An empirical study on the pragmatic competence of Spanish EFL learners in performing a speech act of request

Identifier:  TFM:658

Handle: https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11797/TFM658

Authors:  Iendzhiievska, Mariana

Abstract:
The aim of this study is to investigate sociopragmatic and pragmalinguistic dimensions of learners’ pragmatic competence. The research was carried out by means of a discourse completion test (DCT) which was given to 50 students of a Spanish secondary school. This research is an attempt to answer the following questions: 1) Is there a relationship between language proficiency and pragmatic competence? 2) Which politeness strategies do Spanish students apply to perform a request in English? 3) Are requests performed with a different degree of politeness depending on social distance and context? 4) Are there any cross-gender differences in performing a request? The findings of the study do not show any relationship between language proficiency and pragmatic competence, learners of all levels demonstrated similar ways of request realization. Spanish EFL learners gave a preference to a conventionally indirect strategy of performing a request and social variables were taken into account by the respondents. Statistical analysis of responses revealed that males and females show certain tendencies and patterns in different aspects of performing a request.