A study of politeness strategies in the conversational activities of the course book new cutting edge (elementary, pre intermediate and intermediate)

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY NGUYEN THI KHANH A STUDY OF POLITENESS STRATEGIES IN THE CONVERSATIONAL ACTIVITIES OF THE COURSE BOOK “NEW CUTTING EDGE” E

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY

NGUYEN THI KHANH

A STUDY OF POLITENESS STRATEGIES IN THE

CONVERSATIONAL ACTIVITIES OF THE COURSE BOOK “NEW

CUTTING EDGE”

(ELEMENTARY, PRE-INTERMEDIATE AND INTERMEDIATE)

(NGHIÊN CỨU CÁC CHIẾN LƯỢC LỊCH SỰ ĐƯỢC SỬ DỤNG TRONG

CÁC BÀI HỘI THOẠI CỦA GIÁO TRÌNH GIAO TIẾP NEW CUTTING EDGE ELEMENTARY, PRE-INTERMEDIATE VÀ INTERMEDIATE)

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DECLARATION

I hereby declare that no part of the enclosed Master Thesis has been copied or reproduced by me from any other’s work without acknowledgement and that the thesis is original written by me under strict guidance of my

supervisor

Hanoi, November 10th 2013

I would like to acknowledge and express my appreciation to my colleagues at Quang Ninh University of Industry, English department for their enthusiastic support and constructive suggestions in completing this research

I also wish to thank all the staff members of the Faculty of Post Graduate, Hanoi Open University for giving me the best environment to fulfill

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ABSTRACT

This study is to focus on positive and negative politeness strategies in conversations of the course book “New Cutting Edge Elementary, Pre- Intermediate, Intermediate”, with an aim to help the students at Quang Ninh University improve their awareness of politeness strategies in conversational activities in the course book mentioned above, thus to apply these strategies

in their everyday conversations in English The thesis lists three most popular politeness theories: Politeness rules of Lakoff, Politeness principles maxims

of Leech and Politeness strategies of Brown and Levinson The course book is analyzed mainly in the light of the politeness theories of Brown & Levinson The research shows that people seems to prefer using negative positive strategy in conversational activities than others The last but not the least, some suggestions for learning and teaching positive, negative and off – record strategies are also presented

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii

ABSTRACT iii

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS iv

TABLE OF CONTENTS v

PART I: INTRODUCTION 1

1 Rationale of the study 1

2 Aims of the study 3

3 Research questions 3

4 Scopes of the study 4

5 Methods of the study 4

6 Design of the study 4

PART II: DEVELOPMENT 6

CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW 6

1.1 Language and culture 6

1.2 Speech acts 7

1.2.1 Locutionary Acts 9

1.2.2 Illocutionary Acts 9

1.2.3 Perlocutionary Acts 11

1.3.4 Direct and indirect speech acts 11

1.3 Cooperative Principle and Grice’s Maxims 12

1.4 Politeness 14

1.4.1 General ideas of politeness 14

1.4.2 Face 15

1.4.3 Politeness rules of Lakoff 16

1.4.4 Politeness Principle Maxims of Leech 17

1.4.5 Politeness strategies of Brown and Levinson 19

i) Don’t do the FTA (say nothing) 20

ii) Bald on-record 21

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iii) Positive strategies 22

iv) Negative strategies 29

v) Off-record 34

CHAPTER II: CLASSIFICATION OF POLITENESS STRATEGIES IN THE CONVERSATIONAL ACTIVITIES OF THE COURSE BOOK “NEW CUTTING EDGE” I, II, III 39

2.1 Frequency of occurrence of positive, negative, off – record politeness strategies in conversational activities in the course book “New Cutting Edge” 40

2.2 Positive, negative and off – record politeness strategies of the course book “New Cutting Edge” 44

2.2.1 Positive politeness strategies in conversational activities 44

2.2.2 Negative politeness strategies in conversational activities 48

2.2.3 Off - record strategies in conversational activities 50

CHAPTER III: IMPLICATIONS FOR ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING AND SUPPLEMENTARY ACTIVITIES 54

3.1 Implications for teaching politeness strategies 54

3.2 Supplementary activities 55

PART III: CONCLUSION 66

REFERENCES 70

APPENDIX 75

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PART I: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale of the study

As we know that we are living in the world of globalization English language is a common language and is spoken in many countries It is considered as universal language Nowadays, English has played an important role in our daily life and made a considerable contribution to education, culture, business, science and technology Most of the universities worldwide include English as one of their major subject and the number of people learning English for different purposes such as finding a job, doing businesses

or traveling is continually on the increase every day Therefore, different kinds of English teaching and learning are available over the world especially

in Vietnam

In Vietnam, English becomes the core language to communicate with other countries over the world so English becomes a compulsory subject at many schools at many levels such as: schools, colleges and universities from major to non-major in English However, the basis method is used in teaching

in Vietnam is more concentrating on vocabulary and grammar than on communication Therefore, learners do not know what to say to have contextual, situational and cultural appropriateness in communication Consequently, learners have a certain limit when communicating or interacting in an appropriate way or even being culture shock although they can read well or have a good grammar

Nguyen Quang [20, 2] states that one cannot master a language without profound awareness of its cultural background and in both verbal and non-verbal communication, culture makes itself strongly felt So in order

to acquire the second language-English, it is necessary to learn not only

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linguistic knowledge and interaction but also knowledge of English culture

which described as the ideas, customs, skills, arts and tools which characterize a given group of people in a given period of time (Marie Emmitt and John Pollock, cited from Dang Thanh Phuong [18, 39] Nowadays, some cultural factors are included in the course design in universities and schools only When understanding the cultural factors students have chances to expose themselves to natives speaking environments Normally, Vietnamese students tend to employ English based on their native culture and cause misinterpretation in oral communication They are sometimes impolite, unfriendly even rude by chance

Hence, to be successful in communicating in the target language, learners must be aware of their own culture of the target speech community Especially, they must understand the hidden and very important parts of the target culture including the politeness strategies used in everyday conversations

There were some authors such as Thanh Huong (2005), Nguyen Thuy Hoa (2010), Tran Thi Phuong (2011), Pham Thi Hong Lien (2012) mentioned

on politeness strategies in the conversational activities of different course books: “New Headway”, “Inside Out”, “New English File”…These studies only concentrated on studying positive and negative strategies used in the researched course books and mainly relied on the Nguyen Quang’s politeness strategies theory to find out politeness strategies employed in those course books

This study aims to more deeply and fully understand about politeness strategies in all aspects, politeness rules and how the aspects used in the course book New Cutting Edge according to the theory of Brown and

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Levinson Some linguistic researches on politeness such as Politeness rules of Lakoff (1975), Politeness principles maxims of Leech (1983) and Politeness strategies of Brown and Levinson (1987) are given and analyzed Author analyzed the course book in the light of Brown and Levinson theory which is considered as the most influential one In this thesis, off – record strategies are found in the course book beside positive and negative politeness strategies

New Cutting Edge which contains a lot of useful conversational activities with many real life situations, is an English course book written by Sarah Cunningham and Peter Moor This course book is employed at the Faculty of English (Quang Ninh University of Industry) where thesis author works as a teacher of English so as to improve the teaching and learning of verbal communication in English

2 Aims of the study

The study aims at the following objectives:

- To study different kinds of politeness strategies

- To classify politeness strategies used in the interaction activities in the course book “New Cutting Edge”

- To provide suggestions for effective teaching and learning

- To adapt and design some cross-cultural activities to help students avoid misinterpretations and misunderstandings in cross-cultural communication

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- What types of politeness strategies are used in interaction activities of the course book “New Cutting Edge”?

- What are the suggestions for effective teaching of politeness strategies?

4 Scopes of the study

The study focuses only on major politeness strategies found in the interaction activities of the course book “New Cutting Edge” (Elementary, Pre-intermediate and Intermediate [see at next page]) which for a long time, has been in use at Quang Ninh University of Industry

5 Methods of the study

The major methods that the author has employed are quantitative and qualitative All the considerations remarks and comments are based on analysis and references The theoretical background of chapter 1 largely

depends on the published research of various authors

The main supporting methods are: Reference to publications, Discussion with the supervisor, Discussion with colleagues, Discussion with students, Personal observation

6 Design of the study

The study is divided into 3 parts:

Part I is the opening of the study which includes the rationale, the aims

of the study, the research questions, the scopes, the methods of the study

Part II is the main part of the study which consists of three chapters

Chapter 1 provides the theoretical background on language and culture,

speech act, Cooperative Principle and Maxims, the definitions of face,

politeness and politeness strategies Chapter 2 analyzes positive, negative,

off - record politeness strategies found in the conversational activities of the course book "New New Cutting Edge" (Elementary, Pre – intermediate,

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Intermediate) Chapter 3 presents the implications for learning and teaching

politeness strategies for students at Quang Ninh University of Industry, supplementary exercises and activities for cross - cultural study

Part III is the conclusion of the study which summarizes the study and suggestions for further research

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PART II: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1 Language and culture

The term culture is a too large area to give a satisfying definition

Pioneer English Anthropologist Edward Tylor defined culture is that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, law, morals, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society [27, 1]

According to Fanz Boas, culture is defined as the totality of the mental and physical reactions and activities that characterize the behavior of individuals composing a social group collectively and individually in relations to their natural environment, to other groups, to members of the group itself and of each individual to himself It also includes the products of these activities and their role in more, for its elements are not independent, they have a structure [3, 149]

Another widely – accepted definition is that language is an inseparable part of our everyday lives It is the main tool used to transmit messages, to communicate ideas, thoughts and opinions It situates us in the society we live in; it is a social affair which creates and further determines our position in all kinds of various social networks and institutions Nguyen Quang [20, 3]

defined that culture enables us to communicate with each other since it is a shared language background (e.g national, religions), resulting from a common language and communication styles, customs, beliefs, attitudes, values

In certain circumstances we are literally dependent on its appropriate usage and there are moments when we need to be understood quite correctly Language is involved in nearly all fields of human activity and maybe that is

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why language and linguistic communication have become a widely discussed topic among linguists, lawyers, psychologists and philosophers

Language is a term to the general faculty, which enables human beings

to engage in the verbal exchange of information Language is considered as the “principal means” of conducting our social lives

It could be obvious that language and culture are interrelated and can not exist outside the social context There are many ways in which the phenomena of language are intimately related Both phenomena are unique to humans and have therefore been the subject of a great deal of anthropological, sociological study Language, of course, is determined by culture People of different cultures have different ways of viewing and interpreting the world Hence, learning a language has to go with learning culture

According to Searle [29, 16], he defined Speech act is an action such as making a statement, giving orders, asking questions, making appointments, etc., this action is generally made possible by and conducted in accordance with certain rules for the use of linguistic elements Austin thought that understand

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language one must understand the speaker’s intention and by understanding the speaker’s intention, it is possible to capture the meaning and establish a speech act

Austin, the pioneer of speech acts theory and an American language philosopher, states that speech acts are not just acts such as making a word,

but also having more meaning behind the words uttered, as suggested in How

to Do Things with Words in which he introduces basic terms and areas to study and distinguishes locutionary, illocutionary and perlocutionary acts [1, 101] According to Lyons [17, 173], Austin’s main purpose was to challenge the view that the only philosophically (and also linguistically) interesting function of language was that of making true or false statements) Austin proves that there are undoubtedly more functions language can exercise The theory of speech acts thus comes to being and Austin's research becomes a

cornerstone for his followers (cited from Justova, [5, 6])

According to Leech, locutionary, illocutionary and perlocutionary acts

are three basic components with the help of which a speech act is formed And Leech [14, 199] briefly defines them like this:

Locutionary act: performing an act of saying something;

Illocutionary act: performing an act in saying something;

Perlocutionary act: performing an act by saying something

E.g.: Turn off the light!

In the above example, locutionary act of this utterance is simply a

question with a clear content (Turn off the light)

Illocutionary act: He urged/required me to turn off the light

Perlocutionary act expresses the speaker’s desire that the H should go and turn off the light

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1.2.1 Locutionary Acts

Austin [1, 95] distinguished three aspects of the locutionary act According to Austin, locutionary comprises three sub-acts: phonetic, phatic and rhetic

a. A phonetic act: Performing the act of uttering certain noises (noises recognized as linguistic)

b. A phatic act: Performing the act of uttering certain vocables or words

c. A rhetic act: Performing the act of using vocables with a certain less definite sense and reference.

more-or-According to Austin, a phonetic act is the act of merely producing sounds or phonemes and this is not sufficient for saying anything at all He also gave the distinction between phatic act and rhetic act It is said that we can easily report a phatic act by direct quotation and report a rhetic acts by indirect quotation

E.g.: He said “she is coming here” (phatic act)

E.g.: He said that she was coming here (rhetic act)

His follower is Searle [18, 412] who reformulated description of illocutionary act and he suggests the term which so-called propositional act which expresses the proposition (a neutral phrase without illocutionary force)

In other words, a proposition is the content of the utterance

1.2.2 Illocutionary Acts

Illocutionary acts are considered as the core of the theory of speech acts and an illocutionary act is the action performed by the S in producing a given utterance Illocutionary act is closely connected with speaker’s intentions, e.g stating, questioning, promising, requesting, giving commands, threatening… There are hundreds of illocutionary which the S performs

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E.g.: a Can you close the window?

b. Will you close the window?

c. Could you close the window?

d. Would you close the window?

For better understanding and orientation, some linguists proposed their classification in which Searle’s division is the most popular one Searle (1976) divided illocutionary acts into five major categories:

- Representatives are such utterances which commit the H to the truth of

the expressed proposition (e.g asserting, concluding,…)

E.g.: The name of the American president is Obama

- Directives are attempts by the S to get the addressee to do something

(e.g.: ordering, requesting…)

E.g.: Would you make me a cup of tea?

- Commissives commit the S to some future course of action (e.g.:

promising, offering)

E.g.: I promise to come at 12 am and pick you up

- Expressives express a psychological state (e.g.: thanking,

congratulating)

E.g.: Thank you for your enthusiasm help

- Declarations effect immediate changes in the institutional state of

affairs which tend to rely on elaborate extra-linguistic institutions (e.g christening, declaring war)

E.g.: I bequeath all my property to my beloved-husband

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1.2.3 Perlocutionary Acts

Perlocutionary acts are Austin’s last element in the three-fold definition

of speech acts and performed with the intention of producing a further effect

on the H

As for his definition, perlocutionary often performs an act by saying something such as persuading, convincing, scaring, enlightening or otherwise getting someone to do or realizing something In some cases, the difference between perlocutionary and illocutionary is not very clear

1.3.4 Direct and indirect speech acts

In the course of performing speech acts, we ordinarily communicate with each other The content of communication may be identical, or almost identical, with the content intended to be communicated

However, the meaning of the linguistic means used may also be different from the content intended to be communicated

Yule [31, 54] said that based on the basic structure, sentences or utterances can be identified as direct utterances and indirect utterances In terms of speech acts, directness could be explained as matching the speech act

with the grammatical structure it most naturally takes

E.g.: Clean the door! (Direct speech act)

E.g.: It’s very cold in here (Indirect speech act) In this example, S’s intention is making the addressee to close the door

If directness was defined as matching your speech act with your

structure, indirectness would then be using an interrogative structure to convey a non-question speech act, like a statement, even a command or reject the proposal

E.g.: A: Would you like to meet me for coffee?”

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B: I have to do my homework

In this situation, B used an indirect speech act to reject the proposal This is indirect because the literal meaning does not entail any sort of

rejection The S avoids rejection by using I have to do my homework

The interplay of directness and indirectness is also an interesting factor

in social situations where some people know each other better and some are

new acquaintances Using direct speech to your old friends and indirect

speech to the newcomers is an efficient way to be polite

According to Leech, Indirectness is a widely used conversational strategy People tend to use indirect speech acts mainly in connection with politeness since they thus diminish the unpleasant message contained in requests and orders for instance [cited from Justova, 5, 17]

1.3 Cooperative Principle and Grice’s Maxims

In social science generally and linguistics specifically, the cooperative principle describes how people interact with one another

Grice [7, 45] proposes that participants in a conversation obey a general

“Cooperative Principle”, which is expected to be in force whenever a

conversation unfolds: Make your contribution such as it is required, at the stage at which it occurs, by the accepted purpose or direction of the talk exchange in which you are engaged

The cooperative principle goes both ways: Speakers (generally) observe the cooperative principle, and listeners (generally) assume that speakers are observing it This allows for the possibility of implicatures, which are meanings that are not explicitly conveyed in what is said, but that can nonetheless be inferred

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Implicature can be established by envisaging the four conversational rules or “Maxim” comprised by Cooperative Principle:

1 Maxim of quantity: In this maxim, S tries to give adequate

information as is required for the current purposes of the exchange and not to make the contribution more informative than is required

2 Maxims of Quality: Be truthful: S does not say what believe to be

false and what lacks adequate evidence

3 Maxim of Relation: Be relevant: Both S and H are expected to give

the relevant contribution about something which is uttered (This maxim is appreciated by Grice)

4 Maxims of Manner: Be clear: S avoids obscurity of expression and

ambiguity Moreover, the information should be brief (avoid unnecessary prolixity), orderly, directly, clearly, and unambiguously

Because cooperative conversation is determined by culture, therefore the Grice’s Maxims and the Cooperative Principle cannot be universally applied due to intercultural differences Another criticism is that the Grice’s Maxims can easily be misinterpreted to be a guideline for etiquette, instructing S on how to be moral, polite conversationalists Despite their wording, the Grice’s Maxims are only meant to describe the commonly accepted traits of successful cooperative communication Geoffrey Leech created the Politeness maxims: Tact maxim, Generosity maxim, Approbation maxim, Modesty maxim, Agreement maxim, and Sympathy maxim (See at 1.4.4)

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1.4 Politeness

1.4.1 General ideas of politeness

Durkheim (1915) pointed out that The human personality is a scared thing; one dare not violate it nor infringe it bounds, while at the same time the greatest good is in communion with other (cited from Brown and Levinson, [2, 1]) So the way people choose to speak and how the Hs react to their speech is very important and it is the reason why linguists and anthropologists have given the politeness definitions

Lakoff (cited from [31, 106] defined politeness as a system of interpersonal relations designed to facilitate interaction by minimizing the potential conflict and confrontation inherent in all human interchange

Leech defines politeness as a type of behaviour that allows the participants to engage in a social interaction in an atmosphere of relative

harmony Besides, he states that politeness as crucial in explaining why people are often so indirect in conveying what they mean (in Thomas [24, 158]

Thomas sees that politeness interpreted as a genuine desire to be pleasant to others, or as the underlying motivation for an individual’s linguistic behaviour [24, 150]

Yule [31, 60] said that “politeness, in an interaction, can then be defined as the means employed to show awareness of another person’s face.” Face can be defined as the public self-image of a person

In short, Politeness is one of the most important aspects of human communication and people can only exist in a peace if the basic conventions

of politeness are observed

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1.4.2 Face

When people are involved in conversations, they individually consider certain variables, whether consciously or sub-consciously, that help them determine the form that their speech will take According to Gumperz [9,

xiii], he defined that Face is a socially attributed aspect of self that is temporarily on loan for the duration of the interaction in accordance with the line or lines that the individual has adopted It is not our personal constructions do contribute towards that construction….If our constructed role remains relatively stable individual If we can find some underlying grammatical and social regularities which account both for this type of variation and for the recurrent patterns, we will have taken a major step in demonstrating and not just claiming the basically social nature of human language

Sociologist Erving Goffman (1967) appropriates the folk notion of face and re-characterizes it as follows: the positive social value a person effectively claims for himself by the line others assume he has taken during a particular contact….an image of self delineated in terms of approved social attributes and an image of self, delineated in terms of approved social attributes”

(mentioned in Watts [30, 124]) Goffman’s definition is closer than Brown and Levinson’ interpretation

Following Brown and Levinson (1987), face is defined as the public self-image that every member wants to claim for himself We assume that being regarded as polite is achieved in part by maintaining, and, in case of threat, saving desired or conventionally valued aspects of others’ face Brown and Levinson (1987) further also define the following two notions, corresponding to two types of face:

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Negative face was defined as the want of every “competent adult member” that his actions be unimpeded by others , or the basic claim to territories, personal preserves, rights to non-distraction - i.e., to freedom of action and freedom from imposition (cited from Brown and Levinson, [2, 61])

Positive face was defined as the want of every member that his wants

be desirable to at least some others executors , or alternately, the positive consistent self-image or “personality” (crucially including the desire that this self-image be appreciated and approved of) claimed by interactants (cited from Brown and Levinson, [2, 61])

It is believed that when we communicate, participants will co – operate with each other due to the mutual vulnerability of face However, there are acts that by nature run contrary to the face wants of the addressee and/or of the speakers Brown and Levinson (1987) defined the performance of such utterances as Face threatening acts The S need to consider how it should be uttered when need to perform an FTA

1.4.3 Politeness rules of Lakoff

Lakoff was one of the first linguists to study politeness and gave birth

to the notion that politeness is an important aspect of interaction that needs to

be studied Many theorists following Lakoff have focused on either expanding

on his maxims or contesting them

Lakoff’s theory of politeness gave some set of rules that people should use when interact with each other, which prevent interaction from breaking down As outlined in “Politeness theory”, Lakoff proposes that there are two rules of politeness: Be clear and be polite, which aim at minimizing conflict in

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an interaction In this part, we only focus on politeness rules which are detailed as following:

i) Don’t impose

E.g.: a) Give me a pencil

b) Could give me a pencil?

c) I’m sorry to bother you, but can I ask you for a pencil or something?

Sentence (a) is high imposing The sentence (b), the politeness rate is reinforced by auxiliary verb “could” In sentence (c), the politeness level is highest among three examples This utterance is used widely in communication

ii) Offer options

When using this rule, people prefer using “I wonder if you could help

me close the window?” than using “Close the window”

iii) Encourage feelings of camaraderie

This is the rule to make the audience feel good, maintain equality She stated that “don’t impose”, “give the receiver options”, and “make the receiver feel good” are paramount in good interaction By not adhering to

these maxims, S is said to be “flouting the maxims”

1.4.4 Politeness Principle Maxims of Leech

Leech’s theory approaches politeness from a more pragmatic perspective Geoffrey Leech introduced politeness principle which is minimizing the expression of impolite beliefs, and there is a corresponding positive version which is somewhat less important

Politeness principle proposes how to produce and understand language based on politeness with the purpose is to establish feeling of community and social relationship Thus, politeness principle focuses on process of

i) Tact maxim: This maxim aims at minimizing costs to the S and

maximizing benefits to the audience

E.g.: Let’s carry the luggage for you

This utterance is spoken to ask the H to carry his luggage The S uses indirect utterance to be more polite and minimizing cost to the H

ii) Generosity maxim: This maxim aims at maximizing the benefits for others

and minimizing benefits for self

E.g.: I can lend you my car

In this case S gives more priority the H’s advantage and implies the disadvantage of the speaker

iii) Approbation maxim/Praise: This maxim aims at minimizing

dispraise of the audience and maximizing praise/approval of the audience

E.g.: A: The performance was great!

B: Yes, wasn’t it!

In the example, A gives a good comment about the performance He talks the pleasant thing about other This expression is a congratulation utterance that maximizes praise of other

iv) Modesty maxim: This maxim aims at minimizing praise of self and

maximizing dispraise of self

E.g.: Please accept this small gift for you

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In this case, the utterance above is categorized as the modesty maxim because the S maximizes dispraise of himself The S notices his utterance by using “small gift”

v) The Agreement Maxim: According to Leech [14, 132], the agreement maxim can be expressed in assertive illocution in which we have to make an effort the minimal disagreement and maximal agreement with the other people

E.g.: A: Chinese is a difficult language to learn

B: True, but the speaking is quite easy

From the example, B actually does not agree that all part of Chinese language difficult to learn He does not express his disagreement strongly to

be more polite The polite answer will influence the effect of the H

vi) Sympathy maxim: This maxim aims at minimizing antipathy towards

the audience and maximizing sympathy

E.g.: I’m terribly sorry to hear about your son

The S expressed the sympathy for the misfortune This utterance is uttered when the H gets calamity of son’s died or sick This expression shows the solidarity between the S and the H

1.4.5 Politeness strategies of Brown and Levinson

There are different ways of expressing politeness strategies However, linguistics only agrees some general principles for being polite in social interaction They are: Politeness rules of Lakoff (1977), Politeness Principles Maxims of Leech (1983) and Politeness strategies of Brown and Levinson (1987) Among them the most influential theory of politeness is put forward

by Brown and Levinson

The following figure show circumstances determining choice of the strategies:

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Chart 1: Circumstances determining choice of strategies

(Brown and Levinson, [2, 60])

In their theory, the concept of “face” is central Brown and Levinson outline five main types of politeness strategies: Don’t do the FTA (say nothing), bald on-record, negative politeness, positive politeness, and off-

record (indirect) According to Brown and Levinson (1987), the choice of politeness strategy based on the risk of face loss can be divided into saying something or not Saying something is divided into doing the FSA (face- saving-act) or not Doing the FTA is included of on and off record On record can be done with or without redressive action, in which with redressive action contains positive and negative politeness (cited from Ganis [6, 19])

i) Don’t do the FTA (say nothing)

Say nothing is considered as the most politeness strategy In many cases, people prefer to have their needs without having to express them more than what is said

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Let analyze the situation: You arrive at an important lecture You want

to take notes but realize that you do not have a pen There is a person sitting next to you

You can rummage in your bag, search through your pockets, go back to the bag other person offers pen

In above situation, people don’t do the FTA and it makes less imposition

ii) Bald on-record

Bald on-record strategies usually do not attempt to minimize the threat

to the H’s face, although there are ways that bald on-record politeness can be used in trying to minimize face-threatening acts implicitly

This strategy is used in situations where the S has a close relationship with the audience, such as family or close friends or in a situation of urgency

Brown and Levinson outline various situation in which one might use the bald on-record strategy, including:

• Cases of non – minimization of the face threat

S uses bald on-record in great urgency or desperation

E.g.: Watch out!

Or speaking as if great efficiency is necessary

E.g.: Hear me out:

Using when S wants to orient task

E.g.: Pass me the salt

Or when S has little or no desire to maintain someone’s face

E.g.: Don't forget to clean the blinds!

S does the face-threatening act is in the interest of the H

E.g.: Your headlights are on!

• Cases of FTA – oriented bald – on – record usage

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S can do FTA in welcome situations

E.g.: Come in

Or when S wants to give offer

E.g.: Leave it, I'll clean up later

In these instances maintaining face is not the first priority or main goal

of a conversation

iii) Positive strategies

Within Brown and Levinson’s theory, when you speak to someone you may orient yourself towards that individual’s positive face, and employ

positive politeness

According to Brown and Levinson [2, 101]: Positive politeness is redressee’s positive face, his perennial desire that he wants (or the actions/ acquisitions/values resulting from them) should be thought of as desirable In positive politeness, the sphere of redress is widened to the appreciation of other’s wants in general or to the expression of similarity between ego’s and other’s wants

Yule [31, 64] states that a positive politeness strategy leads the requester to appeal to a common goal, and even friendship, via expressions Brown and Levinson list fifteen positive politeness strategies giving illustrations for each strategy which is demonstrated as following:

* S wants to claim common ground

S can claiming “common ground” with H, by indicating S and H belongs to the same set of persons, who share specific wants, including goals and values

There are three ways of making this claim:

- S may convey that some want (goal) of H’s is admirable or

interesting to S too (strategy 1 – 3)

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- S may stress common membership in a group or category (strategy

4)

- S can claim common perspective with H without necessarily

referring to in – group membership (strategy 5 – 8 )

E.g.: You look sad Can I

Strategy 2:

Exaggerate

E.g.: You are an absolutely amazing chef, the dinner was great!

This often done with exaggerated intonation, stress, and other aspects

of prosodic and usually occurs with

such adjectives as marvelous, incredible, devastating, fantastic, extraordinary and with such

adverbs as really, absolutely, exactly, truly,…or phrases such as

How absolutely marvelous/ extraordinary/….

E.g.: How about the work?

Using any of the innumerable ways

to convey in-group membership: address forms, language or dialect, jargon or slang and ellipses

For address forms S may use some

terms of address as honey, darling, babe, mom, dad, brother, sister, aunt, sweetheart…(see at example 1)

Or S may use ellipsis by using

“How about” (see at example 2)

In the example 1, S seeks ways in which it is possible to agree with H One way to seek agreement is choosing the safe topics such as weather, sports…

In the example 2, H repeats part or all of what the preceding S has said,

The desire to agree or appear to agree with H leads also to mechanisms for pretending to agree: token agreement, pseudo – agreement, white lies and hedges opinions In the example 1, the S

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uses beautiful in a way to avoid

disagreement S uses hedges opinion in example 2

E.g.: How are you?

The value of S’s spending time and effort on being with H, as a mark of friendship or interest in him, by taking for a while about unrelated topics In this strategy, S may use gossip, small talk, point – of – view operations and presupposition manipulations

Strategy 8:

Joke

E.g.: How about lending

me this old heap of junk?

(H’s new car)

Jokes are based on mutual shared background and values and putting

H at ease

* Convey that S and H are cooperators

This category derives from the want to convey that S and H are cooperatively involved in the relevant activity

There are three ways of convey cooperation:

a S’s may indicate his knowledge of and sensitivity to H’s wants (strategy 9)

b S and H can claim some kinds of reflexivity between their wants (strategy

10 – 13)

c S may indicate, that he believes reciprocity to be prevailed between H and himself, thus that they are somehow locked into a state of mutual helping (strategy 14)

Assert or imply knowledge of H’s wants and willingness to fit one’s own wants in with them

In order to redress the potential threat of some FTAs, S may choose to stress his cooperation with H in another way He may claim that whatever H wants, S wants for him and will help to obtain

Strategy 11: Be

optimistic

E.g.: You’ll lend me your car’s key for the weekend, I hope

S assumes that H wants for S and for S and H, and will help him to obtain them

Strategy 13: Give

(ask) reasons

E.g.: Why don’t we go

to that restaurant this weekend?

Giving reasons is a way of

implying I can help you or you can help me, and assuming cooperation, a way of showing what help is needed

S and H may be claimed or urged by giving evidence of reciprocal rights or obligations obtaining between S and H

* Fulfill H’s wants some X

S decide to redress H’s face directly by fulfilling some of H’s wants, thereby indicates that he (S) wants H’s wants for H, in some particular aspects

Strategy 15: Give gifts to H (goods, sympathy, understanding, cooperation)

S may satisfy H’s positive-face want by actually satisfying some of H’s wants (action of gift-giving, not only tangible)

In positive politeness strategy, S makes the H feel good about himself, his interests or possessions, and is most usually used in situations where the audience knows each other fairly well In addition to hedging and attempts to avoid conflict, some strategies of positive politeness include statements of friendship, solidarity, compliments Vietnamese S tends to choose positive politeness to show his/her attention or concern to others and lessen the distance between S and H

All these above strategies are summarized by Brown and Levinson in the following chart:

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Claim “commond ground”

(S&H of {A} who want {X})

Convey “X” is admirable, interesting

Claim in-group membership with H

Claim common Point of view

Opinions Attitudes Knowledge Empathy

1 Notice, attend to H (his interests, wants, needs, goods)

2 Exaggerate (interest, approval, sympathy with H)

4 Use in-group identify markers

3 Intensify interest to H

5 Seek agreement

6 Avoid disagreement

7 Presuppose/raise/assert common ground

Convey that S and

H are cooperators

Indicate S know H’s wants and is talking them into account Claim reflexivity If H wants (H has X) Then S wants (H and

X)

If S wants (S has X) Then H wants (S has X)

9 Assert or presuppose S’s knowledge

of and concern for H’s wants

Fulfill H’s want (For some X)

13 Give (or ask for) reasons

14 Assume or assert reciprocity

15 Give gifts to H (goods, sympathy understanding, cooperation)

Chart 2: Chart of strategies: positive politeness of Brown and Levinson (c.f Mai Dang [10, 26])

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iv) Negative strategies

Negative politeness emphasize on the H’s right to freedom so politeness in western cultures is always considered with negative politeness behavior

According to Brown and Levinson [2, 129]: Negative politeness is

redressive action addressed to the addressee’s negative face: his wants to have this freedom of action unhindered and his attention unimpeded Negative politeness is specific and focused; it performs the function of minimizing the particular imposition that the FTA unavoidably effects

They also list 10 strategies for negative politeness and give examples to each strategy (See at following table)

Strategy 1:

Be

conventionally

indirect

E.g.: Can you please

shut the door?

E.g.: Would you know

where Truong Chinh Street is?

S uses of phrases and sentences that have contextually unambiguous meanings which are different from their literal meaning

of membership of a predicate or noun

phrase in a set such as: sort of, regular,

true, rather, pretty, I suppose, I guess, I think, really, sincerely, certainly,

completely, perhaps, more and less well

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maybe, then, myself, in fact, in a way, in

a sense, in all probability, it seems to

me, as you know, frankly, to be honest, I hate to have to say this, but…

It says of that membership that it is partial, or true only in certain

respects, or that it is more true and

complete than perhaps might be expected In the example 3, salmon

E.g.: You couldn’t find

your way to lending me five millions VND this month, could you?

This strategy gives redress to H’s negative face by explicitly expressing doubt that the conditions for the appropriateness of S’s speech act obtain

E.g.: I just want to ask

if I can borrow a single sheet of paper

Using this strategy, the S tries to give the choice to the addressee whether S wants to do this or reduce as much imposition on someone else’s negative face as possible when requesting

A range of expressions that minimize

rating of imposition is: a tiny, a little

bit, a bit, a little, just…

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Strategy 5:

Give deference

E.g.: We look forward

very much to see you again

E.g.: Excuse me, could

you tell me the time, please?

S humbles and abases himself (example 2) before asking them to do something,

S raises H pays him positive face of a particular namely that which satisfies H’s want to be treated superior

(example 1)

Strategy 6:

Apologize

E.g.: I’m sorry; it’s a

lot to ask, but can you lend me your car this weekend?

E.g.: I hope this isn’t

going to bother you too much, I…

By apologizing for doing an FTA, the S can indicate his reluctance to impinge

on H’s negative face

There are 4 ways to express the apology: admit the impingement, indicate reluctance, give overwhelming reasons, beg forgiveness

appreciated if….

This strategy is to phrase the FTA as if the agent were other than S and the addressee were other than H S may use performatives, imperatives, impersonal verbs, passive and circumstantial

voices, avoidance of the pronouns I and

E.g.: Spitting will not

In this strategy, S doesn’t want to impinge H, but is merely forced to by circumstances), it can be generalize as a

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be tolerated social rule/regulation/obligation

The purpose of this strategy is to dissociate S and H from the particular imposition in the FTA

Strategy 9:

Normalize

E.g.: The customers is

not allowed to smoke in this area

The more you normalize an expression, the more you dissociate from it

E.g.: I could easily do

this for you – no problem!

S can redress an FTA by explicitly claiming his indebtedness to H, or by disclaiming any indebtedness of H

In short, negative politeness involves the S’s and H’s independence This

is also known as the “formal politeness strategy” which creates the distance between the S and H In this strategy, S avoids imposition on the H Besides, S tends to choose safe topics to talk about and this creates the distance between the

S and H

For negative politeness, Yule [31, 64] states that the most typical form

used is a question containing a modal verb

All the negative strategies are summarized by Brown and Levinson in the following chart

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Negative politeness

Do FTA on record

Plus redress to H’s

1 Be conventionally indirect

2 Don’t presume/assume

3 Don’t coerce H (Where x involves

H doing A)

4 Communicate S’s want to not impinge

on H

5 Redress other wants of H’s derivative from negative face

Be indirect

Don’t assume H is able/willing to do A

Make explicit R,

O, D values

Assume H is not likely to do A 3 Be pessimistic

4 Minimize the imposition

9 Nominalize

Chart 3: Chart of strategies: negative politeness of Brown and Levinson (c.f Mai Dang [10, 33])