ندا خانلرزاده

Abstract: Over the last few decades, several aspects of pragmatic knowledge and its effects on teaching and learning a second language (L2) have been explored in many studies. However, among various studies, the area of interlanguage pragmatic (ILP) assessment is quite novel issue and many features of it have remained unnoticed. As ILP assessment has received more attention recently, the necessity of investigation on the EFL teachers’ rating criteria for rating various speech acts has become important. In this respect, the present study aimed to investigate the native and non-native EFL teachers’ rating scores and criteria regarding the speech act of request. To this end, 50 American ESL teachers and 50 Iranian EFL teachers participated to rate the EFL learners’ responses to video-prompted Discourse Completion Tests (DCTs) regarding the speech act of request. Raters were supposed to rate the EFL learners’ responses and mention their criteria for assessment. The results of the content analysis of raters’ comments revealed nine criteria that they considered in their assessment. Moreover, the result of the t-test and chi-square analyses of raters’ rating scores and criteria proved that there are significant differences between native and non-native EFL teachers’ rating pattern. The results of this study also shed light on importance of sociopragmatic and pragmalinguistic features in native and non-native teachers’ pragmatics rating, which can have several implications for L2 teachers, learners, and material developers.

تحلیل بینافرهنگی کنش های گفتاری از جمله مسائل داغی بوده است که نظر پژوهشگران مختلفی را به خود جلب کرده است و تحقیقات زیادی تا امروز پیرامون این موضوع صورت گرفته است. یکی از کنش گفتاری هایی که اصلاً مورد مطالعه قرار نگرفته، کنش «تبریک» می باشد. پژوهش زیر به این پرسش که آیا ملیّت افراد بر انتخاب این که چهنوعی از دسته های کنشهای گفتاری در فضای فیسبوک مورد استفاده قرار می گیرد تأثیر معنی داری دارد یا خیر می پردازد. داده های برگرفته از پیام های تبریکی که تعداد 60 ایرانی و 60 آمریکایی در فیسبوک ارسال داشته اند مورد بررسی قرار گرفته اند. بر اساس داده های جمع آوری شده، تعداد 7 دسته غالب و اصلی که عبارتند از: ابزار شناساندن نیروی منظور، آرزوهای خیر، جملات دعایی، شعر و قطعات ادبی، ابراز احساسات، و تمجید به دست آمدند. ضمناً، تفاوت های احتمالی بین دو گروه از لحاظ کاربرد این دسته ها نیز مورد بررسی قرار گرفتند که معلوم شد در کاربرد 5 دسته از مقولات کنشهای گفتاری، تفاوت معنی داری بین دو گروه وجود دارد و در کاربرد دو مقوله آرزوی خیر و ابزار شناساندن نیروی منظور تفاوت مهمی مشاهده نشد.

Despite the importance of interlanguage pragmatic rating (ILP) in the second language teaching and learning context, scant attention has been devoted to it. This study aims to investigate native EFL teachers’ major criteria in assessing the speech act of complaint produced by Iranian EFL learners. To fulfill this end, two groups of experienced native raters, including American (n=47) and British (n=30) EFL/ESL teachers, were elected for evaluating the complaint discourse completion tests (DCTs) made from video-prompts which were answered by EFL learners before. The content analysis of raters’ comments on the EFL learners’ productions revealed eleven different criteria including logical reasoning and comments, politeness, linguistic appropriacy, semantic formula, interlocutors’ relationship, register choice, formality, degree of intensity, cultural accommodations, degree of directness, and finally fluency and naturalness respectively from the most to the least frequent ones. The result of the t-test and chi-square analysis proved that British and American raters differed significantly in their degree of variations and preferences of these criteria. The results further showed that EFL learners’ responses seemed unreasonable and impolite to native raters which might be due to the different cultural norms between L1 and L2 societies and consequently encourage us to be aware of the importance of teaching sociopragmatic knowledge to the EFL learners.