A qualitative study of politeness strategies used by Iranian EFL learners in a class blog

In regard to the significant role of information and communication technology (ICT) in educationalsystems, it becomes increasingly important to gain a better understanding of the features of thelanguage used by learners in the new contexts created by this medium. This paper aims at analyzingpoliteness strategies including negative politeness, positive politeness, bald on-record, and bald-offrecord strategies in posts written by Iranian EFL learners in a class blog as an opportunity forasynchronous interaction in response to their teachers and peers. The participants of the study were 14Iranian EFL learners selected based on their level of language proficiency. There were 1520 politenessutterances across all posts including 800 politeness utterances used when learners were interactingwith their instructor and 720 politeness utterances used when learners were interacting with theirpeers. The collected data were analyzed using content analysis as well as Computer-MediatedDiscourse Analysis (CMDA). The results revealed that learners frequently used positive strategies assigns of psychologically close relationship, reciprocity and friendship in a group.