2. Pragmalinguistics and socio-pragmatics in teaching L2 pragmatics

Verbal interaction and contact can produce meanings beyond the literal meaning of an utterance. Pragmatic knowledge assumes a key role for verbal interaction and contact and holds a clue to the understanding of a speaker’s intentions and the responses that follow it. Without pragmatic knowledge, there would be very little chance of understanding a speaker’s intention and meaning; thus, pragmatic proficiency is indispensable in order to deepen our mutual understanding of each other.

Pragmatic proficiency is an ability to comprehend the speaker’s intention and meaning under its particular context. It is considered extremely difficult for English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners to ameliorate their English pragmatic proficiency because they have to pay attention to not only form–meaning connections but also to the contextual surroundings behind them. Knowledge of the strategies for realizing a speaker’s intentions and the linguistic items used to express them are called knowledge of pragmalinguistics, whereas knowledge of the contextual surroundings governing language use is called knowledge of socio-pragmatics (Leech, Reference Leech1983; Thomas, Reference Thomas1983).

Bardovi-Harlig (Reference Bardovi-Harlig2013) emphasized the importance of developing learners’ pragmalinguistic and socio-pragmatic knowledge in the second language (L2) in order to produce appropriate language for different contextual situations. Kasper and Rose (Reference Kasper and Rose2002) also pointed out the importance of teaching both pragmalinguistic forms and socio-pragmatic rules. They argued that some form of awareness-oriented instruction should be employed to make pragmalinguistic forms and socio-pragmatic rules more salient so that learners would be aware of them. This would facilitate the improvement of their pragmatic proficiency because mere exposure to them in use does not help learners notice them. Therefore, this study investigates one possible way to associate pragmalinguistic forms with socio-pragmatic rules in order to generate optimum L2 pragmatic strategies.

3. Research on teaching L2 pragmatics

Many past experimental studies (Takahashi, Reference Takahashi, Martínez-Flor and Use-Juan2010; Taguchi, Reference Taguchi2015) have examined the relative effects of implicit and explicit pragmatic instruction and have developed different methods to improve pragmatic proficiency within an explicit–implicit paradigm. Kasper (Reference Kasper, Rose and Kasper2001) explained that the explicit method entails teacher-fronted pedagogical intervention with a direct meta-pragmatic explanation preceding the focused practice. Accordingly, this implicit method guides learners in developing their awareness of the target pragmatic features through meaningful activities. Both explicit and implicit approaches attempt to combine the target form–meaning pairings with contextual variables in action.

Previous instructional intervention studies (e.g., Takahashi, Reference Takahashi, Rose and Kasper2001; Alcón-Soler, Reference Alcón-Soler2013) discovered that the explicit instructional approach is generally more effective than the implicit instructional approach. Nevertheless, implicit teaching may be equally as adequate as explicit teaching if it includes meaningful activities which lead learners to increase their pragmatic awareness of target pragmatic features (Takahashi, Reference Takahashi, Martínez-Flor and Use-Juan2010; Taguchi, Reference Taguchi2015). Although speech acts – requests in particular – were treated as target pragmatic features in many of the recent studies (Halenko & Jones, Reference Halenko and Jones2011; Li, Reference Li2012; Alcón-Soler, Reference Alcón-Soler2013; Nguyen, Reference Nguyen2013), several studies dealt with discourse organizational skills (Liddicoat & Clozet Reference Liddicoat, Crozet, Rose and Kasper2001) and conversation devices (Sardegna & Molle Reference Sardegna and Molle2010; Narita Reference Narita2012).

Most of the previous empirical studies have tended to focus on whether L2 learners were able to recognize and use the pragmalinguistic realization patterns most appropriate under the given situation, while L2 learners’ socio-pragmatic knowledge was evaluated primarily in terms of whether they could make a correct linguistic selection based on social variables under each given context. Such an emphasis on the pragmalinguistic aspects rather than the socio-pragmatic domain has had an influence on L2 learners’ learning outcomes. For example, Takahashi (Reference Takahashi, Rose and Kasper2001, Reference Takahashi2005) conducted experimental studies investigating the effects of four different explicit instruction conditions on Japanese college students learning English request strategies. They were teacher-fronted explicit explanations, form-comparison, form-search, and meaning-focused conditions. These four treatment conditions were different in that the teacher-fronted explanations showed the greatest degree of explicitness, while the meaning-focused condition indicated the least. The results revealed that the teacher-fronted explanation group performed better than the other three groups in three highly imposed situations (HIS) of discourse completion tests, with a significantly smaller number of non-target forms provided (x ² = 7.26, df = 1, p < .01 for HIS 1; x ² = 12, df = 1, p < .001 for HIS 2; x ² = 5.04, df = 1, p < .05 for HIS 3). Notably, some learners in the other three groups did not carry out appropriate pragmalinguistic realization patterns in line with given social conditions. As the research (Takahashi, Reference Takahashi, Rose and Kasper2001, Reference Takahashi2005) mentioned above supported explicit instruction, Takahashi also noted that a less explicit instruction was not capable of directing the learners’ attention to contextual meanings, and the learners ended up misconstruing socio-pragmatic norms under given contexts.

To summarize, the previous studies suggest that explicit instruction with meta-pragmatic information should: (1) guide learners to enhance their cognitive awareness of the importance of connecting pragmalinguistic and socio-pragmatic aspects of the pragmatic target; and (2) provide opportunities to direct learners to process them, then integrate them into their knowledge. However, such generalizations may not always work best in all circumstances. Rather, inference from the learners’ linguistic behavior in previous studies, along with more required research, is needed to draw a definitive conclusion. Of particular importance is enhancing leaners’ interest in learning the pragmatic target and raising their cognitive awareness of form–meaning–context mappings of the pragmatic target. This will enable learners to proceed to the next step of integrating form–meaning–context relations into their learning system.

To aid L2 learners in internalizing the pragmalinguistic and socio-pragmatic aspects of a pragmatic target, Littlemore (Reference Littlemore2009) explained that embodied cognition utilizing the spatial concept helps L2 learners to connect those aspects of the pragmatic target and acquire the concept of politeness. Littlemore and Low (Reference Littlemore and Low2006) suggested utilizing figurative thinking to acquaint learners with the use of different degrees of politeness according to contexts. Accordingly, Takimoto (Reference Takimoto2020b) adopted the spatial concept to develop Japanese EFL learners’ pragmatic proficiency related to degrees of politeness in making requests. He applied primary metaphors that accompanied a spatial concept projection through which participants comprehended degrees of intimacy, power, and speaker difficulty in terms of the spatially visualized concepts of near–far and high–low. Littlemore (Reference Littlemore2009) argued that primary metaphors represent a wider view of human cognition that provides a more cognitively embodied phenomenon, lending themselves more readily to rigorous empirical testing than conceptual metaphors. The results demonstrated that the spatial concept-based learning group performed significantly better than the rote-learning group and produced long-term retention of their target politeness requests.

Thus, the present study considers the application of spatial concepts in cognitive linguistics as advantageous for learning L2 pragmatics. This will help learners develop their cognitive awareness of the pragmalinguistic and socio-pragmatic aspects of different degrees of politeness, integrate them, and finally increase their pragmatic proficiency.

4. Application of spatial concepts in teaching L2

The cognitive linguistic approach provides experimental evidence of the usefulness of applying cognitive linguistics to teaching L2. For example, Holme (Reference Holme2012) applied the following four principles to teaching L2 construction: embodied learning, conceptualization, the lexico-grammatical continuum, and usage. Accordingly, Couper (Reference Couper2011) incorporated the theoretical background of cognitive linguistics into the teaching of L2 pronunciation. A noticeably productive theory in cognitive linguistics has been conceptual metaphor theory, which has been extensively utilized in the learning of grammar and vocabulary. Furthermore, a number of intervention studies have examined the effects of the metaphor awareness-raising approach on the retention of words or phrases, and have reflected favorable results (Csάbi, Reference Csάbi, Achard and Niemeier2004; Berendi, Csάbi, & Kövecses, Reference Berendi, Csάbi, Kövecses, Boers and Lindstromberg2008). Conversely, some studies have produced indecisive findings about the effectiveness of the metaphor awareness-raising approach, with both metaphor awareness-raising approaches on grammar and vocabulary learning, and other types of approaches, bringing about similar effects. (Gao & Meng, Reference Gao and Meng2010; Yasuda, Reference Yasuda2010; Reif, Reference Reif2012; Tyler, Mueller, & Ho, Reference Tyler, Mueller, Ho and Tyler2012).

To date, previous studies in the area of grammar and vocabulary learning have presented both conclusive and inconclusive findings related to the metaphor awareness-raising approach. Unlike the aforementioned studies, a few studies have adopted the primary metaphor to investigate the efficacy of the metaphor awareness-raising approach (Takimoto, Reference Takimoto2020a, Reference Takimoto2020b; Tyler, Mueller, & Ho, Reference Tyler, Mueller and Ho2010). Tyler et al. (Reference Tyler, Mueller and Ho2010) investigated the effects of the metaphor awareness-raising approach on teaching English modal verbs to EFL learners at a university in the United States. The group was instructed about English modal verbs through a diagram which depicted the use of present tense modal verbs as indicating the highest degree of surety, in contrast to the use of past tense modal verbs indicating a lower degree of surety. The results showed that the metaphor awareness-raising approach group outperformed the traditional group all the way from pre-test to post-test.

Takimoto (Reference Takimoto2020a) evaluated the effectiveness of the spatial concept-based metaphor awareness-raising approach on teaching different degrees of certainty, through animated illustrations on computers, to Japanese EFL learners. The spatial concept-based metaphor awareness-raising approach group understood the degrees of politeness in terms of the spatially visualized concepts in the animated illustrations, whereas the non-cognitive linguistic approach group memorized target English bi-clausal-mitigated requests in a list. The results revealed that the metaphor awareness-raising approach group achieved more significant gains than the traditional teaching group on three post-tests; they also demonstrated maintaining the degree of certainty in long-term memory.

Both studies demonstrated that the primary metaphor can be effectively embedded in the metaphor awareness-raising approach in order to generate positive effects on L2 vocabulary learning. The results of Takimoto’s (Reference Takimoto2020a) study implied that the positive efficacy of the spatial concept-based metaphor awareness-raising approach might have been attributable to the animated visualization to some extent, and it is necessary to further explore animation effects in the area of L2 teaching.

5. Animated visualization in teaching L2

Animation is considered useful in helping learners to understand complex ideas more easily. Animated pictures are motivational with regard to making target features more salient and reducing leaners’ cognitive load, whereby they can develop their mental image of presented situations with external support (Scheller, Reference Scheller2009; Niemeier, Reference Niemeier2017).

However, there are other researchers who view animations with more suspicion and thus recommend limiting their use. Tversky, Morrison, and Betrancourt (Reference Tversky, Morrison and Betrancourt2002) argued that animated motions are often too complex or too fast to be accurately comprehended. Lowe (Reference Lowe2003) suggested that perceptually salient information in animated pictures may direct learners’ attention away from the more subtle but thematically germane information, and that narrated animations to attract learners’ attention to relevant information are more effective than those that lack narration. Furthermore, Mayer, Hegarty, Mayer, and Campbell (Reference Mayer, Hegarty, Mayer and Campbell2005) pointed out that static pictures allow for more active processing because learners need to make inferences from static pictures, while learners make passive observations with animated ones.

In spite of the fact that using animation as a pedagogical approach has pros and cons, there is a strand of recent metaphor awareness-raising approach studies which assesses the effects of animations on teaching German grammar, such as motion verbs (Roche & Scheller, Reference Roche, Scheller, Barber and Zhang2008; Scheller, Reference Scheller2009), passive voice (Arnett, Suñer, & Pust, Reference Arnett, Suñer and Pust2019), the case system (Gradel, Reference Gradel2016), modal verbs (Kanaplianik, Reference Kanaplianik2016), and light verbs (Suñer & Roche, Reference Suñer and Roche2019). Some studies compared the use of animated visual-aid descriptions with formal form-based descriptions and found that using animation for the presentation of embodied concepts of grammar yielded lasting learning effects (Roche & Scheller, Reference Roche, Scheller, Barber and Zhang2008; Gradel, Reference Gradel2016; Kanaplianik, Reference Kanaplianik2016; Suñer & Roche, Reference Suñer and Roche2019). Furthermore, Roche and Scheller (Reference Roche, Scheller, Barber and Zhang2008) and Kanaplianik (Reference Kanaplianik2016) made a comparison between animated and static versions of the metaphor awareness-raising approach, showing that learners using the animated version improved their performance. However, it must be noted that the participants in their study were experienced and linguistically motivated learners, which might have had some effect on the results (Roche & Scheller, Reference Roche, Scheller, Barber and Zhang2008). Similarly, Kanaplianik (Reference Kanaplianik2016) implied that learners who were linguistically motivated adopted the grammatical metaphor actively and produced significantly better learning outcomes. Kanaplianik showed that using an animated version of the metaphor awareness-raising approach did not have the same positive effect on all learners, as learners with less prior knowledge about grammatical targets benefitted more than learners with more prior knowledge. Roche and Scheller (Reference Roche, Scheller, Barber and Zhang2008) and Kanaplianik (Reference Kanaplianik2016) suggested that simple exposure to the animated version of the metaphor-awareness approach does not guide learners to integrate grammatical targets into their mental models.

Lastly, with regard to the nature of L2 pragmatic learning, Takimoto (Reference Takimoto2020b) used animated pictures to assess the efficacy of the spatial concept-based metaphor awareness-raising approach on the development of Japanese EFL learners’ pragmatic proficiency, in relation to degrees of politeness in making requests. He applied primary metaphors that entailed a spatial concept projection through which participants understood degrees of politeness in terms of the spatially visualized concepts of near–far and high–low associated with three social variables in the animated illustrations. Takimoto’s study indicated that this approach through animated illustrations was effective in improving EFL learners’ pragmatic proficiency. However, it is not certain whether the spatial concept-based metaphor awareness-raising approach alone was effective, or if the animated instructional contents might have played some role in contributing to the enhancement the learners’ pragmatic proficiency.

Therefore, owing to the still under-researched area of animated versus static effects on the spatial concept-oriented metaphor approach, and to follow up on the findings by Takimoto (Reference Takimoto2020b), it is important that we further examine whether the animated visualization of the instructional content can assist in enhancing the effects of the spatial concept-based metaphor awareness-raising approach in improving L2 proficiency. This study compares the effects of animated illustrations with those of static illustrations based on the spatial concept-based metaphor in teaching L2 pragmatics.

6. Present study

There have been no studies so far comparing the animated and static versions of the spatial concept-based metaphor awareness-raising approaches to teach different degrees of politeness. Therefore, there is no way of knowing the relative superiority of using either the animated or static versions of the spatial concept-based metaphor awareness-raising approach to teach different degrees of politeness in the literature. To fill this gap, the present study investigates the following research question:

6.1. participants

Four intact classes, consisting of 133 monolingual Japanese students at a university in Japan, participated in the study. These classes were randomly assigned to three treatment groups: animated version of cognitive linguistic treatment (AC) (n = 34: female = 5, male = 29); static version of cognitive linguistic treatment (SC) (n = 34: female = 4, male = 30); non-cognitive linguistic treatment (NL) (n = 30: female = 1, male = 29); and one control group (n = 35: female = 7, male = 28). The participants’ age-range was from 18 to 21 years old and their majors were science and engineering. The participants had studied English as a foreign language for six to eight years in Japan, and their English proficiency level was low-intermediate, with an average Test of English for International Communication (TOEIC) score of 436. There were no significant differences on the TOEIC scores between the four groups (F(3,129) = 2.32, p = .078 > .05, η_p ² = .051) as indicated in Table 1. Additionally, six female and two male native speakers of EnglishFootnote ¹ took part in the study and their data were used as a baseline.

table 1

Means of the TOEIC scores across the four groups

Note: AC = animated version of cognitive linguistic approach; SC = static version of cognitive linguistic approach; NL = non-cognitive linguistic approach.

6.2. target expressions

Takimoto (Reference Takimoto2009) found that Japanese learners of English lack L2 pragmalinguistic and socio-pragmatic knowledge because they failed to use bi-clausal mitigated-request forms (e.g., Would it be possible to VP?), which is typically the preferred type in a highly imposed situation. This tendency is closely related to what Japanese high-school students are taught with regard to English requests. In Japanese school contexts, high-school students are usually instructed that mono-clausal English requests with past modal verbs (e.g., Would/Could you VP?) are the most polite requests, which leads these students to have the misconception that mono-clausal requests with past modal verbs are preferable request forms under HISs.

Accordingly, the aim of this study is to teach different types of English requests invoking hypotheticality. The request strategies were categorized into six, based on hypotheticality and directness, by two native speakers of English (New Zealand and British males), and were adopted by the researcher for this study (see Table 2).

table 2

A list of request strategies

Note: 1 = most direct ~ 6 = least direct.

The research considers that the three social context variables power, intimacy, and speaker difficulty wield influence on degrees of politeness and are carefully controlled and reflected in the instructional and testing materials. According to Brown and Levinson (Reference Brown and Levinson1987), the three social variables are culturally sensitive factors which cover all of the other related factors associated with cross-cultural pragmatics. Moreover, they argued that the amount of politeness during a speech act is determined by these three social context variables, defined as follows: (a) power: the relative social status of the speaker compared to the listener; (b) intimacy: the relational distance between speaker and listener; and (c) speaker difficulty:Footnote ² the difficulty the speaker is asking for in the listener’s performance of the request.

6.4. testing instruments and procedures

As shown in Table 3, a pre-post design was employed in the present study to measure the relative effectiveness of the two types of cognitive approaches and the non-cognitive linguistic approach. A pre-test was administered a week prior to the first learning session to see whether there were any statistical differences among the four groups. Post-test 1 was given a week after the fourth learning session to find any instructional effects of each treatment; Post-test 2 was implemented five weeks after the fourth learning session; and Post-test 3 was issued about nine weeks after the fourth learning session in order to identify any long-term instructional effects of each treatment.

table 3

Overview of experimental procedures

Four different versions of an acceptability judgment test (AJT) (see ‘Appendix E’) were developed and given in order to minimize any test-learning effects. In the pre-test and the three post-tests, the participants were instructed to complete their AJT within five minutes. In addition to the AJT, a written retrospective evaluation questionnaire was administered during the fourth learning session. Interviews were conducted after Post-tests 2 and 3 to supply detailed information on the participants’ cognitive processing of the target request strategies.

6.4.1. Acceptability Judgment Test

This study adopted the AJTs (see ‘Appendix E’), which instructed the participants to read 20 situations in English and then assess three requests in accordance with the degree of perceived acceptability on an 11-point scale. The present study adopted the 11-point rather than a 5-point scale because wider scales produce more precision. When a participant’s assessment fell within the range of English native speakers’ baseline data (see ftn 1), five points were awarded – otherwise, no points were given. The test consisted of 20 items with a maximum score of 100 (5 points × 20 items).

6.4.2. Retrospective evaluation questionnaire

The retrospective evaluation questionnaire was carried out as a supplement to further confirm how the participants processed different request strategies. During the fourth lesson, the participants were asked to answer the following two open-ended questions in Japanese:

1. 1. How did you derive your answer to Question 5 in the problem-solving activities?

2. 2. Did the explicit instructions before the problem-solving activities help you answer Question 5?

6.4.3. Interview

Interviews with two questions were conducted in Japanese after Post-test 2 and Post-test 3 (see Table 4). The purpose of the interviews was to ascertain the results of the retrospective evaluation questionnaires and supply more detailed information on the participants’ cognitive processing of the target request strategies. Three participants from each treatment group were chosen, based on their English proficiency levels (the highest, lowest, and median scores on the TOEIC).

table 4

Questions after Post-test 2 and Post-test 3

Note: AC = animated version of cognitive linguistic approach; SC = static version of cognitive linguistic approach; NL = non-cognitive linguistic approach.

8. Discussion and conclusion

The results showed that the animated and static versions of the cognitive linguistic approach groups outperformed the non-cognitive linguistic approach and control groups in the AJT. The outcomes also indicated that, regardless of the version, the spatial concept-based metaphor awareness-raising approach enabled participants to have great leverage while similarly processing the appropriate English request strategies according to context.

The present study provides two possible ways of processing to explain the effectiveness of this approach. The primary way of processing is associated with spatial concept projection, through which the participants understood the degrees of politeness in terms of the spatially visualized concepts of near–far and high–low. As the results of the retrospective evaluation questionnaire and interviews indicated, many of the participants in the animated and static versions of the cognitive linguistic approach groups connected the degrees of politeness with spatial concepts associated with power, intimacy, and speaker difficulty, and considered the use of spatial concept-based metaphors an effective memory-enhancing strategy. The spatial concept projection guided the participants to cognitively process those visual images in the illustrations and memorize them in the long term. Still, many participants in the non-cognitive linguistic approach group learned different request strategies through the list by rote. Although they responded that recalling request strategies promoted their understanding, their AJT results were not as high as they had predicted, and their scores on the three post-tests were lower than those of the cognitive linguistic approach groups. Lakoff and Johnson (Reference Lakoff and Johnson2003), and Boers (Reference Boers2013) argued that, when we comprehend abstract concepts in terms of actual concepts reflecting spatial ones like near–far and high–low in mental imagery, we are able to cognitively process these visually highlighted spatial images at deep levels and maintain strong memory traces of them. Additionally, Jamroziki, McQuire, Cardillo, and Chatterjee (Reference Jamrozik, McQuire, Cardillo and Chatterjee2016) suggested that metaphor is one important vehicle that guides the development and use of abstract concepts, and that repeated metaphoric use drawing on embodied understanding can result in the formation of explicit knowledge of such concepts.

The second possible way of processing may be related to the form–meaning–context connections. The instructor’s explanation in the cognitive and non-cognitive linguistic approaches was accompanied by the information that the three social context variables – power, intimacy, and speaker difficulty – impact degrees of politeness. However, the information was conveyed through highly visualized illustrations with the instructor’s verbal explanation which promoted the participants to connect the three social variables in the animated and static versions of the cognitive linguistic approach groups, whereas the information was provided only by the instructor’s verbal explanation in the non-cognitive linguistic approach group. The results from the retrospective evaluation questionnaire and the interviews demonstrated that many of the participants from the animated and static versions of the cognitive linguistic approach groups realized the importance of the three social context variables and connected them to come up with the most appropriate degree of politeness. Notably, in this regard, the findings also indicated that the participants in the non-cognitive linguistic approach group did not really recognize the importance of the three social context variables, nor did they connect the three social variables. According to the spatial concept-based metaphor awareness-raising approach proposed by Littlemore (Reference Littlemore2009) and Littlemore and Low (Reference Littlemore and Low2006), visualizing the spatial concepts associated with the degrees of politeness through embodied cognition helps learners enhance their awareness of the social and cultural meanings of the target forms (De Knop & Mollica, Reference De Knop, Mollica, De Knop and Gilquin2016). In this study, the highly visualized embodiment through illustrations, in both animated and static versions of the cognitive linguistic approach, played a key mediating role, increasing the participants’ awareness of the socio-pragmatic aspects and promoting stronger, long-term retention associated with different request strategies. This is because there are semantic ties between learners’ lower levels of bodily engagement and politeness to be learned (Scheller, Reference Scheller2009; Suñer & Roche, Reference Suñer and Roche2019)

While the two types of cognitive linguistic approach groups significantly performed better than the non-cognitive linguistic approach and control groups, the performance of the animated version group deteriorated in Post-tests 2 and 3 and were not able to perform to the same extent as the static version group. The results of the retrospective evaluation questionnaire indicate that only some participants in the animated version felt it was helpful in aiding them to visualize the spatial images in their minds. In fact, one of the interviewees from the animated version confessed that it was difficult for him to comprehend degrees of politeness in terms of spatial concepts because the complicated animated images changed quickly. This made it difficult for him to thoroughly examine the contents of each illustration and subsequently he was not able to cognitively facilitate the processing of the visually highlighted spatial images.

Tversky et al. (Reference Tversky, Morrison and Betrancourt2002) explained that animated movements are sometimes too complicated or too fast for learners to accurately understand what is being taught. Additionally, although the animated version in the process directed the participants’ attention to the target request sentences, it might have taken away from the surrounding three social context variables because Lowe (Reference Lowe2003) described how salient information in animated pictures tends to distract learners from important and relevant surrounding information. Thus, the participants’ explicit knowledge in the animated version group was not established as strongly as the one in the static version. This made it difficult for them to access its relatively weakly established explicit knowledge, and they ended up losing steam on Post-tests 2 and 3. In order to prevent the problems reported above from taking place, Scheller (Reference Scheller2009) emphasized the importance of carefully designing the use of visual materials, and particularly technical effects, to make sure that perceptual processing adapts well to learners’ cognitive requirements in the mental model. This is important because the animations would not produce additional effects unless there were a semantic connection between the cognitive concepts and the modality of the presentation (Roche & Scheller, Reference Roche, Scheller, Barber and Zhang2008; Suñer & Roche, Reference Suñer and Roche2019).

Furthermore, while the animated version group involved in passively processing the contents of the illustration, the static version group was given a chance to closely contemplate the contents of the illustration and to process the contents more actively. Kanaplianik (Reference Kanaplianik2016) hinted that regardless of presentation mode, visually presented materials do not bring about the learning process per se, and learners should be drawn to actively assimilate metaphors and integrate them into their conceptual mental model. In other words, the recollection of the different request strategies may have been reinforced by the static version group as a memory trace of the image was established, thereby generating an additional access point for remembering what they had actively learned (Boers & Lindstromberg, Reference Boers and Lindstromberg2009). According to the results of the retrospective evaluation questionnaire and the interviews, most of the participants and all interviewees from the static version group replied that the static illustration contributed to them actively facilitating a deeper understanding of different request strategies and surrounding context variables. Therefore, the passive processing of the animated illustration contents, rather than the active processing, may have become more visible, translating into a degraded performance later – especially on Post-tests 2 and 3.

Regarding the limitations of this study, although the assumptions for the statistical analysis were tested, neither the assumption of normality nor the assumption of homogeneity of variances was met due to the nature of the criterion-referenced test (Brown, Reference Brown2014), in addition to an unequal number of participants in each group. However, since the ANOVA is generally robust to violations of normality, as well as equal variance assumptions (Tabachnick & Fidell, Reference Tabachnick and Fidell2007), the ANOVA was implemented as planned. Furthermore, although the present study had two kinds of cognitive linguistic approach, it had only one type of non-cognitive linguistic approach, namely the static version. Ideally, because the cognitive linguistic approach was examined through animated and static versions, the animated version of the non-cognitive linguistic approach should have been added to compare the animated and the static versions from the perspective of the non-cognitive linguistic approach.

Finally, this study compared the animated version with the static versions of the spatial concept-based metaphor awareness-raising approach to teach different degrees of politeness quantitatively as well as qualitatively. Nevertheless, it still remains a relatively under-studied area and it is necessary to explore the effects of the static version further in comparison to the animated version in the concept projection. This would provide researchers with further insights in applying the concept-based metaphor awareness-raising approach and it would surely be beneficial for researchers and teachers with regard to which way they need to turn to develop useful approaches necessary to improving learners’ L2 language proficiency.