Chapter 4 Findings
4.2 Children’s Politeness in Requests
4.2.1 Children’s use of social deixis
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立 政 治 大 學
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N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
4.2 Children’s Politeness in Requests
Previous studies on children’s linguistic politeness have pointed out that children may adhere to such factors as status and cost when considering what request form to use so as to convey their requests appropriately (Ervin-Tripp et al.; Garton & Pratt, 1990). It has also been discussed that one of the means for demonstrating children’s deference to politeness is to request with an indirect request forms (Blum-Kulka, 1990). Ervin-Tripp et al. (1990) further suggested that children’s linguistic politeness should be analyzed in terms of their uses of social deixis, social tactics and persuasive tactics. In addition, Ervin-Tripp et al. (1990) discussed the distinction between acting politely and acting effectively as well. They argued that children’s options for a particular forms to perform a speech act may be motivated by the effectiveness of the form to reach their communicative goal, but rather entirely by the politeness the form may convey or imply. Following the suggestions given in the previous studies,
particularly those in Ervin-Tripp et al.’s study (1990), children’s politeness in requests is thus examined through the observation of their uses of various syntactic devices as redressive actions and social deixis, and their provision of persuasion. The
indirectness of children’s request forms is incorporated in the discussion of children’s uses of various request forms in adherence to linguistic politeness. In the last part of this chapter, the influence of effectiveness of request forms is presented.
4.2.1 Children’s use of social deixis
According to Ervin-Tripp et al. (1990), social deixis refers to linguistic devices
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國立 政 治 大 學
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N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
which ‘allude to an existing relationship or status (p. 314).’ Social deixis basically includes address terms that are obligatory for addressees to defer to social distance.
Following this definition, when a Mandarin-speaking child uses mama ‘mother’ to address his/her mother who is already attentive, such address term is thus an instance of social deixis. The use of social deixis is therefore considered as a strategy to demonstrate children’s deference to linguistic politeness.
The data observed in the study were searched for the occurrence of social deixis, including address terms, honorifics, and other linguistic expressions or elements which may indicate politeness, such as qing ‘please’, bang ‘to help’, and mafan
‘please’. The results of the search are shown in the following (Table 3).
Table 3
Frequencies of Social Deixis
Time 1 Time 2 Time 3
N % N % N %
Address Terms 6 11.54 5 4.39 5 7.04
Person Switch 0 0 3 2.63 3 4.23
No Social Deixis 46 88.46 106 92.98 63 88.73
Total 52 100 114 100 71 100
In general, children mostly appear not to use social deixis when requesting. As shown in Table 3, around 90% of all request instances appear not accompanied with any social deixis. This may show that in family interactions children on the whole seem not to defer to the social relationship between their interlocutors and themselves specifically and explicitly. On the other hand, nearly 10% of the request instances only appear explicitly mitigated with social deixis. Children may either mitigate their requests by adding an address term or by using the first person plural pronoun women
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‘we; let’s’ to refer to both parties in the interaction. With the low percentage, further investigation into the uses of social deixis may be helpful for understanding this respect of children’s linguistic politeness. A qualitatively analysis is thus conducted to elucidate children’s linguistic politeness.
These children use address terms, one type of social deixis, to mitigate their requests mostly when they are at a lower status as a child. Children generally use address terms to indicate their inability to do an act and their need for others’ help, their desire to switch conversational topics or interactional activities, or their intrusion on the progression of the current interaction. For instance,
(11) LGW, 3;0, Line 496
Context: LGW and her father were reading an interactive book. They were trying to dress the characters in the book.
*FAT: 那 我們 來 幫 他 戴 帽子.
Na women lai bang ta dai mao-zi Then we come help him wear hat
‘Then, let’s help him put on a hat.’
*LGW: 0 [= stuffing pieces of paper into the aperture in the book].
*FAT: 哇 -: 剛剛 好 對不對?
Wa ganggang hao dui-bu-dui Wow just good right-not-right
‘Wow, it matches just well, right?’
*LGW: 有 鞋子.
You xie-zi YOU shoes
‘There are shoes.’
*FAT: +^ 還有 鞋子.
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‘[We] should help him put on the shoes, right?’
*LGW: 爸 我 不會 弄. ←
‘You put them up together.’
(12) YOU, 2;6, Line 1476
Context: YOU climbed to a high place, but she was unable to come down.
*MOT: 誰 叫 妳 要 爬 那麼 高?
Shei jao ni yao pa na-mo gao Who ask you want climb that high
‘Why did you climb up there?’
*MOT: 妳 怎麼 上去 妳 就 怎麼 下來 啊.
Ni zemo shang-qu ni jiu ze-mo xia-lai a You how up-go you JIU how down-come PRT
‘You can go up there and you can come down yourself.’
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*MOT: 妳 為什麼 每次 要 爬 那麼 高?
Ni wei-she-mo meici yao pa namo gao You why every-time want climb that high
‘Why do you always climb up there?’
*YOU: 媽 -: [= crying].
Ma Mom
‘Mom…’
*MOT: 妳 要 跟 我 說 什麼?
Ni yao gen wo shuo shemo You want to me say what
‘What do you have to say?’
*YOU: 媽 -: 請 幫 我 抱 下來. ← Ma qing bang wo bao xia-lai
Mom please help me hug down-come
‘Mom, please help me to get down.’
*MOT: 妳 不要 再 爬 那麼 高 了 啦.
Ni buyao zai pa namo gao le la You no-longer again climb that high LE PRT
‘You should no longer climb up there.’
*MOT: <知道 嗎> [= in Taiwanese]?
/zei-nia mo/ (Zhi-dao ma) Know PRT
‘Get it?’
*YOU: 嗯 -: . en Mm
‘Mm.’
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Excerpts (11) and (12) illustrate requests accompanied with social deixis produced by these children when they are in need for their parents’ help. In (11), the child realized that she could not do the task alone so she asked her father for help. With this social deixis, which is indicated with the initial address term, ba ‘dad’, the child, on the one hand, showed her respect to the interpersonal relation between herself and her father.
The child, on the other hand, not only expressed her need for others’ help, but also implied to her father her inability to do such a task alone as a child. Likewise, the request, exemplified in excerpt (12), also shows how children mitigated a request with address term and asked her mother for help. In this excerpt, in addition to a social deixis, the child also used polite lexical units, qing ‘please’ and bang ‘to help’, to indicate her deference to her respectively lower rank or status and her need for her mother to grant her a favor. The use of polite lexical items will be discussed further in a later section. This mitigated request, however, subtly differs from that illustrated in (11). The child in (12) produced a polite request after her mother’s hint for her to be polite, since she was not only being naughty and troublesome, but also causing her mother some inconvenience. This case of polite request appears to be elicited by adult’s explicit instruction on politeness.
On the other hand, the excerpt below illustrates how these children used such mitigated requests to switch conversational topics or activities.
(13) LGW, 2;0, Line 1505
Context: Mother was talking about characters in fairy tales, and asked LGW for her preference for the character she was mentioning.
*MOT: 你 喜歡 白雪公主 還是 喜歡 萵苣姑娘?
Ni xihuan bai-xue-gong-zhu hai-shi xi-huan woju-guniang
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‘Which do you prefer, Snow White or Rapunzel?’
*FAT: 還是 喜歡 青蛙 +/.
Hai-shi xi-huan qingwa Or like frog
‘[I] like princess stories’
*MOT: 的 什麼?
Woju-guniang hai-shi Baixue-gongzhu Rapunzel or Snow White
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‘Rapunzel or Snow White?’
*MOT: 還是 <青> [>] 蛙王子?
Hai-zhi qing wa-wangzi Or Prince Frog
‘Or Prince Frog?’
*LGW: <媽> [<] 媽媽 我 要 拼圖. ← Ma mama wo yao pin-tu
Mom mom I want puzzle
‘Mom, mom, I want to play puzzles.’
*MOT: 0 [=! laughing] .
*YPC: 0 [=! laughing] .
*FAT: 你 要 拼圖?
Ni yao pin-tu You want puzzle
‘You want to play puzzles?’
As shown in excerpt (13), the child’s parents were originally talking about characters in fairy tales. The child seemed uninterested in the topic, so she then issued a request to switch to another activity with a mitigated WANT statement. In this case, the address term, mama ‘mother’, may indicate that the child might know that her request might interrupt the immediate interaction, as her mother was the director of the current interaction. As a result, an address term was used such that her mother would know that she paid attention to the need of politeness in this immediate context.
Alternatively, this instance of social deixis observed in (13) can also be regarded as an attention-getter to catch mother’s attention. Judged by the preceding context, however, the social deixis may not simply function as an attention-getter. The prior context may reveal that mother had attended to the child as she was asking the child
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about her preference over fairy-tale characters. Thus, this use of social deixis here may also serve to show the child’s strategic use of social deixis to make an
interruption, apart from its attention-getting function.
In addition to requesting for help and for change of interactional topics, these children also use social deixis to direct the on-going interaction, as illustrated in the excerpts below.
(14) LGW, 2;6, Line 958
Context: LGW and her mother were talking about an animal mask.
*MOT: 那 他的 鼻子 在 哪裡?
Na ta-de bizi zai nali Then his nose at where
‘Then where is his nose?’
*LGW: 在 這裡 呀 [= pointing at the book].
Zai zheli ya At here PRT
‘Right here!’
*MOT: 哪裡 有 鼻子?
Nali YOU bizi Where have nose
‘Where is it?’
*LGW: 媽媽 給 我 吧 [= taking over the mask]. ← Mama gei wo ba
Mom give me PRT
‘Mom, give me that.’
*MOT: 好 # 給 你.
Hao gei ni Okay give you
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Context: LGW was playing rock-paper-scissors with a female visitor and she asked for another round.
‘Wow, you beat sister!’
*ADU: 贏 了.
‘Then [I] could play with you for one more time.’
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*ADU: <剪刀 石頭> [>]+...
Jia-dao shi-tou Scissors rock
‘Scissors, rock…’
*LGW: <剪刀 石頭> [<]+...
Jian-dao shi-tou Scissors rock
‘Scissors, rock…’
*ADU: <布> [>]!
Bu Cloth
‘Paper!’
*LGW: <布> [<]!
Bu Cloth
‘Paper!’
Excerpts (14) and (15) exemplify how these children use a request accompanied by social deixis to direct how an interactional activity should proceed. In excerpt (14), the mitigated request was issued to ask for the ownership of the mask so that the child might end this interaction. In excerpt (15), the child issued a mitigated request by using the address term jiejie ‘elder sister’ so that she could reinitiate the game that just ended. The address term jiejie is originally a kinship term, but here it is obviously used as a pronoun to refer to the addressee and thus becomes a de-categorized nominal. In other words, the kinship term jiejie here is used by the child to eschew using the second person pronoun ni ‘you’ to refer to the addressee. Such use of the kinship term may thus imply politeness. These two instances of mitigated requests
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國立 政 治 大 學
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may therefore reveal children’s awareness of the need to be polite when their request may intrude on their interlocutors (Ervin-Tripp et al, 1990).
Additionally, children’s uses of social deixis to defer to politeness can also be observed in cases where they request by using a different personal pronoun, namely the first person plural pronoun women ‘we; let’s’, but rather the default implicit or covert second person pronoun ni ‘you’. Since involving both parties of the
conversation, not just the addressee only, this pronoun, women, may comparatively convey a weaker illocutionary force. Similar to the use of address terms, women are mainly used not only to demonstrate the children’s adherence to politeness, or social hierarchical distance between their parents or other people and themselves in specific, but also to reduce the illocutionary force when they are requesting to interrupt the on-going interaction or to initiate a new interaction. For example,
(16) YOU, 2;6, Line 1560
Context: YOU’s mother was playing the piano and then YOU joined her by randomly pressing the keys.
*YOU: 咦 # xxx [= pressing keyboard randomly].
Yi Eh
‘Eh?’
*YOU: 我們 來 玩 積木. ←
Women lai wan jimu
We come play building-block
‘Let’s play with building blocks.’
*MOT: 好.
Hao Okay
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‘Let’s play “Little Doctor”.’
%sit: YOU and MOT take toys out of the bucket.
*YOU: 妳 怎麼 了?
Ni zemo le
You what-wrong LE
‘What’s wrong with you?’
*MOT: 我 -: 肚子痛.
Wo duzi-tong I stomachache
‘I’m having a stomachache.’
*YOU: 為什麼 肚子痛?
Context: LGW was playing rock-paper-scissors with her father, and she suggested they switch to another game.
*LGW: <我 要 再 玩> [<].
Wo yao zai wan I want again play
‘I want to play again.’
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*FAT: 好 好 剪刀 石頭+...
Hao hao jiandao shitou Okay Okay Scissors rock
‘Okay, okay, scissors, rock…’
*LGW: 我們 來 玩 一角兩角 <三> [>] 角形! ← Women lai wan yijiao-liangjiao san jiao-xing We come play angles triangles
‘Let’s play Angles.’
*FAT: <好> [<].
hao Okay
‘Okay.’
*FAT: 那 你 跟 姐姐 玩-看看.
Na ni gen jiejie wan-kankan Then you with sister play-see-see
‘Then you try to play with sister.’
*LGW: 不要 我 要 <跟 你 玩> [>]!
Buyao wo yao gen ni wan No-want I want with you play
‘No, I want to play with you.’
*FAT: <好 來來來> [<].
Hao lai-lai-lai
Okay come-come-come
‘Okay, come on.’
In excerpt (16), the child issued a request with the first person plural pronoun to suggest the initiation of an interactive activity. The first arrowed utterance shows that the child initiated a new activity different from the previous one by using a suggestive tone to request her mother to play with her. The second arrowed utterance further
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reinforces the use of first person plural pronoun to instigate the cooperative activity, although it seems that the child changed her mind soon after she had made a request to set off a new activity. On the other hand, in excerpt (17), the child used a mitigated request to interrupt the on-going game so as to initiate a new game. In this case, the addressee of the child’s this very utterance is a visitor who does not come to the child’s home regularly. With the less frequent visit that the addressee pays, the social distance or familiarity between the address and the child is thus greater than that between the child and her parents. This use of the first person plural pronoun may also likely reveal children’s realization of their obligation to adhere to politeness in the immediate context.
Generally speaking, a great majority of children’s request forms appear not mitigated with any social deixis. A careful examination, however, reveals that
children’s infrequent uses of social deixis may disclose their awareness of politeness.
As mentioned above, children’s requests are mitigated with addressed terms or by using first person plural pronoun, and these mitigated requests are by and large issued when their status is low as a child as opposed to their parents or other people. In addition, these mitigated requests generally used in situations when these requests may potentially intrude on the on-going interaction. In terms of development, children’s uses of address terms to mitigate requests can be observed from Time 1 (24.5 months old) on, while their uses of switching personal pronoun cannot be observed until children reach Time 2 (30.5 months old). It appears that the ability to use first person plural pronoun to mitigate requests and to adhere to politeness is likely to be more mature, compared to the use of address terms. The uses of these two types of social deixis are likely to be strategic to show children’s deference to
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politeness, since these types of social deixis are found mostly when children’s status is relatively low and the cost of the requests is comparatively high, for example, with the potential intrusion on the on-going activity. Based on the findings mentioned above, it seems that children’s uses of social deixis are not fortuitous, but rather likely to be strategic and conform to the need of politeness in the immediate context.
In addition to the social deixis presented above, a small number of polite lexemes, which may explicitly or implicitly reveal one’s adherence to politeness when used, were found in the data as well. As far as the data at hand are concerned, three
occurrences of bang ‘to help…with…’ and two cases of the conventional polite form qing ‘please’ have been observed. The excerpts in the following thus presents all the instances of these two polite lexemes observed in the data.
(18) YOU, 2;0, Line 324
Context: YOU wanted to have some pudding, but she could not open the lid, so she turned to her dad for help.
%exp: SIS sits on FAT’s lap.
*YOU: 爸爸 xxx 幫 我 開 -: . ←
Baba bang wo kai
Dad help me open
‘Dad, …help me open it.’
*MOT: 妳 要 送給 高佑荷 吃 嗎?
Ni yao song-gei Gaoyouhe chi ma You want send-give You-ho eat PRT
‘Do you want to give it to You-ho?’
*MOT: 送給 高佑荷 吃 好不好?
Song-gei Gaoyouhe chi hao-bu-hao Send-give You-ho eat good-not-good
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‘Give it you You-ho, all right?’
*YOU: 不要.
‘Let mom feed you some pudding.’
(19) YOU, 2;6, Line 722
Context: YOU was playing the piano after her mom left the piano and watched over
Context: YOU was playing the piano after her mom left the piano and watched over