We found a match
Your institution may have rights to this item. Sign in to continue.
- Title
An empirical study of Chinese request strategies.
- Authors
Wet Hong
- Abstract
Based on a questionnaire administered in Gansu Province, China, this study examines the use of linguistic politeness in Chinese requests. The analysis of this data shows that the choice of polite linguistic usage in requests depends greatly on the social distance (D) between the speaker and hearer and their relative power relation (P). Besides these sociolinguistic variables which may affect request behavior, Chinese culture, the social system, and public relations under socialism are also of weight in the choice of request strategies. Following the lines of Brown and Levinson`s politeness theory, this study offers empirical support for their theory and concrete Chinese evidence for their models of politeness strategies. The results of this study may also be of import for the teaching of Chinese requests.
- Subjects
CHINA; HONORIFIC (Grammar); LINGUISTIC analysis; SOCIAL systems; POWER (Social sciences); POLITENESS theory
- Publication
International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 1996, Vol 1996, Issue 122, p127
- ISSN
0165-2516
- Publication type
Article