Ruprecht-Karls Universitt Heidelberg

Anglistisches Seminar
SoSe 2016
HS: Speech Acts and Speech Act Theory Practical Explorations
Dozentin: Prof. Dr. Sonja Kleinke
Referenten: Sarah Czok, Michael Dunn, Ainhoa Navascus Bentez

Speech Acts and the 2nd Language Classroom

Study: Learning to Communicate in the Classroom A Study of Two Language Learners

Requests (Ellis 1992)
1. Study Basis
The aim was to investigate the relationship between the opportunities for production that arise in a
classroom setting and the development of requests in the speech of two second language learners.
The nature of the output that learners produce in the classroom may be influenced by the
interactional goal.
Ellis (1984) distinguishes three types of interactional goals:
1. core goals (goals concerning explicit pedagogic aims)
2. framework goals (goals relating to the organization of classroom activity)
3. social goals (goals linked to the use of language for purposes of socializing)
2. Subjects
-

two boys, aged 10 and 11, both almost complete beginners in English
J (Portuguese) has been in London for a few months, R (Punjabi) has been in London for only
a few days

3. Settings
-

both boys were placed in a Language Unit designed to provide initial instruction in English as
a preparation for transfer to local secondary schools
J stayed full-time for 4 terms, R stayed full-time for 6 terms
except for the staff of the unit, there were no native speakers of English in the class
teachers and teaching styles varied throughout the terms

4. Data Base
-

longitudinal study of the sequence of acquisition

a total of 410 requests produced by two child learners over 15-21 months
the learners classrooms were visited once every 2 weeks and more frequently later
role of the researcher changed during the course of the study
data were collected by means of a paper-and-pencil record of the utterances the learners
produced (adding contextual information); many lessons were also audio-recorded
all turns that included a request produced by each learner were identified

5. Research questions:
1. What opportunities for performing requests did the classroom afford the two learners?
2. What range of linguistic devices did the learners use to perform the requests and how
did these change over time?
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3. To what extent did the learners succeed in learning to perform different requests
realization strategies and their linguistic exponents?
6. Analysis (based on the CCSARP The Cross-Cultural Speech Act Realization Project)
A. Formal Complexity
1. Propositional Completeness
a. verb (Sir sir sir pencil)
b. + verb (Give me my paper)
2. Modification
a. Internal (part of the head act)
i. Downgrade (by using a syntactic or lexical modifier such as please)
ii. Upgrade (by repetition)
b. External (move before or after the head act)
i. Downgrade (by supplying a reason for the request)
ii. Upgrade (by adding an insult)
B. Level of Directness
1. Direct
a. Mood derivable (You shut up)
b. Performative (I am telling you to shut up)
c. Hedge performative (I would like to ask you to shut up)
d. Locution derivable (I want it)
2. Conventionally indirect
a. Suggestory formulas (Come, lets play a game)
b. Query preparatory (Can you draw it?)
3. Nonconventionally indirect
a. Strong hint (This paper is not very good to color blue)
b. Mild hint (no reference to the request proper)
C. Perspective
1.
2.
3.
4.

Speaker (Can I have my ruler back please?)

Hearer (Miss, can you write?)
Both (Come lets play a game)
Neither (It would be nice to play a game)

D. Context
1. Addressee
a. adult (teacher or researcher)
b. another pupil
2. Interactive goal
a. core
b. framework
c. social
E. Mood
1. Positive
2. Negative (by using either a formal negative device dont or a lexical verb stop)
F. Purpose
1. Goods (Can I have the yellow book please)
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2.
3.
4.
5.

Services (Sharpening please)

Attention (Sir sir excuse me sir)
Pedagogic activity (Come lets play a game)
Action (where the speaker requests the hearer to perform an action or desist from
performing an action Look and be quiet and shut up)

7. Results

Analysis

Results

A. Formal Complexity
1. Propositional Completeness
a. verb
b. + verb

A. Formal Complexity
1. Propositional Completeness
a. J had some verbless requests at the beginning, but most of
his requests contained a verb from the start (Leave it)
Rs requests were initially all verbless (Sir, Big circle)
both soon became productive with a variety of lexical
verbs, but verbless requests never fully disappeared

2. Modification
a. Internal
i. Downgrade
ii. Upgrade
b. External
i. Downgrade
ii. Upgrade
B. Level of Directness
1. Direct
a. Mood derivable
b. Performative
c. Hedge performative
d. Locution derivable
2. Conventionally indirect
a. Suggestory formulas
b. Query preparatory
3. Nonconventionally indirect
a. Strong hint
b. Mild hint
C. Perspective
1. speaker
2. hearer
3. both
4. neither
D. Context
1. Addressee
a. adult
b. another pupil
2. Interactive goal
a. core
b. framework

2. Modification
a. both used more internal than external modification
i. the only internal downgrader was lexical item
please
ii. upgraders consisted of repetition or paraphrase of
the request

B. Level of Directness
1. mostly used direct requests (J 78%, R 58%)
a. Mood derivable requests for nearly all direct requests
(You shut up)
b. no instances of performatives
c. no instances of hedge performatives
d. very few instances of obligation and want statements
2. Conventionally indirect requests were also used with some
frequency (J 18%, R 20%; e.g. Come lets play a game)
3. Nonconventional requests hardly occurred at all
a. the few instances were all strong hints (This paper is
not very good to color blue)
C. Perspective
1. Some requests with an emphasis on the speaker
2. Most requests emphasized the role of the hearer
(J 84%, R 74%; e.g. Miss, can you write?)
3. & 4. very few utterances encode a joint
or impersonal perspective
D. Context
1. far more requests addressed at adults

2. Interactive goals
a. very few requests were uttered in core interactions
b. most requests occurred in interactions centering
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c. social
E. Mood
1. Positive
2. Negative

F. Purpose
1. Goods
2. Services
3. Attention
4. Pedagogic activity
5. Action

around framework goals

c. both learners also used requests in social interactions
E. Mood
1. Most requests were positive (Be quiet)
2. Some early negative requests made use of lexical
markers of negativity (Stop)
negative requests were generally addressed to other
pupils rather than adults
F. Purpose
1. Rs early requests were all aimed at obtaining goods
(Can I have the yellow book please)

5. J used requests primarily to request various actions to do

with objects (Give me a paper);
R later also used them for general actions

8. Conclusion
-

learners underwent considerable development, but failed to develop both the full range of
request types and a broad linguistic repertoire for performing the types they did acquire
they also failed to develop the sociolinguistic competence needed to vary their choice of
request to take account of different addressees
One possible explanation:
although the classroom context fostered interpersonal and expressive needs in the
two learners, it did not provide the conditions for real sociolinguistic needs
it may have provided a context for the acquisition of basic request forms, but not
elaborate forms

Study: Analysis of appropriateness in a speech act of request in L2 English (Taguchi 2006)

1. Introduction
Research has examined production of pragmatic function in the last decades
o Pragmatic production = ability to perform speech functions appropriately in social
contexts
Appropriateness is reflected at multiple levels:
a) knowledge of conventions of a society
b) linguistic expression and abilities that enable learners to
communicate successfully in L2
2. Background

Important: L2 learning does not focus on grammar any more in communicative competence
BUT: functional and sociolinguistic control has become important
Appropriateness of pragmatic performance depends on sufficient linguistic and pragmatic
knowledge and capacities to use knowledge in communicative interaction
Bachmann and Palmers: Two major subcomponents of communicative ability
1. Language knowledge: grammatical and discourse knowledge
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 Pragmatic knowledge: functional and sociolinguistic knowledge

2. Strategic competence: metacognitive component, encompasses three areas:
Goal setting
Assessment
Planning
Language knowledge, pragmatic knowledge and strategic competence contribute to the
effectiveness of L2 pragmatic performance
Question: Do other linguistic abilities (discourse management skills, grammaticality of
utterances) also contribute to better speech act production?
Appropriateness of L2 should be investigated in different perspectives (quantitatively
and qualitatively)
1. Quantitatively: by native speaker raters rating learner performance on a sixpoint scale
2. Qualitatively: identify linguistic expressions used to perform requests
3. Study

Appropriateness examined by two methods combined

o 1. Rating overall appropriateness of speech acts
o 2. Analysing linguistic expressions used
Research questions: How do appropriateness ratings and linguistic expressions compare to
each other in capturing the quality of speech act production between learners of different
proficiency levels?
Participants
o 20 native English speakers (provided baseline data)
o 59 Japanese learners of English; divided into two groups
Low proficiency
High proficiency
Proficiency determined according to TOEFL
Oral proficiency: ACTFL proficiency guidelines (8-point rating scale)

3.1. Elicitation of request speech act

Task was developed to elicit participants ability to understand situational information and to
produce speech acts of requests appropriately in role plays.
Requests interesting: can lead to communication breakdown or unintended offense (facethreatening acts)
Two different types of situations were created
o PDR-low: the power (P) relationship was equal, the distance (D) between the
interlocutors was small and the degree of imposition (R) was small (e.g. asking a
friend to lend you a pen)
o PDR-high: listener had greater power, the interlocutor distance was large and the
degree of imposition was also large (e.g. asking teacher to take an exam another day)
The distinction between PDR high/low situations was confirmed through a pilot study

4. Analysis of request speech act

4.1. Rating scale for appropriateness

Appropriateness measured by 6 point rating scale

Evaluated directness / politeness in different situations
Grammatical competence and discourse control also incorporated (speech acts received low
ratings if grammatical or word choice errors were made)
Evaluation by 6 native speakers

4.2. Coding framework for linguistic expressions

Linguistic analysis: identify main linguistic

expressions which were then classified in
directness levels based on a coding
system by Blum Kulka (CCSARP)

4.3. Data collection procedures and Analysis

Role plays; everyone got unlimited time

to prepare
Role plays were tape-recorded
Three separate analyses:
o Descriptive analysis of appropriateness ratings between learners of different
proficiency
o Descriptive analysis of the types of linguistic expression between learners of
different proficiency
o Comparison between the ratings and linguistic expressions used by the learners
5. Results

5.1. Analysis of appropriateness ratings

High proficiency group: little difference between PDR high/low situations

Low proficiency group: mean for PDR-low requests was greater than for PDR-high

5.2. Analysis of linguistic expressions

PDR-low situations
a) direct expressions
o Low Proficiency group: overuse of
imperatives + please
b) indirect expressions
o High proficiency group used more
preparatory questions (would you+
verb) than lower learners

PDR high situations

o Low L2: many imperatives and hints
o 100% natives used mitigatedpreparatory expressions; this form
almost absent in both learner
groups
o learners tried to be less
straightforward to minimize
possible threat/offense
o BUT: hinting not effective, resulted
in lower appropriateness in PDR
high.

Discussion:
Native Speaker asking to reschedule the exam(1)

Lower L2 learner (3)

Higher L2 learner (2)

Lower L2 learner- being polite (4)

L2 groups: overuse of hints: may stem from the

combination of their limited linguistic abilities and
intentions to appear polite
PDR low situations:
o hints were almost absent in both groups
(= more direct)
More hinting in PDR high than in PDR low
situations because: ________________________
________________________________________
________________________________________
________________________________________

BUT: hinting not effective, resulted in lower appropriateness in PDR high.

L2 learners not familiar with such expressions
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Proficiency could influence more native-like production, but some complex linguistic forms
may be difficult even for higher proficiency learners to utilize.
Speech act is established by the interlocutor and the learner interlocutor helped learner to
appear effective

5.3. Comparison between ratings and types of linguistic expressions

relationship between the appropriateness ratings and the different types of linguistic
expressions used
Appropriateness ratings for both groups by expression types for PDR-low situations
o Direct expressions: lower rating for both groups (suggestion: difference between the
directness of linguistic expressions affected the ratings) no significant group
difference in direct expressions
o Indirect expressions:
higher L2 learners slightly higher scores than lower L2 learners
grammatical and discourse features may have influenced the
appropriateness evaluation of requests
Appropriateness ratings for both groups by expression types for PDR-high situations
o More difference in appropriateness between both groups (maybe because of
potential interaction between situation types and L2 proficiency)
o PDR-high requests more difficult to perform because: politeness and complex
linguistic expression ( greater proficiency impact)
Direct expressions: lower ratings in both groups (implies that the difference
between directness levels of expression affected appropriateness)
However: even using the same direct expressions, higher L2 learners received
higher appropriateness scores than the lower group. (same for indirect
expressions)
Suggests that group differences in appropriateness scores did not seem to perfectly
reflect only the types of linguistic forms used for requests. ( grammar and discourse
control affected the evaluation of appropriateness of requests)
6. Discussion
a) Appropriateness

Higher proficiency = higher appropriateness

Quality of speech acts depend on pragmatic aspect, discourse aspect and grammatical
aspect
Comparison between average appropriateness scores and the choices of linguistic expression
suggests that grammatical and discourse control influenced the speech acts (particularly in
PDR high situations)
b) Linguistic expression

PDR high situations: frequencies of both groups were similar in the types of linguistic forms
However: when using the same types of direct expressions, the higher L2 got greater
appropriateness ratings.
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differences resulted from grammatical and discourse features that accompanied

the forms
o Ex.: Could you lend me the pen
considered proper in direct level BUT in lower L2 it was only rated as two (= not
appropriate) because of long pauses
General: high level of discourse and grammatical competence do not guarantee high levels of
pragmatic production but serve as necessary conditions.

7. Conclusion

Pragmatic performance is more than just using formulaic utterances

Speech act is also best evaluated when embedded in communicative context
Speech act should be treated as creative discourse with:
o Pragmatic appropriateness of utterances
o Grammaticality of utterances
o Smooth continuity in ongoing talk
Important: one should avoid to be face-threatening BUT nevertheless be clear (in PDR high
requests, lower L2 learners were too ambiguous, inexplicit)
Lack of clarity resulted in lower appropriateness scores of PDR high speech acts
Speech act production:
o In spoken performance: use of strategies play an important role because they can be
used as problem-solving strategies to compensate for a lack of linguistic and
sociocultural knowledge

Study: The effect of pragmatic Instruction on Speech act Performance (Takahashi 2010)
To what extent is the teachability of second-language speech acts constrained by the nature of
intervention and learner-attributable factors?

Pragmatic Instructional Studies (PIS) in foreign language contexts, that is, the foreign
language classroom can often lead to a limited exposure and possibilities to practice in the
TL, especially in pragmatic understanding. (Importance of social environments)

Two factors in teachability:

o (i.) the nature of pragmatic instruction
o (ii.) the characteristics of learners.

Distinction between explicit and implicit intervention in pragmatic teachability.

Metapragmatic info.

Reactive (meaningful
communication)/Proactive
(predetermined
communicative activities).

FonF (Focus
primarily on
meaning and
form.

Three claims of Explicit vs Implicit interventions:

o (i.) large effects of explicit intervention are not ensured in every aspect of pragmatic
learning
o (ii.) sociopragmatic knowledge is less likely to be acquired through implicit
intervention and
o (iii.) some forms of implicit intervention are as effective as explicit intervention

Conclusion
Proficiency of Explicit and implicit interventions depends highly on various factors such as:

Source language dependent: Cohen and Ishihara (2005) and Pearson (2001).
Motivation: A learners attitude towards the TL community may constrain their pragmatic
development: Thus teachers should select the normative variety in a relatively sensitive
manner.
learners determine whether and to what extent they follow the TL sociocultural norms
The case of unnatural (classroom) and real world language learning environments

9. Bibliography:
Ellis, R. (1992): Learning to communicate in the classroom. A study of two language learners
requests. In: Studies in Second Language Acquisition 14.1 1-23.
Taguchi, N. (2006): Analysis of appropriateness in a speech act of request in L2 English. In:
Pragmatics: Quarterly Publication of the International Pragmatics Association 16.4. 5013-533.
Takahashi, S. (2010): The effect of pragmatic instruction on speech act performance. In: MartnezFlor, A., E. Us-Juan & L. Pearson (eds.): Speech Act Performance. Theoretical, Empirical and
Methodological Issues. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 127-142.
Xiao-Le, Gu. (2011): The Effect of Explicit and Implicit Instructions of Request Strategies. In:
Intercultural Communication Studies, 20:1. 102-123

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