Pragmalinguistic and sociocultural perspectives on intercultural communicative competence within mobile and non-mobile higher education contexts : examining Turkish and Belgian higher education students’ speech act products in English

Abstract: This study examines written speech act products of different student groups. First, mobile Turkish Erasmus students’ English requests and refusals are analyzed from the perspectives of modification, (in)directness and politeness. The analysis of the request data is made via the taxonomy of request modification in Halupka-Resetar (2014) while the analysis of the refusal data is made with the classification of refusals by Beebe et al. (1990). Certain changes and adaptations were applied to these taxonomies so that they served the goals of the present study and fit the characteristic fe... Mehr ...

Verfasser: Aba Poulos, Diler
Dokumenttyp: doctoralThesis
Erscheinungsdatum: 2021
Sprache: Englisch
Permalink: https://search.fid-benelux.de/Record/base-26496315
Datenquelle: BASE; Originalkatalog
Powered By: BASE
Link(s) : https://hdl.handle.net/10067/1748290151162165141

Abstract: This study examines written speech act products of different student groups. First, mobile Turkish Erasmus students’ English requests and refusals are analyzed from the perspectives of modification, (in)directness and politeness. The analysis of the request data is made via the taxonomy of request modification in Halupka-Resetar (2014) while the analysis of the refusal data is made with the classification of refusals by Beebe et al. (1990). Certain changes and adaptations were applied to these taxonomies so that they served the goals of the present study and fit the characteristic features of all participant groups. For the analysis of requests, the frequency and variety of various modification tools are examined. Modification is useful to increase politeness and to compensate for the face-threatening nature of speech acts. This analysis required the coding and enumeration of both internal and external modifiers in the students’ emails, text messages and/or social media messages. The interactions in these messages or emails take place between either unequal level interlocutors with high social distance or equal level interlocutors with low social distance. Some interactions require formal written communication (e.g. emails written to higher status interlocutors) with a high degree of imposition (i.e. request for action) while some others included informal written communication (e.g. text messages between friends) with a low degree of imposition (i.e. request for information). For the analysis of refusals, various direct and indirect refusal strategies and adjuncts are examined in these students’ written refusal products. Contextual variables are essential for appropriateness and politeness of the students’ refusals as well. The quantitative analysis of the request and refusal data through the abovementioned taxonomies is supported with qualitative methods by evaluating the modification and (in)directness results according to the contextual variables specific in each writing task. This analysis is made ...