Politeness and Gender : The Request Strategies of Male and Female Master Students at Ibn Khaldoun University,Tiaret

Abstract

This present study aims at exploring the relationship between the speech act of request, politness, and gender. It seeks to determine the the various ways by the means of which the male and the female members of Tiaret Speech Community (TSC) realize the speech act of request with reference to politeness strategies, to establish the similarties and the differences between the males and the females’strategies, and to determine the factors that influence the use of these strategies. The data were collected from fifty male and fifty female EFL master students who were asked to answer a discourse completion test which contains twelve hypothetical situations, and from five EFL teachers who answered a set of interview questions. The results were analyzed in relation to Brown and Levinson’ politness theory (1978,1987), and Blum-Kulka’ request indirectness level (1989). The results of the study revealed that both male and female master students use direct, conventional indirect, and nonconventional indirect request strategies. The use of these strategies reflects the student’s degree of politeness and the extent to which they attempt to save the negative face of the addressees. Moreover, the findings showed that there are similarities and differences between male and female students’ requesting strategies which are influenced by power relation, social distance and the rank of imposition. This research study concluded that the more power the requester (male or female) has over the requestee and the more social distance between the two, the more indirect request and negative politness strategies are used, especially if the rank of imposition is high or medium. While, the less power the requester (male or female) has over the requestee and the less social distance between the two, the more direct request and bald on record strategies are used, specially if the rank of imposition is low.