223

Journal of the Korea English Education Society, Vol. 11, No. 1, Spring 2012

Different Politeness Strategies in Requests Affected by

Experience of Studying Abroad

Kyoung-Mi Won
Korea University

Won, Kyoung-mi. (2012). Different politeness strategies in requests affected

by experience of studying abroad. Journal of the Korea English Education
Society, 11(1), 223~246.

This study investigated the differences between English learners who have
been lived in English-speaking country for over a year and English learners
who have studied only in Korea in their awareness and production of
politeness strategies under diverse situations and influenced by social and
psychological variables. Thirty 6th grade elementary students were asked to
respond to twelve situations in which they would like to carry out requests in
polite ways, Politeness Awareness questionnaire. And they also participated
to provide politeness production through Discourse Completion Test,
Politeness Production test. The findings of the "Politeness Awareness"
suggest that students of both groups selected more polite strategies in distant
situations and less polite ones in close situations. However, the results of the
Politeness Production reveal that two groups differ from each other in
producing polite request strategies. It can be predicted that one of two groups
does not know enough to use politeness strategies in diverse situations even
though one has a general sense of the use of politeness. Nevertheless,
students of both groups used the Can you...? strategy as the most polite
one for the various requestees in most situations. Accordingly, the study
concludes that learners of English need explicit instruction in politeness as
well as in activities that involve raising pragmatic awareness.

[politeness strategies/request/politeness awareness/politeness

production////]

I. INTRODUCTION

Language learners' performance and acquisition in the second language is best

224 11 1

concerned with communicative competence in the real world. Additionally, the

purpose of English education in Korea is for students to both understand and
communicate in English. Therefore, it is necessary to verify that Korean students
converse properly with others with using English in common everyday life
situations. Traditional teaching approaches such as grammar-centered,
translation-based methods should be reconsidered, as that methodology hinders L2
learners from using authentic English from a pragmatic perspective. According to
Fraser (1990), pragmatic errors are much more serious than grammatical errors
during conversation. Inappropriate use of vocabulary or violation of grammatical
rules is regarded as a lack of language proficiency, but pragmatic errors can be
severe barriers to communication if mistakenly attributed to a deliberately impolite
or rude intent. Therefore, it is necessary to be aware of pragmatic strategies as well
as syntactic and semantic strategies for conversing in a foreign language. Further,
many researchers assert the necessity of teaching pragmatic strategies and
developing pragmatic teaching-learning methods in educational practice (Kim, 1996).
People convey pragmatic content such as attitudes, the status of relationships, and
other socially or culturally relevant meaning through their interactions with others.
One important sociocultural aspect which one may convey is that of politeness,
which can be expressed using various linguistic as well as nonlinguistic strategies
(Koike, 1989). Brown and Levinson (1987) considered politeness as redress which a
speaker adopts to counteract potential face damage of the "face-threatening act
(FTA)", particularly the request of FTAs, which demands considerable cultural and
linguistic expertise on the part of the learner. An early study suggested that
politeness strategies play an important role in requests (Tracy, Craig, Smith, &
Spisak, 1984). Many second language researchers have reported a variety of
situational factors such as social status, familiarity, or gender played significant roles
in the use of politeness strategies in requests (Blum-Kulka & Olashtain, 1984;
Fukushima & Iwata, 1985; Meier, 1997). As requests have received substantial
attention in second language research (Ellis, 1994), it is necessary to identify and
describe pragmatic features of second language learners in the target language
communicative act of request. Particularly for Korean learners of English, Hwang
(1990) argued, it would be more difficult to successfully perform requests because
Korean differs tremendously from English by its complex system that marks
deference and its independent linguistic system which expresses politeness.
Earlier studies have revealed whether learners of English are aware of politeness
strategies in requests under different situations in which they carry out the speech
act of request (Kitao, 1990; Suh, 1999; Tanaka & Kawade, 1982; Walters, 1980).
However, this study will investigate whether the experience of studying abroad in
 Different Politeness Strategies in Requests Affected by Experience of Studying Abroad 225

English-speaking country affects the use of politeness strategies. To be more

specific, this paper will explore any differences that may exist between two groups,
one having studied English in a native English-speaking country and the other
having studied English only in Korea, in the awareness and production of politeness
strategies in requests. Since the subjects of this study are 6th grade elementary
school students while the participants of the earlier studies were adults, the findings
from this study will extend to earlier politeness studies and also may be used as an
insight on other studies of the aspects of politeness in the future.

II. LITERATURE REVIEW

Early research on politeness has been carried out by many linguistics. Goffman
(1981) claimed that politeness serves the function of neutralizing potentially
offensive consequences of encroaching on another's territoriality with a demand for
action. Lakoff (1972, 1973) developed her theory of politeness, which shows that
increasing freedom of the addressee to refuse the request will correlate with
increasing politeness. Despite a number of attempts, there has been no agreement
among linguists on characterizing aspects of politeness due to the breadth of cultural
variation and varying notions of the concept. However, politeness cannot be
disassociated from the social relationship between the speaker and listener. Brown
and Levinson (1978) discuss an emotional element in politeness involving degrees of
emotional distance between speakers and listeners. According to Brown and
Levinson, the basic notion of politeness is face. They consider a speaker's
awareness of the listener's face or self-image and that of his or her own, and the
desire to protect that self-image through various strategies. This awareness includes
the social distance between the two parties, the relative power of both, and the
ranking of imposition in their particular culture. Because face is so vulnerable and
an individual's desire sometimes results in FTAs toward another person, when one
performs such acts, one is expected to minimize the threat of another's loss of face.
To this end, Brown and Levinson proposed a variety of positive and negative
politeness strategies. Earlier than Brown and Levinson, Lakoff (1973, 1977) suggests
the idea in a general theory of politeness whose basic tenet is this: people are polite
to the extent that they enhance, or lessen the threat to, another's face. In a request
situation, for example, a speaker will be polite to the extent that he or she can
reduce or eliminate the threat to a listener's face caused by the speaker's request.
Leech (1983) also acknowledges links between politeness and the relationship
between speaker and listener. He claims that static features, such as social distance,
226 11 1

interact with dynamic features, such as the particular illocutionary demand the
speaker is making on the listener, to produce an appropriate degree of politeness.
Davison (1975) indicates that people can say impolite things politely. Or polite
forms can be used with the proposition expressing anger or rudeness, as in the
query, "May I ask if you have ever considered giving up writing plays?" (Davison,
1975, p. 150). People intuitively know that polite forms can be used to create some
distance. Tanaka and Kawade (1982) define the notion of politeness as a strategy
based on two types of distance: Social distance and Psychological distance. Social
distance is a function of such variables as age, gender, social status, and so on.
Psychological distance is related to the way one perceives another in relation to
oneself. It may be a function of psychological like-dislike variables. Tanaka and
Kawade assume that the use of politeness strategies as realized in linguistic forms
vary as a function of social and/or psychological distance. Moreover, the
Distance-Politeness (DP) model by Tanaka and Kawade maintains that psychological
distance plays a more important role in selecting a politeness strategy than social
distance.
On the other hand, semantic frameworks for the speech act of request in English
have been extensively studied (Blum-Kulka, House, & Kasper, 1989; Hudson et al.,
1995). For example, Blum-Kulka et al. (1989) developed CCSARP (Cross-Cultural
Speech Act Requests and Apologies) for use with English, French, German, Danish,
Hebrew, and Russian. The framework was limited to request head acts. Here, the
terms, Head Act and Supportive Move are defined by Blum-Kulka et al. (1989,
pp. 275-276) as follows:

A Head Act is the minimal unit which can realize a request; it is the
core of the request sequence.
A Supportive Move is a unit external to the request, which modifies
its impact by either aggravating or mitigating its force.

The request head acts were then categorized into request strategies representing
one of three directness levels identified in CCSARP: direct, conventionally indirect,
and non-conventionally indirect (hints). For instance, Blum-Kulka et al. (1989)
developed "Request Strategies", which are ordered by decreasing degrees of
directness:
 Different Politeness Strategies in Requests Affected by Experience of Studying Abroad 227

Table 1
Request Strategies by Level of Directness
Level of
Strategy Example
directness
1. Mood-derivable Clean up the kitchen.
2. Explicit performative I am asking you to move your car.
I have to ask you to clean the kitchen right
3. Hedged performative
Direct now.
4. Locution-derivable Madam, you'll have to move your car.
I'd like to borrow your notes for a little
5. Want statement
while.
Conventionally 5. Suggestory formula How about cleaning up the kitchen?
indirect 6. Preparatory Can I borrow your notes?
Will you be going home now?
Non- 7. Strong hint
(Intent: getting a lift home)
conventionally
indirect We've been busy here, haven't we?
8. Mind hint
(Intent: getting hearer to clean the kitchen)

Then how do L2 learners use politeness strategies in requests under various

situations? There are several investigations that have examined non-native speakers'
perceptions of the politeness level of various request forms in different contexts.
Walters (1980) gave sixty native speakers and non-native speakers of English pairs
of sentences expressing a certain amount of politeness and asked them which
sentences were more polite than the others. A high correlation (r= .89) was found
to exist between native and non-native English speakers in the perception of
politeness. Likewise, Kitao (1990) asked eighty native speakers of English,
thirty-four Japanese learners of ESL and 103 Japanese learners of EFL to evaluate
various request forms on a ten-point scale of politeness. The findings of his research
revealed that overall, Japanese learners of both ESL and EFL did not differ
significantly from native speakers of English in the perception of politeness. Tanaka
and Kawade (1982) conducted a study where fifty-three English native speakers and
thirty-two non-natives were given multiple choices in a questionnaire format.
Subjects were asked to select one politeness strategy which they would like to use
in a given situation. No significant difference was found between two groups in the
use of politeness strategies. However, native speakers employed more polite
strategies in particular situations while non-native speakers tended to use strategies
that were polite to a lesser extent. Previous research studied whether learners of
English are aware of politeness strategies in requests under different situations in
which they carry out the speech act of request (Kitao, 1990; Suh, 1999; Tanaka &
228 11 1

Kawade, 1982; Walters, 1980). However, this study will investigate whether the
experience of studying in an English-speaking country affects the use of politeness
strategies. For this study, thirty Korean learners of English were divided into two
groups, based on whether the subject lived in an English-speaking country for more
than one year or whether the subject studied English in Korea without any exposure
in a native English-speaking country. Subjects were asked to respond to twelve
different situations in which they must carry out requests in polite ways. Thirty
Korean students also participated in order to provide politeness production data as a
possible source of the learners' pragmatic performance differences. To be more
specific, this paper focused on answering the following questions:

1. Is there any difference between two groups in the awareness of

politeness strategies in requests under different situations? (Politeness
Awareness)
2. Is there any difference between two groups in the production of
politeness strategies in requests under different situations? (Politeness
Production)

In order to answer these two research questions, data was collected by means of
1) a questionnaire which included twelve situations based on the Distance-Politeness
(DP) hypothesis by Tanaka and Kawade (1982), and 2) a written test in the form of
the Discourse Completion Test (DCT) and a role-play.

III. METHOD

1. Subjects

The subjects in this investigation were thirty 6th grade elementary students in
Gangnam, Seoul, and were divided into two groups: students who have studied
English in an English-speaking country for more than one year, and students who
have studied English only in Korea. The subjects in the first group were exposed to
a native English speaking environment in the United States, Canada, Australia, or
the United Kingdom for twelve months or longer during their elementary school
years and went to ESL schools to improve their English proficiency. Also they
studied other subjects such as math and science in English and communicated with
others in English for over one year. The subjects in the second group have studied
English only in Korea, never having been in an English speaking-country to study
 Different Politeness Strategies in Requests Affected by Experience of Studying Abroad 229

English. The members of this group have studied English at school, at a private
institute, or at home.
The learners of both groups are at an advanced level of English proficiency
according to the results of their listening, speaking, reading and writing tests
administered at school. Specifically, the school speaking test was conducted by both
a native-speaking English teacher and a Korean English teacher, and examined the
learners' oral proficiency based on a five-point scale. The school writing test was
done by a Korean English teacher, and checked the subjects' writing proficiency
based on a five-point scale. Sixty-nine sixth grade students in two classes initially
took both speaking and writing tests, after which low and intermediate level students
were excluded from the analysis in order to eliminate any effects or bias from a
lack of English proficiency.

2. Analysis Procedures

In gathering the data for the "Politeness Awareness" questionnaire adopted from
Tanaka and Kawade (1982) based on Distance-Politeness Hypothesis, the subjects
were asked to select only one politeness strategy regarded as the most polite
response in each given situation. Twelve situations were presented with a total of
six politeness request strategies. However, the questionnaire was necessarily revised
for the child subjects of this study because the subjects of the politeness experiment
by Tanaka and Kawade (1982) were adult learners.
The three basic themes were the same as Tanaka and Kawades (1982):
Borrowing an umbrella and a pen, and turning down the music. However, the roles
of requestees were revised with special attention given to retain the two variables of
social and psychological themes. Tanaka and Kawade (1982) created four requestees
with four possible variable combinations: a distinguished professor (both socially
and psychologically distant; +S, +P), a young and sociable professor (socially
distant, but psychologically close; +S, -P), a less-preferred older neighbor (socially
close, but psychologically distant; -S, +P), and a long-term, close friend (both
socially and psychologically close; -S, -P). Considering the subjects of this research,
the roles of the four requestees were revised as follows: school principal (+S, +P),
kind and friendly homeroom teacher (+S, -P), unfamiliar student from another class
(-S, +P), and long-term, very close friend (-S, -P).
Tanaka and Kawade (1982) asked respondents to choose the best politeness
strategy out of six strategies in twelve situations: 1)'I would appreciate it if you
could ..., 2) Would you ...?, 3) Can you ...?, 4)[Root of a verb], will you?,
5) I want you to ... and 6) [the imperative form of the verb]. However, this study
230 11 1

asked students to select the one politeness strategy which he or she would be most
likely to use, of the four possible strategies: 1) I want you to ..., 2) Can you...?,
3) [the imperative form of the verb], and 4) I would appreciate it if you could ....
The six original strategies were reduced to the selected four in order to lower
subjects' cognitive stress. Also the four strategies are intentionally mixed in order to
prevent students from selecting one strategy by guessing.
Other researchers (Kitao, 1990; Tanaka & Kawade, 1982; Walters, 1980) have
carried out similar studies of native and non-native adults, however, this study will
reveal whether earlier studies would be relevant and applicable to child L2 learners,
or if any difference exists in the use of politeness strategies between students who
have studied abroad versus those students who have only studied in Korea.
Moreover, the questionnaire was written in Korean so as to provide more detailed
information of each situation as well as to lower the subjects' affective filters. One
of the twelve situations is given below as an example, while the reminder are
referenced in the Appendix:

Example 1)
.
.
, ?
( )
a. I want you to lend me an umbrella.
b. Can you lend me an umbrella?
c. Lend me an umbrella.
d. I would appreciate it if you could lend me an umbrella.

The twelve situations were categorized into four groups according to

corresponding social and psychological variables. The first category includes
situations 1, 5, and 9, in which a speaker may recognize an interlocutor as both
socially and psychologically distant because the interlocutor is a school principal
who is much older and unfamiliar to the subject. The second category includes
situations 2, 6, and 10, in which the relationship between the speaker and the
listener is socially close but psychologically distant because the listener is a student
in another class, with whom the speaker is acquainted but not friendly. The third
category contains situations 3, 7, and 11, in which the relationship between the
requester and the requestee is socially distant but psychologically close: the
requestee is a kind and friendly homeroom teacher who is well-known to the
requester. The last category contains situations 4, 8, and 12, in which the requester
 Different Politeness Strategies in Requests Affected by Experience of Studying Abroad 231

may perceive the requestee as both socially and psychologically close because the
requestee is a long-time close friend of the respondent. In order to compare two
groups in a one-to-one fashion, the Chi-square ( ) test of homogeneity was
conducted with the level of significance set at .05 (=.05).
To collect the data for "Politeness Production," learners were asked to produce
spontaneous dialogue based on the written test, DCT. To avoid biasing the subjects'
responses and create natural dialogue during practice, the word "request" was not
mentioned throughout the description of the given situation. Just as in the
Politeness Awareness questionnaire, this investigation concerned itself with two
variables, social and psychological. The speakers were students themselves, and they
conversed with four different interlocutors on the following topics: 1) a dialogue
with the school principal about where to go on a field trip (+S, +P), 2) a dialogue
about cleaning with their friendly homeroom teacher, with whom they were
well-acquainted (+S, -P), 3) a dialogue about playing soccer with an unfamiliar
student from another class (-S, +P), and 4) a dialogue about going to the movies
with a close friend (-S, -P).
As Hatch (1983) pointed out, an overall awareness of suitable politeness strategies
did not mean the proper use of politeness strategies in real communicative
situations. In order to produce politeness in practice, this investigation was essential.
In addition, the subjects were asked to assume the four given descriptions were real
situations, and to then create a dialogue which they would be likely to use. It would
be more natural to record learners' oral productions. However, in order to compare
the two groups' performances under conditions that were as similar as possible,
written productions were collected instead. Because the written production did not
aim to evaluate their writing proficiency, grammatical, mechanical, and spelling
errors were not considered. One of the four situations is given below as an example,
while the other responses are recorded in the Appendix:

Example 2)
00 .
,
.

, .

Analysis of the subjects' responses of the DCTs followed the original CCSARP
framework developed by Blum-Kulka et al. (1989). The focus was the subjects'
responses to the request head acts on the DCTs. Once the exact sentence in each
232 11 1

passage including a request was identified, the next step was to code the subjects'
responses of DCT according to the CCSARP framework by using the CLAN
program. The request head acts were categorized into request strategies representing
one of three directness levels identified in CCSARP: Direct, Conventionally indirect,
and Non-conventionally indirect (hints).
In order to gather the data for "Politeness Production", it was necessary to 1)
separate the subjects' responses into the request head acts and the request supportive
move, 2) examine the use of request head acts by directness, 3) recognize the
pattern of request head acts based on social and psychological variables, and 4)
discuss patterns of request strategies of the two respective groups.

IV. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

1. Politeness Awareness

Data for two groups, Students who have learned English Abroad for a length of
time greater than one year (SEA) and Students who have studied English only in
Korea (SEK), are treated in terms of percentages in order to enhance the
comparison. Table 2 shows the percentage of the use of the most polite strategy of
the two groups under four categories. And Table 3 shows results of the Chi-square
( ) test, which discloses whether there exists a statistically significant difference
between the two groups in the use of politeness strategies.

Table 2
Percentage(%) of the Use of the Most Polite Strategy
I want you I would
Can you...? Imperative
Category to... appreciate...
SEA SEK SEA SEK SEA SEK SEA SEK
1(situation 1,5,9);
64.4 75.6 35.6 24.4
+S, +P
2(situation 2,6,10);
4.4 13.3 80 75.6 15.6 11.1
+S, -P
3(situation 3,7,11);
4.4 6.7 40 48.9 55.6 44.4
-S, +P
4(situation 4,8,12);
28.9 24.4 35.6 40 33.3 35.6 2.2
-S, -P
Requestee: Situations 1, 5, 9-school principal; 2, 6, 10-kind and friendly homeroom
teacher; 3, 7, 11-unfamiliar student from another class; 4, 8, 12-long-term, close friend
 Different Politeness Strategies in Requests Affected by Experience of Studying Abroad 233

Table 3
values for the Comparison of the Two Groups

df Asymp. Sig.
Category (Pearson
(degree of freedom) (2-sided)
Chi-square)
1(situation 1,5,9);
1.323 1 .250
+S, +P
2(situation 2,6,10);
2.390 2 .303
+S, -P
3(situation 3,7,11);
1.156 2 .561
-S, +P
4(situation 4,8,12);
1.317 3 .725
-S, -P
=.05

The first category consists of situations 1, 5, and 9 where a requester would

perceive him- or herself as socially and psychologically most distant (+S, +P) from
the requestee because the requester must ask the school principal to do something.
The relationship between the principal and the requester is one of recognition but
not acquaintance. According to the DP hypothesis, which explains that the more
distant the relationship between a requester and a requestee is, the more polite
strategy the requester would use. Therefore, participants would be most likely to
select the I would appreciate ... strategy. Table 2 shows that both SEA and SEK
groups selected Can you ...? and'I'd appreciate ... strategies more than other
polite strategies. Interestingly, the'Can you ...? strategy is used most frequently
under all categories, as compared to other polite strategies. It can be predicted that
the participants of two groups would be exposed to a polite strategy such as'Can
you...? far more than other strategies, since the elementary English curriculum
employs the'Can you...' strategy throughout whole lessons compared to all other
strategies. Apart from the'Can you ... strategy, the next most commonly selected
strategy was the'I would appreciate ... strategy. It is the most polite, and was most
likely selected more frequently because the respondents perceived themselves as
socially and psychologically most distant from the requestee. Also, as Table 3
shows, the Pearson Chi-Square indicates that there are no significant differences
between KEA and KES groups in the use of politeness strategies in the first
category, value=1.323, p=.250 (> =.05).
The second category contains situations 2, 6, and 10, where the requester would
perceive him- or herself as socially distant, but psychologically close (+S, -P) since
the requester should ask their homeroom teacher, with whom they were acquainted,
to do something. The SEA group selected Can you ...? (75.6%) > I want you to
234 11 1

... (13.3%) > I would appreciate ... (11.1%), while the SEK groups selected Can
you...? (80%) > I would appreciate... (15.6%) > I want you to ... (4.4%) as the
most polite request strategy under the second category. Since the subjects felt close
psychologically to the homeroom teacher, they used I want you to ... strategy in
addition to the 'Can you ...? strategy. In an elementary school situation, the
subjects would be engaging with their homeroom teacher every day, so they would
be likely to give a higher degree of familiarity. Thus, it may have influenced them
to use less polite strategies as compared to the first category. Although a difference
is shown in percentage order between the two groups, the test does not disclose
any critical difference between two groups in the use of politeness strategies,
value=2.390, p=.303 (> =.05).
The next category consists of situations 3, 7, and 11, where the requester asks an
unfamiliar student from another class to do something. The relationship between the
requester and the requestee would be socially close, but psychologically distant (-S,
+P), since the requester rarely would have a chance to talk to the requestee in other
classes even though both are in the same grade at school. The DP hypothesis
reveals that the psychological variable plays a more important role than the social
variable in using politeness strategies. That is, the unfamiliar student from another
class would not act as a larger variable than the friendly homeroom teacher under
the second category in deciding polite strategies. As the third category in Table 2
shows, both the SEA and the SEK groups chose I would appreciate ... (55.6%
and 44.4%, respectively) > Can you ...? (40% and 48.9%, respectively) > I want
you to ... (4.4% and 6.7%, respectively) as the most polite strategy. As compared
to the second category, the subjects used the most polite strategies, I would
appreciate ... with the socially distant requestee rather than the psychologically
distant one. Ironically, both groups answered that they would be likely to use the I
would appreciate ... strategy to the unfamiliar student from another class (55.6%
and 44.4%, respectively), more than the school principal (35.6% and 24.4%,
respectively). It may be presumed that the participants feel psychologically much
closer to the principal than they do to the unfamiliar student from another class.
Since an elementary school principal often tries to make friendly conversation with
students and treat them nicely, participants may have regarded the principal as one
with whom they felt a close relationship. As shown in Table 3, the test does not
show any statistical difference between the SEA and SEK groups in this category
either, value=1.156, p=.561 (> =.05).
The final category includes situations 4, 8, and 12, where the requester would
perceive him- or herself as very close socially and psychologically (-S, -P), because
the requestee is a close, well-known friend of the requester. According to the DP
 Different Politeness Strategies in Requests Affected by Experience of Studying Abroad 235

hypothesis, the requester would use the least polite request strategy such as the
imperative. Table 2 reveals that the subjects of both the SEA and SEK groups
selected Can you ...? (35.6% and 40%, respectively) > Imperative (33.3% and
35.6%, respectively) > I want you to... (28.9% and 24.4%, respectively) > I
would appreciate... (2.2% and 0%, respectively) as a polite strategy in the given
situation. Without considering the Can you...? strategy, since it is used frequently
in many situations, the 'imperative' strategy was selected as the most polite strategy
of request when the relationship between the requester and the requestee is socially
and psychologically close. Like the preceding test in three other categories, the
SEA group did not show any statistical difference from the SEK group in using
politeness strategies in requests under fourth category, value=1.317, p=.725 (>
=.05).
Overall, the results here indicate that students who studied English in an
English-speaking country for more than one year did not differ from the students
who did not have an opportunity to study English abroad when it comes to using
politeness strategies in requests in every situation. They selected increasing
politeness strategies, excluding the Can you ...? strategy, with increasing distance,
in which the distance is measured socially and/or psychologically. Furthermore, the
use of the Imperative strategy, which is regarded as the least polite, is the most
polite to the socially and psychologically close requestees, such as close friends.
This supports DP hypothesis of earlier research. But it is very interesting that both
the SEA and SEK groups tended to use the Can you ...? strategy in any situation
without concern for the relationship between the request and the requestee, even
though they are able to sense the relationship as having elements of distance and
politeness. It could be because Korean learners do not have enough instruction in
politeness strategies, aside from the Can you ...? strategy. Korean learners of
English need more exposure and opportunities to learn and practice English in terms
of politeness. Moreover, the finding of the Politeness Awareness questionnaire
reveals that even if one has been exposed to an English speaking environment for
over an year, an advanced student does not acquire completely native-like ways of
requesting. Although leaners of English are as sensitive to politeness strategies as
native speakers, politeness may not be learned automatically. Therefore, it implies
that EFL students, such as Korean learners of English find it difficult to acquire
politeness strategies to the same extent as native speakers of English, so they need
to receive explicit politeness-oriented instruction at school.
236 11 1

2. Politeness Production

Table 4
Percentage(Frequency) of Directness Levels by Requestee Type
PRI H-T UNF CLO
SEA SEK SEA SEK SEA SEK SEA SEK
0% 53% 25% 33% 32% 45% 35% 20%
Direct
(0) (10) (6) (6) (9) (10) (13) (6)
Conventionally 91% 42% 71% 61% 68% 55% 65% 77%
indirect (10) (8) (17) (11) (19) (12) (24) (23)
9% 5% 4% 6% 0% 0% 0% 3%
Hint
(1) (5) (1) (1) (0) (0) (0) (1)
Requestee: PRI-school principal; H-T-kind and friendly homeroom teacher;
UNF-unfamiliar student from another class; CLO-long-term, close friend

Figure 1
Directness Levels by Requestee Type for SEAs.

Figure 1 shows that SEAs tended to use increasingly direct request strategies to
requestees. For example, none of them engaged direct request strategies, the least
polite, to the school principal, who was socially and psychologically distant, but
instead used direct strategies (e.g., Do you have time on Sunday?, I want to
watch a movie with you.) were used most commonly with close friends, who were
socially and psychologically close. However, SEAs used higher direct strategies with
unfamiliar students in another class than with their homeroom teachers (32% and
25%, respectively, see Table 4) which is counter to the Politeness Awareness
results that state that subjects are more likely to be affected by the psychological
variable than by the social variable. One possible explanation for the difference can
be found in the description of DCT. Because it tells a student to ask an unfamiliar
 Different Politeness Strategies in Requests Affected by Experience of Studying Abroad 237

student in another class to be a soccer team leader, the respondent may regard him-
or herself in a higher position than the requestee. Thus, conversations were
constructed with a relatively higher direct request (e.g., I want you to come on my
team, Wanna join our soccer team?) Consequently, the different perceptions of the
situation would affect the strategic use of the request patterns. Similarly, the less
distant the relationship between the request and the requestee, the more direct
strategies were used. As the result of the "Politeness Awareness," however, SEAs
exploited conventionally indirect strategies in all situations, rather than use any other
strategies, such as a suggestory formula (e.g., Let's see a movie) and preparatory
(e.g., Can I clean the classroom tomorrow?). Moreover, the Can you ...? strategy
is more frequently used than any other strategies in the level of conventionally
indirect (Can you/we...? (64.3%) > Lets... (21.4%) > May I...? (64.3%) >
Could you/I...? (64.3%) > Would you...? (64.3%)). In contrast, hints (e.g., It
will be nice to go to amusement park.) were rarely found (9%, 4%, 0%, and 0%,
respectively) in all situations through DCT.

Figure 2
Directness Levels by Requestee Type for SEKs.

Figure 2 shows, in general, a different pattern in request strategies for SEKs.

They used more direct request strategies for more distant requestees, and more
conventionally indirect strategies for less distant requestees. In particular, with the
socially and psychologically distant requestee, the school principal, respondents did
not use conventionally indirect request strategies, but rather used direct strategies
(e.g., I want to go to an amusement park after this picnic, We want to go to
Everland to feel good). Some SEAs employed lexical modifiers to be polite such as
please or subjectivizers (e.g., I think, I want to know if we can), but those were
238 11 1

also found in conventionally indirect request strategies. Among conventionally

indirect request strategies, they selected Can you/we...? (63%), Lets... (18.5%)
and others such as Could you/I...?, Why dont you/we...?, How/what about...?,
and Shall we...?. The fact that they used more direct requests to unfamiliar
students in other classes than to the friendly homeroom teacher can be explained by
a similar rationale of SEAs. However, it cannot be easily explained why SEKs used
more and less direct request strategies when conversing to the school principal and
to their close friend. Even though they are aware of politeness strategies intuitively,
as the Politeness Awareness results revealed, SEKs may not produce appropriate
politeness strategies under various situations.
In summary, the results of "Politeness Production" reveal that SEAs and SEKs
differ from each other in producing polite request strategies. In a majority of the
situations, SEAs used increasing politeness strategies with increasing distance, when
the distance is social and psychological. However, SEKs do not follow the same
pattern as SEAs. SEKs completed DCT without any difficulty, but they could not
produce appropriate politeness strategies in some situations. It can be predicted that
they do not know enough to use politeness strategies in diverse situations although
they have a general sense of the use of politeness. Similar to Politeness
Awareness, both groups exploited conventionally indirect requests frequently in all
situations. They typically used the two types of formula of conventionally indirect
requests, suggestory and preparatory formula. Among the forms of conventionally
indirect requests, the use of the Can you ...? strategy is overwhelming, followed
by the Let's ... strategy. Although some subjects used Could you...?, Will
you...?, May I...?, or What/how about...? strategies, these were rare cases and
the Can you...? strategy was far more dominant. It may be due to students'
exposure to the Can you...? strategy more than any other strategies by schools,
other English institutes, or in any other English-study setting. Therefore, students
show a clear preference for the Can you...? strategy in any situation, without
regard to relationship distance. And the fact they hardly use hints can be attributed
to similar reasons, indicating the need for greater exposure to hint strategies.

V. CONCLUSION

This study has investigated the differences between English learners who have
been lived in English-speaking country for over a year and English learners who
have studied only in Korea in their awareness and production of politeness strategies
under diverse situations and influenced by social and psychological variables. The
 Different Politeness Strategies in Requests Affected by Experience of Studying Abroad 239

findings of the Politeness Awareness findings suggest that students of both groups
selected more polite strategies in distant situations and less polite strategies in close
ones. However, the results of the Politeness Production results show that the two
groups do not exhibit many other similarities when asked to produce the polite
request strategies under various situations. In particular, SEKs seem to possess an
awareness of relationship distance variables, but they were unable to successfully
use suitable request strategies when producing conversation. Furthermore, according
to Politeness Awareness, when only one of two variables, social and
psychological, is distant, students tended to be more greatly affected by the
psychological variable. Thus, psychological distance may indeed play a more
important role in selecting a politeness strategy than social distance does (Tanaka &
Kawade, 1982). But Politeness Production does not display the same results as
described by DCT. As Brown and Levinson (1978) stated, as cultures differ in the
relative weight given to social variables in determining speech act behavior
variations, the degree of imposition of a request might vary from culture to culture,
and the different perceptions of the situation would therefore affect the request
strategies (Byon, 2004).
Interestingly, respondents selected the Can you...? strategy as the most polite
one in most situations, and additionally favored the Can you...? formula the most
for the various requestees. This implies that they may have a general rule they
follow in any situation, the 'Can you...?' strategy. Learners may believe the Can
you...? strategy is the most popular with any requestee because they have been
exposed to and taught that particular strategy more than any others. Korean learners
of English would greatly benefit from more opportunities to learn and practice
English in terms of politeness.
As Carrell and Konneker (1981) argue, there is a high correlation between native
and non-native judgements of politeness, although experience with exposure to
opportunities to study in English-speaking country does not affect judging the
politeness strategies. It is assumed that when judging data, second language learners
also reflect their intuition about their own language, just as native speakers do.
However, Ellis (1994) asserts that even advanced learners do not acquire fully
native-like ways of requesting. This is because they are educated mostly in an EFL
environment and do not receive as much situational practice as native speakers do,
despite having extensive experience studying English abroad. Thus, second language
learners are able to use polite strategies based on their intuition, but their limits
depend on if they have studied for a certain length of time in an English-speaking
country or not. The fact that learners tend to follow the Can you ...? strategy in
any case as reported throughout the present study supports the existing argument.
240 11 1

Specifically, definite limits exist for students who have studied only in Korea, even
though they are at an advanced level.
A number of studies agree that pedagogical intervention in regard to instruction in
and acquisition of appropriate speech act performance is helpful for second language
learners of English (Bardovi-Harlig, 2001; House, 2003; Kasper, 2001). Without that
instruction, judgement and production of the politeness strategies of second language
learners of English tend to be different from native speakers' norm, which can result
in a communication gap or in negative assessments of their personalities. Therefore,
language learners of English need explicit instruction in politeness as well as in
activities that involve raising pragmatic awareness. Moreover, as earlier studies
show, since EFL learners reflect their intuition during the process of judging the
data and producing politeness strategies, they may diverge from the native English
speakers when it comes to culture-bound or specific situations. Thus, instructors in
Korea should endeavor to make the students aware of cultural and situational
differences as well.
In an attempt to describe and analyze the use of politeness strategies between the
two groups and to reveal similarities and differences between them, and due to
limitations of data collection, other potentially intriguing factors remain unexamined.
In order to compare groups of students, a questionnaire with a multiple-choice
format for measuring Politeness Awareness and DCT for Politeness Production
was utilized. Since this questionnaire with a multiple-choice format was developed
in 1982, it may benefit from further examination to accommodate the request
realization found in more natural communication strategies. Further, DCTs are based
on the writing skill of subjects, so definite limitations exist in respondents' ability to
express conversation naturally. Further research should focus on pedagogical
intervention and investigate what types of instruction, such as implicit, explicit, etc.
is most effective in helping language learners produce polite and
culturally-appropriate conversation in a variety of situations.
Since the subjects of the most existing research are advanced level adults, the
present study is aimed at elementary school students to expand upon earlier
politeness studies. The knowledge and experiences gained in elementary school will
affect their succeeding English study at the middle and high school level, so
investigating politeness strategies of elementary school students is meaningful. Also,
because they already possess a certain degree of politeness intuition, explicit
instruction in politeness would be highly beneficial. The results of this study will
certainly increase the understanding of pragmatic aspects of second language
acquisition in relation to an academic environment such as exposure of the target
culture and pedagogical intervention.
 Different Politeness Strategies in Requests Affected by Experience of Studying Abroad 241

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 Different Politeness Strategies in Requests Affected by Experience of Studying Abroad 243

APPENDIX
Politeness Awareness

*
.
1. . ,
.
?
a. I want you to lend me an umbrella. ( )
b. Can you lend me an umbrella? ( )
c. Lend me an umbrella. ( )
d. I would appreciate it if you could lend me an umbrella. ( )

2. .
( )
. ?
a. I want you to lend me an umbrella. ( )
b. Can you lend me an umbrella? ( )
c. Lend me an umbrella. ( )
d. I would appreciate it if you could lend me an umbrella. ( )

3. . .
.
?
a. I want you to lend me an umbrella. ( )
b. Can you lend me an umbrella? ( )
c. Lend me an umbrella. ( )
d. I would appreciate it if you could lend me an umbrella. ( )

4. .
. ?
a. I want you to lend me an umbrella. ( )
b. Can you lend me an umbrella? ( )
c. Lend me an umbrella. ( )
d. I would appreciate it if you could lend me an umbrella. ( )

5. . ,
.
. ?
244 11 1

a. I want you to turn down the music. ( )

b. Can you turn down the music? ( )
c. Turn down the music. ( )
d. I would appreciate it if you turn down the music. ( )

6. . ,
.
( ) .
?
a. I want you to turn down the music. ( )
b. Can you turn down the music? ( )
c. Turn down the music. ( )
d. I would appreciate it if you turn down the music. ( )

7. . ,

. .
?
a. I want you to turn down the music. ( )
b. Can you turn down the music? ( )
c. Turn down the music. ( )
d. I would appreciate it if you turn down the music. ( )

8. . ,
.
. ?
a. I want you to turn down the music. ( )
b. Can you turn down the music? ( )
c. Turn down the music. ( )
d. I would appreciate it if you turn down the music. ( )

9. .
. .
?
a. I want to you to lend me a pen. ( )
b. Can you lend me a pen? ( )
c. Lend me a pen. ( )
d. I would appreciate it if you could lend me a pen. ( )
 Different Politeness Strategies in Requests Affected by Experience of Studying Abroad 245

10. .
. ( )
. ?
a. I want to you to lend me a pen. ( )
b. Can you lend me a pen? ( )
c. Lend me a pen. ( )
d. I would appreciate it if you could lend me a pen. ( )

11. .
. (
) . ?
a. I want to you to lend me a pen. ( )
b. Can you lend me a pen? ( )
c. Lend me a pen. ( )
d. I would appreciate it if you could lend me a pen. ( )

12. .
. ( )
. ?
a. I want to you to lend me a pen. ( )
b. Can you lend me a pen? ( )
c. Lend me a pen. ( )
d. I would appreciate it if you could lend me a pen. ( )

Politeness Production

1. OO .

.
.

2. . 6 ,
.

.
.
246 11 1

3. 6 .
,
.
.
.

4.
.
.
.

Examples in: English

Applicable Levels: Elementary

Won, Kyoungmi
Dept of English Education, Korea University
Hillstate Apt. 102-1503, Samsung-dong, Gangnam-gu, Seoul, 135-877

Email: dfstory@gmail.com

Received February 14, 2012

Revised April 12, 2012
Accepted April 20, 2012