5.0 Introduction

The previous chapter traced the emergence of the strategies and different linguistic exponents that Yao used to realise requests, and it addressed the following research question: What range of strategies and linguistic forms does a child use to realise requests in a second language and what is the pattern of their development?

In an attempt to answer this research question, a detailed examination was made of direct and conventionally indirect strategies. In this chapter, we will focus on Yao's use of nonconventionally indirect strategies, which form a distinct category that we shall refer to as hints. As pointed out in the previous chapter, unlike the other two strategies, hints are basically open-ended in propositional content, linguistic form, and pragmatic force. Neither the action to be performed by the interlocutor nor the goal of the speaker is mentioned and therefore the illocutionary force is not explicitly expressed. In hints, the degree of inference is greater than in both direct and conventionally indirect strategies. Hints are for these reasons a more creative use of language than the other strategies.

5.1 Identifying Hints in Context

Because there are no formal limitation on hints, the interpretation of hints depends largely on the context, with the same utterance having a broad range of illocutionary force. If the same utterance can express such different intentions (e.g. a literal meaning and a requestive hint) how can we know which the speaker intends?

Depending on the context, questions concerning location, such as 'where is my pen?', can function also as requestive hints to give the item to the speaker. In such contexts, addressees become aware of the types of goods that they are expected to supply. One of the typical settings is the classroom during group activities, where several children are sitting at a table and sharing things. During such activities in Yao's classroom, we observed many questions concerning location (e.g. 'where are the scissors?'). Those at play regularly heard such questions as requests.