3. The Politeness principle and Leech’s maxims

G. Leech was the father of the social-pragmatics approach to Grice’s

research. He worked on “a broader, socially and psychologically oriented

application of pragmatic principles” (Leech 1983:80). G. Leech (1983) proposed

the six maxims of the Politeness Principle (PP) as a way of complementing the

CP and explaining how politeness operates in conversational exchanges. Leech

defines politeness as forms of behaviour that establish and maintain comity.

That is the ability of participants in a social interaction to engage in interaction in

an atmosphere of relative harmony. In stating his maxims Leech uses his own

terms for two kinds of illocutionary acts. He calls representatives “assertives”, and

calls directives “impositives”.

− Tact maxim (in directives [impositives] and commissives): minimise cost to

other; [maximise benefit to other]

eg. Help yourself once more. and rather not I will help yourself once more.

− Generosity maxim (in directives and commissives): minimise benefit to self;

[maximise cost to self]

e.g. Have you something against a cup of tee? and rather not I have nothing

against a cup of tea.

− Approbation maxim (in expressives and representatives [assertives]):

minimise dispraise of other; [maximise praise of other]

e.g. The soup you cooked tastes good. and not The soup you cooked is inedible.

− Modesty maxim (in expressives and representatives): minimise praise of

self; [maximise dispraise of self]

e.g. It was silly of me. not It was silly of you.

− Agreement maxim (in representatives): minimise disagreement between self

and other; [maximize agreement between self and other]

e.g. I really liked the exhibition. – Yes, it was quite interesting. Not I found it

very boring.

− Sympathy maxim (in representatives): minimise antipathy between self and

other; [maximize sympathy between self and other]

e.g. I am sorry to hear that your cat died. Not I am glad to hear that your cat

died.

Each maxim is accompanied by a sub-maxim (between square brackets),

which is of less importance. These support the idea that negative politeness

(avoidance of discord) is more important than positive politeness (seeking

concord).

Note also that speakers may adhere to more than one maxim of politeness at

the same time. Often one maxim is on the forefront of the utterance, with a second

maxim being invoked by implication.

Not all of the maxims are equally important. For instance, "Tact" influences

what we say more powerfully than does "Generosity", while "Approbation" is

more important than "Modesty”.

The tact maxim regulates the operation of the directive speech acts (which

are marked with highest face-threatening potential) and addresses the dominant

type of politeness which, with regard to the addressee, can be ´measured´ on the

cost-benefit scale: the more costly an action, the less polite it is, and, conversely,

the more beneficial it is to the addressee, the more polite it is. This helps explain

why, for example, imperative mood is not necessarily associated with impoliteness: Bring me some water vs. Have another drink. Next, optionality scale is used to rank options according to the degree of choice offered to the addressee - the degree of politeness matches the degree of indirectness (tentativeness), and, vice versa, increased directness results in greater impoliteness (e.g., Lend me your car vs. Do you think you could possibly lend me your car?). It appears that while imperatives offer little option of whether or not to comply with the action requested (Give me some change), questions (Have you got a quarter, by any chance?), hypothetical formulations (Could I borrow some money?), and ones using negatives (You couldn´t lend me a dollar, could you?) provide greater freedom to deny that request. Of course, politeness formulae (please) can always be added to give extra politeness.

We should also differentiate between absolute and relative politeness; in

the absolute sense, Lend me your car is less polite than I hope you don´t mind my asking, but I wonder if it might be at all possible for you to lend me your car.

However, in some situations, the former request could be overpolite (among family

members) and the latter one impolite (as an ironic remark).

In all societies, maxims of politeness govern linguistic and non-linguistic

behavior. The details of these maxims vary [sometimes greatly] from culture to

culture [and subculture to subculture], leading to situations where

misunderstandings may occur. In middle-class American society, M. Noonan

identifies the following five maxims:

tact: Minimize cost to other; maximize benefit to other.

modesty: Minimize praise of self; maximize dispraise of self.

phatic: Keep talking; avoid silence.

irony: If you must cause offence, at least do so in a way which doesn’t

overtly conflict with maxims of politeness, but allows the hearer to arrive at the

offensive point of your remark indirectly, by way of implicature [inference].

banter: In order to show solidarity with the hearer, say something that is (1)

obviously untrue and (2) obviously impolite to the hearer.

Many cultures lack an equivalent of the Phatic Maxim. The Banter Maxim is

much more closely associated with males than with females in middle-class

American society. Violations of the politeness maxims may invite inferences too,

ones which are also context sensitive. For example, a violation of the Phatic

Maxim may be interpreted as evidence of anger, sadness, etc. depending on

contextual clues.

The Politeness Principle was not the only one singled out by G. Leech. In his

book entitled “Principles of Pragmatics” (1983) the scholar describes three

principles of interpersonal rhetoric (the Cooperative Principle, the Politeness

Principle, the Irony Principle) and four principles of textual rhetoric (the

Processibility Principle, the Clarity Principle, the Economy Principle and the

Expressivity Principle).

Lecture 18

Text as an Object of Research. The Problem of the Text Unit

1. Text as an object of linguistic research.

2. Cohesion and coherence.

3. Textual categories.

4. Textual units. The supra-phrasal unity and the paragraph.