International Science Community Association Research Journal of Recent Sciences 2277 - 2502 3 5 2014 May 2 Internal/External Modifiers in Request Speech Act among Iranian Study Abroad Learners 55 64 EN Mohammad Aghaei 1 Department of Business Management, Branch, Tarbiat Moddares University, Tehran, IRAN Hayati Mina 2 Master of Executive Management from Alborz University, IRAN Amin Asadollahi 3 Department of Business Management, Science and Research Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, IRAN mohammadmota Amir 1 Department Law of Islamic Azad University, Damghan Branch, IRAN Alirezahasani 2 Aghaei Mohammad 1 Department of Business Management, Branch, Shahid Beheshti University (SBU), Tehran, IRAN Jabarzadeh Karbasi 2 Master of Business Management, Researcher at theETKA Research and Development Center, Tehran, IRAN Master of Business Management, Arak Branch, Islamic Azad University, Arak, IRAN Bahram 3 Kajian Omid 4 Singh Dhanesh 1 Department of Chemistry, K.G. Arts and Science P.G. College, Raigarh, CG, INDIA Singh JairamPrasad 2 Department of Chemistry, R.K.D. College, Patna Bihar, INDIA Kumar JangdeAshok 3 Forouz 1 Faculty of Management and Economic, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, IRAN LotfollahDehkordi1 2 Department of Management, Economics and Accounting, Payam Noor University, Tehran, IRAN JovkarAli Akbar 3 Payam Noor University, Tehran, IRAN ZeynolAbedin Rahmani 4 AbbasiHossein Esfanjani 5 Sadjadi Masoud 1 Department of Urban Planning, Islamic Azad University, Boroujerd Science and Research Branch, IRAN Mahmood Mohammadi 2 Department of Urban Planning, Art University of Isfahan, IRAN Samad Aali 1 Department of Management, Qeshm International Branch, Islamic Azad University, Qeshm, IRAN Abdulhamid Ibrahimi 2 Department of Management, Central Tehran Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, IRAN RezaMirabi Vahid 3 BandarAbbas Faculty of Medicine, Hormozgan University of Medical Sciences, BandarAbbas, IRAN Shahram Zare 4 Hassan RasouliKhorshidi 1 Department of studies in Linguistics, KIKS, University of Mysore, Manasagangotri, Mysore-06, INDIA Subbakrishna Rangasawmy 2 Central Institute of Indian Languages (CIIL), Masagangotri, Mysore-570006, INDIA > Research Paper 2013 10 7 2014 May 2 Request as the most frequent speech act in communication, has been investigated enough in inter language pragmatics and cross-cultural studies. However, most of these investigations were cross-sectional studies. The present longitudinal study aimed to focus on the learners’ use of internal and external modifiers among Iranian study abroaders. A Discourse Completion Task (DCT) on request was administered to a group of 72 Iranian English language learners who enrolled in a study abroad program in language institutes in Mysore, India. This questionnaire was given to these participants at three phases over time as a pre-test (at the beginning), post-test 1 (after three months), and post-test 2 (after six months). A group of 60 native speakers also filled the questionnaire to provide the researcher with criteria for a comparison. The elicited data reveal that the number of employed internal and external modifiers increased in each phase compared with the previous one. The results in this study further indicated that a sustained sojourn in the L2 context provides a positive impact on the study abroad learners’ development in the use of internal and external modifiers. Furthermore, findings from this study show that longer length of stay helps the learners to modify their request utterances more skillfully with internal and external modifiers to make them appropriate according to the context. Copyright@ International Science Community Association