A real interlocutor in elicitation techniques: does it matter?

Abstract

<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title><jats:p>This study investigates whether adding a real interlocutor to elicitation techniques would result in requests that are different from those gathered through versions with a hypothetical interlocutor. For this purpose, a written method is chosen. One group of 40 students receive a written discourse completion task (DCT) with two situations that ask respondents to write emails on paper to an imaginary professor. This data is compared to earlier data collected from 27 students, where a group of students composed emails for the same situations and sent them electronically to their professor. Thus, while one group write emails to a hypothetical professor, the other group is provided with a real interlocutor. The data is analyzed for the inclusion of opening and closing moves, density, the level of directness and the choices of moves in the opening and closing sequences, as well as the choices of supportive moves. Results indicate significant differences in (the) level of directness, and the choices of moves in the opening and closing sequences. The other analyses do not show significant differences. The findings reveal that the addition of a real interlocutor does make a difference, albeit not a drastic one. The results have implications for the design of elicitation techniques that aim to simulate real life.</jats:p>

A Review of Pragmatics Studies Focusing on English Language Teaching in the Turkish Context

“…In addition, there was an overreliance on elicited data and a research gap exists with respect to authentic speech data and variety in data collection instruments in this context. Since choices in data collection methods may potentially influence the data (see for example, Bataller & Shively, 2011;Economidou-Kogetsidis, 2013;Félix-Brasdefer, 2007;Golato, 2003;Kanık, 2016Kanık, , 2017b, variety in data collection methods and data triangulation may strengthen the research in the context. Nguyen (2019) suggests data collection on the real-life interactions of L2 learners, investigation of pragmatic comprehension and perception of L2 learners, validation of research instruments through verbal reports and data triangulation in L2 pragmatics studies in his review of data collection methods.…”