Polite Requests by Korean Learners of Indonesian

This study aims to investigate the polite requesting competence of 25 Korean learners of Indonesian. The data are compared to the requests produced by 25 Indonesian native speakers. Based on a questionnaire of politeness in three socially different situations, the Korean and Indonesian participants in this study were asked to make requests in the three situations. The situations were classified according to the three politeness systems on the basis of social relationship between speaker and addressee: hierarchy, deference, and solidarity. This study demonstrates that both groups tend to use the query preparatory strategy in making requests. However, due to cultural differences between Korea and Indonesia, the respondents in the two groups behave differently in terms of how they modify the head acts and how they use the politeness markers. In addition to that, this study also shows that in performing polite requests the Korean learners lack some pragmatic knowledge in applying the passive form di- and third person possessive pronoun –nya ‘him/her’ which are commonly used by Indonesian speakers to avoid the direct form you or your. Key words: Second language learning; Politeness; Request strategies