Native observers’ evaluations of ritual frame indicating expressions in Chinese

Abstract Ritual frame indicating expressions (henceforth RFIEs) is a concept that re-conceptualizes expressions that are conventionally understood as politeness markers and provides insight into the interface between expressions and politeness. This study supplements previous studies on RFIEs, which are mostly conducted from an analyst perspective, by analyzing native observers’ evaluations of a participant’s use of Chinese RFIEs in the speech act of request. It is found that the use of RFIEs was evaluated as either excessively limao (Chinese politeness1) or limao. The underlying reason for the former evaluation is that the expressions were interpreted as deference markers, and the underlying reason for the latter evaluation is that the expressions were interpreted as civility markers. This study demonstrates that, at least in the speech act of request, RFIEs may indicate different ritual frames for different native observers, which calls for the incorporation of the (meta)participant’s perspective in the study of RFIEs. It also supplements the current view on the usage of conventional politeness-related expressions in Chinese.