TOWARDS A MULTIMODAL PERSPECTIVE TO ASSESS PRAGMATICS: A STUDY BASED ON COMPLAINTS-RESPONSES TO COMPLAINTS

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to provide insights into pragmatic assessment in terms of appropriateness from a multimodal perspective at a conversational level. The study involved the design of a rubric for assessing pragmatic appropriateness from a holistic perspective, that is, it addresses linguistic and non-linguistic resources. The study was conducted in a Spanish higher education context and involved 64 participants, who were divided into two different proficiency levels (B1 and B2). Data were gathered by means of a role-play task that elicits complaints and responses to complaints, and a multimodal corpus consisting of 32 videos was compiled. Two raters examined participants’ performance according to the rubric devised for the purposes of the study. Results reveal that general proficiency level appears to influence pragmatic appropriateness in terms of the expressions used and the management of turns during the conversation. This study suggests that analysing pragmatic appropriateness from a holistic perspective deserves further investigation and its findings set the ground for future research in this area.