POLITENESS Flashcards
(8 cards)
LINGUISTIC POLITENESS
the use of expressions that are both contextually appropriate (complying with social norms) and understood as socially positive (displaying positive emotion, supporting ‘face’) by the target;
the use of communicative strategies to maintain or promote social harmony (Leech, 1983; Brown-Levinson, 1987; Lackoff, 1989).
INDIRECT SPEECH ACTS
Searle (1975) cases in which an illocutionary act is performed indirectly by way of performing another
conventionally indirect SA: cases in which the first SA focuses on a condition that must be in place for the second to be successful ‘can you pass the salt?’
direct SA: ‘pass me the salt’
non-conventionally indirect SA: a hint
INDIRECTNESS-POLITENESS: A SCALE
Leech, 1983: a correlation between indirectness and both politeness and impoliteness, BUT
not properly empirically tested; (in) directness can be used for other purposes; Leech’s perspective may partly reflect a British cultural perspective
FACE-BASED MODEL
Brown, Levinson (1987): a pragmatic model of politeness based on
face; facework + FTA; social parameters affecting FTA; pragmatic and linguistic output strategies
FACE
Goffman, 1967: the positive social value a person effectively claims for himself by he line other assume he has taken during a particular contract. Face is an image of self delineated in terms of approved social attributes.
Positive face;
Negative face;
facework: the actions made by a person to make what he is doing consistent with face
FTA, face threatening acts: any action that impinges in some degree upon a person’s face
SOCIAL VARIABLES (FTA)
B&L (1987) argue that the determination of how face threatening an act is involves three sociological variable
social distancebetween participants; relative power of the hearer over the speaker; absolute ranking of the imposition involved of in the act
SUPERSTRATEGIES
B&L propose 5 pragmaticsuperstrategies, each with specific linguistic output features.The more serious the FTA you need to redress is, the more ‘polite’ your superstrategy will need to be.
1) Bald On Record: performs the FTA efficiently in a direct, concise, and perspicuous manner;
2) Positive Politeness: sugar the pill (i.e. FTA) by attending to the hearer’s positive face wants
3) Negative Politeness: soften the blow (i.e. FTA) by attending to the hearer’s negative face wants
4) Off-Record: Performs the FTA in such a way that one can avoid responsibility for performing it (i.e. hint). (=convey meaning by flouting a Gricean maxim)
5) Don’t do the FTA
APPLICATIONS OF POLITENESS
Improving our understanding of the functioning and management of: identities and interpersonal relations through language; institutional communication; cross-cultural communication
