LCS 221

Cross-Cultural
Communication

Lecture 7: Politeness
Theory
(Unit 6)
Lecturer: Amy Hiss
ahiss@uwc.ac.za

2024
Semester 2, term 4
Lecture 6 Recap:
Key concepts Maxim of Relevance
 Semantic and Pragmatic

Grice’s (Gricean)
Be relevant. Stick to the point,
say things that are related to the
meaning current topic of conversation.

(Literal/Explicit vs Implied/Implicit) Maxim of Quantity

Maxims
Say as much as you need to, no
more nor less. i.e., make your
contribution as informative as is
 Conversational implicature required.

(an implicit utterance/speech act) Maxim of Quality

Be truthful. Do not say what you
believe to be false, or some
thing for which you have no
 The co-operative principle evidence

(agreement among speakers to co-operate) Maxim of Manner

Be clear and brief and avoid,
 Paul Grice’s MAXIMS obscurity, ambiguity

 Flouting and violating the

Lecture 7
Objectives
K
E
Politeness
Y (maintaining face ‘wants’)
C ‘Face’
O Positive face
N Negative face
Involvement face needs
C Independence face needs
E
Politeness strategies
P Politeness strategies of involvement
T Politeness strategies of
S independence
Face threatening Acts (FTAs)
Prescribed Reading:
Course Reader: Unit 6: Bowe & Martin (2007:28-33) Communication Across cultures: Mutual understanding in a global
world
Brown, P., & Levinson, S. C. (1987). Politeness: Some universals in language usage (Vol. 4). Cambridge university press.
Good interaction is governed by Politeness

Politeness is explained by a concept of “FACE” derived from

American Sociologist and Social Psychologist, Erving Goffman (1967, originally
1955)
“The positive public image [we] seek to establish in social interactions.”

Goffman argued that when an individual interacts with others, he/she:

Act out what is sometimes called a line – that is, a pattern of verbal and non-
verbal acts by which a person expresses their view of the situation and
through this his evaluation of participants, especially himself. The other
participants will assume that he has more or less wilfully taken a stand, so that if
he is to deal with their response to him, he must take into consideration the
impression they have possibly formed of him (Goffman 1967: 5).
The patterns of our actions lead to the emergence of a particular
version of ourselves that others perceive and will expect us to
continue to live up to (regardless of whether the perceived image is
what we intended or not). As long as our actions remain
consistent to this projected and/or perceived image, we can
be said to have face, be in face or maintain face. While acting
in ways that are inconsistent with the perceived line leads to a
situation in which we lose face or find ourselves to be in wrong
face, out of face or shamefaced

(Goffman, 1967).
Brown & Levinson (1987) “ We treat aspects of face as basic
wants which every member knows every other member
desires ….the interests of every member to partially
satisfy…is not an unequivocal right”

Face: Can be defined as a public self-image that we are

trying to claim or portray.

Two kinds of faces: Positive face and Negative face

Positive face has to do with a person’s need to be wanted,

accepted, approved of, appreciated, admired, liked.

 Negative face has to do with a person’s need to be

independent and to
act unimpeded and without hindrance and imposition; the desire
for freedom of action and autoanomy.

We all have both ‘face’ wants and we constantly try to

maintain and protect them in social interactions.
Involvement Independence
• Involvement refers to the human need to • Independence refers to the need to be
belong, to have a sense of community and unique with boundaries that separate the
the sense of not being alone in the world individual from others and the need to not
be imposed on by others

Positive face (addresses positive face

want) Negative face (addresses negative face
characteristics like: wants)
 Speaking, as opposed to silence Characteristic likes:
 Showing linguistic convergence  Preferring silence (as opposed to)
 Noticing or attending to the hearer (e.g. speaking, or speaking little
You have a nice phone/ Hey, I like your  Showing linguistic divergence (as
hair style.) opposed to convergence)
 Claiming in-group membership (Let us…; if  Apologizing (Sorry/ excuse me/my
we…) apologies, etc..)
Strategies
 Preferringof
 Liking to be addressed/addressing with
first names or nicknames
to address/be addressed by

 Being vocal (talkative) Politeness

surnames and titles
FACE THREATENING ACTS (FTAs)

Brown & Levinson (1987:313)

Notion of rationality “ is the application of

a specific mode of reasoning …which
guarantees inferences from ends or goals
that will satisfy those ends”

“Given the assumptions of the universality

of face and rationality, it is intuitively the
case that certain kinds of acts threaten
face, namely those acts that by their
nature run contrary to the face wants…’

To commit an act that threatens/damages

another person’s “face”
1. FTA done baldy with no
politeness (bald on-record) 3. FTA done with negative
politeness
No effort to minimize threat to hearer’s
‘face’ - e.g. “Hello!, can you please give Minimizing the threat of negative face
someone else a chance to talk” and trying not to impose on the hearer.
Four
e.g. “Hey! you need to engage in this
degrees of tutorial”
2. FTA done with positive politeness
Minimizing threat to hearer’s positive Face
‘face’ Threatening 4. FTA done indirectly or off-record
needs. E.g. “I like your essay, it is very (Trying to avoid direct imposition)
Acts e.g. “I wish someone could interact in
interesting. But it is a bit too long and
needs some editing.” this tutorial.” (vs. you)

FACE THREATENING ACTS (FTAs)

 Discussion
What is the ‘face’
want?

&

What FTA is used?

Positive Face /Involvement
Strategy

FTA: done Baldly with no

Positive Politeness
Context: Interview with popular 90’s female group,
‘Destiney’s Child’
Referencing ‘Favouritism’
 What face is being
maintained and what
FTA is used here?

Positive Face /Involvement

Strategy

FTA: done with Positive

Context: Celebrity/Family entertainment show
Politeness

Host: offers friendly and comfortable space to ‘talk’Referencing ‘fake gold chain’
 What is the ‘face’
want?

&

What FTA is used?

Negative Face/ Independence

FTA: done with indirectly/off-

Context: Family Show, ‘Dr Phil’ record
Host: offers friendly and comfortable space to ‘talk’
‘No recognition’ of fame
Conclusion
• People may choose not to threaten other faces or
decide how threatening they want to be.

• But we cannot really avoid threatening each other’s

faces.

• To maintain the relationship, people soften the FTAs

through use of hedges (probably, maybe, possibly),
compliments and apologies.
 Announcement
s
• Apply for sick test- via Ikamva- upload sick
documents , and/or write a letter to us

• Late submission tab open, 5% deduction –

videos can still be submitted via the secondary
tab

• Tutorials are next week

Reading (optional):

Scholar or UWC Library repository:

a, A. N. (2023). Doing friendship: storytelling and playfulness in casual conversational discourse.