Email Requests in English: Implications for TESOL

1. Email Requests
in English:
Implications for TESOL
Abigail Reynolds and Tatiana Shulyateva
Northern Arizona University
Master’s Student Forum
March 25, 2015

2. Overview
 Impact & Motivation
 Studies
 Implications
 Suggestions for Future Research
 Q&A
2

3. Impact & Motivation
 Successful requests save face.
 Successful requests help reach your goal.
 Emails are widely used.
 Knowledge about requests helps make
better requests.
 Knowledge about requests helps teach how
to construct requests.
3

4. 4
Study Data Sender Recipient Rater
Biesenbach-
Lucas (2005)
authentic 382 NSs &
151 NNSs
female faculty
member
researcher
Iimuro
(2006)
authentic 4 NNSs professor researcher
Stephens,
et al. (2009)
elicited 1 NSs -> 4
modified
emails
faculty
member
152 NS
instructors;
183 NS students
Hendriks
(2010)
elicited NNSs employer 110 NSs;
158 NSs
Knupsky,
Nagy-Bell
(2011)
elicited 66 NSs peers and
professors
2 NSs
Merrison, et
al. (2012)
authentic 190 NSs female faculty
member
researchers

5. Implications: Status
 Consider difference in status when you
make email requests (Hendriks, 2010;
Knupsky & Nagy-Bell, 2011)
 e.g., student to student vs. student to
professor
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6. Implications: Imposition
 Consider how imposing your request is
(Biesenbach-Lucas, 2010)
 e.g., requesting an appointment during
office hours vs. requesting feedback vs.
requesting an extension
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7. Ways to Make Your Request
More Polite
 Use proper grammar and punctuation
(Stephens et al., 2009)
 No text language (Stephens et al., 2009)
 e.g., R U free?
 Regardless of age
 Use embedded constructions
 I was wondering if (e.g., Hendriks, 2010;
Biesenbach-Lucas, 2007)
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8. Language That May Not
Affect Politeness
 Using Could may not be more polite than
using Can (Hendriks, 2010)
 Insertion of Please may not make your
request more polite (Biesenbach-Lucas,
2007)
 Insertion of Possibly may not make your
request more polite (Hendriks, 2010)
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9. Implications: Culture
 Consider in which culture your students
will be using English
 Reasons (e.g., employment, health)
 Greetings (e.g., Hi, Dear Dr. X)
 Hedging (e.g., just, might)
(Merrison et al., 2012)
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10. Structure
 Subject line
 Term of address used
to refer to teacher
 Self-identification
 Account
 Request
 Sign off
(Based on
Iimuro, 2006;
Merrison et al., 2012)
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11. Suggestions for
Future Research
 Examining the difference in perception of
email requests between professors from
different disciplines
 Comparing of constructions and judgments
of email requests in different cultures
11

12. Thank you!
Q&A
or email us with your requests:
Abigail Reynolds – ap2265@nau.edu
Tatiana Shulyateva – tds245@nau.edu