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Article published In:
Pragmatics
Vol. 29:4 (2019) ► pp.493–520

A pragmatic analysis of the speech act of criticizing in university teacher-student talk

The case of English as a lingua franca

ORCID logo | Prince Sultan University
| Prince Sultan University
| Prince Sultan University
| Prince Sultan University

The current study examined the realization of the speech act of criticizing by university teachers in their talk with students. To this end, role-plays were conducted with 60 university teachers (30 males and 30 females) at a private Saudi university which is characterized by its multicultural academic staff, and, hence, where English is used as a lingua franca. Recordings were transcribed and analyzed using an adapted version of Nguyen’s (2005, 2013) model of criticism strategies. The results showed the teachers’ preference for indirect over direct criticism strategies and their minimal use of modifiers, particularly internal ones. It was also found that the influence of the teacher’s gender or years of teaching experience was small while the severity of the situation was a critical factor in the choice of appropriate strategies. The results were interpreted in relation to the existing literature and the theoretical model of politeness.

Keywords: pragmatics, English as a lingua franca, criticizing, speech act, teacher-student talk, politeness
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Literature review
    • 2.1Brown and Levinson’s politeness theory
    • 2.2The speech act of criticizing
  • 3.Methodology
    • 3.1Participants
    • 3.2Data collection
    • 3.3Data coding
  • 4.Results
    • 4.1How do university teachers realize the speech act of criticizing in their talk with students?
    • 4.2How does gender influence university teachers’ realization of the speech act of criticizing in their talk with students?
    • 4.3How do increased years of teaching experience influence university teachers’ realization of the speech act of criticizing in their talk with students?
  • 5.Discussion
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial (CC BY-NC) 4.0 license.
Published online: 20 August 2019
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/prag.18028.eld
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