The Effect of Implicit vs. Explicit Metapragmatic Instruction on the Iranian Intermediate EFL Learners’ Pragmatic Comprehension of Apology and Refusal

Within the broad domain of SLA, ‘pragmatic competence’ was brought to the fore following the assertation of communicative competence, but explicitly premiered in Bachman’s (1990) model of communicative competence, accentuating the significance of the relationship between “language users and the context of communication” (p.89). The vitality of L2 pragmatic competence alongside grammatical competence is the main motive behind the multitudinous number of studies carried out since the communicative revolution in language teaching in an effort to improve L2 pragmatics instruction. Ever since, a welter of studies have sought answers to three main questions as constituting the essence of interlanguage pragmatic competence research: whether and how pragmatic competence can be instructed, whether instruction is more effective than no instruction, and whether different instructional approaches addressing interlanguage pragmatics can be differentially effective (Kasper & Rose, 2002). Scholarships have corroborated that pragmatic features are amenable to instruction; however, more research is still needed to find out which interventional approaches and what type of instructional input and materials are more conducive to learning. One potential framework within which pragmatic competence can be investigated from an acquisitional perspective is Schmidt’s (1993) noticing hypothesis and Sharwood Smith’s (1981) consciousness raising. Since these postulations, a large number of studies have been conducted to substantiate claims as to the significance of learners’ pragmatic consciousness for interlanguage development. However, the pendulum has swung towards the production of speech acts, and comprehension of speech acts in interlanguage pragmatic competence seems to be an under-explored area of research. Therefore, the present study aimed to investigate the effects of implicit vs. explicit instruction on the pragmatic comprehension of two speech acts of apology ‎and refusal being taught through video prompts. These two speech acts were opted because of their face-threating features. In doing so, a quasi-experimental pretest posttest research design was used. To this end, of 68 initial participants, 49 (F=33; M=16) intermediate EFL learners majoring English Literature and Teaching English as a Foreign Language from a state university were selected ‎based on Oxford Quick Placement Test (2004). The age of these participants ranged from 18 to 33. ‎These participants were rando