Techniques to Show Politeness

• Expressing uncertainty and ambiguity through hedging and indirectness.

• Polite lying.

• Use of euphemism (which make use of ambiguity as well as connotation).

• Preferring tag questions to direct statements, such as "You were at the store, weren't you?"

• modal tags request information of which the speaker is uncertain: "You didn't go to the store yet, did you?"

• affective tags indicate concern for the listener: "You haven't been here long, have you?"

• softeners reduce the force of what would be a brusque demand: "Hand me that thing, could you?"

• facilitative tags invite the addressee to comment on the request being made: "You can do that, can't you?"

Some studies have shown that women are more likely to use politeness formulas than men, though the exact differences are not clear [1, 13]. Most current research has shown that gender differences in politeness use are complex [10]; since there is a clear association between politeness norms and the stereotypical speech of middle class white women, at least in the UK and US. It is therefore unsurprising that women tend to be associated with politeness more and their linguistic behaviour judged in relation to these politeness norms.

Linguistic Devices to Show Politeness

Besides and additionally to the above, many languages have specific means to show politeness, deference, respect, or a recognition of the social status of the speaker and the hearer. There are two main ways in which a given language shows politeness:

• in its lexicon (for example, employing certain words in formal occasions, and colloquial forms in informal contexts);

• in its morphology (for example, using special verb forms for polite discourse).

P. Brown and s. Levinson’s Politeness Theory

Politeness theory is the theory that accounts for the redressing of the affronts to face posed by face-threatening acts to addressees [7]. First formulated in 1978 by Penelope Brown and Stephen Levinson, politeness theory has since expanded academia’s perception of politeness [17]. Politeness is the expression of the speakers’ intention to mitigate face threats carried by certain face threatening acts toward another [17, p. 6]. Another definition is "a battery of social skills whose goal is to ensure everyone feels affirmed in a social interaction" [7]. Being polite therefore consists of attempting to save face for another.

Positive and Negative Face

Face is the public self image that every adult tries to project. In their 1987 book, Brown and Levinson defined positive face two ways:

• as "the want of every member that his wants be desirable to at least some others"; or alternately,

• "the positive consistent self-image or 'personality' (crucially including the desire that this self-image be appreciated and approved of) claimed by interactants [2].

Negative face was defined as "the want of every 'competent adult member' that his actions be unimpeded by others", or "the basic claim to territories, personal preserves, rights to non-distraction - i.e. the freedom of action and freedom from imposition" [2]. Ten years later, Brown characterized positive face by desires to be liked, admired, ratified, and related to positively, noting that one would threaten positive face by ignoring someone. At the same time, she characterized negative face by the desire not to be imposed upon, noting that negative face could be impinged upon by imposing on someone [4]. Positive face refers to one's self-esteem, while negative face refers to one's freedom to act [7]. The two aspects of face are the basic wants in any social interaction, and so during any social interaction, cooperation is needed amongst the participants to maintain each others' faces [7].