Abstract
This study investigated the connection between the amounts of time international students spent on three categories of social contact and students’ improvements in pragmatic knowledge. The three categories of social contact were interaction with native speakers, interaction with non-native speakers, and non-interactive contact through watching authentic media. 26 post-secondary international students completed two pragmatic tasks at a pre-test and again at a post-test set two months later. The participants’ pragmatic knowledge was assessed through two tasks: a speech act recognition task which aurally presented 20 conventional expressions and a speech act production task which elicited oral responses to 15 scenarios. The categories of social contact were assessed using a social contact questionnaire completed at this study’s post-test. Correlation and regression analyses were run between amounts of social contact and changes in participants’ speech act recognition and production scores. Significant results were not identified between the three categories of social contact and changes in speech act recognition scores. The results of the second regression analysis between social contact and speech act production found that the amounts of interaction with native speakers and non-interactive contact through authentic media were significant predictors for improvements in speech act production scores. The amount of interaction with non-native speakers was not shown to be a significant predictor for improvements in speech act production scores.