Chapter published in:
Email Pragmatics and Second Language Learners
Edited by Maria Economidou-Kogetsidis, Milica Savić and Nicola Halenko
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 328] 2021
► pp. 151–178

Chapter 6
The effect of first language pragmatics on second language email performance

The case of Greek students’ email requests

| University of Nicosia
The present study is a comparative production study which investigates the effect of L1 email pragmatics on L2 email performance and examines the extent to which the L2 email production of advanced, Greek learners of English shows agreement with their L1 email production. The study identified culture-specific pragmatic norms and aspects of L1 pragmatic behaviours that learners transferred to their L2 emails. A preference for formality and direct strategies was confirmed in both data sets suggesting that the learners’ emails converge with those of NS of Greek and approximate native Greek norms. Results further pointed towards a high degree of agreement in the majority of the modifiers employed by the two groups.
Keywords: L1 pragmatic behaviour, requests, Greek learners, first language, culture
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Setting the scene: L2 learners and native-speakers’ emails to faculty
  • 3.Methods and procedures
    • 3.1Data and participants
    • 3.2Email analysis
    • 2.3Scoring and statistical analysis
  • 4.Results
    • 4.1Request head-acts: Strategies and substrategies
    • 4.2Lexical/phrasal and external modifiers
    • 4.3Forms of address/salutations
  • 5.Discussion
  • 6.Conclusions
  • Note
  • References
Published online: 27 October 2021
https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.328.06eco
References
Alcón Soler, Eva
2013 “Mitigating E-mail Requests in Teenagers’ First and Second Language Academic Cyber-Consultation.” Multilingua 32 (6): 779–799. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Alcón-Soler, Eva
2015 “Pragmatic Learning and Study Abroad: Effects of Instruction and Length of Stay.” System 48, 62–74. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Ali, Ziyad, and Helen Woodfield
2017 “A Crosssectional Study of Syrian EFL Learners’ Pragmatic Development: Towards a Taxonomy of Modification in Interlanguage Requests.” In Current Issues in Intercultural Pragmatics (Pragmatics & Beyond New Series), ed. by István Kecskés, and Stavros Assimakopoulos, 297–322. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Allami, Hamid, and Naeimi, Amin
2011 “A Cross-Linguistic Study of Refusals: An Analysis of Pragmatic Competence Development in Iranian EFL Learners.” Journal of Pragmatics 43: 385–406. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Barón, Júlia, and Mireia Ortega
2018 “Investigating Age Differences in Email Pragmatic Performance.” System 78, 148–158. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Basturkmen, Helen, and Thi Thuy Minh Nguyen
2017 “Teaching Pragmatics.” In The Routledge Handbook of Pragmatics, ed. by Anne Barron, Yueguo Gu and Gerard Steen, 563–574. Oxfordshire/New York: Routledge. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Beebe, Leslie. M., Tomoko Takahashi, and Robin Uliss-Weltz
1990 “Pragmatic Transfer in ESL Refusals.” In Developing Communicative Competence in a Second Language, ed. by Robin Scarcella, Elaine Andersen and Stephen Krashen, 55–73. New York: Newbury House.Google Scholar
Bella, Spyridoula, and Maria Sifianou
2012 “Greek Student E-mail Requests to Faculty Members.” In Speech Acts and Politeness Across Languages and Cultures, ed. by Leyre R. Zarobe, and Yolanda Ruiz de Zarobe, 89–113. Peter Lang.Google Scholar
Biesenbach-Lucas, Sigrun
2006 “Making Requests in E-mail: Do Cyber-Consultations Entail Directness? Toward Conventions in a New Medium.” In Pragmatics and Language Learning. Volume 11. [National Foreign Language Resource Center], ed. by Kathleen Bardovi-Harlig, Cesar C. Félix-Brasdefer and Alwiya Omar, 81–107. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawaii Press.Google Scholar
2007 “Students Writing E-mails to Faculty: An Examination of E-politeness among Native and Non-native Speakers of English.” Language Learning and Technology 11 (2): 59–81.Google Scholar
Biesenbach-Lucas, Sigrun, and Donald Weasenforth
2002 “Virtual Office Hours: Negotiation Strategies in Electronic Conferencing.” Computer Assisted Language Learning 15 (2): 147–165. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Blum-Kulka, Shoshana, Juliane House, and Gabriele Kasper
(eds.) 1989 Cross-cultural Pragmatics: Requests and Apologies. Norwood, N.J. Ablex.Google Scholar
Bou Franch, Patricia
1998 “On Pragmatic Transfer.” Studies on English Language and Linguistics 0: 5–18.Google Scholar
Brown, Penelope, and Stephen Levinson
1978 “Universals in Language Usage: Politeness Phenomena.” In Questions and Politeness, ed. by Esther Goody, 56–289. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Brown, Penelope, and Stephen C. Levinson
1987 Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Bu, Jiemin
2012 “A Study of Relationships Between L1 Pragmatic Transfer and L2 Proficiency.” English Language Teaching 5: 32–43.Google Scholar
Chang, Yu-Ying, and Yi-Ping Hsu
1998 “Requests on Email: A Cross-cultural Comparison.” RELC Journal 29 (2): 121–151. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Chen, Chi-Fen Emily
2001 Making E-mail Requests to Professors: Taiwanese vs. American Students. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Association for Applied Linguistics, St-Louis, MO.
2006 “The Development of E-mail Literacy: From Writing to Peers to Writing to Authority Figures.” Language Learning & Technology 10 (2): 35–55.Google Scholar
Economidou-Kogetsidis, Maria
2005 “ ‘Yes, Tell Me Please, What Time is the Midday Flight from Athens Arriving?’: Telephone Service Encounters and Politeness.” Journal of Intercultural Pragmatics 2 (3): 253–273. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2009 “Interlanguage Request Modification: The Use of Lexical/Phrasal Downgraders and Mitigating Supportive Moves.” Multilingua 28 (1): 79–111. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2011 “ ‘Please Answer Me as Soon as Possible’: Pragmatic Failure in Non-native Speakers’ E-mail Requests to Faculty.” Journal of Pragmatics 43: 3193–3215. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2012 “Modifying Oral Requests in a Foreign Language: The Case of Greek Cypriot Learners of English.” In Interlanguage Request Modification, ed. by Maria Economidou-Kogetsidis, and Helen Woodfield, 163–202. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2018 “ ‘Mr Paul, Please Inform Me Accordingly’: Address Forms, Directness and Degree of Imposition in L2 Emails”. Pragmatics 28 (4), 489–515. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Félix-Brasdefer, César
2012 “E-mail Requests to Faculty. E-politeness and Internal Modification.” In Interlanguage Request Modification, ed. by Maria Economidou-Kogetsidis, and Helen Woodfield, 87–118. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Göy, Elif, Deniz Zeyrek, and Bahar Otcu
2012 “Developmental Patterns in Internal Modification Use in Requests: A Quantitative Study on Turkish Learners of English.” In Interlanguage Request Modification, ed. by Maria Economidou-Kogetsidis and Helen Woodfield, 51–86. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Hartford, Beverly S., and Kathleen Bardovi-Harlig
1996 “At Your Earliest Convenience: A Study of Written Student Requests to Faculty.” In Pragmatics and Language Learning, Volume 7, ed. by Larry Bouton, 55–59. Urbana Champaign: Division of English as an International Language, University of Illinois.Google Scholar
Hassall, Tim
1999 “Request Strategies in Indonesian.” Pragmatics 9 (4): 585–606. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Hofstede, Geert
2005 Cultures and Organizations. Software of the Mind. McGrawHill.Google Scholar
Hofstede Insights: Consulting, Training, Certification, Tooling
Available from https://​www​.hofstede​-insights​.com​/country​/greece/ [Accessed 18 May 2020].
House, Juliane
2003 “Teaching and Learning Pragmatic Fluency in a Foreign Language: The Case of English as a Lingua Franca.” In Pragmatic Competence and Foreign Language Teaching, ed. by Alicia Martínez-Flor, Esther Usó Juan, and Ana Fernández Guerra, 133–159. Castelló de la Plana: Publicacions de la Universitat Jaume I.Google Scholar
Ishihara, Noriko, and Andrew Cohen
2010 "Learners' Pragmatics: Potential Causes of Divergence." In Teaching and Learning Pragmatics: Where Language and Culture Meet, by Noriko Ishihara, and Andrew Cohen, 75-96. Longman.Google Scholar
Kasper, Gabriele
1992 “Pragmatic Transfer.” Second Language Research 8 (3): 203–231.Google Scholar
Kasper, Gabriele, and Kenneth Rose
2002 Pragmatic Development in a Second Language. Malden, MA: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Keshavarz, Mohammad Hossein, Zohreh Eslami-Rasekh, and Vahid Ghahreman
2006 “Pragmatic Transfer and Iranian EFL Refusals: A Cross-cultural Perspective of Persian and English.” In Pragmatics and Language Learning, V. 11, ed. by Kathleen Bardovi-Harlig, Gabriele Kasper, César Félix-Brasdefer and Alwiya Omar, 359–403. University of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu, HI: Second Language Teaching and Curriculum Center.Google Scholar
Kinnear, Colin, and Paul Gray
2006 SPSS for Windows Made Simple. Hove: Psychology Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Krulatz, Anna
2012 Interlanguage Pragmatics in Russian: The Speech Act of Request in Email. Unpublished PhD dissertation. The University of Utah, USA.
Locher, Miriam A.
2010 “Introduction: Politeness and Impoliteness in Computer-mediated Communication.” Journal of Politeness Research 6 (2): 1–5. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Lorenzo-Dus, Nuria and Patricia Bou-Franch
2013 “A Cross-cultural Investigation of Email Communication in Peninsular Spanish and British English: The Role of (In)formality and (In)directness.” Pragmatics and Society 4 (1): 1–25. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Marmaridou, A. Sophia S.
1987 “Semantic and Pragmatic Parameters of Meaning: On the Interface between Contrastive Text Analysis and the Production of Translated Texts.” Journal of Pragmatics 11: 721–736. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Merrison, Andrew John, Jack Wilson, Bethan Davies, and Michael Haugh
2012 “Getting Stuff Done: Comparing E-mail Requests from Students in Higher Education in Britain and Australia.” Journal of Pragmatics 44: 1077–1098. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Morkus, Nader
2018 “Negative Pragmatic Transfer and Language Proficiency: American Learners of Arabic.” The Language Learning Journal 49 (1): 1–25. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Odlin, Terence
1989 Language Transfer: Cross-linguistic Influence in Language Learning. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Ren, Juanjuan, and Xuesong Gao
2012 “Negative Pragmatic Transfer in Chinese Students’ Complimentary Speech Acts.” Psychological Reports 110: 149–65. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Rose, Kenneth
1992 “Speech Acts and Questionnaires: The Effect of Hearer Response.” Journal of Pragmatics 17 (1), 49–62. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Rose, Kenneth, and Gabriele Kasper
(eds) 2001 Pragmatics in Language Teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Savić, Мilica
2019 “Relational Practices in Norwegian Students’ E-mail Requests in English: A Focus on Openings and Closings.” Journal of Intercultural Communication 49.Google Scholar
Sifianou, Maria
1992 Politeness Phenomena in England and Greece: A Cross-cultural Perspective. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
2010 “The Announcements in the Athens Metro Stations: An Example of Glocalize?” Intercultural Pragmatics 7 (1): 25–46. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Spencer-Oatey, Helen
1997 “Unequal Relationships in High and Low Power Distance Societies. A Comparative Study of Tutor-Student Role Relations in Britain and China.” Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology 28 (3), 284–302. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Takahashi, Tomoko, and Leslie Beebe
1987 “The Development of Pragmatic Competence by Japanese Learners of English.” JALT Journal 8 (2): 131–1.Google Scholar
Thomas, Jenny
1983 “Cross-cultural Pragmatic Failure.” Applied Linguistics 4 (2): 91–112. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Triandis, Harry and Vasso Vassiliou
1972 "A comparative analysis of subjunctive culture." In The Analysis of Subjective Culture, Comparative Studies in Behavioral Science, ed. by Harry Triandis, 299–335. New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
Vassiliou, Vaso, Harry Triandis, George Vassiliou and Howard McGuire
1972 "Interpersonal contact and stereotyping." In The Analysis of Subjective Culture, Comparative Studies in Behavioral Science, ed. by Harry Triandis, 89-115. New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
Vilar-Beltran, Elina
2008 “The Use of Mitigation in Role-play Activities: A Comparison between Native and Nonnative Speakers of English.” In Learning How to Request in an Instructed Language Learning Context, ed. by Eva Alcón-Soler, 127–161. Bern: Peter Lang.Google Scholar
Wolfson, Nessa
1989 Perspectives: Sociolinguistics and TOEFL. Rowley, MA: Newbury House.Google Scholar
Woodfield, Helen, and Maria Economidou-Kogetsidis
2010 “ ‘I Just Need More Time’: A Study of Native and Non-native Students’ Requests to Faculty for Late Submission. Multilingua 29 (1): 77–118. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Zhu, Wuhan
2012 “Polite Requestive Strategies in Emails: An Investigation of Pragmatic Competence of Chinese EFL Learners.” RELC Journal 43 (2): 217–238. CrossrefGoogle Scholar