Lingua Cultura, 18.
July 2024, 29-39 DOI: 10.
21512/lc.
P-ISSN: 1978-8118
E-ISSN: 2460-710X
INDONESIANS AND AMERICANS BILINGUAL REQUEST STRATEGIES
IN INDONESIAN AND ENGLISH
Imelda Wahyuni Husein1*.
Aceng Ruhendi Syaifullah2.
Eri Kurniawan3 Doctoral of Linguistics.
Postgraduate School Program.
Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia Bandung.
Indonesia 40154 imeldahusein18@gmail.
2acengruhendisaifullah@upi.
3eri_kurniawan@upi.
1,2,3
Received: 17th October 2023/Revised: 14th March 2024/Accepted: 22nd March 2024 How to Cite: Husein.
Syaifullah.
, & Kurniawan.
Indonesians and Americans bilingual request strategies in Indonesian and English.
Lingua Cultura, 18.
, 29-39.
https://doi.
org/10.
21512/lc.
ABSTRACT
The research aimed to investigate the changes in the request strategies of Indonesians and Americans when they spoke English and Indonesian.
In cross-cultural communication, several things needed to be considered to avoid misunderstanding, such as the addresseeAos knowledge, experience, culture, and value.
Different kinds of request strategies in intercultural communication between Indonesians and Americans could lead to misunderstanding.
The research applied a qualitative research involving five Indonesian and American speakers who speak English and Indonesian fluently.
The data were collected through multiple resources such as the Discourse Completion Test (DCT) with certain situations, which was distributed to the participants, and observation and interview during the meeting with the participants.
The findings show that Indonesians tend to be more direct when they make requests in Indonesian, while they change into indirect request strategies when making requests in English, while American participants tend to be indirect when making requests in English even though some of them are direct and changing into direct strategies when making a request in Indonesian.
It also reveals that Indonesians tend to be more direct than Americans when they use their native language.
It contradicts other studies that say Indonesians tend to use indirect requests, which also influences Americans in how they make requests in Indonesia.
Therefore, it is suggested that intercultural knowledge is important in language learning to avoid misunderstanding due to the differences in norms, values, and beliefs.
Keywords: bilingual, request strategies.
Indonesian.
American, cross-cultural communication INTRODUCTION The forms of human communication are language, signal, talk, written, and gesture.
It means that humans cannot be separated from the use of language in their daily lives.
Speaking another language can be very challenging.
Considering their native cultural background and the target languageAos cultural background, there are some different values when they speak Indonesian and English, which will create different phenomena.
Interestingly, being fluent in another language is not enough to communicate well with other people since it is important to understand their culture and values so there will not be misunderstandings or miscommunication since language affects how they think.
Also, low international experience and cultural sensitivity *Corresponding Author can lead to issues between speakers.
That is why having awareness, tolerance, and sensitivity towards intercultural communication is important to avoid misunderstanding and conflict.
Indonesians and Americans have different values that influence how they talk and act.
These differences will affect how they communicate, and sometimes, these differences create some conflicts, such as ambiguity, language issues, and contradictory conflict styles.
Making a request in another language could also create a conflict due to different cultures and values.
Several kinds of research have been conducted related to this topic.
In research on Persian preschool children.
Sadighi et al.
have found that there is a frequency of the use of English request strategies features in their first language.
This indicates that exposure to foreign language learning brings changes in the features of their first language strategy.
First Language/Native Language (L.
Arabic also uses a direct request strategy instead of an indirect one when they request English.
Meanwhile, it is essential to use indirect requests when speaking English (Lenchuk & Ahmed, 2.
Shafran .
has also tried to explore the use of AopleaseAo in the production of requests by advanced L1 Hebrew and L1 Arabic speakers of English.
She has found that the use of direct requests has decreased, and the use of indirect requests has increased in both groups of speakers as the status of the addressee has gone from lower to higher than that of the speaker.
Other researchers investigate the request strategy when participants make a request using the Discourse Completion Test (DCT).
Thus, the research focuses on how Indonesians and Americans influence each other when they make a request in both languages and how they adopt politeness strategies using DCT, observation, and interview.
The research aims to discover how Indonesian and American multilingual/bilinguals express their politeness when they make a request in Indonesian and English and how these multilingual speakers adopt their foreign language politeness It is also expected to give a contribution to people living in multicultural areas, multilingualism research in Indonesia, and further research.
Hopefully, the research can make people living in multicultural areas aware of how some people react to something differently so that it will create less misunderstanding.
Meanwhile, multilingualism research in Indonesia can hopefully be one of the considerations for Indonesian linguists since there have not been many studies about directness and politeness changes in Indonesia.
For other researchers, the research is expected to serve as an additional source, especially for those who are researching multilingualism and politeness change.
Language is the most crucial part of human life, as it is known that people use it for everything daily.
it could not be imagined how this world would be without language.
Without a language, there would be no knowledge that could be received.
There are over 6000 languages spoken in the world today (Lux & Vu, 2.
, and this does not include dialects.
Each language has certain things in common, such as a system of sounds, words, grammatical structure, and strategies for using the language in some ways.
There are many languages spoken in Indonesia.
Basically.
Indonesians are automatically bilingual since their first language depends on where they come from.
Indonesian is their second language since it symbolizes national identity, a means of unity, and a medium of national communication (Stockton, 2.
That makes English a foreign language in Indonesia, as Stockton .
has stated that Indonesian authorities see English as a tool in service only.
Meanwhile, according to Zeigler and Camarota .
, 48% of the population in AmericaAos five biggest cities speak a language other than English at They also add that more than a million people speak Spanish.
Chinese.
Tagalog.
Vietnamese.
Arabic.
French, and Korean.
As people know.
America is a country where people migrate, and it makes America also as multicultural as Indonesia.
Indonesia and the United States of America are multicultural countries, which is a characteristic of these countries.
Multilingual societies have several languages in particular areas with several ethnic groups.
However, multilingualism can cause problems.
for instance, minority groups are forced to master at least two languages (Suprayetno.
Pohan, & Imdazu, 2.
, and this is what happened to other ethnic groups in the United States of America and Indonesia, where people need to speak more than one language when they are in that country.
For example.
Spanish speakers need to speak English in the United States of America, and some other ethnic groups in Indonesia need to speak Indonesian besides their local language.
In accordance with that, people need to acquire three important cultural competencies such as being motivated, having the knowledge to draw on, and possessing communication skills to connect with others, which also means that they need to have communicative competence in using the language according to the norms and appropriateness in a certain context (Samovar et al.
, 2017.
Savignon.
Other than communicative competence, people also need to have cross-cultural understanding to recognize cultural differences and react according to a given situation.
In cross-cultural communication, comparing and contrasting differences and similarities between cultures are part of the key to the success of the communication, so they can analyze, observe, and listen so they can adapt it (Lantz-Deaton & Golubeva.
In line with that.
Li .
has suggested that having good pragmatic competence in cross-cultural communication is important for the target language It seems that speaking the target language without any grammatical mistakes is not the only thing that needs to be acquired by the speakers since the failure of having cultural awareness and L2/L3 .
oreign languag.
pragmatic input can be vital in cross-cultural communication.
People from different cultures can perceive speech acts differently since speech acts can be influenced by sociolinguistic context, and contextual and situational norms in the speech community.
This theory has been proven by research conducted by Zand-Moghadam and Adeh .
that Turkmen-Persian bilinguals who speak English are better at using appropriate speech acts than monolingual Persians who speak English since they have more pragmatic and metapragmatic awareness.
Another research has also found that people whose English is their second/third language have pragmatic awareness and are able to make a request appropriately and even better than native speakers of English in terms of politeness (Winans, 2.
When people from different cultures interact, they are required to understand the differences because different cultures have different opinions and values towards everything.
It is important to be aware of this to avoid conflict because cross-cultural communication can create LINGUA CULTURA.
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When Indonesians and Americans interact, they are in cross-cultural communication, where two people from different countries interact, and, of course, they have different values.
Americans have completely different values compared to Indonesians.
According to Idris and Muftia .
American values in verbal communication are direct, enthusiastic, assertive, persuasive, showing modesty, speaking at a higher volume, and following low-context culture, while in non-verbal communication, they tend to use eye contact, avoid physical contact, appreciating private space, using gestures, smiling, and using basic greetings.
In a low-context culture, verbal communication is more appreciated than non-verbal communication (Bao & Charoenroop, 2.
BakicMiric et al.
have also claimed that Americans are using low power distance, individual, masculine, low uncertainty avoidance society, and long-term Meanwhile.
Indonesian values include group harmony and cohesiveness, respecting hierarchical relationships, friendliness, less emphasis on punctuality, and being underpinned by traditional lore (Moffatt, 2.
Hapsari and Wahyuningtias .
have also claimed that Indonesians are polite, friendly, and noble.
There is also an etiquette called tata krama in Indonesian norms that must follow the ways of communication regarding tata krama rules, such as considering age, gender, social distance, and the situation (Oktavia et al.
, 2.
They also state that in terms of making a request, most Indonesians tend to use indirect strategies.
Mogea .
claims that people from China.
Vietnam, and Saudi Arabia are high-context cultures, and they emphasize nonverbal and subtle situational cues when they communicate with others.
In Indonesia, a personAos title, social status, and reputation are important to be considered.
On the other hand, people from Europe and North America reflect a low-context culture in which body language, titles, or designations are secondary to spoken and written words.
In a high-context culture, age, seniority, and position are highly valued, while in low-context cultures, valid contracts will tend to be written, worded in detail, and legalized.
It can be drawn that Indonesia has a high-context culture while America has a lowcontext culture.
Based on those explanations, it can be seen that Indonesians and Americans do not share the same values, such as .
individualism and privacy are important for Americans.
Indonesians are more group orientation.
Americans value time and must follow a schedule.
Indonesians are used to not being punctual.
Americans look to the future, not the past.
Indonesians live according to tradition.
Indonesians adopt contrastive values compared to Americans.
Americans are more direct than Indonesians because Indonesians should act and say something indirectly to avoid conflict with Moffatt .
has also classified several things that are considered taboo and culturally inappropriate to do, such as eating, passing dishes, giving, receiving objects, shaking hands with the left hand, pointing with feet or a forefinger is considered impolite, and also touching someoneAos head.
By understanding these differences, low international experience and cultural sensitivity can lead to issues between speakers because different perceptions of the same situation may cause misunderstanding since individuals tend to transfer the forms and meaning of their native language and culture to the foreign language because of their mental sets already are influenced by the experience, habits, and culture.
Misunderstanding can also occur in crosscultural communication when they are making a request since some are considered polite and some are not.
A request is an illocutionary directive speech act which intends to get the hearer to do something in particular circumstances which will make the hearer do the action in the normal course and as a kind of directive, requests have a competitive illocutionary function because it seeks an accommodation in competing goals (Searle, 1969 as cited in Bao and Charoenroop, 2023.
Leech, 2.
According to Leech .
, the request is normally considered a speech event that gives a hearer a choice as to whether to do the act, and he also adds that there is no clear boundary between order/command and requests, but rather a continuous option from several options to no option given for a Brown and Levinson in Alzahrani .
have also stated that speakers may use between direct and indirect strategies depending on the social distance, relative power, and degree of imposition.
Meanwhile.
Leech .
has proposed several parameters of request territory.
The first is O-focus and S-focus, in which this parameter occurs when a request is seen as an O-oriented speech event, but it appears there can be an S-focused request, for example, when someone requests permission.
The second is on-record and offrecord strategies, such as .
bald on record, without redress, for example, by saying Auget that bookAy.
do it on record with positive politeness, for example by saying Auhoney, get that bookAy .
ndearment is seen as a form of positive politenes.
do it on record with negative politeness, for example by saying AuCould you get me that book?Ay.
do it off record, for example by saying AuI am so hungry.
Are you going anywhere near McDonaldAos?Ay.
do not do the FTA or silence.
The third is a digression on non-discreteness in which there is no discrete or categorical difference between a request and an order.
however, it can be distinct based on the degree of optionality for the hearer to perform the act as it is said.
So, a request refers to the desired Leech .
has also added several strategies for directiveness, such as .
direct strategies are divided into two strategies, and imperatives tend to use bald-on-record.
On-record indirect strategies using modal auxiliaries such as Aowill youAo.
Aocan youAo.
Aocould youAo, and Aowould youAo.
Non-sentential strategies refer to the strategy of requesting without using full .
Hints: Off-record indirect requests Indonesians and Americans Bilingual.
(Imelda Wahyuni Husein, et al.
define several characteristics of off-record indirect requests .
, such as statement and question hints.
Meanwhile, in the Indonesian language, requesting in a polite way usually starts with several words such as AotolongAo,Ao cobaAo.
AoharapAo, and AomohonAo.
however, the request that starts with the word AomintaAo without any other polite words is considered less polite, for example when someone says.
AuPak, saya minta diantar ke rumah temen dulu.
PakAy is less polite than AuPak, saya minta tolong, tolong antar saya ke rumah temen dulu.
Pak.
Ay (Rahardi, 2.
It can be seen that the first request is more direct than the second request.
In making a polite request.
Americans usually use politeness markers at the end of the sentence, such as AopleaseAo, meanwhile Indonesian uses AotolongAo.
AoharapAo, and AosilahkanAo at the beginning of the sentence, and they use the suffix AokanAo or particle AolahAo to emphasize the command (Tridinanti & Sari.
However, there are many different ways of making requests in different languages, and that is why it is difficult for some people to decide which polite form to use in some situations when they speak second languages (Supriatnaningsih.
Nurjaleka, & Nurhayati.
Other researchers have investigated the request strategy when speaking English compared to using their native language using DCT only.
Thus, in order to address the gap in knowing how intercultural communication influences the participantAos request strategy, the research focuses on observing their request strategy in both Indonesian and English and also their intercultural experience, especially the intercultural communication between Indonesians and Americans using DCT, observation, and interview.
To address that gap, the current proposed research seeks three research questions: .
How do Indonesians express politeness when requesting in Indonesian and English? .
How do Americans express politeness when requesting in English and Indonesian? .
How do these multilingual speakers adopt their foreign language politeness strategy? In relation to these research questions, this research is projected to discover how Indonesian and American multilingual/bilinguals express their politeness when they make a request in Indonesian and English and how these multilingual speakers adopt their foreign language politeness strategy.
METHODS
The research uses a triangulation case study design to collect the data based on real-life events.
According to Hamied .
, a case study is used to understand a case in-depth and helps answer descriptive and explanatory questions.
The participants are purposive, in which they are selected because of who they are and what they know (Hamied, 2.
Five Indonesian and five American participants who spoke both Indonesian and English fluently are involved in this research.
Their experience and ability to speak another language are proven based on their IELTS score for Indonesian citizens or experience living in an English-speaking country.
All Indonesian participants had seven on their IELTS score.
Meanwhile.
Americans are proven based on how long they have been living in Indonesia or how long they have been learning Indonesian.
The research also uses the Discourse Completion Test (DCT).
DCT has several administrative advantages and is practically helpful for politeness study, especially in cross-cultural and inter-language contexts (Billmyer & Varghese, 2.
They also state that DCT is the only data collection that provides large amounts of comparable data in an unlimited number of languages, allowing for generalization and acceptance in cultures and comparing politeness norms across The DCT consists of ten scenarios based on daily and academic life designed to elicit requests when they speak Indonesian and English.
DCT is formulated in English and consists of ten scenarios categorized by low social distance and equal social power.
The observation is also used in the research to observe what happens during the interaction of Indonesian and American multilingual people when making a request using both Indonesian and English.
Observation also enables researchers to gather data on physical, human, interactional, and program settings (Cohen.
Manion, & Morrison, 2.
The observation occurs in a setting where the phenomenon of interest occurs in a cafy where people usually hang out and have discussions.
In the research, the researchers are the observers as participants since the observer joins the conversation, and there is a possibility that the participants make a request to the observer.
Observation sheets are provided by the observer.
Field notes are also used to describe the setting, people, activities, direct quotations, and observer comments.
Field notes are highly descriptive that describe the participants, setting, activities or behavior of the participants, and what the observer does.
Reflective comments also include the researcherAos feelings, reactions, hunches, initial interpretations, speculations, and working Interviews are also conducted in the research.
According to Merriam .
, an interview is a process in which the researchers and participants engage in a conversation focused on questions related to the study in order to get specific information about how they acquire and understand the target language culture and how they learn English or Indonesian until they become fluent in speaking English or Indonesian fluently, how they find it living abroad, how it affects the way they think and talk, and what are the strategies used when they find any cultural difficulties.
It is also used to discover why they change their politeness strategies when speaking different languages.
The interview is used when the researchers cannot observe behavior, feelings, and how people interpret the world or past events.
The interviews are person-to-person, in which one person gives information from another in a group or collective format.
The questions used in this research are more about background, feelings.
LINGUA CULTURA.
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First, the data from DCT is analyzed and generalized.
Second, the data from the interview is transcribed, analyzed, and generalized.
Third, the data from observation is also analyzed and generalized.
Lastly, the result is analyzed to determine whether it confirms or contradicts the data collected on DCT.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS
The DCT findings show some changes in how participants make a request when they use Indonesian and English.
The participants are given ten request scenarios, and they have to respond in both Indonesian and English.
All Indonesian participants are Sundanese, and all-American participants are from different states.
However, they all have different kinds of politeness strategies even though they come from the same cultural background.
The analysis result can be seen in Table 1.
Table 1 Indonesian and American Participants DCT Result No.
Situation Participant Your close friend did not return your camera as he would agree to do.
You are alone and in the middle of nowhere and your car has broken down.
You ask for help from people around.
Your student borrowed a different book from the library than the one you needed.
A close friend played music too loudly and you could not get to sleep.
Your colleague put too much sugar in your coffee, and you do not like it.
You missed your last exam, and you ask for a make-up exam to your professor.
You are in a restaurant and asked for more ketchup to the waiter.
Your friend broke your cup when you went camping together.
Request Type Participant Ind Eng No FTA No FTA No FTA No FTA No FTA No FTA Indonesians and Americans Bilingual.
(Imelda Wahyuni Husein, et al.
Request Type Ind Eng No FTA No FTA No FTA No FTA Table 1 Indonesian and American Participants DCT Result (Continue.
No.
Situation You have been working so hard on your paper, but you got C, and you ask your score detail to your professor.
You came to your colleague house, and you ask for some water.
Participant Request Type Participant Ind Eng No FTA No FTA No FTA No FTA Request Type Ind Eng No FTA No FTA D: Direct I: Indirect The findings show that there are some situations where Indonesians who speak English tend to use indirect request strategies when they make a request in English to their friends.
meanwhile, when they talk to Indonesians, they tend to be more direct.
It means that most Indonesians use direct requests when they use the Indonesian language to their closest friend.
however, they switch to indirect requests when they use English.
These findings contradict the claim that say Indonesians have an indirect communication style, while the western cultures tend to use a direct communication style (Mailin et al.
, 2.
The changes also happen to American participants, who change from indirect request strategies to direct request strategies when they speak Indonesian.
However, the research has also found that some Americans use direct strategy constantly in every situation in both languages.
Most participants who are able to change their request strategies the way the people from the target language used it have experience for at least more than two years living in the target language environment or at least have a connection to talk with the native speakers of the target language in their daily life.
Indonesians change their request strategies from direct to indirect requests because they already know how English native speakers use it and to make it more polite since, in the English language and culture, directness is seen as impoliteness because it shows a lack of consideration for face.
This is in line with Litvinova and Larina .
, who reveal that Americans tend to be more indirect and verbose and use both positive and negative politeness strategies compared to Russians.
Another research has also found that Moroccan EFL learners use direct strategies more than American native speakers of English (Abidi.
Based on the DCT and observation results, the changes from direct to indirect mostly occur when both groups switch from English to Indonesian languages.
The changes from direct to indirect requests that happen to Indonesians could be because of the awareness that they have towards the directness they use in Indonesian is offensive and impolite and when they do not change from direct to indirect request.
It could be because they are influenced by their local cultural values, and that is the reason why Nursanti.
Andriyanti, & Wijaya .
have suggested that giving Indonesian people perspective from non-Asian cultures is important to increase their politeness awareness.
Meanwhile, the Americans follow what Indonesians do when they make a request, so they switch from direct to indirect The same changes also happen to British students who study abroad in Germany, where they follow their host community and interact with them so that they are able to change their request strategies to be more direct as well as Germans (Kaltschutz.
Also, it can be seen that most Indonesians use indirect request strategies when they make a request in Indonesian when they talk to someone with a higher power than them, such as their professor or colleagues.
It is proved by Jeanyfer and Tanto .
, who claim that Indonesians tend to use negative politeness with people who have more power than them, while Indonesians mix negative and positive politeness when they talk to people who have less power than them.
English speaking cultures are more into the use of conventional indirect and favor formality and distance (Shafran & Stavans 2.
and that is how American is more indirect when they speak English.
However, they switch to direct requests when they talk to Indonesians because they need to bind with the Indonesian local values.
The use of either direct or indirect request strategies is affected by social distance and power, as Kocku .
has revealed that Turkish speakers use direct and indirect request strategies depending on the variables of power and social distance.
This case also happens in the Arabic LINGUA CULTURA.
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have found that there is no difference between Hebrew and Arabic speakers who speak English as their second or third language.
Also, it is found that both groups use indirect request strategies when they use English.
The observation results also support the DCT results, which show that both American and Indonesian participants who are observed use the same patterns as they used in DCT results.
Each participantAos responses can be seen in Table 2.
The observation results show that Indonesians tend to be more direct when they make a request to a friend or someone who has less or the same power as they do.
It can be seen that Indonesians tend to use direct in informal situations and indirect in formal situations, as it is said that indirectness is required when someone is facing a more formal situation (Alrabee.
Alshbeekat, & Jahamah, 2.
In terms of making a request, the way Indonesians use direct requests influenced Americans who speak Indonesian to make a direct request as well as Indonesian.
It also happens to some Indonesians who speak English, who change it into indirect requests when they make a request in English.
In this case, intercultural pragmatics occurs when participants speak different languages, and all participants tend to apply the target language culture to their language use.
The observation results are surprisingly different from what Oktavia et al.
and Idris and Muftia .
, who have found that Indonesians tend to use indirect and Americans tend to use direct strategies in verbal communication.
As mentioned before.
Americans are more direct than Indonesians because Indonesians should act and say something indirectly to avoid conflict with others, and Americans are more direct.
There is a possibility that the directness of American values that the experts have mentioned does not include language matters such as making a request, and the indirectness of Indonesian values does not include this type of speech act.
However, the use of bald on record, according to research by Sari and Mulyono .
, is to minimize the Face Threatening Act (FTA) by delivering the speech directly to avoid ambiguity and because the speaker wants the hearers to pay attention more to the task given.
The interviews are conducted with all Indonesian and American participants to determine how they adopted politeness strategies for foreign Both American and Indonesian participants are interviewed to define how they deal with cultural difficulties when talking to someone and how they adopt foreign language politeness strategies.
Each participantAos main excerpt is presented in Table 3.
The results show that all Indonesian participants have lived in English-speaking countries such as Australia and the United States of America, and they find several difficulties, such as food, values, social interaction, and accent differences.
Meanwhile, all American participants living in Indonesia for years have experienced several difficulties, such as talking to someone older, making gestures such as pointing and smiling, and facing some privacy questions such as asking about their religion, family, etc.
The word choice since the Indonesian language has a certain level of words that are considered impolite when talking to a different person.
However, the way they adopt politeness strategies in foreign languages is the All Indonesian and American participants use cognitive and social strategies to understand American and Indonesian norms, values, and cultures.
It turns Table 2 Indonesian and American Participants Observation Result Participant Situation and the request in English Asking for another bottle of beer: AuCould I have another one? Thank you?Ay Asking a friend to go together with him: AuCould I go with you instead?Ay Asking a friend to change the music: AuMay I play a song?Ay Asking a friend to drive him home: AuCan you do me a favor? I need a ride!Ay Asking his mom for some money: AuCould you send $30?Ay Asking for a bite of her friendAos food: AuMay I try?Ay Borrowing a book from a friend: AuCould I please borrow your book?Ay Ordering a food: AuCan I have two burgers and two sodas, please!Ay Asking a friend to come to a party: AuI wanna invite you to my birthday party this Saturday.
Ay Asking a friend to share a photo: AuCan you send me the photos?Ay Situation and the request in Indonesian Asking for another bottle of beer: AuMas, minta satu botol lagi?Ay Asking a friend to close the door: AuTutup pintunya.
Ay Asking his friend to sing: AuSaya mau lihat kamu Ay Asking for another bottle of soda: AuSaya minta satu lagi ini?Ay Asking one of his friends for some money: AuSaya mau minta uang!Ay Asking for a menu: AuMbak, lihat menunya, ya!Ay Asking for an astray to a waiter: AuMas, minta asbak, ya!Ay Ordering a food: AuMang, nasgornya 2 ya.
Ay Indonesians and Americans Bilingual.
(Imelda Wahyuni Husein, et al.
Asking a friend to come as fast as he can: AuCepet kesini jangan lama-lama.
Ay Asking a friend to share a photo: AuKirimin fotonya.
Ay out that cognitive and social strategies successfully increase their cultural knowledge, especially in crosscultural communication.
In social strategies, they have the opportunity to be exposed to the environment.
Meanwhile, cognitive strategies are used to help them to observe and analyze the environment.
The researchers also agree that to increase cultural knowledge in using language, social strategy is the best way to do it since it allows people to understand what is happening within the society in which people are involved.
Table 3 Indonesian and American Participants Interview Result Participant (She had been living in the USA for the Fulbright program, and now she works as an instructor and translator at UPT Bahasa Universitas Negeri Gorontalo.
(He worked as a language assistant in Australia for a year.
Now, he is a lecturer at UPI Bandung while pursuing a masterAos degree in Australia.
(She had been living in the USA for the Fulbright scholarship program for a year, and taught BIPA in Victoria.
Australia for a year.
She is now working as an English instructor at Telkom University.
(He lived in the USA for a year for the Fulbright scholarship program, and now, he is working as the Operational Director of Yayasan Berdayakan Anak Bangsa and a BIPA teacher at KBRI Washington DC.
(He has been living in Australia for two years and doing some agricultural work there.
(He had been living in Indonesia for more than five years and teaching in one of the private schools in Bandung.
(He has been living in Indonesia for eight years and is now a teacher at one of the international schools in Bandung.
(She had been living in Indonesia for four years and dating an Indonesian man for three years.
(He has been learning Indonesian for four years, and currently, he is doing his research for his doctoral degree in Indonesi.
Excerpt AuYa kita harus pinter-pinter bisa adaptasi sama sekitar karena dimana bumi dipijak, disitu langit dijunjung.
Jadi mau gamau kita harus bisa adaptasi dan mengikuti sekitar.
Ay (We have to adapt to the surroundings because we have to follow the norms wherever we are.
So, we have to adapt and follow the AuAussie slang was quite challenging because I had no prior knowledge of this.
I hesitate to use these new vocabularies unless I have confirmed their previous usage.
I usually ask what it means and in what context we should use it.
Ay AuThe strategies that I used usually just kept hanging out, socializing with native speakers, and making friends with time.
By doing that.
I know how to use the language properly.
Ay AuJust watch some US pop culture, especially Hollywood movies, and research the city and the campus.
Regarding language barriers and cultural differences, we have to accept the differences and adapt to them because we have prepared all the way from Indonesia to the USA, a liberal country that has different beliefs and religions from us.
Also, it is important to get along with Americans.
that's another reason why I chose to stay with a host family in Ithaca.
Ay AuToleransi dan jangan merasa culture kita paling bagus, harus bisa open minded terhadap perbedaan cultureAy (Being tolerant and not thinking that our culture is better.
We have to be open-minded toward cultural differences.
AuI usually just try to observe how other people talk to each other and try to mimic that.
A few times.
I have had something inappropriate to older folks, but they usually just let it slide.
Indonesians are usually really happy when you put in the effort to try to speak their language and donAot care if you screw up a little here and there.
Ay AuAlways smile, even when you know youAore doing something that might be rude.
I often see drivers doing crazy shit on the road, cutting people off, but the driver just smiles.
A smile always seems to smooth things over.
Ay AuI think I just watch how people react and ask questions if IAom I often ask my boyfriend or friends questions, and they all help me to understand better.
Ay AuFrom my ten-month stay in Jakarta.
I realized Indonesians generally have a high emotional IQ.
They sense my mood by reading my facial expressions and demeanour through body language.
If I smile at them before conversing, the dialogue exchange is always more pleasant and fluid.
One strategy I have employed during my stay here is placing my right hand over my heart when expressing thanks for any kind gesture an Indonesian shows me.
They either follow my lead with a smile or already have their hand over their heart before I do.
All Indonesians value good manners, and the simple act of saying AomakasihAo, despite sometimes being one of the few Indonesian words a foreigner may know, goes a long way, especially in the service industry.
Ay LINGUA CULTURA.
Vol.
18 No.
July 2024, 29-39 Table 3 Indonesian and American Participants Interview Result (Continue.
Participant Excerpt AuI try to avoid taboo subjects so as not to offend Indonesian (He studied Indonesian for three years and had been to people, as they can be touchy topics to talk about.
I use formal Indonesia for several months.
Indonesian, especially when talking to older people or people in positions of power.
CONCLUSIONS
The research has concluded two major The first one is that Indonesians tend to be more direct and use bald-on-record strategies when making a request in Indonesian, while they tend to use conventional and non-conventional indirect strategies when they make a request in English.
On the other hand, almost all-American participants tend to be more indirect when they make a request in English, and they choose to change it to direct request strategies when they make a request in Indonesian.
The second one is that almost all participants experience different kinds of cultural difficulties.
However, they can bind themselves with the culture by observing how people do things to avoid misunderstanding.
All participants agree that imitating how society interacts is the key to binding themselves with others.
The research has analyzed how Indonesians and Americans multilingual/bilingual request strategies in both languages.
According to the findings, it can be seen that having intercultural knowledge is as crucial as having language knowledge.
Fluent in another language means nothing when they do not know how to use it and understand the values and manners in the target language since it will create misunderstanding and miscommunication.
To avoid misunderstanding and miscommunication, people who communicate intensively with people from different cultural backgrounds must have cultural or intercultural Everyone in this world may react differently towards one particular occurrence.
may find one reaction rude and impolite, while others find it normal.
This is a common issue in intercultural Therefore, in accordance with that, the research suggests that having intercultural knowledge in language learning is very important in intercultural communication to avoid misunderstandings and miscommunication due to differences in norms, values, and beliefs and to be bound with the culture of the target language.
The research limitation is that the results are based on a small group of participants, and the participantsAo backgrounds are still varied.
The research would suggest that future researchers consider exploring more about request strategies changing in large numbers of participants since it has limited They could explore how it changes when they make invitations, refusal, apologies, etc.
Future researchers could also include age, gender, and specific cultural background to make it deeper.
The researchers also believe it will benefit multiculturalism in Indonesia and the United States of America, especially in cross- cultural communication.
The research also suggests that people learning a language must also know the target language culture and how they use the language instead of transferring their native language values to the target language use.
REFERENCES