Russian vs. American politeness (was RE: [SEELANGS] О потере чувства сти =?windows-1251?Q?=EB=FF_?=(Raia Rozina RAN))

[John Dunn]

I don't know off-hand of any research, but there is an interesting layman's comment by Viktor Shenderovich, made while describing an incident that happened while he was doing his military service:

Справка для женщин и невоеннообязанных: приказы в армии отдаются в прошедшем времени.  «Ушел от телевизора!»  Не выполнить такой приказ невозможно, ибо в воображении командира ты уже ушел, а несовпадение реальности с командирским воображением карается жестоко.  (Zdes' bylo NTV i drugie istorii, Zakharov, Moscow, 2002, p. 107). 

Presumably the same logic is contained in the German military command: Stillgestanden! (=Attention!).

John Dunn.
________________________________________
From: SEELANGS: Slavic & East European Languages and Literatures list [SEELANGS at LISTSERV.UA.EDU] On Behalf Of anne marie devlin [anne_mariedevlin at HOTMAIL.COM]
Sent: 05 October 2013 19:52
To: SEELANGS at LISTSERV.UA.EDU
Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] Russian vs. American politeness (was RE: [SEELANGS] О потере чувства стиля (Raia Rozina RAN))

The imperative in English is generally rude and has to be mitigated either syntactically (modality) or lexically (please). Russian mitigates differently. Aspect, person and tense can be employed. Think idi, idite and poshli. Such pragmatic structures are embedded in culture and as such are extremely difficult to acquire. I've been told that English speakers can sound like idiots in Russian and likewise Russians can sound rude in English due to pragmatic transfer. I used to enjoy listening to my Russian colleagues managing their classrooms - sadites', syadte or vse seli.
I would be really interested to know if there has been any research into the use of the past as an imperative in Russian - and of course the thoughts of fellow seelangers. Pragmatics is an aspect of language that is often overlooked in teaching.
AM

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