Does Interlanguage Pragmatic Measure Enhancement Change the Data Pattern? A Mixed Method Approach

The field of Interlanguage pragmatics has always reflected on its methodology, and the validity of the collected data through various data collection methods and whether they approximate the authentic data have always been serious concerns in the field. Drawing upon Schauer’s (2009) taxonomy of request speech act and its internal and external modification devices, the present study was an attempt to investigate the effects of enhancing DCTs. To this end, the requests of 30 EFL students produced by non-modified and modified DCTs were compared with their authentic requests recorded in the classroom institutional context. The findings revealed that modified WDCT and ODCT approximated Natural methodology in terms of request head act and internal modification devices but not external modifiers. To investigate the deeper layers of respondents' thoughts toward DCTs, unstructured interviews were also conducted. Although artificiality of the DCTs and their test-like nature in general were regarded as the weak points of the DCTs by the interviewees, they asserted that the modified DCTs improved their self-confidence and understanding of the scenarios. The findings cautiously suggest that modified version of DCTs enjoy the positive features of both non-modified DCTs, tapping pragmalinguistic and metapragmatic knowledge of respondents, and partly Natural methodology, eliciting the respondents’ sociopragmatic knowledge.