exploring the expression of gratitude strategies by iraqi efl university students

The purpose of the present study was to find out the gratitude strategies are used by iraqi efl learners. it was sought to find the difference between male and female iraqi efl learners in using gratitude strategies. this study utilized the descriptive-quantitative design for data collection. other speech acts. the participants of the present study were 60 iraqi intermediate efl learners who were selected based on their performance on (opt). it adopted derakhshesh model to administer wdct and mpat tests. the tests were used as the data collection instrument to examine students’ gratitude strategies. the participants were asked to complete wdct and mpat. the researcher read the answers carefully and code each answer based on cheng s classification. in some answers, more than one strategy may be used. the results showed that combinations strategy was the most favored and non-gratitude was the least favored gratitude strategies used by iraqi efl learners. in addition, it was found that the use of thanking, appreciation, combinations and thanking a third person were the most frequent gender-related strategies used by efl learners based on their performance on wdct. the results of independent sample t-test showed that there are significant differences between male and female iraqi efl learners in using gratitude strategies except in non-gratitude and combinations strategies. the study findings emphasized on assisting efl learners to develop their pragmatic competence to learn expression in target language alongside the appropriate context.