Indirectness in the acquisition of pragmatic competince in a second language

Abstract

The present cross-sectional study was conducted to investigate the indirectness strategy selections in requests by Turkish EFL learners, and the relation between their indirectness strategy selections with respect to situational factors and their proficiency. The subjects were 80 university students, -40 low, and 40 high proficiency- and 25 native-speakers participated as a control group in the present study. To determine the level of proficiency a cloze test was administered to the subjects. Data were collected by the use of a multiple-choice indirectness test in English designed with respect to the situational factors of social distance, power, and size of imposition involved in the request. The indirectness strategies investigated in the present study were direct (D), conventionally indirect (CI), and non-conventionally indirect (NCI) strategies. The present study aims to find out whether the learners select indirect strategies when the interlocutors are socially distant, the hearer is in authority, and the size of imposition involved in the request is "big". With respect to direct strategies, the study aims to explore whether the learners select direct strategies in situations where the interlocutors are intimate, the speaker is in authority, the interlocutors are equal in authority, and where the size of imposition involved in the request is "small", respectively. Even though a number of developmental patterns took place in the choice of requesting strategies, the data revealed that there is little evidence of sensitivity to situational variation with respect to social distance, power, and size of imposition involved in the request. However, in the light of the findings it can be concluded that the learners may have been affected by the variable "size of imposition". There is some evidence to suggest that there is some sensitivity to the situations where the size of imposition involved in the request is "small". Two possible reasons for this are the "text-book effect" and "overgeneralisation".