Open Access Article Cultural Studies

Politeness Strategies in Remindings A Cross-cultural Study of Iranian EFL learners and Americans

Maryam Farnia (1) , Elham Yazdani (2)
1. Payame Noor University, Iran
2. Islamic Azad University, Khorasgan branch, Iran
https://doi.org/10.36923/jicc.v18i1.752

Article Sidebar

Issue
Vol. 18 No. 1 (2018)
Submitted
2016 March 12
Published
2018 March 10
Keywords:
    Iranian EFL learners, pragmatic competence, politeness, speech act of reminding
Ask AI (Dimensions)
Download PDF

Abstract

This cross-cultural study examines the speech act of reminding by Iranian English learners and American English native speakers. The primary objective is to study how Iranian EFL learners perform much understudied speech act of reminding in English. To this end, the participants are selected from Iranian learners of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) and American English native speakers through an open-ended questionnaire in the form of a Discourse Completion Task (DCT).The collected data are then analyzed based on a framework adopted from Peterson’s (2012) study of speech act of reminding. The findings show that whereas English native speakers utilize more indirect strategies in reminding their interlocutors to cope with the required activity, EFL learners tend to use direct strategies more frequently.

Full text article

Generated from XML file

References

Alcón, E. (2001). Developing pragmatic competence in the academic setting: The case of suggestions in NS/NNS advising sessions. In S. Posteguillo, I. Fortanet, and J. C. Palmer (Eds.), Methodology and new technologies in language for specific purposes, 79-86. Castelló: Servei de Publicacions de la UniversitatJaume I. Google Scholar | WorldCat

Allami, H.,andNaeimi, A. (2010). A cross-linguistic study of refusals: An analysis of pragmatic competence development in Iranian EFL learners. Journal of Pragmatics, 43(1), 385-406. Google Scholar | WorldCat

Austin, J. L. (1962). How to Do Things with Words, Clarendon, Oxford. Google Scholar | WorldCat

Barron, A. (2003). Acquisition in interlanguage pragmatics: learning how to do things with words in a sudy abroad context. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Google Scholar | WorldCat

Beeman, W. O. (1988). Affectivity in Persian language use.Culture, Medicine andPsychiatry, 12, 9-30. Google Scholar | WorldCat

Blum-Kulka, S. (1987). Indirectness and Politeness in requests: Same or different? Journal of Pragmatics, 11, 131-146. Google Scholar | WorldCat

Blum-Kulka, S., House, J., and Kasper, G. (1989). (Eds.). Cross-cultural pragmatics: Requests and apologies. Norwood, NJ: Ablex. Google Scholar | WorldCat

Brown, P. (2001). Politeness and language. In N. J. Smelser, and P. B. Baltes (Eds.), International encyclopedia of the social and behavioral sciences (Vol. 17, 11620-11624). Amsterdam: Elsevier. Google Scholar | WorldCat

Brown, P., and Levinson, S. C. (1978). Universals in language usage: Politeness phenomena.in E. N. Goody, (Ed.). Questions and politeness, 56-310, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar | WorldCat

Brown, P. and Levinson, S. C. (1987).Politeness: Some Universal in Language Usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar | WorldCat

Brown, P. and Levinson, S. C. (1999).‘Politeness’ in N. Couplandand A. Jaworski, (eds.), the Discourse Reader,Routledge. Google Scholar | WorldCat

Crystal, David. 2003. A dictionary of linguistics and phonetics, 5th edn. Malden, MA: Blackwell. Google Scholar | WorldCat

Delen, B. (2010). Evaluation of four course books in terms of three speech acts: Requests, refusals and complaints. Procedia Social and Behavioral Sciences, 9, 692-697. Google Scholar | WorldCat

Ellis, R. (2008). The study of second language acquisition. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar | WorldCat

Eslami-rasekh, Z. (1993). A cross-cultural comparison of requestive speech act realization patterns in Persian and American English. In L. Boutonand Y. Kachru (Eds.), Pragmatics and Language Learning, Monograph Series, Volume 4, 75-90. Urbana: IL: Division of English as an International Language, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Google Scholar | WorldCat

Eslami-Rasekh, A., andMardani, M. (2010).Investigating the effects of teaching apology speech act, with a focus on intensifying strategies, on pragmatic development of EFL learners: The Iranian context.The International Journal of Language Society and Culture, 30, 95-103. Google Scholar | WorldCat

Farnia, M., Sohrabie, A. & Abdul Sattar, H. Q. (2014). A pragmatic analysis of speech act of suggestion among Iranian native speakers of Farsi. Journal of ELT and Applied linguistics, 2(2), 48-61. Google Scholar | WorldCat

Farnia, M. and Raja Rozina (2009). An interlanguage pragmatic study of expressions of gratitude by Iranian EFL learners: A pilot study. Malaysian Journal of ELT Research. 5, 108-140 Google Scholar | WorldCat

Farnia, M and Abdul Sattar, H. Q. (2015).A Cross-Cultural Study of Iranians’ and Malays’ Expressions of Gratitude. Journal of Intercultural Commutation. 37, 1-20. Google Scholar | WorldCat

Grainger, K. and Mills, S. (2016). Introduction: Language, culture, (im)politeness and (in)directness. In Grainger, K. and Mills, S. (Eds). Directness and Indirectnessacross Cultures, pp1-33, Palgrave Macmillan: UK. Google Scholar | WorldCat

Grainger, K., Kerkham, Z., Mansor, F. and Mills, S. (2015) ‘Offering and Hospitality in Arabic and English’, Journal of Politeness Research, 11 (1), 41–70. Google Scholar | WorldCat

Guerra, A. F., and Martinez-Flor, A. (2006). Is teaching how to suggest a good suggestion? An empirical study based on EFL learners' accuracy and appropriateness when making suggestions. PortaLinguarum, 5, 91-108. Google Scholar | WorldCat

Gumperz, J. (1990). Interview with John Gumperz.In J. Twitchin 1990.Crosstalk: An introduction to cross- cultural communication. London: BBC. 46-55. Google Scholar | WorldCat

Hashemian, M. (2014).A Pragmatic Study of Requestive Speech Act by Iranian EFL Learners and Canadian Native Speakers in Hotels.Journal of Teaching Language Skills (JTLS). 6 (2), 1-25. Google Scholar | WorldCat

Ishihara, N. (2010). Instructional Pragmatics: Bridging teaching, research and teacher education. Language and Linguistic Compass, 4(10), 938-953. Doi: 10.1111/j.1749-818x.2010.00242.x Google Scholar | Crossref | WorldCat

Jalilifar, A. (2009). Request strategies: Cross- sectional study of Iranian EFL learners and Australian native speakers. English Language Teaching, 2(1), 46-61. Google Scholar | WorldCat

Jiang, X. (2006). Suggestions: What should ESL students know? Elsevier, 34(1), 36-54. Google Scholar | WorldCat

Kadar, D. and Mills, S. (eds.) (2011). Politeness in East Asia, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar | WorldCat

Kasper, G. (1992). Pragmatic transfer.Second Language Research, 8,203-231. Google Scholar | WorldCat

Kasper, G. (2000) Data collection in pragmatics research.In H. Spencer-Oatey (ed.), Culturally Speaking. London: Continuum, pp. 316-341. Google Scholar | WorldCat

Kasper, G., & Roever, C. (2005). Pragmatics in second language learning. In E. Hinkel (Ed.), Handbook of research in second language teaching and learning (pp. 317-334). Mahwah, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Google Scholar | WorldCat

Kerkam, Z. (forthcoming) Indirectness and Directness in English and Arabic, PhD thesis, Sheffield: Sheffield Hallam University. Google Scholar | WorldCat

Kim, D., and Hall, J. K. (2002).The role of an interactive book reading program in the development of second language pragmatic competence. Modern Language Journal, 86, 332-348. Google Scholar | WorldCat

Koutlaki, S. A. (2002). Offers and expressions of thanks as face enhancing acts: tæ’arof in Persian. Journal of pragmatics, 34, 1733-1756. Google Scholar | WorldCat

Kumar, R. (2014). Politeness in Hindi online texts: Pragmatics and computational aspect.Unpublished PhD thesis.School of language, literature and culture studies.Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. Google Scholar | WorldCat

Le Pair, R. (1996). Spanish request strategies: A cross-cultural analysis from an intercultural perspective. Language Sciences, 18(3-4), 651-670. Google Scholar | WorldCat

Li, E. S. H. (2010). Making suggestions: A contrastive study of young Hong Kong and Australian students Journal of Pragmatics, 42,598-616. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2009.07.014. Google Scholar | Crossref | WorldCat

Linde, A. (2009). How polite can you get?: A comparative analysis of interlanguage pragmatic knowledge in Spanish and Moroccan EFL university students. PortaLinguarum, 12, 133-147. Google Scholar | WorldCat

LoCastro, V. (2003).An introduction to pragmatics: social action for language teachers. Ann Arbor, MI: The University ofMichigan Press. Google Scholar | WorldCat

Marcjanik, M. (1997). Polska Grzecznos´c´ Je˛zykowa. Kielce: WSP. Google Scholar | WorldCat

Márquez Reiter, R. (2000). Linguistic Politeness in Britain and Uruguay: A Contrastive Study of Requests and Apologies. Amsterdam, Netherlands: Benjamins. Google Scholar | WorldCat

Matínez-Flor, A. (2004). The effect of insturction on the development of pragmtic competence in the English as a Foreign Language context: a Study based on Suggestions. Unpublished PhD Disseration.UniversitatJaume I, Department d'estudisAnglesos. Google Scholar | WorldCat

Matsumoto, Y (1989) Politeness as Conversational Universals: Observations from Japanese’, Multilingua, 8 (2–3), 207–21. Google Scholar | WorldCat

Mey, J. L. (1993). Pragmatics: an Introduction. Oxford: Blackwell Google Scholar | WorldCat

Mir, M. (1993). Direct requests can also be polite. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the International Conference on Pragmatics and Language Learning (Champaign, IL, April 1-3). Google Scholar | WorldCat

Mirzaei, A., Roohani, A. andEsmaeili, M. A. (2012).Exploring pragmalinguisticandsociopragmatic variability in speech act production of L2 learners and native speakers.The Journal of Teaching Language Skills (JTLS). 4(3), 79-102. Google Scholar | WorldCat

Mitchell, R., Myles, F., & Marsden, E. (2013).Second lan­guage learning theories. New York: Routledge. Google Scholar | WorldCat

Murray, N. (2010). Pragmatics, awareness raising, and the cooperative principle. English Language Teaching Journal, 64(3): 293–301. Google Scholar | WorldCat

Nelson, G. L., Carson, J., Al Batal, M., & El Bakary, W. (2002). Cross-Cultural Pragmatics: Strategy Use in Egyptian Arabic and American English Refusals. Applied Linguistics, 23(2), 163-189.Doi: 10.1093/applin/23.2.163 Google Scholar | Crossref | WorldCat

Ogiermann, E. (2009a) On Apologising in Negative and Positive Politeness Cultures. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company. Google Scholar | WorldCat

Ogiermann, E. (2009b). Politeness and in-directness across cultures: A comparison of English, German, Polish and Russian requests. Journal of Politeness Research 5, 189-216. DOI 10.1515/JPLR.2009.011 Google Scholar | Crossref | WorldCat

Petersen, A. L. H. (2012). ‘Ehm…excuse me, but...have you forgotten to remember?’ – Politeness Strategies in Remindings: A Study of the Pragmatic Competence of Danish Advanced Learners of English. The University of Oslo. Google Scholar | WorldCat

Pishghadam, R., and Sharafadini, M. (2011). A Contrastive Study into the Realization of Suggestion Speech Act: Persian vs. English. Canadian Social Science, 7(4), 230-239. Google Scholar | WorldCat

Rakowicz, A. (2009). Ambigous invitations: The intrelanguage pragmatics of Polish English language learners. Unpublished doctoral thesis. Steinhardt school of culture, education, and humand development, New York University. Google Scholar | WorldCat

Rose, K.R. and Kasper, G. (2001), Pragmatics in Language Teaching. New York: CambridgeUniversity Press. Google Scholar | WorldCat

Sahragard, R. andJavanmardi, F. (2011).English speech act realization of refusals among Iranian EFL learners.Cross-cultural Communication. 7(2), 181-198. Google Scholar | WorldCat

Searle, J. R. (1969). Speech Acts.An Essay in the Philosophy of Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar | WorldCat

Searle, J. R. (1979). Expression and meaning, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Google Scholar | WorldCat

Sharifian, F. (2008). Cultural schemas in L1 and L2 compliment responses: A study of Persian-speaking learners of English. Journal of Politeness Research. Language, Behaviour, Culture, 4 (1), 55-80. Google Scholar | WorldCat

Shively, R.L. (2008). Politeness and social interaction in study abroad: Service encounters in L2 Spanish. PhD dissertation, The faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Minnesota. Google Scholar | WorldCat

Siegel, J. (2015). Using Speech Act Sets to Inform Study Abroad Instruction. The Language Teacher Online, 39 (6), 3-9. Google Scholar | WorldCat

Tabatabaee, S. and Farnia, M. (2015). Learner’s English Proficiency and their Pragmatic Competence of Refusal Speech Acts. Beyond Words. 3(1), 53-77 Google Scholar | WorldCat

Tawalbeh, A. & Al-Oqaily, E. (2012). In-directness and Politeness in American English and Saudi Arabic Requests: A Cross-Cultural Comparison. Asian Social Science, 8(10), 85-98. Google Scholar | WorldCat

Tanaka, K. (1997). Developing pragmatic competence: A learners-as-researchers approach. TESOL Journal, 6(3), 14-18. Google Scholar | WorldCat

Trosborg, A. (1995). Interlanguage pragmatics: requests, complaints and apologies.Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Google Scholar | WorldCat

Uso-Juan, E. (2007). The presentation and practice of the communicative act of requesting in textbooks: Focusing on modifiers. In Soler, E. A. and Jorda,M. P. S. (Eds.) Intercultural language use and language learning. Netherlands: Springer. Google Scholar | WorldCat

Wierzbicka, A. (1991). Cross-cultural pragmatics. The semantics of human interaction. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Google Scholar | WorldCat

Yu, M. (2011). Learning how to read situations and know what is the right thing to say or do in an L2: A study of socio-cultural competence and language transfer. Journal of Pragmatics, 43, 1127-1147. Google Scholar | WorldCat

Yuan, X. (2012). Politeness and Audience Response in Chinese-English Subtitling. Oxford: Peterlang. Google Scholar | WorldCat

Yule, G.(1996). Pragmatics. Oxford introductions to language study. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar | WorldCat

Zarei, G.R. and Mohammadi, M. (2012). E-politeness in Iranian English Electronic requests to the Faculty. RALS, 3(1), 3-24. Google Scholar | WorldCat

Authors

Maryam Farnia
mfarnia@nj.isfpnu.ac.ir (Primary Contact)
Elham Yazdani
Author Biographies

Maryam Farnia

Maryam Farniais assistant professor of Applied Linguistics at the department of Foreign Languages and Linguistics, Payame Noor Univerasity, Najafabad, Iran. Her areas of research are intercultural pragmatics, interlanguage pragmatics, discourse analysis and im/politness.

Elham Yazdani

Elham Yazdani, is MA student of English Language Teaching at the department of Foreign languages at Khorasgan (Isfahan) Branch, Islamic Azad University, Isfahan, Iran. Her areas of interest are speech acts and language teaching.

Farnia, M., & Yazdani, E. (2018). Politeness Strategies in Remindings A Cross-cultural Study of Iranian EFL learners and Americans. Journal of Intercultural Communication, 18(1), 1-17. https://doi.org/10.36923/jicc.v18i1.752
Download Citation
Endnote/Zotero/Mendeley (RIS) BibTeX

Copyright (c) 2018 Maryam Farnia, Elham Yazdani

Creative Commons License

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

This journal provides immediate and free open access to all its content and is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0). This means readers are permitted to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of articles, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without asking prior permission from the publisher or the author, as long as proper attribution is given. This policy is consistent with the Budapest Open Access Initiative (BOAI) definition of open access. 

 

Article Details

How to Cite

Farnia, M., & Yazdani, E. (2018). Politeness Strategies in Remindings A Cross-cultural Study of Iranian EFL learners and Americans. Journal of Intercultural Communication, 18(1), 1-17. https://doi.org/10.36923/jicc.v18i1.752

Most read articles by the same author(s)