THE EFFECT OF PRAGMATIC TRANSFER AND LANGUAGE PROFICIENCY ON MOROCCAN EFL LEARNERS’ PRAGMATIC COMPETENCE

In the present study, we investigate the potential effects of first language negative pragmatic transfer and target language proficiency on Moroccan EFL learners’ pragmatic competence as reflected in their request productions. The data were collected by means of a written discourse completion task from four samples of Moroccan Arabic native speakers, American English native speakers, and two proficiency groups of Moroccan EFL learners. The results revealed some pragmatic transfer of direct requesting strategies, especially the imperatives and want statements. Proficiency also had a positive impact on learners’ use of request perspective and lexical downgraders. However, the lower-level group was not the most direct as expected, indicating a negative correlation between proficiency and pragmatic competence. The study concludes with several research and pedagogical implications.<p> </p><p><strong> Article visualizations:</strong></p><p><img src="/-counters-/soc/0712/a.php" alt="Hit counter" /></p>