حبیب سلیمانی

This study was an attempt to investigate the relationship between Iranian learners' different proficiency levels and their use of congratulation strategies. To this end, two sets of questionnaires, Congratulation Strategies and Sub-strategies Coding by Elwood (2004) and its translated and modified version by Allami and Nekouzadeh (2011) were used to collect the required data. The participants of the present study were 60 students who were selected from among junior and senior BA students of English majoring in English teaching, English translation, and English Literature. Based on the results of a proficiency test, the participating learners were placed in two groups of low and high proficiency. Then, a week later, in two intervals, the copies of the questionnaires were distributed among the participants of study. The results of Pearson correlation indicated that there was a significant relationship between learners' different proficiency levels and their use of congratulation strategies. Also, there was a great extent of consistency between learners' L1 congratulation scheme and their use of L2 congratulation strategies. The findings of this study have pedagogical implications for language teachers, syllabus designers and material developers in that they can deal with congratulation strategies and the possible facilitating or debilitating effects that congratulation schemes between two languages could have when dealing with any certain L2.