Politeness

Bald on record strategy

Word count: 1385 words
Bald on Record Strategy
Introduction

This assignment examines a key concept of pragmatics, namely the bald on record
strategy. To begin with, the concept will be defined, explained and the definitions will
be compared. Secondly, the concept will be situated in the wider context of pragmatics.
The explanations of the concept will be illustrated with the help of real language data
extracted from a transcript of conversation. The title of the transcript is Media Union
Service Encounters and it is obtained from the Michigan Corpus of Academic Spoken
English (MICASE). (available at http://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/micase/) Lastly, a
conclusion will be drawn, encompassing the most important aspects presented. The
following section will be dealing with definitions, explanations, examples and similar
and contrasting aspect of the definitions.

Definitions and explanations

The first definition is taken from a dictionary on pragmatics and presents the concept in
a succinct manner. Huang (2012: 213,emphasis in original) states that “the term bald on
record means that the speaker performs a face-threatening act directly without using any
positive or negative politeness to weaken it.” As also noted by Huang (2012:
213,emphasis in original), the use of this strategy offers the speaker the most blunt and
explicit manner of expressing him/herself, as illustrated in the following example “Lend
me your lecture notes”, when “requesting a fellow student to lend the speaker his lecture
notes”.

To better comprehend the concept of bald on record strategy as defined by Huang (2012:
213) we should first consider the terms face and face-threatening act. Jaworski and
Coupland (2006: 312) affirm that according to Brown and Levinson (1987) the notion of
face represents “the public self-image” of individuals and their “basic wants”. Jaworski
and Coupland (2006: 313, emphasis in original) also added that there are two types of
“faces” or “wants” that can be distinguished: “negative face: the want of every adult
that his actions be unimpeded by others and positive face: the want of every member
that his wants be desirable to at least some others.”

1
In other words, individuals wish that their desire for free and unhampered action and
need for acknowledgment by others be respected. By using such a direct strategy as bald
on record, individuals disregard and endanger these desires, thus performing a face-
threatening act, as illustrated in the following example:

(1) S52: (…) so where are you going?

S3: where am I going? I have an exam today.
S52: oh, for what?
S3: business (law)
S52: what? business_what’s you major?
S3: (xx)
S52: what is it?
(Media Union Service Encounters, 4:107-113)

In this instance, speaker 52 employs the bald on record strategy when asking speaker 3
a number of questions. The inquiries are formulated in very direct manner, thus
threatening speaker‟s 3 negative face by invading his/her personal space and desire for
privacy.

The next definition begins by presenting the concept in a similar manner to that of the
first definition. Jaworski and Coupland (2006: 316, emphasis in original) assert that
“doing an act baldly, without redress, involves doing it in the most direct, clear,
unambiguous and concise way possible.” That is to say, when the speaker chooses to
express him/herself baldly, without redress, he/she makes, as Huang (2012: 212) states,
no “compensatory action”, also called mitigation, so as to “save the negative or positive
face” of the hearer. Instances of a bald on record act can be direct orders, requests,
threats, warnings, criticism, accusations, insults, etc.

In contrast to the first definition, Jaworski and Coupland (2006: 316) then expand on the
concept by also noting that normally a speaker would perform a face-threatening act
baldly, without mitigation only in certain circumstances where “the speaker does not
fear retribution from the addressee” such as: speaker and hearer both believe that in that
specific situation “urgency and efficiency” are more important than their personal face;

2
if the “offer, request or suggestion” made by the speaker is “in H‟s interest and does not
require great sacrifices of S”; if the speaker is “vastly superior in power” to the hearer.
The following instance illustrates such a circumstance:

(2) S52: oh come say hi.

(Media Union Service Encounters, 11:394)

In this situation, the suggestion made by speaker S52, even though it uses the imperative
form of the verb come, presents only a small threat to the hearer‟s face and is
considered, by both H and S, to be beneficial to the hearer.

In a similar fashion to the first two definitions, Cutting (2008: 44, emphasis in original)
affirms that “if a speaker makes a suggestion, request, offer or invitation in an open and
direct way, we say that they are doing an FTA bald on record.” Cutting (2008:44) also
mentions that “these are direct speech acts”, namely utterances that usually include the
imperative form of a verb and make no attempt at any sort of compensatory language.
This is the reason why, the risk of threatening the hearer‟s face is relatively high, as
depicted by the following example:

(3) S52: She’s kind of lazy with her uh, I mean cuz sh-she doesn’t finish sentences,
you know she just says stuff. It’s funny.
S48: I don’t like this (xx) complain about somebody else’s (xx)
(Media Union Service Encounters, 20: 736-738)

Speaker S52 complains in a very direct way about somebody else‟s manner of speaking
and in doing so, threatens his/her own and the hearer‟s positive face. In return, speaker
S48 expresses his/her disapproval about the complaint uttered by speaker S52, also
performing an FTA, by threatening speaker S52‟s positive face.

In contrast to the first and second definitions, Cutting (2008: 45) presents another aspect
of the concept, by mentioning that in some situations bald on record acts can be used in
the hearer‟s advantage. “In „Have some more curry‟ or „Marry me‟, the risk that the
hearer may not want to be imposed upon is small, and the FTA is quite pleasant.” The
next example illustrates such a situation:

3
 (4) S3: (…) have a nice day.
S50: you too.
(Media Union Service Encounters, 3:66-67)

In this case, even though speaker S3 performs a bald on record act and makes use of the
imperative have, he/she does not wish to dictate the actions of speaker S50. The
utterance is employed so as to wish the hearer a nice day and does not pose a threat to
the hearer‟s face. The following section will consider the position of the concept of bald
on record strategy in the broader context of pragmatics.

Position of the concept in the wider context of pragmatics

The concept of bold on-record strategy belongs to the topic of politeness and represents
one five types of politeness strategies belonging to Brown and Levinson‟s (1987) theory
of politeness. When performing an FTA the speaker has five alternatives: don‟t perform
the FTA, off record, bald on record, positive politeness and negative politeness, as
illustrated in the figure below (the five strategies are marked in bold):

Baldly (without
redress)
On record Positive
Perform Baldly (with politeness
the FTA redress)
Off record Negative
politeness
Don’t
perform the
FTA

Figure 1.1 Brown and Levinson‟s (1987) strategies for performing FTA‟s.

4
According to O‟Keeffe, Clancy and Adolphs (2011: 65) “performing an FTA off-record
involves strategies such as metaphor, irony, rhetorical statements, understatements or
hints.” The following example illustrates the use of the concept of off-record strategy:

(5) S52: how great is it to work with someone name [sic] Joe Pin?
S48: oh yeah
S52: you was [sic] like y-hardly

In this instance, speaker S52 makes use of irony when referring to himself (his name is
Joe Pin) and speaker S48 replies also with irony, saying oh yeah, when he/she actually
meant no.

Conclusion

In summary, the use of the bald on record strategy represents the most direct and concise
manner of communication, when performing a face-threatening act. If the speaker
chooses to express him/herself baldly, without redress, he/she incurs the risk of directly
threatening the hearer‟s positive or negative face. Nevertheless, there are situations
where, due to the nature of the utterance, the threat to the hearer‟s face is minimal. A
proposal would represent such a circumstance (for example: „Marry me’). When
appropriately choosing one of the five previously mentioned strategies, the speaker
normally considers various factors such as: relationship to the hearer, relative social
power in regard to the hearer and desired effect and benefits.

5
Bibliography

Cutting, Joan. 2008. Pragmatics and Discourse. A Resource Book for Students. 2nd ed.
London/New York: Routledge.

Huang, Yan. 2012. The Oxford Dictionary of Pragmatics. New York: Oxford University
Press.

Jaworski, Adam & Coupland, Nikolas (ed). 2006. The Discourse Reader. 2nd ed.
London/New York: Routledge.

O‟Keeffe, Anne, Clancy, Bryan & Adolphs, Svenja. 2011. Introducing Pragmatics in
Use. London/New York: Routledge.