18 war, performing a marriage; 5 expressives attempt to express a psychological
state which includes thanking, complaining, greeting and apologizing.
5. Politeness and Face Threatening Acts
A communication always involves participants that in the politeness strategy involve the face of the participants. Brown and Levinson 1987:61 cited in Nadar
2009:32 defines face as the public self-image that every participants wants to claim for himself, consisting in two related aspects: a negative face; the basic
claim to territories, personal preserves, rights to non-distraction – i.e. to freedom
of action and freedom from imposition, b positive face: the positive consistent self-image or personality crucially including the desire that this self-image be
appreciated and approved of claims by the participants. In short, a participant has two faces, the negative face is the individual desire to be free from others
interference and the positive face is the individual desire to be approved and favored by others. Brown and Levinson 1987: 65-68, as quoted by Nadar, state
further that the face concept is universal and some utterances tend to be an annoying act which is termed as Face Threatening Acts FTA.
FTA may threaten the positive face and the negative face of the hearer. Some acts that threat the negative face are a uttera
nce of „orders and requests, suggestions, advice, reminding, threats, warnings, dares; b utterances of offers,
promises; c utterances on compliments, expressions of strong negative emotions toward the hearer such as anger and hatred. Another acts that threat the
positive face are a utterances of disapproval, criticism, contempt, ridicule, complaints and reprimands, accusations, insults; b utterances of contradictions
19 or disagreements, challenges; c utterances of violent out of control emotions
S gives H possible reason to fear him or be embarrassed by him; d utterance of irreverence, mentions of taboo topics, including those that are inappropriate in the
context S indicates that he doesn‟t value H‟s values and doesn‟t fears J‟s fears; e utterances on bad news about H, or good news boasting about S S indicates
that he is willing to cause distress to H, andor does not care about H‟s feeling; f
utterances on dangerously emotional or decisive topics such as politics, race, religion,
women‟s liberation S raises the possibility or likelihood of face threatening acts such as above occurring i.e. S creates a dangerous-to-face-
atmosphere; g utterances on non-cooperation in an activity, such as disruptively interrupting H‟s talk, making non-sequiturs or showing non-attention S indicates
that he doesn‟t care about H‟s negative or positive wants; h utterances on address terms and other status marked identification in initial encounters S may
misidentify H in an offensive or embarrassing way, intentionally or accidentally. Although the acts are classified as threatening the positive face or the negative
face, Brown and Levinson, quoted in Nadar 2009 note that there are some expressions that may threat both negative and positive face.
Brown and Levinson as cited in Nadar 2009 also suggest some strategies to save the face of the hearer. To save the positive face 1 to notice and attend H
his interest, wants, deeds, goods also giving special attention to H, such as their physical appearance; 2 exaggerate interest, approval, sympathy to H; 3
intensify interest to H; 4 use in-group identity markers; 5 seek agreement; 6 avoid disagreement; 7 presupposeraiseassert common ground; 8 joke; 9
20 assert or presuppose S‟s knowledge of and concern for H‟s wants; 10 offer,
promise; 11 be optimistic; 12 include both S and H in the activity; 13 give or ask for reasons; 14 assume or assert reciprocity; 15 give sympathy to H.
Nadar 2009 cited Brown and Levinson‟s strategies in saving positive face in a conversation, they are 1 be conventionally indirect; 2 question and hedge;
3 be pessimistic; 4 minimize the imposition; 5 give deference; 6 apologize; 7 impersonalize S and H; 8 state the FTA as a general rule; 9 nominalize;
10 go on record as incurring a debt, or as not indebting H. According to Leech 1988, the maxim of politeness involves the self or the
speaker, the other or the hearer. The maxim of politeness tend to go in pair as in the tact maxim in impositives and commissives is to minimize cost to other and
to maximize benefit to other, in the generosity maxim in impositives and comissives is to minimize benefit to self and maximize cost to self, in the
approbation maxim in expressives and assertives is to minimize dispraise of other and maximize praise of other, in the modesty maxim in expressives and
assertives is to minimize praise of self and maximize dispraise of self, in the agreement maxim in assertives is to minimize disagreement between self and
other, and to maximize agreement between self and other, in the sympathy maxim in assertives is to minimize antipathy between self and other and to maximize
sympathy between self and other 1988:132. Politeness does not only deal with the content of the conversation, but also
with the way the conversation is managed and structured by its participants 1988:
21 139. One of the examples is how people aware of the turn-taking in a
conversation, when should they keep silent or should speak. Watts 2003 argues the structures of linguistic politeness are consists of
1 term of address including first names like Bill, David; deferential names like sir; first name+surname like Richard Wells; title+surname like Dr. Weber, 2
formulaic expressions of specific speech act types like thanking such as very many thanks, thank you very much or apologizing like excuse me, 3 ritualized
expressions of leave-taking like bye or bye bye, 4 hedges of different kinds, i.e. linguistic expressions which weaken the illocutionary force of a statement: by
means of attitudinal predicates like I think, I don’t think, I mean, or by no means
of adverbs such as actually, 5 solidarity markers, i.e. linguistic expressions which appeal to mutual knowledge shared by the participants, or support and
solidarity from participants, like you know, 6 boosters, i.e. linguistic expressions enhancing the force of the illocution in some way, like of course, clearly, 7
sentential structures containing specific modal verbs, such as may I ask you to accept.
While House and Casper as cited in Watts 2003 propose the structure of linguistic politeness are categorized in eleven groups. The first is the politeness
markers, i.e. expressions added to the utterance to show deference to the addressee and to bid for cooperative behavior, for example the use of politeness markers
please, if you wouldn’tdon’t mind, tag questions with modal verbs such as
willwould following an imperative structure in close the door will youwould you?.
22 The second is play-downs, syntactic devices which likely tone down the
perlocutionary effect of an utterance on the addressee. The category is subdivided into: the use of past tense
I wonder if …., I thought you might…., progressive aspects together with past tense
I was wondering whether…, I was thinking you might …, an interrogative containing a modal verb would it be a good idea …,
could we …, a negative interrogative containing a modal verb would it be a good idea …, could we …, a negative interrogative containing a modal verb
wouldn’t it be a good idea if…, couldn’t you …. quoted in Watts; 182-184. The third is consultative devices, structures which seek to involve the
addressee and attempt for their cooperation, e.g. Would you mind …, Could you …
The fourth is hedges, a structure which avoid giving a precise propositional content and leaving an option open to the addressee to impose herhis own intent,
e.g. kind of, sort of, somehow, more or less, rather, and what have you.. The fifth is understaters, a means of underrepresenting the propositional content of the
utterance by a phrase functioning as an adverbial modifier or also by an adverb itself, e.g. a bit, a little bit, a second, a moment, briefly. The sixth is downtoners,
modulate the impact of the speaker‟s utterance, e..g. just, simply, possibly, perhaps, really quoted in Watts; 182-184.
The seventh is committers, to lower the degree to which the speaker commit herhimself to the propositional content of the utterance, e.g. I think, I believe, I
guess, in my opinion. The eight is forewarning, this strategy could be realized by many different structures in which the speaker makes some kind of metacomment
of an FTA e.g. pays compliment of invokes a generally accepted principle which
23 they about to flout e.g.
far be it from me to criticize, but…., you may find this a bit boring, but…., you’re good at solving computer problems..The ninth is
hesitators, pauses filled with non-lexical phonetic materials, such as er, uhh, ah, or instances of stuttering.. The tenth is scope-staters, expression of a subjective
opinion about a state of affairs referred to in the proposition, e.g. I’m afraid you’re
in my seat, I’m disappointed that you couldn’t…., it was a shame you didn’t…... . The last one is agent avoiders, refer to propositional utterances in which the agent
is suppressed or impersonalized, deflecting the criticism from the addressee to some generalized agent, e.g. passive structures or utterances such as
people don’t do X quoted in Watts; 182-184.
6. Control Acts Strategies
