Speech Acts in Classroom Teaching: Iraqi EFL College Students' Socio-pragmatic Deviation in Producing Expressives

Transcription

1 Speech Acts in Classroom Teaching: Iraqi EFL College Students' Socio-pragmatic Deviation in Producing Expressives Asst. Prof. Abbas Lutfi Hussein (PhD) & Inst. Nadia Majeed Hussein (PhD) Al-Mustansiriah University Middle Technical University College of Arts, Dept. of English Technical Instructors Training Institute Abstract It has been observed that Iraqi EFL college students are often found to deviate from the sociocultural norms and features when they are required to produce certain spoken situations involving the use of expressive speech acts of apology and condolence. Their speeches and responses do not match those of native speakers, and thus, they seem awkward or refer to certain spoken situations other than those required in the communicative process or interaction. A ten-item production test (of apology and condolence) is administered to 50 Iraqi EFL 4 th year students of the College of Arts, Al-Mustansiriyah to identify their socio-pragmatic deviation in the use of apology and condolence. Responses to the test have been collected and analyzed. The study concludes that negative transfer of L1 socio-pragmatic knowledge is the main characteristic that EFL Iraqi students resort to when handling these speech acts. Socio-pragmatic deviation or failure occurs because they are linguistically unaware of the conventions and resources used in the target language; therefore, their performance is a non-native one. Further, lack of syntactic and semantic knowledge is an influential factor in producing certain spoken situations of the expressive speech acts of apologizing and condoling. Key words: Classroom teaching, Expressives, Socio-pragmatics, Deviation 1

2 أفعال الكالم في التذريس الصفي: االنحراف التذاولي االجتماعي لذى طلبة الكليات العراقيين دارسي اللغة االنكليزية لغة اجنبية في إنتاج أفعال كالم التعبير المستخلص لىحظ ثأن الطلجةخ الرةساي ه راز ة الل ةخ األوكل ص ةخ ل ةخ نبىج ةخ ببلجةب قةب ىقةىا األونةسا ةه طس ق قرب س وخصبئص االبزمب خ والث بف خ ىدقب طلت قىهم الزرج س ه حبالد قر ىخ والزة رزضةمه ا ةزادا نفرةبك ميق ةخ قرجةسح ةه نبةسا اال زةراز والزرةبش فلةم ركةبف ء خطبثةبد اولئك الطلجخ قع آزاوهم قه قزكلم الل ه االوكل ص خ األ وثهرا ثدي نفةسار الر ىةخ قنةسب ه ثرة الش ء نو نوهم ممه ش س ال حبالد ميق خ نخسي ب س رلةك المطلىثةخ خةيك مل ةخ الزىا ة نو الزفب لرا رم إبساء اخزجبز ذ شس ف ساد )اال زةراز و الزرص ةخع لة 05 طبلجةب قةه المسحلةخ الساثرةخ ف يسم الل خ االوكل ص خ ف مل خ ا راة /الجبقرخ المسزىصس خ ل س رند د اونسافهم االبزمب الزةداول فة حةبالد اال زةراز و الزرص ةخ فةزم بمةع االببثةبد ورنل لهةب احصةبئ ب والىزجةخ ان رى لذ الدزا خ ثأن االوز بك السلج للمرسفخ االبزمب خ الزداول خ لل خ األ ه الاب خ السئ سخ للطلجخ الرساي ه راز الل خ األوكل ص خ ل خ نبىج خ ممةب رى ةلذ الدزا ةخ الة نن االونةسا نو الفش األبزمب و الزداول إومب ندس ثسجت د وبةىر ارزا ل ةى ألولئةك الطلجةخ ألوةمةخ وقصبرز الل خ الهد, و ل ةه ارسةم نرائهةم ثرةد ييزةه ثبلل ةخ الهةد ووبةىر ةىش للمرسفةخ الىنى خ و الدالل خ والر رزجس بقي ذا رأث س ىد إوزبج حبالد ميق ةخ قنةدرح ألفرةبك الزرج ةس ف حبالد اال زراز و الزرص خ الكلمات االفتتاحية : الزدز س الصف,نفربك مي الزرج س, لم الزداول االبزمب, االونسا 1.0 Introduction It is often realized that recognizing and producing a language encompasses "not only knowledge of grammar, phonology and vocabulary, but also knowledge of certain features and characteristics of society and culture related to the system of values, attitudes, beliefs and norms that users of L2 agree to" (Dascal, 1985: 96). When using expressive speech acts, Iraqi EFL students are generally observed to fail or deviate from the cultural and social norms and principles. A lot of studies have been carried out to account for this failure and deviation in the performance of illocutionary acts and come up with the conclusion that this deviation is mainly due to inability of learners to detect the suitable meaning (i.e. selecting the inappropriate meaning that does not fit the concerned produced illocutionary acts of the target 2

3 language) and the inability to produce the suitable form (i.e. selecting the wrong linguistic means and strategies that do not fit the concerned produced illocutionary acts). Put another way, the main factor leading to such a type of deviation and failure in the production of the appropriate expressive speech act is owing to the sociopragmatic knowledge that most students lack. This knowledge is mainly accredited to the appropriateness of meaning in terms of the social and cultural contexts in which these speech acts are used. Furthermore, it is sometimes "difficult to learn sociopragmatic conventions as they are linked to the distinction between forms and functions" (Cakir, 2006: 137). More elaborately, difficulties and problem arise from the fact that the students mostly depend on the structural grounding rather than on the contexts and situations surrounding an utterance when to identify and use expressive speech acts of apologizing and condoling. Consequently, they produce non-native, awkward and hesitant utterances. Thus, this paper is intended to investigate the Iraqi EFL students' deviation and failure in the use of the two expressive speech acts (apology and condolence) and it attempts to explain why such a deviation and failure occur, identifying sources and causes behind this deviation, providing some possible solutions, and setting up some pedagogical implications. 1.1 Pragmatics in General Pragmatics is generally defined as the study of the conditions of human language use as these are determined by the context of society (Mey, 1993: 42). It is mainly concerned with the communicative conditions which affect language use. That is, the main concern of pragmatics is "the use of language in everyday situation, rather than the grammatical aspects of that language". Further, Levinson (1983:24) describes pragmatics as the study of the ability of language users to pair sentences in the contexts in which they would be appropriate. Supporting Levinsonʹs view, Yule (1996: 3) asserts that pragmatics should be better described as the study of "contextual meaning and necessarily involves the interpretation of what people mean in the particular context and how the context influences what is said". This requires an attention of "how speakers organize what they want to say in accordance with who they are talking to, where, when, and under 3

4 what circumstances". Additionally, pragmatics discovers "how listeners can make inference about what is said in order to be understandable and interpretation of the message intended by the speaker, and explores how a great deal of what is unsaid is recognized as part of what is communicated". In a word, pragmatics is the study of language use rather than language usage. It should not be seen as a component of the language system, but is a different perspective on verbal phenomena. It examines how linguistic resources are used in communication and investigates a speaker's (or writer's) intentions and a hearer's (or reader's) interpretations. And "since language use is considered a complex form of social action, the general question addressed in pragmatics is how language functions in the lives of human beings". In this sense, the focus can be on utterances or on longer stretches of discourse (Strazny, 2005: ). 1.2 Socio-pragmatics Socio-pragmatics is often recognized as the sociological interface of pragmatics" linked to the "social perceptions underlying participantsʹ interpretation and performance of communicative action". Particularly, socio-pragmatics is concerned with "how pragmatic principles operate in different cultures, in different social situations, among different social classes including knowledge of degrees of relative power, social distance, and degree of imposition" (Leech, 1983:10). For Crystal (1985: 240), socio-pragmatics is mainly associated with "the social and psychological features interpreted in terms of their context of situation." Then, socio-pragmatic analysis is more linked to the study of culture as "pragmatic interpretations are determined by cultural conditions as in religion, beliefs, rituals, norms of politeness and deference, etc." Elaborately, socio-pragmatics refers to "the way conditions on language use derived from the social situation". It contrasts with a vision of "pragmatics in which language use is studied from the viewpoint of the structural resources available in a language" (i.e. pragma-linguistics). A pragma-linguistic approach concerns "the way in which people choose different forms to express a range of attitudes and relationships" (e.g. deference and intimacy) (Crystal, 2008: 441). He (ibid) affirms that the communicative use of language "must rely on shared (public) rules and contexts, to ensure comprehensibility". 4

5 Elaborately, Strazny (2005: ) draws a distinction between pragmalinguistics and socio-pragmatics affirming that pragma-linguistics is concerned with "the verbal resources available for realizing any given speech act". Conversely, socio-pragmatics focuses on "the polite norms governing the selection of resources relative to social situations". As an illustrative example, pragma-linguistics specifies the "word choices, meaning patterns, and sentence constructions" manipulated to express compliment; socio-pragmatics specifies "who may compliment whom, on what, and in which situations". In brief, pragma-linguistics is "language specific" whereas socio-pragmatics is "culture specific". In general, pragma-linguistics involves "strategies like directness and indirectness, routines, and a large range of linguistic forms which can intensify or soften communicative acts. Socio-pragmatics involves ʺthe social perception of communicative actionʺ (Kasper, 1997: 1). Socio-pragmatics stresses the communicative characteristic and the existence of the "social context in which a speech act occurs". That is "the study of communication in its socio-culture context", involving the "social and cultural factors influence how people communicate with others". In enunciating a speech act, for example, the social situation of the utterance has an essential role in recognizing in what way the speech act is conveyed to the listener (Trosborg, 1995: 37-8). 1.3 Pragmatic Deviation Generally, Ziran and Xinren (2004: 52-7) clarify that there are mainly three situations under which pragmatic deviation in cross-cultural communication occurs. Firstly, "the speaker chooses an inappropriate topic"; people are required to "distinguish between free and constrained topics in intercultural communication". Secondly, the speaker may use "expressions which have different implications in the target language, or which deviate from his own intention in producing such utterances". (e.g. in greetings). In addition, deviation occurs when the speaker misuses "fixed expressions in the target language" which cause misunderstanding and misinterpretation. Finally, the utterance the speaker uses to express a certain idea does not suit the norm of the target language. Particularly, deviation occurs when people "with different cultural backgrounds tend to use different expressions and strategies to convey the same information"; they pragmatically deviate from the 5

6 cultural norms of the target language while communicating in a language other than their L1. According to Guan-lian (2002: 195), pragmatic deviation or failure occurs "when the speaker uses grammatically correct sentences, but unconsciously violates the interpersonal relationship rules, social conventions, or takes little notice of time, space and addressee Pragma-linguistic Deviation Pragma-linguistic deviation comes about when "the pragmatic force mapped by the speaker onto a given utterance is systematically different from most frequently assigned to it by native speakers of the target language, or when conversational strategies are inappropriately transferred from the speaker's mother tongue to the target language" (Thomas, 1983: 91). Ziran and Xinren ( 2004: 52-7) add that pragma-linguistic deviation occurs when a speaker deviates or fails to transfer his/her meaning since "the message's pragmatic force is misunderstood". A language user might translate something from an L1 into an L2 without paying attention to the communicative norms and standards of an L2, which are rather dissimilar. For instance, although both the formulaic expressions 'How are you?' and 'Hello' are used to show greeting, pragma-linguistic deviation occurs when "learners sometimes fail to get the meaning of an utterance due to the fact that the communicative conventions behind such an utterance used are different". This problem is deemed as a "pragma-linguistic one since it has a little to do with speaker's perception of what constitute appropriate behavior". Further, it has much to do with recognizing "how to phrase an utterance" (e.g. as a command or request) Socio-pragmatic Deviation Socio-pragmatic deviation is primarily concerned "with what to say and whom to say it to ". Most problems of understanding seem to come from "what is identified as differences in evaluation regarding size of imposition, cross-culturally different assessments of relative power or social distance, and value judgments ". Actually, socio-pragmatic deviation stems from "different cultural norms and pragmatic principles that govern linguistic behaviors in different cultures". Various cultures have various "ways of thinking, rules of speaking, social 6

7 values and place different relative weights on the pragmatic principles", and these different assessments of social restrictions have negatively influenced nonnative speakersʹ linguistic choices. As a result, this will lead to socio-pragmatic deviation (Thomas, 1983: 91-4). This view is highlighted by Ziran and Xinren (2004: 52-7) who maintain that socio-pragmatic deviation arises "when the speaker does not give attention to the identity and social status of the listener during the conversation". He/she may yield pragmatic deviation by utilizing a polite utterance towards "a close person or someone of a lower social status or by addressing a remote person or someone of a higher social status with an intimate form". Here, the speaker's lack of sociopragmatic knowledge about "the politeness principle of social interaction" is a chief source of socio-pragmatic deviation. Put simply, Carter and Nunan (2001: 102) expound that this deviation occurs owing to "the social circumstances surrounding the speech act, such as the social distance, politics, religion, morals, gender, power and the closeness of relationships between the interactants, i.e., knowledge about the world." In this case, the speaker fails to know "what to say, when, why and to whom". They (ibid) clarify their point of view stating that not recognizing "the pragmatic force of a ʹthank youʹ might cause a pragma-linguistic failure, but cultural differences of when to say it, in which occasion and for what reason" might lead to socio-pragmatic deviation. 1.4 Speech Acts in Classroom Teaching Observations and approaches of language teaching demonstrate that EFL teachers can effectively interpret the allegedly secret rules for classroom learners and that teaching pragmatics, in this respect, can be fruitful. Teaching pragmatics can show the learners' capability of linking utterances to contexts in which they are used, as Stalnaker (1972:383) explains, pragmatics is "the study of linguistic acts and the contexts in which they are performed". Thus, teaching pragmatics may help to enable the learners find socially suitable language for the circumstances they meet, as pragmatics involves "the study of the way in which language is used to express what somebody really means in particular situations, especially when the actual words may appear to mean something different" (Hornby, 2001: 990). 7

8 Moreover, EFL learners reveal significant differences from native speakers in language use, particularly in understanding and producing certain speech acts, in conveying communicative purposes such as "greetings and leave-takings, and in conversational management such as back channeling and short responses" (Kasper and Rose, 1999:89ff). Pragmatic rules for language use are "often subconscious and even native speakers are often unaware of pragmatic rules until they are broken (and feelings are hurt or offense is taken)" (Bardovi-Harlig and Mahan-Taylor, 2003:1-2). An increasing number of studies have been devoted to the description of language use in a variety of English-speaking societies, and these studies have produced significant evidence for teaching pragmatics in ESL/EFL classrooms. (See, for example, Bardovi-Harlig, 2001; Kasper and Schmidt. 1996; Rose and Kasper, 2001) In theorizing and teaching a language, speech act theory plays a vital role as it increases the awareness of in what way "a language works when used by interlocutors in different contexts". As matter of fact, an EFL language learner must possess, in succession, "a good grammatical and lexical command and succeed in communicating functionally", a successful teacher in a classroom teaching must emphasize on increasing "both competences in order to make a student be successful in foreign language acquisition and usage" (Rathert, 2013: 81-2). In other words, EFL teachers must have good knowledge about the speech acts and their basics to practice "the natural input for the students in a particular content, for a particular purpose, and as part of a strategy" (Bardovi- Harlig, 1996: 23). 1.5 Speech Act Theory Basically, pragmatics has been governed by the speech act theory. The key basis of this belief is that speech is described as an action. When someone says something, he/she is actually performing an act. He does not only emit "sound waves, utter words, and produce sentences", but also makes an action. If a governor says: ʹI declare this bridge openʹ, then this bridge is open. In this respect, the mayor has performed an act of declaration. Five classes of speech acts have been recognized, which are "more likely to occur in everyday communication". These are ʹdirectivesʹ, ʹcommissivesʹ, ʹexpressivesʹ, and ʹassertivesʹ and 'representatives'. Typical examples for these classes are requests, promises, apologies, statements and claims (Strazny, 2005: ). 8

9 The focus on language use in the second half of the twentieth century has led to the growth of pragmatic studies. One central approach in pragmatics is the presentation of the concept of speech acts. The important perception of speech act theory is that language is used to achieve communicative acts. The notion of speech act takes hold of an essential characteristic of language; "saying something can also involve doing something". For example, by uttering I beg your pardon a speaker "does not only produce a sentence in English but also performs an act, that of apologizing" (Austin, 1962: 92). Searle (1969: 56) furthermore expounds that for a speech act to be "performed successfully, a certain number of conditions have to be met". For example, a speaker should have "the right to perform certain speech acts in order for them to be performed successfully". He (ibid) adds that speech acts must be achieved in "real situations of language use". Put simply, the underlined hypothesis in speech act theory is that the "minimal unit of human communication is the performance of certain kinds of acts or functions". Nevertheless, the chief problem in teaching pragmatics is the excessive number of speech acts found in a language. A great number of speech acts and their linguistic functions make "the teaching of a particular speech act an unattainable goal". Most ESL/EFL studies have proposed that the emphasis should be on the use of language in "ongoing discourse". In effect, the actual accountability of the classroom teacher is "making students more aware about existing pragmatic functions in language, especially in discourse". Teachers should well recognize the speech acts and their elements to manipulate the normal input for the "students in a particular content, for a particular purpose, and as part of a strategy" (Bardovi Harlig, 1996: 23). The reason behind laying emphasis on the involvement of speech acts in ESL/EFL language teaching comes from the observations that many studies have made known that "language learners are slow to comprehend speech acts. They are slow to perceive how to respond to cultural differences because just as they transfer L1 language patterns into learning L2, they also transfer pragmatic understanding from L1 into L2". This is simply because it is "difficult to acquire pragmatic competence and that even advanced-level L2 learners are prone to pragmatic failure" or deviation (Tanaka, 1997 cited in Milleret, 2009: 31). 9

10 I.6 Expressive Speech Acts Expressive speech acts "express a psychological state" (typical examples are thanking, apologizing, welcoming, condoling and congratulating). Expressives are speech acts that "state what the speaker feels" (Yule, 1996: 53). Moreover, the illocutionary point of expressives is to "express the psychological state specified in the sincerity condition about a state of affairs specified in the propositional content". There is no direction of fit in performing expressives. In an expressive speech act, the speaker is attempting to hold "the truth of the expressed proposition in the content of the utterance rather than to "get the world to match the words or the words to match the world" (Searle, 1976:12-13). Expressive utterances have the intention to "express the sincerity condition of the speech act (Searle 1999:149). Hence, an "apology hinges on the speaker being sorry, condoling hinges on the speaker empathizing with the hearer, and so on". Consequently, an expressive speech act is labeled as misfire if "uttered insincerely, though conditions of sincerity vary depending on the expressive expressed." Apology An apology is often defined as an attempt made by the speaker to "restore social harmony". It is an occurrence of "socially-sanctioned H-supportive behavior" Edmondson (1981: 280). He (ibid) adds that as soon as "the apology is accepted, the complaint is no longer a valid focus for talk". Leech (1983: 124f) remarks that "apologies express regret for some offence committed by S against H an apology implies a transaction, in that it is a bid to change the balance-sheet of the relation between S and H". In this case, the speaker makes an offence hurting the listener and instability in their relationship is established. Thus, by saying sorry, the speaker attempts to reestablish the balance. Elaborately, Goffman (1971: 140) describes apologies as "compensatory actions that help restore and maintain social equilibrium and harmony". That is, an apology enables the two parties "to go on their way, if not with satisfaction that matters are closed, then at least with the right to act as if they feel that matters are closed and that ritual equilibrium has been restored". Viewing an apology as a process which involves both the offended and the offender as experiencing the act of apology, Lazare (2004: 23) affirms that an 11

11 apology is an "encounter between two parties in which one party, the offender, acknowledges responsibility for an offence or grievance and expresses regret or remorse to a second party, the aggrieved" Condolence Condolence is commonly defined as an oral exercise stated by the "human nature and the social associations among human beings". It is an external word of empathy with the sorrow of others; particularly ritual expression (ODE, 1989.s.v. Condolence). In moment of sorrow and grief, it is an etiquette to show compassion towards "the affected person / persons, though most people find the exact prospect difficult and awkward". Condolence is "one of the most meaningful acts of kindness you can do for a mourner" (Eeckler, 2005: 1-3). It is an oral expression which is employed to remove the feeling of grief. It shows a social significance as it contributes to the formation of compact and compliant society. Compassion postcards are perceived as noteworthy resources of communication when they touch upon the human feelings of the bereaved. Likewise, Fitzgerald (2003:2) avers that "the proper way for condolence is to write personal statements which effect one's genuine thoughts and feelings". However, condolence in English can be conveyed in either spoken or written means. The second practice seems to be more powerful and more acceptable than the former because of some social and psychological factors, "by its nature, speech is transient and only written records can preserve the thoughts and feelings of man for a long time" (Yule,1996:6). Condolence is a common social phenomenon which is linked to nonphysical or physical loss. People used to bid some linguistic and non- linguistic acts on the loss of people. These acts, though vary in terms of diverse social and religious customs, can soothe the bereaved and remove his sense of heartache. Pragmatically, condolence is regularly expressed in terms of indirect statements whose focal purposes are invocation, wishing, request and beseech. Searle (1972) describes condolence as an expressive speech acts which embodies the speaker's vision to a certain state of affairs identified in the propositional content. Condolences do not "have any direction of fit" because they are simply expressions of emotive and inner feelings of a speaker (Allan, 1998:12). 11

12 In line with their detailed classification of speech acts, Bach and Harnish (1979:51) identify condolence as a category of acknowledgments "which reflects the genuine feeling of the speaker towards the hearer". Acknowledgments are effectively accomplished when a certain occasion arises for the hearers and particularly, "when their assumptions are correct and there is a mutual shared knowledge between speaker/hearer." In fact, condolence requires stipulations about the shared knowledge between the speaker and hearer, and pre-existence of a certain occasion for the hearer. With respect to politeness, indirect speech acts rather than direct ones are preferred in expressing condolence. This is simply because, people are mostly unwilling to employ some terms of "common clichés whose meaning is liable to different interpretations because these can give negative results to the bereaved through increasing his grief such as "I know how you feel". Any statement which indicates an indirect speech act of empathy should be avoided in conveying "messages of condolence unless the condoler has the same occasion of death" (Fitzerald, 2003:4). Hence, it is better to resort to indirect speech acts since death in general has repressive nature which forces the speaker to be cautious in the choice of words and styles as any unfitting expression may upsurge the pain of the bereaved. The following are the most common used indirect expressions of condolence: - I am sorry. - I feel sympathy with you. - Please, accept my condolence. 1.5 Methodology This section involves three phases: the method followed, the sample chosen and the main instrument. i- Method: The researchers manipulate a union of quantitative and qualitative method to describe and analyze their data. The data are collected from responses given by the Iraqi EFL college students on the production test administered to them during the second term of the academic year The data analysis is based on the pragmatic investigation of the students' answers to the test. Results analysis is made in terms of statistical tools used for measuring students' number, type and percentage of errors committed by the students. ii- Sample: The sample consists of 40 students of fourth year of The Department of English, College of Arts, Al-Mustansiriyah University. The reason behind selecting 12

13 fourth year students is that they are expected to acquire good knowledge concerning pragmatic behavior, particularly of speech acts, as they come across such topics in Linguistics and Grammar courses during the fourth years of their BA courses. The test is administered at the end of the second term (on May25, 2017). To avoid any side effect on the test and to guarantee the homogeneity of the testees, certain variables are taken into consideration in order to obtain effective results. These variables include learners' age, the students nearly seem of the same age; parents' level of educational background. Instrument: The main instrument used in this research is a production test consisting of ten items: 5 for apology and 5 for condolence. In fact, the test contains ten spoken situations implying the use of the expressive speech acts of apology and condolence to be produced by the students. 1.6 Data Collection and Discussion Students' answers to the production test are collected and analyzed detecting the number of the correct and incorrect answers to each item that the sample have made. Finding reasons and justifications behind the socio-pragmatic deviation of apology and condolence is introduced with the aim of arriving at the main findings using suitable percentages. The following table reveals the number of the correct responses of each item of producing apology with their percentages: Table 1: Production of Apology Item No. Correct Responses Percentage % % % % % Total % 13

14 It has been noticed that second item is the easiest one as 37 of the sample (constituting 92.5% ) have produced the proper apology for not catching a phrase. This easiness may be due to the fact that Iraqi EFL students often get used to expressions such as "I beg your pardon or Pardon". The most difficult item is the first one as only 19 (47.5% of the whole sample) have succeeded to give the appropriate apology. Other items 4,3 and 5 have the occurrences of 26,23 and 20 having the rate of 65%, 57.5% and 50% respectively. The simplicity of the production of apology may be attributed to the familiarity of the situations given to the students. However, the total number of responses to the five items is 125 with a percentage of 62.5% which indicates that students show weakness in handling situations containing the speech act of apology. As for the expressive speech act of condolence, table 2 shows the number of the correct responses of each item of producing condolence with their percentages. Table 2: Production of Condolence Item No. Correct Responses Percentage % % % % % Total % Tables (2) above reveals that all the items given seem to be difficult to students. It appears that item 9 achieves the highest frequency of correct answers (12 with a percentage of 30%). Item 1 is the most difficult one as only 7 students are able to give the proper utterances of condolence. The students' awkwardness of the production of the test may be owing to the unusualness of condolence to them. Most students might not have experienced condolence in their four stages of study. To make a comparison between these two expressive speech acts, students seem to be weaker in producing condolence than in producing apology. It seems that expressions of apology (125 correct answers out of the total 200 forming 14

15 62.5%) are more common to students than those of condolence (51 correct answers out of the total 200 forming 25.5%); students often practice apology rather than condolence in their everyday conversations while performing communicative activities in classrooms. To support the comparison between students' responses of apology and condolence, ANOVA analysis is conducted to statistically detect the detailed description of the difference between them. Table 3: ANOVA Analysis Anova: Single Factor SUMMARY Groups Count Sum Average Variance Apology Condolence ANOVA Source of Variation SS df MS F Sig. F crit Between Groups Within Groups Total The ANOVA analysis gives rise to a significance of ( ). This is less than (0.05). So, it proves that there is a significant difference between the participants performance in using apology and condolence. As far as apology is concerned, the participants average is (25) out of the total sum (125) divided by (5) situations. Concerning condolence, the participants average is (10.2) out of the total sum (51) divided by (5) situations. Needless to say that there is a significant difference in the performance of the participants in using apology and condolence. In addition, participants do much better in the use of apology (25) than in the use of condolence (10.2). 15

16 1.7 Sources of Socio-pragmatic Deviation With reference to the above three tables it has been noticed that Iraqi EFL learners have displayed several defects and inefficiencies as far as their performance of the spoken utterances of apology and condolence is concerned. In general, those learners deviate from the socio-pragmatic norms and principles, owing to two main resources (socio-pragmatic and pragma-linguistic) Socio-pragmatic Resource Socio-pragmatically, two main factors affect students' answers: The influence of L1 culture and Lack of the social norms and principles of the target culture. They will be explained through the following illustrative examples taken from apology and condolence. Concerning the socio-pragmatic factor, students attempt to produce the required spoken situations but use their L1 socio-pragmatic resources because of the direct influence of L1 pragmatics. This might be interpreted as the attempts of learners to produce the spoken situations relying on their socio-pragmatic knowledge of their L1. It is apparent that EFL learners might be unacquainted with the social, cultural and pragmatic manners of the L2, which are entirely dissimilar from that of the native language. Moreover, aspects of cultural norms, principles and rules of L1 cannot be appropriate or applicable to the norms, principles and rules of L2. The following are some illustrative examples. In item (1) "You want to leave the meeting. You have an urgent exam, and in item (6) "On the death of your dearest aunt", students reflect their attitudes towards such situations; they guess that they produce utterances of apology such as "I want to leave the party" or "I 'm not happy in the party" and utterances of condolence such as "That's our life' You must be sad man now, so sorry "which do not sound apologies or condolences at all. Because of the interference of L1 culture, students give a straight translation related to everyday situations and activities, mistakenly giving refusal for an apology, and asking permission, drawing deduction and giving apology for condolence. Principally, the students' improper interpretation occurs owing to their absence of socio-pragmatic knowledge of the L1. In other words, they seem to be unaware of the principles initiated for the issuance of the speech act of apology and condolence. 16

17 Negative transfer takes place since "the L1 forms, norms or principles used in TL production are not part of the TL forms, norms or principles". Hence, "the resultant utterance is erroneous" (Johnson and Johnson, 1999: 354). Socio-pragmatic interference comes about when EFL students duplicate from native language to target language their social and cultural and pragmatic knowledge. In some cases, they attempt to overgeneralize L1 socio-pragmatic characteristics, principles and standards and make use of them in solving problems in L2. To provide more illustration, consider item (3) "Your friend has phoned you four times but you were asleep." and (10) "Condole your cousin whose mother has died recently". These examples also reveal that Iraqi EFL students are mostly unacquainted with these utterances and probably they have not experienced them in their fourth stages of learning English. They give inappropriate utterances for apology such as "I am asleep", "I cannot phoned you" and "My friend were asleep" and incongruent utterances for condolence such as "I am so sad, God is merciful and we all dead". Actually they couldn't understand the situation and therefore give such incompatible utterances. Nearly, in all the wrong answers the students seem to resort to their native social norms and traditions which cannot be made relevant or correlate to the illocutionary act of apology. Besides, they regularly employ the literal meaning to provide their answers, ignoring the associated pragmatic and suitable meaning an utterance exhibits in terms of the context in which it occurs. Moreover, they attempt to translate from Arabic into English irrespective of the fact that English and Arabic are completely two different languages surrounding by two different circumstances, obeying different social and cultural norms, conventions, principles and rules Pragma-linguistic Factor Pragma-linguistic knowledge involves "mappings of form, meaning, force and context" (Kasper, 2001: 51). It is concerned with "which particular linguistic choices can be used to express different types of meaning"(contextual and pragmatic meaning, including expressive speech acts). The unfitting use of the linguistic forms makes students deviate from the appropriate pragmatic utterance in correlation with the given situations; and the expressive speech acts found in thel2 circumstances. The students' improper use of linguistic items is mainly ascribed to particular unsuitable semantic and syntactic characteristics when giving answers. More elaborately, this 17

18 incorrectness is basically resulted from the use of improper or unfitting linguistic forms. As a result, imprecise or odd performance of apology and condolence utterances might be made. In certain situations, students' socio-pragmatic deviation can be attributed to pragma-linguistic knowledge students lack, particularly when they fail to catch the meaning of an utterance due to their inappropriate perception of the communicative principles surrounding this utterance. The obvious illustration of pragma-linguistic deviation or failure can be elucidated via items 5 and 7. Item 5: You forgot to bring the money back on time. (Apology) Item 7: You are at a funeral and run into the father of the dead. (Condolence) It seems that most the subjects have given uncertain or awkward explanation linked to the opinion that they have not perceived what these situations are envisioned to deliver, as they are unable to link linguistic forms to the pragmatic meaning of an utterance. They are probably unaware of the fact that it is inadequate to be dependent on linguistic meaning to arrive at the intended utterance meaning. An examination of the responses given by the students reveals that Iraqi EFL students have taken the given situations literally, paying no attention to their contextual considerations. That is, they have not viewed them as predicting the speech act of apology and condolence. Hence, it is conceivable that students depend on certain given words in the situation and to reply for apology ( such as forgetting to bring back the money, giving utterances, "I couldn't forget it ", and "I will return the money", and for condolence ( such as meeting someone at a funeral, giving utterances "I am so sad now", and "we all dead") and neglecting the other possible pragmatic meanings of these utterances. Similarly, in items (4) "You have an appointment with a dentist. You arrive late" and (9) "You hear that your dearest friend has lost all his money", getting involved in the idea of making an appointment with a dentist and the idea of hearing about the friend's loss respectively: students give utterances which do not match the given situations. They seem to be bound to the words constituting this situation neglecting the pragmatic considerations directing these situations. For apology, they give utterances such as "I had appointment with the dentist", "I arrived late", and for condolence, they give utterances such as "You really lost your money" and " I am sorry to loss money ". They seem to give statements about an appointment or about arriving 18

19 late rather than giving an apology for being late, and statement about the loss of the money rather than giving condolence. Such deviation in producing inappropriate utterances may be attributed to their lack of pragma-linguistic knowledge. They cannot relate semantic ( or even syntactic) knowledge to pragmatic knowledge and this leads to their inability to produce appropriate utterances. Once more, the students' deviation or failure is attributed to their mismatching the semantic and syntactic knowledge to the pragmatic one, leading to pragmalinguistic failure. Students' incompetency of linguistic knowledge is pertinent to their deficiency of their knowledge of syntax and semantics which results in incongruous use of the speech acts of apology and condolence. This linguistic deficiency involves certain linguistic misuses such as 'incorrect tenses, prepositions and articles', as well as deficiency in meanings or misunderstanding the conveyed meanings. This signifies that the students repertoire of the linguistic competence (knowledge) is deficient. The studentsʹ interpretation of the situations and production of utterances related to the speech acts of apology and condolence is realized as clumsy and hesitant, and sometimes this leads students to give to incomprehensible replies. 1.8 Conclusion In the light of the data analysis of students' responses, some conclusions have been drawn as follows: 1- EFL students face difficulty in producing both the expressive speech acts of apology and condolence. Moreover, they find more difficulty in producing utterances implying the use of the speech act of condolence than producing those of apology. 2- Iraqi EFL students' socio-pragmatic deviation while trying to produce apology and condolence is mainly attributed to their lack of both socio-pragmatic and pragmalinguistic knowledge. 3- The socio-pragmatic deviation has been ascribed to the interference of the learnersʹ first language culture. This kind of deviation has resulted into non-native production of the speech act of apology and condolence. Most of these non-native apologies and condolences have been considered as direct translations of students' first language culture into the target language. 19

20 4. The pragma-linguistic deviation is attributed to the fact that students are unable to connect grammatical (particularly syntactic) knowledge to pragmatic knowledge to arrive at the intended meaning of apology and condolence. 5- Some responses have shown nonsensical interpretations owing to the studentsʹ pragmatic inability to interpret the situations that call for apology and condolence and the result is non-native utterances for apology and condolence. Yet, other answers have revealed that they are unable to get the meanings of some of items existed in the situations given. Therefore, they have produced replies associated with meanings that are not linked to these situations. 1.9 Pedagogical Recommendations On the basis of the conclusions above, some pedagogical recommendations can be made useful for EFL teachers, students, syllabus designers and text-book writers. 1. Instructors and teachers should encourage and motivate EFL learners to practice English as much as possible trying to make such a practice regular through the years of study, inside and outside the classroom where students might talk to each other using English. Such a practice might develop the communicative ability of the studentsʹ TL and hence leading to appropriate and fluent recognition and production of speech. Accordingly, they can get used to the TL pragmatic knowledge. 2. It is not only necessary to build the EFL studentsʹ linguistic competence, but to improve their pragmatic and communicative competence. In addition, increasing the learnersʹ perception levels of appropriateness and pragmatics in the L2 can be attained by inspiring the classroom input with everyday practical materials, related to the oral exchanges of native speakers and television and radio programs. Further, it is important for teachers to evaluate studentsʹ growth in the area of pragmatics, and be willing to concentrate on teaching pragmatics. Then, teachers must take into account communicative and pragmatic practice and training programs devoted to paying visits to schools, institutes and colleges in the native countries. 3. More attention should be given to increase the vocabulary of the students and to make them use such words more often. Students might be continuously encouraged 21

21 and motivated to explain the meanings or to put them in sentences that are related to different spoken situations including the production of different illocutionary acts. 4. EFL learners should be taught different syntactic rules and practice different types of sentences that are related to the illocutionary acts. A continuous review of the syntactic rules should be given more attention to refresh studentsʹ memory and thus developing their communicative and pragmatic competence. References Allan, Keith (1998) "Meaning and Speech Acts." Linguistics Program,MonashUniversity.arts.monash.edu.au/ling/speech-acts- allan.html#n1 Austin, John L. (1962). How to do Things with Words. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Bach, K. and R. Harnish (1979). Linguistic Communication and Speech Acts. Cambridge: MIT Press. Bardovi-Harlig, K. (1996). "Pragmatics and Language Teaching:Bringing pragmatics and pedagogy together". Pragmatics and Language Learning, 7, Bardovi-Harlig, K. (2001). Evaluating the empirical evidence: Grounds for instruction in pragmatics? In Pragmatics and Language Teaching, eds. K. Rose and G. Kasper. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bardovi-Harlig, K., & Mahan-Taylor, R. (Eds.). (2003). Teaching pragmatics. Washington, DC: United States Department of State. Çakir, I. (2006). Socio-Pragmatic Problems in Foreign Language Teaching. Journal of Language and Linguistic Studies. Vol.2, No. 2: Carter, R. and Nunan, D. (eds.) (2001). The Cambridge Guide to Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Crystal, David(1985) A Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics (2 nd ed.) Oxford: Basil Blackwell Ltd. Crystal, D. (2008). The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Dascal, M. (1985). ʺLanguage Use in Jokes and Dreams: Sociopragmatic vs. Psycholinguisticsʺ in Language and Communication. Vol. 5, No. 2 21

22 Eckler, Maia (2005) "How to Write a Condolence Letter." Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine Home Page. Virginia Commonwealth University Health System. Edmondson, J. (1981). "On Saying You re Sorry", In Florian Coulma(ed.), Conversational Routine: Explorations in Standardized Communication Situations and Pre-patterned Speech. The Hague: Mouton. PP Fitzgerald, Helen (2003) "Writing a Condolence Note." American Hospice Foundation Home Page. Washington, DC < Goffman, E. (1971). Relations in Public. Micro-studies of the Public Order. London: Penguin. Guan-lian, Q. (2002). Pragmatics in Chinese Culture. Beijing: Tsinghua University Press. Hornby, A. S. (2001). Oxford Advanced Learners' Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Johnson, K. and Johnson, H. (1999). Encyclopedic Dictionary of Applied Linguistics. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers. Kasper, G. (1997). The Role of Pragmatics in Language Teacher Education. New York: McGraw- Hill. Kasper, G. and Rose, K. (1999). "Pragmatics and SLA". Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 19, pp Kasper, G. and Schmidt, R. (1996). "Developmental Issues in Interlanguage". Pragmatics. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 18, pp Lazare, A. (2004). On Apology. Oxford : Oxford University Press. Leech, G. (1983). Principles of Pragmatics. London : Longman. Levinson, S. (1983). Pragmatics, Cambridge : Cambridge University Press. Mey, J. (1993). Pragmatics: An Introduction. New York: Routledge. Milleret, Margo (2009) "Teaching Speech Acts" Unpublished Thesis University of New Mexico. 22

23 Rathert, S. (2013). The Language Outside and Inside the Foreign Language Classroom: Speech Act Theory and Discourse Analysis The Internet Journal Language, Culture and Society, issue 36: Rose, K., and Kasper, G. eds Pragmatics in Language Teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Searle, J. R Speech Acts. An Essay in the Philosophy of Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (1976) " A Classification of Illocutionary Acts". Language in Society. Vol. 5, No. 1, pp Searle, J. R. (1979). Expression and Meaning. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Stalankar, R. C. (1972). "Pragmatics". In Semantics of Natural Language, eds. D. Davidson and G. Harman. Dordrecht: Reidel. Strazny, P. (ed.) (2005). Encyclopaedia of Linguistics. V. 1. New York: Fitzroy. Thomas, J. (1983). "Cross-cultural Pragmatic Failure". Applied Linguistics, Issue 4: PP Trosborg, A. (2010). Pragmatics Across Languages and Cultures. New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Yule, G. (1996). Pragmatics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Ziran, H. and Xinren, C. (2004). Contemporary Pragmatics. Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press. 23

24 The Test Q/ What will you say in the following situations: 1. You want to leave the meeting. You have an urgent exam. (Apology) 2. You couldn't catch your teacher's phrase. (Apology) 3. Your friend has phoned you four times but you were asleep. (Apology) 4. You have an appointment with the dentist. You arrived late (Apology) 5. You forgot to bring the money back on time. (Apology) 6. On the death of your dearest friend's son. (Condolence) 7. You are at a funeral and run into the father of the dead. (Condolence) 8. Your eldest brother's daughter has died. (Condolence) 9. You hear that your dearest friend has lost all his money. (Condolence) 10. Condole your cousin whose mother has recently died. 24