This study used a pre-test post-test research design to investigate the role of explicit strategy instruction on Spanish English as a foreign language (EFL) learners’ ability to write authentic email requests to faculty. Drawing on Taguchi’s (2018) classification of pragmatics learning strategies, the instructional intervention followed a strategy-based approach to help learners understand the form–function–context mapping of email requests in the academic context. A total of 110 naturally occurring email requests for action addressed to three faculty members were collected at two different times: as a pre-test (i.e. before engaging learners in the instructional period), and as a post-test (i.e. after learners’ participation in the treatment sessions). Learners’ email messages were analysed considering both their appropriateness of use as well the frequency of utilization of different structural (i.e. subject line, openings and closings) and content components (i.e. request strategies and internal request modifiers). Results showed that strategy instruction helped learners write more appropriate email requests after the instructional period. The findings suggest that arming learners with a variety of strategic tools may lead to pragmatic development in actual language use.
Alcón-SolerE. (2013). Mitigating email requests in teenagers’ first and second language academic cyber-consultation. Multilingua, 32, 779–799.
2.
Alcón SolerE. (2015). Pragmatic learning and study abroad: Effects of instruction and length of stay. System, 48, 62–74.
3.
Alcón-SolerE. (2017). Pragmatic development during study abroad: An analysis of Spanish teenagers’ request strategies in English emails. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 37, 77–92.
4.
Biesenbach-LucasS. (2007). Students writing e-mails to faculty: An examination of e-politeness among native and non-native speakers of English. Language Learning and Technology, 11, 59–81.
5.
Bou-FranchP. (2006). Solidarity and deference in Spanish computer-mediated communication: A discourse–pragmatic analysis of students’ emails to lectures. In Bou-FranchP. (Ed.), Ways into discourse (pp. 61–79). Comares.
6.
Bou-FranchP. (2011). Openings and closings in Spanish email conversations. Journal of Pragmatic, 43, 1772–1785.
7.
BrownP.LevinsonS. (1987). Politeness: Some universals in language usage. Cambridge University Press.
8.
ByramM. (1997). Teaching and assessing intercultural communicative competence. Multilingual Matters.
9.
ChenC.F. (2001). Making e-mail requests to professors: Taiwanese vs. American students. Unpublished paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Association for Applied Linguistics, St-Louis, MO, USA. ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 461 299.
10.
ChenC.F. (2006). The development of e-mail literacy: From writing to peers to writing to authority figures. Language Learning & Technology, 10, 35–55.
11.
ChenY. (2015). Developing Chinese EFL learners’ email literacy through request to faculty. Journal of Pragmatics, 75, 131–149.
12.
Codina-EspurzV.Salazar-CampilloP. (2019). Openings and closings in emails by CLIL students: A pedagogical proposal. English Language Teaching, 12, 57–67.
13.
Economidou-KogetsidisM. (2011). ‘Please answer me as soon as possible’: Pragmatic failure in non-native speakers’ e-mail requests to faculty. Journal of Pragmatics, 43, 3193–3215.
14.
Economidou-KogetsidisM. (2016). Variation in evaluations of the (im)politeness of emails from L2 learners and perceptions of the personality of their senders. Journal of Pragmatics, 106, 1–19.
15.
Economidou-KogetsidisM. (2018). ‘Mr Paul, please inform me accordingly’ address forms, directness and degree of imposition in L2 emails. Pragmatics, 28, 489–515.
16.
Félix-BrasdeferJ.C. (2012). E-mail request to faculty: E-politeness and internal modification. In Economidou-KogetsidisM.WoodfieldH. (Eds.), Interlanguage request modification (pp. 87–118). John Benjamins.
17.
FordS. (2006). The use of pragmatics in E-mail requests made by second language learners of English. Studies in Language Sciences, 5, 143–162.
18.
HartfordB.S.Bardovi-HarligK. (1996). ‘At your earliest convenience’: A study of written requests to faculty. In BoutonL. (Ed.), The pragmatics and language learning monograph series: Volume 7 (pp. 55–69). University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
19.
HendriksB. (2010). An experimental study of native speaker perceptions of non-native request modification in e-mails in English. Intercultural Pragmatic, 7, 221–255.
20.
HofstedeG.HofstedeG.J. (2005). Edition: Cultures and organizations: Software of the mind. 2nd edition.McGraw-Hill.
21.
HylandK. (2003). Second language writing. Cambridge University Press.
22.
Martínez-FlorA.Usó-JuanE. (2020). Teaching speech acts in a second language. In SchneiderK.P.IfantidouE. (Eds.), Developmental and clinical pragmatics (pp. 269–300). Mouton de Gruyter.
23.
NguyenT.T.M. (2018). Pragmatic development in the instructed context. A longitudinal investigation of L2 email requests. Pragmatics, 28, 217–252.
24.
NguyenT.T.MDoT.T.H.NguyenT.A.PhamT.T.T. (2015). Teaching email requests in the academic context: A focus on the role of corrective feedback. Language Awareness, 24, 169–195.
25.
NguyenT.T.MDoT.T.H.PhamT.T.T.NguyenT.A. (2019). The effects of corrective feedback with and without revision on enhancing L2 pragmatic competence. Applied Pragmatics, 1, 1–25.
26.
OxfordR. (1990). Language learning strategies. Newbury House.
27.
OxfordR. (2011). Teaching and researching language learning strategies. Pearson Education.
28.
SavićM. (2018). Lecturer perceptions of im/politeness and in/appropriateness in student e-mail requests: A Norwegian perspective. Journal of Pragmatics, 124, 52–72.
29.
SchmidtR. (1993). Consciousness, learning and interlanguage pragmatics. In KasperG.Blum-KulkaS. (Eds.), Interlanguage pragmatics (pp. 21–42). Oxford University Press.
30.
TaguchiN. (2015). Instructed pragmatics at a glance: Where instructional studies were, are, and should be going. State-of-the-art article. Language Teaching, 48, 1–50.
31.
TaguchiN. (2018). Pragmatic competence in foreign language education: Cultivating learner autonomy and strategic learning of pragmatics. In WalterI.ChanD.NagamiM.BourguignonC. (Eds.), New perspectives on the development of communicative and related competence in foreign language education (pp. 53–69). Mouton de Gruyter.
32.
TaguchiN.RoeverC. (2017). Second language pragmatics. Oxford University Press.
33.
TaguchiN.TangX.MaaJ. (2019). Learning how to learn pragmatics: Application of self-directed strategies to pragmatics learning in L2 Chinese and Japanese. East Asian Pragmatics, 4, 11–36.
34.
University of Cambridge Local Examinations Syndicate (UCLES). (2001). Cambridge IELTS with answers 2: Examination papers from University of Cambridge Local Examinations Syndicate. Cambridge University Press.
35.
ZhuW. (2012) Polite requestive strategies in emails: An investigation of pragmatic competence of Chinese EFL learners. RELC Journal, 43, 217–238.
