The significance of producing socially appropriate utterances, not just linguistically correct ones, has given rise to a plethora of studies on speech acts. In this regard, the performance of second and foreign language learners against the norms of the target language and the factors affecting them have yet to be thoroughly investigated. To…

Threats to construct validity should be reduced to a minimum. If true, sources of bias, namely raters, items, tests as well as gender, age, race, language background, culture, and socio-economic status need to be spotted and removed. This study investigates raters' experience, language background, and the choice of essay prompt as potential…