A cross-cultural comparison of the requestive speech act realization patterns in Persian and American English
Eslamirasekh, Zohreh
This item is only available for download by members of the University of Illinois community. Students, faculty, and staff at the U of I may log in with your NetID and password to view the item. If you are trying to access an Illinois-restricted dissertation or thesis, you can request a copy through your library's Inter-Library Loan office or purchase a copy directly from ProQuest.
Permalink
https://hdl.handle.net/2142/21720
Description
Title
A cross-cultural comparison of the requestive speech act realization patterns in Persian and American English
Author(s)
Eslamirasekh, Zohreh
Issue Date
1992
Doctoral Committee Chair(s)
Maclay, Howard S.
Department of Study
Education
Discipline
Education
Degree Granting Institution
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Degree Name
Ph.D.
Degree Level
Dissertation
Keyword(s)
Education, Bilingual and Multicultural
Language, Modern
Language
eng
Abstract
The purpose of this study was to: (a) expand the scope of cross-cultural speech act studies to include a non-western language, (b) to examine similarities and differences in the realization patterns of the speech act of requesting between Persian speakers and American speakers of English, (c) to examine effects related to sex of the speaker on the realization patterns of the requesting speech act, and (d) to examine effects related to social variables of distance and dominance on the realization patterns of requesting speech act in the two cultures.
The subjects of this study were 52 native American English speaking undergraduate students studying at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and 50 native Persian speaking undergraduate students studying at University of Isfahan, in Isfahan, Iran.
"The data were collected by a controlled elicitation procedure called ""open questionnaire"". The data were then categorized based on the coding system developed by the Cross-Cultural Speech Act Realization Project (Blum-Kulka, House, & Kasper, 1989). In order to analyze the directness level of requests a t-test was performed with the mean level of directness as dependent variable and nationality or sex as a grouping variable. A chi-square analysis was performed where frequencies of different components of requestive speech act (parts other than the head act), were compared based on grouping variables of nationality or sex."
Our analysis revealed that Persian speakers are significantly more direct when making requests compared to American speakers. The results also showed that Persian speakers used considerably more alerters, supportive moves, and internal modifiers compared to American speakers. Sex was found not to have a strong predictive value in either of the languages studied. For both languages the effect of the social variables of distance and dominance were similar, i.e., directness tended to increase with increases in either social distance or power. In general, speakers tended to be more indirect when making requests of persons they did not know or those with greater power or status.
The study has theoretical and pedagogical implications and suggests a need to broaden the scope of speech act studies to include non-European languages.
Use this login method if you
don't
have an
@illinois.edu
email address.
(Oops, I do have one)
IDEALS migrated to a new platform on June 23, 2022. If you created
your account prior to this date, you will have to reset your password
using the forgot-password link below.
