Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Chai
character
Ability to please others through
(Leech, 1983)
This theory holds that the speakers considering the performance of a speech act will generally choose more polite strategies in proportion to the seriousness of the act. There are four different levels of polite strategies that have the potential to gain the goal. The list of sub-strategies that go with the four super strategies are presented below:
Bald On-Record Strategy Positive Politeness Strategy Negative Politeness Strategy Off-record Strategy
This strategy is a direct way of saying things, without any minimization to the imposition, in a direct, clear, unambiguous and concise way.
e.g. imperative form without any redress: Wash your hands Command Help! An emergency Give me those Task oriented Put your jacket away please Request Turn your lights on! (while driving) Alerting
This strategy is directed to the addressees positive face, her/his perennial desire that her/his wants or the actions, acquisitions, values resulting from them should be thought of as desirable.
Examples:
Positive politeness
Strategy 1:
Strategy 2: Strategy 3: Strategy 4: Strategy 5: Strategy 6: Strategy 7:
Notice, attend to H (his interests, wants, needs, goods) Exaggerate (interest, approval, sympathy with H) Intensify interest to H Use in-group identity markers Seek agreement Avoid disagreement Presuppose/raise/assert common ground
Strategy 8: Strategy 9:
Joke Assert or presuppose S's knowledge of and concern for H's wants Strategy 10: Offer, promise Strategy 11: Be optimistic Strategy 12: Include both S and H in the activity Strategy 13: Give (or ask for) reasons Strategy 14: Assume or assert reciprocity Strategy 15: Give gifts to H (goods, sympathy, understanding, cooperation)
Negative Politeness
Negative politeness attends to a person's negative face needs and includes indirectness and apologies. It expresses respect and consideration.
Examples:
Be pessimistic You dont happen to have an eyebrow tint. Do
you? Apologize You must forgive me but Minimize the imposition I just want to ask you if I could use your computer for a little while. State the FTA as a general rule Plagiarism is forbidden.
Give deference Would you mind if I respectfully request you
This strategy is the indirect strategy. It uses indirect language and removes the speaker from the potential to being imposing.
e.g. off-record strategies, which consist of all types of hints, metaphors, tautologies, etc.
Example:
`Gardening makes your hands dirty` - Give hints Perhaps someone should have been more responsible Be vague Yeah! Hes a real Einstein Be sarcastic I think we need some time off in our relationship Be ambigous Police officers in our country are a bunch of money-sucking losers Over-generalize
Strategy 1:Giving hints Strategy 2: Giving association clues Strategy 3: Presupposition Strategy 4: Understating Strategy 5: Overstating Strategy 6: Using tautologies Strategy 7: Using contradictions Strategy 8: Being ironic
Strategy 9: Using metaphors Strategy 10: Using rhetorical questions Strategy 11: Being ambiguous Strategy 12: Being vague Strategy 13: Over-generalization Strategy 14: Displacing H Strategy 15: Being incomplete, using ellipsis