Contrastive Study Of Request Speech Act In English And Chinese From Cross-cultural Perspective

Request speech act and request strategy have always been important subjects inpragmatic research. The study of request dates back to1970s; during1980s the number ofrequest studies increases dramatically. But most of these studies are conducted by foreignpeople. Blum-Kulka is one of the prominent scholars who research on request. Blum-Kulkatogether with several other scholars studies on request strategy in Australian English, Hebrewand other three languages; they find that among the five languages indirect strategy is themost frequently used strategy type. Request and politeness principle are inseparable, thereforescholars abroad apply politeness principle to request study. The most famous politenessprinciples are Leech’s politeness principle as well as Brown and Levinson’s face savingtheory. These scholars all think that their principles are universal and applicable to any culture.In contrast the domestic study of request is a little later, probably beginning in1990s. Chinesescholars mainly focus on the contrastive studies of request speech act and request strategy inEnglish and Chinese. Many scholars find that western politeness principles are not applicableto Chinese request speech act. Gu Yueguo and other scholars put forward the Chinesepoliteness maxim. The achievements of previous studies on request speech act and requeststrategy lay a solid foundation for further study.On the basis of the achievements of previous studies a contrastive study of requestspeech act in English and Chinese is conducted in this thesis. The similarities and differencesof request structures and strategies are found and explanations are given from cross-culturalperspective. Fifty American and Chinese freshmen are respectively chosen as the subjects ofthe questionnaire and the interview. Among these students half are boys and half are girls.Besides these one hundred students, English teachers and exchange students from Englishspeaking countries are chosen to be the subjects of the interview. Discourse Completion Test(DCT) is used in the questionnaire but is slightly modified—the questions are open-endednamely no contextual constraints in order to give the students enough freedom. Thequestionnaire covers twelve different situations and several different interpersonalrelationships including family members, friends, strangers, teachers and students as well assuperiors and subordinates. After the analysis of the data collected by the questionnaire andthe interview, conclusion is reached. Explanations to the conclusion are given from cross-cultural perspective. Suggestions for further request study and English teaching aregiven.