Request Mitigation by Korean Learners of Russian: Power and Social Distance Factors

Abstract

The present study examines the influence of social distance and power factors on the use of internal and external mitigating devices and strategies in the production of requests by Korean learners of Russian. The data was collected by using a Discourse Completion Task (DCT) containing twelve situations that varied in the facts of power and social distance. The results of the study indicated that the learners showed preference for the use of interrogative, modal verb moch’ (‘can’) and politeness marker pozhalujsta (‘please’) among internal mitigating devices, and grounder and apology among external mitigating strategies. On the other hand, the learners demonstrated an underuse of such devices/strategies as negation, conditional/interrogative particles and imposition minimizer, which are frequently employed by native Russian speakers. It was concluded that the social distance and power factors influenced the choice of mitigating devices/strategies in the requests produced by Korean learners of Russian. In general, the learners employed more internal and external mitigating devices/strategies in the situations with greater social distance and greater social power.