Learners ’ Use of Politeness Strategies

Journal of Modern Research in English Language Studies, 2017

Human beings are defined as an embodiment of social and cultural understanding which can develop by engaging in various social contexts. Cultural intelligence and cultural identity are, thus, accounted noteworthy in learning particular aspects of language which are culture-specific. The present study intended to investigate the interaction effect of cultural intelligence and cultural identity on Iranian EFL learners' use of politeness strategies. To that end, the participants were divided into two groups of high and low cultural intelligence and cultural identity. Moreover, regardless of their membership in the two groups, the participants were included in the assessment of the relationship between cultural intelligence and politeness strategies. Fifty-two intermediate language learners whose proficiency level was determined through Oxford Quick Proficiency Test were required to fill out the questionnaires of Cultural Intelligence, L1 Cultural identity and Discourse Completion Tasks. Two-way ANOVA and Pearson correlation were used to analyze the research questions. The results of the two-way ANOVA showed no interaction effect of cultural intelligence and cultural identity levels on the use of politeness strategies. Moreover, the analysis of the relationship between the four factors of cultural intelligence and the use of politeness strategies yielded no significant relationship. The findings can inform imminent obliterating of L1 cultural identity among EFL learners. Broaching the subjects such as globalization, cultural homogeneity and English linguicism, the study calls for the need for further inquiries to revise already established findings such as the role of home culture, L1 and attitudes towards target culture in EFL domain.

Interlanguage pragmatics concerns the inspection of interactions among people in society while they are aware of the effects that interaction imposes on them regarding culture, social values and individuals' peculiar interpretations. Of high value in social interaction, politeness is an essential constituent of interlanguage pragmatics. If considered as a skill required to cope with social environmental demands, Emotional Intelligence (EI) may play a part in modifying the interlanguage pragmatics and hence individuals' politeness in response to social interaction. This study investigates how emotional intelligence of L1-Persian EFL learners relates to politeness strategies utilized in requests. To this end, 150 male and female undergraduate, graduate, and postgraduate students majored in Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) were randomly selected. Instruments of the study included Emotional Intelligence Appraisal Test, Multiple-choice Discourse Completion Task (MDCT), and a politeness questionnaire based on Brown and Levinson's theory of politeness. The results of correlational and regression analyses indicated that EI cannot predict politeness , whereas educational level and pragmatic competence can predict the EFL learners' politeness appreciated in requests in different scenarios. Of interest, the higher the level of education, the more pragmatic ability and politeness thereof.

Teaching English as a Second or Foreign Language--TESL-EJ

The ability to adapt and thrive in an unfamiliar cultural context is incrementally becoming vital. Therefore, universities aim to create an environment to enhance students’ cultural intelligence (CQ). This study aimed to detect English as a foreign language (EFL) learners’ CQ in a state university in Turkey and discern their strengths and weaknesses in intercultural communication. The study employed the CQ scale to detect learners’ CQ, and open-ended questions to unearth strengths and weaknesses. SPSS was run for quantitative analysis, whereas MAXQDA was tapped for qualitative data analysis. The results indicated high values for students’ metacognitive, motivational, and behavioural CQ, albeit learners’ cognitive CQ was moderate. There was no significant difference between the CQ of male and female students. Moreover, the overseas experience did not have a significant influence on their CQ. However, there was a significant difference in the cognitive CQ of students at different prof...

2017

This study investigated the relationship between cultural intelligence and the use of expressions of gratitude among Iranian upper intermediate EFL learners. 50 upper intermediate learners were selected through purposive sampling, with their proficiency level being controlled. A discourse completion test (DCT) for the expressions of gratitude and a cultural intelligence scale were given to the participants of the study. Learners' DCT responses and cultural intelligence were rated on a five-point Likert scale and then analyzed. Statistical test including Pearson Correlation was used to test the hypothesis. The results of the analysis revealed that there was no significant relationship between cultural intelligence and the use of expressions of gratitude. Based on the results, it can be concluded that cultural intelligence, in general, and its level, in particular, may not have any influence on Iranian upper intermediate EFL Learners' use of expressions of gratitude, implying ...

English Language Teaching, 2015

English is a foreign language that must be taught at school, particularly in secondary school. Based on a preliminary observation of several secondary schools in Banjarmasin, it appears that the English taught focuses most on concepts or language formulas. Most of the students who interact in English during the learning process do not use expressions that contain linguistic politeness, as is required. The learning of linguistic politeness is not emphasized, while it is an effort to develop students' intelligent characters. This study primarily focuses on the investigation of teachers' linguistic politeness while interacting with the students, students' linguistic politeness, while interacting with the teachers, the students' linguistic politeness while interacting with their peers during the learning process in the classroom, how the teacher forms the students' linguistic politeness in the classroom, and how the linguistic politeness can develop students' intelligent characters. This study is one of classroom action research. Two cycles, in which each cycle consists of two meetings, are employed. After linguistic politeness is taught in four meetings through students' wheel and role play, it can be stated that during the English learning process in the classroom, the students have the opportunity to speak and practice linguistic politeness in English while interacting with their teachers and or other students. The forming of linguistic politeness in English can develop the students' intelligent characters from the beginning to the end of the learning activities. The students also become accustomed to employing polite vocabulary or expression in English that can improve their spiritual and emotional development, the aim of which is to lead to intelligence, primarily emotional intelligence.

Research in Applied Linguistics, 2017

The present study examined the different levels of (im)politeness strategies in expressing request, apology, and refusal speech acts across intermediate and advanced Iranian EFL learners to identify their attitudinal ratings of their produced structures in terms of pragmatic success and (im)politeness mannerism. A discourse completion test including 2 Likert scales on attitudinal appropriateness and an(im)politeness mannerism test for every item was distributed among 110 participants (10 native and 100 nonnative English speakers), engaging them in addressing the speech acts to interlocutors of lower, equal, and higher social statuses with intimate or strange distance. Results indicated that despite having a high command of English, the learners showed deficiencies in the use of (im)politenessstrategies that may call for the inclusion of such strategies in EFL instruction programs.

2018

The current study focuses on authentic exposure, specifically whether multi-authentic tasks affect the nature of L2 learners’ cultural intelligence and interpersonal communication in the English as a foreign language (EFL) context of Iran. To this end, sixty learners at an English language institute were assigned to control and experimental groups to carry out the M-A tasks. M-A was manipulated by assigning visual, aural, and printed tasks. Descriptive and inferential analyses of data, a comparison of the control and experimental groups over a four-month period, revealed that the implementation of authentic materials was successful in raising the cultural intelligence and interpersonal communication of EFL learners in the post-test. A subsequent ANOVA analysis showed that among M-A materials, visual was the most and aural was the least effective one increasing EFL learners’ cultural intelligence. Moreover, the printed material was the most effective one to make a moderate change in ...

This study explored whether the language institutes where members of a specific community learn English brings about any changes in the structure as well as the relationships found between the factors underlying the Cultural Intelligence Scale (CQS) developed by Ang et al. (2007). To this end, the Persian CQS translated and validated by Khodadady and Ghahari (2011) was administered to 381 Iranians who learned English at advanced levels in several private and semi-private language institutes in Mashhad, Iran. The application of Principal Axis Factoring to the data and rotating the extracted factors via Varimax with Kaiser Normalization showed that the same four factors underlying Iranian university students’ cultural intelligence (CQ), underlie English learners’ CQ as well, i.e., Cognitive, Motivational, Behavioral and Metacognitive. One of the items comprising the Metacognitive dimension of the latter group did not, however, load acceptably on the factor while three items comprising the Behavioral factor cross loaded on the Cognitive factor revealing a lower significant relationship between the two. Unlike a significant and positive relationship found between the Cognitive and Motivational dimensions of university students’ CQ, learning English results in establishing a negative relationship between the two dimensions. The results are discussed and suggestions are made for future research.

Journal of Modern Research in English Language Studies, 2017

In spite of the crucial function of the politeness markers in the appropriate communication of the language learners, teachability of these markers has not received due attention in the pragmatic studies. Drawing upon House and Kasper's (1981) influential taxonomy of politeness markers, the present study addressed teachability as well as the underlying process or microgenetic development of these markers in an EFL context. A population of 56 undergraduate participants underwent instruction through consciousness-raising (C-R) tasks for nine sessions. The data were obtained through repeated measurements during the first, third, fifth, seventh, and ninth sessions. The findings highlighted the effectiveness of the politeness markers instruction and suggested that the learners' heavy reliance on some structures like "please" and consultative devices such as "willingness" and "ability" structures at early stages of data collection was mostly due to their unawareness of other politeness structures. This reliance decreased over time and was replaced by "play-downs" especially "progressive aspect + past tense" structure in the course of the instruction. Likewise, a wider range of simple politeness markers such as hedges, understaters, and downtoners which were absent in the learners' early data increased steadily in their subsequent data. The findings highlight the acquisitional difficulty of pragmatic features and provide researchers, practitioners as well as language learners with information concerning the acquisitional sequence and order of pragmatic features in an EFL instructional context.

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