Broadening the Horizon of Linguistic Politeness
Pragmatics & Beyond New Series Editor Andreas H. Jucker University of Zurich, English Department Plattenstrasse 47, CH-8032 Zurich, Switzerland e-mail:
[email protected]
Associate Editors Jacob L. Mey University of Southern Denmark
Herman Parret Belgian National Science Foundation, Universities of Louvain and Antwerp
Jef Verschueren Belgian National Science Foundation, University of Antwerp
Editorial Board Shoshana Blum-Kulka
Catherine Kerbrat-Orecchioni
Hebrew University of Jerusalem
University of Lyon 2
Jean Caron
Claudia de Lemos
Université de Poitiers
University of Campinas, Brazil
Robyn Carston
Marina Sbisà
University College London
University of Trieste
Bruce Fraser
Emanuel Schegloff
Boston University
University of California at Los Angeles
Thorstein Fretheim
Deborah Schiffrin
University of Trondheim
Georgetown University
John Heritage University of California at Los Angeles
Paul O. Takahara Sandra Thompson
Susan Herring
University of California at Santa Barbara
University of Texas at Arlington
Teun A. Van Dijk
Masako K. Hiraga
Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona
St.Paul’s (Rikkyo) University
Richard J. Watts
David Holdcroft
University of Berne
University of Leeds
Sachiko Ide Japan Women’s University
Volume 139 Broadening the Horizon of Linguistic Politeness Edited by Robin T. Lakoff and Sachiko Ide
Broadening the Horizon of Linguistic Politeness Edited by
Robin T. Lakoff University of California, Berkeley
Sachiko Ide Japan Women’s University
John Benjamins Publishing Company Amsterdam/Philadelphia
8
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The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences – Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ansi z39.48-1984.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Broadening the Horizon of Linguistic Politeness / edited by Robin T. Lakoff and Sachiko Ide. p. cm. (Pragmatics & Beyond, New Series, issn 0922-842X ; v. 139) Includes bibliographical references and indexes. 1. Grammar, Comparative and general--Honorific. 2. Politeness (Linguistics) I. Lakoff, Robin Tolmach. II. Ide, Sachiko, 1939- III. Pragmatics & beyond ; new ser., 139. P299.H66.B767 2005 306.44--dc22 isbn 90 272 5382 X (Hb; alk. paper)
2005048400
© 2005 – John Benjamins B.V. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or any other means, without written permission from the publisher. John Benjamins Publishing Co. · P.O. Box 36224 · 1020 me Amsterdam · The Netherlands John Benjamins North America · P.O. Box 27519 · Philadelphia pa 19118-0519 · usa
Table of contents
Acknowledgments
ix
Foreword Jacob L. Mey
xi
Introduction: Broadening the horizon of linguistic politeness Robin Tolmach Lakoff and Sachiko Ide
1
Part I. General overviews: The plenary papers Civility and its discontents: Or, getting in your face Robin Tolmach Lakoff How and why honorifics can signify dignity and elegance: The indexicality and reflexivity of linguistic rituals Sachiko Ide Whither politeness Bruce Fraser
23
45 65
Part II. The theoretical perspective Yoroshiku onegaishimasu: Routine practice of the routine formula in Japanese Makiko Takekuro
87
An argument for a frame-based approach to politeness: Evidence from the use of the imperative in Cypriot Greek Marina Terkourafi
99
The significance of ‘face’ and politeness in social interaction as revealed through Thai ‘face’ idioms Margaret Ukosakul
117
Table of contents
Part III. The descriptive perspective Face threatening acts, primary face threatening acts, and the management of discourse: Australian English and speakers of Asian Englishes Christopher J. Conlan
129
Politeness in Thai computer-mediated communication Krisadawan Hongladarom and Soraj Hongladarom
145
Polite diminutives in Spanish: A matter of size? Martha Mendoza
163
Indirectness as a politeness strategy of Thai speakers Deeyu Srinarawat
175
Part IV. The comparative perspective Japanese honorifics as a marker of sociocultural identity: A view from non-Western perspective Megumi Yoshida and Chikako Sakurai
197
Directness as a source of misunderstanding: The case of requests and suggestions Alexandra Kallia
217
Forms of address in Irish and Swedish Anders Ahlqvist
235
Women, men and polite requests: English and Greek Ekaterini Kouletaki
245
Privacy: An intercultural perspective Mark Lê
275
Selection of linguistic forms for requests and offers: Comparison between English and Chinese Masako Tsuzuki, Kazuhiro Takahashi, Cynthia Patschke and Qin Zhang
283
Table of contents
Part V. The historical perspective Japanese pronouns of address: Their behavior and maintenance over time Andrew Barke and Satoshi Uehara
301
An aspect of the origins and development of linguistic politeness in Thai Wilaiwan Khanittanan
315
Author index
337
Subject index
341
Acknowledgments
An enterprise of this kind would not have been possible without the generous and sincere dedication of a great many people. This collection was first planned after the International Symposium on Linguistic Politeness was held in 1999 at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok, Thailand. Our gratitude goes to those who organized this uniquely productive conference. After the papers were selected for the collection, there were a number of difficulties to overcome. One of the difficulties was the result of the fact that the majority of the manuscripts were written by non-native speakers of English. The manuscripts had to be checked and rechecked by native English experts. Acknowledgment must be made to the work done by Dr. Krisadawan Hongladarom, who served as the key person responsible not only for having the manuscripts edited when needed, and checking all the manuscripts for their adherence to the style sheet, but also for contacting individual contributors and the copy editor of the publishing house. Dr. Soraj Hongladarom assisted her in getting the manuscripts into publishable form. Ms. Pananda Lerlertyutitham and Ms. Rachanin Pongudom at Chulalongkorn University faithfully served as assistants to Professor Krisadawan Hongladarom. Thanks also go to Ms. Makiko Takekuro, who served as an efficient assistant, when the two editors met at Berkeley in the summer of 2002. Our acknowledgment also goes to the two anonymous reviewers of this collection, who carefully read the manuscripts and provided us with insightful suggestions and comments. Their comments led us to choose the title “Broadening the Horizons of Linguistic Politeness”. Since the topic of linguistic politeness has its ‘raison d’étre’ in aiding successful communication throughout the world, we have to geographically balance the world-wide linguistic phenomena from which research results are brought to light. It is our hope that this collection illustrates the potential for broadening the horizons of linguistic politeness. The editors acknowledge gratefully the work of all those who share this goal and joined our enterprise. The Editors
Foreword
The Ancient Greeks had a particular notion, that of the akme (lit. ‘summit, top’) to capture a person’s reaching his (or her?) intellectual and moral zenith, a kind of holistic coming of age. In our hectic times, we both live longer and mature quicker, and it is no longer unusual to see people in their thirties assuming positions of great political and social importance. The field of politeness studies turns 30 this year. And similarly, we can say that it certainly has ripened over the three decades of its existence. The present collection celebrates, in a most fitting way, this coming of age. Most fitting, in particular, because two of the persons who have been at the forefront of the research on politeness during all of those 30 years, are now the editors of this not just commemorative, but truly new ground-breaking collection of articles. Robin Lakoff set the tone for a whole series of studies by her seminal 1973 paper ‘Minding your p’s and q’s’, in which she introduced an entire new vocabulary to talk about polite behavior and language use. And Sachiko Ide is best known for her successful efforts (as early as 1982) to break the Western dominance in the study of politeness and (in the true spirit of Lakoffian camaraderie) to suggest that we also look at aspects such as ‘discernment’ (the Japanese wakimae) that are often overlooked by researchers who are not familiar with other than Western norms and categorizations. This collection of 19 articles comes out of the 1999 International Symposium of Linguistic Politeness, held in Bangkok, Thailand. The contributions span a wide geographical and linguistic array, ranging all the way from Ireland and England over Sweden to China and Japan, from Australia over Thailand to Greece and Spain. Also, the languages represented are quite untypical for studies in this field: more than half of the contributions (even if not counting the three plenaries) stem from people working in such fields as Chinese, Japanese or Thai. Especially the studies of the latter language are most welcome, as Thai is a relative newcomer to the field, and most Western researchers have had little experience of, or exposure to, how Thai society is organizing itself around notions and practices such as politeness. Topic-wise, one finds not only ‘classical’ themes discussed (such as social class, gender, face, (in)directness and so
Foreword
on); newer approaches, too, are highlighted in various articles: first of all the notion of ‘discernment’, mentioned above, but also discourse analysis-related, computer-mediated, and other innovative approaches are found. Apart from the more individual language-oriented approaches, one finds a healthy dose of generalist, and more socially oriented views. Especially given the current trend towards interculturally oriented studies (as in the new, 2004, International Journal of Intercultural Pragmatics), one can safely predict that this volume will meet with enthusiastic response among a great variety of researchers in the diverse, directly or indirectly related, fields of sociolinguistics, anthropological linguistics, discourse analysis, media and other studies. The editors have done the international community a great service in compiling and intelligently editing this volume. They should not just be thanked for their efforts but rather, rewarded, by receiving our thanks in the form of targeted and stimulating feedback on their collection. I don’t think I’m sticking my neck out when I say that such a reaction will not be long in coming. Jacob L. Mey University of Southern Denmark & Universidade de Brasília, D.F., Brazil
References Ide, Sachiko (1982). Japanese sociolinguistics: politeness and women’s language. Lingua, 57, 357–385. Kecskés, István et al. (2004 & foll.). International Journal of Intercultural Pragmatics. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Lakoff, Robin Tolmach (1973). The logic of politeness: or, Minding your p’s and q’s. In C. Corum, T. C. Smith-Stark, & A. Weiser (Eds.), Papers from the Ninth Regional Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society (pp. 345–356). Chicago: Chicago Linguistic Society.
Introduction Broadening the horizon of linguistic politeness
.
Linguistic politeness?
Politeness, introduced into linguistics more than thirty years ago,1 since then has emerged as a vital and rapidly developing area of study. As it has grown, it has encountered questions about its appropriate concerns and potential that – as is typical in a rapidly growing field – have been tabled while basic issues were being examined. But at thirty, a field, like a person, is expected to have achieved some degree of maturity, and it therefore must confront issues that in its youth it could ignore. It is time to ask where the study of politeness is today and where it is going, and to try to reconcile the paradoxes and contradictions that arise from the consideration of larger and more vexing issues: universality and inclusiveness. The International Symposium on Linguistic Politeness (ISLP), where these papers were presented, was convened at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok in December, 1999, to celebrate the field’s coming of age and to offer an opportunity to assess its current status and future potential. Of over forty papers that were presented, we have selected for this volume some of the strongest demonstrations of the maturity of the field.2 When we speak of the recent emergence of the field of linguistic politeness, we mean just that. Of course examinations of politeness, systematic and anecdotal, have been a part of many scholarly and artistic fields. One could cite as ancestors a set of personages as various and eminent as Jane Austen, Sigmund Freud, and Margaret Mead. One could probably trace origins and connections as far back as the travelers’ tales of writers like Marco Polo, and as different in function from modern social science writings as the cautionary tales brought back to the west by Christian missionaries. During the early twentieth century, anthropologists began to objectively examine the differences in interpersonal behavior among diverse cultures, noting that what one group considered polite or proper, another might find bizarre or rude. While all cultures seem to pos-
Introduction
sess notions of what was appropriate or polite in specific contexts, there was no universal agreement about which behaviors fell under that rubric. One important contribution that should be mentioned here as vital to today’s research is the anthropologist/sociologist Erving Goffman’s (1967) Interaction Ritual, which introduced the invaluable concept of face. So explorations in older fields set the stage for the study of politeness within the newer field of linguistics, and the still newer ones of sociolinguistics and linguistic pragmatics. But this fact raises a question: if politeness can be and has been studied within many traditional fields, what is the contribution of linguistics? Is linguistics equipped to study interactive, not strictly language-related, behavior? What is the scope of the linguistic grammar? The organizers of ISLP, and the editors of this volume, see the study of politeness as necessarily interdisciplinary. The very fact that its provenance is impossible to pin down, that it resists assignment to any single field, means that a particular kind of mindset is needed to study it: from a theoretical perspective, one that is not overly concerned with turf and disciplinary boundaries; and, from the perspective of the data upon which the theory must be based, a deep understanding of more than one culture and a willingness to transcend the blinders that one’s own culture imposes. Consider the most important words in the title of this volume: “Linguistic Politeness.” From some viewpoints it might seem tautologous; from others, self-contradictory. We naturally feel otherwise. But people will make their judgments based on what they understand “linguistic” to mean. On the one hand, “linguistic” means “having to do with language.” Using this definition, some might feel that the term “linguistic politeness” was tautologous, since most of the behavior considered “polite” is accomplished through language. In that sense, there is very little “politeness” that is not “linguistic.” On the other, the word has also been taken to mean, “having to do with the field of linguistics, governed by the rules and laws of that field.” Since many regard the boundaries of “linguistics” as delimited by the so-called “core” areas of phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax and – grudgingly – a narrow version of semantics, in that case no study of politeness can be “linguistic,” since any examination of politeness must reach beyond the core for explanation and analysis. (In other words, we could study indirectness, or honorifics, within syntax or morphology; but to connect the two as aspects of human socialization – that is, to see them as “polite” – would be to transcend the limits of linguistics. From this perspective, then, the title is self-contradictory: there can be no such thing as “linguistic politeness.”)
Introduction
The organizers of ISLP and the editors of this volume subscribe to neither theory. We have chosen the terminology “linguistic politeness” in order to express a couple of relevant beliefs: –
–
that politeness is largely, but by no means exclusively, linguistic behavior. There is linguistic (language-based) politeness, and extra-linguistic politeness. As linguists, we stress the former in our work, but it has to be understood as part of a larger whole. Language and non-language behaviors are in all likelihood parts of a single system, to which similar theories and methods of analysis must be applied. Hence, theories that insist on the distinctness of linguistic and non-linguistic behavior, or organization in the mind or brain, are vitiated by the existence of politeness, since it includes both. that linguistics cannot remain the study exclusively of “core” language phenomena. The complete grammar that, perhaps, eventually linguists will be able to construct for the languages of the world will have to incorporate pragmatic and sociolinguistic knowledge; and pragmatics may well turn out to be the “core” of the core, the explanatory basis for much of the rest. Why, for example, do languages have syntactically different ways of expressing similar ideas? Consider these sets: Would you mind opening the window? Open the window. The window is closed, dammit! I broke the dish. The dish got broken.
It seems to us a poor theory of syntax that ignores the relationships among the members of each set above: their formal differences as well as their functional similarities. Autonomous syntax theories are said to produce “simpler” or more economical grammars – but this illusion, however tempting, is deceptive, because it ignores the fact that language is engaged in for the purpose of communication. Since the late 1950s, linguists have been forced to choose between the ultimate irrelevance of autonomous formal “core” approaches, and the immense complexity and indeterminacy of multisystematic perspectives.3 The complete understanding of politeness as a unifying force bringing together a theory of language and theories of human motivation, behavior, and culture rests on our willingness to accept indeterminacy and to deal with it as rigorously as we can – and never to insist on formalism for its own sake.
Introduction
. Linguistic politeness? But agreement that politeness is a valid topic for linguistic study begs perhaps another question: what is “politeness”? Does the English term “politeness” coincide perfectly with apparent synonyms used in other languages? A perfect match would be extraordinary: anyone who has tried to translate from one language into another knows that true synonymy across language boundaries is rare.4 It is rare enough within language boundaries. In English there are several words in common use that cover the area under discussion: polite, courteous, civil, mannerly, and genteel are all offered as synonyms on page 1401 of the 1990 edition of the American Heritage Dictionary. Mannerly seems to have become uncommon in current American English; genteel (at least in California in 2005) is seldom used except with ironic intent. Let us consider the other three. Polite . . . impl[ies] consideration for others and the adherence to conventional standards expected of a well-bred person. . .. Civil suggests only the barest observance of accepted social images; it often means neither polite nor rude. . . . Courteous implies courtliness and dignity. . ..
The existence of these choices hints at the complexity of the topic addressed here. Politeness itself is twofold: it involves both “consideration for others,” that is, adherence to the rules, whether a culture frames them in terms of face and FTA-avoidance or as something else, i.e., wakimae; and the “adherence to conventional standards,” i.e., the expectation that the rules will be followed, that all parties to a discourse are “well-bred” persons – that is, knowledge of the rules. Polite behavior per se avoids confrontation and conflict (that is, face threat); but at the same time, the fact that you and I are polite to each other signifies to each of us that we are well-bred members of the same culture (wakimae, or “discernment”: Ide 1989). To our knowledge, no previous discussions of western FTA-based politeness make use of or even comment explicitly on this duality, the workings of which can be summarized as follows. Suppose two people engage in an interchange in which both follow the rules of politeness. Not only do they thus avoid conflict (FTA-avoidance), but by operating in this way they implicitly signify to each other: (1) that they are members of the same group, a we, who are connected by their acknowledgment of the same system; (2) that they are both good (virtuous and proper) members of that group: they are both “well-bred.”We could call this understanding of understandings
Introduction
“metapoliteness,” contrasted with the simple politeness of FTA-avoidance. Or we could borrow Ide’s term wakimae for the latter case.
The American Heritage Dictionary’s contrast between politeness and civility in English brings up still another distinction. Normally we see acts of politeness as positive choices. Those expressions of willingness, however conventional, signify our acceptance of one another as persons whose feelings and responses we care about. Civility, on the other hand, seems to imply some level of duress or at least non-genuineness: it is neutral where politeness is positive and rudeness negative. To be civil is to do the bare minimum to avoid conflict and bad feelings, but often in a way that indicates that one would just as soon not be doing so. Thus we say, reprovingly, “You might at least be civil about it,” or “keep a civil tongue in your head.” Politeness is the quality achieved by education or polish in the social arts: it goes beyond the bare minimum required to keep a society cohesive, and is seen as an adornment to a person’s behavior. Civility etymologically is behaving like a citizen, acting in a political rather than a social role, one in which keeping order is the goal, not achieving friendly intercourse. Courtesy goes beyond mere politeness in positive associations, suggesting warmth and interest in the other person’s welfare. Etymologically, courtesy is behavior learned at, and suited for, the royal court: not just anyone can use it or merits it, but only those of noble birth. It is not merely the lowest common denominator required in civil society, nor is it the superficial polish of politeness. Thus courtesy is less apt to be conventionalized than politeness, and civility is largely conventional – what is required, not what is felt.5 So finding an all-encompassing definition of politeness is no easy task. Even if scholars agree that this behavior is rule-governed like other aspects of language, the rules in any culture must be highly complex and context-based; and the problem of making connections across cultures and across linguistic grammars will be daunting.
. Politeness comes into linguistics: The role of generative semantics If we agree that politeness is an appropriate concern of linguistics, another question arises: how did politeness become part of linguistics? To understand that, it is useful to recall some history. For generations linguists have set up an impermeable barrier between the universal grammarians who believe that the interesting things about language are the properties that all languages share, a commonality based on the sim-
Introduction
ilarities among all human minds, which shape and recognize the processes humans use to communicate with one another; and the contrastive or comparative grammarians, who feel that the most interesting aspect of language is its diversity, the fact that the same ideas are expressed in different languages in very different forms. The latter position was first articulated in modern linguistics by the American Structuralists led by Leonard Bloomfield (especially in Language, 1933). The former position is that of Noam Chomsky (e.g., 1964). Linguists who entered the field via the social sciences were apt to embrace the contrastivist position; those whose interests centered in mathematics or philosophy, the universalist. That argument, though the amount of attention given it waxes and wanes, has never really subsided nor has it been resolved to anyone’s satisfaction. As so often when dealing with the human mind and its products, both sides are right: we must agree to disagree, or agree that languages share many universal components, but also differ in surprising and unpredictable ways. A full analysis of any phenomenon must go both deep and wide. That is equally true of politeness studies. Scholars have noticed that all cultures recognize a set of behaviors and attitudes as “polite”; and yet that the particular sorts of behavior so identified may differ from culture to culture; different manifestations of polite behavior are expected by members of different cultures under similar circumstances; and in general, when, how, and to whom to be polite may differ considerably from one culture to another. (Anyone who has spent time in more than one society has experienced these differences, often with embarrassment and confusion.) So politeness can profitably be studied from both universalist and contrastivist perspectives, and indeed has been studied in both ways. Either universalists or comparativists had reasons to bring politeness into linguistics. But it was Generative Semantics, an offspring of transformational grammar, a universalizing theory, that had the need to do so, and therefore developed the means. Generative Semantics developed at M.I.T. within the Chomskyan transformationalist community in the mid-1960s, although at first its proponents merely thought of their work as deepening and strengthening the Chomskyan syntactic base, or Deep Structure.6 While many differences emerged between Standard (and Extended Standard) Theory and Generative Semantics in their views of language, the form and function of the grammar, the relation among the components of grammar, the extent of universality, and much more, one recurrent dispute concerned the role of extra-linguistic material in the linguistic (syntactic) grammar. In general, GSists wanted to be able to incorporate such material – for instance, psychological and social information available
Introduction
to speakers and having linguistic corrrelates (whether formally grammaticalized or not) – and ESTists didn’t. GS wanted to incorporate assumptions and presuppositions – for instance, speakers’ positive or negative attitudes toward propositions, represented in the choice of some versus any; or the recognition that the existence of a choice among: Go home! Would you mind going home? Isn’t that your mother calling you?
meant that syntactic form depended at least in part on speakers’ judgments about the interpersonal context in which their utterances were located. This information, according to GS, was present at the deepest level of syntactic analysis (the Underlying Structure, GS’s replacement for the Standard Theory’s Deep Structure). ESTists fought this argument vociferously on several grounds, for example: if “anything” that might enter a speaker’s awareness required Underlying Structure representation, US’s would be immensely complex, numerous, and infinite – that is, unable to function as part of a formal generative grammar. Even if such structures could be listed in a finite way, those lists would be vague and very long. Generative Semanticists agreed that these problems were serious but not deadly. True, the incorporation of this material into the grammar entailed a much more complex syntactic component than EST envisaged. But the pluses outweighed the minuses: the insight gained into the relationship between language and mind, and the eventual simplification of the grammar as a whole, were worth the apparent complications. And it might well be possible to devise a rigorous and predictive way of incorporating these new insights, so that they would function in a way parallel to the rest of the transformational grammar. One path toward a solution was offered by the theories and analyses of ordinary language philosophers, in particular J. L. Austin (1962) and H. P. Grice (1975). Their aim was to provide a rigorous (if informal) treatment of “ordinary” (that is, non-logical) language: to show that, even though on the surface utterances seemed to lack cohesion or clarity, with the use of a few assumptions (the Performative Hypothesis; Illocutionary Force; Conversational Implicature), a clear, succinct and informative intention could be discovered. Ordinary language philosophy, like EST and GS, is universalizing: it assumes that the structures it hypothesizes exist in all languages because they represent the working of all human minds. In this respect, they dovetail neatly with Chomskyan Deep Structure and even better with GS Underlying Structure.
Introduction
The incorporation of these theories into GS gave linguistics a way to relate form, meaning, and function (creating what GS eventually called pragmantax: the interface between syntax, semantics, and pragmatics). It also allowed the positing of connections between linguistic form and social or interactional functions – that is, the intersection with sociolinguistics (not yet a fully-developed field): we may choose indirectness, for instance, in order to avoid offense; we may use passive forms in order to deny responsibility for the propositions we are uttering (“the dishes got broken,” rather than, “I broke the dishes”). To ignore these options, GS argued, was to abandon the possibility of explanatory adequacy in any theory of syntax. Surely “explanation” had to include not only an accounting for the order of lexical items in a sentence, but also the reasons for choosing a syntactically more complex construction rather than a simpler one. Explanation for linguistic form required an excursus into psychological and social functions and systems. Linguistics had to become truly interdisciplinary, borrowing from other disciplines (not only philosophy, but also anthropology, psychology, and sociology). Standard transformational grammar embraced interdisciplinarity, as long as their version of linguistics colonized other fields and not vice versa. GS was (marginally) more open to true interpenetration and collaboration. From this theoretical disputation arose the notion of politeness as a topic amenable to incorporation within linguistics. If the Gricean Cooperative Principle accounts (in a more or less predictive way) for our ability to understand one another’s superficially illogical productions, it can explain or predict our use of many kinds of indirect forms (that is, those interpretable via Implicature) in a conventionalized and systematic way. Politeness might be a good test case for the utility of the Cooperative Principle. Unlike other functions of Conversational Implicature, it involves rigorously predictable (and often even grammaticalized) relationships.7 It seems to occur in somewhat similar fashion across languages and cultures, and yet to work differently across linguistic and societal boundaries (and when faux pas occurred in cross-cultural conversations, they could be explained as violations of rules or principles, which could then be learned like other linguistic rules). Interestingly, while Grice’s system seems (at least on some readings8 ) to view utterances based directly on the Maxims as unmarked, with Implicatures marked and requiring explanation, in many types of discourse politeness-based implicature supersedes clarity-based Maxim-adherence. That is, in daily intercourse, when faced with a choice between clarity and politeness, people normally opt in favor of the latter. That suggests that politeness is not just a superficial addition to a grammar in which directness (i.e., non-politeness) is basic.
Introduction
Rather, the behavior that a culture calls “polite” is an intrinsic and sometimes unmarked part of a communicative system. The choice of polite forms then plays a significant role in linguistic behavior, at least if there is a rough equivalence between “language” and “communication.” And the fact that speakers can tell intuitively whether an utterance is polite, rude, or something in between suggests (by the same logic Chomsky used to argue for transformational rules) that the system is rule-governed. Therefore, it is the business of linguists to determine the systematics of politeness. So, by the early 1970s, the GS project involved a strong commitment to extending the sphere of linguistic influence. As suggested in Lakoff (1989), the Generative Semanticists were still more loyal Chomskyans than either group thought: they still believed that these extra-linguistic behaviors had to be incorporated into the syntactic base of the grammar, while today many of the survivors might still insist on a connection, but see the basis of the linguistic grammar as interactional or psychological (or perhaps, ultimately, neurological), with social and pragmatic considerations motivating the syntax rather than vice versa. The notion of interconnectedness among levels and psychosocial systems is crucial, and over the years since then it has been the inspiration for the work presented here. The system proposed in Lakoff (1973) was an attempt to incorporate politeness into the core grammar, not to provide a complete and universal systematics of politeness cross-culturally, or a means of computing the explicit form an utterance might take under different contextual conditions. It was a first demonstration of the interfaces between language, psychology and society – that is, syntax, sociolinguistics, and pragmatics; and an examination of the role of the individual in creating and using a grammar (pragmatics) and the role of the social context in which individuals are necessarily situated (sociolinguistics). Borrowing from pragmatics, politeness theory makes use of ideas such as: – – – – –
systematic rules or principles; speech acts (or utterances) as basic to language; speech as world-changing; indirectness as intentional and interpretable; the multiplicity of ways to express the same idea.
From sociolinguistics, politeness theory incorporates: –
the universality of the phenomena of politeness across languages and cultures;
Introduction
– –
the typological differences in the realizations of “politeness” in different cultures; the different forms and functions of politeness across social contexts and discourse genres within a culture.
And these connections lead to other questions: can we frame a universal theory of politeness? Or should we understand the politeness of different cultures in different terms?
. Theories of politeness across the East/West divide: FTA-avoidance vs. wakimae We have spoken above at some length of the major competing theories of politeness: Penelope Brown and Stephen C. Levinson’s9 (1987) concept of face, face-threats, and face-threat avoidance; and Sachiko Ide’s (1989) discussion of the importance of wakimae in explaining politeness in Japanese and other Asian cultures. The two views may be synopsized in the following table:10
Locus Function Context Relationship
FTA-avoidance
wakimae
West (overtly, covertly in Japan and other Asian cultures) conflict avoidance (or denial) individuals by themselves I vs. you
Japan (and perhaps Asia generally) appropriateness to situation group (ba) we
It is true that Brown and Levinson’s system makes use of contextualizing devices in their equation: Wx = D(S, H) + P(H, S) + Rx, but only as an adjunct to the larger system, rather than the central focus of it. So perhaps the distinction that needs to be made between east and west is not that they utilize completely different systems, but that each system places different amounts of emphasis on one FTA-avoidance or wakimae. But as much as all of us would like to see, and devise, a system of universal politeness, there are real obstacles in our path. None of us is free of our culture and its rules. Linguists (like other social scientists) strive for an objective and culture-free perspective; but striving is not achieving. Westerners, and
Introduction
particularly Americans, as the culturally dominant group in the world today, find it virtually impossible not to see behavior through the veil imposed by our own society and the rules we unconsciously assimilated as children. As social scientists, we are (we hope) beyond the “weird foreigners” or “inscrutable Asians” stereotypes, but as sophisticated as we feel, we still wear blinders: our ways still seem the “normal” ones, and those of others require explanation. Or – another way cultural imperialism insinuates itself – we adopt the Cinderella’s slipper approach: we attempt to fit all other systems into an explanatory model that appears to work well for our own, since our own languages and cultures are, almost invariably, the ones upon which “universal” theories (like Gricean conversational logic, or FTA-avoidant politeness) are based. Unquestionably there are universals of language and universals of culture. So a claim that a system proposed for and first tested on English is equally applicable to the world’s other 6,000 languages is not inherently ridiculous. But such a claim must be subjected to meticulous testing, and that testing cannot be done by cultural outsiders (as Brown and Levinson, for all their expertise in non-Indo European languages, are for Tzeltal, Tamil, and the other languages they cite as exemplary of the workings of their system). Until native participants are in a position to construct their own systematicities without pressure from Euro-based models, every allegedly universal system is open to suspicion. The writers of this Introduction are native participants in two very diverse languages and cultures; and while each of us can probably speak with some confidence about the workings of her own culture’s politeness system, it is not yet apparent to either of us that we are reliably able to construct or critique a supersystem that would encompass both of them, much less any that purports to be truly universal. Early transformational theorists were overconfident about universality: we were prone to observations to the effect that a syntactic phenomenon that was observed in English and German must be universal. We have learned to be much more cautious about syntactic universals; we must be equally so for pragmatic and sociolinguistic ones. So the question remains very much alive for the future: can a single system be devised that incorporates the intuitions of both FTA-avoidance and wakimae, and is applicable to all cultures? Or is an attempt to find a single explanation for politeness itself an error, an indication of our failure to appreciate the full range of human behavior?
Introduction
. Beyond linguistics: The importance of being polite, or at least understanding politeness We have spoken above of the importance of politeness in theories of pragmatics, sociolinguistics, and even core linguistics (and could extend the discussion to include the social sciences generally, and no doubt the humanities as well). But as with much of the subject matter of sociolinguistics and pragmatics, our theories have repercussions beyond academia, in the outside world. As the world grows increasingly global, better communication across national and societal boundaries becomes increasingly essential. Where once dominant groups could see the communicative strategies of others as silly or irrelevant, now even the strongest powers are coming to realize that survival entails understanding their politically weaker interlocutors. The point was first made forcefully in the area of gender. As we began to realize in the early 1970s, men and women spoke “different languages” – or more accurately, used the same linguistic forms with different intents and understandings. Until the dawn of the modern women’s movement during that period, men had been pretty well able to ignore what women meant by their communicative strategies; and when the latter were studied at all, generally by men, it was almost always in derogatory tones. Once women achieved social and economic positions in which they could say no (and other rude things) to men, men had to make efforts to bridge the communication gap – as signified by the tremendous popular success of Tannen (1991). Communication across national and linguistic boundaries today has a status similar to that of cross-gender communication in the early 1970s. Because other nations are rising in political and economic power, and the formerly impregnable (economically and otherwise) USA is being forced to see itself as a partner rather than a hegemonic boss, the next logical step will be the recognition that we all have to understand each other better if we are all to survive and flourish together. Politeness (or courtesy, or civility) is essential in this enterprise, and a general understanding, by Americans as well as others, of how to be respectful and friendly to others is intrinsic to the world’s continued health. Politeness studies are poised to break out of their academic enclave: the present volume is offered as a first step in that direction: an overview, however academic, of the state of the field at the opening of the new millennium and the new world order.
Introduction
. Overview of the volume The Bangkok conference included 40 papers (and three invited plenary addresses). From those 40 presentations we have selected the fifteen that represent the most interesting and innovative explorations of politeness theory and application. In keeping with the title of this volume, Broadening the Horizon of Linguistic Politeness, we have assigned each paper to one of four perspectives: The Theoretical Perspective, The Descriptive Perspective, The Comparative Perspective, and The Historical Perspective – often a difficult decision, since many of the papers could be assigned to more than one section. The first section, “General Overviews,” contains the plenary lectures.
Part I. General overviews: The plenary papers The first paper in this section is “Civility and its discontents; Or, getting in your face” by Robin Lakoff. Lakoff discusses “the role politeness expectations play at the level of discourse and social structure.” Why is politeness more important for some societies than others? For example, contemporary American culture has recently been criticized by pundits as becoming less “civil” or more “agonistic” – colloquially, getting in your face. Lakoff argues that while Americans may be becoming less concerned with traditional modes of civility, as demonstrated in the public discourse of the media, this may not be a bad thing: it may be an indication that new groups with new rules and old grievances are achieving a public voice – even if that voice is sometimes a raspy one. She reflects as well on the events set in motion on September 11, 2001: is there a larger or deeper problem with American discourse on an international scale than mere incivility, a problem whose repercussions might include the horrific events of that day? In her paper, “How and why honorifics can signify dignity or elegance: The indexicality and reflexivity of linguistic rituals,” Sachiko Ide discusses the honorific systems found in Asian languages (such as Japanese and Thai) and how they are understood. She notes that these phenomena “have not been well dealt with in the frameworks of the linguistic and pragmatic traditions of Western oriented scholarship,” and offers a corrective proposal. Westerners, if they understand honorifics at all, often see them as an excrescence on the languages that have them – something that can be removed without changing the effective nature of the language or the culture it represents. Ide shows that this is a gross misunderstanding: the honorific system is intrinsic and essential to the working of Japanese society, and to the self-image of speakers of Japanese. Japanese
Introduction
and other high-context cultures require explicit information about the relative status and connectedness of interlocutors, in order for communication to succeed between them. Bruce Fraser’s paper, “Whither politeness,” reexamines the most important of the bases of politeness theory, the work of Penelope Brown and Stephen Levinson, and offers trenchant critique and some suggestions for changes in their model. The importance of face, the FTA, and power relations may not be the same across cultures (as Ide’s paper and her other work have suggested in the case of Japanese). Fraser offers some possibilities for extensions and revisions of the theory.
Part II. The theoretical perspective This section includes papers that explicitly or otherwise force a reexamination of current politeness theory, or bring new analytical techniques to its study. For example, the first paper in this section, “Yoroshiku onegaishimasu: Routine practice of the routine formula in Japanese,” by Makiko Takekuro. In this paper, Takekuro examines a complex lexical item and shows that, in order to predict its range of occurrence, it is necessary to understand the complete social relationship that exists between speaker and addressee. What earlier theorists might have dismissed as a mere formulaic phrase is shown to encapsulate a microcosm of Japanese language and society: without an understanding of the latter, it is impossible to use the expression correctly. Hence any attempt (à la Brown and Levinson) to segregate linguistic from extra-linguistic aspects of language usage will founder on this word. In the next paper, “An argument for a frame-based approach to politeness: Evidence from the use of the imperative in Cypriot Greek,” Marina Terkourafi, using data from a modern Greek dialect, proposes that we view politeness not as adherence to a set of grammatical rules, but as speakers’ making judgments of the expectations or norms in a conversation. Speakers recognize that they are participating in a specific frame and tailor their contributions so as to have unmarked status within that frame. So politeness, rather than (as in conventional theories) imposing an additional layer of meaning, in fact simplifies the task of meaning-making for interlocutors. The final paper in this section is by Margaret Ukosakul, “The significance of ‘face’ and politeness in social interaction as revealed through Thai ‘face’ idioms.” While “face” has been a basic aspect of politeness theory, some caution is necessary since the concept was imported into Western social science discourse from the usage of Asian cultures by an outsider to those cultures
Introduction
(Goffman 1967) – a process, as we have remarked above, fraught with the dangers of oversimplification and misunderstanding. Recognition of those dangers should suggest the appropriateness of a return to the source of the concept, by native participants in the cultures within which it originated. This paper demonstrates one way to reach an understanding of what “face” means in those cultures: a close examination of Thai idioms that use the word.
Part III. The descriptive perspective The papers in this section, while they make useful contributions to the theory of politeness, stress the detailed examination of politeness-based behavior in a particular language, viewed through the perspective of extant theories. Thus the first paper in this section, by Christopher J. Conlan, “Face threatening acts, primary face threatening acts, and the management of discourse: Australian English and speakers of Asian Englishes,” “seeks to develop a perspective on linguistic politeness as it relates specifically to discourse organization.” Conlan introduces the concept of the Primary FTA: a speech act “by means of which pragmatic goals are ultimately attempted but which depend for their success on being adequately framed by focussed discourse-specific and context-specific FTAs.” Conlan suggests that problems that occur between speakers of different forms of English could be the result of different expectations on the part of each in terms of the production and understanding of PFTAs. The next paper, “Politeness in Thai computer-mediated communication,” by Krisadawan Hongladarom and Soraj Hongladarom, examines the development and negotiation of politeness in a new discourse genre, the transactions of participants in virtual communities on the Internet, specifically Thai speakers. They reflect on the influence of such communities on the culture as a whole, suggesting that computer mediated communication is currently effecting change in Thai culture, perhaps most noticeably in politeness behavior. Politeness is often thought of as necessitated by face-to-face interaction with known others: what happens when communication is virtual and interlocutors anonymous? Martha Mendoza’s paper, “Polite diminutives in Spanish: A matter of size?” investigates a category of Spanish lexical items that has become grammaticalized. Originally the use of a diminutive made reference to the small size of the referent alone. Over time diminutives have acquired more abstract and complex meanings, including a polite usage, which can be interpreted as negative politeness. The paper examines the development and usage of diminutives in this function.
Introduction
The final paper in this section is by Deeyu Srinarawat, “Indirectness as a politeness strategy of Thai speakers.” The author examines the forms and functions of Thai indirect speech acts in conversations, and finds that indirectness in Thai is most common in interrogative speech acts, followed by declaratives and then imperatives. In Thai indirectness is mainly used for the sake of irony. An important conclusion is the fact that while indirect forms exist in all languages, their range of use and intended function may differ across linguistic boundaries.
Part IV. The comparative perspective Because politeness transcends language and culture, scholars have always been interested in the ways politeness may differ cross-culturally and crosslinguistically: in form, in function, in appropriate contextualization. The location of this conference in Bangkok did a great deal to encourage crossfertilization, the coming together of researchers from all over the world to compare politeness in their respective societies. In this sense all the papers presented here have a multicultural perspective, but the papers assigned to this section have it as an explicit and principal focus. This is variously accomplished: by using data from two or more different linguistic sources; or by contrasting the perspective of analysts from within the same culture as the data, to the views of outside observers. An example of the second approach is found in the first paper in this group, by Megumi Yoshida and Chikako Sakurai, “Japanese honorifics as a marker of sociocultural identity: A view from non-Western perspective.” This paper examines the Japanese honorific system using data from spontaneous conversations. The authors suggest that honorific usage and choice of honorifics can be explained only by taking into account psychological and social information about the interlocutors: their sense of their individual identities, the roles they play relative to each other, and the real-world situation in which they are speaking. The information to which a Japanese speaker must be privy in order to speak and understand appropriately is in this way different from, and more complex than, what must be available to speakers of western languages, at least in terms of computing their explicit utterances. In the next paper, “Directness as a source of misunderstanding: The case of requests and suggestions,” Alexandra Kallia examines the use of such speech acts in the conversations of English, Greek, and German speakers. The author notes that the two types of speech acts are used under different conditions in each culture, and discovers in her data significant misunderstandings in cross-
Introduction
linguistic communications on this basis. While speakers of all three languages use suggestions, each uses them in somewhat different forms, so that speakers of one language intending to be polite may be heard by speakers of another language as rude. The paper by Anders Ahlqvist, “Forms of address in Irish and Swedish,” examines a remarkable feature shared by both but uncommon elsewhere European languages: the existence of a single second person pronoun in the singular, and another in the plural. Although the two languages share this trait, in each language it developed differently and at different times. In Irish, the situation developed naturally and has been the case for a long time; in Swedish, it results from the political reforms of the 1960s, and was introduced from above. Ekaterini Kouletaki’s paper, “Women, men and polite requests: English and Greek,” as the title suggests involves a complex four-way comparison of both culture and gender. Using a questionnaire, the author found that men and women within the same culture had different ideas about what was polite under different conditions; and that members of the same gender but different cultures did too. Greek men are much more direct than English men, and Greek women more direct than English women, but the latter are less direct than the former. Greeks of both genders tend to use humor and other inclusive strategies for the sake of politeness more than the English do. As a result, the English tend to see Greeks as rude, although the Greeks’ intention is to be polite. Mark Lê, in “Privacy: An intercultural perspective,” considers behavior that can, if misunderstood, create really serious problems in communicating across boundaries. What members of one group consider friendly interest, members of another may interpret as rudely intrusive. How important is “privacy” in a culture, and how is the need for it negotiated? Finally, “Selection of linguistic forms for requests and offers: Comparison between English and Chinese,” by Masako Tsuzuki, Kazuhiro Takahashi, Cynthia Patschke, and Qin Zhang, illustrates first of all the advantages of having a cross-cultural group of investigators. It looks at the relative politeness of imperative forms vs. questions in requests beneficial to the addressee (i.e., suggestions), in English and Chinese. While with close friends the simple imperative is more common in both languages, otherwise in both a question form is preferred. But the languages differ for suggestions (what the authors call “beneficial requests”) in close and equal relationships: imperatives are much more common in Chinese than in English in such cases. These findings suggest that Chinese is more positive-politeness oriented than English.
Introduction
Part V. The historical perspective The final two papers in this volume look at historical change in the politeness systems of two languages, Japanese and Thai. Historical pragmatics is an area that is difficult to study and consequently has received comparatively little attention, so we are especially happy to have received papers that focus on that theme. How do politeness systems develop? What aspects of them change over time? The first of these papers is by Andrew Barke and Satoshi Uehara, “Japanese pronouns of address: Their behavior and maintenance over time.” Based on a survey of second person singular pronouns in older and contemporary Japanese, the authors find new strategies have developed in several areas: indirect or locative nouns, polite nominal prefixes and suffixes, and the use of Chinese-based titles of respect in which politeness is part of the word’s morphology. The investigators find that women play a major role in these changes. “An aspect of the origins and development of linguistic politeness in Thai,” by Wilaiwan Khanittanan, explores analogous phenomena in Thai. The author shows that the development of Thai politeness systems was instigated by the plurality of cultures that became modern Thailand. The various cultures jockeyed for linguistic and other forms of preeminence over time, resulting in a highly complex politeness system. In recent times, pressure for modernization has also had effects on the system. It is our hope that this volume will be a useful contribution to the understanding of politeness across disciplines, cultures, languages, and time. As we have said, this moment is especially propitious: in academia, we are developing and testing new theories and perspectives for the fuller understanding of interactional behavior, of which politeness is one aspect. In the larger world, we have recently been made acutely aware of our need to understand both the universality of politeness in all cultures, and the different ways in which the desire to be polite can be manifested in each. Robin Tolmach Lakoff Sachiko Ide
Notes . The first such publication was probably Lakoff (1973). . Additional testimony to the maturity and development of this field is the publication of Eelen (2001).
Introduction . One of the first and still most profound discussions of this controversy is in Labov (1972). . Ide et al. (1992) compares the concept of politeness with its Japanese equivalent, “teineina.” The authors find (based on questionnaires administered to American and Japanese students) that while the English words “polite” and “friendly” are categorized similarly as “good,” the Japanese “teineina” and “shitashigena” are organized along different dimensions: the former as “good,” the latter as “friendly.” . Possibly the distinction between civility and courtesy is seen in a familiar passage from Macbeth, in which the king is gloomily reflecting on what he has to look forward to for the rest of his life: And that which should accompany old age, As honour, love, obedience, troops of friends, I must not look to have; but, in their stead, Curses, not loud but deep, mouth-honour, breath, Which the poor heart would fain deny but dare not. (Act V, Scene III, ll. 24–28) As king, Macbeth would normally expect courtesy; but having forfeited that through bad behavior, since he is king he can still expect civility (“mouth-honour, breath. . ..”) – a poor second choice. . For discussion of Deep Structure, see Chomsky (1964); for a discussion of the quarrel between Generative Semantics and Extended Standard Theory, see Lakoff (1989). . Leech (1983) treats politeness not as one reason for CI, but as a subcase of the Maxim of Manner. This seems not the best way to incorporate politeness into Conversational Logic, since polite utterances – like Implicatures generally – requires some computation and often special knowledge to be interpreted, whereas Maxim-obedient utterances are by definition intelligible on their face. . For instance Matsumoto (1989). . Perhaps here is as good a time as any to mention that readers may be puzzled that Brown and Levinson, very much recognized as major influences in the development of politeness theory, are not contributors to this volume. For the record, they were invited to attend the conference and contribute, but declined. . The two systems have generally been viewed not as competitive but as parallel, one explaining the practices of the east, the other of the west. But another way to understand the duality is that a rapprochement may be possible: a universal theory of politeness might require both (or aspects of both) to be applicable in some or all cultures. In any case, the bifurcated model below represents current understanding.
References Austin, J. L. (1962). How to Do Things with Words. Oxford: Clarendon. Bloomfield, Leonard (1933). Language. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston.
Introduction
Brown, Penelope & Levinson, Stephen C. (1987). Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Chomsky, Noam A. (1964). Aspects of the Theory of Syntax. Cambridge, MA: The M.I.T. Press. Eelen, Gino (2001). A Critique of Politeness Theories. Encounters, Vol. 1. Manchester, UK: St. Jerome Publishing. Fillmore, Charles (1981). “Pragmatics and the description of discourse”. In Peter Cole (Ed.), Radical Pragmatics (pp. 143–166). New York: Academic Press. Goffman, Erving (1967). Interaction Ritual: Essays on Face-to-Face Interaction. Garden City, New York: Doubleday. Grice, H. P. (1975). “Logic and conversation”. In Peter Cole & Jerry L. Morgan (Eds.), Syntax and Semantics 3: Speech Acts (pp. 41–58). New York: Academic Press. Ide, Sachiko (1989). “Formal forms and discernment: Two neglected aspects of linguistic politeness”. Multilingua, 8 (2/3), 223–248. Ide, Sachiko et al. (1992). “The concept of politeness: An empirical study of American English and Japanese”. In Richard Watts, Sachiko Ide, & Konrad Ehlich (Eds.), Politeness in language: Studies in its history, theory, and practice (pp. 281–297). New York and Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Labov, William (1972). “The study of language in its social context”. In Sociolinguistic Patterns (pp. 183–259). Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Lakoff, Robin (1973). “The logic of politeness; Or, minding your p’s and q’s.” In Papers from the Ninth Regional Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society (pp. 292–305). Chicago: Chicago Linguistic Society. Lakoff, Robin T. (1989). “The way we were; or, the real actual truth about Generative Semantics: A memoir”. Journal of Pragmatics, 13, 939–988. Leech, Geoffrey (1983). Principles of Pragmatics. London: Longman. Levinson, Stephen C. (1995). “Three levels of meaning”. In Frank R. Palmer (Ed.), Grammar and Meaning: Essays in Honour of Sir John Lyons (pp. 90–115). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Matsumoto, Yoshiko (1989). “Politeness and conversational universals – observations from Japanese”. Multilingua, 8 (2/3), 207–222. Tannen, Deborah (1979). “What’s in a frame? Surface evidence for underlying expectations”. In Roy O. Freedle (Ed.), New Directions in Discourse Processing, Vol. 2 (pp. 137–182). Norwood, NJ: Ablex. Tannen, Deborah (1991). You Just Don’t Understand. New York: William Morrow.
P I
General overviews The plenary papers
Civility and its discontents* Or, getting in your face Robin Tolmach Lakoff Although linguists have been studying politeness for some 30 years, some questions have not yet been explored. For instance, not much attention has been focused on the role politeness expectations play at the level of discourse and social structure. This paper focuses on some of these larger questions: why is the issue of politeness more salient in some societies than others? Why and how do the expected forms of politeness change over time? And how do members of a society express their concerns in times when the politeness rules are undergoing rapid flux, as is the case in America at this time? What is the role of the media in this shift? And, finally, what does our current state of agonism mean? Keywords: Politeness; civility; style; agonism; discourse
.
Introduction: Politeness in linguistics
Linguists have been studying politeness for over thirty years now. In the course of that time we have made a great deal of progress in understanding and analyzing the phenomena to which societies give that name. We have created taxonomic schemas – distance, deference and camaraderie politeness (Lakoff 1973); positive and negative politeness (Brown & Levinson 1987); maxims of politeness (Leech 1980). We have examined cross-cultural differences in the way these systems manifest (Black 1973; Ide 1982, 1989; Matsumoto 1989; Rhodes 1989). We have used pragmatic theory (Austin 1962; Grice 1975) as an approach to the understanding of politeness; we have examined the conditions on the usage of speech act verbs with politeness consequences, e.g., apologize and request, both within societies and across cultures (Blum-Kulka & Olshtain 1984). We have looked at the relationships between Gricean conversational implicature and politeness, again both across and within cultures (Keenan 1976).
Robin Tolmach Lakoff
We have definitely made a lot of progress in the understanding of politeness as a rule-governed system including but also transcending language. But there is still a lot that is not well understood, questions that have not yet been answered, or perhaps even asked. In this paper, I want to look at a few of these. Linguistic analysis progressed during the twentieth century from smaller to larger units, from concrete to abstract systems. Before the 1960s and the rise of transformational grammar, at least in the U.S., interest was focused on sound (phonetics and phonology). After the rise of mentalist argumentation in the 1960s, syntax became a fruitful area for research. The development of linguistic pragmatics and sociolinguistics in the late 1960s and early 1970s allowed us to incorporate structures above the sentence level and beyond autonomous language into our linguistic analyses. The same direction of movement has occurred in related fields, over a more compact time-frame: for example in the area of gender and language. Studies of politeness at first concentrated on the levels of word and sentence. But with the advances that have been made in discourse and conversation analysis over the last two decades, we have begun to incorporate into our understanding of what politeness is and how it works some investigations at the level of discourse and its societal functions. We have a reasonable understanding of how politeness works. Now we can begin to explore why it works as it does, that is, what politeness means – to the individuals who use it, and to the society that prescribes it.
. Changes in the perception of politeness Most of my examples are taken from the English of contemporary American society. Similar and equally valid cases can undoubtedly be found elsewhere. But my own culture is the only one I feel confident to discuss. Some of the questions I want to address in this paper are:
Why is politeness more salient at some times than at others? In some societies, more than others? For instance, in the United States during the last decade of the twentieth century, a wide range of conflicts around “politeness” or “civility” were very much a part of public discourse, regular topics of harangue and jeremiad in all the public media. But this was not the case during the 1960s, although during that period a lot of very rude things were being said and done. Since September 11, 2001, interest in the topics I discuss here seems to have dropped off markedly.1 In countries like England and Japan, issues of politeness seem frequently to be under discussion and contestation.2 In France, one
Civility and its discontents
gets the impression that these topics are not seen as nearly so problematic – the French may be proverbially rude, but they don’t seem to worry about it.3 Similarly, anecdotes abound from some points in the past about bad behavior in high places and low: in first-century B.C. Rome, in Athens during the Peloponnesian War, in the U.S. at the end of the eighteenth and in the first half of the nineteenth century.4 But at other, more comfortable, times, civility is apparently the rule, or at least bad behavior goes unremarked upon by contemporaries.
How do normal people understand politeness? What do non-linguists, or nonsocial scientists, mean by terms like “politeness,” “civility,” or “courtesy”? What can we learn from looking at popular usage? Dictionaries may be of help. For example, the American Heritage Dictionary (1996: 1401) provides a note differentiating among several of these terms, cited in part below: Polite and mannerly imply consideration for others and the adherence to conventional social standards expected of a well-bred person. “The English are busy; they don’t have time to be polite” (Montesquieu); “It costs nothing to be polite” (Winston S. Churchill). Civil suggests only the barest observance of accepted social usages; it often means neither polite nor rude. “‘Always be civil to the girls; you never know who they will marry’ is an aphorism which has saved many an English spinster from being treated like an Indian widow” (Nancy Mitford).
The dictionary’s discussion suggests a distinction between “civility” and “politeness”: they are not synonymous. We could fold the former into the latter, considering civility as behavior at the far negative end of politeness. But I think the differences between the two are sharper than that. If politeness (whether positive or negative) is an offering of good intentions, civility is a withholding of bad ones, a decision not to do something negative that one might have otherwise done. We say, “Can’t you at least be civil?” meaning that that is the least that might be expected of a proper human being. And when we say, “She was very civil,” that is perceived as a grudging compliment at best, quite differently from, “She was very polite.” Attributing civility to someone implies the avoidance of any show of felt hostility, or of exuberant unconcern for someone else’s comfort. Incivility is therefore most likely to be manifested by the powerful to the powerless, because they can get away with it. So in the Mitford quotation above, the advice to be civil is not given
Robin Tolmach Lakoff
because civility would be nice, or make the “girls” feel good; one had better be civil to them just in case power relations are reversed in the future. So public worries of “incivility” in a culture suggest a general fear that society is fragmenting: the old taboos are no longer strong enough to thwart or discourage the childish acting-out of egocentric desires. Impoliteness from this perspective could be seen as implying merely a personal and individual choice to violate boundaries.When we speak of incivility, there is the extension of this boorishness across the culture at large, with even minimal expectations of good treatment becoming questionable. There is no constraint that can be counted on any more to keep the peace. Sachiko Ide has suggested to me that civility is the Western equivalent of Japanese wakimae which, as she has shown, corresponds only partially to the Western ideal of politeness. Her suggestion strikes me as itself partially right. Both civility and wakimae share a component of meaning: acting according to general societal tenets of appropriateness. But wakimae, as I understand it (or rather, if I do), defines participants’ behavior as expressing shared acculturation and thus increasing social cohesion – positive aims – while civility stresses the negative aim of not creating disruption, often between individuals who see themselves as having little in common and with no likelihood of creating a shared future relationship – not likely therefore to participate in the kinds of behaviors we label “polite.” Wakimae, like politeness, is seen within its cultural context as positive, civility as negative, not quite “nice.”
What happens when politeness systems change or shift, when behaviors formerly considered “polite” or “rude” become neutral? I have discussed (Lakoff 1979) historical changes in politeness systems, the effects of a shift in European cultures from camaraderie in the middle ages to distance in the Renaissance, and back to camaraderie again, starting in California in the early 1970s, spreading eastward in the course of that decade. But what happens to people caught in the crunch? How do they understand changes in a system that is not merely a set of neutral rules, but perceived as a marker (as the dictionary definition above suggests) of “good breeding” and decency, and that quintessential American trait, niceness?5
. The American preoccupation with politeness: Nine cases While all of these questions are important and interesting, I will concentrate here on the first. Why have Americans been preoccupied with manners, civility,
Civility and its discontents
and politeness? What kinds of behavior are commentators referring to in their repeated obsessive worrying about “rudeness,” “incivility” and other kindred terms? And finally, who is doing the worrying, and why? Public worries about incivility take many forms. Let us consider nine major examples below:
Sexual coarseness in public contexts: e.g., the use of terms like “penis,” and more recently (and even more shockingly), “vagina” on network television; sexual innuendo, and more blatant reference, in movies and on TV situation comedies; explicit discussion of presidential proclivities during the impeachment crisis a year ago; a recent candidate for the presidency endorsing Viagra on television not long after the election. Until the 1990s, mention of almost any sexual topic, especially by its proper name, was a rarity in the American mass media. Older people recall that, in the mid-1950s, when the star of the wildly popular TV situation comedy “I Love Lucy” was pregnant (both her character and her real self), she was “expecting”; they were “having a baby.” She was never “pregnant.” Probably the Anita Hill/Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings in 19916 initiated the change. While Hill was castigated in conservative quarters for uttering the word “penis” in the august halls of Congress, once she uttered it, media commentators had to use it again (and again) to comment on her utterance. The Lorena Bobbitt affair7 a couple of years later again forced the media to utter the word every day, many times a day for a month, on every news and magazine program. The lawsuits by Paula Corbin Jones8 et al. kept analogous topics in the public ear; and matters were brought to a head during the impeachment debâcle in which, for almost a year, “penis” was the mildest of the terms the media found it impossible to avoid. Public discourse was exploiting the new freedom in extra-political venues as well. Thus, for instance, the headline of an article in the New York Times (Elliott 1998) cites a “Vivid-Livid Divide: Madison Ave.’s New Explicitness is Open to Debate.” The article comments, “‘Are you getting enough?’ an ad for cottage cheese coyly asks, referring to calcium. ‘Zit happens’ is a line in an ad for acne medication....And it has become impossible to count all the variations on such lines as ‘Size matters’ and ‘...or are you just glad to see me?”’9 This may not be a purely American phenomenon. Another New York Times article (Tanikawa 1995), “Japan’s Young Couples Discover the Public Kiss,” notes that Japanese youth are breaching an ancient taboo against the public display of affection, shocking their elders. “It’s nothing to be embarrassed about,” says one such young man. “I kiss my girlfriend when I feel lonely.”10 But a sixty-
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six year old man wrote in to the newspaper Mainichi Shinbun, “I simply cannot stand it. Some may say that it is a natural expression of feeling. But what separates us from the rest of living creatures is that we...are capable of exercising self-restraint.”
Violence in the media. It is only recently that Americans have begun to find frank and “gratuitous” violence offensive. “The key assumption in everyone’s conception of violence in America today,” says Louis Menand (1994) in the New Yorker, “is that it is epidemic.” Menand drops the names of Tonya Harding, Polly Klaas, Snoop Doggy Dogg, Lorena Bobbitt, Lyle and Erik Menendez, Beavis and Butthead, and Colin Ferguson11 as examples of the out-of-control violence Americans worry about. We seem, Menand suggests, increasingly to view violence as “normal,” and perpetrators of crimes like those he alludes to as just extreme versions of normality. “The criminal is only doing what the rest of us secretly desire to do.” Menand finally suggests that the purportedly endemic violence of American society is a “war of group against group,” an offshoot of “identity politics.” He has a point, though not necessarily the one he thinks he has. One thing that has raised Americans’ consciousness about violence is that increasingly it is being committed by those who, stereotypically, are the ones least expected to do so. The prototypical violent criminal in the white mind is black and male, even though statistically whites still commit most crimes. So when white women commit violent crimes – well, that’s news: recall the media’s obsessions with both Lorena Bobbitt and Tonya Harding. In that sense violence, whether real or fictional, becomes construed as a sign of increasing incivility, of people whose deferential politeness could once be counted on no longer knowing how to behave, saving face turning into in-your-face. Agonism: the unwillingness to acknowledge a middle ground in debate – what Tannen (1998: 3–4) calls The Argument Culture. “The argument culture,” she says, urges us to approach the world – and the people in it – in an adversarial frame of mind. It rests on the assumption that opposition is the best way to get anything done: The best way to discuss an idea is to set up a debate; the best way to cover news is to find spokespeople who express the most extreme, polarized views and present them as ‘both sides’; the best way to settle disputes is litigation that pits one party against the other; the best way to show you’re really thinking is to criticize.
Civility and its discontents
Writing in the New Yorker, Michael Kinsley (1995) attributes much of the agonism to populism: Populism, in its latest manifestation, celebrates ignorant opinion and undifferentiated rage. As long as you’re mad as hell and aren’t going to take it anymore, no one will inquire very closely into what, exactly, ‘it’ is and whether you really ought to feel that way.
Outside of politics, agonism is often blamed on the American system of adversarial justice, which has come under increasing criticism lately. It is attacked as part of the “culture of victimization” (often called the “blame game”) and the failure to take responsibility (as in the infamous “McDonald’s Coffee” case in which a litigant was awarded a multimillion dollar payment by a trial court because she spilled boiling coffee on herself). It is seen as a system in which the side more willing to push the limits, play shamelessly on fear or other emotions, intimidate the judge or the opposing counsel, will win (the O. J. Simpson case did nothing to dispel this perception). Increasingly lawyers are seen not as courtly Clarence Darrows or Atticus Finches, but as loudmouthed Marcia Clarks and Johnnie Cochrans,12 setting a bad example for all of us about how to present oneself in public. “Attorneys seem to be losing their manners,” according to an article in the San Francisco Chronicle (Sinton 1994). The article offers as an example a Texas attorney who claimed at a deposition that his opponent could “gag a maggot off a meat wagon.” As a result, the Association of Business Trial Lawyer of Northern California has adopted a Guide to Professional Practice including a set of rules of professional etiquette. “Do not engage in derogatory or prohibited conduct on the basis of race, religion, gender or sexual orientation” is one; “Do not be offensive even when your client so desires” is another. Tannen (1998) advocates the abandonment of adversarial justice altogether. It’s not clear, though, what would replace it.
Uncontrolled displays of hostility: e.g. “road rage” and “air rage.”13 In a traditional distance or negative-politeness culture, venting unmediated emotion in the presence of strangers is worse than uncouth. It is a sign that the venter is not fully acculturated, perhaps not fully human: an “ape,” or a “yahoo.” But as camaraderie supersedes distance as our cultural ideal, the open expression of emotions, even the most distasteful, is viewed less harshly. There is still disapproval, to be sure, but what is missing is any sense that such acts place their perpetrator beyond the pale of sanity or humanity, an assumption that would
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cause the immediate gratification of the behavior to be outweighed by fear of humiliation. The media, especially television news and magazine shows, have spent a remarkable amount of time on both these phenomena. Some of the attention no doubt springs from our own natural impulses to act similarly (and, too, Schadenfreude, since the subjects have given in to what viewers have presumably suppressed), impulses encouraged by the crowded and dehumanizing conditions of highway and air travel. But in the past there were pirates, Indians, and highwaymen ready to waylay the traveler, and elegant manners were probably uncommon in the steerage compartments of the ships that brought the ancestors of most Americans to America. It is our new fascination with the topic, our belief that this behavior is novel, that requires explanation.
Negative political advertising. The smear has always been a part of American political campaigning. But a great deal of negative attention was devoted to it recently, for instance in an article by John Tierney in the New York Times Magazine (Tierney 1996), “Why Negative Ads are Good For Democracy.” Tierney acknowledges that there has been a boom in negative campaign advertising. He agrees that such ads create voter cynicism and probably contribute to low voter turnout. But at least they present the issues, in however distorted a form. Interesting here is that the existence, and probable continuance, of negative advertising is presupposed: it has become so normal a part of the process that the only question is whether it is as bad as it is believed to be. In opinion polls subjects express unanimous disapproval of negative ads. Yet after a negative ad has been shown, the candidate whose ad it was rises in the polls at the expense of the target of the ads. The polls’ subjects are apparently responding indignantly to the idea that they might be the kind of people who enjoy hearing dirt about other people – vicious gossips. But when they are actually exposed to the smears they deplore, voters treat them as valid sources of information. As so often, we disapprove “rudeness” of this kind when it is presented as a theoretical possibility, but when we encounter real examples we treat them with respect. Cursing and other bad language (including non-“politically correct” talk).14 Once upon a time the use of certain kinds of language in front of “ladies” or others with delicate sensibilities was forbidden – and ladies weren’t even supposed to know those words, let alone what they meant. But now, it seems, anyone can swear in front of anyone.
Civility and its discontents
Bad language in currant parlance does not stop with sexual and excretory references, but also includes the non-politically correct racial and genderrelated slurs, or “fighting words.” Bad language has always existed in the public sphere – for instance in graffiti on the walls of Pompeii. But the range of its use appears to have widened recently, turning up where it was formerly banned: in movies and late-night non-network television (and you can even hear the occasional “ass” in prime time).15 This extension of bad language distresses many conservative commentators, particularly because new constituencies (women and children) have started to use it. That may be what is really shocking: not the badness of the language itself, but the fact that bad language has been appropriated by those who used to have to be “protected” from it. Their no longer needing linguistic protection is a sign of their increasing power and autonomy. The use of ethnic and sexual slurs is a different issue. Unlike four-letter words, slurs generally are aimed directly at members of a non-dominant group the speaker holds in contempt. So it isn’t simple vulgarity that makes this kind of language controversial: it’s what these words communicate about the power relationship between users and targets, and everyone’s place in society at large. In that respect, four-letter words are in many ways the antithesis of slurs, democratizing rather than exclusionary. Not surprisingly, then, many of the conservatives who most loudly decry the extension of traditional swearing are also the most vociferous critics of “political correctness.” But both of these categories fall into a non-polite, non-civil level of discourse and the concern over them is a manifestation that something is shifting in American society: language change as a manifestation of social change. An article in the New York Times (Goldberg 1995) explores the fondness of New Yorkers for cusswords. “Linguists and experts on American dialects generally agree that New York, among its many claims to excess, appears to be the most foul-mouthed city in the nation,” the article comments, rather proudly, “rivaling only prison and the armed forces in its penchant for profanity.” The latter institutions have historically been strongly male, probably a reason for their association with profanity. But New York? “Life in New York is so much trouble that we need some expletive to fill the need,” suggests Leonard R. N. Ashley, an English professor at Brooklyn College. Then, too, “the anonymity [of life in big cities like New York] allows you to curse without fear of retribution,” according to Timothy Jay, author of Cursing in America. Outlying regions are not so comfortable with these changes. Raritan, New Jersey, according to the San Francisco Chronicle (Banisky 1995) has imposed a ban on “foul language.” “We’re just asking you to be polite,” says its mayor.
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The article does not provide the wording of the law, which from the examples given seems remarkably broad: call someone “Fatso” and you’re subject to a $500 fine. Similarly there was a wave of national attention to the case of a young man in Michigan who was arrested for shouting obscenities when his boat capsized on a river, because he was within the earshot of “women and children.” An old law, not enforced in years, was abruptly revived.
“Flaming” on the internet. As we develop new communicative channels, uncertainties arise about how to behave on them. Not only was this true of the telephone, but it is certainly true today of the internet. Because the net combines the immediacy of talk and the distance of traditional writing with the anonymity of chatrooms, bad behavior flourishes online. Of particular concern is “flaming,” the use of immoderate and insulting language under the cloak of anonymity provided by the net. Immediacy, distance, and anonymity encourage violations of politeness. Distant and anonymous violators are unlikely to be caught. And as Konrad Lorenz (1966) argued, physical proximity is an inhibitor of aggression: it’s easier to kill unseen people with a bomb than to stab someone at arm’s length. The same may be true of verbal aggression. And since a major function of politeness systems is to permit people to operate in close contiguity without dangerous consequences by erecting symbolic boundaries, we feel less necessity for politeness under these conditions. The loss of polite conventions (“please,” “thank you,” “how are you?” and the like). There are two contradictory stereotypes about Americans. On the one hand, Americans are seen (by themselves and others) as simple, no-frills, direct folks who do not make much use of ceremony. On the other, it is often stated16 that Americans rely on conventional expressions of politeness more than do members of many other cultures. Perhaps Americans overuse conventional expressions to camouflage their tendency to be curt and businesslike – to get “down to brass tacks” immediately – in business transactions, rather than even conventionally showing interest in the interlocutor as a human being. “Please” and “thank you” allow Americans to be impersonal yet civil. Therefore they are apt to feel threatened by any attrition in the uses of these forms. An article (Rubenstein 1994) in the San Francisco Chronicle notes that San Francisco’s telephone company, Pacific Bell, has required directory assistance operators to drop the use of “please.” In the past, the operator’s greeting was, “Hi, this is Mary. What city, please?” Now the two permissible greetings are:
Civility and its discontents
“Hi, this is Mary, what city?” and “Hi, I’m Mary, what city?”17 Why has the short and innocuous “please” been eliminated? By lopping it off, Pac Bell estimates that it saves .5 second per call. Over the large volume of directory assistance calls fielded by Pac Bell operators, that adds up. But it certainly makes it clear where the phone company’s priorities lie – and not on the side of conventional politeness. Interestingly, of the two politeness-marking monosyllables in the original Pac Bell greeting, it is “please” that has been deleted while “hi” is kept. Since “please” is most easily interpreted as a marker of negative politeness, “hi” of positive, this is just another indication of the victory of the latter in America. Predictably, traditional etiquette authorities, and others, are scandalized. “‘Oh, good Lord,’ said newspaper columnist Judith Martin, known as Miss Manners. ‘Just what we need, more abrasive brusqueness in the world. It hardly seems necessary to mandate that people be rude unless the object is to strip all possible courtesy out of life.”’ Noteworthy is Miss Manners’s assumption that if you eschew “courtesy” you must be “rude” – there is no neutral ground. But neutrality is possible, and the new form is just that – neutral, impersonal, shorn of conventional distance politeness. Especially interesting is Pac Bell’s willingness to delete “please” even as it mandates the use of a form that arguably conveys even less information and takes more time, the (bogus) name. Here is a clear instance of camaraderie outflanking formal distance politeness. The casualness with which the Pac Bell employee acknowledges the bogosity (if that’s the word) of the first name is itself striking, approaching hypocrisy (that is, going beyond the conventional system that is politeness). The use of a first name is, at least by convention, an opening to intimacy and an expression of personal connection between addressor and addressee. If you don’t use a first name, or any name, that’s neutral. But a fake first name – that both promises intimacy and makes a mockery of the idea. Somehow that appears to bother the etiquette authorities a lot less than the shearing off of “please.” Letitia Baldrige, another etiquette professional, is equally distraught. She calls the new policy “terrible, just terrible.” “‘Clearly the decision was made by someone who was not taught any manners by his or her mother. We need more “pleases” in the world, not fewer.”’ One way in which conventional politeness is communicated is by taking a bit of extra time, saying that additional syllable or two that conveys that getting down to business is not the most important thing – that attending to the human needs of the interlocutor comes first. But in America, we say, “Time
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is money.” The removal of “please” merely instantiates that belief in a newly explicit way. There are attempts to maintain the standard. Rudy Giuliani, the former mayor of New York City, attempted a campaign to make New York taxi drivers, and others who deal with the public, more polite. The city put out instructional material, in pamphlets and on signs in public transportation facilities, enjoining readers to say Please and Thank you. The hope was to make New York a more polite place (a little like trying to make Hell a more cold place). America’s second president, John Adams, got it right about New York over 200 years ago (he was from Boston, always a more gracious and slow-moving city): “They [New Yorkers] all talk very fast, very loud and altogether without paying any attention to each other.... Nobody has any manners here.” (And New Yorkers probably rejoined, then as now, “Wassamatta? You gotta problem widdat?”)
Invasions of privacy, and the rise of conventional anti-formality. A number of the situations described above are related to the difference between public and private self-presentation, and the traditional understanding that people behave differently in different contexts, so that politeness works differently in each. If the line between public and private is being erased in contemporary U.S. culture, then our very definition of politeness will have to be renegotiated. As the Pacific Bell example suggests, America is becoming an increasingly conventionalized-camaraderie society. In a culture using conventional distance (such as the U.S. used to be), it was important to show non- intrusiveness: a speaker needed to present directives as mitigated requests, even when the illocutionary force of the speech act was an offer – to give the caller needed information. Hence “please” needed to be tacked on as the signifier of the request, to distinguish it clearly from an order. It was generally if implicitly acknowledged that the courtesy was not intended literally. But it was the use of the form that counted: it showed the speaker’s good intentions.
. Politeness: Convention vs. (apparent) spontaneity Camaraderie,18 being relatively new to Americans, at first seemed literal, a breath of fresh air, the spontaneous expression of true feelings replacing stuffy old meaningless formalities. But politeness by nature must become conventional, so that it can be unambiguously recognized as such. The Pac Bell bogus first name is one sign of conventionalized camaraderie. It’s the putative friendliness of proffering a first name that counts, rather than the insincerity of offer-
Civility and its discontents
ing a name that is false. People (aside from the etiquette experts) feel less need for the distancing or deference implied in “please,” than for the friendliness implied in using the first name.
. The battle between public and private Another pervasive tendency then becomes intelligible: erosion of the line between public and private life. The move to camaraderie erodes the distinction. Camaraderie would have us say, whether or not we mean it, “Here I am, my true self.” If camaraderie is becoming our preferred mode of selfrepresentation, it is not surprising that the public/private dichotomy, a crucial part of Western life at least since the Greeks, is increasingly irrelevant. Let me offer two pieces of evidence for this claim:
Public engulfs private. Recent years have seen the invasion of the telemarketers (who often addressing the callee by first name) into the home and family time par excellence, the dinner hour. Once upon a time your home was your castle, surrounded by a moat. The moat has shrunk to a pitiful mud puddle. Privacy has become secondary to commerce (a public concern). Private engulfs public. Bill Clinton (or rather, Just Plain Bill). It was not just his own use of the nickname (after all, Jimmy Carter went even further, to the diminutive – it’s apparently a Southern thing). But a New York Times story (Purdom 1995) tells of Mr. Clinton going about his business on a golf course, when “a middle-aged man a few yards behind him suddenly shouted, ‘Hey, Bill, over here!”’ The normal address to the President of the United States, even by his closest aides, has traditionally been “Mr. President.” And this was not some kid, but a middle-aged man, explicitly so identified. Perhaps President Bill brought it on himself (and us) in the famous MTV interview in 1992 when he answered, on television, the question all America was dying to know: was his underwear briefs or boxers? The fact that the question was even askable, by a young woman, on national TV, to the President of the world’s only remaining superpower, made it clear that something had shifted: the default relationship was now informal and private – camaraderie.
Robin Tolmach Lakoff
. Why things are changing Having looked at some of the changes taking place in American manners, I return to a question posed at the outset: Why have Americans been obsessed with these changes? Why do we find them so distressing? What do we mean when we say, as so many commentators currently do, that Americans have become impolite or uncivil? I think that a number of different factors have converged, and everyone is likely to be upset about at least one. Deep and large-scale changes are occurring in power relations among different groups in society. Especially for those who have always maintained implicit control over meaning and social conventions, whose own behavioral choices and standards determined what could be done and what was right, those changes are threatening. But it is frightening to confront these physical and political realities head-on, and criticizing the groups whose increasing influence is motivating the changes is itself impolite: it looks like sexism and racism (because it is). As was observed during the Ebonics19 debate of 1996-6, it is safer to criticize people’s language than to criticize their behavior. Fear of change can be framed as an aesthetic issue – as the “incivility” debate permits participants to do. These are just a few of the changes that are leading Americans to agonize over a putative loss of civility. 1. America’s increasing diversity. Americans have always been multicultural. But until very recently, those who were not white, male, and middle-class and above had no access to public discourse, no way to compete for the right to make their own standards of meaning and language. Since the 1960s,20 more and more formerly disenfranchised groups have demanded, and to some degree received, the right to make language, make interpretations, and make meaning for themselves. The sharing of the right to make meaning turns America truly multi-cultural – and pretty scary for the formerly “in,” now moving toward the periphery. As a result the politeness rules of the former in-group are now only one of several options, as other styles of interaction become acceptable in public discourse. Speakers from these formerly silenced groups can no longer be ignored on the grounds that they don’t know how to behave. But often their behavior does not coincide with traditional cultural understandings of what is “polite.” It is easy to criticize the way people talk as a convenient and cheap substitute for the harder job of criticizing what they’re saying. So feminists are attacked as “strident” or “shrill” – words that substitute their putative way of talking for what is really troublesome, what they are saying. In
Civility and its discontents
saying that “they” are uncivil or impolite, critics may be articulating their fears that what “they” are saying is scary or otherwise unpalatable – offensive, less because politeness has been breached than because their very appearance in the public arena requires severe readjustments in our mores. But the new groups can be obstreperous. When you have been kept out of the conversation for hundreds or thousands of years, you can get impatient. So some of the alleged “incivility” arises because the new participants have grown tired of waiting to be heard, and being ignored. Now that it’s possible to get in the old boys’ faces, they are getting in them with a vengeance. To the old order, this behavior is doubly obnoxious: rude on its face (a violation of the rules of politeness), and a harsh (therefore rude) reminder that the newcomers have co-opted the power they unilaterally held. 2. A new communicative channel: The internet. About 100 years ago, as the telephone became a fixture in American homes, there arose a genre of popular literature – fiction as well as journalism – revolving around the dangers of the telephone. It would make us too private (keep us from face-to-face encounters), or it would steal our privacy (cf. the dinner-table telemarketer’s call). It would invade our homes, seduce our women (Brooks 1976; de Sola Pool 1977; Marvin 1988). Behind the scare stories was the real fear of a new popular channel of communication, the first in 2500 years (Socrates had had similar kinds of dark worries about the last one, general literacy). The fears each of these new channels engendered are remarkably similar, suggesting that it isn’t the nature of the channel, but its novelty, that we fear. Since new channels present new communicative challenges which favor the younger generation against the older, the internet is as frightening to the middle-aged and older among us as the telephone was to our ancestors. A lot of our fears about the internet have a real basis.21 But some of our worries are simply the expression of fears of entering a new age for which we are not ready. (Cf. Markoff 2000 for discussion of some of these fears.) 3. Media competition for ratings and audience. Over the last decade, the media clamoring for our attention have increased exponentially: both the proliferation of cable channels on television, the growth of a great many specialized (“niche”) magazines, and the rise of often irresponsible (because anonymous) internet journalism. To get our attention, all have to shout louder, behave worse: get in our faces, be blatant, intrude on both viewers/readers and the subjects of their stories (e.g. politicians and celebrities). So the loss of “civility” is in part the result of commercial necessity: the
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media have to be more oppositional, more controversial, more directly provocative, to attract consumers. 4. The rise of camaraderie politeness. If we were still a distance/negative politeness culture, many of the changes perceived as “incivility” would have had a harder time taking hold. But over the last generation or two presuppositions have shifted about the appropriate public presentation of self. The good American has always been direct, informal, and irreverent; increasingly that person is one who is able to talk to anyone about anything, with nothing left unmentionable – because that would suggest a lack of trust, a dissimilarity between speaker and addressee. The sense of symbolic difference that permits the use of distance and deference politeness may be becoming too threatening in a society that is, in fact, increasingly diverse.
. Conclusions There are many reasons why Americans now perceive themselves as threatened by incivility. Some of the perceptions are correct, in that old versions of “civility” and “politeness” are receding because new styles are more appropriate to current political and interpersonal discourse preferences. Other changes are in progress because the right to participate in public discourse has been opened to new people who will not or cannot play by the old proprieties. In still other cases, it is the means by which communication is effected that cause a perception of impropriety. America is in for some trying times as we try to get along in a very new millennium. For we must have rules we can trust one another to abide by. Most commentators have seen the loss of these shared expectations as negative, frightening, and divisive. But it need not be so – at least not for long. Life may be difficult for a while. We won’t know how to understand one another’s intentions as well as we used to think we did, so there will be more open argumentation and abrasiveness in our public discourse. But societies have gotten through changes even more cataclysmic and thrived. Americans historically have been able to accommodate to novelty. But while we readily adjust to most kinds of linguistic change, this one may be trickier, because politeness is political: we use it to determine and measure our status. When the rules shift, how can we assess our standing relative to everyone else? For instance, in the university, students are generally polite to professors, but alas! the reverse is not necessarily the case. We’re neutral to our colleagues of equal rank. And when we need something from the dean, we’re polite indeed. We
Civility and its discontents
behave this way not merely because we have to, but also because it’s a way to mark our position in the pecking order. Members of dominant groups use their traditional right to define politeness to control other groups, keep them obedient and silent. When the implicit assumptions behind this system break down, there can be, in those formerly dominant groups, a sense of loss of control, chaos, and unpredictability. Trying as these changes are, they are not deadly. While living through change is unquestionably nerve-wracking, once we understand the reasons why politeness is changing, we may find the new system preferable to the old.
Afterword. At the time I originally wrote and delivered this paper (late 1999), the issue of intra-American discord seemed to me, from the ample media evidence, to be highly salient. September 11 changed all that. The expressions of concern over incivility discussed above seem to have vanished in the wake of a much more compelling fear. Before, Americans’ principal concern might be broadly summarized as: How are we behaving toward each other? Now, Topic A is more like, How can they act like that toward us? How are we presenting ourselves to them? We have closed ranks and are looking outward – the war in Iraq being one manifestation of this new attitude. One shocker arising out of 9/11 was the realization that, in many parts of the world, we are not loved. This comes about, in part at least, because of our discourse toward others in the world, especially after the collapse of the Soviet Union made America unequivocally Number One and therefore not needing to be nice to anyone any more. One message conveyed, less by the events of 9/11 themselves (which go beyond issues of politeness or civility), than by the response to them in many parts of the world: we need to learn a new way of talking to the rest of the world. Just as we need to learn to speak to and listen to one another in civil ways, despite our diversity, the same is true of discourse between the Number One Superpower and everyone else. Unfortunately, America’s behavior toward the rest of the world since 9/11 could be seen as a flagrant disregard for the comforts of others, a disdain for niceness – the individual understanding of incivility writ large, on a global scale. But America might remember that even a superpower that need not fear retaliation nor worry about being unlovable has a reason to be civil: you never know who may be useful to you, or dangerous to you, in the future.
Robin Tolmach Lakoff
Notes * I would like to thank the faculty of Chulalongkorn University for their hospitality and for organizing the conference that brought this paper into being, and Sachiko Ide for her insightful comments. . The interest in politeness has not totally abated, however, although it seems to concentrate less on groups than on artifacts. In the San Francisco Chronicle of September 18, 2002, there were two articles on the same page complaining about etiquette in cell phone usage. . For example, I am told by Sachiko Ide that the Japanese government has convened a committee to consider whether the use of honorifcs is still appropriate in a changing society. The idea of anything analogous happening in America is unthinkable. . Many examples, from an American perspective, are to be found in Adam Gopnik’s Paris to the Moon (New York: Random House, 2000). . All of these were periods of social and/or political upheaval. For instance, in Founding Brothers (New York: Vintage, 2000), Joseph Ellis discusses the astonishingly vituperative political discourse of the new American republic during the decade after its founding. . A PBS special aired in 1999 on Jackie Kennedy suggested that she made an indelible impression on all not merely because of her beauty but even more because of her niceness. . Clarence Thomas had been nominated for a Supreme Court position. A former subordinate of his, Anita Hill, charged that he had sexually harassed her. The Senate held several days of televised hearings to examine Hill’s charges, in the course of which names of sexual organs and other obscenities received continual attention. . In 1993, Lorena Bobbitt amputated her husband’s penis while he was asleep, tin retaliation for raping her. . She threatened to prove that she was telling the truth about Bill Clinton’s having exposed himself to her by testifying at trial to his observed “anatomical irregularities.” . Madison Avenue is historically New York’s advertising district. The (understood) direct object of “getting enough” is normally “sex.” “Zit happens” is a pun on a common phrase, “Shit happens.” “Size matters” normally refers to penile size. The last quotation is a reference to a well-known Mae West double entendre: “Is that a pistol in your pocket or are you just glad to see me?” . Although the discussion sounds as if the Japanese are adopting American attitudes toward kissing, actually this quote would sound bizarre on the lips of an American. Kissing is what you do when you feel horny, not lonely. . Tonya Harding is the Olympic skater whose boyfriend hit rival Nancy Kerrigan in the knee prior to the 1994 Winter Olympics; Polly Klaas is the twelve year old girl kidnapped and murdered in Petaluma, California, in 1994; Snoop Doggy Dogg is a rap musician who has been arrested on charges of assault; for Lorena Bobbitt, see Note 1; Lyle and Erik Menendez killed their parents; Beavis and Butthead are television cartoon characters noted for their oafishness; and Colin Ferguson opened fire on a Long Island (New York) railroad car, injuring and killing several people.
Civility and its discontents . Clarence Darrow was an illustrious American defense attorney of the early twentieth century, Atticus Finch an equally illustrious though fictional counterpart (the protagonist of Harper Lee’s novel, To Kill a Mockingbird. Johnnie Cochran and Marcia Clark were respectively the lead defense and prosecution attorneys in the trial of O. J. Simpson. . These have become frequent topics of critique in the popular media. “Road rage” refers to automobile drivers venting their anger on other drivers: cutting them off, shooting them, etc.; “air rage” to frustrated air travelers’ bad behavior (defecating on flight attendants’ carts; breaking into the cockpit and fighting with the pilots, etc.). Since September 11 – one of its few blessings – instances of the latter have declined precipitously, no doubt because criminal penalites against it are being vigorously enforced. . For discussion of the history and use of this term see Lakoff (2000). . An episode of PBS’ investigative program Frontline devoted to an examination of the gritty police drama (on a commercial network) Homicide offers clips of producers and network censors arguing over the permissibility of the word “shit” on the program. . For example by John Gumperz, interviewed in the video “Multi-Racial Britain: ‘Crosstalk’ ” (1980, National Centre for Industrial Language Training, Commission for Racial Equality). . “Mary” is a pseudonym. “We like names that are short, simple, and easy to understand,” says an operator manager. “It doesn’t matter if it’s the operator’s real name or not.” . I introduced this term (in Lakoff 1973) as one of three politeness options (the others were distance and deference) societies and individuals within them could choose. Although Brown and Levinson’s distinction between positive and negative politeness is more usual, I am returning to my system because I think camaraderie better captures what is happening in the cases under discussion than its otherwise close counterpart, positive politeness. Brown and Levinson’s positive politeness covers a range of expectations and behavior not covered by camaraderie, and vice versa. Positive politeness encompasses the use of forms like “I’d like it if. . .” and “It would help me for you to. . .,” which are not especially characteristic of camaraderie. The latter is the avoidance of conflict through the pretense that interlocutors are so intimate and similar that there could be no conflict between them. So conventional camaraderie uses first names and eschews polite formulas like “please.” It stresses the presentation of self (apparently) “warts and all” – as an avowal of trust and trustworthiness. . In late 1996, the Oakland (California) School Board (a majority black group representing a majority black community) offered a resolution declaring Ebonics (what sociolinguists call African American Vernacular English or AAVE) to be a language in its own right and equivalent in its propriety and range of use to Standard American English. A virulent debate promptly broke out in the public media, lasting over a month. For more discussion, see Lakoff 2000. . In the late 1960s civil rights leaders advocated a change from Negro to Black, the historically first instance of reclamation. . For instance, concerns about identity theft; the floods of pornographic material and spam.
Robin Tolmach Lakoff
References Austin, J. L. (1962). How to Do Things with Words. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Banisky, Sandy (1995, February 7). “Town quite happy, thank you, with ban on foul language”. The New York Times, p. A10. Black, Mary B. (1973). “Ojibwa questioning etiquette and use of ambiguity”. Studies in Linguistics, 23, 13–19. Blum-Kulka, Shoshana & Olshtain, Elite (1984). “Requests and apologies: A cross-cultural study of speech act realization patterns (CCSARP)”. Applied Linguistics, 5 (3), 196–212. Brooks, John (1976). Telephone: The First 100 Years. New York: Harper and Row. Brown, Penelope & Levinson, Stephen C. (1987). Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. de Sola Pool, Ithiel (1977). The Social Impact of the Telephone. Cambridge: MIT Press. Elliott, Stuart (1998, June 19). “A vivid-livid divide: Madison Ave.’s new explicitness is open to debate”. The New York Times, p. B1. Goldberg, Carey (1995, June 19). “Welcome to New York, curse capital”. The New York Times, p. B12. Grice, H. P. (1975). “Logic and conversation”. In Peter Cole & Jerry L. Morgan (Eds.), Syntax and Semantics 3: Speech Acts (pp. 41–58). New York: Academic Press. Ide, Sachiko (1982). “Japanese sociolinguistics: Politeness and women’s language”. Lingua, 57 (2–4), 357–386. Ide, Sachiko (1989). “Formal forms and discernment: Two neglected aspects of linguistic politeness”. Multilingua, 8 (2/3), 223–248. Keenan, Elinor Ochs (1976). “The universality of conversational implicature”. Language in Society, 5, 67–80. Kinsley, Michael (1995, February 6). “The intellectual free lunch”. The New Yorker, pp. 4–5. Lakoff, Robin T. (1979). “Stylistic strategies within a grammar of style”. In Judith Orasanu, Marian Slater, & Leona Adler (Eds.), Language, Sex, and Gender (pp. 53–80). Annals of the New York Academy of Science 327. Lakoff, Robin (1973). “The logic of politeness; Or, minding your p’s and q’s.” In Papers from the Ninth Regional Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society (pp. 292–305). Chicago: Chicago Linguistic Society. Leech, Geoffrey (1980). Language and Tact. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Lorenz, Konrad (1966). On Aggression, tr. Marjorie Kerr Wilson. New York: Harcourt, Brace, and World. Markoff, John (2000, February 16). “A newer, lonelier crowd emerges in internet study”. The New York Times, p. 1. Marvin, Carolyn (1988). When Old Technologies Were New. New York: Oxford University Press. Matsumoto, Yoshiko (1989). “Politeness and conversational universals – observations from Japanese”. Multilingua, 8 (2/3), 207–222. Menand, Louis (1994, March 14). “The war of all against all”. The New Yorker, pp. 74–85. Purdom, Todd (1995, August 27). “Call ‘em “Prez.” It’s fine by them”. The New York Times Week in Review, p. 4.
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Rhodes, Richard (1989). “‘We are going to go there’: Positive politeness in Ojibwa”. Multilingua, 8 (2/3), 249–258. Rubenstein, Steve (1994, October 29). “Operators must hold the “please”: Pac Bell revises greeting to save time”. The San Francisco Chronicle, p. 1. Sinton, Peter (1994, September 20). “Taming Rambo-style lawyers”. The San Francisco Chronicle, p. D1. Tanikawa, Miki (1995, May 29). “Japan’s young couples discover the public kiss”. The New York Times, p. 11. Tannen, Deborah (1998). The Argument Culture. New York: Random House. Tierney, John (1996, November 3). “Why negative ads are good for democracy”. The New York Times Magazine, pp. 52–56.
How and why honorifics can signify dignity and elegance The indexicality and reflexivity of linguistic rituals Sachiko Ide Honorifics are known as politeness markers in the languages that have them. However, the descriptions in the Western literature on the functions of honorifics were not felt by speakers of languages that employ honorifics to be satisfactory, either for academic or for general understanding. The goal of this paper is to try to make sense of the use and function of honorifics as fully as possible so as to explain how and why they can signify not only politeness but also the speaker’s dignity and/or elegance. It is claimed that the indexing and reflexive functions of honorifics according to wakimae use have to be understood in a high context culture where the speaker’s viewpoint and the organization of speaking is different from what has been generally assumed in the discipline to date. Keywords: Honorifics; indexicality; wakimae; speaker’s viewpoint
.
Can honorifics be abolished?
This article focuses on the use of linguistic forms characteristic of East Asian languages. It seems that the Thai language has a rich system of lexical varieties to show respect and humility. There are also complex varieties of person reference terms, which vary depending on the speaker’s relationship to the hearer or the other people in the context of speaking. In contrast to English, these features show great similarity with the Japanese language. Thus, it appears to make sense to talk of East Asian languages, and to point to some things which have not been well dealt with in the frameworks of the linguistic and pragmatic traditions of Western oriented scholarship.
Sachiko Ide
An incident which might illustrate the huge gap between the Western mind and the Eastern one occurred in 1997 when an economic crisis started in Thailand, and spread to all the East Asian countries including Korea. Japan was no exception. People all over the world watched to see how the Asians would cope with this economic crisis, as there was a possibility that it might trigger a worldwide economic collapse. One day, a journalist from The Financial Times, who had a Ph.D. in sociology from Cambridge University, came to my office for an interview. She felt that, if the honorific system were abolished from the Japanese language, this messy economical confusion could be resolved. She believed that language supports the infrastructure of a society. She presumed that the point of the system of honorifics was to ensure distance between interactants and it is also a system geared toward making information ambiguous and complicating its transmission. Therefore, if the system of honorifics were to be abolished from the society, it would make it easier for the Japanese to transmit information. This in turn would solve the complicated societal problems and economic crisis. Japanese colleagues and students all laughed when told of this suggestion. While none knew how to explain what it was that this journalist had not understood, all knew that honorifics are essential. Language is not a tool like a pen, a typewriter, or a computer. The very way East Asians think and express and relate to others is tied to a system of language in which honorifics play an indispensable role. Therefore, East Asians cannot think of abolishing honorifics from their systems of language. Honorifics were brought up by this journalist as the key hindrance for democratization of the society and efficient economic functioning. Behind this logic lies equating modernization and globalization with Westernization. To the extent East Asians become Westernized, they could have a better system, a better society and a better world. In the face of such a proposition, it is necessary to stop and think whether language is really such a system that can or must be changed so that East Asian societies can operate in the Western way. Is it better for the world to Westernize, and does that mean sacrificing all of the varieties? There are quite a number of linguistic or pragmatic features around the world that cannot be accounted for if only Western theories of linguistics and pragmatics are followed. It seems indisputable that the Western way of looking at language is basically somewhat different from the East Asian way. It seems that the Western way of looking at language is as something linear, which can be processed one piece after another in an alphabetic item-and-process approach. The way Western languages and Chinese are written highlights this difference, since Western
How and why honorifics can signify dignity and elegance
languages are all written from left to right, and as an oversimplification it can be described such that each alphabet letter contributes to a whole, which could be said to have a space before and a space after each word. Chinese, in contrast, features characters, which work as a whole lexical unit, though they may relate to others in a variety of ways. It is easy to understand the alphabetic brain-frame as a mindset that lends itself to simple conceptualization, but some aspects of language cannot be explained within the framework of this kind of linear understanding of language. Some languages seem to require a sociolinguistic system of complex conceptualization.
. Difference in speaking: The East and the West This problem has been central for about a decade, ever since my article, “Formal forms and discernment: Two neglected aspects of linguistic politeness” appeared in Multilingua in 1989. The conclusion reached after all this time is that there are at least two essential aspects that must be incorporated if a fair account of the universals of linguistic politeness is to be given. The first is the difference in what it means to speak in the West and in the East. The second is that the organization of speaking must be considered in terms of hierarchical structures. This first difference, that of what it means to speak in the West and in East Asia, is fundamental. This diversity is illustrated by a pioneering work by Linda Young called CrossTalk and Culture in Sino-American Communication (1994). Young realized that there are important differences in the way Americans speak English and the way Chinese speak English. What appears inscrutable to Westerners are Chinese discourse patterns that Chinese speakers use in English in crosstalk settings of business negotiations. For example, a summary statement of the main argument is delayed until the end, which is the reverse of an English discourse convention. She maintains that this is simply a consequence of the Chinese principle of pragmatics. She argued that such discourse phenomena could only be understood from the viewpoint of the Chinese cultural ideology of interpersonal interaction and the workings of the society. This difference in the role of discourse in the East and the West can be highlighted by the popular saying in the West: “A man is as good as his word” and a Chinese philosopher’s words that the “‘Dao’ (that is ‘the ethical way’) that can be spoken is not constant Dao,” i.e. the ethical way cannot be expressed by speaking. This simple but contrasting cultural understanding of speaking gives
Sachiko Ide
a glimpse of the depth of the differences between what it means to speak in the West and the East. However, it has been the trend up to now to base scholarship on the established assumptions of Western science, where the conviction that science is based on rationality emerged at the beginning of the 16th century, and sets a universal norm for accessing the value of cultural activity everywhere on the planet. The distinction of concern today is the outcome of the philosophical development in the civilizations in question, which can be traced back to their respective origins. The essential concepts in Western intellectual tradition, concepts such as “absoluteness,” “transcendence” or “subjectivity,” played no part whatsoever in the development of Asian cultures (Hall & Ames 1995). While in the West there is an absolute being which is supposed to have created individual beings, Asians do not assume such an entity or such an origin. The East Asian worldview goes back as far as the 10th century BC. The value system of yin and yang, which encompasses all objects and abstract concepts in the universe, has consistently endured despite changes in religion and philosophies over the 3,000 years of Chinese recorded history, spreading across neighboring countries, including Korea, Japan, Thailand, and others. According to this value system, every thing exists in relation to the other things. This differs greatly from the Western value of the individual as the central unit of society. In the Eastern world view, things exist in relation to others, for example, man and woman, parent and child, black and white, and so on. Herein lies a fundamental difference in the concept of “being,” that is to exist, from the West, though it is assumed to be one of the foundations of cultural ideology both in the West and in the East. As a medium of thinking, we have Buddhism and Christianity. While Buddhism views human beings as small, as nothing, Western political philosophy assumes that people were created by God. While in Buddhism, the world continues to exist, Christianity thinks of the world with limits. This contrastive worldview of the East and the West, mediated by religion, gave rise to contrastive thinking prototypes by such people as the geologist Hideo Suzuki (1978), who characterized the Eastern prototype as “thinking in the forest.” Such “thinking in the forest” means that the human viewpoint is that of a tree, surrounded by other trees, with no view to a horizon or vast expanses, but focused on the trees in the immediate vicinity. Such a perspective leads understandably to humility and caution in all things. An academic with the tree-in-the-forest perspective will hardly develop a theory of broad scope, but will rather focus on the precise technical discussion of the matter under investigation. The Western viewpoint can be characterized as that of the eagle
How and why honorifics can signify dignity and elegance
soaring in the sky, alone, unfettered by its surroundings, with a perspective that spans all that is beneath it. The ultimate individual, the Western scholar, can pronounce sweeping and decisive judgments on problems surveyed from such heights. In the Western way of thinking, there is nothing to obscure your perspective. In contrast, the way you conceive of the world in the East is as if your vision were hemmed in, as it is in the deep forest. The only things you can see are the things right in front of you. Therefore, in the East, you are very concerned with your relationship with whatever is around you. It is the tree-in-the-forest grasp of speech events.
. Features of some East Asian languages: How can the complexity of person reference terms be explained? When compared with English, Thai and Japanese share a number of characteristics with other East Asian languages. According to the International Encyclopedia of Linguistics (Bright 1992), Thai is said to lack inflectional endings for number, person, and tense in the verb stems, but has extensive derivational compounding, the use of numerical classifiers, sentence final particles, principal elder brother
father
- kocho sensei watakushi
niisan
ojisan otosan
boku
boku colleague
anata kimi
boku
self
oji
n
sense i omae name
younger brother
ae om e m na
pupil
omae name
isa
mae - an o e otos nam
isa
ni
ore
wife
n kimi boya neighbor’s son name + chan
son
Figure 1. Rules for self and addressee reference terms (Suzuki 1987: 43)
Sachiko Ide
wide spread zero anaphora, and in addition, sociolinguistic factors are explicitly marked. Person reference terms are highly complex. That is, multi selfreference and addressee-reference terms are marked for the sex of the speaker, and the relationship of the speaker and the hearer. Stylistic registers are lexically differentiated. Thus, there are various forms for the verb. Several variant forms, which are sociolinguistically chosen, are features of Thai, and the same can be said of Japanese. Figure 1 illustrates the Japanese case of self-reference and addressee-reference terms. The personal pronoun for the first person reference is “I” in the Western languages, whoever you are, and whomever you are talking to. But in Japanese, and in Thai, the person reference terms are changed in many varieties of ways depending on the context. Varieties of lexical forms constitute sociolinguistic structures: the speaker’s sex, age, role or social ranking is one dimension, the formality of the context the other dimension. The latter is determined depending on the relationship between the speaker and the hearer, as well as the formality of the situation. Table 1 shows the sociolinguistic structure of self and addressee reference terms. Honorifics are another example of this kind of linguistic and pragmatic phenomena. How can these linguistic and pragmatic phenomena be explained? Where can a framework to explain this difference be found? Why is it that East Asian languages have so many varieties of address terms? The richness in honorific forms is not unrelated to varieties of address terms. The discussion of Table 1. Sociolinguistic structure of self and addressee reference terms (Ide & Yoshida 1999: 471) Speaker
Adult
Young child
Person
Style
Male
Female
Male
Female
First person pronoun
Formal
watakusi, watasi watasi, atasi None
None
watasi
Normal Deprecatory
watakusi, watasi boku ore
boku ore
FN**+ tyan None
Formal Normal
anata* kimi
anata* anata
Deprecatory
omae
None
(kimi)*** FN + kun FN + tyan omae
(anata) FN + kun FN + tyan None
Second person pronoun
* not applicable in addressing superiors ** FN represents first name *** ( ) begins to appear around the age of five
How and why honorifics can signify dignity and elegance
these topics has as its goal the challenging of the Western perspective, which so clearly fails to give a fair account of the linguistic and pragmatic phenomenon prevalent in East Asian societies. In order to give an appropriate account of the sociolinguistic variables seen in the person referent terms in Thai and in Japanese, it is important to stop and think where the scholarship, or the science on which so much scholarship is based, actually came from. A great debt is owed to the scholarship that originated in the West. The academic disciplines created there naturally look at the phenomenon in question within their visible context. In the case of the study of language and language use, the frameworks to deal with such phenomena were established based on the worldview of Western people. Therefore, when an appropriate account of that which is unfamiliar in the Western context is to be given, there is simply no framework that encompasses such linguistic and pragmatic phenomena. When the journalist from The Financial Times suggested abolishing honorific use, it is obvious that this suggestion came from the perspective of Western society and Western languages. This paper attempts to show that what has been missing in the Western frameworks can be provided by independent thinking based on philosophical and historical developments in East Asia. This, it seems, may be a step towards a true understanding of the nature of human language and human interaction.
. Two types of agreement By returning to the differences in perspective between the East and the West, the deep forest view versus the bird’s eye perspective, it is possible to gain a further understanding of the differences in what constitutes speaking in the East and the West. Figure 2 illustrates the differences in the speaker’s positions. When speaking in English, the speaker talks about the speech event, as it were, from a seat in the audience. As a consequence, speakers must observe themselves in the speech event as objective actors on the stage, distancing “me” on the stage and the speaking self as shown in Figure 2. Therefore, a speaker has to describe the speech event objectively and say, “Mary gave me this book” in a full sentence. In contrast, in the speech event in Japanese, the speaker is on the stage with the audience, who are sitting on the same level as and under the stage light with the speaker, as shown in Figure 2. Therefore, the speaker shares the information with the hearer on the stage, and thus does not have to state what is obvious in the context. Thus, “Kono hon kure ta no yo (kono ‘this’ hon ‘book’ kure ‘be given’ ta ‘PAST’ no ‘nominalizer particle’ yo ‘FINAL
Sachiko Ide Mary gave me this book.
Mary
(Mary ga watashi ni) kono hon (wo) kurenta no yo.
me Mary
the speaker watashi
the speaker
English
Japanese
Figure 2. The speaker’s position in speech event
PARTICLE’)” where there is no indication of the subject “Mary ga” (ga ‘SUBJECT MARKER’) nor an indirect object “watashi ni” (watashi ‘I’ ni ‘DATIVE MARKER’), since both these items of information are obvious to the hearer, who is in the context of speaking. On the other hand, in Japanese there are two particles at the end of the utterance. One is “no,” a particle to nominalize. This particle indexes the speaker’s identity as a sweet female. Another sentence final particle “yo” at the end of the utterance asserts the speaker’s attitude toward the information. If the equivalent utterance to English “Mary ga kono hon wo watashi ni kure ta (wo ‘OBJECT MARKER’)” were uttered, this would be considered pragmatically incorrect. It might be useful to look at this in more detail. In speaking Japanese, the speaker is an element of the context on the stage, as illustrated in Figure 2. Therefore, the speaker shares the contextual information and the other factors relevant to the context with the hearer. Speakers carry on a complex analysis of a variety of factors while speaking: while thinking about the content of what to say, they also must recognize what kind of position or role they have, and index their identity. Next, they must recognize their relationship with the addressee, and index it by the choice of linguistic forms. Then, speakers must evaluate the extent to which the hearer shares the contextual information, because shared information does not need to be mentioned, as it is contained in the context. It is important for speakers to “agree” on the other contextual factors. For speak-
How and why honorifics can signify dignity and elegance
ers of Japanese to express or to index such positions in the context is essential. This agreement is shown by appropriate modal expressions. In the West, on the other hand, there is a tendency for speakers to situate their viewpoint in the audience and speak about what is going on on the stage from a seemingly objective perspective. This is not to say that they disregard the context completely, as such features as the T/V distinction show, but speakers do not show the multifaceted agreement with the context that speakers of Japanese so consistently do. This illustrates a fundamental difference in linguistic and pragmatic phenomena in the East and the West. Although this and many other features are similar among languages in the East, and the points where they contrast are similar among many languages in the West, further illustrations will be drawn from Japanese and English as examples of the respective types of languages in the East and the West. After gaining some insight into the importance of the difference in the speaker’s position relevant to speaking itself, it seems probable that the difference in “agreement” may also have to do with the different levels at which the “agreement” takes place. In Japanese, it is the context of situation, meaning the speaker and the addressee as well as the formality of the setting, which determines the predicate forms, and this can be termed pragmatic modality. Agreement takes place in terms of wakimae, in terms of showing one’s sense of self and relation to others, and takes place at the pragmatic level. In English, on the other hand, agreement occurs at the grammatical level, inasmuch as the subject determines the form of the predicate by establishing number, person and gender. Such pragmatic level agreement as does exist in English is more a matter of lexical choice than of the language system, as incompatible choices are regarded as situationally inappropriate rather than as linguistically incorrect.
. The organization of speaking What has been discussed up to now about the differences between Eastern and Western speaking brings to mind the idea of Edward Hall (1966) on high context and low context cultures. Since Japanese undoubtedly reflects the concept of a high context culture, speakers of Japanese have to be more sensitive to context than people who speak in English. Therefore, the organization of speaking can be thought of as shown in Figure 3. When you speak in a high contextual culture, you must take the context into account as part of the in-
Sachiko Ide
(1) Say/Not to say I Meta Communication
Say/
Not to say
Non Verbal Silence (2) Who/When/Where
II Meta Pragmatics (3) How (Pragmatic Modality) Propositional Level
Who/When/Where (Turn change, Topic Control)
How Situational Level
Interaction Contest Territory of Information, etc.
III Propositional (4) What Communication (Proposition)
Discourse Level Discourse Management
What
Figure 3. The organization of speaking
formation of an utterance. Most of the analytic frameworks Western minds produced reflect a low context culture. As soon as this basic difference is clear, it is obvious that speakers from high context cultures will feel that “something is missing.” It follows that a framework is needed that can take into account features essential when speaking in a high context culture. In Figure 3, “The organization of speaking,” there are three levels of communication. The first one is meta-communication, the second level is meta-pragmatics and the third level is communication of propositions. First, when you want to say something, you have to decide whether you should even say it or not. Every culture has rules about speaking and not speaking. In certain contexts, you evaluate your position and that of the person you are considering saying something to and decide that it would be better if you did not say it after all. For example, in Japanese, at a seminar in graduate school, students sit and listen to the professor or the fellow student’s presentations, and they do not speak, even if they feel they have something they want to say. That is because it does not agree with the contextual norm, that is, with wakimae, as it applies in the seminar. So, not saying anything is a way of showing that the
How and why honorifics can signify dignity and elegance
speaker’s (or rather the non-speaker’s) politeness conforms to the norm. One can, of course, show one’s intention by a number of non-verbal behaviors, such as nodding to show that one agrees, or tilting one’s head to show one’s doubt. At the next level of speaking are the considerations of who is to speak, when to speak, and where to speak. Contextual information regarding the age, status, role, who has most knowledge, and many others are the factors that determine who speaks to whom, when, and where. Another consideration involves the question of sequencing. How turntaking is arranged means a lot. One can, of course, take one’s turn, but it should be done within the shared knowledge of sense of place i.e. wakimae of the sequencing rules. If one breaks these rules, it gives a marked meaning, so it is always important to know when the appropriate time for one to speak has come. There are also rules regarding when and where one can interrupt or give back-channels, and who is to lead in topic selection. These and many other elements of a conversation are calculated with regard to the various contextual factors, factors that are shared among participants of the conversation in the speech event where the speaker and the hearer share the same context. In a high context culture, the questions of speaking or not speaking, of who may say what to whom and when and where are all a part of the information exchanged as a meta-communication. One can give a meta-communicative message because there is shared knowledge of the context. When one follows this rule, it means that one has the appropriate reading of the contextual information and that is also the information one is expressing. And if one does not follow these rules, this intended deviation gives a special message beyond what is verbally communicated. This kind of communication reflecting the context of speaking plays a major role in communication and is absolutely essential in high context cultures. The next stage of speaking is the meta-pragmatic level. It is not the proposition alone that determines what to say, for there are a variety of ways to say the same thing, and therefore, how to say what one has to say is a question that is crucial in speaking in a high context culture. It turns out that there are three sub-levels of pragmatic modality: the propositional sub-level, the situational sub-level, and the discourse sub-level. First look at the propositional sub-level. In saying the same thing, in a high context culture, one has to distinguish whether the information one is talking about is closer to oneself or the closer to the addressee (Kamio 1997). Depending on one’s judgment of this distinction, one can express the difference by means of modal expressions of evidentials. This is pragmatically obligatory.
Sachiko Ide
The next level is the situational sub-level. Depending on the relationship of the speaker and the hearer and the formality of the situation, appropriate modal expressions must be selected. Essential modal expressions used for this sub-level are honorifics, person referent terms and sentence final particles. This agreement to fit the context is just as obligatory as saying things grammatically correctly. If one fails to choose such modal expressions as honorifics appropriately, one may be criticized for the way one speaks. Matsumoto (1989: 208–209) claims that there is no neutral predicate form in Japanese for the proposition sentence “Today is Saturday.” One has to make obligatory choices for the predicate forms among plain, polite or super-polite honorific forms according to context of speaking. In a high context culture, where the speaker is supposed to exercise the tree-in-the-forest perspective by paying attention to the immediate contextual matters, and to express the appropriate positions according to the expected norms of the society, i.e. wakimae, a person who fails to do so will be an awkward speaker, just as those who ignores grammatical rules in English do. The next sub-level is the discourse. Appropriate devices such as constant back-channeling while listening make the conversation go smoothly. It is almost obligatory, as the lack of it would be regarded as the sign of disinterest or anger at the speaker. There are varieties of mitigating expressions or formula to make the discourse pragmatically appropriate. Finally, on the fourth level, having made decisions regarding all the other questions, one says what one wants to say, and that is the propositional content. The organization of speaking as represented in Figure 3 shows the way to capture speaking in a high context culture. But scholarship up to now has focused primarily on level (4), the level of propositional content. Language use is bound to the context in a variety of ways from (1) to (3) levels. The rules for language use that have been discussed in terms of the speaker’s intention are those we are familiar with such as the Grician Maxims, Speech Act Theory, and Linguistic Politeness Theories. However, little has been discussed regarding rules for linguistic form agreement with the context. It is essential and very often obligatory in a high context culture such as the Japanese culture to make appropriate choices of linguistic forms as are required by the context. It is often said among Japanese “what that person says is right but the way the person says it is not acceptable.” This saying reflects the importance of meta-pragmatic level of speaking.
How and why honorifics can signify dignity and elegance
. Politeness and pragmatic agreement Honorifics have been mentioned as one of the linguistic forms that contribute to pragmatic modality in the organization of speaking. The use of honorifics makes the speech polite because of the linguistic role it plays. It seems that only some of the aspects of honorifics have ever been discussed in academic works. For example, the brilliant work “Ideologies of honorific language” by Judith Irvine (1998: 62), for all its insight, still seems to fail to explain the essence of honorific use. She seems to claim, “grammatical honorifics accompany linguistic ideologies that specify that flattened affect, conventionality, and avoidance of engagement with the concrete or the sensory as appropriate ways to express respect for others.” Her interpretation of the use of honorifics does not explain how they work as “dignity or elegance” markers for the speakers of languages that employ them. No Japanese could imagine that our language could get along without honorifics. Even a simple propositional sentence requires the choice between honorific or non-honorific predicate forms. Honorifics work as linguistic politeness only when they are used in keeping with the context. In other words, the use of high honorific forms itself could be interpreted differently depending on the context of speaking. Thus, if a high honorific form is chosen inappropriately, that is in a context where a less polite honorific form is expected, it could imply “irony,” “alienation,” or any number of other meanings. If honorifics are not used in a context where it is expected, it means that the speaker has ignored or neglected politeness and appropriate behavior. Thus, just as grammatical agreement in Western languages requires the agreement of the subject and the predicate form, it is the context of speaking that defines what constitutes agreement of the modal forms, and people in high context cultures have a highly complex communicative competence regarding the structure of varieties of linguistic forms. It is this agreement that is at the heart of the concept called wakimae, an aspect of linguistic politeness that is totally unrelated to those with which analytical frameworks of linguistic politeness are already familiar. This concept differs rather strikingly from the linguistic politeness frameworks of Brown and Levinson (1978, 1987) or Leech (1983), which posit that speakers find their strategies in order to produce utterances in such a way as to save face of the interactants. Perhaps explaining this from a different angle will aid in its clarification. Prevalent Western terms such as “common knowledge,” “frames,” “schema” or “script” all point to shared expectations in communication. Wakimae is the conceptual frame the members of the speech community share, and it is very
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often culturally defined. This kind of speaking is just like greetings or speech formulas in everyday language life that are used as rituals. It is the ritual aspect that makes certain types of speech behavior polite. On first seeing somebody in the morning, one says a greeting like “Good morning.” It is a ritualistic phrase intended to be uttered in the context of a first meeting early in the day. It is the situated practice to say “Good morning” in English speaking cultures, and “Ohayoo” in Japanese culture. It is a conventional practice. Everybody does it. Everybody knows that “Good morning” or “Ohayoo” are just a way of observing a ritualistic verbal exchange and indicating that the channels of communication are open. One could also say “Good morning” to one’s daughter when she wakes up at 5 o’clock in the afternoon. In that case, it could ironically mean “you are a sleepy head,” or “how in the world can you still be in bed when the sun is setting?” In this case, “Good morning” has a different meaning from “Good morning” uttered in the morning. It is not the exception, but the rule that linguistic forms and contexts have a matching relationship. In other words, linguistic forms do not stand by themselves. The forms and the situational context are in the relationship of co-occurrence. Speakers of a language where all belong to the same culture share the knowledge of the rules that match the linguistic forms and contextual situations in order to get along in the society. The system of “matching” between forms and context is not a one-toone correlation made by calculations, rather it is a system whereby one form out of a number of options is matched in a complex way. It operates according to the dynamic super-system as the matching of the form and context are made dynamically so that new meaning is created from one moment to the next. It might be useful to look at the way in which Japanese people acquire the appropriate use of honorifics. Up until they graduate from high school or college, they briefly learn how to use honorifics in the family, at school, or in the peer group. However, all they acquire is a rather superficial understanding of the forms and their uses. Once they become employed in a corporation, one of the first things they are trained in at many of corporations is the use of honorifics. They learn how to use honorifics to customers, or to other people they meet in business. In order to interact with people appropriately in the work place, they learn which linguistic forms to use in certain situational contexts. What they are learning is appropriate ritualistic behavior, because certain forms and certain situational practices are correlated, and the learning of this is the initiation ceremony for those newly employed in order to fit in in the society they will be working in. Therefore, the use of honorifics in Japanese society is not just an exercise in training people to respect certain other people in a certain way, or maintaining distance with certain people. It is first and
How and why honorifics can signify dignity and elegance
foremost a way of learning the rules so that you can get along with language in the society to which you belong. It is not like leaning the rules to get a driver’s license in a society where you have to drive a car. We learn the social rules by learning the rules concerning the use of linguistic forms, the core of which are honorific use.
. Why is the use of honorifics polite? Why is it that it is polite to use honorifics and formula? In other words, how does the pragmatics of ritualistic forms contribute to politeness? Ethologists have found that the basic wants of human beings are negative wants and positive wants. All human beings have the basic wants of negative face and positive face to be saved. Negative face has to do with the wants of a person not to be imposed on or hindered by others. On the other hand, positive wants have to do with the wants of every person that they want be desirable to others. A way to achieve the satisfaction of negative wants is to do things indirectly. In order for the positive face wants to be satisfied, it is good to claim that the speaker’s wants are the same as the hearer’s wants. The use of formal forms such as honorifics and formula can be viewed from this perspective. The use of formal forms according to the expected situational context is firstly accommodating to the positive face of the speaker and the hearer, because saying “Good morning” in the appropriate context, that is, in the morning, is an interactional behavior to establish common ground. Since it is uttered according to expected social behavior, it gives pleasure to both the speaker and the hearer by satisfying their positive face wants, giving both parties a sense of sharing. At the same time, since the speaker makes use of firmly established formula, it does not have a personal touch, and thus is a way of expressing things indirectly, which makes clear that it is a way to satisfy negative wants. Therefore, the use of rituals can be interpreted as the way to fulfill linguistic politeness with regard to both negative and positive face wants. In Brown and Levinson’s framework (1978, 1987), honorifics are treated under strategy No. 5, negative politeness. It means that the honorifics can be used as a strategy according to the speaker’s intention using the speaker’s rationality. It does not explain the most crucial aspect of this ritualistic use of honorifics. It is not the calculation of the speaker’s intention that the honorific form is chosen to be appropriate to the context, but rather it is the employment of the set pattern of language use. People say “Good morning” in the morning, it just comes automatically in the context. This is an aspect of language use in
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high context cultures, where there are many varieties of modal expressions including honorifics for saying the same thing. By now it should be obvious that it is highly “economical” to achieve linguistic politeness by linguistic rituals. Unlike Brown and Levinson’s framework of politeness strategies, one does not have to calculate options, and one need only follow the rules for automatically matching the ritualistic forms and the context. Honorifics are just one of a number of modal expressions. In Japanese, there is no grammatical agreement, like number, person, gender, or tense, but there is a pragmatic agreement between modal expressions and agreement with the context of the situation. While grammatical agreement is a strict kind with one to one agreement, pragmatic agreement is flexible. Several options of linguistic forms are often acceptable for one context. But there is a borderline of unacceptability such as that between uchi (in-group) and soto (out-group) that determines the use or non-use of formal forms. While Brown and Levinson’s (1978, 1987) framework of linguistic politeness, and Leech’s (1983) principle of politeness did not adequately cover the use of honorifics in the societies where they are used, Robin Lakoff ’s Rule of Politeness, published back in 1973, provided a foundation for the understanding and ultimately the incorporation of honorifics and all that they imply into pragmatic theory. Thirty years after its publication, it is now time to focus on Rule 1 of Robin Lakoff ’s linguistic politeness rules. It is this Rule 1 “Formality,” which has not been touched upon in detail until today. Lakoff ’s outstanding insight into pragmatics led her to pinpoint the aspect of politeness that is made by the use of formal forms. In some societies, the choice of formal forms, formulaic expressions, and honorifics are the primary focus of linguistic politeness. How can a universal principle of linguistic politeness be posited if, as Brown and Levinson did, this very important aspect of linguistic politeness in high context societies is excluded? In order for linguistic politeness to be truly universal and balanced, it seems indicated that a universal principle of linguistic politeness should be proposed that incorporates this aspect of ritualistic language use, which can be called wakimae.
. How honorifics express dignity and elegance How and why can honorifics signify dignity and/or elegance? It has been shown that honorifics are formal linguistic forms that cannot be used independent of the context. They are basically ritualistic linguistic forms chosen to fit to the particular situational context. The use of honorifics functions as linguistic
How and why honorifics can signify dignity and elegance
politeness because the fitting of the proper linguistic forms to the contextual factors makes the interactants feel secure in the interaction and the situation. What does using honorifics accomplish? The use of honorifics expresses, or more precisely indexes, the appropriate relationship between the speaker and the hearer. It also indexes the formality of the situation. But honorifics do more than that. Honorifics can index the speaker’s attributes. While honorific use for the interactants is geared to politeness for others, their usage to index the speaker’s attributes is quite different in nature. It indexes the speaker’s identity. People are judged as to what kind of person they are by the linguistic forms they choose. If honorifics are used appropriately according to the social norm, i.e. wakimae, a person is likely to be judged as a nice person. What is the mechanism of the function of this language use? It is observed that female executives use more elaborate honorific forms than do women of lower status in the same corporation. This contradicts the popular belief that honorifics are supposed to be used by a person of lower status towards a person of higher status to show respect. What is the reason for this result that contradicts what people have always presumed? The findings show that women of higher status signify their dignity or elegance by using more elaborate, higher honorific forms than those used by lower status women (Ide & Inoue 1992). How can this reality be accounted for? Even though, in a democratic society, talking about varieties of language in terms of social class is somewhat taboo, it is a fact that there are dialects that differ on the basis of categories of social roles and status. Female executives are one case in point, since they are indexing their high status by the use of more elaborate honorifics. Regional or geographical dialects are a familiar occurrence the world over. Osaka can serve as an example. People in Osaka, the second biggest city in Japan, speak in what is called the Osaka dialect. Listening to somebody speaking in Osaka dialect, one understands the referential meaning, but also that the speaker is from the Osaka area. Parallel to this, people tend to have different dialects according to their social roles and status. The higher the social status of the speaker, the more elaborate the linguistic forms they are likely to use. Regardless of an individual’s ability to employ the more elaborate honorifics, people in a speech community share at least passive communicative competence concerning their use. Just as people from the Osaka area are identified by their accent, hearers are able to categorize the social roles and status of speakers by the speech forms they use. There are varieties of language that differ on the basis of geographical, social, gender, and generational differences in a society. To the extent that a society is complex, the same propositional content can be expressed in con-
Sachiko Ide
junction with varieties of linguistic forms that index social differences of the speaker. Since these linguistic forms cannot be omitted, some linguistic form must be chosen. And it is by this choice that speakers index their own attributes according to the social context. If one uses forms that signal the Osaka dialect, women’s dialect, middle class dialect, and young people’s dialect, one indexes with great precision where one belongs in the society. The reading of the attributes of the speaker is possible only and if hearers share the sociolinguistic passive competence of varieties in the community. To the extent shared context is high, the reading of the speaker’s attribute may be elaborated. People from Tokyo who do not share high context with the Osaka area, for example, find it difficult to distinguish between Osaka dialect and Kobe dialect, the dialect of the neighboring city. It is very often the case that high status people, such as executives in big corporations, use honorifics appropriately, not hypercorrecting, and with a relaxed tone. That variety of speech can be recognized as that of people of that social category. In this way, in the mind of the members of a speech community, the correlation between the type of speech and the type of person is widely recognized. The elaborate use of high honorifics indexes the features of the category of high status persons. Since speakers who choose to use high linguistic forms are very often those who hold high positions and whose behavior exhibits dignity and elegance, this information is attached to the speaker of such speech. The speech itself does not have dignity or elegance, but the features of the people who make habitual use of that speech are reflected through their speech, offering metalinguistic meaning of dignity or elegance. This becomes possible owing to the reflexive capacity of language (Lucy 1993, 1999). In this way, speakers are able to index their identity as persons of dignity and elegance.
. Implication for linguistic relativity: Concluding remarks As has been emphasized, linguistic forms and contextual factors are closely connected in high context cultures, where the speaker’s vantage point is that of a tree-in-the-forest or on the stage as seen in Figure 3 and thus limited to that which is in the immediate area. High context cultures therefore require that speakers obligatorily pay attention to the contextual factors in the speech event in order to make the linguistic forms to be chosen agree with the relevant context. The above statement does not entail that low context cultures do not require appropriate linguistic choices according to situational context. For ex-
How and why honorifics can signify dignity and elegance
ample, in English, when you want to leave, you say “May I please be excused?” to a person with authority over you, “I’ve got to be off now” to an equal, but perhaps “I’m out of here” to a close friend. The last option, said to a boss, could be grounds for disciplinary action or firing, because it is inappropriate for the situation. The levels discussed do exist in Western languages and cultures, too. These features have just been ignored, because they have to do with situations, and linguists have confined themselves to words, not people and situations. The choice of linguistic forms appropriate to situational contexts is a universal phenomenon. However, it has not been systematically investigated in the Western languages. One goal of investigating honorifics and some other linguistic phenomena in East Asian languages is to highlight these phenomena and shed light on what has been neglected in other languages, above all the Western languages. What are the implications of this argument for the theory of linguistic relativity? It was stated above that the appropriate language use according to context can be found in English and many other languages, and therefore is universal. However, the focus should be made on the obligatory nature of systematic pragmatic agreement. The appropriate choice of predicate forms according to context for “Today is Saturday,” for example, is automatic, just as the third person singular subject in English automatically takes “-s” morpheme. Slobin (1996: 74–75) comments on Turkish narrative examples that have obligatory grammatical markings of evidentials, “We (English speakers) do have available optional lexical meaning for expressing notions that lie outside of the set of obligatory grammatical distinctions in a language.” He further posits the aspect of “thinking for speaking” as the medium of language and thought, and says, “A ‘verbalized event’ is constructed on-line, in the process of speaking. Von Humboldt and Whorf and Boas were right in suggesting that the obligatory grammatical categories of a language play a role in this construction.” What have been discussed so far are pragmatic, not grammatical phenomena. But, as long as pragmatic constraints are obligatory, it can be claimed that honorifics and other modal expressions play distinct roles in the process of speaking. Having observed how linguistic forms are context saturated and pragmatic agreement is often obligatory, it becomes clear that language does not stand by itself but it is embedded in our everyday lives.
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References Bright, W. (Ed.). (1992). International Encyclopedia of Linguistics. New York: Oxford University Press. Brown, P. & Levinson, S. (1978). “Universals in language usage: Politeness phenomena”. In E. N. Goody (Ed.), Questions and Politeness: Strategies in Social Interaction (pp. 56–289). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Brown, P. & Levinson, S. (1987). Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hall, E. (1966). The Hidden Dimension. New York: Fawcett. Hall, D. & Ames, R. (1995). Anticipating China: Thinking through the Narratives of Chinese and Western Culture. New York: State University of New York Press. Ide, S. (1989). “Formal forms and discernment: Two neglected aspects of linguistic politeness”. Multilingua, 8, 223–248. Ide, S. (1998). “Bunka to communication koudou: Nihongo wa ikani Nihon bunka to kakawaru ka [Culture and communicative action: How the Japanese language is interrelated to Japanese culture]”. Nihongogaku, 17, 62–77. Ide, S. & Inoue, V. (1992). “Onna kotoba ni miru aidentiti [Identity in women’s language]”. Gekkan Gengo, 11, 46–48. Ide, S. & Yoshida, M. (1999). “Sociolinguistics: Honorifics and gender differences”. In N. Tsujimura (Ed.), The Handbook of Japanese Linguistics (pp. 444–478). Oxford: Blackwell. Irvine, J. (1998). “Ideologies of honorific language”. In B. Schieffelin, K. Woolard, & P. Kroskrity (Eds.), Language Ideologies: Practice and Theory (pp. 51–67). New York: Oxford University Press. Kamio, A. (1997). Territory of Information. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Lakoff, R. (1973). “The logic of politeness; Or, Minding your P’s and Q’s”. In Papers from the 9th Regional Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society (pp. 292–305). Chicago: Chicago Linguistic Society. Leech, G. (1983). Principles of Pragmatics. London: Longman. Lucy, J. (Ed.). (1993). Reflexive Language: Reported Speech and Metapragmatics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lucy, J. (1999). “Reflexivity”. In A. Duranti (Ed.), Language Matters in Anthropology: A Lexicon for the Millennium. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, 9 (1–2). Matsumoto, Y. (1989). “Politeness and conversational universals: Observations from Japanese”. Multilingua, 2 (2–3), 207–221. Slobin, D. (1996). “From ‘thought and language’ to ‘thinking for speaking”’. In J. Gumperz & S. Levinson (Eds.), Rethinking Linguistic Relativity (pp. 70–96). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Suzuki, H. (1978). Shinrin no Shikou, Sabaku no Shikou [Thinking in the Forest, Thinking in the Desert]. Tokyo: NHK Books. Suzuki, T. (1987). Reflections on Japanese Language and Culture. Tokyo: The Institute of Cultural and Linguistic Studies, Keio University. Young, L. (1994). Crosstalk and Culture in Sino-American Communication. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Whither politeness Bruce Fraser The paper addresses a number of questions raised by Brown and Levinson model of politeness, questions such as Is politeness communicated? What is the status of a politeness principle? What is the relationship between deference and politeness? Should a theory of politeness be extended to impoliteness? What is the status of politeness strategies? Is the notion of face universal? What is the status of Wx? These raise but a few of the important questions to be asked in pursuit of an understanding of what linguistic politeness is, how it is used, what factors influence a speaker’s choice to be heard as polite and what sort of a model is maximally useful. Optimists take the position that if we continue to work on the problem, we can expect to arrive at a serious theory of politeness, necessarily somewhat different from the existing model. Pessimists, on the other hand, take the position that while we all know polite behavior when we see it, we will never be able to speak definitively about it. I am an optimist. Keywords: Politeness; challenges; status; future
.
Introduction1
The initial publication of Politeness: Some Universals of Language Usage (Brown & Levinson 1978, 1987)2 some 25 years ago provided focus to the area of linguistic politeness and subsequently gave rise to an extraordinarily large number of articles and several books on politeness. Indeed, a bibliography edited by DuFon et al. which appeared in the Journal of Pragmatics, Volume 21 in 1994 listed more than 900 articles and books, most of them after 1978 (DuFon et al. 1994), and in the past five years the number has increased by several hundred. Yet, as we might expect, all is not settled in the domain of linguistic politeness. Several alternate models have been suggested, and the original model, not altered in the second edition (Brown & Levinson 1987), has been challenged on almost every aspect. It is my purpose in this paper to identify some of the
Bruce Fraser
challenges which have been made of Brown and Levinson’s model and thereby suggest areas where the field of linguistic politeness might be heading in the 21st century.
. Challenges to the Brown and Levinson model The model proposed by Brown and Levinson, claimed by the authors to be a universal model, has been challenged in a number of ways. In fact, Meier (1995b: 388), one of the most pessimistic, writes, “Politeness can be said to be universal only in the sense that every society has some sort of norms for appropriate behavior although these norms will vary, thereby accounting for societies in which the individual’s position within a group or those where the individual takes precedence”. As we shall see, there are a number of researchers who agree with him that the universality of politeness and the all-encompassing claims for the model are simply overstated. . The underlying assumptions There are challenges to the assumptions underlying the model. For example, both Fraser (1990) and Jary (1998) questioned if politeness is in fact a message, specifically an implicated message along the lines of Grice’s implicature, as Brown and Levinson had claimed (emphasis added): Linguistic politeness is therefore implication in the classical way [. . .] politeness has to be communicated and the absence of communicated politeness may, ceteris paribus, be taken as absence of the polite attitude. (Brown & Levinson 1987: 5) Politeness is implicated by the semantic structure of the whole utterance (not sentence), not communicated by ‘markers’ or ‘mitigators’ in a simple signaling fashion which can be quantified. (22) Politeness is then a major source of deviation from such rational efficiency, and is communicated precisely by that deviation. (95)
It follows from this view of Brown and Levinson that there is no politeness associated with bald on-record strategies – it is not a politeness strategy, and that whenever politeness strategies are used, an additional message is being conveyed: “I’m being polite here because I’m sensitive to your face needs”. In fact, this view is counterintuitive, since politeness is normally anticipated, it is the
Whither politeness
norm, and it is the breach of this norm of polite communication that is signaled and thus noted by the hearer as being impolite. As Kasper (1990: 193) wrote: Competent adult members comment on absence of politeness where it is expected, and its presence where it is not expected.
and, as Jary (1998: 2) has written, if this observation is accepted, then it is hard to see how the claim that the use of these forms/strategies always communicates politeness can be maintained.
If Brown and Levinson’s position is adopted, there are the following questions which need to be answered: What is communicated when politeness is communicated? What is the content of the message? Is politeness always communicated or is it communicated only in certain circumstances? If so, how can these cases be identified? . The status of the politeness principles Brown and Levinson fail to state what the status of politeness is within linguistic pragmatics, except to strongly object to placing a Politeness Principle (PP) on a par with the Cooperative Principle (CP) as did Leech (1983). Assuming that the PP would have a set of maxims, as suggested by Leech, they write: Now if politeness principles had maxim-like status, we should expect the same robustness [as the Cooperative Principle]: it should, as a matter of fact, be hard to be impolite. (Brown & Levinson 1987: 5)
Whereas there is little argument for making the PP parallel to the CP, there is certainly an argument for making a single Politeness Maxim (PM) under the CP, as Burt (1999) and earlier Fukada (1998, quoted in Burt’s paper) have done.3 They suggest that politeness should be another maxim under the CP, analogous to the maxims of Quality, Quantity, Relation, and Manner, and argue that it is better to have the PM follow from the CP, rather than some superordinate principle, which would be the case if it were placed parallel with the CP. They see the PM reflecting a rational behavioral manifestation, as do the other maxims, stating that “attention to communicative goals relevant to politeness is an aspect of rational behavior, not a departure from it, thus no clash between politeness and CP” (Burt 1999: 2). Furthermore, they claim that it is reasonable for the CP to enter into the calculation of politeness, that clashes can occur between the PM and other maxims, that one can opt out of the PM similar to the other maxims, and finally that a speaker can flout the PM. If, in-
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deed, politeness is the rational way of behaving, analogous to speaking clearly, to the point, being relevant, reflected in the other maxims, then a strong case can be made for maxim status. . The conflation of deference with politeness The concept of politeness and the more narrow concept of deference are often not separated by Brown and Levinson. Ide (1989) writes of “indexing” terms and terms of “discernment”, Watts (1992) writes of “politic behavior”, and Matsumoto (1988) writes of “honorifics”: honorifics, all convey rank differences. It is not negative politeness, the acknowledgement of the addressee’s freedom from imposition that is conveyed by these forms, but a reflection of rank-ordering. (Matsumoto 1988: 414)
Honorific terms, for example sensei in Japanese, Usted in Spanish, and Sie in German, are, as Goffman (1971: 56) commented, “that component of activity which functions as a symbolic means by which appreciation is regularly conveyed.” All of the terms reflect the socio-cultural relationship that exists between the interactants prior to the utterance, a relationship that is fixed, usually not negotiable, is not subject to the content of what is said, and thus are not strategies for us to consider as there is for politeness purposes.4 When used properly, they are not noticed. Of course, as Matsumoto (1988) claims, unexpected social markings can give rise to implicatures. Thus, for example, the utterance, “Sir, would you please pass me the butter,” spoken by a wife to her husband, implies anger. Hwang (1990) argues for the separation of the concepts of politeness and deference in Korean, arguing that one can be deferential without being polite or non-deferential while being polite: To sum up, the availability of various linguistic and pragmatic means of encoding polite intention outside the dimensions of deference not only enable the speaker of Korean to show – or not to show – their modesty and politeness while still having the status relationship properly encoded by levels of deference [. . .]. (48)
Whereas in some languages, like Japanese and Korean, nearly every sentence is marked for this social indexing, in English it is absent in most sentences. Sir, in English, is a deference marker and its presence signifies, by convention, that the speaker is showing (or giving) deference to the addressee. But this is deference, not politeness.
Whither politeness
Green (1989) captures this notion of deference when she writes of euphemisms that as with many politeness techniques, the speaker is really only going through the motion of offering options, of showing respect [deference; B.F.] for the addressee’s feelings. The offer may be a facade, the option nonviable, and the respect a sham. It is the fact that an effort was made to go through the motions at all that makes the act an act of politeness. (Green 1989: 147)
Deference is required by situation, not utterance. Moreover, politeness and deference are related in the following way: A Politeness B
C
Deference D
In the chart below, the English examples illustrate that deference and politeness are independent factors. Case
Pol.
Def.
English Examples
C B D A
+ + – –
+ – + –
“Sir, may I help you?” said by waiter to patron “Scapel, right now.” said by doctor to assistant “Sir would you mind shutting up?” said by waiter to patron “Shut up!” said by waiter to patron
. The limitation on the concept of politeness Other researchers have suggested that the Brown and Levinson notion of politeness is too limited, that politeness phenomena includes rudeness phenomena as well. Lakoff (1989: 102) identifies three kinds of politeness: (1) polite behavior, when participants adhere to politeness, expected or not; (2) nonpolite behavior, when participants are not conforming with politeness rules where conformity is not expected; (3) rude behavior, where politeness is not conveyed even though it is expected. The first two are in accordance with ‘politic’ behavior, i.e. socially sanctioned norms of interaction, with polite behavior serving the explicit function of ensuring comity, social harmony, and counterbalancing
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potential conflict. Rudeness, by contrast, is constituted by deviation from whatever counts as polite in a given social context, is inherently confrontational and disruptive to social equilibrium. Politic behavior normally goes unnoticed [. . .]. (Kasper 1990: 208)
Kasper (1990) herself distinguishes motivated from unmotivated rudeness, where unmotivated rudeness refers to the violation of the norms of politic behavior due to ignorance (e.g., by children, second language learners, people unfamiliar with the expectations of the situation) and distinguishes three types of motivated rudeness (Kasper 1990: 208): (1) Due to lack of affect control; (2) Strategic rudeness, e.g., courtroom behavior; and (3) Ironic rudeness, e.g., “DO help yourself,” (cf. strategic rudeness, à la Jary 1998). It is precisely the aggravated rude force that distinguishes sarcastic utterances from ironic ones, where the speaker rationally tries to not address face, and thus tries to be impolite. Brown and Levinson basically ignore the obverse of politeness: impoliteness/rudeness/aggravation. Turner (1996) writes that “there are exchanges in which the speaker not only declines the attempt to preserve the addressee’s face, as he or she might if s/he were speaking with Gricean rationality, but actively and intentionally seeks to damage it”, thereby suggesting a fourth type of rudeness. There are numerous questions about impoliteness. Where is rudeness/impoliteness to be situated? Is there a continuum with politeness at one end, impoliteness at the other, and degrees of (im)politeness along the way? Nearly every utterance can be construed as polite or impolite, depending on the circumstances: is it possible for the Wx formula be extended to account for impoliteness? Lachenicht (1980), in fact, went so far as to extend the Brown and Levinson strategies to include aggravation, where he adds bald on-record type of negative aggravation, defined as that which willfully impedes the addressee’s own actions, and positive aggravation, defined as that which willfully conveys to the addressee that he or she is not liked or respected. He writes: It is important to study not only the socially positive, but also the socially negative. Just as we cannot attain an adequate appreciation of value without an understanding of rubbish [. . .] so we cannot attain an appreciation of the positive uses of language without an understanding of invective. The one complements the other. (Lachenicht 1980: 680)
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. The status of politeness strategies There are a number of issues concerning the hierarchy of politeness strategies. Meier (1995b), concerned about whether a speech act serves as a FTA or a politeness strategy and, if the latter, is a negative or positive strategy, writes: Apologies, [. . .] classified by Brown and Levinson as negative politeness strategies, could be viewed as requests for exoneration (e.g., please forgive me, please excuse me) and as requests, would be threats to H’s face which would bring their status as politeness strategies into question. Furthermore, although request are considered to be FTAs, one could well imagine a context in which they could be a sign of solidarity [. . .] this would then qualify them for positive politeness status. (Meier 1995b: 385)
He later raises a different issue when he writes, “Politeness is not simply a secondary act piggy-backed to another, as in Brown and Levinson’s framework. An apology may itself constitute the primary act” (Meier 1995b: 387). In fact, the bald on-record strategy isn’t really a politeness strategy at all in the Brown and Levinson model, since it lacks any linguistic form which could implicate politeness. Yet it clearly is a polite way of communicating, given the proper circumstances. Turner (1996) echoes this problem when he points out that in addition to the allegation of the non-universality of face, there are many politeness strategies which address more than one face want at the same time. He suggests that the request, “Could you look after the baby for half an hour?,” is customarily taken to threaten the addressee’s negative face in that it serves to constrain future actions and may also undermine the speaker’s positive face because it implies that he/she is not able to act without assistance. He continues, But, and this is what is not so often remarked, the utterance may also be said to anoint the addressee’s positive face because the speaker is selecting the addressee as a reliable and responsible person to undertake this particular important task. [. . .] It is not too hard to see that positive politeness may put constraints on the addressee such that it doubles as negative politeness. For example, the positive polite ‘You’re good with children’ may implicate a threat to the addressee’s negative face such as ‘Perhaps you’d like to offer to look after mine for half an hour’ which itself implicates anointing of the addressee’s positive face such as ‘I regard you as a reliable and responsible person’. (Turner 1996: 4f.)
The Brown and Levinson hierarchy of strategies from bald on-record to offrecord (indirect) appears to be a continuum, although we are not told the relative placements of the two intermediary strategies: on-record with positive
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politeness and on-record with negative politeness. Blum-Kulka (1987) found it necessary to distinguish between conventional indirection (e.g., “Can you pass the salt?”) and non-conventional indirection (e.g., “I probably need some more salt for this.”), and concludes that politeness is routinely found associated with the former but only sometimes with the latter, in part because of the difficulty and time associated with working out the indirect message. This suggests, minimally, that there needs to be a distinction with off-record strategies. Scollon and Scollon (1981) suggest that positive and negative politeness are sufficiently different kinds of things that their placement on the same hierarchy is conceptually awkward, if not incoherent, and claim that “while positive politeness is directed more to the general nature of the relationship between interactants, negative politeness is direct to the specific act of imposition” (Scollon & Scollon 1981: 174). Strecker (1988) takes another approach when he argues that positive politeness, negative politeness, and off-record politeness are not independent and discrete domains. Although dealing with Hamar, spoken in Southern Ethiopia, his comments apply widely: [. . .] off-record speech abounds in the strategies of positive and negative politeness [. . .] on-record strategies are often combined with off-record strategies. These exist switches from positive politeness to negative politeness and vice versa. In fact, these switches can be seen to follow logical and/or temporal sequences which constitute a type of super-strategy. (Strecker 1988: 155)
In response, Brown and Levinson state that present evidence is too equivocal to entail the abandonment of our original scheme. But we do concede that the possibility that the off-record strategy is independent of, and co-occurrent with, the other two super-strategies is something which definitely requires closer investigation. (Brown & Levinson 1987: 21)
But then they add, that politeness is not the only motivation for using these strategies; they may for example be used to put on a social ‘brake’ or ‘accelerator’ in the development of social relationships, or an off-record utterance may be used to avoid responsibility for actions unrelated to face concerns. (22)
This quote is a summary of comments in the text of the book that “positive politeness techniques are usable not only for FTA redress, but in general as a kind of social accelerator, where S, in using them, indicates that he wants to ‘come closer’ to H” (103) and still later on that
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the wants outlined [. . .] are not the only motivations a speaker may have for using the linguistic realizations characteristic of negative politeness. The outputs are all forms useful in general for social ‘distancing’ [. . .] they are therefore likely to be used whenever a speaker wants to put a social brake on to the course of his interaction. (130)
Thus, it is not clear whether there are, in some cases, politeness strategies or just indirect strategies for sending a message which, perhaps incidentally, are useful in the course of addressing face. What about intercultural variation? Brown and Levinson write: We have argued in this section that indirect speech acts have as their prime raison d’etre the politeness functions they perform. We went on to argue that their internal structure is best accounted for as conforming with the demands of particular politeness strategies. And finally we took pains to establish that indirect speech acts are universal and for the most part are probably constructed in essentially similar ways in all languages. We may suggest, then, that the universality of indirect speech acts follows from the basic service they perform with respect to universal strategies of politeness. (Brown & Levinson 1987: 142)
But this is surely too narrow a view, since there are many counterexamples of a strategy having one purpose in one language, another purpose in another.5 For example, Escandell-Vidal (1996: 631) reports that whereas “Can you pass the salt?” is taken as a conventional (standardized) indirect request in English and Spanish, in Poland the same utterance is taken only as a genuine question while in Thailand the inference is taken that there is a doubt about the hearer’s ability. Clancy (1986: 221) suggests whereas the indirect form in US is seen as mitigating negative face threat, in Japan it emphasizes empathy between the participants, symbolizing a high degree of experience that would render a more explicit request unnecessary but even disrupt social bonds, while Blum-Kulka (1987) finds that indirectness is assessed as less polite than both conversational indirectness and direct requestive strategy by Israelis, since the noncommitting character of indirect request is viewed as lacking speaker sincerity and imposes in inferential burden on the hearer that runs counter to cultural values (cf. Kasper 1990: 200). Escandell-Vidal (1996: 631) writes: These striking differences, which affect both the conditions of use of a formula and the interpretation associated with it, clearly indicate that posing a question about a precondition of an action is not a universal means of requesting [. . .] if the interpretation of indirect illocutions is based on gen-
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eral, universal inference mechanisms, as claimed, then this would be a rather unexpected result.
. The universal notion of face As viewed by Brown and Levinson (1987), the notion of face is taken to be universal. Repeating, the concepts of face are the following: Negative Face: “the basic claim to territories, personal preserves, right to nondistraction – i.e., to freedom of action and freedom from imposition” (61) “[. . .] the want of every competent adult member that his action be unimpeded by others” (62). Positive Face: “the positive consistent self-image or ‘personality’ (crucially including the desire that this self-image be appreciated and approved of) claimed by interactants” (61) “[. . .] the want of every member that his wants be desirable to at least some others” (62).
But their view has come under fire an being far too ‘Western-oriented’, primarily by researchers writing from an Asian or African perspective. Matsumoto (1988), for example, concludes that the Japanese concepts of face are qualitatively different from those defined as universals by Brown and Levinson. The notion of individuals and their rights plays a dominant role in European and American culture, but cannot be considered basic to the Japanese culture and society: What is of paramount concern to a Japanese is not his/her own territory, but the position in relation to the others in the group and his/her acceptance by those others. Loss of face is associated with the perception by others that one has not comprehended and acknowledged the structure and hierarchy of the group. The Japanese concepts of face, thus, are qualitatively different from those defined as universals by Brown and Levinson. The difference transcends the variability of cultural elaboration acknowledged in Brown and Levinson’s theory (e.g. what kinds of acts threaten face, what sorts of persons have special rights to face-protection, etc.) and call into question the universality of a core concept; the notion of face as consisting of the desire for approval of wants and the desire for the preservation of one’s territory. (Matsumoto 1988: 405)
He goes on to say that what is most alien to Japanese culture in the notion of face is the concept of negative face wants as the desire to be unimpeded in one’s action. This assumption presupposes that the individual is the basic unit of Japanese society where in fact it is the relationship to a group or society, and who must acknowledge dependence on the other. In short, the concept
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of face for a Japanese is different from that of European and Americans, and Matsumoto concludes that the constituents of face are culturally dependent. In fact, Ide (1989) suggests that discernment, rather than face, is the motivation force behind Japanese politeness. She says that “people in a culture choose strategies of politeness according to the cultural expectation and requirement” (230).6 In contrast to a universal notion of face, Matsumoto posits a general notion of face, or “socially given self-image,” the desire to maintain face as the dynamic of the politeness system, but has the framework include also a certain spectrum of styles that can be chosen, according to the culture and the situation, to effect face-preserving ends. But in giving up the universality of face, and accepting some cultural styles, he is making politeness relative. Nwoye (1992) discusses politeness in the Igbo society as a form of social contract existing between the group, as a whole, and individual members of the group. The individual is expected to behave properly, i.e., be polite, as defined by the group, in return for which (s)he is entitled to reciprocal behavior from the other members of the group [. . .]. Brown and Levinson’s view of politeness, especially their notion of negative face and the need to avoid imposition, does not seem to apply to the egalitarian Igbo society, in which concern for group interests rather than atomistic individualism is the expected norm of behavior. (Nwoye 1992: 310)
He characterizes the society as egalitarian, where through socialization, each member of society acquires this pattern of behavior, thus entering, as it were, into a type of social contract with other member of the society to do his/her best to keep social contact friction-free. [. . .] The difference between this type of society and Western society is that while the latter can be said to be individual-oriented, the former is group-oriented. (313)
He then suggests that the notion of face, while useful as a heuristic device, should be further sub-classified into “individual face”, the individual’s desire to attend to his/her personal needs and to place his/her public-self image above those of others, and “group face”, the individual’s desire to behave in conformity with culturally expected norms of behavior that are institutionalized and sanctioned by society. But, here again, we have thrown away face as anything but a general notion without teeth. Brown and Levinson (1987: 24) state that “some acts are intrinsically threatening to face and thus require ‘softening.”’ But this ignores the fact that
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the social position, distance, and the circumstances may radically change the ‘politeness’ of an utterance. What is impolite in one set of circumstances (e.g, between a son and his father) may be quite polite in another (e.g., between military officers). Similarly, Nwoye states that requests, offers, thanks, and criticism in Igbo are carried out in the context of the stated attention to the dictates of the group within which the individual finds his/her own place and it will be shown that in many contexts, these acts are not face-threatening at all, even when performed in the most bald on-record manner. (Nwoye 1992: 317)
Gu (1990), writing about Chinese, concludes that Brown and Levinson (1987) is not suitable to account for Chinese for two reasons. First, the notion of negative face seems to differ; for example, offering, inviting, and promising in Chinese, under ordinary circumstances, will not be considered as threatening the hearer’s negative face. “Rather, it [negative face] is threatened when self cannot live up to what s/he has claimed, or when what self has done is likely to incur ill fame or reputation” (Gu 1990: 242). And second, because of the social norm view, which emphasizes the group rather than individual first, “[I]n the Chinese context, politeness exercises its normative function in constraining individual speech acts as well as the sequence of talk exchanges” (242). Kong (1999) extends this to the domain of service encounters. The difference in face needs underlies the Western view that the Chinese are rude, relative to Western service encounters. However, these encounters are usually interpreted as an “outgroup” (Scollon & Scollon 1981) rather than an “ingroup” relationship and thus facework is not required of either of the participants. This topic-response pattern (without the preliminary call-answer sequence) contrasts strongly with the Western practice. In Asia in an outside relationship the positions of the parties are tightly fixed with a service role relationship; one is a teller, the other a customer; one is a waitress, the other a customer. Before the encounter begins, the possible moves are limited within a narrow range. [. . .] Because this is an outside relationship Asians regard it as impossible for any other topics to be introduced or for any other relationship to develop; therefore, no facework is required, no preliminaries are necessary to establish who you are or why you are there. The topic can (and, in fact, must) be introduced directly. (118)
The upshot of these three cases – from Japanese, Igbo, and Chinese – is to cast serious doubt on the universality of face. To reduce face to a general notion with specific styles or sub-components reduces it to a figurehead, with each language constructing its conversation contract according to cultural and societal
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pressures, only some of which may overlap. We may then have to abandon the notion of cross-cultural research, at least insofar as it applies to politeness. But this wouldn’t be surprising to anyone who has looked seriously at any but the most trivial of cross-cultural issues. They are invariably treated emically, and when it comes to comparison, they are incommensurate. Ide (1989: 241) sums it up when she writes: In a Western society where individualism is assumed to be the basis of all interactions, it is easy to regard face as the key to interaction. On the other hand, in a society where group membership is regarded as the basis for interaction, the role or status defined in a particular situation rather than face is the basis of interaction.
. The correctness of Wx formula There are a number of different issues raised about the Wx formula which supposedly captures the amount of face work required. Wx is presented as equal to D(S,A)+P(A,S)+Rx, where D is the social distance between the speaker and addressee, P is the relative power of the addressee over the speaker, and Rx is the imposition (inherent risk) of the speech act, sensitive to cultural and contextual variables, and where Wx is the overall weight of the particular FTA in the estimation of this specific speaker. Glick (1996), is among the most strident critics, writing that the central theoretical notion of ‘inherent risk’ [value of Rx – B.F.] was never clearly operationalized so that different utterances could be universally compared in its terms. How these various influences on linguistic use are reduced to a unilinear and unidimensional scaling can not be justified by appeal to their abstract theoretical definitions. [. . .] Unable to move from empirical data to theoretical definitions in an internally-consistent way, we are left with only the abstract rational and logical model that the authors propose as a universalizing explanation for linguistic use. (156)
He goes on to point out that the independent variable of prediction, Wx, cannot be shown to have any predictive ability from either direction and the universal classes of strategic use have not been demonstrated to be regular classes at all (cf. 157). Brown and Levinson assume that each of these values can be “measured on a scale of 1 to n, where n is some small number and [. . .] the function that assigns a value to Wx on the basis of the three social parameters does so on a simple summative basis” (Brown & Levinson 1987: 76). But what is
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the meaning of the value of Wx which will determine the degree of politeness (face-saving) that the speaker concludes is required for the communication of the speech act, X? Asserted but untested is their claim that a Wx value of 5, for example, has the same significance for determining the strategy to be used, independent of what values of D, P, and R were summed to arrive at this value. How are the factors P and D to be defined? Brown and Levinson don’t tell us and, as Spencer-Oatey (1996: 5) points out: The precise meaning of many of the terms that the authors use often remains unclear, even when glosses or alternative wordings are given. For example, distance/closeness and familiarity could potentially refer to one or more of the following: frequency of contact, length of acquaintance, amount of selfdisclosure, and amount and type of affect. Yet very few of the authors discuss exactly how they interpret the terms.
Brown and Levinson do write that: We assume that each of these values can be measured on a scale of 1 to n, where n is some small number [. . .] and assume that the function that assigns a value to Wx on the basis of the three social parameters does so on a simply summative basis. (Brown & Levinson 1987: 76)
but they never give a precise definition of a variable or even how you would go about determining its value. On the next page, they write, P is an asymmetric social dimension of relative power. [. . .] That is, P(H,S) is the degree to which H can impose his own plans and his own self-evaluation (face) at the expense of S’s plans and self-evaluation. (77)
So far so good. They then go on to discuss three methods of assigning a value for P in a given case, concluding that the roles played by the individuals coupled with other situational sources of power might contribute, “so the values assessed hold only for S and H in a particular context, and for a particular FTA” (79). Thus we are left with no idea of how to assign a number to P although we are told that it is relative to contextual factors.7 Are these three variables sufficient? Slugowski and Turnbull (1988) suggest that the role of affect must be added to the lists of necessary factors. They write [the] tendency for subjects to perceive a positive relationship between perceived and reciprocal liking means that it may be practically impossible to manipulate perceived like without influencing people’s expectations about the social distance between the participants. (117)
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To what extent are the variables not independent of each other? Watts, Ide and Ehlich (1992) have commented on this, suggesting that the degree to which a social act is considered to be an imposition [Rx value] [. . .] depends crucially on P and D. So in order for the model person to be able to assess the value for R, s/he has to be able to calculate values for D and P first. [. . .] Similarly knowledge of the value of P may rely crucially on knowing the value of D. (Watts, Ide, & Ehlich 1992: 9)
Is the formula correct, both in its symmetry and in its additive nature? This question is impossible to prove or disprove, since the quantification of any variable is highly suspect. Holtgraves and Yang (1992) write that when any of the three interpersonal variables reaches a particularly high level, the effects of the remaining variables lessen or drop out completely. For example, if an interactant has committee an extremely offensive act or intends to ask for an extremely large favor, he or she will be polite regardless of the closeness of the relationship with the other person. (Holtgraves & Yang 1992: 252)
Also, if social distance increases because of a slight, politeness goes by the boards, and impoliteness may be called for. The imprecision of the Brown and Levinson model not only infects the determination of Wx, but once this number is determined, it is unclear how it should be applied to the hierarchy of politeness strategies and what the relationship of the main class of strategies is to each other. . Design flaw in hierarchy There is a design flaw in this hierarchy. There is no reason (and no evidence) to expect that the quantum of politeness between Strategy No. 3, on record with negative redress, and Strategy No. 4, off-record, is equal to the quantum between Strategy No. 4, and Strategy No. 5, don’t do the FTA. It might be, but there is no logical reason to support this implicit claim. In fact, under some circumstances, say when you have been directed to criticize another’s work, saying nothing is clearly less polite than criticizing off-record. Scollon and Scollon (1981) point out another difficulty in the hierarchy, namely that while “positive politeness is directed more to the general nature of the relationship between interactants, negative politeness is directed to the specific act of impositions” (174). Brown and Levinson responded with skepticism to these and other criticism, stating that “present evidence is too equivocal to entail the abandonment of our original scheme. But we do concede that
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the possibility that the off-record strategy is independent of, and co-occurrent with, the other two super-strategies is something which definite requires close investigation.” Blum-Kulka (1987) found that indirectness must be separated into two separate types, conventional indirectness (e.g., Would you turn up the heat?) always has politeness associated with it, while non-conventional indirectness (e.g., It’s cold in here) need not always, especially if the indirection were so great that the utterance itself created an imposition. Strecker (1988) wrote that the positive politeness, negative politeness, and off-record politeness are not in fact independent of each other, and pointed out that, off-record speech abounds in the strategies of positive and negative politeness . . . What is more, on-record strategies are often combined with off-record strategies. There exist switches from positive politeness to negative politeness and vice-versa. In fact, these switches can be seen to follow logical and/or temporal sequences which constitute a type of super-strategy. Brown and Levinson have not dealt with such sequential switches and yet these switches abound in practice. (155)
. Conclusion In the foregoing, I have provided a few of the many criticism levied at the Brown and Levinson model of politeness. For example, Is politeness communicated by an implicature or is it the norm, with only impoliteness being signaled? What is the status of a politeness principle? Is it a maxim, parallel to the Quantity Maxim, or does it have some other status? If so, what? Given that they are distinguishable, what is the relationship between deference and politeness? Should politeness be relegated to only attempts at maintaining harmony among the interactants, or should it be extended to impoliteness? What is the status of politeness strategies, both their relative distances from each other within the hierarchy and their internal structure? Is the notion of face universal or will there have to be cultural-relative definitions? Finally, what is the status of Wx, both in terms of its form and the definition of the component parts? These raise but a few of the important questions to be asked in pursuit of an understanding of what linguistic politeness is, how it is used, what factors influence a speaker’s choice to be heard as polite and what sort of a model is maximally useful. It is clear that considerable work on the Brown and Levinson model is necessary in the immedicate future if it is not be to relegated to the rag bin of rejected theories. Optimists take the position that if we continue to
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work on the problem, we can expect to arrive at a serious theory of politeness, necessarily somewhat different than the existing model, where concepts of face and the principles for interpretation are carefully articulated and well understood. Pessimists, on the other hand, take the position that while we all know polite behavior when we see it, we will never be able to speak definitively about it. I am an optimist.
Notes . A fuller, more complete version of the present paper was presented as one of the three plenary addresses in 1999 at the First Annual Conference on Politeness, Bangkok, Thailand. My thanks to Ken Turner for comments on an earlier draft. . The second edition of their book was published in 1987. While the main text remained unchanged, they did write a 50 page preface clarifying certain issues which had been raised over the preceding 9 years. . Grice made the same suggestion in his initial work on conversational implication but never followed it up. . Recall that politeness markers do not exist. . I am not considering here the case of a strategy being used differently because of cultural differences, for example, in Israel a request for a cigarette might be rendered in Hebrew as, Give me a cigarette, whereas in the U.S. under the same circumstances, the speaker would probably say, Could you give me a cigarette, please? Similarly, in the U.S. one normally thanks a waiter for bringing your food whereas in China this is seldom done. . Again, Ide and others conflate politeness and deference into one topic. . The factors of distance and power are constantly renegotiable and, not surprisingly have different loadings in different languages, therefore different strategies for the same Rx. Scollon and Scollon (1991) write of two types of relationship: inside (nei) – intimate regular contacts, outside (wai) – temporary contacts in service encounters; don’t require redressing, while Hwang (1987) describes three types of relationship: expressive (family), mixed (friends) instrumental (stranger, short-term) and Yang (1992) also describes three types: (sheng) outside; (shu) inside; (jia) family.
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Brown, P. & Levinson, S. (1978). “Universals in language usage: Politeness phenomena”. In E. Goody (Ed.), Questions and Politeness: Strategies in Social Interaction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Brown, P. & Levinson, S. (1987). Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Burt, S. (1999). “Maxim confluence”. Paper presented at Pragma 99, Tel Aviv, Israel. Clancy (1986). “The acquisition of communicative style in Japanese”. In B. Schieffelin & E. Ochs (Eds.), Language socialization across cultures (pp. 213–249). New York: Cambridge University Press. DuFon, M. A., Kasper, G., & Takahashi, S. et al. (1994). “Bibliography on linguistic politeness”. Journal of Pragmatics, 21, 527–578. Escandell-Vidal, V. (1996). “Towards a cognitive approach to politeness”. In K. Jaszczolt & K. Turner (Eds.), Contrastive Semantics and Pragmatics (pp. 629–650). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Fraser, B. (1975). “The concept of politeness”. Paper presented at the 1985 NWAVE Meeting, Georgetown University. Fraser, B. (1990). “Perspective on politeness”. Journal of Pragmatics, 14 (2), 219–236. Fraser, B. & Nolen, W. (1981). “The association of deference with linguistic form”. International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 27, 93–109. Fukada, A. (1998). “A gricean theory of politeness”. Paper read at the 12th Annual International Conference on Pragmatics and Language Learning. Glick, D. J. (1996). “A reappraisal of Brown and Levinson’s politeness: Some universals in language usage, eighteen years later”. Review Article. Semiotica, 109 (1/2), 141–171. Goffman, E. (1967). Interaction Ritual: Essays on the Face-to-Face Behaviour. New York: Anchor Books. Goffman, E. (1971). Relations in Public. New York: Basic Books. Green, G. M. (1989). Pragmatics and Natural Language Understanding. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum Associates. Grice, H. P. (1975). “Logic and conversation”. In P. Cole & J. Morgan (Eds.), Syntax and Semantics 3: Speech Acts (pp. 41–58). New York: Academic Press. Grice, H. P. (1989). Studies in the Way of Words. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Gu, Y. (1990). “Politeness phenomena in modern Chinese”. Journal of Pragmatics, 14 (2), 237–257. Held, G. (1992). “Politeness in linguistic research”. In Watts, Ide, & Ehlich (Eds.), 131–153. Held, G. (1999). “Submission strategies as an expression of the ideology of politeness: Reflections on the verbalization of social power relations”. Pragmatics, 9 (1), 5–20. Holtgraves, T. & Yang, J. N. (1992). “Interpersonal underpinnings of request strategies: General principles and difference due to culture and gender”. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 62, 246–256. Hwang, J. R. (1990). “‘Deference’ versus ‘politeness’ in Korean speech”. International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 82, 41–55. Ide, S. (1989). “Formal forms and discernment: Two neglected aspects of universal of linguistic politeness”. Multilingua, 8, 223–248. Janney, R. & Arndt, H. (1993). “Universality and relativity in cross-cultural politeness research: A historical perspective”. Multilingua, 12, 13–50.
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Jary, M. (1998). “Relevance theory and the communication of politeness”. Journal of Pragmatics, 30 (1), 1–19. Jucker, A. (1988). “The relevance of politeness”. Multilingua, 7 (4), 375–384. Kasher, A. (1986). “Politeness and rationality”. In J. Johansen & H. Sonne (Eds.), Pragmatics and Linguistics: Festschrift for Jacob L. Mey on his 60th Birthday, 30 October 1986. Odense, Denmark. Kasper, G. (1990). “Linguistic politeness: Current research issues”. Journal of Pragmatics, 14 (2), 193–218. Kong, K. (1998). “Politeness of service encounters in Hong Kong”. Pragmatics, 8 (4), 555– 576. Lachenicht, L. (1980). “Aggravating language: A study of abusive and insulting language”. Papers in Linguistics, 13, 607–687. Leech, G. (1983). Principles of Pragmatics. London: Longman. Matsumoto, Y. (1988). “Reexamination of the universality of face: Politeness phenomena in Japanese”. Journal of Pragmatics, 12 (4), 403–426. Meier, A. J. (1995a). “Defining politeness: Universality in appropriateness”. Language Sciences, 17 (4), 345–356. Meier, A. J. (1995b). “Passages of politeness”. Journal of Pragmatics, 24 (4), 381–392. Nwoye, O. (1992). “Linguistic politeness and socio-cultural variation of the notion of face”. Journal of Pragmatics, 18 (4), 309–328. Scollon, R. & Scollon, S. (1981). Narrative, Literacy and Face in Interethnic Communication. Norwood, NJ: Ablex. Scollon, R. & Scollon, S. (1994). Intercultural Communication: A Discourse Approach. Oxford: Blackwell. Slugowski, B. & Turnbull, W. (1988). “Cruel to be kind and kind to be cruel: Sarcasm, banter and social relations”. Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 7, 101–121. Spencer-Oatey, H. (1996). “Reconsidering power and distance”. Journal of Pragmatics, 26 (1), 1–24. Strecker (1988). The Social Practice of Symbolism: An Anthropological Analysis. London: Athlone Press. Turner, K. (1996). “The principal principles of pragmatic inference: Politeness”. Language Teaching, 29, 1–13. Watts, R. J. (1989). “Relevance and relational work: Linguistic politeness as politic behavior”. Multilingua, 8, 131–166. Watts, R. J. (1992). “Linguistics politeness and political verbal behaviour: Reconsidering claims for universality”. In Watts, Ide, & Ehlich (Eds.), 43–69. Watts, R. J., Ide, S., & Ehlich, K. (Eds.). (1992). Politeness in Language. Studies in its History, Theory and Practice. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
P II
The theoretical perspective
Yoroshiku onegaishimasu Routine practice of the routine formula in Japanese Makiko Takekuro Yoroshiku onegaishimasu is a Japanese routine formula, covering a wide range of meanings from greeting, relation-acknowledging, thanking to leave-taking, depending on context. My focus in this paper is on the significance of routinized communicative practice that effectuates the use of yoroshiku onegaishimasu as a routine formula in Japanese discourse. By examining the actual use of yoroshiku onegaishimasu in social context, I explore reciprocity and indispensability of yoroshiku onegaishimasu at two levels of discourse: semantic-pragmatic and metapragmatic. At the semantic-pragmatic level, the formula conveys request, imposition, deference, greetings, gratitude, and relation-acknowledgement, while at the metapragmatic level it demonstrates the speaker’s engagement in proper interactional routines and brings a sense of completion to social interaction. The paper also discusses that the formula gives shape to social relations and their meanings only through its situated use. Keywords: Yoroshiku onegaishimasu; practice; linguistic politeness; Japanese
.
Introduction
Ever since Brown and Levinson ([1978]1987) presented the study on some universals of linguistic politeness, researchers who analyze language use in Japanese have been striving to argue for two paradigms of language use and linguistic politeness. Here I label the two paradigms as “speaker’s strategic paradigm” and “social norm paradigm.” Studies under the former paradigm claim that linguistic politeness in Japanese is non-strategic and intentionless, because the main principle regulating linguistic politeness in Japanese is conformity to social norms (Hill et al. 1986; Ide 1989). Studies under the latter paradigm claim that linguistic politeness in Japanese is strategic (Okamoto
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1997, 2002; Pizziconi 2003). However, both of the paradigms posit problems. Studies based on actual discourse data reveal that speakers do not always follow regularity or the “normative” rules of language use, thereby questioning the very existence of norms in language use (Okamoto 1997, 2002; Miyazaki 2002). The former paradigm can only explain the guidelines and motivations for certain ways of language use; they cannot describe what actual interactants do under real conditions. To overcome the problem of the former paradigm and explain diverse uses of language in actual context, some studies attempt to account for the use of language from an individual speaker’s angle (Okamoto 1997, 2002). What they do, as similar to what Brown and Levinson did in their framework, is to reduce the use of language to individual speakers’ psychology. Linguistic forms indicate “the speakers’ linguistic ideology, or beliefs and attitudes concerning language use” (Okamoto 1997: 809) or “an individual’s underlying ideology, attutides, or disposition, even ideas of self ” (Pizziconi 2003: 1499). Nevertheless, viewing the immediate use of linguistic forms from an individual speaker’s angle also obscures the fact that the speaker is only a part in social relations. In this paper, I do not argue for either of the two available paradigms. Instead, using Bourdieu’s theory of practice ([1972]1977), I take a practicebased approach to the analysis of yoroshiku onegaishimasu, a routine formula in Japanese discourse. By “practice-based approach,” I mean the location of language use in situated processes of communication. From the outset, I consider Goffman’s (1981) “participation frames” (e.g. speaker, addressee, overhearer, and audience) as part of the organization of communicative practice. My main thesis is that the formula yoroshiku onegaishimasu comes to define social relations and its use through the situatedness of communicative practice. In this paper, I first examine the actual use of yoroshiku onegaishimasu in interactive contexts. Second, by exploring reciprocity and indispensability of yoroshiku onegaishimasu in Japanese discourse, this paper demonstrates two levels of discourse that operate in the use of the formula: semantic-pragmatic and metapragmatic (as a social act of positioning oneself in the immediate context) levels. At the semantic-pragmatic level, yoroshiku onegaishimasu conveys request, imposition, deference, greetings, and gratitude. At the metapragmatic level, yoroshiku onegaishimasu demonstrates interactants’ engagement in social relations and brings a sense of completion to interaction. The formula’s socially significant meanings arise at the intersection of these two levels of discourse. At the interaction of the two levels, interactants who use the formula enter into relations together with others and define themselves and their use
Routine practice of yoroshiku onegaishimasu
of yoroshiku onegaishimasu altogether. Lastly, I argue that the routinized and recurrent practice further creates the basis for the routine use of the formula.
. The routine formula yoroshiku onegaishimasu The routine formula yoroshiku onegaishimasu consists of the adjective yoroshiku and the performative utterance onegaishimasu. Yoroshiku is an adverbial form of the adjective yoroshii (‘good’). In today’s Japanese, yoroshiku itself is a relation-acknowledging phrase that is used to promote interpersonal relations between the speaker and the addressee or the referent (e.g. ‘Please say yoroshiku (‘hi’) to your family’). O-negai-shi-masu consists of the honorific prefix o- for the verb stem negau (‘to wish’ or ‘to request’) inflected for the adverbial form negai- in order to attach to the adverbial form of the verb ‘do’ shi- and the addressee honorific masu. Originally used as a wish to god, onegaishimasu means that the speaker makes a request or asks a favor. Derived from the semantics of requesting, onegaishimasu comes to be used in various situations where the inherent semantics of negai (‘request’) is not explicitly meant. For instance, onegaishimasu can function as an attention-getter in visiting a shop and asking for service. Yoroshiku onegaishimasu, the object of analysis in this paper, has a very high frequency of use in Japanese.1 As it is difficult to give literal translations of yoroshiku and onegaishimasu respectively, it is impossible to translate yoroshiku onegaishimasu into a single phrase in English. Literal translations of the formula include ‘I will rely on your help’ and ‘I ask you to treat me well.’ In social interaction, depending on context, yoroshiku onegaishimasu covers a wide range of meanings from greeting, relation-acknowledging, and thanking to leave-taking. The wide array of usage reveals the significance of this particular formula that gives shape to social relationships and their meanings in communicative practice in Japanese. In the light of Brown and Levinson’s model of linguistic politeness, Matsumoto provided detailed explanations on yoroshiku onegaishimasu as a ‘relation-acknowledging device’ (1988: 409–412). Yoroshiku onegaishimasu is formally an imposition, since it includes the speech act verb of request, negai. This formula also expresses the speaker’s deference to the addressee or the referent. By uttering this formula, the speaker humbly places oneself in a lower position and asks for the dependence and the need to be taken care of and treated well by the addressee or referent. The formula conveys both deference and an imposition on the addressee’s freedom of action (ibid.: 410). In
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Brown and Levinson’s model of linguistic politeness, giving deference is the negative politeness strategy that minimizes the imposition on the addressee to respect ‘negative face’, which is the desire for non-imposition based on individual rights. In short, deference and imposition are mutually exclusive in their model. How can we account for “deferential impositions” that yoroshiku onegaishimasu conveys? Matsumoto explains that in the society where the acknowledgement of interdependence is encouraged, it is respectful for juniors to acknowledge their dependence on seniors. For seniors, it is an honor to have the responsibility to take care of the juniors as an indication of their holding a higher position. Yoroshiku onegaishimasu implies honorable responsibility placed on the addressee for the speaker. Deference and imposition are not contradictory. The speaker can enhance the good self-image of the addressee (as positive politeness) through the use of yoroshiku onegaishimasu that indicates the addressee’s higher social ranking by requesting favorable action on behalf of the speaker. If the speaker is higher in social ranking than the addressee, the addressee tends to prevent loss of face, by denying the implied reversal of social ranking and repeating the same formula. In doing so, the addressee can also indicate understanding of their relative social position and maintain the position in the world. Thus, considering yoroshiku onegaishimasu in terms of the binary opposition of positive and negative politeness is problematic, because the formula is neither positive nor negative politeness. Rather, the formula is indicative and constitutive of interlocutor’s perception and acceptance of interpersonal relationships to acknowledge each other’s position and affirm social bonds among the interlocutors. My focus in this paper is on the socially significant meaning that arises out of using the routine formula in Japanese dicourse. My analysis aims to provide an additional account of yoroshiku onegaishimasu as an embodiment of linguistic politeness, by embedding the formula in the social world in which interactants co-construct to define their relationships.
. Data analysis The present study examines the use of yoroshiku onegaishimasu in the standard Tokyo dialect of spoken and written data. The spoken data set includes conversations among friends, families, between professors and students, and between bosses and subordinates. The written data set includes letters among friends, between professors and students, between bosses and subordinates, and between customers and companies. In the following sections, I illustrate
Routine practice of yoroshiku onegaishimasu
reciprocity and indispensability of yoroshiku onegaishimasu at two levels of discourse: semantic-pragmatic and metapragmatic. My analysis demonstrates that it is the situatedness of routinized communicative practice that brings both semantic-pragmatic and metapragmatic meanings to discourse and social relations among interactants. . Yoroshiku onegaishimasu as a reciprocal formula The use of yoroshiku onegaishimasu is a reciprocal verbal exchange among any interlocutors. Although people in lower ranking (e.g. students, juniors, subordinates, or companies) frequently use yoroshiku onegaishimasu to people in higher ranking (e.g. professors, seniors, bosses, or customers), people in higher ranking also use yoroshiku onegaishimasu to people in lower ranking, as in examples (1) and (2). (1) A professor (P) asks her research assistant (A) to prepare for a series of lectures. P: suimasen iroiroto yoroshiku onegaishimasu. sorry variously yoroshiku onegaishimasu ‘I’m sorry (to ask you) a lot, but yoroshiku onegaishimasu.’ S: aa ie kochira koso yoroshiku onegaishimasu. oh no this side also yoroshiku onegaishimasu ‘Oh, no, me, too, yoroshiku onegaishimasu.’
In this interaction, the professor’s use of yoroshiku onegaishimasu in line 1 could be seen as a deferential way of encoding a request, because the professor actually requests the student to work for her. However, regarding yoroshiku onegaishimasu simply as a deferential imposition may dismiss the social meaning generated through the use of the formula. For instance, the professor could have made a more direct request without using yoroshiku onegaishimasu, such as korekara mo tsuzukete issho ni hataraite kudasai (‘Please continue to work together from now on, too’). In reality, it is very unlikely that any professor would say so. The use of yoroshiku onegaishimasu has less to do with the deferential reduction of the potential offence of imposition on the addressee and has more to do with closing and settling the interaction. Saying this exact formula itself carries the significant meaning at the metapragmatic level of discourse that allows the speaker to enter into more meaningful social relations with other interactants. As an illustration of such metapragmatic meanings, consider example (2). In (2), a general manager uses the formula to end his phone conversation with his subordinate.
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(2) A general manager (M) talks to his subordinate (S) on the phone. S: shachou no goannai yoroshiku onegaishimasu2 president gen honp-guide yoroshiku onegaishimasu ‘Yoroshiku onegaishimasu for guiding (our company’s) president.’ shinbunsha ni wa watashi ga renraku tori newspaper company loc top I sub contact take masu kara add.hon so ‘I will contact with the newspaper company, so,’ M: hai jaa maa souiu koto de yoroshiku onegaishimasu hai yes then well such thing and yoroshiku onegaishimasu yes doumo. please ‘Yes, then, well, so, yoroshiku onegaishimasu.’
In (2), as the general manager uses yoroshiku onegaishimasu regardless of his higher social ranking than the addressee, the formula cannot be treated as a marker of unilateral or hierarchical relationships among interactants. In fact, yoroshiku onegaishimasu is a reciprocal verbal routine among any interactant engaged in social interaction. As the use of the formula increases feelings of connections among interactants, the manager adapts himself to the mode of interacting with his subordinate by this reciprocal use of yoroshiku onegaishimasu. The socially significant meaning of using the formula only arises in the situated context in which interactants wish to develop more solid and meaningful relationships. . Yoroshiku onegaishimasu as redefining social relations In this section, by examining the irreplaceable nature of yoroshiku onegaishimasu, I claim that recurrent and frequent practice creates a belief for the routinized use of the formula. Yoroshiku onegaishimasu is often impossible to delete and irreplaceable. It appears in most writings, such as New Year’s greetings, a notice of marriage, product instructions, and letters to teachers, professors, bosses, and customers. The most prominent case is New Year’s greeting. In Japan, it is a custom to exchange New Year’s cards among those who have and who do not have close relations with, including friends, relatives, teachers, colleagues, bosses, acquaintances, and clients. Example (3) shows typical expressions on a Japanese New Year’s card.
Routine practice of yoroshiku onegaishimasu
(3) On a New Year’s greeting card: akemashite omedetou gozaimasu /kingashinnen open congratulations cop.add.hon /humble-happy-new-year /geishun /welcome spring, ‘(I wish you a) Happy New Year.’ honnen mo yoroshiku onegaishimasu this year too yoroshiku onegaishimasu ‘Yoroshiku onegaishimasu for this year, too.’
Although variations exit, lines 1 and 2 almost always appear in New Year’s greetings. In the case of New Year’s cards, everybody writes sentences that include yoroshiku onegaishimasu, while they also know that New Year’s cards received from others have the same sentences. One generally adds a few more sentences, but it is very common to receive and send a card only with the two sentences in (3). On the other hand, it is very uncommon to find a card without yoroshiku onegaishimasu even among a few hundreds of New Year’s cards. Those who have no close contact for years except for the New Year’s card exchange still use yoroshiku onegaishimasu. The use of yoroshiku onegaishimasu is a deletion-impossible formula. Yoroshiku onegaishimasu is also irreplaceable. In product instructions or advertisement of a store, yoroshiku onegaishimasu serves the semanticpragmatic function of a closing expression, as in (4). (4) In product instructions and the advertisement of a supermarket/store: kongo tomo go-aigan no hodo yoroshiku onegaimoushiagemasu future also honp-love gen about yoroshiku onegaishimasu.hum ‘Yoroshiku onegaishimasu for your continued support.’
Yoroshiku onegaishimasu is very frequently used as a closing statement in business letters, as in (5). (5) At the end of a letter to a professor or a boss, a student or a subordinate writes: kongo tomo go-shidou /go-bentatsu no hodo yoroshiku future too honp-advice /honp-support gen about yoroshiku onegaiitashimasu onegaishimasu.hum ‘Yoroshiku onegaishimasu for your continued advice/encouragement.’
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Yoroshiku onegaishimasu semantically conveys the need of support from the reader who is supposed to possess rich knowledge and experience. Metapragmatically, the use of the formula suggests that they engage in and develop social relationships together. The deletion-impossible and irreplaceable nature of the formula becomes clear, when we replace yoroshiku onegaishimasu in (4) and (5) by other phrases, as in (6) and (7). Examples (6) and (7) would no longer carry the same metapragmatic meanings that yoroshiku onegaishimasu can yield. (6) In product instructions and the advertisement of a supermarket/store: ?kongo
tomo waga-sha no seihin o go-kounyuu future also my-company textscgen product O honp-purchase kudasai please ‘Please purchase our products from now on, too.’ (7) At the end of a letter to a professor/boss, a student/subordinate writes: ?kongo
tomo go-shidou /go-bentatsu kudasai future too honp-advice /honp-encouragement please ‘Please give me your continued advice/encouragement.’
However, if ‘-masu-you yoroshiku onegaishimasu (ADD.HON-like yoroshiku onegaishimasu)’ is added to the end of each sentence in (6) and (7), the examples would sound natural and effectual. This suggests that the very use of the formula enacts metapragmatic meanings to signify interactants’ engagement in meaningful social interaction. In this section, I have looked at the reciprocity and indispensability of using the formula. My analysis demonstrates that yoroshiku onegaishimasu accomplishes several things at two levels of discourse that are simultaneously in play in any given instance of the formula. At the semantic-pragmatic level of discourse, yoroshiku onegaishimasu expresses request, imposition, deference, greetings, gratitude, and acknowledgement of mutual relationships among interlocutors. At the metapragmatic level of discourse, yoroshiku onegaishimasu defines social relations among interactants and comes to define its use through practice. The social meanings of the formula arise at the intersection of these two levels of discourse only at the moment of the use in situated interactive contexts. In the next section, I will discuss the routine use of the formula in light of language use and linguistic politeness.
Routine practice of yoroshiku onegaishimasu
. Routine use of the formula and routine practice My analysis in the previous section has shown that interactants always negotiate and develop to make new relations in the on-going process of communication. Any given token of yoroshiku onegaishimasu is not meaningful outside communicative practice. Yoroshiku onegaishimasu is intelligible only in relation to the situated context. In this section, I argue that the significance of yoroshiku onegaishimasu is not inherent to any instance of use, but derives from the way such uses are interpreted and repeated within routines of communicative practice in Japanese. I would like to reexamine the deletion-impossible and irreplaceable nature of the formula from the two available paradigms mentioned in the beginning. Researchers advocating either of the two paradigms may formulate their arguments on the use of yoroshiku onegaishimasu in the following ways. According to the “social norm paradigm,” the conventionalized aspect of using the formula would show that the use is based on social norms that dictate how to behave and speak appropriately to social context. According to the “speakerstrategic paradigm,” it would be that speakers have an ultimate choice of using or not using yoroshiku onegaishimasu. Since the use of the formula is so conventionalized in discourse, speakers are no longer conscious of their strategic language use. Both of the paradigms posit a question as to how to distinguish empirically the state of being purely intentionless from the state of being strategic without conscious intention. Instead of trying to answer the question here, I suggest that habitual and recurrent practice of yoroshiku onegaishimasu (and the phenomena of linguistic politeness) is an essential element that forms the basis of our dispositions and behavioral routines in communication (cf. Bourdieu [1972]1977). It is not an individual speaker or a superimposed social norm that functions as a driving force for the use of the formula. I would argue that recurrent, frequent, and routinized practice creates a belief that using yoroshiku onegaishimasu is a social norm. However, it is not a social norm that comes first and enters into routinized practice. It is routinized practice that enters into language use and makes using the formula look as if it were the only and automatic option.
. Conclusion This paper has presented that the use of yoroshiku onegaishimasu has recurrent appearance in Japanese discourse. I suggested that the formula enters into and
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defines social relations among interactants and comes to define its use in the on-going process of interaction. Each time the formula is used, conditions for the use do not depend on the pre-established social norms or the speaker’s psychology that is independent of social context. But conditions for the use of the formula are within communicative practice and emerge from on-going social relations. In this study, I attempted to look at the routine practice of the routine formula as a habitual action embedded in social contexts. More detailed studies that treat linguistic politeness as a form of action fully embedded in the social world are necessary, in order to gain a deeper understanding of what actors do and accomplish with language in societies.
Notes . Depending on the formality of the speech situation, the degree of imposition that the speaker makes in requesting, and the level of interpersonal relationships among participants, yoroshiku onegaishimasu can have longer (humbler and more formal) variants such as yoroshiku o-negai-itashi-masu (HONP-request-do.HUM-ADD.HON) or yoroshiku o-negaimoushiage-masu (HONP-request-say.HUM-ADD.HON) or shorter (casual and more informal) ones such as yoroshiku, yoroshiku-ne (SFP), o-negai (HONP-request) or o-negaine/yo/dayo (HONP-request-SFP), and so on. The differences are in the use of addressee honorifics, referent honorifics, and sentence-final particles. Although there are many variants depending on context, in this paper, I use yoroshiku onegaishimasu to mean any variant of the formula in general. . Transcription conventions are as follows: ADD.HON = addressee honorific; COP = copula; GEN = genitive; HONP = honorific prefix; HUM = humble form of referent honorific; LOC = locative; SFP = sentence-final particle; SUB = subject; TOP = topic.
References Bourdieu, Pierre ([1972]1977). Outline of the Theory of Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Brown, Penelope & Stephen C. Levinson ([1978]1987). Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Goffman, Erving (1981). Forms of talk. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Hill, Beverly, Ide Sachiko, Shoko Ikuta, Akiko Kawasaki, & Tsunao Ogino (1986). “Universals of linguistic politeness: Quantitative evidence from Japanese and American English”. Journal of Pragmatics, 10, 347–371. Ide, Sachiko (1989). “Formal forms and discernment: Two neglected aspects of linguistic politeness”. Multilingua, 8 (2/3), 223–248.
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Matsumoto, Yoshiko (1988). “Reexamination of the universality of face: Politeness phenomena in Japanese”. Journal of Pragmatics, 12, 403–426. Miyazaki, Ayumi (2002). “Relational shift: Japanese girls’ nontraditional first person pronouns”. In S. Benor, M. Rose, D. Sharma, J. Sweetland, & Q. Zhang (Eds.), Gendered Practices in Language (pp. 335–374). Stanford: CSLI Publications. Okamoto, Shigeko (1997). “Social context, linguistic ideology, and indexical expressions in Japanese”. Journal of Pragmatics, 28, 795–817. Okamoto, Shigeko (2002). “Ideology and social meanings: Rethinking the relationship between language, politeness, and gender”. In S. Benor, M. Rose, D. Sharma, J. Sweetland, & Q. Zhang (Eds.), Gendered Practices in Language (pp. 91–113). Stanford: CSLI Publications. Pizziconi, Barbara (2003). “Re-examining politeness, face and the Japanese language”. Journal of Pragmatics, 35, 1471–1506.
An argument for a frame-based approach to politeness Evidence from the use of the imperative in Cypriot Greek Marina Terkourafi To investigate regularities of usage in the distribution of politeness devices across contexts, the realisation of selected speech acts in Cypriot Greek was researched into. Focussing on requests using verb forms denoting nonverbal acts in the imperative / 2sg., this paper examines their situational distribution in relation to extra-linguistic variables such as interlocutors’ sex, age and social class, the relationship between them, the setting of the conversation, and the sequential placement of the speech act in the flow of the conversation. Analysis of the data suggests that only collective reference to all the extra-linguistic variables studied can adequately account for the situational distribution of this politeness device, while at the same time shedding doubt on the claim that such collective reference can be subsumed under the definition of some over-arching variable such as Power and/or Distance. In other words, considerations of qualitative, rather than simply quantitative, appropriateness appear to drive the distribution of politeness devices in the data collected. Consequently, a more fine-grained analysis is proposed drawing on the notion of a frame, in which immediately observable, indispensable extra-linguistic information about a situation is summarised together with information about the appropriate linguistic politeness marker(s). It is argued that, in making no a priori theoretical claims about the politeness potential of specific linguistic devices (by classifying them, for example, under specific over-arching strategies, in the fashion of Brown & Levinson 1987), frames provide basis for a truly universalising approach which does justice to the cultural diversity empirically attested in the area of politeness phenomena. Keywords: Frames; societal rationality; generalised conversational implicatures; Cypriot Greek
Marina Terkourafi
‘Unmarking’ politeness In the recent literature on linguistic politeness, speaking politely is increasingly viewed as the unmarked way of speaking within a community (Kasper 1990: 193; Fraser 1990: 233; Jary 1998: 1–2). This view stems from the observation that politeness most often passes unnoticed, while what is commented on is impoliteness: in normal circumstances, when two people enter an exchange, they expect each other to be polite. Why should interlocutors harbour expectations of politeness? What are the empirical consequences of harbouring such expectations? Finally, how might expectations of politeness be incorporated into our theorising, and what are the consequences of such a move? In scrutinising interlocutors’ motivations for being polite, the first thing to note is that interlocutors are endowed with rationality not only as individuals, but also as members of a community of speakers. Placing politeness at the interface between individual and societal rationality foregrounds the importance of abiding by prevailing norms of behaviour, since such norms provide the stable background against which all behaviour is (automatically) evaluated as polite (or not). While this may seem like a reasonable point of departure – for, indeed, normative instructions figure largely in parents’ teaching of politeness to their children (Snow et al. 1993) – critics have pointed to the theoretical and empirical difficulties of delimiting cultural or societal ‘norms’ to argue against the theoretical usefulness of this notion (e.g., Eelen 2001: 169ff.). Justifiable as this objection may be, it may be more usefully recast as a methodological one: rather than rejecting norms altogether, the onus of proof is now shifted to empirically pinning down such norms. This paper takes up this task with reference to a corpus of conversational data from Cypriot Greek. The guiding principle is provided by the view that the uncontested use of an expression in context is evidence of its adequacy with respect to this context. Relying on the observation of real usage (addressees’ reception of, and responses to, actual utterances; cf. Gumperz & Tannen 1979: 306–307; Gumperz 1982: 5– 6), our aim is then to identify those features in the context of utterance which regularly co-occur with the expression in question, and with which use of this expression must, in virtue of this regularity, be associated. This exercise reveals situationally conditioned preferences for particular expressions, which can nevertheless not be subsumed under older proposals, e.g., Brown & Levinson’s 1978/1987 formula Wx = D(S,H) + P(H,S) + Rx .1 Difficulties in operationalising the proposed sociological variables lead to the proposal of a frame-based approach to politeness, in which immediately perceivable features of a situation are associated with particular expressions with
A frame-based approach to politeness
which they regularly co-occur. Borrowed from the fields of AI and psychology, the notion of a frame allows us to retain generality in what concerns the theoretical machinery of our theory, while at the same time modelling communityspecific, and therefore potentially diverging, norms of polite behaviour. This theoretical stance shares many insights with approaches which distinguish ‘strategic’ politeness, understood as volitional individual action, from politeness as a default, that is, behaviour which is expected – qua socially conditioned – all else being equal (e.g., Ide 1989; Fraser 1990; Escandell-Vidal 1998; Arundale 1999). Indeed, the observation that politeness most often passes unnoticed, quoted at the outset, can only apply to the latter type of behaviour, and it is this type of polite behaviour which constitutes the focus of this paper. At the same time, the current approach goes further, in suggesting ways to account for the difference between strategic and default politeness by using standard pragmatic tools operating at the level of the individual speaker/addressee, such as implicatures and speakers’ intentions, in consonance with frames operating at the level of the community.2 It also remains distinct in firmly grounding these theoretical proposals in the quantitative analysis of a large corpus of naturally occurring data. This analysis furnishes justification for the claim that politeness most often passes unnoticed, by revealing the routine nature of the vast majority of our (polite) exchanges: against this backdrop, strategic (or indeed, creative) investing into politeness shows up (quantitavely, as well as cognitively) as the exception rather than the rule. Teasing apart the intricacies of this ‘rule’ is another task this paper aims to fulfil by sifting through the empirical data, taking to heart Glick’s (1996: 167) injunction that “we need to turn to a more explicit investigation of the actual empirical facts associated with politeness in order to discover the empirical bases for universalising schemes of and for regularities of usage.”
A (fresh) look at some (obvious) facts Short description of the project The empirical data motivating the ensuing theoretical discussion consist in approximately one hundred hours of spontaneous conversations between adult native Cypriot Greek speakers, recorded in the four major urban centres of the Republic of Cyprus between October and December 1998. A variety of settings, distinguished into: at home/informal social gatherings, at work (mainly offices and shops), and at formal discussions/on radio/TV provided the scene for a
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total of ninety one sessions, in which six hundred and seventy two subjects participated. Combining speech-act theoretic and conversation-analytic considerations, utterance-sequences realising offers or requests were subsequently identified, and distinguished based on the desirability of the predicated act (i.e. whether this was desirable to the speaker or the addressee respectively). Finally, a process of semi-phonological transcription yielded a database of 2,189 observations, each of which is characterised for a number of linguistic and extra-linguistic variables. Linguistic variables include features of the main-clause verb, such as lexicosemantic properties (whether this is personal or impersonal, expresses obligation or volition, etc.), the subjective modality, and the combination of number/person for which it is marked. Extra-linguistic variables include the sex, age and social class of the speaker and of the addressee, the relationship between them, the setting of the exchange, the type of speech act performed, and finally its sequential placement in the flow of the conversation.
Delimiting the scope of the discussion From this extensive source-material, current limitations of space dictate a careful delimitation of an area of interest.3 In this paper, I focus on one of the linguistic variables studied, the subjective modality (henceforth SM) of the main-clause verb. Distinguishing objective from subjective modality, Lyons (1995: 328ff.) associates the former with speakers’ “reporting, as neutral observers, the existence of this or that state of affairs”, reserving the latter for speakers’ “expressing their own beliefs and attitudes or their own will and authority” (ibid.: 330). The potential to express subjectivity makes devices realising modality in natural languages prime candidates for expressing politeness. Such devices include verbal mood (ibid.: 255) and (some uses of) tense (ibid.: 319), as well as prosodic structure (ibid.: 185–186), and negation (ibid.: 175–176). Consequently, in what follows, I note, alongside the three moods traditionally recognised in Modern Greek, i.e. the indicative, the subjunctive, and the imperative (Holton et al. 1997: 203ff.), also occurrences of the future, the past, and the conditional (realised as (θα) + imperfective past). To ensure the comparability of examples, the type of speech act performed, as well as its sequential placement in the flow of the conversation, is kept constant, encompassing all and only requests performed for the first time (as opposed to later repetitions of requests for the same act). Focussing on the subjective modality of the main-clause verb, I further distinguish main-
A frame-based approach to politeness
clause verbs based on the propositional content which they express. Instances in which the verb expressing the act to be performed is in the main-clause are kept distinct from those in which the verb expressing the act to be performed is subordinated to a main-clause verb, which may in turn express, e.g., obligation (such as impersonal prepi ‘it must’), or volition (such as personal θelo ‘I want’). Only the former, i.e. main-clause verbs expressing the act to be performed, are dealt with at present. These are distinguished further depending on the kind of act expressed: when this is not linguistic, as with ‘to give’, ‘to help’, and ‘to write’, the verb is classified as an Action Verb (AV), while when this is linguistic, as with ‘to tell’, ‘to answer’, and ‘to explain’, the verb counts as a Speech Act Verb (SAV). Before attempting to account for the distribution of various SMs in the data using the formula Wx = D(S,H) + P(H,S) + Rx (Brown & Levinson 1987: 76), note that, by looking at requests performed for the first time, where the predicated act is expressed by an AV/SAV in the main clause of the utterance, we are in fact controlling for the variable of Ranking of the imposition. Rx is generally held constant at low values throughout the data, given that subjects were always aware of being recorded, which avowedly led them to avoid acts of high R. This puts the onus of accounting for the results of the analysis on the other two variables, the Distance between the speaker and the hearer, and the Power of the hearer over the speaker. Finally, in this paper, I prioritise requests performed in work settings, as the greater range of relationships between interlocutors in these settings engenders greater potential for variability in the values of Power and Distance. Looking at the frequency of occurrence of various SMs in the total of requests performed at work for the first time using an AV/SAV, we find a noticeable preference for the imperative mood (57% vs. 14.82% for the next runner-up, the subjunctive). And this is despite the fact that the imperative – contrary to other SMs – may only co-occur with the 2nd person, singular or plural. From now on, to avoid potential variability in politeness assessments due to variation between T and V, investigation will be limited to AVs/SAVs occurring in the imperative/ 2sg. (hence T-imperative). In particular, we shall seek to establish whether varying the context-dependent values of D and P affects this preference.
What are P(ower) and D(istance) made of? Having limited our discussion to requests performed for the first time in work settings using an AV or SAV in the T-imperative, we are now ready to exam-
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ine the data in more detail. Looking at the percentage of such requests out of the total of requests by relationship, we find that roughly as many, in fact more requests are addressed in the T-imperative by salespersons to customers (64.58%) than vice versa (61.97%). Explaining this result with reference to the variable of Power of the hearer over the speaker, defined as “the degree to which [the] H[earer] can impose his own plans and his own self-evaluation . . . at the expense of [the] S[peaker]’s plans and self-evaluation” (Brown & Levinson 1987: 77), would lead to the counter-intuitive claim that, in a work setting, salespersons have as much, if not greater Power over customers than vice versa. On the other hand, breaking down this result according to the degree of familiarity between customer and salesperson does not help either, since, contrary to Brown and Levinson’s prediction, an increase in the social Distance between interlocutors is accompanied by an increase in the percentage of requests performed in the T-imperative (80% from customer to salesperson and 75% from salesperson to customer when they are not previously acquainted, vs. 58.62% and 64.1% respectively when they are acquainted). Could we be dealing here with a phenomenon akin to Wolfson’s (1989) “bulge” phenomenon?4 In the above case, interpreting D as degree of familiarity is problematic, since, contrary to what is predicted by the formula Wx = D(S,H) + P(H,S) + Rx , D turns out to be inversely analogous to the degree of indirectness (Wx ) opted for. We may, then, be justified in trying an alternative interpretation of P and D to that of Brown and Levinson, who construe these variables as context-dependent, defined each time according to the relationship in which the Speaker and the Hearer stand for the purposes of the predicated act (1987: 78–80). That is we may appeal to more stable attributes of interlocutors, such as their sex, age, and social class. If Cypriot Greek speakers indeed calculate Power and Distance based on the latter, variation in these attributes should have an impact on the relative frequency of occurrence of the T-imperative in first-time requests performed at the workplace. At first sight, an examination of the relative social classes of speaker and addressee appears to confirm this hypothesis: working-class speakers do indeed receive more T-imperative from middle-class speakers (61.9%) than they utter in return (56.75%). On the other hand, the greater preference for the T-imperative in exchanges between working-class interlocutors (79.59%), as opposed to middle-class interlocutors (67.92%), confirms Brown and Levinson’s prediction that “there are higher D values in higher strata” (1987: 246). However, recall here that these authors define social Distance as “a social dimension of degree of similarity/difference” (Brown & Levinson 1987: 76–77; emphasis added). Accordingly, relationships between interlocu-
A frame-based approach to politeness
tors from different socio-economic backgrounds should be characterised by high D values. It follows that, in requests addressed from middle-class speakers to working-class addressees, P is low and D is high, whereas in requests exchanged between middle-class interlocutors, P is low and D is high again, only for different reasons. So, in both these cases, W values should be approximately similar. But then, the greater frequency of T-imperatives exchanged between middle-class interlocutors (67.92%) compared to those addressed by middleclass speakers to working-class addressees (61.9%) remains unaccounted for. Perhaps, in this case, the considerations that lead to the assessment of Power and Distance, such as interlocutors’ social class, are represented in the final W values more directly than Brown and Levinson seem prepared to concede (1987: 78, 81). An investigation of the respective sexes of speaker and addressee leads to a similar conclusion. For, if same-sex relationships are characterised by low D (greater similarity), why do women interlocutors exchange fewer requests in the T-imperative (62.6%) than their male counterparts (70%)? One may venture that Power is the decisive factor here: female addressees have greater Power over their same-sex interlocutors than do their male counterparts. However, this high P of women over their same-sex addressees cannot easily be attributed to their position in the professional hierarchy (i.e. to any real, ‘observable’ control they have over their interlocutors), given the scarcity of women in high places in the work settings recorded. While this explanation may be along the correct lines, note that Power is now construed as a matter of interlocutors’ stable attributes, such as sex, as opposed to being dependent on the relationship in which they stand for the purposes of the exchange. (Recall that evidence was inconclusive regarding the context-dependence of Power in the exchanges between customers and salespersons discussed above.) On the other hand, if we look at the relative ages of speaker and addressee, we find same-age interlocutors exchanging more requests in the T-imperative (72.73%), compared to different-age ones, a result we can attribute to the low D (greater degree of similarity) in same-age relationships. However, if Distance is “a symmetric social dimension of similarity/difference” (Brown & Levinson 1987: 76; emphasis added), a difference in age should produce an increase in social Distance both when the speaker is younger and when s/he is older. Nevertheless, the greater percentage of requests in the T-imperative to older addressees (66.12%) than to younger addressees (60.55%) suggests that these two relationships are different. Since this result cannot be attributed to D, it must be explained away by appealing to the hearer’s Power over the speaker. Only this time we would have to claim that it is younger addressees that have
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Power compared to older addressees, a rather counter-intuitive claim given the great esteem in which traditional family values are held in Cypriot society. Earlier, we turned to interlocutors’ stable attributes, such as sex, age and social class, in a last attempt to account for the distribution of T-imperatives by appealing to the variables of Distance and Power as Brown and Levinson define these. Still, some of our findings remain unaccounted for, or indeed go against their predictions. Rather, the data analysis suggests that interlocutors’ stable attributes enter politeness assessments in a more direct way than merely through motivating assessments of social Distance and relative Power. In other words, appealing to immediately perceivable features of the situation provides an alternative, possibly more reliable, basis on which to theorise about politeness phenomena. As a final argument in this direction, notice the impact of another such feature, setting, on speakers’ relative preference for the T-imperative in requests performed for the first time. Attempting to explain this preference with reference to the variables of Power and Distance will not do, given that this is more pronounced in work settings (57.07%) than at home/informal social gatherings (50.47%), where lower values for D and P may reasonably be expected. This trend is however reversed in requests performed during formal discussions or on radio/TV. While it may be surmised that the setting of the exchange affects the context-dependent values of D, P and Rx , it is not clear in what way, having failed to account for variation within settings, these same variables might be made to account for variation between settings. If it is the case that their values generally increase in formal discussions/on radio/TV, then why does the imperative still figure in second place (24%) in speakers’ preferences after the subjunctive (42.6%), scoring over twice as high as the next expression, the indicative (9.26%)? The difficulties in operationalising Brown and Levinson’s sociological variables of Power and Distance (and, by implication, their proposed formula for computing the weightiness of an FTAx ), are likely to be alleviated when the various extra-linguistic variables discussed above as ‘sources’ of Power and Distance are considered jointly, rather than in isolation from each other. The onus of proof now lies on the side of those who would like to claim that Power and Distance thus understood (as clusters of extra-linguistic variables) are endowed with psychological reality above and beyond that of being the sum of their parts (as Brown & Levinson would seem to imply, when they discuss the formula yielding Wx as “at least a partially accurate representation of cognitive process” (1987: 81), or when they attribute specific assumptions to the speaker regarding the social Distance between himself and the hearer, the Power of the
A frame-based approach to politeness
hearer over him, and the culture-dependent ranking of the FTA in question (1987: 74–75)).5 This analysis points in the direction of an alternative approach to politeness, which will account for politeness assessments in different cultures with reference to indispensable, immediately observable features of the situation. This approach is placed within a wider trend across the human memory literature to move from traditional models based on economy of storage and heavy reliance on computational machinery to episodic or instance-based models. In the latter, a highly detailed representation of every stimulus pattern is encoded and retained in long-term memory. . . . Representations include the stimulus and information about its surrounding context. Retrieval is accomplished by comparing new inputs to all traces stored in long-term memory in parallel. Stored traces that are similar to the input are counted as strong evidence toward the recognition of the input. (Lively et al. 1994: 292)
Having argued for the need for an approach to politeness along these lines using empirical evidence from Cypriot Greek, I now turn to considering the theoretical apparatus which would make it possible.
Outlining the frame-based approach to politeness A safe bet, or why being polite makes sense Traditional grammars of many languages are interspersed with remarks about politeness. In such descriptive accounts of languages, politeness is indicated by a deviation from rational efficiency (as captured by Grice’s (1975/1989: 26– 27) Cooperative Principle (henceforth CP) and the subsumed maxims) either at the level of the lexicon or at that of syntax or of morphology: politeness is inherent to certain terms or constructions in virtue of this deviation. Though such commonsensical understanding of ‘politeness’ is inappropriate as a starting point for a theory of linguistic politeness (Braun 1988: 49–53; Held 1992: 136ff.; Terkourafi 2001: 4ff.), it remains implicit in several influential approaches which, in a move consonant with the intuition “no deviation from rational efficiency, no politeness”, seek politeness in deviations from the CP (R. Lakoff 1973: 296; Leech 1983: 7, 80; Brown & Levinson 1987: 5ff.). Contrary to this stance, Fraser (1990: 233) claims that “being polite is a hallmark of abiding
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by the CP”. In the light of the preceding remarks, how can we make sense of Fraser’s claim? I should like to argue that to be polite is indeed to be rational; and that interlocutors’ harbouring expectations of politeness about each other follows from their mutually assuming each other’s face-wants and rationality. The relevant reasoning is as follows: if to be polite is to be rational, and if efficient cost-and-effect accounting is at least part of this rationality, then being polite must be less costly than some marked, more costly alternative. Interaction under conditions of hostility and distrust is costly, because it requires continuous alertness and second-guessing on the part of both interlocutors. On this view, it is less costly to achieve one’s immediate goal in interaction – be it to direct another’s actions, or simply to induce a belief in one’s interlocutor – in situations where there is no need for hostility or distrust. It follows that interlocutors will view situations that require them to interact under conditions of hostility and distrust as marked, while situations that do not require them to take up the extra effort will be viewed as unmarked. Rational interlocutors are then likely to assume that a situation does not call for hostility and distrust, and will need to be provided with a reason before they are prepared to give up this initial assumption. Experimental evidence supports this line of reasoning, by suggesting that being “less polite” involves some effort, much as being “more polite” does, and therefore cannot be the unmarked alternative. Werkhofer (1992: 173–174) presented subjects with scenarios asking them to assume the role of speaker and produce utterances that would be “more polite” or “less polite” in the situation. He found that “[i]n generating [“less polite” utterances], subjects did not just eliminate “polite” elements, using less of the same, but they now added elements of another, markedly “rude” sort, so that the less polite utterances were again longer.” A second type of evidence comes from folk literature. Both as a record of collective experience and as part of the culture into which one is socialised, folk literature can provide an insight into worldviews shared by a group, and as such may be appealed to in the search for similarities and divergences among different groups’ perspectives. Tales of mildness producing the expected results when aggression did not are common in European languages (Spanish, Greek, Lithuanian, Estonian, Russian) and also found in other parts of the world (Indonesia, Africa, India) (Thompson 1957: 20–21). Particularly widespread is the tale of the contest between the wind and the sun: the sun with its warmth causes the traveller to remove his coat, while the wind, blowing violently, causes him to pull it closer around him. Politeness or kindness are similarly rewarded in
A frame-based approach to politeness
Irish, Missouri French, Greek, Buddhist, Chinese, African (Bankon, Bulu, Duala), Icelandic, Breton, Spanish, and Italian tales (ibid.: 187–188). What one may extract from these tales is a common perception that one fares further with politeness than with aggression. As this perception is shared across many unrelated cultures, there is a good case for claiming a rational basis for it. Appealing to rational cost-and-effect accounting provides such a basis: being polite is rational because it yields greater effects. Politeness is then expected because it is rational; as such, it constitutes the unmarked way of speaking in a community, which accounts for use of polite forms passing unnoticed. This marks a departure from Brown and Levinson’s theory (1978/1987), which rests on the premise of the ‘virtual offence’. In their scheme of things, it is recognition of the speaker’s polite intention that provides the addressee with evidence that face-threat is not intended: politeness must be recognised as intended, i.e. it must be communicated by means of an implicature in order to be achieved (Brown 1995). Contrary to this view, I would like to argue that, rather than needing to be continuously provided with evidence that a face-threat is not intended, people routinely enter in conversational exchanges assuming that a face-threat is not intended: no face-threatening intention is attributed a priori, needing to be dispelled by means of politeness. By the same token, a polite (i.e. face-anointing) intention is not attributed a priori either. Politeness is construed as a broader notion, which encompasses all instances in which face is constituted as a ‘by-product’ of – if you prefer, falls out from – interlocutors’ adhering to the interactional norms of the community within which they are operating, as outlined in the following section.
Implementing societal rationality in individual minds: Where frames and implicatures meet In the previous section, I claimed that it is less costly to achieve one’s goals in situations where hostility and distrust are uncalled for. It may, however, be objected that hostility and distrust arise naturally when ‘self ’ meets ‘other’; hostility and distrust are, in other words, natural concomitants of all communicative situations. I do not disagree. Indeed, it is because ‘self ’ is defined as such only in relation to ‘other’, that the possibility exists for interactants to appeal to a common collective ‘self ’, to which they both belong, and which is defined as such in contrast to some ‘other’. Such a common collective ‘self ’ is invoked in conversation when one demonstrates one’s familiarity with the interactional norms of the surrounding community. As Lerner (1996: 303) puts
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it, “[t]o maintain face is to fit in.” A different, ‘societal’ aspect of rationality is in operation here, and constrains individual agents’ choices: context is already pre-figured, pre-cast, so to speak, in the mould of society. It is actually society itself that ‘speaks’ through the interactants when they try to influence each other [. . .]. The classical approach which bases itself upon the rational action performed by the single individual fails inasmuch as it does not take into account the degree to which this rationality itself is societal, hence supra-individual. (Mey 1993: 263)
The lasting neglect of this aspect of rationality by theories of politeness (Ide 1989: 243) leaves them unable to account for the fact that “[t]he act or behaviour of being polite is performed by an individual agent and yet it is, at the same time, an intrinsically social one, social, that is, in the dual sense of being socially constituted and of feeding back into the process of structuring social interaction” (Werkhofer 1992: 156). In Brown and Levinson’s theory, rationality is defined in a vacuum. It is identified with the ability to select those means that will realise one’s ends most efficiently and at least cost (1987: 64–65). The appropriateness of these means to realise the desired end is construed as a purely quantitative notion: speakers are claimed to compute the weightiness of an FTAx based on their assumptions regarding the context-dependent values of D, P, & Rx , and then use that as a guide to select the appropriate strategy from the proposed hierarchy of strategies. However, the same linguistic means may well show different situational distributions in different communities (Terkourafi 1999). This means that, in selecting the most efficient means to realise one’s goal, one must take into account the interactional norms of the community within which one is operating. The appropriateness of a certain linguistic means to achieve a desired end, then, is more usefully construed as a qualitative notion, which may be explicated as appropriateness relevant to what is usual or expected in a certain situation within a community. Once the appropriateness of a linguistic means to achieve a desired end is construed in qualitative terms, assessing it involves knowing what is usual or expected in a certain situation within a community. One way of formalising this is by appealing to the notion of a frame. Informally, we may, following Minsky (1975: 212), think of a frame as a “data-structure for representing a stereotyped situation.” Evidence that cross-cultural preferences for different politeness modes arise early in life (Ide 1978: 289–291) suggests that the community one is socialised in crucially defines one’s knowledge pertaining to politeness. Frames are acquired in the course of socialisation by abstracting
A frame-based approach to politeness
away from, or generalising over, actual situations. They combine, as separate components, information about a situation (who is talking to whom, when and where) with information about the appropriate use of language therein (Escandell-Vidal 1998: 48) and are stored in long-term memory with default values filling in particular component-slots. Given that social categorisation is largely dependent on culture (Escandell-Vidal 1998: 47), such default values may be usefully conceptualised in terms of radial categories (G. Lakoff 1987). Perceptually encountering a novel situation, then, provides data to be matched with data stored in memory. The greater the number of features of the perceived situation matching default values filling in component-slots of a particular frame, the more strongly this particular frame will be recalled from memory. In this way, expectations are set up. Note that, because frames combine information about both the extralinguistic features of a situation, and the appropriate use of language therein, whichever of these is available first will give rise to expectations about the other. In this way, we can account for politeness assessments of utterances produced and interpreted in the course of an actual situation (where expectations are set up with recourse to the extra-linguistic features of the situation); but also, for politeness default values which cultures attribute to specific linguistic behaviours seemingly independently of context (where expectations are set up with recourse to linguistic information).6 Furthermore, once the similarity driving the matching of perceived information and information stored in memory is construed as a matter of degree, along the lines of G. Lakoff (1987), the proposed approach turns out to be constraining enough to account for diverging politeness assessments of formally equivalent linguistic devices by different cultures, while at the same time being general enough to allow for the observed creativity of linguistic politeness. Frames contribute to the understanding process by making available background knowledge that is relevant to the eventuality at hand. However, since such knowledge is acquired through socialisation within a community, as opposed to following from logical necessity, inferences based on it are defeasible. That is, interlocutors go ahead and draw such inferences in normal circumstances, unless there occurs to them an alternative or reason to the contrary. Frames act as a pointer as to what such ‘normal circumstances’ are in different situations for different communities. Thus, they naturally complement an account of understanding along the lines of Levinson’s (1995, 2000: 73ff.) default heuristics. Inferences drawn with reference to these heuristics do not constitute additional propositions, the recovery of which follow from, and relies on, the recovery of the propositional content of the utterance.
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Consider the classic example of someone at the dinner table asking for the salt by saying “Can you pass me the salt?” In an English-speaking context, the speaker’s utterance meets the addressee’s general expectations about how language is used given the setting (the dinner table) and the activity interlocutors are engaging in (having dinner). There is therefore no need for the speaker’s polite intention to be recovered on the basis of his/her utterance, since, were this to be so, one would need to subscribe to the counter-intuitive claim that the addressee computes the speaker’s request first as a literal question (Searle 1975).7 Rather than the proposition expressed, what is recovered in this case is simply the fact that the speaker has made a request. Politeness is achieved as a perlocutionary effect, just in case the addressee also holds the belief that asking for the salt by saying “Can you pass the salt?” is polite given the circumstances.8 On the other hand, if the speaker’s utterance did not meet the addressee’s general expectations about how language is used, the latter would draw specific inferences pertaining to the former’s intentions. Contrary to politeness, then, impoliteness or excessive politeness are part of what is recovered based on the speaker’s utterance, which accounts for their being marked (also in the sense of being noticed) in relation to politeness. In the example above, while the inferential mechanism (Levinson’s heuristics) may well be universal, it is the frames appealed to by participants (who is speaking to whom, when, and in what setting) that determine the output of the inferential process. In virtue of being presumed in this way, the resulting implicatures are of a generalised nature, while implicatures (of excessive politeness, or impoliteness) derived by appealing to the speaker’s intentions are particularised. It is in this sense that Levinson’s default heuristics help account for the unmarked way of speaking within a community.
Closing thoughts In this paper, I discussed evidence from the use of the imperative in Cypriot Greek which casts doubt on the possibility to account for empirical data within the framework of Brown and Levinson (1978/1987).9 Instead, I proposed that the situated appropriateness of a linguistic device necessitates explicit reference to the norms operating at any one time in the community in question. To represent these norms, the notion of a frame is proposed as combining information about the situation with information about the appropriate use of language therein. Frames act as a pointer as to what constitutes normal circumstances in different situations for different communities, thereby allowing inferences
A frame-based approach to politeness
pertaining to politeness to be drawn automatically along the lines of Levinson (1995, 2000). In this way, the intuition that politeness constitutes the unmarked way of speaking in a community is doubly accounted for. On the one hand, it is no longer seen as an additional layer of meaning, or speaking politely would have to be construed as marked relative to some unmarked way of speaking which would not be carrying this additional layer of meaning. Rather than being mediated by recognising the speaker’s intention (which thus becomes – for the most part – irrelevant), face-constituting, i.e. the setting up of oneself and of one’s interlocutor as competent members of the community within which one is operating, falls out directly from one’s uttering an expression which one’s interlocutor believes to be appropriate relative to the situation. At the same time, immediately observable features about the situation motivate politeness assessments more directly than previously allowed for. Rather than merely providing the input to an intermediate level of assumptions about the context-specific values of sociological variables such as Brown and Levinson’s D, P and Rx , these now enter directly in interlocutors’ assessments about politeness. In this way, the proposed account ascribes to interlocutors less cognitive processing compared to Brown and Levinson’s theory, a result which accords with the intuition that speaking politely constitutes the unmarked way of speaking within a community.10 It is Levinson’s default heuristics, coupled with the notion of a frame, which provide us with the theoretical apparatus to account for this intuition. The universal validity of this scheme depends on the extent to which a common core of extra-linguistic features of the situation can be shown directly to affect polite usage, while at the same time not reducing to an intermediate level of assumptions about sociological variables such as D, P and Rx (Brown & Levinson 1987: 76ff.). It is to be hoped that future studies of politeness in other cultures will take up this task, testing the claim that these features are indeed organised into “data-structures representing stereotyped situations”, i.e. into frames involved in the processing of polite discourse.
Notes . In this formula, D stands for social Distance, a measure of the degree of similarity or difference between the speaker and the hearer. While Distance is symmetric, Power (P) which refers to the degree to which the hearer can impose his/her own will on the speaker, is asymmetric. Finally, Rx represents the ranking of the imposition entailed by an FTAx , which is
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culturally and situationally specified for different acts, depending on the expenditure of services and goods involved. . For a fuller exposition of the theoretical intricacies involved, the reader is referred to Terkourafi (forthcoming). . Terkourafi (2004) analyses further aspects of these data. . Wolfson (1989) found that a high degree of relationship negotiability (as with acquaintances) results in significantly more effort being invested in the expression of politeness, whereas, if roles are rather ‘fixed’ (as with intimates or strangers), less effort will be invested in conveying politeness. Similar findings are reported by Olshtain and Weinbach (1993: 118). . Making a similar point, Eelen notes, “[Brown and Levinson’s] theory is in fact about real human beings, and the Model Person becomes a mini-psychological model of ordinary speakers” (2001: 52). . Our ability to make such judgements provides evidence for the claim that frames are stored in memory with default values filling in particular component-slots. . For problems with this view, see Groefsema (1992). . Terkourafi (2003) elaborates on this point. . Their approach nevertheless fully retains its theoretical interest as an etic approach to politeness, i.e. one whose viability cannot, and should not, be assessed emically. . On holistic storing and recall of stereotypical events as less effortful, see Sperber and Wilson (1986/1995: 186).
References Arundale, Robert (1999). “An alternative model and ideology of communication for an alternative to politeness theory”. Pragmatics, 9, 119–153. Brown, Penelope (1995). Politeness strategies and the attribution of intensions: the case of Tzeltal irony”. In E. Goody (Ed.), Social intelligence and interaction: expressions and implications of the social bias in human intelligence (pp. 153–174). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Brown, Penelope & Levinson, Stephen (1987). Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Eelen, Gino (2001). A critique of politeness theories. Manchester: St. Jerome Publishing. Escandell-Vidal, Victoria (1998). “Politeness: A relevant issue for relevance theory”. Revista Alicantina de Estudios Ingleses, 11, 45–57. Fraser, Bruce (1990). “Perspectives on politeness”. Journal of Pragmatics, 14, 219–236. Glick, D. J. (1996). “A reappraisal of Brown and Levinson’s ‘Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage’ eighteen years later”. Semiotica, 109, 141–171. Gumperz, John (1982). Discourse Strategies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gumperz, John & Tannen, Deborah (1979). “Individual and social differences in language use”. In C. Fillmore, D. Kempler, & W. Wang (Eds.), Individual Differences in Language Ability and Language Behaviour (pp. 305–325). New York: Academic Press.
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Hill, Beverly, Ide, Sachiko, Ikuta, Shoko, Kawasaki, Akiko, & Ogino, Tsunao (1986). “Universals of linguistic politeness: Quantitative evidence from Japanese and American English”. Journal of Pragmatics, 10, 347–371. Holton, David, Mackridge, Peter, & Philippaki-Warburton, Irene (1997). Greek: A Comprehensive Grammar of the Modern Language. London: Routledge. Ide, Sachiko (1978). “A sociolinguistic analysis of person references by Japanese and American children”. Language Sciences, 1, 273–293. Ide, Sachiko (1989). “Formal forms and discernment: Two neglected aspects of universals of linguistic politeness”. Multilingua, 8, 223–248. Jary, Mark (1998). “Relevance theory and the communication of politeness”. Journal of Pragmatics, 30, 1–19. Kasper, Gabriele (1990). “Linguistic politeness”. Journal of Pragmatics, 14, 193–218. Lakoff, George (1987). Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things: What Categories Reveal about the Mind. Chicago: Chicago University Press. Lakoff, Robin (1973). “The logic of politeness; Or, minding your p’s and q’s.” In Papers from the Ninth Regional Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society (pp. 292–305). Chicago: Chicago Linguistic Society. Leech, Geoffrey (1983). Principles of Pragmatics. London: Longman. Lerner, Gene (1996). “Finding “face” in the preference structures of talk-in-interaction”. Social Psychology Quarterly, 59, 303–321. Levinson, Stephen (1995). “Three levels of meaning”. In F. R. Palmer (Ed.), Grammar and Meaning: Essays in Honour of Sir John Lyons (pp. 90–115). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Levinson, Stephen (2000). Presumptive Meanings: The Theory of Generalised Conversational Implicature. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Lively, Scott, Pisoni, David, & Goldinger, Stephen (1994). “Spoken word recognition: Research and theory”. In M. A. Gernsbacher (Ed.), Handbook of Psycholinguistics (pp. 265–301). San Diego: Academic Press. Lyons, John (1995). Linguistic Semantics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Mey, Jacob (1993). Pragmatics. Oxford: Blackwell. Minsky, Marvin (1975). “A framework for representing knowledge”. In P. Winston (Ed.), The Psychology of Computer Vision (pp. 211–277). New York: MacGraw-Hill. Olshtain, Elite & Weinbach, Liora (1993). “Interlanguage features of the speech act of complaining”. In G. Kasper & S. Blum-Kulka (Eds.), Interlanguage Pragmatics (pp. 108– 122). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Searle, John (1975). “Indirect speech acts”. In P. Cole & J. L. Morgan (Eds.), Syntax and Semantics, Vol. III (pp. 59–82). New York: Academic Press. Snow, Catherine, Perlmann, Rivka, Gleason, Jean B., & Nahid Hoosshyar (1990). “Developmental perspectives on politeness: Sources of children’s knowledge”. Journal of Pragmatics, 14, 289–305. Sperber, Deirdre & Wilson, Dan (1986/1995). Relevance: Communication and Cognition (2nd edition). Oxford: Blackwell. Terkourafi, Marina (1999). “Frames for politeness: A case study”. Pragmatics, 9, 97–117. Terkourafi, Marina (2001). “Politeness in Cypriot Greek: A frame-based approach”. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Cambridge.
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Terkourafi, Marina (2003). “Generalised and particularised implicatures of politeness”. In P. Kuehlein, H. Rieser, & H. Zeevat (Eds.), Perspectives on dialogue in the New Millennium. Pragmatics & Beyond. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Terkourafi, Marina (2004). “Testing Brown and Levinson’s theory in a corpus of conversational data from Cypriot Greek”. International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 168, 119–134. Terkourafi, Marina (Forthcoming). Frames of commonsense: Politeness in Cypriot Greek. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Thompson, Stith (1957). Motif-index of folk-literature. Vol. V (L-Z). Copenhagen: Rosenkilde & Bagger. Werkhofer, Konrad (1992). “Traditional and modern views: The social constitution and the power of politeness”. In R. J. Watts, S. Ide, & K. Ehlich (Eds.), Politeness in language: Studies in Its History, Theory and Practice (pp. 155–199). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Wolfson, Nessa (1989). Perspectives: Sociolinguistics and TESOL. Cambridge, MA: Newbury House.
The significance of ‘face’ and politeness in social interaction as revealed through Thai ‘face’ idioms Margaret Ukosakul This paper examines the Thai concept of ‘face’ as revealed through the analysis of Thai ‘face’ idioms and discusses how face is related to politeness. Using the definition of politeness as “socially appropriate behavior” (Meier 1996), to be polite in Thai social interaction implies maintaining one another’s ‘face’, i.e., preserving a person’s honor or self-esteem as well as recognising one’s status in society. Some politeness strategies such as indirectness, avoidance of confrontation and suppression of negative emotions are described. Finally, the consequences of transgressions of these social norms are discussed. Keywords: Face; politeness; indirectness; honor; shame
Introduction Foreigners who come to work in Thailand are often told, “You must not be too direct when dealing with the Thai. At all costs, don’t make them ‘lose face’.” One does not have to live in Thailand too long in order to realise the significance of ‘face’ on social interaction in Thai society. To ‘lose face’, sˇıa nâ as they say in Thai, is one of the numerous ‘face’ idioms which abound in the Thai language. The significance of the concept of face in Thai society can be reflected in the numerous idioms based on the word nâ ‘face’. In fact, in my research on Thai ‘face’ idioms (Ukosakul 1999), I collected 180 idioms based on the word nâ ‘face’. These idioms were collected from dictionaries (both Thai and Thai-English), books on Thai idioms, and radio and the television programs. In addition, examples were culled from conversations and interviews with native Thai speakers. These idioms were then semantically analyzed for
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their metaphorical use using Lakoff and Johnson’s (1980) theory of metaphor and Lakoff ’s view of the embodiment of semantics (Lakoff 1987). In this paper, I will first present the concept of ‘face’ according to Thai culture. I will then describe the relationship of ‘face’ to politeness in the Thai context. I will be using the definition of politeness as “socially appropriate behavior” (according to Meier 1996: 351). It is necessary to view politeness within a framework of social interaction. Ide (1989: 225) noted that linguistic politeness is realised through the use of intentional strategies that allow one’s message to be favorably received by the addressee and also through the choice of expressions that conform to the norms of speech appropriate to the situation. Norms for social politeness, as well as the underlying value and belief systems, vary across cultures. Therefore, I will discuss some key themes and politeness strategies in Thai social interaction. Finally, this paper will conclude with a discussion of what happens when these social rules are violated.
The Thai concept of ‘face’ What does nâ, ‘face’, mean for the Thai? Sanit Samakkarn (1975) in his article, an anthropological study of nâ, ‘face’, in Thai, describes the significance of the word nâ. According to his analysis of Thai culture, the human body is divided into three parts and each part has a different level of importance which is associated with it. The most important and most meaningful part of the human body is the highest part, which is the head. The head is at the highest position vertically and is therefore considered the most important and sacred. The Thai believe the head is exalted while the feet are debased. Consequently, one must not touch a person’s head carelessly or casually. If one accidentally does so, it is necessary to beg the pardon of the person touched. It is even considered impolite to pass objects over a person’s head (Preecha 1992). According to Sanit (1975: 496), the face, being part of the head, is considered the “representation of the person.” The second part of the body is from the neck down to the waist. This part has a mid level of importance. The most talked-about areas here are cai ‘heart’ and th¢f] ‘stomach or abdomen’. The waist down to the feet of the human body is considered the lowest part. The sole of the foot is the lowest of all and the most inferior and dirty. Even calling attention to the foot requires one to say, “Excuse me” (Preecha 1992). Therefore the Thai consider it a serious insult if the sole of the foot is raised or pointed towards another person. This debasement of the feet is clearly
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reflected in the idiom nâ sôn tin ‘sole of foot face’ which is a demeaning insult used to rebuke someone who is utterly shameless. Another Thai scholar, Suntaree Komin (1990) suggests that for the Thai, ‘face’ is identical to ‘ego’. As such, it is very sensitive and the Thai cannot tolerate any violation of the “ego-self ” (1990: 161). This ego-orientation is the root value underlying other cultural values such as ‘face-saving’ or ‘criticismavoidance’. Therefore, one can say that the basic rule of all Thai interactions is preserving one another’s ego or face. The well-known idiom ráksˇa nâ ‘to preserve face’ aptly describes this important rule. Consequently, gaining face dâj nâ helps one feel socially accepted. Conversely, losing face and experiencing embarrassment are particularly to be avoided. From the above, we see that the Thai use body parts metaphorically to express other meanings according to their society and culture. The semantic analysis of Thai ‘face’ idioms reveals that the word nâ ‘face’, is used metaphorically to describe four aspects of a person, namely, (1) one’s personality, (2) one’s countenance, (3) one’s emotions – this is not surprising since we express our emotions through the face and perceive the emotions of others primarily through their facial expressions, and (4) the concept of honor (Ukosakul 1999). Thus, the Thai notion of face, similar to that in Chinese, Japanese and other Asian cultures, is very often associated with the sense of dignity, self-esteem, prestige, reputation and pride. Brown and Levinson’s (1987: 61) definition of face as the “public self-image that a person wants for himself ” can be applied to the Thai situation. However, the Thai notion of face is not so much one’s right to act freely (à la Brown & Levinson) but rather other people’s acceptance of one’s accomplishments and social position in society. Consequently, people who express behaviors which are considered ‘positive’ for the face tend to be people of whom Thai society approves. For instance, behaviors that conform to the norms of society would be actions that show that one rák nâ ‘loves face or reputation.’ If one sˇıa nâ ‘loses face’, one has to kûu nâ ‘redeem face’ in order to ráksˇa nâ ‘preserve face’.
The relationship of face to politeness Taking the view of politeness as “socially appropriate behavior,” it is not difficult to see the link between face and politeness. As mentioned earlier, to preserve one another’s self-esteem is the basic rule of all Thai interaction. Furthermore, propriety or appropriateness (kaláthesà) is very important. Smooth and harmonious relationships are highly valued (Ukosakul 1994). As a result,
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to be polite involves an attempt to maintain one another’s face. Thus, Thai people make great effort not to offend anyone. Politeness strategies involve saying and doing the right thing in the right way and at the right time so as not to hurt another’s feelings or ego. In Thai, the expression ráksˇa nám cai kan ‘to preserve the water of the heart’ aptly describes this strategy. However, the perception of politeness depends on the social context as well. Maintaining one another’s face involves protecting a person’s honor or selfesteem. In one sense, one must give honor; in another sense, one must avoid behavior that may cause shame to another. Status-consciousness must be observed. One’s status is usually a blend of both ascribed and achieved statuses. Status in Thai society is determined by an individual’s age, family background, economic standing, political power and connections (associations), education and outlook on life (Moore 1974: 109). The general hierarchical relationship is that of superior-subordinate or patron-client. Social hierarchy is reflected in many ways in Thai culture; it is reflected in deferential behavior patterns, body language, customary greetings, attitudes and expectations, as well as in verbal language. Thus, maintaining one’s face also implies recognising and accepting another’s social status, roles and achievements. Maintaining face also involves recognising mutual obligations in social relations. Matsumoto (1988) made the point with regard to the Japanese that asking for help is a way of honoring someone by giving them the chance to carry out their role. For the Thai, this is true but to a lesser degree because the attitude of kre]cai ‘deference’ (which will be discussed later in this paper) and the fear of bunkhun ‘social indebtedness’ can often counteract the impetus to ask for help.
Linguistic encoding of politeness strategies What are some politeness strategies for maintaining one’s face? The first strategy is indirectness. Being direct and assertive are to be avoided because it could be interpreted as a threat to the self-esteem of the addressee. Someone who is too direct and is not considerate of another’s esteem could be considered as mâi hâi nâ ‘not giving face’ or mâi wái nâ ‘not keeping face’. The indirect approach may appear in the form of hints, beating around the bush, or jokes (Ukosakul 1994: 215). This approach allows the persons in an interaction to accommodate each other or to withdraw without losing face (Stewart 1972: 52–53). For example, direct refusals of a request may be taken as showing inconsiderateness or disrespect. Thus, when one is not willing to do what is requested, one may
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say, “I am sorry I will not be free at that time” or not say anything at all. The requester will then get the hint. Chaiyun Ukosakul (1994: 215), in his research on Thai patterns of interpersonal relationships, observed that hints were employed for two purposes: firstly, to send an indirect message without offending the receivers; and secondly, to send out feelers to find out whether the receivers were ready for a certain message. In this way, if the response is not as might have been expected, no one will be publicly embarrassed. Hints are therefore subtle signals sent to people to help them know what they are expected to do or not do, or, that they have done something wrong. Hints are often used in place of direct requests, giving advice, or outright criticisms and threats, particularly in the presence of a third party. Another way of being indirect is to “beat around the bush” which is to talk around the issue without getting to the point. A common Thai expression chák m¥7 nám thá] hâ, ‘to draw from all five rivers’, describes the use of this approach. “Five rivers” refers to the five major rivers of India. People who use this expression imply that they would try their best to persuade others by telling them everything they might possibly need to know without necessarily getting directly to the point or issue itself. This approach can help avoid anyone feeling ¥ embarrassed and maintain a smooth and peaceful atmosphere (sa]òp râprYn). Jokes and teasing are also used to distract attention from the seriousness of the situation. They are used to communicate something that is sensitive and could make a person lose face. The listener would then be able to understand the message from a perspective that is not offensive (Ukosakul 1994: 217). However, the indirect approach does not always convey the intended message. Another politeness strategy in Thai social interaction that is related to indirectness is the avoidance of confrontation. The idiom phach6n nâ ‘to confront face’ aptly describes someone who is confrontational. Thus, to avoid the “I win, you lose” situation, one who is displeased with another or has a conflict with another may do a few things: (1) keep silent about the situation (2) avoid the party in conflict altogether (in Thai, the expression lòp nâ ‘to avoid face’ means to avoid meeting someone) (3) express his feelings to a third party as a way of releasing his emotional tension, or (4) attempt to resolve the conflict by using mediation through the third party in order to avoid the loss of face for the two negotiating parties. Not only do the Thai avoid confrontation, avoidance of strong criticism is also keenly observed. Komin (1990) stated that even in academic settings where intellectual criticism has a legitimate place, the Thai will still tone down their criticisms of ideas by using general and vaguely stated terms because “it is
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very difficult for the Thai to dissociate one’s ideas and opinions from the ‘ego’ self ” (1990: 163). In other words, rejection of one’s ideas is taken as rejection of the person holding those ideas. It is therefore extremely important not to chìk nâ ‘to tear someone’s face’ or to hàk nâ ‘to break someone’s face’, meaning ‘to humiliate’ someone in public. For interactions to be smooth and void of overt conflicts, it is important that there be suppression of negative emotions. The idioms pân sˇı nâ ‘to mold the color of the face’ and nâ taj ‘dead face’ illustrate the concealment of one’s emotions. The value of self-control, of being calm and collected (cai jen ‘coolhearted’) is important for maintaining smooth interpersonal interaction. One who is cai jen and is able to be polite even while seething on the inside is regarded as a person of strength (Komin 1990: 181). Again, the point is to maintain a smooth and harmonious relationship and not make oneself or the other lose face. Of course, it is not always the case that a person is able to control his emotions. When one is very angry to the point that he does not care for the relationship anymore, he has in his verbal repertoire a host of insults with which to rebuke the offender. Not surprisingly, some of these insults make use of the word ‘face’ such as ‘dog face’ nâ mˇa, ‘sole of feet face’ nˆ a sôn tin and ‘furry face’ nâ khˇon. The strength of these insults lie in the extreme negative connotation attributed to animals (dogs are particularly lowly in the Thai social hierarchy) and the feet which are debased. Of course, if one resorts to the use of such strong insults, the chances for reconciliation with the offended party is very slim. In general, however, one could say that Thailand is a courteous society – except when a Thai is behind the steering wheel. That is a different story altogether. It is interesting to note that on the road, there is no ‘face’ or interpersonal relationship involved. Thus the politeness strategies described here are thrown out of the window! An important concept which underlies much of everyday interpersonal behavioral patterns of the Thai is kre]cai. The attitude of kre]cai has to do with consideration and respect for another’s ego or feelings. It also has the meaning of “to feel reluctant to impose upon another person, . . . or to take every measure not to cause discomfort or inconvenience to another person” (Komin 1990: 164). Ide (1982: 382) stated that “non-imposition is the essence of polite behavior” for the Japanese. In a similar way, kre]cai is an appropriate and desirable social mechanism among the Thai. The attitude of kre]cai helps a person not to take advantage of another, or take another for granted. It also helps to maintain smooth and harmonious relationships and to avoid conflicts.
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The consequences of kre]cai are twofold: (1) a person is obligated to do what he/she may not want to do, and (2) he/she will not always be able to do what he/she desires to do. For example, A and B are good friends. A asked to borrow B’s car. Because B kre]cai his friend, B will let A use the car even though he is not too happy about it. B does not want to cause any ill-feelings between A and himself. However, if A had kre]cai B in the first place, A would not have directly ask to use the car even though he needed to use one badly. Doing so makes A appear nâ nˇa ‘thick faced’ or nâ dân ‘hardened face’, i.e., thick-skinned. The motivation behind kre]cai is to avoid intrusion upon one’s ego or loss of one’s face. For instance, in the situation described above, B will let A use his car lest he loses face because A would think that B is stingy or that B does not trust A with his car. If A needs the car but feels kre]cai toward B, A would not ask to borrow B’s car in case A loses face when B refuses to help him. This does not imply that a Thai is not able to request for help. Any request for help is typically presented indirectly in the form of hints. Therefore, one may casually mention the need for a car. If the other picks up the hint, he may offer the use of his car. If he does not desire to do so, he will not acknowledge the hint but will casually change the subject. In this case, the requester knows that the other is not willing to lend the car. Both sides will not lose face in this encounter. A Thai knows how far he should go in displaying the degree of kre]cai – it depends on who one is dealing with, the degree of familiarity with that person, as well as the situation (Komin 1990: 167). To kre]cai too much makes others feel uncomfortable; to kre]cai too little is offensive. But definitely, it is a basic social rule to kre]cai. Note that the concept of kre]cai is not unique to the Thai; the Chinese and some other Asian cultures have this concept as well.
Transgressions of social norms What happens when the social norms discussed above are violated? The consequence of actions such as being confrontational, being too direct, expressing violent emotions and so on is the loss of ‘face’ or honor which leads to the experience of negative feelings such as shame or anger. A large number of Thai ‘face’ idioms describe shame and anger. My research on ‘face’ idioms (Ukosakul 1999) also reveals an interesting finding: other than the word ai which means ‘shame or shyness’, every other expression that describes shame or embarrassment contains the word nâ ‘face’, for example, nâ t¡7k ‘broken face’; nâ cha
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¡ ‘tasteless face’ and nâ d7] ‘red face’. The relationship of ‘numb face’, nâ jYt face to shame is therefore very salient. The behavioral reactions to the experience of shame are varied; they include avoidance, putting on a mask, using humor as a diversion, and, acceptance (Ukosakul 1999: 121–123). One other reaction is retaliation. One who has been made to lose face may retaliate by rebuking the offender causing him or her to lose face as well. The idiom t¡fk nâ klàp ‘to hammer the face back’ graphically illustrates this reaction. In any case, it will be necessary for one who has lost face to regain one’s honor through various means (in Thai, one ¢ nâ klàp ‘buy the face back’ or kû nâ ‘redeem face’). says that one needs to sY Shame is also used in Thai society as a social sanction to make people conform to the acceptable norms of society. For example, one who is boastful is rebuked with expressions such as nâ nˇa ‘thick face’ or nâ dân ‘hardened face’. Nevertheless, causing shame to others, in most situations, is equivalent to sinning against others. It is therefore an impolite behavior that must be avoided.
Conclusion In conclusion, we see that for the Thai, face is often equated with ego. To ‘lose face’ is a social taboo while preserving one’s face is the basic rule of all Thai interaction. The concept of face is useful in understanding linguistic politeness in Thai culture. In order to protect the ‘face’, the Thai has mechanisms to help one maintain smooth relationships with others. These politeness strategies such as indirectness, avoidance of confrontation and criticism, suppression of negative emotions, and kre]cai help ensure that the dignity of a person is protected as much as possible. The relationship between face and politeness in Thai culture as described in this paper once again illustrates the interdependence of thought, language and culture.
References Brown, Penelope & Levinson, Stephen (1987). Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ide, Sachiko (1982). “Japanese sociolinguistics: Politeness and women’s language”. Lingua, 57, 357–385. Ide, Sachiko (1989). “Formal forms and discernment: Two neglected aspects of universals of linguistic politeness”. Multilingua, 8 (2/3), 223–248.
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Komin, Suntaree (1990). Psychology of the Thai people: Values and Behavioral Patterns. Bangkok: NIDA. Lakoff, George (1987). Women, Fire and Dangerous Things: What Categories Reveal about the Mind. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Lakoff, George & Johnson, Mark (1980). Metaphors We Live By. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Matsumoto, Yoshiko (1988). “Reexamination of the universality of face: Politeness phenomena in Japanese”. Journal of Pragmatics, 12, 403–426. Meier, A. J. (1996). “Defining politeness: Universality in appropriateness”. Language Sciences, 17 (4), 345–356. Moore, Frank J. (1974). Thailand. New Haven: HRAF. Juntanamalaga Preecha (1992). “On the semantics of Thai compounds in hˇua ‘head”’. In Carol J. Compton & John F. Hartmann (Eds.), Papers on Thai Languages, Linguistics and Literature (pp. 168–178). Northern Illinois University: Center for South-east Asian Studies. Samakkarn Sanit (1975). “Concerning the ‘Face’ of Thai people: Analysis according to the Anthropological Linguistics Approach”. NIDA Journal, 4. Stewart, Edward C. (1972). American Cultural Patterns: A Cross-Cultural Perspective. Yarmouth, Maine: Intercultural Press. Ukosakul, Chaiyun (1994). “A Study of the Patterns of Detachment in Interpersonal Relationships in a Local Thai Church”. Ph.D. dissertation. Trinity International University (formerly TEDS). Ukosakul, Margaret (1999). “Conceptual Metaphors Motivating the Use of Thai ‘Face’”. M.A. dissertation, Chang Mai, Payap University.
P III
The descriptive perspective
Face threatening acts, primary face threatening acts, and the management of discourse Australian English and speakers of Asian Englishes Christopher J. Conlan Contemporary theories of linguistic politeness tend to be grounded in the pivotal concept of face threatening acts as formulated by Brown and Levinson. As a result, relatively scant attention has been paid to the ways in which politeness can also be a function of shared understandings concerning the appropriateness of discourse-staging strategies. This paper seeks to develop a perspective on linguistic politeness as it relates specifically to discourse organisation. To this end, the concept of face threatening acts (FTAs) has been augmented to introduce the notion of primary face threatening acts (PFTAs). Primary face threatening acts are seen to be speech acts by means of which pragmatic goals are ultimately attempted but which depend for their success upon being adequately framed by focussed discourse-specific and context-specific FTAs. The paper focuses on Australian English and suggests that politeness breakdowns which occur between native speakers of Australian English and speakers of English from non-Western backgrounds could well be the result of differing discourse-staging strategies. Preliminary data from research involving Thai and Japanese speakers of English and native speakers of Australian English are cited to examine this hypothesis. Keywords: Face threatening acts; discourse strategies; Australian English; Asian Englishes
Introduction A few years ago, the prestigious monthly Business Traveller – a British magazine targeting frequent flyers – conducted its Eleventh Airline Food and Wine Survey. The survey took place at Farnsworth in England in a hypobarbic cham-
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ber used to duplicate pressurised flying conditions. The chamber was fitted out with seats and facilities to replicate conditions in Business Class and a panel of five British judges was asked to judge the food, wine, and service of the eight participating major airlines: Lufthansa, Air New Zealand, British Airways, American Airlines, Thai Airways International, Virgin Atlantic, Emirates, and United Airlines. While Thai Airways (one of the only two non-Western airlines included in the survey) rated well in all of the other categories (variety of food served, standard of cooking, type of wine available etc.), it scored lowest by a significant margin in terms of service – by far the lowest of all eight airlines. Paradoxically, while the Thai cabin crew was found by the judges to be “very anxious to please” (Business Traveller 1995: 24), it was the crew of Air New Zealand – who “impressed the judges with . . . the service, which seemed genuinely friendly as opposed to merely solicitous” (1995: 21) – that scored highest, followed by British Airlines in second place and American Airlines in third. While it would be pointless to attempt to explain this seeming contradiction without access to reliable first-hand data, this kind of pragmatic dysfunction is by no means uncommon in similar speech situations and between speakers of English from other Asian backgrounds and speakers of varieties of English other than British English. One such example would be the resentment – usually professionally masked but often clearly registered – of Australian-English speaking cabin crews on flights to and from Japan when requests for service are made in English by Japanese passengers. It seems safe to suggest that these kinds of breakdowns in empathic communication between speakers of English from Asian backgrounds and speakers of English from Western backgrounds are a function of different perceptions concerning the contextual appropriateness of various politeness strategies for a given speech situation; and equally safe to suggest that there are many possible reasons why such breakdowns might occur. Some of these might be paralinguistic or even non-linguistic in origin, while others could well be a product of differing face considerations resulting from primary socialisation (cf. Conlan 1996). The approach adopted here is intentionally eclectic and draws on a number of concepts developed within a variety of analyical frameworks (for example, those of adjacency pairs from conversation analysis and of illocutionary point from speech act theory) and such an approach naturally runs the risk of raising issues of theoretical cohesion. Linguistic politeness, though, is itself a multiplex phenomenon, and what follows can best be considered to be a tentative step
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towards establishing a more inclusive framework in terms of which it can be examined. While there are, then, difficulties in attempting to meld analytical tools from differing theoretical frameworks, what will be suggested here is that the kinds of cross-cultural disjunctures outlined earlier could well hinge on the way in which discourse is structured, and this approach involves reassessing the concept of face developed by Brown and Levinson (1978) in terms of discourse focussing and the relative weightiness of context-bound face threatening acts.
Face threatening acts and primary face threatening acts Brown and Levinson’s concept of face derives directly from that of Goffman (1955) but ultimately originated with Durkheim’s (1915) distinction between sacred and profane domains and the enforcing social mechanisms of negative and positive social behaviour. Goffman submitted that each person has: two points of view – a defensive orientation toward saving his own face and a protective orientation toward saving the others’ face. Some practices will be primarily defensive and others primarily protective . . .. In trying to save the face of others, the person must choose a tack that will not lead to loss of his own; in trying to save his own face, he must consider the loss of face that his action may entail for others. (1955: 217)
Brown and Levinson developed these twin notions of face and extrapolated from them to establish their core theoretical constructs of positive politeness and negative politeness. They characterise positive face as a social actor’s self-image of social membership and consequent desire to be recognised as a rational social being with a “perennial desire that his wants (or the actions/acquisitions/values resulting from them) should be thought of as desirable” (1978: 106); and negative face as that member’s concomitant self-image of individuality and “his want to have his freedom of action unhindered and his attention unimpeded” (1978: 134). Positive politeness, as a result, is seen to address the hearer’s need for approval and belonging and thus satisfies that hearer’s positive-face wants by communicating solidarity with that aspect of the hearer’s self image. Negative politeness, on the other hand, serves to satisfy the hearer’s negative face by the avoidance or minimisation of imposition and is communicated by speaker self-effacement, formality, restraint, and the use of conventionalised indirectness.
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Face threatening acts, then, are seen to consist in speech acts which have the potential to violate face, and the practice of politeness in the strategies used to mitigate possible face damage in order to achieve or to maintain harmonious interpersonal communication. As Brown and Levinson put it: certain kinds of acts intrinsically threaten face, namely those acts that by their nature run contrary to the face wants of the addressee and/or of the speaker. By “act” we have in mind what is intended to be done by a verbal or nonverbal communication, just as one or more “speech acts” can be assigned to an utterance. (1978: 70, emphasis added)
But what I’d like to suggest here is that the very act of engaging in spoken discourse is always a face-threatening activity in that all discourse is made up of speech acts which involve a speaker in framing a given context in terms of perceived Power and Distance values deemed to be appropriate to his or her perceived relationship with the hearer or hearers; and from this perspective, it also becomes necessary to draw a distinction between speech acts by means of which an overriding pragmatic goal is attempted – Brown and Levinson’s “certain kinds of acts [which] intrinsically threaten face”, which I’ll be referring to here as Primary Face Threatening Acts or PFTAs – and other speech acts, themselves Face Threatening Acts, but acts which, while part of the ongoing face-threatening activity of discourse-construction, have the discourse function of mitigating the force of the overriding Primary Face Threatening Act. (Note: The term “Primary Face Threatening Act” might be more accurately written as “Primary Face-Threatening Act”. However, in line with established practice in politeness theory, the compound will not be hyphenated. “Primary”, though, is intended to modify “Face Threatening Act” not simply “Face”.) To take an example of a kind that would be relevant to the airline scenario sketched earlier, then, while both apologies (for example) and requests are inherently FTAs, when an apology precedes a request (or offer; as in, perhaps, “I’m sorry to disturb you, but would you like fish or chicken?”), the apology can modify the effect of the request. (Compare, for example, the difference between “I’m sorry to disturb you, but would you like fish or chicken?” and “Would you like fish or chicken?”) Further, should an apology be deemed to be contextually inappropriate by the person to whom it is addressed, its usage may well result in the kind of breakdowns in emotive communication inherent in the “genuinely friendly as apposed to merely solicitous” distinction drawn by the judges in the Business Traveller survey. Here the apology would certainly be an FTA, but requesting that a menu decision be made – the ultimate goal of the communication – would be a PFTA. And moreover, as will be discussed below,
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the number of FTAs used prior to the performance of a PFTA is a contextual variable, and the number can as easily be increased (“I’m sorry to disturb you, I can see you’re busy reading, but would you like fish or chicken?”) as the length of the individual acts decreased (“Fish or chicken?”); but agreement between speaker and hearer on the appropriate number is crucial to the performance of politeness. What I’m proposing here, then, is that while all speech acts are FTAs – by virtue of being part of the face-threatening activity of discourse construction – they are not all Primary Face Threatening Acts as their discourse function is that of appropriately preparing the way for the performance of an often weightier Primary Face Threatening Act.
Discourse structure and politeness in Australian English To take this line of reasoning a step further, what I’m suggesting here is that during the production of any discourse which has a PFTA as its goal, a speaker of English (here specifically of Australian English) is frequently aware that he or she is approaching the performance of a PFTA and so takes particular care in structuring the discourse which precedes it; and while perhaps not immediately aware that a PFTA is forthcoming, the hearer’s communicative competence will allow him or her to become increasingly so as the time for the performance of the PFTA approaches. Perhaps most importantly, though, if a PFTA is made by S without an appropriate preamble in a context in which such a preamble is expected by H – that is, if H is not given the opportunity to subliminally ask “What’s all this leading up to?” or “I wonder what s/he wants” – H’s face, and as a result the empathic face-saving criteria necessary for the construction of mutually acceptable – i.e. polite – discourse, will also suffer. This potential for face-saving discourse management prior to the performance of a FTA (or PFTA from the perspective being developed here) has been recognised by many researchers, notably by Blum-Kulka et al. (1989) within the framework of their Cross-Cultural Speech Act Realisation Project. The model that has been developed here, then, is not in itself radical and is essentially based on the prototype originally developed by Sinclair and Coulthard (1975) but draws heavily on subsequent developments in discourse analysis, particularly the expansion of Sinclair and Coulthard’s original concept of discourse moves (e.g. Burton 1980), the elaboration of the notion of transactional and interactional discourse functions (e.g. Brown & Yule 1983) but especially on Levinson’s (1983) identification of structural pre-sequences. In addition, the
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approach adapts many of the seminal ideas and techniques that have appeared elsewhere, particularly in Coulthard and Montgomery (1981), Stubbs (1983), and Coulthard (1985). I should also point out that while undue emphasis is undoubtedly placed, in terms of face-management theory, on requests and other communicative acts having the identical illocutionary point, such acts – by virtue of the very transparency of their illocutionary intent – also provide the most economical way of illustrating the approach to analysing discourse being proposed here. Take, for example, this transcript of a recording of an exchange which occurred in a language department of a university adjoining a building that has been undergoing some rather noisy renovations. C is a forty-two-year-old tenured male lecturer who has been with the department for some nine years and who, for a variety of reasons, did not have ready access to word-processing facilities at the time the interaction occurred. J is one of two female departmental secretaries (the other is on leave) in her middle twenties and about midway through a one-year employment contract. It is eleven o’clock on a Tuesday morning, and C’s first tutorial for the day is scheduled to begin at one o’clock: [1] C: [walks into the office with briefcase and some handwritten notes in hand; jovially and in mock surprise] J_____! J: [smiles and mimics the surprised tone] C_____! [5] J:
[glances at her watch; with exaggerated amazement] Gee, you’re in early today! C: [gestures expansively towards the window; with comic gloom] It’s such a lovely day out there, I almost didn’t come in at all.
[10] J: [laughs] C: [in a normal tone] Have they finished that bloody drilling yet? J: [in a normal tone] Not yet. I think they’ve just stopped for a tea break. [15] C: [ruefully] Lucky them. J: [smiles and returns to a document she’s reading] C: [somewhat apologetically] J____, are you really tied up at the moment? J: [looks up and smiles] Not really. Is it something urgent?
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[20] C: [gratefully] Well it’s just – you know – this meeting tomorrow morning. I just wanted you to knock these things out on the computer if you can. I need to – I want to – to get them to some people a bit before – you [25]
know . . . [fades out]
According to the model being proposed here, the moves that occur in interactions such as this one – which has as its pragmatic goal the accomplishment of a PFTA by C which has the illocutionary point of getting some typing done as soon as possible – can be grouped in a way that reveals the manner in which the discourse is structured so that the way is prepared in a contextually acceptable fashion for the performance of the PFTA that ultimately occurs in lines 20 to 25. These groups will be labelled Opening Acts, Establishing Acts, Signalling Acts, and acts of PFTA Realisation; and, in terms of the way they are to be used in the analysis of this kind of discourse, are defined in the following way: Opening Acts: Acts which initiate a stretch of discourse which has as its pragmatic goal the accomplishment of a PFTA. Establishing Acts: Acts by means of which the relative P and D values of the interaction are established (or re-established) and maintained. Signalling Acts: (i) Acts by means of which S indicates to H that a PFTA is about to be performed; and (ii) Acts by means of which H acknowledges that a PFTA is about to be performed. PFTA Realisation: Acts by means of which either the pragmatic goal of the discourse is realised or by means of which the attempt is made to realise it.
The moves that make up the discourse in the interaction above can be represented schematically as in Figure 1; and using this passage of discourse as an illustration, it is possible to make some comments on this kind of discourse – that is, discourse which has as its pragmatic goal the successful performance of a PFTA. Probably the first thing that needs to be said is that the pragmatic point of the discourse was successfully accomplished by way of the performance of the PFTA that occurred in lines 20 to 25 – that is to say, the notes under discussion were typed within one hour of the conversation taking place. The second thing that needs to be said is that while the very act of participating in the production of discourse is, as pointed out earlier, a face threatening activity – and each of the speech acts by means of which discourse is mutually constructed an FTA – the intensity with which individual speech acts pose a face threat depends upon
Christopher J. Conlan
Pre-PFTA Opening Acts
C: J_____! J: C_____!
Pre-PFTA Establishing Acts
J: Gee, you’re in early today! C: It’s such a lovely day out there, I almost didn’t come in at all. J: [laughs] C: Have they finished that bloody drilling yet? J: Not yet. I think they’ve just stopped for a tea break. C: Lucky them. J: [smiles and returns to a document she’s reading]
Pre-PFTA Signalling Acts
C: J_____, are you really tied up at the moment? J: Not really. Is it something urgent?
PFTA Realisation
C: Well it’s just – you know – this meeting tomorrow morning. I just wanted you to knock these things out on the computer if you can. I need to – I want to – to get them to some people a bit before – you know ...
Figure 1. AusE speakers’ discourse construction
the degree to which interlocutors share perceptions of the extent to which P and D variables should be marked in any given speech event. This is demonstrated in the opening lines of the transcript: [1] C: [walks into the office with briefcase and some handwritten notes in hand; jovially and in mock surprise] J_____! J: [smiles and mimics the surprised tone] C_____! [5] J:
[glances at her watch; with exaggerated amazement] Gee, you’re in early today! C: [gestures expansively towards the window; with comic gloom] It’s such a lovely day out there, I almost didn’t come in at all.
While the act culminating in the utterance in line 3 probably poses a face threat of low intensity due to the institutional power differential holding between C and J, J’s completion of the greeting adjacency pair in line 4 is far more face threatening. This rejoinder assumes a particular politeness relationship – that is, a shared understanding of how P and D variables should appropriately be configured in this context and between these speakers – with C; and if this assumption is judged to be contextually inappropriate by C, face damage would occur that would need to be repaired before the interaction could continue.
Face threatening acts
Similarly, J’s follow-up in lines 5 and 6 – with its conversationally implicated “You’re not very enthusiastic about your work” – is a face-threatening act of potentially great intensity until the contextually appropriate politeness ethos is consummated as part of the Establishing sequence by C’s utterance in lines 8 and 9 and the extra-linguistic features by means of which he accompanies it. Once again, if either C or J had assumed a different set of interactional coordinates for any of these, pragmatic dysfunction would have occurred. The third point that needs to be made, and a point of some importance to the perspective being adopted here, is that given the various non-linguistic factors by which the speech event is framed (C and J are meeting for the first time that day, J’s co-worker is on leave, typing tasks are generally carried out in the order in which they are received and so on) it is doubtful that the performance of the PFTA – irrespective of the ultimate effectiveness of the discourse-specific politeness strategies it embodies – would have been as well received in isolation as it ultimately was as part of the discourse in which it was embedded. This is to say that just as the pragmatic goal that is encapsulated by the performance of the PFTA could have been attempted by means of an utterance of a different type (i.e., an utterance that assumed a different context-specific politeness relationship), so this performance of the PFTA could also have been attempted by deleting all of the pre-PFTA acts: [1] C: [walks into the office with briefcase and some handwritten notes in hand] [20] C: [apologetically] J____, this meeting tomorrow morning. I just wanted you to knock these things out on the computer if you can. I need to – I want to – to get them to some people a bit before – you know . . . [fades out]
Another possible variant would have been to retain the Opening and Signalling Acts and delete the Establishing Acts; or to retain the Opening and the Establishing Acts and increase the number of Signalling Acts, as in: C: [somewhat apologetically] J____, are you really tied up at the moment? J: [looks up and smiles] Not really. Is it something urgent? [20] C: J: C: J:
[gratefully] Are you sure you’re not too busy? No – what is it? [apologetically] Are you really sure? Yes – I’m not too busy.
[25] C: [pauses] Sure?
Christopher J. Conlan
– at which point, J would almost certainly (and, in an Australian context, quite justifiably) lose her temper. Just as the first of these examples – in which Opening, Establishing, and Signalling Acts were omitted – would have been too abrupt for the speech event in which it occurred in that it attempts to accomplish the PFTA far too quickly, the second would be inappropriate in that the performance of the PFTA is unreasonably delayed. (This, of course, would also be the situation if the number of Opening or Establishing Acts were to be similarly increased.) A final point that needs to be made here also relates to the nature of the examples presented so far in this paper. While the discussion above may seem to suggest that the model being proposed here assumes that PFTA-oriented discourse can only occur during the initial stages of interaction – a possible interpretation that is no doubt reinforced by the use of the term Opening Acts – this is demonstrably not the case, as PFTA-oriented discourse is often attached to the ongoing discourse, although it is frequently set off from the preceding discourse by transaction boundaries. The sense in which the term Opening Acts is being used here certainly has much in common with Burton’s notion of Opening Moves – that is, utterances which have “no anaphoric reference to the immediately preceding utterance” and which “can . . . be seen as the concluding utterance of a transaction” (Burton 1981: 69). The main difference between Opening Moves as defined by Burton and Opening Acts as the term is being used here, however, is that Opening Acts can be understood to be function-carrying rather than “topic-carrying” (Burton 1981: 69) in the sense that they are employed to orient the talk in a direction that will ultimately allow for the performance of the PFTA. Transaction boundaries can be marked in many ways – for instance by the use of utterances that deny the possibility for any expansion of the previous transaction by effectively closing it off as far as further conversational development is concerned (see for example Stubbs 1981: 115–116) or by the use of pitch and intonation (see for example Brazil 1985 and Coulthard 1985: 124), and research conducted elsewhere has shown that speakers of Australian English “chunk” discourse in a uniform and remarkably consistent way (Conlan 1997). But irrespective of how such boundaries are pragmatically marked – and it falls outside the ambit of the present paper to discuss the mechanics of such markings – they clearly are so marked and are implicitly taken into account by competent speakers of Australian English in their construction of discourse. As a result, boundary-recognition can allow for PFTA-oriented discourse to be embedded within ongoing discourse as in Figure 2, again transcribed from a recording made in a university setting. In this example C and E are colleagues and so share a roughly equal P status; it
Face threatening acts
O Ongoing Transaction
Ongoing Discourse
E: It was a silly thing for him to say, though. Under the circumstances... I mean... C: It was, wasn’t it? E: Yeah... C: Yeah... [transaction boundary]
Pre-PFTA Opening Acts
E: Jeez it’s been busy in here this morning... C: Yeah...
Pre-PFTA Signalling Acts
E: I’m still waiting for that call from W____ E: Hey, you’re not going up to the canteen by any chance, are you? To get some lunch...? C: Yeah... ’bout five minutes...
PFTA Realisation
E: You couldn’t just pick me up a roll or something, could you? I don’t want to... if this call comes...
Figure 2. Deletion of establishing acts in L1 AusE speakers’ discourse
is about 12.30 in the afternoon; and the discussion has been about a meeting attended by both C and E earlier that day. The pragmatic point of E’s PFTA here (that of getting C to bring him some lunch) is accomplished by an identical discourse structure to that outlined earlier with the sole exception that Pre-PFTA Establishing Acts – due to the structural embedding of this transaction within the more extended discourse – are deemed to be contextually redundant. What has been suggested here, then, is that PFTA-oriented discourse – at least in Australian English – requires a certain structure made up of pre-PFTAs which allows contextually appropriate P and D values to be registered; and that if the discourse omits any of the pre-PFTAs (in themselves FTAs) necessary for these values to be established (or to continue, as the case may be), the performance of the PFTA will be pragmatically dysfunctional. Similarly, if any of these pre-PFTAs continue beyond the point where these values have been satisfactorily established for the parties concerned – or if pre-PFTA acts that are not required are included as part of the discourse – pragmatic dysfunction, and so difficulties related to discourse construction, will also occur. However, if a passage of PFTA-oriented discourse is embedded within ongoing discourse
Christopher J. Conlan
in which P and D parameters have already been satisfactorily established, the structure of the pre-PFTA discourse will allow for the discourse functions carried by Establishing Act FTAs to be omitted with no danger to the successful accomplishment of the PFTA. As both the nature and number of the pre-PFTAs that are necessary for PFTA-focussed discourse are always context specific, it is clearly impossible to establish rigid definitional guidelines concerning them. The pragmatic recognition of them, however, is an integral and inseparable part of any L1 Australian-English speaker’s communicative competence; and while the discussion above has focussed on discourse construction within the context of a university language department, it is suggested that this fundamental paradigm holds for all discourse (at least in Australian English) which has as its pragmatic goal the successful performance of a PFTA.
Differences in discourse structure: Australian English and two Asian speakers of English compared While context is always a particularly difficult variable to control as far as research into politeness is concerned, it is nonetheless interesting to compare these two examples drawn from preliminary research into discourse staging by a native speaker of Australian English and by a Thai and a Japanese speaker of English in equivalent speech situations. These initial findings were elicited by employing tasks based on Phase 3 of the original Speaking Component of the International English Language Testing System (IELTS) developed by the University of Cambridge. While some research has shown this component to be both valid and reliable in its own terms (Conlan et al. 1994), it is doubtful that it would have wider application as far as researching the relationship between discourse staging and politeness is concerned. Given, however, that it has the advantage of constraining independent variables to some extent - albeit by confining them within an overriding and artificially constructed speech situation – it does provide a useful starting point for subsequent and more naturalistic and ethnographically oriented research. The interactions transcribed in Figure 3.1 and Figure 3.2 are based on an IELTS Phase 3 task in which the speaker (in the social role of “foreign student”) is required to find out details of a forthcoming university welcoming party from a Student Guild representative. The interactions in Figure 4.1 and 4.2 similarly require the speakers to obtain information – this time, details about
Face threatening acts
joining the Student Guild. In all four examples, informant A is a speaker of Australian English. In Figure 3.1 and Figure 4.1 informant B is also a speaker of Australian English. In Figures 3.1 and 3.2 – where B in 3.2 is a Thai speaker of English – there are many differences in the ways in which politeness as a function of discourse management is encoded. For example, in 3.2 the transactional function clearly tends to override the interactional function – that is, the situation appears to be framed predominantly in institutional rather than in interpersonal terms – whereas in 3.1 the transactional and the interactional functions appear to be given an approximately equal weighting. In terms of the model being suggested here, one reason for this could well be the omission of any overt Signalling Acts, causing the Establishing Act “please” – possibly encoded Pre-PFTA Opening Acts
A: Can I help you? B: Oh – Yes
Pre-PFTA Establishing Acts
B: Thanks
Pre-PFTA Signalling Acts
B: I was wondering if you could give me some information about... er... A: Sure. What did you want to know?
PFTA Realisation
B: I was wondering if you could tell me what time the party for the foreign students starts tonight
Figure 3.1 L1 AusE speakers’ discourse construction Pre-PFTA Opening Acts
A: Can I help you? B: Yes
Pre-PFTA Establishing Acts
B: Please
Pre-PFTA Signalling Acts
B: ----------------A: -----------------
PFTA Realisation
B: I’d like to know what time the party for the foreign students begins tonight please
Figure 3.2 L1 AusE and L1 Thai speakers’ discourse construction
Christopher J. Conlan Pre-PFTA Opening Acts Pre-PFTA Establishing Acts Pre-PFTA Signalling Acts
PFTA Realisation
A: Hi B: Oh – hi
A: What can I do for you? B: Well, I’m thinking about joining the social club. I was just wondering if you could... er... tell me... er... give me some... A: Sure. What would you like to know? B: Well... B: ... how much does it cost to join?
Figure 4.1 L1 AusE speakers’ discourse construction Pre-PFTA Opening Acts
A: Hi B: Hi
Pre-PFTA Establishing Acts
A: What can I do for you?
Pre-PFTA Signalling Acts
B: ----------------A: ----------------B: I’d like to know...
PFTA Realisation
B: ... how can I join the social club?
Figure 4.2 L1 AusE and L1 Japanese speakers’ discourse construction
as a politeness marker – to have the discourse function in Australian English of simply a request marker. Similarly, the closing-off of possibilities for Signalling Act development by B in Figure 4.2 – the data this time from a Japanese speaker of English – might well render the discourse structure contextually inappropriate (and so impolite) from the point of view of a speaker of Australian English, where some development of such Signalling Acts would appear to be required.
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Conclusion What has been argued here, then, is that politeness is not only a function of the way in which an FTA is linguistically encoded, but is also a function of the way in which it is contextually embedded through the use of discourse-specific focussing acts. To this end it was necessary to make a distinction between FTAs (speech acts by means of which discourse-focussing acts are constructed) and PFTAs (speech acts by means of which specific illocutionary goals are attempted). It was further suggested – although here with the important caveat that any such suggestion is tentative rather than definitive in nature and clearly requires more rigorous investigation – that politeness breakdowns in crosscultural encounters between L1 speakers of Australian English and speakers of English from Asian-language backgrounds (as possibly exemplified in the “genuinely friendly as opposed to merely solicitous” dichotomy drawn by the British Business Traveller judges) might well be traced back to a lack of agreement amongst the speakers concerning the number and type of focussing acts (i.e., FTAs as distinct from PFTAs) deemed to be appropriate for a given speech situation. With such a possibility in mind, more rigorous research along the lines which have been sketched in this paper might well yield data which could be valuable both to our understandings of linguistic politeness in general and to our understandings of the pragmatics of cross-cultural communication in particular.
References Blum-Kulka, S., House, J., & Kasper, J. (Eds.). (1989). Cross-Cultural Pragmatics: Requests and Apologies. Norwood, NJ: Ablex. Brazil, D. (1985). The Communicative Value of Intonation in English. Birmingham: English Language Research. Brown, G. & Yule, G. (1983). Discourse Analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Brown, P. & Levinson, S. (1978). “Universals in language usage: Politeness phenomena”. In E. Goody (Ed.), Questions and Politeness: Strategies in Social Interaction (pp. 56– 310). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (Reprinted with a new introduction and extended bibliography as Brown, P. & Levinson, S. (1987). Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.) Burton, D. (1980). Dialogue and Discourse: A Sociolinguistic Approach to Modern Drama Dialogue and Naturally Occurring Conversation. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Burton, D. (1981). “Analysing spoken discourse”. In M. Coulthard & M. Montgomery (Eds.), Studies in Discourse Analysis (pp. 61–81). London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
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Business Traveller: The International Travel Magazine, Vol. 20, No. 4 (April 1995). “Feasts in the Air”, 18–24. Conlan, C. (1996). “Politeness, paradigms of family, and the Japanese ESL speaker”. Language Sciences, 18, 729–742. Conlan, C. (1997). “Politeness and Paradigms of Family: A Perspective on the Development of Communicative Competence in the Japanese ESL Speaker”. PhD dissertation. Anne Arbor: University Microfilms International. Conlan, C., Bardsley, N., & Martinson, S. (1994). A Study of Intra-rater Reliability of Assessments of Live versus Audio-recorded Interviews in the IELTS Speaking Component: An Introspective-ethnographic Approach. Cambridge: University of Cambridge Local Examination Syndicate. Coulthard, M. (1985). An Introduction to Discourse Analysis (2nd edition). London: Longman. Coulthard, M. & Montgomery, M. (Eds.). (1981). Studies in Discourse Analysis. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Durkheim, E. (1915). The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life. London: Allen and Unwin. Goffman, E. 1955). “On face-work: An analysis of ritual elements in social interaction”. Psychiatry, 18, 213–231. Levinson, S. (1983). Pragmatics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sinclair, J. & Coulthard, R. (1975). Towards an Analysis of Discourse. London: Oxford University Press. Stubbs, M. (1981). “Motivating analyses of exchange structure”. In M. Coulthard & M. Montgomery (Eds.), Studies in Discourse Analysis (pp. 107–119). London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Stubbs, M. (1983). Discourse Analysis: The Sociolinguistic Analysis of Natural Language. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Politeness in Thai computer-mediated communication Krisadawan Hongladarom and Soraj Hongladarom This paper addresses the politeness phenomenon in computer-mediated communication in Thai, as found in the popular website www.pantip.com. The website is a place for members of the Thai Internet community to meet each other in cyberspace and to discuss about all sorts of topic ranging from politics to shopping. Thus a vibrant virtual community is created and the members of pantip.com are well known in Thailand for their very vocal debates on various issues of public policies. The government has deemed it rather expedient to gauge public opinion by listening to what is being discussed at the website. In this paper we examine the language used in one virtual ‘room’ at the site, one devoted to discussion in science, technology and belief. It is found that the norms governing Thai speech behavior are large imported onto cyberspace without much loss. These include norms for politeness. It is found that members of the Thai cyberspace tend to care for one another and there appears to be more sense of social cohesion than do their counterparts in the West. Thus it is found that posive politeness plays a more prominent role in Thai cyberspace, which is somewhat contrary to the idea that cyberspace tends to accentuate individuality to the detriment of social cohesion. Keywords: Computer-mediated communication; positive politeness; negative politeness; ideologies; culture
.
Introduction
The Internet has become a worldwide phenomenon. Many countries are racing to embrace it, believing that it will bring many benefits. Thailand is becoming increasingly wired. Currently there are approximately 600,000 Internet users in the country. The government is convinced that the Internet will serve as
Krisadawan Hongladarom and Soraj Hongladarom
a gateway toward greater prosperity, and as a result a lot of money has been invested in expanding the infrastructure. At present there are a number of web sites which act as hosts for these virtual communities.1 Of these perhaps pantip.com (http://www.pantip.com/) is the most popular. Created a little more than three years ago, the web site is attracting thousands of visitors. Most participants – ranging from teenagers to the working middle class – take part in the fourteen different discussion “tables” to talk about a variety of topics such as science, mathematics, politics, health, entertainment, and pet care. The existence of such computer-mediated communities naturally raises the question of how culture will be affected by these new advances. Investigating the interplay among language, culture, and ideology, this paper aims at showing that computer-mediated communication (CMC) plays an instrumental role in developments in Thai culture. However, this change is not entirely passive. Thais strategically use language as a measure to counteract and maintain their identity. This resiliency of Thai culture appears to reflect Soraj Hongladarom’s (1999) “thick” and “thin” conception in making sense of the tension between the global and the local in CMC. Prevailing wisdom regarding CMC and culture seems to be that it tends to make all the world’s cultures the same. This paper, however, will take a critical look at this issue, focusing on politeness strategies in Thai CMC in order to find out about the following questions: What is the nature of politeness in Thai CMC? How is Thai culture affected by the rising use of CMC and how can this affect be seen in the usage of linguistic politeness? Finally, what does this affect tell us about some of the theories of CMC, politeness and culture? We looked at a number of computer-mediated texts at various discussion tables at pantip.com, and found that the Thai members of this community show a significant amount of politeness toward one another. This is rather surprising given that CMC usually entails a greater chance for impoliteness to occur. ‘Flaming’ is a well-known phenomenon in this medium. Perhaps this is due to the guiding hands of the moderator and the web master. However, it appears that most participants prefer things to be this way, as they are active in reporting messages that violate the rules to the web master. Politeness, therefore, appears to be consciously maintained. It is, as Gino Eelen argues, a part of social reality which is consciously built up and maintained through interaction among human beings (Eelen 2001: 245–247). In this paper we begin by offering a discussion of the various theories of politeness, and relevant works, particularly those dealing with CMC. Then we present the data and offer our analysis of it. We will try to show that there
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is a sense in which the universalist and particularist tendencies in looking at politeness can be reconciled, and that politeness, as a means by which a group maintains their solidarity, exists simultaneously at both levels.
. Theoretical constructions of politeness There is the notion of politeness among the common people, who are engaged in their everyday business and experience polite or impolite interactions. To these people politeness is what they find pleasing, or what they find in etiquette rulebooks. On the other hand, the notion has become a technical one, a subject of scholarly debates. Watts, Ide and Ehlich (1992) have called this ‘first order’ and ‘second order’ politeness respectively. Ideally the two notions should be able to merge into one, as the subject studied should reflect what is going on in the real world of human interaction. However, as the technicality of the investigation increases, there are chances that the two notions do not necessarily reflect each other. The tendency for empirical description and theoretical idealization to branch out is a case in point for politeness research. The empirical description focuses on what people actually do when they are polite to one another, and what they take politeness to be. The theoretical idealization (e.g., Lakoff 1973; Leech 1983; Brown & Levinson 1978, 1987; Meier 1995; Arundale 1999) aims largely at comprehending the situation, proposing models with which one could gain a general insight, which would be supported by the real, empirical data. Ideally there should be a balance between the theorization and the empirical data. That is, the theory should fit the data perfectly. However, the perfect fit is itself a theoretical construction, as no theory could ever fit all the possible data perfectly. If it did, it would cease to be a theory. Nevertheless, the theory cannot be too remote from the data, for what we are now doing is trying to investigate politeness as it actually appears in real human interaction, not as an idle game of speculation. The requirement is only that the theory be adequate to cover the data involved. The reason why we have discussed the role and distinction between theory and data here is that, as ‘politeness’ can be both common sense and a theoretical notion, one is likely, if one is unaware, to confuse the two (Held 1992). Either one is describing what one already takes to be politeness in the data, or one is theorizing on what politeness should actually be, based on what one takes politeness to be a priori. The common example in Thai of adopting formal behavior with one’s friends, using ‘high’ language, only to be interpreted
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as being utterly impolite shows that the definition of politeness is a contested matter.2 Furthermore, Brown and Levinson’s “model person” is also a theoretical construction, and as such this notion is liable to criticism that the “model person” represents a Western perspective and way of talking (Ide 1989). As Kienpointner (1999) points out, politeness appears to reflect an ideology, and so do the various current theories of politeness.3
. Politeness in computer-mediated communication As the Internet and CMC are becoming a fact of life, politeness theories need to be reevaluated as to their adequacy for this new medium. One of the most salient aspects of CMC is the fact that participants usually lack cues through which mistakes in understanding could be minimized. Most forms of CMC, especially the most popular ones such as e-mails and bulletin boards, are textbased. Though there are more advanced technologies which have ameliorated the situation by enabling large graphics and sounds to be transmitted, the practice is still not widespread and requires a large amount of resources. Thus, the study of politeness in CMC at present is limited to what there is in the texts themselves. Herring (1996) studied gender differences in CMC in the US, and found that females are more geared toward maintaining positive politeness, whereas males are more attuned to the adversarial or anarchistic nature of the medium. Both groups, moreover, appear to be roughly equal in terms of maintaining negative politeness. Herring’s findings appear to reflect the cultural bias of the US. If one agrees that politeness is itself an ideology, then Herring’s findings seem to be circumscribed by contemporary American culture. Simmons (1999) agrees with Herring in that negative politeness appears to be maintained in American CMC. He argues that list moderators play a crucial role in creating the identity of the list (Simmons 1999: 540).4 Both works show that, although CMC is an “impoverished” medium, there exists at least a level of politeness, and that negative politeness is to be found more often than its positive counterpart. More recently, Ulla Bunz and Scott Campbell have shown that e-mail messages that contain politeness indicators are more likely to elicit polite responses (Bunz & Campbell 2002). However, the data for these findings is all based on discussions by Americans. This is understandable because Americans have dominated the Internet to a very large extent, and it is only recently that other countries have come to the scene. Thus, any theoretical constructions on CMC have so far been based on assumptions
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and values pertaining to American culture. Hence data from CMC in other languages and obtained from cultures different from the American one are necessary if one is to found a universal theory of CMC politeness.
. ‘Netiquettes’ at pantip.com As politeness is traditionally linked to social norms or etiquettes, it is fitting to examine politeness in cyberspace through their counterparts, or the “netiquettes.” Pantip.com also has its own set of netiquettes translated as follows: 1. Messages critical of the King and the royal family are absolutely prohibited. 2. Do not post messages which contain foul language and sexually explicit content. 3. Do not post messages which are intended to cause a person to be insulted, or hated by others without citing a clear source of reference. 4. Do not post messages which are challenging or inflammatory, with the intention of causing quarrels or rancor on this web site, where the source of these quarrels or rancor is not due to free expression of opinions by a self-respecting person. 5. Do not post messages which attack or criticize in a negative way any religions or the teachings of any religion. 6. Do not use pseudonyms which resemble somebody else’s real name with the intention of misleading others in order that the original owner of the name will be damaged or lose his or her reputation. 7. Do not post messages which might cause conflicts among educational institutions. 8. Do not post messages containing the personal data of others, such as pager numbers, e-mail addresses or telephone numbers, with the intention of causing trouble to the owner of the data. Posting of pager numbers is especially prohibited, since this is the easiest way for others to cause trouble. (Source: http://pantip.inet.co.th/cafe/frame_rule.html) Herring (1996: 132–137) finds that the netiquettes of an online group embody the cultures and values of that group. Hence it is quite clear that these eight netiquettes embody the culture and values of the pantip.com community. It is also clear that they embody the peculiarities or uniqueness of Thai culture. The first rule, the injunction against criticisms of the King and the royal family, is serious and strictly enforced. Since the King is always regarded with the highest respect, this rule can be seen as a reflection of the value system of the Thai
Krisadawan Hongladarom and Soraj Hongladarom
people. This obligatory rule may be regarded as an instance of ‘discernment’ operating in Thai culture. The second rule concerns what Thai people observe to be a level of civility one shows toward another. Refraining from foul language corresponds to what ordinary people call ‘politeness.’ These netiquettes may be classified according to which kind of politeness each of them enhances. Rules 1 and 5 could be seen as reflections of the uniquely Thai culture and value system, and may perhaps be considered as part of the Thai politeness ideology. As Thais hold the King and Buddhism and other religions in very high regard, politeness in this case naturally involves respecting these rules. Rule 2 also concerns the value system, as sex and foul language are not acceptable to most Thai participants. Rules 3, 4, 6 and 8 could be regarded as a means by which negative politeness is maintained. All of them are related to not violating the private space of others in one way or another. Rule 7 reflects the peculiar Thai situation. Most Thai surfers are young and they are still in high schools or colleges. The students are so strongly attached to their schools or colleges to the extent that arguments and disagreements concerning educational institutions can flare up and become violent rather easily. The emphasis on the content, whether it is the monarchy, religion, school, or sex, shows that the notion ‘politeness’ should not only be limited to linguistic forms and strategies but include topics of discussion which are generally considered polite in the discourse community. What is considered polite is what is not contradictory to what people believe. To criticize the King is considered impolite in Thai culture no matter how attenuated or how mitigated one’s comment is. One positive strategy posited by Brown and Levinson – pay notice to the hearer’s needs, wants, attentions, and interests – is indeed essential in Thai culture.
. Politeness in pantip.com As mentioned earlier, our data is drawn from discussion tables at pantip.com. The one we are most interested in is wâakff table, which raises a number of more serious issues dealing with problems about science, life, politics, and religion. The reason we pay special attention to this table is because its contributions are substantial, and as it is a forum for serious topics, it is interesting to see how participants criticize one another. The table works by an interested writer posing a kràthúu ‘question’ or ‘discussion point’ to the table. Each kràthúu is in the form of a short question, or a short statement, followed by an
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explanation. Some kràthúu are short-lived; they attract only one response or no response at all. Interestingly, successful kràthúu such as (1) drew as many as 42 interactions lasting for four consecutive days. (The Thai data is omitted here for brevity.) (1) Does Buddhism teach “irrationality”? The topic sure attracts a lot of interest, doesn’t it? (laugh) Buddhism teaches that everyone was born to pay for their past karmas and to create new ones. There are both good karmas and bad ones. These karmas are the reasons why we were born into the condition we are in today. If the causes (hèet) made by us are good, then we receive good effects (phˇon); but if the causes are bad, then we get bad things. However it is, our cycles are only limited to creating causes and getting effects and creating new causes again. What do we have to do to stop rebirths? To do that we need to understand the causes, the causes that we make because we are deluded into thinking that they are good. We are deluded into believing that the world and our emotions are real. When we truly understand the causes, when we understand that what we take to be ours – our selves, our husbands, our wives, our homes, are only our own constructions, then we will stop creating new causes. That is, we will stop the greed, anger, and delusion, because we will know that in reality there is absolutely nothing that is ours. When the mind is indifferent to the causes, then the effects will not happen. That person will then be released from the samsara. This is why I said that Buddhism teaches us not to be “rational”, actually “not to create the cycle of causes and effects” anymore. Sip Et Luuk Maak Phyayom [27 October B.E. 2542 (1999) 19:24:32]
There are two characteristics of this post. First, it is exceptionally long. Second, it is ambiguous. The first characteristic does not seem to annoy participants.5 None of them commented on this issue. They all paid attention to the second point. The trouble lies in the use of the word hèetphˇon. This word means ‘reason’ or ‘rationality’; however, it is a compound consisting of two words, hèet ‘cause’ and phˇon ‘effect’. Thus when the raiser of this topic who bears the pseudonym Sip Et Luuk Maak Phyayom (hearafter SEL) said that Buddhism teaches us not to have hèetphˇon, he is being ambiguous. What he meant and should have said is that Buddhism teaches us not to take hold of the relation between causes and effects. The ambiguity leads to intense discussions. Many participants attack SEL for apparently insulting Buddhism.
Krisadawan Hongladarom and Soraj Hongladarom
(2) 1 2 3 4 5 6
1 2 3 4 5 6
phˇom ‘àan hˇuakh¥ff kh¦ff] kh¯un l¢77w ]¯o] l¿66y ph¿ff ‘àan núa khw¯aam p¯ay l¢77w k¥f phóp wâa sì] thîi kh¯un khít m¯an ¥ tYYn mâak l¿66y thâa kh¯un b¡ffk wâa sì] thîi kh¯un khít p¯en ph¯ıa] khw¯aam kít lên lên phˇom mâi wâa t¡77 thâa kh¯un kít b¡77p thîi khˇıen j¯ı] j¯ı] phˇom wâa kh¯un t¥ff] p¯ay ‘àan phrá tripitaka sàk r¥ffp l¢77w là ¥ wâa kh¯un mâi dâi t¥ff] k¯aan jà phùut wâa sàsànˇa kh¦ff] phˇom chYa r¯aw mâi m¯ee hèet phˇon t¡77 th¯ıi lˇa] karuna rawa] k¯aan chái kh¯am thîi hˇua kh¥ff kràthúu nòi ná khráp I read your kràthúu and was amazed. But when I finished I found that what you thought was very shallow. If you say that what you are thinking is only a playful thing, then I won’t say anything. But if you really believe what you are writing then I think you need to go back and read theTripitaka [the Buddhist canon]. I believe that you are not saying that our religion is “irrational”. But please be careful of the wording in your topic. Templar [27 Oct B.E. 2542 20:32:45]
It is quite obvious that SEL’s kràthúu is not intended as a troll, which is known in the Net community as an incendiary message posted on the board just to elicit heated responses and no serious exchange of views and ideas. SEL appeared rather serious in his opinions. However, Templar (T) accused him of having shallow thought. He mitigated his remark by phrasing the comment in an if-clause: he could bear with the kràthúu if SEL was not serious about what he thought. But it is interesting to note that SEL’s message is not interpreted by any participants as violating Rule 5 of the above mentioned netiquettes. T adds that he does not believe that SEL means what he apparently said. (3) 1 2 3 4 5 6
¥ hey ‘àan hâi d¯ıi d¯ıi k¡ffn phYan wâa hèetphˇon ‘¯an níi mˇaay khw¯aam wâa ‘àr¯ai thân hY hY hèetphˇon thîi khˇıen níi mâi châi hèetphˇon t¡77 p¯en hèet phˇon j¥77k k¯an rîak wâa cause and effect ¿ reason phútsàsànˇa m¯ıi hèetphˇon khYY t¡77 mâi s¦ffn hâi kh¯on m¯ıi cause and effect
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1 2 3 4 5 6
Hey, friend, read it carefully to see what hèetphˇon here means (laugh). hèetphˇon here is not ‘reason’ or ‘rationality’. But it is hèet (cause) and phˇon (effect) separately. We call it cause and effect. Buddhism has reasons. But it teaches people not to have causes and effects. Sip Et Luuk Maak Phyayom [27 Oct B.E. 2542 20:37:30]
Explaining what he really meant, SEL tried not to let the atmosphere become too heated. We can see this in the use of the injunction hey, a marker of surprise, in the opening of the message. He also addressed his addressee ¥ as a phYan ‘friend’. This word can be used as a term of address when one talks to friends, apart from a wide range of pronominal devices available in the language. In (2) T represents himself as phˇom, a general polite pronoun for men, and addresses his addressee as kh¯un, a polite counterpart of phˇom which can be used for both men and women. This pair of pronouns is most common in all discussion tables. This is not surprising, given that phˇom and kh¯un are the most useful pronouns when the speaker does not know the identity of the addressee. In general, such information as age, social status, degree of intimacy, and type of situation is needed in order to determine which pronominal choice is appropriate. However, this information is utterly missing in computer mediated discourse. In line 2 in (3) SEL calls for T’s attention by addressing him as thân, instead of kh¯un. Thân or thâan is a formal second person pronoun, which can be used as either a singular or plural marker. It is mostly found in writing and is often used as an impersonal pronoun (for example, in addressing general readers or audiences). In conversation, it is employed as a term of reference when the speaker wants to refer to someone who is respectable. In (3) SEL manipulates the use of this pronoun. It is not used as a formal marker. Instead it indicates the speaker’s playful mood and his attempt to befriend the addressee but at the same time respects him. Interestingly, we found that several contributors expressed their sympathies with SEL. (4) 1 2 3 4
sˇo]sˇaan jâaw kh¦ff] kràthúu kh¯on sùanmâak mâi sˇamâat jàp khw¯aam t7ktàa] kh¦ff] hèetphˇon kàp hèet phˇons¦ff] kh¯am níi kh¦ff] kh¯un ¥ th¯on ‘¯aw nòi ná phYan y¯a] ]¯ai k¥f d¯uu l¿77lûuk màak kh¦ff] t¯ua‘¯e] wái hâi d¯ıi là
Krisadawan Hongladarom and Soraj Hongladarom
1 2 3 4
I sympathize with the topic raiser. Many people can’t get hold of the differences between your two words: hèetphˇon and hèetphˇon. Bear with it pal. Anyway take good care of your ‘lûuk màak’. Song [28 Oct B.E. 2542 00:03:55]
In (4) it is clear that Song is solacing SEL by mentioning that he sympathizes with him, and he asks the latter to be patient. He addresses SEL as a ‘pal’, thus emphasizing camaraderie within the group. Moreover, his admonition for SEL to take care of his lûuk màak (prostate gland, which is part of his pseudonym mimicking the title of a Chinese movie) is a humorous one which lessens the impact of the disagreements and the verbal attacks being levelled against him. (5) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
m¯aa ‘¯aw j¯ai chûai khà thân phyayom ¡ chái k¯am thîi jètàn¯aa hâi kh¯on ‘Yn ¡ sàpsˇon mòd l¢77w nákhá kYap ‘òtth¯on n¡fi h66 h66 :) :) :) t¡77maya k¥f get tâ]t¡77 ‘àan páat r¥77k l¿6i ná khá wâa kh¯un phyayom tâ] kràthúu l¥ff pâw nîi ná ¥ phYan ¥ sài k¯an y6 y6 y¯a] ‘¡77p sˇo]sˇai l¿6i wâa khˇaw l¢77w ph¿ff hˇen phYan sài ‘¯aw sànùk sànùk ¢ plàw sàn¦ff] jètàn¯aa kh¯on tâ] kràthúu thá] thá] thîi rúu yùu l¢77w rY k¥f b¯aa]krá] maya k¥f th¯am ]án ná h6 h6. (I) come to give you moral support, thân phyayom. You almost paid for the karma in that you intended to confuse other people. Be patient. (laugh) But I (Maya) got it as soon as I first glanced at it that Khun Phyayom set up the kràthúu to excite people. And then when I saw our friends attack him a lot, I asked myself whether they attacked just for the fun of it, to respond to what the raiser of the kràthúu wanted to see. I also do that too sometimes (laugh). Maya [28 October B.E. 2542 13:16:02]
Similarly, Maya in (5) states clearly that she is writing to give SEL moral support. What is striking in this example is how she addresses herself. She refers to herself using the first name, Maya. First names and nicknames in Thai are hardly used in formal situations and first encounters. That this writer opts to
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refer to herself as Maya is a clear indication that she does not consider SEL (and, we believe, other participants as well) a stranger. There is a high sense of camaraderie in this web site. This is confirmed by the existence of such labels as chaaw-pantip and chaaw-waakor, constantly used among the participants and by the web master. The prefix chaaw- marks a group of people, as in the word chaaw-thai ‘Thai people’. Chaaw-waakor may not know one another, and it is possible that they will never meet in life. Because of the varied backgrounds of Net users, the situation at pantip.com is not like academic discussion lists where subscribers may get the opportunity to meet at annual conferences.6 Thus, the fact that they are concerned about the other party’s feelings is certainly surprising. We would expect a long-term relationship to play an important role in determining how people should behave towards one another. However, we do not find it to be an instrumental factor here. Internet communities are “textually-mediated social life,” to use Chouliaraki and Fairclough’s (1998) term. There is no social contract that obligates Net users to be very nice towards one another. They can attack one another’s ideas baldly. However, we found that the situation at this web site is contrary to the expectation above. The participants perform various kinds of “face-balancing acts” to restore the state of equilibrium in the course of heated discussions. For example, they comfort and encourage the addressee, as we have seen in (4) and (5) above. They also resort to joking. This can be done by several strategies such as saying funny things, talking about something which is not relevant to the topic discussed, being playfully ironic, and using funny pseudonyms and smilies as well as laughter expressions. (6)–(7) demonstrate some of these joking strategies. (6) 1 2
khâw j¯ai lên ná thâanlûukmàak ¦ k¯an thâa mâi ‘àan d¯uu d¯ıi d¯ıi nîi lên ‘¯aw pùat t¡ffm lûuk màak mYan
1 2
You know how to play, thâanlûukmàak (Mr. Prostate Gland) If we don’t read (your kràthúu) carefully, perhaps we’ll feel pain in our prostate glands. Khon Chood (29 October B.E. 2542 01:23:39)
The comment in (6) that SEL’s kràthúu, if not read carefully, can cause pain in the prostate gland is meant to amuse the readers. (7) 1 2 3
lên kàp mˇaa mˇaa l¯ıa pàak b¯oor¯aan thâan wâa wái ]¯o] má˜i
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1 2 3
You play with a dog, so he licks your mouth. This is what old people say. Are you confused? Intreg (28 October B.E. 2542 11:06:51)
This is another example which shows how jokes operate in Thai CMC discourse. The writer of (7) quotes this proverb, which is not relevant to the topic discussed, which is about an incident where several police dogs bit some tapioca farmers who were demonstrating in front of Government House in October 1999. This writer knows that what he is saying is not relevant; that is why, he asks if the readers are confused (line 3). What he really meant is to say something funny. Another face balancing act is that the participants often admit that they are simply kidding or are not serious about what they write or think (kít lên lên ‘think playfully’ or kít ch¡6i ch¡6i ‘think plainly’). They are afraid that their discussants will get angry with them. This is clearly seen in (8). (8) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
¦ n¯aamàth¯am mâak kwàa sàsànˇaa phút sùanyày phûut thY] thódsàchâat r¯ai nîa phrâ phútthajâaw k¡66t p¯en sàt tàa] tàa] ¦ khráp p¯en p¯ay dây rY ¦ p¯en rYa] ¥ lâw fairy tale sa mâak kwàa mYan phˇom wâa k´rit (Christ) m¯ıi hèetphon mâak thîi sùt l¢77w khráp ¥ kròot k¯an ná ...uh...yàa phY] kh¥77 ‘¡ffk khw¯aam khít hˇen ch¦6i ch¦6i Buddhism talks more about abstract things. In Lord Buddha’s previous lives, he was born as various forms of animals. Is this possible? Most people think that this is more like a fairy tale. In my opinion, Christianity is the most rational. Uh...Don’t get angry with me. I just expressed my view. Thong (28 October 1999 02:29:00)
The writer begs the addressees not to get angry with him and emphasizes that he is simply expressing his opinion (lines 6–7 below). His comment that Christianity is the most rational religion and that Buddhism contains fantastical stories should have stirred up a lot of attacks by devout Buddhists. But none of the participants pays attention to this point. Everyone seems to take the writer’s words into consideration, i.e., he just expressed what he thought; he did not really mean it.
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These face balancing acts illustrated here are not performed merely because the participants want to avoid confrontations or understate their differences of opinion, but are aimed to establish solidarity among the participants, despite the fact that they do not know each other personally and that they may not have an opportunity to talk face-to-face. Thus, the finding here accords with that of Birttney Chenault, when she writes: “[t]he ‘virtual community’ is not a mythic land of milk and honey, but neither is it any more dangerous, hostile, or unwelcoming than ‘real life”’ (Chenault 1998). Furthermore, as Walther and Boyd have illustrated (Walther & Boyd 2002), these exchanges among the members of the wâa kff Table at www.pantip.com show that social support does exist in vitual community.
. Contested ideologies: ‘Thick’ and ‘thin’ politeness Eelen (1999) discusses three types of ideologies centering on the notion of politeness. The first and second one correspond to first-order and second-order politeness in Watts, Ide and Ehlich (1992: 3). The third type concerns the social and cultural one. As politeness has been shown in much of the literature to be embedded in the cultural practices of a community, this type of ideology is an important one and appears to be indispensable in any attempt to account for what politeness actually is. The relation between politeness and its socio-cultural milieu is a two-way process. On the one hand, politeness can provide a window by which some aspects of the respective cultures can be understood. Thus one understands an aspect of Thai culture through a look at what is going on when Thais are being polite to one another. On the other hand, the socio-cultural milieu itself can provide a context by which the various politeness strategies being employed can be interpreted. What has emerged from the examination of the data in the above section shows that Thais have their own ways of maintaining politeness, one of which is to express their sympathy and positive feelings towards other participants, even when they argue with each other. This trait appears to give the tone and the atmosphere of the Thai web board its distinctive quality. When compared with what is usually happening in CMC in the West, such as Usenet and the global electronic mailing lists, the difference is clear. Members of the Western (or “international”) computer-mediated groups tend to be more antagonistic toward one another. They usually want to assert their own identities vis-à-vis others, and often at the expense of others. The Thai CMC, on the other hand, tends to be much less individualistic. This is not to
Krisadawan Hongladarom and Soraj Hongladarom
say that there are no heated arguments in the Thai CMC, but those arguments are very often tempered by the need to find a common ground, and are not characterized by the desire to win. When the members debated about whether Buddhism is “irrational”, the situation could well have ended in a conflagration, but we have seen that the humorous tone soon pervades the atmosphere, and at the end no real disagreement is found. This is typical of the Thai way of communication and culture. Furthermore, it is noticeable that, although the members typically do not use real names, thus effectively hiding the identities of those sitting in front of their computer screens, they act as if the web board itself is a kind of community to which they all belong. That Thai identity, evidenced in the use of politeness strategies, is present in these computer-mediated discourses shows that Thai culture is resilient enough to withstand the tide of globalization coming through the use of Internet technologies. The web board at pantip.com is more like traditional Thai coffee shops where Thais hang out and discuss everything which interests them (see also Hongladarom 1999). What happens, appropriating what Walzer (1994: 1–19) has proposed with regards to moralities at home and abroad, is that there is the “thin” culture of global messages and systems, which spreads around the world, and the “thick” local culture, which contains its rich myths, narratives and histories that make up its identity.7 The implication for politeness is clear. There is the “thin” notion of politeness, the kind discussed in theories. Thus one finds notions such as politeness rules and maxims, positive and negative faces, the model person, politeness strategies, and so on. On the other hand these universal theories need to be tempered by and supplemented with empirical data and concrete particularities coming from the world’s various cultures. These particularities, then, constitute the “thick” notion of politeness. Current research shows that politeness does operate in CMC (Herring 1996; Simmons 1999), but it is often the kind that corresponds to what Brown and Levinson call negative politeness. Our data suggest that Thai CMC participants also adhere to the politeness principle, but it is the positive aspect – the attempt to avoid confrontations and make the addressee feel that he or she is part of the community – that is more at issue here, not the negative one. This exemplifies the different “thick” versions of politeness in the two cultures. However, when one looks globally, presupposing that both Thais and Westerners are all humans and as such have the same set of values such as the need for maintaining social relationships, what emerges then is a kind of “thin” politeness.
Politeness in Thai computer-mediated communication
. Conclusion Politeness is a culturally embedded notion. The extensive literature on this line of argument supports this well. To examine the actual manifestations of politeness in various languages and cultures is just to look at social behaviors of the speakers of those languages; what these speakers do when they communicate with one another, and what their values are. Hence the theory that aims at finding universal characteristics in politeness is actually glossing over the differences among cultures and is based on the assumption that humans are the same regarding their rationality and ‘face.’ That is, this type of theory provides a model to explain the politeness phenomena. The model is constructed based on the assumption that, as humans use language and as they are rational, the manifestations of their rationality – in this case their ‘polite’ use of language – should be the same throughout. However, this universality is always mitigated by the localities involved. Perhaps humans anywhere desire to be liked and approved of by their peers, but the ways such desire is actually realized in the concrete situations of language use differ. If this is so, then there should be a way to reconcile the two positions. If the “thick” and the “thin” approach is taken into consideration, then perhaps we could see that the universal tendency corresponds to the “thin”, and the local strategies correspond to the “thick”. That is, there is not a real conflict between the two. It is not that one always has to choose either of the two. The universal and the local go together. Since the universal is applicable anywhere, it lacks the real content that must be taken into account as soon as one peers into the actual use. Therefore, politeness as a culturally embedded notion both relates to human culture and to the various local cultures. As a part of human culture, politeness is an aspect of humans when they are rational and desire solidarity. As a part of the local strategies, on the other hand, such rationality and desire for solidarity express themselves differently.8 Finally, there are two points we would like to suggest for further research. First, there is currently a dearth of works being done on CMC discourses in the emerging economies, as most research works have focused on CMC in the developed countries. This line of work would substantiate or shed more light on the idea of the cultural embeddedness of politeness. Secondly, as politeness appears to be a very slippery concept relating to many other factors beyond language itself, certainly more interdisciplinary work is called for. It is likely that insights from the neighboring disciplines could clear up some murky issues and provide wider perspectives on this phenomenon itself.
Krisadawan Hongladarom and Soraj Hongladarom
Notes . A similar phenomenon is taking place in another channel of communication. During these past few years two radio stations have been set up in Bangkok whose main aims are to inform vehicle users of the traffic situation and to report immediate local news, e.g., fires, building collapses, and other kinds of accidents. Not only have Jor Sor 100 and Ruam Duay Chuay Kan ‘Let’s help each other’ become the most popular stations for Bangkokians, particularly among taxi drivers, but they also are another form of virtual community that exists in Thai society today. . According to Lakoff (1973), the shift of rules from Rule 1: Don’t impose (be formal) to Rule 3: Make A feel good (be friendly) signals a shift in the relationship in the course of the interaction. In general, it is not appropriate to follow both rules simultaneously. When two people who are used to speaking to each other in a friendly way decide to switch to a more formal way of talking in the same kind of situation, it means they want to indicate that they view their relationship differently, unless they are joking. This is how the generally conceived polite markers in the language can be regarded as impolite. . The contested sphere of what constitutes politeness is clearly documented in Fraser (1990). . However, one can see that if the list moderator or the web master is to be able to maintain the health and longevity of the list, he or she has no choice but to acquiesce to the needs and values of the list participants. Thus, assumptions that list moderators or web masters are all-powerful may need to be revised. . According to Simmons (1999: 521), turn-taking in disccusion lists on the Internet is subject to two factors in organisation: frequency and quantity. If the writer writes often or writes long posts, then there is more of that writer’s work to be read. However, this may backfire since overdoing it may simply lead to disinterest or even irritation from the other participants. . See Simmons (1999) for a discussion on the shift in relationship in CMC discourse after participants have met face-to-face. . According to Walzer (1994: 1–19), when the Czech demonstrators took to the streets demanding the abolition of the Communist regime, they carried placards containing such words as “Truth” and “Justice”, American audiences watching them on television could very well sympathize with them. However, if the Czechs were to work out in detail what kind of justice should be adopted and put in operation in their country, Americans might find this fine-tuned notion not to their liking. What this shows is that Americans and Czechs agree “thinly” that truth and justice are good things to have, are worth fighting for. However, when they get to the “thick” of things, there are likely to be disagreements as one group’s notion of what actually constitutes truth or justice might differ from the other’s. . Ide (1989) suggests that Brown and Levinson’s theory of politeness be modified by adding the element of ‘discernment’ which is evident in honorific languages like Japanese. Discernment is a feature of politeness which is embedded in linguistic convention, and is compared by Ide to Habermas’ (1984, 1987) communicative action as a means of realizing shared understanding among a group of linguistic users (243–245). Thus discernment is opposed to
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the usual notion of individual rationality presupposed by Brown and Levinson, which focuses on the means-end choice, or in Habermas’ term, instrumental rationality. We can also see from the data here that when Thai speakers maintain their distinctive way of politeness toward one another even within the ‘faceless’ confines of pantip.com, there seems to be a kind of communicative action in the sense that something is there which is not best explained by relying on means-end rationality alone. Perhaps Thais are more community-oriented than Westerners are. Thus it is quite clear that, if one is to search for a truly universal conception of politeness, one would do well to be aware that what ‘rationality’ is commonly taken to be, viz., instrumental rationality, is perhaps tinged with the belief system and assumptions of one particular culture only.
References Arundale, Robert (1999). “An alternative model and ideology of communication for an alternative to politeness theory”. Pragmatics, 9 (1), 119–154. Brown, Penelope & Levinson, Stephen (1978). “Universals in language usage: Politeness phenomena”. In Ester N. Goody, (Ed.), Questions and Politeness (pp. 56–289). Cambridge: Cambrige University Press. Brown, Penelope & Levinson, Steven (1987). Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bunz, Ulla & Campbell, Scott W. (2002). “Accommodating politeness indicators in personal electronic mail messages”. Paper Presented at the Association of Internet Researcher’s 3rd Annual Conference, October 13–16, 2002, Maastricht, The Netherlands. Chenault, Brittney G. (1998). “Developing personal and emotional relationships via computer mediated communication”. CMC Magazine, 5, 5. Available at http://www. december.com /cmn/mag/1998/may/chenault.html Chouliaraki, Lilie & Fairclough, Norman (1999). Discourse in Late Modern Society: Rethinking Critical Discourse Analysis. Edinburg: Edinburgh University Press. Eelen, Gino (1999). “Politeness and ideology: A critical review”. Pragmatics, 9 (1), 163–174. Eelen, Gino (2001). A Critique of Politeness Theories. Manchester: St. Jerome Publishing. Fraser, Bruce (1990). “Perspective on politeness”. Journal of Pragmatics, 14, 219–236. Habermas, Jürgen (1984). The Theory of Communicative Action, vol. 1: Reason and the Rationalization of Society. Trans. Thomas McCarthy. Boston: Beacon Press. Habermas, Jürgen (1987). The Theory of Communicative Action, vol. 2: Lifeworld and System: A Critique of Functionalist Reason. Trans. Thomas McCarthy. Boston: Beacon Press. Held, Gudrun (1992). “Politeness in linguistic research”. In Watts, Ide, & Ehlich (Eds.), 131– 153. Herring, Susan (1996). “Posting in a different voice: Gender and ethics in computermediated communication”. In Charles Ess (Ed.), Philosophical Perspectives on Computer-mediated Communication (pp. 132–137). Albany: State University of New York Press. Hongladarom, Soraj (1999). “Global culture, local cultures and the Internet: the Thai example”. AI & Society, 13 (4), 389–401.
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Ide, Sachiko (1989). “Formal forms and discernment: Two neglected aspects of universals of linguistic politeness”. Multilingua, 8 (2), 223–271. Kienpointner, Manfred (1999). “Ideologies of politeness: Foreword”. Pragmatics, 9 (1), 1–4. Lakoff, Robin (1973). “The logic of politeness; Or, minding your p’s and q’s.” In Papers from the Ninth Regional Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society (pp. 292–305). Chicago: Chicago Linguistic Society. Leech, Geoffrey (1983). Principles of Pragmatics. London: Longman. Meier, A. J. (1995). “Defining politeness: Universality in appropriateness”. Language Sciences, 17 (4), 345–356. Simmons, Thomas L. (1999). “Face threats in a faceless medium: Negotiating ideological parameters in computer-mediated communication”. In Jef Verschueren (Ed.), Language and Ideology: Selected Papers from 6th International Pragmatics Conference (pp. 514– 543). Antwerp, Belgium: International Pragmatics Association. Walther, Joseph B. & Boyd, Shawn (2002). “Attraction to computer-mediated support”. In C. A. Lin & D. Atkins (Eds.), Communication Technology and Society: Audience Adoption and Uses (pp. 153–188). Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press. Walzer, Michael (1994). Thick and Thin: Moral Arguments at Home and Abroad. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press. Watts, Richard (1992). “Linguistic politeness and politic behaviour: Reconsidering claims for universality”. In Watts, Ide, & Ehlich (Eds.), 43–69. Watts, Richard, Ide, Sachiko, & Ehlich, Konrad (1992). Politeness in Language: Studies in Its History, Theory and Practice. Berlin: Mouton
Polite diminutives in Spanish A matter of size? Martha Mendoza The crucial role played by politeness in linguistic expression and in human social interaction in general cannot be overstated. It is also the case that speakers of different languages have different means of encoding politeness considerations. Therefore, it is of great importance to investigate the particular politeness strategies speakers resort to in specific languages as a means to further our understanding of the social functions of language. The present work analyzes the relationship between politeness and the diminutive in Spanish. In Spanish, diminutives can serve politeness strategies, as in the sentences: ¿Gusta un cafecito? ‘Would you like some coffee?’ and ¿Alguna otra cosita? ‘Anything else for you?’ (said, for example, in a store). Spanish diminutives have undergone a grammaticalization process which has made them available not only for the expression of small size but also of a variety of other more abstract concepts, among them intensification, approximation, and pejoration. In the case of the diminutive of politeness, a meaning shift involving pragmatic strengthening has taken place. The diminutive in its inception has a meaning related to the physical, propositional realm: the meaning ‘small’. Yet, the polite diminutive brings forward considerations of social relations and social interaction where the speaker’s intentions and attitudes are the most important meaning that gets across. In this sense, the diminutive serves as a pragmatic hedge, which can be used to soften or weaken the illocutionary force of an utterance, and, therefore, as a politeness marker. All in all, the use of diminutives to express politeness is just another way in which social considerations impinge upon language.
Keywords: Politeness; diminutives; mitigation; pragmatic hedges
Martha Mendoza
.
Introduction
The crucial role played by politeness in linguistic expression and in human social interaction in general cannot be overstated. It is also the case that speakers of different languages have different means of encoding politeness considerations. Therefore, it is of great importance to investigate the particular politeness strategies speakers resort to in specific languages as a means to further our understanding of the social functions of language. The present work analyzes the relationship between politeness and diminutive suffixes in Spanish. Spanish diminutives have undergone a grammaticalization process. In grammaticalization, a content word or morpheme, in a process of increasing abstraction, gradually loses some (or all) of its semantic content and becomes available for use in previously unavailable contexts. This process may result in coexistence of concrete and abstract meanings for the same lexical item or grammatical category. In Spanish, through common mechanisms of semantic change such as bleaching, generalization, and metaphor, grammaticalization has made diminutives available not only for the expression of small size but also of a variety of other more abstract concepts, such as intensification (limpiecito1 ‘very clean’ < limpio ‘clean’, tempranito ‘very early’ < temprano ‘early’), approximation (carillo ‘somewhat expensive’ < caro ‘expensive’, tristecillo ‘rather sad’ < triste ‘sad’), and pejoration (mujerzuela ‘disreputable woman’ < mujer ‘woman’, peliculilla ‘bad movie’ < película ‘movie’). In an example such as peliculilla, the metaphor Importance is size, and its sub-metaphor Insignificant is small, can be invoked to account for the sense of pejoration that often develops in diminutive derivations.2 Politeness also appears among the various meanings conveyed by these suffixes, as in the sentences: ¿Gusta un cafecito? ‘Would you like some coffee?’ or ¿Alguna otra cosita? ‘Anything else for you?’ said, for example, by a sales clerk in a store. In the specific case of the diminutive of politeness, a meaning shift involving an extension in terms of pragmatic force appears to have taken place. The diminutive has moved away from its original relation to the physical, propositional realm of size to the pragmatic domain of social relations and social interaction where the speaker’s intentions and attitudes are the most important consideration. In this sense, the diminutive functions as a hedge,3 and more specifically, a pragmatic hedge which can be used to soften or weaken the illocutionary force of an utterance; and, therefore, it effectively serves as a politeness marker. Moreover, in certain dialects of Spanish, like Mexican Spanish, diminutives have undergone a further extension and can be employed as honorifics or deferentials.
Polite diminutives in Spanish
. Hypocoristic diminutives One way in which the Spanish diminutive performs politeness functions is through its hypocoristic usage. In fact, this is, if not the most common, one of its most common uses. This is also the case for German and for other Romance languages. In this sense, diminutives are a way in which speakers express affection, intimacy, appreciation, and familiarity to others, and are often employed in language addressed to children and pets. This seems to come about through the conventionalization of inferences or implicatures, whereby particular features of meaning are foregrounded or strengthened due to the common association of those features in speakers’ minds with the item in question. Thus, since diminutives are often applied to children – children are small – and one usually feels affection towards them, then over time the connotation of affection becomes conventionalized as part of their literal, lexicalized meaning (Jurafsky 1996: 551–552). It is interesting to note that diminutives not only perform functions of positive politeness but are found in relation to negative politeness as well, especially in their function as hedges. With diminutives one can also express sympathy and compassion, as when one asks a sick person: ¿Estás enfermita? ‘Are you ill?’4 Here it does not mean that the speaker believes that the addressee is not really sick or that she is just a little bit sick, rather the speaker wants to show sympathy and concern; furthermore, the diminutive could also express the hope (albeit backgrounded) that the addressee may not be too sick. The diminutive can also be used to express the speaker’s feelings of appreciation or admiration at the sight of something considered good or possessing special, desirable, characteristics. For example, in saying ¡Mira la casita que tienen! ‘What a nice house they have!’, the speaker does not wish to point at the size of the house – although that may also be the case – but at the fact that to her it is a nice, beautiful house; she is expressing something like ’Wow, look at the house they’ve got!’ Similarly, ¡Qué joyitas trae! would mean something like ‘Talk about jewelry!’ This tends to apply to objects which have a certain value in the mind of speakers such as cars, houses, and jewelry. Sifianou (1992: 165) reports that in Greek diminutives are just as common in compliments, by which “The speaker expresses approval of, or admiration for, something associated with the addressee that s/he considers worth praising on the particular occasion.”
Martha Mendoza
. The diminutive of approximation Related to politeness strategies is the diminutive of approximation that serves as a way of attenuating the meaning of adjectives and adverbs. For example, we have altillo ‘tallish’ from alto ‘tall’, and tontillo ‘foolish’ from tonto ‘fool’. This function expresses politeness considerations in the case of certain adjectives with negative connotations used to characterize especially human beings. The diminutive then serves euphemistically to diminish the pejorative force of the adjective: For example, Era feílla ‘she was a bit ugly’; or Estaba gordillo ‘he was a little fat’. In these examples, the speaker is reluctant to use the unmodified word because the speaker does not want to be considered impolite or unkind. Historically, it is not surprising that the diminutive would come to be used to express attenuation or weakening when attached to adjectives and adverbs since, by its basic nature, it already denoted diminution, although of physical size. The development of this particular function involves metaphor, which is defined as the structuring of one conceptual domain in terms of another.5 In its fundamental sense, the concept of smallness is a physical notion, anchored in our experience of the real world, and refers to that which we can sensorially perceive and/or measure. From such concrete basis, the diminutive, when applied to adjectives and adverbs, comes to indicate an attenuation of their meaning, a weakening of the degree to which the relevant quality or attribute is present;6 that is, it acts as a kind of semantic hedge.
. Pragmatic senses One further and very important extension of the diminutive of approximation, in this case in the pragmatic domain, is its use as a metalinguistic hedge. Metalinguistic hedges modify the metalinguistic content of an utterance (that is, they contain a second speech act which comments on the sentence or its content), rather than focusing on its propositional content (Jurafsky 1996: 556). Examples of this type of hedges in English are expressions such as technically and loosely speaking. Metalinguistic hedges are often expressed by diminutives.7 For example, in expressions like the following: (1) Cuatrito, nomás tengo. four-dim not-more have-I ‘I have only four/I have four and no more.’
(Toscano 1973: 423)
Polite diminutives in Spanish
(2) Nomás quiero un besito, uno solo. not-more want-I a kiss-dim one only ‘I only want a little kiss, only one.’
(Mexican soap-opera)
(3) Dame una probadita. give-me a taste-dim ‘Let me try just a little bit (of it).’ (4) Es mínimo lo que he hecho. Llevo tres disquitos is minimal pron what have-I done take-I three records-dim grabados. recorded ‘I’ve done very little. I have recorded only three records’. (Ana Bárbara, Mexican singer)
there is a sense in which the diminutive does not seem to modify the item to which it is attached, at least not exclusively, but expresses a modification of the entire speech act. It is similar to modifying it using a word like ‘merely’ or ‘only’. So, Cuatrito, nomás tengo ‘I have only four/I have four and no more’ emphasizes the fact that four is an insignificant number. There are two speech acts involved: (a) An act of asserting, and (b) an act of asserting that four is a small or insignificant number. Jurafsky notes that this particular use of the diminutive includes “the speaker’s downplaying his or her own possessions to avoid bragging” (1996: 557). Example (4) above could also be interpreted as carrying this polite intention. With regard to this, it is well established that Spanish diminutives are often used in a “modesty” sense. This also happens in a language like Greek, where, according to Sifianou: “When speakers use diminutives to refer to their own possessions, characteristics, or achievements, the connotation may be that of affection, but it may also, at the same time, be an attempt to reduce the possibility of the utterances’ being interpreted as self-praise” (1992: 159). Furthermore, the illocutionary force of an utterance can be softened or weakened through the use of this type of diminutive. This modification can take place if the speaker, for stated or implied reasons, desires to exempt the addressee, as R. Lakoff puts it, “from the usual obligations that an unqualified performative speech act might lay on [her]” (1980: 31–33). Therefore, to utter a qualified declarative, question, or imperative lessens the pressure put on the addressee to behave as expected in terms of the conventional obligations of belief, response, or compliance brought about by unqualified performatives. Thus, the diminutive effectively functions as a pragmatic hedge and, consequently,
Martha Mendoza
as a politeness marker, modifying the illocutionary force of whole sentences rather than individual words. Such is the case in sentences like the following, typical of verbal exchanges in stores, public offices, and public places in general: (5) Espere un momentito. wait-imp a moment-dim ‘Wait just a second.’ (6) ¿Alguna otra cosita? some other thing-dim ‘Anything else for you?’
In such cases, the use of (5) and (6) would be preferred to their counterparts without the diminutive suffix: (7) Espere un momento. wait-imp a moment ‘Wait a moment.’ (8) ¿Alguna otra cosa? some other thing ‘Anything else for you?’
When using sentences (5) and (6) the implication is that the person uttering the sentences wants to express considerations of politeness as opposed to sentences (7) and (8) where there is no overt indication that the speaker is or wants to be polite. It is also customary to reply with a diminutive when one is invited to somebody’s home and the host or hostess for instance asks, also using diminutives, whether one wants some more food. Thus, the question ¿Quiere que le ponga más pollito? ‘Do you care for some more chicken?’ is likely to elicit a reply that contains a diminutive as well: Bueno, deme un poquito ‘Alright, just a little bit’. By deviating from the simple and direct, one communicates that considerations of politeness are being taken into account in addressing others. Let us look briefly at the issue of why diminutive suffixes should be employed to express politeness. E. C. Traugott (1988) proposes that semantic change proceeds along a cline of historical progression in which particular linguistic items go from meanings anchored in the propositional realm to meanings in the textual domain and then to those inscribed in the psychosocial sphere, in a move towards greater subjectification. An example of this is English while, which, from its original meaning of ‘period, time’, became a temporal connective and later a marker of concession, related to the speaker’s
Polite diminutives in Spanish
attitudes towards what is being said, as in While you may not believe me, I’ll tell you the story anyway. In the case of Spanish diminutives, a meaning shift involving pragmatic strengthening along the lines proposed by Traugott appears to have taken place. The diminutive in its inception has a meaning related to the physical, propositional realm: the meaning ‘small’. Moving away from this, the polite diminutive, as in ¿Alguna otra cosita? ‘Anything else for you?’ brings forward considerations of social relations and social interaction where the speaker’s intentions and attitudes are the most important meaning that gets across. Here the utilization of the diminutive suffix has little to do with the propositional domain of size, measurements, or scales. The use of the diminutive by the speaker implies something like: Even though I’m asking you (the buyer/the guest) if you want something else, perhaps with the intention that you buy/take something else, I do not want to impose on you, so I lessen the force of my utterance and (seem to) give you options (accepting or refusing). Thus, the polite diminutive serves a kind of attenuative function, where the addressee is granted some power in the conversational exchange. This seems to work by putting to use one of R. Lakoff ’s (1973) maxims for polite interaction in conversation: Do not impose. Moreover, speakers do not wish to be considered rude in their interactions with others. It should be noted that semantic shifts from one component of the grammar to another do not require that prior meanings disappear altogether. Rather, the diminutive represents a case of polysemy, where earlier and later meanings coexist. In example (5) above: Espere un momentito, again, the speaker expresses a desire not to impose, so she resorts to the diminutive to attenuate the force of her utterance so that it appears that she is not burdening the addressee with excessive waiting since this would be impolite. The diminutive with its attenuative features implies it is less of a wait. Furthermore, for example in commands and requests, the minimization of the illocutionary force of the utterance is again achieved by means of diminutives: (9) Por favorcito, espérenme aquí. please-dim wait-you here ‘Please, wait for me here.’ (10) Ahora, amiguito: a trabajar. now friend-dim to work-inf ‘Now, my dear friend, it’s time to (get to) work.’
(Mancisidor: 339)
Another example, provided by R. Lenz (1935: 213), is the following:
Martha Mendoza
(11) Si no tiene plata me escribe un chequecito. if not have-you silver to-me write-you a check-dim ‘If you don’t have cash, you can write me a check.’
Lenz observes that, in using the diminutive, the speaker is diminishing the import of his request because: “es menos grave pedir un ‘chequecito’ que un ‘cheque”’ ‘it is less serious to ask for a ‘chequecito’ than a ‘cheque”. Related to this is the diminutive of persuasion (captatio benevolentiae), with which one seeks to favorably predispose one’s interlocutor. It is a way of accommodating people to one’s intentions. One does not ask someone: Hazme un favor but Hazme un favorcito ‘Do me a favor’, which is not to say that it will be a small one; indeed, one might be asking a lot. Or one can say, Quisiera hablarle de un asuntillo ‘I would like to talk to you about something’ so as not to appear too imposing. And the beggar on the street would request: Una limosnita, por favor ‘Spare some change, please’, making use of diminutive forms, in order to come across as non-threatening and at the same time elicit the hearer’s compassion. The existence of this active role of the diminutive presents a problem for some analysts (cf. A. Bello 1972), who would limit the diminutive to a familiar style. Although diminutives are often found in a familiar style, they are definitely not limited to it, as we can see from the previous examples. In the expression of politeness using diminutives, it is not even necessary that the participants in a conversation know each other; in that case the diminutive is a polite form, not a sign of affection or closeness. In other words, just as is the case with the tú/usted distinction in second person singular pronouns, the Spanish diminutive has developed into a more or less grammaticalized way of expressing politeness. All in all, the use of diminutives helps to portray requests as small and simple, and often also less important or obligatory, with the result that the addressee will hopefully feel less of a burden in complying. R. Lakoff (1980) explains that mitigated forms involve “putting less responsibility on the addressee,” and one way to do this is “to ask [her] to do something but less” (37–39). Thus, for instance, when borrowing a cup of sugar or such from a neighbor, one would most likely say: ¿Me puede prestar una tacita de azúcar? ‘Could I borrow a cup of sugar?’, instead of using the unmitigated form. We should note that diminutives emphasize non-imposition, in accordance with negative politeness, but are also important in establishing friendly interactions, the province of positive politeness. In this regard, diminutives may differ in frequency and weight in different areas of the Spanish speak-
Polite diminutives in Spanish
ing world, according to differences in the degree to which a particular culture favors positive or negative politeness strategies. In comparing Spanish speakers from Mexico and Spain, C. Curcó (1998) finds that speakers of Mexican Spanish tend to show a higher preference for diminutive structures as part of their politeness strategies than speakers of Peninsular Spanish, who may actually perceive diminutives as ironic (155–159). The diminutive of politeness and as a pragmatic hedge is found in languages as diverse as Cantonese, Dutch, (Jurafsky 1996), Polish, Russian, and Greek (Sifianou 1992). Moreover, in languages like Tamil and Malagasy, the diminutive of politeness appears to be even more grammaticalized. In these languages, the word for ‘a little’ functions like English please (Brown & Levinson 1987: 177). A final point worth making here is that the progression of the diminutive from the external or propositional towards the more subjective or evaluative, which increasingly comes to encode the speaker’s attitude to what is being said, relates this suffix to attested universal tendencies of semantic and pragmatic change.8
. Conclusion Various mechanisms of semantic and pragmatic change have allowed Spanish diminutives to be available for the expression of politeness. The fact that diminutives are recruited to perform such function is a clear indication that size matters in linguistic politeness, as diminutives quite fittingly become pragmatic hedges that weaken the illocutionary force of utterances; they soften the impact of statements and requests and minimize impositions. All in all, the use of the diminutive for the expression of politeness is just another way in which social considerations impinge upon language.
Notes . Spanish has the following diminutive suffixes: -ico(a), -illo(a), -ino(a), -ito(a), -ejo(a), -ete(a), and -uelo(a). . M. Mendoza (2000) provides a study of some of these Spanish suffixes, comparing them with the augmentatives. . Hedges, according to L. Talmy (2000: 155), “qualify the categoriality of a linguistic element’s referent.” See also Brown and Levinson (1987), especially pp. 145–172.
Martha Mendoza . Also, it can be ironic or sarcastic. . The term metaphor is used here in the sense of G. Lakoff (1987), among others. . For more on the experiential basis of grammatical categories, see Heine (1997), G. Lakoff (1987), and G. Lakoff and Johnson (1980). . Dressler and Merlini (1994) have analyzed these types of diminutives, as well as Volek (1987). . See, for example, Hopper and Traugott (1993).
References Bello, A. (1972). Gramática de la lengua castellana destinada al uso de los americanos. Caracas, Venezuela: Ediciones del Ministerio de Educación. Brown, P. & Levinson, S. C. (1987). Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Claudi, U. & Heine, B. (1986). “On the metaphorical base of grammar.” Studies in Language, 10, 297–335. Curcó, C. (1998). “¿No me harías un favorcito?: reflexiones en torno a la expresión de la cortesía verbal en el español de México y el español peninsular.” In H. Haverkate et al. (Eds.), La pragmática lingüística del español. Recientes desarrollos (pp. 129–171). Amsterdam: Editions Rodopi. Dressler, W. & Merlini, L. (1994). Morphopragmatics: Diminutives and Intensifiers in Italian, German, and Other Languages. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Fraser, B. (1980). “Conversational Mitigation.” Journal of Pragmatics, 4, 341–350. Gaarder, A. B. (1966). “Los llamados diminutivos y aumentativos en el español de México.” Publications of the Modern Language Association, 81, 585–595. González Ollé, F. (1962). Los sufijos diminutivos en castellano medieval [An. LXXV]. Madrid: Revista de Filología Española. Gooch, A. (1967). Diminutive, Augmentative and Pejorative Suffixes in Modern Spanish: A Guide to Their Use and Meaning. London: Pergamon Press. Heine, B. (1997). Cognitive Foundations of Grammar. New York: Oxford University Press. Hopper, P. J. & Traugott, E. C. (1993). Grammaticalization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Jurafsky, D. (1996). “Universal Tendencies in the Semantics of the Diminutive: Structured Polysemy and the Semantic Shift from Children to Second-Order Predicates”. Language, 72 (3), 533–578. Lakoff, G. & Johnson, M. (1980). Metaphors We Live By. Chicago: Chicago University Press. Lakoff, G. (1987). Women, Fire and Dangerous Things: What Categories Reveal About the Mind. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Lakoff, R. (1973). “The logic of politeness; Or, minding your p’s and q’s.” In Papers from the Ninth Regional Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society (pp. 292–305). Chicago: Chicago Linguistic Society.
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Lakoff, R. (1980). “How to look as if you aren’t doing anything with words: Speech act qualification.” Versus, 26/27, 29–47. Milan: Bompiani. Lenz, R. (1935). La oración y sus partes (3rd edition). Madrid: Publicaciones de la Revista de Filología Española. Mancisidor, J. (Ed.). (No date). Cuentos mexicanos de autores contemporáneos. México: Editorial Nueva España. Mendoza, M. (2000). “Metaphors of size: Polysemy and grammaticalization of augmentative and diminutive suffixes in Spanish.” Anales del Instituto de Lingüística, XXII/XXIII, 151– 162. Mendoza, Argentina: Editorial de la Facultad de Filosofía y Letras de la Universidad Nacional de Cuyo. Náñez, E. (1973). El diminutivo: historia y funciones en el español clásico y moderno [Biblioteca Románica Hispánica II. Estudios y ensayos, v. 196]. Madrid: Editorial Gredos. Sifianou, M. (1992). “The use of diminutives in expressing politeness: Modern Greek versus English.” Journal of Pragmatics, 17, 155–173. Talmy, L. (2000). Toward a Cognitive Semantics, Vol. 2. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Toscano, H. M. (1973). El español en el Ecuador [An. LXI]. Madrid: Revista de Filología Española. Traugott, E. C. (1988). “Pragmatic strengthening and grammaticalization.” In Proceedings of the Fourteenth Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society (pp. 406–416). Volek, B. (1987). Emotive Signs in Language and Semantic Functioning of Derived Nouns in Russian. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Indirectness as a politeness strategy of Thai speakers Deeyu Srinarawat The main purpose of this study was to determine the forms and functions of indirect speech in Thai and to investigate the subjects’ choice of direct or indirect means of communication. The data was collected from two sources: (1) conversations drawn from five contemporary novels and (2) answers to a questionnaire administered to 475 subjects regarding their choice of direct or indirect speech in certain interactional situations. The subjects were selected by using stratified random sampling and were grouped according to occupation, gender, level of education, and age. The findings from the analysis of conversations in the novels indicate that indirect speech was mostly found in interrogative form, and the major function of indirectness was to convey irony. In contrast, the questionnaire subjects’ choices of direct or indirect use of language show that they prefer indirectness predominantly to emphasize politeness. In addition, there seems to be a slight proportional relationship between the subjects’ use of indirectness and their educational level. In other words, it seems that as the subjects’ level of education increases, they become slightly more likely to use an indirect means of communication. Keywords: Indirectness; politeness strategies; off-record politeness; communicative functions
.
Introduction: Indirectness and politeness
Indirectness refers to a speech act in which the expressed meaning of an utterance does not match the speaker’s implied or intended meaning. An indirect illocutionary act requires the speaker’s and the listener’s shared background information and the ability to make inferences on the listener’s part. Indirectness is a universal phenomena as it is believed to occur in all natural languages (Thomas 1995: 119).
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As a communication style, indirectness is found in everyday interaction. In some speech situations, it is employed as a more effective way of communication. For instance, it can be used to perform different functions such as giving hints, avoiding confrontation, joking, being ironic, or expressing politeness by saving the face of either speaker. In many cultures, especially in Asian cultures, indirectness is valued because saving face and harmony in social relationships are highly valued. The means of expressing verbal politeness may vary from one culture to another. In Thai culture, for instance, the traditional polite form of language may include the use of polite particles, nouns, pronouns, address terms, kinship terms, titles, and particular verbs of varying degrees of politeness. These are chosen with respect to the grading of interpersonal factors such as social status, role relationships, age, educational background, and intimacy. In Japanese, politeness is conventionally conveyed through the use of honorifics, which are respect markers used with words like nouns, verbs, or modifiers to express deference toward addressees or referents. Generally, the Japanese honorific system consists of three main forms: teineigo (polite forms), sonkeigo (respectful or exalting forms), and kenjogo (modest or humble forms). Among these forms, the respectful and humble forms are crucial in linguistic exchange in most cases. Their omission can lead to misunderstanding (Coulmas 1992: 312–313). For English, the conventional forms of language to express politeness include certain kinds of words and expressions such as terms of address and ritualized expressions chosen based on a number of social factors such as social distance, social status, power, and the formality of the communicative activities. The concepts of indirectness have been conventionally associated with speech acts. Searle (1975) proposes that indirect speech acts can be explained by the theory of speech acts and Grice’s Cooperative Principle of conversation. According to Searle’s example, the indirect illocution of the sentence: “I wonder if you would mind leaving the room.” is required as a more polite directive rather than a flat imperative or an explicit sentence such as “Leave the room.”, and “I order you to leave the room.”, respectively. Brown and Levinson (1987) define indirectness as a set of politeness strategies which can be used to minimize imposition on the hearer and to establish solidarity between the speaker and the hearer. Blum-Kulka (1987: 140) has also claimed there is a relationship between politeness and indirectness in general, irrespective of language. Indirectness strategies and markers have been studied in written discourse in many languages, including English. Myers (1989 cited in Hinkel 1997: 362) states that in academic writing, politeness and indirectness strategies, as originally outlined by Brown and Levinson, are manifested in stylistic variations and
Indirectness as a politeness strategy of Thai speakers
uses of different devices such as performative verbs, explicit and implicit lexical and syntactic hedging to modify statements, conditional tenses to postulate hypothetical and indirect claims, and adverbs to establish solidarity between the writer and the reader. Scollon and Scollon (1995 mentioned in Hinkel 1997) state that in Chinese essay writing, the communication between the writer and the reader is based on the politeness of facework and shared solidarity, and that the written text is largely developed on politeness strategies. Similarly, Hinds (1983, 1984) and Tsujimura (1987) maintain that indirectness and related strategies such as vagueness and ambiguity are also valued highly in Japanese written text because they allow for the communication of minds rather than the communication of words (Hinkel 1997: 364). In Hinkel’s study (1997), to determine specific indirectness devices employed in native speaker (NS) and non-native speaker (NNS) students’ academic writing, he found that speakers of Chinese, Korean, Japanese, and Indonesian employed rhetorical questions and tags, disclaimers and denials, vagueness and ambiguity, repetition, several types of hedges, ambiguous pronouns, and the passive voice much more than native speakers did. However, the NS and NNS students were not significantly different in their use of other types of indirectness devices and markers, such as point of view distancing, downtoners, discourse particles, understatements, and conditional tenses. In the research literature of politeness, most scholars have based their work on the pragmatic framework of Paul Grice (1975: 41–58), especially on his cooperative principle and conversational maxims. The Cooperative Principle (CP) states, “Make your contribution such as required, at the stage at which it occurs, by the accepted purpose or direction of the talk exchange in which you are engaged.” The Conversational Maxims were formulated as: 1. Maxim of Quantity: Make your contribution as informative as is required; 2. Maxim of Quality: Do not say what you believe to be false; 3. Maxim of Relation: Be relevant; and 4. Maxim of Manner: Avoid obscurity of expression, Avoid ambiguity, Be brief, and Be orderly. Brown and Levinson (1987), in their attempt to discover universal principles of politeness, compared linguistic data mainly from English, Tzeltal (an indigenous language of Mexico), and Tamil. As discussed briefly above, in Brown and Levinson’s terms, politeness is concerned with “face” (an “individual’s self-esteem”) and “face-wants”. Brown and Levinson classify politeness strategies into five groups: (1) bald on record; (2) positive politeness strategies; (3) negative politeness strategies; (4) off-record politeness strategies; and (5) don’t do the FTA. The off-record politeness refers to indirect strategies, which avoid making any explicit imposition on the hearer (1987: 69–70). An
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off-record utterance, or indirect use of language, is something a speaker says that is either more general than the speaker’s intended meaning, or different from the speaker’s intended meaning. The hearer must then make some inference to obtain the implied message (1987: 211). Brown and Levinson propose that one way of dealing with a “face-threatening act” (FTA), an act that intrinsically threatens the hearer’s face-wants, is to do it indirectly. Thus, the basic way of using indirect politeness strategies is to invite conversational implicatures by violating the Gricean maxims of efficient communication. The following list shows some indirect strategies described by Brown and Levinson (1987: 213–225): (1) Give hints (violating the Relevance Maxim) It’s cold in here. (2) Understate (violating the Quantity Maxim) It’s all right. (implicating, “I don’t particularly like it.”) (3) Overstate (violating the Quantity Maxim) I tried to call a hundred times, but there was never any answer. (4) Be ironic (violating the Quality Maxim) John’s a real genius. (after John has done twenty stupid things in a row) (5) Use metaphors (violating the Quality Maxim) Harry’s a real fish. (implicating, “He swims like a fish.”) (6) Use rhetorical questions (violating the Quality Maxim) What can I say? (implicating, “Nothing, it’s so bad.”) (7) Be vague or ambiguous (violating the Manner Maxim) Perhaps someone did something naughty.
In addition, Leech (1983) developed Grice’s suggestion for a “politeness maxim” into the Politeness Principle (PP) to explain some phenomena that cannot be explained by the Cooperative Principle. Leech claimed that politeness in language increases with the use of indirectness, because indirectness can help lessen the feeling of being forced or imposed on. In other words, indirectness is used to give the hearer more opportunity to choose for himself or herself. An example of indirectness is using interrogatives to make a request, because the hearer will not feel as imposed upon if the request is phrased as a question. The above mentioned studies and examples of indirect strategies show that in some circumstances, indirectness can be used as a politeness strategy, and can be a more effective means of communication.
Indirectness as a politeness strategy of Thai speakers
Tannen (1986) points out the following benefits of indirectness: establishing rapport, self-defense, avoiding confrontation, and gleaning aesthetic pleasure through the use of joking, irony, and figures of speech. She claims that indirectness is beneficial because it maintains a balance between the need to be involved and the need for independence, and between the speaker’s needs and the hearer’s needs. Finally, Thomas (1995: 143) lists the following reasons “for the universal use of indirectness”: (1) the desire to make one’s language more/less interesting; (2) the desire to increase the force of one’s message; (3) competing goals; and (4) politeness/regard for ‘face’.” In the Thai language and culture, we use indirectness to perform various communicative functions. In view of the fact that there has never been a formal study of the communicative functions of indirectness in Thai, it is interesting to investigate the indirect use of language by Thai speakers. The objectives of this study were (1) to identify the forms and functions of indirectness in Thai, and (2) to determine to what degree research subjects choose indirect styles of speaking in comparison with direct styles.
. The study and methodology The study is based on a conceptual framework that includes the indirectness and politeness models of Grice (1975), Searle (1975), Leech (1983), Brown and Levinson (1987), and Tannen (1986). . The data .. Data from the novels The language data collected for the analysis of forms and communicative functions of indirectness in Thai were drawn from conversations in the following five contemporary novels, which received prizes for best novel for the years 1991, 1992, 1994, 1995, and 1996, respectively: 1. Tukkatamanut (“Human Puppets”) [T] Author: Srifa Ladawan; 1991 Best Novel 2. Peekkhwamfan (“On the Wings of Dreams”) [P] Author: Nipphan; 1992 Best Novel 3. Wela (“Time”) [W] Author: Chart Kopjitti; 1994 Best Novel
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4. Prachathippataibonsenkhanan (“Differing Views of Democracy”) [Pr] Author: Rint Liewwarin; 1995 Best Novel 5. Niramit (“World of Imagination”) [N] Author: Kaewkaw; 1996 Best Novel The year 1993 was omitted because there was no award-winning novel that year. The reason for collecting conversation data from novels is that these novels are diverse in theme, and the conversations are semi-authentic – in other words, they are imitations of real speech. In collecting instances of indirect use of language from the conversations in the five novels, the utterances were first classified as direct or indirect, and then categorized by construction into interrogatives, declaratives, and imperatives. .. Data from the questionnaire The population sample of the study, who served as respondents to a questionnaire consisted of 475 persons selected by the stratified random sampling method and grouped according to occupation, gender, level of education, and Table 1. Respondents by occupation and gender Occupation
Gender Male
1. Students 2. Gov’t/State enterprise workers 3. Private firm/shop workers 4. Private business owners Total
Total Female
22 64 74 72
23 65 74 81
45 129 148 153
232
243
475
Table 2. Respondents by occupation and level of education Occupation
Educational Level Elementary
1. Students 2. Gov’t/State enterprise workers 3. Private firm/shop workers 4. Private business owners Total
Secondary
Bachelor’s
Total Higher than Bachelor’s
12 39
4 27
16 35
13 28
45 129
31
42
30
45
148
38
46
27
42
153
120
119
108
128
475
Indirectness as a politeness strategy of Thai speakers
Table 3. Respondents by occupation and age Age group (Years)
Occupation Students Gov’t/State enterprise workers
Total
Private firm/shop Private business workers owners
1. 16–20 2. 21–25 3. 26–30 4. 31–35 5. 36–40 6. 41–45 7. 46–50 8. 51–56 9. 56 and older
14 18 12 1 – – – – –
– 14 16 17 15 18 19 16 14
15 29 28 18 13 11 15 10 9
17 24 14 18 19 18 16 17 10
46 85 70 54 47 47 50 43 33
Total
45
129
148
153
475
age as shown in Tables 1, 2, and 3. The subjects were taken mainly from the Bangkok metropolitan area. The questionnaire consisted of five scenarios, representing everyday speech situations. In each situation, the respondents were asked to choose between a direct or indirect statement to a question. An open-ended choice was also provided. The communicative functions of the indirect strategies given as choices for Questions 1 to 5 were, respectively: giving hints, emphasizing politeness, avoiding a negative result (saving face), irony, and self-defense. An English translation of the questionnaire is included in the Appendix. The use of this type of questionnaire was based on the findings from the questionnaire pretesting where it was found that most respondents were not familiar with answering discourse completion questions. They felt such types of questions were timeconsuming. This was later justified by the findings of the study that only 2.74% of the respondents gave their own answers for the open-ended option. It may be noted that the communicative functions of indirectness in the novels do not correspond to the communicative functions included in the questionnaire (see Tables 5 and 10). In the questionnaire, there are categories of “emphasizing politeness” and “avoiding negative results (saving face)”, but not categories for “giving opinions” and “sensing the other’s the ideas”. The reason for this difference is that, when looking at indirectness as used in everyday Thai language, it is observed that indirectness is used much more often to emphasize politeness or to save face.
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The questionnaire data was collected from December 1997 to March 1998. The questionnaire was distributed to the sample on paper, and in a few cases was carried out by interview. . Data analysis In determining whether the utterances in the conversations from the novels are direct or indirect, the sentences were identified on the basis of the forms and functions of speech acts. The three basic sentence types, declarative, interrogative, and imperative are the forms which generally perform the communicative functions of statement, question, and command or request, respectively. Whenever there is a direct relationship between a structural form and a function, it is a direct speech act. Conversely, whenever there is an indirect relationship between a structure and a function, it is an indirect speech act (Yule 1996: 54–55). Based on this framework, if an interrogative sentence is used to make a request, it is considered an indirect speech act, and if a declarative sentence is used to make an ironic comment instead of stating facts or expressing something, it is also an indirect statement/speech act. For the analysis of the questionnaire data, especially in the cases where respondents chose the open-ended response on the questionnaire, the responses were analyzed to determine whether the utterance was direct or indirect. The results were then included in the tallies of direct or indirect speech in Tables 6 to 9; however, they were not included in the tally for functions in Table 10, since it could not be assumed that a respondent was using an utterance to perform the same function as the indirect choice given for the question.
. Results The results of the two studies – the conversations in the novels and the responses to the questionnaire, are reported in separate sections. . Results from the conversations in the novels The analysis of the conversations in the novels reveals the forms and functions of the indirect use of speech as follows.
Indirectness as a politeness strategy of Thai speakers
Table 4. Sentence types in indirect speech Sentence types
Novels T No. %
P No %.
W No. %
Total Pr No. %
N No. %
No.
%
1. Interrogative 11 2. Declarative 3 3. Imperative –
10.48 10 2.86 1 – 1
9.52 – 0.95 5 0.95 –
– 28 4.76 4 – –
26.67 25 3.81 15 – 2
23.81 14.29 1.90
74 28 3
70.47 26.67 2.86
Total
13.34 12 11.42 5
4.76 32
30.48 42
40.00 105
100.00
14
.. Forms of indirect speech There were 105 sentences showing indirect speech, which can be classified into three sentence constructions – interrogative, declarative, and imperative as shown in Table 4. Table 4 shows that the interrogative construction was used most often for indirect speech, followed by the declarative and finally by the imperative. Some examples of sentences containing indirectness are as follows:
1. Interrogatives ¢ (1) mây rúu-càk maarayâat phûudii rY-]ay not know etiquette nobility q ‘Don’t you know the etiquette of the court?’
[P: 290]
¥ (2) rYa] níi khray kháw hˇuarf‘ kan-bâa] là? issue this q he/she laugh else dm ‘Who on earth would laugh at this?’
[N: 206]
2. Declaratives ¦ (3) châa] mii lûuk dây sà‘-cay lYa-k66n ná‘ how nice have children so satisfied exceptionally dm ‘What exceptional children you have!’ ¦ (4) khûu-mân kháw lYa ráp-pra-thaan l66y-là? fiancée his too much eat dm ‘His fiancée is awful.’ (Lit: “is too much to eat”.)
[T: 795]
[N: 63]
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3. Imperatives (5) duu ‘aw-‘ee] k¥ff-l¢77w-kan khà‘ look yourself let it be so pp ‘Take a good hard look for yourself!’
[N: 209]
(6) pay s¡ffp-sˇuan hˇaa n¦ffn ‘aw-‘ee] go investigate look for worm yourself ‘Go and look for the traitor yourself.’
[N: 271]
The above examples are all indirect in that their surface form does not match their intended meaning; for example, the above interrogative sentences are not really questions. Instead, these sentences are mostly used to convey irony (or “offensive irony” in Leech’s term). Sentence (6) is an exception, in that it is used to give a hint. .. Functions of indirect speech Table 5 shows the functions of indirect speech found in the five novels, which can be classified into five categories – namely, irony, giving hints, sensing others’ ideas, self-defense, and giving opinions. It is obvious from Table 5 that the most common function of indirect speech is to convey irony, followed by giving hints, sensing others’ ideas, selfdefense, and giving opinions. According to Leech (1983: 82–83), irony is a second-order principle, building on the politeness principle. It allows the listener to understand the offensive intention of the speaker’s remark. The examples of ironic utterances found in the analysis of speech in the novels generally indicate that the speaker wants to convey an offensive attitude toward the hearer – i.e., to insult, or to criticize the hearer. This finding corTable 5. Functions of indirect speech by sentence type Functions
Sentence type Interrogative No. %
Declarative No. %
Total Imperative No. %
No.
%
1. Irony 2. Giving hints 3. Sensing others’ ideas 4. Self-defense 5. Giving opinions
27 10 16
25.71 9.52 15.24
8 9 2
7.62 8.57 1.90
1 1 –
0.95 0.95 –
36 20 18
34.29 19.05 17.14
8 13
7.62 12.38
8 1
7.62 0.92
– 1
– 0.95
16 15
15.24 14.28
Total
74
70.47
28
26.67
3
2.86
105
100
Indirectness as a politeness strategy of Thai speakers
responds to the findings of Panpothong (1996), who studied verbal irony in Thai, and found that verbal irony is used mainly to convey sarcasm. The following sentences illustrate indirect speech as used to perform these different functions.
1. Irony (7) Background: The speaker is a cynical, jealous person who is never happy with the other person’s success. ¢ khˇaw mii ]6n sYY phˇua hây lûuksˇaaw dây than-cay she have money buy husband give daughter have immediately ¦ lYa-k66n na‘ exceptionally dm ‘She is rich enough to buy a husband for her daughter right away.’ [T: 534] (8) Background: The speaker makes such a remark when hearing the listener say that he (listener) loves to constantly look at the marble statue. ¦ duu maa tâ]t¡77 k¡66t ya] mây phff ‘ìik rYY see come since born yet not enough still q ‘You’ve been seeing this since birth! Won’t that do?’
[N: 432]
2. Giving hints (9) Background: The speaker who is a fortune-teller suggests this after the listener commented that he shouldn’t make a living as a fortune-teller if his predictions are not accurate. ¥ thâa chYa dua]-chataa k¥ff khuan rúu wâa ‘aray mây dii if believe fate then should know that what not good nay tua‘ee] in yourself ‘If you believe in psychic power, you should be able to intuit your bad side.’ [P: 64] (10) Background: The speaker makes this remark to refer to Phangknee, a hotblooded man who easily gets angry when his ideas are not agreed upon. He even hurts his fiancée when they quarrel.
Deeyu Srinarawat
pha]khii rúu-càk yàa]-diaw khYY t¥ff] ‘aw-chaná‘ mây-wâa Phangkhee realize merely be must win no matter dûay withii day with means what ‘Phangkhee realizes merely that he must win, no matter how.’ [N: 769]
3. Sensing others’ ideas (11) Background: The speaker is very surprised to see the listener, a journalist after they had not seen each other for 60 years. He said, “What made you drive this far to see me? You didn’t come just to interview me for the newspaper, did you?” kho] mây-chây maa sˇamphâat phˇom pay khˇıan r¡ffk.ná‘ perhaps not come interview me go write dm ‘You didn’t come just to interview me for the newspapers, did you?’ [Pr: 371] (12) Background: The speaker is sure that nobody would know about the disappearance of the listener and his friend if they were killed in such a remote place. He says this when the listener challenges that he has already sent out the news to reveal the speaker’s conspiracy. lˇeew-lˇay nâa khun ca sò] khàaw ‘¡ffk pay dây ya]-]ay nonsense dm you will send news out go can q ‘Nonsense, how would you send out this news?’ [Pr: 392]
4. Self-defense (13) Background: The speaker is furious when asked if he was one of those who killed the four men. mY] thˇaam khamthˇaam yà]-]íi ‘¡ffk maa dây ya]-]ay you ask question such out come can q ‘How could you ask such a question?’
[Pr: 240]
(14) Background: The speaker feels unhappy when he is told by a military officer that he (speaker) will be asked to act as a spy on a case. phˇom kasˇıan l¢77w ná‘ ‘"yú‘ phˇom k¥ff kwàa hòksìp pii l¢77w I retire perf dm age my be over sixty year perf ‘I already retired. I’m already over sixty.’ [Pr: 315]
Indirectness as a politeness strategy of Thai speakers
5. Giving opinions (15) Background: The speaker makes such an argument when the listener criticized that the ‘Democratic’ government does not help improve people’s lives. Instead, it is merely the government officials who benefit. prachaathíppatay mây-chây pen sì] thîi sˇaamâat phátthanaa democracy not be thing that can develop ¢ chˇua khâam khYYn sˇıa mYarày just over night dm q ‘Democracy can’t be developed just overnight.’ [Pr: 257] (16) Background: The speaker asks this question after the comment that if she is so gifted and adventurous, she should live a more exciting life. ¥ thâa man pen rYa] sìa]phay là‘ khon chalàat khuan lìiklîa] if it be issue risky dm person clever should avoid ¢ rY-plàaw or not (q) ‘If it’s such a risky issue, shouldn’t a smart person (like you) try to avoid it?’ [N: 536]
. Results from the questionnaire data .. Respondents’ choices of direct or indirect strategy The findings from the analysis of the respondents’ choices of direct or indirect strategy in certain interactional situations specified in the questionnaire reveal that the deliberate choices were very close, with the use of the indirect style slightly higher than that of the direct style – i.e., 50.53 percent for the indirect style, and 49.47 percent for the direct style. Tables 6, 7, 8, and 9 show the choice of style for each group of respondents. Table 6. Respondents’ choice of strategy by occupation Occupation
Direct No.
1. Student 2. Gov’t/State ent. workers 3. Private firm/shop workers 4. Private business owners Mean
%
Indirect No.
Total
%
No.
%
21 66 74 74
46.67 51.16 50.00 48.37
24 63 74 79
53.33 48.84 50.00 51.63
45 129 148 153
100 100 100 100
235
49.47
240
50.53
475
100
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Table 7. Respondents’ choice of strategy by gender Gender
Direct
Indirect
Total
No.
%
No.
%
No.
%
1. Male 2. Female
125 118
53.88 48.56
107 125
46.12 51.44
232 243
100 100
Mean
243
51.16
132
48.84
475
100
Table 8. Respondents’ choice of strategy by educational level Education
Direct No.
1. Elementary 2. Secondary 3. Bachelor’s 4. Higher than Bachelor’s Mean
Indirect %
No.
%
71 61 48 55
59.17 51.26 44.44 42.97
49 58 60 73
40.83 48.74 55.56 57.03
235
49.47
240
50.53
Table 9. Respondents’ choice of strategy by age Age group (Years)
Direct
Indirect
No.
%
No.
%
1. 16–30 2. 31–45 3. 46 and older
98 76 61
48.44 51.32 48.20
103 72 65
51.56 48.68 51.80
Mean
23
49.47
240
50.53
It is evident from Table 6 that for most groups of respondents, with the exception of the government/state enterprise workers, there was a slight preference for the indirect style over the direct style. Regarding the respondents’ choice of strategy according to gender, it was found that women preferred indirect speech, whereas men chose to use a more direct style, as shown in Table 7. Table 8 below indicates that the respondent groups who had obtained a higher level of education – i.e., those holding a bachelor’s degree or higher – chose to use the indirect style more frequently. In contrast, the groups with a lower educational level – i.e., those who had received an elementary or secondary education – preferred the direct style. It is thus interesting to note that there seems to be a proportional relationship between the respondents’ use of directness and their educational level. That is, those who obtained the
Indirectness as a politeness strategy of Thai speakers
highest education were found to choose a more indirect speech style than those with a comparatively lower educational level. This phenomenon might be explained by considering the subtle nature of indirect speech. In some communicative events, a speaker needs certain linguistic and interactional skills to effectively perform indirect speech. In such cases, more educated and experienced speakers tend to be more confident in, and capable of, using indirect speech. However, since the numbers for the respondents in each group were too close to make a strong claim regarding the relationship between level of education and the indirect use of language, a further study to investigate this potential relationship is needed. Regarding the respondents’ age in relation to their choice of direct or indirect speech style, the findings as shown in Table 9 indicate that age did not clearly correspond to the respondents’ preference for indirectness. The youngest group (16–30 years) was very close to the oldest group (46 years and older) in their choice of indirectness. In reference to communication styles used by the respondents who provided their own answers in the open-ended section, it is found that, of the 13 respondents (2.95 percent of the whole population sample) who provided their own answers, 55.56 percent of the utterances were direct speech, and the rest, 44.44 percent, were indirect in nature. .. Communicative functions of indirectness When determining the communicative functions of the indirect speech choices of the respondents, it is interesting to note in Table 10 that the majority of the respondents (76.09 percent) chose the indirect style given in the communicative situation where politeness was emphasized (Question 2 in the questionnaire). In addition, the findings in Table 10 show that, in contrast to the politeness function, the ironic function of indirectness was largely not chosen by the respondents. This suggests that Thai people value politeness, and that irony is considered impolite if it is not used for joking or teasing. The more prevalent use of indirectness to convey irony in the novels can be explained by the fact that the language used in novels, while an imitation of real language, is not spontaneous and can be deliberately planned. Therefore, such ironic expressions, which are generally poetic, require creativity and pragmatic skills on the part of the user. Verbal irony is thus commonly found in novels and many other forms of literary work.
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Table 10. Communicative functions of indirectness chosen by respondents Functions
Students Officials Company worker Business owner Mean %
%
%
%
1. Emphasizing politeness 2. Self-defense 3. Avoiding a negative result 4. Irony 5. Giving hints
77.78 53.33 66.67
70.54 51.94 46.51
75.00 56.08 47.30
81.05 57.52 48.37
76.09 54.72 52.21
35.56 26.67
35.66 31.01
36.49 29.73
41.18 30.72
37.22 29.53
Mean
52.00
47.13
48.92
51.77
49.95
. Conclusions and recommendations It is found from the conversational analysis of the selected novels that indirect speech appeared most frequently in the interrogative construction, followed by the declarative and imperative constructions, respectively. In addition, the principle function of indirectness was to convey irony. In contrast, the respondents’ choices of indirect speech in the questionnaire indicate that indirectness was predominantly used to stress politeness. The respondents did not choose irony over politeness in order to make indirectly forceful remarks. Thus, politeness is one of the key factors in using indirectness. There is a tendency for the respondents’ use of indirect speech to correspond proportionally, although not strongly, to their educational level. The groups with the highest educational levels used more indirect speech. This suggests that certain interactional skills and knowledge aid certain aspects of indirect communication. The finding that the respondents generally chose the indirect style slightly more frequently than the direct style can further be explained by the fact that the use of direct or indirect ways of speaking depends largely on particular communication situations. It would be interesting to study indirectness in more varied linguistic and situational contexts. A comparative study of indirectness in spoken and written language, or a cross-cultural study of indirectness, would also be interesting. In order to obtain more realistic data for conversational analysis to determine the speaker’s use of direct or indirect speech whenever real-life settings are not feasible, it is recommended that video-taped conversations from TV dramas be used because they are a better type of quasi-authentic speech than novels.
Indirectness as a politeness strategy of Thai speakers
This type of data also gives nonverbal cues, which are useful for the analysis of spoken language.
Abbreviations Q DM PP PERF
= = = =
question word discourse marker polite particle perfective marker
References Blum-Kulka, Shoshana (1987). “Indirectness and politeness in request: same or different.” Journal of Pragmatics, 11 (2). Brown, Penelope & Levinson, Stephen C. (1987). Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Coulmas, Florian (1992). “Linguistic etiquette in Japanese society.” In R. Watts, S. Ide, & K. Ehrlich (Eds.), Politeness in Language: Studies in Its History, Theory, and Practice (pp. 299–324). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Grice, H. P. (1975). “Logic and conversation.” In P. Cole & J. L. Morgan (Eds.), Syntax and Semantics, Volume 3: Speech Acts (pp. 41–58). New York: Academic Press. Grice, H. P. (1981). “Presupposition and conversational Implicature.” In P. Cole (Ed.), Radical Pragmatics (pp. 183–198). New York: Academic Press. Hinkel, Eli (1997). “Indirectness in L1 and L2 academic writing.” Journal of Pragmatics, 27 (3). Hornby, A. S. (1986). The Oxford Paperback American Dictionary. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kaewkaw (1998). Niramit. Bangkok: Dok-ya. Kopjitti, Chart (1997). Wela. Bangkok: Horn. Ladawan, Srifa (1992). Tukkatamanut. Bangkok: Chokchai-thewet. Lakoff, Robin (1973). “The logic of politeness; or, minding your p’s and q’s.” In Papers from the Ninth Regional Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society (pp. 292–305). Chicago: Chicago Linguistic Society. Leech, Geoffrey (1983). Principles of Pragmatics. New York: Longman. Liewwarin, Rint (1997). Prachathippataibonsenkhanan. Bangkok: Dok-ya. Nipphan (1996). Peekkhwamfan. Bangkok: Phi-sua. Panpothong, Natthaporn (1996). “A Pragmatic Study of Verbal Irony in Thai.” Ph.D. dissertation, University of Hawaii. Searle, J. R. (1975). “Indirect Speech Acts”. In P. Cole & J. L. Morgan (Eds.), Syntax and Semantics, Volume 3: Speech Acts (pp. 59–82). New York: Academic Press. Searle, J. R. (1979). Expression and Meaning. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
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Tannen, Deborah (1986). That’s Not What I Meant!: How Conversational Style Makes or Breaks Relationships. New York: Ballantine Books. Thomas, Jenny (1995). Meaning in Interaction: An Introduction to Pragmatics. New York: Longman. Watts, R., Ide, S., & Ehrlich, K. (Eds.). (1992). Politeness in Language: Studies in Its History, Theory, and Practice. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Yule, George (1996). Pragmatics. Oxford: Oxford University press.
Appendix: English version of the questionnaire Instructions: The following are examples of some interactional situations and what a person might say in a given situation. Please read them carefully, and then choose the appropriate answer for each of the situations based on what you might say in that situation. If you choose to say something different, please specify it in Other _______________ 1.
In a conversation with an acquaintance who is asking about your running to be a Member of Parliament (MP) in the coming election, what would you say if you were Person 2? Person 1: “I heard you’re going to run for MP in the next election. Why do you want to be in politics? Your business is going well, isn’t it?” Person 2: 1. “If I’m not involved in politics, politics will be involved with me.” 2. “If I’m not an MP, the politicians will take advantage of me.” 3. Other _____________________________________
2.
In greeting a patient who is also a relative, who has been in the hospital a long time, and whom you often go to visit, what will you say today if you need to boost his confidence and you want to do it with the greatest politeness? You: 1. “How are you doing today, Uncle? When does the doctor say you can leave the hospital?” 2. “You look a lot better! You’ll be playing golf soon, just like you did before.” 3. Other _________________________________________
3.
If you need to end a telephone conversation because the other person has been talking for too long, what excuse would you give to end the conversation? You: 1. “Is there something else? I need to get back to work.” 2. “Sorry. I hear somebody at the front gate.” 3. Other _________________________________________
4.
In a classroom, the teacher is surprised to learn that the students are not aware that the university has arranged a seminar on an important social issue. If you were the teacher, what would you say?
Indirectness as a politeness strategy of Thai speakers
You: 1. “Why aren’t you interested in current politics? You can go listen right next door.” 2. “You’re the kind of people who don’t pay attention to what’s right at your fingertips. (You’re always reaching out for something farther away!)” 3. Other _________________________________________ 5.
You want to buy just the right blouse at a store. When you find out that it is too expensive and you want to try another store, what would you say to the salesperson? You: 1. “Let me look around for a while.” 2. “This price is a little high. I can’t afford it.” 3. Other _________________________________________
P IV
The comparative perspective
Japanese honorifics as a marker of sociocultural identity A view from non-Western perspective Megumi Yoshida and Chikako Sakurai The use of addressee honorifics in Japanese discourse has been discussed among researchers from various perspectives. The previous studies, however, look only at superficial factors such as social and psychological distance or the formality of the situation, which determine whether speakers use addressee honorifics or not. This study focuses on the speaker’s switch in speech level from the plain form without addressee honorifics to the formal form with addressee honorifics in family conversations. By examining natural conversation between family members who usually talk without addressee honorifics, this study shows that speakers of Japanese use addressee honorifics creatively in order to express their role-oriented identity. This study explains such creative use of addressee honorifics by showing that it is based on shared knowledge of the ‘sociolinguistic structure’ of addressee honorifics. Keywords: Addressee honorifics in Japanese; identity; language reflexivity; sociocultural role
.
Introduction
Addressee honorifics have been a feature of interest in studies of Japanese honorifics. Although many studies explain the sociocultural background of addressee honorifics, there are still some aspects which have not been clearly elucidated when considering their use in natural conversation. One such aspect can be observed in the switch from the plain form without addressee honorifics to the formal form with addressee honorifics in an informal setting. Example (1) shows a switch in the speaker’s speech level. In this example, the speaker is preparing dinner while talking with her husband.
Megumi Yoshida and Chikako Sakurai
(1) 1 Husband:
Mou gohan? (plain) yet dinner ‘Is dinner ready yet?’ 2 Wife: Un sou. Ohashi narabete kureru? (plain) yes yes chopsticks set give ‘Yes, it is, could you set the chopsticks?’ 3 Husband: Aa. yes ‘Yes.’ yo. (formal) 4 Wife: Gohan desu dinner cop(add.hon) sfp ‘Your dinner awaits you.’
In this conversation, both the speaker and her husband started talking without addressee honorifics. Then the speaker used the addressee honorific “desu” when telling her husband that the dinner was ready. Immediately after that, she continued talking to her husband without addressee honorifics. Why did the speaker use addressee honorifics when she told her husband that the dinner was ready? Addressee honorifics do not express referential meaning; rather, they index the sociocultural meaning. As Martin (1964) claims, making the choice between two speech levels, plain or formal, is grammatically obligatory for every speaker in every utterance in the Japanese language. Each speech level has different sociocultual meanings. The appropriate speech level is generally thought to be determined by the relationship of the speaker with the addressee, and the same speech level is maintained when talking to the same addressee. In example (1), the speaker and her husband usually talk with each other without addressee honorifics, but the wife switched the speech level to formal in the middle of the conversation. Thus, the switch in the speech level in example (1) indicates a switch or change in the sociocultural meaning. This study focuses on the speaker’s switch in speech level from plain to formal in family conversations and explains the sociocultural meaning of the addressee honorifics in such settings. Before discussing the scope of this study, two points should be clarified. The first point is that this paper focuses on speech level shifts, but does not analyze other style differences achieved by other linguistic means, such as the choice of vocabularies. The speech level shift investigated in this study is realized by using or not using addressee honorifics replaced or attached to the predicate. The style difference is accomplished mainly by switching between the informal and the formal level in Japanese. However, the style difference is also accomplished by means of some other linguistic properties, such as the
Japanese honorifics as a marker of sociocultural identity
choice of vocabulary items or the use of other kinds of honorifics, intonation, and sentence structure. Because the use of the addressee honorifics is the only focus in this study, the phenomenon discussed in this study is referred to as the change of the speech level between plain and formal. The other point that must be clarified at the outset is that this paper does not say that this kind of style difference can not be observed in other nonwestern languages and also in western languages. Rather this paper suggests the possibility that, in non-honorific languages, such style shifts are marked by the choice of vocabulary items, intonation, or sentence structure in order to mark the speakers’ sociocultural identity.
. Scope of this study Addressee honorifics have been discussed from various perspectives by a number of scholars. In traditional Japanese studies, the scholars claimed that addressee honorifics express the speaker’s deference toward the addressee (Tsujimura 1967; Watanabe 1971; for example). However, addressee honorifics have been considered primarily as expressions which index some aspects of the situational context such as the appropriate relationship between the speaker and the addressee and the formality of the situation (Ide 1982). The appropriate relationship between the speaker and the addressee is a function of various factors, such as the social distance, which is determined by age, status and power, (“jouge” in Japanese), and the psychological distance (“shinso” in Japanese) between the speaker and the addressee. Moreover, Ide (1992) claims that addressee honorifics index the addressee as belonging to the soto-group (out-group) for the speaker, while the plain form without addressee honorifics indexes the addressee as uchi-group (in-group). Some studies explain the switch in speech level from the viewpoint of the psychological distance between the participants. Ikuta (1983) deals with the speech level shift in the context of TV talk shows. In those interviews, the interviewer’ s speech level shifted from formal to plain when she expressed empathy to the interviewee. By doing so, the interviewer shortens the psychological distance to the addressee, which makes it easier for the addressee to talk in depth about personal topics. Usami (1995) also found that the speech level shifted from formal to plain when the speakers expressed their close feelings toward the addressees in the conversations of people who were unfamiliar with each other.
Megumi Yoshida and Chikako Sakurai
Another study focuses on the speaker’s ‘point of view’ in the discourse. Maynard (1993) analyzed dialogues appearing in modern fiction and indicated that the speakers who talk with addressee honorifics use ‘abrupt forms’, that is, plain forms without any interactional devices such as sentence final particles, when the speakers’ utterances are not directed specifically toward the addressees. Examples are when they suddenly recall something or provide additional information for the discourse. The same speakers switch back to formal forms with addressee honorifics when their utterances are fully directed to the addressees. There are also studies that focus on the speaker’s identity. Cook (1997, 1999) argued that the use of addressee honorifics expresses the ‘presentation of public self ’ and that the switch of the speech level between formal forms and plain forms expresses the presence or the absence of the speakers’ selfpresentation respectively. Specifically, the speakers are ‘acting in role’ showing their social persona as mother (Cook 1997) or as interviewer or as participant in TV programs (Cook 1999) when they switch from plain forms to formal forms with addressee honorifics. Okamoto (1997) suggested that the switch between plain and formal forms indexes both the speakers’ and the hearers’ social positions in the immediate speaking context. The data for that study was taken from the observation of teacher-student interaction during classes in an elementary school. According to Okamoto, the teacher and the students usually use addressee honorifics to express their social positions when they are in the situation of teacher or student, and they also use them to show their conformity to the expected use of addressee honorifics in formal situations. However, they switch from formal forms to plain forms when they speak as if they were individuals who were not interacting in a situation as teacher or student that would require the forms expected of such positions. In addition, the teacher uses formal forms when she expects the addressee to answer her question as a student and not just as an individual. Looking back example (1), it can be said that none of those social meanings that have been discussed in previous studies can explain the switch in the speaker’s speech from plain form to formal form in this situation. The contextual conditions can not be considered to influence the switch, because the uchi-group relationship between the speaker and the addressee in this example seems to remain stable. The relationship between wife and husband is considered to represent one of the most basic uchi-relationships, and this relationship remains in-group in informal settings such as dinner table conversation. Moreover, the other social meanings highlighted in the previous studies, the
Japanese honorifics as a marker of sociocultural identity
change in psychological distance between the speaker and the addressee and the speaker’s utterances directly addressed toward the addressee are not relevant to the switch in this conversation. Furthermore, it is difficult to consider that the speaker in example (1) expresses her ‘public self ’ in this informal situation. With regard to Okamoto’s claim, that is, the speaker’s social position in the formal situation is expressed by the switch between formal and plain forms, it does not apply to the example (1). That example shows a conversation between uchi-group members in an informal situation. Therefore, the use of addressee honorifics in example (1) should be considered from another perspective. What are the sociocultural meanings of addressee honorifics in example (1)? What does it mean in Japanese culture and society to use addressee honorifics in an in-group relationship? Through the observation of the data from naturally occurring family conversation, this study asks the following questions. (i) What is the sociocultural meaning of addressee honorifics used in family in-group conversations? (ii) What is the mechanism of the switch between plain and formal forms in family conversations? (iii) Why do speakers of Japanese switch between plain and formal forms in a creative way when they talk to the same addressee in the same speaking context?
. Method Data for this study consisted of recordings of natural conversations from 10 different families. All participants are in their 20’s or 30’s and middle-class college-graduates in Tokyo. The data was collected from each family in everyday life. The main body of the data is from 7 hours of audio-recorded natural conversation. This study analyzes the switch from plain forms to formal forms in situations where the participants usually use the plain forms. All the participants in this study use the plain forms when they talk to another family member. Thirty-two tokens of the switches from plain form to formal form became the objects for analysis in this study. They are carefully observed and examined along with the relevant conversation in each speaking context.
. Data analysis In this section, several examples from the data are analyzed. In each example, the sociocultural meaning of the switch is explained. The analysis will point
Megumi Yoshida and Chikako Sakurai
to the answer to question (i) posed in Section 2 concerning the sociocultural meaning of addressee honorifics used in family in-group conversations. A review of example (1) that was discussed earlier in this paper might be helpful. (1) 1 Husband:
Mou gohan? (plain) yet dinner ‘Is dinner ready yet?’ 2 Wife: Un sou. Ohashi narabete kureru? (plain) yes yes chopsticks set give ‘Yes, it is, could you set the chopsticks?’ 3 Husband: Aa. yes ‘Yes.’ yo. (formal) 4 Wife: Gohan desu dinner cop(add.hon) sfp ‘Your dinner awaits you.’
In this situation, the wife is talking to her husband while making dinner. She talks to her husband with the addressee honorific, “desu” in line 4. Before this utterance, and indeed in most cases, the wife and her husband talk with each other without addressee honorifics. In this example, however, she switches her speech level to formal even though there are not any changes in social or psychological distance between the speaker and the addressee, or the formality of the immediate situational context. Some might argue that the speaker uses the addressee honorific because this wife is in a lower position vis-à-vis her husband. However, it should be noted that this couple, in which both the wife and the husband are in their 30’s and have grown up mostly in the Tokyo district, usually talks together without addressee honorifics, since they consider themselves to be equal. If so, why does she switch her speech level to formal? The claim is made here that addressee honorifics in this wife’s utterance index her sociocultural identity as a wife. In this situational context, this wife is engaged in cooking, which has traditionally been considered as the job of wives. This situational context reminds her that in the speech of some wives, especially those in the older generations than the speaker, addressee honorifics appear more often when talking to their husbands. When the speaker called her husband by telling him that the dinner is ready, she realized the role as a wife that has been conventionalized in Japanese culture and society. Consequently, she uses addressee honorifics to her husband even though this level of speech toward her husband is not usually included in her repertoire of the speech to-
Japanese honorifics as a marker of sociocultural identity
ward her husband. Thus, the addressee honorific in example (1) indexes her sociocultural identity as a wife. (2) 1 Wife:
Chotto ano sa, sore dokashite yo. (plain) just that sfp it take away sfp ‘Excuse me, would you take that away?’ 2 Husband: A, kore, dokashite? (plain) oh this take away ‘Take this away?’ 3 Wife: Un. yes ‘Yes.’ 4 Husband: Futon shiki-mashi-ta yo. (formal) futon set(add.hon-past) sfp ‘I finished making the bed.’
In example (2), a husband is talking to his wife while the bed is being made. He talks to his wife with the addressee honorific, “masu”. This husband and wife, too, usually talk to each other without addressee honorifics. Just as in example (1), there are not any changes in the social or psychological distance between the speaker and the addressee, or the formality of the immediate situational context. Moreover, this husband is not in a lower position vis-á-vis his wife. This being the case, why does he switch his speech level to formal? Again, this seems to be a case where the addressee honorific in the husband’s utterance indexes his ‘quasi’ sociocultural identity as a wife. In this situational context, this husband is engaged in making the bed, which has traditionally been considered the job of wives. Therefore, he sees himself as a ‘quasi’ wife. Since he was engaged in making the bed, the husband had a ‘quasi’ sociocultural identity as a wife in this situational context, which is realized by the use of addressee honorifics to his wife. The addressee honorific in example (2) indexes the husband’s ‘quasi’ sociocultural identity as a wife. It could be argued that there might be a slight change in the social or psychological distance between speakers and the addressees in examples (1) and (2). The wife in example (1) might feel that she is in a lower position by preparing the dinner. The husband in example (2) might think that he is in a lower position by making the bed. There is no “fixed” distance between the speakers. The social and psychological distance change in relation to the various factors in the speaking context. This might influence their in-group relationships, too. The wife in example (1) and the husband in example (2) might feel their in-
Megumi Yoshida and Chikako Sakurai
group relationships a little more distant than they felt before they were engaged in the role-oriented activities. In this sense, the social and psychological distance and the linguistic choice do not realize a one-to-one relationship. Rather their relationship is more dynamic. In order to show the dynamic nature of the social or psychological changes between speakers and addressees, this paper argues that the switches from plain to formal show that the switches are markers of the sociocultural identity of the speakers, rather than just to say that the switches show changes of the social and psychological distance between the speakers and addressees. (3) 1 Older sister:
2 Younger:
3 Older:
4 Younger:
5 Older:
Sorede saikin futocchatte. (plain) then lately get weight ‘And, I am gaining weight lately.’ Sorette yabaku nai? (plain) it bad not ‘Is it a problem?’ Kanari. (plain) much ‘It is, very much.’ E, nan kiro? (plain) well how many kilos ‘How many kilos?’ Noo komento ni s-asete no-comment dat do-cause itadaki-masu. (formal) receive(ref hon-add hon) ‘No comment.’
Another situation which supports the discussion of the markers as sociocultural identity markers can be seen in example (3). In this example, the older sister is answering a question from her younger sister with the addressee honorific, “masu”. Before this utterance, and generally in everyday conversation, the sisters talk to each other without addressee honorifics. However, in this example, the older sister switches her speech level to formal even though there are no changes in the social or psychological distance between the speaker and the addressee or the formality of the immediate situational context. If so, why does the older sister switch her speech level to formal? The utterance “noo komento ni sasete itadaki masu (No comment)” is often observed when public figures are asked to make comments but they do not want to do so. In example (3), the younger sister asks a question that the older
Japanese honorifics as a marker of sociocultural identity
sister does not want to answer. The older sister answers as if she were such a public figure by imitating their way of speaking in order to avoid answering her younger sister’s question. Therefore, it seems that the addressee honorific in the older sister’s utterance indexes her ‘quasi’ sociocultural identity as a public figure. This example, again, shows that the addressee honorific indexes the speaker’s identity as a public figure. In this section, examples have shown that speakers can use addressee honorifics when they talk to family members. As mentioned in Section 2, speakers of Japanese usually do not use addressee honorifics with family members, since family members are considered to belong to the uchi-group (in-group), where there is limited influence by such factors as social and psychological distance. However, the speakers in this data do use addressee honorifics with uchi-group (in-group) members. This use of addressee honorifics presented sociocultural meanings defined in each context. What makes it possible for the speakers in the examples above to use addressee honorifics toward the addressees to whom the speakers usually do not talk on that speech level? At the least, the speakers must know that the use of addressee honorifics represents some aspect of speech by persons who are engaged in roles such as wife or public figure. Moreover, the sudden switch in the speech level from plain to formal seemed to be accepted naturally by the addressee in each example. This means that not only the speaker but also the addressee acknowledged the sociocultural meaning represented by the addressee honorific in each example. The next section will discuss the mechanism of the indexing of sociocultural meaning by addressee honorifics.
. Discussion . Mechanism of the indexing the speaker’s identity In the previous section, contexts in which the speakers switch their speech level from plain to formal in order to realize their role-oriented identity were illustrated. This section shows the mechanism of how and when the speaker’s identity is realized through the use of addressee honorifics, which leads to the answer to question (ii) from Section 2: What is the mechanism of the switch between plain and formal forms in family conversation? Figure 1 illustrates four steps of the situation where speakers switch from plain forms to formal forms when they talk to in-group addressees. First, there are situations where the speaker is engaged in role-oriented activities. Such
Megumi Yoshida and Chikako Sakurai Engaging in the role-oriented activity
Being reminded of the “sociolinguistics structure” of addressee honorifics
Fitting the “sociolinguistic structure” of addressee honorifics to the immediate speaking context
Indexing the sociocultural identity which is role-oriented
Figure 1. The mechanism: How is sociocultural identity indexed by using the addressee honorifics?
role-oriented activities, for example in this data, are cooking or making the bed, which are considered part of the wife’s role, or giving an interview to reporters as a public figure. Second, such situations remind the speaker of shared knowledge as to how and when to use formal forms with addressee honorifics. In particular, when the speaker was engaged in cooking, she was reminded that some wives talk to their husbands with formal forms with addressee honorifics. Another example was when the speaker was answering a private question, and she was reminded that many public figures usually talk to the interviewers with formal forms with address honorifics. This shared knowledge is what Ide (1999a, 1999b) calls ‘sociolinguistic structure’. ‘Sociolinguistic structure’ is based on the sociocultural knowledge in the speaker’s and the addressee’s minds about how and when to choose which language expression according to the situational context (Ide 1999a, 1999b). The speaker and the addressee share the knowledge of the sociocultural aspect of both linguistic forms and the context. Because of this shared knowledge, the speaker and the addressee can fit the linguistic forms to the contextual factors. How is the sociolinguistic structure acquired? In other words, why does the speaker in the example (1), for example, know that some wives use addressee honorifics toward their husbands even though this speaker herself seldom uses them when talking to her husband? Ide (1999a) claims that Japanese people briefly learn the appropriate use of honorifics in the family, at school, or in the peer group up until they graduate from high school or college. It seems possible that the participants in our examples have acquired the shared knowledge about the use of addressee honorifics by wives or public figures through their own experiences of repeatedly observing the actual uses in the family, like
Japanese honorifics as a marker of sociocultural identity
their mothers’ using addressee honorifics to their fathers, or the uses in other situations such as on TV. Knowledge of the sociolinguistic structure is accumulated and reformulated in the speaker’s mind through constant exposure to situations where addressee honorifics are used. Then the speaker’s use of addressee honorifics functions to fit the ‘sociolinguistic structure’ of addressee honorifics to the immediate situational context. That is, for example, the wife uses the addressee honorific with her husband when she is cooking and this language use fits the ‘sociolinguistic structure’ learned as the use of addressee honorifics by a wife that fits in the immediate speaking context. Lastly, as a result, through this mechanism, addressee honorifics index sociocultural identity, which is role-oriented. This study has focused on the switch from plain forms to formal forms in family in-group conversations and shown the mechanism of how and when the use of addressee honorifics indexes the speaker’s role-oriented identity. This mechanism is not limited to the switch from plain forms to formal forms, however; it could also be applied to the switch from formal forms to plain forms in a conversation with the same addressee in the same speaking context. In that case, the speakers’ role-oriented activities remind them of the sociolinguistic structure of plain forms, and the use of plain forms indexes the speaker’s roleoriented identity by reflecting such sociolinguistic structure in the immediate speaking context. Thus, the speakers of Japanese achieve the indexing of their sociocultural identity, which is role-oriented, by switching speech level. . Role and identity As discussed in the previous section, the close observation of the mechanism of how and when a speaker uses addressee honorifics leads to the discussion of two key concepts for speakers of Japanese: role and identity. This section answers the last question posed in Section 2: why speakers of Japanese switch between the plain forms and the formal forms in a creative way when they talk to the same addressee in the same speaking context. This is done by evaluating these two key concepts, role and identity, in Japanese culture and society. Psychologists, sociologists, and anthropologists have paid much attention to the importance of sociocultural role in non-western culture and society as compared to western culture and society (Brown 1991; Markus & Kitayama 1991; Lebra 1976; Odin 1996). One of their main claims is that the Japanese sense of self changes in many ways in different contexts, depending on the role that they realize. Figure 2 is taken from Markus and Kitayama (1991).
Megumi Yoshida and Chikako Sakurai Mother
Mother
Father Self
Self
Sibling
Friend
Father
Friend
Sibling
Co-worker Co-worker Friend A. Independent View of Self
Friend B. Interdependent View of Self
Figure 2. Conceptual representation of the self (A: Independent construal; B: Interdependent construal) by Marks and Kitayama (1991: 226)
The larger circle in each figure represent the self and the smaller ones represent the other interactants. The Xs in the circles are the representations of the various aspects of the self or the others. Figure 2A represents the westerner’s self, while Figure 2B represents the non-westerner’s self. The self of Japanese people is considered to be an interdependent self as shown in Figure 2B. This self has Xs in the intersection of the larger and smaller circles, which are meant to represent aspects of the self-in-relation-to-others. This conceptualization of the interdependent self by Markus and Kitayama explains why the speakers in the data used here switch speech levels even when they talk to the same addressee within the same situational context. They show different aspects of their self, which are determined by the relationship with the specific others, for example, the aspect as a wife constructed by the relationship with the husband in Japanese culture and society. These various aspects of the self are realized through role performance in Japanese society, and the switch of the speech level, plain to formal, is relevant to this realization. Brown (1991: 9) highlighted the importance of role performance in Japanese society by pointing to the Japanese expression “-rashii”. “Rashii” is a suffix added to nouns naming social roles, such as “okusan-rashii” (wife-like, the epitome of a wife), and it means ideal role performance. Brown claimed that perfection in role performance is an idea more salient for Japanese people than for western people. He continues: “Probably it means something that the conception ideal role performance has, in Japanese, been grammaticized and, in two instances, lexicalized ... whereas expression of this conception in English can only be accomplished with one or another of several noun-phrase constructions.”
Japanese honorifics as a marker of sociocultural identity
The importance of role performance in Japanese culture and society should be a key idea when thinking of the identity of Japanese speakers. A Japanese anthropologist, Takie Lebra (1976: 85) comments that “role commitment among the Japanese can be so strong that, as the term ‘role narcissism’ implies, the role becomes the core of the individual’s identity.” In this study, the speakers switch from plain forms to formal forms depending on the role which they see themselves performing. By doing so, the speakers in this data achieve the realization of their sociocultural identity, which is role-oriented. This role-oriented identity of Japanese speakers is considered to be characterized by their ‘social self ’. An American philosopher, Steve Odin (1996) compares the characteristics of the self of Japanese people discussed by a Japanese philosopher, Kitaro Nishida with those of Western people discussed by an American philosopher George Herbert Mead. According to his comparison, the self of Japanese people is characterized as a social self, which is determined by the others in the society, while the self of Western people arises through creative reaction to the social context. If his explanation of the characteristics of the self of Japanese people is applied to this study, it could be argued that, when speakers of Japanese communicate with others, what determines their way of speaking is the idea of what kind of person the speakers are for the addressees. That is then determined by and realized through the role-relationship with the addressees. Odin’s discussion of the ‘social self ’ of Japanese people might be considered similar to the ‘public self ’ proposed by Cook. However, Cook’s ‘public self ’ is assumed to be the speaker’s social persona as Cook explained, that is, something to show to other people. The ‘social self ’ discussed by Odin, although it is something determined by other people in the society, does not necessarily assume its presentation to the others. Cook (1999) argues that while the speakers show their ‘cultivated persona’ by using addressee honorifics, the change in the speech level to the plain form displays their more ‘neutral self ’. If the Japanese speaker’s self is assumed to be determined by the role-relationship with the addressee, this means that the speakers always realize a certain aspect of their self whether or not they present it, that is, whether or not they are intentionally acting the role, because it is considered that the speakers and the addressees are always engaged in a certain types of role-relationship. Thus, the speaker in example (1), a wife, must have various kinds of role-relationships with her husband other than the relationship as a wife to her husband. She may be a very close friend or a roommate to her husband when talking without addressee honorifics. It can be said that the switch of the speech level between plain form and formal form does not show the presence or ‘absence’ of the speaker’s self
Megumi Yoshida and Chikako Sakurai
Speaker’s self
Friend
Business woman
Mother
Sister Wife
SITUATIONAL CONTEXT (=cooking in example 1)
Roles
Focused role in the situational context (=identity)
Figure 3. How a sociocultural role can become the identity of the Japanese self
or role but demonstrates that the focused role in the speaker’s self has changed consciously or subconsciously. Figure 3 illustrates how a sociocultural role can become the identity of the Japanese self. In Figure 3, the big circle represents the speaker’s self. In the big circle, there are several small circles, which represent the different possible roles of the speaker. The square which surrounds the circle, the self, represents the situational context. Figure 3 can be applied to the example (1) analyzed earlier in this paper. The speaker is engaged in cooking, which is considered to be a wife’s job. In this situational context, the role, wife, is focused on from among all the other roles that she has, such as mother, daughter, businesswoman, friend or sister. Consequently, the role as wife becomes the core identity of the speaker in this context. The discussion of role and identity presented above might seem similar to the use of registers. Registers, which consist of a set of vocabulary items associated with a particular occupational or social group, such as the varieties
Japanese honorifics as a marker of sociocultural identity
used in a court of justice or in a conversation among jazz fans, are strongly linked to the situation where the conversation takes place. The same speaker uses different registers according to the situation. One person may use the doctor’s register when talking to her patient at the hospital while the same person may use the register of a tennis player when she is playing tennis or talking about tennis with her friends. Thus, the use of a register is determined by the speaker’s choice of the variety that is concomitant with the situation. On the other hand, the change of the speech level in the examples above is triggered by the speaker’s engaging in a particular role-oriented activity, and it represents the speaker’s ‘role-like’ performance. It is not used to conform to the language use in a particular situation. Thus, it can be concluded that the use of addressee honorifics in the examples above is different from the use of register; the former shows the speaker’s idea about a particular role performance while the latter shows the speaker’s acknowledgement of language use according to the situation associated with the particular occupational or social group. Why do the speakers of Japanese switch from plain to formal forms when they talk to the same addressee in the same situational context? Two key concepts, role and identity, have been discussed in order to answer this last question. As many previous studies in psychology, sociology, and anthropology have suggested, the sociocultural role is the core identity for speakers of Japanese. This study has shown that the speakers of Japanese express such roleoriented identities by switching speech levels from plain to formal. In sum, by looking at natural conversation data, this study has shown that speakers of Japanese reflect their ‘sociolinguistic structure’ in the immediate speaking context and, in doing so, they can show their sociocultural role-oriented identity by choosing a specific language form. . Creative use of language reflexivity As explained in Section 1, the choice between plain forms and formal forms is grammatically obligatory in the Japanese language. This means that the speakers of Japanese must constantly be aware of the appropriate form to choose, and the language form they choose always expresses sociocultural meanings. Addressee honorifics index various sociocultural meanings such as the social and psychological distance between the speaker and the addressee or the formality of the situation. These sociocultural meanings form the core of the ‘sociolinguistic structure’ of addressee honorifics. There are several discussions of ‘sociolinguistic structure’ (Ide & Yoshida 1999; Ide & Sakurai in press). They show that the linguistic forms chosen by the speaker function as indexes. These
Megumi Yoshida and Chikako Sakurai
indexes reveal the speaker’s identity as that of a person who acknowledges the shared sociocultural knowledge between the speaker and the addressee, that is, the ‘sociolinguistic structure’. The speakers in the examples here usually choose plain forms as their basic speech level when they talk to the addressees according to the ‘sociolinguistic structure’, which shows these speakers’ assessment and acknowledgment of the contextual situation. In addition, the speakers in the data used here switch their speech level from plain forms to formal forms while talking to the same addressees in the same speaking context. These addressee honorifics index the speaker’s sociocultural identity, which is role-oriented, and the indexing mechanism was shown in 5.1. The role-oriented identity is realized by the speaker’s creative use of addressee honorifics, that is, it reflects the ‘sociolinguistic structure’ of the immediate speaking context. In this section, the creative use of such language reflexivity is discussed along with the ‘sociolinguistic structure’. The speakers in the data express their role-oriented identity by employing the ‘sociolinguistic structure’ which can be aligned to the immediate speaking context. For example, the wife in example (1) is reminded of situations where some wives talk to their husbands with addressee honorifics, which shows a significant social distance between the speakers and the addressees. By indexing such wives’ speech, the addressee honorific creates another sociocultural meaning of the speaker’s role-oriented identity as a wife. This creative use of language reflexivity is discussed by Lucy. Lucy (1993: 9) described language reflexivity as “to use language to communicate about the activity of using language.” The sociocultural meanings of addressee honorifics such as social and psychological distance or the formality of the situation show the reflexivity of this language form. This is because, when the form is used, it communicates the speakers’ interpretation of the immediate context. Lucy (1993: 29) further comments that “speakers may develop a variety of special techniques or devices to transcend the limitations of metalanguage.” The speakers in the data used for this study use addressee honorifics as metalanguage. This metalanguage expresses the social and psychological distance or the formality of the situation to create another sociocultural meaning to index their role-oriented identity. Because of this reflexivity of addressee honorifics, speakers of Japanese do not always talk in the same speech level to the same addressee. Although the ‘sociolinguistic structure’ determines the basic speech level appropriate towards each addressee, speakers of Japanese can choose the other speech level according to the role most focused on in that speaking context. Therefore, it is possible to perform various roles vis-à-vis the same addressee
Japanese honorifics as a marker of sociocultural identity
by using plain or formal forms. By way of illustration, the speaker in example (1) usually talks with plain forms with her husband. By talking with plain forms in their daily life, she may perform the role of a close friend to her husband. However, she chooses to use addressee honorifics when she is engaged in role-oriented activity as a wife. In this context, the role as a wife is the one most focused on and represents her identity. Moreover, on some occasions, she might choose addressee honorifics when she performs a different role, for example, as a teacher to her husband, the same addressee. The speakers in Okamoto’s study (1997), which was introduced in Section 2, also used the plain and formal forms the same way in formal situations. They used these forms according to their social position in the immediate speaking context. The basic speech level is formal in that classroom because classes are usually given in formal situations in Japanese society, but the students and the teacher avoid using addressee honorifics when they do not speak as students or teacher. The addressee honorifics in examples (2) and (3) in this study index role-oriented identities that are not attributed to the speakers’ original selves. The husband expresses his ‘quasi’ identity as a wife in (2) and the ordinary person shows her ‘quasi’ identity as a public figure in (3). It is the creative use of language that makes this indexing possible. Because those speakers play the roles that they usually do not, a playfullness, humor, or irony is often generated. Judging from the fact that this role performance is indexed by the choice of addressee honorifics, which are grammatically and pragmatically obligatory, speakers of Japanese constantly choose either plain or formal forms through the mechanism presented in Figure 1. That mechanism becomes crucial whenever speakers of Japanese use addressee honorifics creatively and yet appropriately in the speaking contexts.
. Conclusion In this study, the sociocultural meanings of addressee honorifics are discussed. The examination of naturally occurring conversations between family members who usually talk with plain forms leads to the conclusion that speakers of Japanese use addressee honorifics to express their role-oriented identity. How the sociocultural role is expressed as the speaker’s identity is illustrated in Figure 3. Moreover, in this study, it has been claimed that such creative use of addressee honorifics is based on the shared knowledge of the ‘sociolinguistic structure’ of addressee honorifics, part of which consists of the core sociocultural meanings of addressee honorifics discussed in previous stud-
Megumi Yoshida and Chikako Sakurai
ies. The mechanism of how role-oriented identity is indexed has been shown in Figure 1. This creative use of addressee honorifics brings to mind R. Lakoff ’s proposition that (1975: 3), “language uses us as much as we use language.” The role performance expressed by using addressee honorifics becomes possible only when both the speaker and the addressee understand and share the ‘sociolinguistic structure’ of addressee honorifics. Indexing role-oriented identity by means of addressee honorifics depends on socioculturally shared knowledge of the ‘sociolilnguistic structure’. In this sense, language uses us because the fact that the speakers use addressee honorifics expresses not only the sociocultural meanings but also the speakers’ understanding and even the acknowledgment of such a ‘sociolinguistic structure’ of addressee honorifics. However, speakers of Japanese can use addressee honorifics to create their role-oriented identity at the same time. Thus, it can be argued that the speakers of Japanese use language creatively by making use of the fact that “Language uses us as much as we use language.”
Abbreviations ADD HON COP DAT REF HON SFP
addressee honorifics copula dative referent honorifics sentence final particle
References Brown, Roger (1991). “Language and the relational self.” Paper presented at the 4th International Conference of Language and Social Psychology. Cook, Minegishi Haruko (1997). “The role of the Japanese masu form in caregiver-child conversation.” Journal of Pragmatics, 28, 695–718. Cook, Minegishi Haruko (1999). “Situational meaning of Japanese social deixis: The mixed use of the masu and plain forms.” Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, 8 (1), 87–110. Ide, Sachiko (1982). “Japanese sociolinguistics: Politeness and women’s language.” Lingua, 57, 357–385. Ide, Sachiko (1992). “Nihonjin no uchi soto ninchi to wakimae no gengo shiyo” [Japanese Cognition of uchi and soto, and the use of language according to wakimae]. Gengo [Language] 21, 42–53.
Japanese honorifics as a marker of sociocultural identity
Ide, Sachiko (1999a). “How and why honorifics can signify dignity or elegance: The indexicality and reflectivity of linguistic rituals.” Invited lecture at International Symposium on Linguistic Politeness, Chulalongkorn University, December 7–9, 1999. Ide, Sachiko (1999b). “Gengo ideorogii to washa no aidentitii: Shyotyo no mekanizumu” [Linguistic ideology and speaker’s indentity: A mechanism of symbolization]. In H. Shyouji (Ed.), Kotoba no 20 seiki [Language in the 20th century] (pp. 218–234). Tokyo: Domesu Shuppan. Ide, Sachiko & Sakurai, Chikako (In press). “Politeness forms.” In Ulrich Ammon (Ed.), Sociolinguistics: An International Handbook of the Science of Language and Society. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. Ide, Sachiko & Yoshida, Megumi (1999). “Sociolinguistics: Honorifics and Gender Differences.” In Tsujimura Natsuko (Ed.), The Handbook of Japanese Linguistics (pp. 444– 480). Oxford: Blackwell Publishers. Ikuta, Shoko (1983). “Speech level shift and conversational strategy in Japanese discourse.” Language Sciences, 57, 37–53. Lakoff, Robin (1975). Language and Woman’s Place. New York: Harper and Row. Lebra, Takie (1976). Japanese Patterns of Behavior. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. Lucy, John A. (1993). “Reflexive language and the human disciplines.” In J. Lucy (Ed.), Reflexive Language: Reported Speech and Metapragmatics (pp. 9–32). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Markus, Hazel Rose & Shinobu Kitayama (1991). “Culture and the self: Implications for cognition, emotion, and motivation.” Psychological Review, 98, 224–253. Martin, Samuel E. (1964). “Speech levels in Japan and Korea.” In D. Hymes (Ed.), Language in culture and society (pp. 407–415). New York: Harper and Row. Maynard, Senko K. (1993). Discourse Modality: Subjectivity, Emotion and Voice in the Japanese Language. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company. Odin, Steve (1996). The Social Self in Zen and American Pragmatism. Albany: State University of New York Press. Okamoto, Noriko (1997). “Kyoushitsu danwa ni okeru buntai shifuto no shihyo teki kinou: Teineitai to futsuutai no tsukaiwake” [Indexical function of the style shift in classroom conversation: Use of formal and plain style]. Nihongogaku [Japanese Linguistics], 16, 39–51. Tsujimura, Toshiki (1967). Gendai no Keigo [Honorifics in modern times]. Tokyo: Kyobunsha. Usami, Mayumi (1995). “Danwa reberu kara mita keigo shiyou: spichi reberu shifuto seiki no joken to kinou” [Use of honorifics from the perspective of the discourse: Factors and functions for speech level shift]. Gakuenn, 662, 27–42. Watanabe, Minoru (1970). Kokugokoubunron [A theory of Japanese sentence structure]. Tokyo: Shimashobo.
Directness as a source of misunderstanding The case of requests and suggestions* Alexandra Kallia The aims of the paper are first to find out whether there are common forms employed for the realization of requests and suggestions in different languages, second to test the claim that suggestions are less face threatening than requests at least in some cultures, and third to investigate possible misunderstandings that can arise through the inappropriate use of suggestion and request forms. The data from an empirical study in British English, German and Greek indicate that suggestion forms are employed for requests in all three languages and that only German speakers tend to be more direct in suggestions than in requests, whereas English speakers prefer indirect strategies and Greek speakers direct ones for both acts. Structures that are usually misunderstood are questions without auxiliaries or imperatives accompanied by politeness markers, which are evaluated as impolite by English speakers and as polite by Greeks. Keywords: Requests; suggestions; indirectness; misunderstandings
Requests vs. suggestions Requests and suggestions are both directive speech acts, i.e. the speaker wants to get the hearer to act. Although requests have been the object of several crosscultural studies, suggestions have not attracted much interest. The generally accepted definition for requests (following Searle 1969) includes the conditions that the predicated act is to be performed by the hearer (propositional content condition) and that the speaker wants the hearer to perform the act (sincerity condition). Therefore, the face threat potential involves the hearer’s negative face (his/her desire to be free from imposition, cf. Brown & Levinson 1978, 1987) since the hearer is expected to conform, as well as the
Alexandra Kallia
the speaker’s positive face (his/her need to be liked) since the speaker is trying to have his/her own way. In suggestions the predicated act is performed either by the hearer (a common aspect with requests) or by the hearer and the speaker together. What makes the definition of suggestions problematic, however, is that there does not seem to be a consensus as to who the beneficiary of the act is. According to Banerjee and Carrell (1988) suggestions are directive acts in the interest of the hearer. On the other hand, Hindelang (1978) classifies such an act as advice (Ratschlag) and defines suggestions (Vorschläge) as directives in the interest of both participants.1 Finally, Edmondson and House (1981) take account of both definitions in their study and distinguish between suggest-for-you and suggest-for-us, an approach I want to follow in this paper. A further distinction Edmondson and House make is between suggestions that initiate a conversational exchange (initiate-suggestions) and suggestions that are produced as a reaction to and in this sense fulfil a previous conversational move within an exchange (satisfy-suggestions) (cf. also Hindelang’s erwünschter (wished-for) vs. aufgedrängter Ratschlag (imposed advice)). As far as the face threat potential is concerned one could claim that suggestions are not as face threatening as requests since the act is in the hearer’s interest (either wholly as in suggest-for-you acts or partly as in suggest-for-us acts) but there is still some face threat involved. Similarly to when a request is made, it is the hearer’s negative face which is threatened (since a hearer may feel obliged to comply with a suggestion in order not to hurt the feelings of the speaker, who thinks favourably of the act) as well as as the speaker’s positive face (since persons who express that they know better are not liked; this applies especially in the case of initiate-suggestions, i.e. suggestions that have not been asked for). Nevertheless, the face threat potential of a certain speech act depends on the values of a given culture. Wierzbicka (1991) has claimed that in Slavic and Mediterranean cultures it is the welfare of the addressee which counts most and therefore speakers are expected to impose when the act is in the interest of the hearer. This makes suggestions less face threatening in Polish, for example, than in English. Moreover, it is part of a native speaker’s sociopragmatic competence to know not only how threatening a speech act is but also whether a speech act (e.g. suggestion) is at all appropriate in a given context or whether another act such as an offer or a granting of permission should be preferred.
Directness as a source of misunderstanding
Realization strategies The motivation to compare realization strategies for requests and suggestions originates in some claims that some forms conventionally employed for suggestions may be used to make requests and vice versa. Trosborg points out that by phrasing a request as a suggestion the requester wants to “play down his/her own interest as a beneficiary of the action” (Trosborg 1995: 201) and to present his/her own interests as the hearer’s. Such examples can be found in several studies, in which a suggestory form (either conventionally indirect as in (1) and (2) or even an explicit performative as in (3) is included as a strategy for the realization of requests in English. (1) Why don’t you repay the loan? (2) How about a hamburger?
(Kim 1992) (Gibbs 1985)
(3) I suggest you let me get on with my work now. (Edmondson & House 1981)2
Similarly, the thesis that suggestions can be phrased as requests can be supported by the argument that a speaker wants to indicate that he shares the hearer’s interests (and so perhaps save his positive face). However, there are two opposite positions to this thesis: Edmondson and House (1981) consider it possible and give the following example of an explicit performative utterance of a request to express a suggestion: (4) Do go and see a doctor about it, I beg you.
On the other hand, Banerjee and Carrell (1988) in their study of suggestions produced by non-native speakers found out that conventional request forms (like (5) and (6)) when used to make a suggestion have the opposite effect. Not only do they fail to convey politeness (the feeling that the speaker makes the hearer’s interests to his own) but they usually sound offensive. (5) ?Would you please study more? (6) ?Would you please change your clothes?
Although both (5) and (6) are acceptable request forms (i.e. when it is clear that the speaker is benefitting from the act, e.g. when addressed from a parent to a child) they make awkward suggestions (e.g. from one fellow student to another). In German, there is no empirical evidence for the existence of common forms but in Hindelang’s theoretical study (1978) the patterns können wir
Alexandra Kallia
nicht / könnten wir nicht (can’t we / couldn’t we) are included in the realization forms for both requests and suggestions. Nevertheless, Hindelang always includes bitte (please) in requests and am besten (best) in suggestions so that the forms for the different speech acts are not identical. Finally, in Greek there has been no research on realization strategies for requests and suggestions so far. To sum up this paper addresses the following questions: 1. How frequently are suggestory forms employed as request strategies in different languages? 2. Are suggestions less face threatening (and therefore more direct) in some cultures? If they are not, are perhaps other acts more appropriate in a given context (e.g. offers)? 3. What kind of misunderstandings can arise through the inappropriate use of suggestion and request forms? Is the politeness degree misvalued or perhaps even the force of the utterance?
The data Data collection Data was collected in two phases. In phase one a discourse completion test (DCT) was used (see questionnaire Appendix 1). The test consisted of four pairs of open ended situations. The situations were constructed in such a way that the only difference in the situations in a pair was whether the act that would be performed by the hearer was in the interest of the speaker (request) or the hearer (suggestion). The subjects were explicitly told how the speaker felt in either situation (i.e. whether he wanted the act done for his own benefit or because he thought it would benefit the addressee). The situations were openended, that is the subjects were not given the hearer’s response to the utterance they were asked to provide, which left them free to phrase their utterances in the way they thought appropriate. This turned out to be an advantage, especially in the cases in which some subjects did not come up with the expected type of speech act (request or suggestion) but provided a different type (granting of permission or offer). Moreover, the acts in all four pairs had minimal weightiness (the values Power (P), Social Distance (D) and Ranking of Imposition (R) were low, see Table 1), because the greater the weightiness the more indirect and longer the utterances tend to be. The object of the experiment was to test the application of direct or indirect strategies in cases where
Directness as a source of misunderstanding
Table 1. Contents of the first questionnaire Situation 1 (S)/ 2 (R) 3 (S)/ 4 (R) 5 (R)/ 6 (S) 7 (S)/ 8 (R)
Act Opening a window (friends) Opening the window (strangers) Changing clothes (friends) Making coffee (friends)
P
Weightiness D
R
– – – –
– + – –
1 1 3 2
S = Suggestion, R = Request P (–/+) = Power, D (–/+) = Social Distance, R (1, 2, 3) = Ranking of Imposition
a direct, one-sentence realization would be a realistic possibility. This made the DCT a suitable and reliable method for the elicitation of data since even in real communication no long sequences would have occurred (cf. Beebe & Cummings 1996). In particular, in all eight situations no participant had power over the other participant. Only in sit. 3 and sit. 4 was there some social distance between participants (strangers in a waiting room), in all the others the participants were fellow students. The imposition of the act requested or suggested ranked from opening a window (sit. 1/2 and 3/4, imposition degree 1) and making coffee (sit. 7/8, imposition degree 2) to changing clothes (sit. 5/6, imposition degree 3). The estimation of the degree of imposition was relative among the acts occurring in the situations and it was based on the comparative amount of time and effort needed to perform the actions. Crosscultural variation (e.g. whether making coffee is considered to be a greater imposition in the German or in the Greek culture) was not taken into consideration. The point is that for every language examined situations 1/2 and 3/4 varied in the D factor whereas situtations 1/2 and 7/8 in the R factor. Finally, situation pairs 1/2, 3/4 and 7/8 were so constructed that the act might benefit both, it was not something exclusively in one participant’s interest. Therefore the speakers would have no difficulty phrasing a request as a suggestion or vice versa, if they thought this was an appropriate strategy. In Phase 2, the same subjects were given three questionnaires (see Appendix 2) each one of which consisted of one situation (situations 1/2, 3/4 and 7/8 from the first questionnaire; situation 5/6 was not included in the discussion of the data) only this time they were outlined from the point of view of the hearer, so that the hearer had no clue about the intentions of the speaker. On the questionnaire there was a table with 19–21 possible answers the speaker might have produced and 14 judgements about the speaker’s intentions and politeness degree of the utterances. The subjects were asked to put themselves in the position of the hearer and to evaluate every utterance.
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The subjects were second year students. The German native speakers were students of English and the English native speakers were British exchange students studying in Germany for a year. The Greek subjects were partly exchange students in Germany studying German and English and partly students of English and German at a Greek university. All subjects evaluated questionnaires both in their mother tongue and in one foreign language.
Discussion Common forms The results from the request situations (2, 4 and 8) are of interest for this paper only as far as the request data include typical suggestion strategies like impersonal forms ((7)–(9)) or forms that explicitly include the addressee as a beneficiary of the act ((10)–(12)). Such forms appeared to a small degree in the English data and to a greater in the German and Greek data (cf. Table 2 below). In fact, in the Greek data almost one third (31,2%) of the requests were phrased as suggestions. (7) English What about a cup of coffee? (8) German Ein Kaffee wäre jetzt nicht schlecht A coffee would be now not bad ‘Coffee would be a good idea.’ (9) Greek Ti les gia dialimma gia kafe? What you-say about break for coffee ‘What do you say about a coffee break?’ (10) German Sollen wir das Fenster öffnen? Should we the window open ‘Should we open the window?’ (11) German Wollen wir einen Kaffee trinken? Want we a coffee drink ‘Do we want to have some coffee?’
Directness as a source of misunderstanding
(12) Greek Tha itheles na kanume ena dialimma gia kafe? Would you want to make-we a break for coffee ‘Would you like us to have a coffee break?’
As Table 2 shows, all groups employed suggestion forms in situation 8 (coffee). This indicates that phrasing a request as a suggestion occurs when the degree of imposition is somehow considerable (cf. Table 1: Sit. 8 has the value 2 whereas situations 2 and 4 have the value 1) and there is no social distance between the participants.3 Note that the English and German subjects did not use any suggestion forms in situation 4, where the participants do not know each other, which indicates that in these cases a politeness form is preferred that does not include the addressee in the performance of the act, i.e. the negative face of the addressee is the primary consideration. For the Greek subjects, on the other hand, the polite formulation consists of giving the addressee a feeling of in-group membership by employing positive politeness strategies (1st person plural questions, as in (12)). These results are compatible with Sifianou’s (1992) findings. Table 2. Suggestion forms (%) employed by native speakers in requests
Sit. 2: Window friends Sit. 4: Window strangers Sit. 8: Coffee
English speakers
German speakers
Greek speakers
0 0 7
5.4 0 14.7
5.8 6.2 31.2
Table 3. Suggestions (%) native speakers English
German
Greek
Wind. F. Wind. S. Coffee Wind. F. Wind. S. Coffee Wind. F. Wind. S. Coffee Imperative Direct Question Convent. indirect Offer Granting Permission
1E 0 0
3E 0 0
7E 0 0
1Ge 50 0
3Ge 14.7 0
7Ge 7.8 0
1Gr 31.8 13.6
3 Gr 13 6.6
7 Gr 5 23.5
46
23
57
19
44.1
71
27.2
33.3
35.3
53.8 0
15.3 46
35.7 0
24.2 0
5.8 23.5
18.4 0
4.5 0
13.3 20
5.9 0
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The results from the suggestions can be seen in Table 3. The strategies used for suggestions are classified as: 1. Direct strategies – Imperatives – Direct questions, e.g. Machst du das Fenster auf? (German) / Anigis to parathiro? (Greek), “Are you going to open the window?”, a strategy used for requests in German and in Greek but not in English.4 2. Conventionally indirect strategies, e.g. Why don’t you open the window?, Wie wäre es, wenn...? (How would it be, if...; German), Ti les gia...? (What do you say about...?; Greek). 3. Other speech acts – Offering, e.g Shall I open the window?, an act that is going to be performed by the speaker alone.5 – Granting permission, e.g. You may open the window. The proportions of the different strategies in the native speakers’ productions can be seen in Table 3. The English native speakers refrained from imperatives in suggestions the same way they did in requests. Suggestions were either phrased as offers or produced by means of conventionally indirect forms (Why don’t you...?, Don’t you want...?). German native speakers used imperatives but the total amount of imperatives decreased as the weightiness of the act increased: clearly fewer imperatives were used in situations 3 and 7. These results are compatible with the findings from previous research. In cases in which participants are familiar with each other directness is preferred (Blum-Kulka & House 1989). Since the Germans, unlike the English, employed imperatives for performing requests as well, imperatives are together with conventional suggestion forms another common strategy for the realization of both acts. Direct requests are often distinguished through politeness markers such as bitte (please). Other markers (mal, doch) were common for both acts. So (13) was produced as both a request and a suggestion in the situation pair 1/2. (13) Mach mal das Fenster auf! Make pol. marker the window open ‘Open the window!’
Directness as a source of misunderstanding
Finally, Hindelang’s classification found support in the data since können wir (nicht) (can(’t) we) was used for both acts but only to a small extent. (14) Können wir vielleicht einen Kaffee trinken? Could we perhaps a coffee drink ‘Could we perhaps have some coffee?’
Greeks made use of direct strategies, too, but their use differed from that of the Germans in two points: First, the Greeks made use not only of imperatives but also of direct questions (with or without negation6 ) (cf. (15)), a strategy which was totally absent in the German suggestion data, although it was used as a request strategy (cf. (16)). (15) Den kanis enan kafe? Not make-you a coffee ‘Don’t you make some coffee?’ (16) Machst du mal das Fenster auf? Make you pol. marker the window open ‘Are you opening the window?’
Second, the Greeks used more direct strategies in sit. 7 (coffee, friends) (28,5%) than in sit. 3 (window, strangers) (18,6%) whereas the Germans were more direct in sit. 3 (14,7%) than in sit. 7 (7,8%). This could mean that the distance factor (D) is related to indirectness in the Greek more than in the German culture. The relatively greater ranking of the imposition (R), on the other hand, does not seem to require an indirect strategy in Greek. Again, this is compatible with Sifianou’s (1992) analysis of politeness in Greek. Conventionally indirect forms were preferred in sit. 7 by the English speakers (57%) and in both sit. 3 and sit. 7 by the Germans (44,1% in sit. 3 and 71% in sit. 7) and the Greeks (33,3% in sit. 3 and 35,3% in sit. 7). All three types of speakers used offers in all three situations. Instead of suggesting that the hearer perform the act, they offered to do it themselves. English speakers used this strategy more than the others but surprisingly they used it more in situation 1 (53,8%) than in the other two, although a greater degree of politeness was expected in the other situations. This could be connected with the directive element present in offers (cf. Note 5): Offering is somehow imposing on the hearer and therefore avoided in acts with greater W-value. Finally all three types of speakers granted permission that the hearer may perform the act instead of suggesting in situation 3 only. This is interesting, but it should be remembered that in this situation neither of the speakers were at home, but in a doctor’s surgery, on neutral territory.
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Pragmalinguistic transfer The next question is how similar the speakers’ productions in the second language were to the ones in their mother tongue, i.e. whether pragmalinguistic transfer has occurred as defined by Thomas: “The inappropriate transfer of speech act strategies from one language to another, or the transferring from the mother tongue to the target language of utterances which are semantically/syntactically equivalent, but which, because of different ‘interpretive bias’, tend to convey a different pragmatic force in the target language” (Thomas 1983: 101). Instances of pragmalinguistic transfer, however, can only be detected if the transfer is unsuccessful, i.e. if the strategy is not used in the foreign language. If it is used then we cannot be sure whether the learner used it on purpose because s/he knew it was possible or accidentally because s/he did not know how to phrase what s/he wanted to say in the foreign language and employed a strategy from the mother tongue s/he was familiar with.
German English native speakers speaking German did not produce any direct forms (i.e. imperatives), which can be seen as transfer since the English data have shown that directness is avoided. On the other hand they also tended to use more offers in situations 1 (71.4%) and 3 (55.5%) than they did in English (53.8% and 15.3%, respectively), so perhaps this shows a general tendency of non-native speakers to be more polite when speaking a foreign language. The results of the English native speakers’ responses in German can be seen in Table 4. Table 4. English native speakers
German n. s.
Wind. F. Wind. S. Coffee Wind. F. Wind. S. Coffee Wind. F. Wind. S. Coffee Imperative Direct question Convent. indirect Offer Granting permission
1E 0 0
3E 0 0
7E 0 0
1Ge 0 0
3 Ge 0 0
7 Ge 0 0
1Ge 50 0
3Ge 14.7 0
7Ge 7.8 0
46
23
57
28
14
100
19
44.1
71
53.8 0
15.3 46
35.7 0
71.4 0
55.5 28.5
0 0
24.2 0
5.8 23.5
18.4 0
1E, 3E, 7E: responses in English for the respective situation 1Ge, 3Ge, 7Ge: responses in German for the respective situation
Directness as a source of misunderstanding
Table 5. English n.s.
German native speakers
Wind. F. Wind. S. Coffee Wind. F. Wind. S. Coffee Wind. F. Wind. S. Coffee Imperative Direct question Convent. indirect Offer Granting Permission
1E 0 0
3E 0 0
7E 0 0
1Ge 50 0
3Ge 14.7 0
7Ge 7.8 0
1E 16.6 0
3E 7.6 0
7E 9.6 0
46
23
57
19
44.1
71
69.4
51,2
67.7
53.8 0
15.3 46
35.7 0
24.2 0
5.8 23.5
18.4 0
5.5 25.6
15.3 25.6
16.1 3.2
English German native speakers on the other hand when speaking English seemed more prone to adopt the English native speakers’ strategies: In situations 1 and 3 they used far fewer direct strategies (16.6% in sit. 1 and 7.6% in sit. 3) than they did in German (50% and 14.7% respectively). Unlike English native speakers who employed more offers when speaking in a second language (i.e., German) German native speakers relied more on conventionally indirect forms (69.4% in sit. 1 and 51.2% in sit. 3). German speakers also made considerable use of granting permission in all three situations. The results of the German native speakers’ responses in English can be seen in Table 5. The learners’ data show that English native speakers avoid direct forms when they speak German. Generally, they are overpolite: they employ more offering and conventionally indirect forms than they use in English in 1 and 3; in 7, where Germans tended to be conventionally indirect, this strategy turned out to be more successful, since the English native speakers’ productions were closer to the Germans’ responses here. German native speakers were not as direct as in their German utterances; they did increase offering in 1, but they still did not come close to the native speakers’ use of offers in 1.
Misunderstandings According to Falkner (1997), misunderstandings can occur on one of the three levels of the communicative function of an utterance: the propositional,
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the illocutional and the modificators’ level, which includes elements of pragmatic meaning like irony, metaphor and politeness. It is on the illocutional and modificators’ level that misunderstanding can occur in cases of pragmalinguistic tranfer. According to the data from the second questionnaire the most frequent sources of misunderstandings among participants from the three cultures examined are the direct strategies. This can be seen in the different judgements on the degree of politeness of an utterance different speakers give. Negative questions (with or without auxiliaries) were almost always perceived as impolite by German and English speakers but not by Greek speakers. If no request for suggestion preceded (which was the case in all situations in the second questionnaire, i.e. they were all initiate-suggestions) most speakers could not decide whether these questions were intended as requests or suggestions by the speakers. Whether the politeness judgements change in the case of satisfysuggestions is a question which remains open. English speakers evaluated imperative forms as impolite (both in English and in German). Greek speakers rated imperative T-forms (2nd person singular) in Greek as neither polite nor impolite, and imperatives in English as impolite. However, if the English imperatives were accompanied by please, they were rated by Greek learners of English as polite. German speakers gave mixed judgements for imperatives accompanied by bitte (please) in German: some considered them polite, others neither polite nor impolite, and others rude. So it seems that for Greeks the politeness degree of an utterance depends to a great extent on politeness markers, whereas for English speakers it is the mood of the sentence (imperative vs. interrogative) that makes the difference.
Conclusions The answers to the three questions above according to the data are following: 1. In all three languages conventional suggestion forms were used for the realization of requests, especially in situations where the degree of imposition was considerable and there was no social distance between the participants. In German and in Greek direct strategies and, to a lesser extent in German, questions with can we (können wir) were used for both requests and suggestions. 2. In English direct strategies are avoided for the realization of suggestions as is the case with requests. In German, in all pairs of situations the subjects
Directness as a source of misunderstanding
used more direct strategies for suggestions than for requests. In Greek the proportion of direct strategies was approximately the same. These findings lead to the conclusion that suggestions must be considered less face threatening only in German. 3. Direct forms like imperatives and questions without auxiliaries were evaluated as impolite by English speakers. The German learners’ judgements of rudeness of direct strategies were closer to the English natives’ than the ones by the Greek learners.
Notes * I would like to thank Prof. Dr. H. B. Drubig and Dr. Elsa Lattey for comments and discussion. . The distinction between advice and suggestion is difficult to make. In both cases the speaker is predicating a future act of the hearer that the hearer would not perform anyway and that the speaker believes is in the interest of the hearer. Wierzbicka in her semantic dictionary of speech act verbs bases the distinction between the two on the speaker’s expertise: “Anybody can suggest but not anybody can advise; and if one does offer advice without having reasons to think that it would be welcome, one acts in a presumptuous manner. The speaker’s grounds for expecting that his view will be welcome are not specified. It may be knowledge, it may be experience, but it may be his close personal relationship with the addressee” (Wierzbicka 1987: 181f.). . This utterance (produced in a certain tone and accompanied by paralinguistic features) can (but need not) convey more than the mere act of requesting. For example, it can imply a threat (cf. Edmondson & House 1981: 124f.) or it can be sarcastic. . For the German data it can be perhaps claimed that it is a combination of the R and D factors since German is the only langauge in which there is a considerable difference in the amount of suggestion forms employed in situations 2 and 4, which differ in the D factor. . A lexically and structurally equivalent form in English would be Are you going to open the window? but it is not pragmatically equivalent since it is not conventionalized to the extent direct questions are in Greek and in German. . Offers are primarily commissive speech acts, i.e. the speaker commits him/herself to perform an act. Nevertheless, offers can also have a directive character, as Hancher points out: “To offer something is both to try and direct that person’s behaviour, and also to commit oneself to a corresponding course of behaviour. In offering you wine I am trying to get you to drink wine and also commiting myself to provide you with the wine to drink” (Hancher 1979: 9). In Shall I open the window? the directive element is very weak. . As far as the occurrence of the negative particle is concerned, Greek is apparently similar to Spanish: “The negative is part of a conventionalized formula in certain interrogative suggestions. In those cases, the negative does not convey any pragmatic effect” (Koike 1994: 525).
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References Banerjee, J. & Carrell, P. L. (1988). “‘Tuck in your shirt, you squid.’ Suggestions in ESL”. Language Learning, 38, 313–364. Beebe, L. M. & Cummings, M. C. (1996). “Natural speech ach data versus written questionnaire data: How data collection method affects speech act performance”. In S. M. Gass & J. Neu (Eds.), Speech Acts across Cultures: Challenges to Communication in a Second Language (pp. 65–86). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Blum-Kulka, S. & House, J. (1989). “Cross-cultural and situational variation in requesting behavior.” In S. Blum-Kulka et al. (Eds.), Crosscultural Pragmatics (pp. 123–153). Norwood, NJ: Ablex. Brown, P. & Levinson, S. C. (1978). “Universals in language usage: Politeness phenomena”. In E. Goody (Ed.), Questions and Politeness: Strategies in Social Interaction (pp. 56–310). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Brown, P. & Levinson, S. C. (1987). Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Edmondson, W. & House, J. (1981). Let’s Talk and Talk about it. München: Urban and Schwarzenberg. Falkner, W. (1997). Verstehen, Missverstehen und Missverstaendnisse. Tuebingen: Niemeyer. Gibbs, R. W. (1985). “Situational conventions and requests”. In J. P. Forgas (Ed.), Language and Social Situations (pp. 97–110). New York: Springer Verlag. Hancher, M. (1979). “The classification of cooperative illocutionary acts.” Language in Society, 8 (1), 1–14. Hindelang, G. (1978). Auffordern. Göppingen: Kümmerle. Kim, M. (1992). “Crosscultural Variations in Implicit Theories of Requesting Behaviour.” Ph.D. Dissertation. Ann Arbor: Michigan. Koike, D. (1994). “Negation in Spanish and English suggestions and requests: Mitigating effects.” Journal of Pragmatics, 21, 513–526. Searle, J. R. (1969). Speech Acts. An Essay in the Philosophy of Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sifianou, M. (1992). Politeness Phenomena in England and Greece: A Cross-Cultural Perspective. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Thomas, J. (1983). “Cross cultural pragmatic failure.” Applied Linguistics, 4, 91–112. Trosborg, A. (1995). Interlanguage Pragmatics. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Wierzbicka, A. (1987). English Speech Act Verbs: A Semantic Dictionary. Sydney: Academic Press. Wierzbicka, A. (1991). Cross-Cultural Pragmatics. The Semantics of Human Interaction. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Directness as a source of misunderstanding
Appendix 1 First questionnaire Dear participant, Below you have 8 situations. In every situation you are asked to write exactly what the person in question would say. Please do not read all the situations at first but reply to one at a time, in the order they are given. The length of the utterance you give may vary from one word to several sentences, length is not important, as long as the utterance sounds natural. It is important for you to understand that we are in no way giving you a mark on your responses. There are no right or wrong answers. Sometimes more than one answer might be appropriate. If you think this is the case, please feel free to offer the alternatives. Thank you very much for your participation.
Situation 1 John and Christine are sitting in a room The door and the windows are closed. Christine says: “Oh, dear, it’s so warm in here!” John believes that Christine will feel cooler if she opens the window. John:
Situation 2 John and Christine are sitting in a room The door and the windows are closed. Christine feels warm and she believes that she will feel cooler if John opens the window. Christine:
Situation 3 Mr. Peters and Mrs. Moore are sitting in doctor X’s waiting room. The door and the windows are closed. Mrs. Moore says: “Oh, dear, it’s so warm in here!” Mr. Peters believes that Mrs. Moore will feel cooler if she opens the window. Mr. Peters:
Situation 4 Mr. Peters and Mrs. Moore are sitting in a room The door and the windows are closed. Mrs. Moore feels warm and she believes that she will feel cooler if Mr. Peters opens the window. Mrs. Moore:
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Situation 5 Thomas has been invited to dinner by his professor and he asked his friend George to come with him to his professor’s house. When Thomas goes to pick George up he sees that George is wearing a pair of jeans and a T-shirt. Thomas believes that one should dress formally for such an occasion. Thomas:
Situation 6 Thomas has been invited to dinner by his professor and he asked his friend George to come with him to his professor’s house. When George goes to pick Thomas up he sees that Thomas is wearing a pair of jeans and a T-shirt. George believes that one should dress formally for such an occasion. George:
Situation 7 Ann and Kathryn are friends and they are studying for an exam at Ann’s place. Ann has yawned several times and Kathryn believes that she needs some coffee. Kathryn:
Situation 8 Ann and Kathryn are friends and they are studying for an exam at Ann’s place. Kathryn feels sleepy and she believes that she needs some coffee. Kathryn:
Directness as a source of misunderstanding
Appendix 2 Second questionnaire Below you are given one situation, a table with 20 different utterances (i–xx) a person might have produced in this situation and on the right thirteen possible judgements (A–N) of these utterances. Please evaluate each utterance and describe your feelings about it by putting a circle round the letters of the judgements you agree with. There are no right or wrong answers, it is important to describe your own interpretation and evaluation of the utterance. Of course, you may give the same answers for different utterances, if you think them appropriate. Situation Christine and John are two students in their early twenties. They happen to have chosen the same topic for a paper they have to present in class and their instructor suggested that they prepare it together. They are sitting in a study-room. The door and the windows are closed. John says (i–xx) (see table below).
Your judgements Imagine that you are Christine. On the basis of what John says in (i–xx) ...why do you think John wants the window open? (choose only one answer) A I think he is hot and wants to feel better B I think he is hot and thinks I (Christine) am hot, too and wants us both to feel better C I think he thinks I am hot and wants me to feel better D I can’t decide whether A or B or C is the case ...how do you (Christine) evaluate John’s utterance? (choose only one!) I think he is being E overpolite F polite G rude H neither polite nor rude ...how do you(Christine) feel about John’s utterance? (choose as many answers as you think are true) I I feel he is criticizing me J I feel he is telling me what to do K I feel he is asking me L I feel he is being ironic M I feel he is being arrogant N I feel he is just expressing an idea
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The utterances
Forms of address in Irish and Swedish Anders Ahlqvist Traditionally, pronouns in Swedish followed rules similar to those that still apply in European languages like French and German. The 2nd singular Du was used for intimate addressing and the 2nd plural Ni was used when politeness was not required. The title of the addressee was required to show genuine politeness. In the late sixties, a reform introduced the familiar Du for all situations. In Sweden, the reform has been fairly successful. In the Swedish of Finland, usage had been more in line with that of French and German, in that the use of the title was never as widespread as in Sweden. Ni could be used more widely, without loss of politeness. The Swedish reform has been somewhat less succesful in Finland. Irish has preserved the inherited 2nd singular tú for addressing all, regardless of status. The 2nd plural sibh is reserved for addressing groups consisting of more than one. The paper provides examples from the two languages and thoughts regarding the reasons for Swedish having and Irish not having adopted polite forms in the first place. The Swedish reform is examined in its historical context of the ideological events of the late 1960s. Keywords: Politeness; pronouns; Irish; Swedish
Present-day Irish and Swedish share a remarkable feature. Both languages have one single pronoun that is used to address all interlocutors, regardless of status, in the singular, and another to address them in the plural. In other words, they lack words with the general characteristics of what Brown and Levinson (1987: 198–204; see also Brown & Gilman 1960: 254) have described as T- and V-forms, following the initials of the Latin pronouns tu and vos. As will become clear below, these two languages are thus quite different from standard English, which has only one 2nd person pronoun, you, which is used to address all spoken to, regardless of their status or number. It is relevant
Anders Ahlqvist
to remind the reader (see Crystal 1995: 71) that the English you derives from former V-forms and that the old T-form thou is now obsolete, although still understood by many speakers. Irish has preserved the inherited 2nd singular pronoun for addressing all individuals, regardless of their status in relation to the speaker. Likewise, the 2nd plural is reserved for addressing groups consisting of more than one person. On the other hand, the use of pronouns in Swedish was traditionally, and up to the late sixties, characterized by rules similar to, but not identical with those that still apply in modern continental European languages, like for instance German and French. In other words, Swedish had T- and V-forms. However, in the late 60s, a reform was introduced, requiring Swedes to use the familiar Du with each other, in all situations. Also, the greeting hej! ‘hi!’ was generalised. Until then, it had been reserved for use between intimates. The reform has been fairly successful, even if there was initial resistance, especially among older people. This paper provides examples from the two languages to show how their pronouns of address work. Also, some remarks will be provided regarding the historical reasons for Swedish having and Irish not having adopted polite pronominal forms in the first place. Likewise, an attempt will be made to elucidate the reasoning behind the Swedish reform, setting it in its ideologically important historical context of the late 1960s.
Irish The inherited 2nd singular pronoun tú is always used for addressing all individuals, regardless of their status in relation to the speaker. Likewise, the 2nd plural sibh is reserved for addressing groups consisting of more than one person. The following quotations from the best currently available reference grammar of Modern Irish (Christian Brothers 1999: 121, cp. 1980: 82) provide some basic information about the 2nd person pronouns: [sg.] 2 tusa, thusa (tú, thú) . . . [pl.] 2. sibhse (sibh)
The alternatives given are not germane to the argument in this paper, describing as they do the differences between subject (tusa/tú) and object (thusa/thú) forms as well as between emphasized (t[h]usa, sibhse) and non-emphasized (t[h]ú, sibh) ones. The grammar (Christian Brothers 1999: 123) also gives a few examples to illustrate actual usage:
Forms of address in Irish and Swedish
Gearalt: An tusa Gearóid? Gearóid: Is mé. [‘Are you Gearóid? I am’] Gearalt: An libhse nó leosan é? Gearóid: Is linne. [‘Is it yours or theirs? It is ours’]
The first of these examples makes it clear that the conversation is between two men, called Gearalt and Gearóid, who do not know each other and thus might, in German and French, at any rate, be expected to use V-forms when talking to each other. The second one involves the so-called prepositional pronouns of Irish (Christian Brothers 1999: 114, cp. 1980: 83). Thus, libh(se), leo(san) and linn(e) may be translated literally: ‘with you (pl.), them, us’, whereas the suffixed -se, -san and -e indicate that the forms in question have emphasis. The context is clearly a plural one. Furthermore, in a discussion of forms of address, it is relevant to add that, like older Indo-European languages such as Greek and Latin, Irish has a vocative case. The same grammar (Christian Brothers 1999: 74, cp. 1980: 30) gives the following examples: a Shéamais [‘o Séamas!’]; a bhuachaillí [‘o boys!’]
It must be noted that it makes no difference if the addressee has higher status than the speaker. In such a case, the vocative is still used, as for instance in (Christian Brothers 1999: 83): Fáilte romhat, a Athair Uí Shé[‘you are welcome, o Father Ó Sé!’]
In this connection, it is further worth mentioning that Old Irish had a word often used when speaking to older people, namely: popa m. (lat. papa), . . . always used with a npr. following and most freq. in voc. as a respectful form of address to an elder or superior, but occas. familiarly to an inferior a phopa cháin Conaire [‘o dear master Conaire’], . . . a mo phopa Chathbaid [‘o my master Cathbad!’]. (Quin 1983: 497, col. 195.52–69)
Swedish For a long time, the Swedish 2nd singular Du was used only when addressing intimate friends and relatives. The 2nd plural Ni was used to address strangers, but only when particular politeness was not required. The title of the addressee was required to show genuine politeness. This could take two forms. One was for the title to be used on its own, usually in its definite form. The other was for the title (without the definite article) to be followed by the person’s surname.
Anders Ahlqvist
In both cases the verb was in the 3rd person singular. A Swedish grammar in English (Björkhagen 1962: 85) dating from the early sixties describes this adequately: Du is used between intimate friends and members of the family (like French tu and German du). The use of du, however, is spreading among young people of the same class (students, workmen, etc.) Ni (in the singular) is not generally accepted as a form of address like ‘you’ in English. It is always correct when speaking to a stranger or to one’s inferiors. If you know the title, profession or name of the individual addressed, it is considered more polite to use the title (in the definite form) or name, as if speaking of the person instead of to him. Talar ni svenska? Ni kan inte komma dit i kväll. Har professorn varit i London? Har generalkonsuln sett tidningen för idag? Har greven (the Count) varit på teatern nyligen? Vill fru Andersson dricka en kopp te? Har herr Pettersson en tändsticka?
Do you speak Swedish? You cannot get there tonight. Have you been in London? Have you seen today’s paper? Have you been to the theatre lately? Would you like a cup of tea, Mrs. Andersson? Have you got a match, Mr. Pettersson?
All these examples illustrate usage at that time, among people who do not know each other well. Since Björkhagen’s book was aimed at non-native speakers of Swedish, it is natural that it should not give examples of forms that foreigners would not be expected to use. In the late 60s, things started changing; Swedes began to use the familiar Du with each other, in all situations. This also became the case for the greeting hej! [‘hi!’]. Until then, it had been reserved for use between intimates. Another, slightly later textbook (McClean 1969: 55–56) of Swedish gives some indication of how change was taking place: Singular ... 2nd Person: ...
Plural du, ni ‘thou, you’
ni ‘you’
In the Second Person du is only used between intimate friends and members of the family, like French tu and German du; but its use is far more extensive than the corresponding forms in France and Germany, espe-
Forms of address in Irish and Swedish
cially in student circles. The rules of etiquette require that the senior of two friends shall be the first to suggest that they lägga bort titlarna (“drop the titles”). The word ni . . . is certainly gaining ground.
It must be added that “dropping the titles” had been part of accepted behaviour among educated speakers of Swedish for a long time. On the other hand, the mention of Du being more extensively used than in France and Germany reflects an ongoing change just then. Also, the statement about Ni gaining ground depicts a very transitory state of affairs. Beginning in the late sixties, Du started spreading in a remarkable fashion, as documented in the most thorough investigation (Ahlgren 1978: 120), available to me, of reasonably current modes of address in Swedish: Recent decades have nevertheless seen ni and titles to a great extent thrust aside by du, especially among younger people. Du at present reigns at nearly all places of work and is also the most common form of address to strangers.
In Sweden, the reform has been fairly successful, even if older people, especially ones of high social status, initially were not very impressed. In a comprehensive investigation of the matter, Paulston (1976: 385) describes the situation in the mid-seventies as follows: The Swedish address system is in a stage of rapid change with an increase of solidarity du+ØN, brought about by the dominant political ideology, and no doubt facilitated by the awkwardness of the previous usage which most Swedes are relieved to escape. Swedes are given to generalizations that (1) today everyone uses du and (2) there are no stateable rules for address usage. Neither proposition is true, and I have attempted in this paper to account for those rules. The major argument has been that an adequate description of the Swedish address system is possible only through the recognition that the social classes have different rules due to different semantics of the pronouns du and ni.
Since then, the situation has stabilised itself in Sweden. In my own experience, Du is now quite dominant among most people who do not know each other, even if reports exist of Ni making a comeback (Mårtensson 1986; Teleman 1999: 269). However, I must add that my own impression, over the last few years, is that this comeback is rather marginal. In the Swedish of Finland, on the other hand, traditional usage had been more in line with that of French and German, in that the use of titles was never as widespread as in Sweden. Concomitantly, Ni could be used more widely,
Anders Ahlqvist
without loss of politeness. The Swedish reform has had some success in Finland too, but has not yet been universally adopted. Usage, especially among urban educated people, thus still has noticeable similarities to that which applies in France or Germany.
Discussion The historical reasons for Swedish having and Irish not having adopted polite pronominal forms in the first place are very interesting. In the case of Irish, the matter seems quite clear. As Zilliacus (1953: 7, 51) has shown, the first instance of plural forms being used to refer to factually non-plural individuals can be reliably dated – for Greek and Latin – towards the end of the fourth century ad. It is self-evident that it spread from there into European vernacular languages too, first taking root in the language of the higher strata of society, and then became generalised among other speakers as well. In Ireland, the higher strata of society ceased to be Irish-speaking towards the beginning of the seventeenth century, when the last members of the native aristocracy left the country. This event is usually known as the Flight of the Earls (Canny 1989: 130–131). After that, there simply were no speakers who would have been in a position to wish to adapt to the usage of refined European society. The Swedish case is more complex. Ahlgren (1978: 119) supplies the following brief account of its history: There existed only three forms of address in older Swedish: þu (for one person), it (for two persons) and i(r)/*e(r) (for more than one person). At least as early as the fourteenth century the continental practice of using the plural form as a sign of respect spread to Sweden, and during the sixteenth that of using titles. The third person singular pronoun han, hon also came to be used as a form of address. The Swedish use of titles developed to an extent scarcely parallelled in any other European language. Another phenomenon typical of Swedish forms of address is a preference for periphrasis rather than the directly uttered form of address. Successor to the older form I, ni failed to achieve recognition as a generally employed form of address.
In other words, the spread of T- and V-forms into Swedish simply reflects the fact that Swedish fairly early on (among the languages of Europe, at any rate) became a fully-fledged language, widely spoken by all members of all classes of
Forms of address in Irish and Swedish
society in Sweden. The extensive use of titles as forms of address can be seen as a function of how important distinctions like the T/V one were felt to be. However, as we have seen above, Du has now taken over as the usual form of address among Swedes. Certainly, Ahlgren is right in seeing part of the reason for the supremacy of Du in what he (1978: 120) describes as the “weak position of ni”. Also, it is a fact (Ahlgren 1978: 105) that speakers of some Swedish dialects, notably that of the Western province of Dalecarlia, had never stopped using Du to everyone, regardless of status. On the other hand, there is evidence to suggest that the Du reform of the late sixties had at least some of its roots in a more or less conscious effort, on the part of the authorities, to change language use in Sweden. I am certain that Paulston (1976: 385, see above) is entirely right in maintaining that the reform was “brought about by the dominant political ideology”, i.e. by the Social Democrats. Interestingly, the Swedish Academy’s recent comprehensive reference grammar of Swedish is rather cautious on this point, stating (Teleman 1999: 267) merely that the old system was in use until about 1970, adding, quite significantly, (1999: 270) that it is still customary to use it when speaking to members of the Royal family. Nevertheless, it seems to me that there is a strong case for setting the reasoning behind the Swedish reform in the historical context of important ideological currents of the late 1960s. Some stages in its introduction can be identified quite clearly. Thus, the most up-to-date and comprehensive modern Swedish encyclopaedia (Nationalencyklopedin 1991: 185, my translation) has this to say: This [item of] linguistic change is often called the Du reform, even if it mostly is something that has grown spontaneously and gradually. Bror Rexed is often referred to as a symbol of the Du reform, having, in 1967, introduced general dropping of titles [titelbortläggning] in the Directorate for Medical Affairs [Medicinalstyrelsen], of which he was director. But he was far from alone. Many changed their way of speaking at that time.
Mårtensson (1988: 144) also mentions Rexed’s name in this context, but agrees with Ahlgren (1978: 117) that it was a case of spontaneous “change from below”. However, I have some personal recollections that may be relevant. In the late 1960s, I had the occasion of visiting Upsala several times, as the guest of various student corporations. One of them was Värmlands nation. The inspektor, i.e. honorary warden or provost, of the corporation was the very same Professor Bror Rexed already mentioned. I still remember rather vividly the amazement caused when news reached us young students about Rexed’s decree
Anders Ahlqvist
(documented above), requesting all those then employed by the Directorate to start addressing each other with the familiar pronoun Du, thereby enforcing ‘dropping of titles’ on all his subordinates. On 1 January 1968, his Kungliga Medicinalstyrelsen [‘Royal Directorate for Medical Affairs’] was merged with another government agency called Socialstyrelsen; the new agency retained the latter name, but Rexed took over as director of what since then has been a very important part of the power structure of Sweden. The National Board of Health and Welfare is what it nowadays (see its web site: www.sos.se/sosmenye.htm) calls itself in English, but a more accurate translation is provided by Huntford (1975: 193–194), who describes its functions as follows: The Directorate of Social Affairs, the agency in charge of all health and welfare matters, ranges over all fields concerning the well-being of the citizen, from pre-natal care to criminal psychiatry. In other words, it had and still retains enormous power over the life of Swedish citizens.
Accordingly, it seems to me quite clear that its policies may well have played a significant part in shaping linguistic usage, as well as other aspects of Swedish life. For the purposes of this paper, it has, very naturally, occurred to me that it would be very useful to look at the actual wording of Rexed’s 1967 decree. Sadly, I am obliged to report that my recent (starting in June 1999) attempts at making contact with the Directorate have been unfruitful, in that fairly numerous e-mail requests for information have for the most part been ignored. This is disappointing, since there was an initial rather promising response from an official in charge of the Directorate’s archives. Thus, more definite information will have to await further documentation being made available. It provisionally seems to me likely that Rexed’s decree may indeed have had a pivotal role in accelerating the Swedish reform. The context of the late 1960s is important. As Huntford (1975: 82) has documented, Rexed was then “one of the Social Democrats’ leading ideologists”. He was also known to be friendly with Olof Palme, whose role in demonstrations against the American involvement in Vietnam is well-known. However, Palme had a complicated attitude towards the United States, a country that he actually was very familiar with, having studied there in his youth (Huntford 1975: 290). Also, there is no reason to believe that he had any hostile feelings towards the English language. Thus, it may well be the case that he and his colleagues then in power were in favour of Du being generally introduced, because they wanted Swedish to have something like the handy English you. As
Forms of address in Irish and Swedish
Brown and Gilman (1960: 268) have noted, it may present some speakers with certain advantages. They cite the case of the American “fledgling academic” who “may find it difficult to call his former teachers by their first names” and offer this solution: Happily, English allows him a respite. He can avoid any term of address, staying with the uncommitted “you” until he and his addressees have got used to the new state of things. This linguistic rite de passage has, for English speakers, a waiting room in which to screw up courage.
In conclusion, one might therefore remark that old-style Swedish seems not to have had a very convenient linguistic waiting room. On the other hand, like Irish during all its periods, present-day Swedish does not need it. In the case of Irish, this has come about as a function of the country’s social history. As far as Swedish is concerned, political ideology seems to have played an important role.
References Ahlgren, Perry (1978). Tilltalsordet ni [Studia philologiae scandinavicae upsaliensia 12]. Uppsala: Almqvist and Wiksell. Björkhagen, Im. (1962). Modern Swedish Grammar. Stockholm: Norstedts. Brown, Penelope & Levinson, Stephen C. (1987). Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Brown, Roger & Gilman, Albert (1960). “The pronouns of power and solidarity”. In Thomas A. Sebeok (Ed.), Style in Language (pp. 253–279). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Canny, Nicholas (1989). “Early Modern Ireland, c. 1500–1700”. In Roy Foster (Ed.), The Oxford Illustrated History of Ireland (pp. 104–160). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Christian Brothers (1980). New Irish Grammar. Dublin: Fallons. Christian Brothers (1999). Graiméar Gaeilge na mBráithre Críostaí. Dublin: An Gúm. Crystal, David (1995). The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Huntford, Roland (1975). The New Totalitarians. London: Allen Lane. McClean, R. J. (1969). Swedish: a Grammar of the Modern Language. London: English Universities Press. Mårtensson, Eva (1986). “Det nya niandet”. Nordlund, 10, 35–79. Mårtensson, Eva (1988). “Förändringar i 1900-talets svenska – en litteraturgenomgång”. Nordlund, 14, 101–217. Nationalencyklopedin (1991). [Part]5 DIO–ET. Höganäs: Bra Böcker. Paulston, Christina Bratt (1976). “Pronouns of address in Swedish: Social class semantics and a changing system”. Language in Society, 5, 359–386. Quin, E. G. (Ed.). (1983). Dictionary of the Irish Language. Dublin: Royal Irish Academy.
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Teleman, Ulf (1999). Svenska akademiens grammatik. Stockholm: Svenska akademien/ Norstedts ordbok. Zilliacus, Henrik (1953). Selbstgefühl und Servilität: studien zum unregelmässigenNumerusgebrauch im Griechischen [Commentationes humanarum litterarum 18, 3]. Helsingfors: Societas scientiarum fennica.
Women, men and polite requests English and Greek* Ekaterini Kouletaki The aim of this paper is to explore the similarities and differences in the way men and women native speakers of English and Greek express polite requests in different social situations. Data is based on the distribution of a questionnaire with eight situations to 60 English University students and 60 Greek University students. Results show that personal need, in-group and out-group relationships and sociocultural differences influence the way respondents express polite requests. It is concluded that all strategies, even direct requests, are perfectly acceptable under the appropriate circumstances, where appropriate circumstances is what would be acceptable according to the norms of the culture under consideration. Keywords: Polite requests; gender; social situations; sociocultural differences
People express polite requests in different ways depending on the circumstances. Blum-Kulka and House (1989: 123–154) compare the ways in which native speakers of Hebrew, Canadian French, Argentinean Spanish, Australian English and German would realise their requests in five situations described in a questionnaire. The aim of this experiment is to explore the extent to which “members of different cultures agree on the need to vary their requestive behaviour according to the social situation” (1989: 124). All the people involved in the experiment were university students working in any field other than languages and linguistics. Their results show that social situations play a very important role in determining modes of linguistic behaviour, and the situational and cultural factors interact with each other (1989: 128–129). Furthermore, according to the literature, gender differences in patterns of language use can be explained by the fact that girls and boys experience different patterns of socialisation into different cultures (Tannen 1987). As they
Ekaterini Kouletaki
grow up, girls and boys learn appropriate ways of interacting from their same sex peers, including appropriate ways of interacting verbally (Holmes 1995: 7). The aim of this work is to explore the similarities and differences in the way men and women native speakers of English and Greek express polite requests in different situations. The aim of this work is not to determine whether women are more polite than men, or whether the English are more polite than the Greeks. My main interest lies in recording general tendencies in the choice of politeness strategies within the two cultures, focusing exclusively on a subset of factors that affect the choice of politeness strategies, namely gender, age, and occupation.
The English and the Greeks: Conversational styles According to Sifianou (1992: 41), the English place a higher value on privacy and individuality, i.e. the negative aspect of face, while the Greeks emphasise involvement and in-group relations, i.e. the positive aspect of face, in line with Brown and Levinson’s (1987) positive versus negative politeness dimensions. According to Triandis and Vassiliou (1972: 305), the Greeks give great importance to the distinction between in-group and out-group, where in-group consists of one’s family, relatives, friends, and friends of friends. Everyone else falls in the category of out-group. The Greeks emphasise involvement and relationships in terms of the in-group, which are based more on mutual dependence than on independence.
Methodology A questionnaire (Appendix 1) with eight situations (based on the one by BlumKulka & House 1989) was distributed to 60 university students (30 male, 30 female) between the ages of 18–31, whose mother tongue was English, working in any field of study. The same questionnaire was translated into Greek and distributed to 60 university students (30 male, 30 female) again between the ages of 18–31, whose mother tongue was Greek, working in any field of study. The data collected will be analysed in the next two sections: Data analysis: English men and women, and Data analysis: Greek men and women. Data for each of the eight situations used in the questionnaire will be presented in tables, and examples of polite requests will be discussed.
Women, men and polite requests
The data analysis is based on three main levels of directness in polite requests which have been empirically shown to be valid across a number of languages: direct strategies, conventionally indirect strategies, and nonconventionally indirect strategies (Blum-Kulka, House, & Kasper 1989: 18). A basic grammar has been extracted from the English and Greek questionnaires (Appendix 2), the aim being to encode the polite request strategies used by the respondents. Under each category of direct, conventionally indirect and nonconventionally indirect requests appears a list of combinations of grammatical constructions, as well as their realisations. Microsoft Excel 2000 and the statistical package SPSS 9.0 were used for data analysis. The methodology followed is further discussed in Kouletaki (2001).
Data analysis: English men and women Situation 1: Asking friend to borrow money When asking to borrow money from a friend, the majority of English men (twenty-two respondents as shown in Table 1 below) use a combination of indirect request (henceforth IR) strategies (examples (1), (2)).
Table 1. English men: Asking friend for money Strategy
Freq.
%
Direct request Hint Hint+insult Pre-request+hint Answer indirectly IR pattern IR pattern+slang IR pattern+promise+inclusive Explanation+IR pattern Explanation+IR pattern+slang Expl+IR pattern+insult+inclusive Apology+IR pattern Combination Combination+slang Combination+inclusive Total
1 2 1 1 3 4 1 1 4 1 1 1 5 3 1 30
3.3 6.7 3.3 3.3 10.0 13.3 3.3 3.3 13.3 3.3 3.3 3.3 16.7 10.0 3.3 100
Ekaterini Kouletaki
(1) Mate, guess what. I’ve left my wallet behind; you couldn’t lend me some money to get home please. I’ll give it back to you tomorrow. (2) I haven’t brought my wallet, do you mind if I borrow a fiver until tomorrow.
In example three below, the speaker makes a statement whose aim is to describe the situation and to give information that may count as an argument in favour of the implied request. This is a strategy that Weizman (1989: 86) calls stating potential grounders. Also by calling himself dumb, the respondent loses face, and the hearer, being a friend, has no choice but to help him. People tend to blame themselves for having forgotten their money at home, which implies that they did not do it on purpose and they had no intention whatsoever to ask for something as important as money. (3) Hey! Guess who’s been dumb enough to forget their wallet. . .
According to Brown and Levinson (1987), many instances of truly indirect, or off-record speech acts are accomplished by hints. Hints are used to raise the issue of a certain desired act, by giving reasons for performing the act or by giving association clues (1987: 215). Hints are a good way to save face, both the speaker’s and the hearer’s. The speaker may deny any requestive intentions, while the hearer may pretend not to have recognised the speaker’s request, and the denial can hardly be taken for a refusal (Weizman 1989: 94). As shown in Table 2 below, eleven English women prefer to explain the situation and then ask indirectly (example (4)). (4) Oh no! I’ve forgotten my wallet, can you lend me some money so I can get a taxi home?
Table 2. English women: Asking friend for money Strategy
Freq.
%
Answer indirectly IR Pattern IR pattern+promise Explanation+IR pattern Explanation+IR pattern+slang Combination Combination+slang Total
2 3 2 10 1 9 3 30
6.7 10.0 6.7 33.3 3.3 30.0 10.0 100
Women, men and polite requests
Situation 2: Asking neighbour for a lift Five English women would not ask for a lift, because they do not think it is appropriate, or it could be dangerous, in comparison to only two men who would not ask for a lift and would prefer to carry on walking (as shown in Table 3 and Table 4 below). Women would explain the situation and then ask for a lift (as in example (5)), or use a hint to question feasibility (Weizman 1989) as in (6). In total, seven English women and four men would use a pre-request, which is a facesaving strategy (Brown & Levinson 1987: 40). If the neighbour is not going past the cinema, the speaker will not ask for a lift and will not lose face. Table 3. English women: Asking for a lift Strategy
Freq.
%
Hint Pre-request+hint No answer Answer indirectly Statement IR pattern Pre-request+IR pattern Explanation+IR pattern Combination Total
3 2 5 1 2 3 5 6 3 30
10.0 6.7 16.7 3.3 6.7 10.0 16.7 20.0 10.0 100
Table 4. English men: Asking neighbour for a lift Strategy
Freq.
%
Hint Pre-request+hint No answer Answer indirectly Statement IR pattern Pre-request+IR pattern Explanation+IR pattern Apology+IR pattern Combination Total
5 4 2 2 3 1 3 2 2 6 30
16.7 13.3 6.7 6.7 10.0 3.3 10.0 6.7 6.7 20.0 100
Ekaterini Kouletaki
(5) Hi John, how are you? . . .I’m supposed to be meeting friends at the cinema in 5 minutes, if you’re going that way would it be possible for a lift? (6) Hello, you don’t happen to be going past the cinema do you?
Men would also use an apology and an indirect request pattern (example (7)): (7) Excuse me mate, could you give me a lift to the cinema or near to it?
Situation 3: Asking mother to make coffee How people ask their mothers to make coffee for them depends on how much of an imposition (or even how ‘selfish’, as they say) they consider it to be to ask someone else to make them coffee while they are watching television. Results are presented in Table 5 and Table 6 below. Two women express their love to their mum while asking for coffee, as in examples (8) and (9), and another two use the expression be-a-darling, as in (10) and (11). According to Brown and Levinson (1987: 108), endearments are used as a positive politeness strategy, and claim in-group solidarity (instances of endearing terms are recorded in the data tables as ‘affection’). Table 5. English men: Asking mum to make coffee Strategy
Freq.
%
Hint Pre-request+hint Do-you-want Do-you-want+d. request No answer Answer indirectly Direct request+inclusive IR pattern IR pattern+slang IR pattern+inclusive IR pattern+appreciation IR pattern+humour Pre-request+IR pattern IR pattern+promise Explanation+IR pattern Affection Combination Total
2 1 2 1 5 2 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 3 2 2 30
6.7 3.3 6.7 3.3 16.7 6.7 6.7 6.7 3.3 3.3 3.3 3.3 3.3 3.3 10.0 6.7 6.7 100
Women, men and polite requests
Table 6. English women: Asking mum to make coffee Strategy
Freq.
%
Direct request Hint No answer Answer indirectly Direct request+inclusive Direct request+be-a-darling IR pattern IR pattern+appreciation Explanation+IR pattern Explanation+appreciation Affection Affection+slang Combination Total
2 4 2 2 2 2 7 1 3 1 1 1 2 30
6.7 13.3 6.7 6.7 6.7 6.7 23.3 3.3 10.0 3.3 3.3 3.3 6.7 100
(8) Mum, could you make me some coffee? I’ll love you forever? (9) Mummy, love, dear, any chance of a cuppa? (10) Mum, be a darling, could you make us a cup of coffee. (11) Be a dear mum, I’m dying for a coffee.
There are female respondents who drop hints and question feasibility, as in (12). In this case the mother may understand the purpose of the question and offer to make coffee, or she may answer not now, later, or why don’t you make it yourself? I’m busy now. (12) Were you thinking of making some coffee?
The majority of male respondents would use an indirect request pattern accompanied by appreciation, joking, or an inclusive us. Five do not think it is appropriate to ask their mum to make them coffee. Three would use the doyou-want strategy; they would ask their mother if she wants coffee, expecting her in turn to ask if they want coffee themselves. Five would drop a hint. Two male respondents use endearing terms (i.e., you know how much I love you, and my dearest mum) in examples (13) and (14). (13) Mum, you know how much I love you; well, can you make me a cup of coffee. . . pleeeeease. (14) Mum, my dearest mum, can you please make me some coffee because you need me as well.
Ekaterini Kouletaki
Situation 4: Asking stranger for a cigarette Eleven English male students would not ask a stranger for a cigarette (Table 7). The rest use an indirect request pattern, eight of whom respondents use slang (example (15)) and one uses an expression which is typical in the north-west part of England (i.e., lend us, example (16)). Eight of them would first apologise and then use an indirect strategy to ask for a cigarette (example (17)). (15) Excuse me, mate. Could you spare a fag? (16) Hi! Erm. . . you couldn’t lend us a fag, could you? (17) Excuse me! I don’t suppose I could take a cigarette from you, could I?
As for women, sixteen would not ask a stranger for a cigarette, simply because they do not smoke, or because, as one respondent explains, it would be considered as a pick up. Four female respondents would first apologise and then ask indirectly, two would explain the situation, and another two would use slang (Table 8). Table 7. English men: Asking a stranger for a cigarette Strategy
Freq.
%
No answer IR pattern IR pattern+slang IR pattern+slang+inclusive Apology+IR pattern Apology+IR pattern+slang Combination Total
11 4 5 1 5 3 1 30
36.7 13.3 16.7 3.3 16.7 10.0 3.3 100
Table 8. English women: Asking a stranger for a cigarette Strategy
Freq.
%
No answer Answer indirectly IR pattern IR pattern+slang IR pattern+promise Explanation+IR pattern Apology+IR pattern Apology+IR pattern+slang Combination Total
16 1 2 1 1 2 3 1 3 30
53.3 3.3 6.7 3.3 3.3 6.7 10.0 3.3 10.0 100
Women, men and polite requests
Situation 5: Asking to borrow tie/earrings Most male respondents think that an indirect request is enough when asking to borrow their brother’s tie. Six of them explain the situation and then ask indirectly, while five ask indirectly and then promise to take good care of the tie. Promises are a positive politeness strategy (Brown & Levinson 1987: 125). Two of the respondents think that asking to borrow a tie, even if it is from their brother, would be too much of an imposition (Table 9) and prefer not to ask. Nine female respondents would just use a conventionally indirect pattern to ask for their sister’s earrings, another six promise to be careful with them, four explain the situation, five use a combination of strategies, and two would not ask (Table 10). One female respondent uses endearments to reach her goal, while none of the male respondents does that. This can be because we have a woman-towoman relationship (example (18)). Table 9. English men: Asking to borrow tie Strategy
Freq.
%
IR pattern Explanation+IR pattern No answer Answer indirectly Pre-request Pre-request+IR pattern IR pattern+promise Explanation+IR pattern+appreciation Combination Total
9 5 2 4 1 2 5 1 1 30
30.0 16.6 6.7 13.3 3.3 6.7 16.7 3.3 3.3 100
Strategy
Freq.
%
No answer Answer indirectly IR pattern IR pattern+promise Explanation+IR pattern Affection Combination Total
2 3 9 6 4 1 5 30
6.7 10.0 30.0 20.0 13.3 3.3 16.7 100
Table 10. English women: Asking to borrow earrings
Ekaterini Kouletaki
(18) Robina! Dear sister! Please, please may I borrow these earrings, nothing seems to match with my dress; you can borrow anything in return!
Situation 6: Asking a friend to go for lunch When it comes to food, twenty-four male respondents ask indirectly to go for lunch (Table 11), and eleven of them actually use an inclusive pattern, such as let’s or shall we. Fourteen explain that they are hungry and then ask indirectly (five of which again use an inclusive pattern). Twelve women use the explain-and-ask strategy, of which seven use an inclusive strategy (example (19)). Seven use a conventionally indirect pattern, three of whom again use an inclusive strategy. Only two use an imperative, one of whom again uses an inclusive strategy (Table 12). To sum up, both men and women seem to prefer the explanation+indirect request strategy, but women use the inclusive strategy more than men, an Table 11. English men: Asking to go for lunch Strategy
Freq.
%
IR pattern Explanation+IR pattern Direct request Hint Answer indirectly IR pattern+inclusive Explanation+IR pattern+inclusive Total
4 9 1 2 3 6 5 30
13.3 30.0 3.3 6.7 10.0 20.0 16.7 100
Strategy
Freq.
%
Direct request Hint Answer indirectly Statement Direct request+inclusive IR pattern IR pattern+inclusive Explanation+IR pattern Explanation+IR pattern+inclusive Apology+IR pattern Total
1 2 4 2 1 4 3 5 7 1 30
3.3 6.7 13.3 6.7 3.3 13.3 10.0 16.7 23.3 3.3 100
Table 12. English women: Asking to go for lunch
Women, men and polite requests
example of which is shown in (19). According to Holmes, women are more concerned with using linguistic devices that involve others (1995: 7). (19) I’m starving. Shall we go for lunch?
Example (19) shows how a polite invitation can become a positive politeness strategy. Brown and Levinson (1987: 203) point out how in Tamil the inclusive ‘we’ is used in positive politeness situations, and they give the example of a polite invitation to supper.
Situation 7: Asking a stranger for directions As shown in Table 13 below, twenty-three English males first use excuse me and then ask for directions using a conventionally indirect strategy (example (20)). Apologies are a negative politeness strategy according to Brown and Levinson (1987: 187–190). (20) Excuse me, do you know the way to Hope Road?
Similarly, twenty-four of the female respondents first apologise and then ask for directions, two of whom two express appreciation (Table 14). Table 13. English men: Looking for Hope Road Strategy
Freq.
%
Apology+IR pattern Hint combination No answer Answer indirectly Combination Total
23 2 1 3 1 30
76.6 6.7 3.3 10.0 3.3 100
Strategy
Freq.
%
Answer indirectly IR pattern Explanation+IR pattern Apology+IR pattern Apology+IR pattern+appreciation Combination Total
1 2 1 22 2 2 30
3.3 6.7 3.3 73.3 6.7 6.7 100
Table 14. English women: Looking for Hope Road
Ekaterini Kouletaki
Table 15. English men: Asking for a friend’s opinion Strategy
Freq.
%
IR pattern Explanation+IR pattern No answer Total
24 4 2 30
80.0 13.3 6.7 100
Table 16. English women: Asking for a friend’s opinion Strategy
Freq.
%
Direct request IR pattern IR pattern+inclusive Explanation+IR pattern Total
1 26 1 2 30
3.3 86.7 3.3 6.7 100
Situation 8: Asking friend’s opinion When asking for a friend’s opinion, twenty-four men use an indirect request of the type what do you think, or what do you reckon (example (21)). (21) Do you reckon John will like this?
Twenty-nine women also use a conventionally indirect pattern of the same type to ask for a friend’s opinion (example (22)). (22) Do you think this will suit John?
Results in Table 15 and Table 16 show how the great majority of respondents prefer to use the same strategy in what could be called a standardized situation.
Data analysis: Greek men and women Situation 1: Asking friend to borrow money Fourteen Greek men and fourteen Greek women first explain the situation and then ask to borrow money from their friend (example (23)). Two men use slang (example (24)), and four use insults, while two use both. Ü Ü (23) ΞÜ7ρεις ξÜ7χασα τo πoρτoφóλι µoυ στo σπÜHτι. M]πως θα µπoρo‚σες να Ü µoυ δανεÜHσεις κα´ πoια χρ]µατα για τo ταξι, για να γυρÜHσω πÜHσω;
Women, men and polite requests
You know, I left my purse at home. Could you possibly lend me some money for the taxi, to go back? (24) Pε AλÜ7ξη 7Ü χεις να µoυ δανεÜHσεις 7Ü ναπεντóλιρo γιατÜH ξÜ7χασα τo πoρτoφóλι µoυ σπÜHτι; [Re-particle]1 Alexi, do you have a fiver to lend me, because I left my money at home?
It is common for Greek men to use insulting expressions, mainly to create an atmosphere of camaraderie, as shown in Table 17. According to Holmes (1995: 66), insults and abuse are often used to express solidarity and mateship. Similar behaviour has also been recorded as typical of men in other cultures, as in the case of young New Zealand men (Pilkington 1992). Six Greek women use a combination of strategies when asking for money (where one of them uses an insulting expression and one expresses her appreciation, as shown in Table 18). Only one woman uses an imperative to ask her friend for money, in contrast to two men. Two women apologise first and then ask. Three drop hints, one of which uses slang and another one uses a humorous approach. In example (25) the strategy of stating potential grounders is used. Ü . . . ΞÜ7χασα τo πoρτoφóλι µoυ! (25) ∆εντoπιστε‚ω I don’t believe it. . . I left my purse [at home]!
Table 17. Greek men: Asking friend for money Strategy
Freq.
%
Direct Request Statement+insult Pre-request+slang+insult IR pattern IR pattern+promise Explanation+IR pattern Expl+IRp+slang+insult Expl+IR pattern+insult Apology+IR pattern Combination Combination+slang Total
2 1 1 2 1 12 1 1 1 7 1 30
6.7 3.3 3.3 6.7 3.3 40.0 3.3 3.3 3.3 23.3 3.3 100
Ekaterini Kouletaki
Table 18. Greek women: Asking friend for money Strategy
Freq.
%
Direct request Hint+humour Hint/combination Hint/combination+slang IR pattern IR pattern+promise Expl+IR pattern Exp+IR pattern+slang Expl+IR pattern+insult Apology+IR pattern Combination Combination+appreciation Combination+insult Total
1 1 1 1 3 1 12 1 1 2 4 1 1 30
3.3 3.3 3.3 3.3 10.0 3.3 40.0 3.3 3.3 6.7 13.3 3.3 3.3 100
Table 19. Greek men: Asking a neighbour for a lift Strategy
Freq.
%
Hint No answer Answer indirectly Statement Pre-request IR pattern Pre-request+IR pattern Explanation+IR pattern Combination Total
1 1 1 1 1 11 1 5 8 30
3.3 3.3 3.3 3.3 3.3 36.7 3.3 16.7 26.7 100
Situation 2: Asking a neighbour for a lift Only one male would not ask his neighbour for a lift (Table 19), and another one would just say ‘Hello’ and carry on. Eleven men would use an indirect request pattern, and eight would use a combination of pre-request and indirect strategy (example (26)). (26) Γεια σας. ΠηγαÜHνετε πρoς τo κÜ7ντρo; EÜHναι δυνατóν να µε πα´ τε κι εµÜ7να Ü αργ]σει Ü Ü γιατÜH 7Ü χω ]δη σε 7Ü να ραντεβo‚; Hello. Are you going to the city centre? Is it possible to give me a lift because I’m already late for a date?
Women, men and polite requests
Table 20. Greek women: Asking for a lift Strategy
Freq.
%
Hint Pre-request+hint No answer IR pattern IR pattern+appreciation IR pattern+humour Pre-request+IR pattern Explanation+IR pattern Apology+IR pattern Affection Combination Total
1 3 3 8 1 1 5 4 1 1 2 30
3.3 10.0 10.0 26.7 3.3 3.3 16.7 13.3 3.3 3.3 6.7 100
As for the women, ten use an indirect pattern, one of whom also expresses her appreciation (Table 20). In example (27) a 25-year-old female is using a vous form to pay a compliment to her 50-year-old neighbour and tell him how good he looks today, which is a joke. In (28) another 26-year-old female uses the diminutive form of My Mr. Little George, adding God sent you! to sound desperate – but it sounds funny rather than desperate. Joking is a positive politeness strategy according to Brown and Levinson (1987: 124). Another four women drop a hint, and four use an explanation plus an indirect request pattern strategy. Ü Παυλóπoυλε, εÜHστε πoλ‚Ü ωραÜHoς σ]µερα, Ü Ü (27) KαλÜ7 µoυ κ‚ριε να σας ζητ]σω κα´ τι, αν γÜHνεται . . . My dear Mr. Paulopoule, you look very good today, could I ask you something, is it possible. . . Ü (28) K‚ριε Γιωργα´ κη µoυ! O Θεóς σας 7Ü στειλε! Θα µε πετα´ ξετε µÜ7χρι τo κÜ7ντρo; My Mr. Little George! God sent you! Will you take me to the city centre?
Situation 3: Asking mother to make coffee Half of the Greek men would use an indirect request to ask their mothers to make them coffee, one of which would use an inclusive strategy. Five male respondents would explain the situation first and then ask, one would use a pre-request and then ask, and one would use a combination strategy. Three would use an imperative and another three would not ask at all (Table 21).
Ekaterini Kouletaki
Table 21. Greek men: Asking mum to make coffee Strategy
Freq.
%
Direct request Hint Do-you-want No answer IR pattern IR pattern+inclusive Pre-request+IR pattern Explanation+IR pattern Combination Total
3 1 1 3 14 1 1 5 1 30
10.0 3.3 3.3 10.0 46.7 3.3 3.3 16.7 3.3 100
Table 22. Greek women: Asking mum to make coffee Strategy
Freq.
%
Direct request No answer IR pattern IR pattern+inclusive Explanation+IR pattern Explanation+IR pattern+humour Affection Combination Total
2 4 14 2 3 1 3 1 30
6.7 13.3 46.7 6.7 10.0 3.3 10.0 3.3 100
One male would use the do-you-want-coffee approach (as in example (29)), and another one would use a hint in the form of a wish (example (30)). The diminutive from your little hands is a compliment on how good is the coffee mum makes. Ü Ü (29) Mαµα´ , µ]πως θÜ7λεις καφÜ7; (. . . πo‚Ü θα πα´ ει, θα πρoσφερθεÜH ν’ αντιρωτ]σει!) Mum, would you like coffee? (Hoping that she’ll ask if I want coffee). (30) Mα´ να, να´ ’ πινα τω´ ρα 7Ü ναν καφÜ7 απó τα χερα´ κια σoυ . . . Mum, I wish I was drinking a coffee now from your little hands. . .
When asking their mothers to make them coffee, sixteen Greek women use an indirect request pattern, one of whom uses the inclusive strategy (Table 22). Four would not ask their mothers to make them coffee as they believe it is too much of an imposition, and another four would give an explanation before asking – and some go for the joking strategy again.
Women, men and polite requests
Three Greek women use endearing terms before asking for coffee, and promise they will make up for it, as in examples (31) and (32) below. Ü (31) Mαµα´ κα θα ]θελα τρελα´ 7Ü ναν καφÜ7. Θα µoυ φτια´ ξεις κι εγω´ θα σoυ πλÜ7νω τα πια´ τα óλη τη βδoµα´ δα . . . Mummy, I would like a coffee like mad. You will make me one and I will wash the dishes for you for the whole week. . . (32) Mαµα´ µoυ, καλ]Ü µoυ αν µoυ κα´ νεις καφÜ7 θα σoυ καθαρÜHσω τo σπÜHτι. My mum, my dear, if you make me coffee I’ll clean the house for you.
Situation 4: Asking a stranger for a cigarette Twelve Greek male respondents would not ask for a cigarette at the bus stop (Table 23), because they do not ask strangers for cigarettes, or simply because they do not smoke. If they do want to smoke, they use an indirect request pattern to ask for a cigarette, and also an explanation or an apology followed by an indirect request pattern. Table 23. Greek men: Asking a stranger for a cigarette Strategy
Freq.
%
Pre-request+hint+humour No answer IR pattern Explanation+IR pattern Apology+IR pattern Combination Total
1 12 5 5 5 2 30
3.3 40.0 16.7 16.7 16.7 6.7 100
Table 24. Greek women: Asking a stranger for a cigarette Strategy
Freq.
%
No answer IR pattern Explanation+IR pattern Apology+IR pattern Combination Combination+slang Total
11 11 1 4 2 1 30
36.7 36.7 3.3 13.3 6.7 3.3 100
Ekaterini Kouletaki
One male respondent uses a rhetorical question in example (33) to prepare the ground, hoping that the hearer will laugh and give him a cigarette. Ü (33) KαπνÜHζετε; M]πως µπoρω´ να καπνÜHσω κι εγω´ ; Are you smoking? Can I smoke as well?
Eleven women would not ask for a cigarette (Table 24). Twelve use an indirect strategy, one of whom one would first explain the situation. Four apologise before asking, and three use a combination strategy, one of whom uses slang.
Situation 5: Asking to borrow tie/earrings When it comes to borrowing their brother’s tie, five Greek men use an imperative (as in example (34)), six use an indirect request pattern, and two use an indirect request pattern-and-promise strategy. Four explain the situation and then ask, and five use a combination strategy – two of whom use slang (Table 25). (34) ΘÜ7λω τη γραβα´ τα σoυ. I want your tie.
Five women use an imperative to ask for their sister’s earrings (Table 26). Ten use an indirect pattern, and seven use an explanation and an indirect pattern. An example of how exaggeration can become a request strategy is shown in (35), where the respondent tries to stress the fact that it is very important for her to borrow these earrings. Exaggeration is a positive politeness strategy Table 25. Greek men: Asking to borrow tie Strategy
Freq.
%
Direct request Hint Hint+slang Pre-request+hint No answer Answer indirectly Statement IR pattern IR pattern+promise Explanation+IR pattern Combination Combination+slang Total
5 1 1 1 3 1 1 6 2 4 3 2 30
16.7 3.3 3.3 3.3 10.0 3.3 3.3 20.0 6.7 13.3 10.0 6.7 100
Women, men and polite requests
Table 26. Greek women: Asking to borrow earrings Strategy
Freq.
%
Direct request No answer Answer indirectly Direct request+humour IR pattern Pre-request+IR pattern IR pattern+promise Explanation+IR pattern Affection Combination Total
4 1 2 1 10 1 1 7 1 2 30
13.3 3.3 6.7 3.3 33.3 3.3 3.3 23.3 3.3 6.7 100
according to Brown and Levinson (1987: 124). One woman also uses endearments as a positive politeness technique (example (36)). Ü Ü και θανα´ τoυ! Tα σκoυλαρÜHκια σoυ! TρÜ7χα! (35) Éλενα! EÜHναι ζ]τηµα ζω]ς Helena! It’s a matter of life and death! Your earrings! Run! Ü (36) Pε αδερφo‚λα, εγω´ πoυ σ’ αγαπω´ τóσo πoλ‚Ü δω´ σε µoυ τα σκoυλαρÜHκια σoυ. Θα τα πρoσÜ7ξω. [Re-particle] little sister, I love you so much, give me your earrings. I’ll look after them.
Situation 6: Asking a friend to go for lunch When asking to go for lunch, eleven male respondents use an indirect request pattern, in which case people tend to use the inclusive strategy with slang (Table 27). Example (37) is typical of how people take out friends and colleagues and buy them food or drinks. In this situation the Greeks use invitations in the form of a positive politeness strategy. Leech (1983: 217) categorises invitations as directives, but Schiffrin (1994: 73) points out that they may also be analysed as both offer and request. In example (37) the speaker is asking/inviting the hearer to lunch, and at the same time he is offering to buy him a burger. (37) Γιω´ ργo, πα´ µε να σε κερα´ σω 7Ü να burger; George, shall I buy you a burger?
Fifteen women use an explanation before asking to go for lunch. Twenty use the inclusive strategy, and four use slang (Table 28).
Ekaterini Kouletaki
Table 27. Greek men: Asking a friend to go for lunch Strategy
Freq.
%
Direct request Hint Statement No answer Statement+humour IR pattern IR pattern+slang+inclusive IR pattern+slang+insult+inclusive IR pattern+inclusive Explanation+IR pattern Explanation+IR pattern+slang+inclusive Explanation+IR pattern+inclusive Combination+inclusive+humour Total
2 1 3 1 1 3 1 1 6 4 1 5 1 30
6.7 3.3 10.0 3.3 3.3 10.0 3.3 3.3 20.0 13.3 3.3 16.7 3.3 100
Strategy
Freq.
%
Direct request Hint Answer indirectly Statement IR pattern+inclusive Pre-request+IR pattern Explanation+IR pattern Explanation+IR pattern+slang+inclusive Explanation+IR pattern+inclusive Explanation+IR pattern+incusive+slang Explanation+IR pattern+humour Combination Combination+inclusive Total
1 1 1 1 6 3 1 3 9 1 1 1 1 30
3.3 3.3 3.3 3.3 20.0 10.0 3.3 10.0 30.0 3.3 3.3 3.3 3.3 100
Table 28. Greek women: Asking a friend to go for lunch
Example (38) is a typical example of a pre-request that the Greeks, both men and women, use to ask their friend to go for lunch: Ü (38) Πεινα´ ς καθóλoυ; Θα ]θελες να πα´ µε για φαγητó; Are you hungry at all? Would you like us to go for food?
The first part, Are you hungry? gives the hearer the chance to say yes, or to opt out, in which case the speaker will probably go for lunch alone, or wait. Using
Women, men and polite requests
again an inclusive pattern and an invitation in the form of a request, the speaker gives face to the hearer and shows that she wants to share everything with her.
Situation 7: Asking a stranger for directions Thirteen Greek men use an apology first before asking for directions. Another nine use an indirect request pattern, and six use a combination strategy (Table 29). Eighteen women use an apology+IR pattern strategy when asking for directions. Six use an indirect request pattern, and another six use a combination strategy (Table 30). Table 29. Greek men: Looking for Bouboulinas Road Strategy
Freq.
%
IR pattern Pre-request+IR pattern Explanation+IR pattern Apology+IR pattern Combination Total
9 1 1 13 6 30
30.0 3.3 3.3 43.3 20.0 100
Table 30. Greek women: Looking for Bouboulinas Road Strategy
Freq.
%
IR pattern Apology+IR pattern Combination Total
6 18 6 30
20.0 60.0 20.0 100
Strategy
Freq.
%
Hint No answer IR pattern IR pattern+slang+insult IR pattern+promise Explanation+IR pattern Explanation+IR pattern+insult Total
1 1 23 1 1 2 1 30
3.3 3.3 76.7 3.3 3.3 6.7 3.3 100
Table 31. Greek men: Asking for a friend’s opinion
Ekaterini Kouletaki
Table 32. Greek women: Asking for a a friend’s opinion Strategy
Freq.
%
Answer indirectly Statement IR pattern Explanation+IR pattern Total
2 2 20 6 30
6.7 6.7 66.7 20.0 100
Example (39) shows how the Greeks, both men and women, ask a stranger for directions: Ü (39) Συγνω´ µη, µ]πως ξÜ7ρετε πo‚Ü εÜHναι η oδóς MπoυµπoυλÜHνας; Excuse me, do you know where Bouboulinas street is?
Situation 8: Asking for a friend’s opinion The great majority of Greek men and women use an indirect request pattern when asking for their friend’s opinion (Table 31 and Table 32). Example (40) shows how both Greek men and women would ask for a friend’s opinion. (40) Tι λες; Θ’αρÜ7σει στo Για´ ννη; What do you think? Will John like it?
Discussion This study records the tendencies in the polite request strategies used by English and Greek men and women in eight situations. The most popular strategies used in each situation are shown in Table 33, and will now be discussed in relation to the number of respondents who would opt out in each situation, as shown in Table 34 below. None of the respondents would refrain from asking a friend to borrow money, because in this case they are in need and their personal benefit is more important than losing face. Generally respondents prefer to use an indirect request in this situation and tend to give lots of explanations. In the case of asking a neighbour for a lift, the percentage of English women who would opt out is higher than that of men (i.e., five women would opt out in contrast to two men). Women are very often victims of crime, and asking
Women, men and polite requests
Table 33. Polite requests used by 30 English men, 30 English women, 30 Greek men and 30 Greek women in eight situations Situation
Eng. men
Eng. women
Gr. men
Gr. women
Asking friend for money Asking neighbour for a lift Asking mum to make coffee Asking stranger for a cigarette Asking to borrow tie/earrings Asking friend to go for lunch Asking old lady for directions Asking friend’s opinion
IR C IR C IR IR A IR IR INC IR A IR
IR E IR E IR would not ask IR IR INC IR A IR
IR E IR IR IR IR IR INC IR A IR
IR E IR IR IR IR IR INC IR A IR
Key: IR = Indirect request, IR C = Indirect request combination, IR E = Indirect request explanation, IR A = Indirect request apology, IR INC = Indirect request inclusive.
Table 34. English men and women and Greek men and women who would opt out in eight situations (number of respondents: 30 in each category) Situation
Eng. men
Eng. women
Gr. men
Gr. women
Asking friend for money Asking neighbour for a lift Asking mum to make coffee Asking stranger for a cigarette Asking to borrow tie/earrings Asking friend to go for lunch Asking old lady for directions Asking friend’s opinion
0 2 5 11 2 0 1 2
0 5 2 16 2 0 0 0
0 1 3 12 3 1 0 1
0 3 4 11 1 0 0 0
the neighbour whom they do not know well for a lift can be dangerous. Three Greek women would not ask for a lift either. In Greece crime is still an issue, but the Greeks usually have closer relationships with their neighbours than the English do, and they might be more comfortable to ask them for a lift. Greek women also tend to use compliments as jokes when addressing their much older male neighbour, or exaggerate. Joking and exaggeration are both positive politeness techniques according to Brown and Levinson (1987: 124). Imperatives are recorded as a strategy for positive politeness and according to the literature are mainly used by the Greeks, while the English prefer negative politeness strategies. However, imperatives are used by the English in the questionnaires in more informal contexts, in the case of friends and relatives, where they seem to be perfectly acceptable. English female respondents when asking their mother to make coffee mostly use imperatives. This is where we have
Ekaterini Kouletaki
an intimate woman-to-woman relationship within the family. The mother-son bond allows men as well to use imperatives. Respondents generally use endearing terms and compliments on how good is the coffee their mother makes. Five English men would opt out, in contrast to three Greek men, and two English women would opt out, in contrast to four Greek women. Opting out in this situation can be related to showing respect to the mother. However, none of the English respondents uses an imperative when asking to borrow their brother’s tie or their sister’s earrings, in contrast to five Greek men and four Greek women. The in-group relationship between Greek brothers and sisters allows for being direct, while the English show more respect to ownership and are more independent. Three Greek men would not ask for their brother’s tie in contrast to two English men. The English do not ask because they would not want to ruin something that does not belong to them, but the Greeks do not ask because they would just go and take the tie themselves. Women from both cultures again use endearments when talking to their sister, which suggests a close relationship among sisters and a woman-to-woman relationship. According to Table 34, a high percentage of respondents in both cultures would not ask for a cigarette, English women being at the top of the list. There is a strong anti-smoking policy in Britain, which explains why people do not smoke. English women consider asking a stranger for a cigarette as a pick up, while the Greeks would wait or would go and buy their own. The general tendency when asking to go for lunch is to use an inclusive pattern (which is used by eleven English men, eleven English women, fourteen Greek men, twenty Greek women). Including both the hearer and the speaker in the activity is a positive politeness technique (Brown & Levinson 1987: 127). Inclusive patterns are used as part of polite invitations, which can be analysed as both offer and request (Schiffrin 1998: 73). Both the English and the Greeks generally use the same strategies in standardised situations, such as asking for directions (where the favourite strategy is apology with indirect request pattern) and asking for their friends’ opinions (where the preferred strategy is indirect request of the type: ‘What do you think?’ or ‘What do you reckon?’). Hinting as an off-record strategy (Brown & Levinson 1987: 214) is a good way to save face, both the speaker’s and the hearer’s. The English use most hints to borrow money, to ask for a lift, and to ask their mother to make them coffee. The Greeks use most hints to borrow money, and to ask for a lift, but when asking their mother-member of the in-group for coffee they tend to use direct and conventionally indirect strategies.
Women, men and polite requests
Pre-requests are mostly used in the case of asking for a lift, and also in the case of asking to go for lunch. When questioning feasibility there is again an overlap with hints, the difference being that hints are more open and give the speaker and the hearer more space to opt out without losing face. Although the sample is rather small and homogeneity (gender, age and occupation) may be an obstacle, data analysis proves Blum-Kulka’s assumption that social situations play a very important role in determining modes of linguistic behaviour, and that the situational and the cultural factors interact with each other (1989: 128–129). In another study, Sifianou (1989) explores differences in telephone behaviour in England and Greece, in relation to Brown and Levinson’s (1987) model of interaction. In her conclusion, she also notes that the sociocultural differences between the two communities seem to be responsible for the variable telephone behaviours, and for the way people express their politeness (1989: 541). Furthermore, data analysis proves the assumption that men and women speak differently, and this is the result of the different ways women and men are raised within a society at a cross-cultural level (Tannen 1987; Holmes 1995), and what their beliefs are in certain matters, as in asking a stranger for a cigarette or a neighbour for a lift. Both the English and the Greek respondents use a variety of strategies and combinations of strategies to make requests, depending on the situation, and their relationship with the addressee and their idiolect, the technical term for an individual’s language (Saeed 1997: 6). All respondents in more informal contexts use imperatives, but still the Greeks are more direct than the English when addressing members of their in-group. This does not mean that the Greeks are rude, or that the English are distant. As Sifianou points out, no nation may be objectively characterised as more or less polite than any other nation, it can only be categorized as polite in a culturally specific way (1992: 2). The way a certain culture perceives politeness determines the way members of this culture judge members of another culture, where the concept of politeness is different. All strategies, even direct requests, are perfectly acceptable under the appropriate circumstances, where appropriate circumstances is what would be acceptable according to the norms of the culture under consideration.
Ekaterini Kouletaki
Notes * I would like to thank my supervisor W. J. Black for his support, the Greek State Scholarships Foundation (IKY) for sponsoring my postgraduate studies, and my parents for always being there for me. . Re is an untranslatable particle indicating among other things solidarity and informality. It is frequently accompanied by terms of address.
References Blum-Kulka, S. (1989). “Playing it safe: The role of conventionality in indirectness”. In S. Blum-Kulka, J. House, & G. Kasper (Eds.), Cross-cultural Pragmatics: Requests and Apologies (pp. 37–70). Norwood, NJ: Ablex. Blum-Kulka, S. & House, J. (1989). “Cross-cultural and situational variation in requesting behaviour”. In S. Blum-Kulka, J. House, & G. Kasper (Eds.), Cross-cultural pragmatics: Requests and Apologies (pp. 123–154). Norwood, NJ: Ablex. Blum-Kulka, S., House, J., & Kasper, G. (Eds.). (1989). Cross-Cultural Pragmatics: Requests and Apologies. Norwood, NJ: Ablex. Brown, P. & Levinson, S. C. (1987). Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Holmes, J. (1995). Women, Men and Politeness. London: Longman. Kouletaki, E. (2001). “Politeness Issues in Natural Language Generation”. Ph.D. Dissertation. University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology, Department of Language and Linguistics. Leech, G. (1983). Principles of Pragmatics. London: Longman. Pilkington, J. (1992). “‘Don’t try to make out that I’m nice!’ The different strategies women and men use when gossiping”. Wellington Working Papers in Linguistics, 5, 37–60. Saeed, J. I. (1997). Semantics. Blackwell. Schiffrin, D. (1994). Approaches to Discourse. Oxford: Blackwell. Sifianou, M. (1989). “On the telephone again! Differences in telephone behaviour: England versus Greece”. Language in Society, 18, 527–544. Sifianou, M. (1992). Politeness Phenomena in England and Greece. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Tannen, D. (1987). That’s not what I meant! How conversational style makes or breaks relationships. New York: Ballantine. Triandis, H. C. & Vassiliou, V. (1972). “A comparative analysis of subjective culture”. In Triandis H. C. (Ed.), The Analysis of Subjective Culture, Comparative Studies in Behavioural Science (pp. 299–355). New York: Wiley. Weizman, E. (1989). “Requestive hints”. In S. Blum-Kulka, J. House, & G. Kasper (Eds.), Cross-Cultural Pragmatics: Requests and Apologies (pp. 71–95). Norwood, NJ: Ablex.
Women, men and polite requests
Appendix 1 Please read the following situations. Imagine that you are the speaker. What would you say in each situation? 1.
2.
3.
4. 5.
6. 7. 8.
You visit a good friend of yours and while you’re looking for your notebook you realise that you don’t have your wallet with you. It’s getting late and you’ll have to go back home by taxi, and it seems that you’ll need money. . . You’re supposed to meet some friends at the cinema in 5 minutes, and you’re leaving only now. On your way out you see your neighbour taking his car out of the parking space. As he drives by, Mr. John Smith, dentist, 55, stops the car to say Hello. You need a lift badly. You’re watching a movie. You’d love to have a cup of coffee, but if you go and make it now you’ll miss the best part. Your mum comes in; she doesn’t seem to be very busy at the moment. You’re at the bus stop and you want to smoke. You look for your packet, but it’s empty. Someone standing next to you (well-dressed, in his 30s) is smoking. You’re going out and you’re wearing you new suit/dress. You want to wear a tie/earrings, but you realise that none of yours matches with your suit/dress. Your older brother/sister has a very expensive tie/pair of earrings that would be just perfect. You’re at the library with a classmate of yours. It’s almost lunchtime and you’re starving. You’re going to a friend’s place for the first time, and you just can’t find Hope Road. A lady (in her 60s) is walking your way. It’s John’s birthday and you go with George to buy a birthday gift for him. You find a nice T-shirt, but you’re not sure if John will like it. You turn to George and you say: Native speaker of: Age: Sex: Occupation: If student, please indicate University, Department, Degree, and year of studies:
Appendix 2 Direct requests S = Intransitive_Verb_Imperative S = Intransitive_Verb_Imperative + ADV S = Transitive_Verb_Imperative S = Transitive_Verb_Imperative + Tag S = Transitive_Verb_Imperative + Vocative S = Transitive_Verb_Imperative + Vocative + ADV S = Phrasal_Verb_Imperative + Transitive_Verb_Imperative S = ADV + Transitive_Verb_Imperative + Declarative_Promise S = Transitive_Verb_Imperative + Be a darling Declarative_Explanation
Ekaterini Kouletaki
S = Affectionate_Imperative + Hint S = Affectionate_Imperative + Declarative_Explanation + Declarative_Promise S = Let’s_clause Intransitive_Verb_Imperative = Read | Come on ADV = Please Transitive_Verb_Imperative = Give us a tenner | Make me coffee Vocative = Evelyn | Mum Declarative_Promise = I will pay you back tomorrow Declarative_Explanation = I left my money at home Affectionate Imperative = Be a dear mum | Be a darling Let’s_clause = Let’s make tea. Phrasal_Verb_Imperative = Come on Tag = can you? Hint = I’m dying for a coffee
Conventionally indirect requests S = Vocative + Pre_request S = Modal Pattern S = Modal Pattern + Vocative S = Modal Pattern + ADV S = Modal Pattern + Vocative + ADV S = Modal Pattern + Tag S = Vocative + Modal Pattern + Tag S = Modal Pattern + Thank_You_Clause S = Elliptical Construction + ADV S = ADV S = Politeness Pattern S = Politeness Pattern + Vocative S = Chat + IR Pattern S = Exclamation + IR Pattern S = Interrogative Pattern + Condition S = Vocative + Pre_request + IR Pattern S = Chat + Pre_request + IR Pattern S = Vocative + IR Pattern + Declarative_Promise S = IR Pattern + Vocative + Declarative_Explanation S = ADV + IR Pattern + Declarative_Explanation S = Vocative + IR Pattern + ADV + Declarative_Explanation S = Vocative + Declarative_Explanation + IR Pattern + Tag S = Exclamation + Declarative_Explanation + IR Pattern S = Apology + IR Pattern + ADV S = Apology + IR Pattern + Tag S = Apology + Vocative + IR Pattern S = Vocative + Affection + IR Pattern + ADV S = Vocative + Affection + Pre_request
Women, men and polite requests
S = Affection + Condition + Declarative_Promise S = IR Pattern + IR Pattern + ADV S = IR Pattern + Declarative_Explanation + Declarative_Explanation S = Apology + Declarative_Explanation S = Apology + Declarative_Explanation + IR Pattern S = Apology + Declarative_Explanation + IR Pattern + Condition S = Chat + Declarative_Explanation + Condition + IR Pattern S = IR Pattern + Declarative_Explanation + Condition + Declarative_Promise S = Declarative_Explanation + IR Pattern + Declarative_Promise S = Declarative_Explanation + Declarative_Explanation + Declarative_Promise S = Vocative + Declarative_Explanation + IR Pattern + Declarative_Promise S = Vocative + ADV + IR Pattern + Condition + Declarative_Explanation S = Vocative + Condition + ADV + IR Pattern S = Vocative + Pre_request + Declarative_Explanation S = Pre_request + Declarative_Explanation + IR Pattern + Declarative_Promise IR Pattern = Modal Pattern | Politeness Pattern Modal Pattern = Can I | Can we | Can you | Could I | Could we | Could you | If I may | May I | Shall I | Shall we | Should we | Will you | Would you. Interrogative Pattern = Do you fancy | Do you think | Do you reckon | Do you mind if | Do you have | Any chance | Would you be kind enough | Do you want. Vocative = Mum | Sir Affection = My dear mum | I love you so much Apology = Sorry to bother you Chat = Hello, how are you ? ADV = Please Tag = Can you | Shall we | Will you | Would you Thank_You_Clause = Thank you Elliptical Construction = A fish burger | With grated cheese on top. Condition = if it’s ok with you Declarative_Explanation = I left my money at home Declarative_Promise = I’ll pay you back tomorrow Pre_request = Are you busy? Exclamation = God sent you!
Unconventionally indirect requests S = Chat + Hint S = Vocative + Pre_request + Hint S = Chat + Pre_request + Hint S = Hint + Declarative_Promise S = Apology + Hint S = Pre_request + Hint + Declarative_Promise S = Vocative + Hint Chat = Hello | how are you?
Ekaterini Kouletaki
Hint = Declarative Hint = Yes/No Question Declarative = I’m dying for a coffee Yes/No Question = Are you making a drink? Vocative = John | Mum Pre_request = Are you busy? | Are you going past the cinema? Declarative_Promise = I’ll make you one later Apology = Sorry to bother you Do_you_want = Do you want coffee?
Privacy An intercultural perspective Mark Lê Privacy is an important aspect of culture. It affects the ways in which we value personal information and how we share it with others in interpersonal communication. Privacy is an important factor which influences the form and function of talk. It is closely linked to discourse elements such as participant, setting, topic, and purpose. Gossiping is an interesting phenomenon in human communication and privacy is an important factor in shaping gossiping conversation. Mishandling of privacy can cause communication breakdown when privacy expectation in conversation is misunderstood, particularly between speakers of different cultures. Keywords: Privacy; politeness; intercultural communication; pragmatics
Introduction I would like to start this paper by relating some experiences I had when I visited Vietnam last year: My friend and I were having a cup of coffee in a coffee shop in Hue. My friend was also from Australia. While we were enjoying the coffee, music and our privacy, a child came up to us wanting to sell chewing gum. We politely shook our heads and said ‘no, thank you’. The child kept trying to sell us his chewing gum. We refused to buy. The child refused to go away. The magic polite words “thank-you and please” gradually disappeared from our response to the child. The child got much closer to us and tried our patience. After halfan-hour, we felt very uneasy as our privacy was violated. My friend and I were no longer able to enjoy our conversation. We got up and went back to our hotel and sat in the lounge. We were enjoying our privacy again...but... A Vietnamese patron at the hotel came to initiate a conversation with us:
Mark Lê
Patron: Mark: Felicity: Patron: Felicity: Patron: Mark: Patron: Mark: Patron: Mark: Patron: Mark: Patron: Mark: Patron:
Hello ! How are you? My name is Thu. I’m Mark, and this is Felicity! (smiling) Hello. What is your name again? Felicity It is a strange name. What are you doing here? We’re visiting Hue. Where you came from? Australia. How old are you? Twenty one. Is she your girl friend? We’re friends. You’re student or you work. I work part-time. How much do you earn?
Again, our privacy was violated, not physically as had happened with the child, but by a violation of our personal, private lives. This paper will deal with the following aspects relating to privacy and its intercultural issues or problems.
What is privacy? Privacy can be defined as personal freedom from uninvited intrusions. Privacy is something which is personal, belonging to an individual, something that is not in the public domain. It normally refers to an individual’s private life. Thus, according to this definition, an individual’s life consists of private and public domains. The private domain includes his/her personal belongings such as home, relationship, thoughts and feelings. The public domain includes social belongings such as professional life, ethic, and social activities (Bach & Harnish 1982; Harbon 1999; Le 1999). The following example illustrates what information is private and what is public. Mr. Green is teaching at the University of Sydney. He joined the Liberal Party when he was a student and now he is a Democrat. His mother is very poor and old but Mr. Green seldom visits his mother even though they live in the same suburb. They argue a lot when he visits her.
The text given above consists of two kinds of information: private and public.
Privacy
Public: – – –
Mr. Green is teaching at the University of Sydney. He joined the Liberal Party when he was a student. Now he is a Democrat.
Private: – – –
Mr. Green seldom visits his mother His mother is very poor They argue a lot when he visits her.
The issue is that the text does not divide the information in such a dichotomy. Instead, it leaves the division to individual interpretation. However, to a great extent, privacy is culturally determined. What is private to an Australian may not be so to a Thai.
Privacy in conversation Conversation exhibits regularity and pattern and is built on a predictable framework. All societies around the world have rules about how language should be used in social interactions. It is interesting to observe that these rules vary greatly between one society and another. The study of these rules, and of cross-cultural differences in communication is often known as ethnography of speaking. There are two fundamental aspects of privacy which should be taken into account in conversational analysis: information about the private life of individual speakers which is treated as the topic of conversation and the social distance between the speakers (how familiar they are to each other). There is a certain amount of assumed knowledge about sharing privacy held by the participants in a conversation. It is assumed that they all have the same reference points . This can be brought about by a shared experience, prior knowledge of events or people, the context or through previous interactions. Wardhaugh (1985) speaks of the Western deductive style of topic introduction as being contrary to the Asian inductive pattern. The deductive pattern sees a speaker come straight to the point and then begin to offer padding and tangents. This could be true in some respects. However, as far as privacy is concerned, deductive style is commonly found in Asian communicative discourse.
Mark Lê
Privacy is an important factor which influences the form and function of talk. It is closely linked to discourse elements such as participant, setting, topic, and purpose. Different types of talk treat privacy differently (Harbon 1999; Le 1999; Lewis & Slade 1994). High Privacy —————————–> Low Privacy (private domain) (public domain) Pillow talk (between two lovers) Gossip (between two close friends) Chat (between two neighbors) Discussion (between two doctors) Conference presentation.
The presence of privacy decreases gradually along this continuum. A conversation is no longer a conversation at the end of this continuum. The topic, the participants, and the setting of pillow talk differ from those of a conference talk on the basis of privacy. In other words, the distance between private discourse and public discourse influences the form and function of the talk (Nelson-Jones 1990). For example, a talk between a patient and a doctor, or a crime victim and the police requires strict adherence to privacy in order to be conducted in a legally prescribed condition . It is conducted behind a closed door (private discourse) whereas a talk between a bus driver and a passenger is not bound by the privacy principle and takes place in a public domain. How is privacy established? And how do we know that we have violated someone’s privacy? To answer this question, it is important to examine the social context of privacy, particularly the role of socialization in the development of privacy. Some Western cultures tend to be individualistic and some Asian cultures are very much family-orientated. In Australia, for example, children are put in their own rooms when they are still babies. Their rooms mark the beginning of their private world. My Asian friend was amused to hear that parents should knock at the door if they want to enter their children’s bedroom. Her parents would just walk in! When children grow up, they are encouraged to be independent, both emotionally and financially. At school they are taught how to learn by risk-taking. In Asian cultures, however, children tend to depend more on their families. Inter-dependence between family members reinforces caring and sharing in the family, and in the community. But this also leads to some loss of personal privacy. I was very surprised to learn that some parents in Asian countries would open their children’s letters and read them freely without the consent of their children.
Privacy
In Australia, the weather is the most widely used topic in a conversation. It is normally used as a warm-up strategy when two people start to be engaged in a conversation. The weather is a non-personal topic, which is neutral and cannot be offensive. The weather theme presents an obvious fact which lies outside the personal domain. Depending on the nature of the interpersonal relationship between the speakers, personal information can gradually be introduced and the private world can be opened for sharing. Examples: (A and B are neighbors). Stage 1: Greeting A: Hello. B: Hello. Stage 2: Warm-up A: It is nice today. B: Yes, the rain has stopped. A: Your garden’s looking good, the plants are growing so well. B: Yeah, we’ve got a lot of fruit this year. Stage 3: Private information (casual) A: Are you going anywhere for Christmas this year? B: I’m going to visit my uncle in Sydney. He’s not well. Stage 4: Private information (personal) A: What’s wrong with him. Is he on his own? B: He’s got cancer.
The conversation above shows the linear progression of privacy, from neutral to personal. It starts with the weather and moves on to the personal domain. As mentioned previously, the nature of the interpersonal relationship between the speakers determines the keep to be shared. It is easy to violate the privacy principle when the speakers are of different social and cultural backgrounds, and different personality. It is also interesting to find out what role gender plays in privacy sharing.
Privacy in intercultural interaction In a report about an intercultural experience of a group of Australian students in Australia, Harbon (1999) described an instance in which an Australian student was very upset when she discovered that her host family had searched her suitcase while she was staying with them. To her it was a serious violation of
Mark Lê
privacy. Conversely, the host family felt it was interesting to know more about their guest, whom they cared for tremendously. Privacy can cause communication breakdown when privacy expectation in conversation is misunderstood, particularly between speakers of different cultures which treat privacy differently. This is highlighted in the following example: Thu: Hello. How are you? Jane: Fine, thanks. Thu: You like Vietnam. Jane: I love it. A beautiful country. Thu: You are a student or do you work? Jane: I’m a teacher. Thu: Do you earn a lot? How much a month? Jane: Enough to live. Thu: Do you live with your parents? Jane: No, by myself. Thu: You are not married. How old are you? Jane: Sorry, I have to go. Bye!
This sample illustrates a conflict in terms of privacy. Jane felt uncomfortable handling Thu’s personal inquiries about her private life. Thu was being friendly and wanted to know more about someone he was very interested in. What Jane felt to be a violation of the privacy principle was for Thu an indication of his interest in another human being. To talk about the weather would be a waste of time. It seems that Asian people tend to ask many personal questions which indicate that they care for others and these questions are not seen as nasty intrusions into a person’s private life. In the Asian context, living is sharing. The boundaries between public and private domains are not as narrowly defined as is the case in some Western cultures.
Privacy in gossiping Gossiping is an interesting phenomenon in human communication and privacy is an important factor in shaping gossiping conversation (Lewis & Slade 1994). Generally, gossiping as a communicative activity has the following characteristics:
Privacy
– –
– – –
The theme is about the private life of the third-party (i.e., Gossipee) (e.g. gossiping about the boss and his new girl-friend). The gossipers are usually in a small group and have some sort of fairly close interpersonal relationship (e.g. two neighbors gossip about another neighbor). The gossipee is not present. (So it is safe for the gossipers.) The setting is normally informal and private (a quiet corner in a coffee shop). Gossiping competence: some are more talented than others in gossiping.
Gossiping, just like conversation, varies from culture to culture. In the Australian context, gossiping is normally condemned. However, the printed media include many gossip columns to attract readers. Their victims (gossipees) tend to be well-known public figures such as singers, movie stars, politicians, or sports stars.
Privacy and the internet The Internet is not just a new communication tool. It creates a new communication paradigm in the sense that it has its own discourse and discourse community (that is Internet enthusiasts). E-mail and on-line chat present a new dimension in interpersonal communication. It first appears that e-mail and on-line chat are not real. They are part of a virtual reality, not the real world. It is virtual in the sense that interactants may not know one another and their communication with one another is not face-to-face. However, one can also argue that due to the interaction being on-line, privacy is perceived and treated differently. Participants feel safe and can reveal more about their private lives to others. This could be the reason why some people make friends so easily via the Internet. A current research study at the University of Tasmania (Le & Le 2002) showed that lecture-student communication has improved and more students communicate with their lecturers now they can do so via email. Their communication includes aspects of personal privacy which affect their academic life such as marital problems, death in the family, terminal illness, or experiences of being sexually abused in the past. In this way, the Internet has created a powerful discourse of interpersonal communication in an academic setting, which traditionally deals only with non-personal matters.
Mark Lê
Conclusion The concept ‘privacy’ indicates something belonging to individuals which others are not allowed to make public unless it is agreed by the owners (Lewis & Slade 1994). This paper has pointed out that it is hard to define what is private so strictly because whether something is private or not can be culturally determined. Metaphorically speaking, what on this side of a mountain is privacy, on the other side belongs to the public domain. This is the reason why miscommunication and misinterpretation can so easily occur when speakers from both sides of the mountain interact.
References Bach, K. & Harnish, R. (1982). Linguistic Communication and Speech Acts. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Harbon, L. (1999). “Interpreting culture: preservice teachers taking control and making meaning across cultures”. Language, Society and Culture, 4, 5–12. Le, Mark (1999). “Street kids’ English: communicative competence in context”. Paper presented at the 1999 ACAL-VALBEC National Conference Living Literacies. Melbourne, Australia. Le, T. & Le, Q. (2002). “The nature of learners’ email communication.” Paper presented at the International Conference on Computers in Education. Auckland, New Zealand. Lewis, G. & Slade, C. (1994). Critical Communication. Sydney: Prentice-Hall. Nelson-Jones, R. (1990). Human Relationship Skills. Belmont, CA: Brooks-Cole. Taylor, T. & Cameron, D. (1987). Analysing Conversations. Oxford: Pergamon Press. Trudgill, P. (1992). Introducing Language and Society. London: Penguin. Trudgill, P. (1995). Sociolinguistics – An Introduction to Language and Society. London: Penguin. Walton, C. & Eggington, W. (1990). Language: Maintenance, Power and Education in Australian Aboriginal Contexts. Darwin: NTU Press. Wardhaugh, R. (1986). An Introduction to Sociolinguistics. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Wardhaugh, R. (1985). How Conversation Works. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Selection of linguistic forms for requests and offers Comparison between English and Chinese* Masako Tsuzuki, Kazuhiro Takahashi, Cynthia Patschke and Qin Zhang
This paper is a comparative study of politeness of imperative forms and interrogative forms as requests beneficial to the addressee in English and Chinese. First, we find that the imperative is more appropriate than the interrogative in both languages only when the addressee is a close friend. When the addressee is not close and/or is in a higher position, the interrogative is more appropriate than the imperative. This suggests a close connection between positive politeness and social factors such as a close and equal relationship between the speaker and the addressee. Second, we find that the results for the Chinese beneficial request in a close and equal relationship are consistent with those of Tsuzuki et al. (1999), whereas the results for the English equivalent are not. Along with the results for the requested act considered to be a burden to the addressee (i.e., the imperative is much more appropriate in Chinese than in English), the consistent results for Chinese suggest that the use of the imperative as an appropriate polite request for a close and equal relationship is much more conventionalized in Chinese than in English. This supports the idea that Chinese society is less negative-politeness-oriented and more positive–politeness-oriented than American society. Keywords: Offers; imperative forms; interrogative forms; positive/negative politeness
Masako Tsuzuki, Kazuhiro Takahashi, Cynthia Patschke and Qin Zhang
.
Introduction
It is well known that when a requested act is considered a burden on the addressee (e.g., asking someone to check a paper), the interrogative forms are more polite than the imperative forms. This phenomenon is verified crosslinguistically (Ide et al. 1986). It can be explained by an uncontroversial assumption that the interrogative forms imply that the addressee has an option to refuse the request (Lakoff 1973; Brown & Levinson 1987). However, according to Leech (1983), when a proposed act is regarded as a benefit to the addressee (e.g., offering someone some more cookies), the imperative is more polite than the interrogative as it gives no option to the addressee and maximizes his or her benefit. But it is not clear whether Leech’s contention is tenable or not, because it seems that many factors are involved. Theoretically speaking, benefit-request expressions involve the notions of positive politeness and negative politeness. These notions were first presented by Brown and Levinson (1987).1 Positive politeness is a politeness to save the addressee’s face to satisfy a desire to be recognized and treated as a member of an in-group, and negative politeness is a politeness to save the addressee’s face to satisfy a desire that his or her own freedom of action and self-determination not be impeded. Politeness strategy can be defined as a strategy to satisfy these face-wants and to mitigate face-threatening acts. With this much in mind, let us consider the use of the imperative form as a beneficial request. In terms of positive politeness, the imperative should be more polite than the interrogative for these reasons: (1) the speaker is much more sensitive to the addressee’s need and want, (2) the speaker treats the addressee as a member of an in-group just like himself or herself. On the other hand, in terms of negative politeness, the imperative should be less polite than the interrogative in that the speaker would impede the addressee’s autonomy and threaten his or her negative face. Therefore, there exists a tension between positive politeness and negative politeness: the imperative is preferred when positive politeness is given greater weight, whereas the interrogative is preferred when negative politeness is given precedence. Factors such as the relationship between the speaker and the addressee, and cultural differences affect which kind of politeness wins out and in turn this affects which linguistic form is selected. Different scholars give different opinions as to the relationship between the sociocultural differences and the priority of these kinds of politeness.2 For example, Kawamura (1996) argues that, in English-speaking societies, positive politeness is given higher priority than in Japanese society, and the
Selection of linguistic forms for requests and offers
form which gives no option is preferred in a benefit-request case.3 SpencerOatey (1992) argues that China is less negative-politeness-oriented and more positive-politeness-oriented than English-speaking societies so that imposition is necessary for politeness in the case of an offer. Thus, the politeness of imperative forms as request expressions is interesting in that by examining the priority of the use of the imperative, we can explore the sociocultural precedence of positive/ negative politeness in each society. The act we refer to as “benefit-request” here is essentially an offer, but we will use the term benefit-request throughout this paper for the purpose of using it contrastively with burden-request.
. Purpose of this study . Previous studies It is well-established that, when a requested act is considered a burden on the addressee, the interrogative is more polite than the imperative. This phenomenon is verified by Tanaka and Kawade (1982) with respect to English, by Ide et al. (1986) with respect to English and Japanese, and by Tsuzuki et al. (1999) with respect to English, Chinese and Japanese. For the benefit-request case, Tsuzuki et al. (1999) examine empirically Leech’s claim by employing English, Chinese and Japanese data. Native speakers of English, Chinese and Japanese were asked to rate the politeness degree of the imperative and the interrogative. The supposed addressee in the study was a close friend of the speaker. An “impolite-appropriate-too polite” scale was employed instead of an absolute politeness degree scale.4 They found that in the benefit-request case, the imperative is more appropriate (not too polite) than the interrogative in Chinese, that the imperative is less appropriate than the interrogative in English, and that the imperative is as appropriate as the interrogative in Japanese. Tsuzuki et al. (1999) show Leech’s contention does not hold true of all cultures. . Research questions In a benefit-request, Tsuzuki et al. (1999) dealt with only the case where the addressee is a close friend. We will expand upon the study, focusing on English and Chinese, because of the contrastive results found in the benefit-request case and because English and Chinese are generally free from honorific expressions,
Masako Tsuzuki, Kazuhiro Takahashi, Cynthia Patschke and Qin Zhang
which affect the politeness of Japanese request expressions. We examine not only the cases where the addressee is a close friend but also the cases where the addressee is not close to the speaker. We also take another social factor into consideration: relative social position. By so doing, we can examine the preference of the imperative over the interrogative in a given context in a given culture. In addition, we include burden-request cases in this study, for comparison and to see the detailed effect of sociocultural differences. This study addresses the following questions: 1. In situations in which a requested act is considered a burden on the addressee, is the imperative more appropriate than the interrogative? 2. In situations in which a requested act is of benefit to the addressee, is the imperative more appropriate than the interrogative? In each of the two cases, two additional situational factors are taken into account: a. whether or not the relationship between the speaker and the addressee is close, b. whether or not the addressee is in a higher position than the speaker. Are different answers given to the two questions above by English speakers and Chinese speakers?
. Method . Questionnaires We included a burden-request case and a benefit-request case in the questionnaires. The content of the burden-request case was to ask someone to check a paper and that of the benefit-request case was to offer someone some more cookies. The latter case was selected after the example “Have another sandwich.” given by Leech (1983: 109). As for the linguistic forms, in English, “Do x” formed the imperative and “Will you x?” formed the interrogative. These were selected after the example forms by Leech (1983). For Chinese, “ni ( ) ∼ .” as the imperative form and “∼ , zenmeyang ( )?” as the interrogative form were selected, because these forms are the simplest imperative and interrogative forms for requests in that they are free from grammatical or lexical markers which make the forms
Selection of linguistic forms for requests and offers
polite. In that sense, they are like the forms selected for English. The following are examples: English: Have some more cookies. Will you have some more cookies? Chinese: Ni chi xie dianxin. you eat some-more cookies ‘Have some more cookies.’ Ni chi xie dianxin, zenmeyang? you eat some-more cookies, how? ‘Will you have some more cookies?’
For a burden-request case, the following four scenarios (two factors: intimacy difference (high and low) x hierarchical difference (equal and higher)) were presented: Situation 1 (high intimacy, equal-position addressee): Imagine that you are a student. You have a close friend who is familiar with the topic of your research, so you make the following request. Check my paper. Will you check my paper? Situation 2 (low intimacy, equal-position addressee): Imagine that you are a student. There is a colleague with whom you are only acquaintances. But as s/he is familiar with your research topic, you make the following request. Situation 3 (high intimacy, higher-position addressee): Imagine that you are a student and you have a teacher you are close to. As s/he is familiar with your research topic, you make the following request. Situation 4 (low intimacy, higher-position addressee): Imagine that you are a student. There is a teacher who you do not know well but is familiar with your research topic. So you make the following request.
For a benefit-request case, the following four scenarios (two factors: intimacy difference (high and low) x hierarchical difference (equal and higher)) were presented: Situation 1 (high intimacy, equal-position addressee): Imagine that you are a student at a reception. A close friend is present and you make the following offer. Have some more cookies. Will you have some more cookies?
Masako Tsuzuki, Kazuhiro Takahashi, Cynthia Patschke and Qin Zhang
Situation 2 (low intimacy, equal-position addressee): Imagine that you are a student at a reception. A colleague with whom you are only acquaintances is present and you make the following offer. Situation 3 (high intimacy, higher-position addressee): Imagine that you are a student at a reception. A teacher you are close to is present and you make the following offer. Situation 4 (low intimacy, higher-position addressee): Imagine that you are a student at a reception. A teacher who you do not know well is present and you make the following offer.
The above scenarios were selected because all the subjects were once students and therefore they could presumably imagine the situations easily. As for the rating of appropriateness, a 5-point-scale was employed as follows: 1 too impolite 2 a little impolite 3 appropriate 4 a little too polite 5 too polite
. Subjects Since English is spoken in many countries, to control for any cultural differences within English-speaking societies, only Americans were selected as subjects as English speakers. 29 Americans (mostly teachers living in the U.S. or in Japan) and 35 Chinese (mostly teachers living in Japan) were asked to rate the appropriateness of the imperative and the interrogative as requests of a burden type and a benefit type in the given situations described above. Out of this data, answers by 26 Americans and answers by 32 Chinese were deemed valid.
. Results Each mean score of the imperative and the interrogative was calculated from the data obtained from English and Chinese speakers respectively. To check whether the subjects within each group detect the difference in a significant way between the imperative and the interrogative, a paired t-test between them was performed on the data. Additionally, to check whether each form is judged as appropriate enough or not, Z-value was calculated from the data. Our criterion for a form to be appropriate in a given situation is that its Z-value falls between –1.96 and +1.96.
Selection of linguistic forms for requests and offers
Table 1. Situation 1: High intimacy, equal-position-addressee Mean SD
Z-value
English 1.15 Imperative
0.46 –21.69
Chinese 2.53 Imperative
0.50 –5.31
Mean SD Inter- 2.81 rogative Inter- 3.22 rogative
Z-value Difference t-value
0.56 –1.76
1.65
11.99*
0.70 1.78
0.69
4.91*
n = 26 (English) n = 32 (Chinese) * p < .05
Table 2. Situation 2: Low intimacy, equal-position-addressee Mean SD
Z-value
English 1.08 Imperative
0.38 –25.50
Chinese 1.63 Imperative
0.48 –16.07
Mean SD Inter- 2.19 rogative Inter- 2.69 rogative
Z-value Difference t-value
0.73 –5.60
1.12
7.28*
0.73 –2.4
1.06
7.39*
n = 26 (English) n = 32 (Chinese) * p <. 05
Table 3. Situation 3: High intimacy, higher-position-addressee Mean SD
Z-value
English 1.04 Imperative
0.19 –52.01
Chinese 1.75 Imperative
0.56 –12.65
Mean SD Inter- 2.73 rogative Inter- 2.59 rogative
Z-value Difference t-value
0.65 –2.10
1.69
13.70*
0.70 –3.28
0.84
6.13*
n = 26 (English) n = 32 (Chinese) * p <. 05
Let us examine the results in the burden-request case first, which are shown from Table 1 through Table 4 below. As can be seen in Table 1, as a request expression in the close and equal relationship, the imperative is judged as inappropriate and the interrogative is judged as appropriate in both languages. As for the rating of the imperative, it must be noted that Chinese is judged as much more polite and appropriate than English. Tables 2 and 4 show that, as a request expression in the distant relationship (whether or not the addressee is in a higher position), both forms are judged as inappropriate in both languages. Because it is impolite. But the imperative is judged as significantly less polite and less appropriate than the
Masako Tsuzuki, Kazuhiro Takahashi, Cynthia Patschke and Qin Zhang
Table 4. Situation 4: Low intimacy, higher-position-addressee Mean SD
Z-value
English 1.00 Imperative
0.00 N.A.
Chinese 1.50 Imperative
0.50 –16.97
Mean SD Inter- 2.00 rogative Inter- 2.50 rogative
Z-value Difference t-value
0.73 –6.95
1.00
6.68*
0.79 –3.58
1.00
6.93*
n = 26 (English) n = 32 (Chinese) * p <. 05
interrogative in both languages. In addition, Table 4 shows that the rating degree of appropriateness is lowest when the addressee is not close and is in a higher position. Table 4 represents the case in which the addressee is close and in a higher position, showing that the imperative is judged as inappropriate and the interrogative is appropriate in English. In Chinese, both forms are judged as inappropriate. But the imperative is judged as significantly less polite and less appropriate than the interrogative. Now, let us turn to the benefit-request case, from Table 5 through Table 8. Table 5. Situation 1: High intimacy, equal-position-addressee Mean SD
Z-value
English 2.88 Imperative
0.64 –0.92
Chinese 2.75 Imperative
0.43 –3.27
Mean SD Inter- 3.88 rogative Inter- 3.50 rogative
Z-value Difference t-value
0.70 6.47
1.00
5.33*
0.66 4.28
0.75
6.21*
n = 26 (English) n = 32 (Chinese) * p <. 05
Table 6. Situation 2: Low intimacy, equal-position-addressee Mean SD
Z-value
English 2.08 Imperative
0.83 –5.68
Chinese 2.06 Imperative
0.56 –9.55
Mean SD Inter- 3.27 rogative Inter- 3.03 rogative
n = 26 (English) n = 32 (Chinese) * p <. 05
Z-value Difference t-value
0.71 1.93
1.19
7.44*
0.77 0.23
0.97
7.76*
Selection of linguistic forms for requests and offers
Table 7. Situation 3: High intimacy, higher-position-addressee Mean SD
Z-value
English 2.38 Imperative
0.84 –3.76
Chinese 2.28 Imperative
0.84 –4.85
Mean SD Inter- 3.31 rogative Inter- 3.03 rogative
Z-value Difference t-value
0.54 2.91
0.92
4.22*
0.73 –0.24
0.75
4.96*
n = 26 (English) n = 32 (Chinese) * p <. 05
Table 8. Situation 4: Low intimacy, high-position-addressee Mean SD
Z-value
English 1.65 Imperative
0.68 –10.15
Chinese 2.00 Imperative
0.87 –6.53
Mean SD Inter- 2.88 rogative Inter- 2.78 rogative
Z-value Difference t-value
0.80 –0.74
1.23
8.05*
0.86 –1.44
0.78
4.19*
n = 26 (English) n = 32 (Chinese) * p <. 05
Let us begin with Table 5, representing the benefit-request case for the close and equal relationship. In English, the imperative is judged as appropriate and the interrogative is inappropriate. In Chinese, both forms are judged as inappropriate. But from the fact that the mean score of the imperative is closer to 3 than that of the interrogative, we can conjecture that the imperative is less inappropriate, therefore more appropriate than the interrogative.5 Tables 6 and 8 show that as a request expression in the distant relationship, the imperative is judged as inappropriate and the interrogative is appropriate in both languages. Table 7 represents the request case when the addressee is close and is in a higher position. In Chinese, the imperative is judged as inappropriate and the interrogative is judged as appropriate. In English, both forms are judged as inappropriate. But from the fact that the mean score of the interrogative is closer to 3 than that of the imperative, we can conjecture that the interrogative is less inappropriate, therefore more appropriate than the imperative. The overall results of the burden-request case and the benefit-request case are shown graphically in Figures 1 and 2 respectively.
Masako Tsuzuki, Kazuhiro Takahashi, Cynthia Patschke and Qin Zhang 5
US CHN
4
3
2
1
Question Imperative
Question Imperative
CLOSE FRIEND
NOT CLOSE COLLEAGUE
Question Imperative
CLOSE TEACHER
Question Imperative
NOT CLOSE TEACHER
Figure 1. Burden-request case 5 US CHN 4
3
2
1
Question Imperative
Question Imperative
CLOSE FRIEND
NOT CLOSE COLLEAGUE
Question Imperative
CLOSE TEACHER
Question Imperative
NOT CLOSE TEACHER
Figure 2. Benefit-request case
The overall results can be summarized as follows: 1. For the burden-request case, when the addressee is a close friend (high intimacy and equal relationship), the interrogative is appropriate and the imperative is inappropriate in both languages. When the addressee is not close and/or is in a higher position than the speaker, both forms decrease
Selection of linguistic forms for requests and offers
in politeness and appropriateness. One thing to be noted is that the imperative is always judged significantly less polite and less appropriate than the interrogative in both languages. The second thing is that, as for the rating of the imperative, the Chinese imperative is much more polite and appropriate than the English one, especially when the relationship between the speaker and the addressee is close and equal (The mean score of Chinese = 2.53, the mean score of English = 1.15). 2. For the benefit-request case, the imperative is more appropriate than the interrogative in both languages only when the addressee is a close friend (high intimacy and equal relationship). This is because the interrogative is too polite. When the addressee is not close to the speaker and/or is in a higher position (low intimacy and/or higher-position-addressee), the imperative becomes less appropriate than the interrogative in that it is impolite.
. Discussion For a requested act which is a burden to the addressee, it was confirmed that the imperative is less polite and less appropriate than the interrogative. This holds true of both languages under all situations. Therefore, across these cultures and situations, negative politeness is consistently typical in making burdensome requests. It was also confirmed that the more distant and more hierarchical the relationship between the speaker and the addressee is, the less polite and less appropriate both forms become.6 This is because the concern for negative face becomes greater in these situations (Brown & Levinson 1987; Leichty & Applegate 1991).7 Thus, the use of other markers such as subjunctive forms, the marker please, or mitigating final particles, is needed in those situations. As for the differences between English and Chinese, the Chinese imperative is judged as much more polite and appropriate than the English one, especially when the relationship between the speaker and the addressee is close and equal. To confirm the differences between the Chinese imperative and the English one, a paired t-test was performed on the data, which is shown in Table 9. Table 9 indicates that the Chinese imperative is significantly more polite and more appropriate than the English imperative in any situation.8 It must also be noted that the greatest difference arises in the close and equal relationship. We can then say that even in the burden-request case, imposition is not considered so impolite and inappropriate in Chinese society, especially for the close and equal relationship. Hence, we maintain that negative polite-
Masako Tsuzuki, Kazuhiro Takahashi, Cynthia Patschke and Qin Zhang
Table 9. Difference between English imperative and Chinese imperative (burdenrequest case) Mean
SD
Mean
SD
t-value
Situation 1: close friend
English Imperative
1.15
0.46
Chinese Imperative
2.53
0.50
10.68*
Situation 2: not close friend
English Imperative
1.08
0.38
Chinese Imperative
1.63
0.48
4.61*
Situation 3: close friend
English Imperative
1.04
0.19
Chinese Imperative
1.75
0.56
6.09*
Situation 4: not close teacher
English Imperative
1.00
0.00
Chinese Imperative
1.50
0.50
N.A.
n = 26 (English) n = 32 (Chinese) * p <. 05
ness is not valued much in Chinese society and that Chinese society is less negative-politeness-oriented than American society. As for a requested act which is of benefit to the addressee, it was found that it is only when the addressee is a close friend that the imperative is more appropriate than the interrogative. Conversely, when the addressee is not close and/or is in a higher position, the interrogative becomes more appropriate than the imperative. Hence, Leech’s claim is tenable, with the qualification that an addressee is a close friend. Thus, only when the addressee is a close friend is positive politeness given greater weight and hence the imperative is preferred. But in the other situations, negative politeness is given greater weight and hence the interrogative is preferred. Thus, there exists a deep connection between positive politeness on the one hand, and a close and equal relationship between the speaker and the addressee on the other hand. For that relationship, to satisfy the desire to be recognized and treated as a member of an in-group is the most essential and crucial point in the social interaction of a benefit-request case. But when the relationship is distant and/or hierarchical, the reverse is true and to satisfy the desire for self-determination is the most essential point. This holds true of both languages. There is another important thing. The results for the English benefitrequest case in the highly intimate and equal relationship are different from those of Tsuzuki et al. (1999). They revealed that the interrogative is more polite and more appropriate than the imperative in English, which is shown in Table 10. One main reason for the differences in the results would be that, in the previous study, no scenarios were presented other than the condition that an
Selection of linguistic forms for requests and offers
Table 10. Benefit-request case high intimacy, equal-position-addressee
English Imperative Chinese Imperative
Mean
SD
2.67
0.62
2.80
0.56
Interrogative Interrogative
Mean
SD
Differ-ence
t-value
3.07
0.46
0.40
3.06*
3.93
0.88
1.13
5.26**
n = 15 (English) n = 15 (Chinese) * p <. 05 ** p <. 01 (from Tsuzuki et al. 1999)
addressee is a close friend.9 Hence the subjects could not determine the contexts in order to judge the appropriateness of the forms properly. But the same can be said of the Chinese case. In Chinese, nevertheless, the results of this study are consistent with the previous one, whether a fully specified context is given or not. We may conjecture then that the use of the imperative as an appropriately polite beneficial request in the close and equal relationship is much more conventionalized in Chinese than in English. Hence, even if no proper context is given, the Chinese subjects might have judged the imperative as more appropriate than the interrogative in that relationship. From this, along with the result of the burden-request case (i.e. in the burden-request case, the Chinese imperative is judged as much more appropriate than the English in the close and equal relationship), we can say that the use of the imperative as an appropriately polite request form in the close and equal relationship is much more conventionalized in Chinese than English. This in turn supports Spencer-Oatey’s (1992) argument that, in Chinese culture, imposition and directness are more important than in English-speaking societies and that Chinese society is less negative-politeness-oriented and more positive-politeness-oriented than English-speaking societies in this sense.
. Conclusion First, in a benefit-request case, it was found that the imperative is more appropriate than the interrogative only when a supposed addressee is a close friend. When the addressee is not close and/or is in a higher position, the interrogative becomes more appropriate than the imperative. This holds true of both English and Chinese. Therefore, for the benefit-request acts between those who are close and equal, positive politeness is given priority in both societies. In the other relationships, negative politeness is given priority. This suggests a
Masako Tsuzuki, Kazuhiro Takahashi, Cynthia Patschke and Qin Zhang
close connection between positive politeness and social factors such as highly intimate and equal relationships. Second, the results of the Chinese benefit-request case for the close and equal relationship in this study were found to be consistent with those of Tsuzuki et al. (1999), while the English results are not. The consistent results in the Chinese case suggest that the use of the imperative as an appropriately polite request expression is more conventionalized in Chinese than in English. This in turn supports the idea that Chinese society is less negative-politenessoriented and more positive-politeness-oriented than American society. This is one possibility and so further investigations of other request acts and other languages are necessary.
Notes * We are grateful to Kimiya Adachi for his valuable comments and suggestions on an earlier version of this paper. Partial support for this research was provided by Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research from the Japanese Ministry of Education, Science, Sports and Culture (Grant No. 11610567, 1999). . But, in Brown and Levinson’s (1987) framework, the treatment of the imperative as a benefit-request seems contradictory. Under their superstrategies, the use of the imperative as a beneficial request is not considered positive politeness but a “bald on record strategy”, which means a strategy of no politeness (Brown & Levinson 1987: 69). On the other hand, they also admit that making a beneficial request is one way of showing positive politeness (Brown & Levinson 1987: 125). After all, judging from their superstrategies, they seem to stick to the idea that giving no options by the use of the imperative is not polite by any means. Against this idea, Spencer-Oatey (1992), LoCastro (1990) and Kouletaki (1999) argue that there are some cultures and societies where giving no options is polite. In this paper, we take the position that the use of the imperative as a beneficial request is a positive politeness strategy. . Each study mentioned in this section argues for the relationship between a given society and the priority of the two kinds of politeness. But they do not verify their arguments empirically either about the burden-request case or about the benefit-request case. . As for Japanese society, Brown and Levinson (1987) argue that Japan is a society of negative politeness. But Matsumoto (1988) dismisses their idea and argues that Japan is not negative-politeness- oriented, saying that freedom from imposition is not valued by Japanese culture and that the Japanese are more concerned about showing their interdependence and role as part of a group. LoCastro (1990) made the same kind of argument about Japanese culture by pointing out the uses of honorific expressions and final particles. . The word “politeness” can be used in two senses: it refers not only to the use of “polite” expressions but also to the use of expressions that are appropriate as to the degree of politeness. “Politeness” in the first sense would be a major issue for absolute-politeness ad-
Selection of linguistic forms for requests and offers
vocates, but their scale is incompatible with Leech’s contention. Hence, the validity of his thesis should be tested in relation to “politeness” in the second sense, i.e., the appropriateness as to the politeness degree in a given situation. See Tsuzuki et al. (1999) and Tsuzuki et al. (2002) for the detailed arguments. . In this situation, the Chinese imperative is judged as a little impolite and not as appropriate as the English one. This may be mainly because final particles showing politeness were not added to the imperative forms for the questionnaires. The Chinese imperative is usually accompanied by final particles of this kind. . This seems to be consistent with “the Bulge theory”, which N. Wolfson (1988) proposed: people are more polite in their relationships with nonintimates and acquaintances than in their relationships with intimates and strangers, although the relationships of intimates and strangers are at the extremes of social distance. In our analysis, only intimate and nonintimate cases are dealt with. In two cases, both interrogative and imperative forms are less polite in nonintimate relationships than in intimate relationships. Future research should look at cases of politeness between strangers. . Leichty and Applegate (1991) make the following argument, by distinguishing small requests (the ranking of the imposition of the request act is low) and large requests (the ranking of the imposition of the request act is high): when the relationship between the speaker and the addressee is distant and/or hierarchical, the amount of face threat is higher in small request situations and the politeness must be increased. But in large request situations, the reverse is true and larger face support is necessary under the close relationship. Then, it must be that asking someone to check a paper is a small request. . As for the differences between the Chinese interrogative and the English one, it is found from the results of the paired t-test that the Chinese interrogative is significantly more polite than the English one, except when the addressee is a close teacher. As for the benefitrequest case, no significant differences in appropriateness can be seen between the Chinese interrogative and the English interrogative except for the case of a request to a close friend. . As another factor for the differences in the results, we may point out that four different types of situations (high/low intimacy x equal/higher-position-addressee) are assumed in this study, while only one (the addressee is a close friend) was assumed in the previous study. Therefore, the subjects may have tried to differentiate the judgements according to the four different types of situations and overreacted in the questionnaire in this investigation. But this cannot explain exactly why the reverse result was gained.
References Brown, Penelope & Levinson Stephen, C. (1987). Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ide, Sachiko, Tsunao Ogino, Akiko Kawasaki, & Shoko Ikuta (1986). Nihonjin to Amerikajinno Keigokoudou [Politeness in Japan and the U.S.]. Tokyo: Nan-undo.
Masako Tsuzuki, Kazuhiro Takahashi, Cynthia Patschke and Qin Zhang
Kawamura, Yoko (1996). “Kotobaniyoru teineihyougen [Linguistic Politeness]”. In Tanaka, Harumi & S. Tanaka (Eds.), Syakai-gengogaku-eno Syoutai [Invitation to Sociolinguistics] (pp. 125–140). Kyoto: Mineruba-Press. Kouletaki, Ekaterini (1999). “Universality of politeness strategies: A comparison between male speakers of English and Greek, and female speakers of English and Greek”. Paper presented at International Symposium on Linguistic Politeness. Bangkok: Chulalongkorn University. Lakoff, Robin (1973). “ The logic of politeness; Or, minding your p’s and q’s.” In Papers from the Ninth Regional Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society (pp. 292–305). Chicago: Chicago Linguistic Society. Leech, Geoffrey N. (1983). Principles of Pragmatics. London: Longman. Leichty, G. & Applegate, J. L. (1991). “Social-cognitive and situational influences on the use of face-saving persuasive strategies”. Human Communication Research, 17 (3), 451–484. LoCastro, Virginia B. A. (1990). “Intercultural Pragmatics: A Japanese-American Case Study”. Ph.D. dissertation, Lancaster University. Matsumoto, Yoko (1988). “Reexamination of the universality of face: Politeness phenomena in Japanese”. Journal of Pragmatics, 12, 403–426. Spencer-Oatey, Helen D. M. (1992). “Cross-Cultural Politeness: British and Chinese Conceptions of the Tutor-Student Relationship”. Ph.D. dissertation, Lancaster University. Tanaka, Shigenori & Saiki Kawade (1982). “Politeness strategies and second language acquisition”. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 5 (1), 18–33. Tsuzuki, Masako, Miyamoto, Setsuko, & Zhang, Qin (1999). “Politeness degree of imperative and interrogative request expressions: Japanese, English, Chinese”. In The Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Cognitive Science and the 16th Annual Meeting of the Japanese Cognitive Science Society Joint Conference (pp. 519–522). Tsuzuki, Masako, Miyamoto, Setsuko, & Zhang, Qin (2002). “Susume-hyogen ni-okeru Tago-keishiki to Poraitonesu no Kankei [The relationship between syntactic forms and politeness with respect to offer expressions]”. Contemporary Research in Modern Chinese, 4, 113–124.
P V
The historical perspective
Japanese pronouns of address Their behavior and maintenance over time* Andrew Barke and Satoshi Uehara This paper takes a historical look at various strategies used in the maintenance of politeness within the referential system of the Japanese language based on a survey of 72 past and present second person singular pronouns. It finds strategies include the adoption of new indirect directional or locative nouns, the addition of polite suffixes and prefixes to existing forms, and the use of “title” like Chinese terms in which politeness is imbedded in the morphology of the word. It also investigates who is responsible for such innovations and finds evidence suggesting women play a major role in the creation of new terms. Keywords: Second-person pronouns; politeness; gender differences; pronominal taboo
.
Introduction
Brown and Gilman’s “The Pronouns of Power and Solidarity” (1968), probably one of the most well known works in the area of second person reference, takes a historical look at second person pronoun usage in European languages. Noting the two-form distinction common in the second person singular in the majority of these languages, Brown and Gilman describe a change over time in the differentiation of usage of the two forms from one based on power, to one based on familiarity and politeness. While it has not remained completely free of criticism, it is generally acknowledged that their description provides a useful overview of the pattern of usage of European address pronouns. Japanese pronouns of address have been looked at by a variety of scholars, but none, as far as we are aware, have offered a broad, overall description of their use through history in the style of Brown and Gilman. It is our intention in this paper to attempt to provide such an overview, indicating some of
Andrew Barke and Satoshi Uehara
the major tendencies that have occurred in Japanese second person singular pronominal use. While aware of the limitations of such a broad coverage, we hope it will be useful in understanding some of the fundamental qualities of Japanese personal reference, and as a result, help clarify some of the differences between the Japanese and European systems of address. As we proceed, we will be highlighting differences, and investigating the scale to which they occur.
. European pronouns of address First, let us take a brief look at Brown and Gilman’s description. They describe European second person singular pronominal usage under the two dimensions of power and solidarity. They note that in most European languages today, two forms occur which show either familiarity or politeness (shown in Table 1), and which they refer to as T/V forms after the Latin forms tu and vos. They trace the origin of the two-form distinction back to the 4th century when the plural form of address vos in Latin came into use in the singular as a polite form to address the emperor. This type of usage was later extended to other figures in power, and around the 12th and 14th centuries a set of norms was established, referred to by Brown and Gilman as the ‘power semantic’, in which the T form was used with people of lower power status (e.g., servants, children, etc.), and V was received back. Between people of the same class, pronominal address was reciprocal: equals of the upper classes used V to address each other while equals of the lower classes used T in a similar fashion. Later, in relationships between equals in which power was not a factor, the deTable 1. European T/V languages referred to in Brown and Gilman (1968)
Japanese pronouns of address
gree of solidarity or closeness came to be expressed through the mutual use of either V or T, with V usage becoming more probable as the degree of solidarity declines. Until the nineteenth century, the power semantic was dominant in determining the use of V or T, however, the balance eventually tipped in favor of the solidarity dimension so that now, a reciprocal T is generally used to show solidarity and reciprocal V indicates non-solidarity. As we can see, Brown and Gilman’s account offers some broad theoretical generalizations about European pronominal usage, with limited comment on variation within the system. Braun (1988) amongst others, while not disputing the general tendencies outlined by Brown and Gilman, cautions that their argument implies some sort of referential ‘Systemlinguistik’: a closed and homogeneous system of address (1988: 18). She points out that variation does occur within the system, referring to several examples, one of which is given in Bates and Benigni (1975) who summarize the use of voi in some areas of Italy as follows: However, most LC Ss [lower-class subjects] who use voi also use the formal pronoun Lei. Many of our Ss apparently have a tripartite system, in which Lei is reserved as the respect form for non-familiar superiors and/or distant acquaintances in the city, while voi is used in the family, and may also be extended to superiors and distant acquaintances ‘back home’. (Bates & Benigni 1975: 279)
We can see, then, that while some variation has occurred within the general tendencies of European pronominal usage, the general pattern has been a borrowing of a plural form for use as a polite singular, with rules governing the differentiation in usage shifting from those based on the dimension of power to those based on familiarity. In the next section we will take a look at the situation regarding Japanese pronouns of address.
. Japanese pronouns of address Most sources give a number of five or six second person singular pronouns for Modern Standard Japanese, including the forms anata, anta, kimi, omae, and kisama and/or temee. Ide (1975), for example, lists the first five of these in order of politeness (shown in Table 2), ranking anata at the top of the scale, and kisama at the bottom. This number is considerably greater than the two or three forms found in any of the European languages Brown and Gilman described.
Andrew Barke and Satoshi Uehara
Table 2. Politeness ranking of second person singular pronouns in Modern Standard Japanese most polite anata anta kimi omae kisama temee*
(*Ide does not include temee in her list)
If we look further back in history, we find a similar pattern of multiple forms. Yamasaki’s (1955) analysis of address pronouns in the Edo period (1603–1868) refers to a variety of forms ranging from the politer forms omae and omaesama down to the derogatory onore. He also divides the forms into five levels of politeness (with some overlap occurring between levels) using an interesting method of cross-checking the pronominal forms with their predicates, as the politeness levels of the former can be expected to collocate with the latter. He comments that a similar five-way distinction in politeness existed in the previous (Muromachi) era as well. By looking at usage over two historical periods, Yamasaki was able to begin to discern certain characteristics of Japanese personal pronouns that would not be easily observable in a shorter period of time. A search for a description of this type that extended over a time period similar to that covered by Brown and Gilman proved to be fruitless, so we were prompted into conducting a limited survey of our own. . Historical survey Upon a preliminary search of Japanese second person singular pronouns, we were easily able to come up with over 140 forms, with the earliest dating as far back as the Nara Period (710–794). This gave us an astonishing average of at least one for every nine years. Difficulties were faced in determining the extent to which some of the terms had been used, so to obtain a representative group of pronouns to work with, only those forms listed in three general works on the subject (Suzuki 1963; Miller 1980; Tsukishima 1982) were investigated. None
Japanese pronouns of address
Table 3. Japanese second person singular pronouns Old Japanese (Nara Period 710–794)
agi, i, imashi, kimi, mashi, mimashi, na, nanji, nare, nushi, onore, ore
Late Old Japanese (Heian Period 794–1185)
gohen, imashi, kiden, kimi, kinji, mashi, nanji, nare, nushi, onore, ore, sokka, soko, sore(ni), wadono, wanushi
Middle Japanese (Kamakura/Muromachi Periods 1185–1603)
are, gohen, kiden, kihen, kihoo, kimi, kisho, konata, nanji, nushi, okoto, onmi, onushi, otemae, onore, onoshi, sochi, sokka, soko, somoji, sonata, sonohoo, sore(ni), wadono, wagami, wagoryo, wahito, wanushi, ware
Early Modern Japanese (Edo Period 1603–1868)
agami, anata, anta, are, arisama, gohen, katasama, kiden, kihen, kihoo, kikoo, kimi, kisama, kisho, konan, konasa(a), konasama, konasan, konata, konatasama, miuchi, nanji, nishi, nushi, okoto, omae, omaesama, omaesan, omahan, omee, omeesan, omi, omisama, onmi, onore, onoshi, onushi, otemae, sochi, sochira, sochitora, sokka, soko, sokomoto, somoji, sonata, sonatasama, sonohoo, sore(ni), soresama, sosama, sotchi, temae/temee, unu, wadono, wagami, wagoryo, wanushi, ware, waresama, warisama, waro
Present Japanese
anata, anta, kimi, kisama, omae, temee
of the three references gave detailed information on the usage of each term, so descriptions were obtained from the “Nihon Kokugo Daijiten” (1972) – a 20 volume dictionary of the Japanese language (the Japanese version of the O.E.D.). Phonological variants of a term (e.g. temee/temae) were treated as one form. The result was a total of 72 forms, shown in Table 3 in the approximate historical period in which they were used. . Flux vs. stability The results of the survey brought to light five main interrelated differences between the Japanese and European pronouns of address. The first of these, as apparent if we compare Tables 1 and 3, was that the Japanese forms are more numerous, from both a synchronic and diachronic perspective. While the two(sometimes three-) form distinction has remained fairly constant in European languages, Japanese has seen numbers ranging from more than 60 forms in use in the Edo period (1603–1868) to five or six in use today. Multiple forms in synchronic use have also been noted in many other Asian languages (cf. Head 1978: 187). Diachronically speaking, Japanese has seen at least 72 forms in use (counting only representative ones) since the Nara period (710–794), while European languages have had only three or four over a similar period of time.
Andrew Barke and Satoshi Uehara
German saw several changes in its V form that Braun (1988: 58) describes as “rapid changes”, yet the pace of change is minimal compared to Japanese. A second point of difference observed was that the life spans of Japanese pronouns are comparatively short. As can be observed in Table 3, only one form kimi from Old Japanese has survived through to the present, although even this form appears to have been a restricted written form which was later revived and adopted back into use in the spoken language (Yamaguchi et al. 1997). All others have dropped out of use at various points in history. In contrast, European languages have replaced only some of their V forms, while T forms have on the whole remained active right through to the present. A third point of difference is that Japanese distinguishes between more levels of politeness than European languages do. Under a two-form (or even three-form) pronoun system, speakers have a choice between the use of a polite form or a non-polite form, but when a language such as Japanese offers numerous forms to choose from, finer degrees of politeness can be differentiated. Yamasaki suggested that five levels of politeness are distinguishable in the Japanese of the Muromachi and Edo periods. The Nihon Kokugo Daijiten, on the other hand tends to make a three-way distinction between usage with ‘superiors’, ‘equals’, and ‘inferiors’. It does at times, however, make further distinctions in use between that with ‘close superiors’ and ‘close inferiors’, and many terms are described as being able to be used in two or more of these combinations. A fourth point of difference is that Japanese politeness levels include a derogatory level. In other words, Japanese has one-word pronominal forms which mean something like “you bastard” in English. Temee, for example, is a second person pronoun, but it differs from the English you in that the former cannot be used without conveying the speaker’s derogative/negative attitude toward the addressee. It is different from the English bastard as well in that the former cannot be used to refer to people other than the addressee (except in reflexive usage). A final difference, as Yamasaki pointed out, is that the Japanese pronouns are afflicted by a rather rapid reduction in politeness, particularly those that start out with higher levels of politeness. Of the forms in our survey that were reported to have been used with superiors (23 in total), all either saw a reduction in politeness or fell out of use within the timeframe of one historical era. Moreover, none of the total 72 forms surveyed showed any increase in politeness. This means that personal pronouns in Japanese are susceptible to shifts in their politeness levels, and when such a shift occurs, it is always downwards. An example of such a downward shift taken from Yamasaki is shown in
Japanese pronouns of address
Table 4. Politeness Reduction in the Japanese second person pronoun konata
Table 4. This observation contrasts sharply with the description given for European pronouns. In the latter, no V forms have shifted into the T level except for the English case, where the T/V distinction itself was lost. All five of the mutually related differences indicate that Japanese pronouns are comparatively unstable entities in a constant state of flux. We now need to consider why this may be so. . Pronominal taboo As was noted above, one characteristic of the Japanese pronouns is their tendency to show a rapid reduction in their politeness level. We can also find a similar pattern of rapid politeness reduction in linguistic taboos such as the English taboo regarding reference to defecation and places of defecation. As euphemistic expressions become more widely used and more closely associated with the tabooed referents, their politeness value drops, which in turn leads to a need for new polite/indirect expressions. Hock describes the workings of such taboos as follows: What is subject to taboo may differ from culture to culture. But whatever the cultural differences, tabooed expressions tend to be avoided. At the same time, however, complete avoidance commonly is not possible, since on many occasions we will have to refer to the tabooed notion after all. A common avoidance strategy is to replace the tabooed item by a different, frequently euphemistic expression which is semantically appropriate. But the new expression, in turn, tends to become taboo, since it is likewise felt to be too closely linked with the tabooed point of reference. The consequence may be a chain of ever-changing replacements, a constant turnover in vocabulary. (Hock 1986: 293)
This, then, offers an explanation for the constant state of flux experienced by Japanese pronouns of address. As Suzuki (1978: 123) points out, a taboo exists in Japanese regarding the direct reference of people. That is, in Japanese, the existence of the pronominal taboo (and the speaker’s conscious awareness of the degree of politeness conveyed by personal pronouns) is such that it has
Andrew Barke and Satoshi Uehara
polite
A
non-pronominal nouns
B C pronouns
D E impolite
F
(non-usage)
Figure 1. The life cycle of Japanese second person pronouns
the effect of rapidly reducing the politeness level of pronouns and makes them become less appropriate as quickly as those words affected by the English taboo. The life cycle for Japanese second person pronouns can be shown schematically as in Figure 1. Let us now take a look at the situation regarding the terms in Modern Japanese as an example. Corresponding to (A) in Figure 1, a noun/nominal phrase such as sochira no hoo (that.polite genitive direction) ‘that direction (near you)’ is borrowed as a euphemistic/polite expression to refer to the hearer. At stage (B), while maintaining its nominal meaning and associated euphemistic politeness, usage of the noun/nominal phrase as a pronoun begins to increase (e.g. sochira ‘there (near you)’, otaku ‘(your) honorable residence’). As the noun/nominal phrase becomes more widely used as a pronoun, its nominal meaning and associated politeness are diminished (C) as has happened with anata ‘you’. This term originally literally meant ‘distant direction’, but the meaning has been bleached and the term is now used only as a pronoun.1 As was indicated earlier, anata is considered to be the most polite among the pronouns of address in use, even though it cannot usually be used with anyone higher in status than one’s equal. Examples of pronouns at stage (D) include anta, (a reduced form of anata), kimi, which originally meant ‘lord/prince/ruler’, and omae, which is the honorific prefix o- attached to mae meaning ‘in front’. These terms are considered to be less polite than anata, and consequently their use tends to be restricted to that of superior to inferior, and often male to female (although female usage is sometimes reported to be in-
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creasing, possibly reflecting changes in the social structure of Japanese society). By the time a pronoun has fallen to the level of (E), the contexts in which it can be used are extremely limited. Examples of pronouns at this stage are temee – a reduced form of temae meaning ‘in front of oneself ’ (literally in front of hand), and kisama – a combination of ki ‘honorable/noble’ + the title –sama. The use of both of these pronouns is now generally restricted to conflictive contexts in which they are employed for their derogatory effect, although kisama is reportedly still used within the defence forces by superiors to inferiors. Eventually, all politeness associated with the pronoun is lost, and the term falls completely out of use, shown as (F) in the figure. The pronominal taboo and the life cycle of pronouns in Japanese offer a reasonable account for the five differences between Japanese pronouns and T/V pronouns discussed above.
. Maintenance of politeness As we can see, in Japanese, new forms of address must regularly be found to replace those that have undergone politeness reduction. We now need to consider how, and by whom, this might be achieved. . Strategies In Japanese, there appear to be at least two major strategies employed in the maintenance of politeness within the pronominal system. The first we came across was an ‘indirect’ or ‘negative politeness’ strategy (Brown & Levinson 1978) that involves the adoption of euphemistic expressions usually indicating location or direction. It differs, however, from the European indirect strategy, which is to borrow a plural form to be used in the singular. Examples from Modern Japanese include anata, which in its former use as a noun was a locational term indicating the direction ‘over there’, and was a way of addressing a person with respect without referring to them directly. Omae as a noun, was a respectful term comprising the honorific prefix o- and ‘in front’, meaning in front (of a god, Buddha, or a nobleman). It, too, was a way of addressing a person indirectly. Temee/temae was another term that originally meant ‘in front’. Other examples can be found amongst terms no longer in use such as konata, sokomoto, sochi, sonata, and sonohoo, which all derived from words showing relative direction.
Andrew Barke and Satoshi Uehara
A second strategy, which we can call the ‘direct’ strategy, involves the use of terms that, rather than being euphemistic, directly/overtly express politeness toward the referent/addressee. These terms are usually Chinese compound words that act rather like a title, and many have politeness embedded within their morphological structure, a ‘positive politeness’ strategy (ibid.). Kisama, kiden, kihen, kihoo, and kisho, for example are all compounds that include the morpheme ki meaning ‘honor/respect’.2 They originally meant ‘an honorable person’ or ‘Mr./Ms. honorable’. They stopped, however, being used to refer to people other than the addressee, and thus became second person pronouns at some point in time. Regardless of the strategy employed, however, the resulting terms all come under the affect of the pronominal taboo in that they are all subject to the same potential loss of politeness over time. . Instigators In addition to revealing different strategies of politeness maintenance in the Japanese pronominal system, the survey also revealed some possible instigators responsible for the creation of new polite terms. When the factor of speaker gender was included in the equation, three points of difference were found to exist between the genders. The first of these was the fact that many of those examples found to have begun in male speech were of the ‘direct’ type (e.g. kikoo, kisho, kiden), whereas terms originating in female speech tended to be of the ‘indirect’ type (e.g. somoji, soresama, konasama). This point shows that both men and women can be polite, but that they differ in how they go about it. Secondly, there were more cases in which the usage of new polite forms began in female speech (13 instances in female speech, which was more than double the 6 instances found in male speech). The third point of difference noted was the fact that while a number of forms which had originated in female speech were later adopted into male speech as well, the opposite pattern was almost non-existent. An example is given in Table 5. There were a total of 6 examples of gender-related borrowings, and all of them (except one – kisama – which was in fact a samurai term rather than simply a male gender term that was used in writing and later came into use amongst the general public) showed the same pattern of movement. Although the number is not particularly large, a lack of counter-examples suggests there may be some significance to the pattern. These three gender differences seem to indicate that women take the lead in the creation of new forms, and that when they do create new forms, they tend to prefer ‘indirect’ strategies rather than ‘direct’ ones.
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Table 5. Sex-based borrowing and politeness reduction of the pronoun konasan
A possible motivation for female speakers to be leaders in the creation of new polite terms of address in Japanese is found in Ide (1992). In a survey of 200 men and women regarding politeness levels of the various forms of the verb iku ‘to go’, she found that women gave a lower judgement of a form’s politeness than men did. Furthermore, when queried about which forms would be appropriate for use with a specified addressee (such as a spouse, a friend, a workmate etc.), women were found to select politer forms of address than their male counterparts. Ide concludes from her results that in order for women to show the same level of politeness as men, they must use politer forms of language. This pattern of behavior found in regard to the use of Modern Japanese offers an explanation as to why new forms of the second person singular would appear in female speech.
. Conclusion In this paper, we have attempted to provide a brief overview of the Japanese pronominal system of address on a time scale similar to that outlined in Brown and Gilman’s description of European second person pronouns. In doing so, we have been able to compare the two systems, finding significant differences in the pronominal forms and their behavior. We found that, while both systems are affected to some degree by a reduction of politeness over time, in Japanese the pace of reduction is much faster, requiring a constant need for the creation of new polite forms. This work requires strategies, and in Japanese it appears that women may be key players in the process of maintaining politeness levels within the pronominal system.
Andrew Barke and Satoshi Uehara
Notes * An earlier version of this paper was presented at the International Symposium on Linguistic Politeness held December 1999 in Bangkok, Thailand. We are thankful for the input of the audience at the conference. We would also like to express our gratitude to the editors of this volume, Sachiko Ide and Robin Lakoff for their comments, and to Krisadawan Hongladarom for her continuous support and assistance. . With regard to the problem of distinguishing between personal pronouns and nonpronominal reference terms, we have adopted Cooke’s (1968) definition, which states: Personal pronouns may [. . .] be defined semantically as forms which have differentiation of person as the main feature of their class meaning. That is, they usually denote only first, or second, or third person. (Cooke 1968: 8) . Some of the forms here use the indirect strategy as well (e.g. kiden = ki ‘honourable’ + den ‘house/residence’).
References Bates, E. & Benigni, L. (1975). “Rules of address in Italy: A sociolinguistic survey”. Language in Society, 4, 271–288. Braun, F. (1988). Terms of Address: Problems of Patterns and Usage in Various Languages and Cultures. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Brown, P. & Levinson, S. (1978). Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Brown, R. & Gilman, A. (1968). “The pronouns of power and solidarity”. In J. A. Fishman (Ed.), The Sociology of Language (pp. 252–275). The Hague: Mouton. Cooke, J. (1968). Pronominal Reference in Thai, Burmese, and Vietnamese. Berkeley: University of California Press. Head, B. (1978). “Respect degrees in pronominal reference”. In J. Greenberg (Ed.), Universals of Human Language 3, Word Structure (pp. 151–211). Stanford: Stanford University Press. Hock, H. (1986). Principles of Historical Linguistics. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Ide, S. (1975). Onna no kotoba, otoko no kotoba [Women’s speech, men’s speech]. Tokyo: Nihon Keizai Tsuushinsha. Ide, S. (1992). “Gender and function of language use: Quantitative and qualitative evidence from Japanese”. Pragmatics and Language Learning, 3, 117–129. Miller, R. (1980). The Japanese Language. Tokyo: Charles E. Tuttle. Miyaji, Y. (1973). “Genji monogatari/makuranosooshi no keigo” [Honorific language in the Tales of Genji/The pillow book]. In S. Hayashi & F. Minami (Eds.), Joodai/chuuko no keigo (Keigo kooza, 2) [Honorific language in Old and Late Old Japanese (A course on honorific language, 2)] (pp. 73–115). Tokyo: Meiji Shoin. Suzuki, K. & Hayashi, O. (Eds.). (1963). Hinshibetsu nihon bunpoo kooza 2, meishi/daimeishi [A course on Japanese grammar according to its parts of speech 2, nouns/pronouns]. Tokyo: Meiji Shoin.
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Suzuki, T. (1978). Words in Context: A Japanese Perspective on Language and Culture. Tokyo: Kodansha. Tsukishima, H. (Ed.). (1982). Kooza kokugoshi 4, bunpooshi [A course on Japanese language history 4, history of grammar]. Tokyo: Taishuukan Shoten. Yamaguchi, A., Suzuki, H., Sakanashi, R., & Tsukimoto, M. (1997). Nihongo no rekishi [A history of the Japanese language]. Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press. Yamasaki, H. (1955). “Kokugo no taiguu hyoogen taikei to sono rekishi” [The Japanese system of politeness expressions and its history]. Kokugogaku, 21, 17–29.
An aspect of the origins and development of linguistic politeness in Thai Wilaiwan Khanittanan This paper is an attempt to trace the origins and development of linguistic politeness in Thai, starting from the first Thai kingdom, Sukhothai, up to the present. In all five constituents of linguistic politeness have been identified, namely elevation of the addressee, self-effacement of the speaker, the use of high diglossic vocabulary, polite particles, and the use of long deferential expressions. Keywords: Development; polite particles; polite personal pronouns; diglossia
Introduction This essay explores the origins and development of linguistic politeness in Thai by examining old records of two historical periods and comparing them to contemporary linguistic politeness. Below, a outline of the development of linguistic politeness is given, starting from the Sukhothai period, followed by the Ayutthaya up to the present day. In the Sukhothai period, kinship terms were used as indicators of politeness. The terms /phffB3 / “father” and /puuB2 / “grandfather” were used to show elevation of kings, ancestors and spirits of the nature. However, the language used for talking about kings was not different from that of the commoners. Things were completely different in the Ayutthaya kingdom. The kings of Ayutthaya were elevated to the same status as God and the Buddha. The language used to address to and to talk about them was the same as that used to talk about the Buddha but different from that of commoners. There was special vocabulary to be used only with kings. It was called “Raja-sap” or royal vocabulary. Later in the Ayutthaya period the use of “Raja-sap” was extended to other royal family members and aristocrats. As a consequence diglossic contrasts occurred in Thai in which the native Thai language was the low variety,
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and Khmer and Pali/Sanskit was the high. This tradition was carried through to the Bangkok period. The “Raja-sap” was then elaborated and modernized, and at present can be defined as polite and appropriate words to use with kings as well as commoners. Modernization in the later Bangkok period called for a new variety of Thai for the emerging new class of people in the city of Bangkok. Linguistic politeness became an important issue in the new egalitarian education system. New “polite” words were taught in school. Some new polite personal pronouns and addressing terms in the language of commoners now are the results of modifying those used in Raja-sap. The development of linguistic politeness in Thai appears to center around the Khmer and Khmero-Indic influences.
The Sukhothai Period (1238 A.D. – 1420 A.D.) Sukhothai, the first Thai Kingdom, was founded in 1238 A.D. King Ram Khamhaeng, who invented the Thai writing system in 1292 A.D., described Sukhothai in Inscription I as a peaceful, religious, and fertile town /mYa]A3 /. What other kings of Sukhothai described in numerous inscriptions also centered around Theravada Buddhist activities and kingly functions. Khmer influences were obvious but “Thainess” prevailed strongly. The words /cawC2 / “ruler” and /mYa]A3 / “city, town” point to the native ruling system. The picture of Sukhothai described by their kings was that of rural agricultural communities like those of the Tai minority groups in China and India at present. Most villagers grew rice. A few adventurous ones would do some petty trading. They would go out of their village to trade at a market. On Buddhist Sabbath days, villagers from every household gathered at their temple to attend religious ceremonies four times a month. In this type of community, everyone knows each other. Everyone is either the child or the parent of someone. Kinship relations dominate such communities. Kinship terms are used to address people who are not related. This use of kinship terms to address strangers or people who are not related is the native way of expressing politeness (Khanittanan 1988), and has persisted up to the present. Using a kinship term to address a stranger or someone unrelated is an act either of elevation or showing solidarity with the listener. To address a listener as /taaA2 / “maternal grandfather” or /yaayA3 / “maternal grandmother” is an act of elevating him or her to a superior status, i.e. the same as the speaker’s grandparent. To address someone as /phiiB3 / “older sibling” or /nff]C3 / “younger sibling” is also an act of showing solidarity with or relating the person to the same family or group.
Linguistic politeness in Thai Kinship terms in Thai Father’s Side
Mother’s Side
puuB2-thuatDL3 yaaB3-thuatDL3 “great-grandfather” “great-grandmother”
puuB2 “grandfather”
taaA2-thuatDL3 “great-grandfather”
yaaB3 “grandmother”
taaA2 “grandfather”
yaayA3-thuatDL3 “great-grandmother”
yaayA3 “grandmother”
m77B3 lu]A3 paaC2 phffB3 lu]A3 na:C3 paaC2 ‘aaA2 “uncle” “aunt” “father” “uncle or aunt” “uncle” “aunt” “mother” “uncle or aunt” ‘younger than ‘older ‘older ‘older ‘younger than ‘older than mother’ than than than father’ father’ father’ mother’ mother’ phiiB3 older sibling
ego
nff]C3 younger sibling
luukDL3 “child”
laanA1 “grandchild”
leenA1 “great-grandchild”
“Age” is the most important factor for this model of politeness. Speakers always have to determine or estimate the age of their listeners so that they can stratify on kinship scales, i.e. if the listeners are of the same generation as the speaker’s parents or grandparents. In traditional rural communities, such as those in the Sukhothai period, seniority meant having more experience, being more knowledgeable and more capable thus worthy of being respected and elevated to a higher position. Many Thai proverbs reflect admiration for seniority. For example,
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d66nA2 taamA2 la]A1 phuuC1 -yayB1 maaA1 mayB3 katDS2 walk follow behind superior; adult dog not bite “Walking behind adults; one is safe.” “Do what adults do, and one will be safe or succeed” (phuuC1 -yayB1 ) ‘aapDL2 naamC3 rffnC3 maaA3 kffnB2 adults to bathe hot water (warm) come before “Adults have more experience.”
Linguistic politeness in the Sukhothai Period “Elevation was indicated by the use of two kinship terms – /phffB3 / “father” and /puuB2 / “grandfather”. Persons of elevated status in the Sukhothai inscriptions include kings and the spirit of the mountain in Sukhothai. For example: (1) Inscription I (1292 A.D.) /phffB3 khunA1 raamA3 -khamA3 -h77]A1 / Ramkhamhaeng father + title of king + name Inscription II /phffB3 khunA1 phaaA1 -mYa]A3 / father title of king name (2) Inscription 45 (1392 A.D.) /puuB2 phraDS3 -yaaA3 -sriA1 . . ./ /puuB2 cawC2 grandfather + title of king + Name Father + grandfather king phraDS3 kha-pho]A3 / (title) mountain “The great spirit of the mountain”
It is noteworthy that there might have been a distinction in the use of the terms /puuB2 / “grandfather” and /phffB3 /. Whereas /phffB3 / “father” was used to venerate a person who was still living, while /puuB2 / “grandfather” was used to venerate a dead person. This is true in many other Tai languages. King Ram Khamhaeng was most probably still alive at the time of Inscription I so he was referred to as “Father”. In Inscription 45, he had probably been dead for some time, so he was referred to as “Grandfather” along with his father and older brother kings.
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To express elevation, /puuB2 / and /phffB3 / are put in front of the title for the king. The meaning is “the grandfather or father of the king”. The term /puuB2 / signifies greatness and holiness in most Tai languages. In other Tai languages such as Ahom and Phake /puuB2 / “grandfather” is also used to elevate spirits or dead persons. It is also noteworthy that in Sukhothai only when monks are regarded as teachers could they be elevated to “grandfather” or /puuB2 /. Monks somehow were not elevated by this Thai kinship term when they were already referred to by Khmer and/or Pali title such as “somA1 detDS2 ” and “ma-haaA1 ”. It is noteworthy that Pali/Sanskrit loanwords which are numerous in the Sukhothai inscriptions were borrowed from the Khmers. These words have the same or corresponding forms in Thai and Khmer. Example of Pali loanwords via Khmer “cetiya” “relic” “Buddha image” “the tooth relic” “Pitaka the Buddhist canonical texts” “foot; feet”
/phraDS3 -ceeA2 -diiA2 / /phraDS3 -thaatDL3 / /phraDS3 -phutDS3 -tha-ruupDL3 / /phraDS3 -thanA3 -ta-thaatDL3 / /phraDS3 -trayA2 -pi-dokDS2 / /phraDS3 -baatDL2 /
Despite a great number of Khmer and Pali loanwords in Sukhothai Thai, words used to talk about kings, monks and commoners were not yet differentiated from each other. Besides, many words used by kings or to talk about kings and monks in the Sukhothai inscriptions would be considered impolite in the modern standard Thai. Therefore, they would not be used at all in public. Many Sukhothai period words are not suitable for use with kings, monks, and Buddha images, for example: 1 /tiinA2 / “foot” 4 /kuuA2 / “I”
2 /taayA2 / “to die” 5 /kinA2 / “to eat”
3 /fuu]A1 / “group of ” 6 /chipDS1 -haayA1 / “disaster”
No. 1 /tiinA2 / “foot”, is no longer a standard word because it is often considered rude. Nor is it used at school or in public. /thaawC3 / is used instead because it is considered polite for commoners, but not suitable for use with kings. The feet of kings are called /phra‘DS3 -baatDL2 /. However, Thais in rural areas still use /tiinA2 / “feet” when they are not at school or in a public place. In other words, people in rural areas still use their native vocabulary in their language at home. The same is true with no. 4, /kuuA2 / “I”. The king, the Queen and other royal family members now use /khaapDL1 -pha-cawC2 /. There are many words for “I” for commoners to choose from. Some may be used by both men and women, i.e. /chanA1∼C3 /. Some are used by men only, i.e. /phomA1 /. Others are
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used by women only, i.e. /di-chanC3 /. Monks have a special word for “I” which other people may not use /‘aatDL2 -ta-maaA3 /. Several theses have been written on the usage of Thai personal pronouns, so they will not be discussed in detail here. /kuuA2 /, no. 4, however, is still a regular personal pronoun used by both men and women in rural areas. Many people in cities or urban areas, especially men, use /kuuA2 / for “I” among their close friends. No. 2 /taayA2 / “to die” and no. 5 /kinA2 / “to eat”, are very similar to no. 1 and no. 4 discussed above. The only difference is that they are not considered impolite. Besides, they are regularly in the spoken language used by people both in cities and rural areas. However, they are not used in formal or written language. Kings and monks have their special words, i.e. “to die” for kings is /sa-wanA1 -na-khotDS3 / and /mffA3 -ra-naDS3 -phaapDL3 / for monks. For common people, it is /thY]A1 -k77B2 -kamA2 / which is normally used in announcements in newspapers. “To eat” for kings is /sa-w66yA1 /, for monks /chanA1 / and there are many words for “to eat” for common people. The most formal one is /rapDS3 -pra-thaanA3 /. No. 3 /fuu]A1 / “group; herd”, is now considered improper if used with people, especially with respectable people. It is used mostly with animals. No. 6 /chipDS1 -haayA1 / “disaster”, is now a swear word and is not used in formal language or in public. All six words above were used without differentiating between with kings, monks, and commoners in Sukhothai inscriptions. Examples: (3) /tiinA2 / “foot” Inscription I: bYa]C2 -tiinA2 -nffnA3 “north” side foot sleep Inscription II: laa]C3 -tiinA2 ma-haaA1 wash feet great -theeA1 -raaA3 -nuDS3 -theenA1 phikDS3 -suDS1 -so]A1 monk monks “wash the feet of the great monk and monks. . .” Inscription VII: maaA3 thuunA3 faaB1 -tiinA2 phraDS3 -penA2 -cawC2 come report the sole Buddha “. . .came to talk to the sole of the Buddha. . .”
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(4) /taayA2 / “to die” phiiB3 kuuA2 Inscription I: phffB3 - kuuA2 taayA2 ya]A3 father I, my die still∼live brother I, my “My father died, then my brother still lived.” (Spoken by King Ramkhamhaeng) Inscription II: . . .bffB2 hayC1 taayA2 not give die “not to let (them) die. . .” (from the King’s quoted words) (5) /fuu]A1 / “group; herd” Inscription II: . . .k77B2 fuu]A1 ka-satDS3 -traaA2 -thiDS3 -raatDL3 to group kings “. . .to kings. . .” (from the King’s quoted words) Inscription II: . . .fuu]A1 satDS1 - tha]A3 -laayA1 herd animals several “several herds of animals. . .” (6) /kuuA2 / “I” Inscription I: kuuA2 - khiiB1 chaa]C3 beekDS2 -phonA3 I ride elephant name “I rode the elephant named Bekhaphon.” (the King’s words) Inscription XIV: . . .khffA1 kuuA2 miiA3 priiA2 -cha-yaanA3 let me, (I) have intelligence “may I be intelligent. . .” (7) /kinA2 / “to eat” Inscription I: . . .kinA2 diiA2 da]A2 kinA2 namC3 khoo]A1 eat good as eat water (from) Khong “. . .(this)water good to drink as good as the water from the Khong river” (8) /chipDS1 -haayA1 / “disaster; damage” Inscription II: . . .saatDS1 – sa-naaA1 . . .bffB2 hayC1 chipDS1 bffB2 religion not give damaged hayC1 haayA1 “. . .religion. . .not let it (be) damaged”
The examples given above show that originally there was no difference between words used to talk about kings, monks, commoners, and animals. /tiinA2 / “foot, feet” which is an impolite word in current Thai was used to talk about the feet
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of the Buddha and monks. Presumably, the word was used with animals as well. However, the word /phraDS3 -baatDL2 / “royal feet” was used in Inscription III which recorded important religious events in the year 1403 A.D. This inscription is about a hundred years later than Inscription I. Under the same King of Inscription III, /tiinA2 / was also used in other inscriptions to refer to the feet of the Buddha. Thai in the Sukhothai period was used variably. At that time, educated people, especially kings and monks studied Khmer and Buddhism. They must have borrowed Khmer and Pali words into Thai. /phraDS3 -baatDL2 / is a Pali word, which the Thais borrowed through the Khmers (Diller 1999). Aside from the “royal feet” of the Buddha, we also see that anything that had to do with Buddhism in Inscription III was referred to in a special way, different from non-Buddhist-things. /ma-haaA1 / “great” and /phraDS3 -/ “noble” occurred as part of the title such nouns. For example, monks, Bhodi tree, and relics were referred to as the following. (9) -/phraDS3 -ma-haaA1 -theeA1 -raDS3 / “the great monk” (10) -/phraDS3 -sriiA1 -ma-haaA1 -phooA3 / “the great Bhodi tree” (11) -/phraDS3 -ma-haaA1 -thaatDL3 / “the great relic”
Along this line, the Khmer loanword /sa-detDS2 / “to go” was found in many inscriptions, used only with the word “relic”. Of these three words, two of them, /phraDS3 / and /sa-detDS2 / became royal words in the Ayutthaya period and still are now. In conclusion, native kinship terms were used to express the elevation of kings, nature spirits and monks in their capacity as teacher. Khmer and Pali/Sanskrit loanwords were used in Buddhism, which was then a new realm for the Thais. The loanwords, then, did not express politeness as they later did in the Ayutthaya period when diglossic contrasts took place.
The Ayutthaya Period (1351 A.D. – 1767 A.D.) The kingdom of Ayutthaya, also known as Siam, was in contrast to Sukhothai. The former was a feudal state proclaimed to be the first major political, cultural, and commercial center of the Thais and one of the most powerful portpolities in Asia (Breazeale 1999). Ayutthaya was founded in 1351 A.D. Five years later it invaded and made Sukhothai its vassal state. Ayutthaya which started as an outpost of Lopburi invaded and captured Angor in 1431 A.D. The Arabs referred to it as the “New Capital”, and Lopburi the “Old Capital”
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(Kasetsiri 1999). The kingdom lasted over four hundred years before it was sacked and fell to the Burmese in 1767. Despite its grandeur, documents and materials of Ayutthaya are scarce (Ishii & Kasetsiri 1999). Many of them must have been destroyed when the Burmese sacked Ayutthaya. Most of the documents and materials available now are the result of hard work of restoration by diligent scholars in the early Bangkok period. Presumably, they were the people who fled from Ayutthaya. Ayutthaya was well known for its sophisticated administration called Wiang, Wang, Khlang, Na and for its highly hierarchical social structure. As a powerful port city with people of different cultures who came in to trade, Ayutthaya must have been quite cosmopolitan. The kings of Ayutthaya, however, were regarded as god-king, something completely different from Sukhothai whose kings were well known for their fatherly rule. Ayutthaya must have adopted the god-king concept from the Khmer in Lopburi. Social relations in Ayutthaya were elaborate. Communication was status-based. Since kings were regarded as god, the language used to talk to and about them needed to be different from that of commoners. “Raja-sap” or royal vocabulary was created in the Ayutthaya period. At first the royal vocabulary was meant for the aristocrats and commoners to use to talk with or about kings only. Later when King Baromtrailokanat promulgated the Law of Civil Hierachy, he also amended the Law of the Palace, Kot Monthien Ban, in 1461. The use of “Rajasap” or the royal vocabulary was extended to other royal family members and the aristocrats (Laddawan 1998).
Language situation in Ayutthaya The language situation in Ayutthaya was far more sophisticated and complicated than that of Sukhothai. Ayutthaya had a large number of “educated” aristocrats and elites who could read and write both Thai and Khmer. Many classical works, Buddhist and folk literature, were written in this period. A closer look at those works reveals strong Khmer influences, on both the language and forms of the verse. Many works were written entirely in Khmer, for example “Dutsadi-Sangwuei-Klom Chang”, the old version (Ruangraklikhit 1999) and Pra-Tamra Borom Rachuthit. Some works are full of Khmer words such as “Lilit Ongkan Chaeng Nam”, “Yuan Phay” and “Mahachat Kham Luang”. Many Khmer influences in Thai literature such that one would not be able to really understand any of the Ayutthaya literature unless one could also speak Khmer. Detailed investigations of the language used in those works point
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to a bilingual situation (Khanittanan 2001). The composers must have been bilingual, speaking Thai and Khmer. There are far too many Khmer words in the works to say that they are merely loanwords. Most probably, the bilinguals included both those of Thai and Khmer origins. They must have been living side by side in Ayutthaya. Their cohabitation led to the transference of a large amount of Khmer words into Thai (Varasarin 1984). The number of Khmer and Khmero-Indic words in Thai outnumbered the Tai cognates in the language. The new words permeated all areas of life. Especially in the clerical circle, the Thais were practically speaking Khmer with the Thai grammar. In fact, the way the Khmer and Khmero-Indic words is used in literary works is comparable to code-switching. This is also true to the Raja-sap or the royal vocabulary which is also composed mainly of Khmer and Pali/Sanskrit words. The latter being loanwords in Khmer before the Thai borrowed them into Thai through the first. (Diller 1985, uses the term “Khmero-Indic” for those words. (Hence from now on they will be referred to as Khmero-Indic in the rest of this essay.) Though the Raja-sap was composed mainly of Khmer and Khmero-Indic words, the grammar of the sentences carrying those royal words was Thai. “Speaking” or using Raja-sap is just a matter of substituting ordinary Thai words with the royal ones. Thus when one uses royal vocabulary, one would appear to be code-switching between Thai, Khmer and Khmero-Indic. For example, (12)
Monks also have a higher status than ordinary people. As with kings, there was a special set of vocabulary for laymen to talk to or about monks. Like the Raja-sap, the monk’s special vocabulary was made up mostly of Pali and Khmer words. However, monk’s vocabulary is far smaller than Raja-sap. Monks shared more of the same vocabulary with ordinary people than with kings. For example:
“hand” “eye”
Ordinary Thai mYY taa
Clerical Vocabulary mYY taa
Royal Vocabulary phrá-hàt phrá-nêet
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“hair” “house” “to go” “to speak” “to sleep” “older brother” “mother” “to eat” “to give”
phˇom bâan pay phûut nffn phîi chaay m7¥7 kin∼ráp-pra-thaan hâi
phˇom kù-tì pay phûut jam-wát phîi chaay joom-m7¥7 chˇan tha-wˇaay
phrá-kee-sˇaa wa] sa-dèt tràt ban-tom phrá-chêet-thˇaa phrá-chon-na-nii saw¦6y tha-wˇaay
With so many Khmer and Khmero-Indic words transferred into the language, “diglossic-contrasts” or “diglossic register differentiation” resulted (Diller 1985). Khmer and Khmero-Indic words became words of the high variety used by aristocrats and scholars in the court, in the city, and in clerical and literary circles. The native Thai words became characteristic of the low variety used in the language of the family and in the villages or far out rural areas. For examples
the moon the sun daughter husband dog buffalo gold feet head to urinate to be pregnant to deliver a baby
The low diglossic vocabulary dYan ta-wan lûuk sˇaaw phua ˇ mˇaa khwaay thff]-kham tiin hua ˇ yîaw th¢ff] ‘¡ffk-lûuk
The high diglossic vocabulary phrá-can phrá-‘aa-thít thí-daa sˇaa-mii sù-nák kra-bYY sù-wan tháaw, phrá-bàat sˇıi-sà pàt-sˇaa-wá‘ khan khl¥fft-lûuk
Linguistic politeness of the Ayutthaya The social structure of Ayutthaya was highly hierarchical. The king was at the top of the hierarchy followed by his royal family members. Several levels of aristocrats were next on the hierarchy. Ordinary people were at the bottom of the hierarchy. Monks had a special status, as they still do now. All other people including the king had to pay respect by doing obeisance to them. Many
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kings, in the past, when in time of trouble were known to enter monkhood to escape danger. Ordinary men normally entered monkhood at the age of twenty. After disrobing they were considered “learned” and respected men in the community. Social relations in Ayutthaya were status-based. People at the lower level were expected to pay respect and homage to people at the higher level at all time. Respect and homage were expressed through several means. The use of royal and clerical vocabularies when speaking to kings and monks was an act of paying respect and homage linguistically which was also an act of expressing politeness. One would sound rude, wrong, and inappropriate, should one not use the special vocabulary when speaking to kings or monks. When talking to a king, one elevated him to the same status as the Buddha by the addressing word /phrá-phút-thá-câaw/ “Buddha”. The word was used interchangeably with its shortened form /phrá-câaw/ up to the early Bangkok period. The full term for addressing the king is (13) /phrá-bàat sˇom-dèt phrácâaw yùu hua/ ˇ the feet royal title Buddha be head Khmero- Khmer Khmero- Thai Thai Thai Indic Indic “The feet of the Buddha who is on (my) head” or “Your Majesty”.
The speaker to the king referred to himself as the “slave of the Buddha.” (14) khâa phrá-phút-tha câaw slave the Buddha “I” when speaking to kings.
When talking to the king, one needs to use an opening and closing phrases. In the opening phrase one addresses the king as (15) tâay fàa lá-‘ff] thú-lii phrá-bàat under sole dust dust feet “Under the sole, the dust of (your) foot” or “Your Majesty”.
The closing phrase refers to the speaker as (16) dûay- klâaw dûay- kra-m¡fm by the top by the top of the head “at the top of (my) head” (with my utmost respect).
Politeness is shown in the elevation of the king to the status of the Buddha by addressing him as the Buddha /phrá-phút-thá-caaw/. Meanwhile the speaker
Linguistic politeness in Thai
expressed self-effacement by referring to himself as the slave of the Buddha. For Thais, who were Buddhists to address their king as the Buddha was an ultimate elevation. Politically and socially the kings of Ayutthaya were regarded as godkings, following the Khmer tradition. The effacement of the speaker can be seen more clearly by viewing the terms of reference to the king and the speaker in pairs. The king was addressed by the dust under the soles of his feet, the lowest part of his body in relation to the speaker who referred to himself by the top of his head, the highest part of his body. This meant that the speaker was under the feet or under the power of the king. Other words used in talking about or to them were also different. Words referring to the kings’ body parts, their place of living, their actions and activities, their kin, their garments etc. were all different from those used with ordinary people. The royal words used with the king are the same as those used with the Buddha. The number of the royal vocabulary items is far fewer than the ordinary Thai words. Ordinary words, however, may be changed into royal ones by certain affixes. For example, /phrá/ changes an ordinary noun into a royal word and /so]/ turns an ordinary verb into a royal one. medicine teacher to compliment
Ordinary words ‘oo-sòt, yaa ‘aa-caan chom-ch66y
Royal words phrá-‘oo-sòt phrá-‘aa-caan so] chom-ch66y
Royal vocabulary or Raja-sap is used by other people to talk to the king in a formal situation. The kings themselves do not use royal vocabulary. They use ordinary Thai words. The main purpose of using Raja-sap is to show respect and elevate the king as well as to create a pleasant and polite language situation for him. Any word rude and inappropriate would be avoided or altered. In term of the city , where there were diglossic contrasts i.e., Thai and Khmer words for the same meaning, the native words were thought to be unrefined and at times rude. They were avoided in high places or in literary use. The words of the high variety were thought to be refined and better, hence more polite. Politeness in the city meant using the right register to the right person as well as expressing elevation of the listener and self-effacement of the speaker and one expressed elevation of those on the higher level of the social hierarchy only, not the one below. Expressing politeness in the city of Ayutthaya was unidirectional communication. People on the higher level were not expected to return the same kind of elevation and self-effacement. This was true of other means of expressing politeness. For example, senior people were not expected
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to return the obeisance to their juniors. A speaker would need to know where his listener was on the hierarchy in relation to himself. Using a wrong-level reference of the listener, i.e. lower than the actual one, would be an insult. When talking to monks, one would need to use the special monk’s vocabulary. It was considered improper, hence impolite and a sin, to use layman vocabulary with monks. Though the aristocrats and scholars did not have their special vocabulary aside from terms of reference, it was considered polite to use the high diglossic vocabulary when talking to and about them. Otherwise one would be considered an ignorant person as in the saying, not knowing “what is high, what is low” mây rúu-càk thîi-tàm thîi-suu] ˇ not to know low place high place “not knowing one’s place in the social hierarchy”
Moving away from the context of the city people used ordinary language in their daily life, and they still used kinship terms to express elevation and consolidation of listener (Khun Chang Khun Phaen 1956). Politeness of this type is reciprocal. When one accepted to become a “grandfather” of somebody, the other party automatically became his “grandchild”. In urban situations, politeness was expressed through foreign languages and politeness had a different perspective. Ordinary people did not have the need to use the Raja-sap because they were not allowed near the king or even to look at him. Even if they had the chance to, they would not know how to use the Raja-sap properly to the king. Even these days, ordinary people still do not know how to. There are several jokes on how ordinary people use the Royal vocabulary to refer to themselves and ordinary ones to the king. In summary, linguistic politeness in the Ayutthaya period may be expressed diglossically. Three constituents of linguistic politeness of the period have been identified: elevation of listener, self-effacement of speaker, and the use of the higher diglossic vocabulary.
Linguistic politeness of the Bangkok Period (1782 – Present) Thonburi was established as the capital of Thailand after Ayutthaya fell in 1767. The new capital lasted only 15 years before King Rama I founded Bangkok in 1782. Thonburi is not included in this study because the time span of the period is very short and not much material is available for the study of linguis-
Linguistic politeness in Thai
tic politeness. Besides, Thonburi linguistic politeness can be expected to be a continuation from Ayutthaya and to Bangkok. Aristocrats, scholars, and the people of Ayutthaya left the fallen capital for Thonburi and later Bangkok. King Rama I of Bangkok was a former aristocrat of Ayutthaya. The new capital was built in the same style as the old one. Scholars of the Early Bangkok Period labored diligently to restore Ayutthaya’s cultural heritage. Law of the Three Seals, Ayutthaya chronicles, literary works both folk and classical were collected and rewritten from memory by surviving scholars. Thai of the Early Bangkok Period was a continuation of the Thai used in Ayutthaya, full of Khmer and Khmero-Indic words. The tradition of royal vocabulary, or Raja-sap, of Ayutthaya was transmitted to Bangkok, as was linguistic politeness. All three constituents of linguistic politeness of Ayutthaya remained intact in early Bangkok. Two new constituents of linguistic politeness may be said to have developed in this period, namely polite particle and the use of long deferential expressions. First much remained the same until King Rama V started to modernize the country. Western-style schools were introduced. Compulsory education was introduced in the following reign. Modern education brought about great social changes. Children of different social backgrounds attended the same schools, learning the same subjects. An egalitarian educational system called for a new use of language. Needs for linguistic politeness were identified and taught in school. Royal vocabulary was taught in school. Its meaning and scope were clarified. Raja-sap, or royal vocabulary, is now regarded as polite and correct usage of language for all topics. Raja-sap is no longer the language used merely with kings and aristocrats. Phraya Upakit, the well-known Thai grammarian, explained that it may be used with five categories of people, namely; kings, royal family members, monks, aristocrats, and “polite people” (Office of the National Identity 1994). Polite words are explained as words that are not rude. Examples of rude words were given in four categories: ¦ 1. Responding or answering words such as /hYY/ “what”, /‘66/ “yes” . Personal pronouns such as /kuu/ “I” and /mY]/ “you”, 2. Words referring to dirty things such as /khii/ “excrement”, /yîaw/ “urine”, 3. Swear words, 4. Words referring to sexual organs. Words in 1 and 2 happen to be those used regularly by the people in rural areas. They are native Thai words. This may very well be inherited values from Ayutthaya. Thai is associated with rusticity, hence is unrefined and not suitable for
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use in the city or in educated circles. New words, adopted from the high diglossic variety, were used to replace words in 1 and 2. The native “I” and “you”, /kuu/ and /mY]/ were not allowed to be used in school. They are replaced by /phˇom/ “male I” and /dichán/ “female I”. That the influence of Ayutthaya on language traditions has lingered on may be seen from the new first-person reference /phˇom/. This word also means “hair”. The origin of the new personal pronoun may be traced back to the first-person reference that referred to the highest body part of the speaker in relation to “the dust under the sole” of the king, the listener. Bangkok follows Ayutthaya’s traditions of diglossic vocabulary. Indic and now to a much lesser extent Khmer are still considered more refined and better than native Thai words. Polite particles are the new formal expressions of politeness. They show politeness on the speaker’s part. Basically, there are three polite particles – /khráp/, /khá ∼ khâ/, and /já ∼ jâ/. The first, /khráp/, is used by male speakers only and the second, /khá ∼ khâ/, by female speakers only. The third may be used by either male or female speakers. However, the third is used among intimates and is more popularly used by the people in the rural areas. Polite particles occur in the final position of a clause. The high tone variant in /khá / and /já/ occurs in questions or in clauses expressing affirmation or insistence. The falling tone variant is used in normal statements. The male polite particle /khráp/ does not have a tonal variant but a double politeness form /khráp ph˘om/ is commonly used by male speakers who want to show extra politeness. However, /khráp/ is normally pronounced /kháp/ with the “r” being dropped. The distinction between male and female polite particles may be new but both can be traced back to the responding expressions of the royal vocabulary. The Office of the National Thai Identity lists the following as the correct way to say “yes” to different people (Raja-sap 1994: 30). Speaker
Responding expression
Addressee
Junior male 1. phrá-phút-tha-caaw khâa kh¦ff ráp The king the Buddha slave (I) to ask to receive Junior male 2. ráp sài klaâw sài kra-m¡fm receive put head put head 3. phrá-phút-thá-caâw khâa kh¦ff ráp the Buddha slave (I) ask receive 4. phrá-phút-tha-câaw khaâ the Buddha slave (I)
The king High ranking royal family members
Linguistic politeness in Thai
5. kh¦ff ráp kra-m¡fm ask receive head
Lower ranking family members
6. kra-m¡fm head 7. kh¦ff ráp sày klâaw sày kra-m¡fm ask receive put head put head
Highest ranking aristocrat
8. kh¦ff ráp kra-phˇom ask receive hair (I)
High ranking aristocrats
9. kh¦ff ráp phˇom ask receive hair (I)
Lower ranking aristocrats
10. kh¦ff ráp
A person of equal rank
11. khráp
Polite persons
There is a clear relation between the length of the responding expression and the social status of the addressee. The higher the addressee’s rank is, the longer the expression becomes. The male polite particle, /khráp/, can be seen to derive from /kh¦ff ráp/ “to ask to receive”. Formerly, women never held positions in the court. However, they worked for the Palace. They have been reported to use hierarchical responding expressions similar to the male expressions. The female responding word //khá ∼ khâ/, must have derived from the word /khâa/ “slave” in the longer responding expression. Male speakers of Khamti Tai, another language in the Tai family, in Myanmar also use the /khaa C1/ “slave” as their polite particle. In Thailand, /khaâ/ “slave” is used as the first personal pronoun, I, for both men and women in the rural areas. It is noteworthy that polite particles are not used in formal language, especially written language. This is because formal language is already polite in itself, using the high diglossic vocabulary. On the other hand, polite particles also not used with the native personal pronouns – /kuu/ “I” and /mY]/ “you”. Polite particles are the middle class’ new creation. They do not match up with the old native words, which are considered rude and not allowed to be used in school. The use of long deferential expressions has been identified as the new constituent of linguistic politeness (Khanittanan 1988: 359). Normally, names of occupations and ranks by themselves are used to elevate the addressee. However, the high form of “you” may be used preceding occupation and rank
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terms to show extra elevation of the addressee. Such “double expression of politeness” is commonly used in addressing and salutation terms such as (17) /thân ‘a-thí-bff-dii/ high “you” director-general “Mr. Director-general” (18) /pha-ná-thân naa-jók-rát-tha-mon-trii/ high “you” Prime Minister “Mr. Prime Minister” (19) /kràaprian/ obeisance by prostrating to inform “Dear Sir” (20) /kh¦ff pra-thaan kraap rian/ to ask for to give obeisance by prostrating to inform “A high ‘Dear Sir”’ or “May I inform(you) respectfully”
may be interpreted as a development from the use of Raja-sap in which one is obliged to use opening and closing phrases when talking to the King and other royal family members. The formulaic opening and closing phrases are as follows: (21) kh¦ff dee-chá fàa la-‘ff] thú-lii phrá-bàat to ask for (permission) power sole dust1 dust2 feet “under your (Majesty’s) sole. . .” or “May I have your permission to. . .” (22) dûay klâaw dûay kra-m¡fm by top knot or hair bun by the top of the head “With my utmost respect”
In both the opening and the closing phrases of the Raja-sap “double expression of politeness” is used. In the first, (21), two double expressions of politeness are used, “the sole” and “the feet”, and “dust1 ”, and “dust2 ”. In the second, (22), only one is used “by my hair bun” and “by the top of my head”. The same pattern occurs in contemporary official addressing and salutation terms. Terms expressing high ranks such as “Director-general” and “Prime-Minister” by themselves elevation of listener when used as an addressing term. /thân/ a high form of “you” is also an elevation and /phá-ná-thân/ is even a higher form of “you”. When these two are used with terms expressing ranks as in (17) and (18), they show “double elevation” of listener. The same is true to (19) and (20). “To inform”, high diglossic vocabulary, is in itself a polite word. When coupled with words asking for permission, and expressing doing obeisance by prostrating as in (19) and (20), it shows an extra high elevation for listener
Linguistic politeness in Thai
or reader; and the higher the listener is, the lower the speaker becomes. Along this line, currently the double politeness “yes”, /khráp phˇom/, is widely used by male speakers. At present Bangkok still follows Ayutthaya’s traditions of diglossic vocabulary. Indic and now to a much lesser extent Khmer are still considered more refined and better than native Thai words. The contrast between the high Khmer and Indic vocabularies and the low native Thai one is still intact, perhaps with a slight change. Khmer may have lost its influence on Thai. No new words have been coined from Khmer elements for a long time. Perhaps there has been one exception on the verse written for the King’s 72nd birthday. It was sung during the royal barge procession in 1999. Many Khmer words were used in the verse, especially the word /cha-nam/ “year” in 72 cha-nam. Thai, however, is still classified in the low category. It is used mostly in slang coined by the newspapers and teenagers. At present, words formally coined are derived from Indic languages while the informally coined ones are Thai. For example: Formally coined words “globalization” “pollution” “pollutant”
loo-kaa-phí-wát mon-la-phaa-wá‘ mon-la-phít
Slang ¢ (from the native word meat) “marijuana” nYa “a junior person under dèk (from the native word “child”) the sponsorship or protection of an aristocrat; a girlfriend” “amphetamine” yaa bâa (literally “medicine crazy” or “crazy medicine” formerly known as /yaa máa/ or “horse medicine”)
Though English words are widely used in Thai in many important circles i.e. technology, science, education, and in daily life, they have not acquired a place in the high diglossic vocabulary. It could very well be that the concepts of the distinction between high and low varieties of vocabulary is not applicable to a global language like English after Pali/Sanskrit in Thai. In conclusion linguistic politeness of the Bangkok period appears to be a continuation of that of the Ayutthaya period. The origins of the new constituents may be traced back to the use of Royal vocabulary in Ayutthaya. Of the five constituents of linguistic politeness in modern Thai, polite particles are the only ones that probably categorize a positive politeness strategy. They convey the ideas that the speaker and the addressee are cooperatators
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(Brown & Levinson 1987: 102). On the speaker’s part, when he knows that his addressee is a polite person or someone who has at least the same status as he, he uses polite particles. On the addressee’s part, upon hearing the polite particle being used with him, he knows that he has been accepted as a worthy and respectable person.
Conclusion Linguistic politeness in Thai seems to have started with the simple elevation of the addressee. Since the Thais were animists and worshipped their ancestors spirits or /phˇıi-pùu phˇıi-yâa/, they used kinship terms to express elevation of the listener. Elevation of this type has persisted in the language up to the present, but to a greater extent in rural areas. Later, when the Thais came under the strong and heavy influences of Khmer in the Ayutthaya period, two new constituents of linguistic politeness developed; namely, self-effacement of speaker and the use of high diglossic vocabulary. Khmer and Khmero-Indic vocabularies played vital roles in the development of Thai and Thai linguistic politeness. The Thai ruling elites and scholars and the people of the city of Ayutthaya must have been bilingual, speaking Thai as well as Khmer. This language situation contributed to the transference of a great number of Khmer vocabulary items into Thai. The Khmer vocabulary permeated every sector of Thai. Khmer words outnumbered the Thai cognates. With so many Khmer and Khmero-Indic words in Thai, diglossic contrasts emerged. The high diglossic vocabulary was used in the court and in the literary circles. The concepts of “high”, “low” and “appropriate” language for different situations must have been prevalent in the society, as indicated in several proverbs. Bangkok inherited all of Ayuthya’s linguistic politeness expressions. Modern education highlighted linguistic politeness. Polite particles were created. An egalitarian educational system necessitated new egalitarian linguistic expressions. New references for speaker and listener showing equality were created. However, traces of the adoption of the old linguistic politeness tradition are found in the new reference for speakers for addressing and salutation terms. Changes in linguistic politeness expressions appear to have begun from the top down.
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Acknowledgements I am indebted to Dr. Anthony Diller for his valuable comments and assistance with my English. I am especially grateful for his assistance in preparing my first article on politeness in English in 1988.
References Breazeale, Kennon (1999). “Thai maritime trade and the ministry responsible”. In Ishii & Kasetsiri (Eds.), 1–54. Brown, Penelope & Levinson, Stephen (1987). Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Diller, Anthony (1985). “High and low Thai: Views form within”. Pacific Linguistics, A67, 5–76. Diller, Anthony (1988a). “Thai syntax and ‘national grammar”’. Language Sciences, 10 (2), 273–312. Diller, Anthony (1988b). “Consonant mergers and inscription one”. The Journal of the Siam Society, 76, 46–63. Diller, Anthony (1999). “Following the Buddha’s Footprint”. Unpublished article. Gedney, William J. (1961). “Special vocabularies in Thai”. Georgetown University Monograph Series on Language and Linguistics, 4, 1–22. Ishii, Yoneo & Kasetsiri, Charnvit (1999). From Japan to Arabia: Ayutthaya’s Maritime Relations with Asia. Bangkok: The Foundation for the Promotion of Social Sciences and Humanities Textbooks Project. Kasetsiri, Charnvit (1999). “Origins of a capital and seaport: The early settlement of Ayutthaya and its East Asian trade”. In Ishii & Kasetsiri (Eds.), 55–79. Khanittanan, Wilaiwan (1988). “Some observations on expressing politeness in Thai”. Language Sciences, 10 (2), 353–362. Khanittanan, Wilaiwan (2001). “Thai + Khmer = Thai of the Chao Phraya Basin” [In Thai]. Journal of Liberal Arts, 1 (1), 3–27. Faculty of Liberal Arts, Thammasat University. Khun Chang Khun Phaen (1956). Bangkok: Fine Arts Department. Law of the Three Seals (Kotmai Tra Sam Duang) (1805 [1972]). Bangkok: Khurusapha Press. Laddawan, Thitirat, M. L. (1998). “Raja-sap”. Manuscript. Prachum Phra Tamra Borom Rachuthit Phua Kalapana (1967). (Collected Texts on Royal Donations to the Temples). Bangkok: Samnak Nayok Ratthamontri. Prachum Silacaruk phak (1978). (Collected Inscritptions, Vol. 1). Bangkok: Samnak Lekhathikan Nayok Ratthamontri. Raja-sap (Royal Vocabulary) (1994). Bangkok: Samnak-ngan Sermsang Ekalak Khong Chat. Ruangraklikhit, Chonlada (1999). “Phasa Khmer kap kan suksa wannakhadi Thai” (Khmer and Thai Literature Studies). In Phasa-Caruk. Bangkok: Department of Eastern Languages, Faculty of Archaeology, Silpakorn University. Varasarin, Uraisri (1984). Les Elements Khmers Dans La Formation de la Language Siamois. Paris: SELAF.
Author index
A Ahlgren, Perry –, Arndt, H. & Janney, R. Arundale, Robert , , , Austin, J. L. , B Bach, K. & Harnish, R. , Banerjee, J. & Carrell, P. L. –, Banisky, Sandy , Bates, E. & Benigni, L. , Beebe, L. M. & Cummings, M. C. Bello, A. , Björkhagen, Im. , Black, Mary B. , Blum-Kulka, Shoshana –, , , –, Blum-Kulka, S. & House, J. , , –, Blum-Kulka, S., House, J., & Kasper, J. , , , Blum-Kulka, S. & Olshtain, Elite , Boudieu, Pierre , , Braun, F. , , , Brazil, D. , Breazeale, Kennon , Bright, William , Brooks, John , Brown, Penelope , Brown, Penelope & Levinson, Stephen C. , , , , –, –, –, , –, , , , –, –, , , , –, , , , , , , ,
–, , , , , , –, , , , –, , , , , Brown, Roger , , , , Brown, Roger & Gilman, Albert , –, , Brown, G., & Yule, G. , Bunz, Ulla & Campbell, Scott W. , Burt, S. , Burton, D. , , C Canny, Nicholas , Chenault, Birttney G. , Chouliaraki, Lilie & Fairclough, Norman , Christian Brothers , , Clancy , Claudi, U. & Heine, B. Conlan, Christopher , , Conlan, C., Bardsley, N. & Martinson, S. , Cook, Minegishi Haruko , , Cooke, J. Coulmas, Florian , Coulthard, M. , , Coulthard, M. & Montgomery, M. , Crystal, David , Curcó, C. , D de Sola Pool, Ithiel , Diller, Anthony , , Dressler, W. & Merlini, L.
DuFon, M. A., Kasper, G., & Takahashi, S. , Durkheim, E. ,
E Eelen, Gino , , , , Edmondson, W. & House, J. , , , Elliott, Stuart Escandell-Vidal, Victoria , , , ,
F Falkner, W. , Fraser, Bruce , , , , , , , , Fraser, B. & Nolen, W. Fukada, A. ,
G Gaarder, A. B. Gedney, William J. Gibbs, R. W. Glick, D. J. , , , Goffman, Erving , , , , , Goldberg, Carey , González Ollé, F. Gooch, A. Green, G. M. , Grice, H. P. , , , , , , , , Gu, Y. , Gumperz, John , Gumperz, John & Tannen, Deborah ,
Author index
H Habermas, Jürgen , Hall, Edward , Hall, D. & Ames, R. , Hancher, M. , Harbon, L. , , , Head, B. , Heine, B. Held, Gudrun , , , Herring, Susan , , Hill, B., Ide, S., Ikuta, S., Kawasaki, A., & Ogino, T. , , Hindelang, G. –, Hinkel, Eli , , Hock, H. , Holmes, Janet , , , Holtgraves, T. & Yang, J. N. , Holton, D., Mackridge, P., & Philippaki-Warburton, I. , Hongladarom, Soraj , , Hopper, P. & Traugott, E. Hornby, A. S. Huntford, Roland , Hwang, J. R. , I Ide, Sachiko , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , –, , , –, , , Ide, S. & Inoue, V. , Ide, S. & Sakurai, C. , Ide, S. & Yoshida, M. , , , Ide, S., Ogino, T., Kawasaki, A., & Ikuta, S. , , Ikuta, Shoko , Irvine, Judith , Ishii, Y. & Kasetsiri, C. , J Janney, R. & Arndt, H. Jary, Mark , , , , Juntanamalaga, Preecha ,
Jucker, A. Jurafsky, D. –, , K Kamio, A. , Kasetsiri, Charnvit , Kasher, A. Kasper, Gabriele , , , , Kawamura, Yoko , Keenan, Elinor Ochs , Khanittanan, Wilaiman , , , Kienpointner, Manfred , Kim, M. , Kinsley, Michael , Koike, D. , Komin, Suntaree –, Kong, K. , Kouletaki, Ekaterini , , , , Kopjitti, Chart L Lachenicht, L. , Ladawan, Srifa Laddawan, Thitirat , Lakoff, George , , , , Lakoff, George & Johnson, Mark , , Lakoff, Robin , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Le, Mark , , Le, T. & Le, Q. , Lebra, Takie , , Leech, Geoffrey , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , –, , , Leichty, G. & Applegate, J. L. , – Lenz, R. , Lerner, Gene , Levinson, Stephen –, , ,
Lewis, G. & Slade, C. , , Liewwarin, Rint Lively, S., Pisoni, D., & Goldinger, S. , LoCastro, Virginia B. A. , Lorenz, Konrad , Lucy, John , , Lyons, John , M Mancisidor, J. , Mårtensson, Eva , , Markoff, John , Markus, Hazel R. & Kitayama, Shinobu , , Martin, Samuel E. , Marvin, Carolyn , Matsumoto, Yoshiko , , , , , , , , , , , , Maynard, Senko , McClean, R. J. , Mead, George Herbert Meier, A. J. , , , , , , , Menand, Louis , Mendoza, Martha , Mey, Jacob , Miller, R. , Minsky, Marvin , Miyaji, Y. Miyazaki, Ayumi , Moore, Frank J. , N Náñez, E. Nelson-Jones, R. , Nishida, Kitaro Nwoye, O. , O Odin, Steve , , Okamoto, Noriko , , Okamoto, Shigeko , , Olshtain, Elite & Weinbach, Liora
Author index
P Paulston, Christina Bratt , , Panpothong, Natthaporn , Pilkington, J. , Pizziconi, Barbara , Purdom, Todd , Q Quin, E. G. , R Rhodes, Richard , Ruangraklikhit Chonlada , Rubenstein, Steve , S Saeed, J. L. – Samakkarn, Sanit , Schiffrin, Deborah , , Scollon, R. & Scollon, S. , , , , , Searle, John R. , , , , , , Sifianou, M. , , , , , , , , Simmons, Thomas L. , , , Sinclair, J. & Coulhard, R. , Sinton, Pete , Slobin, Dan , Slugowski, B. & Turnbull, W. , Snow, C., Perlmann, R., Gleason, J. B., & N. Hoosshyar ,
Spencer-Oatey, Helen D. M. , , , , , Sperber, Deirdre & Wilson, Dan , Stewart, Edward C. , Strecker , , Stubbs, M. , , Suntaree Komin Suzuki, Hideo , , Suzuki, K. & Hayashi, O. Suzuki, T. , , T Talmy, Leonard , Tanaka, S. & Kawade, S. , Tannen, Deborah , , , , , , , Tanikawa, Miki , Taylor, T. & Cameron, D. Teleman, Ulf , , Terkourafi, Marina , , – Thomas, Jenny , , , , Thompson, Stith , Tierney, John , Toscano, H. M. Traugott, Elizabeth C. , , Triandis, H. C. & Vassiliou, V. , Trosborg, A. , Trudgill, P. Tsujimura, Toshiki , , Tsukishima, H. , Tsuzuki, M., Miyamoto, S., & Zhang, Q. , , , , , Turner, K. , ,
U Ukosakul, Chaiyun , Ukosakul, Margaret , –, – Usami, Mayumi , V Varasarin, Uraisri , Volek, B. W Walther, J. B. & Boyd, S. , Walton, C. & Eggington, W. Walzer, Richard , , Wardhaugh, R. , Watanabe, Minoru , Watts, Richard J. , , Watts, R. J., Ide, S., & Ehlich, K. , , , , , Weizman, E. , Werkhofer, Konrad , , Wierzbicka, Anna , , Wolfson, Nessa , , , Y Yamaguchi, A., Suzuki, H., Sakanashi, R., & Tsukimoto, M. , Yamasaki, H. , , Young, Linda , Yule, George , Z Zilliacus, Henrik ,
Subject index
A address terms see also person reference terms advice , apology , , , , , , , , , – B back-channeling C computer-mediated communication (CMC) , , , – chatroom civility –, , , context –, , , Cooperative Principle , , courtesy cursing
discourse patterns strategies
G gender –, , , , , , , gossiping , , greetings , , Gricean maxims , , , , see also Politeness Maxim
I identity , , , , –, , ideology , , , , , , , , idioms , illocutionary point , , imperatives , –, , , , , , , , –, , , –, –, – implicatures , , , , , , impoliteness , , , , , , , , , , – imposition , , , , , , , , – incivility –, – indexicality indirectness , , , , –, –, , , –, , , , , , indirect strategies see indirectness Internet , , , Interrogatives –, –, –, irony , , , ,
H hedges –, , honorifics , , , –, , , , , , –,
J jokes joking , , ,
E Ethnography of Speaking euphemism , , , evidentials , see also modal expressions F FTA , , –, , , , , , , –, –, , face , , , , –, , , , , –, , , , , –, , , , , –, , , face threatening acts see FTA final particles see also polite markers flaming frames , , –, –
D deferential expressions see also deference politeness, honorifics diglossia , , , , , – diglossic vocabulary see diaglossia diminutives – directness , , , , –, , , , , direct strategies see directness discernment , , , , see also wakimae
–, , –, , , ,
Subject index
K kinship terms –, , see also pronouns L linguistic relativity , M metaphor , men’s use of language see gender metapragmatics –, , , misunderstanding , mitigation mitigators , modal expressions , , , modality , , N netiquettes , O on-record see also directness, politeness strategies off-record , see also indirectness, politeness strategies offers , , , P person reference terms , , politeness camaraderie , , , , , , deference , , , , , , , , –,
markers , , , , , , , , , particles see politeness markers positive/negative , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , –, , , see also politeness strategies principles , rules , , strategies , , , , , , , , , , , , , –, , , , , , , , , universality , , , , , Politeness Maxim , , Politeness Principle , practice –, , pragmatic agreement , , privacy , , , – pronouns , , , –, , , , see also person reference terms R rationality , , , , , reflexivity , register , , , , requests , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , –, , , –, –, –, –
rituals , , see also greetings, routine formulas and speech formulas routine formulas – rudeness , , , rude words see rudeness, see also taboos S shame , social status , sociocultural role , , – sociolinguistic structure – speech acts , , Speech Act Theory , speech formulas , , see also routine formula speech levels –, – suggestions –, , T T/V distinction , , , , , , , , taboos , , , transfer , transformational grammar turn-taking V vagueness virtual community W Wx formula –, , , , wakimae , , –, , woman’s use of language see gender
In the Pragmatics & Beyond New Series the following titles have been published thus far or are scheduled for publication: 143 BAKER, Carolyn D., Michael EMMISON and Alan FIRTH (eds.): Calling for Help. Language and social interaction in telephone helplines. xvii, 346 pp. + index. Expected October 2005 142 SIDNELL, Jack: Talk and Practical Epistemology. The social life of knowledge in a Caribbean community. xv, 255 pp. Expected October 2005 141 ZHU, Yunxia: Written Communication across Cultures. A sociocognitive perspective on business genres. xviii, 208 pp. + index. Expected November 2005 140 BUTLER, Christopher S., María de los Ángeles GÓMEZ-GONZÁLEZ and Susana M. DOVAL-SUÁREZ (eds.): The Dynamics of Language Use. Functional and contrastive perspectives. 2005. xvi, 413 pp. 139 LAKOFF, Robin T. and Sachiko IDE (eds.): Broadening the Horizon of Linguistic Politeness. 2005. xii, 342 pp. 138 MÜLLER, Simone: Discourse Markers in Native and Non-native English Discourse. ix, 282 pp. + index. Expected November 2005 137 MORITA, Emi: Negotiation of Contingent Talk. The Japanese interactional particles ne and sa. 2005. xvi, 240 pp. 136 SASSEN, Claudia: Linguistic Dimensions of Crisis Talk. Formalising structures in a controlled language. 2005. ix, 230 pp. 135 ARCHER, Dawn: Questions and Answers in the English Courtroom (1640–1760). A sociopragmatic analysis. 2005. xiv, 374 pp. 134 SKAFFARI, Janne, Matti PEIKOLA, Ruth CARROLL, Risto HILTUNEN and Brita WÅRVIK (eds.): Opening Windows on Texts and Discourses of the Past. 2005. x, 418 pp. 133 MARNETTE, Sophie: Speech and Thought Presentation in French. Concepts and strategies. 2005. xiv, 379 pp. 132 ONODERA, Noriko O.: Japanese Discourse Markers. Synchronic and diachronic discourse analysis. 2004. xiv, 253 pp. 131 JANOSCHKA, Anja: Web Advertising. New forms of communication on the Internet. 2004. xiv, 230 pp. 130 HALMARI, Helena and Tuija VIRTANEN (eds.): Persuasion Across Genres. A linguistic approach. 2005. x, 257 pp. 129 TABOADA, María Teresa: Building Coherence and Cohesion. Task-oriented dialogue in English and Spanish. 2004. xvii, 264 pp. 128 CORDELLA, Marisa: The Dynamic Consultation. A discourse analytical study of doctor–patient communication. 2004. xvi, 254 pp. 127 BRISARD, Frank, Michael MEEUWIS and Bart VANDENABEELE (eds.): Seduction, Community, Speech. A Festschrift for Herman Parret. 2004. vi, 202 pp. 126 WU, Yi’an: Spatial Demonstratives in English and Chinese. Text and Cognition. 2004. xviii, 236 pp. 125 LERNER, Gene H. (ed.): Conversation Analysis. Studies from the first generation. 2004. x, 302 pp. 124 VINE, Bernadette: Getting Things Done at Work. The discourse of power in workplace interaction. 2004. x, 278 pp. 123 MÁRQUEZ REITER, Rosina and María Elena PLACENCIA (eds.): Current Trends in the Pragmatics of Spanish. 2004. xvi, 383 pp. 122 GONZÁLEZ, Montserrat: Pragmatic Markers in Oral Narrative. The case of English and Catalan. 2004. xvi, 410 pp. 121 FETZER, Anita: Recontextualizing Context. Grammaticality meets appropriateness. 2004. x, 272 pp. 120 AIJMER, Karin and Anna-Brita STENSTRÖM (eds.): Discourse Patterns in Spoken and Written Corpora. 2004. viii, 279 pp. 119 HILTUNEN, Risto and Janne SKAFFARI (eds.): Discourse Perspectives on English. Medieval to modern. 2003. viii, 243 pp. 118 CHENG, Winnie: Intercultural Conversation. 2003. xii, 279 pp. 117 WU, Ruey-Jiuan Regina: Stance in Talk. A conversation analysis of Mandarin final particles. 2004. xvi, 260 pp. 116 GRANT, Colin B. (ed.): Rethinking Communicative Interaction. New interdisciplinary horizons. 2003. viii, 330 pp. 115 KÄRKKÄINEN, Elise: Epistemic Stance in English Conversation. A description of its interactional functions, with a focus on I think. 2003. xii, 213 pp. 114 KÜHNLEIN, Peter, Hannes RIESER and Henk ZEEVAT (eds.): Perspectives on Dialogue in the New Millennium. 2003. xii, 400 pp. 113 PANTHER, Klaus-Uwe and Linda L. THORNBURG (eds.): Metonymy and Pragmatic Inferencing. 2003. xii, 285 pp. 112 LENZ, Friedrich (ed.): Deictic Conceptualisation of Space, Time and Person. 2003. xiv, 279 pp.
111 ENSINK, Titus and Christoph SAUER (eds.): Framing and Perspectivising in Discourse. 2003. viii, 227 pp. 110 ANDROUTSOPOULOS, Jannis K. and Alexandra GEORGAKOPOULOU (eds.): Discourse Constructions of Youth Identities. 2003. viii, 343 pp. 109 MAYES, Patricia: Language, Social Structure, and Culture. A genre analysis of cooking classes in Japan and America. 2003. xiv, 228 pp. 108 BARRON, Anne: Acquisition in Interlanguage Pragmatics. Learning how to do things with words in a study abroad context. 2003. xviii, 403 pp. 107 TAAVITSAINEN, Irma and Andreas H. JUCKER (eds.): Diachronic Perspectives on Address Term Systems. 2003. viii, 446 pp. 106 BUSSE, Ulrich: Linguistic Variation in the Shakespeare Corpus. Morpho-syntactic variability of second person pronouns. 2002. xiv, 344 pp. 105 BLACKWELL, Sarah E.: Implicatures in Discourse. The case of Spanish NP anaphora. 2003. xvi, 303 pp. 104 BEECHING, Kate: Gender, Politeness and Pragmatic Particles in French. 2002. x, 251 pp. 103 FETZER, Anita and Christiane MEIERKORD (eds.): Rethinking Sequentiality. Linguistics meets conversational interaction. 2002. vi, 300 pp. 102 LEAFGREN, John: Degrees of Explicitness. Information structure and the packaging of Bulgarian subjects and objects. 2002. xii, 252 pp. 101 LUKE, Kang Kwong and Theodossia-Soula PAVLIDOU (eds.): Telephone Calls. Unity and diversity in conversational structure across languages and cultures. 2002. x, 295 pp. 100 JASZCZOLT, Katarzyna M. and Ken TURNER (eds.): Meaning Through Language Contrast. Volume 2. 2003. viii, 496 pp. 99 JASZCZOLT, Katarzyna M. and Ken TURNER (eds.): Meaning Through Language Contrast. Volume 1. 2003. xii, 388 pp. 98 DUSZAK, Anna (ed.): Us and Others. Social identities across languages, discourses and cultures. 2002. viii, 522 pp. 97 MAYNARD, Senko K.: Linguistic Emotivity. Centrality of place, the topic-comment dynamic, and an ideology of pathos in Japanese discourse. 2002. xiv, 481 pp. 96 HAVERKATE, Henk: The Syntax, Semantics and Pragmatics of Spanish Mood. 2002. vi, 241 pp. 95 FITZMAURICE, Susan M.: The Familiar Letter in Early Modern English. A pragmatic approach. 2002. viii, 263 pp. 94 McILVENNY, Paul (ed.): Talking Gender and Sexuality. 2002. x, 332 pp. 93 BARON, Bettina and Helga KOTTHOFF (eds.): Gender in Interaction. Perspectives on femininity and masculinity in ethnography and discourse. 2002. xxiv, 357 pp. 92 GARDNER, Rod: When Listeners Talk. Response tokens and listener stance. 2001. xxii, 281 pp. 91 GROSS, Joan: Speaking in Other Voices. An ethnography of Walloon puppet theaters. 2001. xxviii, 341 pp. 90 KENESEI, István and Robert M. HARNISH (eds.): Perspectives on Semantics, Pragmatics, and Discourse. A Festschrift for Ferenc Kiefer. 2001. xxii, 352 pp. 89 ITAKURA, Hiroko: Conversational Dominance and Gender. A study of Japanese speakers in first and second language contexts. 2001. xviii, 231 pp. 88 BAYRAKTAROĞLU, Arın and Maria SIFIANOU (eds.): Linguistic Politeness Across Boundaries. The case of Greek and Turkish. 2001. xiv, 439 pp. 87 MUSHIN, Ilana: Evidentiality and Epistemological Stance. Narrative Retelling. 2001. xviii, 244 pp. 86 IFANTIDOU, Elly: Evidentials and Relevance. 2001. xii, 225 pp. 85 COLLINS, Daniel E.: Reanimated Voices. Speech reporting in a historical-pragmatic perspective. 2001. xx, 384 pp. 84 ANDERSEN, Gisle: Pragmatic Markers and Sociolinguistic Variation. A relevance-theoretic approach to the language of adolescents. 2001. ix, 352 pp. 83 MÁRQUEZ REITER, Rosina: Linguistic Politeness in Britain and Uruguay. A contrastive study of requests and apologies. 2000. xviii, 225 pp. 82 KHALIL, Esam N.: Grounding in English and Arabic News Discourse. 2000. x, 274 pp. 81 DI LUZIO, Aldo, Susanne GÜNTHNER and Franca ORLETTI (eds.): Culture in Communication. Analyses of intercultural situations. 2001. xvi, 341 pp. 80 UNGERER, Friedrich (ed.): English Media Texts – Past and Present. Language and textual structure. 2000. xiv, 286 pp. 79 ANDERSEN, Gisle and Thorstein FRETHEIM (eds.): Pragmatic Markers and Propositional Attitude. 2000. viii, 273 pp. 78 SELL, Roger D.: Literature as Communication. The foundations of mediating criticism. 2000. xiv, 348 pp.
A complete list of titles in this series can be found on the publishers’ website, www.benjamins.com
