Politeness is the means employed to show awareness of another person’s face. It is an action of showing respect toward the person who
we are talking to and avoiding
any offenses that are directed
to him. In other words, politeness
is an expression of concern for the
feelings of others.
The concept of
‘politeness’ owes a great deal to Goffman’s original work (1955, 1967) on
‘face.’ In social interaction we present a face to others and to others’ faces.
We are obliged to protect both our own face and the faces of others to the
extent that each time we interact with others we play out a kind of mini-drama,
a kind of ritual in which each party is required to recognize the identity that
the other claims for himself or herself. The consequence is, as Scollon and
Scollon (2001) tell us: ‘One of the most important ways in which we reduce the
ambiguity of communication is by making assumptions about the people we are
talking to’ (p. 44). They add: ‘Any communication is a risk to face; it is a risk to one’s own face, at the same time it is a risk to
the other person’s. We have to carefully project a face for ourselves and to
respect the face rights and claims of
other participants. . . . “There is no
faceless communication” (p. 48).
In discussing ‘politeness’, the concept of interest to
them, Brown and Levinson (1987, p. 61) define face as ‘the public
self-image that every member wants to claim for himself’. They also
distinguish between positive face and
negative face. Positive face is the desire to gain the approval of others, ‘the
positive consistent self-image or “personality” . . . claimed by interactants’ (p. 61). Negative face is the desire to be
unimpeded by others in one’s actions, ‘the basic claim to territories, personal
preserves, rights to non-distraction . . . freedom of action and freedom from
imposition’ (p. 61). Positive face
looks for solidarity; negative face,
however, is more problematic for it requires interactants to recognize each other’s negative face, i.e., the need to act without giving offense.
When we
interact with others we must be aware of both kinds of face and therefore have
a choice of two kinds of politeness. Positive
politeness leads to moves to achieve solidarity through offers of
friendship, the use of compliments, and informal language use: we treat others
as friends and allies, do not impose on them, and never threaten their face. On
the other hand, negative politeness leads
to deference, apologizing, indirectness, and formality in language use: we adopt
a variety of strategies so as to avoid any threats to the face others are presenting
to us. Symmetric pronominal use is a good example of positive politeness and asymmetric T/V use of negative politeness. This approach to politeness has been quite revealing when applied to many Western
societies. However, it has been criticized (Mills, 2003) for encapsulating
stereotypical, white, middle-class (and largely female) language behavior. It
may also not work so well in other cultures. We will look at two examples: Java
and Japan.
Some languages
seem to have built into them very complex systems of politeness. Javanese, one
of the principal languages of Indonesia, is a language in which, as Geertz
(1960, p. 248) says ‘it is nearly impossible to say anything without indicating
the social relationships between the speaker and the listener in terms of
status and familiarity.’ Before one Javanese speaks to another, he or she must decide
on an appropriate speech style (or styleme,
in Geertz’s terminology): high, middle, or low. Such a decision is necessary
because for many words there are three distinct variants according to style.
For example, the equivalent to the English word now is samenika in high
style, saniki in middle style, and saiki in low style. You cannot freely
shift styles, so the choice of saiki will
require the speaker to use arep for
the verb equivalent to go rather than adjeng
or bade, which would be required by
the choices of saniki and samenika, respectively.
But there is
still another level of complication. Javanese has a set of honorifics,
referring to such matters as people, body parts, possessions, and human actions.
These honorifics can be used to further modulate two of the style levels, the
high and the low. There are both high honorifics, e.g., dahar for eat, and low honorifics,
e.g., neda for eat. Only high honorifics can accompany high style, but both high
and low honorifics can accompany low style. We can also use the equivalent of
English eat to show a further
complication. Neda is found in the high
style with no honorifics, the middle style (which cannot have honorifics), and
the low style with low honorifics. Dahar
for eat always signals high
honorifics in either high or low style. In low style without honorifics eat is mangan. We can see the various combinations that are possible if we
combine the various equivalents of eat
and now, as in table 11.2. In
addition, table 11.3 shows the equivalent of the English sentence, ‘Are you going to eat rice and cassava now?’
in the six levels that are possible in Javanese. Geertz adds a further
interesting observation: as you move from low to high style, you speak more
slowly and softly and more evenly in terms of rhythm and pitch, so that the
highest levels, ‘when spoken correctly, have a kind of stately pomp which can
make the simplest conversation seem like a great ceremony’.
(Source: Wardhaugh: 2006)
Sociological Variables and Politeness
Sociological
variables are one of the factors of politeness strategy choice. According to Brown
and Levinson (1987), the seriousness of an FTA which may affect choice of politeness strategies involves the sociological factors. Brown and
Levinson (1987) describe
that sociological variables consists of “social
distance”, “relative power”,
and “the rank of imposition” in the particular culture. These variables
affect the way the speaker uses the politeness strategies.
1. Social Distance
Social distance
is a variable that concerns frequency assessment of the interaction and also the kinds of material
or non-material goods
exchanged between the speaker
and the hearer. Brown and Levinson (1987, p. 76) explain that social
distance is a symmetric social
dimension of similarity or difference within
which speakers and hearers stand for the purpose of an act. The two notions, the frequency of interaction and
the exchanged goods are affected by stable
attributes such as the age, sex,
and socio-cultural background, which includes social class and ethnic background.
Then, intimacy
between the speaker and hearer affects the choice of the strategy. For example, if the speaker and
the hearer are intimate, the speaker might
use in group membership marker such
as “man”‟,
“bro”‟, “honey”, which are
kinds of positive politeness strategy. On the
contrary, when the social
distance between the speaker
and the hearer are getting far, the degree of politeness (negative politeness
strategy) that the speakers use will be higher. The more intimate the speaker and the hearer
are, the more the speaker will choose the least
polite strategy.
Brown and Levinson (1987) explain that relative
power is the degree to which
the hearer can impose his own
want, desire or face over the speaker’s want, desire
or face. Holmes (2001) uses the same term but
it is called relative status. It
explains the status of the hearer over the speaker
which basically also concerns the power
of the hearer over the speaker. The power possesses by the hearer affects the choice of the strategy used by the
speaker. When the speaker who
possess higher power communicate with the hearer who have lower power, the
degree of politeness that the
speaker use will be lower. Meanwhile, when the speaker who has lower power speaks to the hearer who has
higher power, the speaker will apply
high degree of politeness with great respect. For example, when a boss asks for permission to his employee, he simply
says “Can
I smoke?”. Therefore, when
the employee want to ask for permission to his boss, he
or she applies high degree of
politeness by saying “Excuse
me Sir, would it be alright if
I smoke?”. Furthermore,
Brown and Levinson (1987, p.77) state that there are two sources of power, namely material control
(over economic distribution and physical
force) and metaphysical control (over the actions of others). Relative power
is not only attached between individuals but also role-sets, such as employer-employee, teacher-learner,
and gangster-victim.
3. Rank of Imposition
Brown and Levinson (1987) explain that the rank of
imposition is the degree of a
matter that is considered as
the interference to the face of the hearer. This
interference is the FTA that the speaker made. The rank of imposition can be identified by two variables which are the
imposition toward the positive face and negative
face. For the positive face, the imposition is assessed by the amount of threat given to hearer positive face. Then,
for the negative face, there are two scales that identify the rank of the
imposition, namely the imposition requiring services (including
the provision of time) and the imposition
requiring goods (including non-material
goods like information). Both impositions cover actions which cause FTAs. When the speaker shows
greater FTAs in his utterances, the imposition
of the act is also getting greater. Thus, the speaker will use highly standard
politeness strategies in
speaking.
(Source:
Aryani: 2017)
