One hundred and forty-four Chinese learners of English participated in the study. They were randomly paired and assigned to either a map task or a picture-story task. Two exemplars of each task type were used on separate occasions (one week apart). Each task group was further divided into two experimental groupshigh criterion (HC) and low criterion (LC) and a control group. Both the HC and the LC groups were informed at the outset that they would be asked to perform an additional activity upon completion of the baseline task. The HC speakers undertook a more demanding posttask activity, and the LC group a less demanding one. No extra posttask requirement was imposed on the control group. A wide range of measures were employed to evaluate the participants' language production in terms of complexity, accuracy and fluency.

ABSTRACT

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

LIST OF TABLES

LIST OF ABBREVIATED TERMS

1 INTRODUCTION

1.1 BACKGROUND TO THE RESEARCH

1.2 PURPOSE OF THE STUDY

1.3 IMPORTANCE OF THE STUDY

1.4 STRUCTURE OF THE THESIS

2 LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 INTRODUCTION

2.2 DEFINING AND CATEGORISING TASKS

2.3 AN INTERACTIONAL APPROACH

2.4 A COGNITIVE APPROACH

2.5 CONNECTING INTERACTION RESEARCH AND TASK RESEARCH

2.6 A SOCIOCULTURAL PERSPECTIVE

2.7 RATIONALE FOR THE STUDY

3 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

3.1 INTRODUCTION

3.2 PURPOSE AND FOCUS OF THE STUDY

3.3 RESEARCH QUESTIONS

3.4 RESEARCH DESIGN

3.5 PARTICIPANTS

3.6 PROCEDURES

3.7 DATA TRANSCRIPTION

3.8 CODING

3.9 INTER-RATER RELIABILITY

3.10 ANALYSING COMPLEXITY, ACCURACY AND FLUENCY

3.11 STATISTICAL ANALYSES

3.12 CONCLUSION

4 RESULTS

4.1 SYNTACTIC COMPLEXITY

4.2 LEXICAL DIVERSITY

4.3 ACCURACY

4.4 FLUENCY

4.5 PRODUCTIVITY

4.6 POST-TASK INTERVIEWS

4.7 SUMMARY OF MAIN RESULTS

5 DISCUSSION

5.1 TASK TYPE AND LANGUAGE PRODUCTION

5.2 TASK PERFORMANCE CRITERIA AND LANGUAGE PRODUCTION

5.3 TASK-TYPE REPETITION AND LANGUAGE PRODUCTION

5.4 CONCLUSION

6 CONCLUSION

6.1 SUMMARY OF THE STUDY

6.2 PEDAGOGICAL IMPLICATIONS

6.3 CONTRIBUTIONS

6.4 LIMITATIONS

6.5 DIRECTIONS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH

6.6 CONCI.UDING REMARKS

REFERENCES

APPENDIX A TASK INSTRUCTIONS AND

TASK MATERIALS

APPENDIX B GUIDED QUESTIONS FOR

POST-TASK INTERVIEWS

APPENDIX C TRANSCRIPTION SYMBOLS

APPENDIX D SAMPLES OF THE SPEECH DATA

TRANSCRIPTS

APPENDIX E SAMPLES OF THE INTERVIEW

DATA

APPENDIX F ADDITIONAL RESULTS OF

STATISTICAL ANALYSES

APPENDIX G A SAMPLE OF DATA FOR

STATISTICAL ANALYSES