3.2. MDCT respondents
description of a situation and select what would
be best to say in that situation, but to read two
Three hundred and seventy (370) native
sentences (one sentence with a verb, the other
Vietnamese speakers responded to the MDCT,
with a noun) each time in Vietnamese, and to
among whom were 240 undergraduate senior
choose the one that sounds more natural.
students (203 English major students
The advantages of using MDCTs are
specializing in translation and interpreting, and
discussed in [18], [19] and other studies.
37 students of literature and linguistics, high
Yamashita [18: 15] points out that MDCTs “can
quality classes), 21 postgraduate students of
be used to collect data easily in a short period of
English, 45 lecturers of English, and 64 general
time and make the analysis…an easier process”.
readers. The age of all the undergraduate
Another advantage is that it can be easy to
students ranged from 21 to 30, while that of
administer and score MDCTs [19]. In addition,
postgraduate students was between 21 and 50.
MDCTs are easy for test-takers [NB: or
The age of lecturers of English was from 21 to
informants in this study] to do as they do not
above 50, and the general readers” age was
need to write anything but just choose one
from 18 to 40. Regarding gender, 84.1% of
among the options [19]. Furthermore, the
respondents were female and 10% were male
reliability of MDCT in this study was
(NB: there was no information about gender in
guaranteed because the informants, native
20 responses of undergraduate English-major
speakers of Vietnamese, already had pragmatic
students and in 2 responses of general readers).
competence, i.e. knowledge about the
The English major undergraduate and
naturalness of Vietnamese language. They were
postgraduate students, Vietnamese literature
not test-takers, but acted as judges of the
and linguistics major undergraduate students, as
naturalness of a number of translated sentences
well as lecturers of English were chosen for this
in the TTs.
study, because of their level of education, in
However, it should be noted that “the use of
general, and their proficiency level of
a native speaker norm in inter-language
Vietnamese and English, in particular. In
pragmatics has been challenged” (Kasper, 1998,
addition, the reason for choosing general
in [19: 410]). Nevertheless, Liu [19: 410]
Vietnamese readers was that the Australian
argues that although taking the native speakers”
Short Stories collection [1], like any fictional
judgments as the standard is controversial in the
prose, was intended for general readers, who
measurement of pragmatic knowledge, “this is
may or may not know English. What is more,
by far the most reasonable norm” that
the MDCT was carried out in Vietnam”s
researchers can rely on. North (2000, in [19:
National Library, Hanoi, with the expectation
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