University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Method and scope in cross-cultural speech act research: A contrastive study of requests in Japanese and English

Rose, Kenneth Richard

This item is only available for download by members of the University of Illinois community. Students, faculty, and staff at the U of I may log in with your NetID and password to view the item. If you are trying to access an Illinois-restricted dissertation or thesis, you can request a copy through your library's Inter-Library Loan office or purchase a copy directly from ProQuest.

Permalink

https://hdl.handle.net/2142/21525

Description

Title
Method and scope in cross-cultural speech act research: A contrastive study of requests in Japanese and English
Author(s)
Rose, Kenneth Richard
Issue Date
1992
Doctoral Committee Chair(s)
Kachru, Yamuna
Department of Study
Linguistics
Discipline
Linguistics
Degree Granting Institution
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Degree Name
Ph.D.
Degree Level
Dissertation
Keyword(s)
Language, Linguistics
Language
eng
Abstract
The Cross Cultural Speech Act Realization Project (CCSARP), the most ambitious speech act research to date, focused on western languages and cultures and employed questionnaires in data collection. The results showed conventionally indirect requests to be the most favored for all languages studied, and hints the least frequent. Japanese interaction is said to be hearer-oriented, thus vague and indirect, so a study of requests in Japanese should reveal a greater preference for hints. However, since questionnaires do not reflect the negotiated nature of actual interaction, they may not be a valid means of data collection in Japanese. To address these issues, a discourse completion test (DCT) and a multiple choice questionnaire (MCQ) were administered to speakers Japanese and English. The DCT showed Japanese to be more direct than Americans. There were also significant differences between the DCT and MCQ results for both languages. Both groups chose to forego requests more frequently on the MCQ than on the DCT, and Japanese also chose to hint more frequently on the MCQ than on the DCT. These results argue against the use of elicited data, particularly in non-Western contexts.
Type of Resource
text
Permalink
http://hdl.handle.net/2142/21525
Copyright and License Information
Copyright 1992 Rose, Kenneth Richard

Owning Collections

Graduate Dissertations and Theses at Illinois PRIMARY
Graduate Theses and Dissertations at Illinois
Dissertations and Theses - Linguistics