Week 3: Affective meaning / Politeness theory

Affective meaning
A speech act that conveys the emotions of the speaker has affective
meaning.

How? By the choice of synonyms, the speaker describes an event while giving
an emotional reaction to it / the same referential meaning but a different
affective meaning.

1. The movie we saw had a runtime of 128 minutes. (length/neutral)

2. We sat through a movie that was more than two hours long. (bored, tired, or
unhappy about the length)
3. La La Land seemed to be over in a flash even though it was actually more
than two hours long. (enjoyed the movie)
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1. Person A killed person B.
2. The vicious murderer aimed the gun and shot the innocent
victim.
3. The hero triumphed over the villain.

A statement of fact is modified to give more information, but also to

express the attitude of the speaker about the incident / Tabloids

Mass media, particularly the tabloids, use sentences like the second and
third ones to affect the reader's attitude about the story.

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 Politeness theory

Every speech act involves the concept of face (sociological).

Face: a kind of self-esteem, as in the saying “to save face”,
meaning to avoid embarrassment or humiliation / a person’s
desire to maintain prestige and positive standing in society as
well as the prestige and positive standing of others.

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 Politeness theory

Positive face is the act of seeking to be admired and approved by the

communicators. Negative face is the desire to not be distracted or
imposed upon.

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 Politeness theory

In every speech act: a transaction of face, and the speaker must

negotiate the politeness strategies for effecting maintenance of face and
avoiding face threatening acts.

Face threatening acts: behaviors that encroach upon a person’s need to

maintain self-esteem.

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 Politeness theory
The type of politeness negotiation will depend on the perception of the
context in which the communication is taking place and on the social status,
the gender, the age, and other similar factors of the speaker and the listener.

Positive politeness: when we engage people in a way that maintains the

communicators’ self- image and lets them know that we enjoy being with
them. (friendliness/maintain positive face)

When the speaker wants to achieve positive politeness with a member of the
same social group, the speaker might use one of the phrases that
establishes a common social identity. This tums any speech act such as a
request, invitation, or a command into a transaction between equals.
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Negative politeness: the hearer's independence and freedom to act / the act
of avoiding intrusion into such things as a person’s privacy or personal space.

Ex: not asking a person about a potentially embarrassing personal situation one
would be employing negative politeness in order to save the listener’s negative face.

The communicators are using a strategy of avoiding what would be a face-

threatening act. The negative face: what a person wants to avoid, such as having his
or her
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 Group work
1. Write three pairs of sentences that have the same referential meaning but different
affective meanings. Explain the difference in the affective meaning of the pairs of sentences.

2. Exercise 3 (p.172)

3. Analyze this case:

Of the following three choices that could occur when a guest came to your home to visit,
which would you believe would be most likely to cause a threat to your face or that of your
guest?

a. Can I have a glass of water?

b. Could you take your feet off my table?
c. Make yourself at home.

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