(In)formal Requests in Students’ Emails in an Academic Context

Vesna Lazović

doi:10.4312/elope.22.2.9-24

Authors

Vesna Lazović University of Ljubljana

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.4312/elope.22.2.9-24

Keywords:

students' emails, academic settings, forms of address , requests, Slovenia

Abstract

This paper aims to provide an overview of the rhetorical strategies found in university students’ emails when they write to faculty members. The analysis is based on a self-compiled corpus of 100 emails written in English and sent to the author by the English major students at the Faculty of Arts, University of Ljubljana over a one-year period. More specifically, the paper examines the sample for the use of forms of address and request strategies, such as the level of directness, internal modification and request perspective. The findings reveal a preference for conventionally indirect strategies and a significant use of consultative devices and subjectivizers. The results highlight the students’ awareness of formality and politeness in academic email communication, reflecting in most cases their sensitivity to the hierarchical nature of the student-teacher relationship.

Metrics

Metrics Loading ...

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

References

Austin, John L. 1962. How to Do Things with Words. Oxford University Press.

Balman, Rezky P., and Sangmok Lee. 2020. “Making requests to professors in e-mails: An examination of request modifications performed by Indonesian students in Japan.” Journal of Language and Linguistic Studies 16 (3):1237–50. https://doi.org/10.17263/jlls.803685.

Biesenbach-Lucas, Sigrun. 2006. “Making requests in e-mail: Do cyber-consultations entail directness? Toward conventions in a new medium.” In Pragmatics and Language Learning, Vol. 11, edited by Kathleen Bardovi-Harlig, César Félix-Brasdefer, and Alwyia S. Omar, 81–107. University of Hawaii Press.

—. 2007. “Students writing e-mails to faculty: An examination of e-politeness among native and non-native speakers of English.” Language Learning & Technology 11 (2): 59–81.

Biesenbach-Lucas, Sigrun, and Donald L. Weasenforth. 2000. “‘Please help me’: L1/L2 variations in solicitations in electronic conferences.” Paper presented at the 20th Annual Second Language Research Forum (SLRF), Madison, WI.

Bjorge, Anne Kari. 2007. “Power distance in English lingua franca e-mail communication.” International Journal of Applied Linguistics 17 (1): 60–80.

Blum-Kulka, Shoshana. 1987. “Indirectness and politeness in requests: Same or different?” Journal of Pragmatics 11: 145–60.

Blum-Kulka, Shoshana, Juliane House, and Gabriele Kasper, eds. 1989. Cross-Cultural Pragmatics: Requests and Apologies. Ablex Publishing Corporation.

Blum-Kulka, Shoshana, and Elite Olshtain. 1984. “Requests and apologies: A cross-cultural study of speech act realization patterns (CCSARP).” Applied Linguistics 5 (3): 196–213.

Brown, Penelope, and Stephen C. Levinson. 1987. Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage. Cambridge University Press.

Chen, Chi-Fen Emily. 2001. “Making e-mail requests to professors: Taiwanese vs. American students.” Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Association for Applied Linguistics, St. Louis, USA.

—. 2006. “The development of e-mail literacy: From writing to peers to writing to authority figures.” Language Learning & Technology 10 (2): 35–55. https://doi.org/10125/44060.

Cohen, Andrew. 1996. “Speech Acts.” In Sociolinguistics and Language Teaching, edited by Sandra L. McKay and Nancy H. Hornberger, 383–420. Cambridge University Press.

Crystal, David. 2006. Language and the Internet. Cambridge University Press.

Deveci, Tanju, and Ikhlas Ben Hmida. 2017. “The request speech act in e-mails by Arab university students in the UAE.” Journal of Language and Linguistic Studies 13 (1): 194–214.

Economidou-Kogetsidis, Maria. 2008. “Internal and external mitigation in interlanguage request production: The case of Greek learners of English.” Journal of Politeness Research 4 (1): 111–38. https://doi.org/10.1515/PR.2008.005.

—. 2010. “Cross-cultural and situational variation in requesting behaviour: Perceptions of social situations and strategic usage of request patterns.” Pragmatics 42 (8): 2262–81. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2010.02.001.

—. 2011. “‘Please answer me as soon as possible’: Pragmatic failure in non-native speakers’ e-mail requests to faculty.” Journal of Pragmatics 43 (13): 3193–215. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2011.06.006.

Economidou-Kogetsidis, Maria, Milica Savić, and Nicola Halenko, eds. 2021. Email Pragmatics and Second Language Learners. John Benjamins Publishing.

Faerch, Claus, and Gabriele Kasper. 1989. “Internal and external modification in interlanguage request production.” In Cross-Cultural Pragmatics: Requests and Apologies, edited by Shoshana Blum-Kulka, Juliane House, and Gabriele Kasper, 221–47. Ablex Publishing Corporation.

Félix-Brasdefer, J. César. 2009. “Pragmatic variation across Spanish(es): Requesting in Mexican, Costa Rican, and Dominican Spanish.” Intercultural Pragmatics 6 (4): 473–515. https://doi.org/10.1515/iprg.2009.025.

Fraser, Bruce, and William Nolen. 1981. “The association of deference with linguistic form.” International Journal of the Sociology of Language 27: 93–110.

Glater, Jonathan D. 2006. “To: professor@university.edu Subject: Why it’s all about me.” The New York Times. Accessed September 20, 2024. https://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/21/education/to-professoruniversityedu-subject-why-its-all-about-me.html.

Gordon, David, and Susan Ervin-Tripp. 1984. “The structure of children’s requests.” In The Acquisition of Communicative Competence, edited by Richard L. Schiefelbusch and Joanne Pickar, 295–321. University Park Press.

Hallajian, Ali, and Maya Khemlani David. 2014. “‘Hello and good day to you dear Dr. …’ Greetings and closings in supervisors-supervisees email exchanges. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences 118: 85–93. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2014.02.012.

Hartford, Beverly S., and Kathleen Bardovi-Harlig. 1996. “‘At your earliest convenience’: A study of written student requests to faculty.” In Pragmatics and Language Learning. Monograph Series, Vol. 7, edited by Lawrence F. Bouton, 55–69. University of Illinois.

Hassall, Timothy. 2012. “Request modification by Australian learners of Indonesian.” In Interlanguage Request Modification, edited by Maria Economidou-Kogetsidis and Helen Woodfield, 203–42. John Benjamins. https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.217.07has.

Hofstede, Geert. 2001. Culture’s Consequences: Comparing Values, Behaviors, Institutions, and Organizations Across Nations. 2nd ed. Sage.

Kiesler, Sara, Jane Siegel, and Timothy W. McGuire. 1984. “Social psychological aspects of computer-mediated communication.” American Psychologist 39 (10): 1123–34. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.39.10.1123.

Lan, Li. 2000. “E-mail: A challenge to standard English?” English Today 16 (4): 23–29. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0266078400000511.

Salazar Campillo, Patricia. 2018. “Student-initiated e-mail communication: An analysis of openings and closings by Spanish EFL learners.” Sintagma: Revista de Lingüística 30: 81–93. https://doi.org.10.21001/sintagma.2018.30.05.

—. 2023. “Gender in low-imposition email requests.” Epos: Revista de filología 39: 320–38. https://doi.org.10.5944/epos.39.2023.38318.

Savić, Milica. 2018. “Lecturer Perceptions of im/politeness and in/appropriateness in student e-mail requests: A Norwegian perspective.” Journal of Pragmatics 124: 52–72. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2017.12.005.

Searle, John R. 1975. “A taxonomy of illocutionary acts.” In Language, Mind, and Knowledge, edited by Keith Gunderson, 344–369. University of Minnesota Press.

Sproull, Lee, and Sara Kiesler. 1991. Connections: New Ways of Working in the Networked Organization. MIT Press.

Statista. 2023. “Number of sent and received e-mails per day worldwide from 2018 to 2027.” Accessed August 15, 2024. https://www.statista.com/statistics/456500/daily-number-of-e-mails-worldwide/.

Teacher Tapp. 2021. “Do you embrace unread emails or does it make you scream?” Accessed September 7, 2024. https://teachertapp.co.uk/articles/how-many-unread-e-mails-do-you-have/.

Thomas, Jenny A. 1995. Meaning in Interaction: An Introduction to Pragmatics. Longman.

Tseng, Chia-Ti H. 2016. “E-politeness: An analysis of Taiwanese EFL learners’ e-mail discourse on request strategies.” International Journal for 21st Century Education 3 (Special): 35–62. https://doi.org/10.21071/ij21ce.v3iSpecial.5707.

Vuković, Milica, and Vesna Bratić. 2012. “Mi o jeziku, jezik o nama: analiza elektronske komunikacije između nastavnika i studenata.” In Mi o jeziku, jezik o nama. Zbornik radova sa druge konferencije Društva za primijenjenu lingvistiku, edited by Slavica Perović, 47–60. Podgorica: Društvo za primijenjenu lingvistiku Crne Gore.

Yule, George. 1996. Pragmatics. Oxford University Press.

Zhu, Wuhan. 2012. “Polite requestive strategies in e-mails: An investigation of pragmatic competence of Chinese EFL learners.” RELC Journal: A Journal of Language Teaching and Research 43 (2): 217–38. https://doi.org/10.1177/0033688212449936.