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Li Yang's Chinese Pragmatics

Unit 2: How to Make a Request in Chinese

Unit 2 explicitly teaches students the sequence that requests in Chinese follow and different parts within a request sequence. In addition, this unit offers students corresponding exercises to practice.

 1.1  Goal of Unit 2

The goal of Unit 2 is to familiarize students with different parts included within a request sequence in Chinese and to provide them with more examples of request making in both American English and Chinese. After studying this unit, students are expected to be able to identify different components of a request expression.

 2.2 Request Sequence

Similar to request making in English, a request in Chinese follows certain sequence. Learning about the request sequence is helpful for learning to make a request in Chinese.

Previous studies on requests have identified that a request sequence may include: alerters (e.g., address terms), pre-supportive moves, the head act, and post-supportive moves. Alerters and pre- and post-supportive moves are optional. First, we look at a request example in English:

 Judith, I missed class yesterday, do you think I could borrow your notes? I promise to return them by tomorrow. (Blum-Kulka et al., 1989, p. 17)

 In this example, Judith is the alerter, attracting the hearer’s attention; do you think I could borrow your notes is the head act, the minimal unit that can realize a request and the core part of the sequence. A supportive move is a unit that modifies the head act, positioned either before or after the head act. As in the example, I missed class yesterday is the pre-supportive move, while I promise to return them by tomorrow is the post-supportive move.

 Now let’s look at one example in Chinese:

 老师,您现在有空吗?我想问您一个问题。谢谢。

Lǎoshī, nín xiànzài yǒukòng ma? Wǒ xiǎng wèn nín yí gè wènti. Xièxiè.

 

Thinking: What are the alerter, supportive move, and head act of this request?

 

Answer:                                                                                                                                             

老师,您现在有空吗?我想问您一个问题。谢谢。

 

 This image shows a sentence in Chinese where a student is requesting a meeting time with the professor.

 

 To learn more about the Chinese words and expressions in this section, please refer to the Glossary below.  

Glossary
WordPinyinPart of speechEnglish translations
老师lǎoshīnounTeacher; professor
nínpronounYou (polite form)
现在xiàn zàiadv.Now; at present
有空yǒu kòngN/AHave time; at leisure
pronounI; me
xiǎngverb To think; want
wènverbTo ask
number One
measure wordA common measure word 
问题wèn tínounQuestion; problem
谢谢xièxièverbThanks; thank you

 


Review

 

 This is a screenshot of the Speech Act of Requests--Exercise Twp

 Please click on the Review link to access this Exercise Two.