An Innovative Use of Kudasai in Social Networking Services
An Innovative Use of Kudasai in Social Networking Services

Summary/Abstract: In communication via social networking services, users tend to employ peculiar expressions that are not observed outside the Internet. Such expressions are called Internet dialects (Inoue (2006)) or typed language (Tanaka (2014)). This paper addresses as an example of typed language the expression where the polite request marker kudasai ‘please’ directly follows the imperative form of a verb (i.e., [X-siro kudasai]). This novel expression may seem ungrammatical, but it has several pragmatic advantages over other existing expressions when used in on-line communication. I argue that such advantages arise from the distinct roles of the imperative and kudasai in the expression; the former expresses the writer’s mental state, and the latter conveys it to the reader. These reflect two different levels of linguistic expressions which Hirose (1995) calls private and public. The discussion reveals that the apparent peculiarity of the expression can be accounted for by general principles.

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