POLITENESS

Semra EmiciTuba Göktürk

Duygu YoldaşRıdvan Gürevin

Nihan ErgönülHüda Karasu

Mustafa Murat Ata

Politeness

Mustafa Murat Ata

At all times when people interact, identities and senses of selves are jostling for attention. A central concept in pragmatics is the concept of face, that is, the public self-image that we all want to maintain.

There are two aspects to the concept of face: Negative face, which basically denotes

the need to be independent and free from imposition.

Example:A- Could you lend me a pen?B- I’m sorry to bother you, but can I ask you for a pen or something?C- I know you are busy,but might ı ask you if-emm- if you happen to have an extra pen for me?

Positive face, which very simplified, denotes the need to belong and be accepted.

Example: Your friend asks for a ride to the airport.Positive face needs: You think, I better take him, because ı want him to like me, and I want the reputation of being a reliable person.

In conclusion, negative face is the need to be independent, and positive face is the need to be connected.

Politeness is a way of interaction which shows awareness of and respect for someone else’s face. A face threatening act is an act that threatens

the integrity and self-image of another person. For example, giving someone a direct order such as “Sit down” and “be quit” implies having social power over that person.

Conversely, if we act or behave in a way that lessens a possible threat to another person’s face, we engage in a face saving act. If, for example, you wish to get on with the meeting and that your colleague would stop roaming about the room talking on his mobile phone, you might convey this by using an indirect speech act like “Right”, “should we sit down and continue?”

This section will give a very brief sketch of how indirect speech acts differ from direct speech acts, as well as mention some ways in which languages have grammaticalized politeness. It is beyond the scope of this section to give a comprehensive discussion of all the aspects involved in the study of linguistic politeness.

INDIRECT SPEECH ACTS

Rıdvan GÜREVİN

A speech act is an utterance that has performative function in language and communication. Speech acts may be either direct or indirect. In a direct speech act the content of the utterance corresponds the speaker’s intention of the utterance. So the declarative is a statement uttered with the purpose of giving information whereas interrogative is a question uttered with the purpose of getting information, and the imperative is a command uttered with the purpose of getting someone to do something.

Namely; when engaging in direct speech, we mean what we say. When using the direct speech, we must take into account social situations involving the complex structures of cooperation. For example; giving someone a direct command implies that we have power over him or we are very intimate with him or both. A parent can give a command to his child, or close friends sometimes can give commands to each other. But it is not useful for a student to give a command to his teacher. Therefore, we engage in various politeness strategies.

If we want to save someone’s negative face, we must use some phrases like excuse me, pardon me, I am sorry to bother you, etc. A way of saving someone’s positive face is to increase the sense of group belonging, for example we can use the inclusive we (You are at a meeting and one of your friend is talking on the phone as well as walking around. And you: Right, should we sit down and continue?). Although the use of we gives a tone of group belonging, there is one intended addressee.

When engaging indirect speech, we do not mean exactly what we say. For example, when a stranger asks you do you know where the Forum is? You probably answer it by giving directions instead of answering something like yes I know. For example, you and your friend are in your room and your friend says you here is too hot. You probably interpret that as an indirect command ‘’ open the windows.’’ Namely; interrogatives and declaratives can be used as politely disguised request or commands.

Indirect speech acts are commonly used to reject proposals and to make requests. For example, a speaker asks, "Would you like to meet me for coffee?" and another replies, "I have class." The second speaker used an indirect speech act to reject the proposal. This is indirect because the literal meaning of "I have class" does not entail any sort of rejection.

When interpreting speech acts, there is always a misunderstanding between individuals and cultures. What is polite for someone may not be for the other and so on. For example; the individual who has been raised to never directly ask for something might, when having dinner with his colleagues, ask her neighbor would you like some more potatoes? in the expectation that the neighbor will then ask the same question to which she can safely say yes.

But if the neighbor does not think it impolite to ask for something, he might not understand the question as an indirect speech act, and might therefore simply answer no thank you, in which case there has been a miscommunication. This is true for clashes between people of different cultures.

Honorifics

Hüda Karasu

Honorifics

Many languages grammaticalize various politeness strategies. Honorifics can be thought as devices for marking social distinction. Following Brown and Levinson we can classify honorifics in three types depending on the relationship between the speaker and others.The referent honorifics, which have to do with the relationship between the speaker and things or persons referred to.Addressee honorifics, which have to do with the relationship between the speaker and addressee.Bystander honorifics, which have to do with the relationship between the speaker and the “bystanders” or overhearers.

Referent honorificsWith a referent honorific the politeness or respect distinctions are conveyed by referring to the target of the respect, that is, the choice of the linguistic form is dependent on what is referred to. A well known instance of referent honorifics is the choice of pronoun when addressing a person. In Europpean languages it is very common to have a binary distinction of politeness, where one form is considered familiar and the other polite, as in the French distinction tu/vous, both of which refer to a single person. This binary distinction in pronouns of address is often called T/V pronouns, tu ‘you.SG.NOM’ and vous ‘you.PL.NOM’.

In his sample of 207 languages on politeness distinctions in second person pronouns, Helmbrecht found that 49 languages (23.7 %) make use of this kind of binary distinction, many of which cluster in Europe, but these languages shows vastly different levels of T/V pronoun usage. For example, in German the polite form Sie is the Standard form of address between adults who are not in a close social relation. In Swedish, however, it is imaginable to use the plural pronoun form ni to address a single person, the context would be highly marked indeed.

Addressing between adults who don’t know each other is with the singular du. The usage of universal du in Swedish is a rather recent phenomenon and, interestingly enough, it seems that the language might be changing back to making politeness distinctions.

Some languages, 15 (7.2%) in Helmbrecht’s database, mainly clustered in South Asia but also found elsewhere, use multiple politeness distinctions fort he second person pronoun. Nepali is an example of a language with three levels of politeness distinctions in the singular and two in the plural.

NEPALİ (INDO-EUROPEAN (INDİC): NEPAL

  SINGULAR PLURAL

LOW GRADE HONORIFIC (‘informal’)

ta timi-haru

MID GRADE HONORIFIC(‘polite’)

timi timi-haru

 HIGH GRADE HONORIFIC(‘superpolite’)

 tapai  tapai-haru

PRONOUN AVOIDANCE

Nihan Ergönül

► There are also languages where a pronoun is avoided for the sake of politeness. In these languages it may be considered face threatening to directly address a person, so other kinds of terms are used instead, such as status and kindship terms or various kinds of titles, and so on.

► In Indonesian, for example, kinship terms:Saudara ‘sibling;relative of same generation’ function as an impersonal pronoun used between speakers of the same generation (or by a speaker to somebody younger) when they are not well acquainted. While such term as bapak ‘father’ or ibu ‘mother’ are used as a respectful address to people older than the speaker and between adults of marriable age.► Very often people will avoid using the pronoun even when on an equal status level, and instead use the addressee’s name.Effectively saying something like ‘Does Tom want more tea?’ when addressing Tom.

►The majority of the languages in Helmbrecht’s database, however, do not make any politeness distinctions for the second person pronominals. The languages in APICS display an almost identical patterns, as shown in the Table below.

Value WALS (200) APICS (201)

1.No politeness

distinction

 

 

66.4 % (136) 63.5 % (47)

2. Binary politeness

distinction

 

22.9 % (47) 24.3 % (18)

3. Multiple politeness

distinction

 

7.3 % (15) 5.4 % (4)

4. Pronoun avoidance

 

 

 

3.4 % (7) 6.8 % (5)

Total 205 74

►Referent honorifics which pronoun politeness is a part of the choice of form is dependent on who or what is being referred to. With second person pronouns the referent and the target happen to be the same. But we may also have honorific distinctions in the third person. In Korean, for example, the choice of the third person pronoun is dependent on what is being referred to and what level of politeness is required:

3rd PERSON SINGULAR PLURAL

THING D-kes ‘it’ D-kes-tul ‘they’CHILD D-ay ‘s/he’ D-ay-tul ‘they’ADULT:FAMILIAR D-salam ‘s/he’ D-salam-tul‘they’ADULT:BLUNT D-i ‘s/he’ D-i-tul ‘they’ADULT:POLITE D-pun ‘s/he’ D-pun-tul ‘they’

ADDRESSEE HONORIFICS

Semra Emici

Addressee honorifics : express social status of person being spoken to (the hearer) regardless of what is being talked about. For example, Javanese has three different words for “house” depending on the status level of the person spoken to.An addressee honorific system : linguistic form choice is dependent on the addressee of the utterance.● Languages may have morphologically variable forms depending on levels of politeness. This may be seen in verb forms ( different kinds of imperatives carrying different kinds of politeness connotations.Languages may make a distinction between immediate and distal imperatives (immediate imperative is a familiar command while the distal imperative is a polite command).

Epena Pedeee ( Choco ( Choco): Colombia)a. phata kho-ti plantain eat- IMP. PL ‘ Eat the plantain!’

b. thipi phua-pheda a-hi firewood blow- POL. IMP say- PAST ‘ He said, “ you will have to fan the fire’’’.

Above, it is seen that There is polite imperative receiving its own morphological marking. Compare –ti in (a) with – pheda in (b). This shows that action is going to have to be carried out some point in the future. The distal natüre of this kind of imperative makes it less direct and so logically more polite.

Korean: Korean honorificsKorean honorific speech is a mixture of subject honorification, object exaltation, and the various speech styles. Depending on how these three factors are used, the speaker highlights different aspects of the relationship between the speaker, the subject, and the listener (who may also be the subject).

The Korean language incorporates a hierarchy of speech styles divided according to its system of honorifics each with its own set of verb endings. The six speech styles from lowest to highest are:

1. Plain style (haerache or 해라체 ) Formal

Signals more social distance between the speaker and addressee than that when using intimate style

Generally used when writing for a general audience

Generally used in written language, but when it used in spoken language, it represents admiration.

2. Banmal or intimate style (haeche or 해체 )

Informal.

Typically used with close friends, by parents to their children, by a relatively older speaker to a child, by children to children, or by youngsters to the same-ages.

Recently, many children use banmal to their parents.

3. familiar style (hageche or 하게체 ) More formal than banmal style Signals that the speaker will treat the listener

with consideration and courtesy Typically used when the addressee is below the

speaker in age or social rank (e.g. the speaker is at least thirty years old and the addressee is of college age)

The familiar style generally implies the speaker is showing authority therefore typically requires the speaker to be sufficiently mature.

Women seldom use familiar style because it is commonly associated with male authority.

Generally, it is used by senior citizens, getting out of use by most of people in everyday language.

4. semiformal or blunt style (haoche or 하오체 ) More formal than familiar style with neutral

politeness Used to address someone in an inferior position

(e.g. age or social rank) A speaker will use semiformal style with a

stranger whose social rank is clear but not particularly lower compared to the speaker.

It is generally used by senior citizens, getting out of used by most of people in everyday language.

When semiformal style is used by young people, it also represents humorous sense, and is thought to be unsuitable for serious situations.

5. polite style (haeyoche or 해요체 ) Informal but polite.

Typically used when the addressee is a superior (e.g. by children to their parents, students to teachers)

This is the most common speech style and is commonly used between strangers.

6. formal or deferential style (hapshoche or 합쇼체 )

Used to treat superiors with the most reserve and the most respect

Commonly used in speeches delivered to large audiences, in news reports, radio broadcasts, business, and formal discussions.

In most of cases, books are written in plain style(herache), or formal style(hapshoche).

In some cases, speakers will switch between polite and formal styles depending on the situation and the atmosphere that one wishes to convey.

These six speech styles are sometimes divided into honorific and non-honorific levels where the formal and polite styles are honorific and the rest are non-honorific. According to Strauss and Eun, the two honorific speech levels are “prototypically used among non-intimate adults of relatively equal rank”. Comparatively, the non-honorific speech levels are typically used between intimates, in-group members, or in “downward directions of address by the speaker to his or her interlocutor.

Korean verbs are not only marked with TMA and sentence type affixes but also a host of affixes relating to addresee honorifics. For example, statement like it is raining takes six different forms depending on the social relationship between the speaker and the addressee:

KOREAN (ISOLATE: N, S KOREA)Plain pi Rain

kaNM

o-n-ta

come-IN-DC

Intimate pi Rain

kaNM

w-a

come-INT

Familiar pi Rain

kaNM

o-ney

come-FML

Blunt pi Rain

kaNM

o-o

come-BLN

Polite pi Rain

kaNM

w-a. yo

come-POL

Deferential pi Rain

kaNM

o-p-ni-ta

come-AH-IN-DC

Neutral pi Rain ‘ It is raining’.

kaNM

 

o-t-a

come-IN -DC

 

  

Javanese has a so -called ‘honorific register’, the choice of vocabulary is addresee honorific. The choice of which words to use for an utterance is dependent on the relationship between the speaker and the addressee. Three main speech levels: Ngoko (informal) : used only speaking to

smo very familiar. Madyo (semi-polite): used with people of an

intermediate level of familiarity, like neighbours.

Kromo (polite) : used with distant adults.

Respect vocabulary conveys an added level of respect. It has two subcategories1. Kromo inggel : with highly respected persons.2. Kromo andap : used in referring to any person’s actions towards a highly respected person. Five different words that are translated the same way into English, carry different levels of politeness.

JAVANESE (AUSTRONESİAN ( JAVANESE): INDONESİA)

NGOKO MADYO KROMO KROMO INGGEL KROMO ANDAPAkon ken kengken/pureh dawoh ng-atur-I

Above, there are five different words that all translate into the same thing in English. But the word choice is dependent on the level of the respect the speaker wishes or is obliged to show the addressee. There are also further distinctions in the choice of grammatical affixes. The combination of vocabulary and affixes leads to nine different levels of politeness. The three main speech level vocabularies have different sizes: ngoko is the basic vocabulary carrying every kind of concept, kromo has about 850 words , kromo inggel has about 260 words, madyo has about 35 words and kromo andap has about 20 words ( Myhill: 75f).

BYSTANDER HONOROFICS

Duygu Yoldaş

Bystander honorofics express the status of someone who is nearby, but not a participant in the conversation. With bystander honorofics, the linguistic form of the language isn’t dependent on the speaker or on the addressee, but on who is within earshot of the utterance. The linguistic form of the language isn’t dependent on the relationship between the speaker and the addresssee, nor it is dependent on what is being referred to.

However, it depends on anyone who can hear what is being said. Therefore, this covers participants, such as audiences, as well as “non-participants” or “bystanders”. This is often termed “avoidance language” or “honorofics register”. It is the least common, and are found primarily in “avoidance speech” such as the mother-in-law languages of aboriginal Australia, where one changes one’s speech in the presence of an in-law or other tabooed relative. Many Australian languages have bystander honorifics to varying degrees.

Dyirbal is famous for having had two language variants such as Guwal and Dyalɲuy. Guwal was used in all circumstances except when certain “taboo relatives” were present. In these kind of situations in which taboo relatives were used Dyalɲuy had to be used. Therefore the avoidance language, Dyalɲuy, had to be used whenever a taboo relative was within earshot. The taboo was symmetrical for instance – if X was taboo to Y so was Y to X.

Taboo relatives were:1-) a parent in-law of the opposite sex; and, by the symmetry rule, a child in-law of the opposite sex.2-) a cross-cousin of the opposite sex- that is, father’s or mother’s brother’s child.Although the two languages Guwal and Dyalɲuy differ completely in their vocabulary, they were identical phonologically and almost identical gramatically.

Dyirbal ( Australian (Pama- Nyungan) : Australia)

Guwal Dyalɲuyyanu bawalbil ‘go’buɽal ɲuɽimal ‘see, look at’ɲalɲga ɲalmaru ‘child’ɲinay madirabil ‘sit, stay, camp’

Taboo relatives are not identical cross- culturally whilst a number of languages may have ‘taboo relatives’. In Guugu- Yimidhirr, a traditional Australian Aboriginal language, special avoidance lexemes are used to express deference when in the presence of tabooed in-law relatives. In other words, speakers will either be completely prohibited from speaking to one’s mother-in-law or must employ avoidance language to one’s brother in-law.

The overlap between the two vocabularies seen in Guwal and Dyalɲuy wasn’t complete and the basic, informal ‘everyday lexicon’ had more items than the ‘respectful lexicon’. It is possible to express the same things in both varieties. For instance, in Guugu Yimidhirr, some everyday language words translate into only one respectful language word:

Guugu Yimidhirr (Australian (Pama- Nyungan): Australia)

Everyday language Respectful languagedhadaa ‘go’dharmbil ‘float,sail’yaalgal ‘limp’ balil‘go’gaynydyarr ‘crawl’biilil ‘paddle’

Bystander honorifics do not have to be restricted to the lexicon. Waray,one of the language having an avoidance language, referred to as ‘sideways language’ that was used with various in-law relatives and which involved adding a suffix –lawu to nominals and using the plural forms for verbs.

Waray (Australian (Waray): Australia)

nguk-lawu ban-ba-wu gan-a-ga-ng-utobacco- avoid 1sg.obj-2pl.s-give Irr-2pl.s- have-npst-dat’

Would you (PL) give me any tobacco if you (PL) have any? (addressed to one person)

Speech Acts in Sign Languages

Tuba Göktürk

Speech Acts in Sign Languages●Like spoken languages, all known sign languages have ways to carry out the basic functions of giving information, gleaning information and issuing commands.

●The most common, maybe even universal, negative marking head movement across sign languages is a repeated side-to-side head shake. The head movement may combine with facial expressions, and manual sign.●The second strategy is to have a single side-ward head turn, where the head is turned to one side and is then kept in that position for the duration of the negation.●The third strategy involves a backward tilt of the head, where the head is tilted backwards and remains in that position for the duration of the negation.

● Non-manual facial negators tend to be less grammaticalized and therefore less systematic. They usually involve “negative” mimics, such as manipulating the eye-brows (lowering or frowning, etc.), the eyes (narrowing or squinting, etc.), the mouth (drawn down, pursed or spreading the lips, etc.) and the nose (e.g. wrinkling). Non-manual facial negators tend to co-occur with the negative marking head movement.

●IRREGULAR NEGATİVES TYPİCALLY İNVOLVE SİGNS OF COGNİTİON. MOST SİGN LANGUAGES HAVE SEVERAL SUCH İRREGULAR NEGATİVES. BSL, FOR İNSTANCE, HAS AT LEAST EİGHT:

EVALUATİON: NOT.GOODCOGNİTİON: NOT.KNOWEMOTİONAL ATTİTUDE: NOT.WANT; NOT.LIKE; NOT AGREE; NOT BELIEVEPOSSESSİON: NOT.HAVE TENSE: WILL.NOT

●Ten languages in Zeshan’s database have 2-5 irregular negatives. LIS, for example, has four. Three languages, the Indian dialect of IPSL, KK and LSE, have only one irregular negative, while only one language, the Karachi dialect of IPSL, has none.

LIS (Sign Language: Italy) KK(Sign Language: Indonesia)modality: CANNOT aspect: NOT.YETevaluation: NOT.POSSIBLEemotional attitude: NOT.WANT; NOT.LIKE

●Interrogatives are typically formed with non-manual facial signs. Sign languages also have ways of forming polar questions and content questions. Typical non-manuals for polar questions are: raised eyebrows, wide open eyes, eye contact with the addressee, head forward position and body forward posture.

● Sign languages also have politeness strategies. Indirect speech acts may be employed to form polite requests, but morphological politeness distinctions can also be found, notably in referent and addressee honorifics. In terms of indirect speech acts, it is used to express wishes and commands, just as in spoken languages. As for referent honorifics, pronominal system referencing to a person by ‘pointing’ with an open hand. Parallel to spoken languages, addressee honorifics occur in sign languages, for instance with imperatives.

The End