Electronic Journal of Foreign Language Teaching

2012, Vol. 9, No. 2, pp. 245–258

© Centre for Language Studies
http://e-flt.nus.edu.sg/ National University of Singapore

The Use of Complaint Letters as an Authentic Source of Input

for an Interactive Task in Second Language Learning
Handoyo Puji Widodo
([email protected])
University of Adelaide, Australia

Abstract

This article reports empirical findings from a micro-interactional analysis of the use of complaint letters as an
authentic source of input for an interactive task that intermediate level university students performed in the
ESL context. The present research study aims to examine whether the tasks of comprehending, responding to,
and discussing complaint letters engage students in socially, cognitively and linguistically laden undertakings.
Three international students from Brazil, Saudi Arabia and Taiwan participated voluntarily in this research
study. These participants were asked to comprehend, respond to and discuss complaint letters, which served
as an authentic source of input for these tasks. The recorded audio data were transcribed, coded and analyzed
through a micro-interactional analysis. The key findings are that the use of complaint letters enabled: passive
and active engagement in peer interaction; meaning making of the input content; meaning negotiation; cogni-
tive and emotional responses to the input; prior knowledge or experience activation; and the deployment of
discourse markers in dialogic interaction. The findings suggest that the use of appropriate authentic texts as
interactional input affords students the opportunity to engage in tasks personally and meaningfully.

1 Introduction

Tasks in second and foreign language learning and teaching have been much discussed and re-
searched. Task based language learning and teaching (TBLLT) is seen as an offshoot of communi-
cative language teaching (CLT), which promotes learners’ engagement in real communication, in
which learners make use of language meaningfully (Klapper, 2003). Theoretically and empirically
speaking, tasks play two central roles in language learning; that is, they provide situational and
interactional contexts for activating learners’ language acquisition process, and the tasks can pro-
mote second or foreign language learning (Shehadeh, 2005). The focus of TBLLT is primarily on
meaning (Ellis, 2003; Skehan, 2003a, 2003b, 2003c, 2007), and learners are afforded the oppor-
tunity to use a target language freely and meaningfully. Ellis (2003) points out that tasks serve as a
trigger for the selection and use of linguistic resources (e.g. grammar and vocabulary) in context in
order to accomplish a particular task. To achieve particular task outcomes, learners have to negoti-
ate meaning and converse with each other; this interaction entails asking for explanation, checking
comprehension, confirming responses, or elaborating on ideas. Enmeshed in the TBLLT frame-
work, learners are supposed to play a role of language users who experience the same kinds of
communicative processes as those taking place in real-world interaction.
Work in the area of TBLLT in second language acquisition (SLA) and learning has attracted
much attention among English language educators and researchers over the last decades (Butler,
2011; Ellis, 2003; Ilin, Nozü, & Yumru, 2007). Task based language pedagogy is rooted in both
cognitive and interactionist (socio-cognitive) SLA theory and research findings (Doughty & Long,
246 Handoyo Puji Widodo

2003). There have been a large number of research studies on the usefulness, effectiveness and
roles of tasks in order to promote second or foreign language acquisition and learning in language
classrooms. A fuller discussion of previous studies will be presented in the literature review sec-
tion. Despite numerous studies on the usefulness, effectiveness and roles of task based language
learning, investigating how complaint letters as authentic informational input can serve as a trigger
for second or foreign language acquisition through personally meaningful interaction remains
sparse. To fill this empirical void, the current research study focuses on examining how authentic
artifacts such as complaint letters could facilitate an interactive task that intermediate level stu-
dents can perform in the language classroom. This study aims to provide comprehensive insights
into the use of authentic texts as a source of input for task based language learning. The present
research study examines this question:
• How do students engage in an interactive task cognitively, socially, and linguistically?
This question is conceptually and empirically grounded. In doing so, this article presents a
brief overview of such conceptual foundations as (1) definitions and characteristics of tasks, (2)
underlying theories of TBLLT, (3) authenticity in tasks, and (4) authentic texts and tasks. The pre-
sent research study is informed by previous empirical findings that show the usefulness, effective-
ness and roles of TBLLT.

2 Literature review

2.1 Definitions and characteristics of tasks

Scholars in the area of TBLLT provide different definitions of tasks. In this article, I would
like to list four central definitions of tasks alongside the characteristics of tasks. To begin with,
Willis (1996) defines tasks as a set of goal-oriented activities. These activities are geared to afford
learners the opportunity to: build on their confidence in exploring whatever language resources
(e.g. grammar and vocabulary) they know; gain a lived experience of spontaneous interaction;
observe how others express meanings; negotiate a particular task given; and engage in using a lan-
guage purposefully, communicatively and cooperatively. Second, Ellis (2000) adds that a task is
seen as a ‘work plan’ that typically involves (1) some input – information that learners are required
to process and use – and (2) some instructions in relation to the outcomes the learners are supposed
to achieve. Third, Skehan (as cited in Hanauer, 2001) elaborates that the characteristics of a task
include: “(1) meaning is primary; (2) there is some sort of relationship to comparable real-world
activities; (3) there is some communication problem to solve; (4) task completion has some priori-
ty; and (5) the assessment of tasks is in terms of outcome.” (p. 296)
Lastly, Klapper (2003) elaborates that tasks are meaning-based activities closely associated
with learners’ actual communicative needs and with some real-world relationship. In this sense,
learners have to achieve a genuine outcome in which effective completion of the task is accorded
priority. Thus, Klapper (2003) outlines that the idea of the use of a task is “to create an actual need
for language to be used and for learners to identify what language they need to perform the task”
(p. 37).
In implementing tasks in the language classroom, a task should have particular features of
complexity as defined by Skehan (2003a), including code complexity, communicative stress and
cognitive complexity. Robinson (2003) adds that tasks should render such triad of components as
(1) task complexity – intrinsic cognitive demands of the task; (3) task conditions – the interactive
demands of task performance; and (3) task difficulty – learners’ perceptions of the demands of the
task depending on individual or learner differences in the cognitive factors (e.g. aptitude or work-
ing memory) and psychological factors (e.g. anxiety or confidence). Edwards and Willis (2005,
p. 3) point out some distinguishing characteristics of tasks as listed below:
• In carrying out a task, the learners’ principal focus is on exchanging and understanding
meanings, rather than on practice of form or pre-specified forms or patterns.
• There is some kind of purpose or goal set for the task, so that learners know what they are
expected to achieve by the end of the task, for example, to write a list of differences, to
 The Use of Complaint Letters as an Authentic Source of Input 247

complete a route map or a picture, to report a solution to a problem, to vote on the best dec-
orated student room or the most interesting/memorable personal anecdote.
• The outcome of the completed task can be shared in some way with others.
• Tasks can involve any or all four skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing.
• The use of tasks does not preclude language-focused study at some points in a TBL lesson,
though a focus on specific grammar rules or patterns will not generally come before the
task itself, as this could well detract from the real communicative purpose of the subsequent
interaction.
Although the definitions of tasks above are varied, “at the core of each definition is an empha-
sis on the communication of meaning” (McDonough & Mackey, 2000, p. 82). More importantly,
tasks should involve informational input, real-world situatedness, socio-cognitively and communi-
catively laden interaction, goal-oriented activity, meaning exchange and negotiation, and linguistic
complexities. These factors determine how much individual learners contribute to a given ask, how
the task mediates dialogic interaction between learners and their peers, and how a particular situa-
tion facilitates such interaction.

2.2 Underlying theories of TBLLT

Scholars have different theoretical foundations of task based language learning and teaching
(TBLLT). Shehadeh (2005) lists the four main theoretical foundations which inform the present
study. To begin with, from the Interactionist Hypothesis perspective, tasks should allow learners
opportunities to negotiate meaning. This meaning negotiation is facilitated by the exchange of in-
formation which entails conversational modifications through negotiation devices (e.g. confirma-
tion checks, comprehension checks, clarification requests, repetition requests, and repetition) so
that meaning is mutually understood (Lee, 2005). In the context of learning an additional or for-
eign language such as English, the negotiation of meaning enables learners to produce a particular
target language (TL). Scholars who favor the Interactionist Hypothesis are interested in examining
“how the different task types, variables and dimensions may affect the negotiation of meaning,
interlanguage modification and feedback to learner output” (Shehadeh, 2005, p. 21). Secondly,
within the Output Hypothesis framework, tasks enable learners to produce a language comprehen-
sibly in order to accomplish the tasks. Comprehensible output (e.g. language expressions) is a pre-
requisite for the negotiation of meaning and for understanding an exchanged message through
modified conversational or dialogic interaction. Anchored in Skehan’s Cognition Hypothesis
(Skehan, 2003b, 2007), tasks involve three aspects of performance: fluency, accuracy and com-
plexities. Fluency deals with how well learners are able to communicate in real-world interaction.
Accuracy touches on how aptly learners make use of a target language according its conventions.
Complexity corresponds to the learners’ capability of using more complicated TL resources. These
aspects of performance are affected by types of production and communication assigned to learn-
ers. Lastly, resting on the socio-cultural framework, tasks are defined as joint activities of con-
structing knowledge or ideas. This collaborative knowledge construction is situated in learners’
sociocultural background in that in this activity learners locally determine goals of this joint
knowledge construction activity. This knowledge co-construction involves cognitive processes.
From this perspective, tasks are jointly accomplished by learners, and the task accomplishment
process facilitates second language learning. This task accomplishment is mediated by dialogic
interaction. In this dialogic interaction, students engage in social and cognitive activities which
aim to get tasks done collaboratively.
By understanding the underlying theories of TBLLT above, language teachers and language
program designers will be well-informed about the creation of learning tasks which match lan-
guage learners’ proficiency, prior knowledge or experience, and sociocultural background. Cer-
tainly, such underlying theories should be refined by empirical evidence. In such a way, both theo-
retical and empirical grounds inform how language teachers implement tasks in language class-
rooms.
248 Handoyo Puji Widodo

2.3 Authenticity in tasks

The notion of authenticity has been much discussed in the area of English language teaching
(ELT). “This notion emerged in the late 1970s at the time when communicative methodology was
gaining momentum and there was a growing interest in teaching and testing ‘real-life’ language.”
(Lewkowicz, 2000, p. 43) Authenticity in TBLLT is a key dimension of task design or creation.
Borrowing Bachman’s authenticity term (1990), Waer (2009) categorizes task authenticity into:
situational authenticity and interactional authenticity. Situational authenticity pertains to if a task
reflects real-world activities. In short, when a teacher assigns learning tasks to students, such tasks
should suit what they experience in daily social interaction. Long (1985, cited in Ellis, 2003, p. 4)
lists some examples of real-life tasks such as painting a fence, dressing a child, or filling out a
form. Drawing on this, tasks can defined as real-world activities that people do in their daily life.
Interactional authenticity corresponds to how much learners make use of a particular language in
exchanging ideas or negotiating meaning to achieve mutual comprehension when performing a
task. In interactional authenticity, active engagement is needed to get a certain task done. Interac-
tional authenticity is a reaction or a response of learners in which a language serves as a media-
tional tool for communicating ideas or meaning (e.g. giving and exchanging information). Thus,
both a situation and interaction mediated by a language allow students to perform certain tasks
meaningfully. The challenge for English teachers in task design is to create tasks that afford learn-
ers chances to engage in meaningful interaction and to direct their attention to make use of lan-
guage resources appropriately. In doing so, a language teacher needs to provide learners with ap-
propriate authentic texts, either written or spoken, which get students to engage in personally
meaningful interaction in which they make use of language resources. This entire interaction cer-
tainly involves social, cognitive and linguistic processes that the students experience.

2.4 Authentic texts and tasks

Authentic materials or texts are a vital component of task based language learning and teaching
(TBLLT) in that learners are required to produce real-world language expressions in order to suc-
cessfully complete a certain task. Gilmore (2007) argues that the notion of authenticity “can be
situated in either the text itself, in the participants, in the social or cultural situation and purposes
of the communicative act, or some combination of these” (p. 98). Authentic texts provide students
with “a much richer source of input in the classroom and have the potential to raise learners’
awareness of a wider range of discourse features” (Gilmore, 2011, p. 791). Therefore, authentic
materials facilitate learners’ second or foreign language development. Morrow (1977, as cited in
Mishan, 2005, p. 11) defined authentic text as “a stretch of real language by a real speaker or writ-
er for a real audience and designed to convey real message of some sort.” In this article, I define
authentic text as informational input for interested participants, for building an interpersonal rela-
tionship between the interested participants, and for communicating meaning.
It is also useful to define what texts mean here. Texts are traditionally defined as spoken and
written discourse which comprises words, clauses and sentences or utterances in spoken form.
They are also visually presented through visuals such as pictures (images), photographs, drawings,
symbols, signs, sketches and icons. Thus, texts are both verbally and visually presented as well as
both written and spoken. The primary goal of text presentation is to communicate ideas or making
meaning for communicative purposes (Widodo, 2012). There are a variety of text forms, the medi-
um or the physical format in which texts are found or presented. Texts are presented in mass media
(e.g. newspapers, magazines, radio and television), advertisements, letters, forms (e.g. a job appli-
cation form, a hotel room reservation form), faxes, memos, notices or announcements, manuals,
reports, journals, textbooks, brochures or flyers, encyclopedias, books, story books, literary works
(e.g. poems, plays), movies, music, recipes, posters, excerpts, diaries, statistics, transcripts, manu-
scripts and product labels. These text forms can be presented online, digitally or in-print.
In the present research study, complaint letters serve as an authentic source of input for com-
pleting an authentic task assigned to the participants. The marriage of the authentic text and the
 The Use of Complaint Letters as an Authentic Source of Input 249

authentic task is intended to reflect humans’ real-world sociocultural encounters on a daily basis.
In addition, authenticity in texts and tasks aims to “encompass personal and divergent tasks as well
as more personal ones” (Mirshan, 2005, p. 10). By deploying complaint letters as authentic infor-
mational input, students are expected to engage actively in dialogic interaction in which a wide
range of language resources are used to make and negotiate meaning. Thus, the emphasis of inte-
grating authentic texts into tasks is placed on affording students opportunities to communicate
meaning through real-life artifacts containing informational and linguistic input.

2.5 Empirical studies

A spate of empirical research has looked at the usefulness, effectiveness and role of tasks in se-
cond and foreign language classrooms and other settings. In this article, I would like to review
some key empirical studies though these do not relate directly to the use of authentic materials or
texts in TBLLT. First, Hanauer (2001) qualitatively examined the process by which pairs of ad-
vanced second language learners whose native language is Hebrew comprehended poems and
whether the task of poetry reading played a crucial role in second language acquisition. Hanauer’s
findings show that the task of poetry reading primarily entails close reading and meaning construc-
tion. In addition, he found that the task of poetry reading could enhance learners’ linguistic and
cultural knowledge of a target language. Gass, Mackey and Ross-Feldman (2005) investigated
how three tasks: picture differences task, consensus task and map task, performed by 74 Spanish
students at university level, facilitated interaction in two comparable settings: classrooms and la-
boratories. The findings show that there were a few differences in interactional features investigat-
ed in the two contexts. Not only did negotiation for meaning take place in the classroom and la-
boratory, but also recasts and self-correction occurred in both contexts. Third, Waer (2009) exam-
ined how a role-play task (doctor-patient interaction) engaged upper-intermediate level high school
students in situational authenticity and interactional authenticity using a conversational analysis.
The findings reveal that though role-plays are real-world activities, these should relate to students’
own situations and interests so that the students are motivated to act role-plays. These tasks serve
as a trigger for practicing language meaningfully if the tasks allow students opportunities to com-
municate meaning instead of asking display questions which are already prepared. Fourth, Danan
(2010) looked at how translating and dubbing tasks as communicative acts facilitated language
acquisition. She found that the dubbing task allowed for the internalization of vocabulary in that
rehearsals were repeated, and the visual medium reinforced the meaning. The dubbing task also
improved students’ speaking speed and pronunciation, helped them become familiar with collo-
quial language, and facilitated the internalization of meaning through multiple repetitions. Draw-
ing from Danan’s findings, the dubbing task not only allowed the students to make meaning, but
also enabled them to notice certain language features of the text. Empirical findings that report the
use of specific learning tasks within the framework of TBLLT do not seem to be widely published
in scholarly journals. To fill this gap, the current research study reports how complaint letters, as
informational input, could promote dialogic interaction among intermediate level university stu-
dents in the ESL context.

3 Purpose of the present study

The empirical findings on the usefulness, effectiveness and roles of tasks in second and foreign
language classrooms have been reported above, but little is known about how the use of complaint
letters as an authentic source of input could engage students in an interactive task cognitively, so-
cially and linguistically. This engagement includes how students respond to the given text in the
ESL context and if such a task entails such interactional features as meaning making, meaning
negotiation and the use of discourse markers. Therefore, the present research study looks at how
intermediate level university students make use of cognitive and linguistic resources when they are
exposed to complaint letters as an authentic source of input and how such authentic artifacts trig-
ger dialogic interaction between the students. Informed by this research goal, the overall contribu-
250 Handoyo Puji Widodo

tion of the study lies in the presentation of empirical evidence for the usefulness and roles of au-
thentic written text in engaging students in communicative language learning activities in language
classrooms.

4 Research methods

4.1 Research site and participants

This research study was conducted at an American university and involved three international
students. These were a Portuguese speaking female from Brazil, an Arabic speaking male from
Saudi Arabia and a Taiwanese-Chinese speaking female from Taiwan. The Brazilian participant
was a freshman majoring in international studies at the university, and she had been in USA for
one year. The Arab participant was an American Language Institute (ALI) student, and he had
been in USA for one year and two months, and was enrolled in engineering science at another
American university. The Taiwanese participant was also an ALI student, and she was enrolled in
computer science at a Taiwanese university, and had been in USA for seven months. They were
between 17 and 19 years of age.
All of the participants were well-informed about this research study, as they had been request-
ed to review the Subject’s Consent Form and to sign it before the task was carried out. More im-
portantly, their participation was voluntary, meaning that they could withdraw from this project at
any time. Pseudonyms were used to conceal the identity of the participants. This ethical measure is
based on the principle of autonomy and respect for the persons involved (Oliver, 2010). Moreover,
confidentiality seems to be a salient ethical issue, such that any ‘harm,’ such as embarrassment
(Israel & Hay, 2006), can be minimized. The Taiwanese participant is thus identified here only as
F; the Arab participant is named I; and the Brazilian participant is identified as T. These partici-
pants were chosen because they were college ESL freshmen with intermediate English ability, and
they were of different cultural backgrounds and genders. In relation to the participants’ language
proficiency, their English proficiency was determined based on their international TOEFL scores.
Before they took an English course for international students at ALI along with other international
students, they took a paper-based International TOEFL administered by ALI. The institute grouped
all the international students taking the course into 3 levels: (1) elementary; (2) intermediate; and
(3) advanced. Based on ALI’s policy, the students were categorized according to their TOEFL
scores: elementary (below 500); intermediate (500–550); and advanced (above 550). The three
participants, T, I and T, had TOEFL scores of 525, 525 and 530, respectively.

4.2 Material

The materials chosen were complaint letters written by tour and travel agent customers, but on-
ly one letter was intensively examined in the current study to allow for a detailed and focused
analysis. This letter talked about asking compensation for a serious mistake that a travel agency
made. Such a mistake caused two newlyweds to miss their honeymoon, which was an important
moment in their lives. This letter was chosen because it was expected to serve as a ‘trigger’ or
source of input for the participants to engage actively in an in-class peer discussion on the content
of the letter once they had read and grasped it. This material is viewed as an authentic or real-life
artifact that the participants might find in daily social interaction.

4.3 Tasks and procedure

The participants in this study were presented with the tasks of comprehending and discussing
the complaint letter. The goal of the tasks was to ask the participants to read and discuss the con-
tent of the letter. In this respect, the participants were expected to produce an outcome (e.g. a list
of opinions expressed during the conversational interaction) through idea co-construction which
came out of the input given (Foster & Ohta, 2005).
 The Use of Complaint Letters as an Authentic Source of Input 251

Before the empirical tasks were carried out, the participants were seated next to one another in
a quiet lounge. Two participants were seated face-to-face, while another was seated in the center
between the two. Thus, the seating arrangement was in a triangle formation. After that, the re-
searcher read the instructions for the entire task. The entire empirical task was conducted as fol-
lows:
• To begin, the participants were each asked to read the letter with the length of 737 words si-
lently for seven minutes.
• They were then told to pay attention to the message of the letter for ten minutes and to try
to comprehend it. They were asked to identify features of the letter such as language ex-
pressions, layout, participants, the issue, the main ideas and the main supporting details.
• Afterwards, they were asked to discuss the content of the letter on the basis of their own
opinions for 20 minutes. In this discussion section, the participants shared what they
learned from reading and comprehending the letter with each other. The content of the dis-
cussion specifically includes the: (a) issue or problem; (b) actors involved, (c) setting or
context; (d) reasons for bringing up the issue; (e) response to the issue; and (f) follow-up
action in relation to the issue.
• Lastly, the participants were told to list the opinions discussed in eight minutes.
The total time spent was 45 minutes for the entire session. Once the participants understood the
instructions, they were told that the session was audio taped. None of them objected to the record-
ing of the session. Once the participants were ready to do the task, the digital audio recorder was
turned on and placed in the middle on a table. While the participants were going through the entire
session, the researcher kept silent and observed the discussion unobtrusively (Hanauer, 2001). The
session ceased as soon as the participants were ready to close the discussion.

4.4 The nature of the tasks

Anchored in Skehan’s TBLLT framework, this empirical task meets the following criteria:
1. Meaning is primary because the participants negotiated meaning through turn-by-turn dia-
logic negotiation;
2. There is some sort of relationship to comparable real-world activities. In this sense, the par-
ticipants related their prior knowledge or personal real-life experience to the content of the
letter in making rational judgment on it;
3. There is some communication problem to solve. This can be seen in the interaction among
the participants in which they made frequent use of discourse markers and made requests
for meaning clarification so that the meaning was successfully rendered;
4. Task completion has some priority. In this regard, the participants negotiated some alterna-
tive solutions to the problem when complaining something to someone else; and
5. The assessment of tasks is in terms of an outcome. The outcome was a list of the opinions
or ideas expressed during the discussion (See Appendix A).

4.5 Data collection method and analysis

The empirical data were gathered while participants were interacting with each other, and they
were completely recorded using a digital audiotape recorder (Type: Olympus WS-100) in high
quality voice mode. The recording time was about 45 minutes. The recordings were transferred
onto a computer and transcribed using the free transcribing software, “Express Scribe.” The entire
data were analyzed using a micro-interactional analysis. From the micro-interactional perspective,
meaning making or construction occurs through dialogic or social interaction between actors. The
reason for using a micro-interactional analysis in the present study is that the analysis was used to
examine interactional events in which a line-line analysis of transcription was done, and the analy-
sis looked at specific conversational events. The micro-interactional analysis involves the follow-
ing steps:
252 Handoyo Puji Widodo

• Review the recordings to examine the entire sequence of conversational interaction by play-
ing them back;
• Transcribe the recordings. During the transcription, each line-by-line conversation was
numbered to organize the transcripts tidily. Once the recordings were transcribed, the par-
ticipants were asked to check the transcripts carefully in order to achieve data credibility
and trustworthiness (Lee, Liebenau, & DeGross, 1997). This process is called member
checking in qualitative research;
• Take notes while listening to the data. This activity was used to write descriptive and ana-
lytical accounts;
• Identify main themes of the findings by playing and replaying the recorded audio data for-
ward and backward to identify all the spoken data;
• Examine the whole audio recorded data to determine if there were exceptions which made
conclusions less than comprehensive;
• Select focused details for data analysis. The focused details include interactional features
which involve cognitive, social and linguistic processes that the participants experienced. In
this present study, the focused details include: meaning making, meaning negotiation, re-
sponding to the text, the use of schemata and the deployment of discourse markers during
the interaction;
• Code the selected data so that these were written in an organized manner. Data coding aims
to condense extensive sets of data into smaller and analyzable units based on particular cat-
egories. Practically speaking, all the data were entered into a computer program called a
spreadsheet. This spreadsheet has columns for coding, themes of findings, details of find-
ings, and types of interactional processes (cognitive, social or linguistic). This data template
is called a codebook or a data worksheet;
• Analyze and interpret the selected data in a non-judgmental and qualitative way. This non-
judgmental and qualitative analysis and interpretation entail that the analysis and interpreta-
tion of all the data on the basis of the research question and independent of personal opin-
ions. Instead, these findings were connected to relevant theories and empirical findings to
determine if the findings elaborate on, refine or challenge the theories and previous empiri-
cal findings;
• Review the data analyzed; and
• Draw conclusions from the entire data analyzed.

5 Findings and discussions

After the empirical data were organized into a manageable, easily understandable, and analyz-
able base of information, these naturally occurring data were qualitatively coded and analyzed
based on the major themes of the findings. As pointed out previously, the present study investigat-
ed this question: How do students engage in an interactive task cognitively, socially and linguisti-
cally? The empirical data reveal such central findings as: (1) passive and active engagement in
peer interaction; (2) meaning-oriented interaction: responding to the content of the input given and
meaning negotiation among the participants involved; (3) role of prior knowledge or experience
(schemata) in dialogic interaction; and (4) the deployment of discourse markers in dialogic interac-
tion. These findings show that the authentic artifact or material allowed students to experience a
social process through such dialogic interaction as meaning making, meaning negotiation and cog-
nitive and linguistic processes through schemata activation and deployment of discourse markers.
These cognitive, social and linguistic processes are documented in the following findings.

5.1 Passive and active engagement in peer interaction

Firstly, in the interaction between the three participants, there was unequal participation, as
seen in the empirical data (see Table 1).
 The Use of Complaint Letters as an Authentic Source of Input 253

Frequencies of Talk Turns

Participants Pseudonyms Short Responses Long Responses
(≤35 Words) (≥36 Words)
Taiwanese Female F 2 2
Arab Male I 11 4
Brazilian Female T 6 12
Total 19 18

Table 1: The frequency distribution of interaction between the participants

Based on Table 1, it is clearly evident that T dominated the discussion. She had long response
turns more frequently than the two other participants – I and F. This unequal verbal participation
in the discussion might be due to such possible factors as prior knowledge or schemata, personal
experience, topic avoidance, personality, willingness to communicate, anxiety, cultural beliefs, and
social and personal identities (Brown, 2007; Morita, 2004), though students have the same lan-
guage ability. T seemed to know more about the content of the complaint letter; so she could ex-
press her ideas fluently, and another factor might be her desire to communicate because her partic-
ipation in this research study was voluntary. Drawing on this observation, the letter played a role
as comprehensible input or trigger for initiating an interactional activity between the participants,
even though there was unequal participation in social interaction (i.e. the discussion).
Secondly, although three participants were involved in the discussion, only two participants –
T and I – interacted socially with one another. The other participant F just took long and short
response turns only twice respectively throughout the discussion. Being the most passive partici-
pant does not necessarily mean that F did not comprehend the content of the input (i.e. the com-
plaint letter). This is because, as the researcher observed, F paid attention to the input while read-
ing it, and she listened attentively to the two participants while they were talking. Based on F’s
case, participation could be associated with the interaction of mind. In this regard, participation
should not be seen only as overtly verbal behaviors, but also as internal action in the participant’s
mind. Thus, “…turn-internally occurring embodied actions, participation places a particular em-
phasis on a hearer’s role as an active co-participant” (Park, 2007, p. 341). This implies that partici-
pation takes place not only in verbal communication, but also in internal communication in the
participant’s mind. Traditionally, participation is viewed as an overt behavior which is observable.
Drawing on this finding, the mind plays a central role in mediating intrapersonal interaction (pro-
cessing ideas) and interpersonal interaction (interacting with others). In other words, participation
through the interaction of mind should be taken into account when weighing student participation.

5.2 Meaning or message-oriented interaction

The findings show that the students engaged in message or meaning-oriented interaction. In
this interaction, in responding to the text, they made meaning of the content of the text and negoti-
ated meaning of the message. These findings are presented in detail below.

5.2.1 Responding to the text

The empirical data also show that once the discussion began, as the researcher observed, the
two participants, T and I, provided a brief explanation of the global content of the letter. They
seemed to propose a new option for understanding the specific sentences and clauses of the letter
content – the interpretive hypothesis – and the participants confirmed what they stated previously
– the re-statement of the interpretive hypothesis (Hanauver, 2001). This evidence suggests that the
two participants paid close attention to the input (the complaint letter), provided new interpretation,
and came up with the new global understanding of the message in the input. On the other hand, F’s
utterances as seen in Excerpt 1 suggest that she did not try to interpret or give hypotheses about the
letter content, but she seemingly agreed with the ideas uttered by T and I. Although F did not
254 Handoyo Puji Widodo

make many interpretations about the letter message, she tried to posit herself in the interactional
situation1.

Excerpt 1
135 F: I think I also did the same thing as they did … I would ask the company to return
136 all my money (.) or even pay me [more money] … I think … my mood is bad/

Based on this finding, the participants engaged in a meaning making activity. Meaning making
is one of the features of authentic social interaction in which the participants attempt to make
meaning of the message. This meets what is called situational and interactional authenticity (Waer,
2009). This allows the participants to engage in personally meaningful interaction which involves
social, cognitive and linguistic processes.
Another finding is that, throughout the discussion, all of the participants focused on the mes-
sage of the letter. They did not notice either the letter’s linguistic (e.g. grammar) or the non-
linguistic structures (e.g. layout). The main reason for not paying close attention to these features
might be that the participants were familiar with the content of the complaint letter and that they
were focusing on the global meaning of the message. Another reason is that the letter comprises
commonly used expressions which are quite familiar to the participants. This evidence indicates
that structural noticing is not an absolute prerequisite for comprehending the messages when the
emphasis is on meaning (Truscott, 1998). As a result, the task could encourage the participants to
initiate and elaborate dialogic interaction in such a way that facilitated meaning-based interaction.
This evidence can be seen in T’s utterances in Excerpt 2.

Excerpt 2
20 …another thing they lost not only the ticket … they lost money for the hotel
21 and so on … er in the end…it’s not just money they lost but they lost the idealized
22 trip … er er er (.) a long time before they were married\ and then it’s a kind of dream
23 of going to Hawaii too\

This finding suggests that cognitive responses to any input given are badly needed in that such
responses allow for processing information, and such responses serve as a tool for interpersonal
engagement in a particular interactional event.
As seen in Excerpt 2, the participant made her rational judgment by providing emotional re-
sponse to the content (verbalizing feelings and empathy with the characters and event). Such an
emotional response is essential to logical reasoning (Watson-Gegeo, 2004) because emotional re-
sponses can facilitate how logical reasoning is processed and communicated. Other evidence could
be found in I’s utterances in Excerpt 3.

Excerpt 3
80 I: I think it’s fair that the agency makes any mistake … they have to pay for their
81 mistake … but for natural phenomena, so (.) they should not pay compensation to
82 the customers/

The participant tried to make fair judgments of whether complaints should be appropriately ad-
dressed, or he provided an objective approach to reasoning when sorting out the problem. This
reasoning indicates the cultural appropriateness of complaint utterances.
Drawing on the two findings above, interactional events entail cognitive and emotional re-
sponses which are used not only to process and recall information, but also to evaluate such infor-
mation. Both cognition and emotion play a crucial role in how information is generated and judged.

5.2.2 Meaning negotiation between the participants involved

The turn-by-turn dialogic interaction between the two participants, T and I, shows that these
participants negotiated meaning. In this case, a variety of conversational expressions took place
 The Use of Complaint Letters as an Authentic Source of Input 255

during the interaction. Such expressions include recalling background knowledge or schema, ex-
pressing reasoning, seeking clarification, giving confirmation, verbalizing feelings, expressing
agreement, and initiating and closing conversation.
These expressions in the interaction can be seen in Excerpts 4 and 5.

Excerpt 4
I’s utterances (lines 17-18):
17 compared to the flight and also … I think (.) she (.) she gave apologize to them
18 or not?
19 T: No/ (.) I think the text is not saying that (.) saying that they could not contact
her…

Excerpt 5
T’s utterances (lines 38-39):
38 … my my uncle my aunt (.) and my cousin (.) and my grandmother (.) they were
39 going to [Koeng Kung\]
40 I: [Kong Kung?] in Brazil?
41 T: No (.) in the Caribbean … I do not know the Kong Kung is an English name (.)

As seen in lines 17-18, when given a new understanding of the content of the message in the
letter, one of the participants, I, made a request to clarify the meaning in order to assure herself if
what she had understood was correct. Other evidence, as seen in lines 38-41, indicates that when T
explained her family trip, she said one unfamiliar name “Kong Kung.” I sought clarification by
asking for more information about this word, and then T explained the word. These two examples
of meaning negotiation show that the participants tried to prevent communication breakdowns
(Saville-Troike, 2006). More crucially, the participants engaged in the contingent, turn-by-turn
negotiation of meaning in dialogic interaction (Kramsch & Whiteside, 2007). Thus, meaning or
sense making of the message in such social interaction is “conjointly negotiated and implicitly
agreed upon in the talk” (Firth & Wagner, 2007, p. 757) to make the meaning clearer. Meaning
making (comprehension and interpretation) is the passport to negotiation of meaning. In other
words, without understanding a message comprehensively and interpreting it, meaning negotiation
is impossible in social interaction.

5.3 Role of prior knowledge/experience in dialogic interaction

Another finding reveals that throughout the discussion, the two participants, T and I, related
the content of the letter to their prior knowledge. This took place after they articulated the global
content of the letter on the basis of their own interpretations, as seen in Excerpts 6 and 7.

Excerpt 6 (T’s utterances)

37 T: Actually/ there was a story like that that happened in my family about the
38 trip … my my uncle my aunt (.) and my cousin (.) and my grandmother (.) they were 39 going
to [Koeng Kung\]

Excerpt 7 (I’s utterances)

59 Christmas when I went back to America … eh … I went to Washington … the flight
60 was from Washington to Pittsburgh … err err (.) but I did not (.) err (.) catch it
61 because … err (.) the flight was cancelled because the weather ... err was so bad (.) was

The finding suggests that such prior knowledge/experience or schemata allow these two partic-
ipants to engage more actively in the discussion compared to F. Such schemata are a bridge to
making sense of new experience and information (Landry, 2002). Thus, schemata in task based
language interaction assist the participants in interpreting particular meanings. In this respect,
schemata can include: (1) content – clearly evident relationship from a certain topic; (2) formal –
distant connection based on an understanding of generalization and mindset; and (3) abstract –
256 Handoyo Puji Widodo

hidden factors and thematic considerations (Ketchum, 2006). In short, content, formal and abstract
schemata could affect how one interprets a certain message (Landry, 2002).

5.4 The deployment of discourse markers in dialogic interaction

Lastly, the data reveal that the participants deployed discourse markers. Svartvik (as cited in
Fung & Carter, 2007) argues that such markers are believed to be frequently employed by speakers
as a delaying tactic. It denotes a thinking process when an answer or a response is not immediately
available. Discourse markers as a tactic or strategy are used to search for or locate words, recall
ideas, and organize and think such ideas aloud. In the present study, almost all of the participants
employed discourse markers. The types of the discourse markers used can be seen in Table 2.

Frequency of the Use of Discourse Markers

Participants
Pauses err eh umm RW oh Total
F 42 4 0 0 4 0 50
I 39 21 1 5 0 0 66
T 20 7 4 4 5 1 41
Note: RW – Repeated words consecutively like to … to … or big big big …

Table 2: The frequency of the use of discourse markers by the participants

Based on Table 2, I employed discourse markers far more frequently than the other two partic-
ipants. In addition, all the participants used other discourse markers like a kind of, I think, yeah and
okay. Such discourse markers allowed the participants to create sufficient time to reformulate, re-
phrase, self correct, or repair their utterances. These markers could also be used to elaborate and
modify the existing prepositional meaning to make clear the intention of the speaker (Fung &
Carter, 2007). In short, these discourse markers should not be seen as linguistic limitations, but
such markers should be viewed as part of the cognitive process that the participants engaged in, or
thinking time that the participants spent on processing the ideas or thoughts to produce compre-
hensible output.

6 Conclusion

This article has presented how complaint letters as an authentic source of input could facilitate
dialogic interaction (from comprehending to discussing complaint letters) among intermediate
level university students. The major findings suggest that mutual engagement, meaning making
and negotiation, cognitive and emotional responses, prior knowledge or experience activation and
the use of discourse makers typify dialogic interaction in which cognitive, social and linguistic
processes take place. Drawing on these findings, both the use of complaint letters as an authentic
artifact (material), and the responding and discussing tasks facilitate turn-by-turn conversational
interaction. This conversational interaction entails how the participants make use of cognitive and
linguistic resources in order to communicate meaning through interpersonal interaction. Compati-
ble with McDonough & Mackey’s findings (2000), this interpersonal interaction facilitates second
language acquisition. In order for students to engage in meaning-oriented interaction, they need to
make use of cognition (prior knowledge and experience activation), language (how such prior
knowledge and experience can be communicated through linguistic resources) and social space (a
condition where students can interact with each other). These three crucial factors are a prerequi-
site for getting students to engage in interactive tasks.
Though the present study produces useful findings, it has major limitations in terms of the time
constraints, the single task examined, the limited number or frequency of the trial, the lack of data
triangulation (data richness or rigor), and the limited number of participants involved; as a result,
the findings are not generalizable. Another reason for not generalizing the findings is that the tasks
carried out may render different results or outcomes if they are tested in a different study context
 The Use of Complaint Letters as an Authentic Source of Input 257

due to individual differences and learning contexts. Because of these limitations, future studies
should explore the use of triangulated data collection methods (e.g. observation and interviewing),
the study of diverse groups of learners (e.g. of different sociocultural backgrounds, ages and levels
of language proficiency), and alternative research designs (e.g. ethnographic case study, interac-
tional ethnography, micro-ethnographic classroom discourse).

Notes
1
Symbol Descriptions: (.) short pause; … normal pause; [ ] overlapped talks; \ falling accent; (( )) non-
linguistics occurrence; (?) unintelligible talks; ? question remarks; “ ” direct speech; -- truncated talks;
( ) Particular word/phrase; bold particular expressions

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Appendix A

A list of the main opinions which the participants talked about during the discussion session

1. The travel agent representative should have apologized to the newly married couple for a serious mistake.
2. It is reasonable that the couple received compensation or refund for the mistake that the travel agent made.
3. It is unfair that when it was the travel agent’s fault, they did not give any compensation or refund to their
customers.
4. The couple lost their important moment—honeymoon because this happened once in their life.
5. When complaining something to a person or an organization, we should behave or respond to the com-
plaint politely so that the problem can be sorted out calmly.
6. The travel agent should not provide compensation or refund to their customers because of unexpected
natural causes (e.g., bad weather) because it is not their fault.
7. It is common that complaints about cancelled flights occur in our daily life.
8. It is reasonable that the couple wrote the complaint letter to the travel agent to get refund for a serious
mistake that the agent made, so the agent should have been accommodative or have taken immediate fol-
low-up action.