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This article was downloaded by: [Computing & Library Services, University of Huddersfield] On: 03 October 2014, At: 23:29 Publisher: Routledge Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK Language, Culture and Curriculum Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rlcc20 Written Requests in Emails Sent by Adult Chinese Learners of English Cynthia F.K. Lee Published online: 23 Apr 2010. To cite this article: Cynthia F.K. Lee (2004) Written Requests in Emails Sent by Adult Chinese Learners of English, Language, Culture and Curriculum, 17:1, 58-72, DOI: 10.1080/07908310408666682 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/07908310408666682 PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the “Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinions and views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors, and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Content should not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sources of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arising out of the use of the Content. This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub- licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http:// www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions

Written Requests in Emails Sent by Adult Chinese Learners of English

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This article was downloaded by: [Computing & Library Services, University ofHuddersfield]On: 03 October 2014, At: 23:29Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK

Language, Culture and CurriculumPublication details, including instructions for authors andsubscription information:http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rlcc20

Written Requests in Emails Sent byAdult Chinese Learners of EnglishCynthia F.K. LeePublished online: 23 Apr 2010.

To cite this article: Cynthia F.K. Lee (2004) Written Requests in Emails Sent by AdultChinese Learners of English, Language, Culture and Curriculum, 17:1, 58-72, DOI:10.1080/07908310408666682

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/07908310408666682

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information(the “Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor& Francis, our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warrantieswhatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purposeof the Content. Any opinions and views expressed in this publication are theopinions and views of the authors, and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor& Francis. The accuracy of the Content should not be relied upon and should beindependently verified with primary sources of information. Taylor and Francisshall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims, proceedings, demands, costs,expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever or howsoever caused arisingdirectly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arising out of the use ofthe Content.

This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes.Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expresslyforbidden. Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions

Written Requests in Emails Sent by AdultChinese Learners of English

Cynthia F.K. LeeLanguage Centre, Hong Kong Baptist University, Kowloon Tong, Hong Kong

The paper reports the results of a naturalistic enquiry into written request strategiesin emails sent by Chinese learners of English to their teachers. A corpus of 600 emailswas collected in the course of an academic year. CCARP (Cross-Cultural Speech-ActRealisation Project) segmentation and coding was used to analyse the requests con-tained in the messages. Results confirm some findings of research on request stra-tegies in the Chinese language. First, the learners used direct requests whencommunicating with their teachers. Second, they used linguistic politeness devicesthat conform to the traditional teacher–student hierarchical relationship in Chineseculture. However, they tended to use requestive hints frequently. The implicationsof the findings for research on cross-cultural written communication are discussed.

Keywords: pragmatics, cross-cultural, email requests, Chinese learners of English

Request as a Face-threatening ActThe speech act of making a request is interesting and important in the study

of second and foreign language acquisition. Brown and Levinson (1987) clas-sify requests as a speech act that threatens the negative face want of a hearer.Requests can lead to refusal, with important negative implications for bothparties. Negative face, in Brown and Levinson’s words, is ‘the want of every‘‘important adult member’’ that his actions be unimpeded by others’ (1987:62). Since politeness is basic and essential in communication in many cultures,people are inclined to use redressive actions, for instance, the negative polite-ness strategy of being indirect, to avoid the face-threatening act or minimisingthe feeling of being imposed on. Brown and Levinson (1987) argue that in oneculture, a speaker may tend to use redressive actions whenever a speech actthreatens the negative face of a hearer. In another culture, a speaker maynot blatantly use redressive actions because he or she may have to considersome social factors such as relationship and distance with a hearer. Thelinguistic choice of being polite is usually informed by the speaker’s culturalnorms and knowledge, and it varies from culture to culture. The complicatedinterplay of these interpersonal and cultural factors has attracted muchattention in the study of requests.

Research on RequestEarlier findings seem to indicate that not only cross-cultural differences exist

but also similarities in the pragmatics of requests in some aspects. For instance,both Greeks and Chinese tend to prefer direct requests through the use ofimperatives and impositives1 respectively, to show intimacy (Sinfanou,

0790-8318/04/01 058-15 $20.00/0 # 2004 C.F.K. LeeLANGUAGE, CULTURE AND CURRICULUM Vol. 17, No. 1, 2004

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1992), clarity, explicitness and directness (Wong, 2000), both of which arespecific cultural features and reflect a degree of traditional cultural influence.

Blum-Kulka et al. (1989: 11) examined similarities and differences in therealisation patterns of apologies and requests in different languages andbetween native and non-native speakers of a given language, as revealed ina discourse-completion test. The test consisted of a number of situationsdesigned to elicit requests and apologies. The elicited speech acts were cate-gorised for further analyses following the prescribed coding manual (Blum-Kulka et al., 1989: 273–294). The requests elicited consisted mainly of a ‘HeadAct’ preceded by an ‘Alerter’, and were of three kinds, when considered interms of strategies and linguistic devices: conventional direct requests, con-ventional indirect requests, and requestive hints. (See Appendix 1 for an expla-nation of these speech-acts.) Adopting the discourse completion test forrequests developed by CCARP, Blum-Kulka (1989) found that conventional in-directness was universally manifested in requests across English, French,Hebrew and Spanish. However, cross-cultural and norm variations still domi-nated how and what to say in the content of a request. Similarly, Weizman(1989), who adapted the coding categories of CCARP for requests, studiedrequestive hints across English, French and Hebrew. He found a relativelylow frequency of hints in his data (less than 10% of requests), and the subjectswho chose to use hints preferred to use ‘stating potential grounders’, that is,to make explicit mention of supporting facts and reasons.

Sifianou (1992) studied requests in Greek and English and found thatGreeks, who value intimacy, used subjunctive and imperative constructionfor requests, and tended to give reasons for the requests more frequently inGreek than in English. Rinnert and Kobayashi (1999), who followedWeizman’s framework, surveyed the perceived relationship between reques-tive hints and politeness in Japanese and English by the native speakers ofthe two languages. They found that hints made up about 40% of the Japaneseand English requests, in contrast to the Figure of 10% given by Weizman(1989). According to Rinnert and Kobayashi (1999), face-to-face interactionin a university office, of the kind used in the study, may be conducive tothe use of requestive hints, which could be more easily interpreted as requestsin this setting. In addition, they found that Japanese hints were generally moreopaque than English hints. They attributed this to cultural and contextualforces and suggested further exploring the use of requestive hints cross-culturally.

In the research on requests by Chinese2, Wong (2000) found from question-naires and interviews that both People’s Republic of China (PRC) andnon-PRC Chinese overwhelmingly preferred the use of impositives to conven-tionally indirect requests and requestive hints. The use of the three strategies,however, varied with power and social relationship between the speaker andthe hearer. Zhan (1992) explored the linguistic politeness strategies in theChinese language by analysing a few Chinese classical books and drew similarconclusions. He stated that a Chinese speaker may not use negative politenessor indirect requests if he or she considers the size of a face-threatening act to besmall or the distance with the hearer short. Making a request is perhaps morecomplex in Asian cultures that emphasise hierarchy, such as the culture of

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China, which has a fixed set of traditional values and behaviours that can beexpected to reveal themselves in interpersonal communication. It is to thisissue that the review turns next.

Requests in Chinese CultureChinese culture values harmonious relationships among people of different

social status. Chinese tend to be kind, polite, optimistic and compassionatetowards the elderly in the family and to the important, senior and powerfulpeople in the academic and business contexts. Young people, subordinatesand students are expected to respect or show politeness when interacting witholder people, bosses and teachers (see also Bond, 1991: 28–31; Gu, 1990). Thesevalues and beliefs are widely shared in Chinese communities in the PRC andoverseas, though the degree may vary in practice. Demonstrating politeness,in Zhan’s view (1992), is attributable to the concepts of the code of conductWenroudunhou (one should hold a moderate attitude to handling work andother people) and the doctrine of the mean zhongyongzhido (one should takea middle course in dealing with work and other people):

Maybe we can say to some extent the politeness strategies of Chineseare a projection of Chinese culture and the psychological features ofthe Chinese people. (Zhan, 1992: 7)

In making requests in Chinese, Wong (2000) found that both PRC and non-PRC respondents overwhelmingly preferred to make direct on-recordrequests, using minimum intensification (e.g. adverbials) and more internalmodification (e.g. use of syntactic downgraders, politeness markers, hedging,etc.). Similar to Greeks, both groups of Chinese generally preferred imposi-tives, followed by conventionally indirect strategy and requestive hints. Directquestions were used for request for information. When using conventionallyindirect strategies in an asymmetrical situation in the academic context, suchas asking the teacher for the results of a class test and asking a superior towrite a reference, Non-PRC respondents preferred to use the sub-strategy ofquery-preparatory. The query-preparatory strategy is an enquiry about thehearer’s ability or willingness to perform the request. Thus linguistic expres-sions such as the following are frequently used.

keyi. . .ma? Or keyi bu keyi3 (Is that fine with you?)4

Neng bu neng (Are you able to . . .?)

Requestive hints were ranked low and were not the norm practised by bothgroups of respondents. The respondents also used combined strategies to meetdifferent power status and social distance between the hearer and the speaker.The reason is that social and contextual factors, as well as an idiosyncratic styleof speaking, also help shape request strategy. Contrary to Brown andLevinson’s idea that a speaker will use an indirect negative politeness strategyto avoid and minimise the imposition of a request, Zhan (1992) states that aChinese speaker may prefer a direct request strategy with a strong demanding

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tone if he or she thinks that the size of the face-threatening act is small and hisor her relationship with the hearer is close or intimate. For instance, it iscommon to use kinship terms such as laosiong (dear elder brother), jiejie=gege(elder sister=brother), yiyi (auntie) etc. when addressing neighbours. AChinese speaker may use some modal verbs such as yidie (must, have to),yinghai (should=ought to) for a request with people he or she is on familiarterms with. The speaker, in this light, assumes cooperation from the hearerand shows optimism in conversation.

If a speaker thinks the face-threatening act is minor and=or the addresseeis his=her family member, friend or acquaintance, he=she need not usenegative politeness. For example, when a speaker requests a familymember, friend or acquaintance to pass the salt to him=her, usuallyhe=she does not use any negative politeness strategy; otherwise, it wouldlook as if the intention was to set up some distance between them. (Zhan,1992: 9)

However, a Chinese speaker may hedge or speak in a softer tone by usingthe pivotal construction with the verb qing (ask, request) for requests to a per-son with more power or in a senior position such as students to teachers(Zhan, 1992: 49). Qing is usually translated as ‘please’ or ‘ask’ or ‘request’.Meanwhile, the speaker may also employ some mild want impositives suchas wo xiang and reduplicated verb kankan. For instance:

Wang laoshi, wo xiang qing nin bang wo kankan zhe pian wenzhang.(Teacher Wang, I would like to [was wondering= thinking]5 ask you to [ifyou could] proofread this article for me.)

Or

Wang laoshi, qing bang wo kankan zhe pian wenzhang.(Teacher Wang, please help me proofread this article.)

Politeness in Chinese culture, in Gu’s (1990) view, is normative rather than in-strumental, particularly in a hierarchical situation. Hierarchy leads to polite-ness, and politeness should not be breached in interactions. Being polite toother people is also a means of demonstrating self-politeness (Chen, 2001) ininterpersonal and intercultural communication.

Even if a direct request is made in a hierarchical situation, Chinese tend toinvolve an objective condition (Zhan, 1992). The objective condition can be afact, a reason or a general statement. The objective condition is very similarto the ‘potential grounds’ category in CCARP (1989). For instance, a Chinesestudent may say:

I will be giving my presentation next week, but I am afraid that I do nothave enough time to do the preparation. I would like to know if it is poss-ible to postpone my presentation to the week after next?6

The behaviour is similar to that of Greeks described in Sifanou’s work(Sifanou, 1992: 99). The Greeks also give reasons for the requests more

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frequently than in English. Wong’s questionnaire and interview results alsoprovide similar qualitative and statistical evidence.

The StudyUp to now, data on request strategies in English made by Chinese speakers

are primarily collected through discourse-completion tests, interviews and theanalysis of Chinese texts obtained by these means in a variety of situations.Limited research on requests has been conducted in a natural spontaneouscontext. This study attempted to fill the gaps by investigating request strate-gies in emails written by adult Chinese learners of English to their Chinese-speaking English teachers (CEST) and native English-speaking teachers(NEST) in an academic setting, using a naturalistic enquiry approach.

The subjects in the study are Chinese learners of English (CLE) in HongKong. They were studying at the tertiary level, communicating through theuniversity email system with their English teachers, who were either nativeChinese speakers or native English speakers. Hong Kong, which was underBritish rule for nearly 100 years, was returned to the People’s Republic ofChina in 1997. Hong Kong has more exposure to Western culture than otherparts of China, but traditional Chinese values and beliefs are practised theretoo, though in a setting that is historically unique.

The written email requests were provided by the two groups of teacherswithin one academic year. The email requests provide real data and evidencefor investigating: (1) interlanguage and cross-cultural variations; and (2)linguistic choice and strategies for the speech act of request. In short, the studyattempted to address three main aims and had four related research questionson the agenda:

Aims

(1) Compare and contrast the use of requests in English and Chinese, basedon the collected English requestive emails and recent research findings inthe Chinese language (interlanguage comparison).

(2) Compare and contrast the use of request in English by Chinese learners ofEnglish to two cultural groups: Chinese-speaking English teachers andnative English-speaking teachers (cross-cultural comparison).

(3) Investigate how linguistic choice and strategies for the speech act ofrequest reflect cultural beliefs and values, particularly in the context ofHong Kong.

The research questions we hoped to answer were:

(1) What kinds of requestive email are sent by the CLE in the academiccontext?

(2) What is the structure or segmentation of a request made by the CLE whenthey perform the speech act to: (i) CSET, and (ii) NEST?

(3) What are the linguistic strategies made by the CLE when they performthe speech act of request to: (i) CSET, and (ii) NEST?

(4) What are the differences in the structure and the linguistic strategies ofrequests used by the CLE between the CSET and the NEST?

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Methodology

A corpus of 600 emails was collected from three native English speakers andthree Chinese speakers of English7, in an academic context, from September2001 to June 2002. Of the 600 emails, 56 (about 18.67%) were requestiveemails – 33 (58.93%) from the Chinese-speaking English teachers and 23(41.07%) from native English-speaking teachers. The emails were sent by adultCLE to their teachers in a university of Hong Kong. CCARP segmentation andcoding strategies were used to analyse and quantify the discourse of requests(for details, please refer to Appendix 1).

Findings

The emailsRequestive emails sent by students to their teachers fall into three broad

categories:

(1) Requesting assistance (e.g. in correcting written work, borrowing tapes orbooks, writing a reference letter etc.);

(2) Requesting an appointment; and(3) Requesting information about assignments (e.g. possibility of submitting

an assignment late, changing the research topic, etc.).

Table 1 summarises the three categories and the sub-categories of the CLErequestive emails for the CEST and the NEST. The three most popular reques-tive emails were: requesting proofreading or correcting writing (35.71%),requesting an appointment (10.71%) and asking for the possibility of postpon-ing an assignment or presentation (8.93%). The average length of the CLErequests to the CSET and the NEST was 26 and 28 words respectively.

Request structure: When the teacher was Chinese

Looking first at the structure and segmentation of a request made by Chi-nese learners of English to Chinese-speaking English teachers (CSET), we findthat over 90% of the requests had an alerter and a request move after the salu-tation. In the salutation, nearly 90% addressed the teachers by their firstnames with the word ‘Dear’ . The most frequently used alerter in the HeadAct was the pronoun ‘I’ followed by a request move. Another alerter wasthe word ‘here’ and the phrase ‘I am . . .’ to state the sender’s identity. Forinstance,

I am Xxx, thank you to proofread my letter and I have changed it. May Iask you to look at it again (identity)?I hope you will have time to take a look at my resume (pronoun ‘I’ ).Here, I would like to seek your permission in allowing me to record yourlectures (the word ‘here’ ).

Request structure: When the teacher was English

The average length of the CLE’s requests to the NEST was 28.03 words,slightly longer than that to the CSET. Fifty percent of the requests had an aler-ter in the Head Act and then a request move. A range of alerters such as the

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pronoun ‘I’, the phrases ‘Here=It is . . .’ and ‘I am. . .’ to state the sender’sidentity were used. For instance:

I am a year-3 student. . .(identity).I am Xxx (identity).Here is my essay (the phrase ‘here is’).It is my first draft, please help me to correct it (the phrase of ‘it is’).

Request strategies: When the teacher was Chinese

It was found that the CLE were inclined to use conventional direct strategiesand requestive hints, as well as syntactic downgraders to soften the tone ofrequests. The total frequency rates of the conventional direct strategies andrequestive hints were 32 (64%) and 17 (34%). The data showed that onlyone conventionally indirect strategy, suggestory formula (2%), was identified.For the conventionally direct strategies, the CLE used a range of linguisticexpressions such as ‘May I’, ‘Is it possible to. . .?’, etc. to make the requests.The four linguistic devices that outnumbered the others were: ‘Is it possibleto. . .?’, ‘I would like to ask. . .?’, ‘I hope you. . .’, ‘Please help. . .’. Theselinguistic devices downgraded the tone of the requests. Some examples ofrequest strategies are quoted below.

Conventionally indirect strategiesShall I change my question?

Conventionally direct strategiesPreparatory:May I request you take a look and proofread it for me?Can I borrow the videotape?Would you like to be one of the referees for me?I was wondering if you could kindly bring a copy tomorrow?Could you mark this passage instead of the previous one, which I sent toyou before?Is it possible if I come to your office and seek your advice?

Hedged performativeI would like to ask your permission to change the schedule.I hope=Hope you can help me correct the writing.

Explicit performativePlease help me proofread once.

The majority of requestive hints stated a potential grounder before a request.A potential grounder is a fact, problem or background information (objectivecondition, in Zhan’s words). A few of them made a request followed by apotential grounder.

Requestive hints

Potential grounder and requestI’m now working on my dissertation proposal. I would like to study howcooperative learning can enhance students’ motivation and learningstrategies (in particular, social strategies) in primary English classrooms

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(potential grounder). Is it possible for me to discuss this in further detailwith you on 4=12 or 15=12 after 4:30 p.m. (request)?

Request and potential grounderI am a year-3 student. I hope you can help me to correct my cover letter(request) as soon as possible because the deadline for submission is Oct 3(potential grounder).

Table 2 shows the results.

Request strategies: When the teacher was English

Similar to the results of (i), the CLE tended to use conventionally direct stra-tegies, requestive hints, and syntactic downgraders. The total frequency ratesof the conventional direct strategies and requestive hints were 28 (60.9%) and18 (39.1%). The data showed that no conventionally indirect strategy wasidentified. For the conventionally direct strategies, the CLE also used a rangeof linguistic expressions. The linguistic device ‘Would you. . .?’ outnumberedthe others. The other frequently used devices include ‘Could you. . .?’, ‘Iwould like to. . .’ and ‘Please . . .’. The use of ‘please’ for the NEST was slightlylower than that for the CEST (3 vs 8 times). All these, except ‘please’ , are syn-tactic downgraders that soften the tone of a request. However, three linguistic

Table 2 Request strategies with Chinese teachers

Request strategies Frequency Total frequency

1. Conventionally indirect strategies

Suggestory formula 1 (2%) 1 (2%)

2. Conventionally direct strategies

2.1 Preparatory

May I 3 (6%)

Can I 2 (4%)

Would you 3 (6%)

I was wondering if 1 (2%)

Could you 2 (4%)

Is it possible 5 (10%)

2.2 Hedged perfomative

I would like to 5 (10%)

I hope you=Hope you can=would 3 (6%)

2.3 Explicit performative

Please write=do 8 (16%) 32 (64%)

3. Requestive hints

3.1 Potential grounder þ request 14 (28%)

3.2 Request þ potential grounder 3 (6%) 17 (34%)

Total number of emails ¼ 33

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devices, ‘Can I’, ‘I was wondering if. . .’ and ‘Hope you can=would . . .’ werenot found in the data.

For requestive hints, majority students also presented a potential grounderfirst, followed by a request. A few students made a request and then a poten-tial grounder, or made a request followed by a potential grounder and thesame request in another linguistic way.

We are thinking of our career (potential grounder). Xx and I would like toask if you can help us write a recommendation letter (request). It may justbe a general letter (potential grounder).I request a chance to change my essay topic and presentation (request). Itis because I would like to share my feelings about my major subject in theuniversity (potential grounder).May I change to Monday class Group 1 next two weeks (request), as Ihave to attend a forum from 2:30–4:30 p.m. next Tuesday (potential groun-der). Will you please let me know if I can change the class next two weeks(request)?

Table 3 summarises the results.

Table 3 Request strategies with native speakers of English

Request strategies Frequency Total frequency

1. Conventionally indirect strategies

Suggestory formula 0 (0%) 0 (0%)

2. Conventionally direct strategies

2.1 Preparatory

May I 2 (4.3%)

Can I 0 (0%)

Would you 15 (32.6%)

I was wondering if 0 (0%)

Could you 3 (6.5%)

Is it possible 1 (2.2%)

2.2 Hedged perfomative

I would like to . . . 4 (8.7%)

I hope you= Hope you can=would 0 (0%)

2.3 Explicit performative

Please write=do 3 (6.5%) 28 (60.9%)

3. Requestive hints

3.1 Potential grounder þ request 11 (23.9%)

3.2 Potential grounder þ request þ potential grounder 1 (2.2%)

3.3 Request þ potential grounder 3 (6.5%)

3.4 Request þ potential grounder þ request 3 (6.5%) 18 (39.1%)

Total number of emails ¼ 23

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Cultural differences

The results showed that the students were consistent in the use of conven-tionally direct strategies and requestive hints for requests with both Chineseand English teachers. However, they used more hedged and explicitperformatives to Chinese than to English teachers. They used the expression‘Is it possible’ for Chinese teachers, but ‘Would you’ for English teachers. Add-ing up all sub-categories of preparatory under conventionally direct strategiesfor both Chinese and English teachers, the total frequency outnumbered thatof hedged and explicit performatives. It seems to show that students chooseto be direct, prepare the hearer for the request and soften the tone by usingsome syntactic downgraders. It was also common for students to present apotential grounder before a request (despite the fact that they sometimesdid the reverse) to both groups of teachers.

Students used a range of linguistic structures (e.g. upgraders, intensifiersand downgraders) to soften or intensify the demand. The frequency rate ofeach linguistic structure is listed below (Table 4).

Discussion

Request strategies in English and Chinese

The results of the naturalistic ethnographic study on English email requestsmade by adult Chinese learners of English are inconsistent with Wong’s

Table 4 Frequency of identified linguistic structures

Linguistic structures Frequency Total frequency

Syntactic downgraders To CEST To NEST CEST þ NEST

Would you . . .? 3 (8.8%) 15 (44.1%) 18 (26.5%)

I would like to . . . 5 (14.7%) 4 (11.8%) 9 (13.2%)

Is it possible to . . . 5 (14.7%) 1 (2.9%) 6 (8.8%)

Could you . . .? 2 (5.9%) 3 (8.8%) 5 (7.4%)

May I . . .? 3 (8.8%) 2 (5.9%) 5 (7.4%)

Is. . . okay? 2 (5.9%) 0 (0%) 2 (2.9%)

Can I. . . . ? 2 (5.9%) 0 (0%) 2 (2.9%)

I was wondering if . . . 1 (2.9%) 0 (0%) 1 (1.5%)

Syntactic upgrader

As soon as possible (time intensifier) 1 (2.9%) 0 (0%) 1 (1.5%)

Hedge cajoler

I hope= hope 6 (17.6%) 1 (2.9%) 7 (10.3%)

I am sorry to request 0 (0%) 1 (2.9%) 1 (1.5%)

Politeness marker

Please 4 (11.8%) 7 (20.6%) 11 (16.2%)

Total 34 34 68

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discourse-completion test in Chinese (2000) and Zhan’s analysis of requests inthe Chinese novels (1992). Students generally make more direct requests (64%)through email in English to teachers regardless of their cultural background.Making direct requests seems to be a unique and distinctive feature of theChinese in both intra- and inter-cultural communication.8

Having said that, there is a subtle variation in the contents of requests inChinese and English. Looking closely at the linguistic structures of each strat-egy for the two groups, the CLE do not use any imperative construction asWong concluded in her study. Instead, they tend to use more hedged and ex-plicit performatives when they ask CEST, but more preparation is done and ahigher frequency rate of polite markers (‘Please . . .’) when they make requeststo NEST. The linguistic structures indeed reflect the traditional value of beingpolite and speaking in a softer and respectable tone when students talk to tea-chers. The frequent use of ‘I’ as the alerter and pronoun in the request such as‘May I’, ‘Can I’, ‘I would like to’ or ‘I hope’ maximises the cost of the speaker,or self in ‘Generosity Maxim’ under Leech’s politeness model (1983). Eightsyntactic downgraders are used, such as ‘Would you . . .?’(26.5%), ‘I wouldlike to. . .’ (13.2%), ‘Is it possible to. . .’ (8.8%), to further soften the illocution-ary force (Austin, 1962). Although politeness and respectable tone is prevalentin requests, the tone seems to indicate that the CLE are submissive to theimplicit power and distance difference between teachers and students. Thisconfirms how Gu (1990) describes politeness in the Chinese culture as a nor-mative value rather than instrumental. The value is still practised in HongKong, where people have more exposure to Western culture and were underBritish rule for nearly 100 years. The difference in power makes the CLEobserve the quality of manner (Grice, 1975). In addition to being polite, theirlinguistic devices indicate self-politeness (Chen, 2001) in communication. Ahierarchy politeness system (Scollon & Scollon, 2001) is found in emailrequests, in which the CLE speak up to their teachers through a variety oflinguistic choices.

Use of requestive hints in email requests in English

Requestive hints ranked second among the three request strategies (34%and 39.1% for CEST and NEST, respectively). Potential grounders are fre-quently used, which mainly include facts, reasons and explanations that go be-fore or after requests. The results are similar to the findings of Wong’s study(2000), which found that non-PRC Chinese used more requestive hints thanPRC Chinese. The non-PRC Chinese respondents came from places such asHong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan, where students had greater opportunityto come into contact with Western cultures and speakers, and may in conse-quence have a different repertoire of request strategies. Similarly, the CLE inthe study are from Hong Kong and have been learning English as a subjectin primary and secondary school for over 13 years which may have increasedthe likelihood of using requestive hints. It appears that although Chinese out-side the PRC share similar cultural values and beliefs with their counterpartsin the PRC, increased contact with English has led to a different realisation ofrequests, specifically a tendency to give facts or reasons before the requests.

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ConclusionThe Chinese Learners of English (CLE) in this study tend to use direct re-

quest strategies and requestive hints in emails to their teachers. Analyses ofthe use of language and structure of requests seem to show that the CLE im-plicitly conform to the traditional teacher–student asymmetrical and hierarch-ical relationship. The relationship or respect to teachers is realised through themaxim of generosity and a few linguistic patterns – syntactic downgraders,hedge cajolers and polite markers. The high frequency rate of requestive hintsby the CLE in this study also seems to indicate the growing significance of thestrategy in the CLE’s requestive repertoire. Although the size of written dis-course of requests collected through a naturalistic enquiry approach is notlarge, it sheds new light on the research method and the findings of requeststrategies in the Chinese context from interlanguage and cross-cultural per-spectives. It confirms the traditional Chinese values and beliefs in theteacher–student relationship on the one hand and provides insights intointerlanguage and cross-cultural communication in written request strategieson the other. The results also reveal the significance in analysing authenticwritten requests in addition to experimental written data and intuition. Know-ing how to make a request (both oral and written) politely and appropriatelyto people of different social ranks is crucial in effective communication, andthe academic context is a real community that facilitates the practice.

Acknowledgements

The study is part of a Faculty Research Grant project funded by Hong KongBaptist University.

Correspondence

Any correspondence should be directed to Cynthia F.K. Lee, LanguageCentre, Hong Kong Baptist University, Kowloon Tong, Hong Kong ([email protected]).

Notes1. According to Wong (2000: 76), there are four main categories of impositives and they

belong to the notion of directness or explicitness: (1) Mood derivable characterisedwith ba construction, action verb and reduplicated verb (changchang); (2) Direct ques-tions through the use of wh-question, do-you-know question (ni shi dao...), have-you-got question (ni you mei you. . .) and question ending with an interrogative particle;(3) Want=Need statement including both bold want (wo you...) and mild want (woxiang=xiwang...) and (4) Presumptive statement comprising both bold presumption(wo qi...) and hedged presumption (...bu fang dui ba).

2. Studies on requests in Chinese made by Chinese speakers concentrate on Puton-ghua.

3. The examples are in Putonghua.4. The phrase=clause in the brackets is the English version.5. Words in the square brackets are added to show alternative constructions.6. This quotation is taken from my email corpus.7. I would like to thank my colleagues and students for agreeing to participate in the

project and contributing their emails during the research period.8. The strategy of making explicit and direct requests was also found in Wong’s re-

search (2000), and she attributes it to the strong preference of Chinese for clarityand directness in daily fact-to-face interaction, and the Confucius diplomatic tactics.

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References

Austin, J.L. (1962) How to Do Things with Words. London: Oxford University Press.Blum-Kulka, S., House, J. and Kasper, G. (eds) (1989) Cross-Cultural Pragmatics: Requests

and Apologies. Norwood, NJ: Ablex Publishing.Bond, M.H. (1991) Beyond the Chinese Face: Insights from Psychology. Hong Kong: Oxford

University Press.Brown, P. and Levinson, S.C. (1987) Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage.

Cambridge & New York: Cambridge University Press.Chen, R. (2001) Self-politeness: A proposal. Journal of Pragmatics 33, 87–106.Grice, H.P. (1975) Logic and conversation. In P. Cole and J. L. Morgan (eds) Syntax and

Semantics Vol. 3. Speech Acts. New York: Academic Press.Gu, Y.G. (1990) Politeness phenomena in Modern Chinese. Journal of Pragmatics 14,

237–257.Leech, G.N. (1983) Principles of Pragmatics. London, New York: Longman.Rinnert, C. and Kobayashi, H. (1999) Requestive hints in Japanese and English. Journal

of Pragmatics 31, 1173–1201.Scollon, R. and Scollon, S.W. (2001) Intercultural Communication: A Discourse Approach.

Malden, MA: Blackwell PublishersSifianou, M. (1992) Politeness Phenomena in England and Greece: A Cross-Cultural Perspec-

tive. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Weizman, E. (1989) Requestive hints. In S. Blum-Kula, J. House and G. Kasper (eds)

Cross-Cultural Pragmatics: Requests and Apologies. Norwood, NJ: Ablex Publishing.Wong, S.M.L. (2000) Cross Cultural Communication. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang.Zhan, K. (1992) The Strategies of Politeness in the Chinese Language. Berkeley, CA: Institute

of East Asian Studies, University of California.

Appendix 1

Requests: Segmentation and coding categories

[A summary based on Blum-Kula, S., House, J. and Kasper, G. (1989) (eds)Cross-Cultural Pragmatics: Requests and Apologies (pp 275–289). Norwood, NJ:Ablex Publishing.]

Segmentation:(1) Head Act: e.g. Alerters: Term of address, e.g. ‘John’ , or an attention getter,

e.g. ‘Excuse me’; and Supportive Moves: The minimal unit (can be before orafter the alerters), e.g. ‘Get me a beer.’

(2) Alerters: e.g. Title, e.g. ‘Professor’; Surname, e.g. ‘John’; First name, e.g.‘Mary’; Nickname, e.g. ‘Lizzie’; Endearment term, e.g. ‘honey’; Offensiveterm, e.g. ‘stupid cow’; Pronoun, e.g. ‘you’; Attention Getter, e.g. ‘Hi’,‘Excuse me’, ‘Listen’ and combinations of the above.

Coding categories:(1) Conventionally direct strategies: e.g. Mood derivable, e.g. ‘Leave me

alone’; Explicit performative, e.g. ‘I’m asking you to move your car’;Hedged performative, e.g. ‘I must=have to=want to ask you to move yourcar’; Locution derivable ¼ the speaker’s intent is directly derivable fromthe meaning of the statement. e.g. ‘You should=must=ought to move yourcar’; Preparatory ¼ Contains a preparatory condition for the request, typi-cally one of ability, willingness or possibility, e.g. ‘Can I move your car?’ ,

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‘Could you please move your car?’ , ‘I was wondering if you could moveyour car.’

(2) Conventionally indirect strategies: e.g. Suggestory formula, e.g. ‘How aboutmoving your car?’ , ‘Why don’t you move your car?’; Strong= mild hint ¼The speaker’s intent is not immediately derivable from the statement, andit requires inference on the part of the hearer, e.g. ‘Will you be goinghome?’ (Intent: getting a lift home).

(3) Requestive hints: e.g. Potential Grounders: The speaker gives reasons,explanations, or justifications for his or her request, which may either pre-cede or follow it. Promise of reward: The speaker gives a reward toincrease the likelihood of the hearer’s compliance with the request, e.g.‘Could you give me a lift? I’ll pitch in on some gas’; Threat; Insult; Moralis-ing: The speaker invokes general moral principles; and combinations ofthe above.

(4) Linguistic devices: Syntactic downgraders: e.g. interrogative, subjunctive,conditional, aspect, tense, conditional clause, and combinations of theabove; Lexical and phrasal downgraders: e.g. politeness marker (please),understater, hedge cajoler (you know), downtoner (possibly= perhaps),appealer (question tags), and combinations of the above; Upgraders: e.g.intensifier (terrible, extremely), commitment indicator (surely, certainly),expletive (bloody, damn), time intensifier (now, immediately); Lexicaluptoner: e.g. ‘Clean up that mess’; Repetition of request: Literally or byparaphrase; and combinations of the above.

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