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POLITENESS RESEARCH IN PRAGMATICS
Yuldasheva Feruza Erkinovna
Senior Teacher of Asia International University
Department of “History and Philology”
Abstract :
This paper reviews four current approaches to an account of politeness: the social-
norm view; the conversational-maxim view; the face-saving view; and the conversational-
contract view. A characterization is given for each, followed by a discussion of certain salient
aspects of the approach. While none of the views is considered adequate, the face-saving
view is seen as the most clearly articulated and most thoroughly worked out, therefore
providing the best framework within which to raise the crucial questions about politeness that
must now be addressed.
There has been a great deal of interest in politeness in pragmatics, and just as definitions
of pragmatics vary, so too do definitions of politeness. Not only is the term used in different
ways, but the term itself is not defined. As Watts, Ide and Ehlich observe:
… one of the oddest things about politeness research is that the term “politeness” itself is
either not explicitly defined at all or else taken to be a consequence of rational social goals
such as maximising the benefit to self and other, minimising the face-threatening nature of a
social act, displaying adequate proficiency in the accepted standards of social etiquette,
avoiding conflict, making sure that the social interaction runs smoothly, etc.
Another difficulty is pointed out by Kasper, noting the different meanings of the term in
ordinary parlance and pragmatics. In the former,
… ‘politeness’ refers to proper social conduct and tactful consideration for others.
whereas in the latter,
… ‘politeness’ as a technical term in linguistic pragmatics refers to a broader, substantially
more democratic concept. Since the object of pragmatic inquiry is linguistic action,
‘politeness’ as a pragmatic notion refers to ways in which linguistic action is carried out –
more specifically, ways in which the relational function in linguistic action is expressed.
LoCastro points out that the term “politeness” is frequently confused with related folk
terms like “etiquette” and “manners” and it has folk meanings that are not clearly
distinguishable from its more technical or formal meanings. Indeed, the definition of “polite”
in Collins COBUILD English Language Dictionary is in line with the folk
meaning of the term, in the sense of referring to good manners and social correctness.
Someone who is polite has good manners and behaves in a way that is socially
correct and considerate of other people’s feelings.
Polite describes things that you say or do simply because it is socially correct to do
or say them, rather than because you mean them sincerely.
In Britain “politeness” is typically used to describe negative politeness, which is presumed
to be “a good thing.” In this respect, I believe that the Japanese translation of “politeness,”
teinei, also has a similar connotation. According to Hori (1986), the Japanese concept of
“being polite” includes only negative politeness.
These views of politeness coincide with what Watts et al. (1992a) have termed “first-
order” politeness in their scheme in which they distinguish between the folk and pragmatic
definitions of the term, the latter being “second-order” politeness in their classification.
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Second-order politeness is located within a theory of social behaviour and language use, and
is not equated with any moral or psychological disposition towards being nice to one’s
interlocutor. It is in this pragmatic sense that I will use the term.
For the purpose of this study, I take politeness to refer to the use of communication
strategies intended to maintain mutual face and to achieve smooth communication, taking
into account human relationships. The promoting and maintaining of politeness calls for
displays of appropriate behaviour. What is considered to be appropriate varies from situation
to situation and culture to culture, while personal values and tastes may also influence
judgements of appropriateness.
Fraser reviews four current approaches to politeness: (1) the socialnorm view; (2) the
conversational-maxim view; (3) the face-saving view; and (4) the conversational-contract
view. In this section, these four views
are used as a basis of reviewing theories of politeness.
The Social-norm View.
According to Fraser (1990: 220), the first approach to politeness
is the social-norm view which assumes that each society has a particular set of social norms
consisting of more or less explicit rules that prescribe a certain behavior, a state of affairs, or
a way of thinking in a context. A positive evaluation (politeness) arises when an action is
congruent with the norm, a negative evaluation (impoliteness-rudeness) when an action is not.
The social-norm view includes etiquette, manners, or social rules, i.e., what to do and
what not to do. “This normative view considers politeness to be associated with speech style,
whereby a higher degree of formality implies greater politeness” (Fraser, 1990: 221). The
social-norm view corresponds to “first-order politeness” suggested by Watts et al. (1992a).
According to them (1992a: 3), first-order politeness corresponds to the various ways in which
polite behaviour is perceived and talked about by members of socio-cultural groups. It
encompasses, in other words, commonsense notions of politeness. According to Fraser (1990:
221), “the socialnorm approach has few adherents among current researchers.” This may be
because, as Watts et al. have pointed out, it is a commonsense notion, different from “second-
order politeness,” which is a theoretical construct. Therefore, it would not be appropriate to
take the social-norm view as a theoretical basis for this study.
The Conversational-maxim View
. The second view of politeness is the conversational-
maxim view which relies principally on the work of Grice (1975) and his foundation of the
Cooperative Principle (CP). Lakoff (1973) and Leech (1983) have adopted and elaborated
Grice’s Cooperative Principle.
Grice’s (1975) paper “Logic and conversation” gave rise to the study of linguistic
politeness within the framework of Anglo-American pragmatics and the ensuing attempt to
develop second-order politeness concepts (Watts et al., 1992a: 3). It aims at representing and
accounting for a certain subclass of “nonconventional implicatures” (also known as
“conversational implicatures”) as “essentially connected with certain general features of
discourse” (Grice, 1975: 45). These general features he embodied in what has become known
as the Cooperative Principle. It is based on the following assumption:
Our talk exchanges do not normally consist of a succession of disconnected remarks,
and would not be rational if they did. They are characteristically, to some degree at least,
cooperative efforts; and each participant recognizes in them, to some extent, a common
purpose or set of purposes, or at least a mutually accepted direction. (Grice, 1975: 45)
On the basis of the above, Grice labels the following as the Cooperative Principle (CP).
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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.
The Cooperative Principle entails four maxims, each of which further entails submaxims.
Grice named these maxims after Kant’s categories: Quantity, Quality, Relation and Manner,
each of which is as follows (Grice, 1975: 45–46):
1. Quantity
(1) Make your contribution as informative as required (for the purpose of the
exchange).
(2) Do not make your contribution more informative than is required.
2. Quality
(1) Do not say what you believe to be false.
(2) Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence.
3. Relation
Be relevant.
4. Manner
(1) Avoid obscurity of expression.
(2) Avoid ambiguity.
(3) Be brief (avoid unnecessary prolixity).
(4) Be orderly.
Discussing the CP and its maxims, Grice (1978: 113–114) says that:
I have suggested a Cooperative Principle and some subordinate maxims, with regard
to which I have suggested: (i) that they are standardly (though not invariably) observed
by participants in a talk exchange; and (ii) that the assumptions required in order to maintain
the supposition that they are being observed (or so far as is possible observed)
either at the level of what is said – or failing that, at the level of what is implicated - are in
systematic correspondence with nonconventional implicata of the conversational type.
The cooperative principle and its associated conversational maxims constituted a part of a
systematic philosophical theory of language which was predicated upon the assumption that
the primary purpose of conversation is the maximally effective exchange of information.
Grice (1975: 48) expressed the desire to have a rational basis for the standard type of
conversational practice:
I would like to be able to think of the standard type of conversational practice not
merely as something that all or most do IN FACT follow but as something that it is
REASONABLE for us to follow, that we SHOULD NOT abandon.
The important notion that Grice is trying to explicate is conversational rationality,
although Grice (1989: 369) admits that:
… some refinement in our apparatus is called for. First, it is only certain aspects of
our conversational practice which are candidates for evaluation, namely those which
are crucial to its rationality … it is the rationality or irrationality of conversational conduct
which I have been concerned to track down rather than any more general characterization of
conversational adequacy.
Grice admits some limitations, because in practice language does not always aim at a
maximally effective exchange of communication. Some researchers have criticised the CP for
this reason (e.g. Sifianou, 1992: 16). The CP has also been criticised from the viewpoint of
the universality of the maxims, Hymes noting that:
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It can reasonably be assumed that any community will have some orientation to the
dimension of quality (truthfulness), of quantity (informativeness), of relevance, of manner
(clarity). What the orientation will be, and how complexly articulated in relation to kinds of
person and context, would be an empirical question.
To sum up, although Grice’s work has been subject to criticism, it has provided a basis for a
conversational-maxim view, and has provided a foundation for Brown and
Levinson’s politeness theory to be discussed.
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Journal:
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