Naturally occurring requests in Turkish: A case from an academic context

Abstract

In terms of their directness and modification strategies, this study investigated how undergraduate speakers of Turkish formulate their naturally occurring requests in an academic context, in which they request things from an academic in his office. After a 4-year data collection period, the researcher analyzed 395 of the requests (hand-recorded as immediate field notes) made to him. The findings on levels of directness revealed that the strongest tendency is towards conventionally indirect strategies, while the female tendency towards them is even clearer. The dominance of conventional indirectness is in parallel also with the degree of imposition of the requests. ‘Zero marking’ is what dominates the findings on internal modification strategies, while some preferences, such as unfinished sentences, could suggest language or context-specific results. In light of these descriptive findings on a part of everyday language in academia, the study could in practical terms help learners and teachers of Turkish and Turkish learners/teachers of English or any other language as well. Moreover, it could contribute to the efforts towards handling the methodological concerns in pragmatics research about the extent to which elicited data can represent what people actually say in natural conversation.

Keywords

• Pragmatics
• requests
• naturally occurring data
• field notes
• directness
• modification

Kaynakça

1. Aitchison, J. (1992). Linguistics. London: Hodder & Stoughton.
2. Aksan, M., & Mersinli, Ü. (2015). Retrieving and analyzing requestive forms: Evidence from the Turkish National Corpus. In S. Ruhi & Y. Aksan (Eds.), Exploring (im)politeness in specialized and general corpora: converging methodologies and analytic procedures (pp. 169-215). Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
3. Alemi, M., & Razzaghi, S. (2013). Politeness markers in English for business purposes textbook. International Journal of Research Studies in Language Learning, 2(4), 109- 123. https://doi.org/10.5861/ijrsll.2012.191
4. Aslan, S. (2005). Türkiye Türkçesinde sezdirmeye dayalı rica stratejileri. Modern Türklük Araştırmaları Dergisi, 1, 114-126.
5. Bayyurt, Y., & Bayraktaroğlu, A. (2001). The use of pronouns and terms of address in Turkish service encounters. In A. Bayraktaroğlu & M. Sifianou (Eds.), Linguistic politeness across boundaries. The case of Greek and Turkish (pp. 209-240). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.88.09bay
6. Beck, J. (2015). So What? What it means when people leave the word “so” dangling at the end of a sentence. Retrieved from https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015.
7. Beebe, L., & Cumming, M. C. (1996). Natural speech act data versus written questionnaire data: How data collection method affects speech act performance. In S. Gass & J. Neu (Eds.), Speech acts across cultures: Challenges to communication in a second language (pp.65-86). New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
8. Bella, S. (2012). Pragmatic development in a foreign language: A study of Greek FL requests. Journal of Pragmatics, 44(13), 1917-1947. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2012.08.014

9. Billmyer, K., & Varghese, M. (2000). Investigating instrument-based pragmatic variability: Effects of enhancing discourse completion tests. Applied Linguistics, 21(4), 517- 552. https://doi.org/10.1093/applin/21.4.517
10. Boyacı, A. (2011). Erasmus exchange students' comparative views on classroom management in Turkey and in their country (Anadolu University case). Education and Science, 36(159), 270-282.
11. Blum-Kulka, S. (1987). Indirectness and politeness in requests: Same or different? Journal of Pragmatics, 11(2), 131–146. https://doi.org/10.1016/0378-2166(87)90192-5
12. Blum-Kulka, S. (1989). Playing it safe: The role of conventionality and indirectness. In S. Blum-Kulka, J. House & G. Kasper (Eds.), Cross-cultural pragmatics. Requests and apologies (pp. 37-70). Norwood, NJ: Ablex.
13. Blum-Kulka, S., & Olshtain, E. (1984). Requests and apologies: A cross-cultural study of speech act realization patterns (CCSARP). Applied Linguistics, 5(3), 196-213. https://doi.org/10.1093/applin/5.3.196
14. Blum-Kulka, S., House, J., & Kasper, G. (1989). Cross-cultural pragmatics: Requests and apologies. Norwood, NJ: Ablex Publishing.
15. Brown, P., & Levinson, S. C. (1987). Politeness: Some universals in language use. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511813085
16. Coates, J. (2015). Women, men and language: A sociolinguistic account of gender differences in language. London: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315645612
17. Culpeper, J. (2011). Impoliteness. Using language to cause offence. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
18. Curl, T. S., & Drew, P. (2008). Contingency and action: A comparison of two forms of requesting. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 41(2), 129-153. https://doi.org/10.1080/08351810802028613
19. Doğançay-Aktuna, S., & Kamışlı, S. (2001). Linguistics of power and politeness in Turkish: Revelations from speech acts. In A. Bayraktaroğlu & M. Sifianou (Eds.), Linguistic politeness across boundaries: The case of Greek and Turkish. (pp. 75-104). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.88.05dog
20. Economidou-Kogetsidis, M. (2013). Strategies, modification and perspective in native speakers’ requests: A comparison of WDCT and naturally occurring requests. Journal of Pragmatics, 53, 21-38. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2013.03.014
21. Eckert, P., & McConnell-Ginet, S. (1995). Constructing meaning, constructing selves: Snapshots of language, gender and class from Belten High. In M. Bucholtz & K. Hall (Eds.), Gender articulated: Language and the culturally constructed self (pp. 469-507). London: Routledge.
22. Erişti, B., Polat, M., & Erdem, C. (2018). Yükseköğretimde uluslararasılaşma: Uluslararası öğrencilerin bulunduğu sınıflarda ders veren öğretim elemanlarının öğretim sürecinde yaşadıkları sorunlar ve çözüm önerileri. Journal of History Culture and Art Research, 7(2), 352-375. http://dx.doi.org/10.7596/taksad.v7i2.1539
23. Ervin-Tripp, S. M. (1996). Context in language. In D. I. Slobin, J. Gerhardt, A. Kyratzis, & J. Guo (Eds.), Social interactions, social context, and language (pp. 21-38). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
24. Faerch, C., & Kasper, G. (1989). Internal and external modification in interlanguage request realization. In S. Blum-Kulka, J. House & G. Kasper (Eds.), Cross-cultural pragmatics: Requests and apologies (pp. 221-247). Norwood, NJ: Ablex.
25. Félix-Brasdefer, J. C. (2010). Data collection methods in speech act performance: DCTs, role plays, and verbal reports. In A. Martínez-Flor & E. Usó-Juan (Eds.), Speech act performance: Theoretical, empirical, and methodological issues (pp. 41–56). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. https://doi.org/10.1075/lllt.26.03fel
26. Flöck, I. (2016). Requests in American and British English: A contrastive multi-method analysis. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.265
27. Gagne, C. (2018). Indirectness and entitlement in product requests in British service encounters. Journal of Pragmatics, 133, 1-14. doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2018.05.015
28. Golato, A. (2005). Compliments and compliment responses: Grammatical structure and sequential organization. Amsterdam and Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins. https://doi.org/10.1075/sidag.15
29. González-Cruz, M. I. (2014). Request patterns by EFL Canarian Spanish students: Contrasting data by languages and research methods. Intercultural Pragmatics, 11(4), 547- 573. https://doi:10.1515/ip-2014-0024
30. Göksel, A., & Kerslake, C. (2005). Turkish: An essential grammar. London: Routledge.
31. Güney, S. (2015). Sosyal psikoloji. Ankara: Nobel Akademik Yayıncılık.
32. Hayasi, T. (1998). Gender differences in modern Turkish discourse. International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 129(1), 117-126. https://doi.org/10.1515/ijsl.1998.129.117
33. Hinkel, E. (1997). Appropriateness of advice: DCT and multiple-choice data. Applied Linguistics, 18(1), 1-26. https://doi.org/10.1093/applin/18.1.1
34. Holmes, J. (1995). Women, men and politeness. London: Longman.
35. Huddleston, R., & Pullum, G. K. (2002). The Cambridge grammar of English language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
36. Huls, E. (1988). Politeness phenomena in the directives used by Turkish migrant families in the Netherlands. In S. Koç (Ed.), Studies in Turkish linguistics (pp. 1-25). Ankara: Middle East Technical University Press.
37. Jalilifar, A. (2009). Request strategies: Cross-sectional study of Iranian EFL learners and Australian native speakers. English Language Teaching, 2(1), 46-61. https://doi:10.5539/elt.v2n1p46
38. Karagöz, T., & İşisağ, K. U. (2019). An Investigation into the request realization patterns of Turkish ELT students. Novitas-ROYAL (Research on Youth and Language), 13(1), 84-102.
39. Kasper, G. (1992). Pragmatic transfer. Second Language Research, 8(3), 203-231. https://doi.org/10.1177/026765839200800303
40. Kasper, G., & Rose, K. R. (2002). Pragmatic development in a second language. Oxford: Blackwell.
41. Kasper, G. (2006). Speech acts in interaction: Towards discursive pragmatics. In K. Bardovi-Harlig, C. Félix-Brasdefer, & A. Omar (Eds.), Pragmatics and language learning, Vol. 11 (pp. 281-314). Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i, National Foreign Language Resource Center.
42. Ko, S., Eslami, Z. R., & Burlbaw, L. M. (2015). Investigating non-native English-speaking graduate students’ pragmatic development in requestive emails. International Journal of Society, Culture & Language, 3(1), 1-15.
43. Lakoff, R. (1975). Language and woman’s place. New York: Harper and Row.
44. Leech, G. (2011). Principles and applications of corpus linguistics. In V. Viana, S. Zyngier & G. Barnbrook (Eds.), Perspectives on corpus linguistics (pp. 155-170). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
45. Leech, G.N., & Thomas, J. (1990). Language, meaning and context: Pragmatics. In N.E. Collinge (Ed.), Encyclopedia of language (pp. 173-206). London: Routledge.
46. Márquez Reiter, R., Ganchenko, K., & Charalambidou, A. (2016). Requests and counters in Russian traffic police officer-citizen encounters. Pragmatics and Society, 7(4), 512-539. https://doi.org/10.1075/ps.7.4.01mar
47. Martı, L. (2006). Indirectness and politeness in Turkish–German bilingual and Turkish monolingual requests. Journal of Pragmatics, 38(11), 1836-1869. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2005.05.009
48. Masuda, K. (2011). Acquiring interactional competence in a study abroad context: Japanese language learners’ use of the interactional particle ne. The Modern Language Journal, 95(4), 519-540. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-4781.2011.01256.x
49. Mills, S. (2003). Gender and politeness. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
50. Norrick, N. R. (2009). Conjunctions in final position in everyday talk. In B. Fraser & K. Turner (Eds.), Language in life, and a life in language: Jacob Mey - a festschrift (pp. 319-328). Bingley: Emerald. https://doi: 10.1163/9789004253209_041
51. Otcu-Grillman, B. (2016). “Speak Turkish!” or not? Language choices, identities and relationship building within New York’s Turkish community. International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 237, 161-181. https://doi:10.1515/ijsl-2015-0040
52. Raymond, G. (2004). Prompting action: The stand-alone" so" in ordinary conversation. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 37(2), 185-218. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327973rlsi3702_4
53. Ren, W. (2019). Pragmatic development of Chinese during study abroad: A cross-sectional study of learner requests. Journal of Pragmatics, 146, 137-149. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2019.01.017
54. Rintell, E., & Mitchell, C. (1989). Studying request and apologies: An inquiry into method. In S. Blum-Kulka, J. House & G. Kasper (Eds.), Cross cultural pragmatics: Requests and apologies (pp. 248-272). Norwood, NJ: Ablex.
55. Schauer, G. (2009). Interlanguage pragmatic development: The study abroad context. London: Continuum.
56. Shams, R., & Afghari, A. (2011). Effects of culture and gender in comprehension of speech acts of indirect requests. English Language Teaching, 4(4), 279-287. http://dx.doi.org/10.5539/elt.v4n4p279
57. Sifianou, M. (1992). Politeness phenomena in England and Greece: A cross-cultural perspective. Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press.
58. Spitz, A. (2005). Power plays: The representation of mother-daughter disputes in contemporary plays by women. A study in discourse analysis. (Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation). Universität des Saarlandes, Saarbrücken.
59. Taguchi, N. (2018). Description and explanation of pragmatic development: Quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods research. System, 75, 23-32. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.system.2018.03.010
60. Vergis, N., & Terkourafi, M. (2015). The role of the speaker’s emotional state in im/politeness assessments. Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 34(3), 316-342. https://doi.org/10.1177/0261927X14556817
61. Weizman, E. (1989). Requestive hints. In S. Blum-Kulka, J. House & G. Kasper (Eds.), Cross- cultural pragmatics: Requests and apologies (pp. 71–95). Norwood, NJ: Ablex.
62. Will. (n.d.) In Cambridge dictionary. Retrieved April 15, 2020 from https://dictionary.cambridge.org/grammar/british-grammar/modals-and- modality/will
63. Yuan, Y. (2001). An inquiry into empirical pragmatics data-gathering methods: Written DCTs, oral DCTs, field notes, and natural conversations. Journal of Pragmatics, 33(2), 271-292. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0378-2166(00)00031-X
64. Zeyrek, D. (2001). Politeness in Turkish and its linguistic manifestations. In A. Bayraktaroğlu & M. Sifianou (Eds.), Linguistic politeness across boundaries. The case of Greek and Turkish (pp. 43-73). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.88.04zey