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Classroom interaction improves the learning process by enhancing opportunities for learning since both instructors and learners are involved in various speech acts. Speech act refers to a functional unit in the form of an act assisting individuals to perceive or promote things with words in interaction. Thus, the current study investigated classroom interaction in terms of types and functions of speech acts performed by Iranian English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers and learners. The data for the study came from audio-recording of twelve 90-minute sessions taught by six experienced Iranian teachers. To analyze the conversational data, Finocchiaro and Brumfit’s (1983) model was used to examine various types of speech acts and Walsh’s (2006) SETT was employed as a framework to explore the functions of speech acts. Following the data analysis, it was unfolded that directives were the most frequent speech acts, including suggestions, requests, warning, and giving instruction, accompanied by interpersonal and personal ones. As to the functions of speech acts, the most frequent mode was the materials mode (42%), followed by skills and systems mode (34%), classroom context mode (16%), and managerial mode (8%). The overall findings indicate the central role of the teacher in teacher-fronted classes in Iran as the most speech acts, i.e. about 79%, were performed by teachers in the form of requestive, suggestive, and advisory to control and promote the learning process. By carrying out the current study, it is hoped that readers gain more insight regarding the pragmatics territory, most notably speech acts.
 

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In Speech Acts, John Searle dealt with the analysis of literal meaningful utterances, but in Expression and Meaning, he generalizes his theory to meaning and uses it to account for performing and understanding nonliteral utterances where the speaker means something other than what he is saying. Thus, Searle’s question about indirect speech acts is how a speaker might say something and mean it, but he also means something else. For this purpose, the area of directives is the most useful to Searle. The presence of decency in acts in the category of directive is Searle’s main motivation for researching indirect speech acts. Still, most examples are found in the acts in the category of commissive and not in the acts in the category of directive. At the same time, Searle’s approach does not conform to the usual explanatory paradigms; it’s somewhat like an epistemological analysis of perception. Thus, this article aims to review, analyze, and critique Searle’s approach.

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The aim of this study is to compare the ideas of Arabic rhetoricians and linguists about the direct and indirect meanings of interrogatives. For this purpose, the ideas of linguists about the notion of speech acts in the field of pragmatics were investigated and also the viewpoints of rhetoricians in the field of meaning (Ma’âni) were studied. After gathering the ideas of the two groups, a comparison is made to show the similarities and differences of such ideas. The results showed a number of similarities like the division of utterances to constatives and performatives, paying attention to indirect meanings of performatives and some of similar indirect meanings. All of these are reasons of the influence of ancient rhetoricians upon modern linguists. However, undoubtedly, there are a number of differences between the two; such as their different scope and some of different indirect meanings, which imply the innovations of linguists and their attention to other dimensions of performatives.  

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This study is to explain the semantic and pragmatic functions of two different types of Quranic commandments: commandments in imperative mood and commandments in declarative mood. Based on a descriptive-analytical method, this paper studies such commandments through linguistic pragmatics and discourse analysis. The results show that both imperative and declarative sentences/ utterances are used to issue commands, but their usage results in specific inferences. The imperative form is used when the intended commandment pertains to a personal and/ or urgent situation, thus taking place in an interpersonal discourse situation. The declarative form, on the other hand, is used when the speaker does not intend to emphasize on the interpersonality and urgency of the command. The declarative form of command also shows the knowledge and certainty of the speaker with regard to the execution of the command. As a result, declarative forms are mostly used in contexts where the high status speaker is to impose his commandments, rules, and orders. When it comes to the translation of the Holly Quran, translators had different reactions towards the declarative commandments. In the case of verses pertaining to jurisprudential verdicts or cases where the command is explicitly stated, some have used “shall”. In some cases, too, they have not noticed the imperative mood, i.e. the existence of a commandment at all.

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 The present article aims to investigate and compare the argumentative discourse of Abraham’s debates with Nimrod, Azar, Star-worshipers and Idolaters in the Holy Qur'an. To this end, at first, the Persian translations of Abraham argumentative discussions with the opponents have been identified and then they have been analyzed based on Pragmatic-dialectical approach.This approach is composed of two parts: the dialectical and the pragmatic section. According to this approach, each argumentative dialogue has four stages: confronting, opening, argumentative and concluding features. In fact, the protagonist goes through these stages to defend his standpoint and tries to persuade the antagonist. Considering Abraham’s debates with his opponents on the one hand, and pragma-dialectical approach other hand, two questions have been the focus of attention in this article:1. Are these four stages of pragma-dialectical approach and the ways of persuading the audience different in Abraham’s debates? 2. Are the speech acts used in these debates the same? The related hypotheses are: 1. these four stages of pragma-dialectical approach and the ways of persuading the audience are not different in Abraham debates. 2. The speech acts used in these debates are not the same.
   Research methodology is descriptive- analytical. The translations of Abraham’s debates with Nimrod, Azar , Star worshipers and Idolaters in the Holy Qur'an have been extracted from Makarem (1378, 12387) and Husseini (1382) and then have been analyzed and compared. Out of 167 Ayahs that have narrated Abraham‘s story in the Holy Quran, 61 Ayahs show Abraham’s debates. According to these debates, 105 speech acts were studied in terms of argumentative stages (confronting, opening, argumentative and concluding) and also the frequency of speech acts according to Searle (1969) was identified.
   The research findings showed that from 105 speech acts in the debates, 86 of them are of Abraham and 19 cases belong to the opponents. In addition, the study showed that the argumentative stages of Abraham debates vary in these debates. Abraham debate with Star worshipers is different from other debates in confronting and opening stages. In this way difference in opinion is hidden in confronting stage and gradually it becomes clear in the opening and argumentative stages. Furthermore, in confronting stage the standpoint is single sided .Convincing the idolaters and Star worshipers, Abraham has  made use of  a“dramatic method”. In the pragmatic section, frequency and type of speech acts used by Abraham are different in the debates. In addition, the current research showed that this approach should be appropriately modified if it aims to investigate the argumentative discourse of the prophets in the Holy Qur'an.
 

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Pragmatics, which is one of the most eminent concepts in the world of language learning and teaching, has established itself in various academic fields. The teachability of pragmatics has been investigated in a plethora of studies (Derakhshan & Shakki, 2020; Shakki et al., 2020), though scant attention has been given to assessing and testing pragmatic features. It has been a long time that practitioners and teachers use traditional assessment to assess students, but with the emergence of new approaches in teaching, there should be new ways to test and assess learners. The present study is theoretically underpinned by Vygotsky’s (1978) Socio-Cultural Theory (SCT), which postulates that a person’ cognition is mediated socially during the interaction, and it emphasizes a mediated relationship not a direct relationship which is the basis for Dynamic Assessment (DA). He believes that the development of a child consists of two levels, namely actual level and potential level of development. Activating the Zone of Proximal Developmnet (ZPD), which is the distance between the actual developmental level and the level of potential development, requires guidance and collaboration. Since assessing the speech acts of apology and request through DA has not been taken into account so far, the present study aimed to find out the effects of DA on the acquisition of Iranian intermediate EFL learners’ speech act of apology and request. To this end, 66 students, selected from Shokouh Language Institute in Kalaleh, Golestan Providence, Iran, participated in this study.
Research Question:
Does dynamic vs. non-dynamic assessments (NDA) have any effect on the acquisition of Iranian intermediate EFL learner’s speech act of apology and request?
Three groups of language learners whose language proficiency was determined by Oxford Quick Placement Test (OQPT), participated in the present study. The total number of the participants was 85 Iranian learners, from whom 66 were selected as intermediate level whose scores ranged from 24 to 30, according to OQPT. The gender of the students was both male and female, and learners aged from 15 to 19. Their native language was Persian, and they were studying English as a second language. After homogenizing learners, they were divided into three groups, one DA, one NDA, and one control group. Listening pragmatic comprehension test, devised and validated by Birjandi and Derakhshan (2014), was utilized as the pretest and posttest of the study. First, the participants were tested before the intervention; after teaching speech acts to learners (30 apology and request video vignettes that were taken from seasons and episodes of 13 Reasons Why and Suits), the learners were tested by the listening pragmatic comprehension test to compare the results. In this study, to have homogeneous learners for all three groups, the mean and standard deviation of the proficiency test were calculated. To answer the research question, the scores taken from pretest and posttest were submitted to the Statistical Package of Social Sciences (SPSS).
To find the effectiveness of the treatment, the means of control group, NDA group, and DA group were compared. In order to make sure whether or not the groups were statistically different, One-way ANOVA test and post hoc test of Tukey were run. Based on the mean scores for the pretest in one DA and two NDA groups, which are 58.88, 55.92, and 55.67, it is shown that little difference exists among the three groups. However, in order to make sure whether or not the groups are similar statistically, One-way ANOVA test was conducted. The Sig. value is .92 which demonstrates that since this is more than .05, it can be concluded that there is not a statistically significant difference between the mean scores of the three groups. On the other hand, the mean scores for the posttest in one DA, NDA, and control group, respectively, were 117.42, 72.83, and 61.58, showing that the groups are different. Furthermore, the Sig. value is 0.00, which is smaller than .05, so this means that the intervention which was implemented in the DA group was effective. Since the obtained value does not show where the significant difference exists, post hoc test of Tukey was used to find the statistical significance between the groups.  The values corresponding with the comparison between the DA group and NDA groups are smaller than .05.
 For this reason, it can be concluded that the difference between DA group and the other two groups is statistically significant. However, the comparison between the two NDA groups revealed that they are not significantly different from each other (p=.392>.05). The results of one-way ANOVA test indicated that there were statistically meaningful differences across groups, and the results of post hoc test of Tukey revealed that dynamic group outperformed both non-dynamic and control groups, but no meaningful difference was found between non-dynamic and control groups although non-dynamic had a better mean score compared to that of control group. Considering the findings of the present study, it is suggested that harmonizing the instruction and testing provides opportunities for the learners, and learning should be individualized in order to have better outcomes. To put it in a nutshell, giving students contextually appropriate input has been a pivotal factor to increase learners’ pragmatic ability while understanding and performing the speech acts. In light of the gained results, the present study offers some implications for teachers, learners, and materials developers. It is suggested that teachers apply DA in their language classrooms to maximize interaction, mediation, and negotiation.

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The present study sought to cast light on differences in strategies of compliment responses used across Persian and American English. For this purpose, 110 participants, under three groups of Persian native speakers, American native speakers, and Persian learners of English, answered a Discourse Completion Test (DCT), followed by a semi-structured interview with the Persian learners of English to cross-check the findings of the DCTs. The collected responses from the DCTs were coded at macro and micro-levels. Moreover, a macro-level of Persian cultural schemas was used for the Persian groups. The chi-square test revealed the independent performance of the three groups. Judged by the written DCTs while performing in English, the learners’ responses displayed cases of utilizing the native Persian cultural schemas. More specifically, the English learner respondents employed different instances of ta’arof and shekaste-nafsi. Confirmed by the interview, such failures resulted from insufficient exposure to the American English culture and more importantly from their lack of instruction and awareness of cross-cultural pragmatic differences.

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The authors in the present study attempt to investigate the speech act of compliments and its semantic boundary engagement with other speech acts of positive assessment of the speaker from the listener such as "approval", "praise", and "flattery ". The hypothesis of the present study is that the semantic boundary of speech acts containing positive assessment of the speaker depending on the verbal culture of the speakers of Russian and Iranian verbal environment is different,  and it is open to change in such a way that if a face expression in the Iranian cultural verbal environment is complimented, that expression may find the color and smell of flattery in the Russian verbal environment; in other words, an action with a positive assessment to an action with a negative assessment of the listener towards the speaker is interpreted as flattery. Furthermore, the compliment structures in each verbal culture have gender differences and characteristics (male and female). That is, the group of formulas used for men is inapplicable for women and vice versa.

Iranian literature and compliments are interpreted as politeness in international research. Goffman (1955, 1976), Brown and Levinson (1978, 1987), and Leech (1983) were the founders of these studies (Faika, 2016, p. 109). In other linguistic works written about Taarof, it has been interpreted as ‘compliment’ (Alavi & Zeinali, 2014, p. 139). Evidently, the lack of linguistic equality in other linguistic cultures indicates the absence of linguistic phenomena or their difference in the target linguistic culture. In such cases, ‘Taarof’ is an unequal Iranian cultural phenomenon in other cultures. It can be interpreted neither as compliment nor ceremony nor politeness. Taarof in other cultures should be considered as an untranslatable national cultural phenomenon and presented as the term ‘Taarof’ (Izadi, 2018).
In the verbal environment of Iranians, inappropriate compliments are considered a reprehensible practice. Hence, the Iranian proverb ‘reduce the compliments and increase the money’ referring to a situation where one is expected to pay a wage or do something, but instead, the audience witnesses ‘compliment’ and eloquence of the speaker in the concept of ‘Taarof’ and ‘praise’ of his action and performance.
Compliment in Russian verbal culture does not have an emotional and expressive tone and rhythm. Such an action is interpreted more as flattery by the Russian listener. However, the predominant feature of Iranian verbal culture as an Eastern culture is an exaggeration in the act of ‘compliment’ and the boundary of the compliment formation from flattery is clear, and the listener has no difficulty in distinguishing the two. However, in most cases, ‘praise’ is used as a tool to form ‘compliment’ in this linguistic culture, and therefore in Iranian verbal culture, the actions of ‘compliment’ are combined with ‘praise’. However, this does not mean an overlap between the two boundaries.
The following semantic and situational classifications can be considered in a compliment: 1) Gender: male and female; 2) personal and administrative; 3) Description of the external and internal qualities of the audience; 4) appropriate and inappropriate compliment; 5) compliment with an emotional tone.
In the Iranian verbal culture, using expressive speech acts represents politeness and even Taarof with the help of complimenting the audience. Using these speech acts, the speaker shows his attention to the audience, expresses his sincerity in ‘compliment’ and ‘praise’, while in ‘flattery’ there is no element of intimacy, and it is the result of hypocrisy. Depending on how ‘approval’ is used, it can indicate the role of a communication channel, i.e., using approval as a sign of listening carefully to the speaker; or answering his question from the point of view of correct logic. ‘Compliment’ and ‘approval’ can be on the horizontal or vertical axis of socialization, while ‘praise’ and ‘flattery’ can be seen only in the vertical axis of the age hierarchy or social administration. For ‘compliment’ speech act, we can somehow determine expressive and verbal tools in some verbal situations, namely, complementing the appearance, referring to the freshness and youth stability of the audience, meeting after a long time etc., while such a classification is impossible for flattery and praise.
 

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Knowledge of speech acts and their functions are basic components of pragmatics and the request speech act plays a crucial part in everyday interactions. This study aimed to investigate whether native speakers of English make any differences utilizing the request expressions “would you like” and “would you mind”, their collocations in both spoken and academic contexts and the functional differences caused by the co-text. To this end, the data was retrieved from Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA). The results revealed that such expressions in the spoken corpus were used more frequently in the transactional context with equal status and as interactional-oriented. However, in the academic corpus, the same expressions were used more frequently in the pedagogical context with the high-low status and as both interactional-oriented and task-oriented. The expression "would you like" was mostly used to give information, whereas "would you mind" was usually used to request an action. These expressions were not used for the purpose of imposition in any of the two contexts. The study revealed that the collocations didn't affect the function of such requests. In fact, it was the collocating words that changed due to the pragmatic functions and the objectives of the speakers. The findings might contribute to understanding of the variations which matter between the request expressions. Teachers and learners might gain insights into how and when they are used and which collocations are more frequent so as to focus more carefully on them and make informed and proper decisions within pedagogical settings.

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Reviewing related literature shows deviation from Searle’s felicity conditions has not been given attention. The present paper aims to investigate pragmatic deviation from Searle’s (1969) felicity conditions of illocutionary speech acts in the previous president of the US, Donald Trump’s political language. A qualitative method is used to gather and examine the data. The instrument consists of three oral documents which are chosen purposefully: (1) Trump’s discourse to a group of his supporters in Illinois state, (2) Trump’s meeting with Broadcasters MacCallum and Baier on Fox News Channel, and (3) Trump’s interview with Broadcaster Cooper on CNN Channel. The paper uses a discourse analysis method to study these documents. Findings reveal that Searle’s conditions (propositional content, preparatory, sincerity, essential) are deviated from in Trump’s political speeches: (1) Representative acts by making false claims without providing any evidence, (2) commissive acts by committing himself to do a future action, but Trump fails to fulfill it, (3) directive acts by ordering Joe Biden’s administration to prevent immigrants from entering the US, but Trump’s order cannot be done, (4) expressive acts by jokingly apologizing to his wife because he does not do anything wrong that pushes him to make an apology to her and thus has no real intention to do this act, and (5) declarative acts by declaring they are going to end Pelosi’s career politically, but she is not done.  It is also found that deviation from these conditions happens as a means of persuading, influencing, threatening, mocking, and attacking others.

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Speech acts are a branch of linguistics studies of pragmatics that identifies writer goals with analysis of text statements. This approach is a suitable way for representation of writer orientation about text statements, explanation people relationships and how ideology works. In this research, speech acts in panegyric poem as the most ideological classic poem, gas classified and analyzed to be revealed how the mechanism of panegyric statements.
According to results, poets have used speech acts for explanation of mamduh governmental and spiritual status as the most important people in poem. They have highlighted the mamduh station and ideological goals by using the explicit action.
Poets have used emotional action to show positive emotions to mamduh and decrease the instance between mamduh and themselves. According to relationship between mamduh and poet, the frequency of motivational action is low and the most its used is about inviting mamduh to happiness or his enemies to obeying him.
Poets have highlighted mamduh by focus on explicit action and use the persuation methods in mamduh description.

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Speech acts are considered as one of the most important foundations of pragmatic analysis by creating an impact on the recipient based on understanding the addressee’s intent, and benefiting the addressee is one of the important goals that cannot be neglected. The speaker chooses vocabulary and arranges it according to the intention he follows in speaking. Austin was able to lay down the main principles of the theory of speech acts, but the theory did not stop there. It expanded and became more mature with the second pioneer in the philosophy of ordinary language, namely the American philosopher John Searle. His tasks were to develop the theory by distinguishing within the sentence between what is related to the action included in the statement itself, which he calls the power included in the statement, and what is related to the content of the action, which he calls the name of propositional content. In this study, we will rely on Searle's opinions and search for the five speech acts affected by context and internal and external factors, used in poetry collections, A Vasham All khzrah, Ghasaed fi zaman Alfath, and Taghribat Bani Palestine by the poet Walid Saif. This study aims to search for speech acts and employ them in Walid Saif’s poetry based on the descriptive-analytical approach. The results indicate that the poet used verbal acts to express positive and negative emotions such as war, love, sadness, nostalgia, coercion, disappointment, waiting, and his hope for the future. Through these speech acts, which were mentioned directly and indirectly, we saw that the poet tends to use the five speech acts to stir feelings and excite the recipient to accomplish an action. The performance verb, both direct and indirect, was evident in poetic discourse, revealing its power within specific linguistic contexts that facilitated the realization of the poet’s verbal intentions and purposes through the words he chose to serve his poetic text.