REQUESTING PREFERENCES OF TURKISH EFL LEARNERS: AGE, GENDER, AND PROFICIENCY LEVEL
İNGİLİZCEYİ YABANCI DİL OLARAK ÖĞRENEN TÜRK ÖĞRENCİLERİN RİCA ETME TERCİHLERİ: YAŞ, CİNSİYET VE YABANCI DİL BİLGİSİ SEVİYESİ FAKTÖRLERİ

Author : Levent UZUN
Number of pages : 737-754

Abstract

The present study examined Turkish EFL learners’ awareness of indirectness as a politeness strategy, and to what degree they considered or would consider the principles of ‘power’, ‘social distance’, and ‘size of imposition’ while performing their requests under various situations and conditions. The study aimed at revealing whether gender, age, and linguistic proficiency level affected the pragmatic competence of the learners. The participants were 35 High School students in Bursa, Turkey, and 14 native speakers of English from Britain and the USA. The data were collected by the help of a 15-item multiple-choice questionnaire which was prepared by the researcher. Direct, indirect, and non-conventional indirect requesting tendencies were tested. Results revealed that the strategies preferred by Turkish EFL learners are affected by linguistic proficiency level, age, and gender. It was observed that female students preferred mostly indirect requesting utterances, which always surpassed male students’ tendencies at all ages and linguistic proficiency levels. It was also observed that directness decreased as the age and linguistic proficiency level increased, which suggested that indirectness increases together with the age and linguistic proficiency.

Keywords

Requesting, Age, Gender, Proficiency level, Turkish students.

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