Wk 7: Face and Politeness

This week's topic of Face and Politeness is rather interesting. However, I seem to have difficulty differentiating between positive and negative politeness...Although most of the utterances we say are somewhat shaped to maximize the positive impression of ourselves that we give to the hearer, do we typically assume the strategies are evidently oriented towards the hearer's face needs? Hopefully by writing and thinking about it, my understanding of these politeness concepts can be strengthened.

One interesting speech event I've been observing of late is that of conversation closings - ways in which individuals propose the end of conversation in day-day interactions. These speech events do provide some insight into the unique ways politeness strategies are adopted in our culture.

Depending on the degree of familiarity or social distance between speakers, different types of conversation closings are used, which often seem to involve some kind of politeness work.

(In the library, A was talking to B who is studying at a table)
A: Ok, I better not disturb you and let you get back to your work.
B: No, its no problem.
A: Alright, bye! Talk to you again another time.

This is a common way of ending conversations that I often hear, especially between other peers in school. I think we share a common experience of being busy and having a lot of deadlines to meet during the semester. So this formulaic expression is useful for demonstrating politeness to our peers in school. Serving the broad function of initiating a closing to a conversation, it is a sort of negative politeness strategy which demonstrates a sensitivity towards the hearer's desires of not wanting to be imposed. Thus, it also employs the Sympathy Maxim.

Another common closing:
(At a bus stop)
A: Sorry I really got to go, my friend is waiting.
B: Oh sure, go ahead.
A: See you!
B: Bye, see you!

This is a more direct way of closing the conversation. It involves an apology that mitigates the sense of imposition towards the hearer, for wanting to end the conversation abruptly. Its directness compared is acceptable perhaps because of the situational context - it does not impose too greatly on the hearer and the reason for closing the conversation is legitimate.

Like many politeness strategies, these conversation closings are formulaic. Hence they serve their function well in these conversations, in that the hearer acknowledges them as initiations for closing and responses favourably. It would be interesting to study the universality of these strategies - whether if transported to another English-speaking country - the responses to them would be similar.