Chapter published in:
Email Pragmatics and Second Language LearnersEdited by Maria Economidou-Kogetsidis, Milica Savić and Nicola Halenko
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 328] 2021
► pp. 203–226
Chapter 8In search of the missing grade
Egalitarianism and deference in L1 and L2 students’ emails to faculty members
Spyridoula Bella | National and Kapodistrian University of Athens
The present study investigates the performance of email requests by L1 and L2 Greek University students to faculty members. Drawing from a corpus of authentic data the study seeks to highlight the differences in the way the two groups of students frame their requests in terms of both the structure of the whole speech event and the specific sociopragmatic means employed to achieve the lecturers’ compliance. It is argued that the observed differences reflect different perceptions of the two groups in relation to the degree of entitlement to make the request, as well as different orientations along the egalitarianism/ deference axis. Implications for language teaching are explicated and discussed.
Keywords: email requests, Greek, egalitarianism, deference, sequence, move, appropriateness
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Background: Student’s email requests
- 3.The “missing grade” situation
- 4.Method: Data, population and analytic tools
- 5.The findings
- 5.1Opening sequence
- 5.2Closing sequence
- 5.3Content sequence
- 6.Discussion
- 7.Conclusions and implications for language teaching
-
Notes -
References
Published online: 27 October 2021
https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.328.08bel
https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.328.08bel
References
Baron, Naomi S.
Beebe, Leslie, Tomoko Takahashi, and Robin Uliss-Weltz
Bella, Spyridoula
Bella, Spyridoula, and Maria Sifianou
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, César C. Felix Brasdefer, and Omar Alwiya, 81–107. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawaii Press.
2009 “Little Words that Could Impact One’s Impression on Others: Greetings and Closings in Institutional Emails”. In Little Words: Their History, Phonology, Syntax, Semantics, Pragmatics and Acquisition, ed. by Ronald P. Leow, Héctor Campos, and Donna Lardiere, 183–195. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.
Bjørge, Anne Kari
Bloch, Joel
Blum-Kulka, Shoshana, Juliane House, and Gabriele Kasper
Blum-Kulka, Shoshana Juliane, House, Juliane, and Gabriele Kasper
Bou-Franch, Patricia
2013 "EFL email writing: A focus on pragmatic transfer". In Acquisición de Segundas Lenguas en el Marco del Nuevo Milenio: Homenaje a la Profesora María del Mar Martí Viaño, ed. by Nicolás Estévez Fuertes and Begoña Clavel-Arroitia, 39-56. Velència: Facultat de Filologia, Traducció i Comunicació, Universitat de València.
Brown, Penelope, and Stephen C. Levinson
Chen, Chi-Fen Emily
Chen, Yuan-shan
Council of Europe
Economidou-Kogetsidis, Maria
Félix-Brasdefer, César
Fleischman, Suzanne
Georgakopoulou, Alexandra
Hartford, Beverly S., and Kathleen Bardovi-Harlig
Hirschon, Renée
Li, Wei
Lorenzo-Dus, Nuria, and Patricia Bou-Franch
Merrison, Andrew John, Jack Wilson, Bethan Davies, and Michael Haugh
Ogiermann, Eva and Spyridoula, Bella
Pan, Ping Cathy
Savić, Мilica
Searle, John
Sinclair, John and Mathew Coulthard
Stroínska, Magda, and Vikki Ceccetto
Stubbs, Michael