语用学
Politeness Principle and analysis of its relevant application
刘阳子
[摘要] 在现代语用学理论当中，合作原则和礼貌原则是两个主要的理论。
为了“拯救”和补充合作原则，英国语言学家利奇提出了礼貌原则这个理论。
他自己罗列出了相关的六项关于礼貌原则的准则，为了尽可能详细的阐明礼貌原则。
后来提出的“脸面理论”同样是也是关于礼貌的相关理论。
实际上，在日常交际过程中，我们对他人所表现出来的礼貌都可以说是为了保护自己的面子。
我们首先将简单介绍这三个理论，然后会就礼貌原则在两个领域的应用来展开分析讨论。
通过对礼貌原则在英语商业信函和委婉语的使用的应用的介绍，我们能更好的掌握了解礼貌原则。
关键字：合作原则；礼貌原则；英语商业信函；委婉语
[Abstract] Cooperative Principle and Politeness Principle are two major theories in modern pragmatics. Politeness Principle was proposed by Leech, a British linguist, who said that he was to rescue the Cooperative Principle and make an addition to it. Leech had listed six maxims by himself to do his best to illuminate the Politeness Principle in detail. Also, face theory, is the relevant principle in terms of “politeness”. Actually, we just want to save our face in daily communication when we show our politeness to others. We will introduce these three theories firstly, then the application of on the three theories—Politeness Principle—will be talked about. Examples in two fields will be given to explain the relevant application. We can learn more about Politeness Principle through the explanation of the analysis of PP in English business letters and euphemisms.
Key words: Cooperative Principle; Politeness Principle; English business letter; euphemism
The Oxford Advanced Learner’s English-Chinese Dictionary explains that politeness is “having or showing that one has good manners and respect for t he feelings of other people”. In the field of pragmatics, many scholars and researchers have paid much attention on politeness which is a universal language phenomenon. They have worked out many results on it, but the research is still on the way. Here, we are going to talk about a theory which is called “politeness principle’, produced by
G.Leech (1983).
1.About Politeness Principle
Before the Politeness Principle was presented by G. Leech, Cooperative Principle, another theory presented by P. Grice, was widely used by language speakers. So we can firstly introduce Cooperative Principle as the warm-up for Politeness Principle.
1.1Grice’s Cooperative Principle
In Grice’s paper “Logic and Conversation” at Harvard University in 1967, he explained what the Cooperative Principle is. He thinks that natural languages are just as good as special logic systems for making precise statements; the assumption that natural language expressions diverge from the logical devices is itself faulty and that the faulty arises from an inadequate attention to the nature and importance of the conditions governing conversation.
Grice borrowed four categories from the German philosopher I. Kant, the four categories are quantity, quality, relation and manner. And then Grice make creative summary and observed the conversational maxims as follow:
Quantity Maxim:
(1)Make your contribution as informative as is required (for the current purpose of
the exchange).
(2)Do not make your contribution more informative than is required.
For example:
—Excuse me, could you tell me what time is it?
—It’s ten o’clock, fifteen minutes, twenty seconds and in the year 2015.
Here, we can see the listener wants to know the time, but the speaker tells him the very exact time which will make the listener confused. The speaker makes his contribution much more informative and tells the listener some unnecessary information. So, the speaker violates the maxim of quantity.
Quality Maxim:
Try to make your contribution one that is true.
(1)Do not say what you believe to be false.
(2)Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence.
For example:
—John, do you know where the No.1 Middle School is?
—It is at the end of the street.
In the conversation we mention above, the maxim of quality is observed. John does not contribute what he believes to be false and what John says is fully understood.
John knows where the school is and he directly tells the location of the school that is correct what the speaker wants.
Relation Maxim:
Be relevant.
The maxim of relation is to show that the answer and the question of the sentences in the context are related with each other.
—Do you want another coffee?
—The apple tastes delicious!
Here, we can see the second one who answers the first on flout the maxim of relation, he does not answer the right question of the first one. The first one want to know whether the second on want another coffee or not, but the second on gives the answer which is about what he thinks of an apple he has just eaten.
Manner Maxim:
(1)Be perspicuous.
(2)Avoid obscurity of expression.
(3)Avoid ambiguity.
(4)Be brief (avoid unnecessary prolixity)
Be orderly.
—Let’s get the kids something.
—Okay, but I veto I-C-E-C-R-E-A-M-S.
The second speaker ostentatiously in fringes the maxim of manner by spelling out the word ice-creams and thereby conveys to the first speaker that the second speaker would rather not have ice-cream mentioned directly in the presence of the children, in case they are thereby prompted to demand some.
Grice’s Cooperative Principle h as played an important role in modern pragmatics, and after him, many other linguists formulated new principles, one of which is Leech’s Politeness Principle. In our daily communication, Cooperative Principle can make our conversation go smoothly. In fact, those conversations which flout the Cooperative Principle involves many implied meanings, which was called conversation implicature. Politeness Principle was just presented to improve
Cooperative Principle, we can find the shadow of manner maxim in Politeness Principle.
1.2 Leech’s Politeness Principle
Geoffrey Leech, one of the most important linguists in the world, proposed that there are six maxims that are very similar to the Cooperative Principle proposed by Grice. They are: tact, generousness, approbation, modesty, agreement, and sympathy. Tact and generousness can be sorted in a pair, as well as approbation and modesty. Different culture background and different traditions drive the variation of the six maxims.
Tact maxim is that “minimize the expres sions of beliefs which imply cost to other, maximize the expression of beliefs which imply benefit to other”. In short, there are two aspects which are to minimize cost to other and maximize benefit to other. For example:
(1)Excuse me, may I ask you a question, please?
(2)Dear…, good morning, please could you share the information you just
collected about the damaged vehicles with me! Thanks a lot for your kindness. The writers or the speakers use the words like “good morning, dear, excuse me, please, may I and s o on”, to show their respect and kindness to the others. And it helps a lot to establish the good relationship between others.
Generousness maxim is supposed by Leech, is that:” Minimize the expression of beliefs that express or imply benefit to self; maximize the expression of beliefs that express or imply cost to self”. That is, to minimize benefit to self and to maximize cost to self. It is different from the first maxim, and it pays more attention to the speaker himself, also, it thinks that the other people should be considered firstly rather than the speaker himself or herself or the writers themselves. For example:
(1)Listen to me carefully, and I will show you all the steps you will use in your
computers.
(2)Jim, you must carry out the plan at once.
(3)Mum, you must consider my understandings and my feelings!
Here, we can see clearly in these examples that the first important role is “you” rather than “me”, which shows that the speaker plays more important role than the listener and the speaker should be considered firstly.
Approbation maxim is the third maxim shows that:” minimize the expression of beliefs which express dispraise of others, maximize the expression of beliefs which express approval of others”. This maxim is to praise others and also to hig hlight the strength of the others in order to make them happy. The speakers use this maxim to avoid some unsatisfied issues. It aims to omit some unpleasant things and to be more generous to the speakers, and thinks that the listeners should be considered first rather than himself or herself, in the other word, to let the other people feel great by showing the well-cooperation. For example:
(1)Last night, I saw you in the store and you looked very beautiful and relaxed.
(2)Through this period of time I think that you are an expert of the quality system.
Currently I have some problems-could you help me to solve these issues, please?
(3)Jonny, you know that in the show yesterday you act brilliant. I want to know
how could you do like that?
These talks aim at praising and letting the listeners feel comfortable. Sometimes the speaker tends to let the listener feel comfortable.
Modesty maxim is that:” Minimize the expression of praise of self; maximize the expression of dispraise of self”. It shows how the other people or their skills is good and how himself is not cleverer or not good enough in daily conversation. Here are examples:
(1)Ah, I am so foolish to do this kind of thing. It is quite unbelievable.
(2)The letter is just rubbish. It is me who wrote it.
Obviously, we can see from these examples the modesty maxim which aims at dispraising self and praising the others gravely.
Then, agreement maxim is:” Minimize the expression of disagreement between self and other; maximize the expression of agreement between self and other”. It tends to reach agreement to a large extent, is important to show the agreement of the issues rather than the disagreement. Some examples are listed below:
A: Hi, Jack, did you watch the film yesterday, it is a wonderful film, is not it?
B: Yeah, it is quite brilliant. I want to watch it again.
Here, the speaker and listener cooperate with each other very well. Their conversation leads to an agreement of the feeling of a film. Both A and B reach an agreement that the film is brilliant and B wants to w atch it again. If B answers:” Oh, no, I do not like the film at all’ or “I went to a beautiful restaurant to taste the specialty of the ancient town”, then the speaker will not happy and they will not reach to an agreement. So they have flouted the maxim.
Politeness Principle pays more attention on the others than on self. It aims at reaching the constructional relationship. People in different countries have different ways of thinking and doing, as we known, Chinese people pay more attention to the modesty maxim while the English people think the tact maxim is more important. The politeness is one of the most important factors to influence the pragmatics in order to establish the cooperative interpersonal relationship between people.
In fact, similar to Politeness Principle, Face theory should be also noted in terms of politeness in pragmatics.
1.3Brown and Levinson’s face theory
The face theory was put forward by Erving Goffman in fact, but developed by Brown and Levinson who study face problem in terms of politeness. The purpose of this theory is to keep friendly relationship between the participants so that their conversation advanced smoothly. Goffman had defined “face” as the faces should be considered carefully by the other participants, and the best wa y to preserve one’s face is not to threaten the other’s face. Face, in fact, has some relation with one’s mood or emotions, also, one’s dignity, respect, self-identity, fame and capability. And Brown and Levinson defined “face” as “every social member want s to claim the public self-image for himself or herself”. Basically, every people in our daily life has face request. Brown and Levinson think that to show one’s politeness is to save one’s face. They have divided face into two aspects which are positive face and negative face. Positive face is people’s desire to be wanted, appreciated and respected as a social member of the same group in terms of behavior, personal character, morality and things as such.
However, negative face is individual’s want to be in dependent, have the desire to be free to act what he or she chooses, and not to be imposed on by others. Brown and Levinson considered the two aspects of face cannot be threatened at the same time by one speech act, and the two are not incompatible.
Let’s see an example about face theory. Zhou Enlai, ex-premier of China, and N.S. Khrushchev, ex-leader of the former Soviet Union were once at a conference. In the course of the conference, Khrushchev became angry suddenly and shouted at Zhou, “How dare you bla me me since I was born in a proletariat family while you were from the bourgeois”? Losing no temper at the unreasonable accusation, Zhou refuted, “You are right that you were born in a proletariat family while I was from the bourgeois, but we both betrayed our classes”. Here Khrushchev ignored the face rule, so after Zhou Enlai successfully defended his own face, Khrushchev became the one who actually lost his face.
2.Politeness Principle in English business letters
Politeness Principle has six maxims which help the participants to build up constructive relationship with each other and improve their work in the future. Have a view of an example of tact maxim in an English business letter.
In the letter here, the writer gives out all the detailed information to show tact to the reader. He organizes the words logically and gives the significant information in order to minimize the cost of the reader and maximize the benefit of the reader.
Then the generousness maxim in the example below:
From: Stanton, Dave
Sent: 06 March 2012
To: Rainsley, Leigh
Cc: Westwood, Barry
Subject: Main Office
Hi Leigh,
This is more detail on the chassis issues, I am still waiting for my copies so
thought it would be useful for you to see.
Many regards,
Dave
The informal salutation at the beginning given by the writer show respect and close relationship. The content is brief, all the information are generously given here. It aims at reducing the cost of the reader than himself.
The third maxim is approbation, for example:
From: Krawetz, Yogi
Sent: 21 February 2012
To: Rainsley, Leigh
Subject: You have received photos from Adobe Photoshop Album Starter
Edition 3.0
Hi, Leigh,
This is a vehicle that has reached End of Line today! There is a couple more
vehicles around the system where the weld is incomplete. When I get a space I will get more photos and get them over to you.
Many regards,
J. Krawetz
End of Line Team Supervisor
In this letter, all the words used here show the respect and politeness. “I am looking forward to meeting you” will make the reader feel happy and encouraged rather than upset. It just maximize the praise of the hearer.
Then we will talk about the modesty maxim. A letter like this:
From: Steve Lloyd
Sent: 21 February 2012
To: Rainsley, Leigh
Hi, All,
The next academy session is this Saturday, starting at 9:30 and is being held
at Wrekin College
Sutherland Road
Wellington,
Telford,
Shropshire
TFI 3BH
Please find attached timetable for the day and also the Daily Goal sheets that
you need to completer and bring with you on Saturday. You will need all the
normal turbo, if you do not have any please let me know and we will bring
some spares.
As per normal if you could let me know whether you are attending that would be great.
I look forward to seeing you all Saturday.
Many regards,
Steve
The writer here appreciates the feelings of the reader and minimizes the praise of self and maximizes the dispraise of self.
Obviously, the business letter’s original pursuit is to reach an agreement with the reader, and the writer aims at letting the customer attend the sales event which is helpful for them to improve their cooperation. So, to minimize disagreement with the hearer and maximize agreement with the hearer helps make the negotiation between the traders.
The last maxim is sympathy maxim. In the business letter, these words like “welcome, thanks, dear” are positive which help the writer maximize his sympathy and minimize the anticipathy towards the reader.
3.Politeness in English euphemisms
Euphemism is the result of politeness, as the maxis of Politeness Principle goes. It can make the speakers feel comfortable when talking about objects which they feel too shy, or which could make them feel ashamed of, or which may place both the interlocutors in an embarrassed situation. In many times, people use euphemism in their communication to show politeness while even they are violating the Cooperative Principle.
People tend to adhere to the Politeness Principle in both languages when they have to use euphemisms in social communication.
We can have an analysis of the adherence to the six maxims of Politeness Principle. First is tact maxim. An example here:” When I passed by the downtown, I just saw a group of drunken gentlemen fighting each other around the corner”. Commonl y, “gentlemen” used here is not very suitable, but to adhere the tact maxim, the speaker use it to make a kind of humorous circumstances. By expressing our ideas like this in a tactful way, the beneficiaries will be both parties.
Then is the maxim of generousness. Take the service industry for example, we often here: “May I help you, sir? What can I do for you, Madam?” instead of “Do you need my help?” The speaker who doesn’t expect an answer asks in an indirect way. This rightly adheres to the maxim of generousness.
The third is the maxim of approbation. It is about praising and dispraising. Many euphemisms aim to maximize praise of others, and to minimize dispraise of others. For example: “You are in some degree distorting the truth” or “You are being
unec onomical with the truth” instead of “You are telling a lie”. The speaker who says like this aim to save the man’s face who he is talking about. In order not to make others feel embarrassed, the speaker use the euphemisms to rescue their face which just adhere to the maxim of approbation.
The fourth we will talk is the maxim of modesty. It also about praising and dispraising, but they are of self. Sometimes we want to show modesty and respect to others, we will call ourselves “Your humble servant”. In Chines e, we can always see these expressions such as: “biren(鄙人), jiafu(家父)，hanshe(寒舍)，zhuojian(拙见)”.
The one but the last is the maxim of agreement. Take a piece of conversation as example:
A: What is your attitude towards my advice?
B: Your opinion is very valuable.
B’s answer her avoid tactically the direct answer which is “I am not interested in your opinions, and I cannot agree with you in this case”. The euphemisms used here make the agreement between the speaker and listener goes smoothly.
The last is the maxim of sympathy. The most popular one among them are the euphemism associated with “death”. “To check out” means that the patient has left the hospital, just like the check out we do in the hotel. So, the euphemisms here adhere to the maxim of sympathy.
4.Conclusion
We have talked about what is Politeness Principle (PP), Cooperative Principle (CP), face theory and focused on Politeness Principle and its application. The six maxims of Politeness Principle manifested in the examples listed in this paper show an importance of Politeness Principle in our daily life except in English business letters or euphemisms. In all, politeness means to us that to save face in our daily communication, which is a term related tightly with our face. So the deep research in Politeness Principle can make our communication advance smoothly and avoid losing our face to some extent.
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