POLITENESS

POLITENESS

1. Green: strategies for maintaining or changing interpersonal relations

2. Brown & Levinson: linguistic expression of social relations

3. B.Fraser: no common undestanding

   • social norm view: each society has certain rules norms: "good manners", speech style and degree of formality
   • conversational-maxim view: Cooperative Principle is always observed; violation of maxims signals conversational implicature
     • non-explicit messages intended by S to be inferred by H Lakoff and Leech are adherents
     • Leech: role of Politeness Principle is to maintain social equilibrium and friendly relations
       • CP and Politeness P create a tension and S must determine what message to convey and how for a given context.
       • Tact maxim
         • minimize cost to other, maximize benefit to self: impositives, commissives
       • Generosity m
         • minimize benefit to self, maximize cost to self: impositives and commissives
       • Approbation m
         • minimize dispraise of others, maximize praise of other: expressives and assertives
       • modesty m
         • minimize praise of self, maximize dispraise of self : expressives and assertives
       • agreement m
         • minimize disagreement / maximize agreement between self and others: assertives
       • sympathy maxim
         • minimize antipathy/ maximize sympathy between self and other: assertives
       • Fraser summarizes them: minimize the expression of beliefs which are unfavourable to hearer and maximize the expression of believs which are favorable to the hearer
     • Lakoff: P is a device used in order to reduce friction in personal interaction
       • 2 Rules of Pragmatic competence: be clear, be polite
       • 3 Rules of Politeness: 1 Don't impose; 2 give options; 3 make A feel good
         • 1 used when formal/impersonal politeness is required 2 used when informal politeness is required 3 when intimate politeness is required (hedges, not asking permission
   • face-saving view: (B&L) assumption of interactants' rational and efficient nature of talk; deviations under consideration of politeness as reason for S's apparent irrationality or inefficiency
     • S use politeness strategies with the aim of saving their and other's face. Face can be lost, maintained, enhanced or threatened Most influential theory of politeness 
     • 1 social distance of S and H
     • 2 Relative Power of S and H
     • 3 absolute Ranking of imposition in a culture
     • face threatening acts: variables
       • those acts which by their nature run contrary to the face wants of the addressee and/or speaker
     • Negative face
       • kind of face threatened by acts that appear to impede the hearer's independence of movement and freedom or action. The desire to be unimpeded in one's actions and our with notto be imposed by others
     • Positive face
       • kind of face threatened by acts which appear as disapproving of our interlocutor's wants. A person's wish to be well thought of or approved of, admired, understood
     • Negative politeness
       • a type of redress oriented toward the H's negative face which emphasizes avoidance of imposition on the H. It minimizes impolite illocutions (hedgings)
     • Positive politeness
       • a type of redress directed to the H's positive face, his desire that his wants should be thought of as desirable.
     • Off record strategies
       • Indirect politeness strategies by means of which one or more of the Grice's maxims are flouted
     • On record strategies
       • direct strategies of two kinds: 1 without redress: bald on record 2 with redress: a) positive politeness; b) negative politeness
   • conversational-contract view: (Fraser&Nolen) all participants enter and continue conversation with understanding of a current coversational contract at every turn
     • "being polite constitutes operating within the then-current term and conditions of the Conversational Contract"