Chapter four

The Politeness Principle

"To be alive ... must be in motion... if it becomes fixed then it's dead. It's

just rhetoric. The style must change according to what the writer is trying

to tell. What he is trying to tell In fact compels the style." (Faulkner, Class

Conference at the University of Virginia, 1957-58)

4.0 Preliminaries

In this chapter \\>€ attempt is being made to show that the tenri 'politeness' means

something rather different from every day understanding of it and it focuses almost

uniquely on polite language in the study of verbal interaction. The aim is to

approach the technical term of politeness from a variety of perspective,'" with

respect to ways in which it is manifested in language usage, and to highlight some

of the controversies focusing on it. In this chapter, it will be examined how

politeness in pragmatics works by the look of politeness principle, which has two

sides, addressee, and speaker.

4.1 Ttie Concept of politeness

ft
When It is thfe matter of being civil, politeness is an important missing link between

the cooperative principle and the problem of how to relate sense to force. It must

be said that the way in which politeness and impoliteness were understood in

123
previous centuries are very different from the way in which they are understood

today. Politeness, with whatever meaning and appearance in any language and

culture, is a locus of social struggle over discursive practices.

When people are asked what they imagine polite behavior to be, there is a

surprising amount of disagreement. The usual way out of the dilemma is to give

examples of behavior, which would consider polite. Some people feel that polite

behavior is equivalent to socially correct or appropriate behavior. There are even

people who classify polite behavior negatively, characterizing it with such terms as

insincere, etc. It is necessary to point out that theories of pdllteness focused more

on polite behavior than impolite behavior. It is only when one of the participants

violates the rights and obligations of the conversational contracting that her/his

behavior is classified as 'impolite'. It would also seem that whether or not a

participant's behavior is evaluated as polite or impolite is not merely a matter of the

linguistic expression that s/he uses, but rather depends on the interpretation of that

behavior in the overall social interaction.

What is politeness? Is there any relevance between cooperativeness (especially

Grice's maxims) and politeness principles? Why are people often so indirect in

what they mean? It is argued that the politeness principle maintains the social

equilibrium and the friendly relations, which enablei user^ to assume that the

interiocutors are being cooperative in the first place.

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4.2 Politeness and impoliteness

The social identities acting within a moral order are partly internationally

constructed and partly regulated by mutually agreed nomis and conventions at the

local level. Accordingly, 'polite behavior" is a many-sided social phenomenon that

originates within the moral order. There is discursive disagreement over the social

value of the temis impolite and impoliteness.

Native speakers, more or less, agree to the negative evaluations of fomris of

behavior which they may consider impolite than they are on the positive evaluation

of politeness. Linguistics behavior, which is supposed to be appropriate to the

social limit of the ongoing interaction, should be called polite behavior and is

always negotiable. What a theory of politeness should be able to do is to locatec^

possible realizations^polite or impolite behavior and offer a way of assessing how

the members themselves may have evaluated that behavior. Watts defines politic

behavior as:

"Socioculturally determined behavior directed towards the goal of

establishing and maintaining in a state of equilibrium the personal

relationship between the individuals of a social group." (1989:135)

To put in a brief, polite behavior therefore is behavior beyond what is supposed to

be appropriate to the ongoing social interaction. Hence, impolite behavior is

behavior that is perceived by participants to be inappropriate behavior. Any attempt

to locate (imppoliteness in naturally happening discourse is dealt with some

125
problems; first, it is impossible to estimate (im) polite behavior out of the framework

of real, ongoing verbal interaction. A theory of (im) politeness behavior needs to

take the perspectives of the speakers and the hearers sufficiently Into

consideration because speakers are also hearers, and vice versa^^ moreover social

interaction opens to on-line evaluative interaction. This latter point implies that

what may have been originally interpreted as (im) polite behavior is always open to

evaluative remobilization as the interaction progresses.

As a direct result of the previous two points, it will never be possible to develop a

predictive model of linguistics (im) politeness. (Jonsequently, there can be no

idealized, universal scientific concept of (im) politeness, which can be applied to

instances of social interaction across cultures, subcultures, and languages. The

nature of 'polite behavior' is then grasped through the system of rules,

conventions, expectations that govern social encounters, or rather, through

Goffman's work on 'impolite behavior' which it will be negotiated later in this

chapter.

4.3 First-order and second-order politeness

First-order (im) politeness is the way in which (im) polite behavior is evaluated and

commented on by lay members in a language community. It should offer the

means of recognizing and interpreting the evaluative moments in which

participants react to linguistics behavior, which is in excess of politic behavior.

The explanation of when and why certain forms of behavior can be called 'polite' is

126
fundamental to spell out how human beings communicate with one another.

Language and fonns of language behavior are at the heart of social

communication and the reproduction of social structure. Therefore, the study of

politic t>ehavior and linguistic politeness lies at the heart of socio-communicative

verbal interaction. To summarize, the lay conceptualization of politeness which can

be different not only from society to another but from one individual to the next Is

named first-order politeness. In all human cultures, there are forms of social

behavior that can be classified as culturally specific fomns of consideration for

others. The theoretical second-order terms 'politic social behavior,' or simply 'politic

behavior,' and 'politeness' can serve to refer universally to such social behavior.

(Im) politeness includes the perception that politic behavior involves mutually

shared fomns of consideration for others in a given culture. (Im) politeness is an

observable violation of politic behavior, which is open to negative evaluation by the

participants and the researchers, and that polite behavior is an observable addition

to politic behavior. It may be positively evaluated, but is equally open situation,

culture, and society. It should be considered that the types of social situation In

which politeness Is Institutionally required change from one social group to

another, from one culture to another, and from one period of time to another, it

must still have some basis in a universal model of social interaction. Peter France

(1992) considered that politeness was used as an oppressive force, taming the

individual, imposing conformity and deference.

"Politeness means learning to accommodate to others within a given

127
social group." (France, 1992:5)

On the other hand, Carey Mcintosh considers that:

"Politeness is something more than etiquette. It is the matter of

civilization." (1998:160)

As it has been pointed out earlier and it will be done further more, the meaning of

politeness can be different depending on the theoretical consideration of

politeness. In the eighteenth century, 'standard English' became almost

synonymous with 'polite English', i.e. thef standard in speech and writing which the

middle classes should attain. During ^af^the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries,

politeness became part of what it is understood of social interaction at all levels of

society. Some people considered that politeness "comes from the heart and it is

Icindly and the thoughtful consideration for others." (Baumgartner, 1908:100) i ^ -^

Today, it may consider an individual's behavior chivalrous, considerate, well

mannered, etc., which all its various aspects of the first-order meaning of the temn

politeness. However, the very fact that human beings are social animals ensures

that cooperation will ultimately overcome the competition. The mutually shared

forms of consideration for others that are the basis of social cooperation from

culture to culture will obviously ^efer and it is to be said that politeness is a

culturally and historically relative term.

First-order and second-order politeness show that the conceptualizations of

politeness and impoliteness are highly variable, not only with the respect to the

128
way individual participants conceptualize (im) politeness, but also with respect to

different interpretations of the display of mutual consideration for others across

different cultures and through different periods of history.

In the research over (im) politeness, it should be discussed what is wrong with

politeness in the pragmatics and sociolinguistics literature and what is the

distinction between lay notions of politeness and theoretical notions.

4.4 Linguistic Politeness

The problem in the study of first-orber politeness is that individual evaluations of

what constitutes polite and impolite behavior and the ways in which intentions of

(im) politeness are assessed are so varied that researchers have prefen-ed to

conceptual away from the kind cultural, historical and social relativity inbuilt in first-

order conceptualization.

Second-order politeness becomes an abstract term referring to a wide variety of

social strategies for constructing and reproducing cooperative social interaction

across culture. The fact is that the English lexeme 'politeness' is used to indicate

this second-order conception but the question is whether it is possible to construct

a second-order theory of (im) politeness by the absence of norms and rules. For

explaining the answer, it is very necessary to consider what the meaning*of 'theory"

and 'model'is^.

'Theory' aims at giving at least an adequate description of something and, if

possible, an explanation in the real worid. In constructing a theory of human

129
language, the linguist needs a model of human language, and some of the models

are judged better than others, but none of them can be very correct. However, It is

not possible to make a model language by separating it from those who use it. The

problem comes by applying the theory to account for the ways in which language is

used by human beings. 'Politeness' and 'impoliteness' are terms that refer to ways

in which individuals use language socially, so the model of (im) politeness is

always under cover of its evaluation.

Studying how members evaluate (im) politeness is a way of describing and

explaining how they construct their social worlds. Definitions of second-order

politeness are largely absent from most theoretical work in the field but theie are a

range of definitions given in the literature. Siffianou (1992:82-3) presents a range

of work on linguistic politeness and she follows them by her personal comments.

These summarized works are as follows:

o

1. "Lakoff (1975:64): "...politeness is developed by societies in order to reduce

friction in personal interaction."

The statement here is that friction in personal interaction is undesirable and that

societies develop strategies to reduce that friction. Politeness, thus, ends up being

a set of norms for cooperative behavior. Hence, politeness is evaluative.

2. Leech (1980:19) defines it as "strategic conflict avoidance which can be

measured and in terms of the degree of effort put in to the avoidance of a conflict

situation."

130
Here, the avoidance of conflict is represented as an attempt on the part of the

person being polite since it is strategic. This must mean that people estimate other

forms of behavior to undennine the aims at the establishment and maintenance of

comity, i.e., politeness is evaluative.

3. Brown and Levinson {1978t57) view politeness as "a complex system for

staining face-threatening acts."

This explanation appears to present politeness to avoid becoming embroiled in the

evaluative struggle over (im) politeness but one cannot know how the hearers will

react. The reaction will in any case reveal the evaluative nature of politeness.

4. Kasper (1990:94):"communication is seen as a fundamentally dangerous and

antagonistic endeavor."

At this point, politeness is given the job of diffusing the danger and minimizing the

opposition.

5. Amdt and Jenny (1985:282) see politeness as "interpersonal supportiveness."

\^-- > ( '

Now again politeness is seen from normative point of view, since normal behavior

implies that individuals give mutual support in social interaction.

6. Hill et a! (1986:349) defines politeness as "one of the constraints on human

interaction, whose purpose is to consider other's feelings, establish levels of

mutual comfort, and promote rapport."

131
7. Ide (1989:225) sees it as language usage associated with smooth
\
(X)mmunication." ^ ^ ^

Siffianou interprets Ide as presenting politeness as strategic and nonnative. She

then gives the following summary of these definitions:

"People tend to be considerate because this repays them with a pleasant

feeling of satisfaction: further more they receive consideration in retum

and at the same time satisfy the needs of others. It is a multiple reward.

This obviously does not rfiean that they behave in the way that they do

because they have any ulterior motives also, or that they expect any

tangible reward. It simply means that they have iniernalized the fact that in

order to live in a harmonious society you give and take and thus

participate in maintaining the necessary equilibrium of relationships."

(1992:84)

Siffianou' definition becomes clearly normative when she explains her idea about

politeness as follow:

"I use the term 'politeness' in a more general sense, and see it as the set

of social values which instructs interactions to consider each other

satisfying shared expectation." (1992:84-5)

4.5 Politeness and Pragmatics

Politeness in pragmatics is a new sub discipline, dating back to the late 1960s and

132
early 1970s. After William Jarnes lectures in 1975, pragmatics was separated from

semantics and released from the attempts to apply speech act theory to generative

theories of language.

In the 1920s and 1930s, a theory about politeness based on politics arose in

Europe to create the hypothesis that language is a social product. Politeness, in

fact, far from being a set of strategies for constructing, regulating, and reproducing

forms of cooperative social interaction, is away from the direct control of the human

being and is there for not strategic reasons. It consists of the social constraints that

are taken to be pfart of the collective national character.

It is to be made clear that such approaches are limited in European linguistics and

they do not come out much before the beginning of the nineteenth century. Two

important cultures in the Far East, China and Japan, have a long history of

studying linguistic politeness phenomena within the framework of theories of

rhetoric. Lee-Wong goes on to refer to ancient Chinese theories of rhetoric in

which politeness played a central role:

"Easing the jolts was a major purpose of ancient Chinese rhetoric, so that

their social processes had as one of their principle functions the avoidance

of embarrassment-or "saving face", as it came to be known." (1999:21-3)

Sibamoto (1985) discusses two fields of academic attention with language in

Japan, which do not have equivalence in western countries. The first of these

researches back over period of more than two thousand years and includes at

133
various points in its history facts theoretical analysis of and reaction on structures

of politeness in Japanese. Pragmatic approaches to the study of politeness have a

much longer history than one tends to think about.

4.6 Lakoffs Approach

George and Robin Lakoff in the late 1960s were associated with the development

of generative semantics and with the possible combination of speech act theory

into generative models of language. Lakoff (1975) suggests setting up pragmatics

rules to complement syntactic and semantic rules and adding a set of 'rules of

politeness' to Grice's cooperative principle, which she redefines as the 'rules of

conversation'. Lakoff has always stressed the meaning of her training as a

generative linguistics for her approach to the pragmatics and social study of

language. Lakoff insists that the research for pragmatics rules would have to be

grounded in a conception of pragmatics skill, related to Chomsky's notion of

grammatical competence. In spite of her claim on pragmatics rules, however,

Lakoff does not try to set up a production model of politeness.

It should be changed the fact that remaming by the rules of politeness means

breaking the rules of conversation. Lakoff (1979) suggests that politeness types

range from formal politeness (do not impose), through infonnal politeness (give

options) to intimate politeness (make a feel good). She states that:

"Politeness is developed by societies in order to reduce friction in personal

interaction" (1975b:64) ,,..,.' ^ - -

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Her attention in issues of gender discrimination led to the publication of Language

and Women's Place (1975). Lakoff says one of the features of women's language

is that women use polite language more than men do, and they do so for reasons

of insecurity. She takes up the position that the main fomis of linguistic behavior

are male, while the linguistic behavior of women is mari^ed against.

In accordance with a number of types of language structures and language

behavior that she discusses as being female, she makes the point that women

generally anticipate this observation to be assessed positively. Lakoff argues that

specificfally women's interactive behavior is generally taken to be respectful.

Lakoffs conclusion is summarized in the aphorism "you are damned if you do, you

are damned if you don't." (Watts, 2002:61-2)

4.7 Leech's model

Leech's approach to linguistic politeness phenomena forms 'general pragmatics,

which he glosses as a description of "how language is used in communication."

(1983:1) Leech creates highly specific fomnalized rules such as those in the

syntactic or semantic wori^ings of a grammar. He conceptualizes 'general

pragmatics' as "the general conditions of the communicative use of language" and

proposes 'pragmalinguistics' in which "we consider the particular resources which

a given language provides for conveying particular illocutions" and

'sociolinguistlcs', which studies "the more specific local conditions on language

use" (1983:11). The approach by-that^ Leech takes io'the study of general

pragmatics is 'rhetorical', by which he means, "The effective use of language in its

ns
most general sense" (1983:15). Leech recognizes two systems of rhetoric as

follows:

1. Textual rhetoric, which consists of the following sets of principles: the

possibility principle, the clarity principle, the economy principle, and the

expressivity principle.

2. Interpersonal rhetoric, which consists of the following sets of principles:

the Cooperative Principle (the Grice's CP), the Politeness Principle (PP),

and the'irony principle. (1983:15-16)

Leech sees the role of pragmatics as being problem solving in that it relates the

sense of an utterance to its pragmatic force by means of conclusion process made

by the hearer. He maintains that his model is centered on the hearer rather than on

the speaker, but the point is that all speakers are also hearers and vice versa, and

language behavior is not a matter of an utterance followed by response. In his

idea, the main function of the PP is to maintain feelings of comity within the social

group.

"The PP regulates the social equilibrium and the friendly relations which

enable us to assume that our interiocutors are being cooperative in the

first place." (1983:82).

Leech would maintain that since his model describes how a speaker interprets

utterances, it should not be imagined that speakers have to go through this

complex of principles, maxims, and scales of delicacy to produce a pragmatically

136
acceptable utterance that will be classified as polite. Some of Leech's expressions

are evidently similar to those suggested by Brown and Levinson (1978).

Leech also uses two terms/|negative' and 'positive' politeness. Negative politeness

consists of the minimization of the impoliteness, and positive politeness consists of

maximization of the politeness at polite illocutions. Leech's model of linguistic

politeness is not able to make clear how an individual participating in a

communication can probably recognize the degree and type of politeness required

for the presentation of a speech act.

4.8 The Theory of Politeness

During the 1980s, an international group of researchers worked on two important

speech acts, apologizing and requesting, in a range of different languages, which

showed that the speakers of certain languages preferred to recognize apologies

and requests more directly. On the other hand, in all speech communities the

nature of the overall speech event detemiined whether certain kinds of speech act

would be realized directly or indirectly, without any consequent attribution of

impoliteness to direct realizations. In the theories of Leech, and Brown and

Levinson the degree of indirectness in requesting are as posited as a universal

realization of linguistic politeness. A rhetorician, Blum-Kulka who was also the

leader of that project sketched out what is called politeness as culture scripts,

which presented that:

"Every socio-cultural group in the world has a mean of realizing politeness.

137
On a theoretical level this means that systems of politeness manifest a

culturally filtered interpretation of the interaction between four essential

parameters: social motivations, expressive modes, social differentials and

social meanings..." (1992:270)

According to Blum-Kulka, the major, and in fact only, social motivation for

politeness is the need to maintain face. Certain fomis of politeness, however, can

be used to threaten rather than to maintain face. 'Social differentials' is a tenn

which refers to such factors as social distance, power and the degree to which

speech acts represent an obligation on the addressee. She suggests that the zone

of polite behavior consists of the" range of cultural expectations for what

constitutes appropriate social behavior relative to change social situations."

(1992:275)
f„ v. • • ( ' ' ' c

Horst Amdt and Richard Jenney from the early 1980s have worked on the linguistic

term 'politeness' and have educated a set of four strategies for avoiding conflicts

in intercultural situations, these are:

1. The maintenance of a positive-reference group frame of communication

with the partner

2. The avoidance of a negative frame of communication with the partner

3. The abandonment of common territory with the partner if conflicts do

arise

138
4. If all else fail, breaking off contact with the communicative partner

altogether. (1992:41)

In their approach, they try to say that no rule can be set up to describe what forms

of behavior calculate as 'polite' in what situations. Native speakers rely on their

feelings that they develop through many years of participation in social

interactions. Arndt and Jenney, on the other hand, make a division between 'social

politeness' and 'interpersonal politeness. Social politeness is considered to consist

of rules regulating appropriate and inappropriate ways of speaking and the locus of

these rules is society, not language itself. Interpersonal politeness, however, is

considered to consist of appropriate and Inappropriate rules determined In a group

of people. (1985:283-4)

They propose that tact is equated with the mutual apprehension for maintaining

face during communication behavior in an interpersonally supportive way. If it is so,

it does not make much sense to keep a dividing line between social and

interpersonal politeness. Tact is said to have two basic roots: psychological arul

cultural. Within the biological-psychological framewori< Jenney and Amdt^aintain

two kinds of communication: emotional and emotive. Emotional communication

consists of spontaneous internal affective states. Emotive communication consists

of consciously affective to influence others conceptions of conversational events,^

which is dependent on cultural and social conventions regulating how this is done.

The cultural basis of tact is "guided by various assumptions that people accept

unquestioningly as a natural consequence of growing up in a particular group."

139
(1992:30). In 1981, Fraser and Nolen suggested sv^ unusual way of approaching

the concept of politeness and the notion of conversational contact in the following

way:

"On entering into a given conversation, each party brings an

understanding of some initial set of rights and obligations that will

detennine, at least for the preliminary stages, the limits of the interaction."

(1981:93-4)

It is Fraser and Nolen's idea that politeness is not consciously noted until the rights

and obligations set is violated in some way. The terms of the CC (Conversational

Contract) fall into two major types: "general terms, which govern all ordinary

conversations; and specific temis, which hold because of the particulars of the

conversation" (Fraser and Nolen 1981:94).

The general terms of the CC concem culture-specific conventions regulating tum

talking, clarity of speech, etc. The specific terms are far more significant, since they

control the types of speech activities expected in the CC enacted during the

conversation and the content of those speech activities. (1981:94)

The level of deference required by the CC in a conversation depends on the

institutionalized condition differences between the individual participants. The

following example from 'As I Lay Dying' illustrates the meaning:

"If you've got any womenfolks, why in the worid don't they make you

get your hair cut?"

140
 I ain't got none," he said. Then he said suddenly, driving his eyes at

me lil<e two hounds in a strange yard: "That's what I come to see you

about.

And mal<e you hold your shoulders up," I said. "You haven't got any?

But you've got a house. They tell me you've got a house and a good farm.

And you live there alone, doing for yourself, do you?" he just looked at me,

turning the hat in his hands. "A new house," I said. "Are you going to get

manied?"

And he said again, holding his eyes to mine:

- "That's what I come to see you about." (P: 158-9)

It is to say that the ways of showing deference, which are acceptable to the current

conversational contract, are not necessarily forms of polite behavior, although they

cleariy belong to the politic behavior in operation in the social activity. They are. In

other words, part of social practice. One of the weaknesses in the study of

linguistic politeness is that the strategic treatment of politeness, which can be an

important factor in structuring and restructuring relationship of power, social roles,

and the nature of social institutions, has not been followed up by certain

sociolinguists.

Some of the linguists argue that Brown and Levinson's theory of dividing the notion

of face into positive and negative is not appropriate to all cultures and it is

Eurocentric. GU (1990) and Ide (1989) posit that there are societies, particulariy

141
those in Asian, e.g. China, Thailand, Japan, Korea, etc, in which the appropriate

levels of the politeness are dependent on specific features of the social interaction

being enacted.

In western societies, the speaker can decide to use despite of the features of the

social activity type in which the interactants are involved. For reaching to the point

whether or not the criticism at)out Brown and Levinson's theory of politeness is

con'ect, it seems to be necessary to scrutinize their theory.

4.9 Brown and Levinson's Theory of Politeness

Brown and Levinson's theory of politeness builds on the Gricean model of the

cooperative principle. They consider a Model Person (MP) whom has to charge the

danger of threatening other participants face and to choose the appropriate

strategies in order to diminish any face treats. The MP in Brown and Levinson's

model refers to the speaker, and the only reason the addressee is brought into the

representation is in order that the MP can judge the most appropriate politeness

strategy to use in the circumstances. Brown and Levinson take for granted that

every individual has two types of face: positive and negative.

Positive face is defined as the individual's desire to be respected and accepted in

social interaction, while negative face is the desire for freedom of action and

freedom from obligation. On the other hand, Brown and Levinson classify

politeness as "positive politeness" being addressed to the addressee's positive

face and "negative politeness" being addressed to her/his negative face (1987:62).

142
Brown and Levinson, therefore, propose a set of five possibilities, which are

available to the speaker to do this, ranging from the best case to the worst.

In the following table, which manifests Brown and Levinson's theory of politeness

there are some notions that need to be mentioned. The scale given on the left is

the degree to which these strategies are face threatening to the addressee. To go

on record directly and commit the FTA without any redressive action obviously

involves the greatest amount of face-threatening and should, therefore, only be

used as a strategy if there is a minimal risk of threatening the addressee's face. To

avoid committing FTA is apparently the least face threatening of the strategies. In

order to the degree of face threatening, strategy 1 is more possible to involve face

threatening to the addresses than strategies 2 and 3. Strategy 4 is followed by the

least face-threatening action (2002: 86-7).

143
 Leaser Do the FTA
"1
Go on record baldly with no

(rational decision2) redressive action (1)

Do the FTA Address it to

(rational decisioni) hearer's

Rational decisions
positive face(2)

{rational decision4}

' Greater Go off record (4)

Address it
Choose
Don't do the
to hearer's
redressive action
FTA(5)
negative face(3)

Figure 4.1, Brown and Levinson's Politeness Strategies (Watts, 2002:87)

Brown and Levinson hypothesize fifteen sub-strategies of politeness addressed to

the hearer's positive face such as to notice, to attend to hearer's interests, wants,

needs, goods, etc, to use in-group identity markers in speech, to offer, to promise,

to include both speaker and hearer in the activity, to give gifts to hearer like goods,

144
sympathy, understanding, cooperation and {en addressed to the hearer's negative

face such as to be conventionally indirect, to t>e pessimistic at)out ability or

willingness to conform, to use the subjunctive, to minimize the imposition.

In what Brown and Levinson give as the FTA strategies, one point is perceptible

that in reality, participants in verbal interaction do not necessarily manage the

prefacing moves as polite. Politeness also stretches over more than one speech

event. It might even range over whole talk exchanges and include examples of

Brown and Levinson's "positive" and "negative" politeness. Brown and Levinson's

theory goes a positive way towards dealing with the social aspects of the situation.

They recommend the following equation to form the seriousness of the FTA:

"Wx=D (S.H) +P (H.S) +Rx"

The importance (weightiness) of the proposed FTA is a combination of D (social

distance) between S (speaker) and H (hearer), the power, P, that H manipulates S

and R, the degree of obligation. The greater the value of W, the closer should be

the utterance to strategy type five in the above-mentioned figure. The smaller the

value of W, the closer it should be to that strategy (2002:95). In fact, their only

objective in suggesting the rule was to indicate the reasons for choosing one

strategy rather than another, and not to propose that politeness strategies actually

could be measured in relation to a computed value for variables P, D, and Rx.

Wattes, Ide and Ehlich (1992: 9) point out that the degree to which the FTA is

measured a serious imposition (Rx) depends on the power and the social distance

145
factors. It has also been shown that the social distance limitation is not a

tnjstworthy way of characterizing the relationship between S and H, and that a

much more useful measure is the emotional relationship between the MP and the

addressee. What Brown and Levinson suggest is certainly a theory of face work,

rather than a theory of politeness.

Nwoye (1992:311) suggests that if Brown and Levinson's description of politeness

is accepted then "social interaction becomes an activity of constant mutual

monitoring of possible threats to the face of interactants, and of devising strategies

for keeping the interactants faces." A view that "if always, could rob social

interaction of all essentials of pleasure" (Mao 1994:459) concludes that Brown and

Levinson's concepts of face becomes, in the last analysis, a self-image.

GU turns Browns and Levinson's argument on its head and says that the very fact

that "to be polite is to be face-caring; it means that all FTAs are not polite, since

they do not care for but threaten face, hence they are impolite act." (1990:241)

4.10 Criticism of Brown and Levinson's Theory of Politeness

One of the main criticisms of Brown and Levinson's work is that it assumes an

individualistic notion of face, which is not appropriate to culture in which the

individual is defined by good value of her/his membership in the social groups. In

this case, their politeness strategy is appropriate only to individualistic societies but

not to collectivist ones. If the individual's freedom of thought and action are

constrained by collectivist societies, the notion of negative face (individual's desire

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for freedom of action and freedom from obligation) can have little or no meaning in

those societies. For example, in Iran or may be in other Asian cultures the negative

face occurs when one is not able to have a suitable character and behavior in the

view of community's judgment and perception.

Nwoye (1992:312) argues that "the group being taken as any social unit longer

than the individual." If it is so, the notion of politeness as Brown and Levinson

quote, cannot be a universal term because the second condition of their theory or

assuming the freedom of thought and action of individual human being in those

societies and cultures is under a big question.

Brown and Levinson's clarification of politeness (1978-1987) is based on Erving

Goffman's theory. The notion of 'member' in Goffman's theory makes a claim for a

positive social value. Moreover, it is limited by the 'line', which others understand it

to be taking during the course of the interaction. That social value is dependant on

the other 'members,' and it can change from one moment to the next.

On the other hand, the Brown and Levinsonian member consists in freedom of

action and freedom from imposition (negative face), the other part is to have, and

already constructed self-image accepted and appreciated by the others.

Brown and Levinson consider 'self as steady central part in the individual, whereas

for Goffman 'self is always renegotiable. For Goffman 'face' is generally isolated

for duration of the communication in accordance with the line or lines that

individual has adopted for the purposes of that interaction. Similarly, line or lines

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may involve one in tlie very opposite of the desire for freedom of action and

freedom from imposition and it has contradiction with Brown and Levinson's notion

of negative face (desire for freedom from obligation).

Goffman had two further concepts: difference and demeanor. Difference is" the

appreciation an individual shows of another to that other, whether through

avoidance rituals or presentational rituals" (1967:77). Kadt suggests that for

Goffman, face is not something that individual somehow builds for her/him self,

which then needs to be supported and respected in the course of interaction, but is

rather "public property", something which is only unconstrained in social interaction*

and is dependant on others or "mutual construct" (1998:176). Such thaf an

interactant will not merely need to avoid certain behaviors, but we'll be expected to

produce certain other behaviors" (1998:107). O'Driscoll (1996:4) implies that one

important basic factor along which all human interaction must take place is the

duality between association and dissociation, belonging and independence, etc.

By considering these explanations, one can reconstruct Brown and Levinson's

concept of positive face vs. negative face and suggest that positive face consists of

"the background conscious (preconscious) desire that the universal need for

proximity and belonging be given symbolic recognition in interaction." On the

contrary, negative face consists of "the background conscious (preconscious)

desire that the universal need for distance and individual should be given symbolic

recognition in interaction." (O'Driscoll, 1996:4)

Werkhofer's work is judged as one of the severest criticisms of Brown and

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Levinson's model (1992). He begins his objection by stating that their 'model

person' is not an attempt to recreate what might be going on in a person's mind but

rather a means to the end of solving a problem in linguistic pragmatics and not in

the psychology of sociology of language. He goes even further than O'Driscoll in

making an explicit comparison between the social power of money and that of

politeness:

"In developed market economies... money may become a social force in

itself, a force that, like politeness, playing the role of an active, powerful

medium, will feedback into the process that had once given rise to it."

(1992:159)

The comparison of politeness with money is summed up in the following way:

1. "Politeness, like money, is a socially constituted medium.

2. Again like money, it is a symbolic medium in the sense that its function

originally derives from an^associated with something else, namely with

values.

3. Like money, politeness is historically constituted and reconstituted its

functions and the values.

4. During its history, the functions of politeness turn .into a power of the

medium in the sense that it may, rather than being only a means to the

ends of an individual user, itself motivate and structure sources of action.

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5. Correspondingly-and due to other forces-the chances of the user

mastering the medium completely will be diminished." (1992:190)

4.11 Hinting Strategy and Indirectness

Indirectness, which is the most important kind of politeness in the English-speaking

society, helps to increase the degree of options, diminish Its force and also it

augments the level of politeness between the hearer and the speaker, for example:

A- Won't you close the door?

B- Can't you close the door?

C- Wouldn't you mind closing the door?

A can be considered as an offer, it implies that closing the door is the hearer's

benefit. B has an impositive force and leads to less politeness. C does not seem to

be usable in either a commissive or an impositive function and confimns that the

hearer is not unwilling rather than that hearer is willing to do.

Indirect asking in English is a way to engage a person in conversation, particulariy

if that person is a stranger or a superior, e.g., 'I wonder if you give me your book'. It

should be repeated that there are two sides to the tact maxim, a negative side:

'minimizing the cost to the hearer' and a positive side: 'maximizing the benefit to

the hearer'. For example, in proposing some action beneficial to the hearer, the

speaker should choose the illocution towards a positive outcome, by restricting the

hearer's opportunity of saying 'no'. Increasing the positive politeness of an offer

means anticipating and counteracting the negative politeness of the recipient.

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In polite request, it is common to ask a question about the hearer's willingness for

ability to perfomi an action as a 'hint' that is wanted the hearer to do. The strategy

consists in uttering an illocution whose goal is interpreted as a subsidiary goal for

the perfomnance of another illocution. For example:

-Can you give me a cup of coffee?

This hinting strategy exploits the maxim of Relation in that there is a question

about hearer's ability to do an action. This strategy illustrates a scale of relevance

in terms of which an utterance prepares the way for subsequent illocution. The

speaker after assumes the answer to the question as if 'can you borrow me your

car?' may function both as an infonnnation seeking question and as a conditional

request. The speaker may want to know if hearer can borrow his /her car and the

reason for this is that the speaker wants the hearer to bon-ow his/her car. In this

case, It has an ulterior purpose to which the question is only an initial step.

4.12 Politeness Structures

House and Kasper (1981) offer a typology of linguistic expressions that use of the

past tense, progressive aspect together with past tense, an interrogative containing

a modal verb, a negative inten-ogative containing a modal verb, sometimes and not

always, are considered as polite verbal interaction, for example, "could you open

the window?", instead of "can you open the window?"

Edmondson (1977) has suggested that what he calls gambits also help to reduce

the impact of an utterance, and he lists two types of gambit, cajolers, and

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appealers. Cajolers are linguistic expressions which help to increase, establish or

restore harmony between the interlocutors, and are represented such as "I mean,

you see, you know, actually, basically, really'. Appealers try to elicit some hearer

confimnation and are characterizes by rising intonation patterns, e.g. 'okay, right,

yeah'.

Directly expressed speech events such as requesting, ordering, warning,

criticizing, etc. may restrict the addressee's freedom of choice of action, but as

much as they represent a threat to her/his own self-assessment, s/he has that

freedom of choice in the first place. An indirectly speech act ib one in which the

illocutionary force of the speaker's utterance does not correspond in a one-to-one

fashion with the illocutionary act.

In most of the examples, although not all of them, the Illocutionary act is that of a

yes-no question whereas the underiying illocutionary force is that of an order, a

request or an enquiry. If the utterance is not in the interrogative form, it is either an

imperative with a tag question formed with the modal verbs will/would, e.g., dose

the door, will you? These kinds of questions are what Brown and Levinson (1978)

would call a bald on-record face-threatening act (FTA) with a minimum of

redressive action, i.e. an explicit face-threatening act with no effort at softening the

effects on the addressee. The only indicator of politeness, here, is the tag

question: will you? The tag question with 'will' is used to check whether the

addressee is willing to can7 out the request, so if the utterance is interpretable as

'polite', the degree of politeness is minimal.

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4.13 Maxims of Politeness

Every human being uses the different kinds of sentences In quotidian relation.

There is an unwritten rule for achieving any aim: the most successful person is the

most polite. The strategies of being polite may be different not only from society to

society but also from person to person. Different kinds of politeness are called for

in different situations. Politeness concerns a relationship between two participants

whom Leech (1983) calls 'self and other' or 'speaker and hearer'. Leech tends to

classify the maxims of politeness principle as follows:

1. Tact maxim: A: minimizing cost to other. B: maximizing benefit to other

2. Generosity maxim: A: minimizing benefit to self. B: maximizing cost to

self

3. Approbation maxim: A: minimizing dispraise of other B: maximizing

praise of other

4. Modestv maxim: A: minimizing praise of self B: maximizing dispraise of

self

5. Agreement maxim: A: minimizing disagreement between self and other

B: maximizing agreement between self and other

6. Sympathy maxim: A: minimizing antipathy between self and other. B:

maximizing sympathy between self and other. (Watts, 2002:112)

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The first three maxims go in pairs because they deal with bipolar scales: the cost-

benefit and praise-dispraise scales. The other two maxims deal with unipolar

scales; the scales of agreement and sympathy. On the other hand, the first two

concern the cost of benefit of future action to other and to self. The third and forth

ones concern the degree to which speaker's remarks convey some good or bad

evaluation of other and self. The most powerful maxim is the first one which

constraints a conversational behavior. It should be concerned that is focused more

strongly on other than on self

Leech (1983) classifies illocutionary functions intof the following four types,

according to how they may relate to the social goal of establishing:

1. Competitive: the illocutionary goal competes with the social goal, e.g.

ordering, asking, etc. The purpose of competitive is to reduce the discord

implicit in the competition between what the SF>eaker wants to achieve and

what is 'good manner*.

2. Convivial: the illocutionary goal coincides with the social goal, e.g.

offering, greeting, etc. Positive politeness, which is meant observing the

PP, takes a form of seeking opportunities for comity. For example, one

should not lose the opportunity of thanking who has sent him/her a

birthday card.

3. Collaborative: the illocutionary goal is indifferent to the social goal, e.g.

asserting, announcing, etc. Collaborative functions are mostly retum

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discourtesy and are largely irrelevant with PP.

4. Conflictive: the illocutionary goal conflicts with the social goal, e.g.

threatening, cursing, etc. It is completely different from politeness because

they are designed to cause offence but in a polite manner which has a

contradiction in tenns. (Watts, 2002:114)

It is to say that the maxim of Generosity is 'self-centered' as it is in Leech's

explanations about it "minimizing benefit to self:, maximizing cost to self

(2002:112).

The Generosity maxim can be appeared to apply without the Tact maxim, for

example, 'could I drink a cup of tea?' By omission the reference, it will be greater

politeness, for example, 'is there some more tea?' the idea is that it is more polite,

in an offer, to make it appear that the offer makes no sacrifice, so that in turn it can

become less impolite for the hearer to accept the offer.

The Approbation maxim is subtitled as 'the flattery maxim' which states avoid

saying unpleasant things about others and more particularly about hearer, for

example,

A- His poem was interesting!

B- Yes, wasn't it?

C- His poem was magnificent, wasn't It?

D- Was it?

Since dispraise of the hearer as third party is impolite, various strategies of

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indirectness are employed in order to mitigate the effect of criticism. In this

example, D replies by an unfavorable opinion and s/he is not sure whether C's

judgment is con-ect. On the other hand, by considering that D's question is a

request for infomriation, s/he has respected to the PP. The Modesty maxim shows

itself in asymmetries and it sometimes comes into conflict with some other maxims,

in which case it Is necessary to allow one maxim to take priority over the other, for

example:

A- It is nice of you!

B- Yes, it is, isn't it?

In this situation, the modesty maxim is more important than agreement maxim so It

is better not to reply as B has done.

A- How stupidity of you! / How clever of you!

It shows how other-dispraise does not sound acceptably but in tum, other-praise

even when it is exaggerated has comic effect.

Maxim of Agreement is a tendency to exaggerate agreement with other people and

to limit disagreement by expressing regret, etc, for example,

A- The movie has many famous actors.

B- Yes, but there are some boring dialogues.

It shows partial disagreement, which is often preferable to complete disagreement.

The second maxim, in this part, is maxim of Sympathy, which explains why,

congratulations, and condolences are courteous speech acts, for example:

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-1 am sorry to see you in the hospital.

However, it is negative with regard to the hearer but still it is a polite utterance.

This is a condolence as an expression of sympathy for misfortune.

4.14 Politeness and Metalinauistics

Politeness is manifested in the way conversation is constructed by its participants,

to find the right time to speak or t o be silent, to request a reply, to seek pemilssion

for speaking, to apologize for speaking, etc are the different strategies to show

curtsey. The avoidance of a direct-speefch utterance can be one more example of

a strategy of politeness, for example,

- May I ask if you are Muslim?> Are you Muslim?

The need to use metalinguistics aspect of politeness is, firstly, speech acts involve

some cost of benefit to speaker or hearer. In addition, this kind of question like 'are

you Muslim?' may be felt to be a serious imposition in that they threaten the

privacy of hearer but 'may I ask you...?' is more than a unintelligent fonmality.

Silence may be considered as polite or impolite fomi of behavior and it depends on

the situations. It can be the only form of behavior available to someone of little

status but it is a sign of impoliteness if it is the matter of a social engagement. By

the consideration to the problem of how to finish a conversation politely and

awareness of the close connection between politeness and the activity of talking to

preserve sociability, another maxim of politeness which Leech (1983) named it as

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'Phatic maxim', is argued. It may be fomiulated either in Its negative form 'avoid

silence' or In its positive form 'keep talking'. The choice of subject what the speaker

tends to extend the common ground of agreement and experience shared by

participants, should be considerate in his attitudes. In Phatic maxim, the apparent

unlnfomiativeness of language is to be attributed to other conversational principles;

it is not to be regarded as evidence against the validity of the cooperative principle.

4.15 Irony and Banter

There are some principles, which enable a speaker to be Impolite while seeming to

be polite and It promotes the antisocial use of language. By taking the fomn of a

violation of the maxim of Quantity or Quality, the insincerity of the ironic politeness

may be more or less obvious. The following example from As I Lay Dying quotes

this meaning:

- "It was built in... let me see... it was In the year 1888," Uncle Billy says. "I

mind it because the first man to cross it was coming to my house when

Jody was bom."

- "If I'd a crossed it every time your wife littered since, it'd a been wore out

long before this, Billy," Peabody says." (1952:80)

The second person makes a statement, which is patiently untrue but it should be

considered that this quotation shows the degree of intimacy and friendship

between those interiocutors. The irony principle contains a positive function to

manifest itself in a less dangerous verbal form than by direct criticism, insults,

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threats, etc. It combines the art of attack with an apparent innocence, which is a

form of self-defense.

For example in 'As I Lay Dying, the following exchange between two characters (a

doctor and his patient's husband) suggests the role of verbal irony as a device to

attack but in a way not to be in clash with politeness principle:

"What the hell does your wife mean?" I say. "Taking sick on top of a dam

mountain?"

"I'm right sony," he says. (195^: 38)

As it has been already mentioned, verbal irony is an approach of implying the

special or opposite meaning from what is literally said. The second person's polite

response can be defined as opposite meaning of the exact statement since the

doctor is apparently insulting or flouting the patient's place of living. In this case,

the answer to the question is obviously too polite for the situation because the

utterance is a reaction to a blatant flout from an inferior to the superior. While irony

is an apparently friendly way of being offensive (mock-politeness), the type of

verbal behavior known as' banter* is an offensive way of being 'mock-impoliteness'.

The banter principle is manifested in a great deal of casual linguistic conversation.

"In order to show solidarity with hearer, say something which is obviously

untrue and obviously impolite to hearer.' (Leech, 1985:6.3)

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It can have the effect of irony distance, establishing or maintaining a bend of

familiarity. Its reason is to make the more intimate relationship and the less

important is to be polite. Leech presents the difference between the rrany principle

and banter by this sentence:

" What speaker says is impolite to hearer and is clearly untme. Therefore

what speaker really means is polite to hearer and true." (1985:6.3)

4.16 Hyperbole and Litotes

Hyperbole refers to a cabe where the speaker's description is stronger than the

state of affaires described and litotes refers to the converse of this and it should be

said both of these ways violate the CP.

- He drives me mad!

This hyperbole constitutes a violation of the maxim of Quality because based on

Grice's theory; maxim of Quality consists of (try to make your contribution, which is

true) and here, the statement cannot be true.

-1 did not come to this city yesterday!

The above-mentioned litotes violates the maxim of Quantity due to Grice's idea

about maxim of Quantity (make your contribution as informative as required), this

quotation needs to be explained more than required. By the consideration of this

point of view that hyperbole and litotes are used with irony, speaker should mind

the best safeguard against dishonesty, which is to make sure the utterance, is so

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much at difference with context that no one could reasonably believe it to be the

whole truth and nothing but truth. There is a preference for overstating polite belief,

and for understanding impolite ones. An exaggeration is nonmally used in praising

others and a device of understatement for criticism. The frequency of

overstatement in ordinary conversation has its testimony in many idiomatic

expressions, for example:

-1 am all ears!

- It makes my blood boil!

- She walks in the sk^!

However, if overstatements are used regularly, an addressee certainly adjusts

his/her interpretation so that they lose their value and become predictable. Leech

states that:

"A conversational principle which seems to underlie such cases is the

principle which enjoins us to say what is unpredictable, and hence

interesting." (1985:6.4)

Another aspect is the tendency to minimize the degree to which things are bad.

Thus, the minimizing adverbials of degree 'a bit, a little, and a little bit' are

specialized towards negatively evaluated terms, for example:

- The dish is a bit distasteful.

- The dish is a bit well cooked.

Though both of above examples are grammatically correct but the second one

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cannot be pragmatically acceptable. The other technique for minimizing pessimistic

evaluation is the use of negative form, e.g.

- The lecture was not well managed.

- The lecture was not badly managed.

The first utterance is pragmatically more favored. It would occur only in an unusual

context, where for some reason negative expectation is proposed. Hyperbole and

litotes are not single pragmatic principles, but rather general tendencies, which

occur whenever some pragmatic principle brings about a distortion of the truth.

4.17 Searl's Categories of lllocutionarv Acts

Searl's classification of illocutionary acts is based on varied criteria, which is

defined as follows:

1 .Assertive: The speaker is committed to the truth of the expressed

proposition, for example, stating, complaining, etc. semantically assertive

is propositional.

2.Directive: which is intended to produce some effect through action by

the hearer, e.g. ordering, commanding, etc. in this category, like

competitive category, negative politeness is important. It should be

considered that some directives are polite.

3.Commlssive: it commits the speaker to some future action, e.g. offering,

etc. It is peri'ormed in the interests of someone other than the speaker.

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4. Expressive: the speaker's psychological attitude towards a state of

affairs, which the illocutions presupposes, e.g. pardoning, blaming, etc.

these acts tend to be convivial and therefore intrinsically polite.

S.Declaration: this is the illocutions about the con'espondence between the

propositional content and reality, e.g. dismissing, sentencing, etc. these

actions are perfonned by someone who is especially authorized to do so

within some institutional framework, e.g. minister of religion christening

babies. (1969:58)

They can scarcely be said to involve politeness, Searl's examples can interestingly

show this matter:

"Although sentencing a person is an unpleasant thing to do, the judge has

complete authority in doing so, and can scarcely be said to sentence

someone 'impolite'." (1969:58-9)

Moreover, if, in this case, one wants to state all his/her utterances based on

fKjIiteness rules, the force of declaration would be undennined. For example, the

police word would be as follows:

-1 fine you.../could I fine you...?

As far as Searl's categories go, negative politeness belongs to the directive class,

while positive politeness is found in the commissive and expressive classes.

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4.18 Lines and Face Work

In every society, there are some rules, which limit members. Following those

before-mentioned rules makes polite behavior and in turn, impoliteness is the

deduction of not giving the importance to the rules. The reproduction of the social

activity relies on the tactic agreement of those participating to do it all over again.

Anyone who falls out of line is likely to be evaluated as rude or impolite. The

classification of politeness relies on the concept of 'face', i.e. on the mutual aspect

for the feelings of others. There are two ways of approaching the study of

politer'less to achieve the purpose of research in linguistics politeness:

1. As general conditions on the conventions of social activity types and their

communication orders

2. As the forms of linguistic behavior that are produced in requirement of those

conditions

The first approach is usually called 'facework', which is studying the politic

behavior of the social activity type. Some, but by no means all of the social

behavior are called facework, include linguistic politeness. The second approach

classifies a set of linguistic expressions in English as 'polite', i.e. as 'naturally

polite'.

Goffman expounds his early social anthropological model based on a ritual

account of self, which Is most directly influenced by Emile Durkheim's ideas of

social solidarity (it has been argued largely in this chapter). Goffman is

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acknowledged as a distinct on Brown and Levinson's work.

"Our notion of face is derived from Goffman's Idea and from the English

folk term' (Brown and Levinson, 1978:61}

It Is Interesting to know that Goffman's social morality, like Durkheim's, is located in

social solidarity. In Durkheim's model of society, solidarity generates rights and

duties based on values that are not inherent in things but are attributed to things by

collective thinking. Duricheim states:

"the duties of individual towards himself are in reality duties towards

society. The individual's personality can be seen as one apportionment of

the collective. My principle is to explore some of the senses in which the

person in our society is selected a kind of sacredness that is displayed

and confirmed by symbolic acts" (Watts, 2002:120)

Durkheim's morality is relative to the group and emanates from the hierarchy within

the group. From Duri<heim, morality cannot be imposed but must be "desired" and

"desirable" (Steiner, 2000:82). By means of language, one not only transfers

infomiatlon, but also at the same time; s/he uses It to construct his/her view of the

worid, to make his/her surroundings, etc. The notion of 'face' has been in using a

symbol for individual qualities and theoretical units such as honor, respect, esteem

the self, etc.

Goffman developed a theory of social interaction in which he suggested that

sociology and social anthropology in the 1950s had overstressed the search for the

165
symbolic meanings of social practices and ignored the significance of the individual

human being in those practices. He implies that our conception of the world and

the place we occupy in that world is gained completely through social interaction.

In his detennining article, "on facework" (1955: republished in Goffman 1967), he

makes the following point:

"In any society, whenever the physical possibility of spoken interaction

arises, it seems that a system of practices, conventions, and procedural

rules comes into play which functions as a means of guiding and

organizing the flow of message. An understanding will prevail as to when

and where it will be pennissible to initiate talk, among whom, and by

means of what topics of conversation." (1967:33-4)

In fact, an awareness of other interactants reactions and feelings is famously

expressed in Goffman's definition of face as:

"The positive social value a person effectively claims for himself by the line

others assume he has taken during a particular contact where a 'line' is

the interactants' own evaluation of the interaction and of all its participants,

which includes self-evaluation. Moreover, an individual's responses to

others' evaluation of his own face are not purely rational: emotions are

involved, so that harm to another's face causes 'anguish', and hamn to

one's own face is expressed in'anger'." (Goffman 1967:23)

Goffman states that face is a culturally universal symbolic opinion existing in

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English in idiomatic temis like 'to put on a good face', 'to lose face', etc. Goffiman

defines face as the positive social value a person successfully claims for himself.

The number of possible lines one can take during a verbal interaction may be

controlled by a choice; on the other hand, a person's face may change from one

interaction to the next or from one part of the same interaction to the next,

depending on the lines that have been chosen. Goffman expresses justification of

the other participants in an interaction as follows:

"One's own face and the face of others are construct of the same order, it

is the rules of the group and the definition of the situation which determine

how much feeling one is to have for face and how this feeling Is to be

distributed among the faces involved." (1967:6)

It is to be said that face is a socially recognized section of self that is in the short

term on loan for the period of the interaction in accordance with the line or lines

that the individual has adopted. It is not the personal invention of the self while the

different faces are required to accept in different interactions.

The construction of own concept of self and the work one does in social interaction

to facilitate others to construct, reproduce and maintain their self-concepts can be

called 'facework'. Facework consists of utterances that are open to analysis as

'polite'. The problem is that the politeness, which is equivalent to give more than

required by the anticipated politic behavior, may be evaluated positively or

negatively, the following example from Go Down Moses can explain this point:

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-"...And you time's coming to want to lay down in peace and you don't

l^nown when."

-"nor does you."

- "that's correct. But I'm forty-three. You are sixty-seven." (P: 91)

The first person's reaction can be described within the framework of three acts:

locutionary act, illocutionary act, perlocutionary act. Here, the first person literally

says that now, at the time of his speech, he is forty-three years old. This is the

statement of fact in which he conveys a piece of infomnation to the hearer, which

might seem irrelevant, at least at the surface level. Moreover, he means something

more by connotation. The optional meaning of the statement can be put, as "you

are an old man. Thus you are closer to death than me." This is an indirect advice to

the second person to be wise enough not to be alone for the time that death comes

to him. Here, by indirect quotation instead of direct one as it has been described

above, the first person respects the politeness principle though this respect

violates the cooperative principle. The violation of the maxims is as follows: of

Quantity (to use more words than what it should be), maxim of Relation (at the

surface level, it seems to be in^elevant), maxim of Manner (ambiguity in the

statement).

Politeness and impoliteness are part of the construction and management of

everyday life. The concept of self can be labeled 'face', and it can only be

developed through repeated socio-communicative verbal interaction with others.

Facework involves the mutual (give-and-take) social admission of face to the

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participants in social interaction in accordance with the line or lines the participants

can be assumed to be taking in the relations.

Falling out of line constitutes a break in the politic behavior, which is interpretable

by the interactants as an offence to the face of the interactants. This kind of

behavior is often evaluated as rude or impolite. When one of the interactants is

about to fall out of line, or directly after s/he has fallen out of line, s/he may select

another valid attribution efface for the interaction.

4.19 Social Practice and Politeness

What has often been thought as politeness is in effect the employment of the

linguistic structures of politic behavior in ongoing social practice. In verbal

interaction, speakers, and addresses wori< together to produce some form of

common understanding, even if It is the common understanding that they do not

agree. The utterer is giving something to the addressee and the addressee will

give something back. Every verbal contact is, therefore, an exchange of

utterances, which the interactants can suppose to be in some sense meaningful.

It seems to be necessary to stress that it should not be the aim of a theory of (Im)

politeness to set up a model with which one can anticipate either when and how

speakers of a language will construct linguistic politeness or illustrate linguistic

expressions. The scholars have noticed that there is an an-angement on social

structure, which sees culture and society as being a set of timeless structures

controlling the social behavior of not only individuals but also social groups. This

kind of model will not give any information to understand how human beings deal

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with that universe in time and space.

Bourdieu's theory of practice suggests that what is interpretable as (im) polite is

dependent on the linguistic habits of the individual and the linguistic prindpal,

which consists of the following two major concepts:

1. Politic behavior: this is related to the habits in Bourdieu's theory of

practice in that it accounts for the facts of which linguistic structures are

expectable in a specific type of interaction in a specific social field. It

encompasses the objectified structures pertaining to expectable behavior

as well as the incorporation of those structures into individual habits.

Behavior, which is not part of the politic behavior of an interaction type, is

'inappropriate' and open to classification as 'impolite'.

2. Linguistic behavior: any linguistic behavior which goes beyond the

bounds of politic behavior is open to potential classification as' polite',

which includes potential irony, aggressiveness, abuse, etc. (Watts,

2002:160-161)

Each society objectifies stoictures and appropriate habits and politic t>ehavior by

which interactants can l<now what the appropriate behavior in a particular social

situation or ongoing social interaction is. However, in order to decide what is and

what is not appropriate behavior, researcher needs to canry out a sensitive analysis

of verbal interaction relying on features of the context.

Halliday (1978) suggests that every utterance conveys ideational meaning and

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interpersonal meaning. The ideational structure of language is the way in which

messages are put together for transmission. (Watts, 2002:173) Based on his

theory, by saying to a neighbor:" beautiful rain," one makes ideational meaning of

the utterance. The neighbor will interpret this as being a personal opinion about the

weather. S/he will, therefore, take inferences in excess of the propositions that

make up the ideational meaning of the utterance, and those inferences are directly

derivable from the linguistic form.

Ideational meaning is concerned with propositions, and propositions are assigned

tnjth-values. Certain parts of an overall utterance are pertinent to the relationship

between the speakers and the context of the utterance. They indicate sets of

procedures through which prepositional meaning can be derived; this kind of

meaning is called procedural meaning.

4.20 The influence of Gricean Theories

In the 1970s and early 1980s, it comes as no surprise that Grice's cooperative

principle (1975) was the foundation of models that explain polite utterances as one

way of achieving mutual cooperation or contributing towards the establishment and

maintenance of mutual face. At the same time, these models also recognize that

such utterances appear to violate one or more of the Gricean maxims. The

contradiction states that polite language is a forni of cooperative behavior but does

not seem to abide by Grice's cooperative principle.

Brown and Levinson (1978) try to resolve the Gricean CP irregularity by bringing

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Goffman's notion of 'face' (1967). Where Lakoff (1975) and Leech (1983)

somehow recognize the significance of politeness for what is generally known as

'facework'. The temn that Grice chose to refer to social interaction was

'conversation', the ways in which interactants negotiate in everyday verbal

exchange. Indeed, the whole reason for CP is that it would be impossible to stick to

them because one repeatedly violates the CP due to different reasons and has no

option but to violate one of the maxims.

Grice's theory of meaning consists of natural and non-natural meaning and non-

natural meaning would make no sense at all if there were no theory of natural

meaning. Grice's theory of natural meaning says that natural meaning is in some

sense encoded by the linguistic structure of the utterance and, therefore, that

language contains meaning. Grice approaches when the maxims of the CP are

violated, the addressee derives an 'implicature' to reinstate it, e.g.

-Are you coming to the party?

-My sister is my guest today.

Girce also posits a second kind of implicature, which he calls conventional

implicature. The following example from Go Down Moses can explain it better:

".... Was that still they found in the creek bottom yours?"

"You know that It wasn't." Lucas said.

"All right, "Edmonds said. " Was that still they found in the creek bottom

yours?"

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They looked at each other, "i ain't being tried for that one." Lucas said.

"Was that still yours, Lucas?" Edmonds said....

"Do you want me to answer that?" Lucas said.

"No "Edmonds said violently." Get in the carl" (P: 54-5)

Here, the maxim of Quality has been flouted because instead of giving a proper

answer such as 'yes ', the addressee has given a response that seems not to be

cooperative. The problem is that Grice does hot explain how the addressee goes

about constructing the correct impilcatures. It is observed that if politeness is seen

as facework, it is not only in individual utterances but also It is a constantly

negotiable commodity throughout instances of verbal practice

Keenan (1971) concludes that the individual maxims will need to be adapted to

other cultural conditions in order to account for what is to be taken as cooperative

verbal behavior in the other cultures. In this sense, Keenan's critic of Grice's CP is

similar to Ide's critic of Brown and Levinson's model of politeness. The CP is

Eurocentric. The major criticism of Gricean pragmatics has come from relevance

theory (RT) which is a theory of communication and cognition rather than a model

of pragmatics.

Successful communication is a question of degrees of success rather than a binary

distinction between success and lack of success. It is a fact that the addressee will

always assume that the speaker has done everything in her/his power to produce

an utterance which can give rise to what Sperber and Wilson call 'contextual

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effects' which means that the assumptions will significantly alter the speaker and

addressee mutual cognitive context.

Relevance may differ from speaker to addressee, from one addressee to the next,

from one context to another and from one conversational turn to the next. The

major principle in RT is that no utterance can ever be fully detemiined with respect

to its meaning. The addressee will filter out the prepositional content from

utterance, then use infomiation from the context of the utterance and her/his own

knowledge and knowledge that can be presumed to be shared with the speaker to

enrich the proposition by creating inferred assumption, for example,

A- Where is your sister?

B-1 do not know.

This response is discursive one if A has ever reason to believe that B generally

does know about his or her sister's whereabouts. A can think that (B is lying/B

doesn't want to tell me where her/his sister is, etc). By the aid of all those

researches, one can decide that a Gricean approach to the analysis of politeness

in discursive practice was insufficient to provide an explanation for Interactants'

ability to perceive (im) politeness behavior.

4.21 Related Work on Politeness

This work deals with possible practical applications of politeness theory to th(

research concerns of such areas as development and cognitive psychology

business and management studies, etc. Work carried out on linguistic politenes

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can be grouped generally Into five categories:

1. Work criticizing aspects of the Brown and Levlnson model

2. Empirical work on particular types of speech activity

3. Cross-cultural work assessing the ways in which two or more cultures

differ in their realization of politeness

4. The application of politeness models, mainly Brown and Levinson's, to

data in other disciplines

5. Sporadic attempts to suggest alternative lines of enquiry into the

phenomenon of linguistics politeness. (Watts, 2002:250)

There are two major criticisms that can be applied to most of the current

investigation: how the puzzle of politeness has been solved by relating it to

facework and the nature not only of the Brown and Levinson's model but also of

most other models in the field. A speaker might use a linguistic expression, which

s/he intends to be heard as more than is necessary to uphold the levels of

linguistic behavior appropriate to the discursive situation, but the hearer may not

interpret the utterance in the way it is intended to be interpreted.

4.22 Conclusion

In this chapter, the different works and studies over politeness (especially

politeness principle) have been discussed and the scholars' conceptualizations,

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theories, and researches have been explained. The researcher tries to evaluate a

point of view that each individual's subjective classification of her/his own social

behavior or that of another as 'polite' may correspond to another individual's

classification. In other words, everyone agrees about what constitutes polite

language usage. In the following chapter, the relation between the cooperative

principle (CP) and the politeness principle (PP) will be analyzed against various

parameters of principles and maxims that have been scrutinized in this and

previous chapter. The illustrations will be explicated through some examples from

the selected novels in the subsequent chapter.

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