Interlanguage Request Modification

Book excerpt: This is the first edited volume dedicated specifically to interlanguage request modification. It is a collection of empirical studies carried out by an international array of scholars which provides insights for researchers, graduate students and language teachers on patterns of interlanguage request modification in a range of research contexts and linguistic/cultural settings. The research in this volume takes the reader from a consideration of interlanguage request modification in naturally-occurring e-mail data, through to elicited data from e-DCT questionnaires on cyber-consultations, to the interactive oral discourse of requests in open role-plays. As a whole, the contributions incorporate research with learners from a range of proficiency levels and from diverse linguistic/cultural backgrounds while the chapters individually examine developmental aspects of interlanguage request modification, requests in electronic contexts, comparative learner/native speaker requests, and instructional effects on mitigation. The book will undoubtedly become an important reference for researchers and teachers not only in the field of pragmatics but also in second language acquisition, language teaching, (socio-)linguistics and discourse analysis.