The aim of the present academic discussion note is to generate feedback on a recent project that revisits the nature of speech acts as analytic constructs for politeness theory. While speech act has been largely discredited in the field, we believe that they need to be kept in the core of politeness inquiries, in particular if we approach them in…

The majority of the extant literature claims that native Arabic speakers are typically more indirect in their refusal strategies, a specific speech act, than are native English speakers. The present study examined the level of directness in the refusal strategies of native Arabic speakers, living in the United States and the Middle East, compared…

Bilingualism has been the subject of a lot of research in the last century. Bilingualism is having the competence to speak two languages. The reasons for bilingualism of individuals may differ. Some of them may have parents from different languages, some may be children of ethnic minority or immigrants. In daily life it is possible to encounter…

Pragmatic formulas have been recognized as linguistic building blocks necessary for successful speech act performance. Current approaches to speech act teaching overlook pragmatic formulas, promoting an incomplete view of pragmatics instruction. This paper reports on the results of a classroom-based study in which a formula-enhanced treatment…

Using the single-group pre-posttest design, this exploratory study examined whether L2 learners of English can learn a speech act by experiencing perlocutionary effects of the act as feedback (observing their interlocutor's reactions to their choice of speech act expressions). Sixty undergraduate English learners at a university in China played a…

Mastery of the art of crafting online reviews and responses is essential as a valuable additional tool for enhancing learners' English proficiency in specialised contexts. This study aims to: 1) Examine the formality levels in crafting reviews and responses; 2) Explore face-threatening acts utilised in reviews and politeness strategies employed in…

Learning pragmatics involves learning linguistic forms and their communicative functions as well as the context where the form-function relationships are realized. Given its socially grounded, context-sensitive nature, pragmatics may be best learned in a technology-enhanced environment that provides direct access to contextualized communicative…

This study investigated the potentials of face-to-face and computer mediated conversation (CMC) as two speaking modalities on students' engagement. To this end, 30 Iranian male intermediate EFL learners were selected on the basis of their performance on OPT (Oxford Placement Test) and assigned into the research groups. The progression of face- to-…

Purpose: This study aimed to investigate the impact of social networks on learning requests by Arab undergraduate EFL students. Design/methodology/approach: Furthermore, both types of requests (i.e. direct and indirect) have been compared under the same condition. A total of 40 Saudi EFL learners participated in this study. Their scores in the…

This article examined salutation as a valued and nuanced socio-cultural practice that serves the purpose of socially positioning interactants and impacting on face negotiations in interaction in Nigeria. This was done with the aim of demonstrating its significance in the shaping and ordering of naturally occurring interaction. The data for the…

The study aims to investigate the speech acts of international students in Universitas Muhammadiyah Surabaya in giving complaints. This study focuses on the complaint speech acts and the politeness strategy which are produced by International students who have different cultural background. This study used qualitative approach because it observed…

This article argues that "covenant" ought to serve universally as a framework for education, beyond the exclusive sense of covenant in use in Reformed Christian education. The article begins with covenant as creation's answerable relationship with the Creator, then offers a brief account of language as a form of covenantal exchange, and…

The present study intended to investigate the possible effects of speech acts strategies on Iranian beginner and intermediate EFL learners' speaking ability. The first step in conducting this research was the administration of QPT [Quick Placement Test] as the homogenizing tool. It was administered to 180 beginners and intermediate EFL learners.…

In terms of their directness and modification strategies, this study investigated how undergraduate speakers of Turkish formulate their naturally occurring requests in an academic context, in which they request things from an academic in his office. After a 4-year data collection period, the researcher analyzed 395 of the requests (hand-recorded…

Metadiscourse, defined as discourse about discourse, has been borrowed from philosophy into applied linguistics and has evolved as a new area of research in this field. Although metadiscourse is a relatively new subfield in applied linguistics, it has been researched by a range of scholars around the world. The current paper reports the findings…