This book presents a cross-cultural comparison between British and Japanese cultures focusing on requests and responses. The study is based on data elicited from a questionnaire which lists the choices of strategies for making requests and responding to off-record requests, taking into account the variables power, social distance and imposition. The author s findings suggest important refinements to Brown and Levinson s politeness categorisation and question the validity of cultural stereotypes. Drawing on the distinction between individualist and collectivist cultures, this study also...