Intercultural sociolinguistics and communication ...

Southern African Linguistics and Applied Language Studies 2001 19: 253–273 Printed in South Africa — All rights reserved

Copyright © 2001 NISC Pty Ltd

SOUTHERN AFRICAN LINGUISTICS AND APPLIED LANGUAGE STUDIES EISSN 1727–9461

Intercultural sociolinguistics and communication research in South Africa: Its relevance to academic settings and the service industry Luanga A Kasanga Department of English Studies, University of the North, Private Bag X1106, Sovenga 0727 e-mail: [email protected]

Abstract: The increase in inter-ethnic and/or inter-racial communication in South Africa recently warrants concomittant increased attention, through intercultural communication research, to difficulties encountered in face-to-face interaction, such as: pragmatic failure and misunderstanding in same-language different-culture interaction. Pragmatic failure may lead, in the long term, to resentment, which, in turn, may lead to ethnic (cross-group) stereotyping and negative labelling. Misperceptions of non-native speakers of English has often contributed to the perpetuation (unintentionally though it may sometimes be) of exclusion and discrimination of the non-native speakers by native speakers, as observation in academic settings and the job market has shown. In this article, I use observational and elicited data of requests in English by university students to highlight the difficulties (and risks) posed by their lack of pragmatic competence in intercultural interaction. I tentatively discuss the teachability of speech act realisation and argue for the inclusion of pragmatic instruction in English language teaching and of pragmatics in teaching/learning materials, with two aims in mind: (i) to sensitise learners to the importance of pragmatic issues and heighten their metapragmatic awareness; and (ii) to alert ‘gatekeepers’ to the inevitability of variation in pragmatic competence due to the learners’ or users’ first language (L1), individual choices and preferences. Introduction Pragmatic failure can obfuscate the pragmatic meaning of individual utterances. It also often leads to a breakdown of communication and may lead to face loss. Such risks have justified efforts globally in the last two decades to systematically investigate pragmatic failure and broader issues of intercultural sociolinguistics, especially the following: (i) learners’ proficiency in the use of speech acts in the target language in comparison to native speaker norms (e.g. Cohen & Olshtain, 1981) considered as ‘conventions of usage’ (Clark, 1979); (ii) instances of pragmatic failure and their causes (e.g. Thomas, 1996a); (iii) positive and negative strategic transfer of speech acts from L1 to L2 (second language), on the basis of pragmalinguistic differences between the two languages; and (iv) approximation by learners to, and the degree of difference of their use of (interlanguage) pragmatic resources from, native norms (Faerch & Kasper, 1989). In South Africa, research in interlanguage pragmatics and intercultural sociolinguistics in general has been very timid and is of very recent tradition. The dearth of studies on interlanguage pragmatics belies the highly multilingual, multiethnic, and

multicultural composition of the country. The study reported in this article was intended to contribute to bridging this research gap. The present article may, indeed, raise awareness about differences in the use of a lingua franca, English in particular, and stimulate research on the root causes of pragmatic failure in samelanguage different-culture interaction. Arguing in favour of pragmatic instruction and the inclusion of pragmatic skills in teaching/learning materials, I shall tentatively discuss the teachability of knowledge of use of speech acts in English and the main aims of pragmatic instruction. ‘Teachability’ must not be understood in the same way as the ‘Teachability Hypothesis’ which states that certain grammatical items can only be learned (and should only be taught) when the learner is at the developmental stage preceding the item to be taught. My position is rather closer to the less controversial ‘Learnability Theory’ upon which I shall touch later in the article. In the next section, I briefly review research in interactional sociolinguistics, especially in intercultural communication — also referred to as ‘crosscultural communication’ — in South Africa.

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Kasanga: Intercultural sociolinguistics and communication research

Interactional sociolinguistics / Intercultural communication: A brief literature review Research in interactional sociolinguistics is still a neglected area in applied linguistics in South Africa. Similarly, intercultural communication studies, for example the study of speech act realisation in same-language different-cultures interaction, are few and far between. The most important research in interactional sociolinguistics in South Africa in recent years has been the work of Chick (1985; 1986; 1989; 1991; 1995; 1996b). Despite differences of emphasis in his different contributions, the occurrence of intercultural miscommunication — barriers to effective intercultural communication — permeates his work. More precisely, as he (see Chick, 1996a:329) aptly puts it, the following main preoccupations have been explored in his research: (i) the sources of intercultural miscommunication, (ii) the social effects of such miscommunication, and (iii) ways to improve the situation. Chick identifies intercultural difficulties occurring in same-language differentculture/race interaction, viz.: interaction in the medium of English between native speakers of South African English (SAfE) and ESL (English as a second language) speakers who are native speakers of an African language (e.g. Chick, 1989) or of Afrikaans (e.g. Chick, 1989; 1991; 1995; 1996b). From observational data of interaction in educational and workplace environments, he (Chick, 1989) concludes that the following are the main sources of intercultural miscommunication: (i) language differences in terms of denotative meanings and rules for permissible combinations; (ii) mismatch in frames of references, or ‘interpretative frames’, which reflect interactants’ knowledge of a culture or cultures organised into structures of expectations; (iii) differences in listening behaviour, when there is a mismatch in speaking-listening behaviour due to specific cultural constraints; (iv) differences in turn-taking patterns and rules, which are also culture specific; and (v) differences in politeness behaviour, reflecting different preferences for different strategies developed by different cultures. The latter factor is of most relevance to the study of interlanguage pragmatics, and, more particularly, speech act realisation in English as a second language. Indeed, as will be shown in the

analysis of some of the data, L1 sociopragmatics may determine the speaker’s pragmalinguistic1 choices in L2. A handful of other studies, with a focus on speech act realisation in English and African languages, can be cited as examples of research in linguistic pragmatics in South Africa. Studies which will be reviewed here include: the study of politeness phenomena in black South African English — BSAfE — (De Kadt, 1992b) and Xhosa (Gough, 1995) and of request realisation in Zulu (De Kadt, 1992a), to which will be added Hodge’s (1990) study of request realisation in interaction between same-language (English) different-culture (South African and Australian) interlocutors, despite having been done outside South Africa. Among the most recent studies of the pragmatics of African languages is the study of Zulu requests by De Kadt (1992a). She used a discourse completion test (DCT) to collect requests. Using native speakers’ intuitions, she analysed requests in Zulu and examined their pattern of use within the framework of both speech act theory (Austin, 1962; Grice, 1975; Searle, 1969; 1979) and Brown and Levinson’s (1978; 1987) politeness theory. She found a high frequency of use of requests in Zulu considered as highly ‘direct’ in the classification framework used by the Cross-Cultural Speech Act Realization Patterns Project (CCSARP) (Blum-Kulka et al., 1989). These direct requests in Zulu are associated with a high degree of politeness, in contrast to Brown and Levinson’s criteria, in which a low level of politeness, or ‘negative politeness’ would be assigned to direct requests. De Kadt, therefore, questions the universality of politeness theory, at least in the manner in which Brown and Levinson have theorised. However, she cannot explain why being both highly placed on the directness scale, performatives and imperatives are judged respectively more deferentpolite and less deferent-polite and occur exclusively in different contexts. A similar study was later done by Gough (1995) on the coding of politeness in Xhosa performative requests, partly in reaction to some conclusions of De Kadt’s study, especially those related to politeness theory. His data indicate that, although in terms of form Xhosa performatives resemble English ones, in social terms they are not translation equivalents. He

Southern African Linguistics and Applied Language Studies 2001. 19: 253–273

concludes that the (in)directness principle is neither a universal criterion of politeness and deference nor a stable predictor within the same language. Xhosa performatives are indeed recognised as polite requests, probably at the other end of English performatives. Other direct requests, such as imperatives, are, however, found to be less polite in Xhosa. This finding, although only based on the analysis of Xhosa performative requests, may apply to speech realisation in other African languages and, hence, can be used for explanatory purposes in the study of speech act realisation in English by second-language speakers, as is the case of the data in the present study. Indeed, there might be more pragmalinguistic similarities than differences among African languages and sociopragmatic rules in their corresponding cultural bases. For example, there may be similarities between linguistic (syntactic) forms used in Xhosa and Sepedi (the dominant language of the subjects used in the study reported here) to suit similar socio-cultural parameters, than between an African language or many African languages on the one hand, and English, on the other. In a subsequent study, inspired by her findings on request realisation in Zulu, De Kadt (1992b) compared politeness phenomena in requests in Zulu and two varieties of South African English, using data elicited by the ‘discourse completion task’ (DCT) method and the CCSARP coding system for analysis. The relevance of her research to the study reported in this article is manifold: (i) her study focussed on request behaviour, like the present one; (ii) requests in her study were made mainly in the medium of (varieties of South African) English, although she introduced a contrastive perspective and the idea of (Zulu) L1 influence; (iii) her study included an aspect of interlanguage pragmatics. Despite the differences in the methodology used, De Kadt’s findings are very significant to the present study, as will be discussed later in the article. From the perspective of interlanguage pragmatics, her results strongly point to transfer of strategies from Zulu to ZE. Negative transfer of verbal dimensions of Zulu into English tends to make ZE seem ‘less polite’ to native speakers of English, with the effect of potentially creating miscommunication problems. This finding may be useful in the interpretation of some of the cases of patterns

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of requesting behaviours displayed by subjects in the present study. Also interesting, although undertaken outside South Africa, is Hodge’s (1990) ethnographic study of requests among South African native speakers of English living in Tasmania, Australia, and Australian counterparts. From his data collected by means of incomplete discourse sequences reflecting 14 social situations, he found significant variations in communicative conventions among his subjects. Although both sets of subjects were native speakers of English, they differed in their requesting behaviours, given their different socio-political and cultural backgrounds. This seems in harmony with Thomas’s (1983) suggestion of a reflection in both diverse pragmatic norms and linguistic variations of ‘regional, ethnic, political, and class differences’ (1983:91). Illustrative of this pattern is the finding that South African subjects, all whites, belonging to a politically privileged and dominant group in their country of origin, displayed greater awareness of social rank and status differences. Variations found in Hodge’s study confirm an earlier suggestion (e.g. Wolfson, 1989) that request realization patterns are culture specific. Students’ requesting strategies in English: Setting, background, and methodology Before presenting and discussing the results of the study, it is useful to circumscribe the speech act of request in English, the object of the study (‘common knowledge’ though it may seem to many), and clarify the operational use of the term in this article. ‘Request’ ‘is a hyponym for the superordinate ‘directive’, one of the five main ‘language or speech functions’ in Searle’s (1969, 1976) classification of speech acts, widely used in the pragmatics literature. Directives are illocutionary acts by which a speaker attempts to ‘get the hearer to do something’ (Searle, 1979:11), or ‘suasion’ (Van Ek & Alexander, 1975), by giving instructions, orders or commands, offering advice, or making requests. The misleading use of the terms ‘directives’ and ‘requests’ interchangeably may be accounted for by the fact that requests are ubiquitous in everyday language use and, thus, outnumber other types of directives. Greater interest in the study of requests in comparison

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to other speech requests has to do with both their pervasiveness and their sensitivity to the hearer’s features (Ervin-Tripp, 1976). There are several classification frameworks of English requests and directives, namely those used by Blum-Kulka (1982; 1983) —adopted in some intercultural sociolinguistics studies — Ervin-Tripp (1976), House and Kasper (1981), Lock (1996), Rintell (1981), Wierzbicka (1985), or adaptations of existing classifications used by some researchers to serve their own descriptive purposes (e.g. Macaulay, 1996). The most commonly used classification (especially in cross-cultural pragmatics research in the contrastive description of requesting strategies) is the CCSARP classification (Blum-Kulka & Olshtain, 1984; BlumKulka et al., 1989) already mentioned in the article. It is based on a scale of decreasing level of directness and was first used as a measure of politeness/deference in three major European languages, viz.: English, German, and French. It was also chosen as a classificatory framework for the present study of NNS students’ request strategies in English. The setting of the present study was the University of the North (UNIN), near Pietersburg, in the Northern Province. UNIN is one of the most ethnically diverse historically black universities (HBU), given its historical background. Although now open to all races, the student population is almost exclusively black and from mainly disadvantaged school backgrounds. For example, figures in 1988 showed that over 77% of the first year intake at UNIN had obtained an E grade (the second lowest grade) for Matriculation (school-leaving examination), whilst at universities then reserved for whites over 75% of the first year intake had A, B, and C aggregates (the top three grades). Daily observation of interaction among the students with their lecturers and the examination of their writing skills suggested that they are mostly of limited English proficiency (LEP). These students, like those documented elsewhere (e.g. Chapman, 1990; Orr, 1997; Sarinjeive, 1998; Wood, 1995), display a poor level of English. They have to grapple with the complexities and subtleties of English, the language of instruction and learning, after they have already mastered fairly well at least one

African language (their ‘mother tongue’), but usually more than one. It was assumed that the fact that they may likely not have been exposed to the full gamut of requesting expressions, prior to their university career, and the relatively stereotypical classroom discourse (see also Brown & Yule, 1983, for a similar view), would explain their observed lack of a comfortable pragmatic competence in English. The lack of exposure to various request strategies may presumably even pose a barrier to effective communication with NS or high English proficienct (HEP) lecturers to perform routine requesting behaviours. This assumption, impressionistically corroborated in daily encounters, justified the decision to undertake a systematic study of the students’ use of requests in English. The multilingual and multiracial composition of the student and staff population and the observed cases of pragmatic failure by many students, misunderstanding or mis-communication resulting from cross-cultural differences, or the use of different varieties of English, offered an ideal setting for the present study. It was intended to test the prediction that students (i) would not use the full range of request strategies available in English given their unfamiliarity with them, and that (ii) they would tend to use stereotypical, direct strategies which are translation equivalents from their own languages. Over a period of four months, naturally occurring requests in English produced by NNS students at UNIN were collected by myself. No attempt was made to either seek the help of colleagues for the recording or to use fieldworkers (the use of the latter would have necessitated financial resources). However, use was made subsequently of two elicitation techniques, viz.: a DCT sheet (see Appendix A) administered to students to obtain additional requests from them, and a judgment sheet (see Appendix B) to obtain the judgments from NSs. The study, therefore, combined observation, elicitation, and native speaker judgments. The case has, indeed, been made recently for the use in research on speech act realization of a multimethod approach (e.g. Olshtain & BlumKulka, 1985; Cohen, 1996).


Description of results and discussion All the observational data are drawn from naturally-occurring requests which took place in and around my office. Only a few occurred in other places, viz.: a colleague’s office, the departmental resource room, and the departmental corridor. Episodes in which the requests occurred were never intentionally manipulated. The colleagues who were ‘bystanders’ in some of the episodes could, in a sense, be said to have been involved in ‘passive participant observation’ as they participated in the interaction without being actively involved in the planning and/or implementation of the research. In contrast, I may be said to have been involved in ‘moderate participant observation’ (Spradley, 1980:60), given my dual role as ‘bystander’ or ‘outsider’ (researcher) and (unintentional) ‘participant’ or ‘insider’ — as interactant in exchanges. Because of the nature of the observation, it was not possible to determine the total number of student-participants. The overwhelming majority of the subjects were students in my first-year tutorial groups or in one of the third-year groups I was teaching. At the observational stage, the study relied exclusively on note-taking. Despite the availability of unobstrusive and sensitive recording devices on the market today, it was not possible to use such devices, given their cost. Besides, being exploratory in nature, the observational component of the study was expected to prepare the ground for further investigation, in line with similar previous research (e.g. Cohen, 1996). In the case of this study, findings from previous studies on African languages (De Kadt, 1992a; Gough, 1995) were considered as sufficient evidence on requests in the students’ L1s. There was, therefore, no need to collect requests in the students’ L1s. (A subsequent study, has, however, combined elicited data in English and in African languages; see Kasanga, 2000; Kasanga, in press). The observational data consisted of 694 requests as detailed below in the tabular breakdown (Table 1). In the coding, the assistance of a second (trained) rater was sought for cases which were not clear-cut to me as the analyst. These cases were only included after agreement had been reached between both raters. A grouping of request strategies was designed for the purpose of this study as follows: direct (mood derivables, explicit perfor-

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matives, hedged performatives, locution derivables, want statement), mid-position (suggestories), and indirect (preparatories, strong hints, mild hints). This classification differs slightly from Blum-Kulka’s (1989) suggested distribution into impositives (mood derivables, explicit performatives, hedged performatives, locution derivables, want statement), conventionally indirect requests (suggestories, preparatories), and non-conventionally indirect requests (strong hints, mild hints). The results in Table 1 below show a pattern of use of request strategies strongly skewed in favour of more direct requests. When taken together, the top two direct request strategies (mood derivables and explicit performatives) represent 97.2% of all the requests used by students, while the bottom end of the scale, i.e. more indirect request strategies taken together (preparatories, strong hints, and mild hints) represent less than a percent (0.8%). There is no doubt about these NNS students’ propensity to use more direct types of requests. There was only a small range of request strategies which the students tended to use in natural exchanges. Results confirmed the prediction made at the beginning of the study about the use by the students of a limited range of the requests and suggest the possibility of transfer from L1 into English. However, this skewed use was not necessarily (should perhaps not be) interpreted as firm evidence of the students’ limited knowledge or unawareness of the full gamut of English requests. On the contrary, the data show that even the strategy at the bottom of the scale was used, although rarely. There seem to be considerable similarities between the findings of the present study and those in De Kadt’s (1992b) study of ZE requests. One of her findings was that requests in Zulu and in Zulu English were significantly more direct than requests in SAfE. Her results confirm the widely held view about the widespread transfer of strategies from Zulu to ZE. NSs of Zulu tend to use translation equivalents in English to make requests. Unfortunately, this has the effect of making them seem ‘less polite’ to NSs of English. The NSs’ perception of ‘impoliteness’ often result in misunderstanding and ultimately racial biases. It is reasonable to assume similarities in the pattern of use among the subjects in the present study. Native speak-

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Table 1: Observational study: students’ requests (CCSARP framework). Request type Mood derivable

Explicit performative Hedged performative

Locution derivable (Obligation statement) Want statement*

Suggestory formula

Preparatory (Query preparatory) Strong hint

Mild hint

Definition/realisation method Requestive force derives from grammatical mood of verb, or sentence type, of the locution; often imperatives; also infinitive forms and elliptical sentences. Use of performative verb (ask, request) (indicative) to explicitly name the illocutionary force. Performative verb (ask, request) (naming of illocutionary force) is modified by hedging expressions (modal verb: would like to/must/have to; or verb of intention want to). States the obligation of the hearer to carry out the act; requestive force indicated by use of obligation modals (have to, must, should, ought to). Expression of speaker’s wish/desire for the hearer to carry out the act; use of ‘want’ or ‘desire’ verbs (want/wish) or modals (would like). Illocutionary intent is phrased as a suggestion by means of a framing formula; contains a suggestion to do something (How about/Why...not). Reference to a preparatory conditions for feasibility of the requested action (e.g. ability, possibility, willingness), very often in question form. Illocutionary intent not immediately derivable from the locution, but the locution refers to elements of intended illocution or proposition. No elements of immediate relevance to the intended illocution are present in the locution; interpretable by context.

Example(s) Where is X’s office?

No. 296

I am asking for ... assignment

379

I wanted to ask you to borrow me a red pen

5

... you must tell him that ...

8

I want you to give me some chalk

–

–

I was wondering if you could help me with some chalks

1

The other day you said you’d teach me how to use a computer... Last week, I went home and I forgot my watch (giggles)...

3

2

*Ervin-Tripp’s (1976:29ff) ‘need statements’ (used interchangeably with ‘want statements’) would include more than one category in the CCSARP classification, such as: ‘want statements’ (I want you to check the requirement for stairs), ‘mood derivables’ (I’ll have a beer) , and suggestories (Why don’t you go ahead now to dinner...). Her category ‘imbedded imperatives’ includes the CCSARP’s ‘suggestories’ (Why don’t you open the window?), ‘hedged performatives’ (Could I trouble you to open the window?), and ‘preparatories’ (The line is busy; would you care to wait?).

er intuition suggests that the trend toward the use of performatives (especially) described by Gough (1995) applies to the L1s of the subjects (SePedi, SeTswana, XiTsonga, SeSotho). His finding in the use of performatives in Xhosa also concurs with the above conclusion, especially as it applies to the overuse of explicit performatives in BSAfE. A different interpretation may apply to similar use of mood derivables. In my view, the preference (if any) of mood derivables is simply one of other marks of the poor English language ability or lack of self-assurance in the language of most of the subjects. It was, therefore, necessary to explore the extent to which the subjects were aware of other request strategies not displayed in their daily exchanges. If it could be proved that they

were aware of other request strategies, then a logical conclusion would be either (i) that despite their awareness, they lacked ‘knowledge of use’, i.e. the ability to use these requesting strategies appropriately in context, or alternatively, (ii) that they were unwilling to use them because they perhaps preferred not to sound ‘un-African’. Hinkel (1995) suggests the possibility that NNSs might be unwilling to use certain speech act formulae or target language norms. To probe the subjects’ level of awareness of English requests, an elicitation study was designed using the DCT technique. The task was tested on two dozens students who volunteered to complete it under supervision. Using simulated situations, scripted dialogues of varied lengths were used from which


the turn supposed to contain the speech act under study had been omitted (see Appendix A). In this way, respondents were asked to fill them in with the help of a brief description of the situation and the next turn or other turns of the dialogue. Unlike in studies designed to elicit the subjects’ perceptions or judgments of a range of suggested strategies (e.g. Suh, 1999), the subjects in the present study were not required to choose only one among suggested strategies, but were asked to provide as many alternatives as they could, thus, demonstrate their knowledge of these strategies. To approximate spontaneous responses, without stretching their memory too much, and to prevent rehearsal, students were not allowed more time than was judged sufficient for each dialogue (on the basis of the pilot study), unlike in other studies (e.g. Suh, 1999); neither was the research purpose of the exercise explained in greater detail beforehand. However, it was made very clear both in the DCT sheet and the explanation provided to them before the completion of the DCT that the exercise was not a test or examination. All the subjects in the (convenience) sample — an intact group — volunteered to take part in the exercise. The DCT, now widely used in the study of requests (see Kasper & Dahl, 1977 for a review of these studies) was chosen because it had proved to be an effective data collection instrument for fast gathering a large amount of data which are quantifiable and can be used at a later stage of an investigation as a means of corroborating preliminary results or patterns observed in natural exchanges. To compensate for the shortcomings inherent in the use of the DCT (see Wolfson et al., 1989:182) and as a small measure of validation and for comparative purposes, another set of data elicited from

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the students were added. The DCT-elicited data are presented in Table 2. As generally recommended for the analysis of the DCT data, I first discarded sequences which suggested misunderstanding of some parts of the test by some respondents. Then, I systematically coded and classified the requests in the nine categories of the CCSARP, after isolating head acts. Contrary to expectations, the results of the elicited data showed a distribution pattern of (putative use of) requests very different from that found in the observational data. One would have expected the pattern to be similar to that of observational data, given that similar subjects were involved in naturally-occurring exchanges. In contrast, it was found that socalled ‘indirect’ request strategies, namely preparatories, strong hints, and mild hints (53% of all request strategies) outnumbered direct request strategies (36.6% of all request strategies). One possible interpretation is that, in natural exchanges, students tend to use simple and stereotypical BSAfE request formulas learned at school or from peers at the same level of English proficiency. In contrast, in a test-like situation as the DCT completion may have been construed, unlike NSs in the CCSARP, the subjects in the present study tended to make use of translation equivalents of more ‘elaborate’ formulae, despite the assurance which was given that the exercise did not represent any form of testing or assessment of their academic competence. The possibility of performance anxiety or fright was also suggested as a possible explanation (MM Mohlake, 1999: pers. comm.). It was speculated that the status of the hearer (HEP lecturers in all the situations in the study) vis-à-vis the

Table 2: DCT-elicited requests Request strategies Mood derivable Explicit performative Hedged performative Locution derivable Want statement Suggestory Formula Preparatory... Strong hint Mild hint

Examples Show me the direction of Mr X’s office.

Number 28 12

I’d like to have back myassignment, if you are finished ... please.

21

Can you please show me where X’s office is? I’ve made a mistake; I’ve put X’s assignment under your door. The topic is very vague; I don’t know where to start.

88 16 3

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speakers (LEP students) may explain the discrepancy between actual requests and those produced in the simulated dialogues. From a methodological point of view, such a discrepancy in the result may sound a warning against the use of DCT alone. One other striking feature in the DCT data is the relatively frequent use of alerters (47) and supportive moves (38) which are seldom found in the observational data. In my view, the presence of a greater number of these requesting moves reinforces the view mentioned earlier of more ‘elaboration’ attempted by the students in a DCT test situation, unlike in the natural conversation. It may be surmised that the students may have more knowledge of request strategies, as evidenced by the findings of the two studies, than they have knowledge of use. Alternatively, Hinkel’s (1995) idea of NNSs’ unwillingness to conform to NS norms may be extended to this study. Either possibility has important pedagogical implications which I shall discuss in the next section. In a multimethod research approach, a sequence of steps from observation, to role play and elicitation, to perception and verbal report allows further insights (see Cohen, 1996). It was, however, not possible to obtain data on the subjects’ perceptions of requests, nor did the logistics available allow to arrange interviews with some of them. It would not be possible, in the overwhelming number of cases, to trace the subjects, nor would it be easy to convince them to reflect on their requesting strategies. Instead, NS judgments of a selection of observational and elicited requests were obtained (see Appendix B). Native speakers’ judgments were intended to validate, as it were, the judgment of the analyst on the appropriateness of different request strategies. As much detailed description of the different situations as possible (see Appendix B) was provided to the three NSs, all experienced lecturers of English, with a long and varied experience teaching English in ESL (in Africa, the Middle and Far East) and native environments (England, North America, New Zealand). The two main findings from the analysis of their judgements are summarized as follows. Firstly, direct requests were generally regarded by the NS judges as ‘rude’, ‘inappropriate’ or even ‘wholly inappropriate’, as one of the judges stated in her questionnaire when

referring to mood derivable and explicit performative requests. Alternative request strategies offered by NS judges tended to be of an indirect type, ranging from suggestory formulaes to strong hints. Secondly, the use of must in several scripts was also found inappropriate. One judge commented that most of the requests were ‘too typical of Afrikaans speakers’ (D Temple, 1998: pers. comm.), thus suggesting possible transfer via Afrikaans. The expression ‘You must ...’, so widely used in South Africa — over the telephone or in face-to-face interaction, especially by secretaries and other officials — in offering advice or suggestion, rather than in expressing a command, is said to be a translation equivalent of Afrikaans. The widespread use of ‘must + verb’ expressions which may be more justified in children’s language, given that they either do not yet understand the impositive force, or because they imitate adults who use it in giving them comands, is less tolerable when misused by adults. Consider the following excerpt from a notice The following students must call at ... office to collect their cheques. The circumstances under which the notice was issued did not, indeed, require of the intended addressess any obligation to comply. There are many examples of misuse of must, required to, and similar words or expressions used for invitations (even in official correspondence at different levels of academic administration), which would, in other forms of English, sound like a summons. Some thoughts on pragmatic instruction It has been established (e.g. Adamson & Regan, 1991; Schmidt, 1983; Schumann, 1978) that linguistic (i.e. grammatical) proficiency does not always tally with ‘sociolinguistic competence’. A disambiguation of the term ‘sociolinguistic competence’ is in order here. In some literature (e.g. Canale, 1983; 1984; Canale & Swain, 1980) ‘sociolinguistic competence’ is roughly equivalent to what Hymes (1968; 1971) calls ‘communicative competence’. Consequently, Hymes’ ‘communicative competence’ is, in Canale’s and Canale & Swain’s conception, a hyponym of the broader concept ‘communicative competence’ which includes: grammatical competence, sociolinguitic competence, discourse competence, and strategic competence. Elsewhere, sociolinguis-


tic competence (as a component of the broader concept of ‘communicative competence’) is referred to as: ‘communicative proficiency’ (Canale & Swain, 1984), ‘conversational competence’ (Richards & Sukwiwat, 1983), ‘pragmatic competence’ (Bachman, 1990; BardoviHarlig & Dörnyei, 1998; Hoffman-Hicks, 1992; Koike, 1989), ‘pragmatic awareness’ (BardoviHarlig & Dörnyei, 1998; Bardovi-Harlig et al., 1991; Clennell, 1999), ‘pragmatic ability’ (Rintell, 1981). I prefer the term ‘pragmatic competence’, which encompasses both sociopragmatic and pragmalinguistic aspects of the use of a language. The mismatch between grammatical competence and pragmatic competence is presumably a result of inadequate syllabuses (Hurley, 1992) and formal instruction too heavily based on formal grammar teaching. In the real world, users of a language require greater skills at discourse level (i.e. beyond sentence level) to produce more communicatively and pragmatically relevant language than mere knowledge of grammatical rules. They also require pragmatic competence to use socially acceptable appropriate language forms and to understand and interpret the hidden force of linguistic forms (Canale, 1983). Therefore, learners need pedagogical intervention in the form of explicit instruction (see Bardovi-Harlig & Hartford, 1993; Boxer, 1996; King & Silver, 1993), exposure to appropriate use of the target language either in the natural environment (see, for example, Kasanga, 1999) or in learning materials (e.g. Boxer & Pickering, 1995; Chick, 1996a). However, some (especially those in the area of Critical Linguistics) consider pragmatic instruction as politically biased, because it might contribute to the promotion of one variety of discourse and their speakers to the detriment of many others. They believe that it may, by the same token, reinforce inequalities and retard or prevent the contestation of the established order by the historically oppressed and marginalised. This argument draws from the view that foreign language teaching is a ‘threat to ethnic identity’ (Taylor et al., 1977). ELT, especially, is tantamount to the perpetuation of ‘linguistic imperialism’ (Phillipson, 1992). In South Africa, in the heyday of political struggle, critics of what can be called ‘normative language’ — i.e. teaching of other people’s norms — rose

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against communicative language teaching (CLT) and the teaching of sociolinguistic norms because it would in ‘many communities (...) simply perpetuate inequality’ (Peirce, 1989:411). The alternative proposed was a ‘pedagogy of possibility’ which would recognise ‘people’s English’ and its potential for political expression and struggle. Proposals such as these have, no doubt, had a profound impact on the thinking of sociolinguists and teachers in understanding the historical and political natures of a teaching approach as has the recognition of the political nature of language and its manipulation. There may be an inauspicious consequence in a ‘swing-of-the-pendulum’ reaction involving wholesale rejection of CLT and pragmatic instruction. Proponents of movements such as that advocated by Peirce’s ‘pedagogy of possibility’ would find abhorent the ‘deficit theory’ which considers an L2 learner as someone with a deficit. Yet, in rejecting the teaching of sociolinguistic conventions inherent in a language (as part of CLT) because it might only lead to the inculcation of the norms of the dominant group who owns the given language, they may be, unintentionally, subscribing to the very kind of deficit theory they would publicly dissociate themselves from. In rejecting any instruction of sociolinguistic norms, they would, indeed, imply that the L2 learner who is being taught these norms is a non-thinking machine, incapable of choices. Yet, it is common knowledge that people bring to the task of learning L2 competencies which they already possess (see also Holliday, 1994). Experience has shown that even young learners may discern norms of different cultures and select them appropriately in situations. For example, in Britain a friend’s (bilingual English-Lingala) children, respectively five and ten years old at the time, applied admirably well the sociolinguistic norms in the use of different forms of address in interaction in English with British and African friends respectively. It seems, therefore, singular if we were to assume that ESL speakers may not have the ability for ‘speech accommodation’ (Giles, 1973; Giles et al., 1991) the way children do. Adults are even more disposed to make choices of their own. In this respect, Baxter (1991) reports the case of Japanese speakers of English who resented being told to speak as native speakers (NSs) and preferred

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to speak what they considered as their own form of English. Both show that L2 learners and users of a language at different ages are capable of choices. Using the above examples, I wish to suggest that instruction in sociolinguistic norms ought to be part of ELT. Unlike those, like BlumKulka et al. (1989), who advocate the introduction of pragmatic instruction in foreign/second language courses from the very beginning, I am more in favour of a gradual introduction which would be in line with a form-to-function instruction, that is in which a fair knowledge of formal grammar would facilitate instruction aimed at raising pragmatic awareness. Pragmatic instruction should not be considered as necessarily oppressive. On the contrary, knowledge of several sets of norms may have an empowering end-result. It may enable the L2 users to hear what is said and intuitively understand what may be hidden. Indeed, instruction in sociolinguistic norms, I believe, is one way to add to linguistic competence, the abilities ‘to interpret and judge the value of what one hears and reads, and to communicate effectively and work harmoniously with others with different value-systems’ (Clark, 1996:254). This important skill, I suggest, justifies the groundswell of opinions in favour of pragmatic instruction (e.g. (Brown, 1990; Canale, 1983; Chick, 1996a; Clennell, 1999; Cohen, 1996; King, 1976; Littlewood, 1983; Lwanga-Lumu, 1999; Mir, 1992; Olshtain & Cohen, 1990; Saito & Beecken, 1997). I discuss below the main aims of pragmatic instruction which I advocate. One of the roles of pragmatic instruction is to educate gatekeepers in academic settings and other important sectors of social and economic activities. In academic settings, which have become highly multiracial and multicultural in South Africa, teachers, and especially native speakers of English, ought to be alerted to the inevitability of variation in pragmatic competence in English resulting from the learners’ or users’ L1 — and even to individual choices and preferences of the variety of English. The training of gatekeepers (see Roberts et al., 1992; Scollon & Scollon, 1983) may benefit from interlanguage pragmatics research in several ways. Gatekeepers in the employment sector, for example, must be aware of the possible differences between interviewees and themselves in the use of speech act strategies

to express ‘negative politeness’ (deference) in contrast to ‘positive politeness’ (solidarity) (Brown & Levinson, 1987:70). Pragmatic instruction would serve to educate prospective employers by sensitizing them to look at applicants in new ways that challenge stereotypical attitudes and ethnocentrism2. Empirical (e.g. Gumperz et al., 1979) and anecdotal (e.g. Chick, 1985) evidence suggests that misevaluation and misunderstanding by NS interviewers of the intention of NNS interviewees in job interviews put them at a great disadvantage (Erickson, 1979; Erickson & Schultz, 1982). Another important role of pragmatic instruction is to raise pragmatic awareness (e.g. BlumKulka et al., 1989:27) among the learners. This pragmatic awarenes-raising is similar to grammatical consciousness raising in grammar instruction, which has been supported by empirical evidence (Carroll & Swain, 1991; cited in Yip, 1994; Fotos, 1993; White, 1991b; Yip, 1994) and theoretical arguments, especially the ‘Learnability Theory’ (Pankhurst et al., 1988; White, 1991a;1991b). The following illustration of the usefulness of reinforcing grammatical awareness may serve to prove the need to reinforce pragmatic awareness, too. For most of our LEP students, the extension of the progressive aspect ( -ing form) to stative verbs (see also Makalela, 1998) is one such area which needs overt instruction. The reaction of my first-year students in a lecture on English tenses to the statement about the differences in meaning between She is having a baby, and She is having lunch at 1:00 o’clock, and of the ungrammaticality of the oft heard My name is not appearing on the list, has always been overwhelmingly one of surprise. Most (if not all) of our students are not aware of these important differences. It was quite revealing that a small group came to say that they would, henceforth, be careful when using the -ing forms. In the same way, we might also raise pragmatic awareness in the use of modal verbs. For example, in an investigation of the use of modal verbs of obligation and necessity (must, have to, should, ought to, need to) — as distinct from their epistemic models — in writing by NSs and NNSs, Hinkel (1995) found that the latter had difficulty with these modals and used them in different contexts from those of NSs. Given the underlying pragmatic meanings implicit in the


use of these modals, he advocates explicit instruction and the provision of negative feedback of various types to raise the learners’ awareness. For the same reasons, several proposals have been made on the teaching (and even testing) of pragmatic competence (e.g. Olshtain & Blum-Kulka, 1985; Olshtain & Cohen, 1990; 1991; Omaggio-Hadley, 1993). Most recently, Saito & Beecken (1997) proposed a three-step procedure consisting of: (i) explanation of prototypical use (i.e. meta-use knowledge) of the relative tendencies of use by NSs; (ii) presentation of a variety of appropriate strategies for performing the speech act (i.e. knowledge of use); and (iii) practice of the speech act, presumably in a simulated way, such as role play. This framework is one that has been adopted (and adapted) in the suggestions I offer for the teaching of English requests. In considering pragmatic instruction, several (complementary rather than exclusive) sources need to be considered. One source of information is error analysis, which is also in keeping with the Learnability Theory already mentioned. For example, the identification of possible errors and the testing of NNSs’ judgments, as was the case in Makalela’s (1998) study of BSAfE, may be very helpful. Another source of information is metalinguistic judgments using native speakers’ intuitions as a complement to observation of naturally occurring interaction. Studies of the scope of ErvinTripp (1976) may provide a wealth of information on specific speech acts. A third important source is needs analysis or studies of perceptions (e.g. Pang, 1997). Suggestions for pragmatic instruction offered in this article draw extensively on this variety of sources. Error analysis and native speakers’ judgments It was found in an earlier study (Kasanga, 1998) that the English NNS subjects’ had a propensity to use explicit performatives, and to a lesser degree, mood derivables (see supra Table 1). Although no introspective study was carried out to ascertain the reasons for this propensity, it was assumed that this tendency might be a manifestation of systematic transfer into English of translation equivalents of linguistic forms which are most appropriate in African languages, but not necessarily in

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English. The subjects more likely resorted to translation into L2 (English) of pragmatic strategies, especially explicit performatives, which are perfectly appropriate in L1, but not in L2. At this stage, native speakers’ judgments or rating will be very helpful. Need analyses and surveys Need analyses of and surveys with both NS and NNS of English are a valuable source of information on the speakers’ preferences, desires, likes and dislikes. One example of need analysis is a survey, by means of a selfadministered questionnaire, carried out by Pang (1997), of two groups of would-be restaurant and luxury shop customers in Hong Kong. The groups, reasonably well-matched in terms of educational level, were respectively made up of 30 Chinese speakers (henceforth CS) and 20 non-Chinese speakers (NCSs), all but one in the latter group English NSs. Often, when seeking courses for their employees, clients in the fashion, furniture stores, restaurants industry, and from the banking sector in Hong Kong insist on securing the services of bilingual English-Chinese instructors to both improve the standard of their employees’ spoken English and instil in them greater appreciation of the differences between Chinese and Western cultures. In so doing, they believe that better language skills and improved awareness of the culture of the target language will result in smooth cross-cultural communication which, in turn, will enhance their staff performance and increase business output. Pang assumes that clients’ expectations and the twin demand of relevant and culturally-sensitive English language courses might be reflected in the patterns of use of the English language. Hence, the need for an investigation of possible cultural differences and expectations of both groups of customers. Among her findings, the following are of relevance to the present study: (i) good communication skills, which, undoubtedly, contribute to ‘good atmosphere’ (rated higher by NCSs than by CSs), would be highly desirable to NCS customers; (ii) both sets of respondents overwhelmingly stated that they would like their orders to be repeated to them to ensure accuracy if the staff were unsure; (iii) ‘good service’, especially through interpersonal communication in case of customer complaints about sub-

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standard or bad service received, was rated higher by NCSs than by their CS counterparts; (iv) moreover, this contrastive attitude is further corroborated by the findings that Chinese customers would, in their great majority (80%), desist from making a complaint, whereas 50% of the NCSs would definitely make a complaint, the other half would make no complaint; and (v) all the NCS respondents stated they would return to the restaurant if their complaint was handled satisfactorily, while all 80% of Chinese speakers who would not make a complaint would stage a ‘silent protest’, as it were, by not returning to the offending restaurant. One of her conclusions was that, unlike Chinese customers, Western customers value highly efficient response to their complaints as a distinguishing mark of good customer care. It may be surmised that satisfactory handling of customers’ complaints, viewed by Westerners as a commitment to service, can boost customer confidence and loyalty and guarantee good sales. A corollary to this finding is that sociolinguistic proficiency in English is as important for the staff in the service industries as efficiency in executing their duties. While studies of this type have not been done in South Africa, to the best of my knowledge, some extrapolation can be attempted. From a pragmatic point of view, the speech acts of requesting, complaining, and apologizing would be ubiquitous in the service industry and would entail appropriate use of English by the guilty party to smooth the exchange and pacify the offended party. The need for tactful communication is further reinforced by the responses of non-Chinese subjects in Pang’s study, who might presumably behave the same way in the South African context. On this basis I argue, finally, that the teaching of English for occupational purposes (EOP), especially in the service and communication industries, as has been suggested by research in the United States (e.g. D’Agruma & Hardy, 1997; Rintell & Mitchell, 1989) may facilitate crosscultural communication and improve job performance. Pragmatic instruction could proceed from testing the students’ perceptions of appropriateness of their own requests to teaching a wider range of English requests. Hence, a first step would be to select from observational requests representative examples at different points on the directness/politeness scale with a

brief description of the natural situation, participants, events, and other important variables. In activities which would suit a pair- or group-work format, the students’ task would consist in assessing the (in)appropriateness of the requests (see Chick, 1996a). Role play could be subsequently added to this assessment task to enable the performance of request strategies in a fuller discourse context and provide the opportunity for corrective feedback by the teacher, which has been proved to be an effective form of consciousness raising (e.g. Sharwood-Smith, 1991). What to teach Pragmatic instruction in requests, in my view, ought to include both the understanding and production aspects. Indirect requests may be quite a problem area for NNS listeners who have not been exposed or trained to interpret them. Most NNSs would presumably not be aware of the ‘six sources of information’ used by NSs to judge whether the literal meaning was intended seriously or pro forma (see Clark, 1979 for a fuller discussion of these two possible meanings of indirect speech acts) as well as whether there is intended to be any indirect meaning. Richards and Sukwiwat (1983:114) remark that in Indian languages, for example, phrases such as Could I have and I would like... tend to be avoided as they would imply social inequality. Consider also the following request, in a game park, by an NS guest to his NNS host to stop the car so that he can take pictures: Do you want to stop the car? In the service industry, confirmation and clarification requests constitute another set of important speech acts as they are a response to other requests from customers. Students could be tasked to judge the appropriateness in different situations of commonly used forms, such as the following explicit statements of the type Try again or I don’t know (Pica & Doughty, 1988:48), or even What did you say? (for I beg your pardon) often heard in everyday speech among equals. Thereafter, the teacher can provide a sampling of requesting forms that would be appropriate in lopsided power relations, for example waiter(ress)-customer, shop assistantcustomer, switchboard operator-client, and many other situations of subordinate-superordinate, or vice-versa (see, for example, ErvinTripp, 1976). In this way, depending on the


level of the students and their stage of language proficiency, s/he might both equip the students with meta-use knowledge and knowledge of use. So far, suggestions for instruction in the speech act of requesting has focussed on the head act. However, politeness and deference in English (in its many varieties) as well as in other languages are expressed and negotiated by means of several linguistic sub-strategies, most importantly: internal and external modifications (Blum-Kulka et al., 1989:281–289) which contribute to minimising the imposition that the act of requesting may entail. Requests may be modified internally through the addition of mitigating modality markers, and externally, by means of supportive moves. Examples of request modifications based mainly on observational and DCT data are provided below. Use of downgraders The impositive force of a request like I am asking for my/the assignment which the overwhelming majority of my students use when they come to collect their scripts may be mitigated by means of devices such as: the use of an interrogative, conditional, or, preferably, a combination of both. In each case, please, a common politeness marker in English (see House, 1989) is recommended. One possibility could be: Sir, could you please let me have mine? for I am asking for my/the assignment. Similarly, Could I ask you to (please) tell him. and Could you possibly show me where X’s office is? would be more appropriate than ...You must tell him and ...Where is X’s office? respectively. Use of supportive moves Supportive moves are devices commonly used by NSs to mitigate their requests. Students should be made aware of some aggravating moves so that they can avoid their use in situations in which the hearer was in a position of power or dominance. Mitigating moves come in different forms, namely: (i) The use of ‘preparators’, i.e. devices which enable the speaker to prepare the ground for a request by asking about the hearer’s potential availability or permission, as in the following: May I ask you something? Could you have some spare time to complete this questionnaire (ii) Getting a pre-commitment by checking on a

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potential refusal before making the request, as in: Could you do me a favour? Would you complete this questionnaire for me (please)? (iii) The use of grounders, i.e. giving reasons, explanations, justifications for a request, as in: Excuse me; I think I am lost. Can you please show me how to get to Mr X’s office? (iv) The use of disarmers, by trying to remove any potential objection the hearer might raise against the request, as in: I know you are busy; do you have a minute to (please) show me where Mr X’s office is? (v) The use of imposition minimizers, as in: Would you show me where Mr X’s office is, but only if you have a minute? Summary and conclusions As posited in the study, students displayed a propensity to use direct request forms in general in the natural, unrehearsed interactions, a finding in line with that in previous studies (e.g. Blum-Kulka & House, 1989). Some perplexing results were, however, obtained from DCT-elicitation data. Against expectations, students produced a more varied range of requests, with a significantly greater proportion of indirect requests than in natural conversation, and the use of mitigating devices such as alerters and supportive moves. The mismatch between use and knowledge seems to discount the hypothesis of the learners’ ignorance of or inability to use the full gamut of request strategies. An alternative explanation may be found in the fact that they were making choices and expressing preferences of forms presumably associated with African languages (for example, explicit performatives) and most appropriate to their own variety of English (BSAfE). It would also be an expression of their unwillingness to sound ‘unnatural’ should they adopt what they may assume to be translation equivalents of dispreferred requests in African languages. This intepretation would be in line with the argument that diverse pragmatic norms and linguistic variations obtain according to variables, such as: regional, ethnic, political, and class differences (Hodge, 1990; Thomas, 1983; Wolfson, 1989). Pragmatic failure resulting from misunderstanding or misuse of speech act strategies may be the source of cultural friction, communication breakdown, as evidenced in several empirical studies (e.g. Clennel, 1999; Faerch &

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Kasper, 1989; Kasanga, 1998), and may even lead to negative labelling and stereotypes about the ethnic other (De Kadt, 1998:252) and the perpetuation of discrimination (Chick, 1985). It follows directly from this statement that pragmatic instruction for awareness-raising should be an integral part of ELT. As experience has shown, most of our LEP students need basic metalinguistic competence. I offered suggestions for pragmatic instruction, the adaptation, and the use of locally-made materials. Because existing materials have been found to have very serious shortcomings (see, for example, Chick, 1996a), I argued that material designers should endeavour to collect naturally-occurring data and their contexts of occurrence to provide more ‘authentic’ language in interaction. Other sources of data which I suggested are: error analysis, needs analysis and surveys. I also suggested that the study of interlanguage pragmatics and the provision of native-speech data other areas of applied language research, viz.: second language acquisition and corpus linguistics, would also contribute to improving the quality of pragmatic teaching. In suggesting a gradual introduction of pragmatic instruction at an earlier stage of English-second language teaching, I added the following caveats. Firstly, it should neither be dogmatic nor prescriptive (see also Thomas, 1996a; b; Wolfson, 1989, for a similar position). Furthermore, the choice for the adoption of norms to use would best be left to learners’ choice. Indeed, one of the goals of pragmatic instruction as advocated in this article is to heighten the students’ awareness of the rules of use of varieties of English (see also Saito & Beecken, 1997, for a similar position) other than their own, rather than to prescribe these norms and proscribe their own norms. This leads to the second goal of pragmatic instruction which I discussed in the article. Another equally important goal of pragmatic instruction (and research) is to educate native speakers to the many variations in the use of English. This role is now also widely supported, especially by proponents of the World Englishes (WE) paradigm (Kachru, 1992; 1997; Smith, 1992) who have moved away from the dichotomous perspective of standard versus other Englishes and to a more encompassing view of several world varieties. In this perspec-

tive, native speakers of English (in the case of South Africa those, especially whites, for whom English is an L1) must be made aware of pragmatic features in other varieties, especially BSAfE, which are different from those in their own variety. In future research, it might be useful to test the possibility that unwillingness to approximate the norms of the target language might be the cause of the discrepancy between actual use of and knowledge about requesting formulae, as suggested by the mismatch between naturally-occurring and elicited request strategies produced by the NNS subjects. Both longitudinal and single-moment studies should include post-DCT interviews with, or verbal reports by, the subjects which can provide a detailed analysis of the reasons behind different requesting behaviours. Verbal reports on the desirability of acquiring pragmatic skills will also be pedagogically useful. In putting to practical use insights from empirical findings (including those of the present study), I hoped to have responded to the call by Hornberger (1993, cited in Chick, 1996b) for a greater contribution from researchers to the improvement of intercultural communication. Notes Sociopragmatics — also referred to as ‘sociocultural pragmatics’ (e.g. Blum-Kulka, House & Kasper, 1989) — has to do with socio-cultural norms and parameters relevant to the interactants (status or power, distance, gender, age) and to the context or situation. Pragmalinguistics deals with linguistic resources, especially the forms/formulae, in speech act realisation to suit social-cultural norms. On a pragmatics continuum, Thomas (1996b) situates sociopragmatics closer to sociology, pragmalinguistics, to linguistics. 2 ’Ethnocentrism’ has been defined in several ways ranging from the moderate view of a tendency to apply the standards of one’s own culture to human activities in other cultures (Downs, 1971:144) to the more extreme view of the belief that one’s own culture is the paragon of value (LeVine & Campbell) which leads to individual groups nourishing their own pride and vanity and looking with contempt on outsiders (Sumner, 1906:13; cited in Luckens, 1979:144). Discrimination, including that 1


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Acknowledgments — I acknowledge the co-operation

of the students, the main informants, and the three native speakers-judges. I also thank the colleagues who (unknowingly) took part in the study as bystanders, and MM Mohlake, who read and commented on an earlier draft.

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Appendix A: DCT questionnaire This is not a test for which you will earn marks! There are no correct or incorrect answers. The short exercise will serve to identify formulas you prefer to use in daily request routines. Please avoid sophistication and write down legibly what you think you would say naturally. 1.

Imagine you are running a small project for which you need some information from lecturers. In the dialogue below, you are going to ask one of the lecturers you meet in the corridor to complete your questionnaire. Fill in the missing part of the dialogue (what you would say to him/her). You: Good morning [sir/madam] Lecturer: Good morning. May I help you? You:____________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________

2.

Can you think of more than one way in which you might put your request to him/her? (Tick NO or YES): NO YES

3.

If you answer to question 2 is NO, go to exercise 4. If your answer is YES, please list any other ways in which you might put the request. Each of these ways should fit in the dialogue above: a. b. c. d. e. f.

4.

You go to see one of your lecturers in his/her office to collect your marked assignment. Fill in the missing part of the dialogue (i.e. what you would say) to request your assignment? Lecturer: Come in please. How can I help you? You:____________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________________ ________________________

5.

Can you think of more than one way in which you might put your request to him/her? (Tick YES or NO): NO YES

6.

If you answer to question 5 is NO, go to exercise 7. If your answer is YES, please list any other ways in which you might put the request. Each of these ways should fit in the dialogue above: a. b. c. d. e. f.

7.

You put your assignment under the wrong door. You wait by the door. Someone stops by the door, but does not open it. You then approach him/her to ask him/her to get you back the assignment. Complete the short dialogue below: You:____________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________________ ________________________ Lecturer: Which assignment? You: Well________________________________________________________________________


8.

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You are looking for a lecturer’s office. You see someone in an office along the corridor and ask him/her for directions to your lecturer’s (Mr X) office. What would you say to him/her? You:____________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________ Lecturer:

It’s the last door to your left down the corridor.

9.

Can you think of more than one way in which you might put your request to him/her? (Tick YES or NO): NO YES

10.

If you answer to question 9 is YES, please list any other ways in which you might put the request. Each of these ways should fit in the dialogue above: a. b. c. d. e. f. THANK YOU FOR YOUR CO-OPERATION

Appendix B: Native speaker judgment sheet Abbreviations: s: speaker h: hearer Your assistance with the following task will be appreciated: Can you please, using your intuition as a native speaker of English, comment on the following sampling of students’ naturally occurring requests to their lecturers. Where there is more than one turn, the student request is underlined for ease of identification. Please write your comments in the margin provided at the left-hand side underlined in episodes, giving your reaction as to the (pragmatic) appropriacy of the formulation of the request, bearing in mind the context in which the request took place, and variables such as: social rank or status of the participants (s and h), distance, age (and gender in some cases). You may also want to comment on ‘politeness/deference’ (you may want to use a scale, for example). If you think two or more episodes look the same, or if you have no comment on some of the exchanges, simply skip them. Situations: In almost all the cases, s is a student and h a lecturer (either the main researcher or a colleague). In all the exchanges there is a request by a student to the lecturer. This request may be a request for information or a request for action. The description of the situations indicates where the episode took place. Openings: Examples of openings are: greetings, grounders, and other formal stereotypical expressions/formulas to start a verbal exchange. Because they could not be noted down while the exchange took place, they were omitted and do not appear here.