2.7 Positive politeness strategies
Positive politeness is directed to hearer´s positive face, his “perennial desire that his wants should be thought of as desirable” (Brown & Levinson 1987,101). By using positive politeness strategies, the speaker conveys that they are co-operators with the addressee and that they have a common ground. The scope of strategies is wider than with negative politeness. While negative politeness strategies are used to redress a particular threat posed by the utterance, positive politeness involves such strategies as compliments or jokes and can be used more freely in the conversation without having to mitigate a specific face threat. When the speaker´s positive face is attended to throughout the whole conversation, …show more content…
(...) By the way, I came here to borrow some flour.” (Brown & Levinson, 1987, p. 103) shows that this strategy does not have to directly refer to an FTA. In this case, the speaker attends to hearer´s needs by noticing and approving the new haircut. There is no direct connection between the haircut and the flour, but attending to hearer´s positive face makes the request less inappropriate. By intensifying interest to H, S makes his contributions seem more interesting and relevant to H. An example is the use of tag questions and expressions such as “you know” and “see what I mean?” This strategy is similar to raising/asserting common ground, as both aim at increasing H´s interest and investment in the topic.
In-group identity markers communicate that S and H are members of the same group by referring to mutual knowledge. It includes using in-group dialect, jargon or terminology. S uses expressions that a non-member would not understand and makes the conversation exclusive. Address forms as mate, buddy or sweetheart also serve as in-group markers since close relationship is required if S wants to use …show more content…
73). Positive politeness is regarded as more dangerous than negative politeness since it is based on emphasizing closeness, and the speaker has thus to take the risk of expressing his belief that there exists a friendly relationship between the participants. It could seem that the safest choice would be to always use the off- record strategy. However, there are several reasons why speakers use other strategies as well. The factors that cause speakers to use less safe strategies given by Brown and Levinson (1987, p. 74) can be summed up this
Positive politeness is directed to hearer´s positive face, his “perennial desire that his wants should be thought of as desirable” (Brown & Levinson 1987,101). By using positive politeness strategies, the speaker conveys that they are co-operators with the addressee and that they have a common ground. The scope of strategies is wider than with negative politeness. While negative politeness strategies are used to redress a particular threat posed by the utterance, positive politeness involves such strategies as compliments or jokes and can be used more freely in the conversation without having to mitigate a specific face threat. When the speaker´s positive face is attended to throughout the whole conversation, …show more content…
(...) By the way, I came here to borrow some flour.” (Brown & Levinson, 1987, p. 103) shows that this strategy does not have to directly refer to an FTA. In this case, the speaker attends to hearer´s needs by noticing and approving the new haircut. There is no direct connection between the haircut and the flour, but attending to hearer´s positive face makes the request less inappropriate. By intensifying interest to H, S makes his contributions seem more interesting and relevant to H. An example is the use of tag questions and expressions such as “you know” and “see what I mean?” This strategy is similar to raising/asserting common ground, as both aim at increasing H´s interest and investment in the topic.
In-group identity markers communicate that S and H are members of the same group by referring to mutual knowledge. It includes using in-group dialect, jargon or terminology. S uses expressions that a non-member would not understand and makes the conversation exclusive. Address forms as mate, buddy or sweetheart also serve as in-group markers since close relationship is required if S wants to use …show more content…
73). Positive politeness is regarded as more dangerous than negative politeness since it is based on emphasizing closeness, and the speaker has thus to take the risk of expressing his belief that there exists a friendly relationship between the participants. It could seem that the safest choice would be to always use the off- record strategy. However, there are several reasons why speakers use other strategies as well. The factors that cause speakers to use less safe strategies given by Brown and Levinson (1987, p. 74) can be summed up this