Language Learning Motivation and Its Role in Learner Complaint Production

Abstract

While motivation plays an important role in language learning, few attempts have been made to explore its significance in second language (L2) pragmatics learning. The current study investigated whether and how language learning motivation affects L2 pragmatics production. A total of 60 adult Chinese learners of English participated in this study. Data were elicited from a motivation questionnaire and a discourse completion task (DCT). The results revealed that L2 learners with high motivation performed better in making complaints in the target language than learners with low motivation. Moreover, learners’ levels of pragmatic production correlated positively with their overall L2 motivation, as well as with four motivational subscales, namely, attitudes towards learning English, ideal L2 self, intended learning efforts, and attitudes towards the L2 community. Regression analysis showed that learners’ attitude towards learning English best predicted their production of the speech act of complaints. The findings of this study support the role motivational dispositions play in learners’ L2 pragmatic production. The study provides insight into the interaction of L2 motivation and pragmatics learning.

1. Introduction

The last few decades of second language (L2) acquisition research have witnessed increasing interest in exploring language learning motivation and understanding its role in facilitating or impeding L2 language learning. Taking a closer look at learners’ motivations will help us to analyze not only the factors that underpin the motivation of L2 learners to reach lifelong proficiency in their second language, but also the ways in which they relate to their social surroundings and to broader society [1].

L2 motivation can broadly be defined as “the combination of effort plus desire to achieve the goal of learning the language plus favourable attitudes towards learning the language” [2] (p. 10). There have been studies examining how motivation affects language learning outcomes, such as learners’ L2 proficiency [3,4], L2 listening [5], and L2 speaking [6,7]. However, little is known about its impact on L2 pragmatic competence. Pragmatic competence, defined as “the ability to use linguistic, semiotic, and multimodal resources effectively and appropriately to achieve a communicative purpose, and to understand such uses in interaction” [8] (p. 1), is an essential component of L2 ability. It includes both receptive and productive competences, i.e., pragmatic awareness/comprehension and pragmatic production [9].

An intriguing finding in the L2 pragmatics research literature that prompted the current study was that L2 motivation may play a critical role in the development of receptive pragmatic competence [10,11]. It was found that intrinsically motivated learners with stronger communication-oriented motivation outperformed their peers in terms of pragmatic awareness [12,13,14], and that learners’ complex, multiplied-layered attitudes towards, and beliefs about, pragmatic comprehension influenced their learning intentions and performance [15]. In contrast, there have been few studies investigating the potential impact of L2 motivation on learners’ productive pragmatic competence [13,16,17]. In light of the dearth of empirical studies on learners’ motivations with regard to L2 pragmatic production, this area of research requires further exploration.

The purpose of this study was to demonstrate the importance of L2 motivation in second language acquisition through its role in predicting pragmatic production in the context of English as a foreign language (EFL). To examine learners’ L2 motivational characteristics, we adopted the L2 Motivational Self System [18,19] for two reasons. It is widely considered to be a synthesis of several existing constructs in L2 motivation research [20], and it has been successfully applied to multiple quantitative studies in various learning settings over the past decade [21,22,23,24]. L2 pragmatic production in the present study was operationalized as the ability to convey intentions effectively and appropriately in speech acts of complaints in high, equal, and low social power and social distance situations. The study not only investigated the impact of motivational level on L2 pragmatic production, but also explored potential correlations between different motivational dispositions and learners’ pragmatic performance, as well as the potential predictive power of certain motivational subscales on pragmatic production.

2. Literature Review

2.1. Complaints

Complaints involve the speaker criticizing another for doing something that has caused or may cause an offence, with a desire for some sort of resolution [25]. According to Leech [26], complaints are conflictive acts and thus intrinsically impolite. A complaint is a face-threatening speech act because the speaker expresses his/her disapproval, criticism, or displays (uncontrolled) negative emotions to the hearer; the complaint is likely to damage or threaten either the hearer’s positive face—the wish to be admired or appreciated, or their negative face—the wish to be free from imposition, or even both [27]. Moreover, a complaint may also challenge or threaten the speaker’s negative face too, as the speaker may not want to be seen as someone who imposes their problems on others [28,29]. If the speaker wishes to demonstrate concern for both their own face needs and the needs of the hearer, he or she may mitigate the complaint via indirectness (e.g., It’s midnight and I need to go to work tomorrow), internal modification (e.g., downtoners such as “just” and “maybe”; understaters, such as “a little bit”, “a second” and “kind of”; subjectivisers, such as “I am afraid” and “I wonder”), or external modification (e.g., giving justification or explanation for a complaint as in “Stop making the noise! I cannot hear the phone.”) [30]. Making complaints appropriately in the target language can be very challenging for L2 learners, because it requires both pragmalinguistic knowledge (e.g., knowing how to use linguistic resources in the target language) and sociopragmatic knowledge (e.g., knowing how to employ culturally appropriate complaint techniques).

2.2. Direct Complaints in L2 Pragmatics Research

Although the speech act of a complaint has no predetermined form [31,32] and is more intricate and difficult than many other speech acts, it has attracted great attention in L2 pragmatics because it is frequently encountered in daily communications, including complaints at home [31,33], in institutional settings [34], in service encounters [27,35] and in L2 emails [36]. Direct complaints occur when speakers address complaints towards hearers and believe that those hearers are accountable for the speaker’s dissatisfaction, whereas indirect complaints occur when speakers do not hold the hearers responsible for the offense but are conveying dissatisfaction about themselves or someone/something that is absent [37].

L2 pragmatics research has revealed that learners of English are likely to use more words and moves to make complaints [38,39] but to use a smaller number of complaint strategies than native English speakers do [25]. Learners’ complaints are moderate in terms of directness and severity [33]. In regard to internal modifications, contradictory results have been obtained. For example, when formulating complaints, learners used more internal modifiers, such as intensifiers, than native English speakers when data were collected using a written DCT [38,39]. In contrast, learners used fewer internal modifiers compared to native English speakers when eliciting data through oral production [25]. Concerning the external modifiers, learners were found to be good at providing evidence and supportive reasons to justify their complaints, but they used fewer preparators and disarmers than native English speakers [25].

2.3. L2 Motivation and Pragmatic Production

The motivation to learn a language has long been recognized as a critical factor in explaining the success or failure of language learning; however, its role in L2 pragmatics learning has rarely been addressed [40]. Until now, only a small number of studies have examined the link between language learning motivation and L2 pragmatic production [13,16,17].

Tajeddin and Moghadam [16] explored the relationships between general pragmatic motivation, speech-act-specific motivation (motivation to make speech acts of requests, refusals, and apologies), and pragmatic production. They administered two pragmatic motivation questionnaires and a discourse completion task to 75 participants. A high level of motivation was demonstrated from both motivational perspectives for EFL learners to learn English language pragmatic features. Based on a regression analysis, it was discovered that, despite a very small effect size (r² = 0.08), speech-act-specific motivation played a significant role in predicting learners’ speech act production; general pragmatic motivation, however, had no such impact. The authors concluded that participants with high general pragmatic motivation did not necessarily perform pragmatic production more effectively.

Japanese EFL learners (grouped by motivation and proficiency) were examined by Takahashi [13] for their pragmalinguistic awareness and learning. A total of 154 Japanese EFL learners completed a motivation questionnaire (based on expectancy–value) [41,42]. It emerged that learners with higher levels of communication-oriented motivation and higher listening proficiency noticed the target bi-clausal request forms (e.g., I was wondering if you could VP) more often than those with lower-level proficiency and motivation, whereas these learner profiles did not affect the forms’ production.

Zhang and Papi [17] explored how chronic motivational characteristics (e.g., regulatory focus) [43] could explain pragmatic production differences in Mandarin EFL learners. A total of 121 Mandarin EFL learners completed a regulatory focus questionnaire and a discourse completion task assessing their request and opinion performance. The results of multiple regression analysis showed that learners’ pragmatic production was positively correlated with the learners’ promotion focus in general, while their prevention focus negatively predicted pragmatic production.

There is a need, given the paucity of research, to investigate the role that L2 motivation plays in L2 pragmatic production. Moreover, the above review reveals that a limited number of studies have explored the effect of L2 motivation in L2 pragmatics from the perspective of self theories. Therefore, the present study sought to fill this research gap by investigating how motivation for learning English might impact L2 pragmatics learning for EFL students. Specifically, this study focused on the ways in which Chinese EFL learners’ production of complaint strategies varied across two motivational levels (high and low) in differing situations, and sought to explore the significance of learners’ L2 motivation in their L2 pragmatics learning by investigating its potential correlations with, and prediction of, L2 pragmatic production. To this end, the study addressed the following three research questions (RQ):

• RQ1: Is there a difference in L2 pragmatic productive competence between highly motivated Chinese university students and their low-motivated counterparts?
• RQ2: How do Chinese university students’ L2 motivation and pragmatic production correlate?
• RQ3: What motivational subscale(s) predict L2 pragmatic production in Chinese university students?

3. This Study

3.1. Participants

A total of 60 Chinese learners of English participated in the study, 50% males and 50% females, aged 17 to 21, who were first-year university students with diverse majors at a Chinese public university. They were at the same proficiency level (an intermediate level) as they scored similarly in the two-hour English placement test (assessing listening and reading skills) administered at the beginning of their first year of college. A total of 239 students responded to a Web-based survey, including a motivation questionnaire and discourse completion task (DCT). Their DCTs were sorted in descending order according to their overall motivation scores. Using quota sampling, we selected 60 participants from 239 students to ensure representation of their motivational levels (high or low), genders and majors. To create a high-contrast between the highly motivated (HM) students and the low-motivated (LM) students, firstly, the researcher selected 72 copies of DCTs produced by the participants in the top 15% and those in the bottom 15% of the overall motivation scores for further analysis. That is, within each of the motivational groups (high and low), 36 learners were included. Next, the number of students in each group was randomly reduced to 30 to simultaneously achieve gender balance and equal distributions across major categories (i.e., Arts and Science majors).

3.2. Instruments

The study explored how Chinese EFL learners with different levels of L2 motivation differ in terms of their pragmatic productive competence when making complaints to interlocutors with different social statuses and social distances. Data were elicited from a Web-based survey, including a motivation questionnaire, a discourse completion task (DCT) and a demographic questionnaire. The instruments used were as follows:

Motivation questionnaire. We used a motivation questionnaire modified by Yang and Ren [14] based on that originally developed by Taguchi, Magid and Papi [44]. There were 40 items in the questionnaire that assessed EFL learners’ attitudes towards the L2 community, cultural interest, instrumentality, ideal L2 self, ought-to L2 self, attitudes towards learning English, and intended learning efforts. Yang and Ren’s [14] questionnaire was adopted because it was internally consistent and valid, and commensurate with questionnaires used in previous L2MSS research [1,44], facilitating comparison with the results of earlier studies. The internal consistency reliability of the motivation questionnaire was measured using Cronbach’s alpha coefficient and was found to be 0.95.

Discourse completion task. DCT was employed to assess the participants’ pragmatic productive competence—the ability to convey intentions effectively and appropriately in speech acts. The DCT contains six scenarios, each with a description of the situation and a gap (see Appendix A). In response to the description, participants typed what they thought they would say based on the settings in which the imaginary interaction occurs.

While DCT is frequently criticized for the unsuitability of certain scenarios for specific participant groups [45,46] and its inability to show what participants would actually say in real-world interactions [47], it allows researchers to manipulate contextual variables (e.g., social status and social distance) and pragmatic phenomena [48], and helps participants to display their pragmatic knowledge [49] and speech act repertoires [40]. Moreover, administered online, the DCT could be considered a participant-friendly data collection method, as participants enjoy more flexibility in relation to time and physical location. As the aim of the investigation into learners’ pragmatic production was to ascertain participants’ offline knowledge of pragmalinguistics when interacting with a variety of interlocutors, such as those of equal or higher status, in different contextual circumstances, DCT is still a very useful instrument for this study.

The DCT used in the present research concentrates on the speech act of complaining and tries to reflect the diversity of complaining interactions by investigating different contextual variables. Since it is critical to assign participants with situations that they can identify with and that are familiar to them [50], the DCT was carefully constructed to equip the participants with rich contextual information and to overcome the shortcomings referred to. To ensure the authenticity of the scenarios, following Liu [51], the investigator first gathered as many scenarios as possible from previous studies on complaints [27,39,52,53], and then a situation likelihood investigation was undertaken. Five Chinese postgraduate students were then recruited to rate the likelihood on a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 being the most likely and 1 the least likely in the pilot study. The scale responses were averaged for each situation, and a list of scenarios with the highest mean score on the top was generated. Finally, six scenarios were selected from the top of the list for the present study, including scenarios concerning tuition fees, low grades, learning materials, rock music, loud noise and a spilt shirt (see

Table 1. Descriptions of the DCT situations.

Situation	Interlocutors	Social Power	Social Distance
1. Tuition fee	Offspring vs. father	High	High
2. Low grades	Student vs. professor	High	Low
3. Learning materials	Friend vs. friend	Equal	High
4. Rock music	Neighbour vs. neighbour	Equal	Low
5. Loud noise	Older sibling vs. young sibling	Low	High
6. Spilt shirt	Customer vs. waiter	Low	Low

). Thus, all the situations depicted in the DCT were familiar to the EFL learners.

As is the case for the majority of studies on the speech act of complaining, this study incorporated two of the contextual variables—social power (P) and social distance (D)—in the DCT scenarios. According to Brown and Levinson [54], social power concerns the relative power difference between the participant and the imaginary interlocutor; it can have three basic settings: high power (+), equal power (=), low power (−) (of the imaginary interlocutor). Social distance is the degree of shared group membership and /or acquaintance. Table 1 summarizes the six scenarios with regard to the two variables.

Demographic questionnaire. As part of the final section of the Web-based survey, a demographic questionnaire was designed to obtain the participants’ personal information, such as their age, gender, and major, as well as their experience of studying abroad.

3.3. Procedure

Prior to the study, a research proposal and a consent form were transmitted to the university where the current study was conducted. Upon receiving permission from the university, the researchers asked each of the instructors in the “College English Level 3” course for permission to solicit students’ participation. The consent form was provided to the students during their classes, along with information regarding the study and its procedures. Participants were asked to sign the form to authorize the use of the dataset. The form stated that participation was voluntary and that participants could withdraw from the study without giving a reason within fifteen days of signing the form. The Web-based survey was distributed to students in the six natural classes. It could be answered via computers, laptops or smart phones. Students were told that online tasks would take approximately 15 min to complete. They could fill out the questionnaires at any time after class within the week after being informed of the link.

3.4. Data Analysis

The participants’ L2 motivation was measured using a motivation questionnaire, consisting of 40 items rated on a Likert scale from 1 to 6, with 1 being “strongly disagree” and 6 being “strongly agree”. The Web-based questionnaire ensured the ease of administration, and the results were analyzed using SPSS version 24.0.

The participants’ pragmatic production was examined through their use of complaint strategies in the DCT. The speech act of complaints in the present study was assessed on its appropriateness—a concept operationalized as the ability to conduct speech acts with the appropriate level of directness, politeness and formality [55]. The raters were two native English speakers studying at the university where the current study was carried out. They were trained to mark the participants’ responses to the DCT scenarios on a five-point rating scale ranging from 1 (very poor) to 5 (excellent) based on Taguchi’s [56] appropriateness rating scale. The participants would obtain a zero score if they did not respond to a given situation. The two raters rated the responses individually, and each rated 60 copies. The interrater reliability was high, at 90%. Any disagreements were resolved by discussion.

For principal statistical analyses, we conducted independent-sample t-tests, Pearson correlation analysis and multiple linear regression.

4. Results

4.1. Comparison of Levels of Pragmatic Production between HM and LM Students

This study investigated the appropriateness of Chinese EFL learners’ complaint performance, explored situations that differed in terms of social power and social distance, and examined how learners’ L2 pragmatic production might be influenced by their L2 motivation.

Table 2. Comparison of complaint strategy use between HM and LM students.

	HM Students (n = 30)		LM Students (n = 30)		MD	t (44)
							d
	M	SD	M	SD
Pragmatic production	3.60	0.47	3.07	0.91	0.53	2.83 **	0.73

Notes: ** p < 0.01.

shows that HM students were significantly different from LM students in pragmatic production (t (44) = 2.83, p < 0.01, d = 0.73). Inspections of the two group means indicated that HM students’ average pragmatic production score (3.60) was significantly higher than that of LM students (3.07). The difference between the two groups on the 5-point test was 0.53, with an effect size d of 0.73, i.e., a difference of 0.73 standard deviations between the means of the two groups. According to Cohen [57], 0.73 is a medium to large effect size, indicating a significant effect of motivational level on pragmatic production.

4.2. Correlations between L2 Motivation and L2 Pragmatic Production

An analysis of Pearson correlation coefficients was conducted to determine whether motivation levels and pragmatic production levels were correlated. The results showed that there was a significant positive relationship between students’ overall levels of L2 motivation and their levels of pragmatic production (r = 0.38, p < 0.01, r² = 0.15), indicating that students’ level of pragmatic production increased with their overall levels of motivation, with the overall levels of motivation explaining 15% of the variance in the students’ pragmatic production.

As displayed in

Table 3. Bivariate correlations between motivational subscales and pragmatic production (n = 60).

Production and Motivational Subscales	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8
1. ATLC	-
2. CI	0.85 **	-
3. IN	0.82 **	0.76 **	-
4. ILS	0.83 **	0.84 **	0.79 **	-
5. OLS	0.75 **	0.77 **	0.91 **	0.84 **	-
6. ATLE	0.77 **	0.86 **	0.80 **	0.92 **	0.87 **	-
7. ILE	0.81 **	0.85 **	0.84 **	0.91 **	0.85 **	0.93 **	-
8. PP	0.32 *	0.29	0.27	0.43 **	0.32	0.44 **	0.41 **	-

Notes: ATLC = Attitudes towards the L2 community, CI = Cultural interest, IN = Instrumentality, ILS = Ideal L2 self, OLS = Ought-to L2 self, ATLE = Attitudes towards learning English, ILE = Intended learning efforts, PP = Pragmatic production. ** p < 0.01, * p < 0.05.

, students’ levels of pragmatic production were positively correlated with attitudes towards the L2 community (r = 0.32, p < 0.05, r² = 0.10), ideal L2 self (r = 0.43, p < 0.01, r² = 0.18), attitudes towards learning English (r = 0.44, p < 0.01, r² = 0.18), and intended learning efforts (r = 0.41, p < 0.01, r² = 0.17). In other words, students’ levels of pragmatic production increased with increase in scores on the four motivational subscales. However, it should be noted that, while statistically significant associations were found, their effect sizes were medium (relating to subscales 1, 4, 5, 6, and 7) or small (relating to subscales 2 and 3) [57].

4.3. Prediction of L2 Motivation in the Development of L2 Pragmatic Production

A multiple linear regression analysis was performed to determine the significant predictor(s) of learners’ productive pragmatic competence with the examined motivational subscales. The prediction for learners’ pragmatic production is presented in

Table 4. Standardized beta coefficients of stepwise regression model predicting pragmatic production from motivational subscale(s) (n = 60).

	B	SDE	t	p	β
(Constant)	2.326	0.289	8.045 ***	0.000	-
ATLE	0.224	0.061	3.677 **	0.001	0.435
R2	0.189
Adjusted R2	0.175
∆ R2	0.189
F value	F (1, 58) = 13.522, p = 0.001

Notes: ATLE = Attitudes towards learning English. *** p < 0.001, ** p < 0.01.

.

The regression method “stepwise” showed that only attitudes towards learning English significantly predicted students’ levels of pragmatic production, F (1, 58) = 13.522, p < 0.01, while all the other motivational subscales did not seem to contribute significantly to the prediction (p > 0.05). The R square value was 0.189, which suggested that 18.9% of the variance in students’ levels of pragmatic production was explained by the model.

5. Discussion

The discussion of results focuses on (1) comparisons of productive pragmatic competence by Chinese EFL learners with different motivational levels (high and low), and (2) the relationship between L2 motivation (including seven motivational dispositions) and L2 pragmatic production.

5.1. Comparisons of Pragmatic Production across Motivational Levels

The study examined the appropriateness of complaint strategies employed by two groups of Chinese EFL learners based on their level of learning motivation (high and low). The participant responses on the discourse completion task, as summarized in the means and standard deviation, indicated that, in general, both groups of EFL students demonstrated a relatively high level of L2 pragmatic production. This finding corroborates previous findings that L2 learners can develop their pragmatic production even in EFL contexts [9,58]. It should be noted that, due to the descriptive nature of the present study, the data for L2 pragmatic production was collected only once and all the participants had not been exposed to the target language environment. The findings from the present study regarding participants’ complaint performance were particularly important for the later statistical analyses and cannot be overgeneralized.

The results from an independent-sample t-test showed that HM students performed significantly better than LM students in L2 complaint strategy production with a medium to large effect size, indicating that language learners’ general motivational level played a critical role in L2 pragmatic production in the Chinese EFL context. The results indicated that highly motivated students used English complaints more appropriately than those who were less motivated. Thus, the findings are consistent with those of previous studies concerning the relation between motivation and L2 pragmatics learning. Cook [59], for example, observed that learners with high motivation were better able to differentiate polite speech styles from impolite speech styles than their low-motivated peers. Moreover, Chiravate [10] found that highly motivated learners identified a larger proportion of pragmatic errors and rated them much more critically than less motivated learners. Additionally, the findings of the present study somewhat confirm Kasper and Rose’s [60] observation that motivation is associated with attention and noticing, but also affects subsequent learning and learners’ own production.

5.2. Relationship between Motivational Subscales and L2 Pragmatic Production

The findings of the study demonstrated that there was, in general, a positive correlation between levels of overall motivation and L2 pragmatic production, indicating that learners’ levels of L2 pragmatic production increased with their overall levels of motivation. In other words, a high level of L2 motivation might accelerate the learning of pragmatic features in an EFL context. Alternatively, Takahashi [13] found that motivation and proficiency had no significant effect on bi-clausal request form production. The different findings of these two studies may be attributable to the measures of pragmatic production. Participants in the study responded to a variety of DCT scenarios involving low, mid, and high social power/distance complaints, and their scores were determined by how appropriate their complaints were. In Takahashi [13], learners’ pragmatic learning of target forms was assessed by whether they could successfully recall and generalize them in new contexts. The findings clearly demonstrate the important role L2 motivation plays in pragmatic learning and support the claim that motivation has emerged as one of the core individual characteristics that underlie and guide the process of pragmatics learning [39].

The findings demonstrated that learners’ L2 pragmatic production positively correlated with attitudes towards learning English and attitudes towards the L2 community. The findings are not surprising, as previous research has suggested that intrinsic forms of motivation (i.e., attitudes towards learning English) were more important than extrinsic forms (i.e., instrumentality) in L2 acquisition [7,61]. In L2 pragmatics research, researchers found that intrinsic motivation facilitated recognition of pragmalinguistic forms [12]. Learners with positive attitudes towards learning English and the L2 community tended to engage in language learning activities even in the presence of numerous distractors or free choices; therefore, they could better develop the pragmatic competence required to function appropriately and effectively in certain social contexts.

The results revealed that learners’ pragmatic performance was also positively associated with ideal L2 self and intended learning efforts. This finding supports Dörnyei’s [18,19] proposal that high self-guided scores are associated with higher L2 achievement. Additionally, the ideal L2 self is more accurate in predicting intended learning efforts than the ought-to L2 self [62,63]. Learners with a clearer image of properly communicating in the target language may be more sensitive to the pragmatic and sociocultural aspects of the target language and more eager to access various pragmatic learning opportunities than those who are less motivated. Thus, it is possible that they might develop better productive pragmatic competence. In addition, this finding lends support to the assumption that high intended learning efforts would result in high L2 achievement [22,64].

Considering these results together, it appears that multiple factors, such as learners’ attitudes towards learning English and the L2 community, the ideal image of a component L2 user, and commitment to learning goals, might interact with each other and together lead to superior pragmatic production. In a related study, Yang and Ren [14] reported that students’ pragmatic awareness was best predicted by the combination of three motivational variables, namely, intended learning efforts, attitudes towards the L2 community and attitudes towards learning English. EFL learners who were eager to socialize with English speakers and who were also interested in applying their efforts to English learning tended to perform better on pragmatic awareness tasks. Therefore, the findings of the present study somewhat support Taguchi and Roever’s [40] assumption that pragmatic awareness and production are in separate domains and are affected differently by L2 motivation.

Another interesting finding in the current study was the predictive power of L2 motivation on the acquisition of L2 pragmatic production. The regression results revealed that learners’ attitudes towards learning English was a strong positive predictor of their pragmatic performance, suggesting that learners’ attitudes would greatly impact the product of L2 pragmatic learning. An explanation for this may be that learners who hold positive attitudes towards learning English will view the task of learning as fun, a challenge, and enjoyable, and display more efforts than those less motivated, and thereby achieve better pragmatic performance. Using regression analyses, Tajeddin and Moghadam [16] found that research participants’ speech-act-specific motivation predicted their production of speech acts of request and refusal but not the speech act of apology, while general pragmatic motivation was not found to be predictive of the production of these speech acts. Although related, the two studies produced different findings. This may be due to the different constructs involved in the studies. In the present study, language learning motivation generally refers to learners’ attitudes, efforts and desire to learn a foreign language as a whole, whereas the construct “pragmatic motivation” investigated in Tajeddin and Moghadam [16] focuses on learners’ motivation for the acquisition of pragmatic competence. The former is a psychological concept, while the latter refers to a practical form of motivation, which involves learners’ motivation to use their sociopragmatic and pragmalinguistic knowledge appropriately.

5.3. Implications

The results of the study have two implications for pedagogy. First, the present study has shown that L2 learners’ motivational levels (high and low) can affect their L2 productive pragmatic competence. For this reason, teachers who wish to improve their students’ pragmatic production cannot ignore activities and strategies designed to boost students’ motivation for learning the target language. Moreover, it appears that findings from possible selves research in the field of L2 motivation could be applied to inform L2 pragmatic instruction. For example, by building their ideal L2 self during motivational interventions, teachers and instructors can help learners to enhance their pragmatic competence. To help learners create a desired self-image of being a competent English user, teachers can inform them about role models in films, on television, and in real life.

In addition, certain motivational variables were found to significantly influence productive pragmatic performance in the present study. Students with positive attitudes towards the L2 community performed better at L2 pragmatic production than their counterparts. The results suggest that learners with a minimal psychological distance from L2 users are more likely to develop productive pragmatic competence. Therefore, enabling students to interact with L2 users (including L2 speakers in the real world and on visual media) is very beneficial for pragmatic learning in an EFL context.

6. Conclusions

The study explored adult Chinese learners’ motivation for studying English and assessed its relationships with their productive pragmatic competence. Learners who exhibited high levels of motivation surpassed low-motivated counterparts in the production of the speech act of complaints. Learners’ pragmatic production was associated with four motivational subscales, namely attitudes towards the L2 community, ideal L2 self, attitudes towards learning English and intended learning efforts. Furthermore, learners’ attitude towards learning English was a statistically significant predictor of L2 pragmatic performance, explaining a proportion of the variance (18.9%) in the pragmatic performance scores. These findings help us to better understand the interaction between L2 motivation and pragmatics learning.

The methodology used for this study has several limitations. The Web-based DCT elicited non-interactive data only. One-turn utterances may not fully reflect participants’ ability to make complaints, which would be better explored through elicited conversations or role plays. Further, the present study was carried out using a single-time data collection technique. Future research should move beyond mere description of learners’ motivational characteristics and pragmatic competence and investigate the effect of L2 motivation on pragmatic learning longitudinally. More studies focusing on individuals rather than groups are needed.