Volume 10 (2019) Issue 1
pp. 45-73
Acquiring Pragmatic Competence during Short-Term Study
Abroad: The Service Encounter Request
Todd Hernández (Milwaukee (WI), USA) & Paulo Boero
(Nashville (TN), USA)
Abstract (English)
The present study investigated the
combined effects of pragmatic instruction and short-term study abroad (SA) on
students’ service encounter requests after a four-week program in Valladolid
(Spain). During pre-departure orientation, the SA participants received 90
minutes of explicit instruction about requests. While abroad, they were given
structured tasks and guided reflection assignments designed to develop their
pragmatic competence and language awareness. The data were collected through a
discourse completion task (DCT) containing two request scenarios. In the first
scenario, the students had to order a drink, while the second required them to
exchange a pair of shoes without having the receipt. Based on native speaker
performance ratings of the DCT, the students increased their pragmatic
appropriateness over the course of their time abroad. Further, the SA
participants’ request strategies also improved in both scenarios. Findings
indicated that incorporating pragmatic instruction before and during students’
SA experience is an effective method for facilitating their L2 pragmatic
development.
Keywords: Pragmatics, requests, service
encounters, speech acts, study abroad
Abstract (Spanish)
Este estudio investiga el impacto de la
enseñanza explícita de la pragmática y el estudio en el extranjero sobre la
producción de peticiones de servicio por parte de estudiantes que participaron
en un programa de cuatro semanas en Valladolid, España. Antes del viaje, los
estudiantes recibieron 90 minutos de instrucción explícita sobre peticiones.
Durante su estadía en el extranjero, ellos completaron tareas de producción y
de reflexión diseñadas para ayudarles a desarrollar su habilidad pragmática y a
pensar con mayor agudeza sobre características del lenguaje implicadas en el
acto de petición. Antes de la intervención pedagógica y del viaje a España, y
al final del programa de estudio en el extranjero, los participantes
completaron por escrito dos diálogos sobre diferentes situaciones de pedido de
servicio. En la primera situación, los
estudiantes tenían que pedir algo para beber, y en la segunda ellos tenían que
devolver un par de zapatos sin tener a mano el recibo. Según la evaluación de
los diálogos llevada a cabo por nativo hablantes, los estudiantes mejoraron en
relación a lo apropiado de las peticiones que ellos hicieron al final de su
estadía en España. Además, en los diálogos también se nota que los estudiantes
mejoraron con respecto a las estrategias de petición que ellos usaron. Los
resultados indican que la incorporación de una intervención pedagógica antes de
y durante el programa de estudio en el extranjero es un método eficaz para
facilitar el desarrollo pragmático de los estudiantes.
Palabras clave: Pragmática, peticiones, interacciones
transaccionales, actos del habla, estudio en el extranjero
1 Introduction
Pragmatic competence is a central feature of communicative
competence. Pragmatic competence is often defined as “the ability to use
language effectively in order to achieve a specific purpose and to understand
language in context” (Thomas 1983: 92). Previous research has determined that
explicit classroom-based pragmatic instruction is an important contributor to
second language (L2) learners’ pragmatic development (Kasper & Rose 2002,
Martínez-Flor & Usó-Juan 2006, Reagan & Payant 2018; Rose 2005, Taguchi
2015, Taguchi & Kim 2018). At the same time, few studies have examined the
impact of explicit pragmatic instruction in the study abroad (SA) context -
this despite researchers having demonstrated that acquiring pragmatic
competence is difficult for L2 learners even in an SA environment (Bataller
2010, Félix-Brasdefer 2004, 2013, Félix-Brasdefer & Hasler-Barker 2015,
Shively & Cohen 2008). Short-term SA (eight weeks or fewer) is a
particularly relevant context for this line of investigation when one reflects
on the significant increase of such programs over the past decade. In
2005-2006, 46.7% of the total number of U.S. students studying abroad were
enrolled in short-term programs, in comparison with 55.4% in 2015-2016
(Institute of International Education 2017[1]).
The
present study sought to measure the combined effects of pragmatic instruction
and short-term SA on 15 American students’ service encounter requests after
their participation in a four-week program in Valladolid (Spain). The
organizational framework of this article is as follows: first, background
information on service encounter requests is presented and then, service
encounter requests in Peninsular Spanish and American English are compared and
contrasted. Next, L2 request development in SA contexts is discussed before
attention is turned to studies on the impact of pedagogical intervention on SA
participants’ pragmatic competence. The research design, results, discussion,
pedagogical implications, and limitations and directions for future research conclude
the study.
2 Literature Review
2.1 Service Encounter Requests in Peninsular Spanish and
American English
Service encounters is the term used to refer to social interactions in public
settings (e.g. kiosks, cafés, restaurants, bookstores, department stores,
travel agencies, outdoor markets, and other venues). In themselves, service
encounter interactions represent an important context for SA participants who
must acquire the pragmalinguistic knowledge (i.e. knowledge of the relationship
between linguistic forms and their functions) and sociopragmatic knowledge
(i.e. knowledge of the sociocultural appropriateness of the request in relation
to a given context) of the host community in order to communicate their needs
for goods and services successfully (Czerwionka & Cuza 2017,
Félix-Brasdefer 2015, Shively 2011).
In
contexts in which goods or services are exchanged, hearer-oriented (second
person reference), direct requests are common in Peninsular Spanish (Czerwionka
& Cuza 2017, Placencia 2005). In her examination of service encounters in
Madrid, Placencia (2005) found that requests were often made with imperatives
(e.g. dame una cerveza (‘give me a
beer’)), simple interrogatives (e.g. ¿me
pones un café? (‘will you give me a coffee?’)), and elliptical forms (e.g. un café (‘a coffee’)). Researchers have
also documented the use of hearer-oriented, conventionally indirect or query ability
requests (e.g. ¿me puedes poner un café? (‘can
you give me a coffee?’)) in service encounter interactions (Bataller 2010,
2013). Want statements (e.g. quiero una
Coca-Cola (‘I want a Coke’)) and
internal mitigation of requests (e.g. lexical or verbal downgrading) have been
reported as infrequent in these same contexts (Bataller 2010, 2013, Le Pair
1996, Pinto 2005, Placencia 2005). On the other hand, in service encounter
situations in which the speaker needs to increase the politeness of the request
in order to protect the hearer’s face needs (Brown & Levinson 1987), verbal
downgrading is a common strategy in Peninsular Spanish and in other dialects
(Bataller 2010, Hernández & Boero 2018a, 2018b). Bataller (2010), for
example, found that native Spanish speakers (NSs) frequently employed verbal
downgrading with the imperfect (e.g. quería
devolver estos zapatos (‘I wanted to return these shoes”)) or with the
conditional (e.g. ¿habría una posibilidad
de cambiar estos zapatos? (‘would there be a possibility to exchange these
shoes?)) when asking to exchange a pair of shoes without having the receipt . a
context very similar to one of the scenarios used in the present study.
While
hearer-oriented and elliptical requests seem to be the norm in Spanish service
encounter interactions, American English speakers tend to prefer
speaker-oriented forms (first person reference) in both service encounters and
in other settings (Félix-Brasdefer 2015, Pinto 2005, Pinto & Raschio 2007,
Shively 2011, Vélez 1987). Want statements (e.g. I would like a coffee), need statements (e.g. I need a gift card), and speaker-oriented conventional indirectness
or query ability (e.g. can I have a
coffee?) are some of the most extensively used request strategies in
English (Ervin-Tripp 1976, Pinto 2005, Vélez 1987). By comparison, American
English speakers do not tend to employ the three most common request types in
Peninsular service encounters: simple interrogatives, elliptical forms, and
imperatives (Shively 2011).
2.2 Development of L2 Requests in the SA Context
Although
the SA environment is often assumed to offer ideal conditions for L2 pragmatic
development, findings from studies on the acquisitions of requests in SA
contexts are largely inconclusive (e.g. Bataller 2010, Czerwionka & Cuza
2017, Hernández 2016, Shively & Cohen 2008). In their examination of the
request development of 67 American SA participants during a semester abroad in
a Spanish-speaking country, Shively & Cohen (2008) found that students’
pragmatic appropriateness improved on only two out of five vignettes on a
written Discourse Completion Task (DCT). Request strategies development was
also limited: SA learners underused verbal downgrading on both pre- and
posttests compared to a native speaker
(NS) baseline group. In addition, they overused speaker-oriented and
impersonal requests. In a similar study on pragmatic development during a
short-term (four weeks) SA, Hernández (2016) found that students’ use of verbal
downgrading and request perspective did not change from pre- to posttest.
In
the context of service encounter requests, previous research has also generated
conflicting findings (e.g. Bataller 2010, Czerwionka & Cuza 2017).
Czerwionka & Cuza (2017) found that students shifted from speaker- to
hearer-oriented requests in food and drink scenarios over a six-week program in
Madrid. Bataller (2010), on the other hand, reported that her SA participants
did not improve their request strategies in two service encounter scenarios
after four months in Valencia. In the first scenario (Requesting Something to
Drink), the students overused want statements (e.g. quiero un café (‘I want a coffee’)) and query permission (e.g. ¿puedo tener una Coca-Cola? (‘can I have
a Coke?’)) both before and after the SA. Moreover, at no time on either the
pre- or posttest did they employ simple interrogatives (e.g. ¿me pones un café? (‘will you give me a
coffee?’)), which was the NSs’ preferred request strategy. In the second
scenario (Exchanging a Pair of Shoes), the students overused unmitigated direct
requests (e.g. quiero comprar otros
zapatos (‘I want to buy other shoes’)). The NSs, for their part, chose
indirect, less imposing forms (e.g. quería
cambiar estos zapatos (‘I wanted to exchange these shoes’)), which were
deemed considerably more appropriate for this context, given the request’s high
imposition nature. Based on these findings, Bataller and other researchers have
concluded that pragmatic instruction should be integrated into SA programs so
that students are made aware of the target pragmatic features of the host
community.
2.3 Pragmatic Instruction and Requests in the SA Context
As questions remain about whether or not students improve
their pragmatic competence while abroad, some researchers have begun to
consider the effects of pragmatic instruction on SA participants’ request
production in service encounter interactions and other settings[2] (e.g. Cohen & Shively
2007, Hernández & Boero 2018a, 2018b, Morris 2017, Shively 2010, 2011).
Cohen & Shively (2007) examined the impact of pedagogical intervention on
U.S. students’ acquisition of requests and apologies during a semester abroad
in a Spanish or French-speaking country. In their pre-departure orientation,
the experimental group received 60 minutes of presentation, discussion, and
practice activities on learning how to perform speech acts in the L2.
Participants responded to DCT request and apology scenarios and then compared
their answers to those of their peers. Next, the students compared their
responses to NSs who had also completed the same DCT scenarios. While in
residence, the experimental group wrote reflective electronic journals about
their SA experience. The control group did not receive instruction on speech
acts nor did they write electronic journal entries. Despite treatment
differences, no significant group differences in pre-posttest performance
ratings were observed. Based on these findings, Cohen & Shively (2007: 203)
concluded that pragmatic instruction for SA must consist of more extensive
intervention during pre-departure orientation and then be combined with
practice activities while students are abroad.
Shively (2011) reported on the service encounter requests of
seven U.S students over the course of their semester abroad in Spain. As a
required component of the program, students received explicit instruction on
making requests during the first- and fifth-week of the semester. Naturalistic
audio recordings between the SA participants and service providers in Spain
indicated that students moved from speaker-oriented requests to greater use of
hearer-oriented and elliptical forms. Students’ journal entries revealed that
explicit instruction, their observations of NSs making requests, and
conversations with host family members contributed to their pragmatic
development. Morris (2017) investigated the effects of a task-based
intervention on the pragmatic development of 12 students who studied beginning
L2 Spanish in Spain for ten weeks. Pragmatic development was measured by pre-
and posttest DCTs, pre- and posttest audio recordings of tasks performed in the
host community, and self-reflections of task performance. The SA participants
demonstrated significant gains in pragmatic competence on the DCT and in their
task completion. Similarly, students’ reflections showed increased awareness of
the pragmatic features that were introduced in the instructional treatment. In
an examination of service encounter requests in the short-term SA context (five
weeks), Hernández & Boero (2018b) also measured the effects of explicit
intervention on students’ pragmatic competence. During pre-departure
orientation, seven students received explicit instruction about requests.
During their time abroad, they were given six structured tasks aimed at drawing
their attention to target pragmatic features. Findings from pretest, posttest,
and delayed posttest role-plays indicated that students shifted from
speaker-oriented requests to hearer-oriented and elliptical forms in two
service encounter scenarios. In addition, the SA participants’ greater use of
target pragmatic features was retained five weeks after their return to the
United States.
2.4 Native speakers’ Perceptions of L2 Learners’
Appropriateness
Previous research has also relied on NS perceptions of
appropriateness to rate L2 learners’ pragmatic knowledge (Halenko 2018,
Hernández 2016, 2018, Hernández & Boero 2018a, Taguchi 2006). Taguchi
defined appropriateness as
the knowledge of the conventions of communication in a
society, as well as linguistic abilities that enable learners to communicate
successfully. (Taguchi 2006: 513).
In a study of 67 American students’ requests before and
after their semester abroad in a Spanish-speaking country, Shively & Cohen
(2008) found that participants improved their pragmatic appropriateness on only
two out of five vignettes: Speak More Slowly (a student requests that
the professor speak more slowly so he or she can
better understand the lesson) and Paper Extension (a student requests from the
professor that the deadline for a paper be extended in order to be able to
visit friends over the weekend). Significant gains were not observed in Less
Food (a student requests that the host mother serve him or her less food for
dinner because the portions are too big), Airplane Seat (a student on an
overseas flight requests that an older passenger sitting next to him or her
switch seats with a friend so the two can sit together), and Leaving for School
(a student asks the 15-year-old host sibling he or she walks to school with in
the morning to get ready quicker in order to not make him or her late for
class). Both vignettes that students improved on (Speak Slower and Paper
Extension) represented a mid-level degree of imposition. The researchers were
not surprised by these results, however, if one considers that the act of
making a request to a professor may have been a conversational exchange that
students were more accustomed to or were able to practice during SA. In a similar
study on requests in the short-term SA context, Hernández (2016) found that SA
participants did not improve their pragmatic appropriateness on the same five
vignettes after four weeks in Spain. Taken together, these findings suggest
that, asL2 pragmatic development does not always occur during SA, programs
should consider integrating task-based pragmatic instruction into their
programs. Employing such tasks provides the SA students with scaffolded
opportunities to become aware of and practice utilizing socially-oriented
behaviors, such as politeness, appropriateness, formality, and directness
(Taguchi and Kim 2018).
3 The Present Study
In
sum, pragmatic competence is one area of language acquisition that might be
difficult to acquire even for students who are immersed in target language
pragmatic input during SA. When one considers the importance of pragmatic
knowledge for successful communication, it becomes essential to facilitate SA
students’ pragmatic development through pedagogical intervention. However,
despite previous research that has found such instruction to be beneficial for
L2 pragmatic development (Cohen & Shively 2007, Hernández & Boero
2018a, 2018b, Morris 2017, Shively 2011), few studies have measured the effects
of integrating classroom-based explicit instruction in SA programs. Further,
the authors are not aware of previous studies on the acquisition of SA students’
service encounter requests that employ both ratings of pragmatic
appropriateness as determined by NS raters and identification of specific
request strategies used to perform the very speech act. According to Taguchi
(2006), in order to better understand L2 pragmatic performance and perceptions
of appropriateness, these multiple perspectives should be considered.
The
goal of the present study was to further examine the impact of task-based
pragmatic instruction on SA participants’ service encounter requests. Tasks
were chosen as the central feature of the pedagogical intervention for their
potential to create opportunities for learners to produce output, to notice
gaps in their interlanguage, to obtain corrective feedback, and to then modify
output (Reagan & Payant 2018, Swain 2005). The following two research
questions were designed to explore this issue:
Research Question 1:
Do native Spanish speakers rate SA
students as more appropriate in their service encounters requests after
short-term SA combined with pragmatic instruction?
Research Question 2:
Do students improve their service
encounter request strategies after short-term SA combined with pragmatic
instruction?
4 Methodology
4.1 Participants
The
SA group consisted of fifteen (N =
15) undergraduate students (five males, ten females) who participated in a
four-week SA program in Valladolid (Spain), during summer 2017. All were L2
Spanish learners, between 19 and 30 years old (M = 21.33, SD = 3.68).
English was the participants’ L1; there were no heritage Spanish speakers. The
students represented a variety of majors. Only five had declared a major in
Spanish. The Spanish majors were double majors (two students also majored in
exercise science and one each in social work, nursing, and engineering).
Although proficiency tests were not administered because of time constraints,
estimates of ACTFL (2012) proficiency levels prior to SA were provided by the
second researcher who was very familiar with the participants’ abilities.
Estimated proficiency levels were as follows: 4 Intermediate Low, 9
Intermediate Mid, and 2 Intermediate High. In terms of coursework completed
before SA, two participants had completed third-semester college Spanish, four
had completed the fourth-semester class, and the remaining students had
completed fifth- or sixth-semester courses. None had prior SA experience, nor
had they received previous pragmatic instruction. While in Spain, students took
two intermediate or advanced courses taught in Spanish. Coursework did not
target pragmatics as a unit of instruction. Students also participated in
several cultural and academic excursions conducted in Spanish and designed to
complement classroom instruction. In addition, each student recruited four NSs
in Valladolid to perform four pragmatic tasks (Section 4.3). Students were
asked to recruit a different person for each task. While the SA students often
recruited members of their host families to complete the tasks, NSs from the
host institution and surrounding community were also among the participants.
Finally, all participants lived with individual host families.
A
total of 20 NSs from Spain, ranging in age from 20 to 26 years old (M = 22, SD = 1.86), also participated in the study as a baseline comparison
group. They were exchange students at the first author’s home institution and
had been living in the United States for two weeks at the time of the data
collection.
4.2 Pre-Departure and Post-Program Discourse Completion Task
Students completed a multiple-response written DCT four weeks prior to their
departure for Spain and again at the end of the four-week program. The 20 NSs
from Spain also completed the DCT in order to provide a baseline comparison
with the SA participants’ data. A description of the DCT’s two scenarios is
presented in Table 1 (see Appendix A for entire test items):
Scenario
|
Relative Social Status of Hearer
|
Social Distance
|
Degree of Imposition
|
Drink
|
Low
|
High
|
Low
|
Exchanging Shoes
|
Mid
|
High
|
High
|
Table 1: Description of the scenarios on the DCT
Because
written DCTs are an indirect measure of pragmatic ability in speaking (Shively
& Cohen 2008), the data do not necessarily reflect what participants would
actually say in each situation, but rather what they think they would say
(Golato 2003). Previous studies have demonstrated that DCT data often differ
from data collected in natural settings (Golato 2003, Shively 2011) and through
role-plays (Bataller & Shively 2011). Despite these limitations, the DCT
method of data collection can offer several advantages, as outlined in Shively
& Cohen (2008) and as noted below. In the context of the present study,
data elicited from all students with the same pre- and posttest instrument
allowed the researchers to measure the impact of the combined effect of SA and
the intervention. Moreover, the DCT format allowed for the control of sociolinguistic variables (e.g.
participants, context, social distance, and degree of imposition). Further,
given the time constraints inherent in a short-term SA program, the written DCT
was a feasible alternative to gathering naturally-occurring data or employing
role-plays.
Two
NSs from Spain rated the SA students’ performance on the pre- and posttest DCT.
Both raters (one male, one female) were exchange students in their early 20s and enrolled in graduate programs at the first author’s home
institution. Both had been living in the United States for approximately one
month at the time of their participation in the study. Prior to rating, the
first author described to them the DCT and evaluation criteria. Sample
responses were provided to the raters and discussed. The researcher and the two
raters then scored two practice tests together. Ratings were compared and
discussed.
The pragmatic appropriateness of the requests on the pre-
and posttest DCT was evaluated by the NS raters as an “overall success” score
adapted from Shively & Cohen’s (2008) study on requests. Overall success
ratings were scored on a five-point Likert Scale:
5 I would happily comply with the speaker’s
request.
4 I would comply with the speaker’s request, but
somewhat reluctantly.
3 I would comply with the speaker’s request, but
reluctantly.
2 I would comply with the speaker’s request, but
only very reluctantly.
1 I would not want to
comply with the speaker’s request.
The students’ written DCT responses were entered into a Word
document and randomized so that the raters would not know whether a given
response was from the pre- or posttest. Further, students’ responses were
assigned a unique code number that was unknown to the raters.
Both
raters scored all of the SA students’ pre- and posttest DCTs and then submitted
their ratings to the first author. When disagreement existed between the two
raters of more than one point on the same scenario, the first author and the
raters discussed the scores and then assigned new ratings. In order to reduce
rater bias, raters were asked to describe their rationale for each rating on
the evaluation form. In addition, they were given a limited number of
participants to rate at a given time.
The raters’ scores were compared using Cronbach’s alpha.
Coefficients were high on the pretest (0.75) and on the posttest (0.76).
Raters’ scores were then averaged to create one final score for each scenario
for each student’s pre- and posttest.
4.3 Pedagogical Intervention
After
the pretest, the SA group received 90 minutes of explicit pragmatic instruction
during their pre-departure orientation held in the U.S. The intervention was
conducted in English; examples and task-based practice activities were given in
Spanish. Based on an awareness-raising approach to developing pragmatic
competence (Ishihara & Cohen 2010, Martínez-Flor & Usó-Juan 2006,
Shively 2010, Usó-Juan 2010), the instruction consisted of several components
(Figure 1). This model was grounded in the Noticing Hypothesis (Schmidt 2001),
which states that there must be conscious attention or noticing of a target
feature in the input for acquisition to occur. The authors considered this to
be a guided, iterative process that would provide the participants with
multiple opportunities to practice and reflect on their evolving pragmatic
knowledge before and during their time abroad:
Figure 1: Pre-departure pedagogical
intervention
(based on Shively 2010: 117-119)
During
the first stage of the pre-departure treatment, students received explicit
instruction from the second author about the sociopragmatic and
pragmalinguistic aspects of requests. Using PowerPoint, he taught the students,
for example, that with requests involving a high-degree of imposition (e.g.
asking a professor to reschedule an appointment the student had missed for the
third time), a greater degree of indirectness or politeness was required to
protect the face of the interlocutor. Contrastively, for requests involving a
low-degree of imposition situation (e.g. asking for a candy bar in a kiosk),
more direct request strategies might be expected. Moreover, the second author
taught students about the
request perspective, formal versus informal address forms, and external
modification (e.g. giving a justification or explanation for a request). In
addition, the researcher described to them strategies from their L1 that might
interfere with their request behavior, could contribute to the learner being perceived
as rude, or result in communication breakdown.
Students
were then given five pre-departure tasks involving a range of social and
cultural features aimed at encouraging critical reflection of how context
influences language use (Brown & Levinson 1987). Task scenarios included
asking for a coffee or a soft drink at a café,[3]
asking a friend to borrow her book to finish an assignment, asking a professor
for an appointment to discuss missed classes, asking a classmate for class
notes, and asking to change seats at a movie theater. Two complete sample tasks
are provided in Appendix B. Students practiced each task and shared their
responses. The second author then provided the SA group with responses from the
NSs from Spain who had previously completed the same request scenarios. Group
discussion comparing and contrasting students’ responses with those of the NSs
followed. The SA students were then provided with explicit feedback as their
attention was drawn to the most appropriate strategies for making a request in
each situation.
One
week prior to the program, students completed self-assessments designed to
evaluate their understanding of and promote further reflection about the
concepts discussed during the pre-departure orientation. Participants submitted
their self-assessments to the second author, who, in turn, provided feedback.
The
second stage of the treatment took place while students were abroad. It was
designed to move students through an iterative process of input- and
output-oriented tasks, data collection, analysis and guided reflection, and
targeted feedback (Figure 2):
Figure 2:
In-country Pedagogical Intervention (based on Shively 2010: 120)
The SA group was given four tasks over the course of their time abroad, each representing a request scenario that a student might encounter during SA. The tasks consisted of asking to borrow a stranger’s cell phone, asking a host mother to wash some clothes, asking a professor to reschedule an important exam, and asking an information desk receptionist to use her personal printer. Two complete sample tasks (one oral; one written) are provided in Appendix C. These tasks were considered an important feature of the treatment because of their potential for facilitating L2 learners’ interaction with members of the host community and promoting noticing of pragmatic features (Ishihara & Cohen 2010, Swain 2005).
Employing
a digital recorder, the SA students documented their
responses to the first and third tasks and then asked the NSs to do the same.
The respective responses were then transcribed. The
second and fourth tasks involved the students and the NSs completing written
multiple-turn DCTs. For all four tasks, the students compared their request
strategies to those used by the NSs and then answered questions designed to
encourage them to attend to form and context (Appendix D). The SA participants’
responses to the questions, their transcriptions, and a short reflection about
their performance on each task were then submitted for evaluation to both authors.
For each task, the authors provided students with explicit feedback so as to
draw their attention to mismatches between their request performance and the target pragmatic norms.
In addition, the researchers reviewed the NS audio recordings and the transcriptions
students made of them in order to correct all errors and omissions. Students
were asked to review this feedback and to once again compare their responses on each
task with those of the NSs.
4.4 Analysis of Request Strategies
The
researchers coded the SA students’ and NSs’ request strategies, using a
modified version of the Cross Cultural Speech Act Realization Project Coding
Manual (Blum-Kulka, House & Kasper 1989). Requests were coded for request
strategy (e.g. want-statement vs.
simple interrogative) and request perspective. For the request perspective,
hearer-oriented requests involved second person reference - speaker-oriented
requests were those with first person reference -, and elliptical requests had
no overt marking of person (Czerwionka & Cuza 2017). Requests were further
coded for verbal downgrading (e.g. the speaker employs conditional or aspect to
lessen the impact of a request). Categories and examples of the SA group’s
responses are shown in Table 2:
Coding Category
|
Example from SA
Student Data
|
Request Strategies for the Head
Act
|
|
Direct Strategies
|
|
Mood Derivable
|
|
Elliptic
|
Un café, por favor.
(‘A coffee, please.’) Student 10 pretest: Drink
|
Want Statement
|
Buenos días. Me gustaría devolver los zapatos que compré
ayer. (‘Good morning. I would like to
return the shoes I bought yesterday.’) Student 1 pretest: Shoes
|
Need Statement
|
Buenos días. Necesito cambiar estos zapatos. (‘Good morning. I need to exchange these shoes.’) Student
15 pretest: Shoes
|
Simple Interrogative
|
Hola, buenos días. ¿Me das un café, por favor? (‘Hello, good morning. Will you give me a coffee,
please?’) Student 11 posttest: Drink
|
Indirect
Strategies
|
|
Query Ability
|
¿Me podría dar un café, por favor? (‘Could you please you be able to
give me a coffee?’) Student 5 pretest: Drink
|
Query Permission
|
¿Puedo tener un café, por favor? (‘Can I have a coffee, please.’) Student 3 pretest: Drink
|
Query Possibility
|
¿Sería posible cambiar por otros zapatos? (‘Would it be possible to change for other shoes?’) Student 8 posttest: Shoes
|
Hint
|
Hola, compré estos zapatos anoche y cuando llegué a casa
no me quedé bien. (‘Hello, I bought these shoes last
night and when I got home they didn’t fit’) Student 12 pretest: Shoes
|
Request
Perspective
|
|
Speaker-Oriented
|
Hola, ¿puedo tener un café, por favor? (‘Hello, can I have a coffee, please?’) Student 6 pretest:
Drink
|
Hearer-Oriented
|
¿Me das un café, por favor? (‘Will you give me a coffee, please?’) Student 9 posttest:
Drink
|
Impersonal
|
¿Es posible cambiar para otros zapatos? (‘Is it possible to change for other shoes?’) Student 8
pretest: Shoes
|
Elliptical
|
Un café, por favor. (‘A coffee, please.’) Student
13 posttest: Drink
|
Verbal
Downgrading
|
|
Conditional
|
¿Sería posible cambiar por otros zapatos? (‘Would it be possible to change for other shoes?’)
Student 8 posttest: Shoes
|
Imperfect
|
Buenos días, quería cambiar mis zapatos. (‘Good morning, I wanted to exchange my shoes.’) Student
11 posttest: Shoes
|
Table 2.: Coding categories for requests
(adapted from
Bataller 2010: 166 ; Blum-Kulka et al. 1989: 273-284)
To ensure inter-coder reliability,
the data were coded independently by the two researchers. The agreement was
92%. The remaining 8% of the cases were discussed and the request strategy,
request perspective, and types of verbal
downgrading were agreed upon.
The Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS 24.0)
was used to analyze the data. The statistical tests employed were
paired-samples t-tests (Research
Question 1) and Fisher’s exact tests (Research Question 2). All tests were
conducted using the Holm-Bonferroni method to adjust for inflated alphas.
5 Results
5.1 Research Question 1
The first research question examined
whether the NSs rated the students as more appropriate in their service
encounter request after SA than before. Table 3 provides the students’ pre- and
posttest request performance scores on each of the two scenarios and on the two
combined scenarios (composite).
Scenario
|
M
|
SD
|
t value
|
df
|
Sig.
|
Drink
|
|||||
Pretest
|
3.53
|
0.58
|
-2.902
|
14
|
.020
|
Posttest
|
4.17
|
0.62
|
|||
Shoes
|
|||||
Pretest
|
3.23
|
0.53
|
-2.432
|
14
|
.029
|
Posttest
|
3.47
|
0.61
|
|||
Composite
|
|||||
Pretest
|
6.77
|
0.94
|
-2.902
|
14
|
.012
|
Posttest
|
7.63
|
1.060
|
|||
Table
3: Paired samples t-test for pretest
and posttest mean scores on the DCT
Posttest mean scores were higher than pretest mean scores
for the two scenarios as well as for the composite. Paired samples t-tests were conducted to measure
differences in pre-posttest pragmatic appropriateness ratings. Significant
differences were observed on the two scenarios, and also on the composite
score. The students’ mean scores increased from 3.53 on the pretest to 4.17 on
the posttest (p = 0.020) in the Drink
scenario, and fro 3.23 to 3.47 (p =
0.029) in the Exchanging Shoes scenario. Further, composite scores increased
from 6.77 on the pretest to 7.63 on the posttest (p = 0.012). Measures of effect size using Cohen’s d (1988) (d = .2 as a small effect, d = .5 as a medium effect, and d = .8 as a large effect) indicated a
very large effect for Drink (d =
1.07) and a medium effect for Exchanging Shoes (d = 0.42). A large effect size was also found for the composite (d = 0.86). These findings indicate that
students were rated as pragmatically more appropriate after SA combined with
pragmatic instruction.
5.2 Research Question 2
The
second research question addressed whether or not the students improved their
service encounter request strategies over the course of their time abroad. To
answer this question, the researchers analyzed the SA participants’ request
strategies on the pre- and posttest DCT. Their strategies were subsequently
compared to those of the 20 NSs who also completed the DCT. Results for the
Drink scenario are presented first, followed by the Exchanging Shoes scenario.
Table 4 presents the requests that the participants used in the first scenario.
The request strategies were then subdivided into direct and indirect
strategies:
Request
Strategies
|
SA Students
Pretest
(N = 15)
|
SA Students
Posttest (N = 15)
|
Native Spanish
Speakers (N = 20)
|
Direct
strategies
|
|||
Mood Derivable
|
0 (0,0%)
|
1 (6,7%)
|
0 (00%)
|
Elliptic
|
5 (33,3%)
|
7 (46,7%)
|
9 (45,0%)
|
Want Statement
|
6 (40,0%)
|
3 (20,0%)
|
0 (0,0%)
|
Need Statement
|
0 (0,0%)
|
0 (0,0%)
|
0 (0,0%)
|
Simple Interrogative
|
0 (0,0%)
|
4 (26,7%)
|
10 (50,0%)
|
Direct strategies total
|
11 (73,3%)
|
15 (100,0%)
|
19 (95,0%)
|
Indirect
strategies
|
|||
Query Ability
|
1 (6,7%)
|
0 (0,0%)
|
1 (5,0%)
|
Query Permission
|
3 (20,0%)
|
0 (0,0%)
|
0 (0,0%)
|
Query Possibility
|
0 (0,0%)
|
0 (0,0%)
|
0 (0,0%)
|
Indirect strategies total
|
4 (26,7%)
|
0 (0,0%)
|
1 (5,0%)
|
Strategies
(Total)
|
15 (100,0%)
|
15 (100,0%)
|
20 (100,0%)
|
Table
4: Request strategies: Drink scenario
Both
the students and the NSs preferred direct strategies over indirect strategies
to request something to drink. Fisher’s exact tests were conducted to compare
the students’ use of direct requests (pretest = 73%; posttest = 100%) to that
of the NSs (95%), confirming that there were no significant differences between
the two groups at the time of the pretest (p
= 0.093) or posttest (p = 0.571).
However, because the SA participants did increase their directness from pre- to
posttest, this result suggests that their use of direct requests in the Drink
scenario was more similar to that of the NSs after SA than before.
A
comparison of the students’ request perspective with that of the NSs appears in
Table 5:
Request Perspective
|
SA Students
Pretest (N = 15)
|
SA Students
Posttest (N = 15)
|
Native Spanish
Speakers
(N = 20)
|
Speaker-Oriented
|
8 (53,3%)
|
3 (20,0%)
|
0 (0,0%)
|
Hearer-Oriented
|
2 (13,3%)
|
5 (33,3%)
|
11 (55,0%)
|
Elliptical
|
5 (33,3%)
|
7 (46,7%)
|
9 (45,0%)
|
Impersonal
|
0 (0,0%)
|
0 (0,0%)
|
0 (0,0%)
|
Table 5: Request Perspective: Drink Scenario
Fisher’s
exact tests, performed to compare the SA participants’ request perspective to
that of the NSs, identified a significant difference between the two groups on
the pretest. Students underused hearer-oriented requests (13%) and ellipsis
(33%) compared to the NSs, who used these forms 55% and 45% of the time,
respectively (p = 0.000). At the time
of the posttest, however, no significant differences were observed (p = 0.076). By the end of the program,
students had increased their use of both hearer-oriented and elliptical
requests while decreasing their use of speaker-oriented forms. This finding
suggests that over time the SA participants had become more similar to the NSs
in their use of the request perspective in the Drink scenario.
An
examination of the SA participants’ specific request strategies at the time of
the pretest indicated that their choices often differed from those of the NSs.
Before the program, students overused want-statements and query permissions
while not employing simple interrogatives - a strategy that 50% of the NSs used
to ask for a drink. At the time of the posttest, the SA students had reduced
their reliance on these two non-target-like strategies while simultaneously
increasing their use of elliptical forms (47%) and simple interrogatives (27%)
- the two strategies that the NSs most frequently employed. These findings
suggest that over the course of their residence abroad, the SA participants had
begun to adopt more target-like request strategies in the Drink scenario.
Participants’ requests in the Exchanging Shoes scenario are presented in Table
6:
Request Strategies
|
SA Students
Pretest
(N = 15)
|
SA Students
Posttest (N = 15)
|
Native Spanish
Speakers (N = 20)
|
Direct
strategies
|
|||
Mood Derivable
|
0 (0,0%)
|
0 (0,0%)
|
0 (0,0%)
|
Elliptic
|
0 (0,0%)
|
0 (0,0%)
|
0 (0,0%)
|
Want Statement
|
2 (13,3%)
|
4 (26,7%)
|
10 (50,0%)
|
Need Statement
|
5 (33,3%)
|
3 (20,0%)
|
2 (10,0%)
|
Simple Interrogative
|
0 (0,0%)
|
0 (0,0%)
|
0 (0,0%)
|
Direct strategies total
|
7 (46,7%)
|
7 (46,7%)
|
12 (60,0%)
|
Indirect
strategies
|
|||
Query Ability
|
1 (6,7%)
|
2 (13,3%)
|
1 (5,0%)
|
Query Permission
|
4 (26,7%)
|
4 (26,7%)
|
3 (15,0%)
|
Query Possibility
|
1 (6,7%)
|
2 (13,3%)
|
4 (20,0%)
|
Hint
|
2 (13,3%)
|
0 (0,0%)
|
0 (0,0%)
|
Indirect strategies total
|
8 (53,3%)
|
8 (53,3%)
|
8 (40,0%)
|
Total strategies
|
15 (100,0%)
|
15 (100,0%)
|
20 (100,0%)
|
Table 6: Request Strategies: Exchanging-Shoes Scenario
When
asking to exchange a pair of shoes without having the receipt, the NSs used
more direct request strategies (60%) than indirect strategies (40%). In
comparison, the SA students used direct request strategies 47% of the time on
the pretest and 47% on the posttest. Fisher’s exact tests found no significant
differences between the two groups on either the pretest (p = 0.506) or posttest (p
= 0.506), however. This finding indicates that the SA participants’ use of
direct request strategies in this scenario was similar to that of the NSs both
before and after the program.
Request strategies were then coded
for verbal downgrading, as shown in Table 7:
Verbal
Downgrading
|
SA Students
Pretest (N = 15)
|
SA Students
Posttest (N = 15)
|
Native Spanish
Speakers (N = 20)
|
Conditional
|
3 (20,0%)
|
9 (60,0%)
|
7 (35,0%)
|
Imperfect
|
0 (0,0%)
|
2 (13,3%)
|
13 (65,0%)
|
Total verbal downgrading
|
3 (20,0%)
|
11 (73,3%)
|
20 (100,0%)
|
Table 7: Verbal Downgrading: Exchanging Shoes
Before
the program, the SA participants significantly underused verbal downgrading
(20%) compared to the NSs who used it 100% of the time (p = 0.000). By the conclusion of the SA experience, students had
increased their use of mitigation to 73%. Notwithstanding, significant
differences existed between the SA group and the NSs even at the time of the
posttest (p = 0.026), as determined
by a Fisher’s exact test. These findings suggest that although some SA students
had become more target-like by softening their requests in the posttests,
others had not yet acquired full control of the required sociopragmatic and
pragmalinguistic knowledge for mitigating requests in this context.
A
comparison of the SA students’ request perspective and that of the NSs is presented
in Table 8:
Request
Perspective
|
SA Students
Pretest (N =
15)
|
SA Students
Posttest (N =
15)
|
Native Spanish
Speakers
(N = 20)
|
Speaker-Oriented
|
11 (73,3%)
|
12 (80,0%)
|
15 (75,0%)
|
Hearer-Oriented
|
1 (6,7%)
|
1 (6,7%)
|
1 (5,0%)
|
Impersonal
|
1 (6,7%)
|
1 (13,3%)
|
4 (20,0%)
|
Table 8: Request Perspective:
Exchanging-Shoes Scenario
Both groups favored speaker-oriented forms; Fisher’s exact
tests revealed no significant differences between the students and the NSs on
either the pre- (p = 0.433) or
posttest (p = 0.527). Results thus
suggest that the SA students’ request perspective in the Exchanging-Shoes
scenario was consistent with target norms both before and after the
program.
6 Discussion
Building on previous research in L2 Spanish pragmatic
development in the SA context, the present study measured the combined effects
of pragmatic instruction and short-term SA on students’ service encounter
requests. Important features of this study included an intervention consisting
of explicit pragmatic instruction and task-based practice both before and
during SA. Moreover, SA participants’ pragmatic development was measured from
multiple perspectives: by both the NS ratings of the students’ pragmatic appropriateness
in pre- and posttest DCTs and the identification of the specific request
strategies used in their performance of the speech act. Findings indicated that
students improved their pragmatic knowledge, as rated by the two NSs. A
comparison of students’ request strategies to those of the NSs in the two
service encounter scenarios further showed that the SA group improved their use
of several pragmatic features that have been identified as difficult for SA
students to acquire through exposure alone. Our
findings suggest that explicit pragmatic instruction and
task-based practice both before and during students’ SA experience have the
potential to facilitate students’ L2 pragmatic development.
6.1 Request Performance Ratings
Paired samples t-tests
revealed that students were rated as more appropriate by two NSs after SA than
before. These improved appropriateness ratings hold true for each of the two
individual request scenarios as well as for both scenarios combined. These
findings are similar to Hernández & Boero (2018a), whose students also made
significant gains in pragmatic appropriateness after being exposed to
pedagogical intervention during their short-term (four weeks) SA program. While
those participants increased their appropriateness ratings on four request
scenarios, SA students in the present study did so in the context of two
service encounter interactions: one involving a low degree of imposition
(Drink) and the second one a higher degree of imposition (Exchanging Shoes).
Taken together, these results suggest that students were perceived as more
appropriate after their SA.
6.2 The Drink Scenario
An
examination of students’ request strategies in the Drink scenario identified
several areas of L2 pragmatic development that could have been responsible for
their increased performance ratings from pre- to posttest. The first area was
the SA participants’ greater use of direct requests on the posttests. Because
research has shown that direct request strategies are the norm for service
encounter interactions in Peninsular Spanish (Placencia 2005), this was
considered an important shift toward more target-like request production. A
second feature of pragmatic development was students’ decreased use of
want-statements. Previous research has documented L2 learners’ overuse of
want-statements to make their requests in service encounter situations
(Bataller 2010, Pinto 2005, Shively 2011). Pinto (2005) found that 61.7% of his
participants used want-statements when asking for a drink compared to 4.3% of
the NSs. In the SA context, Bataller (2010) also observed overreliance on
want-statements both before (45%) and after (70%) four months in Spain. In the
current study, both NS raters’ agreed that the SA participants’ reduction in
the use of want-statements (e.g. quiero
un café and me gustaría un café
(‘I want a coffee’ and ‘I would like a coffee’)) was an important contributor
to their post-SA higher performance ratings. In the case of quiero un café (‘I want a coffee’), the
NSs affirmed that this form was too direct and impolite for this situation.
Regarding me gustaría un café (‘I
would like a coffee’), the NS raters suggested that this expression, although
taught early in the L2 instructional sequence and easy to use because of its
transparency, was indeed not appropriate in the context of asking for a drink
nor in other similar service encounter interactions. In addition, both NS
raters commented that the SA students’ decreased use of the phrase puedo tener (‘can I have’) was also
responsible for their higher appropriateness ratings on the posttest. As
previous researchers have suggested, while Can
I have…? is a common strategy in food-related service encounter requests in
English (Pinto 2005, Shively 2011), this strategy is not considered pragmatically
appropriate in service encounter interactions in Spanish (Pinto 2005, Placencia
2005, Shively 2011). These instances demonstrate that L1 transfer and prior
instruction can have a significant role in shaping students’ use of language
features - often to the detriment of their pragmatic development and ability to
use socially appropriate language. It is for these reasons that SA directors
may want to integrate explicit task-based pragmatic instruction into their
programs, which draws SA students’ attention to and promotes their noticing of
speech acts and other aspects of pragmatic behavior (Schmidt 2001, Swain 2005).
The SA students also increased their use of simple
interrogatives on the posttests. As researchers have noted, the simple
interrogative is a frequently employed request strategy in Peninsular Spanish
as well as in other Spanish dialects (Bataller 2010, 2013, Pinto 2005, Shively
2011). The simple interrogative, however, is a problematic structure for L2
Spanish learners whose native language is English because of the lack of an
equivalent expression in their own language. Consequently, previous studies suggest
that SA students may not acquire this pragmatic feature without explicit
instruction (Bataller 2010, Shively & Cohen 2008). Bataller (2010), for
example, found that none of her 31 SA participants, whose Spanish prior to the
program was similar to that of participants in the present study, used the
simple interrogative even after a semester abroad in Spain. By comparison, some
SA students of the current study had begun to incorporate this form into their
posttests after only four weeks.
Turning to the request perspective, students shifted from
overreliance on speaker-oriented requests before the program to a greater use
of hearer-oriented and elliptical forms after their SA. Studies have identified
the predominance of speaker-oriented forms in L2 Spanish request production as
attributable to three factors: L1 transfer, simplification, and prior
instruction (Bataller 2010, Pinto 2005, Shively 2011). As a consequence,
researchers have reported that some SA students continue to rely on speaker-oriented
requests even after a semester or more abroad (Bataller 2010, Shively &
Cohen 2008). As in the present study, SA
students shifted from speaker-oriented forms to hearer-oriented and elliptical
requests over the four-week program, it may be concluded that the explicit
intervention has been a contributing factor in making them aware of the target
norms for the request perspective in the context of service encounter
interactions in Spain.
6.3 The
Exchanging-Shoes Scenario
The
Exchanging-Shoes scenario involved a higher imposition request, as participants
had to ask to exchange a pair of shoes without having the receipt. As such, the
NSs were unanimous in their use of verbal downgrading (e.g. quería cambiar estos zapatos (‘I wanted
to exchange these shoes’)) to soften their requests. Turning to the SA
participants’ performance, students overused unmitigated requests (e.g. necesito cambiar estos zapatos (‘I need
to exchange these shoes’)) on the pretests, which the NS raters affirmed were
too direct and imposing for this situation. By the time of the posttest,
students had increased their use of mitigation, employing both the conditional
(¿me podría cambiar estos zapatos?
(‘could you exchange these shoes for me?’)) and the imperfect (e.g. necesitaba devolver estos zapatos (‘I
needed to return these shoes’)) to reduce the request’s imposition. The NS
raters’ comments corroborated the role of verbal downgrading in producing
pragmatically appropriate requests. Both raters indicated that the SA
participants’ increased the use of mitigation on the posttests with either the
conditional or the imperfect contributing to their higher appropriateness
ratings after their SA. This finding suggests that the SA participants had
begun to acquire the pragmatic norms for softening requests in higher
imposition service encounter interactions. As researchers have demonstrated
that verbal downgrading is a lengthy process that may well not occur even in a
SA context (e.g. Bataller 2010, Hernández 2016, Shively Cohen 2008), it is possible to conclude that
explicit pragmatic instruction might indeed be necessary for helping SA
participants to acquire some pragmatic features of the host community.
6.4 Pedagogical Implications
L2
learners exposed to task-based pragmatic instruction prior to their SA
experience may become more capable of using and comprehending target language
pragmatic input during their time abroad than students who do not participate
in pre-departure activities. Prior knowledge and conscious use of the pragmatic
features of the host culture with relevant listening comprehension activities
utilizing many speakers’ voices will assist learners to become more confident
about their comprehension skills and thus their speaking abilities in such
exchanges. Such activities and topics covered have the potential for
establishing a solid foundation for successful social interactions with members
of the host culture. Findings from the present study suggest that pragmatic instruction
in the pre-departure setting should thus move SA students through a guided,
iterative process of explicit instruction, exposure to authentic input combined
with awareness-raising activities, communicative output and appropriate
targeted feedback as well as guided reflection (Hernández & Boero 2018).
It is
recommended that, after developing students’ pragmatic knowledge during
pre-departure orientation, SA participants be given structured tasks during the
SA experience that require them to record, observe, and listen to NSs
performing requests and other speech acts. After analysis of the targeted
speech act patterns, SA students should be asked to practice those speech acts
and interactions in the classroom setting. Instructors would then provide feedback
about students’ language use and speech act strategies in comparison with
target norms. Guided reflection activities will then encourage discussion of
relevant sociopragmatic and pragmalinguistic factors.
After
returning from a study-abroad experience, students should be guided to continue
their L2 development. As such, ethnographic projects represent one approach for
further developing students’ critical reflection and pragmatic knowledge while
also promoting their interaction with members of the host culture. Students may
also explore a topic of interest by conducting interviews with NSs - at home or
abroad through telecollaboration - and then report their findings to Spanish
classes at their home institution or in their community (Shively 2010). Of
special benefit to both students and the host culture members is the continuing
interaction with NSs that could, at
least for some students, build the foundation of lasting friendships and
life-long learning.
6.5 Limitations and Future Research
Several issues should be considered when interpreting the
findings of the present study’. First, written DCTs that could be administered
in a large group format were used to evaluate students’ pragmatic competence.
DCTs measure what a participant knows rather than their use of that knowledge
to interact with an interlocutor (Shively & Cohen 2008). In order to
increase the validity of their results, researchers might consider
supplementing written DCT data with other methods, such as role-plays, oral DCTs,
or data collected through unscripted exchanges with NSs in natural settings
(e.g. Shively 2011).
The second limitation was the lack of a control group. It
might be argued, however, that in comparing the current SA students’ pragmatic
development with SA participants who were not exposed to pedagogical
intervention (e.g. Bataller 2010, Hernández 2016), one might conclude that the
SA students in the present study outperformed those with similar backgrounds
(e.g. previous Spanish). Regardless, researchers should consider comparing SA
students exposed to pragmatic instruction to an SA group that does not receive
the same treatment.
Third, neither the SA participants’ language contact nor
their motivation were measured as these factors were actually beyond the scope
of the present study. Both factors
might, however, have a certain impact on students’ pragmatic development
and should therefore be included in future studies of the same type.
Because of high participant
attrition, we were unable to administer a delayed posttest to measure long-term
retention of pragmatic gains, an issue that Ren (2018) suggests should be
addressed in future SA research.
Finally, compared to other more
complex speech acts, service encounter requests might be considered easy to
teach and assess in a short-term SA program because of their routine structure,
sequence, and goal-oriented nature (Shively 2011). While the focus of the
present study was on service encounters - a relevant context for SA
participants who often need to request goods or services as part of their
day-to-day social interaction -, researchers should also investigate the
effectiveness of teaching other speech acts in short-term SA. The latter, however,
was beyond the scope of our study.
7 Conclusion
The
present study measured the effects of pragmatic instruction and short-term SA
on students’ service encounter requests. Several important findings were
reported. Based on NS performance ratings, students increased their pragmatic
appropriateness over the course of their study
abroad. The SA participants’ request strategies themselves
also improved in both scenarios. In the Drink scenario, for example, students
employed more direct requests after the program while also shifting from
speaker-oriented to greater use of hearer-oriented and elliptical forms. In
addition, simple interrogatives, a problematic structure for L2 Spanish
learners, began to emerge in some participants’ posttests. Another important
finding was their reduction in the use of want-statements. In Exchanging Shoes,
the SA participants’ most significant area of pragmatic development was their
increased use of verbal downgrading to soften high-imposition requests - a
feature that previous research has identified as difficult for SA students to
acquire without explicit instruction (Bataller 2010, Shively & Cohen 2008).
Incorporating task-based pragmatic instruction before and during students’ SA
experience thus appears to be an effective method to facilitate their L2
pragmatic development. Given the findings of the present study, SA programs
should continue to investigate how to integrate research-based interventions
into SA curricula so as to improve outcomes.
Drink: You are at a café in Spain with a group of friends and want
a drink. You approach the counter and order a drink (coffee, tea, or soft
drink) from the young man working behind the counter.
Barista: Buenas. ¿Qué tomas? (‘Hi.
What will you have to drink?’)
You:
Barista: Sí, claro. (‘Yes. Of
course’)
You:
Exchanging Shoes: You bought a pair of shoes last night at a department store
in Valladolid. After you return home, you realize that your new shoes do not
fit well. Before classes the next morning you decide to go to the department
store in order to exchange the shoes. You cannot find the receipt.
Store employee: Buenos días. (‘Good
morning.’)
You:
Store employee: Sí, ¿cómo no? ¿Me
puede enseñar el ticket de compra? (‘Yes, of course. Can you show me your receipt?’)
You:
Store employee: Entiendo. Mire, sin
el ticket de compra no podemos hacer nada. (‘I understand. But look, without
the receipt there’s nothing we can do.’)
You:
Store
employee: Bueno. Ahora que me dice eso, creo que podemos hacer una excepción.
(‘Well. Now that you put it that way, I think we can make an exception.’)
You:
APPENDIX B
Sample
pre-departure tasks
XAsk to borrow notes: You miss class and need to borrow someone’s notes. After
class you approach one of your classmates, Carlos, to ask if you can borrow his
notes. You do not know Carlos well and have not interacted with him. This is
also your fourth absence. Ask Carlos if you can borrow his notes.
Ask to change seats at a movie
theater: You go out to the movie theater
with a group of four friends. You want to sit together but you are unable to
find five seats together. You do see, however, four available seats in the same
row. A 55-year old gentleman is in the fifth seat. You know that there are two
or three seats available where he could sit but those seats are in the second
row toward the front of the theater. Ask him if he can exchange seats with you
so that you can be with your friends.
APPENDIX C
Sample study abroad tasks
Ask to borrow a stranger’s cell
phone: Your evening class at your
university in Spain finished later than usual and you miss your bus to go home.
It does not take long for you to realize that you will be late for dinner at
your host family’s house. To make matters worse, you forget your cell phone at
home this morning. Standing next to you at the bus stop is a young Spanish
woman; she looks like a student and is about twenty years old. You get up the
courage and ask her to borrow her phone so that you can let your host parents
know you will be late for dinner.
Ask to use a printer: You need to print a research paper for one of your classes
this afternoon but there is a long line of students waiting to use the two
available printers. Your paper is due in five minutes. A 35-year old lady is at
the help desk and you notice that she has a private printer next to her
computer. Ask her if you can print your paper using her printer instead of the
public printer that everyone is waiting to use.
You:
Help
desk person: Lo siento, pero esta impresora no es para uso común. Lo siento
mucho. (‘I’m sorry, but this printer is not for the public to use. I’m really
sorry.’)
You:
Help desk person: Bueno…si es tan
urgente, dame tu pen drive y te imprimo el documento en seguida. (‘Well… if
it’s that urgent, give me your USB stick and I’ll print the document for you
right away.’)
You:
APPENDIX D:
Sample reflection questions for
study abroad oral tasks
- Use a digital recorder or other recording device to record yourself
making this request. Transcribe your request.
- Ask a Spaniard if you can record him or her making the same
request. Be sure to give him or her the task instructions written in
Spanish. Transcribe the speaker’s request.
- What specific strategies and structures did each of you use to make
the request? Did your speaker use strategies or expressions that you had
not heard used before?
- Consult your PowerPoint handout and consider the structures you and
your speaker used to make this request more direct or indirect.
- Did you or your speaker use mitigation, e.g. employing the
conditional or imperfect to soften the request, when performing it?
- Did you and your speaker use a hearer-oriented, speaker-oriented,
or impersonal request perspective in making the request?
- Consult your PowerPoint handout and consider what external
mitigation strategies you and your speaker used.
- Was your language appropriate given the nature of the request and
your relationship to your interlocutor? Should you have been more formal
or more informal? Consider the social distance, power, and imposition
factors we discussed in pre-departure orientation.
- In English, write a reflection comparing your request to that of
your speaker. Submit the audio recordings, transcriptions, answers, and
reflection to the researchers by email.
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Authors:
Todd
Hernández, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Spanish
Department of Languages,
Literatures, and Cultures
Marquette University
P.O. Box 1881
Milwaukee, WI 53201
Email: todd.hernandez@marquette.edu
Paulo
Boero, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Spanish
Department of Foreign Languages
Belmont University
1900 Belmont Boulevard
Nashville, TN 37212
Email: paulo.boero@belmont.edu
[1] https://www.iie.org/en/Research-and-Insights/Open-Doors/Fact-Sheets-and-Infogra-phics;
13-03-2019.
[2] While
some researchers have examined the effects of pragmatic instruction on other
request types (e.g. Cohen & Shively 2007, Hernández & Boero 2018a), the
present study focuses on service encounter requests.