An Investigation on the Sociolinguistic Competence of English Language Teacher Trainees: A Comparative Study on Native and Non-Native English Speakers

Yıl 2019, Cilt: 7 Sayı: 1, 322 - 339, 30.03.2019

Nihal Göy , Korkut İşisağ

Öz

The aim of the present study was to investigate sociolinguistic abilities of Turkish senior students of
ELT departments in comparison to native speakers of English. Fifty Turkish and twenty-five
American students participated in the study. The study was carried out in two aspects: (1) The
differences of refusal and complaint strategies and (2) how their performances were perceived by a
native interlocutor for the same social situations with two variables of interlocutors: higher – equal,
familiar – unfamiliar. The data were collected qualitatively and quantitatively by means of two tools; a
DCT involving 6-paired situations with two interlocutors, in total 12 items, separated as 3 refusal and
3 complaint situations was used for the qualitative analysis. The responses of all participants for each
pair were coded, analysed and compared in SPSS program. Quantitative analysis was done by a
communicative rating scale. An American rater graded Turkish students’ responses according to the
5-point scale to assess their performances in sociocultural and sociolinguistic criteria. The results
showed that Turkish EFL learners could use a range of speech act strategies, but they deviate from
native speakers in content. Also, it was seen that they lacked some sociolinguistic and sociocultural
knowledge that might cause sociopragmatic failure.

Anahtar Kelimeler

Sociolinguistic competence, speech acts, complaints, refusals, discourse completion tasks

An Investigation on the Sociolinguistic Competence of English Language Teacher Trainees: A Comparative Study on Native and Non-Native English Speakers

Öz

Anahtar Kelimeler

Sociolinguistic competence, speech acts, complaints, refusals, discourse completion tasks

Kaynakça

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• Bikmen, A. S. (2011). A descriptive study on the performance of complaints by Turkish university students in an efl context. Unpublished Master’s Thesis. Bogazici Universitesi, Ankara
• Billmyer, K. (1990). "I really like your lifestyle": ESL learners learning how to compliment. Penn Working Papers in Educational Linguistics, 6(2), 31-48.