As a relatively new faculty member, I am still fascinated by the kinds of requests I receive from students...and those that find me through email are particularly intriguing. It would be a mistake to try to categorize the "typical" student-request-email, however, given the variability in this type of specimen. Ranging from the topic-less and name-less, to the machinations of the most sublime wordsmiths, student-request-emails provide an endless wealth of linguistic features to consider. Still, given that the point of such an email is to obtain faculty approval or assistance of some sort, one wonders what features separate the successful from the unsuccessful requests.
Hartford & Bardovi-Harlig (1996) point out that students are placed in a unique situation when they consider the structure of their request. Specifically, the student must consider how to best protect his/her reputation as a competent member of the class (saving positive face) while simultaneously presenting the request in a way that maximizes the feedback obtained and minimizes the imposition on the professor's time (saving negative face). Juggling this mixture of goals can be quite challenging. The authors note that, in order to be successful, students must, "judge the degree of imposition...take into account the rights and obligations of the parties involved, and choose the most effective ways to influence the faculty's behavior..." (p. 55). Obviously, not all students are as effective at negotiating these requirements. These failed attempts were identified as Negative Affect Requests (NARs) and the authors suggest that they may be perceived as "rude or inappropriate" and may leave the professor with "some desire not to fulfill the request" (p. 56).
So, what separates a PAR (Positive Affect Request) from a NAR? Hartford & Bardovi-Harlig collected emails from their graduate students over the period of a year and then judged these emails on several categories including the use of linguistic forms, content, and the level of imposition. Regarding linguistic forms, they found that NARs contained more want statements, utilized "appreciate" not as an expression of gratitude, but as a part of the request itself (e.g., I'd appreciate finding out...), and showed more use of Please + Imperative (e.g., Please consider it.). In contrast, students who succeeded in creating a PAR utilized twice as many "Other" forms including "wonder" statements (e.g., I was wondering if...) and the use of mitigating words (e.g., kindly).
Interestingly, level of imposition was not related with the occurrence of PARs or NARs. Both categories had instances of low imposition (e.g., asking for an appointment, requesting reading references) and high imposition (e.g., asking for incompletes, asking for an extension). However, when the authors examined the content of the emails, they found that the way students dealt with the level of imposition of their request made a difference. For example, PARs were twice as likely to include an acknowledgment of the imposition (including apologies and expressions of gratitude) while NARs were twice as likely to contain no mention of the imposition at all. Furthermore, the explanation for the imposition was also determinative. PARs were twice as likely to refer to inflexible institutional deadlines or procedures for their imposition while the majority of NARs (about 73%) referred to student-oriented reasons for the imposition.
More recently, Biesenbach-Lucas (2007) examined the e-politeness strategies of students and pointed out that very few students (if any) receive explicit training on how to construct appropriate upward-moving (i.e., lower to higher status) emails. Consequently, students (especially first-year students?) may rely on the messages they have written or received in the past (most likely to/from their peers) as their template for emails to authority figures (p. 60). However, there does seem to be evidence that students acknowledge the need for more formal emails in these cases. For example, addressers (if used) tend to be more formal. Still, given that the conventions of email are still developing and changing, students may understandably struggle with this transition, especially given the more informal, speech-like nature of most email use.
Biesenbach-Lucas documented politeness negotiation in emails collected from native and nonnative speakers, across varying levels of message imposition. She found that for the lowest imposition requests (making an appointment), native speakers used direct and indirect requests equally often. For the slightly higher imposition request (asking for feedback), they used direct requests much more often than indirect requests. Only in the highest imposition category (asking for an extension) did students utilize significantly more indirect requests. Furthermore, in this high imposition category, they were also much more likely than in the other cases to utilize "hints" when constructing their requests (e.g., I'm having a hard time finishing this paper.). The use of hints in this case is very interesting. Because the request is never directly stated, the door is still open to deny that a request for an extension was made. As a result, this strategy may reflect an acknowledgement of the threat to the negative face of the professor (as well as an attempt to preserve the positive face of the student). If the student "gets lucky" the professor may correctly detect the request and, if in amiable mood, offer the extension. Additional analyses included the use of syntactic and lexical modifiers and the perspective used (e.g., I..., you..., we...). Overall, she concludes that native speakers, despite direct instruction, do seem to be, "developing awareness of e-politeness" (p. 74).
Finally, Duthler (2006) compared the politeness of requests made by students via email or voicemail. He argued that while both mediums allow for pre-editing of messages, email provides, "elevated control over message production" and thus the opportunity to "create more polite speech than with the use of other CMC media" (p. 501). The author also points out that students have a number of message forms to choose from when developing their requests which vary along the continuum of politeness. Students can create Bald, On Record requests (directives); use Positive Politeness (emphasizing solidarity); use Negative Politeness (acknowledging the imposition); create Off-Record requests (hints & ambiguous language); or simply make no request (p. 502). When deciding among these options, students must consider the weightiness of the social situation including 1) the degree of imposition, 2) the power of the recipient over the sender, and 3) the social distance between the two (p. 503).
Duthler asked participants to make a request over voicemail or email that varied according to level of imposition. He proposed that students would have more cognitive resources available to negotiate the politeness of the message over email. Politeness was measured by examining the number of adjunct phrases (sentences/phrases other than the request sentence), the formality of the addresser, and an overall politeness rating. Results showed that under conditions of high imposition, emails utilized significantly more adjunct phrases than voicemail. Furthermore, a clear pattern emerged across a number of the analyses in which measures of politeness varied in emails across conditions of imposition while the politeness of voicemails remained static. It seems that email provides greater opportunity to respond appropriately to the constraints of the request-task.
However, one counter-intuitive finding showed that addressers were significantly less formal under conditions of high than of low imposition. In addition, in a post-test manipulation check, it was found that there was no significant difference in participant ratings of the imposition of their request across conditions. In other words, the perception of the students across both low and high imposition categories was that their messages were of moderate imposition (about a 6 on a 9 point scale). This was in contrast to the pretest measures utilized to select the scenarios for each condition. It may be informative to consider further the match between student perceptions of their emails and their use of the linguistic features of politeness. Is the process of negotiating the weightiness of requests a conscious one? If not, how do students develop e-politeness finesse and how does this skill impact their interactions with faculty?
Biesenbach-Lucas, S. (2007). Students writing emails to faculty: An examination of e-politeness among native and non-native speakers of English. Language Learning & Technology, 11(2), 59-81.
Duthler, K. W. (2006). The politeness of requests made via email and voicemail: Support for the hyperpersonal model. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 11, 500-521.
Hartford, B. S. & Bardovi-Harlig (1996). "At your earliest convenience:" A study of written student requests to faculty. In L. F. Bouton (Ed.), Pragmatics and Language Learning, Vol 7 (p. 55-69). Urbana, IL: DEIL.