Understanding Politeness in Communication

Posted on Feb 5, 2025 in English, Linguistic and Literary Studies

Politeness in Communication

Calsamiglia Blancafort summarizes the most important aspects of politeness:

  1. It focuses on verbal interaction and the choice of certain linguistic markers of politeness.
  2. It is based upon the acknowledgment that the interpersonal function of language is always present as the essence of human communication.
  3. It is used for making social relationships smoother and for compensating aggressiveness, that is, all those actions that can constitute a virtual threat for the participants in the interaction.
  4. It is considered a number of strategies which determine the choice of certain linguistic elements when building up the utterances that the interlocutors direct at each other.
  5. It stresses and shows the current relationships in our social life as influenced by power/solidarity and distance/proximity factors, by feelings, by mutual knowledge, etc.
  6. It is a typical object of negotiation in any conversational context.

Politeness Maxims

Politeness involves a set of politeness maxims:

  • The tact maxim: Minimize the interlocutor’s effort, maximize the interlocutor’s benefit.
  • The generosity maxim: Minimize personal benefit, maximize personal effort.
  • The approbation maxim: Minimize criticism of others, maximize praise of others.
  • The modesty maxim: Minimize self-praise, maximize self-criticism.
  • The agreement maxim: Minimize disagreement with others, maximize agreement with others.
  • The sympathy maxim: Maximize sympathy to others.

Brown and Levinson’s (1987) Politeness Theory

Face: ‘The public self-image’ or reputation, self-esteem of a person. “…face is something that can be lost, maintained, or enhanced, and must be constantly attended to in interaction. In general, people cooperate (and assume each other’s cooperation) in maintaining face in interaction.”

Negative Face and Positive Face

Brown and Levinson (1987: 62)

  • Negative face is the want to interact without being impeded by others. It represents the desire for autonomy, personal space, freedom from imposition, and freedom of action.
  • Positive face, on the other hand, is related to the want to be approved of by other people. It is associated with one’s desire for approval, the desire to be acknowledged and approved of.

Five Superstrategies for Performing FTAs

  1. Bald-on record: FTA performed bald-on-record, in a direct and concise way without softening action.
  2. Positive Politeness: FTA performed with softening action. Strategies oriented towards the positive face of the hearer.
  3. Negative Politeness: FTA performed with softening action. Strategies oriented towards the negative face of the hearer.
  4. Off-record: FTA performed off-record. Strategies that might allow the act to have more than one interpretation.
  5. Avoidance: FTA not performed.

Positive Politeness Strategies

  • Notice and attend to H’s wants and needs
  • Exaggerate interest, approval, sympathy
  • Use in-group identity markers
  • Seek agreement/avoid disagreement
  • Assert common ground
  • Joke
  • Be optimistic
  • Give offers, promises, reasons, sympathy, understanding, cooperation

Negative Politeness Strategies

  • Be indirect
  • Be pessimistic
  • Minimize imposition
  • Give deference
  • Apologize
  • Depersonalize (avoid ‘you’, ‘I’)
Superstrategies Summarized

Briefly summarized, with positive politeness the main strategy is to claim common ground, convey that the speaker and hearer are co-operators, etc. Negative politeness, on the other hand, focuses on minimizing the imposition by attempting to soften it. This is usually achieved by indirectness.