Method of data analysis

Lastly, the method of data analysis used in the present study should be commented upon. This study involves relatively fine analysis of a small number of tokens of requests by learners and L2 native speakers in each situation, including analysis of interactional features involving conversational management. This kind of close contrastive analysis yields rich data which can be highly suggestive of a great many pragmatic features and processes, and so is particularly valuable as a basis for hypothesis generation, and can also help to confirm or to challenge a variety of findings from other studies. However, as House (1996: 235) points out, data of this kind cannot readily be subjected to rigorous methods of quantitative analysis involving statistical comparisons. And in the present study, while quantitative comparisons between aspects o f the data from the two groups are made when practical, statistical comparisons are deemed to be of very limited value and so are not undertaken.

2.8 Notes to Chapter 2

1 The slightly older age of the BI NS group reflects the fact that a great many of the Indonesians studying in Australia are there for postgraduate rather than undergraduate study.

2 Most of the BI NS subjects were bilingual in Bahasa Indonesia and a regional language (cf. Introduction), the most common regional language being Javanese or Sundanese; others spoke Bahasa Indonesia only. The possibility of selecting BI NS subjects from one region only, to minimise the likely influence of variation in regional language and culture on their Bahasa Indonesia, was considered. However, it is difficult in practical terms to find a sample of Indonesian speakers with a culturally uniform background, and this difficulty reflects the artificiality of doing so; including speakers of diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds more accurately reflects the realities of use of Bahasa Indonesia as the unifying national language of diverse cultures.

3 It should be acknowledged that these data on requesting in English from previous studies do not constitute an ideal data set, as they are not obtained under the same experimental conditions as the other two sets (cf. Selinker 1972: 214). Also, using data by native speakers of varieties of English other than Australian as a basis for conclusions about the likely role of the LI in this study is potentially problematic, as there is some evidence (Michaelis 1992; cited in Kasper 1992: 224) that native speakers of different varieties of English may show differences in their pattern of selection of request strategies. However, any possible decrease in validity of comparisons in the present study due to lack of precisely parallel native English data is outweighed by the fact that the use of existing LI English data allowed a great deal more data on requests by both BI native speakers and learners of Indonesian — for which no published data are available — to be collected and analysed.

4 Natural data have been used in relatively few studies of pragmatic production (cf.Kasper & Dahl 1991; Rose 1994). For an account of problems with using natural data for pragmatic research see Rintell and Mitchell (1989: 250) and Beebe and T. Takahashi (1989: 120).

5 For advantages of the DCT method, see Wolfson et al (1989: 183- 184), and Hill et al (1986: 353).

6 For disadvantages of the DCT method, see Rintell and Mitchell (1989), Trosborg (1995: 142- 43), and Hinkel (1997).

7 This distinction between role enactment on the one hand and role play on the other is made by McDonough (1981: 80-81).

8 Some empirical evidence suggests that there may in fact be important differences between the way speech acts are performed in role plays and in natural speech. Dahl (undated; cited by Kasper & Dahl 1991: 243-244) found that role plays elicited shorter realisations of speech acts, which were performed over fewer turns, and used more direct strategies, than authentic discourse. These aspects of speech act length and directness of strategy are important for conveying politeness, so if the findings of Dahl’s study are applicable to role play data generally (which Dahl expresses some doubt about), then this is a significant limitation of the role play method for investigating pragmatic performance (for criticisms of the role play method of data elicitation, see Aston 1993: 229, 1995: 63-64).

9 Using frequency and usefulness in everyday life as the primary criterion for selecting request situations means that none entail a very large imposition upon the hearer, so that none are highly threatening to the hearer’s face. While requiring subjects to perform highly face-threatening requests does have certain advantages (e.g. that such situations are likely to reveal learners’ pragmatic difficulties very starkly), it also has potential disadvantages. One is that it requires subjects to perform requests which in real life they would very likely choose not to perform at all (which seems likely with certain requests in Trosborg’s (1995) study: see e.g. Trosborg 1995: 231), and House’s (1996) study: see e.g. House 1996: 231). This means that subjects may have to distance themselves considerably from the role in order to carry out the request. Another disadvantage in the case of subjects of relatively low proficiency — such as those in the present study — is that these subjects are likely to find performing role plays with a native speaker partner very difficult, so that making them perform requests which they would feel uncomfortable about making even in their first language would probably make the experience of data elicitation a highly unpleasant one for them.

10 With hindsight, it may have been more consistent with the approach taken elsewhere in this study to analyse only the first request in each of these two pairs as a request proper, and to analyse the second as a 'follow-up' request (see 4.1.9) instead, for the reason that the request speech event is already in progress when the second request is made.

11 Ideally, role plays would have been video- as well as audio- recorded, to allow a more complete representation of the way that participants interacted. However, the logistical problems presented by video-recording were considerable.