Alle Publikationen
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2016
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(2016): Being Politically Impolite. Extending Politeness Theory to Adversarial Political Discourse. In: Discourse & Society 12 (4), S. 451-472. DOI: 10.1177/0957926501012004003
Abstract: This article attempts to extend politeness theory beyond informal situations to adversarial political discourse, using Prime Minister's Question Time in the British Parliament as data. Viewing the House of Commons as a 'community of practice' (Lave and Wenger, 1991) provides a way of exploring concepts of politeness and impoliteness against a set of member expectations. The article argues three main propositions: (1) that much of the discourse of Prime Minister's Question Time is composed of intentional and explicitly face-threatening (or face-enhancing) acts and that these can be analysed in terms of both propositional and interactional levels: (2) that negative politeness features co-exist with the performance of intentional threats to the hearer's positive face and that these can only be understood and interpreted in relationship to Parliament as an Institution and the wider political context; and (3) that systematic impoliteness is not only sanctioned but rewarded in accordance with the expectations of Members of the House by an adversarial and confrontational political process.
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(2016): Manifestation of Malay Politeness in Asking and Giving Advice. Manifestasi Kesantunan Melayu dalam Ujaran Memberi dan Meminta Nasihat. In: GEMA Online® Journal of Language Studies 16 (2), S. 73-94. DOI: 10.17576/gema-2016-1602-05
Abstract: The acts of asking and giving advice are linguistically complex and require observations of politeness norms that exist across cultures. Lack of understanding on this aspect of communication often leads to conflicts or resistance to the advice given. This can be especially so in motivational radio phone-in shows where the politeness strategies of the callers can be numerous. Hence, an analysis was done to identify the patterns of politeness employed in a talk show entitled "Celik Mata Reset Minda Orang Yang Tenang" aired on Radio IKIMfm. Brown and Levinson's (1987) Politeness Model, and Grice's (1975) Maxims of Cooperative Principles were combined to form a model called "Model Pola Kombinasi Strategi dan Maksim" (MPKSM) to analyse the 33 dialogues in the body structure of a conversational context. MPKSM forms four patterns of combined strategies which are Patterns A, B, C and D with the main patterns of P2 and P3. P2 consists of both positive and negative politeness strategies while P3 consists of off-record strategies. Both P2 and P3 are related to the maxims of Cooperative Principles. The speech acts of asking and giving advice from those who took part in the body structure of the radio talk show were analysed using five methods which are downloading of texts, text analysis, transcription, labelling and coding as well as through quantitative approach. The findings indicate that the participants in the talk show have applied the MPKSM in their utterances by minimizing Face Threatening Acts (FTA) while planning the acts to avoid conflicts, with pattern B being dominantly used. The study also shows that time constraint and the presence of overhearer audience were significant factors in influencing the selection of politeness strategies among participants.
2011
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(2011): Understanding Historical (Im)Politeness. Nineteenth-century English politeness Negative politeness, conventional indirect requests and the rise of the individual self. In: Journal of Historical Pragmatics 12 (1-2), S. 49-81. DOI: 10.1075/jhp.12.1-2.03cul
Abstract: In this paper we argue that the kind of individualistic ethos Brown and Levinson's (1987) politeness model is accused of and in particular its notion of (non-imposition) negative face is not simply a reflection of British culture, but a reflection of British culture at a specific point in time. That point is the nineteenth century. Before then, the notion of an individual self separate from society and with its own hidden desires was not fully established. We argue that sociocultural developments, such as secularisation, the rise of Protestantism, social and geographical mobility, and the rise of individualism, created conditions in which the self became part of a new ideology where it was viewed as a property of the individual, and was associated with positive values such as self-help, self-control and self-respect. We also trace the history of conventional indirect requests, specifically can/could you X structures, the most frequent request structures used in British English today and, moreover, emblematic of British negative politeness. We show how such ability-oriented structures developed in the nineteenth century, and propose a tentative explanation as to why ability in particular was their focus.
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(2011): Aufforderung im Französischen. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte sprachlicher Höflichkeit. Berlin u.a.: De Gruyter (Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für romanische Philologie). Online verfügbar unter http://www.reference-global.com/isbn/978-3-11-023558-6
Abstract: Historische Aufforderungshandlungen sind gute Quellen für die Erforschung der Höflichkeitsstrategien früherer Epochen. Die Arbeit untersucht an Hand eines Korpus fiktionaler und non-fiktionaler französischer Texte zunächst die Häufigkeit verschiedener Formulierungstypen für unterschiedliche Arten von Aufforderungen, z.B. Bitten, Befehlen, Vor- und Ratschlägen. Neben den unmittelbaren Versprachlichungsstrategien (z.B. der direkten Aufforderung im Imperativ ferme la porte, der konventionell-indirekten Umschreibung pourrais-tu fermer la porte und anderen) wird auch deren Einbettung in das sprachliche Umfeld berücksichtigt, z.B. die Verwendung von Adverbien wie un peu oder vite sowie die Tatsache, dass Aufforderungen oft durch andere Sprechakte, wie etwa Entschuldigungen, Schmeicheleien, aber auch Drohungen usw., unterstützt werden. Aus den Veränderungen der Frequenzverhältnisse im Lauf der Sprachgeschichte ergeben sich Hinweise auf ein Vorherrschen der positive politeness (nach Brown/Levinson 1987) im Mittelalter und eine graduelle Verdrängung durch verschiedene Mittel der negative politeness seit Beginn der frühen Neuzeit. Dieses Phänomen kann durch allgemeine geistesgeschichtliche Entwicklungen erklärt werden.
1999
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(1999): Politeness phenomena in England and Greece. A cross-cultural perspective. Oxford: Oxford University Press (Oxford linguistics)
Abstract: Politeness is crucial to successful communication and is consequently of great interest to those who study language in its social context. This book presents the first application of Brown and Levinson's ground-breaking theoretical work in a full-length comparative case study. Maria Sifianou draws her data from a variety of sources, including literature (particularly drama) questionnaires, and personal observation. She attempts to discover the principles underlying social interaction in both intracultural and intercultural contexts, and discusses the extent to which the concept of politeness is common to different cultures. She argues that politeness is conceptualized differently and thus manifested differently in the two societies under study: Greeks tend to use more 'positive' politeness devices than the English, who prefer more 'negative' devices. Positive politeness is more closely related to friendliness, negative politeness to formality. Dr Sifianou's analysis illustrates and supports the general claim that, despite popular stereotypes, there can be no objective verification for the view that one nation is more polite than another.
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