POLITENESS

Suhartini Syukri (2003512142)

Content
1. Delimiting the concept of politeness 2. Politeness Explained in terms of Principles and Maxim 3. Politeness and Management of face 4. Politeness viewed as a conversational contract 5. Politeness measured along pragmatic scales

(Brown and Levinson: 1987) The human personality is sacred thing; one dare not violate it nor infringe its bounds, while at the same time the greatest good is in communion with others. (Durkheim 1915:299).
Terms relate to politeness: Cooperation Indirectness DEFINITION OF POLITENESS (Thomas: 1995)

Genuine desire to be pleasant to others.

1. Delimiting the concept of politeness

Politeness as a real-world goal Deference vs politeness Register Politeness as a surface level phenomenon Politeness as a pragmatic phenomenon

Politeness as a real-world goal

Politeness has no place within pragmatics. It is difficult to access to the speakers real motovation for speaking as they do, and discussion as to whether one group of people is politer that another. We only can curiously to what speakers say and to how their hearers react.

DEFERENCE, GESTURE, POLITENESS

DEFERENCE GESTURE

NON INTENDED RESPECTS

CODE SWITCHING DUE TO SOCIAL SITUATION

POLITENESS

INTENDED RESPECT

SOCIOLINGUISTICS

PRAGMATICS

Deference, a. The speaker has no choice as to whether to use deferent form or not. b. It is built into the grammar of languages
e.g. a. - The cadet responds to the Academy Sergeant Major :

Yes, Sir! - Show politeness by holding a door open to allow someone else to
pass through

e.g. b. French, German and Russian, Choice of a second person pronoun T/V system Tu/vous, Du/Sie TbI/BbI

GESTURE
A lecturer of a University asks question to his student: I wonder if I might ask you to answer the last question!

POLITENESS
A student is answering to his respected lecturer:

Yes, Sir

Register
Register refers to systemic variation in relation to social context (Lyons 1977) or the way in which the language we speak or write varies according to the type of situation (Halliday, 1978, in Thomas 1995, p. 154) It is primarily a sociolinguistic phenomenon : a description of the linguistic forms which generally occur in a particular situation. e.g. If you decided to disrupt a stuffy meeting by using language not normally associated with that particular type of event, such as cracking jokes or making fun of the person chairing the meeting

POLITENESS AT UTTERANCE LEVEL OF PHENOMENON

Much early work in the area of politeness focused on utterance level realization (Walter, Rintell, Fraser) Investigate how much politeness could be squeezed out of speech act alone. Investigate by using a standard lexical context. --------------------------------------------------------------e.g. Listing the proper forms of request: (would you.., could you..); this way is more sociolinguistics PRAGMATICS : look at how a particular form in a particular language is used strategically in order to achieve the speakers goals. It requires context.

THE WEAKNESSES OF PREVIOUS APPROACH

E.g. 7 (Thomas, p. 156)

A married couple are trying to decide a restaurant. The husband says: You choose.

E.g. 8 (Thomas, p. 156)

(The other context), Husband: will you be kind to tell me what time is it? the wife says to the husband: If youll be kind enough to speed up a little?
E.g. (Thomas, p. 157)

These examples are artificial to be recognized as a politeness. There is no necessary connection between the linguistic form and the perceived politeness of a speech act in context.

(i) I wonder if I might respectfully request you to stop picking your nose? (ii) Stop picking your nose!

POLITENESS AS A PRAGMATIC PHENOMENON

Politeness : a strategy employed by a speaker to achieve a variety of goals

To promote and maintain harmonious relations.

HOW..?

CONVERSATIONAL MAXIMS VIEW FACE MANAGEMENT VIEW CONVERSATIONAL CONTRACT VIEW

conventional, non-conventional indirectness

2. Politeness explained in terms of principles and maxims

Politeness is as crucial in explaining why people are often so indirect in conveying what they mean and rescuing the Cooperative Principle (CP) in the sense that it can satisfactory explain exception to and apparent deviations from the CP (Leech (1980 [1977] 1983a)). He introduces Politeness Principle (PP). There are two concepts dealing with the principles, namely ambivalence and politeness. Leech defines politeness as a type of behaviour that allows the participants to engage in a social interaction in an atmosphere of relative harmony.

Ambivalence and Politeness

To be more politeness, ambivalence has more than one potential pragmatic force. It is possible to convey messages which the hearer is liable to find disagreement without causing undue offence. It is left the reader to decide; (a) What the precise force of the message is (b) Whether or not it applies to them
E.g. 9. (Thomas, 1995, p. 159) In relation to potentially very offensive speech act (Requesting people not to steal!) Notice in the Junior Common Room, Queens College, Cambridge. These newspaper are for all the students, not the privileged few who arrive first.

Pragmatic Principles
Minimize (all things being equal) the expression of impolite beliefs; Maximize (all things being equal) the expression of polite beliefs. The principles explain the relationship between sense and force in
The main maxims are: tact, generosity, Approbation, Modesty, Agreement and Sympathy human conversation

1. CONVERSATIONAL MAXIMS VIEW PRAGMATIC PRINCIPLES:

THE POLLYANNA PRINCIPLES

To put the best possible gloss on what we have to say

e.g. Finding something positive to say about rotten egg (but I had to look back 100 years to find it!) Situation: A young curate is having breakfast with his Bishop

I assure you,..parts of it are excellent.

2. CONVERSATIONAL MAXIMS VIEW: PRAGMATIC PRINCIPLES:

THE TACT MAXIM

a. Minimize the expression of beliefs which imply cost to other b. Maximize the expression of beliefs which imply benefit to other
Tact Maxim aspects are IMPOSITION OPTIONALITY BENEFIT SCALE - Hang on a second! - Ive got a bit of a problem.

e.g. a. minimizing to reduce the implied cost to the hearer by saying:

a. Mitigating the effect of a request b. If something is perceived as being to the hearers benefit, it can be expressed without employeng indirectness

Chinese host chose dishes without consulting you.

Have a chocolate!

CONT.
THE MODESTY MAXIM
a. Minimize the expression of praise of self b. Maximize the expression of dispraise of self
Situation: A and B were giving a series of lectures in a foreign country where decent coffee was uncertain comodity. At the airport A had bought a good supply of ground coffee and a gadget for percolating it. She makes a first attempt as using it. Firstly, (A) minimize the expression of prise her gadget, then she maximize the expression of adore her ground coffee. e.g. a. A: This isnt bad, is it? B: The coffee? Its very good A few hours later she makes some more: e.g. b. B: This coffee is very good A: Not bad, is it?

CONT.
THE APPROBATION MAXIM
a. Minimize the expression of beliefs which express dispraise of other b. Maximize the expression of beliefs which express approval of other
All things being equal we prefer to praise others and if we cannot do so, to sidestep the issue, we can give sort if minimal response, e.g. in commenting a process of lecturing, we maximize in approve someone, or minimize the expression dispraise b. Well, I enjoyed your lecturer. a. In contrary just keep quite or Remain silent

CONT.
THE AGREEMENT MAXIM
a. Minimize the expression of disagreement between self and other b. Maximize the expression of agreement between self and other
e. g. Of (b) Mrs. Sharma allows her daughter to join her preference of extra class A: So.. Should I let my daughter to choose her interest? B: Yes, of course youre right, your decision might make her very overwhelmed .

Situation: Example of (a) e.g. 18 & 19 Speaker A is Mr. Sharma, the Indian-born father of one of the pupils attending school. Speaker B is Mrs. Green, the deputy head teacher of a school (a British woman). They are involved in a major disagreement concerning the courses Mr. Sharmas daughter will take the following year.

e.g. 18, (Thomas, 1995, p. 165) A: I dont want my daughter to do CSE, I want her to do O level. B: Yes, but Mr Sharma, I thought we resolved this on your last visit e.g. 19, (Thomas, 1995, p. 165) A: Nehemulla is ideally suited to the class shes in and this class will do CSE in two years time. B: No, my dear, no, no, its wrong!

CONT.

THE GENEROSITY MAXIM

a. Minimize the expression of benefit to self b. Maximize the expression of cost to self

For indicating generosity, sometimes it is fine to directly expressed invitation even obviously regard as a force to maximize the benefit to other or somehow in generally speaking in your own party or peculiar home we do unmodified imperative to minimize benefit to self, allowing other as if the part of us (owner)

e.g. b. You must come and have dinner with us.

e.g. a. Help yourself!

Cont.
THE SYMPATHY MAXIM
a. minimize antipathy between self and other b. maximize sympathy between self and other.

This includes a small group of speech acts such as congratulation, commiseration, and expressing condolences all of which is in accordance with Brown and Levinson's positive politeness strategy of attending to the hearer's interests, wants, and needs e.g. (b) In maximizing sympathy of someone whose father has already passed
away by saying I am sorry to hear about your father. The speaker makes an effort to minimize the antipathy between himself and the addressee. E.g. (a). Despite very serious disagreement with you on a technical level, we have done our best to coordinate our efforts in reaching on agreement. But have so far not been able to find any common ground

Problem with the Leechs Approach

There appears to be no motivated way of restricting the number of maxims, it would be possible to produce new maxim to explain every tiny perceived regularity in language use, The theory is at worst virtually unfalsifiable, There is no explain cross-cultural differences in the perception of politeness and the use of politeness strategies.

FACE

2. FACE MANAGEMENT VIEW

(Thomas pp. 168)

Theyve got to safe face. Saving face is the strongest motive in the world
General idea of politeness: fixed concept of social behavior/etiquette within a culture, involves certain general principles as being tactful, generous, modest, sympathetic towards others. (Brown and Levinson, 1978, 1987) Narrower concept of politeness within an interaction: face = the public self-image of a person (emotional and social sense of self one has and expects everyone else to recognize)

Negative face : need to be independent, to have freedom of action, not be imposed on by others Positive face : need to be accepted/liked, to be treated as a member of the same group, to know that wants are shared by others.

FACE WANTS!
Within everyday social interaction people generally behave as if their expectations concerning their face wants (i.e. public selfimage) will be respected face threatening act (FTA)-Brown and Levinson : speaker says something that represents a threat to another individual's expectations regarding self-image face saving act : speaker says something to lessen a possible threat Situation: Young neighbor is playing loud music late at night. Older couple cannot sleep.
A: I'm going to tell him to stop that awful noise right now! B: Perhaps you could just ask him if he's going to stop soon because it's getting a bit late and people need to get to sleep. http://ifla.uni-stuttgart.de/~jilka/index.html

PARAMETER OF FTA :
- POWER (P) - DISTANCE (D) - IMPOSITION RATING (R)

Politeness STRATEGIES for avoiding FTA: A. ON RECORD SUPERSTRATEGY 1) Bald-on record 2) Positive Politeness 3) Negative Politeness B. OFF RECORD SUPERSTRATEGY

What would you do if you saw a cup of pens on your teacher's desk, and you wanted to use one, would you say

Ooh, I want to use one of those. Hmm, I sure could use a blue pen right now. So, is it O.K. if I use one of those pens?

I'm sorry to bother you but, I just wanted to ask you if I could use one of those pens?

Politeness Strategies for Avoiding FTA

A. 1) Bald-on record: it is directly address the other person to express your needs using imperative forms is known as bald on record e.g: I want some beer.
bald on record: direct

Cont.
A. 2) positive politeness

A face saving act concerned with the person's positive face will tend to show solidarity, emphasize that both speakers want the same thing and have a common goal.
e.g: hey buddy, is it OK for me to have a beer?

positive politeness: somewhat direct

Cont.
A. 3) Negative politeness A face saving act oriented to a person's negative face tends to show deference, emphasizes the importance of the other's time or concerns and may include an apology for the imposition e.g: I hope it's not too forward, but would

it be possible for me to have a beer?

negative politeness: somewhat indirect

Cont.
B. Off record: statements not directly addressed to another person e.g: It's so hot. It makes you really thirsty.

off record: indirect

Politeness and Interaction Ex. Yule (1996, pp. 64-66) (How to get a pen from someone else)
say nothing (but search in bag) say something off record ('I forgot my pen') face saving act on record

bald on record ('Give me a pen!' )

positive politeness

negative politeness

('How about letting me use your pen?)

( 'Could you lend me a pen? )

Criticism Brown and Levinson

FTA implies act is threatening to the face of either the speaker or the hearer in fact, many acts can be seen to threater the face both S and H simultaniously. e.g. An apology, threatens the speakers face in obvious way, but can also be the source of considerable embrassment to the hearer Brown and Levinson claim that positive and negative politeness are mutually exclusive, but in practice, a single utterence can be oriented to both positive and negative simultaneously (e.g. Ex 27-29 in Thomas, 1995, p. 171)

4. Conversational Contract View of Politeness

Fraser (1990), People are constrained in interaction by conversational contract (CC) Being polite constitutes operating within the.. Terms of the CC Negotiable in light of the participants perception and/or acknowledgements of factors such as the status, the power, and the role of each speaker and the nature of the circumstances. (in Thomas, 1995, p. 177)

5. Politeness measured along pragmatic scales

Spencer-Oatey (1992 in Thomas, p. 178) proposes sets of dimensions to overcome the problem of culturalspecificity, as follows:
Spencer-Oateys Scale (1992:30)
1. Need for Consideration 2. Need to be Valued Autonomy Approbation Interest/ concern Imposition Criticism Disinterest

3. Need for Relational Identity

Inclusion Equality

Exclusion Superordination/subordination

REFERENCES
Houpte Seminar, Introduction to Pragmatics. http://ifla.unistuttgart.de/~jilka/index.html. Downloaded on April 21, 2013 Thomas, J. 1996. Meaning in Interaction: an Introduction to Pragmatics. New York: Longman Group Limited. Yule, G. 1996. Pragmatics. Oxford: Oxford University Press

- THANK YOU -