Abstract
Politeness theory is one of the useful means in interpreting the literary discourse especially fictional discourse where the novelist uses language suitable to the characters moving in the socio-cultural milieu. Therefore, in order to discover a new meaning and eventually arriving at an authentic interpretation of the utterances of the characters, the principles of pragmatics in general and the politeness theory in particular is a novel way of doing so. The present research aims at studying two selected English novels and takes into consideration the politeness strategies as advocated by Brown and Levinson (1987). The researcher chooses to compare two novels written by two female writers to reduce the options and to make the focus only on strategies. If the two novels were one by a male writer and the other by a female , the analysis would have become more complex and necessitated the provision of explanations and justifications that have no room in this study. The researcher chooses two different time periods to clarify whether the environment has changed the way women deal with these strategies or whether they have retained. It is known that politeness strategies have been established because they are the best way to address others without injuring feelings or verbal abuse. But are these strategies actually being used for the reasons cited by Brown and Levinson? Can it not be used to achieve goals and objectives other than what is known about?
Highlights
According to Brown and Levinson (1987) politeness is universal feature of language use, i.e. it is found in all human communication and each community has its own specific rules of politeness
The current study aims at: 1. Identifying the strategies of politeness that are used by the novelists (Charlotte Bronte and Agatha Christie), for the novels (Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre and Agatha Christies' Murder on the Orient Express)
Through analyzing Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre and Agatha Christie's Murder on the Orient Express, it has been found that the nature of human being, his psychological state and the circumstances under which the incidents happen, might make it difficult to find any character's speech with only one strategy
Summary
According to Brown and Levinson (1987) politeness is universal feature of language use, i.e. it is found in all human communication and each community has its own specific rules of politeness. Brown and Levinson make another kind of classification which divides acts into two groups as follows: 1) Acts that threaten the speaker's negative face such as thanks, excuses, and accepting offers. 2.3.2.2.1 Bold on Record Adopting this strategy, the speaker performs FTA clearly and directly without paying any attention to the hearer's face (Brown and Levinson, 1987:69). 2.3.2.2.3 Negative Politeness Brown and Levinson (1987:70) state that by negative politeness the speaker could be formal and must pay attention to the hearer's self-image This strategy is subdivided into the following strategies: Strategy 1: be conveniently indirect: the speaker equalizes between his desire to be on record and the concern to the hearer's freedom of action. This strategy violates the quality maxim when the speaker says less than required to generate implicatures (Brown and Levinson 1987:217). Sympathy Maxim: the speaker congratulates, commiserates as well as employs euphemism to lessen any embarrassment to the hearer. (Cutting, 2003:50)
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