Since this study found a direct relationship between L2 politenessawareness and certain personality traits, Iranian TEFL students will benefitfrom such findings in that they can improve their personality types to enhancetheir academic performance which, in turn, leads to successful outcomes andthis, in turn, will pave the way for a more prosperous and profitableeducation. Also, since theresults of Pearson correlation which was conducted to investigate the Iranian TEFL students’ grade of general English in universityentrance examination (Konkoor) in relation to the variables of this studyverified the results of SEM, it can be said that this research has implicationsfor pedagogy. With that said, TEFL teachers canmotivate their students to refine their personalities and use L2 politenessstrategies in their interactions, for example with their school superiors toget their requests granted in a proper way. Doing so, they can save a lot oftime. Besides, with the teacher encouragement, Iranian TEFL students can beactively engaged to use the language more politely during their classpresentations to obtain more scores.
Also, by knowing the fact that politenessmay have positive effects on learning, Iranian TEFL students can incorporatepoliteness not only in their speech, but also in their written tasks; thus,increasing the chance of being publically accepted.From otherperspectives, findings of this study on individual differences are also importantbecause these findings will help second language learners to be familiar with themost well-known personality types and accordingly adopt learning styles whichare beneficial for them.5.4.
Suggestions for Further ResearchAs discussed before, awareness of L2 politeness strategies might bea cause for better academic performance, butfurther research seems to be necessary in this area to confidently say that itleads to better academic performance and acceptable educationalachievement. In addition, like previous studies, this study alsohas shown the existence of gender differences in personality, but it has notyet been found that why these differences exist. This research has notinvestigated differences between genders among different cultures. Such an explorationis beyond the extent of this paper. Throughout the literature, there have been many goodjustifications for the existence of gender differences in personality traitslike the fact that gender differences across different ethnicities and variouscultures have a general stability.
On the other hand, cross-culturaldiversities in gender differences for some traits may show that social normsand culture influence gender differences. So, it would be promising for futurestudies to explore gender differences in personality in other cultures andsocieties too. Thus, the fact that howpersonality is affected by culture is truly a complicated issue, worthy offuture study. Also, theresults show that the differences among the genders in respect to theirawareness of L2 politeness strategies are more culture-bound rather than thatof ‘impoliteness’ on the part of the students; so theanalysis of the complex relations between gender and L2 politeness stillremains a gap to be filled by further research.
Further, the personality type scores were obtained through aself-report inventory. As a result, our findings indicate that how men andwomen perceive and report on themselves, which incontrovertibly do not show howthey are perceived by others. Besides, their actual behavioral tendencies couldnot be trustfully inferred if they were not correlated with other kinds of datacollection procedures, such as qualitative research. Future research,preferably Mixed Methods, should examine gender differences incorporating peer-reportson these personality traits.
The investigation was also limited to Big Five personality traits,i.e. openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness,and neuroticism. Although these traits are reasonably comprehensive, it wouldbe worthwhile to investigate gender differences in politeness and personalityin other additional traits, too. Measuringawareness of L2 politeness strategies in this study was on the basis of Brownand Levinson (1987) theoretical framework which is rather dated.
It would bebetter if other researchers put their investigations on the basis of other morerecent theoretical frameworks of famous scholars like Lakoff, Leech, etc. Also,to acquire a more clear-cut and valid estimate of the Iranian students’awareness of L2 politeness strategies, scholars might use some techniques suchas interviews and observations in the future.
