Directive speech acts in conflict situations among advanced non-native speakers of English

Abstract

This study investigates tasks in which international graduate students who are non-native speakers of English must use a second or foreign language (L2) in simulated conflict and stressful situations with native speakers. In particular, the study examines conflicts where the non-native speaker (NNS) must issue a directive to a native speaker (NS) in order to achieve an important outcome or avoid unwanted or even dangerous consequences. Unlike previous studies which place equal or no emphasis on the consequences of the directive under investigation, this study focuses on the perlocutionary effect that the speaker anticipates as a result of the utterance of a directive. Although this is an empirical study, it also critically examines the directive as a macro or discursive speech act colored by the relationships Power, Distance and perceived Consequences of the speaker based on the context of the situation in which it is uttered. The analysis of the data reveals that most advanced NNS have difficulty in high stakes situations based on a comparison of their directives to NS directives, supporting the hypothesis that the encoding of power in a directive is essential to the NNS as well as to the NS in attaining or avoiding some important result. The qualitative evidence further suggests that an important source of this difficulty is the constant awareness that even the advanced NNS is still a NNS and this produces a diminished sense of power relative to NSs.