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                    Cross - cultural differences in the domain of speech acts are determined by
                       1.  differences among languages and
                       2.  differences among cultures.
                    Variations cab be interlanguage and intralanguage.
                    Some  cultures  -  Japanese  can  serve  as  an  example  -  possess  highly
              conventionalized  speech  acts  characterized  by  social    differentiation  (Акишина,
              Камогава 1974:12).

                                                       DIRECTIVES
              Direct, request, ask, question, inquire, interrogate, urge, encourage, discourage, solicit,
              appeal,  petition,  invite,  convene,  convoke,  beg,  supplicate,  beseech,  implore,  entreat,
              conjure,  pray,  insist,  tell,  instruct,  demand,  require,  claim,  order,  command,  dictate,
              prescribe,  enjoin,  adjure,  exorcise,  forbid,  prohibit,  interdict,  proscrice,  commission,
              charge, suggest, propose, warn, advise, caution, alert, alarm, recommend, permit, allow,
              authorize, consent, invoke, imprecate, intercede.

                    In order for directives/requests for action to be heard and interpreted as legitimate,
              they must satisfy certain felicity conditions (Gordon and Lakoff 1971:64);
              1. Speaker wants hearer to do act.
              2. Speaker assumes hearer is able to do act.
              3. Speaker assumer hearer is willing to do act.
              4. Speaker assumer hearer would not do act in the absence of the request.
                    According  to  N.Bonvillain,  “directives  are  particularly  sensitive  to  contexts  of
              speaking  and  to  specific  social  characteristics  of  the  issue  and  addressee.  Their
              complexity stems from the fact that a speaker should phrase requests so as to have the
              greatest  likelihood  of  positive  result,  namely  compliance;  but  because  a  social
              relationship  of  some  sort  exists  between  interlocutors  (even  if  it  is  one  of  “stranger”),
              speakers  must  be  sensitive  to  addressees’  feelings.  An  issuer  of  directives  needs  to
              navigate between two extremes of clarity: He must make his request clear enough so that
              the  addressee  comprehends  the  directive intent, yet  he  must  also  pay  attention  to  the
              addressee’s needs not to be imposed on by a blunt presumption of the speaker’s power
              (1997:111).”
                     Largely because of the demand directives place on the addressee, and because of
              the fact that they can be realized by a variety of syntactic forms, the choice of directive
              type can express a great deal about the social context of discourse and the relative status
              of the interlocuters, e.g. their age, sex, occupation, and familiarity (Ervin-Tripp, 1976)
                    Directives  can  be  oriented  to various  elements of  the request matrix  (Blum-Kulka
              and Olshtain 1984:203):
              1. Hearer-oriented: Could you help me?
              2. Speaker-oriented: Do you think I could borrow your book?
              3. Speaker and hearer-oriented: Could we please clean up?
              4. Impersonal: It might be a good idea to get it done.
                    Directives can be mitigated through various types of linguistic devices (Blum-Kulka
              and Olshtain 1984:203-205):
              1.  Syntactic downdraders or mitigation:
                  a)  Interrogative: Could you do the cleaning up?
                  b)  Negation: I wonder if you wouldn’t mind dropping me home?
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