Linguistic Politeness—A Major Tool for Cross-cultural Requests

In an era of growing internationalization, requesting—a demand made by a requester asking a favor of another person (Nelson et al 2002) -- has played a vital role in cross-cultural interactions. Since making requests involves the speaker’s effort to get assistance from the hearer, it is intrinsically face-threatening (Brown and Levinson 1987). The use of politeness strategies then comes into play to soften the face threats. Moreover, since the notion of politeness is perceived differently across cultures (Blum-Kulka 1987), politeness strategies become helpful only when formulated in a socially and culturally appropriate way. This article explores linguistic politeness in requests based on politeness theories, linguistic politeness across cultures, shortcomings of universal politeness theories, studies of culture-specific politeness, and teaching linguistic politeness to EFL requesters.