International Journal of Language Learning and Applied Linguistics World (IJLLALW) Volume 9 (1), May 2015; 92-‐105 Fazeli, M., & Shafiee, S EISSN: 2289-‐2737 & ISSN: 2289-‐3245 www.ijllalw.org INVESTIGATING PRAGMATIC TRANSFER IN PERSUASION STRATEGIES USED BY NATIVE AND NONNATIVE SPEAKERS OF ENGLISH Masoumeh Fazeli Department of English, Shahreza Branch, Islamic Azad University, Shahreza, Iran E-Mail: [email protected] Sajad Shafiee (Corresponding author) Department of English, Shahrekord Branch, Islamic Azad University, Shahrekord, Iran Email: [email protected] ABSTRACT The present study aimed at identifying native English speakers’, native Persian speakers’, and Iranian English as a foreign language (EFL) learners’ persuasion strategies and any possible pragmatic transfer from the EFL learners’ mother tongue (Persian) to their L2. The participants of the study included 10 native English speakers, 30 learners of English, and 30 native Persian speakers, all of whom were university students. The classification of persuasion strategies utilized in this study was based on Hardin’s classification of lexical and pragmatic realization of persuading speech act. The data were collected by means of a discourse completion task. The Chi-square test was used to compare frequencies of use of persuasion strategies by all the participants. Results indicated that although all the three groups used recommendation strategy most frequently and consolation and condolence strategies least frequently, the learners of English group and native Persian group made use of opinion-proving, request, advice, and suggestion strategies more frequently than the native English group. Iranian EFL learners were apt to express persuasion with care and/or caution represented by the mentioned strategies. Additionally, they were reluctant to use direct speech act, and they avoided imposition on the hearer. Avoidance and substitution strategies were among the more frequent pragmatic strategies which were transferred from Persian to English. The findings could be of importance for material developers and teachers in their development of instructional strategies as they interact with students during teaching English as a foreign language. KEYWORDS: Interlanguage pragmatics, Pragmatic transfer, Persuasion strategies, EFL learners INTRODUCTION Pragmatics can be defined as the study of the relationship between language, its communication, and its contextualized use (Koike, 1996). Interlanguage is referred to as the learners’ language system that is not consistent with the native speakers’ language system (Selinker, 1972). Kasper (1998) combines the study of the two areas of pragmatics and interlanguage, and defines interlanguage pragmatics as the study of nonnative speaker’s comprehension, production, and 92 International Journal of Language Learning and Applied Linguistics World (IJLLALW) Volume 9 (1), May 2015; 92-‐105 Fazeli, M., & Shafiee, S EISSN: 2289-‐2737 & ISSN: 2289-‐3245 www.ijllalw.org acquisition of linguistic action when they do things with words. Pragmatic transfer is a research branch of interlanguage pragmatics. Pragmatic transfer refers to the influence exerted by learners’ pragmatic knowledge of languages and cultures other than second language on their comprehension, production and learning of second language pragmatic knowledge (Kasper, 1992). Here pragmatic knowledge can be understood as a particular component of language users’ general communicative knowledge, that is, the knowledge of how verbal acts are understood and performed in accordance with a speaker’s intention under contextual and discoursal constraints (Faerch & Kasper, 1984). When people from different cultures communicate with each other without perceiving their different pragmatic knowledge, miscommunication may happen. Such phenomenon is due to transfer of native pragmatic knowledge in situations of intercultural communication (Zegarac & Pennington, 2000). As noted by Leech (1983), there are two perspectives on pragmatic transfer. One is sociopragmatic transfer, and the other is pragmalinguistic transfer. According to Kasper (1992), sociopragmatic transfer operates when the social perceptions underlying language users' interpretation and performance of linguistic action in a second language are influenced by their assessment of their subjectively equivalent first language context. On the other hand, pragmalinguistic transfer designates the process whereby illocutionary force or politeness value assigned to particular linguistic materials in first language influences learners' perception and performance of form-function mappings in second language (Kasper, 1992). For language use, pragmatic rules, as a matter of fact, are mostly subconscious and are not noticed by L2 learners until they are broken, i.e. feelings get hurt and offence takes place (Hanlig & Taylor, 2003). Accordingly L2 learners must realize that what is accepted in their NL at a given context may not necessarily be the case in another language when they contact with its native speakers (NSs). One area of pragmatic transfer which can possibly occur in Iranian learners of English language production is the speech act of persuasion. Persuasion is defined by Lakoff (1982) as the nonreciprocal attempt or intention of one party to change the behavior, feelings, intentions, or viewpoint of another by communicative means. Advertising, propaganda, political rhetoric, court language and religious sermons are obvious examples of persuasive discourse; however, persuasion may also occur in conversation. Persuasion is recognized as a directive speech act which, according to Searle (1969, as cited in Pishghadam & Rasouli, 2011) is that in which the speaker's purpose is to get the hearer to commit him/herself to some course of action. In other words, persuasion is an attempt to make the world match the words. Despite large number of research done in pragmatic issues in general and speech acts in particular, they are still among the most popular topics that researchers try to investigate because of their dynamic features especially in the realm of teaching. The concept of this issue is reported by Delen (2010): “speech acts are not a new topic for researchers; on the contrary, they have been very popular since their emergence in the late 1960s” (p. 692). Finally, although a relatively large number of studies done on issues related to different types of speech acts and based on the fact that “research concerning L2 pragmatic competence often focuses on learners’ speech act behavior, primarily by contrasting nonnative with native performance” (Yu, 2011, p. 1128), little research has been done especially in the context of Iran to investigate the speech act of 93 International Journal of Language Learning and Applied Linguistics World (IJLLALW) Volume 9 (1), May 2015; 92-‐105 Fazeli, M., & Shafiee, S EISSN: 2289-‐2737 & ISSN: 2289-‐3245 www.ijllalw.org persuasion among non-native speakers, and more importantly to find any sign of pragmatic transfer. Since Persian and English speakers have different perceptions of how persuading speech act should be conducted, it is more likely that pragmatic transfer of Persian will occur in intercultural communication between Persian nonnative speakers of English and native English speakers. Utilizing a prior study by Bu (2010) as the framework, the present study aimed to compare similarities and differences in the production of speech act of persuasion in English and Persian languages. The focus, moreover, was on determining any signs of pragmatic transfer from the first language to the second language. To this end, the researcher attempted to analyze the types of persuasive strategies used in English and Persian. As the next step, it was tried to locate any possible pragmatic transfers in persuasion strategies by Iranian learners of English. REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE As Hymes (1971) pointed out, communicative competence must include not only the linguistic forms of the language but also knowledge of when, how, and to whom it is appropriate to use these forms. Speech act has been one of the main aspects of pragmatic for a long time. Speech act theory refers to functions and uses of the language or in other words. It includes all the acts we do while as invitations, refusal, apologies, congratulation, persuasion and so on. According to Halliday (1972) such activities do not only by themselves give us enough information while the reveal much about social purposes in which people use language for ( as cited in Schcmidt & Richards, 1980). In this regard, pragmatic competence helps students to come up with the problems of miscommunication in different cultures, and for effective communication in second language it is necessary to make students familiar with the appropriate selection and production of different speech acts in different contexts. Usually language teachers take communicative competence the same as the knowledge of linguistic forms or the ability to carry out the linguistic interaction in the target language, but efficient communication is beyond that. Therefore, a great deal of studies have been conducted across different languages and cultures to address universalities and variations in regard to speech acts such as request (Tatton, 2008), apology (Clyne, 1994), complaint (Salmani Nodoushan, 2007), compliment (Grossi, 2009), and refusal (Al-kahtani, 2005). However, the speech act of persuasion has received little attention. Robin Lakoff (1982) defined persuasion as the "attempt or intention of one party to change behavior, feelings, intentions or view point of another by communicative means" (as cited in Hardin, 2010, p. 155). Therefore, advertising, propaganda, political oratory, court language and religious sermons are example of persuasive discourse; however, persuasion can also used in daily interactions. Persuasion according to Searle (1969) is regarded as the directive speech act in which the speaker’s intention is to make the hearer to commit him or herself to perform some form of actions; in other words, persuasion is an attempt of speaker to match the world with his or her words (as cited in Bu, 2010). Persuasion according to Brown and Levinson's (1987) is categorized as a face threatening act, and according to Lakoff (1982) is considered as a kind of 94 International Journal of Language Learning and Applied Linguistics World (IJLLALW) Volume 9 (1), May 2015; 92-‐105 Fazeli, M., & Shafiee, S EISSN: 2289-‐2737 & ISSN: 2289-‐3245 www.ijllalw.org imposition from the speaker upon the hearer; or as Searle (1969) pointed out, persuasion is a kind of commitment or urge for accomplishments of some actions form speaker to hearer. Therefore, having enough knowledge to infer the meaning and the ability to apply appropriate strategies for conducting persuasion seem crucial to hinder breakdown in intercultural communication. Previous pragmatic research on persuasion has been conducted in different fields. One of these fields is pragmatic analysis of persuasion strategies. Rank (1988, as cited in Hardin, 2010) suggests a basic persuasive formula for advertisements. His five components are attentiongetting, confidence-building, desire-stimulating, urgency-stressing, and response-seeking. Combining both Rank’s (1988) and Leech’s (1966) findings, Hardin (2001) examines persuasive discourse in Spanish language advertising and finds that memorability (making the audience remember the message), force (emotional and logical appeals and the strength of a message), and participation (the desire for a response or audience/hearer involvement) are primary persuasive goals. Barkley and Anderson (2008) studied persuasion techniques in the courtroom and found that the persuasive effect of arguments is related not only to what is said, but also to how they are said and when they are said. In other words, the more reputable the source of the arguments, the more persuasive the arguments will be. The arguments delivered with confidence, persistence and clarity will be more persuasive. One of the most recent researchers on the topic under question is Bu (2010), who investigated pragmatic transfer in persuasion strategies by Chinese learners of English. The subjects of the study included 10 native English speakers, 10 Chinese learners of English, and 10 native Chinese speakers, all of whom were university students. The classification of persuasion strategies was mainly based on Hardin’s classification of lexical and pragmatic realization of persuading speech act. The data was collected by means of a discourse complete test questionnaire The Chi-square test was used to compare frequencies of use of persuasion strategies by the Chinese learner of English group, the native English group, and the native Chinese group. Results indicated that although all three groups used complaint strategy most frequently and opting out strategy least frequently, the Chinese learner of English group displayed advice/suggestion/recommendation strategy more frequently than the native English group. The Chinese learner of English group also used opinion-proving strategy less frequently than the native English group and never used consolation/condolence strategies. Several pragmatic research studies have also been done on the use of directives in persuasive discourse. In his study, Hardin finds that directives are commonly used in Spanish persuasive discourse and directives may be either direct or indirect in force (Hardin, 2001). The illocutionary force of a directive may be softened through mitigation and pragmatic strategies that delocalize the speaker from his/her deictic center (Haverkate 1984; Koike 1992). Indirectness requires the addressee to infer meaning and rely on shared knowledge between the speaker and him/herself. Moreover, since persuasion may involve face threatening acts (Brown & Levinson, 1987), the speaker must use appropriate politeness strategies to achieve the desired message. Certain forms 95 International Journal of Language Learning and Applied Linguistics World (IJLLALW) Volume 9 (1), May 2015; 92-‐105 Fazeli, M., & Shafiee, S EISSN: 2289-‐2737 & ISSN: 2289-‐3245 www.ijllalw.org or constructions are conventionalized; that is, they are customarily used to perform specific speech acts. In the Chinese context, Tang Xia (2009) analyzed persuading speech act from the perspective of the theory of Chinese face and indicated that Chinese persuasion strategies are human relationbased strategies. In addition, Zhai Lingzhi (2010) investigated persuasion strategies commonly used by Chinese from the perspective of pragmatics. These strategies included the combination of reason and emotion, analogy, encouragement, irony, praise and metaphor. More recently, in another comparative study by Pishghadam and Rasouli (2011), the researchers investigated the general application of persuasive strategies among Iranian learners of English as a foreign language. To this end, 150 Iranian English learners took part in this study. The data were collected by means of a discourse completion test, consisting of 6 questions similar to real life persuasive situations. The Chi-square test was applied to compare the frequencies of persuasion strategies’ application among Iranian EFL learners. The frequent use of query preparatory by nonnative English speakers was consistent with previous studies’ results (BlumKalka & Olshtain, 1984; Hong, 2009; Tatton, 2008) which mentioned that mostly all languages prefer the application of conventionally indirect strategies. RESEARCH QUESTIONS The following questions were the center of focus in the present study: 1. Are there significant differences in the kinds of persuasion strategies used by native English speakers, native Persian speakers, and Iranian EFL learners? 2. What types of persuasion strategies are more likely to be transferred pragmatically from L1 to L2 by Iranian EFL learners? METHODOLOGY Participants The study took place in Iran and the participants consisted of three groups: the Iranian learners of English group, the native English group, and the native Persian group. Each group of Iranians consisted of 30 participants, and there were 10 participants in the native English speakers group. They were university students ranging in age from 19 to 26 years old. So they showed homogeneity in terms of age and education. The participants in this study were accesses through convenient sampling procedure. Instruments The data were collected from participants by means of a discourse completion task (DCT). The DCT consisted of 6 items in different contexts close to real life persuasive situations, three of which were adapted from the aforementioned study by Bu (2010). Modifications were made in the other situations to make them more appropriate in both Iranian culture and English culture since in interlanguage pragmatics studies it is necessary to make sure that the situations in the DCT are equivalent cross-culturally. Through the modification process, three experts in the field 96 International Journal of Language Learning and Applied Linguistics World (IJLLALW) Volume 9 (1), May 2015; 92-‐105 Fazeli, M., & Shafiee, S EISSN: 2289-‐2737 & ISSN: 2289-‐3245 www.ijllalw.org of ELT were asked to examine the DCT to make certain it was as valid and reliable as possible. In order to avoid native Persian speakers’ misunderstanding of what they were required to do in the DCT, a translated version was given to them. As far as the scoring of the DCT was concerned, the data were first coded according to their classification based on the Bu (2010) framework. For the analysis of persuasion strategies utilized, descriptive statistics were employed to count the frequency and percentage of each strategy for each group, and Chi-square test was then used to compare the frequencies of persuasion strategies use by the Iranian nonnative English speaker group, the native English speaker group, and the native Persian group. Procedure To achieve the objectives of the study, the DCT was adapted and modified to fit the Iranian and American culture. Subsequently, three groups of participants (i.e. native English speakers, native Persian speakers, and Iranian EFL learners) were selected through convenience sampling and asked to take part in this study. They were ‘persuaded’ to fill out the DCTs and return them to the researchers. Once the completed DCTs were received, the data were subjected to statistical analysis. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION As the total number of collected data comprised 30 DCTs in English by the Iranian learners of English Group (G1), 30 DCTs in Persian by the native Persian group (G2), and 10 DCTs in English by the native English group (G3), and there were six different persuasive situations in these DCTs, the whole number of responses by G1, G2, and G3 amounted to 180, 180, and 60 answers for each DCT, respectively. First, the answers of the three groups to all six persuasive situations were analyzed and tabulated in Table 1. Strategy / Groups Table 1: Frequencies and Percentages of Each Strategy by Three Groups Native English Iranian Learner of English Native Persian Group Group Group Complaint 5 (8.33%) 14 (7.77%) 11 (6.11%) Reaction 2 (3.33%) 8 (4.44%) 7 (3.88%) Request 7 (11.66%) 27 (15.00%) 30 (16.66%) Ultimatum 6 (10.00%) 4 (2.22%) 3 (1.66%) Order Opinion-proving Advice Suggestion Recommendation Consolation Condolence Opting out Total Pearson Chi-Square value = 7 (11.66%) 8 (4.44%) 5 (2.77%) 6 (10.00%) 31 (17.22%) 38 (21.11%) 8 (13.33%) 23 (12.77%) 19 (10.55%) 5 (8.33%) 22 (12.22%) 19 (10.55%) 8 (13.33%) 35 (19.44%) 41 (22.77%) 0 (0.00%) 0 (0.00%) 0 (0.00%) 0 (0.00%) 0 (0.00%) 0 (0.00%) 4 (6.66%) 8 (4.44%) 7 (3.88%) 60 (100%) 180 (100%) 180 (100%) 28.133, df = 4, Asymp. Sig. (2-tailed) = 0.009 97 International Journal of Language Learning and Applied Linguistics World (IJLLALW) Volume 9 (1), May 2015; 92-‐105 Fazeli, M., & Shafiee, S EISSN: 2289-‐2737 & ISSN: 2289-‐3245 www.ijllalw.org The percentage of each strategy in the performance of persuading speech act is provided in parentheses after the frequency. The percentage numbers are rounded to two decimal, so the sum of the percentages may be more or less than 100%. The descriptive data shown in Table 1 indicates that the frequency and percentage of the selection of the strategies among these three groups was not equally distributed. In order to be more specific, regarding the claim of difference between these three groups, the Chi-square test was run to detect the differences. The Chi-Square result is written beneath Table 1. Based on these results, the answer to the first question was positive. That means that there was a significant difference in the number of persuasion strategies used by native English speakers, native Persian speakers, and Iranian nonnative English speakers since the groups showed discrepancy in the use of the strategies. The research findings can be summarized as below: According to Table 1, all the three groups used recommendation strategy most frequently and consolation and condolence strategies least frequently. This phenomenon can be explained by the facts that in most situations the respondents tried to persuade the interlocutor in the same manner. All the participants of the three groups used different statements for recommendation and then tried to persuade the hearer. The second frequently used strategy by the native English group was advice when they performed their persuading act. Thus, advice and recommendation strategies were used equally by this group (13.33%). By contrast, the second frequently used strategy by the learners of English group and native Persian group was opinion-proving (17.22%). Here the participants of both groups started the persuasion with what they would do to convince the person to do the favor for them. An example of the way they persuaded using opinion-proving regarding situation number six follows: Situation 6: You are the owner of a big bookstore. It is the beginning of the semester, and you are very busy. Today you want to extend business hours by an hour. So, you decide to persuade your clerk, whom you know quite well, to stay an extra hour more. The learners of English, under the influence of their first language (Persian), tried to use expressions like ‘If only you could stay a little longer, I promise to pay you more’ and other similar expressions showing their awareness of the situation for the clerk which in some senses were exaggerated to show their understanding. This is due to their use of substitution strategy which results from Persian speakers as well as learners of English highly frequent employment of recommendation to persuade the hearer to comply with the situations. 98 International Journal of Language Learning and Applied Linguistics World (IJLLALW) Volume 9 (1), May 2015; 92-‐105 Fazeli, M., & Shafiee, S EISSN: 2289-‐2737 & ISSN: 2289-‐3245 www.ijllalw.org The third prominent strategy utilized by the learners of English group and native Persian group was that of request (G2 = 15.00%, G3 = 16.66%). The English group used it as their fourth strategy. Here, using request strategy frequently, the learners showed lack of knowledge and insecurity about the proper strategy to apply in assigned situations which resulted in substitution of more polite strategy (e.g. request). Strategy of order ranked fifth in the category of persuasive strategies for native English group (11.66%), but the other two groups seemed to be reluctant in using this strategy. Strategy of order was used with the same rate as the reaction strategy (4.44%) in the learners of English group and it even ranked after opting-out for the native Persian group (3.88%). Ultimatum was used occasionally after the order strategy for native English group (10.00 %); however, the other groups used this strategy less frequently. The strategy of ultimatum was used after opting out in the learners of English group (2.22%) and even less by native Persian group (1.66%). The least frequently used strategy by the three groups was consolation/condolence. When the participants were asked about the use of recommendation/opinion proving/request/advice/suggestion, 21 out of 30 Iranian learners of English participants said that it was a duty for the speaker to give useful recommendations, prove their opinions, and ask for a favor through request strategy to change the hearer’s behavior or to make the person do something for them. When interviewed why they used a certain formula, 18 out of 30 Iranian learners of English participants admitted that they used substitution strategy. For example, some of them said: ‘When I needed help and I knew that this favor might bring about some difficulty for the hearer, I wanted to comfort him by giving a recommendation or asking to do the favor in the form of request. I would say: I promised to increase your salary to lessen the difficulty I might impose to them.’ Here, recommending was mostly used instead of other direct and explicit strategies in English. When they were asked about substitution strategy, they said the reason for substituting specific strategies was that they were not willing to impose themselves on the interlocutor through ordering or using ultimatum strategies. They also said that they were not fully familiar with these strategies and did not know how to utilize them properly in the required situations so they tried to avoid the strategies and substitute the ones which were known because of their use in their first language. Thus, these learners used two different pragmatic strategies: the first was avoidance strategy which was defined as “omission of speech acts whose formulas are unfamiliar” (Bu, 2010, p. 100), and the second strategy was substitution which was utilized to compensate for the students’ lack of knowledge about the principles and rules of using these strategies pragmatically in a foreign language context. Here, under the impact of Persian, besides their inadequate knowledge, the learners of English group tried to select a strategy with ‘less illocutionary force’, again to avoid possible imposition on the hearer. From these findings, the second question of the study could be answered: The persuasion strategies 99 International Journal of Language Learning and Applied Linguistics World (IJLLALW) Volume 9 (1), May 2015; 92-‐105 Fazeli, M., & Shafiee, S EISSN: 2289-‐2737 & ISSN: 2289-‐3245 www.ijllalw.org which were more likely to be transferred pragmatically from L1 to L2 by Iranian nonnative English speakers were avoidance and substitution. Addressing the first research question In this research, it was found that the frequency of use of persuasion strategies by Iranian EFL learners was significantly different from that of native English speakers, though they did share some similarities (x2 = 28.133, p = 0.009 < 0.05). Iranian EFL learners were apt to express persuasion with care and/or caution represented by strategies of recommendation, opinion proving, request, advice, and suggestion and avoiding other strategies like ultimatum, ordering, complaint, reaction, consolation, and condolence. They did this using statement of reason/explanation, statements of sympathy, as well as promise of compensation in the future more than native English speakers. Native English speakers were more sensitive to their interlocutors’ higher and lower status, whereas Iranian EFL learners acted similarly to interlocutors with different social status. Additionally, they were reluctant to use direct speech act and they avoided imposition on the hearer. Thus, through analysis of the responses, the researcher came to the conclusion that the most commonly strategies used by Iranian EFL learners were indirect strategies. The quantitative analysis showed that the Persian learner of English group used opinionproving/ request/ advice/ suggestion more frequently than the native English group, which means that participants in the Persian learner of English group had a tendency of expressing their sympathetic feeling about their hearers’ situation and they preferred to use recommendation/opinion-proving/request/advice to improve their hearer’s situation and to comfort their hearers by being more polite and changing every situation to a request one. On the contrary, the participants in the native English group preferred to use recommendation/advice/suggestion to make the hearer comply with these situations. Such differences may result from their different perceptions of these situations. In the Iranian culture, making recommendation, opinion-proving, request, and advice is regarded as rapport-building. Although opinion-proving, request, and advice are also available in English culture for these situations, they were rarely used by native English speakers for the same situations compared to the answers given by Iranian groups. This is not surprising because English society is one of typical instances of individualist societies (Gudykunst, Ting-Toomey & Chua, 1988; Hofstede, 1991). Extending business hours by an hour, or persuading a person’s little brother to pay the bill on her/his behalf are different matters for native English speakers as they behaved totally differently to these situations. They preferred to use ordering strategy more than the other two groups did, indicating their choice towards a more direct way for persuasion in these situations Table 1 indicated that frequency of strategy use by the Iranian learner of English group and the native Persian group was similar in the use of recommendation, opinion-proving, request, advice, and suggestion. This phenomenon was due to the fact that in our society, 100 International Journal of Language Learning and Applied Linguistics World (IJLLALW) Volume 9 (1), May 2015; 92-‐105 Fazeli, M., & Shafiee, S EISSN: 2289-‐2737 & ISSN: 2289-‐3245 www.ijllalw.org harmonious social relationship is highly valued. Advice-making, opinion-proving, and request-making are not only a method of keeping harmonious relations among people, but also a duty of benefiting the society. This positive culture orientation of such strategy results in the tendency that Iranian EFL learners of English group display similar frequencies to the native Persian group and more frequencies than the native English group in the use of recommendation, opinion-proving, request, advice, and suggestion. The similarity between the Iranian learners of English group and the native Persian group in the use of recommendation, opinion-proving, and request can explain the difference in the use of these strategies between the Iranian learner of English group and the native English group. As far as opinion-proving strategy is concerned, the EFL learners of English group used this strategy more frequently than the native English group, which could be due to the fact that they were still influenced by Persian thinking pattern when they persuaded their hearers. Strategy of order, as another example, was used rarely in the learners of English group and it even ranked after opting out for native Persian group. This could be attributed to the fact that EFL learners, under their mother tongue influence, were not willing to use this strategy even when they were dealing with people from lower social level or when they were speaking to their family members. Instead of embarking on the utilization of the required strategies, EFL learners tried to show their politeness and understanding of the situation of the interlocutors, exaggerating their feeling in some situations, which in most of the cases were the reasons for which their utterances were colored and halfway between Persian and English. In all situations, native Persian speakers and EFL learners of English similarly tried to show their understanding of the situation and difficulty they may bring for the interlocutors upon helping them with their problem; thus, opinion-proving, request, advice, and suggestion are encouraged to use when such situations are dealt with according to Iranian culture. It has also previously been confirmed that indirect speech act usually denoted politeness in the Iranian context as well. According to Allami and Naeimi (2010), in a high-context culture such as Iran, people tend to use indirect, symbolic, vague, and implicit style of communication whereas a low-context culture is generally represented by direct, lucid, accurate, and explicit communication approach. This result is not consistent with Hardin’s (2010) finding that, nonnative speakers use explicit speech act verbs in persuasive discourse, and the use of these verbs may be less dominant among native speakers. Addressing the second research question From the above-mentioned findings, the researchers deduced that there were a number of factors that partake in the weakness of the Iranian EFL learners in English language selection of correct persuasion strategy; influence from Persian and lack of pragmatic knowledge of English language stood ahead of them. Thus, based on these findings, the second hypothesis stating “there is no pragmatic transfer in persuasion strategies by Iranian EFL learners in their intercultural communication” could safely be rejected. 101 International Journal of Language Learning and Applied Linguistics World (IJLLALW) Volume 9 (1), May 2015; 92-‐105 Fazeli, M., & Shafiee, S EISSN: 2289-‐2737 & ISSN: 2289-‐3245 www.ijllalw.org However, more salient pragmatic transfer of Iranian learners of English was one to one principle strategy, while based on the findings of the present study, avoidance and substitution were among the most frequent strategies which were pragmatically transferred from Persian into English by Iranian EFL learners. CONCLUSION The above-mentioned results demonstrated that there were some differences in persuasion strategies between the learners of English group and the native English group, while there were some similarities in persuasion strategy use between the learner of English group and the native Persian group. These research results provided an affirmative answer to the first question: there is a significant difference in the kind of persuasion strategies used by native English speakers and Iranian nonnative English speakers. It is worth reminding again that the use of rules of speaking from one’s speech act community when interacting or when speaking in a second or a foreign language is known as pragmatic transfer. There was also pragmatic transfer in the use of persuasion strategies by Iranian learners of English as a foreign language. However, it was impossible to provide evidence of pragmatic transfer without simultaneously describing what was transferred. As discussed above, the persuasion strategies that were mostly used by Iranian learner of English group and Persian native speakers were: recommendation, opinion proving, request, advice, and suggestion. The Iranian learners of English group also displayed some features of their pragmatic transfer of strategies of avoidance and substitution when they conducted a certain type of speech act. Avoidance and substitution of particular speech act were due to the learners’ lack of skill or explicit training, for example, in the way to form appropriate advice, or indirect commands. Moreover, learners tended to avoid or substitute for the level of directness appropriate for each context, either because they were unaware or because they lacked the necessary skills to do so (Koike 1994). Finally, based on the findings of the study, it could be realized that English and Persian languages demonstrated parallel strategy in application of recommendation formula as the most preferred strategy while they revealed different patterns in application of order and ultimatum strategies as English people utilized them frequently; Persian speakers used these strategies quite rarely. As a result, Iranian learners of English transferred these habits to English not only because of the influence from their mother tongue but also as their lack of knowledge in pragmatic utilization of these strategies in English contexts. Moreover, evidence proved the existence of significant difference between English native speakers and Iranian EFL males and females in application of persuasion strategy. The results obtained from this study should be approached with caution since this study suffers from limitations, one of which is the limited number of native English speakers who served as the participants of the study. Future studies might be able to 102 International Journal of Language Learning and Applied Linguistics World (IJLLALW) Volume 9 (1), May 2015; 92-‐105 Fazeli, M., & Shafiee, S EISSN: 2289-‐2737 & ISSN: 2289-‐3245 www.ijllalw.org make up for this limitation. It could also be suggested that future research in this area take gender differences into consideration and explore whether males and female use different persuasion strategies in the two speech communities under investigation or not. REFERENCES Allami, H. (2006). A Sociopragmatic analysis of griping: The case of Iranian students. The Linguistics Journal, 1(1), 59-76. Al-Issa, A. (2003). Sociocultural transfer in L2 speech behaviors: Evidence and motivating factors. 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