Perceived Pragmatic Transferability of Persian L1 Refusal Strategies

Investigating transfer of one’s pragmatic knowledge of first language to his second or foreign language has been one of the areas of interest for researchers. However, there are contradictory results even within the scarce studies which have addressed transferability. This study was an attempt to investigate perceived pragmatic transferability of L1 refusal strategies by Persian EFL learners. Specifically, the effect of degree of imposition of the context and eliciting act type on transferability rate was investigated. To this end, a DCT was developed with the help of 60 (male & female) Persian EFL learners. This DCT was then administered to 74 Persian EFL learners as the main participants of the study. The results showed the existence of the interactional effect of both degree of imposition and type of eliciting act on the learners’ transferability rate. This suggests that learners’ perception of the differences in conditions under which they refuse has an effect on their choices of the pragmatic aspects to be transferred to English