Interrogatives as a means to express politeness in the danish language

Abstract

Despite the change in the Danish communication style caused by the transformation of the social-political and cultural life of the Danish in the late 1960s, which made a number of polite forms obsolete, the Danish language has various ways to express polite requests. One of the most common strategies congruent with the principle of politeness and efficiency is the use of conventional interrogative sentences with the verbs gide, ville, kunne, verbs in the present tense and a construction er du sød at. The article examines these interrogative sentences gleaned from dialogues in contemporary Danish television series. The most polite of all the conventional requests are questions with vil/ville, which can be used in a formal setting or in correspondence. They appeal to the addressee’s willingness to perform an action, to a greater extent than questions with kun/kunne, and they are meant to avoid encroaching upon the interlocutor’s freedom. The construction er du sød at is classed among the formulas of a high degree of politeness and often presupposes a significant status distance between the interlocutors. Questions with gide are used when social and status distance between the interlocutors is insignificant. Combinations of gide and vil with phasal verbs denoting the ending of an action indicate that these constructions perform a prohibitive function. In the case of questions in the present tense, the interlocutors, as a rule, are engaged in a common activity and the effect of the proposed action is in the interest of both parties. A characteristic feature of the speech act of requests is the use of modal particles, first and foremost, ikke and lige. The particle lige is a culture-specific lexical item which indicates that the favour done by the listener is insignificant, but in spite of a lesser threat posed by the speaker, his expressed will is imposed since it is the speaker who decides for the listener how insignificant his request is. The particles godt and nok are used in insistent requests, while combinations with bare imply a mutually satisfying way to solve the problem at hand.