Examining Strategies and Supportive Moves in Requestive Speech Acts: A Comparative Study of 'Top Notch' and 'Summit' English Series

Farangi, Mohamad Reza; Kheradmand, Zahra

doi:10.22077/ali.2025.8527.1055

Examining Strategies and Supportive Moves in Requestive Speech Acts: A Comparative Study of 'Top Notch' and 'Summit' English Series

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

Mohamad Reza Farangi ¹

Zahra Kheradmand ²

¹ Assistant professor of Applied Linguistics, Department of Applied Humanities, Kashmar Higher Education Institute, Kashmar, Iran

² Ph.D. Candidate in Neuroscience, Department of Psychology, Faculty of Arts, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada

10.22077/ali.2025.8527.1055

Abstract

This study investigated the discourse features of requestive speech acts in 10 textbooks from the Top Notch and Summit series to assess their potential for developing learners' pragmatic competence. Requests were analyzed in terms of directness strategies, head acts, and supportive discourse moves, drawing on the frameworks of Blum-Kulka et al. (1989) and Farch and Kasper (1989). The findings revealed a bias towards direct request strategies in both series, likely influenced by their utilitarian discourse structure. While Top Notch provided a wider range of directness levels, Summit, designed for advanced learners, offered limited exposure to diverse request strategies. Internal supportive moves, particularly the use of questions, were more prevalent than external moves in both series. These findings suggest that while the series contribute to language learning, they may not fully equip learners with the pragmatic competence necessary for effective intercultural communication. Further research is needed to explore the impact of explicit instruction and implicit learning on the acquisition of request strategies.

Keywords

Textbook Evaluation

requestive speech acts

supportive discourse moves

request strategies

directness level

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