The speech act of request in the ESL classroom
The Malaysian education system is at a time where effective classroom communication is seen as a vital step in enhancing the teaching and learning of English as a Second Language (ESL). Rural secondary school students in Malaysia seem to be unaware of their level of politeness when communicating i...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Penerbit Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia
2017
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| Online Access: | http://journalarticle.ukm.my/12866/ http://journalarticle.ukm.my/12866/ http://journalarticle.ukm.my/12866/1/21952-65597-1-PB.pdf |
| Summary: | The Malaysian education system is at a time where effective classroom communication is seen as a vital step in
enhancing the teaching and learning of English as a Second Language (ESL). Rural secondary school students
in Malaysia seem to be unaware of their level of politeness when communicating in English. This study of the
speech act of request which is related to the field of pragmatics and classroom culture, can be beneficial in
understanding how students perceive polite interaction when speaking English. This ongoing study aims to
identify the types of requeststrategies employed by the participants in making requests and explore the factors
influencing their choice of strategies. The participants of the study are students and two language teachers of a
rural secondary school in Kedah. Data collection was done by first recording naturally occurring data in the
classroom. The data is then analysed based on Blum-Kulka and Olshstain’s (1984) CCSARP framework and
Brown and Levinson’s (1987) Politeness Theory. Subsequently, participants identified are administered the
Discourse Completion Tests (DCT). Preliminary findings show that students seem to be less polite when
speaking to peers and more polite when speaking to teachers. Teachers, on the other hand, speak less politely to
students as they have more power. This study provides valuable insights to the study of classroom pragmatics in
Malaysia and future research should be conducted in urban school settings to gain more comprehensive data in
this area of study. |
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