Part 1: introduction rationale
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- Điều hướng trang này:
- 1.3.2.2. Politeness principles
- 1.3.2.3. Positive politeness and strategies
- 1.3.2.4. Negative politeness and strategies
1.3.2. What politeness? 1.3.2.1. Politeness defined Politeness has received various amounts of attention and controversy from all areas of linguistics, especially sociolinguistics and pragmatics, throughout the 20th century. There have been so far two main approaches to politeness: politeness as social norms (normative politeness) or conversational principle and maxims or do’s and don’ts (Lakoff 1973, 1989; Leech 1983) and face-saving acts or politeness strategies (strategic politeness) (Brown and Levinson 1978, 1987) (Cf Nguyen Duc Dan 1998, Nguyen Quang 2003). In her cross-cultural study on politeness, Blum-Kulka (1987: 131) suggests that politeness is “(i) a function of redressive action with the latter having correlative relationship with indirectness, (ii) an interaction achieved between two needs, the need for pragmatic clarity and the need to avoid coerciveness and (iii) a social distance and role relationship”. By giving such a definition, Blum-Kulka implies the tendency that the more indirect we go, the more polite we become. More correctly, she places politeness on the same par with negative politeness by challenging the claim that there is a direct relationship between indirectness and politeness. Intuitively speaking, it seems workable as seen in Anglophone cultures. However, it is, too, intuitively untenable because it does not necessarily means that going direct is less polite, hence “indirectness does not necessarily/ always imply politeness” (Blum-Kulka 1987: 131). For example: (1) Indirect: Nhà cửa gì mà trông như chuồng lợn thế này. (Implied to tidy up the room) Direct: Dọn dẹp phòng đi con. (Tidy up the room, son) (2) Indirect: What’s the wife expected to do at this time? (Meaning “to prepare dinner”) Direct : Time to cook, honey. Despite the fact that all utterances are FTAs to various degree, the direct ones seem more comfortably accepted, thus more polite. However, this confirms the idea proposed by Dascal (1983, cf. Thomas 1995: 120) that indirectness is costly and risky in that an indirect utterance takes longer for the speaker to produce and longer for the H to process (costly) and the H may not understand what the speaker is getting at (risk). Nguyen Quang (1994: 23) provides a satisfactory definition of politeness (which is adopted as a working definition of politeness for this study), not “leaning” to any side of the coin, and with no bias against either positive or negative politeness, but reconciliation of the two extremes. He confirms that “politeness is any communication act (either verbal or non-verbal, or both) that is intentionally and appropriately meant to make another person/ other people feel better or less bad”. Setting aside the non-verbal aspect as mentioned in the scope of the study, the thesis author in convinced that this definition covers both ends of the continuum of positive and negative politeness by implying that politeness involves taking into account the feelings of others (Holmes, 1992: 296, Wardhaugh 1986: 280) and it is the means employed to show awareness of another person’s face (Yule 1996: 60), used to show concern for people’s face (Brown and Levinson 1987). In this study, the adopted model of politeness, or “polite way of talking” which is seen as deviations from Grice maxims (for politeness reasons) is that of Brown and Levinson’s due to the following reasons: First, putting aside the views of conversational principle and maxims, and conversational contract, the distinction between normative and strategic politeness is rather loose and relative in that almost all illocutionary acts should operate within the framework of interpersonal relationships. Second, it is the author’s opinion that normative politeness based on social norms is the departure or foundation of strategic politeness. What require normative politeness to be realized are interpersonal relationships where interlocutors should follow some certain politeness norms to save or preserve the other’s face. This, in turn, will more or less make a twist and impetus to implement strategies. Third, in interpersonal verbal interaction, no matter whether a dispraise is constructive or not, every dispraising utterance carries in itself potential damage or threat to the addressee’s positive and negative face. Fourth, politeness strategies, both positive and negative, when used, can (i) support and enhance the addressee’s positive face (positive politeness) and (ii) help avoid transgressing the addressee’s freedom of action and freedom from imposition (negative face). Finally, Brown and Levinson’s model is adequate for the interpretation of ongoing verbal interaction in which participants are reciprocally attending to one another’s face needs (Watts 2003: 101) 1.3.2.2. Politeness principles This is certainly true that all of the approaches to politeness (Lakoff’s, Leech’s, and Brown & Levinson’s) are appropriacy-based or conflict-avoidance-based, where politeness is a matter of using the right words in the right contexts as determined by conventional rules of appropriateness. Lakoff (1973) argues that the majority of conversation is governed by what is termed the politeness principle. Similar to Grice (but earlier), she claimed that there are three maxims or rules that speakers should follow in conversation to maintain politeness: Don’t impose – This is similar to the theory of negative politeness – trying not to impose on people or to disrupt them in any way. It can be seen through such expressions as:
Give options – It is avoiding forcing the other participant into a corner with the use of such expressions as:
Make the hearer feel good – We say things that flatter the other participant and make him/ her feel good; rather in the same way we pander to positive face. This can be seen through the use of such expressions as:
Leech’s (1983) Politeness principle (PP) consists of 6 maxims (Tact, Generosity, Approbation, Modesty, Agreement and Sympathy), which are related to the notion of cost and benefit and much related to offering favorableness to the hearer. Leech sees PP as being of the same status as Grice’s Cooperative Principle (CP), which it “rescues” by explaining why speakers do not always observe the Gricean maxims (Thomas 1995: 159). Leech (1983) includes politeness as interpersonal rhetoric that involves three different sets of conversational maxims, namely those pertaining to Grice’s cooperative principle, the principle of politeness akin to that of Lakoff, and the “irony” principle. In his theory, politeness may be realized by weighing one’s linguistic behavior against a group of maxims whereby speakers can minimize hearer’s cost and maximize hearer’s benefit (tact maxim), minimize their own benefit and maximize that of the hearer (generosity maxim), minimize hearer dispraise and maximize hearer praise (approbation maxim), minimize self-praise and maximize self-dispraise (modesty maxim), minimize disagreement and maximize agreement between oneself and others (agreement maxim) and minimize sympathy between oneself and others (sympathy maxim). Brown and Levinson (1987) do not set a rule of politeness principles as Lakoff and Leech did, but drop a hint by providing the following schema, termed “possible strategies for doing FTAs”, available to speakers to encounter unavoidable face-threatening acts, to make appropriate communicative choices and to reduce the possibility of damage and threat to hearer’s face or to the speaker’s own face. Once a decision has been made, they argue, the speaker selects the appropriate linguistic means to accomplish the chosen strategy. Their schema proposes five components of communicative choices: (1) without redressive action badly, (2) positive politeness, (3) negative politeness, (4) off record and (5) don’t do the FTA (or refrain from doing the FTA). Each strategy on the schema is numbered 1-5, the general principle being that the higher the number the more polite the strategy.     1. Without redressive action, badly On record 2. Positive politeness
   Do the FTA With redressive action
 4.Off record 3. Negative politeness
5. Don’t do the FTA Possible strategies for doing FTAs (Brown & Levinson, 1987: 69) Based on this model, Brown and Levinson have identified a whole series of linguistic strategies available to speakers to enable them, if they so wish, to minimize threat to face. If a speaker chooses to commit an FTA, they can go “on record”, say “badly, without redress”: - Smarten yourself up The second way available to go “on record” is to choose to pay attention to face through redressive action. Thus, they may redress the FTA by choosing positive politeness that attends to positive face, to enable S to pay attention to H’s positive face by the use of in-group identify markers such as: - You’re so good at solving computer problems. I wonder if you could just help me with a little formatting problem I’ve got. Or they can redress the threat with negative politeness that respects the hearer’s negative face (when FTAs are unavoidable) which includes the marking of deference through using the V pronoun, or, for example, the elimination of all reference to both S and H through the use of impersonal pronouns, inclusive pronoun they or we.
Alternatively, they can’t go “off-record” and drop a hint to the hearer: - It’s a laundry day, I see. Finally, they can choose not to do any FTAs, seen as the least face-threatening acts (just to be safe). To conclude, in doing an FTA, the speaker needs to balance three wants:
1.3.2.3. Positive politeness and strategies As regards the sociological factors/ variables of P, D and R that bring about significant influences on positive polite linguistic choices, positive politeness is defined as forms for free-ranging, solidarity-oriented emphasizing shared attitudes and values, minimizing social distance, “maximizing the politeness of polite illocutions” (Leech 1983: 84) and “essentially other-oriented behavior” (Holmes 1995: 26) According to Brown and Levinson (1987: 101-103), “positive politeness is redress directed to the addressee’s positive face, his perennial desire that he wants …should be thought of as desirable”. However, they emphasize “it is not necessarily redressive of the particular face want infringed by the FTA because positive techniques are used as a kind of metaphorical extension of intimacy, implying common ground or sharing of wants, social accelerator to indicate that he (the hearer) wants to ‘come closer’ to H”. For example:
Take a chill pill, man! All of the above ideas of positive politeness are summarized in Nguyen Quang’s definition which reads: “Positive politeness is any communicative act which is intentionally and appropriately meant to show the speaker’s concern to the hearer/ addressee, thus, enhancing the sense of solidarity between them. Simply put, positive politeness is to show the speaker’s concern to others. In this case, positive politeness can be called warm or proximal, intimate politeness”. (Lecture note on cross-cultural communication, CFL-VNU, 2003: 43)
The following fifteen strategies are addressed to positive face, and are thus examples of positive politeness (cited from Watts 2003 and Nguyen Quang 2003). (1) Strategy 1: Notice, attend to H (her/ his interests, wants, needs, goods etc) - Ái chà chà! Hôm nay nhân dịp gì mà diện bộ củ đẹp thế. À này, có tiền cho tớ vay năm chục. (Wow, how smart you look today! What occasion? By the way, can I borrow 50,000 VND, if you have?) (2) Strategy 2: Exaggerate (interest, approval, sympathy with H) - Good old Jim. Just the man I wanted to see. I knew I’d find you here. Could you spare me a couple of minutes? - Giời ơi, chặc …. chặc….., chặc …. con bé ấy vô cùng quyến rũ.
- You’ll never guess what Fred told me last night. This is right up your street. - Cậu biết không, bọn tớ quyết định tháng sau sẽ cưới.
- Here’s my old mate, Fred. How are you doing today, mate? Could you give us a hand to get this car to start? - Ta đi chứ anh bạn (Shall we go, mate?)
- I agree, right. Manchester United played badly last night, didn’t they? D’you reckon you could give me cigarette? - Mình chuyển sang làm cho UNICEF rồi. - Cho UNICEF cơ à? Nhất đấy! (6) Strategy 6: Avoid disagreement - Well in a way, I suppose you’re sort of right. But look at it like this. Why don’t you? - Anh nói cũng có lý nhưng theo tôi không thể đốt cháy giai đoạn được.
- People like you and me, Bill, don’t like being put around like that, do we? Why don’t we go and complain? - Túi nặng quá em ạ. - Em biết lắm chứ. Toàn bộ giầy dép của em ở trong ấy mà lị. (8) Strategy 8: Joke to put the hearer at ease - A: Great summer we’re having. It’s only rained five times a week on average - B: Yeah, terrible, isn’t it? - A: Could I ask you for a favor? - Các bố ấy không phải là Mike Tyson và vợ các bố ấy không phải là những bịch cát
- I know you like marshmallows, so I’ve bought you home a whole box of them. I wonder if I could ask you for a favor. - Tớ biết cậu không khoái ba cái trò tiệc tùng bù khú nhưng vì hôm nay có cả sếp của tớ dự nên cậu đến tiếp hộ tớ nhé.
- I’ll take you out to dinner on Saturday if you cook the dinner this evening. - Này, hôm nào ra Hải Xồm lai rai đi.
- I know you are always glad to get a tip or two on gardening, Fred, so if I were you, I wouldn’t cut your lawn back so short. - Trông mời mọc quá nhỉ. Tớ phải thử một miếng để xem tài nấu nướng của cậu tiến bộ đến đâu rồi.
- I’m feeling really hungry. Let’s stop for a bite. - Tại sao ta không đi biển nhỉ?
- I think you’ve had a bit too much to drink, Jim. Why not stay at our place this evening? (14) Strategy 14: Assert reciprocal exchange or tit for tat - Dad, if you help me with my math homework, I’ll mow the lawn after school tomorrow. - Tớ thổi cơm, cậu dọn bàn nhé.
- A: Have a glass of malt whisky, Dick. - B: Terrific, thanks! - A: Not at all. I wonder if I could confide for a minute or two. In addition, Nguyen Quang (2003: 91-99) proposes two more strategies (16) Strategy 16: Console, encourage H - Việc gì phải buồn, thua keo này ta bày keo khác. - It’s nothing, really. Don’t give up. You have my backing.
- Thu nhập có khá không? - Anh chị sinh được mấy cháu rồi?
Whereas positive politeness is free ranging, negative politeness is specific and focused; it performs the function of minimizing the particular imposition that the FTA unavoidably effects (Brown and Levinson, 1987: 129) or it is “minimizing the impoliteness of impolite illocutions” (Leech 1983: 84). Socio-linguistically, negative politeness involves expressing oneself appropriately in terms of social distance and respecting status differences (Holmes, 1992: 297). Recognizing that “negative politeness is redressive action addressed to the addressee’s negative face: his want to have his freedom of action unhindered and his action unimpeded” (Brown and Levinson, 1987: 129), Thomas (1995: 172) makes it clear by stating that “negative politeness is oriented towards a hearer’s negative face, which appeals to the hearer’s desire not to be impeded or put upon, to be left free to act as they choose”. To observe and cover both pragmatic and socio-linguistic aspects of intra-culturally and cross-culturally communicative environment, Nguyen Quang (2003: 44) proposes his own definition of negative politeness: “Negative politeness is any kind of communicative act which is appropriately intended to show that the speaker does not want to impinge on the addressee’s privacy, thus, enhancing the sense of distance between them. Simply put, negative politeness is not to poke your nose into others’ privacy. Negative politeness can be called distancing/ cool/ distant politeness” Briefly, negative politeness strategies, in Brown and Levinson’s (1987) words, conversely are addressed to H’s negative face and are characterized as expressions of restraint, formality, and distancing. They are furthermore viewed as more face redressive, i.e. more polite, than positive strategies, a point which was discussed earlier. Thus, they can be also expressed in two ways: (i) by saving the interlocutor’s face by mitigating FTAs; or (ii) by satisfying negative face by showing respect for the addressee’s right not to be imposed on. Following are the ten strategies addressed to the hearer’s negative face (cited from Watts 2003 and Nguyen Quang 2003) (1) Strategy 1: Be conventionally indirect - Could you tell me the time please? - Anh có thể lấy hộ tôi quyển sách ở trên bàn kia được không?
- I wonder whether I could just sort of ask you a little question. - Nói chí ít ra anh ta cũng kiểu như hơi chậm hiểu.
- If you had a little time to spare for me this afternoon, I’d like to talk about my paper. - Nên chăng ta đứng ngoài cuộc thì hơn.
- Could I talk to you for just a minute? - Tôi chỉ muốn hỏi anh là tôi có thể mượn ô tô của anh về quê ngày mai được không?
- Excuse me, officer. I think I might have parked in the wrong place. - Tôi ngu quá đi mất. Nhẽ ra tôi phải hỏi ý kiến anh trước mới phải.
- Sorry to bother you but …….. - Xin lỗi phải ngắt lời anh nhưng đấy không phải là ý tôi muốn nói.
- A: That car is parked in a no-parking area. - B: It’s mine, officer - A: Well, it’ll have to have a parking ticket. - Có lẽ vấn đề không đơn giản như vậy đâu.
- Parking on the double yellow is illegal, so I’m going to have to give you a fine. - Đề nghị hành khách xuất trình hộ chiếu và vé máy bay khi làm thủ tục vào sân bay.
- Participation in an illegal demonstration is punishable by law. Could I have your name and address, madam? - Mong ước của tôi là hàng tháng kiếm đủ tiền để nuôi các cháu ăn học đầy đủ.
- If you could just sort out a problem I’ve got with my formatting, I’ll buy you a beer at lunchtime. - Việc này trong tầm tay tôi. Anh khỏi phải lo.
- How much do you earn a month? (avoided) - Why don’t you marry at such an age? (avoided) - Chị làm ở đấy lương có cao không? (avoided) - Anh bao nhiêu tuổi rồi? (avoided)
Stop whining (Ngừng ca cẩm đi) Im ngay đi (Shut up)
Stop whining, please. (English) Làm ơn im ngay đi. (Vietnamese)
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