Ya know, after thousands of years of trying it out in all kinds of environments, it seems as though almost every culture on Earth settles on “Guess”, with maybe a touch of “Ask” in the more overbearing ones.
That’s a strong claim. Is it really true? I’ll grant that it certainly seems like the overall culture would be at least leaning towards Guess almost everywhere. But I don’t think that the original Metafilter post and various other posts that were inspired by it would have been so broadly linked and discussed if there weren’t also strong enough strains of Ask culture that lots and lots of people intuitively recognized the existence of both. I seem to recall seeing people talking about how they grew up in an Ask or Guess family and how that led to conflicts when they ran into people raised differently, etc. That makes it sound like the two cultures are very much co-existing.
I don’t have sociological statistics on that, and will have to retract “almost every culture” as a statement of fact.
My general impression is that the US and Western Europe are about as “Ask” as it gets, and in a lot of other cultures you’re pretty unlikely to find any “Ask families” at all. I do know that “Offer” exists.
My impression is that Russia (and I would assume that much of Eastern Europe would be similar) is Askier than Western Europe. I may be wrong here, though, and my experiences could be a consequence of individual variation.
One might note in this context is that some of this might be reflected in conventionalized linguistic politeness strategies. For example, Russian constructions used for polite requests are very Asky, and would be incredibly rude if translated literally into English or German. Of course, this is only very weak evidence that present-day Russia has more of an Ask culture than the West.
For example, Russian constructions used for polite requests are very Asky, and would be incredibly rude if translated literally into English or German.
Could you give some examples? (I speak Russian and English.)
I was specifically thinking of “будь(те) добр(а/ы)” + Imperative is a very “Asky” way of phrasing a request, which is pretty direct and intrusive in English. If you add “я тебя очень прошу”, the translation becomes plainly absurd. And as far as I know—I might be miscalibrated, so correct me if I’m wrong—simple Imperative + “пожалуйста” is also more polite than the English translation would be.
I must admit that can do something similar to the “будь добр” construction in my variety of German, but it’s slightly less polite than the Russian counterpart, I think. In general, (my variety of) German loves indirection, like English, which Russian doesn’t really have. Cf. also the simple “ты не закроешь окно?”, whose translations are very rude. (I’m told that “ты не будешь закрыть окно?” works like “won’t you close the window?”, but my experience with Russian is to scarce to know that first-hand.)
I would render this into English as “would you be so kind as to …”, which doesn’t seem rude.
“я тебя очень прошу”
This has no analogue in English that I know of; you’re right, a literal translation would sound rather absurd (something like “I’m asking you, please”… no, that’s not quite right, but yes, I agree.
simple Imperative + “пожалуйста”
“Please do X”… seems reasonably polite, for a direct request. I’m not sure I see the difference.
indirection, like English
Hm? Example please?
“ты не закроешь окно?”
Actually, this is more direct and less polite than what seems to be the direct English translation: “won’t you close the window?” Admittedly, if instead you render this as “will you not close the window?”, it becomes less polite. Perhaps the contraction makes it a “standard polite asking phrase”, rendering it less direct? I’m not sure.
“ты не будешь закрыть окно?”
This is ungrammatical. I’m not sure what you were going for with this one, but it’s not a thing people say.
I guess the question is, how do you normally ask people to do things in English? What are some examples of things you might ask people to do, or ask people for; and what are rude or polite ways of phrasing those things? We might compare them with their Russian versions, then.
I would render this into English as “would you be so kind as to …”, which doesn’t seem rude.
But that is not remotely a literal translation, which is my point.
This is ungrammatical.
Yeah, that was a performance error. It should, of course, have read “ты не будешь закрывать окно”.
Default strategies for making requests in English, which are very indirect: “Would you mind doing X?” and “Could you (please) do X?” I feel that “please” + imperative is extremely blunt to the point that I would never use it. I suppose “do X, will you?” is a possibility in English, but only in very informal contexts. For “won’t you do X”, see below.
Actually, this is more direct and less polite than what seems to be the direct English translation: “won’t you close the window?” Admittedly, if instead you render this as “will you not close the window?”, it becomes less polite. Perhaps the contraction makes it a “standard polite asking phrase”, rendering it less direct? I’m not sure.
Wait, what? In my experience, “won’t you close the window” is a politer version of “you’re supposed to close the window, so do it already”.
[“будь(те) добр(а/ы)” → “would you be so kind as to …”]
But that is not remotely a literal translation, which is my point.
Uh, what? I struggle to imagine how you would get a more literal rendering without breaking English syntactical rules. Hm, perhaps removing the “would you” — “Be so kind as to …” — would make it absolutely literal. Is that really a large change in effect, though?
“ты не будешь закрывать окно”.
That makes grammatical sense, but it’s somewhat weird to phrase a request like this. Like, “hey, will you be doing X?” — that seems like a question. It could be a request… but only in Guess culture. I’ve almost never heard someone say this and just mean it as a request on its own; sometimes that sort of construction is followed by a request...
Wait, what? In my experience, “won’t you close the window” is a politer version of “you’re supposed to close the window, so do it already”.
Huh??
We seem to be running into some serious differences in experience here...
Default strategies for making requests in English, which are very indirect: “Would you mind doing X?” and “Could you (please) do X?”
In Russian, you could say (and people often do): “Не мог бы ты закрыть окно?” — which by direct translation becomes “Could you close the window?” — but the Russian phrase is quite polite-sounding, whereas the English phrase is less so.
Of course, we’ve been using the informal “you” (“ты”) in these phrases, but using the formal/polite “you” (“вы”) makes any of these phrases even more polite: “Не могли бы вы закрыть окно?”
Plus, in conversation, I’ve usually experienced such a phrase following a sort of “warning of request”, like so:
“У меня к вам такая просьба… ” (interlocutor says “Да?” or “Я вас слушаю?”) “Не могли бы вы закрыть окно?”
Which, rendered in English, looks like this:
“I have the following request for you [formal/polite]...” (“Yes?” or “I’m listening?”) “Could you [formal/polite] close the window?”
I don’t know… that seems “Asky” to the extent that you are asking someone for something, rather than making them guess, but I don’t see it as any more direct, per se, than the English equivalents.
Uh, what? I struggle to imagine how you would get a more literal rendering without breaking English syntactical rules. Hm, perhaps removing the “would you” — “Be so kind as to …” — would make it absolutely literal. Is that really a large change in effect, though?
How about “Be kind/nice, do X”? It’s grammatical—of course, it’s a weird thing to say, but the entire point was that the literal translations are weird and/or pushy. “would you be so kind as to” is indirect in virtue of being a question and not containing an imperative; of course, it’s the correct translation, but it’s really a very different construction.
That makes grammatical sense, but it’s somewhat weird to phrase a request like this. Like, “hey, will you be doing X?” — that seems like a question. It could be a request… but only in Guess culture. I’ve almost never heard someone say this and just mean it as a request on its own; sometimes that sort of construction is followed by a request...
Good to know. I once read that it has something of “you were supposed to do it, so are you gonna do it or what?” about it, but as I said, I have no personal experience with it.
In Russian, you could say (and people often do): “Не мог бы ты закрыть окно?” — which by direct translation becomes “Could you close the window?” — but the Russian phrase is quite polite-sounding, whereas the English phrase is less so.
Yes, I agree. I would guess that the counterpart of “could you hold that for a minute?” would perhaps be “подержи, пожалуйста, на минутку”—but “hold that for a minute, please” strikes me as really very rude in English.
I don’t know… that seems “Asky” to the extent that you are asking someone for something, rather than making them guess, but I don’t see it as any more direct, per se, than the English equivalents.
Well, for one thing, I feel it’s weird to say “I have a request for you” in English. You’d normally say “could I ask you for something/a favor”. In that, the Russian formulation is already more direct.
Of course, as I said, all that is not exactly strong evidence in favor of Russia actually having more of an ask culture, only very mildly suggestive. You can behave in an Ask or Guess culture way in either language, it’s just that the conventionalized politeness strategies of English make a lot of use of indirection (questions, and usually moralized, virtually never imperatives), whereas in Russian, when saying something that is equivalent in politeness to a certain English construction, you mention the request somewhat more directly (although, as you point out, there is the more indirect “могли бы вы” strategy).
By the way, do you live in Russian or another Russian-speaking country? Because I’ve seen a study that showed that heritage speakers of Russian (i.e. speakers who live in a different linguistic community but learned the language from a parent) adopt more English-like politeness strategies. The reference is here.
How about “Be kind/nice, do X”? It’s grammatical—of course, it’s a weird thing to say, but the entire point was that the literal translations are weird and/or pushy. “would you be so kind as to” is indirect in virtue of being a question and not containing an imperative; of course, it’s the correct translation, but it’s really a very different construction.
Ah, yes, I see your point.
I think I agree with what you’re saying sufficiently that anything further would be nitpicking. I do think it would be interesting to study this in more detail, although (not having any formal training in linguistics) I am unsure how linguists approach quantifying e.g. politeness, etc.
By the way, do you live in Russian or another Russian-speaking country? Because I’ve seen a study that showed that heritage speakers of Russian (i.e. speakers who live in a different linguistic community but learned the language from a parent) adopt more English-like politeness strategies. The reference is here.
I live in the United States, having been born in Russia and learned Russian in the usual way. (Interesting citation, though.)
Oh, I just saw that I linked the abstract when I wanted to link to the actual slides! Which also give you a picture of how this kind of thing is studied by people who do that. Here they are.
That’s a strong claim. Is it really true? I’ll grant that it certainly seems like the overall culture would be at least leaning towards Guess almost everywhere. But I don’t think that the original Metafilter post and various other posts that were inspired by it would have been so broadly linked and discussed if there weren’t also strong enough strains of Ask culture that lots and lots of people intuitively recognized the existence of both. I seem to recall seeing people talking about how they grew up in an Ask or Guess family and how that led to conflicts when they ran into people raised differently, etc. That makes it sound like the two cultures are very much co-existing.
I don’t have sociological statistics on that, and will have to retract “almost every culture” as a statement of fact.
My general impression is that the US and Western Europe are about as “Ask” as it gets, and in a lot of other cultures you’re pretty unlikely to find any “Ask families” at all. I do know that “Offer” exists.
My impression is that Russia (and I would assume that much of Eastern Europe would be similar) is Askier than Western Europe. I may be wrong here, though, and my experiences could be a consequence of individual variation.
One might note in this context is that some of this might be reflected in conventionalized linguistic politeness strategies. For example, Russian constructions used for polite requests are very Asky, and would be incredibly rude if translated literally into English or German. Of course, this is only very weak evidence that present-day Russia has more of an Ask culture than the West.
Could you give some examples? (I speak Russian and English.)
I was specifically thinking of “будь(те) добр(а/ы)” + Imperative is a very “Asky” way of phrasing a request, which is pretty direct and intrusive in English. If you add “я тебя очень прошу”, the translation becomes plainly absurd. And as far as I know—I might be miscalibrated, so correct me if I’m wrong—simple Imperative + “пожалуйста” is also more polite than the English translation would be.
I must admit that can do something similar to the “будь добр” construction in my variety of German, but it’s slightly less polite than the Russian counterpart, I think. In general, (my variety of) German loves indirection, like English, which Russian doesn’t really have. Cf. also the simple “ты не закроешь окно?”, whose translations are very rude. (I’m told that “ты не будешь закрыть окно?” works like “won’t you close the window?”, but my experience with Russian is to scarce to know that first-hand.)
Hmm.
I would render this into English as “would you be so kind as to …”, which doesn’t seem rude.
This has no analogue in English that I know of; you’re right, a literal translation would sound rather absurd (something like “I’m asking you, please”… no, that’s not quite right, but yes, I agree.
“Please do X”… seems reasonably polite, for a direct request. I’m not sure I see the difference.
Hm? Example please?
Actually, this is more direct and less polite than what seems to be the direct English translation: “won’t you close the window?” Admittedly, if instead you render this as “will you not close the window?”, it becomes less polite. Perhaps the contraction makes it a “standard polite asking phrase”, rendering it less direct? I’m not sure.
This is ungrammatical. I’m not sure what you were going for with this one, but it’s not a thing people say.
I guess the question is, how do you normally ask people to do things in English? What are some examples of things you might ask people to do, or ask people for; and what are rude or polite ways of phrasing those things? We might compare them with their Russian versions, then.
But that is not remotely a literal translation, which is my point.
Yeah, that was a performance error. It should, of course, have read “ты не будешь закрывать окно”.
Default strategies for making requests in English, which are very indirect: “Would you mind doing X?” and “Could you (please) do X?” I feel that “please” + imperative is extremely blunt to the point that I would never use it. I suppose “do X, will you?” is a possibility in English, but only in very informal contexts. For “won’t you do X”, see below.
Wait, what? In my experience, “won’t you close the window” is a politer version of “you’re supposed to close the window, so do it already”.
[“будь(те) добр(а/ы)” → “would you be so kind as to …”]
Uh, what? I struggle to imagine how you would get a more literal rendering without breaking English syntactical rules. Hm, perhaps removing the “would you” — “Be so kind as to …” — would make it absolutely literal. Is that really a large change in effect, though?
That makes grammatical sense, but it’s somewhat weird to phrase a request like this. Like, “hey, will you be doing X?” — that seems like a question. It could be a request… but only in Guess culture. I’ve almost never heard someone say this and just mean it as a request on its own; sometimes that sort of construction is followed by a request...
Huh??
We seem to be running into some serious differences in experience here...
In Russian, you could say (and people often do): “Не мог бы ты закрыть окно?” — which by direct translation becomes “Could you close the window?” — but the Russian phrase is quite polite-sounding, whereas the English phrase is less so.
Of course, we’ve been using the informal “you” (“ты”) in these phrases, but using the formal/polite “you” (“вы”) makes any of these phrases even more polite: “Не могли бы вы закрыть окно?”
Plus, in conversation, I’ve usually experienced such a phrase following a sort of “warning of request”, like so:
“У меня к вам такая просьба… ” (interlocutor says “Да?” or “Я вас слушаю?”) “Не могли бы вы закрыть окно?”
Which, rendered in English, looks like this:
“I have the following request for you [formal/polite]...” (“Yes?” or “I’m listening?”) “Could you [formal/polite] close the window?”
I don’t know… that seems “Asky” to the extent that you are asking someone for something, rather than making them guess, but I don’t see it as any more direct, per se, than the English equivalents.
How about “Be kind/nice, do X”? It’s grammatical—of course, it’s a weird thing to say, but the entire point was that the literal translations are weird and/or pushy. “would you be so kind as to” is indirect in virtue of being a question and not containing an imperative; of course, it’s the correct translation, but it’s really a very different construction.
Good to know. I once read that it has something of “you were supposed to do it, so are you gonna do it or what?” about it, but as I said, I have no personal experience with it.
Yes, I agree. I would guess that the counterpart of “could you hold that for a minute?” would perhaps be “подержи, пожалуйста, на минутку”—but “hold that for a minute, please” strikes me as really very rude in English.
Well, for one thing, I feel it’s weird to say “I have a request for you” in English. You’d normally say “could I ask you for something/a favor”. In that, the Russian formulation is already more direct.
Of course, as I said, all that is not exactly strong evidence in favor of Russia actually having more of an ask culture, only very mildly suggestive. You can behave in an Ask or Guess culture way in either language, it’s just that the conventionalized politeness strategies of English make a lot of use of indirection (questions, and usually moralized, virtually never imperatives), whereas in Russian, when saying something that is equivalent in politeness to a certain English construction, you mention the request somewhat more directly (although, as you point out, there is the more indirect “могли бы вы” strategy).
By the way, do you live in Russian or another Russian-speaking country? Because I’ve seen a study that showed that heritage speakers of Russian (i.e. speakers who live in a different linguistic community but learned the language from a parent) adopt more English-like politeness strategies. The reference is here.
Ah, yes, I see your point.
I think I agree with what you’re saying sufficiently that anything further would be nitpicking. I do think it would be interesting to study this in more detail, although (not having any formal training in linguistics) I am unsure how linguists approach quantifying e.g. politeness, etc.
I live in the United States, having been born in Russia and learned Russian in the usual way. (Interesting citation, though.)
Oh, I just saw that I linked the abstract when I wanted to link to the actual slides! Which also give you a picture of how this kind of thing is studied by people who do that. Here they are.
Hmm, I seem to be having trouble opening the .ppt file… are you able to view it? I get an error from PowerPoint.
Opened fine for me in LibreOffice (4.1.3) just now.