Work

Complaints about exam difficulty in Jordanian Arabic: a pragmatic study of head act strategies used by undergraduates

Year: 2026

Type: article

Abstract: The study examined how Jordanian undergraduates complain to their professors about exam difficulty from a pragmatic perspective, an under-explored area of research. It focused specifically on the head act strategies used to realize complaints in the university setting. To this end, closed role-plays with 124 Jordanian undergraduates were recorded, transcribed, and analyzed. Drawing on Olshtain and Weinbach (1987) and Trosborg (1995) , the analysis revealed that Jordanian undergraduates deployed ten different strategies: “negative emotions”, “blaming”, “accusation”, “threatening and warning”, “explicit complaint”, “request for repair”, “irony”, “showing contrast”, “below the level of reproach”, and “grievance to God”. The strategies with the highest frequency were “explicit complaint”, “negative emotions”, and “blaming”. In terms of (in)directness, the strategies were classified into two categories: direct and indirect. Jordanian undergraduates showed a stronger tendency to employ direct strategies when complaining. Three new complaining strategies were identified in the present data: “irony”, “showing contrast”, and “grievance to God”, which are not accommodated by the existing taxonomies, suggesting the need to extend these taxonomies.

Source: Frontiers in Education

DOI: 10.3389/feduc.2026.1941768

Authors: Asim Ayed Alkhawaldeh, Ahmed Sulieman Al-Oliemat, Ghadeer Zeyad Al-Mrayat

Institutions: Al al-Bayt University, Tafila Technical University

Language: English

Topic: Linguistics and Language Analysis

Subfield: Language and Linguistics

Field: Arts and Humanities

Domain: Social Sciences

SDG: Quality education

Open Access status: gold

Estimated APC paid: $2,353