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چکیده
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Pragmatics is considered as a relatively young, newly-established and commodious terrain within the realm of linguistic research and has captured widespread research inclination over the past 40 years. One of the most contentious issues that has gained international appeal is the linkage between language proficiency level and pragmatic competence. Bardovi-Harlig and Dornyei (1998) laid special emphasis on proficiency level as a strong predictor of attending to pragmatics. In contrary to above-mentioned finding, Takahashi (2005) found a non-significant correlation between pragmatic awareness and proficiency level. The present article aimed at investigating EFL learners' pragmalinguistic awareness and comprehension of request speech act across two different language proficiency levels. In this regard, 120 Iranian university students (N=120) were randomly selected and placed into high and low proficiency groups through administrating Oxford Placement Test. The participants' pragmalinguistic awareness and comprehension of request speech act were examined using multiple-choice discourse completion test (MDCT) (Liu, 2006) and request speech act questionnaire (Bardovi-Harlig & Dornyei, 1998). The results obtained from inferential analyses indicated a significant difference between high and low proficient groups in terms of pragmalinguistic awareness. Further and more in-depth analyses were made with the aim of shedding light on the discrepancy between high and low proficient groups regarding comprehension of request speech act. The findings of this line of analysis indicated that high proficient learners outperformed low proficient ones drastically. In conclusion, it is proclaimed that language proficiency level can be accounted as a contributing determinant in allocating attentional resources to pragmatic aspect of input.
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