Intercultural and interlanguage pragmatic adaptation in progress: Internal modifications of teacher requests by international GTAs across diverse UK university classroom scenarios

Abstract This study investigates the intercultural and interlanguage pragmatic adaptation of Chinese Graduate Teaching Assistants (GTAs; N = 9) in UK universities, focusing on their use of internal modification strategies (IMSs) in teacher requests across instructional, organisational, and emotional classroom scenarios. Drawing on audio-recorded classroom observations from two universities, this study analysed 2,151 instances of IMSs to trace longitudinal and scenario-based variations. Findings show that Chinese GTAs predominantly employed lexical & phrasal downgraders and upgraders to reinforce directive clarity and instructional intent, while relying less on syntactic downgraders and explicit politeness markers. Over time, IMS use declined overall, reflecting increased familiarity with students and greater pragmatic inference and efficiency. Scenario-based analysis revealed that adaptation was scenario-specific: internal modification, densest in instructional support, was redistributed rather than reduced there and contracted sharply in organisational scenarios as routines consolidated, while relational softening in emotional support interactions increased yet remained limited. These trends indicate changes in participants’ pragmatic choices over time, although a relative lack of indirectness, politeness, and rapport management remained, pointing to a relatively narrow repertoire of softening resources. This study contributes to existing frameworks of internal modification by providing a context-specific analysis of Chinese GTAs’ teacher requests within internationalised UK university settings, and highlights teaching as a catalyst for pragmatic socialisation. It stresses the need for scenario-sensitive pragmatic intervention in GTA training, balancing directive clarity with interpersonal sensitivity and appropriateness in intercultural classrooms.