distance which is related to how close or far they speakers and listeners are and how the closeness affects the choice of words to say.
Moreover, Griffths 2006:132 defines pragmatics as “the study of how senders and addressees in acts of communication rely on context to elaborate on
literal meaning”. It means that what matters in pragmatics is how context affects the communication between speakers and hearers. Therefore, both Yule 1996 and
Griffths 2006 agree with the critical role of context in influencing conversations or talks.
The scope of pragmatics includes several aspects as classified by Yule 1996. They are deixis and distance, reference and inference, presupposition and
entailment, cooperation and implicature, speech acts and speech events, politeness and interaction, etc. However, for the purpose of this study analyzing request
strategies, only a small part of speech acts under pragmatics is necessary to further explain.
4. Directives and Request
a. Directives
There have been some discussions under speech acts in the pragmatics discipline; one of which is carried out by Austin. Austin 1962, in Thomas, 1995
proposes 3-fold distinction. They are locutionary acts, illocutionary acts, and perlocutionary acts. He explains that locutionslocutionary acts are the actual words
uttered, the illocutionsillocutionary acts are the intention or meaning beyond the words uttered, and the perloctuionsperlocutionary acts mean the effect of the
uttered words on hearers. Below is an example and explanation to provide a clear u
nderstanding of Austin’s 3-fold distinction. A request to turn on the LCD projector.
A lecturer : I have already opened my laptop, but it
seems that the LCD projector isn’t ready, yet.
A student : coming forward, and plugging in the
projector cable to the electricity source and turning on the projector
In the case above, the lecturer’s sentence “It seems that the projector isn’t ready, yet.” is the locution. The intended meaning of it or the illocution is that
heshe asks one of the students to prepare and turn on the projector or to help himher to prepare it. In addition, the student’s action of plugging in the cable to the
electricity source and turning on the projector is the perlocution. The previous example depicts a request for help made by a lecturer to
hisher students. That is the illocution of lecturer’s speech act. There are some other types of illocutions. Austin 1962, in Horn and Ward, 2006:64 suggests what he
calls five-way taxonomy of illocutionary acts: verdictives, exercitives, commisives, behabitives, and expositives. Another linguist, Searle 1979, proposes five
classifications of illocutionary acts. They are assertives, directives, commisives, expressives, and declarations. Surprisingly, Yule 1996 in his well-known book
‘Pragmatics’ published by Oxford University press, also proposes five categories of illocutionary acts which are very similar to Searle’s. Those are representatives,
expresives, directives, commisives, and declarations. Although there are several types of illocution
ary acts proposed by different linguists, ‘directives’ is the main concern of the present study.
Directives is a member of illocutionary acts under the issue of speech acts. The term ‘directives’ is proposed by Searle 1979 and Yule 1996. Searle
1979 defines ‘directives’ as ‘attempts’ of speakers to make the hearers do
something. In the other side, Yule 1996 defines ‘directives’ as “Those kinds of speech acts that speakers use to get someone else to do something”. Yule 1996
also adds that this illocutionary act represents what a speaker wants as in his popular formula: “S wants X”. Both definitions sound similar to each other, so there is no
problem with the use of this term interchangeably from either Searle or Yule or even both.
The actual forms of ‘directives’ according to Searle 1979 can be seen
from several verbs denoting this illocutionary act such as ask, order, command, request, beg, plead, pray, entreat, invite, permit, advise. Those verbs represent
‘directives’ as they make hearers to do or not do something. Searle even includes questions as he considers they are attempts to get hearers to answer i.e. S wants X
if referring to Yule 1996. Supporting Searle’s argument, Yule 1996 believes that commands, orders, requests, and suggestions represent this type of illocutionary act.
Below are some examples of sentences or expressions to be uttered belonging to the ‘directives’ member.
“Open the door”. “Give me a cup of tea. A little sugar, please?”
“Do you mind checking my grammar on this paper for a moment?”
“Let’s have a cup of tea in the cafeteria.” “Would you like to come with me watch the movie?”
b. Request
