Behind the Script: Verbal and Nonverbal Pragmatic Features in Indonesian EFL Learner’s Job Interview Simulations

Abstract

Job interview simulation is widely employed in English for business courses to develop communicative competence among Indonesian EFL learners in professionally meaningful contexts. However, when performed through memorized scripts, such simulations risk prioritizing surface fluency over pragmatic appropriateness. Scripted performances may also inadequately reflect learners' multimodal pragmatic readiness, particularly in nonverbal dimensions. While prior studies have examined EFL speaking performance in interview contexts, few have integrated verbal speech act analysis with nonverbal behavior as co-expressive pragmatic features in scripted simulations, particularly among non-English major learners in Indonesian higher education. This study investigates the pragmatic competence of non-English major students by examining their verbal speech acts and nonverbal behavior in scripted job interview simulations. Adopting qualitative multimodal discourse analysis, nine out of fifteen video recordings were analyzed using a speech act coding scheme alongside nonverbal features coded following Ho’s multimodal interview competence framework, focusing on self-promotion, hedging, and clarification requests co-expressed through gesture, gaze, posture, and prosody. Findings reveal that participants successfully enacted genre structure across opening, body, and closing stages, with self-promotion as the dominant speech act (68,4%), followed by hedging (18,4%) and clarification requests (13,3%). However, pragmatic competence was predominantly formulaic and script-dependent, with verbal assertiveness routinely undermined by deferential nonverbal behavior, including intermittent downward gaze during self-promotion, flat prosodic delivery, and turn-final smiling following weakness disclosure. These patterns reflect systematic L1 sociocultural transfer of Javanese-Indonesian norms of modesty and deference operating simultaneously across verbal and nonverbal channels. These findings argue for repositioning job interview simulation in EFL curricula not merely as a speaking fluency task but as an integrated site for pragmatic awareness and multimodal communicative development. Pedagogical attention to prosodic variation, gaze regulation, and gestural emphasis is essential if scripted simulation is to serve as genuine preparation for authentic English-medium professional interaction.