The Request Strategy in Communication of Family Members

Abstract

This research studies of the request strategy in the communication of family
member that is important in daily life. The purpose is to study the request strategy
types of a nuclear family consisting of parents and children by setting up a scenario for
the parents to give requests to the children to do something and the social factors of
the speaker’s sexuality that affected to the listener. Data were collected by open-ended
questionnaires.
The results found that there are 10 request strategies in family communication
which are; 1) explanation about advantage and disadvantage, 2) suggestion, 3) question,
4) requirement, 5) stipulation, 6) goodwill expression, 7) alternative offer, 8) rationalization,
9) sarcasm, and 10) Blame. In the relationship side of parents who used the most
explanation about advantage and disadvantage and suggestion in the request strategies,
there was not much difference. In the other strategies, the researcher found that the
fathers usually used the strategies of requirement and alternat ive offer more than
mothers. Then the mothers usually used the strategies of questi on, stipulation,
rationalization, goodwill expression, and sarcasm in descending order of frequency more
than the father. Likewise, the fathers used blame strategy less than the mothers.