Chapter 3

Discourse and Pragmatics

Major topics
This chapter discusses:

1. The relationship between language and context.

2. Ways in which people typically perform speech acts (such as apologizing or
requesting, etc.) in spoken and written discourse.
3. The reasons we choose to perform a speech act in a particular way (e.g.
reasons of politeness).
4. The ways in which people perform speech acts across cultures.
5. What happens when people do not follow culture-specific expectations for
performing particular speech acts.
What is pragmatics?
Pragmatics is the study of meaning in relation to the context in which a
person is speaking or writing. This includes social, situational and textual
context. It also includes background knowledge context; that is, what
people know about each other and about the world. Pragmatics assumes
that when people communicate with each other they normally follow some
kind of cooperative principle; that is, they have a shared understanding of
how they should cooperate in their communications. The ways in which
people do this, however, varies across cultures. What may be a culturally
appropriate way of saying or doing something in one culture may not be
the same in another culture. The study of this use of language across
cultures is called cross-cultural pragmatics.
 Language, context and discourse
An understanding of how language functions in context is central to an
understanding of the relationship between what is said and what is understood
in spoken and written discourse.

The context of situation (physical context, social context, and mental

worlds and roles of people involved in the interaction)
e.g. 1. A conversation between two people in a restaurant.
2. A student’s assignment written for a law course vs a law firm client.

The linguistic context (what has been said and what is yet to be said in
the discourse).
There are, then, a number of key aspects of context that are crucial to the
production and interpretation of discourse. These are:
• The situational context in terms of what people ‘know about what they can
see around them’,
• The background knowledge context in terms of what people ‘know about
each other and the world’,
• The co-textual context in terms of what people ‘know about what they have
been saying’ (Cutting 2008 : 5).

 Background knowledge context includes cultural knowledge and

interpersonal knowledge. That is, it includes what people know about the
world, what they know about various areas of life, what they know about
each other (Cutting 2008 ) and what they know about the norms and
expectations of the particular discourse community (see Chapter 2 ) in which
the communication is taking place.
 Contextual knowledge also includes social, political and cultural
understandings that are relevant to the particular communication
(Celce-Murcia and Olshtain 2000 ).

 As Thomas ( 1995 : 22) explains:

“meaning is not something that is inherent in the words alone, nor is it
produced by the speaker alone or the hearer alone. Making meaning is
a dynamic process, involving the negotiation of meaning between
speaker and hearer, the context of utterance (physical, social and
linguistic), and the meaning potential of an utterance.”
Speech acts and discourse
• Austin’s ( 1962 ) How to Do Things With Words
• Searle’s ( 1969 ) Speech Acts

They argued that language is used to ‘do things’ other than just refer
to the truth or falseness of particular statements.

logical positivism: it argued that language is always used to describe

some fact or state of affairs, and unless a statement can be tested for
truth or falsity it is basically meaningless.
Austin and Searle argued that we use language to give orders, to make
requests, to give warnings or to give advice; in other words, to do things
that go beyond the literal meaning of what we say.

What we say, then, often has both a literal meaning (or propositional
content) and an illocutionary meaning (or illocutionary force ); that is, a
meaning which goes beyond what someone, in a literal sense, has said.
e.g. “It’s hot in here”

Austin distinguished between four kinds of acts presented in every

communicational utterance:
■ phonic act: the act of making vocal sounds
■ locutionary act: the communicative act of uttering a sentence (Or, the
literal meaning of the actual words) (it pertains semantic content)
■ illocutionary act: the act (defined by social convention) which is
performed when making an utterance: e.g. Accusing, apologizing,
asserting, boasting, congratulating (Or, the speaker’s intention
in uttering the words)
■ perlocutionary act: the act of causing a certain effect on the hearer:
e.g. amusing, persuading, pleasing, scaring.
(Or, the effect this utterance has on the thoughts or actions of the other
person).
e.g.
Bus driver: This bus won’t move until you boys move in out of the doorway.
• It is not always easy, however, to identify the illocutionary force of what
someone says. WHY?
• Because it may also depend on:
1. the stage in the discourse
2. the social context in which the person is speaking.
3. An illocutionary force might be spread over more than one utterance.
e.g.
A: Hello, welcome to Hungry Jack’s. Can I take your order please?
B: Can I have a Whopper with egg and bacon . . .
A: Would you like cheese with that?
B: Yes please . . . and a junior Whopper with cheese . . . and large fries please.
A: Would you like any drinks or dessert with that?
B: No thank you.
A: OK . . . that’s a Whopper with cheese, egg and bacon, a Whopper junior with cheese and large fries.
B: Yes. Thank you.
A: OK . . . Please drive through.
4. what someone says may have more than a single illocutionary force.
e.g.
A: ‘What are you doing tonight?’

B: ‘I still haven’t finished my homework’ OR

B: ‘Nothing special. What do you feel like doing?’
The Speech Act Theory
- Austin (1962): Its purpose: “distinguishing the force of a linguistic
expression from its sense”.
- Levinson (1983: 236): “all utterances, in addition to meaning
whatever they mean, perform specific actions (or ‘do things’) through
having specific force”.

Speech act: an utterance considered as an action , particularly with regard

to its intention, purpose, or effect.
A speech act in linguistics and the philosophy of language is an utterance
that has performative function in language and communication.
A speech act is an act that a speaker performs when making an utterance.
 Direct and indirect speech acts
 Direct speech acts: When we speak we do mean exactly what we say
e.g.
Bashir: Did you allow your friends, your close friends, to speak to
Andrew Morton?
Diana: Yes I did. Yes I did. (BBC 1995 )

• Indirect speech acts: When we say things indirectly; we often intend

something that is quite different from the literal meaning of what we say.
e.g. - ‘to bring a plate’
- ‘Can I bring anything?’ ‘No, just bring yourself’
- ‘Can I have a Whopper with egg and bacon . . .?’
Direct speech acts
Sentence (or mood) types: Declarative, Interrogative, Imperative
The direct illocution of an utterance is the illocution most directly indicated
by the literal meaning of what is uttered (when form and function match)

1. I like to play golf.

2. Have you ever been lectured on pragmatics?
3. Promise me you won’t laugh.
Indirect speech acts
The indirect illocution of an utterance is any further illocution an
utterance might have (when form and function do not match).

Context: At the ticket office of York railway station. Traveller to

sales clerk.
Utterance: I’d like a saver return to Sheffield please.
Sentence Type: Declarative
Act: Ordering/Requesting: Sell me a saver return train ticket to
Sheffield.

Context: At a nightclub. One friend to another.

Utterance: Has he got a cute face or what?
Sentence Type: Interrogative
Act: Assertion: He’s got a cute face!

Tell me why you hate your father!

Felicity conditions and discourse
1. There must be a generally accepted procedure (i.e. the act must be
recognized by convention)
2. The circumstances must be appropriate (i.e. appropriate setting, occasion and
participants)
3. The procedure must be carried out correctly and completely.
4. The person performing the speech act must (in most circumstances)
have the required/appropriate thoughts, feelings and intentions
(i.e. speakers should be sincere in their acts)

All in all:
The communication must be carried out by the right person, in the right place, at
the right time and, normally, with a certain intention or it will not ‘work’.
Rules versus principles
Searle: The felicity conditions of an utterance are ‘constitutive rules’.
They make up and define the act itself.
They are rules that need to be followed for the utterance to work.

Thomas (1995): The notion of principles :

 It is extremely difficult to devise rules which will satisfactorily
account for the complexity of speech act behaviour.
 Differences between rules and principles:

1. Rules are ‘all or nothing’, whereas principles are ‘more or less’.

2. Rules are exclusive, whereas principles can co-occur.
3. Rules aim to define a speech act, whereas principles describe what
people do.
4. Rules are definite, whereas principles are ‘probabilistic’.
5. Rules are arbitrary, whereas principles are ‘motivated’.

e.g. The act of ‘apology’

Taking a principles-based view of speech act performance, rather than a
rule-based one, thus, describes what people often do, or are most likely
to do, when they apologize, rather than what they ‘must’ do.
Presupposition and discourse
• Definition:
Presupposition refers to the common ground that is assumed to exist
between language users such as assumed knowledge of a situation and/or
of the world.
• Sources:
Books, television and the internet, or through personal experiences with the
world.
• Kinds:
1. Conventional presupposition 2. Pragmatic presupposition.
Q: Which one is more/less context-dependent?
• Conventional presuppositions
They are less context-dependent than pragmatic presuppositions and are
typically linked to particular linguistic forms.
e.g. ‘Would you like some coffee?’
‘Would you like anything to drink?’

• Pragmatic presuppositions
They are context-dependent and arise from the use of an utterance in a
particular context.
e.g. in the delicatessen section of a supermarket
A: Customer number two!
B: Ah . . . could I have 250 grams of the honey smoked ham please?
The cooperative principle and discourse
GRICE’S THEORY OF CONVERSATIONAL ORGANIZATION
H. Paul Grice (1975) considers the ‘interpretation of utterances as a
collaborative enterprise guided by a “cooperative principle” in which a
speaker and a hearer are engaged in some shared goal.’
(Kempson, 2001: 401)

The cooperative principle (CP):

“Make your conversational contribution such as is required, at the stage at
which it occurs, by the accepted purpose or direction of the talk exchange
in which you are engaged”.
(Grice 1975: 45)
Gricean’s maxims of conversations:
Maxim of quantity
1 Make your contribution as informative as is required (for the current purposes of the exchange).
2 Do not make your contribution more informative than is required.

Maxim of quality
1 Do not say what you believe to be false.
2 Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence.

Maxim of relevance
1 Be relevant.

Maxim of Manner (be perspicuous)

1 Avoid obscurity of expression.
2 Avoid ambiguity.
3 Be brief (avoid unnecessary prolixity).
4 Be orderly.
- To sum up: Grice in his theory suggests that when we talk, we assume that
all participants orient towards successful communication as a goal and in
so doing it is assumed that they are all appropriately informative, truthful,
relevant and clear.

e.g. (speakers observing all maxims)

A: Hi. What would you like?

B: Two hundred grams of the shaved ham thanks.

 Grice argues that we assume a speaker is following these maxims and

combine this with our knowledge of the world to work out what they
mean by what they say.
e.g. (Obeying the quantity maxim)

Diana: People’s agendas changed overnight. I was now the separated wife
of the Prince of Wales, I was a problem, I was a liability (seen as),
and how are we going to deal with her? This hasn’t happened before.
Bashir: Who was asking those questions?
Diana: People around me, people in this environment, and . . .
Bashir: The royal household?
Diana: People in my environment, yes, yes.
e.g. (obeying the quality/manner maxim)

Diana: I’d like to be a queen of people’s hearts, in people’s hearts,

but I don’t see myself being Queen of this country. I don’t
think many people will want me to be Queen.
.....................
Diana: The people that matter to me – the man on the street, yup,
because that’s what matters more than anything else.
Flouting the cooperative principle
 Maxims flout occurs when speakers purposely do not observe them and
intend their hearer to be aware of this.
e.g. (1) Flouting the maxim of quality

Librarian: (raises his eyes, looks at the student with no facial expression)
Student: Hi. Could you check for me whether I have any books to collect?
Librarian: (swipes the student’s card, clears his throat, wipes his nose with a
tissue, glances at the computer screen, turns to the shelf to get a book, then
another book)
Student: Any more?
Librarian: (turns and gets a third book, stamps them all with the return date)
Student: Is that all?
Librarian: Are you going to borrow all the books in the library?
Student: OK . . . I see . . . thank you very much
e.g. (2) Flouting the maxim of relation
Chinese student: What do you do in America?
American student: I work in a bank.
Chinese student: It’s a good job isn’t it?
American student: Well, just so so.
Chinese student: Then, how much is your salary every month?
American student: Oh no
Chinese student: What’s wrong?
American student: Why are you asking that?
Chinese student: Just asking, nothing else . . .
American student: The station isn’t far is it?
e.g. (3) Flouting the maxim of quantity

A: Can I get six thin slices of Danish ham please?

B: Six thin slices. . . .
A: Yep.
B: They’re all really thin, so. . . .
Differences between flouting and violating maxims
 A speaker is ‘flouting’ a maxim if they do not observe a maxim but has no
intention of deceiving or misleading the other person.
 A person is ‘violating’ a maxim if there is a likelihood that they are liable
to mislead the other person.

e.g. ‘Mummy’s gone on a little holiday because she needs a rest’

Meaning: ‘Mummy’s gone away to decide if she wants a divorce or not’

Q: is this a flout of a violation? What maxim is being flouted or violated?

(the speaker intends the hearer to understand something other than the truth, on
purpose).
Other reasons for violating maxims:

• A speaker may ‘infringe’ a maxim when they fail to observe a maxim with
no intention to deceive
(such as where a speaker does not have the linguistic capacity to answer a
question).

• A speaker may decide to ‘opt out’ of a maxim

(such as where a speaker may, for ethical or legal reasons, refuse to say
something that breaches a confidentiality agreement they have with
someone or is likely to incriminate them in some way).
• Overlaps between maxims
An utterance may flout two maxims at the same time:
(such as, being unclear and longwinded)

• Flouting maxims for reasons of politeness

(‘Do you like my new dress?’) (they don’t; but they flout the maxim of
quality) How do you think?

• Violating maxims because of a maxim clash

Bob: Where does Jay live?
Alan: Somewhere in the South of France.
Conclusion
It is important, then, for both the production and interpretation of
spoken and written discourse to understand to what extent people are
following these maxims, or not, in what they say.
 The interview with the Princess of Wales is a good example of this.
 Cross-cultural pragmatics and discourse
The ways in which people perform speech acts, and what they mean by what they say
when they perform them, often varies across cultures.
e.g. Apology for the Japanese students “a matter of course”
Apology for the English builder “taking responsibility & agreeing to do something”

Communication across cultures

Different languages and cultures, then, often have different ways of dealing with
pragmatic issues, as well as different ways of observing Grice’s maxims.
e.g. (1) Speakers of different languages may have different understandings
of the maxim of quantity in conversational interactions. (English & French
speakers communication in the work place)
‘How are you?’ / ‘Did you have a good weekend?’
e.g. (2) Recommendation letters in the English academic setting VS the
Japanese academic setting

Cross-cultural pragmatics
 Studies which investigate the cross-cultural use of speech acts are
commonly referred to as cross-cultural pragmatics.
 Different pragmatic norms reflect different cultural values which are, in turn,
reflected in what people say and what they intend by what they say in
different cultural settings.
e.g. (1) ‘Thanking’ in Japanese and English
(The concepts encoded in the English word ‘thanks’ do not really fit
Japanese culture).
e.g. (2) The speech act of ‘requests’ (it’s different across cultures)

You are writing your graduation thesis (in English). You want to ask your (English) professor to
read one of your chapters for you. What would you say in an email to your professor?
The student’s email to the English professor

Dear Jim
Hello, I am currently working on my graduation thesis, and would like to know if
it is good or not. Would you mind reading one of the chapters for me? I would
really appreciate it.
Thanks
Tetsuya Fujimoto
(not his real name)
 The student’s email to the Japanese professor

Greetings, Professor Nakamura

Early spring, in this sizzling day, how are you spending your day? This time, I
would like you to do me a favor, and this I why I take up my pen (In
Japanese this means ‘to write’ in a formal way). I am now writing my
graduation thesis, and even though I am afraid to ask, would you mind
seeing my work . . . of course, as long as it does not bother you. If it is not
inconvenient for you, could you please consider it?
I beg you again
Sincerely
Tetsuya Fujimoto
Conversational implicature and discourse
 Conversational implicature refers to the inference a hearer makes about a
speaker’s intended meaning that arises from their use of the literal meaning
of what the speaker said, the conversational principle and its maxims.
e.g. ‘There’s nothing on at the movies’

But Implicature ≠ inference

Thomas ( 1995 : 58) explains: an implicature ‘is generated intentionally by

the speaker and may (or may not) be understood by the hearer’.
An inference, on the other hand, is produced by a hearer on the basis of
certain evidence and may not, in fact, be the same as what a speaker intends.
Interviewer: What do you think of Tony Blair as Prime Minister?
Interviewee: He’s always well dressed, he has a great smile and he likes
jazz.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

Marjorie: Have you seen your dad yet today?

Timmy: No.
Marjorie: He got out of bed on the wrong side this morning.
Timmy: Oh! Is he grouchy?
Marjorie: No – the daft man got out of bed on my side and he’s still
wearing my slippers!
Marjorie: Have you done your homework, Timmy?
Timmy: What time’s dinner?

-----------------------------------------------------------

Marjorie: Has anyone taken the d-o-g for a w-a-l-k?

Grice ( 1975 ) argues: To calculate an implicature hearers draw on:

- the conventional meanings of words,
- the cooperative principle and its maxims,
- the linguistic and non-linguistic context of the utterance,
- items of background knowledge,
- the fact that all of these are available to both participants and they both assume this
to be the case.
 Implicature, hence, can be created in one of three ways:
1. A maxim can be followed in a straightforward way and the hearer
implicates what the speaker intends.

A: What’d you like?

B: A beer thanks.
(no implicature is generated)

2. A maxim might be flouted because of a clash with another maxim:

A: What time did your flight get in this morning?

B: Seven (when it actually arrived at 7.04 am)
 Bob: Where does Jay live?
Alan: Somewhere in the South of France.

3. A maxim might be flouted in a way that exploits a maxim:

A: How are we getting to the airport tomorrow?

B: Well . . . I’m going with Peter.
 Types of conversational implicature
 Conventional conversational implicatures
With conventional implicatures, no particular context is required in order
to derive the implicature.
e.g. ‘well’, ‘anyway’, ‘but’, ‘on the other hand’, ‘even’, ‘yet’, …etc.
(What do such words/phrases conventionally implicate?)

 Speakers convey their conventional implicature by means of linguistic

conventions.
 Particularized conversational implicatures
They are derived from a particular context, rather than from the use of
the words alone. These result from the maxim of relation.

A: You’re out of coffee.

B: Don’t worry there’s a shop on the corner.

 Most implicatures, in fact, are particularized conversational implicatures.

 Scalar conversational implicatures
• These are derived when a person uses a word from a set of words that
express some kind of scale of values.
i.e. (They occur when certain information is communicated by choosing a
word which expresses one value from a scale of values.)

• From the highest to the lowest:

<all, most, many, some, few, none>
<always, often, sometimes>
<certain, probable, possible>
<do badly, progress, do well>
e.g. I’m studying linguistics and I’ve completed some of the required
courses.
(the speaker creates an implicature <not all>, <not most>, <not many>

e.g. It’s possible that they were delayed.

(it implicates: It’s not certain / not probable that they were delayed)

• The basis of the scalar implicature is that when any form in the scale is asserted, the
negative of all forms higher/stronger on the scale is implicated.

Bashir: Looking back now, do you feel at all responsible for the difficulties in your
marriage?
Diana: Mmm. I take full responsibility, I take some responsibility that our
marriage went the way it did. I’ll take half of it, but I won’t take any more
than that, because it takes two to get in this situation.
Politeness, face and discourse
Politeness and face are important for understanding why people choose to say things in a
particular way in spoken and written discourse (linguistic choice).

Example: Getting a Coke

(1) Get me a Coke.
(2) Get me a Coke, Andy!
(3) You’ll be a pal and get us a Coke won’t you Andy?
(4) Could you possibly get me a Coke from the machine please, Andy? I’ll go next week.
(5) If you’re going to the machine, could you possibly get me a Coke while you’re there
please?
(6) If you’re going to the machine, would you possibly be so kind as to get me a Coke
while you’re there please?
(7) I’m really sorry to ask, but if you’re going to the machine, I’d be ever so grateful if you
would possibly be so kind as to get me a Coke while you’re there please.
Politeness
What is politeness?
• ‘Politeness’ is the term we use to describe the extent to which actions,
including the way things are said, match addressees’ perceptions of how
they should be performed.
(Grundy 2000: 151)

• [Politeness refers] to whatever means are employed to display consideration

for one’s addressee’s feelings (or face).
(Green 1996: 151)

• ‘politeness’ will be used to refer to behaviour which actively expresses

positive concern for others, as well as non-imposing distancing behaviour.
(Holmes 1995: 5)
‘Face’: It’s the public self-image that every member wants to claim for
himself.

Brown and Levinson’s theory of politeness (1987):

It’s heavily based on Goffman’s (1967) notion of face and the related
face threatening acts (FTAs).

1. the need for freedom (autonomy) independence

2. the need to be valued (self-worth) involvement
Involvement and independence in spoken and written discourse
Scollon and Wong-Scollon (2001)
The term “involvement” refers to the need people have to be involved with
others and to show this involvement; that is a person’s right and need to be
considered a normal, contributing, supporting member of society; in other
words, to be treated as a member of a group. (Positive face)

How can we show this involvement?

• by showing our interest in someone, by agreeing with them, by approving
what they are doing or by using in-group identity markers (such as given
names, or nicknames). (Positive politeness strategies)
The independence part of face refers to a person’s right not be dominated by
others, not to be imposed on by others and to be able to act with some sense of
individuality, or autonomy. (Negative face)
How can we do this?
• by not presuming other people’s needs or interests, by giving people options,
by not imposing on other people and by apologizing for interruptions.
(Negative politeness strategies)
(e.g. “I don’t want to bother you but ….” , “I was wondering if ….”)

 People thus aim to build up closeness and rapport with each other, while at the
same time trying to avoid being a threat to each other’s social distance; that is,
maintaining each other’s involvement and independence.
Choosing a politeness strategy

Considerations:
1. how socially close or distant we are from our hearer.
2. How much or how little power the hearer has over us.
3. How significant what I want is to me, and to the person I am talking to.
4. how much emphasis both of us (in our culture or cultures) place on
involvement and independence in circumstances like the one we are in.
5. whether both of us would have the same answers to these questions.
Face and politeness across cultures
The specific nature of face and politeness varies from society to society and
from culture to culture.
e.g. - the idea of personal space and independence may vary.
- refusal of an offer

e.g. Politeness in the Chinese culture vs the Japanese culture

e.g. Gift-giving
The ways in which people express politeness also differs across cultures.

e.g. A request to close the window

 in English to an English speaking friend:
• Could you close the window for me?
• Can I close the window?
• Hey yo, close the window, would you?
 in Japanese to a Japanese friend:
• Isn’t it a little chilly?
• It’s cold don’t you think?
• I wonder why it’s so cold today? (indirectness)
 Politeness and gender
Politeness strategies have been shown to vary according to gender.

 Holmes’ work ( 1995 ) reveals:

• differences in the use of politeness strategies between men and women.
• the relationship between sex, politeness and language is a complex one.
• while research shows that, overall, women are more polite than men, it
also depends on:
- what we mean by ‘polite’
- which women and men are being compared
- in what setting (or community of practice) the
interaction occurs.
 Mills in her book Gender and Politeness ( 2003 ) points out:
• context has an important role to play in terms of whether what someone
says is interpreted as polite or not.
e.g. ‘street remarks’: ‘Hello gorgeous’

• It is not always the case that ‘Hello gorgeous’ is a positive politeness

strategy, at least for the person it is being said to.

• We need, then, to consider who is saying what, to whom, from what

position, where and for what purpose in order to come to a closer
understanding of this.
 Christie (2002) looks at politeness and gender in parliamentary debate
in the United Kingdom (community of practice):

• Men and women publicly criticizing, ridiculing and challenging each other.
- Are these instances of gender specific impoliteness or politic verbal
behaviour?

• Accordingly, the insults are part of the discourse expectations of a good

parliamentary speaker, regardless of whether they are male or female.

• Female Members of Parliament rarely apologize (contrary to other general

research)
Conclusions:
 Politeness and gender research suggests that it may not always be a
person’s gendered identity that is the most salient in a particular situation
but perhaps some other aspect of their identity that more influences their
linguistic behaviour.

 A community of practice does not exist in isolation from other cultural

groups and cultural values.

 There will always be a range of norms and views on appropriateness

within a community of practice and, indeed, within a culture as a whole.
See box p. 56 (community of practice)
 Face-threatening acts
when people interact, they run the risk of threatening (and damaging) the
face of those involved. As B&L say (1987: 65):
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 the speaker. By ‘act’ we have
in mind what is intended to be done by a verbal or non-verbal communication.

A face-threatening act (FTA) is an act which challenges the face wants of

an interlocutor. According to Brown and Levinson, face-threatening acts
may threaten either the speaker’s face or the hearer’s face, and they may
threaten either positive face or negative face.
 Often we use mitigation devices in conversations to take the edge of face-
threatening acts.
1. ‘Pre-sequence’ & ‘insertion sequence’:

e.g. A: Are you doing anything after work? (a pre-sequence)

B: Why are you asking?
A: I thought we might go for a drink. (an indirect speech act)
B: Well, no, nothing in particular. Where would you like to go?

2. ‘off-record speech act’:

e.g. A: I’m dying for a drink (an off -record invitation)
B: Yes it’s really hot isn’t it? (an off -record rejection of the invitation)
 A person may, equally, feel that their face has been threatened and make
this clear to their audience.
• Example: the US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton on a visit to the Congo
Politeness and cross-cultural pragmatic failure
 The particular nature of face varies across cultures and politeness strategies
are not necessarily universal.
e.g. The use of deference in Japanese is an indication of social register and
relationship and not a politeness strategy.

e.g. The politeness model proposed by Brown and Levinson ( 1987 ) in their
Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage does not suit Chinese.

 While politeness, of itself, may be a universal phenomenon, ‘what counts

as polite behaviour (including values and norms attached to such
behaviour) is . . . [both] culture-specific and language-specific’. (Gu 1990: 256)
 Clearly, the ways in which politeness is expressed is not the same across
languages and cultures and might mean different things in different
linguistic and cultural settings.

 Even though people may draw on similar notions such as face, there may
be gradations of politeness in terms of the importance of involvement,
independence, tact and modesty, etc.

 A lack of understanding of ways of expressing politeness in different

languages and cultures can be a cause of cross-cultural pragmatic failure
 Different views of pragmatic appropriateness, then, can easily lead to
misunderstandings and inhibit effective cross-cultural communication.

 In cross-cultural settings, in particular, people need:

- an awareness as well as an expectation of sociopragmatic
differences.
- an understanding of how these differences might be
expressed linguistically.

Summary (P. 58)

 Summary

• negative face: the wish to be unimpeded by others in one’s actions.

• positive face: the wish or desire to gain approval of others.

• negative politeness strategies: strategies that are performed to avoid

offense through deference
• positive politeness strategies: strategies that are performed to avoid
offense by emphasizing friendliness.

• Speech Acts become acts of negative politeness when they match the
negative face want of either the speaker or the addressee. These include
emphasis of social distance, use of apologies, formal language, deference
etc. Those speech acts attending to the positive face want of a member
are considered to be acts of positive politeness, including offer of
friendship, compliments, showing direct interest, heartily expressions etc.