Requesting Strategies: A Comparative Study among Persian Speakers and Persian Foreign Learners

This study compared the types of requesting strategies (RSs) employed by thirty three Persian Native Speakers (PNSs) students at Payame-Noor University (PNU) in Tehran، thirty seven Persian Lower-intermediate Learners (PLLs) and thirty seven Persian Upper-intermediate Learners (PULs) students at Persian center of Imam Khomeini International University (IKIU) in Qazvin in order to study to what extent requesting strategies used by Persian learners at different proficiency levels mapped those used by native speakers of Persian. The data gathered through a twelve-question Discourse Completion Test (DCT)، six questions for asking address situation and six questions for borrowing situation، selection of request situations in DCT was based on two social factors of relative power and social distance and also degree of imposition in the mentioned situations. The acts were then analyzed according to model proposed by Blum-Kulka، House and Kasper (1989). This model schematized requesting strategies in three categories: Direct (D)، Conventionally Indirect (CI) and Non-Conventionally Indirect (NCI) request strategies. Results revealed that all the three groups preferred Conventionally Indirect (CI) requests more and PULs’ requesting strategies mapped those used by PNSs more than PLLs’ requesting strategies. It indicated the positive effect of language proficiency level and pragmatic competence on the produced requesting strategies. Also، the values assigned to the three variables were found to have significant effect on the requesting strategies.