1

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY – HANOI
COLLEGE OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES
POST-GRADUATE DEPARTMENT

PHAN THỊ NGỌC BÍCH

POLITENESS STRATEGIES IN THE CONVERSATIONS IN THE LISTENING SECTIONS OF
THE COURSEBOOK
“INNOVATIONS PRE-INTERMEDIATE” CÁC CHIẾN LƯỢC LỊCH SỰ ĐƯỢC SỬ DỤNG TRONG CÁC ĐOẠN HỘI THOẠI Ở PHẦN NGHE
CỦA GIÁO TRÌNH
“INNOVATIONS - PRE-INTERMEDIATE”

M.A. Minor Thesis

Field: English Linguistics
Code: 60.22.15
HÀ NỘI – 2013
2

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY – HANOI
COLLEGE OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES
POST-GRADUATE DEPARTMENT


Moreover, I would like to express my gratitude to my family and my friends for
both their encouragement and supports during the time undertook my study. Without
them my thesis would not be able to complete.
4

ABSTRACT
This study examines 55 conversations in listening sections of the book
―Innovations – Pre-Intermediate‖ – a course book of natural English to indicate the ways
speakers apply politeness strategies in everyday conversations. The length of
conversations ranges from 18 seconds to 2 minutes 40 seconds and all of them deal with
familiar topics such as everyday problems, studying, fixing objects, buying and selling
things in the shop, life style, job and money. The theory of politeness has been reviewed
by many scholars Brown & Levinson (1987), Kasper (1994), Fraser (1990), Eelen (2001),
Watts (2003), and House and Kasper (1981). This study mainly focuses on the theory of
Brown and Levinson‟s (1987) as theoretical background to investigate positive and
negative politeness strategies used by speakers in the conversations of the book. Majority
of the tactics found to be utilized in this book belong to positive politeness strategy while
the most frequently used tactic is that of negative politeness strategy.
5

TABLE OF CONTENT
Acknowledgment
Abstract
List of tables
List of abbreviations
INTRODUCTION ………………………………………………………
1. Rationale…………………………………………………………

6

1.1.4.3. Positive politeness strategy ……………………….
1.1.4.4. Negative politeness strategy ………………………
1.2. Conversation ……………………………………………………….
CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY ……………………………………
2.1 . Data collection …………………………………………………….
2.2 Participants ………………………………………………………….
2.3 . Research method …………………………………………………
2.4 . Research procedure ………………………………………………
CHAPTER 3: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION ………………………
3.1. Positive politeness strategies ………………………………………
3.2. Negative politeness strategies …………………………………….
CONCLUSION………………………………………………………….
1. Summary……………………………………………………….
2. Implications…………………………………………………….
3. Limitations …………………………………………………
REFERENCE …………………………………………………………….
APPENDIX ……………………………………………………………
15
16
18
18
18
19
19
21
22
32
36

languages all over the world, English is considered the most widely used language
because it is becoming the common language on the Internet and in the world. English
not only is the effective means of communication but also shows its progressive effects in
many aspects of life. English, for many people, is especially useful because it can
broaden their employment opportunities, since it is used so commonly and widely in
business. Employers of multilateral institutions and agencies recruit employees with
professional skills also expect the candidates to have good English-speaking skills. In
today‟s world, English serves as a medium for communication for not only people in
English speaking country but also learners of English as second and foreign language. As
a result, there is an increasing demand of studying English in many countries all over the
world including Vietnam.
In the past ten years, English has developed with an unprecedented speed in Vietnam.
Though not yet fully documented, around 90% of foreign language learners have been
studying English. Various language centers, both public and private, have been
established with different courses, programs and types of training to serve the different
learning needs of different types of learners.
In daily life, people communicate to each other using language and through
conversations. In order to avoid embarrassing other people or making people feel
uncomfortable, it is advisable for participants in the conversations to be aware of
politeness strategies. The development of politeness strategies is mainly for the purpose
of saving hearers‟ face (Brown, P. & Levinson, S. C., 1978). People use politeness when
11

they try to minimize the potential threat in the interaction and to avoid making other
people feel embarrassing or uncomfortable.
Moreover, it is writer‟s personal interest toward the book ―Innovations – Pre-
intermediate‖, an interesting book in teaching natural English. The language used in this
book is useful for improving communicative skills. The writer of this study strongly
believe that there would be a wide range of politeness strategies utilized in conversations
in the book ―Innovations – Pre-intermediate‖ to investigate.

scope of the study.
4. Significant of the study
In terms of theory, this study reviews a theoretical background on politeness strategies
used in conversations as well as shows the readers how politeness strategies utilized in
their daily life even when they are unaware of them.
The author also has the ambition of supplying one of the references for other studies on
politeness strategies in different kinds of work such as films, stories, novels or even
research on linguistics.
The findings of this study are expected to be of value to teachers of English in teaching
communicative English as well as linguistics aspects.
5. Design of the study
This study is divided into three main parts:
13

Part 1: Introduction. In this part, the rationale, aims of the study, scope of the study,
significant of the study, design of the study are introduced briefly so that reader can have
an overall view of what is going to be presented in the paper.
Part 2: Development consists of three chapters:
Chapter 1: Theoretical background
This chapter deals with key issues related to the paper and take them as the foundation
theory for this paper. By exploring books and research, the “Face theories‖ is mentioned
through the terms “Face‖, ―Face threatening acts‖ and ―politeness strategies‖. The
chapter also gives an overview of ―Conversation‖ that is going to be addressed in the
finding of this thesis.
Chapter 2: Methodology
In the methodology, readers are provided with detail of data collection, participants,
research method, procedure employed in the paper.
Chapter 3: Findings and discussion
In this chapter, all conversations in the listening sections are collected before classified
and analyzed the frequency of occurrence of positive and negative politeness strategies

sentimentally invested and that is possible to lose, maintain, or enhance, and always
15

contribute to interaction. Generally, the cooperation that people cooperate in order to
maintain face in interaction is based on the mutual sensitivity of face.
In human interaction, Brown, P. & Levinson, S. C. (1987) consider the two following
principles are most important:
- Negative face, which is the ―avoidance of imposition‖ (1987: 61) on the
hearer, can be said to be the desire of not being obstructed by others.
- Positive face, which is “the desire to gain approval of other person‖
(1987:61), can be characterized as the want of expressing personal identity on
particular occasion.
Positive face relates to the image we create and we want other people to consider, respect
and admire. While positive face appears to be similar to our character transported through
language, negative face reveals what is commonly related to politeness.
Either or both these face aspects can be threatened by certain inherently face threatening
acts, which are defined both in terms of whose face. Speaker or hearer‟s is at stake and
which face want is threatened.
The concept of ―face‖ is assumed universal by many researchers. Not only being
considered to have global feature, positive and negative face also gain the cultural feature
in any nations (Brown, P. & Levinson, S. C.,1987). Arndt, H. and Janney,W.R. (1985:
293) also add to the favor of the universality of positive and negative face by stating that
―the desire to maintain face, and the fear of losing it are interpersonal universals
transcending all sociocultural, ethnic, sexual, educational, economic, geographical and
historical boundaries.‖
1.1.2. Face threatening acts
Another dimension mentioned by Brown, P. & Levinson, S. C. (1987) is the fact that the
face needs of the speaker, addresses or both may be threatened by speech acts. During an
16


a response to the hearer‟s violation of social etiquette; or the commission of the speaker
to something he does not desire to do.
1.1. 3. Politeness
The term ―polite‖ in English dates back to the fifteenth century (―polished‖) Kasper, G.
(1990). Therefore, politeness is closely related to the behavior of the upper classes and
the expressions in polite society. In the more modern definition, The Concise Oxford
Dictionary (Stevenson, A. & Waite, M., 2011) defined “polite” as ―having refined
manners, courteous; cultivated, cultured; well-bred; (of literature, etc.) refined, elegant‖.
Holmes, J. (1992) shares the idea that politeness associates with paying attention on other
people‟s feelings, Sifianou, M. (1992: 88) makes it clearer by regarding politeness as
―…the consideration of other people's feelings by conforming to social norms and
expectations…‖
Brown, P. & Levinson, S. C. (1987) define politeness as maintaining hearer‟s face, that
is, being unimposed on and approved of in certain respects. Brown, P. & Levinson, S. C.
(1987) also support for the idea that face refers to wants that consists of two types: ego-
preserving and public-self preserving wants. Both types refer to people‟s desire to be
considered contributing members of the society in which ego-preserving generates
negative face and public-self preserving wants generates the positive face.
Fraser, B. (1990) posits four main ways of viewing politeness in the research literature:
the ―social-norm‖ view, the “conversational-maxim‖ view, the “face-saving” view and
the “conversational-contract‖ view.
In recent time, the issue of politeness is much concerned in many studies by researchers
such as Eelen, G. (2001), Watt, R.J. (2003) and Bargiela-Chiappini, F. (2003) who
assume politeness is a communication strategy that people use to maintain and develop
18

relationships. The politeness, as being conceived by Eelen, G. (2001) and Watt, R.J.
(2003) is a strategy used to avoid conflicting or to construct cooperation in social
interaction; is connected with communicating smoothly (Ide, S., 1989); or in Leech, G
(1983), is avoiding interruption and keeping the social balance as well as friendly

writer has decided to employ two terms - “tactic” and “strategy” in the sense of “different
politeness tactics belong to one strategy”. From now on, these notions would be widely
utilized along the thesis.
Mentioning the subject of politeness, Brown, P. & Levinson, S. C. (1987) conclude that
human politeness behavior in four strategies: bald on record, off-record-indirect strategy,
negative politeness strategy, and positive politeness strategy. As for each strategy,
Brown, P. & Levinson, S. C. claim their perception about the typical features, the major
distinctions followed by the specific politeness tactics. On their point of view, Brown, P.
& Levinson, S. C. claim that:
 The bald on-record strategy does nothing to minimize threats to the hearer‟s
“face” and avoid FTAs.
 Off-record indirect strategies: an FTA is avoided by not (literally) making a
request at all but an indirect statement that must be inferred to be a request by the
hearer.
 The positive politeness strategy shows the speaker recognize that the hearer
has a desire to be respected. It also confirms that the relationships is friendly and
expresses group reciprocity.
 The negative politeness strategy also recognizes the hearer‟s face. But it
also recognizes that the speaker is in some way imposing on that face.
1.1.4.1. Bald On-record strategy
20

In bald on-record strategy speaker makes no effort to minimize the impact of the FTA‟s.
It is the speaker‟s choice of bald on-record strategy when he wants to get maximum
efficiency rather than satisfying addressee‟s face when doing FTA. By directly saying
things, the hearer is usually shocked, embarrassed, or made them feel a bit uncomfortable
by the speaker. In different circumstances, however, people can easily find this strategy
when speakers and hearers have close relationship they are in a very informal
environment such as in family.
Brown, P. & Levinson, S. C. (1987:95) categorize bald on-record into two classes:

hearer may transgress:
The invitation ―Come in, don’t hesitate, I’m not busy‖ belongs to bald on-record because
there is no other face want is affected (Brown, P. & Levinson, S. C., 1987: 99).
Greeting, farewell and offers are also belong to type 2 of bald on-record. Take the offer
in the following situation as an example: “Don’t bother, I’ll clean it up‖ or ―Leave it to
me” (Brown, P. & Levinson, S. C., 1987:100), in which speaker insists that hearer may
impose on S‟s negative face.
1.1.4.2. Off record strategy
Brown, P. & Levinson, S. C. (1987: 211) indicate that "a communicative act is done off
record if it is done in such a way that it is not possible to attribute only one clear
communicative intention to the act". Therefore, the act performed in an ambiguous way
by the speaker needs interpreting by the hearer via some other acts and via the present of
contexts in which the utterance is stated.
Brown, P. & Levinson, S. C. (1978) also categorized some tactics of off record strategy
as follow:
1. Giving hints
2. Giving association clues
3. Presupposition
22

4. Understating
5. Overstating
6. Using tautologies
7. Using contradictions
8. Being ironic
9. Using metaphors
10. Using rhetorical questions
11. Being ambiguous
12. Being vague
13. Over-generalization

12. Include both speaker and hearer in the activity
13. Give (or ask for) reasons
14. Assume or assert reciprocity
15. Give gifts to hearer (good, sympathy, understanding, cooperation)

Fifteen Positive Politeness Tactics Introduced by Brown, P. & Levinson, S. C., 1987
Positive politeness is not necessarily redressive of a particular FTA which is different
from that of negative politeness mentioned underneath. In positive politeness, the sphere
of redress is widened to the appreciation of hearer‟s wants in general or to the expression
of similarity between speaker‟s and hearer‟s wants. Brown, P. & Levinson, S. C. (1987)
assumed that the linguistic realizations of positive politeness are in many respects simply
24

representative of the normal linguistic behavior between intimates, where interest and
approval of one‟s another‟s personality, presuppositions indicating shared wants, and so
forth, are routinely exchanged. They state that it is precisely this association with intimate
language usage that gives the linguistic of positive politeness its redressive force.
1.1.4.4. Negative politeness strategy
Yule, G. (1996:66) called negative politeness strategy ―the deference strategy‖ and
Baba, J. (1999:25) assumes it is characterized by ―respectful or deferential hehavior‖.
Brown, P. & Levinson, S. C. (1987:129) define it as ―redressive action addressed to the
addressee’s negative face: his wants to have his freedom of action unhindered and his
attention unimpeded‖. Brown, P. & Levinson, S. C. reckon that negative politeness is
most similar to what people in everyday life mean by ―being polite‖. One way of
creating distance between the speaker and the hearer is make speech acts such as offering
an apology (e.g. ―I hate to bother you like this, but….‖), being indirect, and softening
requests (e.g. “I wonder if you could….‖). From their data, they have developed ten
different negative politeness tactics (1987:131) namely:
1. Be conventionally indirect
2. Question, hedge

are based on the concept of the two aspects of face and include the majority of linguistic
devices used in everyday interactions are the ones most central to the current study.
1.2. Conversation
Although when mentioning conversation, people think of the major proportion of most
people‟s daily language, there are still different definitions of conversation (Thornbury,
S. & Slade, D., 2006). As stated in Oxford dictionary, conversation is a talk, especially an