The effect of extralinguistic variables on verb selection in Italian requests

Abstract

Politeness relies on interlocutors’ frames, which are cognitive concepts that include a linguistic expression and extralinguistic variables. Politeness research has highlighted the importance of extralinguistic variables on speakers’ linguistic choices. Despite many studies that touch on these topics, questions about the comparative importance of contextual variables and the joint effect of them on speakers’ utterances remain unanswered. To examine these questions, a quantitative approach using a conditional inference tree was employed to investigate the influence of power, distance, and imposition on the use of verb forms in requests in Italian. Verb forms were selected as the dependent variable because they are essential for performing speech acts and they can be placed on a politeness continuum. Considering the importance and hierarchical relationship of the predictor variables of power, distance, and imposition, the results indicated that the three variables were predictors of verb form. While power was the main predictor, the effect of distance and imposition depended on whether the other variables were considered, showing a varying and complex effect of contextual variables. The findings enhance the understanding of Italian politeness, and represent the complex calculations that speakers make when selecting linguistic forms by considering interacting contextual variables.