Japanese EFL Learners' Perception of Politeness in Low Imposition Requests

This study examined japanese and American perceptual differences of politeness
in English requests in order to find points that can be implemented in EFt
classrooms in japan. For this purpose, 77 japanese and 48 American university
students were given 11 English sentences which were to be used in the action of
borrowing a pen, with a seven-point rating scale attached. Findings were as
follows: japanese rated "May I borrow a pen?" to be almost in the neutral
politeness zone whereas Americans rated it as a very polite request; in the case
of a close-friend as an addressee, japanese tended to think that "Could youl
I ... ?" form was less than marginal while Americans saw the form as an
appropriate request; and japanese tended to think other japanese could use
rather casual requests of American students whereas Americans would expect
them to use more polite expressions.