Politeness TheoryBrown & Levinson (1987)

Cheryl Holden

Introduction• Where does this theory fit into linguistics?

• Who are Brown & Levinson?

• B&L’s objectives

• So, what’s the theory?

• How does it work?

• Is it bomb-proof?

Where does this theory fit into linguistics?

• Linguistics > pragmatics / interactional sociolinguistics > politeness / facework

• Brown & Levinson < Erving Goffman(1922-1982) <<< Émile Durkheim (1858-1917)

Who are Brown & Levinson?

• Penny Brown and Stephen Levinson

• Worked with ‘situated conversational exchanges‘.

• Theirs remains one of the most prominent works in this domain.

B&L’s objectives• To examine the assumptions and reasoning used

by participants.

• Account for cross-cultural similarities in the abstract principles behind polite usage.

• To draw up a formal model to account for cross-cultural similarities that also worked for culturally-specific use.

So, what’s the theory? (1)

• All parties have positive face and negative face and are rational agents, and so will choose means that satisfy their ends.

• If the satisfaction of face wants relies on the actions of others, it is generally in the interests of both parties to maintain each other’s face.

• Some actions (or FTAs) are inherently threatening to face.

So, what’s the theory? (2)

• A speaker (S) will therefore want to maintain the face of his hearer (H) ... unless S’s desire to perform the FTA outweighs his need to respect H’s face.

• Given the above, the more that face is threatened, the more S will want to use a strategy that minimizes risk.

• Since these strategies are known to both parties, they will not use a less risky strategy than necessary, lest this be perceived as indicating that the FTA is more threatening that is really the case.

How does it work?

Calculating the seriousness of an FTA

• Wx = D(S,H) + P(H,S) + Rx

Is it bomb-proof?• Criticisms that it’s too west-centric.

• Even within Europe, politeness is not universal.- turn-taking (France)- thanking (Spain)

• Values of D, P and R not fixed, but can change according to context.

• Other factors – such as prosody – can prompt perceptions of difference in politeness.