THE SPEECH ACT OF GREETING PERFORMED BY RUSSIAN EFL LEARNERS By GALINA SHLEYKINA Bachelor of Arts in Russian and English Petrozavodsk State University Petrozavodsk, Russia 1998 Master of Arts in Russian and English Petrozavodsk State University Petrozavodsk, Russia 1998 Doctor of Philosophy in Russian Petrozavodsk State University Petrozavodsk, Russia 2007 Submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate College of the Oklahoma State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY May, 2016 THE SPEECH ACT OF GREETING PERFORMED BY RUSSIAN EFL LEARNERS Dissertation Approved: Dissertation Adviser Dr. Gene Halleck Committee Member Dr. Dennis Preston Committee Member Dr. Rebecca Damron Outside Committee Member Dr. Lesley Rimmel ii Name: GALINA SHLEYKINA Date of Degree: MAY, 2016 Title of Study: THE SPEECH ACT OF GREETING PERFORMED BY RUSSIAN EFL LEARNERS Major Field: ENGLISH Abstract: The present study centers on interlanguage and cross-cultural pragmatics. It investigates semantic formulas in the speech act of greeting performed by Russian EFL learners. In particular, it compares the non-native speakers’ (NNS) and native speakers’ (NS) production of semantic formulas in terms of their number, frequency, and content. Secondly, the study examines the NSs’ perception of NNS greetings for their pragmatic appropriateness and identifies areas that influence the ratings. A Free Discourse Completion Test (FDCT) containing 16 situational prompts was used to elicit greetings by the English NNSs and NSs. Retrospective interviews were additionally administered to triangulate the data. The NNSs’ greetings were rated by the NS raters on a four-point scale for their pragmatic appropriateness. The results show that the NNSs significantly deviate from the NSs in terms of number, frequency, and content of greetings strategies, namely, greetings proper, phatic questions and phrases, address terms, and situational greetings. The differences result from negative pragmalinguistic and sociopragmatic transfer, lack of appropriate linguistic means, or not fully developed pragmatic competence. The NNS greetings were rated as pragmatically appropriate in general; however, several areas including grammatical and sociopragmatic factors led to lowering the scores. The NSs’ ratings as well as NNSs’ production can be regarded in view of socio-cultural differences in communication styles between Russian and English cultures. These dissimilarities in sociopragmatic behavior may account for low ratings from the NSs’ perspective and for frequencies of certain semantic formulas in the NNSs’ production as well. Finally, important pedagogical implications regarding pragmatic instruction are discussed. The results contribute to a better understanding of how Russian EFL learners greet and respond to greetings in English. They also shed light on the discussion of L2 learners’ pragmatic competence and NS perception of pragmatic appropriateness. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter Page I. INTRODUCTION ......................................................................................................1 1.1.Motivation for research ......................................................................................2 1.2.Research questions .............................................................................................4 1.3.Dissertation structure .........................................................................................4 II. LITERATURE REVIEW ..........................................................................................6 2.1. Pragmatics, pragmalinguistics, and sociopragmatics........................................7 2.2. Speech acts ........................................................................................................8 2.2.1. Felicity conditions ....................................................................................9 2.2.2. Direct and indirect speech acts ..............................................................10 2.3. Pragmatic principles and politeness theory.....................................................10 2.3.1. Grice’s Cooperative Principle ................................................................11 2.3.2. Leech’s Politeness Principle ..................................................................11 2.3.3. Brown and Levinson’s theory ................................................................13 2.4. Cross-cultural and intercultural pragmatics ....................................................15 2.5. Interlanguage pragmatics (ILP) ......................................................................16 2.5.1. Interlanguage..........................................................................................16 2.5.2. Interlanguage pragmatics .......................................................................17 2.6. Communicative and pragmatic competence ...................................................18 2.7. Developmental issues in ILP ..........................................................................20 2.7.1. Pragmatic transfer ..................................................................................20 2.7.2. Pragmatic failure ....................................................................................21 2.7.3. Grammatical and pragmatic competence ...............................................23 2.7.4. Grammatical and pragmatic awareness .................................................25 2.7.5. Factors affecting pragmatic acquisition .................................................26 2.8. Speech acts analysis in ILP .............................................................................29 2.9. Other areas in ILP ...........................................................................................31 2.9.1. Acquisition and use of formulas ............................................................31 2.9.2. Small talk and phatic communication ....................................................34 2.9.3. Address terms.........................................................................................36 2.10. Data elicitation in ILP ...................................................................................36 2.10.1. Discourse Completion Tests ................................................................37 2.10.2. Role-plays ............................................................................................40 2.10.3. Natural discourse .................................................................................41 2.10.4. Other methods of data collection .........................................................42 iv Chapter ..................................................................................................................... page 2.10.5. Non-production methods .....................................................................44 2.10.6. Multiple methods .................................................................................45 2.11. Assessing pragmatic competence .................................................................46 2.11.1. Types of pragmatic assessment ............................................................46 2.11.2. NS rating criteria ..................................................................................47 2.11.3. NS raters’ behavior ..............................................................................50 2.11.4. Issues in using NS ratings ....................................................................53 2.12. The speech act of greeting ............................................................................54 2.12.1. Greetings in speech act theory .............................................................54 2.12.2. Definitions and functions of greetings .................................................55 2.12.3. Criteria for greetings identification ......................................................56 2.12.4. Adjacency pairs ....................................................................................57 2.12.5. Politeness in greeting ...........................................................................58 2.12.6. Classifications of English greetings .....................................................61 2.12.7. Constituents of English greetings ........................................................63 2.12.7.1. English greetings proper .............................................................63 2.12.7.2. English greeting “How are you?” ...............................................64 2.12.7.3. English terms of address .............................................................67 2.12.8. Greetings in descriptive and comparative studies ................................68 2.12.9. Russian politeness and Russian greetings ............................................70 2.12.9.1. Russian politeness .......................................................................70 2.12.9.2. Russian greetings ........................................................................71 2.12.10. Greetings in ILP research...................................................................72 2.13. Chapter conclusion........................................................................................76 III. METHODOLOGY ................................................................................................77 3.1. Methods used in the present study ..................................................................77 3.1.1. Free Discourse Completion Test (FDCT) ..............................................79