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Requests by Australian learners of Indonesianby Tim Hassall
Dr Tim Hassall is a Lecturer in the Southeast
Asia Centre in the Faculty of Asian Studies at the Australian
National University. Abstract This study examines how Australian learners of Indonesian perform
requests in everyday situations compared to Indonesian native speakers.
The data were collected by means of interactive roleplay. Results showed
that both groups of subjects favour the same request type: query preparatory.
However, learner subjects used a different modal verb to perform their
requests, used Want statements and hint statements more than native
Indonesians, and used elided imperatives less often. The findings emphasise
the potential importance of positive pragmatic transfer, of the negative
effect of formal instruction, and of learners’ concern for clarity.
The study also has developmental implications for L2 pragmatics. Most
broadly, it supports the claim of Bialystok (1993) that the main task
for adult learners of L2 pragmatics is to gain control over knowledge
rather than knowledge itself. It also suggests that Want statements
and hint statements will be used in inverse proportion to language proficiency,
that competence in aspects of requesting linked to conversational management
will develop in tandem with linguistic proficiency, and that a U-shaped
curve of development is likely in the acquisition of request strategies
realised by very short forms. 1. Introduction This study examines how Australian learners of Indonesian make requests in everyday situations. While requests by second language (L2) learners are often studied, the range of target languages is still relatively small. Most studies are of requests by learners of English (e.g. Rintell 1981; Zimin 1981; Scarcella & Brunak 1981; House & Kasper 1987; House 1989; Béal 1990; Bilbow 1995, Trosborg 1995). Most others are of requests by learners of other Western languages; for example, of Spanish (Koike 1989; le Pair 1996), of German (Kasper 1989; Faerch & Kasper 1989), and of French (Harlow 1990); or of requests by learners of Hebrew (Blum-Kulka 1982, 1983, 1991; Blum-Kulka & Olshtain 1986; Blum-Kulka & Levenston 1987; Weizman 1993). Few published studies focus on requests — or any other speech act — by learners of Asian languages. This study aims to help us understand how L2 learners perform requests and speech acts more broadly across a wider range of languages, and hence to what extent earlier findings are valid cross-linguistically. It also aims to facilitate cross-cultural communication between native and L2 speakers of Indonesian. Bahasa Indonesia (henceforth BI or Indonesian) is studied extensively at school and university level inAustralia and proficiency in Indonesian is of growing importance economically, culturally, and strategically (cf. Worsley 1993). Empirical descriptions of how learners perform everyday speech acts in Indonesian can help teachers to guide students towards more native-like pragmatic behaviour and increased cultural competence ‑ expecially significant in view of the trend towards Intercultural Language Teaching (see e.g. Crozet & Liddicoat 2000). 2. Background 2.1. Interlanguage pragmatics: What learners do As an investigation of the speech act performance of L2 learners, this study lies within the relatively new field of second language research known as ‘interlanguage pragmatics’ (ILP) (for a discussion of the scope of this field see Kasper & Schmidt 1996). From ILP studies to date, certain features of learners’ speech acts can tentatively be identified, across target and first languages. One feature is an emphasis on clarity. When performing L2 speech acts, learners tend to choose “explicit, transparent, unambiguous means of expression....” (Faerch & Kasper 1989: 233). For example, Danish learners of English and German overuse "please" and bitte in their requests, and it is suggested that they favour these particular markers because of their explicitness: as well as being highly transparent markers of politeness, they explicitly mark the utterance as being a request (Faerch & Kasper 1989: 232-233). Another feature is a tendency to display highly non-native performance at the 'discourse end' of pragmatics; that is, when pragmatic performance depends on skill in conversational management. In several studies, advanced learners of English have been unable to align their responses to the interlocutor’s contributions, in order to produce pragmatically appropriate responding moves (cf. House 1996: 240; Edmondson et al 1984: 21; Bodman & Eisenstein 1988; Eisenstein & Bodman 1993). And in another study (Trosborg 1995), upper-intermediate and advanced learners of English tended to make mechanical-sounding requests by using the same strategy repeatedly when making the same request more than once within a conversation. This made the learners sound unresponsive to development of the discourse; to the fact that their follow-up requests occur in different contexts from the initial one. A third feature of learners’ speech acts is that they often perform them with a different level of directness from native speakers (NSs). As Kasper and Blum-Kulka (1993) observe, there is no consistent trend for learners to be either more or less direct than NSs; in some studies learners are more direct than NSs, while in others they are less so. 2.2. Interlanguage pragmatics: how learners do it A number of specific processes play an important role in learner’s pragmatic behaviour. One is transfer of first language (L1) pragmatic knowledge (cf. Kasper 1992: 207). A useful distinction can be made between ‘positive’ and ‘negative’ transfer. When a learner uses an L2 pragmatic feature with native form, function, and distribution because of influence from the L1, this is positive (or ‘successful’) transfer from the L1. However, when a learner uses an L2 pragmatic feature with non -native form, function or distribution because of L1 influence, this is negative (or ‘unsuccessful’) transfer (Kasper 1995: 15). While negative transfer has been noted in a large number of ILP studies (e.g. Blum-Kulka 1983; Olshtain & Cohen 1983; Edmondson et al 1984; House & Kasper 1987; Beebe & T. Takahashi 1989; Faerch & Kasper 1989; Robinson 1992; Bergman & Kasper 1993; House 1996), positive transfer by learners has received little attention from researchers. However, positive transfer has been observed (cf. Kasper 1992: 212), and can have an important influence on learners’ pragmatic knowledge and performance, as the present study demonstrates. The relationship between pragmatic transfer and lingustic proficiency is complex. Learners’ perceptions of transferability of L1 pragmatic features may not vary significantly with language proficiency (cf. S. Takahashi 1996) However, as Kasper (1995: 19-20) points out, actual transfer does appear to correlate with language proficiency in certain ways. Low-level learners sometimes do not transfer L1 pragmatic features to the L2 because they lack the linguistic competence to do so. And learners at higher levels of proficiency sometimes do not transfer L1 pragmatic features to the L2 because they believe, rightly or wrongly, that such transfer would be unsuccessful. This kind of ‘avoidance’ of pragmatic transfer has been observed in a number of studies (e.g. Olshtain & Cohen 1983; House & Kasper 1987; Bodman & Eisenstein 1988; Robinson 1992; Bergman & Kasper 1993; and House 1996). Another important process is L2 learners’ use of knowledge gained through formal instruction (cf. Selinker 1972: 216 ). Instruction seems to have a strong positive role in helping L2 learners acquire and perform L2 pragmatics (cf. Kasper & Schmidt 1996: 160); however, a negative influence of instruction has also been observed in the research. Kasper (1982: 102) suggests two ways in which instruction can result in learner-specific pragmatic features. One is ‘primary’ teaching induction, in which the learner is presented with deviant (i.e. wrong) input, from which s/he directly formsIL- specific rules. The other is ‘secondary’ teaching induction, the learner is presented with L2 input which is correct, but which is organised or practised in such a way that it causes the learner to form IL-specific rules. (An example would be if in a textbook the expression "thanks" were used only in conversations between friends, while for service encounters the expression "thank you" were always used instead. This might lead the learner to conclude wrongly that the expression "thanks" is not appropriate for use in service encounters). Processes such as those above are thought to operate together (either simultaneously or consecutively) to produce a given instance of IL pragmatic behaviour, so that ILP phenomena typically have a pluricausal explanation (cf. Kasper 1982). Thus, ILP researchers typically suggest that a certain psycholinguistic process may be one of the causes for a certain ILP feature, rather than the sole cause (see e.g. studies of Beebe & T. Takahashi 1989; Kasper 1982; S. Takahashi 1996). 2.3. Interlanguage pragmatics: developing competence Little is known so far about how learners develop pragmatic competence.Bialystok (1993) theorises that the process entails two separate cognitive components: that of acquiring knowledge, in the form of an increasingly explicit understanding of L2 pragmatic features, and that of acquiring control over attention to this knowledge; that is, automaticity in use of this knowledge. The second of these components,Bialystok (1993) believes, is the crucial process for adult L2 learners. They generally produce pragmatically inappropriate L2 utterances not because of deviant pragmatic knowledge but because they are unable to draw on their pragmatic knowledge when they need it, to access it quickly enough to produce appropriate utterances in real time. This claim ofBialystok ’s (1993) that acquiring control over knowledge is the key process still awaits empirical validation. A study by Hassall (2001) lent only partial support to this claim. It found that Australian learners of Indonesian ─ while able to rely heavily on existing knowledge in order to modify their requests externally ─ could not rely on it in order to modify them internally. Thus, acquiring new knowledge was also a major task for them. Developmental studies of acquisition of L2 pragmatic competence over time are few in number (for a recent review of studies see Kasper & Rose 1999: 91). Findings so far (notably Schmidt 1983 and Ellis 1992; see also Sawyer 1992) suggest that learners start to perform L2 speech acts by means of a few formulaic routines, and later begin to modify these initial routines, and to increase their range of strategy types Claims about developmental stages are conservative in scope. It appears unlikely that a fixed order of acquisition of different pragmatic features will be discovered, founded on some notion of ‘pragmatic complexity', comparable to claims made for acquisition of morphosyntax (Kasper & Schmidt 1996: 159). However, it seems that the development of pragmatic competence may be closely tied to development of grammatical competence. To what extent the former depends on the latter is not yet clear (cf. Bardovi-Harlig & Hartford 1996: 184; Bardovi-Harlig 1999). 2.4. Requests Searle (1969: 66) offers this description of a request: a directive speech act act which counts as an attempt to get H to do an act which S wants H to do, and which S believes that H is able to do; and which it is not obvious that H will do in the normal course of events or of H’s own accord. This notion of an “act” may include the purely verbal acts of giving information, or granting permission. A request may vary in strategy type and level of directness. Three levels of directness for requests have been identified (cf. Blum-Kulka, House & Kasper 1989). The first is ‘direct’. This includes forms that convey requestive force by purely syntactic means, such as grammatical mood or an explicit performative verb. The second level is ‘conventionally indirect’. This comprises indirect formulas that are conventionalised in the language as a means of requesting. The last level is ‘non-conventionally indirect’. This refers to hints, indirect request forms that are not conventionalised in the language, and hence require more inferencing by the hearer in order to derive the speaker’s requestive intent. At each of these three levels of directness, a number of sub-strategies are also proposed by authors of the largest and best-known study of learner pragmatics to date, the Cross-Cultural Speech Acts Realisation Project (cf. CCSARP 1989). While the resulting taxonomy has been criticised in some respects (e.g. van Mulken 1996), it provides a highly suitable framework for the present study and will be used with only minor adaptations to classify requests by subjects. 3. Method 3.1. Learner subjects These comprise 20 students undertaking 2nd or 3rd year of an undergraduate degree program in Bahasa Indonesia at an Australian university. Thirteen were female and seven were male. All were in the 18-24 age group except one (who was approximately 35 years old). While no test of language proficiency was undertaken on the subjects, their oral proficiency can be characterised as intermediate, with considerable range in proficiency from lower to upper intermediate. The spoken performance of several learner subjects (as evidenced in data elicitation sessions) made them highly conspicuous for either low or high linguistic ability, and these learners were selected to be compared throughout the study with respect to various request features. Three learners stood out very clearly as possessing low linguistic proficiency. Their interlanguage was characterised by consistently halting and hesitant delivery, long pauses when ‘stuck’ for essential vocabulary, frequent serious errors in morpho-syntax, frequent serious lexical errors, and poor listening comprehension. These three learners will be referred to as the Low group in subsequent discussion. Two learners were clearly conspicuous for their relatively high linguistic proficiency. Their interlanguage was characterised by consistently fluent and smooth delivery compared to other learner subjects, wide range of sentence patterns and of lexis, scarcity of serious lexico-grammatical errors, and apparent lack of difficulty with comprehension. These two learners will be referred to as the High group . 3.2 . Bahasa Indonesia native speaker subjects (BI NSs) These consisted of 18 students studying degree programs in a range of disciplines at an Australian university. Half were male and half were female; none had been inAustralia for a period longer than three years. Subjects were from various regions ofIndonesia : almost all were either from the mainisland ofJava or had spent a large part of their life in Java. 3.3 Method of data collection The data were collected by means of interactive oral roleplay, a method frequently employed in empirical studies of pragmatics (cf. Kasper & Dahl 1991; Aston 1995, Kasper & Rose forthcoming). The request situations were selected with the primary criterion of their frequency and usefulness for learners of the type investigated, i.e. Australian university students. As their most common purpose for going toIndonesia is to travel or to study, situations were selected for their relevance to everyday life in those domains. As a secondary criterion, the three social factors commonly thought to influence linguistic choices in making requests: relative power, size of social distance, and size of imposition (cf. Brown & Levinson 1987), were varied as much as feasible. Twenty-four request situations were finally selected (for a complete list of role play situations see Appendix B).2 Each subject performed 12 or 13 of these situations with an Indonesian native speaking partner, on the basis of a written cue; as well as a number of non-request or ‘distractor’ situations (cf. Olshtain & Cohen 1983: 31). All role plays were audio-recorded. 3.4. Judgments of appropriacy The appropriacy of learners’ strategy choices in this study was determined through a process of discussion with BI native speaker informants. In any instance in the data when a subject's choice of strategy was of questionable appropriacy, at least two BI native speaker informants were shown a written version of the relevant extract of the data (with precise specification of the situation in which it occured), and were asked non-directively to comment on it. If necessary, the informants were then asked further questions which directed their attention specifically to the appropriacy of the feature in question, in order to obtain the relevant judgements. 4. Results BI native speakers and learners use the same range of nine request types: direct, conventionally indirect, and non-conventionally indirect sub-strategies, as outlined in Table 1 below (for further description of these Indonesian request types see Hassall 1999). Table 1. Request types used by BI native speaking and learner subjects (in descending order of directness)
* This taxonomy of request types and description of each type is based closely on that of Blum-Kulka, House and Kasper (1989) and CCSARP (1989).
4.1. Direct requests Learners, like the BI native speakers, make a large proportion of their requests directly. However, they strongly favour a direct sub-strategy which BI natives seldom use: namely, the Want statement. This request type comprises the vast majority of direct requests by learners and over one quarter of their requests overall (25.7% or 61/237: see Table 2 below). Examples of Want statements are as follows. (In data extracts L stands for Australian learner subject, NS for Indonesian native speaking subject, and P for Indonesian native speaking partner). (1) L: … saya mau membeli (.) dua (.) amplop? dan perangko I want buy two envelope and stamp ‘… I want to buy two envelopes and stamps’ (2) L: … saya mau (.) um (.) saya mau menukar (.) uang saya I want um I want change money my (.) dalam uang kecil. in money small ‘… I want, um, I want to change my money into smaller notes’ Table 2. Proportion of request types used by learner and BI native speaker subjects
Certain discourse features especially seem to elicit Want statements from learners. They resort to Want statements when a complication develops during the request speech event, so that order must be restored by conveying the illocutionary force, or the nature of the request goal, very clearly. An example is (3) below: (3) (asking a friend from residential college for a lift home on their motor scooter) L: (calls out to attract attention) Hey kok (.) NAME pulangHey ‘ kok’ NAME go home L: ke asrama? to college (.) P: Uh ya (.) mau ke mana? uh yes go to where L: Ke (.) ya terima kasih (.) saya mau ikut. to yes thank-you I want come too P: Oh baiklah ya (.) sama-sama oh all right yes together ……………………… L: (calls out to attract attention) Hey ‘kok’. Are you going L: home to college? (.) P: Uh yeah. Where are you going? L: To/ yeah, thank you. I want to come too. P: Oh all right yeah. We’ll go together ……………………… In (3), the learner starts to respond to the interlocutor’s question Mau ke mana? “Where are you going?” with information about her destination (Ke ... ‘To ...’). But then she seems to decide in mid-utterance that the question was an offer of a lift, and so thanks the interlocutor instead. However, she still appears to be uncertain whether she has in fact been offered a lift, and so she follows her thanks with a Want statement, as if to make her intentions quite clear: Saya mau ikut ‘I want to come too’. Similarly, learners also tend to use Want statements after making a check on availability of goods that does not achieve the status of a request. An example is (4) below: (4) (ordering a meal in a restaurant) L: Ada nasi goreng di sini? there is rice fried here P: Ada there is L: Saya mau makan sepiring nasi goreng. I want eat one-plate rice fried L: Do you have fried rice here? P: Yes. L: I want to eat a plate of fried rice. In (4) above, once again, a potential request has been made but it has not been interpreted as a request, and the speaker now wants to make it clear that a request is intended. BI native subjects, by contrast, never use Want statements for this function. Below is a typical example of how BI native speakers perform a request in such a situation. (5) (ordering a meal in a restaurant) NS: Ada nasi goreng? there is rice fried P: Ada there is NS: Satu Mbak. one sister NS: Do you have fried rice? P: Yes. NS: One, sister. The way learners prefer to use Want statements to restore clarity to discourse contributes to the much higher overall use of Want statements by this group than by BI native speakers. Another difference concerns imperative requests. This is the favoured direct sub-strategy of BI native speakers, who perform a substantial minority of their requests with either full imperatives (9.0% or 19/213) or elided imperatives, i.e. a form consisting of the name of the object requested (8.5% or 18/213). Learners, on the other hand, rarely use imperatives, and in particular almost never use elided imperatives (only 1.3% or 3/237 of requests: see Table 2 above). An example of an elided imperative is this: (6) ( a customer in a restaurant to a waiter) NS: Menu makanannya itu menu food-the it ‘The menu’. 4.2. Conventionally indirect requests Both learner and BI native speaker subjects make most of their requests by means of conventional indirectness. Over 40% of requests by both groups are made with one sub-strategy alone: the ‘query preparatory modal’. In this request type the speaker uses a relevant modal verb to ask what is — on the face of it — a question about ability or permission, which is in fact a formulaic request. Examples are these: (7) (asking a stranger to move over in a crowded eating stall) NS: … bisa bergeser sedikit Mas can move little brother ‘… can you move over a little, brother? [= question about hearer’s ability] (8) (a new hotel guest asks to borrow a pen from a hotel receptionist to fill in the registration form) NS: … bisa pinjem (.) bolpoinnya? can borrow pen-the ‘…can I borrow the pen?’ [ = question about speaker’s permission 3 ] (9) (“hotel guest” situation above) L: … boleh (.) saya meminjam ballpen may I borrow pen ‘… may I borrow a pen? [ = question about speaker’s permission] While the two groups share a preference for this sub-strategy, they favour different modal verbs to perform it. When either bisa ‘can’ or boleh ‘may/be allowed’ are possible (e.g. in (8) and (9) above), BI native speakers strongly prefer bisa ‘can’. They select it almost five times as frequently as boleh (75 instances compared with only 15 instances). But learners prefer the more deferential boleh, choosing it more than twice as often as bisa (60 instances compared with only 26 instances). 4.3. Non-conventionally indirect (hints). One interesting finding concerns statement hints. BI native speakers use this request type only very occasionally (3/213 or 1.4% of requests), while learners use it more often (22/237 or 9.3% of requests). Examples of statement hints by learners are these: (10) (asking a hotel receptionist for a pen to fill in the registration form) L: … saya tidak ada pena? I not have pen L: ‘… I don’t have a pen.’ (11) (asking a lecturer for an extension on an essay deadline) L: … saya tidak bisa (.) menyelesaika/ menyelesaikan (.) I not can fini/ finish L: uh (.) esai (.) [esai uh essay essay P: Mm hm] Mm hm L: esaimu ? essay-your L: … I can’t fini/ finish, um, your, your P: Hm hm L: your essay. 4.4. Situational variation in selection of request strategy No striking differences were observed between learner and BI native speaker subjects with respect to situational variation in selection of request strategy. For those request types where a coherent pattern of situational variation could be observed for either learners or BI native speakers, the two groups show marked similarities 4 . Both groups appear to select the imperative strategy mainly on the basis of speaker’s high status relative to hearer (e.g. as a hotel guest asking a hotel servant to have clothes washed). Both groups select the query preparatory modal request type most frequently when the overall threat to face is perceived as high (e.g. asking a stranger to move over in a crowded eating stall), but also use it to some extent in nearly every situation in the study, such that no factors mitigate strongly against its selection. Neither group selects either Want statements or hints consistently on the basis of any social variables examined; so that no clear pattern of variation can be observed for these two request types. 4.5. Discourse considerations in strategy selection When learner subjects selected a strategy which was judged by native speaker informants to be inappropriate, this was almost never because the strategy is inherently inappropriate to the situation. Rather, it is because the learner’s request is poorly aligned to the ongoing discourse. In the most obvious cases, the request by the learner is superfluous, such that any choice of strategy would be inappropriate at that point in the discourse. An example is below: (12) (asking a conductor to tell you when the bus gets to the stop nearestKartini Street ) L: Maaf Sus?(.) saya (.) uh (.) tidak tahu di mana excuse me sister I uh not know where L: (.) uh (.) Jalan Kartini uh street Kartini P: Uh (.) ya ya saya akan (.) menunjukkannya (.) uh yes yes I will show-it P: pada Anda (.) silakan duduk dahulu. to you please sit in the meantime L: Ah (.) terima kasih (.) er (.) uh (.) apa Anda ah thank you er uh INT you L: memberitahu saya di mana (.) ketika kami (.) tell me where when we L: uh (.) datang ke (.) stop bis yang terbaik? uh come to stop bus LIG best P: Ya (.) ya pasti (.) silakan duduk dahulu. yes yes certain please sit in the meantime L: Excuse me sister, I, uh, I don’t know whereKartini Street is P: Uh, yes, yes I’ll point it out to you. Please sit down in the meantime. L: Ah, thank you. Er, uh, will you tell me where/ when we, uh, get to the best stop? P: Yes, yes, certainly. Please sit down in the meantime. In (12) above, the learner’s first turn, Saya tidak tahu di mana Jalan Kartini “I don’t know whereKartini Street is”, is interpreted as a request by the ‘bus conductor’, who duly assures the learner that she will show her where the street is. But the learner seems to disregard this by following it with a superfluous request for the bus conductor to do more or less what she has just promised to do: Apa Anda memberitahu saya… ketika kami datang ke stop bis yang terbaik? ‘Will you tell me…when we get to the best stop?’ It would have been more appropriate for the learner not to add this request, thus allowing her earlier turn to achieve the status of a statement hint. 4.6. Follow-up 'requests' After the main request, sometimes a subject makes another ‘request’ in a following turn. These utterances are not always requests, strictly speaking. Often they are part of a 'repair sequence' (cf. Schegloff, Jefferson & Sacks 1977) that clarifies or modifies the goal of the request. The occurence of these follow-up requests is highly irregular, so that systematic comparisons between those of learners and those of BI NSs are not practicable; however, one finding is worth noting. Learners typically perform these follow-up ‘requests’ using the same sub-strategy as they use for the main request. This makes learners appear unresponsive to development of the discourse; to the fact that their follow-up requests occur in different contexts. It also creates a rather mechanical effect. Here is a characteristic example: (13) (buying a cinema ticket) ………………………… L: Uh (.) saya (.) uh mau (.) uh (.) karcis (.) untuk duduk (.) uh I uh want uh ticket(s) for sit L: uh (.) di tengah (.) depan bioskop? ya? uh in middle front cinema yes P: He eh/ uh huh L: Apa (.) apa ongkosnya what what cost-the (.) P: Uh (.) tiga ribu lima ratus. uh three thousand five hundred L: Oke (.) uh (.) saya mau (.) uh (.) satu karcis (.) ya? okay uh I want uh one ticket yes ………………… L: Uh, I want a ticket (or ‘tickets’) to sit, um, in the middle-front of the cinema, okay? P: Uh huh. L: What’s, uh, what’s the cost? (.) P: Um, three thousand five hundred. L: Oke. Er, I want , uh, one ticket (.) yes? ……………… In (13) above, after asking for a seat in the middle front by means of a Want statement, in order to add information about the number of tickets the learner produces a second Want statement (instead of saying, for example, Satu, Pak “One, father"). By contrast, BI native speakers almost always switch strategies to make a follow-up request. This creates a contrast between the main request and the follow-up request that emphasises that the two types of utterance occur at different points in the discourse and have a different function. Here is a typical example: (14) (asking to change large notes for smaller ones in a bank) NS: Bisa saya tukar begini (.) uang seribu ini jadi lima can I change like this money one-thousand this become five NS: ratusan hundreds P: Ya (.) oke yes okay NS: Ditukar dua aja ya? be changed two just yes P: Okay okay NS: Can I change these one thousand notes into five NS: hundreds? P: Yes, okay. NS: I’ll just change two, huh? P: Okay In (14) above, while the BI NS subject used a query preparatory modal for the main request, she switches to a strategy of Goal statement for the extra request in which she specifies how many notes to change. 5. Discussion 5.1. Learners’ use of query preparatory requests The choice of the query preparatory modal by the learners as their main strategy is a crucial native-like feature of their requesting. The factor of L1 transfer is likely to be an important cause for this finding. There is strong evidence from empirical research that native speakers of Australian English (AE) strongly favour query preparatory requests over any other type of request strategy; and do so consistently across a wide range of situations (Blum-Kulka & House 1989; Blum-Kulka 1989, Tanaka 1986, 1988; Nguyen 1990; Wierzbicka 1991). This finding is also confirmed for native speakers of other varieties of English: British English (House and Kasper 1987; Trosborg 1995; Fukushima 1996) and Canadian English (Blum-Kulka 1983). Therefore the learners in the present study do not need to make significant adjustments from the directness level that they select when making requests in the native language; instead, they can ‘fall back’ on L1 pragmatic knowledge to a large extent in selecting this request type. Another factor that probably contributes to learner’s use of this strategy is its formal simplicity. This type of modal question is structurally simple, consisting minimally of Modal verb + Agent + Verb (e.g. Boleh + saya + pinjam, structurally parallel to May + I + borrow), so learners are unlikely to be discouraged by considerations of formal complexity in selecting this strategy. This request type is selected consistently by learners at all levels of proficiency in the present study, including the Low group (two of the Low group use it as their most common or equal most common request type). Trosborg (1995), similarly, remarks on the ability of learner subjects from all proficiency groupings in her study to use this polite conventionally indirect strategy. The present finding confirms and extends that of Trosborg (1995). It shows that learners even well below the proficiency of Trosborg’s lowest level learners are able consistently to select a polite, conventionally indirect strategy in the L2, when the L2 pragmalinguistic form is formally simple and the same strategy exists in the L1. 5.1.1. Learners’ choice of modal verb Regarding the learners’ preference for boleh ‘may/ be allowed’ instead of bisa ‘can’ to perform their query preparatory requests, a parallel finding in an earlier study seems relevant. Faerch and Kasper (1989) found that Danish learners of German consistently chose the modal verb dürfen “may” when making query preparatory requests, while German native speakers preferred the modal verb können “can”. Faerch and Kasper (1989) suggest that the inherently unequal relationship between native and non-native speaker may have prompted those learners to select a more deferential modal verb. Learners in the present study, too, may feel that their status as non-native speakers calls for more tentative verbal behaviour, and so choose the modal verb (boleh ‘may’) which more strongly suggests that the hearer has power over the speaker. However, while this factor may well be influential, another factor is likely to have the decisive role: the instruction that these learners had in the use of these two modal verbs. In the learners’ main textbook (Johns 1977: used throughout their first year of university study), the modal verb bisa “can” is presented and practiced only with reference to ability, while boleh “may/be allowed” is invariably used to ask for permission. In fact, while it is never explicitly stated in this textbook that bisa ‘can’ is not used to ask for permission, the two modal verbs are implicitly contrasted in the book in a way that seems intended to suggest it. An example is the following excerpt from a dialogue between a schoolchild and his teacher: Bu, bolehkah saya bertanya? Ya, boleh. Apa Ibu bisa berbicara bahasa Inggeris? Ya, bisa. ................ Miss, may I ask a question? Yes, you may. Can you speak English, Miss? Yes, I can. …………… (Johns 1977: 31, emphasis added) So the learners probably acquired this preference for boleh over bisa mainly by secondary teaching induction (see 2.2). The way that these two modal verbs are presented and practiced has probably caused learners to form the deviant rule that bisa is not used to make requests. As a result, they avoid transfer of the common English request formula “Can I…?/Can you …?” to Indonesian, as they do not believe this formula to be acceptable in Indonesian. It is interesting in this regard to compare the performance of the Low and the High group of learners. The Low group clearly prefer the BI native speaker choice of modal verb, bisa “can”, using it in almost all (8/9 instances) of their QP requests for permission. By contrast, the High group chooses boleh “may/ be allowed” in almost all (8/9) instances (and the Middle group, too, strongly favours this modal verb). This lends support to Kasper’s (1995) claim that advanced learners sometimes resist transfer of L1 pragmalinguistic forms that can be transferred, due to overcaution, while lower level learners may successfully transfer the same forms. A likely explanation for this phenomenon can be suggested. High and low proficiency learners are likely to have similar knowledge about the likely non-transferability of the feature (see 2.2) but high level learners will be more able to attend to this knowledge while planning their speech acts because they are not under such a heavy processing load from the interactional demands of L2 discourse. 5.2. Learners’ use of Want statements The heavy use of Want statements by these learners is consistent with previous studies. Statements of personal desire, and/ or statements of need, are quite consistently used by learners more than by L2 native speakers (e.g. Trosborg 1995; Koike 1989; Rintell 1981; Scarcella and Brunak 1981). Koike (1989) suggests that the overuse of Want statements by learners reflects a general tendency of learners to opt for less polite forms that are most efficiently and easily expressed, due to a strong concern with clarity. Learners in the present study, too, seem partly motivated by a concern for clarity in their selection of Want statements. This is supported by the fact that they sometimes select this strategy in order to clear up a potential misunderstanding (see 4.1). A clear proficiency difference can be observed in the selection of Want statements in the present data. The Low group are conspicuous for their heavy use of Want statements, being the three most frequent users in the entire sample group, while the High group do not use this request type at all. This is consistent with previous findings. Scarcella and Brunak (1981) and Trosborg (1995) both report a clear trend for lower proficiency subjects to use statements of personal desire or need a lot more frequently than higher proficiency subjects. While the proficiency levels of learners are not uniform in the three studies, the direction of apparent development is the same: in each case lower level learners overuse Want statements while higher level ones do not. This suggests that learners may use this request type with diminishing frequency as they become more proficient in the L2. One learner in the Low group in this study shows a particularly strong preference for Want statements, using them to perform most of his requests (8/13). By contrast, he uses the query-preparatory modal type (Bisa saya? ‘Can I?’) only once. This suggests the possibility of a ‘pre-modal’ stage of request strategy development whereby learners at an even lower level of proficiency than this Low Group might use Want statements in preference to these modal requests. This claim is consistent with Scarcella and Brunak’s (1981) impression of Want statements. Comparing them with children’s simple "need" statements in early L1 acquisition, they suggest that this strategy may be one of the first directive types to emerge in second language acquisition. 5.3. Learners’ use of imperatives It is not surprising that these learners make few imperative requests overall. A major reason is probably L1 transfer; native speakers of Australian English show a marked tendency to avoid making requests in English by means of imperatives (Blum-Kulka & House 1989; Wierzbicka 1991:36). But of particular interest is a proficiency difference in the use of elided imperatives specifically. This sub-strategy does not demand high linguistic proficiency; on the contrary, it is formally very simple, consisting of the name of the object requested (e.g. Satu nasi goreng ‘One fried rice’). However, the only few instances of elided imperatives by these learners are produced by the two High learners. It seems that the extreme brevity and elliptical nature of this strategy might discourage lower level learners in particular from using it. They would be likely to doubt that they were using enough words to communicate their message successfully, while the higher proficiency learners may well have more confidence in their ability to communicate effectively with this very short form. Thus, it is likely that acquisition of this request type will follow a 'U-shaped' developmental curve (cf. Strauss 1982; Kellerman 1985). We know from previous research (Ellis 1992) that elided imperatives are used by beginning learners, who simply state the desired object (e.g. “Pencil”) when requesting, because they lack the linguistic ability to elaborate. The present data suggest that this feature may disappear from interlanguage at a somewhat higher level of proficiency (cf. the present Low and Middle groups), and then, at a higher level still (cf. the present High group), once again start to emerge. 5.4. Learners’ use of hints To understand why learners in this study use statement hints more than BI native subjects do, it is helpful to look at Trosborg’s (1995) interpretation of hints by learners in her study. Trosborg (1995: 229) suggests that some of the hints produced by her Danish learners of English should not be regarded as hints proper, for the reason that they were probably not uttered with strategic intent. An example of such a 'hint' from her data is below: (asking to be released from a baby-sitting arrangement). Learner: Eh it’s about tonight — my boyfriend called me this morning NS: Ehem. Learner: and eh asked me if I want to go with him to a concert. NS: Oh yes. Learner: This night. NS: This night, and you were going to babysit this night, weren’t you? (Trosborg 1995: 229, emphasis added) Trosborg (1995) suggests that in instances like the one above, learners get no further than making a preliminary to a request because they are doubtful about how to phrase the actual request. The addressee, however, interprets the preliminary move as a hint, eliminating the need for the learner to make a ‘real’ request at all. One reason Trosborg (1995) suspects this phenomenon of ‘hints’ ─ i.e. pseudo-hints that are formally indistinguishable from hints but which are uttered without strategic indirectness ─ to be at work is that her three groups of learners use hints in inverse proportion to their linguistic proficiency. Lower level learners probably produce more apparent hints because they have greater difficulty in phrasing requests appropriately, and thus, more often leave it to the interlocutor to anticipate their need. It seems probable that the Australian learners in the present study, too, are often performing 'hints' rather than hints. They tend to formulate preliminary moves slowly and haltingly. As most of them are of lower proficiency than even Trosborg’s (1995) lowest proficiency group, they are likely to pause more often, and hesitate longer, and thus to have their requests pre-empted more often. It is also suggestive that the High learners in the present study use no statement hints at all. This has parallels with Trosborg’s proficiency finding above, and lends support to the idea that statement hints by these Australian learners sometimes reflects difficulty in phrasing requests rather than a desire to frame them indirectly. 5.5. Learners’ management of conversation Two features: selection of a strategy that is poorly aligned to a previous move by the interlocutor, and repetition of the same request formula throughout the speech event, suggest that these learners have particular difficulty with aspects of requesting that are linked to conversational management. Both these features have been observed in previous studies of more advanced learners (see 2.1). The first ─ selection of a poorly aligned strategy ─ is explained convincingly by House (1996). She argues that learners perform requests much less appropriately when their request is made in a responding turn partly because they tend to ‘overrehearse’ their requests. As they may not have firm knowledge of L1 pragmalinguistic routines, let alone have automatic control over them (cf. Furthermore, another observation by House (1996) provides an explanation for both these discourse-related features. When learners are participating in conversation under real time constraints, the processing capacity of their cognitive systems is likely to be overloaded. Learners simply cannot process input quickly enough and select from their own knowledge quickly enough to interpret interlocutors’ contributions and respond to them appropriately “in the fast give-and-take of ongoing spontaneous talk ” (House 1996: 248). The three low learners perform considerably worse than other subjects in relation to these two discourse-related features. They produce a large proportion of the striking inappropriacies of both types. By contrast, the two High learners are noticably better than any other learners in this regard (for example, they sometimes vary their request type within a speech event). This suggests that L2 learners at lower-intermediate proficiency have much more trouble with discourse-related aspects of requests than upper-intermediate proficiency learners — a finding that is useful in two ways. Firstly, it lends support to House’s (1996) contention that such difficulties are largely due to processing limitations. The processing demands and hence the likelihood of cognitive overload will logically be much greater for lower proficiency learners. Secondly, it helps to put findings from previous studies of more advanced learners (see 2.1) in perspective. It enables us to see that while those more advanced learners, too, have requesting difficulties caused by poor discourse management, we may probably reject the notion that increased linguistic proficiency has failed to bring about a significant improvement in this aspect of their requesting. Instead, the present study suggests that the discourse-related performance of those subjects is probably much better than it was at earlier stages of proficiency. 6. Conclusions This study has a number of implications for the causes of ILP behaviour. Most obviously, it confirms the contention (cf. Kasper 1992; S. Takahashi 1996) that a pluricausal explanation for ILP phenomena is the most convincing one. More than one causal factor can regularly be assigned to features of these learners’ requests. This study also highlights an important potential role for certain factors in particular: positive pragmatic transfer from the L1, a negative influence of formal instruction, and one social-psychological factor: learners’ uncertainty about their ability to convey meaning clearly, which prompts them to choose explicit means of expression. The study also has implications for development of pragmatic competence. By demonstrating an important role for successful transfer of L1 knowledge, it strengthens a claim of Bialystok’s (1993) only partially supported to date (see 2.3): that for adult L2 learners, the task of learning pragmatic knowledge is already largely accomplished, such that the most important task facing them is the development of control over attention in selecting knowledge. Other developmental implications of the present findings are: that learners avoid transferring pragmatic features from the L1 as their linguistic proficiency increases, and that learners’ level of linguistic proficiency is decisive for acquiring those pragmatic features closely related to skill in conversational management. The study also sheds light on the likely earliness or lateness of acquisition of certain request types. It suggests that Want statements and hint statements tend to be used less often as linguistic proficiency develops, and that a U-shaped curve of development is likely in the acquisition of request strategies which are realised by very short forms. Appendix A : Key to symbols and abbreviations used in transcriptions ? rising intonation. . falling intonation (.) pause of less than one second (1.0) pause of at least one second and less than two seconds / abruptly halted speech …… omitted material [I Did] overlapping speech INT interrogative LIG ligature Appendix B: The roleplay situations Request situations 1. ask the shop assistant in a music store to let you listen to a cassette 2. ask the hotel receptionist to lend you a pen to fill in the registration form 3. ask a post office clerk to sell you two envelopes and stamps for letters toAustralia . 4. ask a conductor on a city bus to let you know when you get to your stop 5. ask a lecturer during class for a copy of last week’s handout which you did not receive 6. ask a university classmate to let you look on at their textbook during a class 7. ask the ticket seller in a cinema for a ticket for the film “Four Seasons”, AND 8. ask to be able to sit in the middle front of the cinema 9. ask a bank teller to change a large banknote into smaller notes 10. ask a stranger in a park for a light for your cigarette 11. ask a stranger in a crowded eating stall to move over a little so you can sit down too 12. ask a hotel servant to have your dirty clothes washed 13. ask a magazine seller at a street stall for a copy of the magazine “Tempo” 14. ask a friend from your residential college whom you see at the shops for a lift home to college on their motor scooter 15. ask a university classmate to lend you a pen during a class 16. ask a friend while watching TV together to pass over some magazines which are beside him or her. 17. ask the manager of a clothes store to allow you to exchange a shirt you bought yesterday for one of a different colour 18. ask a waiter in a restaurant to give you a menu AND 19. order a meal 20. order a drink from a waiter in a restaurant 21. ask your university lecturer for an extension on an essay deadline 22. ask a taxi driver to stop for a minute so you can buy cigarettes 23. ask the assistant in a shoe shoe to let you try on a pair of shoes 24. ask the official at the immigration office to give you the necessary forms to apply for a visa extension Non-request (‘distractor‘) situations 1 .a classmate offers to lend you a little money when you lose your wallet 2. a street vendor tries to sell you a newspaper which you do not want 3. a new acquaintance tells you that you speak Indonesian well 4. a shop assistant in a pharmacy hands you your parcel and asks you if you want anything else 5. a stranger gives you your umbrella that you left behind on a park bench 6. a taxi driver stops at your destination, and when you pay, gives you your change 7. your lecturer offers to lend you a book to help with an essay you are writing 8. a hotel porter carries your bags to your room, and asks if you want anything else 9. a friend gives you a music cassette as a gift References Aijmer, Karin, 1996. 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In Gabriele Kasper and Shoshana Blum-Kulka, eds, Interlanguage pragmatics, 138-158.Oxford :Oxford University Press. Tanaka, Noriko, 1986. An investigation of politeness: two request situations in English and Japanese. Unpublished MA field study report,University ofCanberra . Tanaka, Noriko, 1988. Politeness: Some problems for Japanese speakers of English. JALT Journal 9 (2): 81-101 Trosborg, Anna, 1995. Interlanguage pragmatics: Requests, complaints and apologies.Berlin , Mouton de Gruyter van der Wijst, Per, 1995. The perception of politeness in Dutch and French indirect requests. Text 15(4): 477-501 van Mulken, Margot, 1996. Politeness markers in French and Dutch requests. Language Sciences 18 (3/4): 689-702 Weizman,Elda , 1993. Interlanguage requestive hints. In Gabriele Kasper and Shoshana Blum-Kulka, eds, Interlanguage pragmatics, 123-137.Oxford :Oxford University Press. Wierzbicka, Anna, 1991. Cross Cultural Pragmatics: The Semantics of Human Interaction.Mouton de Gruyter: Berlin Worsley, Peter, 1993. UnlockingAustralia ’s Language Potential: Profile of 9 key languages inAustralia : Volume 5 -Indonesia / Malay.Canberra : The National Languages and Literacy Institute ofAustralia Zimin, Susan, 1981. Sex and politeness: factors in first- and second- language use. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 27: 35-58 Notes 1 This paper is based on sections of my doctoral thesis (Hassall 1997). I am especially indebted to Tony Liddicoat, my thesis supervisor, for his comments and suggestions during the writing of that earlier work. I am also grateful to two anonymous JoP reviewers for their helpful comments on this paper. 2 Subjects actually performed twenty-nine request situations. However, the five situations that entailed asking for information have been excluded from this paper. This is because asking for information can be performed by a special strategy, the Direct Question (e.g. Di mana kantor pos? ‘Where is the post office?’), which is not strictly speaking a request (cf. Leech 1983: 275) and cannot be placed satisfactorily on the CCSARP (1989) taxonomy of request strategies. 3 This classification of the request Bisa saya? ‘Can I?’ as a question about speaker’s permission is supported by van der Wijst (1995: 481-482, 487 table ), Trosborg (1995: 199-200), and Aijmer (1996: 15), all of whom classify both “Can I?” as well as “May I?” as a question about speaker’s permission. These writers regard the request “Can you?” on the other hand, as a question about hearer’s ability. 4 Each role play situation was analysed for i) status of the requester relative to the addressee, ii) size of imposition involved in the request, and iii) how comfortable the requester feels making the request. To assess the values of these variables, Indonesian and Australian learner informants awarded a value from 1 to 5 for each variable in each situation. Mean values were then calculated and used as a basis to attribute a raw score for the value of the variable in that situation. Top of page
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