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a request is a directive speech act whose illocutionary purpose is to get the hearer to do something in circumstances in which it is
obvious that heshe will perform the action in the normal course of events.
The same idea also stated by Trosborg 1995:187 who implies that request is an illocutionary act whereby a speaker requester conveys to hearer requestee that
heshe wants the requestee to perform an act which is for the benefit of the speaker. Conceptually, in request, there is a precondition which begins with ‘speaker
believe’ that the hearer or the addressee is able to do the act and it creates effect to ‘hearer believe’ that they need to perform some action regarding the speaker’s
attempt. In order to get the requests done by the addressee, the speaker usually manipulates appropriate linguistics forms to make request apt to the situations.
The requested action may be performed at the time of speaking or at some later point Gohl, 2000. Therefore, the action done by the addressee can be a direct
response to the request or it can be possibly later at some time as what the speaker attempt. Besides, in making request, to achieve the goals of demand, the speaker
needs to select appropriate utterances to make the request sound positive and feasibly make the addressee takes action to fulfil the need or intention of the
speaker. One thing to be underlined is that people may use variation of direct and indirect forms of words based on the situational condition and their pragmatic
competence. Salgado 2011:11 notes that a request can be realized by selecting one of the obligatory choices of indirectness level. This matter can be considered
as the strategy to get the request taken by the requestee. PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
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b. Request Strategies
In reality, we always need other people to do something, particularly when we have intentions that cannot be fulfilled ourselves. Pragmatically, requesting
becomes a big issue when it is associated with the intention of minimizing the “Face-Threatening” effects on the addressee. For that reason, the requesters or the
speakers are required to employ modification as well as precise strategies based on situational contexts happen. The general strategy used as a modification is the level
of the indirectness of the requests. Trosborg 1995 classifies the directness of request levels into four main
categories: direct requests imperatives, performatives, and obligation, conventionally direct or speaker-based wishes and needs, conventionally indirect
or hearer-oriented ability, willingness, and suggestory formulae, and indirect requests hints. On the other hand, requests were not only characterized by degree
of indirectness, but also the degree of formality and deference expressed, as well as the use of various and complex forms of internal e.g. diminutives, the conditional
form and external modifications e.g. grounders, promise of reward that serve to mitigate requests Felix-Brasdefer, 2005.
By applying the Discourse Completion Tasks DCTs, this research focuses on finding strategies applied by Medical and Law students in making request
included the openers, head acts, internal modifications lexicalsyntactic modification, and external modifications supportive moves as proposed by
Blum-Kulka et al 1989:17 which have been developed by Rue Zhang 2008. Further explanation of each strategy and modification will be elaborated below.
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1 Openers
Openers function to alert hearer’s attention to ensure a speech act. Most of the openers are realized as terms of address.
Table 1. Openers in Requests
Openers Strategies
Description and example
Upgrading function
Enhancing respectfulness and formality: ‘General Manager Wang, surname + title.
Downgrading function
Downgrading the hearer: ‘Hey, son’ Neutral
‘Hey’
2 Head acts main request acts
Head acts are classified into three main levels in relation to the degree of directness, they are: a direct head acts comprise mood derivable, performatives,
obligation statements, and want statements; b conventionally indirect head acts are made up of suggestory formula and the query preparatory; and c non-
conventionally indirect head acts consist of strong hints and mild hints. The details of the head acts modifications are discussed in table 2 along with the samples of the
utterances.
Table 2. Head Acts in Requests Directness levels
Strategies Description and example
Level 1 Direct Head Acts
impositives Mood derivable
The grammatical mood imperative used in this form is conventionally regarded as a request. For example:
‘Don’t tell him’ and ‘Leave your contact details.’ Performatives
The speaker conveys the illocutionary intent by using a relevant illocutionary verb, making the
utterance an order, a plea or begging. For example: ‘I order you to set out at once’ and ‘I beg you to give
it back to me.’
Obligation statement
The speaker conveys the illocutionary intent by stating moral obligation directly. For example: ‘You
should come back earlier’ and You must submit it tomorrow.’
