POLITENESS (BROWN AND LEVINSON, 1987)

POLITENESS
 Wang (2008) asserted that it is very much essential to
know the paramount importance and nature of
politeness because as we start to talk or interact, each
of us necessitates the mutual understandings of the rules
or grounds of communication to maintain favorable
social relations and fathom each other’s behavior.
POLITENESS
 Accordingly, Cutting (2008) and Wang (2008) espoused that
politeness is defined as being cultured, well-bred, and well-
educated.
 Cutting (2008) explained that according to Brown and Levinson
(1987), “if a person wants to be a part of a social relationship,
that person should recognize and show an awareness of face,
the public self-image, the sense of self, of the addressee”.
POLITENESS
 They continued by saying that it is quite natural across cultures
that speakers should respect each other’s expectations
regarding face or public self-image, and should consider the
feelings and should evade Face Threatening Acts (FTAs)
 Along this line, Cutting (2008) exaplained that in order for
someone to avoid such FTA or at least minimize a possible
threat, speakers could either just won’t say at all, or even
elucidate that they are having complications or simply sigh
loudly or nod your head.
POLITENESS

 Furthermore, in the study of language conducted by Wisniewski

(2007), he stated that “showing awareness of people’s self-image
by adjusting own speech style is called politeness”. He added
that self-image is then called as the face and the utterances
exuding a threat to the interlocutor known as face- threatening
acts. Face saving acts are those which decline the so-called
threats.
POLITENESS’ 2 TYPES OF FACE

 Negative Face- show deference and put emphasis on the

significance of somebody else’s time or concerns that even
highlight apology for the imposition or intermediation.
 Positive Face- solidarity emphasizing that both speakers have a
common goal in the communication
 POLITENESS
 In reference to saving face, in most of the studies, the politeness
has been intellectualized as “strategic conflict-avoidance or
strategic construction of cooperative social interaction” (Eelen
2001,Watts 2003)
 More so, Al-Marrani and Sazalie (2010) espoused that politeness
is very much essential for humans cannot live together and
communicate if there’s the absence of politeness conventions or
are not being observed in the place that they live in. Hence, it is a
manifestation of concern towards people's feelings (Law, 2007).
 POLITENESS

 Chapman and Routledge (2009) stated that politeness is neither

inherent in linguistic forms in isolation from their context of
utterance nor wholly reside in the speaker’s intention. Rather,
they added that politeness may be regarded as the mutual
constitution of face by participants in an exchange, which is
greatly facilitated by partaking of similar societal norms.
 POLITENESS
 . According to Hill (2001), politeness is one of the constraints in
human interaction which purpose is to consider other’s feelings
and establish levels of reciprocated comfort and promote
rapport.
 Leech (1983) further added that politeness is a strategic conflict
avoidance which can be measured in terms of the degree of
effort put forth into the avoidance of conflict in different
contexts.
 POLITENESS
 In his journal of pragmatics, Takano (2005) explicated that
“language is defined not only by the context, but also helps
define a context in which particular aspects of speaker-addressee
relationships are foregrounded”.
 He even proposed that to attain an efficient communicative goal
line, individuals should apply both positive for reducing social
distance and eliciting friendly responses from the subordinates
and negative for enhancing the speakers’ prestige and power,
politeness.
TYPES OF POLITENESS

 1. POSITIVE POLITENESS
 2. NEGATIVE POLITENESS
 3. BALD-ON RECORD STRATEGY
 4. OFF-RECORD STRATEGY
POSITIVE POLITENESS
 According to Cutting (2008), positive politeness is simply
representing the linguistic behavior between associates, where
exchanging of interest and agreement of each other's
personality, and presuppositions showing shared interests and
knowledge are shown.
 Moreover, Law (2007) asserted that positive politeness is used
to emphasize kindness and comradeship and keep positive face.
For instance, calling somebody on his nickname is a
manifestation of being positively polite
POSITIVE POLITENESS INCLUDES THE FOLLOWING:

1. Notice, attend to hearer (his interest, wants, needs, and

goods).
-Goody (1978) explained that it tells that the speaker should
acknowledge aspects of hearer’s condition (noticeable changes,
remarkable possessions, anything which looks as though hearer
(H) would want S (speaker) to notice and approve of it.
Ex.
You must be hungry, it’s a long time since breakfast. How about some
lunch?” or ‘’What a beautiful vase this is! Where did it come from?”
POSITIVE POLITENESS INCLUDES THE FOLLOWING:

2. Exaggerate (interest, approval, sympathy with hearer )

It is often done with exaggerated intonation, stress, and other
aspects of prosodic, as well as with intensifying modifiers (Goody
1978).
Ex. “How wonderful!”, “What a fantastic garden you have!”, “How
absolutely incredible!”, and “Yes, isn’t it just ghastly the way it always
seems to rain just when you’ve hung your laundry out!”
POSITIVE POLITENESS INCLUDES THE FOLLOWING:
3. Intensify interest to hearer
It tells that the speaker should share interest to the hearer as a
form of contribution in the conversation (Goody 1978). The
speaker should exaggerate his information as well as create a
good story to recognize hearer as a participant in the
conversation
Ex. The hearer then often uses tag questions like ‘uhuh’, ‘what do
you think?’. It can sometimes take in switching back between
past and present tense. For instance, “I never imagined that there
were thousands beautiful girls in Jim’s party last night!”
POSITIVE POLITENESS INCLUDES THE FOLLOWING:
4. Use in-group identity markers (address form)
With this, the speaker can implicitly claim the common ground with
H that is carried by that definition of the group. In other words, it
demonstrates that both the speaker and the hearer belong to same
social group and any work culture related affiliation (Goody, 1978).
Ex. One way to convey in-group membership is by using generic
names and terms such as honey, sweetie, dear, babe, bro, sister,
sweetheart, folks, fellas, ladies and gents, mom, dad, babe, guys and
gals, etc. Often this is in form of imperatives
POSITIVE POLITENESS INCLUDES THE FOLLOWING:

4. Seek agreement (safe topics, repetition)

-In reference to Goody (1978), one best way of achieving something
common between the speaker and the hearer is for the speaker to
look for ways in which it is possible to agree with him/her.
-Agreement may also be expressed by reiterating part or all of what
the speaker has spoken in the conversation, and undoubtedly, this can
be done by using that function to indicate emphatic agreement.
POSITIVE POLITENESS INCLUDES THE FOLLOWING:

4. Avoid disagreement
Token agreement. The speaker may actually go in twisting their
utterances so as to look to agree or to fur disagreement (to give a
response to a preceding utterance with ‘yes, but…..' , in effect rather
than a blatant ‘No’).
POSITIVE POLITENESS INCLUDES THE FOLLOWING:

4. Avoid disagreement
 White lies. It tells that the speaker may do white lie to hide
disagreement where the speaker is faced with the need to state an
opinion, express in a form of lie like, when one says, ‘Yes I do like
your new hat!’ which may be done to save hearer’s positive face. By
doing this, S is saving H’s face. For instance, in response to a
request to borrow a laptop, and the owner does want to lend the
laptop. He or she may say that his or her batteries are of zero level.
In this strategy, both may decipher that it is not true, but the face
of the hearer is saved by not refusing point black the request”.
POSITIVE POLITENESS INCLUDES THE FOLLOWING:

4. Avoid disagreement
Hedging opinions. The speaker may select to be vague about his
opinions. This is not to be recognized as to disagree. To soften FTA
of suggesting, criticizing or complaining, hedges may also be used.
Although hedges contain features of negative politeness, some hedges
can function it to be positively polite, most notably in English: sort of,
kind of, like, in a way. For instance, “I know you are sort of a polite
person”; “It’s really beautiful, in a way.”
POSITIVE POLITENESS INCLUDES THE FOLLOWING:

6. Presuppose/raise/assert common ground )

Gossip or small talk. The idea on rendering time and effort on being
with the hearer (as a mark of friendship or interest in him) pave the
way for the strategy to redress face threatening acts by talking about
discrete topics for a while.
POSITIVE POLITENESS INCLUDES THE FOLLOWING:

7. Joke.
According to Goody (1978), this can be one way to express that
there must be some mutual background knowledge and values that
both the speaker and hearer share
POSITIVE POLITENESS INCLUDES THE FOLLOWING:

9. Assert or Presuppose S’s knowledge of and concerns for H’s

wants.
This positive politeness indicates that speaker and hearer are
said to be co- operators. It puts pressure on the hearer to
collaborate with speaker. In addition, the speaker wants to emphasize
and infer knowledge of hearer’s wants and will to fit one’s own wants
in with them (Goody, 1978).
For instance, “I understand you can do it yourself, but this time, do
what I suggested you.”
POSITIVE POLITENESS INCLUDES THE FOLLOWING:
10. Give gifts to H (goods, sympathy, understanding, and
cooperation).
 The speaker pleases hearer’s positive face want (that S wants H’s
wants, to some degree) by sufficing some of the hearer’s wants
(Goody, 1978). The giving gift shows that speaker knows some of
the hearer’s wants and wants them to be realized. In addition, they
are not only tangible gifts, but human relations wants which are the
wants to be liked, admired, cared about, understood, listened to,
etc. In other words, this strategy is usually used for the benefit of
POSITIVE POLITENESS INCLUDES THE FOLLOWING:
11. Assume or assert reciprocity. In reference to Goody (1978), this
is where the speaker asks hearer to cooperate with him by giving
pieces of evidence of give-and-take rights or obligations between
them. Thereby, S may say, in effect, “I’ll do x for you if you can do y for
me”. By acknowledging this reciprocal right (or habit) of doing face
threatening acts (FTAs) to each other, the speaker can be able to
mitigate or soften his FTA by negating the debt aspect and/or the
face-threatening aspect of speech acts such as the criticisms and the
complaints. For instance, “I’ll tell you what it looks like if you tell me
where she is now.”
POSITIVE POLITENESS INCLUDES THE FOLLOWING:

Give (or ask for) reasons. In this strategy, the speaker uses
the hearer as the reason why speaker needs something so
that it will appear sensible to the hearer (Goody, 1978). The
speaker will then assume (via optimism) that there’s no room
for reasons on hearer’s part not to cooperate. For instance,”
Why not lend me your car for the weekend?”
POSITIVE POLITENESS INCLUDES THE FOLLOWING:

 Include both S and H in the activity. In this strategy, the speaker

is asked to manipulate the subject of the activity for it to be done
together (Goody, 1978) The speaker employs an inclusive term ‘we’
when the speaker really means ‘you’ or ‘me’. This inclusive term is
usually used in the construction ‘let’s’. For instance, [1] “Bring us
the book’ (i.e. me); [2] “Let’s go downtown, uh?” (i. e you)
POSITIVE POLITENESS INCLUDES THE FOLLOWING:
 Be optimistic. The speaker assumes that the hearer wants S’s wants
for S (or for S and H) and will help to obtain them (Goody, 1978). The
assumed idea that the hearer will cooperate to the speaker will make
him confident and build commitment for speaker to cooperate with the
hearer as well.
 This usually happens among people with close relationship. For instance,
“Wait a minute, you have not brushed your hair! (as husband goes out of the
door). It does only show that the wife needs something to her husband and
that is to brush his hair before showing in public. By telling this need on the
assumed idea that the husband wants it too, the wife is putting pressure on
the husband’s part to also attend to her wants.
POSITIVE POLITENESS INCLUDES THE FOLLOWING:

 Offer, promise. In this strategy, the speaker and the hearer are
good co-operators that they share common understanding with
some goals (Goody 1978). It could also be the speaker is eager to
aid in order to attain those goals. Also, promising or offering
establishes speaker’s good attention in sustaining hearer’s positive-
face wants, even if they are untrue. For instance, “I’ll go there
sometimes”.
NEGATIVE POLITENESS

 Cutting (2008) stated that it heightens negative face through

demonstrating the distance between interlocutors, and to avoid
intervening on each other’s niche or its so-called territory. The
intents of using them are to avoid speakers appearing to be arrogant
and give option to the hearer.
 Say ‘I don’t want to be a disturbance to you, but can you teach me
what our teacher had told us in our Stylistics an hour ago?’ or ‘Feel
free to come to our house if you have the time’.
NEGATIVE POLITENESS INCLUDES THE FF:

 Be indirect. In this strategy, it highlights the use of phrases and

sentences that have contextually unambiguous meanings which
are different from their literal meanings.
 Indirect speech acts are the most substantial form of
conventional indirectness. For instance, [1] Can you please hand
me the handkerchief?
NEGATIVE POLITENESS INCLUDES THE FF:

 Be pessimistic about things

 assume H is unlikely to be willing/able to do any acts predicated
(

of him). This strategy happens as described by Goody (1978)

when the speaker shows the pessimistic expression to the hearer
although the hearer wants to accept what the speaker tells or not
 “I don’t suppose there’d be any possibility of you”
 I do not know if it’d be possible…
NEGATIVE POLITENESS INCLUDES THE FF:

 Minimize imposition on the other person – emphasizes the

use of just, slightly restricting the extent of FTA
 This can be seen in the utterance, “I just ask you if you could
lend me a pen?”
NEGATIVE POLITENESS INCLUDES THE FF:

 Give deference
 According to Goody (1978), this strategy occurs when the speaker
has to take into account into his or her attitude and show respect
to the hearer in the interaction. An example of give deference
performed by Goody is in the utterance, “Excuse me, sir, but would
you mind if I close the window?”. Deference is seen through the
employment of the word ‘sir’ which shows that the respect is given
by the speaker to the hearer in order to ask for help to the hearer
in closing the window.
NEGATIVE POLITENESS INCLUDES THE FF:

 Apologize to the other person. Based on Goody (1978), the

strategy expresses how the speaker applies the expression of
apologizing through the use of words such as sorry, forgive, and
whatnot
NEGATIVE POLITENESS INCLUDES THE FF:

 Impersonalize things
 For Goody (1978), he posited that to impersonalize is a way on
how the speaker expresses something to the hearer without
stating the name or someone’s pronoun whom the speaker
talks to
 For instance, to impersonalize according to Goody is in the
.

utterance, ”It is so”.

NEGATIVE POLITENESS INCLUDES THE FF:
 Go “on record” as incurring a debt, or not ‘indebting’ to the
other person. Goody (1978) this strategy occurs when the
speaker requests or offers something to the hearer, and the hearer
has to reciprocate and do something to the speaker or requester. It
is being demonstrated by Goody in the utterance, “I’ll never be
able to repay you if you...”
 In addition, the speaker needs the hearer to do something to the
speaker as a form of requesting.
 speaker disclaims indebtedness of hearer by offering stating that
h/she is willing to do something for the hearer as not indebting
the hearer; hence, it avoids the FTA.