Request Strategies in Classroom Interactions: a Case study of Algerian Arabic-Speaking ENS-Sétif Students

Abstract

Abstract: The purpose of this study is to investigate how Algerian Arab students (AAS, henceforth) use the speech act of requesting inside the classroom, while addressing their teachers. Requests are regarded as face-threatening acts, which is why request initiators are invited to be careful while using them in order to avoid communication breakdown and social antagonism, especially in situations where power, distance and language formality are observed, like in student-teacher communication inside the classroom. In this regard, this study unveils the request patterns favored by AAS to request something from their teachers and tries to explain the exigencies of these patterns. To this end, a discourse completion task (DCT) questionnaire was distributed to second year math students at the Ecole Normal Supérieure of Sétif, Algeria (a teacher-training higher education institution). The Questionnaire is made of four different classroom scenarios where students are likely to perform requests. Data were then coded and analyzed using Blum Kulka at al.’s (1989) Cross Cultural Speech Act Realization Project (CCSARP) famous coding conventions. AAS requests were analyzed from three different angles: level of directness, request perspective, and request modification. In relation to the level of directness, our findings have shown that AAS are inclined to using direct and conventionally indirect request strategies with an almost similar frequency, observing the dominance of the query preparatory head act. As far as request perspective is concerned, AAS are more favoured the speaker perspective. Finally, as for request modification, the participants tended to employ different modifications strategies, namely the 'من فضلك”, equivalent of “please” in English Keywords: Algerian Arabic requests; Discourse completion task; request modification; Cross-Cultural Speech Act Realization Project; request perspective; classroom talk.