Speech acts and their underlying strategies by EFL learners and Non-Learners: A systematic literature review
Keywords:
Context, EFL learners’ strategies, pragmatic competence, quantitative method, speech act.
Abstract
This paper reviews the literature related to speech acts and their investigated strategies performed by the EFL learners and those non-learners. The review aims to provide an overview of various speech acts including their underlying strategies at the production level and the perception level. Doing this will identify the gaps in the current literature which call for further primary research. In order to look at more up-to-date content, the literature search included in this review covered only the papers published from 2009 to 2018. A substantial number of scholarly articles reporting speech acts employed by different participants were identified and scrutinised based on keyword search in Google Scholar. The discussions and findings are classified according to topic relatedness and the type of target community (population). In conclusion, the review showed that the most frequently investigated speech acts were those involved in everyday argumentative talks called ‘dispreferred act’ namely ‘disagreement’ and ‘refusal’. The most common employed strategies under speech acts were politeness strategies and semantic (formulae) strategies. It was evident that authors, to a considerable degree, neglected the role of gender. Moreover, the majority of the authors resorted to investigate the participants’ production rather the recognition or both levels of language, for a reason related to the nature of data collection tool.
Downloads
Download data is not yet available.
References
Abed, A. Q. (2011). Pragmatic transfer in Iraqi EFL learners' refusals. International journal of English linguistics, 1(2), 166-185.
Abu Humeid, A. M. (2013). The effect of gender and status on the apology strategies used by American native speakers of English and Iraqi EFL university students. Research on Humanities and Social Sciences,3(2), 145- 173.
Abu Humeid, A., & Altai, A. (2013). Refusal Strategies Used by Iraqi EFL University Students. British Journal of Science, 8(1), 58-86.
Ali, S. A., & Pandian, A. (2016) Inappropriateness in Iraqi EFL learners’ e-mail requests to professor. IRA-International Journal of Education & Multidisciplinary Studies, 3(3), 402-417.
Aliakbari, M., & Changizi, M. (2012). On the realization of refusal strategies by Persian and Kurdish speakers. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 36(5), 659-668.
Al-Khanaifsawy, A. N. (2016). Investigating Iraqi EFL learners' use of the speech act of agreement. Adab Al-Kufa,1(27), 11-30.
Al-Mahrooqi, R., & Al-Aghbari, K. (2016). Refusal strategies among Omani EFL students. SAGE Open, 6(4), 1-10.
Al-Momani, H., Jaradat, A., Al-Khawaldeh, N., & Bani-Khair, B. (2017). Expressing gratitude in an EFL context: The case of Jordanian learners. International Journal of Applied Linguistics and English Literature, 6(4), 190-198.
Al-Shafie, R. N., & Al-Jubbory, F. A. (2015). Iraqi EFL learners’ use of the speech acts of warning and threatening. Adab Al-Kufa, 1(24), 11-26.
Al-Shboul, Y., & Huwari, I. F. (2016). Congratulation strategies of Jordanian EFL postgraduate students. Indonesian Journal of Applied Linguistics, 6(1), 79-87.
Altalhi, H. K. (2014). Speech acts of thanking and thanking responses by Hijazi females. Master’s Thesis. Ball State University, Muncie, USA.
Arani, S. S., & Tehrani, N. S. (2013). The impact of age and sex on the refusal strategies used by Iranian EFL learners. International Journal of Applied Linguistics and English Literature, 2(4), 110-117.
Aribi, I. (2012). A socio-pragmatic study of the use of requests in English by Tunisian EFL learners. Journal of Second Language Teaching & Research, 2(1), 87-120.
Bayat, N. (2013). A study on the use of speech acts. Procedia-Social and Behavioural Sciences, 70, 213-221.
Behnam, B., & Niroomand, M. (2011). An investigation of Iranian EFL learners’ use of politeness strategies and power relations in disagreement across different proficiency levels. English Language Teaching, 4 (4), 204-220.
Bella, S. (2014). Developing the ability to refuse: A cross-sectional study of Greek FL refusals. Journal of Pragmatics, 61, 35-62.
Boland, A., Cherry, G., & Dickson, R. (Eds.). (2017). Doing a systematic review: A student's guide. Sage Publications.
Borovina, D. Š. (2017). Croatian EFL learners’ interlanguage requests: A focus on request modification. ELOPE: English Language Overseas Perspectives and Enquiries, 14(1), 75-93.
Brown, H. D. (2007). Principles of Language Learning and Teaching. White Plains, New York.: Pearson Education.
Chang, M. (2011). EFL teachers’ attitudes toward communicative language teaching in Taiwanese college. Asian EFL Journal, 53, 17-34.
Choyimah, N & Latif, M. (2014). Disagreeing strategies in university classroom discussions among Indonesian EFL learners. International Journal of Linguistics, 6 (2), 132-152.
Christoffersen, K. (2015). Mitigation of disagreement in peer review among L2 learners and native speakers in a college. Gist Education and Learning Research Journal, 11 (11), 45-62.
Çiftçi, H. (2016). Refusal strategies in Turkish and English: A cross-cultural study. ELT Research Journal, 5 (1), 2-29.
Coates, J. (2015). Women, men and language: A sociolinguistic account of gender differences in language. London: Routledge.
Cohen, A. D. (1996). Speech acts. In S. Mackay, and N. Hornberger (Eds.), Sociolinguistics and language teaching, 383-420. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Darweesh, A. D., & Al-Aadili, N. M. (2017). Investigating Iraqi EFL learners’ performance in utilizing the speech acts of advice and suggestion. International Journal of English Linguistics, 7(4), 179-190.
Darweesh, A. D., & Mehdi, W. S. (2016). Investigating the speech act of correction in Iraqi EFL context. Journal of Education and Practice, 7(7), 127-139.
Deveci, T. (2015). The complaint speech act set produced by university students speaking English as a foreign language. Literacy Information and Computer Education Journal (LICEJ), 4(1), 2161-2171
Ebadi, S., & Salman, A. R. (2015). Using compliment responses in Arabic and English: Focusing on male and female EFL learners in Iraq. Journal of Applied Linguistics and Language Research, 2(7), 157-178.
El Hiani, K. (2015). Performing speech acts among Moroccan EFL advanced learners. Procedia-Social and Behavioural Sciences, 199, 479-485.
Elham, A. (2017). An investigation of apology strategies employed by Iranian EFL learners. International Journal of Research Studies in Education, 6(3), 27-37.
Fernandez, S. S. (2013). The linguistic realization of disagreement by EFL Egyptian speakers. Master Dissertation, Universidad Complutense, Madrid.
Flöck, I., & Geluykens, R. (2018). Preference Organization and Cross-Cultural Variation in Request Responses: A Corpus-Based Comparison of British and American English. Corpus Pragmatics, 2(1), 57-82.
Flores-Salgado, E., & Castineira-Benitez, T. A. (2018). The use of politeness in WhatsApp discourse and move ‘requests. Journal of Pragmatics, 133, 79-92.
Green, B. N., Johnson, C. D., & Adams, A. (2006). Writing narrative literature reviews for peer-reviewed journals: Secrets of the trade. Journal of chiropractic medicine, 5(3), 101-117.
Gu, T. (2014). Pragmatic development of Chinese EFL learners: A study on FL suggestions. English Language Teaching, 7(4), 147-157.
Heidari, A., Rasekh, A. & Simin, S. (2014). Speech act disagreement among young men in Iran. International Letters of Social and Humanistic Sciences (ILSHS), 37, 97-109. www.scipress.com/ILSHS.37.97
Huwari, I. F., & Al-Shboul, Y. (2015). A study on the perception of Jordanian EFL learners’ pragmatic transfer of refusals. Advances in Language and Literary Studies, 6(1), 46-54.
Hymes, D. (1971). On linguistic theory, communicative competence, and the education of disadvantaged children: Anthropological perspectives on education. New York: Georgetown University Press.
İstifçi, İ. (2009). The use of apologies by EFL learners. English Language Teaching, 2(3), 15-25. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Ilknur_Istifci
Jalilifar, A., Hashemian, M., & Tabatabaee, M. (2011). A cross-sectional study of Iranian EFL learners' request strategies. Journal of Language Teaching & Research, 2(4) 790-803.
Keshani, K., & Heidari-Shahreza, M. A. (2017). A comparative study of apology strategy use by Iranian and German EFL learners: Gender differences in focus. Journal of Applied Linguistics and Language Research, 4(1), 199-212.
Koczogh, H. (2013). The role of gender in verbal disagreement: A study of disagreement strategies employed by Hungarian undergraduate students. Gender Studies, 11(1), 233-244.
Kuhi, D., & Jadidi, M. (2012). A study of Iranian EFL learners' understanding and production of politeness in three speech acts: request, refusal, and apology. Theory and Practice in Language Studies, 2(12), 2624-2633.
Li, R., Raja, R., & Sazalie, A. (2015). An investigation into Chinese EFL learners’ pragmatic competence. GEMA Online® Journal of Language Studies, 15(2), 101-118.
Lin, M. F. (2014). An interlanguage pragmatic study on Chinese EFL learners' refusal: Perception and performance. Journal of Language Teaching & Research, 5(3), 642-653.
McMaster, K. L., Kunkel, A., Shin, J., Jung, P. G., & Lembke, E. (2017). Early writing intervention: A best evidence synthesis. Journal of learning disabilities, 15(4), 363-380.
Mofidi, M., & Shoushtari, Z. G. (2012). A comparative study of the complaint strategies among Iranian EFL and ESL students: The study of the effect of length of residence and the amount of contact. English Language Teaching, 5(11), 118-124.
Molnar, T. (2017). Arab awakening and Islamic revival: The politics of ideas in the Middle East. New York: Routledge.
Moradi, R. (2017). A review on gender linguistics studies. Language Art, 2(2), 55-68.
Parvaresh, S. & Rasekh, A. (2009). Speech act of disagreement among young women in Iran. CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture, 11 (4), 2-8.
Parvaresh, S., Rasekh, A. & Simin, S. (2015a). The study of disagreement strategies to suggestions used by Iranian male and female learners. International Letters of Social and Humanistic Sciences, 49, 30-42.
Parvaresh, S., Rasekh, A., & Simin, S. (2015b). A cross-cultural study of disagreement strategies to suggestions between Persian EFL learners and American native English speakers. International Journal of Research Studies in Language Learning, 4 (4), 93-105.
Pishghadam, R., & Rasouli, P. (2011). A cross-linguistic study of persuasive strategies used in Persian and English languages. Research Journal of International Studies, 1 (2), 52-60.
Saleem, T., Azam, S., & Saleem, A. (2014). The use of apology strategies in English by Pakistani EFL university students in Pakistan. Journal of Education and Practice, 5(34), 142-148.
Salehi, R. (2014). A Comparative analysis of apology strategy: Iranian EFL learners and native English speakers. Procedia - Social and Behavioural Sciences, 98, 1658–1665.
Shabaka Fernández, S (2013). The linguistic realization of disagreements by EFL Egyptian speakers. Master’s Thesis. www.http://eprints.ucm.es/23287.
Sharqawi, M. A., & Anthony, E. M. (2019). Analysing the speech act of disagreement produced by Iraqi EFL learners: A gender study. International Journal of Humanities & Social Sciences, 7(4).
Shum, W., & Lee, C. (2013). (Im)politeness and disagreement in two Hong Kong Internet discussion forums. Journal of Pragmatics, 50 (1), 52-83.
Sofwan, A., & Suwignyo, E. (2011). The realization of disagreement strategies by non-native speakers of English. Ragam Jurnal Pengembangan Humaniora, 11 (2), 69-81.
Taqim, A. (2016). Politeness in speech act of disagreement by English learners of Lampung University. Master’s Thesis, Lampung University. Bandar, Indonesia.
Tseng, C. T. H. (2015). You must let me pass, please! an investigation of email request strategies by Taiwanese EFL learners. Journal of ELT and Applied Linguistics (JELTAL), 3(1), 11-28.
Ugla, R. L., & Abidin, M. J. Z. (2016). A study of apology strategies used by Iraqi EFL university students. International Journal of Evaluation and Research in Education, 5(1), 32-38.
Yan, C. (2016). A contrastive pragmatic study of politeness strategies in disagreement between native speakers of English and Chinese EFL learners. Chinese Journal of Applied Linguistics, 39 (2), 231-245.
Yuan, Y. (2001). An inquiry into empirical pragmatics data-gathering methods: Written DCTs, oral DCTs, field notes, and natural conversations. Journal of pragmatics, 33(2), 271-292.
Yuksel, D., & Inan‐Karagul, B. (2018). Research Methods for Studying L2 Listening. The TESOL Encyclopedia of English Language Teaching, (Vol.8). University of Chicago Press.
Yule, G. (1996). Pragmatics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Abu Humeid, A. M. (2013). The effect of gender and status on the apology strategies used by American native speakers of English and Iraqi EFL university students. Research on Humanities and Social Sciences,3(2), 145- 173.
Abu Humeid, A., & Altai, A. (2013). Refusal Strategies Used by Iraqi EFL University Students. British Journal of Science, 8(1), 58-86.
Ali, S. A., & Pandian, A. (2016) Inappropriateness in Iraqi EFL learners’ e-mail requests to professor. IRA-International Journal of Education & Multidisciplinary Studies, 3(3), 402-417.
Aliakbari, M., & Changizi, M. (2012). On the realization of refusal strategies by Persian and Kurdish speakers. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 36(5), 659-668.
Al-Khanaifsawy, A. N. (2016). Investigating Iraqi EFL learners' use of the speech act of agreement. Adab Al-Kufa,1(27), 11-30.
Al-Mahrooqi, R., & Al-Aghbari, K. (2016). Refusal strategies among Omani EFL students. SAGE Open, 6(4), 1-10.
Al-Momani, H., Jaradat, A., Al-Khawaldeh, N., & Bani-Khair, B. (2017). Expressing gratitude in an EFL context: The case of Jordanian learners. International Journal of Applied Linguistics and English Literature, 6(4), 190-198.
Al-Shafie, R. N., & Al-Jubbory, F. A. (2015). Iraqi EFL learners’ use of the speech acts of warning and threatening. Adab Al-Kufa, 1(24), 11-26.
Al-Shboul, Y., & Huwari, I. F. (2016). Congratulation strategies of Jordanian EFL postgraduate students. Indonesian Journal of Applied Linguistics, 6(1), 79-87.
Altalhi, H. K. (2014). Speech acts of thanking and thanking responses by Hijazi females. Master’s Thesis. Ball State University, Muncie, USA.
Arani, S. S., & Tehrani, N. S. (2013). The impact of age and sex on the refusal strategies used by Iranian EFL learners. International Journal of Applied Linguistics and English Literature, 2(4), 110-117.
Aribi, I. (2012). A socio-pragmatic study of the use of requests in English by Tunisian EFL learners. Journal of Second Language Teaching & Research, 2(1), 87-120.
Bayat, N. (2013). A study on the use of speech acts. Procedia-Social and Behavioural Sciences, 70, 213-221.
Behnam, B., & Niroomand, M. (2011). An investigation of Iranian EFL learners’ use of politeness strategies and power relations in disagreement across different proficiency levels. English Language Teaching, 4 (4), 204-220.
Bella, S. (2014). Developing the ability to refuse: A cross-sectional study of Greek FL refusals. Journal of Pragmatics, 61, 35-62.
Boland, A., Cherry, G., & Dickson, R. (Eds.). (2017). Doing a systematic review: A student's guide. Sage Publications.
Borovina, D. Š. (2017). Croatian EFL learners’ interlanguage requests: A focus on request modification. ELOPE: English Language Overseas Perspectives and Enquiries, 14(1), 75-93.
Brown, H. D. (2007). Principles of Language Learning and Teaching. White Plains, New York.: Pearson Education.
Chang, M. (2011). EFL teachers’ attitudes toward communicative language teaching in Taiwanese college. Asian EFL Journal, 53, 17-34.
Choyimah, N & Latif, M. (2014). Disagreeing strategies in university classroom discussions among Indonesian EFL learners. International Journal of Linguistics, 6 (2), 132-152.
Christoffersen, K. (2015). Mitigation of disagreement in peer review among L2 learners and native speakers in a college. Gist Education and Learning Research Journal, 11 (11), 45-62.
Çiftçi, H. (2016). Refusal strategies in Turkish and English: A cross-cultural study. ELT Research Journal, 5 (1), 2-29.
Coates, J. (2015). Women, men and language: A sociolinguistic account of gender differences in language. London: Routledge.
Cohen, A. D. (1996). Speech acts. In S. Mackay, and N. Hornberger (Eds.), Sociolinguistics and language teaching, 383-420. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Darweesh, A. D., & Al-Aadili, N. M. (2017). Investigating Iraqi EFL learners’ performance in utilizing the speech acts of advice and suggestion. International Journal of English Linguistics, 7(4), 179-190.
Darweesh, A. D., & Mehdi, W. S. (2016). Investigating the speech act of correction in Iraqi EFL context. Journal of Education and Practice, 7(7), 127-139.
Deveci, T. (2015). The complaint speech act set produced by university students speaking English as a foreign language. Literacy Information and Computer Education Journal (LICEJ), 4(1), 2161-2171
Ebadi, S., & Salman, A. R. (2015). Using compliment responses in Arabic and English: Focusing on male and female EFL learners in Iraq. Journal of Applied Linguistics and Language Research, 2(7), 157-178.
El Hiani, K. (2015). Performing speech acts among Moroccan EFL advanced learners. Procedia-Social and Behavioural Sciences, 199, 479-485.
Elham, A. (2017). An investigation of apology strategies employed by Iranian EFL learners. International Journal of Research Studies in Education, 6(3), 27-37.
Fernandez, S. S. (2013). The linguistic realization of disagreement by EFL Egyptian speakers. Master Dissertation, Universidad Complutense, Madrid.
Flöck, I., & Geluykens, R. (2018). Preference Organization and Cross-Cultural Variation in Request Responses: A Corpus-Based Comparison of British and American English. Corpus Pragmatics, 2(1), 57-82.
Flores-Salgado, E., & Castineira-Benitez, T. A. (2018). The use of politeness in WhatsApp discourse and move ‘requests. Journal of Pragmatics, 133, 79-92.
Green, B. N., Johnson, C. D., & Adams, A. (2006). Writing narrative literature reviews for peer-reviewed journals: Secrets of the trade. Journal of chiropractic medicine, 5(3), 101-117.
Gu, T. (2014). Pragmatic development of Chinese EFL learners: A study on FL suggestions. English Language Teaching, 7(4), 147-157.
Heidari, A., Rasekh, A. & Simin, S. (2014). Speech act disagreement among young men in Iran. International Letters of Social and Humanistic Sciences (ILSHS), 37, 97-109. www.scipress.com/ILSHS.37.97
Huwari, I. F., & Al-Shboul, Y. (2015). A study on the perception of Jordanian EFL learners’ pragmatic transfer of refusals. Advances in Language and Literary Studies, 6(1), 46-54.
Hymes, D. (1971). On linguistic theory, communicative competence, and the education of disadvantaged children: Anthropological perspectives on education. New York: Georgetown University Press.
İstifçi, İ. (2009). The use of apologies by EFL learners. English Language Teaching, 2(3), 15-25. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Ilknur_Istifci
Jalilifar, A., Hashemian, M., & Tabatabaee, M. (2011). A cross-sectional study of Iranian EFL learners' request strategies. Journal of Language Teaching & Research, 2(4) 790-803.
Keshani, K., & Heidari-Shahreza, M. A. (2017). A comparative study of apology strategy use by Iranian and German EFL learners: Gender differences in focus. Journal of Applied Linguistics and Language Research, 4(1), 199-212.
Koczogh, H. (2013). The role of gender in verbal disagreement: A study of disagreement strategies employed by Hungarian undergraduate students. Gender Studies, 11(1), 233-244.
Kuhi, D., & Jadidi, M. (2012). A study of Iranian EFL learners' understanding and production of politeness in three speech acts: request, refusal, and apology. Theory and Practice in Language Studies, 2(12), 2624-2633.
Li, R., Raja, R., & Sazalie, A. (2015). An investigation into Chinese EFL learners’ pragmatic competence. GEMA Online® Journal of Language Studies, 15(2), 101-118.
Lin, M. F. (2014). An interlanguage pragmatic study on Chinese EFL learners' refusal: Perception and performance. Journal of Language Teaching & Research, 5(3), 642-653.
McMaster, K. L., Kunkel, A., Shin, J., Jung, P. G., & Lembke, E. (2017). Early writing intervention: A best evidence synthesis. Journal of learning disabilities, 15(4), 363-380.
Mofidi, M., & Shoushtari, Z. G. (2012). A comparative study of the complaint strategies among Iranian EFL and ESL students: The study of the effect of length of residence and the amount of contact. English Language Teaching, 5(11), 118-124.
Molnar, T. (2017). Arab awakening and Islamic revival: The politics of ideas in the Middle East. New York: Routledge.
Moradi, R. (2017). A review on gender linguistics studies. Language Art, 2(2), 55-68.
Parvaresh, S. & Rasekh, A. (2009). Speech act of disagreement among young women in Iran. CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture, 11 (4), 2-8.
Parvaresh, S., Rasekh, A. & Simin, S. (2015a). The study of disagreement strategies to suggestions used by Iranian male and female learners. International Letters of Social and Humanistic Sciences, 49, 30-42.
Parvaresh, S., Rasekh, A., & Simin, S. (2015b). A cross-cultural study of disagreement strategies to suggestions between Persian EFL learners and American native English speakers. International Journal of Research Studies in Language Learning, 4 (4), 93-105.
Pishghadam, R., & Rasouli, P. (2011). A cross-linguistic study of persuasive strategies used in Persian and English languages. Research Journal of International Studies, 1 (2), 52-60.
Saleem, T., Azam, S., & Saleem, A. (2014). The use of apology strategies in English by Pakistani EFL university students in Pakistan. Journal of Education and Practice, 5(34), 142-148.
Salehi, R. (2014). A Comparative analysis of apology strategy: Iranian EFL learners and native English speakers. Procedia - Social and Behavioural Sciences, 98, 1658–1665.
Shabaka Fernández, S (2013). The linguistic realization of disagreements by EFL Egyptian speakers. Master’s Thesis. www.http://eprints.ucm.es/23287.
Sharqawi, M. A., & Anthony, E. M. (2019). Analysing the speech act of disagreement produced by Iraqi EFL learners: A gender study. International Journal of Humanities & Social Sciences, 7(4).
Shum, W., & Lee, C. (2013). (Im)politeness and disagreement in two Hong Kong Internet discussion forums. Journal of Pragmatics, 50 (1), 52-83.
Sofwan, A., & Suwignyo, E. (2011). The realization of disagreement strategies by non-native speakers of English. Ragam Jurnal Pengembangan Humaniora, 11 (2), 69-81.
Taqim, A. (2016). Politeness in speech act of disagreement by English learners of Lampung University. Master’s Thesis, Lampung University. Bandar, Indonesia.
Tseng, C. T. H. (2015). You must let me pass, please! an investigation of email request strategies by Taiwanese EFL learners. Journal of ELT and Applied Linguistics (JELTAL), 3(1), 11-28.
Ugla, R. L., & Abidin, M. J. Z. (2016). A study of apology strategies used by Iraqi EFL university students. International Journal of Evaluation and Research in Education, 5(1), 32-38.
Yan, C. (2016). A contrastive pragmatic study of politeness strategies in disagreement between native speakers of English and Chinese EFL learners. Chinese Journal of Applied Linguistics, 39 (2), 231-245.
Yuan, Y. (2001). An inquiry into empirical pragmatics data-gathering methods: Written DCTs, oral DCTs, field notes, and natural conversations. Journal of pragmatics, 33(2), 271-292.
Yuksel, D., & Inan‐Karagul, B. (2018). Research Methods for Studying L2 Listening. The TESOL Encyclopedia of English Language Teaching, (Vol.8). University of Chicago Press.
Yule, G. (1996). Pragmatics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Published
2019-06-25
How to Cite
Sharqawi, M., & Anthony, E. (2019). Speech acts and their underlying strategies by EFL learners and Non-Learners: A systematic literature review. Amazonia Investiga, 8(20), 486-502. Retrieved from https://amazoniainvestiga.info/index.php/amazonia/article/view/178
Issue
Section
Articles
.gif)
