Pedagogical institute of termiz state university faculty of foreign language and literature raxmatova mohinur baxodir qizi

LEECH’S MODAL OF POLITENESS

Leech (1983) defines politeness as forms of behaviour that establish and maintain comity. It is concerned with the participants’ ability in a social interaction to engage in interaction in an atmosphere of relative harmony. Leech’s model of politeness is represented by the politeness principle which is realized six maxims which can be briefly stated as follows (Leech, 1983: 132): The Tact maximMinimize cost to other; maximize benefit to other.'The tact maxim is concerned with a scale of cost-benefit which Leech (ibid: 107) illustrates through the following examples, arranged from (cost to hearer) to (benefit to hearer).
Indeed this kind of greeting is usually originated in our Iraqi culture, and it is so common and ritualistic that, I think, no documentation is needed. Such a greeting, however, will shock a native speaker of English who would regard it as unnatural, overfriendly and tautological. What is more, they might consider the speaker as treading on private territories because they are not keeping the social distance usual in the British society (ibid).3. Leech’s Modal of politenessLeech (1983) defines politeness as forms of behaviour that establish and maintain comity. It is concerned with the participants’ ability in a social interaction to engage in interaction in an atmosphere of relative harmony. Leech’s model of politeness is represented by the politeness principle which is realized six maxims which can be briefly stated as follows (Leech, 1983: 132):3. 1. The Tact maximMinimize cost to other; maximize benefit to other.'The tact maxim is concerned with a scale of cost-benefit which Leech (ibid: 107) illustrates through the following examples, arranged from (cost to hearer) to (benefit to hearer):(3)
1. Peel these potatoes.
2. Hand me the news paper.
3. Sit down.
4. Look at that.
5. Enjoy your holiday.
6. Have another sandwich.
The Generosity maximMinimize benefit to self; maximize cost to self The maxim of generosity centers on the speaker, and says that others should be put first instead of the self. You must come and have dinner with us. (p. 133) The Agreement maximMinimize disagreement between self and other; maximize agreement between self and other.It is in line with Brown and Levinson's positive politeness strategies of 'seek agreement' and 'avoid disagreement,' to which they attach great importance. However, it is not being claimed that people totally avoid disagreement. It is simply observed that they are much more direct in expressing agreement, rather than disagreement. a- English a difficult language to learn.b: True, but the grammar is quite easy. The Sympathy maximMinimize antipathy between self and other; maximize sympathy between self and other.This includes a small group of speech acts such as congratulation, commiseration, and expressing condolences - all of which are in accordance with Brown and Levinson's positive politeness strategy of attending to the hearer's interests, wants, and needs.

The conversational-maxim framework of politeness has found further support in the approach formulated by Geoffrey Leech (1978, 1987). Similar to Lakoff, he proposes a Politeness Principle, complementing Grice's Cooperative Principle. However, Leech's approach is much more complex than Lakoff's and does not solely aim at the development of pragmatic competence in the form of specifically formulated rules, but instead seeks to explain and establish principles of 'interpersonal rhetoric'.

Leech's approach to politeness is placed within the framework of rhetorical pragmatics, i.e. his understanding of goal-oriented use of language, particularly with regards to everyday conversations. Leech (1983: 15) formulates two systems of rhetorical principles: 'textual rhetoric' and 'interpersonal rhetoric', of which each contains further maxims. Both principles are needed for the encoding and decoding of an utterance: while 'textual rhetoric' accounts for language internal factors in the formation of an utterance (e.g. syntactic clarity), 'interpersonal rhetoric' shapes the utterance in terms of interpersonal factors and social goals of the interlocutors (e.g. context appropriateness, use of politeness, etc.) (see Eelen 2001: 7). Politeness is described within the latter, the domain of 'interpersonal rhetoric' in terms of the the Principle of Politeness.

According to Leech, his Principle of Politeness (PP) interacts with the Gricean Cooperative Principle (CP) in communication. The PP complements the CP with interpersonal factors, to account for situations in which interlocutors do not follow the maxims of the CP, while formulating their utterance (e.g. making their illocution not as informative or relevant as possible) in favour of the social well-being of all participants. Thus, Leech supports Lakoff's approach in claiming that “the PP has a higher regulative role [than Grice's CP]”, and defines politeness as “maintain[ing] the social equilibrium and the friendly relations which enable us to assume that our interlocutors are being cooperative in the first place” (1983: 82).

As a more detailed differentiation of the politeness principle Leech (1983: 119) established six sub-maxims, namely: the Maxim of Tact, Generosity, Approbation, Modesty, Agreement and Sympathy. All of these maxims generally include the principle to “minimize the expression of beliefs which are unfavourable to the hearer and at the same time (but less important) maximize the expression of beliefs which are favourable to the hearer” (qtd. in Fraser 1990: 225). Accordingly, Leech's politeness principle does not only take account of the speaker, but even more so of the hearer. He (1983: 123) further establishes a set of scales for each of these maxims, which determine the degree of politeness (i.e. the level of tact, generosity, approbation, modesty, agreement, and sympathy) called for in a given situation. The first is the 'cost-benefit scale', on the basis of which the cost or benefit of an action to the speaker and the hearer is weighed up. The 'optionality scale' determines the degree to which the speaker leaves a choice to the addressee. The 'indirectness scale' assesses the hearer's effort required in order to interpret the speaker's illocution. The 'authority scale' determines to what extent the speaker is entitled to impose wishes on the hearer; and finally, the 'social distance scale' describes the level of familiarity between the speaker and hearer (see Leech 1983: 123). Another distinction that Leech makes is between 'relative politeness' relating to politeness in a specific situation and 'absolute politeness' referring to the (negative and positive) pole of politeness inherently assigned to certain speech acts. For instance, the speech acts of offers and praise are regarded as inherently polite, while orders and criticism are valued as inherently impolite. In this regard, 'negative politeness' is understood as minimising the impoliteness of impolite illocutions, and 'positive politeness' is associated with maximising the politeness of polite illocutions (Fraser 1990: 226). Hence, according to Leech an introduction to an order, such as I'm terribly sorry to disturb you, would be an example of 'negative politeness'; while We are delighted to inform you, as an opening to an offer, represents 'positive politeness' (see. ib.).

Overall, Leech's conception of linguistic politeness can be defined as “conflict avoidance, which is attested by the specification of the maxims, as well as by his claim that politeness is geared to establishing comity” (Eelen 2000: 9). While Leech's framework does not provide concrete solutions to neither the kind nor the degree of politeness that is required (by the speaker) in a specific situation, it has to be acknowledged for supplying criteria on the basis of which a given utterance can be evaluated. Therefore his approach and, even more so, the politeness theory established by Brown and Levinson, which will be discussed in the following section, are the two frameworks in the field of linguistic politeness study, which are predominantly employed as a basis for the interpretation of empirical work conducted within this field.

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