A01 cohe4573 01 se fm. Qxd

party. You feel you need to tell your boss.
Role B: Boss
You are a store owner of a local convenience store. One day, you send
out a notice to all your employees about a staff appreciation party
requesting RSVP. While you are in the process of spreading the word,
one of your part-time employees (about 20 years younger than you)
comes up to you to ask you about something else. Since s/he has 
not responded to your message yet, you decide to invite him/her per-
sonally. Since you value this employee’s work highly, you especially
want him/her to attend so you can express your appreciation:
Boss:
Employee:
Boss:
Employee:
(Role-play can continue to its logical conclusion, however many con-
versational turns it takes.)

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4 2
G R O U N D I N G I N T H E T E A C H I N G A N D L E A R N I N G O F L 2 P R A G M A T I C S
F I G U R E 3 . 1
The language of requesting would also be different depending on the
magnitude of the imposition involved in the request (e.g., borrowing a close
friend’s pen for a minute vs asking the same friend to use his/her car for a
week). In this case, we can observe how the intensity of the act (I) (magni-
10
Adapted from Brown and Levinson (1987).
When we speak or write, we adjust our language use according to the situ-
ation, for example, whom we are speaking to and what we are discussing.
Language use is influenced by a number of extra-linguistic contextual factors.
The following three are known to be major elements (see also the discussion
in Chapter 1):
(a) Social status (S). Relative social status of the speaker/writer and the
listener/reader.
(b) Distance (D). Level of social distance and psychological distance (how
distant or close the speaker/writer and listener/reader feel to each other).
(c) Intensity (I). Intensity of the act (e.g., the magnitude of the imposition
in a request or the severity of the infraction in an apology).
10
A primary advantage of a language elicitation procedure is that we can
manipulate these contextual factors across items and analyze how they affect
language use – for instance, in terms of level of politeness, directness, and
formality. To give a more specific example, let’s compare a small request
from a student to a new teacher with the same request by the student when
directed at a close friend. This task allows us to focus on the impact that two
contextual factors – social status (S) and distance (D) – have on language use.
In Figure 3.1, below, if the Xs are more to the left, the language is expected to
be less polite, less formal, and more direct; when they are more to the right,
then the language is anticipated to be more polite, formal, and indirect.

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C O L L E C T I N G D A T A R E F L E C T I N G T H E P R A G M A T I C U S E O F L A N G U A G E