A Comparative Study of
Two Data-Collecting Methods:
Discourse Completion Tasks and Role Plays
洪 岗
zsdhong@sina.com
浙江师范大学外国语学院
The presentation includes
• The background of the study
• The study
– Research questions
– The participants
– Instruments
– Procedures
– Data analysis
– results
• Conclusion
Why this study? (1)
• “Methodology is one of the most basic
questions for any discipline dealing with
human interaction…. No matter what else
we do, we must remember that if data are
inadequate, there is always the danger
that the theory and conclusion drawn from
them could be unreliable and misleading.”
(Wolfson, 1986: 689).
Why this study? (2)
• It is difficult to collect sufficient naturallyoccurring data in EFL countries.
• It is difficult to control the pragmatic
parameters in naturally-occurring
conversation.
• DCT and role play are widely used in
cross-cultural pragmatics, especially
interlanguage pragmatics study.
Some findings on differences between data
collected by DCT and role play study
• 1. actual wording used in real interpersonal interaction;
• 2. the range of formulas and strategies used (some, like
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avoidance, tend to get left out);
3. the length of response or the number of turns it takes
to fulfil the function;
4. the depth of emotion that in turn qualitatively affects
the tone, content, and form of linguistic performance;
5. the number of repetitions and elaborations that occur;
6. actual rate of occurrence of a speech act -- e.g.
whether or not someone would naturistically refuse at
all in a given situation.
(Beebe et al., 1985 in Wolfson et al. 1989: 183)
The study
• Research questions
– What are the differences between data
collected by DCT and role play in terms of
length, strategy and internal and external
modification device?
– What insights can be drawn from the results
of the study?
The participants
• Two homogenous groups of students who
have passed TEM4.
– Fifty five junior English major students in
Zhejiang Normal University took part in the
DCT.
– One hundred and ninety two English major
students from different universities took part
in the role play.
Instruments
• Role play: the 3rd part in oral test of
English major Band 4.
• DCT: three DCTs which require the
students to perform a request were
employed. They were derived from the
role plays in the oral test of TEM4. The
modification was made to meet the
specific requirement for the format of DCT.
Procedure 1
• DCT was conducted in two classes of junior
English major students simultaneously.
• Subjects were required to indicate whether
they have passed TEM4 or not in order to
be parallel with the subjects in role play.
• Time to do the DCT was not limited.
Procedure (continued)
• Role play was taken between a pair of
students. Each of them was given a card
with a description of situation and
assigned roles and they were allowed to
prepare for a few minutes before the test.
Their performances were tape-recorded
and transcribed.
Data analysis
• The data were analyzed in terms of length,
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strategies, and internal and external modification
devices. Any part which is irrelevant to making
requests is excluded.
The analysis was based on the coding scheme of
CCSARP.
In comparing the data, T-test and chi-square
analysis was processed by SPSS 10.0.
Results
• Length
– The mean differences in length between oral
response and written response in situation 1,
2 and 3 are 7.5, 5.3 and 6.3 respectively.
– T-test shows that there is a significant
difference between the responses in DCT and
role play.
Request strategies
• The following strategies did not occur in both
DCT and role play data:
– Mood derivable: Give me some suggestions.
– Explicit performative: I’m asking you to give me some
suggestions.
– Suggestory formula: How about giving me some
suggestions.
• The following strategies were favored:
– Locution derivable: What can I do?
– Mild hint: I’ve lot of worries.
– Preparatory: Can you give me some suggestions?
External modifications
• Preparators (May I ask you a question?)
and getting a precommitment from the
hearer (Can you do me a favour?) rarely
appear in all three situations.
• Grounders (I’m just enrolled in the
university and I always get puzzled about
university life…) occurred in all three
situations.
Internal modifications of head acts
• In both DCT and role play, only 3 types of
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syntactic downgraders (interrogative, conditional
and marked tense) occurred in the requests and
the former was used more frequently.
For lexical modification, cajoler (You can help me
and give me some suggestions, right?) and
hedges (Can you tell me something about how
to ….) occurred quite often.
Chi-square analysis did not prove there was
significant difference in the use of syntactic and
lexical modifier in DCT and role play responses.
Request perspectives in head acts
• Chi-square analysis also indicated that the
choice of perspective (speaker dominance
or hearer dominance) do not vary much
between DCT and role play responses.
Summary
• 1) The study confirms the previous
findings made by Rintell and Mitchell
(1989) and Sasaki (1998) that the length
of response or the number of turns it
takes to fulfil the function is different in
DCT and role play.
• 2) In terms of request strategies, internal
and external modification devices, there is
no significant difference between data
collected by DCT and role play.
• 3) Difference in choice of words in terms
of familiarity with spelling and formality
between DCT and role play responses has
not been found.
• 4) The research shows that the subjects
have very limited linguistic devices to
perform the speech act of request.
Conclusion
• In doing research on pragmatic strategies only,
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DCT and role play do not have many difference.
Thus, in this case, DCT is recommended since it
saves time and energy.
In doing research on other aspects, especially
the interactive aspects of conversation, if
naturally-occurring data are not available.
Role play is useful in doing research on
• full operation of the turn-taking mechanism,
• impromptu planning decisions contingent on
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interlocutor input,
negotiation of global and local goals, including
negotiation of meaning, when required,
how speech act performance is sequentially
organised,
what kinds of interlocutor responses are elicited
by specific strategic choices,
and how such responses in turn determine the
speaker’s next move.
DCT is useful
• to obtain information about speakers’
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pragmalinguistic knowledge of the strategies and
linguistic forms employed to implement the
illocutionary acts they intend to perform;
to obtain information about sociopragmatic
knowledge of the context factors under which
particular strategies and linguistic choices are
appropriate;
to test hypotheses derived from authentic
interactions though it elicits a narrower range of
semantic formulae and pragmatic strategies.
Limitations:
– In this study, comparatively closed role plays
were used in this study and they were
undertaken in testing situation.
– Only one speech act—request is investigated.
– Only three situations are used in this study.
And furthermore they did not vary in
pragmatic parameters.
Suggestions for future research
• Open role play
• Native language
• More speech acts
• Situations varying in pragmatic parameter
References
• Kasper, G. & M. Dahl. 1991. Research methods in
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interlanguage pragmatics. Studies in Second
Language Acquisition 13/1: 215-47.
Kasper, G. 2000. Data collection in pragmatics
research. In H. Spencer-Oatey (ed.), Culturally
Speaking: Managing Rapport through Talk across
Cultures. London: Continuum, 316-41.
Rintell, E. & C. Mitchell. 1989. Studies of request
and apologies: an inquiry into method. In S. BlumKulka, J. House & G. Kasper (eds.), Cross-Cultural
Pragmatics: Requests and Apologies. Norwood, N. J:
Ablex, 248-72.
References
• Sasaki, M. 1998. Investigating EFL students’
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production of speech acts: a comparison of
production questionnaires and role plays. Journal of
Pragmatics, 30: 457-84.
Wolfson, N., Marmor, T. & S. Jones. 1989. Problems
in the comparison of speech acts across cultures. In S.
Blum-Kulka et al. (eds.), Cross-cultural Pragmatics:
Requests and apologies. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.
Comments are welcome!
Thank you!