A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF REQUEST PERSPECTIVES IN ALGERIAN AND RUSSIAN STUDENTS' CLASSROOM DISCOURSE

Although the speech act of request is universal, request patterns, especially the level of directness and request perspective, entail cross-cultural differences. The present study examines the differences and/or similarities in request perspectives performed by 140 participants (70 Russian and 70 Algerian students) in classroom discourse. The data collected by a Discourse Completion Task (DCT) were analyzed based on models of Blum-Kulka et al. [1989]. Algerian and Russian students preferred conventionally indirect requests with their teachers. The hearer-oriented requests were the most used by Russians compared to Algerians, who preferred the speaker-oriented perspective. The results proved that conventional indirect requests are used when the hearer's (H) power is high, which requires the speaker-oriented perspective in Algerian culture. The hearer-oriented perspective is preferred by Russian participants the most since directness is more polite in such a culture. This study provided new data for cross-cultural studies from the request perspective.