Pragmatics

In the past decades, complex dynamic systems theory (CDST) has been used as an important framework for studying second language development. CDST is a metatheory of change and focuses on processes. Even though it has been broadly accepted as an inspiring dimension of research in psychology, sociology and second language development, some scholars have raised questions about the methodologies used, the interpretation of the data, and the nature of its claims. Specifically, Pallotti questioned whether CDST generates testable hypotheses, and criticized its position towards reductionism and generalizability, based on philosophical argumentations. The present article evaluates the issues addressed, reviews the work that has already been done, and looks ahead at future CDST applications to research in second language development, by exploring recent methodological developments in the field.

In this chapter we look at what research has to say about second language identity, the central theme of this book. According to our working definition, second language identity refers to any aspect of a person’s identity that is related to their knowledge and use of a second language. We begin, therefore, with a discussion of the wider construct of identity and its links to narrative and second language learning. We then look more closely at the concept of second language identity itself and conclude with a brief discussion of the role of ‘critical experiences’, such as study abroad, in the development of second language identities.KeywordsLanguage LearningIdentity DevelopmentIdentity WorkProjected IdentityIdentity CategoryThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

Working memory (WM) is inherently dynamic and complex, being a multi-faceted system that links storage and processing components; yet it is widely understood as internal. Hence, in second language (L2) research, its connection to complex dynamic systems theory (CDST) remains underspecified. This paper seeks to bridge a gap between CDST and WM in L2 research. First, definitions of WM are reviewed, along with evidence for its relationship to L2 outcomes. Next, a brief overview of CDST highlights its metatheoretical and methodological implications. Three perspectives are presented to illustrate how WM can be viewed in terms of major tenets in CDST. These consider WM effects as: (1) context-dependent, (2) interrelated with those of other variables, and (3) amenable to change across the lifespan. Despite this reappraisal, numerous challenges remain. Thus, in addition to noting research opportunities, the paper also considers measurement issues, such as the determination of boundaries and selection of appropriate timescales. In closing, while WM studies have shown its influence on L2 proficiency and processing, to more fully understand its dynamic nature, what is needed is further research on the reciprocal influences of bilingual development and changes in WM components, such as control of attention.

In this article, I discuss current research issues and practices in second language (L2) pragmatics research, focusing on how mixed methods are applied in the existing literature. The paper begins by introducing fundamental principles and three core mixed methods approaches, in each case synthesizing unique characteristics in terms of the integration of qualitative and quantitative methods and data interpretation. A critical review of different mixed methods approaches intends to help readers understand the strengths and weaknesses of each approach and make a principled decision. I then provide an overview of the recent trend in applying mixed methods in L2 pragmatics research, examining research purposes and the type of mixed methods designs utilized. I also offer an in-depth discussion of exemplary L2 pragmatics research that employed mixed methods focusing on underlying rationales for using the mixed methods and ways to achieve high degrees of integration at various stages of the study. The paper concludes with challenges in applying mixed methods and suggestions on how to advance the current practice of mixed methods in L2 pragmatics in future research.

This chapter discusses naturally occurring data and their use in pragmatics research that focuses on spoken language. It also discusses the two ways in which naturally occurring data are typically collected, namely using field notes and recordings. A useful definition of what counts as naturally occurring data is provided by Potter, who suggests using the 'dead social scientist's test'. Several studies have compared naturally occurring data with data obtained through other elicitation methods, such as role plays, written or oral discourse completion tasks (DCTs) or questionnaires. Comparisons between role plays and naturally occurring data have shown that role plays capture interactional details and thus yield more realistic data than other data elicitation methods. Researchers take field notes on site either as observers or as participant observers. Recorded naturally occurring data allows for exact and repeated analysis of the linguistic material, and for data verification by other researchers.

This dissertation study investigated motivation as related to goal-directed activity and gesture awareness as well as their interplay in second and foreign language development in different English as a foreign language (EFL) and English as a second language (ESL) contexts. This study included four groups of Chinese learners of English. The first EFL group consisted of college students in China learning English without intention of studying abroad (G1) and the second EFL group in China included Chinese learners of English who were learning English to prepare to study abroad (G2). Participants in the first ESL group were living and studying abroad (G3) while the second group consisted of students who had returned to China after completing their study abroad experience but continued to use English for academic studies and work (G4). This explanatory sequential mixed methods research design involved quantitative data of motivation and gesture awareness surveys and then further explained the quantitative results with qualitative data of video recorded gesture tasks and semi-structured interviews. The quantitative analysis of motivation tested mean differences of motivation constructs (ideal L2 self, ought-to L2 self, and attitudes toward learning English) based on the second language motivational self-system (L2MSS) (Dörnyei, 2005; 2009) as well as intended effort as a measurement criterion. In the results, participants in the EFL context intended to put in more effort and had lower ideal L2 self than participants in the ESL context. Results found no difference between the EFL and ESL contexts with regard to ought-to L2 self and attitudes toward learning English. In the EFL context, G2 were highly motivated than G1 in terms of ideal L2 self, attitudes toward learning English, and intended to put into more effort. Additionally, the expectation that G3 would have the highest level of motivation was not supported. In fact, attitudes toward learning English were lower for G3 than G4. No statistical differences were found on ought-to L2 self across groups. These quantitative results were supported and clarified by the qualitative findings in phase 2. Motivation as related to goal-directed activity was found to be affected by the orientation of participants in each group toward learning English in association with their particular contexts. Overall findings of motivation as related to goal-directed activity proved highly coherent with the qualitative dimension supporting the quantitative results and providing nuanced and in-depth information on what motivated participants and why, how motivation shaped experience and how experience shaped motivation in each context. This study also created and validated the first usable scale of gesture awareness, and measurement and structural invariance tests showed that G3 had the lowest scores in terms of comprehension and production across the four groups. Interestingly, no difference was found between G2 and G4. Later, qualitative findings showed that G3 were more aware of their gesture, and their gesture production was more pragmatic than other groups. G1, in particular, were less conscious of gestural differences between Chinese and English than other groups. Quantitative results of gesture awareness were incongruent with qualitative findings, and specific investigation among each individual revealed the importance of conscious awareness of gesture and gesturing for pragmatics. This study is the first effort to examine the relationship between motivation and gesture awareness and found that the relationship was individual specific in the situated context for communicative needs. The integration of individual and contextual factors constituted the plasticity of second and foreign language development and showed the diversity of individual motivation and gesture awareness in different contexts. This dissertation study brings attention to agency, goals, goal-directed activity, and conscious awareness in EFL and ESL contexts for second and foreign language development.

When choosing instructional methods, instructional designers trade-off or sacrifice an outcome, such as effectiveness, efficiency, or appeal. In instructional planning theory, this is referred to as values about priorities. When values about priorities are combined with conditions about content, we expect that a different instructional outcome is sacrificed. The purpose of this research is to expand the ideas presented in our previous paper on the topic of how instructional designers actually use instructional planning theory to judge the usefulness of instructional methods. We asked 56 instructional designers to rate the usefulness of 31 instructional methods within four content conditions (cognitive, affective, psychomotor, and interpersonal) and three outcome values (effectiveness, efficiency, and appeal). The results show that learning domain, learning outcome, and the interaction of domain and outcome have a statistically-significant influence on a designer’s judgments regarding the usefulness of an instructional method. Furthermore, useful methods for cognitive content sacrifice appeal, useful methods for affective and psychomotor content sacrifice efficiency, and useful methods for interpersonal content sacrifice effectiveness. Overall, the results provide evidence that supports the core principles of instructional planning theory, specifically associated with the interaction between conditions and values. The results also provide instructional designers further guidance in selecting the most useful instructional methods.

Answers to the questions of which instructional methods are suitable for school, what instructional methods should be applied in teaching individual subjects and how instructional methods support the act of learning represent challenges to general education and education in individual subjects. This study focuses on the empirical examination of learning outcome in engineering educationwith respect to two instructional methods: direct instruction and computer simulation. A CRF 2x2 design is used to control instructional method and class context. Learning outcome on bridge construction is assessed with reference to the optics of bridge and the material usage for the bridge. The empirical findings show that learning with direct instruction was superior to computer simulation.

We take as our point of departure the usage-based assumption that grammar emerges from language use and briefly review the claims regarding the storage of linguistic experiences and the gradual nature of generalization. We argue that in addition to studying the long-term effects of distributional evidence in the input, the usage-based paradigm should take up related research in pragmatics and cognitive linguistics with a focus on the “online” properties of the situation. By putting interaction center-stage, we can study the development of children’s emerging conversational skills, but also draw on the full richness of the situation, which provides further cues to language learning.

Although several researchers have demonstrated that foreign language (FL) learning experience has a limited effect on the short-term development of second language (L2) fluency, recent studies have suggested that learners can gain long-term (over one year) benefits from FL learning experiences. As a part of the present study, 50 Japanese university students were exposed to L2 learning experience over the course of one academic year to monitor its impact on L2 fluency measures (i.e. speed, breakdown, and repair fluency) in FL context. The relationship between the development of L2 fluency measures and learners’ learning experiences inside and outside the classroom was also investigated. The results showed a significant decrease in the length of between-clause and within-clause pauses that learners made. Furthermore, the correlational analysis showed that their L2 learning experience was uniquely associated with the development of between-clause pause frequency and repair frequency. These findings suggest that, while relatively long-term FL learning impacts the development of L2 fluency, it produces a unique pattern, whereby the effectiveness of FL learning is influenced by how students make the best use of their learning experiences.

Although the development of second language (L2) oral fluency has been widely investigated over the past several decades, there remains a paucity of research examining language instruction specifically aimed at improving this cognitive skill. In this study, the researchers investigate how instructional techniques adapted from drama can positively impact L2 fluency, comprehensibility, and accentedness—three frequently discussed dimensions of L2 speech. Following a pretest–posttest design, the researchers obtained speech samples from 24 adolescent Brazilian EFL learners before and after their participation in a 4-month drama-based English language program. The development of oral skills by this group was compared with that of a parallel group of learners who received 4 months of instruction in a traditional communicative EFL classroom. Thirty untrained Canadian native English speaker raters evaluated randomized recorded L2 speech samples and provided impressionistic scalar judgments of fluency, comprehensibility, and accentedness. Results indicate that drama-based instruction can lead to significantly larger gains in L2 English oral fluency relative to more traditional communicative EFL instruction; comprehensibility scores also appear to be impacted, but with a much smaller effect; accentedness scores do not seem to benefit from one type of instruction over the other. The authors discuss implications for teaching practice.

In this chapter, I overview current research issues in L2 pragmatic learning, instruction, and assessment. The chapter begins by discussing how pragmatic competence has been conceptualized under various theoretical and analytical frameworks and then examines the recent development of data collection methods in pragmatics research focusing on how pragmatic competence has been operationalized. Two example studies are discussed to illustrate the distinct data collection and analytical approaches in L2 pragmatics research. Along with the conceptual and methodological issues, the chapter offers a survey of research issues in pragmatic learning, instruction, and assessment, in each case synthesizing the research findings available across diverse contexts focusing on current research.

Various studies have been published based on complex dynamic systems theoretical (CDST) interpretations of second language development (SLD). According to these approaches, a second language emerges in a specific and dynamic communicative context as a result of a process of self‐organization. This research has provided empirical support for the existence of the main theoretical concepts of CDST, such as the fact that the course of development is highly idiosyncratic, that SLD is nonlinear and variable, and that complex interactions exist between variables within and outside the individual.

The study examines teaching and assessment methods used by vocational technical education teachers in teaching and assessing entrepreneurship education learning outcomes in Colleges of Education in the South-South Geo-political Zone of Nigeria. The study used survey research design. A census of entrepreneurship teachers conducted in the three Federal Colleges of Education in the South-South Geo-political zone yielded a population of 30 teachers. Structured questionnaire was the research instrument. Data were analyzed using SPSS. The findings show that teachers routinely use ineffective traditional teaching and assessment methods in entrepreneurship education instruction. Pedagogies that maximize entrepreneurial learning outcomes for achieving the self-employment objective of entrepreneurship education in Colleges of Education were recommended.

Theoretical, empirical, and practical interest in pragmatic competence and development for second language (L2) learners has resulted in a large body of literature on teaching L2 pragmatics. This body of literature has diverged into two major domains: (a) a group of experimental studies directly testing the efficacy of various instructional methods in pragmatics learning and (b) research that explores optimal instructional practice and resources for pragmatic development in formal classroom settings. This article reviews literature in these two domains and aims at providing a collective view of the available options for pragmatics teaching and the ways that pragmatic development can best be promoted in the classroom. In the area of instructional intervention, this article reviews studies under the common theoretical second language acquisition paradigms of explicit versus implicit instruction, input processing instruction, and skill acquisition and practice. In the area of classroom practice and resources, three domains of research and pedagogical practices are reviewed: material development and teacher education, learner strategies and autonomous learning, and incidental pragmatics learning in the classroom. Finally, this article discusses unique challenges and opportunities that have been embraced by pragmatics teaching in the current era of poststructuralism and multiculturalism.