Investigating Aspects of Politeness as Performed by EFL learners at Sudanese Universities

Abstract

This study aims to investigate aspects of linguistic politeness and appropriateness in performing English request, apology, invitation, compliment and greetings speech acts by EFL learners at Sudanese Universities. The population of the study consists of 187 fourth-year students at the universities of Al Fashir, Nyala and Zalingei. The data were collected by using Discourse Completion Test (DCT) and then analyzed by using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) program according to their appropriateness to social distance, status and context of formality. The results of the research showed that the learners at the three universities are pragmatically incompetent. Consequently, the Subjects’ performance with reference to the social distance, status and context of formality had been proved to be inappropriate compared to the conventional English speech acts under investigation. That is to say that 84% of the respondents have failed to express themselves politely in front of their colleagues and professors. Their performance is also proved to be relatively direct where indirect speech acts are needed. Moreover, there is an obvious influence of Arabic language and Sudanese culture in learners’ performance of English speech acts. The study recommends that the English language syllabuses of the Sudanese universities should be developed to include materials that deal with teaching authentic use of English. It is also recommended that EFL learners should be exposed to real environments of speaking English such as visiting countries where the English language is spoken natively, and establishing audiovisual laboratories to acquaint the learners with how language is actually used by native speakers.