1. Key Terms
7.1. Speech acts Levinson (1983) defines the speech act as: “What is directly achieved by the conventional force associated with the issuance of a certain kind of utterance in accord with a conventional procedure and it is consequently determinate” (Levinson, 1983, 237). The researcher defines the speech act as the utterance that is meant to fulfill a purpose in communication. It is an action performed by means of language. We perform speech acts when we offer an apology, greeting, request, complaint, invitation, compliment, or refusal” (Austin, 1962; Searle, 1969).
7.2. Speech act of thanking: The speech act of thanking is defined as “an expression of gratitude and appreciation in response compliments” (Searle, 1969: 203). Leech (1983) describes thanking as having a social purpose, which is creating a friendly and polite atmosphere (Leech, 1983). Emmons (2004) defines it as: “a sense of thankfulness and joy in response to receiving a gift, whether the gift be a tangible benefit from a specific other or a moment of peaceful bliss evoked by natural beauty” (Emmons, 2004: 554). The researcher defines the speech act of thanking in this study as follows: the words and…show more content… Saville-Troike (1982) defines communicative competence as: “Knowing not only the language code, but also what to say to whom, and how to say it appropriately in any given situation. It deals with the social and cultural knowledge speakers are presumed to have to enable them to use and interpret linguistic forms” (Saville-Troike, 1982: 22). The researcher defines communicative competence as the knowledge and aptitude the speaker has in order to for him to carry on communication encounters in the target target language in appropriate and successful