Introduction
Making a request is an important act in
people’s daily life. Many people view
request as a panel from where they
enhance social relationships. Asking
someone to do something for you would
give anyone an opportunity to. Based on
the definition provided by Cambridge
advanced learner’s dictionary, request
refers to the act of politely or officially
asking for something as in the sentence I
requested a taxi for eight o'clock. Asking
for help or requesting something is an act
that is socially understood as a way
through which people tend to express their
feelings to support and help each other and
thus be connected. However, the act of
making a request may vary from culture to
culture and also different cultures have a
different view of what is considered a
polite request in much the same way that
they have a different view of the value of
contextual factors such as participants’
social status and social distance as well as
the perception of other factors like
imposition, obligation and right.
Accordingly, the request can serve as an
illuminating source of information on the
socio-cultural values of a speech
community and provide important insights
into the social norms that are embedded in
cultures.
Requests, the speech act chosen for the
present study, have the intended meaning
(i.e., illocutionary force) of affecting a
hearer’s behaviour in such a way that they
get the hearer to do something (Blum-Kulka, 1991). House and Kasper (1987,
p.252) define requests as directives by
which “S (Speaker) wants H (Hearer) to
do p (p is at a cost to H)”. Requests have
been viewed as a face-threatening speech
act (Brown & Levinson, 1978, 1987).
Since requests have the potential to be
intrusive and demanding, there is a need
for the requester to minimize the
imposition involved in the request. This is
done through the use of peripheral
elements (also known as internal and
external modifications) to get addressees
to support their requests. Accordingly, the
present study aims at investigating the
cross-cultural differences and similarities
in the way Iraqi and Malay university
students manage the face rapport through
the use of external modifications.
Request as a face-threatening act
Brown and Levinson (1978, p. 61)
developed the face-saving view of
politeness theory based on the universal
notion of face as the “public self-image
that every member wants to claim for
himself”. The theory posits that
maintaining the face of the speaker or the
hearer is the primary concern of politeness
strategies. In this sense, Brown and
Levinson were trying to provide a sample
picture of what happens in everyday life
communication where people do attempt
to avoid conflict and try their best to
cooperate. Eelen (2001) indicated that in
everyday conversation, people generally
try to avoid embarrassing the other person
or making them feel uncomfortable.
Speakers attempt to choose the most
effective course of action to avoid conflict
with hearers, while minimizing the
imposition and the cost of losing their
face.
Face, according to Brown and Levinson
(1978, p.66), is ‘something that is
emotionally invested, and that can be lost,
maintained or enhanced, and must be
constantly attended to in interaction’. This
means that one’s own face can only be
sustained by the actions of others, thus
they assume that all members of a society
would co-operate in order to maintain each
other’s faces. In other words, they claim
that all members of a society are
concerned about their ‘face’, the self-image they present to others, and that they
assume that other people have similar
‘face’ wants. In fact, Brown and Levinson
identified two main kinds of face, i.e.
‘negative face’ and ‘positive face’. To
them, these two types of face are
universals and do identify two essential
desires of any person in any
conversational exchange (Reteir Márquez,
2000). Positive politeness refers to a
person’s desire to be unimpeded by others,
to be free to act without being imposed
upon. Whereas negative politeness refers
to a person’s wish to be desirable to at
least some others who will appreciate and
approve of one’s self and one’s
personality.
In relation to the notion of face, Brown
and Levinson indicated that certain acts
inherently threaten the ‘face’ needs of one
or both participants. Brown and Levinson
(1987, p.65) regard “face-threatening acts
(FTAs) as those acts which run contrary to
the addressee’s and/or the speaker’s
positive and/or negative ‘face’. Their
research focuses mainly on speech acts.
Examples of acts that are considered as a
threat to the ‘negative face’ are requests,
threats, suggestions and advices because
the speaker will be putting some pressure
on the addressee to do or refrain from
doing a specific act. In the case of making
a request, the speaker infringes on the
recipient’s freedom from imposition. The
recipient may feel that the request is an
intrusion on his/her freedom of action or
even a power play. As for the requester,
s/he may hesitate to make requests for the
fear of exposing a need or out of the fear
of possibly making the recipient lose face
(Blum-Kulka et al, 1989). In this sense,
requests are face-threatening to both the
requester and the recipient.
Bowe and Martin (2006, p.35) refer to the
fact that “Brown and Levinson’s theory
has provided an important foundation for
analyzing linguistic politeness”. However,
despite its influence on and contribution to
the literature on politeness, Brown and
Levinson’s theory has a significant
weakness. It overlooks the importance of
culture in cross-cultural and intercultural
communication. Fukada and Noriko
(2004) referred to many studies which
criticized Brown and Levinson’s
politeness theory as being constructed on
the basis of European Anglo-Saxon culture
and it cannot be applied in other cultures”.
More specifically, it has been criticized for
its overemphasis on the notion of
individual freedom and autonomy.
In fact, Brown and Levinson’s theory of
politeness was criticized for many issues
such as the legitimacy of the term
politeness. Spencer-Oatey (2000) cast
doubt on the appropriateness to be labelled
as politeness the study of evaluation of
what constitutes polite and impolite
behavior in social interactions. As
mentioned previously, politeness is hard to
define since it is a context-dependent
evaluative judgment and the linguistic
constructions in themselves do not bear
any property of being polite or rude, rather
this is determined by the conditions of
usage. The researchers do agree with
Spencer-Oatey argument as well as
Arendholz (2013) who believed that
politeness is as a purely metal notion
which is strongly dependent on the
interpreting mind in terms of scope of
applicability, i.e. a person’s willingness to
label an utterance an action polite. In other
words, politeness depends on the
evaluation of individual interlocutors at
individual moments in individual
circumstances.
Another issue can be seen in the mutual
With regard to politeness strategies,
Brown and Levinson’s Politeness Model
has been criticized for their overwhelming
concern of politeness strategies in the
context of face threatening acts. Yet
interaction is not restricted to face
threatening acts. Bowe and Martin (2006,
p. 31) indicated that “the building of
positive relationships, through mutual care
and assistance over time is surely
important, and is usually accompanied by
the expression of mutual appreciation and
praise. Such actions contribute to the
building of positive face between
individuals, in an ongoing way”. However,
in their view, Brown and Levinson’s
model only treats this in passing as they
mentioned.
These criticisms and issues mentioned
above were based on a number of
shortcomings from which this theory
suffered. Accordingly, this theory brings a
number of limitations when trying to
explain the concept of politeness. The first
limitation can be seen in the neglect of
cultural values. Song (2012) indicated that
Brown and Levinson (1987) had argued
that regardless of culture, politeness
utterances are based on contextually
expected concerns for face, which they
refer to as ‘weightiness’. According to
them, politeness weightiness is universally
applicable and determined by factors such
as the distance (familiarity) between the
communicators, relative power of the
speaker and the hearer, and the imposition
of the task. However, these factors are not
likely to have the same effects on
culturally different verbal expressions (and
perceptions) of politeness. For instance, an
old man and a young boy in East Asia
cannot be friends because of the
hierarchical nature of the culture, but such
friendship is possible in Western culture.
In other words, distance and relative
power between the communicators are
likely to vary according to the cultural
values of each.
Bowe and Martin (2006, p. 32) mentioned
that “in Asian cultures, the expression of
deference and respect is almost mandatory
with addressees who are senior in age,
experience or status”. Examples of cultural
difference in the perception of these
factors that determine politeness can be
seen in the use of the honorifics, greetings,
speech formulas used for rituals, and many
other formal speech elements employed
according to social conventions of a
culture like Japanese culture. This would
put Brown and Levinson’s theoretical
framework into question. The researchers
do agree that such a theory promotes only
a rational or a logical use of strategy in
expressing politeness. That is why the
researchers do agree with the fact that
Brown and Levinson’s (1987) theoretical
framework is essentially based on British
analytical logic and North American
psychology.
Moreover, Arendholz (2013) also
supported the view that these three
remarkable vague terms fell well short of
covering all influencing factors. In fact,
Brown and Levinson (1987, p. 16)
themselves reached the conclusion that
“there may be a residue of other factors
which are not captured within the P, D and
R dimensions”. Accordingly, one would
say that their theory oversimplified the
complexity of human relation. This can be
proven by a number of studies that later
looked at the many factors that affect the
realization of speech acts in terms of
politeness such as the realization of
request. Barron (2003) indicated that
factors like right and obligation may affect
the value of social variables in request
realisation. According to Blum-Kulka and
House (1989, p.146), estimates of the right
the speaker has to issue the request and the
relative degree of obligation for the hearer
to comply with the particular request are
considered to affect request realisation, i.e.
the level of directness in a correlational
relationship: the greater the right of the
speaker to ask and the greater the
obligation of the hearer to comply, the less
the motivation for the use of indirectness.
In terms of politeness strategies, Brown
and Levinson’s ignored the cultural aspect.
Brown and Levinson (1987), as cited in
Marti (2006), claimed that there is an
intrinsic ranking of politeness strategies in
terms of indirectness. However, the
authors neglected the fact that some
cultures used direct strategies as part of
solidarity and closeness and thus would
never be perceived as impolite. For
example with the speech as of request,
Brown and Levinson’s (1987) influential
theory have underlined parallels between
the notions of indirectness and politeness.
In other words, indirect requests are the
most polite ones. However, studies such as
Blum-Kulka’s (1987) showed that such
relationships do not always hold. Blum-Kulka proposed a scale based on degrees
of illocutionary transparency. She
described directness as “the degree to
which the speaker’s illocutionary intent is
apparent from the illocution” (Blum-Kulka
et al., 1989). They also presented three
main levels of directness. (1) an explicit
level, the most direct, realised through the
linguistic form of imperative, as in “Come
to my dorm tomorrow”, (2) a
conventionally indirect level realised by
conventional linguistic means known as
indirect speech acts, as in “Let’s have
lunch one day”, and, (3) a least direct level
realised by hints, as in “Is this seat taken?”
(Blum-Kulka et al., 1989). Blum-Kulka
noted that the rating of strategies on the
politeness scale reveals disparity in the
relative position on the directness scale.
The thrust of her argument is that a certain
degree of clarity is an indispensable part of
politeness. Politeness is identified as the
interactional balance between two needs:
the need to avoid being coercive and the
need to be pragmatically unambiguous.
The balance is achieved in the case of
conventionally indirect speech acts, rated
as the most polite. Thus, favouring either
pragmatic clarity or avoiding coerciveness
would decrease politeness, as direct
strategies may be injurious to the
interlocutor’s face, and non-conventional
indirect strategies, i.e. hints, may be
perceived as impolite because of their
pragmatic opacity (Blum-Kulka,1987).
Taking these arguments into consideration,
the present study follows a modified
framework for conceptualizing face
proposed by Spencer-Oatey (2008). She
called her new approach as “rapport
management, i.e. the management of
harmony–disharmony among people”
(p.13). This framework consists of three
main interconnected elements. The first is
the management of face which involves
the management of face sensitivities. The
second one is the management of sociality
rights and obligations that deal with the
management of social expectations or
entitlements that a person effectively
claims for him/herself in his interactions
with others. The last one is the
management of interactional goals which
involves the specific task and/or relational
goals that people may have when they
interact with each other. Within this
framework, requests are perceived to be
threatening/enhancing of face or
infringing/supporting of sociality rights (or
a combination of these), depending on the
range of circumstantial and personal
factors. In other words, requests are
rapport sensitive speech acts, and thus
need to be managed appropriately.
Spencer-Oatey (2008, p. 21) indicated that
“every language provides a very wide
range of linguistic options that can be used
for managing face and sociality rights, and
hence for managing rapport”. One of these
ways in terms of the illocutionary domain
can be seen in the use of modifiers within
the scope of speech act realization. For
example, since requests can easily threaten
rapport because of their influence on
autonomy, freedom of choice and freedom
from imposition, there is a need for the
requester to minimize the imposition
involved in the request. This is done
through the use of optional clauses that
modify the request to help minimize the
imposition involved in the request. This
includes both internal and external
modifications.
Based on the selected studies cited above,
it can be deduced that there is a strong
connection between the act of making a
request and losing face in daily life
interactions. This is due to the fact that
requesting involves different types of
strategies which reflect the social norms
and assumptions of different communities
and cultures. Accordingly, the present
study is to examine how face rapport is
managed through the use of external
modifications.
Request external modification
External modification plays a central role
in mitigating or aggravating a requesting
force. External modifiers consist of
supportive moves which in some way
prepare the ground for the actual request
and are located outside it. External
modification “is achieved through the use
of optional clauses which either mitigate
or emphasize the force of the whole
request” (Blum-Kulka et al, p. 128).
Supportive moves are acts that may
precede or follow head act strategies and
may serve as down-graders to check on
availability. They may also serve as
attempts to obtain a pre-commitment or
they may provide a reason for the request
(Blum-Kulka et al, 1989).
Head act: it is the smallest unit which can
realise a request. It is the core of the
request sequence, which can be modified.
Alerter: it is an opening element preceding
the actual request. These opening elements
draw the hearer’s attention to the ensuing
speech act. For example, terms of address
or attention getters like “excuse me,”
“professor,” “hello,” “hey,” or “well”. The
term “opener” is used in this study to refer
to alerters.
Mitigation is achieved through the use of
optional clauses which mitigate the force
of the whole request such as the following:
Preparator refers clauses used to
prepare the requestee for the
ensuing the request e.g. I'd like to
ask you something,
Getting a pre-commitment refers to
clauses provided by the requestor
to indicate his commitment e.g.
Could you do me a favour....
Grounder refers to clauses
provided by the requestor to justify
his request, e.g. Judith, I missed
class yesterday. Could I borrow
your notes?
Disarmer refers to clauses ‘disarm’
the requestee from the possibility
of refusale.g. I know you don't like
to lend out your notes, but could. . .
Promise of reward refers to the
clauses used by the requester to
indicate a promise to be done once
the request is fulfilled e.g. Could
you give me a lift home? I'll give
you something for the petrol.
Imposition downgrader refers to
the clause used by the requester to
help reduce the imposition of the
request e.g. Could you lend me that
book, if you're not using it at
present?
Aggravation is achieved through the use of
optional clauses which aggravate the force
of the whole request such as
Insult, e.g. You've always been a
dirty pig, so dear up!
Threat, e.g. Move that car if you
don't want a ticket.
Moralizing, e.g. If one shares a
flat, one should be prepared to pull
one's weight in cleaning it, so get
on with the washing up!
From the description above, it is clear that
requests’ linguistic realization depend on a
number of strategies. Hence, there is a
concern for cross-cultural and intercultural
communication. Accordingly, the present
study is to examine how face rapport is
managed through the use of external
modifications.
Selected studies
The Cross-Cultural Speech Act Realisation
Project (CCSARP) is perhaps the most
extensive empirical investigation of cross-cultural pragmatics. It is the first major
attempt to study speech acts across a range
of languages and cultures, carried out by a
group of international researchers. They
investigated whether there are universal
principles in request and apology speech
act realisations and what the patterns may
be. The instrument used was a DCT which
consisted of 16 situations (8 requests and 8
apologies). The DCT situations were
designed to represent all possible
combinations of the two variables of social
distance and social dominance. Data were
collected from more than a thousand
subjects and analyzed by native speakers
in respective countries, with a shared
analytical framework. The CCSARP
investigated native speakers of Danish,
three dialects of English (American,
Australian, and British), Canadian French,
German, Hebrew, and Argentinean
Spanish and non-native speakers of
English, German, and Hebrew. The
project’s coding scheme was based on
frames of primary features expected to be
manifested in the realisation of requests
and apologies. For example, requests were
classified into a nine-point scale of
mutually exclusive categories ranging
from the most direct (imperative) to the
most indirect (mild hints). The data
analysis also considers the choice of
| 41 A p p l i e d R e s e a r c h o n E n g l i s h L a n g u a g e , 3 ( 2 )
perspective as an important source of
variation in requests as well as the internal
and external modifications. Findings
showed both situational and cultural
factors influence use of these request
strategies. Different cultures seem to agree
on general trends of situational variation
(Blum-Kulka et al., 1989).
A number of studies have followed the
framework built up by Blum-Kulka et al.
(1989) more particularly focusing on how
learners use modification in order to
mitigate or aggravate their speech acts.
Within the speech act of requesting, it has
been mostly examined in relation to
politeness and language proficiency by
investigating whether the two
language/cultural groups use combinations
of internal/external modifiers in the same
way and to the same extent. What follows
is a review of some selected studies
conducted on requests’ modifications.
Otcu and Zeyrek’s (2008) study aims at
investigating the acquisition of requests by
Turkish learners. They considered the role
of language proficiency in the acquisition
of requests, more particularly the way
these learners modify their requests. The
authors also compared the learners’
requesting strategies to those of English
native speakers. They investigated four
groups: 19 low and 31 high proficiency
Turkish learners of English, 13 English
native speakers, and 50 Turkish native
speakers. The instruments used were
discourse completion tasks and role plays.
Findings suggested that there is a strong
link in the way learners modify their
request and their level of proficiency. For
example, they found that English learners
with a lower proficiency level used
formulaic utterances, lacking the ability to
create with the language while the more
advanced learners were able to do more
with the L2, but this did not guarantee the
control of pragmatic constructions.
In line with Otcu and Zeyrek’s (2008)
study, Huangfu Wei (2012) also focused
on request modifications and language
proficiency. The author compared the uses
of the English request speech acts among
native speakers of English and Chinese.
He also examined the effects of social
status and familiarity on request
modifications. There were three groups, 20
low, 20 high proficiency and 20 native
speakers. An oral discourse completion
task (ODCT) was used to collect data. The
ODCT included two parts: questionnaire
direction and the statement of 12
scenarios, in which every statement was
ended with a question requiring the
participant to make a request. The ODCT
was embedded with two social variables,
social status and familiarity. Chi-square
analysis method was applied to examine
the data. Findings suggested that there was
a difference in the way English and
Chinese modify their requests. Results
indicated that Chinese native speakers
used more thanking strategies than English
native speakers, while English native
speakers preferred to use preparator,
grounder and disarmer in most of the
situations. The author argued Chinese
native speakers’ difficulties in performing
request speech acts can be traced back to
the linguistic and cultural aspects.
Moreover, results also indicated the effects
of social status and familiarity on the two
groups as the findings showed different
usages of internal and external
modifications.
Another study looked at how learners of a
language differ from native speakers in the
way they phrase their requests is that of
Economidou-Kogetsidis (2009). The
author focused on those areas of deviation
from native usage as far as the learners’
production is concerned. The participants
were 83 Greek learners (ESL learners of
English and 86 native speakers of British
English. The instrument used was a
discourse completion task including three
situations. Results indicated that grounder
42 | A c r o s s - c u l t u r a l s t u d y o f r e q u e s t s p e e c h a c t
as an external modifier is by far the most
popular softener for both groups in all
three situations. Disarmer is considered as
the second most popular device in the data
collected, while all other external
mitigators were used particularly sparingly
by both groups. Both groups employed
more combinations of external
modification devices than combinations of
internal modification. However,
comparing the external modification
combinations with the internal
modification combinations, the results
indicated that while the native speakers
employed more combinations of devices
of internal modification, the learners
employed more combinations of devices
of external modification. The researcher
justified the use of external modifications
to many reasons. She argued that learners
might feel more confident to use external
modification in order to be adequately
polite because external modifiers are
longer and derive their politeness value
directly from the propositional context and
the illocutionary meaning of the move
itself. Another reason can be related
learners linguistic proficiency.
Previous research, however, has also dealt
mainly with perceptive data elicited from
different instruments involved in the use of
request modifications. For example,
Eslami Rasekh (2012) examined the
validity of speech act data taken from two
of the most popular speech act
instruments, namely, written DCT and
closed role play. The focus was on the
speech act of request as realized by forty
Iranian university students in their native
language (Persian). Findings indicated that
modification devices used in the oral data
had a softer tone and in terms of the
request perspective the oral data provided
more impersonal responses while the
requests in the written data were more
hearer-oriented. Based on his findings, he
claimed that the data gathered through role
play is more natural than DCT.
Abdolrezapour and Eslami-Rasekh (2012)
investigated the possible correlation
between request compliance and the use of
mitigation devices among Iranians and
Americans. Four role-play interactions
followed by stimulated recall procedures
were used to collect the required data. The
results obtained from the analysis of data
revealed that, in similar situations,
American requestors are comparably more
certain than Iranians that the addressee
would comply with their requests using
fewer mitigation devices; while, as far as
the requestees are concerned, Americans
are more influenced by the use of
mitigation devices on the part of
requestors than Iranians.
Koosha and Dastjerdi (2012) explored the
use of request forms presented in
Richard’s Interchange Series, Books I, II,
and III, widely used in Iranian foreign
language teaching institutes. For this
purpose, Alcon et al’s (2005) taxonomy of
peripheral modification devices used in
requests was used to locate the instance of
request forms in such texts. Results
showed that the series fail to include
materials which are needed for meaningful
and, at the same time, face saving
communication when resorting to different
kinds of requests is required. The
researchers found that there is no balance
between the presentation of internal and
external modifications in the different
books they studied. The study concluded
with some implications for textbook
writers, materials developers, language
teachers and learners, highlighting the fact
that modifications should receive more
attention in terms of frequency of
exposure.
Within the context of Iraqi subjects,
Aldhulaee’s (2011) study looked at Iraqis
requesting behaviour. He focused on
exploring the differences and similarities
between Australian English native
speakers and Iraqi Arabic native speakers
in the way they modify their requests. The
| 43 A p p l i e d R e s e a r c h o n E n g l i s h L a n g u a g e , 3 ( 2 )
subjects were 14 Iraqi Arabic native
speakers and 14 Australian English native
speakers. The instrument used was role-play interviews which were conducted in
each group’s first language: Australian
English or Iraqi Arabic. Findings indicated
some cultural and linguistic factors that
influence the use of request mitigations in
the Australian and Iraqi cultures. As far as
the use of external modifiers, they were
pervasive in both groups' requests. The
most frequent external devices were
grounder and alerter.
Similarly, there have been some attempts
looking at the requesting behaviour within
the Malaysian context. These studies
examined the request strategies in relation
to other factors such as proficiency, social
and situational factors. For example,
Youssef (2012) studied the similarities and
differences in the request strategies and
modifications by Malaysian and Libyan
postgraduate students at Universiti Sains
Malaysia, Malaysia. Data used in this
study are from existing literature on
natural conversations and role-play. In
terms of external modifications, both
groups used the same external modifiers
consisting of preparators, sweeteners, cost
minimizers and grounders. Both groups
mostly favour the grounders. Malaysian
students employed fewer internal
modifications and more external formulae
than Libyan university students to enhance
request efficiency do.
By looking at the research that has been
conducted in the realm of the speech act of
request, it is found that there has been little
research done when it comes to the
performance of non-native speakers of
English such as Iraqis and Malays. In other
words, when comparing the extensive
research conducted on other speech acts
such as requests by speakers of other
languages, it is clear that research on non-native speakers of English failed to fill the
gap in pragmatic research within the area
of giving advice. More research is needed
on unexplored speech communities as it
can be extensively beneficial to the
understanding of the culture of its speech
community. It is also found that there has
been little research done when it comes to
request modifications as compared to
request strategies. Requests involve
different types of mitigation strategies
which reflect the social norms and
assumptions of different communities and
cultures. The speech act of request
includes real life interactions and requires
not only knowledge of the language but
also appropriate use of that language
within a given culture. Thus, further
research may provide us with a more
global view of the cultural tendencies in
the act of requesting among Iraqis and
Malays.
Methodology
Subjects
The researchers used a random sampling
method of selecting 30 respondents for
each group. The subjects were first given a
background questionnaire. This instrument
was addressed to all participants in the
form of a questionnaire written in English.
The purpose of this questionnaire is to
record data about their personal
information like gender, age, etc. (See
Table 1).
Based on the table above, thirty Iraqi and
thirty Malay university students
participated in this study. The choice of
Malaysian Malays only is to keep the
homogeneity of the subjects. The Malay
group consists of seven males and twenty
three females, whose ages range twenty-one and twenty-six. The Iraqi group
consists of fifteen males and five females,
with an age range of between twenty-seven and thirty-five. It should be noted
that age and gender effects were not
considered in this study.
Each group was met individually by the
researchers at USM. Researchers provided
the subjects with detailed instructions
about the tasks. Each subject was given 30
minutes to complete the provided task in
both English and their mother tongue, i.e.
Bahasa Malay and Iraqi Arabic. Subjects
were presented with the written situations
and were asked to write down what they
would say under each situation.
Instrument
Building on the work of earlier researchers
on different speech act realizations,
Discourse Completion Task (DCT) has
been used as instrument for studying the
realization of speech acts (Beebe and
Cumming, 1996; Kasper and Dahl, 1991;
Sasaki, 1998). The DCT used in the
present study has adopted Rose’s (1994)
study on requests. It included eight
situations in which subjects were placed in
the role of a student making a request. Each
situation was based on two social
variables: “relative power” and “social
distance” between the interlocutors. In other
words, each situation consists of variation in
social factors: an equal status (=P) and high
status (+P). It also looks at request realization
between familiar interlocutors (-D) and
strangers (+D).
Furthermore, to make sure that the
different perceptions of the situations
would not affect the modifying elements
used in the request patterns, both groups
were asked to rate on a 1–5 scale (adopted
from Barron, 2003) the degree of
imposition of each situation. Brown and
Levinson (1987, p.77) define the degree of
imposition as "a culturally and
situationally defined ranking of
impositions by the degree to which they
are considered to interfere with an agent's
wants of self-determination or of
approval". In addition, they were also
asked to rate two social parameters right
and obligation since both right and
obligation are considered to be relevant for
the choice of the request form (Blum-
Kulka et al.,1989). Barron (2003)
indicated that factors like right and
obligation may affect the value of social
variables. According to Blum-Kulka and
House (1989, p.146), estimates of the right
the speaker has to issue the request and the
relative degree of obligation for the hearer
to comply with the particular request are
considered to affect request realisation, i.e.
level of directness in a correlation
relationship: the greater the right of the
speaker to ask and the greater the
obligation of the hearer to comply, the less
the motivation for the use of indirectness.
The rating of those situational factors was
done by answering the following
questions:
How much an imposition does the
speaker's request put on the hearer in this
situation?
1 low
2 mid-low
3 mid
4 mid-high
5 high
Does the other person have an obligation to
accept your request?
1 no obligation at all
2 no obligation
3 no real obligation
4 an obligation
5 a strong obligation
Do you have the right to pose request?
1 no right at all
2 no right
3 no real right
4 a right
5 a strong right
Data analysis
Data were analyzed based on Blum-Kulka
et al.’s (1989) coding scheme used in the
CCSARP study. According to the coding
scheme in the CCSARP, a request
sequence consists of a head act and other
parts such as internal and external
modifications which are optional and
nonessential for realizing a request. For
example:
Judith, I missed class yesterday. Do you
think I could borrow your notes? I promise
to return them by tomorrow.
The example shows that the request
sequence may include several strategies
including alerters, such as address terms
(Judith), proposed supportive moves (I
missed class yesterday), the request
proper, or Head act (I could borrow your
notes), optionally elaborated with down-graders (do you think) or up-graders and
post-supportive moves (I promise to return
them by tomorrow). However, in the
present study, only external modifications
were coded and included in the analysis.
Results and discussion
Perception of situational factors
Table (3) includes the evaluation of the
situational factors (see Appendix). The
findings of the t-test showed that there was
a statistically significant difference in the
perception of obligation P=.01* in S5
where 18 (60%) out of 30 Iraqi subjects
perceive that the other person is obliged to
accept the request given while 19 (63.3%)
out of 30 Malay subjects perceive no real
obligation for the other person to accept
the request.
Sociality rights are social or personal
expectancies or entitlements that
individuals claim for themselves (Spencer-Oatey 2000, p.14). Some are constantly
negotiated, while others are culturally or
situationally determined beforehand. Since
interlocutors expect these rights to be
respected, they create expectations which,
if unsatisfied, may affect rapport
management. Thus in situation 5, these
rights and obligations are determined by
the nature of Iraqi friendship context
which is inseparable from social
obligations. In the sense that part of a
‘‘healthy’’ friendship among Iraqis is that
a friend ‘‘must’’ feel indulged to fulfill
certain obligations such as offering help
and doing everything he/she can to
comfort a friend. They comprise the
friend’s obligation to help and the other
person’s right to be adequately treated
appropriately. Thus, Iraqi subjects
perceive that the other person is obliged to
accept the request in such a situation.
However, the case is obviously treated
differently within the Malaysian context
where such obligations are negotiated and
not determined.
Another difference in the perception of the
situational factors is evident in the
perception of imposition in S7. The
findings of the t-test show that there is a
statistically significant difference in the
perception of imposition P=.01* in S7. In
S7, the 22 (73.4%) out of 30 Iraqis
subjects do not feel any imposition when
asking a friends' mother for more food
during dinner at the friend’s house. Their
perception was between a little lower and
mid. The subjects’ requesting behaviour is
influenced by the high familiarity between
the interlocutors as well as the informal
setting. Iraqis’ socio-cultural norms stress
hospitality. Thus, upon accepting an
invitation for dinner at a friend’s house, it
is a social norm for the host to keep on
asking the guest to eat just a bit more.
Therefore, asking for more food would
never be an imposing act on the part of
both the requester and the requestee. The
person who posed the request is sure that
his request would never be refused. There
is a great expectation of compliance on the
part of the hearer. However 18 (60%) out
of 30 Malay subjects perceive high
imposition when requesting in this situation.
Iraqi subjects perceived this situation
according to their cultural norms of
invitation. However, for Malays the
interpretation of imposition is quite high in
this situation. There are still limits in
asking for more food within this culture
where such as act is considered to be rude
even with close relations.
External modifiers
The responses were coded and analyzed
based on Blum-Kulka et al.’s (1989)
classification and the coding scheme used
in the CCSARP as mentioned before. The
results are demonstrated in table 4 (See
Appendix).
Table 3 shows that ‘grounder’ is the most
common external mitigator used by both
subjects. In a grounder, the speaker gives
reasons, explanations, or justifications for
his or her request, either before or after the
main request. The use of grounders in
other situations like S4 (Photo) S6 (Bus)
and S7 (Food) is not frequent due to the
use of other external modifiers by the
subjects.
A closer look at the situation number three
shows that the effect of the participants’
relation is influencing the use of rapport
management through the use of grounders
in this situation. Grounder is highly
employed by Malaysians in S3 (Test)
93%. Power as a contextual variable can
be seen in terms of unequal role relations,
e.g. Professor –student. A professor can
be perceived to have coercive power,
reward power, expert power and legitimate
power. As Song (2012, p.33) put it out,
“College professors and school teachers
are highly respected in East Asia because
of the influence of confucianism, which
means that the society values education.
As a result, students accept teacher’s
disciplinary acts.” Request in such a
situation should be worded in a way to
gain a successful face rapport in
interaction. Thus, the request looks less
blunt when it is mitigated by the use of
justification or explanation.
Grounders are used mostly when making a
request to someone with a higher status.
Aldhulaee (2011) justified the use of
grounder by the fact that a university
lecturer has a high social status in the
Arabic social hierarchy as an individual
with much academic knowledge. In such a
case, making a request to someone with a
higher status, the speaker should manage
the face rapport through justifying and
mitigating his/her request. The reason for
using a grounder might probably be
viewed in a way that the speaker is trying
his best to build the rapport and achieve a
smooth interaction with an expectation
that this reason would have an impact on
the addressee to be more co-operative and
understanding to his situation. “ The use of
reasons or grounders can be seen as a co-operative strategy towards harmonious
exchanges since by giving reasons the
speaker expects the addressee to be more
understanding and willing to co-operate”(
Aldhulaee, 2011, p. 129). This is in line
with Faerch and Kasper (1989) who
pointed out that grounders are effective
mitigating strategies because they can
open up “an emphatic attitude on the part
of the interlocutor in giving his or her
insight into the actor’s underlying motive
(s)” (p. 239). Examples of grounders taken
from Iraqi and Malay data:
Saya terpaksa balik ke kampong. Bolehkah
saya ambil ujian terlebih dahulu?
I have to go back to my village. Can I seat
for the test in advance?
Saya tak dapat hadir pada hari ujian.
Boleh tunda tarikh ujian?
I cannot come to the test day. Could you
postpone the test date?
In the examples above, subjects mitigate
the request by using a grounder. Then they
realised the request. In the first example,
the speaker tries his best to manage face
rapport through the use of mitigation
where he justifies his demand to take the
test in advance by saying Saya terpaksa
balik ke kampong. It should be mentioned
that Malay subjects adherence to their
culture is defined by a politeness system
which is characterized as being
hierarchical. In other words, “The way
language is used, the intonations of speech
and the ways people are addressed
according to a status hierarchy, are part of
the polite system” (Storz, 1999, p.119).
This shows that the level of politeness is
determined by the rank by the society in
Malaysia.
However, Iraqi subjects used another
common device to mitigate the request as
they begin their request by defining the
relationship between their interlocutors
and themselves with regard to social
status. This is accomplished by referring to
the rank of the hearer (e.g. ., professor,
doctor) or by using a formal address term
such as ‘‘professor’’ یذاتسا. In addition,
Iraqi subjects tend to linguistically
mitigate their request with more detail.
The following examples illustrate the
point:
استاذی عندی شغل خارج المدینة ارید تأجیل الامتحان
Prof., I have something to do out of town, I
want to postpone the test.
استاذی اموری مزدحمة اکدر امتحن هذا الاسبوع
Prof., I’m busy, can I take the test next
week?
In the example above, subjects mitigate a
request by using an address term then
followed by an explanation of being away
outside town to justify the requested act
which is postponing the test. However, in
the second example, the mitigation is done
by using an ambiguous grounder where the
speaker justifies his absence by being
busy. Not much information is mentioned
for the status of being busy, yet a
successful face rapport is built through the
second part of the request where the
subject offered to take the test for this
week. This secures the professor’s
obligations and rights of his job and gives
him more space to be cooperative and
complying with the request. Despite the
use of mitigation in the second example,
the request sounds blunter than the
previous, this probably due to the fact that
the speaker fails in providing enough
details for justifying his request. This
reflects the Iraqi cultural norms where
hierarchical relations are dominant in
everyday life interaction.
The third example is an elaborated
realisation of a request where the speaker
starts with a greeting form and an address
term. The speaker provides a detailed
explanation to justify his request then
followed by a thanking and commitment
so that if the professor would comply with
his request that would be considered as a
favour. Thanking and expressions of
favours are very common in Iraqi culture.
Another common type of mitigation is
achieved through the use of an apology.
The use of forms like ‘aasif/ aasfa’ (I am
sorry) or ‘al afu’ (I beg your pardon) is
common in Iraqi Arabic as well as in
Bahasa Malayu “ Maaf” as a way of
redressing the face-threatening act of
request especially when interacting with a
speaker of high authority or when
interacting with strangers. The speaker
infringes on the recipient’s freedom from
imposition by making a request. The
recipient may feel that the request is an
intrusion on his/her freedom of action or
even a power play. Using the apology as a
mitigation device would help soften the
interaction and manage the face rapport.
Examples given by Iraqi subjects:
اعتذر استاذ بس عدنه حفلة کرابینا ضروری احضرها ممکن أجل الامتحان
I apologize, prof., but we have a wedding
party that I should attend. Can I postpone
the test?
العفو ممکن اکعد بصفک؟
Sorry, can I sit beside you?
العفو ممکن تنصی الصوت؟
Sorry, can you slow down the sound?
العفو استاذ الکتب ثقیل مساعدتک فی فتح الباب
Sorry, prof., the books are so heavy, help
me by opening the door.
العفو ما اکدر اوکف ممکن اکعد هنا؟
Sorry, I can’t stand. Can I sit here?
العفو اخویة ممکن تنصی صوت الموسیقیلان أرید أقرأ؟
Sorry brother, can you turn down the
sound of the music I want to study?
Examples of apology given by Malay
subjects:
Maafkan saya kerana tidak dapat
menduduki ujian itu. Saya harap dapat
mengambilnya semula.
I am sorry because I cannot seat for the
test. I hope I can reseat it.
Saya minta maaf kerana tak dapat hadir
untuk ujian itu kerana saya perlu pulang
ke kampong untuk menghadiri satu majlis
perkahwinan. Boleh tak tolong
pertimbangkan untuk tunda tarikh ujian
itu?
I am sorry I cannot come to the test
because I have to go back to my village to
attend a wedding. Could you please
consider postponing the test date?
Another way of modifying a request can
be done by using a ‘sweeteners’. This is
reflected in the use of formulaic
expressions like compliments which are
used for daily social interactions by Iraqis
to soften the social distance and show
more friendliness. In the present study,
“sweeteners” occurred quite frequently in
the Food situation. Bella (2011, p. 1734)
stated that, “A speaker in such a condition
seems to invest in pragmatic routines
whose formulaic nature can guarantee a
politeness effect.” It should be noted that
the use of compliments such as ‘Ashet
iedek’ (literally, ‘God save your hands’ are
very common and routine in Iraqi culture.
The English equivalent would be ‘That’s
really tasty’ or ‘Mmm.. That’s yummy’ or
any other complimentary remark regarding
the food). They are used to stress
closeness and intimacy.
Examples given by Iraqi subjects:
امک تطبخ کلش زین و نفسها طیب بالاکل
Your mother’s cooking is very good and
she has a very good taste in food
اکلکم طیب ناشونی بعد ماعون
Your food is delicious, give me another
plate.
عاشت ابدج خالة الاکل کلش طیب ممکنِِ أخذ شوبة
God save your hands, aunty. The food is
very delicious, can I have a little more?
عاشت الابادی طبخکم ممتاز
God save your hands ..your cooking is
excellent
لاول مرة اذوک هیجی اکل طیب...عاشت ابدیها لامک
It’s the first time that I taste such a nice
food.. God save your mother’s hands
Based on the realisation of the above
examples, it should be noted that the guest
expects the right to be respected and
treated well based upon the cultural norms
of Iraqi hospitality. Thus he/she creates
expectation which, if unsatisfied, may
affect rapport management. Being a host,
she is obliged to present her best to
comfort her guest. The guest, on the other
hand, creates expectations that determine
the interaction of the whole situation. It is
a social norm for the host to keep on
asking the guest to eat just a bit more. The
rights and expectations rise when the
familiarity is high. Therefore, the guest
would be expected to be appreciated the
host by asking for more food. There is a
great expectation of compliance on the
part of the hearer, i.e. the mother. This
would also be regarded as a sign of
friendliness and closeness.
Malay subjects show a similar tendency in
using sweeteners as mitigation strategy.
The use of such strategies might be
explained by the fact that it perhaps helps
in managing the face quality of the hearer
that is the mother’s desire to be positively
evaluated by her guests on the basis of her
personal features, i.e. skillful in cooking.
Examples of sweeteners given by Malay
subjects:
Sedapnya masakan makcik hari ini. Boleh
saya tambah sikit?
Auntie’s cooking is delicious. Can I have
some more?
Masakan mama sedap sekali. Untung
Rashid ada emak macam mama. Saya
ambik lagi ye.
Mama’s cooking is so delicious. Rashid is
so lucky to have a mother like you. I take
some more (food).
Conclusion
The present paper is a cross-cultural
research between Iraqi and Malay
university students by studying the
requesting behaviour and the social,
cultural norms of these groups. This would
enhance our understanding of the way
these two groups modify their requests. In
fact, both Iraqi and Malay cultures are
classified as types of collectivistic
cultures. One of the distinctive features of
this type of culture is that the hierarchical
relationships and the reciprocal obligation
are basic features of the cultural system.
Having examined the types of mitigations
used by the participants, the findings
indicated that grounders are the most
common external modifier used by the
subjects. This is in line with Hassall
(2001) who argued that grounders can be
found in all languages and considered as
the main type of external modifiers. The
importance of this modifier seems to be
related to its function as a means of
sustaining the speaker’s endeavour to get
cooperation and build the rapport with less
face-threatening to the hearer’s face
(Aldhulaee, 2011).
Though the results of the present study
show more similarities than differences
between the subjects under study in terms
of mitigation devices use such as
apologies, compliments and thanking,
further research may provide us with a
more global view of the cultural
tendencies in mitigating the act of making
requests among Iraqis and Malaysians.
Ongoing research in the study of real life
encounters in which requests are
performed would give more insight into
the cultural tendencies, and may be more
authentic if the responses were verbal as
opposed to written as done in this study.
Moreover, from examining the results of
the rating scale, it became clear that both
Iraqis and Malays differ in their perception
of the situational factors. The dominance
and the influence of Islamic culture are
clearly demonstrated within the Iraqi
culture. Thus, concepts such as hospitality,
sharing, involvement, obligations and
closeness are promoted by the whole Iraqi
society. In case of Malays, they might still
be dominated by the Anglo culture in
terms of adherence to the etiquette and the
manners of not asking for more food
where the requester feels a great
imposition since he is exposing a need.
Feeling of embarrassment and being
ashamed might be the reason behind
feeling such a burden when asking for
more food.
Accordingly, the findings of this study
might be utilized by English language
teachers within the ESL/EFL contexts.
This study supports the importance of
understanding speech acts across cultures
and the fact that understanding, or lack
thereof, can either hinder or strengthen
communication exchanges between
cultures. It is believed that teaching the
cultural aspects of language is a vital part
of teachers’ duty to aid their students in
becoming successful second language
speakers. ESL teachers should design
contextualized, task-based activities that
expose learners to different types of
pragmatic information along with the
linguistic means needed to perform a
particular speech act. In addition, because
of the function of different social variables
(e.g., social status) in speech acts, students
should be taught how to perform speech
acts appropriately based on the relative
status levels of the interlocutors.
Finally, it should be mentioned that there
are some certain limitations in the present
study which should be taken into account.
The present study utilised DCT as an
instrument for data collection. It is true
that DCTs do not provide samples of an
interactive language in a real life situation.
Instead, they provide data of high
comparability due to the controlled nature
of the situation given. However, DCT can
still be used as an instrument in assessing
the knowledge of how a particular speech
act might be performed but not how it is
actually performed. Thus, a rating scale is
used in addition to DCT as a way to
compensate the major issues related to
DCT validity and reliability in terms of
authentic discourse. More research might
be conducted for cross-cultural studies to
capture the ideal data, i.e. naturally
occurring data.
