Of course, oral conversation is not going to extinct because of the enormous increase of the usage of (online) message services, but nevertheless: many conversations that would have been taken place orally in face-to-face communication before the invention of the Internet, are nowadays often relocated to the medial text layer. Short phone calls or personal chats are decreasing in their frequency in favour of SMS and text messages via WhatsApp and Facebook. When we keep in mind that more and more conversations take place on a textual basis, we come across the question if linguistic theories, like Brown and Levinson's, can be applied to digital conversations as well.
This paper deals with this particular question and will prove that politeness strategies can also be found in written communication. Since it is not possible to transfer facial expressions or gestures of the sender via messages, smileys, emoticons, and emojis are created and they can also act as politeness strategy markers. This term paper will focus on Brown and Levinson's politeness strategies and explain that the principles of their thesis can also be found in Facebook text messages.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction
2. Data and Methodology
2.1 Brown and Levinson's Concept of Politeness
2.2 The Data and the Status of Facebook Messages
2.3 Differentiation: Emoticons, Smileys and Emojis
3. Emoticons, Smileys and Emojis as Politeness Strategies in Facebook Messages
3.1 Bald On-Record
3.2 Positive Politeness
3.3 Negative Politeness
3.4 Off-Record
4. Conclusion
5. References
6. Appendix
Research Objectives and Core Themes
This paper investigates the application of Brown and Levinson’s linguistic politeness theory within the context of computer-mediated communication (CMC), specifically focusing on how emoticons, smileys, and emojis function as markers for various politeness strategies in private Facebook messages.
- Application of Brown and Levinson’s face management theory to digital text conversations.
- Analysis of emoticons as compensatory graphic elements for missing non-verbal cues.
- Classification of Facebook message samples into specific politeness superstrategies.
- Investigation into the hybrid nature of CMC regarding orality and literacy.
- Differentiation and definitions of technical terms (emoticon, smiley, emoji).
Excerpt from the Book
3.1 Bald On-Record
During the research process the politeness strategy bald on-record could be detected several times. After the positive politeness strategy, it was the most often used one. One explanation therefore is certainly the nature of the medium of private Facebook messages itself: all of these messages were discussions of close friends or relatives, which is most of the time a requirement for using the bald on-record strategy (Brown and Levinson 69). The following example shows two ways of how the bald on-record can be displayed:
As we can see, several FTAs can be found here. First, there is the initial question of person A. The question itself would not necessarily be a FTA but through the double usage of the question mark and especially the angry smiley it certainly becomes one – maybe also through the three 'u's in “youuu”. Person B reacts to this with a classic bald on-record strategy by typing: “Just Wait!!”, which is a direct demand that is followed by A's “Hurry” and the angry emoticon again. This answer can be labelled as bald on-record as well because it does not attempt to minimize the threat to B's face at all. The smiley which is used by both persons is used to strengthen the written part and hence part of the politeness strategy itself. Furthermore, the furious emoticon is a display of direct and unambiguous feelings which definitely has the ability to affront and snub the reader. The heavy use of emoticons and punctuation marks could shock or embarrass the addressee – but due to the fact that close friends are writing it is not felt for inappropriate. Moreover, the writers think that there are instances where threat minimizing does not occur because there is a great urgency, which can also be seen in the next example:
Summary of Chapters
1. Introduction: Outlines the shift from oral to digital communication and introduces the research question regarding the applicability of traditional politeness theories to CMC.
2. Data and Methodology: Details the theoretical framework, including Brown and Levinson’s politeness models and the Koch and Oesterreicher continuum, while defining key terms.
3. Emoticons, Smileys and Emojis as Politeness Strategies in Facebook Messages: Presents the analysis of a self-compiled corpus, categorizing messages into bald on-record, positive, negative, and off-record strategies.
4. Conclusion: Summarizes findings, confirming that emoticons serve as vital politeness markers and intensifiers in the absence of physical non-verbal cues.
Keywords
Politeness Strategies, Facebook Messages, Computer-Mediated Communication, CMC, Brown and Levinson, Face Threatening Acts, Emoticons, Smileys, Emojis, Orality, Literacy, Bald On-Record, Positive Politeness, Negative Politeness, Off-Record.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the core subject of this paper?
The paper examines how graphic elements like emoticons, smileys, and emojis are utilized as politeness strategies within private digital messages on Facebook.
What are the central topics explored?
The primary focus areas include Brown and Levinson’s politeness theory, the status of digital communication as a hybrid of orality and literacy, and the functional role of visual symbols in managing social interaction.
What is the primary research goal?
The goal is to prove that linguistic politeness strategies established for spoken communication are also applicable to written digital communication and to analyze how emoticons serve as markers for these strategies.
Which methodology is employed?
The author uses a qualitative analysis approach, creating a small corpus of 14 authentic private Facebook messages to observe the practical application of politeness superstrategies.
What does the main body of the work cover?
It covers the theoretical basis of face management and medial/conceptual orality, followed by a detailed classification of gathered message samples into four of the five defined superstrategies.
How would you summarize the work using keywords?
The work is characterized by terms such as Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC), Face Threatening Acts (FTAs), politeness strategies, and the multimodal nature of digital text.
Why did the author specifically choose Facebook messages for the corpus?
Because Facebook represents a prevalent form of informal digital communication among friends and relatives where the use of emoticons is frequent, providing a rich data set for this type of linguistic research.
Did the author find that all politeness strategies were equally represented?
No, positive politeness was found to be the most frequent strategy, while negative politeness and off-record strategies were detected much less often in the collected corpus.
- Quote paper
- Anonym (Author), 2015, Emoticons, Smileys and Emojis as Politeness Strategies in Facebook Messages, Munich, GRIN Verlag, https://www.grin.com/document/1392039
