Introduction

It is the purpose of this chapter is to take an initial look at the interaction of text schema knowledge and politeness as important factors in interactive EFL writing.

Politeness as an Interactive Strategy?

I do not propose to go into the discussion of whether polite behaviour is by its very nature strategic (which is the approach of Brown & Levinson, 1987 and Leech, 1983) or only conventional (alternative of Fraser, 1990). A decision may not make sense on principle, but rather depend on the specific communicative situation. Here, in letter writing, it seems that certain polite acts are such conventionalised parts of the text schema that their presence can be seen to be 'neutral', pragmatically unmarked, whereas their absence constitutes a (blatantly) impolite face-threatening act (FTA). Thus, politeness would rather boil down to a matter of strategic choice for a textually obligatory act.

Reasons for Deficiencies in EFL Texts

Concerning L2 writing deficiencies and problems, research suggests that pragmatic reasons can outweigh purely linguistic ones, such as shortcomings in grammar and vocabulary. This view is supported by intuitive assessments by language teachers. Thus pragmatic transfer can come into play in three major respects:

• owing to the overall culture-specific text schema;

• to the conventional integration of polite acts in this schema; and

• to the strategic options for an appropriate realisation of the polite acts.

As to the first, much research has been done, dealing with aspects such as linearity vs. descriptive elements and story-in-story (Söter, 1988), use of figurative language (Indrasutra, 1988), of (different) culturally shared knowledge (e.g. in quotations and sayings; cf. Kaplan, 1988). For a short overview, see also Odlin (1989: chap. 4.2. and 4.3).