Input Received by the Participants

The participants’ output of if-conditionals can also be associated with the input they received. We selected one version of the senior-high school textbooks –Far East English Reader³³ (Shi, Lin, & Brooks, 2002) – to examine the variety of if-conditionals that the participants might have received. Of our great interest is to find out to what extent the participants’ performance reflects the input and how the input influences the participants’ output.

To begin with, we observed 179 if-conditionals in the textbook. On average, there are 20~30 if-conditionals in each book (Book I: 28; Book II: 21; Book III: 38;

Book IV: 29; Book V: 32; Book VI: 31). The reading materials in the textbook are known to involve several text types such as expositions, instructions, stories, poems, narratives, dialogues, etc. Most of them are written rather than spoken English.

However, to examine the language use of if-conditionals in communication, we need to single out those in the dialogues. In total, we spotted 46 if-conditionals (26%) in the dialogues. In the succeeding discussion, we will present the findings with and without the written reading materials for analysis. The analysis can be shown from two dimensions. One is the structures of the if-conditionals and the other is their discourse-pragmatic functions.

The forms of the if-conditionals in each book can be roughly categorized into open and counterfactual. In accordance with the prior discussion, open if-conditionals are used to describe possible conditions while counterfactuals to depict impossible

33 Because the participants in this study were all freshmen in a university, we found that if we can analyze the input they might have received through the years in the senior high school, we can probably speculate to what extent their output reflected the input and how the input influenced their output. As for the selection of textbooks, we chose the Far East version because it is one of the most widely-used textbooks in Taiwan. It is hoped that the analysis of the study can be generalized to other EFL learners at a similar age and proficiency level to the participants here.

scenarios. On the continuum of hypotheticality, the former is seen to be located near the low-hypotheticality extreme while the latter near the high-hypotheticality one. The overall distribution of the if-conditionals in the textbook is tabulated in Table 4.12.

With the exclusion of the written materials, the distribution is displayed in Table 4.13.

Table 4.12

Structures of the If-conditionals in the Textbook

Open Counterfactual Total

Book I 28 0 28

Book II 19 2 21

Book III 38 0 38

Book IV 25 4 29

Book V 29 3 32

Book VI 26 5 31

Total 165 (92.2%) 14 (7.8%) 179 (100%)

Table 4.13

Structures of the If-conditionals in the Textbook (Without the Written Materials)

Open Counterfactual Total

Book I 5 0 5

Book II 7 0 7

Book III 6 0 6

Book IV 9 2 11

Book V 7 1 8

Book VI 8 1 9

Total 42 (91.3%) 4 (8.7%) 46 (100%)

As seen in Table 4.12, over nine-tenths (92.2%) of the if-conditionals are open and only 14 out of 179 (7.8%) are counterfactual. In the dialogues, likewise, over ninety percent (91.3%) of the if-conditionals are open and 4 out of 46 (8.7%) are counterfactual as indicated in Table 4.13. Most of the counterfactuals appear in Books IV, V and VI, which suggests that a counterfactual if-conditional with more complex forms is more difficult to learn and may require learners to reach a higher language

proficiency level first in order to use it properly.

Meanwhile, the distribution of the open and counterfactual if-conditionals in the textbook is uneven in the ratio of 9 to 1. We speculate that the low frequency of counterfactual if-conditionals in the textbook may decrease the chances for learners to get more familiar with the structures. Take our participants for example. They made more errors when producing a counterfactual in Topic 3. It is likely that the quality of their performance is, to some extent, affected by the quantity of the input received.

Thus, in order to reinforce the participants’ ability of using counterfactual if-conditionals, enough input and more practice should be provided.

What draws our attention here is that we have also found open if-conditionals in the textbook used to display higher hypotheticality, though not as high as a counterfactual. For example:

(23) Book V, Lesson 8

Thomas: Uh … I was thinking of one of the pros of human cloning.

Lauren: Oh, yeah? What is it?

Æ Thomas: I was thinking, wouldn’t it be great

if

Then I could have one of her with me all the time!

Nowadays cloning is not entirely impossible even though its possibility is still low. In example (23), Thomas utters an if-conditional to describe his wish. He uses an auxiliary could to show that he has recognized the low possibility of the realization of his wish. As shown, this kind of open if-conditionals³⁴ characterizes a condition whose possibility/hypotheticality level is situated closer to the high-hypotheticality end on the continuum of hypotheticality. We consider that the appearance of this type of if-conditionals validates the necessity to emphasize the continuum of hypotheticality in the teaching and learning of if-conditionals. The more marked the

34 We found a few in Books III (n=2), V (n=3) and VI (n=1).

meaning of an if-conditional is, the more complex its form will become. If EFL teachers cannot guide learners to formulate a holistic concept of the form-and-function mappings in if-conditionals, they will not be able to produce the accurate form of if-conditionals appropriately by assessing the possibility/hypotheticality of the condition they intended to describe.

In terms of the discourse-pragmatic functions of the if-conditionals in the textbook, we observed more varieties than in the participants’ spoken data as illustrated in Table 4.14. About half (52%) of the if-conditionals in the textbook were found to perform the function of exploring of options. Among the other half, twenty (11%) perform the function of assuming while twenty-one (12%) the function of contrasting. We also found six idiomatic expressions (3%) of if-conditionals such as if you insist, if necessary, etc. More importantly, thirty-nine if-conditionals (22%) were used as mitigating devices, with which people can soften any face-threatening effect of commands, suggestions, blame, etc.

Table 4.14

Discourse-pragmatic Functions of the If-conditionals in the Textbook Exploring

of options Assuming Contrasting Idiomatic usage

By singling out the if-conditionals in the dialogues, we disperse their discourse-pragmatic functions in Table 4.15.

Table 4.15

Discourse-pragmatic Functions of the If-conditionals in the Textbook (Without the Written Materials)

Exploring

of options Assuming Contrasting Idiomatic usage

Again, the most frequently-observed function in the dialogues is exploring of options (30%) and a large proportion (28%) of the if-conditionals performs the function of assuming. Another 24% goes to the function of mitigating devices. Only a small portion of if-conditionals falls on contrasting (11%) and idiomatic usage (7%).

The first three discourse functions in Table 4.14 and 4.15– exploring of options, assuming, and contrasting – were seen not only in the textbook but also in the participants’ interlanguage, which supports that the abundance of the input does enable the participants to acquire some typical language use of if-conditionals properly. Nevertheless, the participants did not employ any mitigating if-conditionals, though they were observed quite often in the textbook. In comparison with the first four, the last function – mitigating devices – is concerned more with the social interaction between interlocutors. Let’s look at examples (24) and (25) carefully.

(24) Book VI, Lesson 4

Stuart: Oh, what a week! I’m so stressed out. I can’t wait to get home.

Erica: I know what you mean. It has been a tough work. I can’t believe how busy we’ve been lately. So what are you going to do this

weekend?

Stuart: Absolutely nothing. I’m going to go home and crash! And then just lie around in bed for two days.

Æ Erica: But do you think

if

(25) Book IV, Lesson 3

Sam: Did you ask them about that cheek-kissing business?

Æ Shirley: Now, Sam,

if

Sam: I know. I was just teasing.

In example (24), Erica suggests that going out to take exercise should do more good to Stuart than staying home. She encodes the suggestion in an if-conditional with high hypotheticality. The high hypotheticality/optionality of the if-conditional enables Erica to mitigate the tone of the suggestion – to make it sound less subjective but more indirect and polite. In this way, Stuart would not feel his personal will is dominated by a powerful superior. As far as example (25) is concerned, Shirley seems to sound impatient at Sam’s question because she has answered him for many times.

She intends to blame Sam for the annoying behavior but may be afraid of offending him; hence, she utters an if-conditional to soften the impact of the blame. As explained, if-conditionals like examples (24) and (25) function as a device to mitigate suggestion or command or to soften the effect of blame. They manifest the correlation between the use of if-conditionals and the interpersonal interaction.

Even though the textbook includes input of the if-conditionals for social/interactional use, we did not observe any if-conditionals functioning this way in the participants’ output. As discussed in 4.2.4, the participants might be more capable of conducting a “transactional talk” than an “interactional talk.” Or the conversation topics in the study confined the diversity of the use of if-conditionals in the participants’ interlanguage. Furthermore, it is likely that the participants were

provided with little help to raise their awareness of the highly-frequent mitigating use of if-conditionals for interactional purposes. Therefore, their overall pragmatic competence is not yet fully advanced. It is strongly suggested that since the input of the textbook displays great varieties of the discourse-pragmatic functions of if-conditionals, EFL teachers should make the most use of the input to strengthen the learners’ awareness and use of this construction in real communication.

In sum, the input in the textbook influenced the participants both positively and negatively. The insufficient input of counterfactuals and the fragmented instruction of different types of if-conditionals may result in the learners’ poor grammatical competence. On the other hand, the rich varieties of the discourse-pragmatic functions of if-conditionals in the textbook, more or less, enhance the learners’ capability to use this construction for most communicative purposes.

4.4 Summary

In this chapter, we have discussed the findings of the study thoroughly. The participants are found to have undergone much suffering in constructing accurate forms of if-conditionals in real communication. Particularly they encountered more trouble in the form-construction of counterfactual if-conditionals than in that of open if-conditionals. It is speculated that they were unaware of the mapping between the form and the epistemic stance of an if-conditional. Furthermore, due to the complicated structures of if-conditionals, the participants tended to replace the construction with other sentence patterns (i.e. the comparative) or lexicon (i.e. maybe) which they felt more confident about. These all suggest their deficient acquisition of if-conditionals. In a sharp contrast, they were able to use if-conditionals to serve different discourse-pragmatic functions such as option-exploring, assuming or contrasting except for more interactional/interpersonal functions like a mitigating

device. Possible reasons for the participants’ poor performance of if-conditionals may lie in the influence of L1 transfer or the impact of the input received. In the next chapter, we will move on to the conclusion and implications of the present study.