1887
Volume 40, Issue 1
  • ISSN 0929-7332
  • E-ISSN: 1569-9919

Abstract

Abstract

Here we investigate the use of the politeness marker ‘please’ in a corpus of contemporary Spanish dialogues from film scripts and literary dialogues. We argue that is in fact only occasionally used as an expression of politeness. Apart from these uses, we distinguish between cases where functions as a marker of illocutionary force and other discourse functions, that include the expression of impatience and disapproval. While the formulaic use of is mainly limited to routine situations in the public sphere, the other functions are typical of private conversations. We argue that the ancient use of the expression can account for its contemporary non-polite uses.

Available under the CC BY 4.0 license.
Loading

Article metrics loading...

/content/journals/10.1075/avt.00086.mul
2023-11-03
2025-04-25
Loading full text...

Full text loading...

/deliver/fulltext/avt.00086.mul.html?itemId=/content/journals/10.1075/avt.00086.mul&mimeType=html&fmt=ahah

References

  1. Aijmer, Karin
    2015 “Will you fuck off please. The use of please by London teenagers.” Pragmática Sociocultural / Sociocultural Pragmatics3(2): 127–149. 10.1515/soprag‑2014‑0028
    https://doi.org/10.1515/soprag-2014-0028 [Google Scholar]
  2. Beinhauer, Werner
    1958Spanische Umgangssprache. Bonn: Dümmler.
    [Google Scholar]
  3. Bernal, María
    2006 “¡Ay señor por favor!: usos de por favor que exceden al mandato ya la petición cortés en la conversación española” (paper presented atthe XVI Congreso de Romanistas Escandinavos). www.ruc.dk/cuid/publikationer/publikationer/XVI-SRK-Pub/SMO/SMO04-Bernal/
    [Google Scholar]
  4. Briz, Antonio
    2005 “Eficacia, imagen social e imagen de cortesia: Naturaleza de la estratégia atenuadora en la conversación cotidiana española.” Estudios de la (des)cortesía en españoled. byDiana Bravo, 53–91. Stockholm/Buenos Aires: Dunken.
    [Google Scholar]
  5. CORDE
    CORDE. Corpus diacrónico del español. Real Academia Española. Accessed31 May 2023. www.rae.es
    [Google Scholar]
  6. Croft, William & D. Alan Cruse
    2004Cognitive linguistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 10.1017/CBO9780511803864
    https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511803864 [Google Scholar]
  7. Díaz Pérez, Francisco
    2003La cortesía verbal en inglés y en español: Actos de habla y pragmática intercultural. Jaén: University of Jaén.
    [Google Scholar]
  8. Ephratt, Michal
    2022Silence as language: Verbal silence as a means of expression. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 10.1017/9781108650779
    https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108650779 [Google Scholar]
  9. Fedriani, Chiara
    2019 “A pragmatic reversal: Italian per favore ‘please’ and its variants between politeness and impoliteness.” Journal of Pragmatics1421: 233–244. 10.1016/j.pragma.2018.09.008
    https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2018.09.008 [Google Scholar]
  10. Fuentes Rodríguez, Catalina
    2009Diccionario de conectores y operadores. Madrid: Arco/Libros.
    [Google Scholar]
  11. Haverkate, Henk
    1994La cortesía verbal: Estudio pragmalingüístico. Madrid: Gredos.
    [Google Scholar]
  12. Hickey, Leo
    1991 “Comparatively polite people in Spain and Britain.” ACISSeptember: 2–6.
    [Google Scholar]
  13. Heine, Bernd
    2023The grammar of interactives. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 10.1093/oso/9780192871497.001.0001
    https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780192871497.001.0001 [Google Scholar]
  14. de Hoop, Helen, Jetske Klatter, Gijs Mulder & Tijn Schmitz
    2016 “Imperatives and politeness in Dutch.” Linguistics in the Netherlands33(1): 41–53. 10.1075/avt.33.04hoo
    https://doi.org/10.1075/avt.33.04hoo [Google Scholar]
  15. House, Juliane
    1989 “Politeness in English and German: The functions of please and bitte.” Cross-cultural pragmatics: Requests and apologiesed. byShoshana Blum-Kulka, Juliane House & Gabriele Kasper, 54–71. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.
    [Google Scholar]
  16. Leech, Geoffrey
    2014The pragmatics of politeness. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195341386.001.0001
    https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195341386.001.0001 [Google Scholar]
  17. Lorenzo, Emilio
    1966El español de hoy: lengua en ebullición. Madrid: Gredos.
    [Google Scholar]
  18. Lorenzo-Dus, Nuria
    2001 “Compliment responses among British and Spanish university students: A contrastive study.” Journal of Pragmatics331: 107–127. 10.1016/S0378‑2166(99)00127‑7
    https://doi.org/10.1016/S0378-2166(99)00127-7 [Google Scholar]
  19. Márquez Reiter, Rosina & María Elena Placencia
    2005Spanish pragmatics. Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan. 10.1057/9780230505018
    https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230505018 [Google Scholar]
  20. Martín Zorraquino, María Antonia & José Portolés
    1999 “Los marcadores del discurso.” Gramática descriptiva de la lengua españolaed. byIgnacio Bosque & Violeta Demonte, 31: 4057–4082. Madrid: Espasa.
    [Google Scholar]
  21. Mills, Sara
    2017 “Sociocultural approaches to (im)politeness.” The Palgrave handbook of linguistic (im)politenessed. byJonathan Culpeper, Michael Haugh & Dániel Z. Kádár, 41–60. 10.1057/978‑1‑137‑37508‑7_3
    https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-37508-7_3 [Google Scholar]
  22. Mulder, Gijs
    1998Indirecte en directe directieven: een analytisch en empirisch onderzoek naar taalhandelingen in het Spaans. The Hague: Holland Academic Graphics. www.lotpublications.nl/Documents/004_fulltext.pdf
    [Google Scholar]
  23. Murphy, M. Lynne & Rachele De Felice
    2018 “Routine politeness in American and British English requests: use and non-use of please.” Journal of Politeness Research15(1): 77–100. 10.1515/pr‑2016‑0027
    https://doi.org/10.1515/pr-2016-0027 [Google Scholar]
  24. Placencia, María Elena
    2008 “Requests in corner shop transactions in Ecuadorian Andean and Coastal Spanish.” Variational Pragmatics: A focus on regional varieties in pluricentric languagesed. byKlaus P. Schneider and Anne Barron, 307–332. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 10.1075/pbns.178.14pla
    https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.178.14pla [Google Scholar]
  25. R Core Team
    R Core Team 2020 “R: A language and environment for statistical computing.” R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna, Austria. https://www.R-project.org/
  26. Sato, Shie
    2008 “Use of please in American and New Zealand English.” Journal of Pragmatics401: 1249–1278. 10.1016/j.pragma.2007.09.001
    https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2007.09.001 [Google Scholar]
  27. Searle, John R.
    1975 “Indirect speech acts.” Syntax and Semantics, 3: Speech Actsed. byP. Cole and J. L. Morgan, 59–82. New York: Academic Press. 10.1163/9789004368811_004
    https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004368811_004 [Google Scholar]
  28. Watts, Richard
    2003Politeness. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 10.1017/CBO9780511615184
    https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511615184 [Google Scholar]
  29. Wichmann, Anne
    2004 “The intonation of please-requests: a corpus-based study.” Journal of Pragmatics361: 1521–1549. 10.1016/j.pragma.2004.03.003
    https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2004.03.003 [Google Scholar]
  30. Woods, Rebecca
    2021 “Towards a model of the syntax-discourse interface: a syntactic analysis of please.” English Language & Linguistics25(1): 121–153. 10.1017/S1360674319000510
    https://doi.org/10.1017/S1360674319000510 [Google Scholar]
/content/journals/10.1075/avt.00086.mul
Loading
/content/journals/10.1075/avt.00086.mul
Loading

Data & Media loading...

  • Article Type: Research Article
Keyword(s): dialogues; directive speech acts; please; pragmatics; requests
This is a required field
Please enter a valid email address
Approval was successful
Invalid data
An Error Occurred
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error