Making Requests by Chinese EFL Learners
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.
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 207] 2011. xv, 199 pp.
Publishing status: Available
© John Benjamins Publishing Company
Table of Contents
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Preface | p. ix
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List of tables | pp. xi–xii
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List of abbreviations | p. xiii
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Acknowledgements | p. xv
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1. Introduction | pp. 1–7
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2. Interlanguage pragmatics: A critical review | pp. 9–51
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3. Method | pp. 53–66
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4. Strategy use | pp. 67–87
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5. Formulaic expressions | pp. 89–111
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6. Internal modifications | pp. 113–123
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7. External modifications and utterance length | pp. 125–135
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8. How Chinese EFL learners make requests: Overall pattern & implications | pp. 137–162
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9. Conclusion | pp. 163–168
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Notes | p. 169
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Appendix 1. The discourse completion tasks | pp. 183–187
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Appendix 2. Strategy types by scenario | p. 189
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Appendix 3. Formulaic expressions by scenario | pp. 191–195
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Index | pp. 197–199
“This richly documented study has important implications for intercultural pragmatics, both in terms of competence in question formulation and management, and from the point of view of developmental and acquisitional factors in second language and second language-pragmatic pedagogy. It is also highly pertinent to the growing fields of politeness studies.”
Roland Sussex, Emeritus Professor of Applied Language Studies, The University of Queensland
“In this monograph, Vincent Wang pins down the complex issue of pragmatic competence to its one important aspect: request making, which has a close bearing on L2 pedagogy and intercultural communication. The groups of subjects investigated and the scenarios creatively designed are essential, sociolinguistically speaking, to convincingly generate both the quantitative and qualitative findings of the research. The insightful, soundly theory-based as well as in-depth analysis is another prominent indication of academic values of the book.”
Li Yanshu, Beijing Language and Culture University
“Vincent Wang’s exploration of the way Chinese learners of English make requests in different scenarios is an excellent addition to the field of Interlanguage Pragmatics. Based on careful analyses of request productions by two different learner groups, this study documents the importance of a context-specific, socially situated approach to L2 learning and the crucial role formulaic expressions seem to play in the development of pragmatic competence in English as a foreign language.”
Juliane House,
University of Hamburg & Hellenic American University, Athens
“It is a virtue of Wang’s book that he builds his research on the basis of a solid grasp of previous research on interlanguage pragmatics. This allows him to provide a concise review of and critical view on the research background. The clear and step-by-step analysis of the request samples provides the reader with a deep understanding of request strategies in Chinese EFL learners. At the same time, the author does not lose sight of the L1 and L2 comparison. Wang has genuine empirical evidence for the usefulness of the context-based and formulae-based approaches and contributes a study for cross-cultural pragmatics, politeness and language pedagogy.”
Shelley Ching-Yu Hsieh, on pragmatics-reviews.org (1.1, 2013).
Cited by (15)
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2022. Cynthia Lee: Researching and Teaching Second Language Speech Acts in the Chinese Context. Intercultural Pragmatics 19:2 ► pp. 257 ff. 
Wang, Jiayi & Nicola Halenko
2022. Developing the use of formulaic language for study abroad: a targeted instructional intervention. The Language Learning Journal 50:4 ► pp. 409 ff.
Halenko, Nicola & Lisa Winder
2021. Chapter 4. Experts and novices. In Email Pragmatics and Second Language Learners [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 328], ► pp. 101 ff.
Wang, Vincent X.
2020. Pragmatics and Chinese Translation. In Key Issues in Translation Studies in China [New Frontiers in Translation Studies, ], ► pp. 77 ff.
Deng, Jun & Leila Ranta
2019. Improving Chinese EFL Teachers’ English Requests: Does Study Abroad Help?. The Canadian Modern Language Review 75:2 ► pp. 145 ff.
Nashaat Sobhy, Nashwa
2018. Pragmatics in CLIL. Revista Española de Lingüística Aplicada/Spanish Journal of Applied Linguistics 31:2 ► pp. 467 ff.
McIntyre, Dan & Derek Bousfield
2017. (Im)politeness in Fictional Texts. In The Palgrave Handbook of Linguistic (Im)politeness, ► pp. 759 ff.
Várhegyi, Nikolett & Péter Furkó
2017. Pragmatic Perspectives on Understanding Strangers. Acta Universitatis Sapientiae, Philologica 9:2 ► pp. 61 ff.
Ifantidou, Elly
2016. Relevance theory, epistemic vigilance and pragmatic competence. In Relevance Theory [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 268], ► pp. 193 ff.
Scibetta, Andrea
2016. Chinese University Students’ Development of Pragmatic Skills in L2 Italian: A Corpus-Based Study. In Yearbook of Corpus Linguistics and Pragmatics 2016 [Yearbook of Corpus Linguistics and Pragmatics, ], ► pp. 243 ff.
Chan, Angela, Wei Zhang, Olga Zayts, Mary Hoi Yin Tang & Wai Keung Tam
2015. Directive-giving and grammatical forms. Chinese Language and Discourse. An International and Interdisciplinary Journal 6:2 ► pp. 133 ff.
Lim, Lily
2013. Examining Students’ Perceptions of Computer-Assisted Interpreter Training. The Interpreter and Translator Trainer 7:1 ► pp. 71 ff.
Lim, Lily
2013. Examining Students’ Perceptions of Computer-Assisted Interpreter Training. The Interpreter and Translator Trainer 7:1 ► pp. 71 ff.
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Subjects
Main BIC Subject
CFG: Semantics, Pragmatics, Discourse Analysis
Main BISAC Subject
LAN009000: LANGUAGE ARTS & DISCIPLINES / Linguistics / General