A study of politeness strategies in the conversational activities of the coursebook new headway, intermediate

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES DEPARTMENT OF POST- GRADUATE STUDIES *** TRIỆU THỊ TRANG A STUDY OF POLITENESS STRATEGIES IN THE CONVERSATIONAL ACTIVITIES OF THE COURSEBOOK – NEW HEADWAY, INTERMEDIATE (NGHIÊN CỨU CÁC CHIẾN LƯỢC LỊCH SỰ CÓ TRONG CÁC BÀI HỘI THOẠI CỦA GIÁO TRÌNH GIAO TIẾP “NEW HEADWAY, INTERMEDIATE.”) M.A MINOR THESIS FIELD: ENGLISH LINGUISTICS CODE: 602215 Hanoi-2009 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES DEPARTMENT OF POST- GRADUATE STUDIES *** TRIỆU THỊ TRANG A STUDY OF POLITENESS STRATEGIES IN THE CONVERSATIONAL ACTIVITIES OF THE COURSEBOOK – NEW HEADWAY, INTERMEDIATE (NGHIÊN CỨU CÁC CHIẾN LƯỢC LỊCH SỰ CÓ TRONG CÁC BÀI HỘI THOẠI CỦA GIÁO TRÌNH GIAO TIẾP “NEW HEADWAY, INTERMEDIATE.”) M.A MINOR THESIS FIELD: ENGLISH LINGUISTICS CODE: 602215 Supervisor: Prof NGUYEN QUANG (Ph.D.) Hanoi-2009 iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Contents Pages * Abstract i * Acknowledgements ii * Lists of Abbreviations, tables and figures iii Part I Introduction I Rationale II Aims of the Study III Scope of the study IV Methodology V Design of the study Part II Development Chapter 1: Theoretical background I.1 Speech Acts I.1.1 Direct and indirect speech acts I.2 Politeness I.2.1 Face I.2.1.1 Positive face I.2.1.2 Negative face I.2.2 Politeness strategies I.2.2.1 Positive Politeness and Positive Politeness Strategies 11 I.2.2.2 Negative Politeness and Negative Politeness Strategies 14 17 Chapter 2: Positve and Negative Politeness strategies in Conversational activities in the coursebook “New Headway, ntermediate” II.1 Frequency of occurrence of Politeness strategies 17 II.2 Positive and negative politeness strategies in conversational activities 20 in twelve units of the coursebook “New Headway, Intermediate” II.2.1 Positive politeness strategies in conversational activities in twelve 20 units of the coursebook “New Headway, Intermediate” II.2.2 Negative politeness strategies in conversational activities in twelve 25 units of the coursebook “New Headway, Intermediate” II 2.3 Concluding remarks 29 30 Chapter 3: Implications for teaching the coursebook III.3.1 Implications for ELT 30 III.3.2 Some recommendations 31 III.3.3 Some sample exercises and activities 31 37 Part III Conclusion I Summary 37 II Suggestions for further study 38 * References I * Appendix III iii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS C.A: Conversational Activity EFL: English as a Foreign Language ELT: English Language Teaching FTA: Face Threatening Act H: Hearer NPS: Negative Politeness Strategy P.S Politeness Strategy PPS: Positive Politeness Strategy S.A: Speech Act S: Speaker LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES Figure Circumstances determining choice of strategies (P Brown and S.C Levinson, 1987:60) Figure 2: Strategies to mininze risk of losing face (Nguyen Quang, 2001) Table 1: Statistics of positive and negative politeness strategies in each CA Figure 3: Frequency of negative and positive politeness strategies found in the conversations Table 2: Statistics of the frequency of positive politeness strategies Figure 4: Frequency of positive politeness strategies used in the conversations Table 3: Statistics of the frequency of negative politeness strategies Figure 5: Frequency of negative politeness strategies used in the onversations PART I: INTRODUCTION Rationale The English language seems to take over the world in the course of the twenty – first century and become the global language Nowadays, English has played an important role in our daily life and made a considerable contribution to education, culture, business, science and technology The number of people learning English for various purposes such as job, business, traveling is continually on the increase everyday Therefore, variety kinds of English teaching and learning materials are available all over the world, especially in Vietnam In Vietnam, English has been regarded as the most important foreign language nowadays, especially since the Vietnamese Government carried out the open – door policy English then becomes a compulsory subject in most schools, colleges and universities throughout the country However, the emphasis on transmission of structural rules and forms often serves as the principle method of teaching English in Vietnam Therefore, most Vietnamese teachers tend to focus more on grammar rather than on communication But this method, in fact, can not much help for students to assure a successful cross- cultural communication in daily life The students may get difficulty in achieving contextual, situational and cultural appropriateness in communication As a consequence, culture shock and communication breakdown might happen in communication even though students are good at English grammar Obviously, cultural knowledge is an important key to success in learning English because second language learning is second culture learning In order to acquire the second foreign language – English, it is necessary to learn not only linguistic knowledge and interaction skills but also knowledge of the target culture Cultural factors are included in the course designs in many schools and universities today Understanding cultural factors gives students chances to expose themselves to the target environment Vietnamese students normally tend to employ English based on their native culture and thus, it easily causes misinterpretation, misunderstanding and misbehavior in cross-cultural communication They sometimes appear impolite, unfriendly or even rude, in spite of themselves Therefore, for successful international communication, learners of English must be aware of not only their own culture but English speaking cultures as well, especially the hidden parts of culture including face, facework and politeness Politeness is really a vital part of all social interactions The author of this study aims to investigate and highlight the important role of positive and negative politeness strategies in the conversational activities of the course book “New – Headway, Intermediate” by Liz & John Soars so as to improve the teaching and learning of verbal communication in English for the third – year students of the University of Labour and Social Affairs Aims of the study: The aims of the study are: - To study positive and negative politeness strategies in most typical contextual environments in the conversational activities of the course book “New – Headway, Intermediate” - To collect and design sample cross – cultural activities and exercises to raise students’ cross- cultural awareness - To suggest effective and efficient ways of teaching the course book “New Headway” Scope of the study: This study focuses on the realization of positive and negative politeness strategies found in the conversational activities (twelve units) of the course book “New – Headway, Intermediate” Methodology: The major method that the author has employed is quantitative with due reference to qualitative method since this study focuses on the practical aspects of cross – cultural communication All the considerations and conclusions are based on analysis and reference The main approaches are: - Reference to publication; - Discussion with supervisor; - Discussion with colleagues; - Personal observations Design of the study The study is divided into three parts: Part I: Introduction which includes Rationale, Aims of the study, Scope of the study and Methodology Part II Development Which covers three chapters, the first chapter focuses on the theoretical background of speech acts, politeness and politeness strategies; the second chapter analyses the positive and negative politeness strategies in the conversational activities in the course book – New Headway, Intermediate through the frequency of its occurrences The last chapter offers some implications for learning and teaching politeness strategies for the third- year students of ULSA Part III Conclusion which summarizes the main findings and giving suggestions for further study PART II: DEVELOPMENT Chapter 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND I.1 Speech acts (SA) One of the concepts which have attracted many linguists and scientists in the study of language usage is that of speech acts Green (1975) emphasizes that speech acts are viewed and performed differently in different cultures In fact, it has been proved that people in different cultures choose alternative ways to express speech acts These differences in many cases proved, lead to misunderstanding and miscommunication in cross – cultural interaction The theory of speech acts studies the relations between language symbols and their use for communication purposes Austin (1962) is the first to initiate the theory of speech acts In his very influential book, How to Do Things with Words, Austin (1962), observes that in saying something that has a certain sense and reference, one is normally doing something other than just saying something like making a request or making a promise or an offer, etc According to Austin, there are three types of acts: * Locutionary acts: A locutionary act is the performance of an actual utterance and its ostensible meaning, comprising phonetic, phatic and rhetic acts E.g: He said to me “The door is here!” * Illocutionary acts: Illocutionary act is an act performed in saying something, it is closely connected with the speaker’s intention such as stating, questioning, promising, giving commands, threatening and many others Illocutionary acts are considered the core of the theory of speech acts Basically, illocutionary act indicates how the whole utterance is to be taken into the conversation Sometimes it is not easy to determine what kind of illocutionary act the speaker performs, therefore, in order to correctly decode the illocutionary act performed by the speaker, it is also necessary for the hearer to be acquainted with the context the speech act occurs in Let’s analyse the example: “The door is here” This simple declarative sentence can be interpreted in at least two ways It can be either understood literally a reply to the question “Where is the way out?” or possibly “Where is the door?” or it can be taken as an indirect request to ask somebody to leave The sentence has thus got two illocutionary forces: direct speech act and indirect speech act In order to have better understanding and orientation about illocutionary acts, many linguists proposed their classification Sharing with Autin’s view on SA classification, Searle (1983: 240) divides illocutionary acts into five major categories: + Declaratives: The speaker brings about some state of affairs by virtue of the utterance itself The performance of the act brings about a change in the world This class includes declarations such as baptisms, pronouncing someone guilty or pronouncing someone husband and wife + Assertive: The speaker believes that the proposition expresses actual state of affairs, including complaints, accusations, etc + Directives: The speaker attempts to get the hearer to carry out a future course of action This class consists of requests, commands and advice, etc + Commissives: The speaker becomes committed to doing some future action, e.g promises, guarantees, oaths, etc + Expressives: Speech acts that express on the speaker's attitudes and emotions towards the proposition, e.g congratulations, excuses, thanks, etc * Perlocutionary acts: Perlocutionary acts can be described in terms of the level of their psychological consequences, often performing an act by saying something such as persuading, convincing, scaring, enlightening, inspiring, or otherwise getting someone to or realize something E.g: Would you open the door? The act is successful if the hearer recognizes that he should open the door As a perlocutionary act it succeeds only if the hearer actually opens the door As another example, consider the following utterance: "By the way, I have a CD of Westlife; would you like to borrow it?" Its illocutionary function is an offer, while its intended perlocutionary effect might be to impress the listener, or to show a friendly attitude, or to encourage an interest in a particular type of music There are many utterances with the purposes to effect the hearer in some ways or other, some convey the information directly, others are more careful and polite so they employ indirectness to transmit the message I.1.1 Direct and indirect speech acts I.1.1.1 Direct speech acts One of the remarkable issues in the study of speech acts is the difference between direct and indirect speech acts A direct speech act can be performed by using sentences literally or using implicit performative sentences Directness requires a good feeling for the situation, however, being too direct when stating the opinion might seem like an insult, especially if the hearer perceives the speaker as being lower in the social hierarchy Direct commands, of course, can easily sound like that the speaker is bossing people around E.g: “Give me the sweater!” “Where is the carpark?” Asking direct questions from someone may make hearers feel that the speaker is being nosy or intrusive Furthermore, they might feel the S is forcing them to be rude by asking a question they cannot skate over and must answer with a direct “I don’t want to tell you.” Nevertheness, the relationships between speakers and hearers play important parts in communicating Obviously, a mother would have no problem saying those things to her seven-year-old, for two reasons: One, the two are socially very close to each other and two, the mother is higher in the social hierarchy than the seven-year-old But if a stranger walks up to someone on the street and says those things, the hearer might feel offended Politeness rules dictate that increase in social distance requires more indirectness Directness often marks closeness between equals, because the speaker trust them enough to interpret his message at face value and need not read some hidden criticism into it 29 is easy to share personal information Because nearly interactions are performed between acquaintances, friends, colleagues, parents and children (among friendly relationships), strategy 11 never appears II.2.3 Concluding remarks Through the data analysis of politeness strategies in the course book “New Headway, Inter.”, it is found that the frequencies of politeness strategy occurrence in conversational activities of the material are not always the same Further analysis seems to suggest that positive politeness strategies are preferred to negative politeness ones with 54.4 % and 45.6% respectively Among positive politeness strategies, strategies 10 and 12 rank first and second Notably, strategies 3, and 15 not appear in any conversational interactions of the course book Next, two negative politeness strategies holding the highest position are strategies and However, strategy 11 takes zero percentage From the above observations, discussions and analysis, it is possible to conclude that positive politeness strategies are employed more frequently than negative politeness ones; in English speaking cultures, when communicators get more acquainted, they are more declined to positive politeness strategies than negative politeness ones and negative politeness strategies are more preferable in making requests 30 Chapter 3: Implications for politeness strategies in teaching the course book “New Headway, Inter.” to the third – year students of the University of Labour and Social Affairs Nowadays, although communicative competence has been considered as the vital goal in English language learning and teaching in Vietnam, and language functions have been introduced in teaching materials, the main focus is still on language usage Some English language teachers have yet to see the close relationship between teaching a foreign language and teaching the socio – cultural aspects of the target language Teaching culture, for them is a secondary goal Therefore, they fail to prepare learners for actual crosscultural interactions outside the class In Language and Language Learning edited by Nelson Brooks (1964, 98) Robert Dolizer states: “As language teachers we must be interested in the study of culture not because we necessarily want to teach the culture of another country but because we have to teach it If we teach it without teaching at the same time the culture in which it operates, we are teaching meaningless symbols or symbols to which the students attaches the wrong meaning, for unless he is warned, unless he receives cultural instruction, he will associate American concepts or objects with foreign symbols.” II Implications for English language teaching It is suggested that English language teachers accomplish the followings: First of all, teachers should raise students awareness of linguistic performance in diverse types of intercultural and cross- cultural settings It is not always possible for them to transfer the behavior of their own culture in other cultures Furthermore, teachers should point out whether positive and negative politeness strategies are acceptable, preferable in English or in Vietnamese in certain conversational activities Secondly, teaching a language with its functions, or speech acts rather than structures should be emphasized by teachers In fact, most students who have the knowledge of structures can only make something grammatically correct but socioculturally inappropriate and thus, impolite In real life communication, to be appropriate or show respect is more important than to be grammatical Last but not least, teachers should present appropriate socio-cultural situations for the students to practice and act out Through such activities, students can realize the importance of polite behavior and perform politeness strategies in interaction 31 To sum up, teachers should expose learners to the target culture as much as possible and develop an awareness of cross-cultural differences It will not be possible to give them extensive culture specific information because there are too many potential situations to cover However, we can help students be aware of the possibility of differences in behavior, customs, beliefs and attitudes to acquire the linguistic tools to deal with them To achieve this, teachers should be provided with opportunities to acquire knowledge of target culture and to be exposed to the English-speaking environment or at least to the co-teaching with foreigners as teachers in their own culture The most important thing is that teachers should be provided with a formal teacher’s training programme of intercultural communication III Some recommendations Valdes (1994) introduces ten recommendations with a hope to strengthen the intercultural perspective in EFL training programme However, the author would suggest some recommendations that might work in the Vietnamese context: i Employ teachers with a strong background in comparative analysis, and/ or comparative cultures and/ or intercultural cross-cultural communication; ii Develop specific strategies for teaching culture in the English programme; iii Establish specific courses to focus on culture – related topics such as traditional festivals; iv Provide learners with student-exchange programmes of cultural activities such as excursions, tours, lectures, films, conversation groups, sports events v Establish English clubs in which students can choose cultural topics to talk about and practice by acting out plays or presenting interesting topics and so on II 3 Sample exercises and activities for cross – cultural awareness Exercise Greeting Study these dialogues and answer the following questions: Which dialogue is the most polite? Why? Which dialogue is the most informal? Why? Which dialogue is preferred in greeting in Eastern culture? 32 In which situation is each dialogue used? Which dialogue is incorrect? Dialogue 1: A: Good morning, Mr Obama B: Good morning, Ms Cruise How are you? A: I am fine, thank you What about you? B: I am fine, thanks Dialogue 2: A: Good afternoon, Ms Mary How is everything? B: Fine, thank you, and you? A: Not bad, thanks Dialogue 3: A: Hello, Do you remember me? I’m Michelle Bolton B: Hi, Michelle How’s everything? Dialogue 4: A: Aunt Zonia, where are you going? B: To the market What about you, my little girl? Exercise Ending conversations Study these dialogues and answer the following questions: Which utterance is the most polite? Why? Which utterance is the most informal? Why? Which utterance is rather rude? a “It’s been great seeing you again Gee, look at the time I’ve got to run Talk to you later.” b “Listen I don’t have time to talk to you.” c “I must be off now See you later.” Exercise Small talks (safe or unsafe topics) I Work in groups to discuss if the following questions are considered to be safe (S) or unsafe (U) when you meet someone for the first time in an English speaking country Explain your answers Then, compare them with the ones in Vietnamese culture 33 What does your husband/wife do? How much money you earn every month? How many children have you got? Are you married? Why aren't you married? Why don't you have any children? Do you like sports? How old are you? Are you a Democrat or a Republican? 10 How much was your watch? 11 Do you like politics? 12 Where are you from? 13 Do you work down town? 14 Why don't you work/ why you still stay at home? 15 Are you from Britain? II Discuss if the following statements are true (T) or false (F) Then, find out the difference in choosing topics to start conversation in English and in Vietnamese When meeting each other the British often talk about the weather Politics is a common topic in Britain It is no problem when the Vietnamese ask English people about their age for the first time meeting In English speaking countries to show politeness means "Don't put your nose in my affairs" In English speaking countries the question "How are you?" is only used when speakers really want to know about listeners' health Exercise Making offers or suggestions I What you say in a polite way when your friend: 34 looks thirsty; feels tired; seems to like your hometown and hasn‟t been there; is busy decorating his new flat; has no ideas where to go on the holiday; is preparing a party but there isn‟t ay butter left in the fridge; likes Chinese food and there is a new Chinese restaurant next to your house; gets bored; works too hard; 10 feels hot Exercise Responding I What responses can be made for the following utterances: Excuse me! I have just lost my wallet in the supermarket, mum You look tired What‟s the matter? Peter, I have passed an important exam, you know You see, thousands of babies are born everyday Tom and Mary are going to get married next week My son is going to start work tomorrow He has been unemployed for long Hey, Nice scarf! Who was that I saw you with last night? 10 I‟m sorry, I‟m late II What can people say in the following situations: Assistant: Can I help you? Customer: …………………………………………………… Customer: I’d like a single room for two days, please Receptionist: ………………………………………………… A: Would you like to go to the party tonight? B: ………………………………………………………… A: Shall we go swimming this afternoon? B: ………………………………………………………… A: Is there a post office near here? 35 B: ………………………………………………………… III Discuss in group to find out if what is said in the situations above is the same as in Vietnamese Exercise Cultural games and activities Procedure: + Step 1:In advance, print the pairs of proverbs on the next page on index cards so that each proverb appears on a separate card; + Step 2: Divide the participants into groups, select enough cards to equal the number of participants Make sure that the cards are selected in matching pairs (one card with a proverb from the United States and one card with a similar proverb from another country); + Step 3: Mix up the cards and pass out one card to each participant, ask participants to move around and find the person who has a card with a similar proverb A set of proverbs a + He makes a wine cellar from one raisin (Lebanon) + He makes a mountain out of molehill (The US) b : + God is a good worker, but he loves to be helped (Spain) + God helps those who help themselves (The US) c + Even a tiger will appear if you talk about you (Korea) + Speak of the devil, he will appear (The US) d + If you climb up a tree, you must climb down the same tree (Ghana) + What goes up, must come down (The US) e + From the rain into the gutter (Germany) + From the frying pan into the fire (The US) f + He who is not in sight is not in the heart (Tanzania) + Out of sight, out of mind (The US) g + A sparrow in the hand is better than a cock on the roof (Russia) + One bird in the hand is better than two in the bush (The US) h + Two captain sink the ship (Japan) + Two many cooks spoil the soup (The US) i + My house burned down but it was a relief the bedbugs died (Korea) + Every cloud has a silver lining (The US) 36 j + By trying often, the monkey learns to jumps from the tree (Zaire) + Practice makes perfect (or if at first you don’t succeed, try and try again) (The US) 37 PART III CONCLUSION I Summary There is no doubt that politeness is crucial in communication, especially in cross- cultural communication Politeness is interpreted as “ a genuine desire to be pleasant to others, or as the underlying motivation for an individual’s linguistic behavior” (Thomas, 1995:150) Thus, in order to be successful intercultural and cross–cultural communicators, learners of English ought to know how native speakers of English employ politeness strategies, especially positive and negative politeness strategies The study aims at identifying the importance of politeness in communication It investigates positive and negative politeness strategies and examines their frequency of occurrence in twelve conversational activities of the course book “New Headway, Intermediate” within the theoretical framework of politeness proposed by Brown & Levinson (1987) and Nguyen Quang (2003) Most positive and negative politeness strategies are resorted to in the conversational activities of the course book except for positive politeness strategies 3, 9, 15 and negative politeness strategy 11 It is observed that positive politeness strategies are preferred to negative politeness strategies in such conversational activities as making suggestions, responding and social behaviour However, negative politeness strategies are made the best use of in making requests Obviously, the data analysis of politeness strategies highlight the importance of applying positive and negative politeness in communication, especially in crosscultural communication for teachers and students of English In order to teach and study English efficiently, they are well advised to employ politeness strategies appropriately in given situations Some sample exercises and activities, which are introduced in chapter 3, may help teachers and students practice effectively positive and negative politeness strategies found in the course book “New Headway, Inter.” as well as to avoid culture shock and communication breakdown Such is the author’s hope that this thesis would help ULSA teachers and students learn English more effectively through the course book New Headway, Intermediate 38 II Suggestion for further study The study of politeness strategies in the conversational activities of the course book (New Headway, Inter.) not only is the threshold for the author to step into linguistic research but also gives her the opportunity to think about further investigation It is suggested that further research be conducted on “Politeness strategies in verbal interactions between social workers and their clients in English and Vietnamese.” I REFERENCES Austin, J.L 1962 How to things with words, Cambridge University Press, London – Oxford – new York Bach, K and Harnish, R 1984 Linguistic Communication and Speech Acts The MIT Press Blum-Kulka, S 1987 Indirectness and Politeness in requests: same or different? Journal of Pragmatics 11(1): 131 – 146 Brown, P.& Levinson, S.C 1987 Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usages Brown, G & Yule, G 1983 Discourse Analysis CUP Cottrill, L 1991 Face, Politeness and Directness University of Canberra Gee, J P 1999 An Introduction to Discourse Analysis, Theory and Method London & New York Gies, M.L 1995 Speech Acts and Conversational Interactions CUP John & Soars 2000 New Headway, Intermediate Oxford University Press 10 Kramsch, C 1998 Language and Culture Oxford University Press 11 Leech, G 1983 Principles of Pragmatics London& New York Longman 12 Levine, D.R., Baxter, J and McNulty, P 1987 The Culture Puzzle Cross-Cultural Communication for English as a Second Language Prentice Hall Regents 13 Levinson, S.C 1983 Pragmatics Cambridge CUP 14 Little Wood, W 1981 Communicative Language Teaching Cambridge CUP 15 Nguyen Quang 2003 Intercultural and Cross-culture Communication VNU Press 16 Nguyen Quang 1998 Trực tiếp gián tiếp dụng học giao văn hoá Việt-Mỹ Tập san ngoại ngữ số 17 Nguyen Quang 1999 Các tương tác trực tiếp, gián tiếp lịch dụng học giao thoa văn hoá Tập san ngoại ngữ số 18 Nguyen Quang 2002 Các chiến lược lịch dương tính giao tiếp Tạp chí số 13 19 Nguyen Quang 2002 Giao tiếp giao tiếp văn hoá Nhà xuất Đại học Quốc gia Hà Nội 20 Richards, J.C 1985 The Language of Context Teaching CUP II 21 Risager, K 2006 Language and Culture The Cromwell Press 22 Searle, J R 1969 Speech Acts CUP 23 Thomas, J 1995 Meaning in Interaction: An Introduction to Pragmatics Longman, London and New York 24 Valdes, J.M 1995 Culture Bound Cambridge CUP 25 Yule, G 1996 Pragmatics CUP 26 Yule, G 1996 The Study of Language CUP 27 Watts, Richarch J 2003 Politeness CUP 28 Wardhaugh, R 1985 How conversation works Oxford University Press 29 Widdowson, H 1978 Teaching Language as Communication Oxford Oxford University Press 30 Wolfson, N 1985 Rules of Speaking In Richards and Schmidt (eds.) Language and Communication Longman 31 Wolfson, N and Judd, E (eds.) 1983 Sociolinguistics and Language Acquisition Newberry House Publishers 32 Wright, A 1987 How to communicate successfully CUP 33 Website: www.wikipedia.com III APPENDIX Units Conversational Activities Kind of C.A Politeness Strategies Positive Unit Unit + Let’s go for a walk in the park! Making + Could we meet this afternoon at Suggestions 3.00? +: Let’s go for a ten – mile jog in the park! (You must be joking!) - Ah! That’s interesting +: I… I….take your point about the washing machine, but, well I was thinking along more… +I’m sorry I’m late Social behaviour + Sorry, I’m late + Sorry I can’t make it then Compliments 12 + Hey, Nice jeans! What a fantastic coat Was it expensive? + Your coat is very nice Where did Requests you get it? + Take care, my love - Bye, Mum! + They have some lovely stuff, don’t Responding they? +I will be back at the usual time + Let me buy you a drink - No, no it’s my round What would you like? + Is it quite a fast game as well? Responding + Well done! Compliment + Hey! I like those shoes Where did you get them? + I’m phoning to ask you to a party Offering + Is it your hundredth birthday Social already? behaviour + If you don’t mind my asking, How Social much? behaviour Negativ e 6 10 14 10 IV Perhaps, people find it funny to watch a silly old nun! + Can I book a seat for tonight’s Requests film? + Can you make it at about three o’clock? + Do you enjoy going on tour? + Why you think your art programmes are so popular? + Do you watch yourself on TV? + When did you become a nun? + Where you live? Unit + It was really frightening, wasn’t it? + Great! I really enjoyed it Compliment + It was excellent Have you seen it? + I went to Peter’s party - Oh, what was it like? Responding + It was a good break + What did you think of the play? It was so boring + Did you enjoy your pizzas? -They are delicious 10 + :What was your holiday like? - It was a good break but the weather wasn’t very good + What did you think of Hannah Smart? -She’s ussually very good but I don’t think she was right for this part +What was the match like? - It was really exciting Unit + Do you think your Dad has the easier life? Between Mum and Jim: Requests M: You must phone us if you are in trouble J: Yes, Mum I will Promises + I don’t think we could go to Giving opinion Thailand in September because it’s the rainy season + I think we should take plenty of 10 10 13 V suncream It’ll be really hot + I don’t think we should take anything valuable We might lose it + I think we should go to Indonesia by boat It’ll be cheaper than flying +I’ll give you a lift if you like – That’s great Would you drop me at the station? + I’ll take the price off Offer + I’ll bring it straight away promises + Would you mind looking after the Requests newspapers, and I’ll deal with the television? + You wouldn’t have change for five – pound note, would you? + Could you fill it up, please? + Could I have the bill? +Could you tell me the code for Paris? + Do you think you could gift- wrap it for me? + Oh, that’s terribly kind 14 Compliment + One moment I’ll just look it up + Would you mind opening the window? – Not at all It is very stuffy in here + I’m afraid, the line’s engaged at the moment Do you want to hold? +Mm, fine, Er…….when shall we start? + Sorry to interrupt, darling I’m so sorry I’m awfully sorry to bother you + Yes, madam Yes, Mr Parkinson + I’d love a cup of tea, if that’s all possible + Turn that wretched music down Or better still, turn it off! and 10 Requests Social behaviour 10 Responds Requests ... ? ?New Headway, Intermediate? ?? II.2.1 Positive politeness strategies in conversational activities in twelve 20 units of the coursebook ? ?New Headway, Intermediate? ?? II.2.2 Negative politeness strategies. .. occurrence of positive and negative politeness strategies used in the conversational activities of the course book ? ?New Headway, Intermediate. ” The study and analysis are based on Brown & Levinson’s and... role of positive and negative politeness strategies in the conversational activities of the course book ? ?New – Headway, Intermediate? ?? by Liz & John Soars so as to improve the teaching and learning