Request and Invitation : Expressions of the Beneficiary in Japanese and English

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  • 依頼と勧誘 : 受益者表現の日英対照を中心に

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A single English sentence often can be used both to request and invite action. The Japanese expressions used to perform one of these speech acts are quite different from those used to perform the other: to request and to invite action are two distinct speech acts in Japanese, because the beneficiary is the speaker in a request expression and the hearer in an invitation expression. It is particularly important to use giving and receiving verbs to make a request sound polite in Japanese, as these verbs show that the beneficiary is the speaker. This phenomenon can be explained by assuming a preparatory condition: "It is not obvious to both S (speaker) and H (hearer) that H will do A(action) [for S] in the normal course of events on his or her original version by Searle, but it seems necessary in Japanese. In the teaching of Japanese as a foreign language, the students shouId always be advised to pay attention to the beneficiary of the actions performed.

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