Requests, a speech act people frequently use to perform everyday social interactions, have attracted particular attention in politeness theories, pragmatics, and second language acquisition. This book looks at request behaviours in a significant EFL population – Chinese-speaking learners of English. It will draw on recent literature, such as politeness theories and cognitive models for interlanguage pragmatics development, as well as placing special emphasis on situational context and formulaic language to provide a more fine-grained investigation. A range of request scenarios has been specifically designed for this project, from common service encounters to highly face-threatening situations such as borrowing money and asking a favour of police officer. Our findings on Chinese-style pragmatic behaviours and patterns of pragmatic development will be of value to cross-cultural pragmatics researchers, TESOL professionals, and university students with an interest in this area of study.

Preface                                                                           IX
List of tables                                                                    XI
List of abbreviations                                                           XIII
Acknowledgements                                                                  XV

CHAPTER 1                                                                          
Introduction                                                                       1
ILP and requesting   2
The context-based and formulae-based approach   4
Questions for this study   5
Organisation of the book   7

CHAPTER 2
Interlanguage pragmatics: A critical review                                        9
2.1 Essential notions in relation to pragmatics   9
    2.1.1 What pragmatics studies   9
    2.1.2 Communicative competence   10
    2.1.3 Speech acts and requesting   11
    2.1.4 Indirect request realisations, politeness and cultural relativity   11
2.2 Cross-cultural speech-act realisation   16
    2.2.1 Cross-linguistic variation   21
    2.2.2 Interlanguage variation   29
2.3 Two problems with previous ILP studies   42
    2.3.1 Context-based approach to ILP 42
    2.3.2 Formulae-based approach to ILP   45
2.4 Summary   51

CHAPTER 3
Method                                                                            53
3.1 Respondents   53
3.2 Issues around the native-speaker model   54
3.3 Design of scenarios   57
3.4 Data analysis methods   61
    3.4.1 Utterance length   61
    3.4.2 Strategy types   61
    3.4.3 Formulaic expressions   63
    3.4.4 Internal modifications   64
    3.4.5 External modlifcations   65
3.5 Valid request utterances   66

CHAPTER 4
Strategy use                                                                      67
4.1 Strategy types and strategy categories: An overview   67
4.2 Individual strategy types and categories   69
    4.2.1 Direct strategies   69
    4.2.2 Conventionally-indrect strategies   77
    4.2.3 Non-conventionally indirect strategies   81
4.3 Strategy use in scenarios   84
4.4 Summary   87

CHAPTER 5
Formulaic expressions                                                             89
5.1 The formulae repertories of learners and native speakers   89
    5.1.1 The most commonly used formulae: 
          Learners vs. native speakers   89
    5.1.2 Differences in preferred formulae between learners 
          and native speakers   91
5.2 Individual formula types   94
    5.2.1 Formulae commonly used by native speakers   94
    5.2.2 Formulae commonly used by learners   96
5.3 Scenario-based use of formulae   99
    5.3.1 The distribution of formulae across all scenarios   99
    5.3.2 The use formulae in the four groups of scenarios   101
5.4 Formulae-based vs. strategy-based examination   110

CHAPTER 6
Internal modifications                                                            113
6.1 Syntactic modifications   113
    6.1.1 Conditonals   113
    6.1.2 Bi-clausal structures   115
6.2 Lexical modifiers   119
    6.2.1 Lexical downgraders   119
    6.2.2 Address terms   121
6.3 Summary 123

CHAPTER 7
External modifications and utterance length                                       125
7.1 External modifications   125
    7.1.1 Supportive moves   125
    7.1.2 Information sequencing   130
7.2 Utterance length   134

CHAPTER 8
How Chinese EFL learners make requests: Overall pattern & implications            137
8.1 Patterns of request behaviour: Learners and native speakers   137
8.2 Basic questions about interlanguage pragmatics   145
8.3 Two major approaches   155
    8.3.1 The context-based approach   155
    8.3.2 The formulae-based approach   160
8.4 The native-speaker model revisited   161

CHAPTER 9
Conclusion                                                                        163

Notes                                                                             169
References                                                                        171

APPENDIX 1
The discourse completing tasks                                                    183

APPENDIX 2
Strategy types by scenario                                                        189

APPENDIX 3
Formulaic expressions by scenario                                                 191

Index                                                                             197