It's Not What You Sign, It's How You Sign It: Politeness in American Sign Language

3. Requests in ASL and English

3 Requests in ASL and English 63 Human beings who are engaged in conversation not only convey content and relay goals (functions), they also negotiate the interaction (convey textual meaning) and usually strive to present themselves as socially competent communicators by employing politeness strategies as needed. Linguistic politeness is like a dance. Just as we prefer to dance with someone who knows how to dance and who does not step on our toes, we prefer to have conversations with people who convey the social meaning we expect. When someone meets our expectations in a situation, we don’t typically notice it or think about it. However , when someone seems to be an incompetent communicator and loses face for themselves or for us, it can be quite awkward. What constitutes being socially competent in terms of social meaning varies across cultures. As noted in chapter 2, many strategies are available to language users when making requests and rejections . Some language communities may expect more direct strategies overall and others may expect more indirect strategies overall, but language users learn the metaphorical dance of their particular language community. They know how to use the various strategies for the desired effects. This is true for English speakers and ASL signers as well, as is evidenced by the results of the DCT. The DCT results for requests are reported in this chapter and the results for rejections are reported in chapter 4. These findings indicate that both language groups share many of the same politeness strategies; however, the distribution of certain strategies (i.e., when they are used) varies in some important respects for each language group. In addition, some strategies are not shared by the English speakers and ASL signers, and some language-specific forms are unique to each language. 64 Requests in ASL and English Shared Politeness Strategies Ten politeness strategies are shared by both language groups in the request data: the direct strategy of (a) using an imperative form (command); the independence strategies of (b) being conventionally indirect, (c) question, (d) hedge, (e) being pessimistic, (f) minimize the imposition, and (g) apologize; the involvement strategies of (h) giving or asking for reasons, and (i) offer/promise; and the indirect strategy of (j) violating Relevance maxim, that is, give hints. See Appendix III for a list of these strategies ordered by category. Use an Imperative Form (Command) When contrasting a straightforward command such as Send that to them tomorrow and /t, --, , with conventionalized indirectness such as Can you send that to them tomorrow? or  -- , /q, it is clear that the latter example requires the speaker or signer to go to more of an effort to make the request and for the addressee to go to more of an effort to interpret the intent of the speaker or signer. In contrast, commands do not make use of redress or mitigation, and may be interpreted as requests unambiguously and without any extra effort. The DCT request data includes three instances in which a command is used. The distribution of commands is quite clear: The supervisor (+P) is the only person who uses a command in both the ASL and English request data. Out of the 42 elicited requests in ASL (7 participants each signing 6 requests), 2 involve the use of a command by the supervisor, and out of 24 elicited requests in English (4 participants each signing 6 requests), 1 involves the use of a command by the supervisor . See the two ASL commands in Examples 1 and 2. 1. Context: A supervisor (S) requests that an employee make an initial call to a potential new consumer. S: “”/oh, recent/cs,   . -(nondominant hand)‘holding memo’, --/oh.  , ,1 --.              - - - - -, , , , , - - - - -,  ,  ,  ,  ,     ’ ’ ’ ’ ’- - - - -/tight lips. 1. This signer produces an initialized sign, , immediately followed by the sign, ^. 65 Requests in ASL and English [translation: Oh, I just received this memo. It’s concerning a new consumer. Follow up on this, give them a call, and let me know what happens.] 2. Context: A supervisor (S) requests that an employee complete a big project much earlier than expected. S: “”/polite grimace (pg),  /tight lips -/pg. /cs inform-me/pg /browraise, headshake.      -—  -2/neg, -/tight lips. - , - , , /t, - -, “”/nose wrinkle, tight-lips-to-the-side,    -, “”. /tight lips. /pg ,  /tight lips ,  -/tight lips  -/pg  - , “”/bt,tight-lipsto -the-side.3 [translation: Hey, I’m really sorry to tell you this. It’s something I just heard. Maybe you won’t be...