scholarly journals Request strategies in email communication: The case of Indonesian graduate students in Japan

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 379-392
Author(s):  
Rezky Pratiwi Balman ◽  
Lee Sangmok ◽  
Narahiko Inoue
Keyword(s):  
Graduate Students ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
Speech Act ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
University Professors ◽  
Email Communication ◽  
Qualitative And Quantitative ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Request Strategies

While research in speech act has received a lot of academic attention, how requesting strategies are performed in email communication among non-native speakers in a broader cultural context remains scarcely sufficient. This study investigates requesting strategies employed by non-native English-speaking students (i.e. Indonesians) to non-native English university professors (i.e. Japanese) through the medium of email. It further sought whether the strategies performed are different between low and high imposition requests. This study applied both qualitative and quantitative approaches using a corpus of 56 authentic emails. The data were analyzed using a modified version of the request strategies framework of Blum-Kulka et al.’s (1989) Cross-Cultural Speech Act Realization Project (CCSARP) contrived by Economidou-Kogetsidis (2011). The results show a pattern of different requesting strategies emerged in accordance with the imposition of the requests the students make. While Conventionally Indirect Strategy in the form of query preparatory is found to be favored when writing low imposition email requests, this strategy is not appeared to be preferred when students write high imposition requests. Instead, Indonesian students tend to employ a great deal of Hint Strategies and let the professors interpret their intention in the emails.

scholarly journals Persian favor asking in formal and informal academic contexts

Pragmatics ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 315-344 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hooman Saeli
Keyword(s):  
Graduate Students ◽  
Speech Acts ◽  
Speech Act ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Main Thrust ◽  
Favor Asking ◽  
Sociocultural Interactions ◽  
Status Differences ◽  
Cultural Pragmatics

The investigation of speech acts has been of interest, especially in cross-cultural pragmatics, to many L1/L2 researchers for many years (Blum-Kulka, House and Kasper 1989). Favor-asking, as an important speech act, is centered upon having the other party of conversation do a specific act (Goldschmidt 1999). Although some research has been done on favor-asking in different contexts, studies on this speech act are still scarce, if any, in Persian settings. The main thrust of the current study was to investigate favor-asking among a sample of 20 native speakers of Persian (10 women and 10 men). The participants were selected from graduate students, since the employed oral DCT scenarios were designed to elicit favors asked from three different academic statuses: Higher, equal, and lower (professors, peers, and students, respectively). A total of 240 responses were then analyzed to identify the recurring patterns under the three open-coded categories of pre-favor, favor, and post-favor. The examination of the responses illustrated some variation triggered by gender and academic status differences, namely, the length of favors, frequency of some (sub)themes, and formality degree. Additionally, some relevant syntactic issues were explored (e.g. plural/singular pronouns/verbs), which contributed to the formality/informality of the favors, depending upon the contexts in which they were incorporated. Finally, some insights into Persian sociocultural interactions, favor-asking in particular, were provided.

scholarly journals Request Strategies in Everyday Interactions of Persian and English Speakers

SAGE Open ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 215824401667947
Author(s):  
Shiler Yazdanfar ◽  
Alireza Bonyadi
Keyword(s):  
Speech Acts ◽  
Speech Act ◽  
American English ◽  
Speech Act Theory ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
Cross Cultural Study ◽  
Daily Interactions ◽  
Request Strategies ◽  
American English Speakers

Cross-cultural studies of speech acts in different linguistic contexts might have interesting implications for language researchers and practitioners. Drawing on the Speech Act Theory, the present study aimed at conducting a comparative study of request speech act in Persian and English. Specifically, the study endeavored to explore the request strategies used in daily interactions of Persian and English speakers based on directness level and supportive moves. To this end, English and Persian TV series were observed and requestive utterances were transcribed. The utterances were then categorized based on Blum-Kulka and Olshtain’s Cross-Cultural Study of Speech Act Realization Pattern (CCSARP) for directness level and internal and external mitigation devises. According to the results, although speakers of both languages opted for the direct level as their most frequently used strategy in their daily interactions, the English speakers used more conventionally indirect strategies than the Persian speakers did, and the Persian speakers used more non-conventionally indirect strategies than the English speakers did. Furthermore, the analyzed data revealed the fact that American English speakers use more mitigation devices in their daily interactions with friends and family members than Persian speakers.

scholarly journals Interlanguage studies in a cross cultural context: the interlanguage of Spanish speakers (L1) in an approach English (L2), German (L3)

2009 ◽  
pp. 315
Author(s):  
Claudia Grümpel
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Spanish Speakers ◽  
Verb Movement ◽  
Children And Adolescent ◽  
Contrastive Study ◽  
Verb Placement ◽  
Grammar Analysis

This paper focuses on the acquisition of word order in German by adult native speakers of Spanish in an institutional context (longitudinal study) and a contrastive study on children and adolescent acquisition using transversal tests. The theoretical framework is based on generative grammar analysis proposed for verb placement in German and a review of recent acquisition studies. Analyses of verb movement account for an underlying subject-verb-object order for all languages proposed by Zwart (1993, 1997) based on parallel works by Kayne (1993, 1994) and Chomsky (1993, 1995).

Lexical-Grammatical Pragmatic Indicators

1987 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 155-170 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shoshana Blum-Kulka ◽  
Edward A. Levenston
Keyword(s):  
Speech Act ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Native Speaker ◽  
Analytical Framework ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Interlanguage Pragmatics ◽  
Data Sets ◽  
Pragmatic Failure ◽  
The Cross ◽  
The Difference

Our main aim in this paper is to explore the interlanguage pragmatics of learners of Hebrew and English. We focus on the use of pragmatic indicators, both lexical (please/bevaqaŝa; perhaps/ulay) and grammatical (e.g., the difference between could I borrow and could you lend), with particular reference to deviations from native-speaker norms in the speech of non-native speakers. The analysis follows the analytical framework developed for the Cross-Cultural Speech Act Realization Project (CCSARP). Data from two sets are analyzed: (a) native and non-native Hebrew, and (b) native and non-native English (with occasional reference to other CCSARP data sets). The results suggest that non-native speakers' misuse of pragmatic indicators can have serious interactional consequences, ranging from inappropriateness to pragmatic failure.

scholarly journals A Cross-cultural Study of The Speech Act of Compliments in American English and Yemeni Arabic

2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Najeeb Taher Almansoob ◽  
Yasser Alrefaee ◽  
K.S Patil
Keyword(s):  
Speech Act ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
American English ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Cultural Perspective ◽  
Two Cultures ◽  
Cross Cultural Study ◽  
The Two Cultures ◽  
Completion Test ◽  
Frequency Counts

Based on a cross-cultural perspective, the current study aims to compare the realization of the speech act of compliments among Yemeni Arabic native speakers (YANSs) and American English native speakers (AENSs). Samples of 30 participants of Americans and 30 other participants of Yemenis were involved in the study. The data were collected through a Discourse Completion Test (DCT) consisting of six hypothetical compliment scenarios. The corpus collected for analysis was 380 Arabic compliment semantic formulas and 338 English compliment semantic formulas. Data were analyzed in terms of frequency counts of 20 strategies and order of semantic formulas in the speakers' response utterances. The findings showed that there are some pragmatic similarities and differences between the two native groups. Some strategies seemed to be universal across the two cultures like Admiration whereas strategies of Exaggeration, Gratitude to God and Metaphor are culturally specific to Arabic. The findings also revealed that most of the speakers' utterances were in the two-fold order of semantic formulas. Moreover, the findings showed that American compliments were steady and formulaic in nature while Arabic Compliments were various in formulas and long.

scholarly journals FUNCTIONS OF THE PRAGMATIC MARKER LIKE IN ENGLISH AND HOW MACEDONIAN LEARNERS VIEW IT

2019 ◽  
Vol 34 (6) ◽  
pp. 1627-1632
Author(s):  
Marija Kusevska ◽  
Biljana Ivanovska
Keyword(s):  
High School ◽  
English Language ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Interlanguage Pragmatics ◽  
Pragmatic Markers ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Communication Needs ◽  
New Research

The study presented in this paper is a part of the research project “Developing cross-cultural and interlanguage pragmatics research and its practical implications” currently being implemented at Goce Delchev University in Shtip, Republic of North Macedonia. This project was partly motivated by the small number of studies in Macedonia on interlanguage pragmatics as well as by the growing need for development of new research methods. In compliance with the above, the objectives of thе project are as follows: 1. increase of the pool of cross-cultural, intercultural, and interlanguage pragmatics studies; 2. development of modern methods for data collection and analysis; and 3. linking empirical research with educational and communication needs in the society. This paper in particular investigates the use of the pragmatic marker like by Macedonian learners of English. Two research questions have been posed: 1. What functions do MLE of English associate with like? and 2. How do they view speakers who use it? The standard for comparison for the first question is the native speakers’ usage of like as described in other studies. The second question was answered on the basis of an attitudinal questionnaire. The attitudinal questionnaire asked the participants to express their perception of like with respect to the age and gender of the speakers, formality of the situation, grammaticality, acceptability, distractiveness, and politeness of the utterances. They also rated users for fluency and their level of English. The participants were also asked to explain if they use like in a similar way and for what purposes as well as how they learned it. The attitudinal survey was adapted from Dailey-O'Cain (2000). The examples, however, are from my data. The participants of this study were 40 students of English enrolled at the Department of English language at Goce Delchev University, Shtip, age 19 to 25. Most of them were at B2, C1 or C2 level of English. All participants learned English for at least five years in primary school and four years at high school, which means they had English as a subject up to their graduation from high school. Very few of the students had been to an English speaking country. The findings of this investigation show that the pragmatic marker like is salient for the learners and that they use it in a similar way as native speakers. However, it is stigmatized and most learners view it negatively. Additionally, other factors that influence its usage were identified. Further research may investigate whether the use of like is influenced by the proficiency levels of English and whether a longer stay in an English speaking country influences the use of like. It would be also useful to investigate other pragmatic markers and see how they are used in learner English.

scholarly journals Influence of Social Power and Distance on Request Strategies in Saudi Arabic

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 95
Author(s):  
Jalal Almathkuri
Keyword(s):  
Saudi Arabia ◽  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Social Power ◽  
Speech Act ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Completion Task ◽  
Request Strategies ◽  
Saudi Arabic ◽  
The Impact

The aim of this study is to investigate the impact of social power and distance on the strategies involved in performing the speech act of request by native speakers of Saudi Arabic. The participants of this study are 26 males and 8 females; all are undergraduate students enrolled in different disciplines at Taif University, Saudi Arabia. Data for this study was collected through the use of a Discourse Completion Task (DCT). The results revealed that the direct strategy is the most preferred strategy employed in making requests by Saudi Arabic native speakers and the nonconventional indirect strategy is the least strategy. It is hoped that this study will facilitate the acquisition of Saudi Arabic pragmatics by non-native speakers in a way to eliminate the miscommunications they may encounter in relation to the sociocultural norms. 

scholarly journals Language Ideology in Cross-Cultural Communication

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amelia Yanka ◽  
Ed Rex
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Context ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Speech Community ◽  
Social Judgments ◽  
External Observer ◽  
Franz Boas ◽  
Language And Culture ◽  
Cross Cultural Communication ◽  
Linguistic Model

According to Franz Boas, the socio-cultural context within which a speech community thrives and upon which its collective preferences and linguistic prejudices are established should be considered only as a "secondary rationalization" and should be relegated below the more important aspect of studying the inherent dynamics of the language itself. In the process, Boas developed an alternative linguistic model where race, language, and culture may be separated from-and can function independently of-each other. This model allows an external observer to develop a keen understanding of any given language without the need to solicit value-laden information-such as cultural, religious, or social judgments-from native speakers. Thus, secondary rationalizations, while important, may be bypassed in any attempt of a non-native linguist to understand and reconstruct a given language

scholarly journals Polite Requests of Indonesian Learners of FLE and French Native Speakers: An Interlanguage Study

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 216-226
Author(s):  
Elvi Syahrin ◽  
Tengku Silvana Sinar ◽  
Eddy Setia ◽  
Nurlela Nurlela
Keyword(s):  
Social Relationship ◽  
Speech Act ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Native Speaker ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Baseline Data ◽  
Written Discourse ◽  
Advanced Level ◽  
Completion Test ◽  
The Cross

This study anchored in the field of Interlanguage Pragmatic (ILP). The approach taken is speech act based. The investigation focuses on realization of polite requests produced by Indonesian learners of Français langue étrangère (FLE) (henceforth abbreviated as ILF) and native speakers of French (henceforth abbreviated as NSF). The model used for the investigation is the Cross-Cultural Speech Act Realization Project (CCSARP) model formulated by Blum-Kulka et al. (1989), modified by Warga (2005) and Bae (2012). The model applied to the analysis of the data is based on three politeness systems of social relationship between speaker and addressee proposed by Scollon and Scollon (2001). Data was be collected by using Written Discourse Completion Test (WDCT). Six out of twelve request situations formulated by Reiter (2000) categorized into each politeness system were selected to be analyzed. The WDCT were tested to 20 ILF; 1 learner of Universitas Negeri Medan and 19 learners of Universitas Negeri Jakarta. The 20 participants are those who are certified of Diplôme d'études en langue française (DELF) of B2 level (advanced level). As the baseline data of the study, the e-mailed data of 20 NSF were also collected. The study found that there is a preference of Indonesian learners of FLE and native speaker of French to use Conventional Indirect strategy in their requests. This strategy, even realized in slightly different number of use, was highly used and considered to be the most polite request by the two groups.

scholarly journals On Gender and Apology Strategies: The Case of Arabic

2015 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 224-265 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mustafa Ali Harb
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Direct Contact ◽  
Speech Act ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
General Terms ◽  
Completion Task ◽  
Males And Females ◽  
And Gender

Abstract The purpose of this study is to see whether gender plays a role in the apology strategies employed by native speakers of Arabic, i.e., how Arab males and females express apologies in different situations. Data necessary for this study were collected via a Discourse Completion Task (DCT) questionnaire, incorporating 10 real-life scenarios in the form of short descriptive statements. In accordance with the Cross-Cultural Speech Act Realisation Patterns, participants’ responses(n = 20) were analysed and further classified into five distinct apology strategies: (Illocutionary Force Indicating Device (IFID), Responsibility (RESP), Explanation (EXPL), Repair (REPR), and Forbearance (FORB)). The researcher initially hypothesised that apology strategies employed by participants would exhibit more differences than similarities among native speakers of Arabic. Contrary to previously conducted research on this subject (i.e., attesting more differences), the data analysed (n = 350 apology exchanges) revealed more similarities than differences regardless of gender. In fact, no statistically significant differences were found. In addition to contributing to the current theoretical debate on gender and gender-related topics, the results of this study may entail pedagogical implications for those in direct contact with Arab learners of English as a Second Language or with speakers of Arabic in general terms.

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