The Pragmatic Competence of English Language Teachers in Secondary Schools in Iringa Rural, Tanzania: The Case of Requests
Abstract
This paper investigated English language teachers ' pragmatic
competence in making requests. The study adopted a descriptive casestudy
research design. Eight teachers from two schools were chosen and
studied. The data were collected using Discourse Completion Tasks
(DCTs), stimulated recall and classroom observation, and were analysed
following the Cross-Cultural Speech Act Realisation Pattern (CCSARP).
The findings indicate that, to varying degrees, the studied English
language teachers made requests using direct strategies or conventional
and non-conventional indirect strategies, although they employed direct
strategies more than conventional and non-conventional indirect
strategies. However, the use of conventional and non-conventional
indirect strategies was not in line with the social variables of relative
power, distance and degree of imposition. It is therefore suggested that
English language teachers should be orientated to using request
strategies appropriately, with respect to such social variables.
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