Abstract：Abstract: Intercultural pragmatics claims that context represents two aspects of world knowledge called prior context knowledge and actual situational knowledge and both of them make an impact on second language learners in intercultural communication. Based on the theory of intercultural pragmatics, this study aims at exploring how prior context knowledge and actual situational context knowledge affect non-native Chinese learners’ choices of polite request discourse when they use Chinese in interactions by designing a series of pragmatic experiments and drawing on data from them. The results reveal that both prior context and actual situational context knowledge jointly affect the choices of polite request discourse, but in different ways: the prior context knowledge plays a prominent role in the choice of use among lower-level learners, but on the contrary, actual situational context knowledge plays a prominent role in the choice of use among advanced-level learners. The present study can provide some references and implications for broadening ways of polite research as well as for teaching and research of Chinese as a foreign language.
Key words: context knowledge; politeness; request discourse; non-native Chinese learners; experimental pragmatics
