The Concept of Politeness and Impoliteness

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CHAPTER II THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

A. The Concept of Politeness and Impoliteness

The politeness term is so confusing. It also causes much misunderstanding. According to Thomas, the only reason is that people have discussed five separate sets of phenomena deference, register, a real-world goal, a surface level phenomenon and an illocutionary phenomenon under the heading of politeness. 11 It is interpreted in everyday life as the use of deferential language and expression of gratitude and apology. 12 In common use, the term is associated with well- mannered behavior and social attributes such as good upbringing and formal etiquette. 13 Generally, it is related to tactfulness, nice and warm welcome in relationship with others. 14 Most socially competent individuals acquire what so- called a practical sense of politeness from experience. 15 In ordinary, daily contexts of use, members of speech communities are capable of immediate and intuitive assessments of what constitutes polite versus rude, tactful versus offensive 11 Jenny Thomas, Meaning in Interaction: An Introduction to Pragmatics Edinburgh: Longman, 1995, p. 149. 12 Helen Spencer-Oatey, Culturally Speaking: Culture, Communication and Politeness Theory, 2 nd ed. Cornwall: Continuum, 2008, p. 2. 13 Naomi Geyer, Discourse and Politeness: Ambivalent Face in Japanese London: Continuum, 2008, p. 1. 14 George Yule, the Study of Language, 3 rd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006, p. 119. 15 John Hall, Cicero’s Letters and Linguistic Politeness Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009, p. 5. behavior. All the concepts and the definitions of politeness above are based on the daily usage which is different from the scientific politeness. Therefore, Richard Watts introduced the dual concept of first and second order of politeness. The first politeness relates to the lay notion of politeness, common-sense, and the daily understanding of what constitutes polite and impolite behavior. The second politeness relates to politeness as a scientific and theoretical construct. 16 It is politeness in the second sense that will be used in this research. Politeness is a concept studied in pragmatics and sociolinguistics in the Anglo-Saxon linguistics tradition. 17 Even, this concept is a subject of social theory. 18 Since the appearance of Brown and Levinson’s theory, the scholarly notion of politeness has become a central topic of inquiry across diverse disciplines pragmatics, sociolinguistics, social psychology, anthropology and language acquisition. 19 But, it is only politeness in the pragmatics view that will be applied in this research. Politeness is an aspect of pragmatics. 20 It is a pragmatic phenomenon which lies not in the form and the words themselves, but in its function and its intended social meaning. 21 Pragmatically, politeness is interpreted as a strategy or some used by a speaker to achieve a variety of goals, such as promoting or 16 Richard J Watts, Politeness Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003, pp. 9-15. 17 Gino Eelen, a Critique of Politeness Theories Manchester: St. Jerome Publishing, 2001, p. 1. 18 Richard J Watts 2003, op.cit. p. 10. 19 Naomi Geyer 2008, loc. cit. 20 Saeko Fukushima, Requests and Culture: Politeness in British English and Japanese, 3 rd ed. Bern:Peter Lang European Academic Publishers, 2003, p. 21. 21 John Cutting, Pragmatics and Discourse: Resource Books for Student London: Routledge, 2002, pp. 51-52. maintaining harmonious relations. 22 Just as the definitions of pragmatics vary, so too do the definitions of politeness in linguistics. There are many definitions given by linguists. According to Arndt Jenny, as quoted by Eelen, politeness is “a matter of using the right words in the right contexts as determined by conventional rules of appropriateness .” 23 In the opinion of Sac hiko Ide, politeness isn’t only about the way the speaker strategically chooses to treat the hearer, but it is also an inalienable part of the language through which socio-structural concordance is achieved. 24 Quoted by Eelen, Robin Lakoff defines politeness as “a system of interpersonal relations designed to facilitate interaction by minimizing the potential for conflict and confrontation inherent in all human interchange .” 25 Therefore, politeness is an integral part to the people in the daily communication. Every discussion about politeness will inevitably return to the theoretical framework and to the basic concepts defining the field of politeness studies. 26 Politeness can be approached from four various perspectives, viewing it as a means to reduce friction in interaction, as a device for conflict avoidance, as a solidarity-building practice, as a behavior that express positive concern for others or as a rational behavior aiming to reduce a threat to an speaker or hearer ’s face. 27 Pragmatics approaches to politeness is limited under four headings: the conversational-maxim view, the conversational contract view, the pragmatic 22 Jenny Thomas 1995, op.cit. pp. 157-158. 23 Gino Eelen 2001, op.cit. p. 15. 24 Ibid. p. 12. 25 Ibid. p. 2. 26 Naomi Geyer 2008, op.cit. p. 11. 27 Ibid. p. 4. scales view and the face management view. 28 Based on all perspective, politeness on pragmatics will make the communication between the interlocutors go well. Among the above approaches, the face management view proposed by Brown and Levinson has been the most influential paradigm and the most comprehensive. 29 The theory revolves around the notion of a concept called face. 30 According to Eelen, the central themes of the theory are rationality and face which are both claimed to be universal features. 31 The basic concepts of politeness in this view are: 1. Politeness means minimizing the interlocutor face from threatening acts FTA through some specific strategies. 32 2. People use politeness when they are taking another person’s feeling into consideration. People speak or put things in such a way to minimize the potential threat in the interaction. 33 3. Linguistic politeness is generated in communication by the individual’s concern with face. Politeness derives from the face-needs of people involved in a social encounter. It is this basic feature of interaction that generates polite language. 34 4. Politeness is the use and the application of communication strategies intended to maintain mutual face and to achieve smooth communication, taking into account human relationships. 35 28 Jenny Thomas 1995, op.cit. p. 158. 29 Naomi Geyer 2008, op.cit. p. 16. 30 Ibid. p. 4. 31 Gino Eelen 2001, op.cit. pp. 2-3. 32 Bernadette Vine, Getting Things Done at Work: the Discourse of Power in Workplace Interaction Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2004, p. 35. 33 Jo Roberts, “Face Threatening Acts and Politeness Theory: Contrasting Speeches from Supervisory Conferences,” Journal of Curriculum and Supervision, vol. 7 Alexandria: ASCD, 1992, p. 288. 34 John Hall 2009, op.cit. pp. 5-6. 35 Saeko Fukushima 2003, op.cit. p. 27. Impoliteness is the opposite and the parasite of politeness. 36 It is defined as the act or utterance that is face aggravating and attacking in particular context in a conversation. 37 It is also the use of strategies that are designed to create social disruption. The strategies are oriented towards attacking face. 38 In the expression level, it is one of following types: 39 1 Snubbing 2 Using inappropriate identity markers 3 Seeking disagreement 4 Using taboo words, swear or use abusive and profane language 5 Be uninterested, unconcerned and unsympathetic 6 Disassociating from others 7 Threatening or frightening 8 Scorn 9 Explicitly associating the other with negative aspect 10 Criticizing hearer 11 Hindering or blocking such as by deny turn and interrupt. The researches on impoliteness are less in amount than on politeness. 40 This is why books on impoliteness are ra rely found and the theories aren’t as much as on politeness.

B. The Concept of Face, FTA-FSA, and the Strategies