Investigating Politeness Strategies in Requests in Student-Teacher Interaction Case Study Third Year EFL Learners at Mila University Center

Abstract

This dissertation aims to investigate students' use of politeness strategies in requests in student-teacher interaction. To obtain the necessary data for this research, two instruments were used: first, a questionnaire administered to twelve teachers of English at the Department of Foreign Languages in Mila University Center and second, a discourse completion task given to eighty EFL students from the same department. To analyze, describe, explain and discuss the yielded data, the mixed method approach was adopted. The main findings showed that the majority of students employed different politeness strategies in making requests while interacting with their teachers. Furthermore, the results of students' DCT and teachers' questionnaire indicated that the most used politeness strategy is negative politeness. Besides, the results indicated that students' use of politeness strategies provide a lively, motivating atmosphere and shape good relationships between students and their teachers.