The effect of instruction on pragmatic routines in academic discussion

Abstract

This study investigates the effect of instruction on the acquisition of pragmatic routines used in academic discussion, specifically expressions of agreement, disagreement, and clarification. Thirty-seven learners, including an experimental group of 26 students and a control group of 11 students, participated in the study. Five intact classes received instruction across four 50-minute lessons. Input consisted of authentic language samples extracted from the MICASE corpus; instruction included noticing and production activities. Evaluation in the form of a pretest/posttest was administered through a computer-delivered oral-production test, which allowed for free production in a researcher-controlled context. The task included 30 items, including 10 agreement, 10 disagreement, and 10 clarification scenarios. Two-tailed paired-sample t-tests revealed that production of both speech acts and targeted expressions increased significantly in the experimental condition, whereas the control group did not show significant change. The results show that instruction has a significant positive effect on the use of expressions as measured by oral production in conversation simulations. We attribute this positive outcome to two components, instruction and means of evaluation.

Keywords

Corpus-based materials formulaic sequences instructional effects oral production pragmatic routines pragmatics speech acts

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Alali

F.A.

Schmitt

(2012). Teaching formulaic sequences: The same as or different from teaching single words? TESOL Journal, 3, 153–180.

Bardovi-Harlig

(2009). Conventional expressions as a pragmalinguistic resource: Recognition and production of conventional expressions in L2 pragmatics. Language Learning, 59, 755–795.

Bardovi-Harlig

Salsbury

(2004). The organization of turns in the disagreements of L2 learners: A longitudinal perspective. In Boxer

Cohen

A.D.

(Eds.) Studying speaking to inform second language learning (pp. 199–227). Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters.

Bardovi-Harlig

Vellenga

H.E.

(2012). The effect of instruction on conventional expressions in L2 pragmatics. System, 40, 1–13.

Biber

Conrad

Cortes

(2004). If you look at …: Lexical bundles in university teaching and textbooks. Applied Linguistics, 25, 371–405.

Biber

Johansson

Leech

Conrad

Finegan

(1999). Longman grammar of spoken and written English. London, UK: Longman.

House

(1996). Developing pragmatic fluency in English as a foreign language: Routines and metapragmatic awareness. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 18, 225–252.

Huth

(2006). Negotiating structure and culture: L2 learners’ realization of L2 compliment-response sequences in talk-in-interaction. Journal of Pragmatics, 38, 2025–2050.

Ishihara

Cohen

A.D.

(2010). Teaching and learning pragmatics: Where language and culture meet. London, UK: Longman.

10.

Jones

Haywood

(2004). Facilitating the acquisition of formulaic sequences: An exploratory study in an EAP context. In Schmitt

(Ed.), Formulaic sequences: Acquisition, processing and use (pp. 269–300). Amsterdam, The Netherlands: John Benjamins.

11.

LoCastro

(1997). Pedagogical intervention and pragmatic competence development. Applied Language Learning, 8, 75–109.

12.

Németh

Kormos

(2001). Pragmatic aspects of task performance: The case of argumentation. Language Teaching Research, 5, 213–240.

13.

Nickels

E.L.

(2006). Interlanguage pragmatics and the effects of setting. In Bardovi-Harlig

Félix-Brasdefer

Omar

(Eds.), Pragmatics and language learning (Vol. 11, pp. 253–280). Honolulu: National Foreign Language Resource Center, University of Hawaii.

14.

Olshtain

Cohen

A.D.

(1990). The learning of complex speech act behaviour. TESL Canada Journal/Revue TESL du Canada, 7, 46–65.

15.

Pomerantz

(1984). Agreeing and disagreeing with assessments: Some features of preferred/dispreferred turn shapes. In Atkinson

J.M.

Heritage

(Eds.), Structures of social action: Studies in Conversation Analysis (pp. 57–101). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

16.

Porter

P.A.

Grant

(1998). Communicating effectively in English: Oral communication for non-native speakers. (2nd ed.). Boston, MA: Heinle & Heinle.

17.

Revier

R.L.

(2009). Evaluating a new test of whole English collocations. In Barfield

Gyllstad

(Eds.), Researching collocations in another language: Multiple interpretations (pp. 125–138). London, UK: Palgrave, Macmillan.

18.

Roever

(2012). What learners get for free: Learning of routine formulae in ESL and EFL environments. ELT Journal, 66, 10–21.

19.

Schauer

G.A.

(2007). Finding the right words in the study abroad context: The development of German learners’ use of external modifiers in English. Intercultural Pragmatics, 4, 193–220.

20.

Schmitt

Dörnyei

Adolphs

Durow

(2004). Knowledge and acquisition of formulaic sequences: A longitudinal study. In Schmitt

(Ed.), Formulaic sequences: Acquisition, processing and use (pp. 55–86). Amsterdam, The Netherlands: John Benjamins.

21.

Simpson

R.C.

Briggs

S.L.

Ovens

Swales

J.M.

(2002). The Michigan corpus of academic spoken English. Ann Arbor, MI: The Regents of the University of Michigan. Retrieved from quod.lib.umich.edu/m/micase/

22.

Skillman

McMahill

(1996). Springboard to success: Communication strategies for the classroom and beyond. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall Regents.

23.

Takimoto

(2006). The effects of explicit feedback on the development of pragmatic proficiency. Language Teaching Research, 10, 393–417.

24.

Wildner-Bassett

M.E.

(1994). Intercultural pragmatics and proficiency: ‘Polite’ noises for cultural appropriateness. IRAL, 32, 3–17.

25.

Williams

(1988). Language taught for meetings and language used for meetings: Is there anything in common? Applied Linguistics, 9, 45–58.

26.

Yorio

(1989). Idiomaticity as an indicator of second language proficiency. In Hyltenstam

Obler

L. K.

(Eds.), Bilingualism across the lifespan (pp. 55–72). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.