The reflection of cultural features in the interrelation between modality and politeness in Russian language

The interrelation between politeness and the use of modality, reflecting the cultural peculiarities in Russian, is considered in the study. The conducted analysis allowed to reveal such interrelation of using the negative epistemic modality in requests and refusals and the social distance between the communicators that is important in the process of studying the speaking etiquette of request and refusal by foreign students.