The effects of instruction type on the pragmatic development of compliments and compliment responses in L2 English learners

Abstract

Despite the wide array of previous research in the area of interventional pragmatics studies, the question of what type of instruction best promotes learners’ pragmatic interlanguage development has yet to be explored. With the aim of exploring L2 English learners’ speech act behavior in complimenting and compliment responding, the present study sought to determine the relative effects of inductive and deductive instruction using structured input activities within the framework of Processing Instruction. To accomplish this goal, three intact classes of the same proficiency level were randomly assigned to inductive instruction, deductive instruction, and a control group with no instruction. Data were collected through a written Discourse Completion Task followed by a Self-Assessment Questionnaire for Compliments and a multiple-choice Metapragmatic Assessment Questionnaire for compliment responses administered using a pre-, post-, and delayed post-test design. Findings revealed that both experimental groups showed improvement compared to the control group; however, the effects of instructional treatment varied across test types.