A SOCIOLINGUISTIC INVESTIGATION ON (IM)POLITE EMAIL REQUESTS OF TURKISH EFL STUDENTS

Abstract

This paper explores gender-based differences in the requests made by 20 Turkish EFL preparation class students (10 males, 10 females) in a state university in İstanbul, Turkey, to their instructor, based on the politeness theory. The data involved the emails sent by the students making a request on several topics to their instructor and were analysed according to the coding scheme of Holtgraves and Yang (1992) including three factors affecting politeness: formality of address phrase, degree of imposition and directness. The analysis of qualitative and quantitative data showed that there are certain differences among these three factors regarding two genders. The evaluation of the data indicated that the females used more formal address phrases than their male counterparts. Both genders employed indirect requests more than direct ones, but the female participants used slightly more indirect requests. The females were more careful about thanking and closing their emails which increased both the imposition and politeness level of the females’ requests. The results concorded with the results of the previous studies and so it replicated and justified similar research.

Keywords

• sociolinguistics,requests,English as a foreign language(EFL)

İngilizce'yi yabancı dil olarak öğrenen Türk öğrencilerin kibar/kaba ricalarını içeren e-postalar üzerine toplumdilbilimsel bir araştırma

Abstract

Bu araştırma, Türkiye, İstanbul’da bir devlet üniversitesinin hazırlık sınıfına devam eden (10 kız, 10 erkek) 20 adet Türk, İngilizce hazırlık öğrencisinin okutmanlarına gönderdikleri ricaların “kibarlık kuramı” ışığında cinsiyete bağlı farklılıklarını incelemeği hedefler. Araştırmanın verilerini, öğrencilerin çeşitli konularda bir ricada bulunmak üzere ders okutmanlarına gönderdikleri e-postaları içermektedir ve bu veriler, kibarlığı etkileyen üç faktörü: resmi hitap, yükümlülük dereceleri ve açıklık-dürüstlük cümleciklerini kapsayan,  Holtgraves ve  Yang’in  (1992) kodlama planına göre çözümlenmiştir. Nicel ve nitel verilerin çözümlemeleri,  bu üç faktör, iki cinsiyete göre farklılıklar göstermiştir.  Verilerin değerlendirilmesi sonucunda, kızların erkek katılımcılara göre daha resmi hitap biçimlerini kullandıkları görülmüştür. İki cinsin de dolaysız ricalar yerine dolaylı ricalar kullandığı; fakat kızların biraz daha fazla dolaylı ricalar kullandığı görülmüştür. Kızlar, yükümlülük ve kibarlık seviyelerini artıran teşekkür etme konusunda ve epostalarını bitirme konusunda daha dikkatli davranmışlardır. Araştırmanın sonuçlarının, daha önce yapılmış olan benzer araştırmaların sonuçlarıyla uyumlu olduğu, böylece daha önce aynı konuda yapılmış araştırmaların sonuçlarını tekrarladığı ve doğruladığı görülmüştür.

Keywords

• Anahtar sözcükler: Toplumdilbilim,ricalar

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