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VYTAUTO DIDŽIOJO UNIVERSITETAS
HUMANITARINIŲ MOKSLŲ FAKULTETAS
ANGLŲ FILOLOGIJOS KATEDRA
Lina Šeškauskaitė
MANDAGUMO ŽYMEKLIŲ KALBOS VARIANTIŠKUMAS:
DISKURSO ANALIZĖ,
PAREMTA TEKSTYNO DUOMENIMIS
Magistro baigiamasis darbas
Taikomosios anglų kalbotyros studijų programa, valstybinis kodas 62Q30002
Anglų filologijos studijų kryptis
Vadovė: doc. dr. Jūratė Ruzaitė___________________________
(data) (parašas)
Apginta: prof. Ineta Dabašinskienė___________________________
(data) (parašas)
Kaunas, 2014
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USAGE VARIATION OF POLITENESS MARKERS:
A CORPUS-BASED STUDY OF SPOKEN ACADEMIC DISCOURSE
By Lina Šeškauskaitė
Department of English Philology
Vytautas Magnus University
Master of Arts Thesis
Supervisor: assoc. prof. Jūratė Ruzaitė
May 2014
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Santrauka
Šis baigiamasis darbas pristato mandagumo žymeklių kalbos variantiškumo analizę
sakytiniame akademiniame diskurse, paremtą tekstyno duomenimis. Tyrimo tikslas yra
dvejopas: išanalizuoti mandagumo žymeklių kalbos variantiškumą sakytiniame akademiniame
diskurse ir palyginti su jų vartosena bendrinėje šnekamojoje anglų kalboje. Analizė atlikta
remiantis skirtingais mandagumo žymekliais, atsitiktinai atrinktais ir suskirstytais į skirtingas
kategorijas, t.y. netiesioginius prašymus, atsiprašymus, pagarbumo žymeklius ir
švelninamuosius žodžius. Mandagumo žymekliai suskirstyti į skirtingus tipus pagal jų
atliekamas funkcijas sakytinėje anglų kalboje.
Teorinėje darbo dalyje yra aptariama mandagumo samprata. Šis skyrius paremtas
teorija, atrinkta skirtingų autorių knygose ir straipsniuose. Šioje baigiamojo darbo dalyje
pristatomi skirtingi mandagumo apibrėžimai ir jų savybės, taip pat kalbama apie veido
išraiškos svarbą mandagumo teorijoje išskiriant jos pagrindinius tipus. Veido išraiškos sąvoka
yra susijusi su teigiamo ir neigiamo mandagumo išraiška anglų kalboje, todėl jos taip pat
aptariamos šioje baigiamojo darbo dalyje. Mandagumo strategijos pristatomos iš
sociokultūrinės perspektyvos ir kalbama apie skirtingus būdus kaip galima išreikšti
mandagumą anglų kalboje.
Mandagumo žymeklių tyrimas parodė, jog jie gali atlikti skirtingas funkcijas
sakytiniame akademiniame diskurse. Lingvistinės analizės rezultatai atskleidžia, kad
netiesioginiai prašymai yra paprastai vartojami prašant leidimo arba pasižadėjimo.
Atsiprašymai pasirodo sakytiniame akademiniame diskurse kuomet pašnekovai mėgina
išvengti galimų nesusipratimų, prašant atleidimo arba išreiškiant atsiprašymą dėl padarytos
klaidos. Pagarbumo žymekliai vartojami sakytinėje kalboje tam, kad parodyti pagarbą ir
socialinį asmens statusą visuomenėje, o švelninamieji žodžiai padaro teiginius mažiau
kategoriškus ir tuo pačiu suteikia kalbėtojams galimybę būti mandagesnius.
Tekstyno duomenimis paremtas tyrimas parodė, kad kai kurie mandagumo žymekliai
yra dažniau vartotini sakytiniame akademiniame diskurse, o jų vartojimas skirtinguose
registruose kinta. Dauguma mandagumo žymeklių vartotini sakytinėje anglų kalboje ir
grožinėje literatūroje. Svarbu paminėti, jog mandagumo žymekliai dažniau atsiranda moterų
nei vyrų kalboje. Mandagumo žymeklių vartojimas dažniausias humanitariniuose ir menų
dalykuose dėstytojų kalboje. Tyrimas parodė, kad madagumo žymekliai yra dažniau vartojami
akademiniuose dialoguose nei monologuose.
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Summary
The present study investigates usage variation of politeness markers in spoken academic
discourse. The aim of this corpus-based analysis is is twofold. First, it aims at investigating
different types of politeness markers in educational settings. Second, the usage of politeness
markers in spoken academic discourse is analyzed with respect to general spoken English. The
present investigation focuses on different politeness markers randomly selected for the analysis.
The politeness markers are categorized into four distinctive types (i.e. indirect requests,
apologies, respect markers, and hedges) according to the functions they perform in spoken
discourse.
The theoretical part of this investigation presents an overview of the concept of
politeness in English studies, and is based on the theory taken from works written by different
scholars. More specifically, this chapter discusses different definitions of politeness in great
detail. It also presents the concept of ‘face’ and its main types in the politeness theory. The
notion of face is typically associated with the expression of positive and negative politeness; for
this reason, a theoretical overview of these distinctive notions is also presented. Moreover, the
present investigation provides a short discussion on politeness strategies from a socio-cultural
perspective. Finally, different means of expressing politeness in English are presented.
The present analysis of politeness markers under investigation shows that different
politeness markers perform multiple functions in spoken academic discourse. Indirect requests
are used in spoken academic discourse to ask for permission, ability, or commitment. Apologies
occur in speech when interlocutors seek to avoid potential conflicts, ask for forgiveness, or
express apology for a mistake. Respect markers are commonly used in spoken interaction to
show respect and encode social status, whereas hedges make statements less categorical and
enable interlocutors to be less direct.
A corpus-based anlysis has revealed that some politeness markers selected for the
analysis are more frequent in spoken academic discourse than others; in addition, the use of
politeness markers varies across registers. The majority of politeness markers prevail in spoken
discourse and fiction, and are more frequent in women’s as compared to men’s speech. The use
of politeness markers in relation to academic disciplines varies. Most of the politeness markers
typically occur in humanities and arts, and are the most frequent in teachers’ speech. Indirect
requests, apologies, and hedges are the most frequent in interactive dialogues as opposed to
respect markers which are predominantly used in monologues.
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Table of Contents
Summary………………………………………………………………………………………….…..i
Santrauka………………………………………………………………………………………….….ii
1 INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................................ 7
1.1 Aim and scope ........................................................................................................................... 7
1.2 Data and methods ...................................................................................................................... 8
1.3 Outline of the thesis ................................................................................................................... 9
2 THE DEFINITIONS, TYPES AND STRATEGIES OF POLITENESS IN ENGLISH STUDIES
........................................................................................................................................................... 11
2.1 Defining linguistic politeness .................................................................................................. 11
2.2 The concept of face in the politeness theory ........................................................................... 15
2.2.1 Positive versus negative politeness................................................................................... 18
2.2.2 Face-threatening acts ........................................................................................................ 20
2.3 Politeness strategies: cultural and social dimensions .............................................................. 21
2.3.1 Positive politeness strategies ........................................................................................... 24
2.3.2 Negative politeness strategies .......................................................................................... 26
2.4 Means of expressing politeness in English .............................................................................. 28
2.4.1 Interrogative constructions as indirect requests ............................................................... 28
2.4.2 Apologies as indicators of politeness .............................................................................. 30
2.4.3 Expressions of respect in English ..................................................................................... 31
2.4.4 Hedging devices as expressions of politeness .................................................................. 33
2.5 Discourse in educational settings ............................................................................................ 35
3 POLITENESS MARKERS IN SPOKEN ACADEMIC DISCOURSE AND GENERAL SPOKEN
AMERICAN ENGLISH .................................................................................................................... 36
3.1 Types and functions of politeness markers.............................................................................. 36
3.2 General frequency of politeness markers ................................................................................ 45
3.2 Register distribution of politeness markers ............................................................................. 47
3.3 Politeness markers in relation to gender .................................................................................. 49
3.4 Politeness markers in relation to academic division ................................................................ 51
3.5 Politeness markers in relation to academic role ...................................................................... 54
3.6 Politeness markers in relation to the interactivity rating ......................................................... 56
4 CONCLUSION .............................................................................................................................. 58
References ......................................................................................................................................... 61
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List of Tables
Table 1. Positive politeness strategies (Brown and Levinson 1978: 74)………….…………..18
Table 2. Negative politeness strategies (Brown and Levinson 1978: 76)……………………..20
Table 3. Frequency of politeness markers in COCA and MICASE…………………………..40
Table 4. Frequency of politeness markers in different registers in COCA and MICASE…….42
Table 5. Distribution of politeness markers in relation to gender in MICASE………………..44
Table 6. Distribution of politeness markers in relation to academic discipline in MICASE….46
Table 7. Distribution of politeness markers in relation to academic role in MICASE………..48
Table 8. Distribution of politeness markers in relation to interactivity rating in MICASE…...51
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1 INTRODUCTION
1.1 Aim and scope
Politeness is not something people are born with, but something they have to learn and be
socialised into over years. People acquire the skills of polite communication through social
interaction with others since tact is constantly required in their daily language use. Politeness
plays an important role in all human communication, particularly in that in which participants
have to face immediate reactions from their interlocutors. Politeness is a broad and controversial
issue in language studies because it may be interpreted and evaluated in a number of ways in
different situations, contexts, and cultures. The notion of politeness is associated with numerous
theories and approaches, and it is greatly socially determined. Thus it is of great importance to
discuss social and cultural aspects of politeness before starting its analysis from a linguistic
perspective.
The present investigation of politeness markers in spoken academic American English
focuses on several important aspects. The aim of the present study is twofold. First, it aims at
disclosing how and to what extent politeness markers are used in educational settings. Second,
politeness markers occuring in the domain of academic events are analyzed in comparison to the
corpus of general spoken American English. The usage of politeness markers in one domain may
become evident only when compared to linguistic patterns generally employed in English. Hence
this study aims at investigating politeness markers with respect to spoken discourse. More
specifically, the present investigation of politeness markers aims at offering generalisations about
the main functions they perform in different educational settings. The focus is also put on
studying the relationship between politeness and social power, showing that the usage of
politeness markers greatly depends on different academic roles.
On the basis of previous studies, the following objectives are distinguished:
(1) to describe functions of politeness markers performed in spoken academic
discourse and general spoken American English;
(2) to compare the usage variation of politeness markers in academic spoken
American English and general spoken American English.
The purpose of describing the usage variation of politeness markers is to demonstrate their
importance in foreign language learning. The present study tries to answer the question whether
the use of politeness markers demonstrates any differences which typically occur in both spoken
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academic language and general spoken American English and therefore should be taken into
account when teaching English as a foreign language.
1.2 Data and methods
The data for the present study have been collected from Michigan Corpus of Academic Spoken
English (MICASE) to obtain the data for spoken academic American English, and Corpus of
Contemporary Spoken American English (COCA) to obtain the data for general spoken
American English. Specifically, in the present analysis the central criteria are the total number of
words, types of speech events included in the corpora, the balance of interaction types, and
speaker categories (e.g. roles of the discourse participants).
MICASE is a specialized collection of over 1.8 million words of transcribed speech
collected from different speech events at the University of Michigan. This corpus contains data
from a wide range of speech events including lectures, classroom discussions, lab sections,
seminars, and advising sessions. The corpus is balanced across several categories of academic
speech events as well as across the major academic divisions within the university, so it is
beneficial to be used for the present investigation as the data selected for the analysis may be
discussed according to the criteria of different academic divisions and speaker roles. The
distribution of academic roles is especially important in the present investigation since one of the
major aims of the present research is to show how much the usage of politeness markers is
dependent on the speaker role. Most importantly, this corpus includes speech events where both
speaker roles (i.e. teachers and students) are represented. One more important reason why
MICASE has been selected for the present analysis is that there are basically two types of
interaction, monologues and dialogues, where dialogues constitute a major part of this corpus. It
is of great importance in the present study as the main focus is put on the usage variation of
politeness markers in dialogues.
The present study will also make use of the spoken part of Corpus of Contemporary
Spoken American English (COCA) to obtain the data of politeness markers in general spoken
American English and compare it with the data in spoken academic American English. Since the
main focus of the present research is put on spoken discourse, only one constituent part of the
COCA which makes up to 85 million words has been used in the present investigation. One of
the reasons why this corpus has been selected for the present analysis is that COCA contains a
wide array of texts from a number of genres, including spoken discourse. First, though MICASE
is significantly smaller than COCA, the uneven size of the corpora is compensated by calculating
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relative frequencies (per 1 million words). Second, another criterion by which the corpora are
compared is the interaction types presented in them. Monologues constitute a minor part in both
corpora, while dialogues are the central interaction type in the present study. Therefore, the
represented interaction types in the corpora provide sufficient evidence for the present
investigation.
While investigating the usage of random politeness markers in spoken discourse, it has
been noticed that different politeness markers can be categorized into different types according
to the functions they perform. Politeness markers under investigation have been classified into
four different categories: indirect requests (Can you, Would you, Could you, and please),
apologies (sorry, excuse me, and pardon me), respect markers (Mr, Mrs, Madam, and Professor),
and hedges (sort of, kindly, and perhaps). The present study is qualitative and quantitative, so the
politeness markers under investigation are studied within the framework of corpus linguistics and
discourse analysis. A corpus-based approach contributes to making reliable and representative
generalizations of the usage of politeness markers, whereas discourse analysis provides a
theoretical framework to analyse politeness markers in academic spoken language and
distinguish their peciularities typical of this social context.
1.3 Outline of the thesis
The present investigation is organised in the following way. The theoretical overview presents
the central theoretical issues concerning politeness. It presents sociological, cultural, and
linguistic perspectives on the notion of politeness. The theoretical part of the present study
considers fundamental and more modern theories of politeness. It is of great importance to
consider politeness from social and cultural perspectives as they are greatly significant in
shaping the perception of politeness. The theoretical overview also includes a discussion on the
concept of face and its main types. Importantly, it attempts to show the relation between
politeness and face in the politeness theory. The employment of politeness strategies in English
is one more important issue discussed in the theoretical overview of the present study. Finally,
four distinctive politeness strategies are described in greater detail.
The empirical part of the investigation presents the usage of politeness markers in
spoken academic American English and general spoken American English. The aim of this
section is to interpret the data of the corpora and sum up the findings related to the use of
politeness markers in spoken academic discourse. For this reason, functions of politeness
markers typically performed in spoken discourse are distinguished and discussed in an explicit
10
way. The usage of politeness markers is also described in relation to general frequency, register
distribution, and gender of interlocutors. The sections 3.4, 3.5, and 3.6 discuss how much the use
of politeness markers in academic spoken discourse is related to academic discipline, academic
role, and interactivity rating. The empirical part of the present investigation is concluded with a
summary of the main results of the present study and some suggestions for further research.
11
2 THE DEFINITIONS, TYPES AND STRATEGIES OF
POLITENESS IN ENGLISH STUDIES
The present section aims at presenting the issue of politeness in language studies,
multifunctionality of politeness markers, and a variety of linguistic devices used in speech to
express politeness among interlocutors. The theoretical overview mainly focuses on the linguistic
and socioliguistic vantage points to polite language. First of all, the present section encompasses
general aspects of the concept of politeness in linguistic studies, and then it explicates the issue
of linguistic politeness in relation to the notions of ‘face’ and ‘facework’. This chapter also
discusses different politeness theories typically distinguished by the majority of authors. Finally,
politeness in language is discussed in relation to such notions as indirect statements, apologies,
respect markers, and hedging devices.
2.1 Defining linguistic politeness
It has been noticed that the majority of scholars present the concept of politeness from a rather
similar point of view. It is ofted stated that interlocutors’ choice of linguistic politeness devices
greatly depends on a number of social, cultural, and contextual factors.
Watts (2003: 53) points out that politeness is a young subdiscipline of linguistics in the
Western Europe and North America dating back to the late 1960s and early 1970s. Watts (2003)
claims that ‘the major reason for the late appearance of politeness in the west is that those
linguists who were interested in politeness phenomena in language had little or no theoretical
basis until 1960s’ (2003: 53). Similarly, according to Lakoff and Ide (2005: 1), politeness was
introduced into linguistics more than thirty years ago and emerged as a quickly developing area
of study; for this reason, it still constantly encounters numerous questions about its appropriate
concerns and potentials. The recent emergence of linguistic politeness as a new discipline in
language studies has influenced that the issue of politeness is still widely negotiable.
In their book called Broadening the Horizon of Linguistic Politeness, Lakoff and Ide
(2005) discuss how the notion of politeness started to be applied in linguistics. The Chomskyan
transformationalists were the pioneers who brought politeness into linguistic studies in the 1960s
(Lakoff and Ide 2005: 1). Lakoff and Ide (2005: 6) claim that the incorporation of politeness
theories proposed by different scholars allowed the positing of connections between the
linguistic form and social functions; as a result, these two different issues have interwoven and
become a new discipline in sociolinguistics. For example, interlocutors may use indirect
12
statements in speech to avoid offence or use passive forms to deny responsibility for their
impolite utterances. Lakoff and Ide (2005: 2) further point out that there is very little politeness
that is not linguistic, which means that politeness is most typically expressed through different
linguistic means. As Lakoff and Ide (2005: 1) state, the behaviour which is considered to be
‘polite’ is typically an unmarked part of a communicative system, hence the choice of polite
forms plays an important role in the linguistic choices.
Several sociolinguists (Watts 2003, Holmes 1995, and Yule 1996) discuss the term
‘linguistic politeness’ from a socioliguistic perspective. Watts (2003: 3) notes that scholars
commonly face the problem how to define the concept of linguistic politeness in a meaningful
way. Watts (2003: 12) observes that the major problem concerning the field of linguistic
politeness research is the ambiguity in the use of the terms ‘polite’ and ‘politeness’ themselves,
and some researchers attempt to avoid this problem by offering other terms to define this field,
but the concept of linguistic politeness still dominates. Hence the question which term has to be
used to cover the term ‘linguistic politeness’ is still controversial. Watts (2003) further states that
‘linguistic politeness may be defined as the language a person uses to avoid being too direct, or
language which displays respect towards or consideration for others’ (2003: 1). Interlocutors
tend to employ such linguistic means which make all of the participants of interaction feel
comfortable.
Watts (2003: 1) provides some examples to illustrate what linguistic utterances are
commonly considered to be linguistically polite in English. These instances include language
which contains respectful forms of address like sir or madam, or language that displays certain
polite formulaic utterances, e.g. please, thank you, excuse me, and sorry (Watts 2003: 1). Thus,
numerous linguistic markers can indicate whether the participants in conversation tend to be
polite with each other or not. Watts (2003: 1) claims that people acquire the skills of polite
language through social interaction with others since tact is constantly required in their daily use
of language. As Yule (1996: 60) notes, it is possible to distinguish a number of general principles
for being polite/impolite in social interaction within a particular society, which means that
interlocutos should be aware that different norms and principles of politeness exist in other
societies.
The definition of politeness proposed by Holmes (1995) states that ‘politeness is an
expression of concern for the feelings of others by using certain linguistic conventions’ (1995:
4). Certain linguistic choices are made by interlocutors to show their intentions to be polite with
one another. Holmes (1995) considers that people may express concern for others’ feelings in
numerous ways. He provides the following example to illustrate this: ‘apologising for an
13
intrusion, using courtesy titles (e.g. sir and madam), or avoiding swear words in conversation
with a grandmother’ (Holmes 1995: 4). More specifically, Holmes (1995) emphasizes the
pragmatic function of politeness in the sense that ‘being polite means expressing respect towards
the person and avoiding offending them by using certain linguistic and non-linguistic
conventions’ (1995: 5). It suggests that politeness towards another person can be expressed by
combining both linguistic and non-linguistic means in communication.
Several sociolinguists (Trask 2004, Tanaka 1997, Paltridge 2006, Lakoff and Ide 2005)
stress the importance of cultural context in defining the concept of politeness. As Trask (2004:
242) claims, the understanding of politeness differs across cultures, thus it is easy to give
unconscious offence when talking to people from a different culture. Similarly, as Lakoff and Ide
(2005: 1) point out, anthropologists began to study differences in interpersonal behaviour and
communication among diverse cultures and emphasize that different cultures around the world
have different expectations and linguistic means to express politeness. For this reason, the
participants of interaction have to be careful when communicating with people from a different
cultural background to avoid pragmatic misunderstandings.
Tanaka (1997) discusses the problem concerning misunderstandings of politeness
across cultures which can cause a cross-cultural disappointment among the interlocutors. It is
important to note that they have to be cross-culturally aware to avoid failures when
communicating with people from other cultures. As Tanaka (1997: 235) observes, native
speakers typically do not tolerate pragmatic mistakes in cross-cultural communication, while
they are more tolerant of grammar mistakes. People have to know politeness rules while
speaking with people from other cultures in order to avoid pragmatic misunderstandings. Like
Tanaka (1997), Paltridge (2006: 74) notes that the specific nature of politeness varies across
cultures. According to Paltridge, ‘in some cultures refusal of an offer may be merely polite (even
if to an English speaker a refusal may seem like refusing involvement) and in others the opposite
may be true’ (2006: 74). Thus, what is considered to be polite in one culture, may be not
acceptable in another cultural context. Paltridge (2006: 75) further claims that different cultures
view politeness as an examination of the ways in which politeness is typically expressed, its
functions, and what it means in a particular context, place, or time. It follows that what counts as
polite behaviour including values and norms associated with that behaviour is greatly culture-
specific.
Mills (2003) stresses the importance of community when defining politeness. As Mills
(2003: 8) claims, it is difficult to define and categorize linguistic politeness as the understanding
of what is polite or impolite varies in different communities. As Mills (2003) states, ‘politeness
14
cannot be understood simply as a property of utterances, or even as a set of choices made solely
by individuals, but rather as a set of practices or strategies which communities of practice
develop, affirm, and contest’ (2003: 9). Hence, the usage of politeness in language plays a
significant role in presenting a particular type of identity and assessing it in relation to other
members of the group. As Mills (2003: 9) further notes, when speakers judge someone’s
utterance to be polite or impolite, they also assess each other as individuals. It suggests that the
expression of politeness is closely related not only to the evaluation of a community in general,
but also of each interlocutor as an individual. In addition, Mills (2003: 9-10) points out that
numerous factors such as gender, race, class, age, education, or knowledge play a significant role
in making assumptions about the level of appropriate linguistic behaviour within particular
communities.
Different authors (Trask 2004, Stephan, Liberman, and Trope 2010) discuss a close
relation between politeness, social distance, and power by claiming that social distance is a prime
characteristic of politeness and social roles. Trask (2004: 241) points out that politeness refers to
the linguistic expression of courtesy and social position, which means that a communicative act
can indicate a person’s position in society. As Stephan, Liberman, and Trope (2010: 1) argue,
social distance is a type of psychological distance closely related to other distances. Stephan,
Liberman, and Trope (2010: 1) observe that increased politeness is associated with a higher level
of temporal and spatial distances. More specifically, interlocutors use more polite language when
they address individuals with a high status rather than with an equal or low status. Stephan,
Liberman, and Trope (2010: 1) further note that politeness is often conceptualized as being both
a meaningful way to reflect social distance and as means to regulate social distance between
interlocutors. For example, ‘a speaker can choose a very polite way of addressing a colleague to
reflect the relatively large interpersonal distance between them but also to increase the social
distance between them’ (Stephan, Liberman, and Trope 2010: 1). More specifically, interlocutors
prefer to use more polite language when they need to create a sense of greater social distance.
As Lakoff and Ide note (2005: 9), speakers are usually able to distinguish if an
utterance is polite, rude, or something in between, which means that the system is governed by
rules. It suggests that it is the matter of linguists to determine the systematics of politeness and its
rules. As Lakoff and Ide (2005: 9) claim, the system proposed in the 1970s was an effort to
incorporate politeness into the core grammar, but not to provide a universal system of politeness
across cultures. As Ogawa and Gudykunst (2000: 48) note, differences in politeness rules often
exist according to different cultural expectations and requirements. For example, individualistic
and collectivistic countries tend to have different perceptions on politeness rules. To illustrate
15
this, Ogawa and Gudykunst (2000: 50) point out that politeness rules in collectivistic cultures
(e.g. Japan) usually emphasize considering others’ feelings and establishing rapport with other
members of the ingroup more than politeness rules in individualistic cultures (e.g. the USA). As
Ogawa and Gudykunst (2000: 50) state, politeness rules in collectivistic cultures tend to
emphasize establishing distance from outgroup members more than politeness rules in
individualistic cultures.
To conclude, the concept of linguistic politeness has a wide range of meanings and is
used to describe a diverse set of behaviours. The interlocutors themselves have an opportunity to
take a variety of positions on politeness itself. The norms and rules of politeness depend on a
particular community of practice in which they interact at a particular moment. In short, what is
considered to be polite in one culture, may be perceived as rude in another cultural background.
A close relation between politeness, social distance, and power is often noticed. It is assumed
that social distance is one of the most important characteristics of politeness and social roles.
2.2 The concept of face in the politeness theory
Different authors often discuss the politeness phenomenon in terms of the notion of ‘face’. It has
been noticed that this notion has received a number of different definitions in the last decades, so
sociolinguists typically explain the relation between politeness and face in rather different ways.
The aim of this section is to consider several issues in the study of linguistic politeness in
relation to the concept of face.
Goffman (1967) was the first researcher who noticed a close relation between
politeness and face. Goffman’s (1967) politeness theory has been used as a fundamental model
for the empirical research of politeness since 1967. As Goffman (1967) states, face may be
defined as ‘the positive social value a person effectively claims for himself by the line others
assume he has taken during a particular contact’ (1967: 5). Goffman (1967) further claims that
‘face is an image of self delineated in terms of approved social attributes’ (1967: 5). Thus,
Goffman (1967) views face as a socially attributed aspect of self which has adopted for the
purpose of interaction. Both definitions of the term ‘face’ provided by Goffman (1967)
emphasize that face usually reflects the expression of a particular self-image in social interaction.
Not surprisingly, Brown and Levinson’s (1978) definition of the term ‘face’ is greatly similar to
the ones proposed by Goffman (1967) as most of the ideas stated in Goffman’s politeness theory
(1967) have been borrowed by Brown and Levinson (1978) in their politeness model. First
formulated by Brown and Levinson in 1978, their politeness theory has greatly expanded the
16
perception that face is closely related to the self-presentation in public. As Brown and Levinson
(1978) observe, ‘face refers to the public self-image that every member wants to claim for
himself’ (1978: 61). Hence, face is something that is emotionally invested and can be lost,
maintained, or enhanced, and must be constantly attended to in interaction.
Both Watts (2003) and Vilkki (2006) claim that the notions of face and facework have
been in use as metaphors of politeness in different cultures of the world for a very long time;
however, the distinction between these notions and politeness has not been clear-cut until the
recent years. Watts (2003: 119) points out that the term ‘face’ has been in use as a metaphor for
individual qualities and abstract entities, e.g honour, respect, or esteem for numerous years. As
Watts (2003: 119) notes, the notion of face was known in the ancient China and occurred in
different cultures of the world at different points in history, which provides evidence for the
longevity of the concept of face. As Vilkki (2006) observes, ‘[o]ver the last three decades, face,
facework, and politeness have been among the most heavily debated notions in pragmatic and
sociolinguistic research’ (2006: 322). Vilkki (2006: 322) further claims that a long time ago
different theoretical models concerning these notions were proposed, and they were usually
defined as abstract terms, directly or indirectly referring to a wide variety of social strategies for
constructing social interaction. According to Vilkki (2006: 322), in recent years, numerous
arguments have been presented for the importance to make a clearer distinction between the
notions of politeness, face, and facework.
Several authors (Huang 1987, Verschueren 1999, Trask, 2004, and Paltridge 2006)
discuss why it is important to associate politeness with the notion of face, and why the
combination of these two notions is significant for the understanding why people choose to say
things in a particular way. As Huang (1987: 71) states, politeness and face are closely related to
the sense of worth which comes from knowing one’s status. Thus, face reveals interlocutor’s
values, intentions, and attitudes towards other participants of interaction. Verschueren (1999)
points out that ‘politeness has become a cover term in pragmatics for whatever choices are made
in language use in relation to the need to preserve people’s face in general, i.e. their public self-
image’ (1999: 44). Interlocutors are obliged to protect both their own faces and faces of the
others; moreover, each of them is required to recognize an identity which the other claims for
himself/herself. Similarly, Paltridge (2006: 72) considers face as one of the basic indicators in
coversation showing whether the participants of interaction tend to be polite or impolite with
each other.
In contradiction, Geyer (2008) views the notions of politeness and face from rather
different perspectives; more specifically, the author tries to convince that it is not right to equate
17
them. Geyer (2008: 7) defines facework as the behaviour which displays and acknowledges
others and the speakers’ interactional self-image, while the study of politeness focuses on
evaluations of each other’s behaviour as being polite/impolite. As Geyer (2008: 7) claims, face is
defined as the reflection of self, whereas politeness performs an evaluative function of one’s
behaviour; for this reason, it is not meaningful to equate the notions of politeness and face. Geyer
(2008: 7) further states that facework encompasses a wider range of practices than polite
behaviour, which means that face can reveal much more about the interlocutor’s intentions than
just polite behaviour with others.
Despite the fact that Brown and Levinson’s (1978) politeness model has become the
basis for examining linguistic politeness since 1978, it has been also constantly interpreted and
criticized by different authors (e.g. Vilkki 2006, Watts 2003, Rasa 2011, and Geyer 2008). It has
been noticed that most of them do not agree with the issue of universality of politeness claimed
in Brown and Levinson’s (1978) politeness model and argue that this model cannot be
universally applied across cultures. As Vilkki (2006: 325) points out, Brown and Levinson’s
(1978) politeness theory is often understood from a twofold perspective; more specifically,
politeness can be perceived to be either universally valid or culturally-dependent. On the one
hand, this politeness theory states that specific social characteristics exist which can be
universally valid among speakers. On the other hand, what kinds of politeness strategies are
preferred by interlocutors of a certain society can also vary across cultures.
Rasa (2011) states that Brown and Levinson’s (1978) politeness theory has been the
subject of extensive research and criticism over the years as it is mainly based on investigating
three different cultural backgrounds (i.e. English, Tzeltal and Tamil), so the universality in
Brown and Levinson’s (1978) politeness model can be invalid in other countries. For this reason,
since its publication, extensive research has been conducted to determine norms, rules, or
limitations of this politeness theory. Rasa notes that several Chinese scholars (e.g. Gu 1990, Mao
1994, and Lim 1994) carried out numerous investigations and provided conisistent critiques on
Brown and Levinson’s (1978) politeness theory. Rasa (2011: 326) observes that one of the major
criticisms provided is that Brown and Levinson (1978) assume an individualistic concept of face,
which is not appropriate to cultures with broad value tendencies in emphasizing the importance
of ingroup interests over individual wants. As Geyer (2008: 21) points out, in cultures where
different cultural orientations are recognized, the notion of face and its role in the politeness
system tend to vary from practices customary in Western cultures. More specifically, the role of
politeness is often perceived differently in Eastern and Western cultures. As Geyer (2008: 21)
states, in some cultures the expression of politeness is not influenced by concerns regarding the
18
maintenance of face, but by concerns regarding the maintenance of the place, which means that
the perception of face can also greatly depends on the place where the interlocutors have a
conversation at a particular moment.
To sum up, most of the authors discussed above define the notion of face as one of the
basic ways to present oneself in public because being polite consists of attempting to save face
for another interlocutor in conversation. Goffman’s (1967) notion of face has become a
fundamental model of politeness constantly interpreted in much of the following research of
politeness. The notions of face and politeness are often equated by the majority of scholars,
whereas others strongly disagree with this assertion. Therefore, numerous politeness theories
have been developed in order to find out whether the notions of politeness and face can be
equated or not. The universality of politeness in Brown and Levinson’s (1978) politeness theory
is frequently discussed and contradicted by researchers as different cultures tend to demonstrate
rather different linguistic and non-linguistic means to express politeness; thus single politeness
theory cannot be claimed to be universal in different societies and cultures.
2.2.1 Positive versus negative politeness
It has been noticed that the majority of authors (e.g. Brown and Levinson 1978, Holmes 1995,
Vilkki 2006, Wardgauh 2010, Migge and Müheleisein 2005) distinguish positive and negative
politeness as two distinctive types of politeness, typically associated with the notions of positive
and negative face. Most of them claim that positive politeness demonstrates the normal linguistic
behaviour between intimates, while negative politeness is mainly avoidance-based.
As Brown and Levinson (1978: 101) state, positive politeness is always directed to the
addressee’s positive face and his/her desire that his/her wants should be appreciated as desirable.
In the case of positive politeness, harmony and balance in a conversation is successfully
achieved when one’s own wants are similar to the addressee’s wants, which means that positive
politeness is the expression of solidarity among the participants of interaction. Similarly, Holmes
(1995: 5) notes that positive politeness emphasizes the need to be liked or admired by other
speakers; thus this type of politeness is associated with the expression of positive feelings and
emotions directed towards another participant of interaction.
According to Brown and Levinson (1994: 70), interlocutors desire each other’s wants
by treating another person as a member of the same group, a friend, or simply a person whose
wants and personality traits are known, liked, or appreciated. Similarly, Mey (2001: 74) notes
that a positive face shows a person’s desire to be treated as a free, independent, and autonomous
individual. Concerning this type of politeness, as Brown and Levinson (1978) point out, ‘the
19
potential face threat of an act is minimized by the assurance that in general speaker wants at least
some of the hearer’s wants’ (1994: 70). In the cases of positive politeness, the participants of
interaction tend to demonstrate positive attitude, harmony, balance, and solidarity towards each
other. As Wardhaugh (2010: 292) notes, positive politeness includes saying compliments,
offering friendship, and informality in language use. Hence, the positive politeness is shown
when interlocutors try to avoid disagreements and demonstrate that they have in common and are
in agreement.
The elements of exaggeration and intimacy are frequently associated with the
expression of positive politeness. As Brown and Levinson (1978) observe, ‘the only feature that
distinguishes positive-politeness redress from normal everyday intimate language behaviour is an
element of exaggeration’ (1978: 101). The expression of exaggeration in a conversation serves as
a marker of positive politeness expression; however, it does not mean that the speaker attempts
to be totally sincere with another participant of interaction. As Brown and Levinson (1978) state,
‘even if the speaker cannnot without total sincerity say “I want your wants”, he/she can at least
sincerely indicate that hearer’s positive face would be satisfied’ (1978: 101). Thus, the
expression of insincerity in exaggerated expressions of approval or interest is usually
compensated by the implication that the speaker truly sincerely wants to satisfy the hearer’s
positive face. Brown and Levinson (1978: 101) note that positive politeness utterances are also
often associated with the expression of intimacy, which is used to imply common ground or
shared wants even among strangers who perceive each other as somehow similar and have in
common. The expression of intimacy indicates that the speaker desires to share similar values
and beliefs with the hearer.
Brown and Levinson (1978: 70) point out that negative politeness is oriented towards
partially satisfying or redressing hearer’s negative face; in addition, the speaker’s basic desire is
to maintain claims of territory and self-determination, so this type of politeness expression is
essentially avoidance-based. Brown and Levinson (1978) claim that ‘realizations of negative
politeness consist of assurances that the speaker recognizes and respects the addressee’s
negative-face wants and will not interfere with the addressee’s freedom of action’ (1978: 70).
Negative politeness can be basically characterized by the hearer’s desire to be unimpeded and
avoid face damaging acts; for this reason, negative politeness is shown when interlocutors try to
express respect and positive feelings towards each other. Brown and Levinson (1978: 70)
observe that negative politeness may be characterized by self-effacement, formality, and
restraint, which suggests that special attention is given to highly restricted aspects of self-image.
As Migge and Mühleisein (2005: 8) note, different politeness strategies are used in interaction to
20
avoid or minimize threat in the cases of negative politeness. According to Wardhaugh (2010:
292), most typically, apologies, indirect statements, deference, and formality are employed in
language use in order to avoid damaging acts and achieve solidarity among interlocutors.
To sum up, different politeness theories are usually based on the assumption that two
different face needs are as follows: positive and negative faces, typically associated with positive
and negative politeness. Positive politeness is orientated towards the positive face of hearer, i.e.
the positive self-image that he/she claims for himself/herself, and when harmony, solidarity, and
balance in communication are successfully achieved. Negative politeness is orientated towards
partially satisfying hearer’s negative face, thus it is essentially avoidance-based.
2.2.2 Face-threatening acts
Different authors claim that face-threatening acts make people possibly lose face or damage it.
Trying to avoid face-threatening acts (FTAs) is one of the ways to protect ‘face’ in order to
communicate successfully and avoid damage. Face-threatening acts are frequently minimized
and softened by numerous linguistic means of politeness.
Different authors (Brown and Levinson 1978, Trask 2004, and Holmes 1995) discuss
face-threatening acts and emphasize that insults, criticism, directives, or requests which tend to
restrict an individual’s freedom of action are all the examples of face-threatening acts. Trask
(2004) defines face-threatening acts as ‘any pieces of behaviour which can make another person
lose face’ (2004: 243). As Holmes (1995) points out, ‘any utterance which could be interpreted
as making a demand or intruding on another person’s autonomy can be regarded as a potential
face-threatening act’ (1995: 5). Holmes (1995: 5) claims that even such communicative events as
suggestions, advice, or requests can be regarded as threatening as they can also violate another
person’s freedom of action and make him/her feel uncomfortable.
Brown and Levinson (1978) distinguish two different types of face-threatening acts.
According to Brown and Levinson (1978: 120), there are two types of face-threatening acts
which are divided into negative and positive face-threatening acts. Brown and Levinson (1978:
120) note that with negative face-threatening acts there is some imposition on the hearer. As
Brown and Levinson (1978: 120) claim, this can be any act that tries to influence the future
actions of the hearer and put external pressure on him/her, e.g. requests or warnings. Brown and
Levinson (1978: 120) further note that negative face threatening-acts can be also any offer or
promise proposed by the speaker or the act of the speaker expressing in some way his/her
evaluation of the hearer, thus strong feelings of desire or extremely negative opinion can harm
hearer’s face. According to Brown and Levinson (1978: 121) positive face-threatening acts affect
21
the hearer’s positive face. As Brown and Levinson (1978: 121) observe, these acts include any
acst that carry with them a negative assessment of the hearer’s positive face, e.g. disapprovals or
insults; they can also be direct or indirect acts that express lack of concern for the hearer’s
positive face, e.g. mentioning inappropriate topics.
Face-threatening acts are typically followed by numerous politeness strategies to
minimize threat and soften direct utterances that may cause threat towards another participant of
interaction. Holmes (1995: 5) notes that interlocutors avoid face-threatening acts like insults and
orders, and they usually attempt to reduce the threat of these acts by softening or expressing
them in a more indirect way. As Brown and Levinson (1978) state, ‘face-threatening acts are
redressed with apologies for interfering or transgressing, with linguistic and non-linguistic
deference, with hedges on the illocutionary force of the act, with impersonalizing mechanisms
(such as passives) and with other softening mechanisms’ (1978: 70). Hence, different linguistic
and non-linguistic politeness strategies can be used in a conversation to avoid threat or weaken
imposition towards another person, and all of these strategies contribute to softening impolite or
rude statements.
To summarize, face-threatening acts intrinsically threaten ‘face’ of another person.
These acts are typically divided into negative and positive face-threatening acts. Face-threatening
acts can be minimized or softened in a conversation by using numerous different linguistic
means. Indirectness is a frequent politeness strategy used in a conversation with attempt to
reduce the threat of face-threatening acts.
2.3 Politeness strategies: cultural and social dimensions
Different politeness strategies are used in spoken discourse to avoid misunderstandings while
participating in a conversation. For example, interlocutors can avoid disagreements by using
indirect statements, try not to use face-threatening acts, minimize the threat, or achieve solidarity
among the participants of interaction. It is common that the choice and usage of politeness
strategies often varies due to different cultural and social perceptions of politeness in Eastern and
Western cultures. As has been already mentioned, the present study focuses on a distinctive
language variety (i.e. American English). To have a broaden perspective, it is important to
discuss what social and cultural dimensions determine the usage of politeness strategies in
Western countries and compare them to the ones typically used in Eastern societies.
Different authors (Silvia 2013, Geertz 1960, Cheung 2009, Anderson 2003, Goleman
1990, and Nakatsugawa 2010) discuss different factors which determine politeness strategies
typically used in social interaction in Western and Eastern cultures. Silvia (2013: 2) claims that
22
every time people are involved in communication, they have to be aware of what linguistic
means have to be used to achieve the balance and harmony between the speaker and hearer. As
Silvia (2013: 4) states, in some Western cultures, politeness strategies may be seen as universal,
stereotypical, or highly similar, but they can work differently in Eastern cultures. Geertz (1960)
provides an example of Javanese and British cultures to illustrate that the choice of politeness
strategies differs across cultures. Geertz (1960: 23) points out that it is almost impossible to say
anything without indicating the social relationship between the speaker and hearer in terms of
status and familiarity in Javanese society, which is not common in British culture. As Geertz
(1960) observes, ‘before one Javanese speaks to another, he or she must decide on an appropriate
speech style: high, middle, or low’ (1960: 23). Thus, the Javanese language has a specific graded
vocabulary to express politeness, indicate social status, and show familiarity.
Cheung (2009), who focuses on the usage of politeness strategies in Chinese and
American cultures, claims that the employment of politeness strategies reflects values and beliefs
of the culture of which a participant of a conversation is a member. People from different
cultures have different sets of values and beliefs; thus it is likely that they can make different
interpretations of what has been expressed to each other. Cheung (2009: 48) points out that
culture is responsible for guiding its members to make judgements of what is polite or impolite
in a certain context or situation. Therefore, what is regarded as polite in one cultural background
may be regarded as damaging in a different cultural background. Cheung (2009) emphasizes that
the choice of politeness strategies is significantly different in Eastern and Western societies. To
illustrate this, Cheung (2009) gives an example of American and Chinese cultures in using off-
record politeness strategy to do the FTA. As Cheung states (2009: 52), the preference for not
doing FTAs is significant in highlighting the function of silence in the Chinese culture, where
people typically remain silent to avoid disagreement, which is not common among the
Americans. As Cheung (2009: 52) notes, remaining silent is a way commonly used to show
disapproval as it does not involve any act that would threaten another’s face.
It is often said that Japanese culture is a collectivistic culture, while English speaking
communities tend to emphasize individualism, and that is why the use of politeness strategies
differs in Western and Eastern cultures. As Anderson (2003) observes, ‘collectivistic cultures
emphasize community, harmony, the public good, and maintaining face’ (2003: 77). In contrast,
as Goleman (1990: 33) notes, individualistic countries consider that they belong to many groups
because their personal goals take precedent over preserving the group. In order to support the
idea that different politeness strategies are typically used in collectivistic and individualistic
cultures, Nakatsugava (2010) has carried out an investigation which focuses on which politeness
23
strategies are most typically chosen in the Japanese and American educational settings. As
Nakatsugava (2010: 9) points out, the results have revealed that slight differences can be noticed
with regard to the teacher-student relationship in these cultures, and that it highly depends on a
different perception of politeness across cultures. According to Nakatsugava (2010: 9), Japanese
students prefer ‘implying’ as their refusing-response and are more collectivistic, whereas
American students tend to be more assertive and tend to choose a negative or positive response.
In contrast, Leech (2005: 3) points out that there is no absolute divide between Eastern
and Western cultures in politeness as polite communication implies that the speaker is taking into
the account both individual and group values, thus the same politeness strategies can be used in
different cultures despite different cultural values and beliefs. Group values are more powerful in
Eastern societies, whereas individual values prevail in Western ones. Leech (2005: 27) notes that
Eastern cultures have been influenced by the same Confucian tradition, which states that an
individual’s behaviour becomes meaningful only in the context of the participation of others. As
Leech (2005: 27) observes, the individualistic orientation of western countries is expressed in
politeness through such factors as the higher weighting of tact (i.e. avoidance of imposition) and
a lower weighting of modesty (i.e. self-assertion being regarded more favourably).
Different authors (e.g. Coulmas 2005 and Clark 2010) suggest that politeness is
inextricably linked with social differentiation and reflects the power of control. As Coulmas
(2005: 86) states, politeness is a matter of social inequality as is socially contingent, and the use
of politeness strategies can depend on the speaker’s or hearer’s status in society. Coulmas (2005:
86) notes that human society has been always built on difference and inequality; therefore,
gestures of submission, status of assertion, and recognition can be reflected in the linguistic
expression of politeness. Clark (2010: 2) notes that the use of politeness strategies is an
important indicator of who is in a more or less superior position in conversation. Coulmas (2005:
87) notes that the linguistic expression of politeness tends to show social differentiation in most
of the world languages, but it varies across cultures. As Coulmas (2006: 87) observes, it is rather
difficult to be polite if another participant of interaction lacks the register of politeness; however,
in some languages it is harder than in others because some of them own richer lexical and
grammatical encoding of politeness than the others.
To sum up, the use of politeness strategies varies due to different cultural and social
dimensions across different cultures. It has been noticed that the greatest differences are typically
noticed among Western and Eastern cultures, where distinctive sets of values and beliefs shape
the perception of politeness. For this reason, interlocutors have to be careful about it when they
communicate with people from other cultures, social groups, and discourse communities.
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2.3.1 Positive politeness strategies
The politeness theory by Brown and Levinson (1978) is widely accepted and discussed as the
basis for research. Thus, it is not surprising that their politeness strategies have also become the
basis in numerous politeness theories. This section presents positive politeness strategies listed
and illustrated with examples in Table 1. Examples (1)-(15) are from Brown and Levinson’s
(1978) politeness theory.
As can be seen in Table 1 below, fifteen strategies addressed to the hearer’s positive
face range over sets of structures which can only be interpreted as polite in the presence of the
face-threat itself. It can be noticed in Table 1 that positive politeness strategies are used by the
speaker to minimize threat towards the hearer’s positive face. Certain linguistic means are used
to be more polite and avoid misunderstandings when communicating. As can be seen in Table 1,
the participants of the interaction can use the strategies of seeking agreement, avoiding
disagreement, being optimistic, joking, and some others to avoid threat and make the hearer feel
positive about himself/herself.
Table 1. Positive politeness strategies (Brown and Levinson 1978: 74) STRATEGY EXAMPLES
Notice, attend to hearer (her/his
interests, wants, needs, goods,
etc.)
(1) Jim, you are really good at solving computer programmes. → (FTA) I
wonder if you could just help me with a little formatting problem I’ve got.
Exaggerate (interest, approval,
sympathy with hearer)
(2) Good old Jim. Just the man I wanted to see. I knew I’d find you here.
→ Could you spare me a couple of minutes?
Intensify interest to the hearer in
the speaker’s contribution
(3) You’ll never guess what Fred told me last night. This is right up your
street. → (FTA) [begins a narrative]
Use in-group identity markers in
speech
(4) Here’s my old friend Fred. How are you doing today, mate? → (FTA)
Could you give us a hand to get this car to start?
Seek agreement in safe topics (5) I agree. Right. Manchester United played really badly last night, didn’t
they? → (FTA) D’you reckon you could give me a cigarette?
Avoid disagreement (6) Well, in a way, I suppose you are sort of right. But look at it like this.
→ (FTA) Why don’t you?
Presuppose, raise, assert
common ground
(7) People like me and you, Bill, don’t like being pushed around like that,
do we? → (FTA) Why don’t you go and complain?
Joke to put the hearer at ease (8) Great summer we are having. It’s only rained five times a week.
Assert or presuppose knowledge
of and concern for hearer’s
wants
(9) I know you like marshmallows, so I’ve brought you home a whole box
of them. → (FTA) I wonder if I could ask you for a favour…
Offer, promise (10) I’ll take you out to dinner on Saturday. → (FTA) if you’ll cook the
dinner this evening.
Be optimistic (11) I know you are always glad to get a tip or two on gardening, Fred. →
(FTA) so, if I were you, I wouldn’t cut your lawn back so short.
Include both speaker and hearer
in the activity (12) I’m feeling hungry. Let’s stop for a bite.
Give or ask for reasons (13) I think you’ve had a bit too much to drink, Jim. → (FTA) Why not
stay at our place this evening?
Assert reciprocal exchange (14) Dad, → (FTA) if you help me with my maths homework, I’ll mow the
lawn after school tomorrow.
Give gifts to hearer (goods,
sympathy, understanding)
(15) A: Have a glass of malt whisky, Dick.
B: Terrific! Thanks!
A: Not at all. → (FTA) I wonder if I could confide in you for a minute.
25
Positive politeness strategies share common characteristics like the atmosphere of intimacy and
person’s desire that his/her wants would be appreciated as desirable. As Brown and Levinson
(1978: 102) point out, positive politeness strategies are used as a metaphorical extension of
intimacy, implication of common ground, or sharing of wants even among people who do not
know each other very well, but who see each other as rather similar or having the same attitude
to life. In short, the use of positive politeness strategies creates the atmosphere of intimacy and
friendliness between the speaker and hearer. Wijaya (2014: 1) notes that positive politeness
strategies show the speaker that his/her listener has a desire to be respected and appreciated. As
Wijaya (2014: 1) further states, the usage of positive politeness strategies even among strangers
indicates that the relationship between them is close and reciprocal.
Brown and Levinson (1978: 103) note that the strategies of positive politeness involve
three broad mechanisms like claiming ‘common ground’, by indicating that the speaker and
hearer belong to the sets of people who share similar wants, including values and goals, and
claiming a common perspective between the speaker and hearer without referring to the same in-
group membership. On the basis of these three distinctive categories of positive politeness
strategies, Brown and Levinson (1978) provides typical examples of each of them, as can bee
seen in Table 1. For example, as Brown and Levinson observe (1978: 103), claiming common
ground involves the politeness strategies of exaggerating, seeking agreement, avoiding
disagreement, joking, or presupposing common ground. According to Brown and Levinson
(1978: 103), one more category includes offering, promising, being optimistic, or giving reasons.
Finally, Brown and Levinson note (1978: 103) that claiming common perspective with the
stranger involves giving gifts to the hearer such as compliments, goods, sympathy,
understanding, or cooperation.
Different authors (e.g. Brown and Levinson 1978 and Yuka 2009) emphasize
exaggeration as a distinctive marker of positive politeness strategies. As Yuka (2009: 60) states,
positive politeness strategies often include the elements of exaggeration which distinguish
strategies of positive politeness from ordinary communication, which often sounds insincere.
Brown and Levinson (1978: 104) note that the politeness strategy of exaggeration is commonly
associated with the expression of interest, approval, and sympathy between the speaker and
hearer. The interlocutors show this with exaggerated intonation, stress, and other aspects of
prosodics, as well as with intensifying modifiers. Numerous different linguistic means can
express exaggeration in a conversation, which does not always sound sincere.
According to Watts (2003: 91), in addition to the prefacing strategies, the face-
threatening acts also include structures which in terms of (im)politeness are often interpreted as
26
‘polite’. As Watts (2003) notes, ‘[i]t’s really only in the contextual environment of the FTA that
the structures realising the strategy are interpretable as polite’ (2003: 91). In suggests that the
context of the FTAs plays an important role that speakers are expected to choose an appropriate
strategy. As Watts (2003: 91) states, in reality the participants of interaction either do not
necessarily classify the prefacing moves as polite, or they can find them appropriate to what the
speaker wants to do and may or may not agree that they are perceived as polite.
To sum up, Brown and Levinson (1978) propose fifteen positive politeness strategies
which are typically used by interlocutors to minimize the threat towards another participant of a
coversation and avoid conflicts. In view of the above, it can be stressed that these politeness
strategies share several common characteristics. More specifically, positive politeness strategies
are usually used to make a coversation more polite, intimate, and reciprocal even between the
speaker and hearer who do not know each other very well. It is also important to mention that the
expression of exaggeration in speech is also a marked indicator of positive politeness strategies.
2.3.2 Negative politeness strategies
In Brown and Levinson’s (1978) politeness theory, ten different negative politeness strategies are
distinguished. All of these strategies are listed and illustrated with examples in Table 2.
Examples (16)-(25) have been taken from Brown and Levinson’s (1978) politeness theory.
As can be seen in Table 2, ten negative politeness strategies distinguished by Brown
and Levinson (1978) are typically addressed to the hearer’s negative face, which means that
he/she desires his/her freedom of action and not being impeded in a conversation. Brown and
Levinson (1978: 129) define negative politeness strategies as specific, focused, and performing
the function of minimizing imposition.
Table 2. Negative politeness strategies (Brown and Levinson 1978: 76) STRATEGY EXAMPLES
Be conventionally indirect (16) Could you tell me the time, please?
Question, hedge (17) I wonder whether I could just sort of ask you a little question.
Be pessimistic about
willingness to comply
(18) If you had a little time to spare for me this afternoon, I’d like
to…
Minimise the imposition (19) Could I talk to you for just a minute?
Give deference (20) Excuse me, officer. I think I might have parked in the wrong
place.
Apologise (21) Sorry to bother you, but…
Impersonalise the speaker
and the hearer (22) Well, it’ll have to have a parking ticket.
State the FTA as an instance
of a general rule (23) Parking on the double yellow lines is illegal.
Nominalise to distance the
actor (24) Participation in an illegal demonstration in punishable by law.
Go on record (25) I’ll buy you a beer at lunchtime.
27
Brown and Levinson (1978: 130) note that negative politeness strategies are mainly based on
conventional indirectness, hedging devices, polite pessimism, and emphasis on the hearer’s
relative power. As Brown and Levinson (1978: 103) observe, negative politeness strategies are
used to express the speaker’s desire to remain autonomous, so the speaker tends to communicate
by using distancing styles, e.g. apologies. Brown and Levinson (1994: 103) state that the
strategies of negative politeness involve four broad mechanisms like being direct, not
presuming/assuming, communicating the speaker’s want not to impinge on the hearer, and
redressing other wants of the hearer.
Brown and Levinson (1978) distinguish on-record and off-record acts in their
politeness model. Brown and Levinson (1978: 130) claim that if the speaker chooses on-record
politeness strategies, his/her intentions are conveyed in a rather clear and direct way, thus vague
language is avoided in these cases. In addition, much effort is put so that the speaker’s ideas are
expressed in a comprehensible way. As Brown and Levinson (1978: 71) point out, by going on-
record, interlocutors may receive a number of advantages such as avoiding the danger of being
misunderstood or getting credit for honest. In contrast, as Brown and Levinson (1978: 130) state,
off-record politeness strategies are more unambiguous and indirect, thus vague language is
preferred in these politeness strategies. Off-record acts need vague language to express the
speaker’s intentions in a more indirect and explicit way. Brown and Levinson (1978: 71) claim
that by going off-record, the participants of conversation may profit in several ways. For
example, ‘they get an opportunity to avoid responsibility for damaging interpretation or get a
credit for being tactful’ (Brown and Levinson 1978: 71). Similarly, according to Bousfield
(2008: 64), in the cases of these acts, the threat and damage to the hearer’s face is conveyed in an
indirect way and may be even cancelled.
To conclude, the politeness strategies distinguished by Brown and Levinson (1978)
have remained the most seminal and influential politeness strategies used in the majority of
politeness theories. Brown and Levinson (1978) discuss politeness in terms of positive and
negative politeness strategies, most typically seen as opposite strategies. Positive and negative
politeness strategies express different types of behaviour while communicating. Positive
politeness strategies show that the participants of interaction share similar interests and wants,
while negative politeness strategies demonstrate that social distance exists between the speaker
and hearer.
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2.4 Means of expressing politeness in English
The present section concentrates on discussing different means of expressing politeness in
English. These means include indirect requests, apologies, respect markers, and hedging devices.
First, this section discusses indirect requests as implication of politeness according to Blum-
Kulka’s (1987), Leech’s (1983) ideas, and Brown and Levinson’s (1978) politeness theory.
Second, this section focuses on apologies by taking up the stance that they are frequent
politeness markers in English. This discussion is mainly based on the ideas expressed by
Goffman (1967) and Mills (2003). Further in this section, respect markers as the expression of
politeness in English are taken into account according to Kibort’s (2005) ideas. Finally, the usage
of hedging devices as one more way to express politeness is described according to Brown and
Levinson’s politeness theory (1978).
2.4.1 Interrogative constructions as indirect requests
It is usually assumed that indirectness in requests is one of the most frequent politeness strategies
in English. It has been noticed that different politeness theories position the degree of
indirectness as a universal feature of linguistic politeness.
Blum-Kulka (1987) and Leech (1983) state that interlocutors typically use indirect
utterances in order to increase the degree of politeness while communicating. As Blum-Kulka
(1987: 140) notes, when face-threatening acts are used in speech, the speaker has the following
choices: to do the act badly, on record, or without redress. As Blum-Kulka (1987) notes, ‘the
speaker also has a possibility to use positive redressive action, i.e. to indicate solidarity with the
hearer; to use negative redressive action by using mechanisms which leave the addressee “out”
and permit him or her to feel respected; and finally, the speakers may choose to go “off record”
by performing the act in a way that will enable them to avoid taking responsibility for doing it’
(1987: 140). The speaker is more polite when he/she tries to avoid direct statements while
communicating.
Leech (1983) defines indirect requests as speech acts where the illocutionary goal
competes with the social goal. As Leech (1983: 104) points out, when someone wants to use a
speech act with a competitive illocutionary function, he/she usually needs to reduce the discord
implicit in the competition between what a speaker wants to achieve, and what is good manners.
Leech (1983: 108) observes that given the same propositional content, it is possible to increase
the degree of politeness by using indirect utterances which are treated as more polite ones as they
increase the degree of optionality, and because the more indirect statement is, the more tentative
29
its force tends to be. Leech (1983: 108) emphasizes that the usage of indirect expressions in
speech is typically associated with the speaker’s intentions to be polite, tactful, and sincere.
Blum Kulka (1987) distinguishes two types of indirectness (i.e. conventional and
nonconventional) with regard to the criterion of conventionality. As Blum-Kulka (1987) points
out, ‘[c]onventional indirect requests realize the act by systematic reference to some precondition
needed for its realization, and share across languages the property of potential pragmatic
ambiguity between requestive meaning and literal meaning’ (1987: 35). Blum-Kulka (1987: 131)
points out that conventional indirectness is often rated as the most polite expression of politeness
because only then the balance and solidarity in conversation are achieved. As Blum-Kulka
(1987) further notes, ‘[n]on-conventional indirectness, on the other hand, is by definition open-
ended both in terms of propositional content and linguistic form, as well as of pragmatic force’
(1987: 35). Politeness and indirectness are often interrelated in the cases of conventional
indirectness, but not always in the cases of nonconventional indirectness, which basically relies
on context.
Watts (2003) and Tsuda (1993) consider how the link between politeness and
indirectness is perceived in different cultural backgrounds. As Watts (2003: 70) claims, the
majority of speech communities consider conventionally indirect utterances to be the most polite
form of request. In contrast, in several cultures such as Hebrew or Russian, people tend to
express politeness in a more direct way. As Watts (2003) points out, ‘the speakers of certain
languages prefer to realise apologies and requests more directly’ (2003: 70). Hence, different
speech communities treat indirectness as one of the ways to express politeness in rather different
ways; however, not all languages treat the politeness strategy of indirectness as the most polite
way to make a request. Tsuda (1993) claims that the treatment of indirectness is culture-
dependent and illustrates this with the example of Japanese culture. As Tsuda (1993) states,
‘indirectness sometimes damages communication when it is used only for selfish aims to
manipulate others’ (1993: 69). According to Tsuda (1993: 69), in the societies (e.g. Japan) where
people are ranked according to their position in society, indirectness is often employed by people
of higher status to control people of lower status; and it is face-threatening for people of lower
status to say something which may threaten people of higher status.
To sum up, it is assumed that higher levels of indirectness may result in higher levels of
politeness. Compared to direct statements, indirect ones appear to be more polite as they do not
intrude in the hearer’s territory. Thus, as the majority of authors argue, indirectness is preferred
in a polite behaviour. Typically, the conventional indirectness is judged as the most polite type of
politeness because of the highest balance and harmony achieved among the speaker and hearer.
30
It is also important to note that the usage of indirect language varies across cultures. Not all of
the cultures like Hebrew or Russian treat indirect statements as those expressing the highest
degree of politeness.
2.4.2 Apologies as indicators of politeness
It is considered that apologizing is one more linguistic strategy used to express politeness in
speech. Different authors argue that apologies may be used to express both positive and negative
politeness. As has been noticed, researchers have rather different attitudes whether the use of
apologies in speech is the reflection of positive or negative politeness. The majority of them
claim that apologies are more frequent in expressing positive politeness, while others argue that
they are likely to express negative politeness.
Goffman (1971), Cohen and Olshtain (1971) discuss the functions of apologies.
Goffman (1971) was the first researcher who provided a detailed description of what concerns
the issue of apologies in English. As Goffman (1971) points out, ‘an apology is a gesture through
which an individual splits himself into two parts, the part that is guilty of an offence and the part
that dissociates itself from the delict and affirms a belief in the offended rule’ (1971: 113). The
speaker tries to dissociate himself/herself from the act of indiscretion and convince the hearer
that he/she feels sorry for the behaviour which interfered in the hearer’s territory. It can be seen
in Goffman’s (1971) definition that the expression of apology may be associated with both the
speaker and hearer. More specifically, the speaker tries to avoid misunderstanding with the
hearer by acknowledging him/her that there is a fault, and that both of them have certain roles in
the event. Similarly, Cohen and Olshtain (1983: 20) notice that the act of apologizing occurs
when social norms are violated, thus the function of apology is to restore the balance and receive
forgiveness between the participants of communication.
Mills (2003), Brown and Levinson (1978) discuss whether apologies should be treated
as an expression of positive or negative politeness. To begin with, Mills (2003) states that ‘an
apology, such as I’m sorry for my behaviour last night, would be an instance of negative
politeness which would, in some way, restore the balance for a perceived indiscretion or
problem’ (2003: 60). It suggests that people use apologies in speech to avoid violation and
restore the balance between the speaker and hearer. As Mills (2003: 61) notes, even though
apology seems to be sincere, the hearer may decide to refuse it. Hence, the hearer himself/herself
has an opportunity to accept the act of apologizing or refuse it. In contrast, Brown and Levinson
(1994: 187) argue that an apology itself may produce a certain degree of imbalance and impose
31
an obligation on the hearer; thus the usage of apologies in speech does not necessarily restore the
balance and harmony between the speaker and hearer.
As Ogiermann (2009) states, the function of apologies is culture-specific. Ogiermann
(2009: 55) observes that people from individualist cultures perceive apologies as a post factum
acknowledgement of the hearer’s right to non-distraction; thus they focus on the past action. On
the other hand, members from collectivist cultural backgrounds, meanwhile, emphasize the
future relationship. Ogiermann (2009) illustrates this by providing an example of Polish and
Russian cultures, which are classified as positive politeness cultures, and where the stronger
individualist tendency characterizing Polish culture can lead to differences in the realization of
apologies in these Slavic cultures.
To summarize, apologies in relation to politeness may be seen from a twofold
perspective. Specifically, apologies can express both positive and negative politeness. Apologies
are used by interlocutors in a conversation to avoid violation and misunderstanding among the
participants of interaction. Apologies also occur in speech in order to restore the balance and
harmony after the act of violation. Finally, the usage of apologies is culture-specific as members
from individualist and collectivist cultures can use apologies in different ways.
2.4.3 Expressions of respect in English
Numerous linguistic and non-linguistic ways can express respect and esteem in English. The
expression of respect is often associated with the use of specific address forms, often called
respect markers. The term ‘honorific’ is frequently used when defining respect titles in English.
Respect markers are used in a conversation to show respect, attitude, and indicate the social
status.
Brown and Levinson (1978: 110) associate the expression of respect with positive
politeness. As Brown and Levinson (1978: 110) claim, positive face requires that the individual’s
positive self-image would be respected in every interaction with others; thus interlocutors use
respect markers to avoid or soften face-threating acts. According to Brown and Levinson (1978),
‘the main functional motivation for developing polite referential expressions which use plural or
third person forms with reference to a single addressee is the avoidance of the most direct
linguistic reference to the addressee: a second person singular form, which is the most face-
threatening one’ (1978: 110). Hence, the speaker tends to use plural or third-person forms to
express a higher degree of politeness and respect towards the addressee.
Different sociolinguists (e.g. Kibort 2005 and Amany 2014) note that address forms
indicate social relations and statuses of the participants of interaction. As Kibort (2005: 1) states,
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all languages possess ways to express politeness, but not all of them own special linguistic forms
to express different degrees of politeness towards another person. English is a language with
multiple honorifics including Mr, Mrs, Ms, Sir, Madam, and numerous others which function as
indicators of respect and esteem. As Kibort (2005: 1) points out, the employment of respect
forms indicates the speaker’s social relation and attitude towards the hearer. Similarly, Amany
(2014: 509) observes that address terms are not static but vary according to the social context and
situational background. As Amany (2014: 509) claims, the linguistic forms used by the speaker
to address to the hearer send different social meanings such as the type of relationships or
attitudes towards each other.
Some authors (e.g. Kibort 2008 and Eelen 2001) offer different categories of respect
markers. As Kibort (2008: 1) notes, three linguistic forms of respect can be identified: reference,
addressee, and ‘avoidance’ language. Kibort (2008: 1) points out that politeness systems which
include referents are the most widespread ones, and the historical development of some honorific
systems (e.g. Japanese) indicates that the use of referents is the most basic form of honorifics. As
Kibort (2008) further states, ‘the respect markers in this category include titles, polite pronouns,
nominal honorifics, and verbal honorifics’ (2008: 1). According to Kibort (2008: 1), politeness is
encoded through linguistic forms that express the speaker’s respect towards the addressee by
using special words for address, special particles, or special verb endings. Kibort (2008: 1) notes
that in the cases of ‘avoidance’ language, politeness is encoded through the use of a different
language variant, addressing a ‘taboo’ kin or a superior. As Kibort (2008: 1) further states,
‘avoidance’ language can have a smaller number of words, more generic words, and present
other linguistic features characteristic of languages with honorifics.
In contrast, Eelen (2001) proposes a rather different system of address forms. As Eelen
(2001: 121) claims, different address forms can be distinguished into different categories with
regard to the level of formality. According to Eelen (2001: 121), address terms can be
categorized into seven distinctive categories. As Eelen (2001: 121) claims, they can be
distinguished into endearments (honey, baby, love), family terms (Mammy, daddy, Son), family
names familiarized (mate, man, folks), first names familiarized (Brad, Jen), full first names
(Bradley, Jennifer), title and surname (Mr Holmes, Dr Watson, Professor Moriarty), and
honorifics (sir, ma’m, your honour). As can be seen, address forms can be distinguished into
different categories as they express a different level of formality.
To sum up, respect and esteem towards another person can be expressed in numerous
linguistic ways in English. Typically, it seems to be achieved through the use of certain linguistic
address forms, often called honorifics. Address forms typically express social relations and
33
statuses of interlocutors. The usage of these forms greatly depends on the social context and
situational background.
2.4.4 Hedging devices as expressions of politeness
Hedging devices are used in spoken discourse to avoid potential conflicts or misunderstandings,
and hence maintain harmony and balance among interlocutors. These linguistic devices are used
with the intention to weaken the strength of utterance and be polite. The majority of scholars
claim that hedging devices can be employed in speech to express either positive or negative
politeness.
The origins of the term ‘hedge’ go back to Lakoff (1972), who first introduced this term
in 1972. Lakoff (1972) defined hedges as words which ‘make things fuzzier or less fuzzy’ (1972:
195). Clemen (1997: 238) observes that Lakoff (1972) focuses mainly on the logical
relationships of words and semantic aspects of hedging; however, he does not involve in his
politeness theory that context can be also greatly important for providing hedges their meaning.
As Riekinnen (2009: 5) states, Lakoff’s (1972) seminal ideas have been adopted and modified by
numerous linguists, who provided a broader view on hedging and focused not only on semantic
aspects of this phenomenon but also on the pragmatic ones.
Sociolinguists define the concept of ‘hedge’ in different ways. In the present
investigation, it has been decided to use Brown and Levinson’s (1978) definition of the term
‘hedge’, which is based on the functions that hedges perform in spoken discourse. As Brown and
Levinson (1978: 146) point out, hedges are used to soften the force of the speaker’s utterance
with the intention to make it more acceptable to the hearer. The speaker can choose to be vague
about his/her own opinions so that not to be seen to disagree with the hearer. This definition
focuses on the interpersonal aspect of hedging devices in a way that it emphasizes reciprocal
understanding among the interlocutors. This definition also demonstrates that hedging devices
are commonly used in a conversation to make speaker’s utterances sound more polite.
Different authors (Brown and Levinson 1978, Riekinnen 2009, and Wilamova 2005)
express different opinions whether hedges express positive or negative politeness in spoken
discourse. As Brown and Levinson (1978) state, ‘hedges are normally a marked feature of
negative politeness; however, some hedges, like sort of, kind of, like, or in a way can express
positive politeness as well’ (1978: 116). Wilamova (2005: 86) notes that hedging devices prevail
in expressing negative politeness when the attenuation of content is primarily associated with
respect to other people’s privacy, ant that attenuation can be achieved in different ways by using
numerous linguistic and non-linguistic strategies. Similarly, Riekinnen (2009: 16) states that
34
hedging falls under the category of negative politeness as it distances the speaker from the
content of the utterance by making it more ambigous. Riekinnen (2009: 16) illustrates this with
the example of criticism and states that hedges soften its impact and make it easier for the
addressee to accept it.
Hedging devices perform multiple functions in spoken discourse. Brown and Levinson
(1978) note that ‘hedges serve to avoid a precise communication of speaker’s attitude, as in the
following example: You really should sort of try harder’ (1978: 117). As can be seen in this
example, hedging devices appear to minimize and soften speaker’s criticism directed towards the
hearer. Brown and Levinson (1978: 117) further point out that hedges also function as the
markers of metaphors, as in the following example: That knife sort of ‘chews’ bread. Brown and
Levinson (1978) claim that ‘expressions like sort of in FTAs may mark the word that they
modify as being a metaphor of some sort, leaving it up to the addressee to figure out how to
interpret it’ (1978: 117). In this case, the hearer has an opportunity to interpret the utterances
containing hedges in his/her own way. As Wilamova states (2005: 86), hedges are mitigating
devices which attenuate the propositional meaning of the message; hence the basic function of
hedges is to weaken the meaning of an utterance and, in this way, express a higher degree of
politeness.
The usage of hedging devices plays an important role in academic discourse. As
Riekinnen (2009: 10) states, traditionally academic discourse was thought to be purely
impersonal and informational, but this type of discourse is considered interactional; for this
reason, hedges are frequent in academic discourse. Meyer (1997: 123) points out that academic
discourse can be defined as strengthening the argument by weakening the claim, and it is mainly
achieved by using hedging devices. As Meyer (1997) further notes, ‘[i]n a hedged form even
radical claims sound more cautious and tentative, which enhances their chances of ratification’
(1997: 123). Thus, hedging is typically employed in academic discourse to use an intentionally
ambiguous statement and increase a degree of probability.
To conclude, the main functions of hedging devices in spoken discourse are to soften
the meaning of an utterance, express a higher degree of politeness, and avoid face-threatening
acts. Typically, hedging devices can express both positive and negative politeness and perform
multiple functions in interaction. The use of hedging devices is frequent in academic discourse as
is one of the ways to weaken direct statements and express uncertainty.
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2.5 Discourse in educational settings
The nature of classroom discourse is highly complex. Walsh (2011: 2) observes that the language
being used in the classroom can perform multiple functions at the same time, e.g. seeking
information, checking learning, or offering advice. As Walsh (2011: 2) notes, language is of
crucial importance in the classroom as through it learners get knowledge, acquire and develop
new skills, identify problems of understanding, or establish and maintain relationships.
Bourdieu et al. (1994: 18) point out that the ambigous relationships of teachers and
students towards linguistic misunderstanding are often associated with verbal distance in
educational settings. As Bourdieu et al. (1994) claim, ‘distancing gives as much protection to the
student as the professor’ (1994: 18). Hence, both teachers and students remain attached to the
traditional teaching relationship when no one takes responsibility to reduce the distance which
separates them. As Bourdieu et al. (1994: 18) further state, the professor, engaged in a
monologue on a topic chosen by him/her, removes from his/her silent interlocutors, surprising
interruptions, and objections, which suggests that language is the most effective and subtle
technique of distancing.
One of the most striking features of academic interaction is that the roles of participants
(i.e. teacher and students) are not equal. As Walsh (2011: 4) states, this inequality is true for all
types of classrooms, e.g. primary, secondary, monolingual, multilingual, with adult, teenager, or
very young learners. Walsh (2011: 4) points out that one party is always in a position of power or
authority; in addition, that person has control of communication and manages the interaction. As
Walsh (2011) notes, ‘[t]eachers are able to interrupt when they like, take the floor, hand over a
turn, direct the discussion, switch topics’ (2011: 5). It is obvious that it is a teacher who controls
the whole interaction in the classroom. In contrast, according to Walsh (2011: 5), learners do not
have the same level of control of the patterns of communication; however, there are some cases
when the roles of teacher and learners are more equal, allowing greater participation of learners.
To summarize, classroom language is highly complex as it performs a number of
different functions at the same time. Interaction is crucially important in educational settings as it
contributes to exchanging information, developing new skills, or maintaining relationships.
Academic discourse reflects the inequality of roles between the teacher and learners. The teacher
controls the process of teaching and learning and typically has more power compared to learners.
Misunderstandings between the teacher and learners are often associated with verbal distance
between these academic roles. Both teachers and learners accept a traditional model of
teaching/learning when nobody takes responsibility to reduce verbal distance between them.
36
3 POLITENESS MARKERS IN SPOKEN ACADEMIC
DISCOURSE AND GENERAL SPOKEN AMERICAN ENGLISH
The present chapter deals with the results obtained from Michigan Corpus of Academic Spoken
Discourse (MICASE) and Corpus of Contemporary Spoken American English (COCA). This
chapter mainly aims at presenting the usage of politeness markers in spoken academic American
English. In order to make a more comprehensive analysis, the politeness markers selected for the
present analysis are also investigated and discussed in comparison to general spoken American
English. The politeness markers under investigation have been categorized into four different
categories (i.e. indirect requests, apologies, respect markers, and hedges) and discussed with
regard to the functions they perform in spoken academic discourse.
The present study mainly discusses the politeness markers in relation to the functions
they perform to determine for what purposes politeness markers are typically used in spoken
academic discourse. Moreover, general frequency of politeness markers is considered to find out
which of them are more or less frequently used in spoken academic discourse. The usage of
politeness markers in different registers is also investigated to determine in what context the
politeness markers selected for the present analysis are most commonly used by interlocutors.
Politeness markers under investigation are also discussed in relation to gender to find out which
of them are more or less frequent in men’s and women’s speech. Finally, politeness markers are
investigated with regard to the criteria of academic division, role, and interactivity rating.
3.1 Types and functions of politeness markers
It has been observed that the politeness markers under investigation perform multiple functions
in spoken academic American English. It has been already mentioned that the politeness markers
under investigation have been categorized into four different categories: indirect requests (Can
you, Could you, Would you, and please), apologies (sorry, excuse me, and pardon me), respect
markers (Mr, Mrs, Madam, and professor), and hedges (sort of, kindly, and perhaps). The
present investigation has revealed that the functions performed by the politeness markers
selected for the analysis are as follows:
1) Indirect requests
a) asking for permission
b) expressing ability
c) asking for commitment
37
2) Apologies
a) resolving potential conflicts
b) asking for forgiveness
c) apologizing for mistakes
3) Respect markers
a) conveying esteem and respect
b) encoding social status
4) Hedges
a) making statements less categorical and direct
b) enabling to be less critical
The functions of politeness markers under investigation are discussed below by providing
illustrative examples from MICASE. It is important to note that the functions distinguished in the
present analysis are not clear-cut, and they often overlap because politeness markers can perform
multiple functions at a time.
1) Indirect requests
As the corpus data have revealed, indirect requests are frequently employed in English to express
a higher degree of politeness towards the addressee. It has been noticed that the usage of indirect
requests varies when expressing politeness, some politeness markers are considered to express a
higher degree of politeness than others or vice versa. When the speaker makes a request, he/she
tends to make it indirectly not to create misunderstanding with other participants of interaction.
Indirect requests, as well as other types of politeness strategies, perform multiple functions when
expressing politeness.
a) Asking for permission is one of the main functions performed by indirect requests
in English. On the basis of corpus examples, it should be noted that the politeness markers Can
you, Could you, Would you, or please are often employed by both teachers and students to ask
for permission in a polite indirect way. An important tendency observed in the obtained data is
that indirect requests are rather common among interlocutors who belong to different academic
roles. Indirect requests when asking for permission are frequent when the speaker does not know
his/her hearer very well; in addition, indirect requests asking for permission are also common
among people who have different social statuses. The following examples (1)-(3) illustrate the
usage of politeness markers Can you, Could you, and Would you while asking for permission in
an indirect way:
38
(1) Can you give us the title of the book?.. (teacher)
(2) Could you repeat the question, please? " # " Of course, ma'am... (student)
(3) Would you translate this into English?.. (teacher)
As can be seen in examples (1)-(3) above, the politeness markers Can you, Could you, and
Would you, and please are used in spoken academic discourse to soften a request by making it
indirect and incite a polite atmosphere between the participants of interaction. As can be noticed
in the examples above, these linguistic devices express rather different degrees of politeness.
Example (1) shows that Can you is observed in informal contexts, and that it is typically less
polite than Could you or Would you. In contrast, examples (2) and (3) illustrate that the
politeness markers Could you and Would you express a higher degree of politeness while making
indirect requests, which follows that they may be more frequent noticed in more formal contexts.
Examples (1)-(3) above indicate that modal particles in spoken academic discourse perform the
function of making requests more indirect and polite not to threaten another’s face, hence
indirect requests in speech reduce or eliminate the possibility to threat another’s face caused by
that request. The following examples (4)-(6) illustrate the usage of the politeness marker please:
(4) Is there a part of you that thinks on the day of the Oscars, oh, please let them call
my name, please... (teacher)
(5) Can I ask a question, please?.. (student)
(6) Please hand it in to me and I will hand it in back next week, ok?.. (teacher)
As can be seen in examples (4)-(6) above, the politeness marker please compared to Can you,
Could you, and Would you is also typically employed by interlocutors to make a polite request
and ask for permission to do something. As can be seen in example (5), it can be combined with
the modal particle can in one sentence to make a request more indirect and polite. In addition, it
may occur more than once in the same utterance to express a higher degree of politeness, as in
example (4), and it is also obvious that please may occupy different positions in the utterance.
Example (4) also shows that please may be used as a function word to express polite affirmation.
It seems that the speaker is waiting when his/her ideas will be affirmed by the hearer. It is
evident that this politeness marker tends to occur in turns between the participants of interaction,
and that the speaker wants to receive a quick response from his/her hearer. As can be seen in
examples (4)-(6), the politeness marker please is typically used to ask for permission in an
39
indirect way. More specifically, please occurs in academic spoken discourse when the speaker’s
intention is to ask the hearer to do something in a polite way.
b) Expressing ability is another function performed by indirect requests and
distinguished in the present analysis. On the basis of corpus examples, it can be noted that the
politeness markers Can you, Could you, Would you, or please are used by the speaker to ask
whether or not the hearer is able to do something; hence the latter is given an opportunity to
choose whether to confirm or not his/her ability. More specifically, the speaker usually makes an
indirect request to express politeness towards his/hearer while asking about the ability to help
him/her to do something, as in examples (7)-(9):
(7) Can you tell me about the medical condition at this point?.. (teacher)
(8) Could you tell that story?.. (teacher)
(9) Would you mind coming back to the class as soon as possible, please? (teacher)
Examples (7)-(9) indicate that the politeness markers Can you, Could you, Would you, and
please are used to ask about the hearer’s ability to do something in an indirect way. It seems that
while making an indirect request, the speaker expects to receive a positive response from his/her
hearer who has an opportunity to choose what to do.
Examples (7)-(9) demonstrate that the speaker by uttering an indirect request attempts
to make the hearer do something. Indirectness lowers the obligations of both participants of
interaction and hence contributes to avoiding direct responsibility from each other. Indirect
linguistic devices thus are used in spoken academic discourse to reduce the threat of offending
the hearer and increase the probability of getting him/her fulfill the speaker’s wish. It is evident
that the usage of the politeness markers under investigation varies in the degree of politeness. As
can be seen in example (7), the politeness marker Can you is likely to sound less polite and more
categorical compared to the politeness markers Would you or Could you, as in example (8). It is
often considered that these politeness markers make requests less categorical and express a
higher degree of politeness. As can be seen in example (9), Would you is combined in the same
sentence with another politeness marker please to intensify politeness directed towards the
hearer; indirect speech acts hence are syntactically marked by inserting please in the utterance.
c) Asking for commitment is the last function of indirect requests distinguished in the
present analysis. As has been noticed in corpus data, the speaker asks the hearer whether or not
he/she will commit himself/herself to satify his/her needs. As usual in indirect utterances, modal
particles and question forms are typically used to make statements less categorical and more
40
tactful. As can be noticed in corpus data, commitments perfom rather different functions in
academic spoken discourse compared to permissions. In commitments, the hearer obliges
himself/herself to carry out an action and satisfy the speaker’s needs, as can be seen in examples
(14)-(16):
(14) Would you tell me a little bit about the early days, though, performing in the
segregated South?.. (teacher)
(15) WALTERS Do you and if so, would you tell me what is meant by that? Mrs.
QUAYLE: Well, when you're-I feel that when you're a Christian... (teacher)
(16) Could you tell us what sort of modifications had been made recently? (teacher)
Examples (14)-(16) illustrate that one more function of the politeness markers Can you, Could
you, Would you, and please in spoken academic discourse is to ask for commitment. As can be
seen in examples (14)-(16), the hearer is obliged and responsible for deciding what to do after
the speaker’s question. As can be noticed in examples (14)-(16) provided above, it is common
that modal verbs and interrogative constructions are used to soften the meaning of utterances,
make them more polite, or avoid face-threatening acts. Another tendency that has been observed
in MICASE is that modal particles are typically followed by the verb phrase ‘tell me’, which
suggests the speaker’s intention to get a response as quickly as possible. As can be seen in
example (14), the quantifier ‘a little bit’ is used to increase a degree of politeness in the
utterance.
To sum up, the present investigation of indirect requests (Can you, Could you, Would
you, and please) has revealed that they can perform different functions in academic spoken
discourse, including asking for permission, expressing ability, or asking for commitment. It is
typically considered that indirect utterances are much more polite than the direct ones; hence
indirectness is preferred in academic spoken discourse.
2) Apologies
As the corpus data has revealed, apologies are illocutionary speech acts intended to provide
support for the hearer after a face-threatening act. The speaker has to decide which strategy or
combination of strategies to choose in order to improve the situation after the occurence of a
face-threatening act. The present analysis demonstrates that apologies, as well as other politeness
strategies under investigation, perform multiple functions when expressing politeness.
Specifically, apologies are mainly used in academic spoken discourse to resolve potential
conflicts and ask forgiveness.
41
a) Resolving potential conflicts is one of the main functions performed by apologies
in spoken academic discourse. As has been observed in corpus data, the politeness markers
sorry, excuse me, and pardon me are used by interlocutors to resolve potential conflicts and
restore harmony in interaction. As usual, interlocutors in spoken academic discourse use various
linguistic devices with intention to express apology after the behaviour which has violated social
norms between the teacher and students. The following examples (18)-(23) illustrate the usage of
politeness markers sorry, excuse me, and pardon me which function in speech to resolve
potential conflicts between the teacher and students:
(17) Yes. Sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt you... (student)
(18) It's not that far -- excuse me for interrupting. It's not that difficult to figure out
that... (student)
(19) Pardon me for being just a little bit cynical… (student)
As can be seen in examples (17)-(19), the usage of politeness markers sorry, excuse me, and
pardon me varies. The politeness marker sorry is used by the speaker as a means to show his/her
concern for the unpleasant situation which the hearer has faced because of the speaker, as in
example (17). In contrast, excuse me is used immediately after the event which is typically
considered to be socially unacceptable between the teacher and students, as in example (18). As
can be seen in example (19), the politeness marker pardon me is typically followed by the
speaker’s explanation why he/she expresses his/her apology; in this way, the speaker attempts to
compensate violation and avoid a face-threatening act.
The present analysis demonstrates that the politeness markers sorry, excuse me, and
pardon me are used in spoken academic interaction to decrease a degree of impoliteness in
utterances while trying to resolve potential conflicts beween the teacher and students. Apologies
make the utterance more tactful and less categorical. Both teachers and students use apologies in
interaction with the intention to avoid violation after a face-threatening act.
(b) Asking for forgiveness is one more function performed by apologies in spoken
academic discourse. The present analysis demonstrates that the politeness markers sorry, excuse
me, and pardon me are typically followed by explanations why the speaker expresses his/her
apology and asks for forgiveness, as in examples (20)-(23):
(20) Sorry for going so long, such a long answer, but it brings up another
issue... (teacher)
(21) Excuse me for interrupting, Jacob. We've got to go to break. (teacher)
42
(22) ...pardon me I can’t read my answer very well... (student)
As has been already mentioned, the politeness strategy of apologizing frequently performs the
function of asking for forgiveness in spoken academic discourse. As can be seen in examples
(20)-(22), the politeness markers sorry, excuse me, and pardon me are typically followed by the
preposition ‘for’. The speaker tends to employ this linguistic device with attempt to explain the
reason why he/she asks for forgiveness. Corpus examples demonstrate that sorry, excuse me, and
pardon me are commonly used in the cases when the speaker feels bad because he/she has
caused trouble or difficulty to anotherr participant of interaction. For instance, the teacher may
choose to ask forgiveness for speaking too long (20) or causing interrupting, as in example (21).
The students commonly ask for forgiveness for causing some trouble, as in example (22). The
apologies repair the situation and restores harmony between the teacher and students.
c) Apologizing for mistakes is one more function performed by apologies in spoken
academic discourse. As has been observed in corpus data, teachers tend to apologize for mistakes
when they are not right while presenting information to their students, as can be seen in example
(23). Teachers also typically apologize for mistakes in spoken academic discourse when
misunderstandings occur between them and students because of different opinions about
something, as can be seen in example (24) below:
(23) ...excuse me, not species, but waterfol population number, now one of the things
that... (teacher)
(24) I’ve made a mistake, excuse me, you were right about... (teacher)
To sum up, apologizing is one of the politeness strategies which can perfom multiple functions in
spoken academic discourse. The present analysis has demonstrated that both teachers and
students commonly express apologies to resolve potential conflicts or ask for forgiveness.
Teachers also use apologies in their speech when they make mistakes. The use of apologies in
spoken academic discourse leads to successful communication between the teacher and students.
3) Respect markers
American English has a number of different linguistic means to express respect towards another
person, which may also perform multiple functions in spoken academic discourse. The corpus
data has revealed that respect markers also perform multiple functions in spoken academic
discourse. More specificially, teachers and students use respect markers in interaction to encode
social status, convey respect and esteem. Respect markers discussed in the present investigation
are as folows: Mr, Mrs, Madam, and Professor.
43
a) Conveying respect and esteem is often considered to be one of the main fuctions
performed by respect markers in English. A number of corpus examples demonstrate that it is
extremely common to use respect markers to convey speaker’s respect and esteem towards the
hearer. In this way, a social relation and distance among the participants of interaction become
evident. The usage of respect markers demonstrates that distance exists between the teacher and
students in American educational setttings, as in examples (25)-(27):
(25) Mr Glacer, could you do his invention here? (student)
(26) Professor Gunderson, so last night I had this nightmare. (teacher)
(27) Professor, could you explain me this in greater detail? (student)
As can be seen in examples (25)-(27) above, respect titles are used as expressions with
connotations to convey esteem or respect while addressing to another participant of interaction in
order to increase degree of politeness. As corpus data has revealed, both teachers and students
use respect markers to address each other. As can be seen in corpus examples (25)-(27),
honorific titles may be placed immediately either before names or surnames. It has been
observed that it is common in academic speech events that students use academic degrees to
address the teachers. As can be seen in MICASE data, the preferred method of addressing a
professor in American English is not very consistent. Examples (26) and (27) demonstrate that
the respect title Professor can be followed by the teacher’s surname or not.
b) Encoding social status is one more function performed by respect markers in
spoken academic discourse. The corpus data has shown that it is rather common to indicate a
social status of a person by mentioning his/her occupation or official title when addressing, as in
examples (28) and (29):
(28) Nobody's forgotten your little tangle with the duck-egg widow, Mr. Teacher!
(student)
(29) Mrs. Teacher, I’ve a question for you... (student)
As can be seen in examples (28) and (29), the honorific titles Mr and Mrs often denote the
honored person’s occupation. The occupation ‘teacher’ is placed with respect titles, and is
together an indicator of addressee’s social status.
It can be seen from the view above that English has a number of linguistic ways to
express respect addressed to other people. Using linguistic respect markers is one of the most
frequent ways to do it. English has special honorific titles which occur in speech when
interacting with people from a higher social status. The present analysis has revealed that respect
44
markers in spoken academic discourse function as indicators of social status. In addition, respect
markers are commonly used there to express respect.
(4) Hedges
Hedges as pragramatic markers which weaken the strength of an utterance belong to the last
politeness strategy discussed in the present analysis. The present study focuses on the usage of
three different hedges: kindly, perhaps, and sort of, which have been randomly selected for the
present study. It has been observed in corpus data that hedges make the statements less
categorical and enable the speakers to be less direct.
a) Making statements less categorical and direct is one of the main functions
performed by hedges in spoken academic discourse. In American English, hedges are used in
speech to minimize imposition by making statements less direct, as in examples (30)-(32):
(30) …um, I sort of got lost, a little bit… (student)
(31) …well, perhaps, the creation of the boulevardm, creates space… (student)
(32) Will you kindly put that book back, Tom? (teacher)
It can be seen in examples (30)-(32) that hedges are used in spoken interaction to make
statements less categorical and avoid a face-threatening act. In this way, a higher degree of
politeness addressed towards another participant of interaction is expressed. As can be observed
in example (30), the hedge sort of conveys student’s hesititation or uncertainty when he/she is
doubting about something. More specifically, the hedge sort of makes the statements more
neutral, and it is the indicator of vagueness whose aim is to to decrease explicitness of an
utterance. Hence, its usage enables the speaker to be less direct and more polite.
The hedges kindly and perhaps are often considered to be pragmatic idioms whose
intention is to function as a means of politeness, softening the content of an utterance. As can be
seen in corpus data, these hedges, as well as sort of, also make statements less direct and
categorical. It can be seen in example (31) that the hedge perhaps is used by the student in order
to avoid answering a question completely, thus making it more neutral and vague. The hedge
kindly usually functions in the utterance as a politenes marker which softens the imposition of an
utterance. It has been observed in corpus data that this hedge is used by teachers when he/she is
annoyed about students’ behaviour, so it is often used ironically, as in example (32).
45
b) Enabling to be less critical is one more function performed by hedging devices. In
spoken academic discourse, hedges function not only to make statements less categorical and
direct, but also to be less critical, as can be seen in examples (33) and (34):
(33) Your answer, sort of, doesn’t make any sense... (teacher)
(34) ...it will take you a lot of time while to sort of figure out your handwriting...
(teacher)
As can be seen in examples (33) and (34), the content of these utterances carry rather negative
and critical meaning, whereas the use of hedge sort of slightly softens it. In this way, teacher’s
criticism towards his/her students is expressed in a more neutral and polite way.
To sum up, hedges perfom different functions in spoken academic discourse. The
present investigation has distinguished and discussed two of them: making statements less
categorical and direct, and enabling the interlocutors to be less critical. The results have
demonstrated that hedges in spoken academic discourse soften and weaken the content meaning
of utterances and make them more neutral and vague.
3.2 General frequency of politeness markers
The present section deals with the general frequency of politeness markers in spoken academic
discourse and general spoken American English. It is important to compare the general
frequency of politeness markers in order to find out which of them are more or less frequently
used in spoken academic discourse compared to general spoken American English. For this
reason, the general frequency of politeness markers has been checked in Corpus of
Contemporary American English (COCA) and Michigan Corpus of Academic Spoken English
(MICASE) and displayed in Table 3.
As could be expected, the politeness markers selected for the analysis differ in the
general frequency in both general spoken American English and spoken academic discourse. The
data in Table 3 show that some politeness markers are considerably more frequently employed
by interlocutors compared to the other ones; however, the most striking contrast in frequency is
evident among several politeness markers. In order to compensate a large size of both corpora,
the relative frequency of politeness markers (per 1 mln words) has been calculated.
46
Table 3. Frequency of politeness markers in COCA and MICASE
Politeness
marker
(ranked by
frequency)
Raw
frequency
(COCA)
Relative
frequency
(COCA)
Politeness
marker
(ranked by
frequency)
Raw
frequency
(MICASE)
Relative
frequency
(MICASE)
Mr 276 209 628 sort of 1 965 1 092
sort of 70 711 161 sorry 567 315
Professor 46 386 93 Can you 451 251
Can you 28 387 65 Would you 307 171
Would you 27 908 64 Professor 238 140
Mrs 27 120 62 please 215 119
perhaps 17 512 40 perhaps 172 96
please 12 540 29 Could you 156 87
sorry 12 214 28 excuse me 112 62
Could you 6 989 16 Mr 64 36
excuse me 3 698 8 Mrs 29 16
Madam 474 2 pardon me 20 11
pardon me 364 2 kindly 5 3
kindly 178 1 Madam 1 1
Total: 530 690 1 198 Total: 4 539 2 270
In total, there are 1 198 occurences of politeness markers selected for the analysis in COCA.
Table 3 demonstrates that the politeness markers range considerably in the general frequency
with Mr (628 occurences), sort of (161 occurences), and professor (93 occurences) being the
most frequest ones. The general frequency of these politeness markers is considerably higher as
compared to other politeness markers.
The general frequency of politeness markers differs in spoken academic discourse. As
corpus data in Table 3 show, the politeness markers amount to 2 270 occurences in MICASE. As
can be seen from the corpus data, the distribution of general frequency of politeness markers in
academic spoken discourse varies since some of them are much more frequent in academic
spoken discourse than others. For example, sort of (1 092 occurences), sorry (315 occurences),
and Can you (251 occurences) are the most frequent politeness markers in MICASE.
Other politeness markers which occur more than sixty times in COCA include Can you
(65 occurences), Would you (64 occurences), and Mrs (62 occurences). As the data in Table 3
demonstrate, Can you (65 occurences), Mrs (64 occurences), and Would you (62 occurances) are
especially similar in the general frequency, which follows that all of them are rather frequent in
general spoken American English. The politeness markers perhaps (40 occurences), please (29
occurences), and sorry (28 occurences) occur more than twenty-five times in COCA. It suggests
47
that these politeness markers are less frequent in general spoken American English than Can you,
Mrs, or Would you. The politeness markers Could you (16 occurences) and excuse me (8
occurences) occur less than twenty times in COCA, which follows that these politeness markers
are considerably less frequent in general spoken American English. The least frequent politeness
marker is kindly since it occurs only once in COCA. The corpus data have shown that hardly
more frequent politeness markers selected for the present study are Madam (2 occurences) and
pardon me (2 occurences). It is evident from the corpus data that Madam, pardon me, and kindly
are the least frequent politeness markers in general spoken American English.
As the results in Table 3 demonstrate, other politeness markers which occur more than
one hundred times in MICASE are Would you (171 occurences), Professor (140 occurences),
and please (119 occurences). These politeness markers are more frequent than perhaps (96
occurences), Could you (87 occurences), and excuse me (62 times) which occur less than one
hundred times in MICASE and are less frequent in general spoken American English. Like in
general spoken American English, kindly (3 occurences), pardon me (1 occurence), and Madam
(1 occurence) are also the least frequent politeness markers in spoken academic American
English. The corpus data demostrate that hardly more frequent politeness markers in MICASE
are Mr (36 occurences) and Mrs (16 occurences).
To sum up, as can be seen from COCA and MICASE data, the politeness markers are
more or less frequent in general spoken American English and spoken academic American
English. The politeness markers Mr, sort of, and Professor are the most frequent in general
spoken American English, whereas sort of, sorry, and Can you are most frequently used in
general spoken American English. It is evident from corpora data that sort of is especially
frequent politeness marker in both general spoken American English and academic spoken
American English. In contrast, perhaps, pardon me, and kindly are the least frequent politeness
markers in both general spoken American English and academic spoken American English.
3.2 Register distribution of politeness markers
The present section discusses register distribution of the politeness markers. It is important to
study frequency of politeness markers in different registers as it may reveal the context in which
they tend to occur more or less frequently. The register distribution of politeness markers
selected for the analysis has been investigated in both COCA and MICASE.
In order to make a more comprehensive analysis, it has been decided to compare both
written academic and spoken academic registers to figure out which of the politeness markers
48
under investigation are more frequently employed in these two registers; for this reason, the
MICASE data have been also included. As has been already mentioned, because of a large size
of both corpora, the relative frequency of politeness markers (per 1 mln words) in different
registers has been calculated and provided in Table 4.
Table 4. Frequency of politeness markers in different registers in COCA and MICASE
Types of
politeness
markers
Politeness
markers
COCA MICASE
Gen
era
l
Sp
ok
en
Fic
tio
n
Ma
ga
zin
e
New
spa
per
Wri
tten
aca
dem
ic
Sp
ok
en
aca
dem
ic
Indirect
requests
Can you 171 106 41 28 10 251
Would you 190 97 29 22 12 171
please 154 250 66 54 28 16
Could you 85 34 8 5 3 87
Total: 600 487 144 109 53 525
Apologies sorry 151 286 32 29 6 315
excuse me 45 36 3 3 1 62
pardon me 4 4 1 0 0 11
Total: 200 326 36 32 7 377
Respect
markers
Mr 1579 496 118 122 65 36
Mrs 107 2365 54 98 28 16 Professor 117 203 26 19 17 15 Madam 6 11 2 1 1 1
Total: 1 809 3 075 200 240 111 68
Hedges sort of 502 160 87 82 54 1 092
perhaps 216 305 238 183 293 96 kindly 2 15 5 3 3 3
Total: 720 480 330 268 350 1 191
TOTAL: 3 329 4 368 710 649 521 2 168
As can be seen in Table 4, the frequency of politeness markers in different registers considerably
varies. The majority of politeness markers under investigation are considerably more frequent in
fiction and spoken language compared to other registers. As the data in Table 4 demonstrate, the
majority of politeness markers are predominantly used in fiction (4 369 occurences) and spoken
language (3 329 occurences) in general spoken American English. Compared to COCA results,
MICASE data show that the politeness markers are less frequent in spoken academic American
English (2 168 occurences) compared to general spoken American English.
In relation to different categories of politeness markers, as can be seen in Table 4,
indirect requests (Can you, Would you, please, and Could you) are the most frequent in general
spoken discourse (600 occurences), while they are least frequent in written academic language
(53 occurences). Apologies (sorry, excuse me, and pardon me) are predominantly used in spoken
academic discourse (377 occurences), but they are also least frequent in written academic
49
language (7 occurences). Respect markers (Professor, Mr, Mrs, and Madam) are highly frequent
in general spoken discourse (3 075 occurences); however, they are the least frequent in written
academic language (111 occurences). Hedges (sort of, kindly, and perhaps) are highly more
frequent in spoken academic discourse (1 191 occurences) compared to other registers, which
follows that the usage of hedges is a marked feature of spoken academic discourse. The usage of
hedges in newspapers is especially rare (268 occurences).
As the data in Table 4 demonstrate, the majority of politeness markers are
predominantly used in fiction (4 369 occurences) and spoken language (3 329 occurences) in
general spoken American English. The corpus results show that the politenes markers Mr, thank
you, sort of, Can you, Could you, Would you, excuse me, and pardon me are most commonly
used in spoken discourse, while Mrs, perhaps, please, sorry, Professor, Madam, and kindly are
more frequent in fiction in general spoken American English. In relation to other registers, the
usage of politeness markers in magazines (710 occurences), newspapers (649 occurences), and
academic writing (521 occurences) is much less frequent in general spoken American English.
An important tendency has been noticed that respect markers Mr and Mrs are the most frequent
in spoken language and fiction, but are the only politeness markers which are also rather
common in newspapers and magazines.
To sum up, frequency of politeness markers varies across different registers. The
present analysis has shown that the majority of politeness markers are most frequently used in
fiction and spoken language, whereas their occurence in spoken academic discourse is less
frequent. All of the politeness markers are the least frequent in written academic language.
Indirect requests predominate in general spoken American English, whereas respect markers are
the most frequent in fiction. Hedges and apologies are a marked feature of spoken academic
American English since they are considerably more frequent in this register as compared to the
other ones.
3.3 Politeness markers in relation to gender
The present section discusses whether the use of politeness markers varies in relation to gender.
The data has been obtained from Michigan Corpus of Academic Spoken English (MICASE) and
presented in Table 5. The relative frequency (per 1 mln words) has been calculated.
As can be seen in Table 5, the distribution of politeness markers in relation to gender
varies. In total, politeness markers are more frequently used by female (1 214 times) than by
male (1 112 times) speakers in spoken academic discourse. The data in Table 5 demonstrate that
50
the majority of politeness markers are more frequently used by women compared to men. More
specifically, politeness markers Can you, Would you, sorry, please, excuse me, pardon me, sort
of, perhaps, and Professor are more frequent in women’s speech, while Could you, Mr, Mrs, Sir,
and kindly are predominantly used by men in spoken academic discourse. The corpus results
show that a bigger number of politeness markers under investigation more frequently occur in
women’s as opposed to men’s speech.
Table 5. Distribution of politeness markers in relation to gender in MICASE
Types of
politeness
markers
Politeness
marker
Male Female
Raw frequency Relative
frequency Raw frequency
Relative
frequency
Indirect
requests
Can you 196 109 255 142
Would you 151 84 156 87
please 100 61 105 58
Could you 88 49 68 38
Total: 535 303 584 325
Apologies
sorry 219 122 348 193
excuse me 54 30 58 32
pardon me 6 3 14 8
Total: 279 155 420 233
Respect
markers
Professor 102 57 136 76
Mr 36 20 28 16
Mrs 20 11 9 5
Madam 0 0 1 1
Total: 172 96 178 100
Hedges
sort of 903 502 1 062 590
perhaps 97 54 75 42
kindly 3 2 2 1
Total: 1 003 558 1 139 633
TOTAL: 1 888 1 112 2 186 1 214
As can be seen in Table 5, the frequency of politeness markers in women’s and men’s speech
varies in relation to different categories in spoken academic discourse. Indirect requests (Can
you, Could you, Would you, and please) are more frequently used by women (325 occurences)
compared to men (303 occurences). Apologies (sorry, excuse me, and pardon me) are also more
frequently observed in women’s (233 occurences) than men’s (155 occurences) speech.
Similarly, respect markers (Professor, Mr, Mrs, and Madam) prevail in women’s (100
occurences) as opposed to men’s (96 occurences) speech. In the case of hedges (sort of, kindly,
and perhaps), they are more commonly used by women (633 occurences) compared to men (558
occurences).
Some individual similarities and differences what concerns the usage of politeness
markers in relation to gender can be observed in Table 5. In the case of indirect requests, Can
you is the most frequent politeness marker most typically observed in both women’s (142
occurences) and men’s (109 occurences) speech, whereas Could you is the least frequent indirect
51
request used by female (38 occurences) and male (49 occurences) speakers. The usage of
politeness markers please is greatly similar in both women’s (105 occurences) and men’s (100
occurences) speech. The politeness marker Would you is also similarly distributed in women’s
(87 occurences) and men’s (84 occurences) speech.
As can be observed in corpus results in Table 5, what concerns the usage of apologies
in spoken academic discourse, the politeness marker sorry is considerably more frequently used
apology by women (193 occurences) as opposed to men (122 occurences). The politeness marker
pardon me also prevails in women’s (8 occurences) compared to men’s (3 occurences) speech. In
contrast, the politeness marker excuse me is similarly used by both female (32 occurences) and
male (30 occurences) interlocutors.
In the case of respect markers, the politeness markers Professor (76 occurences) and
Madam (1 occurence) are more frequenctly used in women’s speech compared to men in spoken
academic discourse. The politeness marker Madam is not observed in men’s speech at all. In
contrast, the politeness markers Mr (36 occurences) and Mrs (20 occurences) are more typically
used by men compared to women.
As can be seen in Table 5, the most frequent hedge sort of is similarly distributed in
both women’s (1 062 occurences) and men’s (903 occurences) speech; however, it can be
observed that it is slightly more frequently used by female than men interlocutors. In contrast,
the politeness marker perhaps is more frequently observed in men’s (54 occurences) compared
to women’s (42 occurences) speech. The usage of politeness marker kindly is extremely rare in
both men’s (2 occurences) and women’s speech (1 occurence).
To sum up, some similarities and differences in the usage of politeness markers in
relation to gender in spoken academic discourse have been observed. On the one hand, it is not
suprising that the majority of politeness markers are more frequently used in women’s compared
to men’s speech, hence women tend to use politeness markers more commonly than men in
spoken academic discourse. What concerns different categories of politeness markers, it is
important to mention that indirect requests, respect markers, and hedges predominate in the
speech of female interlocutors, while apologies are more typically used by male interlocutors.
3.4 Politeness markers in relation to academic division
This section aims at investigating the usage of politeness markers in different academic
disciplines. As can be seen in Table 6, four academic disciplines (i.e. biological and health
sciences; humanities and arts; physical sciences and engineering; and social sciences and
52
education) have been chosen for the present investigation to find out whether the usage of
politeness markers depends on the academic discipline or not. The distribution of politeness
markers in relation to academic disciplines has been provided in Table 4 after calculating their
raw and relative frequencies (per 1 mln words).
As can be seen in Table 6, the numbers are really suggestive. The corpus data
demonstrate that interlocutors in the so-called soft disciplines like humanities and arts (730
occurences), or social sciences and education (640 occurences) use politeness markers more
frequently than those in the hard sciences including biological and health sciences (358
occurences), or physical sciences and engineering (346 occurences).
Table 6. Distribution of politeness markers in relation to academic discipline in MICASE
Types of
politeness
markers
Politeness
markers
Biological;
health sciences
Humanities;
arts
Physical
sciences;
Engineering
Social
sciences;
education
Ra
w
freq
uen
cy
Rel
ati
ve
freq
uen
cy
Ra
w
freq
uen
cy
Rel
ati
ve
freq
uen
cy
Ra
w
freq
uen
cy
Rel
ati
ve
freq
uen
cy
Ra
w
freq
uen
cy
Rel
ati
ve
freq
uen
cy
Indirect
requests
Can you 56 31 124 69 129 72 96 53
Would you 37 21 91 51 79 44 76 42
please 38 21 55 31 36 20 39 22
Could you 34 19 17 9 31 17 44 24
Total: 165 92 287 160 275 153 255 141
Apologies
sorry 110 61 146 81 98 54 128 71
excuse me 17 9 20 11 31 17 16 9
pardon me 2 1 8 4 3 2 6 3
Total: 129 71 174 96 132 73 150 83
Respect
markers
Professor 67 37 88 49 130 72 74 45
Mr 2 1 15 8 19 11 7 4
Mrs 0 0 12 7 0 0 16 9
Madam 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1
Total: 69 48 115 64 149 83 98 59
Hedges
sort of 312 173 743 413 163 91 587 326
perhaps 34 19 76 42 28 16 27 15
kindly 1 1 2 1 0 0 0 0
Total: 347 193 821 456 191 107 614 341
TOTAL: 583 358 1314 730 622 346 1049 644
As can be observed in Table 6, the usage of politeness markers in relation to different categories
varies in spoken academic discourse. More specifically, indirect requests (Can you, Could you,
Would you, and please) are rather frequent in humanities and arts (160 occurences), physical
53
sciences and engineering (153 occurences), and social sciencies and education (141 occurences).
As has been observed in Table 6, frequency of indirect requests in biological and health sciences
(92 occurences) is much lower in contrast to other academic disciplines. As the corpus results
demonstrate, apologies (sorry, excuse me, and pardon me) predominate in humanities and arts
(96 occurences) and social sciences and education (83 occcurences). In contrast, apologies are
less frequent in physical sciences and engineering (73 occurences) and biological and health
sciences (71 occurences).
As can be seen in Table 6, respect markers (Professor, Mr, Mrs, and Madam) are
predominantly used in physical sciences and engineering (83 occurences); however, they are
much less frequent compared to other academic disciplines including humanities (64 ocurences),
social sciences and education (59 occurences), and biological and health sciences (48
occurences). What concerns hedges (sort of, perhaps, and kindly), these politeness markers are
the most frequent in humanities and arts (456 occurences) and social sciences and education (341
occurences), whereas hedges are much less frequent in other academic disciplines including
biological and health sciences (193 occurences) and physical sciences and engineering (107
occurences).
As can be seen in Table 6, some politeness markers under investigation, which most
typically occur in humanities and arts, are also rather frequent in other academic disciplines
including social and sciences and education, and physical sciences and engineering. For instance,
the politeness marker sorry is typically found in humanities and arts (81 occurences), but is also
frequent in social sciences and education (71 occurences) and biological and health sciences (61
occurences). Similarly, the politeness marker please, which most commonly occurs in
humanities and arts (31 occurences), is also frequent in social sciences and education (22
occurences) and biological and health sciences (21 occurences). Would you is one more
politeness marker which prevails in humanities and arts (51 occurences), and is also rather
common in other academic disciplines such as physical sciences and engineering (44 times) and
social sciences and education (42 occurences).
It is also important to note that the politeness marker Madam is used in social sciences
and education (1 occurrence), whereas is not observed in other academic disciplines at all. The
politeness markers Can you (72 occurences), excuse me (17 occurences), and Mr (11 occurences)
are the only politeness markers which are most typically used in physical sciences and
engineering.
To sum up, the majority of politeness markers are predominantly used in humanities
and arts in spoken academic discourse. Politeness markers are also quite frequent in social
54
sciences and education; however, they are much less frequent in physical sciences and
engineering, and biological and health sciences. Indirect requests are predominantly observed in
humanities and arts, and social sciences and education. Similarly to indirect requests, apologies
also predominate in the same academic disciplines. Respect markers are most commonly used in
humanities and arts, while they are especially rare in biological and health sciences. Hedges are
the most frequent in humanities and arts, whereas the usage of hedges in other academic
disciplines is much less frequent.
3.5 Politeness markers in relation to academic role
In spoken academic discourse, a discourse with unequal participant roles, it is especially
important to consider frequency of politeness markers in the speech of students and teachers,
therefore the present section discusses the usage of politeness markers in relation to academic
roles.
Table 7 demonstrates frequency of politeness markers in relation to different speaker
roles including teachers, students, and miscellaneous participants whose social role is not known.
The relative frequency pf politeness markers has been calculated and provided in Table 7.
Table 7. Distribution of politeness markers in relation to academic role in MICASE
Types of
politeness
markers
Politeness
markers
Teachers Students Other
Ra
w
freq
uen
cy
Rel
ati
ve
freq
uen
cy
Ra
w
freq
uen
cy
Rel
ati
ve
Fre
qu
ency
Ra
w
freq
uen
cy
Rel
ati
ve
freq
uen
cy
Indirect
requests
Can you 185 103 214 119 52 29
Would you 149 83 140 78 19 10
please 110 61 75 42 30 17
Could you 74 41 63 35 20 11
Total: 518 288 492 274 121 67
Apologies sorry 211 117 293 163 63 35
excuse me 47 26 49 28 16 9
pardon me 12 7 3 2 5 3
Total: 270 150 345 193 84 47
Respect
markers
Professor 112 63 99 55 27 50
Mr 35 19 26 15 3 2
Mrs 18 10 11 6 0 0
Madam 0 0 1 1 0 0
Total: 165 92 136 78 30 52
Hedges sort of 987 548 794 441 184 102
perhaps 112 62 52 29 8 4
kindly 2 1 3 2 1 1
Total: 1 101 611 848 471 193 107
TOTAL: 2 054 1 141 1 821 1 015 428 273
55
As can be seen in Table 7, most politeness markers under investigation are used to a greater
extent by teachers than students spoken academic discourse. Table 7 demonstrates that the total
frequency of politeness markers in the teachers’ speech amounts to 1 141 occurences, whereas in
the students’ speech they occur 1 015 times. As can be observed in Table 7, the use of politeness
markers in the speech of other participants whose social role is not known is especially low as
they occur only 273 times in academic spoken discourse.
As can be observed in Table 7, the usage of politeness markers differs in relation to
categories they belong to. For example, most of the indirect requests prevail in teachers’ (288
occurences) compared to students’ (274 occurences) speech. More specifically, the politeness
markers Would you (83 occurences), please (61 occurences), and Could you (41 occurences) are
more frequent in teachers’ speech, whereas Can you (119 occurences) is more typically used by
students. It follows that teachers tend to express a higher degree of politeness when requesting.
Such a difference can be explained by the colloquial use of Can you, which teachers tend to
avoid since they tend to maintain more formal style during lectures. Teachers tend to exercise
power in institutional contexts, so they are likely to use indirect speech to achieve their aims in
academic speech events. The usage of overt commands in teachers’ speech could appear to
students as the cases of patronizing and cause resentment. Hence teachers tend to use indirect
statements in their speech to avoid criticism, make categorical utterances more polite, and
maintain social distance with students.
According to the corpus data in Table 7, apologies under investigation are more
frequent in students’ (193 occurences) in comparison to teachers’ (150 occurences) speech. The
politeness markers sorry (163 occurences) and excuse me (28 occurences) are more typically
used in students’ speech, whereas pardon me (7 occurences), which is commonly used to politely
ask someone to repeat something, is more frequent politeness marker in teachers’ as opposed to
student’s speech. It also has to be mentioned that the politeness marker sorry is the most frequent
linguistic form to express apology in both teachers’ and students’ speech, hence they tend to
employ the most neutral form to express apology in academic speech events. In contrast, excuse
me and pardon me, which are typically considered to be more polite linguistic forms to express
apology than sorry, are significantly less frequent in spoken academic discourse.
Most of the respect markers are predominantly observed in teachers’ (92 occurences) as
opposed to students’ (78 occurences) speech. Respect markers Professor (63 occurences), Mr (19
occurences), and Mrs (10 occurences) are the most frequent in teachers’ speech, whereas Madam
(1 occurrence) is more often used by students; however, as can be seen in corpus results, its
usage in spoken academic discourse is especially rare. As has been already mentioned, the
56
respect marker Professor is more frequent in teachers’ speech, but it is also rather frequently
used by students (55 occurences). As has been observed in corpus data, this respect marker is the
most frequent linguistic form used to address a teacher in spoken academic discourse. It is also
important to note that Professor is typically followed by the teacher’s surname, thus students
tend to maintain a social distance between them and teachers when addressing a teacher in
American academic speech events.
As can be seen in Table 7, hedges are more frequent in teachers (611 occurences) in
contrast to students’ (471 occurences) speech. The politeness markers sort of (548 occurences)
and perhaps (62 occurences) prevail in teachers’ speech compared to kindly which is more
commonly used by students’ (2 occurences). As has been observed in corpus examples,
uncertainty is one of the marked features of spoken academic discourse, and it is often achieved
by using hedging devices. In this way, even radical utterances are more polite. Hedges are also
often employed by teachers in the cases of criticism when they seek to soften the impact of their
criticism directed towards students.
To summarize, the distribution of politeness markers in teachers’ and students’ speech
is quite different in spoken academic American English. Teachers tend to use politeness markers
more frequently as opposed to students. Indirect requests, respect markers, and hedges are
predominantly used by teachers in contrast to apologies which are most typically observed in
students’ speech. It has been observed that teachers use politeness markers in their speech to
maintain social distance and formal style in academic speech events.
3.6 Politeness markers in relation to the interactivity rating
The present section discusses how the usage of politeness markers depends on the interactivity
rating. As can be observed in Table 8, in the present study the interactivity rating has been
distinguished into highly interactive, highly monological, mostly interactive, and mostly
monological.
It can be seen in Table 8, as MICASE data demonstrate, politeness markers amount to
848 occurences in highly interactive speech as compared to 123 occurences in highly
monological speech. In contrast, the politeness markers are found 592 times in mostly interactive
compared to 481 times in mostly monological speech. It is evident from corpus data that the
majority of politeness markers typically occur in highly interactive speech, which suggests that
the interlocutors tend to express politeness more frequently to each other in dialogues as
compared to monologues in spoken academic discourse.
57
Table 8. Distribution of politeness markers in relation to interactivity rating in MICASE
Types of
politeness
markers
Politeness
markers
Interactivity rating
Highly
interactive
Highly
monological
Mostly
interactive
Mostly
monological
Ra
w
freq
uen
cy
Rel
ati
ve
freq
uen
cy
Ra
w
freq
uen
cy
Rel
ati
ve
freq
uen
cy
Ra
w
freq
uen
cy
Rel
ati
ve
freq
uen
cy
Ra
w
freq
uen
cy
Rel
ati
ve
freq
uen
cy
Indirect
requests
Can you 221 123 20 11 104 58 52 29
Would you 120 67 13 7 92 51 39 22 please 80 44 14 8 50 28 39 22 Could you 67 37 10 6 54 30 12 7
Total: 488 271 57 32 300 167 142 80
Apologies sorry 268 149 14 8 141 78 76 42
excuse me 44 24 3 2 31 17 27 15 pardon me 6 3 - - 7 4 - -
Total: 318 176 17 10 179 99 103 57
Respect
markers
professor 52 29 15 9 39 22 82 46
Mr 10 6 1 1 21 12 18 10
Mrs - - 3 2 13 7 13 7
Madam 1 1 - - - - - -
Total: 63 36 4 12 73 41 113 63
Hedges sort of 639 355 106 59 479 266 461 256
perhaps 17 9 22 12 44 24 55 31 kindly 1 1 - - 3 2 1 1
Total: 657 365 128 71 526 292 517 288
TOTAL: 1526 848 221 123 1078 592 875 481
With respect to different categories of politeness markers, their usage varies in relation to the
interactivity rating, as can be seen in Table 8. Indirect requests are typically used in highly
interactive (271 occurences) and mostly interactive (167 occurences) speech, whereas the usage
of indirect requests in mostly monological (80 occurences) and highly monological (57
occurences) speech is much less frequent. The usage of apologies in relation to the interactivity
rating is greatly similar as compared to indirect requests. Apologies are also the most frequent in
higly interactive (176 occurences) and mostly interactive (99 occurences) speech, but are
considerably less frequent in mostly monological (57 occurences) and highly monological (10
occurences) speech. In contrast, respect markers prevail in mostly monological (63 occurences)
speech, while hedges are similarly distributed in highly interactive (365 occurences), mostly
interactive (292 occurences) and mostly monological (288 occurences) speech.
The results have shown that the politeness markers prevail in highly and mostly
interactive speech, hence they typically occur in dialogues in spoken academic discourse.
Indirect requests, apologies, and hedges are the most frequent in highly and mostly interactive
speech as opposed to respect markers which are predominantly used in monologues.
58
4 CONCLUSIONS
This study aimed at investigating politeness markers with respect to spoken academic American
English. First, it focused on disclosing how and to what extent politeness markers are used in
educational settings. Second, politeness markers occuring in the domain of academic events were
analyzed in comparison to the corpus of general spoken American English. The present
investigation was mainly based on the data in Michigan Corpus of Academic Spoken English
(MICASE) and Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA). The present investigation
of politeness markers has revealed several important tendencies of the usage of politeness
markers in spoken academic discourse.
The present analysis has revealed that politeness markers selected for the analysis can
be categorized into distinctive categories (i.e. indirect requests, apologies, respect markers, and
hedges) according to the functions they perform in spoken discourse. The results have
demonstrated that politeness markers perform multiple functions in academic settings. Indirect
requests are typically used in spoken academic discourse to ask for permission, ability, or
commitment. Apologies occur in speech when interlocutors seek to avoid potential conflicts, ask
for forgiveness, or express apology for a mistake. Respect markers are commonly used in
interaction to show respect and encode social status, whereas hedges make statements less
categorical and enable interlocutors to be less direct.
With regard to the general frequency of politeness markers, some politeness markers
under investigation are more frequent than others in spoken academic American English. As the
corpus data have revealed, sort of is the most frequent politeness marker in academic spoken
discourse, which is typically used when interlocutors want to mention or describe something in a
way that is not definite or exact. In this way, interlocutors avoid or soften criticism, and save face
of another participant of interaction. Other politeness markers often used in spoken academic
discourse are sorry, Can you, Would you, professor, and please. In contrast, the politeness
markers kindly and Madam in spoken academic discourse are especially rare. What concerns
general spoken American English, Mr is the most frequent politeness marker. Other politeness
markers which are also frequent in general spoken American English are sort of, Can you, Mrs,
and Would you, whereas pardon me and kindly are not frequent in general spoken American
English at all.
What concerns register distribution of politeness markers, the present study has
revealed that they vary across different registers. The majority of politeness markers are most
frequently used in fiction and spoken language, but are less frequent in spoken academic
59
discourse. All of the politeness markers under investigation are the least frequent in written
academic language. With respect to categories of politeness markers, indirect requests
predominate in general spoken American English, whereas respect markers are the most frequent
in fiction. The use of hedges and apologies is a marked feature of spoken academic American
English since are considerably more frequent in this register as compared to the other ones.
As for the distribution of politeness markers between men and women, the present
investigation has shown that the majority of politeness markers commonly occur in women’s
speech, which follows that they tend to express a higher degree of politeness when
communicating much more frequently compared to men. What concerns categories of politeness
markers, it is important to mention that indirect requests, respect markers, and hedges
predominate in the speech of female interlocutors, while apologies are more typically used by
male interlocutors. The politeness markers Can you, Would you, sorry, please, excuse me,
pardon me, sort of, perhaps, and Professor are more frequent in women’s speech, while Could
you, Mr, Mrs, Sir, and kindly are more frequently used by men in spoken academic American
English.
MICASE data have shown that the use of politeness markers in different academic
disciplines varies. Most of politeness markers are commonly used in humanities and arts, which
suggests that these expressions are the most typical in the academic disciplines such as
languages, literature, history, religion, or philosophy. Indirect requests are predominantly
observed in humanities and arts, as well as social sciences and education. Similarly, apologies
also predominate in the same academic disciplines. Respect markers are most commonly used in
humanities and arts while they are especially rarely used in biological and health sciences.
Finally, hedges are the most frequent in humanities and arts, whereas the usage of hedges is
much less infrequent in other academic disciplines.
With respect to speaker roles, politeness markers are more frequently used in teachers’
compared to students’ speech. Both teachers and students rely on politeness markers when they
want to soften critical utterances, avoid criticism, save face, and be more polite. In addition,
teachers tend to employ politeness markers in their speech to maintain social distance and formal
style in academic speech events. Indirect requests, respect markers, and hedges are
predominantly used by teachers in contrast to apologies which are most typically observed in
students’ speech.
As concerns the interactivity rating of politeness markers, it has been investigated
whether the usage of politeness markers is influenced by interactivity rating or not. Not
surprisingly, it has been evident from the corpus data that the majority of politeness markers
60
typically occur in highly and mostly interactive speech, which suggests that interlocutors tend to
express politeness more frequently in dialogues compared to monologues in spoken academic
American English. Indirect requests, apologies, and hedges are the most frequent in highly and
mostly interactive speech as opposed to respect markers which are predominantly used in
monologues.
With respect to the results of the present study, several areas for future research can be
proposed. First of all, since potential area for further research can be the differences between the
use of politeness markers in spoken academic and written academic American English. Although
it is usually considered that the usage of politeness markers is a marked feature of spoken
language, written language cannot be expected to be devoid of politeness markers, but the means
of expressing politeness in written language can be different.
Cross-cultural analysis of politeness markers would be also useful to highlight the
important aspects of politeness markers to be taken into account in language teaching.
Awareness of differences in polite language use in different languages could be also helpful in
intercultural communication since what is considered to be polite in one culture and language,
can be unacceptable in another one.
To conclude, politeness markers could be studied in relation to other types of politeness
markers, usage peculiarities across more academic disciplines, usage variation across different
discourse types and speech modes, as well as cross-varietal and cross-linguistc differences in
spoken academic discourse.
61
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