Politeness Theory and Its Application in Arabic
Introduction
People have different ways to express politeness and they usually use a range of different linguistic expressions to do so, depending on the relationship with the addressee. This research will explain Browns and Levinson’s politeness theory and will recognize how universal this theory is and weather it can be applied on Japanese language taking into account the difference in cultures.
Brown and Levinson’s theory of Politeness and how it applies in Arabic:
Brown and Levinson`s theory is mainly based on three principle notions: face, face threatening act (FTA), and politeness strategies (Bowe & Martin 2009, p. 27). Brown and Levinson’s concept of face was derived from Goffman (1972 p.5): “The term face may be defined as the positive social value a person effectively claims for himself by the line others assume he has taken during a particular contact. Face is an image of self delineated in terms of approved social attributes”. So their definition for face was similar “ ‘face’, the public self-image that every member wants to claim for himself”. Brown and Levinson (1987, p.61)
Brown and Levinson have conducted a research with three languages (English, Tamil and Tzeltal). According to Brown and Levinson, people’s faces are human properties that are broadly comparable to self-esteem (Grundy 2008, p. 195). Brown and Levinson (1987) classified two notions of face negative and positive face, the negative face refers to “the basic claim to territories, personal preserves, rights to non-distraction – i.e. to freedom of action and freedom from imposition”. While the positive face refers to “the positive consistent self-image or ‘personality’ (crucially including the desire that this self-image be appreciated and approved of) claimed by interactants”. (1987, p.61)
So if a person acts is opposing to the other person’s face needs, it is then considered a Face Threatening Act (FTA) that was committed, and since all people have positive and negative faces,
People have different ways to express politeness and they usually use a range of different linguistic expressions to do so, depending on the relationship with the addressee. This research will explain Browns and Levinson’s politeness theory and will recognize how universal this theory is and weather it can be applied on Japanese language taking into account the difference in cultures.
Brown and Levinson’s theory of Politeness and how it applies in Arabic:
Brown and Levinson`s theory is mainly based on three principle notions: face, face threatening act (FTA), and politeness strategies (Bowe & Martin 2009, p. 27). Brown and Levinson’s concept of face was derived from Goffman (1972 p.5): “The term face may be defined as the positive social value a person effectively claims for himself by the line others assume he has taken during a particular contact. Face is an image of self delineated in terms of approved social attributes”. So their definition for face was similar “ ‘face’, the public self-image that every member wants to claim for himself”. Brown and Levinson (1987, p.61)
Brown and Levinson have conducted a research with three languages (English, Tamil and Tzeltal). According to Brown and Levinson, people’s faces are human properties that are broadly comparable to self-esteem (Grundy 2008, p. 195). Brown and Levinson (1987) classified two notions of face negative and positive face, the negative face refers to “the basic claim to territories, personal preserves, rights to non-distraction – i.e. to freedom of action and freedom from imposition”. While the positive face refers to “the positive consistent self-image or ‘personality’ (crucially including the desire that this self-image be appreciated and approved of) claimed by interactants”. (1987, p.61)
So if a person acts is opposing to the other person’s face needs, it is then considered a Face Threatening Act (FTA) that was committed, and since all people have positive and negative faces,
Bibliography: * Bowe, H & Martin, K. (2007), Communication across cultures: mutual understanding in a global world, Melbourne: Cambridge University Press. * Brown, P & Levinson, S. C. (1987). Politeness: Some universals in language usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. * Coulmas, F. (2005). Linguistic Etiquette in Japanese Society. In Watts, R, J. & Ide, S. & Ehlich, K (Ed.) Politeness in Language Studies in its History, Theory and Practice. New York: Mouton de Gruyter * Goffman, E. (1971). Relations in Public: micro studies of the public order. New York: Harper and Row. * Goffman, E. (1972). Interactional Ritual. London: Penguin. * Holmes, J. 2006. Politeness strategies as linguistic variables Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, p. 684. * Mao, L. (1994). Beyond politeness theory: ‘face’ revisited and renewed. Journal of Pragmatics. 21, 451-486. * Matsumoto, Yoshiko. (1988). Re-examination of the universality of face: politeness phenomena in Japanese. Journal of Pragmatic 12, 403-426.