Publications

Publication details [#14154]

Rinnert, Carol and Hiroe Kobayashi. 1999. Requestive hints in Japanese and English. Journal of Pragmatics 31 (9) : 1173–1201.
Publication type
Article in journal
Publication language
English
Language as a subject
Place, Publisher
Elsevier
ISBN
0378-2166

Annotation

Although the use of hints in Japanese and English requests in a university office setting are very frequent, it is found that decontextualized hints are perceived as relatively impolite. On the whole, English hints are less opaque than Japanese hints, leading the authors to assert the influence of contextual and cultural variables on politeness. Desiderata for future research are discussed.