Request Speech Act: A Comparison of Mainland Chinese Mandarin and Malaysian Chinese Mandarin in Interaction

Request Speech Act: A Comparison of Mainland Chinese Mandarin and Malaysian Chinese Mandarin in Interaction | Research Square window.SnipcartSettings = { analytics: { enabled: false } }; (function() { var accessVector = localStorage.getItem('access_vector') || ''; window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; if (accessVector) { window.dataLayer.push({ user: { profile: { profileInfo: { snid: accessVector } } } }); } })(); (function(w,d,s,l,i){w[l]=w[l]||[];w[l].push({'gtm.start':new Date().getTime(),event:'gtm.js'});var f=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!='dataLayer'?'&l='+l:'';j.async=true;j.src='https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id='+i+dl;f.parentNode.insertBefore(j,f);})(window,document,'script','dataLayer','GTM-K279D39R'); Browse Preprints In Review Journals COVID-19 Preprints AJE Video Bytes Research Tools Research Promotion AJE Professional Editing AJE Rubriq About Preprint Platform In Review Editorial Policies Our Team Advisory Board Help Center Sign In Submit a Preprint Cite Share Download PDF Article Request Speech Act: A Comparison of Mainland Chinese Mandarin and Malaysian Chinese Mandarin in Interaction Ming Pang, Hazlina Abdul Halim This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. https://doi.org/ 10.21203/rs.3.rs-6385618/v1 This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License Status: Under Review Version 1 posted 10 You are reading this latest preprint version Abstract Although few studies explored the request speech act in Mainland Chinese Mandarin and Malaysian Chinese Mandarin, even less attention is paid to the investigation of request speech act in interactions between Mainland Chinese Mandarin and Malaysian Chinese Mandarin. This study aims to investigate the request speech act when mainland Chinese Mandarin speakers and Malaysian Chinese Mandarin speakers request from each other. 1 Malaysian Chinese interlocutor role played with 25 mainland Chinese participants and 1 mainland Chinese interlocutor role played with 25 Malaysian Chinese participants. Role-play instrument was employed as data collection instrument and a modifier theoretical framework was used as data analysis tool. Results indicated that there were more similarities than differences in terms of using request head act strategy, internal modification and external modification. This study developed the existing framework and could help improve the communication between mainland Chinese and Malaysian Chinese community. Humanities/Language and linguistics Social science/Language and linguistics request head act strategy internal modification external modification Mainland Chinese Mandarin Malaysian Chinese Mandarin 1. Introduction With the increasing communication between mainland China and Malaysia, mainland Chinese and Malaysian Chinese speakers communicate with each other more often than ever before. Mainland Chinese and Malaysian Chinese speakers inevitably request from each other when communicating. A request speech act refers to an illocutionary act where the speaker endeavors to convince the listener to perform a specific action, usually for the speaker’s benefit (Li & Jiang, 2019 ). Request speech act plays a vital role in their successful communication. Requesters may utilize different strategies when making requests (Lee, 2005 ). Furthermore, Barron ( 2016 ) also argued that individuals, when making requests, employ various modifiers to either mitigate or amplify the impact of their request. Request speech act has gained many researchers’ attention (Economidou-Kogetsidis, 2011 ; Nugroho et al., 2021 ; Shahzadi et al., 2021 ). Some of them studied request in English (Borovina, 2017 ), some focused on request in European languages, such as Spanish (Félix-Brasdefer, 2009 ; Márquez Reiter, 2002 ), or French (Annan, 2022 ). As was concluded by Author (2023), studies on request in Chinese are rather limited and lag behind those in English or European languages. The comparison of request speech act in Mainland Chinese Mandarin and Malaysian Chinese Mandarin when Mainland Chinese Mandarin speakers request from Malaysian Chinese Mandarin speakers and Malaysian Chinese Mandarin speakers request from Mainland Chinese Mandarin speakers is even more scant. As a face threatening speech act (Brown & Levinson, 1987 ), making request poses challenges due to frequent unforeseen misunderstandings between the requester and the requestee (Akmal et al., 2022 ). Despite this, as mentioned earlier, there is limited research investigating the request speech act when Mainland Chinese Mandarin and Malaysian Chinese Mandarin speakers request from each other. This study aims to fill this research gap and investigate the similarities and differences of request speech act when Mainland Chinese Mandarin speakers and Malaysian Chinese Mandarin speakers request from each other. This study can help to enhance communication effectiveness between mainland Chinese and Malaysian Chinese individuals. 2. Literature Review As this study aims to investigate the request speech act in interactions between mainland Chinese and Malaysian Chinese speakers, it is necessary to review the previous research on request in Chinese. Existing research has presented varied perspectives on preferences of request strategies in Chinese, revealing a divergence in findings. Some studies, such as Lee-Wong ( 1994 ) and Zhu ( 2017 ), assert a preference for direct requests in Chinese, while others, like Zhang ( 1995 ), Chen et al. ( 2013 ) and Wen ( 2014 ), emphasize the prevalence of conventional indirect requests in Chinese. Ren ( 2018 ) compared requests between mainland Chinese and Taiwan Chinese and unveiled different preferences in Chinese, with Taiwan Chinese favoring conventionally indirect requests universally and mainland Chinese employing such requests with higher social status individuals but opting for direct requests with those of equal or lower social status. Furthermore, Chinese language exhibits the rare use of non-conventionally indirect requests, as highlighted by Ren ( 2018 ), Rinnert & Kobayashi ( 1999 ), and Zhang ( 1995 ). In one more recent study when comparing request in Chinese with that in Japanese, Ren & Fukushima ( 2020 ) discovered that Chinese participants predominantly utilized direct requests, followed by conventionally indirect requests, with non-conventionally indirect requests being the least common. In addition, as part of request speech act, both internal and external modifications find application in requests in Chinese contexts (Gao, 1999 ; Lee-Wong, 1994 ; Ren & Fukushima, 2020 ; Zhang, 1995 ). According to Lee-Wong ( 1994 ), Chinese speakers tended to utilize mitigation devices rather than relying on strategy-internal indirectness when expressing politeness in requests. Lee ( 2005 ) found that native Cantonese speakers employed distinct combinations of syntactic and lexical devices to mitigate the directness of the requests. Yujie ( 2021 ) also found that Chinese speakers employed both internal and external modifiers in terms of request modification. Comparing request in Chinese with that in Japanese, Ren & Fukushima ( 2020 ) found that Chinese participants employed significantly more lexical internal modifiers than external modifiers in request. Furthermore, the Chinese participants showed a tendency to use emojis for modifying request and conveyed disapproval of direct requests with minimal modifications. However, they exhibited a favorable response to requests that underwent several modifications, as well as indirect requests featuring multiple modifications (Ren & Fukushima, 2022 ). According to the findings in Anonymous (2023), the majority of previous studies on request focused on English and European languages like French and Greek. Although there has been a noticeable increase in attention from researchers in recent years towards studying requests in Chinese, research on requests in Chinese remains scarce, and opinions on the matter are somewhat divergent. Certain studies asserted a preference for a direct strategy in Chinese (Lee-Wong, 1994 ), while others argued that indirect strategy is more commonly observed in Chinese data (Li & Jiang, 2019 ; Ren, 2019 ; Zhang, 1995 ). A review of the literature also indicates a scarcity of exploration into the variations in request speech act among different regional varieties of Chinese. Although there were studies that compared request in mainland Chinese with that in English (Su & Ren, 2017 ), Japanese (Ren & Fukushima, 2020 , 2022 ), and Taiwanese (Ren, 2018 ), to the researchers’ best knowledge, no study has been carried out to investigate the differences and similarities when mainland Chinese request from Malaysian Chinese and Malaysian Chinese request from mainland Chinese. This study aims to fill this research gap by delving into such a specialized investigation. This study was guided by the following three research questions: 1) what are similarities and differences of request speech act when mainland Chinese request from Malaysian Chinese and Malaysian Chinese request from mainland Chinese? 2) what are similarities and differences of request internal modification when mainland Chinese request from Malaysian Chinese and Malaysian Chinese request from mainland Chinese? 3) what are similarities and differences of request external modification when mainland Chinese request from Malaysian Chinese and Malaysian Chinese request from mainland Chinese? 3. Methodology 3.1. Participants 25 mainland Chinese participants (gender: 8 male and 17 female; age range: 18–38; mean age: 22.28; SD:3.921) and 25 Malaysian Chinese participants (3 male and 22 female; age range: 19–28; mean age: 21.88; SD:1.616) were randomly recruited on a voluntary basis. And a 25-year-old male Malaysian Chinese student from UPM was enlisted as Malaysian Chinese interlocutor and the researcher himself, a 35-year-old male from mainland China, served as mainland Chinese interlocutor. In order to minimize the impact of other Chinese language varieties, none of the participants from mainland China have visited Malaysia, and conversely, all recruited Malaysian participants have not visited mainland China, Hong Kong China, or Taiwan China. Before taking part in the study, all participants provided their consent by signing the informed consent form. Given that this study specifically examines the realization of requests in Mandarin Chinese, it is essential to note that all participants are proficient in Chinese Mandarin. 3.2. Instrument This study incorporated role play as its data collection instrument. The decision to employ role play was driven by its capacity to extract data from controlled scenarios (Félix-Brasdefer, 2007 ). The choice of role play was also motivated by its ability to generate interactive and natural data, as noted in open role play (Han, 2012 ; Hosseinpur et al., 2019 ). To enhance the collection of interactive and natural data with richer conversational features, the study employed open role play involving 12 scenarios (refer to the Appendix). This study utilized 12 scenarios derived from Ying & Hong ( 2020 ) and Zhang ( 1995 ). The validation process involved scrutiny by two experts in pragmatics and proofreading by a native Chinese speaker from mainland China to ensure accuracy and reliability. 3.3. Data Collection Procedures The Malaysian Chinese interlocutor role-played with 25 mainland Chinese participants and the mainland Chinese interlocutor role-played with 25 Malaysian Chinese participants in Chinese mandarin. The two interlocutors were instructed not to share the written Chinese versions of scenarios beforehand but to present them only during the role-play sessions with all participants. The directive was for the interlocutors to advise the participants to respond naturally in each role play. To ensure authenticity in the collected data, both the interlocutors and participants were guided to align their role-play behavior with the roles they assumed in each scenario. Each role play was individually conducted in a quiet setting and recorded audio-wise. Participants spent approximately 10 minutes completing the role-play with the interlocutor. Subsequently, all role plays were transcribed in a later stage using a Chinese software called FeiShuMiaoJi. The transcripts underwent manual examination by the researcher twice. 3.4. A Revised Data Analysis Framework The primary theoretical framework utilized in this study was the Cross-Cultural Study of Speech Act Realization Patterns (CCSARP), initially developed by Blum-Kulka & Olshtain ( 1984 ), and subsequently expanded upon by Blum-Kulka et al. ( 1989 ). To analyze the collected data in this research, a modified version of CCSARP was devised, taking into consideration previous scholarly contributions as a basis of comparison (Ren, 2019 ; Zhang, 1995 ). The adaptation aimed to facilitate the examination of the collected data. Additionally, the definitions of each strategy were also borrowed from their respective works. It is essential to emphasize that modifications made to the CCSARP coding framework were informed by data collected from participants in both mainland China and Malaysia. Within this modified coding scheme, a novel sub-strategy, labeled as ‘inquiry for information/solution’, was reclassified under the direct strategy. Additionally, four identified new modifiers of ‘encouragement’, ‘getting familiar’, ‘negative consequence’, and ‘seeking empathy’ in the corpus data were grouped under external modification. The subsequent sections present request head act strategies, internal modifications, and external modifications. The examples in Tables 1 – 3 are drawn from the collected data in this study. 3.4.1. Request Head Act Strategy The request head act, according to Han ( 2012 ), has the capability to convey a request speech act independently. This was categorized into three groups: direct strategy, conventionally indirect strategy, and non-conventionally indirect strategy. Furthermore, each request strategy category is subdivided into specific sub-strategies. The classification of request head act strategies is outlined in Table 1 . Table 1 Request Head Act Strategy in Mainland Chinese Mandarin and Malaysian Chinese Mandarin Request head act strategy Examples Direct Explicit performance 请你把你的车挪开 [Please move your car] Hedged performance 我得用一下你的电脑 [I need to use your computer for a moment] Imperatives 借我一支笔吧[Can I borrow a pen from you?] Inquiry for information/solution 请问这里怎么走 [Excuse me, how do I get here?] Obligation statement 需要您把车移开 [I need you to move the car] Want statement 我想在这里向你投诉 [I want to file a complaint here with you] Conventionally indirect Suggestory formula 要不然杨哥你帮我拿一下[How about you help me with this] Query preparatory 请问您可以把车挪开吗Excuse me, can you please move your car] Non-conventionally indirect Mild hints 你现在方便吗 [Are you available right now] Strong hints 我不懂这个双峰塔怎么走唉 [I don’t know how to get to the Twins Tower] 3.4.2. Request Modification In the act of making requests, individuals commonly employ diverse modifiers to either diminish or heighten the impact of the request. Such modifiers are frequently employed to minimize the imposition, thereby softening the request (Barron, 2016 ). Barron ( 2016 ) further categorizes these modifiers into two types: internal modifiers and external modifiers. (1) Internal Modification. Internal modification, as part of the request head act, has the ability to either diminish or intensify the illocutionary impact of a request speech act (Han, 2012 ). There are two types of internal modifiers, namely donwgraders and upgraders. And two types of downgraders modifiers exist: syntactic downgraders and lexical/phrasal downgraders, as identified by Blum-Kulka ( 1985 ). The internal modifications are detailed in Table 2 . Table 2 Internal Modification in Mainland Chinese Mandarin and Malaysian Chinese Mandarin Internal modifiers Examples Syntactic downgraders Conditional clause 要……的话 [If you want to] Interrogative 吗 [question mark] Lexical/phrasal downgraders Appealer 可以吗 [Is it Okay] Downtoner 啦 [Ah];呀 [oh]༛哎 [hey] Hedges 可能 [Maybe] Politeness marker 请 [Please];麻烦 [trouble] Subjectivizer 我想 [I want];我希望 [I hope] Understaters 呢 [a little];一下 [a little bit] Upgraders Intensifier 强烈地 [Strongly] Time intensifier 赶紧 [Hurry up] (2) External Modification. External modification, as the name suggests, pertains to the external aspect of the head act. Its main purpose is to indirectly diminish or enhance the illocutionary force of the request (Halupka-Rešetar, 2014 ). As outlined by Yazdanfar & Bonyadi ( 2016 ), external modifiers serve as adjuncts to the head act and can occur within the immediate context of a speech act. Table 3 presents the external modifiers considered in this study. Table 3 External Modification in Mainland Chinese Mandarin and Malaysian Chinese Mandarin External modifiers Examples Mitigating supportive moves Advice seeking 您看可不可以 [Do you think it is Okay?] Apology 不好意思 [I’m sorry] Disarmer 我知道您不太喜欢分享课件 [I know you don’t like to share lecture materials very much] Getting a pre-commitment 我可以问你一个问题吗 [May I ask you a question] Getting familiar 您之前是我的论文指导老师 [You were my thesis advisor before] Grounder 我的学生证不见了[I lost my student ID] Imposition minimizer 用完之后立刻还给你 [I’ll return it to you immediately after using it] Preparator 你有空吗 [Are you available now?] Promise 我做完一定立马交给你 [After I finish it, I’ll give it to you right away] Promise of reward 一会我用完了给你买好吃的 [I’ll buy you something delicious after I finish] Sweetener 小明真乖 [Xiao Ming is really obedient] Aggravating supportive moves Moralizing statement 不能沉迷游戏 [It is not right to get addicted to games] Negative consequence 如果你不移开的话, 我怕待会伤到你 [If you don’t move, I’m afraid you’ll get hurt later] Repetition of head act 请你把车移走 [Please move your car] Reprimand 你不知道这有交通事故吗༟![Don’t you know there’s a traffic accident here?!] Threat 我就要给你开罚单了 [I’m going to issue you a ticket] Urging 你快点 [Hurry up] Adjuncts Alerter 你好 [Hello]、教授 [Professor] Confirmation 这样子 [Like this] Encouragement 我相信你一定会出色地完成的 [I believe you will do an excellent job] Request for more information 那申请有什么手续吗 [What procedures are there for the application] Seeking empathy 我真的睡眠质量不是很好 [I really can’t sleep well] Thanking 谢谢 [Thank you] 3.5. Data Coding and Analysis Coding for this study was carried out using ATLAS.ti 23, with the primary researcher and another student, specializing in linguistics, serving as coders. The researcher personally coded all collected data, while the recruited coder independently coded 1/8 of the collected data after receiving a month of training from the researcher. Both coders coded independently, and inter-rater reliability was evaluated using a Kappa test, indicating a robust agreement level ranging from .74 to .80. In cases of disagreement, the two coders engaged in discussions to reach a consensus on coding. Each conversation underwent coding based on the request head act strategy, internal modification, or external modification, following the revised coding framework. The request head act strategy was categorized into direct level, conventionally indirect level, non-conventionally indirect level, and request head act strategy (refer to Table 1 ). Internal modification was coded using the categories outlined in the internal modifiers table (refer to Table 2 ). As for external modification, the coding of external modifiers was done in accordance with the external modification framework (refer to Table 3 ). Furthermore, ATLAS.ti 23 also facilitated the presentation of data frequency and percentage, enabling an exploration of how request head act strategy and request modification were employed in interactions between mainland Chinese and Malaysian Chinese. The data analysis was conducted using SPSS version 22, employing the Chi-square test and Fisher’s exact test to explore potential statistical differences in request patterns when mainland Chinese and Malaysian Chinese make requests from each other. 4. Results 4.1. Request Head Act Strategy Table 4 presents the frequency and percentage of directness level and request head act strategy employed when mainland Chinese and Malaysian Chinese interact with each other. Table 4 Request Head Act Strategy in Mainland Chinese Mandarin and Malaysian Chinese Mandarin Strategies Mainland Chinese with Malaysian Chinese Interlocutor Malaysian Chinese with Mainland Chinese Interlocutor Frequency Percentage Frequency Percentage Direct strategy category 144 46.45% 116 37.66% Explicit performance 36 11.61% 13 4.22% Hedged performance 4 1.29% 1 0.32% Imperatives 22 7.10% 5 1.62% Inquiry for information/solution 36 11.61% 35 11.36% Obligation statement 0 0.00% 4 1.30% Want statement 46 14.84% 58 18.83% Conventionally indirect strategy category 159 51.29% 187 60.71% Suggestory formula 2 0.65% 0 0.00% Query preparatory 157 50.65% 187 60.71% Non-conventionally indirect strategy category 7 2.26% 5 1.62% Mild hint 1 0.32% 1 0.32% Strong hint 6 1.94% 4 1.30% Total 310 100% 308 100% In Table 4 , three directness levels of request were considered, and it was observed that both mainland Chinese and Malaysian participants exhibited a preference for ‘conventionally indirect request head act strategy’ category when mainland Chinese participants made requests to Malaysian Chinese interlocutor and Malaysian Chinese participants made requests to mainland Chinese interlocutor (f = 159 for mainland Chinese; f = 187 for Malaysian Chinese). It was followed by ‘direct request head act strategy’ category (f = 144 for mainland Chinese; f = 116 for Malaysian Chinese) and, to a much lesser extent, ‘non-conventionally indirect strategy’ category (f = 7 for mainland Chinese; f = 5 for Malaysian Chinese). Malaysian Chinese participants and their mainland Chinese counterparts demonstrated similar patterns in the utilization of three request head act strategy categories. Fisher’s exact Test revealed a significant difference in the use of ‘direct request head act strategy’ category (p = 0.000) when mainland Chinese and Malaysian Chinese made requests to each other. Conversely, there was no statistically significant difference in the employment of ‘conventionally indirect request head act strategy’ category (p = 0.210) and ‘non-conventionally indirect request head act strategy’ category (p = 1.000) between mainland Chinese and Malaysian Chinese during their reciprocal requests. To examine the statistical distinctions between mainland Chinese and Malaysian Chinese in employing the individual request head act strategy, Chi-square and Fisher’s exact tests were utilized. Within the direct strategy category, the sub-strategies of ‘explicit performance’, ‘imperatives’, ‘inquiry for solution/information’, and ‘want statement’ were scrutinized due to their frequent usage. The Chi-square test revealed significant differences between mainland Chinese and Malaysian Chinese in the utilization of ‘explicit performance’ (χ²= 11.565, df = 1, p < 0.05) and ‘imperatives’ (χ²= 11.078, df = 1, p < 0.05). Additionally, the Chi-square test indicated no notable differences in their use of ‘inquiry for solution/information’ (χ²= 0.009, df = 1, p = 1.000) and ‘want/need statement’ (χ²= 1.759, df = 1, p = 0.198) when mainland Chinese and Malaysian Chinese made requests from each other. In terms of the sub-strategies employed within the conventionally indirect strategy category, the ‘suggestory formula’ sub-strategy (f = 2 for mainland Chinese; f = 0 for Malaysian Chinese) was rarely utilized. Both participant groups strongly preferred the ‘query preparatory’ sub-strategy (f = 157 for mainland Chinese; f = 187 for Malaysian Chinese), specifically using permission expressions often in the form of ‘keyi’ [may]. The Fisher’s exact test results showed no statistical differences in the use of the ‘suggestory formula’ sub-strategy (p = 0.499). However, the Chi-square test results revealed statistically significant differences in the use of the ‘query preparatory’ sub-strategy (χ²=6.347, df = 1, p < 0.05) when mainland Chinese and Malaysian Chinese made requests of each other. Regarding sub-strategies in the non-conventionally indirect strategy category, mainland Chinese and Malaysian Chinese participants seldom employed both ‘mild hints’ and ‘strong hints’ sub-strategy. Fisher’s exact test results indicated that there was no significant difference in the utilization of ‘mild hints’ (p = 1.000) and ‘strong hints’ (p = 0.752) sub-strategy when mainland Chinese and Malaysian Chinese made requests to each other. 4.2. Internal Modification Various internal modifications were employed by participants from mainland China and Malaysia when making requests from each other, as illustrated in Table 5 . Table 5 Internal Modification in Mainland Chinese Mandarin and Malaysian Chinese Mandarin Internal modifiers Mainland Chinese with Malaysian Chinese Interlocutor Malaysian Chinese with Mainland Chinese Interlocutor Frequency Percentage Frequency Percentage Lexical/phrasal downgraders 421 67.58% 355 59.76% Appealer (tags) 20 3.21% 30 5.05% Downtoner 53 8.51% 51 8.59% Hedges 1 0.16% 2 0.34% Politeness marker 145 23.27% 139 23.40% Subjectivizer 42 6.74% 51 8.59% Understaters 160 25.68% 82 13.80% Syntactic downgraders 199 31.94% 238 40.07% Conditional clause 4 0.64% 10 1.68% Interrogative 195 31.30% 228 38.38% Upgraders 3 0.48% 1 0.17% Intensifiers 0 0.00% 1 0.17% Time intensifiers 3 0.48% 0 0.00% Total 623 100% 594 100% Based on the results presented in Table 5 , mainland Chinese participants (f = 623) exhibited a higher frequency of internal modifications compared to Malaysian Chinese participants (f = 594) when mainland Chinese participants made requests to Malaysian Chinese interlocutor and Malaysian Chinese participants made requests to mainland Chinese interlocutor. Regarding the two types of downgraders, both mainland Chinese and Malaysian Chinese participants demonstrated a greater usage of the ‘lexical/phrasal downgraders’ category (f = 421 for mainland Chinese, f = 355 for Malaysian Chinese) than the ‘syntactic downgraders’ category (f = 199 for mainland Chinese, f = 238 for Malaysian Chinese). Notably, both groups rarely employed the ‘upgraders’ category (f = 3 for mainland Chinese, f = 1 for Malaysian Chinese). There is a similar trend between the two groups of participants concerning ‘lexical/phrasal downgraders’, ‘syntactic downgraders’, and ‘upgraders’. The Fisher’s exact test result revealed a significant difference between mainland Chinese and Malaysian Chinese in the utilization of the ‘lexical/phrasal downgraders’ category (p < 0.05). However, the Chi-square test indicated no statistical difference in the use of ‘syntactic downgraders’ category (χ²=1.679, df = 1, p = 0.277), and Fisher’s exact test also suggested no statistical difference in the use of ‘upgraders’ category (p = 0.250). Given the infrequent use of individual upgrader modifiers by both mainland Chinese participants and Malaysian Chinese participants, our analysis focused exclusively on individual lexical/phrasal modifiers and individual syntactic modifiers. Concerning the individual internal modifiers of lexical/phrasal downgraders, ‘politeness marker’, ‘understater’, ‘downtoner’, and ‘subjectiviser’ emerged as the four most frequently used lexical/phrasal modifiers by both mainland Chinese participants and Malaysian Chinese participants. The results of the Chi-square test revealed no statistical difference between mainland Chinese and Malaysian Chinese in the utilization of ‘downtoner’ (χ²=0.002, df = 1, p = 0.961), ‘politeness marker’ (χ²=0.003, df = 1, p = 0.959), and ‘subjectivizer’ (χ²=1.465, df = 1, p = 0.226). However, a significant difference was observed in the use of ‘understater’ with mainland Chinese participants employing this modifier significantly more than their Malaysian counterparts (χ²=26.927, df = 1, p < 0.05). Regarding individual modifiers of ‘syntactic downgraders’, the Chi-square test result indicated no statistical difference between mainland Chinese and Malaysian Chinese in the use of ‘conditional clause’ (χ²=2.900, df = 1, p = 0.089). However, mainland Chinese participants used significantly more ‘interrogatives’ than Malaysian Chinese participants (χ²=6.729, df = 1, p < 0.05). 4.3. External Modification Table 6 presents a depiction of the external modification employed by participants from both mainland China and Malaysia when requesting from each other. Table 6 External Modification in Mainland Chinese Mandarin and Malaysian Chinese Mandarin External modifiers Mainland Chinese with Malaysian Chinese Interlocutor Malaysian Chinese with Mainland Chinese Interlocutor Frequency Percentage Frequency Percentage Mitigating 500 53.19% 455 48.51% Advice seeking 15 1.60% 4 0.43% Apology 12 1.28% 23 2.45% Disarmer 7 0.74% 9 0.96% Getting a pre- commitment 43 4.57% 59 6.29% Getting familiar 8 0.85% 5 0.53% Grounder 265 28.19% 266 28.36% Imposition minimizer 36 3.83% 28 2.99% Preparator 41 4.36% 34 3.62% Promise 16 1.70% 1 0.11% Promise of reward 31 3.30% 9 0.96% Sweetener 26 2.77% 17 1.81% Aggravating 32 3.40% 21 2.24% Moralizing statement 4 0.43% 1 0.11% Negative consequence 3 0.32% 2 0.21% Repetition of head act 12 1.28% 13 1.39% Reprimand 2 0.21% 0 0.00% Threat 2 0.21% 0 0.00% Urging 9 0.96% 5 0.53% Adjuncts 408 43.40% 462 49.25% Alerter 388 41.28% 445 47.44% Confirmation 1 0.11% 1 0.11% Encouragement 6 0.64% 3 0.32% Request for more information 6 0.64% 10 1.07% Seeking empathy 3 0.32% 2 0.21% Thanking 4 0.43% 1 0.11% Total 940 100% 938 100.00% In general, both mainland Chinese participants (n = 940) and Malaysian Chinese participants (n = 938) employed a similar number of external modifications. Across the three categories of external modification, participants from both groups predominantly utilized more ‘mitigating’ modifiers and ‘adjuncts’ compared to ‘aggravating’ modifiers. Regarding the ‘mitigating’ modifier category, a Chi-square test indicated a statistically significant difference between mainland Chinese and Malaysian Chinese participants (χ²=40.121, df = 10, p < 0.05). In terms of the ‘aggravating’ external modifier category, both mainland Chinese and Malaysian Chinese participants rarely used it, constituting only 3.40% and 2.24% of the total external modifiers, respectively. Fisher’s exact test results indicated no statistical difference between mainland Chinese and Malaysian Chinese in the use of ‘aggravating’ external modifiers (p = 0.551). Concerning the ‘adjuncts’ external modifier category, Fisher’s exact test results also revealed no statistically significant differences between the mainland Chinese and Malaysian Chinese groups (p = 0.452). We also conducted an analysis of the similarities and differences pertaining to individual external modifiers within the three categories. Specifically, for the ‘mitigating’ external modifier category, we scrutinized each individual modifier. The Chi-square test revealed that mainland Chinese participants significantly employed more ‘advice seeking’ modifiers (χ²= 6.410, df = 1, p < 0.05), more ‘promise’ modifiers (χ²= 13.324, df = 1, p < 0.05), and more ‘promise of reward’ modifiers (χ²= 12.316, df = 1, p < 0.05). Additionally, the Chi-square test indicated no statistical difference between mainland Chinese and Malaysian Chinese in the use of ‘apology’ modifiers (χ²= 3.547, df = 1, p = 0.060), ‘disarmer’ modifiers (χ²= 0.256, df = 1, p = 0.613), ‘getting a pre-commitment’ modifiers (χ²= 2.690, df = 1, p = 0.101), ‘getting familiar’ modifiers (χ²= 0.691, df = 1, p = 0.406), ‘grounder’ modifiers (χ²= 0.006, df = 1, p = 0.936), ‘imposition minimizer’ modifiers (χ²= 1.018, df = 1, p = 0.313), ‘preparator’ modifiers (χ²= 0.665, df = 1, p = 0.415), and ‘sweetener’ modifiers (χ²= 1.908, df = 1, p = 0.167) when mainland Chinese participants made requests to Malaysian Chinese interlocutor and Malaysian Chinese participants made requests to mainland Chinese interlocutor. Regarding individual modifiers within the ‘aggravating’ external modifier category, both mainland Chinese and Malaysian Chinese participants utilized them in a similar manner. Fisher’s exact test results showed no statistical difference between mainland Chinese and Malaysian Chinese in the use of ‘moralizing statement’ (p = 0.374), ‘negative consequence’ (p = 1.000), ‘reprimand’ (p = 0.500), and ‘threat’ (p = 0.500). Additionally, Chi-square test results indicated no statistical difference in the use of ‘repetition of head act’ (χ²= 0.043, df = 1, p = 0.836) and ‘urging’ (χ²= 1.151, df = 1, p = 0.936) when mainland Chinese participants made requests to Malaysian Chinese interlocutor and Malaysian Chinese participants made requests to mainland Chinese interlocutor. Concerning individual modifiers within the ‘adjuncts’ external modifier category, the Chi-square test results indicated a significant difference in the usage of ‘alerter’ (χ²= 7.229, df = 1, p < 0.05), while there was no statistical difference in the use of ‘request for more information’ (χ²= 1.017, df = 1, p = 0.313). Additionally, Fisher’s exact test results revealed no statistical difference in the use of ‘confirmation’ (p = 1.000), ‘encouragement’ (p = 0.507), ‘seeking empathy’ (p = 1.000), and ‘thanking’ (p = 0.374) when mainland Chinese participants made requests to Malaysian Chinese interlocutor and Malaysian Chinese participants made requests to mainland Chinese interlocutor. 5. Discussion This research explored the request speech act made by both mainland Chinese and Malaysian Chinese participants. The focus was on requests made by mainland Chinese participants to Malaysian Chinese interlocutors and Malaysian Chinese participants to mainland Chinese interlocutor. To the best of our knowledge, no prior studies have examined this specific aspect. 5.1. Request Head Act Strategy Regarding their preferred strategies for the head act of making requests, the findings indicate that mainland Chinese participants and Malaysian Chinese participants share more similarities than differences. Both groups predominantly employed conventionally indirect strategies, with direct request strategies being a close second in frequency. Non-conventionally indirect request strategies were used least frequently, with mainland Chinese participants demonstrating the lowest usage. The prevalence of conventionally indirect requests among both mainland Chinese and Malaysian Chinese participants diverges from the findings of previous studies on Chinese requests (Chen et al., 2013 ; Lee-Wong, 1994 ; Ren, 2018 ; Ren & Fukushima, 2020 ; Zhu, 2017 ). Two potential explanations may contribute to this result: firstly, in traditional Chinese culture, there is an emphasis on politeness, leading individuals to adopt indirect communication. Secondly, previous studies utilized written Discourse Completion Tests (DCT) as data collection instruments, where participants didn't engage in face-to-face communication with requestees, reducing concerns about causing offense. In contrast, the current study employed role play as the data collection method, requiring participants to interact face-to-face with interlocutors. This context likely prompted participants to consider the face of the requestees, leading to a preference for more polite strategies. 5.2. Internal Modification In the realm of lexical and phrasal internal modifiers, mainland Chinese participants demonstrated a higher usage compared to their Malaysian counterparts (421 vs. 355 instances). This discovery aligns with previous research indicating a prevalent use of internal modifications (Ren & Fukushima, 2020 ). Both participant groups exhibited frequent use of ‘politeness markers’ and ‘understaters’, consistent with a prior study where ‘understaters’ took precedence over ‘politeness markers’ (Su & Ren, 2017 ). One plausible interpretation is that both mainland Chinese and Malaysian Chinese cultures prioritize politeness, and these lexical/internal modifiers serve to enhance the perceived politeness of their requests. Moreover, the regular incorporation of internal modifications in Chinese direct requests serves to mitigate the force of the speech act, playing a crucial role in elevating the overall politeness level (Ren, 2018 ). Turning to syntactic internal modifications, both groups employed distinct syntactic strategies to mitigate the impact of their requests. The prevalent use of ‘interrogatives’ by both groups mirrors the findings of a previous study by Su & Ren ( 2017 ), highlighting the commonality of this modifier in Chinese requests. Similarly, mainland Chinese and Malaysian Chinese participants both utilized ‘conditional clauses’, possibly indicating a deliberate expression of reservation. Additionally, the frequent use of ‘interrogatives’ aligns with the prevalent use of ‘downtoners’ in Chinese requests, as Chinese sentence final particles commonly serve the function of forming questions (Li & Thompson, 1981 ). 5.3. External Modification Regarding external modifications, both mainland Chinese participants and Malaysian Chinese participants exhibit a similar pattern in employing external modifiers. The frequencies of ‘alerters’ (f = 388 for mainland Chinese, f = 445 for Malaysian Chinese) and ‘grounders’ (f = 265 for mainland Chinese, f = 266 for Malaysian Chinese) stand out as the most frequently utilized strategies among both groups, aligning with findings from prior research. Specifically, the substantial use of ‘alerters’ mirrors rates observed in Ren ( 2018 ), while the prevalence of ‘grounders’ is consistent with rates reported in studies by Han ( 2012 ), Ren ( 2018 ) and Zhang ( 1995 ). The prevalence of these two external modifiers among mainland Chinese and Malaysian Chinese participants may be attributed to their inclination to anticipate the risk of rejection in their requests, thereby preserving the face of both the requester and the requestee. While there were similarities in the use of mitigating external modifiers between mainland Chinese and Malaysian Chinese individuals, differences emerge when considering specific external modifiers within the mitigating external modifiers category. Mainland Chinese participants employed ‘promise’, ‘promise of reward’, and ‘sweetener’ more frequently than their Malaysian counterparts. Two factors may contribute to the higher incidence of these individual external modifiers among mainland Chinese participants. Firstly, mainland Chinese culture, characterized by collectivism, places a high value on group harmony and social bonds, potentially motivating the use of ‘promise’ and ‘promise of reward’ modifiers to maintain cohesion and ensure commitment fulfillment. In contrast, Malaysian Chinese individuals, influenced by a more diverse and multicultural environment, may exhibit more individualistic tendencies, reducing reliance on such indirect tactics. Secondly, mainland Chinese participants might prefer subtle and indirect communication to uphold politeness and avoid causing offense. The use of ‘promise’ and ‘promise of reward’ can be viewed as more polite ways of conveying intentions or commitments. Malaysian Chinese individuals, operating within a different cultural context, may lean towards more straightforward communication. The utilization of mitigating external modifiers, such as ‘apology’ and ‘getting a pre-commitment’, was noticeably more prevalent in requests from Malaysian Chinese individuals compared to those from mainland Chinese individuals. This difference may be attributed to the fact that Malaysian Chinese participants often do not frequently use Mandarin Chinese in their daily lives and lack confidence in speaking this language. Their increased reliance on ‘apology’ and ‘getting a pre-commitment’ external modifiers may stem from this lack of confidence. Two factors could account for these differences. Firstly, the Malaysian Chinese community is influenced by various languages and dialects, including Mandarin, Cantonese, Hokkien, and Malay. The heightened use of ‘apology’ and ‘getting a pre-commitment’ might serve as an adaptation to the linguistic nuances of different languages and dialects. Secondly, Malaysian Chinese culture places a stronger emphasis on politeness and respect in interpersonal communication. The use of modifiers like ‘apology’ or ‘getting a pre-commitment’ may be perceived as a means to demonstrate deference and uphold harmonious relationships with others. 6. Conclusion The objective of this study is to examine the similarities and similarities in request head act strategy, internal modification, and external modification when mainland Chinese participants requested from Malaysian Chinese interlocutor and Malaysian Chinese participants requested from mainland Chinese interlocutor. The study reveals that mainland Chinese and Malaysian Chinese participants demonstrated more similarities than differences in their utilization of request head act strategies, internal modifications, and external modifications. The insights gained from this research have the potential to enhance communication and mitigate potential misunderstandings between the mainland Chinese and Malaysian Chinese communities. Additionally, it contributes to the field of pragmatics and aids in the advancement of the CCSARP theoretical framework. This study is not without its limitations. One constraint is the relatively small number of participants in each group, which may impact the generalizability of the findings. To improve the robustness of future research, it is recommended to conduct larger-scale studies. Furthermore, given that the majority of participants in this study were college students, they may not fully represent the entire populations of both China and Malaysia. Subsequent studies could aim for greater inclusivity by involving participants from various backgrounds and walks of life in society. Declarations Data Availability Statement The datasets generated during and/or analysed during the current study are not publicly available due to contract signed with participants, but are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request. Competing interests The author(s) declare no competing interests. Ethical approval Approval was obtained from ***. (Ethics approval number: ***). Informed consent Informed consent was obtained from all participants. Author Contribution MP conducted the literature review, collected and analyzed data, and wrote the full paper.HAH helped with improving the research questions, methodology, and research design. Acknowledgement I would like to extend my heartfelt thanks to the anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments. References [Author 2023]. Details omitted for double-anonymized reviewing. Akmal, H., Syahriyani, A., & Handayani, T. (2022). Request speech act of Indonesian English learners and Australian English speakers through cross-cultural pragmatic perspectives. LEARN Journal: Language Education and Acquisition Research Network , 15 (2), 498–520. Annan, E. B. (2022). The effect of study abroad on the choice of request perspectives in formal and informal contexts: Evidence from role play. Journal of French Language Studies , 1–15. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0959269521000259 Barron, A. (2016). Developing pragmatic competence using EFL textbooks: Focus on requests. Literacy Information and Computer Education Journal , 7 (1), 2172–2179. Blum-Kulka, S. (1985). Modifiers as indicating devices: The case of requests. Theoretical Linguistics , 12 (2–3), 213–229. https://doi.org/10.1515/thli.1985.12.s1.213 Blum-Kulka, S., House, J., & Kasper, G. (1989). Cross-cultural pragmatics: Requests and apologies . Norwood, NJ: Ablex. Blum-Kulka, S., & Olshtain, E. (1984). Requests and apologies: A cross-cultural study of speech act realization patterns (CCSARP). Applied Linguistics , 5 (3), 196–213. https://doi.org/10.1093/applin/5.3.196 Borovina, D. Š. (2017). Izražanje zahtev hrvaških učencev angleščine kot tujega jezika v vmesnem jeziku s poudarkom na modifikaciji. ELOPE: English Language Overseas Perspectives and Enquiries , 14 (1), 75–93. https://doi.org/10.4312/elope.14.1.75-93 Brown, P., & Levinson, S. C. (1987). Politeness: Some universals in language use . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Chen, R., He, L., & Hu, C. (2013). Chinese requests: In comparison to American and Japanese requests and with reference to the “East-West divide.” Journal of Pragmatics , 55 , 140–161. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2013.05.012 Economidou-Kogetsidis, M. (2011). “Please answer me as soon as possible”: Pragmatic failure in non-native speakers’e-mail requests to faculty. Journal of Pragmatics , 43 (13), 3193–3215. Félix-Brasdefer, J. C. (2007). Natural speech vs. Elicited data. Spanish in Context , 4 (2), 159–185. https://doi.org/10.1075/sic.4.2.03fel Félix-Brasdefer, J. C. (2009). Pragmatic variation across Spanish(es): Requesting in Mexican, Costa Rican and Dominican Spanish. Intercultural Pragmatics , 6 (4), 473–515. https://doi.org/10.1515/IPRG.2009.025 Gao, H. (1999). Features of request strategies in Chinese. Working Papers , 47 , 73–86. Halupka-Rešetar, S. (2014). Request modification in the pragmatic production of intermediate ESP learners. ESP Today , 2 (1), 29–47. Han, X. (2012). A contrastive study of Chinese and British English request modifications. Theory & Practice in Language Studies , 2 (9). https://doi.org/10.4304/tpls.2.9.1905-1910 Hosseinpur, R. M., Nevisi, R. B., & Lowni, A. (2019). Requesting in an EFL Institutional Context: Comparing and Contrasting WDCT, ODCT, and Role-Play with the Natural Method. Research in English Language Pedagogy RELP , 7 (2), 363–385. https://doi.org/10.30486/relp.2019.665953 Lee, C. (2005). A cross-linguistic study on the linguistic expressions of Cantonese and English requests. Pragmatics , 15 (4), 395–422. https://doi.org/10.1075/prag.15.4.05lee Lee-Wong, S. M. (1994). Imperatives in requests: Direct or impolite–observations from Chinese. Pragmatics , 4 (4), 491–515. https://doi.org/10.1075/prag.4.4.01lee Li, C. N., & Thompson, S. A. (1981). Mandarin Chinese: A functional reference grammar . Berkeley: University of California Press. Li, W., & Jiang, W. (2019). Requests made by Australian learners of Chinese as a foreign language. Journal of Language Teaching and Research , 10 (1), 23–34. https://doi.org/10.17507/jltr.1001.03 Márquez Reiter, R. (2002). A contrastive study of conventional indirectness in Spanish. Pragmatics , 12 (1), 135–151. https://doi.org/10.1075/prag.12.2.02mar Nugroho, A., Astuti, N. W., & Atmojo, A. E. P. (2021). Acts of requesting as realized by English for Specific Purposes students. Journal of Pragmatics Research , 3 (1), 46–58. https://doi.org/10.18326/jopr.v3i1.46-58 Ren, W. (2018). Variational pragmatics in Chinese requests (汉语请求言语行为的变异语用学研究). Wai Guo Yu (Journal of Foreign Languages) , 41 (4), 66–75. Ren, W. (2019). Pragmatic development of Chinese during study abroad: A cross-sectional study of learner requests. Journal of Pragmatics , 146 , 137–149. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2019.01.017 Ren, W., & Fukushima, S. (2020). Comparison between Chinese and Japanese social media requests. Contrastive Pragmatics , 2 (2), 200–226. https://doi.org/10.1163/26660393-BJA10017 Ren, W., & Fukushima, S. (2022). Perception and evaluation of requests on social media in Chinese and Japanese. Language & Communication , 87 , 231–243. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.langcom.2022.09.002 Rinnert, C., & Kobayashi, H. (1999). Requestive hints in Japanese and English *. In Journal of Pragmatics (Vol. 31, pp. 1173–1201). www.elsevier.nl/locate/pragma Shahzadi, A., Bhatti, A. G., & Khan, M. (2021). Speech acts across cultures: A comparative study of Chinese and Pakistani students’ request and politeness strategies. Sir Syed Journal of Education & Social Research , 4 (2), 1–12. https://doi.org/10.36902/sjesr-vol4-iss2-2021(1-12) Su, Y., & Ren, W. (2017). Developing L2 pragmatic competence in Mandarin Chinese: Sequential realization of requests. Foreign Language Annals , 50 (2), 433–457. https://doi.org/10.1111/flan.12263 Wen, X. (2014). Pragmatic development: An exploratory study of requests by learners of Chinese. Studies in Second Language Acquisition of Chinese , 30–56. Yazdanfar, S., & Bonyadi, A. (2016). Request strategies in everyday interactions of Persian and English speakers. SAGE Open , 6 (4). https://doi.org/10.1177/2158244016679473 Ying, J., & Hong, G. (2020). A cross-cultural comparative study of requests made in Chinese by South Korean and French Learners. Journal of Language Teaching and Research , 11 (1), 54. https://doi.org/10.17507/jltr.1101.07 Yujie, R. (2021). Variational pragmatics in Chinese social media requests: The influence of gender. Sino-US English Teaching , 18 (11), 317–320. https://doi.org/10.17265/1539-8072/2021.11.002 Zhang, Y. (1995). Strategies in Chinese requesting. In K. G. (Ed.), Pragmatics of Chinese as native and target language (Issue 9, pp. 23–68). Honolulu: University of Hawai’i at Manoa, Second Language Teaching & Curriculum Center. Zhu, W. (2017). A cross-cultural pragmatic study of rapport-management strategies in Chinese and English academic upward request emails. Language and Intercultural Communication , 17 (2), 210–228. https://doi.org/10.1080/14708477.2016.1253707 Additional Declarations No competing interests reported. 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Also discoverable on Platform About Our Team In Review Editorial Policies Advisory Board Help Center Resources Author Services Accessibility API Access RSS feed Manage Cookie Preferences © Research Square 2026 | ISSN 2693-5015 (online) Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information {"props":{"pageProps":{"initialData":{"identity":"rs-6385618","acceptedTermsAndConditions":true,"allowDirectSubmit":false,"archivedVersions":[],"articleType":"Article","associatedPublications":[],"authors":[{"id":481078072,"identity":"f5c79426-a22b-487c-bd32-720385798110","order_by":0,"name":"Ming Pang","email":"data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAZAAAAAyAQMAAABI0h/eAAAABlBMVEX///8AAABVwtN+AAAACXBIWXMAAA7EAAAOxAGVKw4bAAAAwElEQVRIiWNgGAWjYBACAwbGBmYQg5+Z+fADErQkMDBItrOlGRCphYEBrMXgPI+CBFFazKUPN78u/HEn2vgwD1B/jU00QS2WfYlt1jMSnuVuO8x74AHDsbTcBoIOO8PYZsyTcBiohS/BgLHhMAlaNjfzGEgQq6X5MUjLBmZitVj2MLYx86Q9y51xGBjICcT4xZyH/fFnHps7uf39hw8/+FBjQ1gLELABo+MAhJlAhHIQYP4A1zIKRsEoGAWjABsAAHlLQYsC/6rYAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC","orcid":"","institution":"Shandong Youth University of Political Science","correspondingAuthor":true,"prefix":"","firstName":"Ming","middleName":"","lastName":"Pang","suffix":""},{"id":481078073,"identity":"2442684e-d326-4dc8-a7b8-bb975b65daf4","order_by":1,"name":"Hazlina Abdul Halim","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"Universiti Putra Malaysia","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Hazlina","middleName":"Abdul","lastName":"Halim","suffix":""}],"badges":[],"createdAt":"2025-04-06 08:38:07","currentVersionCode":1,"declarations":"","doi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-6385618/v1","doiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-6385618/v1","draftVersion":[],"editorialEvents":[],"editorialNote":"","failedWorkflow":false,"files":[{"id":86171191,"identity":"8f7e3cc7-9b10-46e5-a419-240285431104","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2025-07-07 14:30:13","extension":"pdf","order_by":0,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"manuscript-pdf","size":1392348,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"manuscript.pdf","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-6385618/v1/5d358102-9d55-45ce-947a-cd1d2eedb066.pdf"},{"id":86170418,"identity":"299c1604-d533-4c2f-80ab-6a4c7a5653b0","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2025-07-07 14:22:13","extension":"docx","order_by":1,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"supplement","size":15060,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"Appendix.docx","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-6385618/v1/5520ac193fc08ed4dc21d492.docx"}],"financialInterests":"No competing interests reported.","formattedTitle":"Request Speech Act: A Comparison of Mainland Chinese Mandarin and Malaysian Chinese Mandarin in Interaction","fulltext":[{"header":"1. Introduction","content":"\u003cp\u003eWith the increasing communication between mainland China and Malaysia, mainland Chinese and Malaysian Chinese speakers communicate with each other more often than ever before. Mainland Chinese and Malaysian Chinese speakers inevitably request from each other when communicating. A request speech act refers to an illocutionary act where the speaker endeavors to convince the listener to perform a specific action, usually for the speaker\u0026rsquo;s benefit (Li \u0026amp; Jiang, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR21\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2019\u003c/span\u003e). Request speech act plays a vital role in their successful communication. Requesters may utilize different strategies when making requests (Lee, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR18\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2005\u003c/span\u003e). Furthermore, Barron (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR4\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2016\u003c/span\u003e) also argued that individuals, when making requests, employ various modifiers to either mitigate or amplify the impact of their request.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eRequest speech act has gained many researchers\u0026rsquo; attention (Economidou-Kogetsidis, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR11\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2011\u003c/span\u003e; Nugroho et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR23\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2021\u003c/span\u003e; Shahzadi et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR29\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2021\u003c/span\u003e). Some of them studied request in English (Borovina, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR8\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2017\u003c/span\u003e), some focused on request in European languages, such as Spanish (F\u0026eacute;lix-Brasdefer, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR13\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2009\u003c/span\u003e; M\u0026aacute;rquez Reiter, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR22\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2002\u003c/span\u003e), or French (Annan, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR3\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2022\u003c/span\u003e). As was concluded by Author (2023), studies on request in Chinese are rather limited and lag behind those in English or European languages. The comparison of request speech act in Mainland Chinese Mandarin and Malaysian Chinese Mandarin when Mainland Chinese Mandarin speakers request from Malaysian Chinese Mandarin speakers and Malaysian Chinese Mandarin speakers request from Mainland Chinese Mandarin speakers is even more scant.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAs a face threatening speech act (Brown \u0026amp; Levinson, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR9\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e1987\u003c/span\u003e), making request poses challenges due to frequent unforeseen misunderstandings between the requester and the requestee (Akmal et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR2\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2022\u003c/span\u003e). Despite this, as mentioned earlier, there is limited research investigating the request speech act when Mainland Chinese Mandarin and Malaysian Chinese Mandarin speakers request from each other. This study aims to fill this research gap and investigate the similarities and differences of request speech act when Mainland Chinese Mandarin speakers and Malaysian Chinese Mandarin speakers request from each other. This study can help to enhance communication effectiveness between mainland Chinese and Malaysian Chinese individuals.\u003c/p\u003e"},{"header":"2. Literature Review","content":"\u003cp\u003e As this study aims to investigate the request speech act in interactions between mainland Chinese and Malaysian Chinese speakers, it is necessary to review the previous research on request in Chinese.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eExisting research has presented varied perspectives on preferences of request strategies in Chinese, revealing a divergence in findings. Some studies, such as Lee-Wong (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR19\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e1994\u003c/span\u003e) and Zhu (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR36\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2017\u003c/span\u003e), assert a preference for direct requests in Chinese, while others, like Zhang (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR35\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e1995\u003c/span\u003e), Chen et al. (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR10\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2013\u003c/span\u003e) and Wen (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR31\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2014\u003c/span\u003e), emphasize the prevalence of conventional indirect requests in Chinese. Ren (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR24\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2018\u003c/span\u003e) compared requests between mainland Chinese and Taiwan Chinese and unveiled different preferences in Chinese, with Taiwan Chinese favoring conventionally indirect requests universally and mainland Chinese employing such requests with higher social status individuals but opting for direct requests with those of equal or lower social status. Furthermore, Chinese language exhibits the rare use of non-conventionally indirect requests, as highlighted by Ren (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR24\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2018\u003c/span\u003e), Rinnert \u0026amp; Kobayashi (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR28\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e1999\u003c/span\u003e), and Zhang (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR35\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e1995\u003c/span\u003e). In one more recent study when comparing request in Chinese with that in Japanese, Ren \u0026amp; Fukushima (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR26\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2020\u003c/span\u003e) discovered that Chinese participants predominantly utilized direct requests, followed by conventionally indirect requests, with non-conventionally indirect requests being the least common.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn addition, as part of request speech act, both internal and external modifications find application in requests in Chinese contexts (Gao, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR14\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e1999\u003c/span\u003e; Lee-Wong, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR19\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e1994\u003c/span\u003e; Ren \u0026amp; Fukushima, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR26\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2020\u003c/span\u003e; Zhang, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR35\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e1995\u003c/span\u003e). According to Lee-Wong (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR19\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e1994\u003c/span\u003e), Chinese speakers tended to utilize mitigation devices rather than relying on strategy-internal indirectness when expressing politeness in requests. Lee (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR18\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2005\u003c/span\u003e) found that native Cantonese speakers employed distinct combinations of syntactic and lexical devices to mitigate the directness of the requests. Yujie (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR34\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2021\u003c/span\u003e) also found that Chinese speakers employed both internal and external modifiers in terms of request modification. Comparing request in Chinese with that in Japanese, Ren \u0026amp; Fukushima (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR26\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2020\u003c/span\u003e) found that Chinese participants employed significantly more lexical internal modifiers than external modifiers in request. Furthermore, the Chinese participants showed a tendency to use emojis for modifying request and conveyed disapproval of direct requests with minimal modifications. However, they exhibited a favorable response to requests that underwent several modifications, as well as indirect requests featuring multiple modifications (Ren \u0026amp; Fukushima, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR27\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2022\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAccording to the findings in Anonymous (2023), the majority of previous studies on request focused on English and European languages like French and Greek. Although there has been a noticeable increase in attention from researchers in recent years towards studying requests in Chinese, research on requests in Chinese remains scarce, and opinions on the matter are somewhat divergent. Certain studies asserted a preference for a direct strategy in Chinese (Lee-Wong, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR19\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e1994\u003c/span\u003e), while others argued that indirect strategy is more commonly observed in Chinese data (Li \u0026amp; Jiang, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR21\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2019\u003c/span\u003e; Ren, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR25\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2019\u003c/span\u003e; Zhang, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR35\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e1995\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e A review of the literature also indicates a scarcity of exploration into the variations in request speech act among different regional varieties of Chinese. Although there were studies that compared request in mainland Chinese with that in English (Su \u0026amp; Ren, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR30\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2017\u003c/span\u003e), Japanese (Ren \u0026amp; Fukushima, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR26\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2020\u003c/span\u003e, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR27\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2022\u003c/span\u003e), and Taiwanese (Ren, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR24\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2018\u003c/span\u003e), to the researchers\u0026rsquo; best knowledge, no study has been carried out to investigate the differences and similarities when mainland Chinese request from Malaysian Chinese and Malaysian Chinese request from mainland Chinese. This study aims to fill this research gap by delving into such a specialized investigation.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis study was guided by the following three research questions:\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e1) what are similarities and differences of request speech act when mainland Chinese request from Malaysian Chinese and Malaysian Chinese request from mainland Chinese?\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e2) what are similarities and differences of request internal modification when mainland Chinese request from Malaysian Chinese and Malaysian Chinese request from mainland Chinese?\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e3) what are similarities and differences of request external modification when mainland Chinese request from Malaysian Chinese and Malaysian Chinese request from mainland Chinese?\u003c/p\u003e"},{"header":"3. Methodology","content":"\u003cdiv id=\"Sec4\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e\u003ch2\u003e3.1. Participants\u003c/h2\u003e\u003cp\u003e25 mainland Chinese participants (gender: 8 male and 17 female; age range: 18\u0026ndash;38; mean age: 22.28; SD:3.921) and 25 Malaysian Chinese participants (3 male and 22 female; age range: 19\u0026ndash;28; mean age: 21.88; SD:1.616) were randomly recruited on a voluntary basis. And a 25-year-old male Malaysian Chinese student from UPM was enlisted as Malaysian Chinese interlocutor and the researcher himself, a 35-year-old male from mainland China, served as mainland Chinese interlocutor. In order to minimize the impact of other Chinese language varieties, none of the participants from mainland China have visited Malaysia, and conversely, all recruited Malaysian participants have not visited mainland China, Hong Kong China, or Taiwan China. Before taking part in the study, all participants provided their consent by signing the informed consent form. Given that this study specifically examines the realization of requests in Mandarin Chinese, it is essential to note that all participants are proficient in Chinese Mandarin.\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv id=\"Sec5\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e\u003ch2\u003e3.2. Instrument\u003c/h2\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis study incorporated role play as its data collection instrument. The decision to employ role play was driven by its capacity to extract data from controlled scenarios (F\u0026eacute;lix-Brasdefer, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR12\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2007\u003c/span\u003e). The choice of role play was also motivated by its ability to generate interactive and natural data, as noted in open role play (Han, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR16\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2012\u003c/span\u003e; Hosseinpur et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR17\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2019\u003c/span\u003e). To enhance the collection of interactive and natural data with richer conversational features, the study employed open role play involving 12 scenarios (refer to the Appendix).\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis study utilized 12 scenarios derived from Ying \u0026amp; Hong (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR33\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2020\u003c/span\u003e) and Zhang (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR35\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e1995\u003c/span\u003e). The validation process involved scrutiny by two experts in pragmatics and proofreading by a native Chinese speaker from mainland China to ensure accuracy and reliability.\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv id=\"Sec6\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e\u003ch2\u003e3.3. Data Collection Procedures\u003c/h2\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe Malaysian Chinese interlocutor role-played with 25 mainland Chinese participants and the mainland Chinese interlocutor role-played with 25 Malaysian Chinese participants in Chinese mandarin. The two interlocutors were instructed not to share the written Chinese versions of scenarios beforehand but to present them only during the role-play sessions with all participants. The directive was for the interlocutors to advise the participants to respond naturally in each role play. To ensure authenticity in the collected data, both the interlocutors and participants were guided to align their role-play behavior with the roles they assumed in each scenario. Each role play was individually conducted in a quiet setting and recorded audio-wise. Participants spent approximately 10 minutes completing the role-play with the interlocutor. Subsequently, all role plays were transcribed in a later stage using a Chinese software called \u003cem\u003eFeiShuMiaoJi.\u003c/em\u003e The transcripts underwent manual examination by the researcher twice.\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv id=\"Sec7\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e\u003ch2\u003e3.4. A Revised Data Analysis Framework\u003c/h2\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe primary theoretical framework utilized in this study was the Cross-Cultural Study of Speech Act Realization Patterns (CCSARP), initially developed by Blum-Kulka \u0026amp; Olshtain (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR7\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e1984\u003c/span\u003e), and subsequently expanded upon by Blum-Kulka et al. (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR6\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e1989\u003c/span\u003e). To analyze the collected data in this research, a modified version of CCSARP was devised, taking into consideration previous scholarly contributions as a basis of comparison (Ren, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR25\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2019\u003c/span\u003e; Zhang, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR35\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e1995\u003c/span\u003e). The adaptation aimed to facilitate the examination of the collected data. Additionally, the definitions of each strategy were also borrowed from their respective works.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIt is essential to emphasize that modifications made to the CCSARP coding framework were informed by data collected from participants in both mainland China and Malaysia. Within this modified coding scheme, a novel sub-strategy, labeled as \u0026lsquo;inquiry for information/solution\u0026rsquo;, was reclassified under the direct strategy. Additionally, four identified new modifiers of \u0026lsquo;encouragement\u0026rsquo;, \u0026lsquo;getting familiar\u0026rsquo;, \u0026lsquo;negative consequence\u0026rsquo;, and \u0026lsquo;seeking empathy\u0026rsquo; in the corpus data were grouped under external modification. The subsequent sections present request head act strategies, internal modifications, and external modifications. The examples in Tables\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Tab1\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e1\u003c/span\u003e\u0026ndash;\u003cspan refid=\"Tab3\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e3\u003c/span\u003e are drawn from the collected data in this study.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cdiv id=\"Sec8\" class=\"Section3\"\u003e\u003ch2\u003e3.4.1. Request Head Act Strategy\u003c/h2\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe request head act, according to Han (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR16\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2012\u003c/span\u003e), has the capability to convey a request speech act independently. This was categorized into three groups: direct strategy, conventionally indirect strategy, and non-conventionally indirect strategy. Furthermore, each request strategy category is subdivided into specific sub-strategies. The classification of request head act strategies is outlined in Table\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Tab1\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e1\u003c/span\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cdiv class=\"gridtable\"\u003e\u003ctable float=\"Yes\" id=\"Tab1\" border=\"1\"\u003e\u003ccaption language=\"En\"\u003e\u003cdiv class=\"CaptionNumber\"\u003eTable 1\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv class=\"CaptionContent\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eRequest Head Act Strategy in Mainland Chinese Mandarin and Malaysian Chinese Mandarin\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003c/caption\u003e\u003ccolgroup cols=\"2\"\u003e\u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c1\" colnum=\"1\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c2\" colnum=\"2\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cthead\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eRequest head act strategy\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/th\u003e\u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eExamples\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/th\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003cth align=\"left\" colspan=\"2\" nameend=\"c2\" namest=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eDirect\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/th\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003c/thead\u003e\u003ctbody\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eExplicit performance\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e请你把你的车挪开 [Please move your car]\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eHedged performance\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e我得用一下你的电脑 [I need to use your computer for a moment]\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eImperatives\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e借我一支笔吧[Can I borrow a pen from you?]\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eInquiry for information/solution\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e请问这里怎么走 [Excuse me, how do I get here?]\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eObligation statement\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e需要您把车移开 [I need you to move the car]\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eWant statement\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e我想在这里向你投诉 [I want to file a complaint here with you]\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colspan=\"2\" nameend=\"c2\" namest=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eConventionally indirect\u003c/b\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eSuggestory formula\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e要不然杨哥你帮我拿一下[How about you help me with this]\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eQuery preparatory\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e请问您可以把车挪开吗Excuse me, can you please move your car]\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colspan=\"2\" nameend=\"c2\" namest=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eNon-conventionally indirect\u003c/b\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eMild hints\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e你现在方便吗 [Are you available right now]\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eStrong hints\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e我不懂这个双峰塔怎么走唉 [I don\u0026rsquo;t know how to get to the Twins Tower]\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003c/tbody\u003e\u003c/colgroup\u003e\u003c/table\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv id=\"Sec9\" class=\"Section3\"\u003e\u003ch2\u003e3.4.2. Request Modification\u003c/h2\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn the act of making requests, individuals commonly employ diverse modifiers to either diminish or heighten the impact of the request. Such modifiers are frequently employed to minimize the imposition, thereby softening the request (Barron, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR4\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2016\u003c/span\u003e). Barron (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR4\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2016\u003c/span\u003e) further categorizes these modifiers into two types: internal modifiers and external modifiers.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e(1) Internal Modification.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eInternal modification, as part of the request head act, has the ability to either diminish or intensify the illocutionary impact of a request speech act (Han, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR16\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2012\u003c/span\u003e). There are two types of internal modifiers, namely donwgraders and upgraders. And two types of downgraders modifiers exist: syntactic downgraders and lexical/phrasal downgraders, as identified by Blum-Kulka (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR5\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e1985\u003c/span\u003e). The internal modifications are detailed in Table\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Tab2\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e2\u003c/span\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cdiv class=\"gridtable\"\u003e\u003ctable float=\"Yes\" id=\"Tab2\" border=\"1\"\u003e\u003ccaption language=\"En\"\u003e\u003cdiv class=\"CaptionNumber\"\u003eTable 2\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv class=\"CaptionContent\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eInternal Modification in Mainland Chinese Mandarin and Malaysian Chinese Mandarin\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003c/caption\u003e\u003ccolgroup cols=\"2\"\u003e\u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c1\" colnum=\"1\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c2\" colnum=\"2\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cthead\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eInternal modifiers\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/th\u003e\u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eExamples\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/th\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003cth align=\"left\" colspan=\"2\" nameend=\"c2\" namest=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eSyntactic downgraders\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/th\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003c/thead\u003e\u003ctbody\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eConditional clause\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e要\u0026hellip;\u0026hellip;的话 [If you want to]\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eInterrogative\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e吗 [question mark]\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colspan=\"2\" nameend=\"c2\" namest=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eLexical/phrasal downgraders\u003c/b\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eAppealer\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e可以吗 [Is it Okay]\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eDowntoner\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e啦 [Ah];呀 [oh]༛哎 [hey]\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eHedges\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e可能 [Maybe]\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003ePoliteness marker\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e请 [Please];麻烦 [trouble]\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eSubjectivizer\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e我想 [I want];我希望 [I hope]\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eUnderstaters\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e呢 [a little];一下 [a little bit]\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eUpgraders\u003c/b\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eIntensifier\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e强烈地 [Strongly]\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eTime intensifier\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e赶紧 [Hurry up]\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003c/tbody\u003e\u003c/colgroup\u003e\u003c/table\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e(2) External Modification.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eExternal modification, as the name suggests, pertains to the external aspect of the head act. Its main purpose is to indirectly diminish or enhance the illocutionary force of the request (Halupka-Rešetar, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR15\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2014\u003c/span\u003e). As outlined by Yazdanfar \u0026amp; Bonyadi (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR32\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2016\u003c/span\u003e), external modifiers serve as adjuncts to the head act and can occur within the immediate context of a speech act. Table\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Tab3\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e3\u003c/span\u003e presents the external modifiers considered in this study.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cdiv class=\"gridtable\"\u003e\u003ctable float=\"Yes\" id=\"Tab3\" border=\"1\"\u003e\u003ccaption language=\"En\"\u003e\u003cdiv class=\"CaptionNumber\"\u003eTable 3\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv class=\"CaptionContent\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eExternal Modification in Mainland Chinese Mandarin and Malaysian Chinese Mandarin\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003c/caption\u003e\u003ccolgroup cols=\"2\"\u003e\u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c1\" colnum=\"1\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c2\" colnum=\"2\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cthead\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eExternal modifiers\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/th\u003e\u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eExamples\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/th\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003cth align=\"left\" colspan=\"2\" nameend=\"c2\" namest=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eMitigating supportive moves\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/th\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003c/thead\u003e\u003ctbody\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eAdvice seeking\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e您看可不可以 [Do you think it is Okay?]\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eApology\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e不好意思 [I\u0026rsquo;m sorry]\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eDisarmer\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e我知道您不太喜欢分享课件 [I know you don\u0026rsquo;t like to share lecture materials very much]\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eGetting a pre-commitment\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e我可以问你一个问题吗 [May I ask you a question]\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eGetting familiar\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e您之前是我的论文指导老师 [You were my thesis advisor before]\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eGrounder\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e我的学生证不见了[I lost my student ID]\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eImposition minimizer\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e用完之后立刻还给你 [I\u0026rsquo;ll return it to you immediately after using it]\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003ePreparator\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e你有空吗 [Are you available now?]\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003ePromise\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e我做完一定立马交给你 [After I finish it, I\u0026rsquo;ll give it to you right away]\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003ePromise of reward\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e一会我用完了给你买好吃的 [I\u0026rsquo;ll buy you something delicious after I finish]\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eSweetener\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e小明真乖 [Xiao Ming is really obedient]\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colspan=\"2\" nameend=\"c2\" namest=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eAggravating supportive moves\u003c/b\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eMoralizing statement\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e不能沉迷游戏 [It is not right to get addicted to games]\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eNegative consequence\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e如果你不移开的话, 我怕待会伤到你 [If you don\u0026rsquo;t move, I\u0026rsquo;m afraid you\u0026rsquo;ll get hurt later]\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eRepetition of head act\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e请你把车移走 [Please move your car]\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eReprimand\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e你不知道这有交通事故吗༟![Don\u0026rsquo;t you know there\u0026rsquo;s a traffic accident here?!]\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eThreat\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e我就要给你开罚单了 [I\u0026rsquo;m going to issue you a ticket]\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eUrging\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e你快点 [Hurry up]\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colspan=\"2\" nameend=\"c2\" namest=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eAdjuncts\u003c/b\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eAlerter\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e你好 [Hello]、教授 [Professor]\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eConfirmation\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e这样子 [Like this]\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eEncouragement\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e我相信你一定会出色地完成的 [I believe you will do an excellent job]\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eRequest for more information\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e那申请有什么手续吗 [What procedures are there for the application]\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eSeeking empathy\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e我真的睡眠质量不是很好 [I really can\u0026rsquo;t sleep well]\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eThanking\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e谢谢 [Thank you]\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003c/tbody\u003e\u003c/colgroup\u003e\u003c/table\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv id=\"Sec10\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e\u003ch2\u003e3.5. Data Coding and Analysis\u003c/h2\u003e\u003cp\u003eCoding for this study was carried out using ATLAS.ti 23, with the primary researcher and another student, specializing in linguistics, serving as coders. The researcher personally coded all collected data, while the recruited coder independently coded 1/8 of the collected data after receiving a month of training from the researcher. Both coders coded independently, and inter-rater reliability was evaluated using a Kappa test, indicating a robust agreement level ranging from .74 to .80. In cases of disagreement, the two coders engaged in discussions to reach a consensus on coding.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eEach conversation underwent coding based on the request head act strategy, internal modification, or external modification, following the revised coding framework. The request head act strategy was categorized into direct level, conventionally indirect level, non-conventionally indirect level, and request head act strategy (refer to Table\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Tab1\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e1\u003c/span\u003e). Internal modification was coded using the categories outlined in the internal modifiers table (refer to Table\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Tab2\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e2\u003c/span\u003e). As for external modification, the coding of external modifiers was done in accordance with the external modification framework (refer to Table\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Tab3\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e3\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFurthermore, ATLAS.ti 23 also facilitated the presentation of data frequency and percentage, enabling an exploration of how request head act strategy and request modification were employed in interactions between mainland Chinese and Malaysian Chinese. The data analysis was conducted using SPSS version 22, employing the Chi-square test and Fisher\u0026rsquo;s exact test to explore potential statistical differences in request patterns when mainland Chinese and Malaysian Chinese make requests from each other.\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/div\u003e"},{"header":"4. Results","content":"\u003cdiv id=\"Sec12\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e\u003ch2\u003e4.1. Request Head Act Strategy\u003c/h2\u003e\u003cp\u003eTable\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Tab4\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e4\u003c/span\u003e presents the frequency and percentage of directness level and request head act strategy employed when mainland Chinese and Malaysian Chinese interact with each other.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cdiv class=\"gridtable\"\u003e\u003ctable float=\"Yes\" id=\"Tab4\" border=\"1\"\u003e\u003ccaption language=\"En\"\u003e\u003cdiv class=\"CaptionNumber\"\u003eTable 4\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv class=\"CaptionContent\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eRequest Head Act Strategy in Mainland Chinese Mandarin and Malaysian Chinese Mandarin\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003c/caption\u003e\u003ccolgroup cols=\"5\"\u003e\u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c1\" colnum=\"1\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c2\" colnum=\"2\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c3\" colnum=\"3\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c4\" colnum=\"4\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c5\" colnum=\"5\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cthead\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eStrategies\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/th\u003e\u003cth align=\"left\" colspan=\"2\" nameend=\"c3\" namest=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eMainland Chinese with\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eMalaysian Chinese Interlocutor\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/th\u003e\u003cth align=\"left\" colspan=\"2\" nameend=\"c5\" namest=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eMalaysian Chinese with\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eMainland Chinese Interlocutor\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/th\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003c/thead\u003e\u003ctbody\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eFrequency\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003ePercentage\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eFrequency\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003ePercentage\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eDirect strategy category\u003c/b\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e144\u003c/b\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e46.45%\u003c/b\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e116\u003c/b\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e37.66%\u003c/b\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eExplicit performance\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e36\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e11.61%\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e13\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e4.22%\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eHedged performance\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e4\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e1.29%\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e1\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0.32%\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eImperatives\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e22\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e7.10%\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e5\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e1.62%\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eInquiry for\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003einformation/solution\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e36\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e11.61%\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e35\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e11.36%\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eObligation statement\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0.00%\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e4\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e1.30%\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eWant statement\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e46\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e14.84%\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e58\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e18.83%\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eConventionally indirect strategy category\u003c/b\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e159\u003c/b\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e51.29%\u003c/b\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e187\u003c/b\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e60.71%\u003c/b\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eSuggestory formula\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e2\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0.65%\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0.00%\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eQuery preparatory\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e157\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e50.65%\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e187\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e60.71%\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eNon-conventionally indirect strategy category\u003c/b\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e7\u003c/b\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e2.26%\u003c/b\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e5\u003c/b\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e1.62%\u003c/b\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eMild hint\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e1\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0.32%\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e1\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0.32%\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eStrong hint\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e6\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e1.94%\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e4\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e1.30%\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eTotal\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e310\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e100%\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e308\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e100%\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003c/tbody\u003e\u003c/colgroup\u003e\u003c/table\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn Table\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Tab4\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e4\u003c/span\u003e, three directness levels of request were considered, and it was observed that both mainland Chinese and Malaysian participants exhibited a preference for \u0026lsquo;conventionally indirect request head act strategy\u0026rsquo; category when mainland Chinese participants made requests to Malaysian Chinese interlocutor and Malaysian Chinese participants made requests to mainland Chinese interlocutor (f\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;159 for mainland Chinese; f\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;187 for Malaysian Chinese). It was followed by \u0026lsquo;direct request head act strategy\u0026rsquo; category (f\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;144 for mainland Chinese; f\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;116 for Malaysian Chinese) and, to a much lesser extent, \u0026lsquo;non-conventionally indirect strategy\u0026rsquo; category (f\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;7 for mainland Chinese; f\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;5 for Malaysian Chinese). Malaysian Chinese participants and their mainland Chinese counterparts demonstrated similar patterns in the utilization of three request head act strategy categories. Fisher\u0026rsquo;s exact Test revealed a significant difference in the use of \u0026lsquo;direct request head act strategy\u0026rsquo; category (p\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;0.000) when mainland Chinese and Malaysian Chinese made requests to each other. Conversely, there was no statistically significant difference in the employment of \u0026lsquo;conventionally indirect request head act strategy\u0026rsquo; category (p\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;0.210) and \u0026lsquo;non-conventionally indirect request head act strategy\u0026rsquo; category (p\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;1.000) between mainland Chinese and Malaysian Chinese during their reciprocal requests.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eTo examine the statistical distinctions between mainland Chinese and Malaysian Chinese in employing the individual request head act strategy, Chi-square and Fisher\u0026rsquo;s exact tests were utilized. Within the direct strategy category, the sub-strategies of \u0026lsquo;explicit performance\u0026rsquo;, \u0026lsquo;imperatives\u0026rsquo;, \u0026lsquo;inquiry for solution/information\u0026rsquo;, and \u0026lsquo;want statement\u0026rsquo; were scrutinized due to their frequent usage. The Chi-square test revealed significant differences between mainland Chinese and Malaysian Chinese in the utilization of \u0026lsquo;explicit performance\u0026rsquo; (χ\u0026sup2;= 11.565, df\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;1, p\u0026thinsp;\u0026lt;\u0026thinsp;0.05) and \u0026lsquo;imperatives\u0026rsquo; (χ\u0026sup2;= 11.078, df\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;1, p\u0026thinsp;\u0026lt;\u0026thinsp;0.05). Additionally, the Chi-square test indicated no notable differences in their use of \u0026lsquo;inquiry for solution/information\u0026rsquo; (χ\u0026sup2;= 0.009, df\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;1, p\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;1.000) and \u0026lsquo;want/need statement\u0026rsquo; (χ\u0026sup2;= 1.759, df\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;1, p\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;0.198) when mainland Chinese and Malaysian Chinese made requests from each other.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn terms of the sub-strategies employed within the conventionally indirect strategy category, the \u0026lsquo;suggestory formula\u0026rsquo; sub-strategy (f\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;2 for mainland Chinese; f\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;0 for Malaysian Chinese) was rarely utilized. Both participant groups strongly preferred the \u0026lsquo;query preparatory\u0026rsquo; sub-strategy (f\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;157 for mainland Chinese; f\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;187 for Malaysian Chinese), specifically using permission expressions often in the form of \u0026lsquo;keyi\u0026rsquo; [may]. The Fisher\u0026rsquo;s exact test results showed no statistical differences in the use of the \u0026lsquo;suggestory formula\u0026rsquo; sub-strategy (p\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;0.499). However, the Chi-square test results revealed statistically significant differences in the use of the \u0026lsquo;query preparatory\u0026rsquo; sub-strategy (χ\u0026sup2;=6.347, df\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;1, p\u0026thinsp;\u0026lt;\u0026thinsp;0.05) when mainland Chinese and Malaysian Chinese made requests of each other.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e Regarding sub-strategies in the non-conventionally indirect strategy category, mainland Chinese and Malaysian Chinese participants seldom employed both \u0026lsquo;mild hints\u0026rsquo; and \u0026lsquo;strong hints\u0026rsquo; sub-strategy. Fisher\u0026rsquo;s exact test results indicated that there was no significant difference in the utilization of \u0026lsquo;mild hints\u0026rsquo; (p\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;1.000) and \u0026lsquo;strong hints\u0026rsquo; (p\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;0.752) sub-strategy when mainland Chinese and Malaysian Chinese made requests to each other.\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv id=\"Sec13\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e\u003ch2\u003e4.2. Internal Modification\u003c/h2\u003e\u003cp\u003eVarious internal modifications were employed by participants from mainland China and Malaysia when making requests from each other, as illustrated in Table\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Tab5\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e5\u003c/span\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cdiv class=\"gridtable\"\u003e\u003ctable float=\"Yes\" id=\"Tab5\" border=\"1\"\u003e\u003ccaption language=\"En\"\u003e\u003cdiv class=\"CaptionNumber\"\u003eTable 5\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv class=\"CaptionContent\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eInternal Modification in Mainland Chinese Mandarin and Malaysian Chinese Mandarin\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003c/caption\u003e\u003ccolgroup cols=\"5\"\u003e\u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c1\" colnum=\"1\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c2\" colnum=\"2\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c3\" colnum=\"3\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c4\" colnum=\"4\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c5\" colnum=\"5\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cthead\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eInternal modifiers\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/th\u003e\u003cth align=\"left\" colspan=\"2\" nameend=\"c3\" namest=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eMainland Chinese with\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eMalaysian Chinese Interlocutor\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/th\u003e\u003cth align=\"left\" colspan=\"2\" nameend=\"c5\" namest=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eMalaysian Chinese with\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eMainland Chinese Interlocutor\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/th\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003c/thead\u003e\u003ctbody\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eFrequency\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003ePercentage\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eFrequency\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003ePercentage\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eLexical/phrasal downgraders\u003c/b\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e421\u003c/b\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e67.58%\u003c/b\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e355\u003c/b\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e59.76%\u003c/b\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eAppealer (tags)\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e20\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e3.21%\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e30\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e5.05%\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eDowntoner\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e53\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e8.51%\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e51\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e8.59%\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eHedges\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e1\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0.16%\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e2\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0.34%\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003ePoliteness marker\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e145\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e23.27%\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e139\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e23.40%\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eSubjectivizer\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e42\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e6.74%\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e51\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e8.59%\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eUnderstaters\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e160\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e25.68%\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e82\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e13.80%\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eSyntactic downgraders\u003c/b\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e199\u003c/b\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e31.94%\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e238\u003c/b\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e40.07%\u003c/b\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eConditional clause\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e4\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0.64%\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e10\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e1.68%\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eInterrogative\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e195\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e31.30%\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e228\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e38.38%\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eUpgraders\u003c/b\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e3\u003c/b\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e0.48%\u003c/b\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e1\u003c/b\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e0.17%\u003c/b\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eIntensifiers\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0.00%\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e1\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0.17%\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eTime intensifiers\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e3\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0.48%\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0.00%\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eTotal\u003c/b\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e623\u003c/b\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e100%\u003c/b\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e594\u003c/b\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e100%\u003c/b\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003c/tbody\u003e\u003c/colgroup\u003e\u003c/table\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBased on the results presented in Table\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Tab5\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e5\u003c/span\u003e, mainland Chinese participants (f\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;623) exhibited a higher frequency of internal modifications compared to Malaysian Chinese participants (f\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;594) when mainland Chinese participants made requests to Malaysian Chinese interlocutor and Malaysian Chinese participants made requests to mainland Chinese interlocutor. Regarding the two types of downgraders, both mainland Chinese and Malaysian Chinese participants demonstrated a greater usage of the \u0026lsquo;lexical/phrasal downgraders\u0026rsquo; category (f\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;421 for mainland Chinese, f\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;355 for Malaysian Chinese) than the \u0026lsquo;syntactic downgraders\u0026rsquo; category (f\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;199 for mainland Chinese, f\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;238 for Malaysian Chinese). Notably, both groups rarely employed the \u0026lsquo;upgraders\u0026rsquo; category (f\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;3 for mainland Chinese, f\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;1 for Malaysian Chinese). There is a similar trend between the two groups of participants concerning \u0026lsquo;lexical/phrasal downgraders\u0026rsquo;, \u0026lsquo;syntactic downgraders\u0026rsquo;, and \u0026lsquo;upgraders\u0026rsquo;. The Fisher\u0026rsquo;s exact test result revealed a significant difference between mainland Chinese and Malaysian Chinese in the utilization of the \u0026lsquo;lexical/phrasal downgraders\u0026rsquo; category (p\u0026thinsp;\u0026lt;\u0026thinsp;0.05). However, the Chi-square test indicated no statistical difference in the use of \u0026lsquo;syntactic downgraders\u0026rsquo; category (χ\u0026sup2;=1.679, df\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;1, p\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;0.277), and Fisher\u0026rsquo;s exact test also suggested no statistical difference in the use of \u0026lsquo;upgraders\u0026rsquo; category (p\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;0.250).\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e Given the infrequent use of individual upgrader modifiers by both mainland Chinese participants and Malaysian Chinese participants, our analysis focused exclusively on individual lexical/phrasal modifiers and individual syntactic modifiers. Concerning the individual internal modifiers of lexical/phrasal downgraders, \u0026lsquo;politeness marker\u0026rsquo;, \u0026lsquo;understater\u0026rsquo;, \u0026lsquo;downtoner\u0026rsquo;, and \u0026lsquo;subjectiviser\u0026rsquo; emerged as the four most frequently used lexical/phrasal modifiers by both mainland Chinese participants and Malaysian Chinese participants. The results of the Chi-square test revealed no statistical difference between mainland Chinese and Malaysian Chinese in the utilization of \u0026lsquo;downtoner\u0026rsquo; (χ\u0026sup2;=0.002, df\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;1, p\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;0.961), \u0026lsquo;politeness marker\u0026rsquo; (χ\u0026sup2;=0.003, df\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;1, p\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;0.959), and \u0026lsquo;subjectivizer\u0026rsquo; (χ\u0026sup2;=1.465, df\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;1, p\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;0.226). However, a significant difference was observed in the use of \u0026lsquo;understater\u0026rsquo; with mainland Chinese participants employing this modifier significantly more than their Malaysian counterparts (χ\u0026sup2;=26.927, df\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;1, p\u0026thinsp;\u0026lt;\u0026thinsp;0.05). Regarding individual modifiers of \u0026lsquo;syntactic downgraders\u0026rsquo;, the Chi-square test result indicated no statistical difference between mainland Chinese and Malaysian Chinese in the use of \u0026lsquo;conditional clause\u0026rsquo; (χ\u0026sup2;=2.900, df\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;1, p\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;0.089). However, mainland Chinese participants used significantly more \u0026lsquo;interrogatives\u0026rsquo; than Malaysian Chinese participants (χ\u0026sup2;=6.729, df\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;1, p\u0026thinsp;\u0026lt;\u0026thinsp;0.05).\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv id=\"Sec14\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e\u003ch2\u003e4.3. External Modification\u003c/h2\u003e\u003cp\u003eTable\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Tab6\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e6\u003c/span\u003e presents a depiction of the external modification employed by participants from both mainland China and Malaysia when requesting from each other.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cdiv class=\"gridtable\"\u003e\u003ctable float=\"Yes\" id=\"Tab6\" border=\"1\"\u003e\u003ccaption language=\"En\"\u003e\u003cdiv class=\"CaptionNumber\"\u003eTable 6\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv class=\"CaptionContent\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eExternal Modification in Mainland Chinese Mandarin and Malaysian Chinese Mandarin\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003c/caption\u003e\u003ccolgroup cols=\"5\"\u003e\u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c1\" colnum=\"1\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv align=\"char\" char=\".\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c2\" colnum=\"2\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c3\" colnum=\"3\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv align=\"char\" char=\".\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c4\" colnum=\"4\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv align=\"char\" char=\".\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c5\" colnum=\"5\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cthead\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\" morerows=\"1\" rowspan=\"2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eExternal modifiers\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/th\u003e\u003cth align=\"left\" colspan=\"2\" nameend=\"c3\" namest=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eMainland Chinese with\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eMalaysian Chinese Interlocutor\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/th\u003e\u003cth align=\"left\" colspan=\"2\" nameend=\"c5\" namest=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eMalaysian Chinese with\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eMainland Chinese Interlocutor\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/th\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eFrequency\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/th\u003e\u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003ePercentage\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/th\u003e\u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eFrequency\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/th\u003e\u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003ePercentage\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/th\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003c/thead\u003e\u003ctbody\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eMitigating\u003c/b\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e500\u003c/b\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e53.19%\u003c/b\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e455\u003c/b\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e48.51%\u003c/b\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eAdvice seeking\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e15\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e1.60%\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e4\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0.43%\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eApology\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e12\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e1.28%\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e23\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e2.45%\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eDisarmer\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e7\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0.74%\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e9\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0.96%\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eGetting a pre-\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ecommitment\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e43\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e4.57%\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e59\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e6.29%\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eGetting familiar\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e8\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0.85%\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e5\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0.53%\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eGrounder\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e265\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e28.19%\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e266\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e28.36%\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eImposition minimizer\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e36\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e3.83%\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e28\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e2.99%\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003ePreparator\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e41\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e4.36%\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e34\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e3.62%\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003ePromise\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e16\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e1.70%\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e1\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0.11%\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003ePromise of reward\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e31\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e3.30%\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e9\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0.96%\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eSweetener\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e26\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e2.77%\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e17\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e1.81%\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eAggravating\u003c/b\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e32\u003c/b\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e3.40%\u003c/b\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e21\u003c/b\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e2.24%\u003c/b\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eMoralizing statement\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e4\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0.43%\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e1\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0.11%\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eNegative consequence\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e3\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0.32%\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e2\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0.21%\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eRepetition of head act\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e12\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e1.28%\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e13\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e1.39%\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eReprimand\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e2\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0.21%\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0.00%\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eThreat\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e2\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0.21%\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0.00%\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eUrging\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e9\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0.96%\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e5\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0.53%\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eAdjuncts\u003c/b\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e408\u003c/b\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e43.40%\u003c/b\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e462\u003c/b\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e49.25%\u003c/b\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eAlerter\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e388\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e41.28%\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e445\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e47.44%\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eConfirmation\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e1\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0.11%\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e1\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0.11%\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eEncouragement\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e6\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0.64%\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e3\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0.32%\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eRequest for more information\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e6\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0.64%\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e10\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e1.07%\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eSeeking empathy\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e3\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0.32%\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e2\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0.21%\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eThanking\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e4\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0.43%\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e1\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0.11%\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eTotal\u003c/b\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e940\u003c/b\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e100%\u003c/b\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e938\u003c/b\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e100.00%\u003c/b\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003c/tbody\u003e\u003c/colgroup\u003e\u003c/table\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn general, both mainland Chinese participants (n\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;940) and Malaysian Chinese participants (n\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;938) employed a similar number of external modifications. Across the three categories of external modification, participants from both groups predominantly utilized more \u0026lsquo;mitigating\u0026rsquo; modifiers and \u0026lsquo;adjuncts\u0026rsquo; compared to \u0026lsquo;aggravating\u0026rsquo; modifiers. Regarding the \u0026lsquo;mitigating\u0026rsquo; modifier category, a Chi-square test indicated a statistically significant difference between mainland Chinese and Malaysian Chinese participants (χ\u0026sup2;=40.121, df\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;10, p\u0026thinsp;\u0026lt;\u0026thinsp;0.05). In terms of the \u0026lsquo;aggravating\u0026rsquo; external modifier category, both mainland Chinese and Malaysian Chinese participants rarely used it, constituting only 3.40% and 2.24% of the total external modifiers, respectively. Fisher\u0026rsquo;s exact test results indicated no statistical difference between mainland Chinese and Malaysian Chinese in the use of \u0026lsquo;aggravating\u0026rsquo; external modifiers (p\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;0.551). Concerning the \u0026lsquo;adjuncts\u0026rsquo; external modifier category, Fisher\u0026rsquo;s exact test results also revealed no statistically significant differences between the mainland Chinese and Malaysian Chinese groups (p\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;0.452).\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWe also conducted an analysis of the similarities and differences pertaining to individual external modifiers within the three categories. Specifically, for the \u0026lsquo;mitigating\u0026rsquo; external modifier category, we scrutinized each individual modifier. The Chi-square test revealed that mainland Chinese participants significantly employed more \u0026lsquo;advice seeking\u0026rsquo; modifiers (χ\u0026sup2;= 6.410, df\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;1, p\u0026thinsp;\u0026lt;\u0026thinsp;0.05), more \u0026lsquo;promise\u0026rsquo; modifiers (χ\u0026sup2;= 13.324, df\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;1, p\u0026thinsp;\u0026lt;\u0026thinsp;0.05), and more \u0026lsquo;promise of reward\u0026rsquo; modifiers (χ\u0026sup2;= 12.316, df\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;1, p\u0026thinsp;\u0026lt;\u0026thinsp;0.05). Additionally, the Chi-square test indicated no statistical difference between mainland Chinese and Malaysian Chinese in the use of \u0026lsquo;apology\u0026rsquo; modifiers (χ\u0026sup2;= 3.547, df\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;1, p\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;0.060), \u0026lsquo;disarmer\u0026rsquo; modifiers (χ\u0026sup2;= 0.256, df\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;1, p\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;0.613), \u0026lsquo;getting a pre-commitment\u0026rsquo; modifiers (χ\u0026sup2;= 2.690, df\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;1, p\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;0.101), \u0026lsquo;getting familiar\u0026rsquo; modifiers (χ\u0026sup2;= 0.691, df\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;1, p\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;0.406), \u0026lsquo;grounder\u0026rsquo; modifiers (χ\u0026sup2;= 0.006, df\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;1, p\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;0.936), \u0026lsquo;imposition minimizer\u0026rsquo; modifiers (χ\u0026sup2;= 1.018, df\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;1, p\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;0.313), \u0026lsquo;preparator\u0026rsquo; modifiers (χ\u0026sup2;= 0.665, df\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;1, p\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;0.415), and \u0026lsquo;sweetener\u0026rsquo; modifiers (χ\u0026sup2;= 1.908, df\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;1, p\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;0.167) when mainland Chinese participants made requests to Malaysian Chinese interlocutor and Malaysian Chinese participants made requests to mainland Chinese interlocutor.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eRegarding individual modifiers within the \u0026lsquo;aggravating\u0026rsquo; external modifier category, both mainland Chinese and Malaysian Chinese participants utilized them in a similar manner. Fisher\u0026rsquo;s exact test results showed no statistical difference between mainland Chinese and Malaysian Chinese in the use of \u0026lsquo;moralizing statement\u0026rsquo; (p\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;0.374), \u0026lsquo;negative consequence\u0026rsquo; (p\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;1.000), \u0026lsquo;reprimand\u0026rsquo; (p\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;0.500), and \u0026lsquo;threat\u0026rsquo; (p\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;0.500). Additionally, Chi-square test results indicated no statistical difference in the use of \u0026lsquo;repetition of head act\u0026rsquo; (χ\u0026sup2;= 0.043, df\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;1, p\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;0.836) and \u0026lsquo;urging\u0026rsquo; (χ\u0026sup2;= 1.151, df\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;1, p\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;0.936) when mainland Chinese participants made requests to Malaysian Chinese interlocutor and Malaysian Chinese participants made requests to mainland Chinese interlocutor.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eConcerning individual modifiers within the \u0026lsquo;adjuncts\u0026rsquo; external modifier category, the Chi-square test results indicated a significant difference in the usage of \u0026lsquo;alerter\u0026rsquo; (χ\u0026sup2;= 7.229, df\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;1, p\u0026thinsp;\u0026lt;\u0026thinsp;0.05), while there was no statistical difference in the use of \u0026lsquo;request for more information\u0026rsquo; (χ\u0026sup2;= 1.017, df\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;1, p\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;0.313). Additionally, Fisher\u0026rsquo;s exact test results revealed no statistical difference in the use of \u0026lsquo;confirmation\u0026rsquo; (p\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;1.000), \u0026lsquo;encouragement\u0026rsquo; (p\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;0.507), \u0026lsquo;seeking empathy\u0026rsquo; (p\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;1.000), and \u0026lsquo;thanking\u0026rsquo; (p\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;0.374) when mainland Chinese participants made requests to Malaysian Chinese interlocutor and Malaysian Chinese participants made requests to mainland Chinese interlocutor.\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/div\u003e"},{"header":"5. Discussion","content":"\u003cp\u003e This research explored the request speech act made by both mainland Chinese and Malaysian Chinese participants. The focus was on requests made by mainland Chinese participants to Malaysian Chinese interlocutors and Malaysian Chinese participants to mainland Chinese interlocutor. To the best of our knowledge, no prior studies have examined this specific aspect.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cdiv id=\"Sec16\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e\u003ch2\u003e5.1. Request Head Act Strategy\u003c/h2\u003e\u003cp\u003e Regarding their preferred strategies for the head act of making requests, the findings indicate that mainland Chinese participants and Malaysian Chinese participants share more similarities than differences. Both groups predominantly employed conventionally indirect strategies, with direct request strategies being a close second in frequency. Non-conventionally indirect request strategies were used least frequently, with mainland Chinese participants demonstrating the lowest usage.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe prevalence of conventionally indirect requests among both mainland Chinese and Malaysian Chinese participants diverges from the findings of previous studies on Chinese requests (Chen et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR10\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2013\u003c/span\u003e; Lee-Wong, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR19\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e1994\u003c/span\u003e; Ren, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR24\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2018\u003c/span\u003e; Ren \u0026amp; Fukushima, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR26\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2020\u003c/span\u003e; Zhu, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR36\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2017\u003c/span\u003e). Two potential explanations may contribute to this result: firstly, in traditional Chinese culture, there is an emphasis on politeness, leading individuals to adopt indirect communication. Secondly, previous studies utilized written Discourse Completion Tests (DCT) as data collection instruments, where participants didn't engage in face-to-face communication with requestees, reducing concerns about causing offense. In contrast, the current study employed role play as the data collection method, requiring participants to interact face-to-face with interlocutors. This context likely prompted participants to consider the face of the requestees, leading to a preference for more polite strategies.\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv id=\"Sec17\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e\u003ch2\u003e5.2. Internal Modification\u003c/h2\u003e\u003cp\u003e In the realm of lexical and phrasal internal modifiers, mainland Chinese participants demonstrated a higher usage compared to their Malaysian counterparts (421 vs. 355 instances). This discovery aligns with previous research indicating a prevalent use of internal modifications (Ren \u0026amp; Fukushima, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR26\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2020\u003c/span\u003e). Both participant groups exhibited frequent use of \u0026lsquo;politeness markers\u0026rsquo; and \u0026lsquo;understaters\u0026rsquo;, consistent with a prior study where \u0026lsquo;understaters\u0026rsquo; took precedence over \u0026lsquo;politeness markers\u0026rsquo; (Su \u0026amp; Ren, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR30\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2017\u003c/span\u003e). One plausible interpretation is that both mainland Chinese and Malaysian Chinese cultures prioritize politeness, and these lexical/internal modifiers serve to enhance the perceived politeness of their requests. Moreover, the regular incorporation of internal modifications in Chinese direct requests serves to mitigate the force of the speech act, playing a crucial role in elevating the overall politeness level (Ren, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR24\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2018\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eTurning to syntactic internal modifications, both groups employed distinct syntactic strategies to mitigate the impact of their requests. The prevalent use of \u0026lsquo;interrogatives\u0026rsquo; by both groups mirrors the findings of a previous study by Su \u0026amp; Ren (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR30\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2017\u003c/span\u003e), highlighting the commonality of this modifier in Chinese requests. Similarly, mainland Chinese and Malaysian Chinese participants both utilized \u0026lsquo;conditional clauses\u0026rsquo;, possibly indicating a deliberate expression of reservation. Additionally, the frequent use of \u0026lsquo;interrogatives\u0026rsquo; aligns with the prevalent use of \u0026lsquo;downtoners\u0026rsquo; in Chinese requests, as Chinese sentence final particles commonly serve the function of forming questions (Li \u0026amp; Thompson, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR20\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e1981\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv id=\"Sec18\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e\u003ch2\u003e5.3. External Modification\u003c/h2\u003e\u003cp\u003eRegarding external modifications, both mainland Chinese participants and Malaysian Chinese participants exhibit a similar pattern in employing external modifiers. The frequencies of \u0026lsquo;alerters\u0026rsquo; (f\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;388 for mainland Chinese, f\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;445 for Malaysian Chinese) and \u0026lsquo;grounders\u0026rsquo; (f\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;265 for mainland Chinese, f\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;266 for Malaysian Chinese) stand out as the most frequently utilized strategies among both groups, aligning with findings from prior research. Specifically, the substantial use of \u0026lsquo;alerters\u0026rsquo; mirrors rates observed in Ren (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR24\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2018\u003c/span\u003e), while the prevalence of \u0026lsquo;grounders\u0026rsquo; is consistent with rates reported in studies by Han (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR16\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2012\u003c/span\u003e), Ren (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR24\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2018\u003c/span\u003e) and Zhang (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR35\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e1995\u003c/span\u003e). The prevalence of these two external modifiers among mainland Chinese and Malaysian Chinese participants may be attributed to their inclination to anticipate the risk of rejection in their requests, thereby preserving the face of both the requester and the requestee.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhile there were similarities in the use of mitigating external modifiers between mainland Chinese and Malaysian Chinese individuals, differences emerge when considering specific external modifiers within the mitigating external modifiers category. Mainland Chinese participants employed \u0026lsquo;promise\u0026rsquo;, \u0026lsquo;promise of reward\u0026rsquo;, and \u0026lsquo;sweetener\u0026rsquo; more frequently than their Malaysian counterparts. Two factors may contribute to the higher incidence of these individual external modifiers among mainland Chinese participants. Firstly, mainland Chinese culture, characterized by collectivism, places a high value on group harmony and social bonds, potentially motivating the use of \u0026lsquo;promise\u0026rsquo; and \u0026lsquo;promise of reward\u0026rsquo; modifiers to maintain cohesion and ensure commitment fulfillment. In contrast, Malaysian Chinese individuals, influenced by a more diverse and multicultural environment, may exhibit more individualistic tendencies, reducing reliance on such indirect tactics. Secondly, mainland Chinese participants might prefer subtle and indirect communication to uphold politeness and avoid causing offense. The use of \u0026lsquo;promise\u0026rsquo; and \u0026lsquo;promise of reward\u0026rsquo; can be viewed as more polite ways of conveying intentions or commitments. Malaysian Chinese individuals, operating within a different cultural context, may lean towards more straightforward communication.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe utilization of mitigating external modifiers, such as \u0026lsquo;apology\u0026rsquo; and \u0026lsquo;getting a pre-commitment\u0026rsquo;, was noticeably more prevalent in requests from Malaysian Chinese individuals compared to those from mainland Chinese individuals. This difference may be attributed to the fact that Malaysian Chinese participants often do not frequently use Mandarin Chinese in their daily lives and lack confidence in speaking this language. Their increased reliance on \u0026lsquo;apology\u0026rsquo; and \u0026lsquo;getting a pre-commitment\u0026rsquo; external modifiers may stem from this lack of confidence. Two factors could account for these differences. Firstly, the Malaysian Chinese community is influenced by various languages and dialects, including Mandarin, Cantonese, Hokkien, and Malay. The heightened use of \u0026lsquo;apology\u0026rsquo; and \u0026lsquo;getting a pre-commitment\u0026rsquo; might serve as an adaptation to the linguistic nuances of different languages and dialects. Secondly, Malaysian Chinese culture places a stronger emphasis on politeness and respect in interpersonal communication. The use of modifiers like \u0026lsquo;apology\u0026rsquo; or \u0026lsquo;getting a pre-commitment\u0026rsquo; may be perceived as a means to demonstrate deference and uphold harmonious relationships with others.\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/div\u003e"},{"header":"6. Conclusion","content":"\u003cp\u003eThe objective of this study is to examine the similarities and similarities in request head act strategy, internal modification, and external modification when mainland Chinese participants requested from Malaysian Chinese interlocutor and Malaysian Chinese participants requested from mainland Chinese interlocutor. The study reveals that mainland Chinese and Malaysian Chinese participants demonstrated more similarities than differences in their utilization of request head act strategies, internal modifications, and external modifications. The insights gained from this research have the potential to enhance communication and mitigate potential misunderstandings between the mainland Chinese and Malaysian Chinese communities. Additionally, it contributes to the field of pragmatics and aids in the advancement of the CCSARP theoretical framework.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis study is not without its limitations. One constraint is the relatively small number of participants in each group, which may impact the generalizability of the findings. To improve the robustness of future research, it is recommended to conduct larger-scale studies. Furthermore, given that the majority of participants in this study were college students, they may not fully represent the entire populations of both China and Malaysia. Subsequent studies could aim for greater inclusivity by involving participants from various backgrounds and walks of life in society.\u003c/p\u003e"},{"header":"Declarations","content":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eData Availability Statement\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe datasets generated during and/or analysed during the current study are not publicly available due to contract signed with participants, but are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eCompeting interests\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe author(s) declare no competing interests.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eEthical approval\u0026nbsp;\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eApproval was obtained from ***. (Ethics approval number: ***).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eInformed consent\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eInformed consent was obtained from all participants.\u003c/p\u003e\u003ch2\u003eAuthor Contribution\u003c/h2\u003e\u003cp\u003eMP conducted the literature review, collected and analyzed data, and wrote the full paper.HAH helped with improving the research questions, methodology, and research design.\u003c/p\u003e\u003ch2\u003eAcknowledgement\u003c/h2\u003e\u003cp\u003eI would like to extend my heartfelt thanks to the anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments.\u003c/p\u003e"},{"header":"References","content":"\u003col\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e[Author 2023]. Details omitted for double-anonymized reviewing.\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eAkmal, H., Syahriyani, A., \u0026amp; Handayani, T. (2022). 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A cross-cultural pragmatic study of rapport-management strategies in Chinese and English academic upward request emails. \u003cem\u003eLanguage and Intercultural Communication\u003c/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003e17\u003c/em\u003e(2), 210\u0026ndash;228. https://doi.org/10.1080/14708477.2016.1253707\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003c/ol\u003e"}],"fulltextSource":"","fullText":"","funders":[],"hasAdminPriorityOnWorkflow":false,"hasManuscriptDocX":true,"hasOptedInToPreprint":true,"hasPassedJournalQc":"","hasAnyPriority":false,"hideJournal":false,"highlight":"","institution":"","isAcceptedByJournal":false,"isAuthorSuppliedPdf":false,"isDeskRejected":"","isHiddenFromSearch":false,"isInQc":false,"isInWorkflow":false,"isPdf":false,"isPdfUpToDate":true,"isWithdrawnOrRetracted":false,"journal":{"display":true,"email":"[email protected]","identity":"humanities-and-social-sciences-communications","isNatureJournal":false,"hasQc":true,"allowDirectSubmit":false,"externalIdentity":"palcomms","sideBox":"Learn more about [Humanities \u0026 Social Sciences Communications](http://www.nature.com/palcomms/)","snPcode":"41599","submissionUrl":"https://submission.springernature.com/new-submission/41599/3","title":"Humanities and Social Sciences Communications","twitterHandle":"","acdcEnabled":true,"dfaEnabled":true,"editorialSystem":"stoa","reportingPortfolio":"Nature AJ","inReviewEnabled":true,"inReviewRevisionsEnabled":false},"keywords":"request head act strategy, internal modification, external modification, Mainland Chinese Mandarin, Malaysian Chinese Mandarin","lastPublishedDoi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-6385618/v1","lastPublishedDoiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-6385618/v1","license":{"name":"CC BY 4.0","url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"},"manuscriptAbstract":"\u003cp\u003eAlthough few studies explored the request speech act in Mainland Chinese Mandarin and Malaysian Chinese Mandarin, even less attention is paid to the investigation of request speech act in interactions between Mainland Chinese Mandarin and Malaysian Chinese Mandarin. This study aims to investigate the request speech act when mainland Chinese Mandarin speakers and Malaysian Chinese Mandarin speakers request from each other. 1 Malaysian Chinese interlocutor role played with 25 mainland Chinese participants and 1 mainland Chinese interlocutor role played with 25 Malaysian Chinese participants. Role-play instrument was employed as data collection instrument and a modifier theoretical framework was used as data analysis tool. Results indicated that there were more similarities than differences in terms of using request head act strategy, internal modification and external modification. This study developed the existing framework and could help improve the communication between mainland Chinese and Malaysian Chinese community.\u003c/p\u003e","manuscriptTitle":"Request Speech Act: A Comparison of Mainland Chinese Mandarin and Malaysian Chinese Mandarin in Interaction","msid":"","msnumber":"","nonDraftVersions":[{"code":1,"date":"2025-07-07 14:14:08","doi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-6385618/v1","editorialEvents":[{"type":"communityComments","content":0},{"type":"editorInvitedReview","content":"","date":"2026-05-10T05:12:21+00:00","index":"hide","fulltext":""},{"type":"reviewerAgreed","content":"26038869114082039982324005471907491446","date":"2026-02-03T04:54:43+00:00","index":"hide","fulltext":""},{"type":"reviewerAgreed","content":"297392284542322671892058221477838507685","date":"2025-11-07T04:09:23+00:00","index":"hide","fulltext":""},{"type":"editorInvitedReview","content":"","date":"2025-11-05T12:38:37+00:00","index":"hide","fulltext":""},{"type":"reviewerAgreed","content":"290388157714211793621610989252694853772","date":"2025-09-08T01:56:17+00:00","index":"hide","fulltext":""},{"type":"reviewersInvited","content":"","date":"2025-07-03T12:33:08+00:00","index":"","fulltext":""},{"type":"editorInvited","content":"","date":"2025-06-07T12:05:39+00:00","index":"","fulltext":""},{"type":"editorAssigned","content":"","date":"2025-06-07T11:54:29+00:00","index":"","fulltext":""},{"type":"checksComplete","content":"","date":"2025-04-25T12:11:12+00:00","index":"","fulltext":""},{"type":"submitted","content":"Humanities and Social Sciences Communications","date":"2025-04-06T08:24:21+00:00","index":"","fulltext":""}],"status":"published","journal":{"display":true,"email":"[email protected]","identity":"humanities-and-social-sciences-communications","isNatureJournal":false,"hasQc":true,"allowDirectSubmit":false,"externalIdentity":"palcomms","sideBox":"Learn more about [Humanities \u0026 Social Sciences Communications](http://www.nature.com/palcomms/)","snPcode":"41599","submissionUrl":"https://submission.springernature.com/new-submission/41599/3","title":"Humanities and Social Sciences Communications","twitterHandle":"","acdcEnabled":true,"dfaEnabled":true,"editorialSystem":"stoa","reportingPortfolio":"Nature AJ","inReviewEnabled":true,"inReviewRevisionsEnabled":false}}],"origin":"","ownerIdentity":"a0f8064c-2f8c-4176-b509-88ff53a36930","owner":[],"postedDate":"July 7th, 2025","published":true,"recentEditorialEvents":[{"type":"editorInvitedReview","content":"","date":"2026-05-10T05:12:21+00:00","index":80,"fulltext":""}],"rejectedJournal":[],"revision":"","amendment":"","status":"under-review","subjectAreas":[{"id":51086639,"name":"Humanities/Language and linguistics"},{"id":51086640,"name":"Social science/Language and linguistics"}],"tags":[],"updatedAt":"2025-07-07T14:14:08+00:00","versionOfRecord":[],"versionCreatedAt":"2025-07-07 14:14:08","video":"","vorDoi":"","vorDoiUrl":"","workflowStages":[]},"version":"v1","identity":"rs-6385618","journalConfig":"researchsquare"},"__N_SSP":true},"page":"/article/[identity]/[[...version]]","query":{"redirect":"/article/rs-6385618","identity":"rs-6385618","version":["v1"]},"buildId":"8U1c8b4HqxoKbykW_rLl7","isFallback":false,"isExperimentalCompile":false,"dynamicIds":[84888],"gssp":true,"scriptLoader":[]}