Talk Theory

Talk Theory

1. THE POLITENESS PRINCIPLE

   • (Brown and Levinson)
   • Face Threatening Acts
     • Positive Face is threatened when the speaker or hearer does not care about their interactor’s feelings, wants, or does not want what the other wants.
     • Negative face is threatened when an individual does not avoid or intend to avoid the obstruction of their interlocutor's freedom of action.
   • Politeness Behaviour Strategies
     • Off-Record Politeness: Speaking indirectly to maintain face - e.g. giving hints, being vague, being sarcastic
     • Positive Politeness Strategy: minimizes threat to the audiences negative face - e.g. hedging, avoiding disagreements, attending to the hearer's needs
     • Negative Politeness Strategy: minimizes threat to the audiences positive face - e.g. being indirect, requesting forgiveness, minimizing imposition
     • Bald On Record Politeness: does nothing to minimize threats to the hearer's "face" = e.g requests, emergency, declaratives

2. Cooperation Principle

   • Grice's Maxims
     • Quantity: give the most helpful amount of information.
     • Quality: do not say what you believe to be false or lack sufficient evidence for.
     • Relation: be relevant.
     • Manner: be clear, brief and orderly.
   • Robon Lakoff
     • Don't Impose
     • Give the receiver options
     • Make the receiver feel good

3. Male and Female Talk

   • Keith and Shuttleworth
     • Females
       • Talk more than men
       • Are more polite
       • Are indecisive/hesitant
       • Complain and nag
       • Ask more questions
       • Provide feedback
       • Are more co-operative
     • Males
       • Swear more
       • Don't talk about emotions
       • Interrupt more
       • Women and machines are interchangable
       • Insult each other frequently
       • Are Competitive
       • Dominate Conversation
       • Are authoritative
   • Crystal
     • Women: Co-operative/collaborative style of speech
       • Ask more questions
       • Make more use of positive and encouraging 'noises' - e.g. "mhm"
       • Greater use of the pronouns - e.g. "you", "we"
     • Men: Adversarial/competitive style of speech
       • Interrupt
       • Dispute what has been said
       • Ignore or respond poorly
       • Introduce more new topics into the conversation
       • Make more declaratives of fact or opinion

4. Accommodation Theory

   • Convergence: When the speech styles of two or more individual becomes closer together
     • Upward Convergence: e.g. a lower class person toning down their regional dialect for a job interview
     • Downward Convergence: A teacher toning down their accent when talking to a child of a lower class
   • Divergence: When the speech styles of two or more individuals becomes further apart
   • Over-accommodation: When a speaker may overdo convergence by "talking down" to the other person by raising their voice or simplifying their message
   • Maintenance (under-accommodation): When no adjustment is made to speech.