This research involves three separate studies with the goal of investigating learner increases in the pragmatic awareness when exposed to various degrees of sustained, explicit instruction. Operationalized as a composite construct in the theory of communicative competence, pragmatic awareness includes knowledge of pragmalinguistic forms and sociopragmatic features, with sequential action events representing the former and relationship status categories the latter. Research questions for each study focus on gains learners revealed on a video-based pragmatic awareness assessment instrument delivered in pretest-posttest format. Data collection occurred from fall semester 2013 to spring semester 2015 in one single-sex junior/senior high school and two co-educational universities, one with a first-year focus group and the other with a second-year group, with participates across the contexts enrolled in 1 of 12 intact classes ranging in size from 23 to 33. At each site, data collection included response behaviors for comparison counterfactual groups. Data for the primary analyses of each study were subjected to a one-way ANCOVA. Results revealed a significant difference between the treatment group performances compared to a counterfactual group from each institution: Study 1, F(1,152) = 5.86, p = 0.02; Study 2, F(34, 115.28) = 5.71, p = 0.02; and Study 3, F(3, 77.30) = 8.04, p < 0.00. Relationship strength between the factor levels and the dependent variable, as measured in partial eta squared, accounted for 4%, 14%, and 16% of the variance, respectively. In Study 3 a Bayesian confirmatory analysis revealed that the least explicit treatment, one involving only a focus on pragmalinguistic input, showed the greatest gains. Implications for the three studies are: (a) pragmalinguistic and sociopragmatic categories reveal difficulty hierarchies, with particular sequential action events and relationship status categories consistently more challenging than others; (b) learners display differential awareness of pragmalinguistic and sociopragmatic sub-constructs, with the former registered as more difficult; and (c) explicit instruction on a limited number of pragmalinguistic categories might result in spillover learning effects to other, untaught categories. / Applied Linguistics
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:TEMPLE/oai:scholarshare.temple.edu:20.500.12613/3506 |
| Date | January 2017 |
| Creators | Rylander, John William |
| Contributors | Ross, Steven, 1951-, Beglar, David J., Sick, James, Kozaki, Yoko, Elwood, James Andrew |
| Publisher | Temple University. Libraries |
| Source Sets | Temple University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis/Dissertation, Text |
| Format | 598 pages |
| Rights | IN COPYRIGHT- This Rights Statement can be used for an Item that is in copyright. Using this statement implies that the organization making this Item available has determined that the Item is in copyright and either is the rights-holder, has obtained permission from the rights-holder(s) to make their Work(s) available, or makes the Item available under an exception or limitation to copyright (including Fair Use) that entitles it to make the Item available., http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ |
| Relation | http://dx.doi.org/10.34944/dspace/3488, Theses and Dissertations |
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