Polite Request Strategies as Produced by

This is a socio-pragmatic investigation into polite request strategies made by Yemeni learners of English as a foreign language. For this study, 196 Yemeni learners of English were asked to respond in English to six different situations in which they carried out the speech act of request. The data was collected using a Discourse Completion Test (DCT). The data was analyzed according to the models proposed by Blum-Kulka, et al (1989). Blum-Kulka, et al‟s (1989) analytical framework classified request into three levels of directness: direct strategies, conventionally indirect strategies, and non-conventionally indirect strategies. Five strategies are considered direct (mood derivable, performative, obligation statement, want statement), two strategies are considered conventionally indirect (query preparatory, suggestory formulae), and two strategies are non-conventionally indirect strategies (strong hints and mild hints). Results indicate that the Yemeni EFL students prefer to use conventionally indirect strategies more than other strategies when the social distance, social power and ranking Language in India www.languageinindia.com 16