Exploring Politeness in Cross-Cultural Request Strategies

Saving Face: Exploring Politeness in Requests Across Four Cultures Melanie Heidemann

Part I STARTING POINT Seite 2

The Project: The Art of Requesting Collaborative research project for final theses B.A, M.A., M.Ed. Shared perception-based questionnaire Restudy of Blum-Kulka (1987) aim: uncovering the relation between indirectness and politeness in various contexts Seite 3

My Focus: Variational Linguistics Seite 4

Part II THEORETICAL FOUNDATIONS Seite 5

Theoretical Framework: Politeness chameleon-like character successful politeness can become barely noticeable (Watts 2003: 189) Functions and goals: - Anticipating possible face-threats - Avoiding conflict - Avoiding aggression - Building positive relationships Seite 6

Theoretical Framework - Brown & Levinson: Face Attribute that can be gained, lost, enhanced, saved Basic want Maintenance requires facework FTA = Face-Threatening Act Indirectness as a strategy to save face? Seite 7

Theoretical Framework: Indirectness Leech: the gap between (explicit) sense and (implicit) force, and the relation between them (1983: 30) It s so cold in here! Hints allow for plausible deniability (Haugh 2014:18) Seite 8

Linguistic Variable: Requests = a speech act which is uttered by the speaker (S) to invoke any future act A from the hearer (H) (Searle 1969: 66) Head-Act = nucleus of the speech act , also called the request proper (Blum-Kulka 1984: 201, 1989: 17). Excuse me. Could you please turn down the music? It is very loud and I am finding it hard to concentrate. Seite 9

Linguistic Variable: Requests Blum- Kulka coding manual Seite 10

Part III STATE OF THE ART Seite 11

State of the Art: Production Studies Yu (2011) House & Kasper (1981) Ahangari (2011) Trosborg (1995) Fl ck (2016) Culpeper, O Driscoll & Hardaker (2019) Turner & Hiraga (1996) House (2006) And many more Terkourafi (2002) Fl ck & Geluykens (2018) Schneider (2012) Altendorf & Jalanesh (2020) Holtgraves & Yang (1990) Felice (2018) Farenkia (2012) Ogiermann (2009) Merrison (2012) Mansarai (2016) Lin (2009) Seite 12

State of the Art: Perception Studies Seite 13

Blum-Kulka (1987) Directness vs. Politeness CCSARP project cross-cultural focus Ranking tasks Hebrew vs. English a possible disengagement of indirectness from politeness at the end-points of the indirectness scale (Blum-Kulka 1987: 139) Seite 14

British vs. American Politeness American: British: slightly more direct open to non- conventional indirectness value clarity open, informal and casual sensitive towards SD conservative Seite 15

Canadian Politeness Canadian Dainty : most formal and indirect variety in request patterns (Mansarai 2016: 11) Vs. Closer to AmE: oriented towards communicating hospitality (Boberg 2010: 246) Politeness conventions remain unclear Seite 16

German Politeness - - - Stereotypically more direct and content-oriented Lack of politeness Disfavouring hints Each set of options contained a statement that seemed to be a non-option HINT is not a request on its own - participant Predicted culture clashes Seite 17

Part IV STUDY DESIGN Seite 18

DCT/DPT Discourse Completion Test (DCT) Discourse Perception Test (DPT) demographic information + ranking (+ production) + free commentary Sascha Brungs Ausbildung zum Brandschutzhelfer, 20.04.2015 Seite 19

Scenario Overview back and forth of translation Seite 20

The Art of Requesting Coding Modified Blum-Kulka scheme mean values (controversial!) Statistical analysis: T-tests Seite 21

Part V RESULTS & DISCUSSION Seite 22

Results Indirectness vs. Politeness Aligning with Blum-Kulka Cultural Differences: Preparatories, Hints Seite 23

Politeness Ranking in Comparison: English vs. German Same switch in the directness ranking Replacement of PREP in both languages Seite 24

Results Politeness: Cross-Cultural Seite 25

Patterns: Overview 1: Indirectness progresses linearly from MD to MH. Politeness, on the other hand, decreases for non-conventional indirectness. 2: WOND/MIND replace PREP as the most polite strategies (Preparatories) 3: WOND vs. MIND German speakers prefer MIND, English speakers WOND 4: CanEng patterns with BrE for the Preparatory strategies. Seite 26

Pattern 1: non-linear relationship The inferential path for non conventionally indirect requests puts too much on of a burden on the hearer, who has to decode the message. This is seen as more impolite. Seite 27

Pattern 2: PREP Replacement: Perception Threshold Model Seite 28

Pattern 3: German vs. English Younger German speakers likely assimilate towards the English norm due to globalisation (Kranich 2021: 92) Translation errors/effects for MIND/WOND: I was wondering if W rdest du vielleicht Would you mind W re es okay Seite 29

Pattern 4: Differences Between English Varieties WOND/MIND: CanEng + BrE: preference of WOND sign of remaining Canadian Dainty values AmE: preference of MIND sign of positive politeness and catering towards the hearer For other strategies (Hints) the alliances shift: CanEng remains in-between BrE and AmE politeness conventions Seite 30

Limitations and Outlook Post-hoc reflection with participants: S6 theory Patterns repeated in larger studies? (seems likely) Qualitative data, metapragmatic data Integration into foreign language teaching Speaking as joint action : examining turn taking and discourse (2ndwave of politeness research) Politeness in requests and A.I. Seite 31

THANK YOU! Seite 32

References Blum-Kulka, Shoshana and Elite Olshtain. 1984. Requests and Apologies: A Cross- Cultural Study of Speech Act Realization Patterns (CCSARP)1. Applied Linguistics 5, 196-213. Blum-Kulka, Shoshana, Juliane House, and Gabriele Kasper. 1989. Appendix: The CCSARP Coding Manual. In: Shoshana Blum-Kulka, Juliane House, and Gabriele Kasper, ed. Cross-Cultural Pragmatics: Requests and Apologies. Norwood, New Jersey: Ablex Publishing Corporation, 273-294. Blum-Kulka, Shoshana, Juliane House, and Gabriele Kasper. 1989. lnvestigating Cross- Cultural Pragmatics: An lntroductory Overview. In: Shoshana Blum-Kulka, Juliane House, and Gabriele Kasper, ed. Cross-Cultural Pragmatics: Requests and Apologies. Norwood, New Jersey: Ablex Publishing Corporation, 1-34. Seite 33

References Blum-Kulka, Shoshana. 1987. Indirectness and Politeness in Requests: Same or Different? Journal of Pragmatics 11, 131-146. Boberg, Charles. 2010. The English Language in Canada. Cambrigde: Cambrigde University Press. Leech, Geoffrey. 2014. The Pragmatics of Politeness. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Leech, Geoffrey. 1983. Principles of Pragmatics. London and New York: Longman. Mansarai, Aisha. 2016. On Politeness in Canadian and Australian English. Utrecht: Utrecht University Press. Merrison, Andrew John et al. 2012. Getting stuff done: Comparing email requests from students in higher education in Britain and Australia. Journal of Pragmatics 44, 1077-98. Seite 34

Results: Scenario 6 (Security Guard) Contrary use of strategies Seite 35

Pattern 5: Similar Intentions, Different Strategies in S6 Speaker power as a determining factor: requests disguised as orders (one cannot deny the speaker the request) German speakers: Parken Sie bitte Ihr Auto um. German stereotype confimend English speakers: Your car is blocking the emergency exit Passive aggressive use of Hints? Kranich (2021) interviews: Speakers of both languages expect people in power to be more direct Seite 36