INTRODUCTION
Statement of the Problem
Since 1986, after having launched its open-door policy ―Doi Moi‖, Vietnam has gone through remarkable changes to be a market economy and set up relations with more than 200 countries and regions in the world It also became a member of many important organizations such as ASEAN, AFTA, APEC, ASEM, WTO and so on In this converging trend, Vietnam is becoming more and more involved in international trade and investment
To keep track of this globalization trend, the Vietnamese government has encouraged its citizens to learn English As a result, English has become the most popular foreign language studied in schools and colleges Also, some international certificates like TOEIC, TOEFL and IELTS have gradually become a requirement for college graduates and employees who need to achieve academic success as well as effective communication
As a matter of fact, learners of English often find these tests quite challenging, especially the listening part as mentioned by Brown (2006:1), ―Listening in another language is a hard job‖ To take TOEFL PBT Listening Part as an example, its materials often include dialogs, academic lectures and long conversations that require test-takers to have to infer the speakers‘ implicit ideas, attitudes or purposes Thus, besides the language competence, test-takers need pragmatic knowledge to do the tests
However, up to now, few studies on the barriers TOEFL PBT test-takers have encountered have been carried out Therefore, this study is conducted to investigate a dispreferred second turns and linguistic units to signal them in Part A - Listening
Comprehension Section of TOEFL PBT tests in order to work out some tips that help test-takers to cope with these kinds of questions
In short, the crucial role of TOEFL tests, the difficulties facing TOEFL test-takers, the lack of attention of the previous papers and self-interest in Pragmatics are the motivation for the author to conduct the study on ―Dispreferred second turns used in
Part A – Listening Section of TOEFL PBT”.
Research Question
The research seeks the answer to the following question:
What are the general patterns of dispreferred structures and the common linguistic features indicating them in Part A - Listening Comprehension Section of TOEFL PBT?
More obviously, to solve the research question, the study is conducted to:
Provide readers with basic knowledge of speech acts, conversation analysis, adjacency pairs and preference structure
Find out the general patterns of dispreferred structures used in Part A - Listening Section of TOEFL PBT
Examine the linguistic features signaling dispreferred responses in Part A - Listening Comprehension of TOEFL PBT
Provide potential test-takers with practical knowledge to deal with TOEFL PBT questions containing dispreferred-second-turn questions
First and foremost, this paper can be used as a useful reference source for teachers as well as learners who have been teaching and studying TOEFL PBT It enables them to understand conversation analysis, adjacency pairs, preference structure, dispreferreds, their general patterns and the linguistic units signaling them more deeply Good understanding and full consciousness can help them deal with listening questions in Part A - TOEFL PBT more easily At the same time, deep knowledge can let them communicate in English in a more natural and effective way, particularly when giving an indirect decline, refusal or disagreement
Secondly, teachers and learners of TOEFL PBT can use the paper as a handbook to seek some tips to cope with questions that contain dispreferred-second-turn responses in Listening Comprehension Section
Last but not least, researchers of related fields can also use the paper for reference and suggestions for deeper studies
Due to time constraints and within the framework of a minor thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts in English Linguistics, the present study only investigates the small aspects of preference structure: the common patterns of dispreferred-second acts and the frequently used linguistic features to indicate them in Part A - TOEFL PBT Listening Section
The research focuses on the analysis of the transcripts of 50 out of 300 dialogs that contain the utterances of dispreferreds in Part A - Listening Comprehension taken from 10 Complete Practice Tests of three books including TOEFL Success 2000 by
Bruce Rogers, The Heinle & Heinle TOEFL Test Assistant Listening by Milada
Broukal and TOEFL Practice Tests Volume 3 by ETS
The study includes three parts:
Part I is the Introduction of the study which states the problem, the research question, objectives, scope, significance and design of the entire paper
Part II is the Development which consists of two chapters Chapter 1 presents the theoretical background related to the topic Chapter 2 includes database of the study, methodology, data analysis procedure, and discussion of data analysis
Part III is the Conclusion which summarizes major findings of the investigation and provides implications for teaching and learning TOEFL PBT This part also points out some limitations of the research & makes suggestions for further studies.
Significance of the study
First and foremost, this paper can be used as a useful reference source for teachers as well as learners who have been teaching and studying TOEFL PBT It enables them to understand conversation analysis, adjacency pairs, preference structure, dispreferreds, their general patterns and the linguistic units signaling them more deeply Good understanding and full consciousness can help them deal with listening questions in Part A - TOEFL PBT more easily At the same time, deep knowledge can let them communicate in English in a more natural and effective way, particularly when giving an indirect decline, refusal or disagreement
Secondly, teachers and learners of TOEFL PBT can use the paper as a handbook to seek some tips to cope with questions that contain dispreferred-second-turn responses in Listening Comprehension Section
Last but not least, researchers of related fields can also use the paper for reference and suggestions for deeper studies
Due to time constraints and within the framework of a minor thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts in English Linguistics, the present study only investigates the small aspects of preference structure: the common patterns of dispreferred-second acts and the frequently used linguistic features to indicate them in Part A - TOEFL PBT Listening Section
The research focuses on the analysis of the transcripts of 50 out of 300 dialogs that contain the utterances of dispreferreds in Part A - Listening Comprehension taken from 10 Complete Practice Tests of three books including TOEFL Success 2000 by
Bruce Rogers, The Heinle & Heinle TOEFL Test Assistant Listening by Milada
Broukal and TOEFL Practice Tests Volume 3 by ETS
The study includes three parts:
Part I is the Introduction of the study which states the problem, the research question, objectives, scope, significance and design of the entire paper
Part II is the Development which consists of two chapters Chapter 1 presents the theoretical background related to the topic Chapter 2 includes database of the study, methodology, data analysis procedure, and discussion of data analysis
Part III is the Conclusion which summarizes major findings of the investigation and provides implications for teaching and learning TOEFL PBT This part also points out some limitations of the research & makes suggestions for further studies.
Design of the study
The study includes three parts:
Part I is the Introduction of the study which states the problem, the research question, objectives, scope, significance and design of the entire paper
Part II is the Development which consists of two chapters Chapter 1 presents the theoretical background related to the topic Chapter 2 includes database of the study, methodology, data analysis procedure, and discussion of data analysis
Part III is the Conclusion which summarizes major findings of the investigation and provides implications for teaching and learning TOEFL PBT This part also points out some limitations of the research & makes suggestions for further studies.
DEVELOPMENT
It goes a broad consensus that of all the issues in the general theory of language usage, the speech act (SA) theory has probably aroused the widest interest After Austin‘s initial investigation into SAs a few decades ago, the notion of SAs has become one of the most exciting notions to take a close look at
In linguistic pragmatics, SAs have remained the central phenomena that every general pragmatic theorist must take into account That is the reason why there have been a great number of works on SAs carried out by many philosophers and linguists such as Grice (1957, 1975), Searle (1969), Levinson (1983), Thomas (1995) and Yule (1996)
Most of these linguists and philosophers share the common idea that when producing utterances, interlocutors also perform actions, i.e ―in saying something the speaker (S) does something‖ (Austin, 1962)
Briefly speaking, ―actions performed via utterances‖ are called speech acts (Yule,
1996: 47) According to Searle (1969: 16), these SAs, considered ‗the basic or minimal units of linguistic communication, are performed in authentic situations of language use
In English, SAs are commonly given specific labels such as greeting, assessment, offer, agreement, disagreement, compliment, apology, complaint, invitation, request, refusal, blame, acceptance, denial, admission, question, answer, proposal or promise.
LITERATURE REVIEW
Speech Acts
It goes a broad consensus that of all the issues in the general theory of language usage, the speech act (SA) theory has probably aroused the widest interest After Austin‘s initial investigation into SAs a few decades ago, the notion of SAs has become one of the most exciting notions to take a close look at
In linguistic pragmatics, SAs have remained the central phenomena that every general pragmatic theorist must take into account That is the reason why there have been a great number of works on SAs carried out by many philosophers and linguists such as Grice (1957, 1975), Searle (1969), Levinson (1983), Thomas (1995) and Yule (1996)
Most of these linguists and philosophers share the common idea that when producing utterances, interlocutors also perform actions, i.e ―in saying something the speaker (S) does something‖ (Austin, 1962)
Briefly speaking, ―actions performed via utterances‖ are called speech acts (Yule,
1996: 47) According to Searle (1969: 16), these SAs, considered ‗the basic or minimal units of linguistic communication, are performed in authentic situations of language use
In English, SAs are commonly given specific labels such as greeting, assessment, offer, agreement, disagreement, compliment, apology, complaint, invitation, request, refusal, blame, acceptance, denial, admission, question, answer, proposal or promise
These terms for SAs are used to name the S's communicative intentions and the hearer (H) is expected to correctly interpret the S's intentions via the process of inferences
“Hi, Mary How are things going?" greeting
"Could you lend me your pen, please?" request
Conversation Analysis
The term ―conversation‖ may be taken to be the familiar predominant ―type of talk in which two or more participants freely alternate in speaking, which generally occurs outside specific institutional settings like religious services, law courts, classrooms and the like‖ (Levinson , 1983: 284) In other words, conversation can be understood as talks produced in ordinary human interactions Levinson does not see conversation as a structural product as the sentence but the outcome of the interaction of two or more independent, goal-directed individuals, with often divergent interests
The approach used to analyze conversations is called conversation analysis (CA) which, at its core, in Sidnell‘s words (2010), is a set of methods for working with audio and video recordings of talk and social interaction It is regarded as a social- science approach that has the primary purpose of describing, analyzing and understanding talk as a basic and constitutive feature of human social life
Also discussing CA, Hutchby & Wooffitt (2008) calls it ‗the study of recorded, naturally occurring talk-in-interaction‘ that aims to discover how speakers understand and respond to one another in their turns at talk CA serves as a central focus on how sets of action are generated In other words, the aim of CA is to uncover the often tacit reasoning procedures and sociolinguistic competencies underlying the production and interpretation of talk in organized sequences of interaction
The purpose of CA, according to Levinson (1983: 287), is to discover the systematic properties of the sequential organization of talk, and the ways in which utterances are designed to manage such sequences CA has to satisfy two requirements First, its methods need to be inductive - search is made for recurring patterns across many records of naturally occurring conversations Second, the emphasis should be put on the interactional and inferential consequences of the choice between alternative utterances
When it comes to the analytic studies on English data, local management organizations in conversation, namely turn-taking and adjacency pairs, cannot be omitted
According to Levinson (1983: 296), it can be easily seen that conversation is characterized by turn-taking: one participant, A, talks, stops; another, B, starts, talks, stops; and we obtain A-B-A-B-A-B distribution of talk across two participants
To share this opinion, Yule (1996: 71) also states that the structure of conversation is based on ―analogy with the workings of a market economy‖ in which there is a scarce commodity - the floor or the right to speak Having control of this right at any time, the speaker gets a turn In any situation, where control is not fixed in advance, anyone can attempt to get control, we have turn-taking
Let us now turn to another local management organization in conversation - adjacency pairs - that is one of the most significant contributions of CA
Adjacency pairs are defined by Levinson (1983: 303) as the kind of paired utterances of which question-answer, greeting-greeting, offer-acceptance, apology- minimization, etc., are prototypical
Yule (1996: 77) calls adjacency pairs ―automatic patterns/sequences in the structure of conversations‖ that always ―consist of a first part and a second part produced by different speakers‖ Adjacency pairs, according to Yule, can be greeting-greeting, question-answer, thank-response, request-acceptance, etc For example,
Anna: How are you? Bill : Fine!
Anna: See ya! Bill: Bye!
Thornbury & Slade (2006) show that an adjacency pair consists of two turns made by different speakers which are placed adjacently and where the second utterance is identified as related to the first An adjacency pair can be include question-answer; complaint-denial; offer-accept; request-grant; compliment-rejection; challenge- rejection, and instruct-receipt According to Thornbury & Slade (2006), adjacency pairs typically have three characteristics: they consist of two utterances; the utterances are adjacent, i.e the first immediately follows the second; and different speakers produce each utterance
In addition, adjacency pairs, in Yule‘s perspective, are not simply contentless noises in sequence They represent social actions, and not all of social actions are equal when they occur as second turns of some pairs
Levinson (1983: 306-07) states that there is a problem that arises with the notion of an adjacency pair concerns the range of potential seconds to a first part The problem here is that a first part may, in fact, receive a great many acceptable responses rather than the fixed one in its pair For instance, a question can have some proper responses other than an answer such as protestations of ignorance, re-routes, refusals to provide an answer, and challenges to the presuppositions or sincerity of the question:
A : What does John do for a living?
B : a Oh that and this b He doesn‟t c I have no idea d What‟s that got to do with it?
We have another case in which the response to a question is not an answer but a promise to provide an answer at a later date, together with an account that explains the deferral:
A: Yes // how many tubes would you like sir? ((Q1)) B: Er, hh I‟ll tell you what I‟ll just eh eh ring you back I have to work out how many I‟ll need Sorry I did- wasn‟t sure of the price you see
(Levinson, 1983: 305) Therefore, although the response to a first part may be limited, they certainly do not form a small set This does seem to undermine the structural significance of the idea of adjacency pair that is revived by the concept of preference organization/ structure.
Preference structure
Yule (1996: 78) mentions that basically, a first part that contains a request or an offer is typically made in the expectation that the second part will be an acceptance An acceptance is structurally more likely than a refusal This structural likelihood is called preference Preference is the term used to indicate a socially determined structural pattern and does not refer to any individual‘s mental or emotional desires Sharing this attitude, Levinson (1983: 332-333) claims that the notion of preference is not intended as a psychological claim about speaker‘s or hearer‘s desires, but as a label for a structural phenomenon very close to the linguistic concept of ―markedness” In brief, preference is not a personal wish but an observed pattern in talk
Preference structure divides second turns into two categories, i.e preferred and dispreferred social acts The preferred is the structurally expected next act and the dispreferred one is the structurally unexpected act
According to Comrie (1976a: 114), ―unmarked categories tend to have less morphological material than marked categories‖ and there is ―greater likelihood of morphological irregularity in unmarked forms‖ As a matter of fact, the preferred second turns to different and unrelated adjacency pair first parts have less material than the dispreferred ones Therefore, in essence, preferred second acts are unmarked because they occur as structurally simpler turns On the contrary, owing to its various kinds of structural complexity, dispreferreds are marked
1.3.2 General patterns of preference structure
Levinson (1983: 336) states that ―Given a structural characterization of preferred and dispreferred turns we can then correlate the content and the sequential position of such turns with the tendency to produce them in a preferred or dispreferred format‖ And we can find recurrent and reliable patterns, for example, a disagreement of an assessment or a proposal are nearly always in a dispreferred format while an agreement is certainly in a preferred format The following table indicates the sort of consistent match between the format and the content found across a number of adjacency pair seconds
Table 1 - Correlations of content and format in adjacency pair seconds
Request Offer/ Invite Assessment Question Blame
Preferred Acceptance Acceptance Agreement Expected answer Denial
Dispreferred Refusal Refusal Disagreement Unexpected answer/ non-answer
Also talking about the correlations of content and format in adjacency pair second responses, Yule (1996: 79), however, names this the general patterns of preferred and dispreferred structures And he presents these general patterns in a different way as we can see in the table below:
Assessment Invitation Offer Proposal Request
Preferred Dispreferred agree accept accept agree accept disagree refuse decline disagree refuse
Table 2 - The general patterns of preferred and dispreferred structures
From the table we can see that it comes to considering request or offer as first parts, acceptance is the preferred second act and refusal is the dispreferred one We can have some illustrations below:
Yule (1996) states that silence in the second part is always a dispreferred response, often leading the first speaker to a revision of the first part in order to get a second part that is not silence from the other speaker Non-response communicates that the speaker is not in a position to provide the preferred response, for example:
Sandy: But I'm sure they'll have good food there
Sandy: Hmm - I guess the food isn't great Jack: Nah - people mostly go for the music
(Yule, 1996: 80) Also, silence is risky as it may give the impression of non-participation in the conversational structure Generally speaking, when participants have to make a dispreferred second turn, they indicate that they are doing something very marked A dispreferred can be marked with an initial hesitation, a delay, a preface, an appeal to the views of others, or a stumbling repetition, and so on
The patterns related to a dispreferred second turns in English are presented as a series of optional elements by (Yule, 1996: 81) as follows:
How to do a dispreferred Examples a delay/hesitate b preface c express doubt d token Yes e apology f mention obligation g appeal for understanding h make it non—personal i give an account j use mitigators k hedge the negative pause; er; em; ah well; oh
I'm not sure; I don't know that's great; I'd love to I'm sorry; what a pity
I must do X; I'm expected in Y you see; you know everbody else; out there too much work; no time left really; mostly; sort of; kinda
We can take one dialog to analyze:
Becky: Come over for some coffee later Wally: Oh - eh - I'd love to - but you see - I - I'm supposed to get this finished - you know
In this conversation, such linguistic elements as a hesitation ‗oh – eh‘, preface/token Yes ‗I'd love to‘, stumbling repetition ‗I - I'm‘, account ‗I'm supposed to get this finished‘ and an invocation of understanding ‗but you see, you know‘ are used to create dispreferred second turns
Still discussing the linguistic features that signal dispreferred second responses, but Levinson (1983: 334) presents them in a different way as we can see below:
(a) delays: (i) by pause before delivery, (ii) by the use of a preface, (iii) by displacement over a number of turns via use of repair initiators or insertion sequences
(b) prefaces: (i) the use of markers or announcers of dispreferreds like
Uh and Well, (ii) the production of token agreements before disagreements, (iii) the use of appreciations if relevant (for offers, invitations, suggestions, advice), (iv) the use of apologies if relevant (for requests, invitations, etc), (v) the use of qualifiers (e.g I don‟t know for sure, but…), (vi) hesitation in various forms, including self- editing (c) accounts: carefully formulated explanations for why the
(dispreferred) act is being done (d) declination component: of a form suited to the nature of the first part of the pair, but characteristically indirect or mitigated
Looking at the linguistic elements that present dispreferreds, we can conclude that a dispreferred takes more time and more language than a preferred one.
Dispreferreds in Part A - Listening Comprehension of TOEFL PBT
Listening Comprehension Section of TOEFL is divided into three parts, each with a different format and a different direction Since July 1995, its standard form has followed this format:
Table 4 - Listening Comprehension Format in Standard Form
The first part of TOEFL PBT Listening Comprehension Section consists of conversations in which two Ss interact with each other A third S poses a question about what was said or implied in the conversation There are four answer choices for each dialog Test-takers are required to choose the best answer to the question he/she listens to and then mark the choice on their answer sheet
Most of the dialogs in Part A of TOEFL PBT involve a man and a woman each of whom usually speaks one or two sentences The topics of the dialogs in Part A are about facets of life at American universities (taking tests, talking to professors, writing research papers or attending classes) or about more general activities (shopping, looking for houses, taking vacations, etc)
According to Rogers (2000: 23), some of the items tests test-takers‘ ability to understand various language functions (my emphasis) For example, test-takers must be able to determine if a S is agreeing or disagreeing with the other S, or if one S is accepting or rejecting the other S‘s offer It means that in Part A, there are questions associated with dispreferred second acts Below are five kinds of questions in relation to the general patterns of dispreferred second turns in Part A - TOEFL PBT Listening
M1: We can still make it to the movie We‟d just miss the first ten minutes
F1: Over by the window, I‟d say There‟s not much point
M2: What does the woman imply?
(A) She does not mind if she misses ten minutes of the movie
(B) She thinks they can be there in no time
(C) She does not mind if they go or not
(D) She sees no reason to go if they miss the first ten minutes
The woman‘s reply indicates that there is no reason to go to the movie if they are going to miss the first ten minutes Therefore, the best choice is (D)
First, the questions belong to the pattern assessment-disagreement in which the first S gives an assessment of something and the second S disagrees with the idea
F1: I thought Cheryl‟s photographs were the best at the exhibit
M1: I didn‟t really see it that way
(Rogers, 2000: 46) The second kind is invitation-refusal More specific, the first S requests the second S to come somewhere or to take part in some activities; or invites him/her to do something; and the second S refuses the first S‘s invitations
M1: Would you like to join us on Sunday? We‟re going to go on a picnic at the lake
F1: I‟d love to, but I have a test Monday, and I have to get ready for it
(Rogers, 2000: 50) The third question type falls into offer-declination They are situations where the first
S proposes to help the second S or allows him/her to do something but the second one declines the offer For instance:
F1: Should I make reservations for dinner Friday night?
M1: Thanks anyway, but I‟ve already made them
(Rogers, 2000: 51) Fourth is the question of proposal-disagreement This is the kind of question in which the first S suggests a solution to something but the second S rejects it
F2: Maybe you could get a ride to campus with Peggy tomorrow
M1: Oh, Peggy no longer drives to class
Last comes request-refusal In this pattern, the first S asks the second S to do something; or asks him/her for help or information:
F1: Jim, can I have one of those bananas you bought?
M1: Sorry – they‟re still not ripe enough
To sum up, there are five patterns of dispreferreds that can appear in dialogs of Part A
- TOEFL PBT Listening Comprehension Section These patterns can appear in the dialogs that contain meaning questions such as ‗what does the man/woman mean?‘, inference questions like ‗what does the man/woman imply?‘, or questions about opinions like ‗how does the man/woman feel about…?‘ or questions about future actions, for example ‗what will the man do?‘, etc Most questions about dialogs focus on the second S‘s utterance Thus, it is important for learners and test-takers of TOEFL PBT to grasp knowledge of dispreferred second turns in Part A-Listening Section.
Previous works
The issues of CA and Preference Structure have been concerned by many researchers
Since the 1970s of the twentieth century, Pomerantz has paid attention to some features of the second assessment Her 1975 Ph.D dissertation can be regarded as her initial step In this paper, she carefully examines the major features of disagreeing and agreeing Later on, she takes account into the features of preferred and dispreferred turn shapes (Pomerantz, 1984a) The main features in preference structure, i.e preferred and dispreferred turns, used by second speakers to perform disagreeing/agreeing are looked at with great care
Also using data from naturally-occurring talk, Eisenstein & Bodman (1993) investigates the realization of gratitude by Americans and learners of English Then, friendly relationships in mundane everyday conversations Brown (2002) and Snow &
Blum-Kulka (2002) succeed in implementing naturalistic corpora while examining the effect of context and culture on a child‘s pragmatic development
Naturally-occurring conversation has been database for the research into ‗the preference for self-correction in the organization of repair in conversation‘ by Schegloff et al (1977), ‗the discursive accomplishment of normality: On "lingua franca" English and conversation analysis‘ by Firth (1996), „the relationship between context and the organization of repair in the L2 classroom by Seedhouse (1999), etc
Kieu T.T.H (2006) also employs the theoretical frameworks of Pragmatics and CA to conduct a study on the native perception and realization of the SA of disagreeing in English and Vietnamese Then, she maps out the differences in choosing politeness strategies to perform disagreements by speakers of English in North America and speakers of Vietnamese in Hanoi result from the differences in their assessment of socio-cultural parameters and social situations
All in all, there have been many linguistic investigations in which methods of CA and those of pragmatics are used The present paper just differs from the aforementioned works in the degree and size to which each approach is applied to sufficiently meet the requirements of the research question
This chapter reviews the previous studies as well as theories relevant to the study The focus of the study is on general patterns of dispreferreds and linguistic features indicating them so the description analyses of framework by Levinson (1983) and Yule (1996) are included in this chapter However, the author has chosen the theories proposed by Yule (1996) to analyze dispreferred expressions in Part A - Listening Comprehension of TOEFL PBT that is paid little
THE STUDY
Database
The corpus of the study consists of 50 adjacency pairs containing dispreferreds chosen from 300 dialogs in the three books: TOEFL Success 2000, The Heinle & Heinle TOEFL Test Assistant Listening and TOEFL Practice Tests Volume 3.
Methodology
The study has been carried out with a combination of analytic, descriptive, quantitative and qualitative methods based on the analysis of frequencies of using the general patterns of dispreferreds and the linguistic features signaling them in Part A - Listening Comprehension Section of TOEFL PBT
Among the above methods, quantitative one is given priority to because most of the conclusions and considerations are calculated and converted into charts and figures.
Procedure
There are four stages in the data collection:
Stage 1: The author read the theories related to the topic to grasp essential knowledge of SAs, CA, adjacency pairs and preference structure
Stage 2: The author studied the transcripts of 10 complete practice tests in three aforementioned TOEFL PBT books to collect data in order to find out which utterances contain dispreferreds and how many dialogs in which interlocutors use dispreferred second acts
Stage 3: The author identified which general pattern of dispreferreds was used in each dialog and which the most common pattern was Simultaneously, the author investigated which linguistic features signaling these dispreferred second turns
Stage 4: The author converted the results into numbers The coded data were then presented in charts and graphs.
Findings and discussion
The answer to the first half of the research question was found through reading, studying and analyzing the patterns of 50 adjacency pairs in 50 dialogs in Part A - Listening Comprehension Section of three aforementioned TOEFL PBT books containing dispreferred seconds In order to make it easier to interpret the result, the data of Question 1 have been processed and converted into chart form
Offer-Decline Proposal-Disagreement Request-Refusal
Figure 1: Common patterns of dispreferred second turns
The chart presents five columns Each of the five tested adjacency pairs containing dispreferreds, namely assessment - disagreement, invitation - refusal, offer - decline, proposal - disagreement and request - refusal is presented by one column
Looking at the statistics introduced in the graph, all the five observed patterns of dispreferred second responses appear in dialogs in Part A – Listening Comprehension Section of TOEFL PBT
Of the five observed patterns, assessment - disagreement ranks the most commonly used one This pattern is found in 22 out of 50 dialogs It is understandable because this pattern belongs to reference questions - ―the second most common part A question‖ as stated by Rogers (2000: 23)
Following this is the paired utterance invitation - refusal and request - refusal These two kinds of adjacency pairs appear 8 and 9 times respectively in the dialogs
The least popular pattern used here falls into offer - decline It is only found in 5 out of
2.4.2 Common linguistic features of dispreferreds
To solve the remaining half of the research question, the author has studied the dialogs one by one to work out the most frequently used linguistic units exhibiting dispreferred second acts in these dialogs and how these units work in each pair of dispreferreds The results were calculated, converted into a pie chart and analyzed
The following chart presents the frequent use of linguistic elements that indicate dispreferred second responses in 50 adjacency pairs taken from 10 TOEFL PBT tests
18% delay/hesitate preface express doubt token yes apology mention obligation appeal for understanding make it non-personal give an account use mitigators hedge the negative
As can be seen from the chart that the linguistic feature ‗give an account‘ is the most commonly used one which takes up 36% in total This is understandable that once the
S makes a disagreement or refusal to the H‘s utterance, he/she often has to explain what prevents him/her from agreeing with the H‘s assessment or proposal as well as from accepting the H‘s invitation, offer or request To put in another way, this linguistic element is considered the main tool for the second S to produce a dispreferred second turn
Next is the use of „hedge the negative‟ and „token yes‟ that take up 18% and 16% respectively In contrast, the frequencies of using the features including ‗mention obligation‟, „appeal for understanding‟ and ‗make it personal‘ are illegible All of these ones are often in the function of supplementary instrument for the second S to make a dispreferred before giving an account why he/she disagrees with the first S‘s utterance
To sum up, eight common linguistic features signaling dispreferreds have been found in Part A - TOEFL PBT Listening Comprehension Section However, each pattern of adjacency pairs is often indicated by different linguistic elements in different ways
The way of using the eight common linguistic elements could be pointed out in the following part
2.4.2.2 The ways eight common linguistic features are used
In this part, the ways that eight common elements indicating dispreferred second turns in TOEFL PBT Listening (according to figure 2 above), namely „give an account‟,
„hedge the negative‟, „token yes‟, „use mitigators‟, „preface‟, „delay/hesitate‟,
„apology‟ and „express doubt‟ are used will be discussed in meticulous detail a ‘Give an account’
From the above results, it can be concluded that the linguistic feature „give an account‟ are used in all the five patterns associated with dispreferreds in Part A - TOEFL PBT Listening Comprehension Section To illustrate, it appears in 15 out of 22 pairs of assessment - disagreement, 6 out of 8 pairs of invitation - refusal & request - refusal, and in all the pairs of offer - decline & proposal - disagreement
In terms of the paired utterances of assessment - disagreement , the second S often uses linguistic means to ‗give an account‟ to repair the first S‘s assessment and to confirm his/her opposite opinion; or to present illustrations and prove why he/she disagrees with the first S For example:
[1] F: Nancy didn't try out for the play, and now they've given the lead role to someone else
M1: Actually, she did try out but didn't make the cut
[2] M1: That was the most boring presentation I've ever heard in my life
F: I wouldn't go that far There were several interesting issues discussed
[3] F: You're so excited about moving into the dorm, aren't you?
M1: Not really I like living at home with my family
[4] F1: Uh, oh Your roommate's making dinner again Your kitchen is going to look like a tornado hit it
M1: Maybe not Last night he cooked dinner and left the kitchen spick-and- span
[5] F2: Have you seen Shelly recently? The last time I spoke to her she said she hadn't been feeling too well
M1: Well, when I saw her this morning, she was a picture of health
[6] F: Your football team didn't play very well
M: That's true, but at least we won the game
Regarding invitation - refusal , the second S is more likely to ‗give an account‘ to explain that they are too busy with their meetings, appointments, dates, work and other personal tasks to accept the first S‘s invitation; or talk about his/her unexpected accidents We can look at some examples below:
[7] M: We plan to go to the beach after class Want to come?
F: I'd love to, but Professor Jones wants to speak with me
[8] F: Would you like to join us on a charity run on Saturday?
M1: I would if I hadn't had an accident during the football game yesterday
[9] F: Look, they're advertising the Sports Show at the Convention Center Would you care to go?
M1: I'd love to, but I'm working overtime this week
[10] F: Jonathan, wouldn't you like to come to the cafe with us?
M1: Are you kidding? I'm swamped with homework
In the production of making a refusal to a request, the second S tends to provide the reason why he/she cannot accept the first S‘s request The reason here often shows the second S‘s limited ability or outside impossibility
[11] M: I need to get a copy of my birth certificate
F: Sorry, but we can only accept requests by mail now
[12] F: I want you to try that scene again, but this time do it with less anger and more concern
M1: But I don't understand why this character is reacting this way at all
[13] M1: My zoom lens isn't working properly Can you repair it?
F: I'm sorry We only sell photography equipment However, there's a repair shop just down the street
[14] M1: Would you mind giving these books to Professor Hata for me? He loaned them to me
F: I'm afraid I won't be seeing him today, since classes have been cancelled due to the snow storm
As for the pattern offer - declination , it is not uncommon for the second S to state the reasons that are in contrast to the first S‘s offer The purpose here is to say that the second S does not need the first S‘s help
[15] F: I've got a recipe for a garlic and hot pepper chicken dish Want to try it tonight with green salad?
M: You know, my stomach's a little on edge; I'd prefer something bland
[16] M1: Would you like me to put the name of each flower on a stick where we planted the seeds?
F: That won't be necessary I can remember what we planted
[17] M1: Would you like a piece of cake? I baked it for you
F: Why did you do that? You know I'm trying to lose weight
[18] F: Should I make plans for us to go river rafting in the Grand Canyon over the holiday?
M1: That won't be necessary I've already arranged it
Take the pattern proposal - disagreement into consideration, it can be seen that the second S normally provides a reason why it is unreasonable to follow the first S‘s suggestion
[19] M1: Do you want to make a pizza for dinner tonight?
F: That's too much work Let's order one
[20] F: It's chilly outside Why don't you wear the plaid jacket your aunt gave you for your birthday?
M1: Are you kidding? I wouldn't be caught dead in that jacket
In brief, it can be easily seen that in all the patterns of dispreferred second turns the second S employs the linguistic means ‗give an account‘ so as to give the reasons for his/her disagreement, refusal or declination with the first S‘s utterance The accounts or explanations are various They depend on the situations in which these interlocutors interact with each other However, in most cases of giving an account, we can see that there is the conjunction ―but‖ put just before the reason or explanation b ‘Hedge the negative’
This feature of dispreferred second response is mostly used in the two patterns offer - decline and assessment - disagreement To make a declination to an offer, the second
S presents objection to the first S‘s help; then to create a disagreement to an assessment, he/she mentions contradiction
[21] F: Should I make plans for us to go river rafting in the Grand Canyon over the holiday?
M1: That won't be necessary I've already arranged it
[22] M1: I understand you're flying back to Boston tomorrow Do you want me to take you to the airport?
F: Thanks, but that won't be necessary The hotel has a shuttle bus
[23] F: You're so excited about moving into the dorm, aren't you?
M1: Not really I like living at home with my family
[24] F: You hate this cold, snowy weather, don't you?
M1: Not at all It just means better conditions on the ski slopes
[25] F1: Hotel rooms along the beach must be very expensive
M2: Not now During the off-season, they're dirty cheap
Because of its characteristic, ‗token yes‟ is mainly deployed as a useful tool to make a refusal to an invitation and a disagreement to an assessment To produce a ‗token yes‟, the second S can say ‗yeah‘, ‗yes‘, ‗I‘d love to‘, ‗that‘s great‘, etc or tell something pleasant to appreciate the first S‘s invitation with the purpose of reducing the negative effect of their disagreement after that
[26] F: Would you like to join our study club tonight? It's a great way to improve your grades
M1: Sounds like a great idea, but I have to take care of my baby sister
[27] F: Look, they're advertising the Sports Show at the Convention Center Would you care to go?
M1: I'd love to, but I'm working overtime this week
[28] F: Look at the lion! Isn't it majestic?
M1: Yes it is, but I enjoy the elephants more Let's go see them again
[29] F: Your football team didn't play very well
M: That's true, but at least we won the game
CONCLUSION
Recapitulation
This research has been designed with the objectives of discovering the common patterns of dispreferred second acts often used in Part A - Listening Section of TOEFL PBT and the linguistic features frequently employed to denote these dispreferreds The results of the study can be summed up as follows:
1.1 The common patterns of dispreferreds
The results of the data analysis shows that all the five focused patterns of dispreferred second responses including assessment - disagreement, invitation - refusal, offer - decline, proposal - disagreement and request - refusal are used in Part A - TOEFL
PBT Listening Comprehension Section Among them, the most common one is assessment - disagreement Following this pattern is the use of the two adjacency pairs invitation - refusal and request - refusal The least used pattern falls into offer - declination
1.2 The linguistic features signaling dispreferreds
The paper also reveals the major linguistic features indicating dispreferred seconds turns in Part A - TOEFL Listening There are eight linguistic elements of dispreferreds commonly used in Part A, namely ‗give an account‟, ‗hedge the negative‟, ‗token yes‟,
‗use mitigators‟, „preface‟, ‗delay/hesitate‟, ‗apology‘ and ‗express doubt‟ Of all the elements, ‗give an account‟ is the most popular one In contrast, three remaining elements, i.e ‗appeal for understanding‟, ‗mention obligation‟ and ‗make it non- personal‟ appear with a very small frequency
Several significant findings about how the eight common features work in the five patterns to create dispreferreds are also revealed:
First, the feature ‘ give an account ’ can be found in all the kinds of paired utterances of dispreferred second turns This element used to give the reason why the second S does not agree with or accept the first S‘s utterance It appears in a great number and often begins with the conjunction ‗but‘
Second, the element ‘ hedge the negative’ like ‗not at all, not really, not necessary‘ only turns up in the two patterns offer - decline and assessment - disagreement It appears before the second S gives the reasons for disagreeing
Third, as regards ‘ token yes’ such as ‗that‘s true, it may look like that, yeah, yes it is,
I‘d love to, that‘s great‘, we can see that this feature is only applied to create token appreciation or token agreement before the S refuses to an invitation and disagrees with an assessment
Fourth, the feature ‘ preface ’ like ‗actually, well‘ is often employed by the second S to give an account for disagreeing with an assessment
Fifth, some delays / hesitations in the interrogative form, for example ‗are you kidding?‘ or ‗why did you do that?‘, are likely to be applied by the second S in making the two paired utterances invitation - refusal and proposal - disagreement
Sixth, a formal ‘ apology ’ is usually made by the second S before he/she gives the reasons or explanations for his/her refusal so as to avoid negative attitudes or to get sympathy from the first S who makes a request
Seventh, the feature ‘ express doubt’ is often found in the two patterns of dispreferreds ‗request - refusal‟ and ‗invitation - refusal‟
Finally, the element ‘ use mitigators’ is also found in all kinds of dispreferred second turns in Part A - Listening Comprehension Section of TOEFL PBT However, it is less used than the seven other features.
Suggested tips for TOEFL PBT learners or potential test-takers
Based on the results, some tips for learners and test-takers are recommended below:
First, take a quick look at the four answer choices in order to guess what kinds of questions are (meaning questions, inference questions, questions about opinions or questions about future actions)
Next, listen to the tape carefully to catch the main ideas of the dialogs Especially, pay close attention to the second S‘s utterances that often contain the answers to the questions of the dialogs
Then, if they are questions related to SAs such as invitation, offer, request, proposal and assessment or agreement-disagreement for short; try to remember the linguistic features expressing these ones to know whether it belongs to preferreds or dispreferreds Being a dispreferred, it will be often indicated by the aforementioned eight linguistic features and usually goes together with the conjunction ‗but‘
After that, infer the second S‘s utterances in order to work out their implied purposes, attitudes and intentions to opt for the correct answer.
Implications for English language learning and test taking
In order to achieve effectiveness in taking Part A - TOEFL PBT Listening tests, the following points should be paid due attention to:
Learners and potential test-takers should have insights into the general patterns of dispreferreds and the common linguistic features in dispreferred expressions
For dispreferred expressions in dialogs in Part A, the second S‘s disagreement or refusal to the first S‘s utterance is often not directly stated It is usually expressed by means of implicature, reason & explanation for the second S‘s business or a question that hedges the negative Therefore, potential test-takers and learners must listen carefully to catch the S‘s implicit intentions, purposes, attitudes and decide the correct answer choice
To deal with questions associated with dispreferred second acts, teachers should create more favorable opportunities for learners to use and test the knowledge of preference structure - its patterns and linguistic features signaling it- as well as provide them with various effective speaking topics in which they can practice the taught knowledge
Teachers can help learners develop their listening skills by means of encouraging them to enrich their vocabulary by studying deeply into idioms and implicature that always appear in the second S‘s utterance
Learners are also expected to take full responsibility for their own learning and become aware of their own strategies, using meta-cognition to assist them in improving their own learning endeavors
To sum up, knowledge of pragmatics and CA is crucial for language performance It is clear that learners‘ ability to communicate in listening will be better if they are taught the way to cope with preference organization in particular and other aspect of pragmatics and C.A in general effectively
It is believed that the study usefully makes teachers and learners of English be more aware of the importance of preference structure, and it also suggests that text-book writers develop effective listening syllabi and textbooks for learners In addition, listening skill should be learned and efficiently practiced through speaking skill
Practicing communicating in English language in natural speech and listening to authentic materials are considered appropriate preparations for learners whose primary objective is to pass the TOEFL PBT with flying colors.
Limitations of the research
Due to the limitation of length and time constraints, this work still has some certain restrictions
The first limitation is that the data of the research have been taken from a small sample, namely 50 dialogs that contain dispreferrreds selected from 10 complete tests provided in the three chosen TOEFL PBT books As a result, the findings of dispreferred-second-turn expressions could not be abundant
In addition, the study just evaluated dispreferred-second-response patterns and linguistic features indicating them based on the theoretical framework by Yule (1996)
Therefore, the data of the study might not be large enough to arrive at a satisfactory conclusion
Last, in real-life interactions, the non-verbal linguistic units such as facial expressions, postures, gestures, laughers and eye contacts are of great importance Moreover, the prosodic features like intonation, pitch and silence are also crucial in communication
However, the data of this research is only taken from transcripts of TOEFL PBT and it leaves the two later ones untouched.
Suggestions for further research…….…………………………………………40 REFERENCES
Preference structure in particular and pragmatics & C.A in general are considered a very broad research area They are of paramount importance to questions associated with language functions in TOEFL PBT as well as in real-life communication Thus, other aspects related to pragmatics and C.A like implicature, implication, reference, pause, silence, turn-taking, etc should deeply be dug into in order to help potential test-takers and learners of English get full consciousness of these issues
Second, the two social acts dispreferreds & preferreds, the same as agreement & disagreement, are considered as two side of a coin as stated by Kieu, T.T.H (2006:200): the process of ‗opinion-negotiation‘ involves disagreeing and agreeing, considered two sides of a coin, and one cannot exist without the other…Very often, it is hard to distinguish the subtle border between agreements and disagreements in face-to-face talk A ‗yes‘ may mean ‗no‘, and on the contrary, a ‗no‘ may have an opposite meaning
Thus, it is more interesting for the present researcher (and other researchers) to study these two acts in parallel
Third, studies on preference structure, particularly dispreferreds in other authentic materials will be also encouraged
Hopefully, a research work in the future will be carried out with much more useful & creative data and longer time to increase the validity and reliability of the research
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