Chapter 2 Literature Review
2.3. Politeness Theories
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According to Searle‘s definition, indirect speech act is one illocutionary act performed in the linguistic form of another. With the aid of felicity conditions and Cooperative Principles, Searle differentiated ‗what‘ and ‗how‘ speakers achieve their illocutionary goals indirectly. The unsolved problem of indirect speech act is ‗why‘ speakers deliberately express their illocutionary goals indirectly. In Section 2.3, politeness theory offers some possible explanations to the puzzle.
2.3. Politeness Theories
As mentioned in 2.2.4, the basic proposition in Gricean maxims is that interlocutors comply to the basic maxims in conversations for the sake of achieving efficient and effective communication. However, indirect speech acts, as contrary execution to Grice‘s proposition, flout one or more maxims of the conversational cooperative maxims as well as break the felicity conditions of speech acts. To explain the paradox of coexisting maxim-obedience and maxim-violation, researchers proposed the concept of politeness. To be specific, politeness is a facet for which speakers would rather sacrifice the conversational maxims and the felicity conditions in order to secure appropriateness.
The following sections review some related politeness theories which are provided as the bases for the constitution of speech acts, direct as well as indirect.
2.3.1. Lakoff (1975)
By Lakoff‘s definition (1975:64) politeness is something developed by societies in order to reduce friction in personal interaction. Lakoff (1973) pointed out that grammaticality alone cannot answer why some sentences are ‗good‘ only under certain circumstances. For example, ‗shut the window‘3 is an acceptable sentence
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when the speaker socially ranks higher the addressee, but the acceptability does not hold vice versa. In Lakoff‘s account, the pragmatic content of a speech act should also be taken into consideration in determining its acceptability in communication, and politeness is one of the matters of pragmatic acceptability. In Lakoff‘s definition (1975:64) politeness is something developed by societies in order to reduce friction in personal interaction. Accordingly, a set of norms for cooperative behaviors is developed in societies to avoid undesirable situations in communication.
As Lakoff (1973 & 1977) stated, clarity and politeness are the two major pragmatic rules dictating whether an utterance is pragmatically well-formed or not.
The former takes after the Gricean Maxims. The latter contains three sub-rules: (1) don‘t impose, (2) give options, and (3) be friendly. Figure 2 represents Lakoff‘s model graphically.
Figure 2. Lakoff‘s model of pragmatic competence (adapted from Lakoff (1977))
Although it appears that the two pragmatic rules rank equally, the execution of indirection implies that one rule preceding the other. According to Lakoff (1973:297),
Pragmatic
Competence Pragmatic rules
R1: Be clear (Gricean Maxims)
Quantity Maxim
Quality Maxim
Relevance Maxim
Manner Maxim
R2: Be polite
Don't impose
Give options
Be friendly
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‗when clarity conflicts with politeness, in most cases (but not all), politeness supersedes.‘
(8) Shut the window.
(9) It‘s cold in here.
For example, even though both (8) and (9) express the request of ‗closing the window, the choice of an indirect speech act (9) over a direct speech act (8) is common. Such preference of linguistic form indicates that politeness is one of the reasons that speakers would sacrifice clarity and make indirect speeches. Lakoff‘s attempt to equate pragmatic competence with linguistic competence had led to a theoretical model of politeness. However, his three principles are mainly out of the concern of hearers‘ perception, and the other part of speech interlocutors—speakers—is left out in his theory. And hence, with Lakoff‘s politeness principles, it is deficient to explain speaker‘s ideological bias in political talk shows.
To solve the problem, subsequent researchers have taken different approaches.
2.3.2. Brown and Levinson (1978)
Another theory of politeness is proposed by Brown and Levinson (1978), which treats politeness as a system to soften face-threatening acts. Faces, in Brown and Levinson‘s theory (1978:66), are categorized into two types: positive face (i.e. the want to be desirable to others) and negative face (i.e. the want to be unimpeded by others). According to Brown and Levinson, the notion face is universal in human culture, and so is face-threatening act (FTA) in social interactions. By Brown and Levinson, FTA is as an act ‗run[ning] contrary to the face wants of the addressee and/or the speaker‘ (1978: 70) and people will consider the best politeness strategy possible before performing a FTA. The strategies which they discussed are outlined as four types: bald on-record, negative politeness, positive politeness, and off-record.
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Bald on-record strategies usually do not attempt to minimize the threat to the hearer‘s face. Positive politeness strategies seek to minimize the threat to the hearer‘s positive face. Negative politeness strategies are oriented towards the hearer‘s negative face and emphasize avoidance of imposition on the hearer. And off-record strategies use indirect language and remove the speaker from the potential to be imposing. Figure 3 illustrates these politeness strategies graphically.
1. without redressive action, baldly
on record 2. positive politeness
Do the FTA with redressive action
4. off record 3. negative politeness
5. Do not do the FTA
Figure 3. Brown and Levinson‘s politeness strategies (1978: 74)
2.3.3. Leech (1983)
Unlike Lakoff‘s rule-governed postulate, Leech (1983) adopted a maxim-based approach to establish his politeness theory. As suggested in the ‗formal-functional paradigm‘ (Leech, 1983: 12), Leech regarded the pragmatic performance of a sentence as maxim-controlled (rhetorical) and that is in contrast to the rule-governed (grammatical) linguistic representation. The six maxims of Leech‘s polite paradigm are tact, generosity, approbation, modesty, agreement, and sympathy, as listed in (10).
In each maxim, the first sub-maxim (i) outweighs the second (ii).
(10) Leech‘s Politeness Principles (1983: 132)
A. TACT MAXIM (in impositives and commissives) i. Minimize cost to other [ii. Maximize benefit to other]
B. GENEROSITY MAXIM (in impositives and commissives) i. Minimize benefit to self [ii. Maximize cost to self]
C. APPROBATION MAXIM (in expressives and assertives)
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i. Minimize dispraise of other [ii. Maximize praise of other]
D. MODESTY MAXIM (in expressives and assertives) i. Minimize praise of self [ii. Maximize dispraise of self]
E. AGREEMENT MAXIM (in assertives)
i. Minimize disagreement between self and other [ii. Maximize agreement between self and other]
F. SYMPATHY MAXIM (in assertives)
i. Minimize antipathy between self and other [ii. Maximize sympathy between self and other]
In these maxims, both sides of the interlocutors are concerned in performing a polite speech. Moreover, each maxim is related to the others; none of them is an independent maxim. For example, the tact maxim and the generosity maxim are a set of maxims regarding the cost-benefit relation of the interlocutors, and the approbation and modesty maxim are regarding to praise-dispraise relation. Under this postulation, the issue about the hierarchy of politeness regulations could be left aside because the application of one maxim rather than another is a competition of optimum, not grammar applicability.