Politeness

POLITENESSTHE POLITENESS

PRINCIPLES (LEECH 1983)

Geoffrey N. Leech

1. Early work: Politeness as an Utterance Level Phenomenon. Rintell, Walters, Fraser.Focus on forms.

2. Recent work: Politeness as a Pragmatic Level Phenomenon.Leech and Brown & Levinson. Focus on strategy.

POLITENESS OVERVIEWThe Development of Politeness Research

POLITENESS OVERVIEWTheories of Politeness

POLITENESS OVERVIEWOther relating notions

WHY DON’T PEOPLE ALWAYS OBSERVE THE GRICEAN MAXIMS?

A Basic Trade-Off in Communication

From Leech’s point of view…

POLITENESS

Efficiency Politeness

LEECH’S MAXIMS

Leech defines politeness as a type of behaviour that allows the participants to engage in a social interaction in an atmosphere of relative harmony.

Not all of the maxims are equally important. Speakers may adhere to more than one maxim of

politeness at the same time. Often one maxim is on the forefront of the

utterance, while a second maxim is implied. The maxim application varies from culture to

culture.

THE SPEAKER’S MEANING ITSELF/ THE SPEECH ACT NATURE

Politeness depends

onEXPRESSING FORMS

THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE SPEAKER & THE HEARER

LEECH’S MAXIMS

The more direct, the less polite?

Leech’s view of politeness involves a set of politeness maxims analogous to Grice’s maxims.

SIX TWINNED MAXIMS

LEECH’S MAXIMS

6. Sympathy5. Agreement

4.Modesty 3. Approbation

2. Generosity 1.Tact maxim

• TACT MAXIM: (in directives [or impositives] and commissives): focuses on the hearer

'Minimize the expression of beliefs which imply cost to other;

Maximize the expression of beliefs which imply benefit to other.'

LEECH’S MAXIMS

USING INDIRECT FORMS

USING MINIMIZERSHow to minimize

OFFERING OPTIONALITY

Examples:• You must lend me your car！• Lend your car.• Will you lend me your car？• Could you lend me your

car?• Would it be possible for you

to lend me your car?

Just take it/ Sure! Jenny Thomas’ explanation: when something is perceived as hearer’s benefit, it’s naturally polite even without indirectness

INDIRECT

DIRECT

Minimizecost

• Please don’t make me regret!

• Be careful, ok?

• Yea, but I need it in an hour.

• Sure!

• My pleasure!

“Yes, but you have

to fill the gas.”

Examples:IMPOLITE

POLITE

COST BENEFIT

GENEROSITY MAXIM: (in directives [or impositives] and commissives) focuses on the speaker

'Minimize the expression of beliefs that express or imply benefit to self;

Maximize the expression of beliefs that express or imply cost to self.‘

Leech also point out that some cultures attach much more importance to Generosity maxim than to others.

LEECH’S MAXIMS

• You must have another sandwich.• Do you have another sandwich？• Please have another sandwich.• Would you like to have another sandwich?• Would you mind having another sandwich?

Underapplying GM will make the speaker appear mean while overapplying it will seem sarcastic

Examples:

INDIRECT

DIRECT

• APPROBATION MAXIM: (in expressives and representatives [assertives])

'Minimize the expression of beliefs which express dispraise of other;

Maximize the expression of beliefs which express approval of other.'

• “Other” may not be the person directly addressed but someone or something dear to him or her

LEECH’S MAXIMS

• You are the best cook in the world.

• What a marvellous cook you are！• You are really a good cook.

• You certainly know how to cook

• I can cook better.

• Your cooking is unacceptable.

• What a terrible cook!

• Even the dog can’t taste

Examples:APPROVAL

POLITENESS

DISPRAISEIMPOLITENESS

• MODESTY MAXIM: (in expressives and representatives [assertives])

'Minimize the expression of praise of self; Maximize the expression of dispraise of self.‘

However, in some cases modesty does not mean politeness, for example:

Wife: You were really clever !

Husband: Not enough, actually I’m still too stupid to suffer you that long.

LEECH’S MAXIMS

Examples:

American: You look nice in that dress.Vietnamese: I just grabbed it and thought just look like hell. Is your dress expensive? Fits you perfectly!American: Thank you, I know.

• AGREEMENT MAXIM:

(in representatives [assertives])

'Minimize the expression of disagreement between self and other;

Maximize the expression of agreement between self and other.'

Example:• A: I don't want my daughter to do this, I want her to do

that. • B: Yes, but ma'am, I thought we resolved this already on

your last visit.

LEECH’S MAXIMS

• A: That dress is beautiful,

you think？• B1:Yes,absolutely.

• B2:Yes,I couldn’t agree with you more.

• B3:Well, I like the color.

• B4:I don’t think it is beautiful at all.

Examples:

DISAGREEMENT

AGREEMENT

• SYMPATHY MAXIM: (in representatives [assertives])

‘Minimize antipathy between self and other; Maximize sympathy between self and other.'

This includes a small group of speech acts such as congratulation, commiseration, and expressing condolences.

LEECH’S MAXIMS

• A ： I lost my kitten last week and I still can not get over it.

• B1: It is the most unfortunate that you lost your pet.

• B2:I know what it is like. You have all my sympathy.

• B3:I am sorry to hear that.• B4:So,we don’t annoyed by that nasty little animal any more.

Examples:

ANTIPATHY

SYMPATHY

Although Leech's politeness principle has successfully explained why people in daily communications generally violate one or more maxims of the Cooperative Principle to create conversational implicature, it is not free from limitations, the absoluteness, narrowness of which exert a checking effect on its universal applicability.

PROBLEMS OF THE LEECH’S APPROACH

There are,from the perspective of the influence of context and culture as well as the involvement of the third party and the attitude of the speaker, factors that condition the application of the politeness principle in actual speech communications,with a view to having a further understanding of the essence of politeness and realizing effective communication at some point.

CONCLUSION

THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION

BACK-UP SLIDE

• These add up to ‘an essential asymmetry in polite behavior, in that whatever is a polite belief for the speaker tends to be an impolite belief for the hearer, and vice versa’ (Leech, 1983:169)

• If you start with a set of rules like Leech’s maxim of politeness, you can understand politeness phenomena in terms of these rules, but you do not learn very much about why there should be such rules in the first place. Granted, Brown and Levinson ask us to accept at the start that people are rational and have two kinds of face wants, but this is a much deeper starting point for explanation than starting with rules designed specifically for politeness itself.

• The Pollyanna principle (also called Pollyannaism or positive bias) is the tendency for people to agree with positive statements describing them. The phenomenon is similar to the Forer effect. Research indicates that, at the unconscious level, the mind has a tendency to focus on the optimistic while, at the conscious level, it has a tendency to focus on the negative. This unconscious bias towards the positive is often described as the Pollyanna principle.

• The concept as described by Matlin and Stang in 1978 used the archetype of Pollyanna, a young girl with infectious optimism. Critics of personality tests such as theMyers-Briggs Type Indicator argue that the tests are considered accurate by people exhibiting Pollyannaism.