an investigation of politeness strategies used by efl learners in the realization of the speechact of complaint

Abstract

This study investigated the politeness strategies used by foreign language learners of English at the University of Mohammed Seddik Ben Yahia- Jijel, when performing the speech act of complaint. It also attempted to identify the strategies used by these leaners in realizing complaints. This study also tried to find out the influence of the social distance and power on the choice of complaint strategies to achieve this aim, a discourse completion task (DCT) was used to collect data, it was administered to fifty (50) Master learners of English. The data obtained were coded and categorized following to Trosborg’s (1994) taxonomy of complaint strategies, while politeness strategies were identified following Brown and Levinson’s (1987) model. The results showed that these participants were direct when performing the speech act of complaint. The Findings also, revealed that social variables influenced the participants’ choice of politeness strategies.