers of English and Bahasa Indonesia in short spontaneous expressions. The data were obtained through Oral Discourse Completion Tasks (ODCTs) involving 40 participants from the two language speakers (20 in English and 20 in Bahasa Indonesia). English respondents expressed their responses in English, while the Indonesian speakers used Bahasa Indonesia in their responses. Each respondent was asked to respond to an apologetic expression from a close friend using a mini-digital tape recording. All responses were transcribed and analyzed, focusing on the number and types of LHDs used by the respondents in their expressions. The results revealed that the two language communities used various LHDs in their responses, mostly intended to show indirectness and reduce threats toward the hearers’ negative faces. English respondents were likely to use these linguistic features more frequently and varied in types than their Indonesian counterparts. A remarkable trend in the study is that Indonesian speakers tended to be more direct in their expressions than their English counterparts, challenging previously reversed claims. Teaching English as a Foreign Language in Indonesia is recommended to introduce various types and uses of these markers and emphasize how they can be used appropriately in authentic contexts.

Exploring the Speech Act of Requesting by German-English Bilinguals in Workplace Scenarios

Culturally different ways of requesting can raise the possibility of misunderstanding in a 21st century workplace. Following the goal of Languages for Specific Purposes (LSP) to engender communicative skills that foster intercultural understanding, the present study examines how German immigrants living in the United States make requests in the workplace. This query aims to shed light on bilingual pragmatic and intercultural competence. A total of 17 participants completed oral discourse completion tasks. The results showed that the German-English bilinguals tended to blend socio-pragmatic norms of both languages into a unique bilingual pragmatic competence. Overall, they were more direct in German than in English when making requests, showing awareness of intercultural differences. In their German responses, the bilinguals appeared to be even more direct than Germans in previous studies. Furthermore, participants’ higher use of hints attests to pragmatic competence at the workplace, as hints were almost exclusively used with superiors. The findings help to better equip employees who work in global workplaces to express and understand requests. The findings also inform LSP curriculum, which is ideally situated to educate future workers in effective intercultural communication.

Gender of the Apologiser as a Social Factor in the Selection of Apology Strategies

"Politeness" is a culturally defined pattern of language use that enables the speaker to formulate appropriate speech acts like an apology. The speech act of apology is a part of pragmatics study and belongs to expressive speech acts. However, it cannot be separated from sociolinguistics because social factors such as social context, gender, and the participants' relationship can all have an impact on how apologizers make their apologies. The selection of the appropriate formulas of apology strategies to pay off violations of social norms is considered a hard task since it is based on some cultural and social norms. Thus, the present study aims to study the apology strategies used by Iraqi male/female postgraduate students at the University of Anbar, in addition to investigating the effect of gender on the use of polite apology strategies. An oral Discourse Completion Task was used as a data collection instrument, supported by a semi-structured interview. The data has been analysed using the descriptive analysis method, based on Leech’s (2014) classification of apology. The findings revealed that "expressing regret" was the most frequently used apology strategy. Furthermore, both genders used different indirect strategies to support their apologies. Both genders used a new supporting move, which is "admitting responsibility for in-group member’s fault." In conclusion, the gender of the participants has a slight effect on the choice of polite apology strategies. Moreover, social status and age were the most effective social factors as compared to the others.

Automated speech scoring of dialogue response by Japanese learners of English as a foreign language

ABSTRACT Purpose: This study builds a new system for automatically assessing learners’ speech elicited from an oral discourse completion task (DCT), and evaluates the prediction capability of the system with a view to better understanding factors deemed influential in predicting speaking proficiency scores and the pedagogical implications of the system. Methodology: We developed a system with a tripartite structure using an automatic speech recogniser, a set of modules that compute a number of speech features, and a scoring model. In total, 210 participants with intermediate English language proficiency level were administered a multi-turn oral DCT, a task which closely resembles discourse in real-life situations. The collected speech and transcribed files were eyeballed and rated by human raters first. Eighty percent of the original dataset was then used to train and examine our prediction model against the remainder of the dataset. Findings: The exact agreement between human and machine scores was 72%, moderately high, and comparable to the literature on automated speech scoring. It could provide a basis for deploying the system in a low-stakes practice environment. Originality/value: This study makes a unique contribution to the wider scholarship, where the use of single-turn DCTs remains prevalent, by presenting a new reliable scoring system for learner speech using an automated DCT with multiple turns. It offers useful insight into ways in which the system could be used in a low-stakes environment, including foreign language classroom settings.

When two cultures meet

The present study investigated the use of strategies by Chinese learners of English and English learners of Chinese in making requests in both Chinese and English. Three factors affecting request strategies were also examined, including social power, social distance and degree of imposition. A total of 12 Chinese-speaking and 12 English-speaking students were recruited to complete Chinese and English versions of an oral discourse completion task (ODCT). Request behaviour was examined in both the subjects’ native and non-native languages. The results show that the learner and native speaker groups performed differently in making Chinese requests but employed comparable strategies in making English requests. Moreover, social distance was found to be more influential than social power and degree of imposition in making Chinese requests. However, the influence of these factors was similar in making English requests. The findings suggest that it was easier for the learners of Chinese to master English requests than for the learners of English to acquire Chinese requests.

Stylistic and linguistic variations in compliments: an empirical analysis of children’s gender schema development with machine learning algorithms

As hypothesized by Bem (1981)’s Gender Schema Theory, individuals regulate themselves and their expectations towards others according to the gender norms in a community. The current study examines children’s gender schema regarding the language styles in compliments addressed to both the gendered self and others. Two types of oral discourse completion tasks were designed for the purpose, where twenty-five Mandarin-speaking children were instructed to pay compliments in a normal-speaking style and an imitated style of the opposite gender. Machine learning algorithms were implemented to analyze the variations of language features at lexical, discourse-pragmatic, and discourse-semantic levels. The results show that, compared to lexical features such as lexical richness and word choices, discourse-pragmatic features are more prone to gender ideologies and exhibit style-shifting in children’s imitation of the opposite sex when addressing compliments. At the discourse-semantic level, a significantly low probability of positivity was demonstrated in girls’ imitated compliments, according to the results of the logistic regression. In general, the findings support the presence of gender-differentiated language styles among pre-adolescent children. In particular, girls at this age have developed the stereotype that boys tend to use language with a less prosocial sentiment for the manifestation of their “maleness”. Directions for improving the experimental design and uncovering the possible confounding mechanisms were discussed to illuminate the multidimensional complexity of the cross-gender variations in the more nuanced speech traits, such as the use of intensifiers.

The difficulty of oral speech act production tasks in second language pragmatics testing.

This study examined the relative difficulty of oral speech act production tasks involving eight different types of speech acts for Chinese English as a foreign language (EFL) learners and the effects of three contextual variables, namely, power, social distance, and imposition, on such difficulty. Eight Oral Discourse Completion Task items, each representing a unique combination of the three contextual variables, were designed for each speech act. Eighty Chinese EFL learners responded to these items and their responses were rated for appropriateness by two native-speaking college English instructors. A Many-facet Rasch Measurement analysis suggested that the eight speech acts can be ordered by ascending difficulty as follows: Thank, Request, Suggestion, Disagreement, Invitation, Refusal, Offer, and Apology. Significant effects on performance scores were found for the interaction between each of the three contextual variables and speech act, and the specific effects observed varied by speech act. The implications of our findings for L2 pragmatics testing are discussed.

Polymorphism of second person singular forms of address in the Spanish of Medellin, Colombia

This study examines polymorphism of second person singular forms of address (2PS) in the Spanish of Medellin, Colombia. Polymorphism of 2PS is the usage of more than one 2PS directed toward the same person during the same interaction. Speakers from Medellin (N = 72) carried out an oral discourse completion task that consisted of 24 situations. Results showed that polymorphism is common in Medellin Spanish as it occurred 22.7% of the time. It was also found that polymorphism is constrained by three variables: change in speech act, speaker sex, and interlocutor relationship. In particular, a change in speech act, male speakers, and intimate interlocutors favored polymorphism. In addition, characteristics of polymorphism are identified. Findings demonstrate that polymorphism is not random but rather systematic and purposeful—it allows speakers to express different speech acts and emotions via the shift in 2PS. Results are discussed in light of broader implications and the future of polymorphism in the Spanish of Medellin.

Universality? Cross-linguistic influence?

Abstract The present study investigated the use of apology response (AR) strategies by L1-Chinese L2-English learners and L1-English L2-Chinese learners from a cross-linguistic perspective. A total of 18 Taiwanese college students who were learning English as a foreign language and 18 foreigners in Taiwan who were learning Chinese as a second language were recruited to complete an oral discourse completion task both in Chinese and English. The major findings are as follows: First, the two groups showed no significant difference in their choice of AR strategies, both favoring Acceptance and Minimization, two face-preserving types, to show politeness. Second, cross-linguistic influence was found to affect our participants’ AR performances. Both positive and negative influences occurred. Finally, regarding the use of multiple strategies, both groups of participants tended to combine Acceptance with other strategies to maintain social relationships. The results showed both language universal and language-specific features in the AR realizations in Chinese and English. The dominant use of positive response strategies, namely Acceptance and Minimization, highlights the profound influence of politeness principles.

The benefits of social interaction and proficiency for foreign language acquisition of Spanish conventional expressions

AbstractSeveral studies have examined the second language acquisition of English conventional expressions (CEs) in the study abroad context. However, there is a lack of studies that investigate Spanish CEs and CEs in general in the at-home context. This study examines the foreign language acquisition of Spanish CEs in the at-home context and the effect of proficiency and Spanish social interaction outside of the classroom. Three levels of learners (3rd semester, 5th semester, and graduate level) (N = 32) and a Spanish speaker comparison group (N = 10) completed an oral discourse completion task, a recognition task, and a social interaction questionnaire. Results showed that social interaction in Spanish leads to better recognition of conventional expressions and that proficiency is a significant predictor of production of these expressions. Results have pedagogical implications, including the importance for instructors to provide input of expressions related to a variety of contexts.

Is It Polite to Hiss?: Nonverbal Sound Objects as Markers of (Im)politeness in Korean

This paper explores the politeness-related functions of an ingressive hissing-like sound that occurs frequently in Korean and which is typically transcribed as ssup. This nonverbal sound is produced by drawing air alongside the tongue or between the teeth and may appear either before the production of a turn, or during turn production. Previous studies have shown that Korean speakers produce more frequent hisses when addressing status superiors. This suggests a politeness-related function, particularly given the importance of marking social distance toward elders and superiors in Korean culture. In the current paper, we explore the pragmatic functions of these hisses in three distinct datasets (oral discourse completion task, dyad recordings, drama interactions). Our analysis shows that hisses perform four types of social actions: displaying delicacy, activity shift, word search, and conveying skepticism. Hisses occur at interactional or relational trouble spots to delay the progression of talk, while allowing the speaker to initiate or maintain their turn. They co-occur with other verbal and multimodal markers of hesitation. We thus see the underlying core meaning of hisses as being related to difficulty, uncertainty and hesitation, and the conveyance of reluctance to perform the problematic talk. The increased frequency of hisses and multimodal hesitation in interactions with status superiors shows us that speakers are trying to show more care and effort when interacting in situations where social distance exists. These results contribute toward our understanding of politeness as a multimodal and holistic phenomenon that is expressed across multiple verbal and nonverbal dimensions.

Refusal Strategies Used in Algerian Spoken Arabic in Response to Offers

This study reports the findings of a study on strategies of refusal used in Algerian Spoken Arabic (ASA) in response to offers. The study included 30 native Algerians (15 males and 15 females) enrolled at the University of Mohammed Seddik Ben Yahia, Jijel, Algeria. To achieve the objectives of the study, the researchers used an Oral Discourse Completion Task (ODCT), which included six hypothetical scenarios representing three social statuses (Equal-Equal, Low-High, and High-Low). The findings revealed that Algerian Arabic speakers recorded preference to use direct refusal strategies in their response to offers from all status interlocutors (equal, higher, and lower). It was also found that negative willingness/ability was the most frequently used strategy to refuse all status interlocutors’ offers. The researchers recommend conducting a further research on the realization of the speech act of refusal in English as a foreign language by Algerians.

Dispreferred speech acts in virtual reality: Analysis of tone choices and hesitations

This study compared participants' dispreferred speech acts between two oral discourse completion tasks (oral DCT): computer-based and virtual reality (VR)-based. Both tasks involved a series of scenarios eliciting speech acts of refusals and complaints (i.e., dispreferred acts). While the computer-based oral DCT elicited participants' speech directed to their imaginary interlocutor, in the VR-based task participants produced their speech to an actual interlocutor appearing in 360° visualizations. Sixty-two native and nonnative speakers of English completed both tasks. Using mixed effects models, the impact of task conditions (computer-based or VR-based) and language background (native or nonnative speakers) was assessed on two linguistic features: tone choices (rising, falling, and level tone) and hesitations (e.g., occurrences of filled and unfilled pauses). Both participant groups produced more level tones and hesitations in the VR-based than the computer-based DCT. Although native speakers used more falling tones, nonnative speakers used more rising tones, and their speech involved more hesitations.

Forms of address choices among Finnish and French university students and French teachers

This study examines addressing choices by combining university students' and teachers’ perspectives, concentrating on the French pronominal address forms (tu, T and vous, V). Our data consist of a triangulation of an oral discourse completion task (ODCT), retrospective interviews, and focus group discussions among informants consisting of L2 speakers of French and L1 speakers of Finnish and French. In our analysis, we examined the horizontal and vertical dimensions of address forms on production data and relational work on metapragmatic data. Student data showed that advanced L2 speakers of French used address forms in a more L1-like manner than beginner and intermediate L2 speakers, although all L2-speaking groups used the T forms less often compared to speakers of L1 French. Teacher data revealed that address choices were subject to a discursive dispute.

Anaokuluna Giden Türk Çocukların Özür Dileme Söz Eylemine ilişkin Edimsel Yeterlilikleri: Sosyo-linguistik Faktörlerin ve Bağlamsal Değişkenlerin Etkisi

This study explores Turkish preschool children’s pragmatic competence with regard to their apology realization patterns. Children’s meta-pragmatic knowledge of apologies was tested and two different age groups (4;0-4;11 and 5;0-6;0) (N=100) were compared to trace possible developmental trends with increasing age in terms of complexity, variety and type of strategies they utilized. Additionally, all the children were grouped according to gender in order to detect the potential effect of this factor on children’s apologizing behaviors. Finally, the range of children’s socio-pragmatic skills was evidenced by tracing their sensitivity in their strategy usage to the severity of the offense as a contextual variable which has a potential effect on speakers’ manner of apologizing. Eight offence scenarios were designed and implemented in the form of Oral Discourse Completion Task (ODCT). The responses were transcribed and phrases for apologizing were classified into categories. The results indicated similarities and differences when compared to adult-usage and children’s tendencies in other languages.

The Impact of Student-Paced Pragmatics Instruction through Nearpod on EFL Learners’ Request Performance

Although the use of technology for pragmatics instruction has attracted significant attention from scholars, the number of studies regarding the impact of self-access materials to this end is limited. Nearpod is a useful cloud-based application to support self-paced learning. This paper aims to probe the effect of learning through Nearpod on EFL learners’ request performance. Researchers designed seven self-access courses to teach requests. The data was collected from 11 EFL learners through Online Oral Discourse Completion Tasks before and after the treatment. The post-test results revealed that the participants significantly improved their request performance after the treatment. The learners’ responses in the pre-test and the post-test were also qualitatively analyzed for an in-depth investigation of the changes in their requesting behavior. The findings revealed that the learners stopped modality generalization and started using a variety of modal verbs according to the context of situation after the treatment. Additionally, it was indicated that self-paced pragmatics instruction helped learners overcome the pragmatic failures regarding the main verb use in request head acts. Furthermore, the differences regarding the learners’ use of internal and external modifiers were also documented. After the treatment, they performed various internal modifiers that were either absent or uncommon in the pre-test data. Alerters and grounders were found to be the most frequent external modifiers in both the pre-test and the post-test data set. In summary, the results indicated that self-paced learning helped learners improve strategies for performing appropriate requests.

The interplay of proficiency and study abroad experience on the prosody of L2 speech acts

AbstractAdoptingBrazil’s (1997)prosodic framework, this study examined whether proficiency and study abroad experience impact second language (L2) English learners’ spoken production of speech acts. Twenty-four native English speakers and 64 Japanese learners of L2 English participated in the study. The L2 learner group was divided into three sub-groups: (1) high proficiency learners with study abroad (SA) experience (2) low proficiency learners with no SA experience, and (3) high proficiency learners without SA experience. Participants completed an oral discourse completion task that assessed their ability to produce two speech acts (requests and opinions) in high- and low-imposition situations. Prosodic features including intonation, pitch range, and sentence prominence were analyzed via PRAAT. The findings revealed a complex interplay between proficiency and SA experience on pragma-prosodic production. Implications suggest that SA may have the added benefit of providing the backdrop for authentic contextual functions of prosody in high- and low- imposition situations.

The Relation Between Flor’s Taxonomy and Trosborg’s Modification in Giving Suggestions in Students’ Spoken Presentation

Considering the intense presentation activity in the graduate classroom, the use of suggestion turns to be primary in delivering points. This triggered the researchers to study the issue. The primary objective of this study is to explain the relation between Flor’s (2005) suggestion taxonomy and Trosborg’s (1995) suggestion modification through the realization of speech acts of suggestion. The study applied a descriptive qualitative research method in which the data were gathered by using Oral Discourse Completion Task (ODCT). The participants of the study were 15 EFL students of a graduate program of a university in Semarang. The responses then were analyzed based on Flor’s (2005) suggestion taxonomy and Trosborg’s (1995) suggestion modification coding scheme. The results revealed that there were 146 suggestions produced. Conventionalized forms were realized more frequently than other Flor’s taxonomies. Furthermore, negative imperative was the most used indirect strategy. The subjects realized more specific formulae of the most in conventionalized forms. The indirect strategy was realized equally. Politeness marker was used more frequently while grounder claimed the highest findings in external modification. The relation between the taxonomy and modification showed that direct taxonomy and external modification was the highest relation found in the suggestion realization. It is expected that this research can give profound contributions to university students, English teachers, and other fellow researchers to develop further research related to suggestion speech acts. At last, it is suggested that English teachers particularly are to raise EFL learners’ pragmatic awareness by implementing appropriate teaching approach and method.