Iraqi EFL Learners’ Recognition of Speech Acts Expressed by English Interrogatives

Abstract

English interrogative sentences are used to express a wide range of illocutionary forces (henceforth: IFs) in different contextual situations. Recognizing these IFs may be a problem for foreign English learners. The present research paper aims at investigating the recognition of Iraqi EFL learners of the various IFs expressed by English interrogative sentences. To fulfill the purposes of this study, 50 senior students were chosen to represent the sample of this study.  To collect the data for the study, the researcher designed a multiple-choice questionnaire to include all the kinds of interrogative IFs mentioned in the theoretical part and their respective individual forces. These kinds were classified as direct and indirect. The questionnaire comprises 30 different situations from real-life encounters, each of which comprised an interrogative utterance. For each situation, some IFs were given as options to choose from. The findings indicated that the learners’ performance in recognizing the direct force of English interrogatives is better than their performance in recognizing the indirect ones. Moreover, they are modest users to communicate with others but often have inaccurate understanding.