Positive and Negative Politeness Strategies Used by Kenya’s Members of National Assembly

Abstract

Linguistic politeness enhances proper interaction among members of the society. During social interactions, interlocutors try to protect their positive public self-image and want to be seen as valuable members of the society. Politeness ensures effective Linguistic politeness enhances proper interaction among members of the National Assembly as they interact with each other in parliament. This study focused on the speeches of selected Members of Parliament in parliament context in order to find the positive and negative politeness strategies that they use. The researcher used politeness theory by Brown and Levinson (1987) to analyze, interpret and discuss the data collected. The data was downloaded from the Hansard and analyzed using content analysis method. This paper used purposive sampling technique where only the utterances with positive and negative politeness strategies were selected for inclusion in this paper. Descriptive qualitative research technique was used in the analysis of data. A guiding card was used to identify positive and negative politeness strategies. This research found out that members of National Assembly use positive and negative politeness strategies to lessen threats to face. The findings of this study will add to the existing literature in the field of sociolinguistics and pragmatics. They will also help interlocutors understand strategies that they can use in order to communicate effectively so that both parties feel appreciated in a conversation.