Ritual frame indicating expressions used in requests in intercultural communication

Abstract The aim of this research was to identify whether the ritual frame indicating expression (RFIE) please was used by Thai intermediate-level learners of English as a foreign language (EFL) in requests in intercultural communication, as well as to determine whether the Thai intermediate-level EFL learners used any RFIEs in requests in intercultural communication. Dyadic and multiparty academic discussions between Thai university students and American university lecturers were collected, as well as those between university students who spoke English as their first language (L1) and the American university lecturers to enable a comparison. The results revealed that the RFIE please was used at a low frequency by a limited number of Thai university students, indicating that the requestive please cannot be considered an RFIE that the Thai student participants used in requests in intercultural communication. Moreover, the Thai university students used three RFIEs, namely “teacher”, “ajarn”, and the modal verb “can”. The Thai university students mainly used these three RFIEs due to politeness norms in Thai culture, which led to these three RFIEs being used extensively with speech-act heaviness. Accordingly, over-politeness was identified in the use of these three RFIEs in intercultural communication.