Interpersonal vs. Intrapersonal Orientation in Request Speech Acts: A Cross-Cultural Exploration

Abstract

Having means of expressing politeness is widely regarded as a language universal. However, the actual strategies involved in expressing such a concept are by no means uniform. Politeness is a particularly important component in request speech acts because the accomplishment of the speaker's intended goal depends on the addressee's compliance. This study compares the devices recruited by the West and the East, mainly comparing English, Spanish, and German on the one hand, and Korean, Chinese and Japanese on the other. A cross-linguistic and cross-cultural investigation was performed with such politeness formulae in request speech acts as those largely equivalent to “Would you please...?” and “Could you please...?.” Those Occidental languages have recourse to power and volition, characterizable as the features of intrapersonal orientation, e.g. podría (S), könten (G), würden (G), etc. On the other hand, the Oriental languages tend to use the verbs of interaction and benefaction, e.g. cwuta ‘give (K)', kudasaru ‘give (J)', morau ‘receive (J)', and itadaku ‘receive (J),' qĭng ‘request (C)', and bāng ‘help (C),' thus manifesting a high level of interpersonal orientation. Furthermore, the Occidental languages tend to resort to personal feelings (e.g. please (E), favor (E/S), whereas the Oriental languages tend to resort to the quantity (e.g. yixià ‘once (C),' com ‘a little (K)' and chotto/sukoshi ‘a little (J).' The results of the contrastive analysis point to the fact that the two cultures utilize profoundly different persuasion strategies.