Identifying and producing the persuasive speech act by Iraqi EFL university students: a pragmatic study

This study investigates the identification and the production of the persuasive speech act by the Iraqi university students who study English as EFL. The paper aims at examining the frequencies and the percentages of the students’ correct and incorrect answers. In the theoretical part of the study, the concepts such as pragmatics, speech act theory, speech act of persuasion, techniques of persuasion and its types are clarified briefly. In the practical part, the students’ responses are statistically analyzed. It provides an analysis for the frequencies and the percentages of the correct and incorrect answers in both recognizing and producing each type of the persuasive speech act to know which of these types is the easiest, and which one is the most difficult to be identified and produced. To give a clear idea of the frequencies and percentages of each type, tables and figures are used. A comparison is made between identifying and producing each type of persuasion to recognize whether the performance of identification or production is difficult for the ibn students. Finally, the study reveals the general findings observed through the analysis of the data.


Speech Acts Theory
It is well-known fact that one of the main issues in modern pragmatics id the speech acts theory. This theory has been firstly introduced by J.L. Austin in 1962. This theory is firstly published in his famous book How to Do Things with Words. The main purpose of Austin in his theory is to prove that language has more functions rather than only the production of correct and incorrect statements (Lyons,1981, p. 173). In his theory, Austin (1962, p. 23) claims that a speech act is an utterance used by a speaker to perform an action through language. Thus, Austin proves that language can have more functions than merely the above one. After inventing this theory, it became the cornerstone for most of the researchers who follow Austin. Later on, in 1970, the speech acts theory is developed by the Searle, Austin's student who adds some important concepts such as the idea of indirect speech act.
Consistent with this theory, A speech act consists of three acts: locutionary act is the action of making a meaningful utterance; illocutionary act is performing an intentional utterance; while perlocutionary act is producing the effect of the meaningful, intentional utterance. Firstly, locutionary acts are essentially the literal meaning of an utterance which is transferred throughout the use of words and structures. Secondly, illocutionary acts are actually the purpose that is thought to be transferred by the utterance. It is also termed as the speaker's intention. Thirdly, perlocutionary acts are the effect production, intentional or not, realized by the receiver as a result of a speaker's words. It is worth noting that there are different types of speech acts presented in this theory. However, the present study limits itself to the investigation of the speech act of persuasion (ibid).
In fact, persuasion is the process of modifying or changing the beliefs, the vales or the actions of someone. The speech act of persuasion has been tackled by many scholars and researchers. Victoria O'Donnell and June Kable (1982, p. 9) define persuasion as "a complex, continuing, interactive process in which a sender and receiver are linked by symbols, verbal and nonverbal, through which the persuader attempts to influence the persuade to adopt a change in a given attitude or behavior because the persuade has had his perceptions enlarged or changed". Similarly, Perloff (2003, p. 14) defines the speech act of persuasion as the process in which a "communicator attempts to induce a change in the belief, attitude, or behavior of another person or group of persons" by conveying a message in a context where the persuader has certain degree of force. This definition involves that a persuasive message needs some of the requirements concerning the sender, the means and the receiver to be persuasive. It is not an accidental activity, but it is intentional.
In addition, persuasion is in fact a kind of power used by someone to make another one does something. It is worth noting that persuasion does not depend on promises or threat of punishment. It really depends on influencing the cognition of someone. Therefore, persuasion is an art of communication in which someone expresses his\her opinion and tries to change the thinking of others or make them agree with what is said. Actually, persuasion is the process by which someone tries to move others by using persuasive reasoning, evidence and information to a new value, attitude and performance or even changing their beliefs.

Types of Persuasion
As a matter of fact, there are three types of persuasive speech act which are used to persuade someone of something. The three types are stated in the following: 1. Factual persuasive speech: This type is dependent on the fact that whether some issue or topic is factual or not. This type is usually used to persuade people whether something is existed or not, whether something happened or not etc. This type "addresses whether something is verifiably true or not" (Griffin, 2018, p. 309).

Techniques of Persuasion
Different types of persuasion strategies are used to achieve the persuasive speech act. Johnstone (1989, p. 145) clarifies that there are three different strategies of persuasion which are quasilogic, presentation and analogy. In the first strategy, the persuaders usually use the structures and vocabulary which indicate the formal logic for creating a kind of rhetorical impression for their arguments to be considered as logical. In the second strategy, the persuader tries to persuade the audience through the use of rhythmic words and sentences. In the third strategy, the persuader usually uses a kind of comparison between the current issues and the past ones.
There are other types of persuasion strategies which are introduced by Aristotle and are used by researchers and scholars up to date. He proposes three strategies of persuasion. The first one is called as Ethos (character) which refers to the character of the speaker. The persuasiveness of speech act is tied very much to the sincerity and credibility of the persuader. It is related to the perception of the audience to how much the persuader or the speaker is trustworthy. This strategy is about how the speaker is persuasive to speak to audience about particular subject and how s\he tries to convince them. According to Lucas (2009, p. 353), Ethos points to the credibility of the speaker and it is related to two factors. The first is the speaker's competence which refers to the expertise, intelligence, knowledge and sincerity which the second refers to the speaker's character which denotes the audience's considerations to the speaker's trustworthiness, reputation, sincerity, and physical appearance.
The second strategy is called Pathos (passion). In this strategy, the persuader tries to convey his\her feelings or passions to others. The speaker has to be committed to or has faith in what s\he is speaking about, otherwise; the audience will not be committed to. The persuader attempts to make the audience receipt his\her ideas. In brief, this strategy involves the engagement or the invasion of the emotion of the readers or listeners by the persuader or speaker (Thompson, 2014, p. 9).
The third strategy is called Logos (Logic). This strategy refers to the use of evidence and reasoning to convince the audience of what is said. The elements of reason and evidence are what Aristotle called as 'logos'. These two elements may work together to make what is said by the persuader looks so persuasive. A speaker can use evidences to support, prove or disprove a claim. Furthermore, evidence can be considered as a complementary part to reasoning because the latter is regarded as a conclusion which is dependent on evidence (Lucas, 2009, p. 357). Therefore, the 'logos' can be used to refer to the facts that can be used by a speaker to support or enhance his\her claim.

Methodology
This section is entirely devoted to the practical part of the study where the researcher investigates the identification or recognizing and the production of the persuasive speech act by the Iraqi EFL university students. The total number of the students involved in the test are fifty. They are all of the fourth year, from the department of English, college of education Ibn Rushd for humanitarian sciences, University of Baghdad. The samples of the study are chosen randomly during the academic year of 2018-2019. The subjects of the study are not native speakers of English and none of them have spent whatever a period of time in an English-speaking community. The subjects of the study are asked to identify the speech act of persuasion as it is presented in the test of appendix 1, and also to produce the speech act of persuasion as in the test provided in the test of appendix 2.

4. Data Analysis
After collecting the required data for conducting this study, the responses of the subjects involved are analyzed in detail to show the frequencies and the percentages of each type of persuasive speech act. It is worth noting that the analysis of the data is divided into two parts. The first part is devoted to the identification or recognition of the speech act of persuasion and the second part is dedicated to the analysis of the production of the speech act of persuasion. Through the analysis of the collected data, the frequencies and the percentages of both the correct and the incorrect answers are clarified thoroughly to realize the ability of the university student in identifying and producing the speech act of persuasion.

1. Identifying the Speech Act of Persuasion
Concerning the recognition of the speech act of persuasion, the following table shows the number of the items, the frequencies and the percentages of the correct and incorrect responses.

No. of item
The correct responses The percentages The incorrect responses  The above table shows the frequencies and the percentages of the students who succeeded and those who failed in identifying the speech act of persuasion. Concerning item number 1, (37) of the students succeeded in identifying the speech act of persuasion which represents (74%) of the total member of students. The number of the students who failed to recognize the speech act of persuasion is (13), and this represents (26%) of the students. In item number 2, (25) of the students identify the correct answer, and this stands for (50%) of the total number of the subjects of the current study. The same is true for those who failed to identify the correct answer. In both of items number 3 and 7, the number of the students who recognized the speech act of persuasion is (41), and this represents (82%) of the total number of students whereas the number of the who failed to identify the speech act of persuasion is (9) students and this represents only (18%) of the total number of the students. In item number 4, (33) of the students answered the item correctly, and this stands for (66%) of the students who answered this item, while (17) of the students failed to recognize the speech act of persuasion which represents (34%) of the students.

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The students' responses to item number 5 show that (40) of the students identified the speech act of persuasion correctly which stands for (80%) of the total number of the students while those who failed to identify it are (10) which represents (20%) of the total number of students. In item number 6, the number of the correct responses is (30), which represents (60%) of the students while the incorrect responses are (20), and this represents (40%) of the students. In both of the items 8 and 10, the number of the correct responses is (29), and that stands for (58%) of the total number of the students, while the number of the students who failed to make the correct responses
For more clarification, the percentages of the correct and incorrect are wellrepresented in the following figures. Figure 1 represents the percentages of the correct responses. Considering the frequencies and the percentages of identifying and failing to identify the speech act of persuasion, one can notice that the total number of the students who were able to identify the speech act of persuasion in the ten items was (34), and this represents (68%) of the students who recognized this type of speech act. On the other side, the number of the students who failed to identify the persuasion speech act is (16), and this represents only (32%) of the students who participate in the test. The frequencies and percentages of the number of students who succeeded and those who failed to recognize the speech act of persuasion are well-summarized in the following

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Failed to identify the speech act of persuasion 16 32% Table 2: The frequencies and percentages of the students who succeeded and those who failed to identify the speech act of persuasion It is worth noting that though table 1 reflects the frequencies and the percentages of both the correct and the incorrect responses to the items, it does not reflect the frequencies and the percentages of types of the persuasive speech act whether it is factual, value or policy. Therefore, it is important to clarify the frequencies and the percentages of each type to show which of them represents the most difficult ones to be recognized. It is also important to clarify the frequencies and the percentages of the incorrect responses for the sake of comparison. These issues are wellsummarized in the following  The above table shows that the most highly recognized type of the persuasive speech act by the university students is the policy type. This type is identified in (37.75) of the total number of items devoted for this type, and this represents (75.5%) of the total answers. However, the students failed to identify this type in (12.25) of the items which represents only (24.5%) of the answers. The least identifiable type of

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847 persuasive speech act is the value type. It is identified in (30.6) of the answers and this represents (61.2%) of the total answers whereas the incorrect answers for this type are (19.4) which forms (38.8%) of the total answers concerning this type. Concerning the fact type of the persuasive speech act, it is identified in (32.3), and this represents (64.6%) of the total answers while (17.7) of the answers were incorrect, and this stands for (35.4%) of the answers.
It is obvious that though the students succeeded in identifying the speech act of persuasion in some situations, they failed to identified it in other situations. This can be attributed to different reasons. Firstly, they do not understand the situation well. Secondly, they do not have any training in this respect. Thirdly, the meaning and the grammatical structures of the items may be difficult for them. The percentages of both the correct and incorrect answers of each type of the persuasive speech act are presented in the following two figures:

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848 Figure 4: The percentages of the incorrect answers of the types of persuasion (Fact, Value and Policy) It is clear from the above diagrams that the percentages of the correct answers of each type of persuasion is more than the ones of the incorrect answers. This shows that the number of the Iraqi EFL learners who have the ability to identify the speech act of persuasion more than the ones who are unable to identify it. After investigating the frequencies and the percentages of identifying the speech act of persuasion by Iraqi EFL learners, it becomes necessary to move to the other part of the study which is devoted to the production of the persuasion speech act.

2. Producing the Speech Act of Persuasion
This section is devoted to the analysis of the student's responses where they are asked to produce suitable answers for certain situations. The students are asked to produce each type of the persuasive speech act in five different situations. This section investigates the frequencies and the percentages of both the correct and the incorrect answers produced by the students for each situation. Concerning the frequencies and percentages of the production of fact persuasion type, consider the following  The above table shows the frequencies and percentages of both the correct and the incorrect production of fact type of the persuasive speech act. In item number 1, (18) of the responses are produced correctly which represents (36%) of the responses, while (32) of the answers provided on this item are incorrect which represents (64%). Concerning item number 2, (20) of the answers are produced correctly, that is (40%) of the students answered correctly whereas (30) of the answers are incorrect, that is, (60%) of the students answered incorrectly. In the third item, (28) of the answers are produced correctly and this represents (56%) of the students while (22) of the answers are produced incorrectly and this indicates that (44%) of the students failed to produce the correct response. In the fourth item, only (17) of the answers are produced correctly, and this represents (34%) of the students, whereas (33) of the answers are produced correctly. That is, (66%) of the students failed to produce the speech act of persuasion in this situation. Finally, in item number 5, the correct answers are (22) which means that (44%) of the students produced this type of speech act correctly while (28) of the answers are incorrect which stands for (66%) of the students who answered this situation.

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However, it is important to know the overall number of the students who produced the fact type of the persuasive speech act as well as the number of those who failed to produce it in order to compare the production of this type with other types of persuasion. This issue is well-summarized in the following Failed production 50 29 58% Table 5: The frequencies and percentages of successful and failed production of fact type of persuasion The above table shows that the number of the students who succeeded in producing the fact type of persuasion is lesser than the students who failed to produce this type. By considering the table, it appears that (21) of the students produced the speech act of persuasion successfully, and this represents (42%) of the students. On the other hand, (29) of the students failed to produce this type, which in turn represents (58%) of the total number of the students.
Moving to the other type of persuasion which is value, one can find out different frequencies and percentages in both the correct and the incorrect responses in each situation concerning this type. These differences are considered in the following  The above table shows the frequencies and percentages of both the correct and the incorrect production of value type of the persuasion speech act. In item number 1, of the answers are produced properly which means that (38%) of students' responses about the first item were correct, while (31) of the responses provided on this item are incorrect which represents (62%). Concerning item number 2, (14) of the responses were correct, that is (28%) of the students responded correctly whereas (36) of the responses were improper, that is, (72%) of the students responded incorrectly. In the third and the fourth items, (18) of the responses are produced correctly and this represents (36%) of the students while (32) of the answers are produced incorrectly and this indicates that (64%) of the students failed to produce the correct response in both items. Finally, in item number 5, the correct responses were (16) which indicates that (32%) of the students produced this type of speech act suitably while (34) of the responses were incorrect which represents (68%) of the total number of the students.
The overall number of the students who succeeded and those who failed to produce the value type of persuasive speech act is presented in the following Failed production 50 33 66% Table 7: The frequencies and percentages of successful and failed production of value type of persuasion The above table displays that the student's number who failed to produce the value type of persuasion is more than the number of the students who succeeded to produce this type. It is clear that (33) of the students do not produce the speech act of persuasion successfully, and this exemplifies (66%) of the students. Alternatively, only (17) of the students produce this type successfully, which represents (34%) of the total number of the students.
Concerning the policy type of persuasion, the following table shows the differences in the frequencies and the percentages of both the correct and incorrect answers for each of the five items:  The above table displays the frequencies and percentages of both the correct and the incorrect production of policy type of the persuasion speech act. In item number 1, (25) of the responses are produced correctly which represents (50%) of the responses about the first item, while (25) of the answers provided on this item are incorrect which represents (50%). Concerning both of the second and the fifth item, (29) of the answers are correct, that is (58%) of the students answer correctly whereas (21) of the answers are incorrect, that is, (42%) of the students answer incorrectly. In the third item, (26) of the answers are produced correctly and this represents (52%) of the students while (24) of the answers are produced incorrectly and this indicates that (48%) of the students failed to produce the correct response. In the fourth item, only (36) of the answers are correct, and this represents (72%) of the students, whereas (14) of the answers are produced in correctly. That is, (28%) of the students failed to produce the speech act of persuasion in this situation.
The total number of the students who answered correctly and those who failed to produce the policy type of persuasive speech act is presented in the following  Table 7: The frequencies and percentages of successful and failed production of policy type of persuasion The above table shows that the number of the students produced the policy type of persuasion is bigger than the students who failed to produce this type. It appears that (21) of the students failed to produce the speech act of persuasion successfully, and this indicates (42%) of the students. Conversely, (29) of the students succeeded to produce this type, and this represents (58%) of the total number of the students.
To clarify the percentages of both the successful and failed production of the three types (fact, value and policy) persuasive speech act, and also to make a kind of comparison between the percentages of these types, they are well-represented in the following two figures. The first figure shows the percentages of the successful responses for the three types of persuasive speech act. It is obvious from the above two figures (5,6) that the students' ability to produce the speech act of persuasion is too low. The percentages in both of the figures reveal that the value type of persuasion is the most difficult for the students to produce where (66%) of the students failed to produce this type, and only (34%) produced correct answers. The other difficult type of persuasion to be produced is the fact type where (58%) of the students produced incorrect answers while (42%) of the students produced correct responses. Concerning the policy type of persuasion, it was the easiest for the students to produce where (58%) of the students succeeded to produce correct answers while (42%) of the students failed to produce the correct answers.

Conclusions
The analysis of the students' answers shows that the knowledge of the fourth stage students in identifying the speech act of persuasion is better than their knowledge in its production. Moreover, identifying and producing the correct answers are 856 compared and it is found that the correct answers in the fact type the other types. Thus, it can be said that the value type of persuasion is the most difficult one for the university students to identify and recognize. Concerning the policy type, the students' ability to recognize the policy type of persuasion is better than the one of recognizing the other types. Concerning the production, similarly, the policy type of persuasion is the easiest for the students to be produced. While this type is identified in (75.50%) of the answers, it is also successfully produced in (58%) of the total answers. However, these percentages are still very low if they are compared to the percentages of the incorrect answers of both the recognition and the production. This reflects the students' inability to distinguish the different types of speech acts. The answers of the students reflect that the university students lack the linguistic knowledge of producing the correct answers. Another reason of the inability to recognize the speech act of persuasion is the influence of their mother tongue, that is, Arabic language.