This study investigated which categories of downgraders in requests is more learnable, and therefore, more teachable. Specifically, the study compared three categories of downgraders: internally modified syntactic downgraders (e.g., conditionals, aspects, interrogatives); internally modified lexical-phrasal downgraders (e.g., politeness markers, hedges, downtoners); and externally modified downgraders (e.g., preparators, grounders, disarmers). Adult students of English as a Second Language received instruction as the treatment, which was the combination of several activities (e.g., use of film, discussion, and students' data collection). The study provided inconclusive evidence of the learnability of downgraders as a category. Because of this, the researcher analyzed the data to ascertain which types of downgraders seem more learnable instead of which categories of downgraders. The study found that three types of downgraders (i.e., a downtoner, a disarmer, and the combination of past tense, aspect, and conditional clause) were the easiest for intermediate second language learners to learn. (Contains 23 references.) (Author/SM)

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