Seameo regional language centre

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According to Brown and Levinson (1978, 1987), there are at least three factors that 
help one decide how to go about achieving politeness in using communicative 
functions. These include the relative social power (P) and social distance (D) between 
the speakers and the ranking of imposition of the functions involved (R). The 
absence of this information would make it unlikely for speakers to perform a 
communicative function successfully.
In some cases, the relationship between the speakers can be inferred from their roles 
(e.g. customer and salesperson, father and son, patient and doctor). However, the 
textbooks seem to offer little attempt, either explicit or implicit, to draw students’ 
attention to this variable and its effects on the use of communicative functions.
Unfortunately, the teacher’s manuals also do not provide guidance on how to present 
the dialogues more communicatively.
An analysis of the linguistic presentation of the communicative functions in the 
books tends to indicate that this presentation might not necessarily be always realistic. 
Firstly, most dialogues in which different communicative functions are presented 
tend to be short exchanges (between two and four turns). In real-life interaction, the 
performance of face-damaging functions might involve extensive negotiation and 
turn-taking and be normally prefaced with supportive moves such as positive remarks 
or disarmers in order to reduce the potential face-threat to the hearer (Nguyen 2005). 
Furthermore, many functions are also not presented in the way native speakers might 

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use them. For example, English 12 teaches a quite high level of directness in 
expressing one’s agreements and disagreements:
Task 1:
Study the expressions and practice saying them aloud.
Giving your opinion
I think, I believe, In my opinion, From my point of view, As 
I see it …
Strongly agreeing
I quite agree, I agree with you completely, Absolutely, That’s 
right!
Partly agreeing
Well, I see your point but …, I don’t quite agree, To a certain 
extent, yes, but …
Disagreeing
I don’t agree, I’m afraid I disagree. That’s wrong, That’s not 
true!
Strongly disagreeing
What nonsense! What rubbish! I completely disagree!
(English 12: 153)
None the less, these expressions tend to rarely occur in a native speaker corpus that I 
collected (Nguyen 2005). In this corpus, most disagreements are normally prefaced 
with a token agreement, followed by the conjunction “but” to signal contrastive ideas 
and then the speaker’s own opinion. E.g.:
Yes, but …
But …
I think …
Well, maybe but …
Well, my feeling is …
The question of whether communicative functions should be taught based on NS 
models and what NS variety this instruction should follow is intriguing, especially in 

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the case of World Englishes. Researchers such as Ellis (1994), Hinkel (1996), Siegal 
(1996) and Kasper (1997) have pointed out that non-native speakers (NNS) do not 
always desire to totally converge with NS pragmatic behavior (i.e. how to perform 
communicative functions). On the contrary, they may only attempt at becoming 
competent L2 users while maintaining their own cultural identity. In fact, Giles, 
Coupland, and Coupland’s (1991) cited in Kasper (ibid.) have made a valid claim that 
in many situations successful communication means optimal rather than total 
convergence. On these grounds, therefore, it seems that L2 teaching needs to allow 
for students’ subjectivity and social claims. However, this does not necessarily imply 
that instructional materials should not provide students with realistic language use. 
On the contrary, students still need this information in order to make informed 
choices that both fit their systems of values and beliefs and do not break 
communication.
In the case of English, the fact that a number of NS varieties exist might complexify 
the decision of which variety to introduce into teaching materials. Furthermore, the 
status of English as a global language today seems to invalidate the extreme NS-NNS 
distinction and the assumption of NS ownership of the language. This new 
development in the role of English has brought about a number of implications for 
textbook writers. In the case of ELT in Asian context, for example, we may think of 
Asian English varieties which textbook writers might also draw on besides the other 
varieties (Cane, personal communication).

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Finally, the findings seem to suggest an inadequate amount of meta-pragmatic 
information which is included for each communicative function. Meta-pragmatic 
information is about when it is appropriate to perform a particular function and what 
expression would be appropriate in a particular situation. Indeed, out of 27 functions 
that are taught, meta-pragmatic information is available only for agreements and 
disagreements. However, this information is not provided until students study English 
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. Also, the information is only concerning the degree of agreements and 
disagreements. No explanation is given regarding when and to whom different 
expressions can be used.
Other important and potentially face-damaging functions such as ‘advising’, 
‘suggesting’, ‘complaining’, ‘requesting’, ‘declining an invitation’ (Brown & Levinson, 
1978, 1987) are not presented with essential meta-pragmatic information. 
Nevertheless, informal talks with teachers revealed they rarely supplemented this 
information.

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