Teaching impoliteness in second-language classroom

Hening Dian Paramita

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Abstract

In some cultures, disrespectful language, rudeness and impoliteness are considered taboo to be
used in classrooms and become attributes of language not taught at all. Because some teachers
would think foreign or second language mastery serves pleasant purposes of making friends, and
the cooperation and relating of experiences with speakers of other languages, the idea that
teaching impoliteness in the foreign-language classroom may have never occurred to them. In
contrast to the steadily growing studies on teaching politeness in the ESL (English as a Second
Language) context, teaching impoliteness appears to be disregarded. In this essay I will begin
by defining impoliteness and I will then discuss different types of impoliteness uttered by First
Language (L1) speakers toward Second Language (L2 )speakers with examples of impolite
remarks and responses. Finally, I will offer possible suggestions on what teachers can do to
raise the students’ awareness of impoliteness in the world of second or foreign language
learning.

I. Introduction

Impoliteness is one of everyday communicative realities and a person can act as the initiator or
the receiver, or even the counter-attacker, of impolite utterances. Foreign language students have
the communicative right to be one of those, provided that they are aware of the consequences of
their actions. Before I move further discussing how teachers can develop her students’
communication skills in recognizing and responding to impolite remarks, I will first explore the
definition of impoliteness.

There are two issues that complicate the defining of impoliteness:

1. Impoliteness can be seen in terms of either breaking social norms or being deliberately
offensive and disrespectful towards another person, meaning impoliteness should be seen
 whether as the absence of polite behavior (Watts 2003) or as the synonym of rudeness
(Kienpointner 2008: 245).

2. Interpretation and perceived seriousness of face-threatening acts (FTAs) may vary

between the conversation participants. ‘To attack face’ here means to cause other person Page | 2
to suffer embarrassment and to feel inferior.

Although seen as synonymous in some contexts, there is no clear agreement over how to
differentiate ‘impoliteness’ and ‘rudeness’. To tackle the issue, some researchers adopt a stance
on defining the two terms based around the concept of ‘intentionality’. Terkourafi (2008)
considers ‘rudeness’ to be the intentional threatening variant of non-cooperative and competitive
exchanges, and ‘impoliteness to be the unintentional one. However, Bousfield (2008) and
Culpeper (2008) disagree. As a theoretical construct, impoliteness may be defined as “the
communication strategies designed to attack face, and thereby cause social conflict and
disharmony” (Culpeper, Bousfield and Wichmann 2003: 1545). An utterance may be impolite at
the level of what is said as well as at the level of what is implicated. What is important to note is
that impoliteness belongs to communication strategies, meaning there are mental and verbal
efforts—to create conflict—and hence, by this definition, impoliteness is intentional.

Bousfield (2007: 155) affirmed that ‘for impoliteness to be considered successful impoliteness,
the intention of the speaker […] to “offend” (threaten/ damage face) must be understood by
someone in a receiver role.’ This is in line with a statement by Mugford (2008) that what
constitutes impoliteness is ultimately a hearer perception and judgment, in other words, second
language learners may find utterances to be impolite even when the target-language (TL) users
do not intend rudeness.

Pfister (2010) proposed a limitation to the conditions by which an utterance is impolite. An

utterance is said to be impolite if and only if (1) the speaker thereby imposes on the hearer, or (2)
the speaker thereby does not show approval of the desires and actions of the hearer. He further
explained that the interpretation depends on the conditions of what counts as imposing on the
hearer and on not showing approval of the desires and actions of the hearer. Giving an answer
which satisfies the conversational maxims in general may be considered to be showing approval
of the desires of the hearer.
II. The Study

In a study conducted by Mugford (2008) on Spanish-speaking learners of English as a Foreign

Language, 28 out of 50 second-language users and 31 out of 34 second-language teachers were
asked to recall incidents of impoliteness and why they considered them to be impolite. It was Page | 3

reported that they had experienced impoliteness in second-language contexts mostly caused by
native speakers of English, while the remaining 25 respondents of the study may not have been
aware of the use of impoliteness acted upon them—or never experienced it.

Given the spontaneous nature of spoken interactions, it is possible that arguments with which
various types of impolite language are infused occur between foreign language learners and
native speakers of the target language. And although most people may know intuitively how to
defend themselves in abusive situations, their verbal weapon to counteract the insult, be they
subtle or blatant, rely on their communicative competence. Thus, a teacher must prepare her
students for exposure to the not-so- pleasant situations in the target language beside encouraging
intercultural tolerance.

For the purpose of this paper, hereunder I will use these terms to refer to two parties involved
interchangeably: TL users or L1 speakers to mean native speakers of English; and TL learners,
ESL users or L2 speakers to mean second/foreign language learners.

III. Categories of Impoliteness

Studying impoliteness involves identifying different categories of face-threatening acts. To

provide a framework on which we base understanding of second-language learner perceptions of
impoliteness, I will use the following categories adapted from the work of Culpeper and
Spencer-Oatey as quoted by Mugford (2008):

Individual impoliteness—impoliteness which the hearer perceives as a personal attack.

Social impoliteness—impoliteness which the hearer perceives as an attack on her/his

social role.

Cultural impoliteness—impoliteness which the hearer perceives as an attack on her/his

ethnic group; and
 A cooperative activity between speaker and hearer which can be perceived as aggressive
if not perceived for what it is, which is called banter or impoliteness which reflects the
playful use of impolite language.

Each of these categories will be explained using data and examples taken from the study by Page | 4

Mugford (2008).

Individual Impoliteness

This type of impoliteness often reflects social interaction between strangers, acquaintances,
colleagues, classmates, friends and between teacher and students. ESL users in the study
reported they were not able to respond to unexpected contextual spontaneity of seemingly
impolite remarks. Furthermore, their proficiency plays an important role in determining how
they perceive impoliteness because some remarks involve words that have different degree of
connotation between their mother tongue, Spanish, and English. For example, the Spanish word
estupido has a much stronger connotation than the English ‘stupid’.

Example 1.

A stranger said to an ESL user who was blocking the way, “Move, move!” Making the hearer
feel he had to do as he was told by a stranger marked the superiority of the speaker.

Social Impoliteness

With social impoliteness, ESL users are more likely to give responses to remarks because
of the systematic and recurring nature of social politeness. Strategies for making counter-
attacking responses include excessive politeness, as shown in Example 3, and justification, in
Example 4.

Example 2.

A passer-by (TL user) told an ESL charity worker originating from Mexico as she was collecting
for an American cause, “I only donate to the U.S.” denying the ESL user’s right to collect for
charity.
Example 3.

Shop assistant (L1 speaker) : Can’t you see it is right behind you?

Customer (L2 speaker) : Thank you so much for your help, sir.
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Example 4.

Bus driver (L1 speaker) : You have to pay attention.

Passenger (L2 speaker) : Oh I didn’t think it was my bus.

With social impoliteness, a L1 speaker interpreted L2 speaker’s remark as rejecting their

social identity as shown in Example 2. L1 speakers/TL users also behave towards L2 speakers in
a way that belittles or underestimates L2 speakers’ competence as member of society as shown
in Examples 3 and 4. The probability that impoliteness would occur varies contextually. To
enter the United States, ESL users who are legal immigrants need to go through Customs and
Immigration. Upon dealing with immigration officials, ESL users feel that their instructions may
appear to be hasty although the immigration officials may see themselves as only carrying out
their duty.

Cultural Impoliteness

This type of impoliteness is the most aggressive and most blatant of all four because it attacks
ESL users by accusing their native land or ethnicity of being underdeveloped and inferior, often
through racist and prejudiced remarks. The motivation behind cultural impoliteness is to
insult—knowing the insulted party cannot take immediate actions to improve the situation in
their home land, as well as to position the insulted as an inferior person.

Example 5.

L1 speaker : Do you have electricity in Mexico?

L2 speaker : We are behind but not that much.

Making such a reply to a remark of underdevelopment in Example 5 is an attempt to counteract

the allegation. I think the L2 learner was modest in the admission that his native country is
behind the L1 speaker’s country in terms of technology. While it may be factual that his country
is technologically less developed than the L1 speaker’s, I see bare ignorance on the part of the L1
speaker. Even if the L1 speaker knew that there certainly was electricity in Mexico and was
sarcastic with his comment, were I the L2 speaker in this context, I would use a question to
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respond to him and make him regret having ridiculed himself with his remark. My reply would
have been, “How do you think we fly hundreds of airplanes everyday to your country?” or “How
do you think we make clothes, toys and car parts that you use?”

Banter

Banter requires wits, cultural references and sufficient proficiency in the target language. Taken
playfully, this type of impoliteness can be amusing to deal with.

Example 6.

L1 speaker : beaner

L2 speaker : gringo

Example 6 reflects racist insults—‘beaner’ is a reference to Mexicans, because Mexican food is

big on beans, and ‘gringo’ is a Spanish word known to be demeaning to white people.

IV. Teaching Impoliteness

The data provided by the study by Mugford confirms the need to help students improve their
functional or pragmatic competence to deal with L1 speakers. There are four ways that teachers
can do this in their ESL classrooms.

First, teachers themselves must know how to use the target language in impolite situations. For
those that cannot, they need to enroll in teacher training programs to raise awareness of face-
threatening acts and offer strategies to their students for dealing with rudeness in the target
language.

Secondly, teachers need to re-examine reasons for not teaching impoliteness as there is still
reluctance on the part of the ESL teachers to include it in their classroom. Perhaps unknown to
them, not teaching impoliteness allows their students to be dominated by L1 speakers. Real
world examples reveal that ESL users are in vulnerable positions to being objects of individual,
social and cultural impoliteness. Teachers should help students prepare for the worst,
unexpected events in real life, such as dealing with impolite situations, and understanding the
students’ right to verbally express themselves the way they choose to, assuming adult ESL
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learners know the consequences of their actions and utterances.

Thirdly, teachers are recommended to incorporate cross-cultural understanding in their language

teaching to improve students’ understanding of the TL users’ values, attitudes and expectations.
After that, students should be asked to reflect on their own culture and compare that with the TL
culture. Example 1 in this paper may be used as a sample of another way to interpret a given
situation, TL culture-wise. The event may have happened because the L1 speaker thought the
ESL user was walking too slowly in front of him and abruptly instructed the ESL user to give
way because he was in a hurry or was a strong believer of the culturally-reflected proverb “Time
is money”. Knowing the expectations of the TL society, students will learn to adjust their
behaviors to minimize the causes of L1 speakers’ rudeness and to better determine perceptions of
impoliteness with a broader perspective.

Finally, whilst teachers teach polite interaction in TL context, they can modify the teaching
materials by demonstrating how impoliteness can sometimes happen using actual examples and
discuss strategies to cope with impoliteness.

V. Conclusion

Continuing the discourse of studies disclosing the truth out there that students are facing, this
paper is one more reminder for teachers who still think that teaching impoliteness is taboo.
Teaching language hits the target only when language learners successfully communicate in the
target language employing a wide range of competences. Dealing with impoliteness and
rudeness in the target language is part of functional competence. It is inevitable that language
learners will encounter hard times, one of which is social conflicts ignited by L1 speakers; more
than TL proficiency is required to tackle that. Teachers are responsible for developing students’
awareness of impolite situations; sharpening students’ perceptions and understanding of the TL
culture to be able to detect real insults; and guiding students to develop their own resources so
that they know how to deal with impolite and rude situations.
References

Bousfield, D. (2007b). Beginnings, middles and ends: A biopsy of the dynamics of impolite
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