politeness strategies in requests in the thorn birds chiến lược lịch sự trong lời thỉnh cầu trong tiếng chim hót trong bụi mận gai

FACULTY of POST-GRADUATE STUDIES NGUYỄN THỊ PHƯƠNG THẢO Politeness strategies in requests in “The thorn birds” Chiến lược lịch sự trong lời thỉnh cầu trong "Tiếng Chim Hót Trong B

FACULTY of POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

NGUYỄN THỊ PHƯƠNG THẢO

Politeness strategies in requests

in “The thorn birds”

(Chiến lược lịch sự trong lời thỉnh cầu trong

"Tiếng Chim Hót Trong Bụi Mận Gai”)

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY of OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

NGUYỄN THỊ PHƯƠNG THẢO

Politeness strategies in requests

in “The thorn birds”

(Chiến lược lịch sự trong lời thỉnh cầu trong

"Tiếng Chim Hót Trong Bụi Mận Gai”)

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Table of contents

Declaration………

Acknowledgement………

Abstract ……… …………

i ii iii Abbreviations ……… ……… vi

Part A: Introduction ……… 1

1 Rationale ……… 2

2 Aims of the study ……… … 2

3 Scope of the study ……… …

4 Overview of the work ………

2 2 5 Methods of the study ……… 3

6 Design of the study ……… 3

Part b: Development ……… … 4

Chapter 1: Theoretical background ……… 4

1.1 The Speech act ……… 4

1.1.1 Speech act performance 4

1.1.2 Locutionary act, Illocutionary act, Perlocutionary act

1.1.3 Speech act classifications ……… …

1.1.4 The speech act of request ………

5 6 7 1.2 Politeness and indirectness in requests …… 9

1.2.1 Theory of politeness ……… 9

1.2.1.1 Politeness principles ………

1.2.1.2 The face-management view on politeness ………

10 14 1.2.1.2.1 Face ………… 11

1.2.1.2.2 Face threatening acts

1.2.1.2.3 Politeness strategies ………

15 16 1.2.2 Social factors affecting politeness ………

1.2.3 Scales of indirectness in requests ……….………

18

19

2.1 Positive politeness strategies in requests in “The Thorn Birds” 22

2.1.1 Strategy 1: Notice, attend to H (his interests, wants, needs, goods) 22

2.1.2 Strategy 2: Exaggerate (interest, approval, sympathy with H) 23

2.1.3 Strategy 3: Intensify interest to H ……… 23

2.1.4 Strategy 4: Use in-group identity markers ……….…… 24

2.1.5 Strategy 5: Seek agreement ……… 24

2.1.6 Strategy 6: Avoid disagreement ……… 25

2.1.7 Strategy 7: Presuppose / raise / assert common ground ……… 26

2.1.8 Strategy 8: Joke ……… 26

2.1.9 Strategy 9: Assert or presuppose S‟s knowledge of and concern for H‟s wants… 27

2.1.10 Strategy 10: Offer, promise ……… 27

2.1.11 Strategy 11: Be optimistic ……… 27

2.1.12 Strategy 12: Include both S and H in the activity ……… 27

2.1.13 Strategy 13: Give (or ask for) reasons ……… 28

2.1.14 Strategy 14: Assume or assert reciprocity ……… 28

2.1.15 Strategy 15: Give gifts to H (goods, sympathy, understanding, cooperation) 28 2.2 Negative politeness strategies manifested in requests in “The Thorn Birds”

28 2.2.1 Strategy 1: Be conventionally indirect ……… 28

2.2.2 Strategy 2: Question, hedge ……… 29

2.2.3 Strategy 3: Be pessimistic ……… 30

2.2.4 Strategy 4: Minimize the imposition ……… 30

2.2.5 Strategy 5: Give deference ……… 31

2.2.6 Strategy 6: Apologize ……… 32

2.2.7 Strategy 7: Impersonalise S and H ……… 32

2.2.8 Strategy 8: State the FTA as a general rule ……… 32

2.2.9 Strategy 9: Nominalize ……… 32

2.2.10 Strategy 10: Go on record as incurring a debt, or as not indebting H 33

2.3 Politeness strategies in requests in “The Thorn Birds” seen from S-H relationship 34

2.3.1 Lovers ……… 35

2.3.2 Family members …… 35

2.3.3 Acquaintances ……… 36

2.3.4 Strangers ……… 36 PART C: CONCLUSION ……… 38 REFERENCES …… 40

R : Absolute ranking of imposition

Part A: Introduction

1 Rationale

The basic function of language is “very similar in different societies, though with different linguistic conventions, in all parts of the world, because all people have similar needs, similar relationships, and in general share the same world” Robin

(1952:6) This idea must be shared by the fact that language is created as a necessary

demand of human life with the final aim, that is for communication in which people exchange information and express their opinions and attitudes However, how people communicate successfully in certain contexts has inspired to the linguists whose research has contributed a lot to the development of communication among human

beings

Any beginning-level Vietnamese students of English easily form the following sentences correctly as firstly having a conversation with an English-speaking person: Are you married? How old are you? But it is rather difficult for that foreigner to accept such personal questions That is the reason why Richards (1992:32) makes a distinction between the two notions linguistic competence and

communicative competence, which refers to “….the ability not only to apply the

grammatical rules of a language in order to form grammatically correct sentences but also to know when and where to use these sentences and to whom.” This

statement highly appreciates the important role of cultural knowledge in

contributing to a successful communication Being aware of the active part of communication competence is along with setting up appropriate strategies in teaching English for Vietnamese students by giving out variable cultural and social contexts in each English class And it is advisable to choose politeness situations to illustrate in such those cases because politeness is one of the most great elements

effecting the choice of language: “When learning a second language, one needs to

acquire the new culture‟s politeness framework, which is very different from that of one‟s own culture” (Celce-Murcia et al 2000:26) Strategies to choose language

politely, in fact, reflects most on the way people making a request because request shortly means “to ask your hearer whether he is willing or able to do something” (Leech & Svartvik, 1975:147) Furthermore, during process of researching, we

realize that so far little research has focused on politeness strategies in requests in a literature work

Literature is, as being judged, a reflection of society and culture And the fact that the more a literary work reflects the present life truthfully and vividly, the more successful it will get, since it is said that art is for human sakes, not for art sakes Therefore language, especially daily language in the literary works will also be presented vividly And conversational language in a great novel, apparently, is reliable for our observation

For those reasons presented above, we decided to choose the topic:

“Politeness strategies in requests in “The thorn birds”

2 Aims of the study

- To explore how politeness strategies are manifested in the requests in the English language appropriately

- To investigate the ways characters in a literary work operate their requests politely in their conversations

3 Scope of the study

Among linguistic, paralinguistic and non-verbal aspects related to politeness, our study only deals with the first one It focuses on positive and negative politeness strategies based on Brown & Levinson‟s (1987) theoretical framework And the data

is based on all of the utterances containing the requests made by characters in “The Thorn Birds”

4 Overview of the work

“The Thorn Birds”- as the comment of Sweetie Pie in his “A Book Review of The Thorn Birds”: “Of all of Colleen McCullough's novels, The Thorn Birds made the greatest impact on my ideas of what a great book should be I was drawn into the story and could not put it down until I finished it a week later”- one of the great works of every time was written by an amateur writer- Collen McCullough in 1976 Being different from some previous works, all whose theme is also about the history

of a family in Australia, but they almost reflect the development and the degeneration of the bourgeoisie class “The Thorn Birds” is the story of three generations in a labour family named Cleary The next generations, instead of refusing the tradition values left by the previous, inherit and develop those Simultaneously, getting good characteristics of family such as hard-working,

independence, steady enough to pass hard life, they also make some positive changes

to catch up with the development of the age If Fiona- the first generation is brave enough to suffer from every misfortune but give no struggle for the fate, her daughter Meggie- a modern girl tries to get her happiness from the hand of God-having a baby with a priest who she loves, and Justine- Meggie‟s daughter has a quietly different moral standards There are many characters in the novel but the noble ones are Fiona (Fee), Meggie, a priest named Ralph and most of the incidents are surrounded by the love story full of hindrance but romantic between Meggie and Ralph

The development of the novel is not only exposed via the meticulous description of the novelist but importantly, by the conversations among the characters in which we try to find how the characters operate their request politely

5 Methods of the study

Generally, the thesis employed the Quantitative Method, which is defined as a research method that relies less on interviews, observations, small numbers of questionnaires, focus groups, subjective reports and case studies but is much more focused on the collection and analysis of numerical data and statistics Counting and measuring are common forms of quantitative methods The result of the research is a number, or a series of numbers These are often presented in tables, graphs or other forms of statistics which is the science and practice of developing human knowledge through the use of empirical data

6 Design of the study

The thesis comprises three main parts:

Part A: Introduction

This part includes five sub- parts: the rationale, aims, scope, methods and design of the study

Part B: Content

This is the nuclear part of the whole study containing three chapters

Chapter 1: Theoretical background

This chapter makes an overview of the theories on Speech Act, Speech Act of request and Politeness theory which are treated as the major grounds for the analysis work

Chapter 2: The study of politeness strategies manifested in requests in

conversations in “The Thorn Birds”

This chapter finds out how characters in the novel cover politeness strategies

in requests in their conversations

Part C: Conclusion

This part summarize somewhat has discussed in the above two parts and give some suggestions for further study

Part B: development Chapter 1: Theoretical background

This chapter provides an overview of the theoretical background of the

research It is divided into 2 main sections Section 1.1 discusses the key notions of speech act theory and how requests have been defined in speech theory Section 2.2

discusses the two major issues, politeness theory and indirectness in requests

1.1 The Speech Act theories

1.1.1 Speech Act performance

S.A is always an interesting topic for many linguists such as Hymes (1964), Searl (1969), Levinson (1983), Brown and Yule (1983), Smith and Richards (1983) Their works about it seems to never end because, firstly it is related to language which may be changed time by time, and vary hugely from a place to another; secondly studying S.A is to find out how people deal with their own language to communicate effectively which indeed differs from society to society, even in the same region

S.A was first introduced by Austin (1962), but before him, there were still some other theorists whose ideas, to some extent, are quite different from Austin‟s For example, Moore views “language of common sense” and Bertrand Russell sees everyday language as “is somehow deficient and defective” Then they have an ambitious to idealize language by removing its imperfections and illogicalities

In contrast, Austin claimed that there is no point in depriving the imperfections of language, instead during communication process people should consider how to use and manage with it effectively and appropriately And this reaction performs as his background to approach the term “ Speech Act” which is

defined in his famous book “How to do things with words”(1962) as “ We must

consider the total situation in which the utterance is issued- the total Speech Act- if

we are to see the parallel between the statements and performative utterances” (1962:52) Later, G.Yule explicits the term “total situation” that in order to reach an

effective communication, both S and H are usually helped by the circumstances surrounding the utterances what he calls “speech event” Thus, they share one thing that S.A must be put in certain situation in order to be interpreted appropriately He

takes an example with the utterance: “This tea is really cold!” If this sentence is

uttered on a winter day, it is likely interpreted as a complaint but supposing on a

really hot summer day, it may be considered a praise Agreeing with what Austin

stated before, G.Yule redefined S.A as “Actions performed via utterances are

generally called Speech Acts and, in English, are commonly given more specific

labels, such as apology, complaint, invitation, promise, or request”

Again, in Austin‟s definition, appearing the term “performative” which he

uses in another phrase “Performative hypothesis” This term realizes words as

actions This is considered one of significant exploration not only particularly to him

but generally to a new step of language study Because before him, the others

linguists with their term “truth- conditional approach” consider people‟s utterances to

be always either true or false And then he gives more explanation by giving a clear

distinction between “constative” and “performative” According to him, “constative”

means an utterance can be judge to be true or false; for example, the sentence “This

woman is 30 years old” is true if the age of the woman is 30, but false if the woman

is at the other age Performative, however is considered under different view

:“People not only use language to fit it with the world but also to perform actions via

utterances, that may, in some way change the world ” (Quoted in Dang Thi Manh,

2005:11) The following sentence: “There is a snake on your feet” can not be judged

to be true or false but a warn toward the H and force him to give an action to solve

the problem (eg: stand quietly until the snake goes away) Performatives can be

given explicitly and implicitly The implicit performative is illustrated in the example

above, for the explicit performative, we have sentence : Stop smoking!

1.1.2 Locutionary act, Illocutionary act, Perlocutionary act

The action performed via an utterance always consists of three related acts

The first is named “locutionary” which involves the basic act of an utterance

or produces a meaningful linguistic expression Someone who finds himself

incapable of uttering a certain language (for example, because those who are tongue-

tied or foreign) cannot produce a locutionary act A Vietnamese production of

“hsihfdru” will not normally count as a locutionary act because the utterance is nonsense, not fecilitous to the rules of Vietnamese language

People do not create a meaningful sentence without any purpose Hence, what participants intend to achieve via language in a communication process is called

“Illocutionary act” The illocutionary act is performed via the communication force

of an utterance, generally known as the illocutionary force S may use language to

promise, warn, request, deny, apology However in different contexts, an utterance

can be interpreted differently For example, when somebody produces the English

locutionary act “The dog is very fierce”, he might want to warn the other not to touch

the dog or the sentence can be considered as a request to ask the host keep the dog in

a stage

The illocutionary act will have some effect on the H This effect is

perlocutionary act With the same utterance but under different situations, the H will interpret in different ways If the sentence “Where are you going?” occurs between

two people in Vietnam the H can understand it just a greeting, thus, no need to

answer but he can gives his Perlocutionary act by saying “Hi!” Yet we can not

apply such effect with the people from other countries When a Perlocutionary act coincides with a Illocutionary act, then the communication is successful

Among those three dimensions, Illocutionary act is interpreted rather

identically with Speech Act: language implies actions So far, S.A also means Illocutionary act and two terms can be used alternatively

“The distinction is necessary for accomplishing communicative

effectiveness, because an individual Locutionary act may have different

Illocutionary forces and require different Perlocutionary act In order to

have the best interpretation and react in the right manner, the H need to

utilize many other factors than just the linguistic expression he hears”

(quoted in Dang Thi Manh, 2005:6)

Above all, all S.As (especially performative) depend for their effectiveness

on various facility conditions being satisfied Yule (1996:50) calls these conditions as: general conditions, preparatory conditions, sincerity conditions, content conditions, essential conditions And Jackson and Stock Well explicit those as follow: “The utterance must be said by the right person to the right person, in the right place, at the right time, in the right manner.”(1996:140)

1.1.3 Speech act classifications

Many linguists try to classify Speech act such as Austin with five categories:

verdictive, exercitive, commisive, behabitive and expositive Among them,

verdictives are typified by the giving of verdict by a judge, a jury, or an arbitrator Exercitves involve of a decision which either supports or rejects a certain action Commisives are speech acts which commit the speaker to a certain course of action, e.g a promising or contracting Behabitives are reaction to other people‟s behaviors

or attitude to someone‟s past actions And expositives include the acts of exposition involving the expounding of views, the conducting of arguments…

However, later, some other linguists such as Searl and Leech (1983) criticize this classification to be rather overlap Then Searl gives another classification system

including five types: assertives (representatives), directives, commissives,

expressives, and declaratives

- Assertives (representatives) shows the S‟s commitment to the truth of utterance It sates the fact, assertions, conclusions, and descriptions In the statement:

“His forehead is hot He must be ill” (conclusion), the S expresses his strong belief

to what he says

- Declaratives are sorts of Speech acts that make the world change via utterances, e.g: dismissing, naming, appointing In order to have an appropriate declaration, it must be in a specific context or even by a person with certain role in society:

Eg: Priest: I pronounce you husband and wife

Jury: I sentence you six months imprisonment

- Expressives are used to express feelings and attitudes about something such

as an apology, a complaint, a regret

Eg: Your hands are too dirty (a complaint)

- Directives are aimed to get the H to do something such a request, an order, a suggestion, a command

Eg: You must move it out immediately (request)

- Commissives commit S to do something in the future such a promise/ threat

Eg: If you get good marks, I will give you a present

1.1.4 The speech act of request

According to Searle‟s (1979) classification system of speech acts, request falls

into the directives Its function is that the speaker attempts to get the hearer to do something by means of what he says or as “an act of asking for something in speech

or writing, especially politely” (in Oxford Advanced Learner‟s Dictionary, 1992: 768)

Eg: “Won‟t you kiss me goodbye” (p 276) - ask for a kiss goodbye

“Will you leave me alone, will you” (p 295) - ask the H to leave him/her

alone

In request, it is always the requester who directly or indirectly benefits from the act at the cost of the requestee and threats his “face.” In day- to- day interactions between the members of a community, each action is performed to maintain someone‟s “face” and to avoid losing “face.” Since a requester appeals to the requestee‟s assistance, he/ she is potentially threatening the requestee‟s “negative face.” The intensity of this threat varies with the level of imposition of the requested act and the conditions under which the request is made For instance, when someone asks another the way to the hospital, the requested “matter” is not likely to threaten the requestee‟s face very much Of course, this cannot be the case when a request involves greater imposition or restriction on the requestee‟s freedom, such as lending money or giving a lift Therefore, on one hand, to maximize the chance that a listener will catch the speaker‟s intention in requesting, the speaker should use directives that are clear and emphatic On the other hand, to maximize the chance that a listener will comply with the request, the speaker should use directives that are polite or indirect For example: This room would look a lot better if you dusted it

You have time enough to dust before you go

Didn‟t you ask me to remind you to dust this place?

As usual, a request includes 2 main parts, a head act and additional elements which consist of Alerter, Perspective and the Modification The Head Act is the minimal unit which is the core of the request sequence Alerter is an element whose function is to draw H‟s attention to what is uttering, e.g: Mrs, Ms, James, excuse me… Perspective is inferred as a choice made by the S whose want or wish is emphasized or dominant in the request (Song-Mei,1993) and it is coded as follows:

1 Hearer perspective: Can you show me your driving license, please

2 Speaker perspective: Could I see your driving license, please?

3 Inclusive: Could we swap cars?

4 Impersonal: Can one ask for a little quiet?

(Blum-Kulla et al, 1989:278)

As far as the modification is concerned, it is divided into two terms: internal and external modification Internal modification is defined as elements within the Head Act which can perform as indicating devices affecting pragmatic force These elements are downgraders and upgraders However as far as the politeness value of requests is concerned, downgraders is regarded And there are various ways to recognize them

Eg: In making a request S majorly reduce pressure on H with politeness marker

“please”

“Please let me see her” (p 371)

Whereas external modification is something happening outside the Head Act Its function is to mitigate or aggravate the speaker‟s request that help to reduce the imposition in H

Eg: “I don’t want to say this but I think I have to It‟s time you found yourself a

girl”

(p 114)

By using Disarmer (in above bold sentence) which indicate that the S doesn‟t wish to make the request but he/she is forced by circumstances to do so, the S try to soften the impact of the request on the H And in this novel we consider all of these factors that occur surround an utterance of request to access politeness strategies

In conclusion, requesting is one kind of speech acts used variously and widely in human interactions Different requests are made to accomplish different purposes, so it seems likely that requests for different purposes might be made using

a different style However, in each request, the S often try to increase his/her politeness in various ways

1.2 Politeness and indirectness in request

1.2.1 Theory of politeness

In social interaction, people always try to make their speech as polite as possible In most of the studies, the politeness has been conceptualized especially as

strategic conflict-avoidance or as strategic construction of cooperative human communication Yule (1996) generalized politeness as “the means employed to show awareness of another person´s face” … and as “the idea of polite social behavior or etiquette, within a culture involves certain general principles as being tactful, generous, modest, sympathetic towards others”(G Yule 1996: 60)

Referring to requests in particular, a native speaker of the language uses certain strategies in order to maintain norms and principles that form part of social interaction As Bonn (2000:32) exposes

“Speaking in a polite manner involves being aware of the effect a particular illocutionary force has on one´s addressee, and aggravating or mitigating this force by applying a suitable degree of modification.”

One of these degrees of modification is Politeness Every time a speaker performs a request, he/she is acquainted with the fact that conversations follow particular conventions and organizational principles Strategies to perform requests vary according to context and along factors such as social power, role and status And every speaker has the necessity to be appreciated by others and to feel that nobody

is interfering with him (Renkema,1999: 27)

Fraser (1990) summarizes that there have been 4 major approaches to politeness:

1) In the pre-pragmatic studies, many scholars had mentioned politeness and considered it as a social norm

2) Lakoff (1973, 1989) and Leech (1983) approach politeness from the perspective of conversational maxims, connecting their study with Grice‟s conversational maxims

3) Brown & Levinson (1987) study politeness as strategies employed by the speakers to obtain or to save “face”

4) Fraser (1990) sees politeness from the aspect of conversational contract (quoted in Dang Thi Manh 2005:7)

Of all those views, the conversational – maxim view of Leech & Lakoff and the face – management view of Brown & Levinson (1987) are most appreciated and popularly discussed

1.2.1.1 Politeness principles

With the view of politeness as “a system of interpersonal relations designed

to facilitate interaction by minimizing the potential for conflict and confrontation inherent in all human interchange”, Lakoff (in Green 1989:142) approached three different rules that a speaker might follow in making polite actions

Rule 1: Don't impose (Distance)

Rule 1states that we keep distance from others by not imposing It means that avoiding mitigating or asking permission or apologizing for making addressee, doing anything which addressee does not want to do In order to keep distance from others, she points out that we tend to use formal expressions or use technical vocabulary to exclude personal emotions This rule is used in situations when participants are greatly different in power and status, for example a student and the Dean or a factory worker and the President Thus, this rule takes effect when very formal politeness is required In Brown and Levinson's terms, Rule 1 would be equivalent to negative politeness

Rule 2: Give options (Deference)

The second principle, deference is characterized by saying things hesitantly,

by not stating one's will clearly or by using euphemisms These mean expressing oneself in such a way that one‟s opinion or request can be ignored without being contradicted rejected It involves the status difference of the speaker and the hearer, and the speaker yields to the power of the hearer by leaving the option of decision to the hearer This rule is appropriate in conversations between people who are not different in status or power, but are not socially close, such as a businessman and a client; i.e when informal politeness is required This strategy is also related to negative face in Brown and Levinson's sense and involves indirectness

Rule 3: Be friendly (Encourage Feelings of Camaraderie)

The third principle, camaraderie, on the other hand, emphasizes equality between the speaker and the hearer, and it enhances closeness between them By using Brown and Levinson's term, this strategy enhances positive face of the speaker and the hearer In this principle, indirectness can be also employed when the speaker

and the hearer understand each other completely and there is no need to talk Rule 3

is used when intimate politeness is required

And another linguist, Leech (1983:16) lists the politeness principle in order to

“minimize the expression of impolite beliefs” with the aim of “explaining the

relationship between sense and force in human conversation” It consists of six maxims:

Maxim I: The Tact Maxim

Tact is the most important kind of politeness in English-speaking societies and it correlates with the directive and commissive in Searl‟s categories of speech acts The Tact Maxim runs as follows: “Minimize the expression of beliefs which

imply cost to other; maximize the expression of beliefs which imply benefit to

other” Being tactful means S gives an effort to increase benefit to H Whether an

utterance is polite or not can be judged by putting it on a cost-benefit scale

The implied cost to H can be reduced not only by changing the propositional content of the utterance like in the above examples but also by using “minimizers” The minimizers help to limit the size of imposition on H and thus improve politeness

This strategy has much in common with Lakoff‟s politeness rule “Don‟t impose”

E.g.: Let me use your computer for a little while

Hang on a second

Just a minute

Maxim II: The Generosity Maxim

The Generosity Maxim states: “Minimize benefit to self; maximize cost to

without the observation of the other For example, in a piece of advice like: “You can

get them for less than half the price at the market”, only the Tact Maxim applies: it is

meant to be beneficial to H but does not imply any cost to S

Being generous is one kind of politeness; however, it should be applied within certain limitation Over applying this maxim may sound sarcastic and thus lead to communication breakdown

Maxim III: The Approbation Maxim

This maxim states: “Minimize dispraise of other, maximize praise of other”

(Leech 1983:134)

Obviously, saying pleasant things about others is preferable to saying

unpleasant things E.g paying someone a compliment like: “You have a stylish shirt”

is very polite, while saying “You have a dirty shirt” is not In everyday conversation,

however, sometimes we cannot praise others for sake of sincerity and honesty In order to be polite in such cases, we can choose either saying nothing or using indirect

or evasive expressions We may say: “His shirt is not very clean” instead of “His

shirt is dirty”

Another thing that S needs to bear in mind when applying this maxim is that

“other” may be H or H‟s dear things or people Therefore, it is not polite to ask: “Are

those noisy children yours?” or “Did you cook this smelly dish?”

Maxim IV: The Modesty Maxim

This maxim states: “Minimize praise of self; maximize dispraise of self”

(Leech 1983:136)

This maxim explains why saying “I was very kind to them” is considered to

be less polite than saying: “I didn‟t give them enough support” However, the

situation does not stay the same in all cultures The application of the Modesty Maxim varies greatly according to societies and cultures In English speaking cultures, the recipient of a compliment is supposed to show his politeness by saying thank you, whereas in Oriental cultures like Vietnamese, it is best to deny the praise

E.g A: You have a very nice shirt

B: Thank you (preferred in English-speaking cultures) A: You have a very nice shirt

B: Oh, it‟s very plain (preferred in Vietnamese culture)

Maxim V: The Agreement Maxim

Jenny Thomas restates this maxim of Leech as follow: “Minimize the

expression of disagreement between self and other; maximize the expression of agreement between self and other”

According to this maxim, when showing agreement to H, S tends to use a direct or even exaggerating way On the contrary, disagreement is usually expressed indirectly or partially In the following examples, (2) is more polite than (1) but less polite than (3):

E.g 1) A: His lecture was very good, wasn‟t it?

B: No, I think it was unintelligible

2) A: The film was interesting, wasn‟t it?

B: Well, but the end is not really satisfactory

3) A: Isn‟t it a marvelous car?

B: Yes, it is

Maxim VI: The Sympathy Maxim

This maxim states that being polite means minimizing antipathy between self and other along with maximizing sympathy between self and other Thus, it is polite

to say a condolence like: “I‟m sorry to hear that your cat died” or a congratulation like: “I‟m glad to hear that you‟ve passed your driving test”

On the other hand, not all the maxims are equally important Maxim I appears

to be a more powerful constraint on conversations than Maxim II, and Maxim III is

of more significance than IV Thus, politeness attaches more importance on other than on self Likewise, politeness towards the addressee is generally more important

than politeness towards a third party

Leech also notices that these maxims should be observed “up to a certain point” rather than as absolute rules, and over applying any maxim would lead to the feeling that S is being insincere or tedious

In six maxims, Leech considers that the “tact maxim” is the most important in politeness in English speaking society

1.2.1.2 The face-management view on politeness

1.2.1.2.1 Face

Face is the central concept in Brown &Levinson‟s theory of politeness

According to Brown and Levinson (1978: 66) “Face” is “something that is emotionally invested, and that can be lost, maintained, or enhanced and must be constantly attended to in interaction” Since face refers to the respect that an individual has for him or herself, and maintaining that "self-esteem" in public or in

private situations as Yule (1996) defined, “face means the public self-image of a

person It refers to that emotional and social sense of self that every one has and expects every one else to recognize” If someone‟s face is threatened, that person can

be expected to defend his own face, and in doing this, he‟ll threaten the face of the others Therefore, it is best to maintain each other‟s face

Face consists of two related aspects: positive and negative face A person‟s

positive face, according to Yule (1996), “is the need to be accepted, even liked, by

others, to be treated as a member of the same group, and to know that his or her wants are shared by others”; and “negative face is the need to be independent, to have freedom of action, and not to be imposed on by others” In other words, an

individual‟s positive face want is the desire to be liked, approved of, respected and appreciated by others, the desire that his wants be desirable to at least some others

An individual‟s negative face want, on the other hand, is the desire not to be impeded

or put upon, to have freedom to act as he chooses, to be treated as a “competent adult member” of society While positive and negative face wants exist in every individual and are presented in most societies, different cultures tend to place different emphasis on one of the two aspects of face

Brown and Levinson contend that any speech act has the potential of threatening either the face of the speaker or that of the hearer They believe that

conversation is much more concerned with observing politeness expectations designed to ensure the “redress of face than with the exchange of information.” They have proposed a direct relationship between social distance and politeness in such a way as to indicate that an increase in social distance will bring about an increase in the degree of politeness and vice versa The notion of politeness finds meaning when

it is studied in the context of face-threatening acts (or FTA‟s) that include positive and negative ones In other words, some FTA‟s threaten negative face and some others threaten positive face The former includes directives such as commands, requests, advice, invitations, etc The latter, on the other hand, includes criticisms, insults, disagreements, and corrections

1.2.1.2.2 Face threatening acts

As discussed in the previous section, participants of an interaction must attend

to each other‟s face If a speaker says something that represents a threat to another individual‟s expectation regarding self-image, he is considered as having performed a face threatening act (FTA) FTAs are acts that are likely to damage or threaten others‟ face An illocutionary act may potentially threat H‟s negative face if it indicates that S does not intend to avoid impeding H‟s freedom of action (e.g an order, a request), or threat H‟s positive face if it indicates that S does not care about H‟s feelings, wants, hopes, etc (e.g a disapproval, a criticism, an accusation) Not only may an illocutionary act threat H‟s face, but it may also have the potential of damaging S‟s own face For example, an expression of thanks implies that S accepts

a debt to H, and thus threats S‟s negative face, an apology indicates that S regrets doing a prior FTA so it damages S‟s positive face

As usual, we tend to save one another‟s face when speaking We can attend to people‟s positive or negative face wants Depending on whose face and what kind of face is threatened in an interaction, we can employ appropriate strategies to perform

an FTA Those strategies are termed as politeness strategies

1.2.1.2.3 Politeness strategies

The theory assumes that most speech acts, for example requests, offers and

compliments, inherently threaten either the hearer‟s or the speaker‟s face-wants, and

that politeness is involved in redressing those face threatening acts (FTA) On the basis of these assumptions, three main strategies for performing speech acts are distinguished: positive politeness, negative politeness and off-record politeness

Positive politeness aims at supporting or enhancing the addressee‟s positive face, whereas negative politeness aims at softening the encroachment on the addressee‟s freedom of action or freedom from imposition The third strategy, off-record politeness, means flouting one of the Gricean (1975) maxims on the assumption that the addressee is able to infer the intended meaning According to Brown and Levinson, politeness is divided into five strategies to minimize risk of costing face corresponding to the degree of face-threatening

- Strategy 1: Bald on record

- Strategy 2: Positive politeness

- Strategy 3: Negative politeness

- Strategy 4: Off record (implicating)

- Strategy 5: Do not do the face threatening acts (FTA)

Greater risk (1) without redressive action, badly

On record (2) Positive

Do the FTA With redressive (4)Off record (3) Negative

(5) Do not do the FTA

Lesser risk

Brown and Levinson (1987: 131, 102) also divide politeness into negative and positive strategies in which 10 strategies for negative and 15 for positive All of twenty five strategies are presented in the following table:

Negative

politeness

strategies

1 Be conventionally indirect Could you please pass the salt?

2 Question, hedge I don‟t suppose you could pass the salt

3 Be pessimistic You don‟t have any envelopes, do

you?

4 Minimize the imposition I just dropped by for a second to ask…

5 Give deference We very much look forward to your

dining with us

6 Apologize I‟m sorry to bother you, but…

7 Impersonalize S and H It appears that we may have to…

8 State the FTA as a general

rule

Passengers will refrain from…

9 Nominalize I‟m surprised at your failure to reply

10 Go on record as incurring

debt or as not indebting H

I‟d be eternally grateful if you could…

Positive

politeness

strategies

1 Notice, attend to H (interest,

wants, needs, approval)

You must be hungry…

2 Use in-group identity

Help me with this bag, lave?

5 Joke How about lending me a few fivers?

6 Offer, promise I‟ll drop by sometime next week

7 Be optimistic I‟m sure you won‟t mind if I…

8 Include both S and H in the

activity

Let‟s have a drink next week

9 Give or ask for reasons Why not go to the seashore?

10 Give gifts (sympathy) to H I‟m really sorry to hear about your cat

11 Exaggerate Good old Jim Just the man I wanted to

see…

12 Intensifying interest to H You‟ll never guess…

13 Avoid disagreement Well, in a way, I suppose you‟re sort

of right