Politness Theory: communication fights against face threatening acts.

Content and Relationship Levels of Meaning

• Two levels of communications
  • Content: Literal sense of an utterance
  • Relationship: Who speakers are to each other
    • “Bring me a coke” vs. “Could you please bring me one too?”
      • Relationship different. One says I’m the boss and the other one is a bitch
    • “Hurry up!” vs. “Gee, I hope we won’t be late”
      • Communication is obviously different

Politeness Theory

• Negative Face
  • Free from restraint, desire of autonomy. You want to be free; you don’t want people to restrict or restrain you; free of rules/obligations/requirements
• Positive Face
  • Desire for approval, well thought of. Want others to like us, think we’re good people
• Face Threatening Act (FTA) a communication that threatens your autonomy or desire for approval.
  • Communication that hurts your positive or negative face
    • You will stay here until 2pm –> Hurting your negative face because you just want to get the fuck out of here and onto your life…
• Politeness
  • Communication intended to mitigate face threats
  • Something you do or say fights against face threats

Politeness Theory: 4 Strategies

• Bald on record
  • Eg. I missed class, can I have your notes?
• Negative Politeness
  • Preserve the person’s negative face
  • • E.g. I’m sorry to bother you, I really need your notes
    • E.g. I know that you’re busy, I know that you haven’t the cash, could I borrow a couple dollars?
• Positive Politeness
  • Say something positive about them, something good.
    • E.g. It would be fantastic if you could help me out
  • A compliment, or support, or desire to be approved by others
• Indirect
  • Indirect about what you want to say
    • E.g. it’s so hard to find a good hairstylist.
  • You hint at what you want

So what?

• Relational messages show we like or don’t like someone
• Identity issues fuel conflict
  • They don’t respect me, they take advantage of me
  • They don’t value your identity
• These ideas influence many communication theories
• If someone borrows 20 from you and you keep asking for it back, and for 3 months they haven’t given it back to you, what if someone else comes along and says “here, I’ll give you 20” would that make it ok? Answer is: No, it would not, because of the identity relationship.