Brown & Levinson (1987). Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage. C.U.

FACE: the public self-image of a person.

It refers to that emotional and social sense of self that everyone has and expects
everyone else to recognise.

Linguistic politeness

Politeness involves us showing an awareness of other people’s FACE WANTS

i.e., their expectations concerning their public self-image, which has two
aspects:
positive face
negative face

Positive face:
Our need to be accepted and liked by others
Our need to feel that our social group shares common goals

Negative face:
Our right to independence of action
Our need not to be imposed on by others

Positive politeness:
Orients to preserving the positive face of other people. For this we use speech
strategies that emphasize our solidarity with the hearer: informal pronunciation,
shared dialect, slang expressions, less indirect requests, nicknames, “we”
reference

Solidarity strategies:
The tendency to use positive politeness forms, emphasizing closeness between
the participants, can be seen as a solidarity strategy.
Linguistically, it includes personal information, use of nicknames, sometimes
even abusive terms (particularly among males), and shared dialect or slang
expressions. Frequently it is marked via inclusive terms, such as “we”, “let’s”.

Negative politeness:
Orients to preserving the negative face of other people, which is much more
likely if there is social distance between speaker & hearer. For this we use
speech strategies which emphasize our deference for the hearer.

Deference strategies:
The tendency to use negative politeness forms, emphasizing the hearer’s right to
freedom can be seen as a deference strategy.
A deference strategy is involved in what is called `formal politeness´. The
language associated with it emphasizes the participants’ independence.
No personal claims: Avoid nicknames, avoid slang, avoid informal
pronunciation, requests tend to be more indirect and impersonal, often involving
Could you…, Could I ask you..? and other mitigating devices: please, possibly,
might, I’m sorry…
GLOSSARY:

face-threatening act: action or utterance which threatens a person’s public self-image.

face-saving act: Utterance or action which avoids a potential threat to a person’s public
self-image.

On record: Utterances directly addressed to another person.

Being on-record: When you use direct address forms

Off-record: Utterances not directly addressed to another person.

Being off-record: When you are indirect. When you make a statement that is not
directly addressed to the other person.

Bald on record: is the most direct approach. When you use imperative forms so that
the other person is directly asked for something.

mitigating devices: Expressions used to soften an imposition, e.g. “please”, “would

you?”