The Effects of Collaborative Translation Task on the Apology Speech Act Production of Iranian EFL Learners

Abstract

The present study aims to investigate the relative effectiveness of different types of pragmatic instruction including two collaborative translation tasks and two structured input tasks with and without explicit pragmatic instruction on the production of apologetic utterances by low-intermediate EFL learners. One hundred and fifty university students in four experimental groups and one control group participated in pre-tests, post-tests and two month follow ups consisting of open-ended discourse completion tasks (OPDCT), mobile short message tasks (MSMT) and telephone conversation tasks (TCT). The results of the study indicated that pragmatic instruction may enhance interlanguage pragmatics (ILP). It was also found that the participants receiving explicit pragmatic instruction outperformed the implicit and control groups. Moreover, the two Collaborative Translation Task (CTT) groups showed better retention of pragmatic knowledge. It was concluded that collaborative translation may result in deeper processing of both pragmalinguistic and sociopragmatic knowledge leading to more appropriate pragmatic production.