Conceptual socialization in EFL contexts : a case study on Turkish EFL learners‟ request speech acts realization

This study aimed to investigate Turkish EFL learners‟ development of conceptual socialization in terms of their speech acts realization. More specifically, the study examined if the development of conceptual socialization is possible in EFL contexts by analyzing the similarities and differences between native speakers of English and Turkish learners of English in their request, refusal and acceptance speech acts realization in terms of the level of formality, politeness, directness and appropriateness in written and oral activities. In this respect, 25 higher level Turkish learners of English studying in a preparatory school and 10 native speakers of English working as language instructors in the same school took part in the study. In this mixed-methods approach study, the qualitative data were collected through written Discourse Completion Tasks (DCT) in English and Turkish including requests, refusing and accepting requests and audio recordings of role plays as oral discourse completion tasks. Qualitative data gained from the native speakers‟ and Turkish EFL learners responses to DCTs and role plays were graded by using a criterion and the results were quantified to analyze descriptively by using the native speaker responses as a baseline. The findings revealed that although Turkish EFL learners could perform similar to native speakers in terms of realizing appropriate acceptance speech acts, the learners could not produce appropriate request and refusal speech acts in different social situations. That was mostly because their level of formality and politeness was lower than the level of formality and politeness in native speaker responses. When their responses in Turkish were analyzed, linguistic and socio-pragmatic transfer from their mother tongue was observed. Additionally, Turkish EFL learners overused similar structures in each social interaction while native speakers used various linguistic structures. These findings helped draw the conclusion that learners‟ development of conceptual socialization in EFL context might be affected by classroom instruction and their L1 socialization in Turkish. Considering the results above, this study implied the importance of learner experiences in classroom teaching in EFL context, where there is no authentic interaction, and raising learners‟ awareness about the cultural differences reflected on the language use in different social encounters to help them develop conceptual socialization.