Accomplishing oral interactive workplace tasks requires various language abilities, including pragmatics. While technology-mediated tasks are thought to offer many possibilities for teaching and assessing second language (L2) pragmatics, their effectiveness – especially those facilitated by an AI agent (artificial intelligence agent) – remains to be explored. This study investigated how 47 tertiary-level learners of English as a second language (ESL) performed on an oral interactive task that required them to make requests to their boss in two distinct modalities. Each participant completed the same task with a fully automated AI agent and with a human interlocutor in a face-to-face format. Findings showed that both modalities elicited language use relevant to the pragmatics target. However, fully automated interactions were found to be more transactional, while face-to-face interactions were more functionally oriented (e.g. more frequent/varied supportive moves). Although fully automated interactive tasks may be useful for eliciting requests, replicating human-to-human interactions remains a challenge.
Blum-KulkaS. (1992). The metapragmatics of politeness in Israeli society. In WattsR.J.IdeS.EhlichK. (Eds.), Politeness in language: Studies in its history, theory and practice (pp. 255–280). Mouton de Gruyter.
3.
Blum-KulkaS.HouseJ.KasperG. (1989). Cross-cultural pragmatics: Requests and apologies. Ablex Publishing.
4.
Blum-KulkaS.OlshtainE. (1984). Requests and apologies: A cross-cultural study of speech act realization patterns (CCSARP). Applied Linguistics, 5, 196–213.
5.
BlythC.SykesJ.M. (2020). Technology-enhanced L2 instructional pragmatics. Language Learning and Technology, 24, 1–7.
6.
BrownG.YuleG. (1983). Discourse analysis. Cambridge University Press.
7.
BrownP.LevinsonS. (1987). Politeness: Some universals in language usage. Cambridge University Press.
8.
BuntH.C. (2011). The semantics of dialogue acts. In BosJ.PulmanS. (Eds.), Proceedings 9th International Conference on Computational Semantics (IWCS 2011) (pp. 1–14). Oxford University Press.
9.
ChanC.S.C. (2017). Investigating a research-informed teaching idea: The use of transcripts of authentic workplace talk in the teaching of spoken business English. English for Specific Purposes, 46, 72–89.
10.
ClyneM. (1994). Inter-cultural communication at work. Cambridge University Press.
11.
CowlingJ.D. (2007). Needs analysis: Planning a syllabus for a series of intensive workplace courses at a leading Japanese company. English for Specific Purposes, 26, 426–442.
12.
DaricsE.GattiM.C. (2019). Talking a team into being in online workplace collaborations: The discourse of virtual work. Discourse Studies, 21, 237–257.
13.
DerakhshanA.ShakkiF. (2021). A meta-analytic study of instructed second language pragmatics: A case of the speech act of request. Journal of Research in Applied Linguistics, 12, 15–32.
14.
DerwingT.M.WaughE.MunroM.J. (2021). Pragmatically speaking: Preparing adult ESL students for the workplace. Applied Pragmatics, 3, 107–135.
15.
DombiJ.SydorenkoT.Timpe-LaughlinV. (2022). Common ground, cooperation, and recipient design in human–computer interactions. Journal of Pragmatics, 193, 4–20.
16.
DoughtyC.J.LongM.H. (2003). Optimal psycholinguistic environments for distance foreign language learning. Language Learning and Technology, 7, 50–80.
17.
Economidou-KogetsidisM. (2008). Internal and external mitigation in interlanguage request production: The case of Greek learners of English. Journal of Politeness Research: Language, Behaviour, Culture, 4, 111–138.
18.
EllisR. (1992). Learning to communicate in the classroom: A study of two language learners’ requests. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 14, 1–23.
19.
EllisR. (2003). Task-based language learning and teaching. Oxford University Press.
20.
FærchC.KasperG. (1989). Internal and external modification in interlanguage request realization. In Blum-KulkaS.HouseJ.KasperG. (Eds.), Cross-cultural pragmatics (pp. 221–247). Ablex Publishing.
21.
FaruquiM.Hakkani-TürD. (2022). Revisiting the boundary between ASR and NLU in the age of conversational dialog systems. Computational Linguistics, 48, 221–232.
22.
Félix-BrasdeferJ.C. (2007). Pragmatic development in the Spanish as a FL classroom: A cross-sectional study of learner requests. Intercultural Pragmatics, 4, 253–286.
23.
FilipiA. (2015). Authentic interaction and examiner accommodation in the IELTS speaking test: A discussion. Papers in Language Testing and Assessment, 4, 1–17.
24.
GilabertR.BarónJ. (2018). Independently measuring cognitive complexity in task design for interlanguage pragmatics development. In TaguchiN.KimY. (Eds.), Task-based approaches to teaching and assessing pragmatics (pp. 159–190). John Benjamins.
25.
González-LloretM. (2019). Task-based language teaching and L2 pragmatics. In TaguchiN (Ed.), The Routledge handbook of second language acquisition and pragmatics (pp. 338–353). Routledge.
26.
González-LloretM.OrtegaL. (2014). Towards technology-mediated TBLT. In González-LloretM.OrtegaL. (Eds.), Technology-mediated TBLT: Researching technology and tasks (pp. 1–22). John Benjamins.
27.
González-LloretM.OrtegaL. (2018). Pragmatics, tasks, and technology. In TaguchiN.KimY. (Eds.), Task-based approaches to teaching and assessing pragmatics (pp. 191–214). John Benjamins.
28.
HassalT. (2001). Modifying requests in a second language. International Review of Applied Linguistics, 39(4), 259–283.
29.
HerbergJ.S.SaylorM.M.RatanaswasdP.LevinD.T.WilkesD.M. (2008). Audience-contingent variation in action demonstrations for humans and computers. Cognitive Science, 32, 1003–1020.
30.
HolmesJ. (2000). Doing collegiality and keeping control at work: Small talk in government departments. In CouplandJ. (Ed.), Small talk (pp. 32–61). Continuum.
31.
HouseJ. (2002). Developing pragmatic competence in English as a lingua franca. In KnappK.MeierkordC. (Eds.), Lingua Franca Communication (pp. 245–267). Peter Lang.
32.
KasperG.RoseK. (2002). Pragmatic development in a second language. Language Learning: A Journal of Research in Language Studies, 52, supplement 1, 1–352.
33.
KassimH.AliF. (2010). English communicative events and skills needed at the workplace: Feedback from the industry. English for Specific Purposes, 29, 168–182.
34.
KecskésI. (2007). Formulaic language in English lingua franca. In KecskésI.HornL.R. (Eds.), Explorations in pragmatics: Linguistic, cognitive and intercultural aspects (pp. 191–219). Mouton de Gruyter.
35.
KecskésI. (2017). From pragmatics to dialogue. In WeigandE. (Ed.), The Routledge handbook of language and dialogue (pp. 78–92). Routledge.
36.
KhouzaimiH.LarocheR.LefèvreF. (2018). A methodology for turn-taking capabilities enhancement in spoken dialogue systems using reinforcement learning. Computer Speech and Language, 47, 93–111.
37.
LongM.H. (1996). The role of linguistic environment in second language acquisition. In RitchieW.C.BhatiaT.K. (Eds.), Handbook of second language acquisition (pp. 413–468). Academic Press.
38.
LongM.H. (2015). Second language acquisition and task-based language teaching. Blackwell.
39.
LongM.H.CrookesG. (1992). Three approaches to task-based syllabus design. TESOL Quarterly, 26, 27–55.
40.
McEwenR.LuiM. (2021). Understanding each other when communicating in emerging technology-mediated environments. Communication Studies, 72, 961–966.
41.
MoranteR.KeizerS.BuntH.C. (2007). A dialogue act based model for context updating. In ArtsteinR.VieuL. (Eds.), Proceedings of the Eleventh International Conference on the Semantics and Pragmatics of Dialogue (DECALOG 2007) (pp. 9–16). SemDial.
42.
MouY.XuK. (2017). The media inequality: Comparing the initial human–human and human–AI social interactions. Computers in Human Behavior, 72, 432–440.
43.
NewtonJ.KusmierczykE. (2011). Teaching second languages for the workplace. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 31, 74–92.
44.
NickersonC. (2005). English as a lingua franca in international business contexts. English for Specific Purposes, 24, 367–380.
45.
OckeyG.J.Chukharev-HudilainenE. (2021). Human versus computer partner in the paired oral discussion test. Applied Linguistics, 42, 924–944.
46.
PicaT. (2005). Classroom learning, teaching, and research: A task-based perspective. The Modern Language Journal, 89, 339–352.
47.
PlonskyL.KimY. (2016). Task-based learner production: A substantive and methodological review. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 36, 73–97.
48.
PrabhuN.S. (1987). Second language pedagogy. Oxford University Press.
49.
RamanarayananV.Suendermann-OeftD.LangeP., et al. (2017). Assembling the jigsaw: How multiple open standards are synergistically combined in the HALEF multimodal dialog system. In DahlD.A. (Ed.), Multimodal interaction with W3C standards: Towards natural user interfaces to everything (pp. 295–310). Springer.
50.
ReaganD.PayantC. (2018). Task modality effects on Spanish learners’ interlanguage pragmatic development. In TaguchiN.KimY. (Eds.), Task-based approaches to teaching and assessing pragmatics (pp. 113–133). John Benjamins.
51.
RobinsonP. (2001). Task complexity, task difficulty, and task production: Exploring interactions in a componential framework. Applied Linguistics, 22, 27–57.
52.
RobinsonP. (2010). Situating and distributing cognition across task demands: The SSARC model of pedagogic task sequencing. In PutzM.SicolaL. (Eds.), Cognitive processing in second language acquisition: Inside the learner’s mind (pp. 243–268). John Benjamins.
53.
RuanW.NechaevY.ChenL.SuC.KissI. (2020). Towards an ASR error robust spoken language understanding system. In Proceedings of Interspeech 2020 (pp. 901–905). International Speech Communication Association.
54.
SasayamaS.MalickaA.NorrisJ. M. (in preparation). Cognitive task complexity: A research synthesis and meta-analysis. John Benjamins.
55.
SkehanP. (1998). A cognitive approach to language learning. Cambridge University Press.
56.
Spencer-OateyH.FranklinP. (2009). Intercultural interaction: A multidisciplinary approach to intercultural communication. Palgrave Macmillan.
57.
SydorenkoT. (2015). The use of computer-delivered structured tasks in pragmatic instruction: An exploratory study. Intercultural Pragmatics, 12, 333–362.
58.
SydorenkoT.SmitsT.F.H.EvaniniK.RamanarayananV. (2019). Simulated speaking environments for language learning: Insights from three cases. Computer Assisted Language Learning, 32, 17–48.
TangX. (2019). The effects of task modality on L2 Chinese learners’ pragmatic development: Computer-mediated written chat vs. face-to-face oral chat. System, 80, 48–59.
65.
TangX. (2020). Task-based interactional sequences in different modalities: A comparison between computer-mediated written chat and face-to-face oral chat. Applied Pragmatics, 2, 174–198.
66.
Timpe-LaughlinV. (2019). Pragmatics learning in the workplace. In TaguchiN. (Ed.), The Routledge handbook of second language acquisition and pragmatics (pp. 413–428). Routledge.
67.
Timpe-LaughlinV.DombiJ. (2020). Exploring L2 learners’ request behavior in a multi-turn conversation with a fully automated agent. Intercultural Pragmatics, 17, 221–247.
68.
Timpe-LaughlinV.EvaniniK.GreenA., et al. (2017). Designing interactive, automated dialogues for L2 pragmatics learning. In PetukhovaV.TianY. (Eds.), Proceedings of the 21st workshop on the semantics and pragmatics of dialogue (pp. 143–152). SemDial.
69.
Timpe-LaughlinV.SydorenkoT.DombiJ. (2022). Human versus machine: Investigating L2 learner output in face-to-face versus fully-automated role-play tasks. Computer Assisted Language Learning. Epub ahead of print 21 February 2022. DOI: 10.1080/09588221.2022.2032184
70.
Timpe-LaughlinV.WainJ.SchmidgallJ. (2015). Defining and operationalizing the construct of pragmatic competence: Review and recommendations. Research Report No. RR-15-06. Educational Testing Service.
71.
VisserT.TraumD.DeVaultD.Op den AkkerR. (2014). A model for incremental grounding in spoken dialogue systems. Journal on Multimodal User Interfaces, 8, 61–73.
72.
WoodfieldH.Economidou-KogetsidisE. (2010). ‘I just need more time’: A study of native and non-native students’ requests to faculty for an extension. Multilingua: Journal of Cross-Cultural and Interlanguage Communication, 29, 77–118.
73.
YatesL. (2010). Pragmatic challenges for second language learners. In TrosborgA. (Ed.), Pragmatics across languages and cultures (pp. 287–308). Mouton de Gruyter.
