Speech Acts Bibliography

Baba, T. & Lian, L. C. (1992). Differences between the Chinese and Japanese request expressions. Journal of Hokkaido University of Education, 42 (1), 57-66.

This is a contrastive analysis of Chinese and Japanese performance of requests. The author gives some examples of downgraders in both languages and upgraders in Chinese. With regard to the politeness strategies, Japanese has some linguistic features that do not exist in Chinese (e.g., the perspective difference (kureru vs. morau), politeness/formality level markers, sentence final particles, and gendered particles), while Chinese often depends on lexical choices such as certain terms of address. In both languages, the choice request forms were usually influenced by closeness between the interlocutors. While the status difference seemed to override age difference in Japanese in determining the politeness level, the opposite was the case with Chinese interactions.

Blum-Kulka, S. (1991). Interlanguage pragmatics: The case of requests. In R. Phillipson, E. Kellerman, L. Selinker, M. Sharwood Smith, & M. Swain (Eds.), Foreign/second language pedagogy research (pp. 255-272). Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters.

Presents a model for the study of interlanguage pragmatics that expands interlanguage to embrace interculture. Focuses on pragmatics of "requests" and discusses constraints (level of proficiency, transfer from L1, perception of target language norms, length of stay in target community). Presents data from bilingual English-Hebrew immigrant speech acts, showing the behavior is different from Israeli and from American patterns: authentically intercultural. Claims that native Israeli norms are defied because learners do not wish to identify with native speaker norms. Gives helpful theoretical introduction (256-261). For example, gives four categories for linguistic encoding (as opposed to situational parameters and social meanings): strategy type (direct, conventionally indirect, hints), perspective (hearer dominant, speaker dominant, hearer and speaker dominant, impersonal), internal modifications (downgraders -- "please," hedges, upgraders -- e.g., time-specifiers, expletives), external modifications (grounders -- e.g., explanations and justifications, cost minimizers, disarmers).

Cenoz, J., & Valencia, J. (1994). Interlanguage pragmatics: The role of linguistic and social psychological elements in the production of English requests and apologies. Unpublished manuscript. Vitoria-Gasteiz, Spain: Dept. of English and German Philology, U. of the Basque Country.

Investigates whether NSs (34) and NNSs (62 Basque) of English used the same linguistic expressions to make requests and apologies, whether these varied according to situation, sex, and social status. They used the DCT — four requests and four apologies. They found similar overall patterns, but NSs used more alerts and locution derivable strategies than learners, and learners used more syntactic downgraders in requests. NSs used more intensifiers in apologies. No significant differences were found between males and females.

Cohen, A. D. & Olshtain, E. (1993). The production of speech acts by EFL learners. TESOL Quarterly, 27 (1), 33-56.

Reports on a study describing ways in which nonnative speakers assessed, planned, and then delivered speech acts. The subjects, fifteen advanced English foreign language learners, were given six speech act situations (two apologies, two complaints, and two requests) in which they were to role-play along with a native speaker. The interactions were videotaped and after each set of two situations of the same type, the videotape was played back and then the respondents were asked both fixed and probing questions regarding the factors contributing to the production of their responses in those situations. The retrospective verbal report protocols were analyzed with regard to processing strategies in speech act formulation. The study found that in delivering the speech acts, half of the time respondents conducted only a general assessment of the utterances called for in the situation without planning specific vocabulary and grammatical structures, often thought in two languages and sometimes in three languages (if trilingual), utilized a series of different strategies in searching for language forms, and did not attend much to grammar nor to pronunciation. Finally, there were respondents whose speech production styles characterized them as "metacognizers," "avoiders," and "pragmatists" respectively.

Ellis, R. (1992). Learning to communicate in the classroom: A study of two language learners' requests. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 14 (1), 1-23.

Looks at the extent to which communication in an ESL classroom (in London) resulted in the acquisition of requests by a 10-year-old Portuguese speaker and an 11-year-old Punjabi speaker. The latter had had little formal education in Pakistan. The researcher recorded 108 requests over 16 months for the former, 302 requests over 21 months for the latter. He wrote down everything the subjects said and had an audio recording as a backup. He found that both learners failed to develop the full range of request types or a broad linguistic repertoire for performing those types that they did acquire. They also failed to develop the sociolinguistic competence needed to vary their choice of request to take account of different addressees. His interpretation was that the classroom lacked the conditions for real sociolinguistic needs even though it fostered interpersonal and expressive needs. There was no data on the kinds of requests they were exposed to, however.

Francis, C. (1997). Talk to me! The development of request strategies in non-native speakers of English. Working Papers in Educational Linguistics, 13 (2), 23-40.

Focuses on requests produced by adult ESL learners across three settings (public administrative office, private office of a U. program advisor, ESL classroom) and nine levels of ESL proficiency. The data were gathered from naturalistic observation, audio recording, and some video recording as well. Data were analyzed using the CCSARP project categories (Blum-Kulka, House, & Kasper, 1989). The nonnatives were found to rely on direct request strategies until their proficiency improved, whereupon they began to use more complex strategies. The percentage of conventionally indirect requests made by intermediate students (24%) was twice that of elementary students (12%). To some extent contextual demands helped to explain variations across settings. Students were more likely to explain their circumstances and desires in terms of their own perspective when in the position of justifying these to the advisor.

García, C. (1993). Making a request and responding to it: A case study of Peruvian Spanish speakers. Journal of Pragmatics, 19, 127-152.

This article reports on ten males and ten female Peruvians from Lima who took part in two role plays (making a request for service and responding to it) as well as follow-up interviews. The strategies used by Peruvian Spanish speakers when making a request showed a marked preference for the expression of deference over camaraderie in both head acts and supporting moves. However, when responding to the request, they preferred the establishment of camaraderie with the interlocutor. Males and females performed similarly enough so that there were no significant differences. However, when requesting, females tended to increase the impact of their request through repetition and emotional appeal whereas males tended to be more direct and then express gratitude.

García, C. (2007). "Y bueno pienso que vos podrías dársela": Estrategias de cortesía utilizadas por participantes argentinos en la solicitud de un servicio profesional. (‘Good, I think you could give it to her”: Politeness strategies used by Argentinean participants in requests for professional services.). In P. B. Franch, A. E. Sopeña Balordi, & A. Briz Gómez (Eds.), Pragmática, discurso y sociedad (pp. 153-174). Cuaderns de Filología, Estudis Linguístics 12. Valencia, Spain: Universitat de València.

The objective of this study was to investigate strategies used by a group of 20 Argentinean adults in soliciting professional services in role-play situations where degree of power, distance, and level of imposition varied. The researcher was interested in whether Argentineans preferred solidarity over deference in the negotiation of their requests and how this preference might be reflected in their cultural perspectives.

Goldschmidt, M. (1996). From the addressee's perspective: Imposition in favor-asking. In S. M. Gass & J. Neu (Eds.), Speech acts across cultures: Challenges to communication in a second language (pp. 241-256). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

Focuses on the speech act of favor-asking and the impact that this act has on an addressee in terms of a specific reaction, imposition. She defined the act of favor-asking by 4 characteristics: 1) a speech act which involves asking for something outside the addressee's daily routine, 2) entails doing activities that require some time and/or effort on the part of the addressee or involves a good belonging to the addressee [not really clear what she means by that last part], 3) entails no role-related obligation on the part of the addressee to fulfill the task, and 4) implies the notion of reciprocity in terms of a return favor. Goldschmidt conducted a survey of 200 speakers of U.S. American English between the ages of 17 and 69 to determine how much of an imposition they feel is placed upon them when certain favors are asked. She then tried to determine the pedagogical implications for non-native speakers inherent in such an analysis. The subjects were made up of 100 students from Villanova University (Philadelphia) between the ages of 17 and 21 and 100 non-students between the ages of 20 and 69. They were asked to rate the amount of imposition in 5 data-generated questions (selected from a corpus of 200 favors) that were judged to represent "typically asked favors... which seemed to depict a range in terms of degree of imposition." The results showed that in this particular speech community the respondents felt most imposed upon in situations where family privacy (or special family time together) is intruded upon or in situations which involve a great deal of time and effort. Time seemed to be considered a precious commodity, and the more time the act was perceived to require of the respondent the more of an imposition it was considered. The ratings were very similar in terms of degree of imposition for most situations regardless of age, gender, and student or non-student status of the respondent, which implies a sort of universal understanding of imposition parameters. Goldschmidt concluded that the pedagogical implications for TESOL are that non-native speakers need to be taught what kind of situations are conducive to creating a feeling of imposition in the speech community in order to appropriately learn the act of favor-asking. This is a large part of becoming a truly competent member of a target language community.

Hayashi, A. (2000). Kaiwa hattenno kouzouto syuufukuno sutorateji: Nichi dokugo taishono shitenkara mita "irai" to "kotowari" ni okeru intarakusyon (‘Conversational structures and strategies for remedial work: Interaction of "requests" and "refusals" from contrastive analysis of Japanese and German’). Bulletin of Tokyo Gakugei University Section II Humanities, 51, 81-94.

This paper compares a request-refusal interaction in German and Japanese role-played by 34 native Japanese speakers and 26 native German speakers in terms of 1) the request-refusal adjacency pair, 2) response strategies to refusals, and 3) explanation of reasons and hearer’s understanding. Some of the differences between the two languages are: 1) In Japanese, the refuser often used backchanneling and hedging expressions, which prepared the requester for the upcoming refusal. This tendency did not exist in German, where there were twice as many refusal expressions found in the interactions than in Japanese. 2) Japanese speakers sometimes expressed empathy for the requester before actually refusing. 3) In German, the requester suggests an alternative repeatedly and if each alternative is rejected and the requester explains the reasons. 4) In German, accepting the legitimacy of the reasons implies compliance with the request, while in Japanese, showing understanding for the reasons can be a stage before a refusal.

Iwai, C. & Rinnert, C. (2001). Cross-cultural comparison of strategic realization of pragmatic competence: Implications for learning world Englishes. Hiroshima Journal of International Studies 7. 157-181.

The study reports on the realization of requests and apologies using DCTs among four groups -- ESL/EFL respondents in Hong Kong (44), EFL respondents from Japan (100), ESL respondents from Singapore (71), and NSs from the US (100). There were 13 situations on the questionnaire but only four were used for this study -- two requests and two apologies. Thirteen percent of the Japanese respondents in EFL in the situation of breaking a friend's vase asked, "What should I do?" which the researchers saw as a translation of doo shiyoo? In the situation of forgetting a meeting with their professor, Japanese infrequently used a mitigator with their repair ("I'll be there if you don't mind..." "I'm afraid I'll be an hour late."). In apologizing they were likely to repeat "I'm sorry. I'm sorry," which US respondents didn't do. The Japanese used significantly fewer words than the other groups. With regard to requests, only the Japanese EFL respondents used either a direct strategy ("Please lend me your notes.")(32%) or a conventionally indirect expression of desire ("I would like you to lend me your notes.")(24%), which were the two most popular responses for this group. This is consistent with behavior in Japanese, according to the researchers. The Japanese used the conventional politeness marker "please" much more frequently (34%) than the other groups and used other softeners much less frequently than the other three groups.

Izaki, Y. (2000). Cultural differences of preference and deviations from expectations in requesting: A study of Japanese and French learners of Japanese in contact situations. Journal of Japanese Language Teaching 104, 79-88.

This study examines sociolinguistic differences in request behavior in French and Japanese, focusing on supportive move strategies (pre-request moves). Native speakers of Japanese and French role-played three request dialogues, and their performance was compared to that of seven French speakers learning Japanese (three beginners, three intermediates, and one advanced learner). Japanese speakers always used the precommital strategy (e.g., Jitsuwa onegai shitai kotoga arimashite ‘In fact, I have a favor to ask of you’) before making a request. The request can be preceded by another optional pre-request move that provides or asks for relevant information. In French, no precommital strategy appeared in the data; instead a pre-request move and a response to the pre-request are present in all request interactions. Sometimes since the pre-request move functions as a requestive hint, the speaker has no need to make an actual request. French speakers also often use conditional clauses suggesting that the hearer takes an action, which is in French normally considered as requests or negotiations. The author states that there are sociocultural differences in determining distance, power, and the degree of imposition of the request, and this results in differential politeness levels between the two languages.

Kawanari, M. (1996). Irai hyougenno modariti: Shujoshi "ne" to "yo" ni kansuru ninchi goyouronteki kousatsu (‘Modarity in requests: Cognitive/pragmatic analysis of sentence-final particles "ne" and "yo"‘). Nihon Joshi Daigaku Bungakubu Kiyou (Bulletin of Nihon Women’s College School of Literature), 45, 55-63.

This paper analyzes sentence-final participles ne and yo used in requests in terms of modality. These sentence final particles characterize discourse, reflecting the speaker’s consideration of the hearer. In expressions of requests, ne mitigates the force of the request proposition or imply that the speaker’s anticipate the hearer’s compliance (e.g., Shibaraku issyoni itene ‘Please stay with me for a while’). On the other hand, yo reinforces the proposition and upgrades the request (e.g., Onegai desukara, kondo syoukai shite kudasaiyo ‘I’m asking you, please introduce [him/her] to me next time’). Ne appeared 111 times and yo 89 times in 600 request interactions collected from 50 male and 50 female Japanese university students.

Kawamura, Y. & Sato, K. (1996). The acquisition of request realization in EFL learners. JACET Bulletin, 27, 69-86.

Investigates how Japanese EFL learners assess the degree of English politeness according to situational factors in the speech act of requesting. The subjects were 168 Japanese undergraduates at three Japanese universities. Cross-sectional analysis was done of higher-level and lower-level EFL groups regarding their perception of situational factors in the use of internal and external modification when making requests. A discourse completion test with ten request situations was used in which the setting, social and psychological distances between speaker and addressee, and social status were specified, and the degree of imposition. It was found that the two groups responded similarly in terms of external modification (alerters, grounders, intensifiers, other supportive moves), with the social distance being the dominant factor in choice of request forms. However, there was considerable difference in the use of the internal modification (head act) -- namely, the higher-level group was able to vary the degree of politeness in the request realization according to situational factors.

Kim, J. (1995). Could you calm down more?: Requests and Korean ESL learners. Working Papers in Educational Linguistics, 11 (2), 67-82.

Begins by giving an explanation of what constitutes a request schema and an overview of Blum-Kulka and Kasper's 1989 Cross-Cultural Speech Act Realization Project (CCSARP). This project yielded 2 important findings that were relevant to Kim's study discussed in this article: 1) learners vary the strategies used in request acts depending on the situation, and 2) learners vary the type and quantity of external modification by situation. Kim then discussed her study in which she asked the following research questions: 1) Under varying social constraints, how do advanced Korean learners of English compare to native American English speakers in request realizations -- or more specifically, in directness levels and external modifications? and 2) By including a comparison of Korean subjects requesting in English and subjects requesting in Korean, will there be any evidence of negative transfer? If so, under what conditions? The subjects were from 2 groups: one consisting of 25 native Korean speakers (13 male, 12 female) enrolled in high intermediate to advanced level ESL classes or as graduate students in a university in Philadelphia, and a one consisting of 15 native speakers of American English (8 male and 7 female). The Americans served as informants to establish "acceptable" request norms, 10 of the native Korean speakers served as informants for comparable situations in Korean, and the remaining 15 Korean speakers served as the non-native speakers requesting in English and the main focus of the study. Data were collected through an oral discourse task with 6 situations designed to assess pragmatic competence among non-native speakers of English. Data analysis was conducted to compare native and non-native requests in terms of: directness levels (mood derivable -- directness signaled by grammatical mood of the verb -- "Go to sleep!", performative, locution derivable -- the illocutionary force is derivable from the semantic content of the request -- "I think you'll have to bring this back," suggestory formulas, preparatory, and hint) and external modification -- aggravating or mitigating the request by using specific types of supportive moves (preparatory -- preparing the hearer for the ensuing request -- "I have a request to make," getting a precommitment -- "Could you do me a favor," apology, grounder -- "I'm studying for an exam," disarmer -- "I know you don't like this, but...," and promise of reward).

Results showed that although native and non-native speakers used the same level of directness, native speakers used internal modification plus routinization to further mitigate their requests. (Such as, "I was wondering if I could get an extension on the due date...") In terms of external modifications, 53% of the native speakers used preparators while neither of the Korean subject groups used preparators at all. All 3 groups used grounders as a supportive move, but unlike non-native speakers, native speakers tended to use them both before and after the head requesting act. Non-native speakers and Korean speakers used more apologies than native speakers of English. In general, the findings showed that in all 3 language groups realization of requests was determined by the sociopragmatic features of the situational context. Non-native speakers of English deviated from native speaker norms in some situations due to negative transfer from pragmatic rules in Korean.

Kobayashi, H. & Rinnert, C. (2003). Coping with high imposition requests: High vs. low proficiency EFL students in Japan. In A. Martínez Flor, E. Usó Juan, & A. Fernández Guerra (Eds.), Pragmatic competence and foreign language teaching (pp. 161-184). Castelló de la Plana, Spain: Publicacions de la Universitat Jaume I.

A request study which reanalyzed samples of role-play performance by Japanese EFL students (a study by Shimazaki, 2000), comparing their performance with that of naturally occurring L1 request data in Japanese and English (data they collected in 1999 and 2000). They also looked at how levels of EFL proficiency affects students' choice of strategies for coping with high imposition request situations. They looked at the length of request sequences, the presence of pre-request negotiation, supportive moves, the position of grounders, build-ups to requests, head act shift (e.g., from direct strategies in low imposition requests to conventionally indirect strategies for high imposition requests), pervasive want-statements as head acts (in NNS data, not in L1 data), and strategies for acknowledgement (by the requester once the request has been accepted). Findings were mixed. They found that high proficiency students were more likely to delay their request after a long build up, thanks to their linguistic resources allowing for this extended negotiation strategy. Also, while for low proficiency learners in the high imposition situations, the number of supportive moves like grounders increased, for high proficiency students, there were not only more grounders (and some placed after the requests) but also longer turns, more mitigators, requests were frequently delayed, and more upgraders were added in acknowledgements. Their main finding was that we cannot presume negative transfer. Some aspects are more easily transferred than others. One persistent L1 transfer feature in EFL requests is the use of want-statements given their perception that this is the polite form. They provide some important differences between Japanese and English would probably need to be taught: 1) in Japanese requests, contextual factors such as status difference between speaker and hearer significantly affect the requester's choice of request form; 2) Japanese speakers prefer "lend" to "borrow," whereas speakers of American English choose "borrow" over "lend"; 3) EFL learners need to know that the conventional English translations of Japanese request strategies such as V-shite itadake-nai-deshoo-ka 'Would/could you VP?' or V-shite-hoshi-n-desukedo 'I would like you VP' do not carry the same degree of politeness as in Japanese. They would suggest that learners write a script for a role play, perform such role plays, watch the video taping and revise the role play as necessary, and replay the revised version. Then they are to try to apply it to a new role play situation. Teachers could have learners practice delayed requests, even at the risk of an overly long delay. Learners can be taught to use pre-sequences like "I have a favor to ask you," or "Can I ask you a favor?" and checking preparatory conditions with "Do you have time?" or "Are you available now?"

Kubota, M. (1996). Acquaintance or fiancee: Pragmatic differences in requests between Japanese and Americans. Working Papers in Educational Linguistics, 12 (1), 23-38.

Provides empirical findings on how the speech style used in making requests differs among native-speakers of Japanese, American learners of Japanese, and Americans speaking English. Had 5 males from each group in late 20s, all at a Business School in the U.S. — the American learners of Japanese group had lived in Japan for from 1-3 years and all were advanced high to superior on the OPI. The NSs of Japanese felt it to be more face-threatening to state the reason for the request if the reason were a private matter. In contrast, the American subjects started by providing reasons to soften the awkward situation of making a request. One NS of Japanese tried to avoid mentioning a private matter, and one lied. The cultural differences were transferred when Americans spoke Japanese. However, they made very indirect and vague requests in Japanese, interpreted as overgeneralization of stereotypes of Japanese speech styles. In follow-up interviews, they found that although the American subjects were aware of the rules of Japanese speech styles, they did not necessarily try to follow them.

Kumagai, T. (1995). Iraino shikata: Kokken Okazaki cyousano deta kara (‘How to make a request: From Okazaki national survey results’). Nihongogaku (Japanese Linguistics), 14, 22-32.

This paper analyzes strategies (moves) of the orally elicited requests obtained from 400 native speakers of Japanese in terms of achievement of the goal and consideration for the hearer. The informants were to ask a doctor to immediately come to see their very sick neighbor. The functions involved in the requests include: making a request to come, providing information, expressing apologies, addressing the doctor, and offering to give directions. Request strategies include: prompting the hearer’s action, repeating the request, emphasizing the urgency, and prompting the action by making an offer, along with others to show consideration for the hearer (e.g., apology, hedging, and mitigating expressions). The researcher provides the results of correlational analysis between the number/contents of the moves used and the ages of the informants.

Li, D. (2000). The pragmatics of making requests in the L2 workplace: A case study of language socialization. Canadian Modern Language Review, 57 (1), 58-87.

Describes a Chinese immigrant woman, Ming, as she learned to make requests in English, using a longitudinal, ethnographic case-study approach. The author asserts that this approach was not common in pragmatics research. This study was about getting the necessary sociocultural information in order to perform a speech act in an appropriate way -- in this case, requesting. The data were recorded through audio-taping of daily interactions, the researcher's journaling, the participants' journaling (in all there were 20 Chinese immigrant women, with four serving as key participants), ESL essays, and formal and informal oral interviews. The researcher was also a volunteer ESL instructor for conversation classes at the Chinese American Association in NYC. The author was working on a doctorate at TC Columbia. Ming had retrained her Chinese indirect communication style and did not feel free making requests. In the first anecdote it was not clear to the NS whether Ming was coming to offer or request information -- she actually wanted job information. The second situation was one in which Ming actually wanted guidance in what to say in a job interview. The Chinese way would be to provide grounders (reasons or background information) to steer the course of the interaction in the direction of her intended goal and to provide chances for her interlocutor(s) to offer her information without her actually have to perform the face-threatening act of requesting it (p. 70). The next anecdote was about her learning to give her opinions. The fourth situation was learning how to request respect at work. The last was asking for a reasonable amount of workspace at the office. Ming underwent a socialization in which she learned how to be more American in her request behavior.

Li, D. (1998). Expressing needs and wants in a second language: An ethnographic study of Chinese immigrant women's requesting behavior. Unpublished doctoral dissertation. New York City: Teachers College, Columbia University.

The study primarily focuses on the requesting needs of 4 Chinese immigrant women in NYC. Another 16 women participated in a peripheral way. All 20 were enrolled in a clerical careers training program. This study was about getting the necessary sociocultural information in order to perform a speech act in an appropriate way -- in this case, requesting. The data were recorded through audiotaping of daily interactions, the researcher's journaling, the participants' journaling, ESL essays, and formal and informal oral interviews. The researcher was also a volunteer ESL instructor for conversation classes at the Chinese American Association in NYC. The first case study is of Cathy. "For Cathy, making a request is not only a linguistic process, but also a sociocultural process of creating and negotiating her multiple social identities. The various requests Cathy made were not only ways by which she constructed and maintained social interactions, but also ways of expressing her sense of who she was, what personalities she felt herself to have, what roles she filled or what status she occupied in different social contexts, what she needed, and what she valued" (pp 115-116). The narrative about Hui includes lots of frustration at the hospital in trying to see a doctor (150-161). Lina had difficulty making a request to have her government job cover her carfare. Ming had retrained her Chinese indirect communication style and did not feel free making requests. In the first anecdote it was not clear to the NS whether Ming was coming to offer or request information -- she actually wanted job information. The second situation was one in which Ming actually wanted guidance in what to say in a job interview. The Chinese way would be to provide grounders (reasons or background information) to steer the course of the interaction in the direction of her intended goal and to provide chances for her interlocutor(s) to offer her information without her actually have to perform the face-threatening act of requesting it. The next anecdote was about her learning to give her opinions. The fourth situation was learning how to request respect at work. The last was asking for a reasonable amount of workspace at the office. Ming underwent a socialization in which she learned how to be more American in her request behavior.

The study demonstrated how complex it can be to make a request if you do not have all the requisite linguistic, cultural, and other resources (e.g., tenacity, assertiveness, time, energy). Many contexts required more than one-utterance question and response -- rather it was made on one day and fulfilled on another, or made on one day, repeated over many days, revised, elaborated upon, facilitated by others, and finally fulfilled. Then there were requests that were not fulfilled as well (286). The methodology was considered valuable because it allowed Li to observe what people were actually doing in real situations. It gave her interactive discourse. She got to understand, interpret, and explain the requesting behavior in its fullest social, historical, and cultural context. She also got to understand, interpret, and explain requesting behavior by discovering the insider's view.

Mizuno, K. (1996b). "Irai" no gengo koudouni okeru cyuukan gengo goyouronn (2): Directness to perspective no kantenkara. (‘Interlanguage pragmatics of requests: Directness and perspectives’). Gengo Bunka Ronsyuu (Papers on Language and Culture), 18 (1), 57-71.

This paper analyzes head act strategies used in role-play by 20 intermediate and 12 advanced Chinese learners of Japanese in comparison with those by 12 native speakers of Japanese (same data analyzed in Mizuno, 1996a). Eight semantic categories were determined according to the level of directness/indirectness (pp. 59-60, based on Blum-Kulka, House, & Kasper, 1989). Perspectives include not only those in Blum-Kulka et al. (1989) but also the combination of "hearer-oriented (H)" and "speaker-oriented" (S) perspectives (e.g., Kashite (H) itadake (S) masuka?)

Moriyama, T. (1995). "Teineina irai" no sutoratejito unyou nouryoku: Iraino tegamino kakikatawo reini (‘Strategies for "polite requests" and communicative competence: Writing a request letter’). Nihongogaku (Japanese Linguistics), 14, 95-101.

The author first analyzes factors of "imprudence" from 4 perspectives: severity of imposition, politeness strategies, interpersonal variables, and degree of necessity, and then examines request expressions written by 10 Japanese college students. The participants were asked to request a paper from a teacher they had never met. The common semantic strategies in the letters were: opening greetings, self-introduction, reasons for the request, the request, and the closing greetings, mostly in this sequence. Request expressions used included: interrogatives, variants of tara saiwai, "wish" expressions (tai), kudasai, and onegaishimasu.

Nakahama, Y. (1998). Differing perceptions of politeness between Japanese and American learners of Japanese. Southeast Review of Asian Studies, 20, 61-80.

Studies five native Japanese making a request in Japanese and five American learners of Japanese making a request (a letter of recommendation at short notice) in Japanese FL and English L1. The study used open role-play and retrospective verbal report. With regard to the opener, all Japanese respondents introduced themselves while the Americans did not, and instead just excused themselves for interrupting. In retrospective verbal report, the Americans said that introducing themselves was unnecessary because the professor referred to them by their name when they came in. Also, they felt it was rude to assume the professor didn't know who they were. The Americans gave an excuse for why the request was at the last minute but did not express their apology as the native Japanese speakers did. The Americans also commented on how difficult the situation was for the professor but not the Japanese who felt it was arrogant to judge the situation.

Nakahama, Y. (1999). Requests in L1/L2 Japanese and American English: A crosscultural investigation of politeness. In L. Bouton (Ed.), Pragmatics and language learning. 9 (pp. 1-29). Urbana, IL: Division of English as an International Language, Intensive English Institute, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Investigates the politeness behavior of five American learners of Japanese performing requests both in Japanese and English, with five native Japanese speakers providing baseline data for comparison. Retrospective verbal reports were obtained for all participants. There were striking differences in strategies of the opener and the request, especially with regard to external modifications, such as grounders. The situation was asking a professor to write a letter of recommendation. The Japanese felt the need to establish who they were while the American students did not. While American respondents gave a justification for giving only short notice for the recommendation, the Japanese kept apologizing profusely. The Americans were found to transfer their L1 sociopragmatic rules while making requests in Japanese.

Nakamichi, M. & Doi, M. (1995). Nihongo kyouikuni okeru iraino atsukai (‘Teaching of requests in Japanese language education’). Nihongogaku (Japanese Linguistics), 14, 84-93.

The article overviews ten currently-used Japanese language textbooks to examine how requests are taught and the frameworks that are to be used to teach performatives. In the beginning level, kudasai is taught in all the textbooks, but often as invitations or instructions. Although kudasai is often too direct when used as a request, the textbooks tend to introduce it as a request expression. Kudasai masenka, te itadake masenka, te itadaki taindesuga are also frequently introduced yet differently in beginning level textbooks. One intermediate to advanced level textbook uses video to teach a request-refusal interchange, incorporating gestures and tone. Some other textbooks utilize flow charts to make learners aware of the strategies (moves) involved in the discourse structures of request interactions. The article also describes several steps to perform appropriate requests (i.e., determining request strategy sequence, making linguistic choices, determining the timing to initiate and develop the request, controlling the interaction, and responding appropriately to the hearer). The authors argue that different politeness strategies and contextual variations of requests have not yet been adequately addressed in textbooks.

Phillips, E. M. (1993). Polite requests: Second language textbooks and learners of French. Foreign Language Annals, 26 (3), 372-381.

Reports on a survey of 22 introductory and intermediate textbooks of French that found that students are inadequately trained in socially appropriate request forms. When forms were presented, caution regarding their appropriateness in a variety of contexts was seldom offered and few alternatives to their use were suggested. Then two task-related instruments were completed by 193 [college?] students, a recognition and a production task, to assess degrees of politeness based on three variables preferred by natives -- interrogative, conditional mood, and hearer-orientation. The results were that while students could recognize degrees of deference only to a moderate degree, only 30% used the conditional in making requests. Reasons for the gaps -- negative transfer from L1, the difficulty of grammatical structures required for polite requests. Conclusion: input from textbooks can be used to fill the gap related to polite requests if more attention is devoted to the presentation and practice of formulaic expressions and appropriate linguistic forms such as the conditional of politeness.

Placencia, M. E. (1998). Pragmatic variation: Ecuadorian Spanish vs. Peninsular Spanish. Spanish Applied Linguistics, 2 (1), 71-106.

Focuses on differences between the two varieties with regard to: the degree of indirectness employed, the degree of formality expresses, the degree of fullness or completeness of request utterances, the degree of deference conveyed through particular requests based on a corpus of request data from Quito and Madrid. The requests were from outside clients to receptionists in a hospital in each of the two cities. There were 163 requests in Ecuador, and 153 from Spain. More indirectness was found in Ecuadorian Spanish(ES). If more direct forms were used, then softeners were added to minimize the imposition. The researcher also found ES more formal. Deference was found to be common in ES and not found in Peninsular Spanish.

Rinnert, C. & Kobayashi, H. (1999). Requestive hints in Japanese and English. Journal of Pragmatics 31, 1173-1201.

The analysis of elicited questionnaire judgments and naturally occurring data on Japanese and English requests revealed an apparent contradiction between the perception of decontextualized hints (except for the very formal Japanese hints) as relatively impolite and the high frequency of actual use of hints in a university office setting. It was found that Japanese hints are generally more opaque than English hints. There is a trade off between pragmatic clarity on the one hand and avoiding coerciveness on the other. The researchers found that "off-record" requestive hints may differ from "on-record" hint-like request formulations. They concluded that the use of requestive hint formulations builds solidarity in different ways in the two cultures. The researchers used a questionnaire with 10 English requests varying in terms of formality levels and degree of directness. The authors describe in detail how they presented the Japanese request material (1177-78). The sample consisted of 145 Japanese subjects (92 university students, 14 teachers, and 30 university office workers or older students) and 95 native English-speaking subjects (40 teachers mainly from North America teaching in Japan and 55 U students in the US). The findings were as follows: Japanese perceptions of linguistic politeness depend heavily on the formality level of the utterance (morphologically encoded honorifics and verb endings). The perception of politeness of hints, however, appears to be affected not only by the form itself, but also by the social information it carries (the speaker's relationship to the hearer). The informal hint, sono hon mou sunda? 'Are you through with the book yet?' was rated much closer to the informal direct request than the informal conventional indirect requests ("desire" and "willingness"), due at least in part to the plain form da-ending, which evokes a close relationship between speaker and hearer in the raters' mind. The very formal hint, Sono hon mou o-sumini narimashita ka? 'Were you [possibly] to the point of having finished with that book?' gained the highest ratings in terms of perceived politeness because it was marked with the polite honorifics o and nari-, while the feature of indirectness remained intact. The use of such honorifics is usually associated with people socially higher or psychologically distant. Also, leaving the interpretation of the utterance up to the hearer is very often viewed as polite by Japanese speakers especially when speaking to someone of higher status. English perceptions of politeness were not affected as much by formality level.

Naturally occurring requestive hints were also collected in Japanese (n=78) and in English (n=67). Here the finding was that Japanese hints generally tended to be more opaque than English hints, particularly in terms of the illocutionary scale. In office situations in Japan where a person of higher status could risk losing face if a person of a lower status reject their request, the use of highly indirect requests (i.e., requestive hints) functions to avoid coerciveness more than the use of conventionally indirect requests. Information-seeking questions give the speaker the possibility of denying it was a request (e.g., "Are there any batteries?"). Also in Japanese they found utterances with the component (reference to some component of the requested act) + zero illocutionary force (no statement of illocutionary intent), (e.g., o-bento 'box lunch' used as a request to order a box lunch). There is no need to request it because it is understood from context. Saying more would create a negative impression of verbosity, directness, or aggressiveness. Such preference for implicitness could account for the high level of ellipsis in the Japanese data they collected. In the English data, the component (reference to some component of the requested act) + a grounder (giving a reason why the request is necessary) was most frequently employed (e.g., If she comes around I need to talk to her). This can be interpreted as solidarity building between the speaker where the speaker does not impose the request on the hearer.

Rinnert, C. (1999). Appropriate requests in Japanese and English: A preliminary study. Hioshima Journal of International Studies 5, 163-175.

A study with 103 Japanese speakers (93 university students and 16 teachers) and 95 English speakers (40 teachers, mostly from North America, teaching in Japan and 55 university students in the U.S.) Respondents were given six request situations and a series of responses which they were to rate from 1 to 3 (low to high) in terms of its level of appropriateness in the given situation, with 1 indicating "unnatural/inappropriate" and 3 "natural/appropriate." The study found that whereas both Japanese and English speakers found formal and indirect forms highly inappropriate with higher status hearers, Japanese speakers, unlike English speakers, rated formal forms highly appropriate with socially close interlocutors and were accepting of direct requests (e.g., lend me) with close hearers. Relatively "safe" semantic formulas for requests in English included questioning "ability" (could you...?), "willingness" (would you mind...?), and "possibility" (can/could I...?). In Japanese, as long as the formality level was appropriate, the two formulas of "willingness" and "possibility" (...kurenai/kuremasenka/itadakemasenka/dekimasu ka?) were found generally most acceptable. Also, the hint formulation stating a grounder (reason) for the request (e.g., the copy machine isn't working) was found appropriate in both languages. Potentially dangerous request formulas across the two languages, because of widely differing perceptions of appropriateness, include "desire" (...hoshiin da/desu kedo, I would like you to...), direct requests and perhaps the hint strategy of "questioning feasibility" (e.g., kopi-ki no naoshikata wakarimasu ka, do you know how to fix the copy machine?). The author asserts that raising the level of awareness regarding similarities and differences in request strategies could help avoid misunderstandings across the two cultures.

Rose, K. R. (1999). Teachers and students learning about requests in Hong Kong. In E. Hinkel (Ed.), Culture in second language teaching and learning (pp. 167-180). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Deals with the nature of pragmatic competence and pragmatic consciousness-raising (PCR). Rose offers some techniques for PCR based on activities focusing on requests that were carried out with students in Hong Kong. He defines PCR as an inductive approach to developing awareness of how language forms are used appropriately in context. The aim is not to teach explicitly the various means of performing a given speech act (request, apology, compliment) but rather to expose learners to the pragmatic aspects of language (L1 and L2) and provide them with the analytical tools they need to arrive at their own generalizations concerning contextually appropriate language use. A caveat is that very little is known about the effects of such consciousness-raising activities. Teachers can start by giving examples of pragmatic failure -- anecdotes. Then an area is presented, such as requests, with description of its various components. Then the EFL students have a worksheet and collect data on requests in their L1. From the Hong Kong data the students learned about conventionally indirect requests.

Rose, K. R. (2000). An exploratory cross-sectional study of interlanguage pragmatic development. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 22 (1), 27-67.

Reports the results of an exploratory cross-sectional study of pragmatic development among three groups of primary school students in Hong Kong who completed a cartoon oral production task designed to elicit requests, apologies, and compliment responses in EFL or in Cantonese -- the first two speech acts being in their curriculum but not the third. They found little evidence of pragmatic transfer from Cantonese. The subjects were approximately 40 children at levels P-2, P-4, and P-6 respectively, half receiving the prompts in English, half in Cantonese. They were to tape record what they thought the character in the cartoon would say. In requests, there is at best only weak evidence of any situational variation. It would seem that the children had not yet developed the pragmatic competence in English to exhibit such situational variation. It could also be that the instrument did not adequately capture the relevant contextual features. In apologies, all three levels had similar responses regarding the strategy of expressing an apology. However, P-6 demonstrated more control over intensifiers. They also acknowledged responsibility more and offered repair -- a pattern that was not found in the Cantonese data. There was little evidence of situational variation however. Compliments were not in the curriculum. The most frequent strategy was acceptance of the apology -- in Cantonese as well, so the patterns were similar. There was a marked increase in both frequency and range of strategies used with the P-6 group. No background questions were asked so there is no way of knowing about exposure to English-speaking domestic helpers, parents' English proficiency, and attitudes towards English.

Safont Jordà, M. P. (2003). Instructional effects on the use of request acts modification devices by EFL learners. In A. Martínez Flor, E. Usó Juan, & A. Fernández Guerra (Eds.), Pragmatic competence and foreign language teaching (pp. 211-232). Castelló de la Plana, Spain: Publicacions de la Universitat Jaume I.

While the use of modification devices in requesting was not explicitly taught in her study, the investigator found that awareness-raising and pragmatic production tasks favored the use of peripheral modification devices by 160 female learners of EFL. The categories were "softeners," "attention getters," "hesitation," "grounders," "disarmers," expanders," and "please." She used a discourse completion test in a pretest/posttest design over one semester. She used a 5-point continuum of politeness in requests in her treatment. She found that while at pretesting few modification devices were used, at posttesting the learners largely modified their requests. In posttesting, the learners began to use attention getters, a bit of grounding, and many instances of "please."

Takahashi, S. (1996). Pragmatic transferability. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 18 (2), 189-223.

Examines the transferability of five Japanese indirect request strategies to corresponding English request contexts. The subjects were 142 Japanese male students (freshmen or sophomores) at 2 universities in Tokyo. They were divided into low and high EFL proficiency on the basis of a reading comprehension test. The subjects were used as a cross-sectional sample. The first study called for collection of request data for situations calling for low and high degrees of imposition. Questionnaires were constructed, based on previous request work in the field and a rigorous categorization of request strategies (with explicit and implicit reference to the requested act) was used (pp. 220-221). The Japanese request strategies were found to be differentially transferable. The learners' perception of transferability was influenced by their L2 proficiency to some extent, but the transferability of each L1 request strategy seemed to be determined by the interaction between the politeness and conventionality of each strategy and the degree of mitigation required in each imposition context. Both proficiency groups tended to fall back on the L1 strategy "would you please" when confronting L2 high-imposition situations. Thus learners were seen to misjudge functional equivalence relations between the L1 and L2 and project L1 form-function mappings onto L2 contexts. This suggested to the investigator that it may be necessary to explicitly teach appropriate pragmatic realization patterns in the L2.

Takahashi, S. (2001). The role of input enhancement in developing pragmatic competence. In K. R. Rose & G. Kasper (Eds.), Pragmatics in language teaching (pp. 171-199). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Examines the effects of input enhancement on the development of English request strategies by Japanese EFL learners at a Japanese university, using four input conditions -- explicit teaching (N=27) (detailed info on requests + a composition exercise packet with J-E translation exercises, hi-lo status and social distance noted), form-comparison (N=25) (respondents to compare their utterances with those of NSs and determine differences), form-search (N=24) (comparing NNS with NS utterances, but not their own), and meaning-focused (N=31) (reading transcripts of interactions and having to answer comprehension questions addressing the content) conditions. The researcher was interested in both success at learning requests and at level of confidence. An open-ended DCT and a measure of confidence in selecting request forms were administered pre-post. Written immediate retrospective verbal report data were also collected to gain information about the subjects' conscious decisions during their request performance. The degrees of input enhancement were found to influence the acquisition of request forms, with the explicit teaching having the strongest impact, then form-comparison, form-search, and meaning-focused in that order. Explicit instruction helped develop both proficiency and confidence to a greater extent than the other three conditions. The form-search and meaning-focused conditions both failed to draw the learners' attention to the target forms in the input.

Varghese, M. & Billmyer, K. (1996). Investigating the structure of discourse completion tests. Working Papers in Educational Linguistics, 12 (1), 39-58.

Examines the internal structure of the Discourse Completion Test (DCT) and investigates the effect of systematic modification of the DCT situational prompt on subject response. The researchers found that the amount of detail in the prompt for request situations on the DCT made a significant difference in the nature of the response. The alternate prompt that they constructed for each situation had not only information on the requestive goal, social distance, and social dominance, but also the gender of the interlocutor, the role relationship, the length of acquaintance, the frequency of their interaction, whether the relationship was optional, and a description of the setting. A third prompt was the same as the second except that respondents were asked to reflect on each situation for 30 seconds before responding. The study involved 55 native speakers of American English, with 20 getting version one, 19 version two, and 16 version three randomly. They found that the head act request strategy was not affected by extra information and wait time. The respondents used conventionally indirect strategies. However, they did find that the mean length of the request act was two-to-three times greater in the second and third versions than in the first. There were no statistical differences between the latter two versions. Also, there were two-to-three times more supportive moves (e.g., an aggravating or mitigating utterance) in last two versions. There were also three times more use of alerters (i.e., warning the hearer of an upcoming speech act) in the last two versions. Their interpretation was that a typical DCT situation does not bring out the real dynamics of natural interaction between members of a group because respondents are addressing an anonymous fictional character and there is no motivation to establish or preserve a relationship.

Zhang, Y. (1995). Indirectness in Chinese requesting. In G. Kasper (Ed.), Pragmatics of Chinese as a native and target language (pp. 69-118). Honolulu, HI: University of Hawai'i Press.

Looks at existing theories on requestive acts in terms of their definition, scale, and relationship with politeness. According to Zhang, most of the study on indirect speech acts has been based on analysis of individual utterances by contrasting locutionary sense and illocutionary force. Zhang compared conventional indirectness (CID) strategies, utterances which are "standardized to perform particular functions which are not assigned to them in their grammatical forms," with non-conventional (NCID) strategies, utterances that are "ambiguous in either propositional content or illocutionary force or both." Zhang discussed a scale of indirectness described by Blum-Kulka in the CCSARP, which identified nine requestive strategies gathered from data from seven languages (mood derivable, performative, hedged performative, locution derivable, want statement, suggestory formula, query preparatory, strong hint, and mild hint). Both CID and NCID strategies exist in Chinese requesting, and in this chapter, Zhang looked at the relationship between directness and politeness represented by these linguistic options. Zhang displayed culture-specific conceptions, perceptions, and linguistic manifestations through a detailed description of research findings and two role plays. Based on the findings, Zhang concluded that Chinese language instruction should include a comprehensive look at indirectness for comprehension and production in oral and written communication with "sensitivity to the information embedded in the supportive moves." It should be made clear that Chinese self-denigration interwoven in many requestive acts is not a sign of weakness or gesture of hypocrisy, but is an essential part of mastering appropriate pragmatic form. In addition, students should learn linguistic strategies circumlocuting direct, flat negative responses.

Zhang, Y. (1995). Strategies in Chinese requesting. In G. Kasper (Ed.), Pragmatics of Chinese as a native and target language (pp. 23-68). Honolulu, HI: University of Hawai'i Press.

Looks at the speech act of requesting in Chinese to determine how performative verbs differ in level of politeness and how that level is marked. In the introduction, Zhang stated that while requesting acts in Western cultures are generally seen as an imposition tied to the concept of individual space, in Chinese culture requests may be the sign of a good relationship and even respect. Zhang conducted a study of politeness strategies by sending a questionnaire to 30 native speakers of Mandarin Chinese who were students at various universities in the United States. In this chapter, Zhang described the specific request strategies indicated by the answers on the questionnaires (such as explicit performative, hedged performative, suggestory formula, or query prepatory, to name a few) in terms of being direct or indirect and then discussed the relationship between the level of directness and the degree of politeness. Zhang also discussed how the interaction between directness and politeness is influenced by factors such as power and familiarity between interactants, the degree of imposition, age and gender, directive goals, the requester's right to request and the level of obligation, and the likelihood of compliance. A detailed description of the statistical results is given.

Speech Acts Bibliography: Requests

Speech Acts Bibliography:
Requests