Genuine or ostensible politeness?

Abstract This study examines the use of qingwen (an honorific request marker) across three different historical periods in China and unravels the evolved relationship between qingwen -initiated directives of information-seeking and Chinese politeness. Drawing on the CCL Corpus, this study reveals that: first, qingwen is employed by the socially more powerful to solicit thoughts, ideas or simply answers with gong (treating others with respect) in positive standard situations of ancient and vernacular Chinese, thereby achieving traditional Chinese politeness; second, given the collapse of the feudal dynasties and the modernisation of society, a remarkable decline in qingwen usage from vernacular Chinese to modern Chinese can be discerned in official settings of negative standard situations; finally, qingwen is frequently used to echo apparent directives with a dissociative attitude in vernacular and modern Chinese, signalling ostensible politeness. This study contributes to historical pragmatics in Chinese by focussing on the evolution of qingwen -initiated directives of information-seeking.