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Part of
Current Issues in Intercultural Pragmatics
Edited by István Kecskés and Stavros Assimakopoulos
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 274] 2017
► pp. 297–322

Chapter 13
A cross­sectional study of Syrian EFL learners’ pragmatic development

Towards a taxonomy of modification in interlanguage requests

| University of Bristol
| University of Bristol

This study investigates developmental patterns in the requestive behaviour of Syrian learners of English as a foreign language (SEFL). Employing a written discourse completion task (WDCT), off-line production of English requests in 12 contextually varied (equal-status and unequal-status) situations was collected from 150 learners at three proficiency levels and 20 English native speakers (ENS) and analysed quantitatively and qualitatively for internal and external modifications. The quantitative analysis showed that, consistent with previous research (e.g. Barron 2003), both linear and non-linear developments may be typical for Syrian learners’ acquisition of English request modification, whereas the qualitative analysis revealed that learners exhibited a range of new external modification patterns which suggests a need to revise existing taxonomies for such L1 (Arabic) speakers.

Keywords: pragmatic development, request modification
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Theoretical background
    • 2.1The speech act of requesting
    • 2.2Developmental studies on FL learners request modification
  • 3.Methodology
    • 3.1Participants
    • 3.2Instrumentation and Procedures
    • 3.3Data coding and analysis
  • 4.Results and discussion
    • 4.1Internal modification
      • 4.1.1Lexical/phrasal and syntactic modification
    • 4.2External modification
      • 4.2.1Mitigating moves
      • 4.2.2Qualitative analysis
  • 5.Summary and conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
  • Appendix
Published online: 14 June 2017
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.274.14ali
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