Indonesians and Americans Bilingual Request Strategies in Indonesian and English

Authors

  • Imelda Wahyuni Husein Miss
  • Aceng Ruhendi Syaifullah Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia
  • Eri Kurniawan Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia

Keywords:

Cross-cultural communication, Bilingual,, Request Strategies, Indonesian, American

Abstract

In cross-cultural communication, there are several things that need to be considered in order to avoid misunderstanding such as the addressee’s knowledge, experience, culture, and value. Different kind of request strategies in intercultural communication between Indonesian and American could lead into misunderstanding. This study aims to investigate Indonesians' and Americans’ request strategies changing when they speak English and Indonesian. This study used qualitative research involving five Indonesian and American speakers who speak English and Indonesian fluently. The data were collected through multiple resources such as DCT with certain situation which was distributed to the participants and observation and interview during the meeting with the participants. The findings showed that Indonesians tended to be more direct when they made requests in Indonesian, while they changed into indirect request strategies when they made request in English, while American participants tended to be indirect when they made requests in English even though some of them were direct and they changed into direct strategies when they made a request in Indonesian. This study also reveals that Indonesians tend to be more direct than Americans when they used their native language and it contradicts other studies that say Indonesians tend to use Indirect request and this also influenced American in the way they made a request in Indonesian. Therefore, it is suggested that having intercultural  knowledge is important in language learning in order to avoid misunderstanding due to the differences of norms, values, and belief.

Dimensions

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Published

2024-03-28
Abstract 39  .