MITIGATED REQUEST SPEECH ACTS IN LEARNER DISCOURSE
MITIGATED REQUEST SPEECH ACTS IN LEARNER DISCOURSE

Author(s): Petra Huschová
Subject(s): Language studies, Education, Foreign languages learning, Western Slavic Languages
Published by: Masarykova univerzita nakladatelství
Keywords: request; internal modifier; external modifier; downgrader; non-native speakers;
Summary/Abstract: This paper is concerned with the usage of directive speech acts in the Czech Students’ Spoken English (CSSE) corpus, particularly with requests produced by Czech EFL undergraduate learners in role-play tasks. It aims to investigate request modifications, focusing primarily on identifying syntactic and lexical devices within the request head act that mitigate the imposition of requests. The findings indicate that Czech learners prefer syntactic mitigating devices, whereas the range of lexical internal modifiers employed is limited. Finally, the paper briefly comments on the students’ linguistic and pragmatic competence in producing requests for information.

• Details
• Contents