Within the Nigerian context, the communicative approach to ESL teaching and learning may be said to be in its early stages of development. This is evident in the overemphasis of grammatical competence in the current English language curriculum and its implementation in classrooms at all levels of education. Furthermore, there appears to be a dearth of research in the field of interlanguage pragmatics from the perspective of Nigerian ESL learners. Consequently, knowledge of the pragmatic features of the English of Nigerian learners is correspondingly inadequate, leaving little basis for the teaching and learning of pragmatic competence, which according to Finegan (2008), is an important factor in the achievement of fluency in an L2. This study investigated the request realisation strategies of Nigerian undergraduate ESL learners whose native language is Igbo. The data was elicited using a discourse completion task, and analysed using the CCSARP (Cross-Cultural Speech Act Realization Project) coding scheme (Blum-Kulka, House and Kasper 1989). The findings revealed a general preference for directness and hearer orientation in request production. Recommendations were made as regards integrating both linguistic and pragmatic competence into the ESL curriculum.

Keywords: interlanguage pragmatics, pragmatic competence, speech act, request strategies