Journal of China University of Science and Technology Vol.61-2015.01
A Pragmatic Study of the Speech Act of Polite Requests for
Action
請求言語行為之研究
詹景雯1
林振強2
Ching-Wen Jan
Chen-Chiang Lin
李柏堅3
Bo-Jian Li
1
中華科技大學通識教育中心講師
2
中華科技大學資訊管理系講師
3
中華科技大學企業管理系助理教授
General Education Center
China University of Science and Technology
Abstract
In everyday interactions, people constantly create utterances to achieve certain
communicative intentions. One of these interactional goals is represented by the
speech act of requests. This paper aims to explore the politeness of request speech act
by investigating the patterns used by native English speakers. The subjects were ten
native English speakers with diverse backgrounds, ages, and experiences. Of the ten
subjects, six were males and four were females. To elicit data, interview questions
made up of ten hypothetical situations were conducted, in which the subjects were
asked to give their responses orally towards the contextualized situations. The
findings revealed that native speakers were generally courteous in making their requests,
that their use of politeness strategies were usually varied according to social and
situational factors as well as cultural norms, that there were no gender differences in the
use of polite request forms, and that the interrogative mood with either a present or past
tense modal was most frequently employed by native English speakers.
Key words: communicative intentions, speech act, request strategies, contextualized situations, cultural
norms, interrogative mood
摘 要
人與人平日的互動中，會藉由不斷創造話語以達到其溝通的目的，其中則是
177
透過運用各種言語行為來傳達。本文旨在探尋英語母語人士的請求言語行為之常
用模式。研究對象為十位來自於不同背景、年齡和經驗的英語母語人士，其中六
位為男性，四位為女性。為收集資料，邀請受試者於採訪期間，針對 10 個假設的
話語情境做出回應。調查結果發現，當英語母語人士提出請求時，態度普遍客氣；
他們也會根據社會和環境因素以及文化規範，對於不同的話語情境做出不同策略
性的回應；請求言語行為並無性別的差異；當英語母語人士提出請求時，最常使
用現在或過去式時態的疑問語氣。
關鍵詞: 溝通意圖，言語行為，請求策略，話語情境，文化規範，疑問語氣
Introduction
The speech act approach has been used effectively both in the first and second
language acquisition research. According to the speech act theory, speakers perform
illocutionary acts by producing utterances (Searle, 1969). An illocutionary act is a
particular language function performed by an utterance. That is, through their utterances,
speakers convey communicative intentions, such as requests, apologies, promises,
advice, compliments, offers, refusals, complaints, and thanking. The study of speech
acts provides a useful means of relating linguistic form and communicative intent. An
utterance is treated as the realization of a speaker’s intention and goal in a particular
context.
One of the speech acts that attract many people in the pragmatic studies is the act
of requesting. Requests are a type of speech act which has been the focus of discussion
for quite a long time in the study of Pragmatics (Fukushima, 2003). In fact, the speech
act of requests is important in interpersonal and intercultural communication. A request
is defined as a polite demand made by a requester asking a favor of the other person
(Nelson et al, 2002). People produce requests for various reasons in everyday
interactions, either to obtain information or certain action, to seek support, or to acquire
assistance from others. According to Brown and Levinson (1987), requests are
intrinsically face-threatening because they are intended to threaten the addressee’s
negative face (i.e., freedom of action and freedom from imposition). Hence, there is a
need to put politeness strategies into action in order to minimize the threat and to avoid
the risk of losing face. To accomplish the speech act of requests so as to maintain or
establish a harmonious relationship with the hearer, there is a preference for indirectness
on the part of the speaker issuing the request to smooth the conversational interaction. It
178
Journal of China University of Science and Technology Vol.61-2015.01
has been observed that higher levels of indirectness may result in higher levels of
politeness. According to Brown and Levinson (1987) and Leech (1983), direct requests
appear to be inherently impolite and face-threatening because they intrude in the
addressee’s territory. They argue that the preference for polite behaviors is indirectness.
Leech suggests that it is possible to increase the degree of politeness by using more
indirect illocutions: “(a) because they increase the degree of optionality, and (b) because
the more indirect an illocution is, the more diminished and tentative its force tends to
be” (1983: 131-32). The link between indirectness and politeness is further supported by
Searle’s observation that “politeness is the most prominent motivation for indirectness
in requests, and certain forms tend to become the conventionally polite ways of making
indirect requests” (1975: 76).
Speakers of some cultures may tend to use redressive actions but some may not
blatantly use redressive actions because they may have to consider some social factors
such as relationship and distance with the hearer. The strategy and linguistic choice of
being polite is usually informed by the speaker’s cultural norms and knowledge, and it
may vary from culture to culture or differ from situation to situation. This complicated
interplay of request making, linguistic choice and culture has attracted much
cross-cultural research studies (Blum-Kulka, House & Kasper 1989; Weizman, 1989;
Reiter, 2000; Sifianou 1992; Rinnert & Kobayashi 1999).
Cross-cultural research mainly compares native and non-native English speakers’
request strategies, types, frequency, and linguistic devices. Earlier findings indicate that
cultural norms and contextual factors dominate how and what to say in the content of a
request. Blum-Kulka, House and Kasper (1989) found that conventional indirectness
was universally manifested in requests across English, French, Hebrew, and Spanish.
Reiter (2000) in another cross-cultural study found that British had a clear preference
for conventional indirectness whereas Uruguayans employed a higher level of directness.
Sifianou (1992) found that Greeks tended to give reasons for the requests in Greek more
frequently than that in English. Weizman’s study (1989) on requestive hints across
English, French, and Hebrew found a relatively low frequency of hints in his data (less
than 10% of requests) whereas Rinnert and Kobayashi (1999) found that hints made up
about 40% of the Japanese and English requests, and that Japanese hints were generally
more opaque than English hints. Recent research on requests by Chinese found that
many Chinese preferred directness to indirectness in request complemented with
supportive moves or requestive hints, when they felt the social distance was short or
179
force of the act was small (Zhan, 1992; Zhang 1995; Wong, 2000; Lee, 2004). However,
the use of the strategies also varied with role and social relationships between the
speaker and the hearer. A Chinese speaker would use some modal verbs such as
imperative verbs for a request when the interlocutor was intimate or familiar. On the
other hand, the speaker would use more query-preparatory in an asymmetrical situation
in the academic context (Wong, 2000).
The purpose of this study is to investigate the types of request strategies employed
by native speakers of English, evaluates some ESL textbooks that use the
communicative approach in introducing the speech act of requests, and provides
pedagogical implications for teaching the speech act of polite requests in the EFL
classrooms.
Literature Review on Polite Requests
Koike (1989) examined politeness in the speech act of requests in terms of both
temporal and personal deixis. He extended Rauh’s (1983) ideas of deixis to a general
‘Principle of Egocentric Minimization in Politeness’. That is, a speaker’s intention to
minimize or defocalize his/her egocentric role in the utterance is likely to create higher
degrees of politeness. For example, Koike states that:
(9) Fomos Joao e eu.
‘John and I went.’
is more polite than ‘I and John’ because the former defocalizes the speaker’s role in
giving orders and focalizes the listener’s role in the speech act. Koike (1989) argues that
requests are conveyed only through the present and future tense and the conditional
mood, with varying degrees of politeness. Of the three possible request forms (i.e. the
present and future tense, and the conditional mood), the conditional is the only form
which expresses a time frame the farthest from the speaker’s coding time, and thus is
the least imposing in force and the most polite. By the same token, Koike (1989) claims
that requests that are deictically-centered to the speaker, being more egocentric, are less
polite than those which are hearer-based. These two arguments therefore suggest that
the greater the distance from the deictic center is, the greater the degree of politeness
becomes, and the lesser the degree of illocutionary force tends to be.
In an examination of the notion of politeness with respect to indirect requests,
Clark and Schunk (1980) proposed the “costs and benefits” theory of politeness.
180
Journal of China University of Science and Technology Vol.61-2015.01
According to this theory, speaker A’s request is polite to the extent that it increases the
benefits, or lowers the costs, to speaker B. In other words, the more A’s request benefits
B, the more polite A seems. Clark and Schunk (1980) also maintain that for indirect
requests, literal meaning plays an important role in conveying politeness. For example,
there are four types of requests listed below, which vary from polite to impolite.
Descriptive category
Request type
1. permission
2. imposition
3. ability
4. commitment
May I ask you where Jordan Hall is?
Would you mind telling me where Jordan Hall is?
Can you tell me where Jordon Hall is?
Will you tell me where Jordan Hall is?
As Clark and Schunk (1980) indicate, all these four requests have the same indirect
meaning, which is Please tell me where Jordan Hall is. All of them have one cost in
common. They impose on B by asking a question that he must answer with a yes or no.
Their only differences lie in the literal meanings. With the literal meaning of May I ask
you where Jordan Hall is?, A is offering B the authority to grant her permission to make
her request. This is obviously a great benefit to B. Such a benefit makes the permission
type of requests particularly polite. With the literal meaning of Would you mind telling
me where Jordan Hall is?, A is no longer offering B the full authority to permit her to
ask him for the wanted information. Still, she is offering him the authority to say that
her request imposes too much. This benefits B. A is thereby admitting that she is
imposing on him, and the admission benefits B too. So Would you mind? should be
relatively polite too, although not as polite as May I ask? and its kind.
When A says Can you tell me where Jordan Hall is?, she is literally asking B to say
whether or not he has the ability to tell her where Jordan Hall is. By giving him the
opportunity to deny this ability, the question both benefits and costs B a little bit. It
benefits him by allowing him to avoid the embarrassment of being asked a request he
couldn’t comply with. Nevertheless, it costs him a little by suggesting that he may not
be competent to comply. Compared to May I ask? and Would you mind? with their great
benefits to B, Can you tell me? should be less polite. With the literal meaning of Will
you tell me where Jordan Hall is?, A is asking B whether or not he will commit himself
to tell her the wanted information. Commitments, of course, are quite the opposite of
181
permissions. In commitments, B obligates himself to A to carry out an action. This gives
her the authority later to demand the fulfillment of his obligation, and that puts him in a
position inferior to her. This should cost B a great deal, which consequently makes the
commitment type of requests the least polite of the four requests. Based on these
observations, Clark and Schunk (1980) conclude that in order to judge politeness, one
has to figure out the costs and benefits of each request which exist only in the literal
meaning. The more the literal meaning of a request implies personal benefits for the
listener, the more polite the request is.
Unlike the two previous studies which investigate the speech act of polite requests
from the native speakers’ perspective, Carrell and Konneker (1981) examined and
compared the judgments of politeness made by both native speakers of American
English and nonnative ESL learners. The results of their study indicate that there is a
high correlation between the native and nonnative judgments of the politeness hierarchy
consisting of eight sentences. However, the ESL group tends to perceive more
distinctive levels within its hierarchy of politeness than does the native group, reflecting,
as Carrell and Konneker point out, a kind of “over-sensitivity” to form distinctions.
Their further examination of the native speaker politeness hierarchy also shows that
each of the three syntactic/semantic features contributes differently to politeness. Mood
contributes the greatest to the politeness hierarchy: interrogative – most polite,
declarative – next most polite, imperative – least polite. The presence of modals
contributes next most to politeness. Finally, modals in the past tense add a small
additional degree of politeness.
Tanaka and Kawade’s (1982) study was intended to replicate the Carrell and
Konneker (1981) study as well as test the validity of Lakoff’s (1973) theory of
politeness (i.e. the notion of distance). According to Lakoff (1973), there are two types
of distance: social distance and psychological distance. Social distance is a function of
such variables as age, sex, and social status. Psychological distance is related to the way
one person perceives another in relation to himself. The results of Tanaka and Kawade’s
study reveal that both the native and nonnative groups tend to use more polite strategies
in “distant” situations (e.g. borrowing goods from a distinguished professor, a stranger,
a disliked person, an acquaintance) and less polite strategies in “close” situations (e.g.
borrowing goods from father, boy/girl friend). However, the nonnative speakers tend to
use less polite strategies in certain situations whereas the native speakers are likely to
use more polite strategies. This suggests that even highly “advanced” ESL or EFL
182
Journal of China University of Science and Technology Vol.61-2015.01
learners will sometimes fail to behave appropriately in the target language.
Method
This study is primarily concerned with the notion of polite requests for action made
by native speakers of American English. The subjects consisted of ten native speakers
with diverse backgrounds, ages, and experiences. Of the ten subjects, six were males
and four were females. Four were American missionaries who were in Taiwan to help
with the summer camp. Two were American expatriates working as top business
executives in Taiwan. Two were Canadian tourists temporarily visiting in Taiwan. Two
were American students who were currently taking Mandarin lessons at the National
Taiwan Normal University. To elicit the data, interviews were conducted with each
subject (N= 10). The interview questions were made up of 10 hypothetical situations
that they may encounter in their everyday lives. The subjects were each presented with
the 10 contextualized situations, in which they were asked to request some form of
action. The responses from the subjects were taped-recorded and then transcribed in
Standard English writing. The results are discussed in the following section. The
description of the 10 hypothetical situations is presented below.
Description of the scenarios:
1. Situation One
You are tired after a long hard day at work. You finally got home and had dinner
with your family. It’s your turn to wash the dishes, but you don’t feel like doing
it. What would you say to your family?
2.
3.
Situation Two
You are having lunch with a friend in a restaurant. The man who sits next to your
table is smoking in a non-smoking area. The smoke is really getting to you.
What would you say to him?
Situation Three
You are running a bit late for your dental appointment. Your car is blocked by a
police patrol officer. You’re stuck and can’t move anywhere. What would you
say to him?
4.
Situation Four
You are trying to study for a big test tomorrow. Your roommate is listening to
loud music on the radio at a high volume. What would you say to him/her?
5.
Situation Five
183
You are talking to your academic advisor in his/her office. The window beside
you is open and you feel cold. What would you say to him/her?
6.
Situation Six
Your boss has allowed you to take a few days off from work. For some reason,
he/she changed his/her mind and wanted you to reschedule your vacation. What
would you say to him/her?
7.
Situation Seven
You are in a class lecture. Two of the classmates sitting next to you are
constantly talking to each other. What would you say to them?
8.
Situation Eight
You and your friend are in a library. He/She wants to check out a book, but
forgets to write down the call number and the title of the book on the check-out
slip. What would you say to him/her?
9. Situation Nine
You are in a movie theater. The person sitting right in front of you happens to be
your college professor. He/She is wearing a large hat. What would you say to
him/her?
10. Situation Ten
You are waiting for someone at a bus stop. A guy’s coming over in your
direction and trying to talk to you incessantly. What would you say to him?
Findings and Discussion
An interesting finding revealed in this study was that native speakers did not always
intend to make requests in all these situations. In nine out of the ten situations, the
researcher had to deliberately encourage the subjects to make a request of some sort
when they would simply use some way to avoid making a request (i.e., walking away
from the situation or using indirect means to signal their feelings).
In a situation where the subject does not want to wash the dishes because he/she is
exhausted from a long day at work, the researcher found it interesting that Situation one
was the only situation where all subjects made a request. One possible explanation for
this may be because family members are usually perceived as close to the addressor, and
therefore one may feel more comfortable in performing the speech act of requesting. In
the data collected, all but one subject used the interrogative mood with either a present
or past tense modal in their requests (i.e., Can you give me a hand …?; … Could you
184
Journal of China University of Science and Technology Vol.61-2015.01
help me …?). There was only one subject who used the imperative mood. Another
finding was that most subjects offered some kind of excuse to explain why they wanted
to make such a request (i.e., I really have a busy day and I’m really tired … ; … I’ve got
many other things to do now).
Given a situation where the subject is sitting next to a smoker in a non-smoking area
in a restaurant, two subjects insisted that they would not say anything at all. One of
these two subjects said that she would give some kind of signal instead, such as
coughing or taking a piece of paper and fanning the smoke to show her discontent. The
other subject said that he would either switch tables or simply ask the waitress to tell the
person. A typical response to this situation began with attracting the hearer’s attention
by saying “Excuse me, but …”, or “Did you realize this is a non-smoking area?”, or
“Would you mind not smoking?”
In a situation where the subject’s car is blocked by a police patrol officer, only one
subject had to be encouraged greatly to produce a request because he did not feel
comfortable talking to policemen. Five subjects began their requests by saying “Excuse
me”, which made the requests seem a little less harsh or ruthless. The other subjects also
softened their requests by using a polite “please” and “would you mind?” (i.e., … Could
you move your car, please? ; … Would you mind moving?). It was found that all the
subjects in this situation were very polite in making their requests. One reason for this
may be because the police are in a position of power and authority, and thus people
would try to show their respect for them.
In a situation where the subject’s roommate is listening to the radio at a high volume,
it was surprising to find that one subject said that he would neither make a request nor
say anything, if he liked the music being played. The requests being addressed in this
situation were varied among the subjects. Two subjects used the imperative mood,
whereas the others used the interrogative mood with either a present or past tense modal.
However, there was a subtle difference in the use of the imperative mood between these
two subjects. Speaker A softened his command a little by saying a polite “please”.
Speaker B, on the other hand, seemed a little abrupt and rude in his request (i.e., …
Turn that radio off! Can’t you see I am studying? …). This may be due to the fact that
speakers A and B have different relationships with their roommates. As happened in
Situation one, most subjects in this scenario offered some kind of excuse to explain why
they wanted to make a request (i.e., … I can’t concentrate; I’m studying for an
exam …; … I’ve got to study now).
185
Given a situation where the subject feels chilly in his/her academic advisor’s office,
two subjects said that they would rather not make any request regardless of feeling cold.
Those who did make a request also suggested that they would rather give some kind of
signal, such as shivering and shaking a little bit, pulling out a jacket, or even putting it
on and not saying anything. Another finding was that most subjects in this situation
tended to make their requests less direct. For instance, speaker H expressed his request
by saying that “It’s cold in here. Would you mind closing the window?” and speaker F
“It’s kind of cold here, isn’t it?” These observations seem consistent with Tanaka and
kawade’s claim that one tends to use polite strategies in situations where one perceives
himself as psychologically and/or socially distant from the addressee. In this situation,
the subjects might feel psychologically and/or socially distant from their advisor;
therefore, they tried to be polite by not saying anything or by making an indirect
request.
When given a situation where the subject’s boss says that the subject has to
reschedule his/her vacation, all the subjects responded readily. However, some of the
responses they made did not seem to be in the form of requests. Most subjects began
with some sort of apology or explanation. For instance, speaker B expressed his request
by saying that “I am sorry, but I’ve already made my plans …” and speaker I “… I had
the plane reservations and friends are waiting …”. One subject even offered an option
by saying that “But, Randy, I’ve already made plans … Can the other two guys split my
shift and work 12-hour shifts to cover my week?” Speaker E was particularly worthy of
mentioning here. It was widely expected that most people under the circumstances
would show some kind of respect when addressing such request because the addressee
was their boss. This, however, did not seem to be the case with speaker E because his
initial tone of voice was rather rude (i.e., Well, I earned this time off and going on
vacation (sic). Screw you! …). But it is doubted that someone would actually say this to
his boss in a real situation.
In a situation where two acquaintances are constantly talking during a class lecture,
all but one subject (speaker E) made a request. As speaker E points out, this situation is
dependent on whether or not he likes the lecture. If he likes the lecture, he will say
something (i.e., make a request). However, if he finds that their conversation is far more
interesting than the lecture, he will not say anything but join their talk instead. A typical
response to this situation usually began with the interrogative mood with a modal such
as “Could you please …?” followed by an excuse “I can’t hear …”
186
Journal of China University of Science and Technology Vol.61-2015.01
Given a situation where the subject’s friend forgets to write down the call number
and the title of the book on the check-out slip, the subjects reacted differently. Three
subjects used the declarative mood without a modal (i.e., You need to write down …)
and four used the imperative mood (i.e., Write down …). Some subjects said that they
might simply fill out the form and not ask their friend to write it down. Unlike in
Situation five, the tone of voice in this situation was rather informal. For instance,
speaker E: (Laugh) “You are not trying to steal the book, are you? (sic)” Speaker G:
(Laugh) “You dummy, you forgot …”. The researcher presumes that the reason for this
may be because most people perceive themselves as ‘closer’ to their friends than to their
academic advisor, and thus they tend to be less formal in their speech.
In Situation nine where the subject’s family doctor is wearing a large hat in a
movie theater, all the subjects tended to use a more polite approach. For instance, some
softened their requests by saying “excuse me” and “please” (i.e., … Excuse me, could
you please take off your hat …?). Some showed even more tact and politeness by adding
“would you mind …?” and “if you don’t mind” to their requests. For instance, speaker D:
“It’s a little hard for me to see. Would you mind taking off the hat?” Speaker I: “…
Could you take your hat off? I can’t see the movie, if you don’t mind.” Similar to
Situation two, some subjects said that if there were other seats available, they would just
move and not say anything.
In a situation where the subject is pestered by someone in the street, two subjects
(speakers C and J) said that they would try to run quickly or walk away and not say
anything to the person. Two did not make a request, but they offered some kind of
excuse. For instance, speaker G: “Listen, I’m waiting for someone and I don’t have a lot
of time to talk right now. So I’ll see you then.” Speaker H: “Well, I have to go in here
into a restaurant because I am waiting for my boyfriend. He’s going to meet me here.”
One subject who did initiate a request also gave an excuse and an option: “Would you
mind … I’m meeting some friends of mine in a few minutes and why don’t you go talk to
some of your own friends?”
Overall, the results of the present study showed that in some situational contexts, it
was possible that native English speakers would not attempt to make any request (i.e.,
Situations 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10). Under these circumstances, the researcher had to
prompt the subjects in order for them to perform some form of request action; thus, the
outcomes of this study may not be as accurate as those in natural conversations.
Nevertheless, the researcher believed that the findings of this study did provide some
187
valuable insights into the speech act of polite requests for action. First of all, the study
indicated that native English speakers, in most cases, were courteous in addressing their
requests. They tended to soften their requests or mitigate the imposition by adding
certain words or phrases, such as “excuse me”, “please”, “would you mind …?”, and “if
you don’t mind”. Second, native speakers’ use of politeness strategies were usually
varied according to addressees or situational factors. The requests they produced, in
some cases, were dependent on their social relationships with the hearer. For instance,
in Situations 3, 5, and 9 (i.e., making requests of a police patrol officer, an academic
advisor, and a family doctor), most subjects appeared to be a bit formal in their tone of
voice and rather polite in making their requests. On the other hand, in some situations
where a requester-requestee relationship is socially and/or psychologically close, as in
Situations 1, 4, and 8 (i.e., making requests of a family member, a roommate, and a
friend), the subjects tended to employ a less polite strategy (i.e., direct requests). Third,
it was found that many native English speakers participated in this study were inclined
to add some sort of excuse either prior to or subsequent their requests. The researcher
assumes it was because in certain situations, such as in Situations 1, 3, 4, 6, 7, and 9, it
seemed much more polite for the speaker to provide a reason or an explanation before
he/she actually asked the hearer for a favor. Another finding drawn from this study was
that there were no significant differences between men and women in the use of polite
request patterns. Lastly, in 54 out of the total numbers of 94 responses generated in the
present study, the interrogative mood with either a present or past tense modal was used,
which was to say that this type of request form was most frequently employed by native
English speakers.
ESL Textbooks on Polite Requests for Action
In this section, the researcher will evaluate seven ESL textbooks which use the
communicative approach, and in which the speech act of polite requests for action is
introduced. The seven textbooks are presented as follows:
1. World English 1
2. English Structure in Focus
3. Lado English Series 1
4. Express Ways: English for Communication 3
5. Step Ahead: An English Course
188
Journal of China University of Science and Technology Vol.61-2015.01
6. Improving Oral Communication: A Pronunciation Oral – Communication
Manual
7. Say It Naturally!
Among these, three ESL textbooks (1, 2, and 3) introduce the speech act of polite
requests without providing any context or situation. They simply give forms and
examples for learners to practice. The language they use does not seem authentic
because they introduce requests only through commands with a mere polite “please”.
These textbooks do not provide learners with various politeness strategies nor do they
present different linguistic structures to deal with formal and informal requests.
Non-native speakers of a low-level proficiency may get the impression that there is only
one request form in English. However, as the results of this study showed, people in a
real-life situation tend to use different request expressions in terms of their relationship
with the person they are addressing.
Textbook 4 introduces requests through model expressions, dialogues, and
illustrations. The language used in these model dialogues is close to natural
conversation. For example (p. 122):
A. Excuse me, but I was wondering if you’d be willing to switch seats with me.
B. Switch seats?
A. Uh … yes. If you’d be willing to, I’d really appreciate it.
B. All right.
A. Oh, thank you.
B. My pleasure.
This textbook provides learners with pictures of different contexts where they can
role play with their partner. This is a good reinforcing activity because teachers can
make learners aware of the various contexts and registers they are presented with and
encourage them to apply the model expressions to create dialogues in diverse contexts.
Textbook 5 introduces requests through model expressions as well, both formal and
informal. However, it is rather limited because it only gives three or four patterns for
each expression. Neither does it explain how to use these expressions in a socially
appropriate way. The textbook also provides three contextualized situations for learners
to create conversations. However, it is apparent that the scenario on page 19:
You’re at the movies. The woman in front of you is wearing a large hat. She is
also talking constantly to her date. What will you request?
does not always trigger the speech act of requests. As Situation nine in this study
189
indicated, some people may simply move if there are other seats available. In this case,
the context of situation offers people a possible alternative to not initiate a request.
Of all these textbooks, Improving Oral Communication and Say It Naturally are
regarded as relatively well-written books. In Improving Oral Communication, requests
are introduced through a number of dialogues. The language used in these dialogues is
also close to natural conversation. For example (p. 92):
A. Would you mind opening this window, please? It’s too hot in this room.
B. Not at all. The humidity is terrible today.
In the above example, speaker A initiates his request by using the interrogative mood
with a modal, and then followed by an excuse. This type of request form, as this study
showed, is most commonly employed by native speakers. In this textbook, learners are
instructed to analyze the dialogues and identify the types of relationship that exist
between the requester and requestee. What is more, the book discusses the tone of voice
used in making various requests and examines the degree of politeness by using
different linguistic expressions. At the end of each lesson, learners are given a series of
request situations, in which they are to role play along with their partner. This kind of
exercise is instrumental, particularly for learners at a higher proficiency level because it
helps to increase their awareness of different social contexts. By doing so, non-native
speakers can behave more appropriately and interact more successfully in the target
language.
Say It Naturally is also a good book for advanced learners. It begins with a brief
introduction that tells students how to differentiate between a command and a request,
between a direct request and a polite request, as well as how to make requests in a more
polite way. For example, by changing the tone of voice, or by saying “excuse me” or
“please”. An explanation of this kind is crucial for teaching the speech act of requests
because it helps students better understand how native speakers make requests in the
target culture. Moreover, this textbook encourages students to record requests produced
by native speakers and compares notes with those taken down by their peers. This is an
excellent exercise because learners can have a chance not only to observe but to learn
how native speakers construct their requests in real situations.
Implications for English language teaching
Related to the English language teaching, the present study may have some
190
Journal of China University of Science and Technology Vol.61-2015.01
important theoretical and pedagogical implications. Theoretically, this study provides
data on the request forms used by native English speakers. It was found that native
speakers, as a whole, were courteous in making their requests. To soften their requests,
they tended to employ a variety of politeness strategies, depending on their social
relationships with the addressee so as to ensure that their requests were to be granted. It
was revealed that the interrogative mood with either a present or past tense modal (i.e.,
Can/Could you …; Would you …; Would you mind …) was most frequently employed
by native speakers. Also, there was a general preference for the use of an excuse or an
explanation either prior to or subsequent their requests. The inclination towards such
request strategies by the native English speakers is viewed as profoundly connected
with the culture. In other words, it is not always the norms of the target language that
determine the choice of request strategies. Other important factors such as social
variables (i.e., power, status, distance and familiarity), contextual factors, as well as
cultural norms should also be taken into consideration.
On the pedagogical level, this study had the purpose of shedding light on a
common issue observed and experienced by many English language teachers: the lack
of pragmatic ability observed in EFL learners. First, the lack of pragmatic ability could
be the result of lack of authentic materials used in the classroom. The importance of the
use of authentic materials is that it provides the learners with real and spontaneous
speech to observe, register, analyze, and therefore apply when confronted with a real
native-like situation. Second, the fact that non-native speakers fail to utilize a variety of
politeness strategies suggests that learners, in many cases, have probably not been
exposed to them previously. As many language teachers know, part of the exposure
stems from the course books they use in class. It is often heard that these course books
do not provide learners with various politeness strategies, let alone advise them on how
these strategies should be used properly. As a result, non-native speakers of English are
incapable of adapting to different contexts, even when their grammatical proficiency is
highly advanced. Due to these reasons, English language course designers and teachers
should sensitize their students to the issue of pragmatic awareness, with special
emphasis on cross-cultural differences. More specifically, EFL learners should be made
aware of the pragmatic differences between L1 and L2. An appropriate Chinese request
scheme in a given situation might not be appropriate in English in the same situation. It
is suggested that this awareness can be achieved by the use of role-plays and
simulations in the class, in order to provide a real-like context for students to interact
191
and take part. Only then will non-native speakers feel at ease in the target language and
culture; only then will educators have the possibility of helping the students develop
their intercultural communicative competence.
Concluding Remarks and Future Research
The present study examined the types of polite strategies used by the native
English speakers in the speech act of requests for action. The results of this study were
consistent with other studies which found that native speakers most often adopt
moderate politeness strategies in the forms of “Can/Could you….?”, “Would you…?”
and “Would you mind…?”, and that the native speakers’ use of politeness strategies
were usually varied according to social and contextual factors as well as cultural norms.
Thus, teachers should bear in mind that the goal of second language teaching is to help
students not only acquire linguistic knowledge but communicative competence as well.
To be communicatively competent, students need to learn how to utilize the target
language appropriately in accordance with the situational constraints of a given
communication encounter. The researcher believes that the teaching of the pragmatic
content of a speech act, such as apologies, complaints, compliments, invitations, offers,
promises, refusals, requests, thanking and the like can help achieve this goal because its
emphasis is on the communication of ideas rather than on the production of the
linguistic forms.
The scope of the present study suggests several possibilities for future research. First,
this study was conducted with a small number of subjects (N=10). It is evident that the
results cannot be generalized to all native speakers of English. It would be interesting,
therefore, to conduct a study with a larger population of male and female subjects and
examine whether or not a larger population may shed light on the issue of gender
differences in the speech act of request behavior. Second, this study mainly focused on
the patterns of request strategies employed by native English speakers; hence, there was
no comparison in the request strategies, types, frequency, and linguistic devices between
native and non-native English speakers. Future research focusing on a contrastive study
of English and Chinese is recommended. Finally, other studies need to investigate
prosodic aspects of (im)politeness such as intonation or the low or high pitch of
(im)polite utterances in verbal interaction as possible indicators of (im)polite behavior.
192
Journal of China University of Science and Technology Vol.61-2015.01
Appendix A: ESL Textbooks
Davis, Polly. (1977). English Structure in Focus (Unit 6). Cambridge, UK: Newbury
House.
Handschuh, J., & Simounet de Geigel, A. (1985). Improving Oral Communication: A
Pronunciation Oral-Communication Manual (Chapter 10). Englewood Cliffs, NJ:
Prentice-Hall.
Jovanovich, P., & Morris, C. (1980). World English 1. NY: Hartcourt Brace Jovanovich,
Inc.
Lado, Robert. (1978). Lado English Series: A Complete Course in English as a Second
Language 1 (Unit 6). Regents Publishing Company.
Molinsky, S. J., & Bliss, B. (1986). Express Ways: English for Communication 3
(Chapter 12). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Walker, M. (1984). Step Ahead: An English Course (Chapter 19). Addison-Wesley
Publishing Company.
Wall, A. P. (1987). Say It Naturally: Verbal Strategies for Authentic Communication
(Chapter 9). Holt, Rinehart and Winston: Dryden Press.
References
Blum-Kulka, S. (1987). Indirectness and politeness in requests: same or different. 1987.
Journal of Pragmatics, 11, 131-146.
Blum-Kulka, S., House, J., & Kasper, G. (Eds.). (1989). Cross-cultural pragmatics:
Requests and apologies. Norwood, NJ: Ablex Publishing.
Brown, P., & Levinson, S. (1987). Politeness: Some universals in language use.
Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Carrel, P. L., & Konnker, B. H. (1981). Politeness: comparing native and non-native
judgments. Language Learning, 31, 17-29.
Clark, H. H., & Lucy, P. (1975). Understanding what is meant from what is said: a study
in conversationally conveyed requests. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal
Behavior, 14, 56-72.
Clark, H. H., & Schunk, D. H. (1980). Polite responses to polite requests. Cognition, 8,
193
111-143.
Fukushima, S. (2003). Requests and culture: politeness in British English and Japanese.
Bern, Switzerland: Peter Lang.
Koike, D. A. (1989). Requests and the Role of Deixis in Politeness. Journal of
Pragmatics, 13(2), 187-202.
Lakoff, R. (1973). The logic of politeness; or, minding your p’s and q’s. Chicago
Linguistics Society, 9, 292-305.
Leech, G. (1983). Principles of pragmatics. New York, NY: Longman.
Nelson, G. L., & Carson, J., Al Batal, Mahmoud, & El Bakary, Waguida. (2002).
Cross-cultural pragmatics: Strategy use in Egyptian Arabic and American English
Refusals. Applied Linguistics, 23 (2), 163-189.
Reiter, R. M. (2000). Linguistic politeness in Britain and Uruguay.
Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company.
Rinnert, C., & Kobayashi, H. (1999). Requestive Hints in Japanese and English. Journal
of Pragmatics, 31, 1173-1201.
Searle, J. (1969). Speech acts. London: Cambridge University Press.
Searle, J. (1975). Indirect speech acts. In P. Cole and J. Morgan (Eds.), Syntax and
semantics (pp. 59-85). New York, NY: Academic Press.
Sifianou, M. (1992). Politeness phenomena in England and Greece. A cross-cultural
perspective. Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press.
Tanaka, S., & Kawade, S. (1982). Politeness Strategies and second language acquisition.
Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 5, 18-33.
Weizman, E. (1989). Requestive hints. In S. Blum-Kulka, J. House, and G. Kasper
(Eds.), Cross-Cultural Pragmatics: Requests and Apologies. Norwood, NJ: Ablex
Publishing.
Wong, L., & Song, M. (2000). Cross cultural communication. Frankfurt am Main, NY:
Peter Lang.
Zhan, K. (1992). The strategies of politeness in the Chinese language. Berkeley, CA:
Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California.
Zhang, Y. (1995a). Strategies in Chinese requesting. In G. Kasper (Ed.) Pragmatics of
Chinese as native and target language (pp. 23-68). Honolulu, Hawaii: University of
Hawaii Press.
Zhang, Y. (1995b). Indirectness in Chinese requesting. In G. Kasper (Ed.) Pragmatics
of Chinese as native and target language (pp. 69-118). Honolulu, Hawaii:
194
Journal of China University of Science and Technology Vol.61-2015.01
University of Hawaii Press.
195