scholarly journals CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY OF REFUSAL STRATEGIES OF AMERICAN AND ARMENIAN ENGLISH SPEAKERS

2021 ◽  
Vol 17 (2 (24)) ◽  
pp. 100-115
Author(s):  
Gohar Hovsepyan
Keyword(s):  
Speech Acts ◽  
Native English Speakers ◽  
Mitigation Strategies ◽  
Pragmatic Competence ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
Potential Threat ◽  
Politeness Strategies ◽  
Language Data ◽  
High Level ◽  
Refusal Strategies

Several studies have been carried out on refusal strategies that native and non-native English speakers employ to mitigate potential threat to listener’s face when forming refusals to various speech acts, such as requests, offers, invitations, etc. This study adds the perspective of Armenian English speakers in using such mitigation strategies. The objective of the study is to identify similarities and differences in the use of various politeness strategies used in refusal acts by native English speakers (NES) and Armenian non-native English speakers (ANNES) with the aim of establishing the extent of cultural impact on pragmatic competence of ANNES. Language data was collected among 24 Armenian English speakers of high level of English proficiency and 15 American English speakers. A modified version of the Discourse Completion Test (DCT) developed by Beebe, Takahashi, and Uliss-Weltz (Beebe et al., 1990) was used to collect data. Along with considerable similarities in the use of politeness strategies in refusals between the two groups which indicate the high degree of pragmatic competence of ANNES, the analysis of the data also revealed some differences which attest to certain impact of the Armenian culture on this competence. The differences are mainly observed in frequency of use and in the content of the same strategies used by the two groups.

scholarly journals An Investigation of Refusal Strategies as Used by Bahdini Kurdish and Syriac Aramaic Speakers

2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 89
Author(s):  
Dilgash M.Shareef ◽  
Marina Isteefan Qyrio ◽  
Chiman Nadheer Ali
Keyword(s):  
Speech Acts ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Great Influence ◽  
Female Students ◽  
Pragmatic Competence ◽  
Written Discourse ◽  
Successful Communication ◽  
Completion Test ◽  
High Level ◽  
Refusal Strategies

For the purpose of achieving a successful communication, issues such as the appropriateness of speech acts and face saving become essential. Therefore, it is very important to achieve a high level of pragmatic competence in speech acts. Bearing this in mind, this study was conducted to investigate the preferred refusal strategies Kurdish and Syriac native speakers use when faced with offers and requests from equal status interlocutors.  The current study has used a modified Written Discourse Completion Test (WDCT) consisting of six situations (three of which elicit refusals to offerings and the other three to requests). Forty subjects participated in this study: 20 native speakers of the Kurdish language (10 male and 10 female students) and 20 native speakers of Syriac language (10 male and 10 female students). All participants are currently pre-graduate students attending Zakho University. The participants were asked to provide written data that express their refusals to these situations. The data collected have then been analyzed descriptively according to frequency and number of occurrences of semantic formulas used by Beebe et al (1990).  The results showed that a) the Syriac Native Participants (SNP)s frequently preferred indirect and adjunct strategies for refusals rather than direct ones, b) the Kurdish Native Participants (KNP)s often preferred direct and indirect strategies more than adjunct ones, c) the results also revealed that gender has a great influence on the use of refusal strategies in various ways. Finally, this study concludes that both KNPs and SNPs tended to use more strategies when refusing requests than offers whereas gender has shown to play a significant role in the choice and number of the refusal strategies used by both groups of participants.

scholarly journals The Realization of Complaint Strategies among Iranian Female EFL Learners and Female Native English Speakers: A Politeness Perspective

2016 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 9
Author(s):  
Atefeh Eshraghi ◽  
Mohsen Shahrokhi
Keyword(s):  
Speech Acts ◽  
Social Power ◽  
Great Influence ◽  
Native English Speakers ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
Placement Test ◽  
Contextual Variables ◽  
Efl Learners ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
Completion Test

<p>Speech acts are interesting areas of research and there has been much research on speech acts. Complaint is a type of speech act and how to use it in interaction is important to EFL learners. The complaint strategies employed by Iranian female EFL learners and female English native speakers were compared in this study. Also, the effects of contextual variables (Social distance and Social power) on the choice of complaint strategies by Iranian female EFL learners and female native English speakers were studied in this research. Thirty Iranian female EFL learners and thirty female native English speakers participated in this study. The two instruments which were used in this study included Oxford Placement Test (OPT) and Discourse Completion Test (DCT). The (DCT), as an open-ended questionnaire was administrated to them to elicit complaint speech acts. Then, the collected data were analyzed according to a modified taxonomy of complaint strategies proposed by Trosoborg (1995). The results indicated that there was a significant difference between Iranian female EFL learners and female native English speakers in terms of using complaint strategies. Iranian female EFL learners used indirect complaint, while female native English speakers used the direct complaint more frequently; and contextual variables had a great influence on complaint strategy choice by participants of two groups.</p>

scholarly journals Criticism and politeness strategies in academic review discourse: a contrastive (English-Italian) corpus-based analysis

Kalbotyra ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 70 (70) ◽  
pp. 60 ◽  
Author(s):  
Giuliana Diani
Keyword(s):  
Speech Acts ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Mitigation Strategies ◽  
Cultural Perspective ◽  
Review Articles ◽  
Cultural Research ◽  
Politeness Strategies ◽  
Academic Review

Drawing on a corpus-based approach, this paper explores the mitigation strategies used to soften criticism in English and Italian book review articles in the disciplinary field of linguistics. Most corpus-based analyses on academic criticism have focused on the use and function of politeness strategies in English academic review genres, mainly book reviews. Recently, an increasing number of studies on academic book reviews have examined the issue from a cross-cultural perspective. This study attempts to contribute to the area of cross-cultural research on reviewing practices by exploring how criticisms are managed in a somewhat neglected review genre in academic discourse studies – the book review article. Criticisms will be identified on the basis of their lexico-grammatical features and further categorized into “direct” and “mitigated” (Itakura & Tsui 2011, 1369). The mitigation strategies identified in both language corpora mainly involve the use of sequences of speech acts such as praise-criticism, criticism-praise, criticism-suggestion, praise-suggestion, and hedging. However, their distributions reveal differences in the two languages. While praise is prominently used in both English and Italian book review articles, Italian-speaking linguistics reviewers employ a lower proportion of hedges than their English-speaking colleagues and are more likely to opt for suggestions as a form of indirect criticism. The results demonstrate that linguistics reviewers writing in English and Italian deploy a considerable range of linguistic devices when expressing mitigated criticism of peers. Their use and distribution are discussed in relation to national/cultural writing conventions, but also differences between “large” and “small” disciplinary cultures (Holliday 1999). Some implications for EAP learners and practitioners are also considered.

scholarly journals The Use of Complaints in the Inter-Language of Turkish EFL Learners

2011 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 25 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tanju Deveci
Keyword(s):  
Negative Transfer ◽  
Speech Act ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Native English Speakers ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
Efl Learners ◽  
Coding Scheme ◽  
Classroom Language ◽  
Language Data ◽  
Teacher Students

Many Turkish EFL learners struggle with giving complaints and criticisms in the EFL classroom. Language instructors must find way to provide students with the linguistic and pragmatic elements of EFL to be able to appropriately complain as EFL users. The purpose of this study is to investigate the complaint speech used by Turkish EFL learners in two different situations: speaking to a commiserating teacher and speaking to a contradicting teacher. Four kinds of data sources were used to collect data in the classroom: twenty native English speakers’ role-plays, twenty-five Turkish native speakers’ role-plays, and forty students’ role-plays. The subjects’ complaint speech act sets were a coding scheme borrowed from a previously conducted study by Murphy and Neu (1996). The baseline and the inter-language data were compared to see to what extent they were similar or different, whether or not the Turkish EFL learners made positive and negative transfer, and if there were any features unique to the inter-language of the learners. The findings revealed that when speaking to the commiserating teacher, students made both positive and negative transfer in using ‘demand’. The students speaking to the contradicting teacher made positive transfer in the components ‘explanation of purpose’, ‘complaint’ and ‘justification’. The component ‘demand’ was subject to negative transfer.

scholarly journals Impoliteness in the Realization of Complaint Speech Acts: A Comparative Study of Iranian EFL Learners and Native English Speakers

2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 32 ◽  
Author(s):  
Atefeh Nikoobin ◽  
Mohsen Shahrokhi
Keyword(s):  
Social Distance ◽  
Speech Acts ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Native English Speakers ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
Placement Test ◽  
Efl Learners ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
Common Strategy ◽  
Native Speakers Of English

This study was conducted to investigate the impolite complaint strategies that are used by Iranian EFL learners and native speakers in relation to social distance. This study also aimed at determining if there were significant differences among the strategies used by each group and if there was a significant difference between Iranian native speakers of English. To this end, 40 Iranian EFL learners and 20 Americans who were native speakers of English participated in this study. To make sure about the homogeneity of Iranian participants the Oxford Placement Test (OPT) was conducted. A questionnaire containing 12 different situations was designed by the researchers and was given to the participants to express their complaints for each situation. The results revealed that there were significant differences among the strategies used by each group; the most common strategy that was used by both groups of participants was positive impoliteness and the least common one was bald-on-record. Although the most and least common strategies used by both groups were the same, Iranians had a stronger tendency for using sarcasm in low social distance situations while natives had a stronger tendency for using bald-on-record in high social distance contexts. This study has implications for EFL curriculum designing in Iran and can make Iranian EFL instructors familiar with the importance of impoliteness as an indispensable part of language.

scholarly journals Gender’s Politeness Strategies of Making Requests and Giving Compliments in Classroom Setting Sociopragmatic Perspeective

2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 765-777
Author(s):  
Rima Fitria Ningrum ◽  
Suharsono Suharsono ◽  
Suwono Suwono
Keyword(s):  
Speech Acts ◽  
Video Recording ◽  
Pragmatic Competence ◽  
Classroom Setting ◽  
Male And Female ◽  
Female Teachers ◽  
Preliminary Identification ◽  
Politeness Strategies ◽  
Difference Form ◽  
The Difference

This present study investigates the form of politeness strategies of making requests and giving compliments performed by different gender in a classroom setting, single teacher and single student, in sociopragmatic perspective. Particularly, this study aims to 1) describe the form of politeness strategies of making requests used by male and female teachers 2) describe the form of politeness strategies of giving compliments performed by male and female teachers, 3) describe the difference form of their politeness strategies of those 2 speech acts  and 4) evaluate the factors that may underlie the choice of their politeness strategies of those 2 speech acts in classroom setting. Therefore, the examples of the politeness strategies of 2 speech acts employed by distinct gender were provided in this study. To identify those politeness strategies, Brown and Levinson’s theory (1987) was used as a preliminary identification. In obtaining the data, video recording transcript and interview transcript are collected and then analyzed. The data were the utterances of 2 female and 2 male teachers in classroom setting. The findings show that female teachers tend to use negative politeness strategies more in making requests and both gender tend to use positive politeness strategies in giving compliments in the classroom setting. Their choices were underlied by their closeness to their participants which determined by the character of their participants, the time needed to get close to their participants, the interest of their participants and the topic discussed with their participants. This indicates that the teachers are aware of their pragmatic competence, yet, to create friendlier atmosphere both gender need to advance their ability in using other politeness strategies.

scholarly journals POLITENESS STRATEGY PERFORMED IN SATU JAM LEBIH DEKAT TALK SHOW ON TV ONE: A PRAGMATIC APPROACH

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 18
Author(s):  
Nur Aini Syah
Keyword(s):  
Data Analysis ◽  
Speech Acts ◽  
Qualitative Method ◽  
Pragmatic Competence ◽  
Pragmatic Approach ◽  
Talk Show ◽  
Analysis Technique ◽  
Politeness Strategies ◽  
Data Source ◽  
Extract Information

Talk show program on TV One is a program that uses language as a means of communication. To create the success of cummunication, it needs a strategy. This study aims to find out the politeness srategies used in Satu Jam Lebih Dekat talk show on TV One. The method used in this article is descriptive qualitative method. The data source of this research is oral data source, which is focused on the speeches between the presenter, interviewees, and mystery guest with the sources from a number of ministers in our country by downloading on the site www.youtube.com. For data analysis technique, the researcher used the contextual method with the pragmatic competence-in-dividing. And for the theory, the researcher focuses on politeness strategies by Brown Levinson's theory (1987: 94).The results indicate that there are 16 types of politeness strategies of Satu Jam Lebih Dekat program namely Bald on record, Positive Politeness-attend to hearer, Positive Politeness-intensify interest, Positive Politeness-use group identify marker, Positive Politeness-seek agreement, Positive Politeness-avoid disagreement, Positive Politeness-assert speaker’s knowledge, Positive Politeness-include both speaker and hearer in activity, Positive Politeness-give or ask reasons, Positive Politeness-give gifts, Negative Politeness-be conventionally indirect, Negative Politeness-question, hedge, Negative Politeness-give deference, Negative Politeness-impersonalize speaker and hearer, Off record-give hints, and Off record-give association clues. The most dominant use of politeness strategy is positive politeness-asking an agreement with the 42 percentage. The politeness strategies of this speech acts support the effectiveness of talk show and will minimize threats, protect, and extract information from interviewees without any compulsion due to the use of this politeness strategy.

scholarly journals Building Language Skills and Social Networks in an Advanced Conversation Club: English Practice in Lecce

2021 ◽  
pp. 70-78
Author(s):  
Anne Schiller
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
First Language ◽  
Native English Speakers ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
Learning Space ◽  
Multicultural Community ◽  
Cultural Boundaries ◽  
Italian Regions ◽  
High Level

Opportunities for intermediate and advanced self-access language learners to increase English proficiency are fewer in some Italian regions than others. In Lecce, Puglia, a province in the country’s farthest southern reaches, the informal conversation club “English Practice in Lecce” (EPiL) offers one solution. Established nearly a decade ago, EPiL is a lively social learning space that continues to attract Italians, non-Italian non-native English speakers, and first language English speakers to its weekly gatherings. Membership includes a cross-generational mix of long-term stalwarts and new participants. This article presents preliminary findings from a study of EPiL meetings conducted across four field seasons. It discusses EPiL’s roots, describes typical meetings and practices, and draws from interviews and questionnaire results to suggest reasons for its success. The article proposes that EPiL serves two functions especially well, and that both contribute to its longevity. First, EPiL is a mechanism for high level self-access learners to better their English through discussions of self-chosen wide-ranging topics that sustain their interest. Second, EPiL fosters conditions for multicultural community building to take place while expanding participants’ social networks across linguistic and cultural boundaries.

scholarly journals Hedging in spoken conversations by Norwegian learners of English

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 27-48
Author(s):  
Stine Hulleberg Johansen
Keyword(s):  
Language Learners ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Native English Speakers ◽  
Pragmatic Competence ◽  
Advanced Learners ◽  
Grammatical Competence ◽  
Spoken English ◽  
Hedging Strategies ◽  
High Level ◽  
Learner Language

Hedging is an important aspect of pragmatic competence, but it is also a complex phenomenon that is difficult to master. This has resulted in underuse of hedging strategies by language learners, and many learners limit their hedging repertoire to a few strategies. This study compares the use of 10 hedging expressions commonly used in informal spoken English, a bit, I mean, I think, just, kind of/kinda, like, might, probably, thing(s), and you know, in data from LINDSEI-no, a corpus of Norwegian advanced learners, and LOCNEC, a comparable corpus of native English speakers. Norwegian learners typically show a high level of grammatical competence, but research on their pragmatic competence is limited. This study adds to the empirical research on Norwegian advanced learners by comparing the use of these expressions in native and learner language. The results indicate that as a group, Norwegian learners underuse hedging strategies, but when each expression and individual variation are considered, the picture is more nuanced. In fact, several of the Norwegian learners’ hedging practices partially overlap with several of the native speakers’ practices concerning hedging frequency and types of hedging strategies used.

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