THE USE OF REQUEST STRATEGIES BY THAI AND FILIPINO TEACHERS

Abstract

Requests are important speech acts that can be susceptible to misunderstanding. Especially for English as a foreign language (EFL), it can be difficult for them to use appropriate linguistic forms to express their requests and strategies to accomplish their intention. This present study aims at investigating the English request strategies used by 30 Thai and 30 Filipino teachers, as well as the differences in their request strategies regarding directness levels based on Schauer’s (2009) taxonomy. By using a triangulation approach, two methods of data collection – Written Discourse Completion Test (WDCT) and interview – were utilized to investigate request strategies and additional complications that might affect the use of these strategies. The results revealed that Thai teachers used direct as much as indirect requests, while Filipino teachers mostly used indirect requests. There were significant differences between the groups of Thai and Filipino teachers in their use of six different strategies. In terms of the social aspect of making a request and other related information, both groups had high awareness of social status and social distance. From the interview, it was found that although Thai teachers had more difficulties in making requests caused by the lack of English proficiency. The present study’s significance lies in the fact that in the linguistic field of pragmatics, people from different cultures showed their verbal behavior differently, especially request strategies due to various factors, such as pragmatic proficiency, pragmatic awareness, and interlanguage competence.

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