Second Language Acquisition of Spanish Service Industry Requests in an Immersion Context

The current study examines English-speaking learners of Spanish and their pragmatic development of request forms during a six-week immersion program in Madrid, Spain. Elicited production and intuition data were analyzed, focusing on personal deictic orientation, directness evidenced by clause type, and the use of por favor 'please,' and comparing learners to native speakers of Peninsular Spanish. Results indicate pragmatic acquisition over the short-term program, suggested by a change in the learners' produced requests and intuitions regarding requests and also an increase in the pragmatic appropriateness of leaners' requests and intuitions over the program. Importantly, these results demonstrate that pragmatic acquisition can occur during a short-term immersion program, and during one without any pragmatic intervention. The discussion addresses potentially important programmatic variables, developmental patterns, and also an interlanguage perspective of requests, considering grammatical form, speech act, and illocutionary force in Spanish and English as challenges for learners.