The Naturalized Role-play: An innovative methodology in cross-cultural and interlanguage pragmatics research1

Research methodologies provoke much debate in cross-cultural and interlanguage pragmatics research. They have different advantages and disadvantages, though the goal of many methodologies remains the controlled elicitation of data that is comparable to real-life production. In this paper an innovative methodology of data collection is proposed—the Naturalized Role-play (hereafter NRP). This methodology is capable of realizing the desirable but virtually impossible aim of eliciting spontaneous data in controlled settings. The paper also presents two empirical studies which validate the effectiveness of this methodology in cross-cultural and interlanguage pragmatics. Compliment response data collected by means of the NRP is compared with data from other major methods, which include questionnaires, closed role-plays, open role-plays and natural data recording. NRP data is also compared with real-life data from field recordings in different languages. Results show that NRP data resembles real-life data. Moreover, the NRP yields more natural and accurate pragmatic data than existing methods of data elicitation. It is also more practical and efficient than natural data recording in cross-cultural and interlanguage pragmatics research.