A Pragmatic Study of Requests by Males and Females in Online Religious Forums

Abstract

The current study investigates the request strategies used by males and females in online religious forums. It aims to explore request types realized by linguistic formulas used by males and females when they make requests in computer-mediated communication. The study offers pragmatic and sociolinguistic explanations for these differences. It also discusses the functions of these requestive forms such as asking for more clarifications or to request the addressee to answer a question directly. This study found that there are seven strategies used by the participants to make their requests. Most of which are shared by males and females. The study applied Chi-square test to show whether or not the differences in the use of each type of requests between the two groups (males and females) are statistically significant.