Cover not available
Article published In:
International Journal of Language and Culture
Vol. 10:1 (2023) ► pp.115–144

Request strategies

A socio-pragmatic study of the Javanese community in Indonesia

| Universitas Airlangga
| Universitas Airlangga

This research investigates request strategies in the Javanese community and the influence of the ± Power (±P), ± social Distance (±D), and ± Rank of imposition (±R) on the use of request strategies. The data were collected through Discourse Completion Tasks (DCTs) and analyzed according to Blum-Kulka et al. (1989). The results show that in the (+P+D+R) context, requests tend to be expressed indirectly. This is influenced by the (+) which is attached to all the variables. In the (−P−D−R) context, requests tend to be expressed directly. This is influenced by the (−) which is attached to all the variables. In the contexts of (+P+D−R), (+P−D+R), (−P−D+R), and (−P+D+R), there is a tug-of-war between the (+) and (−). However, the influence of the (+) appears to be stronger than the (−). Therefore, in these contexts requests are more likely to be expressed indirectly rather than directly.

Keywords: Javanese community, power, rank of imposition, request strategies, social distance
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Theoretical framework
    • 2.1Requests and face-threatening acts
    • 2.2Request strategies
      • 2.2.1Direct strategies
      • 2.2.2Conventionally indirect strategies
      • 2.2.3Non-conventionally indirect strategies
    • 2.3Perspectives
    • 2.4Linguistic situation of the Javanese community
  • 3.Methodology
    • 3.1Participants/informants
    • 3.2Instrument
    • 3.3Data collection procedure
    • 3.4Data analysis
  • 4.Results and discussion
    • 4.1Use of request strategies in the (+P+D+R) context
    • 4.2Use of request strategies in the (+P+D−R) context
    • 4.3Use of request strategies in the (+P−D+R) context
    • 4.4Use of request strategies in the (−P−D−R) context
    • 4.5Use of request strategies in the (−P+D+R) context
    • 4.6Use of request strategies in the (−P−D+R) context
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • References
Published online: 8 September 2023
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/ijolc.22043.jau
References (30)
Akpanglo-Nartey, R.
(2017) Politeness strategies in request among Ga learners of English. Studies in Literature and Language, 14 (5), 6–12. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Al-Marrani, Y. M. A., & Sazalie, A. B.
(2010) Polite request strategies by male speakers of Yemeni Arabic in male-male interaction and male-female interaction. The International Journal of Language Society and Culture, 30 (30), 63–80.Google Scholar
Blum-Kulka, S., House, J., & Kasper, G.
(1989) Cross-cultural pragmatics: Requests and apologies. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.Google Scholar
Brown, P., & Levinson, S. C.
(1978) Politeness: Some universals in language usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Dong, X.
(2008) Chinese requests in academic settings. Proceedings of the 20th north American conference on Chinese linguistics (NACCL-20), 21(1983), 975–988.Google Scholar
Félix-Brasdefer, J. C.
(2005) Indirectness and politeness in Mexican requests. In D. Eddington. (Ed.), Selected proceedings of the 7th Hispanic linguistics symposium (pp. 66–78). Cascadilla Proceedings Project Somerville, MA.Google Scholar
Ghasempour, B., & Farnia, M.
(2016) A comparative study of perception of (Im)politeness between Iranian EFL learners and Americans: The case of request speech act. Studies about Languages, 29 1, 19–30. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hassall, T.
(1997) Requests by Australian learners of Indonesian. PhD dissertation, Australian National University, Australia.
Holoch, E.
(2009) Indirectness and interlingual transfer: A contrastive analysis of requests. MA thesis, Copenhagen Business School, Denmark.
Jeanyfer, & Tanto, T.
(2018) Request strategies in Indonesian: An analysis of politeness phenomena in text messages. Journal of Language and Literature, 18 (2). 137–145. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Johns, A., & Félix-Brasdefer, J. C.
(2015) Linguistic politeness and pragmatic variation in request production in Dakar French. Journal of Politeness Research, 11 (1), 131–164. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Leech, G. N.
(1983) Principles of pragmatics. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Levelt, W. J. M.
(1993) Speaking: from intention to articulation. Cambridge: MIT Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Liu, W., Li, L., & Ren, W.
(2021) Variational pragmatics in Chinese social media requests: The influence of age and social status. Journal of Pragmatics, 178 1, 349–362. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Maros, M., & Halim, N. S.
(2018) Alerters in Malay and English speech act of request: A contrastive pragmatics analysis. 3L: Language, Linguistics, Literature, 24 (1), 69–83. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Murphy, M. L., & Felice, R. De.
(2018) Routine politeness in American and British English requests: Use and non-use of please. Journal of Politeness Research, 15 (1), 77–100. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Nugroho, A.
(2019) Request realizations of Indonesian esp lecturers. A Journal of Culture English Language Teaching Literature & Linguistics, 6 (1), 1–13. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Nugroho, A., & Rekha, A.
(2020) Speech acts of requests: A case of Indonesian EFL learners. Journal of English Language Teaching and Linguistics, 5 (1), 1–16. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Poedjosoedarmo, S., Kundjana, Th., Soepomo, G., & Suharso, A.
(2013) Tingkat tutur bahasa Jawa [Speech levels in Javanese]. Yogyakarta: Balai Bahasa Provinsi Daerah Istimewa Yogyakarta.Google Scholar
Qusay, H., & Sattar, A.
(2014) A Cross-cultural study of request speech act: Iraqi and Malay students. Journal of Applied Research on English Language, 3 1, 35–54. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Rintell, E., & Mitchell, C. J.
(1989) Studying requests and apologies: An Inquiry into method. In S. Blum-Kulka, J. House & G. Kasper. (eds.), Cross-cultural pragmatics: Requests and apologies (pp. 248–273). Norwood, NJ: Ablex.Google Scholar
Rue, Y. -J., & Zhang, G. Q.
(2008) Request strategies: A comparative study in Mandarin Chinese and Korean. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ruytenbeek, N.
(2020) Do indirect requests communicate politeness? An experimental study of conventionalized indirect requests in French email communication. Journal of Politeness Research, 16 (1), 111–142. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Scollon, R., & Scollon, S. W.
(2001) Intercultural communication: A discourse approach. Second edition. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Searle, J. R.
(1976) A classification of illocutionary acts. Language and Society, 5 (1), 1–24. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sukamto, K.
(2012) Polite requests by Korean learners of Indonesian. Studies in Literature and Language, 5 (2), 1–9. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sutopo, H. B.
(2006) Metode penelitian kualitatif: Teori dan aplikasinya dalam penelitian [Qualitative research methods: Theory and its application in research]. Surakarta: Universitas Sebelas Maret.Google Scholar
Van Mulken, M.
(1996) Politeness marker in French and Dutch requests. Language Sciences, 18 (3), 689–702. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wang, S.
(2014) Request strategies in contemporary Chinese teledramas: A corpus-based study. Chinese Journal of Applied Linguistics, 37 (1), 107–127. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wolfson, N., Marmor, T. M. & Jones, S. J.
(1989) Problems in the comparison of speech acts across cultures. In S. Blum-Kulka, J. House and G. Kasper. (eds.), Cross cultural pragmatics: Requests and apologies (pp. 174–195). Norwood, NJ: Ablex.Google Scholar