Indirectness; Politeness; DCT, Pragmatic transfer; Requests; Turkish; Turkish–German bilinguals

What is it about?

This study focuses on both the realisation and politeness perception of requests made by Turkish monolingual speakers and Turkish–German bilingual returnees. It investigates the possibility that the Turkish–German bilingual returnees’ pragmatic performance may have been affected by pragmatic transfer from German. As an initial step, a discourse completion test (DCT) was administered to Turkish monolinguals and Turkish–German bilingual returnees. Second, a politeness rating questionnaire was used .The results of the questionnaire showed that indirectness and politeness are related, but not linearly linked concepts. In regard to indirectness, a cross-cultural comparison revealed that Turkish monolingual speakers seemed to prefer more direct strategies when compared to German speakers.

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Why is it important?

This study explores the nature of requests beyond the limits of traditional speech act theory. Adopting a broader perspective when analyzing the DCT data (i.e., moving beyond the Blum-Kulka et al. [1989] framework), my study shows that informants employ strategies other than those reported in most studies using DCTs: deliberate choices of opting out, providing alternative solutions, and attempts at negotiation. A re-analysis of the DCT data revealed that in some situations, the Turkish monolinguals tended to be more reluctant to make a request, whereas the Turkish–German bilinguals opted out less frequently, but preferred indirect strategies. Thus, further investigation needs to cover not only the ‘said’, but also the ‘unsaid’ responses of the requestees, in order to shed more light on the issue of indirectness.

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