Lin People attach great value to polite behaviour. The need to be polite can often account for why speakers choose to imply rather than assert an idea (Yo express an idea indirectly rather than directly) or why they choose to use an indirect directive, Politeness theory ~ developed by Penelope Brown and Stephen C. Levinson Politeness theory argues that ‘most commonplace speech acts (criticizing, inviting, advising, complimenting), carry an element of risk for yeaker and hearer. Erving Goffman (1959) introduced the concept o Face - two related aspects: the positive face and the negative face. Although Brown and Levinson (1987) consider positive and negative face a universal phenomenon; however, face is still subject to cultural specifications. ‘A person’s face is an aspect of their self-image, particular as they relate to other people. Each person has: their desire eee IR GOREN] - their desire to be autonomous, 10 respecte, ad, in effefOBEIEAGHE, The way sp se utterances conveys a great deal about their assumptions conceming the relationship between themselves and the hearers. To pay too much attention to positive face and not enough to negative, or vice versa holds the risk of offending the hearer. Face threatening acts are acts that might be seen as a threat to the hearer’s self-image. Not all the FTAs have the same importance. Their ranking depends on the following factors: 1) The relative power of the speaker over the addressee. The power may be basically of thee kinds: te Wee ‘ower conferred by knowledge. ex. doctors over their patients. 2ymeqa asso speaker and addressee: vl xanl eae gcse consi ee TESS) 3) The size of the imposition involved by the Ex. Itis not the same to ask for some sheets of paper than to ask for 100€. 4) The rights and obligations. Ee a teacher will find it easier to ask his/her students to finish a paper by the deadline than to ask them to write the paper in green ink, '5) The situation: the influence of register on politeness. | BA teacher who normally uses quite informal language with a student must speak very formally al the defence of the dissertation of that student. Requests and orders tend o be especially threatening, ince the speaker expects the hearer to comply with his/her wishes. Speakers tend to “soften” these speech acts. the main purpose is to take some ofthe pressure off the speaker, Positive Politeness strategies These strategies put emphasis on inherently polite speech acts 1. Claiming common knowledge and/or in-group membership “The emphasis on common knowledge can be carried out in several ways: ing the addresse's knowledge of that kind of situation (you know... Scanned with CamScannerb) Using jokes based on mutual shared background knowledge. c) Banter (You're my worst enemy i.e, my best friend). 4) Using in-group identity markers (blondie, mate, sweetheart... ©) Being optimistic: presuppose that the addressee will be collaborative in doing a favour (You'll end me your lawnmower fer the weekend, J hope). Inclusive we: (Let's have a cookie, then: the speaker starts eating). ion of (all or part of) a previous utterance by the addressee, ‘eg. a) Praise to the addressee: in understating one's own achievements or qualities (The meal was not ‘so bad, was it? if the meal was cooked by the speaker). (Negalve ones stage re ways of mitigating FTAS, 5, Tact concems unfavourable information (especially about the addressee or a third person), which is particularly uncomfortable to transmit. The speaker's face, the addressce’s face or both may be threatened, 6. Directive weakening - there are ways of weakening a direetive pologizing, Expressing Indeed ere) Lakoff (1975) posited the rules of politeness as follow: 1, Formality: keep aloof 2, Deference: give opt 3. Camaraderie: The first sub-rule is concemed with distance and formality, the second one with deference and the third one with making the addressee fee! liked and wanted. Rules for politeness vary from one culture to another and within a given culture, from one speech community to another. Other factors that play a role in the use of politeness strategies include the social distance of the interlocutors (ic. is one of higher status than the other?) the formality of the context, the closeness of the conversational participants, their age, and their gender. British English (BE) tends to be presented as essentially an avoidance based, negatively-oriented culture. The British use a narrower variety of strategies avoiding bald-on-record even when the threat is perceived tobe low. Hedging - a key linguistic resource for face-protection (whether that of the self or the other) is hedging (Brown and Levinson, 1987). Definition: a hedge is an expression which weakens a speaker's commitment to some aspect of an assertion More recently, scholars (ex. Culpeper 1996, 2005) have argued that a comprehensive theory of politeness cannot be proposed if the integral topic of impoliteness is not also addressed, and strategies of impoliteness defined. a Impoliteness — defined as a situation arising when speakers communicate face-attack intentionally or when addressees perceive behaviour as intentionally face-attacking. Some strategies of impoliteness are: = adirect start - ex. So can you get it or not? = factuality - ex. Infact you did misspell the word... = 2% person start— ex. You've reverted yourself. = PLEASE start —ex. Please do not remove warnings... = Direct questions — ex. What is your native language? = Using negative words — ex. Ifyou're going fo accuse me... Q. 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