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.
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.