politeness survey

[Patricia Chaput]

I did the survey and had similar problems, but I typed in variations for 
different scenarios.  I don't think I would go with supplied options, 
since I think they would be constraining.  I think that after you have 
received some of the surveys back, you may have some idea of how to 
narrow the situations.  So many of the situations presented depend on 
specifics of the situations and relationships between the interlocutors, 
plus what you are tyring to communicate.  For example, on the question 
about someone arriving twenty minutes late--Do you want to put the 
person at ease?  Does it really matter that s/he is late?  Is there a 
time constraint?  Is this a form of chronic rudeness?  Each scenario 
would take a different response.  I find this topic very interesting and 
hope that you will let participants know where they can learn about your 
results.
Patricia Chaput
Slavic Department
Harvard University

On 1/18/2007 1:57 PM, Iryna Prykarpatska wrote:
> Hi Joseph,
>
>
> Thank you very much for your recommendations. I have been thinking for 
> quite
> a long time how to  construct this questionnaire in the respect of the
> socio-demographic characteristics of the interlocutors and as well as the
> most prototypical situations in which the polite speech acts, which I
> research (greetings, complaints), occur . And I decided to make the 
> majority
> of the questions in the questionaire open-ended, thus giving the 
> respondents
> certain freedom in providing their own responses. After I collect the
> empirical data and I see the most prototypical answers I will be able to
> group and classify them and then make another questionnaire with multiple
> answers. Let's see what I get.
> By the way, how do you research politeness, in what language and what 
> polite
> speech acts?
>
> Thank you
> Best regards
> Iryna
>
>
> 2007/1/18, Joseph Peschio <peschio at uwm.edu>:
>>
>>
>> Hi Iryna,
>
>
>
>
> I tried to take your survey (always glad to help - especially because
>> I'm very interested in politeness constructions), but I couldn't
>> really complete it because it's very difficult to understand what,
>> exactly, you're after because the scenarios are not really specific
>> enough.  If I may be so bold, I'd suggest that you run the survey
>> questions by a couple test subjects before you try to gather survey
>> results from a broader sample.  Unfortunately, I'm a little pressed
>> for time and can't help you in this regard just now.  I suspect your
>> test subjects would tell you that it would be better if you provided
>> them possible variants for each situation.  For example:  a) Hi  b)
>> Hello  c) Good morning  d) How are you  e) Other
>>
>> Cheers,
>> Joe
>> ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
>> Joe Peschio, PhD
>> Coordinator, Slavic Languages and REES
>> Foreign Languages and Linguistics/Slavic
>> University of Wisconsin--Milwaukee
>> Milwaukee, WI 53201-0413 USA
>> (414) 229-4949
>>
>>
>
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