Politeness Phenomenon, Contd

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Politeness Phenomenon, Contd

• Prof A. Elhaloui

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The three things we have seen so far

• A model person face rationality
• Some acts are face-threatening acts
• Examples of the ways some acts can threaten face
  (Ss face or Hs face).

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Strategies for doing the FTA

• In the context of the mutual vulnerability of
  face, any rational agents will seek to avoid
  these face threatening acts, or will employ
  certain strategies to minimize the threat.
• How?

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Summary of the Four Politeness Strategies

• Do FTA on record (baldly, with no redressive
  action)
• Do it off record
• Do it on record with redressive action (PP)
• Do it on record with redressive action (NP)

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1- Do it on record, baldly-without redressive
action

• If it is clear to the participants what
  communicative intentions led the actor to do A
  (there is just one unambiguously attributible
  intention with which witnesses would concur).
• Example I promise to come tomorrow
• If the participants concur that by saying so I
  am unabiguously committing myself to a future act
  (that of coming tomorrow).

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1- on record, baldly without redressive action

• Doing the FTA in the most direct, clear,
  unambiguous and concise way possible
• Example Open the window!
• The Cooperative Principle

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2- do it off record

• If there is more than one unambiguously
  attributable intention.
• Example Damn it! I am out of cash, I forgot to
  go to the bank today.
• I may mean that I want you to lend me some money
  without committing myself to it.

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2- do it off record

• Recognizable off-record strategies are
• Metaphors
• Irony
• Rhetorical quetions
• Tautologies
• Understatements

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Do it on record with redressive action

• Doing it but indicating clearly that no face
  threat is intended or desired, and S generally
  recognizes Hs face wants and himself wants them
  to be achieved.
• This strategy takes one of two possible forms
  positive politeness or negative politeness.

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3- Negative Politeness

• Its oriented to mainly towards partially
  satisfying Hs negative face, his basic want to
  maintain claims of territory and
  self-determination. Its essentially
  avoidance-based
• Apologies
• Impersonalization mechanisms
• Face-saving escapes

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4- Positive Politeness

• It s oriented mainly towards satisfying the
  basic needs of positive face
• Attending to the hearers need
• Showing interest in the hearer
• Agree with the hearer
• etc

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Summary of the Four Politeness Strategies

• Do FTA on record (baldly, with no redressive
  action)
• Do it off record
• Do it on record with redressive action (PP)
• Do it on record with redressive action (NP)

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A Graphic Representation of the PS
Do the FTA
Off record
On record
With redressive action
Without redressive action
PP
PP
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Note ...

• Can you pass me the salt?
• Three questions
• How do we derive a request from a question?
• Why do we have indirectness (a question instead
  of a request)?
• Why does the question sound like a conventional
  way of making a request?

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Note ...

• Can you pass me the salt?
• We learnt how to derive a request from a question
  ...
• Now we understand why we have indirectnessIndirec
  tness means we are NOT imposing a negative
  politeness strategy.
• One question we still need to deal with, however,
  is why does indirectness sound conventional?

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Note ...

• on record requirement negative
  politeness
• Conventionalized indirectness.

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The factors determining the Assessment of threat

• Social distance
• Relative power
• Absolute ranking
• Weightiness of threat S (S,H) P (H, S) Rx

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How do pariticipants infer politenes strategies?

• The four highest level (the most general)
  strategies of politeness are referred to as
• Super-strategies

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How do pariticipants infer politenes strategies?

• Strategies emanating from them are referred to as
  higher-order strategies
• output strategies are those that emanate from
  higher order strategies and are linguistically
  expressed.

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Super-strategies higher-order startegies
output strategies
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Higher order strategies of positive politeness

• Claim common ground
• Convey that S and H are cooperators
• Fulfill Hs want for some X

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Output PP strategies

• Notice, attend to H (his intersts, needs, wants,
  goods)
• Exaggerate interest in, approval of, symapathy
  with H
• Intensify interst to H
• Seek agreement
• Pressupose, raise, assert common ground.
• Joke
• Assume or assert reciprocity

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Examples notice, attend to

• Goodness, you cut you hair ... By the way I came
  to borrow some flour
• You must be hungry. Its a long time since
  breakfast. How about some lunch?

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Example Exaggerate

• What a fantastic garden you have!
• Yes, isnt it just ghastly the way it always
  seems to rain just when youve hung your laundry
  out?

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Example intensify interest to H

• I come down the stairs, and what do you think I
  see? a huge mess all over the place, the
  phones off the hook and the clothes are
  scattered all over...

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Example in-group identity markers

• Here mate, I was keeping that seat for a friend
  of mine.
• Come here, mate/honey/darling

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Example seek agreement

• Safe topics
• Repetition
• A- John went to London this weekend
• B- To London

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Example Joke

• Ok if I tackle those cookies?
• How about lending me this old heap of junk? (Hs
  new Cadillac)

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Negative Politeness Super-strategies

• Dont assume
• Dont coerce H
• Communicate Ss want not to impinge on H
• Redress other wants of Hs, derivative from
  negative face.

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Negative Politeness output strategies

• Be conventionally indirect
• Question
• Be pessimistic
• Minimize imposition
• Impersonalize S and H

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Example question, hedge

• A swing is a sort of toy
• I rather think its hopeless
• This paper is not exactly social anthropology
• I suppose/think/guess that Harry is coming.

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Be pessimistic

• muHal nalqa 3andak shi mya ddarham daba?

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Minimize imposition

• I just want to ask you if you can lend me a tiny
  bit/little/single sheet of paper