AN EXPLORATORY STUDY INTO INTERLANGUAGE

See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/236973332 An Exploratory Study Into Interlanguage Pragmatics of Requests: A Game of Persuasion ARTICLE · JUNE 2009 DOI: 10.1002/j.2333-8504.2009.tb02170.x CITATION READS 15 2 AUTHORS, INCLUDING: Diego Zapata-Rivera Educational Testing Service 73 PUBLICATIONS 728 CITATIONS SEE PROFILE Available from: Diego Zapata-Rivera Retrieved on: 04 February 2016 Research Report An Exploratory Study Into Interlanguage Pragmatics of Requests: A Game of Persuasion Hui-Chun Yang Diego Zapata-Rivera April 2009 ETS RR-09-13 Listening Learning Leading.® An Exploratory Study into Interlanguage Pragmatics of Requests: A Game of Persuasion Hui-Chun Yang University of Texas, Austin Diego Zapata-Rivera ETS, Princeton, New Jersey April 2009 As part of its nonprofit mission, ETS conducts and disseminates the results of research to advance quality and equity in education and assessment for the benefit of ETS’s constituents and the field To obtain a PDF or a print copy of a report, please visit: http://www.ets.org/research/contact.html Copyright © 2009 by Educational Testing Service All rights reserved ETS, the ETS logo, LISTENING LEARNING LEADING., TOEIC, and TOEFL are registered trademarks of Educational Testing Service (ETS) C-RATER, TEST OF ENGLISH AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE and TEST OF ENGLISH FOR INTERNATIONAL COMMUNICATION are trademarks of ETS Abstract Teachability and assessment of interlanguage pragmatics are two crucial but still relatively unexplored areas in second language research Several instruments, such as multiple-choice discourse completion tasks, written discourse completion tasks, role-play tasks, and discourse self-assessment tasks (J D Brown, 2001), have been used to assess students’ interlanguage pragmatic skills This paper describes a new assessment-based gaming environment of English as a second language (ESL) pragmalinguistics called A Game of Persuasion that focuses on the speech act of request This game allows users to engage in interactive written dialogue with an artificial professor (or pedagogical agent) in multiple academic contexts Students explore contextually and socially appropriate request strategies while the system scores each attempt, assigns points, and provides formative and summative feedback This paper presents (a) related research on instruments that have been used in the area of interlanguage pragmatics (i.e., request), (b) our assessment-based gaming environment, and (c) reports on results from a study aimed at exploring usability aspects of the game and usage of request strategies employed by 30 English language learners (ELLs) who completed 10 written interactive request tasks with and without the presence of a pedagogical agent Key words: Interlanguage pragmatics, assessment-based games, pedagogical agents, speech acts i Table of Contents Page Theoretical Framework A Game of Persuasion 2.1 IDCT Scenarios 2.2 Dr Brown 2.3 Dialogue Engine 2.4 Scoring and Dr Brown’s Responses 2.5 Refining the Scoring Engine Methods 10 3.1 The Experiment 10 3.2 Computer-ScoredVersus Human-Scored Utterances 12 3.3 Analysis of Results 12 Discussion and Future Work 22 References 24 Notes 28 ii List of Tables Page Table Examples of the Request Categories Identified in the Dialogue Engine Table Conversational Cycles Table Proportion of Request Strategies Used by Two Groups 16 Table Transition Analysis (First Attempt – Alerter) 21 Table Transition Analysis (Subsequent Attempts—Nonconventionally Indirect [NCI]) 21 iii List of Figures Page Figure Dr Brown Figure Finite-state automata model in the speech act of request (+ points) Figure Agent-based interactive discourse completion task (IDCT); experimental condition 11 Figure Text-based interactive discourse completion task (IDCT); control condition 11 Figure Distribution of scores assigned by the human raters 13 Figure Distribution of scores assigned by the computer 13 Figure State transition diagram of request strategies used by students in the agent-based interactive discourse completion task (IDCT) group (n) 19 Figure State transition diagram of request strategies used by students in the text-based interactive discourse completion task (IDCT) group (n) 20 iv Pragmatic competence is essential for all English language learners (ELLs), including immigrant students in the K–12 level, adult English as a second language (ESL) students, and English as a foreign language (EFL) students who prepare themselves for advance studies in an English speaking country Research to date has shown that ESL and EFL textbooks include a paucity of pragmatic information (Grant & Starks, 2001; Vellenga, 2004) and that considerable inconsistencies exist between the English found in textbooks and that which is documented in the corpora of spoken and written English (Bardovi-Harlig, Hartford, Mahan-Taylor, Morgan, & Reynolds, 1991; McCarthy & Carter, 1995) To compound this problem, teachers have also been shown to be ill-prepared to teach pragmatics in class (Ishihara, 2007; Kasper & Schmidt, 1996) Addressing the current dilemma in pragmatic education, we implemented a computer game prototype called A Game of Persuasion that is aimed at assessing the present pragmatic competence of ELLs and supporting student learning of pragmatics Among pragmatic functions, the speech act of request within academic contexts was selected as the focus of our initial investigation Based on the results from this study, we intend to explore its potential applications to other areas of interlanguage pragmatics A Game of Persuasion offers real-time, written exchange between a student and a pedagogical agent Pedagogical agents (e.g., Chan & Baskin, 1990; Graesser, Person, Harter, & TRG, 2001; Johnson, Rickel, & Lester, 2000) have been used to facilitate learning by supporting human-like interaction with computer-based systems Pedagogical agents can act as virtual peers or virtual tutors In light of these findings, our goal is to design an assessment-based learning tool that allows learners to build a connection between the game and their underlying knowledge of the speech act of request This paper describes (a) related research on instruments that have been used in the area of interlanguage pragmatics (i.e., request), (b) the development of our assessment-based gaming environment, and (c) the usability aspects of the game and the patterns of request strategies employed by 30 ELLs who completed 10 written interactive request tasks with and without the presence of a pedagogical agent Theoretical Framework Interlanguage pragmatics (ILP) has been identified as the study of language learners’ use and acquisition of pragmatic competence in a second language (L2) In addition to language rules of morphology and syntax, successful ELLs need to master appropriate use of different expressions to achieve socio-interactional purposes Following Leech (1983), one’s L2 pragmatic ability requires sociopragmatic and pragmalinguistic knowledge Sociopragmatic knowledge encompasses the knowledge of the social rules governing the discourse practices, whereas pragmalinguistic knowledge describes how language learners use linguistic and strategic resources as means to reach their communicative goals In recent years, speech acts theory has attracted a great deal of attention in ILP research, especially the act of request (Byon, 2004; House & Kasper, 1987; Rose, 2000) Requests can be made at different levels of directness based on the given context Direct strategies are defined as the expressions in which propositional content and linguistic forms are consistent, whereas indirect strategies refer to utterances in which speakers’ meaning and the sentence meanings are not identical (Holtgraves, 1986) Conventionally indirect and nonconventionally indirect strategies are two subsets of indirect strategies commonly used to make a request Speakers using conventionally indirect strategies may seek information or make a request by questioning the hearer’s ability, such as, “Can you turn down the music?” Nonconventionally indirect strategies are known as hints, or off-record strategy (Brown & Levinson, 1987), such as, “The music is really loud.” In formal settings where a request is addressed to a person who has more power, a higher degree of indirectness is required to avoid possible offenses and to prevent infringing upon the interlocutor’s face The greater imposition an act involves, the more indirect the speaker will be The most common type of research instrument in pragmatic research is the discourse completion task (DCT; Kasper, 2000) The DCT is a questionnaire containing a set of short descriptions of situations or dialogues with a turn or part of a turn missing Participants read the contextual information given and react to a prompt in written form Researchers found that a large amount of data on a variety of pragmatic behaviors can be collected using this method in a short period of time (Beebe & Cummings, 1996) A major limitation of the DCT is that they not replicate negotiated and interactive aspect of discourse (Beebe & Cummings, 1996; Wolfson, Marmor, & Jones, 1989), thus DCT data can only provide samples of speech acts rather than the interactive process that takes place between interlocutors McNamara and Roever (2006) pointed out that such a dilemma posed the question of “construct under-representation” when testing learners’ pragmatic competence (p 64) It is because learners’ linguistic realization is situated in coconstructed conversational contexts To have a better understanding of the dynamics of Usability information Most participants (92% or more across the two conditions) thought that the game motivated them to learn more about how to make requests in English Approximately 83% of participants across the two conditions thought that persuading Dr Brown helped them improve their knowledge of making a request, and 80% of participants thought it was fun to persuade the professor The initial tutorial page was reported to be helpful for participants to understand how to use the system (80% or more across the two conditions) Regarding the appearance of Dr Brown, more than half of the participants in agent-based IDCT condition (72%) liked how the professor looked Approximately 70% of participants across the two conditions thought that the feedback provided by the game helped them think about what kind of request strategy they could use for the next scenario, and 75% of them thought the interface/program was attractive Eighty percent of agent-based IDCT participants and 86% of text-based IDCT participants agreed with the following statement: “The Persuasion Game is easy to use.” Eighty-five percent of agent-based IDCT participants and 83% of text-based IDCT participants agreed with the following statement: “The final recommendation page helped me understand my strengths and weaknesses.” In addition, some students’ comments on the open-ended questionnaire seemed to indicate that they enjoyed interacting with the lifelike professor One interested student mentioned, “The professor’s moving eyes make me feel like I am talking to a real professor.” Another interested student reported that she “liked the animation of the professor’s facial expressions.” However, a student commented on the look of the professor, suggesting a replacement of the professor’s face by a friendlier and less serious one In general participants seemed to enjoy interacting with both versions of the game They valued the feedback they received during the game and thought that the game helped them to learn to make requests in English Performance-wise comparison As indicated in section 3.2, the overall agreement between computer and human rater on the mean scores assigned to students in two groups was moderate (r = 66) Based on the results of human scoring, no significant difference appeared in final scores (t(28) = - 0.41, p = 0.40) between students who were assigned to the experimental condition (M = 73.27, SD = 22.62) and those assigned to the control condition (M = 76.47, SD = 20.50) Response length The written discourse data revealed a significant difference in the resulting response length (t (28) = 1.106, p < 05) between the agent-based IDCT group (M = 14 679, SD = 337.3) and the text-based IDCT group (M = 563.3, SD = 224.3) It seems like the presence of the pedagogical agent helped create a more vivid conversational environment that allowed students to be more actively engaged in the hypothetical dialogues Therefore, participants in the agent-based group generally produced longer utterances Selection of strategies All responses of the participants were coded and analyzed based on the coding categories of request (see Table 1) and scoring criteria (see Figure 2) developed for the present study A range of linguistic expressions of request used by the participants were classified into different levels of directness: direct, conventionally indirect, and nonconventionally indirect strategies Each level was further subcategorized into several types of request strategies, taking into account the presence of grounders (i.e., DR = direct request, DRG = direct request with grounder, CI = conventionally indirect, CIG = conventionally indirect with grounder, and NCI = nonconventionally indirect) Regarding the use of request strategy of different levels of directness, participants in both groups made the most of their requests by means of conventionally indirect strategies with grounders to increase the likelihood of the acceptance of the requests (see Table 3) In this request type (CIG) the participants seemed to use modal verbs to ask question about permission or ability while they, in fact, utilized a formula for request behavior Examples of conventionally indirect strategies with grounders by participants in agent-based IDCT group and in text-based IDCT group are these: Example 1: Asking the professor to write a recommendation letter (agent-based IDCT group) A12: Professor, you are the kindest professor I have ever met I believe you know I study really hard in your class, so I also get high grade in your class Now, I want to apply a scholarship, and I need a recommendation letter because you are always satisfied with I study attitude Could you write the recommendation letter? Example 2: Asking the professor for a permission to take a writing course (text-based IDCT group) B01: I really have to take a writing course in order to graduate this semester After my graduation, I could get a job and support my family Please, could I get your permission to take the writing course that is closed already? 15 Table Proportion of Request Strategies Used by Two Groups Request types DR DRG CI CIG NCI Total no of request strategies Agent-based IDCT group % 2.5 8.4 5.9 56.6 26.6 N 17 12 115 54 203 Text-based IDCT group % 4.3 7.5 54.7 28.5 n 12 88 46 161 Note IDCT = interactive discourse completion task, DR = direct request, DRG = direct request with grounder, CI = conventionally indirect, CIG = conventionally indirect with grounder, NCI = nonconventionally indirect Over 25% of requests by both groups were made with nonconventionally indirect request strategies The most common type of nonconventionally indirect request strategy, also known as hints, may occur in the forms of statement or question Examples of a question hint by participants in agent-based IDCT group and a statement hint by participants in text-based IDCT group are these: Example 3: Asking the professor to schedule a make-up exam (agent-based IDCT group) A05: Actually I wanna to join my brother’s wedding It’s a big day in our family I don’t want absent I am really sorry about that I think it’s a good way, isn’t it? Professor: Sorry, I have no idea what you’re talking about Could you get to the point? Example 4: Asking the professor for a deadline extension for an assignment (text-based IDCT group) B01: I have a big problem with my computer Professor: I understand your problem but I can’t help you with that 16 Participants made a small proportion of their requests (less than 9% respectively) using three other types of strategies (i.e., DR, DRG, and CI) An example of each strategy is presented below: Example 5—Direct Request (DR) Strategy: Asking the professor to schedule a make-up exam A13: I need to join my brother’s wedding party Example 6—Direct Request Strategy with Grounder (DRG): Asking for leave A13: I can not go to school because my parents will go to see me few days Example 7—Conventionally Indirect (CI) Strategy: Asking the professor for a permission to take a writing course B07: Can you open the course just for one? Though the two groups show marked similarities with respect to variation in selection of request strategy, the total number of request strategies used by agent-based IDCT group is approximately 1.3 times more than the number of those used by text-based IDCT group When examined closely, the data reveals that participants in agent-based IDCT group more commonly selected DRG, CIG, and NCI strategies in making requests The chief difference between these three types of strategies and the others is the use of grounders There is a tendency for participants to incorporate grounders when interacting with the pedagogical agent It might suggest that the presence of the animated agent increases the perceived threat to face, which could encourage participants to justify the causes for making requests by using grounders It was also found that several participants in the agent-based group were equivocal talkers (for definition, see Table 2) who overused nonconventionally indirect strategies and were not specific about the exact request they were supposed to make The tendency to make a request indirectly by providing a grounder was apparent in the responses of the students The finding is concordant with the reports of previous ILP studies on Chinese speakers’ oral and written requests (Kirkpatrick, 1993; Nash, 1983; Zhang, 1995) and Korean speakers’ semantic formulae for making requests (Byon, 2004) 17 Distributions of strategy transitions To delve into the intricacies of how participants switched from one strategy to another, we examined the probability of strategy transitions Figure and Figure present the paths of strategy transitions in time The paths that start from alerters were analyzed because the interactions initiated by alerters accounted for about 95% of all interactions, whereas interactions initiated by non-alerters only accounted for less than 5% of the total for both conditions The left part of each figure shows the strategies used by participants on their first attempt, while the right part shows subsequent attempts The retry states (alerter, NCI, or nonsense), which allow participants to try again, are presented in labeled ovals, whereas the granted states (DRG or CIG) and the rejected states (DR or CI) are presented in labeled rectangles and dashed rectangles respectively As indicated in the section 2.3, because the requests made using NCI strategy or nonsense were not explicit, the computer system did not reject or grant participants’ requests immediately Instead, participants were allowed to try different strategies to make requests up to three times Therefore, the subsequent attempts sections in two figures present the strategy paths employed by participants following their use of NCI strategy or nonsense Only four instances of nonsense were found in agent-based IDCT condition; one in text-based IDCT condition The requests made using nonsense were not successfully granted in either group With respect to alerters, the percentage of the occurrence of alerters being used for consecutive times is similar for two groups In addition to alerters, three kinds of paths are of interest: paths to rejected states, paths to granted states, and paths to retry states Table shows that the probability of the occurrence of the paths to rejected states in agent-based IDCT group (6.6%) is less than that in text-based IDCT group (9.4%) As for the probability of the occurrence of the links from the alerter to granted states, the agent-based IDCT group (64.7%) and text-based IDCT group (65.5%) have similar overall percentage for the presence of the paths Table shows a comparison of the percentages of paths made by two groups in subsequent attempts It indicates that the percentages of participants who used NCI strategy the first time and were rejected at the end were 2.5 times lower in agent-based IDCT group (8%) than in text-based IDCT group (20.5%) The results also showed that agent-based IDCT group (54%) was higher than text-based IDCT group (38.2%) with respect to the probability of the participants who employed NCI strategy the first time and ended up had their requests granted 18 First attempt 1.3% (2) Subsequent attempts DR 4% (2) DR 14% (7) DRG 5.4% (8) 4.7% (7) Alerter DRG 22% (32) 60% (87) 1.3% (2) 32% (16) NCI NCI 40% (20) CIG CIG 6% (3) 75 % (3) Nonsense 4% (2) Nonsense 25 % (1) 5.3% (8) CI CI Figure State transition diagram of request strategies used by students in the agent-based interactive discourse completion task (IDCT) group (n) The left part shows the strategies used by participants on their first attempt; the right part shows subsequent attempts The retry states (alerter, NCI, or nonsense), which allow participants to try again, are presented in labeled ovals, the granted states (DRG or CIG) are presented in labeled rectangles, and the rejected states (DR or CI) are presented in dashed rectangles Note CI = conventionally indirect, CIG = conventionally indirect with grounder, DR = direct request, DRG = direct request with grounder, NCI = nonconventionally indirect 19 First attempt Subsequent attempts 4.3% (5) DR 3.4% (4) DRG 5.2% (6) 5.8% (2) DR 5.8% (2) DRG 19% (22) Alerter 41.2% (14) NCI NCI 62.1% (72) 32.4% (11) 0.9% (1) CIG 14.7% (5) 5.1% (6) CIG 0% (0) Nonsense Nonsense 100% (1) CI CI Figure State transition diagram of request strategies used by students in the text-based interactive discourse completion task (IDCT) group (n) The left part shows the strategies used by participants on their first attempt; the right part shows subsequent attempts The retry states (alerter, NCI, or nonsense), which allow participants to try again, are presented in labeled ovals, the granted states (DRG or CIG) are presented in labeled rectangles, and the rejected states (DR or CI) are presented in dashed rectangles Note CI = conventionally indirect, CIG = conventionally indirect with grounder, DR = direct request, DRG = direct request with grounder, NCI = nonconventionally indirect 20 Table Transition Analysis (First Attempt – Alerter) Types of links Agent-based IDCT (n) Text-based IDCT (n) Rejected 6.6% (10) 9.4% (11) Granted 64.7% (94) 65.5% (76) Retry 23.3% (34) 19.9% (23) Note: IDCT = interactive discourse completion task Table Transition Analysis (Subsequent Attempts—Nonconventionally Indirect [NCI]) Types of links Agent-based IDCT (n) Text-based IDCT (n) Rejected 8% (4) 20.5% (7) Granted 54% (27) 38.2% (13) Retry 38% (19) 41.2% (14) Note: IDCT = interactive discourse completion task We cannot draw conclusions about the effect of pedagogical agent on the student performance at the first attempt because the percentages of paths that led to granted, rejected, and retry were similar for both groups However, the fact that a higher percentage of request strategies were granted in the agent-based IDCT group than in the text-based IDCT group on a subsequent attempt provides evidence that the agent-based IDCT condition is better than textbased IDCT condition in terms of guiding and supporting the use of more appropriate strategies (i.e., increasing granted paths and reducing rejected ones) Based on the comments provided by participants, indicated in section 3.3.1, it seems that the presence of the pedagogical agent helps create a conversational environment reflective of real-life situations The simulated setting allows students to perceive peripheral cues (i.e., aural feedback and facial expressions) as valid ones and thus modify or refine their request strategies to improve appropriacy based on given information 21 Discussion and Future Work The results of the study offer encouraging evidence that A Game of Persuasion provides estimates of learners’ pragmatic competence and individualized lifelike interaction as well as formative and summative feedback As an effort to expand ILP research, this game contributes to the field of interlanguage pragmatics in terms of engaging learners with “contextualized, pragmatically appropriate input” (Bardovi-Harlig, 2001, p 31) Following Bachman and Palmer (1996), pragmatic knowledge is considered an important area of language knowledge that should be focused in order to gain insights to a fuller range of the components of language ability Drawing from the real-world settings and situations, the authentic and pragmatic nature of the game may serve as an alternative formative assessment tool to elicit language learners’ knowledge of the conventions that determine the appropriate use of expressions Moreover, while pragmatic knowledge of ELL is currently not measured by the TOEFL or Test of English for International Communication™ (TOEIC®), these kinds of assessment-based tools can be used to implement interactive dialogues in controlled contexts that would help people practice traditional language skills (e.g., listening, reading, or writing) Moreover, the study contributes to the understanding of the negotiation process of ELLs with a pedagogical agent in an educational gaming environment The usability information obtained from the usability survey suggests that A Game of Persuasion has potential to be used as a learning tool The program motivates students to engage in a constructive learning process, allows them to recognize the outcomes when applying different request strategies in different scenarios, and finally enhances the intake of the preferred forms of request The current game can be enhanced by adding natural language processing tools (e.g., a spelling engine and a synonyms database) that complement the current keyword-based scoring engine These tools would make the system more robust Future work includes the integration of c-rater™ components as part of the system A further limitation is that written dialogue data present information on students’ uses of sentences for making requests while the intonation and tone is not conveyed in writing The ability to use appropriate prosody for making requests is considered an integral part of one’s pragmatic knowledge In addition, the written responses may reflect what student think they will or ideally want to do, which may differ from what they in real-life situations 22 Although the difference in the use of request strategies was not significant, more research needs to be conducted in order to better understand the change of interlanguage features when incorporating different pedagogical agents in different situations This paper reports on an initial exploratory study with a limited sample size Given the limitations mentioned above, we should not conclude that the agent-based IDCT is ineffective On the contrary, when we look at the responses of individual students, we see wide variation in receptivity to the pedagogical agent It is worth examining these individual results more closely in the hope of learning more about what works for whom and why Insights from individual success, and also from failures, may suggest some avenues for further research Future development tasks may also include comparing 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Report An Exploratory Study Into Interlanguage Pragmatics of Requests: A Game of Persuasion Hui-Chun Yang Diego Zapata-Rivera April 2009 ETS RR-09-13 Listening Learning Leading.® An Exploratory Study. .. on human learning in instructional planning (Baylor & PALS Research Group, 2003), botanical anatomy and physiology (Lester, Stone, & Stelling, 1999), and medical education (Shaw, Ganeshan, Johnson,... 87–98 Rose, K R (2000) An exploratory cross-sectional study of interlanguage pragmatic development Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 22(1), 27–67 Shaw, E., Ganeshan, R., Johnson, W L.,