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Pragmatic Linguistic Awareness Motivation Research Study Outline Research Proposal

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Listening Skills Second Language Acquisition Research Motivation
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¶ … Pragmatic Linguistic Awareness Motivation Research Study Outline on Pragmalinguistic Awareness

A helpful one-line summary of the research study, indicating the topic area and including all the key concepts to be studied.

Takahashi tested eighty Japanese students with a noticing-the-gap activity after administering a motivation questionnaire and an L2 proficiency test, finding that pragmalinguistic awareness was correlated with motivation subscales, but not with proficiency.

Link to previous research: What the author (SATOMI TAKAHASHI) had done on this topic area and what he had found; unanswered questions that your research study plans to answer.

The role of attention in pragmalinguistics was introduced in Schmidt's Noticing Hypothesis, which claimed that learners have to notice L2 features in the input for subsequent development to occur in the L2. (Schmidt, 1990). Schmidt argues that noticing is central to SLA, and learners must first notice the surface structures of utterances inthe input to acquire virtually every aspect of SLA. (Schmidt, 1990).

Takahashi continued this study on attention by examining the effects of differential degrees of input enhancement on Japanese EFL learners' learning of target request forms. (Takahashi, 2005, 92). Takahashi sought to examine to what extent Japanese EFL learners notice bi-clausal complex request forms. (Takahashi, 2005, 96). The participants were asked to compare native-speaker requesters' English in role-play transcripts with non-native-speaker requester's English in the same situations. (Takahashi, 2005, 96). They were then instructed to write down the native-speaker expressions that differed from the non-native-speaker English expressions, along with any comments on the native-speaker English. (Takahashi, 2005, 96).

Takahashi found that several learners in the three implicit input conditions noticed the target request forms; however, only some of them identified the functions of those forms in the particular request contexts. (Takahashi, 2005, 96). It was thus extrapolated that noticing-the-gap tasks could lead the learners to notice these strategies and incorporate them into their...

(Takahashi, 2001, 91; 96).
Questions

3. Research questions or hypotheses: Spelling out very clearly, accurately and carefully what your research study will investigate and seek answers for. Be as specific as you can. Do not be too ambitious.

1) Could it be that the motivation subscale is correlated more with test performance than with pragmalinguistic awareness? A more motivated student may be more alert and looking to catch more discrepancies without knowing the meaning of those discrepancies.

2) Were the audio and written dialogues insufficient to convey the tension in the dialogue. Would the addition of physical cues, such as an audio/video-recording of the dialogue, help convey the tension and sensitive nature of the dialogue? Pragmatic language is typically aided by physical gestures which serve as valuable cues for comprehension.

Takahashi's study would be enhanced if an audio/video-recording of the dialogue were included.

4. Significance of research findings: Explanation of the value of your research study and how its findings can contribute to the field of second language acquisition.

This study will explore the effect of motivation on pragmalinguistic awareness, either supporting or challenging Takahashi's findings regarding the correlation between motivation and pragmalinguistic awareness of bi-clausal request forms.

This study will explore the effect of 2L proficiency on pragmalinguistic awareness, either supporting or challenging Takahashi's findings regarding the lack of a connection between 2L proficiency and pragmalinguistic awareness of bi-clausal request forms.

This study will explore the effect of listening skills on pragmalinguistic awareness, if any.

5. Research Design: participants, instruments, data analysis: Description of what kind of data is to be used and how you plan to collect and analyze it.

Participants: Forty students from a broad array of fields, e.g. engineering, literature,…

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