Chinese EFL learners’ performance in pragmatic assessment tasks: A comparative analysis of pragmatic and linguistic production

This mixed-method study investigates the pragmatic and related linguistic performance of English as a foreign language (EFL) learners in pragmatic oral tasks involving different speech acts (i.e., request, refusal, and apology) and varying power-degree-imposition (PDR) degrees (i.e., interacting with a professor versus a friend/classmate). Thirty Chinese undergraduate students from a university in Southwestern China completed three tasks with a professor and three tasks with a trained research assistant (representing a friend/classmate). Their spoken discourse was audio-recorded and rated by two experienced English language teacher-researchers (one American and one Chinese) in terms of functional adequacy (Kuiken & Vedder, 2018), pragmatic competence (Taguchi, 2012), and linguistic production (IELTS, 2023). The raters assigned scores to each participant for each dimension and provided qualitative comments.
The non-parametric test results of the scores revealed that the participants achieved higher scores when making a request of a classmate to share their internship application experience than when making a request of a professor to write a reference letter. They also performed better in fulfilling task requirements (e.g., speech acts and register) when apologizing to a friend rather than to a professor. In addition, they performed worse in the request task with a professor than in refusal or apology tasks with the same professor. The content analysis of the learners’ comments supported and expanded upon the quantitative results. They were often overly direct when requesting a reference letter from their professor, while they were comparatively more adept at exchanging information when interacting with a classmate. The findings imply that learners’ pragmatic and linguistic competence in real-time communication requires more training in higher PDR situations, especially for the request speech act.