Speech Act Of Request: Validity Of DCT And MCQ

Discourse Completion Test (DCT) and Multiple Choice Test (MCQ) -two data elicitation techniques - are widely used in eliciting speech act data on cross-cultural pragmatics studies. In recent years, researches on the validity o the methods employed in collecting cross-cultural speech act data, especially on the validity of DCT, have received considerable attention. Most of these researches were carried out in the western context, e.g. between English and other western languages such as Spanish. Only a few studies in the literature have examined the validity of DCT and MCQ in oriental context, with the focus on the contrastive study between American English and Japanese. Studies in this field are relatively inadequate in Chinese. Therefore, by doing a contrastive study between British English and Chinese and comparing the degree of truthfulness of the two instruments in eliciting speech act data of request elicited by DCT and MCQ, the present study attempts to look into the validity of DCT and MCQ in Chinese context. Two examinations were designed. The first employed the DCT with British college students and Chinese students as the subjects and was initiated as a contrastive study of request in these two languages. The second utilized the MCQ with Chinese students as the subjects. The speech act data elicited from the two means in the two studies were analyzed respectively. The first study contrasted the DCT data of request strategies in the two language contexts in terms of frequencies, length, alerter, etc. Based on the statistical analysis, the second study discussed the similarities and differences of Chinese and English DCTs, and then compared the validity of DCT and MCQ in Chinese context. The study finds that the validity of DCT is suspected in eliciting speech act data in Chinese context. Compared with DCT, MCQ can reflect the speech act preference of subjects more correctly. This result, to some extent, confirmed the outcome of some previous researches.