2.1Brown and Levinson’s politeness theory

Brown and Levinson’s (1978Brown, Penelope, and Stephen Levinson (1978) “Universals in Language Usage: Politeness Phenomena”. In Questions and Politeness: Strategies in Social Interaction, ed. by Esther N. Goody, 56–310. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press., 1987Brown, Penelope, and Stephen Levinson 1987 Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ) model of politeness draws on Goffman’s (1967Goffman, Erving 1967 Interactional Ritual: Essays on Face-to-Face Behavior. New York: Double Day., 319) concept of “face” defined as “the positive social value a person effectively claims for himself.” Viewing “face” as a person’s public self-image, Brown and Levinson (1987Brown, Penelope, and Stephen Levinson 1987 Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. , 66) considered “face” as “something that is emotionally invested, and that can be lost, maintained, or enhanced and must be constantly attended to in interaction.” Brown and Levinson (1987)Brown, Penelope, and Stephen Levinson 1987 Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. further distinguished two types of face that people work jointly to preserve in interactions; positive face and negative face. Positive face refers to one’s desire to be appreciated and approved of while negative face reflects one’s desire to enjoy freedom of action without being impeded upon.

According to Brown and Levinson (1987Brown, Penelope, and Stephen Levinson 1987 Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. , 70), “certain kinds of acts intrinsically threaten face, namely those acts that by their nature run contrary to the face wants of the addressee and/or the speaker.” For example, the speech act of criticizing in the current study threatens both the positive and negative face of the student. As Cao (2005)Cao, Jia. “A Pragmatic Analysis of the Speech Act of Criticism in Primary and Junior High School Chinese Lecturer-Student Talk.” Master’s thesis, Northeast Normal University 2005 https://​www​.dissertationtopic​.net​/doc​/875784 explains, criticizing jeopardizes the hearer’s desire to be appreciated and approved of by calling his/her actions into question. Criticizing also threatens the hearer’s negative face through attempting to impose a change of action on the hearer. Since it is in the best interest of interlocutors to maintain each other’s face, face-threatening acts (FTAs) are either avoided (if possible) or a number of other redressive strategies are employed to soften the potential destructive effect of FTAs. Brown and Levinson (1987)Brown, Penelope, and Stephen Levinson 1987 Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. specify 5 super-strategies. The first strategy, referred to as “bald-on-record” reflects an unambiguous/ direct act which performs the FTA with maximum efficiency regardless of the hearer’s face wants. The second and third strategies are also on-record, but include face-work. Positive politeness, on the one hand, enhances the interlocutor’s feeling of appreciation and approval while negative politeness, on the other hand, minimizes any imposition on the interlocutor. The fourth strategy is classified as off-record since it involves FTAs that are expressed ambiguously and indirectly to reduce the speaker’s commitment to the FTA and allow room for negotiation of meaning. Ambiguity here includes metaphors, irony, hints, rhetorical questions, understatements, etc. The last politeness strategy is to prioritize harmony of interpersonal relationships by avoiding FTAs altogether.

It is worth noting that Brown and Levinson’s (1978Brown, Penelope, and Stephen Levinson (1978) “Universals in Language Usage: Politeness Phenomena”. In Questions and Politeness: Strategies in Social Interaction, ed. by Esther N. Goody, 56–310. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press., 1987Brown, Penelope, and Stephen Levinson 1987 Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ) model has received a lot of criticism because it disregards the larger linguistic context (Hayashi 1996Hayashi, Takuo 1996 “Politeness in Conflict Management: A Conversation Analysis of Dispreferred Messages from a Cognitive Perspective.” Journal of Pragmatics 25: 227–255. ), claims that the direct relationship between face and politeness is universally valid (Baron 2002Baron, Anne 2002 Acquisition in Interlanguage Pragmatics: How to do Things with Words in a Study Abroad Context. Philadelphia, PA: J. Benjamins.) and solely focuses on the self rather than social relationships in interaction (Spencer-Oatey 2000Spencer-Oatey, Helen (ed) 2000 Culturally Speaking: Managing Rapport through Talk across Cultures. London: Continuum.). More criticism was expressed by the proponents of postmodern or discursive politeness (e.g., Eelen 2001Eelen, Gino 2001 A Critique of Politeness Theories. Manchester: St Jerome Publishing.; Mills 2003Mills, Sara 2003 Gender and Politeness. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ; Watts 2003Watts, Richard J. 2003 Politeness. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ) who criticized the model for its inability to account for impoliteness as well as politeness (Eelen 2001Eelen, Gino 2001 A Critique of Politeness Theories. Manchester: St Jerome Publishing.) and being concerned with the model person rather than taking that person into account in relation to others (Watts 2003Watts, Richard J. 2003 Politeness. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ), among other things. Despite this criticism, the current study employs Brown and Levinson’s (1978Brown, Penelope, and Stephen Levinson (1978) “Universals in Language Usage: Politeness Phenomena”. In Questions and Politeness: Strategies in Social Interaction, ed. by Esther N. Goody, 56–310. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press., 1987Brown, Penelope, and Stephen Levinson 1987 Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ) model because it offers an incisive description of linguistic strategies (e.g., Locher 2006Locher, Miriam A. 2006 “Polite Behavior with Relational Work: The Discursive Approach to Politeness.” Multilingua 25 (3): 249–267. ; Pizziconi 2003Pizziconi, Barbara 2003 “Re-examining Politeness, Face and the Japanese Language.” Journal of Pragmatics 35: 1471–1506. ) and has proved easy and flexible to use, particularly in the examination of a speech act.

2.2The speech act of criticizing

Earlier studies on the speech act of criticizing have been carried out from different perspectives, such as genre, intercultural/cross-linguistic, cross-disciplinary and diachronic (see Salager-Meyer and Lewin (2011)Salager-Meyer, Françoise, and Beverly Lewin (eds) 2011 Crossed Words: Criticism in Scholarly Writing. Bern: Peter Lang. for sample articles from these perspectives). However, the current review of literature classifies earlier studies into two broad categories of written and oral criticism. Under the written domain, a number of studies were conducted on the evaluative language in the genre of book reviews (e.g., Alcaraz-Ariza 2002Alcaraz-Ariza, María Á. 2002 “Evaluation in English-medium Medical Book Reviews.” International Journal of English Studies 2 (1): 137–153. ; Diani 2009Diani, Giuliana 2009 “Reporting and Evaluation in English Book Review Articles: A Cross-Disciplinary Study.” In Academic Evaluation: Review Genres in University Settings, ed. by Ken Hyland and Giuliana Diani, 87–105. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. ; Moreno and Suárez 2008Moreno, Ana I., and Lorena Suárez 2008 “A Study of Critical Attitude across English and Spanish Academic Book Reviews.” Journal of English for Academic Purposes 7: 15–26. ). For example, a cross-disciplinary study was conducted by Hyland (2004)Hyland, Ken 2004 Disciplinary Discourse: Social Interactions in Academic Writing. London: Longman. who investigated how the evaluative language of “praise” and “criticism” was used in 160 book reviews representing different disciplines. Clear disciplinary variations emerged with respect to the extent to which reviewers employed the target speech acts and their preferred terms of expression.

Other studies on book reviews adopted a cross-linguistic approach (e.g., Araújo 2012Araújo, Antonia D. 2012 “Academic Genres in University Contexts: An Investigation of Students’ Book Reviews Writing as Classroom Assignments.” In International Advances in Writing Research: Cultures, Places, Measures, ed. by Charles Bazerman, Chris Dean, Jessica Early, Karen Lunsford, Suzie Null, Paul Rogers, and Amanda Stansell, 319–333. New York: Parlor Press e WAC Clearinghouse.; Itakura and Tsui 2011Itakura, Hiroko, and Amy B. M. Tsui 2011 “Evaluation in Academic Discourse: Managing Criticism in Japanese and English Book Reviews.” Journal of Pragmatics 43 (5): 1366–1379. ; Salager-Meyer and Alcaraz Ariza 2004Salager-Meyer, Françoise, and Maria Á. Alcaraz Ariza (2004) Negative Appraisals in Academic Book Reviews: A Cross-linguistic Approach. In Intercultural Aspects of Specialized Communication, ed. by Christopher N. Candlin and Maurizio Gotti, 149–172. Bern: Peter Lang.) or focused on the use of politeness strategies (e.g., Diani 2017Diani, Giuliana 2017 “Criticism and Politeness Strategies in Academic Review Discourse: A Contrastive (English-Italian) Corpus-based Analysis.” Kalbotyra 70: 60–78. ; Valor 2000Valor, María L. G. 2000 “The Pragmatics of Positive Politeness in the Book Review.” RESLA (Spanish Journal of Applied Linguistics) 14: 145–159.). Cross-linguistically, Araújo (2012)Araújo, Antonia D. 2012 “Academic Genres in University Contexts: An Investigation of Students’ Book Reviews Writing as Classroom Assignments.” In International Advances in Writing Research: Cultures, Places, Measures, ed. by Charles Bazerman, Chris Dean, Jessica Early, Karen Lunsford, Suzie Null, Paul Rogers, and Amanda Stansell, 319–333. New York: Parlor Press e WAC Clearinghouse., for example, reported more similarities than differences in the book reviews produced by Brazilian and American graduate students in the Linguistics and Education areas. This was interpreted in terms of the influence of genre as the students appropriated their writing preferences to accomplish the genre purpose for classroom use despite the fact that some students had little experience with writing reviews. As for the use of politeness strategies, Valor (2000)Valor, María L. G. 2000 “The Pragmatics of Positive Politeness in the Book Review.” RESLA (Spanish Journal of Applied Linguistics) 14: 145–159. highlighted the use of compliments as a positive politeness strategy in book reviews to maintain a harmonious relationship with the reviewee and to redress criticism. Similarly, Diani (2017)Diani, Giuliana 2017 “Criticism and Politeness Strategies in Academic Review Discourse: A Contrastive (English-Italian) Corpus-based Analysis.” Kalbotyra 70: 60–78. explored mitigation strategies in English and Italian book reviews and shed the light on the cultural influences on the use of mitigation strategies.

Studies on written communication also included research into the feedback of teachers and students at an academic setting. Hyland and Hyland (2001)Hyland, Fiona, and Ken Hyland 2001 “Sugaring the Pill: Praise and Criticism in Written Feedback.” Journal of Second Language Writing 10: 185–212. analyzed two teachers’ summary comments at the end of their ESL students’ assignments over a complete proficiency course. It was found that praise was most frequently employed, often as a softener for criticisms and suggestions. The frequent use of mitigation strategies in the form of hedges, questions and personal attribution to redress criticism and suggestions was also noted. The researchers highlighted the value of mitigation in enhancing effective teacher-student relationships, but also pointed out that such indirectness potentially led to incomprehension and miscommunication. Likewise, Lü (2018)Lü, Linqiong 2018 “Role of Email in Intercultural Communication of Criticism in a Chinese English Curriculum Reform Context.” English Language Teaching 11 (2): 193–207. examined the use of emails by Chinese undergraduates to communicate pedagogical criticism to their western teachers. It was found that students tended to express their criticism directly and even sometimes used bald critical statements and a balance was observed between the use of positive and negative politeness strategies. The researchers concluded that the email represented a safe, polite and effective channel for students to express their critical views, and that people behave differently in computer-mediated from face-to-face communication as computer-mediated communication may buffer the negative feelings associated with unpleasant topics.

Other studies on the speech act of criticizing examined oral communication. For example, Farnia and Abdul Sattar (2015)Farnia, Maryam, and Hiba Q. Abdul Sattar 2015 “A Sociopragmatic Analysis of the Speech Act of Criticism by Persian Native Speakers.” International Journal of Humanities and Cultural Studies 2 (3): 305–327. revealed the preference of native speakers of Persian for direct over indirect strategies of criticism when job performance, food, homework and research papers are criticized. They also highlighted the participants’ use of mitigation devices to achieve politeness. Two other studies analyzed the evaluative language of judges in televised talent competitions. Chen and Rau (2015)Chen, Yang-lien, and Victoria Rau (2015) “Compliments and Criticisms Given by Judges on a Singing Competition Series in Taiwan.” Studies in English Language & Literature 35: 1–19. focused on selected episodes of singing competitions in Taiwan, and found that the most common patterns were direct compliments, compliments followed by criticism and indirect criticism. Direct criticism was still employed as judges represent mentors to the candidates and can provide guidance to enhance their performance, but it only accounted for 11% of patterns. As for Tang (2016)Tang, Chihsia 2016 “Managing Criticisms in US-based and Taiwan-based Reality Talent Contests: A Cross-linguistic Comparison.” Pragmatics 26 (1): 111–136. , evaluative communication was compared between a US-based talent competition and a Taiwan-based talent competition. The noted differences, including a higher frequency of indirect criticisms in the Taiwanese Chinese sub-corpus and the Taiwanese Chinese’s higher use of heavily redressed direct criticism, were interpreted in terms of the Taiwanese Chinese’s strong cultural tendency to emphasize group harmony and interpersonal relationships whereas Americans often preferred utilizing explicit codes to maximize their speech clarity.

Other studies on oral communication of criticism focused on the development of interlanguage pragmatics. For example, Nguyen (2005Nguyen, Thi T. M. 2005 “Criticizing and Responding to Criticism in a Foreign Language: A Study of Vietnamese Learners of English.” PhD thesis. University of Auckland 2005 https://​researchspace​.auckland​.ac​.nz​/handle​/2292​/36, 2013Nguyen, Thi T. M. 2013 “An Exploratory Study of Criticism Realization Strategies Used by NS and NNS of New Zealand English.” Multilingua 32 (1): 103–130. ) found that EFL (English as a Foreign Language) and ESL (English as a Second Language) language users criticized and responded to criticism very differently from native speakers of English. The comparison highlighted the influence of negative transfer on the learners’ performance while it failed to show any positive influence for the learners’ increased language proficiency on their pragmatic competence. Of more relevance to the current study is Hiraga, Fuji and Turner (2003)Hiraga, Masako K., Yoko Fujii, and Joan M. Turner 2003 “L2 Pragmatics in Academic Discourse: A Case Study of Tutorials in Britain.” Intercultural Communication Studies 12 (3): 19–36. who examined the difficulties Japanese students studying in Great Britain faced with pragmatic understanding in tutorial sessions with British tutors. Differences in the power distance between teachers and students in the two cultures had an impact on communication. While British tutors paid attention to students’ face, reflecting an egalitarian perspective of students as full members of the discourse community, students’ face was not often attended to as much as the teacher’s in the Japanese context because authoritarian interaction was more common in the Japanese context with students not granted a membership status in the academic community.

Few other studies on teacher-student interaction were carried out outside the domain of interlanguage pragmatics. Comparing tutor-student interaction in British and Japanese academic contexts, Hiraga and Turner (1996)Hiraga, Masako K., and Joan M. Turner 1996 “Differing Perceptions of Face in British and Japanese Academic Settings.” Language Sciences 18 (3–4): 605–627. showed that while British students primarily dealt with their own face wants, Japanese students showed more concern for the positive face of the tutor. It was also noted that negative face was highly attended to in the British context with both tutors and students carefully addressing the negative face of each other and the students particularly taking care of their own. In the Japanese context, however, neither tutors nor students seemed to attend to each other’s negative face or that of their own. The results were interpreted in terms of the British tutors’ view of their students as members of the academic discourse community and the more hierarchical and authority-based relationship between students and teachers in the Japanese context. Similar cultural influences were noted by Cao (2005)Cao, Jia. “A Pragmatic Analysis of the Speech Act of Criticism in Primary and Junior High School Chinese Lecturer-Student Talk.” Master’s thesis, Northeast Normal University 2005 https://​www​.dissertationtopic​.net​/doc​/875784 who highlighted that lecturers’ criticism to students is perfectly justified in the Chinese context while students, who are assigned an inferior status in the social hierarchy, are expected to submit to lecturers’ instruction and show lecturers due respect and obedience. Of special interest to the current study is Riekkinen (2010)Riekkinen, Niina 2010 ““This is not criticizing, but….” Softening Criticism: The Use of Lexical Hedges in Academic Spoken Interaction.” Helsinki English Studies 6: 75–87. who examined the use of hedges in doctoral defenses when criticism was given by native speakers of English versus speakers of ELF. It was noted that ELF speakers used hedges differently than native speakers of English in terms of what expressions are used and how frequently they are used. However, these differences did not result in any communication problems.

The current study fits in the domain of oral communication as it examined the realization of the speech act of criticizing by university teachers to their students through 10 role-plays. More specifically, the current study aimed to address the following research questions:

1. How do university teachers realize the speech act of criticizing in their talk with students?

2. How does gender influence university teachers’ realization of the speech act of criticizing in their talk with students?

3. How does increased years of teaching experience influence university teachers’ realization of the speech act of criticizing in their talk with students?

3.1Participants

A total of 60 faculty members were recruited from a private Saudi university for the purpose of the study. The participants were gender-balanced consisting of 30 females and 30 males. The female participants ranged in age between 28 and 54 (Mean: 40.36) and in years of teaching experience between 4 and 36 (Mean: 14.36). They belonged to 9 nationalities; 5 Lebanese, 5 Saudis, 5 Egyptians, 5 Pakistanis, 4 Indians, 3 Malaysians, 1 Korean, 1 Singaporean and 1 South African. As for men, they ranged in age between 30 and 50 (Mean: 38) and in years of teaching experience between 3 and 30 (Mean: 14.3). They came from 14 countries; 5 Jordanians, 5 Egyptians, 5 Pakistanis, 3 Malaysians, 2 Indians, 2 Nigerians, 1 Slovak, 1 French, 1 Spanish, 1 Yemeni, 1 Palestinian, 1 Saudi, 1 Algerian and 1 Tunisian. All participants had spent a minimum of seven months of service at the private Saudi university where the study was conducted. The longest years of service for the participants at the Saudi private university was 17 years while the mean was 5 years of service.

3.2Data collection

Data were collected through 10 role plays (see Appendix A) that included everyday situations university teachers are likely to face with their students, such as late attendance of class, attempt to cheat at an exam, submitting a partially plagiarized assignment, responding rudely to the faculty member, etc. The participants were directed to read the scenarios and respond in the manner they would naturally do with their students. Since male and female students are taught separately at the target university, male faculty members responded as if they were addressing their male students while female faculty members imagined speaking to their female students. It was decided to collect data through role-plays, not the more commonly used written Discourse Completion Task, in order to increase the authenticity of data. Faculty members would produce more natural speech in role-plays. Afterwards, recordings got transcribed for the purpose of data analysis. The researchers are aware though that ethnographic data collection would offer yet a higher level of authenticity, but opted for the use of role-plays in order to examine the criticism strategies within the same situations across all participants. Additionally, the use of role-plays was more feasible due to the difficulty of arranging repeated visits to classrooms for data collection. It is worth noting that the use of English as the medium of instruction is enforced by a university policy, and, hence, even the Arabic-speaking teachers who participated in the study completed the role-plays in English as they would do in their classrooms.

3.3Data coding

Data coding was based on an adapted version of Nguyen’s (2005Nguyen, Thi T. M. 2005 “Criticizing and Responding to Criticism in a Foreign Language: A Study of Vietnamese Learners of English.” PhD thesis. University of Auckland 2005 https://​researchspace​.auckland​.ac​.nz​/handle​/2292​/36, 2013Nguyen, Thi T. M. 2013 “An Exploratory Study of Criticism Realization Strategies Used by NS and NNS of New Zealand English.” Multilingua 32 (1): 103–130. ) coding scheme of the speech act of criticizing. The scheme included two main categories of criticism; i.e., direct criticism, which explicitly points out the problem with H’s choice/actions/work/products/ etc., and indirect criticism, which implies the problems with H’s choice/actions/work/products, etc. Each category included a number of subcategories. For example, the strategy of disapproval, which involves describing S’s negative attitude towards H’s choice, etc., fell under direct criticism while the strategy of correction, which involves fixing errors and asserting specific alternatives, came under indirect criticism. Context here definitely played a central role to decide whether an utterance is direct or indirect. In addition to these two main categories, it was acknowledged that participants may opt out and/or attempt to soften criticism using external (e.g., sweeteners and disarmers) and/or internal (e.g., downtoners and understaters) modifiers (Nguyen 2005Nguyen, Thi T. M. 2005 “Criticizing and Responding to Criticism in a Foreign Language: A Study of Vietnamese Learners of English.” PhD thesis. University of Auckland 2005 https://​researchspace​.auckland​.ac​.nz​/handle​/2292​/36, 2013Nguyen, Thi T. M. 2013 “An Exploratory Study of Criticism Realization Strategies Used by NS and NNS of New Zealand English.” Multilingua 32 (1): 103–130. ). Appendixes (B) and (C) include detailed descriptions of all categories with their characteristics and sample utterances. Coding was limited to verbal behavior. Analysis of non-verbal criticism (e.g., Trees and Manusov 1998Trees, April R., and Valerie Manusov 1998 “Managing Face Concerns in Criticism: Integrating Nonverbal Behaviors as a Dimension of Politeness in Female Friendship Dyads.” Human Communication Research 24 (4): 564–583. ) was not addressed as it falls beyond the scope of the current study.

4.1How do university teachers realize the speech act of criticizing in their talk with students?

Table 1 shows the percentages of criticism strategies in terms of opting out, direct criticism and indirect criticism. The university teachers preferred the use of indirect strategies which represented 53.3% of the responses. The most frequent micro-strategies were demanding change (10.7%), indicating a standard (9.7%), requesting change (8.6%), advising change (7.1%), asking or presupposing (6.7%) and giving hints (5.2%). As for the direct strategies, which represented 43.1% of the responses, it is noted that the less direct the micro-strategy was, the more frequently it was used. For example, the extremely direct strategies of negative evaluation and disapproval account for 9.6% while showing the consequences of action and identifying the problem represented 22.9% and 10.4% respectively. Regarding opting out, it represented only 3.6% of the responses.

Table 2 shows the university teachers’ preferences per situation. In four situations, the teachers produced more direct than indirect strategies. The percentage of direct strategies from the total number of strategies employed by teachers was (56.9%) when the teacher discovered the students’ act of plagiarism in situation 10, (56.2%) when the student cheated in situation 7, (51.9%) when the student missed the deadline for assignment submission in situation 3 and (49.1%) when the student came late to class in situation 1. Four other situations showed a remarkably high use of indirect strategies. This was shown when the student received a low grade in situation 4 (69.5%), forgot the study materials in situation 2 (64.3%), used the cell phone in class in situation 8 (63%) and submitted a poor assignment in situation 6 (61.5%). As for opting out, three situations showed higher use of strategy than the average for the accumulative situations. These situations were the ones when the student was rude (6.8%), arrived late to class (5.6%) and used the cell phone (5.5%).

Table 3 shows that the use of modifiers, whether external or internal ones, was minimal. Only 167 external and 62 internal modifiers were produced. External modifiers constituted almost three quarters of the total number of modifiers with grounders (e.g., Please, read these materials because my lecture is directly linked with that) (33.6%) being the most frequent, followed by disarmers (e.g., You’re late again, but I think that’s because of the traffic jam.) (15.2%), sweeteners (e.g., Your writing is generally good, but this part seems directly copied from the source.) (13.5%) and steers (e.g., I have some comments about your assignment) (10.4%) respectively. As for internal modifiers, the most frequent was cajolers (e.g., You know, you need to fix this problem.) (14.8%). Table 4 shows the use of modifiers per situations. With the small number of modifiers used, no significant patterns proved worthy of description. It is obvious though that the highest number of external modifiers was used in the situations where the student forgot the study materials (situation 2), received a low grade (situation 4) and forgot to prepare for class (situation 9).

4.2How does gender influence university teachers’ realization of the speech act of criticizing in their talk with students?

In order to examine the influence of gender on the teachers’ criticism strategies, a T-test11.A T-test is a type of inferential statistics which is used to demonstrate if there is a significant difference between the means of two groups which may be related in certain features. was run to compare the averages of the two genders in order to identify any differences and show how statistically significant these differences are. As shown in Table 5, men produced significantly more negative evaluations, advice for change and other hints while women demanded change significantly more frequently.

These findings, however, underwent some change when the T-test was conducted per situation because choosing the most appropriate politeness strategy is situation-dependent (Holtgraves 1992Holtgraves, Thomas 1992 “The Linguistic Realization of Face Management: Implications for Language Production and Comprehension, Person Perception, and Cross-cultural Communication.” Social Psychology Quarterly 55 (2):141–159. ). First, men produced more grounders when students came late to class, more advice for change when students forgot their materials, did not meet the deadline, behaved rudely and submitted partially plagiarized assignments, more hints when students attempted to cheat, more negative evaluations when students behaved rudely, attempted to cheat and did not prepare for class and more direct criticisms when students did not prepare for class. As for women, they produced significantly more hints when students received low grades, more disapprovals when they did not prepare for class, more demands for change when students submitted poor assignments and more questions when students did not prepare for class. Women also opted out more often when students received low grades.

The influence of gender was also examined through comparing the combination patterns of strategies as shown in Table 7. Among the noted differences are that the opting out strategy ranked 1st for women with 10% while it ranked 2nd for men with 5%. A reverse pattern was noted for the indication of ill consequences which ranked 1st for men with 9% and second for women for 6.7%. It was also noted that demanding change on its own represented 4.7% of the patterns by women while it did not represent a frequent pattern for men who preferred requests for change (2.3%) and advice for change (2.3%) instead. Some similarities across gender were also observed. For example, indicating ill consequences by itself stood at 4% for women and 3.3% for men. Similarly, identifying problems with indicating ill consequences represented 4.3% for women and 3% for men.

4.3How do increased years of teaching experience influence university teachers’ realization of the speech act of criticizing in their talk with students?

In order to address the influence of increased years of teaching experience on the realization of criticism, a Pearson Correlation test22.The Pearson Correlation test is a statistical measure of the linear correlation between two variables. was run to measure the statistical relationship, or association, between the two variables. The results shown in Tables (8) and (9) revealed minimal influence. Overall, the more experienced the professors were, the more likely they steered and produced external modifiers. When the test was run per situations, however, some further differences emerged. The more experienced professors were, the less they demanded change when students came late to class, asked questions when students behaved rudely, advised change when students did not prepare for class and identified the problem in cases of plagiarism. The more experienced the professors were, the more they provided hints when students missed deadlines, produced cajolers when students behaved rudely, steered when students used the cell phone in class and produced external modifiers when students did not prepare for class or submitted partially plagiarized assignments.