The Perspectives and Alerters on Request for EFL Learners of English

Abstract

This study investigates the different types of perspective and alerter on request, and the relation of the two features for Korean EFL learners of English. After studying request strategies for one semester, the 64 participants studying general English conversation were presented with six different pragmatic situations on request and asked to write request strategies including four types of perspective and eight types of alerter as they would like to use in the natural speaking context. First, in the results of perspectives, the participants frequently used the speaker oriented and the hearer oriented perspectives in the socially intimate situation. Most of them used the patterns of the textbook in the socially distant situation and employed the two perspectives for their major strategies in socially equal situation, Second, the cross tabulation analysis summarized the relationship between perspective and alerter. In the socially intimate situation, the participants preferred to use the hearer oriented or the speaker oriented strategies. The participants used suitable strategies to meet the socially distant situation. However, the participants used different types of perspectives with different alerters in socially equal situation. In conclusion, though some results in each category did not show any consistencies, the use of learners’ strategies was similar to those of previous studies.