ENGL408

1. ENGL408 Politeness

2. Politeness What are the qualities of a polite person? • The concept of Politeness is confusing because the "politeness" of interest to Pragmatics is different from our normal understanding of politeness (politeness as a real-world goal).

3. Politeness • In the real world we usually equate politeness with genuinely positive personal qualities. • In Linguistics, we don't care about the true nature of the person (or of the culture). • Politenessin pragmatics describes the relationship between "how something is said and the addressee’s judgement as to how it should be said" (Grundy, 2000: 139).

4. Politeness strategies as sociolinguistic variables • Politeness strategies are sociolinguistic variables in which they are used to negotiate a position for a speaker in relation to others in the complicated social space. • We do care about politeness as a communicative phenomenon. We are interested in meaning, not people. • Thomas discusses Deference and Register as a way of leading into a notion of politeness.

5. Deference • Deference is the kind of respect that we give to people because of their age or status. • It could be given by non-linguistic actions such as standing when the person enters a room. • Linguistically, it is not so common in English to show deference - but an exception might be the use of titles such as Mister or Doctor or Your Honour. • How is deference shown linguistically in some other languages?

6. Deference In French they have tu, vous In Chinese we have 你， 您 Any other languages such as Danish, Korean, etc ?

7. Register • What did you learn about register in your writing class? • “Systemic variation…in relation to social context” • Certain situations/social relationships affect the type of language used

8. Rating Politeness • There has been some attempt to determine politeness at an utterance level. • At some stage in your language learning, you may have been asked to rank utterances in their order of politeness. • There was probably general agreement in the class - the more grammatically complex, the more polite. • On your note, write 5 requests to "pass the salt" in increasing order of politeness

9. Politeness of Utterances • Your ranking probably looks something like this: • Pass the salt. • Pass the salt, please. • Would you mind passing the salt? • If it's no bother, could you pass the salt? • I hate to trouble you, but would you terribly mind passing the salt, please? • Do you see any problem with this ranking system? (Think of the context?)

10. The final 2 or 3 utterances are beginning to sound too polite in the context. Are they still really polite? What meaning might be conveyed by this apparent use of politeness? • Some utterances are inherently impolite, no matter how polite we phrase our utterance. • [1] I wonder if I might respectfully request you to stop picking your nose? • [2] Stop picking your nose! • (Regardless of the elaborateness of the language, no matter how you hedge it, it is always offensive).

11. Politeness • In order to understand politeness, it is necessary to consider 3 elements: • The utterance itself • The context of the utterance • The relationship between the speaker and the hearer We will look at 2 important approaches to understanding politeness: • 1. The Maxim Approach • 2. Management of Face

12. Leech's Politeness Principle: • Minimize (all thing being equal) the expression of impolite beliefs • Maximize the (all things being equal) the expression of polite beliefs.

13. Leech uses Maxims as descriptive terms. His major Maxims are as follows: • 1. Tact • 2. Generosity • 3. Approbation • 4. Modesty • 5. Agreement • 6. The Pollyanna Principle

14. The Tact Maxim • Minimize the expression of beliefs which imply cost to the other • Maximize the expression of beliefs which imply benefit to the other. • Examples: • Just pop upstairs and... • Hang on a second. • I've got a bit of a problem. • Can you think of other examples? In Chinese?

15. Another way to minimize the expression of cost is to make it look like the hearer has choice: • Would you mind... • If it's no trouble, ... • How we minimize the expression of cost and maximize the expression of benefit may be culturally specific. • Offering choice in Chinese culture is not always seen as polite?

16. Overly minimizing the expression of a costly request may also be a problem. • My (Hong Kong) girlfriend often asks me to "help" her do something. I interpret that as meaning we will do it together. She means she wants me to do it completely. I'm not sure if this is simply a translation (Chinese to English) problem or if it is an attempt to follow the Tact maxim that is not succeeding.

17. The other side of the Tact maxim is to maximize the expression of beliefs that imply benefit to the other: • Have a Coke! • Go enjoy your weekend! • Employing very direct speech when you are benefiting the hearer is clearly polite.

18. Rank the following imperative utterances in order of politeness: (From Peccei) • 1. Take a look at this. • 2. Clean up the kitchen floor. • 3. Pass the salt. • 4. Have some more cake. • 5. Peel these potatoes. How does the ranking confirm the Tact Maxim?

19. The Generosity Maxim • Leech states: • Minimize the expression of benefit to self • Maximize the expression of cost to self. • Examples: A: I think I'll just take a little piece of this cake. B: Here, take mine! You relax and let me do the dishes.

20. Approbation Maxim • Minimize the expression of beliefs which express dispraise of other • Maximize the expression of beliefs which express approval of other e.g. John, I know you're a genius - would you know how to solve this math problem here?

21. Approbation Maxim • In the following dialogues, rank the responses in order of politeness: (adapted from Peccei) 1. Jane: Well, I've done it. I've dyed my hair purple. Ed: (a) You look beautiful. (b) You look awful. (c) You look amazing.

22. 2. Tom: Do you like the wine I picked out? Ceci: (a) It's Italian, isn't it? (b) Yes, I do. (c) Not really. 3. Paul: What did the students say about my teaching? (a) Let's hope none of them are lawyers. (b) Some students were very positive. (c) Pretty bad.

23. Agreement Maxim • Minimize the expression of disagreement between self and other • Maximize the expression of agreement between self and other. • What were the ways you learnt in English classes to express disagreement in a discussion? • I disagree • Maybe... • Yes, but... • You have a point, but... Example: A: I don't want my daughter to do this, I want her to do that.   B: Yes, but ma'am, I thought we resolved this already on your last visit.

24. Agreement Maxim • Be careful to note that the maxim does not say "Minimize disagreement". It says "minimize expression of disagreement." It is about disagreeing politely, not about saying you should not disagree. • This illustrates the difference between linguistic politeness and real-world politeness. • Whether or not you should disagree with others is of interest to cultural studies, but not linguistics.

25. The Pollyanna Principle • Pollyanna is a character from literature who always sees the sunny side of life. • We often think of a "Pollyanna" as being too optimistic or too positive. • This principle says we tend to interpret utterances in their positive light if 2 or more interpretations are possible. • Examples: • Good luck Wishing good luck/irony

26. The Pollyanna Principle • Examples: The speaker had just ‘lost’ two hours’ work on the word- processor. ‘Ah well, I’ll probably write it better second time around.’ A director has to tell one of his managers that he has not been given the promotion he had hoped for. ‘You’re too valuable where you are. If we were to offer you the job we would lose the most valuable marketing manager we ever had.’

27. Summary of Politeness Maxims • These maxims are descriptive, not prescriptive • We normally "minimize" by being indirect. • We normally "maximize" by being direct. • The relationship between politeness, and indirectness, though, can be very complicated. • Factors such as social distance can have a significant effect on how we interpret the politeness of an utterance. • Do the maxims account for these differences?

28. Summary of Politeness Maxims • Do we always "minimize" by using indirectness with close friends? • Do we sometimes purposely "maximize" (speak directly) to show our closeness? • Can you think of an example of how we might not observe the Maxim of Approbation with someone close to us? A: Do you like my purple hair? B: Dear, it's awful. Cutie, give me 100 dollars.

29. Management of Face • Brown and Levinson (from Thomas p. 168) developed the notion of dealing with people's "Face Wants." • According to politeness theory, everyone has face wants: the desire to maintain self-worth or self-image. • Face has 2 aspects: positive and negative

30. Positive and Negative Face • Positive Face involves a desire: • to be liked • to be approved of • to be respected • to be appreciated • Negative Face involves a desire: • not to be impeded • not to be put upon • to be free to act

31. Face Threatening Acts • Utterances have the potential to threaten the hearer's positive or negative face. • We could threaten positive face by insulting the hearer. • We could threaten negative face by asking someone to do something they don't want to do. • If we decide to perform a face-threatening act, we adopt strategies to limit the damage to face. Brown and Levinson outline 3 "on-record" superstrategies and one "off-record" "superstrategy".

32. Politeness • The ways in which utterances are formed can often be explained in terms of speakers trying to temper or defuse a face-threatening act(FTA). • Politeness is the use of redressive language which aims to compensate for face-threatening behaviour.

33. Politeness Politeness Strategies When a speaker is faced with an FTA, she/he can choose between five strategies depending on the estimated risk of face loss. Speakers estimate the risk of face loss based on the relative power relationship and social distance between the speaker and hearer(s) and the size of the imposition. Power + Distance + Imposition = degree of face-threat to be compensated by appropriate linguistic strategy (Grundy, 2000)

34. Power +P hierarchical structures (e.g. business and governmental structures) -P egalitarian systems (e.g. close friends, colleagues or counterparts with equivalent ranks regardless of whether they know each other well)

35. Distance +D e.g. government officials of different countries -D e.g. close friends, division heads and staff members

36. Weight of Imposition +W e.g. approaching a boss for a promotion -W e.g. attending to daily business routines

37. Pragmatic Politeness(Brown and Levinson, 1987: 65) 1 the speaker can do the FTA ‘on record’baldly, without any redressive action of any kind 2 the speaker can do the FTA ‘on record’, but with redressive action in the form of positive politeness 3 the speaker can do the FTA ‘on record’, but with redressive action in the form of negative politeness 4 the speaker can do the FTA ‘off record’, in other words indirectly 5 the speaker does not do the FTA because the risk of face loss may be considered to be so great The above strategies are presented in order, beginning with the strategy used when the speaker’s estimation of face loss is to be lowest.

38. Performing FTA without redress"Bald on Record" • Very direct • Examples: • Emergencies(Help!) • Time constraints (Hurry up!) • Channel limitations (bad telephone line) • Alerting (Watch out!)

39. Analysis of Pragmatic Politeness [Scenario: Your boss has asked you to write an e-mail to a colleague who is also a close friend of yours to remind her/him that a report for your boss is late by two days and has to be finished by tomorrow morning. What will you write in the e-mail?] E-mail 1 Dear (first name) Give my boss the report which you are helping him to prepare by tomorrow morning. Regards, X (first name)

40. Performing FTA with redress (positive) • This involves addressing the positive face wants of the hearer to be liked, approved of, etc. • When we use positive politeness, we use speech strategies that emphasize our solidarity with the hearer. • An example involves a male student calling to a female student he doesn't know: Hey blondie, what are you studying then? French and Italian? Join the club! • You must be hungry, it’s a long time since breakfast. How about some lunch?

42. Performing FTA with redress (negative) • This involves addressing the negative face wants of the hearer. • We most commonly employ strategies to protect the negative face wants of people who are socially distant from us. • Nicknames are avoided (Use Sir or Madam) • Choices are given (or appear to be given) • Mitigating devices are used such as please, might, possibly, I'm sorry but, etc.

44. Performing an FTA using Off-record politeness • In these situations, we use hints, metaphors, jokes and ambiguous utterances to perform off-record politeness. • It’s a bit cold in here. • Perhaps someone should have been more responsible. • Yeah. He’s a real Einstein! • Another strategy is to use "ellipsis", which means we do not complete our sentences: • I wish you would just...

45. Off-record example (rejection letter) Dear XXXX I refer to your interview in respect of the above post. An appointment has now been made and I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your interest in the post. Your particulars will be retained on file should any future vacancy occur. Yours sincerely, XXX

46. Dear (first name) How are you doing? (notice/attend to hearer’s wants, +ve) Don’t forget to send me the photos that we took yesterday (assert common ground, +ve). By the way(minimise imposition, –ve), you may (hedge, –ve) know that my boss is going to an important meeting this Friday morning and I understand (hedge, –ve) that you are helping him in preparing a report (assert common ground, +ve). You may (hedge, –ve) already realise that the report is essential for the meeting (assert common ground +ve). Grateful (go on record as incurring debt, -ve) if (hedge, –ve) you could (hedge, –ve) finish it by tomorrow morning (conventionally indirect, –ve). Give me a ring if you need any help (offer, +ve). Thanks. (go on record as incurring debt, –ve). Regards, X (first name) Overall strategy 3 – on record with mostly negative forms of politeness.

47. Politeness Systems According to Scollon and Scollon (2000: 44-47) there are three main types of politeness system. 1 Deferential politeness system This kind of politeness system operates when the participants are social equals, or near equals, but maintain a social distance by using mainly negative politeness strategies when speaking to each other. Speaker 1  negative politeness  Speaker 2

48. Politeness Systems 2 Solidarity politeness system This system of politeness is typical when the participants are friends and the social distance is close and the power relationship is equal. The participants make the absence of social distance and inequality explicit by mainly using positive politeness strategies. Speaker 1  positive politeness  Speaker 2

49. Politeness Systems 3 Hierarchical politeness system Operates when the participants are in an unequal power relationship and socially distant. The politeness strategy employed is different, depending on whether the speaker is the superordinate or subordinate. The superordinate mainly employs positive politeness strategies and the subordinate mainly uses negative politeness strategies. Superordinate positive politeness  Subordinate Subordinate negative politeness  Superordinate

50. Pragmatic Politeness Pre-sequences • Yule (1996: 67-69) suggests that pre-sequences can be understood as a means of avoiding FTAs by providing the hearer with an opportunity to stop the speaker from proceeding with her/his FTA. • Yule provides three examples of pre-sequences in support of his interpretation. • It should be noted that very often these pre-sequences are treated by the hearer as straightforward requests, invitations, announcements.