Pragmatic 12

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Politeness

Lecture 11


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Politeness

A central concept in linguistic pragmatics ispoliteness. It has been suggested ( for example,R. Lakoff 1972, 1973; Brown and Levinson 1978;Leech 1980, 1983) that politeness is anotherlevel to conversational interaction besides therules of the cooperative principle. Robin Lakoff(1977b) sees Grices rules as essentially rules

of clarity, and proposes that there are two priorrules of pragmatic competence. These are:Make yourself clear and Be polite.


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Politeness

She takes Grices maxims as an approximation,at least, of how you conform to the rule Makeyourself clear, and proposes her own threerules of politeness (Lakoff, 1977:88):

1. Formality: dont impose/remain aloof;

2. Hesitancy: give the addressee his options;

3. Equality or camaraderie: act as thoughyou and the addressee were equal/make himfeel good.


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Lakoff (1977b:89) elaborates the second rule asPermit addressee to decide his own options. Itis not difficult to see how the operation of thisrule could lead directly to the troublesomeinference in Henry likes apples or bananas. Ifwe imagine, for example, that Henrys wifeknows her host is about to serve fruit, she might

well make this utterance, conveying andintending to convey that Henry is fond of bothfruits; the host may select either option withoutfear of making a mistake.


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Politeness

In such a case, Henrys wife canfelicitously give the host the option only if

either option will be successful, and thatcan only be true if Henry likes both fruits.


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Politeness

Leechs view of politeness involves a set ofpoliteness maxims analogous to Grices maxims.Among these are (Leech, 1983:132):

TACT MAXIM: Minimize cost to other. Maximize benefitto other.

GENEROSITY MAXIM: Minimize benefit to self.Maximize cost to self.

APPROBATION MAXIM: Minimize dispraise of other.Maximize praise of other.

MODESTY MAXIM: Minimize praise of self. Maximizedispraise of self.


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These add up to an essential asymmetryin polite behavior, in that whatever is a

polite belief for the speaker tends to be animpolite belief for the hearer, and viceversa (Leech, 1983:169)

Frequently cited examples firstdiscussed by R. Lakoff (1972) areamenable to this general kind of analysis.


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Politeness

Lakoff pointed out that a hostess would be seenas polite if she said, You must have some ofthis cake, but very impolite if she said, You

may have some of this cake. On the face of itthis is strange, since ordinarily you would thinktelling someone what they must do removes allother options, imposes on them, and is therefore

impolite. On the other hand, granting permission,if one is in a position to do it, makes it possiblefor the hearer to do what he or she wants to do,and would seem polite, or at least considerate.


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Politeness

The answer hinges on the fact that the hostess isresponsible for the quality of the cake. Offering the cakeby placing an obligation on the hearer conforms nicely to

the modesty maxim. By implying that she cannotassume that the guest will want the cake is a way inminimizing praise to herself. If the hostess had offeredthe cake by saying You may have some of this cake,

she would have violated modesty by appearing toassume that the cake is so good that the guest naturallywants a piece of it, and is only waiting to get permission.


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Brown and Levinson

Perhaps the most thorough treatment of theconcept of politeness is that of Brown and

Levinson (1978). They have set out to developan explicit model of politeness which will havevalidity across cultures. The general idea is tounderstand various strategies for interactional

behavior based on the idea that people engagein rational behavior to achieve satisfaction ofcertain wants.


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Brown and Levinson

The wants related to politeness are the wants offace, something that is emotionally invested,and that can be lost, maintained, or enhanced,

and must be constantly attended to in interaction.The concept is directly related to the folk-expression lose face, which is about beingembarrassed or humiliated. There are two kinds

of face. One is negative face, or the rights toterritories, freedom of action and freedom fromimposition; essentially the want that your actionsbe not impeded by others.


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Brown and Levinson

The other is positive face, the positiveconsistent self-image that people have

and want to be appreciated and approvedof by at least some other people. Therational actions people take to preserve

both kinds of face for themselves and thepeople they interact with essentially addup to politeness.


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Brown and Levinson

A strength of the Brown and Levinson approachover the rule-oriented presentations of

politeness by Robin Lakoff and by Leech is thatBrown and Levinson are attempting to explainpoliteness by deriving it from more fundamentalnotions of what it is to be a human being (being

rational and having face wants). There are twoadvantages of this over normative or rule-basedapproaches.


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Brown and Levinson

First, norms are discoverable and validwithin a particular culture and therefore

not too useful in understanding a conceptlike politeness cross-culturally. Second,even to posit universal (not culture-particular) rules as arbitrary primitives isto invent a problem to be explained,rather than to explain it (Brown andLevinson, 1978:91).


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Brown and Levinson

In other words, if you start with a set of ruleslike Leechs maxim of politeness, you canunderstand politeness phenomena in terms of

these rules, but you do not learn very muchabout why there should be such rules in the firstplace. Granted, Brown and Levinson ask us toaccept at the start that people are rational and

have two kinds of face wants, but this is a muchdeeper starting point for explanation thanstarting with rules designed specifically forpoliteness itself.


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Brown and Levinson

Face wants become a problem if we assumethat certain kinds of actions are intrinsically face-threatening. Such acts may threaten the

hearers negative face, like a request which, asan attempt to get someone else to do somethingthat you want done, means that the recipient ofthe request is being impeded in pursuing what

he or she wants to do. Others threaten hearerspositive face: for instance, a contradiction orexpression of disagreement, which means thespeaker thinks there is something wrong with an

opinion held by the hearer.


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Brown and Levinson

Even saying something irreverent or taboothreatens the hearers positive face, since itreveals that the speaker does not care about the

hearers face as well as the hearers. Thespeakers negative face is jeopardized when heor she makes an offer in somewhat the sameway as requests threaten the hearers negative

face since, in carrying out the offer, he or shewill be pursuing the hearers aims, not thespeakers own.


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Brown and Levinson

Confessions, admissions of guilt, and apologiesthreaten the speakers positive face since theymean the speaker has done something the

proper sort of person would not have done.Such nonspeaking acts as tripping or stumblingalso threaten a persons positive face; theyreveal a certain incompetence in carrying out a

basic action like walking. None the less thereare times when actions like this are going tooccur and at times they may be desirable ornecessary.


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Brown and Levinson

In these cases, the rational person will look forways of doing the act while minimizing the threat

to face in one way or another. Brown and Levinson (1978:65) show us five

ways a person can deal with a face-threateningact (FTA). The greater the risk, the more

appropriate the higher-numbered ways ofdealing with it are.


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Brown and Levinson

without redressive action, baldly on record

2 positive politeness

Do the FTA with redressive action

4. Off record

3 negative politeness

5. Do not do the FTA


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Brown and Levinson

But it will not do to minimize the risk too much,because that will imply that the act is more facethreatening than it actually is. For example, if

there is something that only someone else cando for you, and you really need it done, and youselect 5, Do not do the FTAby refraining fromasking your best friend to do it for you, you will

hurt your friends feelings. Your friend couldeasily say, with a pained expression, Dont youthink I would have done that for you?


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Brown and Levinson

The meaning of the last of the five waysof dealing with a potential FTA is self-

evident; you simply do not take the actionthat would threaten face. Doing an FTAoff the records is essentially dropping ahint, or otherwise trying to make the FTA

salient while still keeping the possibility ofdenying that you ever intended an FTAmore-or-less open.


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Brown and Levinson

For example, if you say Gosh, Im out ofmoney. I forgot to go the bank, your

companion might take it that you want aloan. But if your companion responds bysaying, Sorry, Id like to help you out, but

I

m a little short of cash myself

, you couldstill say, Oh, I didnt mean I wanted youto lend me money!


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Brown and Levinson

On the record FTAs with negative politeness

redress are instances in which the FTA is

undeniably made, but something else is said ordone to show concern for the other personsfreedom of action and right not to be imposedupon. One of the most straightforward ways of

doing this is simply to express reluctance toimpose: I hate to impose, but would you dosomething for me?


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Brown and Levinson

Brown and Levinson suggest that the usein many languages of the plural form of

you

as a deferential form , as we saw inchapter 1, has its origins in negativepoliteness redress. One possibleexplanation, originally Robin Lakoffs and

recapitulated by Brown and Levinson(1978:203-4) is that the plural form doesnot literally single out the addressee.


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Brown and Levinson

If we assume that what the speaker hasto say, or even the sheer fact that the

hearer is obliged to listen, is a potentialimposition on the hearers freedom, thanthe use of the plural pronoun gives thehearer the option of thanking it as being

directed to someone else associated withhim or her, not specifically to that personas an individual.


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To be continued

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Pragmatic 12

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