Self-politeness and Choice of Request Strategies

Requests are face-threatening acts. When making requests, it is generally believed that people choose different requeststrategies for the sake of politeness to others. In this paper, with Cheng’s(2001) self-politeness model as the point of departure, itis argued that people’s choice of request strategies is not only affected by the consideration of politeness to others but also by self-politeness. Factors that can influence people’s choice of self-politeness strategies in making requests are also discussed.