Introduction
Interlanguage pragmatics (ILP) has attained
a considerable attention from researchers
and practitioners, and it is still a burgeoning
area in second language acquisition. Kasper
and Dahl (1991) define the discipline of ILP
as the study of non-native speakers’
acquisition, comprehension and production
of pragmatics. Within ILP development,
nevertheless, the pendulum has swung much
towards production-oriented studies (Rose,
2009) and comprehension is “the least well-represented, with only a handful of studies
done to date” (Kasper & Rose, 2002, p.118).
Moreover, although it is widely accepted
that instruction plays a crucial role in the
acquisition of pragmatics (Alcón- Soler, &
Martı´nez-Flor, 2005; Jeon & Kaya, 2006;
Kasper, 1997; Kasper & Roever, 2002;
Kasper & Schmidt, 1996; Kondo, 2008;
Lyster, 1993, 1994; Rose, 2005; Rose &
Kasper, 2001; Taguchi, 2007, 2008), the
foreign language classroom may expose
students to a limited environment to foster
pragmatics learning. There is consensus
among pragmatics practitioners and
theoreticians that the opportunities for
human interaction are rather restricted
(Kasper, 2001; Kasper & Rose, 1999;
Lyster, 1994), and the materials to which
students are exposed are decontextualized
(Bardovi-Harlig, Hartford, Mahan-Taylor,
Morgan, & Reynolds, 1991). Alternatively,
some researchers propound that textbook
conversations are rather limited and
unreliable sources of input to tap on
pragmatics learning (Bardovi-Harlig et al.,
1991; Boxer & Pickering, 1995; Gilmore,
2004; Lo¨rscher & Schulze, 1988).
Moreover, Rose (1999) states that large
classes, limited contact hours, and little
opportunity for intercultural communication
are some of the features of the English as a
foreign language (EFL) context that impede
pragmatic learning.
Consequently, the use of authentic audio-visual input and the role of instruction have
drawn scholars’ attention in research on ILP.
The bodies of research conducted by
Washburn (2001), Alcon (2005) were
legitimized by the fact that both
sociopragmatic and pragmalinguistic
awareness are especially difficult for EFL
learners. Given that, they claim that
authentic audiovisual input caters for a
welter of opportunities to address all aspects
of language use in a whole array of contexts,
and regarding the fact that most studies to
date have focused on pragmatics production
through dichotomous teaching approaches
and responding to Kasper and Rose’s (2002)
claim that studies on pragmatics
comprehension are the most under-researched area (Kasper & Rose, 2002); it is,
therefore, hypothesized that video-driven
vignettes may be useful to expose leaners to
the pragmatic aspects of the target language
to not only address pragmatics
comprehension but also to compensate for
the inadequacy of textbooks, limited contact
hours, and classroom conversations.
Background
Following Leech’s (1983) demarcation,
pragmatic competence is divided into
sociopragmatic and pragmalinguistic
competence. The former encompasses
knowledge of the relationship between
communicative action and power, social
distance, and the imposition associated with
the past and future (Brown & Levinson, as
cited in Kasper & Rover, 2005, p. 317),
knowledge of mutual rights and obligations,
taboos, and conventional practices (Thomas,
1983), and the social conditions and
consequences of "what you do, when and to
whom" (Fraser, Rintal & Walters, as cited in
Kasper & Rover 2005, p. 317).
The latter, on the other hand, comprises the
knowledge and ability to use conventions of
means (such as strategies to realize speech
acts) and conventions of form (such as the
linguistic forms implementing speech act
strategies) (Clark, as cited in Kasper &
Rover, 2005, p. 317; Thomas, 1983). The
present study aimed at developing learners’
sociopragmatic and pragmalinguistic
competence by focusing on issues such as
power, social distance, and the imposition as
well as strategies and forms of apologies,
requests, and refusals.
The rationale behind this study
Two of the most influential cognitive
processing approaches proposed in second
language acquisition (SLA) are Sharwood
Smith’s Consciousness-Raising (CR) and
Schmidt’s Noticing Hypothesis (Schmidt,
1993, 2001; Sharwood Smith, 1980, 1993).
Sharwood Smith (1980) conceptualizes that
the term "consciousness-raising" represents
a deliberate focus on the formal properties
of language with a respect toward enhancing
the development of second language
knowledge. Sharwood Smith (1993) argues
that “CR implies that the learner’s mental
state is altered by the input; hence, all input
is intake” (p. 176). Given that CR plays a
crucial role in enhancing properties of
language, Rose (1994) introduces video-prompts as an approach to promote
pragmatic consciousness-raising since they
can provide the fundamental aspects of
pragmatics which can be capitalized upon by
teachers of both native and non-native
speakers.
In line with Sharwood Smith, Schmidt
(1993, 2001) contends that the noticing
hypothesis is primarily concerned with the
initial phase of input processing and the
attentional requirements for input to become
intake. Schmidt (2001) postulates that any
target L2 feature needs to be noticed by the
learner for learning to occur: “while there is
subliminal perception, there is no subliminal
learning” (p. 26). Because more attention
results in more learning, “attention must be
directed to whatever evidence is relevant for
a particular learning domain, i.e. that
attention must be specifically focused and
not just global” (Schmidt, 2001, p. 30).
He then extended his hypothesis to
pragmatics postulating that, “in order to
acquire pragmatics, one must attend to both
the linguistic form of utterances and the
relevant social and contextual features with
which they are associated” (Schmidt, 2001).
He also mentions that “pragmatic
knowledge seems to be partly conscious,
and partly accessible to consciousness,
although it cannot be the case that all
pragmatic knowledge is accessible to
consciousness” (Schmidt, 1993, p. 23).
Being motivated by these cognitive-psychological theories, Eslami-Rasekh,
Eslami-Rasekh, and Fatahi1
(2004), for
example, carried out a study to explore the
effect of explicit metapragmatic instruction
on the comprehension of speech acts of
request, apology, and complaint on Iranian
advanced EFL students. Teacher-fronted
1
For more information on Persian studies on
Pragmatics, see, for example, Abdolrezapour &
Eslami Rasekh (2012) and Parvaresh & Eslami
Rasekh, (2009).
discussions, cooperative grouping, role
plays, and other pragmatically oriented tasks
were used to promote the learning of the
intended speech acts. A pretest-posttest
control group design was used. The
participants were senior Iranian
undergraduates majoring in TEFL (Teaching
English as a Foreign Language). A group of
American students were used to provide the
baseline for the study.
A multiple choice pragmatic comprehension
test was developed in several stages and
used both as a pretest and posttest to
measure the effect of instruction on the
pragmatic comprehension of the students.
The results of the data analysis revealed that
students' comprehension of speech act
improved significantly and that pragmatic
competence is not impervious to instruction
even in EFL settings.
Video-driven prompts as influential sources
of input
As a consequence of the constraints and
challenges involved in dealing with teaching
sociopragmatic and pragmalinguistic
features in the foreign language context
mentioned above, the use of authentic
audiovisual and video enhanced materials
and the role of instruction have gained
considerable attention in the development of
pragmatics. Analogous to other areas of
language learning, Alcón-Soler (2005)
contends that learners could be exposed to
pragmatic input through classroom
interaction, textbook conversations and
films. Lo¨rscher and Schulze (1988) point
out that in EFL contexts the range of speech
acts and realization strategies is
marginalized, and that the typical interaction
patterns, i.e. initiation, response, and
feedback (IRF) impose inherent limitations
on pragmatic input and opportunities for
practicing discourse organization strategies.
Alternatively, Crandall and Basturkmen
(2004) stipulate that textbook conversations
do not cater sufficient pragmatic input. In a
similar vein, a solid body of research
findings documents that textbook
conversations are not a reliable source of
pragmatic input (Bardovi-Harlig et al.,
1991; Boxer & Pickering, 1995; Gilmore,
2004). Rose (1994) observes that videotaped
discourse contains “rich recoverable
contexts which can be exploited in
consciousness-raising activities” (p. 58).
Moreover, Alcón-Soler (2005) investigates
the efficacy of explicit versus implicit
instruction on the ability to use request
strategies. One hundred and thirty-two
students were randomly assigned to three
groups (explicit, implicit and control). The
three groups were exposed to excerpts
including requests extracted from different
episodes of the Stargate TV series.
However, while the explicit group received
instruction by means of direct awareness-raising tasks and written metapragmatic
feedback on the use of appropriate requests,
the implicit group was provided with
typographical enhancement of request
strategies and a set of implicit awareness-raising tasks. Results of the study
demonstrate that learners’ awareness of
requests benefit from both explicit and
implicit instruction. However, in line with
previous research, this study illustrates that,
although an improvement in learners’
appropriate use of requests took place after
the instructional period, the explicit group
showed an advantage over the implicit one.
Takahashi (2005) investigates the effects of
instruction on L2 pragmatics development
by exploring the manner in which Japanese
EFL learners notice target English request
forms through a form-comparison (FC)
condition and a form-search (FS) condition.
Participants in the FC group compare their
request forms with those provided by native
English speakers and then describe any
feature of native-speaker request
realization, and learners in the FS group
point out any ‘‘native-like usage’’ in the
input containing the targets. To this end,
49 Japanese college students who were
freshmen or sophomores were divided into
two general English classes: 25 students in
FC and 24 students in FS. The results
indicate that during the treatment, the
learners in the form-comparison condition
noticed the target request forms to a greater
extent than those in the form-search
condition. Further, the learners’ higher
awareness of the target forms tended to
ensure the emergence of these forms during
their post- test performance.
Bardovi-Harlig and Griffin (2005) sought to
examine the relative effectives of pragmatic
awareness activity in an ESL context. For
doing so, they selected five high
intermediate intact ESL classes consisting of
43 students from 18 language backgrounds.
The learners were asked to work in pairs to
identify the source of pragmatic infelicities
in video-taped scenarios and to frequently
perform role-plays to remedy the addressed
infelicities. The main objective of the role-plays was to determine the types of
pragmatic infelicities that are recognized
and repaired by learners. Results of the role-plays indicated that learners noticed and
completed missing speech acts, and
semantic formulas, although pragmatic
improvements in terms of form and content
of repairs were not target-like. To put it
precisely, learners were able to supply the
missing apology for arriving late or
explanations for making requests or for not
having done a class assignment on time, but
the form or content were not culturally or
linguistically transparent. They conclude
that learners generally know what to change,
whether speech act, formula, form, or
content, but how to change it in the area of
form or content seemed to be more
challenging.
With the recognition of the role of pragmatic
competence in communicative competence,
substantial bodies of second language (L2)
research have scrutinized learners’
pragmatic performance in EFL/ESL
communicative contexts. In the existing L2
literature, pragmatic competence has been
explored primarily from production skills,
specifically production of speech acts
(Kasper & Roever, 2002; Rose, 2009;
Taguchi, 2013). Little L2 research has
investigated comprehension of pragmatic
functions (Kasper & Rose, 2002). A
relatively small number of L2 studies have
examined whether learners can comprehend
implied meaning accurately (Garcia, 2004;
Taguchi, 2002, 2005, 2008). Most studies
conducted on pragmatic comprehension are
confined to learners’ accuracy and
comprehension (Taguchi, 2007). Another
underrepresented area in the previous
research is that most studies on pragmatic
comprehension have drawn on written input
to sensitize pragmatic awareness (Kondo,
2008), and only a few studies to date have
utilized video-vignettes as an input source to
develop pragmatic comprehension (Alcón-Soler, 2005; Rose, 1994).
Another gap in the existing literature
pertains to teaching methods or class
activities, Kasper (1997) points out that
teachers can utilize activities through one of
the inductive, deductive, implicit or explicit
approaches to instruction or through an
informed eclectic approach. Regarding this,
most studies to date have focused on
dichotomous teaching approaches, and what
is not examined systematically relates to the
implementation of informed eclectic
approach. Following DeCoo (1996), in our
instructional approach we did not make a
dichotomous division between ‘explicit’ and
‘implicit’, nor did we draw on ‘deductive’
and ‘inductive’ instruction. Rather our
approach to intervention was a mixture of
complementary approaches and purposeful
class activities, that is, informed eclecticism,
in the form of peer work, form-search,
metapragmatic awareness, and role-plays.
As to the many types of teaching
approaches, the present study drew on
metapragmatic consciousness-raising tasks,
form-search, and role play as the three
interventional approaches.
Given that the video medium as a teaching
and learning tool has some distinct
advantages over naturalistic observations
and textbooks (Alcón-Soler, 2002; Garza,
1996; Grant & Starks, 2001; Koike, 1995;
Lonergan, 1984; Martı´nez-Flor, 2007;
Rose, 1994; Stempleski & Tomalin, 1990;
Swaffar & Vlatten, 1997), and regarding the
fact that, to our knowledge, few studies have
empirically scrutinized the effectiveness of
video prompts on the development of speech
acts, it makes sense to bridge the gap by
conducting a study on the effectiveness of
consciousness-raising video-driven prompts
on the development of three speech acts of
apology, request, and refusal in a foreign
language classroom.
Research questions
In order to bridge the gap in the existing
literature on ILP and in order to investigate
the possible contributions of a different kind
of input, video vignettes in the context of
classroom-based instruction to the
development of L2 pragmatic competence,
this study aimed to investigate the
effectiveness of consciousness-raising
video-driven prompts on the development of
three speech acts of apology, request, and
refusal. The study addressed two main
questions:
1. Do metapragmatic consciousness-raising approach, form-search
approach, and role-play approach
enhance learners’ comprehension of
speech acts of apology, request, and
refusal?
2. Is there any difference in leaners’
pragmatic comprehension of apology,
request, and refusal across the three
kinds of consciousness-raising
intervention- metapragmatic, from-search, and role-play?
Methodology
Participants
Seventy eight Iranian EFL learners (36 male
and 42 female) studying English at an
English Language Institute participated in
this study. The results of the pilot study
substantiated that the upper-intermediate
EFL learners are appropriate for the present
study; therefore, four groups of upper-intermediate EFL learners ranging in age
from 16 to 26 were divided into
metapragmatic group, form-search group,
role-play group, and control group. The
metapragmatic group consisted of 22
learners (10 male and 12 female) ranging in
age from 17 to 23 (average age18.45). The
form-search group consisted of 21 learners
(11 male and 10 female) ranging in age from
16 to 22 (average age 18.71). The role-play
group had 18 learners (8 male and 10
female) ranging in age from 16 to 26
(average age 18.05), and the control group
consisted of 17 learners (7 male and 10
female) ranging in age from 17 to 26
(average age 18.67). None of the
participants had any living experiences in
English speaking countries.
Test instruments: test of listening pragmatic
comprehension of apology, request, &
refusal
Bachman and Palmer (1996) conceptualize
that for any given test to be useful, it must
be developed with specific purpose, a
particular group of test takers and a specific
language use domain or target language use
(TLU). One of the components of test
usefulness, Bachman and Palmer (1996)
believe, is authenticity which is
characterized as “the degree of
correspondence of the characteristics of a
given language test task to the features of a
TLU task” (Bachman & Palmer, 1996, p.
23).
As part of a PhD dissertation, the research
instrument was piloted on the basis of the
insights and feedback gained from the
Pragmatic Assessment Rubrics
demonstrated below. It contained 25
conversations extracted from Interchange
Series, Top Notch Series, American English
File Series, and Touchstone Series. There
were 8 conversations featuring speech act of
apology, 8 conversations featuring speech
act of request, and 9 conversations featuring
speech act of refusal which were followed
by one practice conversation to familiarize
the test takers with the peculiarities of the
test. Each conversation had 8 questions three
of which tapping upon metapragmatic
ability, one of which measuring
sociopragmatic ability, three other questions
measuring pragmalinguistic ability, and last
but not least question, i.e., question 8
measured the comprehension of the speech
act which was subsumed under
pragmalinguistic and sociopragmatic ability.
For more information see appendix A.
Students just listen to the conversation. They
do not see the audio scrip.
A fundamental consideration of teacher-based assessment stipulates that the choice
of criteria in the evaluation rubric aligns
with the instructional goals in a consistent
manner (Brown, 2004). Therefore, the
present study took into account the
Pragmatic Assessment Rubrics
encompassing three constructs which are as
follows:
a. Linguistic aspects (pragmalinguistic
ability);
b. Cultural aspects (sociopragmatic
ability); and
c. Analytic aspects (ability to analyze and
evaluate pragmatic use-referred to as
metapragmatic ability, Ishihara, 2010).
From the pragmalinguistic perspective, and
bearing authenticity in mind, the present
study drew upon vocabulary and phrases,
strategies for a speech act, and choice and
use of pragmatic tone (Ishihara, 2010, p.
293). With regard to sociopragmatic
competence, this study embarked upon the
level of formality and politeness (Ishihara,
2010, p. 295). Besides evaluating linguistic
and cultural aspects of learners’ pragmatics,
it is also possible to assess learners’ ability
to analyze the pragmatics of the L2. Such
metapragmatic information can include
contextual information analyzed in terms of
social status, social and psychological
distance, and degree of imposition (Ishihara,
2010, p.295).
Scoring System and Reliability
Since just one answer was regarded as the
correct answer, correct responses and
incorrect ones were assigned 1 and 0,
respectively. To determine the reliability
index of binary variables KR20 formula was
employed which is a special case of
Cronbach's Alpha. The internal consistency
and reliability of the pragmatic rating rubric
used in the present study to assess the
responses of the participants on the listening
pragmatic comprehension of apology,
request, and refusal was obviously an
important area of concern in reviewing the
study results. The results of the calculations
of the coefficient alpha for internal
consistency indicated acceptable level for
the DCT (α = .82). The reliability level
calculated for these results were above the
0.7 threshold considered acceptable in social
science research (Vogt, 2005).
Instructional treatment materials
Forty-five video vignettes 15 apologies, 15
requests, and 15 apologies were extracted
from different episodes of Flash Forward,
Stargate TV series and Annie Hall film.
Alcón-Soler (2005) takes advantage of
Stargate TV series working on the
identification and analysis of direct and
indirect requests. Following Rose (1999),
Annie Hall film was opted because it could
provide the students with the analysis of
language forms and strategies of requests
and apologies as well as good discussions on
the appropriateness of forms in relation to
the contexts. The number of video prompts
for each speech act was 15 covering various
situations such as work, school, home,
hospital, prison, restaurant, and store, to
name just a few. The excerpts encompass
direct requests (Annie, tell Dr. Flicker; Stop
it, Annie), conventionally indirect (Annie,
would you like a lift?), and non-conventionally indirect requests (I have a
car; Annie’s friend talking to him at the
gym).
The vignettes also included different
strategies of apologies such as an expression
of apology (I’m really sorry.),
acknowledgment of responsibility (It was all
my fault.), an explanation or account (I got
stuck in the traffic.), an offer of repair (How
can I make it up to you? Can I buy you
lunch on Friday?), and a promise of non-recurrence (I’ll make sure to turn the volume
down.) (Cohen & Olshtain, 1981, pp. 119-125).
Procedure
The appropriate design of the present study
was a pre-test post-test control group one.
The control group’s performance was an
indicator to see how the other three groups
became aware of the sociopragmatic and
pragmalinguistic features. The three groups,
except the control group which received a
normal conversational treatment, were
exposed to vignettes extracted from different
episodes of Flash Forward, and Stargate TV
Series and Annie Hall Film. The major
objective of these vignettes was to make
students aware of the sociopragmatic and
pragmalinguistic aspects involved in making
apologies, requests, and refusals. Each group
received 45 video excerpts, 15 apologies, 15
requests, and 15 refusals nine 60-minute
sessions of instruction on the video prompts
twice a week. The treatment that each group
received is explicated separately as follows:
Form Search Group (FSG): The form search
group consisted of 21 learners (11 male and
10 female) ranging in age from 16 to 22.
Following Takahashi (2005), in this group
any ‘‘native-like usage’’ in the input
containing the target language forms was
highlighted. We drew on vocabulary and
phrases (e.g., a big favor, I just need . . .),
grammatical structures (e.g. Can you . . . /
Would you . . . / I was wondering if . . . /
Would it be possible . . . ?), strategies for a
speech act (i.e., the selection of formulas
and the way they are used) (e.g., giving a
reason for a request, apologizing for the
trouble, ), and choice and use of pragmatic
tone (e.g., how sincere the speaker appears
with verbal and non-verbal cues).
The Metapragmatic Awareness Raising
Group (MPG): The participants in this
group were 22 learners (10 male and 12
female) ranging in age from 17 to 23. The
pragmalinguistic and sociolinguistic features
were explicitly highlighted. To this end, the
researchers followed a four-step procedure
adopted from Asadifar (2010):
1. Developing learners’ understanding of
the importance of pragmatics by
presenting the key elements of
pragmalinguistics and
sociopragmatics;
2. Raising learners’ awareness of the
appropriate use of L1 requests,
apologies, and refusals;
3. Providing explicit information on the
pragmalinguistic forms of L2 requests,
apologies, and refusals;
4. Discussing the appropriate use of L2
requests, apologies, and refusals, e.g.,
issues of social distance, power and
imposition, the speaker’s intention, etc.
The Role-Play Group (RPG): The role-play
group had 18 learners (8 male and 10
female) ranging in age from 16 to 26. They
were allowed to take notes as they were
watching the episodes, and then played roles
like the native models. Students were also
provided with the scripts. They acted out
different patterns and ways of making
requests, apologies, and refusals in different
situations both formally and informally.
Moreover, they worked on the role
relationships between the interlocutors, the
distance between them, and the degree of
imposition. Like the other groups, different
strategies for making requests, apologies,
and refusals were acted out from direct
request and refusal strategies to non-conventionally indirect request and refusal
strategies and from simple apologies to a
promise of non-occurrence.
Like the other groups, from the
pragmalinguistic vantage point, specific
dimensions of language were acted out
including the choice and use of vocabulary
and phrases (e.g., a big favor), grammatical
structures (e.g. I was wondering if……….),
strategies for a speech act (i.e., the selection
of formulas and the way they are used (e.g.,
giving a reason for request, apologizing for
trouble), choice and use of pragmatic tone,
and choice and use of discourse markers
(e.g., by the way, well,……….). Role-plays
are possible to simulate conversational turns
and to get the interlocutor to use
conversational pressures that are not present
in a DCT (Cohen & Olshtain, 1994), but
they are generally time-consuming and
require interlocutor training if they want to
be utilized as a means of assessment, but in
the present study role-plays were used as an
interventional means to practice the dialogs
which is a common practice in almost all
conversational classes.
The control group (CG): The control group
consisted of 17 learners (7 male and 10
female) ranging in age from 17 to 26. The
control group did not receive any instruction
on the use of speech acts. The presentation
of the video vignettes was followed by
comprehension questions, repetition, and
vocabulary focus. The pragmalinguistic and
sociolinguistic features were not brought to
the fore.
Data analysis
In order to determine if any pragmatic
development occurred between the pre-test
and the post-test, t-test for repeated measure
data was used. In order to measure inter-group differences and development one-way
between groups ANOVA and the post hoc
test of Tukey (HSD) were used.
Results
Research Question One: Do metapragmatic
consciousness-raising approach, form-search approach, and role-play approach
enhance learners’ comprehension of speech
acts of apology, request, and refusal?
In order to investigate the significance of the
difference in each group, a paired samples t-test had to be used. Table 1 shows the
difference in learners’ comprehension of the
three speech acts of apology, request, and
refusal across the four groups before and
after the treatment. The descriptive statistics
reveal that the four groups were
homogenous in terms of their
sociopragmatic and pragmalinguistic
knowledge in pre-intervention stage.
Moreover, as can be seen in this table, the
total mean (107.04) of the four groups in the
post-test was higher than that (81.23) of the
four groups in the pre-test, showing that the
instruction has had an effect on the learners’
pragmatic development. As presented in
Table 2, t-test (t = -.671, df = 16, α= 0.05, p
= .512) analysis of results did not report any
statistical difference in the control group
before and after the interventional period
because p value was more than α.
However, there were differences in the
treatment groups. Table 1 shows, for
instance, that the metapragmatic group
(MPG) obtained a mean of 129.09 with its
standard deviation of 16.900 on the post test.
Likewise, as it can be seen in Table 2, the t
value (-19.082) denotes statistically
significant differences that point to a p=
0.000 level of probability for the
metapragmatic group. Correspondingly, the
difference regarding learners’ awareness in
the form-search group (FSG) before and
after the treatment is statistically significant.
As shown in Table 2, the t value (-14.446)
and the probability level (p= 0.000) reveal
statistically significant differences in the
form-search group. Moreover, as Table 2
indicates, the results from the comparison of
the means of the role-play group (RPG)
showed there was a significant difference
between the means of the two groups (t = -7.032, df =17, α= 0.05, p = .000). Because p
value was less than α, there was a significant
difference between the means of the role-play group before and after the treatment.
Based on the analysis of the pretest and post
test results, it is therefore concluded that
learners’ comprehension of speech acts of
apology, request, and refusal across the three
teaching approaches– metapragmatic, form-search, and role-play - enhanced after the
intervention.

Research Question Two: Is there any
difference in leaners’ pragmatic
comprehension of apology, request, and
refusal across the three kinds of
consciousness-raising intervention-
metapragmatic, from-search, and role-play?

The effect of the four kinds of
interventional treatments on developing
pragmatic comprehension in apologies,
requests, and refusals was measured by
analyzing learners’ awareness of these
speech acts in the post-test. Regarding the
learners’ awareness on the post-test and
seeking the answer to the second research
question, we compared the four groups
simultaneously to see if there were any
meaningful differences among them.
Therefore, a one-way repeated measures
ANOVA statistical test was applied. As
seen in Table 3, the amount of variability
between groups (SS between groups=
17997.954) is different from the amount of
variability within the groups (SS within
groups= 25775.758), which indicates that
there is some difference in the groups.
Moreover, the F ratio (with three degrees of
freedom) is larger than the observed value of
F (21.900), which means that significant
group differences were observed with regard
to performance of the four groups. The
ANOVA table shows just the fact that there
is a meaningful difference, but it does not
tell us where the differences exactly are.
Therefore, in order to pinpoint exactly
where the differences lie we resort to a post
hoc test of Tukey (HSD).

The post-hoc Tukey (HSD) tests reveal that
the participants of metapragmatic, form-search, and role-play groups significantly
outperformed the control. It also shows that
there is a meaningful difference between
metapragmatic group, form-search group
(p= .034), role-play group (p= .000) and
control group (p= .000).Moreover, the mean
differences between metapragmatic group,
and form-search group, and role-play group
are 15. 807, and 32.268, respectively
indicating that metapragmatic group
outperforms the other groups.
Correspondingly, as it can be seen in the
same table, there is a meaningful difference
between form-search and role-play group
(p= .037), and form-search outperforms
role-play group as indicated in the mean
difference between the two groups (16.46).
It is, however, interesting to note that no
meaningful difference is found between
role-play group and control group which
holds a level of significance of (.154).

Discussion
This study revealed improvement of
pragmatic ability among EFL learners over a
nine 60-minute sessions of instruction on the
video prompts twice a week in terms of
making direct requests and refusals,
conventionally indirect, and non-conventionally indirect requests and
refusals, and in terms of apologizing such as
an expression of apology, acknowledgment
of responsibility, an explanation or account,
an offer of repair, and promise of non-recurrence.
The first research question addressed the
effectiveness of different instructional
approaches on the comprehension of
apology, request, and refusal, and the second
research question sought to answer which
group could possibly lead to more
awareness. Although the results of the study
revealed that all three treatment groups
significantly improved their comprehension
of the three speech acts after the
interventional period, the metapragmatic
group outperformed form-search, role-play,
and control groups. Moreover, it was found
that form-search group had a better
performance than role-play group and
control group. The findings of this study
confirm previous research on the positive
effect of instruction on learners’
development of pragmatics (Alcón-Soler,
2005; Alcón-Soler, & Martı´nez-Flor, 2005;
Bardovi-Harlig, 2001; Jernigan, 2012;
Kasper & Roever, 2002; Olshtain & Cohen,
1990; Rose, 2005; Rose & Kasper, 2001;
Taguchi, 2005, 2008, 2013).
Rose and Kasper (2001) call for a need to
make a link between interlanguage
pragmatic research and second language
acquisition theories. Taking into
consideration the learners’ pragmatic gain,
our data lend support to Schmidt’s (1993)
noticing hypothesis and Sharwood Smith’s
(1980) consciousness-raising since
instruction has played a crucial role in
making learners aware of a number of extra-linguistic contextual factors such as social
status, distance, and imposition. The results
are supportive of the fact that learning in a
foreign language context does not
necessarily disadvantage pragmatic
development (Ohta, as cited in Taguchi,
2007, p. 328). As Taguchi (2007) puts it,
pragmatic learning is dependent on the way
learning is organized and presented that
fosters or hinders pragmatic development. In
line with postulations posited by Rose
(1994), Garza (1996), Grant and Starks
(2001) on the potential advantages of video-prompts as authentic sources of input, the
results of the present study prove that video-vignettes can be utilized by EFL teachers to
sensitize learners to sociopragmatic and
pragmalinguistic features.
As a measure to overcome the discourse-structural restrictions of the IRF and the
asymmetrical power relations between
teacher and students that IRF produces, peer
activities have become a regular
instructional practice. Peer interactions
among foreign language students in task-structured activities and role-plays have
proven to offer substantially productive
environments for fostering L2 pragmatic and
interactional competence (Tateyama, as
cited in Tateyama & Kasper, 2008, p. 45).
Regarding this, Bardovi-Harlig and Griffin
(2005) utilized role-plays as an
interventional method to determine the types
of pragmatic infelicities that are recognized
and repaired by learners. Results of the role-plays indicated that learners noticed and
completed missing speech acts, and
semantic formulas.
The results of the present study, on the one
hand, are supported by Bardovi-Harlig and
Griffin’ (2005) study on the effectiveness of
role-plays as a means of developing
pragmatic competence. Although Bardovi-Harlig and Griffin’ (2005) study reported
that role-plays have great advantages to
empower learners in interactions and
improve pragmatic awareness, they did not
compare role-plays with any other
interventional methods. On the other hand,
the results of our study did not demonstrate
the supremacy of role-plays over
metapragmatic and form-search in
developing pragmatic comprehension. The
contradictory findings can be explained on
the grounds that learners in metapragmatic
group were provided with more explicit
explanations on the key elements of
pragmalinguistics and sociopragmatics,
explicit information on the pragmalinguistic
forms of L2 requests, apologies, and
refusals, and the appropriate use of L2
requests, apologies, and refusals, e.g., issues
of social distance, power and imposition, the
speaker’s intention, etc.. Alternatively,
learners in form-search group were provided
with necessary vocabulary and phrases,
grammatical structures, strategies for a
speech act, and choice and use of pragmatic
tone. More precisely, the fact that leaners in
metapragmatic and form-search groups had
a better performance than role-play group
can be legitimized on the grounds that those
sociopragmatic and pragmalinguistic
features in the video vignettes were noticed
and brought to the metapragmatic and form-search learners’ attention more than the
leaner’s attention in role-play group, lending
support to Schmidt’s (1993) noticing
hypothesis and Sharwood Smith’s (1980)
consciousness-raising.
Analogous to the studies investigating the
effects of video-vignettes on the pragmatic
development, Jernigan (2012) for instance,
investigated the effectiveness of an output-focused instructional treatment featuring
video vignettes in an intensive English
program setting. The results of her study
support the previous research on the
effectiveness of instruction on pragmatic
development of learners’ performance on
the perception-oriented pragmatic
acceptability judgment test. However, the
results of the written DCT pinpointing
learners’ ability to express acceptable
pragmalinguistic forms were less clear.
Although a relatively large effect size was
observed for the group receiving the output
instruction, no significant effects were
identified. In line with Jernigan’s
perception-oriented acceptability test, the
present research lends support to the
previously done bodies of research on the
amenability of pragmatic instruction.
The results of the present study are also
supported by Alcón-Soler’s (2005) study on
the effectiveness of video-instruction on the
development of requests. While Alcón-Soler
focuses on the commonly dichotomous
intervention, that is, explicit and implicit,
the present study takes advantage of
different teaching approaches. But, the
findings of both studies lend support to the
fact that leaners’ pragmatic competence
developed. In relation to the effect of
explicit versus implicit instructional
approaches on learners’ awareness of
request, Alcón-Soler (2005) found that the
explicit group outperformed the implicit
group, the results of which contradict
Kubota’s (cited in Alcón- Soler, 2005, p.
427) study reporting that implicit group
outperformed the explicit group. In line with
Alcón-Soler’s (2005) study, in our study the
metapragmatic group outperformed the other
groups. One explanation for this difference
could be that the metapragmatic group
received explicit instruction on the
pragmalinguistic forms of L2 requests,
apologies, and refusals, and discussed the
appropriate use of L2 requests, apologies,
and refusals, e.g., issues of social distance,
power and imposition, the speaker’s
intention, etc.
In line with research opting dichotomous
teaching approaches such as the ones
undertaken by Alcón-Soler’s (2005), Rose
and Ng (2001), Takahashi (2001), our study
reveals that an improvement in
pragmatics comprehension occurred in all
groups but the metapragmatic group had
an advantage over the form-search, role-play, and control groups. The superiority of
metapragmatic group over the other groups
can also be legitimized with reference to
Leech (1983) and Takimoto (2007, cited in
Kargar et al., p. 71) pointing out that
teaching pragmatics should encompass
raising leaners' awareness on the
relationship between forms and meanings,
forms and strategies for realizing speech
intentions and social conditions for the use
of the target structures. Gass (1988 cited in
Kargar et al,. p. 71) states that mere
presentation of explicit and implicit
language information does not guarantee the
learners' success to convert input to output.
Likewise, the form-search group
outperformed the role-play group. Following
Takahashi (2005), this difference could be
explained by the fact that leaners in the
form-search group received explicit
instruction on the vocabulary and phrases,
strategies for speech acts, and choice and
use of pragmatic tone.
Conclusion and implications of the
findings for EFL/ESL contexts
Teaching pragmatics sounds complex and
challenging, as pragmatic behavior changes
to a large extent depending on the
sociocultural contexts (Kondo, 2008).
However, the results document that all three
groups developed their interlanguage
pragmatics and became cognizant of
pragmatic similarities and differences
between their native language and the target
language. Since videos can simulate real life
situations, authenticate real life situations
and bring the closest approximation of real
life situations to the classroom environment,
they raised awareness concerning various
pragmatic aspects involved in the speech
acts of apology, request, and refusal.
Secondly, the paper sought to find out which
group- metapragmatic, form-search, or role
play- performed better. The results indicated
that the metapragmatic group outperformed
the other two in gaining more pragmatic
knowledge lending support to other studies
done. Moreover, it was found that form-search group had a better performance than
role-play group.
Providing learners with rich and
contextually appropriate input has been
considered as a necessary condition to
enhance learners’ pragmatic ability when
understanding and performing speech acts in
the target language (Bardovi-Harlig, 2002;
Kasper, 2001; Kasper & Roever, 2002;
Rose, 2005). Therefore, the context in which
a language is learned seems to play an
indispensable role in terms of both the
quantity and quality of input to which
learners are exposed (Wahburn, 2001).
Learners in the second language community
have more opportunities to come into
contact with the target language, so
exposure to it can improve their pragmatic
ability. Conversely, learners in a foreign
language context are in a disadvantageous
environment, since they depend exclusively
on the input that arises in the classroom
(Kasper & Roever, 2002). Rose (1999)
emphasizes that large classes, limited
contact hours, and little opportunity for
intercultural communication are some of the
features of the English as a foreign language
(EFL) context that impede pragmatic
learning. Moreover, Washburn (2001) states
that “the materials developed explicitly for
teaching pragmatic language use are
basically impoverished in terms of the
characters, their relationships and
motivations, and even the language” (p. 24).
Regarding the necessity of contextualized
input in EFL settings and alleviating some
of the inherent restrictions of EFL contexts,
this study has several implications for
EFL/ESL contexts. The significant impact of
consciousness-raising video-driven prompts
on the development of apology, request, and
refusal indicated that pragmatics is
amenable to teaching.
Due to the lack of adequate materials and
training and a lack of emphasis on pragmatic
issues in EFL courses, the pedagogical
implication then for teachers is to make
students recognize the importance of the
pragmalinguistic and sociopragmatic
features which is replete throughout the
language learning. This can be accomplished
by providing learners with extended
opportunities to receive contextualized,
pragmatically appropriate input. As an
extracurricular activity, teachers can ask
their students to analyze movies from a
pragmatic vantage point. When teaching
different speech acts, teachers can highlight
those parts in the movies leading to more
pragmatic awareness, comprehension, and
production. Teachers can also bring to the
fore those conventional expressions used in
video-prompts and ask learners to compare
the conventional expressions cross-linguistically with their L1s. Such an
activity could raise learners’ awareness of
conventionality. Teachers need to know that
scenes from movies, dramas, or plays often
serve as a rich source of pragmatic input
because they contain a variety of
conversational exchanges in which the
speaker’s reply does not provide a
straightforward answer to the question.
In terms of pedagogy and curriculum
development, the results are suggestive of
the fact that there is a strong need to
improve ILP abilities on the part of the
learners and that the inclusion of pragmatics
materials especially video-driven clips in
curricula and learning materials is
beneficial. Language materials developers
should incorporate a variety of real life
activities and learning tasks with regard to
different speech acts. However, care should
be taken to generalize our results to other
instructed foreign language learning
environments.
Although the present study contributes to the
literature on pragmatic development and
pedagogy, the findings could have been
enhanced if written discourse completion
test had been utilized along with MCDT to
let participants produce the speech acts of
apology, request, and refusal. Our analysis
did not account for dichotomous teaching
approaches on the pragmatic development,
nor did it take into account the production of
speech acts. Further studies are needed to
investigate the abovementioned issues.
Additionally, since the effect of different
interventional treatments depends highly on
learners’ individual variables, such as
motivation, age, and language proficiency
level, as well as the kind of input, and length
of stay, further studies are required to find
out the effect of all these variables. It should
also be born in mind that a delayed posttest
would yield noteworthy results.