"Really? Thanks, I got it at the mall": How EFL Learners Perceive Compliment Responses and the Role of Proficiency

Abstract

[eng] This study aims to investigate the interface between proficiency and second language (L2) pragmatics by focusing on the pragmatic awareness of the speech act of compliment responses (CRs). The research centred around a teenage population of Spanish learners of English as a foreign language (EFL). Their perceptive pragmatic knowledge was tested via a pragmatic awareness video elicitation task (PAVET) where they had to rate the appropriateness of 15 CRs from 1 (inappropriate) to 6 (very appropriate). Subjects were divided into high and low proficiency groups according to their vocabulary sizes to see in what ways their responses to the task differed. Their ratings were then compared to a native speaker (NS) benchmark to obtain a sameness score and results indicate a moderate inverse correlation between proficiency level and near-nativeness. Findings suggest the first language (L1) plays an important role in pragmatic awareness and that proficiency alone is not a determinative factor in order to acquire pragmatic knowledge as there are several other factors that can influence pragmatic development.