interaction. According to Routledge Dictionary of Language and Linguistics (1996), politeness is an “umbrella term for a combination of interpersonal considerations and linguistic choices affecting the form and function of linguistic interactions”. In different cultures and different contexts, politeness refers to quite different things. It is common knowledge that every culture has its own customs and expectation, including the politeness involved in daily life. Different culture expects different behavior to meet their politeness system. That is to say, people should observe the politeness principle in communication.
2.2.1 The Premise of Politeness Principle
Leech?s Politeness Principle is not an entirely new notion since E. Goffman, P. Brown, S. Levinson and others had discussed politeness phenomena before him in the application of language, such as address forms in kinds of languages, like “你” and “您” in Chinese.
E. Goffman poses the question of face from the sociological view of point in the early 1950s. In his opinion, communications between people do involve face work all the time. Face is one of human behavior norms, infiltrating interpersonal interaction. On the one hand, human behavior is bound by face; on the other hand, people hope that others take consideration of their face. In order to do face work well, people need cooperation. After all, whether people lose their face or not depends on others. For the sake of their own face, they had better protect others? face. Therefore，people tend to downgrade themselves and elevate others. Otherwise, social interaction will become inconceivable.
Universals in Language Usage: Politeness Phenomena written by Brown, P & Levinson is an article which is widely cited in the world. They investigate politeness phenomena in English, a kind of native language in Mexico and one native language in southern India. And they discover politeness phenomena in language usage are extremely close and regard it as a common phenomenon. The idea of face is used on by Brown, P & Levinson and is developed into two types of face: one is positive face
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which desires to win others? compliment on personality, profession, hobby, dress and so on; another one is negative face which protects people from personal attack, injury to freedom of action, etc. Hence, politeness behavior also falls into two types: positive politeness satisfying requirements of positive face and negative politeness meeting ones of negative face. Among these four following sentences, sentence (a) and (b) are positive politeness, while (c) and (d) are negative politeness.
Example 1
(1) What a nice dress you?ve got. (2) I know you are a kind boy.
(3) I hate to trouble you, but would you please open the door? (4) Would you forgive me if I close the window?
Besides, Brown, P & Levinson think that avoiding calling a spade a spade is also a kind of politeness behavior. Namely, people use vague words not to reach others? face and make listeners themselves judge messages. Based on these research findings,
British linguist Geoffrey N. Leech puts forwards his Politeness Principle.
2.2.2 Leech’s Politeness Principle
Speech act theory, the first major theory in the study of language in use, originates with the Oxford philosopher John Langshaw Austin who first distinguishes performatives and constatives and offered a theory of Illocutionary Act in 1950s, and afterwards was improved by American philosopher Searle whose major contribution is the discovery of indirect speech act. Nowadays, it has become a philosophical theory and pragmatic theory that is well accepted.
American linguistic philosopher H. P. Grice advances that both sides have to adhere to the Cooperative Principle in order to ensure the smooth progress of the conversation. In the meantime, when one side goes against the Cooperative Principle, the other one will spare no effort to seek the Conversational Implication. However,
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Leech believes that these theories can not explain all phenomena occurring in the application of language. For this reason, he presents his idea which can account for linguistic phenomena that Austin?s and Searle?s speech act theory and Grice?s Cooperative Principle cannot explain.
Speech act theory has been criticized more by Leech for it is difficult to define the type of speech act which does no good to pragmatic analysis. He considers speech act is a constantly evolving and ongoing variable, depending on other factors besides language factors. It is unreliable to divide speech acts in accordance with action verbs. Just as the bounds between mountain and hill, river and stream, and old and young are obscure, action words are also divided arbitrarily, such as order and request, request and suggestion. An obvious example can interpret this case: Why don?t you try again? It can be regarded as persuasion, an order or a suggestion.
In Leech?s mind, four elements have to be considered to make sure some act speech theory is an order, request, or a help. Firstly, be sure of who benefits from the speech act. “Return these books for me” benefits the speaker not the listener, so it is an order. But “Have another pie” do good to the listener. Although it is an imperative sentence, it has nothing to do with a command; secondly, be sure of choices the listener is given. “Return these books for me.” leaves the listener little choice while “Could you return these books for me by any chance?” passes on a possibility of refusal to the listener. Thirdly, be sure of the degree of indirectness. In some case, “These books are due, but I have no time to return them.” expresses an indirect request. Lastly, be sure of the degree of politeness. It is the result of the above three elements: more favorable, more polite; more indirect, more polite; more choices, more polite.
Concerning the Cooperative Principle, Leech thinks it just can restrain what people say in communication and how to comprehend each other?s conversational implication, whereas it cannot fully explain the reason why people do not say directly what they mean. Leech (1983: 80) regards politeness as significant in accounting for “why people are often so indirect in conveying what they mean”. He thus poses the Politeness Principle so as to “rescue the Cooperative Principle” in the sense that
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politeness can satisfactorily explain exceptions to and apparent deviations from the Cooperative Principle. Hence, his Politeness Principle is not just an addition to Grice?s Cooperative Principle, but a necessary complement needed for cases where the Cooperative Principle fails to offer a reasonable explanation. Here are two examples Leech uses to state that the Politeness Principle is necessary for the Cooperative Principle.
Example 2
A: We?ll all miss Bill and Agatha, won?t we? B: Well, we?ll all miss BILL. Example 3
P: Someone?s eaten the icing off the cake. C: It wasn?t ME.
(Leech, 1983:80)
In example 2, B answers the half of A?s question which obviously violate the maxim of quantity. B?s implication is “We won?t miss Agatha”. How to get this meaning? Clearly, this does not only depend on the Cooperative Principle, or B could continue “…but not Agatha”, which completely meets the Cooperative Principle. But that will be rude of Agatha. So B goes against the Cooperative Principle in favor of the Politeness Principle.
Example 3 is a dialogue between a parent and a child. P does not blame C directly and C?s defense seems violate the maxim of manner. P does not know who has eaten the icing on the cake, but is skeptical of C. Out of politeness, P does not blame C directly; what P says meets the maxim of quality but goes against the maxim of quantity. C grasps P?s indirect criticism and thus declares he or she does not eat. It can be seen C?s words appear to violate the maxim of relation for he or she answers P?s implication, which results from the Politeness Principle. (Leech, 1983:81)
On the base of these observations, Leech proposes six maxims of the Politeness Principle which runs as follows:
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Minimize (other things being equal) the expression of impolite beliefs and maximize (other things being equal) the expression of polite beliefs.
The six maxims of the Politeness Principle: Maxim of Tact
(ⅰ) Minimize cost to other (ⅱ) Maximize benefit to other Maxim of Generosity
(ⅰ) Minimize benefit to self (ⅱ) Maximize cost to self Maxim of Approbation
(ⅰ) Minimize dispraise of other (ⅱ) Maximize praise of other Maxim of Modesty
(ⅰ) Minimize praise of self (ⅱ) Maximize dispraise of self Maxim of Agreement
(ⅰ) Minimize disagreement between self and other (ⅱ) Maximize agreement between self and other Maxim of Sympathy
(ⅰ) Minimize antipathy between self and other (ⅱ) Maximize sympathy between self and other
From these maxims, it can be found that these six maxims emphasize different parts of words. Maxims of tact and generosity, maxims of approbation and modesty to are two-way things. Namely, maxim of tact to others means maxim of generosity to self; maxim of approbation to others means maxim of modesty to self. Yet the maxims of agreement and sympathy are unidirectional. The focus of the Politeness Principle is someone else not oneself, Therefore, in the thesis, the author tends to take advantage of Leech?s Politeness Principle to analyze teacher talk in college English classroom from the perspectives of six maxims of the Politeness Principle.
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