The study of positive politeness strategies manifested in conversations in wuthering heights = các chiến lược lịch sự dương tính được biểu hiện trong lời hội thoại trong tiểu thuyết đồi gió hú

BENEFITS OF THE STUDY OF POLITENESS STRATEGY, IN GENERAL, POSITIVE POLITENESS STRATEGIES, IN PARTICULAR, IN TEACHING AND LEARNING ENGLISH 3.1 The positive politeness strategy used most f

vinh universityforeign language department

==== Vinh, May 2006===

vinh universityforeign language department

Supervisor: M.A Lª ThÞ Thuý HµStudent: NguyÔn ThÞ HuyÒn TrangClass: 43A2 - English

==== Vinh, May 2006===

Especially, I would like to express my special thanks to M.A Le Thi ThuyHa- my supervisor who gave me great support and academic guidance duringthe preparation and the writing of this graduation paper The success of mypaper would be almost impossible without her great help and advice.

My sincere thanks are also given to my dear parents for their support andencouragement, to my close friends for their knowledge and help My greatthanks also goes to the writers of a great deal of references that I used toconsult

To everyone, I am honestly grateful.

Vinh, May_2006.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

ABBREVIATIONS

CONTENTS

PART I: INTRODUCTION 1 Rationale 1

2 Aims of the study 2

3 Scope of the study 2

4 Methods of the study 3

5 Design of the study 3

PART II: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 1.1 Speech acts 5

1.1.1 Definition of speech acts 6

1.1.2 Locutionary, illocutionary and perlocutionary acts 7

1.1.3 Classification of speech acts 7

1.2 Politeness 10

1.2.1 What is politeness? 10

1.2.2 Approaches to politeness 11

1.2.2.1 The conversational-maxim view on politeness 12

1.2.2.1.1 Politeness rules 12

1.2.2.1.2 Politeness maxims 14

1.2.2.2 The face saving-view on politeness 17

1.2.2.2.1 Face 17

1.2.2.2.2 Face-threatening-acts 18

1.2.2.2.3 Politeness strategies 19

1.2.2.2.3.1 Positive politeness strategies 20

1.2.2.2.4 Social factors affecting politeness 22

CHAPTER 2: POSITIVE POLITENESS STRATEGIES MANIFESTED IN CONVERSATIONS IN WUTHERING HEIGHTS“WUTHERING HEIGHTS” ” 2.1Positive politeness strategies manifested in conversations in “WUTHERING HEIGHTS”Wuthering Heights” 24

2.1.1 Strategy 1: Notice, attend to H 25

2.1.2 Strategy 2: Exaggerate 25

2.1.3 Strategy 3: Intensify interest to H 26

2.1.4 Strategy 4: Use in-group identity markers 27

2.1.5 Strategy 5: Seek agreement 28

2.1.6 Strategy 6: Avoid disagreement 28

2.1.7 Strategy 7: Presuppose/raise/assert common ground 29

2.1.8 Strategy 8: Joke 30

2.1.9 Strategy 9: Assert/presuppose S’s knowledge of and concern for H’s want 31

2.1.10 Strategy 10: Offer, promise 31

2.1.11 Strategy 11: Be optimistic 31

2.1.12 Strategy 12: Include both S and H in the activity 32

2.1.13 Strategy 13: Give (or ask) reasons 32

2.1.14 Strategy 14: Assume or assert reciprocity 32

2.1.15 Strategy 15: Give gifts to H 33

2.1.16 Strategy 16: Encourage, condole 33

2.1.17 Strategy 17 : Asking personal questions 33

2.2 Positive politeness strategies manifested in conversations in “WUTHERING HEIGHTS”Wuthering Heights” seen from S-H relationships 34

2.2.1 Master/mastress/servant 35

2.2.2 Lovers 36

2.2.3 Husband/wife 36

2.2.4 Acquaintances 36

2.2.5 Strangers 36

2.2.6 Friends 37

CHAPTER 3: THE POSITIVE POLITENESS STRATEGY USED MOST FREQUENTLY AND ITS REASONS BENEFITS OF THE STUDY OF POLITENESS STRATEGY, IN GENERAL, POSITIVE POLITENESS STRATEGIES, IN PARTICULAR, IN TEACHING AND LEARNING ENGLISH 3.1 The positive politeness strategy used most frequently and its reasons 38

3.2 Benefits of the study of politeness strategy, in general, positive politeness strategies, in particular, in teaching and learning English 40

PART III: CONCLUSION 1 Review the major findings 44

2 Suggestions for further study 45

REFERENCES 46

C.P : Cooperative Principle

E.g : For example

FTA : Facing Threatening Act

H : Hearer

P.P : Politeness Principle

S : Speaker

part a: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale

Human beings are inherently social beings and language is socialphenomenon, the primary means through which they act in the world tocommunicate with each other (Halliday,1978) People use language torepresent thoughts and more importantly to communicate attitudes, feelingsand wants to others-in other words, to create a social world-translates into theuse of language to act in and on the social world However, not always wecommunicate effectively and naturally because sometimes we must tellanother something that the other does not want to hear or we must refuse one'srequest or we must end a conversation before the other is quite willing to go

In such cases, consequently there is the danger of insult and the break down ofcommunication, in other words, we hurt one's feelings If there is no way tosmooth over moments of conflict and confrontation, social relationship would

be difficult to establish and continue A big question is exposed that how torescue' the danger' in such cases?

The same utterance can be understood differently from culture toculture Thus, a successful communication requires not only a good linguisticknowledge but also interactional skills and cultural knowledge Respectedpresident Ho Chi Minh has ever said that a genuine writer had to know what

to write to whom and how to write That means our language choice must bedone depending on cultural and social contexts Nowadays, teaching andlearning language focus on communicative goal The aspect of languagechoice makes a good contribution to achieve that goal And politeness is theone of the most important factors determining the language choice Thus,teaching and learning will be more successful if we study politeness moredeeply

Now, we are living in a civilized society People tend to employpoliteness strategies to make their communication effective Thus, politenessmanifests more frequently in everyday conversations We know that literature

is one of artistic forms created to reflect any aspects of real life Inevitably,politeness also manifests in characters’ utterances in those literary works.Literature is one of our favour subjects, especially we spend much free timereading novels of which content as well as conversational language attract oursouls One of them is “WUTHERING HEIGHTS”Wuthering Heights” by Emily Bronte, retold by ClareWest, which is considered as a masterpiece of English literature Although

this novel was born before politeness theory has been developed perfectly, it’sclear that characters employ politeness strategies in making utterances As weknow, Brown and Levinson (1987) propose 4 ways of redressing an FTA:bald-on-record, off-record, negative politeness and positive politeness.Positive politeness strategies are used more frequently than negative ones byoriental people, particularly Vietnamese people The manifestations of boththese types in literary work have been studied deeply already We are onlyinterested in positive politeness strategies not negative ones or both because

we recognize that Vietnamese people really want to use these strategies morefrequently so that it is easier to understand them clearly For all of thementioned reasons above, we’ve decided to choose positive politenessstrategies manifested in conversations in “WUTHERING HEIGHTS”Wuthering Heights” to be the topic

of this thesis

2 Aims of the study

Politeness has a strong influence on the effect of communication,especially cross-cultural communication Therefore, the most important aim ofour study is to emphasize the importance of politeness strategies, in general,positive politeness strategies, in particular, in communication and to study theutilities of positive politeness strategies in conversations between characters of

“WUTHERING HEIGHTS”Wuthering Heights”

3 Scope of the study

Due to the limitation of a graduation paper, time, it is impossible for us

to cover all types of politeness strategies Therefore, our thesis only focuses

on positive politeness strategies based on Brown and Levinson’s (1987)theoretical framework The study only deals with verbal aspects of politeness

We use utterances taken from the novel “WUTHERING HEIGHTS”Wuthering Heights” of Emily Bronteretold by Clare West as our data analysis We also select useful informationrelated to the topic taken from other sources

The data analysis is based on utterances in conversations betweencharacters in the novel “WUTHERING HEIGHTS”Wuthering Heights” by the English novelist EmilyBronte “WUTHERING HEIGHTS”Wuthering Heights” is the wild, passionate story of intense andalmost demonic love between Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff, a foundlingadopted by her father After Mr Earnshaw’s death, Catherine’s brotherHindley behaves Heathcliff very badly and considers him as a servant.Heathcliff falls in love with Catherine but he wrongly believes that his love forCatherine is not reciprocated He leaves “WUTHERING HEIGHTS”Wuthering Heights “WUTHERING HEIGHTS”, only returns

years later as a wealthy and polished man He proceeds to exact a terriblerevenge for his former miseries The action of the story is chaotic andunremittingly violent, but the accomplished handling of a complex structure.Conversations among characters of this novel reflect truthfully their deeperfeelings so that they are reliable enough to serve effectively for our topic.

4 Methods of the study

In order to carry out this research, we have collected different kinds ofbooks which contain politeness part as well as found information from websiteGoogle.com We use analysis method to analyse the collected data andquantitative method to measure positive politeness strategies used in thenovel

5 Design of the study

The thesis comprises of 3 parts:

Part A: Introduction

This part discusses the reasons for choosing the topic, aims, scope,methods and design of the study

Part B: Development

This part is divided into 3 chapters:

Chapter 1: Theoretical background

Chapter 2: Positive politeness strategies manifested in conversations in

“WUTHERING HEIGHTS”Wuthering Heights”

Chapter 3: The positive politeness strategy used most frequently and itsreasons Benefits of the study of politeness strategy, in general, positivepoliteness strategies, in particular, in teaching and learning English

by Moore, was interested in "the language of common sense"; the otherconcerned with everyday language which, according to them, is somehowdeficient, ambiguous, imprecise and contradictionary Their aim was to reach

an ideal language by refining language by the way of removing its perceivedimperfections and illogicalities

As a reaction to this view, Austin and his group observed that ordinarypeople manage to communicate fluently and effectively with language just theway it is He suggested that we had better try to understand how people couldmanage to use ordinary language effectively instead of making an efford tofree of its imperfections Austin believed that a language had a lot more thanthe meaning of its words and phrases That using language is not only to saysomething but also to do things convinced Austin and led him to illocutionaryacts theory which examines what kind of, how we do things when we speakand how our acts 'succeed' or 'fail'

Austin first explored his ideas by way of the 'performative hypothesis'which show differences between a truth-conditional approach to meaning andAustin's view in which he considered 'words as actions' According to him,most utterances have no truth-conditions They are not statements or questionsbut only actions In order to prove his ideas, Austin distinguished constative

(statement) and performative "Constative means an utterance which can be

judged as either true or false" (quoted in Dang Thi Manh 2005,thesis:4) For

example, "Lan is wearing a pair of leather gloves" is true if the gloves aremade of leather, but it is false if they are made of different materials as cotton,etc Performative, according to Austin, can not be judged in the same way Forexample, "Would you like a cup of tea?"; when the speaker makes this

utterance, he aims at not questioning but inviting Thus, we can not judgewhether it is true or false but consider it as an act of invitation.

Austin observed that by saying we not only communicate but may alsotransform the reality Speech acts which effect such a change through theaction of being spoken are called performative speech acts

1.1.1 Definition of speech acts

Speech acts are actions performed by the utterances to communicate, in

other words, "in attempting to express themselves, people do not only produce

utterances containing grammatical structures or words, they perform actions via those utterances, which are generally called speech acts" (George

Yule,1996:47)

We use language all time to make things happen Saying something willoften, or even normally, produce certain consequential effects upon thefeelings, thoughts, or actions of the audience, or of the speaker, or of otherpersons It may be done with the design, intention or purpose of producingthem

We can easily realize that speech act in everyday conversations or incharacters's utterances viewed as engaged to convey a "message" or achieve a

personal goal That means "the speaker normally expects that this his or her

communicate intention will be recognized by the hearer" (George

Yule,1996:47)

"On any occasion, the action performed by producing an utterance will

consist of three related acts" (George,1996:48) They are carried out at the

same time According to Austin, they are locutionary act, illocutionary act,and perlocutionary act The term "speech act" can be used interchangeablewith illocutionary act

1.1.2 Locutionary, illocutionary and perlocutionary acts

Locutionary act is the basic act of utterance which is roughly equivalent touttering a certain sentence with a sense and reference or "meaning" intraditional sense It is difficult for people to produce a locutionary actsuccessful if they have trouble with performing sounds and words to create ameaningful expression in a language

Illocutionary act is the real action performed by the utterance wheresaying equals doing, as in betting, plighting one's troth, welcoming andwarning

Perlocutionary act is an effect of the utterance on the listener "The

perlocutionary act may be either the achievement of a perlocutionary object (convince, persuade) or the production of a perlocutionary sequel"(Austin,1962:118) Depending on the certain situations, the hearer will

react appropriately to his understanding of the illocutionary force of thespeaker’s utterances For example, when a roommate says “WUTHERING HEIGHTS”It’s rainningoutside”, the other will perform the perlocutionary act that (s)he takes anumbrella The communication is considered successful if the perlocutionaryact and the illocutionary act are identical

1.1.3 Classification of speech acts

Some linguists have attempted to classify illocutionary acts into a number

of categories or types According to the grammatical structure view, speechacts can be divided into three types: statement, question andcommand/request They coincide with three basic sentence types: declarative,interrogative and imperative For examples:

You wear a seatbelt (declarative)

Do you wear a seatbelt? (interrogative)

Wear a seatbelt (imperative)

These structural forms and communicative functions, however, do notcoincide at any time For example, a declarative normally functions as a

statement but it can also be used to make a request "Whenever there is a

direct relationship between a structure and a function, we have a direct speech act Whenever there is an indirect relationship between a structure and a function, we have an indirect speech act."(George Yule,1996:54,55).

Thus, we perform a direct speech act when we use a declarative to make astatement, we perform an indirect speech act when we use it to make arequest For example, when the S says: "It is hot in here", if his aim is tomention about the weather, he has made a direct speech act; but if he aims atrequesting someone to turn on the fan or open the door, by this way he hasperfomed an indirect speech act

As mentioned above, a structure can be used to make differentcommunicative functions, vice versa the same basic function can beaccomplished by different structures For example, when the S wants thehearer to 'close the door', he may say:

a.Close the door

b.Can you close the door, please?

c.Would you be so kind to close the door, please?

d.Would you mind closing the door?

e.Do you forget to close the door, please?

f.It's cold outside

g.The door is, obviously, open

(cited in Internet)

Generally speaking, the use of indirect speech act is more polite than theuse of direct speech act

Another approach to clasify speech acts is based on their function Based

on this approach, there has been several different trends One, followingAustin (1962), is principally a lexical classification of so-called illocutionaryverbs The other, following Searl (1979), is a classification of acts Theremain, following Leech (1983), is derived from viewpoint of functions andrelationship between communicative and social goals

According to Austin (1962) there are five types of speech acts: verdictives,exercitives, commissives, behabitives and expositives

Verdictives, as the name implies, are typified by the giving of a verdict by

a jury, abitrator or umpire Its content may be true or false, sound or unsoundand fair or unfair Exercitives are speech acts of giving decision either tosupport or oppose a certain course of actions (e.g, commitments, voting,ordering, urging, advising, warning, etc.) Commissives are the speaker'shimself commitment to do something Behabitives are the speaker 's reaction

to other's behaviour and his attitudes to their past actions (e.g, apologizing,congratulating, commending, condoling, etc.) Expositives are acts ofexposition involving the expounding of views, the conducting of arguments,etc

From Searl's (1979) point of view, speech acts are divided into 5 groups :assertives, directives, commissives, expressives and declaratives Assertivesshow the speaker's assertion of a proposition to be true, using such verbs as :

affirm, believe, conclude, etc Directives are those kinds of speech acts that

the speaker uses to make the hearer do something, with such words as : ask ,

beg, challenge, command, invite, insist, request, etc Commissives commit the

speaker himself/herself to a future course of action, with such verbs as :

guarantee, pledge, promise, swear, undertake, warrant, etc Expressives are

speech acts that the speaker expresses an attitude to or about a state of affairs ,

using such verbs as : apologize, appreciate, congratulate, deplore, detest,

regret, thank, welcome Declarations are a special kind of speech acts that the

speaker alters the external status or condition of an object or situation by

making utterance, e.g dismissing, appointing, naming, etc.

Yule (1996) has the same way of division as Searl's According to him,there are 5 types of speech acts : declarations, representatives, expressives,directives and commissives

When approaching the way Searl classifies illocutionary acts, Leech(1983) recognizes that politeness has an impact on these categories Thus,basing on the grounds of politeness, he puts speech acts into 4 types:Competitive which is produced when the illocutionary competes with thesocial goal (e.g, ordering, asking, demanding, begging, etc), convivial (e.g,offering, inviting, greeting, etc), collaborative (e.g, asserting, reporting,announcing, instructing, etc) and conflictive (e.g, threatening, accusing, etc).According to Leech, competitive and convivial mainly involve politeness.Negative politeness is required when a competitive illocutionary act isperformed meantime positive politeness is required when a convivialillocutionary act is produced Leech also claims that politeness is not relevant

to collaborative and conflictive illocutionary acts

Of all the ways of classification of speech acts, the most worth discussing

of Leech (1980,1983a) and Brown and Levinson (1978) has focused onpoliteness as a pragmatic phenomenon

Politeness, in the technical sense of the term, refers to all the ways inwhich speakers adapt (or decide not to adapt) to the fact that theirinterlocutors, actual or imagined, have human needs like their own Politeness

is one of the main reasons for which people are often indirect, not sayingprecisely what they mean but imply it by conventional ways

Geoffrey Leech defines politeness as "forms of behaviour that establish

and maintain comity" That is the ability of paticipants in a social interaction

to engage in interaction in an atmostphere of relative harmony

Within an interaction as mentioned by Yule (1996), the term politenessdoes not refer to the idea of 'polite social behaviour' or 'etiquette within aculture'.

It depends on the concept of 'face' to be effectively understood Based onYule's assertion about 'face' one can conclude it means by the way everyone issocially considered due to his or her self-image, that is his or her public self-image towards the others In an interaction, politeness can be defined as themeans employed to show awareness of another person's face, either in socialdistant situation or social close ones

Perhaps the most thorough treatment of the concept of politeness is that ofPenelop Brown and Stephen Levinson which was first published in 1978 and

then reissued in 1987 In their model, politeness is defined as"redressive

action taken to counter-balance the disruptive effect of face-threatening acts." (Kasper,1990:194)

In their theory, communication is seen potentially dangerous andantagonistic A strength of their approach over that of they explain politeness

by deriving it from more fundamental notions of what it is to be a humanbeing The basic notion of their model is "face"

1.2.2 Approaches to politeness

In social life, interaction between people continuously occurs Regardless

of non-verbal communication politeness is the essential demand to make theinteraction successful Especially, in the civilized society, it needs a highrequirement of politeness To be linguistically polite there is necessity forpeople to select appropriate language depending on the relationship betweenthem and the circumstance under which they are communicating

Politeness is considered one of the features of discourse, an undeniableelement of linguistic communication It has a very big influence on thecommunicative effect, especially in cross-cultural communication It has,therefore, becomes an increasingly more significant matter of pragmatics-thestudy of speaker's meaning A long time before the appearance of the speechact theory, politeness has been studied based on no basic theory It has onlybeen studied systematically after speech act theory was born Linguists haveapplied this theory accompanied with Goffman's notion of face and Grice'scooperative principle to develop politeness theory The notion of politeness isdefined by many different ways depending on the orientation of approach.Fraser (1990) provides an overview of the four main approaches The firstperspective is the social-norm view proposed by many scholars in pre-

pragmatics studies, in which politeness correlates with formality The secondperspective, the conversational-maxim view, has developed out of Grice'sCooperative principle and maxim, proposed by Lakoff (1973,1989) and Leech(1983) The third view is face-saving, derived from Brown and Levinson'smodel of politeness (1987), which is itself based on Grice (1975) andGoffman's (1967) notion of face The final perspective is calledconversational-contract view of Fraser (1990) Of all these views, theconversational-maxim view of Leech and Lakoff and the face-saving view ofBrown and Levinson (1987) are most largely appropriated and discussed.

1.2.2.1 The conversational-maxim view on politeness

1.2.2.1.1 Politeness rules

The conversational-maxim view of Lakoff (1973) and Leech (1983) based

on theoretical frameworks on Grice's Cooperative principle (1967, published

in 1975) The Cooperative principle is assumed to be of key importance inregulating conversation based on the general assumption of cooperation in aconversation between interlocutors Lakoff extends Grice's work and arguesfor the necessity of both a politeness principle and a cooperative principle.Unlike the cooperative principle, which has a primarily referential orientation,the politeness principle addresses relational goals and serves primarily "toreduce frictional pesonal interaction" (Lakoff,1989:64) According to her, thepoliteness principle consists of 3 rules: Don't impose, Give options, and Makethe hearer feel good According to the pragmatic well-formedness ofutterances, Robin Lakoff (1979) suggests a cline of politeness types rangingfrom formal politeness through informal politeness to intimate politeness Rule 1: Don't impose

This is the most formal politeness rule The S following this rule will try tominimize infringing on hearer's privacy or preventing him embarrassed withsomething which can not be mentioned However, in some cases, the intrusion

is inevitable In those cases, the S minimizes the degree of imposition onhearer by seeking permission or giving apology such as when the S asks thehearer to do something; or when the S embarrasses the H with citation ofunmentionables he can use technical term or a euphemism This rule is used

in the situation when paticipant's power and status are greatly different such as

a student and a teacher, a boss and an employee, etc Rule 1 becomesoperative when very formal politeness is required

Rule 2: Give options

This rule is more informal than the first one, which means "let the

addressee make his decision" (Lakoff,1990) The S following this rule will

offer options to H by expressing himself somehow that H can not complainabout S's imposition on him or reject S's options Rule 2 is used effectively ininteraction between people who are not different in power and status but arenot socially close such as a businessman and a client when informal politeness

is required

Rule 3: Make the hearer feel good

This is a very informal rule of politeness which involves establishingrapport, camaraderie, a sense of equality or respect, distance and aracognition of inequality between S and H Contrast with the second rule,indirect speech acts and hedges are completely in appropriate In interaction,paticipants are not afraid of threatening hearer's face by asking personalquestions, making remarks or telling the truth, etc This rule is used whenintimate is required

1.2.2.1.2 Politeness maxims

Similarly to Lakoff, Leech (1983) connected politeness with Grice's CP

He considered the CP and the PP to constitute only the principles ofinterpersonal rhetoric that means the focus is on the S's social goals ratherthan his or her illocutionary goals The major purpose of the PP is, according

to Leech, to establish and maintain feelings of comity within the social group

The PP regulates the " social equilibrium and the friendly relations which

enable us to assume that our interlocutors are being cooperative in the first place" (1983:32) For Leech (1983) politeness is a strategy of conflict

avoidance calculated on the basis of costs and benefit related to both the Sand the H Politeness, according to him, is the compensation for the costscaused to hearer by the S's expressions The good way for the S to do this isadjusting the cost-benefit balance in order to make interpersonal interactionbalanced Leech gives an introduction for PP as following:

"Minimize (all things being equal) the expression of impolite belief;

maximize (all things being equal) the expression of polite belief"

The PP consists of 6 maxims , all of which are related to the notion of costand benefit and related pairs of values These maxims are useful for "explaining the relationship between sense and force in human conversation" Maxim I: The Tact Maxim

This maxim is only applied in illocutionary functions classified by Leech

as 'impositive' such as ordering, requesting, commanding, etc and'commissive'

The Tact maxim states: "Minimize the expression of beliefs which imply

cost to other; maximize the expression of beliefs which imply benefit to other".

It is obvious that Tact maxim is strive for other-centered There are severalways that S can use to follow this maxim He can use minimizers to reducethat implied cost to the hearer and limit the size of imposition on hearer As aresult of this, politeness can be improved This strategy closely resembles withLakoff's politeness rule : "Don't impose"

E.g: Hold me for a while.

.I've got a little bit of difficulty.

.Just a minute.

The use of indirect illocutions is another way to reach the scale of

politeness 'Leech claims: "Indirect illocutions tend to be more polite(a)

because they increase the degree of optionality and (b) because the more indirect an illocution is, the more diminished and tentative its force tend to be" '(cited from Dang Thi Manh,2005:12)

E.g: .Open the door.

.Would you mind opening the door?

.It's kind of you to open the door.

Maxim II: The Generosity Maxim

Leech's Generosity maxim states : "Minimize the expression of benefit to

self; maximize the expression of cost to self"

It is easy to recognize that this maxim seems to be the reverse of the Tactmaxim Because when S intends to minimize benefit to self, he also intends tominimize cost to other and when cost to self is maximized, benefit to other ismaximized Due to this reverse, both of them can be used in the sameutterance Nevertheless, in some cases, only one maxim is observed, but notthe other

Maxim III: The Appobation Maxim

According to Leech, the S following this maxim will: "minimize dispraise

of other, maximize of praise of other" The fact that people prefer to hear

pleasant things rather than unpleasant ones even though it is unreal In reallife, sometimes it is unlikely to praise others honestly In such case, it is best

to say nothing or say something indirectly to avoid losing H's face Instead ofsaying "you have done it badly" we may say "you've done it not so well".

It is worth noting that in this maxim "other" refers to not only person whodirectly addressed, but also someone or something dear to her or him.Therefore, it is unacceptable to say : "Did you make very terrible mistakes?"

or "Is your brother greedy?"

The Approbation maxim is normally applied in illocutionary functionsclassified by Leech as 'expressive' (thanking, congratulating, blaming,condoling, etc)

Maxim IV: The Modesty Maxim

The main idea of this maxim is " minimize praise of self; maximize

dispraise of self" In the approbation maxim, it is considered politely if the S

maximizes praise of other, minimizes dispraise of other As a reaction,following this maxim, the S minimizes praise of self, maximizes praise of self

To understand clearly, let us consider the following example:

E.g: -Well done! What excellent you are! I wish I could be as intelligent

E.g : -In English-speaking culture : A: You've sung very well

B: Thank you

-In Vietnamese culture : A: Your voice is very sweet

B: Really?/Is that right?/It's very plain Maxim V: The Agreement Maxim

According to this maxim, being polite means minimizing the expression

of disagreement between self and other; maximizing the expression ofagreement between them In conversation, when the S has different idea withthe H, he may use indirect way to express his disagreement or may pretend toagree by using " Yes, but "

E.g: A: This novel is very interesting, isn't it ?

B: Yes, but the way the author solves problem at the end is notreally attractive

Maxim VI : The Sympathy Maxim

This maxim runs as follows: "Minimize antipathy between self and other;

maximize sympathy between self and other " To make it clear, let us consider

the example below :

E.g: -"Despite very serious disagreements with you on a technical

level , we 've done our best to coordinate our efforts in reaching an agreement, but have so far not been able to find any common ground".

(Richart.J.Watt, Politeness:67)

In this example, the S makes an effort to minimize the antipathy betweenhimself and the addressee

The CP is a series of maxim which Geoffrey Leech has proposed as a way

of explaining how politeness operates in conversation exchange

1.2.2.2 The face-saving view on politeness

in Thomas,1995:165)

Within politeness theory, face is best understood as every individual'sfeeling of self-worth or self-image; this image can be damaged, maintained orenhanced through interaction with others

The face theory proposed by Brown and Levinson (1978,1987) series as

the most influential theory on politeness It is defined as "the public

self-image that every member (of society) wants to claim for himself" In their

framework, face consists of two related aspects: One is negative face that isthe need to be independent and to have one's own territory respected byothers The other is positive face that is the need to be accepted, even like byothers, to be treated as a member of the same group and to know that his/herwants are shared by others Put simply, positive face is the need to beconnected

The underlying assumption behind Brown and Levinson theory is thatconstantly at risk, since any kinds of linguistic action which has a relationaldimention is seen as positing a threat to the interlocutor's face The rationalactions people take to preserve both kinds of face, for themselves and peoplethey interact with, add up to politeness.

1.2.2.2.2 Face-threatening-acts

Brown and Levinson argue that in human communication, either spoken orwritten, people tend to maintain one another's face continuously In everydayconversation, we adapt our conversation to different situations Amongfriends, we take liberties or saying something that would seem discourteousamong strangers And we avoid over-formality with friends In both situations

we try to avoid making the H embarrassed or uncomfortable FTAs are actsthat infringe on hearer's need to maintain his or her self-esteem, and berespected The acts that threaten the positive-face want indicate that the S doesnot care about the H's feelings, wants, etc, that in some important respect hedoes not want Hs wants An example of a speech act threatening the H's face

is a request, since it implies that the S is imposing on the H by asking him orher to perform or not to perform a certain act

Eg: - Close the door, please!

Whenever aN FTA must be performed a speech action which poses athreat to the addressee's positive or negative face speaker must employstrategies to mitigate the threat For FTAs against positive face, the rankinvolves an assessment of the amount of 'pain' given to hearer's face; based onthe discrepancy between hearer's own desired self-image and that presented inthe FTA There will be cultural rankings of aspects of positive face (forexample, success, niceness, beauty, generosity) which can be ranked inparticular circumstances, just as can be negative-face rankings

Consequently, such FTAs need to be "counter-balanced appropriate

doses of politeness" (Kasper,1994) Politeness strategies are developed for the

main purpose of dealing with the FTAs

1.2.2.2.3 Politeness strategies

The S in making a contribution to the interaction must assess the possibleface-threatening nature of the move that he is about to make and then decideeither to completely avoid it or at least to soften it by choosing an appropriatelinguistic strategy Brown and Levinson potulate a set of 5 possibilities which

are available to the S to do it this, arranging them based on the extent whichthey threat the H's face:

.Do not do the FTA

.Do the FTA off-record

.Do the FTA on-record with negative politeness

.Do the FTA on-record with positive politeness

.Do the FTA baldly on record.

If the S recognizes that the degree of face threat is too great, then he/shetries to minimize the FTA by saying nothing If the S decides to perform theFTA, he can choose one of 4 possibilities: one set of off-record strategies,three sets of on-record superstrategies (bald on-record, negative politeness,positive politeness)

Going off-record means that the S says something but not directly address

to the other He may not responsible for having committed himself to anyparticular intention When employing off-record politeness, the S usually usesmetaphor, irony, rhetorical questions understatements tautologies, etc

The S goes on record baldly without any redressive action if there is aminimal risk of threatening the addressee's face Bald-on-record strategy isemployed when the relationship between participants is close (e.g, betweenclose friends, mother and children, etc.), they are equal, in some casesemergency situations, even though the H has power over the S, the S can saydirectly without fear of losing H's face For example, when the S sees that a

fan is about to fall down on the place where H is standing, the S may say: "Get

way!"

Nevertheless, in real life conversation, the participants usually commit theFTA but they make an effort to soften the threat to their partners by usingredressive action It is , according to Brown and Levinson (1987), action

which gives face to the hearer and "attempts to counter the potential face

damage of the FTA by doing it in such a way, or with such modifications or additions, that indicate clearly that no such face threat is intended or desired, and that S in general recognizes hearer's face wants and himself wants them

to be achieved “WUTHERING HEIGHTS”(Brown and Levinson,1987:69) The S has two choices: either

employing a strategy aimed at enhancing the addressee's positive face (orpoliteness strategy) or a strategy which will reduce the intrusion of theaddresee's freedom of action or freedom from imposition (negative strategy)

1.2.2.2.3.1 Positive politeness strategies

According to Yule (1996), positive politeness strategy can be seen as asolidarity strategy which emphasizes the closeness between S and H andexpresses group’s reciprocity Brown and Levinson (1987) consider positive

politeness as"redress directed to the redressee's positive face, hia perennial

desire that his wants ( or the actions/ acquisitions / values resulting from them ) should be thought of as desirable Redress consists in partially satisfying that desire by communicating that one's own wants ( or some of them ) are in some respects similar to the addressee's wants" (Brown and

Levinson,1987:101) Positive politeness is redressive not only of the particularface want but also of " the appreciation of alter's wants " or " the expression ofsimilarity between ago's and alter's wants" Positive politeness has 3 mainmanifestations: claiming common ground, conveying that S and H arecooperators and fulfiling H's want for some X

Brown and Levinson (1987) propose fifteen positive politeness strategies,giving illustrations for each strategy various examples from a variety oflanguages

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

Strategy 2: Exaggarate (interest, approval, sympathy with H)

Startegy 3: Intensify interest to H

Strategy 4: Use in-group identity markers

Strategy 5: Seek agreement

Strategy 6: Avoid disagreement

Strategy 7: Presuppose/ raise/ assert common ground

Strategy 12: Include both S and H in the activity

Strategy 13: Give (ask for) reasons

Strategy 14: Assume or assert reciprocity

Strategy 15: Give gifts to H (sympathy, good, understanding, cooperation) Nguyen Quang (2003) adds 2 more strategies:

Strategy 16: Encourage

Strategy 17: Ask personal questions

1.2.2.2.4 Social factors affecting politeness

The face-saving view of Brown and Levinson conceptualizes politeness,similar to the conversational- maxim approach, not as an on-off phenomenon,but as a cotinuum (Kasper,1994) Analoguous to Leech's (1990) scales forassessing the degree of politeness requirement, Brown and Levinson proposethat the weightness of an act is established by the value of three independentvariables: the social distance (D) between speaker and hearer; relative power(P) between them and the ranking of imposition (R) of the act

The social distance between S and H is "a symmetric social dimension of

similarity/difference within which S and H stand for the purposes of this act" (Brown and Levinson,1987:76) 'The "size" of D can be defined by the

assessment of how often S and H have interactions with each other, togetherwith the assessment of what kind of goods that S and H exchange' (quoted inDang Thi Manh,2005:20) Normally, the smaller the social distance is, theless politeness strategies (both negative and positive strategies) are used andthe more directness is used And vice versa, the larger D is, the more redresses

is brought into the utterances to minimize its threatening-face In order tominimize the threat to face of the utterance, people can use different formalitydepending on the force of D Acccording Brown and Levinson, measures of Dbased on stable social attributes occupy an important place in the assessment

of D Therefore, the flex of social closeness can be clearly revealed in mutualexchange of positive politeness

The relative power is "an asymmetric social dimension of relative power

" That means the greater power H has over S, the smaller S has over H and

vice versa The P between S and H influences on their way of talking to eachother, the choice of direct or indirect speech act to communicate, the use ofbody language, etc For example, with the same topic and in the samecommunicative situation, if S and H are power-equals, they will use differentstrategies from when they talk to the persons who have smaller or greaterpower

Generally, there are two sources of power: material control (overeconomic distribution and physical force) and metalphysical control (over theactions of others) In most cases, a person's power may derive from eithermaterial control or metalphysical control or both

The ranking of imposition (R) "is culturally and situationally defined by

the degree to which they are considered to interfere with an agent's wants of

self-determination or approval (his negative- or positive-face wants) "(Brown

and Levinson,1987:77) The notion of R tightly relates to the concept of FTAs

of beneficiality of either S or H With the same H, when S asks H to dosomething for H ( that means the beneficiality belongs to S), S has to use thehedges and more addresses to minimize FTA and reignforce his thanks to H.However, if that command gives the beneficiality to H, S can say directlywithout using these devices even though he can make it as an order withoutbeing afraid of making a strong FTA and infringing politeness According tothe study of Brown and Levinson, for FTA against negative face, there are 2scales : the ranking of impositions based on the receipt of service and ongoods; for the FTA against positive face, the ranking involves an assessment

of the amount of point given to H's face

CHAPTER 2: POSITIVE POLITENESS STRATEGIES MANIFESTED

IN CONVERSATIONS IN WUTHERING HEIGHTS“WUTHERING HEIGHTS” ”

We have carried out an investigation on 152 utterances made by thecharacters in “WUTHERING HEIGHTS”Wuthering Heights” and found out that positive politenessstrategies were employed 163 times Our investigation does not cover allpositive politeness strategies proposed by Brown and Levinson (1987) because

we could not find any utterances containing strategy 8 (Joke)

The percentage shown in the following section is based on the totalnumber of time that positive politeness strategies occur in the novel, not onthe total number of utterances

2.1 Positive politeness strategies manifested in conversations in Wuthering Heights

“WUTHERING HEIGHTS” ”

The frequency of occurrence of positive politeness strategies in

“WUTHERING HEIGHTS”Wuthering Heights” can be summed up in the following table :

Positive

Politeness

strategies

Frequency ofoccurrence

PositivePolitenessstrategies

Frequency ofoccurrence

Table 2.1: The frequency of occurrence of positive politeness strategies in

“WUTHERING HEIGHTS”Wuthering Heights”

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

When S applies this strategy, he should take notice of aspects of H’scondition (noticeable changes, remarkable possessions, anything which looks

as though H would want S to notice and approve of it ) For example:

-You must be hungry, Heathcliff You haven t eaten all day Have some’

Christmas cakes, do <p 19>.

After being treated badly by Hindley Earnshaw, poor Heathcliff seemed to beforgotten At that time, Ellen noticed him, took him down into the warmservant’s kitchen with her Ellen’s attention for Heathcliff is as a dose ofmedicine to heal partially the injury in his heart