Abstract The current study examined the realization of the speech act of criticizing by university teachers in their talk with students. To this end, role-plays were conducted with 60 university teachers (30 males and 30 females) at a private Saudi university which is characterized by its multicultural academic staff, and, hence, where English is used as a lingua franca. Recordings were transcribed and analyzed using an adapted version of Nguyen’s (2005, 2013) model of criticism strategies. The results showed the teachers’ preference for indirect over direct criticism strategies and their minimal use of modifiers, particularly internal ones. It was also found that the influence of the teacher’s gender or years of teaching experience was small while the severity of the situation was a critical factor in the choice of appropriate strategies. The results were interpreted in relation to the existing literature and the theoretical model of politeness.

中文翻译：

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高校师生演讲批评行为的语用分析

摘要当前的研究探讨了大学教师在与学生交谈中进行批评的言语行为的实现。为此，在沙特的一所私立大学中，由60名大学教师（30名男性和30名女性）进行了角色扮演，该大学的特色是其多元文化的学术人员，因此，英语被用作通用语言。使用Nguyen（2005，2013）批评策略模型的改编版对记录进行转录和分析。结果表明，教师更偏爱间接批评而不是直接批评策略，并且尽量少使用修饰语，尤其是内部修饰语。还发现，教师性别或教学经验的影响很小，而情况的严重性是选择适当策略的关键因素。