Do They Mean What They Say? Sociopragmatic Competence and Second Language Learners

Harlow, Linda L.

doi:10.2307/327628

Cited by 14 publications

(9 citation statements)

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“…Concerning the correlation between complexity of request strategies and level of language proficiency in EFL learners, the findings of the present study, following other studies in this field (Francis, 1997;Harlow, 1990;Parent, 2002), support request development of L2 learners from being direct to indirect and from being simple to complex. On the one hand, there is a positive correlation between the use of indirect strategy types and the English proficiency level.…”

Section: A Question Onesupporting

confidence: 86%

A Cross-sectional Study of Iranian EFL Learners' Request Strategies

Jalilifar¹,

Hashemian²,

Tabatabaee³

2011

JLTR

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This study was a cross-sectional investigation into the request strategies used by Iranian learners of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) and Australian native speakers of English. The sample involved 96 B.A. and M.A. Iranian EFL learners and 10 native speakers of English. A Discourse Completion Test (DCT) was used to generate data related to the request strategies used by each group. The selection of request situations in the DCT was based on 2 social factors of relative power and social distance. Although the results revealed pragmatic development, particularly in the movement from direct to conventionally indirect strategies on the part of the EFL learners, the EFL learners with higher proficiency displayed overuse of indirect type of requesting, whereas the native group was characterized by the more balanced use of this strategy. The lower proficiency EFL learners, on the other hand, overused the most direct strategy type. In terms of the influence of the social variables, the findings of this research revealed that as far as social power is concerned, the EFL learners displayed closer performance to the native speakers. But considering social distance, it seems that the Iranian EFL learners had not acquired sufficient sociopragmatic knowledge to display proper social behavior

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Section: A Question Onesupporting

confidence: 86%

A Cross-sectional Study of Iranian EFL Learners' Request Strategies

Jalilifar¹,

Hashemian²,

Tabatabaee³

2011

JLTR

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“…Some have explored request expressions, while some have delved into the effect of gender and/or socioeconomic status on the realization of this speech act. Harlow (1990), for instance, carried out a study on non-native learners and native speakers of French and inspected the impact of the sex, age, and familiarity among speakers on the realization of the speech acts of requesting, thanking and apologizing. Garcia (1993), likewise, looked at cross-gender differences and similarities between Peruvian Spanish interlocutors when making a request for a service and responding to it.…”

Section: Speech Act Of Request Gender and Socioeconomic Statusmentioning

confidence: 99%

Gender and socioeconomic status: A pragmatic analysis of politeness strategies used by Iranian EFL students in Persian and English requests

Esfahlan¹,

Boroumand²

2020

Dil Ve Dilbilimi Çalışmaları Dergisi

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Politeness strategies that speakers deploy when performing a speech act have been seen to be influenced by several factors among which gender and socioeconomic status are two prominent ones. The current study was an attempt to examine the relationship between gender and socioeconomic status (SES) on one hand, and choice of politeness strategies on the other. The focus was specifically on the realization of speech act of request in Persian (L1) and English (L2). The participants were 100 advanced-level Iranian EFL students. Based on their gender and responses to the socioeconomic status questionnaire, they were divided into four equal groups of twenty-five: 1. male-high; 2. male-low; 3. female-high; and 4. female-low. The data collection instruments were the English and Persian versions of a discourse completion test (DCT). The results revealed a significant relationship between gender and use of politeness strategies in speech act of request in L1 as well as L2. The findings, however, demonstrated no significant relationship between the participants' socioeconomic status and their use of politeness strategy neither in L1 nor in L2. This study can be another proof for Brown and Levinson's claim about the universality of politeness strategies.

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“…One of the central research questions in the field of interlanguage pragmatics and politeness is how learners produce requests and other speech acts in a second/foreign language (L2) (Blum-Kulka and Olshtain 1984;Blum-Kulka et al 1989a;Garcia 1989;Harlow 1990; Bardovi-Harlig and Hartford 1993;Weizman 1993;Trosborg 1995;Hassall 2003, to name but a few). Of even greater interest has been the question of which linguistic means non-native speakers have at their disposal for mitigating the force of their speech acts and the extent to which their mitigating strategies and devices deviate from or approximate the production and strategies that native speakers use when being polite (Faerch and Kasper 1989;Trosborg 1995;Hassall 2001;Schauer 2004;Otçu and Zeyrek 2006;Woodfield 2006).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Internal and external mitigation in interlanguage request production: The case of Greek learners of English

Economidou-Kogetsidis¹

2008

Journal of Politeness Research. Language, Behaviour, Culture

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This paper examines Greek learners' deviations in the dimensions of internal and external modification. It investigates the wayGreek non-native speakers of English use lexical and phrasal downgraders and external supportive moves in order to soften the force of their English requests in three power-asymmetrical situations. Such power-asymmetrical social situations are more demanding in that they generally require greater pragmatic skills and are particularly difficult for non-native language speakers. For this reason, the study aims to investigate the extent to which the learners' use of mitigating devices deviates from that of British English native speakers and to relate any deviations to issues of politeness and culture. Additionally, the extent to which the social variables of power, familiarity and imposition of the requested act affect the learners' use of request mitigation is also pursued.Results from this study have shown that the amount and type of modification used by the Greek learners present some deviations from native speakers' use. It has been argued that these deviations can be seen as being due to native influence and therefore to pragmalinguistic and sociopragmatic transfer, as well as to the different politeness orientation of the two groups.

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Do They Mean What They Say? Sociopragmatic Competence and Second Language Learners

Cited by 14 publications

References 0 publications

A Cross-sectional Study of Iranian EFL Learners' Request Strategies

A Cross-sectional Study of Iranian EFL Learners' Request Strategies

Gender and socioeconomic status: A pragmatic analysis of politeness strategies used by Iranian EFL students in Persian and English requests

Internal and external mitigation in interlanguage request production: The case of Greek learners of English

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