c. The strategies to show negative politeness
There are ten strategies used to show negative politeness according to Phenelope Brown and Stephen C Levinson theory.
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Those strategies are:
1. Be indirect
Expressing an FTA indirectly is the first strategy to show negative politeness. For example:
a Can you please pass the salt?
2. Using question and hedge
Rather than using statement or imperative, we can be polite by formulating our expression in the question. To show politeness in statement, we can use
hedge. Hedge can be “sort of, regular, true, rather, pretty and quite”. The point is
we use particle, word or phrase modifying the level of predicate or noun phrase. The modification will make the level of utterances is only partial, true in some
aspects, or more true and complete than what predicted before. For example: a
This paper isn’t technically social anthropology. b
A swing is sort of a toy. 3.
Be pessimistic In positive politeness strategy, we should express something optimistically.
Here, in negative politeness, we should be pessimistic whether the hearer wants to do what we ask or not. For example:
a You couldn’t possibly lend me your lawnmower, could you?
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Ibid. pp. 129-210.
4. Minimize the imposition
When we ask the hearer to do something, or give hisher possession, it means we are imposing himher through language, as if we gave himher a weighing
burden to follow our utterances. This situation is considered hard to the addressee. Therefore, we should use this strategy to be polite. For example:
a I just want to ask you if you could lend me a single sheet of
paper. b
I just dropped by for a minute to ask if you…. 5.
Give deference Through the medium of language, we can be deferent to the hearer. We can
show our respect to the addressee by our expression. For example: a
We look forward very much to dining with you. b
The library wishes to extend its thanks for your careful selection of books from your uncle Dr Snuggs’s bequest.
6. Apologize
One way to be polite is by making an apology to the hearer. It isn’t only the
word apology and all its derivative forms that can be used, but we can also express it by the word “forgive”, “sorry”, and by any other verbs implicitly. For
example: a
Look, I’ve probably come to the wrong person, but.. b
I hate to intrude, but.. c
I normally wouldn’t ask you this, but.. d
Please forgive me if…
7. Impersonalize speaker and hearer
Impersonalizing means making the person with whom we communicate unmentioned. We can use the word “it” or by not mentioning him. For example:
a It is so from “I tell you that it is so”.
b Do this for me from “I ask you to do this for me”.
8. State the FTA as a general rule
Rather than mentioning the addressee directly, we can generalize the expression when we ask him to follow what we say. For example:
a Passengers will please refrain from flushing toilets on the train
from “you will please refrain from….
b International regulations require that the fuselage be sprayed
with DDT from “I am going to spray you with DDT to follow
international regulations. 9.
Nominalize According to this theory, by nominalizing the expression -make it on the form
of nominal phrase, not on verbal or clause form- the interlocutor shows the negative politeness. For example:
a Your good performance on the examinations impressed us
favourably Compared to : you performed well on the examinations and we were favourably impressed.
10. Go on record as incurring a debt, or as not indebting hearer Here, the speaker request or offer something on record. If the request is done,
the speaker should feel as if he received a debt from the hearer. When the hearer asks something, the speaker does it as not indebting the addressee. For example:
a I could easily do it for you.
b It wouldn’t be any trouble, I have to go right by there anyway.
d. The strategies to show off-record politeness
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