Request strategies and modification devices as performed by Czech EFL learners: A focus on borrowing objects
Vol.15,No.2(2022)
Discourse and Interaction
This study presents an analysis of informal written requests from the national school-leaving exam and simulated spoken requests collected via Written Discourse Completion Task (WDCT) to describe pragmalinguistic features used by Czech EFL learners in requests for borrowing objects. In both types of data, the findings reveal strong preference for conventionally indirect strategies and external modification, but considerable underuse of softeners within head acts. The written requests show significant reiteration with a great deal of modification devices outside head acts and a higher proportion of face-threatening features, such as expectations and direct strategies realized by want statements and imperatives. The WDCT requests tend to employ more face-saving strategies but show less variability in request realization. Consequently, awareness raising activities, helping Czech EFL learners fully understand the face-threatening nature of requests, as well as explicit metapragmatic treatment, focusing on strategic use of requests constituents, are recommended.
request strategies; politeness; head acts; internal modification; external modification; pragmatic competence
Věra Sládková
Secondary Specialized School and Secondary Vocational School in Kaplice; Masaryk University
Věra Sládková is an English teacher at the Secondary Specialized School and Secondary Vocational School in Kaplice, Czech Republic. Within her postgraduate programme at the Faculty of Education at Masaryk University, she is investigating interlanguage features in English school-leaving exams written by Czech secondary school students. Currently, she focuses on grammatical collocations and pragmalinguistic features.
Address: Věra Sládková, Netřebice 35, Velešín 382 32, Czech Republic. [e-mail: 460333@mail.muni.cz]
Marie Lahodová Vališová
Masaryk University
Marie Lahodová Vališová is an ESP teacher at the Faculty of Medicine, Masaryk University in Brno. She is studying in a postgraduate programme at the Faculty of Education, Masaryk University. She specialises in pragmatics and discourse analysis, focusing mainly on learner discourse and strategies and expressions of linguistic politeness.
Address: Marie Lahodová Vališová, Language Centre, Faculty of Medicine Division, Masaryk University, Kamenice 5, Brno 625 00, Czech Republic. [e-mail: marie.lahodova@med.muni.cz]
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