Linguistic Politeness

Muhammad AzamResearch Scholar

COMSATS Institute of Information Technology Lahore, Pakistan

Definition

• Held (2005)

• Politeness may be understood as a specific type of linguistic structure, which “expresses the speaker´s attitude and are thus not explicable by semantic, but rather by pragmatic means”

Definition

• Yule (1996, p. 59)

• A linguistic interaction is necessarily a social interaction. Thus, participants do not only convey meaning but also observe social rules and their utterances are shaped also by social distance and closeness.

Political Behaviour

• “Thank you” or “Have a nice day” or address terms “sir” and “madam” as polite,

• Watts (2003) groups them under the term “politic behaviour”.

• The politic behaviour is a standard behaviour expected by society in certain situations. Its omission would be considered as impolite, rather than neutral behaviour.

Political Behaviour

• “Thank you” or “Have a nice day” or address terms “sir” and “madam” as polite,

• Watts (2003) groups them under the term “politic behaviour”.

• The politic behaviour is a standard behaviour expected by society in certain situations. Its omission would be considered as impolite, rather than neutral behaviour.

Politeness Models

• Social norm model• Robin Lakoff

• Her model of politeness is highly rationalist and leans on Grice´s Cooperation Principle.

• Two rules are given: be clear and be polite. According to these rules, utterances can be classified as “well-formed or non-well-formed”

Politeness Models

• Conversational maxim model• it is not sufficient to use the Cooperative Principle as

the sole criterion for explaining the relation between sense and force and he introduces Politeness Principle.

Politeness Models

• Tact Maxim: Minimize cost to other, Maximize benefit to other• Generosity Maxim: Minimize benefit to self, Maximize cost to

self• Approbation Maxim: Minimize dispraise of other, Maximize

praise of other• Modesty Maxim: Minimize praise of self, Maximize dispraise of

self• Agreement Maxim: Minimize disagreement between self and

other, Maximize agreement between self and other• Sympathy Maxim: Minimize antipathy between self and other,

Maximize sympathy between self and other (Leech, 1983, p. 132).

Politeness Models

• Conversational contract model• Fraser and Nolen

• Politeness is seen as acting according to requirements of the conversational contract. Participants´ rights and obligations represent the substance of the contract and “every individual on entering a social interaction, must recognise a set of rights and obligations which determine how s/he is meant to behave.

Brown and Levinson´s Politeness Theory

• The use of politeness is seen as deliberate and free decision of the individual based on consideration of context and the face wants of involved participants.

• Face and face threatening acts• Every member of society has a public self image, or “face”.

– It represents the way a person is perceived and since it is not a constant value and it continually develops, it has to be attended to in interaction.

Brown and Levinson´s Politeness Theory

• In the process of maintaining face, every person has two aims:

• saving their own face (defensive orientation)• saving others´ faces (protective orientation)• Face consists of two aspects,

• positive face is the want to be independent and not imposed on by others.

• negative face Positive face is less obvious and it denotes the want to be accepted and liked, to be treated as a member of the same group, and to know that one´s wants are shared by others

Negative politeness strategies

• Brown and Levinson list following 10 strategies that make use of negative politeness:

• 1. Be conventionally indirect• 2. Question, Hedge• 3. Be pessimistic• 4. Minimize the imposition• 5. Give deference• 6. Apologize• 7. Impersonalize S and H, avoid the pronouns “I” and “you”• 8. State the FTA as a general rule• 15• 9. Nominalize• 10. Go on record as incurring a debt, or as not indebting H (1987, p. 131).

Positive politeness strategies• 1. Notice, attend to H• 2. Exaggerate (interest, approval, sympathy with hearer)• 3. Intensify interest to H• 4. Use in-group identity markers• 5. Seek agreement• 6. Avoid disagreement• 7. Presuppose/raise/assert common ground• 8. Joke• 9. Assert or presuppose S´s knowledge of and concern for H´s wants• 10. Offer, promise• 11. Be optimistic

Positive politeness strategies• 12. Include both S and H in the activity• 13. Give (or ask for) reasons• 14. Assume or assert reciprocity• 15. Give gifts to H (goods, sympathy, understanding, cooperation) (Brown

&• Levinson, 1987, p. 102)