Gholam Reza Zarei - English Language Center, Isfahan University of Technology
Masoomeh Mohammadi - Department of English, Islamic Azad University, Najaf Abad Branch, Isfahan, Iran

This paper reports the findings of a study designed to investigate English e-requestsof Iranian EFL postgraduate students (i.e., nonnative speakers of English) made totheir professors during their education at Islamic Azad University, Najaf AbadBranch, Isfahan, Iran, to find out types of politeness features employed in the students’e-mails and the extent to which these features might influence the degree of politenessof the students’ e-mails to the faculty. To that end, both quantitative and qualitativeapproaches were employed to investigate ۶۰ English e-mails composed by theparticipants. The findings revealed that the Iranian students’ English e-mails were notoverly adorned with politeness features. The results also indicated that such direct andunmodified e-mails failed to create e-polite messages to the faculty and, therefore,were capable of causing pragmatic failure.

E-mail, Requests, Politeness, Pragmatic failure, Directness, Modification