Cohen, A. D. & Olshtain, E. (1993). The production of speech acts by EFL learners. TESOL Quarterly, 27 (1), 33-56.

Reports on a study describing ways in which nonnative speakers assessed, planned, and then delivered speech acts. The subjects, fifteen advanced English foreign language learners, were given six speech act situations (two apologies, two complaints, and two requests) in which they were to role-play along with a native speaker. The interactions were videotaped and after each set of two situations of the same type, the videotape was played back and then the respondents were asked both fixed and probing questions regarding the factors contributing to the production of their responses in those situations. The retrospective verbal report protocols were analyzed with regard to processing strategies in speech act formulation. The study found that in delivering the speech acts, half of the time respondents conducted only a general assessment of the utterances called for in the situation without planning specific vocabulary and grammatical structures, often thought in two languages and sometimes in three languages (if trilingual), utilized a series of different strategies in searching for language forms, and did not attend much to grammar nor to pronunciation. Finally, there were respondents whose speech production styles characterized them as "metacognizers," "avoiders," and "pragmatists" respectively.