A Comparative Study on Speech Acts: Formal Complaints by Native Speakers and Turkish Learners of English

Year 2018, , 239 - 259, 26.09.2018

Okan Önalan , Abdulvahit Çakır

https://doi.org/10.32601/ejal.464128

Cited By: 6

Abstract

The aim of this study is to
investigate the pragmatic language behavior of Turkish learners of English in
formal complaint situations through the comparison of their speech act
performances to those of native speakers. The data was collected from a total
of 276 participants, 132 Native Speakers (NSs) and 144 Turkish Learners (TLs)
of English. Three different data collection methods were used: a) Discourse
Evaluation Task (DET); b) video-recorded role plays; and c) open-ended oral
interviews. The results indicate that native English speakers’ and Turkish
learners’ production of complaints reflects a significant difference with
respect to the linguistic components and the pragmatic choices made in
complaining. A significant contribution of the current study to the literature
is the Discourse Evaluation Task (DET), which is both a data collection tool
and a term used for the first time in this paper.

Keywords

Speech acts, formal complaints, directness-indirectness, pragmatic competence, discourse evaluation task (DET)

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