Pragmatics of Chinese as a Second Language 9781800410329

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Pragmatics of Chinese as a Second Language

SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION Series Editors: Professor David Singleton, University of Pannonia, Hungary and Fellow Emeritus, Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland and Professor Simone E. Pfenninger, University of Zurich, Switzerland This series brings together titles dealing with a variety of aspects of language acquisition and processing in situations where a language or languages other than the native language is involved. Second language is thus interpreted in its broadest possible sense. The volumes included in the series all offer in their different ways, on the one hand, exposition and discussion of empirical findings and, on the other, some degree of theoretical reflection. In this latter connection, no particular theoretical stance is privileged in the series; nor is any relevant perspective – sociolinguistic, psycholinguistic, neurolinguistic, etc. – deemed out of place. The intended readership of the series includes final-year undergraduates working on second language acquisition projects, postgraduate students involved in second language acquisition research, and researchers, teachers and policymakers in general whose interests include a second language acquisition component. All books in this series are externally peer-reviewed. Full details of all the books in this series and of all our other publications can be found on http://www​.multilingual​-matters​.com, or by writing to Multilingual Matters, St Nicholas House, 31-34 High Street, Bristol, BS1 2AW, UK.

SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION: 165

Pragmatics of Chinese as a Second Language Edited by

Shuai Li

MULTILINGUAL MATTERS Bristol • Jackson

DOI https://doi.org/10.21832/LI0176 Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. Names: Li, Shuai, editor. Title: Pragmatics of Chinese as a Second Language/Edited by Shuai Li. Description: Bristol; Jackson: Multilingual Matters, [2024] | Series: Second Language Acquisition: 165 | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Summary: “This collection of empirical studies examines multiple aspects involved in the acquisition, teaching and assessment of pragmatics in second language Chinese. The studies address themes such as novel pragmatic features, methodological innovations in pragmatic assessment, individual difference factors and virtual learning contexts”—Provided by publisher. Identifiers: LCCN 2023024575 (print) | LCCN 2023024576 (ebook) | ISBN 9781800410176 (hardback) | ISBN 9781800410220 (epub) | ISBN 9781800410329 (pdf) Subjects: LCSH: Chinese language—Acquisition. | Chinese language—Study and teaching—Foreign speakers | Second language acquisition. | Pragmatics. Classification: LCC PL1074.85 .P73 2024 (print) | LCC PL1074.85 (ebook) | DDC 495.180071—dc23/eng/20230728 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023024575 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023024576 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue entry for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN-13: 978-1-80041-017-6 (hbk) Multilingual Matters UK: St Nicholas House, 31-34 High Street, Bristol, BS1 2AW, UK. USA: Ingram, Jackson, TN, USA. Website: www​.multilingual​-matters​.com Twitter: Multi_Ling_Mat Facebook: https://www​.facebook​.com​/multilingualmatters Blog: www​.cha​nnel​view​publ​ications​.wordpress​.com Copyright © 2024 Shuai Li and the authors of individual chapters. All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced in any form or by any means without permission in writing from the publisher. The policy of Multilingual Matters/Channel View Publications is to use papers that are natural, renewable and recyclable products, made from wood grown in sustainable forests. In the manufacturing process of our books, and to further support our policy, preference is given to printers that have FSC and PEFC Chain of Custody certification. The FSC and/or PEFC logos will appear on those books where full certification has been granted to the printer concerned. Typeset by Deanta Global Publishing Services, Chennai, India.

Contents

Contributorsvii Acknowledgmentsxi Introductionxiii Shuai Li 1 Research on L2 Chinese Pragmatics (1995–2022): A State-ofthe-Art Review Shuai Li, Ting Wen and Yali Feng

1

Part 1: Acquisition of Key Pragmatic Features 2 ‘Softening the Tone?’: A Corpus-Based Study of the UtteranceFinal Pragmatic Particle BA (吧) between L1 and L2 Chinese Speakers 39 Wenhao Diao and Chen Chen 3 L2 Chinese Internet Slang Learning: Chinese as a Foreign Language Learners’ Knowledge and Motivation Li Jin

69

4 Effects of Proficiency and Situation Type on the Production of L2 Chinese Request Strategies by Japanese Learners Mo Chen, Wenxin Zhang, Yazhuo Qiu and Chunyin Li

91

Part 2: Methodological Innovations for Pragmatics Assessment 5 Using a Slide Ruler to Assess Accuracy and Certainty in L2 Chinese Implicature Comprehension Tianyu (Sophie) Qin

123

6 An Exploratory Study on a Natural Language Processing Approach to Evaluating L2 Pragmatic Performance Qiong Li

143

7 Using the Rasch Model to Evaluate Instrument and Data Quality in Assessing Requests in L2 Chinese Shuai Li

161

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Part 3: Individual Difference Factors in Pragmatics Acquisition 8 Proficiency, Motivation and Production of Conventional Expressions in L2 Chinese Yunwen Su and Xiao Hu

187

9 Learning Strategies for Pragmatic Routines by Learners of L2 Chinese Jia Yang

211

Part 4: Web-Based Approaches to Teaching and Learning Pragmatics 10 Effects of Website-Delivered Instruction on Development of Pragmatic Awareness in L2 Chinese Li Yang

237

11 Is a Game More Appealing than an Online Lesson for L2 Pragmatics Learning? Xiaofei Tang

257

Appendix: An Annotated Bibliography of Empirical Studies on L2 Chinese Pragmatics (1995–2022) Yali Feng and Shuai Li

282

Author Index Subject Index

348 353

Contributors

Chen Chen is a PhD candidate in Chinese linguistics at the University of Arizona. Her research interests include corpus linguistics and L2 acquisition of Chinese. She is particularly interested in using computational techniques in her research. Chen also serves as the data science ambassador at the University of Arizona. Her work has been published in academic journals, including the International Review of Applied Linguistics in Language Teaching and Chinese as a Second Language Research. Mo Chen is professor of Renmin University of China and contributing editor of Language Teaching and Linguistic Studies. Her research interests include the acquisition and teaching of Chinese as a second language based on cognitive and social orientations, as well as digital game technology. She has published in Frontiers in Psychology, Chinese Teaching in the World, Language Teaching and Linguistic Studies, Nankai Linguistics and TCSOL Studies. Mo served as a part-time researcher for the Center for the Cognitive Science of Language at Beijing Language and Culture University. Wenhao Diao is associate professor in the Department of East Asian Studies and the doctoral program of second language acquisition and teaching at the University of Arizona. She also co-directs the Center for East Asian Studies, a Title VI National Resource Center supported by the US Department of Education, at the University of Arizona. As an applied linguist, Dr Diao is interested in the identities and ideologies that Chinese language education (re)produce and (re)distribute. Her research has primarily focused on study abroad – particularly going to and from China. Her articles have appeared in journals such as Applied Linguistics, The Modern Language Journal and System. With her colleagues in the field, she edited a book titled Language Learning in Study Abroad: The Multilingual Turn (Multilingual Matters, 2021) and a special issue themed ‘Study Abroad in the 21st Century’ for the L2 Journal in 2016.

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Yali Feng is a doctoral student in applied linguistics and ESL at Georgia State University. Her research interests focus on language assessment, teaching Chinese as a second language and interlanguage pragmatics. Over the past four years, she has worked as a course instructor in the Chinese language program, teaching courses of various proficiency levels. She received the 2023 CLTA Action Research Award. Xiao Hu is lecturer of Chinese at the School of Overseas Education at Sichuan University and a PhD student in the Department of Education, Culture and Society at the University of Utah. Her research interests include the acquisition of L2 Chinese and immersion Chinese language education in the United States. Li Jin is associate professor in the Department of Modern Languages, director of the Chinese studies program and director of the global Asian studies program at DePaul University, Chicago. Her research interests include computer-assisted language teaching and learning as well as intercultural pragmatic learning. Her publications have appeared in Computer-Assisted Language Learning, the CALICO Journal, Foreign Language Annals, The Modern Language Journal, System, among others. Her recent co-edited book, A Transdisciplinary Approach to Chinese and Japanese Language Teaching: Collaborative Pedagogy Cross Languages, Disciplinaries, Communities, and Borders, is published by Routledge (2023). Chunyin Li received her master’s degree of TCSOL from Beijing Language and Culture University in 2021. She has worked for Shiyuan College of Nanning Normal University since 2021. Her research interests include second language acquisition and Chinese phonetics teaching. Qiong Li is a senior language engineer at Amazon. Her research interests include pragmatic development in second language acquisition and natural language processing. She has published her research in Foreign Language Annals and Applied Pragmatics. Shuai Li is associate professor of Chinese, director of undergraduate studies and Chinese program coordinator in the Department of World Languages and Cultures at Georgia State University. His research interests include acquisition of L2 Chinese and interlanguage pragmatics. He has published in Language Testing, Language Assessment Quarterly, Language Learning, The Modern Language Journal, Language Teaching and The Encyclopedia of Applied Linguistics, among others. Shuai served as president of the Chinese Language Teachers Association – USA (2022– 2023) and is the co-president of the Georgia Chinese Language Educators (2022–2024). He is the review editor of Chinese as a Second Language.

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Tianyu (Sophie) Qin is assistant professor of Chinese in the Department of Modern and Classical Chinese at the University of North Georgia (UNG). She also serves as the co-PI and academic director of the UNG Chinese flagship program. Her research interests include Chinese pedagogy, intercultural competence and language assessment. She has published manuscripts in journals such as Language Learning & Technology and Journal of Cognitive Education and Psychology. Yazhuo Qiu is a postgraduate student of teaching Chinese to speakers of other languages, Renmin University of China. Her research interests include the acquisition of pragmatic competence and emotional perception in Chinese as a second language. Yunwen Su is Assistant Professor of Chinese Linguistics at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and director of the Chinese program, where she researches language use in context, that is, the pragmatic aspect of communication. She has been primarily working on the development, assessment, and pedagogy of second language pragmatics. She also researches Chinese pragmatics from variational and cross-cultural perspectives. Her work on pragmatics has appeared in Journal of Pragmatics, Language Learning & Technology, Foreign Language Annals, System, The Modern Language Journal, Applied Pragmatics, Journal of Politeness Research and edited volumes. She serves on the editorial board of East Asian Pragmatics. Xiaofei Tang teaches Chinese classes at Shady Side Academy in Pittsburgh. She also teaches Chinese classes in the Modern Languages Department at Carnegie Mellon University. Her research focuses on game-based language learning, second language acquisition and Chinese pedagogies. She has published her research in journals such as The Modern Language Journal, System and Applied Language Learning. Ting Wen is associate professor of the College of Chinese Studies at Beijing Language and Culture University. Her research interests include acquisition of L2 Chinese, interlanguage pragmatics, intercultural communication and Chinese smart education. She has published in Language Teaching and Linguistic Studies, Language Testing and other academic journals. She has also published chapters in books such as Second Language Acquisition, Classroom Language for Teachers and Classroom Management for International Chinese. She won first prize in the Teaching Achievement Award of Beijing City, and first prize in the Outstanding Teaching Award of Youth Teachers of Beijing City. Jia Yang is associate professor of Chinese studies and the Chinese program coordinator in the Department of Global Languages and Cultures

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at the University of Dayton. Her current research interests include L2 learners’ development of pragmatic competence and computer-assisted language learning. Her scholarly work has appeared in a variety of books and academic journals, such as Language Learning & Technology, Journal of the National Council of Less Commonly Taught Languages, Chinese as a Second Language, Journal of International Students and Current Studies in Chinese Language and Discourse. Li Yang is associate professor of Chinese in the Department of Modern Languages at Kansas State University. She conducts research in second language acquisition of Chinese, focused on interlanguage pragmatics and second language writing. She has published articles in refereed journals and edited volumes both nationally and internationally. Wenxin Zhang is a postgraduate student of teaching Chinese to speakers of other languages, Renmin University of China. Her research interests include the pragmatic competence acquisition of Chinese as a second language.

Acknowledgments

I am filled with immense gratitude as I pen this acknowledgment, as numerous individuals have played an invaluable role in the creation and completion of this edited volume. First and foremost, I would like to extend my heartfelt appreciation to all the contributors of this book. Your willingness to share your original research findings and your commitment to this project since summer 2020 have been instrumental in shaping this work into what it is today. Special thanks are due to the series editors, Dr David Singleton and Dr Simone E. Pfenninger, for their support and guidance throughout the entire process. Your expertise and vision have been crucial in shaping the book and ensuring its coherence and scholarly value. I am deeply indebted to the anonymous reviewer of the book for their constructive suggestions. Likewise, I wish to thank the following reviewers of individual chapters: the contributors of this book, as well as Dr Jun Lang, Dr Xian Li, Dr Jia Lin, Dr Joy Maa, Dr Feng Xiao and Dr Xun Yan. The reviewers’ meticulous feedback and expert insights have been indispensable in refining and enhancing the quality of this publication. I would also like to express my gratitude to MLM’s head of sales and commissioning editor, Ms Laura Jordan. Your encouragement and belief in this project have been a constant source of motivation. My profound gratitude also goes to my doctoral advisor, Dr Naoko Taguchi, whose rigorous training during my doctoral years at Carnegie Mellon laid the foundation for my knowledge and research skills in the field of L2 pragmatics. I am forever grateful for the opportunities and wisdom you have shared with me. To my family members, Jing, Taotao and Youyou, I extend my heartfelt appreciation. Your presence in my life has been a constant source of strength and inspiration. Last but not least, I wish to acknowledge my father, Mr Wenlong Li, for generously contributing his original calligraphy/painting to be used

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as the cover image for this book. Your artistic talent and support have added a unique and captivating visual element to this work. The collective effort and support from each and every person mentioned above have been essential in bringing this project to fruition. I am deeply honored to have collaborated with such remarkable individuals. Shuai Li (郦帅) Atlanta, GA

Introduction Shuai Li

Background

With China’s rising economic and geopolitical influence, the Chinese language has achieved an unprecedented international status in the modern era, attracting an increasing number of learners around the globe. This trend has led to a fast-growing body of research on learning and teaching Chinese as a second language (L2). For example, over the past decade, new academic journals with an international readership have emerged specifically dedicated to (L2) Chinese research (e.g. Chinese as a Second Language Research, Chinese Language and Discourse, Global Chinese, International Journal of Chinese Linguistics, Chinese as a Second Language, International Journal of Chinese Language Teaching and Journal of Technology and Chinese Language Teaching). Yet, among the many aspects of Chinese language acquisition (e.g. character, grammar, phonology), pragmatics has long been the least researched. While the notion of the pragmatics of Chinese as a target language was proposed in the mid-1990s (Kasper, 1995), published empirical studies had been scarce until the 2010s. In a comprehensive state-of-the-art review of empirical research on L2 Chinese acquisition, Ke (2012) located only four studies devoted to pragmatics out of several dozens of Chinese second language acquisition (SLA) studies. However, over the past decade, there has been an explosion of empirical studies focusing on the pragmatics of L2 Chinese. Our current review (see Chapter 1 of this book) identified 98 unique studies (65  published in English, 33  in Chinese), among which 84  were published in or after 2012. This strong and upward trajectory corresponds to swift developments in the broad field of L2 pragmatics which, since the turn of the century, has been characterized by pluralization in theoretical approaches, research methods and the languages under investigation. Empirical studies on L2 Chinese pragmatics have now become an important component of L2 pragmatics research and are helping to drive the field forward on multiple fronts (see more details in Chapter  1). It would thus benefit the field of L2 pragmatics in general with an opportunity to showcase some of the most cutting-edge developments in research xiii

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on the pragmatics of L2 Chinese. Because no edited volumes or journal special issues have been published over the past two decades aside from a thematic issue (including four empirical studies) of Chinese as a Second Language Research (Taguchi & Li, 2017), this book can hopefully serve as a timely effort in bringing together a collection of high-quality empirical studies examining multiple aspects involved in the acquisition, teaching and assessment of pragmatics in L2 Chinese. Structure and Content of This Book

This book includes one state-of-the-art review, 10 empirical studies and an annotated bibliography. While the empirical studies all focus on Chinese as the target language, the issues they investigate could also shed light on general L2 pragmatics research. The content of the book is as follows. Chapter 1 (by Shuai Li, Ting Wen and Yali Feng) presents a comprehensive review of empirical research findings on L2 Chinese pragmatics based on 98 unique studies published in English or in Chinese between 1995 and mid-2022. The year 1995 was adopted as the starting time for the review as that was the year when the notion of L2 Chinese pragmatics was first proposed (Kasper, 1995). The authors grouped the 98 studies into three major categories, namely, pragmatics acquisition, pragmatics instruction, and pragmatics assessment. The review and discussion of the studies within each category are contextualized in the broad field of general L2 pragmatics research. Chapter 1 also offers readers an empirical background so that they may appreciate the contributions of the subsequent empirical studies included in this book. Supplemental to Chapter 1 is the Appendix (by Yali Feng and Shuai Li), which shows at the end of this book an annotated bibliography of the 98  studies. The annotated bibliography can be a useful resource for interested readers because roughly one-third of the 98 studies were originally published in Chinese. The 10 empirical studies in this book are grouped into four parts. Part 1 features three studies investigating the acquisition of key pragmatic features, some of which are under-researched from the perspective of L2 pragmatics acquisition. Chapter  2 (by Wenhao Diao and Chen Chen) reports on a study that drew upon a newly developed corpus of authentic college-dorm interactions to examine the use of the Chinese sentencefinal particle BA (吧) for its tone-softening function among study abroad students of Chinese. The results revealed both quantitative and qualitative differences between first language (L1) and L2 speakers of Chinese in their use of BA (吧) as a pragmatic marker during spontaneous peer talk. The native Chinese speakers produced the pragmatic marker more frequently and with more varied pragmatic functions than the L2 learners. Moreover, the learners did not appear to produce certain important pragmatic functions (e.g. forming tag questions) that frequently appeared

Introduction 

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in the native speakers’ speech. To help explain these research findings, the authors analyzed a selection of popular Chinese language textbooks and discussed the possible influence of instructional materials on the learners’ use of the pragmatic marker. Chapter 3 (by Li Jin) examines the acquisition of pragmatic routines from the perspective of internet language use. Previous studies on L2 pragmatic routines have mainly focused on formulaic expressions tied to physical contexts, and little is known about the acquisition of formulaic expressions typically used in virtual contexts. Jin’s study thus represents a valuable contribution in this regard: the researcher focused on Chinese internet slang, which is associated with a strong youth identity in China and is potentially appealing to college learners of L2 Chinese. The results showed that her American learners’ knowledge of internet slang was rather limited, and they were better at recognizing than producing slang. While proficiency in Chinese significantly affected the learners’ slang knowledge, improvement in receptive slang knowledge appeared to occur earlier than improvement in productive slang knowledge. Finally, the learners were found to be highly motivated to learn Chinese internet slang in general because they desired to be able to communicate with Chinese peers. Chapter 4 (by Mo Chen, Wenxin Zhang, Yazhuo Qiu and Chunyin Li) reports on a study that investigated whether and how the production of different micro request strategies by Japanese learners of L2 Chinese were influenced by linguistic proficiency and situation types (i.e. different combinations of power, social distance and imposition). Even though L2 Chinese request strategies have been researched in quite a few studies in the past, Chen et  al. conducted a fine-grained analysis focusing on micro request strategies (rather than on macro strategies), and they also targeted a rarely researched learner population (i.e. Japanese learners of Chinese). In the study, Japanese learners (who were studying abroad in China at the time of the research) of low and high Chinese proficiency as well as native Chinese speakers completed a 40-item oral discourse completion test (DCT) to assess request production. The results showed that the effects of linguistic proficiency and situational types varied across micro request strategies. Part  2 of the book includes three studies that explored innovative methods for assessing L2 pragmatic performance. Chapter 5 (by Tianyu Sophie Qin) features a study that utilized a slide ruler to assess learners’ ability to correctly comprehend conversational implicature as well as their confidence/certainty level associated with implicature comprehension. While implicature comprehension in L2 Chinese had been investigated in several previous studies (e.g. Li, 2018; Taguchi et al., 2013), Qin’s study was the first to adopt a slide ruler to assess this ability; this study also represents an initial effort to investigate the degree of confidence/ certainty involved in implicature comprehension. The results showed

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that higher Chinese proficiency led to more accurate and more confident/ certain implicature comprehension, and that accuracy and confidence/ certainty in implicature comprehension were positively correlated with each other. Very interestingly, there were cases where learners who obtained similar accuracy scores actually differed substantially in their respective confidence/certainty scores. Such findings indicate that both comprehension accuracy and confidence/certainty level are important measures that allow researchers to gain a fuller picture of an L2 learner’s implicature comprehension ability. Chapter 6 (by Qiong Li) presents a study that explored the possibility of utilizing two natural language processing (NLP) techniques for assessing speech act production. To date, L2 pragmatics assessment has predominantly relied on human raters, an approach that is often associated with undesirable rater inconsistencies during the rating process (e.g. Li et al., 2019), which, in turn, may lead to variations in assessment outcomes. Because NLP techniques can evaluate linguistic texts without relying on human raters, they hold great potential for addressing the limitations associated with using human raters in pragmatics assessment. The two NLP techniques adopted in Li’s study were: (1) the continuous bag of words (CBOW) model and (2) text similarity as measured by the cosine similarity score. L2 Chinese learners with intermediate/advanced proficiency and native Chinese speakers produced multiple speech acts through a written DCT. The participants’ productions were transformed into vectors (a vector is a sequence of numbers such as 1, 2, 3…) using the CBOW model. The vectors were then used to calculate cosine similarity scores (for each DCT scenario) that reflected the degree of similarity in speech act production between the learners and the native speakers. Results based on the NLP techniques showed that the cosine similarity scores differed across the DCT scenarios, suggesting varied degrees of similarity in speech act production between the learners and the native speakers. A post hoc analysis by the researcher showed that the different cosine scores did reflect the similarities and differences in speech act production between the learners and the native speakers across the scenarios. Meanwhile, the NLP techniques were found to be limited in their ability to process language-specific features embedded in speech act production such as Chinese sentence-final particles. These findings suggest that the NLP techniques could serve as a supplemental means for assessing speech act performance, although additional research is needed to improve their functions. Chapter  7 (by Shuai Li) showcases ways through which the Rasch model (a psychometric model) can be used to evaluate the psychometric quality of an oral DCT for assessing request production and a five-point holistic rating scale for scoring oral speech act production. Oral DCTs and holistic rating scales are widely used in L2 pragmatics research (Taguchi & Li, 2021), but the psychometric qualities of these instruments

Introduction 

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have rarely been empirically investigated, and several existing studies (e.g. Li et  al., 2019, 2023) have demonstrated the necessity of empirically examining the instrument quality in L2 pragmatics research. In this study, an initial Rasch analysis revealed that the functioning of the holistic rating scale and all oral DCT items (except for one item) conformed with the expectations of the Rasch model, suggesting that the two instruments have overall satisfactory psychometric qualities. Regarding the one misfit item, a post hoc analysis revealed that it was an abnormal oral DCT response from one learner participant that had led to the item misfit. Hence, a decision was subsequently made to remove the abnormal response and rerun the Rasch analysis. The new results showed that all oral DCT items fit the expectations of the Rasch model. The findings of this study not only highlight the importance of empirically checking the psychometric quality of data collection instruments, but they also demonstrate how to use the Rasch model to identify potentially problematic instrument items and data points for quantitative L2 pragmatics research. Part  3 of this book features two studies investigating the role of learners’ individual difference (ID) factors in L2 pragmatic development. Except for linguistic proficiency, other ID factors (e.g. motivation, learning strategy and foreign language aptitude) have received relatively limited empirical attention in the field of L2 pragmatics in general (for a recent review, see Takahashi, 2019). In this regard, the two studies in this section constitute timely contributions to the field. Chapter  8 (by Yunwen Su and Xiao Hu) details the researchers’ focus on the effects of proficiency and motivation in the acquisition of pragmatic routines. American learners of L2 Chinese completed an oral DCT for assessing pragmatic routine production, a Chinese-elicited imitation test for assessing oral Chinese proficiency and a motivation questionnaire to examine motivational profiles. As it turned out, there was a strong and positive relationship between proficiency and the ability to produce pragmatic routines; moreover, motivational subscales including cultural interest and importance (i.e. instrumental and personal) showed moderate and positive relationships with routine production ability. Chapter 9 (by Jia Yang) reports on a study focusing on the strategies involved in learning L2 pragmatics. Although the notion of strategies for pragmatics learning and use was proposed more than a decade ago (Cohen, 2005), there is still very limited empirical research (e.g. Cohen & Shively, 2007; Taguchi et al., 2019). Yang’s study is unique in that it specifically compared the preferred pragmatics learning strategies between high-performing learners and their low-performing counterparts. In this study, American learners of L2 Chinese first completed a written DCT and a multiple-choice test for assessing the ability to produce and recognize pragmatic routines. The production and recognition scores were used to identify high- and low-performing learners for subsequent analysis. Learners whose combined production/recognition scores fell within

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the top 25% range were considered high-performing learners, and those with combined production/recognition scores falling within the bottom 25% range were considered low-performing learners. The learners completed an adapted version of the strategy inventory for language learning (SILL). The results showed four types of learning strategies that likely led to the differentiation of the high- and low-performing learners, namely, strategies to learn more and use the language outside of class, strategies to ask for help and corrective feedback, strategies for engaging in deep mental processing and strategies for coping with missing knowledge. Part 4 of the book includes two studies examining the efficacy of online approaches (e.g. digital games and open-access websites) to teaching and learning pragmatics, a topic that has attracted considerable attention in the field of L2 pragmatics (for a recent review, see Sykes & Dubreil, 2019). Chapter 10 (by Li Yang) reports on a study that investigated the effects of a researcher-developed, open-access website for teaching Chinese speech acts, with a particular focus on learners’ development of metapragmatic judgment and metapragmatic awareness involved in performing the speech act of expressing gratitude. L2 Chinese learners with elementary and intermediate proficiency engaged in self-study of the content provided on the website for six weeks. Pretests and posttests were administered before and after the self-study period. A comparison between pretest and posttest performance showed that the learners, regardless of proficiency levels, made significant gains in their ability to judge the appropriateness of Chinese expressions of gratitude. Retrospective interviews conducted following the pretests and posttests revealed noticeable changes in the criteria that the learners adopted for making metapragmatic judgments; there was a clear shift from relying mainly on non-pragmatics-related features to focusing on criteria that were related to pragmalinguistics and sociopragmatics in judging pragmatic appropriateness. Interestingly, although the intermediate learners showed a higher level of pragmatic awareness than the beginners during the pretest, this advantage did not last through the posttest, suggesting a homogenizing effect from this webbased approach to teaching and learning L2 pragmatics. Last but not least, in Chapter  11 (by Xiaofei Tang), the researcher compared learners’ subjective perceptions toward two types of online instructional programs for learning pragmatic routines: a scenario-based digital game and a picture-based online lesson. While investigating the effectiveness of digital games on pragmatics learning has recently emerged as an eye-catching topic in L2 pragmatics research (e.g. Tang & Taguchi, 2021), little is known about whether digital games are inherently more appealing and motivational to L2 learners than other forms of online instructional programs. To answer this question, Tang developed a digital game called Questaurant where multiple daily scenarios (e.g. withdraw money from a bank) were embedded in a digital game environment for learning and practicing pragmatic routines. The digital

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game was created with four key gaming elements: context (story and animated visuals), goals (quests and rewards system), feedback (implicit feedback) and interactivity (moving around in the game world). Tang also created a parallel, picture-based online lesson for the same learning content. She recruited L2 Chinese learners with intermediate proficiency, and randomly assigned them to one of the two virtual programs. Analysis of follow-up interviews revealed that, while the learners viewed both programs as useful resources for learning, those in the game group especially enjoyed the playful and low-pressure learning experience; moreover, the learners in the game group perceived three gaming features (i.e. context, goals and interactivity) as particularly engaging and helpful. As the first study to examine the motivating effects of digital games on pragmatics learning, the findings of the study provide very useful information about design features that can effectively engage learners in online pragmatics learning. To conclude, this book presents a collection of innovative empirical studies on L2 Chinese pragmatics that collectively address some of the most cutting-edge issues (i.e. new approaches to pragmatic assessment, individual difference factors and virtual learning contexts) in the broad field of L2 pragmatics. Hopefully, the findings of these studies can bring new insights to research on the acquisition, instruction and assessment of L2 pragmatics. References Cohen, A.D. (2005) Strategies for learning and performing L2 speech acts. Intercultural Pragmatics 2 (3), 275–301. Cohen, A.D. and Shively, R.L. (2007) Acquisition of requests and apologies in Spanish and French: Impact of study abroad and strategy-building intervention. The Modern Language Journal 91 (2), 189–212. Kasper, G. (ed.) (1995) Pragmatics of Chinese as Native and Target Language. Honolulu, HI: Second Language Teaching & Curriculum Center, University of Hawai’i at Mānoa. Ke, C. (2012) Research in second language acquisition of Chinese: Where we are, where we are going. Journal of Chinese Language Teachers’ Association 47, 43–113. Li, S. (2018) Developing a test of L2 Chinese pragmatic comprehension ability. Language Testing in Asia 8 (1), 1–23. Li, S., Taguchi, N. and Xiao, F. (2019) Variations in rating scale functioning in assessing speech act production in L2 Chinese. Language Assessment Quarterly 16 (3), 271–293. Li, S., Wen, T., Li, X., Feng, Y. and Lin, C. (2023) Comparing holistic and analytic marking methods in assessing speech act production in L2 Chinese. Language Testing 40 (2), 249–275. Sykes, J., and Dubreil, S. (2019) Pragmatics learning in digital games and virtual environments. In N. Taguchi (ed.) The Routledge Handbook Second Language Acquisition and Pragmatics (pp. 387–399). New York: Routledge. Taguchi, N. and Li, S. (eds) (2017) Pragmatics research in Chinese as a second language [Thematic issue]. Chinese as a Second Language Research 6 (1). Taguchi, N. and Li, S. (2021) Contrastive pragmatics and second language pragmatics: Approaches to assessing L2 speech act production. Contrastive Pragmatics 2 (1), 1–23.

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Taguchi, N., Li, S. and Liu, Y. (2013) Comprehension of conversational implicature in L2 Chinese. Pragmatics and Cognition 21 (1), 139–157. Taguchi, N., Tang, X. and Maa, J. (2019) Learning how to learn pragmatics: Application of self-directed strategies to pragmatics learning in L2 Chinese and Japanese. East Asian Pragmatics 4 (1), 11–36. Takahashi, S. (2019) Individual learner considerations in SLA and L2 pragmatics. In N. Taguchi (ed.) The Routledge Handbook Second Language Acquisition and Pragmatics (pp. 429–443). New York: Routledge. Tang, X. and Taguchi, N. (2021) Digital game-based learning of formulaic expressions in second language Chinese. The Modern Language Journal 105, 740–759.

1 Research on L2 Chinese Pragmatics (1995–2022): A State-of-the-Art Review Shuai Li, Ting Wen and Yali Feng

Introduction

This chapter aims to offer a comprehensive narrative review of empirical research on the pragmatics of Chinese as a second language (L2). Pragmatics as an important component of language competence has appeared in several influential models of communicative language competence (e.g. Bachman & Palmer, 2010; Canale, 1983; Timpe-Laughlin et  al., 2015). While the field of L2 pragmatics (also known as interlanguage pragmatics) was established in the early 1980s, the notion of L2 Chinese pragmatics research was first proposed by Kasper (1995) in her edited volume Pragmatics of Chinese as Native and Target Language. The field has since witnessed substantial development, especially during the past decade or so – of the 98 empirical studies included in this review, 86 were published in or after 2011. In view of the rapid development in research on L2 Chinese pragmatics, existing reviews by Lang (2020), Taguchi (2015) and Yang (2018) do not appear to offer a full picture of the field, because they either focus on a relatively small number of empirical studies or on one specific theme of investigation. For example, Taguchi’s (2015) review includes 14 studies published in English up to 2014, while Yang (2018) reviews 19  studies published up to 2016 (17 published in English, 2 in Chinese). On the other hand, Lang (2020) focuses on 16 studies conducted in the study abroad context and does not cover other themes of investigation (e.g. pragmatics teaching and assessment). Hence, no published review article that we are aware of has attempted to offer a panoramic view of existing empirical research in L2 Chinese pragmatics, and this chapter is meant to address this issue. Based on 98 studies published between 1995 and 2022 and written in either English or Chinese, we hope this review enables readers to better understand the status quo of L2 Chinese pragmatics research in relation to the broad field of L2 pragmatics. In the following sections, we first outline the evolving theorizations of the construct of pragmatic competence, 1

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which serves as the theoretical background for reviewing and synthesizing research findings. We then introduce our methods for identifying and classifying the relevant research studies. This is followed by presenting the synthesis results according to three major categories of research, namely, pragmatics acquisition, instruction and assessment. This chapter concludes with a summary of the major themes that emerged from the current review and a discussion on the directions for future research. Pragmatic Competence

Over the past four decades or so, the conceptualization of the construct of pragmatic competence has undergone considerable changes (for recent reviews, see Li, 2021; Taguchi & Li, 2021). For a long time, pragmatic competence has been understood as consisting of pragmalinguistic and sociopragmatic components (Leech, 2014; Thomas, 1983). The former refers to the connection between linguistic forms and their pragmatic functions (e.g. the sentence structure 能…吗? [néng…ma? ‘Can… question word?’] is conventionalized to make requests in Chinese), and the latter points to the social conventions underlying interaction such as the rights and obligations of specific speech communities, taboos in social interaction and the effects of contextual factors (e.g. power, social distance and imposition) as theorized by Brown and Levinson (1987). With such an understanding, pragmatic competence is viewed as the connection between pragmalinguistic and sociopragmatic competence, which involves knowledge of form–function–context mappings. This conceptualization of pragmatic competence is reflected in several models of communicative language competence (e.g. Bachman, 1990; Bachman & Palmer, 2010; Canale, 1983; Timpe-Laughlin et al., 2015). Another line of the theoretical conceptualization of pragmatic competence is based on psycholinguistics. Informed by the skill acquisition theories, Færch and Kasper (1984) understand pragmatic competence in terms of declarative and procedural knowledge. Declarative pragmatic knowledge refers to knowledge of pragmatic resources such as knowledge of speech acts and sociocultural conventions. On the other hand, procedural pragmatic knowledge refers to a series of cognitive strategies (e.g. contextual analysis, goal setting and monitoring) for retrieving and accessing declarative pragmatic knowledge during communication. Similarly, Bialystok (1993) and Taguchi (2012) both understand pragmatic competence as consisting of knowledge and processing components. The former, corresponding to the declarative pragmatic knowledge, refers to the knowledge that enables one to appropriately comprehend and produce communicative intentions; the latter, corresponding to the procedural pragmatic knowledge, points to the ability to control and allocate cognitive resources in order to achieve communicative goals efficiently.

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Over the past 15 years or so, theorizations of pragmatic competence have been increasingly influenced by discursive pragmatics (Kasper, 2006) and by research on English as a lingua franca (Taguchi & Ishihara, 2018). Methodologically, conversation analysis has been extended to L2 pragmatics research, thus enabling detailed analysis of the moment-bymoment unfolding of spoken discourse. As a result, researchers have incorporated interactional ability into the theorization of pragmatic competence. For example, Youn (2018: 219) defines pragmatic competence as ‘the abilities of achieving various pragmatic meanings and actions jointly in organized sequences by employing a wide range of pragmatic and interactional resources’. Taguchi (2019), on the other hand, conceptualizes pragmatic competence as a multifaceted construct in terms of linguistic and sociolinguistic knowledge, interactional abilities (i.e. abilities to draw on the aforementioned knowledge adaptively according to the changing contexts of communication) and agency (i.e. decision on whether or not to demonstrate the aforementioned knowledge in specific speech communities). Taguchi’s understanding of pragmatic competence thus incorporates insights from discursive pragmatics and is the first to include agency in the theorization of pragmatic competence. As outlined above, the conceptualization of pragmatic competence has evolved over time to reflect the development in the field of L2 pragmatics. It can be argued that the following consensus has been reached regarding the construct of pragmatic competence: First, a key component of pragmatic competence is pragmatic knowledge, which consists of pragmalinguistic and sociopragmatic knowledge, as well as the connection between the two. Second, strategic competence is an important component of pragmatic competence (Bialystok, 1993; Taguchi, 2012; Timpe-Laughlin et al., 2015), which is mainly concerned with accessing, retrieving and deploying pragmatic knowledge in communication. Third, pragmatic competence does not exist solely as a psychological trait within individual humans but also as an ability that is co-constructed and developed through interaction. Literature Search and Classification

We conducted an exhaustive search of the literature on L2 Chinese pragmatics to include journal papers, book chapters and monographs published in English and/or Chinese up to mid-2022. Because of Kasper’s (1995) original proposition of L2 Chinese pragmatics as a research theme, we set 1995 as the starting year of our literature search. We performed multiple database searches and manually checked the references of existing review articles on L2 Chinese pragmatics. The databases that we used include ERIC, LLBA, CNKI, Duxiu and Google Scholar. Combinations of two groups of keywords were used in database searches whenever applicable. The first group of keywords is under the theme ‘pragmatics’,

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including ‘conversational implicature’, ‘speech act’, ‘sociopragmatics’, ‘pragmalinguistics’, ‘pragmatic routine’, ‘conventional expression’ and ‘pragmatics teaching’. The second group of keywords include ‘Chinese’, ‘Chinese as a second language’, ‘acquisition’, ‘interlanguage’ and ‘assessment/testing’. We used Chinese and English keywords for searching Chinese and English databases, respectively. Our manual literature search relied on published review articles (i.e. Lang, 2020; Liu & Xiao, 2015; Ren & Li, 2018; Taguchi, 2015; Yang, 2018). Finally, we manually added one study (Li, 2023) that was accepted for publication at the time of the current project. The literature searches allowed us to locate 98 unique studies, including 88 journal articles, 7 book chapters and 3 monographs. In terms of the language of publication, 65  studies were published in English and 33 in Chinese. These studies were classified into three major categories for further discussion, including pragmatics acquisition (71  studies), pragmatics instruction (22  studies) and pragmatics assessment (5  studies). Among the three categories, pragmatics acquisition was further comprised of two sub-categories, i.e. pragmatic use (31  studies) and pragmatic development (40 studies). The difference between the two subcategories is in their approach to pragmatic competence: while studies in pragmatic development typically examine whether and how pragmatic competence differs as a function of specific independent variables (e.g. language proficiency or length of stay [LoS] in the target language environment), studies in pragmatic use do not attempt to differentiate levels of pragmatic competence among learners. The following section reviews studies according to the aforementioned categories. Before discussing the specific studies within each category, we briefly introduce the relevant development in the broad field of L2 pragmatics to provide context for research on L2 Chinese pragmatics in relation to the larger general field. Research Synthesis Findings Research on pragmatics acquisition in L2 Chinese Background

In the broad field of L2 pragmatics, research on pragmatics acquisition has accumulated the largest amount of literature in comparison to pragmatics instruction and assessment. Strongly influenced by the comparative framework of cross-cultural pragmatics, research on L2 pragmatics acquisition has largely focused on pragmatic use rather than development (detailed below) before the mid-1990s. There were only a few exceptions, such as Schmidt’s (1983) case study on a Japanese immigrant learner of English and Bouton’s (1988) longitudinal study on implicature comprehension in L2 English. Researchers focusing on pragmatic use are interested in revealing snapshots of learners’ pragmatic

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performance, often compared with native speaker groups of the learners’ first language (L1) and L2 or compared with another learner group coming from a different linguistic/cultural background. Speech acts were the predominant pragmatic features targeted during this period and the widely known cross-cultural speech acts realization project (Blum-Kulka et al., 1989) is a canonical example in this regard. Additional topics under investigation within the realm of pragmatic use following a comparative framework include analysis of pragmatic errors and pragmatic transfer (e.g. Kasper, 1992; Takahashi, 1996). Starting around the mid-1990s, L2 pragmatics research has increasingly aligned with the theories and methodologies of second language acquisition (SLA). In so doing, researchers have called for more empirical studies on pragmatic development (e.g. Kasper & Schmidt, 1996), that is, investigation into the processes involved in pragmatics acquisition and the learner-internal and external factors that shape the observed developmental trajectories. In terms of theoretical foundations, researchers in the early years of this period mainly relied on cognitive theories, in particular Schmidt’s (1990, 1993) noticing hypothesis. Since the turn of the century, multiple theoretical approaches have been adopted to guide empirical studies on pragmatic development, including, for example, sociocultural theory (e.g. Belz & Kinginger, 2003), the theory of language socialization (e.g. Diao, 2016; Li, 2000) and the dynamic system theory (e.g. Taguchi, 2012). In terms of substantive research content, scholars initially focused on descriptive studies, which mainly involved treating linguistic proficiency as an independent variable and sketching pragmatic developmental stages/trajectories across proficiency levels; alternatively, researchers also conducted longitudinal studies to track pragmatic development over time. During the past two decades, scholars have expanded the range of factors that can potentially influence pragmatic development, including, for example, learning context (Taguchi, 2012), social network (Li et al., 2021) and individual difference variables such as intercultural competence (Taguchi et al., 2016), social contact (Tang et al., 2021), heritage status (Taguchi et al., 2017b) and proficiency subskills (Xiao et al., 2019). Correspondingly, the targeted pragmatic features have been expanded beyond speech acts to include pragmatic routines, implicature, sequential organization of speech (Al-Ghatani & Roever, 2012; Xiao, 2017) and language-specific features (e.g. the T/V distinction in the German pronoun system). In the following, we review and synthesize relevant research findings according to two subcategories, i.e. pragmatic use and pragmatic development. Research synthesis: Pragmatic use

The studies in this category mainly examined L2 learners’ performance on various pragmatic features. Among the 31  studies in this

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category, 20  (or 64.51%) focused on speech acts (e.g. request, refusal, compliment response, condolence, greeting and leave-taking) while the remaining studies focused on constructs such as stance-taking forms (Xiao-Desai, 2021), mealtime talks (Kinginger et  al., 2016), sentencefinal particles (SFPs) (Diao & Chen, 2022; Han, 2019), the pragmatic functions of pauses (Zhao, 2014), vague expressions (Liu & Xiao, 2015) and sociolinguistic variations of the Chinese auxiliary 的 de (Li, 2010). In terms of research design, the studies in this category generally with a few exceptions grouped all learner participants together and treated them as one participant group for the main purpose of revealing their overall achievements and/or deficiencies in pragmatic performance. These studies contributed to the broad L2 pragmatics research by introducing a variety of Chinese pragmatic features, although the conclusions of these studies generally confirmed existing research focusing on other target languages. Nevertheless, the following 14 studies made unique contributions to the board field of L2 pragmatics research by focusing the effects of various individual difference factors on pragmatic performance, which is a research topic that has been under-investigated until more recently (Taguchi & Roever, 2017). The first individual difference factor under investigation was heritage status. Five studies specifically focused on revealing the differences in pragmatic performance between Chinese heritage and non-heritage learners, as well as between different groups of Chinese heritage learners (Liu & Xiao, 2015; Qi & Li, 2011; Taguchi et al., 2017b; Wen, 2019; Xiao-Desai, 2021). For example, Taguchi et  al. (2017b) asked heritage and non-heritage learners of Chinese recruited from the same Chinese language classes of a US university to complete a listening comprehension test for assessing comprehension of SFPs and a written discourse completion task (DCT) for assessing the production of pragmatic routines. The results showed that the heritage learners outperformed their non-heritage counterparts on both assessment tasks. Similarly, the overall advantage of heritage over non-heritage learners was observed in Liu and Xiao’s (2015) study that focused on comprehension of Chinese vague expressions as well as in Xiao-Desai’s (2021) study focusing on the production of the stance-taking construction 我觉得 (wǒ juéde, ‘I think’). In Wen’s (2019) study, however, heritage learners outperformed non-heritage learners in production, but not in comprehension, of indirect speech acts, suggesting that the advantage in pragmatic performance afforded by the heritage status may be moderated by performance modality. Yet, in another study by Qi and Li (2011), the edge that heritage learners supposedly held was not observed. This study focused on the production and comprehension of compliment responses. The non-heritage learners actually approximated native Chinese speakers in terms of the overall distribution of compliment response strategies more than their heritage counterparts. More interestingly, the researchers also reported that the

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US-born Chinese heritage learners approximated native Chinese speakers’ norms more than the heritage speakers who were born in China and lived in the United States for at least 10 years. The discrepancy between the studies regarding the advantage (or lack thereof) may be due to differences in the targeted pragmatic features, outcome measures and learner proficiency. Nonetheless, these findings suggest that heritage learners do not necessarily outperform their non-heritage counterparts, partly because the heritage learner population is far from homogeneous (as demonstrated in Qi and Li’s study). Future research should conduct more fine-grained grouping within the heritage speaker population to reveal similarities and differences in pragmatic performance. The second individual difference factor examined among studies of pragmatic use was linguistic and cultural background. To this end, three studies simultaneously compared the similarities and differences in speech act performance between L2 Chinese learners coming from different native languages and culture backgrounds (Liu & Chang, 2018; Ying, 2018; Ying & Hong, 2020). For example, Ying (2018) compared the written production of requests among Korean, Russian and French learners of Chinese. She found that the Korean learners most closely approximated native Chinese speakers’ norms, followed by Russian and French learners, respectively. In terms of the directness level involved in requests, the Russian learners were the most direct while the French learners were the most indirect. Similar results were reported by Ying and Hong (2020), except that their study did not include Russian learners. While the aforementioned studies suggest that smaller linguistic/cultural distance likely played a role in facilitating learners’ native-like performance, additional nuances were reported in Liu and Chang’s (2018) study. This study compared the production of Chinese requests and refusals between learners from Eastern and Western cultural backgrounds. The researchers found that, while the Eastern learners outperformed their Western counterparts in request production, this advantage was not maintained in terms of refusal production, suggesting that the potential facilitating effect of cultural closeness might not be generalizable across pragmatic features. Moving forward, more varied pragmatic features other than speech acts should be included in future research for this line of inquiry to better understand the generalizability of the study findings discussed here. The third individual difference factor investigated was the amount of social contact through the target language. Tang et al. (2021) operationalized social contact as the amount of target language use in noninteractive (e.g. reading) and interactive activities (e.g. talking to friends). They divided American learners of Chinese into low and high social contact groups and compared their speech act production (i.e. compliment response, refusal and request) at the end of a 15-week sojourn period. The results showed little difference between the two learner groups in terms of the preferred macro speech act strategies; however, the high

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social contact group produced a wider range of micro request strategies and a greater number of refusal strategies, and adopted more deflecting/ evading strategies in responding to compliments. This positive effect of social contact was corroborated by Ren’s (2019a) study in which social contact (i.e. operationalized as the frequency of Chinese language use), along with proficiency and LoS (length of stay) in China, were examined for their effects on learners’ comprehension and production of requests. The results of a series of correlation analysis showed positive relationships between frequency of language use and pragmatic comprehension and production, yet proficiency and LoS did not show statistically significant correlation with pragmatic performance. These studies thus suggest a generally positive effect of social contact on L2 pragmatic performance, although the scope of the targeted pragmatic features should be widened to examine the generalizability of the findings. Finally, several additional individual difference factors were investigated among studies of pragmatic use. Notably, Hao (2016) examined gender difference in pragmalinguistic and sociopragmatic awareness involved in multiple speech acts. She designed a pragmatic awareness questionnaire and administered it to intermediate-advanced learners of Chinese. The results showed that females outperformed males in both pragmalinguistic and sociopragmatic awareness. In another quantitative study, Sun (2011) included nine individual difference factors and examined their influences on pragmatic awareness in L2 Chinese. The results showed low correlation between pragmatic awareness and the following factors: gender, age, L1 background, LoS in China, language attitude and language anxiety. On the other hand, medium correlation was detected between pragmatic awareness and three individual difference factors, i.e. geographic location (i.e. East Asia, Southeast Asia and Europe/America), motivation and personality. In addition to the aforementioned quantitative studies, Han’s (2019) study combining corpus analysis and qualitative methods offered additional insights. The study focused on eight advanced male learners of Chinese (with varied L1 backgrounds). Their speeches during a Chinese TV talk show (Informal Talk) and their written texts from weibo​.c​om (considered the Chinese equivalent of Twitter) were analyzed for the production of SFPs in non-interrogative utterances. The results showed that those who preferred to use SFPs tended to live in southern China, possessed more feminine traits, had lived in China for more than five years, had SFPs in their L1 and used online communication. Meanwhile, it appeared that active and meaningful interactions between speakers and listeners facilitated SFPs learning; such interactions also enabled the learners to reach a wider audience and more local communities to practice skills in negotiating meaning and identities. As mentioned earlier, a noteworthy contribution of research on pragmatic use in L2 Chinese is the adoption of empirical investigations into the role of various individual difference factors in shaping pragmatic

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performance. Except for the factor of social contact, there does not seem to be conclusive findings regarding the effects of other individual difference factor(s). Given the wide range of individual difference factors and a variety of pragmatic features for empirical investigation, more research is needed to confirm the generalizability of existing findings. Moving forward, in addition to having individual empirical studies, it would also be very helpful to develop a research framework for investigating the role of individual difference factors in influencing performance across various pragmatic features. Research synthesis: Pragmatic development

Studies in this category mainly examined pragmatic development according to specific pragmatic features. Among the 40  studies in this category, 28  (or 70%) targeted speech acts or included them as one of the focal pragmatic features; 6 (or 15%) examined pragmatic routines or included them as one of the focal pragmatic features; and the remaining studies focused on features such as SFPs (Diao, 2016), pragmatic functions of pauses (Zhao, 2012), conversational implicature (Taguchi et al., 2013) and epistemic expressions (Xiao-Desai & Wong, 2017). Methodologically, 23 studies adopted a cross-sectional design, i.e. allowing a comparison of pragmatic performance across different levels of an independent variable (e.g. proficiency); the remaining 17 were longitudinal, i.e. tracking the development of the pragmatic performance of individual learners or a group of learners over time and/or investigating the effects of factors that can potentially shape developmental trajectories. Below is our review of cross-sectional and longitudinal studies, respectively. Cross-sectional studies

Thus far, cross-sectional studies on pragmatic development have primarily focused on the effects of linguistic proficiency. Together, these studies show that linguistic proficiency has an overall positive effect on a wide range of measures of pragmatic performance, including production of speech acts (e.g. Hao, 2018, 2019; Su, 2021, 2022; Su & Ren, 2017; Wen, 2014; Wu & Roever, 2021; Wen, 2022), production of pragmatic routines (Bardovi-Harlig & Su, 2018), implicature comprehension (Taguchi et  al., 2013), comprehension of the pragmatic function(s) of pauses (Zhao, 2012), stance expressions (Xiao-Desai & Wong, 2017) and pragmatic awareness (Shi, 2013). For example, Wu and Roever (2021) examined whether there were any differences in the sequential organization of refusals among learners of Chinese at three proficiency levels. Roleplay data revealed that, with increasing proficiency, the learners became more able to delay their refusals, exhibited a higher level of indirectness and demonstrated greater contextual sensitivity, all of which pointed to pragmatic development. However, researchers have, at the same time, also reported that linguistic proficiency does not necessarily bear a linear

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relationship with pragmatic competence; rather, the effects of proficiency usually vary greatly according to specific aspects of pragmatic performance. For example, Xiao-Desai and Wong (2017) examined the production of the stance-taking construction 我觉得 (wǒ juéde, ‘I think’) among adult Chinese heritage learners across four proficiency levels (i.e. three levels of a first-year college Chinese course, and one level of a third-year course). The results showed that both the frequency and variety of stance expressions increased rapidly between the first two proficiency levels and then entered a stable phase; on the other hand, learners in the third-year Chinese class showed greater variety, but not higher frequency, of stance expressions. These findings indicate that, although proficiency generally has a positive effect on the production of stance expressions among heritage learners (e.g. comparing first- and third-year performance), the impact is not linear (e.g. comparing the three levels of first-year Chinese class), especially considering the different dimensions of stance expression (i.e. frequency and variety). Admittedly, one methodological issue surrounding this line of research is a lack of shared proficiency measures (e.g. course level, proficiency test scores, length of formal instruction), which makes it difficult to compare findings across individual studies. Another research topic among the cross-sectional studies is concerned with the effects of LoS in the target language environment on pragmatic development. Three studies examined this issue (Ren, 2019b; J. Yang, 2016; L. Yang, 2015) with no concluding consensus. J. Yang (2016) divided her American learners of Chinese into five groups based on LoS levels (i.e. no stay, less than 1 month, 1–3 months, 3–12 months and over 12 months). LoS showed a significant positive effect on pragmatic routine recognition (assessed by a multiple-choice questionnaire) but not on pragmatic routine production (assessed by a written DCT). Ren (2019b) grouped international learners of Chinese (enrolled in Chinese universities) into three LoS levels, namely, 8–10 months, 15–21 months and 28–75 months. Analysis of request role-play data showed that the effects of LoS varied according to different dimensions of request performance. Specifically, learners with longer LoS produced more conventionally indirect request strategies than those with shorter LoS, thus diverging from native Chinese speakers’ norms. On the other hand, learners with longer LoS produced more international modifications, which represented a positive development. Finally, LoS did not appear to affect the production of external modifications. In another study, L. Yang (2015) examined the effects of LoS on the production of gratitude expression (assessed through a written DCT). Her learner participants came from elementary and advanced classes, and each proficiency group was further divided into shorter LoS (less than two months) and longer LoS (over six  months) groups. The results showed that proficiency, but not LoS, significantly affected the learners’ performance on gratitude production. How to reconcile the different findings regarding the role of LoS in pragmatic development? To

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begin with, the three studies differ in terms of target pragmatic features, learner characteristics and LoS in China. Methodologically, all three studies compared group-level pragmatic performance across LoS levels, but the criteria for categorizing different LoS levels appeared to be arbitrary and varied considerably, which probably contributed to the discrepancies in findings. Hence, it would be helpful for future research to consider alternative statistical procedures (e.g. correlation-based statistical procedures) that do not require the artificial creation of different LoS levels. Meanwhile, it is worth mentioning that, in the broad field of L2 pragmatics research, there has been a reduction in recent years of published studies that focused on the role of LoS in influencing L2 pragmatic development. This likely reflects the controversy surrounding LoS as a meaningful factor in shaping pragmatic competence (see Bardovi-Harlig & Bastos, 2011). Researchers instead have increasingly focused on factors that are directly connected with interaction conducted in the target language (e.g. frequency of using the target language during study abroad). These studies, mostly longitudinal by design, are discussed below. Longitudinal studies

The 17 longitudinal studies that we located all focused on pragmatic development in L2 Chinese in the target language environment. The research foci of these studies are threefold: (1) investigating the role of linguistic proficiency in shaping pragmatic development; (2) examining the effects of other individual difference factors (e.g. language contact, intercultural competence, L1 background) on pragmatic development; and (3) case study of the processes and contingencies involved in pragmatic development. Studies focusing on the role of linguistic proficiency in shaping pragmatic development can be classified into two categories according to research design. Those in the first category treated linguistic proficiency as an independent variable to group learners according to proficiency levels at the beginning of the observation period. These studies typically tracked and compared the trajectories of pragmatic development among learners of different proficiency levels over time. On the other hand, studies in the second category recognized that linguistic proficiency changed over time along with pragmatic competence, and therefore attempted to capture the relationship between changes in linguistic proficiency and changes in pragmatic performance. The former category of studies includes those by Li (2014), Li et al. (2022, in press) and L. Yang (2016), all of which focused on American learners of Chinese. Li (2014) compared request production by students enrolled in intermediate (with two to four semesters of prior learning experience) and advanced Chinese classes (with four to six semesters of prior learning experience) in a study abroad program in China. Request production was assessed by an oral DCT at the beginning and toward

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the end of a 15-week sojourn period. The results showed that both proficiency groups made significant gains in appropriateness rating over time and the magnitude of improvement was comparable; however, neither group reduced planning time for making requests; finally, on the measure of fluency in making requests (i.e. speech rates), the advanced group gained but the intermediate group did not. These findings suggest that, overall, more proficient learners tend to benefit more from studying abroad than their less proficient counterparts, although the former’s comparative edge may be dependent on specific measures of pragmatic performance. Similar conclusions were reported by L. Yang (2016), who compared the gains in producing gratitude expressions (assessed by a written DCT) between students from elementary Chinese classes and those from advanced Chinese classes over an eight-week study abroad period. Over time, while the advanced learners clearly approximated native Chinese speakers’ norm, the elementary learners did not, thus corroborating Li’s (2014) findings discussed earlier. However, Li et al.’s (in press) study reported different findings. They examined the developmental trajectory of the oral production of pragmatic routines by American learners over a 15-week study abroad period. Participants were divided into lower- and higher-proficiency groups based on their HSK-4 test scores, and they completed an oral DCT at the beginning and toward the end of their sojourn. While both proficiency groups showed significant pragmatic improvement (operationalized as rating scores), the magnitude of gain was larger for the lower-proficiency group than for the higher-proficiency group, suggesting a comparative edge in favor of lower-proficiency learners. How to reconcile the discrepancies in findings among the above studies? To begin with, it is clear that linguistic proficiency was operationalized quite differently across the studies (e.g. standardized proficiency test scores vs. class levels), rendering it very difficult to compare research findings. Perhaps more importantly, it may be that the effects of linguistic proficiency on pragmatic development during study abroad differ across pragmatic features, different performance measures or different ways of assessing pragmatic gain. Indeed, that was the case reported in Li et al.’s (2022) study. Adopting a similar research design and focusing on the same group of learners as in Li et al. (in press), Li et al. (2022) examined the development of production of three speech acts (i.e. compliment response, refusal, request) among lower- and higher-proficiency groups. The results showed a complex relationship between proficiency, outcome measures (i.e. appropriateness ratings, speech rate) and ways of evaluating pragmatic changes (i.e. developmental trajectory, gain size, strategy preference and distribution). Both proficiency groups demonstrated identical patterns of change in appropriateness ratings across the three speech acts. For the measure of speech rate, the two groups were similar on request but differed on compliment response and refusal for which the

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higher-proficiency group gained but the lower-proficiency group did not. The two groups were identical in terms of the size of pragmatic change (as indicated by the effect of size measure) across measures, except for the gain in appropriateness rating for request for which the increase of the lower-proficiency group was significantly larger than the increase of the higher-proficiency group. Linguistic analysis further revealed that the two groups were quite similar in terms of strategy preference and distribution for all three speech acts; meanwhile, there appeared to be more variations in developmental patterns among speech acts than between proficiency levels. These findings thus demonstrate the importance of including multiple performance measures and ways of evaluating pragmatic change in order to fully understand the role of linguistic proficiency in shaping pragmatic development. As previously mentioned, another category of studies attempted to capture, through advanced statistical modeling (e.g. structural equation modeling), the contribution of changes in linguistic proficiency to pragmatic development over time. The two studies belonging to this category focused on American learners of Chinese. For example, Xiao et al. (2019) investigated how changes in Chinese proficiency (assessed by the HSK test) during a 15-week sojourn period influenced changes in the ability to produce speech acts and pragmatic routines (both assessed by an oral DCT). Learners’ proficiency gains were found to explain 54% of the variances of their pragmatic development; meanwhile, proficiency in listening and speaking skills showed a larger contribution to pragmatic gains than proficiency in reading and writing skills, which was explained by the fact that pragmatic performance in this study was assessed through an oral task. In another study, Xiao (2018) adopted a similar design but targeted pragmatic interaction (e.g. in terms of sequential relevance) assessed through a multiple-turn oral DCT. The result showed that the proficiency gains over an 18-week study abroad period explained about 47% of the variances in pragmatic gains; more interestingly, listening and speaking proficiency made larger contributions than reading and writing proficiency, which was due to the fact that completion of the multipleturn oral DCT relied heavily on speaking and listening skills than on reading and writing skills. Xiao’s study was the first in the broad field of L2 pragmatics to reveal the differential contributions made by proficiency subskills, rather than overall proficiency, to L2 pragmatic development. The fine-grained findings can clearly shed light on our understanding of the relationship between proficiency and pragmatic development. The second research focus among longitudinal studies is examining the role of other individual difference factors (e.g. language contact, intercultural competence, L1 background) in shaping the trajectory of pragmatic development over time. To this end, an innovative study was carried out by Taguchi et al. (2016). The researchers adopted structural equation modeling to investigate the structural relationship between two

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individual difference factors and examine how they jointly affect pragmatic development during study abroad. One such factor was intercultural competence, which was assessed by the cross-cultural adaptability inventory; and the other factor was the amount of interactive and noninteractive language contact, which was assessed through a language contact questionnaire. Pragmatic development was operationalized as the ability to produce speech acts and pragmatic routines assessed through an oral DCT. The learners were assessed for their intercultural competence, language contact and pragmatic performance at the beginning and toward the end of a 15-week study abroad period. The results showed that intercultural competence and language contact jointly explained about 26% of the variances in pragmatic gains. More interestingly, while language contact directly contributed to pragmatic gains, intercultural competence had only an indirect effect on pragmatic development, that is, a higher level of intercultural competence led to more language contact, which directly contributed to pragmatic gains. This study bears theoretical and methodological significance in that it is the first in the broad field of L2 pragmatics to reveal both direct and indirect effects of independent variables on pragmatic development. Two other studies examined the similarities and differences in pragmatic changes among learners from different L1 backgrounds during study abroad. Xiao and Shi (2014) compared American heritage and non-heritage learners for changes in negation strategies during a sixweek study abroad period. The results showed that both groups demonstrated improvement over time, but the magnitude of gain was larger for the learners with heritage rather than non-heritage backgrounds. Ying (2018), on the other hand, examined the changes in request production (assessed by a written DCT) among learners from L1 French, L1 Korean and L1 Russian backgrounds during a four-month sojourn. She reported varied developmental trajectories across the three groups of learners: the Russian learners improved in both pragmalinguistics and sociopragmatics, the Korean learners gained more in sociopragmatics than in pragmalinguistics and the French learners showed more gains in pragmalinguistics than in sociopragmatics. Such varied developmental patterns were explained by the learners’ motivation and attitudes toward acculturation, which in turn was jointly influenced by their respective native cultures and experiences during study abroad. The third research topic among longitudinal studies involves indepth case analysis to reveal variations in pragmatic development during study abroad and/or the factors that can shape individual developmental trajectories. Four studies were based on the theoretical framework of language socialization while targeting different pragmatic constructs and contingent variables. Focusing on the acquisition of gendered speech (e.g. Chinese SFPs for projecting a cute persona) among two female American college students studying in Shanghai, China, Diao (2016) specifically

Research on L2 Chinese Pragmatics (1995–2022)  15

examined how interaction with native Chinese speaker roommates gradually shaped the learners’ pragmatic development. Diao reported that gender-related topics occurred very frequently in dorm talk, and that the American learners received explicit corrections from their Chinese roommates on more masculine discourse features, which contributed to the development of their awareness and ability to use more feminine discourse features. Targeting compliment and compliment responses, Jin (2012, 2015) investigated the individual processes that American college learners went through during their summer sojourn. Based on data collected through interviews and field notes, Jin found that pragmatic development was a mutually constructed socialization process involving the learners, members of the local community, as well as the study abroad context: variations in individual learners’ experience in the study abroad context contributed to differences in pragmatic developmental patterns. Focusing specifically on the effects of social network, Li et al. (2021) tracked the development of request production (assessed through a roleplay task) among eight L2 Chinese learners with mixed native language backgrounds over a one-year study abroad period in China. Results based on three waves of data (collected at three- to four-month intervals) showed that the learners gradually approximated native Chinese speakers’ norms in terms of directness level and use of request modifications. Qualitative findings (e.g. based on ethnographic interviews, retrospective interviews, field notes and a study abroad network questionnaire) further revealed that the observed pragmatic changes were closely related to the composition and structure of the learners’ social network during study abroad. For example, one learner, Kent, formed a social network mainly around crowds of people who were already familiar with each other. The conflicting information and feedback he received from his social circles caused considerable confusion in his understanding of what constitutes appropriate pragmatic performance across different scenarios of interaction. In contrast, Camille, another learner, formed an open and loosely structured social network which allowed her to be exposed to multiple local pragmatic norms. Aided by her willingness to fully utilize the pragmatic resources at her disposal, Camille managed to learn and negotiate pragmatic norms as she socialized in local communities. The last longitudinal case study worth mentioning is Xiao (2017), which is probably the first to apply the notion of discursive pragmatics and conversation analysis in the field of L2 Chinese pragmatics to describe pragmatic development at both the utterance level and the discourse level. Xiao conducted open conversations (through an eight-week interval) with two advanced-level American learners studying in China, to investigate the developmental trajectories of producing mitigations in speech. Stimulated recalls were used to collect the learners’ comments on key expressions containing mitigation. The results showed that, at the utterance level, the learners expanded their pragmalinguistic forms to

16  Pragmatics of Chinese as a Second Language

express mitigation over time but still had room for improvement. During the first conversation, the learners only used 但是 (dànshì, ‘but’) or 可是 (kěshì, ‘but’) as tone mitigators; during the second conversation, they also started to use the sentence final particle 吧 ba, but they still did not produce certain forms that native Chinese speakers typically employ, such as verb reduplication and verb +一下 (yíxià, ‘verb + a little’). In addition to development at the utterance level, the learners also improved at the discourse level. They were only able to employ single pre-expansion and/or post-expansion to mitigate their tone during the first conversation; however, during the second conversation, the learners were able to produce multiple pre-expansions and/or post-expansions. Data collected from the stimulated recall procedure further showed that the learners were aware of the mitigations they produced and that preserving face in interpersonal interaction was the learners’ main motivation for employing mitigations. Xiao’s study is commendable in terms of research topic and research method. Regarding the former, he focused on discourse-level pragmatic performance in addition to utterance-level performance. Regarding the latter, the stimulated recall technique was highly effective in revealing the learners’ pragmatic agency underlying their pragmatic performance. In summary, empirical research on L2 Chinese pragmatics acquisition has witnessed rapid development over the past decade. Our current review also shows that there is a notable trend, regardless of research design (i.e. cross-sectional, longitudinal), of researchers becoming increasingly interested in understanding whether and how various individual difference factors affect pragmatics acquisition either individually or jointly. While linguistic proficiency continues to be of interest, a range of additional learner characteristics are also being examined, including heritage status, LoS, intensity of interaction, social networking and intercultural competence. Another notable trend is the pluralization of the theoretical frameworks underlying empirical studies. In particular, the theory of language socialization has been adopted in several recent studies (e.g. Diao, 2016; Jin, 2015), leading to the emergence of case studies on L2 Chinese pragmatics acquisition that follow the qualitative research paradigm. Finally, the scope of the targeted pragmatic features has been extended beyond speech acts, implicature and pragmatic routines to include additional pragmalinguistic features such as SFPs, stance expressions and pauses in discourse. In line with the emphasis on discursive pragmatics in the broad field of L2 pragmatics, researchers in L2 Chinese pragmatics have started in recent years to examine pragmatic development from a discursive perspective, focusing on sequential organizations involved in speech act production. This trend is particularly notable in cross-sectional studies, but much less so in longitudinal studies (except for Xiao, 2017). Investigating diachronic changes in L2 Chinese learners’ interactional ability from a discursive pragmatics perspective could be one direction in future research.

Research on L2 Chinese Pragmatics (1995–2022)  17

Pragmatics instruction in L2 Chinese Background

In the broad field of L2 pragmatics, research on pragmatics teaching started in the 1980s. The targeted pragmatic features in the literature have largely been limited to the realm of pragmalinguistics: speech acts are the most frequently targeted, and a smaller number of studies focused on teaching pragmatic routines and conversational implicature (Taguchi & Roever, 2017). There has been highly limited empirical research on the teaching of sociopragmatics, interactional abilities, or pragmatic competence from a psycholinguistic perspective. This is likely because, since its inception, the field of L2 pragmatics instruction has predominantly focused on ‘how to teach’ rather than ‘what to teach’. In other words, exploring and investigating the effects of different instructional approaches and/or techniques have always been of central concern in the field. Indeed, from the mid-to-late 1980s to the mid-to-late 1990s, the main issue of concern was the teachability of L2 pragmatics; researchers tried to respond to questions such as why it is important to teach pragmatics in an L2 and whether instruction could even make a difference (Kasper, 1997). Starting in the 2000s, the focus of the field has gradually turned to the issue of instructional effectiveness, that is, which instructional approaches or techniques can be more effective in facilitating pragmatics learning. Informed by instructed SLA research, scholars in L2 pragmatics first focused on comparing the effects of explicit and implicit instructional approaches. Explicit instruction refers to providing learners with metapragmatic information (i.e. typically referring to form–­ function–context mappings) during the instructed learning process, whereas implicit instruction does not offer such metalinguistic information to learners. Although the majority of existing research demonstrates the superiority of explicit instruction over implicit instruction, there have been findings to the contrary (Li, 2019; Taguchi & Roever, 2017). Another line of research, which has received far less attention, is the incorporation of strategy instruction in facilitating pragmatics learning (e.g. Cohen & Shively, 2007; Taguchi et al., 2019). In these studies, the instructional focus is not necessarily on specific pragmalinguistic forms or sociopragmatic conventions, but rather on the various strategies learners can potentially use in facilitating pragmatic development across learning contexts. Over the past 10  years, the issues addressed in research on L2 pragmatics instruction have diversified. For example, researchers have explored the impact of various instructional conditions on L2 pragmatics learning, such as different levels of explicit (or implicit) learning conditions (e.g. Takahashi, 2005, 2012, 2013, 2017), task-based instruction (e.g. Taguchi & Kim, 2018), virtual reality (Taguchi, 2022), gaming

18  Pragmatics of Chinese as a Second Language

environment (Tang & Taguchi, 2021), interaction between learner individual difference characteristics and instructional conditions (Li, 2017, 2023) and opportunities for pragmatics learning in the classroom setting (Ohta, 2001). In terms of the theoretical approaches for guiding research design, while the framework of explicit/implicit instruction continues to be employed, scholars have started to adopt additional SLA theories, including, for example, the skill acquisition theory (ACT-R), sociocultural theory, language socialization and usage-based language acquisition. Finally, scholars have strived to improve research design in order to enhance the reliability of research findings. These efforts include, for example, setting up pretest and multiple posttests, relying on multiple instruments for assessing pragmatics learning outcomes, and incorporating learner interviews to understand their subjective feelings about the instructional environments and conditions. Research synthesis

The research on teaching L2 Chinese pragmatics started relatively late, with the first published study that we found being Winke and Teng (2010). With the exception of a small number of studies investigating the teachability of Chinese pragmatics, most studies addressed current issues in the broad field of L2 pragmatics instruction and played a leading role in the following four areas. First, pragmatic competence based on the psycholinguistic perspective (that is, including declarative pragmatic knowledge and procedural pragmatic knowledge) was first introduced in the broad field of L2 pragmatics instruction through studies on teaching L2 Chinese pragmatics. Informed by the skill acquisition theory (i.e. ACT-R), a series of studies by Li and colleagues (Li, 2012, 2013; Li & Taguchi, 2014) demonstrated that declarative pragmatic knowledge and procedural pragmatic knowledge were differentially amenable to focused instruction and practice. Measures of performance accuracy (for recognition tasks) and appropriateness (for production tasks) were used as indicators of the declarative pragmatic knowledge, and measures of performance speed (e.g. response time, speech rate) were used as indicators of the procedural pragmatic knowledge. The results of these studies showed that, while declarative pragmatic knowledge was learned and strengthened to a relatively high level with a small amount of practice, procedural pragmatic knowledge required a larger amount of practice to develop. However, it remains unclear how much practice is needed to facilitate the development of procedural pragmatic knowledge in instructional environments. Second, researchers in L2 Chinese pragmatics teaching were among the first to explore the effects of instruction on pragmatic development during study abroad. To this end, scholars typically set up instructed groups (who received pragmatics instruction during study abroad) and

Research on L2 Chinese Pragmatics (1995–2022)  19

uninstructed groups followed by evaluations of pragmatic performance through pre-/post-sojourn assessment (Winke & Teng, 2010) or interviews (Wang & Halenko, 2019); they also collected data on learners’ experiences of learning pragmatics during study abroad. The results of these studies generally revealed more pragmatic gains among instructed than uninstructed learners. The reasons for these findings are twofold: on the one hand, instruction could facilitate learners’ noticing of the targeted pragmatic features; on the other hand, the study abroad environment could provide potentially abundant opportunities to attend to the targeted pragmatic features. Third, researchers in L2 Chinese pragmatics have contributed to current investigations regarding the role of technology-enhanced environments (e.g. virtual and game based) in teaching and learning L2 pragmatics. Three notable areas are worth mentioning: (1) researchers have developed online resources and examined the effectiveness of such resources for learning Chinese pragmatics. For example, L. Yang (2016, 2017) examined the effectiveness of a researcher-designed website for teaching the speech act of expressing gratitude among American L2 Chinese learners. The learners engaged in a self-paced study of the speech act and were assessed before and after the learning period. The results showed that the learners not only gained in appropriateness of expressing gratitude but also diversified their gratitude strategies. Moreover, higherproficiency learners showed more gains than their lower-proficiency counterparts over the same period. Yang later expanded the website (https://www​.k​-state​.edu​/chinesepragmatics) to include multiple Chinese speech acts, which serves as a valuable resource for learners of L2 Chinese. (2) Researchers have investigated the effects of computer-mediated communication (CMC, such as online chat) on pragmatic development in L2 Chinese and reported results that could improve CMC as a means of facilitating pragmatics acquisition (Q. Li, 2019; Li et al., 2018; Tang, 2019). For example, Q. Li (2019) found that merely asking learners to engage in CMC showed little effect on the acquisition of the pragmatics of SFP ne. In contrast, CMC combined with data-driven instruction, that is, using authentic learner-generated CMC data as materials for focused pragmatics instruction, led to the unequivocal development of the ability to produce the SFP during online chats. Also, in targeting CMC, Tang (2019) compared the effects of CMC-based written chat and face-to-face oral chat on the learning of Chinese modal verbs (e.g. 可以 [kěyǐ, ‘may/could’], 能 [néng, ‘can’]). The results showed that learners who had engaged in the face-to-face oral chat outperformed those in the CMC-based written chat in terms of modal verb production (assessed through a written DCT), indicating that CMC-based interaction does not always play a more facilitative role in enhancing L2 pragmatics learning regardless of interactional modalities. Findings like these allow us to understand the potential limitations of CMC activities

20  Pragmatics of Chinese as a Second Language

on pragmatic development and prompt researchers to design and implement more effective CMC programs. (3) Scholars have explored the effects of scenario-based computer games on pragmatics learning and on learners’ subjective experience of playing such games (Taguchi et al., 2017a; Tang & Taguchi, 2021). These studies have primarily focused on pragmatic routines insofar as pragmatic routines are closely related to specific scenarios of communication. Notably, Taguchi et al. (2017a) was probably among the first to examine the role of computer programs designed according to gaming mechanisms (e.g. setting up tasks with different levels of challenge, providing points and offering clues for task completion) in facilitating pragmatic development. The learners played a researcher-designed game directing them to complete multiple tasks (e.g. ask for directions). The results of pre/posttest comparisons showed improvement in pragmatic routine knowledge. Follow-up interviews revealed different attitudes toward the computer program; while some learners found that the realistic scenes were helpful for learning and the built-in game features enhanced their motivation to learn, other learners perceived the computer program as more like an instructional practice. Building on these findings, Tang and Taguchi’s (2021) report is one of the few pioneering studies that empirically investigated the comparative effects of a researcher-developed digital game (i.e. Questaurant) and a researcher-developed online lesson on L2 pragmatic development as well as on learners’ motivation. The results showed that, while both learner groups equally improved their knowledge in pragmatic routines, those who engaged in the digital game were significantly more motivated compared to those who learned via the online lesson. Fourth, researchers have explored the relationship between learner individual difference factors and instructional outcomes (Li, 2017, 2023), which is an area of L2 pragmatics research that has accumulated highly limited literature thus far. For example, Li (2017) investigated the role of foreign language aptitude (operationalized as consisting of working memory, grammatical sensitivity and rote memory) in mediating the effects of different types of instructional practices (i.e. operationalized as input-based and output-based practices) on the learning of requestmaking among American learners of Chinese. The results showed that, under the input-based practice condition, working memory positively correlated with the reduction in response time for judging request strategies; meanwhile, under the output-based practice condition, there was a positive correlation between grammatical sensitivity and gains in oral production fluency of requests and a negative correlation between rote memory capacity and a reduction in planning time for preparing the oral production of requests. These findings thus demonstrate complex relationships between foreign language aptitude, modality of instructional practice and type of outcome measures. In other words, the mediating effects of foreign language aptitude were likely dependent on multiple

Research on L2 Chinese Pragmatics (1995–2022)  21

contingent factors in an instructed learning environment. In a follow-up study, Li (2023) investigated whether working memory, along with task difficulty, affected the pragmatic performance of request-making following a brief metapragmatic instructional session among American learners of Chinese. The results showed, among other things, that working memory correlated with pragmatic production appropriateness (assessed by an oral DCT) and pragmatic judgment response times (assessed by a listening judgment test) only under the more difficult task conditions (i.e. higher power, large social distance and high imposition) rather than under the less challenging task conditions (i.e. equal power, small social distance and low imposition). It is interesting to note that, following the brief metapragmatic instruction session, the mediating effects of working memory on pragmatic performance were differentially shaped by task difficulty, a finding that was not reported in previous literature. Last but not least, researchers in L2 Chinese pragmatics have contributed to strategy-based pragmatics instruction, an area that has received lukewarm treatment in the field with very few published studies (Cohen & Shively, 2007). In particular, Taguchi et al. (2019) examined whether strategy instruction helps to direct learners’ attention to pragmatic input (e.g. conversation openings and closings, indirect expressions) in daily language use practices. A small number of L2 learners of Chinese (and Japanese) (n = 10) received training on metacognitive and cognitive strategies specific to learning pragmatics and were asked to keep a learning journal. Analysis of journal entries and the protocols of follow-up learner interviews revealed that they were able to notice the targeted pragmatic features and the surrounding contextual factors (e.g. power relationship between interlocutors); however, there was an imbalance in the degree of noticing and in the types of strategies utilized – not all pragmatic targets and strategy types benefit equally from strategy training. In summary, while research on the teaching of L2 Chinese pragmatics started relatively late, important contributions have been made to the larger field of L2 pragmatics instruction in recent years. Having said that, there are three areas that merit future empirical attention. To begin with, the scope of the targeted pragmatic features involved in existing studies on L2 Chinese pragmatics teaching is largely limited to pragmalinguistics (e.g. speech acts, modal particles) and has yet to reflect the latest theoretical understanding of L2 pragmatic competence (e.g. Taguchi, 2019). For example, no study has examined whether and how instruction may be effective in enhancing interactional abilities as defined by Taguchi (2019). In addition, the instructional approaches adopted in existing studies are largely based on the premises of the cognitive theories of SLA; there is a need to pluralize theoretical frameworks underlying instructional studies focusing on L2 Chinese pragmatics. For example, it would be worthwhile to consider applying the concept-based pragmatics instruction within the sociocultural framework (Van Compernolle, 2014). Finally, in terms

22  Pragmatics of Chinese as a Second Language

of research methodology, quantitative research needs to pursue more refined experimental designs that can provide a clearer picture regarding the intricate relationship between instructional approaches, characteristics of target pragmatic features, outcome measures and learner individual difference factors. On the other hand, qualitative research has been much less represented in the literature of pragmatics instruction in L2 Chinese. The qualitative paradigm can be powerful in uncovering individual development in great detail, and thus would be suitable for investigating issues such as individual learners’ longitudinal pragmatic development in the classroom setting as students gradually internalize pragmatic input afforded in the instructional environment (following a language socialization framework) as well as individual learners’ responsiveness to mediated support during instruction (following a sociocultural framework). Pragmatics assessment in L2 Chinese Background

In the early 1990s, researchers at the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa started the ground-breaking work of L2 pragmatics assessment (Hudson et al., 1992, 1995). Since then, there have been two lines of research, one involving the development and validation of tests and instruments for assessing pragmatic competence and the other centering on examining the technical issues surrounding pragmatics assessment. For the first line of research, scholars have mainly focused on developing instruments for assessing pragmalinguistics (e.g. speech acts, conversational implicature and pragmatic routines) (e.g. Liu, 2006; Roever, 2005) and to a far lesser extent for assessing sociopragmatics (e.g. Timpe, 2013; Roever et  al., 2014). Developing and validating tests for assessing pragmatics in interaction, a set of constructs derived from discursive pragmatics, is a more recent development in the field (Timpe, 2013; Youn, 2015). For the second line of research, researchers have examined rater behavior (Taguchi, 2011), rating scale development and validation (Youn, 2015), differential item functioning (Roever, 2007), effects of examinee characteristics on test item functioning (Roever, 2013) and effects of automated pragmatics tasks (Timpe-Laughlin et al., 2022). The target language of L2 pragmatics assessment research has mainly involved English as an L2, although a few studies targeted German, Japanese and Chinese. Research synthesis

Research on L2 Chinese pragmatics assessment has only been carried out in recent years. Of the five studies that we identified, two focused on developing instruments for assessing pragmalinguistic constructs (i.e. speech acts, conversational implicature). Through a series of pilot

Research on L2 Chinese Pragmatics (1995–2022)  23

studies (e.g. scenario generation), Fan and Liu (2017) developed a 50-item multiple-choice DCT to assess L2 Chinese learners’ ability to identify appropriate speech act strategies. The researchers administered the test to 208 learners (of mixed L1 backgrounds) with intermediate proficiency and above. The results showed a reliability coefficient (Cronbach’s α) value of 0.75, indicating acceptable reliability for a low-stakes test. In another test development study, Li (2018) focused on developing a multiple-choice test for assessing implicature comprehension. He utilized the grammatical structures and vocabulary included in the new HSK-3 test syllabus (roughly corresponding to lower intermediate proficiency) to rewrite authentic daily conversations and generated 39  test items. Each item included a mini-dialogue and four options written in Chinese. During test administration, examinees listened to the mini-dialogues and selected the best option. The results based on 98 learners recruited from a Chinese university showed a relatively high reliability coefficient ­(Cronbach’s α) value of 0.91, a relatively high overall test mean of 0.73 (or 73%, indicating that the test was generally easy for the examinees) and a mean discrimination measure of 0.44 (indicating the good discriminatory power of the test). Moreover, Rasch analysis revealed that all items’ mean square statistics fell within an acceptable range of 0.5–1.5 (indicating that item functioning fit model expectations), which offers empirical evidence to support arguments over the validity of the test. The aforementioned two studies have mainly drawn on existing experience of pragmatics test development that targeted L2 English and thus demonstrated limited methodological innovation. The study by Qin and Van Compernolle (2021), however, was innovative in that the researchers pioneered the effort of dynamic assessment in L2 pragmatics. Based on sociocultural theory’s notion of zone of proximal development (ZPD), the researchers developed an online computerized dynamic assessment for assessing implicature comprehension. Like Li (2018), the instrument also contained mini-dialogues and multiple-choice questions; however, different from Li’s study, the instrument developed by Qin and Van Compernolle was able to gauge learners’ current as well as emerging capabilities. The former was reflected in scores based on the learners’ independent performance without assistance, whereas the latter was reflected in the learners’ mediated performance after receiving assistance (i.e. the instrument was programmed in such a way that assistance was offered to learners following their failed attempt to answer a question). American learners of Chinese across proficiency levels took the test. The results showed that the learners’ performance generally improved after receiving the built-in assistance following their failed attempts, but they varied greatly in terms of the degree of responsiveness to mediation (i.e. assistance), suggesting considerable individual differences in learning potentials. Qin and Van Compernolle’s study is a cutting-edge development in L2 pragmatics assessment as it represents the first effort to focus

24  Pragmatics of Chinese as a Second Language

on emerging pragmatic competence, which has rich implications for pragmatics assessment (i.e. how to understand pragmatic competence not just as snapshots of what one is able to do but also as launchpads that can lead to the next level of performance) and instruction (i.e. how to design and implement mediated instructional programs to cater to individual learners’ learning potentials). While Qin and Van Compernolle focused on implicature comprehension in Chinese as a starting point for this line of research, additional pragmatic features could be incorporated into the dynamic assessment of L2 pragmatics. Turning to research on the technical issues involved in pragmatics assessment, researchers focusing on L2 Chinese have made unique contributions to the larger field of L2 pragmatics assessment. Li et al.’s (2019) study investigated whether and how rating scales developed by researchers for assessing L2 speech act production may function differently according to multiple contingent factors. This is a meaningful topic to explore because, although rating scales have been widely used in L2 pragmatics research, researchers have tacitly assumed that the scales would maintain their measurement properties across assessment contexts without empirically checking this assumption. In this regard, Li et al. (2019) found that rating scale functioning did vary when applied to different speech acts (i.e. compliment response, request and refusal) and learner groups with different proficiency. Perhaps more interestingly, rating scale functioning showed variability even between raters with highly comparable linguistic, cultural, professional and academic backgrounds. Meanwhile, redundancy in rating scale categories (i.e. score bands) was detected depending on specific speech acts, raters and examinee proficiency levels. These findings indicate that researchers should not simply assume rating scales will function as intended regardless of specific assessment conditions; rather, the measurement properties of rating scales should be empirically checked in different assessment contexts. Another recent study focusing on rating scales in the context of Chinese pragmatics assessment is Li et al. (2023), where the researchers compared the effects of holistic and analytic rating scales on parameter estimations and rater cognition in the context of assessing speech act production. The topic of this study is meaningful because, although holistic and analytic rating scales have been widely adopted in L2 pragmatics research, there had been no empirical evidence for or against a specific type of rating scale, rendering it difficult for researchers to make informed decisions on which rating scale to choose. Meanwhile, in the broad field of L2 performance assessment, many studies have addressed the relative effects of these two types of rating scales in assessing writing and speaking (e.g. Harsch & Martin, 2013; Khabbazbashi & Galaczi, 2020) without any study focused on pragmatic performance. In this study, examinees of L2 Chinese completed an oral DCT assessing requests and refusals. Native Chinese raters evaluated the speech act

Research on L2 Chinese Pragmatics (1995–2022)  25

productions based on holistic and analytic rating scales, respectively. The holistic scale simultaneously tapped into five dimensions: communicative function, prosody, fluency, appropriateness and grammaticality while the analytic scale contained sub-scales for each of the five dimensions. Immediately after assigning each score, the raters verbalized their rationale for scoring. Quantitative results showed that both rating scales led to high reliability and produced scores with high correlation; yet, the analytic scale showed higher reliability and measurement precision as well as higher percentages of Rasch model fit for examinees and items. Moreover, variability in rater severity was considerably more amplified under the analytic scale than under the holistic scale. Qualitative analysis of rater protocols further showed that the analytic scale led to more balanced reference to all rating criteria than the holistic scale during scoring. These results thus provide empirical information to allow researchers to make informed decisions on the choice of rating scale type for assessing speech acts. In addition, this study is also the first to incorporate prosody and fluency into the design of rating scales for pragmatics assessment. To summarize, the literature on L2 Chinese pragmatics assessment has been limited in terms of the quantity of empirical studies and the scope of inquiry. The pragmatics constructs that have been targeted in existing studies focus almost exclusively on pragmalinguistics, and no published empirical study that we are aware of has attempted to develop tests for assessing the sociopragmatics of L2 Chinese or for assessing pragmatic competence from a discursive perspective, the latter of which would be consistent with the most recent conceptualization of pragmatic competence. Moreover, the modality of pragmatics tests has been restricted to the receptive aspect of performance, with no published studies focusing on production. On the other hand, a few recent studies have been innovative regarding the research topics addressed (Li et al., 2019, 2023; Qin & Van Compernolle, 2021) and thus can contribute to the broad field of L2 pragmatics assessment. Pragmatics assessment in L2 Chinese is a very young area of inquiry, and more empirical effort is in order. Conclusion and Directions for Future Research

This chapter reviews empirical studies on L2 Chinese pragmatics published between 1995 and 2002 in three major categories, namely, pragmatics acquisition (i.e. including pragmatic use and development), instruction and assessment. Among these three categories, pragmatics acquisition has accumulated the largest number of empirical studies, contributing to the broad field of L2 pragmatics particularly in findings regarding the effects of individual difference factors. Research on L2 Chinese pragmatics instruction, although without publication until around 2010, has actually been at the forefront of L2 pragmatics research

26  Pragmatics of Chinese as a Second Language

in several areas (e.g. technology-assisted and digital game-based instruction, instruction based on the skill acquisition theory, aptitude–treatment interaction). Research on assessing L2 Chinese pragmatics is a fairly recent endeavor, and only a handful of studies have been published; nevertheless, its researchers are able to address some of the cutting-edge issues concerning L2 pragmatics assessment in general (e.g. rating scale functioning, dynamic assessment). Overall, empirical research on L2 Chinese pragmatics has been on a strong upward trajectory, as evidenced by the innovative research topics and the quantity of publications, especially over the past decade or so. Looking ahead, there are several directions for future research in L2 Chinese pragmatics. First, there is a need to further expand the scope of pragmatic features for empirical investigation. This means incorporating the current understanding of pragmatic competence (as discussed at the beginning of this chapter) into research design and implementation. For example, among the 98  studies we reviewed, interactional ability (e.g. sequential organization in pragmatic discourse) was examined in only a few studies belonging to the category of pragmatics acquisition, and no study in pragmatics instruction or assessment has examined this important aspect of pragmatic competence. Hence, future research can explore how to effectively teach and assess pragmatic features of interactional ability in L2 Chinese. Extending the scope of pragmatic features also means including constructs that have received little or no attention in the literature. For example, researchers can examine the acquisition, instruction and assessment of Chinese sociopragmatics; it would also be interesting to study the role of prosody in pragmatics acquisition, teaching and assessment. Second, the theoretical frameworks to guide L2 Chinese pragmatics research can be further expanded to better align with the recent development in the broad field of L2 pragmatics, which has been increasingly relying on theories of SLA. In more recent years, there have been some initial efforts among the studies on L2 Chinese pragmatics to apply more varied SLA theories to guide empirical investigations (e.g. theories of language socialization, sociocultural theory and the skill acquisition theory ACT-R). While this is an encouraging development, more could and should be done. For example, although sociocultural theory has been applied to teaching and assessing L2 pragmatics in several languages (e.g. French, English), very little has been achieved in L2 Chinese pragmatics. In addition, the dynamic system theory has been applied to examine L2 English pragmatic development, but no such attempt has been made for L2 Chinese pragmatics. Moreover, there have been some initial discussions on the nature of pragmatic knowledge in terms of the explicit–implicit distinction (e.g. Roever & Ellis, 2021), and the theory of translanguaging (e.g. W. Li, 2018) has been attracting considerable attention in SLA research. Topics like these have just begun to be explored in

Research on L2 Chinese Pragmatics (1995–2022)  27

the broad field of L2 pragmatics, and research from a Chinese pragmatics perspective can have much to contribute to these areas. Third, there is a need to further investigate the joint effects of factors that can influence pragmatic development. Over the past two decades, the field of L2 pragmatics has become increasingly focused on explanatory research aiming at understanding the mechanisms underlying observed trajectories of pragmatic development. In their comprehensive review of the field, Taguchi and Roever (2017) considered three major categories of such mechanisms, namely, effects of instruction, learning context and individual difference factors. While instruction and learning context have both received considerable research attention in L2 pragmatics, much less is known about how individual difference factors mediate pragmatic development, particularly with regard to the joint effects of such factors. To this end, there can be quantitative and qualitative approaches. Regarding the quantitative approach, Taguchi et  al. (2016), reviewed earlier in this chapter, is a good example of examining the relationship between two individual difference factors (intercultural competence and language contact) and their joint influence on pragmatic development over time. On the other hand, Diao (2016) is a representative qualitative example uncovering the complex interplay between a specific type of learning environment (i.e. dorm talk), peer interaction and identity construction in jointly shaping the development of awareness and production of gendered SFPs in Chinese. Still, two additional topics that researchers in L2 Chinese pragmatics have just begun to explore are the role of individual difference factors in mediating pragmatics instruction and pragmatics assessment (e.g. Li, 2017, 2023; Li et al., 2019). These topics are of interest to the broad field of L2 pragmatics, and therefore merit additional research attention. Fourth, more research needs to be carried out to investigate technology-assisted teaching, learning and assessment of Chinese pragmatics. While research surrounding this topic started nearly a decade ago (Taguchi & Sykes, 2013), it has become all the more relevant nowadays due to the COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on world language education in the post-pandemic era, where virtual learning appears to have become a permanent option. Hence, there are many fascinating topics to investigate in L2 pragmatics, including the effectiveness of different types of virtual learning environment (e.g. virtual reality, digital-game, asynchronous online environment), the acquisition of pragmatics that characterizes virtual interactions, the pedagogical approaches and tasks that are suitable for the online teaching and assessment of pragmatics, and individual variations in pragmatic development in virtual learning environments, to name just a few. Finally, given the current emphasis on multilingualism in applied linguistics (e.g. Berthele, 2021; Cenoz & Gorter, 2021, 2022) and the growing interest of situating L2 pragmatics in the context of globalization

28  Pragmatics of Chinese as a Second Language

and intercultural communication (e.g. Taguchi, 2021), it is important for researchers in L2 Chinese pragmatics to start embracing multilingual pragmatics. This approach involves holistically considering L2 learners’ multilingual resources in order to understand their pragmatic performance and development, which can have important implications for pragmatics teaching and assessment. There are several topics for empirical investigation under this paradigm. One such topic concerns the effects of multilingual competence on the acquisition of Chinese pragmatics. To illustrate, since Chinese may be the L2 or the third language (L3) of a learner, it would be meaningful to examine the differences and similarities in pragmatics acquisition between L2 and L3 learners of Chinese; it would also be interesting to investigate whether and how the acquisition of Chinese as an additional language exert any influence on the pragmatics of learners’ existing language(s). Another topic worth empirical attention under the multilingual pragmatics paradigm is to explore the pragmatics of Chinese as a lingua franca. Thus far, research on L2 Chinese pragmatics has been almost exclusively conducted under a monolingual paradigm where native speakers’ norms typically serve as the benchmark for learning, teaching and assessing pragmatics. Yet, it is worth mentioning that discussions on the possibility and potential of Chinese becoming a lingua franca (CLF) have emerged in recent years (e.g. Gil, 2020; Sharma, 2018). Because lingual franca communication is characterized by adaptability, creativity and contingency (Taguchi & Roever, 2017), and because the norms of lingual franca interactions are often emergent and locally negotiated (Taguchi & Ishihara, 2018), the CLF perspective will prompt researchers to reconsider the appropriateness of adhering solely to native speakers’ norms in teaching and assessing Chinese pragmatics. To this end, researchers can investigate the strategies and pragmatic features that speakers of CLF adopt to facilitate meaning negotiation, interactional management, solidarity building and identity construction involved in lingua franca interaction. No empirical study that we are aware of has explored the various issues outlined above, and we believe that the multilingual pragmatics paradigm holds great promise for enriching our understanding of Chinese pragmatics in the context of globalization. References Al-Ghatani, S. and Roever, C. (2012) Proficiency and sequential organization of L2 requests. Applied Linguistics 33 (1), 42–65. Bachman, L.F. (1990) Fundamental Considerations in Language Testing. New York: Oxford University Press. Bachman, L.F. and Palmer, A.S. (2010) Language Assessment in Practice: Developing Language Tests and Justifying Their Use in the Real World. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Bardovi-Harlig, K. and Bastos, M.T. (2011) Proficiency, length of stay, and intensity of interaction, and the acquisition of conventional expressions in L2 pragmatics. Intercultural Pragmatics 8 (3), 347–384.

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Li, S. (2014) The effects of different levels of linguistic proficiency on the development of L2 Chinese request production during study abroad. System 45, 103–116. Li, S. (2017) An exploratory study on the role of foreign language aptitudes in instructed pragmatics learning in L2 Chinese. Chinese as a Second Language Research 6 (1), 103–128. Li, S. (2018) Developing a test of L2 Chinese pragmatic comprehension ability. Language Testing in Asia 8 (1), 1–23. Li, S. (2019) Cognitive approaches to L2 pragmatics research. In N. Taguchi (ed.) The Routledge Handbook Second Language Acquisition and Pragmatics (pp. 113–127). New York: Routledge. Li, S. (2021) Pragmatics assessment in English as an international language (EIL). In Z. Tajeddin and M. Alemi (eds) English as an International Language: Pragmatic Pedagogy (pp. 191–211). New York: Routledge. Li, S. (2023) Working memory and task difficulty as factors influencing L2 pragmatics. In A. Martínez-Flor, A. Sánchez and J. Barón Pares (eds) Pragmatics in Action: Focus on Foreign Language Learners and Teachers (pp. 169–190). Amsterdam/Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins. Li, S. and Taguchi, N. (2014) The effects of practice modality on pragmatic development in L2 Chinese. The Modern Language Journal 98 (3), 794–812. Li, S., Taguchi, N. and Xiao, F. (2019) Variations in rating scale functioning in assessing speech act production in L2 Chinese. Language Assessment Quarterly 16 (3), 271–293. Li, S., Tang, X., Taguchi, N. and Xiao, F. (2022) Effects of linguistic proficiency on speech act development in L2 Chinese during study abroad. Study Abroad Research in Second Language Acquisition and International Education 7 (1), 116–151. Li, S., Wen, T., Li, X., Feng, Y. and Lin, C. (2023) Comparing holistic and analytic marking methods in assessing speech act production in L2 Chinese. Language Testing 40 (2), 249–275. Li, S., Taguchi, N. and Xiao, F. (in press) Effects of proficiency on the development of pragmatic routine production in L2 Chinese. In F. Xiao (ed.) Second Language Chinese Development: A Longitudinal Perspective. Lanham, MD: Lexington. Li, W. (2018) Translanguaging as a practical theory of language. Applied Linguistics 39 (1), 9–30. Li, X. (2010) Sociolinguistic variation in the speech of learners of Chinese as a second language. Language Learning 60 (2), 366–408. Liu, J. (2006) Measuring Interlanguage Pragmatic Knowledge of Chinese EFL Learners. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang. Liu, M. and Chang, J. (2018) When eastern and western CFL learners make requests and refusals: The issue of cultural backgrounds. Intergrams 18 (1), 1–34. Liu, Y. and Xiao, F. (2015) Pragmatic comprehension of vague expressions by heritage and non-heritage learners of Chinese. Chinese as a Second Language Research 4 (2), 271–294. 刘燕君、肖峰 (2015) 华裔和非华裔学习者对汉语模糊表达的语用理解研 究。《汉语作为第二语言研究》第2期，271–294。 Ohta, A. (2001) A longitudinal study of the development of expression of alignment by classroom learners of Japanese. In G. Kasper and K. Rose (eds) Pragmatics in Language Teaching (pp. 103–120). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Qi, H. and Li, X. (2011) Investigation and analysis of CSL learners’ pragmatic acquisition. Journal of Yunnan Normal University (Teaching and Research on Chinese as a Foreign Language Edition) 1, 19–23. 亓海峰、李晓蓉 (2011) 汉语作为第二语言 语用习得的调查与分析。《云南师范大学学报（对外汉语教学与研究版）》第1 期，19–23。 Qin, T. and Van Compernolle, R. A. (2021) Computerized dynamic assessment of implicature comprehension in L2 Chinese. Language Learning & Technology 25 (2), 55–74.

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Taguchi, N. (2021) Learning and teaching pragmatics in the globalized world: Introduction to the special issue. The Modern Language Journal 105 (3), 615–622. Taguchi, N. (2022) Immersive virtual reality for pragmatics task development. TESOL Quarterly 56 (1), 308–335. Taguchi, N. and Sykes, J. (eds) (2013) Technology in Interlanguage Pragmatics Research and Teaching. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins. Taguchi, N. and Roever, C. (2017) Second Language Pragmatics. New York: Oxford University Press. Taguchi, N. and Ishihara, N. (2018) The pragmatics of English as a lingua franca: Research and pedagogy in the era of globalization. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics 38, 80–101. Taguchi, N. and Kim, Y. (eds) (2018) Task-Based Approaches to Teaching and Assessing Pragmatics. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins. Taguchi, N. and Li, S. (2021) Contrastive pragmatics and second language pragmatics: Approaches to assessing L2 speech act production. Contrastive Pragmatics 2 (1), 1–23. Taguchi, N., Li, S. and Liu, Y. (2013) Comprehension of conversational implicature in L2 Chinese. Pragmatics and Cognition 21 (1), 139–157. Taguchi, N., Li, S. and Xiao, F. (2016) Effects of intercultural competence and social contact on speech act production in a Chinese study abroad context. The Modern Language Journal 100 (4), 775–796. Taguchi, N., Li, Q. and Tang, X. (2017a) Learning Chinese formulaic expressions in a scenario-based interactive environment. Foreign Language Annals 50 (4), 641–660. Taguchi, N., Zhang, H. and Li, Q. (2017b) Pragmatic competence of heritage learners of Chinese and its relationship to social contact. Chinese as a Second Language Research 6 (1), 7–37. Taguchi, N., Tang, X. and Maa, J. (2019) Learning how to learn pragmatics: Application of self-directed strategies to pragmatics learning in L2 Chinese and Japanese. East Asian Pragmatics 4 (1), 11–36. Takahashi, S. (1996) Pragmatic transferability. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 18, 189–223. Takahashi, S. (2005) Noticing in task performance and learning outcomes: A qualitative analysis of instructional effects in interlanguage pragmatics. System 33, 437–461. Takahashi, S. (2012) Individual differences and pragmalinguistic awareness: A structural equation modeling approach. Language, Culture, and Communication 4, 103–125. Takahashi, S. (2013) Awareness and learning in second language pragmatics. Language, Culture, and Communication 5, 53–76. Takahashi, S. (2017) Pragmatics-grammar interface in pragmalinguistics awareness and learning. Language, Culture, and Communication 9, 87–111. Tang, X. (2019) The effects of task modality on L2 Chinese learners’ pragmatic development: Computer-mediated written chat vs. face-to-face oral chat. System 80, 48–59. Tang, X. and Taguchi, N. (2021) Digital game-based learning of formulaic expressions in second language Chinese. The Modern Language Journal 105, 740–759. Tang, X., Taguchi, N. and Li, S. (2021) Social contact and speech act strategies in a Chinese study abroad context. Study Abroad Research in Second Language Acquisition and International Education 6 (1), 3–31. Thomas, J. (1983) Cross-cultural pragmatic failure. Applied Linguistics 4, 91–111. Timpe, V. (2013) Assessing Intercultural Communicative Competence. The Dependence of Receptive Sociopragmatic Competence and Discourse Competence on Learning Opportunities and Input. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang. Timpe-Laughlin, V., Wain, J. and Schmidgall, J. (2015) Defining and Operationalizing the Construct of Pragmatic Competence: Review and Recommendations. (ETS Research Report Series, Volume 2015, Issue 1.) Wiley Online Library. See https://onlinelibrary​ .wiley​.com​/doi​/epdf​/10​.1002​/ets2​.12053 (accessed 15 August, 2021).

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Timpe-Laughlin, V., Sydorenko, T. and Dombi, J. (2022) Human versus machine: Investigating L2 learner output in face-to-face versus fully-automated role-plays. Advance online publication. Computer Assisted Language Learning, 1–30. https://doi.org/10.1 080/09588221.2022.2032184 Van Compernolle, R.A. (2014) Sociocultural Theory and L2 Instructional Pragmatics. Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Wang, J. and Halenko, N. (2019) Longitudinal benefits of pre-departure pragmatics instruction for study abroad: Chinese as a second/foreign language. East Asian Pragmatics 4 (1), 87–111. Wen, T. (2019) Indirect speech act of heritage Chinese language learners: Based on language socialization theory. Overseas Chinese Teaching 1, 28–37. 闻亭 (2019) 华裔汉 语第二语言学习者间接言语行为社会化研究。《世界华文教育》第1期，28–37。 Wen, T. (2022) A research on language contact, language proficiency and pragmatic competence development in the target language environment. Journal of Lanzhou University (Social Sciences) 3, 129–139. 闻亭( 2022)目的语环境中的语言接触，语言 水平与语言能力发展研究。《兰州大学学报（社会科学版）》第3期，129–139。 Wen, X. (2014) Pragmatic development: An exploratory study of requests by learners of Chinese. In Z. Han (ed.) Studies in Second Language Acquisition of Chinese (pp. 30–56). Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Winke, P. and Teng, C. (2010) Using task-based pragmatics tutorials while studying abroad in China. Intercultural Pragmatics 7 (2), 363–399. Wu, J. and Roever, C. (2021) Proficiency and preference organization in second language Mandarin Chinese refusals. The Modern Language Journal 105 (4), 897–918. Xiao, F. (2017) Development in the use of Chinese mitigation in interaction. Chinese as a Second Language Research 6 (1), 39–71. Xiao, F. (2018) Development of pragmatic competence in L2 Chinese study abroad. In A. Sánchez-Hernández and A. Herraiz-Martínez (eds) Learning Second Language Pragmatics Beyond Traditional Contexts (pp. 227–254). Lausanne: Peter Lang. Xiao, F. and Shi, Z. (2014) Development of pragmatic competence in the target language environment: A comparison of Chinese heritage and non-heritage learners’ Chinese negotiation strategies in service scenarios. Overseas Chinese Teaching 2, 8–17. 肖峰、 史中琦 (2014) 目的语环境中语用能力的发展:美国华裔与非华裔学生在服务性场 景中汉语协商 策略的比较。《世界华文教育》第2 期，8–17。 Xiao, F., Taguchi, N. and Li, S. (2019) Effects of proficiency subskills on pragmatic development in L2 Chinese study abroad. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 41 (2), 469–483. Xiao-Desai, Y. (2021) Stance-taking in heritage language writing. Modern Language Journal 105 (3), 679–696. Xiao-Desai, Y. and Wong, K.F. (2017) Epistemic stance in Chinese heritage language writing: A developmental view. Chinese as a Second Language Research 6 (1), 73–102. Yang, J. (2016) CFL learners’ recognition and production of pragmatic routine formulae. Chinese as a Second Language 51 (1), 29–61. Yang, L. (2015) Acquisition of expressions of gratitude by American learners of Chinese in the target language environment. Chinese Teaching in the World 4, 562–575. 杨黎 (2015) 目的语环境中美国留学生汉语感谢言语行为的习得。《世界汉语教学》第 4期，562–575。 Yang, L. (2016) The development of pragmatic competence of American learners of Chinese at different linguistic levels in a target language environment. Language Teaching and Linguistic Studies 6, 37–47. 杨黎 (2016) 不同水平的美国汉语学习者在目的语环 境中语用能力的发展。《语言教学与研究》第6期，37–47。 Yang, L. (2018) Pragmatics learning and teaching in L2 Chinese. In C. Ke (ed.) The Routledge Handbook of Chinese Second Language Acquisition (pp. 261–278). New York: Routledge.

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Ying, J. (2018) A study on CSL students’ pragmatic development in China from a language socialization perspective. Language Teaching and Linguistic Studies 5, 24–33. 应洁 琼 (2018) 基于语言社会化理论的留学生汉语语用能力发展研究。《语言教学与研 究》第5期，24–33。 Ying, J. and Hong, G. (2020) A cross-cultural comparative study of requests made in Chinese by South Korean and French learners. Journal of Language Teaching & Research 11 (1), 54–65. Youn, S. (2015) Validity argument for assessing L2 pragmatics in interaction using mixed methods. Language Testing 32 (2), 199–225. Youn, S. (2018) Task design and validity evidence for assessment of L2 pragmatics in interaction. In N. Taguchi and Y. Kim (eds) Task-Based Approaches to Teaching and Assessing Pragmatics (pp. 217–246). Amsterdam/Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins. Zhao, J. (2012) A study of pragmatic acquisition of pause/extension in Chinese discourse by foreign students learning Chinese. Chinese Teaching in the World 3, 357–366. 赵瑾 (2012) 留学生汉语话语停延的语用习得。《世界汉语教学》 第26卷第 3 期, 357–366。 Zhao, J. (2014) An empirical study on the acquisition of sociopragmatic competence for CSL learners. In J. Zhao (ed.) The Acquisition of Chinese as a Second Language Pragmatics (pp. 210–228). Tianjin: Tianjin Social Sciences Press. 赵瑾 (2014) 社会语用 能力习得实证研究。《汉语作为第二语言的语用习得研究》第六章，210–228。 天津社会科学院出版社。

Part 1

Acquisition of Key Pragmatic Features

2 ‘Softening the Tone?’: A Corpus-Based Study of the Utterance-Final Pragmatic Particle BA (吧) between L1 and L2 Chinese Speakers Wenhao Diao and Chen Chen

Introduction

This chapter investigates the use of a pragmatic marker, the Chinese utterance-final particle BA  (吧), among second language (L2) Chinese learners in spontaneous talk. Pragmatic markers, such as oh or well in English, are often syntactically optional and have little or no propositional meaning semantically. However, they are frequently used in spoken communication and serve multiple functions in discourse (Brinton, 1996); they also allow speakers to express epistemic and affective stances (Cook, 1999). Therefore, the interpretation of what meanings a speaker wishes to convey through these markers is context dependent, and these markers constitute an important pragmatic phenomenon (Anderson, 2001). Due to their dependence on context and their lack of referential meaning, pragmatic markers were formerly overlooked in L2 teaching and research. Now, with the development of corpus-based methods in L2 learning research, an emerging convention is to investigate how L2 learners use pragmatic markers in discourse (Staples & Fernandéz, 2019). Drawing from this approach, the current study compares how first language (L1) and L2 speakers of Mandarin use the utterance-final particle BA  (吧) as a pragmatic marker. The corpus used here is a newly constructed corpus that consists of spontaneous peer talk between American study abroad students and their Chinese roommates. Our overarching goal is to uncover quantitative and qualitative variations between L1 speakers and L2 speakers in the use of the utterance-final particle BA (吧) in spontaneous peer talk. We begin with an overview of the literature on corpus-based research of pragmatic markers and how it can better our 39

40  Part 1: Acquisition of Key Pragmatic Features

understanding of BA  (吧), and then we discuss why study abroad provides an ideal setting for a corpus-based project on L2 pragmatic markers. This is followed by our presentation of this mixed-methods study, which also includes a post hoc analysis of how BA (吧) is presented in Chinese language textbooks. Literature Review A corpus-based approach to L2 pragmatics research

A corpus-based approach to L2 pragmatics research uses large collections of texts that language learners produce to identify patterns of L2 pragmatics in a bottom-up manner (Rühlemann, 2018). The corpusbased approach is particularly effective in analyzing L2 learners’ use of pragmatic markers because it can provide the discourse context in which the pragmatic marker in question occurs (Staples & Fernandéz, 2019). A number of studies have examined patterns of pragmatic markers used by English L2 learners through analyzing English learner corpora and comparing them with the equivalent corpora of English native speakers (e.g. Aijmer, 2011; Buysse, 2017; Müller, 2005). Their findings suggest that learners often do not fully master pragmatic markers in English. While these results provide insights into L2 pragmatic markers and their related challenges, several limitations remain. One main issue is the scarcity of a learner corpus of natural conversations. Most existing learner corpora are based on either written communication or prompted responses in laboratory settings (Culpeper et al., 2018), while pragmatic markers typically occur in face-to-face communication that are often spontaneous, contextualized and interactional (Cook, 1999). This challenge is further exacerbated by the paucity of learner corpora in languages other than English (Paquot & Plonsky, 2017). Xiao-Desai (2021) is a rare example that utilized a corpus-based approach to investigate Chinese L2 pragmatics. The focus of her research is the use of the ‘I  +  cognitive verb’ construction in Chinese writing (我觉得, wǒ juéde; ‘I think’) as a stance marker by L1 and L2 users (including both heritage language and other L2 writers). The Chinese L2 writers used the construction significantly more frequently than the L1 writers in her study, but the L1 writers frequently used the construction in combination with BA  (吧) to manage subjective and intersubjective positions. The L2 writers, however, never used this strategy (Xiao-Desai, 2021: 24). This observation indicates that BA (吧) can potentially pose a challenge for Chinese L2 learners. However, because pragmatic markers are more often used in face-to-face interactions rather than writing (Cook, 1999), Xiao-Desai’s finding sheds further light on the need to use a corpus-based approach to examine Chinese L2 speakers’ use of BA (吧) in spoken communication.

‘Softening the Tone?’  41

BA (吧) as an utterance-final pragmatic marker in Chinese

As an utterance-final particle, BA (吧) is added to the final position of an utterance. The following is an example of how it is used in an utterance: 这 Zhè dem

不 bú neg

是 shì cop

中国 zhōngguó China

吧。 BA ba

‘This is likely not China’.

Utterance-final particles such as BA (吧) often lack referential meanings, but they serve important pragmatic and discourse functions in Chinese. In the case of BA (吧), Li and Thompson (1981) suggest that it can solicit agreement in discourse, while Chappell (1991) postulates that BA  (吧) makes suggestions more polite. Lee-Wong (1998) shows that BA (吧) serves as a resource for Mandarin speakers to mitigate potential tension in discourse, such as interrogatives. However, the pragmatic functions of BA (吧) appear to be more complex than simply a marker of politeness (Ljungqvist, 2010). By examining L1 speakers’ natural conversations, Xiang (2011) argues that utterance-final particles are pragmatic markers with nuanced meanings in context. They can express speakers’ stance and convey levels of certainty and affect (Wu, 2004). In the case of BA, several recent studies used evidence from corpora of Chinese L1 speakers/writers to demonstrate that BA (吧) is a multifunctional pragmatic marker that can appear across sentence types beyond just suggestions, requests or interrogatives. Ljungqvist (2010: 283) used examples from the CALLHOME corpus (Canavan & Zipperlen, 1996) to argue that BA  (吧) should be conceptualized as a pragmatic marker, because it can pragmatically weaken speaker’s ‘commitment towards either the proposition or the speech act expressed’. For instance, one of the main functions of BA (吧) is actually similar to tag questions in English (e.g. right?), which reduces the speaker’s level of certainty. Other recent studies lend further support to this view of BA (吧) as a pragmatic marker: Kendrick (2018) highlights BA’s role to discursively construct truth and reality by reducing the speaker’s level of certainty or soliciting the hearer’s agreement, and Fang and Hengeveld (2020) reveal BA’s potential to help speakers do interactional work such as mitigating directives and negative comments, soliciting confirmation or inviting responses. Drawing on this line of work, BA (吧) is hereafter referred to as an utterancefinal pragmatic marker. The reasons to investigate the use of the utterance-final pragmatic marker BA  (吧) among L2 speakers are multifold. Firstly, pragmatic markers are language specific (Cook, 1999). Utterance-final pragmatic

42  Part 1: Acquisition of Key Pragmatic Features

markers in Chinese do not have English equivalents and cannot be easily translated (Li et al., 2017). Corpus-based research on the use of English pragmatic markers among English L2 learners (e.g. Buysse, 2017) cannot be directly applied to the understanding of Chinese pragmatic markers in L2 learning. Secondly, utterance-final pragmatic markers in Chinese, such as BA, are often insufficiently taught in Chinese language instruction (Bourgerie, 1996). Chinese language textbooks in North America typically introduce BA (吧) at the beginner level as a way to ‘soften the tone’ in forming the speech act of suggestions (e.g. Liu et al., 2009: 125). This incomplete introduction is likely due to the paucity of research on BA (吧) as a pragmatic marker; hence, formal instruction often overlooks the many other functions of BA  (吧) in discourse (Fang & Hengeveld, 2020; Kendrick, 2018; Ljungqvist, 2010). This emphasis of BA  (吧) to form suggestions leads to the question regarding the role of the explicit but limited instruction of pragmatic markers in shaping their use by L2 learners. In this study, we used a corpus-based approach to analyze the use of BA  (吧) in a study abroad setting. We now present a review of the literature on pragmatic learning while studying abroad to explain our rationale in choosing this approach for analyzing the interactions of study abroad students. Learning and using pragmatic markers while studying abroad

Study abroad can provide language learners with a site to engage in ‘situated pragmatic practices’ (Taguchi, 2018: 127). Through contextualized language use, study abroad students often show development in L2 pragmatics, such as implicature comprehension (Taguchi, 2018), speech act production (e.g. Shively, 2011) and awareness of cultural meanings of pragmatic norms (e.g. Kinginger, 2008). While the overwhelming majority of the literature regarding L2 pragmatics in study abroad contexts has examined speech acts (Sağdıç, 2021), study abroad is also an important context for researching L2 speakers’ use of pragmatic markers (Liao, 2009). Indeed, because pragmatic markers are often inadequately taught in formal instruction, the published studies that have dealt with L2 learners’ use of pragmatic markers have all been based on L2 speakers who were living or studying abroad (Magliacane & Howard, 2019). Recent scholarship on the learning of L2 Chinese has confirmed that study abroad can also offer an environment for Mandarin L2 learners to learn and use Chinese pragmatic features. Study abroad students in China acquire the ability to produce speech acts, such as requests (Jin, 2012) and compliments (Lee, 2017). They may also learn to use utterancefinal pragmatic markers (Diao, 2016) of which BA (吧) can be employed as a mitigation device to manage how people in China react to what they say (Xiao, 2017: 59). While these findings are based on case studies of

‘Softening the Tone?’  43

advanced learners, they indicate the potential of the study abroad setting for researching Chinese L2 learners’ use of the pragmatic marker BA  (吧) in Chinese. Moreover, while study abroad students learning Chinese improve both in terms of general proficiency and L2 pragmatics development (Li, 2014; Xiao et al., 2019), growth in pragmatics tends to be particularly evident among students who can better adjust to cultural differences and engage in social networking with their local associates (Li et al., 2021; Taguchi et al., 2016). Thus, researching L2 learners’ language use in the study abroad setting should require the inclusion of both students and their hosts to provide context and local voices (Kinginger, 2019). In this study, we utilized a corpus of conversations between study abroad students and their Chinese hosts to analyze L2 learners’ use of the pragmatic marker BA. Variations in the use of L2 pragmatic markers

While researchers frequently report intergroup differences between L1 and L2 speakers, individual differences have also been found among L2 learners who have studied abroad (Taguchi, 2018). In terms of pragmatic markers, Magliacane and Howard (2019) found that English L2 learners who have studied abroad in Ireland made gains, but students who were in the au  pairs group showed more similarities with English L1 speakers than those who studied abroad through Erasmus. The researchers attributed the differences to the au  pairs’ exposure to the language through their host families, which the Erasmus students did not experience. Au  pairs are uncommon in China, but many Chinese L2 learners, such as heritage speakers, may have familial and informal exposure to the target language. However, the role of heritage status in learning Chinese L2 pragmatics is neither simple nor linear. In a study that compared speech acts produced by Chinese L1 and L2 speakers, Li et al. (2017) found that L2 learners used utterance-final pragmatic markers significantly less frequently in informal conversations between peers. While heritage speakers showed more similarities with L1 speakers than non-heritage speakers, no statistically meaningful differences were found between heritage and non-heritage speakers (Wen, 2019). Other studies also report that Chinese heritage learners’ use of BA (吧) as a pragmatic marker is limited and conservative (Xiao-Desai, 2021; Yan, 2020). While these results show the need to include heritage speakers in the research on Chinese L2 pragmatic markers, the consistent finding that heritage status alone does not make a statistical difference (Li et al., 2017; XiaoDesai, 2021) highlights the fact that Chinese heritage learners are not one monolithic group (He, 2010). Heritage status thus cannot be considered a unitary variable in the learning of L2 pragmatics, as the amount and quality of exposure that may be available to each heritage speaker can be

44  Part 1: Acquisition of Key Pragmatic Features

vastly different. Moreover, L2 learners who were not born to Chinesespeaking parents may also have frequent familial or community exposure to Chinese (Diao, 2017). L2 learners’ use of pragmatic markers, therefore, should be contextualized qualitatively in their histories of engagement with the target language. Consequently, in this study we combined quantitative corpus techniques and qualitative analysis to examine the use of BA (吧) by a diverse sample of study abroad students, some of whom were heritage speakers, in their spontaneous talk with L1-speaking peers. Our research question is: RQ: Do L1 speakers and L2 speakers vary in their use of BA (吧) in spontaneous talk, and if so, in what ways? Method Corpus and data

The corpus used in this study, DormTalk, contains 334,899  tokens of Chinese characters or English words. They were transcriptions of 30 hours of peer conversations from 17 advanced Chinese L2 learners and 17 Chinese native-speaking roommates in a study abroad setting. All 34  speakers in the DormTalk corpus were participants in a research project that aimed to investigate study abroad and Chinese learning. The L2 learners were recruited from one eight-week summer study abroad and two semester-long programs in China in 2016. All three programs were intensive language programs that required their students to speak only Mandarin throughout their time in China, although the students sometimes did also use English. One semester-long program required all of its students to live with a Chinese roommate, while the other two programs gave their students the option to either live with a Chinese roommate on campus or with a host family off campus. The project initially had 21 student participants, 19 of whom lived on campus with a Chinese roommate. However, 2  students who lived on campus did not record conversations between themselves and their roommates, so they were excluded from the corpus construction; the 17  Chinese roommates of the remaining students living on campus were recruited as L1 speakers for the project. This resulted in a total of 34  speakers (17  study abroad students and their 17  roommates) in the DormTalk corpus. In addition to the corpus, additional data were also collected from interviews, surveys and field visits. Qualitative data can allow for triangulation in the corpus-based analysis of L2 pragmatics (Staples & Fernandéz, 2019), and in this study they provided information regarding the participants’ histories of exposure to Chinese. Of the 17 American college students, 9 were female and 8 were male. While all dormitories were co-ed, each room was shared by two people of the same sex. Thus, nine of the Chinese roommates were female and eight

‘Softening the Tone?’  45

were male. The ages of the 17 American students ranged from 19 to 28 years old (M = 20.65, SD = 1.97). Nine of them came from English monolingual families, whereas the remaining eight spoke other language(s) in addition to English at home: one spoke Japanese and Mandarin, one spoke Spanish, one spoke Hungarian and five others spoke a variety of Chinese dialects (three Mandarin, one Cantonese, one Fuzhounese). However, these students who had familial exposure to Mandarin or another Chinese dialect did not always fit the conventional definition of ‘heritage speakers’. Hasan, for example, was a Pakistani American student, but he spoke Mandarin because he had a Chinese nanny who did not speak English and cared for him until he was a teenager. Meanwhile, several others who did not speak Mandarin at home also had early and frequent exposure to Chinese. Among them was Nick, who grew up in an English monolingual home in the United States but studied abroad for a year in Nanjing when he was in high school, and at the time of the study he also frequently spoke Chinese with his Chinese girlfriend. Analysis

The analysis began with identifying all instances of utterance-final particle BA (吧) using the program Python. Instances in which BA (吧) was not used as an utterance-final particle (e.g. 酒吧, [jiǔbā, ‘bar’]) were excluded from the analysis. Then, the following two stages were performed: (1) quantitative corpus analysis and (2) qualitative discourse analysis triangulated with data from other sources. This mixed-methods approach is based on the consideration that quantitative analysis alone is inadequate in capturing pragmatic meanings in discourse despite its ability to show patterns of frequency, concordance and collocation in a corpus (Staples & Fernandéz, 2019). Two corpus analytic techniques, frequency and collocation analyses, were applied to the clean data. BA’s frequency was calculated and normalized to 10,000 Chinese characters, then the Wilcoxon matched-pairs signed-rank test was applied to compare the frequency of BA (吧) in the data of the L1 speakers and L2 learners. The Wilcoxon test is a nonparametric test that compares two datasets with two assumptions: (1) the data points are not normally distributed and (2) the two datasets may not be independent of each other. It suited this study because great individual variations exist in L2 pragmatics in study abroad settings (Taguchi, 2018), and learners’ use of utterance-final particles may be influenced by their L1-speaking peers (Diao, 2016). Moreover, corpus analysis should provide more information than simply the p value (Paquot & Plonsky, 2017). In our frequency analysis, effect sizes and 95% confidence intervals were calculated to identify the strength of the statistical differences between the two groups. A keyword analysis was further performed using the software AntConc (Anthony, 2018) to capture the ‘keyness’

46  Part 1: Acquisition of Key Pragmatic Features

in the use of BA. Keyness evaluates whether one word occurs more frequently in the target corpus compared to its occurrence in the reference corpus, and a keyword analysis compares the normalized frequencies of all lexical items that appear in one target corpus against those in a reference corpus. In this study, the comparison was performed on the roommate subcorpus against the learner subcorpus. Collocation analysis was then conducted to examine the immediate discourse context of BA (吧) and identify its pragmatic functions in the roommate subcorpus versus the learner subcorpus. Collocation analyses typically examine frequent co-occurrent words on both sides of the target search (Brezina et al., 2015). However, due to BA’s syntactically final position in an utterance, this study only searched for collocations up to a three-word span on the left side of BA. In line with previous research (Ward, 2007), our collocation analysis identified collocates as those that recurred with BA (吧) at least three times in either of the subcorpora. The collocate on the first, second and third order of BA (吧) were coded, and their frequencies calculated in the analysis.1 These collocation patterns were then categorized based on their recurring pragmatic functions in the corpus. The categorization of pragmatic functions was informed by existing research (Chappell, 1991; Fang & Hengeveld, 2020; Kendrick, 2018; Lee-Wong, 1998; Ljungqvist, 2010). Following previous corpus-based research of L2 pragmatics (e.g. Buysse, 2017) and utterance-final pragmatic markers (Xiang, 2011), qualitative discourse analysis was also conducted to further compare how L2 Chinese speakers used BA (吧) in discourse with L1 speakers. In our qualitative analysis, triangulation was done through utilizing multiple data sources including interviews and field notes. Results Quantitative results

A total of 288 tokens of BA (吧) were found in the roommate subcorpus, while only 37 tokens emerged in the learner subcorpus. The result of the Wilcoxon test showed a significant difference in the frequency of BA  (吧) between the L1 and L2 speakers (Z  =  –3.46, p