A Study on EFL Learners’ Preferred Types of Salience and Categories in Movie English

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is twofold: (1) to observe EFL learners’ preferred types of salience in Movie English and (2) to examine which language categories are mainly salient. The types of salience are based on Schmid and Günther’s (2016) 4 types of salience, with categories of grammar, individual words, chunks, and messages. This is a case study of five college students majoring in English all with TOEIC scores higher than 800. The study was divided into a self-heuristic group of three students and a category-presented group of two students. The self-heuristic group was instructed to find out what they found salient and noticeable in a movie, without the terms salience and category being mentioned. The category-presented group was directed to find out what they found salient and noticeable in the movie, based on given categories. The results showed that the two groups preferred surprise and novelty. Both groups preferred different categories, however. The self-heuristic group mostly focused on chunks, with a preferred order of chunks, grammar, words, and messages. The category-presented group mainly focused on words, with a preferred order of words, chunks, messages, and grammar. Pedagogical implications will be discussed in more detail in this paper.