C-2a-POLITENESS

POLITENESS: AN ASPECT OF CROSS-CULTURAL COMMUNICATION • Face Definition Positive face Negative face • Politeness Positive politeness Negative politeness • Indirectness Face Definition • Face is the public self-image of a person It refers to the social and emotional sense of self that every one has and expects everyone else to recognize (Yule, 1996, p.60) • Face is the positive social value a person effectively claims for himself by the line others assume he has taken during a particular contact (Goffman, 1967) Face wants / face needs A person’s face wants is his/her expectations concerning his/her public self-image Positive and Negative face • A person’s negative face is the need to be independent, to have freedom of action and not to be imposed on by others • A person’s positive face 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 • In simple terms, negative face is the need to be independent (autonomy; freedom from imposition) and positive face is the need to be connected (connection with others) Face and politeness • In everyday social interactions, people act in such a way as to show respect for the face wants or needs of their conversational partners It’s simply a story of “you respect my public self-image and I’ll respect yours.” • We attach great importance to speaking politely The need to be polite can often account for why we choose to imply rather than assert an idea or why we choose to use indirect directive like: - Well, I really must get on with my work rather than a direct directive like - Go home • The use of language to carry out social actions where mutual face wants are respected, can be labelled ‘linguistic politeness’ In other words, linguistic politeness is the use of language per se to communicate the attention to the face needs of coparticipants • Politeness is also concerned with nonverbal behaviour, usually called etiquette, which involves learning how to use the right fork, among other behaviours Positive politeness Positive politeness orients to preserving the positive face of other people When we use positive politeness, we use speech strategies that emphasize our solidarity with the hearer, such as informal pronunciation, shared dialect or slang expressions, nicknames, more frequent reference to speaker and hearer as ‘we’, and requests which are less indirect Negative politeness • Negative politeness orients to preserving the negative face of other people This is much more likely if there is a social distance between the speaker and hearer When we use negative politeness, we use speech strategies that emphasize our deference for the hearer Nicknames, slang and informal pronunciation tend to be avoided and requests tend to be more indirect and impersonal Negative politeness also involves more frequent use of other mitigating devices, expressions that ‘soften the blow’, like ‘please, might, just, I am sorry but ’ Leech’s interpersonal maxims • Tact - Minimize the cost to Other; Maximize the benefit to Other • Generosity - Maximize the cost to Self; Minimize the benefit to Self • Approbation - Minimize dispraise of Other; Maximize praise of Other • Modesty - Maximize dispraise of Self; Minimize praise of Self • Leech analyzed politeness by the use of maxims The tact maxim: minimize cost to other; maximize benefit to other helps distinguish requests from offers and influences the way we structure directives E.g The following utterances which have the same structure (imperatives) are spoken by a host to a guest - Take a look at this - Clean up the kitchen floor - Pass the salt - Have some more cake - Peel these potatoes • Rearrange them in order of politeness, starting from the least polite Politeness strategies • Brown and Levinson consider that a calculation of three factors: distance, power and imposition results in the degree of face-threat that needs to be compensated for by appropriate linguistic strategies It is important to select a politeness strategy that balances distance, power, and the weight of imposition Cultural variations • Some cultures favour positive politeness, showing one has a good view of the other by praise, closeness, informality • Some cultures favour negative politeness, maintaining hierarchy and distance Politeness and Indirectness • More often than not, interactants not say directly what they intend to mean Some researchers consider indirectness and politeness to be closely related, while others argue that they are rather different The following section will explore: • Indirectness strategies • Important features of indirectness • Purposes of indirectness Indirectness strategies Sentence form • Directness tend to be associated with the imperative form in many languages - Talk to the manager - Lend me some money • An interrogative is employed in place of the imperative to avoid directness - Why don’t you talk to the manager? - Would you mind lending me a couple of dollars for lunch? Conversational implicature The speaker’s indirectness occurs in one particular instance of use, and the addressee must use background knowledge and the context of the utterance to comprehend the intended or pragmatic meaning M: Danny, you have any homework? S: I’ve already finished it D: Danny didn’t answer Mommy’s question F: He did A: Would you like to go to the cinema with me tonight? B: But Chelsea are playing against MU tonight Important features of indirectness Intentionality It is important to consider only intended indirectness Perceived indirectness that results from linguistic inadequacy or a performance error is not concerned of pragmatics E.g Yawning during a lecture Risks and costs Indirectness require more cognitive processing The addressee will normally assume some meaning is intended and will search for it This results in more time spent by the addressee Can I have a glass of water? I’m so thirsty • Indirectness is risky, as the hearer may misunderstand What would you like to drink? Well, I’ve been on whisky all day Have some more soup Just a little I wonder where my pen is You could have left it at home Directness and indirectness scale • A number of parameters are involved in the calculation of indirectness: relative power between speaker and hearer,social distance, weight of imposition, rights and obligations, and the degree of involvement in the interaction by the participants • Indirectness is a matter of degree The amount of inferencing that the hearer has to engage in to derive the force from the sense varies, depending on the linguistic forms, the context of utterance, and any social and cultural norms concerning indirectness Purposes of indirectness Speakers’ goals may clash, and as a consequence, interactants may wish to avoid direct assertions A Is that a new sweater? That’s a lovely color on you B Well, my mother bought it for me and well, you know how it goes I have to wear it Indirectness has worked in the past, there is no impetus for change Indirectness leaves the speaker a way out if challenged by the addressee It provides a means to deny perceived intentions, avoid conflict and escape from responsibility for an utterance A: Are you enjoying the game B: Well, why you ask? Do you want to wach something else? Indirectness is frequently regarded as polite, although researchers differ on this topic Indirectness can be fun and creative Using indirectness is a strategy to gain or maintain power over others It can exclude from an interacton any participant who is not able to disambiguate the speaker’s meaning Face threatening act (FTA) vs Face saving act (FSA) • If a speaker says something that represents a threat to another individual’s expectations regarding self-image, it is described as a face threatening act • Alternatively, given the possibility that some action might be interpreted as a threat to another’s face, the speaker can say something to lessen the possible threat This is called a face saving act Examples • A young neighbour is playing his music very loud late at night and an older couple are trying to sleep One of them proposes a face threatening act, the other a FSA • Him: – I’m going to tell him to stop that awful noise right now! • Her: – Perhaps you could just ask him if he is going to stop soon because it’s getting a bit late and people need to get to sleep