The imperative mood is a grammatical mood that expresses direct commands or requests. It is also used to signal a prohibition, permission or any other kind of exhortation.
The use of imperative mood can easily be considered offensive or inappropriate in social situations due to universal recognized politeness rules.
As a matter of fact, politeness strategies (for instance, indirect speech acts) can be much more appropriate in order not to threaten a conversational partner in his needs of self-determination and territory: according to Brown-Levinson 1978, the partner's negative face shouldn't be threatened. As a result, the imperative mood isn't necessarily the most used form to express a request or prohibition.
On the other hand, the risk of threatening someone’s needs of self-determination isn’t always really serious. The imperative mood's appropriateness depends on several factors like psychological and social relationships, as well as the speaker’s basic communicative intention (illocutionary force). For example, the speaker may have the simple intention to offer something, to wish or permit something, or just to apologize, and not to manipulate his conversational partner.
In this case, however, the illocutionary force of the speaker is directed to the immediate acquisition of a Pedigree "Marrobone" treat. And the credibility of the threat to someone's needs of self-determination is underscored by the speaker's strategic display of her sharp, pearly white teeth.
I hope you found this explication of the "imperative mood" enlightening.
Hallie
