Directives and Politeness in SPICE-Ireland

Abstract

Working from the perspective of Leech’s (The Pragmatics of Politeness. Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2014) modification to Blum-Kulka et al.’s (Cross-cultural pragmatics: Requests and apologies. Norwood, NJ, Ablex, 1989) approach to classifying requests, this study investigates how far impositive directive speech acts are found in spoken Irish English, a variety of English which is well-known for avoiding face threats. The study further investigates how these impositive speech acts are influenced by the genre of the spoken category. In order to do so, this study uses data from the southern component of SPICE-Ireland, a pragmatically annotated corpus of spoken Irish English, and analyses data from six different genres of spoken conversation: Broadcast discussions, Business transactions, Classroom discussions, Face-to-face conversations, Legal presentations and Telephone conversations. These genres are classified in terms of the concepts of ‘language of distance’ versus ‘language of immediacy’. In the data, impositive strategies are frequently found, particularly so in private settings of ‘language of immediacy’. In the more public and formal settings of ‘language of distance’, by contrast, indirect strategies are more prominent.

The Interplay of Contextual Variables and Language Proficiency in Request Realization

“…It also coincides with the results of a large number of cross-cultural and interlanguage studies suggesting that English native speakers use conventionally indirect strategy as a polite way of requesting (Blum-Kulka et al, 1989;Bu, 2012;Chen et al, 2013;Economidou-Kogetsidis, 2010;Ogiermann & Bella, 2020;Ronan, 2022). Hence, it can be concluded that, in this study, Iranians as foreign language learners of English were sociopragmatically aware of the norm of the target language regarding the level of directness in requests.…”

“…Blum-Kulka (1987) reported conventionally indirect requests as the most polite, explaining that they are non-coercive unlike direct requests and they have sufficient pragmatic clarity unlike hints. This finding that conventionally indirect request is the most frequently used strategy among native speakers of English has been repeatedly reported by numerous studies, in particular interlanguage studies in which the performance of second/foreign language learners is compared against that of the native speakers of English (Chen et al, 2013; Economidou-Kogetsidis, 2010; Félix-Brasdefer, 2005, 2007; Flores Salgado, 2011; Hashemian, 2014; Jalilifar, 2009; Ogiermann & Bella, 2020; Ronan, 2022 to name but a few).…”

Pragmatics: Mapping Evidence on Enhancing Children’s Use of Linguistic and Non-Linguistic Capacities for Interactive Communication

“…Research in pragmatics has also been demonstrated to correlate with the clusters identified in our scientometric analysis. Among these studies are those investigating variations in pragmatic language learning in non-English contexts [ 145 ], aspects of politeness [ 146 ], using virtual reality for developing pragmatic language [ 147 ], pragmatics and reasoning [ 148 ], ritual interaction [ 132 ], hearing impairment and pragmatic language skills [ 149 ], autism and neural association of pragmatic language skills [ 150 ], linguistic prediction at the pragmatic language level [ 151 ], mind reading in pragmatics [ 152 , 153 ] and executive functions and pragmatic language skills [ 154 ].…”

Conversational implicatures in “Negeri 5 Menara”: is the principle of politeness violated?

“…A general and conventional inference or understanding is known as a conventional implicature. While the principle of politeness serves to uphold amicable and social relationships in a conversation so that the flow of the conversation may be maintained, the principle of cooperation serves to control what is stated in a conversation (Leech 2016;Ronan 2022;Rusminto 2015). Six maxims make up the politeness principle: wisdom, generosity, praise, humility, agreement, and sympathy.…”