The present study, on the one hand, attempted to investigate the strategies applied in dispreferred responses by Iranian university students of English and the extent to which pragmatic transfer could occur.  On the other hand, the study aimed to probe into the association between dispreferred organization and turn-shape. To this end, 31 relevant naturally occurring conversations, totaling 120 ...

Investigating transfer of one’s pragmatic knowledge of first language to his second or foreign language has been one of the areas of interest for researchers. However, there are contradictory results even within the scarce studies which have addressed transferability. This study was an attempt to investigate perceived pragmatic transferability of L1 refusal strategies by Persian EFL learners. S...

l2 research has shown that instruction in l2 pragmatics is necessary. the current study evaluated the impact of explicit instruction on efl learner's awareness and production of three speech acts of request, apology, and complaint. it also probed whether learners’ language proficiency plays any role in incorporating pragmatic instruction into the l2 classroom. iranian undergraduate students maj...

few, if any, studies have investigated the effect of professional experience as a rater variable and type of assessment as a task variable on raters’ criteria in the assessment of speech acts. this study aimed to explore the impact of nonnative teachers’ professional experience on the use of criteria in monologic and dialogic assessment of 12 role-plays of 3 apology speech acts. to this end, 60...

Alternative assessment approaches received considerable attention soon after a discontent with traditional, one-shot testing. These approaches, however, have been used only to improve learners’ linguistic ability despite communicative models of language which pointed that knowledge of language also involves pragmatic ability (Bachman, 1990; Bachman & Palmer, 1996). The present study tries to ex...

The current study was carried out to investigate the functions of the ritual speech act of ‘ya Allah’ (literally meaning ‘O God’) employed by Iranians in social interactions. To this end, sixty-two Persian native speakers of different age groups, ranging from 35 to 85, of both genders were observed in 250 natural situations such as daily interactions, gatherings, public or private places and lo...

The article considers the modal-semantic shades expressed by interrogative statements in Kazakh language, which are used to obtain not only certain information, but also express approval (consent), clarification, advice, indication, suggestion, comparison, attention (to cause a reaction), conclusion, justification, warning, permission, prohibition, refusal, objection, protest, coercion (concess...