The statistical analysis reveals that a percentage of (63%) goes to the direct strategies for expressing disagreement, whereas only a percentage of )15%( goes to the indirect ones. Although (84%) of the total number of the learners have passed the productive part, they have shown a greater preference for using explicit performative strategies for showing disagreement than the other sorts of strategies. This is remarkably revealed by comparing the percentages of the subjects who have passed the test (53.33%) with those who have not (46.66%). This means that they neglect or unaware of the role of the context which determines the nature of the act used as being either FSA or FTA. Most of the students cannot differentiate between polite and impolite acts of disagreement in relevant contexts. This can be clearly recognized by comparing the subjects` scores average in direct acts (1.4190) with theirs in the indirect ones (1.0571). Students recognize direct acts of disagreement better than the indirect ones. The analysis of the data confirms the hypotheses of the study and yields the following: 1. To achieve the aims of the study and verify or refute its hypotheses, a sample of ninety Iraqi EFL learners from fourth-year stage in the Department of English Language, College of Education, University of Al-Qadisiya during the academic year 2013-2014 is set to respond to a two-part test the first of which consists of two sections(A and B).Section A consists of twenty situations designed for measuring the learners' level to identify the intended acts of disagreement in their various syntactic constructions, whereas the section B contains three basic topics with ten demonstrated responses to these topics requiring the learners to identify which response has polite or impolite act of disagreement.Part 2 falls into twenty situations requiring the learners` responses to disagreements. 3- Iraqi EFL learners perform direct disagreement strategies better than indirect ones at the productive level.
2- Iraqi EFL learners cannot distinguish between polite and impolite disagreement due to their negligence to the role of culture.
Associated with the objectives of the study, three hypotheses are put forward: 1- Most of Iraqi EFL learners can recognize direct speech acts of disagreement rather than the indirect ones. The ultimate aim of the present study is to use the findings of such investigations in getting useful conclusions and pedagogical recommendations. The present thesis basically aims at investigating: (1) the ability of the Iraqi EFL learners in distinguishing the intended acts utilized for showing disagreement as they are marked by different constructions in a number of given interactional situations, (2) the Iraqi EFL learners` level in identifying polite and impolite acts of disagreement in relevant contexts in a number of given interactional situations, and (3) the most common strategies used by those learners to issue communicative acts of disagreement. Finally, Chapter Five shows the conclusions of the work, offers some pedagogical recommendations, and presents suggestions for further studies. It attempts to analyze the test results with the aids of some statistical means and tables to locate areas of difficulties EFL learners face in recognising and producing the communicative act of disagreement. Chapter Four presents the practical side of the study. This chapter also sheds the light on analysing disagreement structurally within ‘preference organization’ principle. Chapter Three outlines the act of disagreement within politeness theories of Lakoff, Leech, and Brown and Levinson. Finally, Chapter Two ends up with illustrating the concept of context, its types, features, and its roles with reference to ‘disagreement’. Moreover, this chapter presents some pragmatic strategies for showing disagreement.
Although this thesis aims at analysing the act of disagreement at the pragmatic level, the chapter takes the advantage of analysing this act semantically and syntactically. Then, the discussion develops to present some definitions and types of disagreement. It begins with outlining the concept of pragmatics and its differences from the semantic point of view.
Chapter Two tackles the speech act of disagreement from a pragmatic perspective. Moreover, this chapter shows the aims of the study which the research attempts to achieve within the scope limits of the theories of ‘speech act’ and ‘politeness’. Also, it presents the hypotheses on which the present thesis is put forward. Chapter One introduces the problem and the significance of the study. This research deals with presenting An Analytic Study of the Difficulties Faced by Iraqi EFL Learners in the Use of Disagreement at the pragmatic level.
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