Politeness And Language Research Paper

There are two quite different kinds of feelings to be attended to, and therefore there are two distinct kinds of politeness. One kind arises whenever what is about to be said may be unwelcome, prompting expressions of respect, restraint, avoidance (‘negative politeness’). Another arises from the fact that long-term relationships with people can be important in taking their feelings into account, prompting expressions of social closeness, caring, approval (‘positive politeness’). There are many folk notions for these kinds of attention to feelings—including courtesy, tact, deference, demeanor, sensibility, poise, discernment, rapport, mannerliness, urbanity, as well as for the contrasting behavior—rudeness, gaucheness, the making of social gaffes, and for its consequences— embarrassment, humiliation. Such terms label culturespecific notions invested with social importance, and attest both to the pervasiveness of notions of politeness and to their cultural framing.

2. How Can We Account For Politeness?

Since politeness is crucial to the construction and maintenance of social relationships, politeness in communication goes to the very heart of social life and interaction; indeed it is probably a precondition for human cooperation in general. Politeness phenomena have therefore commanded interest from theorists in a wide range of social sciences. Three main classes of theoretical approach to the analysis of politeness in language can be distinguished.

(a) Politeness as social rules. To the layman, politeness is a concept designating ‘proper’ social conduct, rules for speech and behavior stemming generally from high-status individuals or groups. In literate societies such rules are often formulated in etiquette books. These ‘emic’ notions range from polite formulae like please and thank you, the forms of greetings and farewells, etc., to more elaborate routines for table manners, or the protocol for formal events. Politeness is conventionally attached to certain linguistic forms and formulaic expressions, which may be very different in different languages and cultures. This is how the ‘person on the street’ tends to think about politeness, as inhering in particular forms of words.

Some analytical approaches to politeness are formulated in terms of the same sorts of culture-specific rules for doing what is socially acceptable, for example, the work by Ide and others on Japanese politeness as social indexing or ‘discernment’ (see Watts et al. 1992). In these approaches, politeness is a matter of social norms, and inheres in particular linguistic forms when used appropriately as markers of pre-given social categories. This approach is most appropriate for fixed aspects of language use—the more or less obligatory social marking of relatively unalterable social categories.

(b) Politeness as adherence to Politeness Maxims. Another rule-based approach derives politeness as a set of social conventions coordinate with Grice’s Cooperative Principle for maximally efficient information transmission (‘Make your contribution such as required by the purposes of the conversation at the moment’), with its four ‘Maxims’ of Quality, Quantity, Relevance, and Manner. Lakoff (1973) suggested that three ‘rules of rapport’ underlie choice of linguistic expression, rules which can account for how speakers deviate from directly expressing meanings. Choice among these three pragmatic rules (‘Don’t impose,’ ‘Give options,’ ‘Be friendly’) gives rise to distinct communicative styles. Leech’s more detailed proposal (1983) is in the same vein. Complementary to Grice’s Cooperative Principle, Leech postulates a Politeness Principle— ‘Minimize the expression of impolite beliefs,’ with the six Maxims of Tact, Generosity, Approbation, Modesty, Agreement, Sympathy. As with Grice’s Maxims, deviations from what is expected give rise to inferences. Cross-cultural differences derive from the different importance attached to particular maxims.

The conversational maxim approach shares with the social norm approach the emphasis on codified social rules for minimizing friction between inter- actors, and the view that deviations from expected levels or forms of politeness carry a message.

(c) Politeness as face management. A more sociological perspective places ‘face work’ at the core of politeness. Goffman (1967) considered politeness as an aspect of interpersonal ritual, central to public order. He defined face as an individual’s publicly manifest self-esteem, and proposed that social members have two kinds of face requirements: positive face, or the want for approval from others, and negative face, or the want not to offend others. Attention to these face requirements is a matter of orientation to Goffman’s ‘diplomatic fiction of the virtual offense, or worst possible reading’ (Goffman 1971 pp.138ff.), the working assumption that face is always potentially at risk, so that any interactional act with a social–relational dimension is inherently face-threatening and needs to be modified by appropriate forms of politeness.

2.1 Universal Principles Of Politeness

Brown and Levinson (1987, henceforth B&L) introduced a new perspective by drawing attention to the detailed parallels in the construction of polite utterances across widely differing languages and cultures, and argued that universal principles underlie the construction of polite utterances. The parallels they noted are of two sorts: how the polite expression of utterances is modified in relation to social characteristics of the interloculors and the situation, and how polite utterances are linguistically constructed. At least three social factors are involved in deciding how to be polite: (a) one tends to be more polite to social superiors; (b) one tends to be more polite to people one doesn’t know. In the first case, politeness tends to go one way upwards (the superior is less polite to an inferior); in the second, politeness tends to be symmetrically exchanged. In addition, (c) in any culture there are norms and values affecting the degree of imposition or unwelcomeness of an utterance, and one tends to be more polite for more serious impositions. In language there are also parallels, the linguistic structures for realizing particular kinds of politeness show remarkable similarities across languages. The politeness of solidarity is characterized, for example, by use of intensifiers, in-group identity markers and address forms, exaggerated intonation patterns, forms for seeking agreement and avoiding disagreement. Avoidance-based politeness is characterized by self-effacement, formality, restraint, deference, with the use of honorifics, hedges, indirect speech acts, and impersonalizing mechanisms like pluralization of pronouns, nominalization, and passive.

Why then are these kinds of detailed parallels across languages and cultures to be found in the minutiae of linguistic expression in socially analogous contexts? Explanations in terms of social norms or rules can account for politeness in a particular social group, but not the cross-cultural patterns, which seem to require a strategic account in terms of what people generally are trying to do when they are being polite. B&L (1987) proposed an abstract model of politeness wherein human actors are endowed with two essential attributes: face and rationality. Face consists of two specific kinds of wants: positive face (i.e., the desire to be approved of, admired, liked, validated), and negative face (the desire to be unimposed upon, unimpeded in one’s actions). The second ingredient in the model—rationality—provides for the ability to reason from communicative goals to linguistic means that would achieve these goals. From these two assumptions—face and rationality—and the assumption that speakers mutually know that all speakers have these attributes, B&L developed a model of how speakers construct polite utterances in different contexts on the basis of assessments of three social factors: the relative power (P) of speaker and addressee, their social distance (D), and the intrinsic ranking (R) of the face-threateningness of an imposition. P, D, and R are seen as abstract social dimensions indexing kinds of social relationship (P and D) and cultural values and definitions of impositions or threats to face (R).

B&L (1987) distinguished five general types of strategies of politeness, ranging from avoiding a face-threatening act (FTA) altogether, to carrying it out but ‘off record’ (indirectly). On-record realization of an FTA can be done without any redressive action at all (‘baldly’). It may be carried out with positive redress, which is essentially approach based, addressing the hearer’s positive face wants by emphasizing closeness and solidarity. Politeness may also be carried out with negative redress, which is essentially avoidance based, addressing negative face wants for distance, deference, freedom from unexpectable impositions. Speakers are assumed to choose the linguistic framing of their utterance from this set of strategic possibilities according to the weightiness of the FTA, which is assessed with reference to the three contextually dependent social factors P, D, and R. For low levels of FTA-threat, bald-on-record, or positive politeness is most appropriate and cost effective; for higher levels, negative politeness is required; for the highest threats, indirectness is the safe option.

The claim, then, is that, however culturally variable the kinds of social relationship and kinds of face threat might be, underlying them are pan-cultural social dimensions (relative power, social distance, ranking of face threateningness) which universally go into the reckoning—and the interpretation—of strategic language choice, and hence one can derive the cross-cultural similarities in choice of linguistic realizations of politeness strategies that empirically seem to be in evidence. B&L (1987) claimed further that this model of politeness universals could be applied in particular cultural settings as an ethnographic tool for analyzing the quality of social relationships. Stable social relationships are characterized in part by stable patterns of language use, which may distinguish particular societies or social groups.

2.2 Criticisms Of The B & L Model

The goal of B&L to formulate an ‘etic’ set of concepts in terms of which politeness can be analyzed in ‘emic’ terms for any particular society was ambitious. Critics of the B&L model reveal several major points of contention about how a theory of politeness should be formulated.

2.2.1 The Universality Of Face. Many critics have challenged. B&L’s formulation (via Goffman and Radcliffe-Brown) of positive and negative face wants, as a valid way of conceptualizing the universal underpinnings of politeness. Negative face, in particular, considered as wants for freedom from imposition, appears entirely too embedded in Western individualism to sit well with conceptions of face in some other (e.g., Asian) cultures. In part, this is due to a misconstrual: the B&L face wants are abstract, they do not necessarily correspond clearly to conscious emic notions. What B&L (1987) claimed that underlying very diverse folk notions is a core of two interactionally relevant wants (for ratification, and freedom from imposition) which seem to be cross-culturally applicable, as desires concerning one’s public self-image in the context of the moment which are assumptions oriented to in interaction. Other theorists (e.g., O’Driscoll 1996, Arundale 1999) have argued for notions of positive/negative face that are even more abstract, in terms of merging individuation or closeness/separation, as the universal heart of politeness.

Challenges to the universality of the model also extend to the proposed hierarchy of increasing politeness (from bald-on-record to positive to negative to indirectness). Assessments of the P, D, R factors are situationally and culturally very variable, it is possible to accumulate different strategies in one utterance and to balance elements of negative politeness with positive politeness in one act, and indirectness is not always seen as the most polite option. These observations have led some researchers to argue against the possibility of identifying any kind of universal basis for polite behavior; politeness is simply incommensurate across societies. Those who take this extreme relativistic line can have no explanation for the observable cross-cultural parallels in patterns of language use, for how people manage (sometimes) to understand others from culturally different backgrounds, or for cross-linguistic parallels in the diachronic sources of honorifics from politeness strategies.

2.2.2 Politeness As Communicated Or Taken For Granted. In contrast with rule-based approaches, B&L (1987) insist that politeness inheres not in words or in sentences per se, but in utterances uttered in a context, by virtue of the successful communication of a polite attitude or intention. Polite utterances are not necessarily communicating ‘real’ feelings about anothers’ social persona, but expressing contextually expected concern for face. This concern is an ‘implicature,’ an inference of polite intentions, not a feature inextricably attached to particular linguistic forms. Politeness is ascribed to a speech act, or to an interactional move (if you prefer), not to a strategy or its linguistic realization per se.

In other approaches (for example, Fraser’s (1990) ‘conversational contract,’ Watts et al.’s (1992) ‘politic behavior’), politeness is taken to be the expected background to interaction; it is normally not communicated but consists in following expectations as to appropriate behavior.

2.2.3 Broad vs. Narrow Scopes For Politeness Theory. A narrower view takes politeness to be strategic orientation to potential face threats; there are some situations (e.g., task-oriented ones) where politeness may be subsumed to other goals, and there are many reasons for being indirect in speech other than politeness (e.g., humor, irony, rhetorical farce). Many motivations other than politeness guide human behavior. A more inclusive view sees politeness as orientation to the social-relationship dimension of every interaction, with attention to face taken to be an omnipresent necessity. The whole continuum from extreme politeness through a quite neutral level of politeness (maintaining the status quo, ‘discernment’) to rudeness (outright intentional threat) then needs to be brought into the theory.

2.2.4 Politeness From The Point Of View Of The Individual, The Dyad, Or The Social Group. The B&L model takes the interacting dyad as its unit; it is about how interlocutors make inferences of politeness from one another’s deviations from Gricean efficient communication, and how stable patterns of strategies characterize dyadic interaction, providing an index to the quality of the social relationship. Many politeness strategies are quintessential examples of ‘intersubjective perspective-taking’—putting yourself in the others’ position. A major goal of B&L (1987) was to insist on the centrality of social interaction as a significant level of social life, intermediate between the individual and society, where social cultural facts (status, role, values, norms, rights, and obligations) are integrated with individual ones (goals, plans, strategies).

Yet the Gricean foundation of the theory and the speech-act based formulation of the B&L strategies have made many see the model as purely psychological (how a speaker calculates how to frame an utterance). Arundale (1999), for example, argues for a theory of how face is jointly constituted in ongoing interaction. In fact, we need both perspectives: face is indisputably interactionally created and manipulated. Nevertheless, it can be considered from the point of view of the individual speaker or hearer (as B&L do in their production/comprehension model), or of the society or social group (as ‘face constituting theory’ and most sociolinguists do).

2.2.5 The Indeterminacy Problem. The usefulness of the B&L (1987) model as an ethnographic tool for analyzing the quality of social relationships in any society is undermined by the contextual dependency of ratings of the social factors. The problems of the mixing and ordering of strategies are compounded by the indeterminacy of context-dependent P, D, R assessments, which make it hard to code levels of politeness in any concrete situation. This is a problem with any theory in terms of actors’ intentions when applied to empirical data; as both interactors and conversation analysts know, it is not always possible to be certain what interlocutors’ intentions are at a particular point in natural interaction.

The B&L model of politeness as originally formulated clearly needs elaboration and revision. Nonetheless, it retains its centrality in research on politeness, largely because it provides a coherent set of concepts for analytically dissecting polite speech in different societies and contexts. It is also the only theory that begins to provide an account for the detailed cross-cultural parallels in polite speech.

3. Conclusions

Politeness has attracted an enormous amount of research attention since the 1970s, and continues to be a major focus for research in disciplines concerned with social interaction. The study of politeness phenomena can provide insight into widely differing issues; foci of interest correspondingly differ widely. They include, for example, analyses of the sequential development of politeness in natural interaction, the study of cross-cultural pragmatics and misunderstanding, the ethnography of speaking of face and politeness in different cultures and contexts, politeness strategies as providing the stylistic coherence of particular types of interaction (e.g., gender differences in speech style), politeness as a functional motivation for linguistic structure, the social psychology of face management and interpersonal perception, politeness theory applied to the analysis of formal ritual and to a view of culture as ‘rhetoric,’ or forms of effective expression. Research on politeness has, however, been much weaker on the theoretical front. A major limitation is the kinds of data used in analyses. A large proportion of studies take as their data people’s conscious

evaluations of politeness expressed in sentences, judgements which tend to be both prescriptive and stereotypical. Far fewer studies use as data recordings of situated conversational exchanges to explore how politeness is achieved sequentially in naturallyoccurring discourse, and only a handful provide the crucial kind of evidence necessary to test the universality of any theory of politeness: for a particular society, an ‘ethnography of speaking’ providing evidence across different contexts to show how politeness is modulated in relation to social factors (P, D, R and others) in that society.

The emphasis is research has been largely on cross-cultural differences, with insufficient attention addressed to the cross-linguistic/cross-cultural parallels which tend to be taken for granted when they are not disputed. But politeness has a significance far beyond the P’s and Q’s of appropriate behavior and speech. The wider significance of politeness is in the interactional, communicative, day-to-day basis of social life, and the conduct of social relationships. Any work in this area needs to be based in a theory of social interaction that takes account both of our common human nature (and ability to communicate cross-culturally) and of our cultural differences (which makes us sometimes misunderstand one another), to anchor research on politeness—this is the great weakness in butterfly-collecting approaches.

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