Luận văn a study of dispreferred second turns used in part a listening section of toefl pbt

~ ‘GNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES: FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES STUDY OF DISPREFERRED SECOND TURNS USED IN PART A - LISTENING SECTION OF TOEFL PBT NGHIÊN CỨU

~

‘GNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES:

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

STUDY OF DISPREFERRED SECOND TURNS USED

IN PART A - LISTENING SECTION OF TOEFL PBT

(NGHIÊN CỨU VỀ CÂU ĐÁP KHÔNG ĐƯỢC ƯU TIÊN

Field: MA in English Linguistics

Code: 60.22.02.01

‘Training Program: Type 1

W Mae

Ậ \

HANOI — 2013

VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOT UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

NGUYEN TIT OANII

A STUDY OF DISPREFERRED SECOND TURNS USED

IN PART A - LISTENING SECTION OF TOEFL PBT

(NGHIÊN CỨU VẺ CÂU ĐÁP KHÔNG ĐƯỢC ƯU TIÊN

TRONG PIIAN A — NGIIE IIẺU TOEFL PBT)

Field: English Linguistics

Code: 60.22.02.01

Training Program: Type 1 Supervisor: Dr Kiểu Thị Thu Hương,

HANOI — 2013

T hereby, certify the thesis entitled “A study of Dispreferred Second

Turns used in part A — Listening Section of TOEFL PBT "is the result of my own research for the Minor Degree of Master of Arts in English Linguistics at University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National

University, Hanoi The thesis has not been submitied for any degree at any other

universities or institutions

/ agree that the origin of mv thesis deposited in the library can be

accessible for the purposes of study and research, in accordance with the

normal conditions established by the librarian for the care, loan and

reproduction of the paper

Hanoi, October 1”, 2013

Signature

Nguyen Thi Oanh

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First of all, I would like to express my special thanks to Dr Kicu Thi Thu Huong, my supervisor, for her exciting lectures on Pragmatics, her valuable advice and continual

supports without which T could not have finished my thesis

T owe Assoc Prof Dr Le ITung Tien my deep debt of gratitude for his useful and interesting course in Rescarch Methodology, which provides me with indispensable techniques to complete this thesis

My heartfelt thanks go to all the staff, teachers and members at Kaculty of Post- Graduate Studies - University of Languages and International Studies - Vietnam National University, Hanoi for their work and services

Especially, I would like to show my profound gratitude to all the librarians at Faculty

of Post-Graduate Studies during my scarclung for reference books Their cuthusiaslic cooperation is really precious towards the results of my study

1 would like to express my warmest thanks to my family for their support and encouragement during the completion of this research

Finally, Lam also grateful to all the authors whose books, newspapers and magazines L

have referred to

1Í

ABSTRACT

The main objective of this thesis is discovering the gencral patterns of dispreforred

second tums and the common linguistic features indicating them in part A — Listening

Comprehesion Section of TOEFL PBT based on the theoretical frameworks of

pragmatics and conversation analysis

The corpus of the study consists of $0 dialogs containing dispreferreds in Part A Both quantitative and qualitative methods have been used to find out the answers to the research questions

There are some findings in the research In the first place, the five patterns of

dispreferreds, namely assessment-disagreement, invitation-refusal, _proposal- disagreement, offer-declination and request-refusal, are all used in Part A and the

pallem assessmeni-disagreement is (he most common one Also, there are cight

common linguistic elements indicating dispreferreds among which ‘give an account’

ranks the most The data analysis also points out that each linguistic feature is priorly

used iti ons or some certain patterns of dispreferreds.

LỆ PreVios WOTlES non 1eraiirrrrrrerree T7 CHAPTER I THE 8TUDY ò sexerrerrrrereeeerree TẾ 2.1 Database - 19

IV

2.2, Methodology seosstntatieueenietistnesaneet thue

2.4 Findings and discussion

2.4.1 General patterns of dispreferreds

2.4.2, Common linguistic features of đispreforredis

PART II - CONCLUSION

1 Recapilulation

1.1 The common patterns of dispreferreds

1.2 The linguistic foatures signaling dispreforreds

2 Suggested tips for TOETL PBT leamers or potential test-takers

3 Tmmplicalions for English language learning arul test taking

4 Tamilations of the research

5 Suggestions for further research

REFERENCES:

LISTS OF TABLES & FIGURES

CONTENTS

‘Table ] - Correlations of content and format in adjacency pair seconds

Table 2 - The general patterns of preferred and dispreferred structures

Table 3 - Linguistic clements incicaling dispreferred second Larus

Table 4 - Listening Comprehension Format in Standard Form

Figure 1 - Common pattems of dispreferred second turns

Figure 2 - Linguistic leatures indicating dispreferreds

PAGE

ABBREVIATIONS & CONVENTIONS

FTS Fdueational Testing Service

ASEAN The Association of South Last Asian Nations

APEC Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation

ASEM Asia-Europe Meeting

TORFT Tesi of English as a Foreign Language

TORFL PBT Test of English as a Foreign Language Paper-Based Test TOWEL CBT ‘Test of Unglish as a Moreign Language Computer-Lased test TOLFL 1BT ‘Test of Unglish as a Moreign Language Intemet-Based ‘Test

IELTS International English Language Testing System

đ@ “some phonomenon thai the Iansenber docs nol want lo

wrestle with” or some non-vocal action, etc

VUE

PARTI INTRODUCTION

1, Statement of the Problem

Since 1986, after having launched its open-door policy “Doi Moi”, Victnarn has gone

through remarkable changes to be a market economy and set up relations with more

than 200 countries and regions in the world It also became a member of many

important organizations such as ASEAN, AFTA, APEC, ASEM, WO and so on in this converging trend, Vietnam is becoming more and more involved in international

trade anc investmert

To keep track of this globalization trend, the Vietnamese government has encouraged

its citizens to learn English As a result, English has become the most popular foreign

language studied in schools and colleges Also, some international certificates like

TOEHIC, TOEFL and IKLTS have gradually become a requirement for college

graduates and employees who need lo achieve academic success as well as effective

communication

As a matter of fact, learners of Lnglish often find these tests quite challenging,

especially the listening part as mentioned by Brown (2006:1), “Listening in another

fo take TOEFL PBT Listening Part as an example, its

language is a hard job’

materials often include dialogs academic lectures and long conversations that require lesitakers to have to infer the speakers’ implicit ideas, altitules or purposes Thus, besides the language competence, test-takers need pragmatic knowledge to do the tests

However, up to now, few studies on the bamiers TOEFL PBT test-lakors have encountered have been carried out ‘Therefore, this study is conducted to investigate a small aspect of pragmatics and conversation analysis - common patterns of

dispreferred second turns and linguistic units to signal them in Part A - Listening

Comprehension Section of TOEFL PBT tests in order to work out same tips that help

lest-lakers (o vope will (hese kinds af questions

In short, the crucial role of TOETL tests, the difficulties facing TOEFL test-takers, the

lack of allertion of the previous papers and self-inleresL in Praginatics are the

motivation for the author to conduct the study on “Dispreferred second turns used in

Part A— Listening Section of TOEFL PBT”

2, Research Question

The research seeks the answer to the following question:

What are the general patterns of dispreferred structures and the common linguistic features indicating them in Part A - Listening Comprehension Section of TOEFL PBT?

3 Objectives of the study

More obviously, lo solve the research question, the study is conducted to:

Y Provide readers with basic knowledge of speech acts, conversation analysis,

adjacency pairs and preference structure

¥ Find out the general pattoms of disproferred structures used in Part A -

Listening Section of TOEFL PBT

v Examine the linguisie features signaling disprelerred responses im Parl A -

Listening Comprehension of TORFL PBY

Y Provide potential test-takers with practical knowledge to deal with TOEFL PBT questions containing dispreferred-second-turn questions

4, Significance of the study

First and [orernoal, this paper can be used as a useful reference source for teachers as

well as leamers who have been teaching and studying TOIL PBI It enables them to understand conversation analysis, adjacency pairs, preference structure, dispreferreds,

their general patterns and the linguistic units signaling them more deeply Good

understanding and full consciousness can help them deal with listening questions in

Part A - TOEFL PBT more easily At the same time, deep knowledge can let them

communicate in English in a more tastural and ofTective way, particularly when giving

an mdirect decline, refusal or disagreement

Secondly, teachers and learners of TORFL PBT can use the paper as a handbook to

seck some tips to cope with questions that contain dispreferred-sccond-turn responses

in Listening Comprehension Section

mee and

Last but nol Feast, rescarchers of related fields can also use the paper for refer

suggestions for deeper studies

5 Scope of the study

Due to time constraints and within the framework of a minor thesis submitted in partial

fulfilment of the requiremonts for the Degree of Master of Arts in Fnglish Linguislies,

the present study only investigates the small aspects of preference struchue: the common patterns of dispreferred-second acts and the frequently used linguistic

features (0 indicale them in Parl A - TORFT PRT Listenmg Sectiou

‘The research focuses on the analysis of the transcripts of 50 out of 300 dialogs that contain the utterances of dispreferreds in Part A - Listening Comprehension taken

from 1Ô Complete Practice Tests of three books including TORF? Success 2000 lry

Bruce Rogers, The Heinle & Heinle TOEFL Test Assistant Listening by Milada Broukal and TORFT Practice Tests Volume 3 by ETS

6 Design of the study

The study includes lbwee paris

Part I is the Introduction of the study which states the problem, the research question, objectives, scope, significance and design of the enture paper

Parl TT is the Development which consists of two chapters Chapler 7 presents (he theoretical background related to the topic Chapter 2 includes database of the

sludy, methodology, data analysis procedure, and discussion of data analysis

Part TT is the Conelusian which summarizes major findings of the investigation and provides implications for teaching and leaning TOHEL PBY ‘This part also points out some limitations of the research & makes suggestions for further studies.

PART IT DEVELOPMENT

CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW

1.1 Speech Acts

1.1.1 Definition

It goes a broad consensus that of all the issues in the general theory of language usage,

the speech act (SA) theory has probably aroused the widest wmerest Afier Austin’s

tutial investigation into SAs a few decades ago, the notion of SAs has become one of the most exciting notions to take a close look at

In linguistic pragmatics, SAs have remained the central phenomena that every general

pragmatic theorist must take into account ‘That is the reason why there have been a great munber of works on SAs carried out by many philosophers and linguists such as

Grice (1957, 1975), Searle (1969), Levinson (1983), Thomas (1995) and Yule (1996)

Most of these linguists and philosophers share the common idea that when producing

utterances, interlocutors also perform actions, i.¢ “in saying something the speaker (S)

docs something” (Austin, 1962)

Briefly speaking, “actions performed via utterances” are called speech acts (Yule,

1996: 47) According 1o Searle (1969: 16), these SAs, considered ‘ihe basic or minimal

uunits of linguistic communication, are performed in authentic situations of language use

‘These terms for SAs are used to name the S's communicative intentions and the hearer

(H) is expected to correctly interpret the S's intentions via the process of inferences

For example,

© “Hi, Mary How are things going?" > erecting

© "Could you lend me your pen, please?” > request

a steuctural product as the sentence but the outcome of the interaction of two or more

independent, goal-direcled individuals, with often divergent interests

The approach used to analyze conversations is called conversation analysis (CA)

which, at its core, in Sidnell’s words (2010), is a set of methods for working with

audio and video recordings of lalk and social ontcraction Tt is regarded as a social-

science approach that has the primary purpose of desoribing, analyzing and

understanding talk as a basic and constitutive feature of human social life

Also discussing CA, Hutehby & Wooffitt (2008) calls it ‘the study of recorded,

naturally occurring talk-in-interaction’ that aims to discover how speakers understand

and respond to one another in their tums at talk CA serves as a central focus on how sets of action are generated In other words, the aim of CA is to uncover the often tacit

reasoning procedures and sociolinguistic competencies underlying the production and

interpretation of talk im orgamved sequences of interaction,

‘The purpose of CA, according to Levinson (1983: 287), is to discover the systematic

properties of the sequential organization of talk, and the ways in which utterances are

designed to manage such sequerices CA has to salisfy two requirements First, its methods need to be inductive - search is made for recurring patterns across many

records of naturally occuring conversations Second, the emphasis should be pul on the interactional and inferential consequences of the choice between altemative

uitterances

Whon il comes to the analytic studies on English data, local management organizations

in conversation, namely tumn-taking and adjacency pairs, cannot be omitted

1.2.2 Turn-taking

According to Levinson (1983: 296), it can be easily seen that conversation is characterized by turn-taking: one participant, A, talks, stops; another, B, starts, talks,

stops, and we obtain A-B-A-B-A-B distribution of talk actoss two participants

‘To share this opinion, Yule (1996: 71) also states that the structure of conversation is

based on “analogy with the workings of a market economy” in which there is a scarce commodity - the Moor or the right to speak Having control of his righL at any time, the speaker gets a tur In any situation, where control is not fixed in advance, anyone

can atlempt to gel control, we have turn-taking,

1.2.3 Adjacency pairs

Let us now tum to another local management organization in conversation - adjacency

ms of CA,

pairs - thal is onc of the most significant contribs

Adjacency pairs are defined by Levinson (1983: 303) as the kind of paired

utterances of which question-answer, greeting-preeting, offer-acceptance, apology-

Tninimizalien, ele., are prololypical

Yule (1996: 77) calls adịacency pairs "automatic patterns/sequences in the structure

of conversations” that always “consist of a first part and a second part produced by

different speakers” Adjacency pairs, according to Yule, can be greeting-greeting,

question-answer, thank-response, request-acceptance, ete For example,

'Thombury & Slade (2006) show that an adjacency pair consists of two tums made by different speakers which are placed adjacently and where the second utterance is identified as related to the first An adjacency pair can be include question-answer, complaint-denial, offer-accept, request-grant; compliment-rejection, challsnge-

rejection, and instruct-receipt According to Thombury & Slade (2006), adjacency px typically have three characteristics: they consist of two utterances; the utterances are adjacent, ie the first immediately follows the second, and different speakers produce each uilerance

In addition, adjacency pairs, in Yule’s perspective, are not simply eontentless noises in sequence They represent social actions, and not all of social actions are equal when they occur as second turns of some pairs

Levinson (1983; 306-07) states that there is a problem that arises with the notion of an adjacency pair concerns the range of potential seconds to a first part The problem here

is that a first part may, in fact, receive a great many acceptable responses rather than the fixed one in its pair For instance, a question can have some proper responses other than

an answer such as protestalions of ignorance, re-roules, refusals lo provide an answer,

and challenges to the presuppositions or sincerity of the question:

A: What does John do for a living?

By a Oh that and this

b He doesn’t.

€ 1 have no idea

@ What's that gat to do with it?

(Levinson, 1983: 293)

We have another case in which the response to a question is not an answer but a

promise to provide an answer at a later dale, logeller with an account Lat explains the

deferral:

A: Fes how many tubes would you like sir? ((Q1)}

B: Fr, hh F'll tell you what VI just eh eh ring you hack I have to work out how many 1H need Sorry I did- wasn’t sure of the price you see

(Levinson, 1983: 305)

‘Therefore, although the response to a first part may be limited, they certainly do not

form a small set This does seem to undermine the structural significance of the idea of

adjacency pair that is revived by the concept of preference organization’ structure

is typically made in the expectation that the second part will be an acceptance An

acveplarice is slructurally more hkely than a refusal This structural ikehhood 1s called

preference Preference is the term used to indicate a socially determined structural

pattern and does not refer lo any individual’s mental or emotional desires Sharing this

attitude, Levinson (1983: 332-333) claims that the notion of preference is not intended

as a psychological claim about speaker's or hearer’s desires, but as a label for a

structural phenomenon very close to the linguistic concept of “markedness” In bricl,

preference is not a personal wish but an observed pattem in talk

Preference structure divides second tums into two categories, ie preferred and

dispreferred social acts The preferred is the structurally expected next act and the

disprolerred one is the struclurally unexpected net

According to Comrie (1976a: 114), “unmarked categories tend to have less

morphological material than marked categories” and there is “greater likelihood of

morphological ixregularity in unmarked forms” As a matter of fact, the preferred

second turns to different and unrelated adjacency pair first parts have less material

than the dispreferred ones Therefore, in essence, preferred second acts are unmarked

because they occur as structurally simpler tums On the contrary, owing to its various kinds of structural complexity, dispreferreds are marked

1.3.2 General patterns of preference structure

Levinson (1983: 336) states that “Given a structural characterization of preferred and

dispreferred tums we can then correlate the content and the sequential position of such

tums with the tendency to produce them in a preferred or dispreferred format” And

we can find recwrent and reliable pattems, for example, a disagreement of an asscssmen or a proposal are nearly always in a dispreferred format while an agreement is certainly in a preferred format ‘The following table indicates the sort of

consislenl match between the formal and the content found across a number of

adjaconcy pair seconds

Preferred | Acceptance | Acceplanee Agreement’ |Experlsdamswer | Demisl

Dispreferred | Refusal Refusal Disagreement | Unexpected Admission

answer/ non-answer

Cevinson, 1983-336) Table ? - Correlations of content and format in adjacency pair seconds

10

Also talking about the correlations of content and format in adjacency pair second responses, Yule (1996: 79), however, names this the general patterns of preferred and dispreferred simuctures And he presonls these general patterns in # differean way as we

can see in the table below:

‘First part Secand part

Table 2 - The general patterns of preferred and dispreferred structures

(following Levinson 1983) From the table we can see that it comes to considering request or offer as first parts, acveplance is the preferred second act and refusal is the dispreferred ong, We can have some illustrations below:

Assessment Isn't that dish delicious? ‘Yes, it is I don’t think so

1.3.3 Dispreferred second turns

Yule (1996) states thal silence itr the second parl is always a dispreferred tesponse,

often leading the first speaker to a revision of the first part in order to pet a second part

that is not silence from the other speaker Non-response communicates that the speaker

is not in a position to provide the preferred response, for example:

Sandy: But I'm sure they'll have gond food there (1.6 seconds)

Sandy: Hnwn -7 guess the food isn't great

Jack: Nah - people mostly go for the music

(Yule, 1996: 80) Also, silenec is risky as it may give the impression of non-parlivipalion in the

conversational structure, Generally speaking, when participants have to make a dispreferred second turn, they indicate that they are doing something very marked A dispreferred can be marked with an initial hesitation, a delay, a preface, an appeal to the views of others, or a stumbling repetition, and so on,

The patterns related to a dispreferred second tums in English are presented as a series

of optional elements by (Yule, 1996; 81) as follows

pause, er, em, ah well: oh

Tim not sure; I don't know that's great, I'd love to I'm sorry, what a pity Trust do X; Pm expected in ¥ you see; you know

everbody else; out there too mueh work; no Lime left really, mostly, sort of, kinda

I guess not; not possible

Table 3 - Linguistic elements indicating dispreferred second turns

We can take one dialog to analyze:

Becky: Come over for some coffee later Wally: Oh - eh - I'd love in - but you see - 7 - I'm supposed to get this finished - you know

(Yule, 1996: 81)

In this conversation, such linguistic elements as a hesitation ‘oh eh’, preface/token

Fes ‘T'd love to’, stumbling repetition ‘I - I'm’, account ‘I'm supposed to get this

finished’ and an invocation of understanding “bul you sec, you know? arc used to

create dispreferred second tums

Still discussing the linguistic features that signal dispreferred second responses, but

Levinson (1983; 334) presents them ina different way as we can see below

@)

®)

{c)

@

delays: (i) by pause before delivery, (ii) by the use of a preface, (iii)

by displacement over a number of turns via use of repair initiators or

insertion sequences prefaces (i) the use of markers or announcers of dispreferreds like

Uh and Well, (ii) the production of token agreements before

disagreements, (iii) the use of appreciations if relevant (for offers,

invilalions, suggestions, advice), (iv) the use of apologies Wf relevant

(for requests, invitations, ote), (v) the use of qualifiers (c.g don’t know for sure, but ), (vi) hesitation in various forms, including self- editing

accounts: carefully formulated explanations for why the (dispreferred) act is being done

dechnation component: of a form suiled lo the nalure of the first part

of the pair, but characteristically indirect or mitigated

Looking at the linguistic elements that present dispreferreds, we can conclude that a

dispreferred takes more time and more kanguage than a preferred one

1.4 Dispreferreds in Part A - Listening Comprehension of TOEFL PBT

Lislonityg Comprehension Section of TORFL is divided into three parls, cach with a different format and a different direction Since July 1995, its standard form has followed this format

Table 4 - Listening Comprehension Format in Standard Form

The first part of TOEFL PBY Listening Comprehension Section consists of

conversations in which lwo Ss intcracl wilh cach other A third S poses a question

about what was said or implied in the conversation here are four answer choices for

each dialog Test-takers are required to choose the best answer to the question he/she

listens to and then mark the choice on their auswer sheet,

Sample item

You will hear: *

M1: We can still make it to the movie We'd just miss the first ten miractes

F1: Over by the window, I’d say There's not much point

M2: What does the woman imply?

You will read:

(A) She does not nnd if she misses ten minutes of the movie

(8) Sha thinks they can he there inno time

(C) She does not mind if they go or not

(D) She sees no reason to yo if they miss the first ten niastes

Most of the dialogs im Parl A of TORFL PRT involve a man and a woman cach of

whom usually speaks oue or two sentences The topics of the dialogs in Part A are

aboul facets of life al American umversilics (laking tests, lalking fo professors, writing,

research papers or attending classes) or about more general activities (shopping, looking for houses, taking vacations, etc)

Acvording 10 Rogers (2000; 23), sume of the items tests test-lukers’ ability to

understand various language functions (my eraphasis) lor example, test-takers must

be able to determine if a S is agreeing or disagreeing with the other S, or if one S is accepting or rejecling (he other S°s offer TL means thal in Parl A, there are questions

associated with dispreferred second acts Below are five kinds of questions in relation

to the general patterns of dispreferred second turns in Part A - TORFT PRT Listening

First, the questions belong to the pattern assessment-disagreement in which the first S

gives an assessment of something and the second S disagrees with the idea

FA: 7 thought Cheryl's photographs were the best at the exhibit

M1: I didn't really see it that way

(Rogers, 2000: 46}

The second kind is invitation-refusal More specific, the first S requests the second $

to come somewhere or to take part in some activities; or invites him/her to do

something, and the second S refuses the first S’s mvilations

M1: Would you like to join us on Sunday? We're going to go on a picnic

at the lake

FI: I'd love to, but 1 have a test Monday, and [ have to get ready for it

(Rogers, 2000: 50}

The third question type falls into offer-declination They are situations where the first

S proposes to help the second S or allows him/her to do something but the second one

declines the offer For instance:

Fi: Should I make reservations for dinner Friday might?

M1: Thanks anvway, but I’ve already made them

(Rogers, 2000: 51)

Fourth is the question of proposal-disagreement This is the kind of question in which the first $ suggests a solution to something but the second S$ rejects it

F2: Maybe you could get a ride to campus with Peggy tomorrow

‘M1: Oh, Peggy no longer drives to class

(Rogers, 1997: 172)