1.

INTRODUCTION
When introducing pragmatics I always find it extremely useful to start with
Thomas observation (1995: 1) that, without being confirmed liars, people do
not always say what they mean and that frequently they say less than they mean,
or quite the opposite. For example, the utterance Its hot in here! may mean
Please open the window!; Youre wasting electricity!; Havent I told you so many
times I want this window open? and the list may continue.
If a single group of words such as Its hot in here! could mean so many different things
at different times, how do we work out what it actually does mean on one specific
occasion? And why dont people say just what they mean? These, and many other
issues, are addressed within the area of linguistics known as pragmatics. (Thomas 1995:
1)

The past thirty years have witnessed a growing interest in pragmatics. The old
paradigm came under attack and a new one gradually took shape. Philosophers
and linguists tried to overstep the narrow boundaries of syntax and semantics.
Geoffrey Leech (1983: 2) has compared the development of modern pragmatics
to a process of colonisation, by which some brave settlers tried to conquer an
uncharted foreign territory. One of the conflicts arose as a reaction to the
straitjacket of the Chomskyan school of linguistics, whereby all linguistic science
was supposed to fit into the syntactic framework. However, it was not the
linguists who first colonised the territory, but the philosophers.
Charles Morris (1938: 6 in Mey 1994: 35) definition of pragmatics as the study
of the relation of signs to interpreters has inspired most definitions of
pragmatics. Pragmatics is concerned with what people mean by their utterances
and how these utterances are interpreted by a listener or reader. According to
Yule (1996: 3) pragmatics is the study of the following: a) speaker meaning, b)
contextual meaning, c) how more gets communicated than is said, and d) the
expression of relative distance. Traditionally, pragmatics is set in contrast to
syntax and semantics. While the former looks at the relationships between
linguistic forms, the latter studies the relationships between linguistic forms and
states of affair in the world as being accurate or not. They both ignore the
7

presence of a potential user of these forms. It is here that pragmatics comes into
the picture, as the study of the relationships between linguistic forms and the
users of those forms in a contextual background:
Pragmatics is interested in the process of producing language and in its producers, not
just in the end-product, language. (Mey 1994: 35)

According to Chitoran et al. (1985: 9) grammar and pragmatics are distinct

domains[but] grammar more directly relates to pragmatics through semantics.
In order to understand the commonest approaches to pragmatics, the concepts of
levels of meaning need to be distinguished:
a. abstract meaning, or linguistic meaning is the dictionary meaning
b. contextual meaning or utterance meaning refers to a pairing between sentences
and various interpretations that may become available in various contexts. The
truth of the sentence Today is Sunday depends on when it is uttered and the
truth of My name is John Lennon depends on who utters it. Contextual meaning
is realised by assigning sense and/or reference to a word, phrase or sentence.
Context is a dynamic concept that includes the surroundings of any sort that
enable the participants in the communication process to interact in an intelligible
way.
Typically, there are four sorts of context:
1) situational or physical context, i.e. the actual setting in which the
interaction takes place.
2) cognitive context, i.e. the background knowledge and shared knowledge
held by participants in the interaction; the vital connections that people
can see between things, and between present things and things they have
experienced before or heard about. This knowledge of the world is learned
as we grow up and live in a given culture.
3 3) co-textual or linguistic context
4 4) social context, i.e. what speakers know about the social and personal
relationships of the interactants with one another.

c. speakers communicative intention or force of an utterance. Force is a concept

introduced by J. L. Austin (see chapter 2).
Common definitions of pragmatics are situated between two ends: speaker
meaning and utterance interpretation. Speaker meaning is the working definition
of writers who take the social view. This definition focuses on the producer of the
message, obscuring the fact that the process of interpreting the message involves
several levels of meaning. Thomas (1995) argues that speaker meaning includes
both utterance meaning and force. Utterance interpretation is the working
definition of writers who take the cognitive view. This definition focuses on the
receiver of the message, ignoring the social constraints on utterance production.
Pragmatics, as a sub-discipline of linguistics, can be said to thematise the
relationships between language use and the language user in a situational context.
Initially, pragmatics was mainly bracketed by analytical philosophy, as the first
themes it developed were speech act theory and the study of principles of
information exchange. However, a number of further thematic strands have been
added, with a certain amount of import from sociology: the study of
presuppositions/implicit meanings, face and politeness phenomena.
Suggestions for further reading
Davis, S. (ed.): Pragmatics. A Reader. Oxford University Press 1991.
Leech, G.: Principles of Pragmatics. Longman 1983
Levinson, S. C.: Pragmatics. Cambridge University Press 1983
Mey, J.: Pragmatics. An introduction. Blackwell 1993

10

2. SPEECH ACTS
2.1. Understanding concepts
2.1.1. Introduction
2.1.2. Speech act theory
2.1.3. The performative hypothesis
2.1.4. Taxonomy of acts
2.1.5. Felicity conditions
2.2. Discussion questions and exercises
2.3. Suggestions for further reading

2.1. Understanding concepts

2.1.1. Introduction
A series of lectures by John Austin, compiled in How to things with Words
(1962) represents the first formulation of speech act theory, which focuses on the
idea that language is used to perform actions. Importantly, Austins ideas have
had a great impact and have generated interest in what has since come to be
known as pragmatics. Austin was not a linguist, but an ordinary language
philosopher who worked at Oxford University in the 1940s and 1950s. Together
with H. P. Grice (whose work in conversation is discussed in section 3.1.) and
others, he was reacting against the idea held by logical positivist philosophers of
language that everyday language is imperfect, i.e. ambiguous and imprecise.
Unlike this school of thought which argues that the only meaningful statements
are those that can be tested empirically and that language needs refining in order
to be perfect, Austin and his group observed that people use language for
communication unproblematically in spite of all deficiencies. Their aim was to
understand and explain how this is possible:
our common stock of words embodies all the distinctions men have found worth
drawing, and the connections they have found worth making in the lifetimes of many
generations. (Austin 1975: 129-30)

11

Austin started from the idea that people do not use language just to say things but
to perform actions (do things with words). This idea led him to the theory of
illocutionary acts.
2.1.2. Speech act theory argues that the action performed when an utterance is
produced can be analysed on three levels:
The locution (the locutionary act), i.e. what is said (the form of the
words)
The illocution (the illocutionary act/ force), i.e. what the speakers are
doing with their words (the function of the words, the purpose or the
intention that the speakers have) Examples of such speech acts are:
inviting, advising, promising, apologising
The perlocution (the perlocutionary act/effect), i.e. the hearers reaction
Perlocutionary acts are performed using language as a tool.
E.g.
Ive just bought some fresh biscuits.
The above locution (a meaningful linguistic expression conveying information
that the speaker has performed the action) is produced with a function or
communicative purpose, i.e. intention, in mind. Some possibilities, depending on
the context, are: an offer or an invitation for the hearer to have some biscuits,
explaining something, apologising for being late to the hearer, making a
reproach, etc. This is the illocutionary force of the utterance. The third
dimension, or the perlocutionary effect, is that the hearer will recognise the effect
intended and, depending on the circumstances, he/she will do what the speaker is
urging, i.e. have some biscuits or understand the source of the pleasant smell in
the kitchen, etc.
The same illocutionary act can be performed via different locutionary acts: for
instance Ive just bought some biscuits and Ive just bought your favourite
snack (on the assumption that biscuits are the hearers favourite snack).
Furthermore, as apparent in the examples above, the same locutionary act can
12

realise different illocutionary acts: for instance Ive just bought some biscuits
can function as an offer, an explanation, an invitation, a reproach, an apology.
The illocutionary force of an utterance can be explicit or implicit. In the
examples:
E.g
I apologize for being late.
I warn you not to leave your
belongings unattended.
I beg you not to leave so soon.
I thank you for being so thoughtful.
the illocutionary force is explicit, namely lexical. The verbs which encode
illocutionary force, i.e. apologise, warn, beg, thank, are known as
performative verbs.
In the following examples, the illocutionary force is explicit and grammatical,
i.e. due to the sentence type. Declarative, interrogative and imperative sentences
correspond to three general communicative functions, i.e. statement, question,
command/request)
E.g.
You went to London yesterday.
(statement)
Did you have to go to London
yesterday ? (question)
Go to London! (command/request)

Illocutionary force can also be implicit, i.e. not fully specified linguistically. This
is the case of indirect speech acts, which are acts performed via (by way Searle
1975) other acts, or acts where form and function are not directly related. For
instance, an interrogative used to ask a question is a direct speech act. However,
if used to make a reproach, it is an indirect speech act, as possible in Did you
13

have to go to London yesterday? meaning I am upset that you went to London

yesterday. Indirect speech acts are associated with greater politeness in English
(see chapter 4).
2.1.3. The performative hypothesis represents another contribution made by
Austin, based on the idea that behind every utterance there is a hidden or
underlying performative verb (e.g. order, promise) that makes the
illocutionary force, i.e. the speakers intention, explicit. The underlying structure
is: I (hereby) V (performative) you (that) S.
Performative verbs signal specific speech acts and have certain properties:
They can occur with hereby
e.g. I hereby name this ship Queen Elizabeth (vs. the non-performative I
*hereby like to read)
They must be in the simple present tense
e.g. I hereby apologise vs. I hereby *apologised.
They must be in the first person (I admit I was wrong vs. He admits he
was wrong.)
Performative verbs can be used performatively or descriptively. In the latter use
they are like non-performative verbs. Here are some examples:
E.g.
He ordered them to go home.
Who is going to bet on it?
I always warn my friends about bad
weather.

Therefore, the example Ive just bought some fresh biscuits could be formulated
as I inform you that I have bought some fresh biscuits, where inform is the
performative verb. However, Austin realised that these kind of reformulations
sound less natural than the actual utterances and that one utterance can have more
than one obvious explicit performative understood, e.g.:
14

E.g.
Ive just bought some fresh biscuits.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

I inform you that I have bought some fresh biscuits.

I invite you to have one.
I explain to you why there is such a nice smell in the kitchen.
I apologise for being late.
I express my reproach at your not having bought them yourself.

2.1.4 Taxonomy of acts

John Searle (1976) further developed Austins theory of speech acts. He proposed
a classification of performatives into five classes: declarations, representatives,
commissives, directives, expressives. The most important principles
differentiating these categories are ( Schiffrin 1994: 58):
1. the illocutionary point of the act. (e.g. directives are attempts by the
speaker to get the hearer to do some action.
2. the way that words are fit to the world (e.g. words-to-world fit with
representatives)
3. the expressed psychological state (e.g. representatives-belief,
commissives-intention, directives-want)
All performatives bring about a change in reality: the world is no longer the same
after they have been said. The direction of fit and the meaning of the world
differs, however.
Declarations (not to be confused with declarative sentences)
These are acts that change the world by their utterance, such as: I bet, I
declare, I pronounce, I resign.
E.g.
Priest: I now pronounce you husband and wife.
Priest: I baptise this girl Mary.
Employee: I resign
15

If uttered by an authorised person, at the right time and in the right place, the
utterance changes the world in the sense that the couple are now married, the girl
has a name and the employee is unemployed.
Representatives
These are acts in which the speaker states what he/she believes to be the case or
not, committing the speaker to the truth of the proposition. They include
descriptions, predictions, claims, assertions, conclusions. In using a
representative, the speaker makes words fit the world (of belief).
E.g.
There are five classes of speech acts.
The sun sets in the west.
It might have been a strange summer.
Commissives
This class includes acts in which the words commit the speaker to some future
action, such as promising, volunteering, offering, refusing,
threatening, vowing, undertaking.
E.g.
I will always love you.
Ill be back soon with another
cartoon.
Directives
This class includes acts in which the words are aimed at making the hearer do
something, such as requesting, ordering, commanding, inviting,
forbidding, suggesting, recommending, asking (to).
E.g.
Give us our daily bread.
Could you not touch that, please?
May I encourage you to leave the
room?
16

Expressives
They are acts that make known what the speaker feels, such as apologising,
congratulating, regretting, praising, thanking, blaming, forgiving.
E.g.
If I had anticipated the unfolding of the
events, I would have taken steps to
prevent this.
Youre such a good girl!
Oh, great!

Here are the five general functions of speech acts (Yule 1996:55)
Speech act type

Direction of fit

Declarations
words change the world
Representatives
make words fit the world
Expressives
make words fit the world
Directives
make the world fit words
Commissives
make the world fit words
Table 1. Speech acts and directions of fit

S=speaker
X=situation
S causes X
S believes X
S feels X
S wants X
S intends X

2.1.5. Felicity conditions

According to Searle,
a felicity condition is one of the real world conditions that must be met by aspects of
the communicative event in order for a particular speech act to come off as intended
(Searle 1975: 65).

For example, it is clearly infelicitous of the speaker to ask the hearer to shut the
door if the door is already shut. By questioning whether you can shut the door or
by asserting that I want you to shut it, one can construct understandable indirect
speech acts. In many contexts, these are conventionalised to the extent that there
17

is no doubt about what is meant. For example, Can you, please, pass the salt?
can only be an indirect request and not a question about the addressees potential
abilities, given the dinner table context.
Also called happiness conditions, they are contextual conditions, which must be
fulfilled for the successful performance of speech acts. Besides linguistic
knowledge, they draw upon knowledge about the world (e.g. peoples obligation
to behave in a certain way on certain occasions).
For Austin, the felicity conditions are:
the context and the roles of participants must be recognised by all
parties
the action must be carried out completely
the persons must have the right intentions
For Searle there is a general condition for all speech acts, that the hearer must
hear and understand the language and that the speaker must not be pretending or
acting. There are also other conditions, more specific:
Preparatory conditions refer to the authority of the persons performing
the act, the circumstances and the actions involved. For example, a
proper ceremony must take place when baptising a baby.
Sincerity conditions: the person performing the act must have
appropriate beliefs or feelings. When thanking someone, the speaker
must have feelings of gratitude.
Essential conditions define the act carried out. For a statement, the
speaker must intend that the utterance count as a guarantee of the truth
of the statement.
Here are Searles rules for promising:

18

Propositional act
Preparatory condition
Sincerity condition
Essential condition

Speaker (S) predicates a future

act (A) of S
S believes that doing A is in Hs
best interest and that S can do A.
S intends to do A.
S undertakes an obligation to do A.

Table 2. Searles rules for promising

Conclusion
Speech act analysis illustrates the kinds of things we can do with language, i.e.
with the functions of language. The functions are related to the illocutionary
force of an utterance that can be labelled and has a performative verb, realised in
a single sentence.
According to Schiffrin (1994: 90), speech act theory offers an approach to
discourse analysis in which what is said is chunked (segmented) into units that
have communicative functions that can be identified and labelled. Importantly,
one sequence of utterances may result from a fairly wide range of different
underlying functional relationships.
Limitations of speech act theory
Overlap (one utterance can fall into more than one class)
Does not provide solutions for everyday spoken language, which
contains fillers, backchannels (encouraging the speaker to continue
talking, e.g. oh, really?), incomplete sentences (see 3.1.2.3.).

19

2.2. Discussion questions and exercises

1. Which of the following verbs are performatives?
bet, pray, admire, interrogate, deplore, regret
2. Formulate the felicity conditions for the utterance:
Ill buy you a new piano next week.
3. Comment on the differences between the following pairs of utterances:
a) I promise to bring you the book
e) I warn you, the gas is leaking.
b) Ill bring you the book.
f) The gas is leaking.
c) I admit I was wrong.
d) I was wrong.

g) I say that Jane is brilliant.

h) Jane is brilliant.

4. Choose a particular illocutionary force and give at least five locutions

which could express that force.
5. Give three possible perlocutions for the locution: I love that music!
6. What are the felicity conditions for the following performatives to
function:
resign, divorce, divorce in Islam, baptise, name, sentence, bid
7. American children celebrate the holiday of Halloween by dressing in
costumes and going around to their neighbours houses to collect candy.
The children say Trick or treat. This utterance is differently interpreted
in different parts of American society as follows:
a) Give me a treat.
b) Give me a treat or Ill do a trick.
c) If you give me a treat, Ill do a trick.
d) Do you want a trick or a treat?

20

How would speech act theory explain these different interpretations? In

what way does the syntactic structure and its intonation convey these
interpretations? (Schiffrin 1994: 92)

2.3. Suggestions for further reading

Austin, J.: How to Things with Words. (2nd edn.) Clarendon Press 1975
Blakemore, D.: Understanding Utterances. An Introduction to Pragmatics.
Blackwell 1992
Cruse, A. (2000): Meaning in Language, Oxford, Oxford University Press
Levinson(1983)
Searle, J.: Speech Acts. An Essay in the Philosophy of Language. Cambridge
University Press 1969
Schiffrin, D. (1994): Approaches to Discourse, Oxford UK & Cambridge
USA, Blackwell
Thomas, J. (1995): Meaning in Interaction, Longman
Yule, G. (1996): Pragmatics, Oxford, Oxford University Press

21

22

3. CONVERSATION
3.1. Understanding concepts
3.1.1. Paul Grice and the Cooperative Principle
3.1.1.1. Implicatures
3.1.1.2. Flouting the Cooperative Principle
3.1.1.3. Hedges
3.1.1.4 Activities and discussion

3.1. Understanding concepts

3.1.1. Paul Grice and the Cooperative Principle
H. P. Grice worked with Austin and Searle at Oxford in the 1940s and 1950s in
the same tradition of ordinary language philosophy. He is famous for his work on
the Cooperative Principle (hereafter CP) and the theory of implicature, published
in a shorter version in 1975 in the paper Logic and Conversation. His theory
attempts to explain how a hearer works his/her way from what is said towards
what is meant. While Austins work focuses on the speaker, Grices theory
concentrates on the hearer.
Grice suggested that conversation is regulated by an overriding social rule, which
speakers try to follow in conversation. This CP can be stated simply as be as
helpful to your hearer as you can:
Make your 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: 78)

The fact that Grice formulated the CP in the imperative mood was misleading
and wrongly thought to imply that the philosopher was telling speakers how they
ought to behave in conversation. The true meaning of his theory is that in
conversational interaction people work on the assumption that a certain set of
23

rules and regularities is in operation. The following exchange, taken from an

interview, runs smoothly as the participants follow certain social conventions:
E.g.
A: Do you find the place is warm
enough?
B: Yes, oh yes. Very comfortable I
think.

The question is answered with the right amount of information, which is relevant
to the question, truthful and clear. This is the least (pragmatically) interesting
case.
Grice explained that all participants in conversation interpret language on the
assumption that the participants cooperate by observing four maxims:
Maxims of quantity (or informativeness):
Give as much information as needed.
Give no more information than is needed
Speakers should give neither too little information (which makes them
incomprehensible), nor too much (which makes them boring).
Maxims of quality:
Do not say what you believe to be false.
Do not say what you have no evidence for.
Speakers are expected to be sincere and say something that corresponds to reality
or for which they have evidence.
Maxim of relation:
Be relevant (the maxim of relevance), i.e. keep to the topic of the conversation.
Speakers are assumed to say something relevant to what has been said before.
Maxims of manner:
Avoid obscurity of expression.

24

 Avoid ambiguity
Be brief
Be orderly.
3.1.1.1. Implicatures
According to Grice, hearers assume that speakers observe the CP, and that the
fact that they are aware of the four maxims allows them to draw inferences about
the speakers intentions and implied meaning. Used in a context, an utterance
gives two types of information: what is literally said and what is implicated/
implied/ suggested, i.e. the implicature.
Implicatures are of two kinds:
(a) Conventional implicatures (carried by the meanings of words and stable
in every context):
E.g.
He is 47 but still attractive. (but
always implies a contrast)
Even implies contrary to expectation, yet implies the present situation is
expected to be different or opposite later, and implies in addition
(b) conversational implicatures (derived on the basis of conversational
principles and various assumptions that are shared between the speaker
and the hearer). Conversational implicatures arise only in particular
conversational contexts and depend on that context for their
interpretation. Through them, speakers convey more than is literally said
while hearers recognise this through inferences. The inferences that they
will select are those which preserve the assumption of cooperation (see
3.1.1.2.).
3.1.1.2. Flouting the CP
However, speakers can fail to observe the maxims. This is done to create a
certain effect and creates an additional meaning, i.e. an implicature. An
25

implicature can be cancelled, i.e. denied, without making complete nonsense of

the first implicature.

E.g.
A: Lets have a drink.
B: Its not one oclock yet.
An hour later
B: Lets have a gin and tonic-its
after one oclock.
A: I didnt say that you could drink
after one oclock. I said that you
couldnt drink before.
(Thomas 1995: 82)
Implicatures are calculable on the assumption that the speaker is observing the
CP and the maxims. Calculability refers to the possibility
to spell out the steps (in reasoning-my comment) a hearer goes through in order to
calculate the intended implicature. (Thomas 1995: 82)

For example, the utterance My teacher is a walking library can be interpreted by

going through the following reasoning to calculate the intended implicature:
-it is false that the teacher is a walking library
-S is not trying to make us believe that teacher is a walking library
-unless Ss utterance is pointless, S must be trying to put across another
proposition
-this must be some obviously related proposition
26

-the most obviously related proposition is that, like libraries that contain
knowledge packed din books, the teacher is also very knowledgeable.
Ways of non-observing the maxims are:
Flouting a maxim = blatantly failing to observe a maxim not because S wants to
deceive but because S wants to prompt H to look for a meaning which is different
from, or in addition to the expressed meaning, i.e. for a conversational
implicature. When speakers do not follow the maxims but expect hearers to
appreciate the meaning implied, i.e. flout them,
the speaker assumes that the hearer knows that their words should not be taken
literally and they can infer the implicit meaning.
flouts exploiting the maxim of quantity:
E.g.
Mother : How do I look?
Daughter: your haircut is nice...
flouts exploiting the maxim of quality:
E.g.
A: How are you?
B: Im dead.
flouts exploiting the maxim of relation:
E.g.
A: So what do you think of Mark?
B: His flatmates a wonderful cook
(Cutting 2002:39)

flouts exploiting the maxim of manner:

E.g.
A: Where are you off to?
27 some of that funny
B: I was thinking of going out to get
white stuff for somebody.
(Cutting 2002:39)

(b) Violating a maxim = the unostentatious non-observance of a maxim,

with the purpose of deceiving, misleading etc. e.g. lying
E.g.
Mother: Did you pass the test?
Daughter: Yes. (she didnt pass he test)

c) Infringing a maxim = unintentionally failing to observe a maxim

because of imperfect linguistic performance due to nervousness,
drunkenness, imperfect command of the language, etc.
d) opting out of a maxim = unwillingness to cooperate, for legal or ethical
reasons
E.g.
Well, honestly, I cant tell you a thing,
because what was said to me was told
to me in confidence.

3.1.1.3. Hedges
Speakers are aware of maxims and want to show that they are trying to observe
them and appear as cooperative conversational partners. To this end they use
hedges, markers of the awareness/expectation of the maxims. Here are some
quantity:
you probably know, to
examples of hedges
for eachasmaxim:
cut a long story short, I wont bore
you with all the details
quality: as far as I know, I guess, I
may be wrong
relation: by the way, anyway, I
dont know if this is important, not to
28
change the subject
manner: Im not sure if this makes
sense/if this is clear at all, this may be
a bit confused.

Limitations of Grices theory (Thomas 1995: 87)

an utterance can have a range of possible interpretations
how can we dittinguish between different types of non-observance?
The maxims seem to overlap insome cases the mechanism for
calculating implicature is not clear

3.1.1.4. Activities and discussion

1. What are implicatures of How old are you? in the following three
examples? Think of more examples, with different implicatures.
E.g.
a. A: Its my birthday today. B:
Many happy returns. How old are
you? A: Im five.
b. (A man to his son): How old are
you, George? B: Im eighteen,
Father. A: I know how old you are,
you fool.
c. (A psychiatrist is talking to a
woman patient): What do you do?
B: I m a nurse, but my husband
wont let me work. A: How old are
you? B: Im thirty-nine.
(Thomas 1995: 80)
2. Explain how the utterances below fulfil all four maxims: Help!;
Fire!
3. Make your own recording of a TV comedy show and pick out the
instances of maxim flouting for comic effect. Which maxim is flouted
most? Why do you think this is?
29

4. Test the theory that a lot of what we say contains maxim flouting. Write
an essay based on the following:
a) transcribe part of a spontaneous casual conversation between two
people you know, e.g. a husband and wife, or a girlfriend and
boyfriend.
b) categorise each utterance as maxim observing or maxim
flouting.
c) specify the maxims that are breached in each case.
5. Interpret the implicature generated in each case.
6. Interview the participants (husband/boyfriend and wife/girlfriend)
separately about what they meant each time they meant more than what
they said, why they violated a maxim. Compare their answers to your
interpretation.

4. POLITENESS
4.1. Lakoffs conversational-maxim approach
4.1.1. Activities and discussion
4.2. Brown and Levinsons approach. The Face management view
4.2.1. Understanding concepts
4.2.1.1. The concept of face
4.2.1.2. Face Threatening Acts (FTAs)
Kinds Of FTAs
Strategies of doing FTAs
Positive Politeness
Negative Politeness
Off record strategies
4.2.1.3. A Theory of Impoliteness
30

4.2.2. Activities and discussion

4.3. Leechs approach The Politeness Principle
4.3.1. The Maxims-general considerations
4.3.1.1. The Tact Maxim
4.3.1.2. The Generosity Maxim
4.3.1.3. The Approbation Maxim
4.3.1.4. The Modesty Maxim
4.3.1.5 The Agreement Maxim
4.3.1.6. The Sympathy Maxim
4.3.2. Metalinguistic aspects of politeness
4.3.3. Activities and discussion
4.3.4. Suggestions for further reading

Introduction
Polite behaviour, including polite language, has to be acquired. Social scientists
give it the status of a theoretical concept that is dealt with in Politeness Theory.
In the past twenty-five years within pragmatics there has been a great deal of
interest in politeness to such an extent that politeness theory can be seen as a
sub-discipline of pragmatics. Grice mentions in passing that the Cooperative
Principle needs to be augmented by the addition of a further maxim, perhaps one
of politeness. His suggestion prompted attempts by linguists to formulate the
missing maxim. The most influential theories of politeness belong to Penelope
Brown and Stephen Levinson (1978) and Geoffrey Leech (1983). Other models,
including Lakoffs (1973), are rarely applied to data.
Politeness principles have been considered to have wide descriptive power with
respect to language use, to be major determinants of linguistic behaviour
(Leech, 1983: 30) and to have universal status and linguistic manifestation
(Brown and Levinson, 1978).

31

4.1. Lakoffs conversational-maxim approach

Robin Lakoff is associated with the development of a semantic-based model of
generative grammar (in the late 1960s) referred to as generative semantics.
However, later on her interests shifted in the direction of pragmatics and, later,
American feminist movement. The article The Logic of Politeness; or minding
your ps and qs (1973) starts from the attempt to add a set of rules of politeness
to Grices Cooperative Principle as an extension to the rules of grammar.
We should like to have some kind of pragmatic rules, dictating whether an utterance is
pragmatically well-formed or not, and the extent to which it deviates if it does. (1973:
296)

Lakoff suggests two rules of Pragmatic Competence, i.e. Be clear and Be

polite. The former repeats in fact the Gricean Cooperative Principle , while the
latter suggests a cline of politeness types ranging from formal politeness (Dont
Impose), through informal politeness (Give Options) to intimate politeness
(Make A feel good).
Watts (2003: 60) renders Lakoffs theory in the form of the following diagram:

Pragmatic competence
Rules of politeness

Be clear

Be polite

Rules of conversation

Rules of politeness

Dont impose(1)
Give options (2) Make A feel good32

Be friendly (3)
Quantity

Quality

Relevance

Manner

E.g.
(1) Im sorry to trouble you, but could you
move your car?
(2) Do you want to go first, or shall I?
(3) Can I pick your brains about something?

Her interest in issues of gender discrimination combined with her work in

politeness and resulted in the publication of Language and Womens Place
(1975), a very influential but also very controversial article, whose main
contention was that women use politer language than men, and they do so
because they feel insecure.
4.1.1. Activities and discussion
1. Discuss Lakoffs politeness maxims in relation to the following text:
Mum: Matt what are you doing?
(pause)
Matt: the computer
Mum: could you turn the music down then please (pause) (music turned down)
(pause) Matt (pause) what do you want to make me a cup of coffee (pause)
Matt: in a minute (pause)
Mum: in a minute when Matt? (pause) its been a minute now
Matt: (sighs)
Mum: pardon?
Matt: no
(pause)
Mum are you going to do your bedroom?
Matt: no
(pause)
33

Mum Matt you could do your bedroom couldnt you because youre halfway
through (pause). You nearly finished.
Matt: later
Mum: later when Matt? (pause) what?
Matt: go away!
( Pridham 2001: 57)

4.2. Brown and Levinsons Approach.

The Face management view
Perhaps the most well-known account of politeness is that provided by Brown
and Levinson (1978). The theory is often referred to as the face-saving theory
of politeness, as it builds on Goffmans notion of face, thus being a socially and
anthropologically oriented model. Like Lakoff and Leech it also builds on the
Gricean model of the Cooperative Principle. In contrast to Leechs model, Brown
and Levinsons model is a production model, i.e. seeks to formulate a theory of
how individuals produce linguistic politeness. While in their model the focus is
on the speaker, in Leechs model it is on the hearer.
4.2.1. Understanding concepts
4.2.1.1. The concept of face
Brown and Levinsons notion of face is derived from that of Goffmans and from
the English folk term, which relates to notions of being embarrassed or
humiliated, i.e. losing face. Thus face is something emotionally invested and
vulnerable, hence it must be constantly attended to and maintained in interaction
by mutual co-operation. People can be expected to defend their faces if
34

threatened, and in defending their own, they might threaten others face.
Generally, it is in every participants best interest to maintain each others face.
While the content of face will differ in different cultures, Brown and Levinson
assume that the mutual knowledge of members public self-image or face is
universal.
The aspects of face have been treated in terms of basic wants, which every
member knows every other member desires. More explicitly, negative face has
been defined as the want of every competent adult member that his actions be
unimpeded by others and positive face as the want of every member that his
wants be desirable to others. The most salient aspect of a persons personality in
interaction the desire to be understood, approved of, liked or admired for present
achievements or possessions, for non-material as well as material things (values
or actions).
4.2.1.2. Face Threatening Acts (FTAs)
Given these assumptions of the universality and rationality of face, certain kinds
of acts intrinsically threaten face, namely those acts that by their nature run
contrary to the face wants of the addressee / and/or of the speaker.
Kinds of FTAs
Brown and Levinsons categorisation of face threatening acts revolves around a
double distinction, i.e. (a) acts that threaten the hearers face vs. acts that threaten
the speakers face and (a) acts that threaten negative face vs. (b) acts that threaten
positive face.
FTAs to the hearer
(a) Those acts that threaten the addressees negative face want, by indicating that
the speaker does not intend to avoid impending the hearers freedom of
action include:
35

 acts that predicate some future act A of the hearer and in doing so, they
put some pressure on the hearer to do the act A:
a. order, requests
b. suggestions, advice
c. remindings
d. threats, warnings, dares
acts that predicate some positive future act of the speaker toward the
hearer, and in so doing, they put some pressure on the hearer to accept or
reject them, and possibly to incur a debt:
a. offers
b. promises
acts that predicate some desire of the speaker towards the hearers
goods, giving the hearer reason to think that he may have to take action
to protect the object of the speakers desire or give it to the speaker:
- compliments, expressions of envy or admiration
- expressions of strong negative emotions toward the hearer (e.g.
hatred, anger, lust)
(b) Those acts that indicate that threaten the positive face wants by indicating that
the speaker does not care about the addressees feelings, wants, etc.
acts that show a negative evaluation of the hearers positive face
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
f.
g.
h.

expressions of disapproval,
criticism,
contempt or ridicule
complaints and reprimands
accusations
insults
contradictions or disagreements
challenges

acts that show that the S does not care about the hearers positive face:
a.
b.
c.

expressions of violent emotions

irreverence, mention of taboo topics
bringing of bad news about the hearer, or good news
(boasting) about the speaker
36

d.

raising of dangerously emotional topics: e.g. politics,

race, religion, womens liberation.
e.
interrupting the hearers talk or showing nonattention
f.
use of address terms which may misidentify the
hearer
g.
in an offensive way
Some face threatening acts intrinsically threaten both negative and positive face
(complaints, interruptions, threats).
FTAs to the speaker.
(a) Those acts that threaten the speakers negative face by offending the speaker:
-thanking
-acceptance of the hearers thanks or the hearers
-apology
excuses
-acceptance of offers
-responses to the hearers faux pas
-unwilling promises and offers
(b) Those acts that damage the speakers positive face:
-apologies
-acceptance of a compliment
-self-humiliation
-confessions, admissions of guilt or responsibility for
ignorance
-non-control of laughter or tears.
Strategies of doing face threatening acts
Brown and Levinson proposed five super-strategies for performing an face
threatening act. These are systematically related to the degree of face threat. The
first strategy is associated with the least face threat; it is called bald-on record.
The face threatening act is performed in the most direct, clear, unambiguous and
37

concise way possible(Brown and Levinson 1987:69). This face threatening act
is performed without redressive action. A face threatening act can be performed
with redressive action, using either positive politeness strategies or negative
politeness strategies, depending on which aspect of face (positive or negative) is
being stressed.
In the context of the mutual vulnerability of face, any rational agent will seek to
avoid these face threatening acts, or will employ certain strategies to minimise
the threat. Brown and Levinsons well-known schema (Brown and Levinson
1987/1978: 69) summarizes the discussion of FTAs in the form of five possible
strategies:

Do the FTA:

- on record:

-1. without redressive action, baldly

- with redressive action:

2. positive politeness
3. negative politeness

- 4. off record
5. Dont do the FTA

Table 4 Brown and Levinsons politeness strategies

An actor goes on record, i.e. chooses to be direct and unambiguous, in doing an
act A if it is clear to participants what communicative intention led the actor to do
A.
Strategy 1 in the diagram above involves doing an act baldly, without redress, i.e.
repair (bald-on-record strategy). This means doing it in the most direct, clear,
unambiguous and concise way possible. Normally, a face threatening act will be
done in this way only if the speaker does not fear restriction from the addressee,
38

for example in circumstances where efficiency counts more than the hearers face
wants:
-cases of urgency when face is ignored (e.g. Help!)
-doing the FTA is in the hearers interest (e.g. Have some cake!; Dont
be sad; Take care!)
-the speaker is superior in power to the hearer
There are other cases of bald-on-record acts where face matters. In this case,
bald-on-record use is oriented to face:
-welcoming when the speaker insists that the hearer may impose on his
negative face;
-farewells the speaker insists that the hearer may transgress on his
positive face by taking his leave;
-offers the speaker insists that the hearer may impose on the speakers
negative face. The firmer the invitation is, the more polite it is: Come in!
Greetings and farewells which are rituals of beginning and terminating
encounters often contain such bald-on-record commands.
On record strategies with redressive action are actions that give face to the
addressee and attempt to counteract the potential face damage to the face
threatening act by modifications or additions that indicate clearly that no such
face threat is intended or desired. Such redressive act, i.e. a face saving act,
takes one of two forms, depending on which aspect of face is being stressed:
negative politeness or positive politeness. The redressive act need not be verbal
(e.g. bringing of stereotypical gifts can represent a redressive action). A person
may humble himself through their body language (body still and shoulders bent
in English culture, a bow ion Japan), indicating reluctance to impinge.
Positive politeness
Positive politeness is redress directed to the addressees positive face, () his
desire that his wants () should be thought of as desirable (Brown and
Levinson 1978/1987:101). Redress consists in communicating that ones own
wants are in some respects similar to the addressees wants, which is the normal
39

behaviour between intimates. Positive politeness utterances are used to imply

common ground even between strangers, who perceive themselves for the
purposes of the interaction as somehow similar.
The strategies of positive politeness involve three broad mechanisms:
I. Claim common ground with the hearer on then basis of specific wants,
goals and values. This can be done through:
II. Convey that the speaker and the hearer are co-operators
III.
Fulfil the hearers want
Brown and Levinson (1978/1987: 102) represent diagramatically these complex
mechanisms and fifteen strategies:

Do FTA on record plus redress to: H wants [S wants Hs wants]

Claim common ground

Hs wants

Convey that S and H

are cooperators

-Convey X is admirable, interesting

-Indicate S knows Hwants
gifts to H
1. Notice, attend to H
and is taking them into account
2. Exaggerate
9. Assert or presuppose Ss
3. Intensify interest
knowledge
-claim reflexivity
10. Offer, promise
-claim in-group
11. Be optimistic
12. include both h and S
40

Fulfil

15.Give

membership with H

in the activity

4. use in-group identity

markers

13. Give (or ask for) reasons

-claim common point of view

5. seek agreement
6. avoid disagreement
7. presuppose/raise/assert
common ground
8. joke

-claim reciprocity
14. Assume and assert
reciprocity

I. Claim common ground with the hearer on then basis of specific wants,
goals and values.
1. Notice, attend to the hearer (noticeable changes, remarkable possessions,
anything the hearer would want the speaker to notice).
E.g.
Goodness, youve cut your hair! ()
By the way, I have come to borrow
some flour.
2. Exaggerate (interest, approval, sympathy with the hearer). This is done with
exaggerated intonation, stress and other aspects of prosodics, as well as
with intensifying modifiers: What a fantastic garden you have! or
emphatic expressions such as: for sure, really, exactly, absolutely.
3. Intensify interest to the hearer. Making a good story done by using the vivid
present.
E.g.
I come down the stairs and41
who do I
see?

Such use of the vivid present, especially in reported conversation, is felt to be

female traits, especially associated with the uneducated. The use of directly
quoted speech rather than indirect reported speech is another feature of this
strategy, as in the use of tag questions or expressions that draw the hearer as a
participant into the conversation (such as you know?; see what I mean?; isnt it?).
4. Use in-group identity markers
This strategy includes:
a. in-group usages of address forms, of language or dialect, of jargon or
slang, of ellipsis.
Address forms used to convey such in-group membership include generic names
and terms of address, such as Mac, mate, buddy, pal, honey, dear, babe, blondy,
cutie, sweetheart, guys. Diminutives and endearments have a similar function.
Such forms may be used to soften the face threatening acts: Here, mate, I was
keeping that seat for a friend of mine Using such forms of address with
imperatives indicates that the speaker considers the relative power between
himself and the addressee to be small: Come here, mate/honey/buddy.
b. The phenomenon of code-switching involves any switch from one
language or dialect to another in communities where this is the case, e.g.
bilingual or multilingual communities. For example (Gumperz 1970:
135), with California Chicanos, a switch from English to Spanish marks
personal involvement or embarrassment, while English marks general
and detached statements. Thus, Spanish is used for positive politeness
and English for negative politeness.
c. use of jargon or slang.
By referring to an object with a slang term, the speaker may evoke the shared
attitudes that he and the speaker have (use as a face threatening act redress). For
example, use of brand names in a request may stress that the speaker and the
hearer share an in-group reliance on the required object:
E.g.
Lend us two quid then, wouldja mate?
(British English)
42
Lend us two bucks then, wouldja
Mac? (American English)

5. Seek agreement.
The raising of safe topics (e.g. the weather, the irritation of having to wait in
line) allows the speaker to stress his agreement with the hearer, to satisfy the
hearers desire to be right. In many cultures, the face threatening act of making a
request is normally preceded by small talk on safe topics, as a way of reassuring
the hearer that you did not come simply to exploit him, but have an interest in
maintaining a relationship with him.
Thus, in order to seek agreement with your interlocutor, we have to restrict our
conversational material to uncontroversial or safe topics or we have to focus on
the particular aspects of a topic, which are least likely to cause offence.
6. Avoid disagreement
a. Token agreement, i.e. pretending to agree (e.g. Yes, but instead of
No)
b. Pseudo-agreement, i.e. faking prior agreement by using then and so
(Ill be seeing you then when there is no prior agreement about that)
c. White lies, i.e. social lies meant to avoid confrontation or damaging Hs
positive face. (e.g. Yes, I like your hat! When you actually dont)
d. Hedge your opinions, i.e. not appear too strict in ones views. so as not
to be perceived to disagree. One positive politeness strategy is
exaggerate, by choosing words such as marvellous, fantastic,
wonderful. This is however risky unless the speaker is certain of the
hearers opinion on the subject. That is why it is safer to hedge these
extremes. Normally, hedges are a feature of negative politeness, but s
some hedges can have this possible function: sort of, kind of, like, in
a way.
E.g.
I kind of want Florin to win the race,
since Ive bet on him.
Its really beautiful, in a way.
43

Hedges may be used to soften face threatening acts of criticising or complaining

by blurring the speakers intent. Hedges also function as metaphors, leaving it up
to the addressee to figure out how to interpret it.
E.g.
That knife sort of chews bread.
The hedge assumes some degree of common ground between the speaker and the
hearer.
7. Presuppose/raise/assert common ground
a. Gossip, small talk, i.e. talking about unrelated topics, which redresses an
FTA.
b. Point of view operations, merging the points of view of the speaker and
the hearer by reducing the distance between S and H. The speaker
speaks as if the hearer were the speaker or the hearers knowledge were
equal to the speakers knowledge.
E.g.
A: Oh this cut hurts awfully, Num.
B: Yes, dear, it hurts terribly, I know.

Personal-centre switch from the speaker to the hearer presupposes merging S and
Hs points of view is the use of tag questions with falling intonation in some local
dialects of British English: e.g. I had a really hard time learning to drive, didnt
I?, where the hearer could not possibly know if the speaker had a really hard
time, having just met the speaker.
Time switch, the use of the vivid present, a tense shift from past to present
tense:
44

E.g.
And Martha says to Bill, Oh,
Heavens and I says
Place switch is realised via the use of proximal rather than distal demonstratives
(here, this rather than there, that) It seems to convey increased involvement or
empathy.
E.g.
on saying goodbye
This was a lovely vs.
That was a lovely party

c. Presupposition manipulation
Brown and Levinson use of the word presuppose in the sense that the speaker
speaks as if something were mutually assumed or taken for granted, when it is
not.
E.g.
Dont you think its marvellous!?
(presupposes knowledge of Hs wants
and attitudes)
How are you, honey? (presupposes
familiarity with H)

8. Joke
Joking is a basic positive politeness technique, since jokes are based on mutual
shared background knowledge. A joke may minimise a face threatening act of
requesting:
E.g.
How about lending me this old heap
of junk? (referring to the hearers
45
new
Cadillac)

II. Convey that the speaker and the hearer are co-operators
This can serve to redress the hearers positive face want.
9. Assert or presuppose Ss knowledge of and concern for Hs wants
This co-operation may be stressed by the speakers indicating his knowledge of
and sensitivity to the hearers wants, as in I know you cant bear parties, but this
one will really be good-do come!
10. Offer, promise
Interestingly, even if they are false, they demonstrate Ss good intentions in
satisfying Hs positive face-wants:
E.g.
Ill drop by sometime next week.
11. Be optimistic
This strategy refers to minimising the size of the face threat, implying that it is
nothing to ask or that the co-operation between the speaker and the hearer means
that such small things can be taken for granted.
E.g.
Youll lend me your lawn mower for
the weekend, I hope/wont you/ I
imagine.
12. Include both the speaker and the hearer in the activity
By using an inclusive we form the speaker can call up the cooperative
assumptions and thereby redress FTAs.
E.g.
Lets have a cookie, then (i.e. me)
Lets stop for a bite (I want a bite, so
lets stop)
46
Lets just go into the back room and
see if we have any (I will do it for
your benefit)

13. Give (or ask for) reasons

By doing so the hearer is included in the activity by the speaker who gives
reasons as to why he wants what he wants. H is led to see the reasonableness of
the speakers face threatening act. Giving reasons implies I can help you or
you can help me, i.e. assuming co-operation. Thus, indirect suggestions which
demand, rather than give reasons are a conventionalised positive politeness form:
E.g.
Why dont I help you with that
suitcase?
14. Assume or assert reciprocity
The existence of co-operation between the speaker and the hearer may also be
claimed by giving evidence of reciprocal rights and obligations. The speaker may
say: Ill do X for you if you do Y for me. By pointing to the reciprocal right of
doing face threatening acts to each other, the speaker may soften the face
threatening acts of criticisms or complaints.
III. Fulfil the hearers want
S decides to redress Hs face directly by fulfilling some of Hs wants.
15. Give gifts to H (goods, sympathy, understanding, co-operation)
This is a classic of positive-politeness action, that includes tangible gifts but also
the wants to be liked, admired, cared about, listened to, etc.
Negative politeness
According to Brown and Levinson (1978/1987: 129),

47

Negative politeness is redressive action addressed to the addressees negative face: his want to
have his freedom of action unhindered and his attention unimpeded. It is the heart of respect
behaviour, just as positive politeness is the kernel of familiar and joking behaviour.

Its function is to minimise the particular imposition that the face threatening act
effects. In the English culture, negative politeness is the most elaborate
and the most conventionalised set of linguistic strategies for doing face
threatening act redress.
Do FTA
a) On record

-Be direct
Be direct

b) plus redress to Hs want

to be impinged upon
-Dont presume/assume
make minimal assumptions
about Hs wants, what is

relevant to H
Negative politeness strategies
Whereas the desire to go on record provides a pressure towards directness, the
need for negative face redress presses for indirectness. The desire to
satisfy the two conflicting wants the want to be direct and the want to
be indirect led Brown and Levinson to find a compromising
mechanism which represents negative politeness output strategy 1:
1. Be conventionally indirect
The compromise of conventional indirectness consists in using phrases that have
contextually unambiguous meanings different from their literal
meanings. Indirect speech acts are the most significant forms of
conventional indirectness and have received a great deal of attention
from linguists. For example, Can you, please, pass the salt? can only
be an indirect request and not a question about the hearers potential
abilities. Indirect speech acts function as hedges on illocutionary force.
2. Question, hedge
48

This strategy derives from the want not to presume/assume that anything
involved in the face threatening act is desired or believed by the hearer
and also the want not to coerce the hearer.
In the literature, a hedge is a particle, word or phrase that modifies the degree of
membership of a predicate or noun phrase in a set:
E.g.
A swing is sort of a toy.
Brown and Levinson argue that ordinary communicative intentions are often
potential threats to cooperative communication. A method of minimising
interactional threats is hedging the assumptions made in various
conversational situations.

Adverbial clause hedges

There are numerous expressions in English that hedge illocutionary force: in
fact/in a way/in a sense/in all probability/it seems to me. If clauses can
also be used as hedges:
E.g.
Close the window, if you can.
Would you close the window, if I may
ask you? or
Would you close the window, if youll
forgive my asking

Hedges addressed to Grices Maxims

Quality hedges may suggest that the speaker is not taking full responsibility for
the truth of the utterance:
E.g.
49
There is some evidence that
To the best of my recollection
I believe

Quantity hedges give evidence that not as much or not as precise information is
provided: to some extent/in short/basically/so to speak, roughly, more or
less, or so, to some extent, al in all, basically, Ill just say, well
Relevance hedges are used to soften the imposition on the hearers face made by
topic changes. Hedges that mark the change and that perhaps apologise
for it include:

E.g.
This may not be relevant but
Now its probably the time to say
Since its been on my mind
By the way
Oh, God, Ive just remembered
I dont know whether you are interested but
Anyway

Such Maxim hedges, frequently used in ordinary talk, have in many cases
politeness applications. For example, relevance hedges are useful ways
of redressing offers or suggestions.
E.g.
This may be displaced, but would you

50

3. Be pessimistic
Avoiding coercing the hearers answer, which is a means of negative-face
redress, can be done by assuming that the hearer is not likely to do the
act A or by non-assuming his willingness in doing act A.
This strategy involves expressing doubt about the chances of ones face
threatening act to succeed. Important realizations of this strategy are: the
use of the negative (with a tag), the use of the subjunctive, and the use of
remote-possibility markers. Encodings of polite pessimism in English are
found in negative usages as: I dont imagine/suppose thered be any
chance/possibility/hope of you
4. Minimise the imposition
One way of minimising the face threatening act is to indicate that the intrinsic
seriousness of the imposition is not in itself great and that you are only
committing a minor or negligible infringement to someones face.
Indirectly, this
may show deference to the hearer. For example, a face threatening act like
Could I borrow a tiny little bit of paper downplays all aspects of the
potential infringement: the amount of paper you request is minimal and
you only want to borrow it, not take it forever.
The minimisation of the imposition can also be achieved by the use of just: I
just want to ask you if you can borrow me Just conveys both its
literal meaning of only, which narrowly delimits the extent of the face
threatening act, and its conventional implicature merely. Again, the
euphemism borrow for take and consume minimises the imposition.
Other expressions that minimise the imposition of a particular face
threatening act are: a sip/a taste/a drop/a tiny little bit, etc.
5. Give deference
Deference can be given via the speakers humbling himself or his raising the
hearer. What is implied in both cases is that the speaker is of a higher
social status than the speaker.
51

The double-sided nature (either the raising of the other or the lowering of oneself) is
shown by the honorific system of languages which have deferential and humiliative
formsBy honorificswe understand direct grammatical encodings of relative social
status between participants in the communicative event.
(Brown and Levinson 1978/1987: 178-179).

Fillmore (1975) has suggested that honorifics are considered part of the deictic
system of a language. Vous or Professor X are anchored by reference
to the social properties of participants in the event in the same way in
which here and come are anchored by reference to the spatial properties
of the communicative event.
In general, sir in English (especially American English) is only appropriate
where the speaker is performing a face threatening act. An utterance like
Goodness, sir, that sunset is amazing makes inappropriate the use of
sir.
The same is true for the use of titles and names of address forms. Apart from
greetings and hails, there are two major uses:
a. when the speaker wishes to convey a sincere assurance to the hearer.
E.g.
Mr President, if I thought you were
trying to protect someone, I would
have walked out.
b. when the speaker initiates interruptions, suggestions, or the admission of bad
news.
E.g.
I dont think you ought to do that, Mr
President.
52

However, deference phenomena are not limited to honorifics. For example, the
humbling of ones self/capacity/possessions as in: Its not much, Im
afraid, but it is protein (when serving a meal) or in: Its not much, its
just a little thing I picked up (when giving a present) or in: Gosh, I
was sure I flunked the exam! (when accepting congratulations).
6. Apologise
There are four ways to communicate regret or reluctance to do a face threatening
act.
a. Admit the impingement, i.e. referring explicitly to it as in:
E.g.
Im sure you must be very busy, but
I hope this isnt going to bother you too
much

b. Indicate reluctance.
The speaker can attempt to show that he is reluctant to impinge on the hearer as
in:
E.g.
I normally wouldnt ask you this,
but
I hate to intrude, but
c. Give overwhelming reasons.
The speaker can imply that he normally wouldnt infringe on the hearers
negative face:
E.g.
I can think of nobody else who could

I simply cant manage to

53

d. Beg forgiveness
The speaker may beg the hearer forgiveness:
E.g.
Excuse me, but
Im sorry to bother you,
I hope youll forgive me if
7. Impersonalise S and H
One way of indicating that the speaker does not want to impinge on the hearer is
to phrase the face threatening act as if the agent were other than the
speaker and the addressee were other than the hearer. This results in
avoiding the pronouns I and you.
a. Imperatives, used in commanding, an FTA, omit the you: You take
that out is marked as aggressively rude compared to Take that out! or
to the use of impersonal verbs: It appears that/It seems that / It
would be desirable.
b. agent deletion is also allowed in other verb forms that encode acts which
are face threatening (It appears not ; It appears to me).
Other verbs may allow stative phrasing. One may say It broke, rather than I
broke it.
c. the use of the passive voice
The passive is the most important means of avoiding reference to persons
involved in face threatening acts.
E.g.
It is regretted that instead of
I regret
It would be appreciated if
It is expected
These passive expressions are used to remove reference to the speaker. In order
to remove reference to the hearer, one can use if it is possible, implying
if you can.
d. the replacement of the pronouns I and you by indefinites:
E.g.
54 instead of
One should do things like that
You should do things like these or
Someone I know finished the cookies.

The face threatening act of criticizing is softened by impersonalising the hearer,

pluralization of the you and I pronouns (use of V pronouns to singular
address)
You plural gives H the option to interpret it as applying, say, to his companions.
It conveys the Ss desire to give H this option, while going on-record at
the same time. This form also shows deference or distance. Also, we
used to indicate I+ powerful is widespread: the royal we, the
episcopal we, the business we (e.g. We regret to inform you)
e. address terms as you and I avoidance
In an attention-getting phrase, it is obviously more polite to say Excuse me, sir!
than Excuse me, you!

In the following example, the speaker, i.e. the president, distances himself as an
individual from acts he would rather have attributed to the duties and
rights of the office:
E.g.
But the President should not become
involved in any part of this case.
f. point of view distancing
These mechanisms distance the speaker from the hearer or from the face
threatening act: manipulating the expressions of tense to provide
distancing in time. As the tense is switched from present into past, the
speaker distances himself from the here and the now:
E.g.
I was wondering whether you could
do me a little favour.
55

A face threatening act of request can be redressed by the use of the remote past
tense:
E.g.
I hoped whether I might ask you
Deictic place switches can perform a similar distancing function.
E.g.
Get that cat out of my house!
That pub is a den of iniquity said
when passing by
There, there, it would be all right!
emotional distance, i.e. comfort
8. State the face threatening act as a general rule
This allows you to save face by asserting that the conditions that led you to do
the face threatening act are general ones and therefore not directly
attributable to you. This strategy is characterised by remarks like:
E.g.
Passengers will please refrain from
smoking.
Textbooks must not be taken into the
examination.
The imposition itself may be represented as a case of general imposition :
E.g.
We dont sit on tables, we sit on
chairs, Johnny.
56

Here the teacher is drawing attention to the existence of a rule of non-sitting on

tables, which is independent to both the speaker and the hearer.
9. Nominalise
In English, negative politeness, i.e. formality, is associated with the extensive use
of nouns.
E.g.
a. You performed well on the exam
and we were impressed.
b. Your performing well on the exam
impressed us.
c. Your good performance on the
exam impressed us.
Example (c) seems more formal as opposed to example (a), which seems to be
more like a spoken sentence.

10. Go on record as incurring a debt, or as not indebting H

This is simply a straightforward admission in a face threatening act that you are
indebted to someone. The speaker can redress the face threatening act by
claiming his indebtedness to the hearer or by claiming the hearers
indebtedness to him. He does this by means of expressions like:
E.g.
Ill never be able to repay you
Ill be eternally grateful to you if
Off record strategies
In contrast, if an actor goes off record, i.e. indirect, ambiguous, in doing A, then
it is not possible to attribute only one clear communicative intention to the act [so
that the actor] cannot be held to have committed himself to just one particular
interpretation of his act (Brown and Levinson 1987: 211).

57

For example in saying Im out of cash, I forgot to go to the bank today I may be
intending to get you to lend me some cash, but I cannot be held to have
committed myself to that intent. These statements can be ignored, as they
may not be directly addressed to the other. Linguistic realisations of offrecord strategies include metaphor and irony, rhetorical questions,
understatements, tautologies, all kinds of hints as to what a speaker
wants or means to communicate, without doing so directly, so that the
meaning is to some degree negotiable.
The fifth strategy is that of withholding the face threatening act. Politeness has
to be communicated and the absence of communicated politeness may be
taken as the absence of a polite attitude (Brown and Levinson, 1987:5).

4.2.1.3. A theory of impoliteness

Politeness theories have focused on how communicative strategies are employed
to promote or maintain social harmony in interaction. Culpeper (1996:
349-367) considers that little work has been done on strategies with the
opposite orientation, that of attacking ones interlocutor and causing
disharmony. Culpeper states from the very beginning that he attempts to
build an impoliteness framework which is parallel but opposite to Brown
and Levinsons theory of politeness.
In defining inherent politeness, Culpeper starts from Leechs (1983: 48).
distinction between relative politeness, i.e. politeness of an act relative
to a particular context and absolute politeness, i.e. the politeness
associated with acts independent of the context. Culpeper argues that
context is very important in deciding whether an illocution is inherently
polite or impolite. He considers that inherent impoliteness applies to a
58

minority of acts, irrespective of the contexts. He gives examples of acts,

which draw attention to the fact that the target is engaged in some antisocial activities (e.g. picking nose or ears, farting etc). He states that :
It is difficult to think of politeness work for a change of context that can easily remove
the impoliteness from an utterance such as: Do you think you could possibly not pick
your nose? (Culpeper 1996: 351).

Quoting Goffmans notion of virtual offence, Culpeper concludes that:

An inherently impolite act does not involve virtual or potential offence; it is in its
very performance offensive and thus not amenable to politeness work (Culpeper
1996:352 ).

Culpeper considers that impoliteness is very much the parasite of politeness

and finds for every strategy proposed by Brown and Levinson for
performing a face threatening act, an opposite super-strategy, an
impoliteness strategy. These impoliteness strategies are:

a. Bald on record impoliteness the face threatening act is performed in a

direct, clear, unambiguous and concise way in circumstances where face
is not relevant or minimised.
a. Positive impoliteness the use of strategies designed to damage the
addressees positive face wants. Such strategies are:
ignore, snub the other;
exclude the other from an activity;
dissociate from the other;
be disinterested, unconcerned, unsympathetic
use inappropriate identity markers;
use obscure or secretive language (mystify the other
with jargon, or use a code known to others in
the group, but not the target);
seek disagreement select a sensitive topic
59
make the other feel uncomfortable (do not avoid
silence, joke or use small talk);
use taboo words swear;
call the other names use derogatory nomination;

c. Negative impoliteness the use of strategies designed to damage the

addressees negative face wants. Such strategies are:

frighten;
condescend, scorn or ridicule;
invade the others space literally (e.g. position
yourself closer to the other than the
relationship permits) or metaphorically
(e.g. ask for, or speak about information
which is too intimate, given the
relationship)
explicitly associate the other with a negative
aspect personalise, use the pronouns I
and you;
put the others indebtedness on record, etc.
d. Sarcasm or mock politeness the face threatening act is performed with
the use of politeness strategies that are obviously insincere, and
thus
remain surface realisations. Culpeper states that sarcasm is clearly the
60

opposite of banter (mock impoliteness for social harmony), because

sarcasm is mock politeness for social disharmony.
e. Withhold politeness means the absence of politeness work where it
would be expected.
4.2.2. Activities and discussion
1. Comment on the following text about safe topics and education.
The raising of safe topics (e.g. the weather, the irritation of having to wait in
line) allows the speaker to stress his agreement with the hearer, to satisfy
the hearers desire to be right. In many cultures, the face threatening act
of making a request is normally preceded by small talk on safe topics, as
a way of reassuring the hearer that you did not come simply to exploit
him, but have an interest in maintaining a relationship with him.
Thus, in order to seek agreement with your interlocutor, we have to restrict our
conversational material to uncontroversial or safe topics or we have to
focus on the particular aspects of a topic, which are least likely to cause
offence.

Moving now to texts in classroom interaction, I would like to discuss the issue of
using humour in teaching sensitive topics. Foreign language teaching
materials are expected to avoid taboo topics. As a teacher, I myself have
doubts about using texts on taboo topics as a source of humour in the
language classroom. The following example from my data may offer an
explanation for the fact that, in spite of some topics in the teaching
materials being extremely serious and painful, they can simultaneously
be perceived as humorous by the students.
(Popescu 2005: 149)
2. The following fragment is a long stretch of interaction going on around a text
marked (transcribed in italics), based on the misprint disable/disabled,
whose reading is initiated rather abruptly by L10, who bursts into
laughter because she was reading silently ahead. Analyse the fragment
61

using CA as a framework. The fragment offers an explanation for the fact

that, in spite of some topics in the teaching materials being extremely
serious and painful, they can simultaneously be perceived as humorous
by the students. Decide why the students laughed. What politeness
strategy can you invoke?
425 L10: judo club praised for community service
426 Oct: HA HA HA [2.5] I was reading it ha ha //ha [2.5]
427 LLL: // ha ha ha
428 T: youre scanning skimming whate-H-ver so [0.5]
429 L: members of the judo club were congratulated by Peter White for the work
their 430 movement does to help dis431 LLL: // ha ha ha [1.5]
432 Oct: // ha ha ha
433 T: // disable people in the local community
434 LLL: // ha ha ha [3.5]
435 Oct: // ha ha ha gi-H-ve me a ha-H-nd to dis-H-able the-H-se peo-//H-ple
[0.5]
436 LLL: // Ha ha ha [1.5]
437 Oct: so-H-mething like th-H-at [0.5] ha //ha ha [1.5] its very funny
438 LLL: //HA HA HA [3.0]
439 T: so wh-H-at is the// w-H-ord [0.5]
440 Oct: th-H-ank you for he-H-lping us disa-H-ble our custo-H-mers [0.5] ha
ha ha [3.0]
441 T: ha ha ha so the right word [1.5]442 L: is disabled people
443 T: so the right word (.) disabled people (.) yes Im sorry to laugh abo-H-ut
[0.5]
444 tha-H-t ha ha ha [2.5] all right Oct has definitely made up his mind about
his fa445 H-vourite [0.5]
446 LLL: // ha ha ha [1.5]
447 T: // o-H-ne [0.5] ha ha ha [2.5]
448 (unint.)
(Authors data)
62

Suggested analysis
Laughter in this fragment seems to be the result of a combination of other factors
and cannot be attributed to the participants lack of empathy or
sympathy. In the first place, participants are in the fun mood and
therefore are prepared to laugh. Secondly, L10s anticipatory laughter in
line 426 causes further laughter, which has nothing to do with the issue
of disabled people. Rather, the participants burst out laughing and
interrupt the reading aloud in line 431, after the prefix dis is read out. In
my opinion, at this point laughter is produced by the absurdity of the
fictional world created by the incongruity in the misprint, one in which a
judo club (a noun phrase with a potentially positive connotation) helps (a
verb with a positive connotation) dis- (a negative prefix) able people. In
line 437, a student comments on the funniness of this text, and the
teachers attempt to reframe the activity as teaching fails in line 439,
when she is interrupted by Oct, who escalates the humour of the text.
When the solution is given in line 442, there is in fact no laughter.
According to Mulkay (1988), amusement does not arise when the
recipients manage to re-establish the interpretative coherence, and,
incongruities being expected, the recipients task is to grasp them and
show their appreciation of them to the teller, which is exactly the case in
this fragment.
Disabled people were here certainly not the butt of humour. Arguably, laughter
reinforces the expected norm of positive behaviour being expected
towards
disabled people, whereby not only is laughter sanctioned but also a special
vocabulary must be used when they are being referred to. Johnson (1990)
argues that since humour encourages a positive learning environment,
this is a good reason to apply humour to teach sensitive topics, from
which we can temporarily distance ourselves through that humour. This
fragment suggests that the incongruity and the humour it produces are
stronger than the perception of some topics as serious. Interestingly, at
63

the end of this episode, the teacher apologises for laughing about that,
but cannot refrain from laughing at the same time, as laughter is only
coincidentally related to the issue of disabled people, through word
play, and not through disparagement.
3. Discuss the following contrasting views about the strategy joke. Provide
examples to support your view.
Sacks (1974) provided the first examination of the course of joke telling in
conversation. He argues that the performance of a joke follows the
pattern for story telling in general and that the major difference lies in the
expected response of laughter at the joke, at a precise point after the
delivery of the punchline. Jokes are told as understanding tests as
getting them involves utilising certain items of background knowledge
and processing. He sees them as forms of aggression directed at the
audience and at a third party, the butt of the joke. He showed that the
performance of a joke follows the pattern for story telling in general and
that the major difference lies in the expected response of laughter at the
joke, at a precise point after the delivery of the punchline. Thus the joke
is viewed by Sacks as an interpretative test. The absence of laughter
after the punchline can signal either a sign of disapproval or a failure to
understand. Mirthless laughter in the appropriate slot, i.e. after the
punchline (e.g. a sarcastic Ha, ha, ha, very funny), constitutes an attack
on the teller because it has the double purpose of demonstrating
understanding and a lack of appreciation from the recipient.
(Popescu 2005: 20)
Joking is a basic positive politeness technique, since jokes are based on mutual
shared background knowledge. A joke may minimise a face threatening act of
requesting.
(Popescu 2005: 22)

64

4.3. Leechs Approach The Politeness Principle- Politeness Maxims

Leechs description of the Politeness Principle is opposite to Brown and
Levinsons point of view, as it looks at politeness from the addressees rather than
from the speakers end. Leech sees his Politeness Principle in relation to the
Cooperative Principle. For Leech, the Politeness Principle has a regulative role:
[The role of the politeness principle is] to maintain the social equilibrium and the
friendly relations which enable us to assume that our interlocutors are being cooperative
in the first place.
(Leech 1983: 82)

Leech dealt mainly with the strategies for producing and interpreting polite
illocutions and placed them on a scale of absolute politeness (politeness
associated with acts independent of the context as opposed to relative politeness,
which refers to the politeness of an act relative to a particular context). He
classified the illocutionary functions into four types (competitive, convivial,
collaborative and conflictive), according to how they relate to the social goal of
establishing and maintaining comity.
competitive (ordering, asking)

negative politeness

convivial (offering, inviting, thanking)

positive politeness

collaborative (asserting, reporting)

impoliteness

conflictive (threatening, accusing)

impoliteness

The former two involve politeness, while the latter two do not, i.e. collaborative
functions (e.g. asserting, reporting) or conflictive illocutions, which are
inherently designed to cause offence (e.g. threatening, accusing).
Where the illocutionary function is competitive (the illocutionary goals compete
with the social goal, e.g. ordering, asking), politeness is of a negative character,
65

and its purpose is to reduce the discord implicit in the competition between what
the speaker wants to achieve and what is good manners.
In the case of the second type, that of convivial functions, the illocutionary goal
coincides with the social goal, e.g.: offering, inviting, thanking, etc., politeness is
of a positive character (seeking opportunities for comity). In considering polite
and impolite linguistic behaviour, Leechs attention was directed towards
competitive and convivial illocutions, with their corresponding categories of
negative politeness and positive politeness.
Leech sees politeness as essentially asymmetrical: what is polite with respect to
the hearer or to some third party will be impolite with respect to the speaker. He
explains such asymmetries and their consequences in terms of indirectness, by
means of maxims of politeness. The central idea is that negative politeness
consists in minimising the impoliteness of impolite illocutions, while positive
politeness consists in maximising the politeness of polite illocutions Fraser 1990:
226).
4.3.1. The Maxims-general considerations
According to Leech (1983), the maxims of the Politeness Principle are the
following:
I. TACT MAXIM (a) Minimize cost to other [(b) Maximize benefit to other]
II. GENEROSITY MAXIM (a) Minimize benefit to self [(b) Maximize cost to
self]
III. APPROBATION MAXIM (a) Minimize dispraise of other [(b) Maximize
praise of other]
IV. MODESTY MAXIM (a) Minimize praise of self [(b) Maximize dispraise of
self]
V. AGREEMENT MAXIM (a) Minimize disagreement between self and other
[(b) Maximize agreement between self and other]
VI. SYMPATHY MAXIM (a) Minimize antipathy between self and other
[(b) Maximize sympathy between self and other]
66

Table 4. Leechs Politeness Principle

In discussing and illustrating the maxims, Leech introduces the concepts of self
and other for the two participants (the speaker and the hearer). The label other
may apply not only to addressees, but also to people designating third parties.
The importance of showing politeness to third parties varies according to whether
the third party is present as a bystander or whether this third party if felt to
belong to the speakers or to the hearers sphere of influence (a clear case: the
speaker has to be more polite in referring to the hearers spouse than to the
speakers own spouse).
Whereas I and II concern the cost or benefit of future action to other and to self,
III and IV concern the degree to which the speakers remarks convey some good
or bad evaluation of other and of self. Not all of the maxims and sub-maxims are
equally important. Maxim I appears to be a more powerful constraint on
conversational behaviour than II and III, and III than IV. This reflects a more
general law that politeness is focused more strongly on other than on self.
Moreover, the sub-maxims (b) seem to be less important than (a) and this
illustrates the even more general law that negative politeness (avoidance of
discord) is more important than positive politeness (seeking concord).
4.3.1.1. The Tact Maxim
(a) Minimise cost to other;
(b) Maximise benefit to other
The maxim is only applicable in illocutionary functions such as: ordering,
requesting, commanding, advising, recommending, promising, vowing, offering.
E.g.
You know, I really do think you ought
to sell that old car. It gets broken far
too often.

67

The speaker minimises the cost to the hearer by using the discourse marker you
know (appealing to solidarity), the hedges really and I think, the modal verb
ought. In the second part of the turn the speaker maximises the benefit to the
hearer by indicating that s/he could save time and money by selling the car.
There are two sides of the tact maxim: a negative side minimise the cost to the
hearer, and a positive side maximise the benefit to the hearer. In proposing
some action beneficial to the hearer, the speaker influences the illocution towards
a positive outcome by restricting the hearers opportunity of saying no. Thus,
an imperative, which does not allow the hearer to say no, is a positively polite
way of making an offer (Have another cup of coffee!). The persuasive emphasis
of Do have increases the positive outcome. In this case, the more indirect
form Would you mind having ? is less polite than the direct form and suggests
that the hearer would do the speaker a favour by accepting (the coffee could be
cold or too sweet). So increasing the positive politeness of an offer means
anticipating and counteracting the negative politeness of the recipient.
4.3.1.2. The Generosity Maxim
(a) Minimise benefit to self;
(b) Maximise cost to self.
The maxim is applicable only in impositives and commissives.

E.g.
1. You can lend me your car.
(impolite)
2. I can lend you my car.
3. You must come and have dinner
with us.
68
4. We must come and have dinner
with you. (impolite)

The offer (2) and the invitation (3) are presumed to be polite for two reasons:
because they imply benefit to the hearer and because they imply cost to the
speaker, while in (1) and (4) the relation between the speaker and the hearer on
both scales is reversed. A request for a second helping is slightly more polite if
the hearers role as a potential benefactor is suppressed: Could I have some more
X? Greater politeness is achieved if reference is omitted to the speaker as
beneficiary: Is there some more X?
There is a hypothesis that the Generosity Maxim is less powerful than the Tact
Maxim and Leech supported this hypothesis by observing that an impositive can
be softened and made more polite, by omission of reference to the cost to the
hearer.
E.g.
Could I borrow this grass mower? is
more polite than
Could you lend me grass mower?

This is because the illocutionary goals compete with the Generosity Maxim and
not with the Tact Maxim. Similarly, there is the idea that in an offer it is more
polite to make it appear that the offerer (in commissives) makes no sacrifice, so
that in turn, it can become less impolite for the hearer to accept the offer.

E.g.
You could borrow my bicycle, if you
like. vs.
I could lend you my bicycle if you like.
69

4.3.1.3. The Approbation Maxim

(a) Minimise dispraise of other;
(b) Maximise praise of other.
Leech found a subtitle for the Approbation Maxim the Flattery Maxim, where
the term flattery does not mean insincere approbation but, according to
Leechs concept of negative politeness: Avoid saying unpleasant things about
others. Thus, a compliment like What a marvellous meal you cooked! is highly
valued according to the Approbation Maxim.
Since dispraise of the hearer or of a third party is impolite, it is understandable
that various strategies of indirectness are employed in order to mitigate the effect
of criticism or complaint:
E.g.
I was wondering if you could keep the
noise from your Sunday parties down
a bit. Im finding it very hard to get
enough sleep over the weekends.
In order to develop this idea, Leech starts from Grices example of a person who
writes a reference for a student applying for a philosophy job, an example of an
uninformative reply:
E.g.
Dear Sir, Mr Xs command of English
is excellent and his attendance of
tutorials has been regular. Yours, etc.

In explaining the implicature of this violation of the Maxim of Quantity, Grice

comments that the speaker must be wishing to impart information that he is
reluctant to write down (on the assumption that he thinks Mr X is not good at
philosophy). Leech argues that the speakers reluctance to declare his opinion is
70

due to the Approbation Maxim. In other cases, the reluctance to criticise

manifests itself in institutionalised forms of understatement:
E.g.
A: Do you like these apricots?
B: Ive tasted better.
The maxim is applicable in expressives (e.g. thanking, congratulating, pardoning,
blaming, praising, condoling) and assertives (e.g. stating, boasting, complaining,
claiming, reporting)
4.3.1.4. The Modesty Maxim
(a) Minimise praise of self;
(b) Maximise dispraise of self.
E.g.
A: They were so kind to us.
B: Yes, they were, werent they? vs.
A: You were so kind to us!
B: Yes, I was, wasnt I? (impolite)
As these examples show, it is polite to agree to anothers commendation, except
when it is a commendation of oneself.

E.g.
Please accept this small gift as a token
of our esteem. vs.
Please accept this large gift as a token
of our esteem.
The understatement of ones generosity is shown to be quite normal and
conventional in contrast to the exaggeration of ones generosity. As the example
above shows, to break the first submaxim of Modesty is to commit the social
transgression of boasting.
71

For example, Japanese speakers attach more importance to modesty than other
cultures. This is indicated further by the greater degree of understatement
employed in giving presents; whereas an English person may call his gift small,
the Japanese may go further and say This is a gift which will be of no use to you,
but In this way, a maxim of politeness may overrule the Maxim of Quality
(Grices Maxim of Quality). In the following example the speaker belittles
her/his own abilities in order to emphasize the achievements of the addressee:
E.g.
Well done! I wish I could write like
that!
The maxim is applicable in expressives and assertives.
4.3.1.5. The Agreement Maxim
(a) Minimize disagreement between self and other
(b) Maximize agreement between self and other
Leech pointed out the tendency to exaggerate agreement with other people and to
mitigate disagreement by expressing regret, partial argument (disagreement).
Leech compared the rudeness of a reply in example (a) below, with the reply in
example (b):
E.g.
(a)
It was an interesting exhibition, wasnt it?
No, it was very uninteresting!
(b)
English is a difficult language, isnt it?
True, but the grammar is quite easy.

As example (b) shows, partial disagreement is often preferable to complete

disagreement. The maxim is applicable in assertives.
4.3.1.6. The Sympathy Maxim
72

This maxim explains why congratulations and condolences are courteous speech
acts, even though condolences express beliefs which are negative with regard to
the hearer.
E.g.
Im terribly sorry to hear that your cat
died.
There is, nevertheless, some reticence about the expression of condolences since
to refer to the propositional content X is in fact to express an impolite belief, a
belief unfavourable to the hearer. Hence, it is preferable to say Im terribly sorry
to hear about your cat instead of Im terribly sorry to hear that your cat died.
4.3.2. Metalinguistic aspects of politeness.
Politeness is manifested not only in the content of conversation, but also in the
way conversation is managed and structured by its participants. For example,
conversational behaviour, such as speaking at the wrong time (interrupting) or
being silent at the wrong time has impolite implications. Consequently, speakers
sometimes find it necessary to refer to the speech acts in which they are engaged
in order to request a reply, to seek permission for speaking, etc. by using a
preface, such as:
E.g.
Could I suggest?
May I ask if you are married?
Such utterances are called by Leech metalinguistic, in that they refer to
illocutions of the current conversation. Such sentences are known as hedged
performatives, since they may be regarded as polite mitigations of utterances.
Their goal is preliminary, i.e. obtaining the conversational co-operation of the
hearer, while the ultimate goal is obtaining information. Hedged performatives
73

are used as devices of politeness, especially when the hearer is a person of a more
authoritative status than the speaker.
Leech also considered the polite and impolite implications of silence. The famous
Dont speak unless you are spoken to reminds that silence may be the only polite
form of behaviour available to someone of little status. But if one has been
engaged in conversation by someone else, silence is a sign of opting out of a
social engagement and it is a form of impoliteness.
The problem of how to end a conversation politely is familiar to every competent
language user and makes us aware of the close connection between politeness
and preserving sociability, a type of behaviour named by Malinowsky (1930)
phatic communion. Starting from this, Leech added to his list of maxims the
metalinguistic Phatic Maxim: Avoid silence or Keep talking. The need to
avoid silence accounts for the discussion of stock subjects, such as the weather,
or for the occurrence of uninformative statements, such as Youve had your hair
cut! Such remarks breach Grices Maxim of Quantity and this is another case
when a violation of the Cooperative Principle (formulated by Grice) can be
explained in terms of the Phatic Maxim.
4.3.3. Activities and discussion
1. Give examples that illustrate each of the maxims above.
2. Discuss politeness in the following situations:
(dinner with a close friend):
Pass the salt // Would you be so kind as to pass the salt?
(a burning building must be evacuated):
Fire! Get out! // Might I possibly ask you to leave the building?

3. Rank the following requests in order of their politeness: Could I possibly ask
you to set the table? Set the table. Can you set the table? It would be great if you
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could set the table. (What relationship do you perceive between indirectness and
politeness?)
4.3.4. Suggestions for further reading
Brown, P. and Levinson, S.: Politeness. Some Universals of Language Usage.
Cambridge University Press 1987
Drew, P. and Heritage, J. (eds.): Talk at Work: Interaction in Institutional
Settings. Cambridge University Press 1992
Goffman, E.: Forms of Talk. University of Pennsylvania Press 1981

75

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