Competencia pragmática en una segunda lengua en la comunicación mediada digital- mente: Explorando peticiones y rechazos

The present study investigates second language (L2) pragmatic strategies of requests and refusals used by English as a Foreign Language (EFL) students in digitally mediated communication (DMC). It is a cross-sectional study that employed a mixed-method approach. The participants were 93 first-year undergraduate students enrolled in the Translation and Interpretation degree at a public university in Spain. They completed an online questionnaire which included background questions and a discourse completion task (DCT) that featured request and refusal scenarios with varying degrees of imposition, power, and social distance in emails and WhatsApp messages in an academic context. Speech act production was evaluated based on appropriateness rate and types of speech act strategies employed. Aspects such as formality, politeness, directness, as well as structure and content used were considered. The statistical analysis was complemented with a qualitative analysis of the speech act strategies used by the participants. Findings revealed that sociopragmatic factors – namely, social distance, power and imposition – determined the students’ ability to craft appropriate emails and WhatsApp messages. Furthermore, significant differences were found in the production of requests, whereas refusals were more challenging for the participants. These results underscore the importance of acquiring EFL pragmatics withing the DMC context.