A study on politeness strategies in requests by the characters in the novel “Twilight” by Stephenie Meyer

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Nghiên cứu chiến lược lịch sự trong lời thỉnh
cầu của các nhân vật trong tiểu thuyết
“Chạng vạng” của Stephenie Meyer

Trần Thị Phương Linh

Trường Đại học Ngoại ngữ
Luận văn ThS ngành: Ngôn ngữ Anh; Mã số: 60 22 15
Người hướng dẫn:
Năm bảo vệ: 2012

Abstract: The speech act of request is a face-threatening act in human’s
communication because it challenges the mutual face of both the speaker and the
hearer. The current study aims to uncover how politeness strategies in requests are
employed in the novel “Twilight” by Stephenie Meyer. All the requests carrying
the illocutionary force of getting somebody to do something serve as the data
source. The coding system is based on Blum-Kulka et. al (1989) and Trosborg
(1995)’s coding manual. The findings show that the characters in “Twilight”
overwhelmingly chose the Direct Strategies in formulating their requests, in which
the Imperative Strategy or Mood Derivable was the most preferable strategy. On
the choice of Internal Modifications, the speakers in “Twilight” used a wide range
of mitigating devices within the Head Act to reduce the requestive force, mostly the
Question forms, Downtoners, and Past tense. With reference to External
Modifications, the speakers mostly chose Grounders to give reasons for their
requests. The findings also show that the choice of request strategies and mitigating
devices was influenced by the relationships between the characters.

Keywords: Tiếng Anh; Lời thỉnh cầu; Chiến lược lịch sự; Kỹ năng nói; Tiểu thuyết

Content
PART A: INTRODUCTION
1. Rationale of the study
Language, as stated by Crystal (1992:212), is “the systematic, conventional use of
sounds, signs, or written symbols in a human society for communication and self-
expression”. If communication is to be effective, both the speaker and the hearer need to
have shared knowledge; i.e., the same perception of what they are talking about. In other
words, people need to have communicative competence.
Hymes (1967, cited in Tam, 2005) asserts that communicative competence includes
not only knowledge of the linguistic forms of a language but also knowledge of when, how
and to whom it is appropriate to use these forms. In other words, linguistic components;
i.e. grammatical, lexical, phonologicalare not enough for a language learner to avoid
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cultural shock, miscommunication or even communication breakdown. Language learners
thereforeshould acquire pragmatic competence, i.e., the ability to perform language
functions appropriately in social contexts. Being aware of the importance of pragmatic
ability, a lot of researchers have drawn their attention to its crucial role, highlighted the
significance of social context, and made suggestions for appropriateness in
communication.
The teaching and learning of foreign languages, including English has shifted from
linguistic forms of the target language to the communicative approach with more emphasis
on communicative competence in order to meet the demand of global development. In line
with this, the teaching and learning of English in Vietnam has witnessed a great effort in
improving learners’ communicative competence. More attention has been paid to oral
skills and practice which stress on the pragmatic meanings of utterances in contexts.
Nevertheless, the traditional ways of teaching and learning, which mainly focused on the
development of linguistic competence seem to hold its position as the prominent method.
This leads to the fact that Vietnamese learners appear to fail to communicate naturally and
appropriately in English. These learners may possess relatively good linguistic knowledge

to understand the structures and the words literally, but they fail to achieve communicative
goals because they may not be aware of the hidden or unsaid meanings of utterances under
certain settings, and lack social appropriateness and linguisticrealization rulesfor
performing and respondingcommunicative acts. Unfortunately, while grammatical errors
are likely to be accepted by native speakers, English learners’ pragmatic incompetence
seems to be much less tolerated, and is often consideredrude. This again highly appreciates
the importance of mastering saying the right thing at the right time to avoid unintentional
impoliteness, misunderstandings, or communication breakdown.
The speech act of request has been regarded as one of the face-threatening acts
(FTAs) in communication, since it intrinsically threatens the hearer’s face and is affected
by social parameters (Brown and Levinson, 1987). Requests occur in everyday life and
play a leading role in human interaction as a vital part of successful communication.
Hence, many interlanguage and cross-cultural pragmatic studies within different language
backgrounds have widely examined the speech act of request such as House & Kasper
(1981, 1987), Blum-Kulka (1987), Blum-Kulka et al. (1989), Trosborg (1995), Hassall
(1999), Tam (2005). Most of those studies focused on examining the use of
pragmalinguistic formulae employed to express the request head act and the modification
devices that accompany it. Obviously, these studies have investigated numerous aspects of
the Head Act of request and provided a relatively full understanding in single language,
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interlanguage, and cross-culture pragmatics. However, there seems to remain gaps in
literary genre that need to be bridged since literature, as being judged, plays a significant
role in our life, especially the spiritual one. It has worked as a reflection of society and
culture (Thao, 2010); as a matter of fact, language, especially daily language used in a
literary works appears to be presented truthfully and naturally.
A long with the researcher’s special personal interest in the topic, these factors have
created an urge for her to choose the minor thesis, namely “A study on politeness strategies
in requests used by characters in the novel“Twilight” by Stephenie Meyer”. The study
aims to investigate English native speakers’ use of polite request strategies and

modification devices via the language employed by the characters in the novel. It is an
attempt to support the aforementioned studies and to fill the gap in the area.
2. Aims of the study
The study aims at exploring how polite request strategies are appropriately manifested
in the English language. Specifically, the study attempts to examine the choice of
politeness strategies and modification devices in requests employed by the characters in the
novel “Twilight” by Stepheanie Meyer.
3. Objectives of the study
The objectives of the study are:
- To uncover the use of politeness strategies in requests employed by the characters
in the novel “Twilight”.
- To uncover the use of modification devices in requests employed by the characters
in the novel “Twilight”.
4. Research questions
The study seeks to answer the following research questions:
 What politeness strategies are employed by the characters in “Twilight” in their
requests?
 What mitigation devices are employed by characters in “Twilight” in their
requests?
5. Scope of the study
The study focuses entirely on the verbal aspect related to speech acts. Other non-
verbal aspects such as facial expressions and eye contact are beyond the scope of the study.
Theories of speech acts and politeness are applied. The study uses the theoretical
framework which is based on Blum- Kulka et al.’s (1989) and Trosborg’s (1995) coding
system. All requests made by the characters in “Twilight” are the data source.
6. Significance of the study
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The study would hopefully be of theoretical and practical significance in the area of
pragmatics where the use of linguistic acts should be taken into account.

Theoretically, the study would contribute to a better understanding of speech acts in
general and the speech act of request in particular.
Practically, findings of the study would heighten Vietnamese learners and teachers’
awareness of native speakers’ use of request strategies. As a result, Vietnamese learners of
English could probably adopt appropriate tones of polite requests in the English language
to improve their pragmatic competence. More importantly, the research findings would be
a reference source for those who have deep concerns about the utilization of politeness
strategies in requests as well as other speech acts.
7. Method of the study
The method employed in this study is mainly the Quantitative method which stresses
more on the collection and analysis of numerical data and statistic. The study makes use of
utterances in “Twilight” as the major data source, thus counting and measuring are
commonly used. The research findings are generally presented in tables and charts or
figures.
8. Organization of the study
The study comprises three parts.
Part A is “Introduction” which presents the rationale, aims and objectives, research
questions, scopes, significance, method and organization of the study.
Part B entitled “Development” consists of three chapters.
Chapter 1 reviews the literature on speech acts, the speech act of request, and
politeness theory which play a role of basis for the analysis work.
Chapter 2 is “Methodology” which outlines the data collection, data analysis, and
analytical framework.
Chapter 3 is “Data Analysis”, which consists of two sections: the 1
st
one gives an
overview on “Twilight”, and the 2
nd
one is an investigation of polite request strategies
which provides a collection of examples and detailed analysis to uncover how the

characters in “Twilight” manage their requests politely on their choice of strategies and
modifications.
Part C, “Conclusion”, presents the conclusion of the study, implications, and
suggestions for further research.

PART B: DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW
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This chapter, divided into three sections, provides an overview of the theoretical
background of the research. Section 1.1 discusses the theory of speech act and the speech act of
request. Section 1.2 discusses the main issues of politeness theory and indirectness in requests,
and section 1.3reviews some previous studies conducted on the speech act of request.
1.1. The speech act theory
1.1.1. Speech acts
1.1.2. The speech act of request
1.2. Politeness
1.2.1. Politeness theory
1.2.2. Social variables affecting politeness
1.2.3. Politeness and indirectness
1.2.4. Politeness and indirectness in requests
1.2.5. Modification
1.3. Previous studies on requests


CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY
This chapter consists of four main sections. Section 2.1 revises the research questions
whereas section 2.2 presents the data collection. Section 2.3 discusses the data analysis,
and the last section provides the study’s analytical framework.
2.1. Research questions

The study seeks to answer the following research questions:
 What polite request strategies are employed by the characters in “Twilight”?
 What mitigation devices in requests are employed by the characters in “Twilight”?
2.2. Data collection
The data of the study is the corpus of 683 requests collected from the novel “Twilight”
by Stephenie Meyer published by Little, Brown and Company in 2005.
The request utterances in this study are identified as those carrying the illocutionary
force of getting somebody to do something, ranging from ordering to begging.
Specifically, in “Twilight”, the illocutionary force and propositional content of a request
can be realized through syntax and the choice of words within context. The relationships
among the characters also contribute to the realization of the request utterances. Such
suggestory forms as “Why don’t you sit with me today?” (p.87)or Elliptical phrases as
“Esme?” (p.401, a request to help Bella change her clothes) were accordingly coded as
request utterances.
2.3. Data analysis
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For data analysis, the study made use of the framework proposed by Blum-Kulka et
al.’s (1989) and Trosborg’s (1995) coding scheme. Depending on the contexts and
linguistic devices used, the strategies were classified under three categories: Category I-
Direct, Category II- Conventionally Indirect, and Category III- Non-Conventionally
Indirect (See Appendix B for sample of coding procedure). The number of requests in each
category was calculated along with its relative frequency of occurrence in the data. Request
modifications were also discussed, mainly in two groups: Internal modifications and
external modifications. The result was then presented in tables and charts.


2.4. Analytical framework
The coding system used in this study is based closely on Blum-Kulka et al.’s (1989)
and Trosborg’s (1995) coding manual. A request is characterized to consist of a Head Act

and additional elements such as Alerters, Perspectives, and Modifications, in which the
modification elements are primarily focused. The Head Act, regarded as the “core” of the
request, is the minimal unit by which a request is performed.
2.4.1. Alerters
There are three types of Alerters: Title/Role, First name, and Attention- getter.
2.4.2. Perspective
Blum-Kulka et al. (1989: 278):
1. Hearer perspective:
Could you show me your driving license, please?
2. Speaker perspective:
Could I see your driving license?
3. Inclusive:
Could we swap cars?
4. Impersonal:
Can one as for a little quiet?
2.4.3. Request strategies
A strategy is referred to as the way the Head Act of the request is realized with respect
to linguistic forms and means. Eight request strategies belonging to three major categories
in this study follow the frameworks by Blum-Kulka et al. (1989) and Trosborg (1995).
They are ranked in order of increasing indirectness.
2.4.3.1. Direct requests (DR)- Category 1
Strategy 1: Imperative
Strategy 2: Performative
Strategy 3: Statements of obligation and necessity
2.4.3.2. Conventionally indirect requests (CI)- Category 2
Strategy 4: Statements of speaker’s needs and demands
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Strategy 5: Statements of speaker’s wishes and desires
Strategy 6: Suggestory formulae

Strategy 7: Query preparatory
a. Reference to hearer’s ability
b. Reference to hearer’s willingness
c. Permission request
2.4.3.3. Non- conventionally indirect requests (NCI)- Category 3
Strategy 8: Non-explicit requests
a. Stating potential grounders:
b. Questioning the feasibility of the precondition for the act.
c. Questioning the availability of the Hearer
2.4.4. Internal modification
Internal modification includes syntactic downgraders, lexical/phrasal downgraders,
and upgraders.
2.4.4.1. Syntactic downgraders
 Questions
 Negation
 Past tense
 Conditional clause
 Embedding
 Modals
 Non-conventional structures
 Aspect (progressive)
2.4.4.2. Lexical/ Phrasal downgraders
 Politeness markers
 Consultative devices
 Downtoners
 Understatements
 Hedges
 Hesitators
 Interpersonal marker
2.4.4.3. Upgraders

 Adverbial intensifiers
 Do- constructions
 Commitment upgraders
 Lexical intensification
 Time intensifiers
2.4.5. External modifications
 Preparators
 Grounders
 Disarmers
 Sweeteners
 Promise of a reward
 Cost minimizing
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CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS
3.1. An overview on “Twilight”
“Twilight” is the first book in the Twilight Saga series written by an American writer,
Stephenie Meyer. The series includes four books: “Twilight”, “New Moon”, “Eclipse”, and
“Breaking Dawn”. The first book was first published by Little, Brown and Company Publisher
in 2005.
Generally speaking, “Twilight” can be seen as a romance novel. “Twilight” has created a
new vampire world, where a vampire can live among human, socialize with them, and drink
animal’s blood though their thirst for human’s often challenges them. More interestingly, in this
world a vampire can fall in love with a human girl and love her enough not to kill her.
“Twilight” is written in the first person narrative through Bella’s eyes. The story is set
primarily in Forks and other cities in Washington DC, America such as Port Angeles and La
Push.The novel is a romance between Bella Swan, a quiet eighteen year-old girl and Edward
Cullen, a vampire. They have to face with the dangers inevitably intertwined with the existence
of human blood drinking vampires, but finally overcome all dangers and obstacles to be with
each other.

3.2. Politeness strategies in requests by the characters in “Twilight”
3.2.1. The utilization of strategies
3.2.1.1. Balance of politeness strategies in requests in “Twilight”
A wide range of polite request strategies belonging to the three categories was employed
by the characters in the novel “Twilight”. As seen from Table 1, the most frequently used request
strategy types were Direct(DR) and Conventionally Indirect(CI) ones, with a rather small
difference in the occurring rates. The results show that 323 request utterances (47.3%) out of 683
were opted out for the Direct category, and 251 (36.7%) belong to the Conventionally Indirect
category. The least preferred request strategies in “Twilight” were Non-conventionally
Indirect(NCI) ones with the frequency of 16% (109 utterances).
As appears in the data, the characters in “Twilight” overwhelmingly chose the
DRstrategies in formulating their requests. This challenges the presumption that American
speakers tends to be direct in their conversations. A possible explanation for this is that
directness, which might be used to show solidarity, friendliness, and concerns, is one of the
typical features of the American culture. Moreover, in “Twilight”, the cases of emergencies and
extreme tensions where most direct strategies were found appeared with a relatively high
frequency. Close relationship among the characters of the novel, namely lovers, family members
and friends, is also another explanation.
3.2.1.2. Analysing politeness strategies in requests used in “Twilight”
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Different strategies in requests were opted by the characters in “Twilight”. All of the
eight strategies with sub-strategies based on Blum-Kulka et al.’s (1989) and Trosborg (1995)’s
coding manual were found in this novel.

Figure 2: Polite request strategies by types in “Twilight”
Imp.= Imperatives
Ned.= Needs
Abi.= Ability
Grou.= Grounders

Perf.=
Performatives
Desi.= Desires
Will.= Willingness
Feas.= Feasibility
Obli.= Obligation
Sug.= Suggestory formulae
Perm.=Permission
requests
Avail.=
Availability
Figure 2 gives the values for the four most preferable request strategies used. The data
shows that the Imperativestrategy ranks in the first position with the frequency of 38.9%,
respectively higher than other three most frequently used strategies, namely Willingness (10%),
Grounders (9.4%), and Suggestoryformulae (9.2%). These are followed by Obligation (7.5%),
Ability (6.3%), Permission requests (4.7%), Feasibility (4%), and Desires (3.7%). The least
strategies used were Performatives, Availability, and Needs with the frequency of occurrence of
0.9%, 2.6%, and 2.9% in succession.
All in all, in terms of strategies, it is obvious that the characters in “Twilight” used a variety
of the request strategies, but were more declined to the Imperative one. Despite classified in the
same Direct Category, the Performative strategy was found to be employed at the lowest
frequency.


3.2.2. The utilization of internal and external modifications
3.2.2.1. The use of internal modifications
38.9
0.9
7.5
2.9

3.7
9.2
6.3
10
4.7
9.4
4
2.6
0
10
20
30
40
50
Imp.
Perf.
Obli.
Ned.
Desi.
Sug.
Abi.
Will.
Perm.
Grou.
Feas.
Avail.
Percentage (%)
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Figure 3: The use of internal modifications in “Twilight”

Quest.=
Questions
Cond.= Conditional Clauses
Asp.= Aspect
Hes.=
Hesistators
Neg.= Negation
Cons.= Consultative Devices
Emb.= Embedding
Interp.=
Interper-sonal
Markers
Pst.= Past tense
Pol.= Politeness Markers
Dnt.= Downtoners
Mod.= Modals
NC Stru= Non-conventional
structures
Unds.=
Understatements
Upg.=
Upgraders
The characters in “Twilight” prominently used Question form at the frequency of 39.6%,
followed by Downtoners (7.4%), Past tense (7.1%), Negation and Modals with the same rate of
6.5%. Politeness Markers and Hesistators were both used at the frequency of 5.3%, whereas
Understatements were employed with a slightly smaller amount (4.8%). Conditional Clauses,
Consultative Devices, Interpersonal Markers, and Upgraders shared the same frequency of
3.5%. At the bottom end, only a small percentage was put aside as Non-conventionally
Structures (0.4%), a little increased amount of Aspect (0.7%), and a slightly larger amount of
Embedding (2.1%).

3.2.2.2. The use of external modifications or Supportive Moves
Modifications
Grd.
Prep.
Dis.
Swtn.
Prom.
Cos.
n
123
8
6
3
10
6
Percentage (%)
78.8
5.1
3.8
1.9
6.4
3.8
Table 4: The use of external modifications in “Twilight”
Grd. = Grounders
Dis. = Disarmers
Prom. = Promise of a reward
Prep. = Preparators
Swtn. = Sweeteners
Cos. = Cost minimizing
As shown in Table 4, various External Modifications or Supportive Moves were found in the

novel with the total number of appearances of 156. The results indicate that Grounders were the
most preferred devices by the speakers with the frequency of 78.8% (n=123). The second
ranking moves were Promise of a reward with 6.4% (n= 10). A little smaller amount was of
Preparators with 5.1% (n= 8). Disarmers and Cost Minimizing were used at the same percentage
39.6
6.5
7.1
3.5
2.1
6.5
0.4
0.7
5.3
3.5
7.4
4.8
5.3
3.5
3.5
0
10
20
30
40
50
Percentage (%)