Previous research on speech acts have examined the production of requests from different perspectives such as: native speakers cross-culturally (Blum-Kulka, House & Kasper, 1989; Márquez-Reiter, 1997, 2000; Lorenzo Díaz, 2016); the development of requests by L2 learners in the classroom (Félix-Brasdefer, 2007; Bardovi-Harlig; 2009) during study abroad (Shively & Cohen, 2008; Czerwionka & Cuza, 2016; Hernández, 2016); and the production of requests by heritage speakers (Pinto & Raschio, 2007; Bernate, 2016). However, the lack of balance in the contexts examined regarding the social variables power, distance, and imposition, as pointed by Czerwionka & Cuza (2017b), makes it difficult to compare the effect of these variables on the request norms. Furthermore, requests likely vary according to other contextual factors as well, but this has received little attention in prior literature. For example, requesting an object from someone compared to requesting an action to be done may have differential effects on request production. Additionally, little research has examined requests by considering the sex of the interlocutors, both speaker and hearer (Bernate, 2016) as well as the differential language patterns among sexes (Eckert & McConnel-Ginet, 2003). 

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The present research examines the production of requests by native speakers of Spanish in 16 different and balanced academic situations. The situations were designed by taking in consideration the three social variables proposed by Brown & Levinson (1987): power, distance, and imposition. The instrument used to collect the data was an online Discourse Completion Task (DCT) which participants had to complete after reading a prompt to request an object or an action. Background information on the participations was collected, and the online DCT allowed the participants to choose the interlocutors and identify their sex and, thus, it shows variability regarding the sex of the participants.

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Preliminary data of 25 participants (400 requests) reinforces the idea that Spanish conventionalized requests are hearer oriented in the 84% of the instances. The most employed strategies are the use of explicit performative verbs (75%) in conjunction with the use of preparatory conditions (62%). After completion of data collection, mixed-effects logistic regression will be used to consider the impact of power, distance, and imposition, the difference in requesting objects and actions, and considering the sex of the interlocutors. This research contributes a balanced design of contextual variables, while also expanding our understanding of contextual variables that shape pragmalinguistic structures.