Requests
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Esther Usó-Juan
Abstract
This chapter focuses on the speech act of requesting, which has been considered to be a face-threatening act, since its performance requires the hearer to carry out an act for the requester’s sake (Brown & Levinson, 1987). Research on the use of requests suggests that many learners have problems in performing this speech act in sociopragmatically appropriate ways. In order to avoid social misunderstandings therefore, learners’ exposure to the way requests are routinised in real contexts is of utmost importance in second language instructional contexts. Based on research on interlanguage pragmatics, this chapter presents a learner-based instructional method designed to develop learners’ sociopragmatic ability to make requests and soften their impositive tone in English as the target language. This framework provides learners with ample opportunities to be exposed to as well as practise requests in a variety of communicative situations.
Abstract
This chapter focuses on the speech act of requesting, which has been considered to be a face-threatening act, since its performance requires the hearer to carry out an act for the requester’s sake (Brown & Levinson, 1987). Research on the use of requests suggests that many learners have problems in performing this speech act in sociopragmatically appropriate ways. In order to avoid social misunderstandings therefore, learners’ exposure to the way requests are routinised in real contexts is of utmost importance in second language instructional contexts. Based on research on interlanguage pragmatics, this chapter presents a learner-based instructional method designed to develop learners’ sociopragmatic ability to make requests and soften their impositive tone in English as the target language. This framework provides learners with ample opportunities to be exposed to as well as practise requests in a variety of communicative situations.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Acknowledgements ix
- List of contributors xi
- Preface xiii
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Section I. Theoretical groundings
- Pragmatics and speech act performance 3
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Section II. Empirical foundations
- The effect of individual-level variables on speech act performance 23
- Data collection methods in speech act performance 41
- Conversation analysis and speech act performance 57
- Culture and its effect on speech act performance 75
- Study abroad and its effect on speech act performance 91
- Speech act performance in workplace settings 109
- The effect of pragmatic instruction on speech act performance 127
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Section III. Methodological innovations
- Apologies 145
- Complaints 163
- Compliments and responses to compliments 179
- Disagreement 199
- Refusals 217
- Requests 237
- Suggestions 257
- Index 275
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Acknowledgements ix
- List of contributors xi
- Preface xiii
-
Section I. Theoretical groundings
- Pragmatics and speech act performance 3
-
Section II. Empirical foundations
- The effect of individual-level variables on speech act performance 23
- Data collection methods in speech act performance 41
- Conversation analysis and speech act performance 57
- Culture and its effect on speech act performance 75
- Study abroad and its effect on speech act performance 91
- Speech act performance in workplace settings 109
- The effect of pragmatic instruction on speech act performance 127
-
Section III. Methodological innovations
- Apologies 145
- Complaints 163
- Compliments and responses to compliments 179
- Disagreement 199
- Refusals 217
- Requests 237
- Suggestions 257
- Index 275
