Politeness Strategies in Requests: The Case of Elfhoul Speech Community

Abstract

This study is a sociolinguistic investigation into politeness strategies used in the performance of the requesting speech act in Elfhoul speech community. The instrument used is the Discourse Completion Test (DCT) where sixty participants among friends and neighbours who are asked to write what they say in the five situations using their own dialect. The findings show that the use of strategies differs from one situation to another according to the power of interactants, the social distance and the degree of imposition of the request. Results also reveal that the there is a preference towards the use of directness more than indirectness.