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Part of
Current Studies in Chinese Language and Discourse: Global context and diverse perspectives
Edited by Yun Xiao and Linda Tsung
[Studies in Chinese Language and Discourse 10] 2019
► pp. 58–79

Chapter 4
Contextual variations of internal and external modifications in Chinese requests

Effects of power and imposition

| Georgia State University

This study investigates contextual variations in mitigation production (consisting of internal and external modifications) in Chinese request-making (i.e., what native Chinese speakers consider appropriate to say in hypothetical scenarios). The participants were 22 native Chinese speakers recruited from a university in China. They completed a 20-item Oral Discourse Completion Test (ODCT) tapping two contextual variables: power and imposition. The results show that: (1) both power and imposition exerted significant influence on the frequency of producing internal and external modifications, (2) the various internal and external modifiers were differentially associated with the two contextual variables, and (3) the preferred sequential organization of external modifications differed according to context types.

Keywords: request, modifications, Chinese, contextual variation, power, imposition, sequential organization
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Literature review
    • 2.1Request modifications and contextual variations
    • 2.2Internal and external modifications in Chinese requests
  • 3.Method
    • 3.1Participants
    • 3.2Instrument
    • 3.3Procedures
    • 3.4Data analysis
  • 4.Results
  • 5.Discussion
  • 6.Conclusions, limitations, and future research
  • Acknowledgements
  • References
  • Appendix
Published online: 15 April 2019
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/scld.10.04li
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