Iranian EFL learners' realization of complaints in American English

Abstract

This study aims to examine how Iranian EFL learners perceive complaining utterances produced by Americans in 4 asymmetrical situations. The main focus of the study is on perceptive data elicited from Iranian informants (male vs. female) with respect to the using of such strategies. Role-play interactions taken from 10 American speakers and a perceptive questionnaire constructed based on the interactions were used to collect the required data. Results of the questionnaire showed that more indirect complaints were perceived as more polite by EFL learners. Furthermore, social variables of power and distance made a difference in the degree of politeness perceived; Iranians (irrespective of their genders) were more concerned about the social power of the complainee than the social distance between the interlocutors. Subjects' gender did not have significant relationship with how the participants assessed the politeness degree of complaints.