Invitation Strategies as Produced by Yemeni EFL Learners

The current study investigated the types of invitation strategies as produced by Yemeni EFL learners. The study participants were 171 undergraduate students from Sana a University. All of the participants were relatively homogeneous in terms of their cultural background. The data were collected by using Discourse Completion Test (DCT). The analysis of the data was based on Suzuki (2009), AlKhatib (2006), and Tillitt and Bruder (1999) classifications of invitation strategies. The results of the study showed that Yemeni EFL learners preferred to be direct in the use of the speech act of invitation making, with highest frequency of imperative strategy followed by Yes/No questions strategy. This might reveal a part of the influence of their mother tongue on their responses. They were also aware that direct invitations were generally acceptable in their culture. Moreover, the results of the study showed Yemeni EFL learners translated the utterances in their mother tongue into the target language without pondering the differences between the two languages in sentence patterns and word order. Implications of the study are provided as well.