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In this article, the longitudinal development of directives in first-language acquisition is described, and examples of the development of directive speech acts in one Czech child from the ages of 2.8 to 4.1 are included. The results show that the child acquires communicative strategies gradually and that he usually prefers one concrete strategy initially, which is later replaced by a new strategy corresponding with the acquisition of morphological categories. The child’s grammatical development is divided into two stages: the stage of protomorphology, when the child acquires basic morphological categories, and the stage of morphology proper / modular morphology, when the child uses a variety of grammatical means. In the stage of morphology proper, pragmatic factors become more influential as the child is no longer limited by a lack of grammatical competence.

This article addresses e-mail communications between university students and their lecturer in the Czech Republic. Politeness strategies employed in 200 Czech students' e-mail apologies sent to a lecturer were analysed. Students use multiple strategies to create a positive self-image of a committed and reliable student, combining direct expressions of apology, explanations, and acknowledgement of responsibility. The most frequent strategies were direct, prototypically performatives or hedged performatives. The high level of direct forms is consistent with findings of previous research on Slavic cultures. Nearly half of the e-mails included structures with directive illocution (request for information), which shifts responsibility to an authority; however, this could be interpreted as a form of politeness because students show that they value their lecturer's opinion and are willing to follow their advice. Although students primarily employ strategies based on negative politeness, which is perceived as unmarked in an institutional setting, the closing sections of the e-mails contain positive politeness in complimentary closings, and thanking is prevalent. • Politeness in Czech students' e-mail apologies sent to a lecturer was analysed. • Students use multiple strategies to create a positive self-image. • The most frequent strategies were direct, including performatives. • Nearly half of the e-mails include structures with directive illocution [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights: [•] Politeness strategies in 260 e-mail requests from university students to faculty were analysed. [•] Salutations, directness level, syntactic, lexical and external modification were examined. [•] It was found that students employ a great amount of syntactic modification. [•] It was found that both positive and negative politeness strategies were used. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article describes the ways that students of the Faculty of Education, Charles University, Prague, define politeness. The data were obtained from 182 respondents. The definitions are compared to those presented by linguists and researchers in the area of linguistic politeness. The data are also quantified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]