Blog Post #4 – Request for Assistance

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FILENAME:      RequestingAssistance
TITLE:               Requesting Assistance
DATE:               20 May 2019

KEY WORDS:  politeness; speech acts

DESCRIPTION OF ACTIVITY:

SETTING & SCENE:  workshop of carpenter, at the start of the break for communal midday nourishment

PARTICIPANT(S):  carpenter; 4 apprentices, a new deliverer, and participant-observer

ENDS:                         
deliverer: to solicit help
newest apprentice: to assist the deliverer
participant-observer: to understand an unfamiliar an idiomatic expression

ACT SEQUENCE:         

As the usual time of the communal midday nourishment approached, activity began to slow as the team members were coming to a good stopping point at which to pause in their labor for the break. From just outside the carpenter’s workshop, a voice rather cheerfully called out the question “Any              hands in there?” As the newest of the apprentices moved toward the door, I asked the carpenter the meaning of the unfamiliar word, which he explained (by indicating two buckets of which one contained water, and one contained nothing) meant “empty.” As the newest apprentice opened the door, another reached out to lift one of the two platters of food in each of the hands of a stranger I had never met. Brief introductions were exchanged between the carpenter and the stranger, who was delivering today’s midday meal because the regular deliverer was sick. After the replacement deliverer’s departure, as the team enjoyed the food, I asked the carpenter why this deliverer had asked about “empty hands.” According to the carpenter, it seems that a yes-or-no question about the emptiness of hands asked without invoking an particular hearer (in the vocative sense) is likely a polite way of requesting assistance from anyone able to help, especially if the requester is amongst strangers.

KEY:  a kind of ‘cultural mentorship’ (from carpenter to participant-observer)

INSTRUMENTALITIES: a series of questions and answers exchanged between a member and non-member of the ingroup

NORMS:  description; explanation

GENRE:  ‘how-to’ direction
REFLECTIONS:            

Since I had previously never heard reference to “empty hands” among the carpenter’s team, I think that such a question might not be used frequently among those who know each other’s names.

EMERGING QUESTIONS/ANALYSES:

Q1:  Does the mention of “empty hands” work in reverse (i.e., in order to volunteer/offer assistance, or make known one’s willingness to help, by referring to one’s own hands as being “empty”)?

FUTURE ACTION:       

Try to employ this question in the carpenter’s workshop with Shemeni (the apprentice whom I know most closely) to see how Shemeni responds.

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