Politeness of Saudi EFL Students in Writing Request Emails to Faculty

Document Type : Original Article

Author

College of Languages and Translation, King Khalid University

Abstract

This study explores the request strategies employed by EFL female learners studying at King Khalid university in Saudi Arabia. The diverse spectrum of opinions surrounding the place of request within the context of student-teacher relationships were discussed and an analytical outline was chosen based on Elmianvari and Kheirabadi (2013) and Biesenvach-Lucas’ (2007) coding schemes. The results suggest that most of the requests made were notably polite. The analysis showed that the majority of students articulated their requests in a polite, formal, and semi-direct and indirect mode, employing long sentences in an attempt to mitigate threats to the addressee’s negative face. All of this reflects Saudi norms of politeness, which generally places great emphasis on respectability and formality, particularly when approaching addressees of a high social status. This confirms the contention that cultural and pragmatic knowledge is transferred from L1 to L2 in an EFL setting.

Keywords

Files

Share

How to cite

Statistics