On Iranian EFL Learners' Pragmatic Competence and Appropriate Use of 'Request' in English Contexts

This paper investigated the extent to which Iranian EFL students are aware of the appropriate use of request speech act in English speaking contexts in terms of formality, politeness and indirectness. A researcher made discourse completion test (DCT) including 16 scenarios was distributed among 130 advanced students in private English institutes in Ilam city. Results revealed that 90.5% of the participants adopted formal or highly formal requests, 88.5% requested politely and 67.2% performed indirect requests. In addition, the results of chi-square tests confirmed significant relationships between the three variables, meaning that those participants who were careful about using appropriate degrees of formality tended to act politely and preferably indirectly. The study, thus, led to certain implications for students, teachers, material developers and curriculum designers.