|
Baldly
(without redress)
Baldly
(with redress)
Off record
Positive politeness
Negative politeness
Do not perform
the FTA
27
route. Finally, a speaker can choose to redress the FTA using either a positive or a
negative politeness strategy.
As already stated, positive face requires that the individual‟s positive self-image be
respected in everyday interaction with others. In order to achieve this, Brown and
Levinson claim that conversational participants often work to minimise the social
distance between them. Cutting (2008: 46) points out that positive politeness strategies
„aim to save positive face by demonstrating closeness and solidarity, appealing to
friendship, making other people feel good and emphasising that both speakers have a
common goal.‟ Brown and Levinson (1987) list fifteen strategies that a speaker can
employ in order to avoid threatening the addressee‟s positive face (see Appendix A).
One of the most common positive politeness strategies, in-group identity markers such
as nicknames, falls under the banner of
terms of address
, which are „traditionally one of
the central topics in politeness research‟ (Eelen, 2001: 38), and these are explored in
relation to the present study in Chapter 7. Positive politeness behaviour is often
compared to that which is characteristic of interaction in an intimate setting such as
between husband and wife or within family discourse (see Blum Kulka, 1997a; Clancy,
2005). Brown and Levinson (1987: 103) also maintain that because positive politeness
can be associated with intimate language use, it can be used as a „social accelerator‟,
where, for example, strangers, in using markers of positive politeness, can indicate that
they want to form a closer bond.
On the other hand, negative politeness is action aimed at non-interference and non-
imposition on the hearer and so the maintenance of negative face requires the
achievement of distance. According to Cutting (2008: 45), speakers use negative
politeness strategies „to avoid imposing or presuming, and to give the hearer options.‟
Brown and Levinson list ten strategies for the linguistic realisation of negative
politeness (see Appendix B). Included in this list of strategies is that of hedging for the
sake of negative politeness in order to mark a claim „as being provisional
pending…acceptance in the community‟ (Myers, 1989: 13). The use of hedges in family
discourse is explored in Chapter 8. In the same way that they place positive politeness at
28
the heart of „intimate‟ behaviour, they place negative politeness at the heart of external
„respect‟ behaviour. Brown and Levinson (1987: 129-130) claim that „when we think of
Western cultures, it is negative politeness that springs to mind…it is the stuff that fills
the etiquette books.‟
Brown and Levinson claim that our choice of politeness strategy, or lack thereof, is
decided by a number of social variables. The first of these is the perceived social
distance between the speaker and hearer. Social distance is dependent on socio-cultural
factors such as age, gender, role, education, class, ethnicity etc., all of which contribute
towards establishing a degree of familiarity between speaker and hearer. The higher the
familiarity, the lower the level of politeness strategies used. The second contextual
feature, power difference, is similarly dependent on socio-cultural features and these
determine who has the dominant role in the conversation; the less dominant the role, the
higher the level of politeness strategies such as negative politeness. The final feature
cultural ranking, dependent on a culture-bound evaluation of polite language use, is
calculated according to how threatening a particular speech act is perceived to be within
a specific culture. Once a decision has been made about these variables, the appropriate
linguistic strategy is selected by the speaker.
2.1.2 Pragmatic socialisation in the family
The family has proven to be fertile ground for pragmatic socialisation research.
According to De Geer (2004: 1706), pragmatic socialisation is „a term used to describe
parents‟ specific focus on language and its use in different settings.‟ Becker (1990: 10)
maintains that not only must children acquire a repertoire of behaviours (some of which,
like greetings, take a variety of quite different forms), but they must learn the
circumstances in which these behaviours are expected, appropriate or effective. A
linguistic tool employed by parents in the course of this process is what is often referred
to as a „metapragmatic comment‟ (see Becker, 1988 and 1990; Blum-Kulka, 1990 and
1997a). Meta-pragmatic comments are comments made „to sanction a perceived lack of
politeness, to encourage „proper‟ behaviour and to prompt the use of politeness
29
formulae‟ (Blum-Kulka, 1990: 278). In a cross cultural analysis of the family discourse
of three cultural groups, Jewish-American, native Israeli and Israeli-American, Blum-
Kulka (1997a) studied the phenomenon of politeness from the perspective of the parent
in relation to the language of parental social control acts at the dinner table. According
to Blum-Kulka, control acts „encompass a large class of verbal moves aimed at affecting
the behaviour of others (e.g. offers, requests and orders)‟ (p. 142). Therefore, these acts
are, by nature, face threatening and directed in the main at the children present. She
found that in all three cultures, the parents showed a preference for a direct mode of
performing the control acts, a mode far in excess of the general directness norms that
prevail in adult speech in the respective cultures. Blum-Kulka (1997a) illustrated that
the parents‟ control acts were very direct, however, she also demonstrated that these
control acts are rich in mitigation such as the adult‟s use of terms of endearment and
nicknames.
Similarly, de Geer
et al
. (2002) point to mitigation through the use of endearments,
justifications, politeness words and tone of voice. Blum-Kulka (1990, 1997a) claims that
this apparent paradox of
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