Linguistic Politeness

By: Assist. Lect. Dalya Qays

In pragmatics, politeness refers to the linguistic expressions that people choose to use to give others space and show a friendly attitude towards them (Cutting and Fordyce, 2021: 37). Linguistic politeness is concerned with the way the language is used to show sensitivity or tenderness towards addressees’ feelings and desires, to establish and preserve interpersonal relationships, and to comply with the rules of accepted behaviour in a given culture (ibid.). Consequently, this is done through the use of polite language which is ‘the language a person uses to avoid being too direct’, ‘language which displays respect towards others’, or ‘language which contains respectful forms of address like sir or madam’, or ‘language that displays certain polite formulaic utterances like please, thank you, or even ‘elegantly expressed language’ (Watts, 2003: 1). 

In sociolinguistics and pragmatics, politeness phenomenon is a term that portrays linguistic features mediating norms of social behaviour in relation notions like courtesy, distance and those features that indicate the use of special discourse markers or appropriate tones of voice and acceptable forms of address (Crystal, 2008: 373). Thus, politeness is viewed as a form of strategic behaviour which the speaker engages in, evaluating the potential threat to the hearer, the degree of familiarity with the hearer, and modifying the utterance accordingly (Mills, 2003: 59).

Sources 

Crystal, D. (2008). A Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics. (6th ed.). USA: Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

Cutting, J. and Fordyce, K (2021). Pragmatics: A Source Book for Students. London: Routledge.

Mills, S. (2003). Gender and Politeness. Cambridge; Cambridge University Press.

Watts, R. (2003). Key Topics in Sociolinguistics: Politeness. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.