Iraqi EFL University Students’ Linguistic Strategies in Approaching Warning and Prohibition

Abstract

This paper aims at detecting Iraqi EFL students’ ability in recognizing and producing the speech acts of warning and prohibition, finding the reasons behind their failure and attempting to find possible solutions. The data are responses of 60 fourth year Iraqi EFL college students who participated to answer a two-part test of recognition and production. It is hypothesized that the Iraqi EFL learners commit more errors in producing SAs of warning and prohibition than recognizing these two SAs, they find more difficulty in handling the SA of prohibition than of warning, they show a tendency towards using a particular strategy to express the SAs of warning and prohibition, and they also confuse the SAs of warning and prohibition with other relevant SAs at the recognition and production levels. The paper concludes that Iraqi EFL learners recognize warning expressions better than those conveying prohibition. They also show sufficient awareness in issuing warning strategies in various situations. By contrast, they display a poor awareness of using various strategies in performing the SA of prohibition. Furtherly, the students’ level in recognizing the SAs of warning and prohibition is higher than their level in producing these SAs. Correspondingly, in producing the SAs of warning, Iraqi EFL learners show a higher preference for using negative imperative, modals and if-conditional strategies more than other types in most of the situations, whereas in communicating the SA of prohibition, they employ negative imperatives and modals more than any other construction.