Slurs and Appropriation: An Echoic Account (Journal of Pragmatics, 2014)
Collaborative dialogue in learning pragmatics: Pragmatics-related episodes as an opportunity for...
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Applied Linguistics 2014 1ndash23 Oxford University Press 2014
doi101093applinamu039
Collaborative Dialogue in LearningPragmatics Pragmatic-Related Episodesas an Opportunity for LearningRequest-Making
1NAOKO TAGUCHI and 2YOUJIN KIM1Modern Languages Department Carnegie Mellon University Pittsburgh PA USA and2Department of Applied Linguistics and ESL Georgia State University Atlanta GA USA
E-mail taguchiandrewcmuedu
This study examined the effects of collaborative dialogue in learning the speech
act of request Seventy-four second-grade girlsrsquo junior high students were
divided into three groups The lsquocollaborative grouprsquo (n = 25) received explicit
metapragmatic information on request (request head act and modifications)
followed by a dialogue construction task in pairs The lsquoindividual grouprsquo
(n = 25) received the same information but completed the same task individually
while thinking aloud The last group control group (n = 24) did not receive
instruction During-task interaction in the collaborative group and think-aloud
protocols in the individual group were audio-recorded Instructional effect was
measured by a discourse completion task (DCT) Target request head acts in
DCT were scored and request modifications were analyzed for frequency
The collaborative group outperformed the individual group on the production
of the head act at immediate post No group difference was found in request
modifications Analysis of interaction and think-aloud data showed that the
collaborative group produced the target head act more successfully than the
individual group but no group difference was found in the use of modifications
Task-based learning in language classrooms has received much attention
among second language (L2) researchers and practitioners (Van den
Branden et al 2009) Tasks are often used to generate interaction and negoti-
ation of meaning during pairgroup interaction which leads to language learn-
ing Collaborative dialogue in which learners use language as a tool for their L2
development has been the prime topic of investigation in the field of task-
based interaction (Swain and Watanabe 2013) However previous collabora-
tive dialogue studies have mainly focused on grammar and vocabulary and
they have not included pragmatics as a target language area In pragmatics
instructional research has been concentrated in the comparison of explicit and
implicit teaching (Takahashi 2010 Taguchi forthcoming) and very few studies
have examined other instructional approaches including task-based teaching
This study intends to bring these two fields together by investigating the effect
of task-based collaborative dialogue in teaching pragmatics
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BACKGROUND
Pragmatic competence reflects an intertwined relationship between pragma-
linguistics and sociopragmatics Pragmalinguistics refers to linguistic resources
needed to perform language functions while sociopragmatics refers to the
language userrsquos assessment of the context in which such resources are put
into use (Leech 1983) There has been a steep increase in the body of instruc-
tional pragmatics studies that focuses on the role of instruction in developing
L2 learnersrsquo knowledge of pragmalinguistics and sociopragmatics (for a review
see Jeon and Kaya 2006 Takahashi 2010 Taguchi 2011) The benefits of in-
struction over non-instruction were found consistently across different lan-
guages teaching methods and assessment tasks and presented strong
evidence that teaching leads to increased pragmatic knowledge More recent
studies have compared the impact of different instructional methods including
explicit and implicit teaching input processing instruction and skill acquisi-
tion Theoretical assumptions behind these methods have informed us about
underlying cognitive mechanisms that drive pragmatics learning
Schmidtrsquos (2001) noticing hypothesis and explicit vs implicit teaching moti-
vated by the hypothesis currently dominates the field of instructed pragmatics
The noticing hypothesis claims that learnersrsquo attention to linguistic forms their
functions and relevant contextual factors serve as a necessary condition for
pragmatic input to become intake Following Kasper (2001) most studies
operationalized explicit teaching to involve direct metapragmatic explanation
followed by structured practice while implicit teaching holds back metaprag-
matic information and instead assists learnersrsquo implicit understandings of the
target features Previous research generally confirmed the superiority of the
explicit over implicit method particularly in outcome measures that involve
greater cognitive demand (Taguch forthcoming)
Although the explicit and implicit debate has prevailed in the literature for
quite some time the field has recently expanded the theoretical scope by
adding new frameworks for pragmatic instruction Particularly relevant to
this study is the concept of collaborative dialogue in the construction of lin-
guistic knowledge which is often operationalized as language-related episodes
(LREs) (Swain and Lapkin 1998 Swain 2006) Collaborative dialogue is a form
of output but it is an output used for a cognitive function because language
mediates learnersrsquo process of working together to solve linguistic problems and
jointly construct knowledge (Swain and Lapkin 1998) According to Swain and
Lapkin (1998) LREs refers to lsquoany part of a dialogue where the students talk
about the language they are producing question their language use or correct
themselves or othersrsquo (p 326) and have been found to be beneficial for
learning
Because tasks are considered vehicles that promote interaction and negoti-
ation collaborative dialogue (operationalized as LREs) during task perform-
ance has received an increasing attention in the field of task-based language
teaching (Kim in press) Research in grammar and vocabulary learning has
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investigated to what extent collaborative dialogue during interactive tasks pro-
motes language learning compared with individual task conditions revealing
advantages of the former For instance in Kimrsquos (2008) study of L2 Korean
individual grouprsquos think-aloud data and collaborative grouprsquos interaction data
were analyzed for LREs and their vocabulary learning was compared Results
showed that although the number of LREs was similar between the groups
the latter performed significantly better on vocabulary tests Nassaji and Tian
(2010) also compared collaborative and individual task conditions on phrasal
verbs learning when learners carried out two tasks (editing tasks and cloze
tasks) in a classroom Collaborative tasks resulted in a greater accuracy of
task completion than individual tasks but they did not lead to greater vocabu-
lary gain The authors suggested the task effect editing tasks were more ef-
fective than cloze tasks in promoting negotiation and learning As shown
above the benefit of collaborative dialogue and LREs stemming from task-
based interaction is noteworthy In order to confirm the effectiveness of col-
laborative dialogue during interactive tasks compared with learnersrsquo attention
to language forms during individual tasks more studies are needed in other
language areas such as pragmatics
In pragmatics learning this article considers that collaborative dialogues
(ie LREs) go beyond just language forms They generate moments in which
learners talk about the form and its relevance to the function and context of
language use During interaction pragmalinguistic forms and contextual fac-
tors are constantly emphasized negotiated and recycled for use This process
helps consolidate pragmatic knowledge because it prompts a deeper level of
cognitive processing by requiring learners to think through pragmatic rules
while verbalizing their thoughts Collaborative dialogue enables learners to
negotiate and co-construct pragmatic knowledge learners can discuss prag-
matic forms and contextual features associated with them and develop a
joint understanding of the principles underlying the associations
Several pragmatics studies have used collaborative dialogue as a treatment
method in a format of metapragmatic discussion (eg Nguyen 2013)
However these studies used it in combination with other activities and thus
failed to reveal the sole effect of metapragmatic discussion To our knowledge
Takimoto (2012) is the only study that directly tested the efficacy of metaprag-
matic discussion Takimoto compared two conditions in teaching English re-
quest downgraders consciousness-raising instruction with and without
metapragmatic discussion Both treatment groups analyzed request-making
expressions with contextual features and rated the appropriateness of the
expressions Then they generated a list of ways to make the requests more
appropriate One group made a list collaboratively while the other group did
so individually The metapragmatic discussion group outperformed their indi-
vidual task counterpart on the production of requests which suggests the
benefit of collaborative dialogue in developing pragmatic knowledge
Given the paucity of findings on the role of collaborative dialogue in prag-
matics it is pertinent to examine to what extent learners negotiate and
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co-construct knowledge of sociopragmatic factors and pragmalinguistic fea-
tures during collaborative tasks Furthermore the question of how collabora-
tive dialogue during interactive tasks promotes such processes and subsequent
learning of pragmatics compared with during individual tasks warrants further
investigation Theoretical interest in collaborative dialogue is about language
being used as a cognitive tool that mediates the process of thinking (Swain
2006 Swain and Watanabe 2013) Languaging contends that verbalization of
target pragmatic forms when guided strategically through a collaborative task
could lead to a deeper-level understanding of the features Although
Takimotorsquos study tapped into this theoretical underpinning of collaborative
dialogue and revealed the benefits of learnerndashlearner interaction in pragmatic
learning actual mechanisms of learning during interaction were not discern-
ible because he did not analyze interaction data for evidence of learning oppor-
tunities He analyzed only the posttest results (appropriateness judgment and
production of request downgraders) To gain a fuller account of the theoretical
framework of collaborative dialogue it is necessary to analyze the quality of
LREs targeting pragmatics which we call pragmatic-related episodes (PREs) and
link the analyses to learning outcomes Furthermore in order to compare the
amount of languaging between individual tasks and collaborative tasks it is
also important to document how learners performing individual tasks con-
struct their knowledge of pragmatics on their own Thus in the current
study we collected learnersrsquo think-aloud protocols in the individual task
group and they were analyzed for PREs as well
In this study we examine the effects of collaborative dialogue on the acqui-
sition of speech act of request in English by comparing three groups the lsquocol-
laborative grouprsquo who completes the dialogue construction tasks targeting a
request in pairs the lsquoindividual grouprsquo who completes the task alone and the
control group who does not receive any task-based instruction In addition we
investigate the characteristics of collaborative dialogue (operationalized as
PREs) as language resources that facilitate learning Following Swain and
Lapkin (1998) we define PREs as any part of language production where
learners talk about the pragmalinguistic forms they are producing and the
sociopragmatic factors they are attending to (eg setting and interlocutor re-
lationship) question their pragmatic language use or correct themselves or
others In this study we specifically focus on the frequency of PREs produced
during collaborative and individual tasks and instances of correctly solved
pragmatic problems to see whether PREs provide opportunities for learning
pragmatics This study asks two research questions
1 What is the effect of task-based pragmatic instruction on L2 pragmatic
development Are there any differences in the learning of the request
speech act between the collaborative and individual task group
2 Are there any differences in the frequency of PREs and quality of task
performance during instruction between the collaborative and individual
task group
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METHODS
Participants
Participants were 74 learners of English in a second-grade girlsrsquo junior high
school in South Korea Their average age was 1374 years (range = 13ndash14
years) They had received 5 years of formal English education at the time of
the study They were receiving 4 hours of English instruction per week taught
mostly by Korean-speaking instructors Participantsrsquo proficiency measured by
Test of English for International Communication (TOEIC) Bridge was between
high beginner and intermediate with a mean score of 13527 (SD = 1442
range = 100ndash172) Participantsrsquo English classes focused on grammar vocabu-
lary and readingwriting with little focus on pragmatics Three intact classes
were randomly assigned to three groups a collaborative (n = 25) individual
(n = 25) and control group (n = 24) Analysis of variance showed no significant
group difference in the TOEIC Bridge scores suggesting that the groups were
comparable in terms of their proficiency level (F = 355 p = 70)
Instructional targets
The instructional target was the speech act of request in a formal situation
which appeared in the participantsrsquo English textbook (Lee et al 2009) Formal
request was operationalized using Brown and Levinsonrsquos (1987) contextual
factors power (P) distance (D) and degree of imposition (R) and was defined
as a request that carries a larger size of imposition and is made to someone in a
greater power and distance (PDR-high) An example is asking a professor to
reschedule a test This PDR-high request contrasts with a request made to
someone in equal power and small distance and degree of imposition (PDR-
low) such as asking your sister to pass you a TV remote
In order to identify appropriate request situations a pilot study was con-
ducted with students of the same grade in the institution who were not
included in the main study (n = 34) This involved asking them to indicate
the degree of psychological ease or difficulty in performing the request on
Likert scale from 1 (easy) to 5 (difficult) The survey included 14 PDR-high
and -low requests adapted from the previous literature (eg Taguchi 2012)
The survey also asked participants to indicate the degree of commonality of
each situation on a scale from 1 (very rare) to 5 (very common) Finally the
survey provided an open question in which students wrote PDR-high and -low
requests that they had personally encountered
Results showed that PDR-low situations received a mean difficulty rating of
178 (SD = 106) while PDR-high situations received a mean rating of 264
(SD = 124) This difference was statistically significant t (237) =900
p = 0001 indicating that PDR-high were perceived as more difficult to perform
than PDR-low requests From the 14 situations we selected four PDR-high
items that received a rating of 25 or above and four PDR-low items with a
rating of below 15 In order to ensure the authenticity of tasks commonality
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ratings of these items were checked to avoid teaching situations that do not
represent real life in Korea Finally we analyzed participantsrsquo responses to the
open-ended question and used their descriptions when writing situations
Instruction focused on two categories of pragmalinguistic forms request
head acts and modifications (Table 1) Request head acts refer to the minimal
core unit that conveys the illocutionary force of request (Blum-Kulka et al
1989) In this category we taught mitigated preparatory forms Mitigated pre-
paratory involves syntactic forms that make reference to the hearerrsquos ability or
will in an embedded question or bi-clausal structure (eg lsquoI was wondering
ifrsquo + verb and lsquoWould it be possible torsquo + verb) (Takahashi 1996) Request modi-
fications have two categories external and internal External modifications
involve semantic moves that are attached externally to the head act and miti-
gate its force (Blum-Kulka et al 1989) We taught two external modifications
preparators (preparing a hearer for a request) and grounders (giving a reason
for request) Internal modifications include sentence-internal syntactic and
lexical devices used to modify the force of request We taught two forms
hedging that softens the tone of speech and amplifiers that strengthen self-
expression
These pragmalinguistic forms were selected based on baseline data collected
from native English speakers Twenty-four students in a US university
Table 1 Target pragmalinguistic forms
Head acts
Mitigated preparatory forms
Reference to the hearerrsquos ability will and possibility or reference to thespeakerrsquos wish in an embedded question or sentence
Irsquom wondering if you could give me an extension on the assignment
Is there any way that I could get an extension on the assignment
External modifications
Preparators
Semantic moves used to prepare the hearer for the request
eg May I ask you something
Grounders
Reason or explanation used to support the request
eg I caught a cold so I couldnrsquot finish the assignment
Internal modifications
Hedging
Words that minimize self-expression (maybe possibly)
eg Irsquom wondering if I could possibly have an extension on the assignment
Amplifiers
Words that strengthen self-expression (really very)
eg I really need more time to work on the assignment
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completed a discourse completion task (DCT) that contained four PDR-high
and -low requests Mitigated preparatory appeared 73 percent of the time as a
head act in PDR-high requests while it appeared only 4 percent of the time in
PDR-low requests This indicates that mitigated preparatory characterizes PDR-
high requests Grounders and preparators were common supportive moves
appearing 98 and 13 percent of the time respectively while they never ap-
peared in PDR-low situations Hedging and amplifiers were also frequent ap-
pearing at a rate of 52 percent while they were absent in PDR-low requests
Based on these findings along with studies that revealed learnersrsquo difficulty
with these forms (Taguchi 2012) we targeted these forms Although DCT data
can only tell us what people would say in a hypothetical situation the rela-
tively uniform responses were considered to represent normative patterns of
request making
Instructional materials and tasks
Treatment groups received instruction in school during their regular English
class sessions over two consecutive days The instruction started with a 5-min
explanation of target pragmatic forms using a written dialogue There were
two dialogues one featuring a PDR-high and the other featuring a PDR-low
request We introduced pragmalinguistic forms and sociopragmatic variables in
each dialogue After receiving the direct metapragmatic information the two
treatment groups (collaborative and individual) proceeded to the dialogue con-
struction task during which learners were asked to complete drama scripts
based on given scenarios as drama scriptwriters They received two scenarios
(PDR-high and -low) with pictures of main characters and created a dialogue
involving a request based on each scenario1 These tasks were considered au-
thentic and relevant to learner interests because TV dramas are popular among
the target population and all the task scenarios were directly related to their
school life2 Learners constructed three PDR-high and -low situation dialogues
during treatment sessions (see Supplementary material for sample instruc-
tional materials) Although PDR-high requests were the instructional target
we introduced PDR-high and -low requests together so the differences be-
tween the two become salient
The collaborative group created a dialogue in pairs while the individual
group completed the task alone Learners vocalized their thoughts during
task performance in the language of their choice either collaboratively or
individually depending on their treatment condition To ensure learnersrsquo
understanding of the task following Kim (2013) we showed a 2-min pre-
task modeling video prior to the beginning of their task performance In the
modeling video for the collaborative group two teachers demonstrate how to
perform a task collaboratively using a similar scenario whereas in the video for
the individual group one teacher performed the same task while thinking
aloud on her own Interaction and think-aloud protocols during task comple-
tion were audio-recorded using individual MP3 recorders The treatment
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session took about 45 min We repeated the same procedures in the second
task treatment session with different scenarios The control group received
regular English instruction
Assessment measure
A written DCT instrument was used to measure learning outcomes DCT
has been criticized because of a lack of authenticity and non-interactive
nature (Golato 2003) However DCT has a merit because the data can provide
information about learnersrsquo knowledge of normative conventions of prag-
matic language use (McNamara and Roever 2006) DCT can also control
social factors in scenarios and help us obtain data that are comparable across
learners over time Most importantly DCT in this study conformed to the
principle of lsquotransfer appropriate processingrsquo (DeKeyser 2007) which claims
that transfer of skill from a learned to a novel task occurs if the cognitive
operations involved in the novel task resemble those in the treatment task
The treatment task in this study was a dialogue construction task which
shared the same modality with DCT which elicited participantsrsquo pragmalinguis-
tic forms in writing
The DCT had 15 items 4 each of PDR-high and PDR-low requests and 7
filler items involving non-target speech acts Each DCT item had a situation
written in Korean to ensure participantsrsquo comprehension Participants were
asked to follow the first turn or prompt provided in English and write the
speech act in English In order to minimize the practice effect coming from
administering the same test repeatedly we prepared three versions of DCT
Scenarios were kept constant but minor wording changes were made in the
scenarios (eg changing names and locations) Different filler items were used
each time DCT items were different from the items used in the treatment
sessions Supplementary material contains sample DCT items
Procedure
The study was conducted over 6 weeks (see Table 2) During the first ses-
sion the learners took the pretest and two task groups carried out a practice
task to become familiar with recording devices and think-aloud
procedures Task treatment sessions were provided on Days 7 and 9 On
Days 10 and 14 all learners took the immediate posttest and the TOEFIC
Bridge respectively Four weeks after the immediate posttest the learners
took the delayed posttest
Data analysis
This study asked (i) whether task-based instruction is beneficial for learning
request-making expressions and if so whether there is a difference in learning
outcomes between the collaborative and individual group and (ii) to what
extent learners produce PREs during individual or collaborative tasks In
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response to the first research question we first assigned scores on the request
head acts in the DCTs Because the purpose of this study was to compare
instructional effects between two task conditions (collaborative vs individual)
we focused our analysis on the forms we targeted during instruction Three
points were given if the head act contained one of the target forms (lsquoIrsquom
wondering ifrsquo + clause or lsquoIs there any wayrsquo + clause) and was also grammat-
ically accurate Two points were given if the head act took the target form but
was ungrammatical One point was given for a grammatical non-target form in
the context of this study (request in a form other than the mitigated prepara-
tory such as lsquoCan Irsquo) No point was given for an ungrammatical non-target
form and missing response3 Total scores from four PDR-high requests (scale
0ndash12) were compared across collaborative individual and control groups
using the KruskalndashWallis test In addition to head acts frequency of request
modifications (preparators grounders hedging and amplifiers) was counted
separately and compared across groups using the KruskalndashWallis test Both
authors coded 50 of the data yielding 953 agreement rate The discre-
pancies were solved through a follow-up discussion The non-parametric test
(KruskalndashWallis) was used because the data did not confirm normal
distribution
To answer the second research question task interaction and think-aloud
data were transcribed and analyzed for PREs defined as any part of language
production where learners talk about pragmalinguistics (request-making
forms) and sociopragmatics (contextual factors) they are attending question
their pragmatic language use or correct themselves or others PREs were coded
for context (eg setting interlocutor relationship and size of imposition) head
Table 2 Study procedures
Session Individual group Collaborative group Control group
Session 1(Day 1)
Pretest (DCT 1)Practice taskwith thinking aloud
Pretest (DCT 1)Practice task
Pretest (DCT 1)
Session 2(Day 7)
Explicit information(5 min)
Task modeling video(2 min)
Individual dialogueconstruction (35 min)
Explicit information (5 min)
Task modeling video (2 min)
Collaborative dialogueconstruction (35 min)
Reading activity
Session 3(Day 9)
Same procedure withdifferent scenarios
Same procedure with differentscenarios
Reading activity
Session 4(Day 10)
Immediate posttest (DCT 2) Immediate posttest (DCT 2) Immediateposttest (DCT 2)
Session 5(Day 14)
TOEIC Bridge TOEIC Bridge TOEIC Bridge
Session 6(Day 38)
Delayed posttest (DCT 3) Delayed posttest (DCT 3) Delayedposttest (DCT 3)
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acts grounders preparators hedging and amplifiers See the following ex-
amples about asking the school principal to change a location of a picnic
Example 1 PRE targeting a request head act during interactive task
1 Learner 1 (making a request) I am wondering if I could pos-
sibly (First we have to make a request) I am won-
dering if you could possibly I was wondering
2 Learner 2 I am
3 Learner 1 I am wondering
4 Learner 2 if you could was could (Since
we used lsquocouldrsquo shouldnrsquot we use lsquowasrsquo) I was wondering if I could go
to picnic in Everland
5 Learner 1 if you could (No
since this person needs to make a decision lsquoif you couldrsquo sounds right) If
you could
Example 2 PRE targeting the request head act during think-aloud
Learner 1 In this fall fall picnic fall picnic picnic is there any is there
any way that I could that I could could is there can could possibly
possibly go to Everland participate possibly go to go to Everland
Once the PREs were coded studentsrsquo task performance data (the completed
written dialogues) was scored following the same rubrics as the DCT data and
the frequency of each modification in the dialogues was also counted The
second rater coded 20 percent of task performance data independently and
94 percent agreement was obtained Any disagreement was resolved through
discussion which was applied for the rest of the data coding
RESULTS
Effects of collaborative dialogue in learning the speech act ofrequest
Analysis of request head act
Table 3 displays descriptive statistics of head act scores Frequency analysis
showed that 295 out of the 296 head acts (74 learners 4 items) were non-
target (not the focus of instruction) Most of the non-target head acts took a
form of permission (lsquoMay Irsquo) or ability inquiry (lsquoCould yoursquo) indicating that all
groups were unfamiliar with the mitigated preparatory forms before the in-
struction The KruskalndashWallis test revealed no group difference at pretest
2 = 344 p = 18
The KruskalndashWallis test found a significant group difference at immediate
posttest 2 = 3190 plt 001 Pair-wise comparisons using the MannndashWhitney
U test showed that both treatment groups outperformed the control group
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z = 536 plt 001 (collaborative group) and z = 405 plt 001 (individual group)
The collaborative group further surpassed the individual group on the produc-
tion of mitigated preparatory z = 240 p = 016 However the benefit of this
condition disappeared at delayed posttest because there was no difference be-
tween the treatment groups z = 38 p = 71 In addition the KruskalndashWallis test
showed that there was no significant difference between the control and treat-
ment groups at delayed posttest 2 = 25 p = 884
In summary task-based instruction resulted in a strong effect on the learn-
ing of appropriate request head acts as found in the treatment groupsrsquo superior
performance at immediate posttest compared with that of non-instructional
condition However the effect did not last long as the treatment groups went
back to the level of the control group at delayed posttest Similarly the col-
laborative task was more effective than the individual task at the immediate
posttest but the effect disappeared 1 month later
Analysis of request modification
Tables 4ndash7 present frequency counts of request modifications that appeared in
DCT Preparators almost never appeared at pretest but they showed a large
increase in the two treatment groups at immediate posttest (Table 4) In con-
trast preparators were absent in the control group Both treatment groups
outperformed the control group at immediate and delayed posttest No differ-
ence was found between the collaborative and individual groups z = 176
Table 3 Request head act scores
Group Mean SD Minimum Maximum
Collaborative group (n = 25)
Pretest 336 122 200 400
Immediate posttest 1012 306 200 1200
Delayed posttest 432 236 200 1100
Individual group (n = 25)
Pretest 340 071 200 400
Immediate posttest 836 341 300 1200
Delayed posttest 488 273 100 1200
Control group (n = 24)
Pretest 375 043 300 400
Immediate posttest 383 047 200 400
Delayed posttest 388 044 200 400
Note Each student produced four PDR-high requests Each head act was scored on a 3-point
scale Score range = 0ndash12 Delayed posttest was given 1 month later
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p = 079 at pretest z = 097 p = 33 at immediate posttest and z = 012 p = 90 at
delayed posttest
The grounders showed different patterns they appeared in majority of the
items at pretest (see Table 5) indicating that the learners were already familiar
with this supportive move before the instruction because grounders appear in
Table 4 Frequency of preparators
Group Mean SD Minimum Maximum
Collaborative group (n = 25)
Pretest 028 061 000 200
Immediate posttest 276 151 000 400
Delayed posttest 228 172 000 400
Individual group (n = 25)
Pretest 004 020 000 100
Immediate posttest 316 131 000 400
Delayed posttest 236 173 000 400
Control group (n = 24)
Pretest 000 000 000 000
Immediate posttest 004 020 000 100
Delayed posttest 013 045 000 200
Note Mean = mean frequency of preparators in four PDR-high request items
Table 5 Frequency of grounders
Group Mean SD Minimum Maximum
Collaborative group (n = 25)
Pretest 336 081 100 400
Immediate posttest 336 095 100 400
Delayed posttest 356 096 000 400
Individual group (n = 25)
Pretest 324 088 200 400
Immediate posttest 332 075 200 400
Delayed posttest 340 087 100 400
Control group (n = 24)
Pretest 350 114 000 400
Immediate posttest 346 098 000 400
Delayed posttest 379 051 200 400
Note Mean = mean frequency of grounders in four PDR-high request items
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Korean requests and the learners were able to transfer their L1-based strategy
Because of this ceiling effect there was no instructional effect The results of
the KruskalndashWallis test showed no significant difference in any of the test
sessions 2 = 274 p = 25 at pretest 2 = 121 p = 55 at immediate posttest
and 2= 355 p = 17 at delayed posttest5
Table 7 Frequency of amplifiers
Group Mean SD Minimum Maximum
Collaborative group (n = 25)
Pretest 016 047 000 200
Immediate posttest 092 119 000 400
Delayed posttest 028 054 000 200
Individual group (n = 25)
Pretest 036 064 000 200
Immediate posttest 124 109 000 400
Delayed posttest 044 077 000 200
Control group (n = 24)
Pretest 063 097 000 300
Immediate posttest 071 096 000 400
Delayed posttest 033 076 000 300
Note Mean = mean frequency of amplifiers in four PDR-high request items
Table 6 Frequency of hedging
Group Mean SD Minimum Maximum
Collaborative group (n = 25)
Pretest 000 000 000 000
Immediate posttest 168 149 000 400
Delayed posttest 012 060 000 300
Individual group (n = 25)
Pretest 000 000 000 000
Immediate posttest 140 153 000 400
Delayed posttest 028 098 000 400
Control group (n = 24)
Pretest 000 000 000 000
Immediate posttest 000 000 000 000
Delayed posttest 008 028 000 100
Note Mean = mean frequency of hedging in four PDR-high request items
N TAGUCHI AND Y KIM 13
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Compared with external modifications internal modifications (hedging and
amplifiers) were relatively underused It was absent in the pretest data There
was a noticeable increase at immediate posttest in the treatment groups but
the mean frequency was only moderate Although the frequency was not
particularly large we still note the instructional effect because the treatment
groups outperformed the control group at the immediate posttest 2 = 481
plt 0001 for the collaborative group and 2 = 422 plt 0001 for the individual
group However the effect was short-lived because no group difference was
found at delayed posttest (2 = 43 p = 81) When the two treatment groups
were compared there was no significant difference z = 73 p = 47 at immedi-
ate posttest or z = 61 p = 54 at delayed posttest
Amplifiers also showed very small occurrence at pretest but different from
hedging the frequency remained low throughout the time No instructional
effect was observed in the case of amplifiers as there was no significant group
difference at pretest (2 = 449 p = 11) immediate posttest (2 = 393 p = 14)
or delayed posttest (2 = 45 p = 80)
In summary frequency comparison of request modification across groups
revealed a mixed picture At pretest no group difference was found in any of
these modifications At immediate posttest both treatment groups surpassed
the control group on the production of preparators and hedging but not on the
use of grounders and amplifiers At delayed posttest the treatment groups
outperformed the control group on the production of the preparators only
Most importantly there was no significant difference between the collabora-
tive and individual group in any of these modifications These findings mark a
sharp contrast to those of request head acts in which the collaborative condi-
tion was more advantageous than the individual task condition in learnersrsquo
production of mitigated preparatory forms
Frequency of PREs and quality of treatment task performance
Table 8 reports descriptive statistics for the frequency of PREs Over the two
treatment sessions the individual group produced 1160 PREs on average
while the mean for the collaborative group was 1632 The MannndashWhitney
U test showed that the difference was significant (z =276 p = 006)
Regarding PREs on specific features there was no group difference on PREs
targeting the contextual features of request (z =92 p = 36) head acts
(z = 28 p = 78) or grounders (z = 70 p = 48) but a difference was found in
preparators (z = 465 plt 0001) amplifiers (z = 413 plt 0001) and hedging
(z = 296 p = 003) in favor of the collaborative group
We will turn to the analysis of learnersrsquo task outcome by examining their
accurate resolution of PREs We analyzed the outcome of the dialogue con-
struction tasks using the same scoring rubrics from the DCT analysis 0ndash3 point
scale for head acts and frequency count for modifications (9 maximum points
for three treatment tasks) The individual group scored a mean of 724
(SD = 145) whereas the collaborative group scored a mean of 828
14 COLLABORATIVE DIALOGUE AND PRAGMATICS
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(SD = 84) This difference was significant z =289 plt 0001 indicating that
the collaborative group resolved PREs more successfully than the individual
group and produced more accurate target head acts as task outcome In con-
trast frequency of other request modifications revealed no group difference
preparators z =143 p = 15 grounders z =182 p = 07 hedging z =95
p = 34 and amplifiers z =147 p = 14
Example 3 demonstrates a sample PRE by a pair in the collaborative group
Here the learners are negotiating the target head act form lsquoI was wondering ifrsquo
by attending to each otherrsquos form and providing feedback and confirmation
During this process the target form receives prominence through recycled use
over multiple turns The form is jointly constructed with both participants
contributing to the knowledge building This collaborative work eventually
leads to the production of the accurate target form as task outcome A by-
product of this process is likely the deeper level of processing of the form and
consolidation of pragmatic knowledge as suggested in the collaborative
grouprsquos superior performance at immediate posttest
Example 3 Correctly resolved PRE in the collaborative group
1 Learner 1 (Jaemyong left his Korean home-
work at home) (He
was asking whether he could go home to bring his homework during his
self-study session) (Then he should make a
request politely)
2 Learner 2 (Yes)
----several turns later----------------------------------------------
3 Learner 1 (We need to make a long
polite request) I was wondering
4 Learner 2 if I could go to
5 Learner 1 Go to the home (Is that lsquogo to the homersquo) Go to home
(Shouldnrsquot it be lsquogo to homersquo)
Table 8 Frequency of PREs
PREs targets Collaborative group (n = 25) Individual group (n = 25)
Mean SD Mean SD
Context 476 296 404 302
Head acts 296 1306 288 120
Preparators 252 087 088 105
Grounders 272 124 276 101
Amplifiers 184 111 052 077
Hedging 152 130 052 083
Total 1632 618 1160 548
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6 Learner 2 I am
7 Learner 1 I was wondering if I could go to go to
8 Learner 2 Go home
9 Learner 1 go home
The nature of the collaborative PREs contrasts with that of individual PREs
In Example 4 the learner is working by herself to resolve the PRE targeting lsquois
there any way that I couldrsquo She recognizes that this is the PDR-high request
and that she should use the mitigated preparatory form She produces the
target form once but without a peer attending to her form and giving feed-
back she goes back to the form that she is used to (lsquoCan Irsquo) resulting in the
production of non-target form as task outcome These instances of incorrectly
resolved PREs in the individual task group probably led to their underperform-
ance at immediate posttest compared with the collaborative group
Example 4 Incorrectly resolved PRE in the individual group
Learner 1 (I need to ask
whether I can go home to bring the assignment during self-study ses-
sion) uh may uh big request is there any way that I could uh
(then) Is there any way that I could possible homework my home-
work Can I can I go to my house to get my homework And can I go to
my house to get my homework (Is this right)
Summary of the findings
The learners who completed tasks collaboratively produced more PREs and
target-like request head acts than those who completed the tasks individually
during the task and again at immediate posttest However the benefit of the
collaborative group was short-lived because their performance was the same
with that of the individual group 1 month after the instruction The benefit of
collaborative tasks was also partial because there was no group difference in
the production of request modifications during the task or at immediate
posttest
DISCUSSION
Our findings contribute to the task-based literature by demonstrating the
benefits of collaborative tasks in improving pragmatics knowledge In the lit-
erature of instructed pragmatics our findings support previous studies on
metapragmatic discussion Takimoto (2012) found that collaborative dialogue
in a form of metapragmatic discussion gave learners access to information
about pragmatic features which eventually led to better control of pragmatic
knowledge than the condition where learners completed the task alone with
or without verbalization of the target features This study adds to these findings
16 COLLABORATIVE DIALOGUE AND PRAGMATICS
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because it documented the nature of collaborative dialogue operationalized as
PREsmdashhow often learners discussed pragmatics features in interaction and
whether interaction led to better task performance and linked these with
the development of pragmatic knowledge It became clear that collaborative
tasks generated more PREs than individual tasks PREs also contributed to
learnersrsquo accurate use of request head acts during treatment tasks which led
to their superior performance at immediate posttest Because the quantity of
PREs targeting head acts was similar between the collaborative and individual
groups the quality of PREs namely the extent to which learners resolved
PREs correctly was crucial for learning The present results support previous
findings of LREs studies (eg Payant 2012) and extended them to pragmatics
This study implemented collaborative dialogue through a form of PREs in
which learners interacted with their peers and jointly constructed a dialogue
that involved the target speech act During this process learners attended the
pragmalinguistic forms and semantic moves and their correspondence with
contextual features (relationship power and degree of imposition) Learners
in the individual task group also attended the target pragmatic forms and
verbalized them on their own as observed in PREs during thinking aloud
However negotiation with others was absent Without negotiation working
alone did not generate as many opportunities for attention to pragmatic forms
in context or recycled use of them as did the collaborative dialogue during
interactive tasks This finding was supported by the fact that the individual
group produced fewer PREs than the collaborative group during the treatment
tasks Metapragmatic talk around the target head acts modifications and con-
textual features occurred more frequently in the collaborative group
Negotiation of pragmatic forms and their meaning during the process of joint
task completion prompts a deeper level of cognitive processing that helps con-
solidate learnersrsquo pragmatic knowledge and their subsequent use of the know-
ledge Critically when learners produce language in a collaborative
environment they do not just produce output but they also have an oppor-
tunity to receive feedback from peers while trying to make their language
precise (Swain and Lapkin 1998 Swain 2006) During interaction learners
attend to each otherrsquos forms evaluate their accuracy and appropriateness
and offer feedback and corrections to each other In this process two levels
of monitoring self-monitoring and other-monitoring are occurring simultan-
eously which essentially promote more accurate high-quality task outcomes
Analyses of treatment task data confirmed this The collaborative grouprsquos re-
quest head acts (mitigated preparatory) in the dialogue construction task were
significantly more accurate than those of the individual group which was the
result of monitoring scaffolding and peer feedback that featured the process of
joint task completion
In sum learners completed tasks more successfully when they worked col-
laboratively and this successful task performance led to significantly greater
gains of the knowledge of appropriate request head acts The findings are
consistent with the results of previous findings that joint activities improved
N TAGUCHI AND Y KIM 17
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task performance in terms of the accurate production of the target linguistic
forms and subsequent learning of the forms (eg Storch 2007 Kim 2008) The
present study has advanced this body of literature by demonstrating that ef-
fects of collaborative tasks and PREs extend beyond grammar and vocabulary
PREs provide opportunities for pragmatic learning that involves a complex
mapping of formndashfunctionndashcontext
Although the efficacy of collaborative dialogue became clear in this study
questions remain as to why the effects were restricted to the request head acts
and did not extend to request modifications One possible interpretation of the
findings relates to the different assessment methods used for the head act and
modification Head acts were assessed using a scoring rubric that reflected both
appropriateness (choosing the target mitigated preparatory forms over other
request-making forms) and grammaticality (accuracy of the forms)
Modifications on the other hand were analyzed mainly on frequency of pro-
duction We made this decision because different from the head act that
occurs only once in a single speech act modifications typically co-occur over
multiple times In addition internal modifications used in this study were all
lexical involving only one word which made the analysis of grammaticality
irrelevant
It is possible that the collaborative dialogue made a difference when the
quality of pragmatic forms (accuracy and appropriateness) was considered
compared with simple quantity (frequency) As shown in the treatment task
data strength of the collaborative dialogue was observed in how learners scaf-
folded each other and provided feedback to each other while jointly carrying
out tasks It might be the case that these instances of negotiation and inter-
action occurring in the collaborative task pushed learners to a deeper level of
processing of the request head act which eventually helped them consolidate
their knowledge of both accuracy and appropriateness of the forms Because of
the linguistic complexity of the head act forms (bi-clausal structure) and the
more strenuous scoring method used to evaluate the forms learnersrsquo know-
ledge base had to be solid enough to allow retrieval and use of the knowledge
The collaborative condition that involved intensive attention negotiation
monitoring and peer feedback probably assisted the formation of this robust
knowledge Nevertheless both treatment conditions were equally effective on
the level of request modifications This might be due to the fact that the groups
were compared on the frequency of use (whether they were able to produce
them in an intelligible manner) not on the quality of use (absolute accuracy of
the forms)
These interpretations also corroborate with Takimotorsquos (2012) findings that
revealed the advantage of metapragmatic over non-metapragmatic discussion
on the acquisition of request Positive effects were found in the production-
based test (DCT) but not in the receptive-skills test (appropriateness judg-
ment) Takimoto attributed the findings to the relative ease of the receptive
task Participants without metapragmatic discussion were still able to cope with
judging appropriateness because the test posed lower demands than a
18 COLLABORATIVE DIALOGUE AND PRAGMATICS
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production task however they were not able to deal with the demand
coming from the DCT that required them to produce target forms accurately
and appropriately Because of the precise syntactic processing required in pro-
duction and resulting task demand learners benefitted more from metaprag-
matic discussion that assisted the consolidation of knowledge
Although the two treatment groups differed in their use of the request head
acts their performance was the same at the level of modifications Both groups
outperformed the control group in the production of preparators and hedging
right after the instruction as well as 1 month later in the case of preparators
These findings indicate a strong effect of instruction over non-instruction but
also reveal variation within the effect across modification types The strong
effect found in the preparators is probably due to the saliency of the prepara-
tors as semantic strategies Different from hedging or amplifiers that involve
precise pragmalinguistics preparators are part of the discourse moves that
characterize the structure of a request reflecting sociopragmatic information
Logistics and rituals of how to structure a request using preparators were prob-
ably easier to learn than the precise linguistics forms of a request and once
learned the knowledge stayed in the memory because of its saliency These
findings conform to the previous longitudinal findings that revealed that ac-
quisition of sociopragmatic rules (eg use of semantic strategies) is faster than
that of pragmalinguistic forms (Bardovi-Harlig and Hartford 1993 Taguchi
2012) The present findings confirmed this in an instructional study
LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY AND IMPLICATIONS FORFUTURE RESEARCH
This study is limited to a small number of individuals in a single L2 group a
single measure and a narrowly defined pragmatic target (request) Future
studies should involve a greater participant pool with wider target languages
and pragmatic measures and examine the development of different aspects of
pragmatic competence in relation to collaborative dialogue
Equally important is an investigation into individual differences and lear-
nersrsquo perceptions of instruction It is possible that not all learners had equal
amount of participation or contribution to the collaborative tasks which con-
sequently restricted their knowledge-building process It is also possible that
learners were not familiar with the type of instructional activities used in this
study and needed more time to get accustomed to the tasks in order to gain the
full benefit from them Two class periods were probably not enough time to
boost their robust learning Because this study did not address individual lear-
ner variation and learnersrsquo perceptions of their learning processes future stu-
dies are called for in this direction
Additionally although there has been a surge amount of research on task
design and task implementation in instructed SLA the learning of pragmatics
using a variety of collaborative tasks has not been explored Because this study
N TAGUCHI AND Y KIM 19
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used only one type of writing task future studies should explore task-related
variables to find ultimate task-based learning contexts for pragmatic
development
In the current study we used PREs as an analysis unit to determine the
amount of learnersrsquo attention to target pragmatic forms for both individual and
collaborative groups The results need to be interpreted with acknowledging
that the characteristics of PREs in these two groups might not be exactly
the same due to the different nature of task performance As a first step of
using PREs we focused on the overall frequency of PREs Future studies are
warranted to explore the quality of PREs (eg number of turnssentences per
PRE) to further our understanding of collaborative dialogue around prag-
matics Another limitation is that this study did not collect Supplementary
data such as stimulated verbal recall or interviews to understand actual cog-
nitive processing involved in PREs which should be explored in the future
research
Finally different effects of collaborative dialogue between the request head
acts and modifications found here need to be addressed more explicitly in the
future Learnability and teachability of pragmatic features have been discussed
in the literature pointing to the need for exploring the interaction among
instructional methods pragmatic targets and learner profiles (eg Roever
2009 Takahashi 2010 Taguhi 2011) Roever (2009) suggests that future re-
search should investigate what kinds of pragmatic features (eg syntactic miti-
gations and lexical downgraders) should be taught to what types of learners
(in terms of proficiency or other individual characteristics) using what kinds of
intervention methods (eg interaction vs non-interaction) Taguchi (forth-
coming) adds characteristics of assessment methods to this call because instruc-
tional effects diverge substantially depending on the demands involved
in the assessment measures Collaborative dialogue and PREs could serve
as a fruitful area to investigate this interaction among pragmatic targets in-
structional methods learnersrsquo instructional readiness and assessment
measures
SUPPLEMENTARY DATA
Supplementary material is available at Applied Linguistics online
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We are grateful for three anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on earlier versions of
the manuscript Special thanks also go to our research assistants Feng Xiao Franklin Bradfield
Sharon Kim and YeonJoo Jung for their help with data analysis We are responsible for all the
errors that may remain
Conflict of interest statement None declared
20 COLLABORATIVE DIALOGUE AND PRAGMATICS
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NOTES
1 We acknowledge the limitation of not
using video-recorded authentic prag-
matic materials
2 One of the reviewers stated that the au-
thenticity of tasks should be based on
whether situations happen in the
target culture We agree with this con-
cern However being familiar with
given contexts is crucial for the partici-
pants to be able to analyze the contexts
and discuss the pragmatic-related issues
Because making requests in both
Korean and English follow similar
discourse patterns we decided that it
was appropriate to use context-specific
scenarios (situations in Korea) in the
study
3 Missing responses occupied about 3
percent of the data
4 We conducted additional analysis with
analysis of covariance with proficiency
measured by TOEIC Bridge test as cov-
ariate Results were the same
5 This study did not analyze content of
the grounders because content was
fixed provided in the DCT scenarios
REFERENCES
Bardovi-Harlig K and B Hartford 1993
lsquoLearning the rules of academic talk A
longitudinal study of pragmatic changersquo
Studies in Second Language Acquisition 15
279ndash304
Blum-Kulka S J House and G Kasper
1989 Cross-Cultural Pragmatics Requests and
Apologies Ablex
Brown P and S Levinson 1987 Politeness
Cambridge University Press
Golato A 2003 lsquoStudying complement re-
sponses A comparison of DCTs and recordings
of naturally occurring talkrsquo Applied Linguistics
24 90ndash121
DeKeyser R 2007 lsquoSkill acquisition theoryrsquo
in B VanPatten and J Williams (eds)
Theories in Second Language Acquisition An
Introduction Lawrence Erlbaum Associates
Publishers pp 94ndash113
Jeon E -H and T Kaya 2006 lsquoEffects of L2
instruction on interlanguage pragmatic devel-
opmentrsquo in N John and L Ortega (eds)
Synthesizing Research on Language Learning and
Teaching John Benjamins pp 165ndash211
Kasper G 2001 lsquoClassroom research on inter-
language pragmaticsrsquo in K Rose and G Kasper
(eds) Pragmatics in Language Teaching
Cambridge University Press pp 33ndash62
Kim Y 2008 lsquoThe contribution of collaborative
and individual tasks to the acquisition of L2
vocabularyrsquo Modern Language Journal 92
113ndash40
Kim Y 2013 lsquoEffects of pretask modeling on
attention to form and question developmentrsquo
TESOL Quarterly 47 8ndash35
Kim Y in press lsquoThe role of tasks as vehicles for
learning in classroom interactionrsquo in N Markee
(ed) Handbook of Classroom Discourse and
Interaction Wiley-Blackwell
Lee I S Kim S Yoon J Nam S Park
Y Hong and T Orr 2009 Middle School
English 2 Chun-Jae-Gyo-Yuk
Leech G 1983 Principles of Pragmatics Longman
McNamara T and C Roever 2006 Language
Testing The Social Dimension Blackwell
Nassaji H and J Tian 2010 lsquoCollaborative and
individual output tasks and their effects on
learning English phrasal verbsrsquo Language
Teaching Research 14 397ndash419
Nguyen TTM 2013 lsquoInstructional effects on
the acquisition of modifiers in constructive
criticisms by EFL learnersrsquo Language
Awareness 22 76ndash94
Payant C 2012 lsquoLearner-learner interaction
An exploration of the mediating functions of
multilingual learnersrsquo languages in an L3 for-
eign language classroomrsquo Unpublished disser-
tation Georgia State University
Roever C 2009 lsquoTeaching and testing pragmaticsrsquo
in M Long and C Doughty (eds) Handbook of
Language Teaching Wiley-Blackwell pp 560ndash77
Schmidt R 2001 lsquoAttentionrsquo in P Robinson
(ed) Cognition and Second Language Instruction
Cambridge University Press pp 3ndash32
N TAGUCHI AND Y KIM 21
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Dow
nloaded from
Storch N 2007 lsquoInvestigating the merits of pair
work on a text editing task in ESL classesrsquo
Language Teaching Research 2 143ndash59
Swain M 2006 lsquoLanguaging agency and col-
laboration in advanced second language
Proficiencyrsquo in H Byrnes (ed) Advanced
Language Learning The Contribution of Halliday
and Vygotsky Continuum pp 95ndash108
Swain M and S Lapkin 1998 lsquoInteraction
and second language learning Two adolescent
French immersion students working togetherrsquo
Modern Language Journal 82 320ndash37
Swain M and Y Watanabe 2013
lsquoCollaborative dialogue as a source of learningrsquo
in C Chapelle (ed) The Encyclopedia of Applied
Linguistics Wiley Blackwell
Taguchi N 2011 lsquoTeaching pragmatics Trends
and issuesrsquo Annual Review of Applied Linguistics
31 289ndash310
Taguchi N 2012 Context Individual
Differences and Pragmatic Competence
Multilingual Matter
Taguchi N forthcoming lsquoInstructed pragmatics
at a glance Where instructional studies were
are and should be going State-of-the-art art-
iclersquo Language Teaching
Takahashi S 1996 lsquoPragmatic transferabilityrsquo
Studies in Second Language Acquisition 18 189ndash223
Takahashi S 2010 lsquoAssessing learnability in
second language pragmaticsrsquo in A Trosborg
(ed) Handbook of Pragmatics VII Mouton de
Gruyter pp 391ndash421
Takimoto M 2012 lsquoMetapragmatic discussion
in interlanguage pragmaticsrsquo Journal of
Pragmatics 44 1240ndash53
Van den Branden K M Bygate and
J Norris (eds) 2009 Task-Based Language
Teaching A Reader John Benjamins Publishers
22 COLLABORATIVE DIALOGUE AND PRAGMATICS
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nloaded from
NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS
Naoko Taguchi is an associate professor in the Modern Languages Department at
Carnegie Mellon University where she teaches courses in SLA and Japanese language
and culture Her research interests include pragmatics classroom-based research and
English-medium instruction Address for correspondence Naoko Taguchi Carnegie Mellon
University Pittsburgh PA USA lttaguchiandrewcmuedugt
YouJin Kim is an assistant professor in the Department of Applied Linguistics and ESL at
Georgia State University Her primary research interests include instructed second lan-
guage acquisition task-based language teaching and assessment and structural prim-
ing Her research focuses on adolescent and adult English and Korean language
learners Address for correspondence YouJin Kim Georgia State University Atlanta
GA USA ltykim39gsuedugt
N TAGUCHI AND Y KIM 23
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BACKGROUND
Pragmatic competence reflects an intertwined relationship between pragma-
linguistics and sociopragmatics Pragmalinguistics refers to linguistic resources
needed to perform language functions while sociopragmatics refers to the
language userrsquos assessment of the context in which such resources are put
into use (Leech 1983) There has been a steep increase in the body of instruc-
tional pragmatics studies that focuses on the role of instruction in developing
L2 learnersrsquo knowledge of pragmalinguistics and sociopragmatics (for a review
see Jeon and Kaya 2006 Takahashi 2010 Taguchi 2011) The benefits of in-
struction over non-instruction were found consistently across different lan-
guages teaching methods and assessment tasks and presented strong
evidence that teaching leads to increased pragmatic knowledge More recent
studies have compared the impact of different instructional methods including
explicit and implicit teaching input processing instruction and skill acquisi-
tion Theoretical assumptions behind these methods have informed us about
underlying cognitive mechanisms that drive pragmatics learning
Schmidtrsquos (2001) noticing hypothesis and explicit vs implicit teaching moti-
vated by the hypothesis currently dominates the field of instructed pragmatics
The noticing hypothesis claims that learnersrsquo attention to linguistic forms their
functions and relevant contextual factors serve as a necessary condition for
pragmatic input to become intake Following Kasper (2001) most studies
operationalized explicit teaching to involve direct metapragmatic explanation
followed by structured practice while implicit teaching holds back metaprag-
matic information and instead assists learnersrsquo implicit understandings of the
target features Previous research generally confirmed the superiority of the
explicit over implicit method particularly in outcome measures that involve
greater cognitive demand (Taguch forthcoming)
Although the explicit and implicit debate has prevailed in the literature for
quite some time the field has recently expanded the theoretical scope by
adding new frameworks for pragmatic instruction Particularly relevant to
this study is the concept of collaborative dialogue in the construction of lin-
guistic knowledge which is often operationalized as language-related episodes
(LREs) (Swain and Lapkin 1998 Swain 2006) Collaborative dialogue is a form
of output but it is an output used for a cognitive function because language
mediates learnersrsquo process of working together to solve linguistic problems and
jointly construct knowledge (Swain and Lapkin 1998) According to Swain and
Lapkin (1998) LREs refers to lsquoany part of a dialogue where the students talk
about the language they are producing question their language use or correct
themselves or othersrsquo (p 326) and have been found to be beneficial for
learning
Because tasks are considered vehicles that promote interaction and negoti-
ation collaborative dialogue (operationalized as LREs) during task perform-
ance has received an increasing attention in the field of task-based language
teaching (Kim in press) Research in grammar and vocabulary learning has
2 COLLABORATIVE DIALOGUE AND PRAGMATICS
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investigated to what extent collaborative dialogue during interactive tasks pro-
motes language learning compared with individual task conditions revealing
advantages of the former For instance in Kimrsquos (2008) study of L2 Korean
individual grouprsquos think-aloud data and collaborative grouprsquos interaction data
were analyzed for LREs and their vocabulary learning was compared Results
showed that although the number of LREs was similar between the groups
the latter performed significantly better on vocabulary tests Nassaji and Tian
(2010) also compared collaborative and individual task conditions on phrasal
verbs learning when learners carried out two tasks (editing tasks and cloze
tasks) in a classroom Collaborative tasks resulted in a greater accuracy of
task completion than individual tasks but they did not lead to greater vocabu-
lary gain The authors suggested the task effect editing tasks were more ef-
fective than cloze tasks in promoting negotiation and learning As shown
above the benefit of collaborative dialogue and LREs stemming from task-
based interaction is noteworthy In order to confirm the effectiveness of col-
laborative dialogue during interactive tasks compared with learnersrsquo attention
to language forms during individual tasks more studies are needed in other
language areas such as pragmatics
In pragmatics learning this article considers that collaborative dialogues
(ie LREs) go beyond just language forms They generate moments in which
learners talk about the form and its relevance to the function and context of
language use During interaction pragmalinguistic forms and contextual fac-
tors are constantly emphasized negotiated and recycled for use This process
helps consolidate pragmatic knowledge because it prompts a deeper level of
cognitive processing by requiring learners to think through pragmatic rules
while verbalizing their thoughts Collaborative dialogue enables learners to
negotiate and co-construct pragmatic knowledge learners can discuss prag-
matic forms and contextual features associated with them and develop a
joint understanding of the principles underlying the associations
Several pragmatics studies have used collaborative dialogue as a treatment
method in a format of metapragmatic discussion (eg Nguyen 2013)
However these studies used it in combination with other activities and thus
failed to reveal the sole effect of metapragmatic discussion To our knowledge
Takimoto (2012) is the only study that directly tested the efficacy of metaprag-
matic discussion Takimoto compared two conditions in teaching English re-
quest downgraders consciousness-raising instruction with and without
metapragmatic discussion Both treatment groups analyzed request-making
expressions with contextual features and rated the appropriateness of the
expressions Then they generated a list of ways to make the requests more
appropriate One group made a list collaboratively while the other group did
so individually The metapragmatic discussion group outperformed their indi-
vidual task counterpart on the production of requests which suggests the
benefit of collaborative dialogue in developing pragmatic knowledge
Given the paucity of findings on the role of collaborative dialogue in prag-
matics it is pertinent to examine to what extent learners negotiate and
N TAGUCHI AND Y KIM 3
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nloaded from
co-construct knowledge of sociopragmatic factors and pragmalinguistic fea-
tures during collaborative tasks Furthermore the question of how collabora-
tive dialogue during interactive tasks promotes such processes and subsequent
learning of pragmatics compared with during individual tasks warrants further
investigation Theoretical interest in collaborative dialogue is about language
being used as a cognitive tool that mediates the process of thinking (Swain
2006 Swain and Watanabe 2013) Languaging contends that verbalization of
target pragmatic forms when guided strategically through a collaborative task
could lead to a deeper-level understanding of the features Although
Takimotorsquos study tapped into this theoretical underpinning of collaborative
dialogue and revealed the benefits of learnerndashlearner interaction in pragmatic
learning actual mechanisms of learning during interaction were not discern-
ible because he did not analyze interaction data for evidence of learning oppor-
tunities He analyzed only the posttest results (appropriateness judgment and
production of request downgraders) To gain a fuller account of the theoretical
framework of collaborative dialogue it is necessary to analyze the quality of
LREs targeting pragmatics which we call pragmatic-related episodes (PREs) and
link the analyses to learning outcomes Furthermore in order to compare the
amount of languaging between individual tasks and collaborative tasks it is
also important to document how learners performing individual tasks con-
struct their knowledge of pragmatics on their own Thus in the current
study we collected learnersrsquo think-aloud protocols in the individual task
group and they were analyzed for PREs as well
In this study we examine the effects of collaborative dialogue on the acqui-
sition of speech act of request in English by comparing three groups the lsquocol-
laborative grouprsquo who completes the dialogue construction tasks targeting a
request in pairs the lsquoindividual grouprsquo who completes the task alone and the
control group who does not receive any task-based instruction In addition we
investigate the characteristics of collaborative dialogue (operationalized as
PREs) as language resources that facilitate learning Following Swain and
Lapkin (1998) we define PREs as any part of language production where
learners talk about the pragmalinguistic forms they are producing and the
sociopragmatic factors they are attending to (eg setting and interlocutor re-
lationship) question their pragmatic language use or correct themselves or
others In this study we specifically focus on the frequency of PREs produced
during collaborative and individual tasks and instances of correctly solved
pragmatic problems to see whether PREs provide opportunities for learning
pragmatics This study asks two research questions
1 What is the effect of task-based pragmatic instruction on L2 pragmatic
development Are there any differences in the learning of the request
speech act between the collaborative and individual task group
2 Are there any differences in the frequency of PREs and quality of task
performance during instruction between the collaborative and individual
task group
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METHODS
Participants
Participants were 74 learners of English in a second-grade girlsrsquo junior high
school in South Korea Their average age was 1374 years (range = 13ndash14
years) They had received 5 years of formal English education at the time of
the study They were receiving 4 hours of English instruction per week taught
mostly by Korean-speaking instructors Participantsrsquo proficiency measured by
Test of English for International Communication (TOEIC) Bridge was between
high beginner and intermediate with a mean score of 13527 (SD = 1442
range = 100ndash172) Participantsrsquo English classes focused on grammar vocabu-
lary and readingwriting with little focus on pragmatics Three intact classes
were randomly assigned to three groups a collaborative (n = 25) individual
(n = 25) and control group (n = 24) Analysis of variance showed no significant
group difference in the TOEIC Bridge scores suggesting that the groups were
comparable in terms of their proficiency level (F = 355 p = 70)
Instructional targets
The instructional target was the speech act of request in a formal situation
which appeared in the participantsrsquo English textbook (Lee et al 2009) Formal
request was operationalized using Brown and Levinsonrsquos (1987) contextual
factors power (P) distance (D) and degree of imposition (R) and was defined
as a request that carries a larger size of imposition and is made to someone in a
greater power and distance (PDR-high) An example is asking a professor to
reschedule a test This PDR-high request contrasts with a request made to
someone in equal power and small distance and degree of imposition (PDR-
low) such as asking your sister to pass you a TV remote
In order to identify appropriate request situations a pilot study was con-
ducted with students of the same grade in the institution who were not
included in the main study (n = 34) This involved asking them to indicate
the degree of psychological ease or difficulty in performing the request on
Likert scale from 1 (easy) to 5 (difficult) The survey included 14 PDR-high
and -low requests adapted from the previous literature (eg Taguchi 2012)
The survey also asked participants to indicate the degree of commonality of
each situation on a scale from 1 (very rare) to 5 (very common) Finally the
survey provided an open question in which students wrote PDR-high and -low
requests that they had personally encountered
Results showed that PDR-low situations received a mean difficulty rating of
178 (SD = 106) while PDR-high situations received a mean rating of 264
(SD = 124) This difference was statistically significant t (237) =900
p = 0001 indicating that PDR-high were perceived as more difficult to perform
than PDR-low requests From the 14 situations we selected four PDR-high
items that received a rating of 25 or above and four PDR-low items with a
rating of below 15 In order to ensure the authenticity of tasks commonality
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ratings of these items were checked to avoid teaching situations that do not
represent real life in Korea Finally we analyzed participantsrsquo responses to the
open-ended question and used their descriptions when writing situations
Instruction focused on two categories of pragmalinguistic forms request
head acts and modifications (Table 1) Request head acts refer to the minimal
core unit that conveys the illocutionary force of request (Blum-Kulka et al
1989) In this category we taught mitigated preparatory forms Mitigated pre-
paratory involves syntactic forms that make reference to the hearerrsquos ability or
will in an embedded question or bi-clausal structure (eg lsquoI was wondering
ifrsquo + verb and lsquoWould it be possible torsquo + verb) (Takahashi 1996) Request modi-
fications have two categories external and internal External modifications
involve semantic moves that are attached externally to the head act and miti-
gate its force (Blum-Kulka et al 1989) We taught two external modifications
preparators (preparing a hearer for a request) and grounders (giving a reason
for request) Internal modifications include sentence-internal syntactic and
lexical devices used to modify the force of request We taught two forms
hedging that softens the tone of speech and amplifiers that strengthen self-
expression
These pragmalinguistic forms were selected based on baseline data collected
from native English speakers Twenty-four students in a US university
Table 1 Target pragmalinguistic forms
Head acts
Mitigated preparatory forms
Reference to the hearerrsquos ability will and possibility or reference to thespeakerrsquos wish in an embedded question or sentence
Irsquom wondering if you could give me an extension on the assignment
Is there any way that I could get an extension on the assignment
External modifications
Preparators
Semantic moves used to prepare the hearer for the request
eg May I ask you something
Grounders
Reason or explanation used to support the request
eg I caught a cold so I couldnrsquot finish the assignment
Internal modifications
Hedging
Words that minimize self-expression (maybe possibly)
eg Irsquom wondering if I could possibly have an extension on the assignment
Amplifiers
Words that strengthen self-expression (really very)
eg I really need more time to work on the assignment
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completed a discourse completion task (DCT) that contained four PDR-high
and -low requests Mitigated preparatory appeared 73 percent of the time as a
head act in PDR-high requests while it appeared only 4 percent of the time in
PDR-low requests This indicates that mitigated preparatory characterizes PDR-
high requests Grounders and preparators were common supportive moves
appearing 98 and 13 percent of the time respectively while they never ap-
peared in PDR-low situations Hedging and amplifiers were also frequent ap-
pearing at a rate of 52 percent while they were absent in PDR-low requests
Based on these findings along with studies that revealed learnersrsquo difficulty
with these forms (Taguchi 2012) we targeted these forms Although DCT data
can only tell us what people would say in a hypothetical situation the rela-
tively uniform responses were considered to represent normative patterns of
request making
Instructional materials and tasks
Treatment groups received instruction in school during their regular English
class sessions over two consecutive days The instruction started with a 5-min
explanation of target pragmatic forms using a written dialogue There were
two dialogues one featuring a PDR-high and the other featuring a PDR-low
request We introduced pragmalinguistic forms and sociopragmatic variables in
each dialogue After receiving the direct metapragmatic information the two
treatment groups (collaborative and individual) proceeded to the dialogue con-
struction task during which learners were asked to complete drama scripts
based on given scenarios as drama scriptwriters They received two scenarios
(PDR-high and -low) with pictures of main characters and created a dialogue
involving a request based on each scenario1 These tasks were considered au-
thentic and relevant to learner interests because TV dramas are popular among
the target population and all the task scenarios were directly related to their
school life2 Learners constructed three PDR-high and -low situation dialogues
during treatment sessions (see Supplementary material for sample instruc-
tional materials) Although PDR-high requests were the instructional target
we introduced PDR-high and -low requests together so the differences be-
tween the two become salient
The collaborative group created a dialogue in pairs while the individual
group completed the task alone Learners vocalized their thoughts during
task performance in the language of their choice either collaboratively or
individually depending on their treatment condition To ensure learnersrsquo
understanding of the task following Kim (2013) we showed a 2-min pre-
task modeling video prior to the beginning of their task performance In the
modeling video for the collaborative group two teachers demonstrate how to
perform a task collaboratively using a similar scenario whereas in the video for
the individual group one teacher performed the same task while thinking
aloud on her own Interaction and think-aloud protocols during task comple-
tion were audio-recorded using individual MP3 recorders The treatment
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session took about 45 min We repeated the same procedures in the second
task treatment session with different scenarios The control group received
regular English instruction
Assessment measure
A written DCT instrument was used to measure learning outcomes DCT
has been criticized because of a lack of authenticity and non-interactive
nature (Golato 2003) However DCT has a merit because the data can provide
information about learnersrsquo knowledge of normative conventions of prag-
matic language use (McNamara and Roever 2006) DCT can also control
social factors in scenarios and help us obtain data that are comparable across
learners over time Most importantly DCT in this study conformed to the
principle of lsquotransfer appropriate processingrsquo (DeKeyser 2007) which claims
that transfer of skill from a learned to a novel task occurs if the cognitive
operations involved in the novel task resemble those in the treatment task
The treatment task in this study was a dialogue construction task which
shared the same modality with DCT which elicited participantsrsquo pragmalinguis-
tic forms in writing
The DCT had 15 items 4 each of PDR-high and PDR-low requests and 7
filler items involving non-target speech acts Each DCT item had a situation
written in Korean to ensure participantsrsquo comprehension Participants were
asked to follow the first turn or prompt provided in English and write the
speech act in English In order to minimize the practice effect coming from
administering the same test repeatedly we prepared three versions of DCT
Scenarios were kept constant but minor wording changes were made in the
scenarios (eg changing names and locations) Different filler items were used
each time DCT items were different from the items used in the treatment
sessions Supplementary material contains sample DCT items
Procedure
The study was conducted over 6 weeks (see Table 2) During the first ses-
sion the learners took the pretest and two task groups carried out a practice
task to become familiar with recording devices and think-aloud
procedures Task treatment sessions were provided on Days 7 and 9 On
Days 10 and 14 all learners took the immediate posttest and the TOEFIC
Bridge respectively Four weeks after the immediate posttest the learners
took the delayed posttest
Data analysis
This study asked (i) whether task-based instruction is beneficial for learning
request-making expressions and if so whether there is a difference in learning
outcomes between the collaborative and individual group and (ii) to what
extent learners produce PREs during individual or collaborative tasks In
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response to the first research question we first assigned scores on the request
head acts in the DCTs Because the purpose of this study was to compare
instructional effects between two task conditions (collaborative vs individual)
we focused our analysis on the forms we targeted during instruction Three
points were given if the head act contained one of the target forms (lsquoIrsquom
wondering ifrsquo + clause or lsquoIs there any wayrsquo + clause) and was also grammat-
ically accurate Two points were given if the head act took the target form but
was ungrammatical One point was given for a grammatical non-target form in
the context of this study (request in a form other than the mitigated prepara-
tory such as lsquoCan Irsquo) No point was given for an ungrammatical non-target
form and missing response3 Total scores from four PDR-high requests (scale
0ndash12) were compared across collaborative individual and control groups
using the KruskalndashWallis test In addition to head acts frequency of request
modifications (preparators grounders hedging and amplifiers) was counted
separately and compared across groups using the KruskalndashWallis test Both
authors coded 50 of the data yielding 953 agreement rate The discre-
pancies were solved through a follow-up discussion The non-parametric test
(KruskalndashWallis) was used because the data did not confirm normal
distribution
To answer the second research question task interaction and think-aloud
data were transcribed and analyzed for PREs defined as any part of language
production where learners talk about pragmalinguistics (request-making
forms) and sociopragmatics (contextual factors) they are attending question
their pragmatic language use or correct themselves or others PREs were coded
for context (eg setting interlocutor relationship and size of imposition) head
Table 2 Study procedures
Session Individual group Collaborative group Control group
Session 1(Day 1)
Pretest (DCT 1)Practice taskwith thinking aloud
Pretest (DCT 1)Practice task
Pretest (DCT 1)
Session 2(Day 7)
Explicit information(5 min)
Task modeling video(2 min)
Individual dialogueconstruction (35 min)
Explicit information (5 min)
Task modeling video (2 min)
Collaborative dialogueconstruction (35 min)
Reading activity
Session 3(Day 9)
Same procedure withdifferent scenarios
Same procedure with differentscenarios
Reading activity
Session 4(Day 10)
Immediate posttest (DCT 2) Immediate posttest (DCT 2) Immediateposttest (DCT 2)
Session 5(Day 14)
TOEIC Bridge TOEIC Bridge TOEIC Bridge
Session 6(Day 38)
Delayed posttest (DCT 3) Delayed posttest (DCT 3) Delayedposttest (DCT 3)
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acts grounders preparators hedging and amplifiers See the following ex-
amples about asking the school principal to change a location of a picnic
Example 1 PRE targeting a request head act during interactive task
1 Learner 1 (making a request) I am wondering if I could pos-
sibly (First we have to make a request) I am won-
dering if you could possibly I was wondering
2 Learner 2 I am
3 Learner 1 I am wondering
4 Learner 2 if you could was could (Since
we used lsquocouldrsquo shouldnrsquot we use lsquowasrsquo) I was wondering if I could go
to picnic in Everland
5 Learner 1 if you could (No
since this person needs to make a decision lsquoif you couldrsquo sounds right) If
you could
Example 2 PRE targeting the request head act during think-aloud
Learner 1 In this fall fall picnic fall picnic picnic is there any is there
any way that I could that I could could is there can could possibly
possibly go to Everland participate possibly go to go to Everland
Once the PREs were coded studentsrsquo task performance data (the completed
written dialogues) was scored following the same rubrics as the DCT data and
the frequency of each modification in the dialogues was also counted The
second rater coded 20 percent of task performance data independently and
94 percent agreement was obtained Any disagreement was resolved through
discussion which was applied for the rest of the data coding
RESULTS
Effects of collaborative dialogue in learning the speech act ofrequest
Analysis of request head act
Table 3 displays descriptive statistics of head act scores Frequency analysis
showed that 295 out of the 296 head acts (74 learners 4 items) were non-
target (not the focus of instruction) Most of the non-target head acts took a
form of permission (lsquoMay Irsquo) or ability inquiry (lsquoCould yoursquo) indicating that all
groups were unfamiliar with the mitigated preparatory forms before the in-
struction The KruskalndashWallis test revealed no group difference at pretest
2 = 344 p = 18
The KruskalndashWallis test found a significant group difference at immediate
posttest 2 = 3190 plt 001 Pair-wise comparisons using the MannndashWhitney
U test showed that both treatment groups outperformed the control group
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z = 536 plt 001 (collaborative group) and z = 405 plt 001 (individual group)
The collaborative group further surpassed the individual group on the produc-
tion of mitigated preparatory z = 240 p = 016 However the benefit of this
condition disappeared at delayed posttest because there was no difference be-
tween the treatment groups z = 38 p = 71 In addition the KruskalndashWallis test
showed that there was no significant difference between the control and treat-
ment groups at delayed posttest 2 = 25 p = 884
In summary task-based instruction resulted in a strong effect on the learn-
ing of appropriate request head acts as found in the treatment groupsrsquo superior
performance at immediate posttest compared with that of non-instructional
condition However the effect did not last long as the treatment groups went
back to the level of the control group at delayed posttest Similarly the col-
laborative task was more effective than the individual task at the immediate
posttest but the effect disappeared 1 month later
Analysis of request modification
Tables 4ndash7 present frequency counts of request modifications that appeared in
DCT Preparators almost never appeared at pretest but they showed a large
increase in the two treatment groups at immediate posttest (Table 4) In con-
trast preparators were absent in the control group Both treatment groups
outperformed the control group at immediate and delayed posttest No differ-
ence was found between the collaborative and individual groups z = 176
Table 3 Request head act scores
Group Mean SD Minimum Maximum
Collaborative group (n = 25)
Pretest 336 122 200 400
Immediate posttest 1012 306 200 1200
Delayed posttest 432 236 200 1100
Individual group (n = 25)
Pretest 340 071 200 400
Immediate posttest 836 341 300 1200
Delayed posttest 488 273 100 1200
Control group (n = 24)
Pretest 375 043 300 400
Immediate posttest 383 047 200 400
Delayed posttest 388 044 200 400
Note Each student produced four PDR-high requests Each head act was scored on a 3-point
scale Score range = 0ndash12 Delayed posttest was given 1 month later
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p = 079 at pretest z = 097 p = 33 at immediate posttest and z = 012 p = 90 at
delayed posttest
The grounders showed different patterns they appeared in majority of the
items at pretest (see Table 5) indicating that the learners were already familiar
with this supportive move before the instruction because grounders appear in
Table 4 Frequency of preparators
Group Mean SD Minimum Maximum
Collaborative group (n = 25)
Pretest 028 061 000 200
Immediate posttest 276 151 000 400
Delayed posttest 228 172 000 400
Individual group (n = 25)
Pretest 004 020 000 100
Immediate posttest 316 131 000 400
Delayed posttest 236 173 000 400
Control group (n = 24)
Pretest 000 000 000 000
Immediate posttest 004 020 000 100
Delayed posttest 013 045 000 200
Note Mean = mean frequency of preparators in four PDR-high request items
Table 5 Frequency of grounders
Group Mean SD Minimum Maximum
Collaborative group (n = 25)
Pretest 336 081 100 400
Immediate posttest 336 095 100 400
Delayed posttest 356 096 000 400
Individual group (n = 25)
Pretest 324 088 200 400
Immediate posttest 332 075 200 400
Delayed posttest 340 087 100 400
Control group (n = 24)
Pretest 350 114 000 400
Immediate posttest 346 098 000 400
Delayed posttest 379 051 200 400
Note Mean = mean frequency of grounders in four PDR-high request items
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Korean requests and the learners were able to transfer their L1-based strategy
Because of this ceiling effect there was no instructional effect The results of
the KruskalndashWallis test showed no significant difference in any of the test
sessions 2 = 274 p = 25 at pretest 2 = 121 p = 55 at immediate posttest
and 2= 355 p = 17 at delayed posttest5
Table 7 Frequency of amplifiers
Group Mean SD Minimum Maximum
Collaborative group (n = 25)
Pretest 016 047 000 200
Immediate posttest 092 119 000 400
Delayed posttest 028 054 000 200
Individual group (n = 25)
Pretest 036 064 000 200
Immediate posttest 124 109 000 400
Delayed posttest 044 077 000 200
Control group (n = 24)
Pretest 063 097 000 300
Immediate posttest 071 096 000 400
Delayed posttest 033 076 000 300
Note Mean = mean frequency of amplifiers in four PDR-high request items
Table 6 Frequency of hedging
Group Mean SD Minimum Maximum
Collaborative group (n = 25)
Pretest 000 000 000 000
Immediate posttest 168 149 000 400
Delayed posttest 012 060 000 300
Individual group (n = 25)
Pretest 000 000 000 000
Immediate posttest 140 153 000 400
Delayed posttest 028 098 000 400
Control group (n = 24)
Pretest 000 000 000 000
Immediate posttest 000 000 000 000
Delayed posttest 008 028 000 100
Note Mean = mean frequency of hedging in four PDR-high request items
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Compared with external modifications internal modifications (hedging and
amplifiers) were relatively underused It was absent in the pretest data There
was a noticeable increase at immediate posttest in the treatment groups but
the mean frequency was only moderate Although the frequency was not
particularly large we still note the instructional effect because the treatment
groups outperformed the control group at the immediate posttest 2 = 481
plt 0001 for the collaborative group and 2 = 422 plt 0001 for the individual
group However the effect was short-lived because no group difference was
found at delayed posttest (2 = 43 p = 81) When the two treatment groups
were compared there was no significant difference z = 73 p = 47 at immedi-
ate posttest or z = 61 p = 54 at delayed posttest
Amplifiers also showed very small occurrence at pretest but different from
hedging the frequency remained low throughout the time No instructional
effect was observed in the case of amplifiers as there was no significant group
difference at pretest (2 = 449 p = 11) immediate posttest (2 = 393 p = 14)
or delayed posttest (2 = 45 p = 80)
In summary frequency comparison of request modification across groups
revealed a mixed picture At pretest no group difference was found in any of
these modifications At immediate posttest both treatment groups surpassed
the control group on the production of preparators and hedging but not on the
use of grounders and amplifiers At delayed posttest the treatment groups
outperformed the control group on the production of the preparators only
Most importantly there was no significant difference between the collabora-
tive and individual group in any of these modifications These findings mark a
sharp contrast to those of request head acts in which the collaborative condi-
tion was more advantageous than the individual task condition in learnersrsquo
production of mitigated preparatory forms
Frequency of PREs and quality of treatment task performance
Table 8 reports descriptive statistics for the frequency of PREs Over the two
treatment sessions the individual group produced 1160 PREs on average
while the mean for the collaborative group was 1632 The MannndashWhitney
U test showed that the difference was significant (z =276 p = 006)
Regarding PREs on specific features there was no group difference on PREs
targeting the contextual features of request (z =92 p = 36) head acts
(z = 28 p = 78) or grounders (z = 70 p = 48) but a difference was found in
preparators (z = 465 plt 0001) amplifiers (z = 413 plt 0001) and hedging
(z = 296 p = 003) in favor of the collaborative group
We will turn to the analysis of learnersrsquo task outcome by examining their
accurate resolution of PREs We analyzed the outcome of the dialogue con-
struction tasks using the same scoring rubrics from the DCT analysis 0ndash3 point
scale for head acts and frequency count for modifications (9 maximum points
for three treatment tasks) The individual group scored a mean of 724
(SD = 145) whereas the collaborative group scored a mean of 828
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(SD = 84) This difference was significant z =289 plt 0001 indicating that
the collaborative group resolved PREs more successfully than the individual
group and produced more accurate target head acts as task outcome In con-
trast frequency of other request modifications revealed no group difference
preparators z =143 p = 15 grounders z =182 p = 07 hedging z =95
p = 34 and amplifiers z =147 p = 14
Example 3 demonstrates a sample PRE by a pair in the collaborative group
Here the learners are negotiating the target head act form lsquoI was wondering ifrsquo
by attending to each otherrsquos form and providing feedback and confirmation
During this process the target form receives prominence through recycled use
over multiple turns The form is jointly constructed with both participants
contributing to the knowledge building This collaborative work eventually
leads to the production of the accurate target form as task outcome A by-
product of this process is likely the deeper level of processing of the form and
consolidation of pragmatic knowledge as suggested in the collaborative
grouprsquos superior performance at immediate posttest
Example 3 Correctly resolved PRE in the collaborative group
1 Learner 1 (Jaemyong left his Korean home-
work at home) (He
was asking whether he could go home to bring his homework during his
self-study session) (Then he should make a
request politely)
2 Learner 2 (Yes)
----several turns later----------------------------------------------
3 Learner 1 (We need to make a long
polite request) I was wondering
4 Learner 2 if I could go to
5 Learner 1 Go to the home (Is that lsquogo to the homersquo) Go to home
(Shouldnrsquot it be lsquogo to homersquo)
Table 8 Frequency of PREs
PREs targets Collaborative group (n = 25) Individual group (n = 25)
Mean SD Mean SD
Context 476 296 404 302
Head acts 296 1306 288 120
Preparators 252 087 088 105
Grounders 272 124 276 101
Amplifiers 184 111 052 077
Hedging 152 130 052 083
Total 1632 618 1160 548
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6 Learner 2 I am
7 Learner 1 I was wondering if I could go to go to
8 Learner 2 Go home
9 Learner 1 go home
The nature of the collaborative PREs contrasts with that of individual PREs
In Example 4 the learner is working by herself to resolve the PRE targeting lsquois
there any way that I couldrsquo She recognizes that this is the PDR-high request
and that she should use the mitigated preparatory form She produces the
target form once but without a peer attending to her form and giving feed-
back she goes back to the form that she is used to (lsquoCan Irsquo) resulting in the
production of non-target form as task outcome These instances of incorrectly
resolved PREs in the individual task group probably led to their underperform-
ance at immediate posttest compared with the collaborative group
Example 4 Incorrectly resolved PRE in the individual group
Learner 1 (I need to ask
whether I can go home to bring the assignment during self-study ses-
sion) uh may uh big request is there any way that I could uh
(then) Is there any way that I could possible homework my home-
work Can I can I go to my house to get my homework And can I go to
my house to get my homework (Is this right)
Summary of the findings
The learners who completed tasks collaboratively produced more PREs and
target-like request head acts than those who completed the tasks individually
during the task and again at immediate posttest However the benefit of the
collaborative group was short-lived because their performance was the same
with that of the individual group 1 month after the instruction The benefit of
collaborative tasks was also partial because there was no group difference in
the production of request modifications during the task or at immediate
posttest
DISCUSSION
Our findings contribute to the task-based literature by demonstrating the
benefits of collaborative tasks in improving pragmatics knowledge In the lit-
erature of instructed pragmatics our findings support previous studies on
metapragmatic discussion Takimoto (2012) found that collaborative dialogue
in a form of metapragmatic discussion gave learners access to information
about pragmatic features which eventually led to better control of pragmatic
knowledge than the condition where learners completed the task alone with
or without verbalization of the target features This study adds to these findings
16 COLLABORATIVE DIALOGUE AND PRAGMATICS
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because it documented the nature of collaborative dialogue operationalized as
PREsmdashhow often learners discussed pragmatics features in interaction and
whether interaction led to better task performance and linked these with
the development of pragmatic knowledge It became clear that collaborative
tasks generated more PREs than individual tasks PREs also contributed to
learnersrsquo accurate use of request head acts during treatment tasks which led
to their superior performance at immediate posttest Because the quantity of
PREs targeting head acts was similar between the collaborative and individual
groups the quality of PREs namely the extent to which learners resolved
PREs correctly was crucial for learning The present results support previous
findings of LREs studies (eg Payant 2012) and extended them to pragmatics
This study implemented collaborative dialogue through a form of PREs in
which learners interacted with their peers and jointly constructed a dialogue
that involved the target speech act During this process learners attended the
pragmalinguistic forms and semantic moves and their correspondence with
contextual features (relationship power and degree of imposition) Learners
in the individual task group also attended the target pragmatic forms and
verbalized them on their own as observed in PREs during thinking aloud
However negotiation with others was absent Without negotiation working
alone did not generate as many opportunities for attention to pragmatic forms
in context or recycled use of them as did the collaborative dialogue during
interactive tasks This finding was supported by the fact that the individual
group produced fewer PREs than the collaborative group during the treatment
tasks Metapragmatic talk around the target head acts modifications and con-
textual features occurred more frequently in the collaborative group
Negotiation of pragmatic forms and their meaning during the process of joint
task completion prompts a deeper level of cognitive processing that helps con-
solidate learnersrsquo pragmatic knowledge and their subsequent use of the know-
ledge Critically when learners produce language in a collaborative
environment they do not just produce output but they also have an oppor-
tunity to receive feedback from peers while trying to make their language
precise (Swain and Lapkin 1998 Swain 2006) During interaction learners
attend to each otherrsquos forms evaluate their accuracy and appropriateness
and offer feedback and corrections to each other In this process two levels
of monitoring self-monitoring and other-monitoring are occurring simultan-
eously which essentially promote more accurate high-quality task outcomes
Analyses of treatment task data confirmed this The collaborative grouprsquos re-
quest head acts (mitigated preparatory) in the dialogue construction task were
significantly more accurate than those of the individual group which was the
result of monitoring scaffolding and peer feedback that featured the process of
joint task completion
In sum learners completed tasks more successfully when they worked col-
laboratively and this successful task performance led to significantly greater
gains of the knowledge of appropriate request head acts The findings are
consistent with the results of previous findings that joint activities improved
N TAGUCHI AND Y KIM 17
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nloaded from
task performance in terms of the accurate production of the target linguistic
forms and subsequent learning of the forms (eg Storch 2007 Kim 2008) The
present study has advanced this body of literature by demonstrating that ef-
fects of collaborative tasks and PREs extend beyond grammar and vocabulary
PREs provide opportunities for pragmatic learning that involves a complex
mapping of formndashfunctionndashcontext
Although the efficacy of collaborative dialogue became clear in this study
questions remain as to why the effects were restricted to the request head acts
and did not extend to request modifications One possible interpretation of the
findings relates to the different assessment methods used for the head act and
modification Head acts were assessed using a scoring rubric that reflected both
appropriateness (choosing the target mitigated preparatory forms over other
request-making forms) and grammaticality (accuracy of the forms)
Modifications on the other hand were analyzed mainly on frequency of pro-
duction We made this decision because different from the head act that
occurs only once in a single speech act modifications typically co-occur over
multiple times In addition internal modifications used in this study were all
lexical involving only one word which made the analysis of grammaticality
irrelevant
It is possible that the collaborative dialogue made a difference when the
quality of pragmatic forms (accuracy and appropriateness) was considered
compared with simple quantity (frequency) As shown in the treatment task
data strength of the collaborative dialogue was observed in how learners scaf-
folded each other and provided feedback to each other while jointly carrying
out tasks It might be the case that these instances of negotiation and inter-
action occurring in the collaborative task pushed learners to a deeper level of
processing of the request head act which eventually helped them consolidate
their knowledge of both accuracy and appropriateness of the forms Because of
the linguistic complexity of the head act forms (bi-clausal structure) and the
more strenuous scoring method used to evaluate the forms learnersrsquo know-
ledge base had to be solid enough to allow retrieval and use of the knowledge
The collaborative condition that involved intensive attention negotiation
monitoring and peer feedback probably assisted the formation of this robust
knowledge Nevertheless both treatment conditions were equally effective on
the level of request modifications This might be due to the fact that the groups
were compared on the frequency of use (whether they were able to produce
them in an intelligible manner) not on the quality of use (absolute accuracy of
the forms)
These interpretations also corroborate with Takimotorsquos (2012) findings that
revealed the advantage of metapragmatic over non-metapragmatic discussion
on the acquisition of request Positive effects were found in the production-
based test (DCT) but not in the receptive-skills test (appropriateness judg-
ment) Takimoto attributed the findings to the relative ease of the receptive
task Participants without metapragmatic discussion were still able to cope with
judging appropriateness because the test posed lower demands than a
18 COLLABORATIVE DIALOGUE AND PRAGMATICS
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nloaded from
production task however they were not able to deal with the demand
coming from the DCT that required them to produce target forms accurately
and appropriately Because of the precise syntactic processing required in pro-
duction and resulting task demand learners benefitted more from metaprag-
matic discussion that assisted the consolidation of knowledge
Although the two treatment groups differed in their use of the request head
acts their performance was the same at the level of modifications Both groups
outperformed the control group in the production of preparators and hedging
right after the instruction as well as 1 month later in the case of preparators
These findings indicate a strong effect of instruction over non-instruction but
also reveal variation within the effect across modification types The strong
effect found in the preparators is probably due to the saliency of the prepara-
tors as semantic strategies Different from hedging or amplifiers that involve
precise pragmalinguistics preparators are part of the discourse moves that
characterize the structure of a request reflecting sociopragmatic information
Logistics and rituals of how to structure a request using preparators were prob-
ably easier to learn than the precise linguistics forms of a request and once
learned the knowledge stayed in the memory because of its saliency These
findings conform to the previous longitudinal findings that revealed that ac-
quisition of sociopragmatic rules (eg use of semantic strategies) is faster than
that of pragmalinguistic forms (Bardovi-Harlig and Hartford 1993 Taguchi
2012) The present findings confirmed this in an instructional study
LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY AND IMPLICATIONS FORFUTURE RESEARCH
This study is limited to a small number of individuals in a single L2 group a
single measure and a narrowly defined pragmatic target (request) Future
studies should involve a greater participant pool with wider target languages
and pragmatic measures and examine the development of different aspects of
pragmatic competence in relation to collaborative dialogue
Equally important is an investigation into individual differences and lear-
nersrsquo perceptions of instruction It is possible that not all learners had equal
amount of participation or contribution to the collaborative tasks which con-
sequently restricted their knowledge-building process It is also possible that
learners were not familiar with the type of instructional activities used in this
study and needed more time to get accustomed to the tasks in order to gain the
full benefit from them Two class periods were probably not enough time to
boost their robust learning Because this study did not address individual lear-
ner variation and learnersrsquo perceptions of their learning processes future stu-
dies are called for in this direction
Additionally although there has been a surge amount of research on task
design and task implementation in instructed SLA the learning of pragmatics
using a variety of collaborative tasks has not been explored Because this study
N TAGUCHI AND Y KIM 19
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nloaded from
used only one type of writing task future studies should explore task-related
variables to find ultimate task-based learning contexts for pragmatic
development
In the current study we used PREs as an analysis unit to determine the
amount of learnersrsquo attention to target pragmatic forms for both individual and
collaborative groups The results need to be interpreted with acknowledging
that the characteristics of PREs in these two groups might not be exactly
the same due to the different nature of task performance As a first step of
using PREs we focused on the overall frequency of PREs Future studies are
warranted to explore the quality of PREs (eg number of turnssentences per
PRE) to further our understanding of collaborative dialogue around prag-
matics Another limitation is that this study did not collect Supplementary
data such as stimulated verbal recall or interviews to understand actual cog-
nitive processing involved in PREs which should be explored in the future
research
Finally different effects of collaborative dialogue between the request head
acts and modifications found here need to be addressed more explicitly in the
future Learnability and teachability of pragmatic features have been discussed
in the literature pointing to the need for exploring the interaction among
instructional methods pragmatic targets and learner profiles (eg Roever
2009 Takahashi 2010 Taguhi 2011) Roever (2009) suggests that future re-
search should investigate what kinds of pragmatic features (eg syntactic miti-
gations and lexical downgraders) should be taught to what types of learners
(in terms of proficiency or other individual characteristics) using what kinds of
intervention methods (eg interaction vs non-interaction) Taguchi (forth-
coming) adds characteristics of assessment methods to this call because instruc-
tional effects diverge substantially depending on the demands involved
in the assessment measures Collaborative dialogue and PREs could serve
as a fruitful area to investigate this interaction among pragmatic targets in-
structional methods learnersrsquo instructional readiness and assessment
measures
SUPPLEMENTARY DATA
Supplementary material is available at Applied Linguistics online
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We are grateful for three anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on earlier versions of
the manuscript Special thanks also go to our research assistants Feng Xiao Franklin Bradfield
Sharon Kim and YeonJoo Jung for their help with data analysis We are responsible for all the
errors that may remain
Conflict of interest statement None declared
20 COLLABORATIVE DIALOGUE AND PRAGMATICS
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NOTES
1 We acknowledge the limitation of not
using video-recorded authentic prag-
matic materials
2 One of the reviewers stated that the au-
thenticity of tasks should be based on
whether situations happen in the
target culture We agree with this con-
cern However being familiar with
given contexts is crucial for the partici-
pants to be able to analyze the contexts
and discuss the pragmatic-related issues
Because making requests in both
Korean and English follow similar
discourse patterns we decided that it
was appropriate to use context-specific
scenarios (situations in Korea) in the
study
3 Missing responses occupied about 3
percent of the data
4 We conducted additional analysis with
analysis of covariance with proficiency
measured by TOEIC Bridge test as cov-
ariate Results were the same
5 This study did not analyze content of
the grounders because content was
fixed provided in the DCT scenarios
REFERENCES
Bardovi-Harlig K and B Hartford 1993
lsquoLearning the rules of academic talk A
longitudinal study of pragmatic changersquo
Studies in Second Language Acquisition 15
279ndash304
Blum-Kulka S J House and G Kasper
1989 Cross-Cultural Pragmatics Requests and
Apologies Ablex
Brown P and S Levinson 1987 Politeness
Cambridge University Press
Golato A 2003 lsquoStudying complement re-
sponses A comparison of DCTs and recordings
of naturally occurring talkrsquo Applied Linguistics
24 90ndash121
DeKeyser R 2007 lsquoSkill acquisition theoryrsquo
in B VanPatten and J Williams (eds)
Theories in Second Language Acquisition An
Introduction Lawrence Erlbaum Associates
Publishers pp 94ndash113
Jeon E -H and T Kaya 2006 lsquoEffects of L2
instruction on interlanguage pragmatic devel-
opmentrsquo in N John and L Ortega (eds)
Synthesizing Research on Language Learning and
Teaching John Benjamins pp 165ndash211
Kasper G 2001 lsquoClassroom research on inter-
language pragmaticsrsquo in K Rose and G Kasper
(eds) Pragmatics in Language Teaching
Cambridge University Press pp 33ndash62
Kim Y 2008 lsquoThe contribution of collaborative
and individual tasks to the acquisition of L2
vocabularyrsquo Modern Language Journal 92
113ndash40
Kim Y 2013 lsquoEffects of pretask modeling on
attention to form and question developmentrsquo
TESOL Quarterly 47 8ndash35
Kim Y in press lsquoThe role of tasks as vehicles for
learning in classroom interactionrsquo in N Markee
(ed) Handbook of Classroom Discourse and
Interaction Wiley-Blackwell
Lee I S Kim S Yoon J Nam S Park
Y Hong and T Orr 2009 Middle School
English 2 Chun-Jae-Gyo-Yuk
Leech G 1983 Principles of Pragmatics Longman
McNamara T and C Roever 2006 Language
Testing The Social Dimension Blackwell
Nassaji H and J Tian 2010 lsquoCollaborative and
individual output tasks and their effects on
learning English phrasal verbsrsquo Language
Teaching Research 14 397ndash419
Nguyen TTM 2013 lsquoInstructional effects on
the acquisition of modifiers in constructive
criticisms by EFL learnersrsquo Language
Awareness 22 76ndash94
Payant C 2012 lsquoLearner-learner interaction
An exploration of the mediating functions of
multilingual learnersrsquo languages in an L3 for-
eign language classroomrsquo Unpublished disser-
tation Georgia State University
Roever C 2009 lsquoTeaching and testing pragmaticsrsquo
in M Long and C Doughty (eds) Handbook of
Language Teaching Wiley-Blackwell pp 560ndash77
Schmidt R 2001 lsquoAttentionrsquo in P Robinson
(ed) Cognition and Second Language Instruction
Cambridge University Press pp 3ndash32
N TAGUCHI AND Y KIM 21
by guest on July 30 2014httpapplijoxfordjournalsorg
Dow
nloaded from
Storch N 2007 lsquoInvestigating the merits of pair
work on a text editing task in ESL classesrsquo
Language Teaching Research 2 143ndash59
Swain M 2006 lsquoLanguaging agency and col-
laboration in advanced second language
Proficiencyrsquo in H Byrnes (ed) Advanced
Language Learning The Contribution of Halliday
and Vygotsky Continuum pp 95ndash108
Swain M and S Lapkin 1998 lsquoInteraction
and second language learning Two adolescent
French immersion students working togetherrsquo
Modern Language Journal 82 320ndash37
Swain M and Y Watanabe 2013
lsquoCollaborative dialogue as a source of learningrsquo
in C Chapelle (ed) The Encyclopedia of Applied
Linguistics Wiley Blackwell
Taguchi N 2011 lsquoTeaching pragmatics Trends
and issuesrsquo Annual Review of Applied Linguistics
31 289ndash310
Taguchi N 2012 Context Individual
Differences and Pragmatic Competence
Multilingual Matter
Taguchi N forthcoming lsquoInstructed pragmatics
at a glance Where instructional studies were
are and should be going State-of-the-art art-
iclersquo Language Teaching
Takahashi S 1996 lsquoPragmatic transferabilityrsquo
Studies in Second Language Acquisition 18 189ndash223
Takahashi S 2010 lsquoAssessing learnability in
second language pragmaticsrsquo in A Trosborg
(ed) Handbook of Pragmatics VII Mouton de
Gruyter pp 391ndash421
Takimoto M 2012 lsquoMetapragmatic discussion
in interlanguage pragmaticsrsquo Journal of
Pragmatics 44 1240ndash53
Van den Branden K M Bygate and
J Norris (eds) 2009 Task-Based Language
Teaching A Reader John Benjamins Publishers
22 COLLABORATIVE DIALOGUE AND PRAGMATICS
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Dow
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NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS
Naoko Taguchi is an associate professor in the Modern Languages Department at
Carnegie Mellon University where she teaches courses in SLA and Japanese language
and culture Her research interests include pragmatics classroom-based research and
English-medium instruction Address for correspondence Naoko Taguchi Carnegie Mellon
University Pittsburgh PA USA lttaguchiandrewcmuedugt
YouJin Kim is an assistant professor in the Department of Applied Linguistics and ESL at
Georgia State University Her primary research interests include instructed second lan-
guage acquisition task-based language teaching and assessment and structural prim-
ing Her research focuses on adolescent and adult English and Korean language
learners Address for correspondence YouJin Kim Georgia State University Atlanta
GA USA ltykim39gsuedugt
N TAGUCHI AND Y KIM 23
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investigated to what extent collaborative dialogue during interactive tasks pro-
motes language learning compared with individual task conditions revealing
advantages of the former For instance in Kimrsquos (2008) study of L2 Korean
individual grouprsquos think-aloud data and collaborative grouprsquos interaction data
were analyzed for LREs and their vocabulary learning was compared Results
showed that although the number of LREs was similar between the groups
the latter performed significantly better on vocabulary tests Nassaji and Tian
(2010) also compared collaborative and individual task conditions on phrasal
verbs learning when learners carried out two tasks (editing tasks and cloze
tasks) in a classroom Collaborative tasks resulted in a greater accuracy of
task completion than individual tasks but they did not lead to greater vocabu-
lary gain The authors suggested the task effect editing tasks were more ef-
fective than cloze tasks in promoting negotiation and learning As shown
above the benefit of collaborative dialogue and LREs stemming from task-
based interaction is noteworthy In order to confirm the effectiveness of col-
laborative dialogue during interactive tasks compared with learnersrsquo attention
to language forms during individual tasks more studies are needed in other
language areas such as pragmatics
In pragmatics learning this article considers that collaborative dialogues
(ie LREs) go beyond just language forms They generate moments in which
learners talk about the form and its relevance to the function and context of
language use During interaction pragmalinguistic forms and contextual fac-
tors are constantly emphasized negotiated and recycled for use This process
helps consolidate pragmatic knowledge because it prompts a deeper level of
cognitive processing by requiring learners to think through pragmatic rules
while verbalizing their thoughts Collaborative dialogue enables learners to
negotiate and co-construct pragmatic knowledge learners can discuss prag-
matic forms and contextual features associated with them and develop a
joint understanding of the principles underlying the associations
Several pragmatics studies have used collaborative dialogue as a treatment
method in a format of metapragmatic discussion (eg Nguyen 2013)
However these studies used it in combination with other activities and thus
failed to reveal the sole effect of metapragmatic discussion To our knowledge
Takimoto (2012) is the only study that directly tested the efficacy of metaprag-
matic discussion Takimoto compared two conditions in teaching English re-
quest downgraders consciousness-raising instruction with and without
metapragmatic discussion Both treatment groups analyzed request-making
expressions with contextual features and rated the appropriateness of the
expressions Then they generated a list of ways to make the requests more
appropriate One group made a list collaboratively while the other group did
so individually The metapragmatic discussion group outperformed their indi-
vidual task counterpart on the production of requests which suggests the
benefit of collaborative dialogue in developing pragmatic knowledge
Given the paucity of findings on the role of collaborative dialogue in prag-
matics it is pertinent to examine to what extent learners negotiate and
N TAGUCHI AND Y KIM 3
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nloaded from
co-construct knowledge of sociopragmatic factors and pragmalinguistic fea-
tures during collaborative tasks Furthermore the question of how collabora-
tive dialogue during interactive tasks promotes such processes and subsequent
learning of pragmatics compared with during individual tasks warrants further
investigation Theoretical interest in collaborative dialogue is about language
being used as a cognitive tool that mediates the process of thinking (Swain
2006 Swain and Watanabe 2013) Languaging contends that verbalization of
target pragmatic forms when guided strategically through a collaborative task
could lead to a deeper-level understanding of the features Although
Takimotorsquos study tapped into this theoretical underpinning of collaborative
dialogue and revealed the benefits of learnerndashlearner interaction in pragmatic
learning actual mechanisms of learning during interaction were not discern-
ible because he did not analyze interaction data for evidence of learning oppor-
tunities He analyzed only the posttest results (appropriateness judgment and
production of request downgraders) To gain a fuller account of the theoretical
framework of collaborative dialogue it is necessary to analyze the quality of
LREs targeting pragmatics which we call pragmatic-related episodes (PREs) and
link the analyses to learning outcomes Furthermore in order to compare the
amount of languaging between individual tasks and collaborative tasks it is
also important to document how learners performing individual tasks con-
struct their knowledge of pragmatics on their own Thus in the current
study we collected learnersrsquo think-aloud protocols in the individual task
group and they were analyzed for PREs as well
In this study we examine the effects of collaborative dialogue on the acqui-
sition of speech act of request in English by comparing three groups the lsquocol-
laborative grouprsquo who completes the dialogue construction tasks targeting a
request in pairs the lsquoindividual grouprsquo who completes the task alone and the
control group who does not receive any task-based instruction In addition we
investigate the characteristics of collaborative dialogue (operationalized as
PREs) as language resources that facilitate learning Following Swain and
Lapkin (1998) we define PREs as any part of language production where
learners talk about the pragmalinguistic forms they are producing and the
sociopragmatic factors they are attending to (eg setting and interlocutor re-
lationship) question their pragmatic language use or correct themselves or
others In this study we specifically focus on the frequency of PREs produced
during collaborative and individual tasks and instances of correctly solved
pragmatic problems to see whether PREs provide opportunities for learning
pragmatics This study asks two research questions
1 What is the effect of task-based pragmatic instruction on L2 pragmatic
development Are there any differences in the learning of the request
speech act between the collaborative and individual task group
2 Are there any differences in the frequency of PREs and quality of task
performance during instruction between the collaborative and individual
task group
4 COLLABORATIVE DIALOGUE AND PRAGMATICS
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METHODS
Participants
Participants were 74 learners of English in a second-grade girlsrsquo junior high
school in South Korea Their average age was 1374 years (range = 13ndash14
years) They had received 5 years of formal English education at the time of
the study They were receiving 4 hours of English instruction per week taught
mostly by Korean-speaking instructors Participantsrsquo proficiency measured by
Test of English for International Communication (TOEIC) Bridge was between
high beginner and intermediate with a mean score of 13527 (SD = 1442
range = 100ndash172) Participantsrsquo English classes focused on grammar vocabu-
lary and readingwriting with little focus on pragmatics Three intact classes
were randomly assigned to three groups a collaborative (n = 25) individual
(n = 25) and control group (n = 24) Analysis of variance showed no significant
group difference in the TOEIC Bridge scores suggesting that the groups were
comparable in terms of their proficiency level (F = 355 p = 70)
Instructional targets
The instructional target was the speech act of request in a formal situation
which appeared in the participantsrsquo English textbook (Lee et al 2009) Formal
request was operationalized using Brown and Levinsonrsquos (1987) contextual
factors power (P) distance (D) and degree of imposition (R) and was defined
as a request that carries a larger size of imposition and is made to someone in a
greater power and distance (PDR-high) An example is asking a professor to
reschedule a test This PDR-high request contrasts with a request made to
someone in equal power and small distance and degree of imposition (PDR-
low) such as asking your sister to pass you a TV remote
In order to identify appropriate request situations a pilot study was con-
ducted with students of the same grade in the institution who were not
included in the main study (n = 34) This involved asking them to indicate
the degree of psychological ease or difficulty in performing the request on
Likert scale from 1 (easy) to 5 (difficult) The survey included 14 PDR-high
and -low requests adapted from the previous literature (eg Taguchi 2012)
The survey also asked participants to indicate the degree of commonality of
each situation on a scale from 1 (very rare) to 5 (very common) Finally the
survey provided an open question in which students wrote PDR-high and -low
requests that they had personally encountered
Results showed that PDR-low situations received a mean difficulty rating of
178 (SD = 106) while PDR-high situations received a mean rating of 264
(SD = 124) This difference was statistically significant t (237) =900
p = 0001 indicating that PDR-high were perceived as more difficult to perform
than PDR-low requests From the 14 situations we selected four PDR-high
items that received a rating of 25 or above and four PDR-low items with a
rating of below 15 In order to ensure the authenticity of tasks commonality
N TAGUCHI AND Y KIM 5
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ratings of these items were checked to avoid teaching situations that do not
represent real life in Korea Finally we analyzed participantsrsquo responses to the
open-ended question and used their descriptions when writing situations
Instruction focused on two categories of pragmalinguistic forms request
head acts and modifications (Table 1) Request head acts refer to the minimal
core unit that conveys the illocutionary force of request (Blum-Kulka et al
1989) In this category we taught mitigated preparatory forms Mitigated pre-
paratory involves syntactic forms that make reference to the hearerrsquos ability or
will in an embedded question or bi-clausal structure (eg lsquoI was wondering
ifrsquo + verb and lsquoWould it be possible torsquo + verb) (Takahashi 1996) Request modi-
fications have two categories external and internal External modifications
involve semantic moves that are attached externally to the head act and miti-
gate its force (Blum-Kulka et al 1989) We taught two external modifications
preparators (preparing a hearer for a request) and grounders (giving a reason
for request) Internal modifications include sentence-internal syntactic and
lexical devices used to modify the force of request We taught two forms
hedging that softens the tone of speech and amplifiers that strengthen self-
expression
These pragmalinguistic forms were selected based on baseline data collected
from native English speakers Twenty-four students in a US university
Table 1 Target pragmalinguistic forms
Head acts
Mitigated preparatory forms
Reference to the hearerrsquos ability will and possibility or reference to thespeakerrsquos wish in an embedded question or sentence
Irsquom wondering if you could give me an extension on the assignment
Is there any way that I could get an extension on the assignment
External modifications
Preparators
Semantic moves used to prepare the hearer for the request
eg May I ask you something
Grounders
Reason or explanation used to support the request
eg I caught a cold so I couldnrsquot finish the assignment
Internal modifications
Hedging
Words that minimize self-expression (maybe possibly)
eg Irsquom wondering if I could possibly have an extension on the assignment
Amplifiers
Words that strengthen self-expression (really very)
eg I really need more time to work on the assignment
6 COLLABORATIVE DIALOGUE AND PRAGMATICS
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completed a discourse completion task (DCT) that contained four PDR-high
and -low requests Mitigated preparatory appeared 73 percent of the time as a
head act in PDR-high requests while it appeared only 4 percent of the time in
PDR-low requests This indicates that mitigated preparatory characterizes PDR-
high requests Grounders and preparators were common supportive moves
appearing 98 and 13 percent of the time respectively while they never ap-
peared in PDR-low situations Hedging and amplifiers were also frequent ap-
pearing at a rate of 52 percent while they were absent in PDR-low requests
Based on these findings along with studies that revealed learnersrsquo difficulty
with these forms (Taguchi 2012) we targeted these forms Although DCT data
can only tell us what people would say in a hypothetical situation the rela-
tively uniform responses were considered to represent normative patterns of
request making
Instructional materials and tasks
Treatment groups received instruction in school during their regular English
class sessions over two consecutive days The instruction started with a 5-min
explanation of target pragmatic forms using a written dialogue There were
two dialogues one featuring a PDR-high and the other featuring a PDR-low
request We introduced pragmalinguistic forms and sociopragmatic variables in
each dialogue After receiving the direct metapragmatic information the two
treatment groups (collaborative and individual) proceeded to the dialogue con-
struction task during which learners were asked to complete drama scripts
based on given scenarios as drama scriptwriters They received two scenarios
(PDR-high and -low) with pictures of main characters and created a dialogue
involving a request based on each scenario1 These tasks were considered au-
thentic and relevant to learner interests because TV dramas are popular among
the target population and all the task scenarios were directly related to their
school life2 Learners constructed three PDR-high and -low situation dialogues
during treatment sessions (see Supplementary material for sample instruc-
tional materials) Although PDR-high requests were the instructional target
we introduced PDR-high and -low requests together so the differences be-
tween the two become salient
The collaborative group created a dialogue in pairs while the individual
group completed the task alone Learners vocalized their thoughts during
task performance in the language of their choice either collaboratively or
individually depending on their treatment condition To ensure learnersrsquo
understanding of the task following Kim (2013) we showed a 2-min pre-
task modeling video prior to the beginning of their task performance In the
modeling video for the collaborative group two teachers demonstrate how to
perform a task collaboratively using a similar scenario whereas in the video for
the individual group one teacher performed the same task while thinking
aloud on her own Interaction and think-aloud protocols during task comple-
tion were audio-recorded using individual MP3 recorders The treatment
N TAGUCHI AND Y KIM 7
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nloaded from
session took about 45 min We repeated the same procedures in the second
task treatment session with different scenarios The control group received
regular English instruction
Assessment measure
A written DCT instrument was used to measure learning outcomes DCT
has been criticized because of a lack of authenticity and non-interactive
nature (Golato 2003) However DCT has a merit because the data can provide
information about learnersrsquo knowledge of normative conventions of prag-
matic language use (McNamara and Roever 2006) DCT can also control
social factors in scenarios and help us obtain data that are comparable across
learners over time Most importantly DCT in this study conformed to the
principle of lsquotransfer appropriate processingrsquo (DeKeyser 2007) which claims
that transfer of skill from a learned to a novel task occurs if the cognitive
operations involved in the novel task resemble those in the treatment task
The treatment task in this study was a dialogue construction task which
shared the same modality with DCT which elicited participantsrsquo pragmalinguis-
tic forms in writing
The DCT had 15 items 4 each of PDR-high and PDR-low requests and 7
filler items involving non-target speech acts Each DCT item had a situation
written in Korean to ensure participantsrsquo comprehension Participants were
asked to follow the first turn or prompt provided in English and write the
speech act in English In order to minimize the practice effect coming from
administering the same test repeatedly we prepared three versions of DCT
Scenarios were kept constant but minor wording changes were made in the
scenarios (eg changing names and locations) Different filler items were used
each time DCT items were different from the items used in the treatment
sessions Supplementary material contains sample DCT items
Procedure
The study was conducted over 6 weeks (see Table 2) During the first ses-
sion the learners took the pretest and two task groups carried out a practice
task to become familiar with recording devices and think-aloud
procedures Task treatment sessions were provided on Days 7 and 9 On
Days 10 and 14 all learners took the immediate posttest and the TOEFIC
Bridge respectively Four weeks after the immediate posttest the learners
took the delayed posttest
Data analysis
This study asked (i) whether task-based instruction is beneficial for learning
request-making expressions and if so whether there is a difference in learning
outcomes between the collaborative and individual group and (ii) to what
extent learners produce PREs during individual or collaborative tasks In
8 COLLABORATIVE DIALOGUE AND PRAGMATICS
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response to the first research question we first assigned scores on the request
head acts in the DCTs Because the purpose of this study was to compare
instructional effects between two task conditions (collaborative vs individual)
we focused our analysis on the forms we targeted during instruction Three
points were given if the head act contained one of the target forms (lsquoIrsquom
wondering ifrsquo + clause or lsquoIs there any wayrsquo + clause) and was also grammat-
ically accurate Two points were given if the head act took the target form but
was ungrammatical One point was given for a grammatical non-target form in
the context of this study (request in a form other than the mitigated prepara-
tory such as lsquoCan Irsquo) No point was given for an ungrammatical non-target
form and missing response3 Total scores from four PDR-high requests (scale
0ndash12) were compared across collaborative individual and control groups
using the KruskalndashWallis test In addition to head acts frequency of request
modifications (preparators grounders hedging and amplifiers) was counted
separately and compared across groups using the KruskalndashWallis test Both
authors coded 50 of the data yielding 953 agreement rate The discre-
pancies were solved through a follow-up discussion The non-parametric test
(KruskalndashWallis) was used because the data did not confirm normal
distribution
To answer the second research question task interaction and think-aloud
data were transcribed and analyzed for PREs defined as any part of language
production where learners talk about pragmalinguistics (request-making
forms) and sociopragmatics (contextual factors) they are attending question
their pragmatic language use or correct themselves or others PREs were coded
for context (eg setting interlocutor relationship and size of imposition) head
Table 2 Study procedures
Session Individual group Collaborative group Control group
Session 1(Day 1)
Pretest (DCT 1)Practice taskwith thinking aloud
Pretest (DCT 1)Practice task
Pretest (DCT 1)
Session 2(Day 7)
Explicit information(5 min)
Task modeling video(2 min)
Individual dialogueconstruction (35 min)
Explicit information (5 min)
Task modeling video (2 min)
Collaborative dialogueconstruction (35 min)
Reading activity
Session 3(Day 9)
Same procedure withdifferent scenarios
Same procedure with differentscenarios
Reading activity
Session 4(Day 10)
Immediate posttest (DCT 2) Immediate posttest (DCT 2) Immediateposttest (DCT 2)
Session 5(Day 14)
TOEIC Bridge TOEIC Bridge TOEIC Bridge
Session 6(Day 38)
Delayed posttest (DCT 3) Delayed posttest (DCT 3) Delayedposttest (DCT 3)
N TAGUCHI AND Y KIM 9
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acts grounders preparators hedging and amplifiers See the following ex-
amples about asking the school principal to change a location of a picnic
Example 1 PRE targeting a request head act during interactive task
1 Learner 1 (making a request) I am wondering if I could pos-
sibly (First we have to make a request) I am won-
dering if you could possibly I was wondering
2 Learner 2 I am
3 Learner 1 I am wondering
4 Learner 2 if you could was could (Since
we used lsquocouldrsquo shouldnrsquot we use lsquowasrsquo) I was wondering if I could go
to picnic in Everland
5 Learner 1 if you could (No
since this person needs to make a decision lsquoif you couldrsquo sounds right) If
you could
Example 2 PRE targeting the request head act during think-aloud
Learner 1 In this fall fall picnic fall picnic picnic is there any is there
any way that I could that I could could is there can could possibly
possibly go to Everland participate possibly go to go to Everland
Once the PREs were coded studentsrsquo task performance data (the completed
written dialogues) was scored following the same rubrics as the DCT data and
the frequency of each modification in the dialogues was also counted The
second rater coded 20 percent of task performance data independently and
94 percent agreement was obtained Any disagreement was resolved through
discussion which was applied for the rest of the data coding
RESULTS
Effects of collaborative dialogue in learning the speech act ofrequest
Analysis of request head act
Table 3 displays descriptive statistics of head act scores Frequency analysis
showed that 295 out of the 296 head acts (74 learners 4 items) were non-
target (not the focus of instruction) Most of the non-target head acts took a
form of permission (lsquoMay Irsquo) or ability inquiry (lsquoCould yoursquo) indicating that all
groups were unfamiliar with the mitigated preparatory forms before the in-
struction The KruskalndashWallis test revealed no group difference at pretest
2 = 344 p = 18
The KruskalndashWallis test found a significant group difference at immediate
posttest 2 = 3190 plt 001 Pair-wise comparisons using the MannndashWhitney
U test showed that both treatment groups outperformed the control group
10 COLLABORATIVE DIALOGUE AND PRAGMATICS
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z = 536 plt 001 (collaborative group) and z = 405 plt 001 (individual group)
The collaborative group further surpassed the individual group on the produc-
tion of mitigated preparatory z = 240 p = 016 However the benefit of this
condition disappeared at delayed posttest because there was no difference be-
tween the treatment groups z = 38 p = 71 In addition the KruskalndashWallis test
showed that there was no significant difference between the control and treat-
ment groups at delayed posttest 2 = 25 p = 884
In summary task-based instruction resulted in a strong effect on the learn-
ing of appropriate request head acts as found in the treatment groupsrsquo superior
performance at immediate posttest compared with that of non-instructional
condition However the effect did not last long as the treatment groups went
back to the level of the control group at delayed posttest Similarly the col-
laborative task was more effective than the individual task at the immediate
posttest but the effect disappeared 1 month later
Analysis of request modification
Tables 4ndash7 present frequency counts of request modifications that appeared in
DCT Preparators almost never appeared at pretest but they showed a large
increase in the two treatment groups at immediate posttest (Table 4) In con-
trast preparators were absent in the control group Both treatment groups
outperformed the control group at immediate and delayed posttest No differ-
ence was found between the collaborative and individual groups z = 176
Table 3 Request head act scores
Group Mean SD Minimum Maximum
Collaborative group (n = 25)
Pretest 336 122 200 400
Immediate posttest 1012 306 200 1200
Delayed posttest 432 236 200 1100
Individual group (n = 25)
Pretest 340 071 200 400
Immediate posttest 836 341 300 1200
Delayed posttest 488 273 100 1200
Control group (n = 24)
Pretest 375 043 300 400
Immediate posttest 383 047 200 400
Delayed posttest 388 044 200 400
Note Each student produced four PDR-high requests Each head act was scored on a 3-point
scale Score range = 0ndash12 Delayed posttest was given 1 month later
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p = 079 at pretest z = 097 p = 33 at immediate posttest and z = 012 p = 90 at
delayed posttest
The grounders showed different patterns they appeared in majority of the
items at pretest (see Table 5) indicating that the learners were already familiar
with this supportive move before the instruction because grounders appear in
Table 4 Frequency of preparators
Group Mean SD Minimum Maximum
Collaborative group (n = 25)
Pretest 028 061 000 200
Immediate posttest 276 151 000 400
Delayed posttest 228 172 000 400
Individual group (n = 25)
Pretest 004 020 000 100
Immediate posttest 316 131 000 400
Delayed posttest 236 173 000 400
Control group (n = 24)
Pretest 000 000 000 000
Immediate posttest 004 020 000 100
Delayed posttest 013 045 000 200
Note Mean = mean frequency of preparators in four PDR-high request items
Table 5 Frequency of grounders
Group Mean SD Minimum Maximum
Collaborative group (n = 25)
Pretest 336 081 100 400
Immediate posttest 336 095 100 400
Delayed posttest 356 096 000 400
Individual group (n = 25)
Pretest 324 088 200 400
Immediate posttest 332 075 200 400
Delayed posttest 340 087 100 400
Control group (n = 24)
Pretest 350 114 000 400
Immediate posttest 346 098 000 400
Delayed posttest 379 051 200 400
Note Mean = mean frequency of grounders in four PDR-high request items
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Korean requests and the learners were able to transfer their L1-based strategy
Because of this ceiling effect there was no instructional effect The results of
the KruskalndashWallis test showed no significant difference in any of the test
sessions 2 = 274 p = 25 at pretest 2 = 121 p = 55 at immediate posttest
and 2= 355 p = 17 at delayed posttest5
Table 7 Frequency of amplifiers
Group Mean SD Minimum Maximum
Collaborative group (n = 25)
Pretest 016 047 000 200
Immediate posttest 092 119 000 400
Delayed posttest 028 054 000 200
Individual group (n = 25)
Pretest 036 064 000 200
Immediate posttest 124 109 000 400
Delayed posttest 044 077 000 200
Control group (n = 24)
Pretest 063 097 000 300
Immediate posttest 071 096 000 400
Delayed posttest 033 076 000 300
Note Mean = mean frequency of amplifiers in four PDR-high request items
Table 6 Frequency of hedging
Group Mean SD Minimum Maximum
Collaborative group (n = 25)
Pretest 000 000 000 000
Immediate posttest 168 149 000 400
Delayed posttest 012 060 000 300
Individual group (n = 25)
Pretest 000 000 000 000
Immediate posttest 140 153 000 400
Delayed posttest 028 098 000 400
Control group (n = 24)
Pretest 000 000 000 000
Immediate posttest 000 000 000 000
Delayed posttest 008 028 000 100
Note Mean = mean frequency of hedging in four PDR-high request items
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Compared with external modifications internal modifications (hedging and
amplifiers) were relatively underused It was absent in the pretest data There
was a noticeable increase at immediate posttest in the treatment groups but
the mean frequency was only moderate Although the frequency was not
particularly large we still note the instructional effect because the treatment
groups outperformed the control group at the immediate posttest 2 = 481
plt 0001 for the collaborative group and 2 = 422 plt 0001 for the individual
group However the effect was short-lived because no group difference was
found at delayed posttest (2 = 43 p = 81) When the two treatment groups
were compared there was no significant difference z = 73 p = 47 at immedi-
ate posttest or z = 61 p = 54 at delayed posttest
Amplifiers also showed very small occurrence at pretest but different from
hedging the frequency remained low throughout the time No instructional
effect was observed in the case of amplifiers as there was no significant group
difference at pretest (2 = 449 p = 11) immediate posttest (2 = 393 p = 14)
or delayed posttest (2 = 45 p = 80)
In summary frequency comparison of request modification across groups
revealed a mixed picture At pretest no group difference was found in any of
these modifications At immediate posttest both treatment groups surpassed
the control group on the production of preparators and hedging but not on the
use of grounders and amplifiers At delayed posttest the treatment groups
outperformed the control group on the production of the preparators only
Most importantly there was no significant difference between the collabora-
tive and individual group in any of these modifications These findings mark a
sharp contrast to those of request head acts in which the collaborative condi-
tion was more advantageous than the individual task condition in learnersrsquo
production of mitigated preparatory forms
Frequency of PREs and quality of treatment task performance
Table 8 reports descriptive statistics for the frequency of PREs Over the two
treatment sessions the individual group produced 1160 PREs on average
while the mean for the collaborative group was 1632 The MannndashWhitney
U test showed that the difference was significant (z =276 p = 006)
Regarding PREs on specific features there was no group difference on PREs
targeting the contextual features of request (z =92 p = 36) head acts
(z = 28 p = 78) or grounders (z = 70 p = 48) but a difference was found in
preparators (z = 465 plt 0001) amplifiers (z = 413 plt 0001) and hedging
(z = 296 p = 003) in favor of the collaborative group
We will turn to the analysis of learnersrsquo task outcome by examining their
accurate resolution of PREs We analyzed the outcome of the dialogue con-
struction tasks using the same scoring rubrics from the DCT analysis 0ndash3 point
scale for head acts and frequency count for modifications (9 maximum points
for three treatment tasks) The individual group scored a mean of 724
(SD = 145) whereas the collaborative group scored a mean of 828
14 COLLABORATIVE DIALOGUE AND PRAGMATICS
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(SD = 84) This difference was significant z =289 plt 0001 indicating that
the collaborative group resolved PREs more successfully than the individual
group and produced more accurate target head acts as task outcome In con-
trast frequency of other request modifications revealed no group difference
preparators z =143 p = 15 grounders z =182 p = 07 hedging z =95
p = 34 and amplifiers z =147 p = 14
Example 3 demonstrates a sample PRE by a pair in the collaborative group
Here the learners are negotiating the target head act form lsquoI was wondering ifrsquo
by attending to each otherrsquos form and providing feedback and confirmation
During this process the target form receives prominence through recycled use
over multiple turns The form is jointly constructed with both participants
contributing to the knowledge building This collaborative work eventually
leads to the production of the accurate target form as task outcome A by-
product of this process is likely the deeper level of processing of the form and
consolidation of pragmatic knowledge as suggested in the collaborative
grouprsquos superior performance at immediate posttest
Example 3 Correctly resolved PRE in the collaborative group
1 Learner 1 (Jaemyong left his Korean home-
work at home) (He
was asking whether he could go home to bring his homework during his
self-study session) (Then he should make a
request politely)
2 Learner 2 (Yes)
----several turns later----------------------------------------------
3 Learner 1 (We need to make a long
polite request) I was wondering
4 Learner 2 if I could go to
5 Learner 1 Go to the home (Is that lsquogo to the homersquo) Go to home
(Shouldnrsquot it be lsquogo to homersquo)
Table 8 Frequency of PREs
PREs targets Collaborative group (n = 25) Individual group (n = 25)
Mean SD Mean SD
Context 476 296 404 302
Head acts 296 1306 288 120
Preparators 252 087 088 105
Grounders 272 124 276 101
Amplifiers 184 111 052 077
Hedging 152 130 052 083
Total 1632 618 1160 548
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6 Learner 2 I am
7 Learner 1 I was wondering if I could go to go to
8 Learner 2 Go home
9 Learner 1 go home
The nature of the collaborative PREs contrasts with that of individual PREs
In Example 4 the learner is working by herself to resolve the PRE targeting lsquois
there any way that I couldrsquo She recognizes that this is the PDR-high request
and that she should use the mitigated preparatory form She produces the
target form once but without a peer attending to her form and giving feed-
back she goes back to the form that she is used to (lsquoCan Irsquo) resulting in the
production of non-target form as task outcome These instances of incorrectly
resolved PREs in the individual task group probably led to their underperform-
ance at immediate posttest compared with the collaborative group
Example 4 Incorrectly resolved PRE in the individual group
Learner 1 (I need to ask
whether I can go home to bring the assignment during self-study ses-
sion) uh may uh big request is there any way that I could uh
(then) Is there any way that I could possible homework my home-
work Can I can I go to my house to get my homework And can I go to
my house to get my homework (Is this right)
Summary of the findings
The learners who completed tasks collaboratively produced more PREs and
target-like request head acts than those who completed the tasks individually
during the task and again at immediate posttest However the benefit of the
collaborative group was short-lived because their performance was the same
with that of the individual group 1 month after the instruction The benefit of
collaborative tasks was also partial because there was no group difference in
the production of request modifications during the task or at immediate
posttest
DISCUSSION
Our findings contribute to the task-based literature by demonstrating the
benefits of collaborative tasks in improving pragmatics knowledge In the lit-
erature of instructed pragmatics our findings support previous studies on
metapragmatic discussion Takimoto (2012) found that collaborative dialogue
in a form of metapragmatic discussion gave learners access to information
about pragmatic features which eventually led to better control of pragmatic
knowledge than the condition where learners completed the task alone with
or without verbalization of the target features This study adds to these findings
16 COLLABORATIVE DIALOGUE AND PRAGMATICS
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because it documented the nature of collaborative dialogue operationalized as
PREsmdashhow often learners discussed pragmatics features in interaction and
whether interaction led to better task performance and linked these with
the development of pragmatic knowledge It became clear that collaborative
tasks generated more PREs than individual tasks PREs also contributed to
learnersrsquo accurate use of request head acts during treatment tasks which led
to their superior performance at immediate posttest Because the quantity of
PREs targeting head acts was similar between the collaborative and individual
groups the quality of PREs namely the extent to which learners resolved
PREs correctly was crucial for learning The present results support previous
findings of LREs studies (eg Payant 2012) and extended them to pragmatics
This study implemented collaborative dialogue through a form of PREs in
which learners interacted with their peers and jointly constructed a dialogue
that involved the target speech act During this process learners attended the
pragmalinguistic forms and semantic moves and their correspondence with
contextual features (relationship power and degree of imposition) Learners
in the individual task group also attended the target pragmatic forms and
verbalized them on their own as observed in PREs during thinking aloud
However negotiation with others was absent Without negotiation working
alone did not generate as many opportunities for attention to pragmatic forms
in context or recycled use of them as did the collaborative dialogue during
interactive tasks This finding was supported by the fact that the individual
group produced fewer PREs than the collaborative group during the treatment
tasks Metapragmatic talk around the target head acts modifications and con-
textual features occurred more frequently in the collaborative group
Negotiation of pragmatic forms and their meaning during the process of joint
task completion prompts a deeper level of cognitive processing that helps con-
solidate learnersrsquo pragmatic knowledge and their subsequent use of the know-
ledge Critically when learners produce language in a collaborative
environment they do not just produce output but they also have an oppor-
tunity to receive feedback from peers while trying to make their language
precise (Swain and Lapkin 1998 Swain 2006) During interaction learners
attend to each otherrsquos forms evaluate their accuracy and appropriateness
and offer feedback and corrections to each other In this process two levels
of monitoring self-monitoring and other-monitoring are occurring simultan-
eously which essentially promote more accurate high-quality task outcomes
Analyses of treatment task data confirmed this The collaborative grouprsquos re-
quest head acts (mitigated preparatory) in the dialogue construction task were
significantly more accurate than those of the individual group which was the
result of monitoring scaffolding and peer feedback that featured the process of
joint task completion
In sum learners completed tasks more successfully when they worked col-
laboratively and this successful task performance led to significantly greater
gains of the knowledge of appropriate request head acts The findings are
consistent with the results of previous findings that joint activities improved
N TAGUCHI AND Y KIM 17
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nloaded from
task performance in terms of the accurate production of the target linguistic
forms and subsequent learning of the forms (eg Storch 2007 Kim 2008) The
present study has advanced this body of literature by demonstrating that ef-
fects of collaborative tasks and PREs extend beyond grammar and vocabulary
PREs provide opportunities for pragmatic learning that involves a complex
mapping of formndashfunctionndashcontext
Although the efficacy of collaborative dialogue became clear in this study
questions remain as to why the effects were restricted to the request head acts
and did not extend to request modifications One possible interpretation of the
findings relates to the different assessment methods used for the head act and
modification Head acts were assessed using a scoring rubric that reflected both
appropriateness (choosing the target mitigated preparatory forms over other
request-making forms) and grammaticality (accuracy of the forms)
Modifications on the other hand were analyzed mainly on frequency of pro-
duction We made this decision because different from the head act that
occurs only once in a single speech act modifications typically co-occur over
multiple times In addition internal modifications used in this study were all
lexical involving only one word which made the analysis of grammaticality
irrelevant
It is possible that the collaborative dialogue made a difference when the
quality of pragmatic forms (accuracy and appropriateness) was considered
compared with simple quantity (frequency) As shown in the treatment task
data strength of the collaborative dialogue was observed in how learners scaf-
folded each other and provided feedback to each other while jointly carrying
out tasks It might be the case that these instances of negotiation and inter-
action occurring in the collaborative task pushed learners to a deeper level of
processing of the request head act which eventually helped them consolidate
their knowledge of both accuracy and appropriateness of the forms Because of
the linguistic complexity of the head act forms (bi-clausal structure) and the
more strenuous scoring method used to evaluate the forms learnersrsquo know-
ledge base had to be solid enough to allow retrieval and use of the knowledge
The collaborative condition that involved intensive attention negotiation
monitoring and peer feedback probably assisted the formation of this robust
knowledge Nevertheless both treatment conditions were equally effective on
the level of request modifications This might be due to the fact that the groups
were compared on the frequency of use (whether they were able to produce
them in an intelligible manner) not on the quality of use (absolute accuracy of
the forms)
These interpretations also corroborate with Takimotorsquos (2012) findings that
revealed the advantage of metapragmatic over non-metapragmatic discussion
on the acquisition of request Positive effects were found in the production-
based test (DCT) but not in the receptive-skills test (appropriateness judg-
ment) Takimoto attributed the findings to the relative ease of the receptive
task Participants without metapragmatic discussion were still able to cope with
judging appropriateness because the test posed lower demands than a
18 COLLABORATIVE DIALOGUE AND PRAGMATICS
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production task however they were not able to deal with the demand
coming from the DCT that required them to produce target forms accurately
and appropriately Because of the precise syntactic processing required in pro-
duction and resulting task demand learners benefitted more from metaprag-
matic discussion that assisted the consolidation of knowledge
Although the two treatment groups differed in their use of the request head
acts their performance was the same at the level of modifications Both groups
outperformed the control group in the production of preparators and hedging
right after the instruction as well as 1 month later in the case of preparators
These findings indicate a strong effect of instruction over non-instruction but
also reveal variation within the effect across modification types The strong
effect found in the preparators is probably due to the saliency of the prepara-
tors as semantic strategies Different from hedging or amplifiers that involve
precise pragmalinguistics preparators are part of the discourse moves that
characterize the structure of a request reflecting sociopragmatic information
Logistics and rituals of how to structure a request using preparators were prob-
ably easier to learn than the precise linguistics forms of a request and once
learned the knowledge stayed in the memory because of its saliency These
findings conform to the previous longitudinal findings that revealed that ac-
quisition of sociopragmatic rules (eg use of semantic strategies) is faster than
that of pragmalinguistic forms (Bardovi-Harlig and Hartford 1993 Taguchi
2012) The present findings confirmed this in an instructional study
LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY AND IMPLICATIONS FORFUTURE RESEARCH
This study is limited to a small number of individuals in a single L2 group a
single measure and a narrowly defined pragmatic target (request) Future
studies should involve a greater participant pool with wider target languages
and pragmatic measures and examine the development of different aspects of
pragmatic competence in relation to collaborative dialogue
Equally important is an investigation into individual differences and lear-
nersrsquo perceptions of instruction It is possible that not all learners had equal
amount of participation or contribution to the collaborative tasks which con-
sequently restricted their knowledge-building process It is also possible that
learners were not familiar with the type of instructional activities used in this
study and needed more time to get accustomed to the tasks in order to gain the
full benefit from them Two class periods were probably not enough time to
boost their robust learning Because this study did not address individual lear-
ner variation and learnersrsquo perceptions of their learning processes future stu-
dies are called for in this direction
Additionally although there has been a surge amount of research on task
design and task implementation in instructed SLA the learning of pragmatics
using a variety of collaborative tasks has not been explored Because this study
N TAGUCHI AND Y KIM 19
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used only one type of writing task future studies should explore task-related
variables to find ultimate task-based learning contexts for pragmatic
development
In the current study we used PREs as an analysis unit to determine the
amount of learnersrsquo attention to target pragmatic forms for both individual and
collaborative groups The results need to be interpreted with acknowledging
that the characteristics of PREs in these two groups might not be exactly
the same due to the different nature of task performance As a first step of
using PREs we focused on the overall frequency of PREs Future studies are
warranted to explore the quality of PREs (eg number of turnssentences per
PRE) to further our understanding of collaborative dialogue around prag-
matics Another limitation is that this study did not collect Supplementary
data such as stimulated verbal recall or interviews to understand actual cog-
nitive processing involved in PREs which should be explored in the future
research
Finally different effects of collaborative dialogue between the request head
acts and modifications found here need to be addressed more explicitly in the
future Learnability and teachability of pragmatic features have been discussed
in the literature pointing to the need for exploring the interaction among
instructional methods pragmatic targets and learner profiles (eg Roever
2009 Takahashi 2010 Taguhi 2011) Roever (2009) suggests that future re-
search should investigate what kinds of pragmatic features (eg syntactic miti-
gations and lexical downgraders) should be taught to what types of learners
(in terms of proficiency or other individual characteristics) using what kinds of
intervention methods (eg interaction vs non-interaction) Taguchi (forth-
coming) adds characteristics of assessment methods to this call because instruc-
tional effects diverge substantially depending on the demands involved
in the assessment measures Collaborative dialogue and PREs could serve
as a fruitful area to investigate this interaction among pragmatic targets in-
structional methods learnersrsquo instructional readiness and assessment
measures
SUPPLEMENTARY DATA
Supplementary material is available at Applied Linguistics online
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We are grateful for three anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on earlier versions of
the manuscript Special thanks also go to our research assistants Feng Xiao Franklin Bradfield
Sharon Kim and YeonJoo Jung for their help with data analysis We are responsible for all the
errors that may remain
Conflict of interest statement None declared
20 COLLABORATIVE DIALOGUE AND PRAGMATICS
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NOTES
1 We acknowledge the limitation of not
using video-recorded authentic prag-
matic materials
2 One of the reviewers stated that the au-
thenticity of tasks should be based on
whether situations happen in the
target culture We agree with this con-
cern However being familiar with
given contexts is crucial for the partici-
pants to be able to analyze the contexts
and discuss the pragmatic-related issues
Because making requests in both
Korean and English follow similar
discourse patterns we decided that it
was appropriate to use context-specific
scenarios (situations in Korea) in the
study
3 Missing responses occupied about 3
percent of the data
4 We conducted additional analysis with
analysis of covariance with proficiency
measured by TOEIC Bridge test as cov-
ariate Results were the same
5 This study did not analyze content of
the grounders because content was
fixed provided in the DCT scenarios
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Bardovi-Harlig K and B Hartford 1993
lsquoLearning the rules of academic talk A
longitudinal study of pragmatic changersquo
Studies in Second Language Acquisition 15
279ndash304
Blum-Kulka S J House and G Kasper
1989 Cross-Cultural Pragmatics Requests and
Apologies Ablex
Brown P and S Levinson 1987 Politeness
Cambridge University Press
Golato A 2003 lsquoStudying complement re-
sponses A comparison of DCTs and recordings
of naturally occurring talkrsquo Applied Linguistics
24 90ndash121
DeKeyser R 2007 lsquoSkill acquisition theoryrsquo
in B VanPatten and J Williams (eds)
Theories in Second Language Acquisition An
Introduction Lawrence Erlbaum Associates
Publishers pp 94ndash113
Jeon E -H and T Kaya 2006 lsquoEffects of L2
instruction on interlanguage pragmatic devel-
opmentrsquo in N John and L Ortega (eds)
Synthesizing Research on Language Learning and
Teaching John Benjamins pp 165ndash211
Kasper G 2001 lsquoClassroom research on inter-
language pragmaticsrsquo in K Rose and G Kasper
(eds) Pragmatics in Language Teaching
Cambridge University Press pp 33ndash62
Kim Y 2008 lsquoThe contribution of collaborative
and individual tasks to the acquisition of L2
vocabularyrsquo Modern Language Journal 92
113ndash40
Kim Y 2013 lsquoEffects of pretask modeling on
attention to form and question developmentrsquo
TESOL Quarterly 47 8ndash35
Kim Y in press lsquoThe role of tasks as vehicles for
learning in classroom interactionrsquo in N Markee
(ed) Handbook of Classroom Discourse and
Interaction Wiley-Blackwell
Lee I S Kim S Yoon J Nam S Park
Y Hong and T Orr 2009 Middle School
English 2 Chun-Jae-Gyo-Yuk
Leech G 1983 Principles of Pragmatics Longman
McNamara T and C Roever 2006 Language
Testing The Social Dimension Blackwell
Nassaji H and J Tian 2010 lsquoCollaborative and
individual output tasks and their effects on
learning English phrasal verbsrsquo Language
Teaching Research 14 397ndash419
Nguyen TTM 2013 lsquoInstructional effects on
the acquisition of modifiers in constructive
criticisms by EFL learnersrsquo Language
Awareness 22 76ndash94
Payant C 2012 lsquoLearner-learner interaction
An exploration of the mediating functions of
multilingual learnersrsquo languages in an L3 for-
eign language classroomrsquo Unpublished disser-
tation Georgia State University
Roever C 2009 lsquoTeaching and testing pragmaticsrsquo
in M Long and C Doughty (eds) Handbook of
Language Teaching Wiley-Blackwell pp 560ndash77
Schmidt R 2001 lsquoAttentionrsquo in P Robinson
(ed) Cognition and Second Language Instruction
Cambridge University Press pp 3ndash32
N TAGUCHI AND Y KIM 21
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Dow
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Storch N 2007 lsquoInvestigating the merits of pair
work on a text editing task in ESL classesrsquo
Language Teaching Research 2 143ndash59
Swain M 2006 lsquoLanguaging agency and col-
laboration in advanced second language
Proficiencyrsquo in H Byrnes (ed) Advanced
Language Learning The Contribution of Halliday
and Vygotsky Continuum pp 95ndash108
Swain M and S Lapkin 1998 lsquoInteraction
and second language learning Two adolescent
French immersion students working togetherrsquo
Modern Language Journal 82 320ndash37
Swain M and Y Watanabe 2013
lsquoCollaborative dialogue as a source of learningrsquo
in C Chapelle (ed) The Encyclopedia of Applied
Linguistics Wiley Blackwell
Taguchi N 2011 lsquoTeaching pragmatics Trends
and issuesrsquo Annual Review of Applied Linguistics
31 289ndash310
Taguchi N 2012 Context Individual
Differences and Pragmatic Competence
Multilingual Matter
Taguchi N forthcoming lsquoInstructed pragmatics
at a glance Where instructional studies were
are and should be going State-of-the-art art-
iclersquo Language Teaching
Takahashi S 1996 lsquoPragmatic transferabilityrsquo
Studies in Second Language Acquisition 18 189ndash223
Takahashi S 2010 lsquoAssessing learnability in
second language pragmaticsrsquo in A Trosborg
(ed) Handbook of Pragmatics VII Mouton de
Gruyter pp 391ndash421
Takimoto M 2012 lsquoMetapragmatic discussion
in interlanguage pragmaticsrsquo Journal of
Pragmatics 44 1240ndash53
Van den Branden K M Bygate and
J Norris (eds) 2009 Task-Based Language
Teaching A Reader John Benjamins Publishers
22 COLLABORATIVE DIALOGUE AND PRAGMATICS
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NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS
Naoko Taguchi is an associate professor in the Modern Languages Department at
Carnegie Mellon University where she teaches courses in SLA and Japanese language
and culture Her research interests include pragmatics classroom-based research and
English-medium instruction Address for correspondence Naoko Taguchi Carnegie Mellon
University Pittsburgh PA USA lttaguchiandrewcmuedugt
YouJin Kim is an assistant professor in the Department of Applied Linguistics and ESL at
Georgia State University Her primary research interests include instructed second lan-
guage acquisition task-based language teaching and assessment and structural prim-
ing Her research focuses on adolescent and adult English and Korean language
learners Address for correspondence YouJin Kim Georgia State University Atlanta
GA USA ltykim39gsuedugt
N TAGUCHI AND Y KIM 23
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co-construct knowledge of sociopragmatic factors and pragmalinguistic fea-
tures during collaborative tasks Furthermore the question of how collabora-
tive dialogue during interactive tasks promotes such processes and subsequent
learning of pragmatics compared with during individual tasks warrants further
investigation Theoretical interest in collaborative dialogue is about language
being used as a cognitive tool that mediates the process of thinking (Swain
2006 Swain and Watanabe 2013) Languaging contends that verbalization of
target pragmatic forms when guided strategically through a collaborative task
could lead to a deeper-level understanding of the features Although
Takimotorsquos study tapped into this theoretical underpinning of collaborative
dialogue and revealed the benefits of learnerndashlearner interaction in pragmatic
learning actual mechanisms of learning during interaction were not discern-
ible because he did not analyze interaction data for evidence of learning oppor-
tunities He analyzed only the posttest results (appropriateness judgment and
production of request downgraders) To gain a fuller account of the theoretical
framework of collaborative dialogue it is necessary to analyze the quality of
LREs targeting pragmatics which we call pragmatic-related episodes (PREs) and
link the analyses to learning outcomes Furthermore in order to compare the
amount of languaging between individual tasks and collaborative tasks it is
also important to document how learners performing individual tasks con-
struct their knowledge of pragmatics on their own Thus in the current
study we collected learnersrsquo think-aloud protocols in the individual task
group and they were analyzed for PREs as well
In this study we examine the effects of collaborative dialogue on the acqui-
sition of speech act of request in English by comparing three groups the lsquocol-
laborative grouprsquo who completes the dialogue construction tasks targeting a
request in pairs the lsquoindividual grouprsquo who completes the task alone and the
control group who does not receive any task-based instruction In addition we
investigate the characteristics of collaborative dialogue (operationalized as
PREs) as language resources that facilitate learning Following Swain and
Lapkin (1998) we define PREs as any part of language production where
learners talk about the pragmalinguistic forms they are producing and the
sociopragmatic factors they are attending to (eg setting and interlocutor re-
lationship) question their pragmatic language use or correct themselves or
others In this study we specifically focus on the frequency of PREs produced
during collaborative and individual tasks and instances of correctly solved
pragmatic problems to see whether PREs provide opportunities for learning
pragmatics This study asks two research questions
1 What is the effect of task-based pragmatic instruction on L2 pragmatic
development Are there any differences in the learning of the request
speech act between the collaborative and individual task group
2 Are there any differences in the frequency of PREs and quality of task
performance during instruction between the collaborative and individual
task group
4 COLLABORATIVE DIALOGUE AND PRAGMATICS
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METHODS
Participants
Participants were 74 learners of English in a second-grade girlsrsquo junior high
school in South Korea Their average age was 1374 years (range = 13ndash14
years) They had received 5 years of formal English education at the time of
the study They were receiving 4 hours of English instruction per week taught
mostly by Korean-speaking instructors Participantsrsquo proficiency measured by
Test of English for International Communication (TOEIC) Bridge was between
high beginner and intermediate with a mean score of 13527 (SD = 1442
range = 100ndash172) Participantsrsquo English classes focused on grammar vocabu-
lary and readingwriting with little focus on pragmatics Three intact classes
were randomly assigned to three groups a collaborative (n = 25) individual
(n = 25) and control group (n = 24) Analysis of variance showed no significant
group difference in the TOEIC Bridge scores suggesting that the groups were
comparable in terms of their proficiency level (F = 355 p = 70)
Instructional targets
The instructional target was the speech act of request in a formal situation
which appeared in the participantsrsquo English textbook (Lee et al 2009) Formal
request was operationalized using Brown and Levinsonrsquos (1987) contextual
factors power (P) distance (D) and degree of imposition (R) and was defined
as a request that carries a larger size of imposition and is made to someone in a
greater power and distance (PDR-high) An example is asking a professor to
reschedule a test This PDR-high request contrasts with a request made to
someone in equal power and small distance and degree of imposition (PDR-
low) such as asking your sister to pass you a TV remote
In order to identify appropriate request situations a pilot study was con-
ducted with students of the same grade in the institution who were not
included in the main study (n = 34) This involved asking them to indicate
the degree of psychological ease or difficulty in performing the request on
Likert scale from 1 (easy) to 5 (difficult) The survey included 14 PDR-high
and -low requests adapted from the previous literature (eg Taguchi 2012)
The survey also asked participants to indicate the degree of commonality of
each situation on a scale from 1 (very rare) to 5 (very common) Finally the
survey provided an open question in which students wrote PDR-high and -low
requests that they had personally encountered
Results showed that PDR-low situations received a mean difficulty rating of
178 (SD = 106) while PDR-high situations received a mean rating of 264
(SD = 124) This difference was statistically significant t (237) =900
p = 0001 indicating that PDR-high were perceived as more difficult to perform
than PDR-low requests From the 14 situations we selected four PDR-high
items that received a rating of 25 or above and four PDR-low items with a
rating of below 15 In order to ensure the authenticity of tasks commonality
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ratings of these items were checked to avoid teaching situations that do not
represent real life in Korea Finally we analyzed participantsrsquo responses to the
open-ended question and used their descriptions when writing situations
Instruction focused on two categories of pragmalinguistic forms request
head acts and modifications (Table 1) Request head acts refer to the minimal
core unit that conveys the illocutionary force of request (Blum-Kulka et al
1989) In this category we taught mitigated preparatory forms Mitigated pre-
paratory involves syntactic forms that make reference to the hearerrsquos ability or
will in an embedded question or bi-clausal structure (eg lsquoI was wondering
ifrsquo + verb and lsquoWould it be possible torsquo + verb) (Takahashi 1996) Request modi-
fications have two categories external and internal External modifications
involve semantic moves that are attached externally to the head act and miti-
gate its force (Blum-Kulka et al 1989) We taught two external modifications
preparators (preparing a hearer for a request) and grounders (giving a reason
for request) Internal modifications include sentence-internal syntactic and
lexical devices used to modify the force of request We taught two forms
hedging that softens the tone of speech and amplifiers that strengthen self-
expression
These pragmalinguistic forms were selected based on baseline data collected
from native English speakers Twenty-four students in a US university
Table 1 Target pragmalinguistic forms
Head acts
Mitigated preparatory forms
Reference to the hearerrsquos ability will and possibility or reference to thespeakerrsquos wish in an embedded question or sentence
Irsquom wondering if you could give me an extension on the assignment
Is there any way that I could get an extension on the assignment
External modifications
Preparators
Semantic moves used to prepare the hearer for the request
eg May I ask you something
Grounders
Reason or explanation used to support the request
eg I caught a cold so I couldnrsquot finish the assignment
Internal modifications
Hedging
Words that minimize self-expression (maybe possibly)
eg Irsquom wondering if I could possibly have an extension on the assignment
Amplifiers
Words that strengthen self-expression (really very)
eg I really need more time to work on the assignment
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completed a discourse completion task (DCT) that contained four PDR-high
and -low requests Mitigated preparatory appeared 73 percent of the time as a
head act in PDR-high requests while it appeared only 4 percent of the time in
PDR-low requests This indicates that mitigated preparatory characterizes PDR-
high requests Grounders and preparators were common supportive moves
appearing 98 and 13 percent of the time respectively while they never ap-
peared in PDR-low situations Hedging and amplifiers were also frequent ap-
pearing at a rate of 52 percent while they were absent in PDR-low requests
Based on these findings along with studies that revealed learnersrsquo difficulty
with these forms (Taguchi 2012) we targeted these forms Although DCT data
can only tell us what people would say in a hypothetical situation the rela-
tively uniform responses were considered to represent normative patterns of
request making
Instructional materials and tasks
Treatment groups received instruction in school during their regular English
class sessions over two consecutive days The instruction started with a 5-min
explanation of target pragmatic forms using a written dialogue There were
two dialogues one featuring a PDR-high and the other featuring a PDR-low
request We introduced pragmalinguistic forms and sociopragmatic variables in
each dialogue After receiving the direct metapragmatic information the two
treatment groups (collaborative and individual) proceeded to the dialogue con-
struction task during which learners were asked to complete drama scripts
based on given scenarios as drama scriptwriters They received two scenarios
(PDR-high and -low) with pictures of main characters and created a dialogue
involving a request based on each scenario1 These tasks were considered au-
thentic and relevant to learner interests because TV dramas are popular among
the target population and all the task scenarios were directly related to their
school life2 Learners constructed three PDR-high and -low situation dialogues
during treatment sessions (see Supplementary material for sample instruc-
tional materials) Although PDR-high requests were the instructional target
we introduced PDR-high and -low requests together so the differences be-
tween the two become salient
The collaborative group created a dialogue in pairs while the individual
group completed the task alone Learners vocalized their thoughts during
task performance in the language of their choice either collaboratively or
individually depending on their treatment condition To ensure learnersrsquo
understanding of the task following Kim (2013) we showed a 2-min pre-
task modeling video prior to the beginning of their task performance In the
modeling video for the collaborative group two teachers demonstrate how to
perform a task collaboratively using a similar scenario whereas in the video for
the individual group one teacher performed the same task while thinking
aloud on her own Interaction and think-aloud protocols during task comple-
tion were audio-recorded using individual MP3 recorders The treatment
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session took about 45 min We repeated the same procedures in the second
task treatment session with different scenarios The control group received
regular English instruction
Assessment measure
A written DCT instrument was used to measure learning outcomes DCT
has been criticized because of a lack of authenticity and non-interactive
nature (Golato 2003) However DCT has a merit because the data can provide
information about learnersrsquo knowledge of normative conventions of prag-
matic language use (McNamara and Roever 2006) DCT can also control
social factors in scenarios and help us obtain data that are comparable across
learners over time Most importantly DCT in this study conformed to the
principle of lsquotransfer appropriate processingrsquo (DeKeyser 2007) which claims
that transfer of skill from a learned to a novel task occurs if the cognitive
operations involved in the novel task resemble those in the treatment task
The treatment task in this study was a dialogue construction task which
shared the same modality with DCT which elicited participantsrsquo pragmalinguis-
tic forms in writing
The DCT had 15 items 4 each of PDR-high and PDR-low requests and 7
filler items involving non-target speech acts Each DCT item had a situation
written in Korean to ensure participantsrsquo comprehension Participants were
asked to follow the first turn or prompt provided in English and write the
speech act in English In order to minimize the practice effect coming from
administering the same test repeatedly we prepared three versions of DCT
Scenarios were kept constant but minor wording changes were made in the
scenarios (eg changing names and locations) Different filler items were used
each time DCT items were different from the items used in the treatment
sessions Supplementary material contains sample DCT items
Procedure
The study was conducted over 6 weeks (see Table 2) During the first ses-
sion the learners took the pretest and two task groups carried out a practice
task to become familiar with recording devices and think-aloud
procedures Task treatment sessions were provided on Days 7 and 9 On
Days 10 and 14 all learners took the immediate posttest and the TOEFIC
Bridge respectively Four weeks after the immediate posttest the learners
took the delayed posttest
Data analysis
This study asked (i) whether task-based instruction is beneficial for learning
request-making expressions and if so whether there is a difference in learning
outcomes between the collaborative and individual group and (ii) to what
extent learners produce PREs during individual or collaborative tasks In
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response to the first research question we first assigned scores on the request
head acts in the DCTs Because the purpose of this study was to compare
instructional effects between two task conditions (collaborative vs individual)
we focused our analysis on the forms we targeted during instruction Three
points were given if the head act contained one of the target forms (lsquoIrsquom
wondering ifrsquo + clause or lsquoIs there any wayrsquo + clause) and was also grammat-
ically accurate Two points were given if the head act took the target form but
was ungrammatical One point was given for a grammatical non-target form in
the context of this study (request in a form other than the mitigated prepara-
tory such as lsquoCan Irsquo) No point was given for an ungrammatical non-target
form and missing response3 Total scores from four PDR-high requests (scale
0ndash12) were compared across collaborative individual and control groups
using the KruskalndashWallis test In addition to head acts frequency of request
modifications (preparators grounders hedging and amplifiers) was counted
separately and compared across groups using the KruskalndashWallis test Both
authors coded 50 of the data yielding 953 agreement rate The discre-
pancies were solved through a follow-up discussion The non-parametric test
(KruskalndashWallis) was used because the data did not confirm normal
distribution
To answer the second research question task interaction and think-aloud
data were transcribed and analyzed for PREs defined as any part of language
production where learners talk about pragmalinguistics (request-making
forms) and sociopragmatics (contextual factors) they are attending question
their pragmatic language use or correct themselves or others PREs were coded
for context (eg setting interlocutor relationship and size of imposition) head
Table 2 Study procedures
Session Individual group Collaborative group Control group
Session 1(Day 1)
Pretest (DCT 1)Practice taskwith thinking aloud
Pretest (DCT 1)Practice task
Pretest (DCT 1)
Session 2(Day 7)
Explicit information(5 min)
Task modeling video(2 min)
Individual dialogueconstruction (35 min)
Explicit information (5 min)
Task modeling video (2 min)
Collaborative dialogueconstruction (35 min)
Reading activity
Session 3(Day 9)
Same procedure withdifferent scenarios
Same procedure with differentscenarios
Reading activity
Session 4(Day 10)
Immediate posttest (DCT 2) Immediate posttest (DCT 2) Immediateposttest (DCT 2)
Session 5(Day 14)
TOEIC Bridge TOEIC Bridge TOEIC Bridge
Session 6(Day 38)
Delayed posttest (DCT 3) Delayed posttest (DCT 3) Delayedposttest (DCT 3)
N TAGUCHI AND Y KIM 9
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acts grounders preparators hedging and amplifiers See the following ex-
amples about asking the school principal to change a location of a picnic
Example 1 PRE targeting a request head act during interactive task
1 Learner 1 (making a request) I am wondering if I could pos-
sibly (First we have to make a request) I am won-
dering if you could possibly I was wondering
2 Learner 2 I am
3 Learner 1 I am wondering
4 Learner 2 if you could was could (Since
we used lsquocouldrsquo shouldnrsquot we use lsquowasrsquo) I was wondering if I could go
to picnic in Everland
5 Learner 1 if you could (No
since this person needs to make a decision lsquoif you couldrsquo sounds right) If
you could
Example 2 PRE targeting the request head act during think-aloud
Learner 1 In this fall fall picnic fall picnic picnic is there any is there
any way that I could that I could could is there can could possibly
possibly go to Everland participate possibly go to go to Everland
Once the PREs were coded studentsrsquo task performance data (the completed
written dialogues) was scored following the same rubrics as the DCT data and
the frequency of each modification in the dialogues was also counted The
second rater coded 20 percent of task performance data independently and
94 percent agreement was obtained Any disagreement was resolved through
discussion which was applied for the rest of the data coding
RESULTS
Effects of collaborative dialogue in learning the speech act ofrequest
Analysis of request head act
Table 3 displays descriptive statistics of head act scores Frequency analysis
showed that 295 out of the 296 head acts (74 learners 4 items) were non-
target (not the focus of instruction) Most of the non-target head acts took a
form of permission (lsquoMay Irsquo) or ability inquiry (lsquoCould yoursquo) indicating that all
groups were unfamiliar with the mitigated preparatory forms before the in-
struction The KruskalndashWallis test revealed no group difference at pretest
2 = 344 p = 18
The KruskalndashWallis test found a significant group difference at immediate
posttest 2 = 3190 plt 001 Pair-wise comparisons using the MannndashWhitney
U test showed that both treatment groups outperformed the control group
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z = 536 plt 001 (collaborative group) and z = 405 plt 001 (individual group)
The collaborative group further surpassed the individual group on the produc-
tion of mitigated preparatory z = 240 p = 016 However the benefit of this
condition disappeared at delayed posttest because there was no difference be-
tween the treatment groups z = 38 p = 71 In addition the KruskalndashWallis test
showed that there was no significant difference between the control and treat-
ment groups at delayed posttest 2 = 25 p = 884
In summary task-based instruction resulted in a strong effect on the learn-
ing of appropriate request head acts as found in the treatment groupsrsquo superior
performance at immediate posttest compared with that of non-instructional
condition However the effect did not last long as the treatment groups went
back to the level of the control group at delayed posttest Similarly the col-
laborative task was more effective than the individual task at the immediate
posttest but the effect disappeared 1 month later
Analysis of request modification
Tables 4ndash7 present frequency counts of request modifications that appeared in
DCT Preparators almost never appeared at pretest but they showed a large
increase in the two treatment groups at immediate posttest (Table 4) In con-
trast preparators were absent in the control group Both treatment groups
outperformed the control group at immediate and delayed posttest No differ-
ence was found between the collaborative and individual groups z = 176
Table 3 Request head act scores
Group Mean SD Minimum Maximum
Collaborative group (n = 25)
Pretest 336 122 200 400
Immediate posttest 1012 306 200 1200
Delayed posttest 432 236 200 1100
Individual group (n = 25)
Pretest 340 071 200 400
Immediate posttest 836 341 300 1200
Delayed posttest 488 273 100 1200
Control group (n = 24)
Pretest 375 043 300 400
Immediate posttest 383 047 200 400
Delayed posttest 388 044 200 400
Note Each student produced four PDR-high requests Each head act was scored on a 3-point
scale Score range = 0ndash12 Delayed posttest was given 1 month later
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p = 079 at pretest z = 097 p = 33 at immediate posttest and z = 012 p = 90 at
delayed posttest
The grounders showed different patterns they appeared in majority of the
items at pretest (see Table 5) indicating that the learners were already familiar
with this supportive move before the instruction because grounders appear in
Table 4 Frequency of preparators
Group Mean SD Minimum Maximum
Collaborative group (n = 25)
Pretest 028 061 000 200
Immediate posttest 276 151 000 400
Delayed posttest 228 172 000 400
Individual group (n = 25)
Pretest 004 020 000 100
Immediate posttest 316 131 000 400
Delayed posttest 236 173 000 400
Control group (n = 24)
Pretest 000 000 000 000
Immediate posttest 004 020 000 100
Delayed posttest 013 045 000 200
Note Mean = mean frequency of preparators in four PDR-high request items
Table 5 Frequency of grounders
Group Mean SD Minimum Maximum
Collaborative group (n = 25)
Pretest 336 081 100 400
Immediate posttest 336 095 100 400
Delayed posttest 356 096 000 400
Individual group (n = 25)
Pretest 324 088 200 400
Immediate posttest 332 075 200 400
Delayed posttest 340 087 100 400
Control group (n = 24)
Pretest 350 114 000 400
Immediate posttest 346 098 000 400
Delayed posttest 379 051 200 400
Note Mean = mean frequency of grounders in four PDR-high request items
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Korean requests and the learners were able to transfer their L1-based strategy
Because of this ceiling effect there was no instructional effect The results of
the KruskalndashWallis test showed no significant difference in any of the test
sessions 2 = 274 p = 25 at pretest 2 = 121 p = 55 at immediate posttest
and 2= 355 p = 17 at delayed posttest5
Table 7 Frequency of amplifiers
Group Mean SD Minimum Maximum
Collaborative group (n = 25)
Pretest 016 047 000 200
Immediate posttest 092 119 000 400
Delayed posttest 028 054 000 200
Individual group (n = 25)
Pretest 036 064 000 200
Immediate posttest 124 109 000 400
Delayed posttest 044 077 000 200
Control group (n = 24)
Pretest 063 097 000 300
Immediate posttest 071 096 000 400
Delayed posttest 033 076 000 300
Note Mean = mean frequency of amplifiers in four PDR-high request items
Table 6 Frequency of hedging
Group Mean SD Minimum Maximum
Collaborative group (n = 25)
Pretest 000 000 000 000
Immediate posttest 168 149 000 400
Delayed posttest 012 060 000 300
Individual group (n = 25)
Pretest 000 000 000 000
Immediate posttest 140 153 000 400
Delayed posttest 028 098 000 400
Control group (n = 24)
Pretest 000 000 000 000
Immediate posttest 000 000 000 000
Delayed posttest 008 028 000 100
Note Mean = mean frequency of hedging in four PDR-high request items
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Compared with external modifications internal modifications (hedging and
amplifiers) were relatively underused It was absent in the pretest data There
was a noticeable increase at immediate posttest in the treatment groups but
the mean frequency was only moderate Although the frequency was not
particularly large we still note the instructional effect because the treatment
groups outperformed the control group at the immediate posttest 2 = 481
plt 0001 for the collaborative group and 2 = 422 plt 0001 for the individual
group However the effect was short-lived because no group difference was
found at delayed posttest (2 = 43 p = 81) When the two treatment groups
were compared there was no significant difference z = 73 p = 47 at immedi-
ate posttest or z = 61 p = 54 at delayed posttest
Amplifiers also showed very small occurrence at pretest but different from
hedging the frequency remained low throughout the time No instructional
effect was observed in the case of amplifiers as there was no significant group
difference at pretest (2 = 449 p = 11) immediate posttest (2 = 393 p = 14)
or delayed posttest (2 = 45 p = 80)
In summary frequency comparison of request modification across groups
revealed a mixed picture At pretest no group difference was found in any of
these modifications At immediate posttest both treatment groups surpassed
the control group on the production of preparators and hedging but not on the
use of grounders and amplifiers At delayed posttest the treatment groups
outperformed the control group on the production of the preparators only
Most importantly there was no significant difference between the collabora-
tive and individual group in any of these modifications These findings mark a
sharp contrast to those of request head acts in which the collaborative condi-
tion was more advantageous than the individual task condition in learnersrsquo
production of mitigated preparatory forms
Frequency of PREs and quality of treatment task performance
Table 8 reports descriptive statistics for the frequency of PREs Over the two
treatment sessions the individual group produced 1160 PREs on average
while the mean for the collaborative group was 1632 The MannndashWhitney
U test showed that the difference was significant (z =276 p = 006)
Regarding PREs on specific features there was no group difference on PREs
targeting the contextual features of request (z =92 p = 36) head acts
(z = 28 p = 78) or grounders (z = 70 p = 48) but a difference was found in
preparators (z = 465 plt 0001) amplifiers (z = 413 plt 0001) and hedging
(z = 296 p = 003) in favor of the collaborative group
We will turn to the analysis of learnersrsquo task outcome by examining their
accurate resolution of PREs We analyzed the outcome of the dialogue con-
struction tasks using the same scoring rubrics from the DCT analysis 0ndash3 point
scale for head acts and frequency count for modifications (9 maximum points
for three treatment tasks) The individual group scored a mean of 724
(SD = 145) whereas the collaborative group scored a mean of 828
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(SD = 84) This difference was significant z =289 plt 0001 indicating that
the collaborative group resolved PREs more successfully than the individual
group and produced more accurate target head acts as task outcome In con-
trast frequency of other request modifications revealed no group difference
preparators z =143 p = 15 grounders z =182 p = 07 hedging z =95
p = 34 and amplifiers z =147 p = 14
Example 3 demonstrates a sample PRE by a pair in the collaborative group
Here the learners are negotiating the target head act form lsquoI was wondering ifrsquo
by attending to each otherrsquos form and providing feedback and confirmation
During this process the target form receives prominence through recycled use
over multiple turns The form is jointly constructed with both participants
contributing to the knowledge building This collaborative work eventually
leads to the production of the accurate target form as task outcome A by-
product of this process is likely the deeper level of processing of the form and
consolidation of pragmatic knowledge as suggested in the collaborative
grouprsquos superior performance at immediate posttest
Example 3 Correctly resolved PRE in the collaborative group
1 Learner 1 (Jaemyong left his Korean home-
work at home) (He
was asking whether he could go home to bring his homework during his
self-study session) (Then he should make a
request politely)
2 Learner 2 (Yes)
----several turns later----------------------------------------------
3 Learner 1 (We need to make a long
polite request) I was wondering
4 Learner 2 if I could go to
5 Learner 1 Go to the home (Is that lsquogo to the homersquo) Go to home
(Shouldnrsquot it be lsquogo to homersquo)
Table 8 Frequency of PREs
PREs targets Collaborative group (n = 25) Individual group (n = 25)
Mean SD Mean SD
Context 476 296 404 302
Head acts 296 1306 288 120
Preparators 252 087 088 105
Grounders 272 124 276 101
Amplifiers 184 111 052 077
Hedging 152 130 052 083
Total 1632 618 1160 548
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6 Learner 2 I am
7 Learner 1 I was wondering if I could go to go to
8 Learner 2 Go home
9 Learner 1 go home
The nature of the collaborative PREs contrasts with that of individual PREs
In Example 4 the learner is working by herself to resolve the PRE targeting lsquois
there any way that I couldrsquo She recognizes that this is the PDR-high request
and that she should use the mitigated preparatory form She produces the
target form once but without a peer attending to her form and giving feed-
back she goes back to the form that she is used to (lsquoCan Irsquo) resulting in the
production of non-target form as task outcome These instances of incorrectly
resolved PREs in the individual task group probably led to their underperform-
ance at immediate posttest compared with the collaborative group
Example 4 Incorrectly resolved PRE in the individual group
Learner 1 (I need to ask
whether I can go home to bring the assignment during self-study ses-
sion) uh may uh big request is there any way that I could uh
(then) Is there any way that I could possible homework my home-
work Can I can I go to my house to get my homework And can I go to
my house to get my homework (Is this right)
Summary of the findings
The learners who completed tasks collaboratively produced more PREs and
target-like request head acts than those who completed the tasks individually
during the task and again at immediate posttest However the benefit of the
collaborative group was short-lived because their performance was the same
with that of the individual group 1 month after the instruction The benefit of
collaborative tasks was also partial because there was no group difference in
the production of request modifications during the task or at immediate
posttest
DISCUSSION
Our findings contribute to the task-based literature by demonstrating the
benefits of collaborative tasks in improving pragmatics knowledge In the lit-
erature of instructed pragmatics our findings support previous studies on
metapragmatic discussion Takimoto (2012) found that collaborative dialogue
in a form of metapragmatic discussion gave learners access to information
about pragmatic features which eventually led to better control of pragmatic
knowledge than the condition where learners completed the task alone with
or without verbalization of the target features This study adds to these findings
16 COLLABORATIVE DIALOGUE AND PRAGMATICS
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because it documented the nature of collaborative dialogue operationalized as
PREsmdashhow often learners discussed pragmatics features in interaction and
whether interaction led to better task performance and linked these with
the development of pragmatic knowledge It became clear that collaborative
tasks generated more PREs than individual tasks PREs also contributed to
learnersrsquo accurate use of request head acts during treatment tasks which led
to their superior performance at immediate posttest Because the quantity of
PREs targeting head acts was similar between the collaborative and individual
groups the quality of PREs namely the extent to which learners resolved
PREs correctly was crucial for learning The present results support previous
findings of LREs studies (eg Payant 2012) and extended them to pragmatics
This study implemented collaborative dialogue through a form of PREs in
which learners interacted with their peers and jointly constructed a dialogue
that involved the target speech act During this process learners attended the
pragmalinguistic forms and semantic moves and their correspondence with
contextual features (relationship power and degree of imposition) Learners
in the individual task group also attended the target pragmatic forms and
verbalized them on their own as observed in PREs during thinking aloud
However negotiation with others was absent Without negotiation working
alone did not generate as many opportunities for attention to pragmatic forms
in context or recycled use of them as did the collaborative dialogue during
interactive tasks This finding was supported by the fact that the individual
group produced fewer PREs than the collaborative group during the treatment
tasks Metapragmatic talk around the target head acts modifications and con-
textual features occurred more frequently in the collaborative group
Negotiation of pragmatic forms and their meaning during the process of joint
task completion prompts a deeper level of cognitive processing that helps con-
solidate learnersrsquo pragmatic knowledge and their subsequent use of the know-
ledge Critically when learners produce language in a collaborative
environment they do not just produce output but they also have an oppor-
tunity to receive feedback from peers while trying to make their language
precise (Swain and Lapkin 1998 Swain 2006) During interaction learners
attend to each otherrsquos forms evaluate their accuracy and appropriateness
and offer feedback and corrections to each other In this process two levels
of monitoring self-monitoring and other-monitoring are occurring simultan-
eously which essentially promote more accurate high-quality task outcomes
Analyses of treatment task data confirmed this The collaborative grouprsquos re-
quest head acts (mitigated preparatory) in the dialogue construction task were
significantly more accurate than those of the individual group which was the
result of monitoring scaffolding and peer feedback that featured the process of
joint task completion
In sum learners completed tasks more successfully when they worked col-
laboratively and this successful task performance led to significantly greater
gains of the knowledge of appropriate request head acts The findings are
consistent with the results of previous findings that joint activities improved
N TAGUCHI AND Y KIM 17
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nloaded from
task performance in terms of the accurate production of the target linguistic
forms and subsequent learning of the forms (eg Storch 2007 Kim 2008) The
present study has advanced this body of literature by demonstrating that ef-
fects of collaborative tasks and PREs extend beyond grammar and vocabulary
PREs provide opportunities for pragmatic learning that involves a complex
mapping of formndashfunctionndashcontext
Although the efficacy of collaborative dialogue became clear in this study
questions remain as to why the effects were restricted to the request head acts
and did not extend to request modifications One possible interpretation of the
findings relates to the different assessment methods used for the head act and
modification Head acts were assessed using a scoring rubric that reflected both
appropriateness (choosing the target mitigated preparatory forms over other
request-making forms) and grammaticality (accuracy of the forms)
Modifications on the other hand were analyzed mainly on frequency of pro-
duction We made this decision because different from the head act that
occurs only once in a single speech act modifications typically co-occur over
multiple times In addition internal modifications used in this study were all
lexical involving only one word which made the analysis of grammaticality
irrelevant
It is possible that the collaborative dialogue made a difference when the
quality of pragmatic forms (accuracy and appropriateness) was considered
compared with simple quantity (frequency) As shown in the treatment task
data strength of the collaborative dialogue was observed in how learners scaf-
folded each other and provided feedback to each other while jointly carrying
out tasks It might be the case that these instances of negotiation and inter-
action occurring in the collaborative task pushed learners to a deeper level of
processing of the request head act which eventually helped them consolidate
their knowledge of both accuracy and appropriateness of the forms Because of
the linguistic complexity of the head act forms (bi-clausal structure) and the
more strenuous scoring method used to evaluate the forms learnersrsquo know-
ledge base had to be solid enough to allow retrieval and use of the knowledge
The collaborative condition that involved intensive attention negotiation
monitoring and peer feedback probably assisted the formation of this robust
knowledge Nevertheless both treatment conditions were equally effective on
the level of request modifications This might be due to the fact that the groups
were compared on the frequency of use (whether they were able to produce
them in an intelligible manner) not on the quality of use (absolute accuracy of
the forms)
These interpretations also corroborate with Takimotorsquos (2012) findings that
revealed the advantage of metapragmatic over non-metapragmatic discussion
on the acquisition of request Positive effects were found in the production-
based test (DCT) but not in the receptive-skills test (appropriateness judg-
ment) Takimoto attributed the findings to the relative ease of the receptive
task Participants without metapragmatic discussion were still able to cope with
judging appropriateness because the test posed lower demands than a
18 COLLABORATIVE DIALOGUE AND PRAGMATICS
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nloaded from
production task however they were not able to deal with the demand
coming from the DCT that required them to produce target forms accurately
and appropriately Because of the precise syntactic processing required in pro-
duction and resulting task demand learners benefitted more from metaprag-
matic discussion that assisted the consolidation of knowledge
Although the two treatment groups differed in their use of the request head
acts their performance was the same at the level of modifications Both groups
outperformed the control group in the production of preparators and hedging
right after the instruction as well as 1 month later in the case of preparators
These findings indicate a strong effect of instruction over non-instruction but
also reveal variation within the effect across modification types The strong
effect found in the preparators is probably due to the saliency of the prepara-
tors as semantic strategies Different from hedging or amplifiers that involve
precise pragmalinguistics preparators are part of the discourse moves that
characterize the structure of a request reflecting sociopragmatic information
Logistics and rituals of how to structure a request using preparators were prob-
ably easier to learn than the precise linguistics forms of a request and once
learned the knowledge stayed in the memory because of its saliency These
findings conform to the previous longitudinal findings that revealed that ac-
quisition of sociopragmatic rules (eg use of semantic strategies) is faster than
that of pragmalinguistic forms (Bardovi-Harlig and Hartford 1993 Taguchi
2012) The present findings confirmed this in an instructional study
LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY AND IMPLICATIONS FORFUTURE RESEARCH
This study is limited to a small number of individuals in a single L2 group a
single measure and a narrowly defined pragmatic target (request) Future
studies should involve a greater participant pool with wider target languages
and pragmatic measures and examine the development of different aspects of
pragmatic competence in relation to collaborative dialogue
Equally important is an investigation into individual differences and lear-
nersrsquo perceptions of instruction It is possible that not all learners had equal
amount of participation or contribution to the collaborative tasks which con-
sequently restricted their knowledge-building process It is also possible that
learners were not familiar with the type of instructional activities used in this
study and needed more time to get accustomed to the tasks in order to gain the
full benefit from them Two class periods were probably not enough time to
boost their robust learning Because this study did not address individual lear-
ner variation and learnersrsquo perceptions of their learning processes future stu-
dies are called for in this direction
Additionally although there has been a surge amount of research on task
design and task implementation in instructed SLA the learning of pragmatics
using a variety of collaborative tasks has not been explored Because this study
N TAGUCHI AND Y KIM 19
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used only one type of writing task future studies should explore task-related
variables to find ultimate task-based learning contexts for pragmatic
development
In the current study we used PREs as an analysis unit to determine the
amount of learnersrsquo attention to target pragmatic forms for both individual and
collaborative groups The results need to be interpreted with acknowledging
that the characteristics of PREs in these two groups might not be exactly
the same due to the different nature of task performance As a first step of
using PREs we focused on the overall frequency of PREs Future studies are
warranted to explore the quality of PREs (eg number of turnssentences per
PRE) to further our understanding of collaborative dialogue around prag-
matics Another limitation is that this study did not collect Supplementary
data such as stimulated verbal recall or interviews to understand actual cog-
nitive processing involved in PREs which should be explored in the future
research
Finally different effects of collaborative dialogue between the request head
acts and modifications found here need to be addressed more explicitly in the
future Learnability and teachability of pragmatic features have been discussed
in the literature pointing to the need for exploring the interaction among
instructional methods pragmatic targets and learner profiles (eg Roever
2009 Takahashi 2010 Taguhi 2011) Roever (2009) suggests that future re-
search should investigate what kinds of pragmatic features (eg syntactic miti-
gations and lexical downgraders) should be taught to what types of learners
(in terms of proficiency or other individual characteristics) using what kinds of
intervention methods (eg interaction vs non-interaction) Taguchi (forth-
coming) adds characteristics of assessment methods to this call because instruc-
tional effects diverge substantially depending on the demands involved
in the assessment measures Collaborative dialogue and PREs could serve
as a fruitful area to investigate this interaction among pragmatic targets in-
structional methods learnersrsquo instructional readiness and assessment
measures
SUPPLEMENTARY DATA
Supplementary material is available at Applied Linguistics online
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We are grateful for three anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on earlier versions of
the manuscript Special thanks also go to our research assistants Feng Xiao Franklin Bradfield
Sharon Kim and YeonJoo Jung for their help with data analysis We are responsible for all the
errors that may remain
Conflict of interest statement None declared
20 COLLABORATIVE DIALOGUE AND PRAGMATICS
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NOTES
1 We acknowledge the limitation of not
using video-recorded authentic prag-
matic materials
2 One of the reviewers stated that the au-
thenticity of tasks should be based on
whether situations happen in the
target culture We agree with this con-
cern However being familiar with
given contexts is crucial for the partici-
pants to be able to analyze the contexts
and discuss the pragmatic-related issues
Because making requests in both
Korean and English follow similar
discourse patterns we decided that it
was appropriate to use context-specific
scenarios (situations in Korea) in the
study
3 Missing responses occupied about 3
percent of the data
4 We conducted additional analysis with
analysis of covariance with proficiency
measured by TOEIC Bridge test as cov-
ariate Results were the same
5 This study did not analyze content of
the grounders because content was
fixed provided in the DCT scenarios
REFERENCES
Bardovi-Harlig K and B Hartford 1993
lsquoLearning the rules of academic talk A
longitudinal study of pragmatic changersquo
Studies in Second Language Acquisition 15
279ndash304
Blum-Kulka S J House and G Kasper
1989 Cross-Cultural Pragmatics Requests and
Apologies Ablex
Brown P and S Levinson 1987 Politeness
Cambridge University Press
Golato A 2003 lsquoStudying complement re-
sponses A comparison of DCTs and recordings
of naturally occurring talkrsquo Applied Linguistics
24 90ndash121
DeKeyser R 2007 lsquoSkill acquisition theoryrsquo
in B VanPatten and J Williams (eds)
Theories in Second Language Acquisition An
Introduction Lawrence Erlbaum Associates
Publishers pp 94ndash113
Jeon E -H and T Kaya 2006 lsquoEffects of L2
instruction on interlanguage pragmatic devel-
opmentrsquo in N John and L Ortega (eds)
Synthesizing Research on Language Learning and
Teaching John Benjamins pp 165ndash211
Kasper G 2001 lsquoClassroom research on inter-
language pragmaticsrsquo in K Rose and G Kasper
(eds) Pragmatics in Language Teaching
Cambridge University Press pp 33ndash62
Kim Y 2008 lsquoThe contribution of collaborative
and individual tasks to the acquisition of L2
vocabularyrsquo Modern Language Journal 92
113ndash40
Kim Y 2013 lsquoEffects of pretask modeling on
attention to form and question developmentrsquo
TESOL Quarterly 47 8ndash35
Kim Y in press lsquoThe role of tasks as vehicles for
learning in classroom interactionrsquo in N Markee
(ed) Handbook of Classroom Discourse and
Interaction Wiley-Blackwell
Lee I S Kim S Yoon J Nam S Park
Y Hong and T Orr 2009 Middle School
English 2 Chun-Jae-Gyo-Yuk
Leech G 1983 Principles of Pragmatics Longman
McNamara T and C Roever 2006 Language
Testing The Social Dimension Blackwell
Nassaji H and J Tian 2010 lsquoCollaborative and
individual output tasks and their effects on
learning English phrasal verbsrsquo Language
Teaching Research 14 397ndash419
Nguyen TTM 2013 lsquoInstructional effects on
the acquisition of modifiers in constructive
criticisms by EFL learnersrsquo Language
Awareness 22 76ndash94
Payant C 2012 lsquoLearner-learner interaction
An exploration of the mediating functions of
multilingual learnersrsquo languages in an L3 for-
eign language classroomrsquo Unpublished disser-
tation Georgia State University
Roever C 2009 lsquoTeaching and testing pragmaticsrsquo
in M Long and C Doughty (eds) Handbook of
Language Teaching Wiley-Blackwell pp 560ndash77
Schmidt R 2001 lsquoAttentionrsquo in P Robinson
(ed) Cognition and Second Language Instruction
Cambridge University Press pp 3ndash32
N TAGUCHI AND Y KIM 21
by guest on July 30 2014httpapplijoxfordjournalsorg
Dow
nloaded from
Storch N 2007 lsquoInvestigating the merits of pair
work on a text editing task in ESL classesrsquo
Language Teaching Research 2 143ndash59
Swain M 2006 lsquoLanguaging agency and col-
laboration in advanced second language
Proficiencyrsquo in H Byrnes (ed) Advanced
Language Learning The Contribution of Halliday
and Vygotsky Continuum pp 95ndash108
Swain M and S Lapkin 1998 lsquoInteraction
and second language learning Two adolescent
French immersion students working togetherrsquo
Modern Language Journal 82 320ndash37
Swain M and Y Watanabe 2013
lsquoCollaborative dialogue as a source of learningrsquo
in C Chapelle (ed) The Encyclopedia of Applied
Linguistics Wiley Blackwell
Taguchi N 2011 lsquoTeaching pragmatics Trends
and issuesrsquo Annual Review of Applied Linguistics
31 289ndash310
Taguchi N 2012 Context Individual
Differences and Pragmatic Competence
Multilingual Matter
Taguchi N forthcoming lsquoInstructed pragmatics
at a glance Where instructional studies were
are and should be going State-of-the-art art-
iclersquo Language Teaching
Takahashi S 1996 lsquoPragmatic transferabilityrsquo
Studies in Second Language Acquisition 18 189ndash223
Takahashi S 2010 lsquoAssessing learnability in
second language pragmaticsrsquo in A Trosborg
(ed) Handbook of Pragmatics VII Mouton de
Gruyter pp 391ndash421
Takimoto M 2012 lsquoMetapragmatic discussion
in interlanguage pragmaticsrsquo Journal of
Pragmatics 44 1240ndash53
Van den Branden K M Bygate and
J Norris (eds) 2009 Task-Based Language
Teaching A Reader John Benjamins Publishers
22 COLLABORATIVE DIALOGUE AND PRAGMATICS
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NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS
Naoko Taguchi is an associate professor in the Modern Languages Department at
Carnegie Mellon University where she teaches courses in SLA and Japanese language
and culture Her research interests include pragmatics classroom-based research and
English-medium instruction Address for correspondence Naoko Taguchi Carnegie Mellon
University Pittsburgh PA USA lttaguchiandrewcmuedugt
YouJin Kim is an assistant professor in the Department of Applied Linguistics and ESL at
Georgia State University Her primary research interests include instructed second lan-
guage acquisition task-based language teaching and assessment and structural prim-
ing Her research focuses on adolescent and adult English and Korean language
learners Address for correspondence YouJin Kim Georgia State University Atlanta
GA USA ltykim39gsuedugt
N TAGUCHI AND Y KIM 23
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METHODS
Participants
Participants were 74 learners of English in a second-grade girlsrsquo junior high
school in South Korea Their average age was 1374 years (range = 13ndash14
years) They had received 5 years of formal English education at the time of
the study They were receiving 4 hours of English instruction per week taught
mostly by Korean-speaking instructors Participantsrsquo proficiency measured by
Test of English for International Communication (TOEIC) Bridge was between
high beginner and intermediate with a mean score of 13527 (SD = 1442
range = 100ndash172) Participantsrsquo English classes focused on grammar vocabu-
lary and readingwriting with little focus on pragmatics Three intact classes
were randomly assigned to three groups a collaborative (n = 25) individual
(n = 25) and control group (n = 24) Analysis of variance showed no significant
group difference in the TOEIC Bridge scores suggesting that the groups were
comparable in terms of their proficiency level (F = 355 p = 70)
Instructional targets
The instructional target was the speech act of request in a formal situation
which appeared in the participantsrsquo English textbook (Lee et al 2009) Formal
request was operationalized using Brown and Levinsonrsquos (1987) contextual
factors power (P) distance (D) and degree of imposition (R) and was defined
as a request that carries a larger size of imposition and is made to someone in a
greater power and distance (PDR-high) An example is asking a professor to
reschedule a test This PDR-high request contrasts with a request made to
someone in equal power and small distance and degree of imposition (PDR-
low) such as asking your sister to pass you a TV remote
In order to identify appropriate request situations a pilot study was con-
ducted with students of the same grade in the institution who were not
included in the main study (n = 34) This involved asking them to indicate
the degree of psychological ease or difficulty in performing the request on
Likert scale from 1 (easy) to 5 (difficult) The survey included 14 PDR-high
and -low requests adapted from the previous literature (eg Taguchi 2012)
The survey also asked participants to indicate the degree of commonality of
each situation on a scale from 1 (very rare) to 5 (very common) Finally the
survey provided an open question in which students wrote PDR-high and -low
requests that they had personally encountered
Results showed that PDR-low situations received a mean difficulty rating of
178 (SD = 106) while PDR-high situations received a mean rating of 264
(SD = 124) This difference was statistically significant t (237) =900
p = 0001 indicating that PDR-high were perceived as more difficult to perform
than PDR-low requests From the 14 situations we selected four PDR-high
items that received a rating of 25 or above and four PDR-low items with a
rating of below 15 In order to ensure the authenticity of tasks commonality
N TAGUCHI AND Y KIM 5
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ratings of these items were checked to avoid teaching situations that do not
represent real life in Korea Finally we analyzed participantsrsquo responses to the
open-ended question and used their descriptions when writing situations
Instruction focused on two categories of pragmalinguistic forms request
head acts and modifications (Table 1) Request head acts refer to the minimal
core unit that conveys the illocutionary force of request (Blum-Kulka et al
1989) In this category we taught mitigated preparatory forms Mitigated pre-
paratory involves syntactic forms that make reference to the hearerrsquos ability or
will in an embedded question or bi-clausal structure (eg lsquoI was wondering
ifrsquo + verb and lsquoWould it be possible torsquo + verb) (Takahashi 1996) Request modi-
fications have two categories external and internal External modifications
involve semantic moves that are attached externally to the head act and miti-
gate its force (Blum-Kulka et al 1989) We taught two external modifications
preparators (preparing a hearer for a request) and grounders (giving a reason
for request) Internal modifications include sentence-internal syntactic and
lexical devices used to modify the force of request We taught two forms
hedging that softens the tone of speech and amplifiers that strengthen self-
expression
These pragmalinguistic forms were selected based on baseline data collected
from native English speakers Twenty-four students in a US university
Table 1 Target pragmalinguistic forms
Head acts
Mitigated preparatory forms
Reference to the hearerrsquos ability will and possibility or reference to thespeakerrsquos wish in an embedded question or sentence
Irsquom wondering if you could give me an extension on the assignment
Is there any way that I could get an extension on the assignment
External modifications
Preparators
Semantic moves used to prepare the hearer for the request
eg May I ask you something
Grounders
Reason or explanation used to support the request
eg I caught a cold so I couldnrsquot finish the assignment
Internal modifications
Hedging
Words that minimize self-expression (maybe possibly)
eg Irsquom wondering if I could possibly have an extension on the assignment
Amplifiers
Words that strengthen self-expression (really very)
eg I really need more time to work on the assignment
6 COLLABORATIVE DIALOGUE AND PRAGMATICS
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completed a discourse completion task (DCT) that contained four PDR-high
and -low requests Mitigated preparatory appeared 73 percent of the time as a
head act in PDR-high requests while it appeared only 4 percent of the time in
PDR-low requests This indicates that mitigated preparatory characterizes PDR-
high requests Grounders and preparators were common supportive moves
appearing 98 and 13 percent of the time respectively while they never ap-
peared in PDR-low situations Hedging and amplifiers were also frequent ap-
pearing at a rate of 52 percent while they were absent in PDR-low requests
Based on these findings along with studies that revealed learnersrsquo difficulty
with these forms (Taguchi 2012) we targeted these forms Although DCT data
can only tell us what people would say in a hypothetical situation the rela-
tively uniform responses were considered to represent normative patterns of
request making
Instructional materials and tasks
Treatment groups received instruction in school during their regular English
class sessions over two consecutive days The instruction started with a 5-min
explanation of target pragmatic forms using a written dialogue There were
two dialogues one featuring a PDR-high and the other featuring a PDR-low
request We introduced pragmalinguistic forms and sociopragmatic variables in
each dialogue After receiving the direct metapragmatic information the two
treatment groups (collaborative and individual) proceeded to the dialogue con-
struction task during which learners were asked to complete drama scripts
based on given scenarios as drama scriptwriters They received two scenarios
(PDR-high and -low) with pictures of main characters and created a dialogue
involving a request based on each scenario1 These tasks were considered au-
thentic and relevant to learner interests because TV dramas are popular among
the target population and all the task scenarios were directly related to their
school life2 Learners constructed three PDR-high and -low situation dialogues
during treatment sessions (see Supplementary material for sample instruc-
tional materials) Although PDR-high requests were the instructional target
we introduced PDR-high and -low requests together so the differences be-
tween the two become salient
The collaborative group created a dialogue in pairs while the individual
group completed the task alone Learners vocalized their thoughts during
task performance in the language of their choice either collaboratively or
individually depending on their treatment condition To ensure learnersrsquo
understanding of the task following Kim (2013) we showed a 2-min pre-
task modeling video prior to the beginning of their task performance In the
modeling video for the collaborative group two teachers demonstrate how to
perform a task collaboratively using a similar scenario whereas in the video for
the individual group one teacher performed the same task while thinking
aloud on her own Interaction and think-aloud protocols during task comple-
tion were audio-recorded using individual MP3 recorders The treatment
N TAGUCHI AND Y KIM 7
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session took about 45 min We repeated the same procedures in the second
task treatment session with different scenarios The control group received
regular English instruction
Assessment measure
A written DCT instrument was used to measure learning outcomes DCT
has been criticized because of a lack of authenticity and non-interactive
nature (Golato 2003) However DCT has a merit because the data can provide
information about learnersrsquo knowledge of normative conventions of prag-
matic language use (McNamara and Roever 2006) DCT can also control
social factors in scenarios and help us obtain data that are comparable across
learners over time Most importantly DCT in this study conformed to the
principle of lsquotransfer appropriate processingrsquo (DeKeyser 2007) which claims
that transfer of skill from a learned to a novel task occurs if the cognitive
operations involved in the novel task resemble those in the treatment task
The treatment task in this study was a dialogue construction task which
shared the same modality with DCT which elicited participantsrsquo pragmalinguis-
tic forms in writing
The DCT had 15 items 4 each of PDR-high and PDR-low requests and 7
filler items involving non-target speech acts Each DCT item had a situation
written in Korean to ensure participantsrsquo comprehension Participants were
asked to follow the first turn or prompt provided in English and write the
speech act in English In order to minimize the practice effect coming from
administering the same test repeatedly we prepared three versions of DCT
Scenarios were kept constant but minor wording changes were made in the
scenarios (eg changing names and locations) Different filler items were used
each time DCT items were different from the items used in the treatment
sessions Supplementary material contains sample DCT items
Procedure
The study was conducted over 6 weeks (see Table 2) During the first ses-
sion the learners took the pretest and two task groups carried out a practice
task to become familiar with recording devices and think-aloud
procedures Task treatment sessions were provided on Days 7 and 9 On
Days 10 and 14 all learners took the immediate posttest and the TOEFIC
Bridge respectively Four weeks after the immediate posttest the learners
took the delayed posttest
Data analysis
This study asked (i) whether task-based instruction is beneficial for learning
request-making expressions and if so whether there is a difference in learning
outcomes between the collaborative and individual group and (ii) to what
extent learners produce PREs during individual or collaborative tasks In
8 COLLABORATIVE DIALOGUE AND PRAGMATICS
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response to the first research question we first assigned scores on the request
head acts in the DCTs Because the purpose of this study was to compare
instructional effects between two task conditions (collaborative vs individual)
we focused our analysis on the forms we targeted during instruction Three
points were given if the head act contained one of the target forms (lsquoIrsquom
wondering ifrsquo + clause or lsquoIs there any wayrsquo + clause) and was also grammat-
ically accurate Two points were given if the head act took the target form but
was ungrammatical One point was given for a grammatical non-target form in
the context of this study (request in a form other than the mitigated prepara-
tory such as lsquoCan Irsquo) No point was given for an ungrammatical non-target
form and missing response3 Total scores from four PDR-high requests (scale
0ndash12) were compared across collaborative individual and control groups
using the KruskalndashWallis test In addition to head acts frequency of request
modifications (preparators grounders hedging and amplifiers) was counted
separately and compared across groups using the KruskalndashWallis test Both
authors coded 50 of the data yielding 953 agreement rate The discre-
pancies were solved through a follow-up discussion The non-parametric test
(KruskalndashWallis) was used because the data did not confirm normal
distribution
To answer the second research question task interaction and think-aloud
data were transcribed and analyzed for PREs defined as any part of language
production where learners talk about pragmalinguistics (request-making
forms) and sociopragmatics (contextual factors) they are attending question
their pragmatic language use or correct themselves or others PREs were coded
for context (eg setting interlocutor relationship and size of imposition) head
Table 2 Study procedures
Session Individual group Collaborative group Control group
Session 1(Day 1)
Pretest (DCT 1)Practice taskwith thinking aloud
Pretest (DCT 1)Practice task
Pretest (DCT 1)
Session 2(Day 7)
Explicit information(5 min)
Task modeling video(2 min)
Individual dialogueconstruction (35 min)
Explicit information (5 min)
Task modeling video (2 min)
Collaborative dialogueconstruction (35 min)
Reading activity
Session 3(Day 9)
Same procedure withdifferent scenarios
Same procedure with differentscenarios
Reading activity
Session 4(Day 10)
Immediate posttest (DCT 2) Immediate posttest (DCT 2) Immediateposttest (DCT 2)
Session 5(Day 14)
TOEIC Bridge TOEIC Bridge TOEIC Bridge
Session 6(Day 38)
Delayed posttest (DCT 3) Delayed posttest (DCT 3) Delayedposttest (DCT 3)
N TAGUCHI AND Y KIM 9
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acts grounders preparators hedging and amplifiers See the following ex-
amples about asking the school principal to change a location of a picnic
Example 1 PRE targeting a request head act during interactive task
1 Learner 1 (making a request) I am wondering if I could pos-
sibly (First we have to make a request) I am won-
dering if you could possibly I was wondering
2 Learner 2 I am
3 Learner 1 I am wondering
4 Learner 2 if you could was could (Since
we used lsquocouldrsquo shouldnrsquot we use lsquowasrsquo) I was wondering if I could go
to picnic in Everland
5 Learner 1 if you could (No
since this person needs to make a decision lsquoif you couldrsquo sounds right) If
you could
Example 2 PRE targeting the request head act during think-aloud
Learner 1 In this fall fall picnic fall picnic picnic is there any is there
any way that I could that I could could is there can could possibly
possibly go to Everland participate possibly go to go to Everland
Once the PREs were coded studentsrsquo task performance data (the completed
written dialogues) was scored following the same rubrics as the DCT data and
the frequency of each modification in the dialogues was also counted The
second rater coded 20 percent of task performance data independently and
94 percent agreement was obtained Any disagreement was resolved through
discussion which was applied for the rest of the data coding
RESULTS
Effects of collaborative dialogue in learning the speech act ofrequest
Analysis of request head act
Table 3 displays descriptive statistics of head act scores Frequency analysis
showed that 295 out of the 296 head acts (74 learners 4 items) were non-
target (not the focus of instruction) Most of the non-target head acts took a
form of permission (lsquoMay Irsquo) or ability inquiry (lsquoCould yoursquo) indicating that all
groups were unfamiliar with the mitigated preparatory forms before the in-
struction The KruskalndashWallis test revealed no group difference at pretest
2 = 344 p = 18
The KruskalndashWallis test found a significant group difference at immediate
posttest 2 = 3190 plt 001 Pair-wise comparisons using the MannndashWhitney
U test showed that both treatment groups outperformed the control group
10 COLLABORATIVE DIALOGUE AND PRAGMATICS
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z = 536 plt 001 (collaborative group) and z = 405 plt 001 (individual group)
The collaborative group further surpassed the individual group on the produc-
tion of mitigated preparatory z = 240 p = 016 However the benefit of this
condition disappeared at delayed posttest because there was no difference be-
tween the treatment groups z = 38 p = 71 In addition the KruskalndashWallis test
showed that there was no significant difference between the control and treat-
ment groups at delayed posttest 2 = 25 p = 884
In summary task-based instruction resulted in a strong effect on the learn-
ing of appropriate request head acts as found in the treatment groupsrsquo superior
performance at immediate posttest compared with that of non-instructional
condition However the effect did not last long as the treatment groups went
back to the level of the control group at delayed posttest Similarly the col-
laborative task was more effective than the individual task at the immediate
posttest but the effect disappeared 1 month later
Analysis of request modification
Tables 4ndash7 present frequency counts of request modifications that appeared in
DCT Preparators almost never appeared at pretest but they showed a large
increase in the two treatment groups at immediate posttest (Table 4) In con-
trast preparators were absent in the control group Both treatment groups
outperformed the control group at immediate and delayed posttest No differ-
ence was found between the collaborative and individual groups z = 176
Table 3 Request head act scores
Group Mean SD Minimum Maximum
Collaborative group (n = 25)
Pretest 336 122 200 400
Immediate posttest 1012 306 200 1200
Delayed posttest 432 236 200 1100
Individual group (n = 25)
Pretest 340 071 200 400
Immediate posttest 836 341 300 1200
Delayed posttest 488 273 100 1200
Control group (n = 24)
Pretest 375 043 300 400
Immediate posttest 383 047 200 400
Delayed posttest 388 044 200 400
Note Each student produced four PDR-high requests Each head act was scored on a 3-point
scale Score range = 0ndash12 Delayed posttest was given 1 month later
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p = 079 at pretest z = 097 p = 33 at immediate posttest and z = 012 p = 90 at
delayed posttest
The grounders showed different patterns they appeared in majority of the
items at pretest (see Table 5) indicating that the learners were already familiar
with this supportive move before the instruction because grounders appear in
Table 4 Frequency of preparators
Group Mean SD Minimum Maximum
Collaborative group (n = 25)
Pretest 028 061 000 200
Immediate posttest 276 151 000 400
Delayed posttest 228 172 000 400
Individual group (n = 25)
Pretest 004 020 000 100
Immediate posttest 316 131 000 400
Delayed posttest 236 173 000 400
Control group (n = 24)
Pretest 000 000 000 000
Immediate posttest 004 020 000 100
Delayed posttest 013 045 000 200
Note Mean = mean frequency of preparators in four PDR-high request items
Table 5 Frequency of grounders
Group Mean SD Minimum Maximum
Collaborative group (n = 25)
Pretest 336 081 100 400
Immediate posttest 336 095 100 400
Delayed posttest 356 096 000 400
Individual group (n = 25)
Pretest 324 088 200 400
Immediate posttest 332 075 200 400
Delayed posttest 340 087 100 400
Control group (n = 24)
Pretest 350 114 000 400
Immediate posttest 346 098 000 400
Delayed posttest 379 051 200 400
Note Mean = mean frequency of grounders in four PDR-high request items
12 COLLABORATIVE DIALOGUE AND PRAGMATICS
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Korean requests and the learners were able to transfer their L1-based strategy
Because of this ceiling effect there was no instructional effect The results of
the KruskalndashWallis test showed no significant difference in any of the test
sessions 2 = 274 p = 25 at pretest 2 = 121 p = 55 at immediate posttest
and 2= 355 p = 17 at delayed posttest5
Table 7 Frequency of amplifiers
Group Mean SD Minimum Maximum
Collaborative group (n = 25)
Pretest 016 047 000 200
Immediate posttest 092 119 000 400
Delayed posttest 028 054 000 200
Individual group (n = 25)
Pretest 036 064 000 200
Immediate posttest 124 109 000 400
Delayed posttest 044 077 000 200
Control group (n = 24)
Pretest 063 097 000 300
Immediate posttest 071 096 000 400
Delayed posttest 033 076 000 300
Note Mean = mean frequency of amplifiers in four PDR-high request items
Table 6 Frequency of hedging
Group Mean SD Minimum Maximum
Collaborative group (n = 25)
Pretest 000 000 000 000
Immediate posttest 168 149 000 400
Delayed posttest 012 060 000 300
Individual group (n = 25)
Pretest 000 000 000 000
Immediate posttest 140 153 000 400
Delayed posttest 028 098 000 400
Control group (n = 24)
Pretest 000 000 000 000
Immediate posttest 000 000 000 000
Delayed posttest 008 028 000 100
Note Mean = mean frequency of hedging in four PDR-high request items
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Compared with external modifications internal modifications (hedging and
amplifiers) were relatively underused It was absent in the pretest data There
was a noticeable increase at immediate posttest in the treatment groups but
the mean frequency was only moderate Although the frequency was not
particularly large we still note the instructional effect because the treatment
groups outperformed the control group at the immediate posttest 2 = 481
plt 0001 for the collaborative group and 2 = 422 plt 0001 for the individual
group However the effect was short-lived because no group difference was
found at delayed posttest (2 = 43 p = 81) When the two treatment groups
were compared there was no significant difference z = 73 p = 47 at immedi-
ate posttest or z = 61 p = 54 at delayed posttest
Amplifiers also showed very small occurrence at pretest but different from
hedging the frequency remained low throughout the time No instructional
effect was observed in the case of amplifiers as there was no significant group
difference at pretest (2 = 449 p = 11) immediate posttest (2 = 393 p = 14)
or delayed posttest (2 = 45 p = 80)
In summary frequency comparison of request modification across groups
revealed a mixed picture At pretest no group difference was found in any of
these modifications At immediate posttest both treatment groups surpassed
the control group on the production of preparators and hedging but not on the
use of grounders and amplifiers At delayed posttest the treatment groups
outperformed the control group on the production of the preparators only
Most importantly there was no significant difference between the collabora-
tive and individual group in any of these modifications These findings mark a
sharp contrast to those of request head acts in which the collaborative condi-
tion was more advantageous than the individual task condition in learnersrsquo
production of mitigated preparatory forms
Frequency of PREs and quality of treatment task performance
Table 8 reports descriptive statistics for the frequency of PREs Over the two
treatment sessions the individual group produced 1160 PREs on average
while the mean for the collaborative group was 1632 The MannndashWhitney
U test showed that the difference was significant (z =276 p = 006)
Regarding PREs on specific features there was no group difference on PREs
targeting the contextual features of request (z =92 p = 36) head acts
(z = 28 p = 78) or grounders (z = 70 p = 48) but a difference was found in
preparators (z = 465 plt 0001) amplifiers (z = 413 plt 0001) and hedging
(z = 296 p = 003) in favor of the collaborative group
We will turn to the analysis of learnersrsquo task outcome by examining their
accurate resolution of PREs We analyzed the outcome of the dialogue con-
struction tasks using the same scoring rubrics from the DCT analysis 0ndash3 point
scale for head acts and frequency count for modifications (9 maximum points
for three treatment tasks) The individual group scored a mean of 724
(SD = 145) whereas the collaborative group scored a mean of 828
14 COLLABORATIVE DIALOGUE AND PRAGMATICS
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(SD = 84) This difference was significant z =289 plt 0001 indicating that
the collaborative group resolved PREs more successfully than the individual
group and produced more accurate target head acts as task outcome In con-
trast frequency of other request modifications revealed no group difference
preparators z =143 p = 15 grounders z =182 p = 07 hedging z =95
p = 34 and amplifiers z =147 p = 14
Example 3 demonstrates a sample PRE by a pair in the collaborative group
Here the learners are negotiating the target head act form lsquoI was wondering ifrsquo
by attending to each otherrsquos form and providing feedback and confirmation
During this process the target form receives prominence through recycled use
over multiple turns The form is jointly constructed with both participants
contributing to the knowledge building This collaborative work eventually
leads to the production of the accurate target form as task outcome A by-
product of this process is likely the deeper level of processing of the form and
consolidation of pragmatic knowledge as suggested in the collaborative
grouprsquos superior performance at immediate posttest
Example 3 Correctly resolved PRE in the collaborative group
1 Learner 1 (Jaemyong left his Korean home-
work at home) (He
was asking whether he could go home to bring his homework during his
self-study session) (Then he should make a
request politely)
2 Learner 2 (Yes)
----several turns later----------------------------------------------
3 Learner 1 (We need to make a long
polite request) I was wondering
4 Learner 2 if I could go to
5 Learner 1 Go to the home (Is that lsquogo to the homersquo) Go to home
(Shouldnrsquot it be lsquogo to homersquo)
Table 8 Frequency of PREs
PREs targets Collaborative group (n = 25) Individual group (n = 25)
Mean SD Mean SD
Context 476 296 404 302
Head acts 296 1306 288 120
Preparators 252 087 088 105
Grounders 272 124 276 101
Amplifiers 184 111 052 077
Hedging 152 130 052 083
Total 1632 618 1160 548
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6 Learner 2 I am
7 Learner 1 I was wondering if I could go to go to
8 Learner 2 Go home
9 Learner 1 go home
The nature of the collaborative PREs contrasts with that of individual PREs
In Example 4 the learner is working by herself to resolve the PRE targeting lsquois
there any way that I couldrsquo She recognizes that this is the PDR-high request
and that she should use the mitigated preparatory form She produces the
target form once but without a peer attending to her form and giving feed-
back she goes back to the form that she is used to (lsquoCan Irsquo) resulting in the
production of non-target form as task outcome These instances of incorrectly
resolved PREs in the individual task group probably led to their underperform-
ance at immediate posttest compared with the collaborative group
Example 4 Incorrectly resolved PRE in the individual group
Learner 1 (I need to ask
whether I can go home to bring the assignment during self-study ses-
sion) uh may uh big request is there any way that I could uh
(then) Is there any way that I could possible homework my home-
work Can I can I go to my house to get my homework And can I go to
my house to get my homework (Is this right)
Summary of the findings
The learners who completed tasks collaboratively produced more PREs and
target-like request head acts than those who completed the tasks individually
during the task and again at immediate posttest However the benefit of the
collaborative group was short-lived because their performance was the same
with that of the individual group 1 month after the instruction The benefit of
collaborative tasks was also partial because there was no group difference in
the production of request modifications during the task or at immediate
posttest
DISCUSSION
Our findings contribute to the task-based literature by demonstrating the
benefits of collaborative tasks in improving pragmatics knowledge In the lit-
erature of instructed pragmatics our findings support previous studies on
metapragmatic discussion Takimoto (2012) found that collaborative dialogue
in a form of metapragmatic discussion gave learners access to information
about pragmatic features which eventually led to better control of pragmatic
knowledge than the condition where learners completed the task alone with
or without verbalization of the target features This study adds to these findings
16 COLLABORATIVE DIALOGUE AND PRAGMATICS
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because it documented the nature of collaborative dialogue operationalized as
PREsmdashhow often learners discussed pragmatics features in interaction and
whether interaction led to better task performance and linked these with
the development of pragmatic knowledge It became clear that collaborative
tasks generated more PREs than individual tasks PREs also contributed to
learnersrsquo accurate use of request head acts during treatment tasks which led
to their superior performance at immediate posttest Because the quantity of
PREs targeting head acts was similar between the collaborative and individual
groups the quality of PREs namely the extent to which learners resolved
PREs correctly was crucial for learning The present results support previous
findings of LREs studies (eg Payant 2012) and extended them to pragmatics
This study implemented collaborative dialogue through a form of PREs in
which learners interacted with their peers and jointly constructed a dialogue
that involved the target speech act During this process learners attended the
pragmalinguistic forms and semantic moves and their correspondence with
contextual features (relationship power and degree of imposition) Learners
in the individual task group also attended the target pragmatic forms and
verbalized them on their own as observed in PREs during thinking aloud
However negotiation with others was absent Without negotiation working
alone did not generate as many opportunities for attention to pragmatic forms
in context or recycled use of them as did the collaborative dialogue during
interactive tasks This finding was supported by the fact that the individual
group produced fewer PREs than the collaborative group during the treatment
tasks Metapragmatic talk around the target head acts modifications and con-
textual features occurred more frequently in the collaborative group
Negotiation of pragmatic forms and their meaning during the process of joint
task completion prompts a deeper level of cognitive processing that helps con-
solidate learnersrsquo pragmatic knowledge and their subsequent use of the know-
ledge Critically when learners produce language in a collaborative
environment they do not just produce output but they also have an oppor-
tunity to receive feedback from peers while trying to make their language
precise (Swain and Lapkin 1998 Swain 2006) During interaction learners
attend to each otherrsquos forms evaluate their accuracy and appropriateness
and offer feedback and corrections to each other In this process two levels
of monitoring self-monitoring and other-monitoring are occurring simultan-
eously which essentially promote more accurate high-quality task outcomes
Analyses of treatment task data confirmed this The collaborative grouprsquos re-
quest head acts (mitigated preparatory) in the dialogue construction task were
significantly more accurate than those of the individual group which was the
result of monitoring scaffolding and peer feedback that featured the process of
joint task completion
In sum learners completed tasks more successfully when they worked col-
laboratively and this successful task performance led to significantly greater
gains of the knowledge of appropriate request head acts The findings are
consistent with the results of previous findings that joint activities improved
N TAGUCHI AND Y KIM 17
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nloaded from
task performance in terms of the accurate production of the target linguistic
forms and subsequent learning of the forms (eg Storch 2007 Kim 2008) The
present study has advanced this body of literature by demonstrating that ef-
fects of collaborative tasks and PREs extend beyond grammar and vocabulary
PREs provide opportunities for pragmatic learning that involves a complex
mapping of formndashfunctionndashcontext
Although the efficacy of collaborative dialogue became clear in this study
questions remain as to why the effects were restricted to the request head acts
and did not extend to request modifications One possible interpretation of the
findings relates to the different assessment methods used for the head act and
modification Head acts were assessed using a scoring rubric that reflected both
appropriateness (choosing the target mitigated preparatory forms over other
request-making forms) and grammaticality (accuracy of the forms)
Modifications on the other hand were analyzed mainly on frequency of pro-
duction We made this decision because different from the head act that
occurs only once in a single speech act modifications typically co-occur over
multiple times In addition internal modifications used in this study were all
lexical involving only one word which made the analysis of grammaticality
irrelevant
It is possible that the collaborative dialogue made a difference when the
quality of pragmatic forms (accuracy and appropriateness) was considered
compared with simple quantity (frequency) As shown in the treatment task
data strength of the collaborative dialogue was observed in how learners scaf-
folded each other and provided feedback to each other while jointly carrying
out tasks It might be the case that these instances of negotiation and inter-
action occurring in the collaborative task pushed learners to a deeper level of
processing of the request head act which eventually helped them consolidate
their knowledge of both accuracy and appropriateness of the forms Because of
the linguistic complexity of the head act forms (bi-clausal structure) and the
more strenuous scoring method used to evaluate the forms learnersrsquo know-
ledge base had to be solid enough to allow retrieval and use of the knowledge
The collaborative condition that involved intensive attention negotiation
monitoring and peer feedback probably assisted the formation of this robust
knowledge Nevertheless both treatment conditions were equally effective on
the level of request modifications This might be due to the fact that the groups
were compared on the frequency of use (whether they were able to produce
them in an intelligible manner) not on the quality of use (absolute accuracy of
the forms)
These interpretations also corroborate with Takimotorsquos (2012) findings that
revealed the advantage of metapragmatic over non-metapragmatic discussion
on the acquisition of request Positive effects were found in the production-
based test (DCT) but not in the receptive-skills test (appropriateness judg-
ment) Takimoto attributed the findings to the relative ease of the receptive
task Participants without metapragmatic discussion were still able to cope with
judging appropriateness because the test posed lower demands than a
18 COLLABORATIVE DIALOGUE AND PRAGMATICS
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production task however they were not able to deal with the demand
coming from the DCT that required them to produce target forms accurately
and appropriately Because of the precise syntactic processing required in pro-
duction and resulting task demand learners benefitted more from metaprag-
matic discussion that assisted the consolidation of knowledge
Although the two treatment groups differed in their use of the request head
acts their performance was the same at the level of modifications Both groups
outperformed the control group in the production of preparators and hedging
right after the instruction as well as 1 month later in the case of preparators
These findings indicate a strong effect of instruction over non-instruction but
also reveal variation within the effect across modification types The strong
effect found in the preparators is probably due to the saliency of the prepara-
tors as semantic strategies Different from hedging or amplifiers that involve
precise pragmalinguistics preparators are part of the discourse moves that
characterize the structure of a request reflecting sociopragmatic information
Logistics and rituals of how to structure a request using preparators were prob-
ably easier to learn than the precise linguistics forms of a request and once
learned the knowledge stayed in the memory because of its saliency These
findings conform to the previous longitudinal findings that revealed that ac-
quisition of sociopragmatic rules (eg use of semantic strategies) is faster than
that of pragmalinguistic forms (Bardovi-Harlig and Hartford 1993 Taguchi
2012) The present findings confirmed this in an instructional study
LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY AND IMPLICATIONS FORFUTURE RESEARCH
This study is limited to a small number of individuals in a single L2 group a
single measure and a narrowly defined pragmatic target (request) Future
studies should involve a greater participant pool with wider target languages
and pragmatic measures and examine the development of different aspects of
pragmatic competence in relation to collaborative dialogue
Equally important is an investigation into individual differences and lear-
nersrsquo perceptions of instruction It is possible that not all learners had equal
amount of participation or contribution to the collaborative tasks which con-
sequently restricted their knowledge-building process It is also possible that
learners were not familiar with the type of instructional activities used in this
study and needed more time to get accustomed to the tasks in order to gain the
full benefit from them Two class periods were probably not enough time to
boost their robust learning Because this study did not address individual lear-
ner variation and learnersrsquo perceptions of their learning processes future stu-
dies are called for in this direction
Additionally although there has been a surge amount of research on task
design and task implementation in instructed SLA the learning of pragmatics
using a variety of collaborative tasks has not been explored Because this study
N TAGUCHI AND Y KIM 19
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used only one type of writing task future studies should explore task-related
variables to find ultimate task-based learning contexts for pragmatic
development
In the current study we used PREs as an analysis unit to determine the
amount of learnersrsquo attention to target pragmatic forms for both individual and
collaborative groups The results need to be interpreted with acknowledging
that the characteristics of PREs in these two groups might not be exactly
the same due to the different nature of task performance As a first step of
using PREs we focused on the overall frequency of PREs Future studies are
warranted to explore the quality of PREs (eg number of turnssentences per
PRE) to further our understanding of collaborative dialogue around prag-
matics Another limitation is that this study did not collect Supplementary
data such as stimulated verbal recall or interviews to understand actual cog-
nitive processing involved in PREs which should be explored in the future
research
Finally different effects of collaborative dialogue between the request head
acts and modifications found here need to be addressed more explicitly in the
future Learnability and teachability of pragmatic features have been discussed
in the literature pointing to the need for exploring the interaction among
instructional methods pragmatic targets and learner profiles (eg Roever
2009 Takahashi 2010 Taguhi 2011) Roever (2009) suggests that future re-
search should investigate what kinds of pragmatic features (eg syntactic miti-
gations and lexical downgraders) should be taught to what types of learners
(in terms of proficiency or other individual characteristics) using what kinds of
intervention methods (eg interaction vs non-interaction) Taguchi (forth-
coming) adds characteristics of assessment methods to this call because instruc-
tional effects diverge substantially depending on the demands involved
in the assessment measures Collaborative dialogue and PREs could serve
as a fruitful area to investigate this interaction among pragmatic targets in-
structional methods learnersrsquo instructional readiness and assessment
measures
SUPPLEMENTARY DATA
Supplementary material is available at Applied Linguistics online
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We are grateful for three anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on earlier versions of
the manuscript Special thanks also go to our research assistants Feng Xiao Franklin Bradfield
Sharon Kim and YeonJoo Jung for their help with data analysis We are responsible for all the
errors that may remain
Conflict of interest statement None declared
20 COLLABORATIVE DIALOGUE AND PRAGMATICS
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NOTES
1 We acknowledge the limitation of not
using video-recorded authentic prag-
matic materials
2 One of the reviewers stated that the au-
thenticity of tasks should be based on
whether situations happen in the
target culture We agree with this con-
cern However being familiar with
given contexts is crucial for the partici-
pants to be able to analyze the contexts
and discuss the pragmatic-related issues
Because making requests in both
Korean and English follow similar
discourse patterns we decided that it
was appropriate to use context-specific
scenarios (situations in Korea) in the
study
3 Missing responses occupied about 3
percent of the data
4 We conducted additional analysis with
analysis of covariance with proficiency
measured by TOEIC Bridge test as cov-
ariate Results were the same
5 This study did not analyze content of
the grounders because content was
fixed provided in the DCT scenarios
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Bardovi-Harlig K and B Hartford 1993
lsquoLearning the rules of academic talk A
longitudinal study of pragmatic changersquo
Studies in Second Language Acquisition 15
279ndash304
Blum-Kulka S J House and G Kasper
1989 Cross-Cultural Pragmatics Requests and
Apologies Ablex
Brown P and S Levinson 1987 Politeness
Cambridge University Press
Golato A 2003 lsquoStudying complement re-
sponses A comparison of DCTs and recordings
of naturally occurring talkrsquo Applied Linguistics
24 90ndash121
DeKeyser R 2007 lsquoSkill acquisition theoryrsquo
in B VanPatten and J Williams (eds)
Theories in Second Language Acquisition An
Introduction Lawrence Erlbaum Associates
Publishers pp 94ndash113
Jeon E -H and T Kaya 2006 lsquoEffects of L2
instruction on interlanguage pragmatic devel-
opmentrsquo in N John and L Ortega (eds)
Synthesizing Research on Language Learning and
Teaching John Benjamins pp 165ndash211
Kasper G 2001 lsquoClassroom research on inter-
language pragmaticsrsquo in K Rose and G Kasper
(eds) Pragmatics in Language Teaching
Cambridge University Press pp 33ndash62
Kim Y 2008 lsquoThe contribution of collaborative
and individual tasks to the acquisition of L2
vocabularyrsquo Modern Language Journal 92
113ndash40
Kim Y 2013 lsquoEffects of pretask modeling on
attention to form and question developmentrsquo
TESOL Quarterly 47 8ndash35
Kim Y in press lsquoThe role of tasks as vehicles for
learning in classroom interactionrsquo in N Markee
(ed) Handbook of Classroom Discourse and
Interaction Wiley-Blackwell
Lee I S Kim S Yoon J Nam S Park
Y Hong and T Orr 2009 Middle School
English 2 Chun-Jae-Gyo-Yuk
Leech G 1983 Principles of Pragmatics Longman
McNamara T and C Roever 2006 Language
Testing The Social Dimension Blackwell
Nassaji H and J Tian 2010 lsquoCollaborative and
individual output tasks and their effects on
learning English phrasal verbsrsquo Language
Teaching Research 14 397ndash419
Nguyen TTM 2013 lsquoInstructional effects on
the acquisition of modifiers in constructive
criticisms by EFL learnersrsquo Language
Awareness 22 76ndash94
Payant C 2012 lsquoLearner-learner interaction
An exploration of the mediating functions of
multilingual learnersrsquo languages in an L3 for-
eign language classroomrsquo Unpublished disser-
tation Georgia State University
Roever C 2009 lsquoTeaching and testing pragmaticsrsquo
in M Long and C Doughty (eds) Handbook of
Language Teaching Wiley-Blackwell pp 560ndash77
Schmidt R 2001 lsquoAttentionrsquo in P Robinson
(ed) Cognition and Second Language Instruction
Cambridge University Press pp 3ndash32
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Storch N 2007 lsquoInvestigating the merits of pair
work on a text editing task in ESL classesrsquo
Language Teaching Research 2 143ndash59
Swain M 2006 lsquoLanguaging agency and col-
laboration in advanced second language
Proficiencyrsquo in H Byrnes (ed) Advanced
Language Learning The Contribution of Halliday
and Vygotsky Continuum pp 95ndash108
Swain M and S Lapkin 1998 lsquoInteraction
and second language learning Two adolescent
French immersion students working togetherrsquo
Modern Language Journal 82 320ndash37
Swain M and Y Watanabe 2013
lsquoCollaborative dialogue as a source of learningrsquo
in C Chapelle (ed) The Encyclopedia of Applied
Linguistics Wiley Blackwell
Taguchi N 2011 lsquoTeaching pragmatics Trends
and issuesrsquo Annual Review of Applied Linguistics
31 289ndash310
Taguchi N 2012 Context Individual
Differences and Pragmatic Competence
Multilingual Matter
Taguchi N forthcoming lsquoInstructed pragmatics
at a glance Where instructional studies were
are and should be going State-of-the-art art-
iclersquo Language Teaching
Takahashi S 1996 lsquoPragmatic transferabilityrsquo
Studies in Second Language Acquisition 18 189ndash223
Takahashi S 2010 lsquoAssessing learnability in
second language pragmaticsrsquo in A Trosborg
(ed) Handbook of Pragmatics VII Mouton de
Gruyter pp 391ndash421
Takimoto M 2012 lsquoMetapragmatic discussion
in interlanguage pragmaticsrsquo Journal of
Pragmatics 44 1240ndash53
Van den Branden K M Bygate and
J Norris (eds) 2009 Task-Based Language
Teaching A Reader John Benjamins Publishers
22 COLLABORATIVE DIALOGUE AND PRAGMATICS
by guest on July 30 2014httpapplijoxfordjournalsorg
Dow
nloaded from
NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS
Naoko Taguchi is an associate professor in the Modern Languages Department at
Carnegie Mellon University where she teaches courses in SLA and Japanese language
and culture Her research interests include pragmatics classroom-based research and
English-medium instruction Address for correspondence Naoko Taguchi Carnegie Mellon
University Pittsburgh PA USA lttaguchiandrewcmuedugt
YouJin Kim is an assistant professor in the Department of Applied Linguistics and ESL at
Georgia State University Her primary research interests include instructed second lan-
guage acquisition task-based language teaching and assessment and structural prim-
ing Her research focuses on adolescent and adult English and Korean language
learners Address for correspondence YouJin Kim Georgia State University Atlanta
GA USA ltykim39gsuedugt
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ratings of these items were checked to avoid teaching situations that do not
represent real life in Korea Finally we analyzed participantsrsquo responses to the
open-ended question and used their descriptions when writing situations
Instruction focused on two categories of pragmalinguistic forms request
head acts and modifications (Table 1) Request head acts refer to the minimal
core unit that conveys the illocutionary force of request (Blum-Kulka et al
1989) In this category we taught mitigated preparatory forms Mitigated pre-
paratory involves syntactic forms that make reference to the hearerrsquos ability or
will in an embedded question or bi-clausal structure (eg lsquoI was wondering
ifrsquo + verb and lsquoWould it be possible torsquo + verb) (Takahashi 1996) Request modi-
fications have two categories external and internal External modifications
involve semantic moves that are attached externally to the head act and miti-
gate its force (Blum-Kulka et al 1989) We taught two external modifications
preparators (preparing a hearer for a request) and grounders (giving a reason
for request) Internal modifications include sentence-internal syntactic and
lexical devices used to modify the force of request We taught two forms
hedging that softens the tone of speech and amplifiers that strengthen self-
expression
These pragmalinguistic forms were selected based on baseline data collected
from native English speakers Twenty-four students in a US university
Table 1 Target pragmalinguistic forms
Head acts
Mitigated preparatory forms
Reference to the hearerrsquos ability will and possibility or reference to thespeakerrsquos wish in an embedded question or sentence
Irsquom wondering if you could give me an extension on the assignment
Is there any way that I could get an extension on the assignment
External modifications
Preparators
Semantic moves used to prepare the hearer for the request
eg May I ask you something
Grounders
Reason or explanation used to support the request
eg I caught a cold so I couldnrsquot finish the assignment
Internal modifications
Hedging
Words that minimize self-expression (maybe possibly)
eg Irsquom wondering if I could possibly have an extension on the assignment
Amplifiers
Words that strengthen self-expression (really very)
eg I really need more time to work on the assignment
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completed a discourse completion task (DCT) that contained four PDR-high
and -low requests Mitigated preparatory appeared 73 percent of the time as a
head act in PDR-high requests while it appeared only 4 percent of the time in
PDR-low requests This indicates that mitigated preparatory characterizes PDR-
high requests Grounders and preparators were common supportive moves
appearing 98 and 13 percent of the time respectively while they never ap-
peared in PDR-low situations Hedging and amplifiers were also frequent ap-
pearing at a rate of 52 percent while they were absent in PDR-low requests
Based on these findings along with studies that revealed learnersrsquo difficulty
with these forms (Taguchi 2012) we targeted these forms Although DCT data
can only tell us what people would say in a hypothetical situation the rela-
tively uniform responses were considered to represent normative patterns of
request making
Instructional materials and tasks
Treatment groups received instruction in school during their regular English
class sessions over two consecutive days The instruction started with a 5-min
explanation of target pragmatic forms using a written dialogue There were
two dialogues one featuring a PDR-high and the other featuring a PDR-low
request We introduced pragmalinguistic forms and sociopragmatic variables in
each dialogue After receiving the direct metapragmatic information the two
treatment groups (collaborative and individual) proceeded to the dialogue con-
struction task during which learners were asked to complete drama scripts
based on given scenarios as drama scriptwriters They received two scenarios
(PDR-high and -low) with pictures of main characters and created a dialogue
involving a request based on each scenario1 These tasks were considered au-
thentic and relevant to learner interests because TV dramas are popular among
the target population and all the task scenarios were directly related to their
school life2 Learners constructed three PDR-high and -low situation dialogues
during treatment sessions (see Supplementary material for sample instruc-
tional materials) Although PDR-high requests were the instructional target
we introduced PDR-high and -low requests together so the differences be-
tween the two become salient
The collaborative group created a dialogue in pairs while the individual
group completed the task alone Learners vocalized their thoughts during
task performance in the language of their choice either collaboratively or
individually depending on their treatment condition To ensure learnersrsquo
understanding of the task following Kim (2013) we showed a 2-min pre-
task modeling video prior to the beginning of their task performance In the
modeling video for the collaborative group two teachers demonstrate how to
perform a task collaboratively using a similar scenario whereas in the video for
the individual group one teacher performed the same task while thinking
aloud on her own Interaction and think-aloud protocols during task comple-
tion were audio-recorded using individual MP3 recorders The treatment
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session took about 45 min We repeated the same procedures in the second
task treatment session with different scenarios The control group received
regular English instruction
Assessment measure
A written DCT instrument was used to measure learning outcomes DCT
has been criticized because of a lack of authenticity and non-interactive
nature (Golato 2003) However DCT has a merit because the data can provide
information about learnersrsquo knowledge of normative conventions of prag-
matic language use (McNamara and Roever 2006) DCT can also control
social factors in scenarios and help us obtain data that are comparable across
learners over time Most importantly DCT in this study conformed to the
principle of lsquotransfer appropriate processingrsquo (DeKeyser 2007) which claims
that transfer of skill from a learned to a novel task occurs if the cognitive
operations involved in the novel task resemble those in the treatment task
The treatment task in this study was a dialogue construction task which
shared the same modality with DCT which elicited participantsrsquo pragmalinguis-
tic forms in writing
The DCT had 15 items 4 each of PDR-high and PDR-low requests and 7
filler items involving non-target speech acts Each DCT item had a situation
written in Korean to ensure participantsrsquo comprehension Participants were
asked to follow the first turn or prompt provided in English and write the
speech act in English In order to minimize the practice effect coming from
administering the same test repeatedly we prepared three versions of DCT
Scenarios were kept constant but minor wording changes were made in the
scenarios (eg changing names and locations) Different filler items were used
each time DCT items were different from the items used in the treatment
sessions Supplementary material contains sample DCT items
Procedure
The study was conducted over 6 weeks (see Table 2) During the first ses-
sion the learners took the pretest and two task groups carried out a practice
task to become familiar with recording devices and think-aloud
procedures Task treatment sessions were provided on Days 7 and 9 On
Days 10 and 14 all learners took the immediate posttest and the TOEFIC
Bridge respectively Four weeks after the immediate posttest the learners
took the delayed posttest
Data analysis
This study asked (i) whether task-based instruction is beneficial for learning
request-making expressions and if so whether there is a difference in learning
outcomes between the collaborative and individual group and (ii) to what
extent learners produce PREs during individual or collaborative tasks In
8 COLLABORATIVE DIALOGUE AND PRAGMATICS
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response to the first research question we first assigned scores on the request
head acts in the DCTs Because the purpose of this study was to compare
instructional effects between two task conditions (collaborative vs individual)
we focused our analysis on the forms we targeted during instruction Three
points were given if the head act contained one of the target forms (lsquoIrsquom
wondering ifrsquo + clause or lsquoIs there any wayrsquo + clause) and was also grammat-
ically accurate Two points were given if the head act took the target form but
was ungrammatical One point was given for a grammatical non-target form in
the context of this study (request in a form other than the mitigated prepara-
tory such as lsquoCan Irsquo) No point was given for an ungrammatical non-target
form and missing response3 Total scores from four PDR-high requests (scale
0ndash12) were compared across collaborative individual and control groups
using the KruskalndashWallis test In addition to head acts frequency of request
modifications (preparators grounders hedging and amplifiers) was counted
separately and compared across groups using the KruskalndashWallis test Both
authors coded 50 of the data yielding 953 agreement rate The discre-
pancies were solved through a follow-up discussion The non-parametric test
(KruskalndashWallis) was used because the data did not confirm normal
distribution
To answer the second research question task interaction and think-aloud
data were transcribed and analyzed for PREs defined as any part of language
production where learners talk about pragmalinguistics (request-making
forms) and sociopragmatics (contextual factors) they are attending question
their pragmatic language use or correct themselves or others PREs were coded
for context (eg setting interlocutor relationship and size of imposition) head
Table 2 Study procedures
Session Individual group Collaborative group Control group
Session 1(Day 1)
Pretest (DCT 1)Practice taskwith thinking aloud
Pretest (DCT 1)Practice task
Pretest (DCT 1)
Session 2(Day 7)
Explicit information(5 min)
Task modeling video(2 min)
Individual dialogueconstruction (35 min)
Explicit information (5 min)
Task modeling video (2 min)
Collaborative dialogueconstruction (35 min)
Reading activity
Session 3(Day 9)
Same procedure withdifferent scenarios
Same procedure with differentscenarios
Reading activity
Session 4(Day 10)
Immediate posttest (DCT 2) Immediate posttest (DCT 2) Immediateposttest (DCT 2)
Session 5(Day 14)
TOEIC Bridge TOEIC Bridge TOEIC Bridge
Session 6(Day 38)
Delayed posttest (DCT 3) Delayed posttest (DCT 3) Delayedposttest (DCT 3)
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acts grounders preparators hedging and amplifiers See the following ex-
amples about asking the school principal to change a location of a picnic
Example 1 PRE targeting a request head act during interactive task
1 Learner 1 (making a request) I am wondering if I could pos-
sibly (First we have to make a request) I am won-
dering if you could possibly I was wondering
2 Learner 2 I am
3 Learner 1 I am wondering
4 Learner 2 if you could was could (Since
we used lsquocouldrsquo shouldnrsquot we use lsquowasrsquo) I was wondering if I could go
to picnic in Everland
5 Learner 1 if you could (No
since this person needs to make a decision lsquoif you couldrsquo sounds right) If
you could
Example 2 PRE targeting the request head act during think-aloud
Learner 1 In this fall fall picnic fall picnic picnic is there any is there
any way that I could that I could could is there can could possibly
possibly go to Everland participate possibly go to go to Everland
Once the PREs were coded studentsrsquo task performance data (the completed
written dialogues) was scored following the same rubrics as the DCT data and
the frequency of each modification in the dialogues was also counted The
second rater coded 20 percent of task performance data independently and
94 percent agreement was obtained Any disagreement was resolved through
discussion which was applied for the rest of the data coding
RESULTS
Effects of collaborative dialogue in learning the speech act ofrequest
Analysis of request head act
Table 3 displays descriptive statistics of head act scores Frequency analysis
showed that 295 out of the 296 head acts (74 learners 4 items) were non-
target (not the focus of instruction) Most of the non-target head acts took a
form of permission (lsquoMay Irsquo) or ability inquiry (lsquoCould yoursquo) indicating that all
groups were unfamiliar with the mitigated preparatory forms before the in-
struction The KruskalndashWallis test revealed no group difference at pretest
2 = 344 p = 18
The KruskalndashWallis test found a significant group difference at immediate
posttest 2 = 3190 plt 001 Pair-wise comparisons using the MannndashWhitney
U test showed that both treatment groups outperformed the control group
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z = 536 plt 001 (collaborative group) and z = 405 plt 001 (individual group)
The collaborative group further surpassed the individual group on the produc-
tion of mitigated preparatory z = 240 p = 016 However the benefit of this
condition disappeared at delayed posttest because there was no difference be-
tween the treatment groups z = 38 p = 71 In addition the KruskalndashWallis test
showed that there was no significant difference between the control and treat-
ment groups at delayed posttest 2 = 25 p = 884
In summary task-based instruction resulted in a strong effect on the learn-
ing of appropriate request head acts as found in the treatment groupsrsquo superior
performance at immediate posttest compared with that of non-instructional
condition However the effect did not last long as the treatment groups went
back to the level of the control group at delayed posttest Similarly the col-
laborative task was more effective than the individual task at the immediate
posttest but the effect disappeared 1 month later
Analysis of request modification
Tables 4ndash7 present frequency counts of request modifications that appeared in
DCT Preparators almost never appeared at pretest but they showed a large
increase in the two treatment groups at immediate posttest (Table 4) In con-
trast preparators were absent in the control group Both treatment groups
outperformed the control group at immediate and delayed posttest No differ-
ence was found between the collaborative and individual groups z = 176
Table 3 Request head act scores
Group Mean SD Minimum Maximum
Collaborative group (n = 25)
Pretest 336 122 200 400
Immediate posttest 1012 306 200 1200
Delayed posttest 432 236 200 1100
Individual group (n = 25)
Pretest 340 071 200 400
Immediate posttest 836 341 300 1200
Delayed posttest 488 273 100 1200
Control group (n = 24)
Pretest 375 043 300 400
Immediate posttest 383 047 200 400
Delayed posttest 388 044 200 400
Note Each student produced four PDR-high requests Each head act was scored on a 3-point
scale Score range = 0ndash12 Delayed posttest was given 1 month later
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p = 079 at pretest z = 097 p = 33 at immediate posttest and z = 012 p = 90 at
delayed posttest
The grounders showed different patterns they appeared in majority of the
items at pretest (see Table 5) indicating that the learners were already familiar
with this supportive move before the instruction because grounders appear in
Table 4 Frequency of preparators
Group Mean SD Minimum Maximum
Collaborative group (n = 25)
Pretest 028 061 000 200
Immediate posttest 276 151 000 400
Delayed posttest 228 172 000 400
Individual group (n = 25)
Pretest 004 020 000 100
Immediate posttest 316 131 000 400
Delayed posttest 236 173 000 400
Control group (n = 24)
Pretest 000 000 000 000
Immediate posttest 004 020 000 100
Delayed posttest 013 045 000 200
Note Mean = mean frequency of preparators in four PDR-high request items
Table 5 Frequency of grounders
Group Mean SD Minimum Maximum
Collaborative group (n = 25)
Pretest 336 081 100 400
Immediate posttest 336 095 100 400
Delayed posttest 356 096 000 400
Individual group (n = 25)
Pretest 324 088 200 400
Immediate posttest 332 075 200 400
Delayed posttest 340 087 100 400
Control group (n = 24)
Pretest 350 114 000 400
Immediate posttest 346 098 000 400
Delayed posttest 379 051 200 400
Note Mean = mean frequency of grounders in four PDR-high request items
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Korean requests and the learners were able to transfer their L1-based strategy
Because of this ceiling effect there was no instructional effect The results of
the KruskalndashWallis test showed no significant difference in any of the test
sessions 2 = 274 p = 25 at pretest 2 = 121 p = 55 at immediate posttest
and 2= 355 p = 17 at delayed posttest5
Table 7 Frequency of amplifiers
Group Mean SD Minimum Maximum
Collaborative group (n = 25)
Pretest 016 047 000 200
Immediate posttest 092 119 000 400
Delayed posttest 028 054 000 200
Individual group (n = 25)
Pretest 036 064 000 200
Immediate posttest 124 109 000 400
Delayed posttest 044 077 000 200
Control group (n = 24)
Pretest 063 097 000 300
Immediate posttest 071 096 000 400
Delayed posttest 033 076 000 300
Note Mean = mean frequency of amplifiers in four PDR-high request items
Table 6 Frequency of hedging
Group Mean SD Minimum Maximum
Collaborative group (n = 25)
Pretest 000 000 000 000
Immediate posttest 168 149 000 400
Delayed posttest 012 060 000 300
Individual group (n = 25)
Pretest 000 000 000 000
Immediate posttest 140 153 000 400
Delayed posttest 028 098 000 400
Control group (n = 24)
Pretest 000 000 000 000
Immediate posttest 000 000 000 000
Delayed posttest 008 028 000 100
Note Mean = mean frequency of hedging in four PDR-high request items
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Compared with external modifications internal modifications (hedging and
amplifiers) were relatively underused It was absent in the pretest data There
was a noticeable increase at immediate posttest in the treatment groups but
the mean frequency was only moderate Although the frequency was not
particularly large we still note the instructional effect because the treatment
groups outperformed the control group at the immediate posttest 2 = 481
plt 0001 for the collaborative group and 2 = 422 plt 0001 for the individual
group However the effect was short-lived because no group difference was
found at delayed posttest (2 = 43 p = 81) When the two treatment groups
were compared there was no significant difference z = 73 p = 47 at immedi-
ate posttest or z = 61 p = 54 at delayed posttest
Amplifiers also showed very small occurrence at pretest but different from
hedging the frequency remained low throughout the time No instructional
effect was observed in the case of amplifiers as there was no significant group
difference at pretest (2 = 449 p = 11) immediate posttest (2 = 393 p = 14)
or delayed posttest (2 = 45 p = 80)
In summary frequency comparison of request modification across groups
revealed a mixed picture At pretest no group difference was found in any of
these modifications At immediate posttest both treatment groups surpassed
the control group on the production of preparators and hedging but not on the
use of grounders and amplifiers At delayed posttest the treatment groups
outperformed the control group on the production of the preparators only
Most importantly there was no significant difference between the collabora-
tive and individual group in any of these modifications These findings mark a
sharp contrast to those of request head acts in which the collaborative condi-
tion was more advantageous than the individual task condition in learnersrsquo
production of mitigated preparatory forms
Frequency of PREs and quality of treatment task performance
Table 8 reports descriptive statistics for the frequency of PREs Over the two
treatment sessions the individual group produced 1160 PREs on average
while the mean for the collaborative group was 1632 The MannndashWhitney
U test showed that the difference was significant (z =276 p = 006)
Regarding PREs on specific features there was no group difference on PREs
targeting the contextual features of request (z =92 p = 36) head acts
(z = 28 p = 78) or grounders (z = 70 p = 48) but a difference was found in
preparators (z = 465 plt 0001) amplifiers (z = 413 plt 0001) and hedging
(z = 296 p = 003) in favor of the collaborative group
We will turn to the analysis of learnersrsquo task outcome by examining their
accurate resolution of PREs We analyzed the outcome of the dialogue con-
struction tasks using the same scoring rubrics from the DCT analysis 0ndash3 point
scale for head acts and frequency count for modifications (9 maximum points
for three treatment tasks) The individual group scored a mean of 724
(SD = 145) whereas the collaborative group scored a mean of 828
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(SD = 84) This difference was significant z =289 plt 0001 indicating that
the collaborative group resolved PREs more successfully than the individual
group and produced more accurate target head acts as task outcome In con-
trast frequency of other request modifications revealed no group difference
preparators z =143 p = 15 grounders z =182 p = 07 hedging z =95
p = 34 and amplifiers z =147 p = 14
Example 3 demonstrates a sample PRE by a pair in the collaborative group
Here the learners are negotiating the target head act form lsquoI was wondering ifrsquo
by attending to each otherrsquos form and providing feedback and confirmation
During this process the target form receives prominence through recycled use
over multiple turns The form is jointly constructed with both participants
contributing to the knowledge building This collaborative work eventually
leads to the production of the accurate target form as task outcome A by-
product of this process is likely the deeper level of processing of the form and
consolidation of pragmatic knowledge as suggested in the collaborative
grouprsquos superior performance at immediate posttest
Example 3 Correctly resolved PRE in the collaborative group
1 Learner 1 (Jaemyong left his Korean home-
work at home) (He
was asking whether he could go home to bring his homework during his
self-study session) (Then he should make a
request politely)
2 Learner 2 (Yes)
----several turns later----------------------------------------------
3 Learner 1 (We need to make a long
polite request) I was wondering
4 Learner 2 if I could go to
5 Learner 1 Go to the home (Is that lsquogo to the homersquo) Go to home
(Shouldnrsquot it be lsquogo to homersquo)
Table 8 Frequency of PREs
PREs targets Collaborative group (n = 25) Individual group (n = 25)
Mean SD Mean SD
Context 476 296 404 302
Head acts 296 1306 288 120
Preparators 252 087 088 105
Grounders 272 124 276 101
Amplifiers 184 111 052 077
Hedging 152 130 052 083
Total 1632 618 1160 548
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6 Learner 2 I am
7 Learner 1 I was wondering if I could go to go to
8 Learner 2 Go home
9 Learner 1 go home
The nature of the collaborative PREs contrasts with that of individual PREs
In Example 4 the learner is working by herself to resolve the PRE targeting lsquois
there any way that I couldrsquo She recognizes that this is the PDR-high request
and that she should use the mitigated preparatory form She produces the
target form once but without a peer attending to her form and giving feed-
back she goes back to the form that she is used to (lsquoCan Irsquo) resulting in the
production of non-target form as task outcome These instances of incorrectly
resolved PREs in the individual task group probably led to their underperform-
ance at immediate posttest compared with the collaborative group
Example 4 Incorrectly resolved PRE in the individual group
Learner 1 (I need to ask
whether I can go home to bring the assignment during self-study ses-
sion) uh may uh big request is there any way that I could uh
(then) Is there any way that I could possible homework my home-
work Can I can I go to my house to get my homework And can I go to
my house to get my homework (Is this right)
Summary of the findings
The learners who completed tasks collaboratively produced more PREs and
target-like request head acts than those who completed the tasks individually
during the task and again at immediate posttest However the benefit of the
collaborative group was short-lived because their performance was the same
with that of the individual group 1 month after the instruction The benefit of
collaborative tasks was also partial because there was no group difference in
the production of request modifications during the task or at immediate
posttest
DISCUSSION
Our findings contribute to the task-based literature by demonstrating the
benefits of collaborative tasks in improving pragmatics knowledge In the lit-
erature of instructed pragmatics our findings support previous studies on
metapragmatic discussion Takimoto (2012) found that collaborative dialogue
in a form of metapragmatic discussion gave learners access to information
about pragmatic features which eventually led to better control of pragmatic
knowledge than the condition where learners completed the task alone with
or without verbalization of the target features This study adds to these findings
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because it documented the nature of collaborative dialogue operationalized as
PREsmdashhow often learners discussed pragmatics features in interaction and
whether interaction led to better task performance and linked these with
the development of pragmatic knowledge It became clear that collaborative
tasks generated more PREs than individual tasks PREs also contributed to
learnersrsquo accurate use of request head acts during treatment tasks which led
to their superior performance at immediate posttest Because the quantity of
PREs targeting head acts was similar between the collaborative and individual
groups the quality of PREs namely the extent to which learners resolved
PREs correctly was crucial for learning The present results support previous
findings of LREs studies (eg Payant 2012) and extended them to pragmatics
This study implemented collaborative dialogue through a form of PREs in
which learners interacted with their peers and jointly constructed a dialogue
that involved the target speech act During this process learners attended the
pragmalinguistic forms and semantic moves and their correspondence with
contextual features (relationship power and degree of imposition) Learners
in the individual task group also attended the target pragmatic forms and
verbalized them on their own as observed in PREs during thinking aloud
However negotiation with others was absent Without negotiation working
alone did not generate as many opportunities for attention to pragmatic forms
in context or recycled use of them as did the collaborative dialogue during
interactive tasks This finding was supported by the fact that the individual
group produced fewer PREs than the collaborative group during the treatment
tasks Metapragmatic talk around the target head acts modifications and con-
textual features occurred more frequently in the collaborative group
Negotiation of pragmatic forms and their meaning during the process of joint
task completion prompts a deeper level of cognitive processing that helps con-
solidate learnersrsquo pragmatic knowledge and their subsequent use of the know-
ledge Critically when learners produce language in a collaborative
environment they do not just produce output but they also have an oppor-
tunity to receive feedback from peers while trying to make their language
precise (Swain and Lapkin 1998 Swain 2006) During interaction learners
attend to each otherrsquos forms evaluate their accuracy and appropriateness
and offer feedback and corrections to each other In this process two levels
of monitoring self-monitoring and other-monitoring are occurring simultan-
eously which essentially promote more accurate high-quality task outcomes
Analyses of treatment task data confirmed this The collaborative grouprsquos re-
quest head acts (mitigated preparatory) in the dialogue construction task were
significantly more accurate than those of the individual group which was the
result of monitoring scaffolding and peer feedback that featured the process of
joint task completion
In sum learners completed tasks more successfully when they worked col-
laboratively and this successful task performance led to significantly greater
gains of the knowledge of appropriate request head acts The findings are
consistent with the results of previous findings that joint activities improved
N TAGUCHI AND Y KIM 17
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task performance in terms of the accurate production of the target linguistic
forms and subsequent learning of the forms (eg Storch 2007 Kim 2008) The
present study has advanced this body of literature by demonstrating that ef-
fects of collaborative tasks and PREs extend beyond grammar and vocabulary
PREs provide opportunities for pragmatic learning that involves a complex
mapping of formndashfunctionndashcontext
Although the efficacy of collaborative dialogue became clear in this study
questions remain as to why the effects were restricted to the request head acts
and did not extend to request modifications One possible interpretation of the
findings relates to the different assessment methods used for the head act and
modification Head acts were assessed using a scoring rubric that reflected both
appropriateness (choosing the target mitigated preparatory forms over other
request-making forms) and grammaticality (accuracy of the forms)
Modifications on the other hand were analyzed mainly on frequency of pro-
duction We made this decision because different from the head act that
occurs only once in a single speech act modifications typically co-occur over
multiple times In addition internal modifications used in this study were all
lexical involving only one word which made the analysis of grammaticality
irrelevant
It is possible that the collaborative dialogue made a difference when the
quality of pragmatic forms (accuracy and appropriateness) was considered
compared with simple quantity (frequency) As shown in the treatment task
data strength of the collaborative dialogue was observed in how learners scaf-
folded each other and provided feedback to each other while jointly carrying
out tasks It might be the case that these instances of negotiation and inter-
action occurring in the collaborative task pushed learners to a deeper level of
processing of the request head act which eventually helped them consolidate
their knowledge of both accuracy and appropriateness of the forms Because of
the linguistic complexity of the head act forms (bi-clausal structure) and the
more strenuous scoring method used to evaluate the forms learnersrsquo know-
ledge base had to be solid enough to allow retrieval and use of the knowledge
The collaborative condition that involved intensive attention negotiation
monitoring and peer feedback probably assisted the formation of this robust
knowledge Nevertheless both treatment conditions were equally effective on
the level of request modifications This might be due to the fact that the groups
were compared on the frequency of use (whether they were able to produce
them in an intelligible manner) not on the quality of use (absolute accuracy of
the forms)
These interpretations also corroborate with Takimotorsquos (2012) findings that
revealed the advantage of metapragmatic over non-metapragmatic discussion
on the acquisition of request Positive effects were found in the production-
based test (DCT) but not in the receptive-skills test (appropriateness judg-
ment) Takimoto attributed the findings to the relative ease of the receptive
task Participants without metapragmatic discussion were still able to cope with
judging appropriateness because the test posed lower demands than a
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production task however they were not able to deal with the demand
coming from the DCT that required them to produce target forms accurately
and appropriately Because of the precise syntactic processing required in pro-
duction and resulting task demand learners benefitted more from metaprag-
matic discussion that assisted the consolidation of knowledge
Although the two treatment groups differed in their use of the request head
acts their performance was the same at the level of modifications Both groups
outperformed the control group in the production of preparators and hedging
right after the instruction as well as 1 month later in the case of preparators
These findings indicate a strong effect of instruction over non-instruction but
also reveal variation within the effect across modification types The strong
effect found in the preparators is probably due to the saliency of the prepara-
tors as semantic strategies Different from hedging or amplifiers that involve
precise pragmalinguistics preparators are part of the discourse moves that
characterize the structure of a request reflecting sociopragmatic information
Logistics and rituals of how to structure a request using preparators were prob-
ably easier to learn than the precise linguistics forms of a request and once
learned the knowledge stayed in the memory because of its saliency These
findings conform to the previous longitudinal findings that revealed that ac-
quisition of sociopragmatic rules (eg use of semantic strategies) is faster than
that of pragmalinguistic forms (Bardovi-Harlig and Hartford 1993 Taguchi
2012) The present findings confirmed this in an instructional study
LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY AND IMPLICATIONS FORFUTURE RESEARCH
This study is limited to a small number of individuals in a single L2 group a
single measure and a narrowly defined pragmatic target (request) Future
studies should involve a greater participant pool with wider target languages
and pragmatic measures and examine the development of different aspects of
pragmatic competence in relation to collaborative dialogue
Equally important is an investigation into individual differences and lear-
nersrsquo perceptions of instruction It is possible that not all learners had equal
amount of participation or contribution to the collaborative tasks which con-
sequently restricted their knowledge-building process It is also possible that
learners were not familiar with the type of instructional activities used in this
study and needed more time to get accustomed to the tasks in order to gain the
full benefit from them Two class periods were probably not enough time to
boost their robust learning Because this study did not address individual lear-
ner variation and learnersrsquo perceptions of their learning processes future stu-
dies are called for in this direction
Additionally although there has been a surge amount of research on task
design and task implementation in instructed SLA the learning of pragmatics
using a variety of collaborative tasks has not been explored Because this study
N TAGUCHI AND Y KIM 19
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nloaded from
used only one type of writing task future studies should explore task-related
variables to find ultimate task-based learning contexts for pragmatic
development
In the current study we used PREs as an analysis unit to determine the
amount of learnersrsquo attention to target pragmatic forms for both individual and
collaborative groups The results need to be interpreted with acknowledging
that the characteristics of PREs in these two groups might not be exactly
the same due to the different nature of task performance As a first step of
using PREs we focused on the overall frequency of PREs Future studies are
warranted to explore the quality of PREs (eg number of turnssentences per
PRE) to further our understanding of collaborative dialogue around prag-
matics Another limitation is that this study did not collect Supplementary
data such as stimulated verbal recall or interviews to understand actual cog-
nitive processing involved in PREs which should be explored in the future
research
Finally different effects of collaborative dialogue between the request head
acts and modifications found here need to be addressed more explicitly in the
future Learnability and teachability of pragmatic features have been discussed
in the literature pointing to the need for exploring the interaction among
instructional methods pragmatic targets and learner profiles (eg Roever
2009 Takahashi 2010 Taguhi 2011) Roever (2009) suggests that future re-
search should investigate what kinds of pragmatic features (eg syntactic miti-
gations and lexical downgraders) should be taught to what types of learners
(in terms of proficiency or other individual characteristics) using what kinds of
intervention methods (eg interaction vs non-interaction) Taguchi (forth-
coming) adds characteristics of assessment methods to this call because instruc-
tional effects diverge substantially depending on the demands involved
in the assessment measures Collaborative dialogue and PREs could serve
as a fruitful area to investigate this interaction among pragmatic targets in-
structional methods learnersrsquo instructional readiness and assessment
measures
SUPPLEMENTARY DATA
Supplementary material is available at Applied Linguistics online
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We are grateful for three anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on earlier versions of
the manuscript Special thanks also go to our research assistants Feng Xiao Franklin Bradfield
Sharon Kim and YeonJoo Jung for their help with data analysis We are responsible for all the
errors that may remain
Conflict of interest statement None declared
20 COLLABORATIVE DIALOGUE AND PRAGMATICS
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NOTES
1 We acknowledge the limitation of not
using video-recorded authentic prag-
matic materials
2 One of the reviewers stated that the au-
thenticity of tasks should be based on
whether situations happen in the
target culture We agree with this con-
cern However being familiar with
given contexts is crucial for the partici-
pants to be able to analyze the contexts
and discuss the pragmatic-related issues
Because making requests in both
Korean and English follow similar
discourse patterns we decided that it
was appropriate to use context-specific
scenarios (situations in Korea) in the
study
3 Missing responses occupied about 3
percent of the data
4 We conducted additional analysis with
analysis of covariance with proficiency
measured by TOEIC Bridge test as cov-
ariate Results were the same
5 This study did not analyze content of
the grounders because content was
fixed provided in the DCT scenarios
REFERENCES
Bardovi-Harlig K and B Hartford 1993
lsquoLearning the rules of academic talk A
longitudinal study of pragmatic changersquo
Studies in Second Language Acquisition 15
279ndash304
Blum-Kulka S J House and G Kasper
1989 Cross-Cultural Pragmatics Requests and
Apologies Ablex
Brown P and S Levinson 1987 Politeness
Cambridge University Press
Golato A 2003 lsquoStudying complement re-
sponses A comparison of DCTs and recordings
of naturally occurring talkrsquo Applied Linguistics
24 90ndash121
DeKeyser R 2007 lsquoSkill acquisition theoryrsquo
in B VanPatten and J Williams (eds)
Theories in Second Language Acquisition An
Introduction Lawrence Erlbaum Associates
Publishers pp 94ndash113
Jeon E -H and T Kaya 2006 lsquoEffects of L2
instruction on interlanguage pragmatic devel-
opmentrsquo in N John and L Ortega (eds)
Synthesizing Research on Language Learning and
Teaching John Benjamins pp 165ndash211
Kasper G 2001 lsquoClassroom research on inter-
language pragmaticsrsquo in K Rose and G Kasper
(eds) Pragmatics in Language Teaching
Cambridge University Press pp 33ndash62
Kim Y 2008 lsquoThe contribution of collaborative
and individual tasks to the acquisition of L2
vocabularyrsquo Modern Language Journal 92
113ndash40
Kim Y 2013 lsquoEffects of pretask modeling on
attention to form and question developmentrsquo
TESOL Quarterly 47 8ndash35
Kim Y in press lsquoThe role of tasks as vehicles for
learning in classroom interactionrsquo in N Markee
(ed) Handbook of Classroom Discourse and
Interaction Wiley-Blackwell
Lee I S Kim S Yoon J Nam S Park
Y Hong and T Orr 2009 Middle School
English 2 Chun-Jae-Gyo-Yuk
Leech G 1983 Principles of Pragmatics Longman
McNamara T and C Roever 2006 Language
Testing The Social Dimension Blackwell
Nassaji H and J Tian 2010 lsquoCollaborative and
individual output tasks and their effects on
learning English phrasal verbsrsquo Language
Teaching Research 14 397ndash419
Nguyen TTM 2013 lsquoInstructional effects on
the acquisition of modifiers in constructive
criticisms by EFL learnersrsquo Language
Awareness 22 76ndash94
Payant C 2012 lsquoLearner-learner interaction
An exploration of the mediating functions of
multilingual learnersrsquo languages in an L3 for-
eign language classroomrsquo Unpublished disser-
tation Georgia State University
Roever C 2009 lsquoTeaching and testing pragmaticsrsquo
in M Long and C Doughty (eds) Handbook of
Language Teaching Wiley-Blackwell pp 560ndash77
Schmidt R 2001 lsquoAttentionrsquo in P Robinson
(ed) Cognition and Second Language Instruction
Cambridge University Press pp 3ndash32
N TAGUCHI AND Y KIM 21
by guest on July 30 2014httpapplijoxfordjournalsorg
Dow
nloaded from
Storch N 2007 lsquoInvestigating the merits of pair
work on a text editing task in ESL classesrsquo
Language Teaching Research 2 143ndash59
Swain M 2006 lsquoLanguaging agency and col-
laboration in advanced second language
Proficiencyrsquo in H Byrnes (ed) Advanced
Language Learning The Contribution of Halliday
and Vygotsky Continuum pp 95ndash108
Swain M and S Lapkin 1998 lsquoInteraction
and second language learning Two adolescent
French immersion students working togetherrsquo
Modern Language Journal 82 320ndash37
Swain M and Y Watanabe 2013
lsquoCollaborative dialogue as a source of learningrsquo
in C Chapelle (ed) The Encyclopedia of Applied
Linguistics Wiley Blackwell
Taguchi N 2011 lsquoTeaching pragmatics Trends
and issuesrsquo Annual Review of Applied Linguistics
31 289ndash310
Taguchi N 2012 Context Individual
Differences and Pragmatic Competence
Multilingual Matter
Taguchi N forthcoming lsquoInstructed pragmatics
at a glance Where instructional studies were
are and should be going State-of-the-art art-
iclersquo Language Teaching
Takahashi S 1996 lsquoPragmatic transferabilityrsquo
Studies in Second Language Acquisition 18 189ndash223
Takahashi S 2010 lsquoAssessing learnability in
second language pragmaticsrsquo in A Trosborg
(ed) Handbook of Pragmatics VII Mouton de
Gruyter pp 391ndash421
Takimoto M 2012 lsquoMetapragmatic discussion
in interlanguage pragmaticsrsquo Journal of
Pragmatics 44 1240ndash53
Van den Branden K M Bygate and
J Norris (eds) 2009 Task-Based Language
Teaching A Reader John Benjamins Publishers
22 COLLABORATIVE DIALOGUE AND PRAGMATICS
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NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS
Naoko Taguchi is an associate professor in the Modern Languages Department at
Carnegie Mellon University where she teaches courses in SLA and Japanese language
and culture Her research interests include pragmatics classroom-based research and
English-medium instruction Address for correspondence Naoko Taguchi Carnegie Mellon
University Pittsburgh PA USA lttaguchiandrewcmuedugt
YouJin Kim is an assistant professor in the Department of Applied Linguistics and ESL at
Georgia State University Her primary research interests include instructed second lan-
guage acquisition task-based language teaching and assessment and structural prim-
ing Her research focuses on adolescent and adult English and Korean language
learners Address for correspondence YouJin Kim Georgia State University Atlanta
GA USA ltykim39gsuedugt
N TAGUCHI AND Y KIM 23
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nloaded from
completed a discourse completion task (DCT) that contained four PDR-high
and -low requests Mitigated preparatory appeared 73 percent of the time as a
head act in PDR-high requests while it appeared only 4 percent of the time in
PDR-low requests This indicates that mitigated preparatory characterizes PDR-
high requests Grounders and preparators were common supportive moves
appearing 98 and 13 percent of the time respectively while they never ap-
peared in PDR-low situations Hedging and amplifiers were also frequent ap-
pearing at a rate of 52 percent while they were absent in PDR-low requests
Based on these findings along with studies that revealed learnersrsquo difficulty
with these forms (Taguchi 2012) we targeted these forms Although DCT data
can only tell us what people would say in a hypothetical situation the rela-
tively uniform responses were considered to represent normative patterns of
request making
Instructional materials and tasks
Treatment groups received instruction in school during their regular English
class sessions over two consecutive days The instruction started with a 5-min
explanation of target pragmatic forms using a written dialogue There were
two dialogues one featuring a PDR-high and the other featuring a PDR-low
request We introduced pragmalinguistic forms and sociopragmatic variables in
each dialogue After receiving the direct metapragmatic information the two
treatment groups (collaborative and individual) proceeded to the dialogue con-
struction task during which learners were asked to complete drama scripts
based on given scenarios as drama scriptwriters They received two scenarios
(PDR-high and -low) with pictures of main characters and created a dialogue
involving a request based on each scenario1 These tasks were considered au-
thentic and relevant to learner interests because TV dramas are popular among
the target population and all the task scenarios were directly related to their
school life2 Learners constructed three PDR-high and -low situation dialogues
during treatment sessions (see Supplementary material for sample instruc-
tional materials) Although PDR-high requests were the instructional target
we introduced PDR-high and -low requests together so the differences be-
tween the two become salient
The collaborative group created a dialogue in pairs while the individual
group completed the task alone Learners vocalized their thoughts during
task performance in the language of their choice either collaboratively or
individually depending on their treatment condition To ensure learnersrsquo
understanding of the task following Kim (2013) we showed a 2-min pre-
task modeling video prior to the beginning of their task performance In the
modeling video for the collaborative group two teachers demonstrate how to
perform a task collaboratively using a similar scenario whereas in the video for
the individual group one teacher performed the same task while thinking
aloud on her own Interaction and think-aloud protocols during task comple-
tion were audio-recorded using individual MP3 recorders The treatment
N TAGUCHI AND Y KIM 7
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session took about 45 min We repeated the same procedures in the second
task treatment session with different scenarios The control group received
regular English instruction
Assessment measure
A written DCT instrument was used to measure learning outcomes DCT
has been criticized because of a lack of authenticity and non-interactive
nature (Golato 2003) However DCT has a merit because the data can provide
information about learnersrsquo knowledge of normative conventions of prag-
matic language use (McNamara and Roever 2006) DCT can also control
social factors in scenarios and help us obtain data that are comparable across
learners over time Most importantly DCT in this study conformed to the
principle of lsquotransfer appropriate processingrsquo (DeKeyser 2007) which claims
that transfer of skill from a learned to a novel task occurs if the cognitive
operations involved in the novel task resemble those in the treatment task
The treatment task in this study was a dialogue construction task which
shared the same modality with DCT which elicited participantsrsquo pragmalinguis-
tic forms in writing
The DCT had 15 items 4 each of PDR-high and PDR-low requests and 7
filler items involving non-target speech acts Each DCT item had a situation
written in Korean to ensure participantsrsquo comprehension Participants were
asked to follow the first turn or prompt provided in English and write the
speech act in English In order to minimize the practice effect coming from
administering the same test repeatedly we prepared three versions of DCT
Scenarios were kept constant but minor wording changes were made in the
scenarios (eg changing names and locations) Different filler items were used
each time DCT items were different from the items used in the treatment
sessions Supplementary material contains sample DCT items
Procedure
The study was conducted over 6 weeks (see Table 2) During the first ses-
sion the learners took the pretest and two task groups carried out a practice
task to become familiar with recording devices and think-aloud
procedures Task treatment sessions were provided on Days 7 and 9 On
Days 10 and 14 all learners took the immediate posttest and the TOEFIC
Bridge respectively Four weeks after the immediate posttest the learners
took the delayed posttest
Data analysis
This study asked (i) whether task-based instruction is beneficial for learning
request-making expressions and if so whether there is a difference in learning
outcomes between the collaborative and individual group and (ii) to what
extent learners produce PREs during individual or collaborative tasks In
8 COLLABORATIVE DIALOGUE AND PRAGMATICS
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response to the first research question we first assigned scores on the request
head acts in the DCTs Because the purpose of this study was to compare
instructional effects between two task conditions (collaborative vs individual)
we focused our analysis on the forms we targeted during instruction Three
points were given if the head act contained one of the target forms (lsquoIrsquom
wondering ifrsquo + clause or lsquoIs there any wayrsquo + clause) and was also grammat-
ically accurate Two points were given if the head act took the target form but
was ungrammatical One point was given for a grammatical non-target form in
the context of this study (request in a form other than the mitigated prepara-
tory such as lsquoCan Irsquo) No point was given for an ungrammatical non-target
form and missing response3 Total scores from four PDR-high requests (scale
0ndash12) were compared across collaborative individual and control groups
using the KruskalndashWallis test In addition to head acts frequency of request
modifications (preparators grounders hedging and amplifiers) was counted
separately and compared across groups using the KruskalndashWallis test Both
authors coded 50 of the data yielding 953 agreement rate The discre-
pancies were solved through a follow-up discussion The non-parametric test
(KruskalndashWallis) was used because the data did not confirm normal
distribution
To answer the second research question task interaction and think-aloud
data were transcribed and analyzed for PREs defined as any part of language
production where learners talk about pragmalinguistics (request-making
forms) and sociopragmatics (contextual factors) they are attending question
their pragmatic language use or correct themselves or others PREs were coded
for context (eg setting interlocutor relationship and size of imposition) head
Table 2 Study procedures
Session Individual group Collaborative group Control group
Session 1(Day 1)
Pretest (DCT 1)Practice taskwith thinking aloud
Pretest (DCT 1)Practice task
Pretest (DCT 1)
Session 2(Day 7)
Explicit information(5 min)
Task modeling video(2 min)
Individual dialogueconstruction (35 min)
Explicit information (5 min)
Task modeling video (2 min)
Collaborative dialogueconstruction (35 min)
Reading activity
Session 3(Day 9)
Same procedure withdifferent scenarios
Same procedure with differentscenarios
Reading activity
Session 4(Day 10)
Immediate posttest (DCT 2) Immediate posttest (DCT 2) Immediateposttest (DCT 2)
Session 5(Day 14)
TOEIC Bridge TOEIC Bridge TOEIC Bridge
Session 6(Day 38)
Delayed posttest (DCT 3) Delayed posttest (DCT 3) Delayedposttest (DCT 3)
N TAGUCHI AND Y KIM 9
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acts grounders preparators hedging and amplifiers See the following ex-
amples about asking the school principal to change a location of a picnic
Example 1 PRE targeting a request head act during interactive task
1 Learner 1 (making a request) I am wondering if I could pos-
sibly (First we have to make a request) I am won-
dering if you could possibly I was wondering
2 Learner 2 I am
3 Learner 1 I am wondering
4 Learner 2 if you could was could (Since
we used lsquocouldrsquo shouldnrsquot we use lsquowasrsquo) I was wondering if I could go
to picnic in Everland
5 Learner 1 if you could (No
since this person needs to make a decision lsquoif you couldrsquo sounds right) If
you could
Example 2 PRE targeting the request head act during think-aloud
Learner 1 In this fall fall picnic fall picnic picnic is there any is there
any way that I could that I could could is there can could possibly
possibly go to Everland participate possibly go to go to Everland
Once the PREs were coded studentsrsquo task performance data (the completed
written dialogues) was scored following the same rubrics as the DCT data and
the frequency of each modification in the dialogues was also counted The
second rater coded 20 percent of task performance data independently and
94 percent agreement was obtained Any disagreement was resolved through
discussion which was applied for the rest of the data coding
RESULTS
Effects of collaborative dialogue in learning the speech act ofrequest
Analysis of request head act
Table 3 displays descriptive statistics of head act scores Frequency analysis
showed that 295 out of the 296 head acts (74 learners 4 items) were non-
target (not the focus of instruction) Most of the non-target head acts took a
form of permission (lsquoMay Irsquo) or ability inquiry (lsquoCould yoursquo) indicating that all
groups were unfamiliar with the mitigated preparatory forms before the in-
struction The KruskalndashWallis test revealed no group difference at pretest
2 = 344 p = 18
The KruskalndashWallis test found a significant group difference at immediate
posttest 2 = 3190 plt 001 Pair-wise comparisons using the MannndashWhitney
U test showed that both treatment groups outperformed the control group
10 COLLABORATIVE DIALOGUE AND PRAGMATICS
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z = 536 plt 001 (collaborative group) and z = 405 plt 001 (individual group)
The collaborative group further surpassed the individual group on the produc-
tion of mitigated preparatory z = 240 p = 016 However the benefit of this
condition disappeared at delayed posttest because there was no difference be-
tween the treatment groups z = 38 p = 71 In addition the KruskalndashWallis test
showed that there was no significant difference between the control and treat-
ment groups at delayed posttest 2 = 25 p = 884
In summary task-based instruction resulted in a strong effect on the learn-
ing of appropriate request head acts as found in the treatment groupsrsquo superior
performance at immediate posttest compared with that of non-instructional
condition However the effect did not last long as the treatment groups went
back to the level of the control group at delayed posttest Similarly the col-
laborative task was more effective than the individual task at the immediate
posttest but the effect disappeared 1 month later
Analysis of request modification
Tables 4ndash7 present frequency counts of request modifications that appeared in
DCT Preparators almost never appeared at pretest but they showed a large
increase in the two treatment groups at immediate posttest (Table 4) In con-
trast preparators were absent in the control group Both treatment groups
outperformed the control group at immediate and delayed posttest No differ-
ence was found between the collaborative and individual groups z = 176
Table 3 Request head act scores
Group Mean SD Minimum Maximum
Collaborative group (n = 25)
Pretest 336 122 200 400
Immediate posttest 1012 306 200 1200
Delayed posttest 432 236 200 1100
Individual group (n = 25)
Pretest 340 071 200 400
Immediate posttest 836 341 300 1200
Delayed posttest 488 273 100 1200
Control group (n = 24)
Pretest 375 043 300 400
Immediate posttest 383 047 200 400
Delayed posttest 388 044 200 400
Note Each student produced four PDR-high requests Each head act was scored on a 3-point
scale Score range = 0ndash12 Delayed posttest was given 1 month later
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p = 079 at pretest z = 097 p = 33 at immediate posttest and z = 012 p = 90 at
delayed posttest
The grounders showed different patterns they appeared in majority of the
items at pretest (see Table 5) indicating that the learners were already familiar
with this supportive move before the instruction because grounders appear in
Table 4 Frequency of preparators
Group Mean SD Minimum Maximum
Collaborative group (n = 25)
Pretest 028 061 000 200
Immediate posttest 276 151 000 400
Delayed posttest 228 172 000 400
Individual group (n = 25)
Pretest 004 020 000 100
Immediate posttest 316 131 000 400
Delayed posttest 236 173 000 400
Control group (n = 24)
Pretest 000 000 000 000
Immediate posttest 004 020 000 100
Delayed posttest 013 045 000 200
Note Mean = mean frequency of preparators in four PDR-high request items
Table 5 Frequency of grounders
Group Mean SD Minimum Maximum
Collaborative group (n = 25)
Pretest 336 081 100 400
Immediate posttest 336 095 100 400
Delayed posttest 356 096 000 400
Individual group (n = 25)
Pretest 324 088 200 400
Immediate posttest 332 075 200 400
Delayed posttest 340 087 100 400
Control group (n = 24)
Pretest 350 114 000 400
Immediate posttest 346 098 000 400
Delayed posttest 379 051 200 400
Note Mean = mean frequency of grounders in four PDR-high request items
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Korean requests and the learners were able to transfer their L1-based strategy
Because of this ceiling effect there was no instructional effect The results of
the KruskalndashWallis test showed no significant difference in any of the test
sessions 2 = 274 p = 25 at pretest 2 = 121 p = 55 at immediate posttest
and 2= 355 p = 17 at delayed posttest5
Table 7 Frequency of amplifiers
Group Mean SD Minimum Maximum
Collaborative group (n = 25)
Pretest 016 047 000 200
Immediate posttest 092 119 000 400
Delayed posttest 028 054 000 200
Individual group (n = 25)
Pretest 036 064 000 200
Immediate posttest 124 109 000 400
Delayed posttest 044 077 000 200
Control group (n = 24)
Pretest 063 097 000 300
Immediate posttest 071 096 000 400
Delayed posttest 033 076 000 300
Note Mean = mean frequency of amplifiers in four PDR-high request items
Table 6 Frequency of hedging
Group Mean SD Minimum Maximum
Collaborative group (n = 25)
Pretest 000 000 000 000
Immediate posttest 168 149 000 400
Delayed posttest 012 060 000 300
Individual group (n = 25)
Pretest 000 000 000 000
Immediate posttest 140 153 000 400
Delayed posttest 028 098 000 400
Control group (n = 24)
Pretest 000 000 000 000
Immediate posttest 000 000 000 000
Delayed posttest 008 028 000 100
Note Mean = mean frequency of hedging in four PDR-high request items
N TAGUCHI AND Y KIM 13
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Compared with external modifications internal modifications (hedging and
amplifiers) were relatively underused It was absent in the pretest data There
was a noticeable increase at immediate posttest in the treatment groups but
the mean frequency was only moderate Although the frequency was not
particularly large we still note the instructional effect because the treatment
groups outperformed the control group at the immediate posttest 2 = 481
plt 0001 for the collaborative group and 2 = 422 plt 0001 for the individual
group However the effect was short-lived because no group difference was
found at delayed posttest (2 = 43 p = 81) When the two treatment groups
were compared there was no significant difference z = 73 p = 47 at immedi-
ate posttest or z = 61 p = 54 at delayed posttest
Amplifiers also showed very small occurrence at pretest but different from
hedging the frequency remained low throughout the time No instructional
effect was observed in the case of amplifiers as there was no significant group
difference at pretest (2 = 449 p = 11) immediate posttest (2 = 393 p = 14)
or delayed posttest (2 = 45 p = 80)
In summary frequency comparison of request modification across groups
revealed a mixed picture At pretest no group difference was found in any of
these modifications At immediate posttest both treatment groups surpassed
the control group on the production of preparators and hedging but not on the
use of grounders and amplifiers At delayed posttest the treatment groups
outperformed the control group on the production of the preparators only
Most importantly there was no significant difference between the collabora-
tive and individual group in any of these modifications These findings mark a
sharp contrast to those of request head acts in which the collaborative condi-
tion was more advantageous than the individual task condition in learnersrsquo
production of mitigated preparatory forms
Frequency of PREs and quality of treatment task performance
Table 8 reports descriptive statistics for the frequency of PREs Over the two
treatment sessions the individual group produced 1160 PREs on average
while the mean for the collaborative group was 1632 The MannndashWhitney
U test showed that the difference was significant (z =276 p = 006)
Regarding PREs on specific features there was no group difference on PREs
targeting the contextual features of request (z =92 p = 36) head acts
(z = 28 p = 78) or grounders (z = 70 p = 48) but a difference was found in
preparators (z = 465 plt 0001) amplifiers (z = 413 plt 0001) and hedging
(z = 296 p = 003) in favor of the collaborative group
We will turn to the analysis of learnersrsquo task outcome by examining their
accurate resolution of PREs We analyzed the outcome of the dialogue con-
struction tasks using the same scoring rubrics from the DCT analysis 0ndash3 point
scale for head acts and frequency count for modifications (9 maximum points
for three treatment tasks) The individual group scored a mean of 724
(SD = 145) whereas the collaborative group scored a mean of 828
14 COLLABORATIVE DIALOGUE AND PRAGMATICS
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(SD = 84) This difference was significant z =289 plt 0001 indicating that
the collaborative group resolved PREs more successfully than the individual
group and produced more accurate target head acts as task outcome In con-
trast frequency of other request modifications revealed no group difference
preparators z =143 p = 15 grounders z =182 p = 07 hedging z =95
p = 34 and amplifiers z =147 p = 14
Example 3 demonstrates a sample PRE by a pair in the collaborative group
Here the learners are negotiating the target head act form lsquoI was wondering ifrsquo
by attending to each otherrsquos form and providing feedback and confirmation
During this process the target form receives prominence through recycled use
over multiple turns The form is jointly constructed with both participants
contributing to the knowledge building This collaborative work eventually
leads to the production of the accurate target form as task outcome A by-
product of this process is likely the deeper level of processing of the form and
consolidation of pragmatic knowledge as suggested in the collaborative
grouprsquos superior performance at immediate posttest
Example 3 Correctly resolved PRE in the collaborative group
1 Learner 1 (Jaemyong left his Korean home-
work at home) (He
was asking whether he could go home to bring his homework during his
self-study session) (Then he should make a
request politely)
2 Learner 2 (Yes)
----several turns later----------------------------------------------
3 Learner 1 (We need to make a long
polite request) I was wondering
4 Learner 2 if I could go to
5 Learner 1 Go to the home (Is that lsquogo to the homersquo) Go to home
(Shouldnrsquot it be lsquogo to homersquo)
Table 8 Frequency of PREs
PREs targets Collaborative group (n = 25) Individual group (n = 25)
Mean SD Mean SD
Context 476 296 404 302
Head acts 296 1306 288 120
Preparators 252 087 088 105
Grounders 272 124 276 101
Amplifiers 184 111 052 077
Hedging 152 130 052 083
Total 1632 618 1160 548
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6 Learner 2 I am
7 Learner 1 I was wondering if I could go to go to
8 Learner 2 Go home
9 Learner 1 go home
The nature of the collaborative PREs contrasts with that of individual PREs
In Example 4 the learner is working by herself to resolve the PRE targeting lsquois
there any way that I couldrsquo She recognizes that this is the PDR-high request
and that she should use the mitigated preparatory form She produces the
target form once but without a peer attending to her form and giving feed-
back she goes back to the form that she is used to (lsquoCan Irsquo) resulting in the
production of non-target form as task outcome These instances of incorrectly
resolved PREs in the individual task group probably led to their underperform-
ance at immediate posttest compared with the collaborative group
Example 4 Incorrectly resolved PRE in the individual group
Learner 1 (I need to ask
whether I can go home to bring the assignment during self-study ses-
sion) uh may uh big request is there any way that I could uh
(then) Is there any way that I could possible homework my home-
work Can I can I go to my house to get my homework And can I go to
my house to get my homework (Is this right)
Summary of the findings
The learners who completed tasks collaboratively produced more PREs and
target-like request head acts than those who completed the tasks individually
during the task and again at immediate posttest However the benefit of the
collaborative group was short-lived because their performance was the same
with that of the individual group 1 month after the instruction The benefit of
collaborative tasks was also partial because there was no group difference in
the production of request modifications during the task or at immediate
posttest
DISCUSSION
Our findings contribute to the task-based literature by demonstrating the
benefits of collaborative tasks in improving pragmatics knowledge In the lit-
erature of instructed pragmatics our findings support previous studies on
metapragmatic discussion Takimoto (2012) found that collaborative dialogue
in a form of metapragmatic discussion gave learners access to information
about pragmatic features which eventually led to better control of pragmatic
knowledge than the condition where learners completed the task alone with
or without verbalization of the target features This study adds to these findings
16 COLLABORATIVE DIALOGUE AND PRAGMATICS
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because it documented the nature of collaborative dialogue operationalized as
PREsmdashhow often learners discussed pragmatics features in interaction and
whether interaction led to better task performance and linked these with
the development of pragmatic knowledge It became clear that collaborative
tasks generated more PREs than individual tasks PREs also contributed to
learnersrsquo accurate use of request head acts during treatment tasks which led
to their superior performance at immediate posttest Because the quantity of
PREs targeting head acts was similar between the collaborative and individual
groups the quality of PREs namely the extent to which learners resolved
PREs correctly was crucial for learning The present results support previous
findings of LREs studies (eg Payant 2012) and extended them to pragmatics
This study implemented collaborative dialogue through a form of PREs in
which learners interacted with their peers and jointly constructed a dialogue
that involved the target speech act During this process learners attended the
pragmalinguistic forms and semantic moves and their correspondence with
contextual features (relationship power and degree of imposition) Learners
in the individual task group also attended the target pragmatic forms and
verbalized them on their own as observed in PREs during thinking aloud
However negotiation with others was absent Without negotiation working
alone did not generate as many opportunities for attention to pragmatic forms
in context or recycled use of them as did the collaborative dialogue during
interactive tasks This finding was supported by the fact that the individual
group produced fewer PREs than the collaborative group during the treatment
tasks Metapragmatic talk around the target head acts modifications and con-
textual features occurred more frequently in the collaborative group
Negotiation of pragmatic forms and their meaning during the process of joint
task completion prompts a deeper level of cognitive processing that helps con-
solidate learnersrsquo pragmatic knowledge and their subsequent use of the know-
ledge Critically when learners produce language in a collaborative
environment they do not just produce output but they also have an oppor-
tunity to receive feedback from peers while trying to make their language
precise (Swain and Lapkin 1998 Swain 2006) During interaction learners
attend to each otherrsquos forms evaluate their accuracy and appropriateness
and offer feedback and corrections to each other In this process two levels
of monitoring self-monitoring and other-monitoring are occurring simultan-
eously which essentially promote more accurate high-quality task outcomes
Analyses of treatment task data confirmed this The collaborative grouprsquos re-
quest head acts (mitigated preparatory) in the dialogue construction task were
significantly more accurate than those of the individual group which was the
result of monitoring scaffolding and peer feedback that featured the process of
joint task completion
In sum learners completed tasks more successfully when they worked col-
laboratively and this successful task performance led to significantly greater
gains of the knowledge of appropriate request head acts The findings are
consistent with the results of previous findings that joint activities improved
N TAGUCHI AND Y KIM 17
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task performance in terms of the accurate production of the target linguistic
forms and subsequent learning of the forms (eg Storch 2007 Kim 2008) The
present study has advanced this body of literature by demonstrating that ef-
fects of collaborative tasks and PREs extend beyond grammar and vocabulary
PREs provide opportunities for pragmatic learning that involves a complex
mapping of formndashfunctionndashcontext
Although the efficacy of collaborative dialogue became clear in this study
questions remain as to why the effects were restricted to the request head acts
and did not extend to request modifications One possible interpretation of the
findings relates to the different assessment methods used for the head act and
modification Head acts were assessed using a scoring rubric that reflected both
appropriateness (choosing the target mitigated preparatory forms over other
request-making forms) and grammaticality (accuracy of the forms)
Modifications on the other hand were analyzed mainly on frequency of pro-
duction We made this decision because different from the head act that
occurs only once in a single speech act modifications typically co-occur over
multiple times In addition internal modifications used in this study were all
lexical involving only one word which made the analysis of grammaticality
irrelevant
It is possible that the collaborative dialogue made a difference when the
quality of pragmatic forms (accuracy and appropriateness) was considered
compared with simple quantity (frequency) As shown in the treatment task
data strength of the collaborative dialogue was observed in how learners scaf-
folded each other and provided feedback to each other while jointly carrying
out tasks It might be the case that these instances of negotiation and inter-
action occurring in the collaborative task pushed learners to a deeper level of
processing of the request head act which eventually helped them consolidate
their knowledge of both accuracy and appropriateness of the forms Because of
the linguistic complexity of the head act forms (bi-clausal structure) and the
more strenuous scoring method used to evaluate the forms learnersrsquo know-
ledge base had to be solid enough to allow retrieval and use of the knowledge
The collaborative condition that involved intensive attention negotiation
monitoring and peer feedback probably assisted the formation of this robust
knowledge Nevertheless both treatment conditions were equally effective on
the level of request modifications This might be due to the fact that the groups
were compared on the frequency of use (whether they were able to produce
them in an intelligible manner) not on the quality of use (absolute accuracy of
the forms)
These interpretations also corroborate with Takimotorsquos (2012) findings that
revealed the advantage of metapragmatic over non-metapragmatic discussion
on the acquisition of request Positive effects were found in the production-
based test (DCT) but not in the receptive-skills test (appropriateness judg-
ment) Takimoto attributed the findings to the relative ease of the receptive
task Participants without metapragmatic discussion were still able to cope with
judging appropriateness because the test posed lower demands than a
18 COLLABORATIVE DIALOGUE AND PRAGMATICS
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production task however they were not able to deal with the demand
coming from the DCT that required them to produce target forms accurately
and appropriately Because of the precise syntactic processing required in pro-
duction and resulting task demand learners benefitted more from metaprag-
matic discussion that assisted the consolidation of knowledge
Although the two treatment groups differed in their use of the request head
acts their performance was the same at the level of modifications Both groups
outperformed the control group in the production of preparators and hedging
right after the instruction as well as 1 month later in the case of preparators
These findings indicate a strong effect of instruction over non-instruction but
also reveal variation within the effect across modification types The strong
effect found in the preparators is probably due to the saliency of the prepara-
tors as semantic strategies Different from hedging or amplifiers that involve
precise pragmalinguistics preparators are part of the discourse moves that
characterize the structure of a request reflecting sociopragmatic information
Logistics and rituals of how to structure a request using preparators were prob-
ably easier to learn than the precise linguistics forms of a request and once
learned the knowledge stayed in the memory because of its saliency These
findings conform to the previous longitudinal findings that revealed that ac-
quisition of sociopragmatic rules (eg use of semantic strategies) is faster than
that of pragmalinguistic forms (Bardovi-Harlig and Hartford 1993 Taguchi
2012) The present findings confirmed this in an instructional study
LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY AND IMPLICATIONS FORFUTURE RESEARCH
This study is limited to a small number of individuals in a single L2 group a
single measure and a narrowly defined pragmatic target (request) Future
studies should involve a greater participant pool with wider target languages
and pragmatic measures and examine the development of different aspects of
pragmatic competence in relation to collaborative dialogue
Equally important is an investigation into individual differences and lear-
nersrsquo perceptions of instruction It is possible that not all learners had equal
amount of participation or contribution to the collaborative tasks which con-
sequently restricted their knowledge-building process It is also possible that
learners were not familiar with the type of instructional activities used in this
study and needed more time to get accustomed to the tasks in order to gain the
full benefit from them Two class periods were probably not enough time to
boost their robust learning Because this study did not address individual lear-
ner variation and learnersrsquo perceptions of their learning processes future stu-
dies are called for in this direction
Additionally although there has been a surge amount of research on task
design and task implementation in instructed SLA the learning of pragmatics
using a variety of collaborative tasks has not been explored Because this study
N TAGUCHI AND Y KIM 19
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used only one type of writing task future studies should explore task-related
variables to find ultimate task-based learning contexts for pragmatic
development
In the current study we used PREs as an analysis unit to determine the
amount of learnersrsquo attention to target pragmatic forms for both individual and
collaborative groups The results need to be interpreted with acknowledging
that the characteristics of PREs in these two groups might not be exactly
the same due to the different nature of task performance As a first step of
using PREs we focused on the overall frequency of PREs Future studies are
warranted to explore the quality of PREs (eg number of turnssentences per
PRE) to further our understanding of collaborative dialogue around prag-
matics Another limitation is that this study did not collect Supplementary
data such as stimulated verbal recall or interviews to understand actual cog-
nitive processing involved in PREs which should be explored in the future
research
Finally different effects of collaborative dialogue between the request head
acts and modifications found here need to be addressed more explicitly in the
future Learnability and teachability of pragmatic features have been discussed
in the literature pointing to the need for exploring the interaction among
instructional methods pragmatic targets and learner profiles (eg Roever
2009 Takahashi 2010 Taguhi 2011) Roever (2009) suggests that future re-
search should investigate what kinds of pragmatic features (eg syntactic miti-
gations and lexical downgraders) should be taught to what types of learners
(in terms of proficiency or other individual characteristics) using what kinds of
intervention methods (eg interaction vs non-interaction) Taguchi (forth-
coming) adds characteristics of assessment methods to this call because instruc-
tional effects diverge substantially depending on the demands involved
in the assessment measures Collaborative dialogue and PREs could serve
as a fruitful area to investigate this interaction among pragmatic targets in-
structional methods learnersrsquo instructional readiness and assessment
measures
SUPPLEMENTARY DATA
Supplementary material is available at Applied Linguistics online
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We are grateful for three anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on earlier versions of
the manuscript Special thanks also go to our research assistants Feng Xiao Franklin Bradfield
Sharon Kim and YeonJoo Jung for their help with data analysis We are responsible for all the
errors that may remain
Conflict of interest statement None declared
20 COLLABORATIVE DIALOGUE AND PRAGMATICS
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NOTES
1 We acknowledge the limitation of not
using video-recorded authentic prag-
matic materials
2 One of the reviewers stated that the au-
thenticity of tasks should be based on
whether situations happen in the
target culture We agree with this con-
cern However being familiar with
given contexts is crucial for the partici-
pants to be able to analyze the contexts
and discuss the pragmatic-related issues
Because making requests in both
Korean and English follow similar
discourse patterns we decided that it
was appropriate to use context-specific
scenarios (situations in Korea) in the
study
3 Missing responses occupied about 3
percent of the data
4 We conducted additional analysis with
analysis of covariance with proficiency
measured by TOEIC Bridge test as cov-
ariate Results were the same
5 This study did not analyze content of
the grounders because content was
fixed provided in the DCT scenarios
REFERENCES
Bardovi-Harlig K and B Hartford 1993
lsquoLearning the rules of academic talk A
longitudinal study of pragmatic changersquo
Studies in Second Language Acquisition 15
279ndash304
Blum-Kulka S J House and G Kasper
1989 Cross-Cultural Pragmatics Requests and
Apologies Ablex
Brown P and S Levinson 1987 Politeness
Cambridge University Press
Golato A 2003 lsquoStudying complement re-
sponses A comparison of DCTs and recordings
of naturally occurring talkrsquo Applied Linguistics
24 90ndash121
DeKeyser R 2007 lsquoSkill acquisition theoryrsquo
in B VanPatten and J Williams (eds)
Theories in Second Language Acquisition An
Introduction Lawrence Erlbaum Associates
Publishers pp 94ndash113
Jeon E -H and T Kaya 2006 lsquoEffects of L2
instruction on interlanguage pragmatic devel-
opmentrsquo in N John and L Ortega (eds)
Synthesizing Research on Language Learning and
Teaching John Benjamins pp 165ndash211
Kasper G 2001 lsquoClassroom research on inter-
language pragmaticsrsquo in K Rose and G Kasper
(eds) Pragmatics in Language Teaching
Cambridge University Press pp 33ndash62
Kim Y 2008 lsquoThe contribution of collaborative
and individual tasks to the acquisition of L2
vocabularyrsquo Modern Language Journal 92
113ndash40
Kim Y 2013 lsquoEffects of pretask modeling on
attention to form and question developmentrsquo
TESOL Quarterly 47 8ndash35
Kim Y in press lsquoThe role of tasks as vehicles for
learning in classroom interactionrsquo in N Markee
(ed) Handbook of Classroom Discourse and
Interaction Wiley-Blackwell
Lee I S Kim S Yoon J Nam S Park
Y Hong and T Orr 2009 Middle School
English 2 Chun-Jae-Gyo-Yuk
Leech G 1983 Principles of Pragmatics Longman
McNamara T and C Roever 2006 Language
Testing The Social Dimension Blackwell
Nassaji H and J Tian 2010 lsquoCollaborative and
individual output tasks and their effects on
learning English phrasal verbsrsquo Language
Teaching Research 14 397ndash419
Nguyen TTM 2013 lsquoInstructional effects on
the acquisition of modifiers in constructive
criticisms by EFL learnersrsquo Language
Awareness 22 76ndash94
Payant C 2012 lsquoLearner-learner interaction
An exploration of the mediating functions of
multilingual learnersrsquo languages in an L3 for-
eign language classroomrsquo Unpublished disser-
tation Georgia State University
Roever C 2009 lsquoTeaching and testing pragmaticsrsquo
in M Long and C Doughty (eds) Handbook of
Language Teaching Wiley-Blackwell pp 560ndash77
Schmidt R 2001 lsquoAttentionrsquo in P Robinson
(ed) Cognition and Second Language Instruction
Cambridge University Press pp 3ndash32
N TAGUCHI AND Y KIM 21
by guest on July 30 2014httpapplijoxfordjournalsorg
Dow
nloaded from
Storch N 2007 lsquoInvestigating the merits of pair
work on a text editing task in ESL classesrsquo
Language Teaching Research 2 143ndash59
Swain M 2006 lsquoLanguaging agency and col-
laboration in advanced second language
Proficiencyrsquo in H Byrnes (ed) Advanced
Language Learning The Contribution of Halliday
and Vygotsky Continuum pp 95ndash108
Swain M and S Lapkin 1998 lsquoInteraction
and second language learning Two adolescent
French immersion students working togetherrsquo
Modern Language Journal 82 320ndash37
Swain M and Y Watanabe 2013
lsquoCollaborative dialogue as a source of learningrsquo
in C Chapelle (ed) The Encyclopedia of Applied
Linguistics Wiley Blackwell
Taguchi N 2011 lsquoTeaching pragmatics Trends
and issuesrsquo Annual Review of Applied Linguistics
31 289ndash310
Taguchi N 2012 Context Individual
Differences and Pragmatic Competence
Multilingual Matter
Taguchi N forthcoming lsquoInstructed pragmatics
at a glance Where instructional studies were
are and should be going State-of-the-art art-
iclersquo Language Teaching
Takahashi S 1996 lsquoPragmatic transferabilityrsquo
Studies in Second Language Acquisition 18 189ndash223
Takahashi S 2010 lsquoAssessing learnability in
second language pragmaticsrsquo in A Trosborg
(ed) Handbook of Pragmatics VII Mouton de
Gruyter pp 391ndash421
Takimoto M 2012 lsquoMetapragmatic discussion
in interlanguage pragmaticsrsquo Journal of
Pragmatics 44 1240ndash53
Van den Branden K M Bygate and
J Norris (eds) 2009 Task-Based Language
Teaching A Reader John Benjamins Publishers
22 COLLABORATIVE DIALOGUE AND PRAGMATICS
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nloaded from
NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS
Naoko Taguchi is an associate professor in the Modern Languages Department at
Carnegie Mellon University where she teaches courses in SLA and Japanese language
and culture Her research interests include pragmatics classroom-based research and
English-medium instruction Address for correspondence Naoko Taguchi Carnegie Mellon
University Pittsburgh PA USA lttaguchiandrewcmuedugt
YouJin Kim is an assistant professor in the Department of Applied Linguistics and ESL at
Georgia State University Her primary research interests include instructed second lan-
guage acquisition task-based language teaching and assessment and structural prim-
ing Her research focuses on adolescent and adult English and Korean language
learners Address for correspondence YouJin Kim Georgia State University Atlanta
GA USA ltykim39gsuedugt
N TAGUCHI AND Y KIM 23
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session took about 45 min We repeated the same procedures in the second
task treatment session with different scenarios The control group received
regular English instruction
Assessment measure
A written DCT instrument was used to measure learning outcomes DCT
has been criticized because of a lack of authenticity and non-interactive
nature (Golato 2003) However DCT has a merit because the data can provide
information about learnersrsquo knowledge of normative conventions of prag-
matic language use (McNamara and Roever 2006) DCT can also control
social factors in scenarios and help us obtain data that are comparable across
learners over time Most importantly DCT in this study conformed to the
principle of lsquotransfer appropriate processingrsquo (DeKeyser 2007) which claims
that transfer of skill from a learned to a novel task occurs if the cognitive
operations involved in the novel task resemble those in the treatment task
The treatment task in this study was a dialogue construction task which
shared the same modality with DCT which elicited participantsrsquo pragmalinguis-
tic forms in writing
The DCT had 15 items 4 each of PDR-high and PDR-low requests and 7
filler items involving non-target speech acts Each DCT item had a situation
written in Korean to ensure participantsrsquo comprehension Participants were
asked to follow the first turn or prompt provided in English and write the
speech act in English In order to minimize the practice effect coming from
administering the same test repeatedly we prepared three versions of DCT
Scenarios were kept constant but minor wording changes were made in the
scenarios (eg changing names and locations) Different filler items were used
each time DCT items were different from the items used in the treatment
sessions Supplementary material contains sample DCT items
Procedure
The study was conducted over 6 weeks (see Table 2) During the first ses-
sion the learners took the pretest and two task groups carried out a practice
task to become familiar with recording devices and think-aloud
procedures Task treatment sessions were provided on Days 7 and 9 On
Days 10 and 14 all learners took the immediate posttest and the TOEFIC
Bridge respectively Four weeks after the immediate posttest the learners
took the delayed posttest
Data analysis
This study asked (i) whether task-based instruction is beneficial for learning
request-making expressions and if so whether there is a difference in learning
outcomes between the collaborative and individual group and (ii) to what
extent learners produce PREs during individual or collaborative tasks In
8 COLLABORATIVE DIALOGUE AND PRAGMATICS
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response to the first research question we first assigned scores on the request
head acts in the DCTs Because the purpose of this study was to compare
instructional effects between two task conditions (collaborative vs individual)
we focused our analysis on the forms we targeted during instruction Three
points were given if the head act contained one of the target forms (lsquoIrsquom
wondering ifrsquo + clause or lsquoIs there any wayrsquo + clause) and was also grammat-
ically accurate Two points were given if the head act took the target form but
was ungrammatical One point was given for a grammatical non-target form in
the context of this study (request in a form other than the mitigated prepara-
tory such as lsquoCan Irsquo) No point was given for an ungrammatical non-target
form and missing response3 Total scores from four PDR-high requests (scale
0ndash12) were compared across collaborative individual and control groups
using the KruskalndashWallis test In addition to head acts frequency of request
modifications (preparators grounders hedging and amplifiers) was counted
separately and compared across groups using the KruskalndashWallis test Both
authors coded 50 of the data yielding 953 agreement rate The discre-
pancies were solved through a follow-up discussion The non-parametric test
(KruskalndashWallis) was used because the data did not confirm normal
distribution
To answer the second research question task interaction and think-aloud
data were transcribed and analyzed for PREs defined as any part of language
production where learners talk about pragmalinguistics (request-making
forms) and sociopragmatics (contextual factors) they are attending question
their pragmatic language use or correct themselves or others PREs were coded
for context (eg setting interlocutor relationship and size of imposition) head
Table 2 Study procedures
Session Individual group Collaborative group Control group
Session 1(Day 1)
Pretest (DCT 1)Practice taskwith thinking aloud
Pretest (DCT 1)Practice task
Pretest (DCT 1)
Session 2(Day 7)
Explicit information(5 min)
Task modeling video(2 min)
Individual dialogueconstruction (35 min)
Explicit information (5 min)
Task modeling video (2 min)
Collaborative dialogueconstruction (35 min)
Reading activity
Session 3(Day 9)
Same procedure withdifferent scenarios
Same procedure with differentscenarios
Reading activity
Session 4(Day 10)
Immediate posttest (DCT 2) Immediate posttest (DCT 2) Immediateposttest (DCT 2)
Session 5(Day 14)
TOEIC Bridge TOEIC Bridge TOEIC Bridge
Session 6(Day 38)
Delayed posttest (DCT 3) Delayed posttest (DCT 3) Delayedposttest (DCT 3)
N TAGUCHI AND Y KIM 9
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acts grounders preparators hedging and amplifiers See the following ex-
amples about asking the school principal to change a location of a picnic
Example 1 PRE targeting a request head act during interactive task
1 Learner 1 (making a request) I am wondering if I could pos-
sibly (First we have to make a request) I am won-
dering if you could possibly I was wondering
2 Learner 2 I am
3 Learner 1 I am wondering
4 Learner 2 if you could was could (Since
we used lsquocouldrsquo shouldnrsquot we use lsquowasrsquo) I was wondering if I could go
to picnic in Everland
5 Learner 1 if you could (No
since this person needs to make a decision lsquoif you couldrsquo sounds right) If
you could
Example 2 PRE targeting the request head act during think-aloud
Learner 1 In this fall fall picnic fall picnic picnic is there any is there
any way that I could that I could could is there can could possibly
possibly go to Everland participate possibly go to go to Everland
Once the PREs were coded studentsrsquo task performance data (the completed
written dialogues) was scored following the same rubrics as the DCT data and
the frequency of each modification in the dialogues was also counted The
second rater coded 20 percent of task performance data independently and
94 percent agreement was obtained Any disagreement was resolved through
discussion which was applied for the rest of the data coding
RESULTS
Effects of collaborative dialogue in learning the speech act ofrequest
Analysis of request head act
Table 3 displays descriptive statistics of head act scores Frequency analysis
showed that 295 out of the 296 head acts (74 learners 4 items) were non-
target (not the focus of instruction) Most of the non-target head acts took a
form of permission (lsquoMay Irsquo) or ability inquiry (lsquoCould yoursquo) indicating that all
groups were unfamiliar with the mitigated preparatory forms before the in-
struction The KruskalndashWallis test revealed no group difference at pretest
2 = 344 p = 18
The KruskalndashWallis test found a significant group difference at immediate
posttest 2 = 3190 plt 001 Pair-wise comparisons using the MannndashWhitney
U test showed that both treatment groups outperformed the control group
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z = 536 plt 001 (collaborative group) and z = 405 plt 001 (individual group)
The collaborative group further surpassed the individual group on the produc-
tion of mitigated preparatory z = 240 p = 016 However the benefit of this
condition disappeared at delayed posttest because there was no difference be-
tween the treatment groups z = 38 p = 71 In addition the KruskalndashWallis test
showed that there was no significant difference between the control and treat-
ment groups at delayed posttest 2 = 25 p = 884
In summary task-based instruction resulted in a strong effect on the learn-
ing of appropriate request head acts as found in the treatment groupsrsquo superior
performance at immediate posttest compared with that of non-instructional
condition However the effect did not last long as the treatment groups went
back to the level of the control group at delayed posttest Similarly the col-
laborative task was more effective than the individual task at the immediate
posttest but the effect disappeared 1 month later
Analysis of request modification
Tables 4ndash7 present frequency counts of request modifications that appeared in
DCT Preparators almost never appeared at pretest but they showed a large
increase in the two treatment groups at immediate posttest (Table 4) In con-
trast preparators were absent in the control group Both treatment groups
outperformed the control group at immediate and delayed posttest No differ-
ence was found between the collaborative and individual groups z = 176
Table 3 Request head act scores
Group Mean SD Minimum Maximum
Collaborative group (n = 25)
Pretest 336 122 200 400
Immediate posttest 1012 306 200 1200
Delayed posttest 432 236 200 1100
Individual group (n = 25)
Pretest 340 071 200 400
Immediate posttest 836 341 300 1200
Delayed posttest 488 273 100 1200
Control group (n = 24)
Pretest 375 043 300 400
Immediate posttest 383 047 200 400
Delayed posttest 388 044 200 400
Note Each student produced four PDR-high requests Each head act was scored on a 3-point
scale Score range = 0ndash12 Delayed posttest was given 1 month later
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p = 079 at pretest z = 097 p = 33 at immediate posttest and z = 012 p = 90 at
delayed posttest
The grounders showed different patterns they appeared in majority of the
items at pretest (see Table 5) indicating that the learners were already familiar
with this supportive move before the instruction because grounders appear in
Table 4 Frequency of preparators
Group Mean SD Minimum Maximum
Collaborative group (n = 25)
Pretest 028 061 000 200
Immediate posttest 276 151 000 400
Delayed posttest 228 172 000 400
Individual group (n = 25)
Pretest 004 020 000 100
Immediate posttest 316 131 000 400
Delayed posttest 236 173 000 400
Control group (n = 24)
Pretest 000 000 000 000
Immediate posttest 004 020 000 100
Delayed posttest 013 045 000 200
Note Mean = mean frequency of preparators in four PDR-high request items
Table 5 Frequency of grounders
Group Mean SD Minimum Maximum
Collaborative group (n = 25)
Pretest 336 081 100 400
Immediate posttest 336 095 100 400
Delayed posttest 356 096 000 400
Individual group (n = 25)
Pretest 324 088 200 400
Immediate posttest 332 075 200 400
Delayed posttest 340 087 100 400
Control group (n = 24)
Pretest 350 114 000 400
Immediate posttest 346 098 000 400
Delayed posttest 379 051 200 400
Note Mean = mean frequency of grounders in four PDR-high request items
12 COLLABORATIVE DIALOGUE AND PRAGMATICS
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Korean requests and the learners were able to transfer their L1-based strategy
Because of this ceiling effect there was no instructional effect The results of
the KruskalndashWallis test showed no significant difference in any of the test
sessions 2 = 274 p = 25 at pretest 2 = 121 p = 55 at immediate posttest
and 2= 355 p = 17 at delayed posttest5
Table 7 Frequency of amplifiers
Group Mean SD Minimum Maximum
Collaborative group (n = 25)
Pretest 016 047 000 200
Immediate posttest 092 119 000 400
Delayed posttest 028 054 000 200
Individual group (n = 25)
Pretest 036 064 000 200
Immediate posttest 124 109 000 400
Delayed posttest 044 077 000 200
Control group (n = 24)
Pretest 063 097 000 300
Immediate posttest 071 096 000 400
Delayed posttest 033 076 000 300
Note Mean = mean frequency of amplifiers in four PDR-high request items
Table 6 Frequency of hedging
Group Mean SD Minimum Maximum
Collaborative group (n = 25)
Pretest 000 000 000 000
Immediate posttest 168 149 000 400
Delayed posttest 012 060 000 300
Individual group (n = 25)
Pretest 000 000 000 000
Immediate posttest 140 153 000 400
Delayed posttest 028 098 000 400
Control group (n = 24)
Pretest 000 000 000 000
Immediate posttest 000 000 000 000
Delayed posttest 008 028 000 100
Note Mean = mean frequency of hedging in four PDR-high request items
N TAGUCHI AND Y KIM 13
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Compared with external modifications internal modifications (hedging and
amplifiers) were relatively underused It was absent in the pretest data There
was a noticeable increase at immediate posttest in the treatment groups but
the mean frequency was only moderate Although the frequency was not
particularly large we still note the instructional effect because the treatment
groups outperformed the control group at the immediate posttest 2 = 481
plt 0001 for the collaborative group and 2 = 422 plt 0001 for the individual
group However the effect was short-lived because no group difference was
found at delayed posttest (2 = 43 p = 81) When the two treatment groups
were compared there was no significant difference z = 73 p = 47 at immedi-
ate posttest or z = 61 p = 54 at delayed posttest
Amplifiers also showed very small occurrence at pretest but different from
hedging the frequency remained low throughout the time No instructional
effect was observed in the case of amplifiers as there was no significant group
difference at pretest (2 = 449 p = 11) immediate posttest (2 = 393 p = 14)
or delayed posttest (2 = 45 p = 80)
In summary frequency comparison of request modification across groups
revealed a mixed picture At pretest no group difference was found in any of
these modifications At immediate posttest both treatment groups surpassed
the control group on the production of preparators and hedging but not on the
use of grounders and amplifiers At delayed posttest the treatment groups
outperformed the control group on the production of the preparators only
Most importantly there was no significant difference between the collabora-
tive and individual group in any of these modifications These findings mark a
sharp contrast to those of request head acts in which the collaborative condi-
tion was more advantageous than the individual task condition in learnersrsquo
production of mitigated preparatory forms
Frequency of PREs and quality of treatment task performance
Table 8 reports descriptive statistics for the frequency of PREs Over the two
treatment sessions the individual group produced 1160 PREs on average
while the mean for the collaborative group was 1632 The MannndashWhitney
U test showed that the difference was significant (z =276 p = 006)
Regarding PREs on specific features there was no group difference on PREs
targeting the contextual features of request (z =92 p = 36) head acts
(z = 28 p = 78) or grounders (z = 70 p = 48) but a difference was found in
preparators (z = 465 plt 0001) amplifiers (z = 413 plt 0001) and hedging
(z = 296 p = 003) in favor of the collaborative group
We will turn to the analysis of learnersrsquo task outcome by examining their
accurate resolution of PREs We analyzed the outcome of the dialogue con-
struction tasks using the same scoring rubrics from the DCT analysis 0ndash3 point
scale for head acts and frequency count for modifications (9 maximum points
for three treatment tasks) The individual group scored a mean of 724
(SD = 145) whereas the collaborative group scored a mean of 828
14 COLLABORATIVE DIALOGUE AND PRAGMATICS
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(SD = 84) This difference was significant z =289 plt 0001 indicating that
the collaborative group resolved PREs more successfully than the individual
group and produced more accurate target head acts as task outcome In con-
trast frequency of other request modifications revealed no group difference
preparators z =143 p = 15 grounders z =182 p = 07 hedging z =95
p = 34 and amplifiers z =147 p = 14
Example 3 demonstrates a sample PRE by a pair in the collaborative group
Here the learners are negotiating the target head act form lsquoI was wondering ifrsquo
by attending to each otherrsquos form and providing feedback and confirmation
During this process the target form receives prominence through recycled use
over multiple turns The form is jointly constructed with both participants
contributing to the knowledge building This collaborative work eventually
leads to the production of the accurate target form as task outcome A by-
product of this process is likely the deeper level of processing of the form and
consolidation of pragmatic knowledge as suggested in the collaborative
grouprsquos superior performance at immediate posttest
Example 3 Correctly resolved PRE in the collaborative group
1 Learner 1 (Jaemyong left his Korean home-
work at home) (He
was asking whether he could go home to bring his homework during his
self-study session) (Then he should make a
request politely)
2 Learner 2 (Yes)
----several turns later----------------------------------------------
3 Learner 1 (We need to make a long
polite request) I was wondering
4 Learner 2 if I could go to
5 Learner 1 Go to the home (Is that lsquogo to the homersquo) Go to home
(Shouldnrsquot it be lsquogo to homersquo)
Table 8 Frequency of PREs
PREs targets Collaborative group (n = 25) Individual group (n = 25)
Mean SD Mean SD
Context 476 296 404 302
Head acts 296 1306 288 120
Preparators 252 087 088 105
Grounders 272 124 276 101
Amplifiers 184 111 052 077
Hedging 152 130 052 083
Total 1632 618 1160 548
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6 Learner 2 I am
7 Learner 1 I was wondering if I could go to go to
8 Learner 2 Go home
9 Learner 1 go home
The nature of the collaborative PREs contrasts with that of individual PREs
In Example 4 the learner is working by herself to resolve the PRE targeting lsquois
there any way that I couldrsquo She recognizes that this is the PDR-high request
and that she should use the mitigated preparatory form She produces the
target form once but without a peer attending to her form and giving feed-
back she goes back to the form that she is used to (lsquoCan Irsquo) resulting in the
production of non-target form as task outcome These instances of incorrectly
resolved PREs in the individual task group probably led to their underperform-
ance at immediate posttest compared with the collaborative group
Example 4 Incorrectly resolved PRE in the individual group
Learner 1 (I need to ask
whether I can go home to bring the assignment during self-study ses-
sion) uh may uh big request is there any way that I could uh
(then) Is there any way that I could possible homework my home-
work Can I can I go to my house to get my homework And can I go to
my house to get my homework (Is this right)
Summary of the findings
The learners who completed tasks collaboratively produced more PREs and
target-like request head acts than those who completed the tasks individually
during the task and again at immediate posttest However the benefit of the
collaborative group was short-lived because their performance was the same
with that of the individual group 1 month after the instruction The benefit of
collaborative tasks was also partial because there was no group difference in
the production of request modifications during the task or at immediate
posttest
DISCUSSION
Our findings contribute to the task-based literature by demonstrating the
benefits of collaborative tasks in improving pragmatics knowledge In the lit-
erature of instructed pragmatics our findings support previous studies on
metapragmatic discussion Takimoto (2012) found that collaborative dialogue
in a form of metapragmatic discussion gave learners access to information
about pragmatic features which eventually led to better control of pragmatic
knowledge than the condition where learners completed the task alone with
or without verbalization of the target features This study adds to these findings
16 COLLABORATIVE DIALOGUE AND PRAGMATICS
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because it documented the nature of collaborative dialogue operationalized as
PREsmdashhow often learners discussed pragmatics features in interaction and
whether interaction led to better task performance and linked these with
the development of pragmatic knowledge It became clear that collaborative
tasks generated more PREs than individual tasks PREs also contributed to
learnersrsquo accurate use of request head acts during treatment tasks which led
to their superior performance at immediate posttest Because the quantity of
PREs targeting head acts was similar between the collaborative and individual
groups the quality of PREs namely the extent to which learners resolved
PREs correctly was crucial for learning The present results support previous
findings of LREs studies (eg Payant 2012) and extended them to pragmatics
This study implemented collaborative dialogue through a form of PREs in
which learners interacted with their peers and jointly constructed a dialogue
that involved the target speech act During this process learners attended the
pragmalinguistic forms and semantic moves and their correspondence with
contextual features (relationship power and degree of imposition) Learners
in the individual task group also attended the target pragmatic forms and
verbalized them on their own as observed in PREs during thinking aloud
However negotiation with others was absent Without negotiation working
alone did not generate as many opportunities for attention to pragmatic forms
in context or recycled use of them as did the collaborative dialogue during
interactive tasks This finding was supported by the fact that the individual
group produced fewer PREs than the collaborative group during the treatment
tasks Metapragmatic talk around the target head acts modifications and con-
textual features occurred more frequently in the collaborative group
Negotiation of pragmatic forms and their meaning during the process of joint
task completion prompts a deeper level of cognitive processing that helps con-
solidate learnersrsquo pragmatic knowledge and their subsequent use of the know-
ledge Critically when learners produce language in a collaborative
environment they do not just produce output but they also have an oppor-
tunity to receive feedback from peers while trying to make their language
precise (Swain and Lapkin 1998 Swain 2006) During interaction learners
attend to each otherrsquos forms evaluate their accuracy and appropriateness
and offer feedback and corrections to each other In this process two levels
of monitoring self-monitoring and other-monitoring are occurring simultan-
eously which essentially promote more accurate high-quality task outcomes
Analyses of treatment task data confirmed this The collaborative grouprsquos re-
quest head acts (mitigated preparatory) in the dialogue construction task were
significantly more accurate than those of the individual group which was the
result of monitoring scaffolding and peer feedback that featured the process of
joint task completion
In sum learners completed tasks more successfully when they worked col-
laboratively and this successful task performance led to significantly greater
gains of the knowledge of appropriate request head acts The findings are
consistent with the results of previous findings that joint activities improved
N TAGUCHI AND Y KIM 17
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nloaded from
task performance in terms of the accurate production of the target linguistic
forms and subsequent learning of the forms (eg Storch 2007 Kim 2008) The
present study has advanced this body of literature by demonstrating that ef-
fects of collaborative tasks and PREs extend beyond grammar and vocabulary
PREs provide opportunities for pragmatic learning that involves a complex
mapping of formndashfunctionndashcontext
Although the efficacy of collaborative dialogue became clear in this study
questions remain as to why the effects were restricted to the request head acts
and did not extend to request modifications One possible interpretation of the
findings relates to the different assessment methods used for the head act and
modification Head acts were assessed using a scoring rubric that reflected both
appropriateness (choosing the target mitigated preparatory forms over other
request-making forms) and grammaticality (accuracy of the forms)
Modifications on the other hand were analyzed mainly on frequency of pro-
duction We made this decision because different from the head act that
occurs only once in a single speech act modifications typically co-occur over
multiple times In addition internal modifications used in this study were all
lexical involving only one word which made the analysis of grammaticality
irrelevant
It is possible that the collaborative dialogue made a difference when the
quality of pragmatic forms (accuracy and appropriateness) was considered
compared with simple quantity (frequency) As shown in the treatment task
data strength of the collaborative dialogue was observed in how learners scaf-
folded each other and provided feedback to each other while jointly carrying
out tasks It might be the case that these instances of negotiation and inter-
action occurring in the collaborative task pushed learners to a deeper level of
processing of the request head act which eventually helped them consolidate
their knowledge of both accuracy and appropriateness of the forms Because of
the linguistic complexity of the head act forms (bi-clausal structure) and the
more strenuous scoring method used to evaluate the forms learnersrsquo know-
ledge base had to be solid enough to allow retrieval and use of the knowledge
The collaborative condition that involved intensive attention negotiation
monitoring and peer feedback probably assisted the formation of this robust
knowledge Nevertheless both treatment conditions were equally effective on
the level of request modifications This might be due to the fact that the groups
were compared on the frequency of use (whether they were able to produce
them in an intelligible manner) not on the quality of use (absolute accuracy of
the forms)
These interpretations also corroborate with Takimotorsquos (2012) findings that
revealed the advantage of metapragmatic over non-metapragmatic discussion
on the acquisition of request Positive effects were found in the production-
based test (DCT) but not in the receptive-skills test (appropriateness judg-
ment) Takimoto attributed the findings to the relative ease of the receptive
task Participants without metapragmatic discussion were still able to cope with
judging appropriateness because the test posed lower demands than a
18 COLLABORATIVE DIALOGUE AND PRAGMATICS
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production task however they were not able to deal with the demand
coming from the DCT that required them to produce target forms accurately
and appropriately Because of the precise syntactic processing required in pro-
duction and resulting task demand learners benefitted more from metaprag-
matic discussion that assisted the consolidation of knowledge
Although the two treatment groups differed in their use of the request head
acts their performance was the same at the level of modifications Both groups
outperformed the control group in the production of preparators and hedging
right after the instruction as well as 1 month later in the case of preparators
These findings indicate a strong effect of instruction over non-instruction but
also reveal variation within the effect across modification types The strong
effect found in the preparators is probably due to the saliency of the prepara-
tors as semantic strategies Different from hedging or amplifiers that involve
precise pragmalinguistics preparators are part of the discourse moves that
characterize the structure of a request reflecting sociopragmatic information
Logistics and rituals of how to structure a request using preparators were prob-
ably easier to learn than the precise linguistics forms of a request and once
learned the knowledge stayed in the memory because of its saliency These
findings conform to the previous longitudinal findings that revealed that ac-
quisition of sociopragmatic rules (eg use of semantic strategies) is faster than
that of pragmalinguistic forms (Bardovi-Harlig and Hartford 1993 Taguchi
2012) The present findings confirmed this in an instructional study
LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY AND IMPLICATIONS FORFUTURE RESEARCH
This study is limited to a small number of individuals in a single L2 group a
single measure and a narrowly defined pragmatic target (request) Future
studies should involve a greater participant pool with wider target languages
and pragmatic measures and examine the development of different aspects of
pragmatic competence in relation to collaborative dialogue
Equally important is an investigation into individual differences and lear-
nersrsquo perceptions of instruction It is possible that not all learners had equal
amount of participation or contribution to the collaborative tasks which con-
sequently restricted their knowledge-building process It is also possible that
learners were not familiar with the type of instructional activities used in this
study and needed more time to get accustomed to the tasks in order to gain the
full benefit from them Two class periods were probably not enough time to
boost their robust learning Because this study did not address individual lear-
ner variation and learnersrsquo perceptions of their learning processes future stu-
dies are called for in this direction
Additionally although there has been a surge amount of research on task
design and task implementation in instructed SLA the learning of pragmatics
using a variety of collaborative tasks has not been explored Because this study
N TAGUCHI AND Y KIM 19
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used only one type of writing task future studies should explore task-related
variables to find ultimate task-based learning contexts for pragmatic
development
In the current study we used PREs as an analysis unit to determine the
amount of learnersrsquo attention to target pragmatic forms for both individual and
collaborative groups The results need to be interpreted with acknowledging
that the characteristics of PREs in these two groups might not be exactly
the same due to the different nature of task performance As a first step of
using PREs we focused on the overall frequency of PREs Future studies are
warranted to explore the quality of PREs (eg number of turnssentences per
PRE) to further our understanding of collaborative dialogue around prag-
matics Another limitation is that this study did not collect Supplementary
data such as stimulated verbal recall or interviews to understand actual cog-
nitive processing involved in PREs which should be explored in the future
research
Finally different effects of collaborative dialogue between the request head
acts and modifications found here need to be addressed more explicitly in the
future Learnability and teachability of pragmatic features have been discussed
in the literature pointing to the need for exploring the interaction among
instructional methods pragmatic targets and learner profiles (eg Roever
2009 Takahashi 2010 Taguhi 2011) Roever (2009) suggests that future re-
search should investigate what kinds of pragmatic features (eg syntactic miti-
gations and lexical downgraders) should be taught to what types of learners
(in terms of proficiency or other individual characteristics) using what kinds of
intervention methods (eg interaction vs non-interaction) Taguchi (forth-
coming) adds characteristics of assessment methods to this call because instruc-
tional effects diverge substantially depending on the demands involved
in the assessment measures Collaborative dialogue and PREs could serve
as a fruitful area to investigate this interaction among pragmatic targets in-
structional methods learnersrsquo instructional readiness and assessment
measures
SUPPLEMENTARY DATA
Supplementary material is available at Applied Linguistics online
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We are grateful for three anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on earlier versions of
the manuscript Special thanks also go to our research assistants Feng Xiao Franklin Bradfield
Sharon Kim and YeonJoo Jung for their help with data analysis We are responsible for all the
errors that may remain
Conflict of interest statement None declared
20 COLLABORATIVE DIALOGUE AND PRAGMATICS
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NOTES
1 We acknowledge the limitation of not
using video-recorded authentic prag-
matic materials
2 One of the reviewers stated that the au-
thenticity of tasks should be based on
whether situations happen in the
target culture We agree with this con-
cern However being familiar with
given contexts is crucial for the partici-
pants to be able to analyze the contexts
and discuss the pragmatic-related issues
Because making requests in both
Korean and English follow similar
discourse patterns we decided that it
was appropriate to use context-specific
scenarios (situations in Korea) in the
study
3 Missing responses occupied about 3
percent of the data
4 We conducted additional analysis with
analysis of covariance with proficiency
measured by TOEIC Bridge test as cov-
ariate Results were the same
5 This study did not analyze content of
the grounders because content was
fixed provided in the DCT scenarios
REFERENCES
Bardovi-Harlig K and B Hartford 1993
lsquoLearning the rules of academic talk A
longitudinal study of pragmatic changersquo
Studies in Second Language Acquisition 15
279ndash304
Blum-Kulka S J House and G Kasper
1989 Cross-Cultural Pragmatics Requests and
Apologies Ablex
Brown P and S Levinson 1987 Politeness
Cambridge University Press
Golato A 2003 lsquoStudying complement re-
sponses A comparison of DCTs and recordings
of naturally occurring talkrsquo Applied Linguistics
24 90ndash121
DeKeyser R 2007 lsquoSkill acquisition theoryrsquo
in B VanPatten and J Williams (eds)
Theories in Second Language Acquisition An
Introduction Lawrence Erlbaum Associates
Publishers pp 94ndash113
Jeon E -H and T Kaya 2006 lsquoEffects of L2
instruction on interlanguage pragmatic devel-
opmentrsquo in N John and L Ortega (eds)
Synthesizing Research on Language Learning and
Teaching John Benjamins pp 165ndash211
Kasper G 2001 lsquoClassroom research on inter-
language pragmaticsrsquo in K Rose and G Kasper
(eds) Pragmatics in Language Teaching
Cambridge University Press pp 33ndash62
Kim Y 2008 lsquoThe contribution of collaborative
and individual tasks to the acquisition of L2
vocabularyrsquo Modern Language Journal 92
113ndash40
Kim Y 2013 lsquoEffects of pretask modeling on
attention to form and question developmentrsquo
TESOL Quarterly 47 8ndash35
Kim Y in press lsquoThe role of tasks as vehicles for
learning in classroom interactionrsquo in N Markee
(ed) Handbook of Classroom Discourse and
Interaction Wiley-Blackwell
Lee I S Kim S Yoon J Nam S Park
Y Hong and T Orr 2009 Middle School
English 2 Chun-Jae-Gyo-Yuk
Leech G 1983 Principles of Pragmatics Longman
McNamara T and C Roever 2006 Language
Testing The Social Dimension Blackwell
Nassaji H and J Tian 2010 lsquoCollaborative and
individual output tasks and their effects on
learning English phrasal verbsrsquo Language
Teaching Research 14 397ndash419
Nguyen TTM 2013 lsquoInstructional effects on
the acquisition of modifiers in constructive
criticisms by EFL learnersrsquo Language
Awareness 22 76ndash94
Payant C 2012 lsquoLearner-learner interaction
An exploration of the mediating functions of
multilingual learnersrsquo languages in an L3 for-
eign language classroomrsquo Unpublished disser-
tation Georgia State University
Roever C 2009 lsquoTeaching and testing pragmaticsrsquo
in M Long and C Doughty (eds) Handbook of
Language Teaching Wiley-Blackwell pp 560ndash77
Schmidt R 2001 lsquoAttentionrsquo in P Robinson
(ed) Cognition and Second Language Instruction
Cambridge University Press pp 3ndash32
N TAGUCHI AND Y KIM 21
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Dow
nloaded from
Storch N 2007 lsquoInvestigating the merits of pair
work on a text editing task in ESL classesrsquo
Language Teaching Research 2 143ndash59
Swain M 2006 lsquoLanguaging agency and col-
laboration in advanced second language
Proficiencyrsquo in H Byrnes (ed) Advanced
Language Learning The Contribution of Halliday
and Vygotsky Continuum pp 95ndash108
Swain M and S Lapkin 1998 lsquoInteraction
and second language learning Two adolescent
French immersion students working togetherrsquo
Modern Language Journal 82 320ndash37
Swain M and Y Watanabe 2013
lsquoCollaborative dialogue as a source of learningrsquo
in C Chapelle (ed) The Encyclopedia of Applied
Linguistics Wiley Blackwell
Taguchi N 2011 lsquoTeaching pragmatics Trends
and issuesrsquo Annual Review of Applied Linguistics
31 289ndash310
Taguchi N 2012 Context Individual
Differences and Pragmatic Competence
Multilingual Matter
Taguchi N forthcoming lsquoInstructed pragmatics
at a glance Where instructional studies were
are and should be going State-of-the-art art-
iclersquo Language Teaching
Takahashi S 1996 lsquoPragmatic transferabilityrsquo
Studies in Second Language Acquisition 18 189ndash223
Takahashi S 2010 lsquoAssessing learnability in
second language pragmaticsrsquo in A Trosborg
(ed) Handbook of Pragmatics VII Mouton de
Gruyter pp 391ndash421
Takimoto M 2012 lsquoMetapragmatic discussion
in interlanguage pragmaticsrsquo Journal of
Pragmatics 44 1240ndash53
Van den Branden K M Bygate and
J Norris (eds) 2009 Task-Based Language
Teaching A Reader John Benjamins Publishers
22 COLLABORATIVE DIALOGUE AND PRAGMATICS
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nloaded from
NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS
Naoko Taguchi is an associate professor in the Modern Languages Department at
Carnegie Mellon University where she teaches courses in SLA and Japanese language
and culture Her research interests include pragmatics classroom-based research and
English-medium instruction Address for correspondence Naoko Taguchi Carnegie Mellon
University Pittsburgh PA USA lttaguchiandrewcmuedugt
YouJin Kim is an assistant professor in the Department of Applied Linguistics and ESL at
Georgia State University Her primary research interests include instructed second lan-
guage acquisition task-based language teaching and assessment and structural prim-
ing Her research focuses on adolescent and adult English and Korean language
learners Address for correspondence YouJin Kim Georgia State University Atlanta
GA USA ltykim39gsuedugt
N TAGUCHI AND Y KIM 23
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nloaded from
response to the first research question we first assigned scores on the request
head acts in the DCTs Because the purpose of this study was to compare
instructional effects between two task conditions (collaborative vs individual)
we focused our analysis on the forms we targeted during instruction Three
points were given if the head act contained one of the target forms (lsquoIrsquom
wondering ifrsquo + clause or lsquoIs there any wayrsquo + clause) and was also grammat-
ically accurate Two points were given if the head act took the target form but
was ungrammatical One point was given for a grammatical non-target form in
the context of this study (request in a form other than the mitigated prepara-
tory such as lsquoCan Irsquo) No point was given for an ungrammatical non-target
form and missing response3 Total scores from four PDR-high requests (scale
0ndash12) were compared across collaborative individual and control groups
using the KruskalndashWallis test In addition to head acts frequency of request
modifications (preparators grounders hedging and amplifiers) was counted
separately and compared across groups using the KruskalndashWallis test Both
authors coded 50 of the data yielding 953 agreement rate The discre-
pancies were solved through a follow-up discussion The non-parametric test
(KruskalndashWallis) was used because the data did not confirm normal
distribution
To answer the second research question task interaction and think-aloud
data were transcribed and analyzed for PREs defined as any part of language
production where learners talk about pragmalinguistics (request-making
forms) and sociopragmatics (contextual factors) they are attending question
their pragmatic language use or correct themselves or others PREs were coded
for context (eg setting interlocutor relationship and size of imposition) head
Table 2 Study procedures
Session Individual group Collaborative group Control group
Session 1(Day 1)
Pretest (DCT 1)Practice taskwith thinking aloud
Pretest (DCT 1)Practice task
Pretest (DCT 1)
Session 2(Day 7)
Explicit information(5 min)
Task modeling video(2 min)
Individual dialogueconstruction (35 min)
Explicit information (5 min)
Task modeling video (2 min)
Collaborative dialogueconstruction (35 min)
Reading activity
Session 3(Day 9)
Same procedure withdifferent scenarios
Same procedure with differentscenarios
Reading activity
Session 4(Day 10)
Immediate posttest (DCT 2) Immediate posttest (DCT 2) Immediateposttest (DCT 2)
Session 5(Day 14)
TOEIC Bridge TOEIC Bridge TOEIC Bridge
Session 6(Day 38)
Delayed posttest (DCT 3) Delayed posttest (DCT 3) Delayedposttest (DCT 3)
N TAGUCHI AND Y KIM 9
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acts grounders preparators hedging and amplifiers See the following ex-
amples about asking the school principal to change a location of a picnic
Example 1 PRE targeting a request head act during interactive task
1 Learner 1 (making a request) I am wondering if I could pos-
sibly (First we have to make a request) I am won-
dering if you could possibly I was wondering
2 Learner 2 I am
3 Learner 1 I am wondering
4 Learner 2 if you could was could (Since
we used lsquocouldrsquo shouldnrsquot we use lsquowasrsquo) I was wondering if I could go
to picnic in Everland
5 Learner 1 if you could (No
since this person needs to make a decision lsquoif you couldrsquo sounds right) If
you could
Example 2 PRE targeting the request head act during think-aloud
Learner 1 In this fall fall picnic fall picnic picnic is there any is there
any way that I could that I could could is there can could possibly
possibly go to Everland participate possibly go to go to Everland
Once the PREs were coded studentsrsquo task performance data (the completed
written dialogues) was scored following the same rubrics as the DCT data and
the frequency of each modification in the dialogues was also counted The
second rater coded 20 percent of task performance data independently and
94 percent agreement was obtained Any disagreement was resolved through
discussion which was applied for the rest of the data coding
RESULTS
Effects of collaborative dialogue in learning the speech act ofrequest
Analysis of request head act
Table 3 displays descriptive statistics of head act scores Frequency analysis
showed that 295 out of the 296 head acts (74 learners 4 items) were non-
target (not the focus of instruction) Most of the non-target head acts took a
form of permission (lsquoMay Irsquo) or ability inquiry (lsquoCould yoursquo) indicating that all
groups were unfamiliar with the mitigated preparatory forms before the in-
struction The KruskalndashWallis test revealed no group difference at pretest
2 = 344 p = 18
The KruskalndashWallis test found a significant group difference at immediate
posttest 2 = 3190 plt 001 Pair-wise comparisons using the MannndashWhitney
U test showed that both treatment groups outperformed the control group
10 COLLABORATIVE DIALOGUE AND PRAGMATICS
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z = 536 plt 001 (collaborative group) and z = 405 plt 001 (individual group)
The collaborative group further surpassed the individual group on the produc-
tion of mitigated preparatory z = 240 p = 016 However the benefit of this
condition disappeared at delayed posttest because there was no difference be-
tween the treatment groups z = 38 p = 71 In addition the KruskalndashWallis test
showed that there was no significant difference between the control and treat-
ment groups at delayed posttest 2 = 25 p = 884
In summary task-based instruction resulted in a strong effect on the learn-
ing of appropriate request head acts as found in the treatment groupsrsquo superior
performance at immediate posttest compared with that of non-instructional
condition However the effect did not last long as the treatment groups went
back to the level of the control group at delayed posttest Similarly the col-
laborative task was more effective than the individual task at the immediate
posttest but the effect disappeared 1 month later
Analysis of request modification
Tables 4ndash7 present frequency counts of request modifications that appeared in
DCT Preparators almost never appeared at pretest but they showed a large
increase in the two treatment groups at immediate posttest (Table 4) In con-
trast preparators were absent in the control group Both treatment groups
outperformed the control group at immediate and delayed posttest No differ-
ence was found between the collaborative and individual groups z = 176
Table 3 Request head act scores
Group Mean SD Minimum Maximum
Collaborative group (n = 25)
Pretest 336 122 200 400
Immediate posttest 1012 306 200 1200
Delayed posttest 432 236 200 1100
Individual group (n = 25)
Pretest 340 071 200 400
Immediate posttest 836 341 300 1200
Delayed posttest 488 273 100 1200
Control group (n = 24)
Pretest 375 043 300 400
Immediate posttest 383 047 200 400
Delayed posttest 388 044 200 400
Note Each student produced four PDR-high requests Each head act was scored on a 3-point
scale Score range = 0ndash12 Delayed posttest was given 1 month later
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p = 079 at pretest z = 097 p = 33 at immediate posttest and z = 012 p = 90 at
delayed posttest
The grounders showed different patterns they appeared in majority of the
items at pretest (see Table 5) indicating that the learners were already familiar
with this supportive move before the instruction because grounders appear in
Table 4 Frequency of preparators
Group Mean SD Minimum Maximum
Collaborative group (n = 25)
Pretest 028 061 000 200
Immediate posttest 276 151 000 400
Delayed posttest 228 172 000 400
Individual group (n = 25)
Pretest 004 020 000 100
Immediate posttest 316 131 000 400
Delayed posttest 236 173 000 400
Control group (n = 24)
Pretest 000 000 000 000
Immediate posttest 004 020 000 100
Delayed posttest 013 045 000 200
Note Mean = mean frequency of preparators in four PDR-high request items
Table 5 Frequency of grounders
Group Mean SD Minimum Maximum
Collaborative group (n = 25)
Pretest 336 081 100 400
Immediate posttest 336 095 100 400
Delayed posttest 356 096 000 400
Individual group (n = 25)
Pretest 324 088 200 400
Immediate posttest 332 075 200 400
Delayed posttest 340 087 100 400
Control group (n = 24)
Pretest 350 114 000 400
Immediate posttest 346 098 000 400
Delayed posttest 379 051 200 400
Note Mean = mean frequency of grounders in four PDR-high request items
12 COLLABORATIVE DIALOGUE AND PRAGMATICS
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Korean requests and the learners were able to transfer their L1-based strategy
Because of this ceiling effect there was no instructional effect The results of
the KruskalndashWallis test showed no significant difference in any of the test
sessions 2 = 274 p = 25 at pretest 2 = 121 p = 55 at immediate posttest
and 2= 355 p = 17 at delayed posttest5
Table 7 Frequency of amplifiers
Group Mean SD Minimum Maximum
Collaborative group (n = 25)
Pretest 016 047 000 200
Immediate posttest 092 119 000 400
Delayed posttest 028 054 000 200
Individual group (n = 25)
Pretest 036 064 000 200
Immediate posttest 124 109 000 400
Delayed posttest 044 077 000 200
Control group (n = 24)
Pretest 063 097 000 300
Immediate posttest 071 096 000 400
Delayed posttest 033 076 000 300
Note Mean = mean frequency of amplifiers in four PDR-high request items
Table 6 Frequency of hedging
Group Mean SD Minimum Maximum
Collaborative group (n = 25)
Pretest 000 000 000 000
Immediate posttest 168 149 000 400
Delayed posttest 012 060 000 300
Individual group (n = 25)
Pretest 000 000 000 000
Immediate posttest 140 153 000 400
Delayed posttest 028 098 000 400
Control group (n = 24)
Pretest 000 000 000 000
Immediate posttest 000 000 000 000
Delayed posttest 008 028 000 100
Note Mean = mean frequency of hedging in four PDR-high request items
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Compared with external modifications internal modifications (hedging and
amplifiers) were relatively underused It was absent in the pretest data There
was a noticeable increase at immediate posttest in the treatment groups but
the mean frequency was only moderate Although the frequency was not
particularly large we still note the instructional effect because the treatment
groups outperformed the control group at the immediate posttest 2 = 481
plt 0001 for the collaborative group and 2 = 422 plt 0001 for the individual
group However the effect was short-lived because no group difference was
found at delayed posttest (2 = 43 p = 81) When the two treatment groups
were compared there was no significant difference z = 73 p = 47 at immedi-
ate posttest or z = 61 p = 54 at delayed posttest
Amplifiers also showed very small occurrence at pretest but different from
hedging the frequency remained low throughout the time No instructional
effect was observed in the case of amplifiers as there was no significant group
difference at pretest (2 = 449 p = 11) immediate posttest (2 = 393 p = 14)
or delayed posttest (2 = 45 p = 80)
In summary frequency comparison of request modification across groups
revealed a mixed picture At pretest no group difference was found in any of
these modifications At immediate posttest both treatment groups surpassed
the control group on the production of preparators and hedging but not on the
use of grounders and amplifiers At delayed posttest the treatment groups
outperformed the control group on the production of the preparators only
Most importantly there was no significant difference between the collabora-
tive and individual group in any of these modifications These findings mark a
sharp contrast to those of request head acts in which the collaborative condi-
tion was more advantageous than the individual task condition in learnersrsquo
production of mitigated preparatory forms
Frequency of PREs and quality of treatment task performance
Table 8 reports descriptive statistics for the frequency of PREs Over the two
treatment sessions the individual group produced 1160 PREs on average
while the mean for the collaborative group was 1632 The MannndashWhitney
U test showed that the difference was significant (z =276 p = 006)
Regarding PREs on specific features there was no group difference on PREs
targeting the contextual features of request (z =92 p = 36) head acts
(z = 28 p = 78) or grounders (z = 70 p = 48) but a difference was found in
preparators (z = 465 plt 0001) amplifiers (z = 413 plt 0001) and hedging
(z = 296 p = 003) in favor of the collaborative group
We will turn to the analysis of learnersrsquo task outcome by examining their
accurate resolution of PREs We analyzed the outcome of the dialogue con-
struction tasks using the same scoring rubrics from the DCT analysis 0ndash3 point
scale for head acts and frequency count for modifications (9 maximum points
for three treatment tasks) The individual group scored a mean of 724
(SD = 145) whereas the collaborative group scored a mean of 828
14 COLLABORATIVE DIALOGUE AND PRAGMATICS
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(SD = 84) This difference was significant z =289 plt 0001 indicating that
the collaborative group resolved PREs more successfully than the individual
group and produced more accurate target head acts as task outcome In con-
trast frequency of other request modifications revealed no group difference
preparators z =143 p = 15 grounders z =182 p = 07 hedging z =95
p = 34 and amplifiers z =147 p = 14
Example 3 demonstrates a sample PRE by a pair in the collaborative group
Here the learners are negotiating the target head act form lsquoI was wondering ifrsquo
by attending to each otherrsquos form and providing feedback and confirmation
During this process the target form receives prominence through recycled use
over multiple turns The form is jointly constructed with both participants
contributing to the knowledge building This collaborative work eventually
leads to the production of the accurate target form as task outcome A by-
product of this process is likely the deeper level of processing of the form and
consolidation of pragmatic knowledge as suggested in the collaborative
grouprsquos superior performance at immediate posttest
Example 3 Correctly resolved PRE in the collaborative group
1 Learner 1 (Jaemyong left his Korean home-
work at home) (He
was asking whether he could go home to bring his homework during his
self-study session) (Then he should make a
request politely)
2 Learner 2 (Yes)
----several turns later----------------------------------------------
3 Learner 1 (We need to make a long
polite request) I was wondering
4 Learner 2 if I could go to
5 Learner 1 Go to the home (Is that lsquogo to the homersquo) Go to home
(Shouldnrsquot it be lsquogo to homersquo)
Table 8 Frequency of PREs
PREs targets Collaborative group (n = 25) Individual group (n = 25)
Mean SD Mean SD
Context 476 296 404 302
Head acts 296 1306 288 120
Preparators 252 087 088 105
Grounders 272 124 276 101
Amplifiers 184 111 052 077
Hedging 152 130 052 083
Total 1632 618 1160 548
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6 Learner 2 I am
7 Learner 1 I was wondering if I could go to go to
8 Learner 2 Go home
9 Learner 1 go home
The nature of the collaborative PREs contrasts with that of individual PREs
In Example 4 the learner is working by herself to resolve the PRE targeting lsquois
there any way that I couldrsquo She recognizes that this is the PDR-high request
and that she should use the mitigated preparatory form She produces the
target form once but without a peer attending to her form and giving feed-
back she goes back to the form that she is used to (lsquoCan Irsquo) resulting in the
production of non-target form as task outcome These instances of incorrectly
resolved PREs in the individual task group probably led to their underperform-
ance at immediate posttest compared with the collaborative group
Example 4 Incorrectly resolved PRE in the individual group
Learner 1 (I need to ask
whether I can go home to bring the assignment during self-study ses-
sion) uh may uh big request is there any way that I could uh
(then) Is there any way that I could possible homework my home-
work Can I can I go to my house to get my homework And can I go to
my house to get my homework (Is this right)
Summary of the findings
The learners who completed tasks collaboratively produced more PREs and
target-like request head acts than those who completed the tasks individually
during the task and again at immediate posttest However the benefit of the
collaborative group was short-lived because their performance was the same
with that of the individual group 1 month after the instruction The benefit of
collaborative tasks was also partial because there was no group difference in
the production of request modifications during the task or at immediate
posttest
DISCUSSION
Our findings contribute to the task-based literature by demonstrating the
benefits of collaborative tasks in improving pragmatics knowledge In the lit-
erature of instructed pragmatics our findings support previous studies on
metapragmatic discussion Takimoto (2012) found that collaborative dialogue
in a form of metapragmatic discussion gave learners access to information
about pragmatic features which eventually led to better control of pragmatic
knowledge than the condition where learners completed the task alone with
or without verbalization of the target features This study adds to these findings
16 COLLABORATIVE DIALOGUE AND PRAGMATICS
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because it documented the nature of collaborative dialogue operationalized as
PREsmdashhow often learners discussed pragmatics features in interaction and
whether interaction led to better task performance and linked these with
the development of pragmatic knowledge It became clear that collaborative
tasks generated more PREs than individual tasks PREs also contributed to
learnersrsquo accurate use of request head acts during treatment tasks which led
to their superior performance at immediate posttest Because the quantity of
PREs targeting head acts was similar between the collaborative and individual
groups the quality of PREs namely the extent to which learners resolved
PREs correctly was crucial for learning The present results support previous
findings of LREs studies (eg Payant 2012) and extended them to pragmatics
This study implemented collaborative dialogue through a form of PREs in
which learners interacted with their peers and jointly constructed a dialogue
that involved the target speech act During this process learners attended the
pragmalinguistic forms and semantic moves and their correspondence with
contextual features (relationship power and degree of imposition) Learners
in the individual task group also attended the target pragmatic forms and
verbalized them on their own as observed in PREs during thinking aloud
However negotiation with others was absent Without negotiation working
alone did not generate as many opportunities for attention to pragmatic forms
in context or recycled use of them as did the collaborative dialogue during
interactive tasks This finding was supported by the fact that the individual
group produced fewer PREs than the collaborative group during the treatment
tasks Metapragmatic talk around the target head acts modifications and con-
textual features occurred more frequently in the collaborative group
Negotiation of pragmatic forms and their meaning during the process of joint
task completion prompts a deeper level of cognitive processing that helps con-
solidate learnersrsquo pragmatic knowledge and their subsequent use of the know-
ledge Critically when learners produce language in a collaborative
environment they do not just produce output but they also have an oppor-
tunity to receive feedback from peers while trying to make their language
precise (Swain and Lapkin 1998 Swain 2006) During interaction learners
attend to each otherrsquos forms evaluate their accuracy and appropriateness
and offer feedback and corrections to each other In this process two levels
of monitoring self-monitoring and other-monitoring are occurring simultan-
eously which essentially promote more accurate high-quality task outcomes
Analyses of treatment task data confirmed this The collaborative grouprsquos re-
quest head acts (mitigated preparatory) in the dialogue construction task were
significantly more accurate than those of the individual group which was the
result of monitoring scaffolding and peer feedback that featured the process of
joint task completion
In sum learners completed tasks more successfully when they worked col-
laboratively and this successful task performance led to significantly greater
gains of the knowledge of appropriate request head acts The findings are
consistent with the results of previous findings that joint activities improved
N TAGUCHI AND Y KIM 17
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task performance in terms of the accurate production of the target linguistic
forms and subsequent learning of the forms (eg Storch 2007 Kim 2008) The
present study has advanced this body of literature by demonstrating that ef-
fects of collaborative tasks and PREs extend beyond grammar and vocabulary
PREs provide opportunities for pragmatic learning that involves a complex
mapping of formndashfunctionndashcontext
Although the efficacy of collaborative dialogue became clear in this study
questions remain as to why the effects were restricted to the request head acts
and did not extend to request modifications One possible interpretation of the
findings relates to the different assessment methods used for the head act and
modification Head acts were assessed using a scoring rubric that reflected both
appropriateness (choosing the target mitigated preparatory forms over other
request-making forms) and grammaticality (accuracy of the forms)
Modifications on the other hand were analyzed mainly on frequency of pro-
duction We made this decision because different from the head act that
occurs only once in a single speech act modifications typically co-occur over
multiple times In addition internal modifications used in this study were all
lexical involving only one word which made the analysis of grammaticality
irrelevant
It is possible that the collaborative dialogue made a difference when the
quality of pragmatic forms (accuracy and appropriateness) was considered
compared with simple quantity (frequency) As shown in the treatment task
data strength of the collaborative dialogue was observed in how learners scaf-
folded each other and provided feedback to each other while jointly carrying
out tasks It might be the case that these instances of negotiation and inter-
action occurring in the collaborative task pushed learners to a deeper level of
processing of the request head act which eventually helped them consolidate
their knowledge of both accuracy and appropriateness of the forms Because of
the linguistic complexity of the head act forms (bi-clausal structure) and the
more strenuous scoring method used to evaluate the forms learnersrsquo know-
ledge base had to be solid enough to allow retrieval and use of the knowledge
The collaborative condition that involved intensive attention negotiation
monitoring and peer feedback probably assisted the formation of this robust
knowledge Nevertheless both treatment conditions were equally effective on
the level of request modifications This might be due to the fact that the groups
were compared on the frequency of use (whether they were able to produce
them in an intelligible manner) not on the quality of use (absolute accuracy of
the forms)
These interpretations also corroborate with Takimotorsquos (2012) findings that
revealed the advantage of metapragmatic over non-metapragmatic discussion
on the acquisition of request Positive effects were found in the production-
based test (DCT) but not in the receptive-skills test (appropriateness judg-
ment) Takimoto attributed the findings to the relative ease of the receptive
task Participants without metapragmatic discussion were still able to cope with
judging appropriateness because the test posed lower demands than a
18 COLLABORATIVE DIALOGUE AND PRAGMATICS
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nloaded from
production task however they were not able to deal with the demand
coming from the DCT that required them to produce target forms accurately
and appropriately Because of the precise syntactic processing required in pro-
duction and resulting task demand learners benefitted more from metaprag-
matic discussion that assisted the consolidation of knowledge
Although the two treatment groups differed in their use of the request head
acts their performance was the same at the level of modifications Both groups
outperformed the control group in the production of preparators and hedging
right after the instruction as well as 1 month later in the case of preparators
These findings indicate a strong effect of instruction over non-instruction but
also reveal variation within the effect across modification types The strong
effect found in the preparators is probably due to the saliency of the prepara-
tors as semantic strategies Different from hedging or amplifiers that involve
precise pragmalinguistics preparators are part of the discourse moves that
characterize the structure of a request reflecting sociopragmatic information
Logistics and rituals of how to structure a request using preparators were prob-
ably easier to learn than the precise linguistics forms of a request and once
learned the knowledge stayed in the memory because of its saliency These
findings conform to the previous longitudinal findings that revealed that ac-
quisition of sociopragmatic rules (eg use of semantic strategies) is faster than
that of pragmalinguistic forms (Bardovi-Harlig and Hartford 1993 Taguchi
2012) The present findings confirmed this in an instructional study
LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY AND IMPLICATIONS FORFUTURE RESEARCH
This study is limited to a small number of individuals in a single L2 group a
single measure and a narrowly defined pragmatic target (request) Future
studies should involve a greater participant pool with wider target languages
and pragmatic measures and examine the development of different aspects of
pragmatic competence in relation to collaborative dialogue
Equally important is an investigation into individual differences and lear-
nersrsquo perceptions of instruction It is possible that not all learners had equal
amount of participation or contribution to the collaborative tasks which con-
sequently restricted their knowledge-building process It is also possible that
learners were not familiar with the type of instructional activities used in this
study and needed more time to get accustomed to the tasks in order to gain the
full benefit from them Two class periods were probably not enough time to
boost their robust learning Because this study did not address individual lear-
ner variation and learnersrsquo perceptions of their learning processes future stu-
dies are called for in this direction
Additionally although there has been a surge amount of research on task
design and task implementation in instructed SLA the learning of pragmatics
using a variety of collaborative tasks has not been explored Because this study
N TAGUCHI AND Y KIM 19
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used only one type of writing task future studies should explore task-related
variables to find ultimate task-based learning contexts for pragmatic
development
In the current study we used PREs as an analysis unit to determine the
amount of learnersrsquo attention to target pragmatic forms for both individual and
collaborative groups The results need to be interpreted with acknowledging
that the characteristics of PREs in these two groups might not be exactly
the same due to the different nature of task performance As a first step of
using PREs we focused on the overall frequency of PREs Future studies are
warranted to explore the quality of PREs (eg number of turnssentences per
PRE) to further our understanding of collaborative dialogue around prag-
matics Another limitation is that this study did not collect Supplementary
data such as stimulated verbal recall or interviews to understand actual cog-
nitive processing involved in PREs which should be explored in the future
research
Finally different effects of collaborative dialogue between the request head
acts and modifications found here need to be addressed more explicitly in the
future Learnability and teachability of pragmatic features have been discussed
in the literature pointing to the need for exploring the interaction among
instructional methods pragmatic targets and learner profiles (eg Roever
2009 Takahashi 2010 Taguhi 2011) Roever (2009) suggests that future re-
search should investigate what kinds of pragmatic features (eg syntactic miti-
gations and lexical downgraders) should be taught to what types of learners
(in terms of proficiency or other individual characteristics) using what kinds of
intervention methods (eg interaction vs non-interaction) Taguchi (forth-
coming) adds characteristics of assessment methods to this call because instruc-
tional effects diverge substantially depending on the demands involved
in the assessment measures Collaborative dialogue and PREs could serve
as a fruitful area to investigate this interaction among pragmatic targets in-
structional methods learnersrsquo instructional readiness and assessment
measures
SUPPLEMENTARY DATA
Supplementary material is available at Applied Linguistics online
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We are grateful for three anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on earlier versions of
the manuscript Special thanks also go to our research assistants Feng Xiao Franklin Bradfield
Sharon Kim and YeonJoo Jung for their help with data analysis We are responsible for all the
errors that may remain
Conflict of interest statement None declared
20 COLLABORATIVE DIALOGUE AND PRAGMATICS
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NOTES
1 We acknowledge the limitation of not
using video-recorded authentic prag-
matic materials
2 One of the reviewers stated that the au-
thenticity of tasks should be based on
whether situations happen in the
target culture We agree with this con-
cern However being familiar with
given contexts is crucial for the partici-
pants to be able to analyze the contexts
and discuss the pragmatic-related issues
Because making requests in both
Korean and English follow similar
discourse patterns we decided that it
was appropriate to use context-specific
scenarios (situations in Korea) in the
study
3 Missing responses occupied about 3
percent of the data
4 We conducted additional analysis with
analysis of covariance with proficiency
measured by TOEIC Bridge test as cov-
ariate Results were the same
5 This study did not analyze content of
the grounders because content was
fixed provided in the DCT scenarios
REFERENCES
Bardovi-Harlig K and B Hartford 1993
lsquoLearning the rules of academic talk A
longitudinal study of pragmatic changersquo
Studies in Second Language Acquisition 15
279ndash304
Blum-Kulka S J House and G Kasper
1989 Cross-Cultural Pragmatics Requests and
Apologies Ablex
Brown P and S Levinson 1987 Politeness
Cambridge University Press
Golato A 2003 lsquoStudying complement re-
sponses A comparison of DCTs and recordings
of naturally occurring talkrsquo Applied Linguistics
24 90ndash121
DeKeyser R 2007 lsquoSkill acquisition theoryrsquo
in B VanPatten and J Williams (eds)
Theories in Second Language Acquisition An
Introduction Lawrence Erlbaum Associates
Publishers pp 94ndash113
Jeon E -H and T Kaya 2006 lsquoEffects of L2
instruction on interlanguage pragmatic devel-
opmentrsquo in N John and L Ortega (eds)
Synthesizing Research on Language Learning and
Teaching John Benjamins pp 165ndash211
Kasper G 2001 lsquoClassroom research on inter-
language pragmaticsrsquo in K Rose and G Kasper
(eds) Pragmatics in Language Teaching
Cambridge University Press pp 33ndash62
Kim Y 2008 lsquoThe contribution of collaborative
and individual tasks to the acquisition of L2
vocabularyrsquo Modern Language Journal 92
113ndash40
Kim Y 2013 lsquoEffects of pretask modeling on
attention to form and question developmentrsquo
TESOL Quarterly 47 8ndash35
Kim Y in press lsquoThe role of tasks as vehicles for
learning in classroom interactionrsquo in N Markee
(ed) Handbook of Classroom Discourse and
Interaction Wiley-Blackwell
Lee I S Kim S Yoon J Nam S Park
Y Hong and T Orr 2009 Middle School
English 2 Chun-Jae-Gyo-Yuk
Leech G 1983 Principles of Pragmatics Longman
McNamara T and C Roever 2006 Language
Testing The Social Dimension Blackwell
Nassaji H and J Tian 2010 lsquoCollaborative and
individual output tasks and their effects on
learning English phrasal verbsrsquo Language
Teaching Research 14 397ndash419
Nguyen TTM 2013 lsquoInstructional effects on
the acquisition of modifiers in constructive
criticisms by EFL learnersrsquo Language
Awareness 22 76ndash94
Payant C 2012 lsquoLearner-learner interaction
An exploration of the mediating functions of
multilingual learnersrsquo languages in an L3 for-
eign language classroomrsquo Unpublished disser-
tation Georgia State University
Roever C 2009 lsquoTeaching and testing pragmaticsrsquo
in M Long and C Doughty (eds) Handbook of
Language Teaching Wiley-Blackwell pp 560ndash77
Schmidt R 2001 lsquoAttentionrsquo in P Robinson
(ed) Cognition and Second Language Instruction
Cambridge University Press pp 3ndash32
N TAGUCHI AND Y KIM 21
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Storch N 2007 lsquoInvestigating the merits of pair
work on a text editing task in ESL classesrsquo
Language Teaching Research 2 143ndash59
Swain M 2006 lsquoLanguaging agency and col-
laboration in advanced second language
Proficiencyrsquo in H Byrnes (ed) Advanced
Language Learning The Contribution of Halliday
and Vygotsky Continuum pp 95ndash108
Swain M and S Lapkin 1998 lsquoInteraction
and second language learning Two adolescent
French immersion students working togetherrsquo
Modern Language Journal 82 320ndash37
Swain M and Y Watanabe 2013
lsquoCollaborative dialogue as a source of learningrsquo
in C Chapelle (ed) The Encyclopedia of Applied
Linguistics Wiley Blackwell
Taguchi N 2011 lsquoTeaching pragmatics Trends
and issuesrsquo Annual Review of Applied Linguistics
31 289ndash310
Taguchi N 2012 Context Individual
Differences and Pragmatic Competence
Multilingual Matter
Taguchi N forthcoming lsquoInstructed pragmatics
at a glance Where instructional studies were
are and should be going State-of-the-art art-
iclersquo Language Teaching
Takahashi S 1996 lsquoPragmatic transferabilityrsquo
Studies in Second Language Acquisition 18 189ndash223
Takahashi S 2010 lsquoAssessing learnability in
second language pragmaticsrsquo in A Trosborg
(ed) Handbook of Pragmatics VII Mouton de
Gruyter pp 391ndash421
Takimoto M 2012 lsquoMetapragmatic discussion
in interlanguage pragmaticsrsquo Journal of
Pragmatics 44 1240ndash53
Van den Branden K M Bygate and
J Norris (eds) 2009 Task-Based Language
Teaching A Reader John Benjamins Publishers
22 COLLABORATIVE DIALOGUE AND PRAGMATICS
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nloaded from
NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS
Naoko Taguchi is an associate professor in the Modern Languages Department at
Carnegie Mellon University where she teaches courses in SLA and Japanese language
and culture Her research interests include pragmatics classroom-based research and
English-medium instruction Address for correspondence Naoko Taguchi Carnegie Mellon
University Pittsburgh PA USA lttaguchiandrewcmuedugt
YouJin Kim is an assistant professor in the Department of Applied Linguistics and ESL at
Georgia State University Her primary research interests include instructed second lan-
guage acquisition task-based language teaching and assessment and structural prim-
ing Her research focuses on adolescent and adult English and Korean language
learners Address for correspondence YouJin Kim Georgia State University Atlanta
GA USA ltykim39gsuedugt
N TAGUCHI AND Y KIM 23
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Dow
nloaded from
acts grounders preparators hedging and amplifiers See the following ex-
amples about asking the school principal to change a location of a picnic
Example 1 PRE targeting a request head act during interactive task
1 Learner 1 (making a request) I am wondering if I could pos-
sibly (First we have to make a request) I am won-
dering if you could possibly I was wondering
2 Learner 2 I am
3 Learner 1 I am wondering
4 Learner 2 if you could was could (Since
we used lsquocouldrsquo shouldnrsquot we use lsquowasrsquo) I was wondering if I could go
to picnic in Everland
5 Learner 1 if you could (No
since this person needs to make a decision lsquoif you couldrsquo sounds right) If
you could
Example 2 PRE targeting the request head act during think-aloud
Learner 1 In this fall fall picnic fall picnic picnic is there any is there
any way that I could that I could could is there can could possibly
possibly go to Everland participate possibly go to go to Everland
Once the PREs were coded studentsrsquo task performance data (the completed
written dialogues) was scored following the same rubrics as the DCT data and
the frequency of each modification in the dialogues was also counted The
second rater coded 20 percent of task performance data independently and
94 percent agreement was obtained Any disagreement was resolved through
discussion which was applied for the rest of the data coding
RESULTS
Effects of collaborative dialogue in learning the speech act ofrequest
Analysis of request head act
Table 3 displays descriptive statistics of head act scores Frequency analysis
showed that 295 out of the 296 head acts (74 learners 4 items) were non-
target (not the focus of instruction) Most of the non-target head acts took a
form of permission (lsquoMay Irsquo) or ability inquiry (lsquoCould yoursquo) indicating that all
groups were unfamiliar with the mitigated preparatory forms before the in-
struction The KruskalndashWallis test revealed no group difference at pretest
2 = 344 p = 18
The KruskalndashWallis test found a significant group difference at immediate
posttest 2 = 3190 plt 001 Pair-wise comparisons using the MannndashWhitney
U test showed that both treatment groups outperformed the control group
10 COLLABORATIVE DIALOGUE AND PRAGMATICS
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z = 536 plt 001 (collaborative group) and z = 405 plt 001 (individual group)
The collaborative group further surpassed the individual group on the produc-
tion of mitigated preparatory z = 240 p = 016 However the benefit of this
condition disappeared at delayed posttest because there was no difference be-
tween the treatment groups z = 38 p = 71 In addition the KruskalndashWallis test
showed that there was no significant difference between the control and treat-
ment groups at delayed posttest 2 = 25 p = 884
In summary task-based instruction resulted in a strong effect on the learn-
ing of appropriate request head acts as found in the treatment groupsrsquo superior
performance at immediate posttest compared with that of non-instructional
condition However the effect did not last long as the treatment groups went
back to the level of the control group at delayed posttest Similarly the col-
laborative task was more effective than the individual task at the immediate
posttest but the effect disappeared 1 month later
Analysis of request modification
Tables 4ndash7 present frequency counts of request modifications that appeared in
DCT Preparators almost never appeared at pretest but they showed a large
increase in the two treatment groups at immediate posttest (Table 4) In con-
trast preparators were absent in the control group Both treatment groups
outperformed the control group at immediate and delayed posttest No differ-
ence was found between the collaborative and individual groups z = 176
Table 3 Request head act scores
Group Mean SD Minimum Maximum
Collaborative group (n = 25)
Pretest 336 122 200 400
Immediate posttest 1012 306 200 1200
Delayed posttest 432 236 200 1100
Individual group (n = 25)
Pretest 340 071 200 400
Immediate posttest 836 341 300 1200
Delayed posttest 488 273 100 1200
Control group (n = 24)
Pretest 375 043 300 400
Immediate posttest 383 047 200 400
Delayed posttest 388 044 200 400
Note Each student produced four PDR-high requests Each head act was scored on a 3-point
scale Score range = 0ndash12 Delayed posttest was given 1 month later
N TAGUCHI AND Y KIM 11
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p = 079 at pretest z = 097 p = 33 at immediate posttest and z = 012 p = 90 at
delayed posttest
The grounders showed different patterns they appeared in majority of the
items at pretest (see Table 5) indicating that the learners were already familiar
with this supportive move before the instruction because grounders appear in
Table 4 Frequency of preparators
Group Mean SD Minimum Maximum
Collaborative group (n = 25)
Pretest 028 061 000 200
Immediate posttest 276 151 000 400
Delayed posttest 228 172 000 400
Individual group (n = 25)
Pretest 004 020 000 100
Immediate posttest 316 131 000 400
Delayed posttest 236 173 000 400
Control group (n = 24)
Pretest 000 000 000 000
Immediate posttest 004 020 000 100
Delayed posttest 013 045 000 200
Note Mean = mean frequency of preparators in four PDR-high request items
Table 5 Frequency of grounders
Group Mean SD Minimum Maximum
Collaborative group (n = 25)
Pretest 336 081 100 400
Immediate posttest 336 095 100 400
Delayed posttest 356 096 000 400
Individual group (n = 25)
Pretest 324 088 200 400
Immediate posttest 332 075 200 400
Delayed posttest 340 087 100 400
Control group (n = 24)
Pretest 350 114 000 400
Immediate posttest 346 098 000 400
Delayed posttest 379 051 200 400
Note Mean = mean frequency of grounders in four PDR-high request items
12 COLLABORATIVE DIALOGUE AND PRAGMATICS
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Korean requests and the learners were able to transfer their L1-based strategy
Because of this ceiling effect there was no instructional effect The results of
the KruskalndashWallis test showed no significant difference in any of the test
sessions 2 = 274 p = 25 at pretest 2 = 121 p = 55 at immediate posttest
and 2= 355 p = 17 at delayed posttest5
Table 7 Frequency of amplifiers
Group Mean SD Minimum Maximum
Collaborative group (n = 25)
Pretest 016 047 000 200
Immediate posttest 092 119 000 400
Delayed posttest 028 054 000 200
Individual group (n = 25)
Pretest 036 064 000 200
Immediate posttest 124 109 000 400
Delayed posttest 044 077 000 200
Control group (n = 24)
Pretest 063 097 000 300
Immediate posttest 071 096 000 400
Delayed posttest 033 076 000 300
Note Mean = mean frequency of amplifiers in four PDR-high request items
Table 6 Frequency of hedging
Group Mean SD Minimum Maximum
Collaborative group (n = 25)
Pretest 000 000 000 000
Immediate posttest 168 149 000 400
Delayed posttest 012 060 000 300
Individual group (n = 25)
Pretest 000 000 000 000
Immediate posttest 140 153 000 400
Delayed posttest 028 098 000 400
Control group (n = 24)
Pretest 000 000 000 000
Immediate posttest 000 000 000 000
Delayed posttest 008 028 000 100
Note Mean = mean frequency of hedging in four PDR-high request items
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Compared with external modifications internal modifications (hedging and
amplifiers) were relatively underused It was absent in the pretest data There
was a noticeable increase at immediate posttest in the treatment groups but
the mean frequency was only moderate Although the frequency was not
particularly large we still note the instructional effect because the treatment
groups outperformed the control group at the immediate posttest 2 = 481
plt 0001 for the collaborative group and 2 = 422 plt 0001 for the individual
group However the effect was short-lived because no group difference was
found at delayed posttest (2 = 43 p = 81) When the two treatment groups
were compared there was no significant difference z = 73 p = 47 at immedi-
ate posttest or z = 61 p = 54 at delayed posttest
Amplifiers also showed very small occurrence at pretest but different from
hedging the frequency remained low throughout the time No instructional
effect was observed in the case of amplifiers as there was no significant group
difference at pretest (2 = 449 p = 11) immediate posttest (2 = 393 p = 14)
or delayed posttest (2 = 45 p = 80)
In summary frequency comparison of request modification across groups
revealed a mixed picture At pretest no group difference was found in any of
these modifications At immediate posttest both treatment groups surpassed
the control group on the production of preparators and hedging but not on the
use of grounders and amplifiers At delayed posttest the treatment groups
outperformed the control group on the production of the preparators only
Most importantly there was no significant difference between the collabora-
tive and individual group in any of these modifications These findings mark a
sharp contrast to those of request head acts in which the collaborative condi-
tion was more advantageous than the individual task condition in learnersrsquo
production of mitigated preparatory forms
Frequency of PREs and quality of treatment task performance
Table 8 reports descriptive statistics for the frequency of PREs Over the two
treatment sessions the individual group produced 1160 PREs on average
while the mean for the collaborative group was 1632 The MannndashWhitney
U test showed that the difference was significant (z =276 p = 006)
Regarding PREs on specific features there was no group difference on PREs
targeting the contextual features of request (z =92 p = 36) head acts
(z = 28 p = 78) or grounders (z = 70 p = 48) but a difference was found in
preparators (z = 465 plt 0001) amplifiers (z = 413 plt 0001) and hedging
(z = 296 p = 003) in favor of the collaborative group
We will turn to the analysis of learnersrsquo task outcome by examining their
accurate resolution of PREs We analyzed the outcome of the dialogue con-
struction tasks using the same scoring rubrics from the DCT analysis 0ndash3 point
scale for head acts and frequency count for modifications (9 maximum points
for three treatment tasks) The individual group scored a mean of 724
(SD = 145) whereas the collaborative group scored a mean of 828
14 COLLABORATIVE DIALOGUE AND PRAGMATICS
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(SD = 84) This difference was significant z =289 plt 0001 indicating that
the collaborative group resolved PREs more successfully than the individual
group and produced more accurate target head acts as task outcome In con-
trast frequency of other request modifications revealed no group difference
preparators z =143 p = 15 grounders z =182 p = 07 hedging z =95
p = 34 and amplifiers z =147 p = 14
Example 3 demonstrates a sample PRE by a pair in the collaborative group
Here the learners are negotiating the target head act form lsquoI was wondering ifrsquo
by attending to each otherrsquos form and providing feedback and confirmation
During this process the target form receives prominence through recycled use
over multiple turns The form is jointly constructed with both participants
contributing to the knowledge building This collaborative work eventually
leads to the production of the accurate target form as task outcome A by-
product of this process is likely the deeper level of processing of the form and
consolidation of pragmatic knowledge as suggested in the collaborative
grouprsquos superior performance at immediate posttest
Example 3 Correctly resolved PRE in the collaborative group
1 Learner 1 (Jaemyong left his Korean home-
work at home) (He
was asking whether he could go home to bring his homework during his
self-study session) (Then he should make a
request politely)
2 Learner 2 (Yes)
----several turns later----------------------------------------------
3 Learner 1 (We need to make a long
polite request) I was wondering
4 Learner 2 if I could go to
5 Learner 1 Go to the home (Is that lsquogo to the homersquo) Go to home
(Shouldnrsquot it be lsquogo to homersquo)
Table 8 Frequency of PREs
PREs targets Collaborative group (n = 25) Individual group (n = 25)
Mean SD Mean SD
Context 476 296 404 302
Head acts 296 1306 288 120
Preparators 252 087 088 105
Grounders 272 124 276 101
Amplifiers 184 111 052 077
Hedging 152 130 052 083
Total 1632 618 1160 548
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6 Learner 2 I am
7 Learner 1 I was wondering if I could go to go to
8 Learner 2 Go home
9 Learner 1 go home
The nature of the collaborative PREs contrasts with that of individual PREs
In Example 4 the learner is working by herself to resolve the PRE targeting lsquois
there any way that I couldrsquo She recognizes that this is the PDR-high request
and that she should use the mitigated preparatory form She produces the
target form once but without a peer attending to her form and giving feed-
back she goes back to the form that she is used to (lsquoCan Irsquo) resulting in the
production of non-target form as task outcome These instances of incorrectly
resolved PREs in the individual task group probably led to their underperform-
ance at immediate posttest compared with the collaborative group
Example 4 Incorrectly resolved PRE in the individual group
Learner 1 (I need to ask
whether I can go home to bring the assignment during self-study ses-
sion) uh may uh big request is there any way that I could uh
(then) Is there any way that I could possible homework my home-
work Can I can I go to my house to get my homework And can I go to
my house to get my homework (Is this right)
Summary of the findings
The learners who completed tasks collaboratively produced more PREs and
target-like request head acts than those who completed the tasks individually
during the task and again at immediate posttest However the benefit of the
collaborative group was short-lived because their performance was the same
with that of the individual group 1 month after the instruction The benefit of
collaborative tasks was also partial because there was no group difference in
the production of request modifications during the task or at immediate
posttest
DISCUSSION
Our findings contribute to the task-based literature by demonstrating the
benefits of collaborative tasks in improving pragmatics knowledge In the lit-
erature of instructed pragmatics our findings support previous studies on
metapragmatic discussion Takimoto (2012) found that collaborative dialogue
in a form of metapragmatic discussion gave learners access to information
about pragmatic features which eventually led to better control of pragmatic
knowledge than the condition where learners completed the task alone with
or without verbalization of the target features This study adds to these findings
16 COLLABORATIVE DIALOGUE AND PRAGMATICS
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because it documented the nature of collaborative dialogue operationalized as
PREsmdashhow often learners discussed pragmatics features in interaction and
whether interaction led to better task performance and linked these with
the development of pragmatic knowledge It became clear that collaborative
tasks generated more PREs than individual tasks PREs also contributed to
learnersrsquo accurate use of request head acts during treatment tasks which led
to their superior performance at immediate posttest Because the quantity of
PREs targeting head acts was similar between the collaborative and individual
groups the quality of PREs namely the extent to which learners resolved
PREs correctly was crucial for learning The present results support previous
findings of LREs studies (eg Payant 2012) and extended them to pragmatics
This study implemented collaborative dialogue through a form of PREs in
which learners interacted with their peers and jointly constructed a dialogue
that involved the target speech act During this process learners attended the
pragmalinguistic forms and semantic moves and their correspondence with
contextual features (relationship power and degree of imposition) Learners
in the individual task group also attended the target pragmatic forms and
verbalized them on their own as observed in PREs during thinking aloud
However negotiation with others was absent Without negotiation working
alone did not generate as many opportunities for attention to pragmatic forms
in context or recycled use of them as did the collaborative dialogue during
interactive tasks This finding was supported by the fact that the individual
group produced fewer PREs than the collaborative group during the treatment
tasks Metapragmatic talk around the target head acts modifications and con-
textual features occurred more frequently in the collaborative group
Negotiation of pragmatic forms and their meaning during the process of joint
task completion prompts a deeper level of cognitive processing that helps con-
solidate learnersrsquo pragmatic knowledge and their subsequent use of the know-
ledge Critically when learners produce language in a collaborative
environment they do not just produce output but they also have an oppor-
tunity to receive feedback from peers while trying to make their language
precise (Swain and Lapkin 1998 Swain 2006) During interaction learners
attend to each otherrsquos forms evaluate their accuracy and appropriateness
and offer feedback and corrections to each other In this process two levels
of monitoring self-monitoring and other-monitoring are occurring simultan-
eously which essentially promote more accurate high-quality task outcomes
Analyses of treatment task data confirmed this The collaborative grouprsquos re-
quest head acts (mitigated preparatory) in the dialogue construction task were
significantly more accurate than those of the individual group which was the
result of monitoring scaffolding and peer feedback that featured the process of
joint task completion
In sum learners completed tasks more successfully when they worked col-
laboratively and this successful task performance led to significantly greater
gains of the knowledge of appropriate request head acts The findings are
consistent with the results of previous findings that joint activities improved
N TAGUCHI AND Y KIM 17
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nloaded from
task performance in terms of the accurate production of the target linguistic
forms and subsequent learning of the forms (eg Storch 2007 Kim 2008) The
present study has advanced this body of literature by demonstrating that ef-
fects of collaborative tasks and PREs extend beyond grammar and vocabulary
PREs provide opportunities for pragmatic learning that involves a complex
mapping of formndashfunctionndashcontext
Although the efficacy of collaborative dialogue became clear in this study
questions remain as to why the effects were restricted to the request head acts
and did not extend to request modifications One possible interpretation of the
findings relates to the different assessment methods used for the head act and
modification Head acts were assessed using a scoring rubric that reflected both
appropriateness (choosing the target mitigated preparatory forms over other
request-making forms) and grammaticality (accuracy of the forms)
Modifications on the other hand were analyzed mainly on frequency of pro-
duction We made this decision because different from the head act that
occurs only once in a single speech act modifications typically co-occur over
multiple times In addition internal modifications used in this study were all
lexical involving only one word which made the analysis of grammaticality
irrelevant
It is possible that the collaborative dialogue made a difference when the
quality of pragmatic forms (accuracy and appropriateness) was considered
compared with simple quantity (frequency) As shown in the treatment task
data strength of the collaborative dialogue was observed in how learners scaf-
folded each other and provided feedback to each other while jointly carrying
out tasks It might be the case that these instances of negotiation and inter-
action occurring in the collaborative task pushed learners to a deeper level of
processing of the request head act which eventually helped them consolidate
their knowledge of both accuracy and appropriateness of the forms Because of
the linguistic complexity of the head act forms (bi-clausal structure) and the
more strenuous scoring method used to evaluate the forms learnersrsquo know-
ledge base had to be solid enough to allow retrieval and use of the knowledge
The collaborative condition that involved intensive attention negotiation
monitoring and peer feedback probably assisted the formation of this robust
knowledge Nevertheless both treatment conditions were equally effective on
the level of request modifications This might be due to the fact that the groups
were compared on the frequency of use (whether they were able to produce
them in an intelligible manner) not on the quality of use (absolute accuracy of
the forms)
These interpretations also corroborate with Takimotorsquos (2012) findings that
revealed the advantage of metapragmatic over non-metapragmatic discussion
on the acquisition of request Positive effects were found in the production-
based test (DCT) but not in the receptive-skills test (appropriateness judg-
ment) Takimoto attributed the findings to the relative ease of the receptive
task Participants without metapragmatic discussion were still able to cope with
judging appropriateness because the test posed lower demands than a
18 COLLABORATIVE DIALOGUE AND PRAGMATICS
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nloaded from
production task however they were not able to deal with the demand
coming from the DCT that required them to produce target forms accurately
and appropriately Because of the precise syntactic processing required in pro-
duction and resulting task demand learners benefitted more from metaprag-
matic discussion that assisted the consolidation of knowledge
Although the two treatment groups differed in their use of the request head
acts their performance was the same at the level of modifications Both groups
outperformed the control group in the production of preparators and hedging
right after the instruction as well as 1 month later in the case of preparators
These findings indicate a strong effect of instruction over non-instruction but
also reveal variation within the effect across modification types The strong
effect found in the preparators is probably due to the saliency of the prepara-
tors as semantic strategies Different from hedging or amplifiers that involve
precise pragmalinguistics preparators are part of the discourse moves that
characterize the structure of a request reflecting sociopragmatic information
Logistics and rituals of how to structure a request using preparators were prob-
ably easier to learn than the precise linguistics forms of a request and once
learned the knowledge stayed in the memory because of its saliency These
findings conform to the previous longitudinal findings that revealed that ac-
quisition of sociopragmatic rules (eg use of semantic strategies) is faster than
that of pragmalinguistic forms (Bardovi-Harlig and Hartford 1993 Taguchi
2012) The present findings confirmed this in an instructional study
LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY AND IMPLICATIONS FORFUTURE RESEARCH
This study is limited to a small number of individuals in a single L2 group a
single measure and a narrowly defined pragmatic target (request) Future
studies should involve a greater participant pool with wider target languages
and pragmatic measures and examine the development of different aspects of
pragmatic competence in relation to collaborative dialogue
Equally important is an investigation into individual differences and lear-
nersrsquo perceptions of instruction It is possible that not all learners had equal
amount of participation or contribution to the collaborative tasks which con-
sequently restricted their knowledge-building process It is also possible that
learners were not familiar with the type of instructional activities used in this
study and needed more time to get accustomed to the tasks in order to gain the
full benefit from them Two class periods were probably not enough time to
boost their robust learning Because this study did not address individual lear-
ner variation and learnersrsquo perceptions of their learning processes future stu-
dies are called for in this direction
Additionally although there has been a surge amount of research on task
design and task implementation in instructed SLA the learning of pragmatics
using a variety of collaborative tasks has not been explored Because this study
N TAGUCHI AND Y KIM 19
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used only one type of writing task future studies should explore task-related
variables to find ultimate task-based learning contexts for pragmatic
development
In the current study we used PREs as an analysis unit to determine the
amount of learnersrsquo attention to target pragmatic forms for both individual and
collaborative groups The results need to be interpreted with acknowledging
that the characteristics of PREs in these two groups might not be exactly
the same due to the different nature of task performance As a first step of
using PREs we focused on the overall frequency of PREs Future studies are
warranted to explore the quality of PREs (eg number of turnssentences per
PRE) to further our understanding of collaborative dialogue around prag-
matics Another limitation is that this study did not collect Supplementary
data such as stimulated verbal recall or interviews to understand actual cog-
nitive processing involved in PREs which should be explored in the future
research
Finally different effects of collaborative dialogue between the request head
acts and modifications found here need to be addressed more explicitly in the
future Learnability and teachability of pragmatic features have been discussed
in the literature pointing to the need for exploring the interaction among
instructional methods pragmatic targets and learner profiles (eg Roever
2009 Takahashi 2010 Taguhi 2011) Roever (2009) suggests that future re-
search should investigate what kinds of pragmatic features (eg syntactic miti-
gations and lexical downgraders) should be taught to what types of learners
(in terms of proficiency or other individual characteristics) using what kinds of
intervention methods (eg interaction vs non-interaction) Taguchi (forth-
coming) adds characteristics of assessment methods to this call because instruc-
tional effects diverge substantially depending on the demands involved
in the assessment measures Collaborative dialogue and PREs could serve
as a fruitful area to investigate this interaction among pragmatic targets in-
structional methods learnersrsquo instructional readiness and assessment
measures
SUPPLEMENTARY DATA
Supplementary material is available at Applied Linguistics online
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We are grateful for three anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on earlier versions of
the manuscript Special thanks also go to our research assistants Feng Xiao Franklin Bradfield
Sharon Kim and YeonJoo Jung for their help with data analysis We are responsible for all the
errors that may remain
Conflict of interest statement None declared
20 COLLABORATIVE DIALOGUE AND PRAGMATICS
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nloaded from
NOTES
1 We acknowledge the limitation of not
using video-recorded authentic prag-
matic materials
2 One of the reviewers stated that the au-
thenticity of tasks should be based on
whether situations happen in the
target culture We agree with this con-
cern However being familiar with
given contexts is crucial for the partici-
pants to be able to analyze the contexts
and discuss the pragmatic-related issues
Because making requests in both
Korean and English follow similar
discourse patterns we decided that it
was appropriate to use context-specific
scenarios (situations in Korea) in the
study
3 Missing responses occupied about 3
percent of the data
4 We conducted additional analysis with
analysis of covariance with proficiency
measured by TOEIC Bridge test as cov-
ariate Results were the same
5 This study did not analyze content of
the grounders because content was
fixed provided in the DCT scenarios
REFERENCES
Bardovi-Harlig K and B Hartford 1993
lsquoLearning the rules of academic talk A
longitudinal study of pragmatic changersquo
Studies in Second Language Acquisition 15
279ndash304
Blum-Kulka S J House and G Kasper
1989 Cross-Cultural Pragmatics Requests and
Apologies Ablex
Brown P and S Levinson 1987 Politeness
Cambridge University Press
Golato A 2003 lsquoStudying complement re-
sponses A comparison of DCTs and recordings
of naturally occurring talkrsquo Applied Linguistics
24 90ndash121
DeKeyser R 2007 lsquoSkill acquisition theoryrsquo
in B VanPatten and J Williams (eds)
Theories in Second Language Acquisition An
Introduction Lawrence Erlbaum Associates
Publishers pp 94ndash113
Jeon E -H and T Kaya 2006 lsquoEffects of L2
instruction on interlanguage pragmatic devel-
opmentrsquo in N John and L Ortega (eds)
Synthesizing Research on Language Learning and
Teaching John Benjamins pp 165ndash211
Kasper G 2001 lsquoClassroom research on inter-
language pragmaticsrsquo in K Rose and G Kasper
(eds) Pragmatics in Language Teaching
Cambridge University Press pp 33ndash62
Kim Y 2008 lsquoThe contribution of collaborative
and individual tasks to the acquisition of L2
vocabularyrsquo Modern Language Journal 92
113ndash40
Kim Y 2013 lsquoEffects of pretask modeling on
attention to form and question developmentrsquo
TESOL Quarterly 47 8ndash35
Kim Y in press lsquoThe role of tasks as vehicles for
learning in classroom interactionrsquo in N Markee
(ed) Handbook of Classroom Discourse and
Interaction Wiley-Blackwell
Lee I S Kim S Yoon J Nam S Park
Y Hong and T Orr 2009 Middle School
English 2 Chun-Jae-Gyo-Yuk
Leech G 1983 Principles of Pragmatics Longman
McNamara T and C Roever 2006 Language
Testing The Social Dimension Blackwell
Nassaji H and J Tian 2010 lsquoCollaborative and
individual output tasks and their effects on
learning English phrasal verbsrsquo Language
Teaching Research 14 397ndash419
Nguyen TTM 2013 lsquoInstructional effects on
the acquisition of modifiers in constructive
criticisms by EFL learnersrsquo Language
Awareness 22 76ndash94
Payant C 2012 lsquoLearner-learner interaction
An exploration of the mediating functions of
multilingual learnersrsquo languages in an L3 for-
eign language classroomrsquo Unpublished disser-
tation Georgia State University
Roever C 2009 lsquoTeaching and testing pragmaticsrsquo
in M Long and C Doughty (eds) Handbook of
Language Teaching Wiley-Blackwell pp 560ndash77
Schmidt R 2001 lsquoAttentionrsquo in P Robinson
(ed) Cognition and Second Language Instruction
Cambridge University Press pp 3ndash32
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Storch N 2007 lsquoInvestigating the merits of pair
work on a text editing task in ESL classesrsquo
Language Teaching Research 2 143ndash59
Swain M 2006 lsquoLanguaging agency and col-
laboration in advanced second language
Proficiencyrsquo in H Byrnes (ed) Advanced
Language Learning The Contribution of Halliday
and Vygotsky Continuum pp 95ndash108
Swain M and S Lapkin 1998 lsquoInteraction
and second language learning Two adolescent
French immersion students working togetherrsquo
Modern Language Journal 82 320ndash37
Swain M and Y Watanabe 2013
lsquoCollaborative dialogue as a source of learningrsquo
in C Chapelle (ed) The Encyclopedia of Applied
Linguistics Wiley Blackwell
Taguchi N 2011 lsquoTeaching pragmatics Trends
and issuesrsquo Annual Review of Applied Linguistics
31 289ndash310
Taguchi N 2012 Context Individual
Differences and Pragmatic Competence
Multilingual Matter
Taguchi N forthcoming lsquoInstructed pragmatics
at a glance Where instructional studies were
are and should be going State-of-the-art art-
iclersquo Language Teaching
Takahashi S 1996 lsquoPragmatic transferabilityrsquo
Studies in Second Language Acquisition 18 189ndash223
Takahashi S 2010 lsquoAssessing learnability in
second language pragmaticsrsquo in A Trosborg
(ed) Handbook of Pragmatics VII Mouton de
Gruyter pp 391ndash421
Takimoto M 2012 lsquoMetapragmatic discussion
in interlanguage pragmaticsrsquo Journal of
Pragmatics 44 1240ndash53
Van den Branden K M Bygate and
J Norris (eds) 2009 Task-Based Language
Teaching A Reader John Benjamins Publishers
22 COLLABORATIVE DIALOGUE AND PRAGMATICS
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nloaded from
NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS
Naoko Taguchi is an associate professor in the Modern Languages Department at
Carnegie Mellon University where she teaches courses in SLA and Japanese language
and culture Her research interests include pragmatics classroom-based research and
English-medium instruction Address for correspondence Naoko Taguchi Carnegie Mellon
University Pittsburgh PA USA lttaguchiandrewcmuedugt
YouJin Kim is an assistant professor in the Department of Applied Linguistics and ESL at
Georgia State University Her primary research interests include instructed second lan-
guage acquisition task-based language teaching and assessment and structural prim-
ing Her research focuses on adolescent and adult English and Korean language
learners Address for correspondence YouJin Kim Georgia State University Atlanta
GA USA ltykim39gsuedugt
N TAGUCHI AND Y KIM 23
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Dow
nloaded from
z = 536 plt 001 (collaborative group) and z = 405 plt 001 (individual group)
The collaborative group further surpassed the individual group on the produc-
tion of mitigated preparatory z = 240 p = 016 However the benefit of this
condition disappeared at delayed posttest because there was no difference be-
tween the treatment groups z = 38 p = 71 In addition the KruskalndashWallis test
showed that there was no significant difference between the control and treat-
ment groups at delayed posttest 2 = 25 p = 884
In summary task-based instruction resulted in a strong effect on the learn-
ing of appropriate request head acts as found in the treatment groupsrsquo superior
performance at immediate posttest compared with that of non-instructional
condition However the effect did not last long as the treatment groups went
back to the level of the control group at delayed posttest Similarly the col-
laborative task was more effective than the individual task at the immediate
posttest but the effect disappeared 1 month later
Analysis of request modification
Tables 4ndash7 present frequency counts of request modifications that appeared in
DCT Preparators almost never appeared at pretest but they showed a large
increase in the two treatment groups at immediate posttest (Table 4) In con-
trast preparators were absent in the control group Both treatment groups
outperformed the control group at immediate and delayed posttest No differ-
ence was found between the collaborative and individual groups z = 176
Table 3 Request head act scores
Group Mean SD Minimum Maximum
Collaborative group (n = 25)
Pretest 336 122 200 400
Immediate posttest 1012 306 200 1200
Delayed posttest 432 236 200 1100
Individual group (n = 25)
Pretest 340 071 200 400
Immediate posttest 836 341 300 1200
Delayed posttest 488 273 100 1200
Control group (n = 24)
Pretest 375 043 300 400
Immediate posttest 383 047 200 400
Delayed posttest 388 044 200 400
Note Each student produced four PDR-high requests Each head act was scored on a 3-point
scale Score range = 0ndash12 Delayed posttest was given 1 month later
N TAGUCHI AND Y KIM 11
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p = 079 at pretest z = 097 p = 33 at immediate posttest and z = 012 p = 90 at
delayed posttest
The grounders showed different patterns they appeared in majority of the
items at pretest (see Table 5) indicating that the learners were already familiar
with this supportive move before the instruction because grounders appear in
Table 4 Frequency of preparators
Group Mean SD Minimum Maximum
Collaborative group (n = 25)
Pretest 028 061 000 200
Immediate posttest 276 151 000 400
Delayed posttest 228 172 000 400
Individual group (n = 25)
Pretest 004 020 000 100
Immediate posttest 316 131 000 400
Delayed posttest 236 173 000 400
Control group (n = 24)
Pretest 000 000 000 000
Immediate posttest 004 020 000 100
Delayed posttest 013 045 000 200
Note Mean = mean frequency of preparators in four PDR-high request items
Table 5 Frequency of grounders
Group Mean SD Minimum Maximum
Collaborative group (n = 25)
Pretest 336 081 100 400
Immediate posttest 336 095 100 400
Delayed posttest 356 096 000 400
Individual group (n = 25)
Pretest 324 088 200 400
Immediate posttest 332 075 200 400
Delayed posttest 340 087 100 400
Control group (n = 24)
Pretest 350 114 000 400
Immediate posttest 346 098 000 400
Delayed posttest 379 051 200 400
Note Mean = mean frequency of grounders in four PDR-high request items
12 COLLABORATIVE DIALOGUE AND PRAGMATICS
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Korean requests and the learners were able to transfer their L1-based strategy
Because of this ceiling effect there was no instructional effect The results of
the KruskalndashWallis test showed no significant difference in any of the test
sessions 2 = 274 p = 25 at pretest 2 = 121 p = 55 at immediate posttest
and 2= 355 p = 17 at delayed posttest5
Table 7 Frequency of amplifiers
Group Mean SD Minimum Maximum
Collaborative group (n = 25)
Pretest 016 047 000 200
Immediate posttest 092 119 000 400
Delayed posttest 028 054 000 200
Individual group (n = 25)
Pretest 036 064 000 200
Immediate posttest 124 109 000 400
Delayed posttest 044 077 000 200
Control group (n = 24)
Pretest 063 097 000 300
Immediate posttest 071 096 000 400
Delayed posttest 033 076 000 300
Note Mean = mean frequency of amplifiers in four PDR-high request items
Table 6 Frequency of hedging
Group Mean SD Minimum Maximum
Collaborative group (n = 25)
Pretest 000 000 000 000
Immediate posttest 168 149 000 400
Delayed posttest 012 060 000 300
Individual group (n = 25)
Pretest 000 000 000 000
Immediate posttest 140 153 000 400
Delayed posttest 028 098 000 400
Control group (n = 24)
Pretest 000 000 000 000
Immediate posttest 000 000 000 000
Delayed posttest 008 028 000 100
Note Mean = mean frequency of hedging in four PDR-high request items
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Compared with external modifications internal modifications (hedging and
amplifiers) were relatively underused It was absent in the pretest data There
was a noticeable increase at immediate posttest in the treatment groups but
the mean frequency was only moderate Although the frequency was not
particularly large we still note the instructional effect because the treatment
groups outperformed the control group at the immediate posttest 2 = 481
plt 0001 for the collaborative group and 2 = 422 plt 0001 for the individual
group However the effect was short-lived because no group difference was
found at delayed posttest (2 = 43 p = 81) When the two treatment groups
were compared there was no significant difference z = 73 p = 47 at immedi-
ate posttest or z = 61 p = 54 at delayed posttest
Amplifiers also showed very small occurrence at pretest but different from
hedging the frequency remained low throughout the time No instructional
effect was observed in the case of amplifiers as there was no significant group
difference at pretest (2 = 449 p = 11) immediate posttest (2 = 393 p = 14)
or delayed posttest (2 = 45 p = 80)
In summary frequency comparison of request modification across groups
revealed a mixed picture At pretest no group difference was found in any of
these modifications At immediate posttest both treatment groups surpassed
the control group on the production of preparators and hedging but not on the
use of grounders and amplifiers At delayed posttest the treatment groups
outperformed the control group on the production of the preparators only
Most importantly there was no significant difference between the collabora-
tive and individual group in any of these modifications These findings mark a
sharp contrast to those of request head acts in which the collaborative condi-
tion was more advantageous than the individual task condition in learnersrsquo
production of mitigated preparatory forms
Frequency of PREs and quality of treatment task performance
Table 8 reports descriptive statistics for the frequency of PREs Over the two
treatment sessions the individual group produced 1160 PREs on average
while the mean for the collaborative group was 1632 The MannndashWhitney
U test showed that the difference was significant (z =276 p = 006)
Regarding PREs on specific features there was no group difference on PREs
targeting the contextual features of request (z =92 p = 36) head acts
(z = 28 p = 78) or grounders (z = 70 p = 48) but a difference was found in
preparators (z = 465 plt 0001) amplifiers (z = 413 plt 0001) and hedging
(z = 296 p = 003) in favor of the collaborative group
We will turn to the analysis of learnersrsquo task outcome by examining their
accurate resolution of PREs We analyzed the outcome of the dialogue con-
struction tasks using the same scoring rubrics from the DCT analysis 0ndash3 point
scale for head acts and frequency count for modifications (9 maximum points
for three treatment tasks) The individual group scored a mean of 724
(SD = 145) whereas the collaborative group scored a mean of 828
14 COLLABORATIVE DIALOGUE AND PRAGMATICS
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nloaded from
(SD = 84) This difference was significant z =289 plt 0001 indicating that
the collaborative group resolved PREs more successfully than the individual
group and produced more accurate target head acts as task outcome In con-
trast frequency of other request modifications revealed no group difference
preparators z =143 p = 15 grounders z =182 p = 07 hedging z =95
p = 34 and amplifiers z =147 p = 14
Example 3 demonstrates a sample PRE by a pair in the collaborative group
Here the learners are negotiating the target head act form lsquoI was wondering ifrsquo
by attending to each otherrsquos form and providing feedback and confirmation
During this process the target form receives prominence through recycled use
over multiple turns The form is jointly constructed with both participants
contributing to the knowledge building This collaborative work eventually
leads to the production of the accurate target form as task outcome A by-
product of this process is likely the deeper level of processing of the form and
consolidation of pragmatic knowledge as suggested in the collaborative
grouprsquos superior performance at immediate posttest
Example 3 Correctly resolved PRE in the collaborative group
1 Learner 1 (Jaemyong left his Korean home-
work at home) (He
was asking whether he could go home to bring his homework during his
self-study session) (Then he should make a
request politely)
2 Learner 2 (Yes)
----several turns later----------------------------------------------
3 Learner 1 (We need to make a long
polite request) I was wondering
4 Learner 2 if I could go to
5 Learner 1 Go to the home (Is that lsquogo to the homersquo) Go to home
(Shouldnrsquot it be lsquogo to homersquo)
Table 8 Frequency of PREs
PREs targets Collaborative group (n = 25) Individual group (n = 25)
Mean SD Mean SD
Context 476 296 404 302
Head acts 296 1306 288 120
Preparators 252 087 088 105
Grounders 272 124 276 101
Amplifiers 184 111 052 077
Hedging 152 130 052 083
Total 1632 618 1160 548
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6 Learner 2 I am
7 Learner 1 I was wondering if I could go to go to
8 Learner 2 Go home
9 Learner 1 go home
The nature of the collaborative PREs contrasts with that of individual PREs
In Example 4 the learner is working by herself to resolve the PRE targeting lsquois
there any way that I couldrsquo She recognizes that this is the PDR-high request
and that she should use the mitigated preparatory form She produces the
target form once but without a peer attending to her form and giving feed-
back she goes back to the form that she is used to (lsquoCan Irsquo) resulting in the
production of non-target form as task outcome These instances of incorrectly
resolved PREs in the individual task group probably led to their underperform-
ance at immediate posttest compared with the collaborative group
Example 4 Incorrectly resolved PRE in the individual group
Learner 1 (I need to ask
whether I can go home to bring the assignment during self-study ses-
sion) uh may uh big request is there any way that I could uh
(then) Is there any way that I could possible homework my home-
work Can I can I go to my house to get my homework And can I go to
my house to get my homework (Is this right)
Summary of the findings
The learners who completed tasks collaboratively produced more PREs and
target-like request head acts than those who completed the tasks individually
during the task and again at immediate posttest However the benefit of the
collaborative group was short-lived because their performance was the same
with that of the individual group 1 month after the instruction The benefit of
collaborative tasks was also partial because there was no group difference in
the production of request modifications during the task or at immediate
posttest
DISCUSSION
Our findings contribute to the task-based literature by demonstrating the
benefits of collaborative tasks in improving pragmatics knowledge In the lit-
erature of instructed pragmatics our findings support previous studies on
metapragmatic discussion Takimoto (2012) found that collaborative dialogue
in a form of metapragmatic discussion gave learners access to information
about pragmatic features which eventually led to better control of pragmatic
knowledge than the condition where learners completed the task alone with
or without verbalization of the target features This study adds to these findings
16 COLLABORATIVE DIALOGUE AND PRAGMATICS
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because it documented the nature of collaborative dialogue operationalized as
PREsmdashhow often learners discussed pragmatics features in interaction and
whether interaction led to better task performance and linked these with
the development of pragmatic knowledge It became clear that collaborative
tasks generated more PREs than individual tasks PREs also contributed to
learnersrsquo accurate use of request head acts during treatment tasks which led
to their superior performance at immediate posttest Because the quantity of
PREs targeting head acts was similar between the collaborative and individual
groups the quality of PREs namely the extent to which learners resolved
PREs correctly was crucial for learning The present results support previous
findings of LREs studies (eg Payant 2012) and extended them to pragmatics
This study implemented collaborative dialogue through a form of PREs in
which learners interacted with their peers and jointly constructed a dialogue
that involved the target speech act During this process learners attended the
pragmalinguistic forms and semantic moves and their correspondence with
contextual features (relationship power and degree of imposition) Learners
in the individual task group also attended the target pragmatic forms and
verbalized them on their own as observed in PREs during thinking aloud
However negotiation with others was absent Without negotiation working
alone did not generate as many opportunities for attention to pragmatic forms
in context or recycled use of them as did the collaborative dialogue during
interactive tasks This finding was supported by the fact that the individual
group produced fewer PREs than the collaborative group during the treatment
tasks Metapragmatic talk around the target head acts modifications and con-
textual features occurred more frequently in the collaborative group
Negotiation of pragmatic forms and their meaning during the process of joint
task completion prompts a deeper level of cognitive processing that helps con-
solidate learnersrsquo pragmatic knowledge and their subsequent use of the know-
ledge Critically when learners produce language in a collaborative
environment they do not just produce output but they also have an oppor-
tunity to receive feedback from peers while trying to make their language
precise (Swain and Lapkin 1998 Swain 2006) During interaction learners
attend to each otherrsquos forms evaluate their accuracy and appropriateness
and offer feedback and corrections to each other In this process two levels
of monitoring self-monitoring and other-monitoring are occurring simultan-
eously which essentially promote more accurate high-quality task outcomes
Analyses of treatment task data confirmed this The collaborative grouprsquos re-
quest head acts (mitigated preparatory) in the dialogue construction task were
significantly more accurate than those of the individual group which was the
result of monitoring scaffolding and peer feedback that featured the process of
joint task completion
In sum learners completed tasks more successfully when they worked col-
laboratively and this successful task performance led to significantly greater
gains of the knowledge of appropriate request head acts The findings are
consistent with the results of previous findings that joint activities improved
N TAGUCHI AND Y KIM 17
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nloaded from
task performance in terms of the accurate production of the target linguistic
forms and subsequent learning of the forms (eg Storch 2007 Kim 2008) The
present study has advanced this body of literature by demonstrating that ef-
fects of collaborative tasks and PREs extend beyond grammar and vocabulary
PREs provide opportunities for pragmatic learning that involves a complex
mapping of formndashfunctionndashcontext
Although the efficacy of collaborative dialogue became clear in this study
questions remain as to why the effects were restricted to the request head acts
and did not extend to request modifications One possible interpretation of the
findings relates to the different assessment methods used for the head act and
modification Head acts were assessed using a scoring rubric that reflected both
appropriateness (choosing the target mitigated preparatory forms over other
request-making forms) and grammaticality (accuracy of the forms)
Modifications on the other hand were analyzed mainly on frequency of pro-
duction We made this decision because different from the head act that
occurs only once in a single speech act modifications typically co-occur over
multiple times In addition internal modifications used in this study were all
lexical involving only one word which made the analysis of grammaticality
irrelevant
It is possible that the collaborative dialogue made a difference when the
quality of pragmatic forms (accuracy and appropriateness) was considered
compared with simple quantity (frequency) As shown in the treatment task
data strength of the collaborative dialogue was observed in how learners scaf-
folded each other and provided feedback to each other while jointly carrying
out tasks It might be the case that these instances of negotiation and inter-
action occurring in the collaborative task pushed learners to a deeper level of
processing of the request head act which eventually helped them consolidate
their knowledge of both accuracy and appropriateness of the forms Because of
the linguistic complexity of the head act forms (bi-clausal structure) and the
more strenuous scoring method used to evaluate the forms learnersrsquo know-
ledge base had to be solid enough to allow retrieval and use of the knowledge
The collaborative condition that involved intensive attention negotiation
monitoring and peer feedback probably assisted the formation of this robust
knowledge Nevertheless both treatment conditions were equally effective on
the level of request modifications This might be due to the fact that the groups
were compared on the frequency of use (whether they were able to produce
them in an intelligible manner) not on the quality of use (absolute accuracy of
the forms)
These interpretations also corroborate with Takimotorsquos (2012) findings that
revealed the advantage of metapragmatic over non-metapragmatic discussion
on the acquisition of request Positive effects were found in the production-
based test (DCT) but not in the receptive-skills test (appropriateness judg-
ment) Takimoto attributed the findings to the relative ease of the receptive
task Participants without metapragmatic discussion were still able to cope with
judging appropriateness because the test posed lower demands than a
18 COLLABORATIVE DIALOGUE AND PRAGMATICS
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nloaded from
production task however they were not able to deal with the demand
coming from the DCT that required them to produce target forms accurately
and appropriately Because of the precise syntactic processing required in pro-
duction and resulting task demand learners benefitted more from metaprag-
matic discussion that assisted the consolidation of knowledge
Although the two treatment groups differed in their use of the request head
acts their performance was the same at the level of modifications Both groups
outperformed the control group in the production of preparators and hedging
right after the instruction as well as 1 month later in the case of preparators
These findings indicate a strong effect of instruction over non-instruction but
also reveal variation within the effect across modification types The strong
effect found in the preparators is probably due to the saliency of the prepara-
tors as semantic strategies Different from hedging or amplifiers that involve
precise pragmalinguistics preparators are part of the discourse moves that
characterize the structure of a request reflecting sociopragmatic information
Logistics and rituals of how to structure a request using preparators were prob-
ably easier to learn than the precise linguistics forms of a request and once
learned the knowledge stayed in the memory because of its saliency These
findings conform to the previous longitudinal findings that revealed that ac-
quisition of sociopragmatic rules (eg use of semantic strategies) is faster than
that of pragmalinguistic forms (Bardovi-Harlig and Hartford 1993 Taguchi
2012) The present findings confirmed this in an instructional study
LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY AND IMPLICATIONS FORFUTURE RESEARCH
This study is limited to a small number of individuals in a single L2 group a
single measure and a narrowly defined pragmatic target (request) Future
studies should involve a greater participant pool with wider target languages
and pragmatic measures and examine the development of different aspects of
pragmatic competence in relation to collaborative dialogue
Equally important is an investigation into individual differences and lear-
nersrsquo perceptions of instruction It is possible that not all learners had equal
amount of participation or contribution to the collaborative tasks which con-
sequently restricted their knowledge-building process It is also possible that
learners were not familiar with the type of instructional activities used in this
study and needed more time to get accustomed to the tasks in order to gain the
full benefit from them Two class periods were probably not enough time to
boost their robust learning Because this study did not address individual lear-
ner variation and learnersrsquo perceptions of their learning processes future stu-
dies are called for in this direction
Additionally although there has been a surge amount of research on task
design and task implementation in instructed SLA the learning of pragmatics
using a variety of collaborative tasks has not been explored Because this study
N TAGUCHI AND Y KIM 19
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used only one type of writing task future studies should explore task-related
variables to find ultimate task-based learning contexts for pragmatic
development
In the current study we used PREs as an analysis unit to determine the
amount of learnersrsquo attention to target pragmatic forms for both individual and
collaborative groups The results need to be interpreted with acknowledging
that the characteristics of PREs in these two groups might not be exactly
the same due to the different nature of task performance As a first step of
using PREs we focused on the overall frequency of PREs Future studies are
warranted to explore the quality of PREs (eg number of turnssentences per
PRE) to further our understanding of collaborative dialogue around prag-
matics Another limitation is that this study did not collect Supplementary
data such as stimulated verbal recall or interviews to understand actual cog-
nitive processing involved in PREs which should be explored in the future
research
Finally different effects of collaborative dialogue between the request head
acts and modifications found here need to be addressed more explicitly in the
future Learnability and teachability of pragmatic features have been discussed
in the literature pointing to the need for exploring the interaction among
instructional methods pragmatic targets and learner profiles (eg Roever
2009 Takahashi 2010 Taguhi 2011) Roever (2009) suggests that future re-
search should investigate what kinds of pragmatic features (eg syntactic miti-
gations and lexical downgraders) should be taught to what types of learners
(in terms of proficiency or other individual characteristics) using what kinds of
intervention methods (eg interaction vs non-interaction) Taguchi (forth-
coming) adds characteristics of assessment methods to this call because instruc-
tional effects diverge substantially depending on the demands involved
in the assessment measures Collaborative dialogue and PREs could serve
as a fruitful area to investigate this interaction among pragmatic targets in-
structional methods learnersrsquo instructional readiness and assessment
measures
SUPPLEMENTARY DATA
Supplementary material is available at Applied Linguistics online
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We are grateful for three anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on earlier versions of
the manuscript Special thanks also go to our research assistants Feng Xiao Franklin Bradfield
Sharon Kim and YeonJoo Jung for their help with data analysis We are responsible for all the
errors that may remain
Conflict of interest statement None declared
20 COLLABORATIVE DIALOGUE AND PRAGMATICS
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NOTES
1 We acknowledge the limitation of not
using video-recorded authentic prag-
matic materials
2 One of the reviewers stated that the au-
thenticity of tasks should be based on
whether situations happen in the
target culture We agree with this con-
cern However being familiar with
given contexts is crucial for the partici-
pants to be able to analyze the contexts
and discuss the pragmatic-related issues
Because making requests in both
Korean and English follow similar
discourse patterns we decided that it
was appropriate to use context-specific
scenarios (situations in Korea) in the
study
3 Missing responses occupied about 3
percent of the data
4 We conducted additional analysis with
analysis of covariance with proficiency
measured by TOEIC Bridge test as cov-
ariate Results were the same
5 This study did not analyze content of
the grounders because content was
fixed provided in the DCT scenarios
REFERENCES
Bardovi-Harlig K and B Hartford 1993
lsquoLearning the rules of academic talk A
longitudinal study of pragmatic changersquo
Studies in Second Language Acquisition 15
279ndash304
Blum-Kulka S J House and G Kasper
1989 Cross-Cultural Pragmatics Requests and
Apologies Ablex
Brown P and S Levinson 1987 Politeness
Cambridge University Press
Golato A 2003 lsquoStudying complement re-
sponses A comparison of DCTs and recordings
of naturally occurring talkrsquo Applied Linguistics
24 90ndash121
DeKeyser R 2007 lsquoSkill acquisition theoryrsquo
in B VanPatten and J Williams (eds)
Theories in Second Language Acquisition An
Introduction Lawrence Erlbaum Associates
Publishers pp 94ndash113
Jeon E -H and T Kaya 2006 lsquoEffects of L2
instruction on interlanguage pragmatic devel-
opmentrsquo in N John and L Ortega (eds)
Synthesizing Research on Language Learning and
Teaching John Benjamins pp 165ndash211
Kasper G 2001 lsquoClassroom research on inter-
language pragmaticsrsquo in K Rose and G Kasper
(eds) Pragmatics in Language Teaching
Cambridge University Press pp 33ndash62
Kim Y 2008 lsquoThe contribution of collaborative
and individual tasks to the acquisition of L2
vocabularyrsquo Modern Language Journal 92
113ndash40
Kim Y 2013 lsquoEffects of pretask modeling on
attention to form and question developmentrsquo
TESOL Quarterly 47 8ndash35
Kim Y in press lsquoThe role of tasks as vehicles for
learning in classroom interactionrsquo in N Markee
(ed) Handbook of Classroom Discourse and
Interaction Wiley-Blackwell
Lee I S Kim S Yoon J Nam S Park
Y Hong and T Orr 2009 Middle School
English 2 Chun-Jae-Gyo-Yuk
Leech G 1983 Principles of Pragmatics Longman
McNamara T and C Roever 2006 Language
Testing The Social Dimension Blackwell
Nassaji H and J Tian 2010 lsquoCollaborative and
individual output tasks and their effects on
learning English phrasal verbsrsquo Language
Teaching Research 14 397ndash419
Nguyen TTM 2013 lsquoInstructional effects on
the acquisition of modifiers in constructive
criticisms by EFL learnersrsquo Language
Awareness 22 76ndash94
Payant C 2012 lsquoLearner-learner interaction
An exploration of the mediating functions of
multilingual learnersrsquo languages in an L3 for-
eign language classroomrsquo Unpublished disser-
tation Georgia State University
Roever C 2009 lsquoTeaching and testing pragmaticsrsquo
in M Long and C Doughty (eds) Handbook of
Language Teaching Wiley-Blackwell pp 560ndash77
Schmidt R 2001 lsquoAttentionrsquo in P Robinson
(ed) Cognition and Second Language Instruction
Cambridge University Press pp 3ndash32
N TAGUCHI AND Y KIM 21
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Storch N 2007 lsquoInvestigating the merits of pair
work on a text editing task in ESL classesrsquo
Language Teaching Research 2 143ndash59
Swain M 2006 lsquoLanguaging agency and col-
laboration in advanced second language
Proficiencyrsquo in H Byrnes (ed) Advanced
Language Learning The Contribution of Halliday
and Vygotsky Continuum pp 95ndash108
Swain M and S Lapkin 1998 lsquoInteraction
and second language learning Two adolescent
French immersion students working togetherrsquo
Modern Language Journal 82 320ndash37
Swain M and Y Watanabe 2013
lsquoCollaborative dialogue as a source of learningrsquo
in C Chapelle (ed) The Encyclopedia of Applied
Linguistics Wiley Blackwell
Taguchi N 2011 lsquoTeaching pragmatics Trends
and issuesrsquo Annual Review of Applied Linguistics
31 289ndash310
Taguchi N 2012 Context Individual
Differences and Pragmatic Competence
Multilingual Matter
Taguchi N forthcoming lsquoInstructed pragmatics
at a glance Where instructional studies were
are and should be going State-of-the-art art-
iclersquo Language Teaching
Takahashi S 1996 lsquoPragmatic transferabilityrsquo
Studies in Second Language Acquisition 18 189ndash223
Takahashi S 2010 lsquoAssessing learnability in
second language pragmaticsrsquo in A Trosborg
(ed) Handbook of Pragmatics VII Mouton de
Gruyter pp 391ndash421
Takimoto M 2012 lsquoMetapragmatic discussion
in interlanguage pragmaticsrsquo Journal of
Pragmatics 44 1240ndash53
Van den Branden K M Bygate and
J Norris (eds) 2009 Task-Based Language
Teaching A Reader John Benjamins Publishers
22 COLLABORATIVE DIALOGUE AND PRAGMATICS
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nloaded from
NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS
Naoko Taguchi is an associate professor in the Modern Languages Department at
Carnegie Mellon University where she teaches courses in SLA and Japanese language
and culture Her research interests include pragmatics classroom-based research and
English-medium instruction Address for correspondence Naoko Taguchi Carnegie Mellon
University Pittsburgh PA USA lttaguchiandrewcmuedugt
YouJin Kim is an assistant professor in the Department of Applied Linguistics and ESL at
Georgia State University Her primary research interests include instructed second lan-
guage acquisition task-based language teaching and assessment and structural prim-
ing Her research focuses on adolescent and adult English and Korean language
learners Address for correspondence YouJin Kim Georgia State University Atlanta
GA USA ltykim39gsuedugt
N TAGUCHI AND Y KIM 23
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Dow
nloaded from
p = 079 at pretest z = 097 p = 33 at immediate posttest and z = 012 p = 90 at
delayed posttest
The grounders showed different patterns they appeared in majority of the
items at pretest (see Table 5) indicating that the learners were already familiar
with this supportive move before the instruction because grounders appear in
Table 4 Frequency of preparators
Group Mean SD Minimum Maximum
Collaborative group (n = 25)
Pretest 028 061 000 200
Immediate posttest 276 151 000 400
Delayed posttest 228 172 000 400
Individual group (n = 25)
Pretest 004 020 000 100
Immediate posttest 316 131 000 400
Delayed posttest 236 173 000 400
Control group (n = 24)
Pretest 000 000 000 000
Immediate posttest 004 020 000 100
Delayed posttest 013 045 000 200
Note Mean = mean frequency of preparators in four PDR-high request items
Table 5 Frequency of grounders
Group Mean SD Minimum Maximum
Collaborative group (n = 25)
Pretest 336 081 100 400
Immediate posttest 336 095 100 400
Delayed posttest 356 096 000 400
Individual group (n = 25)
Pretest 324 088 200 400
Immediate posttest 332 075 200 400
Delayed posttest 340 087 100 400
Control group (n = 24)
Pretest 350 114 000 400
Immediate posttest 346 098 000 400
Delayed posttest 379 051 200 400
Note Mean = mean frequency of grounders in four PDR-high request items
12 COLLABORATIVE DIALOGUE AND PRAGMATICS
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nloaded from
Korean requests and the learners were able to transfer their L1-based strategy
Because of this ceiling effect there was no instructional effect The results of
the KruskalndashWallis test showed no significant difference in any of the test
sessions 2 = 274 p = 25 at pretest 2 = 121 p = 55 at immediate posttest
and 2= 355 p = 17 at delayed posttest5
Table 7 Frequency of amplifiers
Group Mean SD Minimum Maximum
Collaborative group (n = 25)
Pretest 016 047 000 200
Immediate posttest 092 119 000 400
Delayed posttest 028 054 000 200
Individual group (n = 25)
Pretest 036 064 000 200
Immediate posttest 124 109 000 400
Delayed posttest 044 077 000 200
Control group (n = 24)
Pretest 063 097 000 300
Immediate posttest 071 096 000 400
Delayed posttest 033 076 000 300
Note Mean = mean frequency of amplifiers in four PDR-high request items
Table 6 Frequency of hedging
Group Mean SD Minimum Maximum
Collaborative group (n = 25)
Pretest 000 000 000 000
Immediate posttest 168 149 000 400
Delayed posttest 012 060 000 300
Individual group (n = 25)
Pretest 000 000 000 000
Immediate posttest 140 153 000 400
Delayed posttest 028 098 000 400
Control group (n = 24)
Pretest 000 000 000 000
Immediate posttest 000 000 000 000
Delayed posttest 008 028 000 100
Note Mean = mean frequency of hedging in four PDR-high request items
N TAGUCHI AND Y KIM 13
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Compared with external modifications internal modifications (hedging and
amplifiers) were relatively underused It was absent in the pretest data There
was a noticeable increase at immediate posttest in the treatment groups but
the mean frequency was only moderate Although the frequency was not
particularly large we still note the instructional effect because the treatment
groups outperformed the control group at the immediate posttest 2 = 481
plt 0001 for the collaborative group and 2 = 422 plt 0001 for the individual
group However the effect was short-lived because no group difference was
found at delayed posttest (2 = 43 p = 81) When the two treatment groups
were compared there was no significant difference z = 73 p = 47 at immedi-
ate posttest or z = 61 p = 54 at delayed posttest
Amplifiers also showed very small occurrence at pretest but different from
hedging the frequency remained low throughout the time No instructional
effect was observed in the case of amplifiers as there was no significant group
difference at pretest (2 = 449 p = 11) immediate posttest (2 = 393 p = 14)
or delayed posttest (2 = 45 p = 80)
In summary frequency comparison of request modification across groups
revealed a mixed picture At pretest no group difference was found in any of
these modifications At immediate posttest both treatment groups surpassed
the control group on the production of preparators and hedging but not on the
use of grounders and amplifiers At delayed posttest the treatment groups
outperformed the control group on the production of the preparators only
Most importantly there was no significant difference between the collabora-
tive and individual group in any of these modifications These findings mark a
sharp contrast to those of request head acts in which the collaborative condi-
tion was more advantageous than the individual task condition in learnersrsquo
production of mitigated preparatory forms
Frequency of PREs and quality of treatment task performance
Table 8 reports descriptive statistics for the frequency of PREs Over the two
treatment sessions the individual group produced 1160 PREs on average
while the mean for the collaborative group was 1632 The MannndashWhitney
U test showed that the difference was significant (z =276 p = 006)
Regarding PREs on specific features there was no group difference on PREs
targeting the contextual features of request (z =92 p = 36) head acts
(z = 28 p = 78) or grounders (z = 70 p = 48) but a difference was found in
preparators (z = 465 plt 0001) amplifiers (z = 413 plt 0001) and hedging
(z = 296 p = 003) in favor of the collaborative group
We will turn to the analysis of learnersrsquo task outcome by examining their
accurate resolution of PREs We analyzed the outcome of the dialogue con-
struction tasks using the same scoring rubrics from the DCT analysis 0ndash3 point
scale for head acts and frequency count for modifications (9 maximum points
for three treatment tasks) The individual group scored a mean of 724
(SD = 145) whereas the collaborative group scored a mean of 828
14 COLLABORATIVE DIALOGUE AND PRAGMATICS
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nloaded from
(SD = 84) This difference was significant z =289 plt 0001 indicating that
the collaborative group resolved PREs more successfully than the individual
group and produced more accurate target head acts as task outcome In con-
trast frequency of other request modifications revealed no group difference
preparators z =143 p = 15 grounders z =182 p = 07 hedging z =95
p = 34 and amplifiers z =147 p = 14
Example 3 demonstrates a sample PRE by a pair in the collaborative group
Here the learners are negotiating the target head act form lsquoI was wondering ifrsquo
by attending to each otherrsquos form and providing feedback and confirmation
During this process the target form receives prominence through recycled use
over multiple turns The form is jointly constructed with both participants
contributing to the knowledge building This collaborative work eventually
leads to the production of the accurate target form as task outcome A by-
product of this process is likely the deeper level of processing of the form and
consolidation of pragmatic knowledge as suggested in the collaborative
grouprsquos superior performance at immediate posttest
Example 3 Correctly resolved PRE in the collaborative group
1 Learner 1 (Jaemyong left his Korean home-
work at home) (He
was asking whether he could go home to bring his homework during his
self-study session) (Then he should make a
request politely)
2 Learner 2 (Yes)
----several turns later----------------------------------------------
3 Learner 1 (We need to make a long
polite request) I was wondering
4 Learner 2 if I could go to
5 Learner 1 Go to the home (Is that lsquogo to the homersquo) Go to home
(Shouldnrsquot it be lsquogo to homersquo)
Table 8 Frequency of PREs
PREs targets Collaborative group (n = 25) Individual group (n = 25)
Mean SD Mean SD
Context 476 296 404 302
Head acts 296 1306 288 120
Preparators 252 087 088 105
Grounders 272 124 276 101
Amplifiers 184 111 052 077
Hedging 152 130 052 083
Total 1632 618 1160 548
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6 Learner 2 I am
7 Learner 1 I was wondering if I could go to go to
8 Learner 2 Go home
9 Learner 1 go home
The nature of the collaborative PREs contrasts with that of individual PREs
In Example 4 the learner is working by herself to resolve the PRE targeting lsquois
there any way that I couldrsquo She recognizes that this is the PDR-high request
and that she should use the mitigated preparatory form She produces the
target form once but without a peer attending to her form and giving feed-
back she goes back to the form that she is used to (lsquoCan Irsquo) resulting in the
production of non-target form as task outcome These instances of incorrectly
resolved PREs in the individual task group probably led to their underperform-
ance at immediate posttest compared with the collaborative group
Example 4 Incorrectly resolved PRE in the individual group
Learner 1 (I need to ask
whether I can go home to bring the assignment during self-study ses-
sion) uh may uh big request is there any way that I could uh
(then) Is there any way that I could possible homework my home-
work Can I can I go to my house to get my homework And can I go to
my house to get my homework (Is this right)
Summary of the findings
The learners who completed tasks collaboratively produced more PREs and
target-like request head acts than those who completed the tasks individually
during the task and again at immediate posttest However the benefit of the
collaborative group was short-lived because their performance was the same
with that of the individual group 1 month after the instruction The benefit of
collaborative tasks was also partial because there was no group difference in
the production of request modifications during the task or at immediate
posttest
DISCUSSION
Our findings contribute to the task-based literature by demonstrating the
benefits of collaborative tasks in improving pragmatics knowledge In the lit-
erature of instructed pragmatics our findings support previous studies on
metapragmatic discussion Takimoto (2012) found that collaborative dialogue
in a form of metapragmatic discussion gave learners access to information
about pragmatic features which eventually led to better control of pragmatic
knowledge than the condition where learners completed the task alone with
or without verbalization of the target features This study adds to these findings
16 COLLABORATIVE DIALOGUE AND PRAGMATICS
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because it documented the nature of collaborative dialogue operationalized as
PREsmdashhow often learners discussed pragmatics features in interaction and
whether interaction led to better task performance and linked these with
the development of pragmatic knowledge It became clear that collaborative
tasks generated more PREs than individual tasks PREs also contributed to
learnersrsquo accurate use of request head acts during treatment tasks which led
to their superior performance at immediate posttest Because the quantity of
PREs targeting head acts was similar between the collaborative and individual
groups the quality of PREs namely the extent to which learners resolved
PREs correctly was crucial for learning The present results support previous
findings of LREs studies (eg Payant 2012) and extended them to pragmatics
This study implemented collaborative dialogue through a form of PREs in
which learners interacted with their peers and jointly constructed a dialogue
that involved the target speech act During this process learners attended the
pragmalinguistic forms and semantic moves and their correspondence with
contextual features (relationship power and degree of imposition) Learners
in the individual task group also attended the target pragmatic forms and
verbalized them on their own as observed in PREs during thinking aloud
However negotiation with others was absent Without negotiation working
alone did not generate as many opportunities for attention to pragmatic forms
in context or recycled use of them as did the collaborative dialogue during
interactive tasks This finding was supported by the fact that the individual
group produced fewer PREs than the collaborative group during the treatment
tasks Metapragmatic talk around the target head acts modifications and con-
textual features occurred more frequently in the collaborative group
Negotiation of pragmatic forms and their meaning during the process of joint
task completion prompts a deeper level of cognitive processing that helps con-
solidate learnersrsquo pragmatic knowledge and their subsequent use of the know-
ledge Critically when learners produce language in a collaborative
environment they do not just produce output but they also have an oppor-
tunity to receive feedback from peers while trying to make their language
precise (Swain and Lapkin 1998 Swain 2006) During interaction learners
attend to each otherrsquos forms evaluate their accuracy and appropriateness
and offer feedback and corrections to each other In this process two levels
of monitoring self-monitoring and other-monitoring are occurring simultan-
eously which essentially promote more accurate high-quality task outcomes
Analyses of treatment task data confirmed this The collaborative grouprsquos re-
quest head acts (mitigated preparatory) in the dialogue construction task were
significantly more accurate than those of the individual group which was the
result of monitoring scaffolding and peer feedback that featured the process of
joint task completion
In sum learners completed tasks more successfully when they worked col-
laboratively and this successful task performance led to significantly greater
gains of the knowledge of appropriate request head acts The findings are
consistent with the results of previous findings that joint activities improved
N TAGUCHI AND Y KIM 17
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nloaded from
task performance in terms of the accurate production of the target linguistic
forms and subsequent learning of the forms (eg Storch 2007 Kim 2008) The
present study has advanced this body of literature by demonstrating that ef-
fects of collaborative tasks and PREs extend beyond grammar and vocabulary
PREs provide opportunities for pragmatic learning that involves a complex
mapping of formndashfunctionndashcontext
Although the efficacy of collaborative dialogue became clear in this study
questions remain as to why the effects were restricted to the request head acts
and did not extend to request modifications One possible interpretation of the
findings relates to the different assessment methods used for the head act and
modification Head acts were assessed using a scoring rubric that reflected both
appropriateness (choosing the target mitigated preparatory forms over other
request-making forms) and grammaticality (accuracy of the forms)
Modifications on the other hand were analyzed mainly on frequency of pro-
duction We made this decision because different from the head act that
occurs only once in a single speech act modifications typically co-occur over
multiple times In addition internal modifications used in this study were all
lexical involving only one word which made the analysis of grammaticality
irrelevant
It is possible that the collaborative dialogue made a difference when the
quality of pragmatic forms (accuracy and appropriateness) was considered
compared with simple quantity (frequency) As shown in the treatment task
data strength of the collaborative dialogue was observed in how learners scaf-
folded each other and provided feedback to each other while jointly carrying
out tasks It might be the case that these instances of negotiation and inter-
action occurring in the collaborative task pushed learners to a deeper level of
processing of the request head act which eventually helped them consolidate
their knowledge of both accuracy and appropriateness of the forms Because of
the linguistic complexity of the head act forms (bi-clausal structure) and the
more strenuous scoring method used to evaluate the forms learnersrsquo know-
ledge base had to be solid enough to allow retrieval and use of the knowledge
The collaborative condition that involved intensive attention negotiation
monitoring and peer feedback probably assisted the formation of this robust
knowledge Nevertheless both treatment conditions were equally effective on
the level of request modifications This might be due to the fact that the groups
were compared on the frequency of use (whether they were able to produce
them in an intelligible manner) not on the quality of use (absolute accuracy of
the forms)
These interpretations also corroborate with Takimotorsquos (2012) findings that
revealed the advantage of metapragmatic over non-metapragmatic discussion
on the acquisition of request Positive effects were found in the production-
based test (DCT) but not in the receptive-skills test (appropriateness judg-
ment) Takimoto attributed the findings to the relative ease of the receptive
task Participants without metapragmatic discussion were still able to cope with
judging appropriateness because the test posed lower demands than a
18 COLLABORATIVE DIALOGUE AND PRAGMATICS
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nloaded from
production task however they were not able to deal with the demand
coming from the DCT that required them to produce target forms accurately
and appropriately Because of the precise syntactic processing required in pro-
duction and resulting task demand learners benefitted more from metaprag-
matic discussion that assisted the consolidation of knowledge
Although the two treatment groups differed in their use of the request head
acts their performance was the same at the level of modifications Both groups
outperformed the control group in the production of preparators and hedging
right after the instruction as well as 1 month later in the case of preparators
These findings indicate a strong effect of instruction over non-instruction but
also reveal variation within the effect across modification types The strong
effect found in the preparators is probably due to the saliency of the prepara-
tors as semantic strategies Different from hedging or amplifiers that involve
precise pragmalinguistics preparators are part of the discourse moves that
characterize the structure of a request reflecting sociopragmatic information
Logistics and rituals of how to structure a request using preparators were prob-
ably easier to learn than the precise linguistics forms of a request and once
learned the knowledge stayed in the memory because of its saliency These
findings conform to the previous longitudinal findings that revealed that ac-
quisition of sociopragmatic rules (eg use of semantic strategies) is faster than
that of pragmalinguistic forms (Bardovi-Harlig and Hartford 1993 Taguchi
2012) The present findings confirmed this in an instructional study
LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY AND IMPLICATIONS FORFUTURE RESEARCH
This study is limited to a small number of individuals in a single L2 group a
single measure and a narrowly defined pragmatic target (request) Future
studies should involve a greater participant pool with wider target languages
and pragmatic measures and examine the development of different aspects of
pragmatic competence in relation to collaborative dialogue
Equally important is an investigation into individual differences and lear-
nersrsquo perceptions of instruction It is possible that not all learners had equal
amount of participation or contribution to the collaborative tasks which con-
sequently restricted their knowledge-building process It is also possible that
learners were not familiar with the type of instructional activities used in this
study and needed more time to get accustomed to the tasks in order to gain the
full benefit from them Two class periods were probably not enough time to
boost their robust learning Because this study did not address individual lear-
ner variation and learnersrsquo perceptions of their learning processes future stu-
dies are called for in this direction
Additionally although there has been a surge amount of research on task
design and task implementation in instructed SLA the learning of pragmatics
using a variety of collaborative tasks has not been explored Because this study
N TAGUCHI AND Y KIM 19
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used only one type of writing task future studies should explore task-related
variables to find ultimate task-based learning contexts for pragmatic
development
In the current study we used PREs as an analysis unit to determine the
amount of learnersrsquo attention to target pragmatic forms for both individual and
collaborative groups The results need to be interpreted with acknowledging
that the characteristics of PREs in these two groups might not be exactly
the same due to the different nature of task performance As a first step of
using PREs we focused on the overall frequency of PREs Future studies are
warranted to explore the quality of PREs (eg number of turnssentences per
PRE) to further our understanding of collaborative dialogue around prag-
matics Another limitation is that this study did not collect Supplementary
data such as stimulated verbal recall or interviews to understand actual cog-
nitive processing involved in PREs which should be explored in the future
research
Finally different effects of collaborative dialogue between the request head
acts and modifications found here need to be addressed more explicitly in the
future Learnability and teachability of pragmatic features have been discussed
in the literature pointing to the need for exploring the interaction among
instructional methods pragmatic targets and learner profiles (eg Roever
2009 Takahashi 2010 Taguhi 2011) Roever (2009) suggests that future re-
search should investigate what kinds of pragmatic features (eg syntactic miti-
gations and lexical downgraders) should be taught to what types of learners
(in terms of proficiency or other individual characteristics) using what kinds of
intervention methods (eg interaction vs non-interaction) Taguchi (forth-
coming) adds characteristics of assessment methods to this call because instruc-
tional effects diverge substantially depending on the demands involved
in the assessment measures Collaborative dialogue and PREs could serve
as a fruitful area to investigate this interaction among pragmatic targets in-
structional methods learnersrsquo instructional readiness and assessment
measures
SUPPLEMENTARY DATA
Supplementary material is available at Applied Linguistics online
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We are grateful for three anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on earlier versions of
the manuscript Special thanks also go to our research assistants Feng Xiao Franklin Bradfield
Sharon Kim and YeonJoo Jung for their help with data analysis We are responsible for all the
errors that may remain
Conflict of interest statement None declared
20 COLLABORATIVE DIALOGUE AND PRAGMATICS
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NOTES
1 We acknowledge the limitation of not
using video-recorded authentic prag-
matic materials
2 One of the reviewers stated that the au-
thenticity of tasks should be based on
whether situations happen in the
target culture We agree with this con-
cern However being familiar with
given contexts is crucial for the partici-
pants to be able to analyze the contexts
and discuss the pragmatic-related issues
Because making requests in both
Korean and English follow similar
discourse patterns we decided that it
was appropriate to use context-specific
scenarios (situations in Korea) in the
study
3 Missing responses occupied about 3
percent of the data
4 We conducted additional analysis with
analysis of covariance with proficiency
measured by TOEIC Bridge test as cov-
ariate Results were the same
5 This study did not analyze content of
the grounders because content was
fixed provided in the DCT scenarios
REFERENCES
Bardovi-Harlig K and B Hartford 1993
lsquoLearning the rules of academic talk A
longitudinal study of pragmatic changersquo
Studies in Second Language Acquisition 15
279ndash304
Blum-Kulka S J House and G Kasper
1989 Cross-Cultural Pragmatics Requests and
Apologies Ablex
Brown P and S Levinson 1987 Politeness
Cambridge University Press
Golato A 2003 lsquoStudying complement re-
sponses A comparison of DCTs and recordings
of naturally occurring talkrsquo Applied Linguistics
24 90ndash121
DeKeyser R 2007 lsquoSkill acquisition theoryrsquo
in B VanPatten and J Williams (eds)
Theories in Second Language Acquisition An
Introduction Lawrence Erlbaum Associates
Publishers pp 94ndash113
Jeon E -H and T Kaya 2006 lsquoEffects of L2
instruction on interlanguage pragmatic devel-
opmentrsquo in N John and L Ortega (eds)
Synthesizing Research on Language Learning and
Teaching John Benjamins pp 165ndash211
Kasper G 2001 lsquoClassroom research on inter-
language pragmaticsrsquo in K Rose and G Kasper
(eds) Pragmatics in Language Teaching
Cambridge University Press pp 33ndash62
Kim Y 2008 lsquoThe contribution of collaborative
and individual tasks to the acquisition of L2
vocabularyrsquo Modern Language Journal 92
113ndash40
Kim Y 2013 lsquoEffects of pretask modeling on
attention to form and question developmentrsquo
TESOL Quarterly 47 8ndash35
Kim Y in press lsquoThe role of tasks as vehicles for
learning in classroom interactionrsquo in N Markee
(ed) Handbook of Classroom Discourse and
Interaction Wiley-Blackwell
Lee I S Kim S Yoon J Nam S Park
Y Hong and T Orr 2009 Middle School
English 2 Chun-Jae-Gyo-Yuk
Leech G 1983 Principles of Pragmatics Longman
McNamara T and C Roever 2006 Language
Testing The Social Dimension Blackwell
Nassaji H and J Tian 2010 lsquoCollaborative and
individual output tasks and their effects on
learning English phrasal verbsrsquo Language
Teaching Research 14 397ndash419
Nguyen TTM 2013 lsquoInstructional effects on
the acquisition of modifiers in constructive
criticisms by EFL learnersrsquo Language
Awareness 22 76ndash94
Payant C 2012 lsquoLearner-learner interaction
An exploration of the mediating functions of
multilingual learnersrsquo languages in an L3 for-
eign language classroomrsquo Unpublished disser-
tation Georgia State University
Roever C 2009 lsquoTeaching and testing pragmaticsrsquo
in M Long and C Doughty (eds) Handbook of
Language Teaching Wiley-Blackwell pp 560ndash77
Schmidt R 2001 lsquoAttentionrsquo in P Robinson
(ed) Cognition and Second Language Instruction
Cambridge University Press pp 3ndash32
N TAGUCHI AND Y KIM 21
by guest on July 30 2014httpapplijoxfordjournalsorg
Dow
nloaded from
Storch N 2007 lsquoInvestigating the merits of pair
work on a text editing task in ESL classesrsquo
Language Teaching Research 2 143ndash59
Swain M 2006 lsquoLanguaging agency and col-
laboration in advanced second language
Proficiencyrsquo in H Byrnes (ed) Advanced
Language Learning The Contribution of Halliday
and Vygotsky Continuum pp 95ndash108
Swain M and S Lapkin 1998 lsquoInteraction
and second language learning Two adolescent
French immersion students working togetherrsquo
Modern Language Journal 82 320ndash37
Swain M and Y Watanabe 2013
lsquoCollaborative dialogue as a source of learningrsquo
in C Chapelle (ed) The Encyclopedia of Applied
Linguistics Wiley Blackwell
Taguchi N 2011 lsquoTeaching pragmatics Trends
and issuesrsquo Annual Review of Applied Linguistics
31 289ndash310
Taguchi N 2012 Context Individual
Differences and Pragmatic Competence
Multilingual Matter
Taguchi N forthcoming lsquoInstructed pragmatics
at a glance Where instructional studies were
are and should be going State-of-the-art art-
iclersquo Language Teaching
Takahashi S 1996 lsquoPragmatic transferabilityrsquo
Studies in Second Language Acquisition 18 189ndash223
Takahashi S 2010 lsquoAssessing learnability in
second language pragmaticsrsquo in A Trosborg
(ed) Handbook of Pragmatics VII Mouton de
Gruyter pp 391ndash421
Takimoto M 2012 lsquoMetapragmatic discussion
in interlanguage pragmaticsrsquo Journal of
Pragmatics 44 1240ndash53
Van den Branden K M Bygate and
J Norris (eds) 2009 Task-Based Language
Teaching A Reader John Benjamins Publishers
22 COLLABORATIVE DIALOGUE AND PRAGMATICS
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nloaded from
NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS
Naoko Taguchi is an associate professor in the Modern Languages Department at
Carnegie Mellon University where she teaches courses in SLA and Japanese language
and culture Her research interests include pragmatics classroom-based research and
English-medium instruction Address for correspondence Naoko Taguchi Carnegie Mellon
University Pittsburgh PA USA lttaguchiandrewcmuedugt
YouJin Kim is an assistant professor in the Department of Applied Linguistics and ESL at
Georgia State University Her primary research interests include instructed second lan-
guage acquisition task-based language teaching and assessment and structural prim-
ing Her research focuses on adolescent and adult English and Korean language
learners Address for correspondence YouJin Kim Georgia State University Atlanta
GA USA ltykim39gsuedugt
N TAGUCHI AND Y KIM 23
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Dow
nloaded from
Korean requests and the learners were able to transfer their L1-based strategy
Because of this ceiling effect there was no instructional effect The results of
the KruskalndashWallis test showed no significant difference in any of the test
sessions 2 = 274 p = 25 at pretest 2 = 121 p = 55 at immediate posttest
and 2= 355 p = 17 at delayed posttest5
Table 7 Frequency of amplifiers
Group Mean SD Minimum Maximum
Collaborative group (n = 25)
Pretest 016 047 000 200
Immediate posttest 092 119 000 400
Delayed posttest 028 054 000 200
Individual group (n = 25)
Pretest 036 064 000 200
Immediate posttest 124 109 000 400
Delayed posttest 044 077 000 200
Control group (n = 24)
Pretest 063 097 000 300
Immediate posttest 071 096 000 400
Delayed posttest 033 076 000 300
Note Mean = mean frequency of amplifiers in four PDR-high request items
Table 6 Frequency of hedging
Group Mean SD Minimum Maximum
Collaborative group (n = 25)
Pretest 000 000 000 000
Immediate posttest 168 149 000 400
Delayed posttest 012 060 000 300
Individual group (n = 25)
Pretest 000 000 000 000
Immediate posttest 140 153 000 400
Delayed posttest 028 098 000 400
Control group (n = 24)
Pretest 000 000 000 000
Immediate posttest 000 000 000 000
Delayed posttest 008 028 000 100
Note Mean = mean frequency of hedging in four PDR-high request items
N TAGUCHI AND Y KIM 13
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nloaded from
Compared with external modifications internal modifications (hedging and
amplifiers) were relatively underused It was absent in the pretest data There
was a noticeable increase at immediate posttest in the treatment groups but
the mean frequency was only moderate Although the frequency was not
particularly large we still note the instructional effect because the treatment
groups outperformed the control group at the immediate posttest 2 = 481
plt 0001 for the collaborative group and 2 = 422 plt 0001 for the individual
group However the effect was short-lived because no group difference was
found at delayed posttest (2 = 43 p = 81) When the two treatment groups
were compared there was no significant difference z = 73 p = 47 at immedi-
ate posttest or z = 61 p = 54 at delayed posttest
Amplifiers also showed very small occurrence at pretest but different from
hedging the frequency remained low throughout the time No instructional
effect was observed in the case of amplifiers as there was no significant group
difference at pretest (2 = 449 p = 11) immediate posttest (2 = 393 p = 14)
or delayed posttest (2 = 45 p = 80)
In summary frequency comparison of request modification across groups
revealed a mixed picture At pretest no group difference was found in any of
these modifications At immediate posttest both treatment groups surpassed
the control group on the production of preparators and hedging but not on the
use of grounders and amplifiers At delayed posttest the treatment groups
outperformed the control group on the production of the preparators only
Most importantly there was no significant difference between the collabora-
tive and individual group in any of these modifications These findings mark a
sharp contrast to those of request head acts in which the collaborative condi-
tion was more advantageous than the individual task condition in learnersrsquo
production of mitigated preparatory forms
Frequency of PREs and quality of treatment task performance
Table 8 reports descriptive statistics for the frequency of PREs Over the two
treatment sessions the individual group produced 1160 PREs on average
while the mean for the collaborative group was 1632 The MannndashWhitney
U test showed that the difference was significant (z =276 p = 006)
Regarding PREs on specific features there was no group difference on PREs
targeting the contextual features of request (z =92 p = 36) head acts
(z = 28 p = 78) or grounders (z = 70 p = 48) but a difference was found in
preparators (z = 465 plt 0001) amplifiers (z = 413 plt 0001) and hedging
(z = 296 p = 003) in favor of the collaborative group
We will turn to the analysis of learnersrsquo task outcome by examining their
accurate resolution of PREs We analyzed the outcome of the dialogue con-
struction tasks using the same scoring rubrics from the DCT analysis 0ndash3 point
scale for head acts and frequency count for modifications (9 maximum points
for three treatment tasks) The individual group scored a mean of 724
(SD = 145) whereas the collaborative group scored a mean of 828
14 COLLABORATIVE DIALOGUE AND PRAGMATICS
by guest on July 30 2014httpapplijoxfordjournalsorg
Dow
nloaded from
(SD = 84) This difference was significant z =289 plt 0001 indicating that
the collaborative group resolved PREs more successfully than the individual
group and produced more accurate target head acts as task outcome In con-
trast frequency of other request modifications revealed no group difference
preparators z =143 p = 15 grounders z =182 p = 07 hedging z =95
p = 34 and amplifiers z =147 p = 14
Example 3 demonstrates a sample PRE by a pair in the collaborative group
Here the learners are negotiating the target head act form lsquoI was wondering ifrsquo
by attending to each otherrsquos form and providing feedback and confirmation
During this process the target form receives prominence through recycled use
over multiple turns The form is jointly constructed with both participants
contributing to the knowledge building This collaborative work eventually
leads to the production of the accurate target form as task outcome A by-
product of this process is likely the deeper level of processing of the form and
consolidation of pragmatic knowledge as suggested in the collaborative
grouprsquos superior performance at immediate posttest
Example 3 Correctly resolved PRE in the collaborative group
1 Learner 1 (Jaemyong left his Korean home-
work at home) (He
was asking whether he could go home to bring his homework during his
self-study session) (Then he should make a
request politely)
2 Learner 2 (Yes)
----several turns later----------------------------------------------
3 Learner 1 (We need to make a long
polite request) I was wondering
4 Learner 2 if I could go to
5 Learner 1 Go to the home (Is that lsquogo to the homersquo) Go to home
(Shouldnrsquot it be lsquogo to homersquo)
Table 8 Frequency of PREs
PREs targets Collaborative group (n = 25) Individual group (n = 25)
Mean SD Mean SD
Context 476 296 404 302
Head acts 296 1306 288 120
Preparators 252 087 088 105
Grounders 272 124 276 101
Amplifiers 184 111 052 077
Hedging 152 130 052 083
Total 1632 618 1160 548
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6 Learner 2 I am
7 Learner 1 I was wondering if I could go to go to
8 Learner 2 Go home
9 Learner 1 go home
The nature of the collaborative PREs contrasts with that of individual PREs
In Example 4 the learner is working by herself to resolve the PRE targeting lsquois
there any way that I couldrsquo She recognizes that this is the PDR-high request
and that she should use the mitigated preparatory form She produces the
target form once but without a peer attending to her form and giving feed-
back she goes back to the form that she is used to (lsquoCan Irsquo) resulting in the
production of non-target form as task outcome These instances of incorrectly
resolved PREs in the individual task group probably led to their underperform-
ance at immediate posttest compared with the collaborative group
Example 4 Incorrectly resolved PRE in the individual group
Learner 1 (I need to ask
whether I can go home to bring the assignment during self-study ses-
sion) uh may uh big request is there any way that I could uh
(then) Is there any way that I could possible homework my home-
work Can I can I go to my house to get my homework And can I go to
my house to get my homework (Is this right)
Summary of the findings
The learners who completed tasks collaboratively produced more PREs and
target-like request head acts than those who completed the tasks individually
during the task and again at immediate posttest However the benefit of the
collaborative group was short-lived because their performance was the same
with that of the individual group 1 month after the instruction The benefit of
collaborative tasks was also partial because there was no group difference in
the production of request modifications during the task or at immediate
posttest
DISCUSSION
Our findings contribute to the task-based literature by demonstrating the
benefits of collaborative tasks in improving pragmatics knowledge In the lit-
erature of instructed pragmatics our findings support previous studies on
metapragmatic discussion Takimoto (2012) found that collaborative dialogue
in a form of metapragmatic discussion gave learners access to information
about pragmatic features which eventually led to better control of pragmatic
knowledge than the condition where learners completed the task alone with
or without verbalization of the target features This study adds to these findings
16 COLLABORATIVE DIALOGUE AND PRAGMATICS
by guest on July 30 2014httpapplijoxfordjournalsorg
Dow
nloaded from
because it documented the nature of collaborative dialogue operationalized as
PREsmdashhow often learners discussed pragmatics features in interaction and
whether interaction led to better task performance and linked these with
the development of pragmatic knowledge It became clear that collaborative
tasks generated more PREs than individual tasks PREs also contributed to
learnersrsquo accurate use of request head acts during treatment tasks which led
to their superior performance at immediate posttest Because the quantity of
PREs targeting head acts was similar between the collaborative and individual
groups the quality of PREs namely the extent to which learners resolved
PREs correctly was crucial for learning The present results support previous
findings of LREs studies (eg Payant 2012) and extended them to pragmatics
This study implemented collaborative dialogue through a form of PREs in
which learners interacted with their peers and jointly constructed a dialogue
that involved the target speech act During this process learners attended the
pragmalinguistic forms and semantic moves and their correspondence with
contextual features (relationship power and degree of imposition) Learners
in the individual task group also attended the target pragmatic forms and
verbalized them on their own as observed in PREs during thinking aloud
However negotiation with others was absent Without negotiation working
alone did not generate as many opportunities for attention to pragmatic forms
in context or recycled use of them as did the collaborative dialogue during
interactive tasks This finding was supported by the fact that the individual
group produced fewer PREs than the collaborative group during the treatment
tasks Metapragmatic talk around the target head acts modifications and con-
textual features occurred more frequently in the collaborative group
Negotiation of pragmatic forms and their meaning during the process of joint
task completion prompts a deeper level of cognitive processing that helps con-
solidate learnersrsquo pragmatic knowledge and their subsequent use of the know-
ledge Critically when learners produce language in a collaborative
environment they do not just produce output but they also have an oppor-
tunity to receive feedback from peers while trying to make their language
precise (Swain and Lapkin 1998 Swain 2006) During interaction learners
attend to each otherrsquos forms evaluate their accuracy and appropriateness
and offer feedback and corrections to each other In this process two levels
of monitoring self-monitoring and other-monitoring are occurring simultan-
eously which essentially promote more accurate high-quality task outcomes
Analyses of treatment task data confirmed this The collaborative grouprsquos re-
quest head acts (mitigated preparatory) in the dialogue construction task were
significantly more accurate than those of the individual group which was the
result of monitoring scaffolding and peer feedback that featured the process of
joint task completion
In sum learners completed tasks more successfully when they worked col-
laboratively and this successful task performance led to significantly greater
gains of the knowledge of appropriate request head acts The findings are
consistent with the results of previous findings that joint activities improved
N TAGUCHI AND Y KIM 17
by guest on July 30 2014httpapplijoxfordjournalsorg
Dow
nloaded from
task performance in terms of the accurate production of the target linguistic
forms and subsequent learning of the forms (eg Storch 2007 Kim 2008) The
present study has advanced this body of literature by demonstrating that ef-
fects of collaborative tasks and PREs extend beyond grammar and vocabulary
PREs provide opportunities for pragmatic learning that involves a complex
mapping of formndashfunctionndashcontext
Although the efficacy of collaborative dialogue became clear in this study
questions remain as to why the effects were restricted to the request head acts
and did not extend to request modifications One possible interpretation of the
findings relates to the different assessment methods used for the head act and
modification Head acts were assessed using a scoring rubric that reflected both
appropriateness (choosing the target mitigated preparatory forms over other
request-making forms) and grammaticality (accuracy of the forms)
Modifications on the other hand were analyzed mainly on frequency of pro-
duction We made this decision because different from the head act that
occurs only once in a single speech act modifications typically co-occur over
multiple times In addition internal modifications used in this study were all
lexical involving only one word which made the analysis of grammaticality
irrelevant
It is possible that the collaborative dialogue made a difference when the
quality of pragmatic forms (accuracy and appropriateness) was considered
compared with simple quantity (frequency) As shown in the treatment task
data strength of the collaborative dialogue was observed in how learners scaf-
folded each other and provided feedback to each other while jointly carrying
out tasks It might be the case that these instances of negotiation and inter-
action occurring in the collaborative task pushed learners to a deeper level of
processing of the request head act which eventually helped them consolidate
their knowledge of both accuracy and appropriateness of the forms Because of
the linguistic complexity of the head act forms (bi-clausal structure) and the
more strenuous scoring method used to evaluate the forms learnersrsquo know-
ledge base had to be solid enough to allow retrieval and use of the knowledge
The collaborative condition that involved intensive attention negotiation
monitoring and peer feedback probably assisted the formation of this robust
knowledge Nevertheless both treatment conditions were equally effective on
the level of request modifications This might be due to the fact that the groups
were compared on the frequency of use (whether they were able to produce
them in an intelligible manner) not on the quality of use (absolute accuracy of
the forms)
These interpretations also corroborate with Takimotorsquos (2012) findings that
revealed the advantage of metapragmatic over non-metapragmatic discussion
on the acquisition of request Positive effects were found in the production-
based test (DCT) but not in the receptive-skills test (appropriateness judg-
ment) Takimoto attributed the findings to the relative ease of the receptive
task Participants without metapragmatic discussion were still able to cope with
judging appropriateness because the test posed lower demands than a
18 COLLABORATIVE DIALOGUE AND PRAGMATICS
by guest on July 30 2014httpapplijoxfordjournalsorg
Dow
nloaded from
production task however they were not able to deal with the demand
coming from the DCT that required them to produce target forms accurately
and appropriately Because of the precise syntactic processing required in pro-
duction and resulting task demand learners benefitted more from metaprag-
matic discussion that assisted the consolidation of knowledge
Although the two treatment groups differed in their use of the request head
acts their performance was the same at the level of modifications Both groups
outperformed the control group in the production of preparators and hedging
right after the instruction as well as 1 month later in the case of preparators
These findings indicate a strong effect of instruction over non-instruction but
also reveal variation within the effect across modification types The strong
effect found in the preparators is probably due to the saliency of the prepara-
tors as semantic strategies Different from hedging or amplifiers that involve
precise pragmalinguistics preparators are part of the discourse moves that
characterize the structure of a request reflecting sociopragmatic information
Logistics and rituals of how to structure a request using preparators were prob-
ably easier to learn than the precise linguistics forms of a request and once
learned the knowledge stayed in the memory because of its saliency These
findings conform to the previous longitudinal findings that revealed that ac-
quisition of sociopragmatic rules (eg use of semantic strategies) is faster than
that of pragmalinguistic forms (Bardovi-Harlig and Hartford 1993 Taguchi
2012) The present findings confirmed this in an instructional study
LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY AND IMPLICATIONS FORFUTURE RESEARCH
This study is limited to a small number of individuals in a single L2 group a
single measure and a narrowly defined pragmatic target (request) Future
studies should involve a greater participant pool with wider target languages
and pragmatic measures and examine the development of different aspects of
pragmatic competence in relation to collaborative dialogue
Equally important is an investigation into individual differences and lear-
nersrsquo perceptions of instruction It is possible that not all learners had equal
amount of participation or contribution to the collaborative tasks which con-
sequently restricted their knowledge-building process It is also possible that
learners were not familiar with the type of instructional activities used in this
study and needed more time to get accustomed to the tasks in order to gain the
full benefit from them Two class periods were probably not enough time to
boost their robust learning Because this study did not address individual lear-
ner variation and learnersrsquo perceptions of their learning processes future stu-
dies are called for in this direction
Additionally although there has been a surge amount of research on task
design and task implementation in instructed SLA the learning of pragmatics
using a variety of collaborative tasks has not been explored Because this study
N TAGUCHI AND Y KIM 19
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Dow
nloaded from
used only one type of writing task future studies should explore task-related
variables to find ultimate task-based learning contexts for pragmatic
development
In the current study we used PREs as an analysis unit to determine the
amount of learnersrsquo attention to target pragmatic forms for both individual and
collaborative groups The results need to be interpreted with acknowledging
that the characteristics of PREs in these two groups might not be exactly
the same due to the different nature of task performance As a first step of
using PREs we focused on the overall frequency of PREs Future studies are
warranted to explore the quality of PREs (eg number of turnssentences per
PRE) to further our understanding of collaborative dialogue around prag-
matics Another limitation is that this study did not collect Supplementary
data such as stimulated verbal recall or interviews to understand actual cog-
nitive processing involved in PREs which should be explored in the future
research
Finally different effects of collaborative dialogue between the request head
acts and modifications found here need to be addressed more explicitly in the
future Learnability and teachability of pragmatic features have been discussed
in the literature pointing to the need for exploring the interaction among
instructional methods pragmatic targets and learner profiles (eg Roever
2009 Takahashi 2010 Taguhi 2011) Roever (2009) suggests that future re-
search should investigate what kinds of pragmatic features (eg syntactic miti-
gations and lexical downgraders) should be taught to what types of learners
(in terms of proficiency or other individual characteristics) using what kinds of
intervention methods (eg interaction vs non-interaction) Taguchi (forth-
coming) adds characteristics of assessment methods to this call because instruc-
tional effects diverge substantially depending on the demands involved
in the assessment measures Collaborative dialogue and PREs could serve
as a fruitful area to investigate this interaction among pragmatic targets in-
structional methods learnersrsquo instructional readiness and assessment
measures
SUPPLEMENTARY DATA
Supplementary material is available at Applied Linguistics online
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We are grateful for three anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on earlier versions of
the manuscript Special thanks also go to our research assistants Feng Xiao Franklin Bradfield
Sharon Kim and YeonJoo Jung for their help with data analysis We are responsible for all the
errors that may remain
Conflict of interest statement None declared
20 COLLABORATIVE DIALOGUE AND PRAGMATICS
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Dow
nloaded from
NOTES
1 We acknowledge the limitation of not
using video-recorded authentic prag-
matic materials
2 One of the reviewers stated that the au-
thenticity of tasks should be based on
whether situations happen in the
target culture We agree with this con-
cern However being familiar with
given contexts is crucial for the partici-
pants to be able to analyze the contexts
and discuss the pragmatic-related issues
Because making requests in both
Korean and English follow similar
discourse patterns we decided that it
was appropriate to use context-specific
scenarios (situations in Korea) in the
study
3 Missing responses occupied about 3
percent of the data
4 We conducted additional analysis with
analysis of covariance with proficiency
measured by TOEIC Bridge test as cov-
ariate Results were the same
5 This study did not analyze content of
the grounders because content was
fixed provided in the DCT scenarios
REFERENCES
Bardovi-Harlig K and B Hartford 1993
lsquoLearning the rules of academic talk A
longitudinal study of pragmatic changersquo
Studies in Second Language Acquisition 15
279ndash304
Blum-Kulka S J House and G Kasper
1989 Cross-Cultural Pragmatics Requests and
Apologies Ablex
Brown P and S Levinson 1987 Politeness
Cambridge University Press
Golato A 2003 lsquoStudying complement re-
sponses A comparison of DCTs and recordings
of naturally occurring talkrsquo Applied Linguistics
24 90ndash121
DeKeyser R 2007 lsquoSkill acquisition theoryrsquo
in B VanPatten and J Williams (eds)
Theories in Second Language Acquisition An
Introduction Lawrence Erlbaum Associates
Publishers pp 94ndash113
Jeon E -H and T Kaya 2006 lsquoEffects of L2
instruction on interlanguage pragmatic devel-
opmentrsquo in N John and L Ortega (eds)
Synthesizing Research on Language Learning and
Teaching John Benjamins pp 165ndash211
Kasper G 2001 lsquoClassroom research on inter-
language pragmaticsrsquo in K Rose and G Kasper
(eds) Pragmatics in Language Teaching
Cambridge University Press pp 33ndash62
Kim Y 2008 lsquoThe contribution of collaborative
and individual tasks to the acquisition of L2
vocabularyrsquo Modern Language Journal 92
113ndash40
Kim Y 2013 lsquoEffects of pretask modeling on
attention to form and question developmentrsquo
TESOL Quarterly 47 8ndash35
Kim Y in press lsquoThe role of tasks as vehicles for
learning in classroom interactionrsquo in N Markee
(ed) Handbook of Classroom Discourse and
Interaction Wiley-Blackwell
Lee I S Kim S Yoon J Nam S Park
Y Hong and T Orr 2009 Middle School
English 2 Chun-Jae-Gyo-Yuk
Leech G 1983 Principles of Pragmatics Longman
McNamara T and C Roever 2006 Language
Testing The Social Dimension Blackwell
Nassaji H and J Tian 2010 lsquoCollaborative and
individual output tasks and their effects on
learning English phrasal verbsrsquo Language
Teaching Research 14 397ndash419
Nguyen TTM 2013 lsquoInstructional effects on
the acquisition of modifiers in constructive
criticisms by EFL learnersrsquo Language
Awareness 22 76ndash94
Payant C 2012 lsquoLearner-learner interaction
An exploration of the mediating functions of
multilingual learnersrsquo languages in an L3 for-
eign language classroomrsquo Unpublished disser-
tation Georgia State University
Roever C 2009 lsquoTeaching and testing pragmaticsrsquo
in M Long and C Doughty (eds) Handbook of
Language Teaching Wiley-Blackwell pp 560ndash77
Schmidt R 2001 lsquoAttentionrsquo in P Robinson
(ed) Cognition and Second Language Instruction
Cambridge University Press pp 3ndash32
N TAGUCHI AND Y KIM 21
by guest on July 30 2014httpapplijoxfordjournalsorg
Dow
nloaded from
Storch N 2007 lsquoInvestigating the merits of pair
work on a text editing task in ESL classesrsquo
Language Teaching Research 2 143ndash59
Swain M 2006 lsquoLanguaging agency and col-
laboration in advanced second language
Proficiencyrsquo in H Byrnes (ed) Advanced
Language Learning The Contribution of Halliday
and Vygotsky Continuum pp 95ndash108
Swain M and S Lapkin 1998 lsquoInteraction
and second language learning Two adolescent
French immersion students working togetherrsquo
Modern Language Journal 82 320ndash37
Swain M and Y Watanabe 2013
lsquoCollaborative dialogue as a source of learningrsquo
in C Chapelle (ed) The Encyclopedia of Applied
Linguistics Wiley Blackwell
Taguchi N 2011 lsquoTeaching pragmatics Trends
and issuesrsquo Annual Review of Applied Linguistics
31 289ndash310
Taguchi N 2012 Context Individual
Differences and Pragmatic Competence
Multilingual Matter
Taguchi N forthcoming lsquoInstructed pragmatics
at a glance Where instructional studies were
are and should be going State-of-the-art art-
iclersquo Language Teaching
Takahashi S 1996 lsquoPragmatic transferabilityrsquo
Studies in Second Language Acquisition 18 189ndash223
Takahashi S 2010 lsquoAssessing learnability in
second language pragmaticsrsquo in A Trosborg
(ed) Handbook of Pragmatics VII Mouton de
Gruyter pp 391ndash421
Takimoto M 2012 lsquoMetapragmatic discussion
in interlanguage pragmaticsrsquo Journal of
Pragmatics 44 1240ndash53
Van den Branden K M Bygate and
J Norris (eds) 2009 Task-Based Language
Teaching A Reader John Benjamins Publishers
22 COLLABORATIVE DIALOGUE AND PRAGMATICS
by guest on July 30 2014httpapplijoxfordjournalsorg
Dow
nloaded from
NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS
Naoko Taguchi is an associate professor in the Modern Languages Department at
Carnegie Mellon University where she teaches courses in SLA and Japanese language
and culture Her research interests include pragmatics classroom-based research and
English-medium instruction Address for correspondence Naoko Taguchi Carnegie Mellon
University Pittsburgh PA USA lttaguchiandrewcmuedugt
YouJin Kim is an assistant professor in the Department of Applied Linguistics and ESL at
Georgia State University Her primary research interests include instructed second lan-
guage acquisition task-based language teaching and assessment and structural prim-
ing Her research focuses on adolescent and adult English and Korean language
learners Address for correspondence YouJin Kim Georgia State University Atlanta
GA USA ltykim39gsuedugt
N TAGUCHI AND Y KIM 23
by guest on July 30 2014httpapplijoxfordjournalsorg
Dow
nloaded from
Compared with external modifications internal modifications (hedging and
amplifiers) were relatively underused It was absent in the pretest data There
was a noticeable increase at immediate posttest in the treatment groups but
the mean frequency was only moderate Although the frequency was not
particularly large we still note the instructional effect because the treatment
groups outperformed the control group at the immediate posttest 2 = 481
plt 0001 for the collaborative group and 2 = 422 plt 0001 for the individual
group However the effect was short-lived because no group difference was
found at delayed posttest (2 = 43 p = 81) When the two treatment groups
were compared there was no significant difference z = 73 p = 47 at immedi-
ate posttest or z = 61 p = 54 at delayed posttest
Amplifiers also showed very small occurrence at pretest but different from
hedging the frequency remained low throughout the time No instructional
effect was observed in the case of amplifiers as there was no significant group
difference at pretest (2 = 449 p = 11) immediate posttest (2 = 393 p = 14)
or delayed posttest (2 = 45 p = 80)
In summary frequency comparison of request modification across groups
revealed a mixed picture At pretest no group difference was found in any of
these modifications At immediate posttest both treatment groups surpassed
the control group on the production of preparators and hedging but not on the
use of grounders and amplifiers At delayed posttest the treatment groups
outperformed the control group on the production of the preparators only
Most importantly there was no significant difference between the collabora-
tive and individual group in any of these modifications These findings mark a
sharp contrast to those of request head acts in which the collaborative condi-
tion was more advantageous than the individual task condition in learnersrsquo
production of mitigated preparatory forms
Frequency of PREs and quality of treatment task performance
Table 8 reports descriptive statistics for the frequency of PREs Over the two
treatment sessions the individual group produced 1160 PREs on average
while the mean for the collaborative group was 1632 The MannndashWhitney
U test showed that the difference was significant (z =276 p = 006)
Regarding PREs on specific features there was no group difference on PREs
targeting the contextual features of request (z =92 p = 36) head acts
(z = 28 p = 78) or grounders (z = 70 p = 48) but a difference was found in
preparators (z = 465 plt 0001) amplifiers (z = 413 plt 0001) and hedging
(z = 296 p = 003) in favor of the collaborative group
We will turn to the analysis of learnersrsquo task outcome by examining their
accurate resolution of PREs We analyzed the outcome of the dialogue con-
struction tasks using the same scoring rubrics from the DCT analysis 0ndash3 point
scale for head acts and frequency count for modifications (9 maximum points
for three treatment tasks) The individual group scored a mean of 724
(SD = 145) whereas the collaborative group scored a mean of 828
14 COLLABORATIVE DIALOGUE AND PRAGMATICS
by guest on July 30 2014httpapplijoxfordjournalsorg
Dow
nloaded from
(SD = 84) This difference was significant z =289 plt 0001 indicating that
the collaborative group resolved PREs more successfully than the individual
group and produced more accurate target head acts as task outcome In con-
trast frequency of other request modifications revealed no group difference
preparators z =143 p = 15 grounders z =182 p = 07 hedging z =95
p = 34 and amplifiers z =147 p = 14
Example 3 demonstrates a sample PRE by a pair in the collaborative group
Here the learners are negotiating the target head act form lsquoI was wondering ifrsquo
by attending to each otherrsquos form and providing feedback and confirmation
During this process the target form receives prominence through recycled use
over multiple turns The form is jointly constructed with both participants
contributing to the knowledge building This collaborative work eventually
leads to the production of the accurate target form as task outcome A by-
product of this process is likely the deeper level of processing of the form and
consolidation of pragmatic knowledge as suggested in the collaborative
grouprsquos superior performance at immediate posttest
Example 3 Correctly resolved PRE in the collaborative group
1 Learner 1 (Jaemyong left his Korean home-
work at home) (He
was asking whether he could go home to bring his homework during his
self-study session) (Then he should make a
request politely)
2 Learner 2 (Yes)
----several turns later----------------------------------------------
3 Learner 1 (We need to make a long
polite request) I was wondering
4 Learner 2 if I could go to
5 Learner 1 Go to the home (Is that lsquogo to the homersquo) Go to home
(Shouldnrsquot it be lsquogo to homersquo)
Table 8 Frequency of PREs
PREs targets Collaborative group (n = 25) Individual group (n = 25)
Mean SD Mean SD
Context 476 296 404 302
Head acts 296 1306 288 120
Preparators 252 087 088 105
Grounders 272 124 276 101
Amplifiers 184 111 052 077
Hedging 152 130 052 083
Total 1632 618 1160 548
N TAGUCHI AND Y KIM 15
by guest on July 30 2014httpapplijoxfordjournalsorg
Dow
nloaded from
6 Learner 2 I am
7 Learner 1 I was wondering if I could go to go to
8 Learner 2 Go home
9 Learner 1 go home
The nature of the collaborative PREs contrasts with that of individual PREs
In Example 4 the learner is working by herself to resolve the PRE targeting lsquois
there any way that I couldrsquo She recognizes that this is the PDR-high request
and that she should use the mitigated preparatory form She produces the
target form once but without a peer attending to her form and giving feed-
back she goes back to the form that she is used to (lsquoCan Irsquo) resulting in the
production of non-target form as task outcome These instances of incorrectly
resolved PREs in the individual task group probably led to their underperform-
ance at immediate posttest compared with the collaborative group
Example 4 Incorrectly resolved PRE in the individual group
Learner 1 (I need to ask
whether I can go home to bring the assignment during self-study ses-
sion) uh may uh big request is there any way that I could uh
(then) Is there any way that I could possible homework my home-
work Can I can I go to my house to get my homework And can I go to
my house to get my homework (Is this right)
Summary of the findings
The learners who completed tasks collaboratively produced more PREs and
target-like request head acts than those who completed the tasks individually
during the task and again at immediate posttest However the benefit of the
collaborative group was short-lived because their performance was the same
with that of the individual group 1 month after the instruction The benefit of
collaborative tasks was also partial because there was no group difference in
the production of request modifications during the task or at immediate
posttest
DISCUSSION
Our findings contribute to the task-based literature by demonstrating the
benefits of collaborative tasks in improving pragmatics knowledge In the lit-
erature of instructed pragmatics our findings support previous studies on
metapragmatic discussion Takimoto (2012) found that collaborative dialogue
in a form of metapragmatic discussion gave learners access to information
about pragmatic features which eventually led to better control of pragmatic
knowledge than the condition where learners completed the task alone with
or without verbalization of the target features This study adds to these findings
16 COLLABORATIVE DIALOGUE AND PRAGMATICS
by guest on July 30 2014httpapplijoxfordjournalsorg
Dow
nloaded from
because it documented the nature of collaborative dialogue operationalized as
PREsmdashhow often learners discussed pragmatics features in interaction and
whether interaction led to better task performance and linked these with
the development of pragmatic knowledge It became clear that collaborative
tasks generated more PREs than individual tasks PREs also contributed to
learnersrsquo accurate use of request head acts during treatment tasks which led
to their superior performance at immediate posttest Because the quantity of
PREs targeting head acts was similar between the collaborative and individual
groups the quality of PREs namely the extent to which learners resolved
PREs correctly was crucial for learning The present results support previous
findings of LREs studies (eg Payant 2012) and extended them to pragmatics
This study implemented collaborative dialogue through a form of PREs in
which learners interacted with their peers and jointly constructed a dialogue
that involved the target speech act During this process learners attended the
pragmalinguistic forms and semantic moves and their correspondence with
contextual features (relationship power and degree of imposition) Learners
in the individual task group also attended the target pragmatic forms and
verbalized them on their own as observed in PREs during thinking aloud
However negotiation with others was absent Without negotiation working
alone did not generate as many opportunities for attention to pragmatic forms
in context or recycled use of them as did the collaborative dialogue during
interactive tasks This finding was supported by the fact that the individual
group produced fewer PREs than the collaborative group during the treatment
tasks Metapragmatic talk around the target head acts modifications and con-
textual features occurred more frequently in the collaborative group
Negotiation of pragmatic forms and their meaning during the process of joint
task completion prompts a deeper level of cognitive processing that helps con-
solidate learnersrsquo pragmatic knowledge and their subsequent use of the know-
ledge Critically when learners produce language in a collaborative
environment they do not just produce output but they also have an oppor-
tunity to receive feedback from peers while trying to make their language
precise (Swain and Lapkin 1998 Swain 2006) During interaction learners
attend to each otherrsquos forms evaluate their accuracy and appropriateness
and offer feedback and corrections to each other In this process two levels
of monitoring self-monitoring and other-monitoring are occurring simultan-
eously which essentially promote more accurate high-quality task outcomes
Analyses of treatment task data confirmed this The collaborative grouprsquos re-
quest head acts (mitigated preparatory) in the dialogue construction task were
significantly more accurate than those of the individual group which was the
result of monitoring scaffolding and peer feedback that featured the process of
joint task completion
In sum learners completed tasks more successfully when they worked col-
laboratively and this successful task performance led to significantly greater
gains of the knowledge of appropriate request head acts The findings are
consistent with the results of previous findings that joint activities improved
N TAGUCHI AND Y KIM 17
by guest on July 30 2014httpapplijoxfordjournalsorg
Dow
nloaded from
task performance in terms of the accurate production of the target linguistic
forms and subsequent learning of the forms (eg Storch 2007 Kim 2008) The
present study has advanced this body of literature by demonstrating that ef-
fects of collaborative tasks and PREs extend beyond grammar and vocabulary
PREs provide opportunities for pragmatic learning that involves a complex
mapping of formndashfunctionndashcontext
Although the efficacy of collaborative dialogue became clear in this study
questions remain as to why the effects were restricted to the request head acts
and did not extend to request modifications One possible interpretation of the
findings relates to the different assessment methods used for the head act and
modification Head acts were assessed using a scoring rubric that reflected both
appropriateness (choosing the target mitigated preparatory forms over other
request-making forms) and grammaticality (accuracy of the forms)
Modifications on the other hand were analyzed mainly on frequency of pro-
duction We made this decision because different from the head act that
occurs only once in a single speech act modifications typically co-occur over
multiple times In addition internal modifications used in this study were all
lexical involving only one word which made the analysis of grammaticality
irrelevant
It is possible that the collaborative dialogue made a difference when the
quality of pragmatic forms (accuracy and appropriateness) was considered
compared with simple quantity (frequency) As shown in the treatment task
data strength of the collaborative dialogue was observed in how learners scaf-
folded each other and provided feedback to each other while jointly carrying
out tasks It might be the case that these instances of negotiation and inter-
action occurring in the collaborative task pushed learners to a deeper level of
processing of the request head act which eventually helped them consolidate
their knowledge of both accuracy and appropriateness of the forms Because of
the linguistic complexity of the head act forms (bi-clausal structure) and the
more strenuous scoring method used to evaluate the forms learnersrsquo know-
ledge base had to be solid enough to allow retrieval and use of the knowledge
The collaborative condition that involved intensive attention negotiation
monitoring and peer feedback probably assisted the formation of this robust
knowledge Nevertheless both treatment conditions were equally effective on
the level of request modifications This might be due to the fact that the groups
were compared on the frequency of use (whether they were able to produce
them in an intelligible manner) not on the quality of use (absolute accuracy of
the forms)
These interpretations also corroborate with Takimotorsquos (2012) findings that
revealed the advantage of metapragmatic over non-metapragmatic discussion
on the acquisition of request Positive effects were found in the production-
based test (DCT) but not in the receptive-skills test (appropriateness judg-
ment) Takimoto attributed the findings to the relative ease of the receptive
task Participants without metapragmatic discussion were still able to cope with
judging appropriateness because the test posed lower demands than a
18 COLLABORATIVE DIALOGUE AND PRAGMATICS
by guest on July 30 2014httpapplijoxfordjournalsorg
Dow
nloaded from
production task however they were not able to deal with the demand
coming from the DCT that required them to produce target forms accurately
and appropriately Because of the precise syntactic processing required in pro-
duction and resulting task demand learners benefitted more from metaprag-
matic discussion that assisted the consolidation of knowledge
Although the two treatment groups differed in their use of the request head
acts their performance was the same at the level of modifications Both groups
outperformed the control group in the production of preparators and hedging
right after the instruction as well as 1 month later in the case of preparators
These findings indicate a strong effect of instruction over non-instruction but
also reveal variation within the effect across modification types The strong
effect found in the preparators is probably due to the saliency of the prepara-
tors as semantic strategies Different from hedging or amplifiers that involve
precise pragmalinguistics preparators are part of the discourse moves that
characterize the structure of a request reflecting sociopragmatic information
Logistics and rituals of how to structure a request using preparators were prob-
ably easier to learn than the precise linguistics forms of a request and once
learned the knowledge stayed in the memory because of its saliency These
findings conform to the previous longitudinal findings that revealed that ac-
quisition of sociopragmatic rules (eg use of semantic strategies) is faster than
that of pragmalinguistic forms (Bardovi-Harlig and Hartford 1993 Taguchi
2012) The present findings confirmed this in an instructional study
LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY AND IMPLICATIONS FORFUTURE RESEARCH
This study is limited to a small number of individuals in a single L2 group a
single measure and a narrowly defined pragmatic target (request) Future
studies should involve a greater participant pool with wider target languages
and pragmatic measures and examine the development of different aspects of
pragmatic competence in relation to collaborative dialogue
Equally important is an investigation into individual differences and lear-
nersrsquo perceptions of instruction It is possible that not all learners had equal
amount of participation or contribution to the collaborative tasks which con-
sequently restricted their knowledge-building process It is also possible that
learners were not familiar with the type of instructional activities used in this
study and needed more time to get accustomed to the tasks in order to gain the
full benefit from them Two class periods were probably not enough time to
boost their robust learning Because this study did not address individual lear-
ner variation and learnersrsquo perceptions of their learning processes future stu-
dies are called for in this direction
Additionally although there has been a surge amount of research on task
design and task implementation in instructed SLA the learning of pragmatics
using a variety of collaborative tasks has not been explored Because this study
N TAGUCHI AND Y KIM 19
by guest on July 30 2014httpapplijoxfordjournalsorg
Dow
nloaded from
used only one type of writing task future studies should explore task-related
variables to find ultimate task-based learning contexts for pragmatic
development
In the current study we used PREs as an analysis unit to determine the
amount of learnersrsquo attention to target pragmatic forms for both individual and
collaborative groups The results need to be interpreted with acknowledging
that the characteristics of PREs in these two groups might not be exactly
the same due to the different nature of task performance As a first step of
using PREs we focused on the overall frequency of PREs Future studies are
warranted to explore the quality of PREs (eg number of turnssentences per
PRE) to further our understanding of collaborative dialogue around prag-
matics Another limitation is that this study did not collect Supplementary
data such as stimulated verbal recall or interviews to understand actual cog-
nitive processing involved in PREs which should be explored in the future
research
Finally different effects of collaborative dialogue between the request head
acts and modifications found here need to be addressed more explicitly in the
future Learnability and teachability of pragmatic features have been discussed
in the literature pointing to the need for exploring the interaction among
instructional methods pragmatic targets and learner profiles (eg Roever
2009 Takahashi 2010 Taguhi 2011) Roever (2009) suggests that future re-
search should investigate what kinds of pragmatic features (eg syntactic miti-
gations and lexical downgraders) should be taught to what types of learners
(in terms of proficiency or other individual characteristics) using what kinds of
intervention methods (eg interaction vs non-interaction) Taguchi (forth-
coming) adds characteristics of assessment methods to this call because instruc-
tional effects diverge substantially depending on the demands involved
in the assessment measures Collaborative dialogue and PREs could serve
as a fruitful area to investigate this interaction among pragmatic targets in-
structional methods learnersrsquo instructional readiness and assessment
measures
SUPPLEMENTARY DATA
Supplementary material is available at Applied Linguistics online
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We are grateful for three anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on earlier versions of
the manuscript Special thanks also go to our research assistants Feng Xiao Franklin Bradfield
Sharon Kim and YeonJoo Jung for their help with data analysis We are responsible for all the
errors that may remain
Conflict of interest statement None declared
20 COLLABORATIVE DIALOGUE AND PRAGMATICS
by guest on July 30 2014httpapplijoxfordjournalsorg
Dow
nloaded from
NOTES
1 We acknowledge the limitation of not
using video-recorded authentic prag-
matic materials
2 One of the reviewers stated that the au-
thenticity of tasks should be based on
whether situations happen in the
target culture We agree with this con-
cern However being familiar with
given contexts is crucial for the partici-
pants to be able to analyze the contexts
and discuss the pragmatic-related issues
Because making requests in both
Korean and English follow similar
discourse patterns we decided that it
was appropriate to use context-specific
scenarios (situations in Korea) in the
study
3 Missing responses occupied about 3
percent of the data
4 We conducted additional analysis with
analysis of covariance with proficiency
measured by TOEIC Bridge test as cov-
ariate Results were the same
5 This study did not analyze content of
the grounders because content was
fixed provided in the DCT scenarios
REFERENCES
Bardovi-Harlig K and B Hartford 1993
lsquoLearning the rules of academic talk A
longitudinal study of pragmatic changersquo
Studies in Second Language Acquisition 15
279ndash304
Blum-Kulka S J House and G Kasper
1989 Cross-Cultural Pragmatics Requests and
Apologies Ablex
Brown P and S Levinson 1987 Politeness
Cambridge University Press
Golato A 2003 lsquoStudying complement re-
sponses A comparison of DCTs and recordings
of naturally occurring talkrsquo Applied Linguistics
24 90ndash121
DeKeyser R 2007 lsquoSkill acquisition theoryrsquo
in B VanPatten and J Williams (eds)
Theories in Second Language Acquisition An
Introduction Lawrence Erlbaum Associates
Publishers pp 94ndash113
Jeon E -H and T Kaya 2006 lsquoEffects of L2
instruction on interlanguage pragmatic devel-
opmentrsquo in N John and L Ortega (eds)
Synthesizing Research on Language Learning and
Teaching John Benjamins pp 165ndash211
Kasper G 2001 lsquoClassroom research on inter-
language pragmaticsrsquo in K Rose and G Kasper
(eds) Pragmatics in Language Teaching
Cambridge University Press pp 33ndash62
Kim Y 2008 lsquoThe contribution of collaborative
and individual tasks to the acquisition of L2
vocabularyrsquo Modern Language Journal 92
113ndash40
Kim Y 2013 lsquoEffects of pretask modeling on
attention to form and question developmentrsquo
TESOL Quarterly 47 8ndash35
Kim Y in press lsquoThe role of tasks as vehicles for
learning in classroom interactionrsquo in N Markee
(ed) Handbook of Classroom Discourse and
Interaction Wiley-Blackwell
Lee I S Kim S Yoon J Nam S Park
Y Hong and T Orr 2009 Middle School
English 2 Chun-Jae-Gyo-Yuk
Leech G 1983 Principles of Pragmatics Longman
McNamara T and C Roever 2006 Language
Testing The Social Dimension Blackwell
Nassaji H and J Tian 2010 lsquoCollaborative and
individual output tasks and their effects on
learning English phrasal verbsrsquo Language
Teaching Research 14 397ndash419
Nguyen TTM 2013 lsquoInstructional effects on
the acquisition of modifiers in constructive
criticisms by EFL learnersrsquo Language
Awareness 22 76ndash94
Payant C 2012 lsquoLearner-learner interaction
An exploration of the mediating functions of
multilingual learnersrsquo languages in an L3 for-
eign language classroomrsquo Unpublished disser-
tation Georgia State University
Roever C 2009 lsquoTeaching and testing pragmaticsrsquo
in M Long and C Doughty (eds) Handbook of
Language Teaching Wiley-Blackwell pp 560ndash77
Schmidt R 2001 lsquoAttentionrsquo in P Robinson
(ed) Cognition and Second Language Instruction
Cambridge University Press pp 3ndash32
N TAGUCHI AND Y KIM 21
by guest on July 30 2014httpapplijoxfordjournalsorg
Dow
nloaded from
Storch N 2007 lsquoInvestigating the merits of pair
work on a text editing task in ESL classesrsquo
Language Teaching Research 2 143ndash59
Swain M 2006 lsquoLanguaging agency and col-
laboration in advanced second language
Proficiencyrsquo in H Byrnes (ed) Advanced
Language Learning The Contribution of Halliday
and Vygotsky Continuum pp 95ndash108
Swain M and S Lapkin 1998 lsquoInteraction
and second language learning Two adolescent
French immersion students working togetherrsquo
Modern Language Journal 82 320ndash37
Swain M and Y Watanabe 2013
lsquoCollaborative dialogue as a source of learningrsquo
in C Chapelle (ed) The Encyclopedia of Applied
Linguistics Wiley Blackwell
Taguchi N 2011 lsquoTeaching pragmatics Trends
and issuesrsquo Annual Review of Applied Linguistics
31 289ndash310
Taguchi N 2012 Context Individual
Differences and Pragmatic Competence
Multilingual Matter
Taguchi N forthcoming lsquoInstructed pragmatics
at a glance Where instructional studies were
are and should be going State-of-the-art art-
iclersquo Language Teaching
Takahashi S 1996 lsquoPragmatic transferabilityrsquo
Studies in Second Language Acquisition 18 189ndash223
Takahashi S 2010 lsquoAssessing learnability in
second language pragmaticsrsquo in A Trosborg
(ed) Handbook of Pragmatics VII Mouton de
Gruyter pp 391ndash421
Takimoto M 2012 lsquoMetapragmatic discussion
in interlanguage pragmaticsrsquo Journal of
Pragmatics 44 1240ndash53
Van den Branden K M Bygate and
J Norris (eds) 2009 Task-Based Language
Teaching A Reader John Benjamins Publishers
22 COLLABORATIVE DIALOGUE AND PRAGMATICS
by guest on July 30 2014httpapplijoxfordjournalsorg
Dow
nloaded from
NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS
Naoko Taguchi is an associate professor in the Modern Languages Department at
Carnegie Mellon University where she teaches courses in SLA and Japanese language
and culture Her research interests include pragmatics classroom-based research and
English-medium instruction Address for correspondence Naoko Taguchi Carnegie Mellon
University Pittsburgh PA USA lttaguchiandrewcmuedugt
YouJin Kim is an assistant professor in the Department of Applied Linguistics and ESL at
Georgia State University Her primary research interests include instructed second lan-
guage acquisition task-based language teaching and assessment and structural prim-
ing Her research focuses on adolescent and adult English and Korean language
learners Address for correspondence YouJin Kim Georgia State University Atlanta
GA USA ltykim39gsuedugt
N TAGUCHI AND Y KIM 23
by guest on July 30 2014httpapplijoxfordjournalsorg
Dow
nloaded from
(SD = 84) This difference was significant z =289 plt 0001 indicating that
the collaborative group resolved PREs more successfully than the individual
group and produced more accurate target head acts as task outcome In con-
trast frequency of other request modifications revealed no group difference
preparators z =143 p = 15 grounders z =182 p = 07 hedging z =95
p = 34 and amplifiers z =147 p = 14
Example 3 demonstrates a sample PRE by a pair in the collaborative group
Here the learners are negotiating the target head act form lsquoI was wondering ifrsquo
by attending to each otherrsquos form and providing feedback and confirmation
During this process the target form receives prominence through recycled use
over multiple turns The form is jointly constructed with both participants
contributing to the knowledge building This collaborative work eventually
leads to the production of the accurate target form as task outcome A by-
product of this process is likely the deeper level of processing of the form and
consolidation of pragmatic knowledge as suggested in the collaborative
grouprsquos superior performance at immediate posttest
Example 3 Correctly resolved PRE in the collaborative group
1 Learner 1 (Jaemyong left his Korean home-
work at home) (He
was asking whether he could go home to bring his homework during his
self-study session) (Then he should make a
request politely)
2 Learner 2 (Yes)
----several turns later----------------------------------------------
3 Learner 1 (We need to make a long
polite request) I was wondering
4 Learner 2 if I could go to
5 Learner 1 Go to the home (Is that lsquogo to the homersquo) Go to home
(Shouldnrsquot it be lsquogo to homersquo)
Table 8 Frequency of PREs
PREs targets Collaborative group (n = 25) Individual group (n = 25)
Mean SD Mean SD
Context 476 296 404 302
Head acts 296 1306 288 120
Preparators 252 087 088 105
Grounders 272 124 276 101
Amplifiers 184 111 052 077
Hedging 152 130 052 083
Total 1632 618 1160 548
N TAGUCHI AND Y KIM 15
by guest on July 30 2014httpapplijoxfordjournalsorg
Dow
nloaded from
6 Learner 2 I am
7 Learner 1 I was wondering if I could go to go to
8 Learner 2 Go home
9 Learner 1 go home
The nature of the collaborative PREs contrasts with that of individual PREs
In Example 4 the learner is working by herself to resolve the PRE targeting lsquois
there any way that I couldrsquo She recognizes that this is the PDR-high request
and that she should use the mitigated preparatory form She produces the
target form once but without a peer attending to her form and giving feed-
back she goes back to the form that she is used to (lsquoCan Irsquo) resulting in the
production of non-target form as task outcome These instances of incorrectly
resolved PREs in the individual task group probably led to their underperform-
ance at immediate posttest compared with the collaborative group
Example 4 Incorrectly resolved PRE in the individual group
Learner 1 (I need to ask
whether I can go home to bring the assignment during self-study ses-
sion) uh may uh big request is there any way that I could uh
(then) Is there any way that I could possible homework my home-
work Can I can I go to my house to get my homework And can I go to
my house to get my homework (Is this right)
Summary of the findings
The learners who completed tasks collaboratively produced more PREs and
target-like request head acts than those who completed the tasks individually
during the task and again at immediate posttest However the benefit of the
collaborative group was short-lived because their performance was the same
with that of the individual group 1 month after the instruction The benefit of
collaborative tasks was also partial because there was no group difference in
the production of request modifications during the task or at immediate
posttest
DISCUSSION
Our findings contribute to the task-based literature by demonstrating the
benefits of collaborative tasks in improving pragmatics knowledge In the lit-
erature of instructed pragmatics our findings support previous studies on
metapragmatic discussion Takimoto (2012) found that collaborative dialogue
in a form of metapragmatic discussion gave learners access to information
about pragmatic features which eventually led to better control of pragmatic
knowledge than the condition where learners completed the task alone with
or without verbalization of the target features This study adds to these findings
16 COLLABORATIVE DIALOGUE AND PRAGMATICS
by guest on July 30 2014httpapplijoxfordjournalsorg
Dow
nloaded from
because it documented the nature of collaborative dialogue operationalized as
PREsmdashhow often learners discussed pragmatics features in interaction and
whether interaction led to better task performance and linked these with
the development of pragmatic knowledge It became clear that collaborative
tasks generated more PREs than individual tasks PREs also contributed to
learnersrsquo accurate use of request head acts during treatment tasks which led
to their superior performance at immediate posttest Because the quantity of
PREs targeting head acts was similar between the collaborative and individual
groups the quality of PREs namely the extent to which learners resolved
PREs correctly was crucial for learning The present results support previous
findings of LREs studies (eg Payant 2012) and extended them to pragmatics
This study implemented collaborative dialogue through a form of PREs in
which learners interacted with their peers and jointly constructed a dialogue
that involved the target speech act During this process learners attended the
pragmalinguistic forms and semantic moves and their correspondence with
contextual features (relationship power and degree of imposition) Learners
in the individual task group also attended the target pragmatic forms and
verbalized them on their own as observed in PREs during thinking aloud
However negotiation with others was absent Without negotiation working
alone did not generate as many opportunities for attention to pragmatic forms
in context or recycled use of them as did the collaborative dialogue during
interactive tasks This finding was supported by the fact that the individual
group produced fewer PREs than the collaborative group during the treatment
tasks Metapragmatic talk around the target head acts modifications and con-
textual features occurred more frequently in the collaborative group
Negotiation of pragmatic forms and their meaning during the process of joint
task completion prompts a deeper level of cognitive processing that helps con-
solidate learnersrsquo pragmatic knowledge and their subsequent use of the know-
ledge Critically when learners produce language in a collaborative
environment they do not just produce output but they also have an oppor-
tunity to receive feedback from peers while trying to make their language
precise (Swain and Lapkin 1998 Swain 2006) During interaction learners
attend to each otherrsquos forms evaluate their accuracy and appropriateness
and offer feedback and corrections to each other In this process two levels
of monitoring self-monitoring and other-monitoring are occurring simultan-
eously which essentially promote more accurate high-quality task outcomes
Analyses of treatment task data confirmed this The collaborative grouprsquos re-
quest head acts (mitigated preparatory) in the dialogue construction task were
significantly more accurate than those of the individual group which was the
result of monitoring scaffolding and peer feedback that featured the process of
joint task completion
In sum learners completed tasks more successfully when they worked col-
laboratively and this successful task performance led to significantly greater
gains of the knowledge of appropriate request head acts The findings are
consistent with the results of previous findings that joint activities improved
N TAGUCHI AND Y KIM 17
by guest on July 30 2014httpapplijoxfordjournalsorg
Dow
nloaded from
task performance in terms of the accurate production of the target linguistic
forms and subsequent learning of the forms (eg Storch 2007 Kim 2008) The
present study has advanced this body of literature by demonstrating that ef-
fects of collaborative tasks and PREs extend beyond grammar and vocabulary
PREs provide opportunities for pragmatic learning that involves a complex
mapping of formndashfunctionndashcontext
Although the efficacy of collaborative dialogue became clear in this study
questions remain as to why the effects were restricted to the request head acts
and did not extend to request modifications One possible interpretation of the
findings relates to the different assessment methods used for the head act and
modification Head acts were assessed using a scoring rubric that reflected both
appropriateness (choosing the target mitigated preparatory forms over other
request-making forms) and grammaticality (accuracy of the forms)
Modifications on the other hand were analyzed mainly on frequency of pro-
duction We made this decision because different from the head act that
occurs only once in a single speech act modifications typically co-occur over
multiple times In addition internal modifications used in this study were all
lexical involving only one word which made the analysis of grammaticality
irrelevant
It is possible that the collaborative dialogue made a difference when the
quality of pragmatic forms (accuracy and appropriateness) was considered
compared with simple quantity (frequency) As shown in the treatment task
data strength of the collaborative dialogue was observed in how learners scaf-
folded each other and provided feedback to each other while jointly carrying
out tasks It might be the case that these instances of negotiation and inter-
action occurring in the collaborative task pushed learners to a deeper level of
processing of the request head act which eventually helped them consolidate
their knowledge of both accuracy and appropriateness of the forms Because of
the linguistic complexity of the head act forms (bi-clausal structure) and the
more strenuous scoring method used to evaluate the forms learnersrsquo know-
ledge base had to be solid enough to allow retrieval and use of the knowledge
The collaborative condition that involved intensive attention negotiation
monitoring and peer feedback probably assisted the formation of this robust
knowledge Nevertheless both treatment conditions were equally effective on
the level of request modifications This might be due to the fact that the groups
were compared on the frequency of use (whether they were able to produce
them in an intelligible manner) not on the quality of use (absolute accuracy of
the forms)
These interpretations also corroborate with Takimotorsquos (2012) findings that
revealed the advantage of metapragmatic over non-metapragmatic discussion
on the acquisition of request Positive effects were found in the production-
based test (DCT) but not in the receptive-skills test (appropriateness judg-
ment) Takimoto attributed the findings to the relative ease of the receptive
task Participants without metapragmatic discussion were still able to cope with
judging appropriateness because the test posed lower demands than a
18 COLLABORATIVE DIALOGUE AND PRAGMATICS
by guest on July 30 2014httpapplijoxfordjournalsorg
Dow
nloaded from
production task however they were not able to deal with the demand
coming from the DCT that required them to produce target forms accurately
and appropriately Because of the precise syntactic processing required in pro-
duction and resulting task demand learners benefitted more from metaprag-
matic discussion that assisted the consolidation of knowledge
Although the two treatment groups differed in their use of the request head
acts their performance was the same at the level of modifications Both groups
outperformed the control group in the production of preparators and hedging
right after the instruction as well as 1 month later in the case of preparators
These findings indicate a strong effect of instruction over non-instruction but
also reveal variation within the effect across modification types The strong
effect found in the preparators is probably due to the saliency of the prepara-
tors as semantic strategies Different from hedging or amplifiers that involve
precise pragmalinguistics preparators are part of the discourse moves that
characterize the structure of a request reflecting sociopragmatic information
Logistics and rituals of how to structure a request using preparators were prob-
ably easier to learn than the precise linguistics forms of a request and once
learned the knowledge stayed in the memory because of its saliency These
findings conform to the previous longitudinal findings that revealed that ac-
quisition of sociopragmatic rules (eg use of semantic strategies) is faster than
that of pragmalinguistic forms (Bardovi-Harlig and Hartford 1993 Taguchi
2012) The present findings confirmed this in an instructional study
LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY AND IMPLICATIONS FORFUTURE RESEARCH
This study is limited to a small number of individuals in a single L2 group a
single measure and a narrowly defined pragmatic target (request) Future
studies should involve a greater participant pool with wider target languages
and pragmatic measures and examine the development of different aspects of
pragmatic competence in relation to collaborative dialogue
Equally important is an investigation into individual differences and lear-
nersrsquo perceptions of instruction It is possible that not all learners had equal
amount of participation or contribution to the collaborative tasks which con-
sequently restricted their knowledge-building process It is also possible that
learners were not familiar with the type of instructional activities used in this
study and needed more time to get accustomed to the tasks in order to gain the
full benefit from them Two class periods were probably not enough time to
boost their robust learning Because this study did not address individual lear-
ner variation and learnersrsquo perceptions of their learning processes future stu-
dies are called for in this direction
Additionally although there has been a surge amount of research on task
design and task implementation in instructed SLA the learning of pragmatics
using a variety of collaborative tasks has not been explored Because this study
N TAGUCHI AND Y KIM 19
by guest on July 30 2014httpapplijoxfordjournalsorg
Dow
nloaded from
used only one type of writing task future studies should explore task-related
variables to find ultimate task-based learning contexts for pragmatic
development
In the current study we used PREs as an analysis unit to determine the
amount of learnersrsquo attention to target pragmatic forms for both individual and
collaborative groups The results need to be interpreted with acknowledging
that the characteristics of PREs in these two groups might not be exactly
the same due to the different nature of task performance As a first step of
using PREs we focused on the overall frequency of PREs Future studies are
warranted to explore the quality of PREs (eg number of turnssentences per
PRE) to further our understanding of collaborative dialogue around prag-
matics Another limitation is that this study did not collect Supplementary
data such as stimulated verbal recall or interviews to understand actual cog-
nitive processing involved in PREs which should be explored in the future
research
Finally different effects of collaborative dialogue between the request head
acts and modifications found here need to be addressed more explicitly in the
future Learnability and teachability of pragmatic features have been discussed
in the literature pointing to the need for exploring the interaction among
instructional methods pragmatic targets and learner profiles (eg Roever
2009 Takahashi 2010 Taguhi 2011) Roever (2009) suggests that future re-
search should investigate what kinds of pragmatic features (eg syntactic miti-
gations and lexical downgraders) should be taught to what types of learners
(in terms of proficiency or other individual characteristics) using what kinds of
intervention methods (eg interaction vs non-interaction) Taguchi (forth-
coming) adds characteristics of assessment methods to this call because instruc-
tional effects diverge substantially depending on the demands involved
in the assessment measures Collaborative dialogue and PREs could serve
as a fruitful area to investigate this interaction among pragmatic targets in-
structional methods learnersrsquo instructional readiness and assessment
measures
SUPPLEMENTARY DATA
Supplementary material is available at Applied Linguistics online
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We are grateful for three anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on earlier versions of
the manuscript Special thanks also go to our research assistants Feng Xiao Franklin Bradfield
Sharon Kim and YeonJoo Jung for their help with data analysis We are responsible for all the
errors that may remain
Conflict of interest statement None declared
20 COLLABORATIVE DIALOGUE AND PRAGMATICS
by guest on July 30 2014httpapplijoxfordjournalsorg
Dow
nloaded from
NOTES
1 We acknowledge the limitation of not
using video-recorded authentic prag-
matic materials
2 One of the reviewers stated that the au-
thenticity of tasks should be based on
whether situations happen in the
target culture We agree with this con-
cern However being familiar with
given contexts is crucial for the partici-
pants to be able to analyze the contexts
and discuss the pragmatic-related issues
Because making requests in both
Korean and English follow similar
discourse patterns we decided that it
was appropriate to use context-specific
scenarios (situations in Korea) in the
study
3 Missing responses occupied about 3
percent of the data
4 We conducted additional analysis with
analysis of covariance with proficiency
measured by TOEIC Bridge test as cov-
ariate Results were the same
5 This study did not analyze content of
the grounders because content was
fixed provided in the DCT scenarios
REFERENCES
Bardovi-Harlig K and B Hartford 1993
lsquoLearning the rules of academic talk A
longitudinal study of pragmatic changersquo
Studies in Second Language Acquisition 15
279ndash304
Blum-Kulka S J House and G Kasper
1989 Cross-Cultural Pragmatics Requests and
Apologies Ablex
Brown P and S Levinson 1987 Politeness
Cambridge University Press
Golato A 2003 lsquoStudying complement re-
sponses A comparison of DCTs and recordings
of naturally occurring talkrsquo Applied Linguistics
24 90ndash121
DeKeyser R 2007 lsquoSkill acquisition theoryrsquo
in B VanPatten and J Williams (eds)
Theories in Second Language Acquisition An
Introduction Lawrence Erlbaum Associates
Publishers pp 94ndash113
Jeon E -H and T Kaya 2006 lsquoEffects of L2
instruction on interlanguage pragmatic devel-
opmentrsquo in N John and L Ortega (eds)
Synthesizing Research on Language Learning and
Teaching John Benjamins pp 165ndash211
Kasper G 2001 lsquoClassroom research on inter-
language pragmaticsrsquo in K Rose and G Kasper
(eds) Pragmatics in Language Teaching
Cambridge University Press pp 33ndash62
Kim Y 2008 lsquoThe contribution of collaborative
and individual tasks to the acquisition of L2
vocabularyrsquo Modern Language Journal 92
113ndash40
Kim Y 2013 lsquoEffects of pretask modeling on
attention to form and question developmentrsquo
TESOL Quarterly 47 8ndash35
Kim Y in press lsquoThe role of tasks as vehicles for
learning in classroom interactionrsquo in N Markee
(ed) Handbook of Classroom Discourse and
Interaction Wiley-Blackwell
Lee I S Kim S Yoon J Nam S Park
Y Hong and T Orr 2009 Middle School
English 2 Chun-Jae-Gyo-Yuk
Leech G 1983 Principles of Pragmatics Longman
McNamara T and C Roever 2006 Language
Testing The Social Dimension Blackwell
Nassaji H and J Tian 2010 lsquoCollaborative and
individual output tasks and their effects on
learning English phrasal verbsrsquo Language
Teaching Research 14 397ndash419
Nguyen TTM 2013 lsquoInstructional effects on
the acquisition of modifiers in constructive
criticisms by EFL learnersrsquo Language
Awareness 22 76ndash94
Payant C 2012 lsquoLearner-learner interaction
An exploration of the mediating functions of
multilingual learnersrsquo languages in an L3 for-
eign language classroomrsquo Unpublished disser-
tation Georgia State University
Roever C 2009 lsquoTeaching and testing pragmaticsrsquo
in M Long and C Doughty (eds) Handbook of
Language Teaching Wiley-Blackwell pp 560ndash77
Schmidt R 2001 lsquoAttentionrsquo in P Robinson
(ed) Cognition and Second Language Instruction
Cambridge University Press pp 3ndash32
N TAGUCHI AND Y KIM 21
by guest on July 30 2014httpapplijoxfordjournalsorg
Dow
nloaded from
Storch N 2007 lsquoInvestigating the merits of pair
work on a text editing task in ESL classesrsquo
Language Teaching Research 2 143ndash59
Swain M 2006 lsquoLanguaging agency and col-
laboration in advanced second language
Proficiencyrsquo in H Byrnes (ed) Advanced
Language Learning The Contribution of Halliday
and Vygotsky Continuum pp 95ndash108
Swain M and S Lapkin 1998 lsquoInteraction
and second language learning Two adolescent
French immersion students working togetherrsquo
Modern Language Journal 82 320ndash37
Swain M and Y Watanabe 2013
lsquoCollaborative dialogue as a source of learningrsquo
in C Chapelle (ed) The Encyclopedia of Applied
Linguistics Wiley Blackwell
Taguchi N 2011 lsquoTeaching pragmatics Trends
and issuesrsquo Annual Review of Applied Linguistics
31 289ndash310
Taguchi N 2012 Context Individual
Differences and Pragmatic Competence
Multilingual Matter
Taguchi N forthcoming lsquoInstructed pragmatics
at a glance Where instructional studies were
are and should be going State-of-the-art art-
iclersquo Language Teaching
Takahashi S 1996 lsquoPragmatic transferabilityrsquo
Studies in Second Language Acquisition 18 189ndash223
Takahashi S 2010 lsquoAssessing learnability in
second language pragmaticsrsquo in A Trosborg
(ed) Handbook of Pragmatics VII Mouton de
Gruyter pp 391ndash421
Takimoto M 2012 lsquoMetapragmatic discussion
in interlanguage pragmaticsrsquo Journal of
Pragmatics 44 1240ndash53
Van den Branden K M Bygate and
J Norris (eds) 2009 Task-Based Language
Teaching A Reader John Benjamins Publishers
22 COLLABORATIVE DIALOGUE AND PRAGMATICS
by guest on July 30 2014httpapplijoxfordjournalsorg
Dow
nloaded from
NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS
Naoko Taguchi is an associate professor in the Modern Languages Department at
Carnegie Mellon University where she teaches courses in SLA and Japanese language
and culture Her research interests include pragmatics classroom-based research and
English-medium instruction Address for correspondence Naoko Taguchi Carnegie Mellon
University Pittsburgh PA USA lttaguchiandrewcmuedugt
YouJin Kim is an assistant professor in the Department of Applied Linguistics and ESL at
Georgia State University Her primary research interests include instructed second lan-
guage acquisition task-based language teaching and assessment and structural prim-
ing Her research focuses on adolescent and adult English and Korean language
learners Address for correspondence YouJin Kim Georgia State University Atlanta
GA USA ltykim39gsuedugt
N TAGUCHI AND Y KIM 23
by guest on July 30 2014httpapplijoxfordjournalsorg
Dow
nloaded from
6 Learner 2 I am
7 Learner 1 I was wondering if I could go to go to
8 Learner 2 Go home
9 Learner 1 go home
The nature of the collaborative PREs contrasts with that of individual PREs
In Example 4 the learner is working by herself to resolve the PRE targeting lsquois
there any way that I couldrsquo She recognizes that this is the PDR-high request
and that she should use the mitigated preparatory form She produces the
target form once but without a peer attending to her form and giving feed-
back she goes back to the form that she is used to (lsquoCan Irsquo) resulting in the
production of non-target form as task outcome These instances of incorrectly
resolved PREs in the individual task group probably led to their underperform-
ance at immediate posttest compared with the collaborative group
Example 4 Incorrectly resolved PRE in the individual group
Learner 1 (I need to ask
whether I can go home to bring the assignment during self-study ses-
sion) uh may uh big request is there any way that I could uh
(then) Is there any way that I could possible homework my home-
work Can I can I go to my house to get my homework And can I go to
my house to get my homework (Is this right)
Summary of the findings
The learners who completed tasks collaboratively produced more PREs and
target-like request head acts than those who completed the tasks individually
during the task and again at immediate posttest However the benefit of the
collaborative group was short-lived because their performance was the same
with that of the individual group 1 month after the instruction The benefit of
collaborative tasks was also partial because there was no group difference in
the production of request modifications during the task or at immediate
posttest
DISCUSSION
Our findings contribute to the task-based literature by demonstrating the
benefits of collaborative tasks in improving pragmatics knowledge In the lit-
erature of instructed pragmatics our findings support previous studies on
metapragmatic discussion Takimoto (2012) found that collaborative dialogue
in a form of metapragmatic discussion gave learners access to information
about pragmatic features which eventually led to better control of pragmatic
knowledge than the condition where learners completed the task alone with
or without verbalization of the target features This study adds to these findings
16 COLLABORATIVE DIALOGUE AND PRAGMATICS
by guest on July 30 2014httpapplijoxfordjournalsorg
Dow
nloaded from
because it documented the nature of collaborative dialogue operationalized as
PREsmdashhow often learners discussed pragmatics features in interaction and
whether interaction led to better task performance and linked these with
the development of pragmatic knowledge It became clear that collaborative
tasks generated more PREs than individual tasks PREs also contributed to
learnersrsquo accurate use of request head acts during treatment tasks which led
to their superior performance at immediate posttest Because the quantity of
PREs targeting head acts was similar between the collaborative and individual
groups the quality of PREs namely the extent to which learners resolved
PREs correctly was crucial for learning The present results support previous
findings of LREs studies (eg Payant 2012) and extended them to pragmatics
This study implemented collaborative dialogue through a form of PREs in
which learners interacted with their peers and jointly constructed a dialogue
that involved the target speech act During this process learners attended the
pragmalinguistic forms and semantic moves and their correspondence with
contextual features (relationship power and degree of imposition) Learners
in the individual task group also attended the target pragmatic forms and
verbalized them on their own as observed in PREs during thinking aloud
However negotiation with others was absent Without negotiation working
alone did not generate as many opportunities for attention to pragmatic forms
in context or recycled use of them as did the collaborative dialogue during
interactive tasks This finding was supported by the fact that the individual
group produced fewer PREs than the collaborative group during the treatment
tasks Metapragmatic talk around the target head acts modifications and con-
textual features occurred more frequently in the collaborative group
Negotiation of pragmatic forms and their meaning during the process of joint
task completion prompts a deeper level of cognitive processing that helps con-
solidate learnersrsquo pragmatic knowledge and their subsequent use of the know-
ledge Critically when learners produce language in a collaborative
environment they do not just produce output but they also have an oppor-
tunity to receive feedback from peers while trying to make their language
precise (Swain and Lapkin 1998 Swain 2006) During interaction learners
attend to each otherrsquos forms evaluate their accuracy and appropriateness
and offer feedback and corrections to each other In this process two levels
of monitoring self-monitoring and other-monitoring are occurring simultan-
eously which essentially promote more accurate high-quality task outcomes
Analyses of treatment task data confirmed this The collaborative grouprsquos re-
quest head acts (mitigated preparatory) in the dialogue construction task were
significantly more accurate than those of the individual group which was the
result of monitoring scaffolding and peer feedback that featured the process of
joint task completion
In sum learners completed tasks more successfully when they worked col-
laboratively and this successful task performance led to significantly greater
gains of the knowledge of appropriate request head acts The findings are
consistent with the results of previous findings that joint activities improved
N TAGUCHI AND Y KIM 17
by guest on July 30 2014httpapplijoxfordjournalsorg
Dow
nloaded from
task performance in terms of the accurate production of the target linguistic
forms and subsequent learning of the forms (eg Storch 2007 Kim 2008) The
present study has advanced this body of literature by demonstrating that ef-
fects of collaborative tasks and PREs extend beyond grammar and vocabulary
PREs provide opportunities for pragmatic learning that involves a complex
mapping of formndashfunctionndashcontext
Although the efficacy of collaborative dialogue became clear in this study
questions remain as to why the effects were restricted to the request head acts
and did not extend to request modifications One possible interpretation of the
findings relates to the different assessment methods used for the head act and
modification Head acts were assessed using a scoring rubric that reflected both
appropriateness (choosing the target mitigated preparatory forms over other
request-making forms) and grammaticality (accuracy of the forms)
Modifications on the other hand were analyzed mainly on frequency of pro-
duction We made this decision because different from the head act that
occurs only once in a single speech act modifications typically co-occur over
multiple times In addition internal modifications used in this study were all
lexical involving only one word which made the analysis of grammaticality
irrelevant
It is possible that the collaborative dialogue made a difference when the
quality of pragmatic forms (accuracy and appropriateness) was considered
compared with simple quantity (frequency) As shown in the treatment task
data strength of the collaborative dialogue was observed in how learners scaf-
folded each other and provided feedback to each other while jointly carrying
out tasks It might be the case that these instances of negotiation and inter-
action occurring in the collaborative task pushed learners to a deeper level of
processing of the request head act which eventually helped them consolidate
their knowledge of both accuracy and appropriateness of the forms Because of
the linguistic complexity of the head act forms (bi-clausal structure) and the
more strenuous scoring method used to evaluate the forms learnersrsquo know-
ledge base had to be solid enough to allow retrieval and use of the knowledge
The collaborative condition that involved intensive attention negotiation
monitoring and peer feedback probably assisted the formation of this robust
knowledge Nevertheless both treatment conditions were equally effective on
the level of request modifications This might be due to the fact that the groups
were compared on the frequency of use (whether they were able to produce
them in an intelligible manner) not on the quality of use (absolute accuracy of
the forms)
These interpretations also corroborate with Takimotorsquos (2012) findings that
revealed the advantage of metapragmatic over non-metapragmatic discussion
on the acquisition of request Positive effects were found in the production-
based test (DCT) but not in the receptive-skills test (appropriateness judg-
ment) Takimoto attributed the findings to the relative ease of the receptive
task Participants without metapragmatic discussion were still able to cope with
judging appropriateness because the test posed lower demands than a
18 COLLABORATIVE DIALOGUE AND PRAGMATICS
by guest on July 30 2014httpapplijoxfordjournalsorg
Dow
nloaded from
production task however they were not able to deal with the demand
coming from the DCT that required them to produce target forms accurately
and appropriately Because of the precise syntactic processing required in pro-
duction and resulting task demand learners benefitted more from metaprag-
matic discussion that assisted the consolidation of knowledge
Although the two treatment groups differed in their use of the request head
acts their performance was the same at the level of modifications Both groups
outperformed the control group in the production of preparators and hedging
right after the instruction as well as 1 month later in the case of preparators
These findings indicate a strong effect of instruction over non-instruction but
also reveal variation within the effect across modification types The strong
effect found in the preparators is probably due to the saliency of the prepara-
tors as semantic strategies Different from hedging or amplifiers that involve
precise pragmalinguistics preparators are part of the discourse moves that
characterize the structure of a request reflecting sociopragmatic information
Logistics and rituals of how to structure a request using preparators were prob-
ably easier to learn than the precise linguistics forms of a request and once
learned the knowledge stayed in the memory because of its saliency These
findings conform to the previous longitudinal findings that revealed that ac-
quisition of sociopragmatic rules (eg use of semantic strategies) is faster than
that of pragmalinguistic forms (Bardovi-Harlig and Hartford 1993 Taguchi
2012) The present findings confirmed this in an instructional study
LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY AND IMPLICATIONS FORFUTURE RESEARCH
This study is limited to a small number of individuals in a single L2 group a
single measure and a narrowly defined pragmatic target (request) Future
studies should involve a greater participant pool with wider target languages
and pragmatic measures and examine the development of different aspects of
pragmatic competence in relation to collaborative dialogue
Equally important is an investigation into individual differences and lear-
nersrsquo perceptions of instruction It is possible that not all learners had equal
amount of participation or contribution to the collaborative tasks which con-
sequently restricted their knowledge-building process It is also possible that
learners were not familiar with the type of instructional activities used in this
study and needed more time to get accustomed to the tasks in order to gain the
full benefit from them Two class periods were probably not enough time to
boost their robust learning Because this study did not address individual lear-
ner variation and learnersrsquo perceptions of their learning processes future stu-
dies are called for in this direction
Additionally although there has been a surge amount of research on task
design and task implementation in instructed SLA the learning of pragmatics
using a variety of collaborative tasks has not been explored Because this study
N TAGUCHI AND Y KIM 19
by guest on July 30 2014httpapplijoxfordjournalsorg
Dow
nloaded from
used only one type of writing task future studies should explore task-related
variables to find ultimate task-based learning contexts for pragmatic
development
In the current study we used PREs as an analysis unit to determine the
amount of learnersrsquo attention to target pragmatic forms for both individual and
collaborative groups The results need to be interpreted with acknowledging
that the characteristics of PREs in these two groups might not be exactly
the same due to the different nature of task performance As a first step of
using PREs we focused on the overall frequency of PREs Future studies are
warranted to explore the quality of PREs (eg number of turnssentences per
PRE) to further our understanding of collaborative dialogue around prag-
matics Another limitation is that this study did not collect Supplementary
data such as stimulated verbal recall or interviews to understand actual cog-
nitive processing involved in PREs which should be explored in the future
research
Finally different effects of collaborative dialogue between the request head
acts and modifications found here need to be addressed more explicitly in the
future Learnability and teachability of pragmatic features have been discussed
in the literature pointing to the need for exploring the interaction among
instructional methods pragmatic targets and learner profiles (eg Roever
2009 Takahashi 2010 Taguhi 2011) Roever (2009) suggests that future re-
search should investigate what kinds of pragmatic features (eg syntactic miti-
gations and lexical downgraders) should be taught to what types of learners
(in terms of proficiency or other individual characteristics) using what kinds of
intervention methods (eg interaction vs non-interaction) Taguchi (forth-
coming) adds characteristics of assessment methods to this call because instruc-
tional effects diverge substantially depending on the demands involved
in the assessment measures Collaborative dialogue and PREs could serve
as a fruitful area to investigate this interaction among pragmatic targets in-
structional methods learnersrsquo instructional readiness and assessment
measures
SUPPLEMENTARY DATA
Supplementary material is available at Applied Linguistics online
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We are grateful for three anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on earlier versions of
the manuscript Special thanks also go to our research assistants Feng Xiao Franklin Bradfield
Sharon Kim and YeonJoo Jung for their help with data analysis We are responsible for all the
errors that may remain
Conflict of interest statement None declared
20 COLLABORATIVE DIALOGUE AND PRAGMATICS
by guest on July 30 2014httpapplijoxfordjournalsorg
Dow
nloaded from
NOTES
1 We acknowledge the limitation of not
using video-recorded authentic prag-
matic materials
2 One of the reviewers stated that the au-
thenticity of tasks should be based on
whether situations happen in the
target culture We agree with this con-
cern However being familiar with
given contexts is crucial for the partici-
pants to be able to analyze the contexts
and discuss the pragmatic-related issues
Because making requests in both
Korean and English follow similar
discourse patterns we decided that it
was appropriate to use context-specific
scenarios (situations in Korea) in the
study
3 Missing responses occupied about 3
percent of the data
4 We conducted additional analysis with
analysis of covariance with proficiency
measured by TOEIC Bridge test as cov-
ariate Results were the same
5 This study did not analyze content of
the grounders because content was
fixed provided in the DCT scenarios
REFERENCES
Bardovi-Harlig K and B Hartford 1993
lsquoLearning the rules of academic talk A
longitudinal study of pragmatic changersquo
Studies in Second Language Acquisition 15
279ndash304
Blum-Kulka S J House and G Kasper
1989 Cross-Cultural Pragmatics Requests and
Apologies Ablex
Brown P and S Levinson 1987 Politeness
Cambridge University Press
Golato A 2003 lsquoStudying complement re-
sponses A comparison of DCTs and recordings
of naturally occurring talkrsquo Applied Linguistics
24 90ndash121
DeKeyser R 2007 lsquoSkill acquisition theoryrsquo
in B VanPatten and J Williams (eds)
Theories in Second Language Acquisition An
Introduction Lawrence Erlbaum Associates
Publishers pp 94ndash113
Jeon E -H and T Kaya 2006 lsquoEffects of L2
instruction on interlanguage pragmatic devel-
opmentrsquo in N John and L Ortega (eds)
Synthesizing Research on Language Learning and
Teaching John Benjamins pp 165ndash211
Kasper G 2001 lsquoClassroom research on inter-
language pragmaticsrsquo in K Rose and G Kasper
(eds) Pragmatics in Language Teaching
Cambridge University Press pp 33ndash62
Kim Y 2008 lsquoThe contribution of collaborative
and individual tasks to the acquisition of L2
vocabularyrsquo Modern Language Journal 92
113ndash40
Kim Y 2013 lsquoEffects of pretask modeling on
attention to form and question developmentrsquo
TESOL Quarterly 47 8ndash35
Kim Y in press lsquoThe role of tasks as vehicles for
learning in classroom interactionrsquo in N Markee
(ed) Handbook of Classroom Discourse and
Interaction Wiley-Blackwell
Lee I S Kim S Yoon J Nam S Park
Y Hong and T Orr 2009 Middle School
English 2 Chun-Jae-Gyo-Yuk
Leech G 1983 Principles of Pragmatics Longman
McNamara T and C Roever 2006 Language
Testing The Social Dimension Blackwell
Nassaji H and J Tian 2010 lsquoCollaborative and
individual output tasks and their effects on
learning English phrasal verbsrsquo Language
Teaching Research 14 397ndash419
Nguyen TTM 2013 lsquoInstructional effects on
the acquisition of modifiers in constructive
criticisms by EFL learnersrsquo Language
Awareness 22 76ndash94
Payant C 2012 lsquoLearner-learner interaction
An exploration of the mediating functions of
multilingual learnersrsquo languages in an L3 for-
eign language classroomrsquo Unpublished disser-
tation Georgia State University
Roever C 2009 lsquoTeaching and testing pragmaticsrsquo
in M Long and C Doughty (eds) Handbook of
Language Teaching Wiley-Blackwell pp 560ndash77
Schmidt R 2001 lsquoAttentionrsquo in P Robinson
(ed) Cognition and Second Language Instruction
Cambridge University Press pp 3ndash32
N TAGUCHI AND Y KIM 21
by guest on July 30 2014httpapplijoxfordjournalsorg
Dow
nloaded from
Storch N 2007 lsquoInvestigating the merits of pair
work on a text editing task in ESL classesrsquo
Language Teaching Research 2 143ndash59
Swain M 2006 lsquoLanguaging agency and col-
laboration in advanced second language
Proficiencyrsquo in H Byrnes (ed) Advanced
Language Learning The Contribution of Halliday
and Vygotsky Continuum pp 95ndash108
Swain M and S Lapkin 1998 lsquoInteraction
and second language learning Two adolescent
French immersion students working togetherrsquo
Modern Language Journal 82 320ndash37
Swain M and Y Watanabe 2013
lsquoCollaborative dialogue as a source of learningrsquo
in C Chapelle (ed) The Encyclopedia of Applied
Linguistics Wiley Blackwell
Taguchi N 2011 lsquoTeaching pragmatics Trends
and issuesrsquo Annual Review of Applied Linguistics
31 289ndash310
Taguchi N 2012 Context Individual
Differences and Pragmatic Competence
Multilingual Matter
Taguchi N forthcoming lsquoInstructed pragmatics
at a glance Where instructional studies were
are and should be going State-of-the-art art-
iclersquo Language Teaching
Takahashi S 1996 lsquoPragmatic transferabilityrsquo
Studies in Second Language Acquisition 18 189ndash223
Takahashi S 2010 lsquoAssessing learnability in
second language pragmaticsrsquo in A Trosborg
(ed) Handbook of Pragmatics VII Mouton de
Gruyter pp 391ndash421
Takimoto M 2012 lsquoMetapragmatic discussion
in interlanguage pragmaticsrsquo Journal of
Pragmatics 44 1240ndash53
Van den Branden K M Bygate and
J Norris (eds) 2009 Task-Based Language
Teaching A Reader John Benjamins Publishers
22 COLLABORATIVE DIALOGUE AND PRAGMATICS
by guest on July 30 2014httpapplijoxfordjournalsorg
Dow
nloaded from
NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS
Naoko Taguchi is an associate professor in the Modern Languages Department at
Carnegie Mellon University where she teaches courses in SLA and Japanese language
and culture Her research interests include pragmatics classroom-based research and
English-medium instruction Address for correspondence Naoko Taguchi Carnegie Mellon
University Pittsburgh PA USA lttaguchiandrewcmuedugt
YouJin Kim is an assistant professor in the Department of Applied Linguistics and ESL at
Georgia State University Her primary research interests include instructed second lan-
guage acquisition task-based language teaching and assessment and structural prim-
ing Her research focuses on adolescent and adult English and Korean language
learners Address for correspondence YouJin Kim Georgia State University Atlanta
GA USA ltykim39gsuedugt
N TAGUCHI AND Y KIM 23
by guest on July 30 2014httpapplijoxfordjournalsorg
Dow
nloaded from
because it documented the nature of collaborative dialogue operationalized as
PREsmdashhow often learners discussed pragmatics features in interaction and
whether interaction led to better task performance and linked these with
the development of pragmatic knowledge It became clear that collaborative
tasks generated more PREs than individual tasks PREs also contributed to
learnersrsquo accurate use of request head acts during treatment tasks which led
to their superior performance at immediate posttest Because the quantity of
PREs targeting head acts was similar between the collaborative and individual
groups the quality of PREs namely the extent to which learners resolved
PREs correctly was crucial for learning The present results support previous
findings of LREs studies (eg Payant 2012) and extended them to pragmatics
This study implemented collaborative dialogue through a form of PREs in
which learners interacted with their peers and jointly constructed a dialogue
that involved the target speech act During this process learners attended the
pragmalinguistic forms and semantic moves and their correspondence with
contextual features (relationship power and degree of imposition) Learners
in the individual task group also attended the target pragmatic forms and
verbalized them on their own as observed in PREs during thinking aloud
However negotiation with others was absent Without negotiation working
alone did not generate as many opportunities for attention to pragmatic forms
in context or recycled use of them as did the collaborative dialogue during
interactive tasks This finding was supported by the fact that the individual
group produced fewer PREs than the collaborative group during the treatment
tasks Metapragmatic talk around the target head acts modifications and con-
textual features occurred more frequently in the collaborative group
Negotiation of pragmatic forms and their meaning during the process of joint
task completion prompts a deeper level of cognitive processing that helps con-
solidate learnersrsquo pragmatic knowledge and their subsequent use of the know-
ledge Critically when learners produce language in a collaborative
environment they do not just produce output but they also have an oppor-
tunity to receive feedback from peers while trying to make their language
precise (Swain and Lapkin 1998 Swain 2006) During interaction learners
attend to each otherrsquos forms evaluate their accuracy and appropriateness
and offer feedback and corrections to each other In this process two levels
of monitoring self-monitoring and other-monitoring are occurring simultan-
eously which essentially promote more accurate high-quality task outcomes
Analyses of treatment task data confirmed this The collaborative grouprsquos re-
quest head acts (mitigated preparatory) in the dialogue construction task were
significantly more accurate than those of the individual group which was the
result of monitoring scaffolding and peer feedback that featured the process of
joint task completion
In sum learners completed tasks more successfully when they worked col-
laboratively and this successful task performance led to significantly greater
gains of the knowledge of appropriate request head acts The findings are
consistent with the results of previous findings that joint activities improved
N TAGUCHI AND Y KIM 17
by guest on July 30 2014httpapplijoxfordjournalsorg
Dow
nloaded from
task performance in terms of the accurate production of the target linguistic
forms and subsequent learning of the forms (eg Storch 2007 Kim 2008) The
present study has advanced this body of literature by demonstrating that ef-
fects of collaborative tasks and PREs extend beyond grammar and vocabulary
PREs provide opportunities for pragmatic learning that involves a complex
mapping of formndashfunctionndashcontext
Although the efficacy of collaborative dialogue became clear in this study
questions remain as to why the effects were restricted to the request head acts
and did not extend to request modifications One possible interpretation of the
findings relates to the different assessment methods used for the head act and
modification Head acts were assessed using a scoring rubric that reflected both
appropriateness (choosing the target mitigated preparatory forms over other
request-making forms) and grammaticality (accuracy of the forms)
Modifications on the other hand were analyzed mainly on frequency of pro-
duction We made this decision because different from the head act that
occurs only once in a single speech act modifications typically co-occur over
multiple times In addition internal modifications used in this study were all
lexical involving only one word which made the analysis of grammaticality
irrelevant
It is possible that the collaborative dialogue made a difference when the
quality of pragmatic forms (accuracy and appropriateness) was considered
compared with simple quantity (frequency) As shown in the treatment task
data strength of the collaborative dialogue was observed in how learners scaf-
folded each other and provided feedback to each other while jointly carrying
out tasks It might be the case that these instances of negotiation and inter-
action occurring in the collaborative task pushed learners to a deeper level of
processing of the request head act which eventually helped them consolidate
their knowledge of both accuracy and appropriateness of the forms Because of
the linguistic complexity of the head act forms (bi-clausal structure) and the
more strenuous scoring method used to evaluate the forms learnersrsquo know-
ledge base had to be solid enough to allow retrieval and use of the knowledge
The collaborative condition that involved intensive attention negotiation
monitoring and peer feedback probably assisted the formation of this robust
knowledge Nevertheless both treatment conditions were equally effective on
the level of request modifications This might be due to the fact that the groups
were compared on the frequency of use (whether they were able to produce
them in an intelligible manner) not on the quality of use (absolute accuracy of
the forms)
These interpretations also corroborate with Takimotorsquos (2012) findings that
revealed the advantage of metapragmatic over non-metapragmatic discussion
on the acquisition of request Positive effects were found in the production-
based test (DCT) but not in the receptive-skills test (appropriateness judg-
ment) Takimoto attributed the findings to the relative ease of the receptive
task Participants without metapragmatic discussion were still able to cope with
judging appropriateness because the test posed lower demands than a
18 COLLABORATIVE DIALOGUE AND PRAGMATICS
by guest on July 30 2014httpapplijoxfordjournalsorg
Dow
nloaded from
production task however they were not able to deal with the demand
coming from the DCT that required them to produce target forms accurately
and appropriately Because of the precise syntactic processing required in pro-
duction and resulting task demand learners benefitted more from metaprag-
matic discussion that assisted the consolidation of knowledge
Although the two treatment groups differed in their use of the request head
acts their performance was the same at the level of modifications Both groups
outperformed the control group in the production of preparators and hedging
right after the instruction as well as 1 month later in the case of preparators
These findings indicate a strong effect of instruction over non-instruction but
also reveal variation within the effect across modification types The strong
effect found in the preparators is probably due to the saliency of the prepara-
tors as semantic strategies Different from hedging or amplifiers that involve
precise pragmalinguistics preparators are part of the discourse moves that
characterize the structure of a request reflecting sociopragmatic information
Logistics and rituals of how to structure a request using preparators were prob-
ably easier to learn than the precise linguistics forms of a request and once
learned the knowledge stayed in the memory because of its saliency These
findings conform to the previous longitudinal findings that revealed that ac-
quisition of sociopragmatic rules (eg use of semantic strategies) is faster than
that of pragmalinguistic forms (Bardovi-Harlig and Hartford 1993 Taguchi
2012) The present findings confirmed this in an instructional study
LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY AND IMPLICATIONS FORFUTURE RESEARCH
This study is limited to a small number of individuals in a single L2 group a
single measure and a narrowly defined pragmatic target (request) Future
studies should involve a greater participant pool with wider target languages
and pragmatic measures and examine the development of different aspects of
pragmatic competence in relation to collaborative dialogue
Equally important is an investigation into individual differences and lear-
nersrsquo perceptions of instruction It is possible that not all learners had equal
amount of participation or contribution to the collaborative tasks which con-
sequently restricted their knowledge-building process It is also possible that
learners were not familiar with the type of instructional activities used in this
study and needed more time to get accustomed to the tasks in order to gain the
full benefit from them Two class periods were probably not enough time to
boost their robust learning Because this study did not address individual lear-
ner variation and learnersrsquo perceptions of their learning processes future stu-
dies are called for in this direction
Additionally although there has been a surge amount of research on task
design and task implementation in instructed SLA the learning of pragmatics
using a variety of collaborative tasks has not been explored Because this study
N TAGUCHI AND Y KIM 19
by guest on July 30 2014httpapplijoxfordjournalsorg
Dow
nloaded from
used only one type of writing task future studies should explore task-related
variables to find ultimate task-based learning contexts for pragmatic
development
In the current study we used PREs as an analysis unit to determine the
amount of learnersrsquo attention to target pragmatic forms for both individual and
collaborative groups The results need to be interpreted with acknowledging
that the characteristics of PREs in these two groups might not be exactly
the same due to the different nature of task performance As a first step of
using PREs we focused on the overall frequency of PREs Future studies are
warranted to explore the quality of PREs (eg number of turnssentences per
PRE) to further our understanding of collaborative dialogue around prag-
matics Another limitation is that this study did not collect Supplementary
data such as stimulated verbal recall or interviews to understand actual cog-
nitive processing involved in PREs which should be explored in the future
research
Finally different effects of collaborative dialogue between the request head
acts and modifications found here need to be addressed more explicitly in the
future Learnability and teachability of pragmatic features have been discussed
in the literature pointing to the need for exploring the interaction among
instructional methods pragmatic targets and learner profiles (eg Roever
2009 Takahashi 2010 Taguhi 2011) Roever (2009) suggests that future re-
search should investigate what kinds of pragmatic features (eg syntactic miti-
gations and lexical downgraders) should be taught to what types of learners
(in terms of proficiency or other individual characteristics) using what kinds of
intervention methods (eg interaction vs non-interaction) Taguchi (forth-
coming) adds characteristics of assessment methods to this call because instruc-
tional effects diverge substantially depending on the demands involved
in the assessment measures Collaborative dialogue and PREs could serve
as a fruitful area to investigate this interaction among pragmatic targets in-
structional methods learnersrsquo instructional readiness and assessment
measures
SUPPLEMENTARY DATA
Supplementary material is available at Applied Linguistics online
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We are grateful for three anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on earlier versions of
the manuscript Special thanks also go to our research assistants Feng Xiao Franklin Bradfield
Sharon Kim and YeonJoo Jung for their help with data analysis We are responsible for all the
errors that may remain
Conflict of interest statement None declared
20 COLLABORATIVE DIALOGUE AND PRAGMATICS
by guest on July 30 2014httpapplijoxfordjournalsorg
Dow
nloaded from
NOTES
1 We acknowledge the limitation of not
using video-recorded authentic prag-
matic materials
2 One of the reviewers stated that the au-
thenticity of tasks should be based on
whether situations happen in the
target culture We agree with this con-
cern However being familiar with
given contexts is crucial for the partici-
pants to be able to analyze the contexts
and discuss the pragmatic-related issues
Because making requests in both
Korean and English follow similar
discourse patterns we decided that it
was appropriate to use context-specific
scenarios (situations in Korea) in the
study
3 Missing responses occupied about 3
percent of the data
4 We conducted additional analysis with
analysis of covariance with proficiency
measured by TOEIC Bridge test as cov-
ariate Results were the same
5 This study did not analyze content of
the grounders because content was
fixed provided in the DCT scenarios
REFERENCES
Bardovi-Harlig K and B Hartford 1993
lsquoLearning the rules of academic talk A
longitudinal study of pragmatic changersquo
Studies in Second Language Acquisition 15
279ndash304
Blum-Kulka S J House and G Kasper
1989 Cross-Cultural Pragmatics Requests and
Apologies Ablex
Brown P and S Levinson 1987 Politeness
Cambridge University Press
Golato A 2003 lsquoStudying complement re-
sponses A comparison of DCTs and recordings
of naturally occurring talkrsquo Applied Linguistics
24 90ndash121
DeKeyser R 2007 lsquoSkill acquisition theoryrsquo
in B VanPatten and J Williams (eds)
Theories in Second Language Acquisition An
Introduction Lawrence Erlbaum Associates
Publishers pp 94ndash113
Jeon E -H and T Kaya 2006 lsquoEffects of L2
instruction on interlanguage pragmatic devel-
opmentrsquo in N John and L Ortega (eds)
Synthesizing Research on Language Learning and
Teaching John Benjamins pp 165ndash211
Kasper G 2001 lsquoClassroom research on inter-
language pragmaticsrsquo in K Rose and G Kasper
(eds) Pragmatics in Language Teaching
Cambridge University Press pp 33ndash62
Kim Y 2008 lsquoThe contribution of collaborative
and individual tasks to the acquisition of L2
vocabularyrsquo Modern Language Journal 92
113ndash40
Kim Y 2013 lsquoEffects of pretask modeling on
attention to form and question developmentrsquo
TESOL Quarterly 47 8ndash35
Kim Y in press lsquoThe role of tasks as vehicles for
learning in classroom interactionrsquo in N Markee
(ed) Handbook of Classroom Discourse and
Interaction Wiley-Blackwell
Lee I S Kim S Yoon J Nam S Park
Y Hong and T Orr 2009 Middle School
English 2 Chun-Jae-Gyo-Yuk
Leech G 1983 Principles of Pragmatics Longman
McNamara T and C Roever 2006 Language
Testing The Social Dimension Blackwell
Nassaji H and J Tian 2010 lsquoCollaborative and
individual output tasks and their effects on
learning English phrasal verbsrsquo Language
Teaching Research 14 397ndash419
Nguyen TTM 2013 lsquoInstructional effects on
the acquisition of modifiers in constructive
criticisms by EFL learnersrsquo Language
Awareness 22 76ndash94
Payant C 2012 lsquoLearner-learner interaction
An exploration of the mediating functions of
multilingual learnersrsquo languages in an L3 for-
eign language classroomrsquo Unpublished disser-
tation Georgia State University
Roever C 2009 lsquoTeaching and testing pragmaticsrsquo
in M Long and C Doughty (eds) Handbook of
Language Teaching Wiley-Blackwell pp 560ndash77
Schmidt R 2001 lsquoAttentionrsquo in P Robinson
(ed) Cognition and Second Language Instruction
Cambridge University Press pp 3ndash32
N TAGUCHI AND Y KIM 21
by guest on July 30 2014httpapplijoxfordjournalsorg
Dow
nloaded from
Storch N 2007 lsquoInvestigating the merits of pair
work on a text editing task in ESL classesrsquo
Language Teaching Research 2 143ndash59
Swain M 2006 lsquoLanguaging agency and col-
laboration in advanced second language
Proficiencyrsquo in H Byrnes (ed) Advanced
Language Learning The Contribution of Halliday
and Vygotsky Continuum pp 95ndash108
Swain M and S Lapkin 1998 lsquoInteraction
and second language learning Two adolescent
French immersion students working togetherrsquo
Modern Language Journal 82 320ndash37
Swain M and Y Watanabe 2013
lsquoCollaborative dialogue as a source of learningrsquo
in C Chapelle (ed) The Encyclopedia of Applied
Linguistics Wiley Blackwell
Taguchi N 2011 lsquoTeaching pragmatics Trends
and issuesrsquo Annual Review of Applied Linguistics
31 289ndash310
Taguchi N 2012 Context Individual
Differences and Pragmatic Competence
Multilingual Matter
Taguchi N forthcoming lsquoInstructed pragmatics
at a glance Where instructional studies were
are and should be going State-of-the-art art-
iclersquo Language Teaching
Takahashi S 1996 lsquoPragmatic transferabilityrsquo
Studies in Second Language Acquisition 18 189ndash223
Takahashi S 2010 lsquoAssessing learnability in
second language pragmaticsrsquo in A Trosborg
(ed) Handbook of Pragmatics VII Mouton de
Gruyter pp 391ndash421
Takimoto M 2012 lsquoMetapragmatic discussion
in interlanguage pragmaticsrsquo Journal of
Pragmatics 44 1240ndash53
Van den Branden K M Bygate and
J Norris (eds) 2009 Task-Based Language
Teaching A Reader John Benjamins Publishers
22 COLLABORATIVE DIALOGUE AND PRAGMATICS
by guest on July 30 2014httpapplijoxfordjournalsorg
Dow
nloaded from
NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS
Naoko Taguchi is an associate professor in the Modern Languages Department at
Carnegie Mellon University where she teaches courses in SLA and Japanese language
and culture Her research interests include pragmatics classroom-based research and
English-medium instruction Address for correspondence Naoko Taguchi Carnegie Mellon
University Pittsburgh PA USA lttaguchiandrewcmuedugt
YouJin Kim is an assistant professor in the Department of Applied Linguistics and ESL at
Georgia State University Her primary research interests include instructed second lan-
guage acquisition task-based language teaching and assessment and structural prim-
ing Her research focuses on adolescent and adult English and Korean language
learners Address for correspondence YouJin Kim Georgia State University Atlanta
GA USA ltykim39gsuedugt
N TAGUCHI AND Y KIM 23
by guest on July 30 2014httpapplijoxfordjournalsorg
Dow
nloaded from
task performance in terms of the accurate production of the target linguistic
forms and subsequent learning of the forms (eg Storch 2007 Kim 2008) The
present study has advanced this body of literature by demonstrating that ef-
fects of collaborative tasks and PREs extend beyond grammar and vocabulary
PREs provide opportunities for pragmatic learning that involves a complex
mapping of formndashfunctionndashcontext
Although the efficacy of collaborative dialogue became clear in this study
questions remain as to why the effects were restricted to the request head acts
and did not extend to request modifications One possible interpretation of the
findings relates to the different assessment methods used for the head act and
modification Head acts were assessed using a scoring rubric that reflected both
appropriateness (choosing the target mitigated preparatory forms over other
request-making forms) and grammaticality (accuracy of the forms)
Modifications on the other hand were analyzed mainly on frequency of pro-
duction We made this decision because different from the head act that
occurs only once in a single speech act modifications typically co-occur over
multiple times In addition internal modifications used in this study were all
lexical involving only one word which made the analysis of grammaticality
irrelevant
It is possible that the collaborative dialogue made a difference when the
quality of pragmatic forms (accuracy and appropriateness) was considered
compared with simple quantity (frequency) As shown in the treatment task
data strength of the collaborative dialogue was observed in how learners scaf-
folded each other and provided feedback to each other while jointly carrying
out tasks It might be the case that these instances of negotiation and inter-
action occurring in the collaborative task pushed learners to a deeper level of
processing of the request head act which eventually helped them consolidate
their knowledge of both accuracy and appropriateness of the forms Because of
the linguistic complexity of the head act forms (bi-clausal structure) and the
more strenuous scoring method used to evaluate the forms learnersrsquo know-
ledge base had to be solid enough to allow retrieval and use of the knowledge
The collaborative condition that involved intensive attention negotiation
monitoring and peer feedback probably assisted the formation of this robust
knowledge Nevertheless both treatment conditions were equally effective on
the level of request modifications This might be due to the fact that the groups
were compared on the frequency of use (whether they were able to produce
them in an intelligible manner) not on the quality of use (absolute accuracy of
the forms)
These interpretations also corroborate with Takimotorsquos (2012) findings that
revealed the advantage of metapragmatic over non-metapragmatic discussion
on the acquisition of request Positive effects were found in the production-
based test (DCT) but not in the receptive-skills test (appropriateness judg-
ment) Takimoto attributed the findings to the relative ease of the receptive
task Participants without metapragmatic discussion were still able to cope with
judging appropriateness because the test posed lower demands than a
18 COLLABORATIVE DIALOGUE AND PRAGMATICS
by guest on July 30 2014httpapplijoxfordjournalsorg
Dow
nloaded from
production task however they were not able to deal with the demand
coming from the DCT that required them to produce target forms accurately
and appropriately Because of the precise syntactic processing required in pro-
duction and resulting task demand learners benefitted more from metaprag-
matic discussion that assisted the consolidation of knowledge
Although the two treatment groups differed in their use of the request head
acts their performance was the same at the level of modifications Both groups
outperformed the control group in the production of preparators and hedging
right after the instruction as well as 1 month later in the case of preparators
These findings indicate a strong effect of instruction over non-instruction but
also reveal variation within the effect across modification types The strong
effect found in the preparators is probably due to the saliency of the prepara-
tors as semantic strategies Different from hedging or amplifiers that involve
precise pragmalinguistics preparators are part of the discourse moves that
characterize the structure of a request reflecting sociopragmatic information
Logistics and rituals of how to structure a request using preparators were prob-
ably easier to learn than the precise linguistics forms of a request and once
learned the knowledge stayed in the memory because of its saliency These
findings conform to the previous longitudinal findings that revealed that ac-
quisition of sociopragmatic rules (eg use of semantic strategies) is faster than
that of pragmalinguistic forms (Bardovi-Harlig and Hartford 1993 Taguchi
2012) The present findings confirmed this in an instructional study
LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY AND IMPLICATIONS FORFUTURE RESEARCH
This study is limited to a small number of individuals in a single L2 group a
single measure and a narrowly defined pragmatic target (request) Future
studies should involve a greater participant pool with wider target languages
and pragmatic measures and examine the development of different aspects of
pragmatic competence in relation to collaborative dialogue
Equally important is an investigation into individual differences and lear-
nersrsquo perceptions of instruction It is possible that not all learners had equal
amount of participation or contribution to the collaborative tasks which con-
sequently restricted their knowledge-building process It is also possible that
learners were not familiar with the type of instructional activities used in this
study and needed more time to get accustomed to the tasks in order to gain the
full benefit from them Two class periods were probably not enough time to
boost their robust learning Because this study did not address individual lear-
ner variation and learnersrsquo perceptions of their learning processes future stu-
dies are called for in this direction
Additionally although there has been a surge amount of research on task
design and task implementation in instructed SLA the learning of pragmatics
using a variety of collaborative tasks has not been explored Because this study
N TAGUCHI AND Y KIM 19
by guest on July 30 2014httpapplijoxfordjournalsorg
Dow
nloaded from
used only one type of writing task future studies should explore task-related
variables to find ultimate task-based learning contexts for pragmatic
development
In the current study we used PREs as an analysis unit to determine the
amount of learnersrsquo attention to target pragmatic forms for both individual and
collaborative groups The results need to be interpreted with acknowledging
that the characteristics of PREs in these two groups might not be exactly
the same due to the different nature of task performance As a first step of
using PREs we focused on the overall frequency of PREs Future studies are
warranted to explore the quality of PREs (eg number of turnssentences per
PRE) to further our understanding of collaborative dialogue around prag-
matics Another limitation is that this study did not collect Supplementary
data such as stimulated verbal recall or interviews to understand actual cog-
nitive processing involved in PREs which should be explored in the future
research
Finally different effects of collaborative dialogue between the request head
acts and modifications found here need to be addressed more explicitly in the
future Learnability and teachability of pragmatic features have been discussed
in the literature pointing to the need for exploring the interaction among
instructional methods pragmatic targets and learner profiles (eg Roever
2009 Takahashi 2010 Taguhi 2011) Roever (2009) suggests that future re-
search should investigate what kinds of pragmatic features (eg syntactic miti-
gations and lexical downgraders) should be taught to what types of learners
(in terms of proficiency or other individual characteristics) using what kinds of
intervention methods (eg interaction vs non-interaction) Taguchi (forth-
coming) adds characteristics of assessment methods to this call because instruc-
tional effects diverge substantially depending on the demands involved
in the assessment measures Collaborative dialogue and PREs could serve
as a fruitful area to investigate this interaction among pragmatic targets in-
structional methods learnersrsquo instructional readiness and assessment
measures
SUPPLEMENTARY DATA
Supplementary material is available at Applied Linguistics online
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We are grateful for three anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on earlier versions of
the manuscript Special thanks also go to our research assistants Feng Xiao Franklin Bradfield
Sharon Kim and YeonJoo Jung for their help with data analysis We are responsible for all the
errors that may remain
Conflict of interest statement None declared
20 COLLABORATIVE DIALOGUE AND PRAGMATICS
by guest on July 30 2014httpapplijoxfordjournalsorg
Dow
nloaded from
NOTES
1 We acknowledge the limitation of not
using video-recorded authentic prag-
matic materials
2 One of the reviewers stated that the au-
thenticity of tasks should be based on
whether situations happen in the
target culture We agree with this con-
cern However being familiar with
given contexts is crucial for the partici-
pants to be able to analyze the contexts
and discuss the pragmatic-related issues
Because making requests in both
Korean and English follow similar
discourse patterns we decided that it
was appropriate to use context-specific
scenarios (situations in Korea) in the
study
3 Missing responses occupied about 3
percent of the data
4 We conducted additional analysis with
analysis of covariance with proficiency
measured by TOEIC Bridge test as cov-
ariate Results were the same
5 This study did not analyze content of
the grounders because content was
fixed provided in the DCT scenarios
REFERENCES
Bardovi-Harlig K and B Hartford 1993
lsquoLearning the rules of academic talk A
longitudinal study of pragmatic changersquo
Studies in Second Language Acquisition 15
279ndash304
Blum-Kulka S J House and G Kasper
1989 Cross-Cultural Pragmatics Requests and
Apologies Ablex
Brown P and S Levinson 1987 Politeness
Cambridge University Press
Golato A 2003 lsquoStudying complement re-
sponses A comparison of DCTs and recordings
of naturally occurring talkrsquo Applied Linguistics
24 90ndash121
DeKeyser R 2007 lsquoSkill acquisition theoryrsquo
in B VanPatten and J Williams (eds)
Theories in Second Language Acquisition An
Introduction Lawrence Erlbaum Associates
Publishers pp 94ndash113
Jeon E -H and T Kaya 2006 lsquoEffects of L2
instruction on interlanguage pragmatic devel-
opmentrsquo in N John and L Ortega (eds)
Synthesizing Research on Language Learning and
Teaching John Benjamins pp 165ndash211
Kasper G 2001 lsquoClassroom research on inter-
language pragmaticsrsquo in K Rose and G Kasper
(eds) Pragmatics in Language Teaching
Cambridge University Press pp 33ndash62
Kim Y 2008 lsquoThe contribution of collaborative
and individual tasks to the acquisition of L2
vocabularyrsquo Modern Language Journal 92
113ndash40
Kim Y 2013 lsquoEffects of pretask modeling on
attention to form and question developmentrsquo
TESOL Quarterly 47 8ndash35
Kim Y in press lsquoThe role of tasks as vehicles for
learning in classroom interactionrsquo in N Markee
(ed) Handbook of Classroom Discourse and
Interaction Wiley-Blackwell
Lee I S Kim S Yoon J Nam S Park
Y Hong and T Orr 2009 Middle School
English 2 Chun-Jae-Gyo-Yuk
Leech G 1983 Principles of Pragmatics Longman
McNamara T and C Roever 2006 Language
Testing The Social Dimension Blackwell
Nassaji H and J Tian 2010 lsquoCollaborative and
individual output tasks and their effects on
learning English phrasal verbsrsquo Language
Teaching Research 14 397ndash419
Nguyen TTM 2013 lsquoInstructional effects on
the acquisition of modifiers in constructive
criticisms by EFL learnersrsquo Language
Awareness 22 76ndash94
Payant C 2012 lsquoLearner-learner interaction
An exploration of the mediating functions of
multilingual learnersrsquo languages in an L3 for-
eign language classroomrsquo Unpublished disser-
tation Georgia State University
Roever C 2009 lsquoTeaching and testing pragmaticsrsquo
in M Long and C Doughty (eds) Handbook of
Language Teaching Wiley-Blackwell pp 560ndash77
Schmidt R 2001 lsquoAttentionrsquo in P Robinson
(ed) Cognition and Second Language Instruction
Cambridge University Press pp 3ndash32
N TAGUCHI AND Y KIM 21
by guest on July 30 2014httpapplijoxfordjournalsorg
Dow
nloaded from
Storch N 2007 lsquoInvestigating the merits of pair
work on a text editing task in ESL classesrsquo
Language Teaching Research 2 143ndash59
Swain M 2006 lsquoLanguaging agency and col-
laboration in advanced second language
Proficiencyrsquo in H Byrnes (ed) Advanced
Language Learning The Contribution of Halliday
and Vygotsky Continuum pp 95ndash108
Swain M and S Lapkin 1998 lsquoInteraction
and second language learning Two adolescent
French immersion students working togetherrsquo
Modern Language Journal 82 320ndash37
Swain M and Y Watanabe 2013
lsquoCollaborative dialogue as a source of learningrsquo
in C Chapelle (ed) The Encyclopedia of Applied
Linguistics Wiley Blackwell
Taguchi N 2011 lsquoTeaching pragmatics Trends
and issuesrsquo Annual Review of Applied Linguistics
31 289ndash310
Taguchi N 2012 Context Individual
Differences and Pragmatic Competence
Multilingual Matter
Taguchi N forthcoming lsquoInstructed pragmatics
at a glance Where instructional studies were
are and should be going State-of-the-art art-
iclersquo Language Teaching
Takahashi S 1996 lsquoPragmatic transferabilityrsquo
Studies in Second Language Acquisition 18 189ndash223
Takahashi S 2010 lsquoAssessing learnability in
second language pragmaticsrsquo in A Trosborg
(ed) Handbook of Pragmatics VII Mouton de
Gruyter pp 391ndash421
Takimoto M 2012 lsquoMetapragmatic discussion
in interlanguage pragmaticsrsquo Journal of
Pragmatics 44 1240ndash53
Van den Branden K M Bygate and
J Norris (eds) 2009 Task-Based Language
Teaching A Reader John Benjamins Publishers
22 COLLABORATIVE DIALOGUE AND PRAGMATICS
by guest on July 30 2014httpapplijoxfordjournalsorg
Dow
nloaded from
NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS
Naoko Taguchi is an associate professor in the Modern Languages Department at
Carnegie Mellon University where she teaches courses in SLA and Japanese language
and culture Her research interests include pragmatics classroom-based research and
English-medium instruction Address for correspondence Naoko Taguchi Carnegie Mellon
University Pittsburgh PA USA lttaguchiandrewcmuedugt
YouJin Kim is an assistant professor in the Department of Applied Linguistics and ESL at
Georgia State University Her primary research interests include instructed second lan-
guage acquisition task-based language teaching and assessment and structural prim-
ing Her research focuses on adolescent and adult English and Korean language
learners Address for correspondence YouJin Kim Georgia State University Atlanta
GA USA ltykim39gsuedugt
N TAGUCHI AND Y KIM 23
by guest on July 30 2014httpapplijoxfordjournalsorg
Dow
nloaded from
production task however they were not able to deal with the demand
coming from the DCT that required them to produce target forms accurately
and appropriately Because of the precise syntactic processing required in pro-
duction and resulting task demand learners benefitted more from metaprag-
matic discussion that assisted the consolidation of knowledge
Although the two treatment groups differed in their use of the request head
acts their performance was the same at the level of modifications Both groups
outperformed the control group in the production of preparators and hedging
right after the instruction as well as 1 month later in the case of preparators
These findings indicate a strong effect of instruction over non-instruction but
also reveal variation within the effect across modification types The strong
effect found in the preparators is probably due to the saliency of the prepara-
tors as semantic strategies Different from hedging or amplifiers that involve
precise pragmalinguistics preparators are part of the discourse moves that
characterize the structure of a request reflecting sociopragmatic information
Logistics and rituals of how to structure a request using preparators were prob-
ably easier to learn than the precise linguistics forms of a request and once
learned the knowledge stayed in the memory because of its saliency These
findings conform to the previous longitudinal findings that revealed that ac-
quisition of sociopragmatic rules (eg use of semantic strategies) is faster than
that of pragmalinguistic forms (Bardovi-Harlig and Hartford 1993 Taguchi
2012) The present findings confirmed this in an instructional study
LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY AND IMPLICATIONS FORFUTURE RESEARCH
This study is limited to a small number of individuals in a single L2 group a
single measure and a narrowly defined pragmatic target (request) Future
studies should involve a greater participant pool with wider target languages
and pragmatic measures and examine the development of different aspects of
pragmatic competence in relation to collaborative dialogue
Equally important is an investigation into individual differences and lear-
nersrsquo perceptions of instruction It is possible that not all learners had equal
amount of participation or contribution to the collaborative tasks which con-
sequently restricted their knowledge-building process It is also possible that
learners were not familiar with the type of instructional activities used in this
study and needed more time to get accustomed to the tasks in order to gain the
full benefit from them Two class periods were probably not enough time to
boost their robust learning Because this study did not address individual lear-
ner variation and learnersrsquo perceptions of their learning processes future stu-
dies are called for in this direction
Additionally although there has been a surge amount of research on task
design and task implementation in instructed SLA the learning of pragmatics
using a variety of collaborative tasks has not been explored Because this study
N TAGUCHI AND Y KIM 19
by guest on July 30 2014httpapplijoxfordjournalsorg
Dow
nloaded from
used only one type of writing task future studies should explore task-related
variables to find ultimate task-based learning contexts for pragmatic
development
In the current study we used PREs as an analysis unit to determine the
amount of learnersrsquo attention to target pragmatic forms for both individual and
collaborative groups The results need to be interpreted with acknowledging
that the characteristics of PREs in these two groups might not be exactly
the same due to the different nature of task performance As a first step of
using PREs we focused on the overall frequency of PREs Future studies are
warranted to explore the quality of PREs (eg number of turnssentences per
PRE) to further our understanding of collaborative dialogue around prag-
matics Another limitation is that this study did not collect Supplementary
data such as stimulated verbal recall or interviews to understand actual cog-
nitive processing involved in PREs which should be explored in the future
research
Finally different effects of collaborative dialogue between the request head
acts and modifications found here need to be addressed more explicitly in the
future Learnability and teachability of pragmatic features have been discussed
in the literature pointing to the need for exploring the interaction among
instructional methods pragmatic targets and learner profiles (eg Roever
2009 Takahashi 2010 Taguhi 2011) Roever (2009) suggests that future re-
search should investigate what kinds of pragmatic features (eg syntactic miti-
gations and lexical downgraders) should be taught to what types of learners
(in terms of proficiency or other individual characteristics) using what kinds of
intervention methods (eg interaction vs non-interaction) Taguchi (forth-
coming) adds characteristics of assessment methods to this call because instruc-
tional effects diverge substantially depending on the demands involved
in the assessment measures Collaborative dialogue and PREs could serve
as a fruitful area to investigate this interaction among pragmatic targets in-
structional methods learnersrsquo instructional readiness and assessment
measures
SUPPLEMENTARY DATA
Supplementary material is available at Applied Linguistics online
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We are grateful for three anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on earlier versions of
the manuscript Special thanks also go to our research assistants Feng Xiao Franklin Bradfield
Sharon Kim and YeonJoo Jung for their help with data analysis We are responsible for all the
errors that may remain
Conflict of interest statement None declared
20 COLLABORATIVE DIALOGUE AND PRAGMATICS
by guest on July 30 2014httpapplijoxfordjournalsorg
Dow
nloaded from
NOTES
1 We acknowledge the limitation of not
using video-recorded authentic prag-
matic materials
2 One of the reviewers stated that the au-
thenticity of tasks should be based on
whether situations happen in the
target culture We agree with this con-
cern However being familiar with
given contexts is crucial for the partici-
pants to be able to analyze the contexts
and discuss the pragmatic-related issues
Because making requests in both
Korean and English follow similar
discourse patterns we decided that it
was appropriate to use context-specific
scenarios (situations in Korea) in the
study
3 Missing responses occupied about 3
percent of the data
4 We conducted additional analysis with
analysis of covariance with proficiency
measured by TOEIC Bridge test as cov-
ariate Results were the same
5 This study did not analyze content of
the grounders because content was
fixed provided in the DCT scenarios
REFERENCES
Bardovi-Harlig K and B Hartford 1993
lsquoLearning the rules of academic talk A
longitudinal study of pragmatic changersquo
Studies in Second Language Acquisition 15
279ndash304
Blum-Kulka S J House and G Kasper
1989 Cross-Cultural Pragmatics Requests and
Apologies Ablex
Brown P and S Levinson 1987 Politeness
Cambridge University Press
Golato A 2003 lsquoStudying complement re-
sponses A comparison of DCTs and recordings
of naturally occurring talkrsquo Applied Linguistics
24 90ndash121
DeKeyser R 2007 lsquoSkill acquisition theoryrsquo
in B VanPatten and J Williams (eds)
Theories in Second Language Acquisition An
Introduction Lawrence Erlbaum Associates
Publishers pp 94ndash113
Jeon E -H and T Kaya 2006 lsquoEffects of L2
instruction on interlanguage pragmatic devel-
opmentrsquo in N John and L Ortega (eds)
Synthesizing Research on Language Learning and
Teaching John Benjamins pp 165ndash211
Kasper G 2001 lsquoClassroom research on inter-
language pragmaticsrsquo in K Rose and G Kasper
(eds) Pragmatics in Language Teaching
Cambridge University Press pp 33ndash62
Kim Y 2008 lsquoThe contribution of collaborative
and individual tasks to the acquisition of L2
vocabularyrsquo Modern Language Journal 92
113ndash40
Kim Y 2013 lsquoEffects of pretask modeling on
attention to form and question developmentrsquo
TESOL Quarterly 47 8ndash35
Kim Y in press lsquoThe role of tasks as vehicles for
learning in classroom interactionrsquo in N Markee
(ed) Handbook of Classroom Discourse and
Interaction Wiley-Blackwell
Lee I S Kim S Yoon J Nam S Park
Y Hong and T Orr 2009 Middle School
English 2 Chun-Jae-Gyo-Yuk
Leech G 1983 Principles of Pragmatics Longman
McNamara T and C Roever 2006 Language
Testing The Social Dimension Blackwell
Nassaji H and J Tian 2010 lsquoCollaborative and
individual output tasks and their effects on
learning English phrasal verbsrsquo Language
Teaching Research 14 397ndash419
Nguyen TTM 2013 lsquoInstructional effects on
the acquisition of modifiers in constructive
criticisms by EFL learnersrsquo Language
Awareness 22 76ndash94
Payant C 2012 lsquoLearner-learner interaction
An exploration of the mediating functions of
multilingual learnersrsquo languages in an L3 for-
eign language classroomrsquo Unpublished disser-
tation Georgia State University
Roever C 2009 lsquoTeaching and testing pragmaticsrsquo
in M Long and C Doughty (eds) Handbook of
Language Teaching Wiley-Blackwell pp 560ndash77
Schmidt R 2001 lsquoAttentionrsquo in P Robinson
(ed) Cognition and Second Language Instruction
Cambridge University Press pp 3ndash32
N TAGUCHI AND Y KIM 21
by guest on July 30 2014httpapplijoxfordjournalsorg
Dow
nloaded from
Storch N 2007 lsquoInvestigating the merits of pair
work on a text editing task in ESL classesrsquo
Language Teaching Research 2 143ndash59
Swain M 2006 lsquoLanguaging agency and col-
laboration in advanced second language
Proficiencyrsquo in H Byrnes (ed) Advanced
Language Learning The Contribution of Halliday
and Vygotsky Continuum pp 95ndash108
Swain M and S Lapkin 1998 lsquoInteraction
and second language learning Two adolescent
French immersion students working togetherrsquo
Modern Language Journal 82 320ndash37
Swain M and Y Watanabe 2013
lsquoCollaborative dialogue as a source of learningrsquo
in C Chapelle (ed) The Encyclopedia of Applied
Linguistics Wiley Blackwell
Taguchi N 2011 lsquoTeaching pragmatics Trends
and issuesrsquo Annual Review of Applied Linguistics
31 289ndash310
Taguchi N 2012 Context Individual
Differences and Pragmatic Competence
Multilingual Matter
Taguchi N forthcoming lsquoInstructed pragmatics
at a glance Where instructional studies were
are and should be going State-of-the-art art-
iclersquo Language Teaching
Takahashi S 1996 lsquoPragmatic transferabilityrsquo
Studies in Second Language Acquisition 18 189ndash223
Takahashi S 2010 lsquoAssessing learnability in
second language pragmaticsrsquo in A Trosborg
(ed) Handbook of Pragmatics VII Mouton de
Gruyter pp 391ndash421
Takimoto M 2012 lsquoMetapragmatic discussion
in interlanguage pragmaticsrsquo Journal of
Pragmatics 44 1240ndash53
Van den Branden K M Bygate and
J Norris (eds) 2009 Task-Based Language
Teaching A Reader John Benjamins Publishers
22 COLLABORATIVE DIALOGUE AND PRAGMATICS
by guest on July 30 2014httpapplijoxfordjournalsorg
Dow
nloaded from
NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS
Naoko Taguchi is an associate professor in the Modern Languages Department at
Carnegie Mellon University where she teaches courses in SLA and Japanese language
and culture Her research interests include pragmatics classroom-based research and
English-medium instruction Address for correspondence Naoko Taguchi Carnegie Mellon
University Pittsburgh PA USA lttaguchiandrewcmuedugt
YouJin Kim is an assistant professor in the Department of Applied Linguistics and ESL at
Georgia State University Her primary research interests include instructed second lan-
guage acquisition task-based language teaching and assessment and structural prim-
ing Her research focuses on adolescent and adult English and Korean language
learners Address for correspondence YouJin Kim Georgia State University Atlanta
GA USA ltykim39gsuedugt
N TAGUCHI AND Y KIM 23
by guest on July 30 2014httpapplijoxfordjournalsorg
Dow
nloaded from
used only one type of writing task future studies should explore task-related
variables to find ultimate task-based learning contexts for pragmatic
development
In the current study we used PREs as an analysis unit to determine the
amount of learnersrsquo attention to target pragmatic forms for both individual and
collaborative groups The results need to be interpreted with acknowledging
that the characteristics of PREs in these two groups might not be exactly
the same due to the different nature of task performance As a first step of
using PREs we focused on the overall frequency of PREs Future studies are
warranted to explore the quality of PREs (eg number of turnssentences per
PRE) to further our understanding of collaborative dialogue around prag-
matics Another limitation is that this study did not collect Supplementary
data such as stimulated verbal recall or interviews to understand actual cog-
nitive processing involved in PREs which should be explored in the future
research
Finally different effects of collaborative dialogue between the request head
acts and modifications found here need to be addressed more explicitly in the
future Learnability and teachability of pragmatic features have been discussed
in the literature pointing to the need for exploring the interaction among
instructional methods pragmatic targets and learner profiles (eg Roever
2009 Takahashi 2010 Taguhi 2011) Roever (2009) suggests that future re-
search should investigate what kinds of pragmatic features (eg syntactic miti-
gations and lexical downgraders) should be taught to what types of learners
(in terms of proficiency or other individual characteristics) using what kinds of
intervention methods (eg interaction vs non-interaction) Taguchi (forth-
coming) adds characteristics of assessment methods to this call because instruc-
tional effects diverge substantially depending on the demands involved
in the assessment measures Collaborative dialogue and PREs could serve
as a fruitful area to investigate this interaction among pragmatic targets in-
structional methods learnersrsquo instructional readiness and assessment
measures
SUPPLEMENTARY DATA
Supplementary material is available at Applied Linguistics online
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We are grateful for three anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on earlier versions of
the manuscript Special thanks also go to our research assistants Feng Xiao Franklin Bradfield
Sharon Kim and YeonJoo Jung for their help with data analysis We are responsible for all the
errors that may remain
Conflict of interest statement None declared
20 COLLABORATIVE DIALOGUE AND PRAGMATICS
by guest on July 30 2014httpapplijoxfordjournalsorg
Dow
nloaded from
NOTES
1 We acknowledge the limitation of not
using video-recorded authentic prag-
matic materials
2 One of the reviewers stated that the au-
thenticity of tasks should be based on
whether situations happen in the
target culture We agree with this con-
cern However being familiar with
given contexts is crucial for the partici-
pants to be able to analyze the contexts
and discuss the pragmatic-related issues
Because making requests in both
Korean and English follow similar
discourse patterns we decided that it
was appropriate to use context-specific
scenarios (situations in Korea) in the
study
3 Missing responses occupied about 3
percent of the data
4 We conducted additional analysis with
analysis of covariance with proficiency
measured by TOEIC Bridge test as cov-
ariate Results were the same
5 This study did not analyze content of
the grounders because content was
fixed provided in the DCT scenarios
REFERENCES
Bardovi-Harlig K and B Hartford 1993
lsquoLearning the rules of academic talk A
longitudinal study of pragmatic changersquo
Studies in Second Language Acquisition 15
279ndash304
Blum-Kulka S J House and G Kasper
1989 Cross-Cultural Pragmatics Requests and
Apologies Ablex
Brown P and S Levinson 1987 Politeness
Cambridge University Press
Golato A 2003 lsquoStudying complement re-
sponses A comparison of DCTs and recordings
of naturally occurring talkrsquo Applied Linguistics
24 90ndash121
DeKeyser R 2007 lsquoSkill acquisition theoryrsquo
in B VanPatten and J Williams (eds)
Theories in Second Language Acquisition An
Introduction Lawrence Erlbaum Associates
Publishers pp 94ndash113
Jeon E -H and T Kaya 2006 lsquoEffects of L2
instruction on interlanguage pragmatic devel-
opmentrsquo in N John and L Ortega (eds)
Synthesizing Research on Language Learning and
Teaching John Benjamins pp 165ndash211
Kasper G 2001 lsquoClassroom research on inter-
language pragmaticsrsquo in K Rose and G Kasper
(eds) Pragmatics in Language Teaching
Cambridge University Press pp 33ndash62
Kim Y 2008 lsquoThe contribution of collaborative
and individual tasks to the acquisition of L2
vocabularyrsquo Modern Language Journal 92
113ndash40
Kim Y 2013 lsquoEffects of pretask modeling on
attention to form and question developmentrsquo
TESOL Quarterly 47 8ndash35
Kim Y in press lsquoThe role of tasks as vehicles for
learning in classroom interactionrsquo in N Markee
(ed) Handbook of Classroom Discourse and
Interaction Wiley-Blackwell
Lee I S Kim S Yoon J Nam S Park
Y Hong and T Orr 2009 Middle School
English 2 Chun-Jae-Gyo-Yuk
Leech G 1983 Principles of Pragmatics Longman
McNamara T and C Roever 2006 Language
Testing The Social Dimension Blackwell
Nassaji H and J Tian 2010 lsquoCollaborative and
individual output tasks and their effects on
learning English phrasal verbsrsquo Language
Teaching Research 14 397ndash419
Nguyen TTM 2013 lsquoInstructional effects on
the acquisition of modifiers in constructive
criticisms by EFL learnersrsquo Language
Awareness 22 76ndash94
Payant C 2012 lsquoLearner-learner interaction
An exploration of the mediating functions of
multilingual learnersrsquo languages in an L3 for-
eign language classroomrsquo Unpublished disser-
tation Georgia State University
Roever C 2009 lsquoTeaching and testing pragmaticsrsquo
in M Long and C Doughty (eds) Handbook of
Language Teaching Wiley-Blackwell pp 560ndash77
Schmidt R 2001 lsquoAttentionrsquo in P Robinson
(ed) Cognition and Second Language Instruction
Cambridge University Press pp 3ndash32
N TAGUCHI AND Y KIM 21
by guest on July 30 2014httpapplijoxfordjournalsorg
Dow
nloaded from
Storch N 2007 lsquoInvestigating the merits of pair
work on a text editing task in ESL classesrsquo
Language Teaching Research 2 143ndash59
Swain M 2006 lsquoLanguaging agency and col-
laboration in advanced second language
Proficiencyrsquo in H Byrnes (ed) Advanced
Language Learning The Contribution of Halliday
and Vygotsky Continuum pp 95ndash108
Swain M and S Lapkin 1998 lsquoInteraction
and second language learning Two adolescent
French immersion students working togetherrsquo
Modern Language Journal 82 320ndash37
Swain M and Y Watanabe 2013
lsquoCollaborative dialogue as a source of learningrsquo
in C Chapelle (ed) The Encyclopedia of Applied
Linguistics Wiley Blackwell
Taguchi N 2011 lsquoTeaching pragmatics Trends
and issuesrsquo Annual Review of Applied Linguistics
31 289ndash310
Taguchi N 2012 Context Individual
Differences and Pragmatic Competence
Multilingual Matter
Taguchi N forthcoming lsquoInstructed pragmatics
at a glance Where instructional studies were
are and should be going State-of-the-art art-
iclersquo Language Teaching
Takahashi S 1996 lsquoPragmatic transferabilityrsquo
Studies in Second Language Acquisition 18 189ndash223
Takahashi S 2010 lsquoAssessing learnability in
second language pragmaticsrsquo in A Trosborg
(ed) Handbook of Pragmatics VII Mouton de
Gruyter pp 391ndash421
Takimoto M 2012 lsquoMetapragmatic discussion
in interlanguage pragmaticsrsquo Journal of
Pragmatics 44 1240ndash53
Van den Branden K M Bygate and
J Norris (eds) 2009 Task-Based Language
Teaching A Reader John Benjamins Publishers
22 COLLABORATIVE DIALOGUE AND PRAGMATICS
by guest on July 30 2014httpapplijoxfordjournalsorg
Dow
nloaded from
NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS
Naoko Taguchi is an associate professor in the Modern Languages Department at
Carnegie Mellon University where she teaches courses in SLA and Japanese language
and culture Her research interests include pragmatics classroom-based research and
English-medium instruction Address for correspondence Naoko Taguchi Carnegie Mellon
University Pittsburgh PA USA lttaguchiandrewcmuedugt
YouJin Kim is an assistant professor in the Department of Applied Linguistics and ESL at
Georgia State University Her primary research interests include instructed second lan-
guage acquisition task-based language teaching and assessment and structural prim-
ing Her research focuses on adolescent and adult English and Korean language
learners Address for correspondence YouJin Kim Georgia State University Atlanta
GA USA ltykim39gsuedugt
N TAGUCHI AND Y KIM 23
by guest on July 30 2014httpapplijoxfordjournalsorg
Dow
nloaded from
NOTES
1 We acknowledge the limitation of not
using video-recorded authentic prag-
matic materials
2 One of the reviewers stated that the au-
thenticity of tasks should be based on
whether situations happen in the
target culture We agree with this con-
cern However being familiar with
given contexts is crucial for the partici-
pants to be able to analyze the contexts
and discuss the pragmatic-related issues
Because making requests in both
Korean and English follow similar
discourse patterns we decided that it
was appropriate to use context-specific
scenarios (situations in Korea) in the
study
3 Missing responses occupied about 3
percent of the data
4 We conducted additional analysis with
analysis of covariance with proficiency
measured by TOEIC Bridge test as cov-
ariate Results were the same
5 This study did not analyze content of
the grounders because content was
fixed provided in the DCT scenarios
REFERENCES
Bardovi-Harlig K and B Hartford 1993
lsquoLearning the rules of academic talk A
longitudinal study of pragmatic changersquo
Studies in Second Language Acquisition 15
279ndash304
Blum-Kulka S J House and G Kasper
1989 Cross-Cultural Pragmatics Requests and
Apologies Ablex
Brown P and S Levinson 1987 Politeness
Cambridge University Press
Golato A 2003 lsquoStudying complement re-
sponses A comparison of DCTs and recordings
of naturally occurring talkrsquo Applied Linguistics
24 90ndash121
DeKeyser R 2007 lsquoSkill acquisition theoryrsquo
in B VanPatten and J Williams (eds)
Theories in Second Language Acquisition An
Introduction Lawrence Erlbaum Associates
Publishers pp 94ndash113
Jeon E -H and T Kaya 2006 lsquoEffects of L2
instruction on interlanguage pragmatic devel-
opmentrsquo in N John and L Ortega (eds)
Synthesizing Research on Language Learning and
Teaching John Benjamins pp 165ndash211
Kasper G 2001 lsquoClassroom research on inter-
language pragmaticsrsquo in K Rose and G Kasper
(eds) Pragmatics in Language Teaching
Cambridge University Press pp 33ndash62
Kim Y 2008 lsquoThe contribution of collaborative
and individual tasks to the acquisition of L2
vocabularyrsquo Modern Language Journal 92
113ndash40
Kim Y 2013 lsquoEffects of pretask modeling on
attention to form and question developmentrsquo
TESOL Quarterly 47 8ndash35
Kim Y in press lsquoThe role of tasks as vehicles for
learning in classroom interactionrsquo in N Markee
(ed) Handbook of Classroom Discourse and
Interaction Wiley-Blackwell
Lee I S Kim S Yoon J Nam S Park
Y Hong and T Orr 2009 Middle School
English 2 Chun-Jae-Gyo-Yuk
Leech G 1983 Principles of Pragmatics Longman
McNamara T and C Roever 2006 Language
Testing The Social Dimension Blackwell
Nassaji H and J Tian 2010 lsquoCollaborative and
individual output tasks and their effects on
learning English phrasal verbsrsquo Language
Teaching Research 14 397ndash419
Nguyen TTM 2013 lsquoInstructional effects on
the acquisition of modifiers in constructive
criticisms by EFL learnersrsquo Language
Awareness 22 76ndash94
Payant C 2012 lsquoLearner-learner interaction
An exploration of the mediating functions of
multilingual learnersrsquo languages in an L3 for-
eign language classroomrsquo Unpublished disser-
tation Georgia State University
Roever C 2009 lsquoTeaching and testing pragmaticsrsquo
in M Long and C Doughty (eds) Handbook of
Language Teaching Wiley-Blackwell pp 560ndash77
Schmidt R 2001 lsquoAttentionrsquo in P Robinson
(ed) Cognition and Second Language Instruction
Cambridge University Press pp 3ndash32
N TAGUCHI AND Y KIM 21
by guest on July 30 2014httpapplijoxfordjournalsorg
Dow
nloaded from
Storch N 2007 lsquoInvestigating the merits of pair
work on a text editing task in ESL classesrsquo
Language Teaching Research 2 143ndash59
Swain M 2006 lsquoLanguaging agency and col-
laboration in advanced second language
Proficiencyrsquo in H Byrnes (ed) Advanced
Language Learning The Contribution of Halliday
and Vygotsky Continuum pp 95ndash108
Swain M and S Lapkin 1998 lsquoInteraction
and second language learning Two adolescent
French immersion students working togetherrsquo
Modern Language Journal 82 320ndash37
Swain M and Y Watanabe 2013
lsquoCollaborative dialogue as a source of learningrsquo
in C Chapelle (ed) The Encyclopedia of Applied
Linguistics Wiley Blackwell
Taguchi N 2011 lsquoTeaching pragmatics Trends
and issuesrsquo Annual Review of Applied Linguistics
31 289ndash310
Taguchi N 2012 Context Individual
Differences and Pragmatic Competence
Multilingual Matter
Taguchi N forthcoming lsquoInstructed pragmatics
at a glance Where instructional studies were
are and should be going State-of-the-art art-
iclersquo Language Teaching
Takahashi S 1996 lsquoPragmatic transferabilityrsquo
Studies in Second Language Acquisition 18 189ndash223
Takahashi S 2010 lsquoAssessing learnability in
second language pragmaticsrsquo in A Trosborg
(ed) Handbook of Pragmatics VII Mouton de
Gruyter pp 391ndash421
Takimoto M 2012 lsquoMetapragmatic discussion
in interlanguage pragmaticsrsquo Journal of
Pragmatics 44 1240ndash53
Van den Branden K M Bygate and
J Norris (eds) 2009 Task-Based Language
Teaching A Reader John Benjamins Publishers
22 COLLABORATIVE DIALOGUE AND PRAGMATICS
by guest on July 30 2014httpapplijoxfordjournalsorg
Dow
nloaded from
NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS
Naoko Taguchi is an associate professor in the Modern Languages Department at
Carnegie Mellon University where she teaches courses in SLA and Japanese language
and culture Her research interests include pragmatics classroom-based research and
English-medium instruction Address for correspondence Naoko Taguchi Carnegie Mellon
University Pittsburgh PA USA lttaguchiandrewcmuedugt
YouJin Kim is an assistant professor in the Department of Applied Linguistics and ESL at
Georgia State University Her primary research interests include instructed second lan-
guage acquisition task-based language teaching and assessment and structural prim-
ing Her research focuses on adolescent and adult English and Korean language
learners Address for correspondence YouJin Kim Georgia State University Atlanta
GA USA ltykim39gsuedugt
N TAGUCHI AND Y KIM 23
by guest on July 30 2014httpapplijoxfordjournalsorg
Dow
nloaded from
Storch N 2007 lsquoInvestigating the merits of pair
work on a text editing task in ESL classesrsquo
Language Teaching Research 2 143ndash59
Swain M 2006 lsquoLanguaging agency and col-
laboration in advanced second language
Proficiencyrsquo in H Byrnes (ed) Advanced
Language Learning The Contribution of Halliday
and Vygotsky Continuum pp 95ndash108
Swain M and S Lapkin 1998 lsquoInteraction
and second language learning Two adolescent
French immersion students working togetherrsquo
Modern Language Journal 82 320ndash37
Swain M and Y Watanabe 2013
lsquoCollaborative dialogue as a source of learningrsquo
in C Chapelle (ed) The Encyclopedia of Applied
Linguistics Wiley Blackwell
Taguchi N 2011 lsquoTeaching pragmatics Trends
and issuesrsquo Annual Review of Applied Linguistics
31 289ndash310
Taguchi N 2012 Context Individual
Differences and Pragmatic Competence
Multilingual Matter
Taguchi N forthcoming lsquoInstructed pragmatics
at a glance Where instructional studies were
are and should be going State-of-the-art art-
iclersquo Language Teaching
Takahashi S 1996 lsquoPragmatic transferabilityrsquo
Studies in Second Language Acquisition 18 189ndash223
Takahashi S 2010 lsquoAssessing learnability in
second language pragmaticsrsquo in A Trosborg
(ed) Handbook of Pragmatics VII Mouton de
Gruyter pp 391ndash421
Takimoto M 2012 lsquoMetapragmatic discussion
in interlanguage pragmaticsrsquo Journal of
Pragmatics 44 1240ndash53
Van den Branden K M Bygate and
J Norris (eds) 2009 Task-Based Language
Teaching A Reader John Benjamins Publishers
22 COLLABORATIVE DIALOGUE AND PRAGMATICS
by guest on July 30 2014httpapplijoxfordjournalsorg
Dow
nloaded from
NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS
Naoko Taguchi is an associate professor in the Modern Languages Department at
Carnegie Mellon University where she teaches courses in SLA and Japanese language
and culture Her research interests include pragmatics classroom-based research and
English-medium instruction Address for correspondence Naoko Taguchi Carnegie Mellon
University Pittsburgh PA USA lttaguchiandrewcmuedugt
YouJin Kim is an assistant professor in the Department of Applied Linguistics and ESL at
Georgia State University Her primary research interests include instructed second lan-
guage acquisition task-based language teaching and assessment and structural prim-
ing Her research focuses on adolescent and adult English and Korean language
learners Address for correspondence YouJin Kim Georgia State University Atlanta
GA USA ltykim39gsuedugt
N TAGUCHI AND Y KIM 23
by guest on July 30 2014httpapplijoxfordjournalsorg
Dow
nloaded from
NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS
Naoko Taguchi is an associate professor in the Modern Languages Department at
Carnegie Mellon University where she teaches courses in SLA and Japanese language
and culture Her research interests include pragmatics classroom-based research and
English-medium instruction Address for correspondence Naoko Taguchi Carnegie Mellon
University Pittsburgh PA USA lttaguchiandrewcmuedugt
YouJin Kim is an assistant professor in the Department of Applied Linguistics and ESL at
Georgia State University Her primary research interests include instructed second lan-
guage acquisition task-based language teaching and assessment and structural prim-
ing Her research focuses on adolescent and adult English and Korean language
learners Address for correspondence YouJin Kim Georgia State University Atlanta
GA USA ltykim39gsuedugt
N TAGUCHI AND Y KIM 23
by guest on July 30 2014httpapplijoxfordjournalsorg
Dow
nloaded from