2.SABINA HALUPKA-RESETAR - Full Text PDF
2.SABINA HALUPKA-RESETAR - Full Text PDF
2.SABINA HALUPKA-RESETAR - Full Text PDF
Faculty of Philosophy
University of Novi Sad, Serbia
halupka.resetar@ff.uns.ac.rs
Abstract
The present paper explores the types and frequency of usage of internal and
external request modifications in the production of ESP learners in an attempt to
provide a fuller picture of their request performance. The devices under scrutiny
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include both lexical and syntactic downgraders, upgraders and both mitigating and
aggravating supportive moves. The research participants were 37 ESP students,
aged 20-22, whose level of general linguistic competence was intermediate (B1 or
B2 according to CEFR). Performance data were elicited using a modified version of
the written discourse completion test (WDCT) including six situations in which the
variables of social power and degree of imposition were varied. The results of the
research support the initial hypothesis, which is that the request production of
intermediate ESP learners will show very limited variation both with respect to the
type of modifications (both external and internal) and the frequency of their usage.
The pragmatic production of the intermediate ESP learners who participated in
this research is thus shown to be the result of pedagogical instruction and is clearly
at a significantly lower level than their linguistic development.
Key words
Saetak
Kljune rei
1. INTRODUCTION
Pragmatic competence is one aspect of communicative competence which in
Bachmans (1990) model subsumes illocutionary competence (i.e. knowledge of
communicative action/ speech acts and how to carry them out) and sociolinguistic
competence (i.e. the ability to use language appropriately according to context).
Early studies of speech acts have established that speech act behaviour and
realization is to a great extent culture specific and that there are differences in
systems of conversational inference and cues for signalling speech acts which
combine to form the cultures distinctive interactional style (Blum-Kulka, House,
& Kasper, 1989: 6). Therefore, the development of pragmatic competence in
language learners is of extreme importance since failure to use or interpret
language in a way which is appropriate to a given situation may lead to
The results of this study can be compared with the production of various
other populations, e.g. advanced ESP students, EFL students who are native
speakers of Serbian (for advanced students see Savi, 2013), ESP students who are
native speakers of other languages, as well as with the production of native
speakers of English (both British and American, see Creese, 1991).
The paper is structured in the following way: Section 2 gives a brief overview
of Speech act theory, focusing on the speech act of requests. Section 3 presents the
typology of speech act modifications that will be adopted in this research. Section 4
presents the research methodology employed, including the participants, the data
collection instruments and the procedures, while Section 5 brings the results and
findings of the research. Section 6 briefly recapitulates the main findings of the
paper and gives pedagogical implications. Finally, Section 7 concludes the paper
and suggests directions for future research.
3. REQUEST MODIFICATION
Among the verbal means which can be used to modify requests, Faerch and Kasper
(1989) distinguish between internal and external modifications. The former type
of modification is achieved through devices within the same head act, while the
latter are localized not within the head act but within its immediate context. In
neither case does the modification affect the level of directness of the act, nor does
it alter its propositional content. The CCSARPs coding manual contains a
classification scheme for internal and external request modification based on
earlier work by the researchers involved in the project (Blum-Kulka, 1987; Blum-
Kulka & Olshtain, 1984; House & Kasper, 1981 and 1987; Kasper, 1981, as cited in
Blum-Kulka & Olshtain, 1984) and was also partly influenced by literature on
speech acts and politeness (e.g. Brown & Levinson, 1978; Lakoff, 1973). While the
present study rests on a slightly modified version of this typology, which is based
on grammatical and syntactic considerations (see also Achiba, 2003; House &
Kasper, 1981; Trosborg, 1995; among others) note that there are other typologies,
too, notably the functional typology of Alcon-Soler, Safont Jorda and Martinez-Flor,
(2005), which takes into account interactional and contextual factors and is thus
more pragmatics-based. The request data were analysed according to the
taxonomy in Woodfield and Economidou-Kogetsidis (2010), which incorporated
categories from the CCSARP (Blum-Kulka et al., 1989) and Sifianou (1999) but
without the four additional categories they introduce, as the linguistic proficiency
of the participants in the research did not call for the introduction of these
categories.
External modifications (also called supportive moves) are external to the
head act. They are additional statements, whose function is merely to support the
request proper, to set the context for it, i.e. to indirectly modify its illocutionary
force, either by mitigating it or by aggravating it. Table 1 below gives the final
taxonomy of external modifications used in this research (taken from Woodfield,
2012, following Blum-Kulka et al., 1989 and Sifianou, 1999):
1 Italics are used when the device in question represents only part of the utterance.
Internal modifications, on the other hand, refer to those linguistic elements which,
according to Sifianou (1999: 157-158) occur within the same head act. They are
linguistic or syntactic devices that are used by speakers to modulate the
illocutionary force of their request and can be further subcategorized as
downgraders (i.e. modifiers that decrease the illocutionary force of a request) and
upgraders (i.e. modifiers that increase the illocutionary force of a request [Schauer,
2009: 167]). In the CCSARP coding manual (Blum-Kulka et al., 1989) downgraders
fall into two classes: lexical/phrasal and syntactic downgraders. The final
taxonomy of internal modifications used in this research is presented in Tables 2
and 3 below:
Name Illustration
a) Conditional structures Could you give me an extension
b) Conditional clause if its possible to have an extension
c) Tense Is it all right if I asked for an extension
d) Aspect I was wondering if its possible to have an extension
for the assignment.
e) Interrogative Would you mind doing the cooking tonight?
f) Negation of preparatory condition I dont suppose there is any chance of an extension?
Unlike downgraders, upgraders may only be lexical and may include any of
the following items, individually or in combination, as shown in Table 4 below:
Name Illustration
a) Intensifiers You really must open the window.
b) Commitment indicators Im sure/certain you wont mind giving me a lift.
c) Expletives You still havent cleaned up that bloody mess!
d) Time intensifiers Youd better tidy your room right now!
e) Lexical uptoners Clean up that mess!
They may also include some less frequently used devices, such as determination 36
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markers, repetition of request, orthographic or suprasegmental emphasis,
emphatic addition and pejorative determiners.
Having listed and illustrated the type of elements whose occurrence is
explored in ESP students request performance, we next turn to the methodology
employed in the current study.
4. METHODOLOGY
4.1. Participants
Since the aim of the present paper is to contribute to attaining a clearer picture of
ESP students request performance by examining the modifications they use, the
research participants totalled 37 undergraduate students from the Department of
Mathematics and Informatics at the Faculty of Sciences, University of Novi Sad,
Serbia. All of the participants were native speakers of Serbian, aged 20-22, whose
level of proficiency in English was evaluated as intermediate (B1-B2 according to
ESP students responses were elicited using the form of an open-ended written
discourse completion test (WDCT), i.e. a questionnaire containing written prompts
(brief descriptions of real-life situations) followed by a space in which the
respondent was required to produce a response, in this case, a request for action.3
The questionnaire used in this research involved six situations in which the
sociopragmatic variables of social power and degree of imposition were
intertwined. The first variable concerns the power of the requester over the
requestee (more power, equal power or less power), while degree of imposition
refers to the importance or degree of difficulty in the situation (asking for a small
favour or a large one). As for the third social factor that is commonly taken to affect
the politeness of an utterance, social distance, which refers to the degree of
familiarity between the interlocutors, in all the situations in the questionnaire, the
interlocutors knew each other.
An example of a task is given below:
You are terribly late for class. On the way to the university, you see your 37
classmate, Andy, who, it turns out, is also late for the same class as you. How do
you ask for a ride?
You: _____________________________________________________________________________
4.3. Procedures
2 The author wishes to express her gratitude to dr Ljiljana Kneevi for her help in collecting the
data.
3 According to Sifianou (1992: 121-122), requests can be categorised into (1) requests for
information, and (2) requests for action. The author states that requests for action involve a higher
degree of imposition than the first category (Fukushima, 2006).
making a request and there was also one instance of a mood derivable direct
request with please. In the Superior participant situation there were four mood
derivable direct requests (with please) and three participants did not respond to
this situation.
As Table 5 below suggests, the participants in this research showed very limited
interlanguage competence not only with respect to the range/types of external
modification devices used but also with respect to the frequency of these in the
participants responses.
participants
participant
participant
participant
participant
Superior
Superior
Inferior
Inferior
Equal
Equal
Grounder 1 3 13 29 14 2 62
Preparator 1 1
39
Getting a precommitment 1 1 2
Promise of reward 2 2 4
Imposition minimiser 2 2
Apology 1 2 3
EXTERNAL MODIFICATIONS
TOTAL 1 5 14 34 17 3 74
Not one example of a disarmer was found in any of the 6 situations in any of the 37
participants responses. Only one instance of a preparator was found in the 222
responses (I have an important question.), two examples each of getting a
precommitment (Can you do me a favour?) and of imposition minimisers (If youre
(already) going to the library,), only three apologies (Im sorry), four promises of a
reward (Ill make it up one day soon; We can go out for coffee after class, my treat; I
will work (sic!) those hours tomorrow; Ill treat you at the Pub.) but a total of 62
grounders, usually following the request (My friend is getting married today; Im
late for class; I dont have time right now; I have a terrible headache, etc).
Interestingly enough, two participants even decided to use a threat, an example of
an aggravating supportive move, which was not expected at all in both cases this
occurred in the Low degree of imposition/Superior participant scenario.
Looking at the difference in the use of external modifiers relative to the social
power variable, the current research provides no conclusive evidence for assuming
that an inferior participant will use more mitigating supportive moves: as can be
seen in Table 1, the figures for the total number of external modifications in the
first three columns is the mirror image of the figures in the next three columns,
thus there is no reason to believe that this variable in itself should affect the use of
supportive moves. Degree of imposition, on the other hand, does seem to have an
effect on the employment of mitigating supportive moves in the request
production of intermediate ESP students: a total of 54 such moves in the three
situations which involved a high degree of imposition is a significant increase
compared to the 20 examples of external modifications in the situations which
implied a lower degree of imposition. Still, while these devices are expected to
occur most frequently in the High degree of imposition/Inferior participant
scenario, it remains unclear why in the Low degree of imposition/Inferior
participant scenario only one instance of this device was found.
Thus, while several studies conducted within the CCSARP framework have
found that non-native speakers overuse external modifications in making requests,
this is often due to cultural differences between the speakers L1 and the target
language (e.g. Eastern culture vs. British culture). However, numerous studies have
also supplied evidence that intermediate (and advanced) learners modify their
requests less frequently than native speakers (e.g. House & Kasper, 1987;
Trosborg, 1995; Economidou-Kogetsidis, 2008a and 2009, to name but a few). In 40
40
other words, given that at lower levels of proficiency learners (are required to)
focus almost exclusively on grammatical competence, the low frequency and poor
variation found in the supportive moves collected in this research is not entirely
surprising.
and one of a little) and only one example of a consultative device being made use of
(Any chance I could , though used inappropriately in making a request to ones
superior at work). Among the syntactic downgraders, the conditional structure
was employed in the overwhelming majority of cases (174 times), other strategies
occurred in the participants responses extremely rarely. Only five examples of the
conditional clause were found (I would be very grateful if you; If you are going to
the library (2 instances); I would appreciate it (2 instances)) and only two
interrogative sentences (both Will you ?).
participants
participants
participant
participant
participant
participant
Superior
Superior
Inferior
Inferior
Equal
Equal
Downgraders
Please 15 10 18 6 12 17 78
1 7 8
Lexical Understater
1 1
Consultative device
Conditional clause 2 2 1 5 41
Syntactic Conditional structure 34 26 20 31 34 29 174
Interrogative 1 1 2
DOWNGRADERS TOTAL 50 39 45 40 47 47 268
Upgraders
Intensifier 1 1 1 3
Time intensifier 1 1
UPGRADERS TOTAL 1 2 1 4
INTERNAL MODIFICATIONS
TOTAL 50 40 47 41 47 47 272
The use of upgraders was even more limited. Of the five types of upgraders
commonly used by native speakers the participants in this research used only
intensifiers (really in all three cases) and only one of the participants used just one
instance of a time intensifier (right now).
Examining the participants use of internal modifiers relative to the social
power variable, the current research again provides no conclusive evidence for
assuming that an inferior participant will use more internal modifications, either
downgraders (lexical or syntactic) or upgraders. The distribution of the politeness
marker please and of the conditional construction show no significant differences
with respect to the social power variable and all the other examples of internal
modifications are used too rarely to provide reliable data for valid conclusions.
One exception might be the use of understaters, although the occurrence of a bit/a
little/a little bit in the participants responses seems to be motivated by the age of
the addressee (an imagined niece) rather than any other factor.
In terms of the degree of imposition, the use of please is fairly balanced in the
six discourse situations, except for the High degree of imposition/Inferior
participant scenario, where fewer instances of this politeness marker are found.
The use of the conditional structure does not differ significantly between the two
sets of discourse situations, however in the Lower degree of imposition/Superior
participant scenario fifteen participants used a mood derivable direct request (of
which only four were accompanied by please).
All the results obtained in this research suggest that very scant attention is
paid to developing the communicative competence of ESP learners. And while
Alcon-Soler (2005) points out that some features of the EFL context hinder
pragmatic learning, such as the narrow range of speech acts and realisation
strategies, typical interaction patterns which restrict pragmatic input, large
classes, limited contact hours and little opportunity for intercultural
communication, the ESP context seems to be even more constrained by these
factors. The results are obvious: ESP learners may ultimately attain a fair degree of
linguistic competence (especially in terms of the vocabulary pertaining to their
field of study) but with little awareness of how to use language appropriately in
various situations. In order to improve this situation, ESP and EFL learners must 42
42
receive explicit pragmatic instruction, some guidelines for which are suggested in
the next section.
6. PEDAGOGICAL IMPLICATIONS
The results of the analysis of the use of request modifications in the pragmatic
production of ESP learners reveal that while most participants did use a
conventionally indirect request strategy in most cases, their pragmatic competence
in using request modifications, both external and internal, is significantly below
their linguistic competence. Namely, supportive moves reduce to the occasional
use of a grounder, almost as a rule in the High degree of Imposition/Inferior
participant scenario, only sometimes in the High degree of imposition/Equal
participants and the Low degree of imposition/Superior participant scenarios and
hardly ever in the remaining three situations. The occurrence of all other
supporting devices in the participants responses can be attributed to chance.
The only strategies that the participants systematically used for request
internal modification, regardless of the degree of imposition, were the lexical
downgrader please and among the syntactic downgraders, the conditional
structure. Other downgraders, but also upgraders were few and far between in the
data. The results of the research presented here point to the conclusion that the
7. CONCLUDING REMARKS
The present study examines the use of external and internal modifications in the
request production of 37 intermediate-level ESP learners. The data analysed in the
paper were elicited from the participants using the Written Discourse Completion
Test with 6 situations in which the variables of social power and degree of
imposition varied between Inferior participant/Equal participants/Superior 43
participant and Low degree of imposition/High degree of imposition, respectively.
The data were categorized using Woodfields (2012) taxonomy of external and
internal request modifications, based on Blum-Kulka et al. (1989) and Sifianou
(1999).
The results of the research confirm the initial hypothesis that the request
production of intermediate ESP learners will show very limited variation both with
respect to the type of modifications (both external and internal) and the frequency
of their usage. In the overwhelming majority of cases the participants produced the
targeted speech act and in most cases they also opted for a conventionally indirect
request. However, the analysis of the data indicates that among the supportive
moves grounders were used almost exclusively, whereas among internal
modifications only the use of the conditional construction and the politeness
marker please is observed regularly (both downgraders), while upgraders occur
extremely rarely. All this points to the dire need to devote more attention to
developing ESP learners pragmatic competence. It is hoped that the conclusions of
this small-scale research will help researchers focus on the numerous areas of
interlanguage pragmatics that are still understudied in ESP, but also show ESP
educators and curriculum developers the importance of teaching L2 pragmatics.
Acknowledgements
The author would like to thank the Editors and the two anonymous reviewers for
their valuable comments and suggestions to improve the quality of the paper. The
paper is the result of research conducted within project no. 178002 Languages and
cultures in space and time funded by the Ministry of Science and Technological
Development of the Republic of Serbia.
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