WEEK 3 – PRAGMATICS
POLITENESS AND POLITENESS STRATEGIES
I. Notion of politeness
1. Definition of politeness
Politeness, in an interaction, can be defined as the means employed to show awareness of
another person’s face.
2. Face
Face means the public self-image of a person. It refers to that emotional and social sense of
self that everyone has and expects everyone else to recognize.
Negative face is the need to be independent, to have freedom of action, and not to be
imposed on by others.
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.
Negative politeness is when a face saving act which is oriented to the person’s negative face
will tend to show deference, emphasize the importance of the other’s time or concerns, and
even include an apology for the imposition or interruption.
Positive politeness is when a face saving act which is concerned with the person’s positive
face will tend to show solidarity, emphasize that both speakers want the same thing, and that
they have a common goal.
3. Face-threatening acts
Face-threatening act: If a speaker says something that represents a threat to another
individual’s expectations regarding self-image.
II. Indirectness
1. Intentional indirectness
Not all indirectness is intentional. However, In pragmatics, we are interested only in
intentional indirectness (although, it is not always possible to say with certainty
whether indirectness is intended or not).
2. Cost and risk of indirectness
It is 'costly' in the sense that an indirect utterance takes longer for the speaker to produce
and longer for the hearer to process (a fact which has frequently been confirmed in
psycholinguistic experiments).
It is 'risky' in the sense that the hearer may not understand what the speaker is getting at.
3. Factors governing indirectness
The axes governing indirectness are 'universal' in that they capture the types of
consideration likely to govern pragmatic choices in any language, but the way they are
applied varies considerably from culture to culture. The main factors are listed below:
• The relative power of the speaker over the hearer: The general point is that we tend to use
a greater degree of indirectness with people who have some power or authority over
us than to those who do not.
• The social distance between the speaker and the hearer: It is best seen as a composite of
psychologically real factors (status, age, sex, degree of intimacy, etc.) which 'together
determine the overall degree of respectfulness' within a given speech situation. In other
words, if you feel close to someone, because that person is related to you, or you know him
or her well or are similar in terms of age, social class, occupation, sex, ethnicity, etc., you
feel less need to employ indirectness in, say, making a request than you would if you were
making the same request of a complete stranger.
• The degree to which X is rated an imposition in culture Y: mean how great is the
request you are making
• Relative rights and obligations between the speaker and the hearer: This dimension is
needed in order to explain a situation in which a speech act involving a major imposition is
performed with a minimal degree of indirectness.
III. Theories of politeness
1. Grice’s principle
Gricean Cooperative Principle (CP) is considered the basis of this approach to politeness.
The CP (Grice 1975: 45) runs as follows:
Make your conversational contribution such as is required, at the stage at which it
occurs, by the accepted purpose or direction of talk exchange in which you are engaged.
The CP is claimed to govern most human conversational interactions and rational
participants abide by the maxims in so far as they are able in the process of the efficient
conveying of messages.
2. Lakoff’s rules
Lakoff (1973) suggests three rules of Pragmatic Competence and Sub-maxims or sub-rules,
each of which is oriented to make the H 'feel good'. The maxims are adapted as follows: (1)
Don't Impose (Used when Formal/Impersonal Politeness is required), (2) Give Options
(Used when Informal Politeness is required) (3) Make A Feel Good (Used when Intimate
Politeness
is required).
3. Leech’s maxims
The Tact maxim states: 'Minimize the expression of beliefs which imply cost to other;
maximize the expression of beliefs which imply benefit to other'.
Leech's Generosity maxim states: 'Minimize the expression of benefit to self; maximize the
expression of cost to self.'
The Approbation maxim states: 'Minimize the expression of beliefs which express dispraise
of other; maximize the expression of beliefs which express approval of other.'
The Modesty maxim states: 'Minimize the expression of praise of self; maximize the
expression of dispraise of self'.
The Agreement maxim runs as follows: 'Minimize the expression of disagreement between
self and other; maximize the expression of agreement between self and other.'
IV. Brown and Levinson’s politeness strategies
1. Bald-on record strategies
Bald on record: the most direct approach, using imperative forms.
2. On-record strategies
On record strategies: You can directly address the other as a mean of expressing your
needs.
3. Off-record strategies
Off record strategies: types of statement are not directly addressed to the other. The other
can act as if the statements have not even been heard.
4. No FTAs (face threatening acts)
In Brown & Levinson’s model of politeness strategies, the fifth strategic choice ‘Don’t do the
FTA’ appears to be neglected, as it has ‘no interesting linguistic reflexes’ (1978:77). It might
be as such in other speech acts like requesting, ordering, offering or complaining when the S
is the initiator or trigger of the act. He/she may choose not to perform the act at all because
of the seriousness of the act. Nevertheless, there are acts when the prior S’s utterance
makes it relevant and necessary for the present S to voice a reply, i.e. to perform the act. It
is the case of disagreeing.
On the other hand, refusing not to do the FTA in disagreeing runs the risk of damaging alter
and ego’s face. In the act of expressing anger, for instance, the fifth strategy appears an
FTA that potentially damages S’s positive and negative face. When you are angry, it is
natural that you want to somehow release your anger. If you cannot do it, you will fail to meet
your self-image’s desire to be appreciated or to get ‘retribution’ (Lakoff 1987), and to be
independent or free of action.
