Ministry of Higher Education

University of Babylon

College of Education for Human Sciences

Department of English

A presentation of Politeness

Submitted by
Serena Majeed and Safa Naji Abd

Supervised by

Prof .Dr. Salih Mahdi Adai

2019/2020
1.1 introduction
Politeness consists of linguistic and non-linguistic behavior through which
people marked that they take other’s feelings of how they should be treated
into considerations.While politeness is predominately pragmatics –related field
. It has emerged in other field as well and being realized as an multidisciplinary
in nature . The study of politeness has been conducted in sociolinguistic, social
psychology, and cognition.
In the late 1970 and early 1980 the research of politeness in pragmatics has
started .The field has undergone various methodological and theoretical
changes . The first wave of politeness research has characterized with the
researchers either attempted to model politeness across languages and cultures
by using universal frame work ,or engaged in culture- specific criticism of such
frameworks BUT in the second wave the researchers has attempted to approach
politeness as an individualistic ,interactionally co-constricted phenomena.In the
third wave of politeness research ,scholars attempt to model politeness across
languages and cultures ,without compromising the endeavor of examining
politeness as an interactionally co-constricted phenomena.(kadar 2017,1)
In the course of this presentation the reader gets knowledge of politeness
approaches that has impact on the politeness up to the present day,some
important concepts ,and characteristics .

2.1 Politeness
Huang (2007)presents four main theoretical models of politeness :
I. The social norm model proposed by Goffman.
II. Brown and Levinson model
III. The conversational contract model (Fraser 1990)
 IV. The conversational maxim model proposed by Leech(1983)
2.2 Goffman’s work
Goffman introduces the concept of face ,and define it as the positive social
value a person effectively claims for him or herself .He considers face to be on
loan from society , liable to be withdrawn if an individual conducts him or
herself in a way that is unworthy of it ,and it is realized solely in social
interactions(Archer, Aijmer and Wichmann,2012)
2.3 Frasers and CC(Conversational Contact)
For Fraser conversation relies upon being polite or operating within the
terms of a conversational contact . Which can always be renegotiated during
actual interaction ,because politeness is viewed as unmarked norms and as a
means of ensuring socially acceptable behavior (Archer et al )

2.4 Brown and Levinson’s theory of politeness

The work of Brown and levinson is based on sociological notion of face , which
introduced by Goffman .Their contribution is the most popular influential work
that is ever done in the study of politeness Brown and Levinson’s idea was this
:people aren’t just information –processing being .they also have social needs
(wants).their linguistic politeness model is more rationalistic than its empirical
because their adaptation of Model Person(MP). (MP) is a choice from a
number of politeness super strategies which are studied on action of lesser –
great risk .(Archer et al) .They define face as “the public self image that
every member wants to claim for himself” (Rosidi 2011).

-There are two important concepts that need to be mention In

discussing face concept :
1- Face threating act (FTA) means the people’s deed which represents a threat
to another person self- image .For instance, the speaker asks his friend to do
something in direct way by saying “give me that paper”. FTA happens based
on three aspect . these three aspect depends on the cultural situation
between the speaker and the herarer.
a- Social distance is a social range between speaker and hearer . for example
, the degree of familiarity and solidarity appear between the hearer and
the speaker.
b- Relative power is the strength of the speaker to be respected by the
hearer e.g., the speaker ability to impose his will on the hearers
c- Absolate ranking is absolute position to impose the hearer to perform an
act and the degree to create an imposition of the hearer.
2- Face saving act means the speaker say something that lesson the possible
threat ,for example , someone asks his friend to do something indirect
speech act “ could you pass me the paper”.(prifanti 2016,17-18)

-Levinson and Brown make a number of strategies are stated as

below:
1. Bald on-record strategies usually don’t attempt to minimize the threat to the
hearer’s face .Although there are ways that bald on –record politeness can
be used in trying to minimize FTAs implicity .often using such a strategy is
most often utilized in situation where the speaker has a close relationship
with the audience ,such as family or close friends.
2. Off- record the final politeness strategy outlined by the researchers is the
indirect strategy . this strategy uses indirect language and removes the
speakers from the potential to be imposing such as a speaker using the
indirect strategy might merely say “wow, it’s getting cold in here” insinuating
that it would be nice if the listener would get up and turn up the thermasatat
without directly asking the listener to do so.
3. On record positive politeness and negative politeness ,in their 1987 book ,
Brown and Levinson has defined positive face as the want of every member
that his want be desirable to at least some others and the negative face as
the want of every competent adult member that his action be unimpeded by
others ,that is ,the freedom of actions and freedom from imposition . they
characterized positive face by desire to be liked and admired .positive face
refers to one’s self-esteem while negative face refers to ones freedom to act
.
a- There are strategies addressed to the hearer’s negative face
and are thus examples of negative politeness .
1.Be conventionally indirect :could you tell me the time please?
2- don’t assume willingness to comply ,questions ,hedges :I wonder
whether I could just sort of ask you a little question.
3-be pessimistic about ability or willingness to comply :use subjunctive : if
you had a little time to spare for me that afternoon ,I’d like to talk about
my paper .
4- minimize the imposition :could I talk to you for just a minute?
5-Give difference :(to a police constable )Excuse me , officer ,I think I might
have parked in the wrong place .
6-Apologize e.g., sorry to bother you but…
7- impersonalize the speaker and the hearer .Avoid the pronouns I and you:
A . That’s car parked in no-parking area .
B .It is mine , officer.
c.Well, it will have to have parking ticket.
8- state a FTA as instance of a general rule : parking on the double yellow
lines is illegal ,so- (FTA) I ‘m going to have to give you a fine.
9-Nominalize to distance the actor and add formality : participation in an
illegal demonstration is punishable by law. E.g., Could I have your name and
address ,madam?

B-positive politeness strategies seek to minimize the threat to the hearers

positive face . they are used to make the hearer feel good about himself , his
 interests , or possessions and used in situations where the audience knows
each other fairly well . Some of strategies are the following :
1. Attend the hearer’s interests , needs, wants
e.g., you look sad .Can I do anything?
2- Use solidarity in group identity markers
e.g., Heh ,mate, can you lend me a dollar?
3- be optimistic
e.g., I ‘ll just come a long ,if you don’t mind.
4-include both speaker and the hearer in activity
e.g., if we help each other , I guess , we ‘ll both sink and swim in this
course.
5-offer or promise
e.g., if you wash the dishes , l’ll vacumm the floor.
6- exaggerate interest in hearers and his interests.
e.g., that’s a nice haircut you got :where did you get it.(Rosidi 2011)
https://www.scribd.com/doc/46991253/Politness-Theory
 -Criticism of the model
1-The whole theory is based on FTA,to the extent that it cannot be
detached from it
2-This theory has been accused of having a western individualistis’ bias
which opposed to collectivist communities orientation to the group .This
underestimates the important differences between cultures.
3-Another defect is their adoption of an MP who uses rational ,goal-
orientated means to calculate the politeness strategies required in a given
interaction.
4-It leads to decontextualized pragmatics in the sense that it doesn’t fully
allow for the dynamics of interaction in real time .Where interlocutors must
responds to turn and not merely plan their own.
5-It does not adequately account for hearer(Allan,2016).

2.5 Leech’s politeness principle and maxims of interaction

Based on a Grician framework ,proposed the politeness principle and
elaborated on politeness as a regulative factor in communication through a set
of maximum . Politeness is a facilitating factor that influences the relation
between self which means by Leech the speaker and the other that is the
addressee .To Leech politeness is described as minimizing the expression of
impolite beliefs as the beliefs are unpleasant or at cost to it.Leech attached his
 politeness principle to cooperative principle in an attempt in an attempt to
account for the violation of cooperative principle in conversation . he regarded
politeness as a key pragmatics phenomenon not only for the indirect conveying
of of what people mean in communication but also as one of reasons people
deviate from .(Shahrokhiand Bidabadi 2013 , 21).
One of important characteristics in leech’s theory is the distinction
between absolute politeness and relative politeness ,the former(absolute
politeness) is brought into play to minimize the impoliteness of inherently
impolite illocution and maximizing the politeness of polite illucation .Absolute
politeness involves the association of speech act with types of politeness and
has a positive and negative pole since some speech act such as offers are
intrinsically polite while others such as orders are intrinsically impolite. In the
case of relative politeness as states is the norms of a particular culture or
language community and context or speech situation is influential on its
variation this relativity is a matter of the difference of language speakers in the
application of the politeness principle .

Gricean frame work established a set of maximum to form the politeness

principle as stated below :

Maxim Where Found Description

1. The tact In impositives and commisives The speaker[3] minimizes
maxim the cost (and
correspondingly maximizes
the benefit) to the listener .
2. In impositives and commissives. The speaker minimizes the
The generosity benefit (and correspondingly
maxim maximizes the cost) to
herself.
3. In expressives and assertives. The speaker minimizes
The approbation dispraise (and
maxim correspondingly maximizes
praise) of the listener.
4. The modesty In expressives and assertives. The speaker minimizes
maxim. praise (and correspondingly
maximizes dispraise) of
herself.
5. In assertives. The speaker minimizes
The agreement disagreement (and
maxim. correspondingly maximizes
agreement)
between herself and
the listener.
6. The sympathy In assertives. The speaker minimizes
maxim. antipathy (and
correspondingly maximizes
sympathy)
between herself and
the listener.

.Ibid.,

3.Characteristics of politeness
1-Politeness is not obligatory .Politeness is generally thought to be a good
thing but people can be non polite :for example ,a member of the concert
audience could have booed or sat in stony silent when the time for
applause arrived .
2-There are varying gradations of polite and impolite behavior as in the
violin performance .A bow is a gesture of lowering one-self physically and
hense socially and the deeper the bow the more self -lowering and polite
deemed to be whereas the clapping the cheering is a response signaling
appreciation ,the greater appreciation of someone’s performance the
more polite the response.
3-Notice that there is often a sense of what is normal recognized by
members of society as to how polite to be for a particular occasion if after a
dexterous piece of playing ,the violinist received only two perfunctory
round of applause ,this would be felt less polite of than normal but if
audience continued its rapturous for ten minutes .This would be considered
overpolite.
4-How far politeness will occur or whether it will occur at all depends on
the situation ,for example, a footballer who scores a goal ,instead of
bowing meekly ,is likely to execute some kind of war dance.
5-There is reciprocal asymmetry in polite behavior between two parties. To
give high value to other party or to attribute low value to one self is felt to
be polite ;to do the opposite – to give high value to one self or low value to
other person -is felt to be impolite.
6-The aspect of politeness can manifest itself in repetitive behavior ,which
is to a lesser or greater degree ritualized .The reiterative ritual of the
performer’s enterance with renewed applause is one example.
7-It is central to politeness that it involves the passing of some kind of
transaction of value between speaker and the receiver ,for example ,in
thanking , the speaker thanks someone for something .The “something”
referred to here is something of value (either material or
abstract).Traditionally ,in linguistics ,the study of politeness has centered
on certain kinds of speech act, all of which involve such transaction.
8-The last but not least , the politeness tendency isto preserve balance of
value between the participants .This is clear in the case of thanking by
which the sense of debt arises from an act of kindness of the other party
.(Leech 2014,4-8)

References
Allan ,k.Ed.(2016).The Routledge Handbook of linguistics.Routledge
Archer ,D., Aijmer ,k., Wichmann ,A.(2012). Pragmatics:An advanced book
for students .Routledge.
Kadar, Daaniel Z.2017.Politeness in Pragmatics.
Dol:10.1093/acrefore/9780199384655.013.218
Leech ,Geoffory .2014.The pragmatics of politeness .Oxford university press
Prifanti ,Septa.2016.FASE SAVING ACTS STRATEGIES PERFORMED BY EFL
STUDENTS IN PANEL DISSCUSION OF SPEAKING CLASS AT MAULANA MALLK
IBRAHIM STATE ISLAMIC UNIVERSITY OF MALANG.thesis.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=12&
ved=2ahUKEwjFh5Cn--
7oAhVDhqQKHW4ICA0QFjALegQIAhAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fetheses.uin-
malang.ac.id%2F5211%2F1%2F12320035.pdf&usg=AOvVaw2SwHqMXEIfZ0
lY7WFQb_IH

Rosidi, Fathan .2011.Politeness theory .

https://www.scribd.com/doc/46991253/Politness-Theory
Shahrokhi, Mohsen and Bidabadi ,Frainza Shirani .2013. An over view of
politeness theories :current status ,future orientation. American journal of
linguistics :17-22
Doi:10.5923/J.linguistics.20130202.2