Abstract
This article addresses the relationship between linguistic politeness and addressee status in the performance of written requests in French. According to a first view, conventionalized Can you followed by a verbal phrase (in short, Can you VP?) “indirect requests” (IRs) are preferred because they enable speakers to convey politeness effects absent in imperatives. According to an alternative view, Can you VP? is the standard polite request form in written communication because it avoids impoliteness implications. To test these two competing hypotheses, I carried out a production task experiment with 122 native speakers of Belgian French writing email requests. In this experiment, addressee status was manipulated. An important finding is that higher addressee status does not increase the frequency of Can you VP? requests. Instead of using Can you VP? more often when they address higher status people, the participants used specific politeness markers such as formal greetings and the V-form of address. These results disconfirm the hypothesis that Can you VP? is used to convey extra politeness effects and suggests instead that people use such IRs to avoid the risk of being considered impolite.
About the author
Nicolas Ruytenbeek completed a PhD in Linguistics at the Université libre de Bruxelles (2017). In his doctoral dissertation, he addressed the mechanics of indirect directive speech acts, both from a theoretical and experimental perspective. His main research interests are speech act comprehension and production, linguistic approaches to politeness, and more generally, issues bearing on the semantics/pragmatics interface. He is currently a postdoctoral researcher at Ghent University (2019-2022).
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Appendices
Appendix 1 External and internal modifications (cf. CCSARP)
Examples (French) | English translation | |
External modifications | ||
Supportive moves | ||
Opening | Bonjour Salut Cher/chère M. / Mme / Mlle | ‘Good morning/afternoon/evening’ ‘Hello’ ‘Dear’ ‘Mr.’, ‘Mrs.’, ‘Miss’ |
Self-introduction | Je suis X, chargée de la rédaction… Je suis une étudiante… Je suis la rédactrice… | ‘I am X, responsible for the writing…’ ‘I am a student…’ ‘I am the editor…’ |
Orientation move | Je suis en train de finaliser la publication de la revue des étudiants. | ‘I am finalizing the publication of the student journal.’ |
Explicit criticism | Tu étais chargée de la rédaction de ce dernier et je n’ai pourtant eu aucun retour. | ‘You were responsible for writing this article but I haven’t received anything.’ |
Checking on preconditions | Si vous souhaitez toujours que votre texte paraisse dans la revue, … Pourriez-vous me confirmer votre participation? | ‘If you still want your text to be published in the journal, …’ ‘Could you confirm your participation?’ |
Grounder | Je ne peux clôturer la publication sans votre texte. J’en ai besoin pour finaliser la revue. | ‘I cannot complete the publication without your text.’ ‘I need it in order to finalize the journal.’ |
Imposition minimizer | ||
Apology | En m’excusant de vous déranger pendant cette période chargée de la rentrée académique… | ‘With my apologies for bothering you in this busy period of the start of the academic year…’ |
Thanks | Merci de ta compréhension. Merci d’avance. | ‘Thanks for your understanding.’ ‘Thank you in advance.’ |
Closing: greeting | Bien à vous… Cordialement… Veuillez agréer, cher monsieur, mes salutations les plus distinguées. | ‘Best wishes…’ ‘Sincerely yours…’ ‘Please accept, Sir, my very best regards.’ |
Closing: phatic element | Bonne journée. J’espère que tout se passe bien de ton côté. | ‘I wish you a nice day.’ ‘I hope all is fine with you.’ |
Aggravating moves | ||
Impatience | Vous n’avez toujours pas envoyé votre texte. | ‘You still have not sent your text.’ |
Emphasis on urgency | Nous avons des délais à respecter. Nous devons bientôt envoyer la revue à l’imprimerie. J’attends votre texte avec impatience. | ‘We have deadlines to observe.’ ‘We have to send the journal to the press soon.’ ‘I look forward to your text.’ |
Emphasis on positive outcome | En espérant recevoir votre texte, … | ‘Looking forward to receiving your text, …’ |
Internal modification | ||
Purpose clause | afin que je puisse finaliser la revue | ‘so that I can finalize the journal’ |
Syntactic downgraders | ||
Conditional | Pourriez-vous m’envoyer le texte que vous avez rédigé pour la revue? | ‘Could you send me the text you have written for the journal?’ |
Past tense | Je me demandais où tu en étais et si tu vas pouvoir finir/m’envoyer ton texte… | ‘I was wondering what the situation is and whether you will be able to finalize/send your text…’ |
Lexical and phrasal downgraders | ||
Downtoner (imposition minimizer) | Ce serait juste pour savoir si… | ‘This is just to know whether…’ |
Embedded if-clause | Si tu peux me l’envoyer, ça m’arrangerait. | ‘If you could send it to me, that would suit me.’ |
Please (politeness) | s’il vous plait, si vous le voulez bien, s’il te plait, stp | ‘please, if you please’ |
Providing excuses for the recipient | Il semblerait qu’une erreur se soit produite dans l’envoi des articles. | ‘It seems that an error occurred while sending the articles.’ |
Hedges | dans la mesure du possible, dès que vous aurez un moment | ‘whenever possible, any time you have a few moments’ |
Lexical upgraders | ||
Time intensifiers | rapidement, le plus vite possible | ‘quickly, as soon as possible’ |
Appendix 2 Conventions of means illustrated with examples
Request form | Examples | English translation |
Formulaic Merci de VP | Merci de remédier à cet oubli. | ‘Thanks for rectifying this omission.’ |
Imperative Veuillez VP | Veuillez me soumettre votre texte. | ‘Please submit your text.’ |
Explicit performative | Je vous prie de m’envoyer votre texte. Je vous demanderais de (bien vouloir) m’envoyer votre texte. Je vous envoie ce mail afin de recevoir en réponse votre texte. Je vous envoie cet email comme rappel. | ‘I am asking you to send me your text.’ ‘I would ask you to (be willing to) send me your text.’ ‘I send you this email to receive back your text.’ ‘I send you this email as a reminder.’ |
Hedged performative | Je me permets de vous rappeler de me faire parvenir votre texte. Je vous prie d’essayer de me faire parvenir votre texte. | ‘I am taking the liberty to remind you to send me your text.’ ‘Please try to send me your text.’ |
Want statement | J’aimerais que vous me renvoyiez votre texte. | ‘I would like you to send me your text again.’ |
Need statement | J’aurais besoin que vous me fournissiez votre texte rédigé par mail. | ‘I would need you to provide the text you’ve written by email.’ |
Preparatory conditions A’s ability Hedged preparatory (A’s ability) A’s desire/willingness | Pourriez-vous me faire parvenir votre texte? Nous aimerions savoir s’il serait possible que vous nous fassiez parvenir votre texte. Auriez-vous l’amabilité de m’envoyer votre texte? | ‘Could you send your text to me?’ ‘We would like to know whether it would be possible for you to send us your text.’ ‘Would you be so kind as to send me your text?’ |
Hints | Je me permets de vous envoyer ce mail afin de vous demander ce qu’il en est. Je reviens vers vous afin de vous signaler que vous avez omis de m’envoyer le texte. | ‘I am taking the liberty to contact you by mail so as to ask you what the situation is.’ ‘I am coming back to you to inform you that you forgot to send me the text.’ |
Appendix 3 - Conventions of means
Convention of means | Absolute frequency | Relative frequency |
Preparatory interrogatives Ability interrogatives Can you VP? Is it possible to VP? | 80/116 77/116 64/116 12/116 | 69 % 66.4 % 55.2 % 10.3 % |
Explicit performatives | 13/116 | 11.2 % |
Hints | 7/116 | 6 % |
Imperatives | 5/116 | 4.3 % |
Hedged performatives | 5/116 | 4.3 % |
Speaker’s desire/need | 3/116 | 2.6 % |
Suggestory formula: Thanks for VPing | 3/116 | 2.6 % |
Obligation statements | 0/116 | 0 % |
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