Effect Of Form-Focused Instruction On Interlanguage Pragmatic Performance

Compared with the native speakers, second language (L2) or foreign language (FL) learners lag far behind in pragmatic competence, and even proficient L2/FL learners may fail in pragmatic appropriateness. In addition, having a high level of grammatical competence does not necessarily correlate with a high level of pragmatic competence. However, for some reasons, pragmatic teaching is difficult to develop and has not been paid enough attention in foreign language teaching. Accordingly, the development of language learners'pragmatic competence is quite limited in FL context. Thus, advocating and exploring the efficient ways to facilitate the FL learners'pragmatic development is imperative. On the other hand, plentiful empirical studies show that pragmatics is essentially teachable and pragmatic competence indeed can be developed under careful instruction. As a consequence, from the viewpoint of classroom pedagogical need as well as pragmatic research agenda, the exploration of efficient means to facilitate the development of L2 or FL learners'pragmatic competence is imperative and meaningful.At the same time, though the studies of interlanguage pragmatic instruction is abundant abroad in recent years, most studies focus on the effect of explicit vs. implicit instruction alone, lacking the more sophisticated investigation, such as integrating form-focused instruction (FFI) into pragmatic instruction. In addition, Kasper (2001) and Kasper & Rose (2002) have argued that the notion of focus on form (FonF) may appear inapplicable to pragmatics because pragmatics is never only form. Instead, they propose a new term"focus on form and function"(FonFF), which is considered to be more suitable for pragmatic instruction. Yet, few studies have intended to integrate FonFF teaching into pragmatic instruction, exploring its relative effectiveness in comparison with FonF instruction or FonFS instruction.Within the framework of FFI, the present study intends to explore the effect of three kinds of FFI (i.e. FonF, FonFS and FonFF) on the development of pragmatic competence (internal downgraders of English requests in the present study) in comparison with focus on meaning (FonM) instruction. Specifically, the present study attempts to investigate the following two questions: i) Are three kinds of FFI (FonF, FonFS, and FonFF) effective in facilitating the development of Chinese EFL learners'internal downgraders of English requests in comparison with that of no such instruction (i.e., FonM)? ii) Is there any difference in the effect of three kinds of FFI on facilitating the development of Chinese EFL learners'internal downgraders of English requests?According to the research questions, three research hypotheses are put forward: i) The three kinds of FFI (i.e. FonF, FonFS, and FonFF) will be more effective in facilitating the Chinese EFL learners'learning of internal downgraders of English requests in comparison with FonM; ii) The FonFS instruction will be more effective in facilitating the Chinese EFL learners'learning of internal downgraders of English requests than FonF instruction; iii) The FonFF instruction will be more effective in facilitating the Chinese EFL learners'learning of internal downgraders of English requests than FonFS instruction. The three hypotheses can be simplified as: FonFF>FonFS>FonF>FonM. The participants are 208 grade one non-English-major college students of four intact classes in Gansu Political Science and Law Institute, who were divided into four groups: three experimental groups (i.e. FonF group, FonFS group, and FonFF group) and a control group (i.e., FonM group).This study employs"pretest– treatment– posttest– follow-up-test"design, using quantitative and qualitative devices to collect data. Two quantitative test instruments of DCT and SAT are used to detect the participants'change over the target form during the study, and questionnaire to collect their inner thoughts about the pragmatic teaching, along with self-report to investigate their awareness. Treatment is consisted of four-50m teaching sessions for each of the four groups with same teaching materials but different treatments.The quantitative results show that: (i) FonFF group did significantly better than the other three groups (i.e. FonM, FonF and FonFS); (ii) FonFS group did significantly better than FonM group and FonF group; (iii) FonF group did significantly better than FonM group for DCT but there was no significant difference for SAT. And thus, the first hypothesis of the present study is partially supported while the second and third hypotheses are fully supported. In addition, the qualitative results show that: (i) Certain importance is attached to pragmatics in college English teaching, but neither the pragmatic materials nor the conditions of pragmatical instruction is ideal enough; (ii) most students see specialized pragmatical teaching as absolutely necessary, and FonFF is regarded as the most favorable way to conduct pragmatical instruction.Based on the present study, this thesis advocates for FonFF teaching approach in pragmatic instruction. On the operational level, teachers should guide the students to analyze and discover the paralinguistic rules according to specific pragmatic variables (relative power, social distance and degree of imposition, etc.), and offer pragmalinguistic-sociopragmatic connection activities to have chance of making form-function mapping.