How not to ask a favor in Wolof

Abstract

Starting from an incident of pragmatic translation error, this paper explores the syntax, semantics, and pragmatics of Wolof requests in comparison with requests in American English. The requests arc first analyzed according to a semantic framework (derived from recent work in philosophy of language) of propositions and conditions pertinent to an utterance's counting as a request. Within this framework are then compared (a) the syntactic forms of these requests, and (b) actual social situations in which they are used. Wolof and American requests differ less in their linguistic form than in the cultural background of concepts and expectations with which members of a society interpret a social situation (and select a particular way of requesting as appropriate). Thus one cannot understand the pragmatics of requests by looking only at their linguistic forms and inferring pragmatic intentions such as degrees of politeness. Rather, one must examine the matching of linguistic form to social situation, in the context of a cultural system for assessing what is normative and “obvious” about a situation and what is not.