E-mail requests to faculty

Based on existing research on Computer-Mediated Discourse, the present study examined the pragmalinguistic resources used by U.S. university-level students when writing e-mail requests in L1 English and L2 Spanish to faculty in cyber consultations. The focus of the study was the analysis of request head acts and lexical and syntactic modifiers used to write direct or indirect requests in four situations that ranged from low to high imposition, namely, requests for information, requests for validation, requests for feedback, and requests for action. 240 e-mail messages by learners of Spanish as a foreign language were examined (L2 Spanish [n = 120]; L1 English [n = 120]). Results are analysed for request type and level of imposition, internal modification, and e-politeness.