Linguistic politeness and pragmatic variation in request production in Dakar French

This article examines linguistic politeness and pragmatic variation in the production of requests among Senegalese speakers of French in Dakar. Drawing on a framework of pragmatic variation (Schneider and Barron 2008; Barron and Schneider 2009) and a model of intercultural communication and politeness systems (Scollon and Scollon 2001), we analyze variation of request variants, internal modification, and variation in the selection of the T/V forms in formal and informal contexts, including solidarity politeness (-P, -D), deference politeness (-P, + D), and hierarchical politeness (+ P, + D). The Senegalese French requests were compared to requests from French speakers from France in comparable situations. The realization of politeness and request performance in Senegalese French is influenced by the fact that use of French is normally limited to formal contexts, such as schools and government establishments, with Wolof serving as a lingua franca in informal settings for speakers of many national languages. The results are discussed in light of pragmalinguistic variation, including variation of address forms, request variants, and internal modification.