Dissertation acknowledgements in Cameroon English: A study in linguistic politeness

Abstract

This study investigates the polite language behaviour of users of Cameroon English in a typical plurilingual and multiethnic context with emphasis on the politeness strategies used with regard to acknowledging. Based on Brown and Levinson's Politeness Theory, the data, obtained from the acknowledgements pages of students' dissertations in the University of Yaoundé 1, were investigated with the aim of identifying politeness strategies and their relative frequency. The study demonstrates that the urge to save face by being polite engenders a range of strategies, including the use of honorifics to mark deference, the use of terms of kin to foster solidarity and the use of self-abnegation as well as polite lexical forms to show deference, create and consolidate fraternity and above all save face as they acknowledge the contribution of others to the realisation of their research projects.