Politeness and Impoliteness in the Political Discourse

Diploma Thesis , 2021 , 38 Pages , Grade: 9.33

Communications - Media and Politics, Politic Communications

The study focuses on communicative behaviour in Political Discourse, having in view the presence of elements of politeness and impoliteness. Political settings consist of rich and interesting elements of politeness and impoliteness. In order to achieve certain goals, politicians use politeness strategies. Nevertheless, impoliteness is salient when it occurs. In analyzing the data, some elements that trigger impoliteness will be followed.

Studies on politeness and impoliteness have acquired great popularity over the past few decades. However, they mostly emphasize the informal aspects of language. Politeness is conceptualized as strategic conflict avoidance. On the contrary, impoliteness is regarded as a violation of politic behaviour. Politeness and impoliteness are basic to any form of communication. The concepts of politeness and impoliteness play an important role in all kinds of discourses. One is Political Discourse.

CONTENTS

Argument

Chapter I. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
I.1. Politeness
1.2. Impoliteness

Chapter II. POLITENESS AND IMPOLITENESS IN POLITICAL DISCOURSE
II.1. Objectives of the study
II.2. Research Methodology
II.3. Data collection and analysis

Conclusions

Bibliography

Argument

Studies on politeness and impoliteness have acquired great popularity over the past few decades. However, they mostly emphasize the informal aspects of language.

Politeness is conceptualized as strategic conflict avoidance. On the contrary, impoliteness is regarded as a violation of politic behaviour.

The reason I have chosen this topic emerges from my interest on how people exchange information. Moreover, politeness and impoliteness are basic to any form of communication.

The concepts of politeness and impoliteness play an important role in all kinds of discourses. One is Political Discourse.

The study focuses on communicative behaviour in Political Discourse, having in view the presence of elements of politeness and impoliteness.

In order to achieve certain goals, politicians use politeness strategies. Nevertheless, impoliteness is salient when it occurs. In analyzing the data, some elements that trigger impoliteness were followed. These are: a threat to face, strong disapproval, desire to provoke, the wish to entertain, power or anger.

Political settings consist of rich and interesting elements of politeness and impoliteness.

Chapter I. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

I.1. Politeness

Politeness is part of a larger field of study, that of pragmatics, which also includes the study of deixis, speech acts, and impoliteness. In other words, pragmatics studies language in context.

Pragmatics of politeness tries to identify the reasons and meanings of the verbal strategies used for the achievement of the communicative act.

The word polite refers to an individual whose attitude is full of respect irrespective of the way he or she speaks or writes. Therefore, it can be used to refer to both verbal and non-verbal conducts. Still, the precise meaning of politeness may vary in different cultures. An example may be the Japanese bowing respectfully, while in some other countries politeness is associated with social class and power.

The main source of inspiration in the research phenomena is the work done by E. Goffman and P. Brown & S. Levinson. Goffman ‘s study on politeness relies on the concept of face, that is an image people create in front of others while the other two theorists formulated a theory of politeness.

Researchers of both 18th century and modern ones view politeness as a linguistic instrument used by all societies in order to prevent or minimize disagreement, bypass social aggression, avoid conflict and develop the process of social interaction.

According to Koike¹, “politeness is a social behaviour that creates the interconnection among sociocultural norms, linguistic forms and functions’’.

Watts created a politeness framework, based on two categories:

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First-order politeness relies on the pragmatic meaning of politeness. It depends on how members of different socio-cultural communities perceive politeness . Second-order politeness is built on the classic pragmatic-based theories of politeness. It is a scientific approach to politeness developed by different theories.

In the following subchapter, I shall present the most important theories of politeness in order to better understand what politeness is, the way it is used and what factors influence the speaker’s choice in order to be considered polite.

I.1.1. Politeness Theories

There exist several theories of politeness. Their main source is Grice’s Cooperative Principle of verbal interaction. He states:

Make your conversational contribution such as is required, at the stage at which it occurs, by the accepted purpose or direction of the talk exchange in which you are engaged².

Grice argues that individuals engaged in the act of communication cooperate with each other in an informative, truthful and relevant manner. They comply with the Cooperative Principle by following four maxims:

1. Maxim of Quantity - the participants to conversation need to be as informative as required.
2. Maxim of Quality - the participants to conversation need to be as sincere as required.
3. Maxim of Relation - the contribution of the participants to conversation needs to be as relevant as required.
4. Maxim of Manner - the participants to conversation need to be as brief, unambiguous and organized as demanded.

The most representative theories of politeness are the following:

- Lakoff’s Theory ³, that deals with the extension of the maxims of “pragmatic competence”

(“Be clear” and “Be polite’’) in a set of rules to be followed. Such rules will determine whether a linguistic act is rude or polite. These are the following:

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- Leech ’ s Theory⁴, which states that politeness should have an important place in pragmatics. His Politeness Principle is as important as Grice’s Cooperative Principle. The former helps creating relationships between interlocutors while the latter has the role of organizing the conversation. Thus, interlocutors become cooperative.

Leech formulated a Politeness Principle ⁵, based on the following maxims:

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- Brown & Levinson’s Theory⁶ is considered the most influential work in politeness.

They revise Goffman’s concept of face and introduce their version of face, considering it as the free individuality of the person in social interaction. The Model Person that Brown & Levinson mention in their theory of politeness speaks a natural language and has two qualities: face and rationality. The concept of rationality relates to the Model Person’s ability to choose the right means in order to achieve his goals. Face implies not only the Model Person’s need for freedom in his actions, but also the need to be liked and approved by others. In any interaction, two Model Persons have the mutual interest to preserve each other’s face.

- Fraser’s Theory⁷ is presented as a “conversational – contract view’’. When the individuals come in interaction, they bring a set of rights and obligations, at least for the preliminary stages, to be respected in order to know what to expect from each other. Certainly, they can renegotiate the ‟contract” at any time.

All the above theories of politeness conceptualize politeness as strategic conflict avoidance.

I.1.2. The concept of face and territory

The concept of face was adopted for the first time by E. Goffman⁸, who defines it as … the positive social value a person effectively claims for himself by the line others assume he has taken during a particular contact (...) is an image of self- delineated in terms of approved social attributes.

In other words, individuals act as social actors on the stage of everyday life. They use gestures and resort to a particular behaviour in order to display a positive self- image.

During the interaction, the individuals want to protect their face. An overt assault is considered an attack on face. Generally, the attack and its effects may be regarded as a power relation between participants. Face and its preservation are important. For example, each culture may interpret politeness and impoliteness in different ways. If a person is criticized in front of a crowd by someone, it is surely considered an attack to the person’s face in many cultures.

Culpeper⁹ indicates three sociological variables, analyzed by Brown & Levinson; one of them has already been mentioned above and is power. The following variables are an example of the loss of face, causing severe damage of one’s self esteem:

- Distance (D): based on the symmetric social dimension of difference / similarity between participants. It denotes social closeness.
- Relative Power (P): as already mentioned, consists of an asymmetric relationship between the hearer and the speaker.
- Absolute Ranking (R): refers to the degree of imposition between participants in a particular situation.

The concept of territory is closely related to that of face. In defining the theory of face, Goffman argues that participants in interaction try both to defend their personal territory and to convey a positive image of themselves. The concept of territory is describes the way a person uses space and time to create a distance from others. There are several types of territories:

- Possessions imply that the individual acknowledges the imposition upon a request or a favour.
- Temporal territory refer s to the freedom of speech, that is the individual’s need not to be interrupted by others while speaking.
- Bodily territory denotes the individual’s ability to detect the sonorous, visual, olfactory and tactile signals in case of impositions.
- Spatial territory refers to the distance between individuals.

However, both concepts may be viewed as contrastive, as the former is a property of the self that needs to be maintained, while the latter denotes the individual’s desire for freedom.

In their theory of politeness, Brown & Levinson introduce the notion of “strategy’’¹⁰, a tool that people can use in order to achieve certain goals. Politeness strategies are meant to be performed in case of face threat.

I.1.3. Politeness Strategies

In their work, Brown & Levinson argue that the speaker is a Model Person who selects strategies in order to achieve certain goals. The hearer is barely mentioned during the interaction with the speaker.

Politeness strategies according to Brown & Levinson’s model are represented in the following table:

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Table 1. Accomplishment of FTA through Politeness Strategies¹¹.

In performing the Face Threatening Acts (henceforth FTAs), the speaker has two options:

1. Do the FTA with maximum efficiency (called Bald on Record).
2. Choose a strategy to minimize the threat.

The strategies are: Bald on Record, Positive Politeness, Negative Politeness and Off Record.

There is also a strategy that implies not doing the FTA, in which the speaker avoids offending the hearer.

I. Bald on Record

This strategy is used in the case of clstrategy is used in the case of close relationships. The speaker performs the act in a clear, direct and concise way. That is to say, following Grice’s Maxims and ignoring the hearer’s face. It is performed in two ways:¹²

- In circumstances with no threat minimization. For instance, Give me just one more day ! (to pay the bill).
- In circumstances with threat minimization. It is the case of welcomings and offers, such as Please come in, Miss !

II. Positive Politeness

The strategy aims at the hearer’s positive face; it is used to encourage solidarity and implication. This strategy is divided into three main groups, each of them using sub-strategies.¹³

a) The first group deals with the speaker that asks for common ground.

b)

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b) The second group is that in which the speaker informs that she/he and the hearer cooperate.

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c) The third group deals with the speaker who satisfies the hearer’s want for something. A sub-strategy is included; it refers either to the act of gift-giving or human relation wants: the want to be understood, liked, cared about.

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III. Negative Politeness:

This strategy aims at the hearer’s negative face, especially his need for freedom in action and unrestricted attention. The following sub-strategies are used to mitigate or “redress’’ some degree of face threat:¹⁴

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IV. Off Record

This strategy is based on clues delivered by the speaker. He or she wants to perform a FTA, without assuming the responsibility of doing it, deciding to leave it up to the hearer to interpret it. The mechanism of this strategy includes conversational implicature, by violating Grice’s Maxims. Some sub-strategies, other than clues and hints, include:¹⁵

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These are the most important strategies used by the two theorists. We may assume that the degree of ( in)directness on politeness depends on the situation, the interactants and the type of imposition of the speech act.

Politeness strategies are used in case of threats to positive or negative face. These terms are briefly explained below.

I.1.3.1. Negative and positive face

While Goffman made the distinction between face and territory, Brown and Levinson linked face to the concept of positive face and territory to the notion of negative face.

Previously, I suggested that face denotes a property (of people or interaction), while politeness indicates a kind of behaviour. Facework is the equivalent descriptive term (denoting behaviour) for face.

Brown & Levinson created a face theory, in which politeness and facework are actually the same thing. According to them, facework is directed to both the basic needs of face (negative face) as well as for the appreciation of one’s personality (positive face). Therefore, we have the desire for freedom in one’s action (negative face) and the want for approval (positive face). They defined the concepts as follows¹⁶:

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As we can notice from the definitions, the concepts are not of equal size. The positive face refers to a more general area, while the negative one is more specific. There is a clash between the general aspect of approval and the sense of belonging.

According to Brown& Levinson, there are only some speech acts that threaten the hearer’s or the speaker’s face. These kinds of acts are also called Face Threatening Acts (henceforth FTAs) and will be discussed as follows.

I.1.3.2. Face Threatening Acts

A Face Threatening Act may be perceived as intentionally causing ‟face damage’’ during an interaction between participants. E. Goffman¹⁷ proposed three kinds of face threat:

1. Intentional threats to face, that means the intention to be offensive.
2. Incidental threats to face, meaning incidental offence but the face damage occurs because of ‟anticipated product of action’’.
3. Accidental threats to face consists in the innocence of the speaker, but his ‟offence seems unintended’’.

Culpeper¹⁸ uses the term Face Attack Acts for those acts that are judged deliberately nasty and spiteful, where the speaker is assessed by the target and at least some others as purposefully out to disrespect and insult.

Brown& Levinson¹⁹ define FTAs as those acts that “by their nature run contrary to the face wants of the addressee and/or the speaker”. They classified the FTAs as follows:

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For the evaluation of how serious a FTA is, the three main sociological variables are taken into account. They help us determine the level of politeness of a FTA.

Some features like indirectness, inexplicitness, incompleteness are often associated with politeness in different cultures while directness, explicitness are considered as being impolite.

[...]

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¹ Koike, D. , Brazilian Portuguese Directives and a Hierarchy of Strategies for Politeness, cited in Koike, D., Macedo, D., Romance Linguistics: The Portuguese Context, USA, Greenwood Publishing Group Inc., 1992, pp.121-140.

² Grice, H.P., Studies in the way of words, London, Harvard University Press, 1975, p.45 .

³ Lakoff, R ., Language and Woman’s Place, New York, Harper and Row, 1975, p.87 .

⁴ Leech, G..N., Principles of Pragmatics, London, Longman,1983, pp.104-5.

⁵ Ibid., p.132 .

⁶ Brown, P., Levinson, S ., Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1987, pp.61-2 .

⁷ Fraser, B., ‟Perspectives on Politeness”, Journal of Pragmatics, 14, 1990, pp.219-36.

⁸ Goffman, E., Interaction Ritual:Essays in Face-to-Face Behaviour, California, Aldine Publishing Company, 1967, p.5.

⁹ Culpeper, J., Impoliteness: Using Language to Cause Offence, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2011, p.6.

¹⁰ Brown, P., Levinson, S ., Politeness…, op.cit., p.8.

¹¹ Brown, P., Levinson, S ., Politeness …, op.cit., p. 60.

¹² Ibidem, p. 69.

¹³ Ibidem, pp. 101-29 .

¹⁴ Brown, P., Levinson, S ., Politeness…, op.cit., p. 129.

¹⁵ Brown, P.; Levinson, S ., Politeness …,op.cit., p 211.

¹⁶ Brown, P., Levinson, S., Politeness…, op.cit. p.62.

¹⁷ Goffman, E., Interaction Ritual: Essays on Face –to-Face Behavior, 1967, p.14 ,as cited in Bousfiefd, D., Impoliteness in Interaction, Amsterdam, John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2008, p. 67 .

¹⁸ Culpeper, J., Impoliteness: Using language to cause offence, Cambridge University Press, 2011, p.114ff, cited in Tracey, K..,‟‟ Reasonable hostility’’ :Situation-appropriate face-attack’’ , Journal of Politeness Research 4, 2008, p.173.

¹⁹ Brown, P., Levinson, S., Politeness…, op.cit. p.61.

• Grade: 9.33
• Author: Necsoiu Mariana (Author)
• Publication Year: 2021
• Pages: 38
• Catalog Number: V1158424
• ISBN (PDF): 9783346566874
• Language: English
• Tags: politeness, impoliteness, political, discourse