Request Strategies in Business Email Writing: Investigating Chinese EFL Learners’ Written Pragmatic Ability

To investigate the written pragmatic ability of Chinese EFL learners in business email communication, this study analyzed 29 email responses produced by senior Business English majors using the Cross-Cultural Speech Act Realization Project (CCSARP) coding framework. The analysis focused on students’ preferences in request strategies and their use of mitigation devices. Results showed a strong preference for conventionally direct request strategies (75.86% of all requests), typically marked by minimal mitigation-often limited to basic politeness markers such as “please.” There was almost no use of non-conventionally indirect strategies, with hints accounting for only 3.45%. These findings indicate a limited pragmatic repertoire and highlight the urgent need for explicit, pragmatic-focused instruction in Chinese EFL writing classrooms, particularly integrating strategies for mitigation and indirectness, to enhance learners’ ability to produce more effective and socially appropriate requests in business email communication.