Factors Affecting Speech Act Performance

According to Searle’s (1969) classification of the illocutionary force, advice belongs to the category of directives, which consists of attempts by the speaker to get the hearer to do something. Researchers have done many studies so as to carefully define and examine Searle’s condition of advice (Hinkel, 1997; Kuo, 1996; Locher, 2006; Matsumura, 2001;

Vanderveken, 1991).

As stated in previous studies, participants adopted different strategies in giving advice (Al-Shboul et al., 2012; Al-Shboul & Zarie, 2013; Hinkel, 1994; Hinkel, 1997; Kuo, 1996;

Matsumura, 2001). These studies on the speech act of advice further categorize advice into three types, as presented in Table 1-4. For example, advice is considered direct if it contains modal “should”. In addition to direct advice, speakers may use hedged and indirect advice.

The former includes phrases such as “need to,” while the latter covers neither explicit advice nor clear suggestions.

Table 1-4 Different Types of Advice

Advice contains softeners and hedging devices such as need to, it’s better, it’s a

good idea, maybe, I think, and questions

Maybe, you need to study more.

This course is not easy.

Indirect advice

The advisor’s intention is not explicitly made in the comments. It’s not easy for the hearer to directly tell the advisor’s particular intent (Bach & Harnish 1979, Levinson 1993, and Shimanoff 1977)

This course is not easy. I have to study a lot for it.

Indirect advice is usually associated with politeness (Leech, 1983). According to Leech (1983), indirect illocutions “increase the degree of optionality” and “the more indirect an illocution is, the more diminished and tentative its force tends to be” (p.108). In contrast to an indirect strategy, direct strategies are often viewed as impolite because “they lack a concern with face” (Blum-Kulka, 1987:131). It is widely believed that different strategies would be adopted when talking to different people (Brown & Levinson, 1987; Hinkel, 1997). In the studies of speech acts, it is social factors such as age, gender, and social relationships that influence the use of the different types of advice. Previous studies have examined adult EFL learners’ performance on giving advice and have found that social factors indeed influence participants’ performance on giving advice (Al-Shboul et al., 2012; Al-Shboul & Zarie, 2013;

Hinkel, 1994 & 1997; Kuo, 1996; Matsumura, 2001).

Severity is one of the crucial factors in the studies on speech acts. Brown and Levinson

(1987) stated severity as a factor affecting the choice of the strategies regarding face-threatening acts, and Rees-Miller (2000) used severity as a starting point to examine how disagreement is expressed in an academic context. In addition, participants’ apology strategies have been examined based on the severity of offense (Chang, 2005; Lin, 2010).

Nevertheless, though the effect of severity has been under discussion in a number of studies on speech acts, it has never been involved in studies of advice-giving. Therefore, severity is included in the present study so as to see if it also has a noteworthy impact on the speech act of advice-giving.

Ever since Brown and Levinson (1987) brought up the idea of face-threatening acts (FTAs), the factors that influence the assessment of the seriousness of an FTA have been under heated discussion. Among the factors influencing the assessment of the seriousness of an FTA, the social distance between the speaker and the hearer is the one that will be examined in the present study. Previous researchers have investigated the social status of higher and equal interlocutors and it has been found that social distance has a powerful impact on the speech act of advice-giving (Al-Shboul et al., 2012; Al-Shboul & Zarie, 2013;

Hinkel 1994, 1997; Matsumura, 2001). Among the studies on the effect of social status, only Matsumura (2001) focused on higher, equal, and lower status addressees. However, unlike other studies, Matsumura’s observation of Japanese EFL learner was longitudinal rather than quantitative. The present study thus includes addressees of three different social statuses, inclusive of higher, equal, and lower status addressees.

Many researchers have discussed language proficiency as a variable to influence learners’ performance in second language acquisition. Second language acquisition of speech acts often involves learner’s pragmatic transfer, which is influenced by learners’ proficiency,

learning context, and length of residence (Maeshiba et al., 1996; Matsumura, 2003;

Takahashi and Beebe, 1987). There are, however, some discrepancies among these studies.

Takahashi and Beebe (1987) focused that learners with higher proficiency made more errors.

The study of Maeshiba et al. (1996) on the other hand, showed that learners’ pragmatic awareness increased if they had higher L2 proficiency. Hence, the present study aims to investigate the connection between participants’ proficiency and their performance on giving advice.

Last but not least, two tasks – a discourse completion task (DCT) and a multiple choices questionnaire (MCQ) will be employed in the present study. The former is a written questionnaire, which requires participants to fill in their intuitive responses to a prior brief situation. The latter is a more representative, planned and accessible way for data collecting.

The major difference between the two tasks lies in the type of response they elicit. The DCT is a constrained production instrument while the MCQ elicits perception of alternative speech acts realization (Hinkel, 1997; Kasper & Dahl, 1991). Since the classification of the two tasks is different, the result collected by the two instruments may not be similar (Hinkel, 1997).

Moreover, previous studies have showed that the results found in the two tasks were particularly different (Hinkel, 1997; Rose, 1994). Therefore, these discrepancies warrant further investigation on the two tasks, which will be designed in the present study to examine how they are related to each other and how different task formats may influence EFL learners’ performance.

In Taiwan, the knowledge of giving advice has been introduced in English textbooks for high school students. Thus, the present study aims to examine Chinese high school students’

perception of the speech act of advice in English and the strategies they take when facing

different events and interlocutors. Moreover, we are interested in the effect of highlighting serious consequences on the events. The addressee’s social status and proficiency level are all factors that will be investigated in the present study.