A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF POLITENESS IN ENGLISH AND ROMANIAN REQUEST PATTERNS AMONG STUDENTS AT TRANSILVANIA UNIVERSITY

Politeness, both a linguistic and sociocultural construct, has been extensively examined within Speech Act Theory (Austin, 1962; Searle, 1979) and Brown and Levinson’s (1987) model of face management. However, empirical research on the pragmatic behaviour of Romanian (L1) learners of English (L2) remains limited. This study addresses that gap by analysing how Romanian students formulate requests in both languages and by examining potential transfer from native politeness conventions. A Discourse Completion Task (DCT) with sixteen scenarios varying in power, distance, and imposition was completed by 126 students from Transilvania University of Brașov. Responses were analysed qualitatively using Brown and Levinson’s (1987) and Trosborg’s (1995) typologies of request strategies. Conventionally indirect forms dominated in both languages but appeared more frequently and elaborately in L1. L2 requests were syntactically polite yet more direct and less contextually mitigated. L1 data showed greater use of external modifiers - apologies, explanations, and greetings - indicating heightened sensitivity to hierarchy. Evidence of pragmatic transfer emerged in the overuse of L2 markers such as please, sorry, and kindly, mirroring L1 deference patterns. Overall, the findings confirm that while learners master the linguistic forms of English politeness, their pragmatic performance remains shaped by Romanian sociocultural norms.