In my professor’s eyes: Faculty and perceived impoliteness in student emails

Iftikhar Haider; Hamed Zandi

doi:10.1515/lpp-2022-0009

Article

In my professor’s eyes: Faculty and perceived impoliteness in student emails

Iftikhar Haider
Iftikhar Haider is an instructional Assistant Professor at Illinois State University, Normal, Illinois. He holds a Ph.D. in Applied Linguistics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His areas of interest are ESL writing, language assessment, second language pragmatics, and computer-mediated communication.
and Hamed Zandi
Hamed Zandi is an assistant professor at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Basic Sciences (IASBS), Zanjan, Iran. He holds a Ph.D. in Applied Linguistics with a focus on Teaching English as a Foreign Language from the University of Tehran. He is interested in the validity of teaching practices from the perspective of English as an International Language.

Published/Copyright: October 20, 2022

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From the journal Lodz Papers in Pragmatics Volume 18 Issue 1

Abstract

Impoliteness in student emails to faculty can have negative consequences. However, the nuances of perceived impoliteness by faculty with different language backgrounds have not been thoroughly studied in the literature. This paper explores how emails written by non-native English-speaking students are perceived impolite by faculty depending on social identity variables such as native speaker status, gender, and seniority. Participants (n = 152 faculty) read six emails and rated their perceptions of the emails on a questionnaire. The items on the questionnaire were about lack of face enhancement, use of face threat, acknowledgment of imposition, and not giving a choice in complying with requests. Results suggest that in their perceptions of the lack of face enhancement, senior faculty seemed to be more tolerant than their junior counterparts. Further, non-native speakers of English were found to be more tolerant of the lack of acknowledgment of imposition. However, no significant association was observed between the social identity of the faculty and their perception of face threat nor between social identity and giving a choice in complying with requests. The paper has implications for raising the awareness of the faculty and students about their potential biases in academic correspondence.

Keywords: email communication; impoliteness; perception; native speaker; gender; senior faculty

Language Teaching Group, Institute for Advanced Studies in Basic Sciences (IASBS) 444 Prof. Yousef Sobouti Blvd., Zanjan 45137-66731, Iran

About the authors

Iftikhar Haider

Iftikhar Haider is an instructional Assistant Professor at Illinois State University, Normal, Illinois. He holds a Ph.D. in Applied Linguistics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His areas of interest are ESL writing, language assessment, second language pragmatics, and computer-mediated communication.

Hamed Zandi

Hamed Zandi is an assistant professor at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Basic Sciences (IASBS), Zanjan, Iran. He holds a Ph.D. in Applied Linguistics with a focus on Teaching English as a Foreign Language from the University of Tehran. He is interested in the validity of teaching practices from the perspective of English as an International Language.

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Appendix 1

Perception questionnaire emails adopted and adapted from Economidou-Kogetsidis (2011: 3193–3215).

Email 1

Dear [First name],

Please e-mail the syllabus of the course ESL 501 taught during the second semester because I would like to familiarize myself with the content of its books.

Email 2

Subject: questionnaire ATTACHMENT

Please note what changes should be made.

Email 3

Subject:

hello..

My name is …..and I missed today’s lecture because I’m sick. . I would like to know about assignment

Email 4

Subject:

[First Name].

I collected some "chunks" about professional identity from the chapters that I read. I'm going to use them in my literature review that I will write tomorrow. Please take a look and see whether what I collected are necessary and important but also whether my references are ok...Shall I include a quotation as it is or shall I paraphrase? Please answer me as soon as possible.

Thanks

Email 5

Dr. [first name]

When can I come to your office to speak to you about a problem that I have? Thanks

Email 6

Subject: My assignment

Dr. [first name],

Please let me know if you received my assignment.

Published Online: 2022-10-20

Published in Print: 2022-05-25

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Articles in the same Issue

https://doi.org/10.1515/lpp-2022-0009

Keywords for this article

email communication; impoliteness; perception; native speaker; gender; senior faculty