The Role of Refusal Instruction in Pragmatic Development

Abstract

This study was set up to further investigate whether either of the instruction types, explicit vs. implicit, proves more efficient in ameliorating pragmatic performance of Iranian EFL learners. The speech act under investigation in this quasi-experimental study was refusal. Sixty Iranian learners of English as a foreign language participated in this study in which they were assigned to three groups of explicit, implicit, and control. All groups were exposed to conversations from ‘Spectrum’ English books where refusals stood out. In the treatment groups it was intended to raise pragmatic awareness whereas in control group conversations acted as a source of English comprehension and production. The findings appear to prove the efficiency of explicit instruction over implicit one in boosting Iranian EFL learners’ pragmatic performance.