Emailing Requests to International Researchers: The Construction of Identity by Chinese EFL Graduate Students

Abstract

While email communication has received a lot of scholastic attention and its relevance to second language acquisition has been explored to some extent, how Chinese EFL learners write emails for academic purposes remains unknown. Despite a sizable amount of literature on requesting as a speech act and on the acquisition of the speech act in L2, scant discussion has been directed to how email correspondents construct relational identity and individual identities as requesters and requestees. Thus, considering the varied findings concerning the (in) formality of email communication, it might be worthwhile to explore what level of formality characterizes request-making emails written by Chinese EFL graduate students. Also, it may prove beneficial to investigate how the students, in their email requests, construct their personal identity as student requesters and the identity of the international researchers as academic requestees, as well as their relational identity. A sample of 12 request-making emails written by 12 Chinese EFL graduate students to appointed hypothetical international researchers were collected as the data, together with the results of informal interviews with three students. Through qualitative analysis, the researcher found that (i) the students’ emails were basically formal; (ii) the students constructed a deferent relational identity with the international researchers; and (iii) they identified themselves as reasonable requesters and their addressees as appropriate requestees. The learner writers’ use of basically formal style might be explicable in terms of culturally biased identity awareness.