2. MDCT RESPONDENTS DESCRIPTION OF A SITUATION AND SELECT WHAT WOULD...

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