INTODUCTION

Linguistic politeness has occupied a central place in the social study of

languages, even it has been the subject of intensive debate in sociolinguistics and
pragmatics. A lot of linguistic scholars have carried out researchers on linguistic
politeness in wide range of cultures. As a result, several theories have been proposed
on linguistic politeness and politeness has been well-established scholarly concept.
Many theorists try to make clear distinction between notion of politeness and
linguistic politeness. Watts (2003:9) suggest a distinction between first order of
politeness and the second order of politeness.

The major aim of this section is to review the literature on linguistic politeness
as a technical term. A theory of linguistics politeness always takes as its focus the
ways in which the members of social group conceptualize politeness as they
participate in socio-communicative verbal interaction. There are eight concepts of
politeness that will become the subject of discussion of this article. These concepts
are proposed by (1) Robin Lakoff, (2) Penelope Brown and Steven Levinson, (3)
Geoffrey Leech, (4) Yueguo Gu, (5) Sachiko Ide, (6)Shoshena Blum Kulka, (7)
Bruce Frasher and William Nolen, and (8) Hornst Arndt and Richard Janney.

Robin Lakoff’s Theory of Politeness

Robin Lakoff was associated in late 1960s with the development of a semantic
based model of generative grammar commonly refers to as “generative semantics”
and with the possible integration of speech act theory into generative models of
language. The positive impact of Grice’s cooperative principle has shifted Lakoff’s
linguistic interests in the direction of Gricean Pragmatics. Lakoff’s roots in
Generative Semantics effect her conceptualization in theory of politeness. Her rules,
of politeness are seen as part of a system of pragmatic rules. Which she likens that of
syntactic rules. So, politeness rules are primarily seen as a linguistic tool to capture
the systematic of the process.

There are the rules of politeness:

1. Rules one (Be clear) is really the Grecian CP in which she renames the rules
of conversation. It is subdivided into a set of conversational maxims and sub-
maxims as describe bellow:
a. The maxims of Quantity
Sub maxim: - make your contribution as informative as is
required.
- Do not make your contribution more informative
than is required.
b. The maxims of Quality
Sub maxim: - Do not say what you believe to be false.
- Do not say that for which you lack adequate
evidence.
c. The maxims of Relation: be relevant
d. The maxims of Manner: be perspicuous
Sub maxim: - Avoid obscurity of expression
- Avoid ambiguity

- Be Brief (avoid unnecessary prolixity)

- Be orderly
2. Rules two (be Polite) consists of a sub set of three rules: (1) don’t impose, (2)
give option (3) make a feel good-be friendly.
3. Rules three (make a good- be friendly) is most variable in terms of cultural
meanings
 Lakoff’s interest in issue of gender discrimination led her to
investigate women and men’s speech in American English, using literary
texts, casual conversation, and personal observation as the basis for her
observation, women are socialized into using linguistics features that connote
tentative, deference and a lack of authority.
Lakoff’s suggests a range of style as follow:
1. Clarity
2. Strong distance
3. Deference
4. camaraderie

Brown and Levinson’s theory of politeness

In 1978, Brown and Levinson published their theory of politeness, claiming

it to be universal. Since that time, much research has been conduct to determine the
limitation of the theory. They define face as “the public self image that every member
wants to claim for himself”. They then divide face into separate, but related positive
face and negative face.

1. Bald On-record

Bald on-record strategies usually do not attempt to minimize the threat to the
hearer’s face, although there are ways that bald on-record politeness can be used in
trying to minimize FTAs implicitly. Often using such a strategy will shock or
embarrass the addressee, and so this strategy is most often utilized in situations where
the speaker has a close relationship with the audience, such as family or close friends.
Brown and Levinson outline various cases in which one might use the bald on-record
strategy, including.
  Instances in which threat minimizing does not occur

 Great urgency or desperation

Watch out!

 Speaking as if great efficiency is necessary

Hear me out:...

 Task-oriented

Pass me the hammer.

 Little or no desire to maintain someone's face

Don't forget to clean the blinds!

 Doing the FTA is in the interest of the hearer

Your headlights are on!

 Instances in which the threat is minimized implicitly

 Welcomes

Come in.

 Offers

Leave it, I'll clean up later.

Eat!
 2. Off-record (indirect)

The final politeness strategy outlined by Brown and Levinson is the indirect
strategy. This strategy uses indirect language and removes the speaker from the
potential to be imposing. For example, a speaker using the indirect strategy might
merely say “wow, it’s getting cold in here” insinuating that it would be nice if the
listener would get up and turn up the thermostat without directly asking the listener to
do so.

3. On record Positive Politeness and Negative Politeness

Face is the public self image that every adult tries to project. In their 1987
book, Brown and Levinson defined positive face two ways: as "the want of every
member that his wants be desirable to at least some others", or alternately, "the
positive consistent self-image or 'personality' (crucially including the desire that this
self-image be appreciated and approved of) claimed by interact ants. Negative face
was defined as "the want of every 'competent adult member' that his actions be
unimpeded by others", or "the basic claim to territories, personal preserves, rights to
non-distraction--i.e. the freedom of action and freedom from imposition". Ten years
later, Brown characterized positive face by desires to be liked, admired, ratified, and
related to positively, noting that one would threaten positive face by ignoring
someone. At the same time, she characterized negative face by the desire not to be
imposed upon, noting that negative face could be impinged upon by imposing on
someone. Positive Face refers to one's self-esteem, while negative face refers to one's
freedom to act. The two aspects of face are the basic wants in any social interaction,
and so during any social interaction, cooperation is needed amongst the participants
to maintain each others' faces.
Positive Politeness

Positive politeness strategies seek to minimize the threat to the hearer’s positive face.
They are used to make the hearer feel good about himself, his interests or
possessions, and are most usually used in situations where the audience knows each
other fairly well. In addition to hedging and attempts to avoid conflict, some
strategies of positive politeness include statements of friendship, solidarity,
compliments, and the following examples from Brown and Levinson:

 Attend to H’s interests, needs, wants

You look sad. Can I do anything?

 Use solidarity in-group identity markers

Heh, mate, can you lend me a dollar?

 Be optimistic

I’ll just come along, if you don’t mind.

 Include both speaker (S) and hearer (H) in activity

If we help each other, I guess, we’ll both sink or swim in this course.

 Offer or promise

If you wash the dishes, I’ll vacuum the floor.

 Exaggerate interest in H and his interests

That’s a nice haircut you got; where did you get it?
  Avoid Disagreement

Yes, it’s rather long; not short certainly.

 Joke

Wow, that’s a whopper!

Negative Politeness

Negative politeness strategies are oriented towards the hearer’s negative face and
emphasize avoidance of imposition on the hearer. These strategies presume that the
speaker will be imposing on the listener and there is a higher potential for
awkwardness or embarrassment than in bald on record strategies and positive
politeness strategies. Negative face is the desire to remain autonomous so the speaker
is more apt to include an out for the listener, through distancing styles like apologies.
Examples from Brown and Levinson include:

 Be indirect

Would you know where Oxford Street is?

 Use hedges or questions

Perhaps, he might have taken it, maybe.

Could you please pass the rice?

 Be pessimistic
 You couldn’t find your way to lending me a thousand dollars, could you?

 Minimize the imposition

It’s not too much out of your way, just a couple of blocks.

 Use obviating structures, like nominalizations, passives, or statements of

general rules

I hope offense will not be taken.

Visitors sign the ledger.
Spitting will not be tolerated.

 Apologize

I’m sorry; it’s a lot to ask, but can you lend me a thousand dollars?

 Use plural pronouns

We regret to inform you.

4. Remain Silent/Say Nothing/do not perform FTA

According to Brown and Levinson, positive and negative face exists

universally in human culture. In social interactions, face-threatening acts (FTAs) are
at times inevitable based on the terms of the conversation. A face threatening act is an
act that inherently damages the face of the addressee or the speaker by acting in
opposition to the wants and desires of the other. Most of these acts are verbal,
however, they can also be conveyed in the characteristics of speech (such as tone,
inflection, etc) or in non-verbal forms of communication. At minimum, there must be
at least one of the face threatening acts associated with an utterance. It is also possible
to have multiple acts working within a single utterance.

In addition, there are ten strategies addressed to the hearer’s negative face
and are thus examples of negative politeness.

1. Be conventionally indirect: Could you tell me the time please?

2. Don’t assume willingness to comply, Question, hedge: I wonder whether I could
just sort of ask you a little question.
3. Be pessimistic a bout ability or willingness to comply: Use the subjunctive: If you
had a little time to spare for me this afternoon, I’d like to talk about my paper.
4. Minimize the imposition: Could I talk to you for just a minute?
5. Give deference: (to a police constable) Excuse me, officer, I think I might have
parked in the wrong place.
6. Apologize. E.g. Sorry to bother you, but…………….
7. Impersonalize the speaker and the hearer. Avoid the pronouns I and You:
A. That’s car parked in a no-parking area.
B. It’s mine, officer.
C. Well, it’ll have to have a parking ticket.
8. State the FTA as an instance of a general rule: parking on the double yellow lines
is illegal, so → (FTA) I’m going to have to give ypu a fine.
9. Nominalize to distance the actor and add formality: participation in an illegal
demonstration is punishable by law. → (FTA) Could I have your name and
address, madam?
10. Go on record as incurring a debt, or as not indebting H: → (FTA= If you could
just sort out a problem I’ve got with my formatting.) I’ll buy you beer at
lunchtime.

Geoffrey Leech’s Theory of Politeness

Leech, unlike Lakoff, does not aim at accounting for pragmatic competence.
His approach to linguistic politeness phenomena forms part of an attempt to set up a
model of what he calls general pragmatic, and account how language is used in
communicative. He proposes two further pragmatic systems:

a. Pragmalinguistics, which account for the more linguistic end of pragmatic, a

particular resource which a given language provides for conveying particular
illocution.
b. Sociopragmatics, which studies the more specific local condition of language use.

Leech recognizes two systems of rhetoric, there are textual and interpersonal.
Textual rhetoric consists of four sets of principle: the processibililty principle, the
clarity principle, the economy principle, and the expressivity principle. Whereas
interpersonal rhetoric which among others consists of three sets of principle: the
cooperative principle, the politeness principle, and the irony principle. Thus he
considers the Grice’s CP and the PP to constitute only the principle of interpersonal
rhetoric.

The major purpose of Politeness Principle (PP) according to Leech is

established and maintains feelings of comity within social group. The PP regulates
the social equilibrium and the friendly relation, which enables us to assume that our
utterances are being cooperative. Like Lakoff, Leech has further reason for setting up
a PP in addition to a CP, that is, to provide conversational data where the CP alone
appears to breakdown.
 Leech claims that the 7 maxim have the same status as Grice’s CP and they
are important to account for the relationship between sense and force in human
conversation. There follows the description of each:

a. The Tact Maxim

- Minimize cost to the speaker
- Maximize benefit to the hearer
In order to get an H to do something that involves a cost, a polite S will cast his
utterance in a form that softens/weakens the effect of the impositives. Conversely,
to get the H to do something to his benefit, a polite S will strengthen the
impositive. Weakening means making it easier for the H to refuse. This can be
done by increasing indirectness.
E.g. “I was wondering if you could open the door for me”
“I think it would be better for you to have a rest for a while”
b. The Generosity Maxim
- Minimize benefit to self (benefit to the S)
- Maximize cost to self

To offer to do something that involves the H’s benefit, utterances must be made
as directly as possible for politeness, such as “Let me help you wash the dishes”.
On the contrary, request for the benefit to the S should be made as indirect as
possible for politeness, such as “ I’m going to hospital, but my car ha a flat tire”.

c. The Approbation/ Praise Maxim (it is oriented toward the H)

- Minimize the dispraise of the H
- Maximize the praise of the H

E.g. “Thought it’s not my favorite, you look wonderful in your new dress”.

Than so much, I have an absolutely wonderful dinner here”.

d. The Modesty Maxim

 - Minimize praise of self (S)
- Maximize dispraise of self (S)

E.g. A: You did very well

B: *Of course you’re right.

Well, I thought I didn’t to do badly.

A: You are so kind to me

B: it’s just a small thing; I make this my self.

e. The Agreement Maxim

- Minimize disagreement with the H
- Maximize agreement with the H

E.g. A: I can’t tolerate unpunctuality

B: * I disagree

I agree with you, but in this case there are mitigating circumstances.

f. The Sympathy Maxim

- Minimize antipathy towards the H
- Maximize sympathy towards the H

E.g. I am very unhappy to hear about your husband death

I sorry to hear that

g. Consideration Maxim
- Minimize the hearer’s discomfort/ displeasure
- Minimize the hearer’s comfort/ pleasure
(Leech, 1997; Thomas, 19997: 158-166;
 Watts, 2003: 65-68)
Leech also goes further to suggest that there are three scales of delicacy
along which each to the maxims of the PP must operate: cost/benefit, optionality, and
indirectness. Cost/ benefit concern the weightiness in which a speaker has to weight
the amount of cost to her/him and the amount of the benefit his/her utterance will
bring the hearer.
Optionality Scale assesses the degree to which the illocution performed by
the speaker allow the addressee a degree of choice.
Indirectness Scale measure the amount of work incurred by the hearer in
interpreting the speech acts produce by the speaker.

This scale involves the authority scale and the distance scale. The first
measure the degree to which the speaker has the right to impose on the hearer while
the letter assesses the degree to which the speaker and the hearer are acquainted.
(Watts, 2003: 68)

Leech’s Scale of Delicacy

Cost/benefit Optionality Indirectness

The kind and amount of politeness that is called for depends on the following
situations:

1) Competitive: where the illocutionary goal competes with the social goal, e.g.
ordering, asking.
2) Convivial: where the illocutionary goal coincides with the social goal, e..g.
offering, thanking.
3) Collaborative: where the illocutionary goal is indifferent to the social goal, e.g.
asserting, announcing.
 4) Conflictive: where the illocutionary goal conflicts with the social goal, e.g.
threatening, accusing.
(Leech, 1997; Watts, 2003: 69)
In the latter two situations, politeness is either irrelevant (in a collaborative
situation) or simply out of question (in a conflictive situation). In the former,
politeness will be mostly negative, for example to avoid discord or giving offence,
while in the latter it will be positive.

Irony and Barter

As we can see from the above schema Irony principle is a second order principle.
It is apparently friendly way of being offensive (mock politeness). It enable as a
speaker to be impolite while seeming to be polite. It does so superficially breaking the
CP, but ultimately upholding it. For example an utterance, “that’s all I wanted’ (it’s
taken a means “that’s exactly what I did not want.) The Irony force of the remark is
often signaled by exaggeration or understatement, which make it difficult for the
hearer to interpret the remark at its face value.

Meanwhile, Barter is an offensive way of being friendly (mock impoliteness).

Barter is manifested in a great deal of casual linguistic conversation, particularly
among young people. For example in a game of chess, one person may say jokingly
to another, “What a mean cowardly trick” referring to a particular claver gambit. Last
but not least, Leech also discuses what he calls “The Pollyanna principle”. It is named
after Pollyanna, the eponymous heroine of Eleanor H, Porter’s novel. She is an
appallingly sweet child who always looks on the bright side of life. The Pollyanna
principle thus suggests us to put the best possible gloss on what we have to say. In its
least controversial form, this may refer only to the use of ‘minimizes’ such as a beat
as in. This essay’s a bit short when in fact it is much too short. (Leech, 1983:142-143;
Thomas 1997:168)
Yueguo Gu’ Theory of politeness

In Chinese society politeness is rooted from the philosophers such as Confucius

(during Zhou Dynasty) and Dai Sheng (during west Han Dynasty date back to 1100)
who tend to pursuit knowledge motivated by moral or/and political goals. Confucius
lived at a time when society chaos reigned and he aimed to restore the social order
and stability of the Zhou Dynasty, which he regarded as an ideal social model. The
behavioral precepts he formulated were intended to restore this social order and
stability.

According to Dai a treatise on politeness and rituals is written for the purpose of
attaining political goals. There are four prescriptions that can be derived from Dai’s
liji and these are handed down from generation to other trough formal or informal
pedagogical channels.

Gu’s theory of politeness is derived from the above Chinese concept of

politeness. The term that comes closest to politeness in Chinese is limau. It is
compound of li (ceremony) and mao (appearance). It is defined as code of conduct.
Limao comprices four basic constituents: respectfulness, modesty, attitudinal warmth,
and refinement. Gu’s framework of politeness is based on Leech’s, but with a
revision of the status of the PP and it associated maxims, His framework consist of
maxims with the addition of an explicitly moral component/ In Gu’s four maxims are
discussed: self-denigration, address, tact and generosity. They operated differently on
the motivational as opposed to be the conversational level. The motivation level
refers to what could be called the operational side of an impositive or commissive,
that is the real cost or benefit in the hearer. The conversation level refers to verbal
treatment of impositives amd commusives. For impositives, this means maximizing
the benefit receives ny self such as a genre.

Since politeness is a matter of moral, sanctionable norms, this entails that offers
and invitation are always made out of politeness consideration. As it is acknowledged
that invitation/acceptance interaction sequence typically consists of three exchangers:

(1) Where A invites and B declines

(2) Where A request

the invitation and B declines again, and

(3) Where A insists B and B accepts

Sachiko Ide’ theory of politeness

Ide is one of the few researchers who have actually carried out experimental
research into common sense notions of politeness, the Japanese concept politeness.
That is the language usage associated with smooth communication that is realized
troughs the speaker’s use of intentional strategies to allow his/her message to be
resaved favorable by the addressee. The experiment result of Ide were use to
establish discernment as the primary component of Japanese politeness as apposed to
American volition.

Then in Japanese politeness roles are akin to grammatical rules. They are part of
the language itself, and depend on the socio structural characteristics of speaker and
hearer as well as on characteristics of the situation that must be faithfully reflected in
the speaker’s linguistic choice.
Shoshana Blum-Kulka’s Theory of Politeness

Around 1980s an international group of researchers headed by Blum-Kulka,

house, and kasper conducted a research project to find out the realization patterns of
two important language with three varieties of English ( British, American, and
Australian), Canadian French, Danish, German, Hebrew and Russian. The project
was called Cross Cultural Speech Act realization patterns (CCASARPS). One of the
aims of project was to determine the degree to which native speakers of the language
studied used direct or indirect realizations of requesting and apologizing. Blum-Kulka
and her colleges develop the implication of their finding of politeness research but
without explicitly deceloping a model of linguistic politeness. In 1992 she finally
sketched out what Eelen calls politeness as a cultural sctipts or everyday concept.
(Watts:2003:16)

In Blum Kulka’s view discernment merely refers to that part of politeness which
is strongly conventionalized. Politeness is about appropriate social behavior as
determined by cultural expectation or cultural norms. From her research result Blum
Kulka also characterized politeness as something external, hypocritical and non-
natural. This negative qualification is associated with the view of politeness as an
outward mask.

According to her system of politeness manifests a culturally filtered

interpretation of the interaction between four essential; parameter: social motivation,
expression modes, social differential and social meaning. Social motivation refers to
the reason why people are polite, i.e. to the functionally of politeness. Social
differences refers to the parameter of the situational assessment that play a role in
politeness and social meaning to the politeness value of specific linguistic expression
in specifics situational contacts.

Kulka maintains that there are two terms in used in Modern Hebrew that are
equivalent to politeness nimus and adivut. Nimus is frequently used in formal aspect
of social etiquette. While,adivut is used to express consideration and an effort to
accommodate to the addressee. She also makes an interesting distinction between
politeness in public and in the private sphere. She suggests that complain about lack
consideration deplorable public service, and luck of individual restraints in public
places indicate the lack of clear conversation for politeness as a social cultural code.
Within the sphere of the family, however, there is a cultural notion of kefergen which
means roughly to indulge.

Bruce Fracher and William Nolen’s Theory of politeness

Fraser and Nolen have conducted an experimental research on deference. In this

case deference is defined as respect to the hearer. They make an attempt to set up
empirically a range order of linguistic structure on a high-low deference scale. It
seems to the methodology used by Frasher and Nolen is not quite valid. Each
respondent is supposed to choose only to out on 25 given sentences; this means that
no single respondent gets to compare all the available sentences. Such methodology
certainly leads to a result that does not necessarily match that of any ordinary
speakers. From this experiment we can also see that they actually examine the notion
of deference, which is of course difference from politeness, but they are very closely
related through the notion of a conversational contract (CC),
From their research results Frasher and Nolen establish their concept of
politeness,. They views politeness as CC. Social contract describes a fix set of right
and obligation. To which the conversational partners have to submit. The right and
obligations of each participant are term as the contract. They are established on at
least four dimensions: conventional, institutional, situational and historical.
Conventional terms are very general in nature and usually apply to all form of
interaction. Institutional terms deal with the rights and duties that are imposed by
social institution. Situational term involve factor such as a mutual assessment of the
relative role, status, and power of speaker and hearer. Finally the historical dimension
refers to the fact that the social contract crucially depends of previous interaction
between speakers and hearers. .
Thus, in their view politeness is seen as CC. They assume that there is a
conversational contract operating in Grecian terms. To be polite is abide by the rules
of the relationship. Thus politeness means abiding by the rules or terms of the
relationship and this emphasizes on practices that are socially appropriate. Politeness
is neither involves with any form of strategic interaction nor with making the hearer
feel good.

Horst Arndt and Richard Janney’s theory of politeness

Arndt and Janney have developed an approach towards politeness from the
early 1980s. In earlier work they make a distinction between social and interpersonal
politeness. Social politeness refers to standardized strategies for getting gracefully
into, and back out of recurring social satiation. (In Ellen, 2001:15) . Meanwhile,
interpersonal politeness on the contrary refers to the interpersonal practice of being
sportive. Supportiveness is not a function of what we say, but of how we say it.
In latter work, they elaborate the theory of interpersonal politeness, which is
captured under the new label ‘tact’. Tact is somewhat expended notion of
supportiveness, in that it is not only linked to positive but also negative face. Tact
here is seen from a normative perspective. Tact is said to have to basic roots
psychological and cultural. Firetb the impulse to seek and avoided confrontation is
seen as rooted in human biology and is shared with others animal species. Within this
framework there are two kinds of communication. Emitional and emitive. Emotional
communication refers to sponteness uncontrolled expression of emotion. Wearies
emotive communication is the conscious strategic modification of affective signals to
influence others behavior. Emotive communication involves not only speech but also
Para linguistic and non linguistic signal. It contains three dimensions: confident,
positive and negative effect and intensity.
Thus, within this model, politeness refers to the part of emotive
communication where the speaker behaves in an interpersonally supportive way. In
fact, Arndt and Jenney’s views of interpersonal supportiveness replaced the notion of
politeness entirely. The effective speaker attempts to minimize his/her partner’s
emotional uncertainty. in all cases by being as sportive as possible (Ellen 2001; 16,
Watts 2003; 53.
Arndt and Janney further discuss the concepts of interactional grammar. Arndt
and Janney discuses politeness it is relation to face. Their frame work of strategies of
face work resemble that the brown and Levinson. Albert with a somewhat narrower
definition of politeness. It ia most distinguishing characteristics, however are (1) It
conceptualize politeness as embedded in broader aspect of communication. (2)The
fact that politeness is not linked to sociological variable but rather the human
emotion.

SUMMARY

Brown and Lavinson have stated that politeness is universal feature of language
use. Thus it has occupied a central place in the social study of language, especially in
pragmatics. This also has attracted many scalars to investigate the phenomena of
linguistics politeness in a wide range of culture. The investigation has yielded a
number of theories or consensus of politeness. The corollary is the notion on
politeness has reserve different definition and interpretation. Some of the most widely
used models of linguistic politeness in literature are those proposed by Robin Lakoff.
Penelope Brown and Steven Levinson, Geoffrey leech, Yeugoa Go, Sharica ide,
Shoshena Blum Kulka, Bruce Frasher and William Nolen and Hornt Arndt and
Richard Janney.