An Examination of L1 and L2 Request E-mails By Korean High School Students

The purpose of this study was to investigate how Korean high school students perform request speech acts in English and Korean e-mails in two different situations. The data were gathered through writing tasks in which twenty-two Korean high school students were asked to write Korean and English request e-mails in two different situations. The findings of the study are as follows: (1) overall Korean high school students preferred direct strategies in English and Korean e-mails while they employed indirect strategies more when they asked a friend, who is equal in social power, in English, (2) their internal modifications were quite limited in both languages, particularly please in English e-mails, (3) various types of external modifications appeared in their e-mails and they made use of more external modifications in English e-mails than in Korean e-mails, and (4) the organization of English and Korean e-mails was not direct and the students avoided facework. However, the frequency and types of strategies, modifications, and organization patterns were different depending on the situations requiring different degrees of politeness. The results were discussed in terms of L1 effect and pragmatic competence. Based on the results of the study, teaching implications and suggestions for future studies are presented.