Following a cross-sectional design, the present study investigated the acquisition of English requests by Chinese learners at three proficiency levels with open production questionnaires. It was found that L2 linguistic proficiency, L1 pragmatic transfer and classroom instruction have interactive effect on learners' L2 pragmatic development. A range of acquisitional features were found-learners' employment of direct request strategies decreased, the employment of conventionally indirect strategies increased and the number and variety of internal modifiers increased with the increase of proficiency. It was also found that L1 pragmatic transfer worked on various aspects of learners' requestive behavior and that inadequate or inappropriate input from the teaching materials and the EFL classroom arrangements might constrain their pragmatic development.
