Effects of pragmatic task features, English proficiency, and learning setting on Chinese ESL/EFL spoken performance of requests

Lixia Cheng, Purdue University

Abstract

Drawing on Speech Act Theory, this dissertation examined whether pragmatic task features, PDR (i.e., additive effects of power, distance, and rank of imposition), proficiency, and learning setting (ESL or EFL) have differential effects on Chinese learners' oral production of requests in English. Possible interaction among PDR, proficiency, and learning setting was also investigated. In addition, this study compared Chinese English learners' request production with L1 English speakers' task responses in terms of the sub-strategies used and the lexical and syntactic mitigation devices selected. Eighty Chinese participants' speech responses to four request elicitation tasks (two exemplars each of PDR-low and PDR-high tasks) were collected via a computer mediated semi-direct oral Discourse Completion Test. A mixed-methods design was employed for data analysis. Quantitative analyses consisted of three repeated-measures factorial ANOVAs with temporal and pragmatic measures of task performance as the dependent variables, namely, response latency, speech rate, and the composite average rating of pragmatic appropriateness. Qualitative analyses involved a discourse analysis of Chinese participants' spoken request production in comparison to the requests produced by L1 English speakers with respect to the types and frequency of request sub-strategies as well as the lexical/phrasal and syntactic downgraders employed. Primary findings of this dissertation are that a) compared to PDR-low situations, PDR-high tasks were associated with longer response latency, slower speech rate, and request performances receiving lower ratings of pragmatic appropriateness from L1 English expert judges; b) high proficiency Chinese English learners' spoken request production had faster speech rate and received higher ratings of pragmatic appropriateness than the requests produced by low proficiency learners; c) ESL participants tended to receive higher ratings of pragmatic appropriateness than EFL learners; and d) the ESL learning setting seemed to have most greatly benefited the low proficiency learners. These main effects of pragmatic task features, proficiency, and learning setting were qualitatively confirmed by the discourse analysis on the request sub-strategies and internal modification devices that participants employed. Learners with high proficiency and/or in the ESL learning setting were found to approximate L1 English speakers better than learners in the other conditions, e.g., low proficiency and/or in the EFL learning setting. In addition, learner production differed from L1 English requests in the frequency of certain sub-strategy types and lexical and syntactic downgraders, e.g., the past tense marker "-ed" and the subjectivizer (e.g., I was wondering). This empirical research into task effect from an experimental pragmatic perspective is an important contribution of the present study to the L2 assessment literature. Additionally, the discourse analysis conducted in this study have practical implications for pedagogical instruction and materials development in L2 pragmatics.

Degree

Ph.D.

Advisors

Ginther, Purdue University.

Subject Area

Linguistics|English as a Second Language

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