台灣大學生學術英文要求策略使用之先導研究

The Use of English Request Strategy by Taiwanese College Students: a Pilot Study in the Academic Setting

本研究旨在探討台灣大學生在學術環境中英文要求策略使用情形。根據Brown & Levison(1987)，要求是一種可能讓說話者及對話者丟臉的行為，說話者必須運用某些策略來顧及雙方的面子。在跨國文化背景下，不當的策略運用可能造成溝通停擺，甚或引起誤會。中國人向來被認為傾向使用直接要求，因之形成中國人粗魯無理的刻板印象。本研究邀請十八位大一學生，以填寫問卷的方式，回應不同情況下的要求策略使用。收集得到的資料以Blum-Kulka, House, and Kasper (1989)的編碼分類加以分析。研究結果與過去不同。具體而言，本研究所收集之215個要求策略當中，74%為間接要求，其中聽者為主的觀點占81%強。最常用的支持文步為「理由提供」。另外，前置結構較為常用，約佔54%。

The study aims to identify the request strategies used by Taiwanese college students in the academic setting. According to Brown and Levinson (1987), request is a face-threatening act. More often than not, speakers would adopt strategies to prevent damage to the hearer's or the speaker's own face. Chinese people have long been described as people who favor direct request strategies, which usually evoke rude and awkward impressions in the speakers since inappropriate requests in cross-cultural contact situations may lead to communication breakdown or even misunderstanding. The present study invited 18 Taiwanese female freshmen to respond to a written questionnaire in the form of the Discourse Completion Task. The data of 215 requests were analyzed according to Blum-Kulka, House, and Kasper's (1989) coding scheme. The findings portrayed a different picture of stereotypes of Chinese students. In specific, the participants used significantly more indirect strategies (74%) than direct strategies. Among the indirect strategies used, 81% was hearer dominance. The favorite Supportive Moves were grounders. In terms of the structure of the Head Act and the Supportive Moves, pre-posed structure was preferred over post-posed structure.