Politeness markers venligst, gerne and please in the Danish language

The article aims at identification of semantic, collocational and pragmatic features of the Danish markers venligst and gerne, and the loanword please. The data from Aranea Web Corpora Project (Araneum Danicum Beta), as well as various Danish TV series, were used as the study material. Semantic and contextual analysis of the corpus data and audiovisual text was applied in the course of the study. The study allows to conclude that the Danish written communication uses various politeness markers depending on the type of discourse and the imperative. The model ‘imperative + venligst’ is mostly used for an official request in official and informational-regulatory texts, while the model ‘imperative + gerne’ is characteristic of advice or proposal. The construction ‘måtte gerne’ is more universal, as it may be used in various imperative meanings (permission, request, advice, proposal, request-demand), hence it could be said that this construction is becoming a polite alternative to the imperative both in written text and in speech. The English politeness marker please is not only used in persistent requests in the colloquial speech, but also in written informal Internet communication as a polite marker of a request addressed to unknown virtual interlocutors.