Politeness Theory Research Articles

POLITENESS STRATEGIES APPLIED BY STUDENTS IN THE CONTEXT OF CLASSROOM IN VOCATIONAL SCHOOL

This study has the purpose to explore the politeness strategies of students in a vocational school, how the teachers and students apply the politeness strategies, and the implication of politeness strategies applied to the student’s good character improvement. Descriptive qualitative research was applied in this study which explored the phenomena of politeness in the teaching-learning process. There were 16 classes which consisted of 464 students of XI grade in one of the vocational schools in Buleleng Bali as the participants of this research. 140 students from the hospitality department and 10 teachers were taken as samples for this study. The sources of the primary input were the teachers’ and students’ interactions in the classrooms which were observed and recorded. Ten transcriptions were collected from the observations of ten teachers observed when they taught in the Tourism Department. These transcriptions then were analyzed and reviewed according to Brown and Levinson’s politeness theory in 1987. This research showed that the vocational students applied some types of expressions such as greetings, thanking, addressing, apologizing, and filling. Some expressions or terms were derived from the daily language, which was applied to soften the students’ and teachers’ interactions. All the expressions were grouped into politeness which is positive and negative. The results of this research could be applied as a recommendation for the teachers and students to make the interaction in the classroom effective. Keywords: interaction, language, politeness strategies, teaching-learning process

Politeness in Roasting: When Humour Meets Power

This research examines the use of politeness strategies in stand-up comedy roasts. Specifically, it examines how comedians manage power dynamics and societal standards of politeness while addressing those in authoritative positions in a given society. The author investigated stand-up comedy roasting using Brown and Levinson's politeness theory and prior research on humor and impoliteness. The results indicate that comedians used politeness methods, including compliments or flattery, indirectness or hedges, and off-the-record discourse, to achieve their humorous objectives. Using the politeness strategies theory, this research provides insights into how comedians utilize language and humor to manage challenging social situations.

Two phenomena behind the terminology of face

Abstract In politeness research and other areas, scholars use a range of metaphorical expressions involving the term face, as in “lose face”, “threaten face” and “save face”, drawing upon Goffman’s paper “On face-work” (Goffman, Erving. 1967. Interaction ritual: Essays on face-to-face behavior. New York: Pantheon Books), often through Brown and Levinson’s influential theory of politeness (Brown, Penelope & Stephen C. Levinson. 1987. Politeness: Some universals in language usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). The present paper argues that the interactional processes referred to by such expressions are of at least two kinds, here labeled “Observed-Behavior (OB) face-processes” and “Expressed-Attitude (EA) face-processes”. X’s OB face loss occurs when others negatively evaluate X on the basis of her behavior; X’s EA face loss occurs when others convey to X that they do not have the same values as her (“positive face”) or act in a way that impedes her freedom (“negative face”). Ten differences between OB and EA face-processes are set out. These differences are not acknowledged in the literature, which, as shown in this paper, leads to much ambiguity and confusion.

Gender, Politeness, and the 2020 Democratic Presidential Primary Debates

Using politeness theory as a framework, this study compared men and women presidential candidates’ argumentative discourse in the 2020 Democratic primary debates. Researchers conducted a content analysis of all twelve debates in which women candidates were present utilizing Dailey, Hinck, and Hinck’s (2008) coding schema. Findings revealed differences in how men and women candidates approached the 2020 Democratic primary debates suggesting that the strategic use of face support and threat can be important tools in building a desirable political image of leadership.

Grand strategy of politeness in new social networks: revisiting Leech’s politeness theory among Iranian EFL learners using Telegram

Abstract Human beings utilize varied linguistic politeness to facilitate interaction and minimize the potential for conflict. With the advancement of the Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC) and the introduction of new social networks, studying how politeness operates within human communication opened up new avenues for research, particularly within diverse cultures. For this reason, the current study sought to report on the “whats” and “hows” of politeness strategies identified in Telegram messages delivered by EFL Learners in Iran. Data were analyzed based on Leech’s (Leech, Geoffrey. 2007. Politeness: Is there an East-West divide? Journal of Politeness Research 3(2). 167–206) Grand Strategy of Politeness, considering the purpose of communication, politeness strategies, and context. The corpus for this study encompassed 1,413 text messages sent via Telegram by 9 EFL learners during one year. Findings indicated a number of different politeness strategies in Iranian culture, specifically the modesty constraint – the speaker maximizes dispraise of himself – which can be construed as one of the unique features and influences of Islamic teachings. Moreover, the Leech’s model might appropriately describe politeness principles in Asian contexts, including Iran, and how cultural dynamics manifest themselves in interpreting the concept of politeness.

A Cross-Cultural Differences in Advice-Giving Strategies among Jordanian and British Speakers

Advice-giving means offering guidance or recommendations offered with regard to prudent future action. The individuals vary in their methods of offering advice. Such differences might be attributed to the cultural differences. Therefore, the present study aims to investigate the cross-cultural differences in advice-giving strategies among Jordanian and British speakers. It aims to examine the types of advice-giving strategies employed by Jordanian speakers and British speakers. It investigates the effect of gender, and social power and distance (=, +) on advice-giving among Jordanian speakers and British speakers. The study further seeks to identify the degree of politeness among the Jordanian speakers and British speakers in offering advice. To this end, a total of (60) participants are divided into two groups; (30) Jordanian speakers and (30) British speakers. Each group consists of (15) males and (15) females. To analyze the data, Hinkel’s (1997) taxonomy of advice-giving strategies, direct, indirect, and hedge as well as Brown and Levinson's (1987) politeness theory are used. Hinkel multiple choice questionnaire consists of (8) situations; (4) of them pertained to advice-giving for peer, whereas (4) of them pertained to advice-giving for instructors. As for giving advice for peers, the findings reveal that Jordanian speakers used direct advice-giving strategies, while British speaker used indirect advice-giving strategies. As for advice giving for instructors, British speakers used more indirect giving strategies than Jordanian speakers, whereas Jordanian speakers used more hedge advice giving strategies than British speakers. The advice-giving strategies, whether indirect or hedge fall under politeness strategies. Regarding the gender differences in using advice-giving strategies, the results show that Jordanian male speakers were inclined towards using direct advice giving strategies more than females. The finding reveal that females used indirect, hedge, and polite advice-giving strategies, while males used direct and impolite advice-giving strategies. The study recommends investigating advice-giving among other cultures such as between Asian speakers and Jordanian speakers.

Japanese Directive Speech

Language in role as a means of communication could result in relationships between speakers of to said. The use of language in the process of communication is very important, because community life is made possible by speech. Speechs are used to information of ideas, intentions directly or indirectly. Speech act serves to declare mean it is speakers by speech partners of said. Directive speech is the type of a speech that used by speakers of to send the speech partner said do something. The use of directive speech in conveying a speech should look factors affecting the speech. The porpuse in this research was to identify the directive speech acts and factors that affect the level of politeness. The method in this research used qualitative method with descriptive analysis method. The theory in this research used were speech act theory by Yule and politeness theory by Mizutani. The results of the analysis, the forms of directive speech acts contained in the comic Ore wo Suki Nano wa Omae dake kayo are 1) directive speech acts of command marked by tamae and nasai, 2) directive speech acts of requests marked by te kure, naide kure, te kudasai, tte, te, and te hoshii; 3) the directive speech act of an invitation is marked with mashou; 4) directive speech acts of permission marked by te mo ii and 5) directive speech acts of suggestions marked with houga ii. Directive speech is influenced by several factors, namely: 1) familiarity factor; 2) age; 3) social relationship; 4) gender and 5) situation.

Politeness Principles Used by EFL Teachers in Classroom Interaction during Teaching-Learning Process

Politeness is one of the main factors to achieve character education. The teacher should pay attention, show politeness, and consider themselves as part of parents. The purpose is to make some middle school teachers recognize how to criticize appropriately. This research was carried out to identify the types of politeness principles used by the EFL teachers during the classroom interaction, andto find out the effects of politeness principles in the classroom interaction during teaching-learning process. The researcher has chosen English teacher on the seventh and eighth grade at Lab School of UNISMUH Makassar. The researcher joined in the class and recorded the activities when teachers were teaching. The researcher applied descriptive qualitative method to analyze the data, by doing data reduction, data display and conclusion. The researcher used the theory of politeness by Geoffrey Leech (2016) about politeness principle, which consists of six maxims, namely tact maxim, generosity maxim, approbation maxim, modesty maxim, agreement maxim, and sympathy maxim. The result of the observation showed that the EFL teachers used five maxims, namely tact maxim, generosity maxim, approbation maxim, agreement maxim, and sympathy maxim.Furthermore, the results of the interviews showed that the principle of politeness could create togetherness between teachers and students, build respect for students, create cooperative interactions between teachers and students, help students to have positive feelings towards lessons, motivate them to participate actively in class and also shapes the character and self-development of students to local culture.

(Im)politeness employed by multilingual Indonesian EFL learners in argumentative conversations

Politeness might lessen imposition in argumentative conversations which potentially result in conflict. However, different conventions on politeness among different cultures may cause problems for EFL (English as a Foreign Language) learners who often transfer their native communication preferences to their target language usage. This article explores the (im)politeness employed by multilingual EFL learners in casual agreeing-disagreeing exchanges among peers. Using explanatory sequential mixed method design, students’ utterances in role plays were analyzed based on Leech’s (2014) politeness theory, Kakava’s (1993) disagreement strategies, as well as Locher’s (2004) mitigating strategies on disagreement. It is found that in conversations with people of equal status and power, the observance of politeness maxims is more apparent than the violation. It indicates that maintaining others’ faces is essential irrespective of age differences, even in arguing conversations. The more frequent use of positive politeness than negative politeness strategies represents their greater orientation to others than to themselves. The prevalence of mitigated disagreement and the frequent use of an appreciation preface also show their priority to maintaining good relationships. Those findings support the view of Asians as a collectivistic group whose primary concern in communication is group membership. This suggests that awareness of politeness in argumentative conversations among EFL learners must be increased by giving them different perspectives from non-Asian cultures.

The politeness of criticism speech acts in Japanese and Minangkabau films

Criticism tends to be a face-threatening speech act that can endanger social relationships if not managed using appropriate strategies, especially in the intercultural context. This study aims to compare and contrast the politeness of criticism speech acts used in Japanese and Minangkabau languages as depicted in film series. The data on criticism speech acts in this study were collected from eleven Japanese film series with a total duration of 538 minutes and eight Minangkabau films with a total duration of 535 minutes. The collected data were formed into a set of data cards, classified based on the criticism speech acts strategies by Nguyen (2005), and analyzed based on Brown and Levinson’s (1987) politeness theory. The data classification in Japanese and Minangkabau was validated through the expert judgment process. The findings indicated that the Japanese and Minangkabau languages employed the same set of criticism speech act strategies but have different tendencies. In Japanese, speakers tend to use indirect strategies as their main criticism speech act strategy by ‘asking/presupposing,’ ‘correction,’ and ‘advice for change.’ Meanwhile, in Minangkabau, speakers tend to use direct strategies by using ‘negative evaluation,’ ‘expression of contradiction,’ and ‘disagreement’ strategies. Regarding the politeness strategy, off-record politeness strategies are more dominantly used among Japanese speakers. In contrast, Minangkabau speakers use bald on-record politeness strategies in criticism speech acts, reflecting their communication culture. The findings of this study provide a deeper understanding of criticism speech act and politeness strategies. The study is expected to contribute to the area of research on intercultural communication and Sociolinguistics.

Optimism in English and Arabic Religious Discourse: A Pragmatic Study

The present study tries to investigate linguistically optimism in English and Arabic religious discourses. The language of religious discourse is rich to be examined by the researchers. Optimism is carried out by different pragmatic aspects. The study aims at identifying the various pragmatic strategies by which optimism is conveyed through the eclectic model which is adopted to analyse the data. It consists of Searle’s (1969) speech act theory, Grice’s (1975) conversational implicature and Brown and Levinson’s (1987) politeness theory. The study employs a qualitative content analysis method to analyse three Biblical texts and three Quranic texts that include optimism in the two Holy Books. The study reveals that optimism is conveyed mainly by the directive, representative speech acts. It is also conveyed by the conversational implicature that is mainly conveyed by words with many connotations. Finally, optimism is mainly carried out by positive politeness strategies such as encouraging, understanding, showing sympathy and promising the reader/listener.

Optimism in English and Arabic Religious Discourse: A Pragmatic Study

The present study tries to investigate linguistically optimism in English and Arabic religious discourses. The language of religious discourse is rich to be examined by the researchers. Optimism is carried out by different pragmatic aspects. The study aims at identifying the various pragmatic strategies by which optimism is conveyed through the eclectic model which is adopted to analyse the data. It consists of Searle’s (1969) speech act theory, Grice’s (1975) conversational implicature and Brown and Levinson’s (1987) politeness theory. The study employs a qualitative content analysis method to analyse three Biblical texts and three Quranic texts that include optimism in the two Holy Books. The study reveals that optimism is conveyed mainly by the directive, representative speech acts. It is also conveyed by the conversational implicature that is mainly conveyed by words with many connotations. Finally, optimism is mainly carried out by positive politeness strategies such as encouraging, understanding, showing sympathy and promising the reader/listener.

“Shut up! Don’t say that! You’ve got to say ḤASHĀKEM!” The pragmatics of Ḥashāk and its variants in colloquial Algerian Arabic

Abstract In this paper, the pragmatic functions served by ḥāshāk and its variants in colloquial Algerian Arabic (CAA) are unravelled. Literally, ḥāshāk means “You’re exalted/exempt from X/I distance you from X,” where X is a bad thing or socially/religiously unacceptable act. Its variants include ḥāsha, ḥāshākem, ḥāshāh/ḥāshāha/ḥāshāhem, maḥashākesh, and the verb ḥāsha/ḥāshi. As far as the author is aware, this is the first study on the pragmatics of ḥāshāk and its variants in colloquial (Algerian) Arabic. Two complementary data sets were collected and analyzed: an online survey administered to native speakers (N= 263) and a corpus of naturally occurring examples gained using an ethnographic method (N= 172). The findings indicated that the core semantic import (exaltative/excepting/exempting meaning) is retained in CAA and further extended to perform other pragmatic functions: apologetic, appreciative, requestive, concessive, critical, defensive, and sarcastic. These intertwined functions are expected in an array of highly conventionalized contexts. These findings were discussed from an eclectic perspective (e.g., pragmatic reversal, pragmatic markers, politeness theory, and rapport management).

The pragmatics of figures of speech in teacher - student conflicts: An analysis of selected EFL classroom exchanges in Secondary Schools

The present article analyses the use of figures of speech in situations of conflict in the EFL classroom; it seeks to report how these linguistic devices are exploited by EFL teachers and students to perform a variety of acts during classroom exchanges. In a corpus of 70 EFL teacher student exchanges, we have appraised the use of figures of speech by EFL teachers and students in conflict situations in order to derive semantic and pragmatic meanings from the language choices. As a matter of fact, the present article focusses on figures of comparison as well as figures of exaggeration as used by classroom actors in the context of disagreement with a view to identifying the speech acts they perform in class. By means of direct class observation, 70 EFL classes were observed, recorded and transcribed; the analysis of the selected relevant data was done in accordance with the theory of speech acts and the politeness theory by Austin and Searle 1962 as well as Leech 1983. The findings revealed that in situations of conflict, figures of comparison and exaggeration served the purpose of performing face threatening acts which are undeniable conflict markers.

Revealing Power Relations in Online Learning: A Critical Classroom Discourse Analysis

The Government of Indonesia has made policy by implementing learning with online system through several online platforms since the pandemic covid_19 in 2020. The lecturers and the students of English Department of STKIP PGRI Jombang as unseperated parts of the higher education in Indonesia must realize this policy. Of the reasons, this research will employ qualitative reserach by adopting the theory of politeness and supported by the theory of critical classroom discourse analysis (CCDA), thus, it is aimed at investigating how power relation between the lecturer and the students of English Department of STKIP PGRI Jombang can maintain their good social relations. This research will be conducted to analyze the politeness strategy used by lecturer and students on online learning process. This research will explore what politeness strategy the lecturer apply to the students, what word choice the lecturer use in applying the politeness strategy toward the students and why the lecturer apply the politeness strategy to the students on online learning. The research, furthermore, will relate relate the examination of politeness and critical classroom discourse analysis to get true data analysis of the research. The findings showed that a lecturer maintains good manners to his students so that even though the position of a lecturer is higher, it is different from his students, which has a different role as a consequence. There were three stages of uncovering their power relations. The first stage, this research employed the lecturer’s dominant role to determine the construction of power to his students. It could be described in the analysis of the conversation related to the greetings in the initial of each meeting in online learning and the preparation of group discussion. The second stage, the researcher explored the solidarity expressed the lecturer to his students by employing his personal experiences and his expression of his sorry to hear when there was a student’s father was sick. Those two stages played important roles of exposing their relationship both equal and unequal. The lecturer exercised his power indicated that their social relations are unequal. On the contrary, the solidarity exposed by the lecturer to his students indicated that their social relations are equal.

Culpeper’s Impoliteness Strategies in Neil Simon’s ‘Biloxi Blues’

Impoliteness has recently been of interest to scholars as a linguistic study in the field of pragmatics. It has emerged as the opposite orientation to politeness strategy, theory and studies. This paper explores how the impoliteness strategies mapped out by Jonathan Culpeper (1996) are employed in dramatic texts. It examines Culpeper’s impoliteness strategies designed to investigate face in the dramatic text. This paper tests the strategies through Neil Simon’s Biloxi Blues (1985). This dramatic comedy is used for three reasons: (1) as a drama, it is a mirror of life and real-life speech events; (2) impoliteness strategies provide a resource to analyse impolite interactions between the characters in dialogic discourse; (3) dramatic texts provide a rich context to interpret and analyse verbal and non-verbal impoliteness strategies. Impoliteness strategies can cause disharmony and conflict between characters in a dramatic text. The interactions exchanged by the characters in Biloxi Blues are analysed according to Culpeper’s five impoliteness strategies: bald on record impoliteness, positive impoliteness, negative impoliteness, sarcasm or mock politeness, and withhold politeness. This study employs a descriptive qualitative method to determine how face-threatening acts are incorporated into the play in line with Culpeper’s impoliteness strategies propounded in his article entitled Towards an Anatomy of Impoliteness (1996). The paper also examines how the characters react to face-threatening acts. In the twelve selected dramatic extracts, seventeen cases of positive impoliteness, ten cases of bald on record impoliteness, eight cases of sarcasm or mock politeness, and four cases of negative impoliteness have been observed. Moreover, it has also been observed that the characters use taboo words and abusive and strong language. The bald on record impolite acts are aggravated mainly by abuses, sexual insults and name-calling strategies. Racial slurs have also been identified as a part of positive impoliteness.

An Applied Linguistics Study of How Students Prevent Embarrassments and Impositions During Interactive Examination OSCEs

ObjectiveTo assess the effectiveness of politeness strategies used by pharmacy students to avoid embarrassing or imposing on others during objective structured clinical examinations. MethodsA total of 19 objective structured clinical examinations video recordings of 10 students (participants) interacting with mock patients were examined using the framework of Politeness Theory (PT). All relevant participant acts (speech activities) were coded using PT into (1) type of face threatening acts (ie, potentially sensitive situations—as regarded by PT) and (2) politeness strategies used to mitigate them. Conversation Analysis was then used to examine the effectiveness of conversational strategies by judging the ‘patient’ responses to these strategies. ResultsMost acts had the potential to impact patients’ negative face needs (ie, desire to act autonomously, eg, upon the practitioner making a request), positive face needs (ie, desire to be liked, eg, upon the practitioner making a diagnosis), or both. Despite applying a variety of positive politeness strategies (eg, avoiding disagreement, or expressing understanding) to prevent embarrassment to the patient, and negative politeness strategies (eg, being indirect, using hedging, or minimizing the imposition) to avoid directly imposing on them, “dispreferred responses” showed participants mostly focused on avoiding impositions, corresponding to what they have been taught, rather embarrassments. ConclusionParticipants were less aware that discussing sensitive topics could cause embarrassment to patients, with the potential to upset them. Developing teaching and evaluation methods to consider patients’ face needs could help in assessing and improving pharmacy students’ communication skills.

Exploring Euphemisms as Taboo Avoidance Strategies in the Mabia Languages

This article investigates the use of euphemisms in mitigating prohibited expressions in three Mabia (Gur) languages: Dagbani, Farefare (also known as Gurenε) and Kusaal. In the daily interactions of the Mabia people, they avoid using certain expressions, which are unmentionable in most contexts. These include the expressions for snakes and snakebite, sexual intercourse and genitalia, and death. The mention of the explicit terms for these expressions is face-threatening in Mabia society and can incur various forms of negative social consequences. Thus, instead of using these taboo expressions, speakers employ euphemisms as taboo-avoidance strategies; these euphemistic expressions oil social cohesion and indicate speakers’ communicative competence. The data used in this study were mainly gathered from primary sources. However, we augmented some of the primary data of Dagbani with some secondary sources drawn from N. A. Salifu's (2012) PhD thesis. We employ politeness theory and ethnography of communication as analytical lenses.

Positive Politeness Strategy in the Conversation of "Me Before You" Movie

This paper entitled “Positive Politeness Strategy in the Conversation of Me Before You Movie”. The aims was to identify the positive politeness strategy and to explain the factor influencing the characters used positive politeness strategies based on the theory of Brown and Levinson (1987). The data was taken from the utterance between characters in the movie. The data was collected through the documentation method by taking-note technique, this article used qualitative method to analyze the data, the method of presenting data analysis was the informal method. This article used the politeness theory proposed by Brown and Levinson. Based on the theory above, there was nine strategies of positive politeness found in this movie. Furthermore, the factor influencing this article is positive politeness payoff. The results of this article show that in “Me Before You” movie the characters used nine out of fifteen strategies in positive politeness. The nine strategies that was found in the utterances of the characters are strategy 2 (exaggerate), strategy 3 (intensify interest to H), strategy 4 (use in-group identity markers), strategy 5 (seek agreement), strategy 6 (avoid disagreement), strategy 10 (offer and promise), strategy 11 (be optimistic), strategy 12 (include both S and H in the activity), and strategy 15 (give gifts to H (goods, sympathy, understanding, cooperation)). Meanwhile, the factor influencing this article is positive politeness payoffs.

On the role of politeness in online human–human tutoring

AbstractResearchers have demonstrated that dialogue‐based intelligent tutoring systems (ITS) can be effective in assisting students in learning. However, little research has attempted to explore the necessity of equipping dialogue‐based ITS with one of the most important capabilities of human tutors, that is, maintaining polite interactions with students, which is essential to provide students with a pleasant learning experience. In this study, we examined the role of politeness by analysing a large‐scale real‐world dataset consisting of over 14K online human–human tutorial dialogues. Specifically, we employed linguistic theories of politeness to characterise the politeness levels of tutor–student‐generated utterances, investigated the correlation between the politeness levels of tutors' utterances and students' problem‐solving performance and quantified the power of politeness in predicting students' problem‐solving performance by applying Gradient Tree Boosting. The study results showed that: (i) in the effective tutorial sessions (ie, sessions in which students successfully solved problems), tutors tended to be very polite at the start of a tutorial session and become more direct to guide students as the session progressed; (ii) students with better performance in solving problems tended to be more polite at the beginning and the end of a tutorial session than their counterparts who failed to solve problems; (iii) the correlation between tutors' polite expressions and students' performance was not evident in non‐instructional communication; and (iv) politeness alone cannot adequately reveal students' problem‐solving performance, and thus other factors (eg, sentiment contained in utterances) should also be taken into account. Practitioner notesWhat is already known about this topic Human–human tutoring is acknowledged as an effective instructional method. Polite expression can help strengthen the relationship between tutors and students. Polite expression can promote students' learning achievements in many educational contexts. What this paper adds By considering the students' prior progress on a problem‐based learning task, we demonstrated the extent to which tutors and students display politeness in tutoring dialogues. Tutors' polite expressions might not correlate with students' problem‐solving performance in online human–human tutoring dialogues. Politeness alone was insufficient to predict the students' performance. Implications for practice Tutors might consider using words with positive sentiment values to express politeness to students with prior progress, which might encourage those students to make a further effort. The polite strategy of expressing indirect requests could help tutors mitigate the sense of directness, but this strategy should be carefully used in delivering instructional hints, especially for students without prior progress. To better assist students without prior progress, tutors might consider using more direct expression to explicitly guide students.