Linguistic Choices and Cultural Values in the Interactional Construction of Brazilians’ and Italians’ Requests

Abstract Requests can be considered “basic social acts”, used in various contexts in everyday life. The premise here is the assumption that the illocutionary force of requests is constructed in interactional moves, which define the linguistic activity mingling conventionality and intentionality. Analyzing interactions can help understand these moves, especially when languages and cultures are compared. To this end, 40 role plays recorded by Brazilians and Italians controlling the variables of social distance, age, and degree of imposition were investigated. The transcriptions were coded to verify how the interactional sequences are constructed and what elements they are constituted of. Similarities were observed in the main linguistic choices that determine the construction of the interactional sequence in both languages, as well as differences, mainly regarding the type of contact established with the interlocutor, based on different cultural values: empathy in the case of Brazilians, and respect for other people’s territory in the case of Italians.

【摘要】 请求可被视作基础社会行为，广泛应用于日常生活的各类场景中。本研究的前提假设为：请求的言外之力(illocutionary force)生成于互动回合之中，而此类互动回合界定了融合规约性与意向性的语言活动。对互动行为进行分析，有助于理解此类互动回合，在开展跨语言与跨文化对比研究时这一点尤为关键。为此，本研究对巴西人与意大利人录制的40组角色扮演任务展开分析，所有任务均控制了社会距离、年龄与请求强加度三项变量。研究人员对会话转录文本进行编码，以验证互动序列的构建方式及其构成要素。研究发现，两种语言中决定互动序列构建的核心语言选择存在相似之处，但也存在显著差异：这种差异主要体现在与交际对象建立互动关系的方式上，其背后根植于不同的文化价值观——巴西群体更注重共情，而意大利群体则更强调对他人社交领地的尊重。