A discourse completion task (DCT) was used in the present thesis to study sixteen-to-seventeen-year-old Norwegian EFL pupils’ interlanguage pragmatic performance in L2.
23
DCTs are a commonly used data-collection method in pragmatic research. For example, Aufa (2014) examined if and how DCTs could be used as an explicit instruction tool in order to improve EFL pupils’ pragmatic competence. Other researchers, e.g. Jebahi (2011) and Kim (2008), have used DCTs as a means to investigate apology speech act strategies among non-native speakers of English. Szczepaniak-Kozak (2015) and Brubæk (2012) employed DCTs to investigate EFL learners request speech acts, and strategies used to mitigate the directness of the requests.
In general, these employed DCTs “[…] require the informant to produce some sort of authentic language data as a response to situational prompts” (Dörnyei 2007: 103). For example, a pupil has forgotten to bring a pen to class and needs to borrow one from a close friend. How does the pupil ask? How does the pupil modify his or her request depending on the request’s purpose and context, for instance when borrowing something from a teacher compared to borrowing from a friend? In this regard, the DCTs differ from ordinary questionnaires in that they sample and provide insight into a respondent’s language competence, “[…] similar to language tests” (Dörnyei 2007: 103). On the other hand, it resembles a questionnaire’s format based on how the DCT allows the researcher to relatively easily quantify data given the relatively short length of the elicited speech acts (Kasper and Rose 2002).
However, given that the responses to the situational prompts are not actual
observations of realised, authentic speech acts in non-hypothetical situations, there are certain disadvantages that the researchers should be wary of when distributing the DCT, and
afterwards, when analysing the data. These disadvantages include, for example, the simplicity of the questions or prompts, in addition to unreliable and unmotivated responses, and that some pupils might struggle with answering or interpreting the situational prompts (Dörnyei 2003: 10-11).
Furthermore, as pointed out by Kasper and Rose, real life observations would allow the researcher to examine how non-verbal communication, e.g. body language, or elements such as turn taking and tempo influence a conversation arising from natural conditions (2002:
89). Also, when researching language in use, the ideal situation is a natural setting wherein the selected sample has no idea they are being investigated (Seliger and Shohamy 1989: 35).
However, as will be argued in section 3.7, such clandestine research is potentially regarded as being unethical and dishonest.
Though the DCT might not offer insight on authentic and spontaneous language performance, Savic argues it nevertheless reveals some degree of the respondents’
24
illocutionary and sociolinguistic competencies; the “[pupils’] knowledge of the linguistic forms available for the realization of these speech acts as well as their awareness of the contextual factors that need to be taken into account” (2014: 109). Kasper similarly argues that a DCT collects “intuitional data” (2008: 294), responses that might not occur during authentic discourse, but which nevertheless elicits data about what the respondents deem as suitable and appropriate speech acts for a specific purpose and social context.
Authentic discourse involves turn-taking (Kasper 2008: 282), situations where the interlocutors take turns being the speaker or the hearer. Some DCTs therefore include a rejoinder, the perlocutionary effect (Levinson 1983: 237), i.e. the form of response to the pupil’s speech act (Kasper 2008). For example, the scenario prompt is for the pupil asks for some more time to complete a test, where the rejoinder states whether the teacher accepts or refuses this request. The use of a rejoinder, and the amount of information provided in each scenario, influence the pupils’ request strategies (Kasper 2008: 293 – 294). In other words, a DCT using rejoinders might not be directly comparable to another DCT not using rejoinders.
Despite some of its drawbacks, data-collection through use of a DCT might lend itself well to examining the level of politeness in the pupils’ L2 request strategies so long as the researcher is aware of what such a tool can and cannot elicit. Furthermore, the researcher’s control of the variables and context are what made the DCT a popular data-collection method (Brubæk 2012: 7), and less time-consuming when analysing language data.
Inspired by the DCTs employed by Brubæk (2012) and Aufa (2014), the DCT for the present thesis contains six request-scenarios for the pupils to complete (in English), with variations in social distance (+/- D), relative power (+/- P) and level of imposition (+/- R) (Brown and Levinson 1987) (see Appendix B). The pupils are not informed of the requests’
imposition but must infer these from the description of social distance and relative power, drawing on their underlying illocutionary and sociolinguistic knowledge (Savic 2014).
An important note, as found by the researchers Kusevska, Ivanovska, Daskalovska and Ulanska (2016) in their investigation of pragmatic competence in a group of Macedonian EFL learners, the values of the variables D, P and R are highly subjective and difficult to
determine. The pupils’ opinions of what may be considered high- or low offence situations likely differ, for example the situation involving asking for a seat on the bus. One pupil may consider it a serious face threat to ask someone to move their belongings, perhaps to the degree where the pupil chooses not to carry out the FTA, while another pupil might perhaps consider it a triviality. As stated by Kusevska et al, “[when] analysing the interlocutors’
responses, we also need to take into consideration the face threat for the speaker and the
25
hearer, which is not always obvious” (2016: 86). Comparing the FTAs of the present DCT to those utilized by Brubæk (2012), Aufa (2014) and Kusevska et al (2016) might therefore prove helpful when determining the face threat for the speaker and the hearer.