Johnstone (2008 p: 145) describes the notion of politeness as:
‘ways in which speakers adapt (or fail to adapt) to the fact that their interlocutors, accrual or imagined have social needs like their own’.
I believe the level of politeness in a person’s linguistic choice is often dependant on the environment and the type of relationship they hold with the person they are interacting with. For example you wouldn’t use the same terminology or language used when speaking with your friends as you would with your boss.
According to Holmes(2001) politeness works on a scale where if you are very polite, an indirect linguistic approach will be used and in contrast if you are impolite a direct approach will be used. Politeness has a direct relationship with the concept of ‘Face’, which according to Brown and Levinson (1987) is an emotion which represents the need to be appreciated and approved which can be saved, lost, maintained or enhanced. Brown and Levinson
(1987)research showed there are three areas which must be constantly paid attention to when interacting with others:
1.Negative and positive face
This includes the positive self image we try to maintain as well as the wish to continue business without being imposed on.
2.Negative and positive politeness
This is relates to the concept of face but is more concerned about how we treat people.
3.Face-threatening acts (FTAs)
These are acts which can cause harm to an individual's self image.
Face is not only lost verbally but also through written discourse. An example of this is an email exchange between a colleague based in China and I, during my placement year:
Email 1- To colleague in China
(Click on image to enlarge)
The email makes use politeness markers with the use of ‘please’ attempting not to impose on the reader. I have also made use of positive politeness and face, since I open the email by thanking the employee for attending the meeting allowing the reader to feel appreciated. Despite this I also make use of a face threatening act by putting forward a request ‘please send the minutes and the timeline....’ which imposes on the employee to do something. By complaining about the team members being late, a threat to the employee’s positive face is created.The email therefore uses a very direct approach and hence on the Holmes (2001)continuum would be categorised as impolite.
Email 2- From colleague in China
(Click on image to enlarge)
This email in contrast is very indirect and hence reflects a high level of politeness (Holmes, 2001). According to Brown and Levinson (1987) this email opens with positive politeness as my colleague takes an interest in my opinion by stating ‘hope you felt the meeting went well’. The email then goes on to use negative politeness and face with the use of a hedge: ‘if you could please take the time out', in an attempt to impose on me a polite manner. The email also consists of compliments: ‘team brought good insight’ and ‘organised well’. There is also evidence of a threat to his face by admitting the mistake of being late and to avoid disagreement at the end of the email it states: ‘ensure this will not happen again’.
From this analysis we can see that the two emails are very different and politeness has a direct relationship with the cultural values a person holds. According to Kong (1998) who did a study on the differences of doing requests in Hong Kong and Britain, one of the main outcomes were that Britain has an ‘involvement system’ where as China has a ‘deference system’. This is clear to see in my email where I would like to get on with ‘business’ and avoid speculation, my colleague in China is more concerned with the long term negotiation.
It can often be difficult for management within businesses that operate globally to grasp this concept, since the level of politeness and face in one particular culture may not be as important in another culture.
This leads to me to the question: politeness is tricky for businesses, therefore in this day and age shouldn’t there be a standardised communication system across the world?
References
1. Brown, P. and Levinson, S. (1987) Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage. Cambridge: CUP.
2. Holmes, J. (2001) An Introduction to Sociolinguistics. 2nd edn. London: Longman.
3. Johnstone, B. (2008) Discourse Analysis. 2ndedn. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.
4. Kong, K.C.C. (1998) ‘Are simple request letters really simple? A comparison of Chinese and English business letters. Text: An Inter-disciplinary Journal for the Study of Discourse. 18 (1): 103 – 41.
I think you made some valid points here, culture has a massive impact on politeness. I do think however, that the sociological variables influence the politeness used also in the work place. I'm assuming the emails are from when you were an intern, and therefore the "power" you held then, is lower than that of the chinese employee. It would have been interesting to see in your analysis if this would have impacted the choice of words.
ReplyDeleteHi Dhanesha!
ReplyDeleteI really liked the emails that you used to illustrate the difference between the two cultures. However, I was wondering if this is the only element present; Watts (Politeness in language: studies in its history, theory and practice - 2005) said that "it is not only culture dependant, but also context dependant". Do you think that because these two do not seem to know each other that well they are using more politeness markers (with the Chinese recipient using more because of the cultural difference). Contrastingly, if they knew each other well would politeness be less apparent in the 2nd email?
Anne-Marie
I'm certainly in favour your final suggestion however,Could it not be said that a global communication system already exists? David Crystal argues that English can in fact already be considered a global language, it has become by and large the language of not only international business but also politics. One only has to look at how global communications have developed over the course of the last century, often at the expense of other lanugages(http://books.google.com/books?id=d6jPAKxTHRYC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q=&f=false). A criticism of Esperanto, an existing global language, is that it lacks diversity and culture and that it still favours certain language groups, I think it would be hard to find any truly neutral way of communicating.
ReplyDeleteOn an individualist level, could a version of English as part of a global communication system not limit an individual’s choice to intentionally flout politeness norms?
Thank you all for your posts. You have all made some valid points. I agree that power is definetly an area I could have looked into. Since I was an intern and my colleague was of a higher status this could have had an effect.
ReplyDeleteAnne Marie that is a brilliant point- context does have an effect as Watts suggests. As you said since we were both in different geographical locations we did not have much face to face interaction and hence we did not know each other well. Perhaps if we did have this interaction we would't feel the need to be polite. However my analysis shows that I was still more direct in comparison to my colleague due to my British background.
Finally I think the suggestion of a global communication system as 670332 suggests is disputable- On one level it can be said that it will restrict individual freedom- however it still brings me to the question what should companies do to prevent these cultural problems in terms of politeness?