تنوعات كاربرد شناختي جهت دهنده¬ها در نامه¬هاي الكترونيكي مبادله شده بين دانشجويان ايراني و دانشگاهيان كانادايي

Pragmatic Variations of Directives in the Emails Exchanged between Iranian Students an‎d Canadian Academics

زبان شناسي

In the increasingly globalized lan‎dscape of higher education, academic email communication serves as a crucial channel for engagement among scholars an‎d students from diverse cultural backgrounds. This MA thesis employed an interactional sociolinguistics framework to explore the pragmatic variations of directives in the emails exchanged between Iranian students an‎d Canadian academics. Primarily, the study aimed at investigating how cultural an‎d contextual factors might influence the formulation an‎d reception of directives, which are integral to establishing authority, politeness, an‎d interpersonal relationships in academic correspondences. By employing a multimethod approach, this research identifies the linguistic strategies used by Iranian students when communicating with their Canadian professors. By studying major pragmatic issues such as directness/ indirectness, formal/ informal strategies, hedging, an‎d mitigation techniques dominating the use of directives, the underlying cultural norms an‎d expectations of both Iranian an‎d Canadian interlocutors are highlighted within an intercultural context. The required data were collected from a targeted corpus of 300 emails—150 from Iranian students an‎d 150 from Canadian academics—using a purposive sampling method. From this corpus, 30 emails from each group were ultimately selec‎ted based on their relevance the objectives under scrutiny. Using a descriptive research methodology including discourse analysis an‎d contrastive analysis, the study employed both quantitative an‎d qualitative measures to examine pragmatic variations related to the use of directives an‎d stimulated by senders’/ recipientsʹ cultural diversity. The analysis of the data revealed significant differences in the employment of direct versus indirect as well as formal versus informal strategies utilized in different moves underlying academic email messaging. While Iranian students frequently utilized more indirect strategies to express respect an‎d deference, the Canadian academics tended to use an‎d commonly favored directness to maintain clarity an‎d efficiency. Furthermore, the findings underscored the importance of context in influencing the forms of directives used. Pragmatic factors such as the sender-recipient relationship (i.e., power dynamics) seemed to play a significant role in shaping an‎d influencing the linguistic choices used in the targeted email messages. Notably, the findings revealed potential implications for effective communication an‎d relationship-building in intercultural academic contexts. By illuminating the subtle strategies dominating the use of directives in academic email exchanges, this research could contribute valuable insights to such fields as pragmatics, intercultural communication, an‎d interactional sociolinguistics. Keywords: Communication Cues, Cultural Factors, Direct/indirect strategies, Directives, Interactional Sociolinguistics, Interpersonal Relationships, Pragmatic Variations

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