Transfer of Requestive Speech act from L1 to L2 in Iranian EFL Learners

Abstract

The present paper is an investigation of cross-cultural differences in requestive speech act between Persian and English. The study is an attempt to find whether Iranian EFL learners would transfer their L1 requests into the L2, and if there would be any differences between English request strategies by Iranian EFL learners and English native speakers (ENSs). In order for the learners’ language proficiency to be gauged, the Oxford Placement Test (OPT) was used to select 20 Iranian high proficient EFL learners and 20 low proficient ones out of 64 EFL learners. The EFL learners filled out the English and Persian versions of the DCT (Discourse Completion Test). In addition, 20 monolingual Persian native speakers (PNSs) and 20 English native speakers (ENSs) were also selected. The request strategies were classified into three different categories of Direct, Conventionally Indirect, and Non-conventionally Indirect strategies. The results revealed the significant differences in the use of request strategies between EFL learners and ENSs. Lastly, the results also showed that pragmatic transfer of requestive speech act does not occur from L1 to L2 in Iranian EFL learners.