A PRAGMATIC ANALYSIS OF REQUEST IN ENGLISH TEXTBOOKS FOR INDONESIAN STUDENTS

This study is aimed at investigating 1) request strategies existing in the six selected English textbooks and 2) contextual information available in the textbooks. This study employed both quantitative and qualitative methods. The data were words, phrases, clauses and sentences within dialogues and the context. Trustworthiness of the data was enhanced through triangulation by checking the data and data sources, research methods and supporting theories by the assistance of two persons whose educational background is English education. The findings revealed that the six selected English textbooks provide : 1) most models of requests which reflect politeness and tend to be made in the conventional indirect way, but few models of non-conventional indirect requests; 2) various request strategies with ‘attention-getters’, ‘please’ and ‘grounders’ occurring most frequently; 3) most requests having low rank of impositions, butfew requests having high rank of impositions; and 4) variety, but little appealing content in the pedagogical area