Politeness has gained much attention in the study of pragmatics in the last forty
years. Thomas (1995) reports that since the late 1970s, vast literature has been built
up to tackle on issues of politeness, register, and deference. Politeness is a strategy
that the interlocutors employ in order to achieve their goals. Contexts are required in
the study of politeness. Brown & Levinson (1987) propose a complete model of
politeness theory, and point out that flouting the maxims of Grice’s (1975)
Cooperative Principle is the strategy that interlocutors employ to be linguistically
polite.
Cooperative principle is proposed by H. P. Grice in 1975, and this principle is so
influential that this set of principle is called the Gricean maxims. The four maxims
are:
(1) Maxim of quantity
Make your contribution as informative as is required (for the current purposes of the exchange).
Do not make your contribution more informative than is required.
(2) Maxim of quality
Do not say what you believe to be false
Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence
(3) Maxim of manner
Avoid obscurity of expression.
Avoid ambiguity.
Be brief Be orderly
(4) Maxim of relevance Be relevant.
Cooperative principle explains how linguistic interactions are done. People
observe cooperative principle so that the conversation can continue smoothly. If any
interlocutor does not follow this principle at all, communication will break down and
no further linguistic interaction can be made. In a conversation, the speaker generally
follows the cooperative principle and the addressee generally assumes that the speaker
follows it. When a turn is made, the speaker and the addressee exchanges position,
and the cooperative principle is still observed, resulting in smooth communication,
until they stop talking to each other.
The above example is the ideal of communication. Notice that the speaker
generally follows this principle and the addressee generally assumes that the speaker
follows it. This means that it is possible that either the speaker or the addressee does
not follow this principle, and when this happens, the issue of implicature rises. In a
sitcom, the lines of characters are written before the shooting begins, thus the script
writer must create some lines that flouts the cooperative principle in order to make the
audience laugh. Although in naturally-occurring conversations, implicature does not
necessarily create humor, but in sitcom scripts, the lines are constructed to be
humorous to fulfill the purpose of sitcom. In Shu (2007), one can see that in Friends,
there are 5,164 tokens of flouting maxims of CP out of a total of 14,005 funny lines
(2007: 39-40).
Leech (1983) proposes that politeness is the reason why we speak indirectly, and
this is an obvious violation of Grice’s maxim of quantity. He introduces, in his classic
Principles of Pragmatics, the Politeness Principle (PP):
Minimize (all things being equal) the expression of impolite beliefs; maximize (all things being equal) the expressions of polite beliefs.
Leech states that PP explains why speakers do not always observe Grice’s
Cooperative Principle (CP). Speaking indirectly is a choice and a strategy made by
speakers in order to adhere to the PP. Brown & Levinson (1987) appropriates
Goffman’s (1967) concept of “face” and postulates that the management of face is
essential when dealing with politeness. The origin of the term comes from a Chinese
concept of diulian (丟臉), which can be roughly translated into “being ashamed of
oneself after doing something worthy of condemnation”. It is constantly directly
translated into English literally as “losing face”. We can also “save face,” that is, do
not do all things shameful. Thomas (1995) explains that in politeness theory, face “is
best understood as every individual’s feeling of self-worth or self-image” (1995: 169).
Grundy (2008) states that face can be comparable to self-esteem, and in most
encounters, our face is put at risk; therefore, it is necessary that our face be
compensated by the use of redressive language in order to satisfy the need of face of
our interlocutors. Foley (1997) proposes that “Face is linguistically constructed, and
the ability to use verbal skills with facility is how we can manipulate a social
encounter to maximize our face gains and minimize our losses” (1997: 270).
According to Brown & Levinson (1987), there are two kinds of face: positive face and
negative face. Grundy (2008) reviews their work:
Positive face is a person’s wish to be well thought of. Its manifestations may include the desire to have what we admire admired by others, the desire to be understood by others, and the desire to be treated as a friends and a confidant … Negative face is our wish not to be imposed on by others and to be allowed to go about our business unimpeded with our rights to free and self-determined action intact.
(2008: 195-196)
Grundy (2008) also cited Brown and Levinson’s (1987) list of positive and
negative politeness:
Include speaker and hearer in the activity Give (or ask for reasons)
Assume/assert reciprocity
Give gifts to hearer (goods, sympathy, etc.)
State the imposition as a general rule Normalize
Go on record as incurring a debt
Table 2: Positive and negative politeness (Brown and Levinson 1987:102, 131, cited in Grundy 2008: 199)
Since we are constantly under the threat of losing our face, there are some
strategies that one can employ when he or she wants to perform a face-threatening act
(FTA). In Brown & Levinson’s (1987) model, these are the strategies to perform such
an act:
1. Do the act on-record
(a) baldly, without redress
(b) with positive-politeness redress (c) with negative-politeness redress 2. Do the act off-record
3. Do not do the act
(cited in Grundy 2008: 197)
As a speaker, we have to calculate which of the five strategies above that fits the
context the best. Of course, we can also employ multiple strategies to fashion our
language should we intend to perform an FTA. Grundy (2008) proposes an equation:
Social Distance + Power Differential + Degree of Imposition = degree of face threat to be compensated by appropriate linguistic strategy
(Grundy 2008: 197)
It is through this calculation that a speaker chooses to employ what kind of
strategy when performing FTAs. Grundy also suggests that in television sitcoms, the
miscalculation of such equation serves as a humor resource because this is one of the
ways to mark incongruous politeness status of an utterance. Judging from the data
collected, this is indeed one of the humor strategies used by the writers of the Big
Bang Theory.