Effect of Rejoingers in Production Questionnaires

Abstract

Compared to the many interlanguage pragmatics studies based on pe data, there are few which examine the extent to which pe responses are actually valid representations of naturally occuning qpeech. It does not take much comparative research to ascertain that, as far as discoursal aspects of linguistic action are concerned (conversational management, sequencing of linguistic action in developing exchanges, collaborative activity, turn-taking, backchanneling), the conshuct validity of PQs is necessarily very low: such discourse{evel phenomena do not show up in one-tum responses. However, the strategies and linguistic forms used in speech act performance--the conventions of means and form of linguistic action under given contextual conditions-are believed to be adequately represented in pe responses. Is this indeed the case? Given the widespread use of PQs, validation studies are urgently needed. In this paper, we shall first review the comparative studies available to date, and then report on a recent study.