Interlanguage Pragmatic Learning Strategies (IPLS) as Predictors of L2 Speech Act Knowledge: A Case of Iranian EFL Learners

Pragmatic competence has progressively entered the limelight of research interest since it premiered in Bachman’s (1990) model of communicative competence, underscoring the indispensable role of the relationship between “language users and the context of communication” (p. 89). Therefore, it stands to reason that for effective communication in the EFL/ESL contexts to take place, pragmatic competence is a crucial determinant. Yet, the development of an efficient pragmatic competence depends on many important internal and external learner variables (e.g., Cohen, 2019; Kasper & Rose, 2002; Mohammad Hosseinpur & Bagheri Nevisi, 2018; Taguchi, 2019; Taguchi & Roever, 2017; Tajeddin & Dabbagh, 2015; Takimoto, 2010, 2013). One prominent individual difference (ID) that exerts influence over the acquisition of pragmatic knowledge is pragmatic learning strategies (Cohen, 2005, 2010, 2019), or interlanguage pragmatic learning strategies (IPLS) (Tajeddin & Malmir, 2015). Interlanguage pragmatic learning strategies include memory, cognitive, metacognitive, social, and affective variables, as well as compensatory techniques and procedures that are specifically responsible for gaining, retaining, managing, organizing, and seeking pragmatic knowledge in the target language. Since this neologism is new to the field of pragmatics, very few studies to date have been conducted to scrutinize how IPLS contribute to various forms of pragmatic knowledge such as speech acts, implicatures, and conversational routines. Moreover, how L2 learners can develop the IPLS and their sociopragmatic and pragmalinguistic knowledge which can directly affect L2 speech-act knowledge is in its nascent stages of research interest. Because of the importance of these research lacunas in the current pragmatics literature and the scarcity of research in this regard, the present study was undertaken to fill this gap by scrutinizing the relationship between EFL learners’ IPLS and their speech-act pragmatic knowledge of common English speech acts (requests, apologies, refusals, compliment/ compliment responses, and complaints).