Study abroad and the development of L2 requests: the development of pragmalinguistic behaviour

283 Pages·2015·4.92 MB·English

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UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHAMPTON

FACULTY OF HUMANITIES

Modern Languages

Study abroad and the development of L2 requests: The development of
pragmalinguistic behaviour as operationalised in request realisations of UK based
study abroad students in Germany/Austria

by

Denise Kaltschuetz

Thesis for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy

September 2014

UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHAMPTON
ABSTRACT

This longitudinal mixed methods study traces the request development of eight UK
based students learning German in Germany and Austria. Although language
socialisation was used as an underlying contextual framework, the main focus was on
the development of politeness as operationalised in requests, and the factors which may
have influenced this development such as the establishment of an L2 identity and
membership in communities of practice (CofPs).
Five participants were English native speakers, two had grown up bilingually,
one speaking Croatian and English and the other Italian and Twi, and one was a French
native speaker. The requests were primarily elicited in semi-structured role plays carried
out with German native speakers, yet the participants were also asked to record
authentic interactions in service encounter scenarios, expected to lead to the utterance of
requests. The role play data, which amount to 144 role plays, were collected before,
during and after the students’ stay abroad. In-sojourn, the participants were also asked
to record authentic exchanges, three of which were used in the present study. In addition,
the students were also interviewed pre-in-and post-sojourn (24 interviews) and were
asked to fill in an online background questionnaire before going abroad and a language
engagement questionnaire while they were abroad.
The role plays were coded based on the CCSARP coding scheme to determine
the degree of directness and of internal and external mitigation in learner requests. The
authentic data were analysed with Conversation Analysis. The data show a shift towards
more directness, i.e. less internal and more external mitigation in-sojourn, thus
indicating an adaptation to target community specific language behaviour. However, the
degree of adaptation varied partly in line with participants’ degree of awareness of
differences in linguistic politeness and identification with German society, and partly in
line with the extent of their engagement with local CofPs. The variables which mostly
influenced the change between pre-and in-sojourn request realisations, were the
awareness of differences in linguistic politeness and the successful establishment of an
L2 identity. Interaction with the host-community, which did not have a noticeable
influence on the general pre- to in-sojourn change data, and awareness of difference in
linguistic politeness, did however impact the change in pre- to in-sojourn request
variation.
The CA analysis of the authentic exchanges and the corresponding role plays
both show the same preference structure for requests, thus providing researchers in the
field with important new validation for role play methodology.
Table of Contents
ABSTRACT ....................................................................................................................... i
Table of Contents ............................................................................................................... i
List of tables ...................................................................................................................... v
List of figures .................................................................................................................. vii
DECLARATION OF AUTHORSHIP ............................................................................. ix
Acknowledgements .......................................................................................................... xi
Abbreviations ................................................................................................................. xiii

1 Introduction .................................................................................................... 1
1.1 Organisation of the thesis.................................................................................... 4

2 Literature review ............................................................................................ 7
2.1 Chapter outline .................................................................................................... 7
2.2 Theoretical framework ........................................................................................ 8
2.2.1 Language socialization ................................................................................ 8
2.2.2 Politeness .................................................................................................... 9
2.2.3 An overview of politeness theories ........................................................... 12
2.2.4 Identity and communities of practice (CofPs) .......................................... 20
2.2.5 The relationship between four underpinning concepts: language
socialization, politeness, identity and communities of practice............................... 28
2.3 Study/ residence abroad .................................................................................... 30
2.3.1 Development of pragmatic skills in a study abroad context ..................... 31
2.3.2 Development of L2 requests in a study abroad setting ............................. 42
2.4 Conclusion and presentation of research questions .......................................... 47

3 Methodology .................................................................................................. 51
3.1 Chapter outline .................................................................................................. 51
3.2 Participants in the study .................................................................................... 51
i
3.3 Methodological rationale .................................................................................. 56
3.3.1 Role-plays ................................................................................................. 57
3.3.2 Authentic self-recordings .......................................................................... 59
3.3.3 Semi-structured interviews ....................................................................... 59
3.3.4 Questionnaires ........................................................................................... 60
3.4 Data collection procedures ................................................................................ 62
3.4.1 Online background survey ........................................................................ 63
3.4.2 Semi-structured interviews (pre-, in- and post-sojourn) ........................... 64
3.4.3 Facebook ................................................................................................... 65
3.4.4 In-sojourn data collection trip ................................................................... 66
3.4.5 Role-plays ................................................................................................. 67
3.4.6 Naturally occurring data ............................................................................ 68
3.4.7 Language Engagement Questionnaire ...................................................... 69
3.5 Data analysis methods ...................................................................................... 69
3.5.1 Interview analysis ..................................................................................... 71
3.5.2 Questionnaire/ online survey analysis....................................................... 72
3.5.3 CCSARP coding scheme .......................................................................... 73
3.5.4 Explanation of coding categories .............................................................. 77
3.5.5 Coding categories: examples and explanations ........................................ 80
3.5.6 Conversation Analysis (CA) ..................................................................... 90
3.6 Chapter conclusion ........................................................................................... 93

4 Results 1: The development of student request realisations ..................... 95
4.1 Analysis of request directness data ................................................................... 95
4.1.1 Direct strategies (DSs) .............................................................................. 96
4.1.2 Conventionally indirect strategies (CISs) ................................................. 97
4.1.3 Non-conventionally indirect strategies (NCISs) ....................................... 98
4.1.4 Overall use of DSs, CISs, and NCISs pre-, in, and post-sojourn .............. 99
4.1.5 Variation of sub-strategies (SSs)............................................................. 101
4.1.6 Research question 1a and b ..................................................................... 102
4.1.7 Individual participant discussion ............................................................ 102
ii
4.2 Analysis of request perspectives ..................................................................... 114
4.2.1 Hearer dominant strategies (HDSs) ........................................................ 114
4.2.2 Speaker dominant strategies (SDSs) ....................................................... 115
4.2.3 Speaker and hearer dominant strategies (SHDSs) .................................. 115
4.2.4 Impersonal strategies (ISs) ...................................................................... 116
4.2.5 Research question 1c ............................................................................... 117
4.2.6 Individual participant discussion............................................................. 118
4.2.7 Link between request directness and perspectives .................................. 125
4.3 Analysis of internal mitigation strategies (IMSs) ........................................... 129
4.3.1 Syntactic downgraders (SDs) .................................................................. 129
4.3.2 Lexical and phrasal downgraders (LPDs) ............................................... 130
4.3.3 Upgraders ................................................................................................ 131
4.3.4 Variation of Internal mitigation sub-strategies ....................................... 132
4.3.5 Research question 2................................................................................. 133
4.3.6 Individual participant discussion............................................................. 133
4.4 Analysis of external mitigation strategies (EMSs) ......................................... 143
4.4.1 Mitigating supportive moves (MSMs) .................................................... 144
4.4.2 Aggravating supportive moves (ASMs).................................................. 145
4.4.3 Variation of external mitigation sub-strategies ....................................... 146
4.4.4 Research question 3................................................................................. 147
4.4.5 Individual participant discussion............................................................. 147
4.5 Overall frequency counts for all strategies ..................................................... 158
4.6 Analysis and comparison of the sequence organisation of authentic ............. 160
request data and selected role-play data.......................................................... 160
4.6.1 Emma: authentic data versus role-play data............................................ 162
4.6.2 Lucy: authentic data versus role-play data .............................................. 174
4.6.3 Alice: authentic data versus role-play data ............................................. 181
4.7 General discussion .......................................................................................... 187
4.8 Chapter conclusion.......................................................................................... 189

iii
5 Results 2: Identity, politeness, and communities of practice .................. 190
5.1 Chapter outline ................................................................................................ 190
5.2 Overall linguistic change data ......................................................................... 190
5.3 Interview analysis ........................................................................................... 199
5.3.1 Identity in the host community ............................................................... 199
5.3.2 Participant understanding of politeness .................................................. 202
5.4 Overall profiles of individual participants ...................................................... 210

6 Discussion .................................................................................................... 219
6.1 Chapter outline ................................................................................................ 219
6.2 The original contribution of the study ............................................................ 219
6.3 Overview of findings ...................................................................................... 220
6.4 Limitations of the study .................................................................................. 226
6.5 Recommendations for further research ........................................................... 227

7 Appendix A .................................................................................................. 229
8 Appendix B .................................................................................................. 235
9 Appendix C .................................................................................................. 237
10 Appendix D .................................................................................................. 239
11 Appendix E .................................................................................................. 245
12 Appendix F .................................................................................................. 247
13 Appendix G ................................................................................................. 251
14 Appendix H ................................................................................................. 255
15 Bibliography ................................................................................................ 257

iv
List of tables

Table 3.1 Participant placement details ....................................................................................... 52
Table 3.2 Overview of data collection tools used during the study ............................................. 62
Table 3.3 Participant online background survey .......................................................................... 64
Table 3.4 Coding categories and sub-categories .......................................................................... 76
Table 4.1 The use of DSs at all data collection points ................................................................. 96
Table 4.2 The use of CISs at all data collection points ................................................................ 97
Table 4.3 The use of NCISs strategies at all data collection points ............................................. 98
Table 4.4 Overall use of DSs, CISs, and NCISs pre-, in, and post-sojourn ................................. 99
Table 4.5 The use of different request sub-strategies (SSs) ....................................................... 101
Table 4.6 HDSs at all data collection points .............................................................................. 114
Table 4.7 SDSs at all data collection points ............................................................................... 115
Table 4.8 SHDs at all data collection points .............................................................................. 115
Table 4.9 Impersonal request strategies for all data collection points ....................................... 116
Table 4.10 Overall use of HDs, SDs, SHDs, and ISs pre-, in, and post-sojourn ....................... 117
Table 4.11 Christine: Link between request directness and perspectives .................................. 125
Table 4.12 Anna: Link between request directness and perspectives ........................................ 125
Table 4.13 Sonia: Link between request directness and perspectives........................................ 126
Table 4.14 Alice: Link between request directness and perspectives ........................................ 126
Table 4.15 George: Link between request directness and perspectives ..................................... 127
Table 4.16 Lucy: Link between request directness and perspectives ........................................ 127
Table 4.17 Emma: Link between request directness and perspectives ...................................... 128
Table 4.18 Andrew: Link between request directness and perspectives .................................... 128
Table 4.19 SDs at all data collection points ............................................................................... 129
Table 4.20 LPDs at all data collection points ............................................................................ 130
Table 4.21 Upgraders at all data collection points ..................................................................... 131
Table 4.22 Different IM-sub-strategies at all data collection points .......................................... 132
Table 4.23 Number of MSMs at all data collection points ........................................................ 144
Table 4.24 Number of ASMs at all data collection points ......................................................... 145
Table 4.25 The use of EM sub-strategies at each data collection point ..................................... 146
Table 4.26 Frequency counts for all strategies .......................................................................... 159
Table 5.1 Difference between all linguistic frequency and variation types pre-and in-sojourn 193
v