M. A. I english P. C3 & C6 Modern Linguistics title pmd

6. 
Politeness Principle
The Politeness Theory was formulated by Penelope Brown and Stephen 
Levinson. In everyday life, we design our messages based on who the hearer is 
and what communicative goals we want to fulfill. There are some speech acts that 
threaten the face or the public self image of the hearer. Politeness is the expression 
of the speakers’ intention to mitigate face threats carried by certain face threatening 
acts toward another. Being polite therefore consists of attempting to the save the 
face of the other interlocutors in a conversation.

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6.1 
Face and Face Wants
Face is one of the central concepts in the discussion on Politeness. Brown 
and Levinson begin with the idea of ‘model persons’, rational agents who think 
strategically and are conscious of their language choices. The two linguists were 
influenced by Goffman’s idea of Face. According to Goffman, Face is a mask that 
changes depending on the audience and the social interaction (1967). Face is 
maintained by the audience, not by the speaker. We strive to maintain the face we 
have created in social situations. Face is broken down by Goffman into two different 
categories. Positive face is the desire to be seen as a good human being, the need 
to feel wanted, protected and appreciated. Positive politeness is designed to meet 
the face needs by performing an action like complimenting or showing concern for 
another person. Negative face is the desire to remain autonomous.
“Face” refers to a speaker's sense of linguistic and social identity. It is the 
public self image. Every human being develops such an identity and would like 
others to recognize it. Brown and Levinson agreed that rational agents have a 
positive and negative face. Politeness is employed to show awareness of another 
person’s face. People generally expect that their public self image should be 
respected. This expectation is termed as their Face Wants.
Lakoff (1974), a sociolinguist, proposes three principles of politeness, they are: 
1. 
don’t impose 
2. 
make the addressee feel comfortable and 
3. 
give options 
Positive politeness means being complimentary and gracious to the 
addressee (but if this is overdone, the speaker may alienate the other party). 
Negative politeness is found in ways of mitigating the imposition:
 
Hedging: Er, could you, er, perhaps, close the, um , window?
 
Pessimism: I don't suppose you could close the window, could you?

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109 
 
Indicating deference: Excuse me, sir, would you mind if I asked you to close
the window?
 
Apologizing: I'm terribly sorry to put you out, but could you close the window?
 
Impersonalizing: The management requires all windows to be closed.
Brown and Levinson outline four main types of politeness strategies: bald on 
record, negative politeness, positive politeness, and off-record or the indirect 
strategy. 
First, bald on record strategies do not attempt to minimize the threat to the 
hearer’s face. This strategy is most often utilized by speakers who closely know their 
audience. With bald on record strategies there is a direct possibility that the 
audience will be shocked or embarrassed by the utterance. For example, a bald on 
record strategy might be to tell your sister to “do the dishes. It’s your turn.” 
The second strategy is positive politeness and this strategy attempts to 
minimize the threat to the hearer's positive face. This strategy is most commonly 
used in situations where the audience knows each other fairly well. Quite often 
hedging and attempts to avoid conflict are used. For example, a positive politeness 
strategy might be the request “It would be great if you could do the dishes for me.” 
The third strategy is negative politeness which presumes that the speaker 
will be imposing on the listener. The potential for awkwardness or embarrassment is 
greater than in bald on record strategies and positive politeness strategies. Negative 
face is the desire to remain autonomous. Thus, a request without consideration of 
the listener’s negative face might be uncomfortable: “I need $5” is awkward if five 
dollars is outside the listener’s financial capabilities. But if the speaker, knowing that 
the listener wants to maintain their autonomy, adds an out for the listener like “I 
know you’ve been kinda strapped for cash, but could I borrow $5?” the listener is 
more likely to give them that money because the request showed a respect for their 
ability to maintain autonomy. 

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The final politeness strategy outlined by Brown and Levinson is the indirect 
strategy. This strategy uses indirect language and removes the speaker from the 
potential to being imposing. For example, a speaker using the indirect strategy might 
merely say “wow, it’s getting cold in here” insinuating that it would be nice if the 
listener would get up and turn up the thermostat without directly asking the listener 
to do so. 
Brown and Levinson state that speakers always try to preserve or maintain 
one another’s face. Such speech acts are known as face saving acts (FSA). The 
rational actions people take to preserve both kinds of face, for themselves and the 
people they interact with, add up to politeness. However, there are situations where 
they might be forced to perform Face Threatening Acts. Any Speech Act that 
imposes on a person’s face is said to be face threatening and is called a face 
threatening act (FTA).
Politeness strategies are developed in order to formulate messages in order 
to save the hearer’s face when face threatening acts are inevitable or desired. This 
means that the speaker avoids embarrassing the listener or making him feel 
uncomfortable.