Request Studies in Mandarin Chinese

Lee-Wong (1994a) conducted a study to examine how Direct (in Lee-Wong’s term called

Impositives⁶), Conventional Indirect and Non-conventional Indirect strategies were performed by participants from Mainland China with regard to contextual factors and what the correlation between Direct strategies and politeness is in Mandarin Chinese. The instrument 30-item DCT varying with contextual factors Status (three levels: high, equal and low), Distance (two levels: close and strangers), and Degree of Imposition was used to elicit request utterances of 170 Chinese and the method, interview, was used to elicit 80 out of 170 participants’ oral request responses in 14-16 out of 30 scenarios in DCT. The main findings were as follows: i) the use of the Direct strategies was significantly correlated with participants’ Status positively that the use of Impositives increased concurrently with participants’ Status from low to high and it was legitimate to use Impositives to interlocutors of equal and low status in Chinese society which is characterized as vertically hierarchical relationship among individuals; ii) when participants’ Status was low to interlocutors, the major strategy preferred was Conventional Indirect one; iii) when Degree of Imposition of a request increased, the use of Impositives decreased; iv) the use of Non-conventional Indirect strategies was quite low (1.1%). Lee-Wong (ibid) further concluded that in Chinese, being indirect can be regarded as inappropriate whereas being direct (i.e. using imperatives) were polite instead in the situations (p.509)(a) where the request is deemed to be easily carried out,(b) where both interactants are familiar or socially close, (c) where the speaker is in a position of power of authority. For instance, if a manager asks his/her secretary to do something for him/her in terms of Conventional Indirect instead of Direct strategies, it may imply “displeasure or irony or else something is amiss (p.504).” Lee-Wong‘s (1994a) study made contributions to point out that Chinese did not use Direct strategies to making requests regardless of all contextual factors but only use it in certain socially legitimate contexts where

6 In Lee-Wong’s study (1994), the Direct strategy (i.e. Impositives) consists of (1) Imperative, (2) Direct Questions, (3) Want/need statement, (4) Presumptive statement.

being direct was appropriate and polite. However, some of factors which may influence the interpretation of results of the study were not discussed, for instance, the background information (i.e. age, educational background, vocations…etc.), the request behaviors between acquaintance, and the types of request. Thus, more studies may be needed to figure out how these factors not mentioned in the study interacted with Chinese’s’ request behaviors.

Zhang (1995a) carried out a study to investigate the request behaviors of thirty 20-to-35 year-old native speakers of Chinese from the Mainland China who were university students in the U.S. The data was collected with the 12-scenario DCT in which Social Status (levels of high, equal, low) and Distance (high, equal) were taken into consideration. With the data coded based on the CCSARP, the main findings were as follows: (i) the Conventional Indirect strategy –Query Preparatory such as 能不能(Neng-bu-neng), 可不可以(Ke-bu-ke-yi ?) was the first priority that participants would choose in all context except in the scenario where the interlocutors’ status was low, which the strategy Mood Derivable was overwhelmingly used;

(ii) Imperative and Want Statement +tag strategies were regarded as tentative and polite though these two strategies were avoided in English since it was regarded as direct and impolite; (iii) most of the participants’ requests behaviors were accompanied with supportive moves; (iv) of all types of supportive moves, Grounder was the leading choice that participants would use.

Zhang (1995b) later carried out a study in terms of role-play to investigate the relationship between indirectness and politeness of Chinese request behaviors. Participants were two female native speakers of Chinese who study in U.S. and they were good friends but not close. With the data coded based on CCSARP, Zhang (1995b) claimed that indirectness of request utterances was realized by external modifications (i.e. supportive

moves), not by internal modifications such as particles or pronoun, etc. In other words, indirectness in Chinese was realized at the discourse level, either by “small talk” or

“supportive moves (p82).”

Hong (1993) conducted a cross-cultural study to compare the request behaviors of Chinese and German with the instrument of 8-scenario DCT in which contextual factors Status (high, equal, low) and Distance (equal) were taken into considerations. Besides, the factor Degree of Necessity of the request act such as life-saving vs. notes-borrowing and the factor Degree of Urgency of the request act such as a hungry man borrowing money to buy food vs. to buy clothing were taken into considerations as well. Without controlling participants’ professions gender and age, data was collected from 68 Chinese in campus and 55 German speakers aged from 18-70 years old. Based on the coding schema of CCSARP, the main findings were as follows: (i) comparing the use of syntactic, lexical modifications and supportive moves, overall Chinese were more polite than German in performing the act of request (ii) in the high-ranking (high status) to low-ranking (low status) scenarios, Chinese expressed lower degree of Directness than Germans; besides, requests were frequently expressed in terms of imperatives frequently by both groups; (iii) in the equal (Status)-familiar (Distance) scenarios, Chinese also expressed lower degree of Directness than Germans; (iv) in the Low-ranking to High-ranking scenarios, the two groups did not differ in the degree of politeness though few common syntactical, lexical or supportive moves were shared in expressing requests. Hong (ibid) further suggested that not only social factors of Status and Distance, but also cultural factors and the typology of a language per se would influence participants’ selection of request strategies and modifications. Hong’s (1993) study had given us deep insight of how social, cultural factors and the typology of a language would influence participants’ request behaviors. However, more studies may be

needed for the factors of participants’ age, gender, professions, Degree of Imposition, and types of requests (Right-type vs. Obligation-type) were not discussed in the study.

Chung (1995) carried out a cross-cultural study with the instrument of the 12-scenario DCT to explore the repertoires of politeness request strategies used by Mandarin-speaking CL1 individuals. The contextual factors Social Status (three levels: high, equal, low) and Chinese as L1 data and EFL data were collected from 60 Native Mandarin-speaking CL1 individuals who had been spending one year and five months in America and English as L1 data was obtained from 26 native English-speaking participants. After answering DCT, 6 CL1s and 2 EL1s were randomly selected to be interviewed and reflect their DCT responses.

Besides, another 8 CL1 participants and 8 EL1s (2 female pair and 2 male pair) responded the questionnaire in the way of role-plays. Though the coding schema in Chung’s (ibid) study was based on CCSARP, she coded not only the “ head act” but also supportive moves as request strategies as exemplified below (2.10), which differed from CCSARP in that a request response was segmented into two parts—“head act” and “adjuncts to the head act”(i.e.

supportive moves).

(2.10) An example of Chung’s coding schema (Chung 1995:53):

“I need you to take over planning a month-long training session for other programmers. Do you think you can help me with the project?"

Chung’s (ibid) coding schema:

The Interpretation strategy (Direct strategy): I need you to…

The Consultation strategy (Conventional Indirect strategy): Do you think…

CCSARP coding schema:

The supportive move: Pregrounder: I need you to …

The head act (Conventional Indirect strategy): Query Preparatory:

Do you think…

The main findings of Chung’s (1995) study was as follows: (i) the Conventional strategies were more frequently used than Direct strategies and Non-conventional Indirect ones (i.e. hint) by the three groups; (ii) both Chinese and EL1s tended to use Direct strategies in the Distant-unfamiliar-Status-equal and Distant-familiar-Status-low situations where they felt that it was interlocutors’ obligations to comply with the request; (iii) generally, Chinese and EFL learners used similar request strategies as EL1s did toward interlocutors’ of different status and relations though frequencies of the use of certain strategy varied; (iv) the deviation of EFL learners’ use of certain strategy from CL1s and EL1s was due to the formal learning they received (v) pragmalinguisitc and sociolinguistic failures were found in EFL learners’

use of request strategies such as using the hint to ask the boss for a leave and called the person by title “ Manager...” that EL1s would not did; (vi) the length of time and frequency of EFL learners’ exposure to the target language environment had influenced their strategy use in the role-play and interview data. Chung’s study had given us a comprehensive understanding of the repertoire of EL1 and CL1 request strategies. However, the factor Degree of Imposition, Interlocutors’ genders and types of request were not controlled in the scenarios of DCT so that how these factors influence participants’ choices of request strategies are still unknown.

Liao (1997) conducted a study with instrument of DCT with fourteen situations to compare three types of request behaviors of 71 native English speakers (EL1s) without mention of the female-male ratio and126 native speakers of Mandarin (CL1s) in Taiwan (76 male and 50 male Chinese) who both provided with CL1 and English as L2 (Chinese EFLs) data but not all the responses were valid. The three types of request (2.11) included the Right-type request (i.e., the request benefits to the requester: pp.67), Obligatory-type request (i.e., the requestee has the obligation to do what is requested pp.63) and Altruistic request⁷

7 The Altruistic type of request was discussed in only one scenario to further prove Liao’s claim that the influence of the factor Ethnicity is stronger than participants’ gender that affected participants’ request strategy selections

exemplified as below.

(2.11) Types of Request

(a) An Obligation-type request act (Liao, ibid: 61)

You are taking a test. The time is up and you are still answering it. The professor comes to your side and says, “(One of the requests for you to submit the test sheet)”

(b) A Right-type request act (Liao, ibid: 186)

Your teacher must leave school immediately after class. S/he has no time to return to the main library three books which are due today. S/he says,

“(One of the requests for you to return the books for her/him)”

(c) An Altruistic-type (Liao, ibid: 303)

Ethiopia (an African country) is in a very bitter famine. The school is promoting a donation program. Your mentor says, “One of the requests to ask each one of the class to do their best to donate as much as possible)”

Participants’ responses obtained in six scenarios of the Obligation-type, seven for the Right-type and one for the Altruistic-type request were examined. In each request types, situations with contextual factors Status (high and low), Distance, Domain (home, school, work, and peers), participants’ Gender (only discussed in Chinese data) which interacted with Context (public and private) were discussed item by item. Participants answered DCT by pretending themselves as they were teachers, the boss at work, little brothers, etc. and say what others would say in context. With the data coded based on CCSARP, the main findings were as follows. First, the result of Altruistic-type of request showed that participants’

strategy selections were strongly influenced by the factor of Ethnicity instead of participants’

Gender. Second, the result of the Obligatory-type request showed that the Direct request strategies—Mood derivable— was one of the first two preferred strategies used by EL1s in 4

out of 6 situations and by Chinese in 6 out of the 6 situations. Liao (1997) further suggested that the issue of FTA seemed to be irrelevant with such type of request since it was listeners’

obligation to comply with the request and indirect requests then “become excessive etiquette (p.63).” Third, referring to the Right-type request, the Conventional Indirect strategy was appropriate for all the Right-type situations in both Chinese and Anglo-EL1 society that the Conventional Indirect strategy was one of the first two strategies preferred by EL1s in 7 out of 7 situations and by Chinese in 6 out of 7 situations. Liao (ibid: 294) regarded the use of Mood Derivable as the indicator of Degree of Imposition of the situations; that is, the more Mood Derivable was used, the lower the Degree of the Imposition of the situation was.

When the Degree of Imposition was regarded as low, the strategy of Mood Derivable was used by both EL1s and CL1s. Besides, Mood Derivable was suitable for all the situations in CL1 but not in EL1 society, which implied that what is regarded as appropriate pragmatic rules in Chinese may be regarded as inappropriate in EL1 society. Fourth, comparing tokens of CL1, Chinese EFLs, and EL1 data, the result suggested that CL1s, either answering DCT in Mandarin or English, were talkative than EL1s. Liao’s study (1997) had given us a comprehensive understanding how different request types and contextual factors affected participants’ request strategy choices. However, English as L2 data were only collected in certain situations so that whether pragmatic transfer occur or not was not mentioned and the use of supportive moves was analyzed in terms of tokens instead of types so that which types of supportive moves were positive or negative used by EFL learners were unrecognized.

With instrument of DCT, Yu (1999) examined and compared the use of request strategies, external modifications (supportive moves) and internal modifications (downgraders) of 40 native speakers of English (EL1), 40 native Mandarin speakers (CL1) and 40 Chinese EFLs learners (Chinese EFLs). Two contextual factors—Distance and

Dominance (Status) — were taken into considerations. Distance consisted of two levels—

-distance which interlocutors knew one another and +distance which interlocutors did not know one another. Dominance (Status) also included two levels –dominance which interlocutors were of equal status and +dominance which interlocutors was of higher status.

Contrasted to Liao’s (1997) study, participants were required to say what they would say in the scenarios. Based on the coding schema of CCSARP, the three groups’ use of three main request strategies (Direct, Conventional Indirect and Non-conventional Indirect), Supportive moves and Downgraders were examined. The results as listed below (2.12) indicated that overall (i) CL1s used more Direct strategies than EL1s did, used less Conventional Indirect and Non-conventional Indirect than EL1s did and Chinese EFLs were in-between; (ii) EL1s used more Supportive moves than CL1s and less Downgraders than CL1s did; (iii) EL1s and Chinese EFLs used more Supportive moves than Downgraders whereas CL1s used more Downgraders than Supportive moves; (iv) Chinese EFLs and CL1s were found to employ grounders most often before their requests; (v) Chinese EFLs translated politeness strategies into L2.

(2.12) The result of Yu’s (1999) study:

A. Strategies used by the three groups from high to low:

1. Direct strategies: CL1s> Chinese EFLs> EL1s in all contexts 2. Conventional Indirect: EL1s> Chinese EFLs> CL1s in all contexts 3. Non-conventional Indirect: EL1s (except in “+distance, +dominance”

situations)> Chinese EFLs=CL1

B. Modifications used by the three groups from high to low:

1. Supportive moves: Chinese EFLs > EL1s>CL1s 2. Downgraders: CL1s> EL1s>Chinese EFLs 3. Internal vs. supportive moves

a. CL1s: used more internal than supportive moves

b. EL1s and Chinese EFLs: use more supportive moves than internal

Yu (ibid) concluded that unlike the parallel relationship between directness and politeness in Western cultures, Direct strategies in Chinese can be polite for the reason that supportive moves play a critical role in Chinese politeness and facework. It was also found in his study that Chinese and EFL learners’ use of Direct strategies was accompanied with downgraders and lengthy supportive moves to express their politeness. Yu’s (1999) study gave us a good insight into how the three groups differed in their performance of request behaviors. Nonetheless, contextual factors Distance and Status consisted only binary levels and the factor Imposition (High and Low) seemed to be mentioned (p.293), but not controlled in situations, which may influence participants’ responses. Thus, further study may be needed to investigate the effect of Degree of Imposition on participants’ request behaviors and if the three groups’ selections among the three request strategies differ in different contexts.