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Article published In: Pragmatics
Vol. 28:4 (2018) ► pp.489–516

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“Mr Paul, please inform me accordingly”

Address forms, directness and degree of imposition in L2 emails

 | University of Nicosia
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Available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial (CC BY-NC) 4.0 license.
Published online: 23 October 2018
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https://doi.org/10.1075/prag.17025.eco
Abstract
The function of students’ email requests to faculty is both transactional and interactional. Students’ emails are not only sent with the aim of receiving some form of service but they also need to adhere to the interactional function of language in order to establish and maintain social relationships. Therefore, how to address their lecturers and how much directness is appropriate in the requests performed through this medium, are some of the most difficult choices that students have to make. This study investigates how L2 university students’ academic requests are formulated through the medium of email, and examines the correlation between the forms of address, the degree of (in)directness and the degree of imposition of their email as a way to express e-politeness.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Setting the scene
    • 2.1Email language
    • 2.2L2 forms of address
    • 2.3Emails, (in)directness and degree of imposition
  • 3.Methods
    • 3.1Data and participants
    • 3.2Procedure
      • 3.2.1Degree of imposition
      • 3.2.2Forms of address
      • 3.2.3Degree of directness
    • 3.3Scoring and statistical analysis
  • 4.Results
    • 4.1Forms of address – degree of imposition
    • 4.2Forms of address – degree of directness
    • 4.3Degree of directness – degree of imposition
  • 5.Discussion
  • 6.Conclusions and recommendations for further research
  • Notes
  • References
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