possible tendency by BI NSs to use hints in situations when the imposition on the hearer is relatively large.
4.1.3.8
Situational variation in selection of non-conventionally
indirect requests (hints): Learners
Learners, like BI NSs, do not display a coherent pattern of situational variation in their selection of hints. This is demonstrated by comparing the two situations in which learners use hints most frequently: asking a hotel receptionist to borrow a pen to fill in the hotel registration form (7/10 learners) and asking a university lecturer for an extension on an essay deadline ((6/10 learners).
These two situations are assessed quite differently in terms of social variables. In the “hotel receptionist” situation, the threat to face is apparently perceived as small. The speaker’s status is high (equal 3rd out of 26 situations, with a value of 3.80) the imposition is the smallest of any situation (a value of 1.45), and the speaker's degree of comfort in making the request is very high (ranked equal 1st out of the 26 situations, with a value o f 4.65). By contrast, in the "essay extension" situation, the threat to face seems relatively large: speaker’s status is the lowest of any situation (a value of 1.45), imposition is the highest of any situation (a value of 4.50), and the speaker is the least comfortable of any situation (a value of 1.60). Nevertheless, in both these situations, learners show a striking tendency to select hints.
All the other situations in which learners use hints with notable frequency (3/10 or 4/10 subjects) are situations which are perceived as relatively face-threatening (such as asking a lecturer for a copy of last w eek’s handout, asking a stranger to move over to make room in a crowded eating stall, and asking a friend for a lift home from the shops). This suggests at first glance that learners might indeed select hints on the basis of the social variables examined here. However, the striking anomaly observed above makes one suspect that factors other than social variables play a role in selection of hints, and indeed, several such factors are probably influential.
One likely factor is the wording of written cues for subjects. In certain situations where learners used hints frequently, instructions to subjects were phrased in the form of a potential hint statement, which may have influenced learners' choice of
this strategy (see 4.2.7). For example, in the anomalous “hotel receptionist” situation above, learners were told in their cue instructions:
... Resepsionis akan memberi Anda selembar formulir untuk diisi. (Anda tidak mempunyai pulpen).
... The hotel receptionist will give you a check-in form to fill out. (You do not have a pen).
and all the hints by learners in this situation were statements consisting of the information that they did not have a pen, variously worded (e.g. Saya tidak punya
pena “I don’t have a pen” , Saya tidak ada pena “I don’t have a pen”, Tidak ada pena “There’s no pen”).
Another factor is the use of hint-like utterances without strategic intent. Learners may sometimes state their problem as an intended preliminary move to a more direct request, and have this preliminary utterance taken up as a hint (discussed in more detail in 4.2.7). A final factor is that the learners' hints in some situations may be meant as conventionally indirect requests, but be unintentionally phrased as hints due to linguistic errors (see 4.1.2.3).
In summary, use of hints is marked by somewhat erratic situational variation by both groups. For BI NSs, no coherent pattern of situational variation emerges. For learners, while hints are (generally speaking) used most frequently in relatively face-threatening situations, factors other than social variables are likely to be influential, such that many of their ‘h in ts’ may not be m otivated by face- considerations at all.
4.1.3.9
Situational variation in selection of request strategy:
Summary
Learners and BI NSs show close similarities in their variation in choice of strategy by situation. In the use of imperatives, they appear to be similarly sensitive to speaker’s status; as well as to social distance in one situation, and to urgency in another. However, the two groups show a marked difference in use of imperatives with regard to one situation (asking a bus conductor to tell them when they reach their stop), which seems only partly explicable by different perceptions of the situation by the two groups.
In the use of query preparatory modal requests, an important similarity is evident between groups: an apparent absence of factors in these situations which mitigate strongly against selection of the strategy. In other words, both groups use this strategy across situations as the archetypal requesting strategy. M oreover, in selection of this sub-strategy, both groups show a similar sensitivity to the size of threat to hearer’s face.
Two other request types, Want statements and hints, reveal no clear pattern of variation by situation for either group. W ith Want statements, a certain similarity can be detected between the two groups, both groups selecting W ant statements most often in service encounter settings. However, no social variables are found to consistently influence the selection of either Want statements or hints by either group.
In conclusion, for the strategies where a coherent pattem of situational variation could be observed for either group, learners and NSs showed marked similarities in variation in selection of the strategy. For certain other strategies, neither group showed a clear pattem of variation in selection according to situation.
4.1.4 Appropriacy of learners’ choice of strategy
The choice of request strategy by learner subjects in this study is nearly always acceptable for the situation (in the judgement of BI native speaker informants: see 2.6). Several factors enable learners to consistently make an acceptable strategy choice. The most obvious (from the analysis above) is a certain ability of learners to make native-like adjustments to situation. For example, with regard to imperatives, learners display considerable sensitivity to factors conducive to their selection; with regard to W ant statements, too, learners are sensitive to the presence of a service relationship between interlocutors, and nearly always eschew this strategy in situations where its acceptability is considered doubtful by informants (for example in asking a lecturer for an essay extension, and in asking a stranger to move over to make room in a crowded eating stall).
However, learners are also greatly aided by another factor in making acceptable strategy choices: the archetypal nature of their main request sub-strategy (QP modal request); that is, the fact that it has very wide acceptability across situations. This
makes it easy for learners to make an acceptable choice of strategy, because selecting their favoured sub-strategy in any of these situations results in an acceptable choice.
The final factor enabling learners to make acceptable choices consistently is the wide range of acceptable variation of strategy choice in these situations generally. This is demonstrated by certain BI NS choices which are judged as acceptable by native speaker informants. For example, in asking hotel servant to have their clothes washed, BI NS subjects selected the full range of strategies, from very direct (imperatives), through conventionally indirect (query modal requests), to very indirect (hints), and all these requests were judged acceptable. Another example is that in asking a university lecturer for last w eek’s handout, one BI NS subject selects an imperative. This is an apparently risky choice of strategy for this ‘sensitive’ situation (where speaker’s status relative to hearer’s is assessed as low, and speaker’s comfort is assessed very low); however, informants judged this request form to be adequately polite in the context. On the whole, then, while learners do often appear to adjust to the situation in native-like ways, their ability to make acceptable strategy choices consistently is greatly facilitated by other factors as well.
4.1.5
Discourse considerations in strategy selection
Som etim es, despite the ability of learners to adjust to contextual variables in selecting a request strategy, they do select a strategy which is inappropriate to the context. However, this is very rarely because the strategy selected is inherently inappropriate to the situation; rather, it is almost always because the learner’s request head act is poorly aligned to the ongoing discourse, as constructed jointly by the interlocutors.
In the most obvious cases, the request by the learner becomes superfluous because of the development of the discourse, such that any choice of head act strategy is inappropriate at that point. This occurs in a number of instances; an example is below: