Use of Polite Request Forms by Jordanian Children: Do Age and Gender Have an Impact?

Abstract

This study aimed at finding the strategies of politeness in requests as well as the potential differences between Jordanian children in their use of such strategies. The study compared the participants on the basis of two variables: age and gender. According to the age variable, the participants were divided into three groups: 5, 7 and 9 year-olds. Each group contained 24 participants who were then divided into 12 males and 12 females. The researchers used video-recording to elicit the participants' requests while they ask the researchers for some cookies. On the basis of age, the findings support previous research that age has an obvious effect on the use of politeness in requests. It was found that nine-year-olds were more able to use indirect forms of requests than seven and five- year- old children. Although 5 and 7-year-olds were able to use indirect forms, they opted more to direct requests that have a semantic softener. On the basis of gender, the differences between males and females in using direct and indirect requests were irrelevant.