The impact of pragmalinguistic support on video-conferenced collaborative suggestion-giving task

Abstract

This study explored the impact of pragmalinguistic support on L2 users’ suggestion-giving task performance. Data came from 12 pairs of L2 users in a Zoom-mediated university course. They collaboratively wrote suggestions for improvement in their peers’ lesson plans using Office 365. Six pairs received pragmalinguistic support, while the others wrote their suggestions on their own. Audio-recorded pair discussions were coded qualitatively, and the written suggestions were analyzed in terms of linguistic and pragmatic characteristics. The results showed that pragmalinguistic support encouraged the participants to engage more in language-related and task-related episodes. Also, their suggestions contained more diverse lexical downgraders and conventional suggestion-giving expressions. By contrast, those who wrote suggestions without pragmalinguistic support engaged more in pragmatic-related episodes, relying extensively on epistemic modal verbs (e.g., would). The findings indicate that pragmalinguistic support may help L2 users to better attend to task content and language, producing lexically and pragmatically richer output.

An Empirical Investigation of the EFL Learners Attitudes Toward the Effectiveness of Cooperative Learning

“…The statement includes the idea that CL: “promotes learning and higher achievement of all the members as they share their resources and provide mutual support to each other.” In this context, Farzaneh and Nejadansari (2014) explain that “group setting facilitates creativity and learning of the members.” The participants of their study assigned a mean value of 3.85 to this item and considered it as the least preferred item among other variables. Jung and Fu (2021) reported that pragmalinguistic support helps enhance L2 learners’ understanding of the language and task content and enable them to generate lexically and pragmatically substantial output. The research of Johnson et al (1991) endorses that positive goal interdependence maximizes higher achievement and greater productivity than resource interdependence.…”

“…The participants of their study assigned a mean value of 3.85 to this item and considered it as the least preferred item among other variables. Jung and Fu (2021) reported that pragmalinguistic support helps enhance L2 learners' understanding of the language and task content and enable them to generate lexically and pragmatically substantial output. The research of Johnson et al (1991) endorses that positive goal interdependence maximizes higher achievement and greater productivity than resource interdependence.…”