What is politeness theory by Brown and Levinson?

Politeness theory, proposed by Penelope Brown and Stephen C. Levinson, centers on the notion of politeness, construed as efforts on redressing the affronts to a person’s self-esteems of effectively claiming positive social values in social interactions.

What are the 3 factors that influence a speaker’s politeness strategies?

According to Brown and Levinson (1987), there are 3 factors that influenced the speaker in applying politeness strategies: power, social distance, and the size of imposition.

How does the theory of politeness helps us making the conversation successful?

The Politeness theory is a theory that appeared within the framework of pragmatic approach in linguistics. According to this theory the interlocutors use particular strategies in order to achieve successful communication. These strategies enable to create maximally comfortable environment for communication.

What is politeness strategies explain the kinds of politeness strategies and the example?

Positive politeness strategies are intended to avoid giving offense by highlighting friendliness. These strategies include juxtaposing criticism with compliments, establishing common ground, and using jokes, nicknames, honorifics, tag questions, special discourse markers (please), and in-group jargon and slang.

Why is politeness theory important?

Politeness theory maintains the universality of an individual’s positive and negative face wants in all cultures. During everyday interaction, individuals often perform actions that threaten face. They therefore use politeness strategies to mitigate face threats.

What are face threatening acts?

A Face-threatening Act (FTA) is an act (linguistic or non-linguistic) that threatens someone’s positive or negative face. It may be bald or mitigated, and it may be on record or off record.

What did Lakoff say?

Lakoff developed the “Politeness Principle,” in which she devised three maxims that are usually followed in interaction. These are: Don’t impose, give the receiver options, and make the receiver feel good. She stated that these are paramount in good interaction.

What is Levinson’s theory of politeness?

Penelope Brown and Stephen Levinson’s Politeness Theory. A major framework that combines these differing politeness strategies has been developed by the two linguists Penelope Brown and Stephen Levinson. They distinguish between negative politeness strategies: strategies that are performed to avoid offense through deference.

What is the best theory of politeness?

Expanded upon the theory of Lakoff and Goffman, the politeness theory of Brown and Levinson is clearly the best known and most followed. Like Lakoff, Brown and Levinson examined politeness in term of conflict avoidance, but their explanatory is different.

What did Brown and Levinson mean by basic wants?

Brown and Levinson defined the notion of face with “the aspects of face as basic wants, which every member knows every other member desires, and which in general, it is in the interests of every member to partially satisfy” (1987, p. 62).

What are the negative politeness strategies?

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. Their theory leads back to the term of “face” introduced by the sociologist Ervin Goffman.