University of Hamburg

Politeness: theoretical approaches and language practice

- Brown and Levinson reviewed

WiSe 1999/ 2000

by

Hanno Frey

Contents

1 INTRODUCTION 4

2 GRICE AND THE PRINCIPLES OF CONVERSATION 4
2.1 COUNTEREXAMPLES 5
2.2 CONVERSATIONAL AND CONVENTIONAL IMPLICATURES 6
2.2.1 Conversational implicatures 6
2.2.2 Conventional implicatures 8
2.3 ABOUT THE IMPORTANCE OF IMPLICATURES 8

3 POLITENESS 10
3.1 FACE 10
3.1.1 Face threatening Acts 10
3.1.2 The five strategies connected to FTAs and their payoffs 11
3.1.3 Example: Application of the strategies 13
3.1.4 Criteria for the assessment of the seriousness of an FTA 13

4 SUMMARY AND REANALYSIS OF BROWN AND LEVINSON′S MODEL 14
4.1 SUMMARY 14
4.2 LIMITS OF BROWN & LEVINSON′S MODEL 15
4.2.1 The notion of face in the context of different societies 15
4.2.2 Politeness and grammatical structure 19
4.2.3 Speaker and Hearer 20
4.2.4 Conclusion 21

5 SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY 22

1 Introduction

Effective communication is a key process in everyday life. Not only do we need to communicate about business and public affairs but also about ourselves and the things which concern us personally. In each case, it is highly interesting to analyse how we try to convey the information we want to get across: Naturally enough, we make use of conventional language but we are also creative and constantly invent new words, phrases and formulations. This, according to Blank, is due to the fact that: "Linguistic (and even non-linguistic) communication can be seen as a process whereby people try to maximize their communicative success by minimalizing their linguistic effort" (1993, p. 6). Sometimes, however, we diverge from the maximally effective way of communication and, naturally-enough, the question arises, why we do so. The divergence, however, which seems to be highly irrational as far as efficiency is concerned will turn out to be highly rationally motivated - with politeness being the main reason for this process. In the following, I will (1) sketch out the maxims according to which effective communication takes place and (2) analyse the reasons why it is sometimes advisable to intentionally counteract to the requisite maxims. For this purpose, I will refer to different works of well known linguists, especially to the model of politeness suggested by Brown and Levinson ( 1987). It is the final aim of this paper to reanalyse the model put forward by these two linguists and, thereby, evaluate to what extent their model covers politeness phenomena.

2 Grice and the principles of conversation

According to the language philosopher H. P. Grice, human communication is based on the following cooperative principle (CP): "Make your conversational contribution such as is required, at the stage at which it occurs, by the accepted purpose or direction of the talk exchange in which you are engaged" (Grice, 1975, p. 45). Grice′s maxim excludes certain conversational moves on the basis of four maxims, which Grice (1975, pp. 45) defines as follows:

1. Maxim of quantity:

• This maxim relates to the requirement that one should give all the necessary information one has for the present needs of the partner - not too much but not too little, either.
• be as informative as required
• don′t be more informative than required

2. Maxim of quality: Try to make your contribution one that is true

• The maxim of quality requires that we only give true information for which we have evidence. Cooperative speakers are expected to speak the truth
• Do not say what you believe is false
• Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence

3. Maxim of relation: what B says in response to A´s question actually relates to it

• be relevant (contribution fits the moment)

4. Maxim of manner:

• - be perspicuous
• - avoid obscurity of expression
• - avoid ambiguity
• - be brief
• - be orderly

"In short, these maxims specify what participants have to do in order to converse in a maximally efficient, rational, co-operative way: they should speak sincerely, relevantly, clearly, while providing sufficient information" (Levinson, 1983, p. 102).

Counterexamples

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