'Polite' and 'impolite' requests and apologies in British English and Uruguayan Spanish : a comparative study
The research hereby presented provides an analysis and interpretation of the realisation patterns of requests and apologies by female and male native speakers of British English and Uruguayan Spanish. The speech acts in question have been analysed following Brown and Levinson's (1978, 1987) 'negative' and 'positive' politeness distinction. The data for the study were collected in Uruguay and England by means of a non-prescriptive open role-play designed for the present study and performed by university students in both countries. The results obtained show that the performance of the above speech acts is motivated by the same social variables in Uruguayan Spanish and British English. The level of (in)directness in requests correlates negatively with the social distance between the interlocutors. In other words, the smaller the social distance between the participants the more direct the request will be. The performance of apologies, on the other hand, is motivated by an interaction between the severity of the offence and social power in that the less social power a speaker has in relation to his/her addressee and the more severe the offence, the more likely s/he is to apologise. The results also show that higher
Reiter, Rosina Marquez
Linguistics
'Polite' and 'impolite' requests and apologies in British English and Uruguayan Spanish : a comparative study. The research hereby presented provides an analysis and interpretation of the realisation patterns of requests and apologies by female and male native speakers of British English and Uruguayan Spanish. The speech acts in question have been analysed following Brown and Levinson's (1978, 1987) 'negative' and 'positive' politeness distinction. The data for the study were collected in Uruguay and England by means of a non-prescriptive open role-play designed for the present study and performed by university students in both countries. The results obtained show that the performance of the above speech acts is motivated by the same social variables in Uruguayan Spanish and British English. The level of (in)directness in requests correlates negatively with the social distance between the interlocutors. In other words, the smaller the social distance between the participants the more direct the request will be. The performance of apologies, on the other hand, is motivated by an interaction between the severity of the offence and social power in that the less social power a speaker has in relation to his/her addressee and the more severe the offence, the more likely s/he is to apologise. The results also show that higher
polite request apology british english spanish comparative_study present provide_analysis interpretation realisation pattern request apology female_male native_speaker british english spanish speech_act question analyse follow brown_levinson negative_positive politeness distinction data study collect england mean non prescriptive open role_play design present_study perform university_student country obtain show performance speech_act motivate social_variable spanish british english level request correlate negatively social_distance interlocutor word small social_distance participant direct request performance apology hand motivate interaction severity offence social_power less social_power speaker relation his_her addressee severe offence likely also_show high