A Comparative Study Of Requests In English And Chinese

As the title of the present study indicates, this paper is going to comparatively study thedifferences of the English and Chinese requests. There are two reasons why the requestspeech act is chosen to be studied. First, the request speech acts are widely used in dailycommunication. Second, it is one of the most important research fields in the scope ofpragmatics, and the scholars both at home and abroad have made great achievements in thisfield. And in the previous studies of requests, the scholars just focus on distinguishing thedifferent types of requests in relation to strategies. Therefore, the author will apply thequalitative research method and comparative study method to analyze the different languageforms used in English and Chinese requests, and probe into the cultural and situational factorsaffecting these differences.The request speech act is face-threatening, so people should exercise some politestrategies when making requests in order to reach the goal of communication. In other words,the request speech act and politeness are inseparable from each other. Hence, the presentpaper will conduct a comparative study of requests from the perspective of politeness. It canbe found that the politeness theories of Leech, Brown and Levinson are perfectly appropriatefor English requests, but not proper for Chinese requests in some aspects, because the westernpoliteness theories are based on the western culture. To be specific, politeness in Englishrequests is different from that in Chinese requests, naturally, these language forms showingpoliteness used in English and Chinese requests are different. Consequently, it is necessary todiscuss this in this paper.This paper mainly generalizes two differences between English and Chinese requests. Onthe one hand, in terms of syntax, there is no such Chinese sentence structure characterizedwith “把(ba/bundle)” in English requests. And the position of the politeness marker “please”in English requests and “请(qing/please)” in Chinese requests is different. Further more, thereis no such phenomenon that people use the modal verb past tense to make requests morepolite in Chinese, but this is always seen in English requests. On the other hand, in the light ofdiscourse, Chinese use a large number of alerters to begin almost every request. However,English use fewer alerters to begin a request. And the supportive moves are often given before the head act in Chinese requests, on the contrary, the head act will always be provided first inEnglish requests, and sometimes the supportive moves will not be presented at all.All these differences are caused by the cultural and specific situational variables. Chineseculture pays attention to collectivism and hierarchy, and the Chinese thinking mode is circular.So the alerters are always used and the various supportive moves are always provided at firstin a request. But English culture highlights individualism and equality, and the Englishthinking pattern is linear, so the indirect strategies in the form of interrogatives modified bythe modal verb past tense are preferred by English. In addition to these cultural factors, thereare still some specific situational factors: the imposition of a request, the degree of familiaritybetween the interlocutors, the power gap and the social distance, which also influence thepoliteness degree of the requests and cause the differences between English and Chineserequests.In a word, this paper aims to make the interlocutors aware of these differences betweenEnglish and Chinese requests. And it is going to discuss these specific cultural and situationalfactors affecting these differences. Finally, it will help the requesters to request effectively,and achieve the communication goal successfully in the following communication.