A Pragmatic Study of Requestive Speech Act by Iranian EFL Learners and Canadian Native Speakers in Hotels

Document Type : Research Paper

Author

Shahrekord University

Abstract

This study was an attempt to shed light on the use of requestive speech act by Iranian nonnative speakers (NNSs) of English and Canadian native speakers (NSs) of English to find out the (possible) similarities and/or differences between the request realizations, and to investigate the influence of the situational variables of power, distance, context familiarity, and L1’s (possible) influence. Participants were 4 different groups: Canadian NSs of English, Persian NNSs, Iranian hotel staff, and Iranian English learners. Data were obtained by a discourse completion test (DCT) including 12 situations and was translated into Persian to elicit the data from the Persian NNSs. Then, data were analyzed and codified based on the cross-cultural speech act realization pattern (CCSARP; Blum-Kulka & Olshtain, 1984). Findings indicated that the Persian culture is more direct and positive-politeness oriented, whereas the Canadian culture tends to be indirect and negative-politeness oriented. The Iranians revealed more variations in their request performance and were more sensitive to power differences. The Canadians were fixed and used conventionally indirect strategies in most situations.

Keywords

References

Afghari, A. (2007). A socio-pragmatic study of apology speech act realization patterns in Persian. Speech Communication, 49(3), 177-185.
Al-Eryani, A. A. (2007). Refusal strategies by Yemeni EFL learners. Asian EFL Journal, 9(2), 19-34.
Aliakbari, M., & Toni, A. (2008). The realization of address terms in modern Persian in Iran: A sociolinguistic study. Linguistic Online, 35(3), 120-127.
Austin, J. (1962). How to do things with words. In A. Jaworski & N. Coupland (Eds.). The discourse reader (pp. 63-75). NY: Routledge.
Beeman, W. (1986). Language, status, and power in Iran. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Blum-Kulka, Sh. (1997). Discourse and pragmatics. In T. A. V. Dijk (Ed.). Discourse as social interaction (pp. 38-63). London: Sage Publications.
Blum-Kulka, Sh.., House, J., & Kasper, G. (1989). The CCSARP coding manual. In S. Blum-Kulka, J. House, & G. Kasper (Eds.). Cross-cultural pragmatics: Requests and apologies (pp. 273-294).Norwood, New Jersey: Ablex Publishing Co.
Blum-Kulka, Sh., & Olshtain, E. (1984). Requests and apologies: A cross-cultural study of speech act realization patterns (CCSARP). Applied Linguistics, 5, 196-213.
Brown, P., & Levinson, S. C. (1987). Politeness: Some universals in language usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Cedar, P. (2006). Thai and American responses to compliments in English. The Linguistics Journal, 1(2), 6-28.
Celce-Murcia, M. (2001). Teaching English as a second or foreign language. Boston: Heinle and Heinle Publishers.
Crystal, D. (1991). A dictionary of linguistics and phonetics (3rd ed.). Oxford: Blackwell.
Ellis, R. (1994). The study of second language acquisition. Oxford:Oxford University Press.
Eslami-Rasekh, Z. (1993). A cross-cultural comparison of requestive speech act realization patterns in   Persian   and American English. Pragmatic and Language Learning, 4,85-103.
Fukushima, S. (2000). Request and culture: Politeness in British and Japanese. NY: Peter Lang Publications.
Gass, S., & Houck, N. (1999). Inter-language refusals: A cross-cultural study of Japanese-English. NY: Mouton de Gruyter.
Hofstede, G. (2001). Culture’s consequences: International differences in work-related values. California: Sage Publication LTD.
Hudson, T., Detmer, E., & Brown, J. D. (1995). Developing prototypic measures of cross-cultural pragmatics. Honolulu: University of Hawaii at Manoa, Second Language Teaching and Curriculum Center.
Jalilifar, A. (2009). Request strategies: Cross-sectional study of Iranian EFL learners and Australian native speakers. English Language Teaching, 2(1), 46-61.
Kasper, G. (1992). Pragmatic transfer. Second Language Research, 8(3), 203-231.
Leech, G. (1983). Principles of pragmatics. London: Longman.
Nureddeen, F. A. (2008). Cross-cultural pragmatics: Apology strategies in Sudanese Arabic. Journal of Pragmatics, 40, 279-306.
Sahragard, R. (2003). A cultural scripts analysis of a politeness features in Persian. Paper presented at the 8th Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics, Japan.
Salmani-Nodoushan, M. A., & Allami, H. (2011). Supportive discourse moves in Persian requests. International Journal of Language Studies, 5(2), 205-234.
Schaure, G. A. (2009). Inter-language pragmatic development. London: Continuum International Publishing Group.
Searle, J. (1969). Speech acts: An assay in the philosophy of language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Searle, J. (1979). Expression and meaning.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Soler, E. A. (2005). Does instruction work for learning pragmatics in the EFL context? System, 33(3), 417- 435.
Tabatabaee, A. (2008). The cross-sectional study of Iranian EFL learners’ request strategies. Unpublished master’s thesis, Islamic Azad University, Ahvaz Branch, Iran.
Takahashi, S. (1996). Pragmatic transferability. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 18, 169-223.
Thomas, J. (1983). Cross-cultural pragmatic failure. Applied Linguistics, 4(2), 91-109.
Trosborg, A. (1995). Inter-language pragmatics: Requests, complaints, and apologies. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Yazdani, M. (1998). A cross-cultural study on the pragmatic transferability of speech acts and politeness norms. Iranian Journal of Applied Linguistic, 3, 98-109.
Yule, G. (1996). Pragmatics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Files

History

  • Receive Date: 29 November 2013
  • Revise Date: 20 April 2014
  • Accept Date: 25 May 2014

Share

How to cite

Statistics