Uzbekistan state world languages university translation faculty the english applied translation department

TYPES OF RULE
REQUEST
1. Propositional content	Future act A of H
2. Preparatory	1. H is able to do A. S believes H is able to do A. 2. It is not obvious to both S and H that H will do A in the normal course of events on his own accord.
3. Sincerity	S wants H to do A
4. Essential	Counts as an attempt to get H to do A.

Where: S = speaker

H = addressee
A = a future act of H desired by S
Another proposal accounting for Request as a Speech Act (SARq) was suggested by Oleksy¹⁹. He claims that SARq can be defined as a communicative category via FCs and he puts forth FCs for SARq, which are deeply rooted in Searle’s FCs set. However, there are differences between Searle’s FCs for SARq and Oleksy’s FCs, these being, the inclusion of the cultural and contextual aspects, namely, a) S believes A is acceptable in a socio-cultural context, and b) S believes a request is acceptable in the communicative context, in which S and H perform. This observation is of vital importance to the present study since the choice of the linguistic realization of a particular SA depends on a variety of situational and social factors, which originate in, are associated with, and are acceptable in a given culture. It is the broad repertoire of requests in English and Polish, their classification and the contrastive analysis which allow the establishing of similarities and differences between the English and Polish native speakers’ request realization patterns.
Before proceeding to a detailed examination of the realization of requests in the two languages, the units for the analysis will be presented as defined by Blum-Kulka and Olshtain.²⁰ The unit of analysis may occur in the form of an utterance or a sequence of utterances and it may include the following segments: the Head Act and the peripheral elements.
The Head Act is that part of the sequence which may serve to realize the act independently of other elements; it can occur on its own and still, without any peripheral elements, convey the request successfully. However, it frequently happens that the Head Act is either preceded and/or followed by peripheral elements
(supporting moves), which can mitigate or aggravate its force, yet the Head Act’s propositional content remains unchanged. Head Acts vary in terms of 1) strategy type (this aspect will be presented in detail in Section 4.2), and 2) perspective.
The peripheral elements, it will be recalled, are employed in order to mitigate or aggravate the request. These elements include:
alerters, whose functions are to alert H’s attention to the upcoming speech act (i.e. address forms such as title/role, surname, first name, nickname, endearment, offensive term, pronoun, and attention getters); and - other external modifiers²¹, for instance:
preparators – S prepares his or her request carefully in order for H to fulfill his or her wish. These devices are used in cases where it is not obvious that H will comply with the request, e.g. in non-intimate situations, among strangers, etc. To illustrate:
1) There is something I’d like to ask you.
2) May I disturb you for a moment?
disarmers – S is aware of potential imposition a request may cause, therefore, he or she tries to anticipate possible refusal, for example:
3) I hope I’m not disturbing you but …
sweeteners – S can diminish the imposition involved by flattering or expressing exaggerated appreciation of H’s ability to comply with the request, for instance:
4) You have excellent taste in clothes. Can I borrow this dress?
supportive reasons – S gives his or her specific reasons for making a request. Presenting an explanation or a justification may influence H to comply with the request more willingly. It helps H to understand S’s motivation behind asking a favor. Some examples are:
5) Would you mind cleaning the kitchen today? I’ve got so many things to do.
6. Would it be possible to move your car a bit? It’s blocking the gate.
cost minimizing – in order to convince H that it is worthwhile to comply with the request, S can mention factors that will minimize any possible cost to H, for instance:
7) Would you mind giving me a lift to the train station? I’ll pay for the petrol.
In addition to these external modifications of requests, there also exist internal modifications, i.e. devices which operate within the Head Act. Their function is to soften or increase the impact a request strategy is likely to have on H. These devices are referred to as modality markers, and they can be divided into: those which decrease the impact of a request syntactic downgraders (e.g. conditional, interrogatives, past tense, negation, tag questions, conditional clause, embedding, ing-form), lexical/phrasal downgraders (e.g. politeness marker, consultative device, downtoner, understatement, hedge, hesitator, interpersonal marker), and those which, on the other hand, intensify the force of a request upgraders (e.g. adverbial intensifier, commitment upgrader, lexical intensification). To illustrate the internal modification devices, examples of requests have been provided below.
Syntactic downgraders:
Conditional, e.g.:
8) Could I use the telephone?
Interrogatives, e.g.:
9) Will you close the window, please?
Past tense, e.g.:
10) I wanted to ask you for a loan.
Negation, e.g.:
11) Can’t you wait for a moment, please?
Tag questions, e.g.:
12) Hand me the pen, will you?
Conditional clause, e.g.:
13) I would be very grateful if you would make the arrangementsfor me.
Embedding, e.g.:
14) I wonder if you could help me.
15) I hope you can help me.
16) I thought that maybe you wouldn’t mind helping me.Ing-form, e.g.:
17) I was wondering if you could help me.
Lexical / phrasal downgraders:
Politeness marker, e.g.:
18) Could you close the door, please.
Consultative device, e.g.:
19) Would you mind helping me?
Downtoner – e.g. just, simply, perhaps, possibly, rather;
20) Perhaps you could give us a hand.
Understatement – e.g. a little bit, a second, not very much;
21) Can I have a little bit of that cake?
Hedge – e.g. kind of, sort of, somehow, and so on, more or less;
22) Could you somehow find some time to visit me next week?Hesitator, e.g.:
23) I er, erm – I wonder if you’d er …
Interpersonal marker – e.g. you know, you see, I mean – cajolers and others – appealers e.g. right? okay?
24) Could you pass the glass, okay?
Diminutive, e.g.: mamuś (Polish) = mummy (English) Upgraders:
Adverbial intensifier – e.g. such, so, very, quite, really, terribly, awfully, absolutely, etc.
25) You really must come and see me next week.
Commitment upgrader – e.g. I’m sure, I’m certain, I’m positive,surely, certainly, obviously, etc.
26) I’m absolutely positive that you’ll lend me your car.
Lexical intensification, e.g.:
27) You’d be such a darling if you’d give me a hand in the kitchen.
28) Get the hell out of here.
Time intensifier, e.g. immediately, now, etc.