“Mr Paul, please inform me accordingly”
Address forms, directness and degree of imposition in L2 emails
Maria Economidou-Kogetsidis | University of Nicosia
The function of students’ email requests to faculty is both transactional and interactional. Students’ emails are not only sent
with the aim of receiving some form of service but they also need to adhere to the interactional function of language in order to
establish and maintain social relationships. Therefore, how to address their lecturers and how much directness is appropriate in
the requests performed through this medium, are some of the most difficult choices that students have to make. This study
investigates how L2 university students’ academic requests are formulated through the medium of email, and examines the
correlation between the forms of address, the degree of (in)directness and the degree of imposition of their email as a way to
express e-politeness.
Keywords: emails, students, faculty, correlation, imposition, forms of address, (in)directness, politeness
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Setting the scene
- 2.1Email language
- 2.2L2 forms of address
- 2.3Emails, (in)directness and degree of imposition
- 3.Methods
- 3.1Data and participants
- 3.2Procedure
- 3.2.1Degree of imposition
- 3.2.2Forms of address
- 3.2.3Degree of directness
- 3.3Scoring and statistical analysis
- 4.Results
- 4.1Forms of address – degree of imposition
- 4.2Forms of address – degree of directness
- 4.3Degree of directness – degree of imposition
- 5.Discussion
- 6.Conclusions and recommendations for further research
- Notes
-
References
Available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial (CC BY-NC) 4.0 license.
Published online: 23 October 2018
https://doi.org/10.1075/prag.17025.eco
https://doi.org/10.1075/prag.17025.eco
References
Barron, Naomi
Bella, Spyridoula, and Maria Sifianou
Biesenbach-Lucas, Sigrun
2006 “Making Requests in Email: Do Cyber-Consultations Entail Directness? Toward Conventions in a New Medium.” In Pragmatics and Language Learning, Volume 111. ed. by Kathleen Bardovi-Harlig, Félix Brasdefer, and Alwiya Omar, 81–107. Honolulu, HI: National Foreign Language Resource Center, University of Hawaii Press.
Biesenbach-Lucas, Sigrun, and Donald Weasenforth
Bippus, M. Amy, Patricia Kearney, Timothy G. Plax, and Catherine F. Brooks
Bjorge, Anne
Blum-Kulka, Shoshana, Juliane House, and Gabriele Kasper
Bou-Franch, Patricia
Brown, Penelope, and Stephen Levinson
Chang, Yu-Ying, and Yi-Ping Hsu
Chen, Chi-Fen Emily
Condon, Sherri, and Claude Čech
Crystal, David
Dürscheid, Christa, and Carmen Frehner
Economidou-Kogetsidis, Maria
Fearch, Claus, and Gabriele Kasper
Félix-Brasdefer, César
Félix-Brasdefer, Cesar
Formentelli, Maicol
Formentelli, Maicol, and John Hajek
Frehner, Carmen
Fukushima, Saeko
Glater, D. Jonathan
2006 (February 21). “To: Professor @University.edu Subject: Why it’s All About Me.” The New York Times. Retrieved March 17, 2017 from http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/21/education/21professors.html
Hallajian, Maya, and David Khemlani
Hartford, Beverly S., and Kathleen Bardovi-Harlig
Hendriks, Berna
Herring, Susan, Dieter Stein and Tuija Virtanen
Hofstede, Geert
Huang, Chao-Li
Koutsantoni, Dimitra
Kasper, Gabriele
Kasper, Gabriele, and Kenneth Rose
Krulatz, Anna
Lazarescu, Raluca Catalina
Li, Wan-Jing, Yuan-shan Chen, and Der-Hwa Victoria Rau
Longmate, Elizabeth, and Chris Baber
Lorenzo-Dus, Nuria, and Patricia Bou-Franch
McLaughlin, Margaret, Michael Cody, and Dan O’Hair
Merrison, Andrew John, Jack Wilson, Bethan Davies, and Michael Haugh
Rau, Der-Hwa Victoria, and Gerald Rau
Schauer, Gila
Scollon, Ron, and Suzanne Wong Scollon
Sifianou, Maria
Strauss, William, and Neil Howe
Stroinska, Magda, and Vikki Ceccetto
Trosborg, Anna
Wong, Alia
2016 (March 30). “The Commodification of Higher Education. Colleges and Universities have Become a Marketplace that Treats Student Applicants like Consumers. Why?.” In The Atlantic. Retrieved March 22, 2017 from https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2016/03/thecommodification-of-higher-education/475947/
Wei-Hong, Shuan, Zohreh Eslami, and Lynn Burlbaw
Wierzbicka, Anna
Full-text
Cited by
Cited by 15 other publications
Bella, Spyridoula
Chen, Yuan-shan & Chin-Ting Liu
Economidou-Kogetsidis, Maria
Economidou-Kogetsidis, Maria, Helen Woodfield & Christine Savvidou
Halenko, Nicola, Milica Savić & Maria Economidou-Kogetsidis
Halenko, Nicola & Lisa Winder
Holttinen, Tuuli & Johanna Isosävi
Nguyen, Thi Thuy Minh & Thi Thanh Thuy Pham
Nicodemus, Brenda, Maicol Formentelli, Keith M. Cagle & Jay Pittman
Ren, Wei & Wenjie Liu
Savić, Milica, Maria Economidou-Kogetsidis & Anders Myrset
Savić, Milica & Miodrag Đorđević
Timpe-Laughlin, Veronika & Judit Dombi
Usó-Juan, Esther
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 17 april 2022. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.