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THESIS

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ANALYSIS OF THE NATURE OF INTERLANGUAGE
PRAGMATICS IN CHOICE MAKING FOR REQUESTING
STRATEGIES BY THAI EFL LEARNERS

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Chaweenwon Wongwarangkul

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ANALYSIS OF THE NATURE OF INTERLANGUAGE PRAGMATICS 1N
CHOICE MAKING FOR REQUESTING STRATEGIES BY THAI EFL
LEARNERS
By

Chaweewon Wongwarangkul

A DISSERTATION
Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
Department of English

2000

ABSTRACT

ANALYSIS OF THE NATURE OF INTERLANGUAGE PRAGMATICS IN
CHOICE MAKING FOR REQUESTING STRATEGIES BY THAI EFL
LEARNERS
By

Chaweewon Wongwarangkul

 

This study is an investigation of the nature of the interlanguage pragmatics of L2
learners in a particular learning context: learners from a collectivistic culture learning an
individualistic language in a foreign language learning context. The different conceptual
views of the two different cultures are predicted to play an important role in affecting the
learners’ L2 pragmatic performance. With limited knowledge of L2 pragmatics, the
learners are predicted to debate all the existing knowledge available to them and come up
with what they believe is appropriate for such L2 situations. Then they produce their ILP
accordingly. Ll social/cultural factors seem to have a prominent role in the learner’s
judgment of the level of appropriateness for their ILP. In a group-oriented culture like
Thailand where seniority of age is one of the most prominent value systems, the age
difference of interlocutors determines their L1 speech, and is predicted to do so in their
L2 as well (pragmatic transfer). The study focused on 50 male Thai speakers who lived
and worked in Thailand. They were college graduates and had an extensive use of
English through their overseas graduate studies and/or their routine work in and outside

the country. The study looked at their ILP through their choice making for politeness

strategies in request making. The respondents responded to oral-production
questionnaires in their L1 (Thai) and L2 (English). The questionnaires consisted of 16
scenarios within eight requesting contexts where the age of the addressees was on both
extreme ends toward the addressers; namely, much younger or much older than the
addressers. In this particular study, the design was intended to control other possible
social factors to allow the age factor to stand out. In so doing, the weight of imposition
was low; social/work status was equal and the social distance was high (except for the
stranger contexts which were added to show the variety of the age effects). Each
respondent was given an unstructured interview after the questionnaires to look for the '
justifications of their production and to see if their perception matched their production.
The questionnaires (production elicitation) and the interviews (perception elicitation)
were tape-recorded. The findings suggest that the age factor, particularly, the age of the
addressees does determine the Thai speakers’ choice of politeness strategies through the
frequency of use rather than types of strategies in both languages. Elements used for
measuring the age effects were the uses of strategies in the requestive patterns, the
internal modifications (e.g., politeness markers), the personal pronouns, and length of
utterance. The frequencies of use of strategies and the mean length of utterance do show
the effects of the age difference of the addressees. The age of the addressees is then a
proposed social variable to add in the Brown and Levinson’s framework to make it more
applicable universally. The findings also suggest evidence for the respondents’ creativity
in the production of their ILP through their choice making for appropriate politeness
strategies for different age group of addressees. Such creativity is proposed as a feature of

the ILP of L2 learners.

To
My mom, Cha—on Wongwarangkul

iv

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

It is like a long journey which is now coming to the end. I remembered when it
started. It was back to 1994 when I received a scholarship fi'om the Royal Thai Air Force.
Ifit had not been for them, I would have never been this far academically. They offered
me an Opportunity for overseas studies twice (for the master’s and doctoral degrees).
Studying abroad gave me an opportunity to encounter cultural differences and learn to
understand and accept them. Living abroad gave me an opportunity to learn my second
language (English) in natural settings. It helped me understand one of my fields of study
better (the study of second language acquisition) as being a second language learner
myself.

I would like to thank Dr. Nancy Ainsworth-Vaughn, my former academic advisor,
who introduced me to the study of Discourse Analysis which makes me aware that
human words are a lot more powerful than I thought. I felt overwhelmed by her call to
support me morally when she heard that I had the same sickness as her. Her call
supported the power of words.

Thanks to my present academic advisor, Dr. James Stalker, he introduced to me
the book of Interlanguage Pragmatics by Gabrielle Kasper and Shoshana Blum-Kulka
(1993) and told me I should read it after listening to me talking on and on about my
research interests during one of our meetings when he did not yet become my advisor. He
probably did not know that I did buy the book without realizing that it would become the
focus of my doctoral research six years later. I found him very understanding, open-

minded, very comfortable to work with and very supportive in every way.

Dr.Ainsworth-Vaughn introduced to me a good friend of hers, Dr. Mary
Bresnahan from the Communication Department and successfiilly had her on my
guidance committee. I learned a lot from her Cross-Cultural Communication course. Her
course inspired me to integrate the roles of cultural differences with the interlanguage
pragrnatics of Thai learners of English. It gave me backgrounds of how L2 learners
culturally adapt themselves to new norms and environments. As a committee member,
she also assisted me with some remarks on statistics.

Dr. Jenny Denyer from Teacher Education is another committee member whom I
owe a lot on her insightful remarks on the qualitative part of this dissertation. Every time
I talked to her, I left her office with wisdom. She wisely taught me to learn how to think
insightfully. I could feel her enthusiasm and willingness to help me express myself in my
writing.

Dr. Marilyn Wilson from the English Department joined the committee last, but
not the least help. She has been kindly supporting me academically and personally. Dr.
Ainsworth-Vaughn once told me years ago, “Don’t leave MSU without taking a reading
course with Marilyn”. Unfortunately, I did not get a chance to do that. But I am lucky that
Ihad her on my committee eventually. She also helped editing my English writing for
this dissertation.

As an international student, I feel very grateful to Dr. David Homer, Director of
the Office for International Students and Scholars, who has been like an uncle to me. I
can count on him in every matter. He has been the advisor of the Thai Students

Association and supported us for many consecutive years.

vi

There are a few more people who helped guide my research while I was collecting
data in Thailand and was away from the US committee for one full year. I would like to
thank Dr. Sirilak Nilagupta, my roommate’s mother, who assisted me with the data
collecting plan and Dr. Suparp Chatraporn who helped adjust the feasibility of the
research design and provided some insights on the analysis of the data. I would like to
extend my thanks to some teachers at the academy for their help with statistics. The
group of persons whom I owed the most is all the respondents participating in this study.
I really appreciate their cooperation and the sacrifice of their time.

Non-academically, I would like to thank Anantachai Chaiyotwittayakun for his
tremendous supports. I appreciate the sacrifices of his time and effort to take care of
miscellaneous things ranging from schoolwork to personal stuff while I was collecting
data in Thailand so that I could solely concentrate on my dissertation.

As for my sickness which interrupted my study for one year, I would like to
express my appreciation to Anantachai, Dr.Prapassara Nilagupta (my 5-year roommate),
Duke & Rujida, Toon & Nidnoi, Jawe and other American/intemational friends who
helped me go through the toughest time of my life away from the family. If it had not
been for their moral supports, I would have given up the pursuit for this degree after the
treatments. I would like to thank all of my friends who gave me comfort and
encouragement through email. Their messages gave me positive thinking toward myself,
living, and the pursuit for my degree. Besides the degree, I have gained the most valuable

experiences through meaningful and priceless relationships.

vii

TABLE OF CONTENTS

List of Tables ........................................................................................ xi

List of Figures ....................................................................................... xv

Chapter 1 Introduction

1.1 Reasons which underline the purposes of this dissertation .................................. 1
1.2 Research questions and hypotheses ............................................................ 6
1.3 Organization of the dissertation ................................................................ 9

Chapter 2 Review of literature

2.1 Introduction ...................................................................................... 10
2.2 “Interlanguage(IL) .............................................................................. 10
2.3 Definitions of interlanguage pragmatics (ILP) .............................................. 11
2.4 Development of research in interlanguage pragmatics .................................... 11
2.4.1 Early ILP as sociolinguistic rather than as psycholinguistic ........................ 11
2.4.2 Interlanguage pragmatics in SLA ....................................................... 12
2.4.2.1 Pragmatic competence of L2 learners .......................................... 13
2.4.2.2 Pragmatic universality ........................................................... 14
2.4.2.3 Pragmatic transfer ................................................................ 15
2.4.2.4 Types of pragmatic transfer: Pragrnalinguistic/Sociopragmatic
transfer .............................................................................. 16
2.4.2.5 Pragmatic transfer in the interlanguage pragmatic process ................. 17
2.4.2.6 Pragmatic transferability ........................................................ 18
2.5 L2 learners’ interlanguage pragmatics ....................................................... 20
2.6 The speech act of request ...................................................................... 21
2.6.1 Strategies for realizing the request speech act ........................................ 22
2.6.2 Types of variables affecting the choice for requestive strategies .................. 26
2.6.3 Sequence of the strategies in the requestive act ....................................... 27
2.7 Thai values as foundations for politeness in the Thai society ............................ 28
2.7.1 Politeness in the Thai language .......................................................... 31
2.8 Conclusions ...................................................................................... 33
Chapter 3 Methodology
3.1 Introduction ...................................................................................... 3 5
3.2 Population and samples ........................................................................ 39
3.3 Instruments ....................................................................................... 40
3.4 Data collection .................................................................................. 43
3.5 Analyses .......................................................................................... 45
3.6 Conclusions ...................................................................................... 46

viii

Chapter 4 Results and discussion

4.1 Introduction ...................................................................................... 48

4.1.1 The analysis of the requestive pattern .................................................. 51
4.2 Analysis of strategies in the requestive pattern elicited by the Thai respondents

in all of the eight requesting contexts studied ............................................... 63

4.2.1 Strategies in the Attention Getting part ................................................ 63

4.2.2 Strategies in the Introductory part ...................................................... 71

4.2.3 Strategies in the Request Head Act part ............................................... 74

4.2.3.1 The Thai requesting forms ...................................................... 74

4.2.3.2 The English requesting forms ................................................... 88

4.2.4 Strategies in the Closing part ............................................................ 97

4.3 The internal modifications ................................................................... 101

4.3.1 Age-based pronominal references ..................................................... 101

4.3.1.1 The use of first-person singular pronouns ................................... 103

4. 3 l. 2 The use of second-person singular pronouns ................................ 105

4. 3. 2 Lexical downgraders .................................................................... 108

4.3.2.1 The use of‘ khrub’ as a Thai politeness marker for male speakers ....... 109

4. 3. 2. 2 The use of the politeness marker "please and the address terrns‘ sir’,
‘ma’am’ and ‘madam’ to strengthen politeness in the English

requests ........................................................................... 1 10
4.3.2.3 The use of ‘noi’ as an understater in ‘noi’, ‘noi si’, ‘noi na’ to
minimize parts of the proposition .............................................. 118
4.3.2.4 The use of ‘na’ and ‘si’ as downtoners in an urging manner .............. 120
4.4 Conclusions to the effects of the age of the addressees on the choice for
politeness strategies and their internal modifications .................................... 121
4.5 Length of utterance as a measure for politeness .......................................... 122
4. 6 L1 transfer ...................................................................................... 125
4.6.1 Lexical transfer .......................................................................... 125
4.6.1.1 The use of the verb ‘to help’ ................................................... 125
4.6.1.2 The use of the verb ‘bother’ and ‘disturb’ as equivalent to the Thai verb
‘rop—kuan’ ......................................................................... 129
4.6.1.3 The use of the word “bank” referring to a bank note in the Clerk-2
context ............................................................................. 130
4.6.1.4 The use of the verb ‘to send’ meaning ‘to pass’ in the Female Stranger
context ............................................................................. 13 1
4.6.1.5 The use of the verb ‘to meet’ meaning ‘to find something’ in the Janitor
context ............................................................................. l3 1
4.6.2 Structural transfer ....................................................................... 132
4.6.3 Pragmatic/cultural transfer ............................................................ 132

4. 6 3.1 The use of the politeness marker "please in the same position
as the politeness ending marker ‘khrub’ In the English requesting

forms .............................................................................. 134
4.6.3.2 The use of the English address term ‘sir’ as equivalent to the Thai
politeness marker ‘khrub’ ....................................................... 136

ix

 

4.6.3.3 The use of ‘sir’ in the Attention Getting part to differentiate the age

groups of the addressees ........................................................ 138
4.6.3.4 The use of different requesting forms to differentiate the age groups

of the addressees ................................................................. 143

4.6.3.5 Conclusions to the evidence of pragmatic transfer onto the respondents’
requestive behaviors ............................................................. 147
4.7 Findings in the Interview data ................................................................ 147
4.7.1 Introduction ............................................................................... 147
4.7.2 The interviews ........................................................................... 148
4.7.3 Reasons behind the choice for their L2 politeness strategies ..................... 150
4.8 Summary of the findings ..................................................................... 156
4.8.1 The findings in the production data (oral questionnaires) ........................ 156
4.8.1.1 The requestive pattern elicited by the Thai speakers in this study ....... 156

4.8.1.2 The respondents’ choice making of strategies and elements in the
requestive pattern in support of the effects of the age difference of the

addressees ........................................................................ 157
4.8.2 Findings in the perception data (interviews) ....................................... 160
4.8.3 Evidence for three basic components in the L2 learners’ ILP ..................... 161
4.9 Conclusions of this chapter .................................................................. 161
Chapter 5 Conclusions
5.] Introduction .................................................................................... 164
5.2 The findings .................................................................................... 165
5.3 Thai politeness ................................................................................. 166
5.4 Implications for foreign language pedagogy .............................................. 167
5.5 Limitations and suggestions ................................................................. 171
Appendix A ........................................................................................ 175
Appendix B ........................................................................................ 179
Bibliography ....................................................................................... 181

LIST OF TABLES

Table
1.1 Use of strategies in the Attention Getting part in the THAI responses in each
. scenario studied ................................................................................. 64
1.2 Highest fiequency of the use of strategies in the Attention Getting part in the
THAI responses in each scenario studied [%] .............................................. 64
1.3 Use of strategies in the Attention Getting Part in the ENGLISH responses
in each scenario studied ....................................................................... 67
1.4 Highest frequency of the use of strategies in the Attention Getting part in the
English responses in each scenario [%] ..................................................... 67
2.1 Frequency of use of strategies in the Introductory part in the THAI responses
in each scenario studied ....................................................................... 72
2.2 Highest frequency of the use of strategies in the Introductory part in the THAI
responses in each scenario studied [%] ...................................................... 72

2.3 Frequency of the use of strategies in the Introductory part in the ENGLISH

responses in each scenario studied ............................................................................ 73

2.4 Highest frequency of use of strategies in the Introductory part in the ENGLISH
responses in each scenario studied [%] ..................................................... 73

3.1 The Thai requesting forms by numerical numbers .................................................... 75

3.2 The Thai requesting forms most frequently used in each scenario and their frequency
in the other scenarios ......................................................................... 76

3.3 Highest frequency of use of the Thai requesting forms [%] ............................. 76

xi

3.4 Rank of the Thai requesting forms most frequently used with the younger

interlocutors in all scenarios studied ......................................................... 82
3.5 Rank of the Thai requesting forms most frequently used with the older interlocutors

in all scenarios studied ........................................................................ 82
3.6 The English requesting forms by numerical numbers ...................................... 89
3.7 The ENGLISH requesting forms most frequently used in each scenario and their

frequency in the other scenarios ............................................................. 90

3.8 Highest frequency of the use of the ENGLISH requesting forms [%] ........ . .......... 90
3 .9 Rank of the English requesting forms most frequently used with each age group

and the distinction of their frequency (Freq) and percentage ............................ 92
3.9.1 Addition of the # 8 requesting form with ‘please’ to the # 9 requesting form ....... 96
4.1 Frequency of the use of strategies in the Closing part in the THAI responses in each

scenario studied ................................................................................. 98
4.2 Highest Frequency of use of strategies in the Closing part in the THAI responses in

each scenario studied [%] ..................................................................... 98
4.3 Frequency of use of strategies in the Closing part in the ENGLISH responses in

each scenario studied .......................................................................... 99
4.4 Highest frequency of use of strategies in the Closing part in the ENGLISH

responses in each scenario studied [%] .................................................... 99
5.1 The THAI first-person singular pronouns most frequently used with addressees

of different age groups and frequency of the other pronoun used in the study. . . 102

xii

5.2 The THAI second-person singular pronouns most frequently used with addressees of
different age groups and frequency of the other pronouns used in the study. . . . . . 106
6.1 Total frequency and percentage of the use of ‘khrub’ .................................... 109
6.2 Frequency and percentage of the use of ‘khrub’ as a Thai politeness marker for male
speakers by all the respondents in each scenario .......................................... 111
6.3 Frequency and percentage of use of the ENGLISH politeness markers in each
scenario ......................................................................................... 111
6.4 Total frequency and percentage of the use of the English politeness markers ....... 112

6.5 Frequency and percentage of the use of ‘noi’, ‘na’, ‘si’ as Thai downgraders

(mitigating terms) in each scenario .......................................................... 119
6.6 Total fi'equency and percentage of the Thai downgraders/mitigating terms ......... 119
7.1 Counting guidelines for measuring the length of utterance ............................. 124
7.2 Overall mean of the average length of utterance by age groups ......................... 125

7.3 Length of utterance and frequency of use by number of respondents in the THAI
responses. ...................................................................................... 126
7.4 Mean length of utterance in the Thai responses elicited to both age groups ......... 126
7.5 Length of utterance and fiequency of use by number of respondents in the ENGLISH
responses ....................................................................................... 127
7.6 Mean length of utterance in the English responses elicited to both age groups. . . 127
8.1 Position of ‘khrub’ and ‘sir’ in the Thai/English Attention Getting part .............. 136
8.2 A summary of the components in the Thai/English Attention Getting part for both
age groups in the finger context as elicited by Respondent # 4 ...................... 139

8.3 A summary of the components in the Thai/English Attention Getting part for both

xiii

age groups in the Subordinate context as elicited by Respondent # 24 ................ 140
8.4 A summary of the components in the Thai/English Attention Getting part for both

age groups in the Colleague context as elicited by Respondent # 46 .................. 142

xiv

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure

1 Age Difference ................................................................................. 116

XV

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Reasons which underlie the purposes of this dissertation

In the study of interlanguage pragmatics, many attempts have been made to
provide explanations as to what pragmatic mechanisms of L2 learners are and what might
constitute them. Politeness is commonly believed in most cultures to be a required value
that should be attached to linguistic forms to maintain or sometimes strengthen smooth
human relationships in society. Such politeness attachment is required for some particular
fornis that are used to realize certain speech acts that might interfere with interlocutors’
positive (i.e., desire for approval or appreciation) or negative (i.e., freedom of action and
fiom imposition) face.

Since the earlier studies in interlanguage pragmatics provided a range of findings,
the present study is an attempt to focus on particular language users of particular
backgrounds (e. g., Thai speakers learning English as a second language). Thus, the
present study is intended to examine interlanguage pragmatics through politeness
mechanisms of learners from a collectivistic culture (i.e., which is group/relationship-
oriented) learning an L2 spoken in an individualistic culture (i.e., which is
autonomy/task-oriented) and learning it in a foreign language learning context. The
distinctions of both conceptual views are predicted to have an important influence over
the learners’ interlanguage pragmatics. The distinctive concepts might well result in the
nonnativeness of the learners’ language (i.e., interlanguage). That is, they might perceive

some potential social factors (e.g., power, social distance, and ranking of imposition)

widely involve in manifesting politeness differently from the native speakers of the target
language of a different conceptual culture. For instance, what is viewed as an imposed act
might not be so in a different culture (e. g., asking someone’s age). Likewise, what is
viewed as politeness in one culture might not be equally perceived as such in another
culture (e. g., the concept of indirectness). Moreover, different cultures might value
politeness to a different degree (i.e., the Japanese culture in which the concept of
politeness is more sensitive than in the American culture as seen by the extensive use of
honorifics in Japanese). Thus, such distinctions inevitably affect their L2 pragmatic
behaviors to a certain extent, especially in terms of their choice of politeness strategies.
To date, there is very little research on pragmatic behaviors of Thai speakers either
through their performance in their native Thai or in their English as an L2. In general,
Thai speakers represent speakers of a collectivistic and hierarchical culture where the age
of the interlocutors is a dominant determinant for the speaker’s pragmatic choice.
Moreover, there are very few pragmatic studies involving the age of the addressee
as the points of concern. To my knowledge, there is only one recent research (Harada,
1996) which investigates the perception and production of normative (Japanese) speakers
of English through their politeness strategies. She found that the Japanese speakers in her
study changed their level of politeness according to how they perceived their addressees
in terms of the age and status of the addressees and their familiarity with the addressees.
In the first perception test, native speakers of English, Japanese ESL students from
intermediate and advanced levels, and native speakers of Japanese were asked to rank
how politely they think they should speak to certain addressees. The goal was to examine

how the Japanese ESL learners realized L2 politeness and how much the L1 politeness

rules were involved in their L2 perception. There is evidence of transfer in that the age of
the addressees seems to be one of the determinants of the level of politeness. Differently,
the native speakers of English seemed to value familiarity more than the Japanese
speakers. In the second perception test, the goal was to examine how Japanese ESL
learners perceived the politeness levels through the use of medals in the English
requesting forms with certain addressees. The learners, given a list of L2 requesting
expressions, were asked to rank their politeness on a 10-point scale and make possible
choices for situations with various addressees. In the production test, the choice of the L2
requesting forms for different addressees was examined through the tape-recorded
telephone messages. The findings showed that her subjects depended on formulaic
expressions rather than being creative like their L1 natural requests.

In proposing age as another potential social factor, the present study uses the face-
saving view of Brown and Levinson’s politeness framework, which is most accepted, as a
baseline for investigation of the politeness mechanisms by Thai EFL learners. Though
their framework has been long criticized in some regards, it provides guidelines for later
pragmatic research as a starting point. Their theory was argued to be basically applicable
to Western languages because it is based on the individualistic view of politeness. In the
collectivistic cultures where people regard themselves as members of the society rather
than independent individuals as in the individualistic ones, politeness is viewed as
normative rather than strategic (Yeung, 1997). Thus, social variables must play a more
important role in the choice of polite linguistic forms in the collectivistic cultures than the
individualistic ones. Social status, for instance, is viewed as a more influential factor in

the collectivistic cultures (Hill et al., 1986). In Yeung (1997), the findings showed that

weight of imposition was the only factor among the three independent variables in Brown
and Levinson’s theory that has a statistically significant impact on the choice of
politeness expressions in the English data, but no influence at all in the Chinese data. She
explained that her Hong Kong Chinese subjects followed the principle of reciprocity
which made them view the imposition of a request with a more positive perception than
the Westerners. This supports the claim that different cultures may value the same speech
acts in terms of imposition differently. The other two factors, power and social distance,
showed no statistically significant influences independently on linguistic choice both in
the Chinese and the English data. She claimed that the combination of the three factors
did not show greater impact than the imposition alone. The nature of her data collecting
might affect the findings. The polite request expressions in two languages were listed
fi'om the written data and were ranked by native speakers of each language. The fact that
the data were in the written mode and lacked the immediately interactive exchanges
might not fit well in Brown and Levinson’s oral-based fiamework.

Moreover, there might be factors other than those three involved. In this study, I
propose that the age of the addressees is a potential social factor that plays an important
role in determining pragmatic behaviors of speakers from a collectivistic and hierarchical
society. I firrther hypothesize that the L1 pragmatics might influence the L2 pragmatic
behaviors of such learners learning an individualistic L2 in the foreign language learning
context where the value of the society is group-oriented. The findings might, in contrast
to Yeung (1996), confirm or enhance Brown and Levinson’s framework.

The request speech act was chosen because of the claims for its threats over face.

Politeness is generally viewed as a tool for redressing the Face-Threatening Acts (F TA).

The degree of politeness is varied dependent on several factors such as the weight of
imposition or the degree of familiarity. This study is another look at the request speech
act when its face-threatening value is low. The weight of imposition of the pragmatic
force was kept low; the intended act caused only a little burden on the requestee or the act
was the requestee’s own job responsibility from which the requester is entitled to make
such requests. The degree of familiarity was kept high since there is a claim that the
closer the relationship, the less polite. With the low face-threatening value and low
distance, such request speech act is expected to still require an attachment of the
politeness value as well.

To make an appropriate choice of politeness strategies requires both linguistic and
pragmatic skills and tactics. L2 learners at different levels of both skills must differ in
their performance. In Harada’s study (1996), proficiency did not clearly determine L2
learners’ pragmatic competence. In her study, the intermediate learners were closer
pragmatically to the native speakers of English than the advanced learners in many cases.
The variations might be viewed as a result of the learners’ own judgment; the more
advanced the more creative. Harada explained that the advanced learners in her study
seemed to explore their L2 pragmatic competence and to be more creative in their L2
pragmatic force. Besides creativity, advanced learners, in order to retain their L1 identity,
are adequately proficient and know how to negotiate their way in the L2 to secure such

identity if this would be the case.

 

1.2 Research questions and hypotheses
Research questions:

This dissertation is an attempt to examine the components of the interlanguage
pragmatics (ILP) of Thai learners of English as a second language in a foreign language
learning context. The learners’ learning language (same as ILP) was investigated through
their choice of politeness strategies in request making. The fact that the learners’ L1 and
their L2 are originated from different roots in conjunction with the fact that the L1 and L2
cultures are formed under two distinctively basic structures makes the nature of the ILP
interesting as to how their ILP is processed and how such learners negotiate in order to
overcome the distinctions of the two linguistic/cultural systems. Thus, the research
questions are as follows:

1. What are the components of the interlanguage pragmatics of the Thai learners
of English as a second language in a foreign language learning context?

2. What constitutes such components?

Hypotheses:

Based on the three questions above, I have come up with 2 hypotheses and their
sub-hypotheses.

1. I hypothesize that the components of their ILP are likely to consist of 3 forms:
the L2-like forms (evidence of learning); the Ll-like forms (evidence of transfer); and the
creativity forms (reflecting the internalized negotiation process)

1.1. The L2-like forms are likely to be a result of instruction and experiences.

1.2. The Ll-like forms are likely to be a result of the learners’ familiarity with the

L1 forms and insufficient knowledge of L2 pragmatics.

1.3. The creativity forms are likely to be a result of the learners’ own judgments
on how appropriate they want their ILP to be.

2. I hypothesize that age factors, particularly the age of the addressees, are likely
to determine the choice of the pragmatic behaviors by Thai speakers.

2.1 The choice of their Thai politeness strategies is likely to be age sensitive.

2.2 The choice of their English politeness strategies is likely to be age sensitive as
well.

Since the learners’ L1 language and culture are collectivistic based, where
hierarchy of age is strongly pronounced in particular, the age value might show some
effects on their ILP. Thus, I hypothesize that the age of the addressees in particular plays
an important role in their ILP as it does in their Ll performance. The age of the
addressees must determine their choice of L2 politeness strategies in their speech act
realization, which in this case is request making.

The acquisition of pragmatics, unlike other language systems, seems to be harder
to achieve or never at all in some cases because pragmatics deals with social behaviors
which are fundamentally structured by cultural domains. Such domains characterize
people distinctively from culture to culture. Members of the same identity group (culture)
share patterns of perceptions (e. g., attitudes, values, and belief/disbelief systems),
behavioral norms, and its own language/code (Singer, 1998). One may know the
grammar of a language, without being able to use the language. According to Gee (1990),
to communicate effectively, one must say the right thing at the right time and in the right
place. He proposes that besides using the right grammar, one must use the language

appropriately, and be able to express the right values, beliefs, and attitudes for particular

social situations. Thus, it is hard for individuals of different cultures to communicate as
well as those who are from the same identity groups.

Learning a second language is learning a two-in-one package, which includes a
new linguistic system (form) and a new pragmatic one (function). At the pragmatic level,
cultural identification is evident. Pragrnalinguistically, L2 pragmatic forms can be easily
picked up through instruction or actual interactions. Sociopragrnatically, the social
behaviors appearing in their ILP are a result of their assessment of many options
available to them, which may reflect their L1 or L2, or a combination of both. (See the
distinction between pragmalinguistics and sociopragrnatics in Chapter 2). Obviously, at
the sociopragmatic level, L2 performance is mainly processed by the learners’ own
creativity. By looking at pragmatics at the two levels, acquisition might be seen possible
at the pragrnalinguistic level where L2 learners can use formulaic expressions naturally.
A question arises whether or not their use of such routines is evidence that they are
acquired forms or learned skills. At the sociopragmatic level, it is more obvious that L2
learners are more cautious with their L2 pragmatic performance because it might interfere
with their self-identity. According to the findings in Bosher’s Hmong study (1997), the
maintenance of their native language and culture by the Hmong immigrant students
facilitating their academic success and adaptation to their life in the US resulted from no
fear of the loss of their sense of ‘self’ toward moving across cultures. Her qualitative
findings showed that the Hmong students made conscious choices on what elements of
both cultures to keep or to abandon. Thus, is it the case that the acquisition of pragmatics
is a matter of conscious/unconscious use of the L2 pragmatically? (the issue is not the

focus of this study). The involvement of their consciousness for the security of their self-

identity may slow down/hinder/or even impede their attainment to the point of L2
acquisition at the pragmatic level.
1.3 Organization of the dissertation

This dissertation consists of five chapters. Chapter two is a review of literature
which covers the areas of interlanguage pragmatics in SLA, pragmatic transfer, speech
act of request, and Thai politeness. Chapter three is a detailed account of methodology
used for data collection and analysis. Chapter four is an extensive discussion of the
findings and results from the analysis of data through qualitative and quantitative
methods. This chapter consists of a display of 76 examples, 40 tables, and 1 figure.
Chapter five is the conclusions which cover implications for foreign language pedagogy

and limitations of the study including suggestions for firrther research.

CHAPTER 2

REVIEW OF LITERATURE

2.1 Introduction

There are two types of second language research in pragmatic areas: one is the
research on second language (L2) learners’ perception and production of the
interlanguage pragmatics (HP) and the other is the research on L2 learners’ learning
development. Until the late 80s, the focus of the ILP studies had been on use
(sociolinguistic perspectives) rather than process @sycholinguistic perspectives). Most
research studies were attempts to investigate L2 learners’ perception, comprehension, and
production of illocutionary force and politeness value across languages and cultures;
namely, the well-known Cross-Cultural Speech Act Realization Project (CCSARP)
conducted by Shoshana Blum-Kulka, Juliane House, and Gabriele Kasper in 1989. Since
then, the trend of ILP studies has changed toward the second language acquisition (SLA)
disciplines; which is, the developmental and processing issues as seen in the studies of S.
Takahashi & DuFon (1989), Ellis (1992), MA. Robinson (1992), Bardovi-Harlig and
Hartford (1993), Siegal (1994), S.Takahashi (1996), and Maeshiba, Yoshinaga, Kasper,
and Ross (1996). There have been attempts to understand the L2 learners’ learning
process toward their acquisition of L2 pragmatics (Kasper and Schmidt, 1996).
2.2 “Interlanguage (IL)”

There have been many beliefs that L2 learners’ learning language (interlanguage)
is a result of the learners’ own creativity. Their interlanguage reflects their mental

learning process of a language other than the existing one(s). In SLA research, there is an

10

assumption that language learners in learning a second language create a language system
called “interlanguage” by formulating an internalized system based on available linguistic
elements in their native language and the target language (TL). Yet, there are some
elements in their interlanguage which do not represent their origin in either linguistic
source (Gass and Selinker, 1994).
2.3 Definitions of interlanguage pragmatics (RP)

According to Kasper and Blum-Kulka (1993 ), interlanguage pragmatics (ILP) is
the study of non-native speakers’ use and acquisition of linguistic behavior patterns in a
second language. Kasper and Dahl (1991) define ILP as nonnative speakers’
comprehension and production of speech acts, and how their L2 related speech act
knowledge is acquired. Kasper (1996) refers to ILP as the study of development and use
of strategies for linguistic performance by nonnative speakers.
2.4 Development of research in interlanguage pragmatics
2.4.1 Early ILP as sociolinguistic rather than as psycholinguistic

In the seventies, the interlanguage studies were primarily focused on learners’
linguistic knowledge of the TL. However, due to research in the area of communicative
competence (Habermas, 1970 and Hymes, 1972) a secondary focus emerged which
centered on the second language learners’ acquisition of pragmatic and discourse
knowledge of the TL (Blum-Kulka, House, and Kasper, 1989).

Yet, in the 1980s, most ILP studies were basically attempts to demonstrate
learners’ perception and comprehension of illocutionary force and politeness value across
languages and cultures. Within the scope of these studies, learners’ pragmatic success and

failure are influenced by contextual variables of choices within given linguistic

ll

conventions and the universality of politeness in speech act realization across languages
and cultures (Blum-Kulka, House, and Kasper, 1989; Kasper, 1996).

Until claims to pragmatic universality became a major focus of interest, the ILP
investigations had focused on contrasting a specific language function or a specific
speech act between two or three cultures and languages. Thus, to find out the possibility
of pragmatic universality, there was a call for research comparing various speech act
realizations across large numbers of cultures and languages (e.g., CC SARP). Recently,
the trend of ILP studies has been related to SLA disciplines in which their main interests
have dominantly been in the area of second language competence rather than production.

To conclude, the early ILP studies were sociolinguistic-oriented; they focused on
the investigation of cross-cultural pragmatic behavior of L2 learners, their knowledge of
L2 linguistic and pragmatic devices, and use of speech act strategies (e. g., requesting,
apologizing, complimenting, expressing gratitude, etc.) as compared to those of native
speakers. The recent ILP studies, on the other hand, are psycholinguistic-oriented; they
attempt to understand the learners’ learning process toward their acquisition of L2
pragmatics (Kasper and Schmidt, 1996).

2.4.2 Interlanguage pragmatics in SLA

Thus, recent ILP studies have followed the methodology of SLA interlanguage
studies by employing empirical research methods. Within the scope of IL studies in SLA,
learners’ interlanguage production and comprehension are compared with their Ll (native
language) and L2 (native speakers’) data in order to specify their IL competence which is

influenced by their L1 competence (Kasper and Blum—Kulka, 1993). Therefore,

12

‘pragmatic transfer’ becomes a major interlanguage research issue in investigating
influences and roles of learners’ native language and culture on their developmental
learning process toward the acquisition of the TL (Kasper and Schmidt, 1996). In
addition, some issues of universality of pragmatics have arisen as part of the topic of
discussion in some studies, but not as their major goal. To understand the notion of
‘pragmatic transfer’ or the notion of ‘pragmatic universality’, we need to know the
components of L2 learners’ pragmatic competence.
2.4.2.1 Pragmatic competence of L2 learners

Along the continuum of [LP processes, L2 learners are already equipped with
general pragmatic knowledge (the communicative use of language in general as defined
by Blum-Kulka, 1991), L1 pragrnalinguistic knowledge (knowledge of particular
linguistic forms conveying particular illocutions as defined by Leech, 1983), and L1
sociopragmatic knowledge (knowledge of social and discourse principles which vary in
different social contexts, cultures, and language communities as also defined by Leech,
1983). The ability to use such utterances in an effective and efficient manner is described
as communicative or pragmatic competence (Francis, 1997). According to Bialystok
(1993), pragmatic competence refers to abilities required for discourse participants (both
speakers and hearers) in successful conversations. That is, the speaker must possess an
ability to perform different speech acts of a given language; in the meanwhile, the bearer
must possess an ability to interpret and understand the speaker’s intention both directly
and indirectly. In addition to discourse rules (e. g., tum-taking, interruption, cohesion, and
so forth), Gass and Selinker (1994) suggest another component, ‘whom language is being

used with’; namely, learners must have enough knowledge of social and pragmatic rules

13

to choose appropriate forms to use with each type of interlocutors (e. g., of different
genders, ages, social distance, social status). It is evidenced even in child language
learning that L1 learners must understand and be able to perform the pragmatic force of
utterances beyond the literal meanings to some extent although their pragmatic skills are
less proficient than those of adults due to their limited social interactions.

2.4.2.2 Pragmatic universality

The issue of pragmatic universality across speech communities became the basis
for the CCSARP analytical framework (Blum-Kulka, 1989) to investigate patterns of L2
learners’ request and apology realizations under different social constraints across
cultures and linguistic variations.

In the scope of the universality of pragmatics, the issue of ‘indirectness’ as to
whether it is universal seems to be the focus in pragmatic research. Learners must rely on
conventions and principles (Blum-Kulka, 1989) to be able to interpret indirectness;
namely, conventions of language, conversational principles (Grice’s general Cooperation
Principle), pragmalinguistic conventions, and contextualized (Gumperz, 1982) or
sociopragmatic (Leech, 1983) conventions. Among the three levels of ‘indirectness’,
Blum—Kulka (1989) suggested that there are limits to the universality of conventional
indirectness; its patterns differ cross-linguistically. A particular utterance in one culture
or language group may not have the same meaning convention cross-culturally. For
example, the convention for greeting in the United States is ‘How are you?’; whereas, in
Thailand a native speaker would say, ‘Where have you been?’. Therefore, nonnative

speakers’ intended meaning may not find equivalences in the TL (Kasper and Dahl,

14

1991). As proposed by Blum-Kulka (1989), although the findings of CCSARP indicate
the universality of conventional indirectness, it should be regarded as a matter of “shared
basic pragmatic properties” rather than as a matter of cross-linguistic equivalence in form
and usage. Kasper and Schmidt (1996) agree on universality of basic pragmatic principles
which facilitate the development of ILP; however, the problem arises and gives rise to
transferability when learners assume universality where it is not present.

2.4.2.3 Pragmatic transfer

Evidence in the studies of ‘language transfer’ shows that learners’ IL consists of
both ‘positive’ transfer and ‘negative’ transfer from their L1. Positive transfer is
facilitation to learning another language where learners’ L1 and the TL have similar
forms. Conversely, negative transfer is referred to transfer which learners mistakenly map
their native-language patterns or rules onto the TL due to their misconception of the
notion of ‘universality’ or their limited knowledge of the TL forms. This phenomenon
leads to inappropriate forms in the TL and is seen as interference in language learning
(Gass and Selinker, 1994; Richards, Platt, and Platt, 1992).

Similarly, ‘pragmatic transfer’ shows how learners negotiate their way to a
resolution of speech act realizations in the TL. Though it is presumed that speech acts are
universal, their forms and use vary from culture to culture (Gass and Selinker, 1994). For
instance, complimenting is used in all cultures, but its linguistic form and usage might be
different. Especially, in responding to a compliment, it is very crucial to know and
understand pragmatic conventions of the TL to avoid inappropriateness. Very often,
inappropriate use of pragmatic behavior leads to misunderstanding and misinterpretation

of the non-native speaker’s intentions. Moreover, the normative speaker might be

15

perceived as rude or inept in some regards. The inappropriate mapping of L1 pragmatic
knowledge onto the TL pragmatics is evidence in the learners’ developmental learning
process toward the acquisition of L2 pragmatics.
2.4.2.4 Types of pragmatic transfer: Pragmalinguistic/Sociopragmatic transfer
Likewise, pragmatic transfer shows how learners negotiate their way to a
resolution of speech act realizations in the TL both as elicitors and as respondents.
According to Kasper (1992), the ILP studies which involve the influences of L1
pragmatics are differentiated by their aims at two different types of pragmatic domains:
one which deals with pragmalinguistic transfer in which learners’ linguistic knowledge
about the illocutionary force and politeness value assignment of languages other than the
TL influences in their perception and production of form-function mappings in the TL
(e.g., Blum-Kulka, 1983; House and Kasper, 1987; Beebe et al., .1990; Maeshiba et al.,
1996), and the other deals with sociopragmatic transfer in which learners’ social
perceptions underlying their performance and interpretation of linguistic actions are
influenced by their assessment of equivalent L1 social contexts as to whether a particular
speech act or overall communicative style is appropriate (e.g., Olshtain, 1983; Robinson,
1992; T.Takahashi and Beebe, 1993). Thomas (1983) argued that these two dimensions
of pragmatic transfer are inter-related. For instance, before making decisions about which
politeness strategy and linguistic actions (pragmalinguistic domain) are appropriate in a
particular social context, interlocutors base their judgment upon their assessments of the
relevant contextual factors such as degree of imposition, social distance, social status, etc.

(sociopragmatic domain).

16

2.4.2.5 Pragmatic transfer in interlanguage pragmatic process

Though some studies found nontransfer (e.g., House and Kasper, 1987; Maeshiba,
et al., 1996), Kasper (1992) points out that in some cases it might be difficult to
distinguish such ILP performance as to whether it is a result of transfer or
overgeneralization of L2 pragmatic rules and features. Yet, some fascinating evidence for
pragmatic transfer is noticeably and consistently found in many other studies (e.g., a
preference for Japanese learners of English for formulaic indirectness found in Robinson,
1992; a preference for self-oriented apologizing strategies in the English context by
German learners of British English found in House, 1988; a preference of Anglo-
Canadian learners of Hebrew for more indirect request strategies found in Blum-Kulka,
1982). An instance of evidence for pragmalinguistic transfer is seen by the use of
‘statements of philosophy’ (e.g., ‘to err is human’ in English excusing or ‘I never yield to
temptations’ in English refusing by Japanese learners of English as found in Beebe et al.,
1990). Evidence for sociopragmatic transfer in which L2 learners prefer to retain their L1
communicative styles is found in Robinson (1992). The female Japanese learners of
English in her study reported that they felt uncomfortable to refirse in English because
refirsing is not commonly expected in Japanese society. Their L1 social perceptions play
a role in avoiding some L2 performances in spite of possessing the knowledge of the
native-like forms. It is interesting that familiarity with their native norms, regardless of
L2 proficiency, plays some crucial roles and becomes a causal factor of pragmatic
transfer which eventually leads to pragmatic failure (in some cases, miscommunication).
Further, it might be the case that learners somehow try not to lose their native cultural

identity for L2 pragmatic norms in the L2 contexts (especially when performing

l7

politeness strategies) as suggested in some theoretical frameworks of the accommodation
theory (e.g., divergence from the target norm helps maintain the NNS cultural identity —
Giles and Johnson, 1987).

The data from interlanguage pragmatic research show that learners of the same
target language from different L1 backgrounds perform different patterns of pragmatic
transfer (Olshtain, 1983; House and Kasper, 1987). In some cases, the same learners do
not follow the same transfer patterns to different target languages. In F aerch and Kasper
(1989), the Danish learners transferred negative interrogatives from Danish to their
German as L2, but not to their English as L2. That is because German is perceived as less
language distant fiom Danish than English is. This brings about an issue of pragmatic
transferability as to what constraints which L1 elements should or should not be
transferable.
2.4.2.6 Pragmatic transferability

In S. Takahashi’s (1996) study of transferability, her findings show that regardless
of L2 proficiency, learners’ pragmatic competence was not native-like. The study
supports a pluricausal view that learners rely on various sources of knowledge (e. g., L1
transfer, IL overgeneralization, and instruction) simultaneously in assessing what strategy
to perform in a particular context. This also supports Thomas’s view of pragmatic
transfer being inter-related by two domains of pragmatic knowledge.

Evidence fi'om interview data in some studies reveals that learners with sufficient
competence in L2 adjust their IL pragmatic performance in terms of what they think is
appropriate in such L2 contexts. In Robinson’s (1992) interview data, her Japanese

informants reported that they consulted their L1 and IL pragmalinguistic and

18

sociopragmatic knowledge in making decisions about how to refirse requests and offers in
English as their L2. They chose to add a stronger and more direct refirsal strategy to their
directly translated preceding utterances from Japanese because they wanted their intended
illocutionary meaning to be clear for Americans as being foreigners (e.g., evidence of
creative forms). In Kasper (1981), her interview data revealed that the German learners of
English avoided using the routine ‘I mean’ whose equivalent is commonly used in
German. They reported that they perceived this routine as language-specific and were
also instructed not to use them in L2 contexts. In Olshtain’s ( 1983) data, it is speculated
that Russian learners of Hebrew performed high frequencies of negative politeness
refirsal strategies in their IL than in their native language due to their sensitivity of their
immigrant status in the target community. It is interesting to point out here that at the
pragmatic level, the attainment of the native-like performances might not be the ultimate
goal for all L2 learners as it is at the linguistic level.

Evidence in previous ILP studies consistently reveals that L2 learners rely upon a
variety of knowledge sources (from L1, IL, general knowledge about the world) and
conditions (situational factors such as settings — classroom/natural; contextual factors
such as the degree of imposition and relationships of interlocutors) in their decision-
making as to which strategy they think is appropriate in a particular circumstance. It
seems that their pragmatic errors which are normally seen as pragmatic failures are not
always clearly a result of learning toward acquisition of L2 pragmatics (i.e., to acquire
native-like proficiency) or are a result of their adaptation to L2 strategies (i.e., to serve
their communicative needs and simultaneously secure their identity). The latter leads to a

question whether L2 learners will ever achieve native-like pragmatic performances or

19

whether they want to. For instance, if learners decide to insist on ‘disidentification’ with
the target norms to maintain their cultural identity, native-like proficiency in the target
language will not be achieved and it is not their goal of L2 learning, since pragmatic
learning, unlike linguistic learning, involves no restricted and specific written rules.
Learners have multiple strategic options to express their illocutionary forces and have
more freedom to consult with any knowledge available to them at the point of production.
This brings the notion of ‘pragmatic transfer’ into question. If ‘transfer’ is defined as
borrowing one feature of a language fiom another, the language phenomena found in the
ILP where learners’ ILP is similar to L1 should not be seen as a result of transfer by itself
whether or not it is a conscious or unconscious one. I argue that it should be seen as an 1L
component, an outcome of learners’ internalized language processing. To explain such
variations of IL behaviors mentioned earlier, learners’ ILP must consist of three
components: the features that are like L1 (or any existing knowledge), the features that
are like L2, and the creative features (unlike either L1 or L2). I hereby claim that
variations of ILP behaviors of L2 learners are a result of an individual learner’s
creativity.
2.5 L2 learners’ Interlanguage pragmatics

Schmidt’s concepts of implicit and explicit learning (1993) suggest that learners
use ‘explicit learning’ (i.e., conscious problem solving as attempts to form mental
representations by searching memory for existing related knowledge, forming, and then
testing their hypotheses) when rules are involved. Differently, they use ‘implicit learning’
(i.e., unconscious generalization from examples) when the learning patterns are based

upon perceptual similarities. Namely, at the pragmatic level, adult L2 learners, following

20

the same path as child L1 learners, ‘notice’ the occurrence of linguistic forms used by
native speakers as intake for learning and store them in memory (Atkinson and Shiffrin,
1986; Kihlstrom,1984). At the time of learning, they ‘understand’ the significance and
appropriate use of such forms. Even adult native speakers who are fully competent in
pragmatic skills sometimes rely on their insights and understanding about the language
when knowledge of a particular context is inaccessible.

Likewise, Bialystok (1993) points out that at the pragmatic level, children with no
prior linguistic experience rely on explicit learning (conscious problem solving or
hypothesis testing) of pragmalinguistic norms provided by their parents or caretakers
rather than control of contextualized pragmatic norms due to their limited social
interactions. She also claims that children do not have pragmatic competence until they
understand various aspects of pragmatic firnctions of language such as implied politeness
or deference. Children solve their mapping problems between forms and firnctions (e.g.,
‘Water’ meaning ‘Give me some water’) ; whereas, adults solve theirs between forms and
social conditions (contexts). With their firll competence of L1, L2 learners must learn to
understand L2 pragmalinguistic and sociopragmatic norms to be able to process their IL
pragmatic knowledge smoothly in L2 contexts.

2.6 The speech act of request

Requesting is a speech act which is conceived of as a face-threatening act
according to Brown and Levinson (1987) because it may provoke intrusion of the
hearer’s freedom of action, and in the meantime, the speaker herself feels hesitant that

she might offend the hearer’s face.

21

By nature, requesting is an act in which a speaker’s desire is intended for the
bearer to bring about the desired action. It requires communicative skills in order to get
such desire accomplished (Becker, 1982). Among the several requestive strategies, the
speaker must make a choice based upon her judgment in terms of the characteristics and
relationship of the interlocutor, the setting (formal or casual), the degree of imposition,
the degree of obligation of the speaker to have the act carried out by the hearer, and so
on. In many empirical studies, the study of the realization of the request speech act is
mainly based on two trends: the strategies for realizing the request speech act and the
types of variables affecting the choice of these strategies. The other dimension which is
less studied is the sequence of the strategies in the request speech act.

2.6.1 Strategies for realizing the request speech act

Strategies for realizing the request speech act are studied based on two major
characteristics: the degree of directness/indirectness of requestive strategies and the use
of internal/external modifications.

I. wee of directnes_s_/indirectnes_s of requestive strzgegLes:

Directness perceived as a measure of illocutionary transparency in which the
inferential/interpretive attempt on the part of the bearer is not required.

The following is the well-known classification of directness and indirectness in
request speech act realization based on the CCSARP Scheme (Blum—Kulka et al., 1989).
1. the most direct/explicit level
1.1 Mood derivable: grammatical mood of the verb signals its illocutionary
force

(e.g., Clean up that mess!)

22

1.2 Performatives: the illocutionary force is explicitly named
(e.g., I am as_king you to clean up the mess.)

1.3 Hedgedperjormatives: the perforrnative is modified by hedging expressions
(e.g., I would like to ask you to...)

1.4 Obligation statements: the obligation of the H is stated

(e.g., You’ll have to take out the garbage.)

 

1.5 Want statement
(e.g., I wish you’d stop calling me.)
2. the conventionally indirect level
2.1 Suggestory Formula: the intent is phrased as a suggestion by means of
formulaic expressions
(e.g., How about washing the dishes?)
2.2 Query preparatory: reference is made to preparatory conditions as
conventionalized
(e.g., Could you please..?; Would you mind. . . ?)
3. Non-conventionally indirect level
3.1 Strong hints: partial reference is provided
(e.g., Your car is blocking mine.)
3 .2 Mild hints: no reference is made, but the hints are interpretable as a request
by context
(e. g., “My wife is going to have a baby!” in asking the taxi driver to speed

up)

23

Hints, claimed by Weizman (1989) as the most non-conventional and indirect
strategies, are characterized by their opacity as follows:
a. IIIocutionary opacity: not sufficient indication of the intended illocutionary
force (e. g., I lost my wallet.)
b. Propositional opacity: not sufficient indications as to the content of the act
(e. g., Would you do me a favor?)
and the combination of type a and type b (e. g., It’s hot in here).

Transparent as the directness strategies and opaque as the non-conventional
indirectness strategies (e. g., Hints) are as intended, it appears that the conventional
indirectness strategies might be the only requestive strategies that co-exist with the pre-
request moves. Indirectness is ofien observed in form of questions, particularly, through
formulaic expressions. However, there are some requestive formulaic forms which are
not questions, such as the expression “I beg your pardon.” which is conventionally
interpreted as a request for a repetition of the previous speech by the bearer. Li (1998)
argues that the conventionalization of the formulaic expressions makes them transparent
in their illocutionary forces and their conventional nature leaves the hearer no choice to
respond to the request unconventionally.

II. The use of modificanions:

1. Internal modifications: modify the request internally (within the Request Head

Act)
1.1 Downgraders
1.1.1 Syntactic downgraders

1.1.1.1 Interrogative (e.g., Could you. . .?)

24

1.1.1.2 Negation
1.1.1.3 Past Tense
1.1.1.4 Embedded ‘if’ clause
1.1.2 Lexical and phrasal downgraders
1.1.2.1 Politeness markers (e.g., Please...)
1.1.2.2 Consultative devices (e.g., Do you think you could...)
1.1.2.3 Understaters: minimizes parts of the proposition
(e. g., Could you clean this up a little bit... .?)
1.1.2.4 Hedges: avoid specification
(e.g., It would be great if someone helped me.)
1.1.2.5 Downtoners: elements modulating the impact on the H
(e.g., Will you be able perhaps to drive me home?)
1.2 Upgraders (usually lexicons and phrases)
1.2.1 Intensifiers (e. g., Get rid of that awfitl smell.)
1.2.2 Expletives (e. g., Turn off that crummy TV show, will you?)
2. External modifications: mitigating the Request Head Act by means of
supportive moves (See also 2.6.2)
The following is the most comprehensive categorization of external modifications
proposed by Blum-Kulka and Olshtain (1984):
2.1 Checking availability (e. g., Do you have a minute?)
2.2 Getting precommitment or Sasaki’s preparators: prior announcements of
making a request (e.g., Would you do me a favor?)

2.3 Grounder: giving reasons, justifications, and explanations

25

2.4 Sweetener: exaggerating appreciation of the H
2.5 Disarmer: indicating awareness of offense and anticipating refusal; or
attempts to remove the interlocutor’s potential objections (Sasaki, 1998)
(e.g., I hate to say this. But I’m afraid I might have to ask you...)
2.6 Cost minimizer or Sasaki’s imposition minimizers: attempts to minimize
the imposition placed on the H (e.g., if it is okay with you...)
Of all the external modifications listed, grounders are the most frequently used as an
efficient mitigating strategy (House and Kasper, 1987).
2.6.2 Types of variables affecting the choice of requestive strategies (as categorized in
Li, 1998)

1. Social variables:

Power embedded social status and social distance (degree of familiarity with the
interlocutor) are two main social factors which determine the hearer’s choice of
requestive strategies.

2. Situational/contextual variables:

As suggested by Blum—Kulka and House (1989), Kasper (1989), etc, situational
factors which influence the speaker’s requestive behaviors include the degree of
imposition, the degree of the hearer’s obligation to carry out the request, the speaker’s
right, types of the requestive goal (actions, goods, information, permission), setting
(formal/casual), medium of production (oral/written) and so forth.

3. Cultural variables:

Many pragmatic studies revealed the cultural differences in the perception of

‘directness/indirectness’ in requestive behavior. What is perceived as impolite or less

26

proper in one culture may be valued as proper in another culture. Cultural factors are also
associated with social and situational/contextual factors. One social factor may be valued
as strongly determining the choices of requestive strategies in one culture, but shows little
influence in another culture. The age factor, for instance, is a very crucial determinant for
pragmatic behaviors in the Thai culture where its social structure is based on the age
hierarchy. But the factor shows less impact in most Western cultures.
2.6.3 Sequence of the strategies in the requestive act

The act of request making usually consists of a sequence of utterances (Blum-
Kulka et a1, 1989). Effective request making is often preceded by pre-requests which
check feasibility of compliance, therefore overcoming possible grounds for refirsal
(Merrit, 1976; Schegloff, 1988). The refusal at the preliminary stage before the actual
request is admitted is considered as a face-saving strategy.

Blum-Kulka et al. (1989) categorized the sequence of the strategies in the
requestive act as follows:

1. Alerters

2. Head Act

3. Supportive moves
The categorization of the Head Act and the Supportive moves is based on sequential, as
well as contextual and firnctional criteria. The same utterance can serve as a supportive
move or a Head Act according to context.

I ’m loola'ng for the restroom. Could you tell me where it is? (Supportive move)

I’m looking for the restroom. (Head Act - Hint)

27

To get a clear understanding how the request speech act is realized by Thai
speakers learning English as their second language in a foreign language context, this
study covers all three dimensions mentioned above. It investigates the requesting
strategies (in the Request Head Act) for realizing the request speech act (as discussed in
2.6.1), the age difference of the interlocutors as a dominant cultural variable uniquely
affecting the choice of these strategies by this respondent group (as discussed in 2.6.2),
and the sequence of the strategies which constitute the whole requestive act (as discussed
in 2.6.3).

For a better understanding how this particular group of the collectivistic
respondents perform their request speech act both in their L1 and their L2, a cultural
background on the values which establish how Thai speakers deal with politeness in the
society is provided in the following section.

2.7 Thai values as foundations for politeness in the Thai society

In any interactions, a language is a medium that carries messages between
interlocutors. Socially, to have an oral interaction in particular, the appropriate use of the
language should be taken into consideration. That is, the sender of an oral message
should be aware of what is proper for the receiver of such message in terms of their
relationship in the society, the language context, time and circumstances, etc. Ignoring
those concerns, the speaker might be regarded as socially uncultured.

One society is different from another by its core social norms which give basic
rules of acceptable behaviors for its members. There are also rules of appropriate use for
language users in a society. Some core values which at the same time characterize ‘the

so-called national character’ of the culture underline such rules. Some key values

28

suggested by some Thai scholars are pointed out here as background information about
Thai pragmatic behaviors. Wichatrong (1997) suggested in her article, “How to express
politeness in Thai”, that there are four basic values of Thai people that affect their
language use. Only two of them that are related to this study are discussed here as
follows:

(1) Thais regard people by their seniority. Thai has a common word to call people
with seniority as ‘phu yai’. According to Wichatrong (1997), the term ‘phu yai’ may refer
to people of old age, people with high social status, or people with long terms of
experiences in their career life. The elders are considered people with long experience
about the world. Thus, the younger who have less experience give their high regard to the
elder in the family and to other elder people in the community as well. The use of
kinship-indicated pronouns such as ‘lung’ for uncle, ‘phee’ for an elder sister or a brother
reveals their high regard of people with seniority.

(2) Thais like to use kinship-indicated terms with even unrelated people in the
community. This value can be traced back to the thirteenth century when Thailand was an
ancient agricultural society where people in the community were group-oriented and had
a close relationship like one big family. The tradition of ‘long khaeng’ is an activity in
which members of the community helped their neighbors work on the fields until all the
fieldwork in the community was done. They worked shoulder to shoulder like brothers
and sisters. Thus, with a long history of being an agricultural society, the use of kinship-
indicated pronouns or the use of nicknames among unrelated people still exists to stress

the closeness of the relationship of members in the community.

29

(3) Komin (1990) suggests 9 value clusters which postulate the Thai national
character. His Thai value survey reveals that ego orientation was ranked top priority of
importance by most Thai groups except for the farmer group who ranked it very low.
The findings reveal that ego orientation is the root value of other main values of Thai
peOple. He found that Thais value independence, pride, and dignity. Though Thais are
perceived by foreigners as calm, fiiendly, and gentle, violation to the ‘ego’ self or
anybody close to the ‘self’ such as parents cannot be tolerated by them. Ranked number
three of importance in this Thai value survey, smooth interpersonal relationship
orientation works in conjunction with ego orientation. This orientation is characterized by
“the preference for a non-assertive, polite and humble type of personality (expressed
through appearance, manners, and interpersonal approach), as well as the preference for a
relaxed, and pleasant interaction which accounts for the ‘smiling’ and ‘friendly’ aspects
of the Thai people” (Komin, 1990, p174). A Thai concept ‘kreng-jai’ which means “to
be considerate, to feel reluctant to impose upon another person, to take another person’s
feelings (and ‘ego’) into account, or to take every measure not to cause discomfort or
inconvenience for another person” (Komin, 1990, p164) is a good example of Thai social
smoothing values which emphasize avoidance of hurting other’s feelings (ego) at all
times even though it is contrary to one’s own feelings.

The concept ‘kreng-jai’ is not restricted only to persons of low position toward
higher positions. To preserve other’s ‘ego’ or ‘face’ is the basic rule in any interactions
regardless of the relationships of the interlocutors involved. Thais will feel ‘kreng-jai’
toward equal, inferior, or subordinates, if situations require them to bother someone for

some help, some convenience, or sheer verbal interaction that would seem to intrude on

30

the other person’s ego. The notion of ‘kreng—jai’ can be observed in every relationship
(e. g., husband-wife, superior-inferior) but its degree varies according to different persons,
different levels of familiarity, and different situations.
2.7.1 Politeness in the Thai language

(1) Choice of appropriate personal pronouns

Thai pronouns can be characterized by their level of politeness and the social
distance between interlocutors. Here is a list of some common Thai pronouns:

First-person singplar pronouns Second-person singular pronouns

a. ku, khaa (in the falling tone) eng, kae, meung
b. phom khun, theu, pee
c. kra-phom thaan

d. chan (in the high tone) then

e. di-chan khrn, thaan

f. nuu thaan, khun, phee
8- Phee nong

h. khao (in the high tone) tau

Pronouns in group A are used among male close friends; sometimes those
pronouns are avoided in the presence of women.

First-person singular pronouns in group B and C are used by males only. Though
polite, those in group B are less formal than those in group C. First-person singular
pronouns in group D, E, and F are used by females only. Pronouns in group D are used
among friends whereas those in group B are used in formal occasions. The first-person

singular pronoun in group F is used by a person of lower age or social status when

31

 

conversing with a person of higher age or social status. In any interactions, pronouns used
by an individual vary according to his/her roles in a particular situation and the
relationship with his/her interlocutor. That is, if an individual is a man, among his close
fiiend (5) he may refer to himself as ‘kuu’ or ‘kha’, but he will refer to himself as ‘kra-
phom’ when talking to a judge in a public testimony, for example. Moreover, it is
customary that a first-person singular pronoun is used with its matching second-person
singular pronoun. For example, ‘kuu’ or ‘kha’ will go with ‘eng’, ‘kae’ or ‘meung’. In
other words, in utterances, the perceptions of the speaker toward his/her role and that of
his/her interlocutor and toward the level of social distance with his/her interlocutors can
be identified by his/her choice of pronouns. Different from many languages, the gender
of the speaker can be identified through the use of the first-person singular pronouns.

Some pronouns like ‘khun’, ‘phee’, ‘nong’, ‘lung’ and the like can be used as a
title term by placing one of them in front of a person’s name. The term ‘khun’, for
example, can be used like Mr., Mrs. or Miss in English.

(2) Use of polite ending terms

Likewise, these ending terms can identify the gender of the speaker of an
utterance. The female polite ending terms are ‘kha’ and ‘ja’ (in the high tone), ‘kha’, ‘ja’,
and ‘ha’ (in the falling tone); and the male polite ending terms are ‘khrub’ and ‘khor-rub’
(used in a very formal situation, almost obsolete). The term used by both males and
females is ‘ha’ (in the high tone). The terms ‘kha’ and ‘ja’ (in the high tone) are used to
end polite questions; ‘khrub’ (a male term) can be used both in affirmatives and
interrogatives. The mitigating terms ‘na’, ‘noi’, ‘noi na ’ can be ended by these polite

ending terms to redress face-threatening acts.

32

As a matter of fact, utterances can sound polite without these polite terms. The
tone of voice and lengthening the vowel of the final word in an utterance can sofien the
degree of threats of face.

2.8 Conclusions

Apart from linguistic norms, L2 learners who are fully competent in the
conventions of language use in their L1 must learn and experience new and different
sociocultural norms. According to studies in the communication field, all interlocutors
rely on their ‘implicit theories’ or the so-called ‘commonsense theories of social
cognition’ about the fundamental functions of talk. The implicit theories are culture-
based; they are used by individuals in a cultural group as a basis for their underlying
assessments of choice for conversational strategies to achieve their interactional goals. In
making a request in one culture, speakers of such cultures learn shared implicit
knowledge of what strategy is permissible and culturally preferred in a particular
situation in which they are involved. Kim and Wilson (1994) suggest five interactive
constraints which constitute standards for ‘social appropriateness’ or appropriate
communication performance; namely, (1) concern for clarity, (2) concern for minimizing
imposition, (3) concern for avoiding hurting the hearer’s feelings, (4) concern for
avoiding negative evaluation by the hearer, and (5) concern for effectiveness. These
constraints may vary across cultures. Individualistic cultures where autonomy is a major
concern may value directness whereas collectivistic cultures where group harmony is a
major concern may value tact. Thus, learners of a second language must inevitably face
the situations where they are struggling for what choice of conversational strategy is

appropriate in such L2 contexts: debating between L1 strategy and L2 strategy, or

33

perhaps developing an ILP strategy that they think serves their pragmatic needs. What is
seen as pragmatic transfer might be a result of the learners’ conscious learning process to
negotiate what they already know (firll competency of L1 pragmatics and limited
knowledge of L2 pragmatics), what they do not know (some L2 pragmatic features), and
what is missing (the distinction between L1 and L2 pragmatics) so that they can get their
message across pragmatically. Perhaps, at the pragmatic level, since the learners have to
go through this very complicated negotiation process, communication seems to be their
focal goal of interaction whereas native-like proficiency is not always the case. The L2
learners’ interlanguage pragmatics is, therefore, seen as a process of learner’s own

creativity.

34

CHAPTER 3

METHODOLOGY

3.1 Introduction '

To my observations as a teacher of English to Thai speakers and experiences as a
learner of English as an L2, I have noticed some uncomfortable feelings and hesitance by
Thai learners as nonnative speakers of English in L2 contexts with regard to the
appropriate use of address terms. I also have noticed the same phenomenon occurring in
my Thai students learning English as a foreign language at the Royal Thai Air Force
Academy in Thailand. Though military people are regarded by others as people of
discipline and etiquette, their politeness does not make it easy for them to perform
politeness in English since there are some pragmatic and cultural differences between the
two cultures. Linguistic knowledge is not the case here since polite request making in
English is usually taught from the beginning of their English learning and a variety of
formulaic speech patterns are listed in many English textbooks. However, most textbooks
are concerned with neither linguistic nor cultural differences of the learners from
different native languages. They usually list the formulaic expressions and group them in
terms of degrees of their politeness and casualness. They present how those forms are
used by native speakers of English who come from the Western cultures in which age or
gender of the addressees do not signify the distinctions in the speech of the addressers.
When it comes to the learners whose culture signifies the age or gender difference of the
addressees in the choice of their speech, problems arise. The burden is then left to the

responsibility of language teachers who should have adequate knowledge about their

35

students’ cultures and linguistic structures of their native languages for effective L2
instruction.

In this research, gender is not the focus of study. The main focus is to investigate
how Thai learners of English as an L2 differentiate their polite speech according to the
age of the addressees like they do in their native language. The nature of the military
speech and the nature of requests represent, without a doubt, speech of politeness.
However, my concern is with the nature of their politeness and how age of the addressees
plays a role in determining the choice of their politeness strategies.

My choice of using the military subjects in my study is based on my teaching
experiences with them in the past 19 years of my career at the Royal Thai Air Force
Academy. Almost all of them were senior students in my English classes. I have long
Observed the use of their English since they were in my classes at the academy and most
fortunately, I was able to observe some of them who are now fighter pilots in the RTAF
interacting with American pilots at work during the recent air exercise in Thailand. In
terms of familiarity, some of them have had personal contacts with me before the
academy, during the study, and after graduation. Therefore, in the interviews, they tended
not to perceive me as a researcher, but rather, as their former teacher whom they could
trust and be honest with. Thus, I have strong confidence in my knowledge about the use
of English by these subjects. Unfortunately, the Thai academy has no female cadets yet.
My subjects, therefore, consisted of only male representatives of Thai military speakers.
The data were collected from the working air force officers rather than from the current
air cadets because I focus on the high intermediate group with adequate knowledge of

English and experiences of the use of English in actual interactions with native speakers

36

of English. The knowledge about English and the interactional experiences of English of
this subject group were gained both in the foreign and second language learning contexts.

With regard to the method used for data collection in this study, the oral
production questionnaire type, one of the most popular cross-cultural pragmatic
competence measures was chosen because it is easy to control variables related to a given
context (e. g., age and closeness of the respondent and the interlocutor). Though it is not
interactive in nature (Eisentein and Bodman, 1993) and is based on hypothetical contexts,
it is found to be as highly reliable and reasonably valid as role plays, according to
Yamashita (1996) in her study, designed to find effective measures for pragmatic
proficiency. In Sasaki’s study (1998) and most other studies, one of the reasons that
production questionnaires did not elicit as natural data as role plays resulted from the use
of the written mode rather than the oral one. Sasaki claimed that in her study, alerters
such as ‘Excuse me’, or ‘Hello’, which one uses to get the interlocutor’s attention, are
used much more often in oral (role plays) than in written (production questionnaires)
responses. Thus, my study was designed to use production questionnaires which elicit
oral responses. Other advantages of production questionnaires are their practicality and
convenience. The transcription for data analysis is not time-consuming to do, and it can
be administered to a large number of respondents (Sasaki, 1998). In regard to the problem
of retaining the respondents’ identity, the subjects in this study took on the role of
themselves in assumed situations that possibly occurred in real life. Roleplays may not be
a good choice for the method of data elicitation in this study because most L2 learners in
an EFL context like Thailand have very little experiences in long interchanges with

native speakers of English. To have them elicit their pragmatic data through unfamiliar

37

behaviors may not reveal the natural data. Rather, they will feel they are forced to do so.
During the English interviews as part of the achievement tests at the RTAF Academy
starting this year, after a few interchanges in English, some of the fifth-year air cadets
said to me in English that they could not speak English. In response to that, I asked them
what language they were speaking at the moment. At their work sites after graduation,
some admitted that they were reluctant to make conversations with native speakers of
English because they were afraid of communication breakdowns. Their nervous pain was
due to their lack of regular interactions with native speakers, which is a common ground
for problems of learning a second language in a foreign language context. Likewise, the
ethnographic method might prove to actually elicit rich natural pragmatic data (Li, 1998).
This method might do well in the contexts where L2 is used elsewhere, not in limitation
as in a FL learning context like in Thailand. This study is designed to focus on one
particular variable, age (difference) of the hearer, which is hypothesized to induce
pragmatic transfer, and to compare the pragmatic data of the same subject group in their
L1 and their L2. The oral production questionnaire method, unlike the ethnographic
method, is able to control the studied variable. In addition, to avoid instrument effect, the
tool used for data elicitation should be the same type; this OPQ method is feasible for
collecting both L1 and L2 data in this particular case.

The request speech act was chosen because it is one of the best studied speech
acts in the field of interlanguage pragmatics (Blum-Kulka et al, 1989; Rintell and
Mitchell, 1989; Takahashi and Beebe, 1987) and because it is one of the speech acts most

frequently performed in everyday life.

38

3.2 Population and samples

The data used in this dissertation were collected from February - May 2000 in
Bangkok and in Nakornrajsrima Province during the combined air exercise Cobra Gold
2000. The collection methods included recorded oral production questionnaires and
recorded pragmatic and sociolinguistic interviews.

The target group is a number of Thai air force male officers who graduated from
the Royal Thai Air Force Academy and who have experiences with the actual use of the
English language with native speakers of English through their work and/or their
overseas studies. At the academy, they spent a total of 450 class hours of English, three
hours a week throughout their five years of their engineering/science studies.

The sample group consists of 50 subjects who were recruited by a multi-stage
sampling technique which includes the purposive sampling (e.g., those who have
experiences in social interaction with native speakers of English) and the accidental
sampling (e.g., those with the required qualifications who were available at the time of
the data collection).

These 50 subjects consist of some male pilot officers participating yearly in
considerable air exercises with foreign countries (e. g., Cobra Gold with the US, Cope
Tiger with Singapore, Thai Kiwi with New Zealand, Thai Boomerang with Australia, Air
ThaMal with Malaysia, Elang ThaiNesia with Indonesia, and Pirab Jabiru - the UN Peace
Operations with Australia). The others are male officers who work at the Directorates of
Intelligence, Air Operations Control, Aeronautical Engineering, Logistics (Foreign
Military Procuring Division), and Operations (Joint & Combined Section). The nature of

their routine work requires them to have interactions with foreigners, both military and

39

civilians. Some have been sentfer on—the-job training abroad and some have made their
graduate studies in the English-speaking countries.

Their ages range from 25 to 50 years of 'ageand their ranks range from lieutenants
to colonels.
3.3 Instruments

The study was primarily based on the oral production questionnaire data which
included 16 scenarios within 8 requesting contexts. Each context consisted of two
separate age groups which were designed to focus on the age difference of the
addressees. In most scenarios, in terms of relationships, addressees were assumed to be
people who worked in the same office, but whose seniority or status was different. The
gender of most of the addressees was limited to male interlocutors because of the nature
of most subjects’ work. Nevertheless, there were two contexts in which the addressees
were strangers and one of the contexts included female strangers as addressees. The
female context was included to serve as a guideline for firrther study on gender
difference, perhaps. The eight contexts are shown as follows:

Context 1 Asking male colleagues to repeat the time

Context 2 Asking male colleagues for direction

Context 3 Asking male colleagues to tell the time

Context 4 Asking male clerks to print a file

Context 5 Asking male clerks for some change

Context 6 Asking male janitors to clean the wet spot

Context 7 Asking male strangers to locate a fiend

Context 8 Asking female strangers to pass the sauce

40

The eight contexts were subdivided into 16 scenarios which were separated by two age
groups of the addressees: the younger and the older groups. The respondents were asked
to respond to the similar requesting scenarios in which the addressees were either much
younger or older than themselves (i.e., about 10 years different). For example, in Context
One, each respondent was requested to ask two of his male colleagues to repeat the time
in the scenario where his addressee was much younger and in the other scenario where
his addressee was much older than he (see also Appendix one). All of the contexts were
designed to match their routine life. A checklist of their routine activities based on the
information gathered from interviews was then developed into eight contexts which
occurred most fi'equently in their daily lives. The routine activities then were categorized
into three colleague contexts, three subordinate contexts, and two stranger contexts.
Three of them were activities that normally occurred to them in the interaction with
colleagues who had equal social status. Another three were activities that normally
occurred to them in the interaction with subordinates whose social status was much
lower. Within these six contexts, the addressees were designed to have high social
distance with the respondents and they were all male gender. I was looking at the
requestive scenarios where the low ranking of imposition, the high social distance, and
the routine nature of each activity situation required no vigorous attempts on the part of
the requesters to form extreme politeness. I hypothesized that, under normal and expected
circumstances, politeness could be witnessed and such politeness was characterized by
the solid effects of the age of the addressees. That is, the age effects could be witnessed
in their choice of politenessstrategies in varied circumstances where the respondents had

close relationships with the addressees, but different in their social status and age, or even

41

gender. Moreover, each context included two addressees whose age was much different
from the respondents and from each other. Namely, the respondents stood the middle
group according to age and they were subject to react to two age groups of addressees:
the older and the younger, who were either their equals or their subordinates. The
superiors were eliminated because the possibility for politeness was too high, without
need for further proof. The other two (stranger) contexts were included because, as
hypothesized about the effects of age in close relationships, I wondered if there was a
possibility that age might perhaps show the same effects in the relationships with
strangers, especially strangers of different genders. These stranger/gender contexts were
added for personal curiosity and for the guidelines for further research. Though there was
only one context for each gender, if the age effect was consistent as hypothesized, at least
the findings were proved to be true for the same group of respondents at the same time of
data collecting.

The original questionnaires were tested with the same population in three small
pilot studies until they looked like what they appear on the list above and Appendix one.
It was my concern to avoid proficiency effect; therefore, each scenario was designed to
emphasize the simplicity and possibility of actions. Any scenario that seemed to cause
difficulty or reluctance on the part of the respondents was then adjusted or eliminated.

The questionnaires were conducted through semi-structured interviews on the
tape recorder. The oral data were required because they represented the actual
pragmatic/linguistic performances of the speakers as to how they responded to each
requesting context. Although they were assumed situations and the subjects did not really

interact with real persons, the data were believed to portray more authentic verbal

42

responses than those collected in the popular written discourse-completion questionnaire
method.
3.4 Data collection

The data included two sets of the oral production questionnaire data elicited by
the Thai subjects: one in Thai and the other in English. The situational contexts in the
Thai and English questionnaires were the same except that in the English questionnaires
the subjects were assumed to make requests to native speakers of English in L2 contexts.
(Scenarios in both versions were orally given to the respondents in mixed order.)

To avoid confusion or misunderstanding, I, as the researcher who solely
conducted the study, gave the questionnaires orally in Thai, the subjects’ native language
(L1), even though they were directed to give responses in English as their second
language (L2) in the English questionnaires, as well. In the English questionnaires, all
information was provided to the subjects in the Thai language (their L1) in an oral
manner in order to ensure that their responses were their own and natural.

The English questionnaires were conducted after the Thai questionnaires to make
sure that the subjects understood the situations clearly. Each semi-structured interview
for both questionnaires lasted about 20 minutes. In addition to this, an unstructured
interview was conducted afterwards to look for their pragmatic and sociolinguistic
knowledge of both languages.

To collect data, I called and made appointments with the most familiar former
cadets of my classes first. Then I went to their work sites. I explained to them the
procedures and the purposes of the questionnaires. They were happy to participate in the

study because they believed that the findings of my study might provide a solution to the

43

current problems of English language learning of the cadets. They hoped that their junior
cadets would gain more benefits fi'om this study. Most of the respondents have had good
relationships with me more than as being teacher/ students. Some were the students I
tutored in private English classes before they even attended the academy. Some were
younger brothers of my fiiends or sons of family fiiends. Some lived in my
neighborhood. They conceived of me as a combination of teacher - elder sister. There
was no doubt why they trusted me and provided exclusive information in the interview
data. I was a little surprised that they showed no resistance to tape recording. A few made
a slight comment on that, but seemed less concerned when the questionnaires actually
began. Besides appointments, I also conducted the oral questionnaires with those whom I
met at the sites and who were available and willing to participate in the study. Only 20
per cent of the respondents were not my former students. Five of them graduated before I
started my career at the academy and the other five attended the fourth year class while I
was studying abroad. I have been in charge of the English classes for the fourth year
cadets since I started my teaching career at the academy. Thus, I dare say that almost all
of the cadets fi'om 1981 (the year I started my career in the air force) until present were in
my English classes when they were the fourth-year cadets, except for those who attended
the fourth- year classes during the periods of time that I was studying abroad. Since I
went to collect data by myself and all the data were recorded on tapes at that point, the
response rate was 100 per cent. The data collection occurred March until May 2000. I
gave questionnaires to the respondents one by one in a private room which was arranged
by compliment of former students who were in charge of each work site where the data

were gathered.

44

3.5 Analyses

The data in this study were basically analyzed by the method of ‘content analysis’
in conjunction with some quantitative methods. I looked at patterns, frequency,
types/functions of external modifications (strategies in the other parts outside the Request
Head Acts), internal modifications (some politeness & mitigating devices), and strategies
in the Request Head Acts themselves. The data included two sets of responses to the
similar situations in two languages by the same respondents: the Thai data and the
English data. The Thai respondents responded to the assumed requesting scenarios given
to them orally in Thai to avoid comprehension effect. The Thai responses were translated
into English literally (word by word) and the translated version maintained the syntactic
structures as they would appear in Thai (e. g., ellipsis of some subjects and objects, no
verb conjugation, etc.) Some necessary words were added in parentheses and square
brackets to avoid confusion on the part of the non-Thai readers.

The investigation focused on how the age of the addressees affects four main
pragmatic behaviors: choice of strategies, number of strategies used in one turn (length of
utterance), lexical items served as redressive devices, and types of transfer found in the
study. Mode was used to measure the frequency of the use of strategies in each scenario
with younger and older interlocutors. It was to investigate if specific strategies were
strictly used with interlocutors of different ages. The length of utterance in this study was
measured by number of strategies used in each part of the utterance in one turn. The
number of strategies indicated the attempt of the addresser to redress his request act for a
successful result. It was to investigate if the length of utterance can represent the degree

of deference toward the interlocutors of different ages. Mean and standard deviation were

45

used to find the average number of strategies performed in one requestive utterance turn.
Longer utterances were expected to show higher degree of deference toward older age
groups. Lexical devices used as the internal modifications such as politeness markers
(e.g., khrub, please), mitigating terms such as lexical downgraders (e. g., noi na, na, si),
and prononrinal devices as age indicators (e.g., the use of kin terms in the first-person
singular and second-person singular pronouns) were measured on the percentage scale.
The last element for investigation was types of pragmatic transfer from L1 (Thai) to L2
(English). Their L2 pragmatic behaviors were expected to show some evidence of age-
based asymmetry as appeared in their L1 pragmatic behaviors due to the influence of
hierarchically cultural backgrounds. Discourse analysis methods were used to describe
the transfer behaviors in order to show effects of the age of addressees in determining the
pragmatic choices.
3.6 Conclusions

In the study of ILP, types of research methodology employed are distinguished in
terms of two aspects of ILP features: comprehension and production. To investigate
learners’ perception of alternative speech act realizations (e. g., perception of politeness
value), rating tasks (paired comparison, card sorting, rating scales), multiple choice
questionnaires and interviews are used; whereas, the ILP production is usually tested by
instruments like discourse completion tests, role-plays in controlled or authentic settings,
observation of authentic interactions, and self-assessment (Kasper and Dahl, 1991;
Hudson, Detmer, and J.Brown, 1995; and Kasper and Schmidt, 1996) and few are done
by ethnographic methods. Although learners’ authentic performance data are required in

ILP research, it is agreed that it is hard to collect such data in the full context of the

46

speech event for comparative studies. Some problematic features relative to data
collection techniques such as number of subjects, number of questions asked, types of
data elicitation techniques, etc. may affect their validity and then, lead to failure of such
data to represent real learners’ interlanguage pragmatics (Kasper and Dahl, 1991). The
design of this study was adjusted based upon advantages of earlier ILP studies. This
study is a combination of the quantitative and qualitative analyses since practicality as

well as validity of data collection is of a major concern.

47

CHAPTER 4

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

4.1 Introduction

This chapter contains two sources of findings: one gathered from the oral-
production questionnaires and the other from the recorded casual interviews. The data
from both sources were elicited by the same respondents at the time of data gathering in
the same sequence: questionnaires prior to interviews.

To find out what the interlanguage pragmatics of the Thai respondents is like and
what constitutes such components, the patterns of their speech act realization in their L1,
which in this case was the speech act of request, were analyzed to find the common
ground of their requestive patterns. Their English requestive patterns were then analyzed
for comparison to find similarities or distinctions in their pragmatic performances
between the two languages. In so doing, Hypothesis 1 and its sub-hypotheses shall be
supported. That is, the interlanguage pragmatics of these particular L2 learners of English
is likely to comprise three components: the Ll-like forms (evidence for transfer), the L2-
like forms (evidence for learning/acquisition), and the creative forms (a result of learners’
own judgments by adjusting their interlanguage based on their own sense of
appropriateness). The evidence for transfer will be demonstrated through the use of
directly loaned Ll forms in their L2 performances whereas the evidence for
learning/acquisition will be demonstrated through the use of learned L2 forms. The
evidence for the learners’ creativity will be demonstrated through their speech adjustment

when their knowledge of such L2 is unavailable. These three sources of their

48

interlanguage pragmatics are inter-related. To accommodate their speech, they need to
create a sort of ‘compromising’forrn to compensate for the L2 rules/forms which are not
known to them or which do not match their L1 ones. Thus, in the first stage, they need to
rely on their existing L2 and their L1 rules. Then they balance their communicative needs
with the preservation of their self-identity and other social/situational factors. Finally,
they come up with the speech they perceive as adequately appropriate in particular
circumstances and able to serve their communicative needs, which does not always
reflect native-like proficiency. The whole process shows two points: how they negotiate
their way in the production of their interlanguage pragmatics and how the nature of
creativity may hinder the acquisition of L2 pragmatics. This shall support Hypothesis 3-
The choice for politeness strategies by the Thai speakers is likely to be a result of their
judgments for appropriateness, which indicates the creativity in their ILP. Such creativity
and the learners’ persistence of their L1 identity in their ILP may imply that the
acquisition of L2 pragmatics may not be their ultimate goal at all. The question ‘Can L2
learners acquire native-like pragmatics?’ might appear to be an illegitimate question to
ask if it is the case that they do not have desire to do so.

To find support for Hypothesis 2 and its sub-hypotheses that Thai and English
politeness strategies performed by the Thai speakers are likely to be age sensitive -- the
effects of the age difference of the interlocutors in both languages were investigated. The
effects of the age difference, particularly, the age of the addressees, were examined
within two main tOpics: politeness strategies (i.e., strategies mutually incorporating the
implementation of the illocutionary force) with the help of their internal modifications

(e.g., downgraders), and L1 pragmatic transfer. The former is to support the claim that

49

the age of the addressees plays an important role in determining pragmatic behaviors of
the Thai speakers and the latter is to provide evidence for pragmatic transfer in the
normative speech of the Thai EFL learners. At large, the effects of the age of the
addressees in their L2 pragmatics are expected to support Hypothesis 3 that the choice for
politeness strategies in their ILP is likely to be a result of their own creativity. That is, to
either consciously or unconsciously preserve their self identity in their ILP, they might
have to create their ILP forms to more or less reflect their Ll social rules, which in this
case is the high value of seniority in age (of addressees versus addressers). In this study,
the age of the addressees rather than the addressers is emphasized because Thais come
fiom the group-oriented culture in which its members care for others prior to their
individual selves. As a consequence, their speech is shaped and adjusted in accordance
with their estimate of the age of the person they are interacting with, as compared to
degree of seniority.

To analyze the data, the present study borrowed the analytical framework used in
the well-known Cross-Cultural Speech Act Realization Project (CC SARP), the
investigation of the interlanguage pragmatics of L2 learners with different native
language backgrounds using different target languages, and comparing the speech act
realizations of native and normative speakers. The study (since 1989) established
patterns of request and apology realizations under different social constraints across
languages and cultures.

To begin with, the structures of the requestive patterns found in my study are
described. Similar to the pattern proposed in the CCSARP, the basic pattern in this study

includes the sequence of strategies as follows: the Attention Getting part (alerters), the

50

Introductory moves (preposed supportive moves), the Requesting Head Acts, and the
Closing moves (postposed supportive moves). A modification to the CC SARP pattern is
that the supportive moves might occur after the Request Head Act as well. Since the
scenarios were designed to assume the commonly found situations in the work place and
the imposition was kept low, one request was expected to be completed within one turn
of utterances with no need for negotiation. Some moves were in question forms and were
uttered in continuity with no requirement/expectation for actual responses. The data in
this study show some distinctions from the ethnographic data in Li (1998); namely, her
data consisted of negotiations in more than one turn; some occurred on different days.
This might result from the asymmetrical relationships between the interlocutors where
the native speakers in her study had more power and authority as social workers/teachers
in their host country whereas the normative speakers were Chinese immigrants.

The following section is a description of the components which incorporate the
act of request making in both languages by the Thai respondents in this study.
4.1.1 The analysis of the requestive pattern

The basic requestive pattern proposed in the CCSARP is once again proving to be
an internationally based framework. It needs to be tested by more studies on languages
other than Western languages to prove its universality, however. In this study, Thai as
representing one of the Asian languages conforms very well to this framework. The
following is a description of the requestive pattern and its detailed components that are
shared by the Thai and the English languages that are particular to this study. Some terms
are adjusted to fit more with the present data. The requestive pattern consists of the

Attention Getting part, the Introductory part, the Request Head Act, and the Closing part.

51

I. The Attention Getting part (alerters) consists of any utterance which is used
for calling the addressee’s attention. In performing an act of request, if available, the
attention getting act comes initially. In this study, the act of getting attention from the
addressee includes four main strategies: (The examples of the Thai and English strategies
by the respondents in this study are also provided in italics)

1. Addressing

1.1 by address terms:

Thai: Num (a casual address term for a ‘young man’ of lower social/work
status) and 7*aan (a formal address term for a male addressee of very high
social/work status)

English: Man (a casual address term for a ‘young man’ of lower social/work status)
and Sir (a formal address term for a man of higher-social/work status)

1.2 by proper/nick names:

Thai: Pomchai

English: Jack

1.3 by kin terms:

Thai: Phee (a term for an older brother/sister) and Nong (a term for a younger
brother/ sister)
English: Uncle (only one occurrence by Respondent # 30, used with an older

addressee of lower social/work status in the Janitor context)
1.4 by title nouns:
Thai: Khan (a formal address term for persons of both genders and of higher

social status or social distance- as equivalent to ‘mister’)

52

English: Colonel

2. Excusing:
Thai: Excuse me
English: Excuse me
3. Greeting:
Thai: Sawaddee (a formal greeting shared by both genders, usually ending with

a gender-based politeness marker: ‘khrub’ for male speakers or ‘k"a’ for
female speakers)
English: Hello
4. Asking for permission:
Thai: Give me permission, khrub, phee
English: None
H. The Introductory part (pre-posed supportive moves) comes right after the
Attention Getting part and prior to the Request Head Act. This part consists of a variety
of strategies which pave the way for the upcoming illocutionary force. Basically, they are
statements of reasons, justifications, or explanations. The strategies found in the
Introductory part includes 8 categories shared by the Thai and the English languages
shown as follows: (The examples of the Thai and English strategies by the respondents in
this study are also provided in italics. The Thai version was translated into English by
reflecting some major linguistic characteristics of Thai such as no verb conjugation and
ellipsis of personal pronouns in some cases.)
1. Stating the necessity/problem

Thai: Porn [I] lose this file. (Respondent # 5)

53

English: I’m lost my document. (Respondent # 5)
2. Stating the want

Thai: Phom [7] would like a copy of one document. fliespondent # 9)

English: I want to find my friend (Respondent # 3)
3. Checking availability (i.e., CCSARP used ‘checking on feasibility’)

Thai: (You) have change, reu plao. (Respondent # 7)

English: Do you have a coin? (Respondent # 7)

4. Asking of knowledge

Thai: Warun [Hearer ’s name] can remember the time for the meeting today, reu
plao [can ’t you] (Respondent # 41)
English: My meeting report is lost. You know that file. (Respondent # 10)

5. Giving additional information
Thai: . . .a friend of mine who wear a red shirt, kind of fat. (Respondent # 8)
English: He is fat and wear a red shirt. (Respondent # 8)

6. Referring to the previous{future event/act

Thai: Phee [you] go [past] to the restroom, chat mat [didn ’t you], khrub
(Respondent # 20)
English: I (will) have a meeting with you today. (Respondent # 22)

7. Signaling an upcoming request
Thai: Look at this. (It ’3) water, na. (Respondent # 26)
English: Can you help me. (Respondent # 31)

8. Stating die statement of ‘kreng-jai’ (i.e., “to be considerate, to feel reluctant to

impose upon another person, to take another person’s feelings and ‘ego’ into account, or

54

to take every measure not to cause discomfort or inconvenience for another person”,
Komin, 1990, p164)
Thai: Phom would like to rop-kuan [bother] you noi, khrub.

(Respondent # 30)
English: I have to disturb you about the printing report. I lost it yesterday.

(Respondent # 1 7)

III. The Request Head Act refers to any utterance in a particular speech event
that provokes the illocutionary force on the part of the addressee. One utterance may be
perceived as functioning differently due to the presence/absence of its contingent part.
Notably, in the instance, ‘Do you know Winai? Can you tell me where he is?’, the
utterance ‘Do you know Winai?’ is considered as an introductory move because the
addresser checks the addressee’s knowledge prior to his actual request ‘Can you tell me
where he is?’. In this case, the two utterances are uttered without pause. There is no pause
for a response to the first utterance because its primary function is intended to be a
preliminary to the upcoming Request Head Act ‘Can you tell me where he is?’ rather
than a question provoking an answer. Conversely, if the utterance ‘Do you know Winai?’
exists with no forthcoming requesting act like in the instance above, it is then perceived
as a requestive hint in the Request Head Act which requires the illocutionary force on the
part of the addressee; namely, to provide the requester with the necessary information
regarding the person’s location.
Moreover, one utterance may function differently if occurring in different orders

in the similar speech event. For instance, if the utterance ‘Do you have some coins?’

occurs prior to the Request Head Act, it is perceived as an Introductory move. But if it

55

occurs afterwards, it is perceived as a Closing move. However, its strategic function
remains the same; namely, checking availability of the addressee.

Since there are vast varieties of the requesting forms in both languages, there is a
need to describe them separately in terms of languages. In addition, the results will not be
skewed because the productions of both languages were done by the same L1 speakers.
The examples of the Thai and English strategies by the respondents in this study are also
provided in italics with their patterned forms in boldface. The Thai version was translated
into English by retaining some major linguistic characteristics of Thai such as no verb
conjugation and ellipsis of personal pronouns in some cases. The glossary of frequently
found terms in the Thai language is provided below.

(mai/reu plao = question markers; dai rnai = tag question marker; noi, noi na, na, si =
mitigating terms; rop-kuan = bother [formally showing concerns of the imposition on the
addressee ’s part] ,' waan = less formal than ‘rop-kuan lt‘rub = a politeness ending
marker for male speakers, parenthesis for ellipsis; square brackets for meaning or
explanations)

THAI REQUESTING FORMS:

The Thai requesting forms found in this study are displayed in the following
categories along with examples:

(Patterns of forms are in boldface and italics are examples)

1. Direct muests

1.1 Want statements (want/would like)
Subj + would like+ N

Ex. Phom [I] would like a copy of one document.

56

1.2 Imperatives
Ex. Help wipe this out, noi.
1.3 Obligation statement
Porn [1] think (you) should ‘help’ + v
Ex. In a second or two, phom [I] think (you) should help map the floor
here, noi na, khrub.
1.4 Request statements
(Subj) ask for + N
Ex. Phee [I] ask for an exchange for coins, noi.
(Subj) rop-kuan (you) + (help) +V
Ex. Phom [I] rop-kuan (you) help print this file, noi.
(Subj) (waan) help (please) + V
Phee [I] waan [infomal ‘rop-kuan’] (you) work on the computer for phee
[me], noi.
(Subj) ask for permission to + V
Ex. (I) ask for permission to rop-kuan (you) pass the fish sauce to phom
[me], not, khrub.
Give (me) permission to + V
Ex. Give (me) permission to have a change for the telephone, noi, khrub.
(Subj) ask (you) to + V

Ex. (I) ask (you) to print the file no.5, noi, ha [informal khrub] .

57

2. Indirect muests

2.1 Hint statements/phrases
Ex. Again.
2.2 Questions

2.2.1 Incomplete form of questions

Ex. ’What time. ’ [What time is it] or ‘What? ’ [What did you just
Say?]

2.2.2 Wh-questions
Subj + V + Q-word
Ex. The restroom is which way.

2.2.3 Statement + question markers

Equivalence of tag questions:
(Subj) ask for + N + dai mai
Ex. Phom [I] ask for some change for ten baht, noi, dai mai.
(Subj) rop-kuan (you) + (help) +V + dai mai
Ex. Phee [I] rop-kuan nong [you] help print another copy for phee
[me], dai mai.

(Subj) (waan) help (please) + V + dai mai
Ex. Help please print this file in the computer, not, dai mai.
Imperative + dai mai
Ex. Print another copy of the meeting report file for phom [me], dai

mai, khrub.

58

Equivalence of yes-no questions:
Statement + mai/reu plao
Ex. You know C 01. Chalit, mai.
2.2.4 Query preparatory
(Y on) know [formal] + mai/reu plao + subj + V + Q-word
(English equivalent: Do you know + Q-word + subj + V)
Ex. (You) know [formal] mai (that) phee Karn work at which
section.
(I) don’t know [formal] + subj + V + Q-word (English
equivalent: I don’t know + Q-word + subj + V)
Ex. (I) don ’t know [formal] Maj Karn work at which section, khrub.
(I) don’t know [formal] + statement + mai/reu plao (English
equivalent: I don’t know if...)
Ex. (I) don ’t know [formal] (if you) have coins mai.
2.2.5 Interrogative Hints
(Y on) know [formal] + N + mai/reu plao
Ex. Nong know Sittikorn, mat, khrub.
I would like to know + subj + V + mai/reu plao
Ex. Phee would like to know (that) nong [you] know... , mai.
(Note: Unlike English, Ihai question markers such as Q-words, mai, reu plao, or dai mai
are always located at the end of the sentences.)
The English requesting forms found in this study are listed with examples as

follows:

59

(Note: ? = a rising intonation; and periods = a falling intonation)
ENGLISH REQUESTING FORMS:
1. Direct requests
1.1 Imperatives
Ex. Please clean the floor.
1.2 Want statement
Ex. I want you to print this file in the computer for me.
1.3 Obligation statement
Ex. You should be clean this floor right now.
2. Indirect requests
2.1 Statements
2.1.1 Conventional hint statements/phrases
Ex. I beg your pardon.
2.1.2 Hints
Ex. Sauce, please.
2.1.3 Query preparatory
Ex. If you don ’t mind, please copy this printing report for me?
2.2 Questions
2.2.1 Conventional request questions or query preparatory
Would/Could/Will/Can/May you/I. . .?
Ex. Could you clean it up for me?
Would/Could/W ill you please...?

Ex. Would you please change my dollar for the telephone.

60

Would/Do you mind + V?
Ex. Would you mind to tell me where the toilet is.
Would/Dayan mind if... 7
Ex. Would you mind if I ask you for the printer for me?
Would you be kind to + V?
Ex. Would you be kind to tell me where he is right now?
I’m wondering...
Ex. I wondering that you could print... give me a new copy of
meeting report, please.
2.2.2 Statements with the rising intonation
Ex. You can do the dry floor?
2.2.3 Interrogatives (Yes-no questions and Wh-questions)
Ex. How can I go there.
2.2.4 Interrogative hints
Do you have time to + V?
Ex. Do you have. uh do you do have time to come and clean this
mess real quick.
I don’t know/Do you know + Q-word + subj.+V/V+subj.
Ex. Do you know where the restroom is?
I would like to know Q-word + subj + V

Ex. I would like to know what time the conference begin.

61

IV. The Closing part (post-posed supportive moves) is the part that occurs last in
the requestive pattern. Not all requesting acts include this part. It is dependent on cultural
backgrounds and individual characteristics of the addressers. The Closing moves found in
the Closing part of this study include 8 strategies as follows: (The examples of the Thai
and English strategies by the respondents in this study are also provided in italics. The
Thai version was translated into English by retaining some major linguistic
characteristics of Thai such as no verb conjugation and ellipsis of personal pronouns in
some cases.)

1. Stating the necessity/problem
Thai: Phee [I] lose (it), na, khrub. (Respondent # 50)
English: I have to use the public telephone. (Respondent # 38)

2. Confirming the want
Thai: (1) need (it) for the meeting. Print... print (it) out. (Respondent # 3 7)
English: I would like to use it as uh. . . for the meeting. (Respondent # 34)

3. Restating the request
Thai: What time (is it), khrub, now. Help speak again. (Respondent # 31)
English: Pardon. Say please say the time again, please. (Respondent # 31)

4. Asking of knowledge
Thai: (You) know (the meeting time), mat, khrub. (Respondent # 37)
English: Could you tell me where he is. Do you know him? (Respondent # 19)

5. Checking availability
Thai: Phee [You] happen to have some (coins), mat. (Respondent # 15)

English: Do you have a change for a quarter? (Respondent # 18)

62

6. Giving additional information
Thai: (1) don’t know if khun lung [uncle - you] possibly know (my fiiend), mai,
khrub. Khan Narong, khrub. (He) is about my age, khrub.

(Respondent # 19)

English: He ’s my friend. He ’s staying here. (Respondent # 4)
7. Thanking

Thai: Thank you, khrub. (Respondent # 28)

English: Thank you. (Respondent # 28)

8. Showing concern (for others)

Thai: (You) can do this yourself mai. Get someone to help (you).
(Respondent # 12)

English: None

The following sections discuss the results of the quantitative data. The strategies
found in each part of the requestive pattern in both languages are discussed in
comparison. Each part of the pattern is discussed separately.
4.2 Analysis of strategies in the requestive pattern elicited by the Thai respondents
in all of the eight requesting contexts studied

Each requesting context consists of two scenarios in which the age of the
addressees is signified: the younger or the older (see the description of each requesting
context in 3.3 in Chapter 3 and Appendix One).
4.2.1 Strategies in the Attention Getting part

According to Tables 1.1 and 1.2, the most frequently used strategy in this part in

the Thai data was ‘addressing by kin terms’ in all of the 16 scenarios in the 8 requesting

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contexts studied, except for both age groups in the Male Stranger context, the older
Female Stranger scenario, and the younger Clerk-1 scenario. Rather, ‘excusing’ was the
strategy most frequently used in all of the Stranger contexts except for the younger
Female Stranger scenario; and ‘addressing by names’ was most frequently used in the
younger Clerk-1 scenario. However, in all of the scenarios where ‘addressing by kin
terms’ did not have the highest frequency of use, it was the choice next to the most
frequent one. To point out, there is a relationship between ‘addressing by kin tenns’ and
by names. In many cases, the kin terms were used in conjunction with the names (i.e.,
mostly nicknames due to the design of most contexts in which social distance was kept
low) especially in the case of the older group; the older interlocutors’ names will never be
addressed without a kin term or a title (e. g., ‘khun’ as equivalent to Mr., Mrs, or Ms. in
English). The casual property of ‘addressing by (nick) names’ makes it less proper for
showing respect to those who are more senior in age in the Thai hierarchical society.
Thus, it is not unusual that the respondents most frequently used names or nicknames to
address the younger subordinates in the Clerk-1 context because there is less pressure to
show respect toward the younger. In this instance, the fiequency of the choice for
‘addressing by (nick) names’ in the younger group was 17.19% whereas ‘addressing by
kin terms’, the next top strategy was used 11.72%, which is quite high (the highest
frequency shows only 7 points different from the first top strategy). Thus, overall
‘addressing by kin terms’ proved popular in the Clerk-1 context as well. In the case of
strangers, it is no surprise that the respondents addressed their interlocutors less with kin
terms than in the other contexts. Nevertheless, the use of kin terms in the Stranger

contexts was witnessed. Particularly, the fi'equency of its use in the Female Stranger

65

context was quite high. The frequency of its use in the younger Female Stranger scenario
was 20.44%, which was the top strategy; and was 18.98%, which was the second top
strategy in the older scenario (the first top strategy), ‘excusing’, was used 23.36% within
this particular context. Still, the percentage shows its high frequency of the choice for
‘addressing by kin terms’ in both age groups in the Female Stranger context. All in all,
‘addressing by kin terms’ seems to be the most popular among all, regardless of social
status, familiarity, or the age of the addressees. However, in Table 1.1, the totals show
that the frequency of its use is much more consistent with the older group (30.05%) than
the younger group (19.38%). Likewise, ‘excusing’, the next top strategy, was used with
the older group 5.74% more than the younger group. Moreover, Thai kin terms by nature
consist of specific terms for particular age groups (see discussion of Thai pronouns in
2.7.1). Its usage in addressing certainly works toward the same direction. To conclude,
the choice of the two top strategies and their frequency of use in the Thai requestive
pattern do support the claim that the choice of politeness strategies in the Thai language
is age sensitive (see also the percentage of the totals in Table 1.1).

The English data reveal a totally opposite result. Kin terms were almost never
used to address the interlocutors except for only one special case in the Janitor context
where Respondent # 30 addressed to an older janitor by a kin term ‘uncle’ (see Table
1.3). This might be a result of a slip of the tongue. Table 1.4 shows that in all 16
scenarios, ‘excusing’ was the most popular and most common of all. In addition, the
totals in Table 1.3 show the tendency of its use toward the older group (34.78%) over the
younger group (22.53%) even though in the Male Stranger context, the frequency of use

moved toward the younger group, but only 1.43% different. Again, the frequency

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67

of use shows that the choice of ‘excusing’, the top strategy used in the English Attention
Getting part was age sensitive as well.

Unlike the Thai data, ‘addressing by address terms’ was most frequently used
next to ‘excusing’ in most of the scenarios except in both age groups in the Clerk-1
context and the younger Clerk-2 scenario. The fi'equency of use of address terms in the
English data was higher than in the Thai data. The total of use in both age groups in the
Thai data is 20 whereas the total in the English data is 231. The most common English
address term used in this study is ‘sir’. The address terms in the Thai data were not used
at all in most of the Colleague contexts except for one occurrence in the older Colleague-
1 scenario and another one in the older Colleague-3 scenario. Likewise, they were not
used at all in the older Clerk-1 scenario, in the younger Male Stranger scenario, and in the
older Female Stranger scenario (see Table 1.1). The totals in Table 1.1 show that the
frequency of the use of address terms in the Thai data was higher toward the younger
group. Though the total frequency shows that using address terms is not very common in
the Thai data, its use is found more frequently with the younger group. One legitimate
explanation for this phenomenon is that the Thai address terms used with the younger
group are those whose usage is specified for casual use with people of much younger age
and of lower social/work status than the speakers. Such address terms are ‘num’ (i.e.,
‘kid’ or ‘son’) for males and ‘nuu’ (i.e., young girl) for females. The address terms used
in the Thai data are more casual than those in the English data. The extensive use of kin
terms in Thai and the extensive use of formal address terms in English reflect that these
L2 learners are more cautious and formal when interacting in a foreign language than in

their native tongue with which they feel more familiar.

68

In the English data, the use of the address terms in addressing shows an
orientation toward the older group over the younger group in almost all of the contexts
except in the Janitor context where the frequency in the older group was only one
different fi'om the younger group (see Table 1.3).

In addition, the much lower popularity of the use of address terms in the Thai data
than in the English data and the high popularity of the use of kin terms in Thai reflects
Wichatrong(1997)’s suggestions in his work, “How to express politeness in Thai” about
one of the four basic values which affect the language use in the Thai language (see the
discussion in 2.7, item # 2). According to Wichatrong, the use of kin terms with even
unrelated people is a foundation rule. Therefore, the preferred choice for the kin terms
with unrelated persons to express their politeness over the address terms in the Thai data
is not unexpected. Because of their awareness through formal instructions and personal
observations, there is no excessive use of kin terms as personal pronouns among related
or unrelated people in English (though such usage can be observed in the caretaker
speech; namely, a father talking to a baby, “Give it to daddy”). To compensate for the
absence of kin terms, their next choice would be ‘excusing’, which is also the second
popular strategy to the use of kin terms in the Thai data. In the interview data,
Respondent # 42 says in his own words, “I am afraid to use kin terms with ‘farangs’ (a
term for Westerners originated from the word ‘France’, one of the very first Western
empires that entered Thailand) because that might offend them since they are not actually
related to me.” He adds, ‘With farangs, there is always a distance.” Respondent # 29 also
suggested, “We can never be like farangs. We look different. They do not expect us

(nonnative speakers) to talk like them (native speakers). It is hard to reach the level of

69

closeness in the relationship due to language barriers.” He also added, “I never dare to
use impoliteness because we are nonnative speakers. Native speakers use impoliteness to
convey the meaning of closeness. But if we nonnative speakers use it, it might mean
‘true’ impoliteness.” The above excerpts also reveal what lies behind their carefirl speech
in a foreign language.

To conclude, the frequency of the top strategy used in the Thai data (e. g.,
‘addressing by kin terms’) and the frequency of both top strategies (e. g., ‘excusing’ and
‘addressing by address terms’) used in the English data both show evidence of an age
effect (especially on the addressee part) in the choice of strategies by the Thai
respondents to get attention in request making. This supports the claim that while using
the L2 forms, the Thai learners of English as an L2 differentiate their speech by the age
difference of the addressees through the frequency of their use of those strategies in the
Attention Getting part as they do in their L1. This also suggests that there is a pragmatic
transfer in terms of the maintenance of the L1 disciplines in their interlanguage
pragmatics. Obviously, there is evidence for learning/acquisition through the use of
strategies in addressing; for instance, their choice for the top strategy, ‘excusing’ for
attention getting. Moreover, ‘excusing’ is often accompanied by the address terms ‘sir’
for older male addressees by most respondents or ‘ma’am’l‘madam’ for older female
addressees by some respondents. As a matter of fact, the age effects through the preferred
use of the address terms ‘sir’ or ‘ma’am’l’madam’ for older peOple are discussed in detail
in 4.3.2.4. So is the creative use of the address term ‘sir’ to convey solely the politeness
meaning regardless of its gender-based property or its use with those of higher work

status such as officers rather than non-commissioned officers in the military.

70

4.2.2 Strategies in the Introductory part

According to the total percentage in Tables 2.1 and 2.3 and the highest frequency
in Tables 2.2 and 2.4, the strategy ‘stating the necessity/problem’ was the most frequently
used in most scenarios studied in both languages. Namely, in the Thai data, the strategy
was most frequently used in 4 contexts with both age groups: in the Colleague-l, the
C olleague-3, the Clerk-1, and the Janitor contexts. In the English data, the strategy was
most frequently used in 9 scenarios within 5 contexts. It was used with both age groups in
the Colleague-1, the Colleague-3, the Clerk-l, and the Janitor contexts, and in the
younger Colleague-2 scenario. The total percentage in Tables 2.1 and 2.3 shows that the
frequency of use of this strategy in both languages is greater toward the older groups. In
the Thai data, it was used 19.5% with the older group and 18.7% with the younger group;
and in the English data, 22.03% with the older group and 18.06% with the younger
group. The next frequently used strategies in the Thai data are ‘stating the want’ and
‘giving additional information’ respectively. Again, the frequency of use of these two
strategies has an orientation toward the older group. The strategy ‘stating the want’ was
used 8.2% with the older group and 7.4% with the younger group. Likewise, the strategy
‘giving additional information’ was used 5.8% with the older group and 5.5% with the
younger group. Like the Thai data, the next frequently used strategies in the English data
are ‘stating the want’ and ‘giving additional information’ respectively. Likewise, the
frequency of use for the strategy ‘stating the want’ has a tendency toward the older group.

It was used 18.94% with the older group and 12.78% with the younger group whereas the

71

 

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73

frequency of use for the strategy ‘giving additional information’ are tied between both
age groups, namely, 5.29%. In considering all of the Introductory strategies used in this
study, five out of eight strategies in the Thai data and six out of eight strategies in the
English data are used more with the older group (see the total frequency in Tables 2.1 and
2.3).

On average, the frequency of use of the top strategies in the Introductory part in
both languages does support the effects of the age difference over the choice of those
strategies. The choice of the top strategies shared in both languages does reflect the
influence of their L1 pragmatic behaviors. What they do in their native language, they do
in the target language as well. Though different linguistically, their patterns of
performance in both languages is similar pragmatically. In this case, pragmatic transfer
seemingly outdoes linguistic transfer. The total counts of all theIntroductory strategies
used by all the respondents (in Tables 2.1 and 2.3) suggest that these Thai respondents
made use of the Introductory strategies prior to the Request Head Act a lot more in their
native language performance (3 64) than in their performance of the target language
(227). It is legitimate to say that the L2 learners feel more confident and are more
efficient in the use of their native language than that of the TL. At the pragmatic level,
the evidence of learning/acquisition in their ILP is not obvious since they relied heavily
on their L1 pragmatics for this particular move in the requestive pattern and so is the
evidence for creativity.

4.2.3 Strategies in the Request Head Act part
4.2.3.1 The Thai requesting forms

The data from the Thai responses reveal 24 different requesting forms used in the

74

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76

sixteen scenarios within the eight requesting contexts (see Table 3.1). They are
categorized into two major groups according to their (in)directness. The group of direct
requests consists of 11 requesting forms which are in statement form whereas the group
of indirect requests consists of 13 requesting forms all of which are in question form with
one exception for hints (see also Table 3.1).

According to Tables 3.2 and 3.3, of all the eight most frequently used requesting
forms in all of the eight requesting contexts, the requesting form # 6 { (You) help + V)}
was most frequently used within the two Subordinate contexts (i.e., the Clerk—l and the
Janitor ones) regardless of the age difference of the addressees, and within the younger
Female Stranger scenario. The second fi'equently used form was the # l4 requesting form
(i.e., Subj + V + Q-word) which was commonly used within all of the three Colleague
contexts. Though the # 14 requesting form is not the most frequent one in two Colleague
scenarios (the Colleague-l and the Colleague-3), it is the next most fi'equent one in both
scenarios. A simple explanation for this is that the # l3 requesting form, the most
frequently used in the younger Colleague-l scenario (i.e., asking a younger colleague to
repeat the time) is the incomplete/casual version of the # l4 requesting form, and the # 21
requesting form, the most frequently used in the older Colleague-3 scenario (i.e., asking
an older colleague to tell the meeting time), is the formal version of the # 14 requesting
form. The alternative forms they chose are both relevant to the top requesting form used
elsewhere in all the Colleague contexts.
(Note: Numbers in parentheses below are ordinal numbers of examples displayed

throughout the discussion. Within each example of the requestive patterns Oped in

77

boldface & italics, words in parentheses are ellipsis and words in square brackets are
explanations. The underlined are requesting forms)

Respondent # 32:

(in the Colleague-1 scenario- asking a younger colleague to repeat the time)

(1) - the # 13 requesting form

What time (is it), na.

(I) don ’t hear (you) at all.

Respondent # 38:

(in the Colleague-3 scenario - asking a Mtge; colleague to tell the meeting time)

(2) - the # l4 requesting form

Er...nong [addressing to a pseudo-younger brother].

Today, die meeting (starts] at what time.

(You) know, mai [a Q-marker], k‘rub [a politeness marker for male speakers].

Respondent # 39:

 

(in the Colleague-3 scenario - asking an older colleague to tell the meeting time)
(3) - the # 21 requesting form
P‘ee [addressing to a pseudo-older brother], khrub.
(I) don ’t know |formal| the meeting (starts) at what time, ha [a less formal
politeness marker for male speakers].
Phom [‘I’ for a male speaker] forget (it), ha.
To note, in both Colleague scenarios mentioned earlier, where the # 14 requesting form is

not the most popular, the form is the second most frequently used, however. The

78

percentage of its use in the older Colleague-3 scenario is only 7.14% away from the most
popular one (the # 21 requesting form) in the same scenario (see Table 3.2).

To conclude here, the # 14 requesting form is commonly used with interlocutors
of equal social/work status (colleagues) to the respondents regardless of the age
difference whereas the # 6 requesting form is commonly used with those of lower
social/work status (subordinates) than the respondents, except for the Clerk-2 context
(i.e., asking a clerk for some change for the telephone). In the Clerk-2 context, the # 4
requesting form (i.e., Subj + ask for + N) was then most frequently used by both age
groups because the intended illocutionary act did not require an effort on the part of the
addressee to perform any action. Rather, it is a request for an object of minimal cost,
rather than an action.

Respondent # 25:

(in the Clerk-2 scenario - asking a winger clerk for some change)

(4) - the # 4 requesting form

Nong.

(You) have coins, mai.

P‘ee |I| ask (or an exchange (or the telghong, noi [a mitigating term = a little
bit].

The next frequency to the # 4 requesting form in the Clerk-2 context was the # 19
requesting form {i.e., statement + Q-markers (e. g., mai/reu plao) as equivalent to yes-no
questions in English} which is one of the indirect strategies used in this study (see also
Table 3.1). ‘Checking availability’ was commonly used to perform this request as seen in

the following instance.

79

Respondent # 27:

(in the Clerk-2 scenario - asking an M clerk for some change)

(5) - the # 19 requesting form

Excuse me, khrub.

(You) have small coins [or an exchange, mg} khrub.

Within the Female Stranger contexts, the # 6 requesting form {(Subj) Help + V} was
most frequently used in the younger Female Stranger scenario whereas the # S requesting
form, the formal version of the # 6 requesting form, {i.e., (Subj) rop-kuan (you) + (help)
+ V} was most frequently used in the older Female Stranger scenario. However, the
percentage shows that the # 6 requesting form (17.11%) was fi'equently used in the older
Female Stranger next to the # S requesting form (22.37%). Its frequency is only 5.26%
different from the most popular form in the same scenario. Thus, it is justified to say that
the # 6 requesting form was commonly used within the Female Stranger context,
regardless of age difference.

To conclude, of all the most popular requesting forms in all eight contexts (16
scenarios) as listed in Table 3.2, the # 6 requesting form was the most frequently used in
5 scenarios within 3 requesting contexts and ranks in the second place in the older
Female Stranger scenario. Further, the total percentage also shows that the # 6 requesting
form was most fi'equently used with each age group (13.03% with the younger group and
11.89% with the older group). The total percentage shows that the fi'equency of use of
this form in the younger group outdoes that in the older group. All in all, the # l4
requesting form (Subj + V + Q-word) is the second most frequently used form. Its

popularity ranks in the first place in 4 scenarios within all three Colleague contexts and in

80

the second place in two scenarios in different Colleague contexts and in different age
groups. The total frequency shows that the frequency of use of this form with the
younger group (11.56%) also outdoes that of the older group (8.47%).

It is interesting that though these two requesting forms were most frequently used
in several contexts studied, they were not used at all in some scenarios. That is, the # 6
requesting form was not used at all in the Colleague-2 context, the older Colleague-3
scenario, the younger Clerk-2 scenario, and the older Male Stranger scenario whereas the
# 14 requesting form was not used at all in all three Subordinate contexts and the Female
Stranger context. There is not enough information available for an explanation of this
phenomenon. However, there is another interesting phenomenon regarding the absolute
non-using of some requesting forms. According to Table 3.2, the absolute non-using of
the # 13, # 14, and # 21 requesting forms was observed in the Subordinate contexts and
the Female Stranger context. Strikingly, there might be a correlation in how they
similarly treated those who are lower in work status and females, the gender group that is
socially discriminated against in many cultures. This piece of evidence might be valuable
for a further study in gender, which, however, is not the focus of this study.

At this point, it is not obvious that the age of the addressees determines the
choice for the Thai requesting forms in this study until we take a closer look at the
rankings in Tables 3.4 and 3.5. Both tables show that the # 6 and the # 14 requesting
forms are at the top ranking in both age groups. In Table 3.2, the total frequency of use
shows that some Thai requesting forms other than the two top forms reflect the frequency

of use based on the age difference of the addressees. That is, the formal versions of the

81

requesting forms used with the younger group were used more with the older group; for
instance, the # 5 requesting form - the formal version of the # 6; the # 21 - the formal
version of the # 14, and the # 22 - the formal version of the # 19.

Table 3. 4 Rank of the Thai requesting forms most frequently used with the younger
interlocutors rn all scenarios studied.

 

Thai requesting forms Total Frequency Form #
1. (You) help + V 79 6
2. Subj+V+QW 71 14
3. Statement + Q markers [e.g., mai/reu plao] 35 19
4. (Subj) mp-kuan (you) + (help) + V 29 5
5. Subj + ask for + N 28 4
6. Imperative + mitigating terms [e.g., noi/si] 25 2

Table 3.5 Rank of the Thai requesting forms most frequently used with the older
interlocutors in all scenarios studied.

 

Thai requesting forms Total Frequency Form #

1. (You) help + V 73 6

2. Subj + v + QW 52 14

3. (Subj) rop-kuan (you) + (help) + V 51 5
[the formal version of # 6]

4. (I) don’t know [formal] + subj + V+ QW 48 21
[the formal version of # 14]

5. Subj + ask for + N 29 4

6. (I) don’t know [formal] + statement + Q-markers

[e.g,. mai/reu plao] 25 22

[the formal version of # I 9]
Moreover, the rankings in Tables 3.4 and 3.5 show that the formal forms, # 21 and # 22,
are not very common to use with the younger interlocutors. The total percentage in Table
3.2 shows that the frequency of use of both forms is greater with the older group than that
with the younger group. The rankings of most frequently used forms in Tables 3.4 and
3.5 shows that the # 5 requesting form, the formal version of the # 6 form, was used

across age groups and the total frequency of its use in Table 3.2 shows a tendency of its

82

use toward the older group (8.31%) over the younger group (4.72%). Comparing
contexts, it is clear that the frequency of the # 5 requesting form with the older group is
greater than with the younger group in every context where it was available. These three
formal forms along with their examples are displayed below:

1. the # 5 requesting form {(Subj) rop-kuan (you) + (help) + V}, which is the
formal version of the # 6 form {(Subj) help + V}- ‘rop-kuan’ is a formal word for
‘bother’; the less formal is the condensed form ‘kuan’.

Respondent # 11:

(in the Clerk-1 scenario - asking an older clerk to print a file)

 

(6) - the # 15 requesting form

Fee Kowit [a kin term for an older brother and a Thai name], khrub

(I) rfikuan (you) help look [or the file about the meeting on the 29‘“, noi,
kl'rub.

(in the Clerk-1 scenario - asking a Mtge; clerk to print a file)

(7) - the # 6 requesting form

Somboon [Thai name].

Help look tor the fle about the meeting on Feb 8, noi, khrub.

2. the # 21 requesting form {(I) don’t know [formal] + subj + V + Q—word},
which is the formal version of the # 14 requesting form (Subj + V + Q-word) - the formal
‘know’ in Thai is very polite and formal; the preceding clause makes the #14 form longer
and less direct. The formality of the # 21 form might be equated with the English

conventionally indirect expression ‘I wonder + Q-word + subj + V’.

83

Respondent # 21:

(in the Colleague-3 scenario - asking an o_lde_r_ colleague to tell the meeting time)

(8) - the # 21 requesting form

Phee Pong, khrub.

(I) don ’t know |formal| (we’ll) have a briefing at what time, khrub.

(in the Colleague-3 scenario - asking a mgr colleague to tell the meeting time)

(9) - the # 14 requesting form

Today, we’ll have a bri n at what time.

3. the # 22 requesting form {(I) don’t know [formal] + statement + Q-markers
[e.g., mai/reu plao]}, the formal version of the # 19 requesting form (statement + Q-
markers [e.g., mai/reu plao]

Like the # 21 requesting form, the use of the formal ‘know’ and the attachment of
the preceding clause make the # 19 form longer and less direct. The English equivalent of
this form is ‘I wonder if . . . ’.

Respondent # 17:

(in the Male Stranger scenario - asking an older male stranger to locate a fiiend)

(10) - the # 22 requesting form

Fee, k‘rub. Excuse me, na, k‘rub, p‘ee.

Phom [I] is looking for a fiiend called Sitthr'korn.

(I) don’t know |formal| ghee |you| know (him ), mai, k‘rub.

(in the Male Stranger scenario - asking a Lounger male stranger to locate a fiiend)

(11) - the # 19 requesting form

Excuse me, khrub.

84

Nong [you] know Sitflrjkorn,mgi, k‘mb.
All in all, the choice for formality obviously has a tendency toward the older group. Thus,
the age of the addressees more or less plays a role in determining the choice for the Thai
requesting forms in terms of their formality as well as their indirectness and length of
utterance.

In addition, a legitimate explanation to the choice for the # 21 requesting form
{(I) don’t know [formal] + subj + V + Q-word} in the older Colleague-3 scenario (i.e.,
asking an older colleague to tell the meeting time) is the formality of the setting (i.e., at
the workplace) where the request was made, together with the crucial need for the
information. Therefore, it is not surprising that most of the respondents chose the more
formal form (the # 21) for the older addressee and the less formal one (the # 14) for the
younger addressee in the Colleague-3 context. Moreover, the nature of the context itself
(i.e., asking about the upcoming meeting time at the office) is more formal than the other
contexts studied. The respondents were assumed to ask their older colleagues at work
about the meeting time. In the Thai military system, the older person is normally of a
higher rank. There is another factor, which must be considered, however, and that is job
responsibilities. There are occasions where people of differing ranks and ages may have
equal job responsibilities. In these circumstances they are considered colleagues of equal
work status regardless of rank or age. Examples of this are those assigned as teachers,
pilots, or nurses. In the context of Thai culture, since they have the same job
responsibilities, rank is not a dominant factor that would influence their responses. In a
minority of cases, some officers may be older even though they graduated fi'om the

academy later than others did. This would occur when these officers had to repeat a year

85

of instruction because of academic difficulties. Even in these circumstances, however, the
younger officers would still refer to their elders (who are even junior in rank) as ‘phee’
(the kin term for an older brother/sister). Also, some officers fi'om the same class may be
older than others because of the system for inducting new cadets since there is a range of
age between 14 and 18 years of age for new cadets to start at the academy. In these cases,
after graduation, even though their ranks are equal, the younger officers will refer to their
elders using the term, ‘p”ee’(see also the discussion in 4.3.1). The conclusion here is that
age rather than rank is the governing factor that determines their speech. This fact also
applies to relationships between persons of varying social status, for instance, a boss and
a clerk. The age as opposed to the social position is the overriding factor.

With regard to the use of the # 22 requesting form {(I) don’t know [formal] +
statement + Q-markers [e.g., mai/reu plao]}, Tables 3.2 and 3.3 show that it is not
commonly used in all the studied scenarios except for its highest frequency in the Male
Stranger context with both age groups. Its fi'equency in the five scenarios, where it was
used as well, is too low to be taken into consideration.

With reference to the use of the # 5 requesting form {(Subj) rop-kuan (you) +
(help) + V} with an older interlocutor rather than the # 6 requesting form {(Subj) help +
V}, the more common fornr, the basic structures of both forms are similar except for the
word choice. The only difference is the word ‘rop-kuan’ which is used in addition to the
structure as appeared in the # 6 requesting form to strengthen the degree of ‘kreng-jai’
(i.e., no intention to place the imposition on the other) and inevitably, the formality of the
# 5 requesting form is preferred to use with an older interlocutor in this particular context

to differentiate the distinction of the age groups.

86

In consideration of the choice for formality of the formal requesting forms with
the older group, Table 3.2 shows that the respondents made use of the formality to
differentiate the age groups. Apparently, in the three Subordinate contexts, the # 5 form
did serve this particular need. Normally, to give orders to someone whose work status is
lower and whose duty is to complete the task, the requester who has the authority need
not rely on formality. But in this case, most respondents were aware of the age difference
of the addressees in the given contexts. Some of them consulted themselves and thought
out loud during the recordings that they had to be polite because they wanted to get things
done, but the politeness had to be distinctive since the requestees were different in age.
Moreover, Respondent # 32 said in the interview that if he had a choice, he would rather
give orders to younger janitors because he felt more ‘kreng-jai’ to do so with the older.
This reflects that with his concern over the age of the addressees, he would differentiate
his speech accordingly; that is, he might either drop the orders or switch to more polite
requests with the older group. Similarly, Respondent # 14 said he would ‘tell’ the
younger (subordinates) but ‘ask’ the older, to do things. The switching in speech style
also occurred in the formulation of the Attention Getting part. Many respondents
creatively used ‘sir’ to serve their need for age discrimination even in the Subordinate
contexts where the addressees were either non-commissioned officers or non-ranking
personnel (see also the discussion in 4.3.2.4).

In conclusion, it cannot be denied that the age of the addressees does, to a certain
extent, determine the choice for the Thai requesting forms in terms of politeness in the

Request Head Act in this study.

87

4.2.3.2 The English requesting forms

The English data in this study reveal 19 requesting forms used by the Thai
respondents in their responses in the 8 requesting contexts (16 scenarios). Table 3.6
shows a list of the English requesting forms categorized into two major groups in terms
of their (in)directness. The direct requests consist of 3 affirmative forms whereas the
indirect requests consist of 3 affirmative forms and 13 interrogative forms.

According to Tables 3.7 and 3.8, the # 16 requesting form (i.e., yes-no questions
or wh-questions) was most frequently used in all eight scenarios within the four contexts
(e.g., the Colleague-2 and-3, the Clerk-2, and the Male Stranger contexts) regardless of
the age difference of the addressees. Conversely, it was not used at all in the other three
contexts (e.g., the Clerk-1, the Janitor, and the Female Stranger contexts). Within the
three contexts where the # 16 requesting form was not used at all, the # 1 requesting form
(the imperative with ‘please’) was the most frequently used in the Janitor (i.e., asking a
janitor to clean the wet floor) and the Female Stranger (i.e., asking a female stranger to
pass the sauce) contexts, regardless of the age difference of the addressee. In addition ,
the total frequency in Table 3.7 shows that the # 16 and the # 1 requesting forms tend to
be used with the younger group. The total percentage of fi'equency of use of the # 16
form is 15.65% with the younger group and 11.22% with the older group. That of the # 1
forms is 9.69% with the younger group and 9.01% with the older group. To a certain
extent, the age difference does show some effects on the choice for these two requesting
forms. The other context where the # 16 requesting form was not used at all is the Clerk-1
context (i.e., asking a clerk to print a file). In this context, the # 7 requesting form (Can

you/1.. .?) was the most frequently used with the younger group and the # 9 requesting

88

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90

form (Would/Could you please. . . ?) with the older group. At this point, the formality does
show its role. The fact that the # 9 form, like the # 8 form (Would/Could/W ill you/1.. .?)
is one of the formal versions of the # 7 requesting form, its frequency of use corresponds
with the age of the addressees. That is, the total frequency of use in Table 3.7 shows a
higher frequency of use toward the older group (10.20%) over the younger group
(6.80%). The ranking in Table 3.9 also shows the popularity of the # 7 requesting form in
the younger group and its least popularity among the most frequently used forms with the
older group. That is, it ranks the second in the younger group, but last in the older group.
This also supports its popularity of use with the younger group.

As a matter of fact, the # 7 requesting form (Can you/1...?) was the second most
frequently used in the 10 scenarios in all contexts except the Janitor one. That is, it was
the second most frequently used with the younger group (in 6 scenarios) in all Colleague
contexts, both Stranger contexts, and the Clerk-2 context. It was the second in use with
the older group (in 4 scenarios) in the Colleague-2, the Clerk-1, the Clerk-2, and the Male
Stranger context. Again, as being the second most frequently used form, the # 7
requesting form also is used more frequently toward the younger group. Thus, generally
in this study, the age of the addressees does have an effect on their choice for this

requesting form.

91

Table 3.9 Rank of the English requesting forms most frequently used with each age
group and the distinction of their frequency (Freq.) and percentage, and their

 

ranking
Form# English requesting forms Ranking Freq. % (n=588)
Y O Y 0 Y O

#16 Yes-no questions/wh-questions* 1 1 92 66 15.65 11.22

#7 Can you/1...? 2 5 66 50 11.22 8.50
(12 out of 66 in the younger group and 9 out of 50 in the older group ending with

‘please 9

#1 Imperative with ‘please’ 3 4 57 53 9.69 9.01

#8 Would/Could/Will/+you/I+V? 4 2 43 61 7.31 10.37
(15 out of 43 in the younger group and 34 out of 61 in the older group ending with

‘please ’)

#9 Would/Could/Will+you please+V? 5 3 40 60 6.80 10.20

 

(* no use at all in three contexts: the Clerk-1, the Janitor, the Female Stranger; 0 =
older addressees; Y = younger adressees; N = number of occurrences of the most

fiequently used requesting forms)

In consideration of the ranking in Table 3.9 above, all of the five most popular
requesting forms are the same groups except for the difference in their orders within the
age groups. Besides the # 16 requesting form which ranks at the top in both age groups,
the rest are in mixed order. Namely, the number two in the younger group ranks number
five in the older group. The number three in the younger group ranks number four in the
older group. Further, the number four in the younger group ranks number two in the older
group. Lastly, the number five in the younger group ranks number three in the older

group. In terms of the in/directness, the # 1 requesting form is the only form listed in the

92

direct request group and the rest of the requesting forms used with both age groups are
under the category of indirect requests. Thus, indirectness, which is perceived as an
indication of politeness in many cultures, does not show an inclination toward the older
group in particular. Nevertheless, the total percentage in Table 3.7 shows the preference
of the English requesting forms in one group over the other. Namely, the # 1 (the
imperative with ‘please’), the # 7 (Can you/I. . . ?), and the # 16 (Yes-no questions or wh-
questions) requesting forms were the choice for the younger group whereas the # 8

(W ould/Could/W ill you/1...?) and the # 9 (Would/Could you please. . . ?) requesting forms
were the choice for the older group. In CCSARP, the use of ‘Can I/you. . .?’ and ‘Could
I/you. . .?’ were put under the same category according to its conventional indirectness.
That is, they can serve two pragmatic interpretations: a standard requestive form or an
ability question. The only difference suggested between the use of ‘can’ and ‘could’ is
that the ‘could’ form may convey only the requestive interpretation whereas the ‘can’
form is more likely to convey both (see Blum-Kulka, 1989, p52 for detailed discussion).
On the other hand, the finding in this study suggests that these Thai learners of English
viewed these two forms as different in terms of the level of formality. The more polite
elements added, the more formality/politeness. Thus, ‘Would/Could you please. . . ?’ is
viewed as conveying a higher level of politeness than the other two forms.

One interesting phenomenon regarding request making in the English language by
the Thai respondents in this study is the use of a variety of patterns of the same category.
That is, all of the English requesting forms in the list except for the imperative form and
yes-no or wh-questions are under the category of the conventional request questions or

the so-called ‘query preparatory’ (the term used in CCSARP). With a fair amount of their

93

experiences in the use of English either through studying abroad or working with native
speakers of English in the FL/SL contexts, it explains why the Thai respondents are
familiar with these conventional request forms. Even so, the imperative form and ‘yes-no
or wh—questions’ are taught as a form of directives and basic interrogative forms
respectively at the beginner level. Likewise, most of the conventional forms are taught
and known to the Thai learners of English as an indication of formality and politeness.
Because of the limited speaking skills in the L2 (i.e., although studying abroad, speaking
is the least practiced of all the four skills), in the present study the respondents primarily
took the priority of the formality/politeness of the formulaic expressions rather than the
age of the addressees. There is a fair amount of use of the formal requesting forms with
the younger group as well. The data show that their choices for L2 strategies were limited
to what they had been taught in school rather than the variety of natural forms as
available to them in their L1 (see the discussion in 4.2.3.1). This is evidenced by the
variety of the structures of Thai requesting forms which outnumbered the English
requesting forms. In the Thai data, the top five requesting forms consisted of different
degrees of imperatives ranging fi'om imperatives with the directive mood (e. g., ordering)
to those with the modest requestive mood (e. g., asking by the use of the formal verb ‘rop-
kuan’), yes-no or wh-questions, and query preparatory which contains the formal
modifications of interrogative forms. In the English data, the top five requesting forms
mostly consisted of interrogative types (e. g., yes-no or wh-questions, conventional
request questions) and one type of imperatives with the help of a politeness marker
‘please’. To note, the Thai forms consisted of a more variety of complex structures than

the English ones. It is probable that the language used in communication and the in-

94

group/out-group relationships affect their L2 pragmatic behaviors. Namely, when
speaking in their native language to the in-groups (Thai speakers), the Thai respondents
tended to be more natural. However, when speaking in the L2 as a foreign language with
the out-groups (native speakers of the TL), the respondents tended to be primarily
concerned with getting the messages across rather than being appropriate pragmatically
(see also the discussion on pragmatic transfer in 4.5). Thus, they relied heavily on taught
formulaic expressions which made their speech sound less natural and productive. In the
interviews, many respondents admit that they do not know exactly what English
politeness is like, such as its varieties of use and form. Thus, as Respondent #19 said, “I
prefer to use routines. They are never wrong because they are taught in school”. This
also explains the popularity of use of the formulaic expressions in their English
performance. As a matter of fact, the property of their being ready-made forms outranks
their politeness property (i.e., being conventionally indirect) (see also the discussion
about the careful speech of their L2 in 4.2.1 on pp 19-21).

However, there is an interesting fact in the data in Table 3.9. That is, 34 out of the
total of 61, the # 8 requesting form (Would/Could/W ill you/1.. .?) was used with the
‘please’ ending. In Table 3.9. 1, if we categorize the # 8 requesting form with a ‘please’
ending under the same category of the # 9 requesting form (W ould/Could/W ill + you
please + V. . .?), that will add the total frequency of the # 9 requesting form up to 94
(15.98%) ranking the highest fi'equent in the older scenarios. Likewise, if we add the 15
times of the # 8 requesting form ending with ‘please’ to the original total of the # 9
requesting form (40), the total frequency of the # 9 requesting form in the younger

scenarios will add up to 55 (9.35%) which changes its ranking to number four. Therefore,

95

the total fiequency of the use of the # 9 requesting form in the older scenarios will be 39
(6.63%) more than in the younger scenarios. The difference is high enough to conclude
that in terms of the highest fi'equency of use, the # 9 requesting form, which is a
combination of the # 8 requesting form and the politeness marker ‘please’, is the
preferred use with the older interlocutors in contrast to the younger ones.

Table 3.9.1 Addition of the # 8 requesting form with ‘please’ to the # 9 requesting

 

form
Form # Frequency % (n=588)

Y 0 Y 0
# 8 with ‘please’ 15 34 2.55 5.78
# 9 40 60 6.80 10.20
# 9 and # 8 with ‘please’ 55 94 9.35 15.98

Similarly, in Table 3.7, the frequency of use of the # 9 requesting form, with no inclusion
of the # 8 requesting form ending with ‘please’, still appears higher in almost all of the
older scenarios except in only one context (the Male Stranger context), but the difference
is too little to take into consideration (only 1.3%). Similarly, the # 8 requesting form
(Would/Could/W ill you/I. . . ?), which is also a formal version of the # 7 requesting form
(Can you/I. . .?), was used more with the older interlocutors.

In conclusion, though the English requesting forms used by the Thai respondents
in this study are mostly routine formulas which were used across age groups, the
preference of some forms by one age group over the other was witnessed. Like the Thai

requesting forms, there is no clear-cut discrimination as to which form is used with which

96

age group. However, to a certain degree, the age of the addressees does determine the
choice for the requesting forms in the Request Head Act in both languages. In terms of
pragmatic transfer, the involvement of the age effects on the choice for the English
requesting forms implies a pragmatic transfer. The frequent use of the formulaic
expressions in the English data reflects their learning/acquisition of the L2 forms to a
certain degree. Pragmalinguistically, the reliance on such routines does not manifest their
creativity in their ILP, but sociopragrnatically, they were creative in a sense that they
made use of formality of the L2 forms to reflect their L1 seniority value.

The age effects seem to have a strong manifestation in both languages. Thus, it
calls for a further explanation as to how the age of the addressees affects the requestive
behaviors of the Thai respondents at least in the Thai language. As a result, it requires a
firrther investigation of the influence of the age of the addressees over their requestive
behaviors. The internal modifications were then investigated on this account (see the
discussion in 4.3).

4.2.4 Strategies in the Closing part

Like the Introductory part, ‘stating the necessity/problem’ was the strategy most
frequently used by the respondents in the Closing part in both languages whereas the
frequency of the other strategies was quite low. According to Tables 4.1 and 4.2, the Thai
data show that this strategy was the most frequently used in almost all of the requesting
contexts studied (13 scenarios) except for the Stranger contexts where ‘giving additional
information’ was the most frequently used in the older Male stranger scenario and
‘thanking’ was the most frequently used with both age groups in the Female Stranger

context.

97

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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According to Tables 4.3 and 4.4, the English data show that ‘stating the
necessity/problem’ was the most fiequently used in 8 scenarios: in all three subordinate
contexts, in the older Colleague-1 scenario, and in the younger Colleague-3 scenario.
Likewise, this strategy does not seem to be the popular choice for strangers; it was
employed by only two respondents in the older Male Stranger scenario and not used at all
in the rest of the Stranger scenarios. The variation of the strategies used in the Closing
part across age groups makes it difficult to find evidence for effects of the age of the
addressees over the choice of the English Closing strategies. However, the total
percentage of all the Closing strategies used in this study shows the tendency of use
toward the younger group (54.07% of the total). That is, when making English requests to
the older interlocutors, the respondents tended to leave their Request Head Acts open.
This practice is also shared in the Thai data in which the tendency to use the Closing
strategies is greater toward the younger group (55.98% of the total). There is inadequate
information to explain such age-based behavior in this study, though.

There is no clear evidence that such similar behaviors in both languages is a result
of a pragmatic transfer. Nor is there clear evidence of their creativity in their Closing
behaviors. Nevertheless, the age difference of the addressees does manifest its effects on
the Closing behaviors of these respondents in request making. The following section is a
further investigation for more evidence for the influences of the age of the addressees on
the requestive behaviors of these respondents. It is a manifestation of the effects of the
age of the addressees in a different aspect of their requestive behaviors. In the earlier
sections, the external modifications (i.e., the help of strategies in the Attention Getting,

the Introductory, and the Closing parts) for the Request Head Acts were investigated as

100

well as the Request Head Acts themselves. Next, the internal modifications (embedded
within the Head Acts in particular and in the other parts) were then investigated.
4.3 The internal modifications

The internal modifications in the responses include the use of pronouns as age-
based pronominal references, and lexical downgraders (e.g., politeness markers,
understaters, and downtoners). Some of these elements were absent from the English data
such as the use of age-based pronouns.

4.3.1 Age-based pronominal references

Though most of the contexts studied were situated in the workplace, Table 5.1
shows that the Thai respondents in this study did use kin terms which are age-based to
refer to themselves and to address the addressees in the Thai data. According to the
interview data, many respondents admitted that the use of kin terms with people whom
they worked with, especially the subordinates, helped bridge the gap between them.
Being fi'iendly and not pretentious makes subordinates willing to work for them. Even
though Respondent # 19, for instance, admitted in the interview that he was concerned
that using kin terms with subordinates might be viewed as fraternization, he, in the
recorded questionnaires, did use kin terms to address the interlocutors in the Thai
subordinate contexts. Moreover, there is evidence that one respondent (Respondent # 30)
simply used the kin term ‘uncle’ with an older janitor in the English data. Respondent #
36 said that during his technical training in the US, he felt uncomfortable calling his
trainer who was much older than he by his first name though he knew it was their culture
to do so. He then called that trainer ‘uncle’. He added, “With farangs (a Thai term for

Westerners) who work with us in Thailand, we usually call them with the Thai title

101

  

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102

noun ‘khun’ together with their names.” Explicitly, the formality of ‘khun’ is to show
respects to foreigners. Irnplicitly, it shows their attempt to enhance their relationships
with foreigners by assigning a Thai title noun to their foreign names even when
performing an L2. This supports two common claims about Thais: their reputation of
friendliness and their concern for close relationships.

4.3.1.1 The use of first-person singular pronouns

Unlike the English personal pronouns, the first-person singular pronouns in the
Thai language are definitely associated with the age difference between the two
interlocutors together with the gender difference. As observed in Table 5.1, the Thai
personal pronouns used in this study to refer to the addresser itself was a selection of
‘phom’, ‘p ee’, or ‘a (work) title noun. Since all the respondents were male, the gender-
based pronoun ‘phom’ is used and the kin term ‘phee’ is used to refer to an older speaker
regardless of gender. The (work) title noun here is unique for this study because it
appeared in three cases that some military ranks were used to refer to the speakers
themselves.

The data in Table 5.1 show that the pronoun ‘phee’ was absolutely a term used to
refer to the speakers themselves when speaking to the younger interlocutors, never to the
older ones. The pronoun ‘phee’ was used to signify that in a particular speech event the
addresser is older than the addressee. However, the gender-based pronoun ‘phom’ was
used to refer to the speakers themselves when speaking with interlocutors of both age
groups. Thus, in this particular event, the age difference of the interlocutors cannot be

predicted.

103

Respondent # 17:

(in the younger Female Stranger scenario)

(12)

Nong, k‘a.

fig [1] rop-kuan (you) help pass the sauce to p:e_e [me], noi, k‘rub.

Respondent # 47:

(in the older Clerk-1 scenario)

(13)

Fee [You], khrub.

Help print this out for m [me], noi, khrub.

PL.” [1] need (it) very urgently.

According to the highest frequency (in boldface) shown in. Table 5.1, the pronoun
‘phee’ was most preferred to be used with the younger interlocutors in all scenarios
except for the Male Stranger context where most of the respondents preferred to use the
pronoun ‘phom’ with the younger interlocutors, instead. Interestingly, in the Stranger
context as well, most of the respondents preferred to refer to themselves with the kin term
‘p ee’ to the younger female interlocutors (see the example by Respondent # 17 above).
Their preference of using kin terms with younger females over males implies that they
like to show their tenderness and intimacy toward the young and vulnerable, especially
the female group. With the older interlocutors in all of the requesting contexts studied, all
of the respondents used the pronoun ‘phom’ to refer to themselves with no other

competitive choice.

104

In conclusion, the findings reveal that in this study the pronoun ‘phom’ was
always the choice for the first-person singular pronoun used by the respondents when
their interlocutors were older, and the kin term ‘p ee’, the most frequent choice for the
younger. Therefore, the age of the addressees does play a role in determining such
choices.
4.3.1.2 The use of second-person singular pronouns

Unlike English, Thai has a variety of the second-person singular pronouns; and
kin terms which are age and gender based, are among the top pronouns (see also the
discussion in 2.7.1). According to Table 5.2, kin terms proved to be the most preferred by
the respondents in almost all of the total of 143 cases except for the use of proper names
in 6 cases, the use of the (work) title nouns (e.g., military ranks) in 3 cases and the use of
the very formal ‘you’ (e.g., thaan) in 2 cases.

According to Table 5.2, the kin term ‘phee’, which is used to refer to an older
addressee, was used to address the older interlocutors in this study as well and was the
most frequently of all the pronouns (49.65%) in all three older Colleague scenarios and
the two older Clerk scenarios. The most preferred choices for the second-personal
pronoun addressing the older interlocutors in the other three contexts are as follows: the
kin term ‘lung’ as equivalent to the English ‘uncle’ most preferred in the older Janitor

scenario, the title ‘khun’+ a kin term most preferred in the older Male Stranger scenario,
and the kin term ‘paa’ as equivalent to the English ‘aunt’ most preferred in the older
Female Stranger scenario. Again, it is interesting that kin terms were used even with

older strangers in both gender groups.

105

 

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106

Respondent # 42:

(in the younger Male Stranger scenario)

(14)

Mung [younger brother], khrub. Excuse me, khrub.

Pie [1] would like to rop-kuan (you), noi, khrub.

Egg [1] would like to know [formal] that w [you] know mai.

In the total of 143 cases where pronouns were not omitted, the kin term ‘nong’
was the top choice for the younger interlocutors (16.08%), except for one use of a (nick)
name in the younger Colleague-1 scenario, one use of a (military) title noun in the
younger Clerk-2 scenario, and 5 uses of (nick) names in the younger Clerk-l scenario. It
is interesting to note here that an ellipsis of both the first-person and second-person
singular pronouns is very common in Thai speech. The following are two instances found
in the study.

Respondent # 1:

(15)

(You) have coins for an exchange, mai, khrub.

Respondent # 3:

(16)

P‘orn rop-Ituan... p‘om is looking for a friend named Montri.

(I) don’t know [formal] (you) know (him), mai, k‘rub.

The pronouns in parentheses in both instances were omitted. An ellipsis of
pronouns is understood within the context where there are only two interlocutors

involved. In the first instance, Respondent # I intended to ask his interlocutor “Do you

107

have any change?”, and in the second instance, Respondent #3 intended to ask his
interlocutor “I was wondering if you knew him”.

To conclude, wherever pronouns are in use, the use of kin terms, which is age and
gender based, is most common in Thai speech. The findings reveal that the kin terms
were used to refer to the speakers themselves and to their interlocutors in the contexts
where their interlocutors were those who worked with them and worked for them in the
work place or even strangers regardless of gender difference. Besides gender, the use of
pronouns in Thai speech is signified by the age difference of both interlocutors regardless
of social status. In other words, the age difference of both interlocutors can be easily
identified by the choice for pronouns in each utterance, but not as obviously in the case of
the social status of the interlocutors. There is no evidence for age effects, pragmatic
transfer, or creativity through the use of first- and second- personal pronouns in their ILP.
But the evidence for learning/acquisition is obvious through their awareness of the
pronominal use limited to ‘I’ for the first-person singular pronoun and ‘you’ for the
second-person singular pronoun.

4.3.2 Lexical downgraders

The distribution of the data in this section was too skewed due to no use of the
lexical downgraders by the preponderance of the respondents within one age group over
the other in several requesting contexts. Apparently, the mean value might not be a good
choice for measurement. As a consequence, the percentage was chosen to be the choice
for measurement, instead.

In this study, there were three types of lexical downgraders used by the Thai

respondents:

108

l. politeness markers (e.g., the use of the male polite ending particle, ‘khrub’ in
their Thai speech; and the politeness marker, ‘please’ and the address terms, ‘sir’,
‘ma’am, and ‘madam’ in their English speech)

2. understaters (e.g., noi, noi na, noi si in Thai speech), and

3. downtoners (e. g., na, si in Thai speech)
4.3.2.1 The use of ‘khrub’ as a Thai politeness marker for male speakers

According to Table 6.1, the total percentage of the use of the politeness marker
for Thai male speakers shows a. very high tendency toward the older group (72.01%) over
the younger group (27.99%) and so does the fiequency in each of the contexts studied.

Table 6.1 Total frequency and percentage of the use of ‘khrub’

 

 

 

 

 

‘k‘rum
(n= 1004)
Age group Y 0
Total frequency 281 723
Total percentage 27.99 72.01

 

(Y = younger addressees; 0 = older addressees)

Within all the requesting contexts where the use of ‘khrub’ was significantly more
frequent with the older interlocutors, the percentage difference in Table 6.2 ranges from
16% (with strangers) to 82% (with colleagues). The more extensive use of this politeness
marker with the older group emphatically indicates their concern with age difference.
This trend can be observed even with people of lower status.

Respondent # 46:

(in the younger Janitor scenario)

(17)

Er. ..nong [younger brother].

109

In asecondortwo, helplookatthisarea, noisi.

(It’s) still wet.

(in the older Janitor scenario)

(18)

P'ee [pseudo-older brother], m

This area is still mom.

P‘ee [you] is busy, moi, m.

In a second or two, if not, help wipe out this area for p‘orn [me], noi.

In considering both of the Stranger contexts, the respondents tended to be as
polite to strangers with less concern of the age difference because the fiequency
difl‘erence between both age groups is only -16%, which is much less than that in the
other contexts (see Table 6.2). Nevertheless, it cannot be denied that the frequency of use
is greater toward the older group as well. Therefore, in varied contexts, it is legitimate to
say that the respondents almost always made use of the politeness marker ‘khrub’ as a
device to emphasize the degree of politeness toward the older group. This finding
supports that seniority is a basic value in the Thai society and determines their choice for
politeness strategies.
4.3.2.2 The use of the politeness marker ‘please’ and the address terms ‘sir’,
‘ma’am’ and ‘madam’ to strengthen politeness in the English requests

In this study, there exist only one type of lexical downgraders used in the English
responses; namely, politeness markers (see 1.1.2, p. 25). There were two types of
elements used by the Thai respondents to express politeness: (l) the (conventional)

politeness marker ‘please’ and (2) the address terms ‘sir’, ‘ma’am’, and ‘madam’.

110

  

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111

Similar to the Thai data as discussed in 4.3.2.1, the frequency of use of the
English politeness particles shows a very high fiequency of use toward the older groups
in all of the eight contexts studied, although the percentage in Table 6.3 shows that the
frequency difference of use of the politeness marker ‘please’ in both age groups is not
very high in most contexts. There were only three contexts (e. g., the Colleague-2, the
Colleague-3, and the Clerk-2 contexts) where the difference of frequency between the
age groups is quite high (i.e., between the range of 30 to 36). Yet, the total percentage in
Table 6.4 does show the tendency of its use toward the older group (56.62%)
nevertheless.

Table 6.4 Total frequency and percentage of the use of the English politeness

 

 

 

 

 

 

markers
‘please’ ‘sir’ ~ ‘ma’am’lmadam
(n= 385) (n=157) (n=3l)
Age group Y O Y O Y 0
Total frequency 167 218 19 138 3 27
Total percentage % 43.38 56.62 12.10 87.90 10 90

 

(Y = younger addressees; 0 = older addressees)

However, the use of the address term ‘sir’ as a politeness marker in this study was
more apparently preferred for use with the older group rather than with the younger group
in all the eight contexts. The total frequency in Table 6.4 shows that the term was used
87.90% with the older and 12.10% with the younger. The fiequency difference (as shown
in Table 6.3) between the age groups in all the three Colleague contexts and the Male
Stranger context was quite high (i.e., between the range of 54 to 94). In the same table,
within the three Subordinate contexts, this address term was always used with the older

group. In other words, there is no use at all with the younger interlocutors in these

112

 

contexts. Interestingly, the respondents in this study used the address term ‘sir’ even with
their subordinates when the age of the addressees was involved.

Respondent # 36:

(in the older Clerk-1 scenario)

(19)

Excuse me, sir.

Uh.. .I just lost my meeting report.

And...can I bother you uh...for the copy of the report, please?
In this case, proficiency does not seem to play its role. Respondent # 36 is one of the
most proficient learners of English in this group, especially, his speaking skill. He got
straight As in English throughout five years of study. He was an exchange student in New
Zealand for one year before he entered the academy and got a master’s degree in
Computer Science in the US. after the academy. He also took some training courses in a
company in Maryland and took additional English courses at the British Council in
Bangkok. He has a gift for learning a foreign language. During a casual talk at the
academy, he told me that he was studying Japanese on his own and took a Japanese
proficiency test at a licensed language center and his Japanese back then was at level
eight. Part of his routine work deals with writing English correspondence for the Royal
Thai Air Force to the English speaking companies from which the Air Force purchases
the equipment for air operations control. Likewise, Respondent # 19, who took a one-year
pilot instructor course in an American air base in the US, admitted in the interview that
he kept using ‘sir’ with non-commissioned officers despite being told by his American

friends that it was not right to do so. He added that by not using ‘uncle’ with older

113

farangs, he used ‘sir’, instead. To him, age is a very sensitive matter. He has been brought
up in a very good and upper-class family. His father was a former Air Commander-in-
Chief. His sister, who is a good fi'iend of mine, is also very polite and modest. Both of
them treat people by their seniority in age, not by their social status.

In addition, there were two respondents who used the term ‘sir’ with older female
interlocutors as well. Below is one example:

Respondent # 45:

(in the older Female Stranger scenario)

 

(20)

Excuse me, sr_’r.

Can you give some sauce for me.
As a result, it can be concluded that the address terms ‘sir’ and ‘ma’am’ or ‘madam’ were
used by the Thai respondents to strengthen the degree of politeness in their requestive
behaviors rather than to address a person in some cases. The need to express politeness
outdoes the gender property of such terms or even their actual functions as being address
terms. Their formality was used as a device for politeness manifestation. To point out
here, the term ‘sir’ in particular was perceived as a politeness indicator rather than an
address term by these respondents and was employed by these particular respondents to
function like the Thai politeness marker ‘khrub’. To support this assumption, there is
evidence that most textbooks used in the EFL classes in many elementary schools in
Thailand usually provide examples of English sentences within the male-to-male
contexts. This makes Thai learners more familiar with this term than the terms for female

addressees like ‘ma’am’ or ‘madam’. The slip of the tongue is always witnessed despite

114

the fact that the different usage of the male and female address terms is taught later in
school. Another explanation of the mismatch of the term ‘sir’ might result from the
different emphasis of the Thai politeness marker ‘khrub’ and the English address term
‘sir’ within the two languages. Though they are both gender-oriented, the Thai marker is
based on the gender of the speaker (i.e., the marker for male speakers) whereas the
English marker is based on that of the addressee. Thus, the Thai respondents who used
the term ‘sir’ to address a female interlocutor in a given context were likely to apply the
use of the Thai ‘khrub’ to their English pragmatic performance. In addition to the earlier
discussion about the instances in the textbooks, the terms ‘sir’ and ‘khrub’ are lined up in
parallel in the Thai translation version of those instances. This increases the confusion
and perhaps results in the overgeneralization or misuse of the address term ‘sir’ because
most Thai learners of English as an L2 probably assume that the address term ‘sir’ means
and firnctions the same as the politeness marker ‘khrub’. I must admit that I myself as a
learner of English in the FL context used to think so for quite some time. Again, this
explains why the Thai respondents in this study used the term ‘sir’, despite the maximum
frequency of use toward the older interlocutors, with the younger ones as well because
many of them perceive the term ‘sir’ as a politeness marker regardless of the age
difference in many cases and gender difference in some cases. One might argue that the
excessive use of the term ‘sir by these respondents was due to their military character.
With reference to the informal interviews with some Thai civilians, they used the term

‘sir’ to express their politeness as well, but not as often as the military do.

115

Despite knowing the form and the usage of the English formulaic expressions,
many respondents admitted that they do not know distinctions of levels of English
politeness. In other words, they do not know exactly how to be properly polite in
English. They have learned that those expressions are polite forms, but do not know
exactly when to use each of them, or to be more specific, which form to use with a
particular type of person in a particular circumstance. Their confiision suggests that they
are concerned about a major characteristic of Thai pragmatic behaviors, which is the
concern over the age difference of the interlocutors. They need a clue or some indexes of
the age difference in the linguistic domains, which, to their knowledge, are absent in
English. To compensate for what is missing, they rely on their own creativity. The use of
the address term ‘sir’ is a good example. Once the respondents estimate the age of the
addressees in terms of the range of difference between theirs and the addressees’, they
vary the level of their politeness accordingly. For instance, to use ‘excusing’ to call for
attention fi'om individuals, they tend to keep their politeness manifestation asymmetrical
on an age basis by attaching ‘sir’ to ‘excusing’ when communicating with an older
individual and none to a younger one. This suggests that the need to keep the level of
their politeness asymmetrical outdoes the importance of the gender property and the
general usage of the term (i.e., to address a male person of higher status formally). This
explains why sometimes some respondents used the term ‘sir’ with people of lower work
status (e. g., janitors) or even female addressees despite knowing the rules.

Age of the addres
/' “'\

(older) (younger)
Age of the addressee I <———> Age of the addressee 11

Figure 1 Age difference

116

The redundant use of the politeness marker ‘please’ within the same sentence also
shows the creativity of the respondents to negotiate their way to fulfil their need for
politeness. For instance, Respondent # 25, in his Request Head Act in the older Clerk-l
scenario (i.e., asking an older clerk to print a file), he said, “Would you PM print the
report again, pleas_e?”. To his awareness, the form ‘Would you please. . . 7’ is more polite
than ‘Can you. . . 7’. Therefore, with the younger clerk in the same context, he chose to say
“Can you print this report?” and switched to the more formal form with the older (i.e.,
Would you please ...?). This instance confums that at least this particular Thai speaker is
concerned with the age difference of the person he is talking to. As being a non-native
speaker of English, he is concerned that his politeness might not be enough so he adds
another ‘please’ in the final position to confirm his politeness. Another legitimate reason
is that Thais are accustomed to ending a polite sentence with an ending politeness marker
(e. g., khruh). Since such marker is missing in English, Thai Learners of English find a
way to substitute another English politeness marker known to them, which in this case is
‘please’, for its absence. This is to serve their own need; that is, to guarantee that the
bearer is aware of his intended politeness. Most of the respondents agreed that as
nonnative speakers with limited knowledge of English politeness, they are very
concerned about their L2 politeness. Redundancy serves to strengthen the degree of their
politeness. In this regard, the pragmatic transfer is also witnessed through its involvement
in their creativity. Their creativity also reflects the internalized learning process of these

L2 learners, in which native-like L2 pragmatics is not yet acquired.

117

4.3.2.3 The use of ‘noi’ as an understater in ‘noi’, ‘noi si’, ‘noi na’ to minimize parts
of the proposition

The term ‘noi’ has a literal meaning equivalent to ‘a little bit’ in English. The
term was used by these respondents to soothe their requestive propositions. It might stand
by itself or co-exist with other mitigating terms such as ‘na’ and ‘si’. With the older
interlocutors, the respondents tended to accompany the term with the politeness marker
‘khrub’.

Respondent # 49:

(in the younger Janitor scenario)

(21)

Nong Win [a kin term + Thai name].

Find something to wipe out this water, Lt_0_i si.

According to the frequency in Table 6.5, the understater ‘noi’ was obviously most
frequently used in all of the three Subordinate contexts and in the Female Stranger
context. The percentage shows higher frequency of use toward the younger group in five
contexts. However, the frequency difference in most contexts except for the two contexts
(e. g., the Clerk-1 and the Male Stranger contexts) is too small in quantity to take into
account. Likewise, though the total percentage in Table 6.6, which also shows the
tendency of use toward the younger, the percentage difference between the two age
groups is not high enough to claim a preference of use. Thus, the age of the addressees
does not seem to have a major impact on the use of the understater ‘noi’ in varied
situational contexts. To note, the understater ‘noi’ was never used with the older without

the politeness marker ‘khrub’ in this study.

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119

4.3.2.4 The use of ‘na’ and ‘si’ as downtoners in an urging manner

The terms ‘na’ and ‘si’ in Thai are used to strengthen their precedents. In a
request, the term ‘na’ is used to add a sense of a humble urge and the term ‘si’, a sense of
a little more forceful urge to it. When both terms are accompanied with the politeness
marker ‘khrub’ like in ‘na khrub’ and ‘si khrub’, the lengthening makes the components
sound soothing to the addressee’s ears.

The data suggest that the urging sense of these two terms causes less frequent use
of them with the older group (see also Table 6.5). Namely, in this study the term ‘na’ was
used more frequently with the younger group in all the contexts except for the Clerk-2
context in which the frequency in both age groups is only one different or 20% more with
the older group. Table 6.6 shows the total percentage of use with the younger group
(60.45%) over the older group (39.55%). Likewise, the term ‘si’,which has a little more
forceful sense, was evidently found no use at all with the older group in all the three
Colleague contexts and the Male Stranger context. Where it was used with the older, the
frequency of use was at a very low level. The maximum frequency was oriented toward
the younger group in the rest of the contexts except for the Clerk-2 and the Female
Stranger contexts where the frequency of use between both age groups was equal but
very low (namely, 3 and 1 respectively). All in all, the total percentage in Table 6.6
shows the high frequency of its use toward the younger group (74.19%) over the older
group (25.80%). Below are examples of the use of ‘si’ and ‘na’ found in the study.

Respondent # 41:

(in the younger Janitor scenario)

120

(22)

Num, num [young man].

Goandlookatdtewaterin themeetingroom, twig.

It’s dirty.

Wipe (it) out, noi M.

Respondent # 47:

(in the younger Colleague-1 scenario)

(23)

Nong.

Once again, it

P‘ee [r] can ’t hear (you) very well.

To conclude, among the Thai lexical downgraders used in. this study, the
understater ‘noi’ and the downtoners ‘na’ and ‘si’ were found used across age groups, but
more fiequently with the younger group. When used with the older group, they usually
appeared in association with the politeness marker ‘khrub’. For instance, when the term
‘na’ was used with the older group, it was used in association with ‘khrub’ 40 out of 53
times (about 75%) in all the contexts studied. Note as well that the politeness marker
‘khrub’ a downgrader, was used significantly more with the older group more than the
younger group (as discussed in 4.3.2.1).

4.4 Conclusions to the effects of the age of the addressees on the choice for politeness
strategies and their internal modifications

The age of the addressees does affect the choice for Thai and English politeness

strategies to some extent. The effects of the age difference were apparent in the choice of

121

strategies in the Attention Getting part and the Request Head Act part in which the formal
forms were chosen to use mostly with the older interlocutors. Its effects on the choice of
strategies in the Introductory and the Closing parts are not as evident. The strategies were
used across age groups and the frequency difference was only minimal. However, the
effects of the age of the addressees were most obvious where the internal modifications
exist, primarily in the respondents’ L1 requestive behaviors rather than in their L2. This
distinction might result from their limited oral skill of the L2; thus, their L2 did not
appear as natural as their L1, as evidenced in the frequent use of the routine formulas in
their L2. Because of the heavy reliance on learned formulaic expressions, the creative use
or transfer via the use of the internal modifications” in their L2 was minimally detected in
these types of requesting contexts which call for only an initiation of request making, not
a whole negotiating interchange in a larger discourse. The next topic for discussion is an
investigation of the age effects on length of utterance.
4.5 Length of utterance as a measure for politeness

Indirectness in the illocution in many cultures is used as a strategy to portray
politeness in many verbal interchanges. Indirectness can be observed in two aspects: the
indirect nature of the utterance itself (e.g., hints) and length of utterance to accomplish a
pragmatic goal. The indirectness embedded within the content of the messages such as
the use of hints is not the major characteristic of Thai speech. Therefore, in this section,
the length of utterance elicited by the Thai respondents in both languages studied is solely
discussed. As discussed earlier, the nature of the request making found in this study is a
one-tum utterance. In one utterance turns, the respondents may produce more than One

strategy in support of the Request Head Act in order to fulfil their intended goals. In a

122

culture where directness in request making might not be considered quite proper, an
attempt by the addresser to show his/her concerns over the imposition on the addressee is
more common and their effort is perceived as a politeness strategy. This concept can be
witnessed in a lengthy utterance which consists of a number of strategies in one request
making. In this section, to measure the length of utterance, the number of all the
strategies performed by the respondents in one-turn utterances was counted (see also
Tables 7 .2, 7.3, 7 .4, and 7 .5). The strategies which are taken into consideration are the
strategies listed in the four parts in the requestive pattern as discussed earlier in 4.1.1 and
strategies under the category of the internal modifications (e. g., the use of politeness
markers, understaters, and downtoners). The counting is shown in an example below:

Respondent # l4:

( in the Thai data in the older Clerk-1 scenario- asking anwolder clerk to print a
file)

(24)

Ah, excuse me, na khrub.

Well, (it) happen that p‘ee [I] lose ah the meeting report.

P‘ee [I] can ’tfind (it).

(I) rop-kuan [bother] nong [you] to help print out for p‘ee [me], noi [a little bit].

The data that (I) mention [past].
Wote: parentheses are for ellipsis; square brackets are for English meaning; phee = an

older brother/sister; nong = a younger brother/sister; no verb conjugation in 771m)

123

Table 7.1 Counting guidelines for measuring the length of utterance

 

 

haggaljnguistic Components Strategies Unit of Counts
excuse me ................................. ‘excusing’ 1
na ........................................... ‘downtoner’ 1
khrub ....................................... ‘politeness marker for

male speakers’ 1
Well, (it) happen that phee lose ah
...the meeting report ..................... ‘stating the problem’ 1
Phee can’t find (it) ........................ ‘giving additional information’ 1
(I) rop-kuan nong to help print out
...for phee, ................................. ‘Request Head Act’ 1
noi .......................................... ‘understater’ 1
The data that (I) mention ................ ‘confirming the want’ 1

 

This response hereby consists of 8 strategies; thus, its length of utterance is 8.

According to Table 7 .3, the mean values suggest that the length of Thai utterances
increases in accordance with the increase of age of the addressees in all of the requesting
contexts studied. Likewise, the mean values in Table 7 .5 suggest the use of longer
utterances in the English requests toward the older group over the younger groups in all
of the requesting contexts studied. Table 7.2 shows the overall mean length of utterance
in both age groups and in both languages. The overall mean length of utterance also
suggests that longer utterances were used toward the older group in both languages.
Moreover, the table demonstrates that the Thai requests were longer than the English
ones for each age and in the total of both age groups.

These findings reveal that, in consideration of the length of utterance, the Thai
respondents in this study were all aware of the age difference of their interlocutors when
making a request in both their L1 and L2. This suggests that there exists a pragmatic

transfer in terms of the age effects over the length of their utterances as well.

124

Table 7.2 Overall mean of the average length of utterance by age groups

 

 

 

 

 

 

Age groups Thai English
Younger 4.195 2.565
Older 5.723 3.575
Total (Younger and 4.959 3.070
Older)

 

The next section is a discussion about transfer which is a prominent feature of the
respondents’ ILP.
4.6 L1 transfer

This section displays three types of L1 transfer found in this study. They are
lexical transfer, structural transfer, and pragmatic/cultural transfer. The first two types of
transfer were discussed briefly since they are not the focus of this study.
4.6.1 Lexical transfer
4.6.1.1 The use of the verb ‘to help’

As discussed in 4.2.3.1, the most frequently used requesting form in the Request
Head Act part in the Thai responses was “Help + V”. Thus, it is not surprising to find the
use of this form in the respondents’ English requestive performances. The transfer of the
use of this form to the L2 performance is exemplified below:

Respondent # 5:

(Asking an older clerk to print a file)

(25)

Excuse me, Alerhn.

I’m lost my document

Would you help me to print out another one copy, please.

125

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127

(Asking a younger janitor to clean the wet spot)
(26)

M [name]

I found the water spilled on the floor.

Could you h_elp me to clean up the floor, please.
Respondent # 6:

(Asking an older clerk to print a file)

(27)

Could you do me a favor, please?

Could you My me with this copy?

(Asking a (younger/older) janitor to clean the wet spot)
(28)

Could you help me clean this floor, please?
Respondent # 31:

(Asking an older female stranger to pass the sauce)
(29)

Excuse me, please.

I would like to you to lglp me pass the ketchup.

The respondents used this form without being aware of the embedded meaning that can

be applied. That is, to ask someone in English to ‘help’ oneself to do something implies

that the speaker is expected to do that job, too. So it sounds awkward or even ambiguous

to ask a janitor to clean the floor by using the English expression ‘help me’. It is

noticeable that in request making or giving an order by a superior to a subordinate

128

responsible for the job in this study, the respondents tended to involve themselves in the
job responsibility as if it were their own. In most Janitor instances, many respondents
asked the janitor to do the job by stressing ‘. . .for me.’ In the designed contexts, the
respondents were not responsible for the cleanliness of the meeting room. No one would
blame them for the mess. It is not unusual that they had a strong group-oriented mind.
Rather, it is interesting that they involved the self-responsibility into their speech even
though the request was not meant to serve their own personal needs. This pragmatic trait
might cause confusion to learners of Thai as an L2.
4.6.1.2 The use of the verb ‘bother’ and ‘disturb’ as equivalent to the Thai verb
‘rop-kuan’

Respondent # 17:

(Asking a younger clerk to print a file)

(30)

Excuse me.

I have to M you about the printing report.

I lost it yesterday.

Iwantyou tocopy anewoneforme.

(as compared to his Thai response to the same scenario below)

(31)

Nong. Excuse me, na.

It happens that phee [I] lose the meeting report.

P"ee [I] rgzkuan nong [you] to help print another copy for p"ee [me], dai mai.

129

(Asking an older male stranger to locate a friend)
(32)

Would you mind I want to disturb you...

 

Uh I want to ..uh..looking for my friend Sitthikorn.

Have you seen him around here.

Respondent # 36:

(Asking an older clerk to print a file)

(33)

Excuse me, sir.

Uh. ..I just lost my meeting report

And..can I bother you uh...for the copy of the report, please?

(Asking an older clerk for some change)

(34)

Excuse me, sir.

Can I w you for a change for a dollar bill, please?
4.6.1.3 The use of the word “bank” referring to a bank note in the Clerk-2 context

Respondent # 28:

(35)

I would like to exchange my M5.

Do you have any coin?

Thank you.

130

The respondent used the word ‘bank’ in his responses to both age groups in the
Clerk-2 context. The word ‘bank’ in Thai is a loan word from English. It is used to refer
to either a bank or a bank note.
4.6.1.4 The use of the verb ‘to send’ meaning ‘to pass’ in the Female Stranger
context (i.e., asking an older female stranger to pass the sauce at the dinner table)

Respondent # 42:

(36)

Excuse me, madam.

Could you please m sauce for me?

Respondent # 44:

(3 7)

Sony.

Would you mind to m me that sauce.
4.6.1.5 The use of the verb ‘to meet’ meaning ‘to find something’ in the Janitor
context (i.e., asking a younger janitor to clean the wet spot)

Respondent # 2:

(3 8)

Hey, man?

I M the water on the floor?

I think it may be slip.

You can dofor the dryfloor?

131

4.6.2 Structural transfer

Respondent # 32:

(39) - the English response in the younger Colleague-l scenario

Again?

What time.

In his T_ha_i response to the same scenario, he said,

(40)

What time (is it), no.

(I) don ’t hear (you) at all.

Thai speakers tend to omit subjects or objects in sentences especially when they
are impersonal pronouns. It makes this question look like an interrogative phrase. The
phrase ‘What time.’ is very common in this particular context (i.e., asking a colleague to
repeat the time). This may result in the use of the incomplete question form in his English
response to this context.

4.6.3 Pragmatic/cultural transfer

To begin with, the term ‘transfer’ needs to be clarified. In this paper, ‘transfer’
has two uses: the direct transfer (borrowing) as evident in the linguistic transfer displayed
above and the ‘processed’ transfer which is a result of the learners’ creativity. The
language phenomena, the outcome of the latter type, reflect a complex internalized
process within the learners’ mind to cope with their inadequate pragmatic knowledge of
the L2 pragmatics. Such creative processes may include troubleshooting, borrowing,
debating, adjusting, justifying, deciding, and testing. Namely, they locate the problems

and negotiate their way to finding a resolution of what they think is most appropriate in

132

particular circumstances, what will serve their communicative needs, and most important,
what they feel comfortable with. Partly, they may borrow some Ll forms or rules and
debate them with their existing L2 knowledge. Then they might adjust them and convince
themselves that the form they have created is appropriately right before making a
decision to test it in their L2 performance. It is not only the (pragmalinguistic) forms that
are not available to their conscious awareness but also the sociopragmatic rules or use of
the L2. Thus, the reliance on their L1 sociopragmatic knowledge inevitably reflects some
cultural borrowings, such as the value system, cultural identity, and so on.

The evidence of the learner’s creativity via pragmatic transfer has been discussed
throughout this chapter. This section is then a specific discussion of two prominent
features (i.e., the use of ‘please’ and ‘sir’) in which their use in the learners’ ILP is
creatively developed within the boundary of the seniority value system of their L1.

In their English requests, there were two English elements that were found in the
same position of the Thai politeness marker ‘khrub’ regardless of their requirement or
appropriate use in particular contexts. The two elements are the politeness marker
‘please’ and the address term ‘sir’. The use of ‘khrub’ and the use of ‘please’ and ‘sir’ are
discussed in 4.3.2.1 and 4.3.2.2 respectively (see also 4.4 - the conclusive section of the
age effects in the choice for strategies and internal modifications). The pragmatic transfer
in relation to the age of the addressees was discussed throughout this study including 4.5
- the discussion of the length of utterance in different age groups. The following
discussion will shed light on the pragmatic transfer and the learners’ creativity through
the use of those polite terms in particular along with the switching of requesting forms for

different age groups.

133

4.6.3.1 The use of the politeness marker ‘please’ in the same position as the
politeness ending marker ‘kl'rub’ in the English requesting forms

In many cases, the term ‘please’ was used by the Thai respondents to emphasize
politeness in their English requests and was found in the final position of a phrase or a
sentence. The following are examples where the term ‘please’ was redundantly used to
emphasize politeness.

Respondent # 27:

(Asking a younger janitor to clean the wet spot)

(41)

_PLe_as_e_ clean up this floor, Mg?

Respondent # 38:

(Asking an older clerk for some change)

(42)

Would you do me a favor?

I have to use the public telephone.

But I don ’t have a change.

Could you M give me a change, Mg.

Respondent # 18:

(Asking a younger janitor to clean the wet spot)

(43)

Excuse me.

Would you mind wiping the floor, please?

134

Respondent # 37:
(Asking an older female stranger to pass the sauce)
(44)
Would you mind pass me the ketchup, M?
(Asking an older colleague to tell the meeting time)
(45)
Sir.
Would you mind telling the time, M?
The requesting forms from the examples above are listed as follows:
Please + V
Would/Could you please + V?
Would you mind + Ving?
They are conventionally polite forms and are taught in most English textbooks. Without
doubt, the respondents must have realized the politeness of these forms. Thus, the
redundant use of the term ‘please’ in these polite forms by the Thai respondents can be
explained simply by their being accustomed to the use of the politeness ending marker
‘khrub’ in the final position in their L1. The habit of ending a phrase or a sentence with a
politeness marker in Thai might make the speakers concerned that their requests might
end too bluntly without an additional ‘please’. To add another ‘please’ at the end is to

confirm that their politeness is certainly recognized by the bearer.

135

4.6.3.2 The use of the English address term ‘sir’ as equivalent to the Thai politeness
marker ‘khrub’

The English address term ‘sir’ was found in the English data produced by the Thai
respondents in this study to firnction like a politeness marker rather than an address term
in many cases. The following is an example of the use of ‘sir’ and ‘khrub’ in the Attention
Getting part by the same respondent.

Respondent # 34:

(Asking an older colleague to tell the meeting time)

 

(46)
Excuse me, §i_r, colonel.
Do you know what time the meeting starts.

(as compared to his Thai response to an older clerk in the Clerk—1 context)

 

(47)

Excuse me, £5142: aa [Uncle] Pradit, khrub.

It happens that p‘om lose the data (you) print for p‘om yesterday.

Help print another copy for p‘om, dai mai, khrub.

In a second or two, phom will take (it) to the meeting.

According to the examples above, Respondent # 34 used the term ‘sir’ in his
English response in the same position as the term ‘khrub’ in his Thai response. The
pattern in the Attention getting part is shown in Table 8.1 below:

Table 8.1 Position of ‘khrub’ and ‘sir’ in the Thai/English Attention Getting part

Excusing Politeness marker Address term

 

Thai: Excuse me, ld'rub, aa Pradit (kin term + proper name)
English: Excuse me, sir, colonel (title noun)

136

In the following examples, Respondents # 42 and # 45 used the term ‘sir’ to
address even a younger colleague.

Respondent # 42:

(Asking a wager colleague to repeat the time)

(48)

Pardon, gig.

Respondent # 45:

(Asking a we; colleague to repeat the time)

(49)

Pardon, gig.

Can you tell me the time again?

The term ‘sir’ was also used with the older subordinates as seen in the following
example. But it is obvious that there was no use at all with the younger subordinates.

Respondent # 20:

(Asking an Qld_er clerk to print a file)

(50)

Excuse me, s_ir;

I need some copy from this document?

Will you copy for me?

Likewise, there is evidence that the term ‘sir’ was used with an older female
interlocutor as well, though it was witnessed in only two cases. The following is one

example.

137

Respondent # 21:

(Asking an older female stranger to pass the sauce)

(51)

Excuse me, s_ir_:

Would you mind pass me the sauce, please.
4.6.3.3 The use of ‘sir’ in the Attention Getting part to differentiate the age groups
of the addressees

Respondent # 4:

(Asking a male stranger to locate a friend)

The Thai responses to a mnger male stranger:

(52)

Nong.

You know Col. Chalit, mai.

Chalit work in this building, k‘rub.

The Thai response to an o_lde_r male stranger:

(53)

[Bow] Excuse me, EM-

You know Group Capt. Chalit, mai, khrub.

He is in this unit, k‘rub.

The English response to a W stranger:

(54)

Excuse me.

Do you know Group Capt. Chalit.

138

I think he’s staying here.
The English response to an older stranger:

(55)

 

Excuse me, gig?

Do you know Group Capt Chalit.

He’s my friend He’s staying here.
(? = rising intonation; periods = falling intonation)
Table 8.2 A summary of the components in the Thai/English Attention Getting part
for both age groups in the Stranger context as elicited by Respondent # 4

The Attention Getting part to the younger interlocutor consists of:

 

Thai English
Strategies: Addressing by a kin term Excusing
Politeness markers: none none

The Attention Getting part to the older interlocutor consists of:

 

Thai English
Strategies: Excusing Excusing
Politeness markers: khrub sir"

(* The address term ‘sir’ was used by Respondent # 4 as a politeness marker in
this context.)

Respondent # 24

(Asking a clerk to print a file)

The Thai response to the we; clerk:

(56)

Somsak [Thai name]

139

Phom lose the meeting report.
Help please print this file in the computer, noi.

The Thai response to the older clerk:

 

(57)

Excuse me, km, naa [uncle] Somsak, ELF—b-

P"om rop-kuan (you) help print this file, noi.

The English response to the you_ng_e_r clerk:

(58)

Excuse me.

I want you to print this file in the computer for me. ..

because I lost it.

The English response to the 9m clerk:

(59)

Excuse me, si_r.

I would like you to print the file in the computer for me. . .

because I lost it.
Table 8.3 A summary of the components in the Thai/English Attention Getting part
for both age groups in the Subordinate context as elicited by Respondent # 24

The Attention Getting part to the younger interlocutor consists of:

 

Thai English
Strategies: Addressing by a name Excusing
Politeness markers: none none

140

Table 8.3 (cont’d)
The Attention Getting part to the older interlocutor consists of:

 

 

Thai English
Strategies: Addressing by a kin term Excusing
(an uncle) plus a name
Politeness markers: khrub sir*

(* The address term ‘sir’ was used by Respondent # 24 as a politeness marker in
this context.)

Respondent # 46:

(Asking a colleague to repeat the time)

The Thai response to the we: colleague:

(60)

Eh. ..nong.[‘you’ meaning a younger brother]

What time (is it), E-

Just a second ago dtat you tell [past] me.

The Thai response to the M colleague:

(61)

P"ee [‘you’ meaning an older brother], £215.-

(1) don’t know that now what time (is it), Lrub.

Just a second ago, (I) (could) not catch (it).

The English response to the my; colleague:

(62)

Excuse me.

Say again, please?

What time (is it).

141

The English response to the pile; colleague:

(63)

Excuse me, Q?

Will you please tell me what time is?
Table 8.4 A summary of the components in the Thai/English Attention Getting part
for both age groups in the Colleague context as elicited by Respondent # 46

The Attention Getting part to the younger interlocutor consists of:

 

Thai English
Strategies: Addressing by a kin term Excusing
meaning a younger brother
Politeness: none none

The Attention Getting part to the older interlocutor consists of:

 

Thai English
Strategies: Addressing by a kin term Excusing
meaning an older brother
Politeness markers: khrub sir"

(* The address term ‘sir’ was used by this respondent as a politeness marker in this
context.)

The above examples fiom three different relationships (the Male Stranger, the
Clerk, and the Colleague contexts) and Tables 8.2, 8.3, and 8.4 show evidence of the use
of the address term ‘sir’ to differentiate the age groups. In both the Thai and the English
responses, the politeness markers were used to emphasize politeness toward the older
group over the younger group within the same contexts by the same respondents. Though
the terms ‘sir’ and ‘khrub’ were used across age groups in some contexts, it is apparent
that when the respondents were aware of the age difference of the addressees, they tended

to use some strategy; namely, the use of ‘sir’ and ‘khrub’ to pronounce such difference in

142

their speech. In the interview data, some respondents admitted that they would differ their
utterances to the older interlocutors by softening their tone of voice or lengthening the
vowels. Obviously, among them, the age of the addressees does matter and affect their L2
pragmatic behavior.
4.6.3.4 The use of different requesting forms to differentiate the age groups of the
addressees

Within the same contexts, the same respondents tended to use different requesting
forms in the Thai responses to distinguish their speech toward different age groups of the
addressees. The examples below show evidence of this type of pragmatic transfer onto
their requesting behaviors in the L2.

Respondent # 50

(Asking a female stranger to pass the sauce)

The Thai response to the mer female stranger:

(64)

Nong, k‘rub

Help pass the fish sauce to p‘ee [‘me’ meaning an older brother], noi, k"rub.

The Thai response to the m female stranger:

(65)

Excuse me, k‘rub, k‘un p‘ee, khrub.

Phom [‘1’ for a male speaker] rop-kuan k‘un [formal title] phee [‘you’ meaning
an older sister] pass the fish sauce to p‘om [me], k‘rub.

The English response to the yeugger female stranger:

(66)

143

Girl.

Please pass me the sauce.

The English response to the o_lc_ler female stranger:

(67)

Excuse me, ma’am.

Would you please pass me the sauce, please.

Respondent # 50 used the most frequently used requesting form ‘help + V’ with
the younger interlocutor, but switched to a more formal form ‘rop-kuan [bother] + V’
when conversing with the older one in the similar requesting context. Likewise, in his
English requests, he used the direct form, the imperative with the politeness marker
‘please’ with the younger interlocutor, but used the conventional indirect form, ‘Would
you please + V?’ with the older interlocutor in the similar context. The trend that the
respondent would switch to a more formal form when conversing with an older
interlocutor shows evidence of L1 pragmatic transfer in that the respondents were aware
of the age difference of their interlocutors and pronounced such differences in their
speech.

Similarly, this trend also occurs within the Colleague contexts as shown below.
Respondent # 46 used the formal requesting form with the older group and the more
casual ones with the younger group in both languages. According to the excerpts below,
the formal forms which were used with the older group were longer and more complex.
The Thai formal request consisted of two clauses. Though both of the English forms were
in question form, the formal one ‘May I know the time for the meeting this morning?’ as

used with the older group was more indirect (i.e., asking for permission prior to stating

144

what the expected information is). In contrast, the form used with the younger group was
more direct; it provoked a direct response to the inquiry and was in a simple question
form (e.g., What time is it. . .?).

Respondent # 46:

(Asking a colleague to tell the time)

The Thai response to the younger colleague:

(68)

Hey, nong.

Today themeetin st s atwhattime.

The Thai response to the older colleague:

(69)

P”ee, k"rub.

(I) don ’t know that tfly the meeting (starts) at what gag“ k‘rub.
The English response to the younger colleague:

(70)
Sorry.

What time is it (or the meeting this morning.

The English response to the older colleague:

(71)

Excuse me, sir.

Mg}: I know the time [or the meeting this morning?
Respondent # 16:

(Asking a janitor to clean the wet spot)

145

The Thai response to the younger janitor:
(72)

Num, num [Thai name].

There is water on the floor inside.

Go and take care 0 it , noi.

The Thai response to the older clerk:
(73)

Lung, lung [Uncle].

The water is spilled inside, k‘rub.

Help take care at (it), noi, k‘rub.

The English response to the mger clerk:
(74)

Jack. C ’mon.

Get this wet place Lem.

The English response to the Met clerk:
(75)

Jack.

Do you mind to do this place better?

It is also true in the Subordinate contexts where the respondents made requests to

people of lower status. In the military, most clerks are non-commissioned officers whose
rank is lower than the respondents who are officers. Janitors are even lower in work
status because they have no ranks. In the Thai examples above, Respondent # 16 used the

imperative as a directive to the younger janitor whereas he switched to use a more

146

mitigating form with the older janitor; the force was lessened by adding the mitigating
verb ‘help’ and the request sounded more soothing with the help of the politeness marker
‘khrub’. The respondent also used the imperative as a directive with the younger janitor
in his English request. However, he used a conventionally indirect form with the older
janitor (e. g., Do you mind...) which was perceived as more formal/polite than an
imperative.

In conclusion, the switching of requesting forms regarding the age difference of
the addressees by the Thai respondents was observed in both languages where the
addressees were in various work statuses.
4.6.3.5 Conclusions to the evidence of pragmatic transfer onto the respondents’
requestive behaviors

The filling of the term ‘please’ and ‘sir’ where it belongs to the Thai ending
politeness marker ‘khrub’ indicates the pragmatic transfer from L1 onto their L2
politeness performance. With regard to the effects of the age of the addressees, the
fi'equency of the use of ‘sir’, the choice for the English requesting forms, and the length
of utterance in different age groups all show evidence for the fact that the age of the
addressees did influence their L2 pragmatic behaviors in terms of their choice for
politeness and formality strategies.

4.7 Findings in the Interview data
4.7.1 Introduction

In the movie, Anna and the king (1999), when Anna Leonowens first arrived to

Bangkok and had her initial encounter with the Thai highest-ranking officer (equivalent

to the Prime Minister), she asked the interpreter why he kept calling her ‘sir’ even though

147

she was a woman. The question was not really answered. And later, she refirsed to answer
all personal questions and showed her resentment. The Prime Minister looked annoyed at
her naiveté and then explained that his asking about personal natures of a newcomer was
meant to show his politeness; that is, the concerns about the person. Regardless of other
critics’ concern about the lack of authenticity of the story, the two examples above do
show Thai ways of expressing politeness. The first one displays the speaker’s
interlanguage pragmatics through his politeness in English as his second language; and
the second one displays a Thai custom of how to demonstrate politeness as a host toward
a visitor. The conversation in this scene struck me and I felt it fits perfectly well in this
study. In addition to why Anna’s story was widely criticized by Thai people, Thais feel
that it could never happen that a person, especially a newcomer, can be that persistent and
challenge the authority/hosts/persons of higher seniority like that in the Thai society
where the seniority of age and social status was much highly valued back then. Thus,
Thai people find it hard to believe that the king was that desperate not to send her back
immediately and hire a new English teacher, instead.
4.7.2 The interviews

After I had finished with the questionnaire data with each respondent, I started the
interview in a casual manner. The start-up questions were as follows. “Do you think that
Thai is more polite than English? Why?” (i.e., This is not a leading question since it is
widely thought among many Thai speakers that Thai is more polite than English), “Does
age matter when interacting in Thai with Thai folks and in English with English-speaking
people?”, “How do you say things politely in Thai?”, “If you want to be polite in English,

what would you say?”, “Do you use the same principles as you do in Thai when speaking

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English?”, “Do you use kin terms with Thai people whom you work with? How do you
use them?”, “Do you use kin terms with American fiiends?”, “Do you treat foreigners the
same way you treat Thai people?”, and “Do you regard them by their ages, too?”. Some
other questions were built up from the on-going topics of the conversation. The interview
time for each respondent was varied, dependent on how much time they were available
and how much information they were willing to share. On average, each interview took
about 20-30 minutes. I first called for the appointments with the respondents with whom I
was most familiar and for whom I had access to their numbers. Once I stepped inside
their work sites, I met more officers who were my former students at the academy. I then
asked them if they could be on my study and I also told them that I needed the data for
my doctoral research. When they agreed to that, we arranged the schedules to meet for
the questionnaires and the interviews. Sometimes, it was scheduled later the same day or
on the following days. Each of them knew the details of what the questionnaires would be
like at the time of recording. Prior to the recording, I told each of them that it was not a
test to rank their proficiency. There were no scores, no evaluation. There were no right or
wrong answers, either. Rather, it was aimed to gather the actual oral production. I asked
them to be natural and elicit what they would normally do in real life. After the
recordings, I asked some of the respondents if they would actually talk like that in the
natural settings. They all agreed that it was the way they did naturally. They confirmed
that they did not try to be formal due to the use of the tape recording; neither was it due to
the fact that the data would be used for my dissertation. During the recordings, sometimes
we were sitting in one corner of a very large room where we could see people working

from a distance, where I made sure there was no nuisance. I took this opportunity to point

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at some people who had the same descriptions as the persons in the scenarios; for
instance, an old janitor who walked by. I believe this helped their imagination and helped
the assumed situations in the scenarios become more real because the respondents saw
the presence of the real persons there. I had a chance to observe them at their work sites
where they had actual interactions with American pilots and personnel during the 2000
Cobra Gold. Unfortunately, I did not have a chance to record such interactions visually
and orally because I had fixed schedules with my respondents. It was very exciting that
one respondent who was just mistakenly captured by the Myanmar soldiers during his
training flight along the Thai and Myanmar border walked into the room after landing
and decided to be in my study. Before the recording started, this young F16 pilot (a
former student of mine) was asked by a clerk to locate where the Myanmar spotted his
plane so he could type a report for him. It seemed that the incident was such a common
routine that no one took it seriously. So I teased him that I was fascinated to know that he
had just been involved in an actual English interaction with foreigners.

The following are descriptions and discussions of the recorded interview data
which were transcribed and translated into English. The information was selected based
on what was related to the focus of this study. The data were based on the respondents’
own opinions and own words regarding their perception of politeness and their politeness
performance.

4.7.3 Reasons behind the choice for their L2 politeness strategies

This section presents the data from the interviews in regard to what lies behind

their choice of politeness strategies in their L2 performance. According to the interview

data, the respondents rely on three basic grounds; (1) using of the L2 formulaic

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expressions to guarantee politeness; (2) substituting some Ll politeness strategies for the
unknown L2 strategies (e.g., transfer); and (3) reacting the same way they are approached
to by native speakers of English (i.e., casual/formal speech).

1. Most respondents agreed on how they would perform politeness in Thai. That
is, they tend to use kin terms, ending politeness markers, the tone of voice, indirectness
(long utterances) to portray their politeness in their L1; and these politeness strategies are
more emphasized when their interlocutors are older than they. The respondents all agreed
that they realized that English speakers, unlike Thais, do not differentiate their speech by
the ages of the interlocutors. Since their mastery of English, in their opinions, is not
efficient enough, they tend to rely on the formulaic expressions they learned in English
classes. They all thought that they felt more secure using such forms because they
realized that as nonnative speakers of English, they should use only polite forms with
everyone. Even with fiiends with whom they think that casual forms might be more
proper, they would rather not use casual forms with native speakers of English. Some
admitted that they do not know the exact rules of polite English speaking. They believe
that language instruction does not teach students to be rude. Thus, they trust what they
are taught in class, which are the formulaic forms. That is the most fundamental rule of
their L2 performance. The facts that (1) they were aware of the politeness of the
formulaic forms; (2) they did use the forms in practice; but (3) they admitted that they do
not know exactly what the rules are, imply that they have learned the forms by
memorization rather than comprehension of the pragmatic rules which go hand in hand

with the forms.

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2. The next rule is to rely on their L1 principles if they do not know exactly what
the L2 pragmatic rules are. To substitute the absence of the age-based linguistic and
pragmatic elements in their L1 such as the use of kin terms and the use of ending
politeness marker ‘khrub’ for male speakers, they indicate their politeness toward the
older interlocutors over the younger by using the more formal forms (e.g., ‘would you
mind’ rather than ‘imperative with please’), emphasizing the use of polite terms, speaking
with a sofier tone of voice/lengthening vowels, or using modest gestures (e. g., bowing).
Indirectness in terms of length of utterance, one of the L1 politeness strategies for older
interlocutors in particular, is not listed above because it is the hardest one to maintain in
their L2 performance due to their limited L2 speaking skill. They feel uncomfortable
speaking briefly with older interlocutors. Many think directness, which they perceive as
bluntness, is not a polite or proper form to use with older people. To show some respect
even to subordinates who are older (e.g., janitors), they use longer sentences by giving
more explanations/reasons before they give them orders for work. Respondent # 46 added
that Thais tend to be indirect before getting to the point, because they like to form close
relationships with each other first, especially with older interlocutors. He suggested that
“They (Western people) do not care to know all the details because they do not have time
to listen to all that”. With limited skills, he thinks, Thais will find it difficult to make
English requests with long utterances as they do in Thai. According to his comments, it is
no surprise that Thais like to play safe by using English formulaic expressions if
available. Respondent # 27 suggested that when speaking English, the longer the
utterance, the more mistakes. Apart from the language difficulty and their awareness of

the preference of native speakers of English (i.e., mostly referred to Americans) for direct

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speech, there is another interesting explanation as to why the average length of the
English requests in this study is shorter than the Thai ones (see also Table 7.2).
Respondent # 46 viewed, “There is no close relationship in the Western society”
Respondent # 42 said, “With farangs (Westerners), there is still a distance. I feel more
comfortable speaking English with Asian pilots”. Likewise, Respondent # 33
commented that he felt closer to Singaporean pilots because of their sharing similar
cultures. Moreover, Respondent # 29 claimed the distance in relationship with
Westerners was a consequence of language barriers and difference in appearance. This
reflects Singer’s (1998) term ‘perceptual groups’ which refers to groups of people around
the world who share similar perceptions of the world and become an ‘identity group’
through communication. After that, they form closer relationships than even their own
relatives. This explains why many of the respondents feel closer to Asian pilots and more
distant from American ones because the latter group shares much less similarity in
cultures. In this study, the respondents did not distance fi'om the ‘dissimilarity’ of
language and culture by having a negative evaluation toward the English language like
the Turkish students in Stalker’s identity study (2000). Rather, they distanced fi'om such
dissimilarity by maintaining their cultural/linguistic identity (e. g., relying on Thai
politeness principles) and, in some cases, by shortening their utterances. Therefore,
distancing caused by cultural/linguistic differences more or less reveals its effects on the
length of their utterance as well. Stalker’s example of communication between sailors of
different cultures suggests that more communication (within the perceptual group) forms
closer relationships among them. In'reverse, it may imply that more distant relationships

might provoke less communication when some individuals have less in common than

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others. In the case of the Thai pilots, the closeness among the ‘perceptual group’ has
various dimensions. That is, they feel closer to Asian than to American pilots though they
all share the same profession. Such distinction might be a result of their shared feeling
with other Asian pilots as being nonnative speakers of English. Among nonnative
speakers, they tend to feel more comfortable and communicate better in the same target
language than they do with native speakers of such TL because they feel that as learners
of the same TL they will be more understanding.

3. The last rule as suggested by the respondents in the study is to observe what
native speakers do and then imitate their degrees of politeness. Some said if native
speakers used causal forms with them, so would they. Respondent # 7 said, “I will wait
until Americans allow me to call them by their first names.” Because many agreed, they
did not know exactly what the polite rules in English are, nor were they able to
distinguish the level of politeness in English, this rule seems to be a strategic resolution to
what is unknown to them.

This section presents the respondents’ perception of politeness. As mentioned in
Chapter 3 that the respondents in this study were all male officers in the Royal Thai Air
Force, their perception of politeness might be of interest for most readers who are not
familiar with the military people. Many respondents agreed that speaking politely helps
secure their good image as officers and perhaps, gentlemen. Respondent # 44 even said
that he believed military people were more polite than civilians. The higher rank or
position, the more polite. Being polite makes them look smart. Respondent # 22 said that
fiom his experiences in a US. air base, he heard sergeants call officers with ‘sir’ all the

time and they always used the formal form (e. g, ‘Would you mind. . . ?’) with officers.

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Then he learned to do the same from what he had observed. To be polite, to Respondent #
36, means to make the person whom you talk to feel good or important. He quoted,
“Carnegie said that everyone wants to feel important. To ask someone to do something,
you must ask the person nicely.”

However, some suggested that formality did not always express politeness.
Respondent # 36 suggested that with fiiends, formality is not a good choice. It increases
the distance between individuals and their fiiends. Using kin terms, on the contrary, helps
strengthen the bond of relationship with each other, especially when the superior uses
them to their subordinates. However, in this study, formality seems to be a commonly
agreed-upon choice in the speech used by people of lower seniority in age to those of
higher seniority. However, the use of kin terms does not seem to be applicable in most of
the respondents’ ILP because of their awareness of non-use of such terms in L2 and their
probable feeling of distance from native speakers of English, who, in their perception, are
foreigners. Respondent # 42 said, “I am reluctant to use kin terms with foreigners because
they might find it offensive since they are not actually related to us (Thais).”.

To conclude, the perception data in the interviews provide strong evidence of
learning/acquisition, pragmatic transfer, and creativity in their ILP. That is,
learning/acquisition is observed through their use of formulaic speech and their
awareness of its formality and politeness. Pragmatic transfer is observed through their
reliance on their Ll when L2 pragmatic rules are not available to them. Creativity is
observed through their judgment after debating what L1 rules or available L2 rules

should be the closest in appropriateness for a particular L2 situation.

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4.8 Summary of the findings

The findings in this chapter can be viewed into two main aspects: the findings
retrieved from the questionnaire data (production) and those from the interview data
(perception). The findings in both the production and the perception data are in mutual
agreement.
4.8.1 The findings in the production data (oral questionnaires)
4.8.1.1 The requestive pattern elicited by the Thai speakers in this study

The requestive pattern found in this study is similar to that proposed in CCSARP.
Namely, it consists of four main parts: the Attention Getting part (alerters), the
Introductory part (preposed supportive moves), the Request Head Act part, and the
Closing part (postposed supportive moves). The Attention Getting part includes 7
strategies: addressing by address terms, proper names, kin terms, title nouns; also,
excusing; greeting; and asking for permission. The Introductory part includes 7 strategies:
stating the necessity/problem, stating the want, checking availability, asking of
knowledge, giving additional information, referring to the previous/fixture event/act, and
signaling an upcoming request (with a subcategory of stating a statement of ‘krengjai’-
no desire to place the imposition on others). The Request Head Act part consists of two
language versions. The Thai version includes 11 direct requesting forms and 13 indirect
requesting forms. The English version includes 3 direct requesting forms and 16 indirect
requesting forms. The Closing part includes 8 strategies: stating the necessity/problem,
confirming the want, restating the request, asking of knowledge, checking availability,

giving additional information, thanking, and showing concern.

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The internal modifications used in the Thai requests were the use of the politeness
marker ‘khrub’, the use of two types of downgraders: an understater ‘noi’ and two
downtoners ‘na’ and ‘si’, and the use of first-person and second-person singular
pronouns. The internal modifications found in the English requests were the use of the
politeness marker ‘please’ and the use of the address terms ‘sir’, ‘ma’am, and ‘madam’
functioning as politeness markers in particular contexts.
4.8.1.2 The respondents’ choice making of strategies and elements in the requestive
pattern in support of the effects of the age difference of the addressees

1. Choice of strategies in the requestive pattern:

(1) The fi’equency of the top strategies (i.e., the highest frequency) used in the
Attention Getting part in both language data (Thai and English) showed evidence of the
age effects especially on the part of the addressees. Though the use of most of the
strategies was shared in both age groups, the frequency of their use was tremendously
oriented toward the older group. There is only one exception in the Thai data that
addressing by names was never used with the older interlocutors because of its
casualness. However, the choice for not using this particular strategy with a particular age
group did show evidence of the age effects on the part of the addressees.

(2) The frequency of the top strategies (i.e., the highest fi'equency) used in the
Introductory part in both language data (Thai and English) also showed evidence of the
age effects especially on the addressee part. Likewise, the strategies in this category were
also used across age groups. In the Thai data, among the top strategies, four out of six had
a tendency of use toward the older group and in the English data, among the top

strategies, three out of four had a tendency of use toward the older group. Though the

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frequency rate was not much different between both age groups, the frequency of use of
those top strategies did point toward the older group. That is, age does determine the
choice for the strategies in this category.

(3) In the Thai data, though most requesting forms in the Request Head Act part
showed non-significant distinction of their use in terms of the age difference, the
preferences of the particular requesting forms for one particular age group over the others
were noticeable. The simple question form such as wh-questions and its incomplete
version or yes—no questions was commonly used with the younger group. Conversely, the
more formal forms such as the forms with the help of some formal verbs or the complex
sentences are more likely to be used with the older group. Like the Thai data, the English
casual forms such as ‘Can you. . . ?’ is more likely to be used with the younger
interlocutors whereas the formal formulaic expressions such as ‘Would you please. . . ?’
and ‘Would you mind. . . ?’ are the choice for the older group. The distinction of use with
regard to the age of the addressees is even accentuated within several similar requestive
contexts by the same respondents.

(4) The top strategy in the Closing part shared by both languages was ‘stating the
necessity/problem’. It was used across age groups. But the total percentage showed the
fi'equency of use of the Closing strategies both in Thai and English toward the younger
group. There was a tendency for them to leave the Request Head Acts open when
requesting the older. There is no adequate information for this phenomenon. However,
the age difference did determine their pragmatic behaviors in closing the requestive acts.

All in all, frequency of use of strategies shows more obvious effects of the age

difference than types of strategies selected.

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II. Choice of politeness markers:

(5) The Thai politeness marker ‘khrub’ for male speakers was used significantly
more with the older group (72.01%) than the younger group (27 .99%) (See the total
percentage in Table 6.1). The English politeness marker ‘please’ was used more with the
older group (56.62%) than the younger group (43.38%) (See the total percentage in Table
6.4). The address term ‘sir’ was used significantly more with the older group (87.90%)
than the younger group (12.10%) and the address term ‘ma’am or ‘madam’ was used
significantly more with the older group (90%) than the younger group (10%) (See also
the total percentage in Table 6.4).

III. Choice of mitigating terms:

(6) Thai mitigating terms such as ‘na’ (Y=60.45%; O=39.58%) and ‘si’
(Y=74.10%; O=25.80%) were more commonly used with the younger group. The
mitigating term ’noi’ as equivalent to ‘a little bit’ in English had no huge distinction of
use regarding age difference (Y=55.05%; O=44.95%). (See the total percentage in Table
6.6)

IV. Choice of the use of first and second personal singular pronouns

(7) The English data did not show any distinction of pronominal use regarding the
age difference. But the Thai data did show distinctions and a variety of pronominal use in
particular age groups. In the first-personal pronoun group (see the list in 2.7.1), the
pronoun ‘phom’ was used with both age groups, but used significantly more with the
older group (52.63%) than the younger group (14.83%) (see the total percentage in Table
5.1). The pronoun ‘p ee’ (i.e., older brother in this case) was used with the younger only

and was ranked the second next to the most popular one, ‘phom’. In the second-personal

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pronoun group, there are more varieties of pronouns used by the respondents. Within the
younger group, the pronoun ‘nong’ (i.e., younger brother in this case) was the most
popular one; its usage was 16.08% of all the pronouns used in this category (the total of
143) and was never used at all with the older addressees. Within the older group, the
pronoun ‘phee’ was the most popular one; it was used 49.65% of the total of 143 and was
never used at all with the younger addressees (see also the total percentage in Table 5.2).

V. Distinction in length of utterance:

(8) The mean values of the total length of utterances show that the respondents
used longer requests in the Thai data (4.959) than in the English data (3.070). With regard
to the age difference, the mean values of the total length of utterances show that both
Thai and English data show evidence for the use of longer requests toward the older
group (Thai=5.723; English=3.575) than the younger group (Thai=4. 195; English=2.565)
(see Table 7.2).

4.8.2 Findings in the perception data (interviews)

There are three basic rules that were used by the respondents regarding their L2
pragmatics: (1) use of learned formulaic expressions if available; (2) reliance on L1 rules
if L2 knowledge is not available; and (3) observation and replication of native speakers’
pragmatic performance. The interview data reveal their recognition of the importance of
the age difference of the addressees in both language performances. The data also reveal
the process of their negotiation for resolutions to the unavailability of their L2

knowledge, which is evidence for the creativity in their ILP.

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4.8.3 Evidence for three basic components in the L2 learners’ ILP

According to the analysis of the ILP in both the production and perception data,
there is evidence that in the learning process some L2 elements were already learned and
perhaps acquired. Some shared characteristics of their L1 pragmatics through direct
(borrowing) or indirect/processed transfer (negotiation). The pragmatic phenomenon in
the latter is a consequence of learners’ creativity through the negotiation process which
reflects the learners’ own judgments of appropriateness. Therefore, the three basic
components of the L2 learners’ ILP are learned/acquired, transferred/borrowed, and
creative forms.
4.9 Conclusions of this chapter

To understand the interlanguage pragmatics of L2 learners, their L1 pragmatic
behaviors must first be analyzed. ‘On this account, the analysis of the Thai requestive
behaviors was prior to the analysis of the English requestive ones in order to draw a
baseline for analysis.

The analysis of the data in this study reveals answers to the research questions
‘What are the components of L2 learners’ interlanguage pragmatics?’ and ‘What
constitutes ILP components of Thai learners of English as a foreign language?’. The
components, as hypothesized, may consist of Ll-like forms (evidence of transfer), L2-
like forms (evidence of leaming/acquisition/acquiring), and creative forms (evidence of
learners’ internalized negotiation process). Hypothesis 1 and its sub-hypotheses were
then supported. The word ‘form’ above is equivalent to language phenomena which
occur in the leamers’ second language learning process. Pragrnatically, during such a

long process on the continuum toward complete acquisition, some L2 pragmatic rules and

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elements are learned, some may be acquired, and some are not yet known to them. Apart
from difficulties of new pragmatic rules and elements, L2 learners have to deal with their
familiarity with their Ll pragmatics and the absence of some of those familiar rules and
elements. To cope with that, their reliance on their L1 rules or elements is inevitable.
Pragmatic transfer can be viewed as direct borrowings of L1 rules or elements or it can be
viewed as results of learners’ internalized negotiation process. Pragmatic transfer in the
latter case is processed in either their conscious or unconscious mind, or perhaps both. It
is a process of learners’ creativity and judgments for resolutions of problems stemming
fi'om what is unknown and unavailable in the L2. Such creativity along the path of
pragmatic transfer is a complicated thinking process like ‘hypothesis testing’. The
difference is that this creative process is based mainly on the learners’ own judgments as
to what level of appropriateness satisfies their needs most and what strategy they feel
comfortable with. That is, their ILP must serve their goals of interaction and,
simultaneously, secure their self/cultural identity, which in this study is to maintain the
seniority system in their L2 pragmatic behaviors (i.e., distinction in their politeness
regarding the age difference of the addressees). Thus, the findings in this study did
support Hypothesis 2 and its sub-hypotheses that the age of the addressees show its
effects on the choice of politeness strategies and length of utterances in both languages.

At the pragmatic level where language behaviors are cultural and socially based,
learning a new language does not mean learning just new linguistic forms. As a matter of
fact, it is learning to be able to use a new language; to communicate with people who use
that language for communication at the point that satisfies those involved in such

communication. Acquisition of native-like proficiency might not be necessarily the case,

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particularly, where an L2 is learned in a foreign language learning context (e.g., learning
English in Thailand). Learning another language is also a psychological process which
involves some sensitive matters that L2 learners have to go through. The fear of identity
loss or the fear of being condemned by their country mates for disloyalty to their own
culture more or less has influence over learners’ choice of their L2 pragmatic behaviors.
Therefore, such pragmatic transfer should not be viewed as interference in their L2
learning because their ILP is not absolutely a result of what they do not acquire. Rather, it
is also a result of their choice making and the compromises necessary for a satisfactory

interaction.

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CHAPTERS

CONCLUSIONS

5.1 Introduction

The evidence found in this study confirms that Brown and Levinson’s framework
is insufficient to account for pragmatic behaviors of speakers in some collectivistic
cultures where the value of seniority is dominant. Thus, the age difference between
speakers in a given social context is then another primary factor to be considered in that
in such particular cultures it does determine L2 learners’ pragmatic behaviors in their Ll
that influence their ILP as well. In the study of person-referring expressions in the Thai
pronominal systems, Simpson (1997) found that power and solidarity Brown and Gilman
(1960) proposed as the primary factors affecting pronoun choice are not sufficient to
account for the pragmatic/linguistic choice of pronouns in all languages. Her interest
primarily focuses on the role of the gender difference of interlocutors on the choice for
the Thai person-referring expressions. Though the gender effect did show its effect on the
choice of pronouns in the Thai pronominal systems in the data of this present study, the
roles of the age difference of the addressees on choice of the first and second personal
pronouns were more dominant. Since my major interest was on the age issue, the gender
effect was then notthe focus, of discussion because the primary purpose of adding the
gender difference in one of the contexts studied intended to show a variety of contexts in
which the age difference of the addressees might have an effect. Therefore, in regard to
the choice for the first and second personal pronouns, the focal discussion of the findings
in this study then compares the effects of the age difference of the addressees in the

production of the respondents’ L1 (Thai) and their L2 (English).

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The L2 learners’ interlanguage pragmatics in this study was investigated through
their choice of politeness strategies in request making. The analysis of the requestive
patterns in their L1 and L2 in conjunction with the analysis of some other
pragmatic/linguistic elements (e. g., politeness markers, choice of pronouns and length of
utterances) for politeness manifestation was intended to find evidence for basic pragmatic
phenomena in their ILP such as learning/acquisition, transfer, and creativity as proposed.
Simultaneously, evidence for the age effect on the part of the addressees was looked for
to support the claim for the roles of the age difference of the addressees as another
determinant for pragmatic behaviors.

5.2 The findings

According to 4.8 (summary of the findings in Chapter 4), there was tremendous
evidence for the effects of the age difference of the addressees on pragmatic choice of the
Thai learners of English in their Ll. Such age effects determine their pragmatic choice
for different age groups in several respects such as the choice for first- and second-
personal pronouns, strategies in the requestive patterns (e. g., formal/casual forms in the
Request Head Act), internal modifications (e. g., excessive use of politeness markers and
mitigating terms in one age group over the other), and length of their utterances (the
longer, the more indirect, then the more polite). To a certain extent, such age value in
their L1 plays an important role in their L2 pragmatic choice as well. Namely, it strongly
determines the tremendously higher frequent use of a politeness marker (e. g., please) and
some address terms (e.g., sir) to portray politeness toward one age group over the other.
The age difference also showed its effects in the preference of use of strategies in the

requestive patterns, particularly in the Request Head Act. That is, a more formal form

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was chosen when the addressee was much older than the addresser, and a more casual
form was chosen when the addressee was much younger than the addresser. Likewise, the
addressers used longer utterances in their request making with the older addressees than
with the younger addressees in their L2. The pronominal choice was not affected by the
age difference due to much fewer varieties of pronouns in the L2 (English).

Moreover, the proposed three basic components of the ILP were observed. The
leamed/acquired forms were observed through their use of formulaic expressions. The
transferred forms were observed through the higher frequency of use of some pragmatic
elements or the preference of formal or casual forms with one age group over the other.
This reflects the transfer of their concern over the seniority in the age of the addressees
onto their L2 pragmatics though it lacks another L1 prominent characteristic of the in-
group orientation via the use of kin terms. The creative forms were observed through the
redundant use of a politeness marker ‘please’ within the same sentence, for instance.

5.3 Thai politeness

Kanithanan (1993) concluded that there are four basic aspects of being polite in
Bangkok Thai, which is considered to be the standard form of the Thai language; that is,
(1) being humble and modest, (2) being respectful to the bearer, (3) being formal, and (4)
being redundant (i.e., the longer the utterance, the more polite). In so doing, Thai
speakers may pronounce their politeness through the tone of voice (e. g., the softening and
the lengthening of vowels) or word choice (e.g., the use of politeness markers or the use
of some common terms to strengthen politeness for particular age groups). An example of
the latter is the use of first-person and second-person pronouns which are

age/gender/status based. For instance, the first-person singular pronoun ‘nuu’ refers to the

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male or female speaker of lower status than the bearer. As for the male speaker, the term
is almost always used when conversing with his parents in his home. The second-person
singular pronoun ‘thaan’ refers to the bearer who is a much older person of much higher

status regardless of gender.

Kanithanan (1993) confirmed the effects of the age factor governing the
pragmatic behaviors of Thai speakers. She affirmed that all Thai speakers who are raised
in the society where the value of seniority is dominant all learn how to estimate the age
differences between themselves and their interlocutors. They learn that the misuse of the
first-person and the second-person pronouns will inevitably be perceived as offensive and
disrespectfirl manners on the part of the speaker. However, she added that the influence
of the Western culture has strengthened the role of social status in determining the choice
of pragmatic behaviors. Work titles or ranks are becoming a more influential factor than
the age factor especially in Bangkok Thai (i.e., the Standard Thai) where the use of kin
terms among those who are not genetically related is diminishing. Nevertheless, in the
military environment where ranks are dominant, the use of kin terms to differentiate age
groups is proven to retain its popularity among the officers in this study. Therefore, the
findings in this study did confirm her frameworks of Thai politeness.

5.4 Implications for foreign language pedagogy

The findings of this study imply that learning a language is inevitably in
association with learning its culture. One cannot deny that language and culture are
inseparable. Even when a child learns her first language, she also learns the social
disciplines of the mother tongue. When such a learner learns an L2, she negotiates and

produces her L2 performance based on her L1 and the existing L2 knowledge both

167

linguistically and culturally. In particular, when a language learner comes from a culture
which is different fi'om that of the target language, it is advisable that both language
teachers and learners should learn to understand the natures of the two cultures involved:
the target language and the learner’s native language. Language teachers learn them to be
able to provide effective instructions and language learners learn them to become good
language users. Teachers then can point out the pragmatic distinctions together with some
common ground of the two languages. It is, however, left to the learners themselves to
negotiate their way to perform their interlanguage pragmatics based on their creativity
and judgments. It seems the more advanced, the more creative and the more adventurous.

The findings in this study confirm that the culture of the collectivistic learners
does influence on their performance of an individualistic L2. The age of the addressees is
a social factor that should not be ignored in the study of pragmatics because it certainly
plays an important role in some Oriental cultures such as Thai. It is evidenced in the
prononrinal systems of the Thai language as discussed in Chapter 4.

This study is an attempt to open up the scope of languages studied in this field.
There should be more pragmatic investigations on Oriental/Asian languages because
there have been a large number of Oriental learners around the world learning Western
languages as their L25, especially English as a second language. The studies will help
bridge the gap between ESL/EFL teachers and their Oriental students. When the teachers
are aware of the nature of their students’ pragmatic behaviors in their native languages,
they can point out the distinctions and emphasize the similarity between the target
language and the students’ L1. In so doing, it will lead them to the appropriate/effective

use of the L2 pragmatics. To learn a language is to learn its culture at the same time. With

168

the understanding on the part of the ESL/EFL teachers, their students will not be hesitant
to trust and follow their instructions. Moreover, the understanding will allow them to
have positive attitudes toward their learning the L2; namely, no fear of identity loss or of
L2 intrusion onto L1 systems. Then it is left to the students to exploit their creativity and
judgments to shape their L2 pragmatics to effectively serve their communicative needs.
However, as mentioned earlier, there is one concern that should not be
overlooked; that is, many adult L2 learners are subconsciously concerned that they might
lose their self identity when they are learning an L2. In that case, native proficiency is not
their ultimate goal. Rather, the negotiation of being appropriate at the acceptable level in
both the target culture and their L1 culture is required by the judgments of the learners
themselves with the help fi'om the ESL/EFL teachers in the ESL/EFL classes. There are
circumstances where L2 learners such as the high-intermediate learners in this study have
to make judgments on their own. This suggests that linguistic instruction alone does not
help L2 learners acquire the appropriate use of the L2 pragmatics. The English data in
this study showed evidence of the imbalance of the competency of these learners on the
linguistic and pragmatic rules of the target language. Their linguistic competence seems
to outdo their pragmatic one. The unsystematic variation of their L2 pragmatic behaviors
indicates their lack of adequate understanding about the pragmatic rules of the target
language. For instance, the address term ‘sir’ in this study was used in every level of
relationships (i.e., colleagues and strangers), with persons of every work status (i.e.,
egalitarians and subordinates), with every age group (i.e., younger and older addressees)
and even with every gender (i.e., male and female addressees) (see also Table 5.5). Only

its fi'equency can show its consistency in regard to its use toward one particular age

169

group, which is the older group. Thus, it would be of great benefits if ESL/EFL teachers
put more emphasis on pragmatic instructions of the target language in their classrooms.
Pragmatics deals with functions of languages. As a result, class activities should be based
on practice of the use of L2 pragmatic rules in varied situational contexts. The practice
may start from the utterance level in isolated speech acts like the questionnaires in this
study, then develop to small interchanges like adjacency pairs, and then to the negotiated
discourse level where various unexpected interactions occur like in natural exposures.
Thus, roleplays might be an appropriate type of class activity. Adequate practice will help
to minimize the need for trial and error, thereby lessening the risk of communication
breakdowns and miscommunication at worse. The teachers who are aware of the
distinctions will understand what underlies the learners’ interlanguage pragmatics and
what might account for the potential pragmatic transfer. The so-called pragmatic failures
might result fiom their incompetence of the L2 rules or from their ignorance of the
negative outcomes of their nonnative status (i.e., unintentionally what they do is
sometimes perceived as improper or rude by native speakers). In the light of creativity in
the learners’ ILP, some people who are ignorant of this nature of the ILP might view their
creativity as a failure as well. As a matter of fact, direct transfer or transfer through
creativity is not necessarily considered interference or a failure as long as the L2 learners
can successfully get their messages across, even though their ILP is still impaired.

As for the concept of identity, Simpson (1997) explains that the use of person-
referring expressions in the Thai language portrays how Thai speakers construct and
negotiate their own identity and their relationships with others in the society through the

choice of pronouns. For instance, to make a choice from several options for the self, they

170

make judgments based upon contexts, interlocutors, and social factors. This indicates that
at the sociolinguistic level learners cannot deny the role of culture. At the pragmatic
level, learners make judgments as to what is appropriate before they perform a speech
act. Adult learners who have had long and high familiarity with their L1 culture, which
develops and reinforces the rules of their pragmatic competence, will have difficulty in
getting rid of L1 norms when learning or performing an L2 which has different/new
norms. This helps explain that familiarity as well as fear of identity loss might result in
pragmatic transfer. Native culture is a base for constructing a person’s identity, once it is
adopted it is hard to replace. Thus, L2 pragmatic behaviors which are culturally bound
seem to be harder or later achieved than L2 linguistic knowledge by L2 learners.
5.5 Limitations and suggestions

This study was designed to overcome the limitations of previous studies. It was an
attempt to retrieve the most natural data possible. Though the questionnaires were not
required negotiations, the data could portray the elicitation in many circumstances where
an initiation of a request may be completed in one turn of utterances; particularly, where
the degree of imposition of the illocutionary force was kept low. Moreover, the
requesting scenarios in this study were the situations that were most likely to happen in
the respondents’ daily life. The gender of the speakers and the hearers were controlled.
The data elicitation was designed for oral production on tape recordings. The oral
production questionnaire method was chosen basically because of its effectiveness and
practicality; and it was proved in earlier studies to be one of the most effective methods
for data elicitation. The number of the respondents was large enough (i.e., 50) for the

analysis of this type of research, a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods.

171

However, there are some limitations in this study. First, the respondents were all males
who worked in the military environment. Since gender was not the focus of this study, it
might be interesting to have a further investigation on the production of female speakers
to male hearers or to female hearers. Second, the occupation effect might be claimed
more or less to play a role in the respondents’ pragmatic behaviors unless we can find
proof to show no effects by implementing the similar research on civilians. Third, the
questionnaires were given in order in terms of the age of the addressees; that is, they were
asked to respond to the scenario where they would make a request to a younger
interlocutor followed by the scenarios where it required a response to an older
interlocutor. Thus, some respondents might have thought that different responses for
different age groups were expected. To avoid this probable effect, in the firrther research,
the scenarios should be given in mixed order or in different days. However, the interview
data show that some respondents admitted that they would talk differently to different age
groups no matter what. Fourth, it would be interesting if we can find evidence for the age
of the addressees in a longer discourse consisting of more than one turn of exchanges
where negotiations are available; particularly, the requesting contexts where the degree of
imposition is high. Fifth, other Asian languages where the value of seniority in age is
dominant in their cultures are expected to show similar evidence of the effects of the age
of the addressees on the speakers’ pragmatic behaviors. Pragmatic transfer might appear
on their interlanguage pragmatics. Thus, a further investigation should be done on other
Asian languages as well. Lastly, to be able to make a generalization and to confirm the
effects of the age of the addressee, other speech acts should be investigated. For instance,

Thai has at least two expressions of appreciation, the usage of which is differentiated by

172

the age difference of the interlocutors. That is, the older speaker will say ‘khob-j ai’, not
‘khob-khun’ to the younger hearer. Conversely, the younger speaker will say ‘khob-
khun’ to the older hearer, but never use ‘khob-jai’ with the older bearer. In some cultures

like the Indians, the older will not say ‘thank you’ to the younger.

173

APPENDIX

174

APPENDIX A

REQUESTING CONTEXTS

Context 1: Asking male colleagues to repeat the time
The younger Colleague-1 seem

During the break in a seminar or some training, you need to go for an
appointment. You forgot your watch and there is no clock available. You have just asked
the time fi'om a familiar colleague who is much YOUNGER than you (IO-20 years
younger). He has told you the time, but he speaks too softly or there is a loud noise. You
are not quite sure what you hear. You are asking him to tell you the time again.
The older Cokegee-l scererig

The situation is the same as in 1.1, but you ask a familiar m colleague who is
much OLDER than you (IO-20 years older) to tell you the time again.
Context 2: Asking male colleagues for direction
The younger Colleague-2 scam

You are having lunch with your Me colleagues in a new and big restaurant. You
want to go to the restroom. One of your YOUNGER colleagues (10-20 years younger)
went to the restroom and has just came back to the table. You ask him to tell you where
the restroom is.
The older Colleggge-2 scenam

The situation is the same as in 2.1, but you ask the direction to the restroom from

an OLDER male colleague (IO-20 years older) who has just came back from there.

175

Context 3: Asking male colleagues to tell the time
The younger ColleggB-3 scenfl'g

You come to work in the morning. You remember that there will be a meeting
today, but you cannot remember what time the meeting starts exactly. You ask the first
person you meet in the office this morning about the meeting time. That familiar mele
colleague whom you ask is much YOUNGER (about 10-20 years younger) than you and
he is supposed to attend the meeting as well.
The older Colleague-3 scerrearig

The situation is the same as in 3.1, but your familiar ml; colleague whom you
ask about the meeting time is much OLDER than you (about 10-20 years older) and he is
supposed to attend the meeting as well.
Context 4: Asking male clerks to print a file
The yoenger Clerkel scenfl

You have lost the report of the last meeting. You need some information from the
report. The young _r_n_eI_e clerk in your office still has this file in his computer. You ask
him to print out another copy for you. He is much YOUNGER than you. You have
known him for quite some time. i
The older Clerkél scenfl

The situation is the same as in 4.1, but you ask a senior _n_r_el_e clerk who is about
your father’s age to print out another copy of the meeting report for you. You have

known him for quite some time.

176

Context 5: Asking male clerks for some change
The younger Clerk-2 scenerig

You need some change for a dollar bill in order to make a phone call. You ask a
young melt; clerk in your office (10-20 years YOUNGER than you) for some change.
The older Clerk-2 scenario

The situation is the same as in 5.1, but you ask an old r_n_eLe clerk in your office
(IO-20 years OLDER than you) for some change.
Context 6: Asking male janitors to clean the wet spot
The younger Janitor scenario

You come to a meeting earlier than the other participants. You see a wet spot on
the floor of the room. You ask a young male janitor (about 10 years YOUNGER than
you) who is working in that area to dry it up before the meeting starts. You know that he
has worked for your office for quite a long time.

The older Janitor scenario

 

 

The situation is the same as in 6.1, but you ask an OLDER melt; janitor (about
your father’s age) who is working in that area to dry it up before the meeting starts. You
know He has worked at your office for a long time.

Context 7: Asking male strangers to locate a friend
The younger Male Stranger scenario

You are meeting with your friend at his workplace at the first time. You cannot

find his office. You are looking around to find someone who can show you where his

office is located. You happen to see a young man standing outside of the building

177

smoking a cigarette. You walk toward him and you are behind him now. He looks about
10 years YOUNGER than you. You do not know him.
The older Mele Stra_nger scenagg

The situation is the same as in 7.1, but the gray-haired mgr; who is smoking looks
much OLDER than you (IO-20 years older). You do not know him.

Context 8: Asking female strangers to pass the sauce

The younger F em_aLe Stranger scenario

 

At a buffet party, you are sitting at a table with all strangers. You want some
sauce. You ask the gird who sits next to you and closer to the sauce to pass it on to you.
The girl is much YOUNGER than you (10-20 years younger).

The older Femgle Stra_nger seneri_o
The situation is the same as in 8.1, but the old Lady who sits next to you is much

OLDER than you (about your mother’s age).

178

(..
[..

-)
-]

TRANSCRIPTION CONVENTIONS

aspirated ‘p’as in ‘piece’
aspirated ‘k’as in ‘car’
as in ‘noon’

as in ‘took’

rising intonation

falling intonation

ellipsis

an explanation of the characteristics or meaning of the antecedent

APPENDIX B

179

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