Conversational sequences and preference for indirect speech acts

Abstract

Two experiments are reported examining people's preferences for indirect speech acts in making requests in conversation. We investigated the effect of pre‐requests (e.g., “Do you sell Marlboros?”) which prepares the addressee for an upcoming request, (e.g., “I'll take two packs”). We hypothesized that pre‐requests function to remove any obstacles to compliance for the addressee and predicted that speakers would produce different kinds of request forms in situations where a pre‐request has been made than in contexts where pre‐requests were not present. The results of Experiment 1 showed this to be true for both service encounters and detour situations where a speaker must interrupt the ongoing activities of the addressee to insert the request. In Experiment 2 subjects read and ranked different conversational sequences used in making indirect requests. The data indicated that in both service encounters and detour situations subjects most prefer conversations where the addressee in tum offers to fulfill the request implicit in the speaker's pre‐request. Overall, these studies highlight the influence of conversational organization on people's linguistic behavior in making indirect speech acts in different social situations.