Examining L2 speakers’ expression of opinion in the Trinity Lancaster Corpus
Creators: name: Jung, Yejin
Publisher: name: Lancaster University
Year: 2024
Subjects: language assessment
language testing
language proficiency
corpus linguistics
L2 pragmatics
Trinity Lancaster Corpus
Opinion

description: This PhD thesis is motivated by the following research needs identified in
 the context of Second Language Acquisition and Second Language Teaching
 and Testing. First, opinion-giving is one of the most-represented tasks in
 teaching and assessing L2 speaking (e.g., Brown &amp; Ducasse, 2019)
 but a limited number of studies has provided empirical evidence on how L2
 speakers express their opinion in interactive speech. Second, L2 speakers’
 oral skills have been studied with respect to pragmatic and interactional
 features (e.g., responding to a previous speaker in Lam, 2018), which need
 further investigation on whether they would vary depending on learners’
 backgrounds (e.g., L2 proficiency level or L1 background), and if so, how.
 In response to these research gaps, the current study aims to i) describe
 different types of opinion statements (OS, henceforth) produced by L2
 English speakers in interactive speech and ii) evaluate the effect of L2
 proficiency and L1 background on the occurrence of different types of OSs.
 The different types of OSs examined with respect to the research aims
 concern three aspects: i) whether an OS is simply stated without any
 supportive statements (e.g., giving a reason for a previously stated idea)
 (Simple OS) or both stated and supported (Complex OS); ii) whether an OS
 is requested by an interlocutor (Prompted OS) or occurs without an
 interlocutor’s direct request for opinion (Unprompted OS); and iii) what
 type of supportive statement is provided (e.g., justifying, elaborating).
 
 
 Taking a quantitative corpus-based approach, the study sampled 286
 transcripts of learners’ spoken performance during the GESE, a high-stakes
 exam of L2 English. Each exam involves a dialogue between a test-taker (L2
 speakers of English) and an examiner (L1 speaker of English) and the
 transcripts are part of the Trinity Lancaster Corpus (Gablasova et al,
 2019). The L2 speakers included in the dataset were collected from three
 different proficiency levels in L2 - low-intermediate (equivalent to the
 B1 level in CEFR), high-intermediate (B2 level), and advanced (C) - as
 well as two different L1 backgrounds - Spanish and Chinese. In the corpus
 data, the different types of OSs mentioned above were identified and
 classified according to the annotation scheme that this study has
 developed, informed by Appraisal Theory (Martin &amp; White, 2005).
 The study utilised descriptive statistics to describe the patterns in the
 occurrence of OSs, and inferential statistics (One-way ANOVA, Two-way
 ANOVA, and T-test) to identify the effect of the two learner variables on
 the occurrence of the features.
 
 
 Results showed that L2 speakers generally produced a higher number of
 Complex OSs than Simple OSs, and a higher number of Unprompted OSs than
 Prompted OSs. It was also found that they supported OSs predominantly by
 giving a reason for a previously-stated OS, elaborating on it, and giving
 a contrasting perspective to it. A significant effect of L2 proficiency
 level was identified on expression of opinion: the frequency of Complex
 OSs increased significantly from the intermediate levels (B1 and B2) to
 the advanced level (C); but that of Simple OSs decreased significantly.
 Both Prompted and Unprompted OSs increased from the intermediate levels
 (B1 and B2) to the advanced level (C). There was, however, little effect
 of L1 background on expression of opinion. The findings suggest a tendency
 for L2 speakers to express opinion in elaborate unsolicited manners in the
 spoken discourse examined in the current study. Although this tendency
 became stronger towards higher proficiency levels, it was also affected by
 interlocutors (examiners)’ utterances. The patterns are discussed from the
 perspective of L2 speakers’ pragmatic strategies to maintain politeness as
 well as considering the nature and discourse of the GESE exam. The
 findings contribute to a theoretical understanding of speaking competence
 of L2 speakers from various backgrounds as well as provide implications
 for the practice of teaching and assessing opinion-giving skills in
 co-constructive interactions.