The Complexity of Pragmatic Competence: A Comparative Analysis of Native English Speakers’ and Turkish ESL Students’ Advice-giving Strategies

Abstract

Studies revealed that English as a second language (ESL) speakers and native English speakers (NES) used different strategies to give advice in English due to ESL speakers’ limited pragmatic competence. It is important to identify these differences because they can cause cross-cultural misunderstandings and misattribution of intent. However, only few studies compared Turkish ESL students’ and NES’ advice-giving strategies, and there is a gap in the literature that analyzed Turkish ESL students’ advice-giving strategies in both English and Turkish to understand how they develop pragmatic competence in English. This study aimed to fill this gap by comparing not only the advice-giving strategies that NES students and Turkish ESL students utilized, but also analyzing the differences in Turkish ESL students’ advice-giving strategies in Turkish and English. The findings revealed structural and pragmatic differences between the advice of Turkish ESL students and native English-speaking students. Moreover, Turkish ESL students used more complex and longer sentences and more idioms and demonstrated more politeness in their Turkish advice.