poliTE-Literatur-Datenbank

Wijayanto, Agus; Prasetyarini, Aryati; Hikmat, Mauly Halwat (2017): Impoliteness in EFL. Foreign Language Learners’ Complaining Behaviors Across Social Distance and Status Levels. In: SAGE Open 7 (3). DOI: 10.1177/2158244017732816

Abstract: A growing body of literature has investigated impoliteness in many domains. Nevertheless, little research has examined impoliteness done by foreign language learners. Impoliteness used in interlanguage complaints by English as a foreign language learners was observed. The effects of interlocutors' different status levels and social distance on the use of impoliteness were analyzed. Empirical data were elicited by means of oral discourse completion tasks from 50 Indonesian English as a foreign language learners in Central Java, Indonesia. The overall direction of the findings showed trends that status levels and social distance between interlocutors prompted different frequencies and strategies of impoliteness. The frequent use of impolite complaints was instigated by a number of factors such as the learners' understanding about the speech act in question, their perceptions on the social distance and status levels of interlocutors, and the nature of the research instrument.

Keywords: Favoriten, Impolite Talk, (Individueller) Sprachstil, Muttersprachler vs. Zweitsprachler, Soziale Distanz, Soziale Hierarchie, Sprachgebrauch, time

Mugford, Gerrard (2013): Foreign-language users confronting anti-normative politeness in a Mexican university. In: Intercultural Pragmatics 10 (1), S. 101-130. DOI: 10.1515/ip-2013-0004

Abstract: When foreign-language learners abandon the relative safety of the classroom and confront actual language use, they face decisions regarding how they wish to participate in a given target-language group. They may find that different interactional patterns and practices reflect a community's norms and how its members come across: Interactants may employ, for instance, seemingly impolite words and expressions in inoffensive ways. Although this phenomenon has been categorized as mock impoliteness, I will adopt the term anti-normative politeness (adapted from Zimmerman 2003) since interactants are ultimately engaging in polite rather than impolite practices. The foreign-language user's decision as to whether to engage in such practices will depend to a large extent on pragmalinguistic and sociopragmatic understandings and how she wants to come across - and is allowed to come across in the target language. In this paper, I examine how French and German exchange students at a Mexican university approached and confronted the use of the normally insulting word guey, which seems to have become more and more prevalent in Mexican society. Findings indicate that foreign-language learners of Spanish understand the friendly intention underscoring the use of anti-normative politeness but fail to fully appreciate "positive politeness" (Brown and Levinson 1987) such a key feature of Mexican interpersonal language use.

Keywords: Anti-Normative Politeness, Beleidigungen, (Individueller) Sprachstil, Mock Politeness, Muttersprachler vs. Zweitsprachler, Sprachgebrauch, Swearwords, time, Verwendung von grober Sprache/incivility, Wortbedeutung

Jay, Timothy; Janschewitz, Kristin (2008): The pragmatics of swearing. In: Journal of Politeness Research. Language, Behaviour, Culture 4 (2). DOI: 10.1515/JPLR.2008.013

Abstract: The main purpose of swearing is to express emotions, especially anger and frustration. Swear words are well suited to express emotion as their primary meanings are connotative. The emotional impact of swearing depends on ones experience with a culture and its language conventions. A cognitive psychological framework is used to account for swearing in a variety of contexts and provide a link to impoliteness research. In support of this framework, native and non-native English-speaking college students rated the offensiveness and likelihood of hypothetical scenarios involving taboo words. The ratings demonstrated that appropriateness of swearing is highly contextually variable, dependent on speaker-listener relationship, social-physical context, and particular word used. Additionally, offensiveness ratings were shown to depend on gender (for native speakers) and English experience (for non-native speakers). Collectively these data support the idea that it takes time for speakers to learn where, when, and with whom swearing is appropriate.

Keywords: Bekanntheitsgrad, Beleidigungen/swearwords etc., Contextual variability of swearing appropriateness, Favoriten, Genderabhängigkeit, (Individueller) Sprachstil, Konventionen, Kultur, Muttersprachler vs. Zweitsprachler, Relevenz von persönlichem Bekanntheitsgrad beim Benutzen von Schimpfwörtern, Situationsbedingter Kontext, Sprachgebrauch, time, Verwendung von grober Sprache/incivility