Speech act theory and politeness the case of requests by Aggelina Psch

NATIONAL AND KAPODISTRIAN UNIVERSITY OF ATHENS SCHOOL OF PHILOSOPHY FACULTY OF ENGLISH STUDIES

Speech Act Theory and Politeness: The case of Requests

A research conducted by: Αργυροπούλου Αθανασία (1563/2007/00020) Μποτσάκη Ελισάβετ (1563/2008/00173) Ψυχογυιού Αγγελική (1563/2008/00282)

Course: Planning and Conducting Research Instructor: Elly Ifantidou

ATHENS 2012

Table of Contents

1. Introduction................................................................................................................3 2. Politeness: Towards a Definition..............................................................................5 2.1. The Face-Saving View of Politeness...................................................................5 2.1.1. Brown and Levinson’s Model of Politeness 2.1.2. Politeness Orientation of Greek Society 2.2. Native Speakers’ Views on Politeness................................................................7 3. Speech Acts: Requests..............................................................................................8 3.1. Definition of Directive Speech Acts...................................................................8 3.2. Realisation of Requests and Politeness 3.2.1. Form/ Structure.........................................................................................9 3.2.2. Modification 3.2.3. Level of Directness 4. Parameters of Politeness in Requests....................................................................11 5. Method.....................................................................................................................13 6. Results......................................................................................................................16 7. Discussion.................................................................................................................20 8. Conclusions..............................................................................................................21 9. Bibliography............................................................................................................22 10. Appendix..................................................................................................................24

INTRODUCTION In the past few decades, research in the field of linguistics gave prominence to the linguistically encoded politeness in directive speech acts (Garvey, 1974; Clark & Schunk, 1980; Kemper & Thissen, 1981b; Nippold et al., 1982; Blum-Kulka, 1987; Sifianou, 1992; Economidou-Kogetsidis, 2002; Georgalidou, 2008). Several categories of polite request forms are identified (Clark & Schunk, 1980; Kemper & Thissen, 1981b; Blum-Kulka, 1987) and found to be used in order to mitigate the facethreatening act of requests towards the positive and/or negative face of the addressee (Brown &Levinson, 1987); each polite module either costs or benefits the hearer resulting in the creation of different levels of politeness according to the directness of the expressed proposition (Clark & Schunk, 1980; Blum-Kulka, 1987; Brown & Levinson, 1987). In the field of sociolinguistics, there seems also to be a connection between politeness strategies used in requests and two separate variables: gender and age (Holmes, 1995, 2008). As far as gender concerns, there is evidence (McMillan et al., 1977; Brown, 1980, Holmes, 1995, 2008) that women tend to use more cautious language and more indirect linguistic constructions as men. This linguistic behavior indicates higher levels of politeness, comparing to men, and is contrary to the claim that women’s linguistic behavior denotes weakness and uncertainty (McMillan et al., 1977). Last but not least, scholars (Garvey, 1974; Nippold et al., 1982; Georgalidou, 2007) observe that there is a developmental trend of polite requesting patterns with increasing age; children’s linguistic structures become more indirect as they are reaching adulthood.

AIM/PURPOSE Politeness in requests has become a major feature in linguistics and is widely examined by researchers in the field (Clark & Schunk, 1980; Blum-Kulka, 1987; Kemper & Thissen, 1981b; Sifianou, 1992; Economidou-Kogetsidis, 2002) as it provides useful insight to the way words can carry linguistically encoded politeness/ impoliteness. Our work is related to the dimensions of politeness in directive speech acts of adults and children and the variety of request constructions expressed by them in both formal and informal contexts.

The purpose of our paper is, first, to examine the development of linguistic politeness encoded in requests of males and females in Greece. We will compare the requesting patterns that are being used in childhood and adult life and indicate any progress in the formation of these constructions The second focal point of our work is to portray any relation of gender and polite requests and mark its significance but also, to examine any connection between politeness and directness in the Greek culture.

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Politeness and the Speech Act Theory: Requests 2. Politeness: Towards a Definition Politeness is a significant parameter of communication that indicates the concern for the feelings of others in both linguistic and non-linguistic ways and promotes rapport and intimacy (Sifianou, 1992; Economidou-Kogetsidis, 2002). There are quite a few ways of representing linguistic politeness but the most dominant one which will also be used as a point of reference for the analysis of data in this research, is the face-saving model of politeness by Brown and Levinson (1987). 2.1. The Face-Saving View of Politeness 2.1.1. Brown and Levinson’s Model of Politeness The term politeness is closely related to the protection of somebody’s face and to the concern for face needs/wants of the others (Brown & Levinson, 1987; Yule, 1996). Face, according to Brown and Levinson’s Theory of Politeness (1987), has two aspects: positive face and negative face. Positive face is the need of every person to be accepted, respected and liked by others while negative face is the want of each person to be free of any imposition, to be independent and to have freedom of action. In almost every interaction, there is a risk for the face of both or either of the participants to be threatened. In order to lessen this threat, Brown and Levinson (1987) introduced a variety of politeness strategies for minimizing or avoiding the face-threatening acts (FTAs). These five strategies (see Figure 1) seem to be dependent of an estimated risk of face which also defines politeness: the greater the risk, the more polite the strategy (Brown & Levinson, 1987).

Fig.1

According to the authors ((Brown & Levinson, 1987; Yule, 1996), there are two main starting points for the speaker: whether to perform the FTA or avoid it. If the degree of face threat is great, the speaker decides not to perform the FTA (that is, to say nothing). Due to the needs of our research, we will not preoccupy with this category as our subject matter is requests (meaning speech acts) which are considered to threaten the face of the addressee in most cases. If, however, the speaker decides to perform the FTA, there are four patterns/strategies to follow which are presented briefly: − On record: the speaker expresses his/her needs directly. There are two subcategories of on-record strategies, that is baldly (without redress) and by redressive action. The former involves little or no concern for face and the act is performed in the most clear and direct way, whereas the latter attempts to counteract the potential face threat (Brown & Levinson 1987). − Positive politeness: it is an attempt to satisfy the addressee’s positive face wants and treats addressee as a member of in-group whose desires are known and liked by others (Brown, 1980; Sifianou, 1992). − Negative politeness: it is an attempt to satisfy the addressee’s negative face, meaning avoidance of any imposition on the hearer or acknowledging the burden of the speech act (Brown & Levinson 1987). − Off record: the utterance used is not directly stated but instead, it is expressed indirectly (formulated as a hint, for instance) and the addressee has to infer the literal meaning. This usually occurs when the risk of loss of face is great. 2.1.2. Politeness Orientation of Greek Society According to previous research (Brown and Levinson, 1987; Sifianou, 1992), it appears that the exact content of face is culturally specific. Each society has a different system of established values and norms which define polite behaviour and what is socially accepted within a culture (Sifianou, 1992; Holmes, 1995; Yule, 1996; EconomidouKogetsidis, 2002; Georgalidou, 2008). It seems though that in every society there will be one predominant type of politeness but other secondary ones; no society though, can

be clearly categorized as a whole as being either positively or negatively polite (Sifianou, 1992). Greek society is found to favor a positive aspect of politeness and people have a tendency to use more positive politeness strategies than negative ones (Sifianou, 1992; Georgalidou, 2008). The reason behind this tendency is that Greeks emphasize in-group relations, involvement (Sifianou, 1992; Economidou-Kogetsidis, 2002) and seem to be collectivists rather than individualists (Georgalidou, 2008). Members of the same ingroup will often employ informality and positive politeness but they will use formality and negative politeness for members of the out-group.

2.2. Native Speakers’ Views on Politeness The evidence collected for the questionnaire (see Appendix) on the concept of polite behavior on the attributes of a polite person gave us some further insight on the matter explored in our research and raised our understanding of the notion of politeness. The following list summarizes some of the basic answers on the concept of politeness in Greece: •

Respect and consideration for the feelings and personality of the others; mutual understanding; discretion.

•

Cautious speech and lexical choices (2nd person plural, use of <parakalo> ‘please’, avoidance of irony, sarcasm and ambiguity).

•

Grammatical structures (subjunctive, less imperatives, indirectness).

•

Non-verbal aspect of politeness: facial expressions, appropriate intonation, pleasant disposition, eye contact of the interactants.

3. Speech Acts: Requests Politeness strategies are widely employed in the case of directive speech acts as the imposition on the hearer and the possible threat to his/her face can be great. The addressee may feel that a request restricts his/her freedom of action threatening his/her negative face (Brown & Levinson, 1987). In this sense, requests are considered facethreatening acts and there is an imperative need for the speaker to minimize the imposition by using various politeness devices (Brown & Levinson, 1987). However there are some cases that requests imply closeness and intimacy, thus promote positive politeness (Brown, 1980; Sifianou, 1992). In the following sections we will present the main constructions of requests and their basic elements in relation to politeness theory.

3.1. Definition of Directive Speech Acts Searle (1976) proposed a classification of five different illocutionary acts: assertives, directives, commissives, expressives, and declarations. According to Searle, directives are “attempts (of varying degrees) by the speaker to get the hearer to do something” and therefore they may take the form of either ordering/demanding or requesting.

3.2. Realisation of Requests and Politeness Requests are made up of two parts: the head act - i.e. the core request sequence - and peripheral elements - i.e. expressions that mitigate or intensify its force without changing its propositional content (Blum-Kulka, 1987; Economidou-Kogetsidis, 2002). Speakers have the possibility to choose from a variety of forms in order to avoid the possible face-threat (Blum-Kulka, 1987; Sifianou, 1992).

3.2.1. Form/ Structure Requests can be realized linguistically mainly with imperatives, interrogatives and declaratives (Sifianou, 1992; Georgalidou, 2008; Kemper & Thissen, 1981b; Clark & Schunk, 1980). a. Imperatives: they are formed by a verb in the imperative mood (<δose mu> “give me”) or in the subjunctive mood (<na mu δosis> “to give me”) whenever the former form is not available (Georgalidou, 2008). Imperatives also represent the most direct, bald-on record politeness strategy (Brown & Levinson, 1987; Blum- Kulka, 1987; Economidou-Kogetsidis, 2002). However, we should not disregard the importance of modification which reflects the full force of a request and thus different kinds of politeness (Sifianou, 1992). Last but not least, modification in imperatives also renders the structures more polite (Kemper & Thisen, 1981a). b. Interrogatives: Greek native speakers usually use the verb in the present indicative (<mu dinis> *“do you give me”) when they employ an interrogative structure to request something (Sifianou, 1992; Georgalidou, 2008). Modals1 (<boro> “can I”, <θa borusa> “could I”) can be used in interrogative requests marking conventionally indirectness2 and negative politeness (Blum-Kulka, 1987; Sifianou, 1992; Georgalidou, 2008; Economidou-Kogetsidis, 2002). c. Declaratives: they can also function as requests and they fall into two groups: need-statements (<χriazome/θelo merikes meres aδia> “I need/want some days off”) and hints (<θa lipso δyo meres> “I will be away for two days”) (Sifianou, 1992). Both groups require pragmatic inference in order one to recover the full proposition expressed by the request. Hints are considered to be off-record strategies and according to Brown and Levinson (1987) the most indirect (hence more polite) strategy. 1

“in Greek the modal system is not developed to the same extent as the English( may and can are both rendered as boro and will is a particle rather than a modal”(Sifianou,1992: 144) 2

It involves usually utterances that contain reference to the preparatory conditions as they are conventionalized in any particular language – i.e. reference to the ability, possibility, willingness, knowledge.(Blum-‐Kulka, 1987; Economidou-‐Kogetsidis, 2002)

3.2.2. Level of Directness Strictly connected with the requesting structures is directness/indirectness which should be examined in order to account for the politeness strategies. Politeness is not associated with pragmatic indirectness/ off record strategies but with conventional indirectness/ on-record strategies (Clark & Schunk, 1980; Blum-Kulka, 1987; Sifianou, 1992; Economidou-Kogetsidis, 2002). Therefore, we should reconsider the strong link between off-record strategies and politeness in Brown and Levinson’s Theory. Politeness is culturally specific and polite linguistic behaviour depends a lot on what is conventionalized in a language rather than what is direct/indirect. (Sifianou, 1992) There are three kinds of strategies3 (Garvey, 1974; Blum-Kulka, 1987; EconomidouKogetsidis, 2002) that will be used in this research: 3. Direct Strategies (Bald-on record Strategies): it includes requests syntactically explicitly marked as such( e.g. imperatives). 4. Conventionally Indirect Strategies (On-record Strategies): this category includes acts that refer to the contextual preconditions needed for their performance. 5. Non-conventionally Indirect Strategies- Hints (Off record Strategies): it covers strategies that are not conventionalized in language and require a long inferential path in order to identify the literal proposition expressed. This increases the degree of imposition and decreases the level of politeness (Blum-Kulka, 1987). The explanation of our findings should be based on the theory of Politeness introduced by Brown and Levinson (1987) provided that it allows for “a possible disengagement of indirectness from politeness at the end points of the indirectness scale” (Blum-Kulka, 1987:139). 3.2.3. Modification Modification is a determining factor that involves in mitigating the face-threatening nature of requests and is closely related to politeness. There are two kinds of modification: internal and external (Sifianou, 1992). 3

See Blum-‐Kulka (1987) & Economidou-‐Kogetsidis (2002) for subcategories.

Internal modification is achieved by linguistic elements (openers, hedges, fillers) within the same speech act and their function is to mitigate or intensify the force of the utterance, whereas external modification is achieved by reinforcing or commitmentseeking devices that occur in the linguistic context of the speech act. Within the context of the particular research, special attention will be given to the case of <parakalo> “please” which constitutes the commonest and the most overt of the politeness markers. All in all, it seems as if the constructions of requests do not function independently of their modification which is necessary to account for the degree of politeness of the utterance (Sifianou, 1992).

4. Parameters of Politeness in Requests The issues examined so far, will be discussed in relation to two socio-cultural parameters which have preoccupied many scholars: the age (Nippold et al., 1982; Holmes, 2008) and gender of the speakers (McMillan et al., 1977; Brown, 1980; Holmes 1995, 2008; Kiesling, 2007) It is widely accepted that men and women interact differently (McMillan et al., 1977; Brown, 1980; Holmes, 1995). Women are considered to be indirect, cooperative and more polite by nature. This is does not denote weakness and uncertainty of female speech but rather indicate the women’s role and social status and their tendency for supportive bevahiour (McMillan et al., 1977; Brown, 1980; Holmes, 1995). On the other hand, men are less positively polite than women and use fewer politeness markers as a way of proving and promoting their masculinity and autonomy (Holmes, 1995; Kiesling, 2007). As far as age is concerned, it seems (Garvey, 1974; Nippold et al., 1982; Georgalidou, 2008) that there is an extensive use of interrogative forms introduced with “can” <boro> and of “please” <parakalo> since early childhood. In addition, children do not use pragmatically indirect forms of requests in the early years of their life. With increasing age, it is also observed that the politeness devices vary in structure, modification and paralinguistic elements.

The main concern of our research is to explore the development of polite requests expressed by Greek males and females from middle childhood to early adult life. Specifically, we will try to answer the following Questions: 1) How politeness is encoded in requests? Is there any relation between politeness and directness? 2) Are women more polite than men? 3) Is there any development of requesting forms linked with age? Through the qualitative and quantitative evidence collected, we expect to find that: •

There are varying levels of politeness matching to different request structures.

•

Politeness is concerned with conventional indirectness and not pragmatic indirectness in Greek culture.

•

Women are more conventionally indirect than men and therefore more polite.

•

There is a development of requesting constructions and modification when comparing children’s and adults’ patterns; children use less non-conventionally indirect strategies than adults.

Results will be examined and discussed drawing from the theoretical framework on Politeness Theory by Brown & Levinson (1987) and Blum-Kulka’s(1987) Requesting Strategies concerning directness. Although these two theories have contrasting points, it seems as if elements of both can account for the linguistic behavior of Greek society provided that the former theory allows for “a possible disengagement of indirectness from politeness at the end points of the indirectness scale” (Blum-Kulka, 1987:139). Despite the fact that the subject matter of the research is widely explored in a number of previously mentioned studies, this work is expected to provide some additional evidence on the dimension of politeness in requests and on the development of the use of these forms by male and female speakers of Greek. We think that the relation between age and/or gender and the politeness strategies used in requests is not adequately researched in Greek language and it is intriguing to examine how this theory applies to our native language.

METHOD General Design This research aims to examine the development of polite requests within the frameworks of gender and age. In order to achieve this, several questionnaires were constructed in Greek (see Appendix)4 and given to people of two age groups: early adult life and middle childhood.

Participants The subjects were students of the 5th and 6th grade of a primary school (ages 10-12) and adults (fellow students and friends) between 20-25 years old. Group A (adults) consisted of 17 girls and 10 boys while Group B (students) was composed by 15 women and 12 men making a total number of 54 participants. All the informants were Greek native speakers.

Materials Two different questionnaires were used to collect the empirical evidence needed to investigate the notion of politeness in requests. Open- and close-ended questions were equally used in various set-up scenarios to achieve the best possible and detailed results. Specific instructions were given and the importance of answering sincerely was stated in both cases. Here, it has to be mentioned that adults were called to respond the questionnaire online. All the questionnaires were appropriately completed and we gathered 135 answers from group A and 108 from group B. To be more specific in the first questionnaire, participants (group A), were asked to answer a question regarding to what they consider polite behavior. The idea behind this question was to see how politeness is construed in Greek culture. Then they were called to react verbally in different set-up scenarios (both in formal and informal contexts) 4

A translation of the questionnaires in English is provided too for comprehension purposes.

being spontaneous. Group A was also inquired to rate a set of ten sentences according to a given politeness scale. This enabled us to observe the politeness/impoliteness of requesting patterns in Greek language. In the second questionnaire the students (group B) were called to answer similar questions. Same type open-ended questions were used; students had to react linguistically in specific formal and informal contexts. Then, they were given two questions and they were asked to choose the most preferable answer among five different given sentences, being spontaneous. In the last question of this questionnaire, all the answers were excluded because the instructions were quite ambiguous for the students and as a result no appropriate data was collected. This setback occurred due to the lack of time for pilot-testing the different versions of the questionnaires. If we had the chance to re-design the questionnaire, we would have incorporated question 6 in question 3 as an extra scenario.

Procedure Sample group A (students) were called to answer the questionnaires during an arranged visit to the 67th primary school of Patras and sample group B (adults) were invited to respond to the online version of the questionnaire. Then the data was collected, transcribed and translated. In most cases a literal translation of the forms is provided in English even though not all of the requesting constructions are acceptable in English Syntax and Grammar. This occurs because the subject matter of this research is related to the Greek Morphology, so the translation of data is only for comprehension purposes. However, in order to best render the full meaning of the request, equivalent structures (acceptable in English Language) are also given in some cases. Finally the results were verified and classified according to their syntactic patterns; the resulting requesting forms accompanied with relevant examples (see Appendix for samples answers from the questionnaires), are listed in table 1 below.

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Table 1. Requesting Structures of Greek Native Speakers. Requesting Forms (i) Need - Statements

Examples <θa iθela sas parakalo na δo to γrapto mu> ‘’I would like please to take a look at my test’’ <θelo na δo to γrapto mu> ‘’I want to see my test’’

(ii) Hints

<θa lipso 2-3 meres> ‘’I will be away for a couple of days”

(iii) Modals

<θa boruses na mu δanisis ena stilo?> ‘’Could you lend me a pen?’’ <Boris na mu dosis 10€?> “Can you give me 10€?”

(iv) Non-explicit Question-directives

<Eχis 10 €> “Do you have 10€?’’

(v) Present indicative

< Mu dinis ena stilo?> * “Do you give me a pen?”

(vi) Imperatives

< Δose mu 15€!> “Give me 15€”

(vii) Wh-imperatives

<Pos boro na pao stin Akropoli?> “How can I go to Acropolis?”

RESULTS All the evidence gathered is presented in four tables and analyzed in relation to our basic parameters: gender and age. We first examined the requesting structures of Greek Native speakers (see table 2) in relation to age. We found that there is a difference in the frequency of use of these forms in adults and children. Generally, it appears that both children and adults seem to prefer modal structures (51% and 78 % respectively). However, children prefer using present indicative questions (18%), whereas adults prefer need-statements (27%). It is notable that adults mainly employ wh-imperatives, non-explicit question-directives and hints, while in childrenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s responses there are no such constructions. Lastly, there seems to be a low frequency in the use of imperative forms in both children (2%) and adults (3%).

Table 2. Requesting Structures used by children and adults

The data in table 3 indicate the strategies employed by both males and females in relation to directness / indirectness of their request. As can be seen from the table

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females tend to use conventionally indirect strategies (45%) in a greater extent than men (33%). As far as direct strategies are concerned, women again outnumber men in the frequency of use of requesting patterns (women =13 %, men=6%). Finally, nonconventionally indirect strategies seem to be at least preferable strategies than the other two for both women and men. All things considered, it seems that women employs primarily conventionally indirect strategies and outnumber men in almost all cases.

Table 3. Levels of Directness in Requesting Strategies employed by Greek native speakers

Participants were called to rate a set of ten sentences on a 5-point scale of politeness (1= Impolite,

2=Fairly Impolite,

3=Polite,

4=Somewhat Polite, 5=Very Polite).

According to the table 4, we concluded that conventionally indirect forms (<boris> “can you?”, <θa boruses>, “could you?”) are considered to be more polite than direct forms <imperatives:<δose mu> “give me”>. Adults consider the imperative forms as the least polite patterns (63%), whereas they rated modals as being more polite: <boris> ”can you” (93%), <θa boruses>,”could you”(96%).

Table 4. Adults (age 20-25) rating sentences according to the degree of politeness 1

i. <Boris na mu δosis to lemoni;> ‘Can you give me the lemon?’

41%

37%

15%

ii. <Θelis na pame kinimatoγrafo;> ‘Do you want to go to the movies with me?’

44%

33%

15%

iii. <Δose mu to kinito su!> ‘Give me your cellphone!’

63%

26%

19%

48%

22%

11%

19%

41%

26%

19%

48%

26%

22%

30%

41%

26%

67%

15%

22%

44%

30%

iv. <Erχese sto γiatro mazi mu?> ‘Are you coming to the doctor with me?’ v. <Se parakalo ftiakse mu ton upologisti!> ‘Repair the computer, please!’ vi. <Ti θa eleγes na ksekinisume tin erγasia?> ‘ What would you say to write the project’ vii. <Mipos na eklines to paraθiro?> ‘Can you perhaps close the window?’ viii. <Tha se piraze na mu danisis to amaxi;> ‘Would you mind lending me the car?’ ix. <Δen boris na petaksis ta skupiδια> ‘Can’t you throw away the rubbish?’ x. <Tha boruses na anixis tin porta;> ‘Could you open the door?’

Note- 1= Impolite, 2=Fairly Impolite, 3=Polite, 4=Somewhat Polite, 5=Very Polite

What is worth mentioning in relation to politeness is the aspect of modification. It is observed that <mipos> “perhaps” (internal modification-opener) changes the degree of politeness of the sentence. More specifically, some rated modals with such modification as being rather impolite (26%) while others as being rather polite (22%); the context of the situation is probably affecting these choices. Although imperatives are generally considered to be the least polite form by Greek native speakers, modulations render the same cases as more polite. Participants considered internal modification-openers (e.g, <θa se piraze> “would you mind?”) as being very polite (48%) comparing to pure imperatives. It seems that the politeness overt marker <parakalo>’’please’’ (external modification) also changes the degree of politeness and renders the sentences as very polite (67%).

Furthermore, children called to choose their preferable requesting structure among five different given forms of requests (see tables 5a, 5b). It seems that the majority view imperatives as the least preferable structure whereas the imperatives with modification as the most preferable (about 51 - 52%). We also observe that children prefer using mainly direct strategies while conventional indirect strategies (mainly realized with modals) are used in a lower degree (about 40%). Table 5.a How kids (age 10-12) ask from a friend to join them in the canteen.

Table 5.b How kids(age 10-12) ask from a friend his/her pencil case.

DISCUSSION As seen above, the analysis of data revealed some significant aspects of the subject matter of our research concerning politeness in requesting patterns of Greek native speakers (both males and females) in childhood and adulthood. More specifically, we observed that adults use more structurally complex and more indirect (pragmatically indirect) sentences than children. On the contrary, children employ simple requests (primarily conventionally indirect strategies). These facts supports previously discussed evidence (Nippold et al., 1982) that there is a developmental trend in childrenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s requesting patterns and that children employ less nonconventionally indirect strategies than adults. This can be explained by the fact that children have not fully developed their cognitive abilities yet. During childhood, they are still developing their systemic competence (sounds, grammar, and lexis) and their communication strategies whereas sociolinguistic competence (pragmatics) is acquired later in time when they will have more linguistic stimuli. It could be argued that politeness, as culturally specific, depends a lot on what is conventionalized in a language rather than what is direct or indirect. This is in line with the degrees of directness and the disengagement of indirectness from politeness discussed by Nlum-Kulka(1987). It is further supported by our findings as Greek native speakers are found both to employ a higher degree of non-conventional indirect requesting strategies indicating negative politeness and also to consider these requesting patterns as the most polite strategy for the protection of the negative face of the addressee. This claim is in contrast to the general politeness orientation of Greek culture (Sifianou, 1992) and to the view that politeness is connected with off record/ pragmatically indirect strategies. The reason behind this tendency lies firstly in the conventionality of the linguistic features itself; People perceive conventionally indirect requests as being direct requests because the conventionalized features (indicating the preparatory conditions for the request in most cases) have been incorporated in the language and speakers seem to respect the negative face of the addressee, leaving options open for him/her to decline or not. It is further argued that as the imposition on the hearer increases, the degrees of politeness decrease and politeness is found to

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balance clarity of the utterance and imposition (Kemper & Thissen, 1981b; Blum-Kulka 1987). Finally, there is a distinction of the frequency of use of linguistic strategies between females and males. Women have the tendency to be more conventionally indirect than men. Having in mind that conventionality is linked with politeness in Greek society; women seem to be more polite than men. This can also be explained by the belief that because of women’s place in society as a subordinate group (Holmes, 1955, 2008), they have to be more polite especially to superiors. They tend not to sound demanding in their requests so they use language that does not impose on others and thus permits them to have different desires and wishes [interpersonal sensitivity (McMillan et al., 1977)].

CONCLUSIONS In this research we have discussed the requesting structures employed by Greek native speakers and their implications for politeness and directness concerning two parameters: age and gender. The results derived from this research fully answered the main research questions concerning linguistically encoded politeness in requests. The findings revealed that there is a development of requesting forms in children; in other words children use simple structures of requests (mainly conventionally indirect) but more complex structures (direct, conventionally indirect, non – conventionally indirect) when reaching adulthood. Furthermore, politeness seems to be linked to conventionally indirect requests, which also constitutes the main requesting pattern that women use. As a result women are found to be more polite than men. The interpretation of data raised some questions for further research as regards the context in order to adequately explore politeness in different context. Although we do not underestimate the reliability of questionnaires as a method to gather proper, valid and sufficient data, further research using different methodology is needed in order to test the findings and make more general claims regarding the politeness in speech acts.

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(1987) Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage.

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Clark, H. H. and Schunk, D.H. (1980) “Polite responses to polite requests”. Cognition 8: 111143. Economidou-Kogetsidis, M. (2002) “Requesting strategies in English and Greek: Observations from an Airline’s Call Centre”. Nottingham Linguistic Circular 17: 17-32. Garvey, C. (1974) “Requests and responses in children’s speech”. Journal of Child Language 2: 41-63. Georgalidou, M. (2008) “The contextual parameters of linguistic choice: Greek children’s preferences for the formation of directive speech acts”. Journal of Pragmatics 40: 72-94. Holmes, J. (1995) Women, Men and Politeness. London: Longman. Holmes, J. (2008) An Introduction to Sociolinguistics. 3rd Ed. London: Pearson/Longman. Kemper, S. and Thissen, D. (1981a) “How polite?: A reply to Clark and Schunk”. Cognition 9: 305-309. Kemper,S. and Thissen, D. (1981b) “Memory for the dimensions of requests”. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior 20: 552-563. Kiesling, S. (2007) “Men, masculinities, and language”. Language and Linguistics Compass 1(6): 653–673. MacMillan, J. R., Clifton, A. K., McGrath, D. and Gale, W.S. (1977) “Women's language: Uncertainty or interpersonal sensitivity and emotionality?”. Sex Roles 3(6): 545-559.

Nippold, M., Leonard, L. B. & Anastopoulos, A. D. (1982) “Development in the use and understanding of polite forms in children”. Journal of Speech, Language and Hearing Research 25: 193-202. Searle, J.R. (1976) “A classification of illocutionary acts”. Language in Society 5(1):1-23. Sifianou, M. (1992) Politeness Phenomena in England and Greece: A Cross-Cultural Perspective. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Yule, G. (1996) Pragmatics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

APPENDIX

I. Questionnaires a. Questionnaire of Group A(Adults) in Greek

ΕΡΩΤΗΜΑΤΟΛΟΓΙΟ

1. Φύλο

Γυναίκα

Άντρας

Ηλικία

…………………………………

Επάγγελµα

………………………………...

2. Χρησιµοποιώντας

πέντε

φράσεις

περιέγραψε

τι

θεωρείς

ευγενική

συµπεριφορά: …………………………………………………………………………………… …………………………………………………………………………………… …………………………………………………………………………………… …………………………………………………………………………………… 3. Πώς θα ζητούσες… i)

…από τον καθηγητή που σε έκοψε στο µάθηµα να δεις το γραπτό σου; ……………………………………………………………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………………

ii) …από το αφεντικό σου άδεια; ……………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………… iii) …από το φίλο σου να σου δανείσει κάποια χρήµατα; ……………………………………………………………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………………

iv) …από έναν άγνωστο οδηγίες πώς να πας στην Ακρόπολη; ……………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………… v) …από την προηγούµενη σχέση σου να σου επιστρέψει τα CD σου; ……………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………… 4. Πόσο ευγενικές θεωρείς τις παρακάτω προτάσεις; Επέλεξε µε βάση την κλίµακα. (1=ελάχιστα ευγενική, 2=λιγο ευγενική, 3=ευγενική, 4=αρκετά ευγενική, 5=πολύ ευγενική) i.

Μπορείς να µου δώσεις το λεµόνι; 1

ii.

Μήπως να έκλεινες το παράθυρο; 1

viii.

Τι θα έλεγες να ξεκινήσουµε την εργασία; 1

vii.

Σε παρακαλώ, φτιάξε µου τον υπολογιστή. 1

vi.

Έρχεσαι στο γιατρό µαζί µου; 1

Δώσε µου το κινητό σου! 1

iv.

Θέλεις να πάµε σινεµά; 1

iii.

Θα σε πείραζε να µου δανείσεις το αµάξι; 1

ix.

Δεν µπορείς να πετάξεις τα σκουπίδια; 1

Θα µπορούσες να ανοίξεις την πόρτα; 1

Ευχαριστούµε!

b. Questionnaire of Group A(Adults) translated in English QUESTIONNAIRE

1. Gender

Female

Age

……………

Occupation

…………………

Male

2. Using five phrases, describe what you consider as polite behavior: …………………………………………………………………………………… …………………………………………………………………………………… …………………………………………………………………………………… …………………………………………………………………………………… 3. How would you ask from… vi) …your teacher that failed you to look at your test? ……………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………..

vii) …your boss to take some days off? ……………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………… viii)

…a friend to lend you some money?

……………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………… ix) …a stranger instructions to go to Acropolis? ……………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………… x) …your ex – relationship to give your CDs back to you? ……………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………… 5. How polite do you consider the following sentences? Choose the best answer according to the following scale. (1=Impolite, 2=Fairly Polite, 3=Polite, 4=Somewhat Polite, 5=Very Polite) i.

Can you give me the lemon? 1

ii.

Are you coming to the doctor with me? 1

Give me your cell phone! 1

iv.

Do you want to go to the movies with me? 1

iii.

Repair my computer, please! 1

vi.

What would you say to start writing the project? 1

vii.

Can’t you throw away the rubbish? 1

Would you mind lending me your car? 1

ix.

Can you perhaps close the window? 1

viii.

Could you open the door? 1

Thank you!

c. Questionnaire of Group B(Students) in Greek ΕΡΩΤΗΜΑΤΟΛΟΓΙΟ

4. Φύλο

Κορίτσι

Αγόρι

Ηλικία

…………………………………

Τάξη

…………………………………..

5. Πόσο συχνά χρησιµοποιείς τις λέξεις «παρακαλώ- ευχαριστώ»; συχνά

σπάνια

ποτέ

Δώσε ένα παράδειγµα. ………………………………………………………………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………………… 6. Πώς θα ζητούσες από… i) …το δάσκαλο σου να κλείσει το παράθυρο; …………………………………………………………………………………… …………………………………………………………………………………… ii) …το φίλο σου να σου δανείσει ένα βιβλίο; ………………………………………………………………………………..…… ……………………………………………………………………………………. iii) …τον καινούριο συµµαθητή σου ένα στυλό; …………………………………………………………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………................... iv) …τη µητέρα σου να σου αγοράσει ένα καινούριο παιχνίδι; …………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………

7. Διάλεξε µία από τις απαντήσεις σε κάθε ερώτηση. i.

Πώς θα ζητούσες από το φίλο σου να πάτε µαζί στο κυλικείο; a. Θέλεις να έρθεις µαζί µου στο κυλικείο; b. Μπορείς να έρθεις µαζί µου στο κυλικείο; c. Έλα µαζί µου στο κυλικείο! d. Έρχεσαι µαζί µου στο κυλικείο; e. Μπορείς να έρθεις µαζί µου στο κυλικείο, σε παρακαλώ;

ii.

Πως θα ζητούσες από το φίλο σου να σου δώσει την κασετίνα του/της; a. Μπορείς να µου δώσεις την κασετίνα σου; b. Δώσε µου την κασετίνα σου, σε παρακαλώ! c. Μου δίνεις την κασετίνα σου; d. Δώσε µου την κασετίνα; e. Σου είναι εύκολο να µου δώσεις την κασετίνα;

8. «Είσαι στο πάρκο µε ένα φίλο σου και παίζεις. Η ώρα έχει περάσει και εσύ πεινάς. Ζήτησε του να σταµατήσετε το παιχνίδι και να πάτε στο σπίτι για φαγητό.» -

Γιώργος: Θέλεις να συνεχίσουµε το παιχνίδι;

Εσύ:……………………………………………………………………………… …………………………………………………………………………………....

Ευχαριστούµε! J

d. Questionnaire of Group B(Students) in English QUESTIONNAIRE

1. Gender Age Class

Girl

Boy

……………… ……………………

2. How often do you use the words «please – thank you»; frequently

rarely

never

Give an example. ………………………………………………………………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………………… 3. How would you ask from… v) …your teacher to close the window? …………………………………………………………………………………… …………………………………………………………………………………… vi) …a friend to lend you a book? ………………………………………………………………………………..…… ……………………………………………………………………………………. vii) …your new classmate to give you a pen? …………………………………………………………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………................... viii) …your mother to buy you a new game? …………………………………………………………………………………… …………………………………………………………………………………… 4. Choose one of the answers for the following questions. ii.

How would you ask from a friend to come with you to the canteen? a. Do you want to come with me to the canteen? b. Can you come with me to the canteen? c. Come with me to the canteen! d. Are you coming with me to the canteen? e. Can you come with me to the canteen, please?

iii.

How would you ask from a friend to give you his/her pencil case? a. Can you give me your pencil case? b. Give me your pencil case, please! c. *Do you give me your pencil case? d. Give me your pencil case! e. Is it possible to give me your pencil case?

5. “You are in the park with a friend playing. It’s getting late and you are hungry. Ask from your friend to stop playing and go to your house for dinner.” -

George: Do you want to keep playing?

You:……………………………………………………………………………… …………………………………………………………………………………....

Thank you!

II. Sample Answers from Questionnaires Used in the Tables 1. <θelo merikes meres aδia> 2. <θa lipso δyo meres>

“I need/want some days off”

“I will be away for two days”

3. <θa iθela sas parakalo na δo to γrapto mu> ‘’I would like please to take a look at my test’’ 4. <θelo na δo to γrapto mu> ‘’I want to see my test’’ 5. <θa lipso 2-3 meres> ‘’I will be away for a couple of days” 6. <θa boruses na mu δanisis ena stilo?> ‘’Could you lend me a pen?’’ 7. <Boris na mu dosis 10€?> “Can you give me 10€?” 8. <Eχis 10 €> “Do you have 10€?’’ 9. < Mu dinis ena stilo?> * “Do you give me a pen?” 10. < Δose mu 15€!> “Give me 15€” 11. <Pos boro na pao stin Akropoli?> “How can I go to Acropolis?”