A Contrastive Analysis of English and Persian Native Speakers' Use of Gambits

Abstract

Conversations contain spontaneous use of routine formulas which lets speaker sinteract with each other to express opinions. Gambits, as one of these formulas, act as an opening remark and help speakers to maintain the smooth flow of an everyday conversation. The lack of mastery of using gambits in maintaining the conversation leads to breakdowns in speaking. This paper aimedat comparingthe use of different categories of gambitsby native speakers of English and Persian. Toachieve this end, a corpus of 40 hours from Persian Native Speakers (PNSs) and English Native Speakers (ENSs) with an equal number of participants was selected through recordings of conversations from different TV Channels. Following the literature, the frequency of gambit tokens was counted and their functions were classified. Chi-square test revealed significant differences between PNSs and ENSs regarding the occurrences of gambit categories. The findings of this study can have implications for language learners and practitioners in the field. The present research demonstrates to language learners the need for learning gambit expressions as elements to improve the quality of their speaking and also to use the language in meaningful interaction with others.