A study investigated requests as speech acts in "Zulu English," the English of Zulu first-language speakers, seeking to explain miscommunication in interactions between Zulu- and English-speakers by pointing to pragmatic transfer as one possible cause. Data were collected by means of a series of discourse completion tests in Zulu, Zulu English, and South African English (SAE), and analyzed using a methodology that allows head acts of requests to be graded on a scale of indirectness. Requests in Zulu and Zulu English were shown to be significantly more direct in formulation than requests in SAE. Possible implications of the findings in the context of politeness theory are discussed, and it is suggested that the often unsuccessful politeness strategies used in Zulu English result in part from the cross-cultural nature and positioning of this language, being influenced in their verbal dimensions largely by Zulu strategies and in their nonverbal dimensions largely by those of SAE. (MSE)