This book examines the acquisition of requests in English by a Japanese girl during her residence in Australia. It focuses on the linguistic repertoire available to the child as she makes requests and varies these to suit different goals and addressees. It helps unravel features of pragmatic development in the child's interlanguage.

Machiko Achiba is a Professor of Applied Linguistics at Tokyo Woman's Christian University (Tokyo Joshi Daigaku) in Japan and has been teaching for many years in the field. Her research interests are pragmatics, second language acquisition, and the methodologies of teaching English as a foreign language. She received her master's degree from Southern Illinois University in the United States and holds her doctorate from La Trobe University in Australia. She is the mother of this study's subject.