A study on politeness strategies in requests by the characters in the novel twilight by stephenie meyer

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES TRẦN THỊ PHƯƠNG LINH A STUDY ON POLITENESS STRATEGIES IN REQUESTS BY THE CHARACTERS IN THE NOVEL “TWILIGHT” BY STEPHENIE MEYER (Nghiên cứu chiến lược lịch lời thỉnh cầu nhân vật tiểu thuyết “Chạng vạng” Stephenie Meyer) MA MINOR THESIS Field: English Linguistics Code: 60.22.15 Supervisor: Dr Hà Cẩm Tâm Hanoi- 2012 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES TRẦN THỊ PHƯƠNG LINH A STUDY ON POLITENESS STRATEGIES IN REQUESTS BY THE CHARACTERS IN THE NOVEL “TWILIGHT” BY STEPHENIE MEYER (Nghiên cứu chiến lược lịch lời thỉnh cầu nhân vật tiểu thuyết “Chạng vạng” Stephenie Meyer) MA MINOR THESIS Field: English Linguistics Code: 60.22.15 Hanoi- 2012 TABLE OF CONTENTS Declaration ………………………………………………………… ….…… i Acknowledgements…………………………………………………………… ii Table of contents………………………………………………………… … iii Abbreviations………………………………………………………… ….… vi List of tables …………………………………………………………… … vii List of figures…………………………………………………………… … viii Abstract……………………………………………………………………… ix PART A: INTRODUCTION …………………………………………….… 1 Rationale of the study…………………………………………… … Aims of the study……………………………………………… … … Objectives of the study………………………………………… …… Research questions……………………………………………… …… Scope of the study……………………………………………… … Significance of the study…………………………………….………… Methods of the study…………………………………………… … Organization of the study……………………………………… …… PART B: DEVELOPMENT…………………………………… ……… CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW………………………………… 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…………………………… 10 1.2.3 Politeness and indirectness …………………………………… 10 1.2.4 Politeness and indirectness in requests………………………… 11 1.2.5 Modification…………………………………………… ….… 1.3 Previous studies on requests…………………………………….… v 14 14 CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY………………………………………… 16 2.1 Research questions ……………………………………………….… 16 2.2 Data collection ………………………………………………….…… 16 2.3 Data analysis ………………………………………………………… 16 2.4 Analytical framework…………………………………….……… … 17 2.4.1 Alerters…………………………………………….…………… 17 2.4.2 Perspective……………………………………………………… 17 2.4.3 Request strategies…………………………………….………… 17 2.4.3.1 Direct requests- Category 1…………………….……… 17 2.4.3.2 Conventionally indirect requests- Category 2…… …… 18 2.4.3.3 Non- conventionally indirect requests- Category 3…… 19 2.4.4 Internal modifications…………………………………………… 19 2.4.4.1 Syntactic downgraders………………………………… 20 2.4.4.2 Lexical/phrasal downgraders………………………… 20 2.4.4.3 Upgraders……………………………………………… 21 2.4.5 External modification…………………………………………… 22 CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS…………………….…………………… 23 3.1 Overview of “Twilight” …………………….………………………… 23 3.2 Politeness strategies in request by the characters in “Twilight”………… 23 3.2.1 The utilization of strategies …… …………………………………… 23 3.2.2 The utilization of internal and external modifications…………… …… 28 3.3.3 Politeness strategies in requests in “Twilight”, seen from S-H 31 relationships………………………………………………………………… PART C: CONCLUSION…………………………… …………….……… 40 Major findings and concluding remarks………………………………… 40 Implications …………….……………………………………………… 41 Suggestions for further study………………………………….……….… 42 REFERENCES……………………………………… …………….……… vi 43 APPENDIX A: The coding system………………………………… ……… I APPENDIX B: Sample of the coding procedure…………………….……… II APPENDIX C: The use of internal modifications by types in “Twilight” IV APPENDIX D: The polite request strategies in each group of speakers in V “Twilight” ………………………………………………… APPENDIX E: The use of internal modification in each group of speakers in VI “Twilight” ……………………………………… ………… APPENDIX F: Figures for illustrations………… … vii VII ABBREVIATIONS FTA : Face- Threatening Act IFDI : Illocutionary Force Indicating Device H : The Hearer S : The Speaker D : Distance P : Relative Power R : Absolute ranking of imposition (…) : omitted words, phrases, or sentences n : Number of Appearance DR : Direct (Strategy) CI : Conventionally Indirect (Strategy) NCI : Non- Conventionally Indirect (Strategy) SD : Syntactic Downgrader LPD : Lexical/Phrasal Downdgrader UD : Upgrader : viii LIST OF TABLES Page Table 1: The balance of direct, conventionally indirect, and non- 24 conventionally indirect polite request strategies in “Twilight” Table 2: Polite request strategies by types in “Twilight” 25 Table 3: The use of internal modificationsin “Twilight” IV Table 4: The use of external modifications in “Twilight” 31 Table 5: The 32 use of direct, conventionally indirect, and non- conventionally indirect strategies in requests in “Twilight” seen from the characters‟parameters Table 6: The use of internal modification in “Twilight” seen from S-H 36 relationship Table 7: The use of supportive moves in “Twilight” seen from S-H relationship ix 39 LIST OF FIGURES Page Figure 1: The balance of direct, conventionally indirect, and non- VII conventionally indirect polite request strategies in “Twilight” Figure 2: Polite request strategies by types in “Twilight” 25 Figure 3: The use of internal modifications in “Twilight” 29 Figure 4: The use of external modifications in “Twilight” VII Figure 5: The use of direct, conventionally indirect, and non- 32 conventionally indirect strategies in requests in “Twilight” seen from the characters‟ parameters Figure 6: The use of internal modification in “Twilight” seen from S-H relationship x VII 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 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 xi PART A: INTRODUCTION 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 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 appropriateness and linguisticrealization rulesfor lack social performing and close relationships and was used only by lovers, family members, and friends For example: “My bag, please… Hold your breath, Alice, it will help.” (p.454, Dr Cullen‟s request to his daughter to help her not to be disturbed by the smell of blood) Amazingly, Disarmers were used at a relatively high frequency by acquaintances (33.3%) and enemies (11%), while lovers and family members had the same amount of only 2.9% Other groups did not choose Disarmers as their mitigating devices for their requests Type Lovers Family Friends Acquainta- Teacher/ nces Students members Strangers Enemies n % n % n % n % n % n % n % Grd 55 78,6 28 80 24 77,4 50 100 100 89 Prep 5,7 2,9 9,7 0 0 0 0 Dis 2,9 2,9 0 33,3 0 0 11 Swe 0 2,9 6,5 0 0 0 0 Prom 8,6 8,6 3,2 0 0 0 0 Cos 4,3 2,9 3,2 16,7 0 0 0 Total 70 100 35 100 31 100 100 100 100 100 Table 7: The use of supportive moves in “Twilight” seen from S-H relationship It can be inferred from the data that in close relationships, when the speakers have more power than the hearer, they tried to decrease the imposition they might had on the hearer and thus made their request more convincing For example, “Don‟t worry, Bella,” (…), “we’ll take care of things here quickly.” (p.391) While speakers with intimate relationships varied their request by using a wide range of supportive moves, unfamiliar speakers preferred to give reasons for their requests It was also found that both internal and external modifications were often combined in the formulation of a request, especially in unfamiliar settings Let‟s take an example when Dr Cullen asked the bad vampires not to hunt/ kill people in Forks where his family is living: “Please don‟t take offense, but we‟d appreciate it if you‟d refrain from hunting in this immediate area We have to stay inconspicuous, you understand.” In this case, Dr.Cullen chose Politeness Marker “please”, Past tense “would”, If- clause, Grounder “We have to stay inconspicuous”,Disarmer “Please don‟t take offense, but…”, and Interpersonal Marker “you understand” for the formulation of his request In conclusion, the characters in “Twilight” used a wide range of internal and external modifications to reduce the requestive force, give more optionality to the hearer, and to make their requests more convincing, tentative and less imposing 39 PART C: CONCLUSION Major findings and concluding remarks It is claimed that the speech act of request in human‟s communication is facethreatening because it challenges the mutual face of both the speaker and the hearer The study‟s aim is to uncover the politeness strategies in requests used by the characters in the novel “Twilight” with the hope to bridge the gap in the area The findings show that the characters in “Twilight” overwhelmingly chose theDRStrategiesin formulating their requests, in which the Imperative Strategy 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 In terms of S-H relationship, the findings show that people who have close relationship tend to be direct DRStrategies overlapped the others in the conversations between lovers, family members, friends, acquaintances, and teacher- student In contrast, CIStrategies account for larger amount than the others in the conversations between strangers and enemies In high power settings for both intimate speakers and long range communicators, the speakers were found to be more indirect In terms of Internal Modifications, all groups of speakers used Question forms most Acquaintances used Downtoners for their requests more than other groups In the conversations between teacher- student and enemies, Past tense were highly appreciated, while lovers, family members, and friends did not focus too much on one specific device, except for the Question form mentioned above In terms of External Modifications, Grounders were used most The difference is that while people who had close relationship varied their requests by using a wide range of supportive moves, unfamiliar speakers preferred to give reasons for their requests It was found that the three social variables (P, D, R) are factors that influenced the speakers‟ choice of strategies and mitigating devices in the formulation of their requests However, the social distance (D) was found to be the most significant, and whenever D was high, the cost of the request was also high.The result of the current study, to some extent, is in line with Blum-Kulka and House‟s (1989) findings Non-explicit requests were not the most frequently used and the most 40 appropriate or polite It may be noted that different people in different cultures have different views of “polite” In “Twilight”, where the setting of the story was primarily in Forks, Washington DC, America, it is acceptable when the requests were directly performed This distinctive feature of American culture found in the study is accordance with Cohen‟s (1987) report that Americans prefer communicating “straight from the shoulder”, stating explicitly “what has to be said”, and agrees with the findings in Scollon, Scollon‟ s research(2001).It is also argued that it is the speaker and the hearer who determine if their faces are threatened in certain situations or settings It can be suggested that firstly, there are various ways to perform requests in English by using appropriate strategies in certain contexts in certain relationships DRrequests are seen as appropriate in American culture, especially in emergencies, extreme tensions, and low distance contexts Secondly, requests might be made less imposing, more tentative, and convincing by a wide range of SDs and LPDs The more these mitigating devices are used, the more tentative and polite the request is Finally, the three social variables P, D, R have some impacts on the weightiness of a request with different levels, and the choice of request strategies as well as mitigating devices should be accordingly determined Implications Bardovi-Harlig (2003, cited in Quaraishi, 2009) claimsthat increasing the pragmatic knowledge of the learners enables them to use and interpret a language appropriately and naturally in a particular situation Hence in language teaching, apart from linguistic competence, pragmatic competence should be addressed First, the current study has highlighted the importance of teaching cultural dimensions when teaching a foreign language Teachers should help learners appreciate different cultures and the diversity of intercultural and cross-cultural settings The learners should grasp that some linguistic performance seen as “polite” and acceptable in one culture may be impolite and unacceptable in another As a result, it is not always possible for the learners to transfer the behavior of their own culture into another one It is important for them to choose appropriate politeness strategies in communications including request formulations Second, it is suggested that teachers help their learners to get knowledge of when, how and to whom it is appropriate to use a linguistic form in communication As a result, 41 language functions, or speech acts should be emphasized rather than the structures themselves Third, teachers are also advised to give more chances of social interactions for learners, through which they can be aware of what is acceptable and tactful, and what is hidden behind the language The study additionally signals that learners of English should be made aware of the rule of making a request in English; that is the speaker tries to be unimposing and to give more choice to the hearer There are various ways to lessen the requestive force, involving the choice of strategies, internal and external modifications It is necessary to remind the learner that direct strategies are not always considered impolite and imposing; nonetheless in some settings, with multiple mitigating devices, the contrary is possible Finally, the learner is advised to value the use of internal and external modifications for request because the more the request is mitigated, either internally or externally, the more tentative and less imposing it is; and hence the more polite it becomes Suggestions for further research Firstly, future research is suggested to uncover the politeness strategies in requests used in the whole series of the Twilight Saga which includes four books: Twilight, New Moon, Eclipse, and Breaking Dawn Secondly, the same data can be further analyzed to identify the differences in employing request strategies in terms of gender, alerters, and perspectives, the issues which have not been dealt with in this study Thirdly, the findings of this research could be used in other studies to uncover the politeness strategies of other kinds of FTAs employed in the Twilight Saga; for example, the speech act of promising, complaining or responding to requests Finally, the study may serve as a start for a comparative or contrastive analysis study in American and Vietnamese literary works 42 REFERENCES Austin, J L (1962) How to things with words New York: Oxford University Press Blum-Kulka, S & Olshtain, E (1984) Requests and apologies: A Cross- Cultural Study of Speech Act Realization Patterns (CCSARP) Applied Linguistics, 5, 196-213 Blum-Kulka, S., House, J., Kasper, G (Eds) (1989) Cross-cultural pragmatics: Requests and apologies Norwood, New Jersey: Ablex Blum-Kulka, S (1987) Indirectness and politeness in requests: Same or different? Journal of Pragmatics 11, 131-146 Blum-Kulka, S., Danet, B., & Gerson, G (1985) The language of requesting in Israeli society I J (Ed.), Language and social situation New York: Springer Verlag Brown, P and Levinson, S (1987) Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage Cambridge University Press Brown, P and Levinson, S (1978) Universals in language usage: Politeness Phenomena In E.N Goody (Ed.), Questions and politeness: Strategies in social interaction (pp 256-289) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Cenoz, J., & Valencia, J.F (1996) Cross- cultural communication and interlanguage pragmatics: Ameican vs European requests In L Bouton (Ed.), Pragmatics and language learning (pp 41-54) Urbana-Champaign Cohen, R (1987) Problems in intercultural communication in EgyptianAmerican dipplomatic relations International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 11, 29-47 10 Crystal, D (1992) An Encyclopedic Dictionary of Language and Languages England: Blackwell 11 Faerch, C & Kasper, G (1989) (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, N.J: Ablex 43 12 Farahat, H (2009) Politeness phenomena in Palestinian Arabic and Australian English: A cross- cultural study of selected contemporary plays.Unpublished PhD thesis Australian Catholic University 13 Forgas, J (1985) Language and social situation New York: Springer Verlag 14 Fukushima, S (1990) Offers and Requests: Performance by Japanese learners of English World Englishes9, 317-325 15 Fukushima, S (1996) Request strategies in British English and Japanese Language Science 18 , 671-688 16 Gu, Y (1990) Politeness Phenomena in modern Chinese Journal of Pragmatics 14 , 237-257 17 Grice, H (1957) Meaning Philosophical Review 78 , 377-388 18 Grice, H (1975) Logic and Conversation In P Cole and J Morgan (Eds.), Syntax and Semantics 3: Speech Acts (pp 41-58) New York: Academic Press 19 Hassall, T (1999) Request strategies in Indonesian Pragmatics (4), 585-606 20 Ha Cam Tam (2005) Requests by Vietnamese learners of English.Unpublished PhD Thesis VNU-CFL 21 Hassall, T (2003) Requests by Australian learners of Indonesian Journal of Pragmatics 35, 1903-1928 22 Hendriks, B (2002) More on Dutch English please? A study of request performance by Dutch native speakers, English native speakers, and Dutch learners of English Nijmegen University Press 23 House, J & Kasper, G (1981) “Politeness markers in English and German” In F.Coulmas (Ed), Conversational routine (pp 157-185).Mouton: The Hague 24 House, J and Kasper, G (1987) Interlanguage Pragmatics: Requesting in a foreign language In W Lorscher & R Schulze (Eds), Perspectives on language in performance Festchrift for Werner Hullen (pp 1250-1288) Tubingen: Narr 25 Leech, G (1983) Principle of pragmatics London: Longman 26 Levinson, S (1983) Pragmatics Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 27 Nguyen Thi Phuong Thao (2010) Politeness strategies in requests in “The Thorn Birds”.Unpublished MA Thesis VNU- ULIS, Hanoi 28 Quaraisi, S (2009) The acquisition of politeness strategies by Afghan learners of English as a foreign language.Unpublished MA Thesis Kansas State University 44 29 Scollon, R & Scollon, S.W (2001) Intercultural Communication: A discourse approach (2nd edition) Malden, MA: Blacwell 30 Searle, J (1979) Expression and meaning: Studies in the Theory of Speech Acts Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 31 Searle, J (1975) Indirect speech acts In P Cole & J Morgan (Eds) , Syntax and Semantics, 3: Speech acts (pp 59-82) New York: Academic Press 32 Searle, J (1969) Speech Acts Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 33 Searle, J (1976) The classification of illocutionary acts Language In Society, 5, 1-23 34 Sifianou, M (1992) Politeness Phenomena in England and Greece: A CrossCultural Perspective New York: Oxford University Press 35 Tawahbeh, A & Al-Oqaily, E (2012) Indirectness and Politeness in American English and Saudi Arabic requests: A cross- cultural comparison Asian Social Science, (10), 85-98 36 Thomas, J (1995) Meaning in interaction: An introduction to pragmatics USA, England: Longman 37 Trosborg, A (1995) Interlanguage pragmatics: Requests, complaints, and apologies Berlin, New York: Mouton De Gruyter 38 Watts, R J (2003) Politeness Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 39 Weizman, E (1989) Requestive hints In S Blum-Kulka, J House & G Kasper (Eds.), Cross- cultural pragmatics: Requests and Apologies (pp 71-95) Norwood, N.J: Ablex 40 Weizman, E (1993) Interlanguage requestive hints In G Kasper & S BlumKulka (Eds.), Interlanguage Pragmatics New York: Oxford University Press 41 Yule, G (1996) Pragmatics Oxford University Press 45 APPENDIX A: CODING SYSTEM Items Nickname Kin terms Alerters Title/role Surname First name Perspectives Speaker- Hearer- Speaker oriented Oriented Hearer- oriented Imperative Performative Statements Strategies Obligation necessity Offensive terms Pronoun Attention getters Query Non-explicit Preparatory requests H‟s ability Grounders H‟s will Feasibility Permission 3.Availability and Impersonal of Statements and speaker‟s of Statements needs speaker‟s and demands of Suggestory wishes formulae and desires requests Syntactic Questions Negation Past tense Conditional clause Embedding Modals Nonconventional downgraders structures Lexical/Phrasal Politeness Consultative downgraders marker devices Upgraders Adverbial Do- Commitment Intensifiers construction upgraders Preparators Grounders Disarmers Supportive Downtoners Understatements Hedges Hesistators Interpersonal markers Time intensifiers Lexical intensification Sweeteners Promise reward moves I of a Cost-minimizing Aspect APPENDIX B: SAMPLE OF THE CODING PROCEDURE SETTING Edward, after trying to stay away from Bella and ignore her, gets tired and gives up At lunchtime in the cafeteria they talk again to each other This is an extract of their conversation (p.91) where Bella asks Edward to warn her beforehand when he decides to ignore her (…) means that some narrative sentences are left out “Can you me a favor?” (…) “That depends on what you want.” “It‟s not much,” (…) “I just wondered… if you could warn me beforehand the next time you decide to ignore me for my own good Just so I‟m prepared.” Head Act: I just wondered… if you could warn me beforehand the next time you decide to ignore me for my own good Strategy: Ability Perspective: Hearer- oriented Syntactic Downgraders: Embedding: I just wondered if… Past tense: wondered, could Conditional clause: if you could warn me beforehand the next time you decide to ignore me for my own good Modal: could (instead of “can”) Lexical/Phrasal Downtoner: just Downgraders: Supportive moves: Preparators: Can you me a favor? and It's not much Grounders: Just so I‟m prepared SETTING In Biology lesson at school, Bella faints at the sight of blood Edward takes her to the nurse‟s room Ms Cope, the school nurse takes care of her: “Just lie down for a minute, honey; it‟ll pass.” (p.98) II Head Act: Just lie down for a minute, honey Strategy: Imperative Perspective: Hearer- oriented Alerters: Kin term: honey Lexical/Phrasal Downgraders: Downtoner: just Understatement: a minute Supportive moves: Grounder: it‟ll pass SETTING A coven of human blood drinking vampires travels across the small town of Forks On their way to leave Forks for the north, they hear the Cullens (with Bella watching) play baseball in a stormy night and return because of curiosity In the meeting between the Cullens and these uninvited guests, Dr Cullen politely asks them not to hunt/ kill people in Forks where his family is living: “Please don‟t take offense, but we‟d appreciate it if you‟d refrain from hunting in this immediate area We have to stay inconspicuous, you understand.”(p.378) Head Act: Please don‟t take offense, but we‟d appreciate it if you‟d refrain from hunting in this immediate area Strategy: Willingness Perspective: Hearer-oriented Syntactic Downgraders: Past tense: ‟d (would), in both clauses Conditional clause: if you‟d refrain from hunting in this immediate area Modal: ‟d (would) Lexical/Phrasal Downgraders: Politeness marker: please Interpersonal marker: you understand Supportive moves: Disarmers: Please don‟t take offense, but Grounders: We have to stay inconspicuous, you understand.” III APPENDIX C: THE USE OF INTERNAL MODIFICATIONS BY TYPES IN “TWILIGHT” Table 3: The use of internal modifications by types in "Twilight" Categories Modifications Number of Percentage appearance (%) (n) Syntactic downgraders Lexical/Phrasal downgraders Upgraders Questions 224 39,6 Negation 37 6,5 Past tense 40 7,1 Conditional clauses 20 3,5 Embedding 12 2,1 Modals 37 6,5 Non-conventional structures 0,4 Aspect (progressive) 0,7 Politeness markers 30 5,3 Consultative devices 20 3,5 Downtoners 42 7,4 Understatements 27 4,8 Hesitators 30 5,3 Interpersonal markers 20 3,5 Adverbial intensifiers, do-construction, 20 3,5 565 100 commitment upgraders, time intensifiers Total IV APPENDIX D: THE POLITE REQUEST STRATEGIES BY GROUPS OF SPEAKERS IN “TWILIGHT” Category Strategy Lovers Family members Friends Acquaintances TeacherStudents Strangers Enemies n % n % n % n % n % n % n % 149 39,9 44 41,9 37 37 17 45,9 35,3 33,3 10 33,3 Performative 0,5 0 1 0 11,8 0 3,3 Obligation 26 13 12,4 6 0 5,9 0 3,3 Needs 12 3,2 2,9 2 0 0 19 0 Desires 16 4,3 1,9 1 0 5,9 0 6,7 Conventionally Sugestory formulae 39 10,5 8,6 7 8,1 0 9,5 20 indirect Ability 13 3,5 12 11,4 9 18,9 17,6 0 0 Willingness 32 8,6 8,6 16 16 10,8 11,8 4,8 16,7 Permission requests 19 5,1 2,9 3 2,7 5,9 14,3 0 Non Grouders 41 11 5,7 10 10 10,8 5,9 4,8 6,7 conventionally Feasibility 11 2,9 2,9 6 2,7 0 9,5 10 indirect Availability 13 3,5 1 2 0 0 4,8 0 Direct Imperative n= Number of appearance V APPENDIX E: THE USE OF INTERNAL MODIFICATIONS IN REQUESTS BY GROUPS OF SPEAKERS IN “TWILIGHT” Cat Modifications Lovers Family members Friends Acquaintances Teachers- Students Strangers Enemies n % n % n % n % n % n % n % Questions 154 50,7 18 29,5 27 26,2 22,2 33,3 25 11 26 Negation 22 7,2 4,9 4,9 11,1 0 8,3 Past tense 13 4,3 6,6 12 11,7 3,7 20 8,3 14 Syntactic Conditional clauses 2,6 4,9 5,8 0 0 0 downgraders Embedding 1,3 3,3 1,9 7,4 6,7 0 Modals 16 5,3 3,3 11 10,7 3,7 6,7 8,3 12 Non-conventional structures 0,3 1,6 0 0 0 0 0 Aspect (progressive) 0,3 0 2,9 0 0 0 0 Poli 20 6,6 3,3 1,9 3,7 6,7 0 Consult 2 3,3 3,9 0 13,3 8,3 12 Lexical/Phrasal Downt 19 6,3 11,5 7,8 18,5 6,7 8,3 downgraders Underst 10 3,3 3,3 8,7 7,4 0 8,3 Hes 13,1 8,7 7,4 0 16,7 0 Interp 2,6 6,6 3,9 14,8 0 0 0 Upg 13 4,3 4,9 1 0 6,7 8,3 304 100 103 100 27 99,9 12 100 43 100 Upgraders Total 61 100 VI 15 100 APPENDIX F: FIGURES Figure 1: Balance of categories of request strategies used in “Twilight” Figure 4: The use of external modifications in “Twilight” Grd = Grounders Dis = Disarmers Prom = Promise of a reward Prep = Preparators Swtn = Sweeteners Cos = Cost minimizing VII Figure 6: The use of internal modifications in “Twilight” seen from S-H relationship Lov = Lovers T/N-S: = Teachers/School nurses- Students Fam.= Family members Strang = Strangers Frie.= FriendsT Enem.= Enemies Acq = Acquaintainces Syn = Syntactic downgraders Lex.= Lexical/Phrasal downgraders Upg.= Upgraders VIII ... European learners of Spanish The third study to be mentioned was conducted by Farahat (2009), examining the concept of politeness in Australian and Palestinian Arabic plays based on the framework by. .. the politeness strategies in requests used by the characters in the novel ? ?Twilight? ?? with the hope to bridge the gap in the area The findings show that the characters in ? ?Twilight? ?? overwhelmingly... findings also show that the choice of request strategies and mitigating devices was influenced by the relationships between the characters xi PART A: INTRODUCTION Rationale of the study Language,