A study of Assertives in Arabic Supervisor – Student Interaction

Abstract

Relatively, little is known about assertive speech acts the supervisors employ to communicate with their research students. In addition, it is unknown whether assertives can help determine the supervisors' mode of interaction across the stages of the supervisory process and also the dominant mode throughout the entire process. The present study seeks to investigate the supervisors’ use of assertives while presenting their oral feedback. The study traces the supervisors’ use of asserives throughout the stages of writing the thesis. Also, it aims at finding if they can be used to identify the mode of interaction at each stage and the dominant one employed by the supervisors throughout the entire process. The study adopts an eclectic model that combines two parts. The first part is based mainly on Searle's (1979) assertives. The second part comprises Heron's (1976) six-category intervention analysis. The data has been approached qualitatively; in addition, some instruments from the quantitative method are used, such as percentages, figures, and some mathematical statistics, to explore the correlation between the assertives understudy and the supervisory mode of interaction. The data analysis concludes that assertive speech acts can be used to determine the supervisors’ mode of interaction throughout the various stages of the supervisory process and identify the dominant mode of interaction across the entire supervisory process. Besides, the findings show that the authoritative mode is the dominant mode of interaction employed by the supervisors throughout the various stages of the supervisory process.