A Pragmatic Study Of English Written Request Strategies Of English Majors

Requests have been widely applied in different situations in people’s life, and they have become rather common. Previous research studies have encompassed requests by using different data, including TV dramas, oral requests through role play, business e-mails and so on. However, few studies have covered written requests made by English learners.Based on Speech Act Theory, Politeness Theory and Blum-Kulka and Olshtain’s classification of request, this study aims to explore the use of request strategies in the written language by English majors. The purpose of this study is to answer the following two research questions:1) How are the main components of request letters related to the function of requests? 2) What request strategies do sophomores of English majors usually use? The present study investigates 59 sophomores who are majoring in English in Xingzhi College, Zhejiang Normal University. To answer these two research questions, students’ request letters are collected through a writing task and analyzed in detail. Quantitative research method is used for the analysis of the directness of requests, modal variations in the requests from sentence level, and salutation of the request letters. Qualitative research method is adopted to analyze the structure and the components of the request letters.This study obtains the following major findings. Firstly, components of students’ request letters can be summarized into a general structure. This general structure assists in demonstrating students’ ways to write request letters. Students’request letters are written in similar structures, but still there are some differences. The three main structures of request from the textual level are summarized as problem-request (PR), request-suggest action (RS), and problem-request-suggest action (PRS). With these three main structures, the author finds that students’ requests have close relation to the request context, and the request context influences students’requests. Secondly, requests from sentence level are analyzed from two aspects:request strategies and modal variations in the requests. Students tend to use three main request strategies: direct strategy, conventionally indirect strategy and non-conventionally indirect strategy. By analyzing and discussing the request strategies that students employ in making requests, this paper illustrates students’ requests at sentence level. In addition, modal variations in the requests at sentence level are also analyzed. The author finds that students use modal variations when they make requests. The use of modal verb "can (not)" appeared most frequently in their requests, which is followed by "should (not)" and "will (not)". The choice of modal can be vital because they appear to have the enforcement on the request speech act.