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

Abstract

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.

Multilingual cyberpragmatics in instructional settings. Exploring gender and age effects in Catalan, Spanish and English email requests

“…Following Gonzalez-Lloret's (2022) suggestion, we have considered the gender and age of our multilingual participants as individual variables. Unlike previous studies (Tajeddin and Malmir, 2014;Esfahlan and Boroumand, 2020), our results point out interesting differences regarding email requestive patterns. More specifically, female students showed a preference for mitigated direct forms and male senders opted for conventionally indirect requests with intensifiers.…”

“…As it was the case of the age factor, we are not aware of many studies dealing with gender and L2/L3 email requests. Yet, existing studies examining male and female learners' use of requests (Tajeddin and Malmir, 2014;Esfahlan and Boroumand, 2020) in DCTs report no significant differences in their performance although the authors raise the need for further research. As argued by Kasper and Rose (2002) members of specific gender groups develop their interlanguage pragmatic knowledge based on the social, cultural and situational roles of L2 context.…”

Pengajaran Bahasa Inggris Dasar pada Kegiatan Pembelajaran Informal

“…Penanaman nilai etika dalam berinteraksi selama pelatihan juga ditanamakan oleh penulis tanpa memberitau dahulu kepada para peserta. Nilai kesopanan dalam interaksi bersifat universal dan terbukti tidak terkait dengan kondisi sosial ekonomi serta penggunaan jenis bahasa pertama atau kedua (Esfahlan & Boroumand, 2020). Apsek yang ditanamkan adalah pengucapan salam pada saat pertemuan dan perpisahan, meminta ijin dengan baik saat akan ke kamar mandi, sikap duduk yang baik pada tempatnya, tidak boleh bicara membentak pada penulis dan sesama peserta pada selama pelaksanaan kegiatan abdimas.…”

The Interplay of Contextual Variables and Language Proficiency in Request Realization

“…While studies conducted on request speech act extensively investigated request realization for directness and politeness (Esfahlan & Boroumand, 2020; Ghasempour & Farnia, 2016; Lenchuk & Ahmed, 2019; Panahzadeh & Asadi, 2019) and internal and external modifications (Abdolrezapour, 2015; Abdolrezapour & Eslami-Rasekh, 2012; Economidou-Kogetsidis, 2009; Göy et al, 2012), this study aims to also examine request perspective, which as stated by Ogiermann and Bella (2020) is the least studied mitigation form in request speech act studies and thus very few studies examined this aspect (e.g., Economidou-Kogetsidis, 2013).…”