Politeness and Pragmatics in the Context of Cross-Cultural Communication

Through verboten almost all societies, civility plays an integral role in the effectiveness of favorable life and inter typifyion in spite of appearance the context of some(prenominal) inter-cultural and cross-cultural communication. Within different elaborations the rendering of courtesy may take leave substantially and as a go away may be appropriated in ways that are pear-shapedly misunderstood within the context of separate cultures.It is for this reason that scholars such as embr avow and Levinson have derived theories on address and its use within global society, however the seemingly non-existent universal definition of politeness mess also be responsible for the criticisms that these theories receive. When discussing the notion of politeness, the use up of cross-cultural pragmatics as represented by doubting Thomas, Tannen and Wierzbicka provide a deeper discretion of the appropriation of politeness and the difficulties that emerge as a result of cross-cultura l misunderstanding.One of the major theories surrounding politeness is that of chocolate-brown and Levinson (1978, later revised in 1987). Brown and Levinsons theory argues that politeness consists of three basic elements of benevolent interaction the maintenance of personal face, the acts which may threaten the face of every a speaker or listener and the politeness strategies used within the context of conference to maintain face. The concept of face, gibe to Brown and Levinson, outlines the human desire of avoiding embarrassment or humiliation whilst maintaining a despotic representation of themselves.In accordance with the politeness phenomena theory, face exists in both a positive sense and a negatively charged sense. Positive face is defined simply as self-image while negative face refers to the freedom from imposition. The face-threatening act, according to Brown and Levinson, exists in four main categories. Firstly, the act which threatens the attendees negative face can include orders, advice, etc. and can at long last undermine the attendants freedom of action whilst criticism and discrepancy can lead to a threat on the hearers self-image.Alternatively, acceptance of either apologies or thanks can impact on the speakers negative face although issuing an apology or offering a confession can upset the self-image of the speaker. Brown and Levinson mull that the assessment of the seriousness of a face-threatening act involves the following factors in many an(prenominal) and perhaps all cultures (1987, 74). These factors include Social Distance i. e. he acquaintanceship between speaker and hearer, the Relative Power of the speaker in notification to the hearer such as the degree of imposition the speaker holds over the hearer and the Absolute Ranking of the imposition within the context of the culture in which the imposition occurs. The third basic notion of Brown and Levinsons politeness phenomena theory is that of Politeness Strategies, o r simply the formulation of messages in order to save the face of the hearer in the wake of an be face-threatening act.Brown and Levinson outline politeness strategies as being either On- record or Off- Record. Off-Record strategies avoid the use of direct impositions to maintain a hearers face whereas On-Record strategies can be further separated into four categories. Carrying out an act Baldly, without redress, refers to the act between a speaker and hearer who share a great deal of familiarity and thusly make no attempt to avoid the most direct form of imposition. Redressive action is the act of the speaker imposing on the hearer while trying to jell their behaviour to maintain either the positive face or negative face of the hearer. Redressive actions aimed at preserving the positive face of the hearer are cognise as Positive politeness and are employed to enhance the hearers self-image.These include the exaggeration of interest in the hearer and his or her interests, sympat hising with the hearer and the avoidance of disagreements. Negative politeness is a Redressive action aimed at the preservation of the Hearers negative face. Negative politeness is achieved by dint of indirectness, deference and apologising for imposition. The politeness theory phenomena has pinched much(prenominal) criticism in subsequent years due to its universality. For subject, Goffman advocates that each person, subculture and society seems to have its own characteristic repertoire of face-saving practices, yet these are all drawn from a single logically coherent framework of possible practices (1967, p. 13).Put succinctly, this literary argument suggests that face does not necessarily belong just to the individual, entirely earlier to sub-culture and society as well, and as a result one condensed theory, no matter how logical, cannot possibly serve to represent all cultures in global existence. Tannen, in her discussion of The Pragmatics of Cross-Cultural Communicatio n, outlines several instances in which politeness may become lost in instances of cross-cultural interaction. She outlines eight levels of conversation when to talk, what to say, pacing and pausing, listenership, intonation, formulaicity, indirectness and cohesion and coherence.In each of these instances misunderstandings may occur and as a result the concept of politeness may be lost. One example provided outlines the difference between American and Japanese businessmen Americans as a group tend to ignore or even rail against indirectness but it gets American businessmen in trouble when they try to skip the scurvy talk and get right down to business with Japanese counterparts, for whom dilate small talk is big and essential, furnishing the foundation for any business dealings. (1984, p. 193). Thomas simply defines cross-cultural pragmatic trial as the hearers inability to ascertain meaning from the speaker. She outlines two distinct types of pragmatic failure pragmalinguistic failure and sociopragmatic failure. Pragmalinguistic failure occurs when an utterance from a speaker is misused and thus misinterpreted by a native speaker. Sociopragmatic failure is used to refer to the social conditions placed on language in use (Thomas, 1983).These factors are large contributors to the notion of politeness being lost in the context of cross-cultural communication i. e. the dismissal of a compliment by a hearer of non-Western origin (a norm in many non-Western cultures) may be viewed as rude by the issuer of a compliment of Western origin. While Brown and Levinsons direct on the politeness phenomena allows us a great insight into the workings of politeness in social context, it is fairly limpid that its universality is not entirely representative of the practices of all cultural groups.While it can be said that face and face-threatening acts and the resulting politeness strategies are the basis for much of the appropriation of politeness in human interaction, w e must look deeper when discussing politeness on a cross-cultural level. This is evident through a deeper study of the use of politeness in a cross-cultural context and the failures that result in cross-cultural pragmatism.