Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

How Russians pre-request and seek assistance: a study of interaction in two communities of practice

Предварение просьбы и обращение за помощью на русском языке: исследование взаимодействия в двух группах

  • Published:
Russian Linguistics Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Before asking another person to do something, it is common to check whether they are available by asking preliminary questions, or pre-request. Pre-requesting is considered a politeness strategy used to mitigate face threat or avoid committing a request proper at all. This article focuses on analyzing Russian pre-request sequences and demonstrates how they are organized and expanded in particular communities of practice. The examples have been taken from a corpus of naturally-occurring data with recordings made of two communities of practice, a workplace and an extended family. In the workplace a common respond to a pre-request is teasing, which can also lead to a sequence expansion. In the second community of practice, family, it is common for some members to avoid a request proper through initiating a series of pre-requests and hints.

Аннотация

Вместо того чтобы сразу обратиться с просьбой, люди часто задают вопросы с целью уточнить возможность выполнения действия, формулируя так называемые предварительные просьбы. Предварение просьбы вопросами и намеками рассматривается как стратегия вежливости, позволяющая смягчить опасный речевой акт или избежать его. В статье анализируются русскоязычные диалоги, содержащие предварительные просьбы (pre-requests), и показывается, как последовательности с ними могут быть устроены в конкретных сообществах. Примеры взяты из корпуса диалогов, записанных в двух сплоченных группах—в рабочем коллективе и в расширенной семье исследователя. В рабочем коллективе ответом на предварение просьбы становится подтрунивание, которое может привести к расширению последовательности. Внутри описанной семьи последовательности с вопросами и намеками могут быть достаточно продолжительными: участник делает все возможное, чтобы избежать просьбы как таковой.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. There are only two books published on Russian politeness (Rathmayr 1996; Larina 2009), with data predominantly obtained through questionnaires and from fiction. See, however, studies of Russian requests (Baranova and Dingemanse 2016; Bolden 2017).

  2. For politeness in communities of practice, see, e.g., Mills (2003) and Clark (2011).

  3. The most popular method of collecting data was using a discourse completion task, during which respondents are given questionnaires to fill in. The questionnaire translated into different languages includes a number of dialogues with missing phrases.

  4. Mills, S., and van der Bom, I. A discursive approach to the analysis of politeness data. In 9th Internatinal Im/Politeness Conference ‘Impoliteness and Globalisation’, 1–3 July, 2015, Athens. Abstracts (p. 67). Retrieved from http://politeness-2015.enl.uoa.gr/uploads/media/ABSTRACTS.pdf (27 May 2019).

  5. In the glosses lines, the following abbreviations have been used: acc—accusative, dat—dative, dim—diminutive, fut—future, gen—genitive, imp—imperative, inf—infinitive, pl—plural, prs—present, pst—past, ptcl—particle, sg—singular. The translations in this paper have been kept as close as possible to the original Russian.

  6. The capital letters indicate that the word is said more loudly.

References

  • Baranova, J., & Dingemanse, M. (2016). Reasons for requests. Discourse Studies, 18(6), 641–675. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461445616667154.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Blum-Kulka, S., & Olshtain, E. (1984). Requests and apologies: A cross-cultural study of speech act realization patterns (CCSARP). Applied Linguistics, 5(3), 196–213.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bolden, G. (2017). Requests for here-and-now actions in Russian conversation. In M.-L. Sorjonen, L. Raevaara, & E. Couper-Kuhlen (Eds.), Imperative turns at talk. The design of directives in action (Studies in Language and Social Interaction, 30, pp. 175–211). Amsterdam.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Van der Bom, I., & Mills, S. (2015). A discursive approach to the analysis of politeness data. Journal of Politeness Research, 11(2), 179–206. https://doi.org/10.1515/pr-2015-0008.

    Google Scholar 

  • Brown, P., & Levinson, S. (1987). Politeness: some universals in language usage. Cambridge.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Clark, J. (2011). “No, like proper north”: Re-drawing boundaries in an emergent community of practice. In Linguistic Politeness Research Group (Ed.), Discursive approaches to politeness (Mouton Series in Pragmatics, 8, pp. 109–132). Berlin, Boston.

    Google Scholar 

  • Curl, T. S., & Drew, P. (2008). Contingency and action: A comparison of two forms of requesting. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 41(2), 129–153. https://doi.org/10.1080/08351810802028613.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Drew, P., & Couper-Kuhlen, E. (Eds.) (2014). Requesting in social interaction (Studies in Language and Social Interaction, 26). Amsterdam, Philadelphia.

    Google Scholar 

  • Duranti, A. (1997). Linguistic anthropology. Cambridge.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Eckert, P., & McConnell-Ginet, S. (1992). Communities of practice: Where language, gender, and power all live. In K. Hall, M. Bucholtz, & B. Moonwomon (Eds.), Locating power. Proceedings of the Second Berkeley Women and Language Conference (pp. 89–99). Berkeley.

    Google Scholar 

  • Eelen, G. (2001). A critique of politeness theories. Manchester.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fukushima, S. (2003). Requests and culture. Politeness in British English and Japanese. Berlin.

    Google Scholar 

  • Geyer, N. (2008). Discourse and politeness. Ambivalent cace in Japanese. London.

    Google Scholar 

  • Grainger, K. (2011). ‘First order’ and ‘second order’ politeness: Institutional and intercultural contexts. In Linguistic Politeness Research Group (Ed.), Discursive approaches to politeness (Mouton Series in Pragmatics, 8, pp. 167–188). Berlin, Boston.

    Google Scholar 

  • Haugh, M. (2007). The discursive challenge to politeness research: An interactional alternative. Journal of Politeness Research, 3(2), 295–317. https://doi.org/10.1515/PR.2007.013.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Haugh, M. (2017a). Prompting offers of assistance in interaction. Pragmatics and Society, 8(2), 183–207.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Haugh, M. (2017b). Teasing. In S. Attardo (Ed.), The Routledge handbook of language and humor (pp. 204–218). New York, London.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Haugh, M., & Watanabe, Y. (2017). (Im)politeness theory. In B. Vine (Ed.), The Routledge handbook of language in the workplace (pp. 65–76). New York, London.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Holmes, J. (2006). Gendered talk at work (Language and Social Change, 2). Oxford.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Hymes, D. (1974). Foundations in sociolinguistics. An ethnographic approach. Philadelphia.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kádár, D., & Haugh, M. (2013). Understanding politeness. Cambridge.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Kecskes, I. (2014). Intercultural pragmatics. Oxford.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kendrick, K. H., & Drew, P. (2014). The putative preference for offers over requests. In P. Drew & E. Couper-Kuhlen (Eds.), Requesting in social interaction (Studies in Language and Social Interaction, 26, pp. 87–113). Amsterdam, Philadelphia.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lakoff, R. T. (1973). The logic of politeness: Or minding your P’s and Q’s. In C. Corum, T. Cedric Smith-Stark, & A. Weiser (Eds.), Papers from the Ninth Regional Meeting of the Chicago Linguistics Society, April 13–15 (pp. 292–305). Chicago.

    Google Scholar 

  • Langlotz, A. (2010). Social cognition. In M. A. Locher & S. L. Graham (Eds.), Interpersonal pragmatics (Handbooks of Pragmatics, 6, pp. 167–202). Berlin, New York.

    Google Scholar 

  • Langlotz, A., & Locher, M. A. (2013). The role of emotions in relational work. In M. Haugh, D. Z. Kádár, & S. Mills (Eds.), Interpersonal pragmatics [Special issue]. Journal of Pragmatics, 58, 87–107.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Larina, T. V. (2009). Kategorija vežlivosti i stil’ kommunikacii. Sopostavlenie anglijskix i russkix lingvokul’turnyx tradicii. Moskva.

    Google Scholar 

  • Leech, G. (1983). Principles of pragmatics. London, New York.

    Google Scholar 

  • Leech, G. (2007). Politeness: Is there an East-West divide? Journal of Politeness Research, 3(2), 167–206. https://doi.org/10.1515/PR.2007.009.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Leech, G. (2014). The pragmatics of politeness. Oxford.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Levinson, S. C. (1983). Pragmatics. Cambridge.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Linguistic Politeness Research Group (Ed.) (2011). Discursive approaches to politeness (Mouton Series in Pragmatics, 8). Berlin, Boston.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lindström, A. (2005). Language as social action. A study of how senior citizens request assistance with practical tasks in the Swedish home help service. In A. Hakulinen & M. Selting (Eds.), Syntax and lexis in conversation. Studies on the use of linguistic resources in tak-in-interaction (Studies in Discourse and Grammar, 17, pp. 209–230). Amsterdam, Philadelphia.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Locher, M. A. (2013). Relational work and interpersonal pragmatics. Journal of Pragmatics, 58, 138–151.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Locher, M. A. (2015). Interpersonal pragmatics and its link to (im)politeness research. Journal of Pragmatics, 86, 5–10.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Locher, M. A., & Watts, R. J. (2005). Politeness theory and relational work. Journal of Politeness Research, 1(1), 9–33.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mills, S. (2003). Gender and politeness. Cambridge.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Ogiermann, E. (2009a). On apologising in negative and positive politeness cultures (Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 191). Amsterdam, Philadelphia.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Ogiermann, E. (2009b). Politeness and in-directness across cultures: A comparison of English, German, Polish and Russian requests. Journal of Politeness Research, 5(2), 189–216. https://doi.org/10.1515/JPLR.2009.011.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ogiermann, E. (2015). Object requests: Rights and obligations surrounding object possession and object transfer. Journal of Pragmatics, 82, 1–4.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rathmayr, R. (1996). Pragmatik der Entschuldigungen. Vergleichende Untersuchung am Beispiel der russischen Sprache und Kultur. Köln.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rossi, G. (2015a). The request system in Italian interaction (Ph.D. dissertation, Radboud University Nijmegen). Nijmegen.

  • Rossi, G. (2015b). Responding to pre-requests: The organization of hai x ‘do you have x’ sequences in Italian. Journal of Pragmatics, 82, 5–22. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2015.03.008.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rudneva, E. (2010). Cross-cultural study of politeness: Lexical and grammatical means of requesting and differences in their usage (Master’s thesis). St. Petersburg.

  • Sacks, H., Schegloff, E., & Jefferson, G. (1974). A simplest systematics for the organisation of turn-taking for conversation. Language, 50(4), 696–735.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Salgado, E. F. (2011). The pragmatics of requests and apologies: Developmental patterns of Mexican students. (Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 212). Amsterdam, Philadelphia.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Schegloff, E. A. (1980). Preliminaries to preliminaries: “Can I Ask You a Question?”. Sociological Inquiry, 50(3–4), 104–152. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-682X.1980.tb00018.x.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Schegloff, E. A. (2007). Pre-expansion. In Schegloff, E. A. (Ed.), Sequence organization in interaction. A primer in conversation analysis (pp. 28–57). Cambridge.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Schegloff, E. A., & Sacks, H. (1973). Opening up closings. Semiotica, 8(4), 289–327.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Spencer-Oatey, H. (2005). Rapport management theory and culture. Intercultural Pragmatics, 2(3), 335–346.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Watts, R. J. (2003). Politeness. Cambridge.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of practice. Learning, meaning, and identity. Cambridge.

    Book  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Author notes

  1. Ekaterina Rudneva

    Present address: Antropological Linguistics, Institute for Linguistic Studies, Russian Academy of Science, Moscow, Russia

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Anthropology, European University at St. Petersburg, St. Petersburg, Russia

    Ekaterina Rudneva

Authors
  1. Ekaterina Rudneva
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Ekaterina Rudneva.

Additional information

Publisher’s Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Rudneva, E. How Russians pre-request and seek assistance: a study of interaction in two communities of practice. Russ Linguist 43, 127–142 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11185-019-09211-z

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11185-019-09211-z

Search

Navigation