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dc.rights.licenseCC-BY-NC-ND
dc.contributor.advisorTen Thije, J.D.
dc.contributor.advisorPinto, M.
dc.contributor.authorPrete, A.
dc.date.accessioned2015-02-26T18:00:28Z
dc.date.available2015-02-26T18:00:28Z
dc.date.issued2015
dc.identifier.urihttps://studenttheses.uu.nl/handle/20.500.12932/19505
dc.description.abstractThis final paper provides research on the differences and similarities in expressing politeness in Dutch and Italian. This kind of research is covered by the cross-cultural pragmatics. Politeness in linguistics has a long history and begins with the concept of face-keeping of Goffman (1955), who states that everyone has their own "face" that may be threatened in a conversation with the other. Moreover, the concept of Brown and Levinson (1987) is either well-known, which is about the politeness strategies. Depending on these two "faces" one makes a choice between two different strategies to protect their own "face" or those of others. In this dissertatation politeness is analyzed within the speech act of requests. In requests situations we can speak about negative politeness. In this kind of situations the "face" and those of others are put in 'danger' and usually one uses polite and mitigating strategies. The mitigation of requests helps one to protect their own "face" and those of others. A pilot has been carried out with twenty-two respondents, made up of half Dutch and half Italians. Both groups of respondents are second language (L2) learners. The Dutch group is comprised of students of the Italian language, while the Italian group is comprised of Dutch as a second language students. The students have filled in a test (the Discourse Completion Test), in which request situations occure. The analysis of the test is divided into two parts, the first part compares the native speakers, while the second part examines the non-native speakers. Two main questions are taken into consideration: - To what extent do Dutch and Italian (L1) differ in language regarding politeness in requests situations, and to what extent can we speak about culture-specific or universal phenomena? - To what extent does native language influence the formulation of polite requests in L2? Differences and similarities between the two languages were defined. It has been found that both Italian and Dutch respondents choose the same strategy to express politeness. By contrast, the manner in which the request is formulated, differs in the two languages. As far as the second analysis is concerned, it has been found that the mother tongue has influence on the pressing out of politeness in the second language. As a result, although the concept of politeness is believed to be universal, it can be said that the formulation of polite requests is culture-specific. This is also one of the reasons why mother tongue language has influence on second language learning aquisition.
dc.description.sponsorshipUtrecht University
dc.format.extent681639
dc.format.mimetypeapplication/pdf
dc.language.isonl
dc.titleCross-culturele analyse naar beleefdheid in verzoeken in Nederlands en Italiaans
dc.type.contentMaster Thesis
dc.rights.accessrightsOpen Access
dc.subject.keywordscross-cultural pragmatics, politeness theory, transfer, discourse complation test
dc.subject.courseuuInterculturele Communicatie


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