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CHAPTER IV FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS
A. Findings
The results of the data which have been analyzed can be seen in tables below that reveal the request strategies existing and contextual information
available in the six selected English textbooks for the Indonesian students.
Table 6: Number of occurrences of the request strategies Realization of request strategies
Total
Strategy types Direct Request DR
46 Conventional Indirect Request CIR
106 Non-Conventional Indirect Request NCIR
1 Total
153
Internal Modifications IM Attention-Getters
58 Openers
6 Softeners
2 Fillers
10 External Modifications EM
Preparators 5
Grounders 43
Promise of a reward Please
44 As seen in Table 6, over the 153 requests existing in the dialogues in
the six selected English textbooks for the Indonesian students, most ‘requests’ are realized in the conventional indirect request strategy type with 106 occurrences
followed by those realized in the direct request strategy type with 46 occurrences. Meanwhile, only one 1 ‘request’ realized in the non-conventional indirect request
strategy type. This fact can be inferred that the textbooks provide more ‘requests’ which have interrogative forms which make use of preceding words like
“CanCould”, “WillWould” and “Let’s”. Yule 1996 believes that this is one of
the commonest type of indirect speech act which requires not only an answer but also an action. In relation to politeness, Trosborg 1995 and Yule 1996 argue that
indirect speech acts are considered to be more polite than those of the direct speech act.
On the other hand, the ‘requests’ realized in the non-conventional indirect strategy type appear to have a very low frequency, only 1 occurrence out
of 153 request. One reason which makes sense beyond this fact is the consideration to provide examples or models of texts which are pedagogically easier to
comprehend. Carter 1998 believes that questions and answers in course books for language learning are sequenced rather in the manner of a quiz show or court-room
interrogation. It means that the questions and the answers are directly related to each other e.g. “Can you buy me a drink?” – “Sure”. This argument can be accepted
because ‘requests’ realized in non-conventional indirect strategy type only provide ‘hints’ e.g. “Why is the window open?” as a request for someone to close the
window. Hence, ‘requests’ employing this strategy type require more comprehension of the students than do those employing other two types of strategy.
Table 6 also shows the number of modifications used in making the ‘requests’. It is interesting that the ‘attention-getter’ appears most frequently i.e. 58
occurrences among other modifications. Although this fact seems to contradict Sifianou’s 1999, in Soler, 2007 argument which states that ‘please’, as a
modification, is possibly the most common and significant modifier in ‘request’, it actually does not. As the matter of
fact, ‘attention-getter’ can be used not only in making ‘requests’ but it may also be used in any other functions like ‘command’,
‘invitation’, suggestions’, etc. since the aim of this modification to alert the addresseehearer so that heshe notices, so any other function can employ this
modification as well. On the other hand, the ‘please’ modification is very closely related to and probably only occurs in the function which denotes ‘requests’.
Besides, as shown in Table 6 ‘please’ reaches the number of 44 which is still higher compared to the number of other modifications.
Moreover, it can be seen in Table 6 that the ‘promise of a reward’ does
not appear at all. It means that the selected English textbooks do not provide any examples of
‘requests’ that are externally modified with the ‘promise of a reward’ modification. Soler, Jorda and Flor 2005 argue that the aim of this modification
is to offer a reward that will be given upon the fulfillment of the ‘requests’. Also, Trosborg 1995 argues that this modification can increase the possibility of the
compliance of the ‘requests’. Thus, it can be said that ‘requests’ employing the ‘promise of a reward’ modifications must be the ones which really impose and force
the speakers want on hearersrequestees whi ch in this study are called ‘requests’
which have high rank of imposition R-High. However, in Table 7, it can be seen that ‘requests’ which have high rank of imposition only occur 4 times. The fact that
there are four ‘requests’ with R-High does not merely mean that they are suddenly and automatically modified with this ‘promise of a reward’ modification.
Table 7: Findings of the contextual information Contextual information
Social roles Relationship
Total
R-Low P:SH
D-Close Family: ChildNieceNephew-
ParentUncleAunt etc. 6
Student-Teacher 1
Neighbor 1
Teacher-School principal 1
Total D-Close 9
D-Far Boygirl
– HisHer firiend’s parent
3 Hotel assistant-guest
2 Shop assistant-Customer
1
Total D-Far
6 Total P:SH
15 P:S=H
D-Close FriendClassmateSchoolmate
59 Family memberbrothersister
11 Family memberHusband-Wife
4 Neighbors
4 Colleagues
2 Lovers
4
Total D-Close 84
Total P:S=H 84
P:SH D-Close
FamilyParent-child 13
Employer-EmployeeMaster- Maid
3 Teacher-Students
1
Total D-Close 17
D-Far Police officer-Riderdriver
3 Customer-Shop assistant
10 Student-Librarian
6 Flight passenger-Flight
attendant 1
Tourist-Host 1
Show presenter-Guest star 1
Customer-Post office clerk 2
Patient-Doctor 1
Ticket instructor-Train passenger
4 Businessman-H
is partner’s employeesecretary
2
Total D-Far 31
Total P:SH 48
P-None D-Far Strangers
2
Total D-Far 2
Total P-None 2
Total R-Low 149
R-High P:SH
D-Close Familydaughter-father
1
D-Far JournalistNews agent-
participant of a seminar 1
P:S=H D-Close
Friends 2
Total R-High 4
Table 7 depicts the contextual information available in the six selected English textbooks for the Indonesian students. It can be seen in Table 7 that the
‘requests’ which have the low rank of imposition R-Low are far, more dominant than, and outnumber those which have the high rank of imposition R-High 149 to
4. In terms of the relative ‘power’ of S and H P, the ‘requests’ with R-Low cover all types of the P i.e. P:SH, P:S=H, P:SH, and P-None. On the other hand, those
‘requests’ with R-High cover only P:SH and P:S=H. Moreover, the ‘requests’ with R-Low consist of a greater number of participants requester-requestee, and have
various social rolesstatus than do those with R-High. It can be said, then, that the textbooks provide texts consisting of
‘requests’ that are not highly imposing or forcing the requesters’ wantsdesire on the requestees. That statement is supported by the fact that participants whose
relationship is friends occur 59 times in ‘requests’ having R-Low and 2 times in
those having R-High. Brown and Levinson 1987 argue that the frequency of interaction and the kinds of material and non-material goods exchanged between
speaker S and hearer H influence the closeness of social relationship. The consequence, they add, is the reciprocal of giving and receiving ‘positive face’.
Therefore, participants with ‘friends’ as the social roles tend to not employ too many strategies when making ‘requests’ since they are close to one and another D-
Close . It, therefore, results in the reason why only ‘attention-getters’, ‘please’ and
‘grounders’ strategies have high frequency and the other modifications tend to have low frequency as seen in Table 6.
B. Discussions