Essay: Politeness

Adopting the ‘cooperative principles’ formulated by Grice (1975), Leech (1983) posits that politeness concerns a relationship between two interactants called ‘self’ and ‘other’. In common conversation, ‘self’ will usually be identified with the ‘speaker’ and ‘other’ will usually be identified with the hearer(s) (Leech, 1989: 131). Leech also highlights two aspects of politeness, namely ‘cost’ and ‘benefit’. Politeness behavior, according to Leech, is embodied in the 6 maxims, as follows :
1) Tact maxim: minimize the expression of beliefs which express or imply the cost to other, maximize the expression of beliefs which express imply benefit to other.
2) Generosity maxim: minimize the expression of beliefs that express or imply benefit to self, maximize the expression of beliefs that express or imply cost to self.
3) Approbation maxim: minimize the expression of beliefs that express or imply dispraise of other, maximize the expression of beliefs which express or imply praise of other.
4) Modesty maxim: minimize the expression of beliefs which express or imply praise of self, maximize the expression of belief which express or imply dispraise of self.
5) Agreement maxim: minimize expressions of beliefs which express or imply disagreement between self and other, maximize expressions of beliefs which express or imply agreement between self and other.
6) Sympathy maxim: minimize expressions of beliefs which express or imply antipathy between self and other, maximize sympathy between self and other.
2.3.3 Brown & Levinson’s politeness model
Brown & Levinson’s approach to politeness, propounded in 1978 and revised in 1987, centers on the concept of ‘face’ and face-management, which was first proposed by Goffman (1967). Face means ‘the public self-image that every speaker wants to claim for himself’ (Brown & Levinson, 1987: 61). The theory assumes that face is what every speaker would desire. Yule states that ‘politeness, in an interaction, can be defined as the means employed to show awareness of another person’s face’ (Ibid.)
There are two types of face, the positive and the negative face. Positive face refers to the individual’s need for their action to be approved of by others; negative face, on the other hand, points to the individual’s desire for their action to be unobstructed by others. Positive politeness will appeal to the former whereas negative politeness the latter.
In English-speaking contexts, people expect their ‘face’ to be respected in interactions. If a speaker says something that has a potential to threaten another’s self-image, he/she is considered to have performed a face-threatening act (FTA). The act of saying something to mitigate the rough edges of a potential threat is termed a face-saving act (FSA).
2.3.4 Interruption and politeness
Lycan (1977) used the term ‘the prudish view’ to describe the thinking that interrupting someone is always conversationally infelicitous and impolite. He went to state a number of considerations to counteract the temptation to embrace that prudish view: (1) In situations such as the building is on fire, it is necessary that the information be immediately made transpired, therefore, even when the interruption itself is strictly a violation of politeness rules, it is thoroughly morally and conventionally justified. (2) In some conversational situations such as heated academic discussion, occurrence of interruption is even expected (3) Cases where ‘the interrupter prefaces his interruption with an explicit acknowledgement of, and an explicit or implied qualified apology for, his action, (‘)’ (Lycan, 1977: 28)
Some studies (Goldberg, 1990; Li, 2010) show a predilection for linking interruption with politeness theory by Brown & Levinson (1978). Intrusive interruptions pose threats to other speaker’s negative face (the need for autonomy, respect individual’s space) since interruptions will prevent the other speaker from completing their rightful turn of talk. As opposed to that, being another type of deviation from smooth speaker-switch, cooperative overlaps may appeal to the positive face as they demonstrate the interrupter’s effort to actively be involved in the communication and not usurping the initial speakers’ turns. (Ferguson, 1977: 296)
2.4 Interruption and domineeringness & dominance
2.4.1 Notion of domineeringness & dominance
Citing Rogers-Millar & Millar’s paper , Courtright et al. (1979) makes a distinction between ‘domineering control maneuvers’ and ‘dominant control patterns’. They argue that domineeringness refers to individual message movements whereas dominance refers to the paired message exchange transactions. In their study, they code sequentially ordered messages using the following rules: messages attempting to assert rights are coded one-up (‘); requests or acceptances, one-down (‘); and non-demanding, non-accepting, leveling movements, one across (‘). The next step, they code paired messages to form nine transactional types: one-up, one-down complementary (”,”); competitive, submissive and neutralized symmetry (”,”,”); one-up transitory (”,”) and one-down transitory (”;”) (taken from Courtright et al., 1979: 180). The concepts of domineeringness and dominance are constructed based on the control direction of individual and paired messages. Specifically:
‘domineering’ behavior is defined as the transmission of one-up messages, while ‘dominance’ is defined as the transmission of one-up messages that are accepted with one-down statements from the other. Thus, domineeringness is an aspect of individual behavior whereas dominance an aspect of dyadic relational behavior. (Courtright et al, 1979: 181)
Malamuth & Thornhill (1994: 192) suggest that ‘dominance’ is a goal in conversation (whether unconscious or not) while ‘domineering’ acts are the means to achieve that goal, or ‘dominance’ is a desire and ‘domineering, controlling acts’ are the manifestation (Malamuth & Beriere, 1986, cited in Malamuth & Thornhill, 1994).