A Conversation analytical account of responding in a second language

Abstract

The present cross-sectional study was conducted to investigate the responding strategies of the Turkish EFL learners in responding to offers and assessments in a conversation analytical perspective with respect to their proficiency and, the ability of using their receptive and productive pragmatic knowledge. The subjects were 28 university students. An intermediate level homogenous group of the subjects were chosen for the study and to determine the level of proficiency a cloze test was administered to the subjects. Data were collected by the use of two discourse completion tasks (The Production Tests) and a multiple choice questionnaire (The Perception Tests) in English seperately designed for both offers and assessments. By the use of these tests, the subjects' differentiation between the realisation of the preferred and dispreferred responses in responding to offers and assessments according to preference organization system in English and the difference between the subjects' ability of using their productive and receptive pragmatic knowledge in their responding strategies when responding to offers and assessments were explored. The present study aims to find out whether there is a relationship between the learners' language proficiency and pragmatic knowledge in responding to offers and assessments. The results indicate that there is not a significant relationship between the learners' language proficiency and pragmatic knowledge in responding to offers and assessments. With respect to the learners' differentiation between the preferred and dispreferred responses, the results reveal that Turkish EFL learners do not appear to differentiate between the realisation of the preferred and dispreferred responses in responding to offers neither in the production nor in the perception test. The learners do not seem to have a native-like pragmatic comptetence in responding to offers in the preferred and dispreferred format neither in the production nor in the perception test. On the other hand, the learners seem to differentiate between the realisation of the preferred and dispreferred responses in responding to assessments both in the production and perception test. The learners seem to achieve more successful pragmatic competence in responding to assessments in the preferred format rather than the dispreferred format. However, the learners' overuse of one or two types of prefabricated forms which are not frequently occur among the native speakers of English and not suitable for all social or cultural conditions do not reflect a native-like pragmatic competence in responding to assessment in the preferred format. Also, no significant difference was observed between the learners' ability of using their productive and receptive pragmatic knowledge in their use or selection of the responding strategies in responding to offers in the dispreferred format, and in responding to assessments both in the preferred and dispreferred format. However, there is a significant difference between the learners' ability to use their productive and receptive pragmatic knowledge in responding to offers in the preferred format. The results suggest that the learners' ability of using their receptive pragmatic knowledge seems to be better than the ability of using their productive pragmatic knowledge in responding to offers in the preferred format. Possible reasons for these results are the "text-book effect", "overgeneralisation", and "pragmatic transfer caused by the Turkish language and culture".