Cortesia i entonació: les preguntes
d’oferiment i petició
Lluïsa Astruc, The Open University & The University of Cambridge
Maria del Mar Vanrell, Universitat Autonònoma de Madrid
Pilar Prieto, Universitat Pompeu Fabra & ICREA
Offers and requests within the politeness theory
framework
• Politeness theory (Brown and Levinson 1987):
• Certain speech acts (orders and requests, but also
suggestions and advice, offers and compliments) threaten this
public face
• Offers and requests are both potentially face-threatening to
both the hearer and the listener
– Offers are less so than requests
• Risk can be mitigated by means of appropriate linguistic
strategies such as:
– the use of indirect language
– insertion of softening expressions
– or with the intonation
Politeness (Brown & Levinson 1987)
• Speakers choose strategies by assessing the weight of the Face
Threatening Act (W):
– W= Distance + Power + Cost
• Weight of FTA (W) is computed as:
– the social distance (D) between hearer and speaker
– plus the measure of power (P) that hearer has over speaker
– plus the cost of the action (C), the degree to which the act is
considered as an imposition in the culture that the speaker and
the hearer belong to
• “X is my boss”; “I don't know X well”; “to ask someone like X to
do this is a big deal”
Intonation of yes-no questions in Catalan
• (Bonet 1984; Prieto 1998, 2002; Fernández Planas et al 2004;
Martínez-Celdrán et al 2005; Prieto & Rigau 2007)
{ Vols ve n i r ? }
L*+H L* H%
{ (Que) vols ve n i r ? }
H+L* L%
Intonation and politeness - Catalan
• 1 The descending pattern (H+L* L%) is perceived as more
polite than the ascending pattern (Payà 2003, Astruc 2009)
• 2 The ascending pattern (L* H%) is the most polite (Payrató
2002, Prieto 2002, Prieto & Rigau 2007)
– The descending pattern only appropriate in neutral information-
seeking questions and when the cost is minimal for the hearer
(Payrató 2002, Prieto & Rigau 2007)
• 3 Both patterns are perceived as equally polite, at least in low
cost situations (Nadeu & Prieto, 2011)
Research goals (1)
• Thus, offering and requesting questions in Catalan present a
choice of at least two intonational contours which can be
associated with different degrees of perceived politeness
• We ask the following research questions:
– (i) overall, is there a preference for a falling or rising pattern?
– (ii) which pattern is used in the most face-threatening
situations?
– (iii) what is the influence of each factor (power, distance,
cost) in the choice of intonational pattern?
Method
• Participants: 15 Central Catalan speakers
• Questionnaire: 8 offers + 8 requests = 16 situations (DCT)
• Procedure: 1st free response, 2nd question
• Materials:
– Cost (C) of the offer
• (-) passing over small items > (+) a car ride
– Social distance (D) between participants
• (-) sibling > (+) stranger
– Power (P) of hearer over speaker
• (-) colleague > (+) boss
• Imagina’t que dines a la cafeteria de sempre, que acostuma a
estar molt plena al migdia. El primer plat és una amanida. No
t’han portat les setrilleres i a tu t’agrada l’amanida amb un xic
més de vinagre. Mires i veus que les setrilleres són a la taula
del costat, on hi ha assegut un senyor d’uns 70 anys i cabell
blanc que pren un cafè. No vols esperar que torni el cambrer i
li demanes les setrilleres.
- 1- Com les hi demanaries? (Digues tot el que diries)
- 2 - Com les hi demanaries? (Fes una pregunta)
Materials (1)
• Ets a casa del teu germà o germana. Heu fet un sopar per un aniversari familiar, que ja s’ha acabat. Tothom viu a la vora menys tu. S’ha fet tard i has de tornar a peu. Altres vegades et porta/el portes en cotxe però avui ha begut una mica i tu decideixes demanar-li les claus del cotxe, i ja l’hi tornaràs l'endemà.
- 1- Com li ho demanaries? (Digues tot el que diries)
- 2 - Com li ho demanaries? (Fes una pregunta)
Methodology (2)
Analysis: intonation, sentence type, morpho-
syntactic markers
• Intonational analysis + labelling using Cat-ToBI
• Codification, SPSS:
– Form of address
• tu (0), vostè (1)
– Verbal form (tense, aspect, mood)
• future, imperative (0)
• present indicative (1)
• imperfect indicative, conditional (2)
Form of address + Verbal form = Indirectness index
Results (1) Free response vs. question
• Corpus: 462 responses by 15 speakers
• Free response: 75% questions + 22% decl + 3% imp
• Question only: 98% questions + 2% decl
• No statistically significant differences between free response
and question in the distribution of the different patterns
Results (2) Sentence type
• Differences
• With requests:
• More questions (84%) than with offers (67%)
• Less imperatives and declaratives
Results (3) Use of indirect language
• Robust correlations between the use of indirect language Distance
and Power
• Requests show the strongest correlation with Distance
Requests to strangers elicit the most indirect language
• Cost: weak correlation with the use of indirect language
Correlations
Distance Power Cost
Indirectness
Offers
Pearson Correlation
. 593** . 549** -.116*
Requests
Pearson Correlation
.704** . 548** .196**
Intonational patterns (1)
• L* H% ... Request to a colleague
• Speaker 10, 3b Would you mind passing me the salad?
Intonational patterns (2a)
• H+L* L% ... Small cost offer to a stranger
• Speaker 10, 10b Do you want the oil and vinegar? I’ve
finished and I don’t mind giving them to you (to a stranger)
Intonational patterns (2b)
• H+L*H% Requests, low power
• Speaker 3, 4b Could you give me the jam, please? (to a
colleague)
Intonational patterns (2b)
• H+L* H% High cost offer to an equal
• Speaker 4, 16a Do you want a lift? (to a colleague)
Intonational patterns (3) • L+H* H% Offers to siblings
• Speaker 3, 9a: Do you want the lemons and I’ll pass them on?
(to a sibling)
• Speaker 8, 13a I can drive, shall I give you a lift? (to a sibling)
Intonational patterns (4)
• L+¡H* L% Small cost request to a stranger
• Speaker 10, 2b Excuse me, would you mind if I borrow the oil and
the vinegar for a moment as I need to use it, I return it ... right
now?
Summary: intonational patterns
Ascendent
1- Ascendent L* H%
3 - High rise L+H* H%
Descendent
2a- Descendent H+L*L%
2b- (variant) H+L* H%
4 - Circumflex L+¡H* L%
94%
Intonational patterns
No statistically significant differences in the distribution of the
different patterns between the free response and the question only
response
All responses will be analysed together
Results (2) Offers vs. requests
• Statistically significant differences in the distribution of the
phonological patterns (chi-square, p = .001)
**
Results (3) Inter-speaker differences
• 3 participants (1, 7, 15) use 90% of times L* H%
• 3 participants (2, 5, 11) use 90-100% of times H+L* L%
• 9 participants show no marked preference for any specific
pattern
• One participant (14) shows much more variation than anyone
else, producing:
– 6/8 of the occurrences of L+H* H%
– 10/15 of the occurrences of H+L* HH%
• The following round of analyses will show only the main two
patterns (which make 94% of the total)
Results (6) Effects of Cost
Both offers and requests: statistically significant effects
Offers: chi-square = 9.201, p = .002
Requests: chi-square = 4.649, p = .022
Results (4) Effects of Social Distance
Requests: statistically
significant effects of Distance
(chi-square = 4.168, p = .031)
Results (5) Effects of Power
Tendency to use L*H% with requests, but not statistically
significant
OFFERS REQUESTS
Conclusion
• We have examined the main patterns, which make 94% of the data
– descending (H+L* L%) and ascending (L* H%)
• General tendency: more descending contours in offers and more
ascending contours in requests (more face-threatening)
• What is the influence of each factor (Power, Distance, Cost) in the
choice of intonational pattern?
– **Cost: the cost (real or psychological) of the thing offered or
requested influences use of high rise, L+H* H%
– *Distance: preference for L* H% when requesting anything from
a stranger
• No statistically significant effects in offers
– Power: preference for L* H% in requests (no statistically
significant effects of low vs. high power)
Conclusion (1)
• The most face-threatening situations are resolved by:
– morphosyntactic means:
• using indirect language (the V form and/or conditional or
imperfect)
• P: Offers and requests to your boss elicit indirect language
– and/or prosodic means
• C: preference for L* HH% with high cost offers and requests
– but mostly by a combination of morphosyntactic and prosodic
means
• D: preference for H+L*L% with offers and requests to
strangers, indirect language (.704**)
Conclusion (2)
{ Vols ve n i r ? }
L*+H L* H%
{ (Que) vols ve n i r ? }
H+L* L%
low Cost offers high Cost requests
low Power offers high Power requests
low Distance requests high Distance offers
We are grateful to our participants. Warmest thanks to Nuria
Gilabert for organsing the recordings.
This study has been funded through the grant
HUM2006=01758/FILO “Estructura prosódica y adquisición de la
prosodia”
Many thanks!
Any questions?
Offers and requests
• Offers and requests are speech acts
• Speech acts can be formulated with a:
– Yes/no question (‘Shall I help you?’)
– Wh- question (‘How can I help you?’)
– Declarative question (‘You are ok there?’, ‘You need help?’)
– Declarative (‘I’ll help you’)
– Imperative (‘Let me help you’)
Politeness (Brown & Levinson 1987)
• Speakers assess the cost of face threatening acts (FTAs) before
deciding whether to go ahead (Brown and Levinson 1978: 74):
Risk the FTA
5. Don’t risk the FTA
on record
4. off record
1. without mitigation
with mitigation
2. positive
politeness
3. negative
politeness
(“solidarity”)
(“deference”)
(“indirect”)
(“direct”)
1- Open the window
2- Open the window for us, mate
3- Could I trouble you to open the window?
4- It's hot in here…
5- (nothing)