%0 Journal Article
%T Cross-cultural and Situational Variation in Request Behaviour
%A Vacsi
%A Anna
%J Argumentum
%D 2011
%I Debrecen University Press
%X This study investigates the relationship between social and cultural factors in the request behaviour of native speakers of American English and Hungarian. It also tests the extent to which speakers¡¯ directness is influenced by social factors, such as distance, power and imposition. It examines whether the request strategies of American English speakers and of Hungarian native speakers follow a similar trend across different social situations; and if so how and to what extent they are similar. Requests were chosen because they intrinsically involve the usage of politeness strategies; and they are frequently used in everyday situations.Results have shown that there is a great degree of correspondance between the two cultural groups in terms of general trends of situational variation, at the same time, there are cross-cultural differences in the specific directness levels employed for particular situations. This study argues that distance, power and imposition alone do not always decide speaker¡¯s level of directness. A number of situational and cultural factors need to be taken into consideration when interpreting speakers¡¯ linguistic choices.
%K politeness
%K politeness strategies
%K requests
%U http://argumentum.unideb.hu/2011-anyagok/VacsiA.pdf