Open AccessPoliteness variation in the expression of requests in Castillian Spanish and European Portuguese
Author(s) -
María Carmen Sampedro Mella
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
textos en proceso
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2001-967X
DOI - 10.17710/tep.2019.5.1.4sampedromella
Subject(s) - politeness , portuguese , linguistics , expression (computer science) , object (grammar) , variation (astronomy) , power (physics) , psychology , european portuguese , political science , sociology , computer science , philosophy , physics , quantum mechanics , programming language , astrophysics
In this article we present the results of a contrastive analysis about the politeness strategies used in the expression of petitions in Castilian Spanish and European Portuguese. By using the DCT methodology, we have designed a questionnaire with petitions of different cost-benefit for the conversational partner and with variations relative to power and the social distance that exists between the participants. Once the data was gathered, we did a triple study about the differences in the expression of petitions: 1) between Spanish and Portuguese, 2) from the rank of imposition of the object and the petition, and 3) according to the social distance and the relative power of the participants. The results show that, although using different linguistic and politeness strategies, the expression of petitions is similar between Spanish and Portuguese speakers, although the latter take the social distance and the relative power of the hearer more into account than the Spanish speakers at the moment of choosing politeness forms.