COMPARING THE USE OF PERSUASIVE SPEECH ACT BY IRANIAN EFL LEARNERS' AT TWO DIFFERENT LEVELS OF LANGUAGE PROFICIENCY

The present research was to find out the type of persuasive speech act strategies which Iranian EFL learners at two different proficiency levels use in their L2 productions and to discover whether there are any significant differences between participants' persuasive strategies with respect to their proficiency levels. It was also intended to explore whether gender and EFL learners' uses of persuasive strategies are interrelated. Furthermore, another focus of the study was on the differences, if any, between Iranian students at two different proficiency levels in the use of English and Persian persuasive speech acts. The participants were 80 (40 males and 40 females) Iranian students at Gorgan Islamic Azad University. They were selected from among freshman and senior BA students of English at Gorgan Islamic Azad University, majoring in TEFL. The participants were divided into two groups of low and high proficient learners of English according to their scores in a quick placement test. The data was gathered using Discourse Completion Test (DCT) questionnaires in English and its translated version in Persian. To analyze the data, the frequencies and percentages of the answers, as well as the Chi-Square test were run. Analyzing the results indicated that there was not a significance difference in persuasive strategies used by Iranian students at two levels of proficiency. Another result was that there was not any significant difference between Iranian students' use of English and Persian persuasive speech act at two proficiency levels. The third result was that the differences between freshman males and females persuasive strategies were not significantly different, but senior male and female participants showed some differences in using English persuasive strategies.