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Volume 7 Number 1, Spring 2010, Pages 1-393   


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Evaluating the Influence of Monocomponential and Polycomponential Types of Input-Based Task on Recognizing and Producing L2 Request Downgraders

    Masahiro Takimoto


The present study evaluates the relative effectiveness of three types of input-based tasks for teaching polite request forms to Japanese learners of English: the monocomponential type (affective oriented activities alone), the monocomponential type (referential oriented activities alone), and the polycomponential type (referential oriented and affective oriented activities). Treatment group performance was compared to control group performance on pre-, post-, and follow-up tests comprising a discourse completion test and an acceptability judgment test. The results reveal that the three treatment groups outperformed the control group significantly and that there was no significant difference among the three treatment groups. The lack of significant difference among the three treatment groups suggests that processing of the target features through the pragmalinguistics-sociopragmatics connections is more important, regardless of the task type, and that effective learning occurs even with one activity involving the pragmalinguistics-sociopragmatics connections in teaching L2 request downgraders.

Keywords: structured input task, referential oriented activity, affective oriented activity, pragmatic proficiency