Request Strategy Development in Iranian Study Abroaders

Hassan Rasouli Khorshidi, Rangasawmy Subbakrishna

Abstract


This longitudinal study empirically investigated the development of request strategies in Iranian study abroaders. More specifically, this study aimed at exploring if length of stay in L2 context impacts learners’ number and type of strategies. To this end, 72 students who registered in a six month study abroad program and 60 native speakers from U.S. Britain, Australia, and Canada agreed to participate in the present study. The learners in this investigation were tested at three phases. In the first phase, the study abroad (SA) group was given a Discourse Completion Task (DCT) at the beginning of the program as a pre-test. Three months later the same test was administered to the learners as post-test 1 and subsequently at the end of the program once again the test was given to the learners as post-test 2 in order to measure their achievement after three and six months sojourn. The native speakers were also asked to fill the DCT in order to compare the learners’ responses to the native speakers’. Finally, through comparing the learners’ performances in pre-test and post-tests with each other and with the native speakers’, it was found out that first, majority of learners and native speakers used conventionally indirect strategies in their request utterances, second, the number of strategies used by the students steadily increased over time from pre-test to the first and second post-test and third, the type of request strategies used by learners changed to be native like at the end of their sojourn.

 


Keywords


interlanguage pragmatics, pragmatic competence, request strategies, speech acts, study abroad

Full Text:

PDF

References


Achiba, M. (2003). Learning to request in a second language. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.

Blum-Kulka, S. (1989). Playing it safe: The role of conventionality in indirectness. In S. Blum-Kulka, J.

House & G. Kasper (Eds.), Cross-cultural pragmatics: Requests and apologies (pp. 37–70). Norwood: Ablex Publishing.

Blum-Kulka, S., House, J., & Kasper, G. (1989a). Investigating cross-cultural pragmatics: An introductory overview. In S. Blum-Kulka, J. House & G. Kasper (Eds.), Cross-cultural pragmatics: Requests and apologies (pp. 1–36). Norwood: Ablex Publishing Corporation.

Blum-Kulka, S., House, J., & Kasper, G. (Eds.). (1989b). Cross-cultural pragmatics: Requests and Apologies. Norwood, NJ: Ablex

Bublitz, W. (2001). Englische Pragmatik: Eine Einführung [English pragmatics: An introduction]. Berlin: Erich Schmidt Verlag.

Ellis, R. (1992). Learning to communicate in the classroom: A study of two language learners’ requests. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 14(1), 1–23. Ellis, R. (1994). The study of second language acquisition. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Golato, A., Golato, P. (2013). Speech Acts. In A. C. Chapelle (Ed.). The encyclopedia of applied linguistics. (Vol, 9) London, England: Willey-Blackwell.

Hill, T. (1997). The development of pragmatic competence in an EFL context (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Temple University, Tokyo.

House, J., & Kasper, G. (1987). Interlanguage pragmatics: Requesting in a foreign language. In W. Lörscher & R. Schulze (Eds.), Perspectives on language in performance (Vol. 2, pp. 1250 –1288). Tübingen: Narr.

Kasanga, L. A. (1998). Requests in English by second language users. ITL, Review of Applied Linguistics, 119–120, 123 –153.

Labov, W., & Fanshel, D. (1977). Therapeutic discourse: Psychotherapy as conversation (pp. 84-85). New York: Academic Press.

le Pair, R. (1996). Spanish request strategies: A cross-cultural analysis from an intercultural perspective. Language Sciences, 18(3 –4), 651– 670.

Otcu, B., & Zeyrek, D. (2008). Development of requests: A study on Turkish learners of English. In M. Puetz & J. Neff van Aertselaer (Eds.), Developing contrastive pragmatics: Interlanguage and crosscultural perspectives (pp. 265 –300). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

Trosborg, A. (1995). Interlanguage pragmatics. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

Van Mulken, M. (1996). Politeness markers in French and Dutch requests. Language Sciences, 18(3 –4), 689–702.

Warga, M. (2004). Pragmatische Entwicklung in der Fremdsprache. Der Sprechakt ‘Aufforderung’ im Französischen [Pragmatic development in the foreign language. The speech act ‘request’ in French.] Tübingen: Gunter Narr Verlag.

Weizman, E. (1989). Requestive hints. In S. Blum-Kulka, J. House & G. Kasper (Eds.), Cross-Cultural pragmatics: Requests and apologies (pp. 71–95). Norwood: Ablex.

Weizman, E. (1993). Interlanguage requestive hints. In G. Kasper & S. Blum- Kulka (Eds.), Interlanguage pragmatics (pp. 123 –137). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Woodfield, H. (2008). Interlanguage requests: A contrastive study. In M. Puetz & J. Neff van Aertselaer (Eds.), Developing contrastive pragmatics: Interlanguage and cross-cultural perspectives (pp. 231–264). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.




DOI: https://doi.org/10.7575/aiac.ijalel.v.2n.6p.129

Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.


Bookmark and Share


Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

2012-2023 (CC-BY) Australian International Academic Centre PTY.LTD. 

International Journal of Applied Linguistics and English Literature

To make sure that you can receive messages from us, please add the journal emails into your e-mail 'safe list'. If you do not receive e-mail in your 'inbox', check your 'bulk mail' or 'junk mail' folders.