cross-cultural cmc-based study of speech act of complaints: the case of wearing a face mask during covid-19 pandemic

The purpose of this cross-linguistics research was to study speech act of complaints in english and persian tweets. to this end, a total number of 120 english and persian tweets (60 in each corpus) were randomly collected from december 2019 to december 2022. only tweets which contain words related to face mask complaints were searched by tweeter advanced search and selected for the purpose of the study. the data were then analyzed based on demir’s (2021) model of speech act of complaints and trosberg’s (1995) model of modifications. the results showed that ill consequence complaining strategy was the most frequent and the disarmer strategy was the least frequent strategies in both english and persian corpora. moreover, as with internal modifiers, rhetorical questions in english tweets and intensifiers as well as rhetorical questions in persian tweets were the most frequently used modifiers in the corpora. also, regarding external modifiers only disarmers and substantiation have been used in the english and persian tweets. despite the difference in the frequency of strategies, no statistically significant difference was found in the overall strategies used in the two corpora, and there were more similarities than differences. the results of this study have implications for educators and english language teachers and learners.