Assessing politeness strategies used for interaction between EFL university instructors and students

Abstract EN

Communication is the activity one uses to express his/her ideas and intents by using language, signs, or even sounds.

In communication the hearer try to get what the speaker intents to convey and both of them use specific strategies as a part of communicative competence.

In learning second language one needs not just to learn its linguistic competence but also its pragmatics.

One may not always be lucky to convey and understand the ideas and intents through communication because of the pragmatics mistakes.

In last decades, politeness has become one of the most interested topics in pragmatics to search about.

Learning second language means learning its pragmatics, because politeness can be apparent and understood in different ways through different languages.

Although being polite is a universal concept, the meaning of politeness might vary across culture, gender, and power relations (Niroomanda 2012: 180).

The present study is conducted on EFL Iraqi university instructor and students to assess their awareness and application of politeness strategies in interaction.

Therefore it aims at: 1.

Assessing the application of politeness strategies used by EFL Iraqi university instructors for interaction with their students, 2.

Comparing politeness strategies used by EFL Iraqi university instructors according to their gender (male & female) with their students, 3.

Comparing politeness strategies used by EFL Iraqi university instructors according to their years of experiences, Two non-random samples have been selected at the departments of English, morning studies, at two colleges namely; College of Basic Education/ University of Diyala and College of Basic Education/ University of Al-Mustansiriayah, for the academic year 2016-2017.

A sample of 14 EFL Iraqi instructors is selected for the study.

One instrument is constructed to achieve the aims of the study; 25 items of checklist used to assess the application of EFL Iraqi university instructors, the checklist is duly validated by experts to be used for collection data.

Data collected are analysed using suitable statistical methods.

Results reveal the following:- 1.

EFL Iraqi university instructors have sufficient application of politeness strategies used for interaction.

2.

EFL Iraqi university female instructors use politeness strategies more than male instructors.

3.

EFL Iraqi university instructors whose years of experience ranging (1-10), (10-20) and (20-30) have no statistical significance differences in using politeness strategies in interaction.

In the light of the results, a number of recommendations are put forward.

Several suggestions are also proposed for further studies to enrich the area of investigation