Özet:

The aim of this study is to identify the uses of the complaint speech act by learners of Turkish as a foreign language in different situations and locations, utilizing the speech act theory developed by Austin and Searle. The research, designed according to the case study pattern with a qualitative research approach, collected data from 87 participants using a single pattern sample. The responses given by the participants to the complaint speech act with the Speech Completion Test (SCT), consisting of seven different situations, have been classified according to strategies. In the classification, the strategies created by Trosborg in the Speech Completion Test for the complaint speech act; later additions made by Bikmen - Martı, and strategies obtained in the study of Murphy and Neu were used. The classified results were subjected to descriptive analysis. As a result of the evaluation of the obtained results, it is seen that the request strategy for compensation is most commonly used in complaint speech act situations. Participants used the direct behavior dimension 279 times for the complaint speech act. This result constitutes 50% of all responses. Participants have turned to direct actions to take action against situations. It has been determined that the mother tongues and foreign languages known by the participants, gender variables did not create a difference in the use of speech acts, but the change in the age factor caused various differences. This difference can be more clearly seen in terms of address and formality. It has been determined that the participants did not have difficulty in understanding the message to be given in the complaint speech act, and they were also successful in choosing appropriate forms of address and greetings according to the context.

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