Politeness and Interaction

Politeness and Interaction

Politeness and Interaction

Yanuar Rizki P. H. (09202244048)

Dita Yulianti (09202244046)

Politeness and Interaction

Politeness

Politeness is  a fixed concept, as in the idea of ‘polite social behavior’, or etiquette, within a culture. It is also possible to specify a number of different general principlesfor being polite in social interaction within a particular culture. Some of these might include being tactful, generous, modest, and sympathetic towards other.

As a technical terms, face means the public self-image of a person. It refers to that emotional and social sense of self that everyone has and expects everyone else to recognize. Politeness, in an interaction, can then be defined as the means employed to show awareness of another person’s face. In this sense, politeness can be accomplished in situations of social distance or closeness.

Showing awareness of another person’s face when that other seems sociallydistant is often describes in terms of respect or deference. Showing the equivalent awareness when the other is socially close is often described in terms of friendliness, camaraderie, or solidarity. In most English-speaking contexts, the participants in an interaction often have to determine, as they speak, the relative social distance between them, and hence their ‘face wants’.

The following examples will clear the explanation.

When someone asking about the time to others, the expression that is used is quite different when he ask to his friend and when he ask to a stranger that he never known. These are the example.

When he ask to his friend, “have you got the time?”

When he ask to a stranger, “ I wonder if you could tell me the time, Sir.”

It is clear that we are using different language in our daily life depend to whom we are talk to. When we are talking to someone that have a higher social status an a certain term, like parents, teachers, bosses, and the like we use more polite language than when we are talking to someone that has the same or maybe lower social status than us, like friends, brother or sister, students, and the like.

Face wants

Within their everyday social interactions, people generally behave as if their expectations concerning their public self-image, or their face wants, will be respected. If a speaker says something that represents a threat to anotherindividual’s expectations regarding self-image, it is describes as a face threatening act.

Alternatively, given the possibility that some action might be interpreted as a threat to another’s face, the speaker can say something to lessen the possible threat. This is called a face saving act. Because it is generally expected that each person will attempt to respect the face wants off others, there are many different waays of performing face saving act.

This illustration will show the difference between face threatening act,

Imagine that in late night where people try to take a rest, there is a young boy playing his music very loud and disturb the neighbour. Then, the anger neighbour state “I am going to tell him to stop this hell right now!”, but the wife of him just suggest him not to get mad and try to do it in a better way and suggest “maybe you can ask him to lower the music because its getting late and people are just trying to get some rest”.

From the illustration above, the man proposes a face treatening act because the man just expressing what appears on his mind, while the woman suggests a face saving act to lessen the possible threat because if the man doing so, it will threat the boy. This is due to the politeness that someone respect others by doing so.

Negative and Positive Face

Positive and Negative Face

Face is the public self image that every adult tries to project. In their 1987 book, Brown and Levinson defined positive face two ways: as "the want of every member that his wants be desirable to at least some others", or alternately, "the positive consistent self-image or 'personality' (crucially including the desire that this self-image be appreciated and approved of) claimed by interact ants". Negative face was defined as "the want of every 'competent adult member' that his actions be unimpeded by others", or "the basic claim to territories, personal preserves, rights to non-distraction--i.e. the freedom of action and freedom from imposition". Ten years later, Brown characterized positive face by desires to be liked, admired, ratified, and related to positively, noting that one would threaten positive face by ignoring someone. At the same time, she characterized negative face by the desire not to be imposed upon, noting that negative face could be impinged upon by imposing on someone. Positive Face refers to one's self-esteem, while negative face refers to one's freedom to act. The two aspects of face are the basic wants in any social interaction, and so during any social interaction, cooperation is needed amongst the participants to maintain each others' faces.

A person’s negative face is the need to be independent, to have freedom of action, and not to be imposed on by others. While a person’s positive face is the need to be accepted, even liked, by others, to be treated as a member of the same group, and to know that his or her wants are shared by others. In short, the negative face is the need to be independent and positive face is the need to be connected. The word ‘negative’ here does not mean bad, it is the opposite pole from ‘positive’.

Negative politeness is a face saving act which is oriented to the person’s negative face will tend to show deference, emphasize the importance of the others time or concerns, and even include an apology for the imposition or interruption.  Positive politeness is a face saving act which is concerned with the person’s positive face will tend to show solidarity, emphasize that both speakers want the same thing, and that they have a common goal.

Positive Politeness

Positive politeness strategies seek to minimize the threat to the hearer’s positive face. They are used to make the hearer feel good about himself, his interests or possessions, and are most usually used in situations where the audience knows each other fairly well. In addition to hedging and attempts to avoid conflict, some strategies of positive politeness include statements of friendship, solidarity, compliments, and the following examples from Brown and Levinson:

Negative Politeness

Negative politeness strategies are oriented towards the hearer’s negative face and emphasize avoidance of imposition on the hearer. These strategies presume that the speaker will be imposing on the listener and there is a higher potential for awkwardness or embarrassment than in bald on record strategies and positive politeness strategies. Negative face is the desire to remain autonomous so the speaker is more apt to include an out for the listener, through distancing styles like apologies. Examples from Brown and Levinson include:

Self and other : say nothing

One way to see the relevance of the relationship between these politeness concepts and language use is to take a single speech event and map out the different interpretations associated with different possible expression used within that event.

Many people seem to prefer to have their neeeds recognized by others without having to express those needs are recognized. This ‘say nothing’ may work or not depend on the relation among speakers.

The following illustration will make it clear.

One day you join a toefl test at your college for a certain requirement. Suppose you are self and person next to you is other. When the test are started, you find that you left your pencil case at home. Then you look at your bag to search for a pencil hope you will find one without saying a word but with a certain face expression hoping that your problem will be recognized by the person next to you.

This say nothing approach may work or not, but if it does, it is because of other offers and not because self asks.