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.
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.