I. Three politeness principles.
1.Deference politeness system.
It is a system in which the participants of con-versation are considered to be equals or nearly e-quals in social position but each regards the rela-tion between them as being distant. In this sys-tem, people see themselves as being at the samesocial level while each person uses independencestrategies speaking to the other, so on one hand,they are equal in position; on the other, they avoidbeing close in relation and keep a certain distanceon purpose not to be involved in unnecessary trou-ble. A lot of international political protocol isbased on this system where equals from the respec-tive government meet officially while they are a-ware the trouble of the closeness and are cautiousabout forming unnecessarily close ties.
They greet each other politely and briefly.
The usual English greetings which have no specialconnotation in them are used widely, such as“He-llo”,“Hi”,“Good morning”and sometimes“Howare you?”Mostly the greetings are indications thatthere are not unpleasant feelings or resentmentfrom the greeter. If we meet someone and do notgreet the person we know, the person may feelhurt and angry. It is a way to show politeness. E-ven if sometimes“How are you?”is used in greet-ing and the common practice reply“Fine. Thankyou.”is expected, nobody knows whether thespeaker is really concerned with the addressee.shealth condition or not. Occasionally very formal“How do you do?”is accompanied with a hand-shake.
They address each other formally with a titlefor the sake of the occasion, such as,“Mr.Jones”, and“Professor Boffin”to show their re-spect and politeness. Some business and politicalconferences are quite formal, so the use of a titleshows respect to the addressee from the addresser.
By addressing with a title, we have a feeling of dis-tance and formality but not of familiarity.
In this case, if there is a request, we expectthe language to be indirect and full of carefulnessand cautiousness. For example, asking the listen-ers to pay attention to his presentation is very ten-tative:“Can I call for your attention please, ladiesand gentlemen?”In request, the speaker uses man-y auxiliary words to create an atmosphere of polite-ness, reducing the possibility of causing a feelingof imposure; hence, words are not saved to achievethe effect of politeness.
2. Solidarity politeness system.
When two close friends have a conversationwith each other they exemplify a solidarity facesystem. In this system, speakers are symmetrical,that is, the participants see themselves as being inequal social position and being close in relation so the participants both use politeness strategies ofinvolvement.
Solidarity politeness is seen obviously every-where in daily life, as long as the participants feelor express closeness to each other. Friendships a-mong close colleagues, good-wills in neighbor-hood, kinships and so on are often characteristicexamples of solidarity systems.
When two housewives meet, standing andtalking on the street, the following conversation isoften heard.
“Hello, Betty. How are you?”.
“Fine. How are you keeping, Alice?”.
“I.m very well. How.s Tony? I haven.t seenhim lately.”Seemingly unimportant words andcasual greetings bond the communication betweenthe neighbors and is an effective lubricant of goodrelations.
The given names addressed here,“Betty”,“Alice”and“Tony”suggest the cordial relation be-tween the speakers.
Similarly, in a house, the talk is often heard.
“Tom, please pass me that glass.”.
“Which glass, Jane?”.
“The one on the table.”.
We can make a safe guess that the talk is be-tween two close persons, maybe husband andwife, brothers, sisters or parent and child. Herethe request of asking for a glass is very direct andspecific. The brief practical talk is clear enough toexpress request of getting a glass and there are notso many additional flowery words. This reflectssimple and true relation. The conversation soundsnatural and real intention is expressed clearly withordinary words. On the side of the speaker, thereis no calculated consideration on whether weshould be polite and not be afraid of losing facewhen being refused. On the side of the requestee,he can do as required and also risk nothing when herefuses the request out of various reasons. It isthis system that frequently makes us relax and helpbuild up good feelings among people.
If it is not“Tom, please pass me the glass”, itis“Can you pass me the glass please, Tom?”Po-liteness is expressed definitely, while greater emo-tional distance can be sensed immediately there-fore. Sometimes the rule functions well: if youwish to be more polite, you use more indirect lan-guage.
3. Hierarchical politeness system.
In such a system, the participants recognizeand respect the social differences that place one in asuperordinate position and the other in a subord-inate position. This is the system of face in whichthe superior, the boss, Mr. Richards, speaks“down”to his employee, Ray, and Ray speaks“up”to his superior, Mr. Richards. The maincharacteristic of this system is the recognizeddifference in status. This relation system is consid-ered to be either close or distant.
In such a face system the relationship are a-symmetrical, so the participants have to use differ-ent face politeness strategies in speaking to eachother. For the purpose of maintaining friendly re-lation, the person in the superordinate or upperposition usually uses involvement strategieswittingly in speaking“down.”The person in thesubordinate or lower position always uses inde-pendence strategies consciously in speaking“up”.
Calling someone by his or her surname and title isan independence strategy. Calling someone by hisor her given name without a title is an involvementstrategy.
The participants understand themselves as be-ing in unequal social position. That“Higher”usesinvolvement face strategies and the“lower”usesindependence strategies. This sort of hierarchicalface system is quite familiar in business, govern-mental and educational organizations.
Read this dialogue.
“Tom.”.
“Yes, sir.”.
“Can you type this letter for me please?”.
“Yes, of course I can.”.
From this short question-and-answer, we cansee that the boss is trying to use an equal tone toask Tom to help him type a letter. He is using thegiven name,“Tom”, while Tom, the office assis-tant, knows the rule of the game, so he replies“Yes, sir.”The boss wants to shorten the distancewhile Tom maintains the distance purposefully. Inthis way, the superior-inferior relationship is wellkept and neither side feels hurt or humiliated. Theboss protects the face of the office assistant by be-ing seemingly equal by addressing and making po-lite requests with the words“can”and“please” while Tom.s using“sir”reveals his respect and po-liteness. This phenomenon is very common in thesuperior and the subordinate relationship.
There is another case in the military camp.
When the soldiers are drilling, the form of addressis very formal, such as“Captain Hardy”and“Ser-geant Hilton.”Commands can be as brief as“March”,“Rest”and so on. Formal addressesdemonstrate a clear distinction of different classesthat the addresser and the addressee belong to.
Explicit commands reflect authority and distance.
II. Face protection.
The ultimate aim of negotiating frames andfootings in conversation is to protect one.sown andother participants.face at all times. These systemsgive people some rough guidance on how to greet,how to address and what to say to make a requestproperly.
Members of a cultural group need to feel re-spected and not impinged upon in their autonomy,pride, and self-sufficiency （negative face）。 Theyalso need to be reinforced in their view of them-selves as polite, considerate, respectful membersof their culture （positive face）。 These two contra-dictory needs require delicate face work, since it isin the interest of all participants in a verbal ex-change that everyone maintain both his“her nega-tive and positive face, so that the exchange in com-munication can continue.
III. Application of politeness principles.
Addressing people.
When we meet someone the first time and weare not sure how to address him, some experts1the other person begins. If he addresses you as”Mrs. Smith“, in return, you can call him”Mr.Green“. Otherwise you may take the initiative bysaying,”I.m Jenny Lee. You can call me Jenny.“Then the other party knows you want to be friend-ly to him, and probably he will tell you his mane isGeorge.
Making requests.
Do not impose. For instance, when we ask astranger for directions, we feel we are botheringthis person and, therefore, will start with”Excuseme.“We may say,”Excuse me, can you tell methe way to“In this way, the person doesn.t needto feel he is obliged to tell you the way and youhave expressed that you are sorry to disturb him.
Leave room for refusal. When we feel we aregiving orders or making requests or pleas, i. e.bothering someone, we need to allow this personan option of refusal, a chance not to comply withour order or request. We often do so in the form ofelaborate questions, e.g.Would you mind doing me a favor?
May I borrow your bicycle, please?
Would you be so kind as to look after my kidfor a while?
Make your interlocutor feel good. When wecarry on a conversation, we often praise our part-ner to make him feel good; in other words, we”butter him up.“We say things like:
I feel very pleased to be with you.
You know much more about this than I do.
It.sso kind of you to say so.
The politeness principle does capture somefeatures of human interactions, especially the in-teraction in everyday life, but at the same time, wecan recall many discourse activities in which peopledo not follow this principle. Especially, in class,the teacher asks the students to read a paragraph a-loud and he is likely to say”please read this para-graph,“or”would you read the paragraph,please?“Both ways of request are acceptable, thedifference lies in that the second version reflectsthe teacher.s kind personality or good mood at thattime. The tone in the former case is stronger thanthe latter.
IV. Conclusion.
Politeness principles are a set of rigid andstubborn rules which give rough guidance on howto greet, address and request, whereas we have tobe flexible and natural in accordance to differentoccasions so we must adjust our language and actsto the circumstances. People use language to in-form, to express feelings and to influence others.
attitudes and emotions. Therefore, what we sayand how we act have a strong impact on what oth-ers will reply and how they will react. It.s we,ourselves who have choices of what expressions wewant to make on others and what kind of personswe want to be. A skillful person in a conversationneeds to posses some knowledge on interpersonal relationship. Hopefully, the politeness principlescan direct us to cooperate well and harmoniouslywith the people around us.
【References】
[1] Bernard Spolsly. Sociolinguistics [M]. Oxford University Press, 1998.
[2] Clair Kramsch. Language and Culture[M]. Oxford University Press, 1998.
