Further Research

Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece Page 168

Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece Page 169 CHAPTER 7: DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS

7.1 Discussing the gender contribution to the persuasive strategies selection

The effect of gender on the persuasive strategies selection constituted the first research hypothesis in this particular study, as the gender role in communication is receiving increasingly research attention. So, in this sub-unit, extended interpretation will be completed as regards to the gender contribution to the differentiation in the use of persuasive strategies employed by teenaged Greek EFL learners.

Through the examination of the gender contribution to the qualitative differentiation in the selection of persuasion strategies, it was shown that gender contributes to the selection of certain persuasive strategies. It should be noted that despite the fact that the effect of gender on language use and communication has been thoroughly investigated (Maltz & Borker, 1982; Tannen, 1990; Holmes, 1998; Wardhaugh, 2010), a consensus as to its effect in strategy selection has not been reached as yet, which may imply that gender may be closely seen in relation to culture or several other factors discussed below.

This particular finding is opposite to the study conducted by Pishghadam and Rasouli (2011). In particular, their study aimed to investigate the application of persuasive strategies among Iranian learners of English as a foreign language, hence, they involved 150 Iranian English learners who were urged to complete a discourse completion test (DCT) consisting of 6 questions similar to real life persuasive situations. The Chi-square test was employed in order to register the frequencies of persuasion strategies’ application among Iranian EFL learners and they found out that gender does not influence significantly, the preference and selection of persuasive strategies by EFL learners. However, it is worth mentioning that the age of the participants ranged from 18 to 35 and they were university

Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece Page 170

students, in contrast to our study, the subjects of which were varied from 11 to 13 years of age and students of primary and secondary education.

Nevertheless, the findings emerged from our study are in accordance with the study of Bermúdez and Prater (1994). Their study was designed to examine the degree to which persuasive strategies were affected by language level and gender through employing an adaptation of Weiss and Sachs’ (1991) classification system of persuasive responses, originally developed for oral tasks. Their sample consisted of thirty-seven elementary school students who were asked to write an essay in response to a standard prompt designed to elicit persuasive writing. To this end, they investigated the number of appeals, the types of appeals and the general quality of the essays. The students’ written discourse was examined and the researchers realized that gender influences to a great extent the persuasive written discourse.

Moreover, the findings of our study are also in line with the study conducted by Fazeli and Shafiee (2015). More precisely, in their study, they aimed at recording native English speakers’, native Persian speakers’, and Iranian English as a foreign language (EFL) learners’ persuasion strategies and any possible pragmatic transfer from the EFL learners’ mother tongue (Persian) to their L2. The participants of the study included 10 native English speakers, 30 learners of English, and 30 native Persian speakers, all of whom were university students. The classification of persuasion strategies used in this study was based on Hardin’s classification of lexical and pragmatic realization of persuading speech act while among the findings of the researchers was that there were significant differences between males and females in application of persuasion strategies.

The questions arose here is why gender affects the selection of the persuasive strategies and contributes to the differentiation of the use of persuasive strategies.

Towards the goal of interpreting this data, the researcher decided to delve into the role of gender in communication styles, as persuasive communication constitutes a style of communication. In general, Gray (1992) identifies a basic explanation about differences between male and female styles of communication. The male style of communication is goal-oriented, the speakers who make use of it define their sense of self through their ability to achieve results. The female style of communication,

Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece Page 171

on the other hand, is more relationship-oriented as the speakers who use it define their sense of self by their feelings and by the quality of their relationships (Gray, 1992).

What is worth mentioning is that from a sociolinguistic point of view, it is not right to generalize men’s and women’s ways of communication. The male-female distinction refers to the essentialist perception of gender, with the distinction

“masculine” and “feminine” to be preferred. More specifically, according to Behm (2009) and Stamou et al. (2012), every subject (either male or female) can choose a communicative style/ communicative “equipment” in each case (thus, not in all communicative environments) from the masculine or feminine way of speaking/writing in order to construct his/her identity.

In particular, according to the constructionist concept, gender is not a pre-defined category that requires specific (male or female) behavior. Conversely, the speakers/writers are placed as masculine or feminine individuals through language (Maltz & Borker 1982; Tannen, 1990; Holmes & Meyerhoff, 2003) and construct their gender according to the communicative circumstance and the objectives the transmitter and the receiver of the message have set. In this context, the feminine and masculine linguistic style serves as communication resources, from which the characters draw to display different gender identities, depending on the context.

Interpreting Girls’ Persuasive Communication

Judging from the analyses performed and presented in the previous chapter, girls employed more indirect strategies and mainly affective persuasive strategies and without using credibility strategies to a great extent, which is explained considering the fact that they made use of the feminine communication style, that is to say they communicate in a more indirect, elaborate, and emotional, sense that can reflect uncertainty, tentativeness, and a lack of authority (Churgai, 2015; Lakoff, 1975).

Moreover, girls’ affective persuasive communication is justified on the one hand – traditionally explained- through the analysis of gendered cultural norms which are learned in childhood through interactions with family members and friends, and it

Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece Page 172

has been shown that females tend to use and develop more affiliative and affective language (Tenenbaum, Ford, & Alkhedairy, 2011).

Girls’ tendency towards the affective persuasive strategies can be explained when taking into consideration the fact that girls made use of feminine communication style in which special emphasis is placed on comforting support which entails to helping to alleviate another person’s emotional distress. Moreover, within the context of the feminine communication style, greater value is given to skills emphasizing the importance of communication that expresses feelings and emotions (Mortenson, 2002; Mason, 1994). Especially, the affective strategy of Audience’s Empathy is mostly employed by girls, tendency which is closely associated with the feminine communication style in which the speakers have the tendency to seek empathy and understanding and are inclined to offer unsolicited advice (Gray, 1992).

Interpreting Boys’ Persuasive Communication

Based on the analyses performed and presented in the previous chapter, it was shown that boys made use of the masculine style of communication and thus they employed more direct rational and credibility strategies, in their attempt to persuade their addressees, without showing their preference to the affective ones. Finding can be explained as males are perceived to have a communication style that is direct, succinct, and instrumental (Churgai, 2015).

Moreover, among the most commonly used strategies of boys were the Descriptive Narration, the Authority, the Model and the Consequences which engage actively the addresses in a situation. Indeed, it has been indicated that based on the masculine style, higher importance is stressed on active forms of communication such as narratives techniques (Mortenson, 2002) while studies have shown that this style is more independent and unemotional or attached in communication (Chodorow, 1978; Dinnerstein, 1977; Eagly, 1987; Grilligan, 1982; Miller, 1976).

The data analysis has also demonstrated that the boys made use of credibility strategies with the Writer's Good Character and/or Judgement to be the most

Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece Page 173

preferable one. In particular, the selection and preference of this strategy entailing to the male students wish to show their trustworthy, can be explained when considering the fact that through the masculine communication style, the feel of necessity, appreciation and admirations is expressed (Gray, 1992) while it is very important to state that attempt is made to promote dominance through their beliefs (Basow & Rubenfield, 2003) as in a different situation, they see it as a sign of losing independence implying they have a lower status (Tannen, 1990).

All in all, stressing our focus on the persuasive goal of the students (boys and girls), it can be concluded that indeed, these two genders exhibit differences in their persuasive communication as regards to their communication style – masculine and feminine- a finding which has been also revealed from various studies which are related to how these genders tend to influence the others (White, 1988; DuBrin, 1991; Carli, 1999; Carothers & Allen, 1990; Lamude, 1993). However, we should note that despite generalizing the gender effect on communication and further, persuasive communication, we should consider other factors as well, such as the gender of the recipient of the message, that is to say: are there any differences when persuasion is activated on people of the same gender or different? Also, is it possible for the gender effect to vary in different situations? Last, the role of gender is very important but complicated from a research point of view at the same time, there are many contradictions without a consensus. Thus, in my view, it is important to contextualize the findings as regards to gender within this study’s settings or similar to them (e.g. informal letter, primary education students, reference topic, Greek origin etc.).

7.2 Discussing the language level contribution to the persuasive strategies selection

Focusing on the second research hypothesis “The language level of the teenaged Greek EFL students contributes to the strategy differentiation in the use of persuasive strategies”, following the examinations, it was revealed that it is also accepted. The examination of the language level effect on the use of strategy stemmed from the fact that language level has been proved to affect the strategy

Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece Page 174

selection from the students when producing written discourse (Bedell & Oxford, 1996; Cohen, 1998; Griffiths, 2003; Griva, Tsakiridou & Nihoritou, 2009; Riding, 2005), so it was our hypothesis that language level could affect the selection of persuasive strategies employed while producing written discourse.

Indeed, students with low language level, made use of simple persuasive strategies that require basic lexico-grammatical and structural abilities while students with higher language level employed more complex strategies which demand better understanding and management of the language. The analogy here seems to be that the higher the level the more away the students run from logical persuasion.

This finding is in accordance with previous studies conducted by (Knudson, 1992;

Bambang Yudi Cahyono, 2000), while no research finding that language level does not affect the strategy selection was detected.

More specifically, the research of Bambang Yudi Cahyono (2000) aimed at investigating the use of rhetorical strategies in English persuasive essays written by Indonesian university students of English as a foreign language. In this study, the researcher examined the extent to which proficiency in English composition associated to the rhetorical strategies used in English persuasive essays. The subjects of this study were undergraduate students the first- and fourth-year students in the English department of the State University of Malang, Indonesia. This study showed that that there was a statistically significant difference between the rhetorical strategies used in English persuasive essays written by the first- and fourth-year students and hence, a positive significant correlation between the students’ overall proficiency in English composition and the rhetorical strategies used in English persuasive essays.

Furthermore, the findings emerged from this study are also in line with the research findings of Knudson (1992). The aim of the study was to register differences in the persuasive discourse of student placing into four different levels in California. The subjects of the study were 308 students and following the data analysis, it was indicated that students from lower levels produced simpler persuasive discourse while differences were recorded as well across these levels.

Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece Page 175

The analogy promoted by the findings of this study seems to be that the higher the level the more away the students run from logical persuasion. To be explicit, the A1 students made more use of rational strategies, the A2 students employed more credibility strategies while the A2+/B1 students used more affective strategies in their attempt to persuade their British pen-friends to read their favorite book.

Correlating these findings with the general students’ language and communicative skills, an association can be seen.

Interpreting A1 students’ persuasive discourse

It was shown that the students of this language level made more use of the rational persuasive strategies Degree, Authority and Information, a finding that is justified if we consider the language expectation from the students who are placed into this language level of CEFR: In particular, we should take into consideration the fact that

a) in this language level, students are introduced to the degrees of the adjectives and adverbs within the foreign language learning context through various activities and as a result, students appeared to experiment their use in their persuasive attempt such as: “You read books but you can read more books”, employing the rational strategy of degree,

b) the limited language repertoire of these students leads them to produce simple sentences which in this case were very related to the author of the books they recommended such as “The author is the best”, “The author is very very good”. As a result, they appeared to employ the rational persuasive strategy of authority or this of Information through their reference to information related to this book with simple sentences which is also explained, as

c) according to studies of Knudson (1992) and Crowhurst (1990), students of so low levels have the tendency to inform the addressees rather than persuade them, mainly through brief texts and short sentences which entails to the use of the rational persuasive strategy of information, mainly by referring certain information about the book they had read (e.g. It is very long. It is for children 10 years old etc.)

Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece Page 176

Interpreting A2 students’ persuasive discourse

The A2 students seemed to employ more the credibility strategies: Writer's Respect for Audience's Interests and Points of View και Writer's Good Character and/or Judgement which can be explained if we consider certain factors that regards mainly the education’s influence on FL students’ language development. Specifically, a) in this language level the FL students are introduced to the production of a friendly letter showing their goodwill to help/recommend them achieving a certain communicative goal, e.g. persuasion (DEPPS, 2016). Thus, it is expected that students being familiar with this phenomenon to make use it in their attempt to persuade their pen-friends. In fact, writing friendly letter showing the goodwill of the students are very common in the foreign language, so students followed this

“behavior” while carrying out this task, the letter needed for this study.

b) in this language level, students are also introduced into the expression of showing interest and appreciation which are basic characteristics of these two credibility strategies that were employed by the students of this language level. In particular, the syllabus of English as a foreign language includes this sub-skill both in the development of writing and the speaking skill of the students.

c) having stabilized the prior level (A1), they feel more comfortable with their language competence thus their discourse indicates that they have authority over their addresses and employ credibility strategies as according to Walker (2005), competence is one of the factors that leads to credibility persuasion activation.

Interpreting B1 students’ persuasive discourse

Based on the data analyses, the B1 students employed more affective strategies Emotion in Audience’s Situation, Audience’s Empathy και Audience’s Value, Charged Language and the rationale strategy Model and Information. As it is obvious these strategies are activated through using more complex lexico-

Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece Page 177

grammatical and structural abilities which are expected from B1 learners and forward. In particular, this association is justified as:

a) following the A1 level with the familiarization with the degrees of the adjectives and the A2 level with the more active recommendation acts, it is in this level that students can employ the Model strategy which combines the prior knowledge of the other two, placing a role-model person/situation in the center of the “discussion” in order to persuade the addressee.

b) in this language level, students are also introduced to the expression of empathy towards an addressee within a communicative context being placed into the position of the addressee or leading the addressee to identify with a person (DEPPS, 2016).

c) FL students of this upper language level employed such strategies that demand a greater repertoire of vocabulary and more complex structures than in lower language levels. Indeed, these students are better linguistically equipped than the A1 and A2 students and Clark and Delia (1976) point out that while the language level develops, students tend to produce more diversified messages as the ones produced with the affective persuasive strategies. It is mentioned in CEFR that at B1 level, students are equipped with confidence which is not obvious at lower levels, thus, more confident students are expected to produce more language.

d) according to the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages, the B1 language level students are introduced to writing about their dreams, hopes and values, topics which demand affective vocabulary and provoke sentiments which is the basic aim of the affective strategies. Thus, students with a richer vocabulary are able to make use of various sentimental indicators such as more verbs, adjectives and adverbs, ability which is quite limited at A2 level and merely absent at A1 level.

To conclude, it was shown that persuasive strategies selection and use varies across these three language levels, A1, A2 and A2+/B1. However, questions that arise here are as follows: a) are the more equipped linguistically students trying to experiment not only with the language structures but also with what can be said in an FL? b) are the students trying to accommodate to what they think the target culture is? c) are

Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece Page 178

the students simply writing more (because they are better linguistically equipped) which exposes them to deep unexplored waters? Since there are no introspective data, future research with introspective data on this may be pursued. Moreover, it would be important to research on the qualitative differentiation of the use of persuasive strategies across the other three language levels, B2, C1 and C2 which constitute the three highest levels of the CEFR and significant data could be emerged as regards to the strategy use and the lexico-grammatical and structural choices of the students.

7.3 Discussing association of speech acts and persuasive modes

Besides the research hypotheses of this study, the researcher posed as a research question whether there is an association between the speech acts performed by the EFL students and the persuasive modes. As it has been mentioned in a prior chapter, the focus on speech acts constituted a dimension of researching the micro-structural elements of the students’ persuasive written discourse. It was our view that analysis on speech acts within the persuasive discourse could serve beneficially for the understanding of the persuasive profile of the EFL students. Thus, following the examinations, it was shown that there are statistically significant associations between these variables, so in this sub-unit, extended interpretation will be followed as regards to the association of certain speech acts types and the persuasive modes.

Interpreting Rational Mode & Assertive Speech Acts association

In students’ written persuasive interaction, assertive speech acts were associated with rational strategies in the transmitters’ attempt to commit their pen-friends to something being the case, regarding the literature book.

More specifically, the FL students showed their preference to the assertive acts of claim and assure in order to activate rational persuasive discourse. According to Searle and Van der Veken (op. cit. p. 183) “Claim puts forward some view, but it is a more forceful act because the transmitter in making a claim is expecting opposition and (presumably) has evidence to back up the claim”. Indeed, this is one