A Pragmatic Approach To Requests In Japanese

Requests, asking someone to do you a favor, can be found everywhere in our daily life. It often occurs to us that we have to ask others for help when we are in trouble.People present requests in hope that the listener could do something for him, so one can never be too careful in his wording and politeness. Speakers would choose different ways to express their requests according to the particular situations in real life.It is of significant importance for both second foreign languages teaching and acquiring a deeper understanding about requests to clarify factors that can influence the strategies and probe into various skill of requests.Former study which is conducted by linguistics concerning requests in Japan has been a modest success. But it is no more than a comparison between phrases and sentence structures in each language respective. The study on basic features of request and interactive strategy in real using is far from prosperity. In that way, all what language learner is just some sentence structures. They will be confused, don't know how to choose a appropriate way to express their meaning according to the person they are talking to and particular situations once they enter the real society out of school.In this essay, I mainly discourse the speech meaning, ways of expression, and pragmatic strategy on the base of politeness principle, speech act theory etc.Meanwhile, much emphasis was put on the influence of politeness principle has on ways of presenting requests in order to reveal the features of requests in Japanese, list the widely used expressions, probe into the factors that could effect the using of requests.By doing all the above, we can find a way to present request in a polite and successful manner as well as offer some useful reference to the cross-cultural communication and Japanese teaching in China.The creativity of this essay lies in the two aspects as follows: firstly, I study the act of request as a theory rather than a pure act from the perspective of pragmatics, which can be seen as the theoretic foundation of the whole essay. Secondly, I research the usage of language by analyzing the relationship between languages and cultures. It is totally another thing compared with traditional research which is concerning only the forms of expression.The whole passage is divided into four parts, including the analyzing of the nature, definition, felicity conditions; the generalization of practical expressions; factors that influence the choice of expressive strategy; how to present your requests in a polite manner.First, I defined requests as a directive illocutionary act according to John Langshaw Austin and John R.searle's discourse concerning speech acts.Then I step further to probe into how act theory is embodied in daily requests by analyzing this illocutionary act. The so-called expression of request is one kind of speech that means to make the listener act out something without forcing him to. And what The listener do is what the speaker is concerning about and meanwhile is beneficial to him. The felicity conditions presented by John R. Searle and Himeno are also works in requests in Japanese. Besides, there is something very important: the listener has the right to make the final decision.In this essay, requests are classified into two groups: indirect request and indirect request. And indirect request can step further to be split into two even more detailed groups: conventionally indirect strategies and non-conventional strategies.Conventionally indirect strategies have been regarded as a well-known form of requests. It means presenting one's request indirectly by speaking out their wish, situation, hope, judgment, statement, suggestion, emotion or inquiring the desire, permission, ability and conditions of fulfilling to indicate the purposes of the speaker.The non-conventionally indirect request mainly consists of forms of expression such as hits and omit etc.Next, I discourse the influence that politeness principles has on the request of Japanese. A request is considered to be face and freedom-threatening verbal behavior to the listener. Hence, in order to maintain good relationship between both sides as well save faces of both sides, one can't be too careful when consider all the factors that may affect the strategy of request, Such as the social status of each side, relationship between both sides, and how complicated the job is.We'd better be euphemistic in our wording, try our best to make the listener feel not so stressful and easy to say no.Finally, on the base of the research results above, I offer some personal suggestions and outlooks concerning concrete ways of how to present a touching requests in a polite yet successful manner.Meanwhile generalize the supporting expressions which are widely used in request of Japanese.Make it clear that one can gain his ends by choosing alerters or subsidiary according to the nature of the context of requests yet avoiding conflicts effectively.From all the discourse above we can see that it is far from enough to say we have mastered a language if we only know the grammar structure of it. What we need is an all-around study that set in the particular social and cultural background.What's more, we also need to be trained in ways to design conversational construction, to choose appropriate strategy of expression and opportunity as well as to strengthen our verbal behavior.