2.2. Contrastive analysis of English and Uzbek Requests There is a considerable range of cross-cultural researches on the linguistic and communicative strategies of the Speech Act of Requesting. In this study, some observations as regards lexical-syntactic repertoires of requests in English and Uzbek language will be incorporated. A total of nine request strategies with varying lexical-syntactic structures of requesting formulas and patterns were grouped into three major categories according to their level of directness. By a request strategy we understand “the obligatory choice of the level of directness by which the Request is realized”. Directness means the degree to which S’s illocutionary intent is apparent from the locution. Furthermore, while directness is considered to be related to politeness, it is not coextensive with it.
I go along with Brown (1995) who argues for a theory of adequate understanding rather than correct understanding. She claims that to insist on merely adequate interpretation and on the ‘riskiness’ of language comprehension is not to say that one cannot ever interpret what someone says ‘correctly’. After all, we can and do communicate with each other successfully for the majority of the time. Many utterances are formulated in a conventional or ‘formulaic’ manner using conventional forms of expression and phrasing in similar frames of context, so our interpretation is quick and apparently seamless. Extended education, learning and training help us acquire this conventional knowledge and apply it in context.
Even so, there is not always a simple solution to an utterance’s interpretation; often there are multiple and changing interpretations, the understanding of which is in some cases only partial or incomplete. In these circumstances we make do with the ‘best fit’ interpretations or ask for more information.
Direct Level– the most direct, explicit level, which is realized by requests syntactically marked as such, for example, imperatives, or by other verbal means that name the act as a request, for instance, performatives (Austin, 1962) and hedged performatives (Fraser, 1975).
2. Conventionally Indirect Level – the act is realized by reference to contextual preconditions necessary for its performance, as conventionalized in a given language. These strategies are commonly referred to as indirect speech acts in speech act literature since Searle.
3. Non-conventional Indirect Level– the open-ended group of indirect strategies (hints) that realize the request either by partial reference to object or element needed for the implementation of the act or by reliance on contextual clues.
A combination of levels of directness and strategy types are elaborated in the Table
The request strategies in the Table below are ordered in accordance with decreasing degree of directness. They are mutually exclusive, i.e. the Head Act cannot be realized through more than one specific request strategy.